Oh, yes! An Expedition awaits. What a joyous time to embark on an adventure, detonate explosives, and fight off hordes of undead Kalguur. To what end, you ask? Riches, glory, and power. Of course. Path of Exile’s latest expansion can be played July 28 and includes all the hallmarks of the best games in the action RPG genre – powerful items, intense combat and, of course, terrifying, everpresent death. 

In Expedition, you’ll assist Kalguuran traders in their efforts to recover the artifacts lost by their ancestors. Unable to fight the dangers of Wraeclast alone, they enlist your violent services to clear out their Expedition sites so that they may plunder the treasures buried below. You must strategically lay a series of explosives, detonate them, and then cull the deadly horde that rises from the earth. If you can manage this, ancient Kalguuran artifacts will be yours for the taking. Each of the Kalguuran traders provides a unique style of trade, offering the opportunity to deal, barter or gamble the artifacts in exchange for their tempting wares. 

You may also discover Logbooks which chronicle the whereabouts of many hidden treasures from their past. These Logbooks can be crafted to maximise their danger and level of rewards. Take them to Dannig, the Kalguuran leader, and he’ll give passage to these far-off locations. These sprawling Expedition sites expose an unfathomable horde of monsters once unearthed. These areas can also contain secret passages which lead to exotic treasures and formidable bosses. 

In addition to the tempting lure of hidden treasure in the Expedition League, you’ll also uncover 19 new ways to build your character. Path of Exile is all about customising your gameplay to your heart’s desire and one of the fundamental building blocks of doing so is through skill and support gems. In this expansion, we wanted to really shake up Path of Exile’s metagame by providing a swathe of new options for character building. As such, we designed 19 new gems that are each themed around our Ascendancy Classes. 

One of our favourite gems from this lineup is the new Summon Reaper skill, it was designed for Necromancers and summons a powerful minion which performs powerful attacks that cause enemies to bleed, can be commanded to attack specific locations, and literally feeds off of your other minions. There’s also the Spectral Helix gem which was designed for the Ascendant. It throws out a ghostly copy of your weapon which spirals outward from your location, harming any enemies it passes through.

As an extension of our desire to shake up Path of Exile’s metagame,

Hey there! It’s Goldie and Jason from the Wayward Strand team, based in Melbourne, Australia. We’ve been working on this game since 2016, when our ideas were just doodles on scraps of paper, so it feels both incredibly exciting and quite surreal to be here on the official PlayStation Blog to tell you our exciting news: Wayward Strand will be coming to PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4!

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Wayward Strand is a new type of playable story, set in a living world. It’s a thoughtful, heart-warming tale, woven together from multiple distinct threads, all of which play out simultaneously aboard an airborne hospital in 1970s Australia. (Yep – that’s the hospital airship up there!)

You play as Casey, a teenage girl visiting the hospital for the first time. Your mum is the head nurse of the brand new hospital that’s being constructed on the airship, and she’s asked you to spend three days in the aged care ward, where you’ll explore the mysteries of the ship, and get to know the elderly patients and staff.

There are over a dozen characters who live or work on the airship that you can meet and spend time with, each going about their lives as you explore. Some are charming, some eccentric, some rude – each has their own desires, goals and imaginations.

You’ll meet Esther Fitzgerald, an eccentric older resident who used to work as a psychic on call-in radio and who now communes with spirits aboard the ship. Esther can be blunt, and won’t hesitate to tell you whatever’s on their mind – if you can prove that you’re trustworthy enough to confide in.

Or, you might meet Neil Avery – before becoming a resident he had a successful career as a motivational speaker and writer of self-help books, and he’s planning to write a book about the ship itself. He’s friendly and very talkative, and has almost too much advice for Casey on her fledgling career as a high school journalist.

During your playthrough of Wayward Strand, as you are spending time with one

Hello PlayStation community! We are Raphael Colantonio and Julien Roby, studio directors at WolfEye Studios, and today we’re proud to announce that our debut title as an independent studio, Weird West, is coming to PlayStation 4 this fall. 

The West’s full of tall tales…

Weird West is all about stories; stories of redemption and honor, yarns of strangeness and oddity, and tales of the down-right disgusting. In our game, you’ll play as five different characters in a series of interconnected journeys, all bound together by the hunt for the truth behind the burning mark they’ve all been branded with. In this blog, we’ll be going over two of those five Journeys. 

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Thought she could hang up her shootin’ irons for good

First up, we’ll be talking about the Bounty Hunter. Once the most respected name in the West, you’ve hung up your shooting irons and taken to a life on the farm after a deathbed promise to your grandfather. But that calm existence won’t last long. In the dead of night, you wake to a burning mark on your neck and the sounds of screaming outside Your son, dead in the dirt. Your husband gone, and only one thing to do: dig up your long-forgotten past and get your revenge. 

A cowboy drunk on the moon

Now onto something more—esoteric—in nature: the Werewolf journey. You’re a Devotee of the Absolutionist faith. You folk have been shepherds of the West, peaceful. But now a rival faction has started exterminating your kind. Prejudice, seems like. Malice. With your numbers dwindling, and the Absolutionist faith nearly wiped off the face of the West, a divine prophecy has shown you how to protect your people. But not without a cost: an affinity for the moon. A rage you can barely contain. Finally, after a blood-fuelled night defending everything you love from thes wrongdoers, you awaken with a burning mark. Sign of a prophecy. What you choose to do with it is up to you…

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 Climb, leap, and glide your way through this playable documentary in Away: The Survival Series, coming to PS5 late summer (also confirmed for PS4). Now with Photo Mode and new playable characters (praying mantis now officially confirmed)!

In this story-driven adventure set in a distant future, you’ll play as a young sugar glider as he embarks on a perilous journey through the wilderness to save his family. Will you succeed in tracking them through a world where disasters threaten the survival of every species on the planet?

Nature is your obstacle course

Do as the sugar gliders do! You’ll be able to explore on ground and by air. Glide your way through lush forests as you thread between branches. Don’t forget to dodge and barrel roll to avoid trouble!

Play a nature documentary

As you navigate this living, breathing world, your adventures will be narrated just like your favourite nature documentaries. Our team spent a lot of time researching various flora and fauna to ensure all the information shared by our narrator is accurate – learn about the plants and animals inhabiting each strange new ecosystem as you explore their diverse terrain. 

Our narrative team consisted of our voice-over actor, Andrew Robinson, and our scriptwriter, Cecily Walter. Cecily did a wonderful job perfecting the tone of our narrator — who himself is a key player in Away’s overarching story —  and Andrew brought him to life with his natural instinct for voicing nature documentaries.

Never before seen Photo Mode

We are excited to officially announce that Away will include Photo Mode! Freeze the sugar glider anywhere and move the camera while the rest of the world continues in ambient motion.

Photography fans are sure to be pleased with a comprehensive settings including depth-of-field sliders and filters to ensure you get that perfect shot.

Play as other animals, including a praying mantis

As you navigate the world, you’ll encounter many creatures; some friendly, others…not so much! In Away, you’ll get the chance to explore the world from a different view and play as some of those critters and their unique abilities. Hop along as a frog and surprise your prey with a long range tongue attack! Crawl around as a beetle and infiltrate an abandoned structure to learn more about this strange new world. Even flutter from tree to tree as a praying mantis! You’ll also be able to play as a salamander, beetle, frog, spider, scorpion and many others. 

On July 20, the underground tuner scene in Los Santos roars to life with the launch of GTA Online: Los Santos Tuners. In addition to a ton of action-packed, Tuner-based missions and races, this update introduces the LS Car Meet, a gigantic, shared social space where you and your cherished personal vehicle can mingle freely with fellow car fans to race, show off your customized vehicles, and even link up with shady contacts looking for skilled drivers and a chance at easy money.

To get started, you’ll need to visit a non-descript, graffitied warehouse on the edge of town in Cypress Flats — listen close and the sound of engines revving might give it away, or look for the makeshift finish line on the road outside. Inside, the LS Car Meet has a “good vibes only” policy, making it a great place to skip the attention of the law and any small-time chumps looking to terrorize the citizens of greater Los Santos.

Park your attitude (and your weaponized vehicles) at the door and share your love of car culture with some like-minded personalities. Here, you’ll find countless ways to immerse yourself in the beating heart of the scene, show off prized personal vehicles from your collection or check out everybody else’s.

Dropping GTA$50,000 to become an LS Car Meet Member will get you even more privileges.

To start, you’ll unlock a new Reputation progression with new benefits unlocking after each Level. Plus, you’ll get access to the Test Track, a large underground space inside the Car Meet warehouse where you and your friends can drive, drift, and race vehicles freely, without interference from pesky pedestrians or the law. You can also sample new Test Rides in the Test Track – your chance to get behind the wheel of a rotating selection of vehicles and push their limits.

Members will also get to compete in rotating Prize Ride Challenges for the opportunity to win a special Prize Ride and get access to a range of special shops and features — including the Merch Shop, Tattoo Shop, and the Modding Area, where you can show off your customization prowess to other players in real time as you work on your stanced build. Higher level Members can also create a Private Takeover complete with customizable lighting and banner colors to decorate the Car Meet space to your tastes.

Los Santos Tuners introduces new races inside and outside the Car Meet, each with their own Leaderboards. On the Test Track, you can engage in friendly competitions like Head-to-Head where speed and precision will give you the necessary advantage to best your opponent in a short format race, and Scramble where up to four players race to collect 20 checkpoints. Time Trials around the Test Track give you the chance to put your vehicles through their paces and score your own Personal Record. Up to 30 players will share the track space with you, but contact will be disabled while competing, and members can also go into Private Test Tracks solo.

Off the Test Track and throughout the city, there are also new race series for members: Street Race Series and Pursuit Series.

The Street Race Series delivers exactly what it says on the can: bruising competition on creative tracks built on the streets of some of Los Santos’ most scenic neighborhoods, complete with shortcuts that are as much about risk as they are reward. The Pursuit Series offers drivers a more open-ended experi

Hi, I’m Tomas Sala, the sole creator and developer of The Falconeer, a third-person air combat game, coming to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 on August 5. 

As an individual/solo creator, what truly excites me is that the power of the PS5 has removed so many of the constraints that would have made a game like The Falconeer impossible only a few years ago. I’m here today to give you a little insight into that, along with the ways in which the PS5’s features and DualSense wireless controller have given me the freedom to create a deeply immersive and unique game world.   

So, firstly, what exactly is The Falconeer? 

Imagine riding atop a giant bird of prey, flying amongst the clouds, gracefully drifting and climbing as a golden sun rises on the horizon. Now, imagine the opposite of that, a dream of a dark ocean, of bottomless depths that won’t let you go anywhere but down to their dark reaches.

This core contrast is at the heart of The Falconeer, and at the heart of the world I’ve crafted for this game, a dark and harsh ocean world. It’s a place of haunting beauty, from which you, an airborne Falconeer warrior, soar above. Yet nowhere is safe in a world where the rich ride airships, the powerful tame dragons, and even the lowly sailing captains arm their ships to the teeth against the monsters from the deep, as well as against those from the sky. 

It is a sheer thrill to explore the vast open world of The Falconeer on PlayStation and the advanced haptic feedback of the DualSense controller give the intuitive aerial dogfighting mechanics an incredibly tactile and fluid feel. I also made use of the adaptive triggers to mimic the feel of the recoil and force feedback of weapons. One thing that can perhaps be overlooked is the impact the DualSense controller speaker can have. This gives strong audio cues that when combined with the haptics and triggers, offer even greater immersion and ‘feel’ to gameplay. In The Falconeer, I used the speaker specifically for NPC radio voices.  

The Falconeer is a very personal game to me, and it is one that explores themes of escapism and freedom but also at its core it is a homage to the classic air combat and dogfighting fighting games I played growing up. If you play the Falconeer you will recognise that it is not a typical shooter, even though you are riding a mythical giant warbird, the gameplay will still require you to build up your classic dogfighting skills, getting behind an enemy, deflecting gunfire, but now riding a giant bird that can perform acrobatics unlike any airplane could ever attempt.