Plus Palworld: Palfarm is announced and Discord starts rolling out its age verification checks for users in Australia
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SIFTER is produced by Kyle Pauletto, Fiona Bartholomaeus, Courtney Smith, Adam Christou, Chris Button and Naomi Jackson. Cat Jahne is Social Producer, Mitch Loh is Senior Producer and Gianni Di Giovanni is our Executive Producer. Thanks to Audio Technica Australia and Apple for their support of SIFTER.
GIANNI: Hi I’m Gianni Di Giovanni
CAT: and I’m Cat Jahne
GIANNI: Welcome to Walkthrough, SIFTER’s weekly recap on the biggest news in video games.
CAT: This week we wrap Sony’s State of Play, Age verification is coming for Australian Discord users and the Aussie Screen Music award finalists have been announced, including four great games.
Here is the news for Sunday 28th of September. Let’s go!
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PROMO: Join the SIFTER community on Discord at sifter.com.au/discord
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CAT: Sony held their State of Play this week and there were so many announcements.
We finally got a better look at Insomniac’s Wolverine and it looks so good, pretty violent and gory with Logan fighting off bad guys with his adamantium claws, but it looks to be interesting gameplay. We also got to see glimpses of Mystique, Omega Red and a Sentinel unit.
The team revealed that Aussie actor Liam McIntyre known for Taron Malicos in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is playing Wolverine. Nice to see them stick with an Aussie for the character, rip to those Canadian actors hoping to take back their super hero though.
The game is slated to release next year.
GIANNI: We got a better look at Zero Parades for Dead Spies, developed by the team behind Disco Elysium. It's a narrative driven espionage RPG where you play a brilliant but tormented operant on a desperate assignment.
There has been some drama around the developers of ZA/UM after a number of the Disco Elysium‘s creative leads were either fired or left the studio so it’ll be interesting to see how this one goes.
It’s coming out sometime next year.
CAT: Stylish platformer Chronoscript: The Endless End has a hand drawn style with heaps of character, as you bounce from pages and battle massive enemies.
It’s hard not to look at this and feel a bit of Hollow Knight inspiration but it looks very cool.
That’s coming next year.
GIANNI: And finally Saros the scifi third person shooter from Housemarque it looks very fast paced and will change every time you play. If you liked Returnal this looks like a similar vein of gameplay with that roguelike gameplay.
This game has a nice little Aussie link too - Gregory Louden Housemarque’s Creative Director is an Australian and we’ve had him on Lightmap a couple of times too!
There were heaps of other announcements at the State of Play. We’ll leave a link in our show notes.
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GIANNI: Discord has rankled some users this week as it starts rolling out its age verification checks for users in Australia.
The UK already has their Online Safety Act which restricts users under the age of 18, but Australia’s Social Media Minimum Age Regulatory Guidance will block all the children under the age of 16.
Discord asks you to scan your face, taking a selfie where SOMETHING decides if you look old enough to be online, or you can give them your ID.
CAT: Neither of those options seem great, especially as pretty much EVERYONE needs to do this in order to prove they aren’t an impressionable teen.
This week Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman-Grant wrote to another batch of companies, despite the fact that games aren’t supposed to be included, which include Steam and Roblox.
They’ve been asked to assess to see whether or not they should be captured as part of this ban but I’m going to hazard a guess that I know what they are going to say.
Why can’t we also ban boomers who fall for every bit of AI slop on Facebook while we’re at it?
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CAT: The 2025 Aussie Screen Music Awards finalists have been announced and four great games have made the finalists list for Best Music for a Video Game or Other Interactive Media.
First up we have Cedar Jones the composer of Feed the Deep. It’s a lovecraftian roguelike where you dive into procedurally generated undersea caves, and is created by Luke Muscat.
Next on the list is Pinball Spire composed by Starling Tan. The Canadian-made game is an action adventure meets pinball, making your way to the top of a tower and solving its mysteries.
GIANNI: David Barber was nominated for their soundtrack in Rebel Moon: The Descent, a VR game based off Zack Snyder's Rebel Moon, following a group of rebels on a mission that goes wrong.
And finally Tempopo’s composer Jeff van Dyck has also been nominated as a finalist. The cute game is all about music and sound as you rescue musical flowers and populate your melodic garden. You can listen to an episode of Lightmap, our interview show with Jeff, all about Tempopo if you take a look in the feeds, but we’ll pop a link in the show notes.
Such a wide variety of music and composers made it to the list. We’ll leave a link in the show notes to learn more about the games, but keep your fingers crossed for the winners are announced on the 28 October.
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GIANNI: Palworld developer Pocketpair is back again but with a new game called Palworld: Palfarm.
The cozy looking spinoff game has that Harvest Moon or Stardew Valley feel, where you and your pals will farm, craft, give gifts to your friends and shop at your Pal’s shops.
This farming and crafting sim is set on the Palpagos Islands where familiar Pals will join you to build a dream farm.
But unlike the original game, you can’t eat your Pals this time. They’re friends, not food.
CAT: Definitely a lot more wholesome and focuses on making friends and improving your farm, although it’s Palworld so who knows.
However it hasn’t escaped people’s notice that they’ve announced this not long after Pokemon announced their new farming game Pokopia, interesting…
There are new Pals in the game and it looks like there will be a multiplayer option at some point. No release date just yet but it’ll be coming to PC.
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GIANNI: That’s it for the headlines…Here are the games coming out this week.
CAT: Out on the 30th is Lego Party. It’s a multiplayer party game full of wacky challenge zones and minigames set in your favourite LEGO sets such as pirates, space and of course Ninjago. It’s also made by Melbourne’s own SMG studio. Grab it on all platforms on Tuesday.
GIANNI: Also out Tuesday is FINAL FANTASY Tactics - The Ivalice Chronicles. It’s finally here, the long awaited return to the tactics series. Dive back into the story that you love but with new and improved graphics, turn-based mechanics, voice acting and more. You can get that one when it’s out on the 30th on the PlayStation 4 and 5, Nintendo Switch 1 and 2, Xbox Series X|S and PC.
CAT: Explores the stars and galaxies in Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2 on the 2nd of October. It’s probably one of the best of the Mario games and I’m super stoked that it’s being released for the Switch, it’ll be the first time Galaxy 2 has been re-released since it first came out in 2010. The game will have slightly improved graphics, extra Storybook Chapters, a new assist mode and more. Grab it on Switch and Switch 2 on Thursday.
GIANNI: Ghost of Yotei, the highly anticipated sequel to Ghost of Tsushima, is finally out on the 2nd. Set in Japan 329 years after the events of Tsushima, you play as Atsu, a wandering mercenary who adopts the persona of the onryō, a spirit of vengeance in Japanese folklore. Travel the various landscapes to seek revenge on the "Yōtei Six". That’s coming to PlayStation 5 on Thursday.
CAT: Get ready to digivolve in the Digimon Story: Time Stranger. Unravel a mystery that spans across the human world and the Digital World, collecting and raising a variety of Digimon in order to save the day. It’s out PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC on the 3rd.
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PROMO: Articles to read, videos to watch and podcasts to listen to on sifter.com.au
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CAT: This has been Walkthrough by SIFTER, my name is Cat Jahne.
GIANNI: And my name is Gianni Di Giovanni, thank you so much for listening.
CAT: We’re taking the next two weeks off as it’s Melbourne International Games Week, most of the SIFTER crew will be there so it’s a great time to join us on socials @sifterHQ or head to our website. We’ll have stacks of interesting games and events to show off so make sure you’re following along. That’s SifterHQ on Instagram, Tiktok, YouTube and our website is sifter.com.au
GIANNI: SIFTER is produced by Fiona Bartholomaeus, Cat Jahne, Naomi Jackson, Kyle Pauletto, Adam Christou and Chris Button. Mitch Loh is Senior Producer and my name is Gianni Di Giovanni I’m SIFTER’s Executive Producer and script editor.
CAT: Thanks to Brian Fairbanks from Salty Dog Sounds for composing the Walkthrough theme tune, and Audio Technica Australia and Apple for their support of SIFTER’s podcasts.
GIANNI: We’ll be back with more news next Sunday, see you then.
