We cornered (literally) Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag single-player game director Ashraf Ismail and asked him to detail the special Aveline content coming to PS3 and PS4 consoles. Ismail says the bonus PlayStation content will resume Aveline's story at the end of Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation and explains how Animus upgrades make it all possible.

SCE Japan Studio and Lumines developer Q Entertainment are teaming up to deliver the free-to-play RPG Destiny of Spirits to PS Vita owners later this year.

In Destiny of Spirits, players command an army of upgradable creatures in a series of turn-based battles. Spirit types are assigned elemental strengths and weaknesses, and players must build their teams strategically in order to penetrate enemy defenses. It's all a bit Pokemon-ish, in other words, though gameplay seems to focus exclusively on combat.

Destiny of Spirits also lets players trade spirits with friends, and daily "blessings" can boost the power of certain unit types in battle. Destiny of Spirits will hit the PlayStation Network in 2013.

Hotline Miami 2 is well on its way through the brutal development process, and it's playable at E3, a tweet from Devolver press agent Stephanie Schopp revealed.

We spoke about Hotline Miami 2 with developers Jonatan Söderström and Dennis Wedin at GDC this year, and they said the sequel will focus on the emotional aspects of life in the 90s, with parallel plots spawned from events in the first game. Söderström and Wedin said Hotline Miami 2 was in development for PC, though it could ship same-day on Vita.

The main character in Hotline Miami, "Jacket," has a minor role in the sequel but won't be playable. Wedin called Hotline Miami 2 "the grand finale."

The Walking Dead's next episode, 400 Days, stars five different characters in five separate stories of survival during the zombie apocalypse, all tied together by a geographical locale: A truck stop. These newcomers offer a fresh perspective on the events in season one of The Walking Dead, but overall, Telltale's tone hasn't changed much.

"Aw, fuck."

Those are the first words that Vince, one of the five characters highlighted in 400 Days, says. He spits the phrase into a dark alley as he searches for a spot to stash his gun, police sirens blaring from down the street. The player gets to decide where Vince throws the pistol – the garbage, his pants, the roof – but it doesn't appear to affect where he ends up: chained to the floor of a prison bus, with a heartbroken statutory rapist in front of him and a white-collar, former millionaire behind, all latched on the same line.

Continue Reading

We snagged some photos of the PlayStation 4 hardware and accessories at E3 2013. Just try to look at that console without thinking of "Also Sprach Zarathustra." Also, try not to look too close – it's pointy.

The new episode for Telltale's The Walking Dead, 400 Days, is set to launch in July for $5 on PC, Mac, XBLA, PSN and iOS. It'll hit Vita one month later, in August. That version will be bundled with the entire first season, for the first time ever on Vita.

That bundle is a good deal for fans of continuity – the decisions players made in the first season of The Walking Dead will show up in 400 Days, and the choices in 400 Days will impact season two, Telltale marketing man Richard Iggo said at E3. Players can start 400 Days without having played any of season one, but Iggo warned against it for those who want the full effect.

The DLC features five new characters in five separate stories, with a truck stop as their connective tissue. The truck stop is near events in season one of The Walking Dead, making it easy, geographically at least, to include previous player choices in 400 Days and beyond.

"Who knows, some of the characters that you meet might end up in season two," Iggo teased.

Sony finished day 0 of E3 2013 with a bang, following up on its PlayStation 4 console announcement from earlier this year with some more game teases and reveals, and then laying down one of the most memorable E3 moments ever, with Jack Tretton taking full advantage of the public discontent with Microsoft's Xbox One licensing policies.

Here's a post-conference rundown of what exactly took place at the Sony event last night.

Continue Reading

Our News Editor Alexander Sliwinski and Engadget Senior Associate Editor Ben Gilbert have a difficult task. They have to break down every bombshell dropped during Sony's gasp-filled E3 press briefing. No draconian always-online policy? Used games that work just like ... used games? That price?

It's going to be a loaded conversation. Watch it all live, right here, after the break!

Continue Reading

Sony's new cloud service will launch in 2014, Sony Computer Entertainment president Andrew House announced during the company's E3 press briefing. The service will allow players access to a library of "critically acclaimed" PlayStation 3 games using Gaikai streaming technology. It will initially be available on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, and will launch on Vita sometime later.

Continue Reading

Update: The briefing is running late, but we've taken our seats and started the liveblog. Join us!

You've made it to PlayStation's E3 2013 media briefing, starting at 9PM EDT (6PM Pacific, 2AM UK). We started the day learning more about Xbox One, heard from EA and Ubisoft in-between, and now close it with Sony's second round of PlayStation 4 presentations.

We'll flip this post to liveblog mode once the event gets underway, so keep an eye out for the evening's final barrage of announcements, demonstrations and exquisitely rendered, painstakingly motion-captured porpoises.

During Sony's E3 press briefing, SCE president Andrew House has announced that both Redbox Instant and Flixster are headed to the PlayStation platforms. Redbox Instant will arrive on PS3 "very soon," said House, while Flixster is slated for this fall. Furthermore, the "Live Events Viewer" will bring on-demand service to the device.

Finally, House added that Sony is "working hard to bring all of these services to PS4."

Flixster and Redbox Instant came to Xbox Live earlier this year.

Killzone: Mercenary, the series' first installment on Vita, has a multiplayer component for up to eight players, with six maps and three modes: Mercenary Warfare, Guerilla Warfare and Warzone.

Mercenary Warfare is a free-for-all race to earn the most Vektan Dollars before time runs out, and Guerilla Warfare is team deathmatch. Warzone is a five-mission team mode with different objectives in each mission. The scores from all missions are added up at the end to crown a winning team.

Killzone: Mercenary is due out on September 10.

The official website for Dragon's Dogma Quest is live, broadly confirming yesterday's report from Game Jouhou. Quest is a 2D online-only, free-to-play RPG for Vita, coming to Japan via PSN this fall. Regards whether or not it's winging its way west, a Capcom spokesperson told Joystiq "At present Dragon's Dogma Quest is only confirmed for release in Japan and we are currently evaluating if the title will be released in pan-western markets."

As before, Quest begins with the hero character's heart being stolen by a dragon – biology be damned. The hero finds another heartless victim in a wizardly-looking woman called Lota, and together the pair trek towards home as they begin their quest to retrieve their tickers.

While it's unclear if Quest's story follows on from the original Dragon's Dogma, the Vita RPG features returning non-player characters like the knight Julien, Captain Mercedes of the Enlistment Corps, and Black Cat storekeeper Mountebank. One screen shows Mercedes in dialogue, with what looks like a hand-drawn background of a country village behind her.

As previously reported, the hero employs a party of pawns that go into battle - it's unclear if the hero's involved in combat or is more like a commander. The party size is increased to eight, with a maximum of four player pawns and four pawns from friends. The website reveals several of the 150-plus pawn vocations in Quest, including the poison archer, arc guardian, gatherer, and rogue.

It remains unclear how exactly combat adapts from 3D to 2D in Quest. The pawns-orientated combat of Dragon's Dogma, particularly in terms of formulating strategies for the larger beasts, was a key component of that game. We're curious to see how it works in Quest, particularly given there are so many vocations to choose from.

One round of free DLC just isn't enough for Soul Sacrifice, it seems. Come June 11 (the first day of E3!), fresh DLC will add eight new quests and two new bosses, including an ogre and the thing seen above. It's labeled "dwarf," as you can see, but that can't be right.

Just like last time, the DLC will be free, requiring you to sacrifice nothing but your spare time.

A new Dragon's Dogma game is reportedly coming to Japan, but it sounds a fair bit different to its predecessor. According to Game Jouhou (via Gematsu and Siliconera), this week's Famitsu magazine announces Dragon's Dogma Quest, a 2D free-to-play, online-only RPG for the Vita, due in Japan this fall.

Going by Game Jouhou's report, Quest once more pits players as Arisen, and the Arisen commands a party of pawns who go into battle. Parties can comprise a maximum of eight pawns, including four of the player's, and four from friends. Just imagine all those repeated phrases - "This looks interesting!" - but in stereo (hopefully not).

Quest again sees players explore a world of towns, dungeons, enemies, and side-quests. On the vocations-side, Quest features a far greater selection, with over 150 jobs included. It's unclear what exactly's tied to microtransactions, but they're apparently for assisting players who don't have lots of time to play the game.

We've reached out to Capcom for confirmation and to find out if it's headed west.

Ubisoft Quebec City has announced the appointment of new executive director of development Francois Pelland, who was most recently senior producer on Assassin's Creed 3 at Ubisoft Montreal. Pelland will "ensure the leadership of the innovation and creativity hub of Ubisoft Quebec" while "successfully delivering the ambitious projects being developed at the studio."

"I'm very proud to have accepted the position of Executive Director of Development at Ubisoft Quebec," says Pelland in the press release. "For me, it's a unique opportunity to be part of this rapidly growing studio and to provide my support for the studio's ambitious projects in the years to come."

Pelland has over 16 years of experience in video games, the lion's share of which were spent at EA and Ubisoft. Pelland founded EA Montreal and his work can be seen in the Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six and Army of Two series.

SunFlowers developer The Game Atelier announced that its arcade-style "cute-'em-up" Flying Hamster HD is coming to the PlayStation Vita in North America on June 11.

Inspired by Konami's Parodius series, Flying Hamster HD is a horizontally scrolling shooter in which players battle squadrons of heavily harmed penguins, milk-squirting cows, and laser-equipped owls, among other unlikely enemies. The game originally launched for the PlayStation minis service in 2010, and later found its way to iOS platforms.

Flying Hamster will include online leaderboards and a collection of unlockable Trophies when it hits the PlayStation Network next week.