Video Games News Round-up: 17th of January 2017: Acquisitions & Announcement

Hello, and welcome to today’s video games round-up where we settle down at roughly 9PM GMT and link out to the shifts in the industry that we’ve covered, and those that we haven’t. -Yes, it’s very late tonight, sorry ya’ll-


It’s a mini acquisition day today it seems, with both Microsoft and Valve acquiring new companies to bolster their work forces. Microsoft with SimplyGon, no doubt for their efforts in 3D graphics, and Valve with Impulsonic for their 3D audio work. It’s always a bit weird to see smaller companies, especially ones with puns in their names, rolled up into bigger ones, but it really is the quickest way of rapidly advancing technology these days. So it should be interesting to see what comes from the acquisitions.


Video Games News, From B3’s Mouth,

Review – Stardew Valley
Greenlight Highlight – Wrong World
News – Nioh Gets Gold Status, Ready For Production
News – Toby: The Secret Mine Wii U and Xbox One Release Trailer
News – Malicious Fallen to be Coming to the West
Video – Life of Black Tiger PS4 Preview – Gamegazm TV
News – Say Hello to Xbox’s New FREEdom Rewards
News – Memoranda Takes You Behind The Scenes in Latest Video
News – Retro Pixel Castles Renamed to Rise to Ruins
News – Get Geared Up, Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 Heads To Open Beta
News – WWE 2K17 Future Stars Pack Now Available
News – Woten: Extensive Level-Length Gameplay GIF Detailed
News – Ashworld: Post-Apocalptic Shooter from OrangePixel gets Explosive Teaser Trailer
News – Get a Sneaky Peak at the New Xbox One Dashboard
News – Realpolitiks Release Date Confirmed, Gets a New Gameplay Trailer
News – ‘Hitman 101’ Trailer Talks Us Through the Player’s Journey & Options Ahead of Physical Release


And, here’s what we didn’t get the chance to cover, from the source.
  • Perception, a horror adventure title about blindness, has been announced as coming to not just PC, but also PS4 via the PSBlog.
  • A 1TB PS4 Slim bundle including Horizon Zero Dawn will be launching alongside the title, as listed on Amazon and reported by jeuxvideo.com
  • As reported over on Niche Gamer, Valve have acquired 3D audio company Impulsonic. The team are most recently known for their work with Valve on the HRTF feature in Counter Strike: GO.
  • Darknet is an upcoming VR game which is launching on the PS4 later this year. The game is a puzzle-shooter combination where your actions translate to a pretty cool cyberpunk-esque hacking game. Trailer is here.
  • Atlas Reactor, a turn-based strategy with hero characters, has gone free to play. Our Brian wrote a few words on Glyph & Trion World’s game last year, and spoke highly of it.
  • Codemasters are reportedly releasing an enhanced version of their iOS free-to-play Micromachines title as MicroMachines World Series. News comes via Xboxachievements, however Codemasters have yet to issue a statement.
  • The Flame in the Flood: Complete Edition has launched on PS4. To celebrate this we’ve got the same trailer that we keep seeing for the game all over again… not that I’m complaining, the game is beautiful and fun in that survival-game way. That and the song is pretty damn catchy too. (Trailer)
  • Sniper Elite 4 received it’s latest story trailer, this time focused on Andreas Kessler who happens to be one of Hitler’s main rocketry engineers. (Trailer)
  • The latest in the Civilization VI trailer series from the official YouTube channel covers using an Army. These trailers are certainly not aimed at experienced players yet, although as I said before I do hope they move onto more advanced tactics in time. (Trailer)
  • Little Nightmares finally had its release date confirmed, as well as getting a new trailer titled ‘The Nine Deaths of Six’. The horror platformer will release on April 28th (in NA) for PS4, Xbox One & PC. (Trailer)
  • Injustice 2’s latest trailer detailed the games story, as well as showing off a selection of characters who will feature in the game, notably its villain; Dave Brainiac. (Trailer)
  • Watch_Dogs 2 now has a free trial available on PS4. The same trial will come to Xbox One on the 24th of January. There’s a trailer here.
  • Yesterday we covered the fact that Monster Boy will be releasing this year, and also for the Switch. To celebrate this the publisher FDGGames released a video with ‘Banjo Guy Ollie’ performing a song from the upcoming title’s soundtrack. (Youtube)
  • Alwa’s Awakening, which we covered on Greenlight last year, has now got a confirmed release date of February 2nd over on Steam.
  • M.E.R.C receiving a new gameplay trailer to celebrate it entering Early Access. For those unaware of the title it’s a very impressive looking squad-based strategy game – think Full Spectrum Warrior meets Syndicate. (Steam Page) (Trailer)
  • Microsoft have acquired Simplygon, best known for their *cough* automatic 3D data-optimization solutions. Kudo Tsunoda took some time to discuss the acquisition over on the Microsoft blog.

We run these round-ups from Monday to Saturday, so make sure to check back tomorrow.

If you think we missed something then why not drop it into the comments below? We’ll jump right on getting it fixed.

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