October 2023 - n.31

PLAY

The ultimate guide to PlayStation gaming, offering complete coverage of PS4, PS3 and PS Vita

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Welcome
‘New meets old’ defines modern gaming, and especially in this issue. But, to make sure it’s not just our nostalgia being tickled, we’ve been on hand to dig deep into the reinventions. Rest assured, there might be a lot of throwbacks, but there are so
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Carbon Copies
Gex is back. As are Tomba, Jurassic Park, Clock Tower, and many more vintage classics. Not only are these enhanced ports being published by Limited Run Games, but the niche-by-design company is involved directly in the development pipeline. As well a
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This Month’s Fallen Few
He’s no lord but he has fallen, spending plenty of time in our cover game’s Umbral Realm. GAME OF THE MONTH Shadow Gambit BEST LORD Blessed Lord Of Salty Shores (Blasphemous) Learnt all the best ways to pull off a heist from the Payday 3 devs, no
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Get Shreked
When Shrek said that, like an onion, ogres have layers, we didn’t realise that one of those was a penchant for skidding round a track in a go-kart and blasting away opponents. Though, handily, that self-same onion is just one of many weaponised power
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A Bite Out Of The Big Apple
Wave goodbye to Washington DC – the gang’s back in business in New York. Almost a decade after going their separate ways at the end of Payday 2, the crew members are reuniting to wreak havoc in what lead producer Andreas Häll-Penninger describes as “
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Onward To New Horizons
How often do MMORPGs get to put a pin in a years-long adventure? That’s what previous FFXIV expansion Endwalker pulled off in 2021, ending a story that had been running for over a decade. The game’s next update, Dawntrail, set for summer 2024, promis
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Pair of Panthers
Team-ups are commonplace in the world of comics, but two big-budget games starring the same hero going to head-to-head is more unusual. While Skydance (the studio led by Amy ‘Uncharted’ Hennig) announced its historical Captain America and Black Panth
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Gear: Stuff We Love
Danganronpa 2’s Ultimate Lucky Student, Nagito, joins the Pop Up Parade figure line, with an RRP of £36.99. He’ll remind you to have hope in any situation… and at any cost. SANDEEP RAI £35 ETSY.COM/UK/SHOP/2OLD4GAMING This lovingly assembled hardba
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Haptic Horror
With a striking Giger-like aesthetic, Scorn intrigued us when it was released on other platforms a few months ago. Now it’s set to be released on PS5 later this year, we’ll be able to enter the nightmarish bio-tech labyrinth for ourselves. And the PS
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Which TV Show Needs To Become A Game?
While I’d love to see how every episode of Love Death + Robots would fare as a game, the one that stands out is The Witness. It’s creative and different but also has quite an intriguing, dark feel. The story is gripping, too. Picture this: after witn
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Speeches
Android Markus and his band of revolutionaries make their way into a TV station and hold the staff there hostage while he demands equal rights for androids. While you decide the content of the speech, he always starts it by essentially telling humans
PLAY2 min readVideo Games
“Ac Mirage’s Lack Of Present-day Sections Makes It My Goty.”
WRITER BIO Abbie Stone can’t get enough of parkour, history, and assassinating people. She also somewhat enjoys the Assassin’s Creed games. Recently, I got nostalgic for stabbing some virtual Italians – er, let’s rephrase that. I recently got nosta
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“If I Can Feel A Huge Sense Of Achievement In Sf6, So Can Anyone.”
WRITER BIO Alan Wen plays Street Fighter 6 with a stick, and despite improving is still working on controlling his temper against Ken match-ups. Compared to other live-service games, Street Fighter 6 may not boast as much incentivising content – loo
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Replies
facebook.com/PLAYgamingmag gamesradar.com/playmag twitter.com/@PLAYgamingmag play@futurenet.com I’m fed up of scalpers. It’s bad enough when some cool merch is released and they buy it all and then sell it on eBay or wherever for loads more
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Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown
FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 15 JAN / PUB UBISOFT DEV UBISOFT MONTPELLIER / PLAYERS 1 Back in the PS2 era, a generation of players got to know the Prince as a floppy-haired idol who could magically rewind time to undo a missed jump, a fatal blow from an en
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Synced
FORMAT PS5 / ETA 2023 / PUB LEVEL INFINITE / DEV NEXT STUDIOS / PLAYERS THREE-PLAYER TEAMS You’d need to be braver than us to peek into the shooter category of any digital storefront and think ‘Yup, I’m going to unleash a futuristic loot-shooter on
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Warhammer Age Of Sigmar: Realms Of Ruin
FORMAT PS5 / ETA TBC / PUB FRONTIER DEVELOPMENTS / DEV FRONTIER DEVELOPMENTS / PLAYERS 1-2 As one of the few RTS titles coming to PS5, this Warhammer adaptation is well worth keeping an eye on. Whether you’re a seasoned tabletop veteran or a complet
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Laika: Aged Through Blood
FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 2023 PUB THUNDERFUL PUBLISHING / DEV BRAINWASH GANG / PLAYERS 1 The wasteland is under threat from an invading army of birds, and coyote warrior Laika is willing to do whatever it takes to protect her tribe. After stumbling upo
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Tsukihime -A Piece Of Blue Glass Moon-
FORMAT PS4 / ETA 2024 / PUB ANIPLEX DEV TYPE-MOON / PLAYERS 1 You’re a ten-year-old boy. You’ve been in an accident, and not only are you recovering from near death, you’ve been banished by your own father for your injury! If that’s not rough enough
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The Crew Motorfest
FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 11 SEP / PUB UBISOFT / DEV UBISOFT IVORY TOWER / PLAYERS 1-32 Whereas the first two Crew games (sort of) gave you the whole of the USA to drive around in, new game Motorfest is going to be confined to a version of the Hawaiian
PLAY1 min readCrime
Agatha Christie – Murder On The Orient Express
FORMAT PS5 / ETA 19 OCT / PUB MICROIDS DEV MICROIDS STUDIO LYON / PLAYERS 1 Those grey cells aren’t feeling so little, with Microids publishing another Hercule Poirot mystery-’em-up less than two months after the last (The London Case, which is out a
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VR Skater
FORMAT PSVR2 / ETA 19 SEP PUB PERPETUAL DEV DEFICIT GAMES / PLAYERS 1 This may promise you can “break your bones virtually so you don’t have to in real life”, but you’ll still need to be careful playing it standing up. No matter how tempting it is to
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Hellsweeper VR
FORMAT PSVR2 / ETA 21 SEP PUB VERTIGO GAMES DEV MIXED REALMS / PLAYERS 1 If you’ve been keeping up with our PSVR2 reviews, you’ll know we love it when games aren’t afraid to put the power of movement within a virtual space directly into our hands. Wi
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TrinityS
FORMAT PS5 / ETA 20 OCT PUB PHOENIXX / DEV INDIE-US GAMES PLAYERS 1-3 For many MMORPG players, the mechanics they enjoy the most coalesce not in the daily grind, but in the endgame boss battles that throw loads of attacks at you and require both prec
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The Isle Tide Hotel
FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 12 SEP PUB WALES INTERACTIVE DEV WALES INTERACTIVE, INTERFLIX MEDIA / PLAYERS 1-3 When Josh discovers his daughter has been hauled off to the titular hotel by a bizarre cult with plans to sacrifice her, he must ask himself one k
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The Grinch: Christmas Adventures
FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 13 OCT PUB OUTRIGHT GAMES DEV CASUAL BROTHERS / PLAYERS 1 Putting you into the curled shoes of The Grinch himself, you get to play as the master of mischief before his heart grows too big (though it’s sure to happen along the wa
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Cocoon
FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 29 SEP / PUB ANNAPURNA INTERACTIVE DEV GEOMETRIC INTERACTIVE / PLAYERS 1 What if a level in a game was also an item? So posits the gleefully recursive Cocoon, put together by a new team formed from Playdead alumni (Limbo, Inside
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Nickelodeon All-Stars Brawl 2
FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA AUTUMN 2023 / PUB GAMEMILL / DEV FAIR PLAY LABS, LUDOSITY / PLAYERS 1-4 As the publisher’s aiming to release this about a year after the first game, you’d be forgiven for being cynical about the need for a sequel. But everything
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Armored Core VI: Fires Of Rubicon
FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 25 AUG / PUB BANDAI NAMCO ENTERTAINMENT / DEV FROMSOFTWARE / PLAYERS 1, MULTI We only review finished games, so in Viewpoint we go hands-on with near-final code of a game that just missed our review deadline. AC newcomer Alan We
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The Best Of Both Worlds
FORMAT PS5 / ETA 13 OCT / PUB CI GAMES / DEV HEXWORKS / PLAYERS MULTI Having foolishly abandoned our trusty shield in order to dual-wield two giant pickaxes, a lucky shot from a pesky archer sends us tumbling down a hidden pitfall to our doom. We la
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Way Of The Demon
FORMAT PS5, PS4 ETA 3 OCT PUB NIS AMERICA DEV NIPPON ICHI SOFTWARE PLAYERS 1 As any player of turn-based strategy knows, blindly charging forward is rarely a smart move. Sometimes if you want to make progress, you first have to take a step back. In
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Remnant II
Have you ever been playing Bloodborne, exploring its gothic streets, and found yourself wishing for an assault rifle? No, us neither, but someone at Gunfire Games clearly has. A chunk of Remnant II takes place in streets reminiscent of Yarnham, you s
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Venba
Tea towel on the steaming plate, idli batter dolloped in, and then twisted just so to ensure each plate’s steam moves up to the next one. That’s the key to the soft texture that Venba remembers from her grandma’s recipe, one she’s utilising here for
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Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical
You can take the girl out of the theatre, but you cannot take the theatre out of the girl, and that dooms me to like Summerfall Studios’ debut more than a merely normal amount. It’s a modernised take on mythology mixed with a murder mystery, and you
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Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist Of Salburg
The land around Salburg is plagued by troublesome beings – bandits, wolves, and horned demons. “But let those champions have their epic stories,” states Atelier Marie’s opening. Playing as Marlone (guess her nickname), you have bigger problems – you’
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Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew
Ahoy, matey! When a game features undead pirates, it’s fair to assume that they’re the bad guys, but not here – that’s you, that is. Just as well really, as the supernatural shenanigans you and your crew are capable of ensure that there are a hundred
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Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate
Part Minority Report, part Psycho-Pass, this time-hopping detective series ends up being nowhere near as interesting as either obvious inspiration after three lengthy episodes. Hal Scion (yes, really) is a temporally talented ‘Supervisor’. In the dom
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Viewfinder
My Instagram is enjoying a fresh lease on life. This perspective-shifting platformer is to thank (or perhaps blame) for that, tracing similar lines to 2019’s Superliminal and 2021’s Maquette, but with a photographic twist. Polaroids, artwork, and ma
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The Expanse: A Telltale Series Episode 1: Archer’s Paradox
Don’t pour whiskey down the hatch before your latest score has hatched… so says the age-old wisdom of the idiom I just made up on the spot. Telltale’s returned, though not quite as you remember it, and is working with Deck Nine on this episodic prequ
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The Elder Scrolls Online: Necrom
What do you feel Elder Scrolls Online could do with more of? Tentacles? Dimension hopping? Giant piles of books all over the place? How about the colour green? The latest expansion’s got you covered on all four of these important bases, and more besi
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Koa And The Five Pirates of Mara
From oceanic farming game to level-based 3D platformer. The jump from the chill Summer In Mara to this more athletic spin-off sequel is more interesting than the game itself, which features pleasingly vibrant visuals but basic action. Mara’s town is
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Hubris
From the view you have of the Twin Planet system as you awaken from cryosleep to the moment you surface from the water after crash-landing, every attempt is made to wow you with Hubris’ visuals. Even its characters are impressive; you get to see some
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Three To Play
Every month, loads of games come to the PS Store. You’d be hard pressed to play them all, so we’re looking at some that didn’t quite make the cut. This month we experience whiplash shifting between the quirky and the self-serious, with some dragons t
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Exoprimal
Like one of its genetically modified neosaurs, Capcom has combined the DNA of other shooters to create something almost entirely new. This is an ambitious effort with some of the boldest multiplayer design that we’ve seen in years, but an opaque prog
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Naraka: Bladepoint
Better late than never, this wuxia-inspired, melee-based twist on battle royale finally arrives on PS5 with arguably more content to sink your blades into. But the decision to go free-to-play technically means you start with less unless you’re prepar
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C-Smash VRS
Wolf & Wood Interactive has resurrected Dreamcast’s cult hit. In single-player mode it’s pure arcade heaven. It’s just as good in multiplayer, but no-one is playing. The varied game modes stretch the simple squash-meets-Arkanoid concept to its limits
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Crime Boss: Rockay City
Forget going solo, Crime Boss’ co-op modes deliver the goods. While Urban Legends borrows heavily from the campaign, replacing the NPC squadmates with human players makes a huge improvement. The more linear challenge of Urban Legends, mini campaigns
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PS5 Hall Of Fame
Remaking one of our favourite games always balanced on a knife’s edge, but thanks to how good that knife is to use, this one’s a success. Sumptuous visuals and terrific combat join the ultimate spring clean to create one of the best third-person acti
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PS4 Hall Of Fame
You won’t find another open world quite like this, the streets of Los Santos paling in comparison to this gorgeous, realistic western sprawl. Arthur Morgan’s wild west adventure is epic, emotional, and has enough teasing mysteries on every horizon fo
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PSVR2 Hall Of Fame
Telekinesis and guns make a wonderful combo in VR. With one mapped to your left hand and the other to your right, you feel like a conductor of chaos as you blast your way through a rogue colonel’s mind to uncover secrets. Eye-tracking is wonderfully
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The Testament Of Sherlock Holmes
Holmes mania was in full swing in 2012, with two huge shows on TV (the Benedict-Cumberbatch-led BBC one and the Johnny Lee Miller one across the pond) and the Guy-Ritchie-directed film duology having just wrapped up. Frogwares, however, had the jump
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Metal Gear Solid
When it was released, there really wasn’t anything quite like Metal Gear Solid. It combined arcadey stealth gameplay with a commitment to telling a deep story with fully voiced characters. And, not only did it look great, those visuals mattered (“Who
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Haley
When you first meet Stardew Valley’s Haley, she’s thoroughly unimpressed by you, and not too shy to let you know, either. Pelican Town has its fair share of residents who need time to warm up to you first, but Haley is interesting because she doesn’t
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Raiding The Past
FORMAT PS2 / RELEASED 2003 / PUB EIDOS INTERACTIVE DEV CORE DESIGN / GET IT NOW EBAY, FROM £2.99 This year marks the 20th anniversary of Lara Croft’s grittiest adventure to date: Tomb Raider: The Angel Of Darkness. Wrongly accused of her mentor’s br
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Killzone: Liberation
PSP had a lot of great games across a whole range of genres, but the weird gaming nipples it had in place of a pair of proper analogue sticks made it completely unsuitable for first-person shooters. However, those fun nubs drove Guerrilla to take a c
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A BRIEF HISTORY OF Final Fantasy
FFXII (2006) did away with random battles and added auto-orders, which was divisive. FFX-2 (2003) was the first direct mainline sequel in the series. FF Tactics (1997) remains a favourite in a series with too many spin-offs to count. PS1’s secret
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Parroting The Truth
FORMAT PS4 / PUB CAPCOM / DEV CAPCOM / RELEASED 2019 Not only is Phoenix’s childhood friend (and recent rival) Miles Edgeworth being tried for murder, but it’s Edgy’s formidable mentor who’s prosecuting. Manfred von Karma has never lost a case – whi
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Future PLC Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA Editorial Editor Oscar Taylor-Kent @MrOscarTK oscar.taylor-kent@futurenet.com – 01225 442244Managing Art Editor Milford Coppock @milfcoppockOperations Editor Miriam McDonald @crinolinerobotGames Edito
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FC 24 Reinvents UT With Women Players
Getting you closer to PlayStation’s most exciting stories, people, and culture The FIFA series is dead – and so too are traditional Ultimate Team forward lineups. Next season you’ll earn bonus chemistry for pairing Chelsea tandem Christopher Nkunku
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Getting Gooped Up
The long-awaited, full-fat sequel to Insomniac Games’ Marvel’s Spider-Man is almost here. While seeing the likes of Lizard and Kraven The Hunter forced to deal with the might of two Spider-Men, in the shape of Peter Parker and Miles Morales, appeals,

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