If there’s one thing the World War Z game franchise is known for, it’s throwing massive hordes of zombies at you. We took that design philosophy to heart as we set to launch World War Z: Aftermath’s long-awaited Horde Mode XL update.  

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Launching tomorrow, Horde Mode XL is a new game mode that takes advantage of PlayStation 5’s power to put more blood-thirsty zombies on the screen at the same time than ever before, including the previous Horde Mode Z.

In the new mode, you and your friends will find yourselves in a new map where you must protect a civilian camp located inside a shopping mall. 

There are three gameplay areas connected to this mall and each of them is a separate front line under the attack of zombie swarms seeking to reach the civilians

• The Restaurant Area:  The swarm attacks from the temple and the village 
• The Riverside Area:  The swarm attacks from the city 
• The Construction Area: The swarm attacks from the factory

The rules are simple: survive as long as possible and prevent the zombies from getting to the civilians.

The core difference in the new mode is that some zombie waves will be “XL waves” with a mind-blowingly huge amount of zombies on the screen at the same time, and they’re all coming for you and your team. 

To survive this onslaught, you have to stock up on supplies in order to launch enhanced defenses. These are unique events that trigger at the beginning of an XL wave if you’ve stored enough supplies and they slay a ton of zombies at once.

The more supplies you store, the deadlier your enhanced defenses will be. Enhanced defenses differ in each area: there are missiles in the Restaurant area, jet fighters in the Riverside area, and explosive gas at the Construction site.

Horde Mode XL also features other new gameplay features and surprises that

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Happy new year! The team rings in the new year with exciting PS VR2 updates, and thoughts on the premiere of HBO’s adaptation of The Last of Us.

Stuff We Talked About

• Forspoken
• Dead Space
• PS VR2’s updated lineup
• Colossal Cave 3D
• The Last of Us on HBO (mild spoilers for Episode 1)

The Cast

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Last week, we asked you to share epic moments from Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, available as a PlayStation Plus Monthly Game for January. Here are this week’s highlights:

AreeLyBadPun shares The Second Sister reaches out sinisterly

Defalt368 shares Cal walking in the grass with a moon at his back

call_me_xavii shares Cal posing with a dual-sided lightsaber in a canyon

Ag_Beaver shares a Stormtrooper standing in the darkness

Retsu_Zankoku shares Cal leaping with his lightsaber drawn

RyoppyGamePhoto shares Cal standing in the opening of a massive round structure

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: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order – Lightsabers
SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on January 25, 2023

Next week, it’s all about Lightsabers. Share an epic moment with Cal or an enemy’s Lightsaber in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured.

Ken and Roberta Williams need little introduction among adventure game fans. The duo, who founded legendary developer Sierra On-Line in the earliest days of gaming, has been responsible for some of the genre’s most innovative, daring, and memorable titles. The two have been away from game development for quite some time, but they haven’t been out of the spotlight–in recent years, the pair has been honored with a Gaming Icon Award from The Game Awards, and Roberta received a Pioneer Award at the 2019 Game Developers Conference. 

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Now, the accomplished tag team is returning to the world of adventure games after 25 years with a new development team, Cygnus Entertainment. The team’s first outing is a full remake of a true classic: Colossal Cave. Originally a pioneering text adventure game released back in 1976 and called Colossal Cave Adventure, Colossal Cave transforms the lime-green-on-black text of the original into a visually captivating graphic adventure. The original game was a huge influence on many of the designers of the era, including Ken and Roberta, who are funding this ambitious remake. We sat down with the power duo to discuss their return to the world of game development and what players can expect from their return to game development. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for brevity and clarity.

PlayStation.Blog: Roberta, can you tell us about your experiences with the original text-based Colossal Cave Adventure back in 1976 or 1977?

Roberta: I had never played a computer game ever. I think Colossal Cave may be the first or, if not, then very very close to the first computer game ever. And it certainly was the first adventure game — I mean, it basically invented the concept of an adventure game. So I played it, and I loved it, and I wanted to play more, but there weren’t really any more games quite like it at the time. So I was inspired to sit down and design my own game, which ultimately became Mystery House. 

PSB: How did the original Colossal Cave Adventure influence the games you made, Roberta?

Roberta: Colossal Cave invented most of the things that many of us who do game design [rely on], especially in the adventure game genre. It developed the idea of mapping a world. Mazes, getting lost, going down a passage o

You find yourself in control of the Clockwinder’s Gloves – an incredible invention that lets you record anything you do with your hands and turn that action into a robot clone that repeats exactly what you did in a loop. These clones are called Gardeners, and you’re going to need their help to save your childhood home. Use the clones to harvest plants, operate machinery, and even throw things to yourself and catch them across the room. There’s no single solution to any challenge: you can create marvels of precision efficiency or hare-brained Rube Goldberg machines. The only limit is your own creativity.

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The Last Clockwinder is a unique mix of automation and puzzle gameplay. Since its launch the game has been widely recognized for its innovative design, receiving several awards including Road To VR’s Best PC VR Game of 2022, Hardcore Gamer’s Best VR Game of 2022, and Finalist at the DICE Awards in both VR categories. We’re thrilled to bring The Last Clockwinder to PlayStation VR2 on February 22.

A mechanic made for VR

We’re big fans of automation games, but our least favorite part about automation is putting in the instructions for the things you want to automate. Selecting, dragging, moving timelines around – it can get very fiddly! This is where automation with clones is different.

In The Last Clockwinder, the way that you tell a clone what to do is by simply doing it yourself. With the press of a button you start recording yourself. Your hands, head, and all your inputs are recorded for a short time. While recording, you can grab objects, throw and catch, use tools – pretty much anything. When the recording is finished, a clone appears where you were and starts repeating the actions that you just did on a loop. Clones can be created with 2, 4, or 8 second loops, and the recording system ensures that clones will stay synchronized. No fiddling required!

Creating an interface this expressive and easy to use was only possible with VR. With precise tracking and free 3D movement there’s zero friction between thinking something and doing it. This is a game mechanic that is truly unique to VR.

Exploration and optimization

To progress in the game, you’ll need to make teams of clones working together to harvest resources from plants. You’ll use these resources for many things: powering machinery, creating new plant seeds, and unlocking rooms within the Clocktower.

Paddle through the ice caves in Antarctica, kayak with dolphins in Costa Rica, conquer a thunderstorm in Norway and discover the canyons of Australia. In our kayaking game, made exclusively for VR, you can explore these real world locations with photorealistic graphics. And it’s looking better than ever on PS VR2 as Kayak VR: Mirage joins PS VR2’s launch line up.

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The perfect showcase for PS VR2

Kayak VR: Mirage is a great game for newcomers and veterans of VR alike. Compared to most forms of locomotion in VR, paddling allows for a natural and intuitive way to move through an environment, making it a great game to show off your brand-new headset to friends and family. 

Besides the visual fidelity we also spent a lot of time on the game’s physics. While new players can quickly get the hang of the kayaking, more experienced kayakers are able to maneuver with the accuracy they’d expect from a real kayak. This focus on natural physics also applies to the rest of the environment: plants, floating ice and debris all respond realistically to your paddle and kayak.  

Unwind on the water

When designing the environments, we wanted you to feel like you’ve arrived at the perfect time. Paddle underneath the Aurora Australis, marvel at a whale that comes up for air or listen to the water breaking on the cliffs. These calming moments were designed to counterbalance the plethora of high intensity games available in VR and help you unwind after a long day or an intense gaming session.

Sea and wildlife are a big part of our design philosophy. Watch penguins jumping off ice cliffs, a turtle making its way from the beach to the water and dolphins swimming alongside you when you pick up speed. You can even try catching a fish with your paddle. But take it gently, like real fish, they’ll swim away dynamically based on the location and speed of the impact. 

As for the free Given Time campaign expansion due later this month, here’s a showcase.

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You’ll be able to start the Given Time campaign separately in the main menu, whether you’ve played the original game or not. Progress in the campaigns are saved separately, so you can start one and switch to the other, and back again, although Jett is probably best enjoyed chronologically.

The new Given Time campaign takes place three years following the end of the events of The Far Shore. Note: some very light plot spoilers ahead in th

In one horrific night, Joel’s life is changed forever. As the player’s introduction to the world of The Last of Us, the evening spent with Joel, Sarah, and Tommy as the cordyceps outbreak changes everything cements the tone, style, and stakes of the franchise’s world. Whether you experienced that opening nearly a decade ago, or just recently via The Last of Us Part I on the PlayStation 5 console or The Last of Us on HBO, Joel’s harrowing night is an effective and necessary introduction to fully understanding Joel and Ellie’s journey throughout the rest of the game. 

To help us understand how that sequence came to be, and how its legacy lives on today, members of the Naughty Dog team and HBO show spoke about the work undertaken originally to create such an evocative opening, and how The Last of Us Part I brings these moments to fresh life. 

Spoilers ahead if you haven’t played or watched The Last of Us!

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The End Is the Beginning

While the introduction is also The Last of Us’ first chance to leave an impression on the player, the Naughty Dog team obviously iterated and adjusted this sequence throughout development. One of the most significant among those? Players would have, originally, had control of Joel much earlier. 

“The beginning of the game was one of the last things we got finalized when we were making The Last of Us,” Naughty Dog President and The Last of Us Co-Director Neil Druckmann said. “For a long time, the plan was to play as Joel, not to play as Sarah, and you as Joel would hear commotion over at your neighbor’s house, you would walk over there, you’d see they’re infected. Then you’d head back and grab your daughter…and then everything else [in the final game] was how it was planned.” 

But starting the adventure and experiencing all that through Joel’s perspective felt… familiar to the team. In wanting to differentiate the story from others in its genre, the idea of playing as Sarah came up during a design brainstorm.  With that, “everything kind of fell into place” according to Druckmann. 

“That felt like a really unique take on [this story]. The fact that you