Daily Briefing: Monday 6th September

Horizon Forbidden West will get free next-gen upgrade after all

The change in policy, which was officially confirmed by Sony over the weekend, comes in response to some pretty fierce backlash from fans who were unhappy at the game's dual console entitlement being locked behind fancy editions costing upwards of $80. Writing on the official PlayStation Blog, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan outlined that "it's abundantly clear that the offerings we confirmed in our preorder kickoff missed the mark."

• Part of the reason for the outrage, on top of the whole money issue, was that Ryan promised in an interview last year that Sony would pursue free upgrade paths for first-party cross-generation titles including Horizon Forbidden West. A lot of people accused Sony of walking back this promise, but Ryan confirmed in his blog that the company "will stand by our offer." He also outlined that, going forward, all first-party cross-gen titles (both digital and physical) will offer a $10 digital upgrade option from PS4 to PS5. This will include God of War Ragnarök and Gran Turismo 7.

Alan Wake Remastered coming in October?

That's according to Twitter user Wario 64 who noticed a listing for the remastered project at retailer Rakuten Taiwan. The listing contains an October 5th 2021 release date on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. This is just the latest leak for the game though it does bear reiterating that it hasn't actually been officially confirmed just yet.

• Official confirmation notwithstanding, there is a decent chunk of the gaming community clamouring for an Alan Wake remaster. The original launched way back in 2010 on PC and Xbox 360, so this rumoured remaster would mark the series' first appearance on PayStation platforms. A remaster would make a lot of sense, too, seeing as another rumour is that a sequel is on the way as part of a collaboration between Remedy Entertainment and Epic Games.

Stardew Valley creator is focusing on new game, unsure of further updates

The inaugural Stardew Valley Cup was held at the weekend because apparently the quaint, cosy slice-of-life farming sim is an eSport now and creator Eric Barone was on hand to close the festivities with a quick Q&A session. Barone briefly mentioned that he has a couple new character ideas in mind for Stardew Valley, but quickly clarified that fans shouldn't expect any new updates anytime soon as "right now I am focused on my next game."

• This very much sounds like Barone is prioritising his mysterious new game over any further updates to Stardew Valley. We don't know anything about his new project but he did say he was thinking about announcing it "soon." The only other details we got were that it's another pixel-art game with a top-down perspective similar to Stardew Valley. It isn't a farming game though, which is probably for the best because honestly where do you go from Stardew Valley?