With the latest update to Grounded, backyard adventurers who’ve played on PCs since launch can now team up with other gamers across Xbox, PlayStation 4|5 and Nintendo Switch via cross-platform play.
The “Fully Yoked” update turns your backyard into an epic adventure with the arrival of royal Ant Queens, 12 new Ant Queen-inspired buildings and a new Game+ mode. Playground mode now offers even more control and options for crafting your unique backyard.
Pre-order Frostpunk 2 Deluxe Edition to join the sandbox Beta.
Part of the new Utopia Builder mode with unique challenges.
Available now on PC now through April 22.
The Frostpunk 2 development team is excited to offer players a chance to return to the unforgiving Frostlands and experience a glimpse of our ambitious sequel, where in addition to the need to survive, you face the new, deadly threat of human nature and its insatiable thirst for power. The Beta features a part of the sandbox mode called the Utopia Builder Preview.
While the original Frostpunk launched without a sandbox mode, it quickly became one of the community’s top requests. Hence, we introduced the Endless mode, allowing players to expand endlessly. Witnessing players spend over 500 hours or more in the game has been truly inspiring for us.
From the outset, we knew a variation of the sandbox mode was essential for Frostpunk 2. As we believe Frostpunk 2 represents a significant step forward for the franchise, each aspect of the game needed expansion. For the sandbox experience, we aimed to infuse it with a richer narrative and other unique aspects specific to Frostpunk 2.
Thirty years after the Great Storm, which concluded the first game’s storyline, humanity has partially tamed the weather. So making a blizzard in a sequel even bigger than the one in the first Frostpunk wouldn’t feel satisfying, creative, or exciting for you as a player. It is impossible to tell the story of social change of ambitions without changing the scale. Thus, the time flow in the game transitions from hours and days to weeks, months, and years, and players oversee the creation of entire districts, emphasizing societal survival and shaping. Frostpunk 2 continues an approach to be a society survival type of strategy game but also places greater emphasis on how this society is shaped.
With the absence of immediate survival pressure, citizens began to contemplate a different future, leading to varied visions among factions. As the new Steward, you are tasked with building a council representative of these factions. The ideological conflict is also present in the Utopia Builder Preview mode, demanding players reconcile conflicting interests and navigate societal complexities.
Mismanagement could lead to catastrophe while allowing ambitions to grow unchecked can foster social conflicts. Ultimately, human nature can lead to the city’s downfall, where one’s utopia may become another’s dystopia.
PreorderFrostpunk 2: Deluxe Edition today, and unlock the Utopia Builder mode with sandbox Betafor PC. Explore, create, and survive through April 22!
Purchase the Deluxe Edition to receive the base game along with future access to a time-limited beta, early access to the full game, 3 future DLCs, and some cool additional content.
The beta access and the early access version of the game will be available exclusively for players who pre-ordered the deluxe pack. Beta access will include a limited, 7-day access to a fragment of the game’s sandbox mode (Utopia Builder) in April 2024. Frostpunk 2: Deluxe Edition gives you early access to story mode 72 hours before the game’s full release. Owners of this edition of Frostpunk 2 will receive 3 DLCs for the game directly after their releases.
The deluxe pack also includes a digital version of the novella Warm Flesh from the upcoming Frostpunk anthology, as well as access to a digital artbook, the game’s epic soundtrack, and an exclusive in-game item.
Features:
BASE GAME
ACCESS TO UTOPIA BUILDER PREVIEW
(part of the sandbox mode, available 15-22.04)
3 DLCs (PAID POST-RELEASE CONTENT)
PLAY STORY MODE 72H BEFORE RELEASE
EXCLUSIVE IN-GAME ITEM
“WARM FLESH” NOVELLA (DIGITAL VERSION / PART OF THE UPCOMING FROSTPUNK ANTHOLOGY)
DIGITAL ARTBOOK & SOUNDTRACK
How The Riders Market Addition is Turning MotoGP 24 Into the Most Authentic Entry Yet
Summary
MotoGP24 will feature the Riders Market for the first time in the history of the franchise
Both AI and players might be proposed to change teams, including promotion between classes
MotoGP24 will be available on May 2, 2024, on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One
As the Lead Designer, working on a series like MotoGP is extremely challenging. Our goal has always been to replicate as closely as possible the real competition and finding room for innovative improvements is not easy. However, this is also what makes our job special and the reason why I’m so proud of the hefty experience MotoGP 24 will deliver to our fans, whose voices have become more and more central in shaping the series.
Since In the last year, we’ve met our players’ requests like never before by introducing Dynamic Weather and Flag-to-Flag races. This year, we’re following the same path by adding what is probably the most requested and long-awaited feature by the community, as MotoGP 24 career mode marks the introduction of the Riders Market. Here’s how it’s going to change the game for the better.
Starting this year, riders of all categories will be able to change teams, including promotion between classes. This way, players will see roster updates in every in-game season, thus finding exciting new challenges and scenarios to experience every year. The possibilities are endless, as both the AI and players might be proposed to change teams as seasons progress. Importantly, we designed the feature with the intent of offering different but always plausible championships. The Riders Market is based on a set of algorithms that generate transfers weaving the riders’ performance with the prestige and aspirations of each team. Consequently, riders are considered differently by teams based on their past results and the goals they want to achieve. For instance, a rising star like Jorge Martin might be called to bring the Repsol Honda Team back to the top after many difficult years.
Notably, since last year the career mode has become much more dynamic thanks to the introduction of turning points and rivalries, thus revolving around the performances and choices of each player. The Riders Market will follow and accentuate such a philosophy; if the player achieves excellent results in a minor team, he could even steal the seat of a real rider in a top team forcing him to find another contract. If he doesn’t, he will be excluded from the next season but could still come back after one or two years in case a struggling team needs an experienced rider to help with the development of the bike.
Likewise, if a team underperforms, riders will look for something better. Imagining the Ducati Lenovo Team losing competitiveness over the years, its top rider Francesco Bagnaia might look around. Just like in real life, his choice will not only be determined by the current values of the other bikes on the grid, but future perspectives will count as well. If the Aprilia Factory Racing Team obtains steadily convincing performances proving to be on the upswing, it might be able to sign the Italian champion despite not being an immediate contender for the title.
Moreover, players’ behavior on and off the track will greatly influence Riders’ Market dynamics. As I mentioned earlier, last year we introduced a rivalry system as well as a fictional social network where riders, teams, and manufacturers interact with each other. The evolution of rivalries as well as likes and replies on the fictional social network will fuel rumors about possible future transfers, which players will be able to keep an eye on through a dedicated menu of the career mode.
The Riders Market is the last major piece we needed to fully shape the game and the series itself, and I can’t wait to see our fans getting the most out of it. Will there be a day when we see the young, predestined Pedro Acosta challenging the eight-time World Champion Marc Marquez in the same team? Or maybe we are about to witness Fabio Quartararo’s new legacy away from Yamaha? History is still to be written.
MotoGP 24 will be available on May 2, 2024, on PlayStation5, PlayStation4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Steam.
Dead Island 2’s new SoLA expansion introduces players – sorry, Slayers – to a whole new side of Hell-A: an all-American festival where the stage is set for some of the game’s most gruesome zombie slaughter yet. The crowds of rotting, shambling festivalgoers will provide endless zombie-slaying hits, but where would any festival be without its headline acts?
Enter the Whipper and the Clotter, two brand new, powerful Apex Variants designed to give even the most experienced Slayers some serious frights and fights.
On the one hand, you have the Whipper, an undead bohemian that’s swapped festival glam for guts. In fact, she’ll flail you with her intestines or try to blind you with a handful of thrown entrails.
On the other you have the Clotter, a brutal zombie that can decompose and recompose at will. This big guy can effectively teleport in and out of the player’s space, making it hard to maintain visibility and control.
“The starting point was always the mechanics of the two new archetypes,” says Dambuster Studio’s Associate Character Art Director, Richard Smith. “They both offer completely new behaviors never seen before in the Dead Island enemy roster.”
Whippers are fast-moving, mid-ranged enemies with powerful attacks and special abilities that can stop Slayers using their own Fury powers. Clotters hound the Slayer, keeping them under constant pressure and unable to dominate one position.
Putting flesh on the bones
To create the new enemies for the expansion, the team started out with a range of zombie concepts, then whittled them down to the final two. The basic concepts were fleshed out into concept art, always making sure that the new zombies would fit into the Dead Island universe and feel plausible within its blood-splattered, body horror aesthetic.
“In the case of the Whipper,” says Smith, “we had the call out that they would be self-mutilating intestine wielders. Filled with frustration at the zombie infection within, they’ve attempted to remove it, gouging out their own innards and becoming entangled in their own intestines, which are used to extend their attacking reach like an organic web.”
To tie the Whipper in with the expansion’s festival style, the team looked to the social media imagery associated with big American festivals, and the boho chic fashion styles you’d find on the festival ground. “We’re focusing on the visual storytelling and signposting the enemy,” Smith explains, “and we want to ground the player in the location and make sure it fits in with the vibe.”
As the art development progressed, new ideas emerged, which also fed back into the design. “For example, we wanted the Whipper to thrash around violently and indiscriminately,” Smith adds. “To add to the torment, we gave the character hands that are frozen in a rigor mortis, so they’re almost forced to thresh around.”
Slayers get a new nightmare
Meanwhile, the Clotter let the studio push what could be done with Dead Island 2’s F.L.E.S.H. system – the super-gory technology that allows Slayers to break zombies down into bloody chunks of flesh and bone. The team knew they wanted a teleporting zombie, but wanted to avoid any sci-fi stuff that wouldn’t fit in with the game’s more grounded style.
F.L.E.S.H. provided the answer. “We really wanted to find a way to use these features, to make the Clotter completely disintegrate in front of the player’s eyes and then reassemble from a puddle of meaty goo,” Smith explains.
As this enemy needed to move fast, the team steered clear of over-elaborate effects. “We were able to squeeze in a glimpse of the skeleton falling to pieces and the gloopy flesh turning into liquid around the bones, but it takes a lot of work back and forth to balance it – to make sure it all happens at the right place for the gameplay.”
The Clotterleans into the storyline at the heart of the new expansion. “And the festival background is an ideal location for it,” adds Smith, “in terms of the quantities of gore and body parts that are lying around, waiting to be reanimated.”
There are always some ideas that don’t fit in with Dead Island 2’s zombie-first focus, or with the personality of its slapstick splatter. “It’s tough, but we love the challenge,” says Smith. “We like creating things for the game that you won’t have ever seen before.”
I don’t know about you, but I think the 1980s are awesome! Big hair, big shoulder pads, and huge hits. So we put together a mixtape: Synth Riders 80s Mixtape – Side A… and it’s coming to the PlayStation VR2 on April 23.
We picked five favorites from the 80s, then created dancy beat maps inspired by the era. So, whether you came up in Gen X, or just learned about this stuff from YouTube videos and Stranger Things, we’ve got some new Synth Riders add-on tracks for you to take on.
80s Mixtape – Side A features:
a-ha – Take on Me
Starship – We Built This City
Devo – Whip It
Phil Collins – Sussudio
INXS – New Sensation
and….
Free 1980s-inspired Endless Cafe Stage for all Synth Riders owners
The only thing that screams, “Totally 80s” more than the music is the looks of the era. I was talking with Esteban Meneses, 3D Artist on Synth Riders, about what it’s like recapturing a party from 40 years ago:
“It’s like trying to capture a melody that everyone remembers a bit differently. Some might remember the neon glow of arcade games, others the revolutionary sound of synth-pop, or the emergence of digital culture. Our challenge is making sure it feels authentic whether you lived through the ’80s or experienced it secondhand.”
That’s why the team took inspiration from the ’50s café vibes with the fun of ’80s bowling alleys, then sprinkled in some retro-futuristic flair. Kind of like how in Back to the Future II people looked back at the 1980s (from 2015!).
Of course, it wouldn’t be the ‘80s without lots of pink, light blue, and chrome shine. “We wrapped these colors around the stage for that classic ’80s pop. It’s all about mixing these unique elements – colors, luxury, and design – into the game’s world to spark that retro feel.”
Alright, enough talk. It’s time to slip on some bangles (or your controllers) and get ready to relive five totally awesome 80s tracks on Synth Riders 80s Mixtape – Side A!
The new Add-Ons will be available for download as a pack ($7.99) or as individual tracks ($1.99/song) on April 23..
P.S. As you gathered from the name of the pack, this is just side “A.” We’re working on assembling another Mixtape, but we’d love to hear from you. What are YOUR favorite things that came out of the 1980s?