Over the years, we've heard a lot of talk about BioWare working on a new KOTOR game. It was even reported that their Austin studio was secretly hard at work on a new entry in the series. However, a recent update to the EA/Star Wars fiasco seems to indicate that isn't the case. 

"They've tried to make it happen, more than once from what I've heard," says Kotaku's Jason Schreier on Twitter in response to a question about BioWare making another KOTOR game. "No luck."

On its own, there's not much information there, but there is more to this story. First off, Jason Schreier has been a reliable source for years when it comes to reporting on what's happening at various video game studios. He's also responsible for that recent report that sheds some light on why the EA era of Star Wars games has been disastrous thus far. 

He's also one of the people who previously stated that those reports which suggested BioWare is actively working on a new KOTOR game are mostly false. It seems that there was a point when BioWare had pitched the idea of a new KOTOR to the higher-ups at EA (and possibly worked on some kind of pitch for the game that might have included tech demos), but they never actually began work on such a project in earnest. 

The question now is: "Why has EA seemingly denied them the right to do so?" For our best guess on that, we'd direct you to that previously mentioned report in which it was seemingly determined that EA isn't really all that enthusiastic about the idea of having so many Star Wars games in development at once. That report (which EA officially disputes) indicated that EA's CEO was never really that excited about the idea of a long exclusive Star Wars agreement. If true, that would explain why EA has done the bare minimum (sometimes worse) with the license. 

What's really heartbreaking is the implications this news has regarding BioWare's true intentions. They've repeatedly stated that Anthem is the kind of game they want to make (despite evidence to the contrary), but now we hear that they have seemingly made multiple attempts to revisit one of their most beloved franchises beyond adding new content to the Old RepublicMMO. 

The shame of it all is that the second KOTORgame left us dreaming of the possibilities of that franchise and that the recent history of Star Wars games has left us fondly remembering the days in which Star Wars games were arguably superior to the movies they are based on. 

Matthew Byrd is a staff writer for Den of Geek. He spends most of his days trying to pitch deep-dive analytical pieces about Killer Klowns From Outer Space to an increasingly perturbed series of editors. You can read more of his work here or find him on Twitter at @SilverTuna014. 

Writer/designer Sam Barlow and Annapurna Interactive are teaming up to bring us a spiritual successor to the revolutionary indie game, Her Story. 

Called Telling Lies, this title is described as a "spiritual successor to Her Story." That seemingly indicates that it is not directly tied to Her Story in regards to the two games' characters, universes, and any potential shared plot points. 

However, it seems that the game will utilize a set-up similar to the one featured in Her Story. That is to say that it will require players to interpret the information given to them via live-action sequences in order to reach the end of a narrative (or at least draw conclusions regarding its meaning). Whereas Her Story forced you to make sense of various interviews with a murder suspect in order to determine what happened, though, it seems that Telling Lies will be a little grander in scope. The plot details aren't fully known at this time, but Barlow previously mentioned that the game would draw influences from the Steve McQueen sexual thriller Shame as well as the Francis Ford Coppola film, The Conversation. He also describes it as being "in the vein of a political thriller."

Selling the increased scope of the game is a rather impressive cast of recently revealed actors who will portray the game's four main characters. David will be played by Logan Marshall-Green (Upgrade, The Invitation), Ava will be played by Alexandra Shipp (X-Men: Apocalypse, Straight Outta Compton), Emma will be played by Kerry Bishé (Halt and Catch Fire, Scrubs), and Angela Sarafyan (Westworld) rounds out the main cast as Max. Vivien Lyra Blair of Bird Box also has an unidentified speaking role in the game. 

We're quite excited for this title as Her Story is not only a unique narrative experience that must be experienced by anyone who wants to see what video game storytelling is capable of, but because Barlow also worked on one of the most underrated horror games of all time, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. We even got to speak to Barlow about his work on that game and his philosophy behind making scary games. 

There's no word yet regarding Telling Lies' release date, but the principal shooting of the live-action sequences is expected to wrap soon. 

Matthew Byrd is a staff writer for Den of Geek. He spends most of his days trying to pitch deep-dive analytical pieces about Killer Klowns From Outer Space to an increasingly perturbed series of editors. You can read more of his work here or find him on Twitter at @SilverTuna014. 

This Resident Evil 2 hands-on preview is based on a demo from E3 2018.

In 1998, Resident Evil 2 had the unenviable position of following up one of the most important survival horror games ever made and delivered an experience every bit as scary and cinematic as the original. It introduced beloved franchise mainstays Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield, the duplicitous rogue Ada Wong, and a gruesome city play area beyond what fans of the zombie genre could have imagined at the turn of the century. With Resident Evil 2, the series reached its true potential.

Once again, Leon and Claire must explore the depths of a zombified Raccoon City as the T-virus spreads from a secret Umbrella laboratory to a police station under siege. But this new version of Resident Evil 2 is much more than a simple remaster of the game. It's more of a reimagining with all the bells and whistles you'd expect from a current-gen title. I stumbled through the zombie-infested Raccoon City Police Department during my E3 2018 demo and discovered a horror title that might very well be 2019's best. 

Further Reading: 35 Games to Play in 2019

Despite how some fans might feel about Resident Evil 2 remaining faithful to the original, Capcom has made a few big updates that help the game not ultimately feel like such a dinosaur, something the Resident Evil Remastered and Resident Evil Zero Remastered editions can't quite avoid. The studio has done away with the fixed camera, for example. Now the game plays with the over-the-shoulder camera first popularized by another Leon S. Kennedy adventure, Resident Evil 4.

You might be worried that this change compromises some of the scares in the game. After all, the early Resident Evil games thrived when it forced the player into a long hallway, directing the camera so he/she couldn't see what was waiting ahead ready to claw at the player from a corner or crash through a window. But I have to say it's almost more unnerving to see a zombie banging on a window ahead of you, drooling for your flesh as you walk towards it. Where the blind spot encouraged you to approach, the knowledge of the terror ahead makes you want to turn around and run. 

I don't have to tell you how much better shooting is from the shoulder. It's a necessary improvement made for a more modern audience and cracking the necessary headshot still feels great. The zombies don't go down easy, of course. It'll take three shots to the head to kill them, but that doesn't guarantee that they won't rise from the dead once again. In fact, when you re-enter an area where you fought a stalking corpse, there's a good chance it'll get up for one last scare (or a few more). 

Further Reading: The George Romero Resident Evil Movie You Never Saw

Unsurprisingly, the visuals are much improved. I dare say that Resident Evil 2 might actually feature the scariest zombies I've ever seen, from bloodied police officers to hungry pedestrians pushing their way into the building. The dynamic facial expressions add so much to these night stalkers, as they growl or shout with rage.

The game is also gory as hell, which isn't exactly awe-inspiring when it comes to Resident Evil but is worth mentioning due to the execution. My brief time inside the police station was a showcase of gruesome violence. Blasting a zombie in the face with a shotgun will leave nothing but a stub for a head -- it looks like a few meaty bits hanging onto what's left of the monster's spinal cord. At one point, a zombie fell from the ceiling and its rotting head split in half, opening up like two flaps to reveal red, oozing muck. Tom Savini and Greg Nicotero fans will be absolutely delighted. 

By far, the remake's most impressive technical update is the sound design, which becomes the most vital complement to the gameplay, as you slowly make your way through the empty corridors, hearing every footstep, scream, bang on a door, and shattering of glass -- which indicates that more zombies have gotten in and are coming for you. There's a speeding of the heart when you hear these sounds and sometimes even Leon will comment on the noises, which really is quite fun. The game knows how to masterfully manipulate noises to scare the player, even if there's nothing waiting to jump out at you. It becomes a mind game of sound that is reminiscent of other horror classics like Silent Hill 2 and Amnesia: The Dark Descent.  

Further Reading: The Lost Version of Resident Evil 4

I played Resident Evil 2 for about an hour and there's honestly not much I can criticize about it. If anything stood out, it was perhaps the repetitiveness of some of the scares. I could predict when certain zombies were going to show up behind me or when one was going to come through a window. But I think that has more to do with the length of the demo as well as the tried and true trademarks of the franchise. The technical updates are more than enough to make Resident Evil 2 feel like a fresh experience. 

Resident Evil 2 is out on Jan. 25, 2019.  

More than three decades after its release, the NES is still considered by many to be the greatest console of all time, even without modern bells and whistles like online play or 4K resolution. And with good reason: it’s home to tons of timeless classics like Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid.

But the greatness of the NES goes far beyond those classics. Nearly 700 licensed games were released for the console in North America, and even today some of those greats are often overlooked

These are the 25 most underrated NES games that are still worth checking out:

25. Wario’s Woods

1994 | Nintendo

Wario’s Woods is an anomaly for plenty of reasons. It was the first Nintendo console game to star Mario’s nemesis and it’s also completely unlike any of the other games in what loosely constitutes the Wario series. The match-3 gameplay bears more than a passing familiarity to Dr. Mario, but instead of controlling pills dropped from the top of the screen, players control a Toad at the bottom that moves monsters and bombs. It was also the last NES game officially released in North America, so with almost a decade of experience programming games for the console at this point, it’s easily one of the best looking titles on the system.

Despite some odd design choices and complex controls, those that dive into Wario’s Woods often find a tough but satisfying puzzler. And while Nintendo has made the game available through the Virtual Console, the Big N left Wario’s Woods off of the NES Classic and seems to have zero interest in revisiting this type of gameplay.

24. Déjà Vu

1990 | ICOM Simulations, Inc.

The NES isn’t the first platform that comes to mind when thinking about point-and-click games, but it actually did have a few solid adventure titles. Even with the system’s limitations, Déjà Vu nailed the 1940s film noir vibe well. It’s enthralling figuring out the mystery of PI/retired boxer Ace Harding, as he explores the deep underbelly of Chicago.

Further Reading: 25 Underrated SNES Games

As great as the game’s atmosphere is, its puzzles can be quite confusing. This was long before the days of Telltale when scenes could be completed by just checking everything in a room. Expect to use a walkthrough if you dive into Déjà Vu now.

23. Captain America and the Avengers

1991 | Data East

There were a lot of very bad Marvel games released for the NES. Anything with a Spider-Man or a member of the X-Men on it is best avoided. There's one exception, though. Captain America and the Avengers may not be the best side-scroller on the console, but it’s better than any other Marvel title from the era. The developers even kind of nailed down the feel of Cap’s shield, which you can throw or use to deflect bullets and defend yourself from hazards. You can also play as Hawkeye, but he’s not nearly as much fun.

Sadly, while this is based off a beloved arcade game, some cuts had to be made. You can’t play as the Vision or Iron Man like in the arcade game, even though the title still references “The Avengers.” That means four-player co-op is out of the question, too. Still, this was a solid port for the times.

22. Gremlins 2: The New Batch

1990 | Sunsoft

The ‘90s were an era where pretty much every movie and TV show received a video game adaptation. Usually, these games were nonsensical and not very good, but every now and then, a great team of developers put something together that was surprisingly good. Gremlins 2 is one of those hidden gems from the era.

Further Reading: 25 Underrated N64 Games

You play as Gizmo from a top-down perspective as he travels through a vast building to eliminate the gremlins using a variety of weapons, including a crossbow. This is a game that looks, sounds, and plays far better than it has any right to.

21. Krusty’s Fun House

1992 | Fox Williams 

Acclaim released a whopping four Simpsons games during the lifespan of the NES. This is the only one not to star Bart and it’s also the best of the bunch. By a lot. Rather than focusing on traditional side-scrolling gameplay like the other games, you play as Krusty the Klown. His titular funhouse has become infested with mice and only he can get rid of them.

Gameplay is a lot like Lemmings, with Krusty moving around blocks and other objects to guide the mice to their extermination. And while other characters from the franchise are sparse, they do show up as bosses at the end of each level.

20. Ring King

1987 | Data East 

Punch-Out!! may be the undisputed champion of NES boxing games, but Ring King is a solid contender. Rather than focus the camera behind your boxer, the fighters square off in third-person, like a wrestling game. Even though all of the boxers are palette swaps, there’s a lot of depth here and the graphics are surprisingly good for an early NES game.

Further Reading: 25 Best GameCube Games

While the gameplay is fun, Ring Kinghas also become somewhat infamous online in recent years for another reason. Between rounds, your trainer comes to the ring, gets on his knees, and well… it can only be described as “servicing” the boxer.

19. Batman

1990 | Sunsoft

There was a time, long ago, when Batman movies got video game adaptations - even great video game adaptations. Based on the 1989 Tim Burton movie, Batman actually does a decent job of following the film’s basic plot and spicing in gameplay liberally borrowed from Ninja Gaiden, like the wall jump and Batarangs. It also boasts a killer soundtrack and some primitive, but entertaining cutscenes.

Just be warned that this is one difficult game to complete. You might not even make it through the first level, let alone live to see the final showdown with the Joker, but it sure is fun to try.

18. Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight

1990 | Capcom

Despite the title, Street Fighter 2010 is only sort of related to the legendary fighting game franchise. Capcom had a solid side-scrolling shooter on its hands but didn’t think anyone would pay attention to it in the U.S. So the main character was renamed from Kevin Striker in the Japanese version to Ken, a martial arts master, implying he was the same character from Street Fighter.

Further Reading: Street Fighter Characters Ranked

The game actually came out a few months before Street Fighter II hit arcades, so the series wasn’t nearly the phenomenon that it would be later in the ‘90s, making the localization decision even more bizarre. Still, there’s fun to be had here, with tight controls and a strong soundtrack if you just ignore all the unnecessary Street Fighter silliness.

17. Willow

1989 | Capcom

Based on an idea by George Lucas, Willow was one of those movies that was a big deal when it was released, but that has fallen into obscurity over the years. It seems rather unavoidable then that the game based on the movie would suffer the same fate. But Willow is actually good!

The game obviously takes a lot of inspiration from The Legend of Zelda, but with Capcom (which would later go on to make some Zelda games) at the helm, that’s not such a bad thing. Some might even prefer the required grinding.

16. Zoda’s Revenge: StarTropics 2

1994 | Nintendo

The first StarTropics was a top-down adventure game that showed a lot of promise but had some control issues. For the sequel, Nintendo fixed that issue with a much smoother system that allowed movement in eight different directions, then added in some of the best graphics on the console and an awesome story that saw main character Mike Jones travel through time.

Further Reading: 25 Best Wii U Games

Like Wario’s Woods, this is one of those games that was pretty good but still seemingly sent out to die long after most gamers had moved on to the SNES. And for whatever reasons, Nintendo has completely ignored the series ever since.

15. The Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout

1990 | Kemco

It’s Bugs Bunny’s 50th birthday, so of course, he has to fight a bunch of his friends to get to his party. I guess? Is that something anyone has ever had to do for a birthday party? It doesn’t really matter as that’s mostly just an excuse to give Bugs a hammer to take down enemies in a variety of side-scrolling levels, each culminating in a boss fight with a fellow Looney Toon.

It’s an odd game, but still one of the better ones to feature the Looney Tunes. And unlike a lot of NES games, the sprites actually look like the characters they’re meant to portray.

14. Adventure Island

1988 | Hudson Soft

Far too many NES side-scrollers ripped off Super Mario Bros. and Mega Man, usually with awful results. Adventure Island was one of the few platformers on the console that oozed originality. It took real skill to learn how control to Master Higgins and his stone ax, fireballs, and of course, skateboard. This side-scroller is the rare 8-bit game that’s tough because it’s meant to be, not because of poor design choices or the limitations of the hardware.

Further Reading: Revisiting Wonder Boy, the Forgotten Answer to Super Mario Bros.

Adventure Island actually started off as a port of Sega’s Wonder Boy arcade game, but the decision was made to create an original character during development. Meanwhile, the Wonder Boy sequels would add more RPG features and go in an entirely different direction. Unfortunately, while Wonder Boy has seen a bit of a resurgence in recent years, the Adventure Island series hasn’t appeared since an obscure 2009 WiiWare game.

13. Magic of Scheherazade

1989 | Culture Brain

Scheherazade was a game ahead of its time in many ways. While at first glance it's a Zelda clone, the ability to travel between five different time periods actually preceded A Link to the Past by two years. The innovative combat system also mixed real-time and turn-based combat, a feature PC RPGs wouldn’t adopt until years later. It’s also one of the few NES games with a Middle Eastern theme, which helps it stand out from the pack.

At one point, a sequel was planned for the SNES, which could have really been something special given the groundwork laid by the NES game, but it was canceled with no further information announced.

12. River City Ransom

1989 | Technos Japan

Initially ignored in North America, River City Ransom’s reputation has improved over the years. While the NES had no shortage of beat ‘em ups, River City Ransom was the first to let you explore an open world. Your character could further customize his stats with food items or by reading magazines, something that was unheard of in the genre at the time.

Further Reading: 60 Underrated PlayStation Games

Unlike many of the third-party games from the era, the River City Ransom franchise is still alive and kicking with the most recent game in the series, River City: Rival Showdown, hitting the 3DS last year. For better or worse, aside from sharper looking graphics, the games haven’t changed much over the last three decades.

11. Tiny Toon Adventures

1991 | Konami

Tiny Toon Adventures was an early ‘90s cartoon featuring younger characters based on the classic Looney Toons. For example, there was Buster Bunny, a blue rabbit similar in personality to Bugs, and Plucky Duck, a green duck not unlike Daffy. It was a pretty good show that was ultimately overshadowed by the even better Animaniacs, which debuted around the same time.

The Animaniacs never starred in a game this good, though. The graphics are bright and colorful, among some of the best NES could produce, and you can switch between four different characters, including Buster, Plucky, Furrball the cat, and Dizzy Devil, a Tasmanian devil. It’s a short game with some surprisingly difficult sections, but still worth a play today.

10. Gun-Nac

1991 | Compile

On the surface, Gun-Nac appears to be a by the numbers vertical shooter. There’s a galactic federation doing typical galactic stuff (as federations do) when suddenly… the toys take over? That’s when the giant rabbits and space octopi attack. Then there’s the cat boss that throws coins at you. Gun-Nac’s atmosphere is completely bonkers.

Further Reading: 50 Underrated PS2 Games

Thankfully, that’s not the only reason to check this title out. The shooting is solid, and you can upgrade your ship in-between levels. You’ll likely find yourself humming its catchy soundtrack long after you’ve finished the game.

9. Clash at Demonhead

1990 | Vic Tokai

Clash at Demonhead was a Metroidvania game before that term existed. Featuring a character who could collect numerous different abilities, like teleportation, shrinking, and a boomerang gun, the game featured more than 40 different routes to the end, with stages that you could go back and visit at any time.

Further Reading: 25 Best Mega Man Games

Like the original Mega Man, Clash at Demonhead featured painful budget sci-fi cover art that had little relation to the actual gameplay. Unlike Mega Man though, Clash at Demonhead didn’t go on to inspire dozens of sequels, which is kind of a shame.

8. Ikari Warriors

1987 | Micronics

Contrais fondly remembered for its tough as nails co-op shoot ‘em up gameplay, but it hardly had a monopoly on the genre on the NES. Released around the same time as Contra, Ikari Warriors also featured two shirtless commandos shooting infinite waves of enemies, but from an overhead angle. While that means you can see more of the screen, it didn’t make the game any easier.

Another difference from Contra was the addition of vehicles, tanks, and helicopters. Ikari Warriorsdoes admittedly look primitive given that it came out early in the lifespan of the NES, but it’s still an absolute blast with a co-op partner.

7. Little Samson

1992 | Takeru 

Little Samsonwas Taito’s attempt at crafting a quality platformer that rivaled the sales and popularity of Mega Man. In terms of gameplay, Taito arguably succeeded. Little Samson is an absolute joy to play, with four characters you can switch between at any time. The graphics stand out among the best on the console.

Further Reading: 25 Best Mega Man Bosses

Unfortunately, while the quality was there, the sales weren’t. Gamers had mostly moved on to the SNES by 1992 and weren’t going back to its 8-bit predecessor no matter how good the games were. If you can find a legitimate copy of Little Samsonnow, expect to pay somewhere around $1,000 for just the cartridge.

6. DuckTales 2

1993 | Capcom

While the first DuckTales game is fondly remembered, for a long time many NES gamers didn’t even know this sequel existed. It came out late in the console’s lifecycle and its print run was incredibly small. In terms of gameplay, it’s a lot like the first DuckTales game, which isn’t a bad thing at all. Like its predecessor, it’s a little on the short and easy side, though.

The title finally got its due with an appearance in Capcom’s The Disney Afternoon Collection in 2017, but it seems unlikely that it will ever see a complete remake like the first game.

5. StarTropics

1990 | Nintendo

Take The Legend of Zelda, move it to a modern setting with a bunch of aliens, and tweak the gameplay to focus on a yo-yo. In a lot of ways, the original StarTropics feels even more like a proper Zelda sequel than The Adventures of Link, the weird, side-scrolling sequel we got on the NES. It’s certainly aged much better than that game.

Further Reading: 25 Underrated PS3 Games

Oddly enough, while StarTropics was made by a group of Japanese developers living in the U.S., Nintendo has never released the game in Japan. Maybe that’s why the Big N has shown so little interest in resurrecting the series over the years.

4. Adventures of Lolo

1989 | Nintendo

HAL Laboratory took the typical story of a hero saving the princess and turned it into something truly special with Lolo’s sliding puzzle block gameplay. It takes some real strategy to get through all 50 of Lolo’s stages, knowing just where to move blocks and when to shoot enemies.

Two more sequels followed on the NES, and all three of the games are worth playing, though they don’t differ much in terms of gameplay. While Nintendo hasn’t revisited the franchise in years (which is a real shame), Lolo and Princess Lala do regularly show up in Kirby’s adventures.

3. Little Nemo: The Dream Master

1990 | Capcom

One of the cool things about the NES era was how developers were willing to find inspiration from all sorts of odd places. Though Little Nemowas based on an animated Japanese film, that film was based on an early 1900s comic strip about a young boy’s adventures in dreams. The result is a fantastical platformer wherein Nemo collects keys to open the next level while occasionally feeding candy to a frog, gorilla, or mole for rides.

Further Reading: 50 Underrated Xbox Games

The game was developed by Capcom during a period when the company just didn’t make bad games. Unfortunately, the title was a one-off, and since the Little Nemo movie didn’t exactly set the world on fire, it forever remains trapped in time as an example of the more unique games that came out of the era.

2. The Guardian Legend

1989 | Compile 

Picture a game that’s part Zelda and part 1942, with an awesome chiptune soundtrack. Sounds amazing, right? It was. It still is. But the initial reception for The Guardian Legend was somewhere between ambivalence and straight up hostility. Maybe the world just wasn’t ready for something so different at the time.

As the titular Guardian, your mission is to destroy the alien planet Naju. Half the time, you're on foot in top-down Zelda-style areas. The other part of the game, set inside Naju, is a straight shoot ‘em up.

A lot of the game’s early criticism was directed at the complicated password system, but since that’s not really an issue with modern emulation, the game has found a much more favorable reception in the twenty-first century.

1. Crystalis

1990 | SNK 

It’s been 100 years since a nuclear war destroyed civilization. An evil new empire reigns. As an amnesiac warrior just out of cryogenic sleep, it’s now your duty to save the world. The story of Crystalis was surprisingly dark, which was a rarity for the era.

While the top-down action RPG gameplay wasn’t unique for the period, it just felt better than pretty much anything else around, and the story made sure the quest to obtain four elemental swords never got boring.

Further Reading: 25 Underrated Xbox 360 Games

Unlike the other games on this list, the positive reception Crystalis received years after release did motivate Nintendo to release a remake for the Game Boy Color in 2000, but with poorer graphics and sound, the NES is still the best place to check out this underrated gem.

Chris Freiberg is a freelance contributor. Read more of his work here.

A Smash Ball appeared on the screen and the entire internet lost its collective mind. sneaky Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's sneaky debut at the end of a Nintendo Direct in 2018 loaded the entire Smash Bros.community onto a hype train that wouldn’t stop until the game’s release the following December. Twitch chat freaked out, grown men wept and many, many memes were crafted.

But this sort of passion for Smash Bros. is nothing new. Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo 64 was an immediate success upon its release on Jan. 21, 1999, and the franchise's popularity would explode further with the release of Super Smash Bros. Melee on the Nintendo GameCube. You can even make the argument in 2019 that Smash gave Nintendo one of the first immensely successful eSports followings long before eSports was a word.

What is truly remarkable is how Smash Bros. got its start. The developer who created what is arguably Nintendo's most popular franchise next to Pokemon didn't originally have Nintendo's approval for what he wanted to do with the game.

This is the story of how Nintendo's legendary fighting franchise was born:

Super Smash Bros.

Masahiro Sakurai was not impressed.

As the creator and director of Nintendo's Kirby franchise looked around at the gaming landscape in 1998, he was puzzled. The success of games like Mortal Kombatin the early '90s had caused a fighting game boom. But Sakurai, then at a studio with close ties to Nintendo called HAL Laboratory, thought that the fighting game titles flooding the market were of low-quality and obviously trying to cash in on the genre's popularity.

Sakurai loved fighting games, but he wanted something new. With the help of a HAL Laboratory coder named Satoru Iwata, Sakurai came up with an idea to turn the standard fighting game format on its head. His game, "Dragon King: The Fighting Game," would not focus on depleting your opponent's health bar, but rather "ringing them out" by sending them off the stage entirely. They also came up with the concept of four-player matches instead of just two to further differentiate the game from Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter.

Then, late in development, Sakurai decided to feature Nintendo characters in the game because he felt that would provide a better "atmosphere" for the title. But would Nintendo go for it? After all, this was a company that closely guarded its famous icons. The concept of Mario stomping all over Link was definitely not canon. Sakurai rolled the dice and placed the characters in the game, without Nintendo's authorization, ahead of showing the publisher his demo. Better to beg forgiveness than ask for permission, I guess.

As luck would have it, the suits at Nintendo were looking for another opportunity to demonstrate the superiority of the Nintendo 64's controller compared to the competition. Super Mario 64 had made the launch of the console in 1996 a success, but the company was still having difficulty fending off Sony's PlayStation, which had a two-year head start on Nintendo during that console generation. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was still in development at the time, ahead of its November 1998 launch. Needless to say, when Nintendo saw Sakurai's project, the publisher was enthused.

"The Dragon King" was pushed aside and Super Smash Bros. was born. Nintendo was cautious though, giving the game a smaller budget than its other top titles. The game released in 1999, surpassing all expectations to become one of the best-selling titles on the N64.

Sakurai's gamble on making a new kind of fighting game paid off. While games like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter required players to learn complex combos if they wanted to be the best, Smash Bros. was much friendlier to newcomers.

While you could certainly chain multiple hits together, the concept of combos didn't really exist, at least not in the traditional sense. Players felt like they had much more freedom to move around. Games like Tekken required players to learn a different set of button combinations for each character, but with Smash Bros., all button combinations were universalized across all fighters. If you knew how to play one character, you immediately knew how to play all of them.... or at least had a general idea down.

The ring out concept made it impossible to pin an inexperienced player on the edge of the stage, a common strategy in many two-player titles. The game's power-ups and weapons helped even the odds and made matches unpredictable. The sight of four players tossing out mayhem across a stage was decidedly a fresh but frantic experience.

The original game featured eight characters at the start with another four unlockables, now a series staple. Players could battle across stages inspired by popular Nintendo games, such as the Mushroom Kingdom stage. The game did feature a single-player mode where players could battle against CPU opponents, but the heart of the game was the four-player Versus mode, a trend that would soon continue.

Super Smash Bros. Melee

When Super Smash Bros. blew up, Nintendo wasted little time getting to work on the sequel. Sakurai was tapped again to lead development out of HAL Laboratory for what would become Super Smash Bros. Melee.

Nintendo aimed to use the popularity of its new franchise to help launch its next console, the GameCube. Sakurai's first task was to create an FMV (full motion video) that would demonstrate the leap in graphics from the N64. HAL worked with three different graphics studios in Tokyo to come up with the iconic opening.

Sakurai stated in interviews after the game's release that he felt a great deal of pressure to succeed. The original Smash Bros.was just a side project he did for fun, but all of a sudden he was in the driver's seat for one of Nintendo's biggest franchises.

That stress was likely increased by the fact that Sakurai now had to negotiate with other company executives as well as industry figures outside of Nintendo who wanted to get their own favorite characters into the next version of Nintendo's new hit franchise. Hideo Kojima notably requested Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid to be included, but the game was already too far along in development. The process of creating a Smash Bros. roster was time-consuming and many revisions took place.

The game would eventually include 25 characters, more than double the roster of the N64 game. 14 were available at the start with the others unlockable as players progressed.

Many of the game modes from the original returned. A popular new addition was "trophies," an update of Super Smash Bros. plush dolls. Players could collect a wide variety of trophies, including action hero figures of their characters as well as accessories and other items. Most trophies included some background information on the lore of the item within the history of Nintendo.

Nintendo promoted the game heavily, including a tournament for players ahead of the game's release, a sure sign of things to come. The game released to even better reviews and sales than Super Smash Bros. It sold more than 358,000 copies during its first week in Japan, making it the fastest selling GameCube game at the time. It would go on to become the first GameCube title to hit 1 million copies just two months after release. Today, Melee has sold 7 million copies, making it the best-selling game on the GameCube.

While many players had fun battling their friends with the N64 version of Melee opened up an entirely different realm for the franchise. Melee tournaments started popping up all over the country, some of them featuring prize money. The IVGF NorthWest Regional Gaming Festival became the first major Meleetournament in March 2003. IVGF gave out a total of $12,500 to the top 3 finishers. By 2004, Major League Gaming had added Melee, solidifying Super Smash Bros.'s place on the eSports circuit.

Gamers have often cited Melee as one of the titles that helped eSports and the fighting game community expand its reach in the last decade. Just like the original, Meleewas much easier to learn than many other fighting games, opening the tournaments to a much greater number of players.

Professional gamers also took to Melee thanks to the extremely precise controls. Even Sakurai has said that the GameCube controller still offers the most precise control out of all the titles in the series. No surprise, then, that Nintendo has continued to manufacture GameCube controllers for its latest consoles.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

At Nintendo's pre-E3 press conference in 2005, Iwata, now Nintendo's president, announced that the next version of Super Smash Bros. would be in development soon for the Nintendo Wii. This came as a bit of a shock to Sakurai, who had left HAL in 2003 to start his own company. He had been told by Iwata when he left HAL that if there was ever another Smash Bros. game, he would have an opportunity to be a part of it. Yet, Sakurai received no prior warning about the E3 announcement.

Fortunately, Sakurai did end up participating in the development of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, leading a team assembled from a variety of studios, including Monolith Soft, Paon, Game Arts, and Sakurai's own Sora.

The big new feature for Brawlseems silly in retrospect, but it was a very big deal at the time. Nintendo has always lagged behind when it comes to taking advantage of online functionality in its consoles, so when Iwata announced that the next Super Smash Bros. would be playable online over the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, it created a lot of excitement. You would no longer have to go to a Smash Bros. tournament to play with people from all around the world.

Brawlonce again expanded the roster of characters, this time to 39. Sakurai agonized over all of the choices and listened to feedback from fans online. Kojima succeeded in getting Solid Snakeincluded in the game this time around. Sega also lent Nintendo Sonic the Hedgehog for the game. Snake and Sonic were the first ever third-party characters to be playable in Smash Bros.

This sequel also attempted to flesh out the franchise's weak single-player element, with the addition of a campaign called The Subspace Emissary. This new Adventure mode featured unique storylines with numerous levels and bosses to battle. The mode has its own exclusive enemies called the Subspace Army that are not found elsewhere in the game. It could also be played cooperatively with friends. Sakurai had always wanted an impressive single-player campaign to match the franchise's exciting multiplayer, and Brawl delivered, with the single-player campaign getting decent reviews. To this day, many fans continue to clamor for a true sequel to The Subspace Emissary with every new installment in the series.

At the time,Brawlbecame the fastest-selling Nintendo video game in Nintendo of America's history, moving 1.4 million units in its first week upon release in 2008. Brawl has sold more than 13 million copies worldwide September 2018.

While Brawl was a major success for Nintendo, some gamers felt that the overall Smash Bros.experience had taken a step back. Gameplay felt slower, physics didn't feel as fluid as Melee's, and some characters were not properly balanced. Some professional Melee players thought that Nintendo had reworked Brawl to be even friendlier to casual players, adding in more randomization and unpredictability, instead of focusing on skill-based play. Most notorious was a "tripping" mechanism where fighters would sometimes stumble and fall when trying to quickly change directions.

Thankfully, there was a way to fix this. Gamers discovered a way to mod the game, using an exploit within the game's stage builder. Fan-made patches could be loaded into the game with an SD card and inserted on top of the original data, adding fun things like alternate costumes for the fighters.

In 2011, a team calling themselves the Project M Back Room set out to make Brawl play more like Melee. Project M also brought back the characters Mewtwo and Roy, who were in Melee, but did not make the roster in Brawl. Characters were re-balanced across the board. This mod received multiple updates and generally garnered great reviews. Project M had more than 3 million downloads and had an active player base of more than 500,000 at its height. It was featured in professional tournaments and streamed to tens of thousands of viewers on Twitch. Not bad for a mod.

Development on Project M stopped on Dec. 1, 2015. There were rumors at the time that Nintendo had sent a cease and desist letter to the development team, but the developers’ official response was that this was not true. Still, one member of the team did eventually admit that, while the project was not under immediate threat, Project M was shut down to avoid future legal issues.

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS

Nintendo announced Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DSin 2011, but development did not begin until Sakurai was done with Kid Icarus: Uprising for the 3DS in March 2012. Both versions of the game were developed by Sakurai's Sora Ltd. in conjunction with Bandai Namco Games. Development proved to be a massive undertaking, with Sakurai attempting to get gameplay to feel as similar as possible between the console and handheld versions. Notably, this iteration of Smash is the first time Sakurai asked other developers for help with balancing the characters. 

Notable third-party additions included Capcom's Mega Man and Bandai Namco's Pac-Man. Sonic the Hedgehog also returned and gamers even were able to battle as themselves by playing as their Mii avatars. 

One huge new feature in this iteration of the franchise was official support for Nintendo's Amiibo toys. Every fighter in the game had their own Amiibo that could be loaded in through into the game through the system’s NFC chip. While Amiibo battles never really became more than a sideshow to the main game, the concept certainly helped push Nintendo’s new toys-to-life product line towards long-term success.

As of September 2018, Super Smash Bros. for 3DS has sold over 9 million copies while the Wii U version moved 5.35 million units. Oh, and if you're wondering, these versions got rid of that annoying "tripping" mechanic.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

As the name implies, Nintendo and Sakurai really pulled out all the stops for the latest version of Smash, which released for the Nintendo Switch on Dec. 7, 2018. The title’s roster features every single Smash Bros. fighter that has ever appeared in the series as well as some notable newcomers.

The full roster includes 74 playable characters (or 76, if you count Pokémon Trainer’s three Pokémon individually). The game also boasts 103 stages and more than 700 music tracks from throughout the franchise's history. Sakurai’s Sora and Bandai Namco returned for the development, making the transition from the Wii U game quite a bit easier.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate also features a single-player mode called World of Light, which is much more robust than the single-player offering on the Wii U and has drawn some comparisons to Brawl’s beloved Subspace Emissary as far as the overall quality. Various arcade-like modes are also available.

Players are also tasked with collecting various “spirits,” which replace the trophies from previous games. This time around players start with just the eight original characters from the 1999 N64 game and must unlock everyone else through gameplay.

The long-term verdict on Ultimate likely won’t be rendered for a while. There will always be some in the Smash community who will continue to light a candle for Melee, but there are also those fans who have declared Ultimate the best Smash Bros. game Nintendo and Sakurai have ever made. At the very least, Ultimate has toppled Brawl as the fastest-selling game in the series, with 3 million copies sold in just the first 11 days.

Do you know what would have made it even better, though? Playable Waluigi. But I digress. Wah.

It's really quite remarkable what Sakurai has accomplished over the last 20 years. What was once just a side project is now a worldwide phenomenon that has only grown bigger with each release. The Smash community remains as passionate as ever and Sakurai has earned an almost cult-like following among the franchise faithful, thanks to his willingness to lean in when it comes to fan service. (Hello, Ridley.)

What are your favorite Super Smash Bros. moments? Let us know in the comments.

Jason Gallagher is a freelance contributor. Read more of his work here. 

This article comes from Den of Geek UK.

The galaxy far, far away that George Lucas created and Disney now owns is a fertile ground for gaming greatness. Although it was the cinematic experience that originally earned this franchise its fan base, and no matter how excited we are for The Mandalorian on TV, there's something uniquely brilliant about crafting your own individual Star Wars saga by exploring that vast galaxy in gaming form.

Sadly, though, as is the case with many licensed video game franchises, the Star Wars gaming back-catalog has its fair share of projects that never made it through development. These seven titles became one with the Force before they got a chance to shine, but we're still itching to play them against all the odds...

Knights of the Old Republic 3

BioWare's Knights of the Old Republic remains one of the finest games in Star Wars history. Its wide array of explorable worlds, a masterful plot, and heaps of fun characters create that sensation that you're playing through a personalized Star Wars movie. Even its more controversial sequel, Obsidian's The Sith Lords, was very much an enjoyable ride.

A third game was in development at LucasArts, with designer John Strafford later revealing in the book Rogue Leaders that the assembled team "wrote a story, designed most of the environments/world, and many of the quests, characters, and items" before their funding was removed during a wave of cuts. Think of all those new planets we'll never get to explore. Sob.

1313

Star Wars: 1313 was set to be a gritty bounty-hunting title that plunged a young Boba Fett into the dark underbelly of the city-planet of Coruscant. 1313 was a cool idea that garnered a lot of attention and excitement during its initial announcement at E3 2012 (you can still find that demo on YouTube, by the way).

However, this project was officially shut down when Disney laid off the LucasArts development team and changed the company's purpose from developing games to licensing them. Disney later let the 1313 trademark lapse but there has been some talk of fans finishing and releasing a version of the game without the Star Wars branding.  

Project Ragtag

One of the more recent cancelations in the Star Wars gaming galaxy was a linear action-adventure game being designed by Dead Space developer Visceral Games under the leadership of Amy Hennig, who previously worked on the Uncharted franchise at Naughty Dog. Under the working title Ragtag, the story followed a band of smugglers and thieves led by a scoundrel named Dodger. The crew would have flown to different planets across the galaxy on heist missions while evading the evil Empire.

The game was set between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back and would have dealt with the aftermath of the destruction of Alderaan. The concept art and tiny glimpses of gameplay looked great, but EA opted to close Visceral instead of pressing ahead with the project. The publisher later explained that Ragtag had been scrapped because players no longer wanted to play linear games. Other rumors also suggest that development was fraught with problems behind the scenes.

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Rogue Squadron: Rogue Leaders

Rogue Squadron: Rogue Leaders was a compilation game made by Factor 5 for the Wii, and it would have featured remastered levels from Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike. Making the most of the Wii's motion capabilities, the game would've let you swing lightsabers and swoop X-wings using your controller.

Frustratingly for fans and the developers that worked on the game, Factor 5's financial and legal issues at the time impeded the release of the game - despite being completed and having a finished trailer. We'd love to see this game dusted off and plonked on the Nintendo Switch and so would Factor 5's former staff, but that seems unlikely now that EA holds the keys to the ship hangar.

Imperial Commandos

As the sequel to 2005's clone-centric first-person shooter Republic Commando, LucasArts' Imperial Commando would've made players change perspective and join the Empire's army. Of course, this wouldn't be the first or last time that gamers swapped sides in the galactic conflict at the heart of Star Wars, but it would've been a brave move to paint these baddies as the protagonists.

Early development began on Imperial Commando before Republic Commando had hit shelves but sadly didn't last very long. Some design work was done, including concept paintings, but ultimately LucasArts decided not to produce a sequel to Republic Commando. If you do fancy playing on the side of the Empire, though, do check out the early campaign levels on EA's Star Wars Battlefront II.

Maul

Red Fly Studio was working on a Darth Maul title for LucasArts in 2010 under the working title Maul and the codename Damage. The studio made enough progress on the project to create a decent amount of gameplay footage, which featured some impressive combat with lots of spinning and slashing that we'd still really like to try out. 

Story-wise, it sounded like Darth Maul would end up in a conflict with old Expanded Universe characters like Darth Talon and Darth Krayt. Bring characters like that into a mainstream video game would have seriously altered audience expectations and blown this galaxy wide open, but the project was canceled around the same time as Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm. It resurfaced in 2015, with the original developers expressing an interest in working with EA, but we haven't heard anything else since.

Orca

After ditching Project Ragtag and shuttering Visceral, EA tasked its Vancouver team with creating an open-world Star Wars game. This was an intriguing proposition for fans, especially since open-world games in other franchises have come on leaps and bounds in recent years while Star Wars lovers have only had Battlefront games to play on consoles.

The game - made under the codename Orca - was rumored to have something of a scoundrel-y, bounty-hunting vibe, allowing players to visit a variety of planets and team up with different factions of characters. Disappointingly, though, it sounds like we won't be getting any of that. EA Vancouver is still working on Star Wars stuff, but its new project is a "smaller-scale" title to release in 2020.

With all of these potentially brilliant titles fallen by the wayside, Respawn's upcoming Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order adventure game really is our only hope. Fingers remain crossed that it can make it to market and give Star Wars gaming a new lease on life.

New footage of the next Layers of Fear game suggests it will be as creepy and memorable as its predecessor. 

At PAX South, developer Bloober Team shared some new footage of the highly anticipated Layers of Fear 2. This sequel's trailer is narrated by the legendary Tony Todd (Candyman) and is somewhat light on details but heavy on absolutely creepy atmosphere. 

However, some previously released information about the game does shed some light on the finer points. First off, it seems that the majority of the game will take place on a large ship that seems to be eerily similar to the doomed Titanic. Whether or not there is any firm connection between the two doesn't appear to have been established. This being a Layers of Fear game, though, we're guessing that trivial matters such as the borders of reality won't hold for long in any case.

This sequel will deviate from the classic art motifs and plot points of the original game by instead focusing on the history of film. You play an actor who is preparing for a major role but struggles to maintain his sanity under the pressure of the situation. That plot echoes the basic structure of the original, but we're willing to bet that this new game will feature a few twists on that formula. 

While the original Layers of Fear drew much of its initial attention due to its similarities to the ill-fated P.T., the game eventually made a name for itself based on the strength of its incredible plot, beautiful atmosphere, and shocking moments. We have no reason to suspect the developers won't be able to replicate that experience with this sequel. 

What remains to be seen is when you'll be able to experience this sequel and on what platforms. Layers of Fear 2 is expected to arrive sometime in 2019, but there's no confirmed release date or confirmed platforms available at this time. 

Matthew Byrd is a staff writer for Den of Geek. He spends most of his days trying to pitch deep-dive analytical pieces about Killer Klowns From Outer Space to an increasingly perturbed series of editors. You can read more of his work here or find him on Twitter at @SilverTuna014. 

If Elder Scrolls Online didn't satisfy your urge to play Skryim with friends, this ambitious new PC mod might just be what you're looking for. 

The appropriately named Skyrim Together mod affords players the chance to explore the world of Skyrim together. Specifically, it lets up to eight players join a single Skyrim game and (mostly) enjoy the same sights and sounds featured in the basic game but with others. 

How is such a thing possible? The technical details don't seem to be readily available at this time, so we're going to guess the answer is "magic." in any case, some of the things that the team has done with this mod is certainly bordering on magic. Not only does this mod turn Skryim into a multiplayer experience, but it even incorporates UI improvements that allow you to monitor the health of your fellow adventurers. That's especially handy when you consider that you can heal your teammates and interact with them in just about all the logical ways you would expect. 

Sadly, there are a few catches. It seems that the team hasn't quite figured out how to make dragon events work without a hitch. There's also the not insignificant problem of the original game's quests. While there are quite a few quests you can embark upon with your friends, there are many quests that were simply not designed in a way that would make it feasible to incorporate multiple players. Those quests are currently not accessible. As you might imagine, this mod is also currently only designed to work on PC (where it can be used with other Creation Kit mods). 

Limitations aside, this is an impressive mod from both a concept and execution standpoint. We've seen how horribly the "Bethesda game, but with more people" concept can go (Fallout 76) which makes it that much more amazing that this team of fans was able to create a mostly stable multiplayer mod for Skyrim that is just a few tweaks away from working about like you'd hope such a concept would work. 

The Skyrim Together mod is entering a closed beta period for those who supported the project on Patreon, but everyone else can get in on the action when the mod's open beta period begins at a currently unconfirmed time.

Matthew Byrd is a staff writer for Den of Geek. He spends most of his days trying to pitch deep-dive analytical pieces about Killer Klowns From Outer Space to an increasingly perturbed series of editors. You can read more of his work here or find him on Twitter at @SilverTuna014. 

When System Shock first released in 1994, it was something of a revelation for the first-person shooter genre. While many gamers and developers were still trying to wrap their heads around the innovations of Doom, developer Looking Glass delivered an atmospheric sci-fi masterpiece that was in many ways a precursor to titles like Half-Life and Deus Ex. What's arguably most impressive about the game, however, is just how well it's concept has aged all these years later. 

The fact was not lost on Nightdive Studios, the developer in charge of remaking this sci-fi horror classic for a new generation. If you've never heard of Nightdive, don't feel too bad. The developer's first major move in the game industry was recovering the rights to the System Shock franchise and using them to put the series back into digital distribution stores. In fact, despite a wealth of veteran development talent on staff, the studio has primarily focused on reviving classic PC experiences since their formation in 2012.

Fortunately, you don't just have to take their word on the matter of restoring System Shock to glory as Nightdive has also seen fit to release a short demo of the upcoming remake available on Steam, GOG, and the Humble Store.

Here's everything else we know about the System Shock remake:

System Shock Remake Trailer

Nightdive Studios has released a new trailer for System Shock designed to showcase the game's art style. This latest preview reveals quite a few areas from the game that exhibit the remakes' shadowy industrial areas and sci-fi horror vibes. 

Here's a first look at the Pre-Alpha version of the game running on PS4:

Here's the first promo for the game:

System Shock Remake Release Date

System Shock was originally set to come out in 2017, but a series of delays has pushed it back all the way to 2020. The game is coming to XBO, PS4, and PC.

The studio believes that it will be able to deliver a mostly full version of the game, the Adventure Alpha, to the highest backers by September 2018. That version of the game will be missing visual assets and enemies, but the studio says it will be playable from start to finish. Additionally, the developer has promised to remain more "transparent" regarding the development process via a series of Twitch streams and consistent updates. 

Matthew Byrd is a staff writer for Den of Geek. He spends most of his days trying to pitch deep-dive analytical pieces about Killer Klowns From Outer Space to an increasingly perturbed series of editors. You can read more of his work here or find him on Twitter at @SilverTuna014. 

A group of modders are trying to recreate a version of Grand Theft Auto III that never quite was. 

When Grand Theft Auto III was first showcased, the game looked a little different. It wasn't necessarily a huge difference, but the overall game looked a little more cartoonish with its brighter colors and more exaggerated characters. Many say that it was spiritually closer to the original Grand Theft Auto games from a visual perspective. These changes extended to the look of certain areas on the game's first island. There were also a few things (noticeably the branding of the game's police cars) that were altered following the 9/11 attacks. 

There were other changes that were either removed because of developer choice or other limitations (such as a radio that cuts out in certain ranges and the ability to pay to heal your character), but the point is that the Grand Theft Auto III we first saw was different from the GTA III we eventually got. 

This new mod aims to restore many of those changes. Currently referred to as GTA 3D, the idea behind this mod is to alter Grand Theft Auto III's PC version so that it looks and plays like the GTA III that many refer to as the game's beta. This isn't necessarily the first time that someone has tried this, but the 12-person team helming this particular mod have gone further than most in terms of implementing alterations that are even just hinted at by the game's code. This extends to changes such as modified vehicle handling. 

There's quite a bit of work present even in the early version of this mod, which is especially impressive when you consider that the original version of GTA III wasn't really all that different from the version of the game we eventually got. With the possible exception of the changes made due to 9/11, there isn't even much indication that the things removed from the game were things that the developers desired to put into the game in the first place. 

There's no word on when this project will be finished, but it will certainly be interesting to play this original version of the game and see just how different it really is. 

Matthew Byrd is a staff writer for Den of Geek. He spends most of his days trying to pitch deep-dive analytical pieces about Killer Klowns From Outer Space to an increasingly perturbed series of editors. You can read more of his work here or find him on Twitter at @SilverTuna014. 

Here's an eye-opening example of how one game's release can have a huge knock-on effect on another title's development. To set the scene, cast your mind back to November 2006, when Gears of War was released by Epic Games while Naughty Dog was hard at work on Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, which came out a year later.

Both games are now regarded as classics in the somewhat crowded era of gunplay-heavy action-adventure titles that we now live in, but back in 2006, both of these projects were treading relatively fresh ground on a new generation of consoles. As we're now learning, Gears of War's release had a major impact on what Naughty Dog was plotting for Uncharted.

"One of the cool things about Uncharted 1 is, we had no f***ing idea what we were doing," former Naugty Dog developer Lucas Pope said in a new interview with Ars Technica. "Uncharted 1 was announced, and then Gears came out. And Gears invented the modern third-person shooter. Suddenly, Gears came out and showed them how to do it. So we changed everything, six months before release."

Further Reading: 35 Games to Play in 2019

Following the release of Gears of War, Uncharted was on the receiving end of a huge overhaul: the camera perspective, the gun-based controls, and the general movement mechanics were all rejigged to give the game a third-person feel akin to Gears of War. Before Gears inspired this revamp, it seems, you would've seen Uncharted adopting a framed-from-behind sort of style more like the classic Lara Croft titles.

To change all that and still end up with a cohesive game that players quickly fell in love with is no small feat whatsoever. It's a heck of an achievement, in fact, which makes that first Uncharted game feel even more impressive. The good news for us is that we got great games out of both Gears of War and Uncharted. The rest, as they say, is history.

Release Date: January 25, 2019
Platform: PS4 (reviewed), XBO, PC
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Genre: Survival Horror

Resident Evil 2 sets its stall out early, with a gloriously gory moment that establishes the tone: as you will have experienced if you played the 30-minute demo, there’s a cutscene near the start where Leon witnesses a minor character being torn in half. Blood splatters in stunning 4K and there are some seriously sweary reactions, and the resultant mess leaves a corridor blocked off. 

This, basically, is what Capcom’s remake of Resident Evil 2 is all about. The graphics are great and the characters react to the scares in charmingly relatable ways, but you’ll soon realize that nothing happens in this game without purpose. That doorway could’ve provided a handy shortcut to the next stage of the narrative, but this very deliberate scene obstructs that route and forces the player to find a workaround. 

Further Reading: The George Romero Resident Evil Movie You Never Saw

Harkening back to a time when AAA games involved a little more problem solving and a little less mindless shooting, Resident Evil 2 aims for that sweet spot between scares and smarts. There are plenty of jumpy moments when reanimated corpses rush out from unseen crevices, but there is also a constant supply of brain-bothering tasks to complete. 

You’ll soon find yourself honing your inventory management skills, checking your map constantly, and trying to remember which McGuffins are meant to fit where. You might even start snapping photos of clues in real life or jotting down some notes on an actual pad to try and work out a fiddly puzzle. Ignoring this nuanced level design – where no item is useless, but you can’t carry everything at once - and attempting to barge your way forward in the narrative is a technique that just doesn’t pay off. This game is a timely reminder of how rewarding it can be to challenge your mental faculties as well as your zombie-killing skills.

For the most part, these creative choices make for a pleasingly challenging experience. There’s a sense of achievement when you work something out, which is regularly undercut by a frightful encounter – just when you’ve let your guard down and decided that the situation is totally in hand, Resident Evil 2 tends to chuck something new at you. That something is almost always scary, or at least a freaky-looking foe that you'll have to overcome. This chopping and changing between puzzles and violence results in an increasingly claustrophobic gameplay experience where you’re always desperate to get into the next room, while also constantly afraid about what might be waiting for you there. 

Further Reading: 35 Games You Need to Play in 2019

However, there are points in the game where the wheels threaten to fall off. It’s a fine line to tread between fun and frustrating, and some of the puzzles in Resident Evil 2 end up on the annoying side of that divide. Busy-work begins to feel like doing endless chores at a couple of points, and working things out logically starts to feel more like randomly pressing buttons in the hope that one of them might let you move on.

You might even reach a point where you run into a brick wall with your inventory management, and have no choice but to backtrack for ages and dump items - you thought you needed them now, but you actually have to carry eight other things - into a storage box. Rather than stay stuck in a sulk about it, though, you'll probably remain engaged enough to want to keep pressing ahead.

Visually and mechanically, on the other hand, there is absolutely nothing to complain about. The over-the-shoulder viewpoint is a neat upgrade from the original, the zombies and monsters are always rendered in frighteningly realistic ways, and the cutscenes and big moments carry a properly cinematic feel. The action controls will come naturally to anyone familiar with shooting games, although you’ll quickly learn that, in this world, your undead foes generally don’t stay down after one headshot. It’s worth remembering, at times when ammo is low, that running off is at times your best tactic. (Especially where one persistent boss character is concerned.)

Further Reading: How Resident Evil 4 Changed Horror Gaming

Locations from the original game are expanded in organic ways, with a smattering of fan service moments peppered throughout. There are enough changes and additions to ensure that even the most seasoned fans won’t have an unfair advantage. Whatever your skill level, you can't prepare for every scare, and you're bound to feel the fear on numerous occasions. It might seem like a tiny thing, but some of the trophies in the game are really playful, which adds an injection of fun at random points in the game – and at some stages in this zombie-stuffed turmoil, a bit of light relief goes a long way. 

You won’t feel short-changed in a story sense, either, with Leon and Claire’s quests for survival taking them on totally different paths through the zombie-infested Raccoon City. Their campaigns last about ten hours apiece and these separate strands of the story come complete with their own individual objectives and supporting characters. You also get a mixture of emotional beats, engaging environments, and boss battles on both sides of the split. Once you’ve finished a campaign with one character, you’ll likely want to start the other one immediately. 

The anger-inducing moments are outliers, essentially, in a game that otherwise offers a smart upgrade on the 1998 original. Newcomers will likely discover a new favorite horror franchise to explore, while long-time followers of the series will find a sweet blend of familiarity and freshness. Whichever camp you fall into, you’ll find your mind and your mettle tested in equal measure as you fiddle your way through this gloriously gory (and occasionally grueling) reanimation of a classic. 

4/5

Many people who played Resident Evil 2 on PlayStation will no doubt remember its two-disc format. With Leon's story on one disc and Claire's on the other, the two-disc system not only highlighted the game's zapping feature (in which the actions of one character impact the story of another) but made the game feel larger than most other titles. 

The funny thing is that Resident Evil 2 wasn't meant to be a two-disc game. In fact, the team could have, and intended to, fit the entire game on one disc. The decision to add the second disc was only made after a crucial error was discovered at the very last minute by software engineer Yasuhiro Anpo.

"Anpo told me there was a problem. But before he could explain, I actually hung up on him," said Resident Evil 2 producer Shinji Mikami in an upcoming book on the series from Alex Aniel. "Anpo eventually came over to my desk, where he told me that Resident Evil 2 would require two discs instead of just one.”

It seems that the problem was that someone had miscalculated how much space the game's audio would take up. It was seemingly a simple miscalculation, but the end result was that it was no longer possible to fit Resident Evil 2 on one disc. This came as especially bad news to Mikami who would now have to explain why the game's already tight budget was going to have to be expanded in order to make up for this oversight. 

At that point, Capcom had to decide whether to let the team work to fix their mistake or to just produce an extra disc. It seems that they ultimately felt that the team was so far behind and so far over budget that it would just be easier for everyone to add the second disc and get the game on shelves. 

While fans may argue that the game's two-disc format actually helped sell the title as something much grander and greater than the original, the truth of the matter is that game director Hideki Kamiya still apologizes for the error to this day and considers it to be a sign of his inexperience at that point in his career. Of course, it's not like that's the biggest setback that Resident Evil 2 suffered during development. At one point, the entire project was scrapped after the initial version of the game was nearly completed. Resident Evil 4 suffered through similar setbacks, but it all worked out in the end as both of those games went on to change horror gaming and inspire a new generation of horror masterminds. 

Of course, the recent Resident Evil 2 remake manages to pack it all into one disc, but don't take that to mean that it doesn't recreate the full experience. 

Matthew Byrd is a staff writer for Den of Geek. He spends most of his days trying to pitch deep-dive analytical pieces about Killer Klowns From Outer Space to an increasingly perturbed series of editors. You can read more of his work here or find him on Twitter at @SilverTuna014. 

4A Games returns with Metro Exodus! Much like the previous Metro games, this one appears to contain a mix of subterranean and overworld exploration gameplay spiced up a bit by the inclusion of challenging combat. As for the timeline, this appears to be a sequel to the previous titles, but that is largely based on the degenerative nature of the universe rather than any specific plot points. 

Otherwise, this title appears to share many of the gameplay and environmental aspects that make the Metro franchise so unique. If anything, there may be a slightly stronger emphasis on creature combat over human encounters (if the footage shown is any indication, at least) but we'll wait until more of the game is revealed before making too many assumptions. 

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Here's everything else we know about the game:

Metro Exodus Trailer

The Metro series has always featured some fascinating "scrap parts" weapons, but Metro Exodus looks to expand the series' arsenal thanks to new class and customization features that will see you making tough decisions on what to bring into battle. Here's a look at the game's different types of weapons. 

This trailer for Metro Exodus zooms in on the game's massive world to focus on the characters that star in this epic adventure. In the process, it reminds us that Metro Exodus will be a "true" Metro game despite any changes. 

Check out the opening title sequence of Metro Exodus:

And here's the Gamescom 2018 trailer:

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Here's that awesome trailer that was revealed during Microsoft's E3 2018 press conference. 

A previous trailer premiered at The Game Awards 2017. Check it out below:

And here's the reveal trailer for Metro Exodus: 

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Metro Exodus Release Date

Metro Exodus has been delayed to 2019. It is coming to XBO, PS4, and PC.

Metro Exodus Details

The latest issue of Game Informer reveals some new information about Metro Exodus. It seems that Exodus will start in the fabled Metro but will quickly allow players to explore a much larger outdoor setting. However, Exodus is not an open-world game. It's a series of large, objective-based levels that can be freely explored but are tied together by a narrative. The catch is that you can't return to an area after you've completed the main objectives in a given level. That means you'll want to take care of any sidequests first.

The series' combat and stealth mechanics will receive an overhaul as part of this new emphasis on exploration. There's no word on exactly how they will be changed, but it seems the studio is aiming for general improvements. Furthermore, the traditional hub area from previous Metro games will return in the form of a train called the Aurora that will follow you between most levels. Players will also be able to access several smaller vehicles. 

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Finally, it seems that Exodus' story will take place across the course of an entire year. Previous Metro games occurred over just a few days.  

All and all, it sounds like Exodus will make some pretty bold changes to the series' formula. We just hope it maintains some of the distinctive design elements that make the Metro franchise a special - if overlooked - gaming experience. 

Resident Evil 2, one of the most beloved horror games ever made, is finally receiving the modern-day remake that fans have been clamoring for ever since Capcom's exceptional remake of the original Resident Evil. 

Of course, much has changed since Resident Evil 2 made its PlayStation debut, and the remake of Resident Evil 2 reflects many of those changes. Gone are the game's static camera angles and tank controls, in is an over-the-shoulder playstyle that resembles the one seen in Resident Evil 4. The game's visuals have also been updated to reflect the best technology of the modern era. 

What hasn't changed is the original version of Resident Evil 2's brilliant horror atmosphere. Resident Evil 2 Remake retains that game's ability to scare you at will. Resident Evil 2's obscure puzzles, surprisingly deep story, and use of multiple characters also appear to have returned. What we're saying is that this looks like the modernized version of an all-time classic horror game that we've been hoping Resident Evil 2 Remake would end up being from the moment Capcom first teased it. 

Here is everything else we know about Resident Evil 2 Remake:

Resident Evil 2 Remake DLC

Resident Evil 2's first major piece of DLC will be a free new mode called Ghost Survivors. 

Ghost Survivors consists of three separate releases and follows various characters connected to the Resident Evil 2 story. It sounds like there's something of a roguelike element to the mode as certain aspects of it will be randomized, but the extent of that randomization is not known at this time. Furthermore, it sounds like you'll be able to purchase upgrades for your characters via an in-game shop, but Capcom does not currently plan on offering microtransaction upgrades for this mode. 

From what we've heard, it seems that Ghost Survivors might be very similar to the raid mode featured in Resident Evil Revelations 2. However, the extent of this feature hasn't been fully revealed. 

Resident Evil 2 Remake Release Date

Resident Evil 2 Remake is set to launch on January 25, 2019. It will be available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. 

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Resident Evil 2 Remake Trailer

A new story trailer has premiered! Check it out below:

Gamespot has uploaded a nearly 20-minute, uncut gameplay video for Resident Evil 2 that gives us a much better idea of what kind of gameplay to expect from this remake. Spoiler: the game still looks incredibly scary and has clearly benefited from the changes that Capcom has made to its controls and visuals. Take a look:

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The first trailer for Resident Evil 2 Remake serves as an effective teaser for a game many people thought they'd never actually see. 

The next trailer is a bit more involved and sheds a little light on the remake's story, characters, gameplay, and how it will alter the formula of the original title. 

Matthew Byrd is a staff writer for Den of Geek. He spends most of his days trying to pitch deep-dive analytical pieces about Killer Klowns From Outer Space to an increasingly perturbed series of editors. You can read more of his work here or find him on Twitter at @SilverTuna014.

The 10-year anniversary of Demon's Souls is almost upon us. The game originally launched in Japan in February 2009, before hitting the US market in October 2009. So it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that talk of a remastered re-release has begun in earnest among the online gaming community.

Game Informer has gone so far as to ask FromSoftware's Hidetaka Miyazaki, the director of the game, for his thoughts on remastering Demon's Souls for modern consoles. Interestingly, though, Miyazaki wasn't as keen on the idea as his followers and fans. 

Although Game Informer notes that Miyazaki believes a remaster is possible, it's clear that his feelings on the matter are something of a mixed bag.

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"It’s like when you write – when you’re younger, you look back on [previous work] and you think 'Oh, goodness what was I thinking,'" he explained. "It’s not that I’m embarrassed, I just don’t like to look at my previous works."

Miyazaki also points out that "You’d have to see what [Sony is] thinking about it," since the game was originally published in Japan by Sony Computer Entertainment. He also said that he wouldn't be against the idea of another studio putting "their heart and soul into realizing it again" rather than FromSoftware handling a remaster project themselves.

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"Thinking about the idea of a remaster gives me kind of butterflies in my stomach and makes me a little nervous," he added, "so it’s complicated. But I understand there are many users and many players and fans out there who really love Demon’s, so if that’s something they could accomplish with a studio that loved the work, then yeah, I’d be okay with that.” 

If we hear any more on this tantalizing topic, we'll be sure to let you know. Until then, here's everything you need to know about FromSoftware's upcoming game, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

We've all suffered through sequels made by people who clearly didn't care, but the truth is that there are few jobs in entertainment more thankless and daunting than trying to deliver a sequel that actually manages to meet, and even exceed, expectations. 

Resident Evil 2’s task was especially daunting: it had to build upon a game that changed everything. The original Resident Evilwasn’t the first horror game, but it was the first that popularized the survival horror genre. It not only proved that survival horror was capable of making money, but that these games could be as terrifying (if not more terrifying) as the most effective horror films. You can draw a line on Resident Evil’s 1996 release date and group together every horror game that came before and has come after. 

Imagine making a sequel to a game like that, and trying to live up to the expectations of fans of the original as well as studio overlords who wanted another blockbuster. The path of least resistance would have almost certainly been to deliver "more of the first game."

Perhaps that’s why Resident Evil 2 began life as a game intended to defy the expectations of those who wanted more of the first game. The original build of Resident Evil 2 featured concepts such as dynamic music, character customization, many more zombies on-screen, branching narrative paths that could lead to character deaths, and other fascinating ideas. It also featured dull, industrial environments, scaled-down visuals, and was a story that was reportedly intended to end the Resident Evil series just as it was getting started. 

Had Resident Evil 2’s original build actually made it onto store shelves, we don’t know what the reaction would have been. However, it’s easy to imagine that this sequel would have been divisive. There would have been those who respected its attempts to do something different, but there would have also been many fans who felt the game had tried too hard to subvert expectations. Fortunately, two decisions were made that would take 

The first decision was made by Shinji Mikami who took on the role of producer of Resident Evil 2 after directing and essentially creating the original Resident Evil. While the brilliant Hideki Kamiya remained the director of Resident Evil 2, Mikami reportedly decided to take a greater hand in the sequel’s development in the months leading up to its planned release. In the process, he ultimately decided that the first build of the game (now known as Resident Evil 1.5) was simply “dull and boring.” Kamiya was even less kind to that build of the game and would later describe it as a "piece of shit." The pair decided to scrap almost the entire project even though it was, by all accounts, almost finished and ready to be shipped. 

Such a move is practically unheard of in the world of sequels. Most sequels (even good sequels with good intentions) are by their very nature cash grabs. Aliens is one of the greatest sequels of all-time (and inspired parts of Resident Evil 2 Remake), but the pitch meeting for it consisted of James Cameron simply walking up to a chalkboard and writing “Alien$.” The idea that a producer would take a sequel that is serviceable and ready to go and declare that it is not good enough even though that same producer had previously intended for this to be the end of that series is simply crazy. 

It’s really not that crazy when you think about it, though. Somewhere along the way, Mikami decided that he was going to be the one to determine what the expectations of a Resident Evil game were. After all, Mikami had treated Resident Evil like a passion project. The sequel could have gone in a different direction in the hands of another producer, but Mikami was not willing to ship a sequel that didn’t match his own expectations for what a Resident Evil game should be. 

The second decision that shaped Resident Evil 2’s destiny was a corporate call that might make many fans and creators cringe. It came in the form of a directive from Capcom supervisor Yoshiki Okamoto, who said that the game’s story should "create a proper link between the two games" in order to open the possibility for future projects. It’s an order that many film fans (especially horror film fans) are no doubt all-too-familiar with. The “save something for the sequel” directive has ruined many projects that ultimately put the franchise cart before the plotline horse. They’re typically given by eager executives who see project dollars and don’t understand that the great franchises typically begin with works that, in many ways, stand tall on their own.

The reason why that decision didn’t ruin Resident Evil 2 is that Okamoto had no interest in deciding how the creators should do their jobs. Instead, he got in touch with an outside screenwriter named Noboru Sugimura who had some pretty fascinating idea about how things only hinted at in the first Resident Evil game could become the basis of a larger story. He then put Sugimura in contact with Mikami and Kamiya so that the three could work together to ensure their visions and standards not only matched but that their shared vision would be used as the core of the game's rebooted development.

By doing so, Okamoto helped inspire one of Resident Evil 2’s defining qualities: the way it effectively builds a universe. The game doesn’t force-feed the larger Resident Evil universe on fans of the original game through exposition or long monologues. It instead finds ways to organically flesh out the universe through its characters and plot. In Resident Evil 2, we actually get to visit Racoon City, which was only mentioned in the original. One of the playable characters is Claire Redfield, the sister of Resident Evil protagonist Chris Redfield, while in the original build, the second character was a female drifter with no apparent ties to this world. The Umbrella Corporation is still active in the sequel, whereas the original version of the game would have suggested they shut down following the Spencer Mansion incident. 

More important than the finer details of the universe is the fact that many of them, much like in the original game, really only exist in the periphery of the main plot. Resident Evil2 never feels like a game that is in a hurry to get to the next chapter of its story. It instead allows the simple, intimate tale of two survivors in a damned city to gradually reveal the answers to questions you may not have even known you had. It made everything that happened in the first game seem more interesting and important while finding a voice of its own through the game’s improved presentation and greater cinematic quality.

In terms of the game's presentation, much of the credit there has to go to Resident Evil 2’s brilliant “Zapping System,” which allows players to experience four slightly altered versions of the game based on which character they choose to play as first. Certain events, item placements, and puzzles are slightly altered based on what the character you previously played as did during their adventure.

Inspired by the time-traveling story in Back to the Future Part II, this system not only gives players a reason to experience the game multiple times, but it is yet another way in which the writers and developers were able to slowly expand the game’s world. While there is now a generally agreed upon "correct" path through the game, at the time, fans amused themselves by discussing the implications of the various routes. Zapping made people excited about the idea of a Resident Evil universe because its compelling variations on individual stories suggested that there were many more to experience. 

While elements like the zapping system were certainly ambitious, the somewhat uncomfortable truth is that Resident Evil 2 ultimately became a beloved sequel because it was made by people who accepted the inevitability of the sequel and everything that goes with it. Remember that the original build of Resident Evil 2 was also ambitious. It was arguably even more ambitious than the game we ultimately got. However, it was also a rough game that seemingly favored ambition for difference’s sake over improving upon the original game that fans loved in the first place. 

By comparison, Resident Evil 2 is one of the more polished sequels of its era and perhaps of all-time. Its voice acting was a tremendous improvement, its environments were beautiful and foreboding, characters and events felt like they had logical ties to the original game, there was a greater emphasis on action (but not so much action that it ruined the horror), and the game always found a way to provide that always important sequel quality of “more” to the player. You could almost call it a predictable sequel if it weren't for the fact that those in charge determined that meeting fan expectations isn't just about giving them more. It's sometimes about challenging yourself to deliver something that is both familiar and undeniably new. 

It’s easy to admire the ambitious sequel that re-writes the book of the original and defies all expectations (such as we saw in Resident Evil 4) just as it’s easy to admire the original ideas. However, in a world where sequels are inevitable because there is at least a small part of all of us that clamors for more of the thing we love, respect must be given to a game like Resident Evil 2. It is the rare kind of sequel that recreates the feeling of an original experience without replicating it. 

Matthew Byrd is a staff writer for Den of Geek. He spends most of his days trying to pitch deep-dive analytical pieces about Killer Klowns From Outer Space to an increasingly perturbed series of editors. You can read more of his work here or find him on Twitter at @SilverTuna014. 

Ah, here we go. You've got to love a good bit of modding, especially when it results in fandoms and franchises being mashed together in fresh and exciting ways. We've been spoiled in this regard of late, with classic Nintendo levels added to Super Mario Odyssey by one modder and a Cthulhu quest added to Skyrim by another. And now, a mod has emerged that will please moviegoers and gamers alike.

A PC-based modder by the moniker of UberGrainy has added the Xenomorph Queen (which debuted in the Alien film franchise with James Cameron's Aliens) into Capcom's action RPG title Monster Hunter: World. The mod was made by cosmetically swapping out the model for the final boss, the Elder Dragon Xeno'jiiva, with a newly made Alien Queen model.

The result, which kicks in around the 50-second mark in the video below, is as visually stunning as it is terror-inducing...

How's that for a brilliant mash-up? The sight of a giant Xenomorph being bashed to bits by a sword-wielding hero has left us fantasizing about a period piece prequel film for the Alienfranchise, or a fully licensed RPG game that pits players against enormous renditions of iconic movie monsters. We'd pay good money for that.

While we wait for neither of those things to happen, you can find details of how to install this mod over on UberGrainy's Nexus Mods account. And don't worry, we'll keep bringing you epic mods as we see them. 

In the meantime, for those of you hoping to once again do battle with a xenomorph, there's a new Alien game in the works over at FoxNext. Alien: Blackout, a new mobile game, sees the return of Amanda Ripley, daughter of Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley, as she faces down a new xenomorph on your smartphone screen. It's not Alien: Isolation 2 but it's definitely something.

A new financial report reveals that the Star Citizen team have spent almost $200 million on the game thus far. 

The Cloud Imperium Games team have published a financial breakdown of Star Citizen's development. It reveals many fascinating tidbits about one of the most lucrative (and controversial) games ever made. First off, it seems that the vast majority of the game's funding has come from backers. While recent years have seen more and more outside investments add to the game's financial war chest, it's clear that backers are still keeping this crazy train on the tracks.

Second, and somewhat encouragingly, it appears that the vast majority of the Star Citizen money spent thus far has gone towards the salaries of the people working on it. We've all heard enough horror stories concerning how poorly studios treat their employees (hello Telltale), so it's nice to know that the Star Citizen team is seemingly being taken care of above all else. That includes bringing in more full-time developers rather than relying on contracted help. 

However, one of the biggest takeaways from these reports is something that isn't spelled out in any of the graphs. It seems that about $193 million has been spent on Star Citizen thus far. That's already a daunting number that doesn't get any smaller when you realize that the team appears to be spending more money than they're technically making (even if they've saved more than the cost of the game so far) and that there's no clear end in sight for the game's development. 

While the spending more than they're making part of that arrangement is far from unheard of in any business, the fact remains that we don't really know when Star Citizenwill be anywhere near "complete." The game's Squadron 42 single-player mode is expected to be released sometime in 2020, but that only represents a fraction of what the team is supposedly working on, and even if it does come out that year, it will have taken the team eight years to release it. On top of that, you've got lawsuits from fans and other studios complicating the release process. 

Star Citizen is clearly still making a lot of money, but these figures paint a somewhat bleak picture in regards to how sustainable this business model is over a long enough timeline. 

Matthew Byrd is a staff writer for Den of Geek. He spends most of his days trying to pitch deep-dive analytical pieces about Killer Klowns From Outer Space to an increasingly perturbed series of editors. You can read more of his work here or find him on Twitter at @SilverTuna014. 

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown landed on consoles and PC last week, promising stunning visuals and enjoyable sky-set skirmishes to all who seek it out (as well as offering the franchise's first flight into VR). None of us could have guessed, though, that a still image of a dog - one with a sad real-life backstory - would be one of the game's biggest talking points.

Nonetheless, here we are in a world where perhaps the most screen-grabbed moment from Ace Combat 7is a segment that sees an unmoving photograph of a dog spliced into an otherwise-fully-animated dialogue scene. It may be an odd sight when you first encounter it, but fans have embraced this static hound and dubbed him "JPEG Dog."

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This moment in the game became a talking point on Twitch and has been deemed meme-worthy, and even Bandai Namco's social channels took the chance to get involved with the banter...

It was all fun and games until the sad truth behind JPEG Dog came to light. Franchise regular Kazutoki Kono took to Twitter to report that the real-life dog depicted in this image passed away soon after posing for the photo in the game. Here's Kazutoki Kono's tweet, as translated by journalist James Galizio:

That's the sad truth, then, that this dog is no longer with us and didn't live to see himself in a video game. But what better way for Ace Combat 7 to pay tribute to the dog than by immortalizing him in the game as a still image? The fans of this series will certainly never forget JPEG Dog.