CUPHEAD

Let’s start with one that’s actually always been cheap. Studio MDHR’s Cuphead is a modern run ‘n gun classic, boasting stellar art and animations, devilishly punishing yet brilliantly designed boss fights, and a healthy amount of content, with the entire package setting you back just $20. Throw in another $8, and you can also purchase its excellent expansion, The Delicious Last Course.

MONSTER HUNTER WORLD

Capcom sells its back catalog titles better than most other companies out there, and just as responsible for that as their enduring quality is the prices they drop down to. Monster Hunter World, Capcom’s highest selling game of all time, is currently prices at $20, which, for a game as good as it is and as much content it has, is a ridiculously good price.

RESIDENT EVIL 7

Another relatively older Capcom title that has lost none of its luster in the years since its launch, Resident Evil 7 is a game that also keeps on selling, and looking at its price, it’s easy to see why. Sure, it may not be the hundred-hour romp that Monster Hunter World is, but can you really turn your nose up at one of the best survival horror games of all time being sold for just $20?

THE EVIL WITHIN

We’ll stick with the survival horror genre here, and turn our attention to a nearly-decade old game that perhaps doesn’t get the sort of love it deserves. For fans of the over-the-shoulder Resident Evil formula, The Evil Within is an absolute must-play, thanks to its incredible atmosphere and relentlessly tense combat. At just $20, the game’s an absolute bargain, and one that any genre fan should be pouncing on.

STARDEW VALLEY

Indie darling Stardew Valley has never really been a costly game, given the fact that it’s, well, an indie game, which means it’s always been an absolute steel. Being sold at $15, this is a game that you can pour literally hundreds upon hundreds of hours into. Want to manage and expand your farm? Want to hang out with cool characters and deepen your bonds with them? Want to go exploring caves? In Stardew Valley, you can do all of this and more.

HOLLOW KNIGHT

You may have heard Hollow Knight being called one of the greatest games ever made by many, and trust us, that’s not an exaggeration in the slightest. This grueling Metroidvania masterpiece is an astounding piece of art, representing game design, music, art, and everything else in between at their absolute zenith. Again, by virtue of being an indie game, Hollow Knight has always offered incredible value for money, as it does right now for a price of just $15.

UNCHARTED: THE NATHAN DRAKE COLLECTION

The original Uncharted trilogy is pretty old at this point (he said while setting down his walking cane), but Naughty Dog’s action-adventure games are still worth going back to, not least because of the excellent remastering work that Bluepoint Games did with The Nathan Drake Collection on PS4. The collection can be bought for the price of just $20, which gives you access to not one, but three riotously enjoyable games, making it a pretty sweet deal all in all.

THE LAST OF US REMASTERED

Naughty Dog loves going back to The Last of Us, but even though we do have a full-fledged remake as an option on PS5, the PS4 remaster that launched in 2014 is still an excellent deal. It looks excellent and still plays great (not to mention the fact that it runs at 60 FPS), and can be purchased for $20. For that price, you also get access to the widely beloved Factions multiplayer mode, so in many ways, it’s actually a better option than the PS5 remake for those looking to go back to this modern classic.

GOD OF WAR

A much more recent entry than some of the other games we’ve spoken about on this list, 2018’s God of War is a game that people are going to keep going back to for years- something that is price is only bound to make easier. For a price of $20, you can dive into the action-adventure game’s rollercoaster, emotional journey, which combines narrative and action gameplay in one of the best PS4 experiences ever.

HORIZON ZERO DAWN

Speaking of landmark first party PS4 titles, Horizon Zero Dawn is another stellar game that you can dive into for a surprisingly low price right now. Guerrilla’s post-apocalyptic open world action RPG is retailing for a price of just $20 on PS4 right now, which is more than a reasonable price for a game that you can clock dozens of hours in. On PC, however, it’s priced at $50, so there’s definitely some disparity in its cross-platform pricing.

GEARS OF WAR 3

Yes, Gears of War 3 is more than a decade old, but it still remains one of the best third person shooters we’ve ever played, to the extent that even many much more recent ones can’t hold a candle to it. With an excellent campaign and addictive multiplayer offerings, at a price of just $12, the Xbox 360 title is almost unreasonably cheap right now. On Xbox Series X, in fact, it even benefits from visual and technical boosts, so if you haven’t played this masterpiece, now is the time to jump in.

GRAND THEFT AUTO 5

Nearly eleven years on from launch, Grand Theft Auto 5 keeps selling better than most games do instantly upon release, and doubtless, its reasonable pricing has had a hand to play in that. Currently being sold for a price of $20 on Xbox and PlayStation, the open world game is one that you can pour countless hours into without even the hint of boredom. We’re about a year away (and hopefully no more than that) from Grand Theft Auto 6, so if somehow you still haven’t played GTA 5, now’s the time.

BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT

Rocksteady Studios’ Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League might not be what so many wanted the studio’s next game to be, but you can always go back to its older releases to remind yourself of why the studio is as beloved as it is. Batman: Arkham Knight has had some pretty rough luck with its platform-specific versions on PC and Nintendo Switch, but on PlayStation and Xbox, it’s still an incredible game to go back to- not least because you can do so for just $20 right now.

BLOODBORNE

Whether or not we’ll ever get a Bloodborne remaster, port, or even 60 FPS patch (much less a sequel) is anyone’s guess (though signs point to a big, fat no), but thankfully, FromSoftware’s eldritch horror action RPG is a stellar game even in its original form, even today. Like a number of other first party PlayStation titles we’ve mentioned here, it can be purchased for just $20, which, for what’s irrefutably one of the greatest games ever made, is a shockingly good price.

METAL GEAR SOLID 5

Metal Gear Solid 5’s legacy will always be a complicated one for so many reasons, but one thing that’s hard to dispute is that, for all its flaws (of which it has many), it’s somehow still an absolute masterpiece in more ways than one, from its timeless emergent stealth gameplay to the incredible design it sports across its many missions. Diving into all of that and more for a price of just $20 is more than a fair deal, to say the very least.

While cases of COVID-19 have started to level off on a global level, we still don’t have a good time frame for when this pandemic will end. It’s been frustrating for many stuck at home, but as a small sliver of a silver lining it has given lots of time for people to enjoy their favorite forms of entertainment, or try to at the very least. Many companies are giving out free games, and Sony has a pretty nice offering to encourage you to stay at home for the next month.

As announced via the official PlayStation blog, Sony will give out free to keep copies of both Journey and Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection, which collects the first three remastered Uncharted games, for all PS4 users. It’s part of what the company is calling their “Play At Home” initiative to encourage people to stay at home during the pandemic. It’s worth noting that users in China and Germany will get Knack 2 instead of The Nathan Drake Collection.

Both titles will be free starting April 15th and will be available to download on PlayStation 4 until May 5th. For those who have PlayStation Plus, you can also download Uncharted 4 as well.

Christmas may be past but PlayStation Plus is ringing in the new year with its next free offerings. Naughty Dog’s Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection and Coffee Stain Studios’ Goat Simulator will be available free to PS Plus subscribers. They’ll be available from January 7th to February 3rd.

Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection alone provides fantastic value. It’s a remastered collection of the first three games – Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. Remastered by Bluepoint Games, it’s the perfect introduction to the series and a collection of some of the best games ever made.

Goat Simulator is a different kind of revolutionary, as players control a goat in a world of awry physics. Stick your tongue on cars, bounce on trampolines and blow up gas stations. Why? Why not? As a jokey kind of game, Goat Simulator is great for killing a few hours. Check out the trailer below to see both titles in action.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is garnering positive reviews. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is revitalizing interest in the franchise. Even Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is pretty good. Heck, even among the exclusives for PlayStation 4, Spider-Man has been raking it in, and has a new DLC pack, The Heist, available now.

However, if you’re interested in playing some of the older titles on PS4 at a discount, then there’s good news- Sony will be adding 16 games to the PlayStation Hits line-up on November 2nd. That means older titles which have been successful enough will retail for $19.99, just in time for the Holiday season. The full list of games for November includes:

• Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection
• Until Dawn
• Batman: Arkham Knight
• Need for Speed Rivals
• UFC 2
• Need for Speed
• Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Game of the Year Edition
• Dying Light: The Following
• Lego Marvel Super Heroes
• Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2
• Earth Defense Force 4.1: The Shadow of New Despair
• Mortal Kombat X
• Injustice
• Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends
• Battlefield Hardline
• Dragon Age: Inquisition

So if you’re interested in the PlayStation Hits version of the above, look for their special red packaging. Other titles that have been added to the line-up (for the United States) include Bloodborne, DriveClub, LittleBigPlanet 3, The Last of Us: Remastered, Uncharted 4 and much more. At $20, picking up titles like Mortal Kombat X, Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection, and Dragon Age Inquisition is a steal, if we’ve ever seen one.

Bluepoint Games, which is reputed for its current gen ports like Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection on PS4, is working on a new project. As per job listings on its website, Bluepoint is currently “remaking a classic for current-gen game systems.”

Furthermore, technical director Peter Dalton on LinkedIn noted that the studio’s current project was “another amazing UNANNOUNCED project to please the masses.”

Bluepoint has quite a stellar record to its credit like God of War Collection, The Ico and Shadow of the Colossus Collection, Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, Titanfall for the Xbox 360 and Gravity Rush Remastered.

Given how most its ports and remasters have been for PlayStation, could this be yet another Sony title getting the remaster treatment? It certainly seems possible but then “current-gen game systems” wouldn’t be mentioned in plural.

We’ll know for certain in the coming weeks but what would you like to see? Stay tuned and let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Sony is pulling a deal out of Microsoft’s playbook- this holiday season, for stragglers who may have missed out on their holiday shopping on Black Friday or Cyber Monday, they will be offering some highly attractive PS4 bundles at some great, unbeatable prices.

You can pick up either the Uncharted: Nathan Drake Collection PS4 bundle for $299 (a price it has been selling at for over a week now), or you can pick up the Star Wars Battlefront PS4 bundle for the same price. You don’t have forever to do this, though, since the prices are only in effect until December 19, at which point they presumably revert to the system’s standard $350 price point.

But yeah, considering that Battlefront is one of the biggest games of this year, and that you can get it, and a PS4, for $50 less than you ordinarily would get just the PS4? Yeah, Sony is going in for the kill here.

Even as so many PS Vita games seem to be making the jump to the PS4 – Media Molecule’s charming Tearaway transitioned to the PS4 as Tearaway Unfolded, while Sony Japan’s Gravity Rush is also being remastered for Sony’s console ahead of the launch of the PS4 exclusive sequel – Sony Bend’s Uncharted: Golden Abyss remains conspicuous by its absence. The lack of a PS4 port or remaster for Golden Abyss is even more puzzling when you consider that the recently released Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection would have presented Sony with the prime opportunity to justify a PS4 port of the Vita launch title.

Even though the Nathan Drake Collection did not ultimately include a port of the Vita game, it is not entirely out of the question. Speaking to Finder, Arne Meyer, Community Strategist for Naughty Dog, hinted that a PS4 version for the game might not be entirely out of the question.

“I think that’s not completely out of the question. I mean it’s not entirely up to us, obviously. I think I was asked this at Eurogamer Expo and Shuhei Yoshida was sitting in the front row and I pitched it off on him and I was like, “you have to go talk to Shu about this,” which is what the case is. But it’s definitely not out of the question. I mean anything is possible. I know there hasn’t been talk about that recently, but there’s no reason why it can’t happen either.”

Personally, I would be pretty down for something like this, if only because I really want to play the game without any of the gimmicks that the developers felt compelled to include in it to justify the Vita’s touch screen, camera, gyroscope, and rear touch pad. I have a feeling Golden Abyss would be a better game without any of that.

Despite being out for a few days at the end of the month, 343 Industries’ Halo 5: Guardians topped software sales in the United States according to the NPD’s report for October 2015. This isn’t counting digital sales as usual.

Interestingly software sales were at $337.7 million compared to October 2014 which were at $349.9, indicating a 3 percent decline. NPD analyst Liam Callahan said this indicated that “hardware as console sales were offset by a 42 percent decline in portable sales. While console sales were up a modest 1 percent, 8th generation consoles had a strong month with 62 percent growth over October 2014 while 7th generation console sales dropped by 63 percent–higher than the year-to-date decrease in sales of 51 percent.

“Another cause for the decrease in October new physical sales was the 4 percent decrease in dollar sales for new launches. New launch weakness, coupled with a 5 percent drop in the performance of Q3 launches, led to the overall category decline of 3 percent.”

Other new titles included NBA 2K16 (2nd place), Assassin’s Creed Syndicate (3rd place), WWE 2K16 (5th place), Yoshi’s Wooly World (8th place), Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection (9th place) and Rock Band 4 (10th place).

Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End was one of the many stars at the Sony’s Paris Games Week show but not quite like in past showings. Instead of the story, Sony showcased the game’s multiplayer and how it would ultimately work, emphasizing cover based shooting and verticality.

While Naughty Dog has said there won’t be dedicated servers for the game (instead focusing on peer-to-peer networking), it will be bringing all new maps to the experience. Lead multiplayer designer Robert Cogburn said, “They’re going to be new maps” and also confirmed that there would be no re-hashes from previous games. The dev seems to be “shooting for” eight maps though it wasn’t clear if these would be all present at launch.

Uncharted 4’s multiplayer beta will begin on December 4th and is accessible to those who picked up Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection. It will include team deathmatch, allowing players a chance to try out its mechanics. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End releases in March 2016.

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If you want to port your games – whether that be up-porting to a system with a higher baseline spec, or downporting to an older, weaker system – Bluepoint Games is the studio you want to go to. Based in Austin, Texas, these guys have been responsible for some of the best high profile remasters and downports of the last few years, including, most recently, Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection for the PlayStation 4.

But what is next for them? Do they plan on continuing with their porting as a primary line of business?

“It’s been great to see the reception of UNDC so far,” said Marco Thrush, Bluepoint owner and CTO to Eurogamer. “There was a lot of ground to cover in the three games, and it’s not until the collection was released that we could sit back and feel a sense of accomplishment.

“We’re enjoying a short breather and are very excited to get into our next project. It’s a bit of a different kind of project this time around, and we’re very excited about the new challenges it brings.”

I’m pretty excited to see just what Bluepoint Games might do next- they have the technical chops, that is for sure. But can they translate that to some good game design too? (Considering that a lot of the developers are from the team that developed the seminal Metroid Prime, the answer is yes, yes they can).