The Division 2 open beta starts tomorrow, which will give the majority of people their first taste of how the Green Poison messed up the nation's capital. When the disease spread like wildfire through the city, officials tried to squelch it with a hastily concocted antidote, but that only made matters worse. 

The latest trailer for The Division 2 outlines the mystery of this poorly conceived plan, a story that will unravel as you venture into each of the three dark zones in the game. The first of these, Dark Zone East, is available to explore in the open beta.

To learn more about the approach Ubisoft is taking to the dark zones, read our comprehensive guide, as well as our interview with creative director Terry Spier. You can play the open beta from March 1-4. If you're planning on participating, you can get a jump on the action and pre-load the beta now. 

The full game launches on March 15 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. 

A few years ago, One Piece very quietly hit the milestone of the best-selling manga series by volume of all time, surpassing even the classic Dragon Ball. Yet this success never really permeated the American zeitgeist the way some contemporaries and rivals have for whatever reason. Bandai Namco is hoping that its newest One Piece game, titled World Seeker, will help turn that tide and expose the series to new people in the west. Ahead of the game’s release in a few weeks, I went hands-on with the core gameplay in Bandai Namco’s open world title.

The game’s intro sets up its story: during a heist on an island, the Strawhat pirates realize they’ve been tricked, and Luffy, pretending to surrender to the Navy and the World Government, turned out to be quite real. After things go sideways, the crew is scattered about around the Prison Islands under the jurisdiction of the powerful Warden Isaac, from whom Luffy only barely escaped with his life after a fight. Once Strawhat wakes up, he meets a rebellion group lead by a woman named Jeanne that wants to take the islands back from Isaac and promises to help Luffy find his crew.

In terms of authenticity, Bandai Namco and developer Ganbarion are pulling out all the stops with World Seeker. Not only are Jeanne and Isaac designed by One Piece artist and writer Eiichiro Oda, but Oda oversaw the game’s story as a whole. While there’s no English dub for World Seeker, all of the characters have the same voice actors from the TV show, so fans won’t suffer any soundalikes that don’t sound quite right.

In the first section, I was tasked with crossing a long bridge to meet with a Devil Fruit user that Jeanne suspects might be one of Luffy’s crewmates. While the game has stealth mechanics, they’re not incredibly involved, and mostly center around sneaking up to enemies using a barrel or just dropping in before they know what hit them. Enemy vision and hearing ranges aren’t short, however, so sneaking is usually a better option. Eventually, Luffy discovers the Devil Fruit user he heard about was Smoker, a Marine officer who doesn’t particularly like young the supernova pirate. The two do battle and Smoker gets called off somewhere else before he can get serious.

During battle, Luffy can change modes between his standard exploration mode and a more-battle focused mode. The exploration mode has dashes and quieter stealth takedowns, while the battle mode applies haki to his limbs for slower and stronger attacks. This also exchanges his dodge for a block and is good for larger explosions that you can’t fully dodge out of the way from. Proper switching of both styles can be key to fighting off bosses.

The second section I played was to free Franky, the Strawhats’ cyborg-like ship engineer who was being held in a multi-level underwater prison. As Luffy is a Devil Fruit user himself, he can’t swim at all, so he has to deactivate locks on his way down to drain water from the building. You can sneak your way down by hiding around corners and avoiding lasers and confrontation or do what I did and just go as loud and fast as humanly possible. Fortune favors the bold, as the last three locks had to be activated within three minutes and any interruption to the process restarts it, so wrecking house seemed the best way to do it. At the bottom of the prison was a Pacifista, a robotic miniboss that shoots laser beams at you, but it is pretty easily disposed of.

Finally, I just got to swing around the various parts of Prison Island. The open world game is surprisingly large and Luffy’s main method of traversal is to grab onto various anchor points and slingshot his way across the island. While it may be tempting to want to swing around like Spider-Man, it doesn’t really work that way, and a lot of your more finely tuned movement will have to be done on the ground using Luffy’s feet. As the game progresses and you earn skill points, you can invest them into traversal to earn things like better swinging or short hovering bursts.

While exploring the open world, I could burst into small Marine forts and take their treasures, which usually held crafting materials. Crafting lets you make different kinds of items to equip, like a choker that increases attack power or a ring that gives Luffy more critical hits. There’s also a cooking minigame with Sanji and Chopper, but it was not yet unlocked in the save I played.

Dotted across the islands are villagers which have sidequests, most of which are extremely simple requests for certain numbers of specific items. World Seeker has a karma system wherein the more sidequests Luffy does and the more people he helps, the more the island’s populace will come to count on and appreciate him and thus offer more quests. Calling it a karma system might be a misnomer, though, as I do not believe there’s any way for Luffy to get the populace to actually dislike him.

I stated a few months ago that I believe World Seeker feels influenced by Metal Gear Solid V and, now that I have gotten a fuller picture of the game, I still think that comparison holds. That said, it is nowhere near as polished as a game like that, despite the delay it received into 2019. This is a game that will still benefit from keeping expectations in check, even if it is one of the most ambitious anime action titles I’ve seen yet.

Season 8 of Fortnite starts today, bringing with it a treasure hunt, giant volcano, pirate ships, points of interest, new Battle Pass, an Apex Legend-like ping system, and more.

The season revolves around a giant volcano that has appeared, with Pirates, Ninjas, and other fighters searching and skirmishing for treasure and loot as they dodge lava and explore new areas like the Lazy Lagoon and Sunny Steps.

Along with the new season comes Update v8.00, touching everything from Creative mode to adding new hero-loadout system in Save the World, bug fixes, and other changes. Check out the full patch notes here.

Naturally, the Season 8 Battle Pass is also available, with over 100 exclusive rewards (including the Blackheart and Hybrid progressive outfits) for 950 V-bucks. Check out more on the pass in the trailer below.

[Source: Epic Games]

A lot of the specifics about this year's E3 are in a flux, especially since Sony has pulled out of the show. That announcement has increased speculation about the show's necessity in the industry as well as about what games we can expect to see this year.

However, it seems that Cyberpunk 2077 will definitely making a showing. The Twitter account for the game made the announcement this morning

For more on Cyberpunk 2077, check out our impressions from last year's E3.

Final Fantasy VII has popped up on Microsoft's store page, giving Xbox One players the option to preorder the game in advance of its release in March. The port, which was originally released on PS4 in 2015, is also coming to the Switch in March.

Keep in mind, this isn't the ambitious, multi-episodic remake that Square Enix has been working on for the past few years. That's not to say it isn't worth checking out, however. It adds a number of quality-of-life improvements, such as the ability to speed up gameplay by three times, to turn off random encounters, and to refill your HP and max out your limit gauge at will. 

The game is priced at $15.99 on Xbox One, and is either coming March 25 or 26, depending on what part of the Microsoft Store you believe.

For a look at what the PS4 port was like, check out our Final Fantasy VII Game Club from a few years ago.

Many games have drawn heavy inspiration from the works of H.P. Lovecraft, but The Sinking City hopes to set itself apart. Set in Oakmont, Massachusetts in the 1920s, players assume the role of private investigator Charles Reed, a war veteran slowly slipping into the grips of insanity. The city is suffering from flooding caused by something supernatural, and Charles must survive the descent into madness while uncovering the mysteries plaguing the town.

Developer Frogwares is adamant that The Sinking City will not hold players' hands. This means no objectives on the map, no obvious or straightforward quests, and no waypoints. Instead, players need to use their own cunning alongside the detective skills of Charles Reed to stave off madness and solve the mysteries of Oakmont.

One of Charles' prime abilities is his Mind's Eye, which helps him notice small details in crime scenes. He also has Retrocognition, which lets him recreate a crime if the player is smart enough to figure out the puzzles. Charles can also cross-reference records from the library, city hall, and the police station using his Mind Palace, helping him draw conclusions based on evidence.

You can see Charles' detective abilities in action in the new trailer below.

The Sinking City launches on PS4, Xbox One, and PC this year.

One of the most promising takeaways from Anthem so far is BioWare listening to the community and making changes based on that feedback. This may not sound like a huge element of the game, but if BioWare can implement fixes and alterations quickly, it could be a huge difference maker. It worked for Warframe, but we'll have to wait to see just how much BioWare is able to iterate on key components on the game.

The latest update to Anthem focuses entirely on the loot drops. Either today or tomorrow, BioWare is releasing a number of changes that will help players receive Masterwork items faster. In a Reddit post last night, BioWare's lead producer Ben Irving outlined exactly what is changing, and also highlighted what they heard from the community. He said that players thought that most inscriptions are not useful, and that too many Masterworks must be acquired before a "good one" is obtained. Additionally, he said that players either want the frequency of Masterworks drops to increase, or hope to see changes that make inscriptions more useful.

BioWare's response addresses all of this. Irving wrote that "inscriptions are now better for items they are on," and said level 30 players will no longer see white and green items in their drops. Additionally, the required crafting materials to forge Masterworks has reduced from 25 to 15. All of this should help players net the desired Masterwork items faster.

This quick updates comes on the heels of BioWare outlining a roadmap for 90 days of content. Anthem had a somewhat turbulent launch in terms of stability and design, netting a mediocre rating of 7 out of 10 in our review, but there's a lot to like about the game's combat and movement systems. The development team seems intent to make changes based on the feedback player community, but how much it can actually fix remains to be seen.

In December of last year, an update to the still fairly nascent Red Dead Redemption Online made it so that hunting became a lot less viable as a way to make money in the game. This incensed a number of players who felt like the game was forcing them to other aspects of the online that they didn't enjoy as much, like the PVP. One thread on the game's subreddit called it "a slap in the face."

It turns out that, according to Rockstar, the reasoning for nerfing the monetary gain for hunting was an intentional fix to a bug. A new update on Rockstar's support site finally clarified the situation.

"Prior to Title Update 1.06 a bug caused sales of skinned animal carcasses to be the same as a whole unskinned animal, despite the animal’s parts having been already harvested," the support answer reads. "This meant players could skin the animal and sell the carcass and the parts separately to make more than intended. Sales of animals and animal products now pay out correctly; no sell prices of animal parts or whole animals have been changed, only the value of a skinned carcass has been corrected."

It is unclear why it took Rockstar several months to answer this question, but they did eventually answer it. It seems like the original way it worked since launch was not the intended way, so it's a nerf to players, but not one to Rockstar.

Red Dead Redemption II and Red Dead Online are on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

New World Interactive, the developers of the fast-paced competitive first-person shooter, Insurgency: Sandstorm, dropped the first content update for the game today, and it includes the all new Arcade playlist. Arcade opens up the game to some more interesting and diverse rules. The playlist will rotate in different game modes occasionally, starting  now with Team Deathmatch. This update also adds five news guns to help switch things up.

This news also comes with the announcement that the game has reached 500,000 total players, recouping all money spent in development and marketing according to the developers. Insurgency: Sandstorm is currently available on PC with console versions still slated for sometime in 2019. To learn more about Insurgency: Sandstorm, head here for our review.

We're a week out from the launch of Devil May Cry 5, Capcom's first numbered sequel in the series in over a decade. The stylish action game is shaping up to be the magnum opus of the series, both playfully referencing and fundamentally integrating every game in the main series so far. Ahead of the game's launch, Capcom is releasing an incredibly spoiler-heavy release trailer. Many, many parts of this trailer come from after the game's midway point and should not be watched by people looking to come into the game fresh.

I'm not kidding, don't watch this trailer if you don't want to be spoiled on Devil May Cry 5's story.

For everyone else, I'm posting this in case you don't care about the spoilers or need to be pushed off the fence. You can find the final trailer for the game below.

The final trailer shows a bit of (presumably) Dante's backstory, multiple confrontations with the villainous Urizen, characters pleading for final wishes, and the return of a character important to the Devil May Cry series. It definitely goes whole hog in showing off most of the game's dramatic moments.

Devil May Cry 5 releases on March 8 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

The original ToeJam & Earl introduced a generation of console players to the concept of roguelikes, where success depended on negotiating randomized landscapes and using items that were as likely to harm as help the player. The Genesis game starred a hip-hop-loving alien duo with a penchant for funk and a fear of troublesome Earthlings, who survived thanks to their good luck and cartoonish gadgets. A pair of sequels reinforced the concept that, well, maybe not every budding franchise has enough gas in the tank to keep the rocket going. Now, 17 years after the last game hit Xbox, the pair returns. With co-creator Greg Johnson at the helm, Back in the Groove takes what made the original such an oddball delight and refreshes those ideas to return it to relevancy. 

Back in the Groove is essentially a remake of the Genesis original. If you aren’t familiar with that one, the concept is simple: Your spaceship has crashed on Earth, and you need to track down its 10 pieces so you can return to your home planet, Funkotron. As with the original, Back in the Groove trades the subterranean cave systems and confusing dungeon layouts you typically find in roguelikes for an outdoor setting. When you open your map, the sprawling mazes of nodes and paths may seem familiar, but with a notable difference from ordinary fantasy-themed roguelikes: ToeJam & Earl’s interpretation of Earth is one of floating land masses stacked atop one another. Stumble off the edge of a landmass or a narrow trail, and you fall down to the previous level. 

What I love about Back in the Groove is how effectively it forces you to make tough decisions. Earth is filled with Earthlings, both beneficial and harmful, and the bad ones can take a significant chunk out of your health meter. ToeJam & Earl (and their friends) aren’t equipped to handle these hazards on their own, so they rely on items that come in the form of presents. These presents are strewn throughout levels, but they have a catch: You don’t know what they are until they’re opened. Some are good, some are bad, but even the good ones have situational uses. Some warp you right to the next spaceship piece. Others summon enemies. Arguably the worst one completely shuffles the presents, so the ones you’ve already identified are scrambled yet again. There are also amped versions of presents, which appropriately amplify their effect. These can be a godsend, such as giving you an extra-long speed boost with hitop shoes, or a bummer, like summoning an aggressively persistent storm cloud that hovers over your hero, intermittently striking them with lightning. 

Click image thumbnails to view larger version

The beginnings of most of my runs would start with me opening everything I got, with occasionally disastrous results. Rocket skates are great tools when you’re expecting them, but when they catch you by surprise, you can easily get propelled off the edge of the world and lose a bit of progress. Similarly, tomato rain is an effective way to clear out attacking boogiemen and mall cops, but if nobody’s around when you open the box, it’s a bummer. You can pay a man in a carrot suit to get the presents identified, but if you don’t have the cash, you either risk a present’s negative effects or hoard your stash until you can safely ID the loot. Fortunately, money is treated with the same apparent disregard as gifts are in this version of Earth, and you can find cash by wandering around. 

Each run in Back in the Groove features 25 levels, and with only 10 parts to find, some levels don’t have much to find beyond an exit. As with the risk of opening presents, you have to weigh the temptation of fully exploring a level – getting presents and cash for your trouble – or making a beeline for the next stage. The more time you spend exploring, the more Earthlings you encounter, along with the dangers that come with their presence. You also gain XP by revealing tiles on the minimap, which in turn allow you to gain promotions throughout your journey. Along with new titles (including a personal returning favorite, “Poindexter”) comes a chance to spin a wheel to get stat boosts – a nice update to the original formula. There’s also more overall variety to the way each character plays. ToeJam is still faster, and Earl can withstand more damage before ultimately transforming into a harp-strumming ghost, but the systems run a bit deeper. 

Each of the game’s nine characters (including two versions of the titular heroes) has unique passive abilities, stats, and starting presents. I gravitated toward Earl, because he’s able to eat and restore health from the bad food items scattered around the world. Players who like mobility might prefer ToeJam more, since he gets extra mileage from footwear items. Peabo’s high luck gives him a better chance to avoid taking damage when an Earthling makes direct contact, which can be a godsend if you struggle to avoid them. There’s not a night-and-day difference between any of the characters, but the subtle distinctions are there for players who want to tune their game a bit toward how they play. 

Back in the Groove isn’t going to wow players with photorealistic visuals, but this is also a game where one of the most fearsome enemies is an out-of-control ice-cream truck. The creators have gone with a hybrid style that works well and supports the overall weirdness. The terrain looks as though it was shaped out of modeling clay, while the characters and everything else are essentially crisply detailed drawings come to life. It reminded me of a hybrid of Dr. Seuss’ stretched and skewed proportions, with PaRappa the Rapper’s wiggly, flat presentation. The effect is especially pronounced during the night levels, where your character’s flashlight helps to create some surprisingly great shadow effects.

I really appreciate how accessible Back in the Groove is, overall, even if you’re not the kind of player who naturally gravitates toward roguelikes. Failure is certainly likely, but it’s not inevitable here. I never felt as though I was ever locked into a terrible situation; even when I was surrounded by dangerous Earthlings and low on good presents, I could always jump down to a previous level and find another approach. It’s a solid experience as a solo player, but it’s even better in co-op. In addition to speeding up the time you spend finding exits and your spaceship parts, you can share health with a partner and even borrow one of their lives if you run out. Back in the Groove has so much good-natured silliness that it almost feels like a waste not to share it with a friend, either in local split-screen or online co-op.

Even after successfully reassembling my ship, I was ready to start all over again – especially after unlocking new hats, which add fun new modifiers like granting immunity from the control-reversing Cupid’s arrows or providing a cash boost every time you use a broken present. These are strictly optional, however, so you can keep your roguelike experience pure if you’re into that sort of thing. Personally, I liked tinkering around with these elements to see how they upended the strategies I’d started to depend on.

All these years later, I wasn’t expecting a whole lot from ToeJam & Earl beyond a blast of nostalgia. In some ways, the original was ahead of its time, and it only took a little tweaking to bring it up to contemporary expectations. Back in the Groove is a great gift, tucked inside an earnestly funky wrapper.

Score: 8

Summary: Back in the Groove refreshes what made the original such an oddball delight.

Concept: Bring the funky roguelike action from the Genesis era to a new generation of players

Graphics: Surreal landscapes and a crisp-looking cast of weirdos are a delight to behold

Sound: It’s all about the funk, baby. The soundtrack is packed with familiar throwback jams and fresh new tunes that’ll keep your feet tapping

Playability: The basics are simple to grasp, but surprising depth lies beneath Back in the Groove’s candy-colored shell

Entertainment: Solid roguelike elements keep the action engaging and tense. No previous experience (or nostalgia) with the series required

Replay: High

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Bungie has released a ViDoc going into details on their next planned content for Destiny 2, some of the biggest new content for the game since the studio split with Activision and brought Destiny 2 with them in the process. It looks to spell out new lore for an existing character and make some exciting changes to Gambit mode.

The upcoming updates focus on Season of the Drifter. The enigmatic character will get his chance to shine after his introduction in Forsaken as players get to understand the Drifter and his motivations better. We'll also learn more about  "The Nine," and their emissary with new details promised by Bungie.

Two new Gambit maps are going into circulation as the mode itself is evolving. A higher-tier, more competitive version of the mode called Gambit Prime is being introduced. Gambit Prime will have boss-like encounters and let Guardians play more structured roles as dictated by the type of armor they're wearing.

A new PvE mode called The Reckoning is being introduced for players who are looking for a bit of extra challenge, as the chaotic and fast-moving gameplay will pit you against hordes of enemies spawning around you constantly. Guardians have to survive the countdown to get to higher difficulty tiers and unlock the armor that you'll use for the Gambit Prime mode.

Check out the ViDoc below for more details.

Seasons of the Drifter starts in just a few days on March 5.

The schedule for PAX East's panels has finally been revealed, showing what people can expect from the show in Boston at the end of March. One of those panels is from Gearbox, the Texas-based developers of games like Borderlands and Battleborn, and promises "never-before-seen reveals" on stage at the panel. Speculation is rampant that this could finally be Borderlands 3.

The third game in the series has been long-anticipated as Gearbox has not released a numbered Borderlands title since 2012. Spinoffs have varied critically, but series fans have been eagerly anticipating a new game that hews closer to the Pandora titles that came before. During last year's Wal-Mart E3 leak, where the retailer accidentally posted a number of games ahead of their E3 announcements, Borderlands 3 also appeared on the list. Though it wasn't the only exception to the list in terms of announcement confirmations, Take-Two did announce that they delayed a "highly-anticipated shooter" into fiscal year 2020. It is possible this game is Borderlands 3.

It's hard to say and ultimately the reveal could simply be a new magic trick from noted magician Randy Pitchford, but for fans eager for a loot shooter with a heavy focus on guns, a third Borderlands is a tantalizing prospect. We certainly will not have to wait long to find out which one it is.

Trials Rising might come to mind when thinking about biking games in 2019, but the upcoming Lonely Mountains: Downhill is taking a quieter approach to the genre. The third-person experience opts for pedal mountain biking rather than motorized power, forgoing Trials’ fireworks and bombastic setpieces. Instead, Lonely Mountains drops you at the top of stylized versions of real-world mountains, tasking you with a simple goal: reach the bottom.

The paths down each mountain are not straightforward – every slope offers branching paths that convene at checkpoints where you save your progress. If you crash, you restart at your last checkpoint at the time you initially reached it. You can take the clearly defined, safer routes where you’re less likely to crash, or try to find hidden shortcuts by prayerfully hopping down the sides of cliffs. Shortcuts aren’t always easy to discover and require some experimentation (a.k.a. crashing), but they significantly cut down the time it takes to reach each checkpoint. Lonely Mountains: Downhill will be a paradise for speedrunners who enjoy the challenge of finding fast routes.

Your main goal is always to reach the bottom of the mountain, but each location has an assortment of side objectives. Some are goal-based, like One-Life-Mode, which reduces you to one life; others are time-based, challenging you to race down the mountain as fast as possible. Completing these side objectives unlocks different bikes with varying stats. Some have lower stability and agility but offer higher shock absorption, which allows you to land trickier jumps when navigating shorter, off-the-beaten-path routes. Others can reach higher acceleration but have lower grip. 

Completing each mountain’s side objectives rewards you with new bike parts, and you also unlock outfits for your avatar, paint jobs for your bike, and new mountains to descend. We tested our mettle on a whitewashed Alps mountainside, in addition to a sun-soaked, rocky path in Redmoor Peaks, Colorado. Unlike the Trials series, Lonely Mountains’ environments are quiet spaces. There are no spectators – no camera flashes. There’s no music, either, which helps build the game’s sense of solitude.

For as many moments of meditative ambience we experienced in our hands-on time, there were as many moments of intensity: we’d cheer when our bikes survived drops down cliff faces, and our muscles would tense when, instead of hitting the brakes every few yards, we’d flirt with acceleration down paths that we should have crashed on. Several times, we burst into laughter after crashing into a cactus or tree we thought we could avoid. Crashing and having to restart at checkpoints never felt punishing, but since we only experienced the game’s first two mountains, we’re curious to see if the difficulty at other locations feels equally fair.

Lonely Mountains Downhill launches later this year for PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC, Mac, and Linux.

That Groundhog Day: Like Father Like Son exists is an enigma. The 1993 film starring Bill Murray, who plays a character trapped in a one-day time loop, is beloved, and creating a sequel to that story more than two decades later – in the form of a video game, mind you – was no small feat, requiring a rare confluence between both the games industry and Hollywood. We got to chat with the teams creating the follow-up to that story about their vision for the game.

Groundhog Day VR is set about two decades after the 1993 film. Players take on the role of Phil Connors Jr., the son of the movie's protagonist, who is stuck in a one-day time loop just like his father. Tequila Works, the developer behind games like Rime and The Invisible Hours, is helming the game’s production, and creative director Raúl Rubio knew early on he wanted to tell the story of the son instead of the father.

“We decided to tell Phil Jr.’s story, because Phil Sr. is kind of an amazing person,” Rubio says. “He’s loved by everyone. In his little universe, he’s God. For your children, that must be the worst experience ever, because you are growing up in the shadow of a perfect man. Phil Jr. has daddy issues.”

While Groundhog Day VR tells an original story, the team still intends to retain the film’s core themes. Tequila Works spent a lot of time early in production talking with Danny Rubin, one of the film’s writers, trying to understand the core of the original script.

“We asked all the fanboy questions we wanted to ask,” Rubio says.

When we asked what causes Connors Jr.’s time loops, the team was hush hush, but it did explain a little more of the game’s design.

Phil Jr. is an “a--hole” at the beginning of the game, according to Rubio. To break out of his time loop, which starts at 6 a.m. and resets at midnight, he has to explore the town of Punxsutawney, interacting with the residents to learn their dreams, goals, and fears, to ultimately help them solve their own problems. The team describes the game as a Metroidvania – interacting with the world each day teaches you new things that allows you to make progress during the next loop.

“We’re playing with the idea that the player is evolving as they learn about the world that they’re in,” says Jake Zim, the senior VP of virtual reality at Sony Pictures Entertainment who first identified the film as a good opportunity for a VR experience. “When we looked at Groundhog Day, we thought, ‘What is this about?’ It’s about this character’s evolution from being a piece of sh-- to turning into someone who really cares about the world and people around him. There’s something fun about playing with the evolution of a player – how a player goes through a game, and learns new things, and solves puzzles, and becomes more aware of their world.”

There is a day/night cycle in Groundhog Day VR, but time only moves forward when players participate in certain scenes and setpieces. Your in-game phone tracks the time certain events take place and maintains records of the Punxsutawney denizens you interact with, so you too can reference new information in each time loop that follows. Scenes happen in real-time, too – Rubio says characters won’t wait around for you to do something, so you need to be mindful of how you spend your free time.

You can spend some of that free time learning new skills, like playing the piano. Rubio explains minigames aren’t menial and require actual skill. In the case of the piano, it will require players to actually learn and understand music.

We asked about potential returning cast members from the film that inspired the game, but the team was particularly tight-lipped on this topic. 

“There are obviously challenges with bringing cast [members] back to a certain degree. We’re really focused on the new cast and the new generation that we have here… all the kids,” Zim says. “There are callbacks, but the real focus is on driving forward this new cast. I don’t want to make any promises. We think we have a great game and a great cast, and everything is really packaged to be what we want it to be. But you never know…”

We also asked if I Got You Babe, the song that played on the radio every time Phil Connors woke up in Groundhog Day, would make it into the game. Tequila Works says there is a licensed song that plays every time you wake up, but wouldn’t reveal the title, except for that it’s part of Sony’s catalogue.

Groundhog Day: Like Father Like Son is a strange fusion of games and film that we never would have predicted. While it plays on an established narrative trope – being stuck in a nightmarish time loop until the protagonist confronts their moral shortcomings – we’re excited to put on our headsets and explore Punxsutawney ourselves; to experience that trope in a way that hasn’t been explored before.

Groundhog Day VR will launch on PSVR, HTC Vive, and Oculus Rift sometime in 2019. You can listen to our full interview with the team in this episode of The Game Informer Show. In the world of VR, there's a new Angry Birds game for you to wreak havoc in. And hilariously, a VR game called Apex Construct is seeing a boost in sales thanks to players mistaking it for Apex Legends.

On this week's episode, we talk about the exciting reveal of the next generation of Pokémon games on the Nintendo Switch with Pokémon Sword And Shield. Andrew Reiner also talks about his final review score for BioWare's Anthem. Then Jeff Cork and Suriel Vazquez talk about their fond feelings toward ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove and Sega's upcoming Yakuza spin-off called Judgment. After some great community emails, we interview the co-founder of Westwood Studios Louis Castle about the early days of the RTS genre with Command & Conquer, why the hell their The Lion King video game was so hard, and what life was like as an EA executive.

You can watch the video above, subscribe and listen to the audio on iTunes or Google Play, listen on SoundCloud, stream it on Spotify, or download the MP3 by clicking here. Also, be sure to send your questions to podcast@gameinformer.com for a chance to have them answered on the show.

Our thanks to the talented Super Marcato Bros. for The Game Informer Show's intro song. You can hear more of their original tunes and awesome video game music podcast at their website.

To jump to a particular point in the discussion, check out the time stamps below...

4:05 - Pokémon Sword and Shield
15:35 - Detective Pikachu
17:40 - The Lego Movie 2 Videogame
20:30 - Anthem
44:10 - ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove
49:50 - Trials Rising
54:20 - Judgment
1:02:30 - Community emails
1:53:30 - Louis Castle interview on Command & Conquer and The Lion King

As part of IGN's Unfiltered video series in their continued talk with Bonnie Ross, head of Microsoft's 343 Industries, a little bit was talked about Halo Infinite. The next game in the venerated first-person shooter series has already been announced, but Microsoft hasn't talked much about the new game. Ross has indicated that 343 wants to go a new direction with the game, however.

During the interview, Ross indicates that the studio is thinking of Halo Infinite as a spiritual reboot after getting their legs stable on the previous two games.

"There has been a lot of introspective time to really reflect on what's done as 343," Ross told IGN. "Where have we made mistakes? Where have we hit it right? What does Halo mean to all of us? That trailer [for Halo Infinite] we did is what Halo means to the studio... Maybe it took us two games to get there, and I think we've done good things and bad things, but what does Halo mean to us? It is about hope, and wonder, and heroism, and humanity, and community, and bringing a community together. That's what that trailer is, and that's what we want to do."

There have been rumors that Halo Infinite will focus more on RPG mechanics and branching story paths than the series has before. This might fit in with Ross' description of Halo Infinite as a soft reboot for the series. The game is speculated to be a launch title for the successor to the Xbox One.

[Source: IGN]

After Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered, Activision indicated they were hoping to follow suit with other Call of Duty remasters, but they haven't said much about that plan since then. A ratings board leak coming out of Europe, however, suggests that the follow up to that plan may be coming in the obvious form of Modern Warfare 2.

No such remaster has been officially announced by Activision yet, but a listing (and subsequent 18+ rating) for the game has appeared on the Pan European Game Information board, or PEGI. It doesn't give any details, but if PEGI is saying it, it's very likely not made up out of thin air.

Modern Warfare Remastered was included with special editions of Infinite Warfare, the last Infinity Ward game in the series. Seeing as how Infinity Ward's Call of Duty game is presumably up to bat this year, Modern Warfare 2 Remastered makes plenty of sense again. It will be interesting to see whether the game will be available separately from the start or will follow in the same footsteps as Modern Warfare Remastered and only be available on its own later.

[Source: Gematsu]

I remember being a kid and going to the Pokémon movie and hearing the Blessid Union of Souls music and totally losing my little mind over Pokémon fighting by slapping each other. In its never-ending quest to channel that childhood nostalgia, The Pokémon Company is preparing an anniversary remake of Mewtwo Strikes Back, but this time in CG.

The trailer has only been released in Japanese, but there's not a ton of dialogue, so you can get the gist of it, especially if you remember the original movie at all.

The movie, officially titled Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution, launches later this summer in Japan, but no western release has been confirmed quite yet. I imagine it will eventually be released the United States, maybe around Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield's release late this year.

What do you think of the movie's new style? For me, it feels like the Pokémon looks fine, but the people look weird. Maybe it's just a matter of getting used to it.

When Square Enix released Dissidia Final Fantasy NT last year, the 3v3 crossover fighter didn't really set the world on fire. Over the ensuing year, however, Square Enix has been working on the game and supplying DLC and seemingly feels ready to give the game another shot with new packaging and a new port.

#Dissidia#FinalFantasy NT Free Edition is coming to both #Steam&#PS4 on March 12th!

Try out the game free of charge, and play against those playing the full game with a weekly rotation of characters! pic.twitter.com/tuxlOL0RYC

— FINAL FANTASY (@FinalFantasy) February 28, 2019

Titled conveniently enough Dissidia Final Fantasy NT Free Edition, the game will be cross-compatible with the full game, so you don't need to be friends with someone playing the free version to fight against them. Details on how exactly the free version will be monetized has not been outlined, but the tweet does say a weekly rotation of characters, so you can imagine you'll probably be buying characters as you want them.

The other big news is that this version is also coming to PC, which the full game didn't. Fans who want super high-res Final Fantasy characters now have a free option to toy around with the game and see if they like it now. 

The free version of Dissidia Final Fantasy NT releases on March 12.