Shadow of the Erdtree will be the only DLC for Elden Ring, as confirmed by the president of From Software, but he does not rule out making a sequel in the future.
Shadow of the Erdtree, the DLC for Elden Ring, will be released on June 21st. This is generating a lot of excitement, as Elden Ring was one of the biggest games of 2022. If not the biggest. That’s why there is a tremendous curiosity about what it will contain, what things it will change, and above all, if it will be the last time we hear about the Intermediate Lands. Something that the game director and CEO of From Software has come out to clarify.
In an interview with Campfire Camp, a Chinese media outlet, Hidetaka Miyazaki has commented on the possibility of there being more DLCs for Elden Ring in the future. While the company has a history of releasing multiple DLCs for their games, it has been confirmed that this will not be one of those cases. Shadow of the Erdtree will be the only DLC that Elden Ring will receive, confirming it as the game’s only official expansion.
Does that mean this will be the last time we return to the Intermediate Lands? Not necessarily. The reason they have specified for not making more DLCs is that they have not ruled out the possibility of making a sequel to Elden Ring. This is because, due to From Software’s game development approach, they always leave the door open to making sequels to their games. This neither confirms nor denies the existence of Elden Ring 2, but it leaves the possibility hanging, if it were to happen in the future.
All of this adds up to the fact that Bandai Namco, the game’s distributor, confirmed that Elden Ring is the beginning of a franchise “that goes beyond the game itself”. So far, this has translated into an art book and figures, as well as a manga: Elden Ring: The Second of the Golden Tree. But for now, that’s all that Elden Ring has expanded beyond the game.
What we do know for sure is that, due to the success of Elden Ring and Armored Core 6, From Software is currently working on several new projects. Whether one of them is related to Elden Ring in any way, we do not know. But it is a fact that we will have new games from From Software in the years to come, with or without it. And just for that, we celebrate.
Some of the links added in the article are part of affiliate campaigns and may represent benefits for Softonic.
Panos Cosmatos is one of the most promising directors in all of Hollywood. Despite having few films in his career, he is the one behind Mandy, Beyond the black rainbow and the most celebrated chapter of Guillermo del Toro‘s anthology, The Cabinet of Curiosities. Now, he has just announced his new film, and it couldn’t be more striking.
Flesh of the Gods is defined as a vampire thriller set in the glittering city of Los Angeles during the 80s. The film will be starring Oscar Isaac and Kristen Stewart, who will portray a married couple that every night, leaves the safety of their luxurious apartment in a downtown skyscraper to venture into the electric world of the night.
Kristen Stewart and vampires, but now in a good way
As defined by the official movie synopsis, “when they come across the mysterious and enigmatic Nameless and her party clique, Raoul and Alex will be seduced by a glamorous and surreal world of hedonism, emotions, and violence“. The script is written by Andrew Kevin Walker, who was behind Seven and Sleepy Hollow, so the project couldn’t look any better.
The film is backed by A24 and the producers are WME Independent, CAA Media Finance, and XYZ Films. It will be presented at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival to seek distribution, so there is no defined date yet.
In late 2023, Netflix announced that it was working on adding new features to its cloud gaming service. According to the streaming company, these would offer titles quite different from those created so far for mobile devices. Now is the time to try them out.
If you want to play with any of the nine titles that Netflix streams from its servers, you can do it officially: by waiting for the beta to be available to access. However, we will now show you a much easier and faster way to try them out.
The process to follow is very simple: from your desktop browser, first you will have to log in to Netflix and then click on some of the links you will see below:
The links, shared by The Verge, will allow you to experience first-hand what Netflix is working on behind the scenes. According to the company, these games are only available in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Spain, Mexico, France, Italy, and Germany.
According to Netflix, games designed for the cloud service will include gameplay mechanics that are somewhat different from those found in more traditional video games. For example, in some cases, we could use the TV remote control as if it were a console controller.
Netflix also added that many of these titles, which will also be available on mobile devices and computers, will offer personalized experiences. Leanne Loombre, External Games Director at Netflix, clarified that sometimes “there will be a cloud game that can only be played on the TV and will be fully adapted to that experience”.
After a quite long wait, Starfield is getting an update on May 15th with a variety of new features. Some of the most striking ones are the inclusion of new graphical modes on Xbox, with adjustments quite similar to those we can find on PC.
If you play on Xbox Series X, you will be able to enjoy Starfield in two different graphical modes, where one prioritizes quality and the other, performance. By choosing quality, you will have the highest resolution and the most visually stunning graphic effects will be preserved, in addition to having more realistic lighting. The performance option will reduce the resolution and the graphics will worsen a bit. In exchange, you will enjoy a smoother gameplay.
The maps have also improved. Bethesda explains that they have “listened to the users” and have updated the maps so that “you always know where to go”.
There are also new options that will allow you to customize your experience within Starfield even further: “Do you want ground combat to be more difficult and naval combat to be easier? You can do it!”. You can even modify the damage that enemies can inflict on you, make ammunition weigh less in your inventory, and even adjust the effectiveness of healing items.
Other minor improvements include access to a Decoration mode to customize (such as posts) the interior of the ships, new tabs in the game menus to facilitate inventory management, the ability to change your appearance, and much more.
Below we leave you with the video published by Bethesda where the developers present the news of the May patch. In addition, it also allows us to peek at some of the things that are still to come to Starfield, although we will have to wait a little longer for that.
Once again, layoffs within the video game industry are making headlines. This time the protagonist is Take-Two Interactive, the company behind Rockstar Games. According to the latest reports from Bloomberg, Take-Two will be closing Intercept Games and Roll7 studios.
According to Game Developer, the publisher is trying to reduce its workforce by 5% to improve “its margin profile while continuing to invest for growth.” It’s curious that they announced the layoffs after the acquisition of Gearbox for 460 million dollars.
NEW: Take-Two Interactive plans to shutter two studios as part of a mass layoff announced last month: Roll7 (Rollerdrome, OlliOlli World) and Intercept Games (Kerbal Space Program 2) https://t.co/KxUOsWzJdb
However, at first glance, the closure of Intercept Games does not seem to affect the development of Kerbal Space Program 2. The sequel, which was announced during Gamescom 2019, suffered many delays due to the pandemic and finally launched last year in early access.
After the bad news, the gaming community has lost confidence in the continuity of the project. However, Take-Two has explained to Bloomberg that they will continue working on Kerbal Space Program 2. According to the publisher, Private Division will be the one to continue updating the game instead of Intercept Games. Private Division is a distributor owned by Take-Two that is responsible for publishing and selling games from smaller developers.
KeokeN, the developer behind Deliver Us Mars, has completely ceased operations and laid off all of its staff. According to the company, the main reason for this closure has been the inability to find a publisher for the current game they were developing.
This has been revealed in a post published through their official X profile. According to the study, their representatives visited the Game Developers Conference 2024 held in San Francisco in search of a publisher to take charge of their future game. However, they were not lucky.
Heartbroken, we've had to lay off our team at KeokeN because of nothing substantial materializing directly after our visit to GDC. We’ve unfortunately exhausted all our possible options for publishing, work for hire, and co-development.
The game they were working on was Deliver Us Home, the third installment in the series. The first one of all, Deliver Us the Moon, was released in 2018 and is defined as a science fiction thriller set in a post-apocalyptic future.
Afterwards, came its sequel, Deliver Us Mars, which, just like its first part, managed to carve out a place in the hearts of thousands of players. The title was released in February 2023 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
Snapchat continues to evolve its platform to stay relevant and attractive to its users in an increasingly competitive market. The social app has announced a series of new features, highlighting the ability to edit already sent messages, allowing users to correct typographical errors or slip-ups. This feature has a short five-minute window after sending, and only if the recipient has not yet opened it.
The function to edit messages will be available for Snapchat Plus subscribers, a similar move to what Elon Musk did in his day, who decided to put the most requested feature by Twitter users in his paid subscription service: Twitter Blue. Message editing is a trend in the world of social platforms, where apps like Meta Messenger, Instagram or WhatsApp have already incorporated it.
Snapchat is also enhancing its chatbot My AI with new AI-powered features, such as the ability to remember important dates and create a countdown to remind you of them. Additionally, you will now be able to generate custom clothing for your Bitmoji using AI, and AI Lenses will allow you to create a 90s Polaroid-style version of yourself with just a selfie.
But that’s not all, because you will also have the possibility to send emoji reactions to friends who share their location with you on Snapchat during a trip or when arriving at work. These new features are already available, although the message editing function for Snapchat Plus subscribers “will be coming soon,” according to Snapchat.
No Rest for the Wicked is the new game from the creators of Ori, and although it’s a mix of Diablo and Dark Souls, it’s also more than the sum of its parts.
Copying is an art in itself. Mere imitation is not only potentially unethical, but also boring. Copying the work of others, when done well, involves taking what catches our attention and integrating it into something greater, different, and our own. Making it ours. That’s why copying is wrong when it’s plagiarism and boring when it’s mere imitation. Because when copying is done well, it seeks to do something different with what is copied, that’s where the spark of art arises.
No Rest for the Wicked is the new game from Moon Studios. This developer is known for having made Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisps, two prodigious metroidvania with certain elements of soulslike. On the other hand, No Rest for the Wicked is a sharp turn from what we already knew from its developers. Because it is an action RPG that draws from the two most seemingly antagonistic sources possible: Diablo and Dark Souls.
The game puts us in the shoes of a Cerim, an individual who is considered half legend, half sacred warrior, who must fight a strange plague called the Pestilence. To do this, he will head to Isola Sacra, where the Pestilence is transforming its inhabitants into horrifying monsters.
If this may sound like the premise of any soulslike, the twist comes in that the RPG component is very acute. In terms of story. Inspired by William Shakespeare and Game of Thrones, Isola Sacra finds itself in the midst of a power struggle after the king has died and his son, the prince, has assumed power. With the kingdom wanting to solve the Pestilence problem through the inquisition and the governor of Isola Sacra making use of the Cerim, the conflict between the feudal ideas of the kingdom and the folkloric ideas of the island will clash in a political war where we will find ourselves in the middle.
While the story is still to be developed beyond its first brushstrokes, as this is an early access game, what we can already highlight about the game is its impressive artistic department. By this we mean an absolutely prodigious art direction, but also something else. A sublime graphical implementation. The water seems to have a life of its own, the flames sway as if with consciousness, the clothes float naturally, and the light always seems to highlight the most important aspects of each scene.
This should not surprise anyone who has played the Ori saga. Two technically prodigious games, with a sublime artistic programming section, which can also be seen in No Rest for the Wicked. And while they have not finished working on this yet, still working on things like making footprints in the mud or the movement of water even more fluid, it is already an absolute marvel to witness.
Regarding gameplay, as we have already mentioned, it is a mix of soulslike and Diablo. This means that we have an aerial perspective, that blocking, dodging, and parrying are important, and that loot and crafting are essential parts of the game. If all of this should clash in some way, it doesn’t. Progression through equipment instead of levels feels natural, the aerial view never interferes with combat, and the combination of both elements feels fresh. Natural. As if it was always meant to exist.
This is also helped by drawing from other specific sources. Having a climbing mechanism shamelessly copied from Breath of the Wild or making larger weapons take several seconds to initiate their attack animation, like in Monster Hunter, adds a special texture to the whole. A certain unique sense.
What we may not fully see yet is the MMO-style structure of daily and weekly missions, in addition to the main missions. This allows us to obtain equipment and resources, but sometimes it seems to get in the way of the game’s own formula. Something that happens, to a lesser extent, with the need to cook our own meals if we want to heal. Something that can force us to search for materials instead of continuing the adventure, if we fail many times, or if a part becomes much tougher than we expected.
In any case, this is an early access game. All of these are issues that can be polished until the full release of the game, without a specific date. For now, it has been specified that they want to add a multiplayer mode, which will arrive in its first major update, and more story and narrative elements of the game, which will be its second major update. So it’s safe to say that No Rest for the Wicked will be here for a while.
Whether No Rest for the Wicked is ultimately a curiosity with ups and downs or a masterpiece worthy of its references will depend on what they do during this early access. For now, it is a game full of ideas, technically prodigious and very interesting to play. Essential for die-hard fans of Diablo and its endless content loops.
Some of the links added in the article are part of affiliate campaigns and may represent benefits for Softonic.
WhatsApp has announced a series of updates to its “Communities” feature, which allows users to connect through group chats based on common interests, such as sports or musical tastes, for example.
The new events feature of WhatsApp gives community members an easy way to organize events and meetings in real time within group chats. “Thanks to events, it is now easier to plan meetings directly on WhatsApp, whether it’s a virtual meeting or a dinner to celebrate a birthday,” says WhatsApp in a blog post. “Anyone can create an event and others can respond so that the whole group knows who will attend.”
Events will be displayed in the group chat when announced, as well as in the group’s information section, so that members have a way to stay informed about upcoming activities or events. Members who sign up to attend (or participate) will also receive an automatic notification as a reminder when the event approaches.
The new feature of events gives greater versatility to communities to stay in touch, being especially useful for managing greater interaction and user participation. WhatsApp says that events will first arrive to groups that belong to a community, and will be extended to all groups in the coming months.
In addition, WhatsApp is also adding replies to announcement groups, so that administrators can get responses from their members, and users can get an idea of how the announcements are being received. Replies in announcement groups will provide another way to track community feedback, within a centralized flow. WhatsApp says this feature will also be rolled out in the coming months.
Crunchyroll has decided to increase the subscription prices in a series of select countries, leaving the door open to expand them to a few more.
All streaming services are raising their prices. For the past couple of years, there hasn’t been any service that has decided it’s a good idea to keep prices the same, now that everyone uses streaming. This has led to some dissatisfaction among the public. It’s not just that there are many different platforms, but they are also becoming very expensive. And the one that seemed to have no interest in joining this trend, has finally done so.
Crunchyroll has not raised its monthly prices in five years, with one of the most competitive rates among streaming services. That, along with its excellent catalog of video games and anime, has made it a reference for all lovers of Japanese animation. And now, under the subsidy of Sony, they have decided to increase their prices. With the basic subscription remaining unchanged, the Mega Fan increasing by two dollars and the Ultimate Fan increasing by one dollar, the change is small but significant.
Even worse is the fact of reducing its trial period. If until now it was possible to enjoy two weeks of the service for free, from now on it will only be one. Something that may be seen as a minor change, but opens the door for it to completely disappear in the future.
All these changes have been confirmed for Argentina, Colombia, France, Portugal, and the United States. However, they have also stated that they will occur in some other “additional countries”. So it should not surprise us if this also ends up impacting other countries, including ours. Turning Crunchyroll into a slightly less attractive service than before for certain types of users.
