Pillars of Eternity – The White March: Part I expansion out now

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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Destroy All Humans! and Skater XL debut in the top ten of the UK video game chart, but this week’s No.1 is a familiar sight.

Ghost of Tsushima holds No.1 in the latest chart of boxed software sales in the UK. The game’s three-week residence at the top is an impressive run for Sucker Punch’s open-world samurai game, but in truth, it hasn’t had much competition.

Last week’s big new release was THQ Nordic’s remaster of the 2005 cult favourite, Destroy All Humans!, which entered the chart at No.3. The humans may have been obliterated, but the animals remained steadfast at No.2 with Animal Crossing: New Horizons continuing to do the business for Nintendo. Paper Mario: The Origami King and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe complete this week’s Switch top ten presence.

Easy Day Studios’ Skater XL has also done well, landing at No.7. Its popularity bodes well for the upcoming onslaught of skateboarding games.

Further down the chart, anime RPG Fairy Tail debuts at No.15, and there are re-entires for EA’s Rocket Arena and Anthem at No.39 and No.40 respectively.

GfK All formats Software Chart – WE: August 1, 2020

1. Ghost of Tsushima
2. Animal Crossing: New Horizons
3. Destroy All Humans! (NE)
4. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
5. F1 2020
6. Paper Mario: The Origami King
7. Skater XL (NE)
8. The Last of Us Part II
9. Grand Theft Auto V
10. Minecraft

To find out which games might appear on next week’s chart, visit our new releases page. You can also follow us on Facebook, Google News, Twitter, and Flipboard for daily gaming updates.

With Halo Infinite multiplayer going free-to-play, will Halo once again be a console shifter, two decades on?

Earlier this week, rumours were swirling that Halo Infinite would be free-to-play. Or that it’s multiplayer would be, at least. We don’t tend to report on unsubstantiated leaks at Thumbsticks, but as soon as they’ve got some substance to them? We’ll let you know.

And now we’ve had confirmation – via the official Xbox Twitter account –  that the free-to-play rumours about Halo Infinite multiplayer are in fact true.

Halo is for everyone. We can confirm #HaloInfinite multiplayer will be free-to-play and will support 120FPS on Xbox Series X. More details will be shared later! pic.twitter.com/9bIrppFiON

— Halo (@Halo) July 31, 2020

The tweet also confirms another detail that was floating about, that Halo Infinite will support 120 frames per second on the Xbox Series X.

Ordinarily, we wouldn’t trouble ourselves too much with frame rates, but it’s interesting to note that it specifies “on Xbox Series X” – presumably, that means frame rates will be lower on other platforms, like the Xbox One, Xbox One X, and the rumoured, lower-powered “Xbox Series S” console? That could potentially lead to an unfair advantage for players on Xbox Series X because, as Nvidia’s marketing puts it, “frames win games“.

Halo Infinite’s multiplayer being free-to-play also raises questions about Xbox Live Gold. It’s obvious that games can make good money while being free-to-play – hello, Fortnite Battle Royale – but you wouldn’t ordinarily be able to play an Xbox game online without an Xbox Live Gold subscription.

In recent years, Microsoft has bundled Xbox Live Gold in with its Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription. That means you get all the benefits of Gold with a massive library of games included for only a few quid more. It makes sense that Xbox Game Pass might replace Xbox Live Gold entirely in the future.

And we know that Microsoft has also been including its titles in Xbox Game Pass at launch. So if Halo Infinite is included in Xbox Game Pass, and you need Game Pass (rather than Xbox Live Gold) to play online, will that truly be free-to-play if you’re getting the entitlement as part of another package? Or will Halo Infinite’s free-to-play multiplayer be exempt from online subscription costs, like Fortnite, or even a separate package like Call of Duty’s battle royale mode?

There’s still clarification needed from Microsoft on this one, but to make Halo Infinite’s multiplayer free-to-play – even if that does come with some small print – is still a bold move. It’s been a long time since Halo was the main selling point for Xbox, but those days could be back.

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