Plus Phasmophobia is getting a movie and highlights from State of Play and Summer Games Fest
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SIFTER is produced by Kyle Pauletto, Fiona Bartholomaeus, Courtney Smith, Adam Christou and Chris Button. 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.
KYLE: Hi I’m Kyle Pauletto
FIONA: and I’m Fiona Bartholomaeus
KYLE: Welcome to Walkthrough, SIFTER’s weekly recap on the biggest news in video games.
FIONA: This week its announcement city with Summer Games Fest and PlayStation State of Play, and my favourite horror game is being made into a film.
Here is the news for Sunday 8th of June. Let’s go!
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PROMO: Join the SIFTER community on Discord at sifter.com.au/discord
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KYLE: Summer Games Fest is an absolute gold mine of new game news, and we of course can’t dig through absolutely everything here, but let's go for some of our favourites.
Resident Evil 9 has a name it’s called Requiem and takes players back to the place where it all began, Raccoon City. It’s spooky and it’ll arrive on consoles and PC on the 26th of February next year.
A couple of retro styled games to keep an eye on, Mina The Hollower from the developers of Shovel Knight is a gameboy color zelda style title which was crowdfunded a few years ago now, if you played Link’s Awakening or the Zelda Oracle games you’ll see something familiar here. Pick that up on the 31st of October.
And Retro fanboys Tribute Games are launching a new Scott Pilgrim beat em up called Scott Pilgrim EX! Musicians Annamanaguchi, Aussie artist Paul Robertson and comic creator Bryan Lee O’Malley are all on board. That’s out next year.
FIONA: In a nice little bit of Australian news PlaySide Studios who are based in Melbourne are working on Game of Thrones: War for Westeros, it retells the story of the books, but you can change the way it unfolds. Want the Night King and his chilly mates to win? You can. It’s a classic real time strategy game too which is neat. That’s out next year, but we’ll try bring you more soon
We also got another look at the Melbourne made Mixtape, from Beethoven and Dinosaur which is a teen coming of age story with some cool skating and cool tunes. Still no release date for this one but do yourself a favour and check it out.
And finally our friends at SMG studio are making Lego party, they’re in Sydney and are the developers of Moving Out 1 and 2. It’s basically Mario Party but with Lego so there you go! That’s coming out on everything later this year!
KYLE: Here is a race through the rest - Atomic Heart 2 is coming out, and there is a MMO FPS called the Cube set in the same universe.
FIONA: Code Vein 2 is the sequel to their vampiric souls-like that’s coming out next year.
KYLE: and finally the Yakuza and Like A Dragon developers Ryu Ga Gotoku are making a detective game set in 1943 Japan called Stranger Than Heaven.
FIONA: There are plenty more, we’ll put a few wrap ups in the shownotes for you to check out.
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KYLE: It’s finally happening, Final Fantasy Tactics is officially getting a remake and it’ll be out in September.
A full trailer and release date was revealed at the PlayStation State of Play for Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles, showing upgraded graphics and UI, various quality of life features, and fully voiced dialogue.
But that’s not just it. This game also comes with a classic version which has the graphics and gameplay of the original game plus the renowned War of Lions translations, plus of course a new auto save feature.
Fans are understandably excited that this strategy game is finally coming back to consoles since its original release in 1997.
FIONA: With the announcement, Square Enix published various statements from the remaster’s developers online and one in particular has caught a lot of attention.
Yasumi Matsuno, writer and director of the original game, said that he created the story in a time in Japan’s economic stagnation where a lot of people were robbed of hope, and now in a time when inequality and division are still deeply rooted in our society he’s offering the story again.
We’ll leave his statement in the shownotes for you to have a read.
You’ll be able to grab it on PlayStation and Steam when it launches on September 30.
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FIONA: Speaking of PlayStation, there were so many other games announced at their State of Play this week.
One that I’m pretty keen on is Sword of the Sea made by the developers of Abzu and the Pathless. It looks absolutely gorgeous. You’ll be surfing across waves of sand and water as you attempt to restore a lost ocean.
That’s out on August 19.
KYLE: After 5 long years we finally got a trailer and release date for Capcom’s long-delayed sci-fi action game Pragmata. Set in the near future you play as Hugh and his android companion Diana, using hacking abilities to make their way past enemies and through a lunar research station.
The final clip of the trailer is a hand-written note which has the date 2022 crossed out with the words ‘very sorry’ before it transforms into the words ‘2026, it’s real’. At least they can poke fun at themselves.
FIONA: Marvel has a new fighter game on the way called Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls made by Arc System Works. It’s a 4v4 tag fighter and has a pretty cool almost cartoon art style. That’s coming to PlayStation 5 and PC next year.
KYLE: And the samurai action RPG Nioh got a surprise announcement during the event.
Developed by Team Ninja, Nioh 3 is the next installment in the series and you’ll be exploring an open world, using both samurai and ninja combat styles to combat yokai.
Nioh 3 is set to be released next year but there is a demo out already for PS5.
FIONA: As always there were a bunch of other games announced and new release dates revealed. We’ll put a link to the State of Play in our shownotes.
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FIONA: In spooky news my fav co-op game Phasmophobia is getting a movie.
Developer Kinetic Games announced it on their blog this week and it’s going to be produced by Blumhouse, the studio behind M3GAN and Five Nights at Freddy's, and James Wan’s company Atomic Monster, which was behind Annabelle, The Nun and The Conjuring.
KYLE: With some big names behind the film it could be quite the scary movie, although in saying that, there’s not a huge amount of plot or lore in the game so they could literally do any sort of ghost hunting film and call it Phasmophobia.
FIONA: My only wish is that they incorporate the different evidence, ghost speeds and abilities in the movie so we can sit there at home and piece it all together to work out if it’s a Demon or Wraith.
I did see a great comment online saying imagine if we watched the whole movie thinking it was one kind of ghost and then we get to the end credits and it was a Mimic all along.
I’m not a horror movie person but I actually can’t wait to see what they do with this.
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FIONA:That’s it for the headlines, here are the games coming out this week.
KYLE: Up first is the highly anticipated Dune: Awakening. It’s a massive multiplayer survival game set in an alternate Dune universe where Paul Atreides was never born. It looks fantastic, and early reviews have been pretty positive. Grab is on PC, Xbox, or PlayStation on the 10th.
FIONA: Also out on the 10th we have MindsEye, a brand new linear third person action adventure where you play as an enhanced soldier in a future city. That’s out on PC, Xbox, or PlayStation this Tuesday.
KYLE: The massively popular, previously PlayStation exclusive Stella Blade is coming to PC this week. If you like hot girls fighting big flesh monsters, you freak, then all your dreams are answered. That’s out this Wednesday.
FIONA: Next up is a really interesting looking new IP, The Alters. It’s a mix of survival, action adventure, and base building in a sci-fi setting. Picture the resource collecting and setting of No Mans Sky with the base building management of Fallout Shelter or Xcom. Grab is on PC, Xbox, or PlayStation on the 13th
KYLE: And finally, Five Nights at Freddys is branching out with the latest in the series, titled Secret of the Mimic. This time it’s a free roam horror story which is just a very scary thought. Or maybe being able to run away is better? Who knows, I’m too afraid to play either way! If you’re not a big coward, pick up Secret of the Mimic on PC or PlayStation 5 this Friday.
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FIONA: This has been Walkthrough by SIFTER, my name is Fiona Bartholomaeus.
KYLE: And my name is Kyle Pauletto, thank you so much for listening.
FIONA: There has been a bit of news this week with Summer Games Fest and State of Play but can we encourage you to check out Frosty Games Fest? It’s all local Australian and Kiwi titles, you know we love the local teams. You can search for Frosty Games Fest online, or it’ll be available to watch in full not long after this episode drops.
KYLE: SIFTER is produced by myself, Fiona Bartholomaeus, Cat Jahne, Adam Christou, Courtney Smith and Chris Button. Mitch Loh is Senior Producer and Gianni Di Giovanni is SIFTER’s Executive Producer, who edited the video and the script.
FIONA: 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.
KYLE: We’ll be back with more news next Sunday, see you then.
