TOKYO, Sept 16 — A clutch of near-finished video games have received international release date announcements as the 2016 Tokyo Game Show kicks into gear, including Digimon World: Next Order, an update for the Resident Evil 7 demo, promising stealth game Aragami, manga and animé adaptation Berserk and the Band of the Hawk and the Pokémon Generations cartoon.
While the Digimon media franchise established itself in 1997, the Digimon World game series has been going strong for nearly as long, since 1999.
It finally found its feet with Digimon World: Next Order, a Japanese release for the digital monster-collecting, world-saving game having come to the PlayStation 4 and Vita this March, and European and North American debuts are now promised for early 2017.
Creepy horror Resident Evil 7 is still set for worldwide release the week of January 24 and publisher Capcom is continuing to tease players of a demo chapter released for the PlayStation 4 in June.
From September 15, an update adds new areas for players to explore, of interest as the June demo left a number of narrative threads unresolved.
The demo is also being made available to all PlayStation 4 owners with an internet connection — not just those that have PlayStation Plus subscriptions.
Despite its shadowy, feudal setting, stealth game Aragami is created not by a Japanese developer but debutant Spanish studio Lince Works.
With the now-classic Tenchu series namechecked as one of its primary influences — along with contemporary titles Mark of the Ninja and Dishonoured — its heritage still suits a TGS announcement, and will be releasing internationally on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows PC from October 4.
Koei Tecmo’s adaptation of popular animé and manga series Berserk, called Berserk: Musou, takes the Samurai Warriors approach of one-against-many and pops it into a medieval world populated by fantasy beasts.
It now has an international title, Berserk and the Band of the Hawk, as well as a worldwide release on PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita and Windows PC the week of February 21, following an October 27 Japanese debut on PS4 and PS3.
And with Pokémon Go a recent smartphone fascination and Pokémon Sun & Moon coming to Nintendo 3DS in November, cartoon series Pokémon Generations will be available on Pokémon’s YouTube channel from September 16.
Eighteen of the sub-5 minute episodes will be made available, a new one each week, and retells the Pokémon story as embedded into the last 20 years’ worth of video game releases. — AFP-Relaxnews
