Price hike

Booting up. So it looks like Eurogamer was sent a review code for Starfield within an hour of publicly complaining that they hadn’t received one.

Would that work for us? Hey Bethesda, are you listening? 😇

— Jason Liu, Derek Neville, Tim Rhyne

HEADLINES

PlayStation puts the squeeze on subscribers. Sony snuck in an extra blurb at the bottom of their September blog update, announcing a whopping 30%+ price increase on their PlayStation Plus subscriptions. The highest tier, Premium, will now set you back $160 USD per year. Part of it might be to offset the investment in 4K streaming, part of it might also be the rebalancing of earnings toward subscriptions given the growth of game passes and cloud gaming. Hopefully the added cost to gamers means more day-one AAA releases in the future… but we’re not going to hold our breath.

Activision launching AI voice chat moderator. Collaborating with Modulate, Activision will be launching real-time voice chat moderation called ToxMod to curb toxic communications. The initial beta launched yesterday in existing titles. No more running your mouth in the prox chat.

Ripping at the seams. Threads, Meta’s “X-killer” is tanking. While it holds the record for the fastest growing product of all time (100M users in <5 days) it’s reportedly lost 80% of its daily active users. But Zuck isn’t giving up — ‘retention hooks’ are coming (tighter integration with Instagram).

HUD

• 💍 The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria may take hours of real-time just to walk from Moria’s East Gate to West Gate. Speed runs anyone?

• 💰 Sea of Stars release was a success, with 100,000 copies sold on day one to go along with its 91 Metacritic score.

• 🎸 With Starfield days away, Bethesda and Imagine Dragons have teamed up to release a new song and music video — Children of the Sky (a Starfield song).

MAJOR W

• 🤖 Armored Core players are making Gundam and Evangelion liveries with the game’s extensive customization system.

• 👷‍♂️ Elder Scrolls 6 is in early development. Like, really early. We probably won’t see it for at least 5 years.

• 🐎 New World adds mounts in first expansion after 2 years post-launch.

F IN THE CHAT

• 🕸️ A leaked image of the upcoming Spider-Man 2’s Limited Edition Console Bundle shows the file size of the game at 98GB.

• ⏲️ Suikoden 1 & 2 remasters require “additional time” from Konami.

THIS DAY IN GAMING HISTORY

• ⚔️ Final Fantasy VII was released in the US for PlayStation consoles (1997).

• 🏹 Atari Games released Gauntlet Legends for the N64 (1999).

• 💸 Quantic Dream was acquired by NetEase, Inc. (2022).

MONTH AHEAD

Upcoming September Releases

Starfield (September 6) - In case you haven’t heard, Bethesda has a new ARPG coming out called Starfield. The space-themed, open-world game is Bethesda’s first new IP in 29 years. Starfield is set to release on PC and Xbox on September 6th, with early access starting August 31st.

Baldur’s Gate 3 (PS5 September 6) - Larian Studio’s Baldur’s Gate 3 was fully released on PC on August 3rd and has been the biggest game of the year thus far. The game boasts a 96 on Metacritic and had a peak of over 875K concurrent users. BG3 will be coming to PS5 on September 6th, and Xbox later this year.

NBA 2K24 (September 8) - Kobe Bryant graces the cover of this year’s NBA 2K, and players will be able to recreate some of his most memorable moments from his 20-year career in Mamba Moments. Releasing on September 8th, you can take to the court as your MyPLAYER or see if you can take Wemby to GOAT status.

Gloomhaven (console September 18) - Based on the 2017 award-winning dungeon-crawl board game of the same name from Cephalofair Games, Asmodee Digital’s video game adaptation was first released for PC in 2021, and will be coming to PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch on September 18th.

Mortal Kombat 1 (September 19) - Finish Him. Despite the name, this is actually the twelfth installment in the Mortal Kombat series. The game will have both a story mode, as well as online multiplayer and offline gameplay. A new feature being added is Kameo Fighters, which will aid the player during fights. Mortal Kombat 1 is releasing for PC and console on September 19th.

Lies of P (September 19) - Jiminy Cricket. This soulslike game from Neowiz is loosely based on the Adventures of Pinocchio and puts the player in control of a humanoid Pinocchio accompanied with an arsenal of weapons and gadgets to take down enemies on the streets of Krat. Decide if you can tell a lie on September 19th, including a day one on Xbox Game Pass.

Payday 3 (September 21) - The third installment of the Payday series brings the gang to New York. Set in 2020, you can expect modern game-changers, such as advanced surveillance and cryptocurrency. Oh, and rapper/SVU detective Ice-T makes an appearance as a character named Mac. Payday 3 took home 2 awards at Gamescom, including Most Entertaining, and will be available on September 21st.

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Library (September 26) - The Cyberpunk 2077’s DLC brings a new espionage mission for V, with the goal of saving the NUS President. The only DLC Cyberpunk 2077 is getting, Phantom Library releases on September 26 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. This means that players who have Cyberpunk 2077 on a last-gen console won’t get any updates.

EA Sports FC 24 (September 29) - The first EA soccer “football” game post the EA & FIFA partnership, EA Sports FC 24 will be the 31st soccer game and first EA Sports FC game from Electronic Arts. While the FIFA partnership is over, the game still includes licenses for over 19,000 players, 700 teams, and 30 leagues. While FIFA plans to partner with a different game studio in the future, you can kick off in EA Sports FC 24 on September 29th.

HIVE MIND

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