Official PlayStation Magazine 177 (Sampler)

ISSUE 177 gamesradar.com/opm

180 PAGE SPECIAL ISSUE

IT’S HERE!

THE LAST OF US PART II 10-PAGE REVIEW

REVEALED Sony’s next gen starts now! >The hardware >The tech >Every game inside ALL-NEW GAMES ONLY ON NEXT GEN

HORIZON FORBIDDEN WEST MARVEL’S SPIDER-MAN MILES MORALES RESIDENT EVIL VILLAGE GRAN TURISMO 7 HITMAN 3 RATCHET & CLANK: RIFT APART ASSASSIN’S CREED VALHALLA & MORE…

THE 53 HOTTEST GAMES COMING TO PS5 & PS4 CYBERPUNK 2077

DEMON’S SOULS

RETURNAL

PROJECT CARS 3

OUTRIDERS

PLAYSTATION 5

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HARDWARE REVEAL Begin counting down the months now: Sony’s next gen starts here

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layStation 5 has emerged from the shadow of the DualSense controller. This console is a work of art, it’s no block of unwieldy, ill-shaped hardware that will struggle to squeeze under your TV. This is a fluid, elegant box of tricks deserving pride of place.

The console features a glossy black, vented inner wrapped in a curvaceous white shell that draws the eye up and out, hiding the bulk of the machine. Size-wise, PlayStation 5 is slightly fatter than a PS4 Pro but taller when on its vertical stand. The form and flow of the console is even clearer when we get in close to the hardware.

The white internal ‘lapels’ of the

PLAYSTATION 5

STATUS LIGHTS

Your first impressions “The console! OMG! Loving it.”

TJ Marinelli “Shut up and just take my money!!!”

Mike Chenery “The actual console itself gave me the horn!”

Aaron Ponsford “Console looks super slick.”

Matt Mills “Looks interesting, no price point, but surely digital version depends on online prices of digital downloads always seems more expensive than disc versions.”

SJ “In a surprising twist, it’s the console design and it’s tech specs that have me excited, rather than the games I’ve just seen. I can now see how it’s likely to be closer to £600. It actually looks like an aspirational bit of kit.”

Pete Wisdom “Also looks great when it is laying down.”

Kehaan

We’ve only seen the status light glowing blue, but if it performs like PS4 we expect this to react to how you’re using the console.

COOLING VENTS These run down the innards in wave-like forms and clearly a lot of thought has gone into cooling PS5. The internal panels are textured to the touch.

USB-A PORT Your standard USB-A port for connecting devices. We expect to be able to link up our DualShock 4 when playing backwardscompatible games.

USB-C CHARGING PORT The super-fast USB-C port for charging your DualSense controller.

This future-proofs the console for whatever Sony has planned for years to come.

4K BLU-RAY DISC DRIVE Watch Ultra-HD movies and boxsets without the worry of buffering.

More significantly, the 4K disc drive hints at PS5’s backwards compatibility with PS4.

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31 P RO JEC T C A RS 3 Bandai Namco’s racer broadens its grid, so we take the grand tour Format PS4 ETA Summer Pub Bandai Namco Entertainment Dev Slightly Mad Studios

he racing toybox of the previous games in this allencompassing series is becoming a little more accessible – and face it, while some of us love Meccano, often Lego can be more fun. In a bid to open up its box of car joys for all, Slightly Mad Studios is refining and adding

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features to make all players, of all skill levels, feel part of the club.

But don’t worry, petrolheads, if you love an esports-level challenge you’re still covered.

It means Project Cars 3 retains its simcade, esports-pro edge and attention to detail while enabling newcomers to feel like they have a place on the grid.

“We’ve taken huge strides to make the game more accessible than ever before, without

compromising the core racing, and the driving experience that millions of gamers have come to expect from our franchise,” says Joe Barron, Slightly Mad Studios’ marketing and esports manager, as we sit down with him to see the game in action.

Game designer Matt York adds: “The new career mode has been rebuilt from scratch with an all-new structure designed to give gamers a better sense of

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progressing from zero to hero in the world of racing.”

FUEL FOR THOUGHT

The career structure familiar from previous games in the series, in which you can progress from a grassroots driver all the way up to world champion, is back but with some notable changes. You can adjust virtually anything you like to tailor the game to your skill, including tweaking the AI

difficulty and aggression, and tuning everything from stability to traction. Reacting to this, the career mode offers attainable goals for you to work towards in order to unlock new cars, tracks, and events.

“Your journey features new game modes alongside the traditional racing action with a curated difficulty curve and scaled rewards depending on which assists and difficulty options each

player chooses,” explains York as he demos the game to us.

As you improve and earn XP to spend on unlocking that shiny new Jaguar, you’ll be encouraged to ratchet back some assists for greater rewards, and in doing so gradually improve your skill.

In Project Cars 3 you’ll be rewarded for achieving objectives that go beyond simply winning a race, ensuring those of us who always find ourselves stuck in

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he original Mafia was developed in tandem with Grand Theft Auto III, at a time when open world games weren’t prolific.

There were no established rules to follow, and just as Rockstar North set about reinventing how we play games so too did Hangar 13, but with a focus unique to this team. With Mafia, the aim was to tell a cinematic story within a large open city, with the player free to explore but never distracted by a GTA-style sandbox. This was a game that wanted to steer you down its own bloody paths.

“It set a new standard for cinematic storytelling at the time.

It made quite a statement about the kinds of stories that can be told in games,” says Alex Cox, game director at Hangar 13.

The 1930s prohibition-era city was a backdrop to an engaging filmic flow as we followed the rise and fall of Thomas ‘Tommy’ Angelo from taxi driver to mobster. The open world setting

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was “an advanced roleplaying feature,” says Cox. The freedom to explore enabled us to feel like we were living in the moment. It led to some unusual design choices – for example, there was no minimap (you needed to hold a map and drive). “You have to look around and learn the city […] you as the player weren’t given much assistance” says Cox. Revisiting the original “was a really interesting journey back into a different era of gaming and put into perspective how some of those things have changed.”

THE GAMEFATHER

This ground-up remake, from many of the original Mafia team, isn’t altering the classic formula.

The goal is still to scratch beneath the surface of the American Dream and offer some of the sharpest third-person shooting on PlayStation. But taking inspiration from the remake of Resident Evil 2, the developer is refining, adding to, and enhancing the original game and its systems.

As we chat to Cox he describes how everything was on the whiteboard at one time, including making protagonist Tommy’s girlfriend Maggie a playable character. “To see the story from a different perspective,” he qualifies.

The team even considered using this remake to introduce co-op and multiplayer. But anything that threatened the core experience of the game, or could derail returning fans’ enjoyment, was left behind, and this includes online modes. “There’s no multiplayer,” confirms Cox. “What we want to do is rejuvenate the game, make it relevant to modern players, but keep the spirit of the original. We have made changes, it’s not a one-to-one copy of the original game,” explains Cox, revealing new collectibles, for example, will be in the remake. “Anything which we could add in to expand the game outside of the regular design [has been done]. We’ve done everything we can to embellish, enlarge, and enhance [the game].”

An example offered by Cox is the moments when we drive between missions. In the

MAFIA: DEFINITIVE Format PS4 ETA TBC Pub Hangar 13 Dev Hangar 13

Lost Heaven never looked so good

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ED I T IO N

“SCRATCHES BENEATH THE SURFACE OF THE AMERICAN DREAM.”

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“IT’S A HOOT – SOLID AND HEFTY, BUT WITH A STAGGERING TURN OF PACE.”

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09 Format PS4, PS5 ETA TBC Pub Square Enix Dev People Can Fly, Square Enix External Studios

OUTRIDERS Don’t Enoch it, this shooter continues to impress

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ike a blast from the past, People Can Fly’s PS4and PS5destined loot-shooter showcases what the developer is best at: colourful, often gloriously gory, shooting. Having played it we

can say confidently it’s a hoot.

Solid and hefty but with a staggering turn of pace, and a roster of elemental powers to deliver flexibility when needed, Outriders is old-fashioned fun.

For all the game’s comic-book violence and colourful alien vistas, People Can Fly has approached creating the world of Enoch and

the game’s setup in a surprisingly detailed way, with realism at the bleeding heart of the story.

“Polish culture and history has been an inspiration for us,” reveals Szymon Barchan, lead narrative designer on the game. “We’ve been through hard times during the last century, like we have a lot of events in our history that are

THE HOT 53 appily-everafter doesn’t exist in survival horror. (And if you don’t like spoilers, stop reading now.)

After the events of Resi VII, Mia and Ethan Winters have enjoyed a few happy years together, but now Chris Redfield – of all people – has returned to bring it to an end. We don’t know Chris’ reasons or motives, but at the end of the announcement trailer

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we see the former STARS operative shoot Mia dead, followed by an anguished cry from Ethan – “WHY!?”

It’s this question that drives the widower to the titular village. In search of answers, Ethan trades the

“THE VILLAGE IS HOME TO SOPHISTICATED, EVOLVED THREATS.” cramped corridors of the Baker plantation for another first-person maze of run-down, snow-covered buildings and an oppressive, almost gothic atmosphere.

Obviously, a few creaky floorboards are the least of Ethan’s problems.

The village is home to sophisticated, evolved threats. A creepy fairytale sets the tone, hinting at a fear of the unknown and the ambivalence of nature.

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05 R E S ID EN T E V Format PS5 ETA 2021 Pub Capcom Dev Capcom

Little house on the scary

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IL V IL L A G E

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Format PS5 ETA TBC Pub Sony Dev Guerrilla Games

HORIZON FORBIDDEN WEST Going west with a fistful of bolts

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loy went on a journey of self-discovery in Horizon Zero Dawn. It took her across her homeland as she uncovered the mysteries behind the Zero Dawn terraforming project, and stopped AI-core-gone-rogue

HADES from destroying it all for good. It was an exhausting journey, but for both Aloy and the new humankind born into the ashes of the old, it was just the beginning of redefining their post-apocalyptic world. Now

she’s got another lengthy trek ahead of her, visiting new places and tackling new mechanimals.

HADES was defeated, but escaped with Aloy’s one-time ally, the technologically gifted Sylas.

Fresh threats continue to put

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Aloy is quite the swimmer – exploring underwater will be vital this time around.