Number 5

Square Enix Reveals Final Fantasy: Explorers For 3DS

Square Enix are attempting to grab some of that Monster Hunter money with a Final Fantasy version of the hit series. Final Fantasy: Explorers was revealed in the latest issue of the Japanese publication, Jump magazine. This newest spin off sees teams of up to four players joining forces to take on Summons, giant monsters from other RPGs in the series. One of these Summons is Ifrit, a fire elemental who has appeared in most Final Fantasy games.

Jump also revealed that Final Fantasy: Explorers will use the franchise’s job system for its playable classes. The classes shown so far are the Knight, the Monk, the White Mage and the Black Mage. The co-operative multiplayer can be played either locally or online. There was no release date given for Final Fantasy: Explorers but expect to hear more about the game at the Tokyo Game Show in September.

Number 4

Aonuma Promises To Keep Long Tutorials Away From Zelda

Back at E3 last week, Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma sat down with Kotaku to discuss the future of the Zelda franchise. When asked about fan reaction to Skyward Sword, he expressed regret that the game had relied too heavily on tutorials. ”When we created Skyward Sword, I really felt the need to make sure that everyone playing the game understood it. But I also understand now, in hindsight, that when you go out and buy a game, you buy the game because you want to play it, and you don’t want to have any obstacles in the way. And I guess it was received as a bit of an obstacle.”

We were given a hint about Aonuma’s feelings with the release of Link Between Worlds, which jumped straight into the action without any tutorials. It seems that Aonuma has heard the fans and is listening to their demands. Speaking about the possibility of using the Skyward Sword style of tutorial in the future, the Zelda producer said that “I’m going to be careful not to do that.”

Number 3

Bayonetta 2 Will Feature Nintendo Themed Skins

Bayonetta 2 from Sega will offer a mature gaming adventure with a Nintendo flare. Three Nintendo-themed skins have been added in for the game’s main character Bayonetta. Character-inspired costumes will enrich your experience as you play this JRPG treat. The costumes include Galactic Bounty, Mushroom Kingdom Princess and Hero of Hyrule.

Another feature that will please JRPG fans is the ability to choose either English or Japanese audio tracks and subtitles. When you purchase a copy of Bayonetta 2 in the US, you also get a digital code for the first Bayonetta. Bayonetta 2 will be released on October 31, 2014. It can be pre-ordered from Target, GameStop and Amazon.

Number 2

Patrick Söderlund Says Battlefield Will Not Become An Annualized Franchise

Despite the recent trend of releases, EA will not bring out a Battlefield game every year to compete with Activision Blizzard’s annualized Call of Duty franchise. The confirmation came from EA Studio’s executive vice president Patrick Söderlund. In an interview with Polygon, Söderlund stated that the company is not going to dedicate itself to simply releasing the same big franchises every year. “The EA that I’m trying to help build isn’t an EA that needs to annualize everything,” he said.

It’s not difficult to see why fans of the franchise may have got that impression as we have had a major Battlefield release in four of the past five years. Even though there was a 2 year gap between Battlefield 3 in 2011 and Battlefield 4 in 2013, the latter still felt like a very rushed game and suffered severe problems at launch. Now EA is launching Battlefield: Hardline less than 12 months later and many are wondering how EA will avoid the mistakes of the past. “Everything that we’ve fixed with [Battlefield 4] will go into Hardline”, said Söderlund. ”Once people get their hands on the netcode patch, which I think is profound, that will take care of a lot of the complaints around Battlefield.

Number 1

Rise of the Tomb Raider Possibly Headed to Xbox 360 and PS3

Rise of the Tomb Raider, the highly anticipated sequel to Crystal Dynamics’ Tomb Raider reboot which was launched last year, was originally announced at E3 to come out for the PC, PS4 and Xbox One. However the official site of Xbox has noted the game is set for release on the Xbox 360 as well as the Xbox One and Amazon UK shows listings of the title for both the PS3 and Xbox 360. It has yet to be confirmed by publisher Square Enix though.

The game is set for release in Q4 of 2015.