Stardew Multiplayer Update Close to Release and a Big Xbox Sale is Live

PlayStation

• The upcoming God of War title from Sony Santa Monica will have multiple different difficulty options, including one for casual gamers. The studio detailed the choices in a blog post. I have included them below.
  • Give Me A Story: lets you experience the story without too much of a difficult gameplay challenge. You won’t be taking a gondola to the top of the highest peaks in all the Norse Realms, but you will have a far greater margin for error in enemy encounters.
    • Give Me A Balanced Experience: is the mode we’d recommend most players start with. The name says it all. We’ve tuned it to deliver a balanced, challenging playthrough.

    • __ Give Me A Challenge:__is harder and less forgiving. It is recommended for players who find action games extremely intuitive, and for confident long-time God of War series veterans who’ve beat past games on harder difficulties.

    • Give Me God of War: is the sort of thing reserved for people who wrestle polar bears in their undies. Maybe not quite that, but it’s the most difficult mode in the game. We haven’t just made you weaker or enemies stronger; we’ve looked at enemy behaviors and placements in encounters as well, tweaking everything to make it as threatening as possible. Best of all, you cannot change difficulties once you start a game on this mode, so if you suddenly realize you’re in way over your head, you’ll have to start a new game. Don’t be sorry, be better?

• Sony partnered with Spotify a couple years ago after it shuddered it’s PlayStation Music service. Players can save 10% off their recurring Spotify membership so long as they sign up by October 18 and remain subscribed to both PlayStation Plus and Spotify.

Nintendo

• According to Stardew Valley’s developer, ConcernedApe, the multiplayer update is in the final bug squashing stages and should be ready to go live in about a month. Will and I are pretty excited about that!

• Nicalis is throwing a sale on all their Switch titles. You can see the prices below:

  • The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+ – $31.99 (was $39.99)
    • Cave Story+ – $23.99 (was $29.99)
    • Ittle Dew 2+ – $23.99 (was $29.99)
    • Tiny Barbarian DX – $23.99 (was $29.99)
    • The End is Nigh – $11.99 (was $14.99)
    • VVVVVV – $7.99 (was $9.99)
    • Knight Terrors – $2.00 (was $2.99)
• Developer Level-5 said they’d be supporting the Switch moving forward and they’re making good on that promise. The studio announced by way of Famitsu that Yo-Kai Watch 4, the latest main entry in the series, is headed to Switch. It’s confirmed for 2018 in Japan, and as is customary with many Level-5 games, there’s no word on a western localization.

Xbox

• Microsoft is running a huge Spring sale on the Xbox Store and have added add-on content like season passes. You have until Tuesday April 17 to grab what you want. I picked up South Park: Fractured But Whole and have zero regrets.

• We expect Microsoft to make an official announcement for backwards compatible games later today, but the update may have already gone live for some titles. Thanks to WindowsCentral we know that a handful of games are already listed as backwards compatible including: The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, Destroy All Humans, MX Unleashed, and FUll Spectrum Warrior. 

Industry News

• Square Enix released the first patch for Chrono Trigger on Steam which contains the following:
  • ‘Original’ Graphics Setting: A new option will allow players to choose between the current high-resolution character sprites and background graphics, or an ‘Original’ mode which has a display style closer to that of the original CHRONO TRIGGER.

  • Updated Font and Dialogue Boxes: Fonts and dialogue window graphics are updated to give the game a more classic look and feel.

  • Adjusted Start-Up Sequence: The order of the animated opening sequences when starting a new game is reworked to be more in line with previous versions of the game.

  • Additional enhancements and fixes to the text and graphics within the game to enhance the PC play experience.

• Developer Digital Sun Games announced that Moonlighter will arrive on May 29 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One and will be priced at $19.99. You can also spring for a retail edition which comes in a special flavor— and includes a double-sided medallion, a poster, and a “squishy Jelly-Monster. Most of us here at Pixelrater will be waiting to spring for the Switch version which will be available later this year.

• This past week, folks were pretty stoked to learn from Sega COO Kenji Matsubara (by way of Yahoo! Japan) that Sega would be releasing “a new console” in the region. As most of us expected a new, actual Sega console is not going to happen. Rather, Matsubara was referring to the existing AtGames Sega Genesis Flashback — a sort of NES/SNES Mini competitor that comes pre-loaded with 85 games, and can accept game carts.

• South Korea fined game companies close to $1M over loot crates because the commission claims customers were deceived by the odds of earning an in-game item

Word on the Street

• Splatoon 2’s “Octo” expansion is set to release this summer, and the official German Splatoon Facebook page might have leaked the release date. The Facebook page posted a teaser with a release date set for July 13, but it was quickly taken down. Which means it’s probably true.