ICYMI: a weekly news round-up of the biggest gaming news from TrueTrophies and beyond

By Kes Eylers-Stephenson,

Welcome to ICYMI for this week! Here, we will break down the news into three categories: Kes will take on the PlayStation News, Luke will be writing up the General Gaming section, and Tom will give you the lowdown on The Other Side of the fence with Xbox news. Enjoy!

PlayStation News

After the studio announcements and indie drama of last week, the last few days have seemed very quiet. Even the State of Play live stream was a little understated, though still good. All the same, plenty to dig into from Monday to Friday!

The Planet of the Discounts sale is live, and we need your picks! If you explain your highlights of the sale in the comments, you may be featured in a future article. Get involved.
This week's poll is now live! It's all about the State of Play from earlier in the week, so feel free to cast a vote for your favourite game of the event!
The PlayStation Gameplay Chart featured Scarlet Nexus breaking into the rankings, while PS5 stock might be back on the rise.
The PlayStation Now games for July were confirmed by Sony and includes the massive Red Dead Redemption 2.
We now pretty much know that Days Gone developer Bend Studio is working on a game that features multiplayer.
Death Stranding: Director's Cut was detailed with a new State of Play trailer. It looks like a great version of the game with all the extra content and the graphical makeover.
Sifu is where the indie love comes in. The kung-fu brawler has been delayed, but the new trailer is an unstoppable beauty. You will be hearing a whole lot more about it from us.
Moss: Book II was also in fine fettle this week, with a trailer that has an eye-catching sense of art direction.
Returnal has been getting plenty of updates and the latest one is designed to help you with the platinum.
Among Us has got a rumoured release date for PlayStation, but we are sceptical.
For a little extra homework, TGP reported on a Yle.fi interview with Housemarque's CEO Ilari Kuittinen. The TGP translation says that there was huge competition for the studio from America, China, and Scandinavia. That could mean Microsoft, Tencent, and Embracer Group/THQ North were vying against Sony, suggesting at the PlayStation manufacturers has to snap up the Finnish Studio as fast as possible.

The TT Take: It wasn't ever going to be quite the bomb that last week was, but plenty of small things to keep us ticking over. The State of Play was filled to the brim with great games along with Deathloop and a sensibly priced upgrade for Death Stranding. We actually kind of loved it. Without the big dogs from PlayStation Studio's portfolio taking up all the oxygen, it was nice to see the indies come out to play. The games all looked like they were worth dipping into, which is a rarity at most showcases. The news that Bend is working on a game with multiplayer components was interesting because PlayStation rejected a Days Gone 2 pitch that apparently had co-op components. Perhaps there is a bit more openness for projects under Hermen Hulst's reign. The news about Sony having to finagle Housemarque away from other parties is interesting because it does point to the fact that the games industry is consolidating into a few large groups. Sony grabbing Housemarque might have been the only way to keep them making PlayStation games. A positive week, all in all!

General Gaming

Brand new community event Jake Jump was announced, both here and over on TA. It starts next week, so sign up now to join in the fun!
Shortly after the news leaked, Ubisoft confirmed that it was working on Assassin's Creed Infinity — a multi-studio collaboration that represents a change in direction for the franchise, with some sources suggesting a live service model.
Frostpunk's DLC packs, which have been available on PC for some time, are finally coming to console on July 21st.
Respawn detailed Apex Legends' Thrillseekers event, which is starting next week.
EA finally set a date for the FIFA 22 reveal... and it's today! Or it was, if you're reading this after July 11th.
We got our first look at Tails of Iron, in which we'll play as a medieval rat warrior fending off the evil Frog Clan. This looks so good.
The Nacon Connect event (seriously, NaConnect was, like, right there, guys...) gave us fresh looks at Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, Steelrising, and more.
We got our first look at Black Ops Cold War's new Zombies map, Mauer der Toten, which drops next week.
EA shot down rumours that it was planning to start placing TV-style adverts in its games.
Several industry insiders dropped the first few morsels of GTA 6 info, suggesting a 2025 release date, modern Vice City setting, and evolving map a la Fortnite. Bring your own salt.
NetherRealm confirmed that DLC support for Mortal Kombat 11 is done, with the team now fully focused on a new project.
Minecraft suddenly became an R-rated game in South Korea, with players needing to be 19+ to have an Xbox Gamertag and log into the evergreen survival game. Wild.

It's been a bit of a weird week... pretty slow for the most part, but peppered with juicy titbits about some of the biggest games in the business, like GTA, FIFA, CoD, and Assassin's Creed. Mostly rumours and early info, sure, but those are still some pretty bix boxes ticked either way. When there's not much in the way of major news, there's always more room for indies to breathe, and that's great to see — Tails of Iron, Crown Trick, Blackwind, and Omno all look fantastic, and it's been nice to see them get some time in the spotlight in the lull after the major players did all their shouting at E3. Similarly, it's cool to see brand new community events, so I'm looking forward to getting stuck into my backlogs on both PlayStation and Xbox for Jake Jump, and to seeing what you all make of it, too. Should be a blast. Personally, I've been oblivious to most of the news this week (well, at least I would if been if it wasn't literally my job to read it) as I've been glued to Summer Games Done Quick, but the good news is that I've got loads of great runs to catch up on, since so many were scheduled in the middle of the night local time. Speaking of which, time to go watch some more speedruns...

On The Other Side

The post-E3 news train is slowly gaining traction, even if it's at a snails pace. That hasn't stopped us from finding the silver lining on those metaphorical Xbox clouds and digging out some fun articles!

Xbox Series X|S owners were graced with the support of 60fps support for Dark Souls 3, thanks to Xbox FPS Boost.
The Xbox FanFest Halo 3 virtual tournament was announced, offering $25,000 worth of prizes to participants.
Sean used achievement (and trophy) data to put together a fun article that questions whether players are good or evil. Of, course it was only for a bit of fun — but that makes it no less interesting.

As is always the case with the month following E3, the news is extremely quiet when it comes to Xbox this week. That doesn’t mean we haven’t had some interesting bits and bobs to talk about, though. The Xbox news of the week has to go to Dark Souls 3, interestingly enough. Using the power of FPS Boost in Xbox Series X|S consoles and a collaboration between Xbox, FromSoftware, and Bandai Namco, Dark Souls 3 now runs at a silky smooth 60fps, which is pretty cool news for fans of the game on Xbox. Speaking of fans, Microsoft announced the upcoming Halo 3 virtual tournament for Xbox FanFest in celebration of Xbox's 20th anniversary. Participants will be in for a chance to compete in 2v2 knockout games in the hopes of taking a cut of the winnings — prizes total $25,000. Last, and certainly not least, Sean put together a great article using TA data to pose the question: Are gamers evil? Of course, using the achievement data isn't an exact science and everything within the article is only for a bit of fun, although interesting, nonetheless.

That was your lot for the week! Quite enough, we think! Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Community News

Written by Kes Eylers-Stephenson

Editor Kes is our resident expert in PlayStation and other gaming news. He writes about exclusives like The Last of Us and Horizon, PS Plus news, and his favourite games — The Witcher, Assassin’s Creed, and God of War — before an evening swim.