Hello everyone! On behalf of The Game Kitchen, in collaboration with Dotemu, Koei Tecmo Games, and Team Ninja, we’re incredibly excited to reveal a brand-new addition to Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound: a second, fully original playable character from the Hayabusa Clan’s long-standing rivals: the legendary Black Spider Clan.

In this post, we’d like to take you behind the scenes of how this idea came to life, what you can expect from this new character, and some gameplay details we’re especially thrilled to share.

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Welcome home, PlayStation 5 players! I’m excited to share some news about our cozy fantasy life-sim adventure, Palia. First and foremost, we’re bringing Palia’s enchanting world to the PS5 on May 13 – complete with all the bells and whistles that only Sony’s hardware can deliver. I have a lot to share with you, so let’s get right into it!

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Palia has more than 6 million players, which means that some of you are already familiar with our game. For those who aren’t, Palia is a stress-free refuge where you and your friends can unwind together and explore a gorgeous fantasy world at your own pace. It’s filled with crafting opportunities, customization options, and plenty of exploration to keep you busy for years to come. We know that self-expression is one of the cool things that makes us human, and we’ve extended that into our little corner of the virtual world.

Every Palia resident can design and decorate their own home to perfectly suit their individual tastes. Want to live in a cozy cabin and bask in the glow of a crackling fireplace? Go for it! Or maybe you’re looking for something a little more stately. How about an upscale Tudor Revival-inspired mansion (la di dah!)? Or maybe all you need is a place to store your loot and you couldn’t give a rip about aesthetics. I’m not here to judge, you absolute monster (jk, hehe! We’re all about letting you put your unique stamp on the world – and in the lives of our cast of charming (and romanceable!) Villagers.

The PlayStation 5 launch is timed around Palia’s most ambitious updates to date, the long-awaited Elderwood expansion. This drop provides all players a massive new location to explore, Elderwood. What

Welcome–or welcome back–to Days Gone,  Bend Studio’s sprawling open-world adventure-survival epic. In this PlayStation 5 remaster launching April 25, you’ll once again be able to enjoy Deacon St. John’s journey across the gorgeous natural beauty of the Oregon wilderness–provided you can deal with the mind-boggling amount of mutant Freaker monstrosities that want to shred you into tiny little chunks.

We reached out to Kevin McAllister, Creative and Product Lead at Bend Studio, for some additional details about the anticipated remaster, including its notable new additions. So grab your survival gear, gas up your bike, and read on to hear about how Days Gone is better than ever on the PlayStation 5.

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Back in the days

We first asked how Bend Studio feels about revisiting their flagship game, “Days Gone is a special game for us,” says McAllister. “It’s a special game to our players, too. We got the opportunity to remaster a game that we released originally on the PS4 in 2019 and ported to the PC in 2021. Six years after the original, technology has improved–we have the power of the PS5 now. There was a lot more we could do to showcase the game’s potential.”

We then asked about how the PlayStation 5’s capabilities are enhancing the Days Gone experience. “The graphical improvements we’ve made–you’ll see the difference,” McAllister explains. “There’s increased lighting, increased shadow quality ,increased fog depth. For example, night time is now darker; the moon is more natural-looking. The blue sky is more natural, too–Days Gone is a very realistic-looking game. And we’ve taken that to a new level with the PS5.” Sounds like a great fit for the remaster’s new-and-improved Photo Mode, with more lighting options and instant day-and-night switches for beautiful environmental photography.

McAllister continues: “Gameplay-wise, right off the top of my head is increased horde sizes. That’s very specific to our new gameplay mode, Horde Assault. And these hordes, they get big. Like, how big? So, for example, the biggest horde in the story is the old sawmill horde, which is a mission that has 500 Freakers. In Horde Assault, we have hordes that range up to 800 Freakers. They cover the screen, that’s for sure.”

Crowd control

McAllister bringing up these huge hordes felt like the perfect time to ask him to dig deeperRead more

Hello fellow precision platform junkies! I’m Juhana, the Creative Director of Bionic Bay – my most ambitious project yet. Bionic Bay is a precision-puzzle platformer set in an ancient bio-mechanical world, hand-crafted pixel by pixel to create a high-fidelity, atmospheric environment.

Bionic Bay started as a chance meeting between me (Mureena) and Psychoflow studio, on a Reddit post showcasing their swap mechanic. We soon began to collaborate, merging their technical expertise with my experience in level design and art direction from previous titles such as Badland 1 and 2.

Creating Bionic Bay: One pixel at a time

The humble swap mechanic remains a central gameplay mechanic, but Bionic Bay has seen incredible growth since we started. We knew early on that the biggest hurdle would be to create environments which provided a challenge without becoming frustrating. In addition, this balanced challenge would be hosted within intricately detailed and hand-crafted pixel-art environments, taking significant time to create.

We approached these development challenges with a simple two-part solution. Firstly, I would focus on level design and art, and Psychoflow would work on the technical solution to make sure our mechanics looked great and worked well.

Perhaps more important, we agreed that we would all regularly jump in and play each level, experiencing it just as a player would. We have carried this on all the way to release, and this has helped us to ensure great balance, and that we understand the player journey through Bionic Bay.

We all love a precision platformer, but we also wanted to make sure that Bionic Bay provides a unique and worthwhile experience, and that comes down to the game’s core mechanics.

This began with the swap feature which first brought Mureena and Psychoflow together – allowing players to switch places with objects within each level.  This was soon joined by more tools, with each undergoing regular playthrough testing:

• ChronoLag, our time dilation technology which allows players to slow down time

The first episode of Don’t Nod’s narrative adventure, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, ended with a hell of a cliffhanger: a massive discovery of something unknown, possibly malevolent, and a devastating revelation about one of the story’s central figures. As the second episode, or tape, of this player-choice-driven, nostalgia-powered story aims to draw things to their conclusion when Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 2 launches April 15 day one into the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog, players have been left wondering what to expect.

To dig deeper into the game’s ambitions and get some further insight on what to expect from Swann, Nora, Autumn, and Kat’s next escapade, we sat down for a chat with Michel Koch, Creative Director at Don’t Nod’s Montreal studio.

You Oughta Know

Koch was eager to tell us how this experience would differ from the first. “The first Tape, ‘Bloom’, is the nice and sunny part of the beginning of the summer, of you meeting and bonding with those girls. The second half is called ‘Rage’, which is mostly the aftermath of the cliffhanger at the end of Tape 1. We wanted Tape 1 to let the player find their own space within the group of friends, getting a feeling of a summer where you meet friends, but also giving hints of weird things. They’re finding the clearing. They’re finding the abyss. It’s a very natural story of four girls having a fun summer together before Swann moves away.”

“But Tape 2 will focus more on this weirder part of the story. We know what happened at the end of the summer. We still don’t know why, but we know that they promise not to see each other again. We know about the weird box, we know about Kat, but we don’t know the consequences of this revelation. How do you continue to have a normal summer with your friends? And, of course, the continuation of what’s happening with those weird things they found in the forest.

Those supernatural elements will be more important. Personally, I love trying to blend supernatural things and surrealism revolving around the story of our characters. You can create a darker, weirder mood while still focusing on the characters and then adding the characters. We create this vibe, and it will get stronger and play a huge part of the story’s resolution.”

The pacing in this follow-up will be more brisk, as well. “Tape 2 definitely picks up the pace,” he continues. “We saw what happened with Kat and the end of the concert, and Tape 2 will start the next day with Swann having to face kind of the guilt, even if it’s not our fault, of putting friends in danger. We’ll advance through the month of August up to the end events. So yes, it’s faster paced, with higher stakes.”

Koch also emphasized that players will see more of how their choices in tape one affect the overall narrative. “We had a lot of choices. Who you are talking to, who you are getting closest to, all those interpersonal relationships with the girls, and so on. What was the choice you made during the ritual? What did you do at the abyss? How did you react to Corey and Dylan in the times you were with them? Are you behaving in a more violent or unlawful way, or are you sometimes taking the route to be cautious?&

What happened to the ghost colony on Tau Ceti IV and the infamous Marathon ship that started it all? Decades after the original Marathon trilogy, the Bungie development team is ready to dive back into the world of Tau Ceti IV in their upcoming team-based extraction shooter, Marathon. The game launches on PS5, Steam, and Xbox Series X|S on September 24.

Today we’ll be covering some of the highlights from the live Marathon Gameplay Reveal Showcase. For all the details, you can watch the livestream here.

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A deadly competition

In Marathon, players work together in crews of three to scavenge the remnants of the lost colony on Tau Ceti IV. In their search for the powerful weapons and equipment left behind, they’ll face AI security forces, otherworldly threats, and rival Runner teams competing for loot.

Death is part of the journey—it’s a cutthroat world, and it’s not possible to survive every expedition. But every time you make it out alive, you get to keep everything you scavenged, which means you’ll grow in power and fill your vault across matches.

You’re only ever one run away from your next big score.

For your first look at gameplay, check out the Gameplay Reveal Trailer debuted in today’s livestream.
 

Play Video

Enjoy your new shell

At the heart of Marathon ar

This weekend Bungie revealed Marathon’s sci-fi-fueled gameplay to the world. The studio, celebrated for its sublime first-person gunplay and ever-expanding gameplay, is venturing into the extraction-shooter genre when the game launches on September 24. The Marathon premise is simple and enticing: load up your Runner with valuable gear, compete with other players to secure more loot, and risk it all trying to extract with all the goods. 

I had the opportunity to catch up with Marathon Game Director Joe Ziegler hot off the heels of this reveal, diving deeper into the details around Bungie’s next game. We cover lots of ground, including Bungie’s approach to a new genre, tapping into the power of PS5, the game’s bold art style, and more.

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Tim Turi: Congratulations on the big gameplay reveal! How are you and the team feeling following the event?

Joe Ziegler: It’s pretty exciting. The term I’ve been using a lot is “nerve-cited.” It’s a labor of love we’ve been working on for a few years now, and that definitely comes with the passion that we’ve poured into it, iterating with our audiences, and this desire to produce something amazing to play and to see. 

Having it touch real players’ hands for the first time is thrilling, because we do this to excite and entertain them in amazing ways, but also nerve wracking. You know, you question a lot of decisions you made. You’re really hoping that all the things that you’ve thought of are really what players care about. And we feel like we’re there, but we’re really excited to see what players have to say.

During the development of Marathon, were there specific moments or experiences that made the Bungie team realize it was onto something special?

So many of them are these unpredictable moments. Moments where you thought one thing was going to happen, but another thing happened. In our game, you’re traveling to this mysterious world where danger could lurk around every corner. Sometimes you turn a corner and you’re face to face with the United Earth Space Council (UESC), these really brutal and dangerous opponents inside of our game. Or sometimes you’re just traversing across the map and bullets are whizzing by from another crew that has seen you. And some of those moments get extremely exciting, because you don’t think you’re g

With a backdrop of a challenging economic environment, including high inflation and fluctuating exchange rates, SIE has made the tough decision to raise the recommended retail price (RRP) of the PlayStation 5 console in select markets in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Australia and New Zealand. 

The updated PS5 RRPs are effective starting April 14, as follows*: 

PS5 Pro RRPs remain unchanged. 

Additionally, the Disc Drive for PS5 will be getting an RRP decrease effective starting April 14, as follows: 

* Select markets in EMEA not listed above may also receive RRP increases. Please check with your local retailer and direct.playstation.com where available. 

This weekend Bungie revealed Marathon’s sci-fi-fueled gameplay to the world. The studio, celebrated for its sublime first-person gunplay and ever-expanding gameplay, is venturing into the extraction-shooter genre when the game launches on September 23. The Marathon premise is simple and enticing: load up your Runner with valuable gear, compete with other players to secure more loot, and risk it all trying to extract with all the goods. 

I had the opportunity to catch up with Marathon Game Director Joe Ziegler hot off the heels of this reveal, diving deeper into the details around Bungie’s next game. We cover lots of ground, including Bungie’s approach to a new genre, tapping into the power of PS5, the game’s bold art style, and more.

Play Video

Tim Turi: Congratulations on the big gameplay reveal! How are you and the team feeling following the event?

Joe Ziegler: It’s pretty exciting. The term I’ve been using a lot is “nerve-cited.” It’s a labor of love we’ve been working on for a few years now, and that definitely comes with the passion that we’ve poured into it, iterating with our audiences, and this desire to produce something amazing to play and to see. 

Having it touch real players’ hands for the first time is thrilling, because we do this to excite and entertain them in amazing ways, but also nerve wracking. You know, you question a lot of decisions you made. You’re really hoping that all the things that you’ve thought of are really what players care about. And we feel like we’re there, but we’re really excited to see what players have to say.

During the development of Marathon, were there specific moments or experiences that made the Bungie team realize it was onto something special?

So many of them are these unpredictable moments. Moments where you thought one thing was going to happen, but another thing happened. In our game, you’re traveling to this mysterious world where danger could lurk around every corner. Sometimes you turn a corner and you’re face to face with the United Earth Space Council (UESC), these really brutal and dangerous opponents inside of our game. Or sometimes you’re just traversing across the map and bullets are whizzing by from another crew that has seen you. And some of those moments get extremely exciting, because you don’t think you’re going to make it

What happened to the ghost colony on Tau Ceti IV and the infamous Marathon ship that started it all? Decades after the original Marathon trilogy, the Bungie development team is ready to dive back into the world of Tau Ceti IV in their upcoming team-based extraction shooter, Marathon. The game launches on PS5, Steam, and Xbox Series X|S on September 23.

Today we’ll be covering some of the highlights from the live Marathon Gameplay Reveal Showcase. For all the details, you can watch the livestream here.

Play Video

A deadly competition

In Marathon, players work together in crews of three to scavenge the remnants of the lost colony on Tau Ceti IV. In their search for the powerful weapons and equipment left behind, they’ll face AI security forces, otherworldly threats, and rival Runner teams competing for loot.

Death is part of the journey—it’s a cutthroat world, and it’s not possible to survive every expedition. But every time you make it out alive, you get to keep everything you scavenged, which means you’ll grow in power and fill your vault across matches.

You’re only ever one run away from your next big score.

For your first look at gameplay, check out the Gameplay Reveal Trailer debuted in today’s livestream.
 

Play Video

Enjoy your new shell

At the heart of Marathon are Runners.

Runners are cybernetic m