Avalanche Studios’ Just Cause 4 is a massive game, but it’s easy to fill an open world with big expanses of nothingness. Thankfully, the development team wants to infuse a bit more into the world of Solis. In a 20-minute gameplay presentation that took place live at Gamescom 2018 but has now been released to be viewed by everyone, game director Francesco Antolini talks about the massive scale of the world and what players can expect to see in it.

Along with a number of different biomes, vehicles, and weapons, Just Cause 4 boasts the largest land mass in the series yet. Other new additions to the game include physics-based rendering, along with a new system for animations. Players will also battle newer, more intelligent foes, but their biggest hazards may come from the new Extreme Weather.

Tornados have already been showcased in their destructive glory, and the presentation below sees the Lightning Storm in action. Just Cause 4 will release on December 4th for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. Thoughts on the gameplay presentation? Let us know in the comments.

We’ve already heard about how great Metro Exodus will look on both the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X, and from what we’ve seen so far, the game really does look absolutely gorgeous. German website PCGamesHardware took a look into the technical aspects of the game as it was running at Gamescom 2018, and they’ve found that the game will take advantage of Nvidia’s Hairworks and Advanced PhysX features.

It was already revealed earlier on that the game would make use of Ray Tracing tech to add a sense of realism. Nvidia Hairworks is not a feature we’ve seen in many games, and it has been quite taxing even when it was used in games such as The Witcher 3 and Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition. PhysX was a feature that was used in Metro: Last Light as well, so it comes as no surprise that this feature will be supported. You can see these graphical options in the image below. Other than these, there are also toggles for things like resolution, image quality, texture filtering, tessellation, and vsync.

It’s worth noting that even though the demo of the game shown off at Gamescom was running on an RTX 2018Ti, it rendered at a resolution of 1080p (which is fine), and ran at a frame rate of 40 frames per second- which is a little concerning. Hopefully, the developers are able to optimize the game further before release so that it will hit 60 FPS on PC.

Metro Exodus is set to release for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on February 22, 2019.

Twin Mirror, the interesting looking psychological thriller from Dontnod (the makers of Life is Strange), which has been announced for PS4, Xbox One, and PC, could come to the Nintendo Switch, too. Speaking to DualShockers at Gamescom, when prompted about it, Senior Producer Fabrice Cambounet, Associate Producer Hélène Henry and Dialog Writer Matthew Ritter noted that a Switch port is something that the developer is definitely thinking about.

“Maybe. We’re thinking about [a Switch port]”, Cambounet said, before Ritter added that the game’s episodic nature would actually make it very well suited to a portable system like the Switch. Given the success that Telltale has had with its episodic adventure games on the Switch, you have to imagine Dontnod has been taking notes all this time.

I hope they do bring Twin Mirror to the Switch, but also Life is Strange (and its upcoming sequel). That beloved time traveling adventure would find a new audience on Switch, and it’s definitely a game that deserves to be played by as many people as possible.

Twin Mirror launches on Xbox One, PS4, and PC with its first episode, Lost on Arrival, in early 2019.

Left Alive is being described by Square Enix as quite a hardcore yet satisfying game, and it looks great in the screenshots we’ve seen of it so far. At Gamescom 2018, the game’s Director Toshifumi Nabeshima and Producer Shinji Hashimoto spoke to DualShockers,  and shared a lot of interesting details regarding the game, including about its combat, crafting, stealth, and lots more.

First of all the developers explained why the game doesn’t have “Front Mission” in its title, even though it is set in the same universe- it’s because the development team team is different, and they will be taking this game in a new and different direction. The game is a third-person shooter, but it will be different in a number of ways from the games that we normally see in the genre. There will be three playable characters who are trying to escape a city where war suddenly breaks out.

Left Alive will not be a simple shooter, according to its developers, and players will have various choices in how they approach a situation, which means stealth will play an important role in the game. In fact, players can’t just depend on shooting, since they may not be able to hold their own in some situations. As such, they will have to make use of things like traps and trip wires to defeat enemies.

Crafting will play a crucial role in the game as well, and players will be able to create equipment to make things easier for themselves in the game. Players will have lots of tools at their disposal, including stuff like radars to pinpoint enemies’ location. If you do want to just focus on shooting, though, you will be able to survive if you are able to take out enemies without using up too much ammo- which means you need to be better skilled at shooting. The game emphasizes experimentation so that players will try different methods to succeed.

There will also be the mechas known as Wanzers in the game, and players will sometimes just be put in control of them. At other times, players can try and steal them- but they are heavily guarded, so it may not be worth the risk. In Left Alive, you will also come across some other characters, obviously, and you can choose whether to help them or not, and your choices will affect how the game’s story plays out. Of course, the civilians aren’t all good characters, and you will have multiple choices regarding how you deal with them. At the end of the game, you will be able to see what happened to all of the civilians you were able to save.

As of now, most of the game’s content is done, and the developers are focusing on balancing and polishing up the game. Left Alive is set to release for the PC and PS4, but no release date has been revealed as of now.

As Gamescom came and went, we were able to learn and see a lot about Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, including its release date and a new gameplay trailer. Now, Bandai Namco Entertainment Japan has revealed even more information about the game, including about its characters, playable aircrafts, and more.

The first character we learn about is the princess of Erusea, called Rosa Cosette D’Elise. She doesn’t come from a lineage of royalty, but her father ascended to the throne after the Restoration, which was brought about by the Continental War.  The next character we’ve learned about is an engineer who develops weapons for the Erusean army, called Dr. Schroeder. He works for Erusean Air and Space Administration (EASA).

We also get to learn about Mihaly A. Shilage, who is a legendary ace pilot and one of the top test pilots for Erusea’s experimental unit. The last of the characters we are introduced to is an engineer working in the Osean Penal base, who is known for her skill in repairing aircrafts, and her name is Avril Mead.

Apart from the characters, we also get to see the  player’s personal insignia, and the squadron insignia of the many units we will see in the game. We also get a look at some of the aircrafts that you’ll be able to fly in the game, and these include the Su-33 Flanker-D, the F/A-18F Super Hornet, the Su-57, the MiG-29A Fulcrum, the F-16C Fighting Falcon, the F-14D Super Tomcat, the MiG-21bis Fishbed, the Rafale M, the YF-23 Black Widow II, the F-15E Strike Eagle, the Gripen E, the F-104C Starfighter, and the F-15C Eagle.

You can check out screenshots and artwork of the insignia, the aircrafts, and the characters below. Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown is set to release for the PS4 and Xbox One on January 18 and for the PC on February 1.

CD Projekt RED’s next epic RPG, Cyberpunk 2077, looks to be significantly a departure from all the other games they have worked on so far. One of the many ways the game will be different than the Witcher trilogy will be in its first person perspective- which will be the only way to play the game, in fact. Unlike Bethesda’s games, which too are made to be played in first person, and yet still offer third person as an option, Cyberpunk 2077 can only be played first person.

This, of course, can be alienating to many, including those who get motion sick with first person games, or simply those who like being able to see the character they are controlling. Speaking to DualShockers at Gamescom, Quest Designer Patrick Mills noted that the development team is “very aware” of many players’ aversion to first person viewpoints, but also emphasized that the team would stand firm by its decision to stick with it.

“We are firm in that decision. However, we’re very aware that a lot of people don’t like first-person, and there is a small number of people who can’t play first-person for a variety of reasons,” he said.

He went on to say that the developers may offer difficulty and “Sensibility” options to mitigate the problems people often face with the first person veiwpoint in the game, noting that the development team still does want the game to be enjoyed by as many people as possible.

As long as some FOV options are offered, I think most players can come around to enjoying the first person camera, or at least tolerating it- I know I would. Cyberpunk 2077 will launch on Xbox One, PS4, and PC at some indeterminate time in the future. If you want to see how the game is coming along, make sure to watch the almost 50 minutes of gameplay footage that CD Projekt RED shared yesterday.

Even though Microsoft is pushing services heavily, they admitted today that they don’t see subscriptions ever be the dominant form of game consumption. However, Ubisoft seems to disagree with that- in an interview with IGN, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot revealed that he feels that eventually, streaming technology will be so sophisticated that it will be better than actually playing games directly from local hardware.

“Technology is actually going in that direction,” he said. “The machines will be more powerful and the system to transfer data will be more efficient, so at one point, we will have a better experience streaming something than having to buy a machine and change the machine regularly.”

How he assumes that, given that latency is ultimately an insurmountable wall that even the fastest internet connections will face thanks to the laws of physics, I do not understand. The only way around the issues of latency is to have the local client hardware do some speculative calculation and computing to supplement the main processing going on at the host- except, at that point, given the extent of local computing you would need to counter the latency problem to any meaningful degree, why not just, you know, do all of it locally? All of this is without getting into the larger problem of internet connectivity and infrastructure worldwide simply being, on the whole, ill equipped to handle streaming of high end video games.

Unfortunately, these points were scant brought up in IGN’s discussion with Guillemot. What was discussed, however, was a pricing model, where Guillemot remained evasive, not committing to a vision for any one pricing paradigm, instead stating multiple kinds would probably be admissible.

“We’ll have different models,” he said. “Everyone will be able to choose the model that fits for the type of amount he or she wants to invest. What I’d like is the diversity of models. I don’t like one specific way to participate. I’d like to keep different types of approaches so that anyone can play with each other.”

Alright. I still think, of course, the whole errand is misguided, and we have enough failed game streaming experiments for that to be abundantly clear by now- but hey, if they want to give it another go, they are free to. I just wouldn’t expect much if I were them.

Ashen, the upcoming Dark Souls-like action RPG from Annapurna Interactive and Aurora44, has received a brand new video showing off some gameplay footage from the build of the game that was shown off at Gamescom. This video shows us over 11 minutes of gameplay footage from the upcoming title, giving us an idea of the style of gameplay flow and loop we can expect from it once it releases.

Seeing a Dark Souls style game in the striking art style used by Ashen is really something, and it makes the game stand out much more than many other Souls-like games otherwise do. It helps that its melancholy world, and its focus on connecting with others, look really good, too. A Souls-like game is a really interesting canvas to choose to explore “human relationships”, which is what Ashen proposes to do- but this video gives us glimpses of how that might work.

Ashen launches exclusively on Windows 10 PCs and Xbox One later this year. For now, there are no plans to bring it to the PS4 or Switch.

Ubisoft already teased us with the inclusion of mythological creatures like Medusa in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Little did we know just how powerful ol’ snake hair would be. Check out the hunt for Medusa courtesy of a new gameplay preview from Ubisoft below.

Taken from Gamescom 2018, the preview offers some tips on how to find her. Medusa is capable of turning players into stone so moving around and avoiding her gaze is paramount. Of course, she can also teleport, making it tough to pin her down in any one spot, and looks downright terrifying at times. High-level abilities are also showcased in this demo so if you’re wondering what a potential end-game character will play like, this should help.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is out on October 5th for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. The world map was recently revealed and it’s confirmed to be 62 percent bigger than Assassin’s Creed Origins. Now the real question is what other Greek mythological creatures lay in wait for us to fight. Stay tuned for more information.

While Soulcalibur 6 will be coming to PS4, Xbox One, and PC for now, don’t rule out a Switch version entirely. In the past, Bandai Namco has confirmed that a Switch version hadn’t happened because the game started development before the Switch was a thing, which is fair- but a Switch version of the game could still come after launch, they recently revealed.

Speaking to DualShockers at Gamescom 2018, Soulcalibur 6 producer Motohiro Okubo discussed the possibility of a version of the game for Nintendo’s hybrid, noting that while it was unlikely to happen jut yet, a version after the game has launched wasn’t off the table for now.

“At the moment there is no development for Switch at all. I understand that the Switch is a very successful hardware, and of course if there is a possibility, then it would be great to do it,” he said. “At the moment we’re focusing on the October 19th launch, so we don’t even have the time to think about that possibility. After the launch we’ll think about the possibility.”

A Switch version may end up being to the game’s benefit- Okubo recently confirmed that Soulcalibur 6 would be the last game in the series if it is not successful, which, uh- it is launching right next to Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and Red Dead Redemption 2, so chances of that may be a bit problematic, so to say. A Switch version could help them gain some additional sales. Namco has previously made a belated (albeit upcoming) release of Dragon Ball Fighter Z on Switch too, so it’s not out of character either.

For now, Soulcalibur 6 launches on PS4, Xbox One, and PC on October 19.