You’ve saved Eorzea in Final Fantasy XIV Online: A Realm Reborn and resolved a centuries’ old conflict with the dragons in Heavensward… what’s next for the Warrior of Light?

It’s time to head to the Far East. It’s time for Stormblood. And from now until May 8, 2023, this massive expansion is completely free for players who own or buy the Final Fantasy XIV Online Starter Edition!

Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood took the critically acclaimed MMORPG to the next level, with a compellingly dark new story full of twists, turns and quests a-plenty, new mechanics, new jobs to get to grips with and a whole new part of the world to explore. Let’s take a closer look.

What is Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood about?

After the events of Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward, it’s time to take the fight to the sinister Garlean Empire. You and your allies make plans to liberate the conquered city state of Ala Mhigo, and you head out to meet the resistance.

Of course, things don’t really go to plan and before long you’re confronted by a new enemy… one who might be even stronger than the fabled Warrior of Light.

Meanwhile, in the Far East nation of Doma, freedom fighters struggle to rekindle the fires of hope in their countrymen. Will you be the spark that ignites the flames of rebellion and pushes the Empire out once and for all?

The main campaign of Stormblood is a sprawling epic that’s full of political intrigue, surprising revelations, and thrilling action. 

What was added to Final Fantasy XIV in the Stormblood expansion?

Stormblood broadened the already vast world of the game with new regions that are quite unlike anything in the game before. Ala Mhigo and Doma are the lands of monks, and ninja and samurai respectively, with a beautiful aesthetic inspired by the Far East.

They provide a terrific setting for the game’s main scenario to unfold – plus plenty of additional quests mean that there’s always something new to discover amongst the regions’ vast and beautiful landscapes.

The expansion also includes two additional jobs. When it comes to combat, do you prefer melee or magic? Stormblood asks: why not have both? The Red Mage job added in the expansion hands you a rapier and a magicked crystal medium, letting you dive in and out of combat, assault enemies with red magic, and even link multiple spells for massive damage. It’s a highly mobile, highly entertaining DPS role that’s really fun to play with.

Of course, the second job added in the expansion is just as wild… you can be a Samurai! This is another DPS job all about mastering the arts of Sen and Kenki. With your katana in hand, you can cut a swathe through foes, to build your power and unleash it in the form of powerful combos.

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The 4th Annual Impy Awards have come to a close, and we’re leaving behind the islands of the Nomi Nations minus a bunch of golden trophies, and plus a tonne of wonderful memories. Oh, and some crab-based trauma. It’s a long story.

If you’re curious, though, you can catch up with this year’s show – and all of our ‘road to the Impys’ livestreams, including Molecule chats, Dreams creator interviews, behind-the-scenes secrets and more – over on our YouTube channel!

We had a blast celebrating many of the most brilliant creations and memorable moments from the past 12 months in the Dreamiverse – and showing celebrity guest judges from across a variety of creative industries some of the very best stuff Dreams has to offer.

Thanks to them, we’re now 23 trophies lighter! Not because they stole them. They just helped us with the tricky task of figuring out which creators to hand the prizes to. And you got stuck in too, casting votes for your worthy winners in our eight coMmunity-voted categories.

But WHO ended up taking home the gold? WHO immortalised themselves in Dreams history and entered the hallowed halls of Impys infamy? And WHO let an owl into this blog post? The noise is incredibly irritating.

All these questions (okay, not the owl one, that was a joke) are answered below. Take a look at the winners of the 4th Annual Impy Awards!

Creation of the Year

●  Trip’s Voyage – Eupholace, Aevox23, actualjimmyjam

Creator/Team of the Year

●  Eupholace

Community Star

●  UglySofaGaming

Community Collaboration

●  DreamsFest 22 – The DreamsFest Team

Most Helpful Dreamer

●  TAPgiles

Breakthrough Dreamer

●  MarshallsAccount

Curation Star

●  LadyLexUK

Contribution Beyond Dreams

●  The InfiniDreams Team

Excellence in Sculpture

●  Imp – lillouakola81

Excellence in Art Direction

●  Trip’s Voyage – Eupholace, Aevox23, actualjimmyjam

Excellence in Environment Art

●  Vineland 2 – ZIIQ, VitaminG_90

Excellence in Animation

●  AstroThumb Stories 2 – ar

Baseball fans, MLB The Show 23 launches tomorrow! With that in mind, let’s discuss the modes to get you started.

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New Legends*

Play as more than 180 Legends from all Eras of Baseball. New Legends Derek Jeter, David Wright, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and more join a star-studded list of Hall of Famers and generational talent. You can put together your dream outfield with Ken Griffey Jr., Willie Mays, and Babe Ruth while choosing between the greatest pitchers, such as Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, and closer Mariano Rivera. Look for a few hidden Legends to be announced after launch through Live Content and Roster Updates when you connect online.

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Gameplay updates

From ’22 to ’23, the San Diego Studio Gameplay Development Team continues striving to reach all types of players.

• High fielding attribute matters more now than ever before. The disparity between players in-game with high vs. low fielding attributes is more noticeable. Players with a lower Fielding attribute will react slower and have worse jumps to contact made off the bat compared to players with a high Fielding attribute.
• When it comes to our throwing interfaces, we have a couple to select from depending on player skill and engagement level. Our more player-friendly interfaces, Buttons and Analog, rely heavily on the Arm Accuracy attribute, which has been tuned to be in line with MLB statistics. Elevate your game with the Button Accuracy Meter, where you are in complete control of your throws.
• The p

Email us at PSPodcast@sony.com!

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This week the team chats all things Tchia with Phil Crifo (Game Director at Awaceb), before sharing early Resident Evil 4 impressions and favorite video game movie and TV adaptations.

Stuff We Talked About

• MLB The Show 23
• Exoprimal
• Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores expansion
• Resident Evil 4
• Tchia (interview begins at 11:30)

The Cast

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Last week, we asked you to use your green thumbs to share green-themed moments from your favorite games using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s highlights:

scottoka1 shares Cloud in green lighting from Final Fantasy VII Remake.

kani3_sun shares a green-tube experiment in Observer: System Redux

RM7_GoWR_VP shares Atreus shooting green Runic arrows in God of War Ragnarök

HazzaniVP shares Aloy staring into out-of-focus green fireflies in Horizon Forbidden West

DexM_ds shares the cat in Stray napping in green grass

MrioMoreno5 shares Slimer being his green self in Ghostbusters: The Video Game.

Search #PSshare #PSBlog on Twitter or Instagram to see more entries to this week’s theme. Want to be featured in the next Share of the Week? 

THEME: Tchia

SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on March 29, 2023

Next week, set sail and explore the world of Tchia, available now as part of the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog. Share moments soul-jumping, playing music, and exploring the archipelago in Tchia using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured.

Hi, my name is Yang Yu. Today I am excited to share that Honkai: Star Rail, the forthcoming free-to-play space fantasy RPG, arrives on PlayStation soon. You play as the protagonist embarking on a trip aboard the Astral Express with distinctive passengers. As “The Trailblazer,” you are going to discover the realms of the universe and unearth secrets buried in legends.

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A science-fiction universe with elements of fantasy

Exploration is the core of every adventure. Honkai: Star Rail features an in-game world awaiting discovery with elements of myth blended into a space sci-fi story. In this universe, there are “Aeons,” incarnations of universal principles that can freely travel between infinite worlds, driven by their Primum Mobile — Basically, they are gods with formidable powers! The Aeons roaming the worlds uphold their own beliefs, hence various kinds of civilization thrive around every corner of the universe.

However, there is one Aeon named Destruction who considers the universe as a fallacy and civilization as cancer, casting seeds of ruin called Stellarons across the galaxy that leads to massive changes to ecosystems. As the protagonist, you are implanted with a Stellaron at the very beginning of the story. To drill down to the essence of the Stellaron, you bravely set sail for the galaxy, composing an interstellar melody filled with surprises and rewarding experiences.

Various worlds to explore

Honkai: Star Rail provides a vast universe abundant with distinctive cultures, landscapes, and scenery. It is full of rewards and secrets waiting to be explored.

You can experience the origin of the story in the Herta Space Station and then set sail to explore Jarilo-Ⅵ and the Xianzhou Luofu, two major destinations of your interstellar journey. Jarilo-Ⅵ has innumerable mysteries and dangers frozen beneath its snow caps awaiting further examination. The Xianzhou Luofu, the silkpunk flagship where inhabitants seem to have achieved immortality, foreshadows the upcoming expedition infused with Eastern fantasy.

Here at Piccolo Studio, we like to say that we “craft” games rather than “make” them. Our logo features a needle and a thread, symbolizing this very approach.

With After Us, our next project releasing on May 23, we tell the story of Gaia, a small nymph brought to explore the outside world for the first time. The universe is a surrealistic version of Earth in the far future, after humans have expunged all life on it. It is a strange, oneiric, but ultimately captivating world where everyday objects float around, some small, others massive, and where a coat of hazardous oil taints the land.

This third person adventure mixes platforming, puzzles, and combat in a nonconventional way. The world is rich, divided into 10 different biomes. “Some parts of the game rely more on puzzles, some on exploration, others on combat, and often we switch up the traversal sections so it stays fresh”, says game co-director Jordi Ministral.

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An organic approach to platforming

We invest a lot of time into creating singular experiences. How do we do it? We start with a vision, a holistic idea of how we want the player to feel. Then we take the rules of a specific genre, and we twist them. At its core, After Us is a 3D platformer. Yet, we intended to have many features often avoided when developing a platformer: a camera that is far from the main character, a lush world filled with assets artistically scattered around, and an absence of strict metrics. A designer’s nightmare, right? But we found solutions that worked wonderfully to create the organic experience we envisioned.

In complement, Gaia’s movements are simple to execute. They can be effortlessly chained in a pleasant flow. She dashes at very high speeds – about 70 km/h – so the scale of the world ended up being huge! “Players burn through content so fast that we ended up with more than 100kms of environment!”, explains Jordi. There is a lot of verticality as well. The main character can double jump very high, with an adequate balance between airborne agility and weight. Combined with gliding, controlling falls becomes easy. These motion mechanics have been designed precisely to traverse an organic world without strict metrics.

Greetings, fellow Cosmonauts! Thank you for tuning into this exciting new announcement. In our first PS blog post, we announced our reimagining of Sega’s arcade and console icon for Single, Co-Op and Versus gameplay – only on PlayStation VR2. The response has been overwhelming.

Today, as promised, we’re launching a free playable demo.

You will be able to pre-order the game at a discount before the full game launches on June 23 2023.

Our game is being crafted by a veritable dream team of developers, artists and musicians scattered all over our little blue ball spinning around in a remote corner of the galaxy – and your support means the world to us. In the meantime, allow us to tell you a bit more about what’s in store – both in the demo and in the full release.

What’s in the demo?

Tutorial

When you first load up the game, you are transported straight into the world of C-Smash VRS. The game is designed to be easy to pick up and play, so you can feel at one with your virtual body and at ease in a stylish space at the edge of time.

C-Smash VRS feels natural. In a few quick steps, the Tutorial gives you some guidance and general tips to play. Don’t forget to learn the Trick Smash, designed to attract the hard-to-reach high balls and hit the ball with larger-than-life power and precision.

A feature to note – if you want to switch hands, you can do so in the menu – left-handed, right-handed or ambidextrous, we’ve got you sorted!

Training

While most training modes are there to teach, this single player mode is a fun, engaging and absorbing challenge.

Smash blocks of different strengths, improve your score and enjoy the dynamic music.

The arena is built of a grid of dots that pulse and ripple with gameplay. This is reflected in the hand and head vibrations, making you feel the impact of a well-timed return as well as the ripple of a missed shot as it returns, ready to serve.

A crisp and beautiful cosmos awaits, the PSVR 2’s OLED display bringing the minimal but vivid color palette to life. Design has never felt more physical and present.

The Training mode gives you a small taste of the full release’s Journey mode, which you will also be able to play Co-Op with a friend. Which brings us to our Demo’s multiplayer mode:

Since its original debut nearly a decade ago, the original The Last of Us’ core characters, Ellie and Joel, have left an indelible mark on our studio, our fans, and the wider world of this franchise. So many members of the Naughty Dog team have had a hand in bringing the two to life. And it would be difficult to think of these characters and their origins without the performers that brought them to life, Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker.

With the HBO series having just completed its first season, and with The Last of Us Part I now available for the PlayStation 5 console and for pre-purchase on PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store (available March 28, 2023), our behind-the-scenes series Building The Last of Us next turns to Naughty Dog Co-President and HBO series executive producer Neil Druckmann discussing the two actors and bringing them into the show in new roles, while Baker and Johnson reflect on seeing the roles they performed take on new life in The Last of Us HBO series, the surreal nature of stepping into new roles in the TV series, and more.

Watch the video below to hear from Baker, Druckmann, and Johnson, and be sure to check out past entries in our series, including a look at how Ellie and Joel’s relationship is at the heart of The Last of Us, a dive into The Last of Us’ unforgettable opening, how TLOU’s Clickers continue to scare us, and how the cruel world of The Last of Us is brought to life.

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***Spoilers for The Last of Us game and show follow.***

In bringing the entirety of The Last of Us to life in a new medium, Druckmann hoped the talented teams involved in developing The Last of Us would be proud of this adaptation, including those performers who were so essential to bringing these characters to life.

“The people I was most nervous about liking the show wer

Resident Evil 4, launching this Friday, March 24, is a remake of the acclaimed original. It preserves the essence of the 2005 survival horror while introducing modernized gameplay, a reimagined storyline, and vividly detailed graphics. 

We asked the game’s director Yasuhiro Ampo, sound director Hiroshi Tamura and art director Hirofumi Nakaoka how they leveraged PlayStation 5’s unique capabilities, including 3D audio, adaptive triggers, haptic feedback, and stunning graphic fidelity to create the game on PS5.

PlayStation Blog: What were your first impressions when first learning about the power and capabilities of the PS5 from a developer perspective?

Yasuhiro Ampo (Director): The enhanced data reading speed allows the game to handle higher volumes of assets, while also generating richer graphics and reducing loading times. Immersive horror is one of the key elements for the Resident Evil series, so it’s extremely beneficial that players can remain uninterrupted during their gameplay even during scene transitions.

3D Audio creates realistic soundscapes in games and it’s an essential component that brings something new to evoke fear and horror. How did you leverage 3D audio in RE4 to conceive an even more terrifying audio experience?

Hiroshi Tamura (Sound Director): 3D audio was essential for shaping the audio for RE4. In moments of quiet tension, we dynamically 3D-layered sounds, such as the irregular cracking of wooden houses settling or other subtle noises over the bass produced by Ambisonics audio (a type of 3D audio format). In intense combat sequences, we made sure most sounds are outputted as object-based 3D audio, so that enemy or object noises can be heard behind the wall or the floor above. Our goal was to create an immersive experience by amplifying the suspense and building a three-dimensional soundscape. In addition, all the music in this game was produced and mixed in 7.1.4 channels.

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Game controls in RE4 have also been refined and modernized. How did you leverage unique PS5 features such as adaptive triggers and haptic feedback in the game?

Yasuhiro Ampo (Director): We wanted players to share the sensation that the game’s main protagonist, Leon, was experiencing inside the game. For example, the DualSense controller will intricately vibrate and play sounds when Leon reloads a gun. The resistance of the adaptive trigger also changes depending on the weight of the gun.

Thanks to updated graphics, RE4 enhances the original game’s feeling of isolation and its haunting environments. How did PS5 help you achieve this?

Hirofumi Naka