TODAY: Colonel, they're trying to replace me with some ageing Hollywood star — Over a 1000 people worked on Sword & Shield, yet the Pokédex got trimmed — Sony enables online cross-play, mostly thanks to Fortnite

Top Story

Leaker claims PlayStation 5 is codenamed ‘Prespero’, and that Xbox Scarlett features ‘better camera’

Someone claiming to work for a studio in possession of both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Scarlett development hardware has spilled the beans in an email to Gizmodo.

The outlet has been unable to verify the source's identity and claims so far, but Gizmodo has received edited images as well as various snippets of information about the next-gen console hardware. Apparently (and unsurprisingly), there's a big focus on streaming support.

Microsoft is pushing xCloud streaming, and Google Stadia is almost here

The PlayStation 5 is supposedly codenamed Prespero, and a small selection of studios received development kits this summer. Both kits are delivered with cameras, and Xbox Scarlett supposedly supports 4K recording with just 2 frames of latency. The leaker added that the Xbox camera is especially impressive, while the PlayStation 5 camera is ‘older tech’.

Each of the consoles approaches ray-tracing in its own way according to the source, which sounds a bit odd considering both use AMD chipsets. Even if these alleged details are true, it's worth noting that the developer kits – and especially early ones – typically differ from the final consumer model.

Time For A Quick Daily Quiz?

In which game did Fallout 4's villainous faction The Institute first appear?

• Fallout 2
• Fallout 3
• Fallout: New Vegas
• Fallout 4

The answer will be revealed at the end of this issue!

News Bits

Sony drops PlayStation Now price

Sony has changed the subscription cost for PlayStation Now – it's actually cheaper now! It used to be $19.99 per month in the US, which has been lowered to $9.99. All monthly, quarterly and annual rates have been reduced across all territories. God of War, Grand Theft Auto V, inFamous: Second Son and Uncharted 4 are the latest additions to the service, and will be available until January 2nd, 2020.

Metal Max Xeno Reborn 1 & 2 for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch

Kadokawa Games have announced that there's two servings of Metal Max on the way to PlayStation 4 and Switch. Metal Max Xeno Reborn launches in Japan this winter, while Metal Max Xeno Reborn 2 arrives sometime in 2020. A third game – with working title Code Zero – is also on the way, and it will be a reboot that goes back to the series' roots.

Daily Fact

Actor David Hayter almost replaced as early as Metal Gear Solid 3

Anyone who played the English language versions of the Metal Gear Solid games will recognize the voice of actor David Hayter, but did you know he was replaced by Kiefer Sutherland in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain? This wasn't even the first time Hideo Kojima looked for another actor for the role.

Kojima tried to get Hollywood legend Kurt Russell on board Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater – but he turned it down, so Hayter re-auditioned for the part and got the job back. Kiefer Sutherland's appearance in Metal Gear Solid V received some criticism from fans, especially since he doesn't say much during the game. Kojima explained that Snake's subdued nature was by design, since he was supposed to be an extension of the player and not a free agent who would be “making spontaneous comments or flirting with women.”

Game Spotlight - WARSAW

A punishing experience

(Pixelated Milk – PC)
Release: October 2nd 2019

Tactical, story-driven WWII RPG WARSAW is finally launching today to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the conclusion of the Warsaw Uprising. The game tasks you with leading the Polish underground resistance, and you'll have to recruit and manage teammates to carry out missions against the Nazi occupational forces. The game mixes tricky combat encounters with slices of Polish history, in an attempt to highlight the individual stories of the people involved in the Warsaw Uprising.

Despite featuring a tutorial, there's a lot to learn and master, and it's safe to assume your first run will be anything but perfect. WARSAW is designed to be played again and again, and you'll unlock new characters along the way. The game is supposed to offer a stiff challenge, and the game feels particularly unforgiving just as you are getting started.

It's hard to find a good team composition, since your team shares a pool of stamina points: You can easily spend an entire turn's worth of stamina healing a team member, for example, so you really need to carefully consider your priorities.

Managing health is maybe the trickiest part of WARSAW: Teammates remain damaged between encounters during a mission, and since healing outside combat costs action points, it is best to heal during combat. You need to spend action points to explore during missions, so you want to spend them wisely.

There is a hospital where damaged characters can rest up between missions, but they will only regain 25% of their health per day spent there. In short, health can be hard to manage, especially early in the game when you don't have many characters to choose between. What's worse: If someone dies on a mission, they are dead. Gone. Permanently.

Try to keep everyone alive!

Calculated risk is the name of the game in WARSAW. Even if you build a team full of strong offensive characters, there's no guarantee that their attacks will be efficient all the time. Every character has its own range of abilities, with each attack differing in stamina cost, accuracy, chance of critical hit and armour penetration.

You also have to keep an eye on your ammo and your character positioning – resisting a Nazi invasion on the sly is just not very easy!

WARSAW is only available on Steam for now, but developer Pixelated Milk has announced plans for console ports. The game runs well, and has no tweakable graphics settings – but we miss options for speeding up or turning off battle animations, since end-of-turn effects can take a long time to resolve, especially when you stack status effects on characters.

If you're looking for a challenging experience that you can slowly but surely chip away at, WARSAW is well worth a closer look. It's tough, but satisfying – and surprisingly emotional.

Daily News

Around a thousand people worked on Pokémon Sword & Shield

Game Freak's latest game, Pokémon Sword & Shield, grew the studio's core team to between 180 and 200 employees, and on top of that there are hundreds of external production partners, from art outsourcing to marketing.

The final credit roll for Pokémon Sword & Shield could potentially top a thousand names when all the different localisation teams are factored in, according to game director Shigeru Ohmori.

No more heartbreaking loss of progress

As any Pokémon trainer knows, it's important to save your game often – but Pokémon Sword & Shield finally eases your burden: “We do have an autosave feature this time, where you can just adventure and it’ll constantly save the game,” explained Ohmori.

He warned that it will no longer be easy to reset the game from a save and exploit the random number generator to earn legendary Pokémon. The Pokémon Company also reassures fans that the Pokémon cut from Sword & Shield will be re-introduced over time, following an uproar over the trimmed-down Pokédex.

Pokémon Sword & Shield launches on Switch on November 15th.

PlayStation 4 cross-play support quietly graduates Beta testing

Sony has been notoriously stubborn about supporting online cross-play between PlayStation 4 and other platforms, but they finally relented and started a cross-play beta program for developers.

Now the system is out of beta, and developers can finally enable online cross-play for their PlayStation 4 games. During the beta, developers would need Sony's approval to use the feature, but it is now available to all licensed developers.

Now we can all kill each other, together - that’s progress

Sony hasn't made a big song and dance about it, but here we are. PlayStation 4 users might be loath to admit it, but they have Fortnite to thank for Sony finally enabling cross-play after all this time.

Infinity Ward's rebooted Call of Duty: Modern Warfare – which is launching on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on October 25th – might well be the first major PlayStation 4 title to offer cross-play at its launch, since it already supports cross-play between PC and Xbox One.

News Bits

ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove gets a ‘1.5 launch’ trailer

Having already launched on PC and consoles in March, ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove is enjoying a tiny relaunch with the introduction of two new game modes and a price drop. The new modes are Extreme and Endless, which crank up the difficulty and lets you keep the party going forever, respectively. There's even a new trailer for ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove 1.5, featuring gnarlily tubular ‘90s vibes.

Fallout Legacy Collection listed by retailer Amazon Germany

Mein Gott! Amazon Germany has leaked details about an upcoming Fallout Legacy Collection, which will feature every installment of the post-apocalyptic RPG series, except recent MMO Fallout 76. The collection will include Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 4, along with all DLC. The release date was supposedly October 25th, but the listing is gone now.

Quiz Answer - Did You Get It Right?

In which game did Fallout 4's villainous faction The Institute first appear?

Answer: Fallout 3!

It looks like there's a big, fat, post-apocalyptic Fallout collection on the way, including all the games in the series – except for Fallout 76 – so plenty of fans will finally get the opportunity to replay all these landmark RPGs on a modern system.

However, even long-time fans who have enjoyed every Fallout game since the first one in 1997 may have missed that The Institute, the villainous faction Fallout 4's story revolves around, was introduced in Fallout 3 and was even mentioned in New Vegas.

Head to Rivet City, and you might run into a scientist called Dr. Zimmer, and his android Armitage. They enlist your help to track down a missing android, and Zimmer will mention that he worked in a place called The Institute – without revealing any further details.

Had Bethesda already planned to make The Institute a central part of Fallout 4 all the way back then? It's certainly not impossible, and it's a very neat little teaser of all the things to come.

Weekly Giveaway

Egress on PC

This week's DailyBits giveaway is an unusual combination of fun things: Cthulhu, Dark Souls and Battle Royale – at once! We are giving away 5 Steam keys for Egress, the multiplayer melee combat game from developer Fazan, where you struggle for survival on an island slowly being reclaimed by the sea... and the Ancient Ones!

All you have to do to enter the sweepstakes is to follow Dailybits on Twitter, and we'll also include anyone that follows us on Facebook too, although we'll be posting detailed instructions on how to enter via our Facebook page this Saturday. We will choose five random followers over the course of the week, and each will receive a Steam code for Egress on PC! It couldn't be any easier.

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