Star Wars Outlaws hyperspace jumps onto PLAY’s cover
Plus: Star Wars’ gaming legacy, Astro Bot’s PS5 return, the power of cosplay, Immortality behind-the-scenes, and more!
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a little movie called Star Wars helped to shape pop culture as we know it, just as the gaming medium was beginning to gain momentum too. From inspiring Final Fantasy games to having games of its own, it’s helped define the current gaming landscape in which we find ourselves.
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Star Wars Outlaws
Star Wars Outlaws is the culmination of all those years, and also the first non-EA Star Wars game to be released on console following that company’s near-decade-long exclusive right to the licence. While going hands-on has shown it to be a great game in its own right, it also marks the start of a bold new future for the sci-fi series’ gaming ambitions.
Star Wars' gaming legacy
Having a clearer picture of that legacy can help us appreciate what’s to come, though, so we set the co-ordinates to blast through the whole thing, charting all the Star Wars games that have come before. Make sure your hyperdrive motivator is running smoothly, though, as there’s a lot to dig into!
Summer Game Fest
We return from Summer Game Fest to tell you all about it. Three years in, does the in-person Play Days live up E3’s history? We also unpack PS5’s future, and get into what Concord, Astro Bot, and Lego Horizon Adventures mean for the future of the console.
Plus: talking FFXIV: Dawntrail with Naoki Yoshida, The Last Of Us 2’s second TV season, Starship Troopers Extermination heads to PS5, “sometimes choosing to do the right thing isn’t the best choice overall”, and more!
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Following the thread
Designers, artists, and community managers talk the importance of cosplay when creating worlds, and how to embrace fandom.
Immortality
Sam Barlow talks fairy tales, film history, and building Immortality. From ‘the V word’ to the art of the insert shot, we unpack the live-action gaming milestone.
Metaphor: ReFantazio
There’s nothing metaphorical about some of the great games we’ve gone hands-on with this month… Except for Metaphor: Refantazio, that is, purely because of the title. This ambitious evolution of Atlus’ RPG formula is set to impress.
We also get into the ring with both Fatal Fury: City Of The Wolves and 2XKO. Old school meets the new school, and while both take vastly different approaches toward becoming new, modern fighters, they’re both shaping up to be excellent challengers.
Crow Country
Talking about old school, Crow Country leads the reviews section this issue. Smartly updating PS1-era survival horror mechanics with an eye-catching diorama-like style, it’s a short but sweet horror treat!
Plus: SaGa: Emerald Beyond, Indika, System Shock, Eternal Threads, and more!
RetroStation
Skull & Bones came and went like a ship in the night, but there’s no missing Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. Thanks to the boistrous, loud sea shanties there’s never any chance of forgetting about it, making it prime for revisitation this issue.
We also celebrate 20 years of Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga, give our gaming hands a workout with G-Police, as well as spotlighting other past favourites.
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Games Editor Oscar Taylor-Kent brings his Official PlayStation Magazine and PLAY knowledge to continue to revel in all things capital 'G' games. A noted PS Vita apologist, he's always got his fingers on many buttons, having also written for Edge, PC Gamer, SFX, Official Xbox Magazine, Kotaku, Waypoint, GamesMaster, PCGamesN, and Xbox, to name a few.
When not knee deep in character action games, he loves to get lost in an epic story across RPGs and visual novels. Recent favourites? Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree, 1000xResist, and Metaphor: ReFantazio! Rarely focused entirely on the new, the call to return to retro is constant, whether that's a quick evening speed through Sonic 3 & Knuckles or yet another Jakathon through Naughty Dog's PS2 masterpieces.
Hogwarts Legacy 2 is "coordinating" its plot with the HBO Harry Potter series as WB says the open-world game helped "unlock" the franchise after Fantastic Beasts flops
Star Wars Outlaws devs are promising so many good improvements that I'm starting to feel bad about playing and liking this open-world game at launch