Anthem suffers from an identity crisis, torn between its efforts to be a cooperative shooter and a single-player story. In this unusual pairing of styles, we see BioWare spreading its wings to deliver something new, but also refusing to let go of the past. This makes for an uneven journey in which players are united and then forced to disperse for chunks of time. Anthem periodically shows us how both of these elements can be interesting and powerful on their own, but struggles to unite them, leading to aggravating progression that is sometimes poisoned further by performance issues and peculiar design.

Living up to BioWare’s RPG pedigree, Anthem’s world is inviting, mysterious, and filled with fascinating backstory and characters. We see humanity struggling to find its place in an alien land, hunkered down and on the brink of extinction in an old walled-up fort. The story setup succeeds in delivering the tone of desperation, but is muddied when you see the tools you get to use to help keep humanity alive. You don’t get a sword, or a banged up gun. You basically get to be Iron Man. You are given a powered exosuit called a javelin that is designed to be a one-person army-killer.

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No matter what color you make your javelin, or what helmet you choose, it ends up looking like some variation of Iron Man. BioWare’s adoration of Marvel’s property is clear as day, and is put to good use. The javelins are Anthem’s biggest triumph, making almost every little action feel like you are controlling a superhero capable of unleashing hell. Javelins give their users temporary jet-fueled flight and a wonderfully deep arsenal of offensive and defensive tools to play with. As the game goes on, that well of toys expands deeply and in exciting ways.

Flight is handled exceptionally well, allowing players to skim dangerously close to rocky terrain, plunge into water, dart out of it like a dolphin, and quickly transition into a hover where shoulder-mounted rockets and firearms can be used. Once you truly understand how these suits control, you can rip around the battlefield with calculated precision and unleash a wealth of strategies unique to each javelin class. All four javelin types are nicely designed and a blast to control. Raining down elemental chaos as the Storm is as good as it gets, but just blasting enemies with machine guns as the Ranger ends up being a great time too.

The javelins are deployed from the fort to take on story missions, contracts for specific characters, and can also be used to explore the world freely to tackle random events, harvest supplies, and find hidden nuggets of lore. In any one of these activities, Anthem begins to show cracks in its armor. No matter what you are doing, it all bleeds together in familiar ways. You arrive at a location, waves of enemies teleport in, and there’s a good chance you’ll be asked to track down a specific number of items in the nearby area to activate a strange device. Despite the combat being exceptionally fun, the gameplay loops stagnate quickly. No matter how much the characters on the coms try to sell the illusion that the scenarios and stakes are different, they aren’t. In one mission, I had to interrupt a weapons auction. The supposed auction ended up looking exactly like every other conflict with enemies standing around in a swamp. I kept hoping the next mission would change things up, but the only real differences are new enemies, or the same enemies with shields.

The four javelin classes are meant to complement one another, but coordination and teamwork are not necessary for most of the game. During the story-based campaign, we didn’t need to sync up attacks or send in the Colossus to draw fire. We annihilated every threat with relative ease. The only urgent teammate action needed was reviving someone should they fall. Marching into battle with friends and reigning over the opposition as super-powered titans of death is a fulfilling power fantasy, but it’s not because of any team dynamic. For roughly 20 hours, Anthem feels a bit like a single-player game masquerading as a co-op experience. The true vision of co-op isn’t realized until the player finishes the campaign and hits the level cap. At this point, the grandmaster difficulty levels are unlocked, and they live up to their name. Only at this point did I find the need to coordinate with other players to target specific enemies first, line up the timing of combo triggers, and position javelins to take down bullet-sponge bosses. The endgame doesn't offer much that the player hasn't seen up to that point, but the higher difficulty makes the missions and three strongholds far more entertaining. It's too bad it takes this long for Anthem to show its true colors.

When any mission concludes, loot is handed out liberally, usually delivering a satisfying haul of goods you can immediately put to use. The player is then forced to return to the fort. This is where the single-player story unfolds, and time basically stands still, especially if you are in a party of friends. BioWare wants you to get to know the characters on a personal level, much like the quality time spent on the Normandy in the Mass Effect games. I love that BioWare wants to tell these stories and connect the player to the world through narration, but this design doesn’t work. It alienates the cooperative dynamic, and is also guilty of feigning player choice. In most conversations you can pick from one of two things to say, but they’re all binary choices, and don’t change much of anything other than a character’s immediate response.

As much as I enjoyed Anthem’s side stories – there are some heartfelt and hilarious arcs that remind me why I consider BioWare one of the all-time greats in terms of story – the central plotline is a predictable eye-roller with ham-fisted drama and a terrible villain at its core. BioWare has struggled to create interesting villains before, but the Monitor is easily the studio’s worst. The biggest threat he posed until I eventually squared off against him was scrambling my HUD once. I also ran into numerous instances where I couldn’t resurrect teammates, my audio cut out completely, and the game crashed to the title screen, but I have a feeling those were unfortunate glitches that have nothing to do with the Monitor’s interference.

I ended up dreading going to the fort, not just for the story, but because of how long it takes to load. I can’t recall another game that loads so much. Just loading the fort or a mission can take minutes. If you just want to look at your weapons or change your armor in the forge, there’s a load. If you see a mineral in the open world that you want to harvest, you may become separated from your team, resulting in another load. I understand that the game needs to keep players close together, but the leash in this game is way too short. These narrow boundaries make it feel like you are being punished if you dare explore the world or do anything other than closely follow the player in front of you.

Anthem should have been all about that Iron Man fantasy. When the guns are pumping and the thrusters are ignited, the game is a legitimate blast to play. That’s where the experience shines, and everything else holds it back from being truly engrossing. This is one of those games that frustrates because you can see the greatness within it, but it's always just out of reach.

Score: 7

Summary: BioWare's cooperative shooter soars with combat but struggles with story.

Concept: A cooperative shooter that soars with combat but stumbles with story

Graphics: The blending of fantasy and science-fiction genres pays off handsomely in visual design. Few games shower the battlefield with a show of particles and explosions like Anthem achieves

Sound: A constant stream of character chatter is joined by a great score that hits unique notes during combat

Playability: Playing as Iron Man is a lot of fun, yet most combat scenarios end up unfolding similarly

Entertainment: Anthem tries to be too many things, and ends up losing focus in all aspects of the experience

Replay: High

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After a prolonged development and low review scores upon release, it's safe to say that Overkill's The Walking Dead was a disappointment to fans. But fans weren't the only ones disappointed.

Skybound Entertainment was co-founded by The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, and the company holds the Walking Dead license. Today, Skybound released a statement saying that it has terminated its contract with publisher Starbreeze Studios, and it will discontinue efforts on Overkill's The Walking Dead.

"We did our best to work with Starbreeze and resolve many issues that we saw with the game, but ultimately Overkill's The Walking Dead did not meet our standards nor is it the quality that we were promised," the statement reads in part.

The console versions of Overkill's The Walking Dead were originally slated to come out this month, but they were recently delayed. With this new development, it seems unlikely the game will release on any additional platforms beyond the original PC version.

This is a sad ending for a partnership that seemed to hold so much promise when it was announced. 

Capcom has announced that Resident Evil 2, the modern remake of the classic 1998 survival horror game, has shipped four million copies since its release one month ago. This inches Resident Evil as a series closer to one of the best selling Japanese IPs of all time.

The news comes just a few weeks after Capcom announced Resident Evil 2 hit the three million mark, meaning it has been selling fairly consistently after the initial launch period where most of a game's early sales will come from. It is likely a relief for Capcom, which expressed concern over the initially slow sales of Resident Evil 7, though that game eventually came from behind to be a high seller within the series.

This puts the Resident Evil series at 90 million, meaning it is within striking distance of the coveted 100 million milestone. The only other Japanese game series that have hit that number are major IPs like Mario, Final Fantasy, the Wii casual line, Pokemon, and Sonic the Hedgehog. Not even Zelda has hit that number, though it is currently neck-in-neck with Resident Evil to see which series gets there first.

You can find our review of Resident Evil 2 right here. The game is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

Each year, the fighting game tournament Evo takes place in Las Vegas, Nevada and brings in the best fighting game players in the world to compete on the genre's biggest stage. This year will be no different, as the tournament brings together both traditional and new choices for its main stage roster with its newly announced picks.

While some games are mainstays, a lot of titles are more fluid, and may be up to the whims of the community, the organizers, or even whether the publishers or other rights-holders want the game to be at the tournament. Here's the list of nine games Evo has announced for this year:

• Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition
• Tekken 7
• BlazBlue CrossTag Battle
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
• Dragon Ball FighterZ
• Soulcalibur VI
• Mortal Kombat 11
• Samurai Shodown
• Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[st]

This is the first year since the 2013 debut of Super Smash Bros. Melee at Evo that it isn't present on the Evo mainstage, usually pushing Super Smash Bros.' newest game to the background in terms of stream schedule. Evo head Joey Cuellar explained that the game had a great run, but won't be making a return.

Samurai Shodown is also a fairly big surprise, as SNK promises to try to get the game in player hands at big fighting game events before its release in early summer, which SNK says is worldwide. It, along with Mortal Kombat 11, are both Evo mainstage games that have not been released yet.

The yearly fighting game tournament takes place August 2 through August 4.

What game are you looking forward to this year? Are you excited for another hype Dragon Ball FighterZ final? Or do you think Under Night is really going to show its stuff this year? Let us know below in the comments.

The Pokémon Company revealed the names of the next Pokémon games this morning. The titles are Pokémon Sword and Shield taking place in the Galar region. The game is being directed by Pokémon Sun and Moon's director, Shigeru Ohmori. You can head here to learn more about the game's starters and new region.

The games will release in late 2019. You can check out the full Pokémon Direct below.

You can also check out some screenshots from the game below.

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Today's Pokémon Direct lasted only seven minutes, but it gave aspiring Pokémon Masters a lot to chew on. In addition to finally giving players the official names of Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield, as well as showing the first gameplay footage of the first all-new Pokémon RPG for a console, the Pokémon Direct also gave information on the new region players will explore and the starters they can choose from at the dawn of their journey.

In Pokémon Sword and Shield, players explore the Galar region. Director Shigeru Ohmori describes the Galar region as, "an expansive region with many environments, containing idyllic countryside and contemporary cities, vast planes and craggy, snow-covered mountains."

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Players explore this region, catching newly discovered Pokémon as they work their way toward earning the title of Champion.

Aiding players in their quest to be the very best in Sword and Shield are three all-new starters. As usual, players can choose from grass, fire, and water for their initial partner. Grookey is a mischievous and curious grass-type, Scorbunny is an energetic fire-type, and Sobble is a timid water-type.

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Those won't be the only new Pokémon to discover in the Galar region, so we still have much to learn about Pokémon Sword and Shield. We still have a bit of time, however, as the two titles are set to launch on Switch late this year.

The Mortal Kombat 11 reveal event lived up to its name, laying bare a number of new details. The biggest remaining mystery is who's filling out the character roster. NetherRealm has revealed a number of characters, old and new, that will be unleashing a bevy of punches, kicks, and gruesome finishers with. We imagine in the weeks to come we'll find out more as well. We'll update this list with every fighter revealed.

For now, here's who we know will be in Mortal Kombat 11 (and some folks who are probably on the way).

Confirmed Fighters

Jade

Armed with her bo-staff, the stealth assassin Jade is back as a revenant serving the Netherrealm.

D'Vorah

Who needs D'va when you've got D'Vorah? Mortal Kombat X's insect-like alien is back and freakier than ever. 

Kabal

In a recent livestream, NetherRealm confirmed the return of Mortal Kombat 3's on-again, off-again hero/villain, Kabal.

Kano

NetherRealm also recently confirmed that big muscle-bound jerk Kano. As far as pleasant surprises go, his appearance is neither pleasant nor a surprise. 

Scorpion

Scorpion has been the most recognizable character in the series since its inception. Of course Scorpion's in it.

Raiden

Raiden's here, seemingly still corrupted by Jinsei following the events of Mortal Kombat X.

Sub-Zero

The other popular ninja is also here and it looks like he's got a nice, nasty callback to his infamous spine-pulling fatality from MK II.

Geras

A new addition. We don't know much about him, except he seems to like sand? Well, ok then.

Baraka

Folks were not happy you couldn't play as Baraka in the last installment but have no fear: everybody's favorite...ugh...sword arm ghoul thing is back. Yeah!

Liu Kang

Liu Kang sneakily makes a brief gameplay cameo in the gameplay trailer, getting beat down by Raiden.

Sonya Blade

Get ready to break some more necks. Sonya featured prominently in the gameplay trailer.

Johnny Cage

It just wouldn't feel like Mortal Kombat if everyone's favorite egotistical, crotch-punching Hollywood star wasn't back.

Skarlet

Skarlet's back for the first time since Mortal Kombat 9 and unveiled a gruesome fatality centered around her blood magic specialties. 

Shao Kahn

Yep. One of the cheapest, most infuriating bosses of all time is back. This time as a preorder bonus.

Unconfirmed Fighters

NetherRealm has not confirmed these characters as playable fighters. However, they can be seen during trailers in non-gameplay cinematics.  So we're listing them here with appropriate caveats.

Cassie Cage

We see a woman we're 99 percent sure is Cassie Cage get what looks like a fighter intro. No confirmation yet from NetherRealm.

Kung Lao

Kung Lao is seen prominently in the gameplay reveal trailer but only in cinematics. It's likely we'll play as him but no confirmation from NetherRealm on that front.

Kronika

Kronika shows up as a menacing figure in the game's story and gameplay trailers. She's probably the antagonist and, given the series' history with regard to big baddies, will likely be a playable roster character.

Check back for more roster additions as NetherRealm reveals them. For more on Mortal Kombat 11, read this interview we conducted with series co-creator Ed Boon.

Ubisoft recently released a new trailer (viewable above) to give fans a better idea of what kind of free content is expected for The Division 2 post launch. These include new campaigns, game modes, specializations, and more.

Some of the biggest additions are three episodes that expand the world with additional narratives, missions, and new modes for both PvP and against AI enemies.

Episode One (titled Outskirts: Expeditions) takes place in the surrounding area of Washington D.C., where players fight to liberate the city in two additional main missions. It will also include a new game mode where you must investigate what happened to a lost convoy. It releases this summer.

As for Episode Two (titled Pentagon: The Last Castle), it releases this Fall. It will include additional main missions and have players storm the Pentagon.

Finally, Episode Three will arrive by Winter, and it'll be the final chapter of The Division 2's story.

Along with these campaigns, players can also expect a new location called Tidal Basin. This is a "new challenging stronghold" that is held by the Black Tusks. An 8-player raid called Operation Dark Hours, the first of its kind for The Division franchise, is also coming. Both Tidal Basin and Operation Dark Hours will release soon after launch.

Ubisoft teases that three new specializations will also arrive alongside the episodes, bringing new signature weapons and skill trees. Details on these so far are slim.

For those that want to get into the post-launch action as soon as possible, they can purchase a Year 1 Pass. This season pass will grant them seven-day early access to all the episodes, access to the specializations as they release, eight classified assignments centered around the fall of D.C., exclusive cosmetics, and more in-game activities like base of operations projects and bounties.

The Division 2 releases soon on March 15 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. An open beta is happening from March 1 to 4. For more, read our in-depth feature about Dark Zones and the Conflict PvP Mode.

Returning with an impressive showing for March, the free games for PlayStation Plus members are both first-person games, but otherwise couldn't be more dissimilar. Fans of Call of Duty that haven't put down cash for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Remastered can snag the game for free along with Jonathan Blow's excellent puzzle game, The Witness.

If you missed either of these games, then they will be available for free starting on March 5. February's free games, Hitman and For Honor, will be leaving the service the same day.

More importantly though, for anyone who still downloads the free PlayStation Plus games on PS3 or Vita, not only will last months games (Metal Gear Solid 4, Divekick, Gun House, and Rogue Aces) be leaving on March 8, they will not be replaced with a new batch. February was the final month for either of those systems as part of the service, so scoop them up now while you still have the chance.

[Source: PlayStation Blog]

All month long we've been rolling out exclusive features on The Outer Worlds from Obsidian Entertainment. While we're excited about the upcoming RPG, it's worth zooming out a bit and talking about this interesting period in Obsidian's history. Back in November, Microsoft announced they were purchasing Obsidian Entertainment but that Take Two's Private Division would still be funding and publishing The Outer Worlds. While visiting the studio, we spoke with Obsidian's CEO Feargus Urquhart about why they decided to let Microsoft purchase the studio, the studio's "three-ish" current development teams, and what Microsoft means for the future of The Outer Worlds as a franchise. Watch the video above and let us know you think in the comments below.

Click on the banner below to enter our updating hub of exclusive features on The Outer Worlds.

New details about Kingdom Hearts III's teased DLC surfaced this morning, including confirmation of a harder difficulty setting and new story content.

Speaking to Dengeki Online, game director Tetsuya Nomura revealed that Critical Mode – a harder difficulty setting that was noticeably absent from Kingdom Hearts III – will eventually make it into the game. According to the interview, Nomura doesn't want the new difficulty setting to simply increase enemies' health bars. He explains that the mode will make adjustments that "pinpoint a level of fun unique to Critical Mode."

Nomura teased new story content, as well, but didn't detail how much it would cost or how it would be distributed. The DLC will center around Xion and her fate, as well as tying into the conclusion of Kingdom Hearts III.

We loved Kingdom Hearts III, which has already shipped more than five million copies. Here's a six-year-old's impressions of the game, or you can also read about how the latest entry redeems Donald Duck.

[Source: Dengeki Online translated by Gematsu]

Last year, Capcom announced that Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy, an HD remaster of the first three games in the series that originally launched on the Gameboy Advance, will be coming to consoles and PC. Now that the trilogy has been released in Japan, Capcom has revealed that it will be coming to the west in under two months as a digital release.

The three games include Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Ace Attorney: Justice For All, and Ace Attorney: Trials & Tribulations. They're the three titles before Phoenix Wright retired and Apollo Justice took over, but then Capcom simply...brought Phoenix Wright back again after fan outcry. Fans commonly consider the original games, penned by Capcom writer Shu Takumi, to be the best in the series, so I doubt few will complain about the chosen collection.

The remasters have redrawn most of the game's GBA-resolution sprites, which in some cases has left art that was up to interpretation to look a little strange when blown up to 1080p and cleaned. Capcom has mostly moved the series away from physical releases in the west, as even the most recent new games have only been available digitally. If you for some reason can't wait until April, the Japanese version of the game contains an option for English text, as well.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy will be available on April 9 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC.

The Pokémon Company and Nintendo unveiled the Switch's first true, all-new Pokémon RPG with Sword and Shield. We learned about its starters, the new region, and a lot more, but there were lots of little hidden things in the footage, as well. Here are 15 things we noticed.

The starting town seems to be obsessed with Fletchlings

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It's safe to assume this is Sword and Shield's starting area since it is the first area shown, but it also has a big road sign that says 01 in it. You can see birds flying in the sky, which are probably Fletchlings who call that area their home. There is also the Fletchling weather vane, and it looks like there are some nests on the chimney in the background.

Backpacks!

Trainers usually carry a small purse or messenger bag with them, but here the trainers have full-on backpacks. I doubt it will change gameplay dramatically, but it does make more sense considering the amount of stuff you are usually carrying by the end of the game.

Male and Female avatar options

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This has become standard practice for Pokémon over the years, but we're happy to see it return.

There is a Switch console in your trainer's room

It's there in a blink-and-you-will-miss-it cameo (hence the mediocre screenshot – apologies), but there is a Switch console in your bedroom. Historically, your trainer's bedroom has always had the most recent Nintendo home console in their room. It looks like Sword and Shield is no exception.

There are wheelbarrows everywhere

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We're not sure what that's about, honestly.

What are those weird rocks?

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There are rocks with strange symbols on them all over the footage. We're not sure what this means, but it might have something to do with...

The big geoglyph

Again, we're not sure what it means, but it looks cool.

Random battles return

As near as we can tell, it looks like random battles make a return, which is disappointing considering seeing wild Pokémon grazing was one of our favorite new elements of Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu and Eevee.

Trainer battles return, as well

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This is an obvious thing that is well highlighted in the trailer, but I wanted to include it just in case you missed it.

The camera is still locked

It also looks like the camera is still out of your control and stays locked on an overhead position.

Trains!

There's one right there. Hopefully you can ride it. Or steal from it. You can also see a handful of shops in the bottom of the picture, too.

The starters all seem to work together

The three starters, Scorbunny, Sobble, and Grookey, all seem to have complementary abilities. In the footage we saw a Scorbunny set fire to some grass, a Sobble put out the fire, and a Grookey restore the grass. Maybe this is a hint at some kind of teamwork mechanic?

It also looks like Sobble can turn invisible?

Here are the confirmed Pokémon so far

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The trailer showed off the three new starters (which you just read about), but also confirmed a lot of returning Pokémon. Here's everyone we saw.

• Scorbunny
• Sobble
• Grookey
• Pikachu
• Minccino
• Wishiwashi
• Grubbin
• Rowlet
• Zweilous
• Meowstic
• Wailmer
• Flygon
• Braviary
• Lucario
• Tyranitar
• Munchlax

There are professional and amateur arenas

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The footage of the game ends with a trainer wearing a glove (so it won't mess it up their Poké Ball throwing hand, I guess) entering a huge professional arena. The logo on their shoulder is seen elsewhere in the footage, which hints at a new kind of sponsored league, perhaps? Along with the big arena, you can also see a number of smaller arenas, too. Those aren't new to Pokémon, but you don't often see them presented that way.

The Galar region kind of looks like a sword (if you squint)

This is a pieced together shot of the Galar region from the footage. Speculation online points to it being based on Great Britain, which makes a lot of sense. The map also makes it seem like you will be heading north during the duration of the game, which is interesting. Arguably, the most interesting part, though, is if you consider the spire at the top the handle and the giant wall below it a hilt, the whole region kind of looks like a sword. It even kind of comes to a point at the bottom.

There was more hidden in the trailer and additional footage, so let us know if you caught anything. For more on this morning's reveal, head here and here.

Nexon, the Korean company behind games like Maplestory and plenty of huge international successes especially on mobile platforms, is selling off their holding firm and a lot of major companies are looking to invest. Most relevantly, Amazon, Comcast, and Electronic Arts have submitted bids to the first round for NXC Corp.

Basically this isn't actually purchasing Nexon, but rather the holding firm that holds a large amount of stock in Nexon. What these companies want is that seat at the Nexon's table to be able to influence how the South Korean gaming firm, likely in ways that benefit the bidding company.

Nexon is best known in the west for games like Maplestory 1 and 2, as well as Vindictus. While there is a western branch, Nexon America, having investment from major distributors like Amazon or EA would probably benefit them with a stronger foothold in the west. There's no guarantee, however, as Reuters reports that other bidders include companies like Kakao and Netmarble.

[Source: Reuters]

When Jedi: Fallen Order, the Star Wars game from the creators of the Titanfall series, was first announced at E3, there weren't a lot of details. Respawn founder Vince Zampella sat in a crowd at the EA press conference and announced the title, referenced the Star Wars prequels, confirmed a 2019 release, and basically left it at that. Now it appears we'll be seeing our first real look at it in mid-April as part of Lucasfilm's annual Star Wars celebration.

The news comes from the surprisingly often-used EA Star Wars account, which announced that April 13 will be the reveal date for the anticipated title.

Did you hear? #StarWarsJediFallenOrder will be at #StarWarsCelebration Chicago! See the game for the first time on April 13th.

Plus, hear from @MattLanter about his work on #StarWarsBattlefrontII. https://t.co/vE0oPnYDSZ

— EA Star Wars (@EAStarWars) February 27, 2019

They don't say you will need to be physically in attendance to see the game, so it's a safe bet that whatever they show will also be shown on the internet in the form of a stream or trailer.

EA has recently found itself with a dearth of Star Wars games despite being the exclusive video game license-holder for one of the biggest IPs of all time. The company is likely counting on Jedi: Fallen Order to wow naysayers, especially after the controversies that plagued the release of DICE's Battlefront II. Respawn's new title is scheduled to release Holiday 2019.

How do you expect Jedi: Fallen Order to play? Are you expecting, or actually hoping for, a Titanfall 2 campaign with a Star Wars skin? Let us know below in the comments.

Warning: Spoilers ahead for both Far Cry 5 and New Dawn.

Far Cry 5 was a game with a lot of ideas. How could a gang of armed cultists take control in small-town America? What would a first-person shooter in that setting play like? What if the bad guy wasn’t just morally complicated but, in the end, was right, with the end of the world raining down nuclear fire on everyone? These ideas are interesting. Too bad Far Cry 5 handled those ideas with the grace of a tipsy goose. Joseph Seed’s Manbunny version of David Koresh is far more annoying than intriguing, and the game zig-zagged from any deep thematic storytelling its cult-ish premise presented at nearly every opportunity. Far Cry 5 could have been an engaging and disturbing take on modern America. That it settled for so less still bums me out a year later.

But let’s not belabor the point, yeah? I only want to talk about Far Cry 5’s failings to the point that I can discuss something that New Dawn does really well. So the setup of New Dawn, a proper sequel to Far Cry 5, is the world has ended and you’re a new character called The Captain, who’s working with a bunch of freedom fighters to try and restore order to the world. 

The protagonist of 5, the Deputy, is apparently dead. The last we saw of them was they were locked away in Seed’s bunker as nuclear winter raged. Speaking of Joseph Seed, the jerk is still around in Naw Dawn. A lot of the supporting cast from 5 is too, including (now blind) sniper Grace, pastor Jerome, and the ever-annoying buffoon Hurk—more or less Far Cry’s mascot. As you progress through New Dawn’s campaign, you also learn someone else is still kicking around too and it’s a horrifying revelation even for someone who didn’t take to 5’s story.

After meeting up with Joseph Seed’s band of loons, you have several run-ins with a mysterious character named The Judge. The Judge’s gender isn’t clear. The Judge doesn’t talk, wears a mask, and only hisses to communicate with people. Eventually The Judge becomes your companion, on loan to you from Joseph Seed himself, which is cool because The Judge is pretty great at stealth takedowns! However, as you search bunkers and come across other companions with The Judge in tow, the bloody puzzle pieces start to come together. Jerome and Hurk try to chat with The Judge about old times they all shared; the Judge only hisses in response.

Somewhere nestled between these conversations and the notes you find, it sinks in. The Judge is the Deputy. A combination of Seed’s psychotic manipulations, the state of the world, and Rook’s own failure have reduced them to a wild animal hiding behind a mask, capable of nothing but murdering whoever Seed or the player tell them to. In that way, The Judge has become the basest (some would argue purest) version of what Far Cry and most other first-person shooters demand of their player: a ravenous killing machine.

The natural execution of the reveal, placing enough faith in players to do the work instead of making a huge, cinematic-driven ceremony out of The Judge’s identity, is probably the narrative high point for the series in years. When the realization settles in, it works for a number of reasons. The first is that it confirms that everything the Deputy did in Far Cry 5 didn’t actually matter one bit. All their actions were just futile resistance against an inescapable doom, which makes that moment sting. The reveal also got me thinking about the protagonist of Far Cry 5 in a more nuanced way than just the avatar you inhabit, something you use to shoot guns and soak in the exposition of other characters. New Dawn’s twist turns the Deputy into an actual character trapped in a hellish fate, one that your new character, The Captain, could very well be doomed to repeat.

Like Far Cry 5, New Dawn has a lot of ideas. However, unlike 5, it executes a lot of them competently and even makes one of them compelling. I’m impressed that New Dawn took a character from 5 that I didn’t care about, despite literally playing as them for hours on end, and made me feel sad and invested with this small but impressive twist of the knife. I'd love to see future entries in the series embrace these kind of smaller but powerful stories instead of making a lot of noise about political themes it actually has no interest in engaging with.

For more on Far Cry New Dawn, read our review and tips.

With the changing seasons comes a new opportunity for aspiring video games journalists to break into the industry. We're now accepting applications for Game Informer's Summer 2019 internship term.

For details on Game Informer's three-month-long editorial internship click here. If that sounds exciting, you can send a cover letter, resume, and three writing samples (as a single pdf) to ben@gameinformer.com– be sure to include the text of your writing samples in the application. The Summer internship will run from May 15 through August 16. We'll continue to accept applications until March 25, so please send your packet along before then!

If there's one thing fans like to do besides yelling on Twitter, it's creating petitions. Petitions can be a good way to know what people are dissatisfied with, but nothing tends to come of them. After a recent online petition for the 2012 strategy game, Plague Inc., though, things turned out differently.

After publicly endorsing the petition on their Twitter page, the developers had to put their money where their mouth is. The petition reached the required 10,000 signatures, and as promised, anti-vaxxers will be implemented in a future update to the game as a buff to your disease.

In Plague Inc. you control a pathogen and have to guide the fledgling disease throughout human history and combat humanities various immunities and vaccines. The anti-vaxxers would work – like in real life – to bolster your diseases' defenses against the advancements of science.

This wouldn't be the first time the developers have used the game to spread awareness about an issue as they previously helped to raise awareness for the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation and, critically, about zombies.

[Source: Ndemic Creations via TheGamer]

Some games like to take their time and introduce you to their worlds and characters, doing the necessary legwork to draw you in and make you feel invested. Other games prefer to show you what they’re all about from the get-go, and Ape Out is definitely the latter. You begin in a cell. You break out. Your job is to make it across each procedurally generated maze while fending off attacking soldiers. This is the whole game – and it’s an utter delight.

Ape Out is a great example of how to take a simple concept and flesh it out as much as possible. Your ape has multiple ways to defend himself, including attacking enemies by pushing them into walls (creating a messy splatter) or grabbing them and using them as human shields. The human shield method opens up several strategies as you navigate through corridors filled with soldiers. Every prisoner you take has a weapon they fire a few seconds after you grab them. You can use your prisoner as a typical human shield, letting them take a shot from a foe directly in front of you, and then rush that foe while they’re reloading. However, you can also dispose of that foe by simply letting your prisoner shoot them. Exploded enemies leave behind legs and torsos you can use to stun enemies in order to make an escape. Though Ape Out’s basic functions appear simple, it has a lot of leeway for creativity and strategizing.

The men trying to contain you are initially just soldiers armed with rifles, but as you progress, you run into different kinds of commandos with their own dangers and benefits. For example, attacking the grenadier head-on makes him explode, killing you both. However, if you grab him, you can throw him into a group of foes like a bowling bowl and kill all of them with the ensuing explosion. Every new collection of levels in Ape Out (presented as albums, with each individual level being a track) takes place in a new location that also introduces obstacles and advantages. The second collection’s setting is a high rise where you can quickly whip enemies to their doom by tossing them out the window, but snipers across the street blast you if you stand too long in one spot.

The consistent introduction of dangers and tools to create havoc makes Ape Out a finely tuned experience. I was constantly amused by the scene changes as well as the challenges presented to me and how I overcame them. I died a fair amount of times, but Ape Out is generous, allowing you three hits from an enemy before you go down. That gives you ample opportunity to learn their A.I. patterns and develop strategies for overcoming them. My only complaint is that certain deaths feel unfair, especially when an enemy off-screen has killed you, but those moments are few and far between. The gorgeous stylized art as well as a soundtrack that creates a beat to your action in the game (banging a drum when you kill foes or blaring a horn when you rip off doors) also makes restarting levels after dying not that big of a deal since it’s just so enjoyable to play through them. The sound design is particularly satisfying, with the user-created soundtrack propelling forward the action in a lively way.

I played through Ape Out in single sitting (which took about two and a half hours), and I thought it was the perfect length for this sort of experience. The campaign levels also have arcade-mode and hard-mode variants for those who want to test their mettle as a fragile gorilla, so there’s plenty of ape-smashing content if you can’t get enough. Ape Out gloriously celebrates its simple, splattery premise with creative gameplay that I can’t wait to return to in the near future.

Click image thumbnails to view larger version

Score: 8.25

Summary: Ape Out's brand of colorful, ultraviolet action makes for a great time.

Concept: You’re a locked-up gorilla. Escape and break anything (and anyone) who gets in your way

Graphics: Colorful, unique visuals are arresting throughout the entire game

Sound: The jazzy soundtrack and bam of a drum when you slam a foe into a wall never get old

Playability: Learning the basic movements is easy, but mastering the game requires you to hone your twitch reflexes

Entertainment: Ape Out is a wickedly inventive, ultra-violent romp that doesn’t overstay its welcome

Replay: Moderate

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As cliché as it sounds, the district of Kamurocho is as major a part of the Yakuza series as any of its prominent players. Parts of it have been demolished and rebuilt over the years, but the more I step into the shoes of Kazuma Kiryu, the more Kamurocho becomes a familiar “home” to me in a way few other video game locations have. If I want to fill up on junk food, I know where the Wild Jackson is. If I need to find some special oddity for a hapless stranger I’ve been cajoled into helping, I can probably get it at the Don Quijote.

Which is why, as I played a couple of hours of Yakuza spin-off game Judgment, I immediately felt so comfortable. Despite it being something of a fresh start for the series, Judgment feels more like a new way to absorb the seedy atmosphere and memorable stories that spring up all around Kamurocho, even if you’re seeing them through a fresh set of eyes.

Big Shoes To Fill

Judgment stars Takayuki Yagami (played by real-life Japanese actor Takuya Kimura), a lawyer at Kamurocho's Genda Law Office who is a far cry from the fierce but kindhearted Kiryu. He comes off as less sure of himself and more relatable, even as the first scene in my demo establishes him as one of the most sought-after attorneys at Genda. When his office rival the office, Masamichi Shintani, sarcastically praises him for being so popular, Yagami demures. He isn’t exactly shy, but doesn’t exude the same sort of loner self-assuredness Kiryu does.

In fact, Judgment quickly establishes that a key part of Yagami’s story will be learning to deal with moral conflict. The reason he’s so in demand is because he was able to get an acquittal in a criminal court case (Shintani notes the conviction rate in these cases is 99 percent), a badge of honor that's quickly turned besmirched when it’s revealed the person he got acquitted, Shinpei Okubo, has murdered his girlfriend Emi Terasawa and burned down their house. Watching the scene in which Okubo is arrested as the house burns with Terasawa inside, I get the sense this is a situation where, while it may look obvious he did it, a series of unlikely coincidences means this isn’t what it looks like. That seems to happen a lot around this town.

We then flash forward about three years, and Yagami has quit his job at Genda to form the Yagami Detective Agency with Masaharu Kaito, a former member of the Tojo Yakuza clan. As Yagami and Kaito track down a suspicious character incognito, Yagami bumps into a group of rowdy street punks looking to pick a fight.

Combat in Judgment doesn’t deviate from Yakuza’s over-the-top street brawls, but there are some slight changes. Strings, combos, throwable objects, and heat actions (now called EX moves) are still in play, but Yagami is a bit more nimble than Kiryu; he can run up to walls and leap off them to perform devastating attacks mid-air. These new attacks don't seem to change up combat too much, but definitely feel cool when you pull them off. You also have access to two fighting styles, Crane and Tiger, the former of which deals with groups while the latter lasers in on single targets (one cool touch here is that the music changes every time you switch).

Because Yagami isn't Yakuza, he isn't immune to the intervention of police, who will eventually swoop in to break up a fight. I tried intentionally delaying a fight to see what would happen if they showed up. It took a while – longer than I expect any single fight in Judgment to last based on my experience with Yakuza – but the penalty is going to jail and paying a ¥10,000 fine. That's not all that much in the grand scheme of things (especially with the way your purse tends to inflate later on in these games), but a fairly devastating blow early on. After beating up the street punks I gain some SP, which I can use to upgrade and unlock moves. Judgment keeps progression simple by only doling out only one currency, so you won’t be gated by having too many strength points but not enough spirit to unlock a particular skill.

Leaning Into Legwork

Yagami continues to tail his target around town, which introduces how Judgment leans on investigative work to explore Kamurocho’s underbelly. As I come to a side-street intersection where a handful of people resemble the guy I’m looking for, I’m thrown into a first-person view to examine my surroundings and find my target amidst a few lookalikes. After identifying the right person, I need to tail them, (but not too close, lest a suspicion meter begin to fill) for a few blocks and see what he might be up to. When Yagami and Kaito finally corner him he flees, and by pulling off some quicktime events as the camera does most of the tailing for me.

As Yagami catches up with his target he strikes back, which means I have rough him up a bit to prevent him from escaping. Kaito then arrives to take the lead, his Yakuza ties showing as leans a little too hard into subduing the guy. When he threatens to sue, Yagami shows him his lawyer’s badge to scare him off, even though he hasn’t practiced law in three years. It’s an encounter that shows that while Yagami lives by a moral code, his ethics are a bit more fluid than Kiryu's, which could make for a different kind of tale later on.

After a title card and intro sequence heavily reminiscent of a Japanese TV drama, I'm re-introduced to Kamurocho, as Yagami gives quick overview of what’s been going on recently: The district is as chaotic as ever, with an Anonymous-style gang of thugs roaming the streets and evading police capture, and the public is caught up in a series of murders of Yakuza members, the gang members' bodies left unceremoniously lying around with their eyes gouged out.

Yagami is quickly thrust into the latter mystery. Although he’s left the Genda Law Office, he still occasionally turns to them for private-eye work, this time swinging by their office with a bag of dorayaki treats to bribe them into giving him potential leads. Ryuzo Genda himself then offers up a divorce case that might be up Yagami’s alley, though it’s quickly trumped when Saori Shirosaki, another lawyer at Genda (who happens to eat all of the dorayaki Yagami brought in before he could hand them out), gets a call about the murder of another Yakuza – the third in three months. Shintani is already on the case, but Genda wants Yagami to join up with him to tackle it.

Before fully diving into the particulars of the slaying, I’m left to my own devices to explore Kamurocho, which offers its own avenues for investigation. After making a beeline to Club Sega to see what games the machines have on them (this time around it’s Virtua Fighter 5, Fighting Vipers, Fantasy Zone, and Puyo Puyo, though none of the machines were working in my demo), I'm able to find hotspots around Kamurocho.

Similar to how they work in Yakuza 6, these areas offer the chance to work up a relationship with the people who hang around for "Friend Events" that take place once you've followed a certain person's story long enough, or lead to short one-off cases. I hit up a few of hotspots on my map, but besides overhearing how a smoker was dramatically affected by seeing a random girl on the street smile at him, I wasn’t able to strike up any interesting side missions during my time with the game, though the KamuroGo app on your phone lets you see what activities you can explore.

Something Of An Ace Attorney

Getting back on track, the suspect in this case is the captain of the Matsugane family (a Tojo clan subsidiary), Kyohei Hamura. Both Yagami and Genda have some ties to the Matsugane family; Matsugane himself paid Yagami’s way through law school, and the Genda Law Office has handled the family’s legal troubles in the past. The police suspect Hamura because security camera footage taken on the last night anyone saw the victim, a member of a the rival Kansai clan named Toshiro Kume, outside of the Amour club with Hamura and some of the Matsugane crew. Worse yet, Hamura himself admits he cleared the club out a few hours before Kume was found dead, explicitly to beat up Kume.

As I investigate the case, tracking down leads at Amour, meeting with Shintani to discuss the security footage, and visit a sauna to check out Hamura’s alibi (he claims he visited it after leaving Amour and was there when the body was found), the pacing of the narrative begins to veer from Yakuza’s, as it focuses more on the timelines, details, and bits of info necessary to solve the case. I didn’t necessarily need to retain too many of those details myself for the most part (several conversations throughout my demo reiterated the finer points of the case), but putting together events that have already happened gives Judgment’s story a slightly different feel.

I also had to use what I knew of the case as I talked with various people about it. A conversation system has you choosing dialogue options to guide the conversation. These aren’t “choices” in that you’re altering the story in any way, but instead choosing in what order to ask questions. This is gamified by a system in which you’re given bonus SP for asking the most salient questions first, with a streak given for multiple correct choices. It’s a fairly small bonus, but it gave me a reason to pay attention, think critically, and approach the situation like a detective would, which made the whole approach feel like an Ace Attorney game.

At Amour, Yagami is told the manager working there the night Hamura had the club cleared out isn’t there today. Yagami then decides to meet with an old friend of his: Makoto Tsukomo, a reclusive informant who makes a living out of tracking people online. Using an app that isolates people based on the GPS coordinates they use while posting on the social-media app Chitter, we’re able track him down by the last post he made, at a nearby Sushi place.

He plays dumb when Yagami meets up with him, but I’m able to cycle through a few bits of evidence I have at my disposal, including the security-camera footage I was able to get from Shintani when I met with him, and he takes me back to Amour and tells me what he knows. The game notifies you when your case file is updated, but the first time I saw the evidence screen, all of those pieces were new to me, as I never got a real sense that I was building up an in-game collection of evidence to use later on. I wasn’t penalized for presenting the wrong evidence, though, so I was able to give it a couple of tries before moving the conversation forward, using the 10 p.m. footage instead of the 9 p.m. footage to seal the deal.

Yagami and the manager then head back to Amour, where the manager explains he didn’t think the way Hamura beat up Kume was all that harsh (certainly not enough to kill him), and that the incident seemed to have ended around midnight, about two hours before the body turned up and perhaps enough time for Hamura to have an alibi.

After following a few leads, Yagami heads back to the his office, only to discover Mafuyu Fujii, a public prosecutor, has come to visit. It’s quickly made clear they had more than a professional relationship going; after Fujii leaves the office, Kaito points out she could have simply called to relay her news (that Yagami’s other legal rival, Keigo Izumida, will be prosecuting the case), but decided to make the trip out to the office (as well as personally tell Yagami she doesn’t think he’s cut out for detective work). Although Fujii points out they never dated, Yagami rushes after her when she leaves to walk her home, only to have his arm put in a hold by chief prosecutor Kunihiko Mortia, who’s accompanied by Izumida himself. After relitigating the details of the Okubo case (Izumida claims Yagami’s defense was full of holes, and Yagami wants to know what, exactly, was so wrong with his defense), the trio of prosecutors head off, leaving Yagami to continue digging into the case.

A Solid Opening Argument

My demo ended here, but even in these brief two hours, I think I have a good idea of what Judgment will be when it releases in the West later this year, and I’m pretty into it. While the gameplay changes and additions get you to think more like a detective instead of an action-movie hero, I suspect there's a chance they might wear on me across 20 or so hours of play. They're minor enough that I don't think I'll them too much, though, and streamlining progression while offering more options in combat is a solid choice, though I can’t say how these changes will play out long-term.

The shift in perspective, however, is a much bigger deal, and Judgment is a more exciting game for it. Although I missed Kiryu and his supporting cast at first, Judgment’s motley crew is already growing on me, as it can explore relationships that would have been out of place before. And, considering the plot (not to mention the location) doesn’t stray that far from its parent series, I wouldn’t be surprised if a familiar character or two showed up down the line. More importantly, I’m glad Judgment is filled with the same garish streetlights, colorful locations, enticing plotlines, and endearing characters that have made Kamurocho such a strong locale to return to time and again. Add a few side missions that quickly go off the rails thanks to some certified weirdos and maybe some suspenseful trial sequences (with some shocking turnabouts?), and we should be all set.