How do you start a game? That is such a difficult question. There are so many things a game needs to do for a player at the start; introduce them to the world, teach them how to play and most importantly, hook them in. We spent a lot of time and effort on the beginning of Paradise Killer to try to get it right. I haven’t done the maths on this but I know that the start of the game is the most commonly shared video clip from Paradise Killer on social media so I guess something worked!

In Paradise Killer you play Lady Love Dies (LD), an investigator brought out of exile to investigate the crime to end all crimes on the bizarre Paradise Island. We knew that the start of the game would depict LD arriving on the island and introducing the player to the world. As we were making an open world game, we wanted to start by showing the player the whole world at the start. The island is quite big and you can explore the whole thing, but you don’t usually get to see the scale of what you are about to explore in games. We hoped that giving the player a bird’s-eye view of a huge vista that was ready for them would blow them away and whet their appetite for exploration.

With this in mind, our initial story draft started with LD arriving by plane, allowing the player to see the island as they flew over it. It wasn’t very exciting and it didn’t feel right for our game, so we shelved the idea and worked on other things while we thought about it. Eventually Phil, our technical director, said to me: “I want an intro like the beginning of Bayonetta”. That’s quite the challenge! For those who haven’t played it, the beginning of Bayonetta sees the player fighting a huge army of angel freaks on a ruined cathedral that’s plummeting through the sky. It is one of the best game beginnings anyone has ever made, it really makes an impression. I thought to myself, “how do we make something like that in a first person narrative game?”

After abandoning the arriving by plane intro, the story had developed in other ways and we had decided that the exiled Lady Love Dies was going to be in some kind of prison cell called the Idle Lands, high above Paradise Island. One of the issues we had to solve was working out how we’d get the player down from there at the beginning of the game. Our first idea was to have Lydia pick you up in her car. Lydia drives a car that can travel through dimensions so it would make sense that she could find a way to be parked way up in the sky in the Idle Lands.

However, we just didn’t think that was very exciting. Luckily, we had decided early on in development that there wouldn’t be any fall damage in the game because the game is about free exploration and we didn’t want to punish that. Alongside needing to figure out a good intro, we also needed a good way to communicate this, so we decided to make the player jump down from the Idle Lands at the start of the game. We tried it out, and taking a great big running jump and flinging yourself into oblivion felt great! As they fell the player could see the whole island stretched out below them and start picking out places of interest for their investigation. It served many purposes.

Lumos!

Hi, I’m Chandler Wood. I’m a Slytherin and the Community Manager here at Avalanche Software. It’s been a while since we first revealed Hogwarts Legacy. Back then I still hadn’t even joined the studio. Now I’m part of this incredible team that has put a ton of effort into making sure our gameplay reveal would be worth the wait. We couldn’t be more excited that it’s finally here.

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We’ve all dreamt of receiving our letters, attending Hogwarts, and forging a legacy of our own. As Wizarding World fans, we’ve wondered what it would be like for our stories to be found between the pages of a book, because that magic-filled world has always felt close to our own. Hogwarts Legacy is your story, rooted firmly in wizarding world lore, and it starts with creating the witch or wizard you want to be. 

An Authentic Wizarding World

It’s finally happening! On March 31 exactly two weeks from today, you’ll be able to reunite with Quill in Moss: Book II. As the next game in the franchise, Book II builds on the story you started with Quill in the original Moss. In this continuation of the journey, the stakes are higher than ever as Quill works to save the world of Moss and end the merciless rule of the Arcane. New allies, old friends, and the very world around you will offer help along the way, but in the end, it is you alone who can lift Quill up to save this world, and together, rise to legend.

To celebrate this announcement, I had the pleasure of sitting down with PlayStation’s Justin Massongill and Tim Turi to record an episode of PlayStation Underground to give you a sneak peek at some of the environments, enemies, and challenges you’ll encounter in this new adventure. While I showed off some new, unique features—including a teaser for a pretty big encounter that Quill is about to face—I purposefully left out a lot of really cool things that we want you to experience on your own. And I have a feeling you’ll be glad we didn’t spoil them for you.

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If you don’t have time to watch the entire PlayStation Underground episode, here are some highlights that I think you’ll enjoy:

We start the episode in the gardens, an area just outside of the castle that you traveled to in the first game. There’s a reason you made the journey to the castle, but we won’t spoil that for the few of you who have yet to play Moss. By now, you’re a couple chapters into the game where you’ll have already met a few new characters, and both you (the Reader) and Quill have unlocked new abilities. As the Reader, you have a real physical presence in the world, and in addition to guiding Quill, you’re also able to reach in and interact with the environment—something you can expect to do in all new ways in Book II. With your new natu

In Ghostwire: Tokyo, you awake amidst the mass disappearance of nearly all of Tokyo’s population, paving the way for otherworldly Visitors to take over the city. Resembling real-life superstitions, folklore, yokai and urban legends, these Visitors won’t be stopped by conventional weapons alone. You’ll need to work alongside an unlikely ally – the spirit of a grizzled detective named KK – to have the powers and skills necessary to hunt down the perpetrators behind Tokyo’s vanishing and restore reality to the city.

In addition to gear like a powerful bow and arrow and mystic techniques like Ethereal Weaving, knowledge is also a useful tool for solving the paranormal threat enveloping Tokyo. Here are just a few examples of the beings – both hostile and potentially friendly – you’ll encounter in the haunted streets of Tokyo, as well as a little intel to aid you in your ghost hunting adventure.

Kuchisake 

Based on the urban legend of the kuchisake-onna , AKA “Slit-Mouthed Woman,” Ghostwire’s Kuchisake is a vicious Visitor in the form of a masked woman wielding a massive pair of scissors. In the original folklore, the kuchisake-onna asks its victims if they think she is beautiful, only to reveal her disfigured grin. She then repeats the question, often maiming the victim with similar scars if they disingenuously maintain that she’s pretty or killing them outright if they say the opposite. 

“At least some part of including the kuchisake-onna came down to how ubiquitous the concept is in Japan as an urban legend,” explains Game Director Kenji Kimura. “That said, what ultimately led to the inclusion was the fact that they don’t look like monsters at first glance, just regular women wearing coats. As such, they complemented one of our goals for the game: to portray the unsettling and extraordinary within entirely ordinary settings. As they get closer to the player, you’ll be able to hear them clacking and snipping while they open and close them. It makes for an extra-immersive aural sensation when experienced through the PlayStation 5’s 3D audio capabilities.”

A clever misdirection can help prevent you becoming the kuchisake-onna’s prey and besting Ghostwire’s version requires a similar approach. When she closes in, use your Ethereal Weaving to summon a blocking barrier at just the right time to parry her attacks but beware, even deadlier foes lurk along Tokyo’s alleyways. “Ghostwire: Tokyo also features another variety of kuchisake-onna in red clothing. That version is inspired by a different urban legend involving a woman in red,” explains Kimura. “In that sense, the kuchisake-onna in Ghostwire aren’t just pulled directly from legends and folklore, but more like a combination and reimagining of the concepts.”

Tengu

While Visitors like the bloodthirsty Kuchisake pose a serious threat to the under-prepared, not every supernatural being in Tokyo is an enemy. Some, like the wandering tengu floating around the city’s skyline, can serve as crucial assets in your mission.

Look near the top of buildings (or tap into your Spectral Vision ability) to locate these airbo

The aptly named Mega March promotion brings mega savings to PlayStation Store from Wednesday, March 16. For a limited time* enjoy discounts across a variety of games and add-ons. 

That includes the likes of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Deluxe PS4 & PS5, FIFA 22 on PS4 and Back 4 Blood: Deluxe Edition PS4 & PS5.