Bandai Namco: Last News

Bandai Namco’s new Pomeranian game Doronko Wanko has captured the hearts of the internet.Released earlier this week on Steam, Doronko Wanko (which roughly translates as “Little barker covered in mud”) is a free-to-play game that sees players take control of an adorable Pomeranian puppy. Your only goal? Make as much mess as possible.Fans are comparing it to a cross between Splatoon and Nintendogs, while others are saying it’s basically a reverse Power Wash Simulator.In Doronko Wanko, players encourage the “innocent” puppy to roll around in mud, before spreading it around their master’s house.

Overwatch 2 kicks off its crossover with ’90s sci-fi anime Cowboy Bebop today (March 7), we caught up with Overwatch art director Dion Rogers to learn more about the combination.Though this is Blizzard’s first Cowboy Bebop crossover, Rogers told NME that the team behind Overwatch are “huge fans” of the anime, and it inspired some of the game’s visuals during development.“Cowboy Bebop has an amazing art style blending various artistic influences [including] film noir, westerns and science fiction,” shared Rogers. “The anime’s visuals mix futuristic technology with a world that feels lived-in and with stylized characters that have real human emotions.”“Our game has a nice mix of east meets west art style, which helps fit the Cowboy Bebop aesthetics while maintaining the readability of our heroes,” they added.

One Piece card game shop has opened in Brighton, and represents an “evolution”, Bandai Namco has said to NME.The store opened on North Street in Brighton on February 23. Brighton was chosen due to the city being a “thriving cultural hub” and the One Piece Card Game shop being a “perfect fit and addition for people of the region to collect cards and battle with friends.”When asked by NME why now is the right time to open a One Piece Card Game Shop, Bandai Namco told us that the plan is to offer “multiple experiential products”.“One Piece is one of the biggest IPs globally, with a 25 year back catalogue of anime, manga and films.

Dark Souls books have been announced, with pre-orders available today by Irish publisher Tune & Fairweather.Abyssal Archive: The Mythology of Dark Souls explores the lore and mythos surrounding Dark Souls as a franchise and as a location, with fans working to put together the “most comprehensive fan analysis of the game’s mythos ever undertaken”. The premium softcover edition comes with a fold-out companion map of Lordran, the setting of the game, and retails for £25 ($33).You Died: The Dark Souls Companion, meanwhile, contains analysis of “what makes Dark Souls so riveting, enduring, and influential”, with interview with creator Hidetaka Miyazaki included throughout the game, taken over the years since the game was launched.

Bandai Namco has released a video recapping the story of Tekken so far, presented by Succession actor Brian Cox.The five-minute-long recap of every Tekken game so far was posted yesterday (January 9) to the official Bandai Namco YouTube page.The video begins with Brian Cox stating that “every single fight, no matter how big or how small, has a story behind it” before devolving into Cox questioning the nature of his reality and wondering why “these fathers and sons keep throwing each other off cliffs”.The game will feature a full story mode that continues the lore detailed in the above video, Arcade Qiest, a mode that allows you to create an avatar who goes around playing Tekken matches in an actual arcade, Super Ghost Battle, a mode that puts you against an AI which will learn how to fight you, and there’s the typical online modes such as Versus which will pit you against real people from around the world.So far 32 playable characters have been announced for the title, with four of these (Azucena Milagros Ortiz Castillo, Jack-8, Reina, and Victor Chevalier) being brand-new characters.Returning characters include, among others, Alisa Bosconovitch, Claudio Serafino, Jin Kazama, Jun Kazama, Kazuya Mishima, Leo Kliesen, Marshall Law, Paul Phoenix, Sergei Dragunov and Yoshimitsu.A DLC pass will also be available for the game, with the first season of DLC containing four characters that won’t be available in the base game.Tekken 8 was first announced in 2022 and is currently scheduled for release on January 26, 2024. It will be released on PlayStation 5, PC, and Xbox Series X|S.

Little Nightmares 3 has responded to fan feedback and will include a co-op mode, however, it is only available through online play.Bandai Namco Europe producer Coralie Feniello and Supermassive Games director Wayne Garland explained the design decision in an interview with Games Radar. While the first two titles in the creepy series were developed by Tarsier Studios, the team behind Until Dawn and The Dark Pictures Anthology is taking the reins on this one.“Co-op was the most requested feature from our fans, so it was really important for us to give them that,” rationalised Feniello, explaining that the shared odyssey through Little Nightmares 3‘s Necropolis will “add a layer to the game” that is unlike the others.“But at the same time, we really want the player to experience it as they want.

Elden Ring, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Bloodborne and other FromSoftware titles, announced her departure from the developer on Tuesday (August 1).“I have decided to leave FromSoftware, the company I worked for, and to start working new as a freelance composer in this August,” she said in a post to X. She affirmed that she still would like to work within the games industry and pointed fans to her new website that promotes her previous compositions.Thank you all for your continued support.　Today I have an announcement to make.I have decided to leave FromSoftware, the company I worked for, and to start working new as a freelance composer in this August.— Yuka Kitamura (@_Yuka_Kitamura_) August 1, 2023Fans supported Kitamura in her latest venture but the overall feeling is one of heartbreak, as well as appreciation for her contributions to these games.“Truly sad news.

Twitch streamer completed Elden Ring in less than three hours using an electric saxophone as a controller, and he didn’t sustain any hits throughout his playthrough.DrDeComposing has beaten a number of other games in the same genre using the saxophone, including Bloodborne, the Dark Souls games and Demon’s Souls remake released in 2020. It’s likely through these achievements that the streamer had the confidence and the skill to take on Elden Ring in his latest playthrough.Last night, I beat Elden Ring (any%) without taking a single hit while using an electric saxophone as a game controller; the World's First No-Hit Run of Elden Ring using a non-traditional controller (e.g.

Tekken 8 players were found to be illegally playing the game’s closed network test and as a result have been threatened with pre-release bans by Bandai Namco.Available for all platforms, the second closed network test for the forthcoming fighting game was held over the weekend (July 29-30). But because Tekken 8 was playable on PC, this allowed the players who had an awareness of how to circumvent the software to continue playing the game outside of its authorised hours.An important reminder from the TEKKEN Project and Bandai Namco Esports Team.

FromSoftware and Bandai Namco have confirmed an August release date for their upcoming sci-fi game Armored Core 6: Fires Of Rubicon, with a new gameplay trailer showcasing the game in action.Armored Core 6 will arrive on August 25, 2023 — just over 11 years since the last mainline Armored Core game was released.As for platforms, the upcoming game will be available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, and has been priced at £49.99 on Steam.The first gameplay trailer for Armored Core 6 was shared today (April 27), revealing players piloting a customisable mech and pitting it against a wide variety of rival robots.Check out the trailer below.The trailer confirms that players’ mechs will be highly customisable, with the protagonist using everything from cluster rockets to lasers to take down opponents; while one scene shows the player swapping their mech’s legs for tank tracks.While FromSoftware is yet to touch on the game’s plot, the Steam page for Armored Core 6 says players will “pilot their mech in fast-paced, omni-directional battles, taking advantage of massive stages and their mech’s mobility on land and in the air to ensure victory”.“Customise Armored Core parts to suit a large variety of playstyles,” the page continues.

Silent Hill publisher Konami has opened a new studio in Osaka, Japan, to provide “sustainable growth” for the 50-year-old company.The company’s newest branch has been named Konami Osaka Studio, and a press release from Komani has shared that it is equipped with motion capture equipment and sound studios.Konami explained that Osaka Studio will help it “continue sustainable growth in the next 50 years,” following the company celebrating its 50th birthday in March.Elsewhere, construction continues on Konami’s “next-generation R&D centre” in Tokyo, which is scheduled to complete in 2025.In the same press release, Konami also announced that it has “substantially” raised the company’s base salary level. This means an average increase of 50,000JPY (£303) per employee, while the base salary for new starters will be increased by the same amount.“We have taken various steps to promote management emphasized on human capital, improve employee engagement, and enhance its competitiveness,” shared Konami.Over the last year, a number of Japanese game publishers have issued pay rises for its workers.Back in February, Sega announced a 30 per cent pay increase for all workers, which will kick in from July 2023.In the same month, Nintendo confirmed it would be giving its employees a 10 per cent pay rise.

Elden Ring is getting a DLC expansion titled Shadow of the Erdtree, the game’s developer has announced. Japanese video game developer FromSoftware dropped a tweet on Tuesday confirming DLC for the hit action role-playing-game is officially in the works.

Bandai Namco is set to open a new arcade in Tokyo’s Akihabara district, taking over a building previously occupied by Sega.The new arcade, set to open on March 1, will be situated in the same building that previously housed the popular Sega Akihabara Arcade 4. After Sega sold off many of its arcades in 2020 due to a downturn in the COVID pandemic, many either closed or rebranded to GiGO, owned by new buyer Genda.According to TechRaptor, the Bandai Namco arcade will feature a variety of arcade machines including rhythm title Taiko No Tatsujin and Mobile Suit Gundam Extreme Vs.

Bandai Namco has confirmed that the long-dormant PC servers for the Dark Souls trilogy will in fact come back online, with the issue being “actively worked on”. As noted by PCGamesN, a Reddit post from yesterday (May 9) shows one eager player contacting Bandai Namco directly to ask about the state of the Dark Souls trilogy on PC, following news in January that all player vs player servers were shut down on PC due to a hacking exploit.The response from Bandai Namco reads: “I’m happy to confirm that the developers are actively working on resolving the issue in question and re-launching the Dark Souls servers for PC as soon as possible.”“For the moment, we do not have an estimate of when this is expected to happen,” added the response. bandai namco confirmed the servers will be back from darksouls3 This confirmation that Bandai Namco, and presumably developer FromSoftware, are in fact doing something about the PC server outages follows concerns from players last month that the games would never back come online.

Tekken 7 modder has released ‘The Ultimate Elden Ring Modpack‘, which replaces the game’s fighters with characters from Elden Ring.As visible on Tekken Mods (via PCGamesN), The Ultimate Elden Ring Modpack is a cosmetic mod made by Ultraboy that reskins Tekken‘s playable fighters to look like Elden Ring characters. Right now, the mod adds eight presets for eight characters.In the mod, Tekken‘s Marduk is replaced by Elden Ring‘s infamously brutal boss Radahn, while Kazumi is swapped out for Ranni the Witch.

Bandai Namco’s Barcelona based Mobile studio will transition to a four-day workweek following similar changes in the industry.Bandai Namco has announced in a post that it is trialling a four-day long week for all staff members. The trial will last for six months, and during this time, Fridays will not be considered workdays, while staff salaries and benefits will remain unchanged.

FromSoftware have announced that all online services for Dark Souls PC games will be unavailable for the foreseeable future due to “technical difficulties”.Earlier this year, it was announced that all PvP servers for the entire series had been deactivated following a Remote Code Execution (RCE) hack, which essentially allows the potential attacker to execute arbitrary code on a remote device, meaning they can take control of a player’s PC.Now, it’s been announced that Dark Souls’ online services will once again be taken down while the company extends the fix to work with their upcoming title Elden Ring.Writing on Twitter, Bandai Namco and FromSoftware said they were “aware of the technical difficulties players have experienced with the Dark Souls suite of games on PC.”#DarkSouls pic.twitter.com/ZRhX9OcvQe— Dark Souls (@DarkSoulsGame) February 9, 2022“We want to thank the entire Dark Souls community and the players who have reached out to us directly to voice their concerns and offer solutions. Thanks to you, we have identified the cause and are working on fixing the issue.”The statement continued: “In addition, we have extended the investigation to Elden Ring – our upcoming title launching on February 25 – and have made sure the necessary security measures are in place for this title on all target platforms.

Bandai Namco announced that it is going to expand what it calls the “IP axis strategy” to encompass the Metaverse.The Elden Ring publisher says that the main goals of the IP axis strategy are to “boost capability to create IP” via structural changes and to “invest aggressively in IP creation,” meaning original game ideas should be coming out of Bandai Namco over the next few years. The three points in the strategy are as follows (according to this document):A mid-term plan document (from April 2022 to March 2025) says the “IP axis strategy” will be the publisher’s biggest strength, and that it wants to connect with fans via the Metaverse.“On an IP axis, Bandai Namco will develop a metaverse for each IP as a new framework for connecting with fans.

Scarlet Nexus 2 may involve an “even more mature” perspective than its predecessor, according to game director, Kenji Anabuki.The news comes from an interview with Inverse. In the interview, Anabuki explains that while there have been no announcements regarding a sequel, he has some ideas. Crucially, he is interested in approaching the game’s superpowers in a “more mature” way.Anabuki explained how he “would personally want to utilise the ‘superpower’ theme in areas other than battles”.

PC version of Dark Souls 3, and it looks as though the same problem could hit Elden Ringunless resolved.The Remote Code Execution (RCE) hack essentially allows the potential attacker to execute arbitrary code on a remote device, meaning they can take control of a player’s PC. The full details of the RCE hack are still unknown, but the Dark Souls community has been aflame with warnings of the problem.This Twitch streamer appears to have suffered from an RCE attack, and a screenshotted post from a Dark Souls Discord (via The Verge) potentially reveals that the attack was done in a non-malicious way in an attempt to raise awareness of the issue.

The Dark Pictures Anthology has been announced, with The Devil In Me also acting as the season finale.Following on from Man of Medan, Little Hope, and the recently released House of Ashes, The Devil In Me follows “a group of documentary filmmakers who receive a mysterious invite to a replica of the ‘Murder Castle’ of H.H. Holmes, America’s first serial killer.