Nintendo 2DS costs a little less wedge

Are you looking for a new game to play on Xbox One? Here’s a quick roundup of the latest Deals with Gold and Spotlight sales.

Highlights from this week’s Deals with Gold lineup include the breezy retro racer Horizon Chase Turbo, isometric RPG Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and strategy hit Sid Meier’s Civilization VI. If you’re excited for the upcoming Watch Dogs Legion, you can catch up with the series so far with big discounts on its first two games.

Our picks from a new sale of games themed around the ocean are Subnautica, The Flame in the Flood, and Sunless Sea: Zubmariner Edition. Spotlight sale highlights include future racer Redout and Tom Clancy’s The Division 2.

This week’s Xbox One deals are available until October 5, 2020. Here’s a quick rundown of the best deals. Each game is available from the Xbox digital games store and Microsoft web store.

Xbox One Deals with Gold Highlights

• Aery – Broken Memories – 33% off
• Book of Demons – 50% off
• Borderlands 3 Deluxe Edition – 50% off
• Borderlands: The Handsome Collection – 75% off
• Deployment – 70% off
• Desert Child – 50% off
• Disintegration – 50% off
• Edgar – Bokbok in Boulzac – 50% off
• Faery: Legends of Avalon – 80% off
• Horizon Chase Turbo – 70% off
• Lumini – 50% off
• NBA 2K Playgrounds 2 – 75% off
• Pathfinder: Kingmaker – Definitive Edition – 20% off
• Rebel Cops – 25% off
• Relicta – 20% off
• Sid Meier’s Civilization VI – 45% off
• The Division 2 – Warlords of New York Edition – 67% off
• Tower Of Time – 33% off
• Waking – 30% off
• War Tech Fighters – 50% off
• Watch Dogs 2 – 80% off
• Watch_Dogs – 65% off
• WRC 8 FIA World Rally Championship – 75% off
• Wreckfest – 30% off

Xbox One Spotlight Highlights

• 1971 Project Helios – 30% off
• 8-Bit Armies – 90% off
• A Knight’s Quest – 50% off
• Aborigenus – 35% off
• Battle Worlds: Kronos – 67% off
• Bleed – 70% off
• Castle Of No Escape – 20% off
• Color Symphony 2 – 80% off
• Doug Hates His Job – 40% off
• Earth Atlantis – 60% off
• Element Space – 40% off
• Outbreak: The Nightmare Chronicles – 50% off
• Redout – Lightspeed Edition – 50% off
• Rogue Stormers & Giana Sisters Bundle – 75% off
• Sine Mora EX – 75% off
• Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 – 67% off
• We Are The Dwarves – 70% off

Deep Sea Sale Highlights

• Abyss: The Wraiths of Eden – 90% off
• Aqua Moto Racing Utopia – 50% off
• Beyond Blue – 20% off
• Black Desert: Conqueror Edition – 50% off
• Captain Cat – 50% off
• Chaos On Deponia – 65% off
• Close To The Sun – 33% off
• Death In The Water – 50% off
• Deep Ones – 60% off
• Deponia Collection – 55% off
• Depth of Extinction – 33% off
• Dovetail Games Euro Fishing – 67% off
• Dread Nautical – 50% off
• Euro Fishing: Ultimate Edition – 60% off
• The Flame in the Flood – 75% off
• Fishing: Barents Sea Complete Edition – 33% off
• Freediving Hunter: Spearfishing The World – 20% off
• Hydrophobia – 80% off
• Legend of the Skyfish – 40% off
• Maneater – 35% off
• Nightmares from the Deep 3: Davy Jones – 80% off
• Outbuddies DX – 50% off
• Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire – Ultimate Edition – 35% off
• Purple Chicken Spaceman – 70% off
• Radio Squid – 40% off
• Shantae and the Seven Sirens – 20% off
• Stranded Deep – 25% off
• Submerged – 90% off
• Subnautica – 30% off
• Sunless Sea: Zubmariner Edition – 67% off
• Super Volley Blast – 50% off
• Surf World Series – 40% off
• Swim Out – 30% off
• Swimsanity! – 30% off
• Ultimate Fishing Simulator – 30% off

For more video game savings, visit our dedicated sales page. You can also follow Thumbsticks on Twitter and Facebook.

Japan got the latest in the epic street-brawling Yakuza series in January, but we haven’t long to wait for Yakuza 7: Like A Dragon’s turn-based switch-up. 

Sega today announced a simultaneous release in the West for Yakuza 7: Like A Dragon on Xbox Series X | S, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Windows 10, and Steam on November 10, 2020. This comes after Japan saw its usual head start on the series with a release in January.

If you’re wondering about a particular next-gen omission in that list, Sega’s playing a longer game with the PlayStation 5. The PS5 release has been pushed to March 2 2021. As with the Xbox consoles’ “Smart Delivery” upgrade path, PS4 owners will get a free upgrade to the PS5 version upon release. As usual, a digital PS4 purchase permits a digital upgrade only.

Yakuza 7: Like A Dragon is a departure from other games in the series, featuring an entirely new turn-based RPG combat system. It’s been out in the wild for a while now given its delay in reaching our shores, so we already know it’s ace. Japanese review site Famitsu gave the game an excellent combined score of 38/40 and over 400,000 copies have already been sold in Japan and across Asia.

If that’s not enough Yakuza for you, it has also been announced that Sega has joined forces with 1212 Entertainment and Wild Sheep Content so as to realise a live-action Yakuza film. It will feature the series’ popular original protagonist Kazuma Kiryu.

Whilst I hope a Yakuza film will also be forty hours long and mainly consist of mini-games and side-distractions, I suspect I’ll be disappointed.

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The remaster of the prequel to Nier: Automata is the Japanese version unseen in the West. (And yes, that is its full title.)

2017’s wildly popular and critically lauded Nier: Automata is getting its prequel remastered for PlayStation 4, Windows PC, and Xbox One on April 23, 2021. No word on next-gen consoles for the moment.

Complete with a risible subtitle, Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139… is the “modern re-telling” of one of the Japanese versions of Nier, which originally released on the PlayStation 3 in 2010 and was never released in the West.

You might be more familiar with Nier, which was the Xbox 360 version of Nier in Japan – called Nier Gestalt – and featured entirely different protagonists. Nier is itself a spin-off and sequel of the Drakengard series. Confused yet?

Whilst Nier Gestalt featured a father in his 40s and his daughter, Yonah, Replicant has Yonah repositioned as the sister to a teenage Nier. Apparently, despite some dialogue accommodations, the versions were more or less entirely the same. A baffling example of game localisation and console platform distinctions for sure.

Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139… is due to be a significant overhaul with visuals and designs from Nier: Automata character designer, Akihiko Yoshida, gameplay, and even the plot due a remaster treatment. Or as the studio itself refers to it, “more than a remaster,” but not quite a remake. More of a “version up,” apparently.

You can also expect a newly recorded soundtrack from the original composer, Keiichi Okabe. It fits my definition of a remake.

Although the action perfectionist studio PlatinumGames – known for the Bayonetta series, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, and Astral Chain among others – isn’t fully involved this time, a senior game designer at Platinum will be “overseeing the action sequences,” at least.

Square Enix also confirmed Nier Reincarnation, a mobile game for both Android and Apple iOS devices, is coming to North America and Europe. No release date has been announced yet.

If you’re mad for everything Nier, you can also invest in the White Snow Edition, which sells for a mighty £149.99. Along with a pin set, two-disc collection of the soundtrack, steelbook case and a collectors box, you also get seven books of the complete spoken script of the game complete with cover art. That might just clinch it for you, eh?

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Two Mafia titles debut in the UK video games chart top ten, but Super Mario 3D All-Stars holds on to No.1.

The Mafia franchise’s spirited attempt to bring down Super Mario might have failed, but publisher 2K Games will surely be pleased with two top ten entries. The well-received Mafia: Definitive Edition enters the chart at No.3, and Mafia Trilogy lands at No.6. Super Mario 3D All-Stars and Marvel’s Avengers remain in first and second place.

Elsewhere in the top ten, Mario Kart 8: Deluxe continues its impressive run by holding steady at No.5, but the excellent Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 remake slips four places to No.8.

Further down the chart, WWK 2K Battlegrounds tumbles from No.6 to No.11 and the eFootball PES 2021 season update drops from ninth to No.34.

Next week should bring some significant changes at the top with new releases including Star Wars Squadrons and Crash Bandicoot 4 expected to do well.

Here’s this week’s full GfK video games chart top ten.

GfK Entertainment Software Charts – WE Sept 26, 2020

1. Super Mario 3D All-Stars
2. Marvel’s Avengers
3. Mafia: Definitive Edition (NE)
4. Animal Crossing: New Horizons
5. Mario Kart 8: Deluxe
6. Mafia Trilogy (NE)
7. Minecraft Dungeons
8. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2
9. Minecraft (Switch)
10. Grand Theft Auto V

Visit the Thumbsticks new releases page for more on the latest video games coming to Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch. You can also follow us on Facebook, Google News, Twitter, and Flipboard for daily gaming news updates.

Crash Bandicoot, Star Wars and FIFA (sort of) headline this week’s list of upcoming Xbox One releases.

Do you know which Star Wars games are the absolute best? No, it’s not that new one with Archie Andrews off Riverdale as a Jedi, nor is it Episode I: Racer, or even Knights of the Old Republic. It’s the classic PC flight sims, the ones that came on half a dozen floppy disks: X-Wing, Tie Fighter, and X-Wing vs Tie Fighter.

With that in mind, we are perhaps most excited about Star Wars: Squadrons, a Star Wars space combat flight sim with all the pew! pew! you’d expect. Squadrons has pedigree, too; it’s developed by EA’s Motive Studios, the crew behind the brilliant Star Wars Battlefront II. (That’s the modern, multiplayer Battlefront II with lots of cool ships to fly, not the middling shooter from 2005.)

The other big name on the Xbox One Releases this week is Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time. Developed by Toys for Bob, the company behind the excellent remasters, publisher Activision hopes that the return of its mascot platformer will emulate the successful return of its other late-90s icon, Tony Hawk.

There’s one other big game this week, but it’s not for everyone. Literally. If you don’t have EA Play, you won’t get to play FIFA 21 on October 2; you’ll have to wait until October 9 like everyone else. But if you do have EA Play – and remember, it’s now included with Xbox Game Pass – you’ll get to try out EA’s big footie sim, FIFA 21, a week before your mates.

Other games of note include Feather, a zen exploration game with beautiful flight, Commander ’85, an intriguing cold war mystery, and Inertial Drift, a racing game with an innovative twin-stick control scheme.

Each new game can be purchased from the Xbox One digital games store or the Microsoft web store. We’ll update this post throughout the week with any late additions to the lineup.

New Xbox One releases: September 28-October 2, 2020

Monday, September 28, 2020

• No games for you!

Tuesday, September 29, 2020

• Bartlow’s Dread Machine
• Projection: First Light
• Re:Turn – One Way Trip

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

• Birthday of Midnight
• Commander ’85
• Feather
• Inertial Drift
• Swordbreaker

Thursday, October 1, 2020

• FIFA 21 (EA Play First Trial)
• Orangeblood

Friday, October 2, 2020

• Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time
• Star Wars: Squadrons
• Dragon Lapis
• Warsaw

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Visit the Thumbsticks new releases page for the latest games. You can also follow us on Flipboard, Facebook, Google News, and Twitter