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Hey, everybody! Kristen, Tim, and I are back this week to discuss taking up the mantle of Big Boss in Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, soul surfing in Sword of the Sea, the biggest news stories of the week, and more.

Stuff We Talked About

• Next week’s release highlights:
  • Metal Eden | PS5
  • Hirogami | PS5
  • Hell Is Us | PS5
  • Hollow Knight: Silksong | PS5, PS4
  • Cronos: The New Dawn | PS5
  • Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots | PS5
  • NBA 2K26 | PS5, PS4
• Romeo is a Dead Man sneak peek — New info on combat and puzzles, along with the major story beats of its ludicrous narrative.
• Helldivers 2 update — Enter the Terminid Hive Worlds and battle underground monsters when the Dust Devils Premium Warbond lands September 4.
• Lumines Live release date  — Try out the limited-time demo for PS5 to experience the new multiplayer mode and more before the game launches on November 11.
• GT7 1.62 update  — Add the sleek Chevrolet Corvette CX to your collection and other eye candy with the latest batch of new vehicles.
• No Man’s Sky Voyagers update  — Customizable multi-crew starships are now available. Cruise the galaxy as a unit and face new challenges..
• New Judas details  — See how your decisions impact gameplay and other insights from Creative Director Ken Levine.
• Skate hands-on  — Play Early Access starting September 16 for free and explore San Vansterdam and its many choice spots.
• Shinobi: Art of Vengeance dev interview  — Learn what steps were taken to create a modern take on the classic action platformer

The Cast

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Last week, we asked you to surf through the deserts and oceans in Sword of the Sea using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s highlights:

HappyMoonInc shares Wraith riding down a chain surrounded by sealife.

fogsblue shares Wraith riding an orca after freeing the sea on a new region

MdeavorVP shares Wraith falling in darkness alongside gold currency

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Greetings, Travelers! We’re excited to announce that Genshin Impact Version Luna I, Song of the Welkin Moon: Segue, will be released on September 10. This update, which marks the beginning of the year-long Song of the Welkin Moon version series, will also introduce a major new region, Nod-Krai.

The new version series will tie together past story clues and characters, answer some long-standing questions, and reveal more about the secrets of the moon. The stage for these events is Nod-Krai, a new self-governing region at the edge of Teyvat. Blessed by pure moonlight, Nod-Krai is a land rich with a unique and powerful energy which has attracted various individuals and factions, all with their own goals and ambitions which often lead them to conflict. However, it is also this very same energy that will be crucial to your journey, guiding you as you explore the region and solve its mysteries.

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I’m thrilled to share that Lost Soul Aside is officially out today on PlayStation 5 console and PC via Steam and the Epic Game Store, and you can also jump in with a free playable demo starting today!

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You never see a true ninja attack coming. So it’s only appropriate that none of us predicted Joe Musashi sneaking back onto our screens when Shinobi: Art of Vengeance was announced at The Game Awards in 2023. It’s been eagerly anticipated since, but the 2D action platformer is finally ready to unsheathe its blade on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 August 29.

Less of a surprise was the reveal that Lizardcube was tasked with Shinobi’s razor-edged return. The developer is no stranger to breathing life into Sega’s classic IP, with its slick work on WonderBoy: The Dragon’s Trap remake and Streets of Rage 4 proving its pedigree.

“Back in 2021 Sega wanted to revive an older IP and hinted if I had anything in mind,” says LizardCube CEO and Art/Creative Director Ben Fiquet. “I’m a Shinobi kid, so I quickly pitched my vision for that. Because we make 2D titles, when I create drawings it’s like rendering what will be the same in the final game.”

The actual art of Vengeance

This immediate visualization provided a relatively easy win in terms of Shinobi’s striking aesthetic, something Ben describes as “a continuation of their style; a bit more Japanese, but still very French and very Lizardcube”. With Ben revealing that he grew up on beautifully animated 16-bit platformers like Aladdin, it’s easy to see what inspired that look. But from there the challenge became working out how to mix classic Shinobi authenticity with a contemporary feel.

“It was a bit different compared to working on Streets of Rage or Wonder Boy because Shinobi has more iterations,” explains Ben. “At first I wanted to make something more like a direct follow up to the original Shinobi games. But I quickly realized that it wasn’t as fun as I remember. Gameplay-wise you can lose yourself by going too far in the other direction, too, but Shinobi has always been changing with the times. So we wanted to make a modern game but with the appeal of the first titles.”

“We felt that a slow-paced, methodical 2D game wouldn’t quite match the tastes of modern players,” agrees Toru Ohara, Sega of Japan’s Chief Producer. “We decided to focus on delivering exhilarating, satisfying action, and make

Play psychic super spy, get ready to experience the unique, dark fantasy world and reshape the world with a photo with the PlayStation Plus Monthly Games lineup for September. Psychonauts 2, Dragon Marked For Death and Viewfinder will be available to PlayStation Plus members from September 2.

Let’s take a closer look at the games. 

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Psychonauts 2 | PS4

Razputin “Raz” Aquato, trained acrobat and powerful young psychic, has realized his lifelong dream of joining the international psychic espionage organization known as the Psychonauts! But these psychic super spies are in trouble. Their leader hasn’t been the same since he was rescued fr

Get ready — SHINOBI: Art of Vengeance arrives on Friday, August 29! The iconic SHINOBI series returns in an all-new 2D action platformer created by Lizardcube, the team behind the hit brawler Streets of Rage 4 and SEGA. This title brings Joe Musashi‘s quest for revenge to life with a vibrant hand-drawn look. Players must overcome stages filled with obstacles and take down foes with a vast array of combos. Master the game’s combat and discover what it means to be a ninja. Currently, a free DEMO of this game is also available.

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Journey Through a Stylistic New World

Venture through more than a dozen unique stages, rang

We know, we know… we’ve been silent for a while. It takes a lot of time and energy to make marketing materials like trailers, and we’re trying to focus all our efforts on finishing Judas.

But we also miss the days of having a more direct relationship with you, the gamer, so we thought, “Why not start releasing some dev logs?” 

Through these, we hope to communicate more frequently to update you with new details of what we are working on, without spoiling too much of what Judas has in store. The goal is to keep this pretty lo-fi, meaning more frequent updates than before, but not necessarily always with fancy trailers and super polished final imagery. (Though there will be more of those as well!)

Want to Rent-A-Deputy?

Feature update: Villainy

We’ve just finished a major milestone: Villainy. Villainy is a central feature of Judas. When you play BioShock or BioShock Infinite, the villain is always going to be the villain. Fontaine, Comstock — they’re always going to be the bad guys. In Judas, your actions will attract members of the Big 3 to you as friends. But ignore one of them enough, and they become the villain. From there, they will get access to a new suite of powers to subvert your actions and goals. The clips below demonstrate just a little bit of the feature.

This is just one example of how the Big 3 can retaliate. The more dangerous and character-specific stuff will be kept a secret, for now. 

Eventually, you’ll have to make decisions about who you’re going to focus your energy on… and who you’ll wind up alienating.

But… be careful not to rent one when Tom is pissed off.   

A focus on character

One of my personal favorites of all time is Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor because of the emergent gameplay made possible by their Nemesis System. The system allows you to develop small relationships with multiple orcs. However, their goals were a little different than ours, because there are so many different

Fifteen years since its last release, the Skate series returns with an entry that turns a whole city into a skater’s paradise. The newest Skate is a free-to-play open world where you can take on a series of challenges, spectate other skaters, team up with friends, or challenge other players to throw down and trade tricks.

Electronic Arts pulled the curtain back on Skate with a hands-on preview of Early Access ahead of its September 16 release. I shredded and slammed across the city of San Vansterdam for nine hours and saw a whole lot of what developer Full Circle has to offer. Let’s get into the nitty-gritty.

Flick-It returns — When it was released back in 2007, Skate introduced the “Flick-It” control system, where executing tricks is done with fast flicking movements of the right control stick, to better simulate the sense of pulling off ollies and kickflips. Full Circle says that it didn’t rebuild Flick-It, it “resurrected” it, with improvements to the controls to make them easier to learn and use for newbies, but with all the nuance veterans expect.

Flick-It comes with three control schemes. The Streamlined version makes snapping off tricks intuitive and a bit easier than in previous games, with flicking up on the right stick enough to ollie and your character pushing your skateboard automatically as you steer with the left stick.

Classic feels familiar to Skate fans—pushing the skateboard is done with Square or X, and you need to flick the stick down to set and then up to jump, with lots of different patterns for more complex tricks. 

Finally, there’s the Experienced level, which provides even more nuanced control but removes the Flick diagram from your screen. 

If you need a hand remembering the moves, Skatepedia is always just a menu away to show you how to do every trick in the game.

A city of skating — San Vansterdam is a big, open place, and the game dots many locations with challenges to put you through your paces.

Lines task you with doing tricks and hitting a certain score along a specific series of obstacles, grabbing icons

Play psychic super spy, settle in with a cozy farming sim and reshape the world with a photo with the PlayStation Plus Monthly Games lineup for September.  Psychonauts 2, Stardew Valley and Viewfinder will be available to PlayStation Plus members from September 2.

Let’s take a closer look at the games. 

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Psychonauts 2 | PS4

Razputin “Raz” Aquato, trained acrobat and powerful young psychic, has realized his lifelong dream of joining the international psychic espionage organization known as the Psychonauts! But these psychic super spies are in trouble. Their leader hasn’t been the same since he was rescued from a kidnapping, an