Gravity Rush 2 is, without a doubt, one of my most anticipated games of next year. As someone who purchased a PlayStation Vita just so they could play the first game, before buying it again at a later date when it was re-released on the PS4, I have to admit that I’ve been excited about this game ever since it was first announced.

Well, it turns out that you won’t have to wait until late January in order to try out a bit of Gravity Rush 2 for yourself. Sony has announced on the PlayStation Blog that it will be making a demo for the game available to the public starting from tomorrow.

This demo will be split into two separate courses, with one catering to new players and the other offering up a glimpse of some of Gravity Rush 2’s newer mechanics.

According to comments from representatives of SCEA and SIEE in the American and European PlayStation Blogs respectively, this demo build will be identical to the one shown off at E3, PAX and other gaming conventions. When I previewed this build of Gravity Rush 2 just last month, it took approximately 20 minutes to complete both of the stages that the demo has to offer, meaning that while it won’t take you long to finish off this preview, at least it will provide a decent enough opportunity to play around with some of Kat’s new abilities, including both the new “Lunar” and “Jupiter” styles of gravity shifting.

Alongside this announcement, Sony has also confirmed that the Gravity Rush Overture [The Animation] short by Studio Khara -- the company behind the Rebuild of Evangelion movies -- will be available to stream on YouTube starting from December 26. This short feature is intended to bridge the gap between the first and second Gravity Rush titles, and much like Final Fantasy XV: Brotherhood, is probably going to be well worth your time if you’re even remotely interested in the story of the game itself.

Star Wars Battlefront may not be the most fully featured game around, but it definitely covers a lot of the highlights from the original trilogy. Sadly, most of those highlights are locked behind a season pass, so many gamers won't ever have the chance to relive iconic scenes. For this weekend, in addition to hosting a double XP event, EA and DICE are letting players experience the Death Star DLC for free.

Starting on the 23rd and running until the end of Christmas, any interested players will be able to login to Battlefront and receive an immediate 5,000 credit bonus along with being able to enjoy the climactic battle of the Death Star. While two days isn't really a lot of time, jumping in for some after-holiday dogfights sounds like a fun time. If you're worried about downloading any large files beforehand, fear not; the Death Star DLC is contained in one of the numerous updates to the game, so you'll only need to search through the appropriate playlist to get started.

Star Wars: Battlefront – play the Death Star expansion free and get double score this weekend [VG24/7]

NIS is holding back Birthdays the Beginning for PC and PlayStation 4 until May 9, 2017 in North America and May 12, 2017 in Europe, and while this two-month delay won't affect many of us, I'll take any chance I can get to bring up this game. It seems so niche, but I'm all about its concept.

To sum up the basics, this is a sandbox game (did the image give it away?) where you are an overseer who can tinker with the geography and temperature of your world to sustain evolving lifeforms, from single-celled organisms to dinosaurs, woolly mammoths, bears, and beyond. It's in development at Arc System Works and Toybox Inc., with involvement from Harvest Moon creator Yasuhiro Wada.

Last week, we posited that even though everyone has an idea about Super Mario Run's first-day performance, that no one really had any concrete information to substantiate their claims. Although there's no doubt that the game was downloaded millions of times over the course of 24 hours, we'd have to wait for Nintendo to give us specifics. That time has come quicker than expected.

Nintendo put out a press release in Japan today to declare that Super Mario Run has been downloaded more than 40 million times in its first four days. Of course, those raw numbers only represent a fraction of the game's potential as it won't release on Android platforms until 2017. Nintendo also mentions that Super Mario Run reached number one in the free download games category in 140 of the 150 markets it launched in.

What Nintendo didn't note is how much money those 40 million downloads translate to. That's still something we'll eventually find out at a shareholders' meeting. Until then, anyone who reports an amount is just guessing.

iPhone & iPad向け『SUPER MARIO™ RUN』App Store最速・配信開始より4日間で全世界4,000万ダウンロード突破のお知らせ [Nintendo]

NieR: Automata is a big deal for me. It's an action-heavy game from Platinum, devoid of the baggage that comes with its recent deluge of licensed materials that seek a larger audience. In this era where niche products are generally shunned, I've been waiting to see a true action game from Platinum since Bayonetta 2.

Automata might shy away from some of the role-playing elements of its predecessor, but more importantly for me, it feels like a real Platinum joint.

As I've mentioned before, I get a charge out of watching something being built. This Legend of Zelda themed pool table isn't being built from the ground up, but it's really cool to watch how the team at Hand Prop Room transforms it into a custom work of art. 

You may want to skip to 1:55 since the host segment is incredibly annoying. That's when you'll start to see Lonnie Goodman and his team begin work on the customization. I'd recommend watching the rest of the video to see all the work that went into the final design, but you can skip to 9:45 for the reveal if you're feeling antsy.

From the sage symbols from Ocarina of Time on the sides to the felt with the map of Hyrule and the Hyrule and Lorule symbols printed on it, this billiard table is almost too pretty to play on. here's hoping it doesn't sit idle for seven years while the owner is locked in a time bubble. Dah nah na nahhhhh!

Pool Table fit for Legend of Zelda! [Awe.Me YouTube]

Pokémon Sun & Moon has been one of the top two selling games every week since it's release nearly five weeks ago. It slid into second place only in weeks where Final Fantasy XV and Yakuza 6 released, but then overtook them in the following weeks. This time the new game that has temporary taken Sun & Moon's throne is Yo-Kai Watch 3: Sukiyaki.

Sukiyaki opened up at over 337,000 sales across Japan, whereas Pokémon has yet to fall beneath 190,000 weekly sales and in fact increasing back up to more than 199,000 this week. Third place Super Mario Maker for 3DS saw it's sales boost by 50k this week up to 168,000, while Final Fantasy XV sales have decreased even further to just over 44,000 in its third week (over 79,000 last week).

Yo-kai Watch 3: Sukiyaki and also newly released Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball Heroes are likely reasons for the increase in both 3DS XL and 2DS sales this week, pushing it into the top spot on the hardware charts over PS4. The Vita also saw an increase thanks to the release of SaGa: Scarlet Grace.

Akiba's Beat also released this week, but sadly did not make the top 20. Shame because it seems like a fine game. It's poor showing hangs a dark cloud over the possibility of localization. 

When I sat down to watch Assassin's Creed for Destructoid's sister site, Flixist, I was the only one at the screening. The film just released today, yet its bad scores have scared folks away. Well, I'm here to tell you that those scores were mostly right. It's not as bad as its poor reception will lead you to believe, but it's not an accomplishment in any right. 

Here's an excerpt from the review: 

Assassin's Creed has been in the works for a long time. The videogame series' developer Ubisoft has been trying to get the project off the ground since 2011, but was marred with production and release date delays. When Michael Fassbender was cast as lead in 2012, he took it on as sort of a passion project. It was always so strange to me he'd choose a videogame adaptation to throw his weight behind, but the eventual additions of Marion Cotillard and Macbeth director Justin Kurziel gave the film a credibility other adaptations do not have. It's a shame we're left with such a huge disappointment. 

There's one point in Assassin's Creed where Fassbender's Callum Lynch says "What the fuck is going on here?" and I can't think of a better phrase to hang this review on. Assassin's Creed is such a handsome mess, it almost seems like a direct-to-video film with a good budget.

Read the full review here. 

[Header courtesy of Flixist Editor-at-Large, Hubert Vigilla] 

Xbox is closing 2016 with a sale that rivals Black Friday. It's called the "Biggest Sale Ever," and while we can't verify that's true, we can verify there are a whole lot of games that are discounted.

Actually, this sale might have the leg-up on Black Friday. Of the games that were featured in both promotions, a lot of them are a few bucks cheaper this time 'round. But, there's a lot of Black Friday stuff that isn't here now, replaced with different titles.

Here's how this promotion works: It technically starts on December 22, but it's live for Xbox Live Gold subscribers right now. Gold members get better prices, too. Anyone who's looking to buy anything but doesn't have Gold might want to consider buying one month of the premium membership for $1.

The Biggest Sale Ever runs through January 9, so there's plenty of time to make a decision. However, some of the deals end on December 26. Microsoft will surely add to it over time, but the initial selection is pretty fine lookin'.

There are also a good number of Xbox 360 titles, some of which are backward compatible. The people at NeoGAF have neatly listed all of those if you're interested. Here are all of the Xbox One deals thus far:

The next character confirmed for Heroes of the Storm is Zul'jin, the axe-throwing forest troll you might remember from Warcraft II or his later appearance in World of Warcraft. Admittedly, I had to think back for a moment, but looking at images of the wicked pixel art jogged my memory.

Zul'jin is set to debut in early January, and here's what you can expect from his kit:

It's only confirmed for Japan at the moment with a December 28 release date (and a cheap 500 yen price), but Drone Fight looks cooler than most of the third-party games released on the 3DS eShop lately.

It's part racer part action game, with the titular drones flying around very old school '90s Sega environments, with retro '90s Sega mechanical models. For under $5 US there probably isn't a whole lot to it, but I really dig the aesthetic. If it doesn't come here I'll have to download it on my Japanese 3DS!

Shame on me for underestimating Overwatch. For the longest time, I just assumed it'd be another Blizzard game, this time a shooter. I knew it'd be big, but in the exact same way all Blizzard games are big. You know, those PC games that the many diehards are really into, and the less-invested dabble while playing other things; eventually those latter folks separate entirely.

That's where my estimation was well off the mark. On the average, it seems like that player who's likely to move onto new things never really fully moved onto new things. They became more invested in Overwatch. They more eagerly awaited loot boxes, they more vigilantly stayed on the payload, and they more exasperatedly sighed when three teammates picked Hanzo.

Let me rivet you with a generalized anecdote that I can't quite remember the specifics of: In May, I found myself extolling the virtues of Zenyatta to a coworker while simultaneously hand-waving away whatever dumb character they liked playing as (probably Reaper). The exact context doesn't quite matter because it's just indicative of a broad theme, one that many folks experienced. Blizzard made people care about the characters in a shooter, and it made them care passionately. The roster would spark arguments that felt like sports fans smack-talking each other's teams.

Like, what other first-person shooter, a genre where you hardly even see the dang characters, can boast this?

To its credit, Blizzard has innovated in the seven-or-so months since Overwatch's release. There have been seasonal events and skins, new game modes, and new characters. But, it also feels like that innovation wasn't even completely necessary. The Overwatch community is passionate about all that new stuff, but if that didn't come along, they would've just stayed passionate about the original stuff. There's enough good here to last well beyond seven months.

It's a small sample size, sure, but the Destructoid staff is largely a group that fits this description. Even though there have been a ton of other games between then and now, most of us have stuck with Overwatch and there's no end in sight. That's why it's our PC Game of 2016. Because when we keep passionately arguing about our favorite characters, when we're enthusiastic about a multiplayer shooter months after release, when we legitimately care about upcoming additions, well, it's impossible to deny that Blizzard did something very right and created something very special.

In my attempts to keep up to date weekly with Heroes of the Storm's meta and getting back up to speed with Dota 2's recent talent overhaul, it's been tough to stay on top of League of Legends, but I still make time for all three.

Each game in that trinity provides something different, which is definitely the case for the two latest League Champions.

Overwatch's comic series, which attempts to add more backstory to the swathe of characters inside the team shooter, has just published its Christmas special. Alongside festive cheer, present-giving and the rest, the issue reveals that Tracer is gay. She shares a kiss with her partner after sharing presents, and that's about it. While Overwatch has insinuated that the game's cast may have more than one LGBT character, this is the first time it's been pointed out explicitly. It's all too explicit for Russia, and the country has banned the comic.

Via: Kotaku

Source: Twitter (@Malkythera)

It feels very weird to me to be reviewing a coaster sim in 2016. I had just always thought that it was a genre left to the past, and I was pretty okay with that. The days of staying over a friend's house and laughing as we made drinks free but bathrooms $10, or taking all of the people we deemed "jerks" and throwing them in a pit together were thought to be behind me.

Then a new Rollercoaster Tycoon game was announced, Planet Coaster started development, and even Parkitect started to take shape! While I'm still not sure we needed this revitalization of the genre, I can definitely say that I'm glad it's here.

Game director Jeff Kaplan has once again taken some time to candidly chat about Overwatch. While this video is a "year in review," the bulk of it actually has to do with 2017. What's Blizzard up to? Lots!

• The Control map Oasis, which is in testing on the PTR, should be finalized in early 2017.
• "We have some cool ideas for I think some [seasonal] events you might guess that might be coming, and some events that I don't think you have any ideas that we're working on. There will be some surprises there."
• Customization options for the communication wheel. "We're adding a control scheme to it that allows you to not only access additional voice lines (up to four you can have set on the wheel), [but] it will also allow you to access up to four different emotes as well." There's also a spray wheel (that can store four separate sprays and let you place one in the world at a time as per usual) in the works.
• Blizzard is looking to "strongly encourage" partied-up players to join team voice chat with a button prompt.
• Multiple heroes, of course. "We have one hero that I think is very promising. In fact, we've sort of started to move it through our art pipeline, which means we have a higher level of confidence in that than some of our other heroes. But we have some really fun prototypes, also."
• Expect to see new maps and modes, some of which will be traditional, and some of which will feel experimental. It's tough to say what all will see the light of day, but they're "trying new things with the maps and [they're] trying new game modes as well."
• Improvements for spectator modes and eSports coverage (e.g., a viewer map).
• A server browser for custom games, which, hell yes.

That's just a "small glimpse" of what's ahead, according to Kaplan. Overwatch is my favorite game of 2016, and with continued updates, I don't see myself getting sick of it anytime soon.

This year saw the release of the first monster-catching Pokémon title for phones (we're not counting Pokémon Shuffle, which is more monster-matching than monster-catching). What does it take to top one of the most popular franchises backed by millions of dollars? Whatever it is, Drinkbox Studios has it.

After the massively popular brawler Guacamelee!, the studio went in a different direction with it's action-puzzle dungeon crawler Severed. And it paid off! It has that slashy gameplay that works so well on touch screens along with that sharp cartoon art and animation that works so well on eyeballs.

Congratulations to Drinkbox Studios for making Severed, Destructoid's Best Mobile Game of 2016.

None of this is real. The rocks, the stars, the enormous transmitter standing upright like a needle. It's all a mixture of pixels presented by the Oculus Rift. As I stand on Mars, I urge my senses to surrender to the illusion. I long to be Matt Damon, growing potatoes in a makeshift greenhouse. In reality, I'm standing in a "scene" created by Linden Lab for Sansar, a new virtual-reality platform. A few feet to my left is chief executive Ebbe Altberg, standing in a dinosaur outfit. His avatar waves goofily, breaking my dream within a dream. I can't help but sigh, accepting once more that I'm just a virtual sightseer.

Although Japan got the jump with the announcement, the west is also getting the "Holiday Update" for Final Fantasy XV. In fact, it's already here, ready to download on PS4. It comes with a jumbled bunch of holiday items, and if you're a Season Pass holder, extra costumes and such. Some of it can't be used until the January festival update.

But the big drop is easily the New Game+ mode, which lets players start over with the same crew. So let's go over what transfers -- all weapons, magic and flasks, gil, AP, outfits, photos/fish/recipes, inventory/items, skills, and ascension grid progress. You will not be able to transfer the Regalia Type-F flying car, or the Ultimate Blade.

Other than wiping the autosave files for the right to start over, that all seems pretty fair. For now, you may as well just stay in Chapter 15 and do all you can in the postgame however, as no added difficulty modes or incentives have been implemented for New Game+ outside of the basic functionality. As I've said in the past, NG+ isn't a staple for Final Fantasy, so I never even expected it, but I'll take it I guess, if they can add onto it.

Final Fantasy XV [Square Enix via NeoGAF]

I have actually yet to play Overwatch, so I didn't have any expectations in regards to certain characters' backgrounds. Tracer being gay doesn't make me angry or feel cheated, I'm just happy that we can finally have an openly gay character not be defined by their sexual orientation. It doesn't make a lot of sense to shoehorn that into the actual game, so having it explained in a piece of external lore was tasteful, in my opinion. I guess not everyone would be happy with Tracer coming out of the closet, though.

According to a post over on Eurogamer (and confirmed by Blizzard), the Overwatch comic "Reflections" will not be releasing in Russia in accordance with their anti-LGBT laws. Anything that is seen as "gay propaganda" is deemed illegal and it doesn't seem like Blizzard is willing to fight with the Russian government over this. What should be noted, though, is that the comic wasn't banned, just that Blizzard decided to skip releasing it in the country.

Some of you may notice that this sounds awfully similar to a situation with FIFA 17 earlier this month and you would be correct. With that title, post-release DLC was made to promote the Rainbow Laces campaign and the Russian government took issue with it promoting a gay agenda. The game may even ultimately be banned, which is just insane. How is this happening in the modern era?

While I'm almost certain the comic would ultimately get banned if released, I'm mostly surprised that Blizzard didn't stick to its guns and push for a release anyway. I know it obviously cares a great deal about its IPs, but this almost seems as if it doesn't believe the battle is worth the effort. I suppose we can't change the laws of a government overnight, but staying quiet on the situation isn't how change takes hold.

Overwatch webcomic not released in Russia over gay character [Eurogamer]

Arguably the best Xbox One S console deal since Cyber Monday has emerged in a 24 hours offer at GameStop. The Xbox One S Gears of War 4 bundles, both the 500GB and 1TB versions, are at $50 off holiday price tags with a gift card bonus and a free controller. The controller is different, depending on which console you snag, but all told you get the $50 discount and up to $100 in bonus value with these deals. 

• Xbox One S 1TB Gears of War 4 Bundle + $30 Gift Card + JD Fenix Controller — $299.99
• Xbox One S 500GB Gears of War 4 Bundle + Controller + $30 Gift Card — $249.99

Shipping is free on the Xbox One S consoles, but if you want the consoles by Christmas you'll need to either fork over $19.99 for 1-day shipping or choose store pickup at checkout. 

The 1TB Xbox One S Gears of War 4 bundle gets you the Gears of War 4 "JD Fenix" controller which is an exclusive to GameStop and is always selling around the $70 mark. Add in the $30 Gift Card bonus, and this is the best overall value of the two, though but is $50 more than the 500GB console.

The 500GB Xbox One S Gears of War 4 console bundle comes in the hard-to-find "Deep Blue" color option. The White controller that comes included is about a $50 value (originally $60, but at many retailers there's discounts available). This is of course an extra controller, so you'll have two total when the console arrives.

Well-done online role-playing games tend to have a long shelf life, but the Asheron's Call series has lasted longer than most. It got started way back in 1999, and has lasted through three publisher changes, a shift to a buy-once model and even a full-on resurrection, among other tribulations. However, even classics have to call it quits at some point. Turbine has announced that it's ending support for both the original Asheron's Call and Asheron's Call 2 on January 31st, 2017. The series will be completely free to play for any account holder until then, but you won't get to create a new account to see what the fuss is about.

Source: Asheron's Call (Facebook)

Microsoft is getting its newly-acquired Beam livestreaming service ready for Xbox and Windows with a big new update rolling out today in beta. Beam's low-latency tech lets you rapidly interact with your favorite streamers, and even play along, compared to the more passive Twitch experience. It's improved the already-quick latency by five times, increased the max bitrate to 10 Mbps and now supports 60 FPS render speeds at up to 2,560 x 1,440 resolution.

Source: Beam

In 2005, Russian developer Ice-Pick Lodge released Pathologic, a psychological horror adventure survival role-playing video game that found huge success in Russia and was all but ignored in the West. A mostly-terrible translation and a lack of advertising rang its death knell, and it was largely forgotten.

Pathologic infuriates me, inspires me, and will probably always be a small gremlin that nestles itself comfortably in the lower recesses of my anxiety-ridden skull. Quintin Smith of Rock, Paper, Shotgun wrote about it in three parts (read these, savor them like small bits of meat stuck between your teeth) in 2008, the year I graduated high school. I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to grow up to do, and writing certainly wasn't on that list. But Smith's dissection and keen observational perspective infected me, stayed with me, and convinced me years later that, hey, maybe I did want to try this. So I'll always appreciate both Pathologic and Smith for that.

But around this same time last year, a review key for Pathologic HD came to my e-mail doorstep, staring at me and daring me to live up to what I wanted for so long. I had never played it, but had dreamed of immersing myself into this uniquely Russian grimworld of pestilence and coming out damaged in a way that I could chronicle and share and earn a showering of praise.

Instead, I found a husk of game barely held together with digital sinew, and after fifteen hours of suffering through it (this sounds dramatic, but this game is nothing if not a close examination of suffering, futility, and failure), I began cheating my way through it just to see the end. I invalidated every theme of the game by making myself invulnerable and able to fly through solid structures just because I was so fatigued by jogging across the town ad nauseam. Eventually, my patience went from thin to death-starved and I began to enter console commands that allowed me to teleport from questgiver to objective in seconds. I essentially robbed myself of really playing Pathologic.

And I didn't even write about it! To this day, this is the only review I simply abandoned. There are many preview appointments I've had at events that I never ended up writing about that sit with me forever, enveloping me in an instant cold sweat when I think of the time that was afforded to me that I didn't capitalize on. I promise you, writers spend 1,000% more time thinking about what they failed to write than what they have on the horizon. 

So fuck it, let's write about Pathologic: The Marble Nest, which Ice-Pick describes as "neither a demo (because it features a very limited number of mechanics), nor an alpha version of the real Pathologic (because it's a separate story with its own self-contained plot)."

We've only had one Sega Archive releases on 3DS in the west, but Japan is getting its third this week, and Famitsu has revealed an interesting little tidbit. Apparently, you can unlock Girls Garden and Champion Boxing if you have save data from the first and second game respectively, which are relatively lesser known, and important parts of Sega's history.

Girl's Garden was created by none other than Sonic co-creator Yuji Naka, and Boxing was created by Yu Suzuki, who would go on to craft the AfterBurner, Out Run, and of course, the Shenmue series. I've played Boxing before, but haven't checked out Girl's Garden yet, so if Final Stage ever arrives over in the US I have my save data ready (however that may work since the first compilation never came out here).

Sega [Famitsu via Nintendo Life]

Ah, Civilization VI. The game I love and, thankfully (for the sake of my free time and general well-being), I keep forgetting I have installed. "Don't believe its lies. It will eat your weekend."

The so-called Winter 2016 Update is out this week, and with it comes Good Changes (you can set up an alert for units to sleep until they spot an enemy; production costs for Space Race Projects are down by 40 percent), further balancing, AI tuning, fixes, and a pair of DLC packs, including a new civ.

As detailed in the overview video above, the monarch Jadwiga can now lead Poland in Civilization VI. Her standout benefit, and the one that has me seriously considering plunking down five bucks for access to the add-on, is this: when you complete an encampment or fort inside friendly territory, you gain adjacent tiles -- even if that means stealing territory right out from under another civilization.

Poochy & Yoshi's Woolly World is out in early February, and I feel like we don't know a whol lot about it other than that it's a port of the Wii U platformer from 2015. Thankfully there's this brief overview video to help people out if you're interested.

If you don't feel like watching it (I don't blame you), here's a quick recap. Mellow Mode, the chill difficulty, returns, but with an extra mechanic that allows you to take some Poochy Pups with you to uncover extra secrets. There's also "Poochy Dash" stages where you can earn extra beads, and the previously announced Yoshi pattern creation mode and theater mode. Oh, and of course, support for the Poochy amiibo, which is packed-in with certain versions and warps Poochy into any given stage.

I'm not sure if that's enough for me to double-dip, but it's there if you want to.