Bandai Namco zahájí 3 exkluzivní hry pro Nintendo Přepněte příští rok

Bandai Namco zahájí 3 exkluzivní hry pro Nintendo


Přepněte příští rok

Dnes jsme vám sdělili, že se japonský Bandai Namco rozhodl věnovat více výhod vývoji páteře Nintendo Switch v důsledku jeho solidního provádění a Mitsuaki Taguchi, předseda organizace, oznámil, že tento úspěch nebyl očekáván:


Tragicky jsme nepředpokládali, že přepínač by měl být uznán tak rychle.


Se svěřeným komentátorem Takashi Mochizuki z WSJ citoval prezidenta Bandai Namco, který potvrdil, že organizace bude od jara do léta 2018 vysílat tři selektivní odklony pro Nintendo Hybrid. gadget bez jemností.

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Practical Mobile Forensics: A hands-on guide to mastering mobile forensics

Practical Mobile Forensics: A hands-on guide to mastering mobile forensics for the iOS, Android, and the Windows Phone platforms

The exponential growth in smartphones has revolutionized several aspects of our lives. Smartphones are one of the most quickly adopted consumer technologies in recent history. Despite their small size, smartphones are capable of performing many tasks, such as sending private messages and confidential emails, taking photos and videos, making online purchases, viewing sensitive information such as medical records and salary slips, completing banking transactions, accessing social networking sites, and managing business tasks. Hence, a mobile device is now a huge repository of sensitive data, which could provide a wealth of information about its owner. This has in turn led to the evolution of mobile device forensics, a branch of digital forensics, which deals with retrieving data from a mobile device. Today, there is a huge demand for specialized forensic experts, especially given the fact that the data retrieved from a mobile device is court-admissible. Mobile forensics is all about using scientific methodologies to recover data stored within a mobile phone for legal purposes. Unlike traditional computer forensics, mobile forensics has limitations in obtaining evidence due to rapid changes in technology and the fast-paced evolution of mobile software. With different operating systems and a wide range of models being released onto the market, mobile forensics has expanded over the past few years. Specialized forensic techniques and skills are required in order to extract data under different conditions. This book takes you through various techniques to help you learn how to forensically recover data from different mobile devices with the iOS, Android, and Windows Mobile operating systems. This book also covers behind the scenes details, such as how data is stored and what tools actually do in the background, giving you deeper knowledge on several topics. Step-by-step instructions enable you to try forensically recovering data yourself. The book is organized in a manner that allows you to focus independently on chapters that are specific to your required platform.

Who this book is for This book is intended for forensic examiners with little or basic experience in mobile forensics or open source solutions for mobile forensics. The book will also be useful to computer security professionals, researchers, and anyone seeking a deeper understanding of mobile internals. It will also come in handy for those who are trying to recover accidentally deleted data (photos, contacts, SMS messages, and more). What this book covers Chapter 1, Introduction to Mobile Forensics, introduces you to the concepts of mobile forensics, the core values, and the challenges involved. The chapter also provides an overview of practical approaches and best practices involved in performing mobile forensics. Chapter 2, Understanding the Internals of iOS Devices, provides an overview of the popular Apple iOS devices, including an outline of different models and their hardware. The book explains iOS security features and device security and its impact on iOS forensics approaches, focusing on iOS 9-11. The chapter also gives an overview of the HFS+ and APFS filesystems and outlines the sensitive files that are useful for forensic examination. Chapter 3, Data Acquisition from iOS Devices, covers various types of forensic acquisition methods that can be performed on iOS devices, including logical, filesystem, and physical, and guides you to prepare your desktop machine for forensic work. The chapter also discusses passcode bypass techniques. Chapter 4, Data Acquisition from iOS Backups, provides detailed explanations of modern iOS backups and details what types of files are stored in a backup. The chapter also includes step-by-step guides on creating encrypted and unencrypted backups and introduces forensic tools capable of recovering data from backups. Chapter 5, iOS Data Analysis and Recovery, discusses the types of data that is stored on iOS devices and its most common locations in the filesystem. Common file types used in iOS devices, such as plists and SQLite databases, are discussed in detail in order to provide an understanding of how data is stored on a device, which will help forensic examiners to efficiently recover data from those files.
Chapter 6, iOS Forensic Tools, introduces you to the most widely used commercial mobile forensic suites, Cellebrite UFED, Belkasoft Evidence Center, Magnet AXIOM, and Oxygen Forensic Detective, and contains step-by-step guides on how to use them in mobile forensic examinations.

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The K'iche Indigenous Peoples of the World

The K'iche Indigenous Peoples of the World 

I heard Rigoberta Menchú speak for the first time in Toronto on February 6, 1988. That very day The Globe and Mail ran a travel feature with the headline “Guatemala in Style for a Mere $5 a Day.” Whether she or the organizers of the human rights conference she came to address noticed the coincidence, I don’t know. I suspect, however, that the image of Guatemala it projected would not have been to their liking. It is unclear from the piece whether the writer, Margaret Piton, had actually visited Guatemala: she provides the prospective tourist with a long list of enticements, but these are mostly culled from Paul Glassman’s Guatemala Guide. Piton packages Guatemala as cheap, romantic, and not to be missed by anyone interested in an exotic travel experience. She writes: The ideal travel destination would probably be a country with beautiful scenery, a spring-like climate, nice beaches, historic buildings and ruins, fine handicrafts, and low prices. Such a country does exist—and it isn’t on the other side of the world. Guatemala has all the above attributes and can be easily reached in a day’s travel. Piton goes on at length about the glories of Guatemala. Then, toward the end of her piece, she offers the following reflection: There is no such thing as a perfect travel destination and Guatemala, like every country, has problems. Poverty is widespread and petty theft is common in some areas—especially markets. Political violence flares up from time to time, although the situation seems to have improved with the present civilian government. The Guatemala that Rigoberta Menchú speaks of is far removed from the “low prices,” “beautiful beaches,” and “tasty, filling meals” that Margaret Piton writes about. Menchú’s message to the people gathered in Toronto’s Church of the Holy Trinity—that we live in a careless world, one that acts wantonly and forgets too easily—could not have been more opportune. Menchú first recounted the details of her life in Guatemala in an oral history given shape, structure, and the authority of print by Elisabeth BurgosDebray, a Venezuelan scholar who pieced together, in autobiographical form, interviews she conducted with Menchú in Paris in 1982. After the publication of her testimony in Spanish in 1983—an English translation, I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala, appeared a year later—Menchú began to travel across Europe and North America speaking about her beloved but tormented Guatemala. Her work as a human rights activist was instrumental in her being awarded the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize. An indigenous Guatemalan of K’iche’ Maya lineage, Menchú was twentythree years old when she and Burgos-Debray recorded her testimony. BurgosDebray recalls: Rigoberta spent a week in Paris. In order to make things easier and to make the best possible use of her time, she came to stay with me. Every day for a week, we began to record her story at nine in the morning, broke for lunch about one, and then continued until six in the evening. We often worked after dinner too, either making more recordings or preparing questions for the next day. At the end of the week I had twenty-four hours of conversation on tape. The transition from spoken to written word, Burgos-Debray informs us, involved two key stages: I began by transcribing all the tapes. By that I mean that nothing was left out, not a word, even if it was used incorrectly or was later changed. I altered neither the style nor the sentence structure. The Spanish original covers almost five hundred pages of typescript. Burgos-Debray then set about the tricky job of editing Menchú’s words in order to lend them narrative coherence: I soon reached the decision to give the manuscript the form of a monologue: that was how it came back to me as I re-read it. I therefore decided to delete all my questions. By doing so I became what I really was: Rigoberta’s listener. I allowed her to speak and then became her instrument, her double. . . . This decision made my task more difficult, as I had to insert linking passages if the manuscript was to read like a monologue, like one continuous narrative. I then divided it into chapters organized around the themes I had already identified. I followed my original chronological outline, even though our conversations had not done so, so as to make the text more accessible to the reader. The text created by Burgos-Debray, like that of most oral histories, is not without its flaws. Menchú is at times repetitious, obscure, vague, and inconsistent. She collapses separate episodes into a single event, mixing time and place in ways that incense academic purists, especially those who believe in the myth of objective social science. Collective memory is of necessity selective memory, subjective memory. Such ways of remembering are simply how the K’iche’ and other oral cultures operate. They are also, in large measure, the reason why Menchú’s testimony has such universal appeal: the voice that working with Burgos-Debray has given her speaks as much for an entire people as for one person. Her experiences in Guatemala also form the centerpiece of a documentary film, When the Mountains Tremble (1983). Soon after her week in Paris with Burgos-Debray, long before the heady days of the Nobel laureate, Menchú became an important cultural icon. This unusual status for a Maya woman is linked directly to the power of her testimony. Menchú begins by telling about her father, mother, brothers, and sisters, and about growing up not just in the remote highland village where she was born but also on plantations on the Pacific coast where her family, like most Maya families, spent part of each year picking coffee or cotton. The trip from the altiplano, or highlands, down to the plantations, known in Guatemala as fincas, is not one for a delicate stomach: I remember the journey by lorry very well. . . . The lorry holds about forty people. But in with the people go the animals (dogs, cats, chickens), which the people from the altiplano take with them while they are in the finca. . . . It sometimes took two nights and a day from my village to the coast. During the trip the animals and the small children used to dirty the lorry and you’d get people vomiting and wetting themselves. . . . The lorry is covered with a tarpaulin so you can’t see the countryside you’re passing through. . . . The stuffiness inside the lorry with the cover on, and the smell of urine and vomit, make you want to be sick yourself just from being in there. By the time we got to the finca, we were totally stupefied; we were like chickens coming out of a pot.
Time spent working on fincas, Menchú tells us, was followed by a spell serving as a maid in a well-to-do household. Menchú’s recollection of domestic service abounds in details of abuse and degradation: The food they gave me was a few beans with some very hard tortillas. There was a dog in the house, a pretty, white, fat dog. When I saw the maid bring out the dog’s food—bits of meat, rice, things that the family ate—and they gave me a few beans and hard tortillas, that hurt me very much. The dog had a good meal and I didn’t deserve as good a meal as the dog. Washing dishes and mopping floors, however, was not without reward, for it was in such exploited keep that Menchú groped toward a better knowledge of Spanish. Becoming fluent in Spanish changed her life. Following the example of her father, a community activist, in 1977 Menchú joined a peasant organization responsible for raising the political consciousness of rural workers. Being bilingual meant that as well as canvassing in her own and other K’iche’- speaking communities, she could travel throughout Guatemala and communicate with Spanish-speaking Ladinos who, in her words, “also live in terrible conditions, the same as we [Mayas] do.” By the late 1970s, as civil war between guerrillas and the national armed forces began to take a heavy toll, Menchú aligned herself firmly on the side of the insurgents, committed to revolution as the only means of achieving peasant demands for human rights and social justice. Counterinsurgency war has scarred Menchú’s life, like that of many Guatemalans, in horrific ways. Of a list of family members numbering fifteen, seven met their death violently, including her parents, Vicente and Juana. Her father was burned alive on January 31, 1980, in a blaze that gutted the Spanish embassy in Guatemala City when it was fired at by government security forces ordered to end a peaceful occupation by leaders protesting against repression in the countryside. Several weeks later her mother was kidnapped, beaten, and raped, left to die after being dumped by the army on a deserted hillside far from the Menchú family home: When my mother died, the soldiers stood over her and urinated in her mouth; even after she was dead! Then they left a permanent sentry there to guard her body so that no-one could take it away, not even what was left of it. The soldiers were there right by her body, and they could smell my mother when she started to smell very strongly. They were there right by  her; they ate near her, and, if the animals will excuse me, I believe not even animals act like that, like those savages in the army. After that, my mother was eaten by animals; by dogs, by all the zopilotes [vultures]. Menchú states that the soldiers stayed at the site for four months, “until they saw that not a bit of my mother was left, not even her bones, and then they went away.” In Crossing Borders, a sequel to I, Rigoberta Menchú published in 1998, Menchú informs us that her mother’s death occurred soon after she fled Guatemala for the safety of exile in Mexico. Of that last farewell, she writes: I will never get over the trauma of having left my mother so shortly before her death. It was my last chance to feel a mother’s warmth. If I had known, I would at least have paused to look at her, to gaze at her face for the last time. I would have tried, to the very last, to learn more about her. All I could think of in my misery was that I had to go away. Since the publication of her life story, Menchú has been criticized on the grounds of authority and accuracy by several commentators, most notably (and at greatest length) by anthropologist David Stoll in his book Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans (1999). Menchú reveals in Crossing Borders that Guatemalan historian Arturo Taracena “was the one who persuaded me to write my book.” Menchú took Taracena’s advice “because he had followed the whole story and thought it would be an injustice to a time and a people if we didn’t relate it.” She confesses, “After the text was compiled, I spent about two months trying to understand it,” and also divulges that “seeing it on paper is very different from talking into a tape recorder.” Menchú elaborates: I realize now how shy I was. I still am, but not as much as I used to be. In those days I was innocent and naive. When I wrote that book, I simply did not know the commercial rules. I was just happy to be alive to tell my story. I had no idea about an author’s copyright. I had to ask the compañeros in Mexico to help me understand the text, and it was painful to have to relive the content of the book. I censured several parts that might have been dangerous for people. I took out bits that referred to my village, details about my brothers and sisters, and names of people. That is why the book lacks a more specific identity and I feel it will be my duty to provide this before I die.

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Top 50 most anticipated games of 2019

Top 50 most anticipated games of 2019

Massive sequels like The Last of Us Part 2 and Red Dead Redemption 2 are likely to appear. Highly creative oddities like Where the Water Tastes Like Wine andWattam are moving up for release. Multiplayer games like Anthem, Crackdown 3and Sea of Thieves are looking to change the way we play collectively.

This list was put together by the whole Polygon team and is, of course, subjective. Let us know, in comments, which games you’re most looking forward to in 2018.

ANTHEM

PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox One

BioWare/Electronic Arts

Set in a lush, alien world, BioWare’s open-world monster shooter embraces loot drops, as players seek to upgrade exosuits and weapons. With the game targeted for launch in the fall, there’ll be a heavy emphasis on in-game events and shared-world, squad-based challenges.

ATTACK ON TITAN 2

Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox One

Omega Force/Koei Tecmo

Koei Tecmo’s combat game is based on the second season of the anime series, in which human-eating giants attack fortified cities. According to the game’s developers, this sequel to the 2016 original will feature more story and more options for players who like their enemies to be super tough. It’s set to arrive in March.

A WAY OUT

PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox One

Hazelight/Electronic Arts

Created by Hazelight Studios, led by the man behind the superb Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, this two-player co-op game is about two men trying to break out of prison. It’s set in the early 1970s and makes use of a variety of gameplay set-ups, such as shooting, driving, crawling and solving other physical problems. It’s out on March 23.

BATTLETECH

PC

The original BattleTech’s creator, Jordan Weisman, is heading up the team behind this latest take on mech combat. It’s a turn-based strategy game, which attracted more than $2.7 million on Kickstarter. Players assemble a team of mechs, and train up enough pilots to create a cohesive fighting force.

CONCRETE GENIE

PlayStation 4

Announced at Paris Games Week, this pretty game comes from the makers of Entwined. It’s about a teenage artist who explores his gloomy hometown, using a magic quill to create living art in order to defeat a gang of bullies.

CRACKDOWN 3

Windows PC, Xbox One

Originally scheduled for release in 2016, this oft-delayed open world game is all about mayhem and destruction in city environments. If you like to break skyscrapers, this is probably for you, especially in multiplayer environments where destruction is more free-flowing than in the campaign.

THE CREW 2

PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox One

A sequel to Ubisoft's open-world auto-racer from 2014, this isn’t just about racing cars. Pretty much anything with an engine is on offer, including airplanes, dirt bikes, boats and high performance sports cars on closed tracks. The open-world street racing of the original is also included.

DARKSIDERS 3

PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox One

Gunfire Games/THQ Nordic

In this third-person platform hack-n-slash, players take on the role of Fury, an “unpredictable and enigmatic” member of the Four Horsemen. Fury wields a magical bladed whip, while she explores colorful, post-apocalyptic environments, solving progression puzzles along the way.

DETROIT BECOME HUMAN

PlayStation 4

This choose-you-own-narrative game is a stacked matrix of potential outcomes, based on a world in which androids serve humanity. Created by David Cage (developer of Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls), it's a story that tries to put the player in the role of storyteller.

DRAGON BALL FIGHTERZ

PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox One

Arc System Works/Bandai Namco

Arriving on Jan. 26, Dragon Ball FighterZ is a 2.5D fighter from Arc System Works. It tasks players with forming a team of fighters, based on characters from the Dragon Ball anime series, and controlling one of them in turn. Combo sequences yield special upgrades, such as health regeneration.

DREAMS

PlayStation 4

Media Molecule

From the makers of LittleBigPlanet, this gorgeous world stars a little imp who travels through impressionist landscapes, solving puzzles via item collection, physical abilities and possession of other characters. The game’s campaign is designed to encourage sharing of player-created game worlds, while the real meat looks to lie in those creation tools.

EXTINCTION

PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox One

Iron Galaxy/Maximum Games

Developer Iron Galaxy is best known for fighting games like Killer Instinct andDivekick. But Extinction is all about battling 150-foot ogres as they stomp and destroy various locations, including cities and forests. The player must also save quaking humans from the incoming menace, so there’s a lot of exploration and route-finding. It’s out on March 31.

FAR CRY 5

PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox One

The latest installation in Ubisoft’s open world combat series takes place in rural Montana, where a demagogue is controlling the local population. Players tool up with weapons, gadgets and vehicles to take down enemy outposts using stealth, smarts and brute violence. It’s out on March 27.

FE

Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox One

Zoink

Developed by Swedish outfit Zoink, Fe is a symbolic personal fantasy that brings to mind powerful games like Journey and Shadow of the Colossus. It stars a fox-like creature who seeks to protect the forest by enlisting animal allies through audible calls.

THE GARDENS BETWEEN

PC, PlayStation 4

Voxel Agents

Two friends explore surreal islands, manipulating time to solve puzzles. Each island is littered with giant-sized versions of everyday objects: video game consoles, walkie-talkies, recycling bins, soda bottles, Jenga blocks and more. It’s being developed by The Voxel Agents.

GOD OF WAR

PlayStation 4

Sony Santa Monica

In this rebirth of a much-favored PlayStation franchise, big brawler Kratos has evolved into a doting dad. This doesn’t mean he goes all soft on the giants and monsters he fights. It just means his kid comes along for the ride. Developed with strong action-RPG overtones by Sony’s Santa Monica studio, it’s scheduled to arrive in the next few months.

JURASSIC WORLD EVOLUTION

PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox One

Frontier Developments

Frontier Developments’ dinosaur park management sim lets players run their own Jurassic Park, bio-engineering new dinosaur breeds while building attractions, containment facilities and research labs. It will likely launch in the summer, around the time the movie, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, hits theaters.

KINGDOM HEARTS 3

PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Square Enix

Celebrating its umpteenth appearance in ‘games to watch this year’ stories, Tetsuya Nomura’s adventure features characters from Disney and Pixar in a grand and colorful adventure involving jumping, shooting, casting magic and fighting against enemies, big and small.

KIRBY STAR ALLIES

Nintendo Switch

Nintendo

In this first new Kirby game for Switch, our rotund hero is joined by up to three teammates in a sideways-view platform game. In trailers released by Nintendo, Kirby is seen combining abilities to create attacks with the entire party, while using teamwork to solve puzzles.

KNIGHTS AND BIKES

Windows PC, PlayStation 4

Foam Sword

The first release from new outfit Foam Sword Games carries high expectations. It’s being created by team members with a history at Media Molecule, and the game’s vivid art style shows those roots. It’s a puzzle adventure set in a childhood world reminiscent of The Goonies.

THE LAST OF US PART 2

PlayStation 4

Naughty Dog/Sony Interactive Entertainment

Set five years after the original, this post-apocalyptic combat adventure is played through Ellie, a character who was originally a sidekick. With anticipation for this title so high, developer Naughty Dog hasn’t revealed much about the game, but we can expect it to be good-looking and extremely violent.

LEFT ALIVE

PlayStation 4, Windows PC

Square Enix

Former Metal Gear character designer Yoji Shinkawa is involved in this Square Enix shooter. Judging from the limited gameplay we’ve seen in trailers, Konami’s series is a definite influence. With the game set in the Front Mission universe, there’s a hint of stealth action as players try to take down giant mechs.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS LCG

Windows PC

Fantasy Flight Interactive

This single-player and cooperative multiplayer card game is a digital release based on the successful Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. It’s going for the market dominated by the likes of Hearthstone, although card-packs aren’t random, instead being based on known combinations.

MECHWARRIOR 5: MERCENARIES

Windows PC

MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, announced at MechCon a year ago, will be the first MechWarrior game with a single-player campaign in more than 15 years. It’s being developed by Piranha Games, best known for MechWarrior Online. Players take control of giant mechs in first-person shooting matches, with four-player co-op supported.

MEGA MAN 11

Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox One

Capcom

Capcom’s latest addition to the long-running series is a side-scrolling action platformer in the vein of the previous Mega Man games, but with 3D visuals. Working on the title are producer Kazuhiro Tsuchiya and director Koji Oda, both veterans of Capcom and the Mega Man series.

METAL GEAR SURVIVE

PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox One

Konami

This survival spinoff of Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes is the first Metal Gear game to be released since the fraught divorce between Konami and Hideo Kojima. It takes place in an alternate reality, where members of Big Boss’ Militaires Sans Frontières have been transported off-world via wormhole. The planet on which the soldiers now find themselves is infested with crystalline zombie-like creatures.

METRO EXODUS

PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox One

4A Games

Starting in a grim wasteland version of Moscow, inhabited by mutants, this sharp-looking shooter picks up where Metro: Last Light ended. Players will eventually leave Moscow and explore new regions offering unfamiliar settings. Friendly faces from previous entries in the series also reappear.

MINEKO'S NIGHT MARKET

PC

Meowza Studios/Humble Bundle

An indie game from Meowza Games, this Animal Crossing-like adventure is bursting with cuteness. Players inhabit a land of cats, as they go about managing a market stall: exploring, crafting and collecting resources.

MONSTER HUNTER: WORLD

PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox One

We had a hands-on session with Capcom’s game earlier this year, as well as a longer play session, and came away deeply impressed. Monster Hunter: Worldfollows the series’ tracking-and-hunting formula, but with useful additions to weapons and crafting as well as seamless maps. It’s out on consoles on Jan. 26, with the PC version coming later.

NI NO KUNI 2: REVENANT KINGDOM

PlayStation 4

An updated and expanded combat system might make this story-based RPG appealing to players who found the original heavy going. But the core value of Studio Ghibli-like animation and tone is still there. Developed by Level-5, this game is the story of a boy king who teams up with allies to reclaim his throne.

RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2

PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Rockstar’s Western-themed action game will likely be one of the year’s highest grossing hits. It’s a prequel to the 2010 release. Players take on the role of an outlaw as he ranges around an open world, raising hell on horseback.

RETURN OF THE OBRA DINN

PC

Lucas Pope

Created by Lucas Pope, maker of Papers, Please, this startlingly monochrome mystery game is set aboard an abandoned 19th century ship. The player takes on the role of an insurance adjuster who explores the vessel to find out the fate of its crew.

RAILWAY EMPIRE

PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox One

Gaming Minds/Kalypso

This strategy world-building game spans the history of steam locomotives in the United States, beginning around the 1830s and lasting for another 100 years, until the coming of diesel engines. It’s out on Jan. 26.

SEA OF THIEVES

Windows PC, Xbox One

Rare’s squad-based adventure takes place on the high seas, where players cooperate as pirates: steering, shooting, pillaging and looting. It’s an ambitious project, to be sure, but we’ve had fun playing the game whenever it’s been on show. It’s out on March 20.

SHADOW OF THE TOMB RAIDER

Unconfirmed title

Rise of the Tomb Raider

 Crystal Dynamics / Square Enix

The name of this game has yet to be confirmed, though teasers and leaks make a convincing case that Lara Croft’s next adventure uses the word “shadow” in its title. Announced late in the year, this game is promised to be released relatively soon. Square Enix says it wants a shorter waiting period between first introduction and arrival. The last Tomb Raider game was released two years after it was first announced. A new Tomb Raider movie is also coming out in 2018.

SOULCALIBUR 6

PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox One

Bandai Namco

After years of teasing, publisher Bandai Namco announced the long-awaited sequel in its weapons-based fighting game series a few weeks ago. It’ll be released in time for the series’ 20th anniversary. The first Soulcalibur came to arcades in 1998, so it’s fitting that this game will pay homage to the original, in terms of combat design and characters.

SPIDER-MAN

PlayStation 4

Insomniac Games/Sony

Insomniac’s first foray into a licensed game is an open-world combat, stealth and parkour title, making use of Spider-Man’s special abilities. Comparisons have been made with Batman’s much-loved Arkham series, which makes liberal use of varied set-piece events. The game is being built on a modified version of Sunset Overdrive’s engine.

STATE OF DECAY 2

Windows PC, Xbox One

Undead Labs

Four-player co-op was the main thrust of Microsoft’s E3 presentation for State of Decay 2 this year, as players worked together to survive a zombie apocalypse. The first State of Decay, also from Undead Labs, launched back in 2013 and was well-received.

SYSTEM SHOCK

PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Nightdive

Nightdive’s remake of the 1994 first-person sci-fi classic opens up some areas in the original as well as tidying up dialog and filling plot holes. Built on Unreal Engine, the game raised more than $1.3 million on Kickstarter.

TENNIS WORLD TOUR

PlayStation 4

Breakpoint Studio

Tennis World Tour is being developed as a spiritual successor to 2K Games’ Top Spin franchise by people who worked on that series at 2K Czech. It features licensed professionals like France’s Gaël Monfils and Switzerland’s Roger Federer.

TRAVIS STRIKES AGAIN: NO MORE HEROES

Nintendo Switch

Grasshopper Manufacture

No More Heroes is returning as a Switch exclusive. Grasshopper Manufacture’s combat game will once again star Travis Touchdown, the star of the previous No More Heroes games. The first one launched back in 2007 on Nintendo Wii, while a sequel followed in 2010.

TROPICO 6

PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox One

Limbic Entertainment / Kalypso

The latest entry in Kalypso’s political management simulation is going to be tougher than its 2014 predecessor. As a dictator, it’s the player’s job to keep warring factions happy, lest they gang-up and throw a coup. Political speech-making also makes a return, offering opportunities for the sort of fatuous, dishonest self-aggrandizement loved by tinpot authoritarians.

TOTAL WAR SAGA: THRONES OF BRITANNIA

Windows PC

Creative Assembly/Sega

Earlier this year, Total War developer The Creative Assembly announced plans to create a spinoff series of its historical strategy games, focused on pivotal moments in history rather than whole historical eras. This first entry is all about the Viking attacks on Britain.

VALKYRIA CHRONICLES 4

PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Sega

Distinctive watercolor visuals are coming back with a new story in this Japanese RPG series. It takes place in a war, vaguely reminiscent of early 20th century conflicts, on the continent of Europa. It features a new class of soldier, the grenadier. The game is sticking to its roots of a turn-based, strategy-style battle system.

VAMPYR

PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox One

Dontnod Entertainment

Dontnod’s Vampyr is a third-person action role-playing game set in 1918 London. Players take on the role of a physician called Jonathan Reid who is also a vampire. Reid goes in search of victims, scoping out targets. But he has a conscience, so players can choose carefully who they wish to kill, and can even play the game without killing anyone.

WANDERSONG

Nintendo Switch, PC

Greg Lobanov

A side-scroller with a combat system driven by music, Wandersong stars a bard who defeats enemies and solve puzzles using his singing voice alone. We took a look at the game earlier this year, and came away impressed with its Night in the Woods vibe.

WARGAMES

Windows PC

MGM/Eko

Sam Barlow, the creator of Polygon’s 2015 game of the year, Her Story, is working on a re-imagining of 1983 Cold War thriller WarGames. Set in the modern world, the narrative choices game stars a hacker called Kelly who has the skills to ask difficult questions about how safe we are in a world dominated by computer networks.

WATTAM

PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox One

Funomena

Wattam, the next game from Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy creator Keita Takahashi along with studio Funomena, is all about friendship. Players take on the role of a town mayor who solves puzzles and befriends flowers, rocks, vegetables and weird stuff, creating an exploratory world of color and movement.

WHERE THE WATER TASTES LIKE WINE

Windows PC

Created by former The Fullbright Company developer Johnnemann Nordhagen, this game draws influence from novels such as Grapes of Wrath and On the Road, as well as folk songs. It’s about exploring a dream-like alternative America, meeting characters along the way

YOSHI

Nintendo Switch

The last Yoshi game released by Nintendo was Yoshi’s Woolly World in Oct. 2015 for the Wii U. Announced during E3, this new title offers a familiar world where our old, adorable pal runs through a series of levels, interacting with items along the way. However, the player’s view can be flipped, to see anything hiding behind objects. Nintendo has yet to announce a final name for the game. 

A FEW USEFUL NOTES

• This selection of games is predictive. It is highly likely that a significant number of these games will be delayed. We’d guess about one-in-five of them will not make it this year.
• Publishers are increasingly likely to announce games just a few months before release. This means that some big games, as yet unknown, will be coming in 2018.
• Equally, some major games have been announced, but the publisher / developer has made no indication that they are coming out in 2018. So we left them off this list.
• For reasons of brevity, we’ve not included sports franchise iterations, straight reissues, compilations, ports and games that are already out in some form.
• Please let us know what you’re looking forward to playing in 2018.
• Have a wonderful 2018, from all of us at Polygon!

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