A game about a dude and his dragon is my Xbox One must-have

PlatinumGames is on a roll. The Japan-based studio is less than a decade old, but already it’s put out a string of critically acclaimed titles such as Bayonetta, Vanquish and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. It’s built a reputation on fast-paced action and deep, rewarding combat, and now it wants to prove it can deliver a compelling RPG experience too. Scalebound, the studio’s Xbox One exclusive, is scheduled for release in 2016 and until recently, we’ve seen little of the game beyond a short CG teaser. At Gamescom, the studio revealed a glimpse of its gameplay and now, after watching an extended demo, I’ve decided Scalebound is the Xbox exclusive I’m most excited about.

A dude and his dragon

Studio co-founder Hideki Kamiya, speaking through a translator, walked me through the demo that was shown at Microsoft’s press conference while another Platinum employee played the game. In Scalebound, you take on the role of Drew, a human from our world that’s been transported to the mythical world of Draconis. Throughout the gameplay snippet, I was shown a series of floating islands filled with enormous beasts Drew will likely have to battle. Our hero would be no match for these foes on his own, but luckily he’s befriended a mighty dragon called Thuban. While the player attacks with Drew, wielding a short sword to cut through swathes of armored knights, Thuban fights independently. An almost unstoppable force of nature, Thuban stamps the ground to create shockwaves and drenches his foes in flame.

It’s just so pretty

It can’t be stressed enough: Scalebound is a beautiful game. Thuban’s scales shimmer in the sunlight and blades of grass are whipped into the air whenever a blue arc erupts from the edge of your sword. A smattering of islands can be seen in the distance, with giant waterfalls cascading down their sides and into the empty sky below. It’s not quite as colorful or bombastic as The Wonderful 101, but the artistic vision is strikingly realized. Draconis is a detailed world just begging to be explored on top of a flying dragon.

The Platinum employee running through the demo was keen to throw in some extra moves and abilities that weren’t shown at the public briefing. One of which is a ranged magic attack called “pulse shots.” These erupt from Drew’s right hand and cause considerable damage to the monsters on the islands. Kamiya explained that pulse is also the energy source that shapes the world and enables Drew to absorb gems from his defeated enemies.

OMG, your dragon can wear armor

These gems are pretty important, as they can be used to customize your dragon later in the game. In a special sizzle reel, Platinum showed off some alternate skin tones and elements, such as ice, that Thuban can use to vanquish his foes. You’ll even be able to cover his scales in armor and, according to one ambiguous slide, customize “your dragon’s very life.” The shot in question appeared to show Drew extracting pulse from a dying dragon — perhaps hinting that you’ll be able to re-roll his stats or train multiple creatures in the game.

Collecting gems comes with a catch — they can only be absorbed by Drew, specifically after he’s landed a finishing blow. As a result, you’ll need to weigh up exactly when and how to call upon Thuban. In combat, Drew can give his partner various hints and suggestions to help them win the day. The commands fall into one of two categories: attack and retreat, with the former broken down into multiple levels. “It’s either attack, stronger attack or even stronger attack,” Kamiya explained. The trick is to whittle your opponent’s health down with Thuban before crushing them yourself. Heavy attacks offer the most damage, but an overzealous dragon could destroy them before you have the chance to harvest any gems.

Thuban’s AI makes sense

Your strategies are dependent on Thuban’s cooperation, which is far from guaranteed. “It’s a balance about how you guys can work together in a clever manner,” Kamiya said. “Just because you give out orders doesn’t mean they always work. You’re going to have to give it a few tries and sometimes you’ll fail.” Drew and Thuban are both headstrong characters, so their relationship will start with a few rough patches. But that bond will grow over the course of the game, changing both the narrative and the abilities at your disposal. Platinum is staying tight-lipped about the specifics, but has hinted that it’ll be much more than just stronger attacks. “It’s a much wider evolution than that,” one employee hinted.

In combat, Platinum’s legacy from titles like Bayonetta is clearly on display. Drew has a bevy of combos at his disposal and later in the game, you’ll gain access to other weapons including spears and two-handed longswords. Down in the bottom left-hand corner, you can see a couple of quick menus that let you switch to secondary weapons and other items. These hint at the larger RPG elements that Platinum wants to weave into the game. Weapons will have different levels of durability and you’ll need to carefully manage your inventory. “This is not a straight-up action game; it’s an action RPG,” Kamiya said. “We want you to play for a longer time, in different settings, and in a different type of world.”

Later in the demo — set after the point where this year’s Gamescom trailer ends — Drew and Thuban become separated in a tight, gloomy cavern. In these sections, you’ll need to be able to handle different enemies without your dragon’s assistance. Here, an aggressive play style is recommended in order to avoid heavy damage and harvest the maximum number of gems. The pair’s split is only momentary, however, as they’re quickly reunited to open the door to a large dungeon — this is the point where the new trailer catches up, revealing Scalebound’s four-player co-op feature for the first time.

Yes, it has co-op too

Kamiya wasn’t prepared to talk about the multiplayer in greater detail. As the game is due out in holiday 2016, it’s no surprise Platinum wants to save some announcements for the coming months. Regardless, what was shown at Gamescom this year left a great impression on me. Platinum is a top-tier studio — even Nintendo has recruited them to work on Star Fox Zero for the Wii U — and I’m excited to see more of Scalebound. Dragons aren’t particularly novel, but the studio’s take on the legendary beasts feels fresh and unique. For now, it’s enough to put the game at the top of my list of “most wanted Xbox One games.” Given the roster of exclusives Microsoft is building up at the moment, that’s no mean feat.

Images credit: PlatinumGames

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This is how you’ll customize the Xbox One ‘Elite’ controller

We got up close and personal with the Xbox One’s incredibly expensive Elite controller at E3, but how do all those modular bits and bobs work? A new video from Microsoft out of Gamescom sheds some light on just that. The Elite’s customization goes much deeper than just swapping out different lengths of thumbsticks: you can adjust trigger deadzone, download custom button-binding profiles for certain games, tweak haptic feedback intensity on a motor-by-motor basis and even completely remap button functions. Long story short: if standard gamepads regularly fall short for your high-level needs, this is the paddle for you.

The key to all this is an app that grants the aforementioned customizations, and a Redmond spokesperson breaks it al down in nitty-gritty detail around the 30 minutes mark in the video below. If this is enough to prep your bank account for a sudden $150 departure, let us know in the comments.

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Source:
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Crystal Dynamics is putting the ‘tomb’ back in ‘Tomb Raider’

2013’s Tomb Raider was a reboot of a game that defined the 3rd-person adventure genre. It represented a change in direction for the series, one that took cues from successful titles like Uncharted to breathe fresh life into what had become a tired franchise. But while critics rightfully praised the game’s many strengths, the core of the original’s gameplay — tomb raiding — was pushed to one side, with most of the game consisting of stealth, combat, and survival. For the timed Xbox exclusive Rise of the Tomb Raider, developer Crystal Dynamics is bringing back tombs in a big way, and making some intelligent design decisions to update the old gameplay for the modern era.

At Gamescom this year, Microsoft offered us a brief demo that showcases what tomb raiding will feel like in Rise. Since the “Siberia” demo shown at E3, Lara has made her way over to the Syrian desert on the trail of a hidden treasure. We begin with a cut scene where, of course, things quickly go awry, and are left on a cliff face by the entrance to a mysterious cave. By a marvelous coincidence, that cave just so happens to be the entrance to the hidden tomb Lara’s been looking for. So we enter.

“We want to celebrate that nostalgic feel of a tomb raid through a modern lens,” says Crystal Dynamics’ Brand Director Rich Briggs. What does that mean? It means that old Tomb Raider tropes, like puzzles that involve pulling a lever or putting plates into walls in order to progress to new areas, won’t be present in Rise. “We’re making them environmental puzzles, physics-based puzzles, so they feel like a modern interpretation.”

The current demo showed an example of how this will work: As Lara, you’re standing at the edge of a shallow pool of water, needing to progress to a ledge too high to reach. Water is trickling through a shoddy-looking wall, so you break it with your pick axe, flooding the area further, and enabling you to reach the ledge. The puzzles will get more complex, of course, but that’s one of the ways that the developers are replacing old gameplay mechanics with a fresher take. Functionally, the action is the same as before: you walk up to a wall and press a button. It’s just transferring the old dynamics of the series into a new wrapper. But it makes a lot more sense that whoever laid out this labyrinthine tomb wouldn’t simply put a lever on the wall to allow a would-be raider progress.

“We want to celebrate that nostalgic feel of a tomb raid through a modern lens.”

— Rich Briggs, Crystal Dynamics

Traps are also making a return to the series. “Tombs are meant to feel dangerous,” Briggs explains. “We want you to feel like there’s danger around every turn.” In the brief demo, I encountered platforms collapsing, spike pits, and the good ol’ swinging-spikey-stick-from-the-ceiling trap. It adds a lot to the experience.

The third piece of the puzzle, Briggs says, is exploration and discovery. “We want you to feel like you’re the first person to be there in hundreds or thousands of years.” In the demo, that “wow” moment came as we broke through a wall into a giant open space. There are lots of artifacts and collectable items to find, and discoveries to be made. The game even has you leveling up your language skills in order to translate ancient texts that’ll lead the way to treasures.

Rise will still incorporate many of the elements that made the reboot popular, of course, but Crystal Dynamics is really aiming for a broader experience here. While 2013’s Tomb Raider had you exploring a single island, the scope of Lara’s world is clearly different in Rise. Between the E3 showing and this Gamescom demo, we’ve already seen Lara fight through icy Siberia and treasure-hunt in scorching Syria. The emphasis is shifting back towards the series’ roots, and Lara Croft is no longer just the reboot’s survivor — she’s the tomb raider.

[Image credit: La Boca / Microsoft / Crystal Dynamics]

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How the TV show in Xbox One exclusive ‘Quantum Break’ works

When Remedy released Alan Wake on Xbox 360, few people questioned the live-action cut scenes sprinkled throughout the campaign. It turns out those moments were the seedlings for a grander vision: to develop a game interwoven with a full TV show.

Quantum Break, the realization of this idea, was announced as an Xbox One exclusive more than two years ago. Since then, Microsoft has radically changed its approach to the Xbox One, tossing Kinect aside and shutting down its team dedicated to original programming. The latter decision cast an ominous shadow over Remedy; would Quantum Break be affected? Microsoft promised it wouldn’t, but with each passing month and after so few public appearances, it seemed ever more likely that the studio was rethinking the project.

Perhaps we needn’t have worried. Microsoft showed a snippet of the game and the live-action TV show at Gamescom this year. With it came some top-tier casting announcements, including Shawn Ashmore from X-Men, Aidan Gillen from Game of Thrones and Lance Reddick from The Wire. But until now, Remedy has been tight-lipped about the show and how it fits into the structure of the game. Now, we finally have some answers.

The show

Most of the time, you’ll be playing as Quantum Break hero Jack Joyce (Ashmore). He’s battling Paul Serene (Gillen), a former friend that was catapulted into the future and returned “older, changed.” Toward the end of each “act,” you’ll switch to this villainous individual and make choices in what Creative Director Sam Lake is calling “junction moments.” Afterward, the game will unlock an episode about Serene’s evil company, Monarch. These will reflect your decisions and have ramifications in the game, further personalizing the experience. Each junction also has alternate episodes, so players have a reason to replay what would otherwise be a linear, story-driven experience.

To give an example: At one point in the game, Serene needs to decide how to deal with an eye witness, Amy Ferraro, of a Monarch operation. In one version, he tells his right-hand man Martin Hatch (Reddick) to take a “hardline” approach, which leads to some devastating consequences. In another, he tries to blackmail her into working with Monarch and manipulating the media. One of the episodes, among other ramifications, will trigger an activist protest on the bridge that was seen in last year’s Gamescom demo.

The different choices mean that some episodes will be longer than others. Typically though, Lake says a show segment will be roughly 22 minutes long, or “network television length, without the commercials.” Due to the structure of the game, however, you won’t be able to binge-watch them all (at least not straight away) like a series on Netflix.

The “acts” that you play in the game and the subsequent live-action episodes won’t necessarily be in chronological order either. In another scene taken from the TV show, Beth Wilder — who is also a playable character — draws her gun on Monarch security officer Liam Burke. The two are quickly stuck in a standoff, but the situation is diffused when their firearms suddenly disappear into thin air. They then notice that Joyce, who was being held hostage in a nearby van, has mysteriously disappeared. At some point in the game you’ll see this same scene play out from Joyce’s perspective. In a cutscene, our hero wakes up and discovers that he’s unwittingly stopped time. Sensing an opportunity to escape, he quickly breaks free and takes the pair’s weapons before fleeing the building.

The TV show ships with the game and, based on what we’ve seen so far, it appears the two are heavily dependent on each other. You can’t watch the show like a season of True Detective and likewise, your experience of the game will probably suffer if you’re not paying attention to the live-action episodes. The branching storylines should add another level of intrigue to the game too. Alan Wake had a tightly written story filled with distinct characters. Choice can dilute a narrative or, as we’ve seen with Telltale Games, simply be an illusion, so it’ll be interesting to see how far Quantum Break lets you deviate.

The game

Quantum Break‘s take on time travel isn’t just a plot device, though. In the game, it also doubles as the origin of Joyce’s superpowers. An experiment gone wrong gives him the power to manipulate time in small, but meaningful ways. Some of these have been shown in previous demos, but at Gamescom, Remedy was happy to go into greater detail.

An extended demo shows Joyce leaving his brother’s workshop where the original time travel accident took place. Serene is escaping in a Monarch helicopter and Joyce tries to pursue, only to be knocked back by one of his rival’s destructive “time blasts.” The fabric of time is breaking down and Joyce is quickly caught in a “stutter,” where the time fluctuations are most pronounced. Here, ships under construction come crashing to the ground, only to reappear again moments afterward, stuck in an endless loop. The landscape is constantly shifting, but as the player, you can stop time at will and progress with a technique called “time rush.” Likewise, the “time dodge” maneuver allows you to quickly dash and avoid damage from enemies and the environment. They’re functionally similar, but because they use different meters, mixing them up could be crucial in the game’s trickier sections.

Later on, Joyce is attacked by members of the evil Monarch corporation wearing special backpacks and jumpsuits. The bleeding-edge equipment means these tougher foes can move through the stutters just like Joyce. You’ll want to use a destructive time blast to take them out, or deploy a “time shield” to deflect their bullets. Time dodge and rush can also play a part here, allowing you to quickly flank soldiers or escape and regroup. The fifth and final ability, “time stop,” gives Joyce the power to freeze focused areas.

The combat feels like an evolution of what Remedy has already accomplished with Max Payne and Alan Wake. The former pioneered “bullet time,” a slow-motion effect that helped you shoot foes with pinpoint accuracy. Alan Wake went in a different direction, using light as a means to break down shadowy foes’ defenses. The system was unique, but a little one-note — bright flares could be used to keep enemies at bay, but otherwise you just needed to shine your flashlight and wait for their defensive meter to deplete.

Quantum Break‘s time-amplified moves offer far more variety in the battlefield. Which is a promising sign: Alan Wake relied heavily on its narrative to keep players invested, so Remedy would be wise to focus its efforts on the gameplay this time around. It’s still too early to make a final judgment, but what’s been shown points to what could be Remedy’s most complete game in years. Whether or not it delivers, Quantum Break is shaping up to be one of the most unusual and ambitious titles coming to Xbox One in 2016.

[Image Credit: Xbox Wire]

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Microsoft Studios lead talks Kinect and the future of Xbox

You might not know who Microsoft’s Kudo Tsunoda is, but you know his work. He was the driving force behind Kinect and HoloLens. And more recently, he’s taken control of a large part of Microsoft Studios, the company’s in-house video game publishing and development arm. As part of his position, Tsunoda leads Rare, Lionhead and other first-party studios, and also oversees the development of key Xbox exclusives published by Microsoft, such as Scalebound, Quantum Break and the new Crackdown. I sat down with Tsunoda for a chat at Gamescom, and quizzed him on the future of Xbox, HoloLens and gaming at Microsoft.

On cross-buy

Microsoft is making a big push toward a unified gaming platform. The Xbox One itself will be updated to run Windows 10 in November, and Tuesday’s press conference saw cross-play and cross-buy announcements for Windows 10 and Xbox One games. The company seems to be headed toward a single marketplace for games. That’s something that makes a lot of sense, especially for smaller titles, but right now, most games that work like this are Microsoft developed or published. The outlier is Bloodstained, which will have the feature when it launches in 2017. According to Tsunoda, Microsoft is hoping to change things sooner than that, though:

“Once we’ve figured out how, through Windows, we can bring [PC and Xbox] gamers together with cross-play, we’re going to put that into our platform to make it simple and easy for other developers to do as soon as possible.”

That’d be big news. Sony, Microsoft’s chief rival, already allows for limited cross-play between its PS Vita handheld and PS4 console, and the upcoming Street Fighter V will let PC gamers face off against opponents playing on PS4s. With the new Xbox app and tighter integration though, it’s not difficult to imagine a lot of Xbox games being playable on PC and vice versa in the near future.

Although Tsunoda skirted around the question, cross-buy would be a huge win if Microsoft can get its third-party partners on board. The company has been fighting PR fires since the rather disastrous Xbox One launch, but the division’s gotten back its stride recently. Announcements of a regular monthly update pattern, Windows 10 streaming and backward compatibility (even with its caveats) have all gone over well with fans. And letting Xbox One gamers buy their games once and play them anywhere would go a long way to healing the “always-on” wounds.

On Kinect

It’s difficult to think of Tsunoda and not think of Kinect: The once bundled-in Xbox One camera is now an optional add-on. Given it’s Tsunoda’s baby, I asked if he’s interested in supporting the peripheral by having Microsoft Studios develop games for it. In return, I got a rather odd response:

“So the big thing is the depth-sensing technology, the stuff that’s inside Kinect. Obviously, we’re still doing a lot on the platform-side, but we’ve got Just Dance coming out soon for Kinect. I think it’s really about making an investment in depth technology itself. It’s great for everything we’re doing on this platform. Obviously, a big part of what we’re doing with HoloLens is environmental understanding, and that’s a big advancement in depth-sensing technology. These are things that Microsoft does really well: You invest in a cutting-edge technology; you use it in a space like games on Xbox, or a space like HoloLens. Just keep pushing the boundary of what we can do with depth-sensing technology and really try to be a leader in that space.”

I pushed Tsunoda for clarification on whether Studios would pursue the creation of games made specifically for Kinect, or HoloLens and if that’s even something Microsoft is still very interested in.

“I think that’s right. You can see that so much of what we’re doing is really trying to create awesome games that gamers will love. Whether that’s on Xbox One; whether that’s on Windows; whether that’s with Kinect; whether that’s with HoloLens — we really just want to produce technologies. We want to find how to use the medium to really deliver the core games that gamers and our fans are really going to enjoy.”

Microsoft, it seems, is still trying to figure out how to make Kinect useful for gaming, although that’s not really the end of the world.

On taking risks

Tsunoda has a reputation as a free thinker. Often seen sporting a pair of oversized sunglasses, he’s known for taking risks and pushing new tech like Kinect and HoloLens toward consumers even when it’s not entirely clear what it’ll be used for. I asked if he’s bringing that spirit to Studios; will we see riskier, edgier, more original games coming to Xbox, courtesy of Microsoft?

“As much as I like taking risks and pushing the boundaries of games and technology, at the end of the day, you come to places like Gamescom, [and] you see fans reacting to the work that you’re doing, and enjoying the games. That’s got to be the focus: Your end goal is making awesome games that people are going to enjoy. Taking risks, pushing boundaries, that’s all just a means to an end.”

I disagree. I think Tsunoda’s risk-taking and creativity could be used at Microsoft. Some fresh ideas would really set well among the inevitable sea of Halo, Forza and Gears of War sequels to come. Let’s hope he’s just playing his cards close to his chest and come this time next year, we’ll be talking about the resurgence of Microsoft, not just as a console maker, but also as a creative game publisher.

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