That said, Sonic Frontiers has three versions slotting into the top 10, with the Switch version taking the fourth spot with over 26,000 units sold, the PS5 version coming in at No. 7 with over 11,000 units sold, and the PS4 version slotting in at No. 8 with over 9,000 units sold. Put together, all three versions outsold Splatoon 3, with a total of over 46,000 sales at launch. That, incidentally, makes it the biggest Japanese launch for a mainline Sonic game since 2001’s Sonic Adventure 2, which sold over 84,000 units upon release.

Arguably the biggest new release of last week was, of course, God of War Ragnarok, which occupies two positions in the top 10 as well, with the PS5 version (No. 3) selling over 29,000 units and the PS4 version (No. 6) selling over 11,000 units. Its collective launch sales of over 40,000 units are the series’ third-highest in Japan to date, falling below God of War 3 (over 44,000 units sold at launch) and 2018’s God of War (over 50,000 units).

Finally, there’s also Tactics Ogre: Reborn, another new release that takes up multiple slots, with the Nintendo Switch version (No. 2) selling over 36,000 units, the PS4 version (No. 5) selling over 12,000 units, and the PS5 version (No. 10) selling over 7,800 units, for a total of over 57,000 units sold. That’s the series’ lowest ever Japanese launch to date, with 1999’s Ogre Battle 64 being the second-lowest (over 103,000 units sold at launch). That said, the remaster has outmatched the launch sales of several other recent Square Enix releases, including the likes of Valkyrie Elysium, Star Ocean: The Divine Force, Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin, Harvestella, and more.

On the hardware side of things, the Nintendo Switch leads the way once again, seeing a slight bump in sales over last week’s figures, with over 97,000 units sold. The PS5 follows behind by a healthy margin, having sold over 28,000 units over the course of the week.

You can check out the full hardware and physical software sales charts for the week ending November 13 below.

Software sales (followed by lifetime sales):

1. [NSW] Splatoon 3 – 43,781 (3,331,197)
2. [NSW] Tactics Ogre: Reborn – 36,783 (New)
3. [PS5] God of War Ragnarok – 29,377 (New)
4. [NSW] Sonic Frontiers – 26,067 (New)
5. [PS4] Tactics Ogre: Reborn – 12,668 (New)
6. [PS4] God of War Ragnarok – 11,260 (New)
7. [PS5] Sonic Frontiers – 11,111 (New)
8. [PS4] Sonic Frontiers – 9,098 (New)
9. [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 8,025 (4,899,259)
10. [PS5] Tactics Ogre: Reborn – 7,805 (New)

Hardware sales (followed by last week’s sales):

• Nintendo Switch – 97,542 (90,478)
• PS5 – 28,716 (13,274)
• Xbox Series X/S – 748 (3,113)

The sheer amount of leaks seemingly took him by surprise, leading Baker to believe that Sony may have a security issue of sorts. “I might be getting some stuff from an angry Greek fellow that’s dabbling in Norse mythology at some point, I don’t know,” he said, hinting that God of War Ragnarok could be leaked next. Whether said source actually delivers and Baker shares it or not remains to be seen.

This certainly lines up with statements by GamingLeaksandRumours moderator Therabbidscot. Speaking to one of the sources that leaked The Last of Us Part 1 last week, they commented, “From what was indicated to us, there’s not just one source it’s leaking for but numerous, and it also sounds like seemingly Ragnarok is also likely.” In another comment, they added, “They also indicated people plan on leaking Ragnarok, so I don’t see this going away overnight.”

God of War Ragnarok is out on November 9th for PS4 and PS5 so it’s certainly possible that leaks could emerge. Stay tuned for more details in the meantime. As for The Last of Us Part 1, it’s out on September 2nd for PS5 with a PC version also in development. Check out the latest official gameplay video here.

The release date announcement comes with a very brief CG trailer. Just half a minute long, the trailer shows Kratos and Atreus fighting against foes in an icy forest, with the end of the trailer confirming (as many had expected) that Jotnar wolf Fenrir, one of Loki’s sons, will indeed be involved in the game. Check out the teaser below.

Given recent concerns regarding whether or not God of War Ragnarok will be able to launch this year as intended, its release date announcement should come as a huge relief to fans. Now we can begin looking forward to it in earnest. The game is out on November 9.

Sony has also unveiled the game’s Collector’s Edition- read more on that through here.

Now, the internet’s favourite new insider seems to be indicating an imminent announcement. Over on Twitter, prominent insider The Snitch recently sent out a cryptic tweet with only a popular God of War gif showing Kratos, though that gif also flashes some digits on the bottom: 1 1 1 1 0. That, interestingly enough, is binary for 30, which might mean that an update – and possibly a release date announcement – is coming on June 30.

That would fall in line with other recent reports as well. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier has claimed that according to sources, God of War Ragnarok is due out sometime in November, and that an announcement for the same is expected later this month.

The Snitch, of course, has an impeccable track record in the short time they’ve been around as well, having accurately leaked a number of things, including The Last of Us Part 1, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion, Persona coming to Xbox, Hollow Knight: Silksong being a day 1 Game Pass game, and much more.

Whether they’re on the money for God of War Ragnarok as well remains to be seen, but we’ll be keeping an eye out for any and all new updates, so stay tuned.

https://twitter.com/insider_wtf/status/1540088506701254656

Speaking to “three people familiar with the game’s development,” two of them revealed to Schreier that Sony is expected to announce a release date later this month. Interestingly, the game has been delayed several times, “both publicly and internally”, due to the developer dealing with production issues and the COVID-19 pandemic (which affected motion capture last year). Though planned for September earlier this year, it was recently shifted to November.

Of course, as Schreier notes in closing, there are no guarantees or certainties in the games industry. God of War Ragnarok could very well face another delay. Nevertheless, it’s on track for November as of this week for PS4 and PS5. Stay tuned for more details and hopefully an official announcement in the coming weeks.

He has now doubled down on that. In the ResetEra thread where he initially shared the aforementioned message, Schreier recently returned to provide another update, saying that as per another, more recent recent conversation with a Sony source, God of War Ragnarok is still targeting a 2022 launch- though of course, as Schreier himself points out, that’s not a guarantee. If there’s anything that these past couple of years have taught us, it’s that you should never bet against delays.

“Heard from another Sony source this morning that the game is not delayed,” Schreier wrote. “As usual, this is not a guarantee that the game will come out in 2022 and video game development is so turbulent that you should never trust a release date until the product in question is in your hands. But this Gamereactor report appears to be false.”

Developer SIE Santa Monica itself has stressed on multiple occasions over the last few months that God of War Ragnarok is going to launch in 2022, while other recent developments, like a classification rating in South Korea as well as retailer listings of merchandise, have indicated that a launch could be not too far away.

As for when that launch arrives, that remains to be seen. A recent update made to the game in the PlayStation Network backend might suggest that the game is targeting a Q4 2022 release, which would make sense, considering the fact that September is already occupied by The Last of Us Part 1.

In response to this, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier said on Resetera, “It’s hard to definitely prove a negative but Someone Who Would Know Firsthand just told me they haven’t heard anything about a slip to 2023, as did Someone Else Who Might Know Secondhand.” Given his answer earlier this year about a delay not happening, this should be some reassurance for fans.

However, if that weren’t enough, Pyo on Twitter noted that the PlayStation Store page for the game had recently been updated. The last time this happened was with Final Fantasy 16, one day before the recent State of Play where a new trailer debuted. This could point towards God of War Ragnarok receiving an announcement at the Summer Game Fest showcase today at 11 AM PT.

As always, take things with a grain of salt and stay tuned for an official announcement.

https://twitter.com/mrpyo1/status/1534605686461681665

Fortunately, it looks like this is very much a trend that Sony wants to turn into something of an industry standard, and the upcoming God of War Ragnarok, which is due out sometime later this year, will be following in the footsteps of other recent PlayStation titles as well. Developer SIE Santa Monica Studio recently published a post on the official PlayStation Blog, in which it revealed a bevy of accessibility features that will be available to players in the action-adventure sequel. With over 60 such tools available, it looks like God of War Ragnarok will feature an impressive collection of accessibility options, and here, we’re going to take a look at some of the key details that were recently revealed.

GOD OF WAR (2018) PC ACCESSIBILITY FEATURES

God of War Ragnarok is bringing over all accessibility features found in its 2018 predecessor, and that includes the game’s PC port, which launched in January this year, as well. What exactly does that entail? It includes the ability to toggle auto sprint, with which you’ll be required to push the analog stick period for a short period for Kratos to begin sprinting. The duration for which the analog stick needs to be pushed forward can also be customized. The game will always feature a “persistent dot” option, which will keep a reticle placed in the center of the screen at all times. The dot will come in three different sizes and seven different colours. Meanwhile, the aim style feature will give you the option to either aim while holding down the aim button (which is the default), or snapping into aim by pressing the button and out of it by pressing it again. You can also do the same with using your shield to block.

SUBTITLES AND CAPTIONS

This in particular is an area where games have started offering a much greater amount of options in recent years, and God of War Ragnarok is following suit. You can expect all the basic stuff, of course, like scaling the size of subtitles and captions, or making speaker names visible, or changing the colour of the text, or having closed captions that describe audio, or setting the opacity of subtitle backgrounds to make them easier to read. Interestingly, players can also set on-screen direction indicators for gameplay-critical sounds and audio effects that will tell you where the sound is coming from. In puzzles that rely on audio cues, for instance, that can come in particularly handy.

MORE OPTIONS FOR SUBTITLES AND CAPTIONS

Many of the aforementioned options for subtitles and captions have been given more nuanced customizability and finetuning options as well. Subtitles, for instance, now have an extra large font available, and the game also has a larger text area similar to subtitle standards in movies or TV, while you can set different sizes for subtitles and for speaker names. Subtitle colours can be set individually for dialogue, captions, and speaker names, with seven different colours available. Closed captions, meanwhile, are available not only for cutscenes, but for gameplay as well, while they can also be enabled to provide important gameplay-related information. Finally, when it comes to background opacity, not only can you choose from multiple opacity options to make the background darker, you can also choose an option that blurs subtitle backgrounds.

TEXT/ICON SIZES

It’s not just the subtitle font size that can be increased in God of War Ragnarok– the game will also allow players to increase the size of text in all menus and the game’s entire UI. Sony Santa Monica says the game has “a fully re-engineered and responsive UI” and “a larger minimum text size that can scale significantly”, which means the UI text can be set to look significantly larger. And it’s not just the text- in-game UI icons can be enlarged as well, so you won’t need to squint at your TV screen to make out what icon you’re looking at or whether or not there even is an icon if you’re sitting a little farther away from it.

REMAPPING

God of War Ragnarok will allow feature extensive controller and input remapping options, which is sure to delight quite a few people. SIE Santa Monica says the game features “a wide range” of preset button layouts (though the exact number hasn’t yet been revealed), which also includes a list of alternate inputs to choose from for various gameplay action. On top of that, custom controller remapping is also going to be available, allowing players to swap and change the functions of individual buttons. Meanwhile, you can also set shortcuts on the touchpad for various gameplay actions, like executing quick turns, enabling and disabling Spartan Rage, and more.

HIGH CONTRAST MODE

Similar to The Last of Us Part 2, God of War Ragnarok will also feature a High Contrast mode. In addition to letting you set background contrast levels, this will also let you apply colours to characters, enemies, targets, items, loot, special effects, paint for guiding traversal, and more. The background can also be desaturated to make focal objects and characters even more plainly visible, and the game will also allow you to set different colours for different items, characters, enemies, and the like. High Contrast mode can also be adjusted to only be enabled during gameplay, so that cutscenes will appear as is, and a separate setting also makes toggling it on and off as simple as a single swipe. When you’re in the game’s menus, however, the mode will be automatically turned off.

ASSISTS

Various other assists are also going to be available in God of War Ragnarok. Navigation assist will let you press a button to automatically orient you in the direction if your objective when outside of combat, while the traversal assist will automate traversal based actions like jumping, vaulting, mantling, and more, so all you’ll have to do is push the analog stick forward. Finally, Assistance+ will cover other movement actions, such as climbing, crawling, and squeezing through gaps.

AUDIO CUES

We’ve already spoken a bit about how God of War Ragnarok is using text-based accessibility features to decrease reliance on audio for those who want or need that, but if you want or need the opposite and would rather rely more on audio, there are going to be options for that as well. Each on-screen prompt for an in-game action, for instance, can be set to have an audio cue, so when you’re close to something you can interact with, or when a button prompt becomes available, the game will give you an audio cue. Meanwhile, combat, too, will make use of audio cues for various things, such as unblockable attacks, aiming, swapping weapons, and more. The volume of each audio cue can be set individually with several sliders.

“A lot of accessibility features require that you change your pipeline of how you’re creating content. [The PC port] allowed us to go back in and relook at how we were actually constructing some of the underlying code.” One example is the addition of auto-sprint in the PC version where the player can customize a certain amount of time that Kratos will move in a direction before sprinting.

“Working on things like keyboard remapping allows us to actually look at how that pipeline functions overall, and carry that forward through all of our SMS [Santa Monica Studio] products. So that will help us to build a better foundation to work off of in future products,” said Pavlin.

Senior technical producer Matt DeWald also said, “PC is just a small sliver of what we want to do for accessibility. It’s the stuff that we could easily do without going back and re-authoring content. But to Mila’s point, accessibility is really important to us. And we want to try to make sure we can support as much as we can. So there are some big plans.”

So while nothing has been confirmed for God of War Ragnarok just yet, the developer is committed to expanding on accessibility. As it stands, Sony’s first party titles have been doing very well on that front especially The Last of Us Part 2 and Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart. The next God of War is currently slated to release this year for PS4 and PS5. A release date hasn’t been revealed though so stay tuned for updates in the coming months.

Specifically, this new trailer focuses on God of War’s ultrawide resolution on PC- and it looks absolutely gorgeous. God of War was already a stunning game when it launched for the PS4, but here, it’s looking even better. The ultrawide resolution in particular is lending an even greater scope to the game and its locations- and God of War, as we all know, is all about the scope. Check out the trailer below.

God of War is launching for PC today, on January 14. You can read our review of the game’s PC version through here.