TGO Daily | March 19, 2021 | Square Enix Presents
Square Enix Presents
Square Enix held their own digital conference today (in a Nintendo Direct-like fashion), and while most of it was already known, there were some new things.
Life Is Strange
The biggest news is the announcement of Life Is Strange: True Colors, which is the fourth game in the series. The game stars Alex Chen, who returns to her hometown to investigate the death of her brother. She has the supernatural ability to detect other peoples emotions and manipulate them (the trailer I linked above was pretty good, you should give it a watch).
This will be the first game to use motion capture for the characters, which shows dramatically improved animations. It will also be dropping the episodic format — the whole game will release on all the usual places (except Switch) on September 10th.
Square Enix also announced Life Is Strange: Remastered Collection. It will include the first game, as well as the prequel Before The Storm. Both games will have upgrades to the game engine, lighting, and character animations — with new full facial motion capture. It will release as a standalone product later this year, but can also be purchased as part of the Ultimate Edition for True Colors for a September 10 release.
Forspoken
The previously announced “Project Athia” is now known as Forspoken. This is a new IP from Luminous Productions (a new developer formed by former Final Fantasy XV devs), and clearly has a big budget behind it. There’s not much to say besides that it will be coming to PlayStation 5 and PC in 2022 (with a 2-year console exclusivity).
Mobile Games
Finally, Square Enix talked about two new mobile games that will be arriving in 2021. The first is Just Cause Mobile, which has already been announced and just got a neat cinematic. It will be a top-down shooter with single-player and multiplayer modes. The other is Hitman Sniper Assassins, which is a new Hitman story from Square Enix Montreal. Interestingly this isn’t coming from IO Interactive — I guess Square retained the mobile IP rights?
Sony gets Evo
Sony have officially acquired the Evolution Championship Series (better known as Evo). This is the biggest annual fighting game tournament in the world, which features a bunch of different games across many platforms. The co-founders of Evo will continue to be involved in the event.
While Evo didn’t take place last year, they were planning a digital event for 2021 which will continue to happen. They have also clarified that Sony’s acquisition won’t influence the games that are featured — Nintendo’s Smash Bros. will still be appearing, for example. We’ll see if that’s actually how it plays out.
New PSVR controllers
Sony has shown off the next generation of PlayStation VR controllers. It has a much larger design, wrapping around the hands like a big orb. Technologically, it has similar features as the PS5 DualSense controller. There are adaptive triggers, which adds or reduces tension based on the actions in-game. It also has haptic feedback, allowing the various tactile sensations in the game to be replicated.
Of course, these won’t be available until the next PSVR releases, which isn’t going to be any time this year.
Release dates
For some reason there were a lot of release date announcements today, so I thought I would throw them all into one section here.
Xbox is doing an indie showcase on March 26th. It will apparently feature over 100 games, and will be hosted by Twitch streamers — but no major announcements.
Among Us is getting its new “Airship” map on March 31st. Will have a bunch of new features added to the game, including better moderation!
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla gets its first major expansion on April 29th. It’s called “Wrath of the Druids,” and will bring players to Ireland. The following expansion is “The Siege of Paris” this summer.
Bandai Namco’s Scarlet Nexus is releasing on June 25th. This is an anime hack and slash game — looks pretty cool.
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