Two freebies are up for grabs this week, Xbox's co-op climbing game PEAK launched today, and a leaked Mass Effect 5 trailer has every outlet talking after BioWare's shutdown.
Free games
Xbox's Free Play Days: Dying Light 2, Tropico 6 and more
Three games are free to play for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, Premium and Essential members from Thursday 22 October to Sunday 25 October: Dying Light 2: Stay Human – Reloaded Edition, Let's Build a Zoo and Tropico 6. Monster Hunter Stories and Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin are open to everyone for a three hour trial, no membership needed. Riders Republic is free to all Xbox members from 22 to 26 October for its fifth anniversary. You can keep playing after the event at a discount, and your Gamerscore and achievements carry over.
Source: Xbox Wire
Sorry We're Closed free on the Epic Games Store
Sorry We're Closed is next up on Epic's giveaway roster, free from Friday 30 October until Friday 6 November. It's a story driven survival horror game about demons and angels colliding, mixing fixed camera exploration with arcade style shooting. You play as Michelle, using her Third Eye to see between worlds, solve puzzles and uncover secrets.
Source: Epic Games Store
News
PEAK is out now on Xbox
PEAK, the co-op climbing game from Aggro Crab and Landfall, launched today on Xbox Series X|S and PC through Xbox Play Anywhere, with crossplay between the two at no extra cost. Up to four scouts climb a mountain that changes layout every day, managing stamina and injuries while scavenging gear and placing ropes and spikes to help each other up. The two studios met at a developer conference in 2022, and the game grew out of a month long game jam in South Korea.
Source: Xbox Wire
How Housemarque and Nixxes built Saros' bosses
PlayStation Blog went behind the scenes on Saros' boss fights, a joint effort between Housemarque (world, combat and visual concept) and Nixxes (encounter design, animation, environments and the technical build). Five main bosses carry the game: Prophet teaches the basics, Architect is fought atop a collapsing tower using the grapple, Shepherd is the biggest spectacle on a stormy sea full of tentacles, Priestess leans on illusions and transformations, and King closes things out on pure skill with no gimmicks. Each one runs three phases over three to eight minutes, built so a death feels fair rather than cheap. The latest update, Saros: Zenith, adds an Overlord Rush mode for replaying bosses arcade style with a leaderboard.
Source: PlayStation Blog
Becastled's Traits and Some Magic DLC adds 40 new traits
Becastled, the castle building and tower defence hybrid where you build by day and defend by night, has a new DLC out now: Traits and Some Magic. It adds over 40 traits meant to stop players leaning on the one strategy every run, plus two new unit types, Mages and Clerics. Some traits are straightforward upgrades, others come with a trade off, like Master of the Bow, which locks you to archers but boosts their damage, or Glass Cannon, which trades unit health for more damage.
Source: Xbox Wire
Marvel's Wolverine's Photo Mode, explained
PlayStation Blog put together a guide to Marvel's Wolverine's Photo Mode, Insomniac's game built around Logan. It covers up to five independent lighting rigs plus adjustable natural light, posing Wolverine within a radius and rotating him, switching suits and claws, and hiding other characters from the shot. There's also an Action Figure mode for miniature style compositions, landscape, portrait and tilted camera angles, and sliders for blood and damage on the model and the background colour.
Source: PlayStation Blog
Eternity is coming soon to GOG
GOG has put up a coming soon page for Eternity, a survival strategy game set after a failed jump leaves humanity's last fleet adrift and alone, with civilisation gone and only a myth among the stars to chase. GOG hasn't given a release date yet beyond wishlisting it now.
Source: GOG
Trailers
Final Fantasy Resonance launch trailer
Final Fantasy Resonance is out now on PS5, the series' first game done in HD-2D. It returns to the pixel art world of Final Fantasy, evolved from its classic roots, following companions bound by fate who call on Visions, echoes of past Final Fantasy characters, for help in battle while uncovering the truth behind it all.
Source: PlayStation (YouTube), also reported by Xbox (YouTube) and Xbox Wire
Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest launch trailer
Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest is the first console game based on Erin Hunter's best selling book series. Create your own Warrior Cat, join a Clan, build bonds with allies and rise through the ranks hunting prey, patrolling territory, uncovering secrets and fighting in turn based combat.
Source: PlayStation (YouTube)
Cyberpunk 2077's Broken Dreams: Edgerunners 2 update trailer
Cyberpunk 2077 has a new free update, Broken Dreams, tied to the Edgerunners 2 anime. It adds a quest set before the anime's story begins, carries on Jackie's legacy with a dual wielding playstyle, and lets you dive back into Night City with content inspired by the new series.
Source: PlayStation (YouTube)
Lost Host announcement trailer
Lost Host is coming to PS5 in 2027. You play as a small RC car searching for a missing boy, exploring the world from a toy's perspective, solving puzzles and working through obstacles to uncover what happened to him. It's up on the PlayStation Store to wishlist now.
Source: PlayStation (YouTube)
PEAK's Xbox release trailer
Xbox put out its own release trailer for PEAK, the co-op climbing game out now on Xbox and PC, solo or with a group of lost scouts trying to reach the top of the island's mountain.
Source: Xbox (YouTube), also reported by PlayStation (YouTube)
A Mass Effect 5 trailer has reportedly leaked after BioWare's closure
Game Informer reports that EA laid off 400 staff this week, including everyone at BioWare, shutting the studio down and cancelling its last project: a fifth Mass Effect game. A trailer for that cancelled game has reportedly leaked, said to feature Liara. BioWare shared very little about the project before its cancellation, not even an official title.
Source: Game Informer
GTA 6's new TV trailer trims the shower scene
GTA 6's TV advertising is ramping up. GameSpot reports eagle eyed fans have found the new 30 second TV spot carries a few extended sequences compared to the launch trailer, even though it cuts the shower scenes with Jason and Lucia.
Source: GameSpot
The leaked Mass Effect 5 trailer, as GameSpot sees it
GameSpot's take on the leaked trailer comes alongside the news that EA has shuttered BioWare, ending Mass Effect and Dragon Age as the studio knew them. The writer admits they'd made peace with the cancelled Mass Effect 5 probably not being great, given the state of BioWare in recent years, before the leak changed their mind.
Source: GameSpot
Rock Paper Shotgun on the leaked trailer and EA's ownership
Rock Paper Shotgun ties the leak to EA's recent change of hands: a consortium of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, equity firm Silver Lake and Jared Kushner's Affinity took EA private only a couple of months ago. A day after BioWare's shutdown and the Mass Effect 5 cancellation were announced, a trailer made for internal use only was shared outside the studio.
Source: Rock Paper Shotgun
PC Gamer: the leaked trailer looks better than expected
PC Gamer says the leaked footage appeared online a few hours after a person claiming to be an EA employee said a trailer for the game was ready to go.
Source: PC Gamer
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