Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! We covered a ton of news coming out of the Gamescom conference in Cologne, including the reveal of World of Warcraft’s next expansion. Also, a composer might have accidentally revealed a Final Fantasy XII remaster, and we compared all of the current toys-to-life game franchises.
Happy reading, and have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinion
The DeanBeat: The best nuggets from a summer of game leader interviews
Yoshi’s Island is 20 years old today and remains a 2D masterpiece
Predicting World of Warcraft’s next expansion (hint: it involves Night Elves)
Skylanders vs. Amiibo vs. Disney Infinity vs. Lego Dimensions: The state of toys-to-life games
The ridiculous design behind a key scene in Life Is Strange
Konami’s management in Japan depicted as Orwellian — but how unique is it?
Above: Battlefront is giving us a whole new look at the Battle of Hoth.
Image Credit: Electronic Arts
News
Xbox One NFL app gets Next Generation Stats; Surface Pro 3 coming to teams
Square Enix only published Life is Strange after a failed pitch for another game
Nvidia beats Wall Street Q2 earnings expectations thanks to high-end graphics growth
China flexes its muscle in gaming as 272,900 people flock to ChinaJoy
Unity CEO: Virtual reality hinges on your PC’s specs, not the headset
World of Warcraft’s new Legion expansion enters beta testing later this year
Splatoon gets a new social website to arrange battles and track progress
Tencent-, Line-backed studio is bringing a top-5 ranked role-playing game from South Korea to the West
id Software opens new German game studio
Warner Bros. game revenue rises 135% in Q2
Virtual reality will make Burning Man even trippier — if you Kickstart this project
Mafia III is coming in 2016 and takes place in New Orleans
Heroes of the Storm announces new characters: Warcraft’s Rexxar and StarCraft’s Artanis
Hearthstone adding better rewards for Ranked players and swipes at aggressive decks with Joust
Sword Coast Legends pushes back its D&D role-playing release to September 29
Mega Man Legacy Collection comes out digitally on August 25 — and it’s less than the boxed version
The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes gets an October 23 release date
Star Wars Battlefront features ‘fighter squadron’ combat
EA’s weird shooter Garden Warfare 2 will offer solo play and Grass Effect character
Seagate launches a 2-terabyte game drive for Xbox consoles
EA unveils The Sims 4 Get Together expansion pack
EA’s Mirror’s Edge Catalyst shows how Faith became a hero
Need for Speed challenges players to become racing icons
Skylanders Superchargers may have its killer app: online multiplayer kart racing
Corsair’s new gaming hardware just blasted my face with colors and a 17-button mouse
Hearthstone, Call of Duty lead Activision to $611M in digital revenues last quarter
StarCraft II expansion confirmed for 2015 launch
Disney’s interactive division sees revenue drop due to slowing Disney Infinity sales
World of Warcraft monthly subscribers fall to 5.6M, its lowest level since 2005
Activision Blizzard beats Wall Street’s expectations for Q2 2015
DDoS attack forces Valve to pause The International Dota 2 tournament
Facebook kills proposed user data policy after game and app publishers panicked
Destiny is replacing Peter Dinklage’s Ghost voice with Nolan North
Xbox at Gamescom: Watch all the trailers right here
Lara Croft is still badass in Rise of the Tomb Raider
Halo Wars 2 is real — and Microsoft has Total War developer Creative Assembly making it
Microsoft’s Forza Motorsport 6 has you racing — and fishtailing — in realistic rain
Windows 10 features come to Xbox One with its redesigned interface in November
Microsoft pitches Halo 5: Guardians as an esport
Microsoft debuts its first dragon-fighting scene from Scalebound
Microsoft shows off first Crackdown 3 gameplay
Microsoft says long-awaited Quantum Break is coming April 5, 2016
Rocket League is ‘100%’ coming to other platforms
Warner Bros. debuts new Mad Max video for Gamescom
Game Developers Conference is taking submissions for panels, lectures, and more for 2016
Paladins is Smite maker Hi-Rez Studios’ take on Team Fortress 2 — with cards instead of hats
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare’s Reckoning DLC debuts tomorrow
TheScore expands its Dota 2 esports coverage in time for The International tournament
ChinaJoy in pictures: A sexy, crazy, and uniquely Chinese gaming trade show
Former Sony CEO Nobuyuki Idei hired as consultant for Chinese game developer Youzu
Autodesk’s Stingray may be a big threat to Unity and Unreal in the game-engine wars
Big developers betting on third-party engines for triple-A games
Distant Worlds conductor clarifies Final Fantasy XII remake statement
Twitch wants to reach gamers everywhere — and will livestream from several global gaming events
Final Fantasy XII remake or remaster is coming, according to Distant Worlds symphony conductor
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Mobile and social
Games network WildTangent will let you reserve a not-yet-released app
Zynga’s mobile slots games see 274% growth — with Willy Wonka coming soon
Slot jackpots help Zynga beat earnings guidance for second quarter
Zynga adds former EA exec Frank Gibeau to its board
Hall of Fame NFL QB Joe Montana highlights $1.5M raise for social sports app GameOn
Tapjoy hits its billionth app install
Lithuania’s Realore launches mobile strategy sim game Divine Academy
Angry Birds 2 hits 20M downloads in its first week
Swrve’s predictive marketing boosts mobile gaming play by 28%
Kano Summer Camp gets kids coding with art — without leaving the house
Glu to make a Nicki Minaj mobile game
The dos & don’ts for in-game video advertising
Dutch mobile marketing firm iQU acquires TinyLoot and Target Gamers
Eve developer reveals its new Samsung Gear VR game: Gunjack
New brain-training game could help schizophrenia sufferers
Above: Who got Dr. Who into my Lego Movie!
Image Credit: Warner Bros. Interactive
Previews and interviews
Disney Infinity lets Star Wars fans catapult Ewoks
Stellaris is Paradox’s first grand strategy foray into the stars
Lego Dimensions stands out from Disney Infinity, Skylanders with 14 massive open worlds
Submerged lets you explore a captivating waterlogged city
Perfect World CEO still believes game consoles can succeed in China
Epic’s graphics guru Tim Sweeney shares his vision for perfect augmented reality
Reviews and impressions
Nyko DataBank is a worthwhile accessory — even if you have plenty of PlayStation 4 hard drive space
Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward is more patch than expansion — and not an exciting one, either
Rare Replay is a great collection that even makes ancient games fun
Rare Replay: 10 minute impressions of all 30 games
5 things you should know about Rare Replay’s multiplayer, framerate, and more