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Monster Hunter Wilds™ Showcase Unearths a New Ecosystem, New Monsters, and an Open Beta Test Across PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam

London (October 23, 2024) Today, Monster Hunter Wilds™ producer Ryozo Tsujimoto unveiled the latest trailer for the highly anticipated action RPG as well as details on an upcoming Open Beta Test during Capcom’s October Monster Hunter Wilds Showcase. The new footage revealed the captivating surroundings and inhabitants of the new Oilwell Basin ecosystem, including the mysterious monster known as the “Black Flame,” even more new monsters living within the region, and the local craftsman village Azuz. Tsujimoto followed these new game details with the announcement of an Open Beta Test taking place next week across PlayStation®5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam. The Open Beta Test will run November 1 – November 4 (GMT), and PlayStation®Plus subscribers can get a head start on PlayStation 5 with an exclusive early access period starting on October 29 (GMT).

Monster Hunter Wilds launches on February 28, 2025 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam. To watch the full showcase and latest trailer, visit the official Monster Hunter™ YouTube channel and check out the Capcom Press Center for more assets.

Ready to Combust
The Oilwell Basin is a dangerous territory defined by the bubbling oil wells for which it is named. This terrain is known to erupt into raging flames during a period of Inclemency known as the Firespring. The newly revealed Brute Wyvern Rompopolo prowls within areas blanketed in a deep oil silt. This fearsome predator expels a toxic gas from its tongue to weaken its prey before using its tail to inject gas into the tar blanketing the ground causing bubbling eruptions. Rompopolo often finds itself battling for territory against roaming Ajarakan, another previously unseen monster that calls this region home. This red-hot Fanged Beast rubs its thick shell to cover itself in a sweltering armor. Amidst this incredibly harsh, ever-changing environment, the skilled craftsman village of Azuz grew around a massive central forge. While the local artisans and fearsome wildlife struggle to survive, a mysterious monster known to locals as the “Black Flame” lurks deep beneath the basin.

Play the Open Beta
Following the exciting new trailer, Tsujimoto revealed that eager hunters can soon experience Monster Hunter Wilds at home for the first time by participating in an Open Beta Test across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam with cross-play supported between all platforms. Participants will also receive a special bonus Pendant to decorate their weapons or Seikret mount alongside a helpful item pack in the full release of Monster Hunter Wilds. The Open Beta Test will include three separate experiences: the complete character creation tool with character creation data that will be transferable to the full game upon release, a Story Trial, and the free-roaming Doshaguma Hunt. In the Story Trial, players can experience the opening cutscene of the game along with basic tutorials while hunting a Chatacabra, while in the Doshaguma Hunt, players can pursue the Alpha of a Doshaguma pack or explore the Windward Plains. Both the Story Trial and Doshaguma Hunt can be experienced solo, or players can use an SOS flare to create  a party of up to four players online, or call in assistance from NPC Support Hunters.

The Monster Hunter Wilds Open Beta Test will take place at the following times for each platform:

  • PlayStation 5
    • PlayStation Plus Early Access: October 29 at 03:00am GMT – October 31 at 02:59am GMT
    • Non-PlayStation Plus Subscribers: November 1 at 03:00am GMT – November 4 at 01:59am GMT
  • Xbox Series X|S**: November 1 at 03:00am GMT – November 4 at 01:59am GMT
  • Steam: November 1 at 03:00am GMT – November 4 at 01:59am GMT

*Time Adjusted for Daylight Savings Time
**Game Pass Core or Ultimate subscription not required for OBT access

Product Details
Monster Hunter Wilds launches on February 28, 2025 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam, and will include Standard, Deluxe, and Premium Deluxe editions across all platforms. The Deluxe Edition features the Monster Hunter Wilds base game and the Deluxe Pack, which includes a variety of cosmetic DLC, such as Hunter Layered Armor and sticker sets. The Premium Deluxe Edition includes the Monster Hunter Wilds base game, the Deluxe Pack, a Premium Bonus available upon launch, a Cosmetic DLC Pack 1 coming in Spring 2025, and Cosmetic DLC Pack 2 planned for Summer 2025. Pre-orders of any edition will include the bonus “Guild Knight Set” hunter layered armor and “Hope Charm” Talisman. Additionally, pre-orders made through the PlayStation Store will also include a Digital Mini Art Book.

ABOUT MONSTER HUNTER
The Monster Hunter series is now celebrating its 20th anniversary. Since 2004, it has sold over 100 million units worldwide. In the games, players hunt larger-than-life foes across expansive natural environments. Each monster poses a unique challenge, so players must plan carefully, form hunting parties with friends, and utilize everything at their disposal to survive these thrilling set-piece quests. As a reward for overcoming their quarry, hunters can harvest the remains to craft equipment and upgrade their customizable arsenal for the challenges ahead.

About Capcom
Capcom is a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment for game consoles, PCs, handheld and wireless devices. Founded in 1983, the company has created hundreds of games, including groundbreaking franchises Resident Evil™, Monster Hunter™, Street Fighter™, Mega Man™, Devil May Cry™ and Ace Attorney™. Capcom maintains operations in the U.S., U.K., Germany, France, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Tokyo, with corporate headquarters located in Osaka, Japan. More information about Capcom and its products can be found at www.capcom.com  or news.capcomusa.com.

Capcom, and the Capcom logo are registered trademarks of Capcom Co., Ltd. in the U.S. or other countries. Ace Attorney, Devil May Cry, Mega Man, Monster Hunter, Resident Evil and Street Fighter are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Capcom Co., Ltd. and/or its subsidiaries, in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks and trade names are the property of their respective owners.

DEMO OF ACTION-RPG SOCIAL SIM DUNGEONS OF HINTERBERG DROPPING JUNE 8TH

London, Tue 4 June 2024 – Curve Games and Microbird Games today revealed that Dungeons of Hinterberg, a single-player mix of Action-RPG and social sim set in the Austrian Alps, launches its first playable demo on June 8th.

Steam URL: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1983260/Dungeons_of_Hinterberg/

 

Dungeons of Hinterberg will also be part of Steam Next Fest June 2024, which runs from June 10th to 17th at 10am PT/6pm BST, giving players a taste of a day in the life of Luisa, as the protagonist explores Kolmstein. The demo will also be featured in the official Steam Next Fest livestream, which will broadcast June 10, 11am to 1pm Pacific Time, and can be viewed on the Steam Next Fest event page; Twitch; YouTube; and Facebook.
 

The new demo allows players to experience a full in-game day cycle beginning on Day 7. Fans can explore the Glacier Overworld (Kolmstein), which includes a gravity-defying dungeon that requires players to solve puzzles and slay monsters while mastering an array of magical skills, before returning to the village of Hinterberg and hanging out with a selection of characters.
 

Dungeons of Hinterberg blends hack ‘n’ slash action, puzzle solving and social elements, allowing players to battle creatures from Alpine myths, explore dungeons, and forge friendships. The game is available to wishlist now on Steam here and launches on Steam, Xbox, Windows 10/11 PC, and with Xbox Game Pass for console, PC, and cloud on 18th  July 2024.

Biomutant OUT NOW on Nintendo Switch

Vienna/Austria, May 14th, 2024: Today, THQ Nordic releases the port for the RPG Biomutant on Nintendo Switch! In docked mode, experience gameplay in 1080p (with Dynamic Resolution) at a stable 30 FPS. Handheld mode will feature 720p (with Dynamic Resolution) at a stable 30 FPS. Watch the OUT NOW video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/yI3774Q3IXo. Use a unique martial arts-styled combat system to mix melee, shooting, and mutant ability action while exploring and traveling through a beautiful post-apocalyptic open world, filled with unique creatures, friends, and foes. Re-code your genetic structure to change the way you look and play, mix and match parts to create your own weapons, and fight or team up with several tribes.

Visit the website for more information: https://www.biomutant.com/en/

Biomutant, developed by Experiment 101, ported by Saber Interactive and published by THQ Nordic, is available for Nintendo Switch NOW at a suggested retail price (SRP) of €39.99 / $39.99 / £34.99, which includes the Mercenary-Loadout DLC.

Get the game: https://biomutant.thqnordic.com/#order

Biomutant is already available for PC, PlayStation®4, PlayStation®5, Xbox One™, and Xbox Series X/S.

A Blockchain Wargame – Faraland

Faraland has exquisitely digital collectibles created with blockchain technology. Each collectible is matchless, genuine and varies in rarity. The Faraland Universe has many different races – such as human, orc, angel, demon, dragonborn, elf and fairy which are waiting for you to discover and collect.

Faraland is also a multiplayer RPG NFT GAME that lets the user engage in the combat arena and profit from battles.

Kinda Kool, Huh?

Faraland

Check out this video voiced by Dee Alvis.

How to Create Factions: Part 2

Video Games have long graduated from simple fights between good and evil. Games are now tied with intricacies and multiple sides, each believing that they are the ones that are correct.

The question now becomes “How do I put that into my game?”. As with my other articles, there are multiple ways to go about this!

It is best to begin at the beginning!

I want to start with the factions…

The Question to ask here is “Why are there factions in the first place?”

Usally a group splits over an arguement; as creator, you decide what kind of disagreement causes the breakup.

What do people believe in enough that their goals and ideals split? Is it something simpler, like a land disagreement or a family squabble? Are the factions gunning for power, splitting politically? Are the factions after a superweapon, an their reasons for wanting it are causing the divide?

In this way, the creation of the factions and therefor, their very existence drives the story.

Emphasis

By creating them first, it puts more emphasis on them, rather than other aspects. This works in your favor if you want to use your story to explore methodologies or philosophies, and what causes people’s differences.

Having factions be at the center of your story allows for discussions with lines drawn in the sand, and it’s up to you (or your players) to decide if they stay, move, or fade entirely.

Effect

A good way to gauge how much your factions affect the story you’re creating is this:

What happens if something about the faction changes?

If destroying the faction of choice does nothing, then it has no impact on the story. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing: If it impacts the World or the characters, it can stay! Asking this question can help gauge how much you want to focus on that faction. If it’s deemed insignificant, than you can skim over it, or maybe change your story if you’re really attached to the idea of it.

What does the faction add to your story?

As mentioned above, if the addition of this faction bolsters other parts of your story, it should stay in. Depending on how much it affects the rest, you can draw the players/readers attention to it by having the story be more closely tied to the factions.

Basic Map making – the absolute minimum

As a DM, you lead your fellow players in the adventure of a lifetime! And you can’t do that without a setting for your adventurers to traverse!

There a Few ways to do this, like always!

Base it off of a real-life location

You can simply pick a point on the globe and lift the terrain and cities wholesale. This way, you can point your focus towards the plot and characters of your campaign.

    • Pros:
  • Makes your life easier
  • Can use history for flavor
    • Cons:
  • Expectations of Culture and mannerisms that come with a person’s knowledge
  • There will be history here, and the players might expect use of it

Create your own from scratch

Use map generators or craft a map from your own imagination to craft the most individualized map

    • Pros:
  • You can have whatever you want wherever you’d like
  • Create your own world history
    • Cons:
  • You have to make it yourself
  • Create your own world history

Custom maps can be made multiple ways.

  1. Decide on a central or key location, and build what you need around it
  2. Make a legend, and drop dice (signifying different physical objects) over a piece of paper
  3. Random generator

Use a Mix of both!

You can use a real-life map as a base (for terrain or city placement), and then edit it to fit your lore/characters/villain’s actions

START AGAIN: a prologue

How do you feel about Time loops, dear reader? Does the monotony of the same day over and over and over bore you to tears? Or does the hope to fix your mistakes blind you to the truth that the loop is whispering?

START AGAIN: a prologue has multiple endings, and is based on a series of short comics.

Providing a swift kick in the chest and eyes full of tears, you follow Siffrin in this story in the second person, and meet friends to help you on your quest.

Defeat monsters as you learn about the loop that has trapped you in it’s claws!

The game is available here!

From the Creator’s Tumblr

How to Build a Big Bad Villain

There are a few ways to create the ultimate evil for your DnD (or other media) game!

The Standard

Choose from the prototypes of any popular mass media for the skeleton to build your villain off of!

The common tropes in media range from Evil boss to Mass-murdering maniac. The general tropes for a simple villain include a sad backstory, a tendency for murder, and a longing to take over the world by violent means.

The way to impart your generic villain’s actions is to really expand on the scope of their evil deeds. Don’t just mention the widespread destruction, but show it and its aftereffects. Have the village that your players were going to head to be torn apart, have the most trusted villagers mention their hatred of the Big Bad, and how the villain affected them and their livelihoods.

The Foil

Examine your player characters and their motivations. Pick what drives them, and craft a villain that wants something similar, but does it in a completely different way than your player characters.

You can craft a foil from characters the player(s) already know, and they don’t even have to start as antagonists. With the foil, you can also grow their powers/abilities/fear-factor along with the players, to help with scaling their end-game “badness” level.

Worldly type

This is a villain built out of the world you have created. What would mess up the world you have created? What ideology would cause the collapse of the society you have? What is the worst case magical/supernatural/scientific scenario?

Say your world has a heavy dependency on a particular resource: the villain can hoard it, or they could seek to destroy all of it.

 

How to make a Feats-Based RPG

What are Feats?

Feats are, boiled down, unique actions or abilities that one can do/have. A game that relies on feats over anything else generally has less reliance on stats or items, and is more about the imagery that comes from a more verbally-based adventure. Some videogames have them as part of a “talent tree”, in that feats have to be unlocked in  a certain order. In these games, some trees are blocked off if you’ve chosen a certain role or path. Games can use feats to boost base skills, or allow more flexibility in the actions your character can take.

Why Feats?

Feats let players do another level of customization, and lets them use something that isn’t for numbers, necessarily. Feats can allow for more fun and can create unique Interactions between other characters and the environment around them.

How do I make ’em? 

Feats tend to have limits of their usage in a certain time frame. That can help with balance in your game. A much stronger/ impressive feat will be given a longer time between uses than some thing simpler/weaker.  One can also have a limit per game of times each feat (or all feats as a whole) can be used.

You can bring Balance to your game through keeping things consistent, watching the usefulness of the feats, and allowing the feats to have in-game importance. Consistency can refer to the description used; keeping the feats at a similar level of power and/or versatility will help keep the players at a compatible level. Usefulness is also a factor in balance and also, consistency. Are your feats tied directly to the gameplay? Are they more for Aesthetic purposes? How you choose to integrate those will be based on the type of play you and your players are looking for. A more light-hearted game for comedy reasons may choose to have silly, more aesthetic-based feats, that do more for conversation than plot, because that is what players are looking for. 

Themes:

Themed around subject: What is unique to the chosen genre? What can only be done or be seen in the genre you choose? What tropes do you enjoy that can be integrated into your game?

Themed around the character’s species, for example, if the character is a merperson(triton, mermaid, generally aquatic),  a feat can be “Once a day, the player can issue a command to nearby lake or sea creature. The creature must do a wisdom saving throw of at least 15 to resist”. The feat is unique to the specie’s upbringing and environment, and can lend flavor to an encounter.

Themed around the character’s job. Things that only that particular class can do, even split into subgroups of effect types. For example, a wizard. A Wizard feat could be being able to duplicate a spell, or change the effect type from fire to ice. Subgroup examples include: feats that effect weapons, feats that affect the Player, feats that affect other players/NPCs, feats that effect the environment.

Your game can be themed around the players. People enjoy things that are unique to them; it makes them feel empowered and even loved! Including something specific about those that you care about can be a way to make that connection be brimming with joy, adding a sparkle in their day!

What do I actually write down?

At the heart of it, you want a name and a description.

The name should be an accurate summary that piques the interest of the player.

The Description should be clear and concise.

It can be helpful to add in any identifying traits (like if the feat is specific to the species/job) beside the name.

Good Society: a Jane Austen RPG

From Kickstarter project to off-the-shelf popular enough for a reprint, “Good Society” has come long way.

First released in 2018, funded by $154,774 Australian dollars from 2,677 backers,  it included a hardcover rulebook, between 20-36 cards (depending on how much you gave), and Pdf versions of the above.

Now, on its Storybrewer’s page, it offers one of its expansions in hardback as well, along with various expansion cardsets. The 280-page rulebook includes art and accompanying material.

The game is heavily focused on role-playing, which can be seen in it’s lack of numbered stats, and its LARP version that is also available to purchase. The traits used to navigate the game are the role you’re given, your family, desires, and your relationships.

Some unique aspects of the game:

    • NPCs printed on cards
    • Having a Game Master (GM/DM) is an option
    • Numerous Expansion packs ranging from servants to magic
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