Rocket League’s cross-platform party system arrives next week

This week’s crop of Xbox One video game discounts include Red Dead Redemption 2, The Division 2, and an assortment of games from Bethesda.

There’s an impressive range of games in this week’s Xbox Deals with Gold lineup. Heavy hitters include a clutch of titles from Ubisoft, headlined by The Division and The Division 2. Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2, which recently received a significant update to its online component, is also reduced by a generous 65%. And the two-game Yooka-Laylee bundle is great value at 67% off.

Bethesda fans looking to fill some gaps in their game library should take a look at this week’s QuakeCon sale. Titles from each of the publisher’s major console franchises are on offer, including Doom Eternal, Prey, and Rage 2.

Finally, this week’s Spotlight Sale includes every game – and various bundles – from 4A Games’ popular Metro series.

All three promotions run through to August 11 on the Xbox digital games store and Microsoft online store. Here are some more highlights.

Deals with Gold Highlights

• Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition – 25% off
• Blood Bowl 2 – 75% off
• The Division Gold Edition – 70% off
• The Division 2 – 67% off
• Donut County – 50% off
• Etherborn – 50% off
• Galaxy of Pen & Paper +1 Edition – 20% off
• Golf With Your Friends – 25% off
• Knights of Pen and Paper +1 Deluxier Edition – 67% off
• Legend of the Tetrarchs – 40% off
• Mordheim: City of the Damned – 75% off
• Outbreak: Lost Hope – 50% off
• Overwatch Legendary Edition – 67% off
• Red Dead Redemption 2: Special Edition – 65% off
• Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 Season Pass Edition – 80% off
• South Park: The Fractured But Whole – 70% off
• South Park: The Stick Of Truth – 60% off
• The Monster Couch Party Pack – 60% off
• The Walking Dead: A New Frontier – The Complete Season – 75% off
• The Walking Vegetables: Radical Edition – 80% off
• Woodle Tree Bundle – 25% off
• Yooka-Laylee: Buddy Duo Bundle – 67% off

QuakeCon Sale Highlights

• Arkane 20th Anniversary Bundle – 70% off
• Dishonored 2 – 70% off
• Dishonored The Complete Collection – 70% off
• Doom – 50% off
• Doom (1993) – 50% off
• Doom + Wolfenstein II Bundle – 50% off
• Doom II (Classic) – 50% off
• Doom 3 – 50% off
• Doom 64 – 50% off
• Doom Eternal Deluxe Edition – 40% off
• Fallout 4 – 70% off
• Fallout 76 – 50% off
• Fallout 76: Wastelanders Deluxe Edition – 40% off
• Prey – 70% off
• Rage 2 – 80% off
• The Elder Scrolls Online – 50% off
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition – 67% off
• The Evil Within – 60% off
• The Evil Within 2 – 70% off
• Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus – 70% off
• Wolfenstein: The New Order – 70% off
• Wolfenstein: The Old Blood – 70% off
• Wolfenstein: The Two-Pack – 70% off
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood Deluxe Edition – 35% off

Spotlight Sale Highlights

• Ailment – 20% off
• Anoxemia – 60% off
• Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling – 10% off
• Defunct – 90% off
• Demon’s Crystals – 60% off
• MechaNika – 40% off
• Metro 2033 Redux – 75% off
• Metro Exodus – 67% off
• Metro Redux Bundle – 75% off
• Metro: Last Light Redux – 75% off
• Murder Miners – 25% off
• Mushroom Quest – 25% off
• MXGP2 – 75% off
• Outbreak Ultimate Apocalypse – 50% off
• Reus – 90% off
• Steel Rain X – 50% off
• Transcripted – 80% off
• Vaporum – 60% off
• Woodle Tree Adventures – 80% off

For the latest video game savings, bookmark our dedicated sales page. You can also follow Thumbsticks on Twitter and Facebook.

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout headlines this week’s lineup of new PlayStation 4 video game releases.

You’re excited about Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, right? You should be. Mediatonic’s game comes to PlayStation 4 on Tuesday and is also part of August’s PS Plus free game lineup.

Fall Guys gives the battle royale genre a colourful refresh with stumblin’ bumblin’ gameplay inspired by the likes of Takeshi’s Castle. It’s a 60-player online game so delightfully executed that everyone is a winner, no matter where they finish.

We’re also rather enchanted by Skully from Finish Line Games. It’s not a video game adaptation of the classic kids street game, rather a 3D adventure in which you must hop, skip, and roll a skull round a mysterious island. An intriguing narrative and some wild environments make Skully a game to keep in mind.

Also racing onto PS4 this week is Fast and Furious Crossroads. We have a suspicion the game will be neither fast nor furious. Other new PS4 games include Wizards: Wand of Epicosity, Roguecube, and Clan N.

Release dates are not locked in for every new PS4 release, but we’ll update this page as news filters through.

New PlayStation 4 releases: August 3-7, 2020

Monday, August 3, 2020

• No releases

Tuesday, August 4, 2020

• Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout
• Family Mysteries: Poisonous Promies
• Relicta
• Skully
• Spitlings
• Pixelbot Extreme!
• Wizards: Wand of Epicosity

Wednesday, August 5, 2020

• The Mean Greens: Plastic Warfare
• RogueCube

Thursday, August 6, 2020

• Clan N
• Train Sim World 2

Friday, August 7, 2020

• Fast and Furious Crossroads
• Inerial Drift
• Is It Wrong To Try To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon? – Infinite Combate (EU)
• Swimsanity!

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Bookmark the Thumbsticks new releases page for the latest video games. You can also follow us on social media via Flipboard, Facebook, Google News, and Twitter.

State of Play returns this week, but be warned: It will contain no new PS5 announcements.

Eager to set expectations early, Sony’s announcement that a State of Play is coming this week also included the warning that it will contain no next-gen news.

“Just to be super clear – there will be no PlayStation Studios updates in Thursday’s episode. There won’t be any updates around hardware, business, preorders, or dates either,” Sid Shuman, Senior Director of Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Content Strategies, wrote today on the PlayStation Blog.

“On Thursday, our focus is squarely on showcasing some cool upcoming games coming to the broader PlayStation ecosystem. Should be fun!”

“The broader PlayStation ecosystem,” specifically, means PS4 and PSVR. Don’t expect any news about what Sony’s first-party studios are working on. But, this could, potentially, be a great time to find out what’s coming from third-party studios this fall. Given that we got release dates for a bunch of Ubisoft’s upcoming games – Watch Dogs: Legion, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Far Cry 6 –  at last month’s Forward event, the next Call of Duty game is one of this fall’s few remaining AAA question marks.

Will we find out, as Doritos foretold, that it is in fact called Call of Duty: Black Ops: Cold War? Is that one too many colons? Why has it taken so long to find out anything about this year’s Call of Duty? We don’t know, and we may not find out anything new this Thursday.

But, Shuman stated that the show is 40+ minutes long, so we will learn something.

Hoping to keep using your DualShock 4 on the PS5? Well, we’ve got good news and bad news.

The good news is, you can! If you want to use the PlayStation 4 controller to play the PlayStation 5 versions of Horizon Zero Dawn, Spider-Man or God of War, you’re in luck.

But, if you want to use the DualShock 4 to play Horizon Forbidden West, Spider-Man: Miles Morales or Godfall, you’re out of luck. The PS4 stalwart won’t be compatible with PS5 games, Sony announced today.

DualShock 4 on PS5?

Isabelle Tomatis, who oversees marketing for peripherals and PSVR at Sony Interactive Entertainment, made the announcement in a short Q+A on the PlayStation Blog.

“We believe that PS5 games should take advantage of the new capabilities and features we’re bringing to the platform, including the features of DualSense wireless controller,” Tomatis wrote.

Those features include the ability to blow on the built-in microphone like it’s 2005 again and you’re playing WarioWare Touched! It also swaps out the Share button for a Create button and ups the haptic feedback you can feel from pressing or holding the triggers.

While saying goodbye to the DualShock 4 is a little bit of a let down, many PS4 peripherals will carry over to the PS5. Namely (again, according to the PlayStation Blog):

• Specialty peripherals, such as officially licensed racing wheels, arcade sticks, and flight sticks, will work with PS5 games and supported PS4 games.
• The Platinum and Gold Wireless Headsets, as well as third-party headsets that connect via USB port or audio jack, will work on PS5 (the headset companion app is not compatible with PS5).
• Both the PS Move Motion Controllers and the PlayStation VR Aim Controller will work with supported PS VR games on PS5.

Additionally, the PlayStation Camera will work with compatible PS5 games, but will require an adaptor. Per Sony, this will be provided at no extra cost.

Given how expensive a DualShock 4 is — typically $60 a pop — it’s disappointing that the investment won’t carry over, especially given the extent to which competitor Microsoft is blurring generational lines. But, not altogether surprising given Sony’s insistence that they “believe in generations.”

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Wargaming and Hasbro are bringing the Transformers to the popular naval combat game World of Warships in a new crossover event.

The Autobots and Deceptions will engage in a new theatre of war later this year as part of a Transformers crossover event with World of Warships on PC and World of Warships: Legends on mobile.

Both Transformers factions will be added the hit naval combat games as themed ship skins and commanders this September. At launch, Optimus Prime and Bumblebee will represent the Autobots, and Megatron and Rumble will fly the flag for the evil Decepticons.

Speaking about the crossover, World of Warships producer Philip Molodkovets says:

“Generations were raised with the Transformers franchise. Starting from the 1980’s animated series all the way to the latest movies, we instantly fell in love with the robot characters that captivated our imagination. Having the chance to feature them in World of Warships is a dream come true for many of us. Our love for big, epic metal warriors is mutual! Therefore we paid special attention to bring Transformers characters to life in details and true scale, side by side with legendary warships.”

The event will feature additional Transformers content, including themed containers, dedicated game tasks and combat missions, expendable camouflages, and commemorative flags and patches.

Watch the warships in disguise in the new event trailer.

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