Plus Sony issues Bloodborne Kart with a copyright notice and Suicide Squad hit with major bug at launch that automatically completes the camapign
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SIFTER is produced by Kyle Pauletto, Fiona Bartholomaeus, Courtney Borrett, Daniel Ang, Adam Christou and Chris Button. Mitch Loh is Senior Producer and Gianni Di Giovanni is our Executive Producer. Thanks to Audio Technica Australia for their support of SIFTER.
FIONA: Hi I’m Fiona Bartholomaeus
KYLE: and I’m Kyle Pauletto
FIONA: Welcome to Walkthrough, SIFTER’s weekly recap on the biggest news in video games.
KYLE: This week we recap the big PlayStation news from this week’s State of Play, Celeste developers release a free 3D spinoff and Suicide Squad launches with a game ending bug… it finishes the campaign all by itself.
Here is the news for Sunday 4th of February. Let’s go!
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KYLE: We ended off the week with a massive PlayStation's State of Play, packed with announcements for PS5 and PlayStation VR 2.
It was a big one for Kojima-heads, with an almost 10-minute in-depth trailer for Death Stranding 2: On the Beach set for a 2025 release, and a sneak peek at his new action-espionage game, PHYSINT.
Stellar Blade finally gets a release date. Originally called Project Eve and announced as an early PS5 release, it’s now set to release on April 26.
Judas is the next game from Bioshock’s Ken Levine and it’s looking to be in a similar vein gameplay wise if you’re keen for more of that.
And Sega announced Sonic X Shadow Generations, out later this year.
FIONA: It was confirmed that last year’s hit Dave the Diver will be coming to PlayStation 4 and 5, with a Godzilla DLC also announced.
Silent Hill fans received a double dose of content with Silent Hill: The Short Message, a free experience available now, as well as a deeper look at the upcoming Silent Hill 2 remake.
Metro: Awakening is bringing post-apocalyptic Russia to VR.
We got a good look at Team ninja’s new IP, Rise of the Ronin, coming March 22 as a PS5 exclusive.
And Until Dawn is getting remastered for PS5 and PC.
There was plenty more announced so be sure to check out the link in our shownotes to watch all the trailers for yourself.
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FIONA: Extremely OK Games, the indie developers behind Celeste have this week surprised us with Celeste 64, a free 3D reimagining for the games six-year anniversary.
and they threw this together in just a week.
This new entry in this beloved series transforms the platformer into a Nintendo 64-style adventure, continuing Madeline's story with a fantastic nostalgic twist.
KYLE: I put some time into it earlier this week and was instantly impressed.
As a huge fan of Celeste and an ageing gamer with strong nostalgia for the N64 era, it really hits such a sweet spot with some nice modern gameplay additions.
It's available for Windows and Linux, with Mac support coming soon on itch.io.
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KYLE: The creators of the fan made racing game called Bloodborne Kart have been issued a notice from Sony telling them to remove the branding.
The PS1 looking game was revealed late last year to many fans' excitement, using that Bloodborne gothic horror look and feel as the basis for the racer.
Lead developer Lilith Walther tweeted earlier this week announcing that they had been contacted by Sony and told to scrub the branding off the game completely, but it seems like the team were expecting this, so it didn’t come as a surprise.
FIONA: The game was due to be launched this week but has since been pushed back as the team took some time to clean all the traces of Bloodborne.
The game is planned to feature 12 racers, 16 maps, a single player campaign mode, boss fights and a local splitscreen multiplayer.
Walther said they were still very excited to launch the game, it’ll just look slightly different.
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FIONA: The long awaited Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League launched it’s early access this week, but didn’t have the smooth start as expected.
These players with early access started up their game only to find they had full story completion, thanks to a massive bug which unlocked certain game features and story.
The developers quickly took the game offline to fix the issue, but with Suicide Squad being an always-online game, it meant not even the single-player portion was playable.
KYLE: The bug has since been fixed and users are able to play early access, but there are brief periods of the server being down for short maintenance.
It’s a rough start for Rocksteady’s latest game, and definitely not the one they were expecting, and reviewers weren’t given much access to the game before it was launched.
Might be one to sit and wait for I think.
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KYLE: The layoffs just keep coming, this week from Eidos-Montreal.
The studio is laying off 97 staff members and axing the latest Deus Ex project which has reportedly been in development for two years.
The studio took to X to announce the layoffs, citing the global economy and a comprehensive restructuring by parent company Embracer as the reason behind the move.
FIONA: These layoffs and project cancellation reflect a broader issue in this industry, with over 6,000 game workers laid off this year alone…and it's only February.
Sadly, I predict we’ll be seeing much more before the year is over.
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KYLE: That’s it for the big headlines, here are the games coming out this week
FIONA: Dive back into the creepy world of Alisa with Alisa: Developer’s Cut. This throwback to horror-themed adventure games of the 90s, is getting new weapons, enemies, cutscenes, bug fixes and more. Relive the horror on PlayStation, Switch and Xbox on February 6.
KYLE: Also out on the 6th is Foamstars, a colourful party shooter but don’t call it a Splatoon-like if you don’t want Square Enix getting mad at you…It’s a Splatoon like sorry squeenix. You can dive into the pastel party fun on PlayStation 4 and 5 on Tuesday included as part of the basic PS Plus subscription.
FIONA: Get ready to protect the galaxy from alien threats in Helldivers 2. Losing the top down view of the previous game, it’s now a third person shooter with a strong multiplayer focus. You can jump into the action on PC and PlayStation 5 on the 8th.
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FIONA: This has been Walkthrough by SIFTER, my name is Fiona Bartholomaeus
KYLE: And my name is Kyle Pauletto, thank you so much for listening.
FIONA: We know you love our podcasts, so why not become a monthly backer on Ko-Fi? Your support lets us keep making our shows and It’s easy to do, head to sifter.com.au/support where support starts from just $1 a month that link again is sifter.com.au/support or check the shownotes
KYLE: SIFTER is produced by Fiona Bartholomaeus, myself, Courtney Borrett, Adam Christou, Daniel Ang and Chris Button. Mitch Loh is Senior Producer who edited this episode, and Gianni Di Giovanni is the Walkthrough script editor, and SIFTER’s executive producer.
FIONA: Thanks to Brian Fairbanks from Salty Dog Sounds for composing the Walkthrough theme tune, and Audio Technica Australia for their support of SIFTER’s podcasts.
KYLE: We’ll be back with more news next Sunday. See you then.
