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The Music of The Last of Us: Gustavo Santaolalla

Eric Monacelli — Fri, 17 May 2013 17:00:02 +0000

When pre-production started in earnest on The Last of Us there was a folder of music files featuring work by some of the preeminent musicians in video games, television, and film. These tracks held a sampling of the ideal musical quality, direction, and tone we wanted to have for the project. The Academy Award winning work of Gustavo Santaolalla appeared multiple times. Being that he had never composed for video games before the thought of getting him to work on The Last of Us seemed a bit farfetched. He was approached by our music group at Sony and, well, this video will tell you the full story about the man himself and how he came to work on The Last of Us:

We are honored to have Gustavo’s music and talents in our game. The texture of Gustavo’s musical score serves the game’s narrative and the music is rife with poignant, descriptive and intimate sounds. His work is unlike anything heard in a video game before. It’s a beautiful, haunting, sonic landscape that makes the game’s themes more emotionally resonant and emphasizes thoughtfully how Joel, Ellie, and all the characters in the game perceive the world around them. It’s a masterful musical score.

Want a sampling of the sonic delight Gustavo crafted for The Last of Us? Visit the Sony Music Soundtracks SoundCloud set. If you pre-order the game, via the Sights & Sounds DLC pack, you’ll get full access to the official digital soundtrack. The soundtrack is also available for purchase as a CD via the Sony Masterworks label. The Last of Us arrives June 14th, 2013.

Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection Hits PS3 July 9th

Dalton Link — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:39:56 +0000

From the frozen Alaskan tundra to the jungles of Russia, the Metal Gear series has covered nearly every corner of the globe, with a story spanning over 50 years of history and four generations of consoles. And for the first time in series history, every core title will be available in a single box, starting July 9th, 2013 on PS3.

Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection contains every canon Metal Gear release to grace PlayStation platforms from 1998′s Metal Gear Solid to 2008′s Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots to 2011′s Metal Gear Solid HD Collection* — all for $49.99. Perfect for newcomers or collectors looking for rare titles like Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions or the Metal Gear Solid digital graphic novels, this is the most massive Metal Gear release ever created with something for every infiltration expert to enjoy. All of this is included in a lovely new package that includes a 100-page art book containing rare marketing art from around the globe!

Want to start at the beginning of the series? Boot up Metal Gear Solid 3: HD Edition and play the original (updated) MSX versions of Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. Want to jump straight into the story of Big Boss without touching the original PSone and PS2 Classics? (A weird decision, but who am I to judge?) Pop in Ashley Wood’s beautiful digital graphic novels for MGS1 and MGS2 (first time ever released outside of Japan!) to get caught up with all the events of the Shadow Moses Incident and Big Shell. Did I mention it includes VR Missions? Three words: playable Gray Fox.

War has changed, and it has never been easier to join the fight. Keep an eye out for the release of Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection, in stores July 9th, 2013. You can pre-order now at Amazon.

*(containing Metal Gear Solid 2: SONS OF LIBERTY, Metal Gear Solid 3: SNAKE EATER and Metal Gear Solid: PEACE WALKER)

BEYOND: Two Souls: What Did You Miss at Tribeca?

Derek Osgood — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:22:25 +0000

As I’m sure many of you know, on April 27th, BEYOND: Two Souls was featured in a historic screening at Tribeca Film Festival, which was live-streamed right here on the PlayStation Blog. So far, over 3.2 Million of you have tuned in to watch the presentation! The full video is still live on YouTube, but we know not everyone has time to watch a 1.5 hour presentation; and even more of you are concerned about accidentally stumbling upon spoilers. Our solution? We made a “Tribeca Film Festival Highlights” video for you, so you can re-live the show in just a couple minutes!

BEYOND: Two Souls was also featured yesterday on Tribeca Film Festival’s “Future Of Film” blog, and will be making ongoing appearances on their site as they continue the discussion around how BEYOND: Two Souls is further blending the worlds of film and gaming.

Everything you’re seeing in the gameplay shown at Tribeca Film Festival is under the control of the player in some way shape or form, and the story evolves based on decisions and actions the player takes. In the coming months, we’ll definitely be highlighting much more clearly just what that means, so stay tuned!

We hope you enjoy the show, and remember to get out and pre-order your copy today! Pre-ordering at GameStop will get you a nice package of exclusive goodies too.

Hands on with The Last of Us: Whatever it Takes

Sid Shuman — Fri, 17 May 2013 07:01:06 +0000

I’m low on ammo, so I clumsily swing my two-by-four at the incoming Clicker — dumb move. The creature sinks its fetid teeth into my jugular, chirping with malevolent glee as it rips out a gobbet of flesh. Arterial blood spurts across my face, now contorted in shock and agony.

I’m dead. This time, I try a different approach. I combine one of my remaining rags and a precious bottle of alcohol to create a Molotov cocktail, then hurl it towards the abomination. Flames envelop the lumbering shape as it wails and collapses, dead at last. I’m alive – for a little while longer.

The Last of Us isn’t afraid to kill you, over and over if need be. And that’s a big part of its considerable charm. As you struggle to survive the game’s inhospitable world, limping from one nail-biting combat scenario to the next, you’ll feel strangely alive and alert. In an era of game development that — at least to this old-timer — tends to babysit players with tutorials and handholding to dial down any chance of frustration, this game’s unapologetically tough-as-nails approach feels both refreshing and quietly revolutionary. Remember when games used to kill you? Naughty Dog does.

Later, I’m ambushed in a bombed-out store by a mob of coldhearted killers — human in name only, and no less dangerous than the infected that prowl the streets. I assess my arsenal: just three shotgun shells and a handful of 9mm rounds. Using the dim lighting to my advantage, I duck behind a counter and drop a nearby gunman with a blast of buckshot as Ellie runs for safety. With the shooter out of the way, I lunge for a pair of nearby attackers and subdue them with a series of wild haymakers. Grabbing a nearby two-by-four, I rush the survivors and bludgeon them into submission. I rendezvous with a nervous Ellie and we move on — though to what, only Naughty Dog knows.

That’s The Last of Us. You do what you need to do and you keep moving. It’s out June 14th, and I think you’re gonna like it.

Black Ops II Uprising Out Today: Mob of the Dead, 4 New Maps

Dan Amrich — Thu, 16 May 2013 17:06:27 +0000

How often in life do you get a second chance? If you’re an online Call of Duty player, well, that’s pretty simple – you get one every time you press Square to respawn. But the concepts of return, reinvigoration, and redemption all play into Uprising, the second map pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops II, which is available today on PlayStation Network.

To start, Uprising features four new maps for Black Ops II multiplayer matches:
Vertigo, the top of a Tacitus mega-structure that’s so tall, it breaks the cloud layer; Magma, a small Japanese village that has been engulfed by the lava of a nearby erupting volcano; Encore, the performance stage and surrounding grounds following a London music festival; and Studio, a re-imagining of the Call of Duty: Black Ops Firing Range, offering chaotic combat over several movie sets on a Hollywood backlot.

Studio is a particular point of pride here, as it’s a re-imagining of Firing Range, which fans of the original Black Ops still eagerly choose in multiplayer lobbies. Its compact design and varied lines of sight – sniper perches, blind corners, tight alleyways – make it popular, but thematically, the original level is a bunch of plywood targets, purpose-built for training soldiers. Not only does the level look a lot more colorful now with the addition of crashed spaceships, animatronic dinosaurs, a pirate harbor, and a miniature monster-movie set, but these visual landmarks make it even easier to communicate. When a teammate calls out “there’s two in the pirate cove” or “I’m heading to the saloon,” there’s no confusion in the sitreps. And when you work together as team, you’ll find you don’t need second chances quite so often.

For Mob of the Dead, the question isn’t so much “how often in life do you get a second chance” but “how often in death?” Alcatraz is the setting for this star-studded adventure, as four gangsters – played by Ray Liotta, Michael Madsen, Chazz Palminteri, and Joe Pantoliano – seek to escape one of the world’s most infamous prisons. But as you might expect, the bars and cells aren’t the only things standing in their way. Zombies – the ultimate benefactors of a second chance! — have taken over the island prison, so these wiseguys will have to battle the undead if they’re going to make it out. New perks like the wittily named Electric Cherry offer players some shocking new gameplay mechanics, as does the new Afterlife Mode, which lets interact with your environment and solve puzzles despite having just had your existence expire. But like I said…a second chance is something you should never take for granted.

Uprising is available now on PSN for $14.99, but if you are the owner of a Black Ops II Season Pass, you already own it – just download it from the in-game Store menu.

Atomic Ninjas Storm PS3, PS Vita Later This Year

Jakub Mikyska — Thu, 16 May 2013 16:34:13 +0000

Hello Everybody!

This is Jakub from Grip Games! We’re the folks behind 5-in-1 Arcade Hits, The Impossible Game and Foosball 2012. And after being locked up in our top secret underground lab (A.K.A. the garage) for some time, we’re back with our newest creation – Atomic Ninjas! For PS3 and PS Vita.

So, what’s this all about, you ask? Atomic Ninjas is 2.5D multiplayer platformer with ninjas. You will control super-powered ninjas in frantic online matches against other players, with tons of charm and humor. If the Fat Princess and Crash Commando had a child, it would be Atomic Ninjas (though the idea is a bit disturbing, no?).

While the game relies on traditional jumping and shooting mechanics, you will be unable to directly kill other players. Instead, you must outsmart and outflank your opponents and kill them using various environmental hazards and obstacles, such as lava pits, laser beams, traps, moving platforms, falling crates, etc. Don’t forget that these are Atomic Ninjas… something as banal as a katana between ribs won’t do the trick anymore!

Each one of the game’s seven arenas is like a playfield with an infinite number of possibilities to eliminate the competition. There are pick-ups, crates, lifts, air vents, levers, ninja-launchers, hiding spots and traps for you to experiment with. The most malicious players will be the most successful ones. Atomic Ninjas is not just about twitch reflexes, but also about malevolent creativity, playfulness and exploring the game’s possibilities.

We have a plenty of game modes in the bag for you, like Deathmatch, Capture the flag, Treasure hunt and many others, including team-based competitions. Each ninja will be able to use super-powers, such as invisibility, flying, or telekinesis, to add another tactical layer to the matches.

But there is also a lot of humor that is typical of our games. The game’s graphics are bright and colourful, boasting a “blocky” visual style and comical presentation, mixed with slapstick brutality.

Split-screen multiplayer matches and single-player offline matches against bots are also supported. Players on PlayStation 3 will be able to play against players on PlayStation Vita and save files will be automatically synchronized between the two systems, if you are using the same PSN account.

Atomic Ninjas will be released exclusively for the PlayStation Network this summer.

I hope you are going to like and enjoy Atomic Ninjas just as much as we do! Check our website, or give a social visit on Facebook and Twitter for a stream of new content and information about Atomic Ninjas. We will also keep posting new updates here on the PlayStation Blog. See you soon!

Diablo III: Conversations With Creators

Lylirra — Thu, 16 May 2013 16:00:33 +0000

Deep within Blizzard Entertainment’s secret underground game development compound, a team of modern day blacksmiths and alchemists has been hard at work reforging a legendary game experience for an all-new legion of heroes. Once finished, this finely-tuned version of the bestselling Diablo III will transport PlayStation gamers to a dark and dangerous world of fast-paced action, thrilling adventure, and piles upon piles of epic loot. Pour yourself a flagon of your favorite brew, kick up your boots, and feast your eyes on this Diablo III developer diary, part of PlayStation’s “Conversations With Creators,” an ongoing series featuring numerous industry-leading game studios.

In this video, you’ll hear from three of the developers behind Blizzard Entertainment’s action role-playing epic: Production Director John Hight, Lead Designer Joshua Mosqueira, and Senior Designer Jason Bender. Together, they’ll explain how bringing the game to PS3 and PS4 has empowered them to viscerally transport players into the foreboding, demon-besieged world of Sanctuary by putting the action in the palms of their hands.

According to the team, the most critical component of the Diablo III experience on the PlayStation platform is the controller. That’s where the player develops a relationship with the character on the screen. Blizzard developers believe that “control is king,” so with Diablo III, that has translated to “the controller is king.” From a player’s perspective, there’s a fundamental difference between indirect control, with a mouse cursor, and direct control, which can be achieved with a PlayStation controller. In this video, they highlight key reasons why this method of interaction truly drives home the excitement offered by this genre-defining action role-playing game.

It’s desperate times, and innocents have been caught between the forces of the High Heavens and the Burning Hells. If you’d like to learn more about how you can do your part to save humanity, visit the official Diablo III community site and interact with other heroes of Sanctuary on Facebook and Twitter. To receive the Infernal Helm, an exclusive in-game item that grants an experience point boost to any character who wears it, preorder Diablo III for PlayStation 3 today.

Watch_Dogs: Behind the Scenes with PS4′s Rule-Breaking Action Epic

Fred Dutton — Thu, 16 May 2013 15:01:55 +0000

As with any jump from one console generation to the next, PlayStation 4 owners will expect to see hardware that sits at the very cutting edge of innovation, offering unparalleled processing power and an arsenal of exciting new features.

However, the onus on game developers to bring bold new gameplay innovation to the table is every bit as integral to that generational leap, and it’s a responsibility that the whipsmart team behind Ubisoft’s future-tech open world action title Watch_Dogs are really tearing into.

As detailed in our coverage last week, the game’s core conceit – that its central hero, hacker Aiden Pearce’s primary weapon is not a gun, but an entire city – is one of the boldest, most ambitious ideas to come along in some time. To find out more about the game’s attempts to re-write the action rulebook, PlayStation.Blog sat down with the game’s creative director Jonathan Morin.

PlayStation.Blog: What was the first seed of an idea that later grew into Watch_Dogs?

Jonathan Morin: It started as a conversation. Four years ago we were talking about humans exchanging their lives and their details through their phones, and about how that could change our everyday lives.

When you make a new game where the mandate is broad and you have the right to create something new, you want to make sure that the people around you are all working on a subject they’re passionate about – something they really want to explore. So listening to those conversations helped come up with ideas. Like, “we all want to dig into these issues, so let’s try it out.” As the conversation grew, we started to add crazy ideas, like the profiler, and when you start prototyping those things, that’s when it explodes.

PSB: You started development four years ago. To many people, that might seem like a very long time to devote to one game…

JM: Well, there’s always a conception phase where there’s not a lot of people involved. We were only 10 for a long time, then we were 20 or 30. You need a certain kind of people – people who like to dig into subjects and research, try elements out and be comfortable with failure. Those were the kind of people we had.

It was a long process to define what was going to be special about the game. It was pretty early on when we ended up talking about controlling an entire city. The traffic light hack was one of the first prototypes we did. That really generated an emotion. “Woah, what? Can I do it on the other one too?”

That’s the kind of thing where you say to yourself “the promise of doing this is insane.” But you need to make it real and build a system around it that works. So those four years became a big challenge for some very smart people.

PSB: The core idea of having a whole city as your weapon is hugely ambitious – were you ever forced to make compromises to make the concept work in practice?

JM: Not really. There’s no real compromise there. It’s a very broad subject and had a tendency to create an infinite number of ideas when you brainstorm it. There’s a moment when you have to say “let’s stop here, let’s not go there”.

I don’t see that as a compromise, I see that as a necessity. If you want to make a game that has quality and in which everything reacts with each other in an elegant way, the only way to pull it off is to understand the barriers.

Constraint can be seen as a negative from the outside, but when you’re on the inside, having clear constraints helps people produce ideas faster. The constraints are re-assuring. This is where we stop. Then the rest is like, if there’s a subject that is bigger than just one game and there are a lot of ideas, and it’s successful, well… that’s not a problem, it’s a good thing.

PSB: And what about Aidan Pierce? How did his character take shape?

JM: One of the big things about Aidan Pierce is that he’s very street smart. We had a lot of conversations about that. It sounds straightforward, but very early on we looked at a game like Assassin’s Creed and how characters are and how they move. One of the things we felt was missing in every game was contextualisation. All those guys feel like robots. They move in the same way regardless of the situation.

Can we change that? Someone who is smart and is supposed not to attract attention to himself is going to walk in a certain way, and is going to be aware of his surroundings. So we put a lot of effort into that contextualisation. And that influenced everything, especially his look.

Like his mask. If there’s press and media in the game universe, he needs to react to it. Contextually he’s going to put his mask on when he starts doing bad things so that he’s not noticed.

The hat? He doesn’t want to be seen, so he can pull the brim down – like all those actors in Hollywood trying to avoid the paparazzi. They always have caps on. It’s cool, it’s different. The hoodie has been done to death.

The coat – same thing. It hides a lot of his body and he can hide things underneath. It’s also a cool way to interact with the wind physics and create nice continuity of movement. It creates a second wave of movement. It feels a lot more realistic for the player.

It sounds very easy and smart but it took years to have these ideas. Iteration upon iteration.

PSB: Can you talk a little about the ‘PS4 difference’? How does next-gen enhance your game?

JM: The experience is the same. We’re not removing anything from the core experience on either platform. We’re not eager to create a game for a machine. We’re making a game because we think it’s cool. When you create an idea you shouldn’t base that idea only on what’s possible or impossible to do on a machine. If you do I don’t think you’re doing the right thing.

When PS4 showed up, there was definitely a portion of the game we could push forward – the wind simulation, the water, the realisation of certain AI behaviours. So those elements are magnified versions of the core experience in the next gen.

PSB: What aspect of PS4 has surprised or excited you most?

JM: One thing I like about the PS4 is its philosophy, which from a creative perspective is an important thing. I think the next generation of games will be more than ever at the service of the player. Players are now the ones who drive what next gen should be. They’re connected all the time. The way they live their lives are different. So we need to pay attention to how society changes to give them a form of entertainment that is a natural extrapolation of that. I think that Sony understands that.

PSB: I know you’re leaving your big multiplayer reveal for another day, but can you talk in general terms about how you’re approaching that part of the experience?

JM: You can play single player or multiplayer in the game. You’re always in your own session. If you’re playing alone, you’re playing alone. So it means there are millions of people alone in their own sessions. We’ve simply added the ability to merge those sessions together at the pacing of our choice.

You can be free-roaming and naturally getting into some kind of activity that makes you intertwine with another player. You interact with them, then you’re done and it goes away. It’s not like you have someone in your game the whole time who can mess with your game, but it’s definitely the beginning of a solution to tackle those taboos.

Players often worry that another player is going to come into their game and break their experience. That’s an old school statement. We need to fix that, and it’s a design problem, not a technical problem – how do you bring two players together and let them interact in a way that’s pleasing?

One thing I can say is that when we watch people play together in Watch_Dogs, most of the time they don’t even realise that it was another player. There are no signs. There is a great thing there that someone can be in the experience and naturally enter a situation. They become part of the story. “That was another player? No way! That’s awesome!” They didn’t notice. That’s spectacular!

As a developer, I can immediately tell when it’s another player in a game – jeez, that guy doesn’t walk like an AI, that’s a player. But in Watch_Dogs, players won’t notice that immediately. It’s a new form of emotion and it fits perfectly in the Watch_Dogs universe where everybody watches everyone else.

GT Academy 2013 Kicks Off in July with Gran Turismo 6 Demo

Penrose Tackie — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:01:46 +0000

Buckle up, Gran Turismo fans – our annual GT Academy competition will return for a fifth season this year, and it’s set to be the biggest yet, with more countries than ever before participating.

The online gaming element of the competition gets under starter’s orders this July via a demo of the just-announced Gran Turismo 6 exclusively on PlayStation 3.

Since it began in 2008, the acclaimed virtual-to-reality competition has attracted over two million entries, with gamers and motor sport fans battling it out in Gran Turismo for the chance to become real Nissan racing drivers. Six former winners of the competition, which now runs in Europe, the USA, Germany, Russia, the Middle East and South Africa, are now Nismo Athletes competing in top-level motor sport on behalf of Nissan.

Nissan’s Director of Global Motorsport, Darren Cox, revealed the plans for GT Academy 2013 today at the famous Silverstone Circuit, at the same event where Kazunori Yamauchi announced Gran Turismo 6.

“At its core GT Academy remains a highly-accessible route into professional motor racing for people who would otherwise not have the opportunity. Unearthing genuine driving talent from the world of gaming is a real example of digital age performance and the innovation for which Nissan is famous.

“We are predicting that more people than ever will enter the competition this year on the stunning new GT6 demo.”

Kazunori Yamauchi, President of developer Polyphony Digital, added: “GT Academy is a fitting platform for the Gran Turismo community to preview GT6 for the first time, as we aim to bring the worlds of virtual and reality closer than ever.

“We are very proud of this partnership with Nissan, and we have aimed to make a very appealing and accessible competition featuring a range of their cars. The challenges, even at this early stage of the competition, are designed to improve people’s race craft before they even make it to driving real cars.

“We have also incorporated the Silverstone circuit for the first time in Gran Turismo. This should ensure that competitors will arrive at Race Camp better prepared than ever.”

Winning GT Academy is a passport to a career in global motorsport, with Lucas Ordoñez (2008 winner) and Jann Mardenborough (2011 winner) racing at the 2013 Le Mans 24 Hours for Nissan Nismo.

The latest graduates Wolfgang Reip from Belgium (European winner), Mark Shulzhitskiy (Russian winner), Steve Doherty (US winner) and Peter Pyzera (German winner) are currently competing in the Blancpain Endurance Series in a pair of Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 cars.

The format of GT Academy sees the fastest PlayStation gamers from each country join winners from a number of live events to compete in their respective National Finals. The action will then make the transition from the virtual world to real Nissan sports cars when the winners of each national competition are invited to take part in the intense international final at Silverstone Circuit, now the established home of the GT Academy Race Camp.

The winners of each of the GT Academy competitions will then be put through an intensive and thorough Driver Development Program, rated among the best in the world, in order to qualify for the ultimate competition prize – a full season racing a Nissan GT-R GT3 Nismo in a top-level championship.

Details of how to enter GT Academy 2013 can be found on Facebook, Twitter and the official Gran Turismo site. Good luck!

Gran Turismo 6 Unveiled, Out This Holiday on PS3

Penrose Tackie — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:00:40 +0000

Greetings PlayStation.Blog. Today we’re really excited to announce that Gran Turismo 6 will be released Holiday 2013. The news was revealed today by legendary GT creator Kazunori Yamauchi himself at our Silverstone event held to celebrate 15 years of the 70-million-selling series.

GT6 for PlayStation 3 will see many enhancements, improvements and additions to the game. bringing new levels of authenticity to ‘the Real Driving Simulator’. Features revealed today include stunning new tracks and cars and an overhauled user interface. There’s also a new engine, which will improve game operation. Meanwhile, we are set for expanded connectivity with other devices, and increased social and community functions.

The cars and tracks from Gran Turismo 5 — which has now sold over 10 million copies since launching in 2010 — will return in GT6, but notable new additions will bring the car lineup to over 1,200. Players will also be able to customize their rides to a greater extent than ever before.

Amongst the track line-up, the UK’s famous Silverstone Circuit will be just one of seven new locations in Gran Turismo 6, taking the total to 33, with 71 different layouts available — 19 of them brand new. This already impressive lineup of cars and tracks will be added to by future DLC drops beginning after launch.

Enhancements and improvements also extend to a much-improved course maker function, which will provide several kilometers of gorgeous scenery, including the magnificent backdrop of Andalucía. The course maker will also include a new GPS data feature, which will increase the freedom of track creation in the game.

“It is amazing to think that it is 15 years since we first released Gran Turismo,” said Kazunori Yamauchi, during the announcement at Silverstone Circuit. “Things have changed a lot since then and now Gran Turismo 6 is a further evolution of my dream. We’re pleased to deliver GT 6 to PlayStation 3 as we have a very loyal community on that platform. However, we have refactored the game to make it very flexible and expandable, with a view to making many future developments.

“I am very pleased with everything about the new game and the new additions, but the launch will only be the beginning for GT6. The game will continue to develop throughout its life. I already have many ideas for things I want to achieve in the next 15 years of Gran Turismo!”

Further news about Gran Turismo 6 will be revealed at the forthcoming E3 and Gamescom events, and on www.gran-turismo.com.