Category: Video Gaming

Back in November we revealed 11 titles coming to PlayStation VR2 in 2023, and today we’re excited to not only reveal 13 more amazing games to the PS VR2 library, but also confirm titles expected to arrive within one month of the February 22 launch.

We are currently tracking more than 30 games for the launch window through March*, including titles from popular IP like Horizon Call of the Mountain, No Man’s Sky, and Resident Evil Village. A free PS VR2 update for Gran Turismo 7 is also on track for launch day. A quick update from Polyphony:

We’re thrilled that Gran Turismo 7 will be a PS VR2 launch title! Through a free upgrade, for those who have already purchased Gran Turismo 7, players will experience all cars and tracks in VR like never before. GT7 in VR takes full advantage of PS VR2’s next gen features. With eye tracking and foveated rendering, players will experience stunning visual fidelity while racing in any of the 450+ cars. While 2-player splitscreen races are not supported in VR, all other races, including online races, will be available. From the Nürburgring to Tsukuba, tracks can be experienced exactly as they are in real life.

– Kazunori Yamauchi, President of Polyphony Digital

Now, let’s let developers introduce today’s newly revealed titles:

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Before Your Eyes

Embark on an emotional and award-winning adventure where you control the story and affect its outcomes with your real-life blinks. In this unique VR experience, you will fully immerse yourself in a world of memories, both joyous and heartbreaking, as your whole life flashes before your eyes.

The game uses the PS VR2 headset’s front-facing camera to immerse you in a way you’ve never experienced before. You will learn to control the flow of the narrative with your actual eyes – blinking through precious memories of family, first love, and the rise of an artistic career, ultimately revealing a heartbreaking truth.

– Lucas Jozefowicz, Skybound Games

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Kayak VR: Mirage 

Paddle through the ice caves in Antarctica, kayak with dolphins in Costa Rica, conquer a thunderstorm in Norway and discover the canyons of Australia. Explore these breathtaking locations with photorealistic graphics, a rich variety of wildlife and immersive soundscapes that bring it all together.

With PS VR2’s foveated rendering and HDR OLED displays, Kayak VR: Mirage is looking sharper and more vibrant than ever. Whether you want to take it easy and enjoy the scenery or get your heart rate up and compete in the race mode, we’ve got you covered. And because paddling is so intuitive, it’s a great game to show off your new headset to friends and family.

– Leon van Oord, Founder, Better Than Life

Pavlov VR

The #1 most popular multiplayer PC VR shooter is coming to PS VR2, featuring realistic weapon interactions and attachments, and a range of competitive and social game modes.

Take down a failed laboratory experiment that has escaped in an asymmetrical style of 1 vs. all gameplay. Bring three friends and queue up for a wave-based zombie co-op. Drive a T-34 tank and communicate with your gunner to eliminate a group of axis soldiers. Use your sharp wrinkled brain and power of reasoning to find the bad actors in a twisted murder mystery style of game called TTT. Or, you could just clone yourself into the form of a traffic cone and hide behind the storage shelf of a warehouse; it’s up to you.

– Jared, Vankrupt Games

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Puzzling Places

Puzzling Places brings relaxing and wholesome 3D jigsaw puzzling to VR! Put together hyper-realistic miniatures of beautiful places from around the globe.

The award-winning PlayStation VR title is coming to PS VR 2 with major enhancements such as: higher visual fidelity (sharper textures, 120 Hz, higher render resolution); eye tracking for enhanced piece selection; haptic feedback and adaptive triggers from PS VR2’s Sense controller; roomscale support (puzzle in a larger play area); and now includes a PS VR2 1000 piece puzzle!

Puzzling Places for PS VR2 launches February 22 and will be available in the PS Store for $19.99 / €19.99**, and is a free upgrade for players who currently own the PS VR version.

– Richelle Banas, Community Manager, Realities.io

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Song in the Smoke: Rekindled

Song in the Smoke: Rekindled is the ultimate VR survival action-adventure – a physical, immersive game where you craft, hunt, and survive in a fantastic, dangerous world. Fully remastered with supercharged graphics, gameplay that takes advantage of the PS VR2 Sense Controllers and haptics, and an all-new free jump and clamber mode completely unique to PS VR2. Featuring a 15+ hour single-player campaign, you’ll challenge a savage world filled with strange beasts who are both prey and predator. Craft melee and ranged weapons, make clothes, build fires, and brew potions as you traverse the landscape in your quest for survival. Free upgrade from the PlayStation VR version.

– Colin Williamson, 17-bit

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Synth Riders: Remastered Edition

Kluge Interactive is excited to announce that a remastered Synth Riders is coming to PlayStation VR2. Delivering the best version of the game to date launching alongside the new VR headset – our PlayStation fans are in for a treat!

With remastered visuals, nuanced controller haptics as you ride the rails, headset feedback for in-game obstacle feedback, next-gen performance and SSD optimization to dramatically reduce load times, players will have a deeply-immersive & seamless gameplay experience.

The remastered version is a free upgrade for everyone who owns the PS VR version of Synth Riders – including all music DLC already purchased.

– Sahin “Falcon” San, Marketing Manager, Kluge Interactive.

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Thumper

Become a space beetle on a rhythm-action hellride in Thumper. The gameplay is fiendishly simple: tight controls, classic action, and breakneck speed. Combined with psychedelic visuals, a throbbing soundtrack, and adrenalizing boss battles, it’s pure rhythm violence.

On PlayStation VR2, the 4K visuals (2000 x 2040 per eye), 3D audio, and PS VR2 Sense controller’s haptic feedback deepen the immersion and monumental dread. Get ready to feel every satisfying thump and punishing crash. Thumper will leave you bruised, battered, and hungry for more.

– Marc Flury, Drool LLC

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NFL Pro Era

Now’s your chance to be QB1 of your favorite NFL team with NFL Pro Era, the first fully licensed NFL and NFLPA virtual reality (VR) game. Utilizing real-time game data,  NFL Pro Era brings the bright lights, team chants, and thousands of screaming fans to your home in one of the most authentic and immersive first-person VR games ever. Step under center and see if you have what it takes to lead your team to a Super Bowl or play virtual catch with friends in your favorite stadium. Whatever you decide, the future of the game is up to you!

– Andrew Hawkins, Co-Founder, President – StatusPRO

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What the Bat?

What The Bat? is a whimsical slapstick comedy from the people behind the anti-golf golfing game What The Golf? It’s a bit like What The Golf?, except instead of golf, it’s all about baseball, and it’s in VR, and you have bats instead of hands. Get swingin’, champ. In a series of increasingly absurd minigames, What the Bat? challenges you to live as a modern-day bat-girl, shooting, cooking, smashing, swinging, parking, painting, pickling, and even petting (there’s a dog). Experience fully immersive silliness in a first-person experience like no other. 

– Peter Bruun, Game Director, Triband

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Rez Infinite

In October 2016, Rez Infinite debuted as a PS VR launch title and we’re excited to be back, just in time for the launch of PS VR2! Prepare yourself once again for THE ultimate version of Rez, a thrilling journey of sights, sounds and shooting action, except this time in PS VR2 with eye tracking (you can track and aim at enemies!) and haptic feedback from the controllers and headset feedback. 

Experience 360 degrees of mind-blowing synesthesia as you blast your way through waves of enemies and massive transforming bosses, with your every move triggering colors and sounds that sync and blend to the beat of the unforgettable soundtrack. Rez Infinite is also playable in standard TV mode on PS5. Owners of the original PS4/PS VR game will be able to upgrade to PS5/PS VR2 version for $9.99 USD / €9.99.

– Tetsuya Mizuguchi, Founder and CEO, Enhance

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Tetris Effect: Connected

Over four years ago, we launched Tetris Effect on PS4 and PS VR. Reinventing a classic and delivering a whole new experience – one that you’ve never seen, heard, or felt before in any other Tetris game – wasn’t easy but the overwhelming positive reception motivated and pushed us further to evolve the title as ‘Connected’ with the multiplayer expansion. Today we’re excited to announce Tetris Effect: Connected is coming to PS5 and PS VR2 on February 22. With eye tracking enabled, you can enter the Zone  by closing and then opening your eyes. You can also feel key moments of the game and your actions through headset feedback and haptic feedback on the DualSense controller. These enhancements deliver a truly unique Tetris experience. The game is also playable on PS5 without a PS VR2 headset. Owners of the original PS4/PS VR game will be able to upgrade to PS5/PS VR2 for $9.99 USD / €9.99. 

– Takashi Ishihara, Director, Enhance 

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Creed: Rise to Glory – Championship Edition

In partnership with MGM, we are excited to confirm the return of Creed: Rise to Glory with Creed: Rise to Glory –  Championship Edition, coming to PlayStation VR2 in 2023. We’re thrilled to pair up again with MGM and expand on what Creed: Rise to Glory has to offer for old and new fans alike. Fights have never felt more visceral, as we intend to deliver an even more immersive boxing experience, only possible with the hardware and features of the PS5 and PlayStation VR2. Creed: Rise to Glory –  Championship Edition returns you to the ring, this time with a fresh set of gloves. Experience brand new game content, modes, and settings to create a more immersive and personalized experience for new and seasoned Creed players alike. Additionally, Championship Edition players will have the opportunity to truly test their skills in a reworked online PvP with optimized matchmaking and cross-platform play. Creed III, the third installment of the hit franchise, opens in theaters nationwide on March 3rd, 2023. 

– TQ Jefferson, Chief Product Officer at Survios

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The Last Clockwinder

The Last Clockwinder is a puzzle automation game about making synchronized contraptions out of your own clones. You play as Jules, a young woman on a mission to repair the Clocktower: an ancient haven for the galaxy’s plants and seeds that’s fallen into disrepair.

Use the Clockwinder’s gloves to turn everything you do into a perfectly looping clockwork clone. Create an interconnected system of clones to grow plants, harvest resources, and synthesize new seeds. You can coordinate your clones to create marvels of precision teamwork, hare-brained Rube Goldberg machines, or a troupe of synchronized dancers.

—-

This brings our current launch window lineup to more than 30 games, with hardware and software available beginning February 22, 2023. Here’s what we’re tracking:

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• After the Fall (Vertigo Games)
• Altair Breaker (Thirdverse)
• Before Your Eyes (Skybound Interactive, launch window)
• Cities VR (Fast Travel Games) 
• Cosmonious High (Owlchemy Labs)
• Creed: Rise to Glory – Championship Edition (Survios, launch window)
• The Dark Pictures: Switchback (Supermassive, launch window)
• Demeo (Resolution Games)
• Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate (MyDearest Inc., Perp Games)
• Fantavision 202X (Cosmo Machia, Inc.)
• Gran Turismo 7 (via free update to PS5 version of GT7)
• Horizon Call of the Mountain (Firesprite, Guerrilla)
• Job Simulator (Owlchemy Labs)
• Jurassic World Aftermath (Coatsink)
• Kayak VR: Mirage (Better Than Life)
• Kizuna AI – Touch the Beat! (Gemdrops, Inc.)
• The Last Clockwinder (Pontoco/Cyan Worlds)
• The Light Brigade (Funktronic Labs, purchase includes PS VR and PS VR2 versions) 
• Moss 1 & 2 Remaster (Polyarc)
• NFL Pro Era (StatusPro, Inc., free PS VR2 upgrade)
• No Man’s Sky (Hello Games, launch window)
• Pavlov VR (Vankrupt)
• Pistol Whip (Cloudhead, free upgrade)
• Puzzling Places (Realities.io, free upgrade)
• Resident Evil Village (Capcom, via free update to PS5 version of RE Village) 
• Rez Infinite (Enhance)
• Song in the Smoke (17 Bit)
• Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge – Enhanced Edition (ILMxLAB)
• Synth Riders (Kluge Interactive, free upgrade)
• The Tale of Onogoro (Amata K.K)
• Tentacular (Devolver)
• Tetris Effect: Connected (Enhance)
• Thumper (Drool LLC)
• The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners: Ch. 2: Retribution (Skydance, launch window)
• Vacation Simulator (Owlchemy Labs)
• What the Bat (Triband)
• Zenith: The Last City (Ramen VR, free upgrade) 

Players in the United States can get ready for launch by pre-ordering directly from PlayStation here, while folks in the UK can do so here.

As more games confirm their launch window availability, we’ll add them to the list. See you February 22!

*Final launch software lineup subject to change without notice.

**Check PlayStation Store for local pricing

It only seems like the biggest features in EA Sports PGA Tour, which launches March 24, are the ones that fans already played and enjoyed a decade ago. Augusta National Golf Course and all four of the men’s major championships are in; even things like boosted drives with “big-hit moment” camera changes are making a return.

But focusing only on the return of the Masters Tournament, or the visual fidelity with which Augusta National and other courses are presented, would sell short what I saw in a presentation last week. Namely, a career mode that is even more RPG-like than before, offers more ways to customize and mold your created golfer’s playing style, and looks like it will swallow just as many of my evenings as the old Tiger Woods games did.

EA Sports PGA Tour looks like a game where, even though there will be more real-life professionals on the roster than ever, the developers understand that the users themselves are the real stars of the show.

“Even when we had Tiger, over 97% of people play as a created player,” producer Ben Ramsour told Polygon in an interview after the presentation. “So we know that’s a core motivation. However, we’ve done a lot to build these relationships with these pros, and we want to tell their stories in the game.”

Granted, I couldn’t pull much from a single glimpse of the detailed golfer progression screen we were shown. But players will rank up 10 different skills (each with 10 ranks) as they acquire skill points with each level. Lead producer David Baker even intimated that at advanced levels, players will be able to unlock packages of traits that will make their golfer’s abilities resemble the playing styles of the PGA’s and LPGA’s biggest stars.

All of this leans into new gameplay that continues to offer broad-based shot-shaping features and differentiates them even more with 20 shot types, some of which are unlocked in the later stages of attribute progression. Those shot types may also be ranked up, it seems.

“I think a big thing is experimentation,” Ramsour said, noting that players can again create multiple avatars and progress them individually. He also said, “We want users to see, Hey, Tony Finau’s game really matches well to Augusta, but it’s terrible for Harbour Town.”

This is surfaced through a nifty little menu that I saw called Course Fit, which stole the show as far as something new that will connect me more to my created golfer. Course Fit, seen on the course selection screen, gives players a relative view of their skills versus what the course will expect of a winning player. Five attributes — Power, Driving, Approach, Short Game, and Putting — all have bars; the closer a player’s bar is to the course’s, the more they’ll be able to take advantage of that characteristic.

It’s not an attribute boost; it’s just visual information that will give me a sense of just how risky my ideas are on the second shot of, say, one of East Lake Golf Club’s par-5 holes, or how important it’s going to be to stick this approach at Pebble Beach, where there’s a demanding putting game waiting for me.

Photo: Electronic Arts

“So for me, I want to win the major championships,” Ramsour said. “So in my primary created player, I am leveling up the shot types to win the four majors. But eventually, I’m going to want to win every single tournament on the hardest mode. So I know I’m going to have to be less of a bomber and more precise to win at Harbour Town.”

Although players may have multiple created golfers, most stick with one for Career. They will most likely see all of the differences Ramsour mentioned in Challenges, a separate mode, but one that has a supplementary effect to Career.

Challenges, to me, resembled the kind of bite-sized moments available in Madden Ultimate Team’s single-player offering. Indeed, they’ll be live-service content, driven by real-world occurrences, and like MUT, they’ll use different players in addition to the created pro. Baker said that the challenges are designed to play like between-rounds practices, meaning they’ll be shorter experiences focused on a particular skill or a particular moment.

The rewards will be skill points for use in created-player progression, as well as clubs and cosmetic items they can equip. (Importantly, these clubs, equipment, and apparel do not affect player attributes, as they may have in the past.) Golfers can expect a season-based approach here that other online sports video games have adopted.

Grid View

All of these modes, players, and courses — 30 at launch, the most ever for the standard edition of an EA Sports golf title — mean little if the core gameplay isn’t tight, informative, and understandable. While the event last week was not hands-on, the developers focused on the swing mechanism and the 20 shot types supporting it in a one-hole demonstration at Augusta’s No. 13.

Best example: a “stinger,” which is a lower but safer shot from the tee. Gameplay designer Craig Penner used the stinger to rope a 266-yard drive with Jordan Spieth that still hugged No. 13’s famous left-hand sweep — it just used the downhill fairway to get its distance. In the end, Spieth sacrificed about 10 yards of distance to make a safer shot. This is something I would often try to replicate in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14, but the lowest trajectory that game offered didn’t come close to what I saw last week.

Photo: Electronic Arts

Ramsour, playing as 2022 Masters winner Scottie Scheffler, used a boost-assisted power drive — impressive, and successful, but still a dangerous shot that is a blind approach, and which could clip the treetops if not executed perfectly. But again, Scheffler is longer off the tee than Spieth, so both golfers were playing to type and taking, or avoiding, appropriate risks (especially as they were highlighted by Course Fit).

I was also struck by the bits of commentary we heard from the game as the demonstration played out. For once, it sounded like the broadcast team was actually watching what was being played. Lead commentator Rich Lerner returns from 2015’s Rory McIlroy PGA Tour, and on Penner’s shot with Spieth, I heard him discussing the use of the fairway’s width and slope to get the desired result.

Returning broadcast partner Frank Nobilo (and new course reporters Notah Begay III and Iona Stephen) also provided context-appropriate color, a dramatic improvement over past games, which mostly offered generic repetition.

“We have tech that delivers detailed analysis on how putts will break,” Baker said in last week’s presentation. “There’s also a system that connects the field reporter analysis of the current situation, and also highlights landmarks from our great list of courses, to tell historical stories from those exact spots on the course.”

EA Sports PGA Tour launches March 24 — two weeks before the 2023 Masters — on PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. It will be available in a standard edition as well as a digital deluxe version, which offers three-day early access, plus some content that includes an XP boost and virtual currency for the in-game pro shop’s items.

EA Sports has been producing officially licensed PGA Tour video games since 1990, with stars like Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy lending their names to the product over the years. However, the company has not released a PGA Tour video game since 2015, meaning other franchises have had time to slide into the space once occupied by EA Sports’ mainstay series.

However, EA Sports is ready to make up for lost time with its newest title. The emphasis this time around is on realism, not only with how the players and courses look but also in how players must approach every hole. For starters, each of the 30 launch courses was created with the help of the course superintendents, state-of-the-art technology (including helicopters equipped with lasers), and even geologists to ensure the most true-to-life experience for players when they step into the course-accurate tee boxes. Licensed players and realistic crowds also received a keen emphasis, with players from both the PGA and LPGA Tours mapped using high-tech cameras in multiple poses to render them in the Frostbite Engine. In addition, actors were scanned for the crowd to make them feel like actual people on the course instead of cardboard cutouts.

The four Majors were among the highest priority for the developers, as the PGA Championship, The Open Championship, the U.S. Open, and the Masters all feature custom presentations, highly detailed in-game trophy models, and special commentary. Speaking of commentary, players can expect hundreds of hours of content from a broad analysis team to avoid repetitive chitchat when you’re working through the various courses. You can also tweak various presentation and gameplay settings, including how dense you want the crowd to be during your round.

When you finally do step up for your first drive, the gameplay leverages ShotLink and Trackman data used for real-world analytics of PGA Tour players for realistic outcomes on every shot. This data allows each bounce and roll to behave accurately across every terrain and slope, even taking into account which type of grass grows at each course. In fact, every course in the game has its own physics profile, so playing through a dreary day at The Old Course at St. Andrews Links feels different than a humid round at TPC Sawgrass.

After selecting your club and approaching your ball, you have 20 different shot types to choose from, letting you attack each course how you want to and how the pros do in real life; you can even adjust the shape of your shot’s arc to perfect your approach. Using the analog stick to control the swing, players must execute the backswing in a smooth and efficient manner and time their impact on the ball to maximize results. If you time it just right, you receive a Big Hit Moment, a series trademark where you get a slow-motion view with a dramatic camera angle to emphasize your mastery on that stroke. Once you’re on the green, putting is also controlled by the analog stick, with a line that shows how far back to stroke and a shot assist option to help you aim. EA Tiburon hopes to add the traditional three-click control scheme to the game post-launch.

While you can play locally or online in unranked play, tournaments, private matches, and other game modes (including one where 16 players are simultaneously on the course), the destination mode is Career. Unified RPG progression lets you make the decisions you want to make for your created player, giving you meaningful choices to build your golfer from the ground up with skills, abilities, and gear to complement the robust customization options. In Career, you can even choose where you want to start, whether that’s as an amateur, on the developmental Korn Ferry Tour, or all the way in the PGA Tour; winning championships in the amateur circuit opens invites to more prestigious tournaments, giving you a meaningful feeling of progression.

Though it’s been a while since EA Sports released a licensed golf game, PGA Tour looks to pull out all the stops in pursuit of delivering the most realistic experience we’ve ever seen. Though I’ve long since fallen off the sim-golf genre, I’m already eyeing my tee time on March 24 when the game arrives on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

I’ve never set foot on Augusta National Golf Course, but after seeing some of the Frostbite engine-powered tech on display in the upcoming EA Sports PGA Tour, I wouldn’t be surprised if I start to catch a whiff of freshly cut grass in my living room when I sit down and start playing on Xbox Series X|S on March 24.

That’s the incredible level of authenticity that the teams at EA Orlando and EA Madrid are striving to achieve with PGA Tour. Not only are they aiming to usher in the return of an iconic video game sports franchise, one with lifelike accuracy from ball physics and club types, but they want to drive home the majesty of the game and what it’s like to step foot on some of the world’s most prestigious golf courses.

To bring these to life, the team gained exclusive access to these courses and sought advice from some of the foremost geologists to help map out each course with cutting edge photogrammetry, GPS mapping tech utilizing helicopters (with lasers!), airplanes, and drones. They also conducted ground mapping and on-site photography at every course to capture the most minute details. All of this results in a magnificent-looking game.

It will launch with some of the most iconic stops on the PGA Tour, like the Island Green at TPC Sawgrass, the crazy 16th party hole at Scottsdale, Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill, and each leg of the FedEx Cup. These are what the development team are referring to as the “30 Bucket List Courses” in the game.

“We even went to New Zealand to create Tara Iti, the number two course on Golf Digest’s list of the greatest courses in the world,” says Producer Ben Ramsour. “Also on our international list is Banff Springs set in the Canadian Rocky Mountains and the Evian Resort in France. Of course, we have the trifecta of the ultimate ‘Bucket List’ courses, like The Old Course at Saint Andrews, Pebble Beach Golf Links, and the legendary Augusta National Golf Club.”

Stop and Smell the Flowers

It was at this point during our first-look demo that we saw in-game captured footage showcasing the incredible level of detail that’s possible on Xbox Series X|S, featuring a lifelike shot of Founder’s Circle at Augusta and the beautiful azalea flowers that surround this iconic course.

“Augusta’s botanist team gave us access to their tree health software to ensure we properly place every tree and [piece of] vegetation that a player will see in our game,” mentions Ramsour, as he continues to show other detailed shots like ultra-realistic looking crowds that utilize Frostbite’s swarm crowd system, and the lone cypress that stands on the cliffs of Pebble Beach.

“Our use of photogrammetry was especially useful in capturing every nook and cranny of rock formations and foliage from the real thing. At The Country Club (featured in the film, ‘The Greatest Game Ever Played’), we used a low flying helicopter to map the course,” continues Ramsour. “The chopper was equipped with a laser designed to find gold mines and oil reserves; the LiDAR and photogrammetry data is 30 times more dense than publicly available data that other games and simulators use.”

All this visual fidelity isn’t just for show either. This data helps inform all other aspects of play, which means more realistic terrain, slopes, ball behavior, and surface dynamics, ensuring players can experience these iconic courses like never before.

Let’s Go Clubbing

EA Sports PGA Tour’s Pure Strike system is powered by ShotLink, the real-time scoring system that the PGA Tour uses, and TrackMan data, which calculates ball flight measurement and swing analysis. That means players will have all the tools they need to realistically attack every hole on every course the same way the pros do — a whole new level of golf simulation that’s never really been tackled before, again thanks to the power of Frostbite on Xbox Series X|S.

“One of the most impactful ways players will interact with Pure Strike is through shot types,” explains Gameplay Designer Craig Penner. “We’re introducing 20 different shot types so now every time you approach the ball, you don’t only choose your club, but also the type of shot you want to hit. Each shot type is unique per club and trajectory so under the hood there are over 1300 unique physics profiles that power these shot types. We develop them with ShotLink and TrackMan data, so that each shot produces ball speeds, launch angles, spin rates, and shots dispersions that you would expect in real life… allowing players to attack each course and each hole just like the pros you see on TV.”

Speaking of the pros, Ramsour was also excited to share some of the work put into modeling the professional golfers you’ll see in the game.

“Our characters look absolutely stunning! We leveraged character head and body scanning tech used for Hollywood movies; our scanning rig has over 130 cameras that take simultaneous pictures. We took shots in multiple poses so that we could see the unique way the muscle on the players’ faces and bodies move, so that each athlete moves authentically to how they do in real life when rendered in Frostbite’s animation engine. The pandemic made it challenging to scan, but we were lucky enough to be included as part of the PGA Tour’s bubble so we could scan our athletes.”

Return of the King

On top of everything we saw during our first-look demo, EA Sports PGA Tour is also launching with several other robust features to make it a truly compelling package, one that also includes the LPGA Tour’s five major championships, an overhauled Create-A-Player feature, competitive multiplayer modes, and more — it seems like EA Sports PGA Tour is primed to reclaim their crown as one of the best video game golf franchises.

EA Sports PGA Tour will launch March 24, 2023, for Xbox Series X|S and will be available in two versions, Standard ($69.99) and Digital Deluxe Edition ($84.99). Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members with EA Play can save 10% on their purchase of EA Sports PGA Tour from the Microsoft Store. You can learn more about EA Sports PGA Tour here on their official site. Stay tuned here to Xbox Wire for all the latest news and previews about your favorite Xbox and Windows games.

EA SPORTS™ PGA TOUR™ Deluxe Edition

Electronic Arts

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

$84.99

$76.49

Pre-order* EA SPORTS™ PGA TOUR™ Deluxe Edition and receive:

– EA SPORTS™ PGA TOUR™
– 3-Day Early Access
– Exclusive Early Access to Augusta National
– THE PLAYERS Championship Gear
– The Grand Slam Gear Bundle (Gear items celebrating The Majors)
– Scotty Cameron Putter
– 1500 Premium PGA TOUR POINTS
– PGA TOUR XP Bundle
– Augusta National Amen Corner Gear

The exclusive home of the Majors, EA SPORTS™ PGA TOUR™ features Pure Strike for superior golf gameplay powered by ShotLink, and unrivaled access to the world’s most exclusive golf courses.

Home of the Majors
EA SPORTS™ PGA TOUR™ is the exclusive home of the Majors, including the Masters Tournament, the PGA Championship, the U.S. Open Championship, and The Open Championship.

Pure Strike powered by ShotLink
Powered by official PGA TOUR ShotLink and TrackMan data, Pure Strike provides unique golf swings with a fluid feel, and realistic outcomes on every golf shot. Pure Strike combines golfer-specific tendencies with unique Course Dynamics and revolutionized Ball Behavior for the premier golf gameplay experience.

Your career, your way
As your golf game improves, so does your path to becoming a Major champion. Create and customize a golfer, develop your skill set with new Shot Types, gain deeper course knowledge as you play, and learn to attack every hole like a pro.

The world’s most exclusive courses
The tee is yours at 30 courses, including some of the world’s most exclusive, designed in stunning quality with Frostbite™ so you can enjoy more of golf’s finer details than ever before.

*Conditions & restrictions apply. See https://www.ea.com/pga-disclaimers for details.

EA SPORTS™ PGA TOUR™

Electronic Arts

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

$69.99

$62.99

Pre-order* EA SPORTS™ PGA TOUR™ and receive:

– EA SPORTS™ PGA TOUR™
– THE PLAYERS Championship Gear
– The Grand Slam Gear Bundle (Gear items celebrating The Majors)
– Scotty Cameron Putter

The exclusive home of the Majors, EA SPORTS™ PGA TOUR™ features Pure Strike for superior golf gameplay powered by ShotLink, and unrivaled access to the world’s most exclusive golf courses.

Home of the Majors
EA SPORTS™ PGA TOUR™ is the exclusive home of the Majors, including the Masters Tournament, the PGA Championship, the U.S. Open Championship, and The Open Championship.

Pure Strike powered by ShotLink
Powered by official PGA TOUR ShotLink and TrackMan data, Pure Strike provides unique golf swings with a fluid feel, and realistic outcomes on every golf shot. Pure Strike combines golfer-specific tendencies with unique Course Dynamics and revolutionized Ball Behavior for the premier golf gameplay experience.

Your career, your way
As your golf game improves, so does your path to becoming a Major champion. Create and customize a golfer, develop your skill set with new Shot Types, gain deeper course knowledge as you play, and learn to attack every hole like a pro.

The world’s most exclusive courses
The tee is yours at 30 courses, including some of the world’s most exclusive, designed in stunning quality with Frostbite™ so you can enjoy more of golf’s finer details than ever before.

*Conditions & restrictions apply. See https://www.ea.com/pga-disclaimers for details.

Trophies may not be for everyone, but for me and many others Trophy hunting is fun method of achieving that sweet, sweet 100% completion on a game. A much-deserved prize for doing everything there is to do. Lots of games have easy requirements for Platinum Trophies, and often certain quests or challenges associated with them will reward you with cool stuff for going the extra mile. But while collecting Trophies is mostly a lot of fun, sometimes one comes along that makes us question our choices in life. To those we say, “F This Trophy”.

This week’s ‘F this Trophy’ is the DMW Master Trophy from Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion. The DMW is a strange slot machine-style mechanic that constantly ticks over during battles, its three reels displaying the faces of characters you have met across the story. When those reels align and display three of the same character, it triggers a Limit Break; a powerful ability associated with that character.

The DMW Master Trophy requires you to achieve 100% completion for each of the 18 Limit Breaks in the game. Now you might be saying ‘Hey, Jada, that doesn’t sound so bad – Limit Breaks are awesome! Channeling Sephiroth’s Octaslash, Aerith’s Healing Wave, and all the other character’s special abilities in battle can help turn the tide, so you want to use them whenever possible.’

Yes, this is true. But in the case of this Trophy, I’m not chasing the actual limit breaks. I already have all 18 of them. Instead, I need to unlock each and every flashback memory associated with each Limit Break. These are cutscenes that trigger in the middle of the battle and call back to prior moments in the story. They’re kind of annoying as they slow down the action in a battle, which is a sin on its own, but that’s not what we are talking about today. The issue with this Trophy is that progress, rather than being awarded based on skill, time, or effort, is awarded based on random LUCK.

After 100 years the Master Sword awakens, and releases Link upon Hyrule to fulfill the sword’s will and save the princess.

From the same creator as “The Four”, featuring 8 veteran players from all over the world, Breath of the Wild’s limits are pushed in this cinematic combat montage. The players include: Firefly, Jhent, Shibainu, RinHara5aki, A.xk, Kleric, Breneko and Yuda.

By
Max Blumenthal
on January 19, 2023 at 7:00AM PST