PlayStation Plus subscribers in Europe will be receiving some fairly hard hitting games. Sony has announced its Instant Game Collection for January and it includes inFamous: First Light, the story-based standalone expansion for Second Son which focuses on Fetch.

PS4 gamers will also receive The Swapper, an indie puzzle platforming game that’s received much critical acclaim and focuses on switching between bodies in order to complete puzzles.

PS3 players haven’t been left out though – they’ll be receiving Prototype 2 and DuckTales: Remastered, the former being an open world game with super-powers and the latter being a full remaster of the classic DuckTales platforming adventure originally released on the NES.

PS Vita users will receive games like Woah Dave! and Duke Nukem 3D Megaton Edition. Since Duke Nukem can’t be released in Germany, German users will be receiving Gravity Crash Ultra instead.

What are your thoughts on this month’s free games for PS Plus? Let us know in the comments.

Sony developer Sucker Punch has had a fresh round of layoffs some time back in August, that brought the total studio strength down to about 80 developers, and it appears that they are gearing up to beef it up again, as they ready themselves for a new project.

How do we know this? Why, the same way we always know these things- because our friends at DualShockers seem to have an eye for every time a Sony studio posts a new job listing.

Currently, it appears, Sucker Punch is looking for a new IT Administrator. The job listing reads:

“Sucker Punch is looking for a proactive IT Administrator who has passion for leveraging technology and software to solve problems and maximize our studio’s ability to create amazing AAA games. We are a collection of 80 artists, designers and programmers in need of an IT Administrator to oversee all aspects of our information technology. Top to bottom – from our 128 core build cluster and NetApp filer through to 80 Windows 7 workstations and PlayStation 4 development kits, you’re responsible for managing all technology needs in our studio. Procurement, key systems availability, trouble shooting, and security are all in your portfolio. The IT Administrator also interacts with all members of the team, and should have excellent communication skills, maintain a key sense of professionalism, be goal oriented, self-driven, and have a positive attitude. Sucker Punch prides itself on being a studio where the work is dynamic, challenging, and rewarding, and employees have the ability to have a big impact our games and studio as individuals.”

The job listing gives us insight into what Sucker Punch is like, although, sadly enough, it doesn’t tell us much about their new project.

Still, considering that they just got done with inFamous: Second Son and inFamous: First Light, it will probably be a while before we hear something from them again.

Sucker Punch went ahead and released the standalone expansion pack to inFamous: Second Son, inFamous: First Light, and it was pretty damn good, generally garnering appreciation from critics and players. But it was also amusing in how it highlighted an odd quirk- the expansion pack seemed to run faster than the actual game, a suspicion which was confirmed when Digital Foundry established that First Light has a higher frame rate.

Now, Sucker Punch has confirmed that this is indeed the case, and they’ve even been nice enough to go into the nitty-gritties for us.

“For First Light, we made some optimisations in our shaders that did accelerate things,” the developer told Digital Foundry. “The two most notable improvements were made in our water ripple compute shader, and the way we encode/decode normals in the g-buffer. In addition, the absence of the heavy DUP fortifications from Second Son has a measurable impact.”

So, what are the odds of these improvements making their way to Second Son proper, then?

“As for patching these into Second Son, that’s unlikely as the resulting patch would be about 60 per cent the size of the full game – many gigabytes,” Sucker Punch explains. “This is the result of us embedding shaders inside the city content they apply to – meaning we can’t simply patch the engine to pick up these changes.”

Damn it. Well, Second Son is a great game regardless of the slower speed, and at the very least, we can appreciate Sucker Punch giving us their new improvements in the expansion pack, rather than holding back for a sequel, like so many other companies wold have done.

Players will take the role of Fetch as she becomes a trained killer, and eventually takes revenge against those who wronged her. inFAMOUS First Light will roughly add 6-8 hours of gameplay to the main title. The game was developed by Sucker Punch Productions and published by Sony. The DLC is now available exclusively for the PlayStation 4.

Let us know if you have any questions in the comments sections below.

inFamous First Light Neon Graffiti Locations Guide:

This will also unlock That’s So Fetch Trophy.

First Light Police Drones Locations Guide:

This will also unlock Blackout Trophy.

First Light Lumen Races Locations Guide:

This will also unlock the Lickety Pronto trophy.

First Light Neon Lumens Locations Guide:

This will also unlock the Illuminated trophy.

Paramount district:

Queen Anne district:

Pioneer Square district:

Market District district:

Belltown district:

Georgetown district:

Seattle Centre district:

Trophy Guide:

Noble Achievement:

Collect all Trophies

Illuminated:

Collect all Neon Lumens [refer guide above]

Blackout:

Destroy all Police Drones [refer guide above]

Lickety Pronto:

Complete all Lumen Races [refer guide above]

That’s So Fetch:

Complete all Neon Graffiti [refer guide above]

Unleashed:

Purchase every Upgrade.

Novice:

Complete 25% of all Challenges

Professional:

Complete 50% of all Challenges

Expert:

Complete 75% of all Challenges

Perfectionist:

Complete all of the Challenges in the Game

Alpha Rescue Diamond:

Achieve a score of 500,000 points

Alpha Survival Diamond:

Achieve a score of 500,000 points

Beta Rescue Diamond:

Achieve a score of 500,000 points

Beta Survival Diamond:

Achieve a score of 500,000 points

Gamma Survival Diamond:

Achieve a score of 500,000 points

Turret Syndrome:

Overload 25 Turrets

Great Responsibility:

50 Hostage Saves

Top of the Class:

Earn a total of 10,000,000 points

Event Horizon:

Defeat 100 Enemies with a Neon Singularity

…Bada Boom!:

Defeat 20 Enemies in a row with Homing Missiles

Fish in a Barrel:

25 Stasis + Weakpoint Kills

Lost:

Suffer a Loss

Cracked:

Endure a Deception

Betrayed:

Experience a Double-cross

She’s Ready:

Complete the story of inFAMOUS First Light

Note: This guide will updated once we have more information about the game. You can also check out the complete video walk-through of inFAMOUS First Light here.

Game Overview:

inFAMOUS First Light puts you in the shoes of Abigail “Fetch” Walker, the non playable character from inFamous Second Son. The game takes a look at her dark past as she remembers the brutal interrogation by Brooke Augustine in Curdun Cay.

inFAMOUS First Light is now available for the PlayStation 4. The game is developed by Sucker Punch Productions and published by Sony.

Check out the video walkthrough of inFAMOUS First Light below and let us know if you have any questions in the comments section below.

For video game guides, tips and wikis, check out our gaming portal here.

inFamous: First Light is the upcoming downloadable only prequel to the just released (and excellent) inFamous: Second Son, the PlayStation 4 exclusive installment of Sucker Punch’s open world action adventure superhero saga. It will be starring Abigail “Fetch” Walker, and we will allegedly get to know more about her past in this prequel.

It will also evidently be a pretty substantial game- it will require 9.3GB on your hard drive, which is nearly half of the 20GB requirement of inFamous: Second Son itself (although still not as massive as the 50GB behemoths that were The Last of Us Remastered or Titanfall).

If you want inFamous: First Light, you’re in luck, as it launches next week (August 26) on the PSN Store for $15. What’s more, you don’t even need the original game to play it, so if you find this game interesting, but Second Son itself does nothing for you? Go for it, you can still play this.

Sony’s Gamescom press conference has begun and it’s been showing off a ton of games already. It showcased new gameplay trailers for From Software’s Bloodborne and Sucker Punch’s inFamous: Second Son DLC First Light. Check them out above.

Bloodborne appears to be a successor to the Dark Souls series and takes place in the village Yharnam. While home to a remedy for many travellers, the town has since become overrun with crazy, violent individuals. There’s a fair number of monsters as well so that’s always a good thing. inFamous: First Light on the other hand is a standalone expansion which focuses on Abigail “Fetch” Walker, who uses Neon powers, and focuses several new areas to explore along with Seattle.

inFamous: First Light will be out on August 27th in downloadable form for the PS4 while Bloodborne is slated to release in 2015. Stay tuned for more information on Sony’s Gamescom conference.

I like this recent trend of taking standalone expansion packs and digital games and then making them available on disc at retail. Nintendo did it with New Super Luigi U, Wii Sports Club, and NES Remix 1+2 for the Wii U, and now Sony is joining in on the fun too. They have announced that inFamous: First Light, the standalone expansion to inFamous: Second Son that follows the adventures of Fetch (a character you meet in Second Son’s campaign), will also be available standalone on disc.

inFamous: First Light is of course the first major expansion for inFamous: Second Son, which in itself was the third installment in Sucker Punch’s series of open world superhero themed action adventure video games. We played inFamous: Second Son at release and quite liked it.

Will you be getting First Light? Will you get it digitally or at retail? Let us know in the comments.

After an enterprising user took a screengrab of the PlayStation Store which claimed that inFamous: First Light, Second Son’s major single-player DLC, would be out on August 26th, Sucker Punch Productions has finally confirmed the same. Some new concept art for the new protagonist Abigail “Fetch” Walker has also been released.

inFamous: First Light sees Fetch take on the DUP in an attempt to destroy their Curden Cay facility. It will also look at her origins and allow you to explore Seattle while taking advantage of Abigail’s own version of Neon powers. How much new content it will add remains to be seen but Sucker Punch is promising lots of “fun content”. We’ll take quality over quantity any day.

inFamous: First Light will be out on August 26th in North America and on August 27th for Europe on the PlayStation 4. Are you excited about playing it? Let us know in the comments.