PS5 Pro Pre-Orders, Dragon Age: Veilguard Advice, And More Hot Tips Of The Week

Image: Sony, BioWare, Xbox, Konami, Square Enix, René Rother / Devolver Digital, Screenshot: Larian Studios / Kotaku, Coal Supper / Kotaku, Sega / Kotaku, Sega / Kotaku

It was quite the week in gaming, from impossible-to-secure pre-orders of the newly announced PS5 Pro, to huge sales on major Capcom and Xbox games, to confirmation about which of your Dragon Age choices will carry over to Veilguard. As always, we covered them all, and now they’re in one spot here for you perusal. Click through for the best tips, tricks, and advice in gaming for this last full week in September.

Image: Sony

The PlayStation 30th Anniversary Collection looks great. A lot of people seem to think so. And when retro nostalgia collides with rabid console fandom, things tend to sell out quickly. Pre-orders begin at 10:00 a.m. ET (7:00 a.m. PT), with fans able to hop into a virtual queue as early as 9:00 a.m. Here are some steps you can take to try and get the jump on scalpers. - Ethan Gach Read More

Image: BioWare

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is changing how players carry over choices from previous games. BioWare’s fantasy RPG series has previously followed in the footsteps of Mass Effect and let you import your world state so you could have some continuity in your Dragon Age II and Inquisition playthroughs. This could include choices like if you sided with a faction in a holy war, or smaller decisions like who you smooched while trying to save the world. Dragon Age II read your first game’s save file, and Inquisition had a separate online app that let you meticulously flag nearly every decision, big and small, on the off-chance that they might be relevant in a future game. The Veilguard is making things a bit more simple and will just ask you about a few key decisions in the character creator. - Kenneth Shepard Read More

Image: Xbox

One perk of PC gaming is that the big two console manufacturers keep releasing their best games on Steam, so we don’t have to pick between one or the other. A little over a week ago, PlayStation had its own big sale that slashed prices on games like God of War and Marvel’s Spider-Man. Now it’s Xbox’s turn to give PC players some great deals. Yup, the Xbox Spotlight Sale runs until September 27 and is the perfect time to pick up games starring Master Chief and more. - Willa Rowe Read More

Image: Konami

It’s Tokyo Game Show time, but if you’re like me and can’t make the trip out to Japan, many of the big game publishers attending are putting their catalogs on sale to celebrate. Konami is one such publisher currently hosting a Steam sale, and looking through its library of discounted games has revealed what a weird publisher it’s always been. Sure, Konami’s got Metal Gear Solid, but it’s also got a lot else, most of it weird and off-kilter or retro as all hell, and it kind of rules. - Moises Taveras Read More

Image: Square Enix

It seems PlayStation is holding some huge sale just about every month at this point. We already had one big round of deals a couple of weeks ago and here we are with even more! That’s right, PlayStation’s Big Games Big Deals sale began on September 25 and offers up some incredible deals on some of the best games around until October 9. With so much to choose from, let’s run through which sales you should take advantage of first. - Willa Rowe Read More

Screenshot: Larian Studios / Kotaku

Baldur’s Gate III is a massive game, and a huge amount of its content isn’t plot-critical. This means, moving about the world organically, you’ll likely miss a lot of the best quests! Some are cleverly hidden, others require special stat checks or certain prerequisites to be met before you can reap the rewards, and it’s all too easy to just walk past them, never even knowing they were there. To address this, I’ve highlighted some of my favorite hidden quests you may have missed on your first playthrough. - Brian Barnett Read More

Image: René Rother / Devolver Digital

Of all the games I’ve played this year, Children of the Sun is far and away the most hostile. This trippy shooter follows The Girl, a survivor of The Cult’s abuses, as she takes her revenge on them and The Leader. Yes, those terms are all capitalized properly, Children of the Sun sees fit to give these characters the proper noun treatment, as if to build authoritative institutions out of them while keeping each vague enough for the player to substitute any real name and person into the game’s simplistic analog for institutional violence. The Girl could be any number of survivors who have unfortunately been at the behest of many a Cult and/or Leader. - Moises Taveras Read More

Screenshot: Coal Supper / Kotaku

I’ve written off most of the humor in games. Maybe tons of it is funny to the millions of players outside of myself, but most of it misses the mark for me. Instead, I often find humor in the random conversations me and my friends have when we play games together, or the shenanigans we sometimes get up to. Recently though, there’s been an uptick in games taking a more tactful approach to comedy; rather than a shotgun spread of zingers and Whedonisms—which have their place but have unfortunately oversaturated the market—there are some games now dialing into particular niches and styles of humor that go underappreciated or unrepresented in games, like Tactical Breach Wizards or even AAA heavy-hitters like the Like A Dragon series. Thank Goodness You’re Here, which is currently going for $16 on Steam, is one of those games, and thank goodness for it, because it’s utterly ridiculous in the best way possible. - Moises Taveras Read More

Screenshot: Sega / Kotaku

Metaphor: ReFantazio makes no qualms about scaring you in its early game. You can’t handle the fierce monsters in the opening area, the first boss will nearly kill you, and that Captain Klinger guy…okay, maybe he’s not that scary. The point is, when you see a huge dragon in front of you, you may feel inclined to heed your companion’s fears that such a beast is too much for you. But if you’re a fan of treasure—which I’m sure you are—that would be a mistake. - Timothy Monbleau Read More

Screenshot: Sega / Kotaku

Yesterday saw a surprise demo drop for Persona developer Atlus’s latest game, Metaphor: ReFantazio. The enormous fantasy RPG is due out October 11, but roughly six hours of the game are already available, across consoles and PC. Except, it turns out that PC version isn’t working out so well. - John Walker Read More