Today the industry revealed more gaming news, including a crowdfunding campaign for the revival of a beloved IP from the Sega Genesis era.
- Star Citizen Devs Discuss Capital Ship Combat and Polaris, Show the Mirai Guardian
- Faker Wins Esports PC Player of The Year Again at the Esports Awards; Check Out All the Winners
- Manor Lords Showcases Features of Upcoming Patch
Incidentally, if you’re interested in gaming news specifically about flight simulation, we have a dedicated roundup.
Wolf Team’s Beloved Earnest Evans Series Gets Crowdfunding Campaign for Modern Console Port
Some may remember the Wolf Team’s Eastern Evans trilogy straddling the Sega Genesis and Mega CD between 1991 and 1993 including El Viento, Eastern Evans itself, and Anett Futatabi.
While only the first two games landed on Western shores via Telnet Japan’s Renovation Products, they certainly left an impression among lovers of Japanese games.
Now, these classic games may return via a crowdfunding campaign launched on the Japanese platform Makukake.
The campaign, which seeks 5 million yen form backers (just north of $32,000), carries the name of Kazutoshi Yamane, the original character designer of the series. Incidentally, the game also featured music by famous composer Motoi Sakuraba.
The port, tentatively titled “Earnest Evans Collection,” will land on modern platforms including PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch. The plan is also to add elements that “will be enjoyed by a wide range of game fans, not just fans of the original.”
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl Getting First Patch Next Week
GSC Game World announced that the first patch for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is coming next week for both PC and Xbox Series X|S.
According to the announcement, the update will include the following (SIC).
Crash Fixes, including:
- Issues and memory allocation failures, which previously caused the game to exit unexpectedly, particularly around rendering, skeletal meshes, and quest-related cutscenes.
Main Quest Progression Fixes, including:
- Several bugs blocking the main quest progression, NPCs getting stuck in objects, incorrect quest markers, and issues with quest cutscenes.
- Revision of the main quests (like Visions of Truth or A Minor Incident) to ensure smooth transitions, avoiding rare cases of players not being able to proceed further.
Gameplay & Balance Adjustments, including:
- Fixing the price of the weapons with upgrades installed compared to their value without attachments.
- NPCs behavior, including the way they act when lacking a shelter during the Emissions.
Cutscenes & Visual Fixes, including:
- Rarely missing facial animations, misplaced NPCs, and visual inconsistencies like detached heads and clothes clipping.
- Quality and stability improvements of the visual effects.
Softlock Fixes, including:
- Issue where players were unable to close the trade screen after putting ammo in a wrong slot while playing on a gamepad.
User Interface Improvements, including:
- Quest notifications now showed correctly during dialogues.
- Corrected texts and missing interaction prompts.
Noted to be addressed in future updates:
- Analogue sticks dead zones bugfixes.
- A-Life system bugfixes.
Aquapazza: Aquaplus Dream Match Coming to Steam
Shiravune announced that it’ll be publishing a Steam release of the classic fighting game by Aquaplus Aquapazza: Aquaplus Dream Match.
The game is already available for wishlisting. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a 2D fighting game starring 13 characters from Aquaplus’ games like Utawarerumono, To Heart, White Album, and more.
It was originally launched in Japanese arcades in 2011 and then published for PS3 across Japan and the west between 2012 and 2013.
Sea Power: Naval Combat in the Missile Age Developers Respond to Feedback for Future Updates
Today the developers of Sea Power: Naval Combat in the Missile Age at Triassic Games revealed their plans to respond to feedback in future updates during the early access of the naval strategy simulation game.
Here’s what you can expect going forward (SIC)
AI improvements
The Triassic Games team will be focusing on this point going into Dec., so that we can provide a more enjoyable combat experience and mission making potential. We’ve already started on this by working on aircraft to get those carriers operating, with more to follow improvements to follow in due time!
Improved Controls
Yes, we hear you! We will be looking into improving some controls going forward to help make the game more playable and accessible. We still have some ideas to discuss internally, but as of right now we are looking into the following:
Improved awareness of unit actions (vessels will be getting their status bar updated to show relevant unit action, which we’ve also tackled the first iterations off, pending localizations for some.)
Discuss topics internally about aircraft controls for users to help reduce micromanagement, weapon toggles for open/free fire defense states, and more.More units of all types
As of right now, we have plans to add more units of all types, and we are looking at adding units of all types (Land, Air, Sea) on a regular basis. We will be starting in 2025 with this plan, as we are currently focused on addressing bugs.
And finally, Saving Loading systems
We will be moving into a testing phase soon, which the beta team will be helping us test out in the coming weeks. We still want to work on it further to make sure it’s stable enough for public use before rolling it out, as we don’t want those hour long missions to get messed up because of such an important feature!
Marvel Rivals Developers Discusses Experience Optimization, New Maps and Anti-Cheat
Marvel Rivals developer Netease released a new video featuring Lead Combat Designer Zhiyong. In the video, we hear how the developers are optimizing the experience based on feedback.
The developer also talks about the 4 new maps that will be added to these available in the closed beta, on top of the plans for anti-cheat implementations.
The game is launching on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S on December 6, 2024.