Ubisoft’s King Arthur RPG, Analogue Pocket Release Delayed

Top Story

Ubisoft cancelled their big fantasy game

Ubisoft hired Mike Laidlaw, who designed the Dragon Age series, to work on their next big IP, an Arthurian adventure game called Avalon – but Serge Hascoët cancelled it.

It’s pretty unusual for single executives to make big decisions like that, and people close to the project claimed Hascoët wanted Avalon to be “better than Tolkien,” and set the bar incredibly high. Hascoët is apparently not a big fan of fantasy settings, which is probably why he didn’t like the project

• Hascoët reportedly turned down fantasy games before Avalon
• Avalon supposedly featured a Monster Hunter-esque multiplayer world
• Serge Hascoët recently resigned from Ubisoft after multiple allegations of sexual misconduct

Gone for good? The developers tried to salvage Avalon by reworking the setting, but both the Greek mythology and science fiction ideas were shut down. The developers were apparently incredulous that Ubisoft would cancel a major project simply because of the setting.

Time For A Quick Daily Quiz?

What is the current world record for speedrunning Ocarina of Time?

• Seven Minutes
• Seven Minutes and Thirty Four Seconds
• Eight Minutes
• Eight Minutes and Fourteen Seconds

The answer will be revealed at the bottom of today’s issue. Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss what the answer could be.

Daily Fact

The 100 warriors of the golden age

Suikoden was originally released on PlayStation in 1995, and is fondly remembered as one of the greatest JRPGs from what was arguably the genre’s golden age.

Suikoden’s story revolves around political struggles in the Scarlet Moon Empire, and you assume the role of a Scarlet Moon Empire general’s son as he sets out on a quest to find 108 warriors. Since Eiyuden Chronicles is a spiritual successor, it also features 100 characters.

Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss today’s fact.

Game News

Spiritual sequel to Suikoden successfully funded on Kickstarter in less than a day

The Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes Kickstarter launched yesterday and has already smashed through its $500,000 goal.

Yoshitaka Murayama and Junko Kawano, two of the developers who created the Suikoden series, are behind Eiyuden Chronicle and their goal is to create a brand new JRPG experience.

They promise a deep story revolving around 100 intricately intertwined characters, 6 of which can be in your party at any time. Visually, the game resembles Octopath Traveller, mixing old-school sprite work with 3D backgrounds and modern post-processing.

• Suikoden writer Yoshitaka Murayama is responsible for Eiyuden Chronicle’s story
• The Kickstarter goal is $500,000 but console ports will cost over $1,000,000
• They are not sure if the game will run on Switch, but they hope there will be a next-gen Switch by 2022

What platforms? Since the Kickstarter has reached the $1,000,000 mark, Eiyuden Chronicle will appear on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and whatever Nintendo’s next console is named. Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is scheduled to launch in October 2022.

Release Date Delay

Analogue Pocket release pushed to 2021

Analogue, the hardware cloners responsible for the Mega Sg and Super Nt has finally revealed their handheld console Analogue Pocket – and also had to delay it.

The Analogue Pocket aims to perfectly recreate the experience of playing classic handheld games, complete with emulation of screen artefacts and other hardware quirks. The console supports Gameboy, Gameboy Colour and Gameboy Advance out of the box, and you can purchase adapters for Game Gear, Neo Geo Pocket Color and Atari Lynx games.

• Your old GBA link port cables will work perfectly with the Analogue Pocket
• The Analogue Pocket comes in at 3.5” and features a 1600×1440 display
• Launches in May 2021, and preorders open on August 3rd at 8am PST

Cost-benefit: Analogue Pocket costs $199, while the Analogue Dock adds an extra $99.99 and the ACH adapter costs $29.99. Want to know more? Check out the FAQ!

Game Review

Othercide

Best price: $31.49 at GamesPlanet

Version played: PlayStation 4

Developer: Lightbulb Crew

The Red Mother, protector of humanity, has fallen. Fortunately, her army of Daughters stand ready to defend against the biggest threat the world has ever known. Lightbulb Crew’s greyscale tactical RPG game pits you against frightful giant bosses on your journey through a dreary world. There’s little time to rest between Othercide’s relentless battles, and a nightmarish fate awaits if you should fall.

The rogue-lite mechanics set Othercide apart from most turn-based strategy games, since Othercide requires your characters to die for your squad to evolve – and you even need to sacrifice your characters to heal others. Death is always right around the corner.

There are only three character classes: Blademaster is a close-ranged attacker, Shieldbearer doubles as tank and healer while Soulslingers are your ranged attackers. That might sound a bit narrow for a turn-based strategy game, but each class can be customized. Every skill can be modified, and characters also develop traits based on your play style. If your Soulslinger defeats a lot of enemies, she could develop a trait that increases her critical rate and rewards her more experience.

The PlayStation 4 version of Othercide is perfectly playable, but the PC version is definitely preferable since the UI text is tiny and the framerate is locked to 30FPS. Controller input is also slightly awkward.

There are some design problems too: You need to start over every time you die, and that means playing the first few missions over and over again – and they’re just not that fun. Othercide gets more enjoyable as you level up and see more of the game, but there’s a bit of frustration and monotony to fight through first.

Fortunately, the striking aesthetics and unusual rogue-lite twist makes Othercide a unique experience that’s well worth checking out.

Score: 7/10

Thumbs up

• Striking art direction
• Interesting rogue-lite take

Thumbs down

• Replaying missions can get frustrating
• The UI is way too tiny to be readable from the couch

What Else Happened Today?

• PlayStation Plus for August has some big names including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered and Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockdown
• Project Athia is a new open-world game from Square Enix for PC and PlayStation 5 according to Gematsu
• Hackers managed to extract loads of data from Nintendo including source code and assets from a variety of Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 games
• A new Cuphead listing appeared briefly last night on the PlayStation Store before being pulled, which was today confirmed to be related to Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest where the Cuphead developers appeared to announce the launch of Cuphead on PS4.
• The conclusion to the ARK: Survival Evolved games is in sight as ARK: Genesis Part 2 will be out in March 2021.

Gaming Deals

Today’s Gaming Deal Highlights

There are so many great deals now that it felt wrong not to share some of them ahead of the weekend’s bargain extravaganza.

BurgerTime Party! (Nintendo Switch) $19.99 @ Amazon US

XCOM 2 Collection (Nintendo Switch) $34.99 @ Amazon US

Borderlands 3 Super Deluxe Edition (PS4) $29.99 @ Amazon US

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege (PS4) £8.00 @ Amazon UK

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown (PS4) £11.00 @ Amazon UK

The Crew 2 (PS4/Xbox One) £10.00 @ Amazon UK

State of Decay 2 (Xbox One) £5 @ Amazon UK

Kalypso Media Publisher Sale (PC) up to 80% off @ Humble Store

2K Games Week (PC) up to 80% off @ Humble Store

Very Positive Indie Sale (PC) up to 90% off @ Humble Store

THQ Nordic Publisher Sale (PC) up to 80% off @ Humble Store

Mortal Kombat – Liu Kang (Funko Pop!) $4.99 @ Amazon US

Mortal Kombat – Raiden (Funko Pop!) $4.99 @ Amazon US

Mortal Kombat – Scorpion (Funko Pop!) $4.99 @ Amazon US

If you buy any of these games by following our links, DailyBits will earn a small commission, so thanks in advance! Saturday will bring even more amazing video game deals, so stay tuned!

Quiz Answer - Did You Get It Right?

What is the current world record for speedrunning Ocarina of Time?

Answer: Seven Minutes and Thirty Four Seconds!

Speedrunning is amazing, mostly because it demands such enormous dedication.

In January, the world record was around 12 minutes but American speedrunner Daniel Baamonde managed to shave off another four minutes.

This is possible thanks to a new glitch that allows you to warp directly to the credits. Due to a quirk in how Ocarina of Time handles memory, you can trick the game into playing the wrong cutscenes by tinkering with Link’s inventory. Sounds incredible? Have a look at the video to find out exactly how it’s done.

Today’s issue of DailyBits was written by Gavin Herman, Erlend Grefsrud, Christian Vaz, Ken McKown, and Jamie Davey.