This week, it was announced that Stellar Blade sold a million copies, which has us optimistic we’ll see a sequel to ShiftUp’s much-discussed hack and slash. Something we definitely won’t be seeing is a PlayStation presence at gamescom 2024, which definitely doesn’t have us feeling particularly optimistic about Concord, the multiplayer FPS that Sony’s publishing that same week. A massive video game event with hundreds of thousands of attendees sure seems like a good spot to demo a brand new live-service game, but hey, what do we know? Helldivers 2 launched just fine without. Then again, is it fair to compare Helldivers 2 and Concord? They’re both Sony-published multiplayer live-service games that are hitting PS5 and PC day and date, but they’re clearly very different. One is a shameless knockoff slash heartfelt love-letter to Starship Troopers, a 27-year-old cult classic, that has a very clear idea of what kind of video game it is, while the other seems to be equal parts Guardians of the Galaxy and Overwatch, but combined in a way that’s ambitiously blending an ongoing narrative with multiplayer live-service. In other news, after all our grousing and moaning during the Ubisoft Forward post-show about Ubisoft’s failure to acknowledge Beyond Good & Evil in any way… they just released a 20th Anniversary 4K remaster of the game, with a bunch of bonus content and quality of life improvements. Why wasn’t this announced during that week when everybody was making big announcements? We don’t know. But here’s what we do know: Elden Ring is a good video game, so we’re gonna talk about that, and if you’re avoiding Shadow of the Erdtree spoilers, don’t worry, you’re probably farther along than most of us. Which is your favorite farming spot, Ball Hill or Bird Cliff? Sound off in the comments. This week’s Beyond is Max Scoville, Jada Griffin and one-man band/producer/panelist, Tom Jorgensen.

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