You don’t just forget the loss of a loved one, and that kind of trauma can compel you to head into potentially dangerous situations in search of answers. 7’scarlet is the the sort of otome game that broaches that idea, with a missing person’s case compelling the people left behind to return to a childhood home town in search of answers and insights into a rather mysterious place. What’s remarkable here is, even almost 10 years after its debut in 2016, this otome game still feels fresh upon its Switch debut.  

Years ago, Ichiko Hanamaki and her family used to live in the town of Okunezato. She doesn’t much about that time, which makes it even worse when her brother Hanate disappears after returning there for a visit a year before. Since a summer vacation is coming up and her childhood friend and classmate Hino is heading back for a meeting of the Okunezato Supernatural Club, she takes the opportunity to him and find answers. However, the prospect of a brief job at the Fuurinkan Hotel offers a chance to spend even more time in town investigating and possibly falling in love with a shocking number of men she’s met before and doesn’t , and Ichiko seizes it in the hopes of discovering the truth.

7’scarlet always ended up being an otome game that balances both a mystery of sorts with dating sim elements, and that didn’t change for the Switch release. Depending on the guy you’re pursuing, you essentially learn more about a particular mystery or element of the game. Some of them are the most basic and deal with potential threats to Ichiko’s life. Others are more detailed and offer insights into the supernatural urban legend tied to alleged Revenants roaming the streets of Okunezato and murdering the innocent each year. Maybe you’ll also find out what happens to Hanate. Depending on the person you pursue, the possibilities of actual romance and answers may vary. In general, it’s pretty well-written, though Ichiko herself is one of those heroines that suffers from a rather malleable personality that varied based on what type of role Idea Factory needed her to fill in that storyline. 

The art is also generally pretty great, and the UI is quite clear. There are a pretty decent array of CGs scattered throughout most routes, though one of the six doesn’t feel like it gets the same treatment as the others. Most of the storylines do feature moments that showcase a connection gradually growing and forming between Ichiko and the chosen partner, so I didn’t feel like there were too many shocks from a route suddenly being romantic after no signs telegraphed throughout the story. Appropriately enough, there are some possible bad ends and dangerous outcomes, which fits given this is a young woman heading off to try and solve a missing person’s case on her own in a town known for unexplained yearly murders. 

Given this is a very straightforward port, the same problems present in the Vita and PC versions of 7’scarlet remain in the Switch version of the otome game. Primarily, it’s the way the mystery is handled. There are only some routes that fully cover what’s going on in Okunezato and with Ichiko and her brother Hanate. The others are still fulfilling in their own way, but given the mystery of his disappearance, her departing the town as a child, and the rumor about Revenants that return to the village, it’s really a letdown when things don’t cover those mysteries. I feel like the Toa and Yuzuki handle things best. The final route, though it should be most fulfilling, is sort of the worst, even though it does provide all of the answers. 

Honestly, that last route is probably the one I like least because of the execution. It’s a pity, since it feels like all of 7’scarlet’s story is building up to it! But then when you get there, it isn’t as well developed as the other love interests’ storyline. Even the relationship doesn’t feel as authentic as a result, which is especially troublesome given you’d need to get over some of the connotations associated with it.  

While there may be some unfulfilling moments in 7’scarlet, depending on the route, as a whole it’s an enjoyable and often otherworldly otome game. Given how unusual its storyline can get and the twists and revelations that come after chasing after certain love interests, it’s definitely one that stands out among other Aksys, Otomate, and Idea Factory works. I’m glad it’s gotten a Switch release so even more people can experience and appreciate it.

7’scarlet will come to the Nintendo Switch on May 15, 2025, and it is also available on the Vita and PC worldwide. 

The post Review: 7’scarlet Gets Great When Its Mysteries Are Solved appeared first on Siliconera.

The PlayStation Network will undergo maintenance on April 15, 2025. During this time, some PS3, PS4, and PS Vita games’ online functions may not be available.

The maintenance will run from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM. That would convert to 6:00 PM PDT/9:00 PM EDT of April 14 to 1:00 AM PDT/4:00 AM EDT. The English s for Sony and PlayStation have not made any announcement for maintenance, so it appears that this is only for Japan. 

Many of the replies and QRTs to the original Tweet are complaining about how long the maintenance will last, as well as how many consoles will be affected. Some are wondering what they should do during this time, even though April 15, 2025 is a Tuesday. As a reminder, the maintenance will only impact online services, which means that games that have an offline mode will still be playable during the above hours.

As of the time of writing, Sony has not mentioned anything about the PS5’s servers going offline for any maintenance. This likely only affects the PS3, PS4, and PS Vita due to the age of the above consoles. For reference, the PS3 came out in 2006, the Vita in 2011, and the PS4 in 2013. All of them are already over a decade old.

The PlayStation Network maintenance for the PS3, PS4, and PS Vita will run from 6:00 PM PDT/9:00 PM EDT of April 14, 2025, to 1:00 AM PDT/4:00 AM EDT of April 15, 2025.

The post PS3, PS4, and Vita PlayStation Network Maintenance Announced appeared first on Siliconera.

Good Smile Company announced three figures of Steins;Gate characters Kurisu Makise, Mayuri Shiina, and Suzuha Amane in swimsuits, and they can be purchased separately or together in a bundle. Alone, they cost ￥18,700 / $193.99 each. If you buy all three at once, they are ￥55,000 / $565.99. These will launch in Japan in May 2026, with a worldwide release coming sometime in Q4 2026. All of them are based on their appearances in the games and anime.

All of these are static figures. So you can’t change face plates or arm parts to alter their expressions or poses. However, each one does feature a different position so they can be paired together or showcase various poolside activities. Kurisu is holding an innertube that matches her swimsuit and a soda. She’s also still got her necktie on from her daily attire. Suzuha, given her background, is holding a water pistol. Meanwhile, Mayuri holds a transparent beach ball that resembles the Metal and Fairy Upa from the series.

Each one of these characters is a 1/7 scale figure. That means they’ll all be between 9-11 inches tall. So Kurisu is about nine and a half inches (240mm). Suzuha is slightly taller, since she’s holding her pistol up, but she’s still around 10 inches (260mm). Mayuri is the tallest, since she’s holding the beach ball up over her head, so she beats the other too and reaches for almost 11 and a half inches (290mm). 

Here are two official photos of all three of the Steins;Gate characters together, so you can get a sense of scale for all of the figures.

And here are some close-ups that offer better looks at Kurisu, Mayuri, and Suzuha’s faces.

Finally, there are Good Smile Company Store bonus items available. One is only available if you buy the bundle that includes all three figures. The other three are piecemeal items that come when you buy just one. Collector’s cards of Kurisu, Mayuri, and Suzuha come with the solo figures. If someone buys the collection, they get a 60cm x 40cm tapestry that features the art of all three heroines in their swimsuits.

Here’s how those bonus items look:

The Steins;Gate figures of characters Kurisu Makise, Mayuri Shiina, and Suzuha Amane in swimsuits will come to Japan in May 2026 and launch worldwide in Q4 2026. Pre-orders are open until June 4, 2026. The original game is available on the PS3, Vita, and PC worldwide, and it also appeared on the PS4, PSP, Xbox 360, and mobile devices in Japan. Steins;Gate Elite is available on the Switch, PS4, and PC worldwide, as well as the Vita and mobile devices in Japan. The anime is streaming on Crunchyroll.

The post New Steins;Gate Figures Put Characters in Swimsuits  appeared first on Siliconera.

Dramatic Create and HuneX announced the release date for its Switch port of one of the Comfort Arcana Famiglia otome games that originally appeared on the PSP and Vita in Japan. Arcana Famiglia: La storia della Arcana Famiglia Ancora will appear as La storia della Arcana Famiglia: Rinato on the console on July 24, 2025. The official website noted a PC version is also on the way, but there’s no exact release window for it yet. 

The Arcana Famiglia otome games all deal with mafia stories and more battle-hardened love interests. In many cases, the heroine ends up being head of a gang or part of a “family.” That’s the case here. Your heroine is daughter of the Arcana Tarocco boss, and now that her father is stepping down he is looking for a successor. That could be her or one of his underlings. As you go through the adventure, your avatar can end up romancing Debito, Dante, Jolly, Liberta, Luca, Nova, and Pace. The story may sound familiar, as Sentai Filmworks released the anime adaptation La Storia Della Arcana Famiglia outside Japan.

Here’s the latest trailer for La storia della Arcana Famiglia: Rinato, which does feature some English text as the full game will be available with English, Japanese, and both Simplified and Traditional Chinese subtitles.

And the full list of voice actors is also available. While subtitles are available in multiple languages, only Japanese audio will be available.

• Dante: Jurota Kosugi
• Debito: Hiroyuki Yoshino
• Jolly: Koji Yusa
• Liberta: Jun Fukuyama
• Luca: Yoichi Nakamura
• Nova: Tsubasa Yonaga
• Pace: Tomokazu Sugita

La storia della Arcana Famiglia: Rinato will appear on the Switch on July 24, 2025, and a PC version of the otome game will be available as well. The title appeared on the PSP and Vita in Japan. The anime adaptation also appeared worldwide, but it doesn’t seem to be currently streaming anywhere.

The post Vita Otome La storia della Arcana Famiglia: Rinato Heads to Switch, PC appeared first on Siliconera.

The God Eater series holds a special place in my gaming memories. As one of the more established competitors to Monster Hunter, Bandai Namco gave a more extensive focus on the characters. It also let players bring NPCs as party even in single-player sessions, which did not appear as a feature in Capcom's games prior to the 2022 release of Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak. However, the God Eater games released on the PSP, PS Vita, and PS4 also had a trick that allowed players to characters from the same 's saved slots as avatar NPC companions.

To put the trick into perspective, we should first learn how the avatar NPC feature came to be in a genre that thrived with multiple competitor titles around the 2010s. The Monster Hunter games have a Guild Card that records each player's activities. Players can also customize the card before sharing it with others by writing their own messages while choosing a specific pose and title. However, the cards barely serve any gameplay purposes other than recording proof that you have encountered those players in a multiplayer session.

This was where Bandai Namco tried to amp up the competition by adding a meaningful gameplay feature to the cards. In the God Eater games, exchanging these cards would not only let players see each other's records; it also actually let them select the player's avatar as an NPC party member akin to the in-game story characters.

Some of the games' players have even discovered a trick where they can characters from other save slots in the same as avatar NPC companions, which also means they can technically add their own created characters as party . Such a trick has since been known in the community as the "Self Avatar Card."

The trick was made possible by utilizing loopholes in the wireless and online features of the now-legacy consoles, although one would be required to own two copies of the same game and/or console to pull it out. While methods to execute the trick had existed as early as the release of God Eater Burst—the enhanced edition of the first series entry released for PSP in 2010, I had the most profound experiences with God Eater Resurrection and God Eater 2: Rage Burst when Bandai Namco released them for the Vita and PS4.

There were two methods possible to execute the trick in both games. The first one utilized two Vita consoles—one of them could also be a PlayStation Vita TV. And if one had purchased the game digitally, they could and access the same game on both consoles and then connect with the local Ad-Hoc mode.

The second method—and the one I actually used—involved purchasing a copy of the game for each of the PS4 and Vita. I still how I could connect to a private online room with the same simultaneously on both platforms. After successfully performing the internal exchange, I could sync the saves with the updated Self Avatar Cards via the cross-save feature. In God Eater Resurrection, that also meant I could add the franchise's anime protagonist Lenka Utsugi besides my own characters to the list of callable allies.

God Eater was not the only series in the hunting action genre to feature the Self Avatar Card trick. When Koei Tecmo launched Toukiden Kiwami around 2014-2015 and Toukiden 2 in 2016, it released both games on the PS4 and Vita. I still fondly how I could pull out the same method and have my characters appear in each other's saves.

God Eater 3, unfortunately, does not the same trick due to the lack of cross-play and cross-save between its PS4, PC, and Switch releases. Technically speaking, players of the Switch and Steam versions could have a similar experience of exchanging avatars between two respective devices. However, both platforms have more stringent checks so it would necessitate a secondary . And while there is a way on the Switch to access a single digital copy on two consoles and s, both consoles can only connect via online multiplayer, which also requires a Nintendo Switch Online subscription for each of them.

The experience of having another self-made avatar as an NPC companion in these character-driven hunting games is different from the likes of Freedom Wars' Accessory androids or Dragon's Dogma's Pawns. In the latter games, you could create the secondary avatar right away, but they are more designed to be emotionless servants to your primary character.

The avatar NPCs can appear as callable characters with a more complete personality that can even become indistinguishable from the existing story characters if they are created elaborately enough. I actually felt more motivated to replay God Eater and Toukiden games with secondary and tertiary avatars when I had my previous character(s) appear to help me in the new playthrough.

However, looking at how stringent the check has become in more recent platforms, it becomes more crucial that generating self-made NPCs should not be the result of a cross-play trick, but rather should be implemented as an official gameplay feature. Having such a feature can help give more motivation to players who want to get immersed into the game's world but prefer playing in single-player modes, such as myself.

But I am personally hoping that the self-made avatar NPC feature can appear formally in not only a hypothetical God Eater 4 by Bandai Namco or Toukiden 3 by Koei Tecmo but also all other hunting action games, including Capcom's Monster Hunter Wilds which is starting to go all-in on NPC hunters. Imagine replaying the latter game with a newer character and you spot your first avatar coming to help after you launched the SOS Flare... How cool would that be?

Screenshots for this article were taken from the PlayStation 4 version of God Eater 2: Rage Burst. The game is also available on PlayStation Vita and PC.

The post God Eater Self Avatar NPC Trick Should Become a Feature appeared first on Siliconera.

Bandai Namco has revealed that it will release Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: Battle Destiny Remastered worldwide on May 22, 2025. The remaster of the game that originally came out for PlayStation Vita in June 2012 will appear on Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam. This announcement confirmed speculations that rose up following Bandai Namco's re-registration of the Battle Destiny trademark in October 2024.

The Japanese official site provided more details on the remaster, since the original game appeared exclusively in Japan. The Switch version will have a variable frame rate capped at 30 fps, while the PC version can have an unlimited frame rate with a maximum resolution of 4K by going over the recommended specs. But while the original Vita release had a network menu with ad-hoc multiplayer features, the remastered version will remove all of those and thus become a completely offline single-player game.

Here are the comparison images showing the graphical differences between the original 2012 release on PS Vita and the 2025 remaster for Switch and PC:

Bandai Namco has also published an official trailer showcasing the new remaster. But even though the English trailer features an English-dubbed narration by Archangel's captain Murrue Ramius, the company has clarified that the full game will only have Japanese voiceovers with additional subtitles in English and Traditional Chinese.

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: Battle Destiny Remastered will be available worldwide on Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam on May 22, 2025.

The post Gundam Seed: Battle Destiny Remastered Will Appear This May appeared first on Siliconera.

Taito featured multiple Spiritale figure reveals at WonFes 2025 Winter, and one of them ended up being a first look at the cute Bridget figure based on her Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R appearance. This is the first time an actual physical version of this product appeared, as the company only previously shared concept and announcement art. 

This figure will be a 1/7 scale model. That means it will probably be between eight and ten inches tall when it is finished. She has her nun’s coif and veil on her head and is wearing her blue and white dress. Her yo-yo is in her left hand. Roger the teddy bear is behind her. Her handcuff is also around her waist, as usual. The design is intended to replicate official art of the character from Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R.

Here’s how the Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R figure of the character is looking so far:

Spiritale released another Guilty Gear Bridget figure not too long ago. However, that one was based on her Guilty Gear Strive look. It debuted in March 2024 worldwide. That was also a 1/7 scale figure, and it stood at over 10 inches tall.

There’s no release window for this Spiritale Bridget figure yet, and Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R is available on the Switch, PS3, Vita, Xbox 360, and PC. 

The post New Bridget Figure Based on Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R  appeared first on Siliconera.

Capcom revealed that it will sell a new book containing key art from games it released in the up to 40 years since its first release. The book will have the title "Capcom Key Art Catalog since 1984 to 2023," and it will be available on March 20, 2025, at 9,900 yen (~$65.20).

The A4-sized book will have a total of 376 pages. It will cover over 300 games Capcom has released on numerous platforms throughout 40 years since 1984, with explanations in Japanese and English.

The first-ever title Capcom released was the arcade shooting game Vulgus in May 1984. Since 2023 is the cutoff year, the latest games featured in this book should include the Resident Evil 4 remake, Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection, Street Fighter 6, Exoprimal, Mega Man X DiVE Offline, and Monster Hunter Now.

Here are the samples for some of the pages in the book:

The new catalog book will be available for purchase in Capcom's physical and online storefronts. The company will also sell the book at the Capcom Exhibition, which will take place at Osaka's Nakanoshima Museum of Art from March 20, 2025—the same day as the book's release date—until June 22, 2025.

The "Capcom Key Art Catalog since 1984 to 2023" book will be available for purchase in Japan on March 20, 2025.

The post Capcom Key Art Catalog Will Cover Over 300 Games appeared first on Siliconera.

Square Enix has announced that it will launch a live stream showcasing Xenogears music to mark the game's 27th anniversary. People from all around the world will be able to watch the nine-hour stream on YouTube on February 11, 2025, in American time zones, or February 12, 2025, for the rest of the world.

The company will play various music tracks from Xenogears soundtracks in this stream. It implies that it will play not only the original tracks used in the game but also the album-exclusive arrangements of the tracks.

Squaresoft originally released Xenogears for PlayStation in Japan on February 11, 1998. However, Square Enix will time the worldwide stream in American time zones, even though the game's English localization came out in North America in October 1998. The company's Japanese X acknowledged the discrepancy when it announced the stream, which will go live in Japan on February 12, 2025, from 12 PM until 9 PM JST.

Even though Xenogears has been widely regarded as one of Squaresoft's defining RPG titles, Square Enix has still yet to release the PS1 game on subsequent platforms outside of Game Archives for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, and PlayStation Vita. The company has been instead focused on releasing action figures and model kits based on the title's Gears like Fei's Weltall and Rico's Stier.

The Xenogears Music Special Live Stream will be broadcast on YouTube on February 11, 2025, at 7 PM PST / 10 PM EST.

The post Xenogears Music Special Live Stream Will Air in February 2025 appeared first on Siliconera.

Spike Chunsoft and Youtooz announced the two companies teamed up for Danganronpa Junko Enoshima and Monokuma plush toys. Pre-orders are open for both until March 4, 2025 on the official Youtooz storefront. Each one costs $29.99. Both are expected to ship sometime in August 2025.

Both the Junko and Monokuma Danganronpa plush toys will be nine inches tall. Both feature embroidery and stitching around their faces for their expressions. Junko also wears a school uniform and has bear hairclips at the tops of her pigtails that look like Monokuma. 

While both are still in development and not available yet, there are preliminary photos of both stuffed animals to give us an idea of how they’ll look when they’re released. Here's how those look:

Youtooz is well known for pop culture merchandise like figures and plush toys, so it isn’t unexpected for it to also make and sell Danganronpa products. One of the most recent announcements in 2025 was an Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Hero collection. There were also Persona 5 Tactica figures and a Dokibird figure released in 2024. 

As for other Danganronpa merchandise, Good Smile Company is continuing to release figures. Its latest is a bunny girl version of Celestia.

The Danganronpa Celestia Ludenberg bunny girl figure will launch in September 2025. Pre-orders are open until March 26, 2025. Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is available on the PS4, PSP, Vita, Switch, Xbox One, PC, and mobile devices.

The post Youtooz Making Danganronpa Monokuma and Junko Plush Toys appeared first on Siliconera.

The God Eater series of hunting action games has reached its 15th anniversary on February 4, 2025. The games' publisher Bandai Namco celebrated the occasion by tweeting a new illustration on the series' official Japanese X .

The illustration features two key characters from each of the three mainline God Eater entries released as of 2025. They are Soma Schicksal and Alisa Illinichna Amiella from the first God Eater, Julius Visconti and Ciel Alencon from God Eater 2, and Hugo Pennywort and Claire Victorious from God Eater 3. In an addendum to the tweet, Bandai Namco announced that it will produce and sell new merchandise based on the new illustrations.

Key staff of the God Eater series, such as Yusuke Tomizawa and Hiroshi Yoshimura, have also tweeted celebrations for the 15th anniversary milestone on their respective X s. Bandai Namco has since appointed Tomizawa to take charge of the Tales Of series, while Yoshimura is still primarily credited as the general director of God Eater.

Bandai Namco originally planned to hold multiple major events in 2020 when the God Eater series reached its 10th anniversary. However, it canceled all of them due to the global lockdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, the company celebrated subsequent anniversaries in a more subtle way by opening temporary merchandise stores. In addition, the company has not released a new game for the series since God Eater 3 came out in Japan in December 2018 and worldwide in February 2019.

The first God Eater title appeared on the PlayStation Portable in Japan on February 4, 2010. All three enhanced mainline entries—God Eater Resurrection, God Eater 2 Rage Burst, and God Eater 3—are playable on PlayStation 4 and PC. The first two entries also came out on the PlayStation Vita, while God Eater 3 is additionally available on Nintendo Switch.

The post God Eater Game Series Reaches Its 15th Anniversary appeared first on Siliconera.

The next Danganronpa bunny girl figure arrives in 2025, and it will be a new take on Celestia Ludenberg. Good Smile Company announced it will debut in Japan in September 2025, and it will cost ￥39,600 when it does. It’ll be $310.99 in the US, and it is expected to appear everywhere by Q1 2026. 

The reason for the high cost is that this is a 1/4 scale figure, compared to the 1/7 and 1/8 ones we typically see. This means she’ll be over 10 inches tall. (That’s about 260mm.) It is a static figure with no additional face plates or accessories for posing purposes. Her bunny girl outfit does look slightly different than others in the line, to accentuate the fact that she always tended to wear Gothic Lolita clothing in the game. She also holds a Joker playing card, as a nod to her role as the Ultimate Gambler. The fishnet stockings she wears are made of real fabric as well.

Here’s a closer look at how this version of Celestia should look when the figure launches.

There are already multiple Danganronpa figures in this bunny girl line. In 2023, Chiaki Nanami, Junko Enoshima, Kaede Akamatsu, and Kyoko Kirigiri came up. The Chiako one appeared in both black and white outfits. The latest promotional image from Good Smile Company on the product page alongside the Celestia reveal showed there will be a Mikan Tsumiki figure in the collection too. 

The Danganronpa Celestia Ludenberg bunny girl figure will launch in September 2025. Pre-orders are open until March 26, 2025. Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is available on the PS4, PSP, Vita, Switch, Xbox One, PC, and mobile devices.

The post New Danganronpa Bunny Girl Figure Is Celestia Ludenberg appeared first on Siliconera.

Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced the winners of the PlayStation Partner Awards 2024 Japan Asia. While the company has also opened worldwide polls for the PS Blog Game of the Year Awards 2024, this award presentation particularly continued the yearly tradition established by Sony Computer Entertainment Japan, which would also later expand to the rest of Asia.

One of the awards featured in this presentation is the s' Choice Award, where Japanese and Asian PlayStation Network owners voted for their favorite titles released on PlayStation platforms between October 2023 and September 2024. Five games won the award:

1. Black Myth: Wukong
2. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
3. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
4. Rise of the Ronin
5. Stellar Blade

As announced previously in October 2024, this year's edition featured additional PlayStation Generations Awards where s would vote for their most favorite titles from each of the PlayStation consoles released before the PS5 that had also won in previous PlayStation Partner Awards.

• PlayStation Generations Award: Final Fantasy VII
• PlayStation 2 Generations Award: Final Fantasy X
• PlayStation Portable Generations Award: Monster Hunter Portable 3rd
• PlayStation 3 Generations Award: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
• PlayStation Vita Generations Award: Persona 4 Golden
• PlayStation 4 Generations Award: Elden Ring

In the same presentation, Sony Interactive Entertainment also gave awards to games based on sales performances on the PlayStation platforms between October 2023 and September 2024. One of which is the Special Award, which it gave to the following two titles for recording success while being developed by a third-party Japanese or Asian studio and published by SIE:

1. Stellar Blade (developed by Shift Up)
2. Rise of the Ronin (developed by Koei Tecmo's Team Ninja)

The company also handed over Partner Awards to seven PlayStation games with notable worldwide sales performances during the same period:

1. Dragon's Dogma 2
2. Honkai: Star Rail
3. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
4. Persona 3 Reload
5. Tekken 8
6. The First Descendant
7. Zenless Zone Zero

In addition, it gave Grand Awards to the top three titles with the highest worldwide sales:

1. Black Myth: Wukong
2. Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
3. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

In the 2024 edition, Sony also added an Excellence Award for a game with a consistently significant impact for three straight years. It gave the award to HoYoverse's Genshin Impact, which has been available on the PS4 and PS5 among other platforms. A more recent PS5 bundle featuring the same game also appeared in Japan in July 2024.

The post PlayStation Partner Awards 2024 Winners Announced appeared first on Siliconera.

A second Stardew Valley concert tour will begin next year, with the 2025 run being called Stardew Valley: Festival of Seasons. This will once again be a worldwide tour, and it will start in Seattle, Washington sometime in August 2025. Ticket sales will open on the official site at 9am local time on November 25, 2024, and newsletter registration will be available there too.

Few details are available about these latest performances. SOHO Live is involved, just like last time. Apparently, themes from the Pelican Town, Calico Desert, and Ginger Island regions will all be played. A full orchestra will perform them, with 35 playing. We also know the first stop is Seattle, Washington in August 2025, and the last performance will be held in an as-yet unannounced city in Hawaii in March 2026. In total, performances will be held in 18 countries worldwide.

Here’s the official key art for this performance. It features an orchestral performance at The Summit above Pelican Town. 

The first Stardew Valley concert tour started in February 2024. It featured multiple stops in cities like New York, Seattle, Chicago, Toronto, Melbourne, London, and Seoul. 

Stardew Valley is available for the Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PCs, mobile devices, and the PlayStation Vita, with 1.6 available on all platforms except the Vita.

The post Stardew Valley: Festival of Seasons Concert Tour Runs from 2025-2026 appeared first on Siliconera.

Back in 2017, Tokyo Clanpool ended up launching for the Vita in Japan. Now in 2024, it will release worldwide on new platforms. Tokyo Clanpool will get an English global release on the Switch and PC in December 2024, and it will appear digitally and physically.

Tokyo Clanpool is a first-person dungeon-crawler with turn-based battles set in a dystopian future. Monsters from a Reverse City flooded Japan. To fight back, new Prime Minister Natsume Kannuki rallied her cabinet of warriors, which are called Diet Dolls in reference to the Japanese National Diet houses. Players will head into a dungeon tower to face the monsters and head to the source in the sky. 

The government theme also comes through in an approval rating system. The people are watching as you go on your runs into the dungeon. If your approval rating is high, the percentage will go up and you’ll get bonuses as you explore. Those can also apparently turn negative if you aren’t performing well.

Here’s the first English trailer for Tokyo Clanpool highlighting gameplay ahead of the Switch and PC release.

Eastasiasoft also confirmed Play-Asia will sell 3,000 Switch limited editions of Tokyo Clanpool in English. While standard physical copies will be $39.99, the LE will be $59.99. The bonuses in it are an art book, a CD soundtrack, poster, and stickers. 

Here’s how that looks:

Tokyo Clanpool is available on the Vita in Japan, and it will come to the Switch and PC via GOG in December 2024 in English and Traditional Chinese. 

The post Tokyo Clanpool Coming to Switch and PC in English appeared first on Siliconera.