Square Enix has claimed Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is exclusive to PS5, and skipping PS4, partly because of its desire to exploit the new-gen console’s SSD. Thefirst trailer for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirthwas shown last month, revealing that the game will be part two of a planned trilogy. Unlike its predecessorFinal Fantasy 7 Remake, which was released forPS4in 2020 before making its way to PS5 andPCthe following year, the second part of the story won’t be available forSony’s last-gen console at all....

GSC Game World has shared an update on how the war in Ukraine has impacted its employees as well as its upcoming game, Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl. The studio, which was based in Kiev prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, has since partially relocated to Prague. Not all of its staff have been able to leave Ukraine, however, with a number of developers continuing to work on the game from the war-torn country, where their lives have been turned upside down....

Omega 6, the first video game from Star Fox and F-Zero artist Takaya Imamura since he left Nintendo in 2021, will be released for Nintendo Switch in Japan on July 25. The news was shared by the game’s Japanese publisher City Connection via a live stream on Tuesday, along with the game’s final name: ‘Omega 6: The Triangle Stars’. The game – which is a text-based adventure with 16-bit graphics – will be released alongside the Japanese version of the Omega 6 manga – previously released in French – as part of a special edition, which will also include a soundtrack download, manual and poster....

It’s probably fair to say that the video game industry has more ‘dog people’ than ‘cat people’. You only need to look at the likes of Okami, Wolf Link, KK Slider, Dogmeat from Fallout, even PaRappa the Rapper to see how dog-friendly the industry is. There’s even a Twitter profile dedicated to finding out whether you can pet the dog in a variety of games. This clearly wasn’t something that bothered Koola and Viv, the mysterious formerUbisoftartists who left the company and started work on a feline-focused game back in 2015....

Summer Games Done Quick has now concluded, with the event taking the total amount raised by Games Done Quick events to over $50m. The event, which sees players from around the world converge on Minnesota in order to speedrun games, raised $2,546,290 for Doctors Without Borders. The most notable moment from the event was perhaps Peanut Butter the dog playing Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball. Using a custom controller setup, footage of the dog hitting a home run quickly spread across the internet, eventually being shown on ESPN....

PlayStation says it isn’t concerned about the impact Nintendo Switch 2 could have on its platform, and that it believes PS5-level performance is required to “achieve a great experience on big screens”. Switch 2launched last week,setting hardware sales records globallyandin Japan. Notably forPlayStation,Nintendo’s console has improved specifications, bringing it more in line with modern platforms (though it’s still closer toPS4than PS5 in terms of raw horsepower), and it launched with a broad selection of third-party games....

Nintendo Switch mech game Daemon X Machina is coming to PC. The Xseed-developed action game has players taking to the battlefield in deadly mechanised battle suits known as Arsenals in order to defend the planet from corrupted AI-controlled robots. The game is directed byKenichiro Tsukuda, who previously worked on games in the Armored Core series atFromSoftware. Daemon X Machinawill release forPCvia Steamon February 13, featuring visual upgrades, customization options, and support for gamepads as well as keyboard and mouse....

The next game from Bethesda studios’ Tango Gameworks could be revealed soon, it’s been claimed. According to billbil-kun, a leaker who has consistently revealed the contents ofPlayStationPlus lineups ahead of official announcements, the game is named Hi-Fi RUSH and will be released in a standard and deluxe edition. Little is known about the game, but it’s possible that it will be revealed atXbox and Bethesda’s Developer Directwhich will be broadcast on Wednesday, January 25th at 12pm PT/3pm ET/8pm GMT....

UPDATE: The article was updated on September 7 to correct the date that Ueda joined Yahoo. Yakuza director and Jet Set Radio artist Ryuta Ueda has returned to Sega after seven years away from the games industry. Ueda, who was the art director behind Dreamcast classic Jet Set Radio (“Jet Grind Radio” in the US) and itsXboxsequel Jet Set Radio Future, as well as the first twoYakuzagames forPS2, rejoinedSegain May following seven years working at Yahoo!...

The French government has ordered its staff to no longer use English video game terms like ‘streaming’ and ‘e-sports’. Agence France-Presse reports (viaThe Guardian) that the Journal officiel de la République française – the country’s governmental gazette which publishes major legal information – has overhauled the rules on using English tech jargon. The decision has reportedly been made in an attempt to preserve the purity of the French language, and to ensure that game players in France don’t use anglicised terms for activities and concepts that can be explained in French....

The Last of Us has received 24 nominations for the 75th Emmy Awards. That’s just three short of the frontrunner for this year’s ceremony, fellow HBO show Succession, which is up for 27 awards for its fourth and final season, having previously won 13 Emmys. The Last of Us comes in ahead of The White Lotus, which received 23 nominations, and Ted Lasso, which is up for 21 prizes....

Celeste developer Extremely OK Games has canceled its next game, Earthblade. The game, which was announced in 2021, has been canceled due to internal development issues, as well as a dispute betweenCeleste‘s creators over the rights to the IP, it said. “Earlier this year, a fracture began forming in the team,”wrotethe studio’s director of R&D, Maddy Thorson. “Specifically, this was between us (Noel & I) and Pedro, a founding member ofEXOK, longtime friend & collaborator, and art director of Earthblade, and pixel/ui artist on Celeste and TowerFall....

Electronic Arts has claimed that The Sims 4 “now reaches more than 70 million players around the world”. That makes the 2014 release the most widely played game in the 23-year history of the life simulation franchise. According toEA, the latest entry in the series has attracted more than 16 million new players since the base game went free-to-play in October 2022, and average weekly users have increased 53 percent....