Software update adds additional items, modes and features, giving players even more opportunities for creativity in ‘block-buster’ game

10^th March 2016 – A new software update to Super Mario Maker for the Wii U console has added additional items, modes, and features to the critically-acclaimed game, making it even more fun to create, share, and play levels from all around the world. You can check out the new trailer here.

One such new addition is the Key item from Super Mario World for the Super NES: when grabbed, it unlocks the new Key Door item, granting access to new parts of the level. Accessed by shaking the P Switch and Door items respectively, the Key and Key Doors can be used in conjunction in order to create challenging new levels. The Key can even be attached to enemies, forcing players to defeat them in order to retrieve the Key and move forward, meaning it’s now possible to create courses with mandatory boss battles.

When players shake a coin while creating a course, it will now change into a Pink Coin, and if all of these are collected in a course, a Key will appear. By combining the Key, Key Door and Pink Coins, players can expand their imagination and create unique puzzle-solving levels.

A new Spike Pillar obstacle will also be added to the game. Originally featured in Super Mario World, this huge, foreboding column comes slamming down from where it’s placed, and appears in a course by shaking the Thwomp item while creating a course.

Players looking for a serious challenge are in luck, as after downloading the free update, a new “Super Expert” difficulty will be added to the 100 Mario Challenge. This new difficulty pulls random courses that have been categorised as being “Super Expert” after their creation. By completing 100 Mario Challenge on this difficulty, five new Mystery Mushroom costumes can be won, as well as three new costume rewards from completing the mode on “Normal”, and four for finishing it on “Expert”.

The new additions aren’t just reserved for the game itself: the Super Mario Maker Bookmark website, which lets users sort and search for levels using a smart device or browser, will now display Super Mario Maker World Record players.

Recently, there have also been some new costumes added to the game, including the always smart and sometimes zany Professor E. Gadd from the Luigi’s Mansion games. Fans of Daisy can play through the Adventures in Sarasaland Event Course and also get the Daisy costume. Players should check Event Courses often for new levels to play.

Super Mario Maker has a staggering 6.2 million different user-created playable courses, which in turn have been played more than 400 million times as of 27^th January. For more information about the game, visit http://gamesites.nintendo.com.au/super-mario-maker. To view these updates in action, watch the Super Mario Maker 9^th March update trailer on YouTube.
Additional Links:
Nintendo Australia website: http://www.nintendo.com.au 
Nintendo Australia Twitter: https://twitter.com/NintendoAUNZ
Nintendo Australia Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NintendoAUNZ
Nintendo AU on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/nintendoau

ODIN SPHERE® LEIFTHRASIR SKILLS AND COMBAT TRAILER RELEASED!

NIS America have already announced that Odin Sphere Leifthrasir will be joining its European RPG lineup in June 2016 and now they have released the new ‘Skills and Combat’ trailer. You can watch it via the YouTube link here: https://youtu.be/uhV4MVXiTC8

Odin Sphere Leifthrasir is a 2D sidescrolling action RPG, steeped in Norse mythology or a Wagnerian opera. The new game is a complete HD remake of the original PS2 classic Odin Sphere from Vanillaware, the team behind the hit side-scrolling action game Dragon’s Crown and Muramasa: The Demon Blade. Atlus U.S.A. will be publishing this game in North America.

About the story:

The kingdom of Valentine was the most powerful country on the continent of Erion. Its people thrived using the magical power of the Crystallization Cauldron, but it was destroyed in one fateful night. And so, a war over the now master-less Cauldron has begun, involving all the nations of the land and growing more intense by the day. Is the End near, as the Prophecy states?

For more information about Odin Sphere Leifthrasir visit: http://atlus.com/osl/

Click here to view the new Skills Trailer https://youtu.be/uhV4MVXiTC8

Click here to download the assets for Odin Sphere Leifthrasir: http://we.tl/ShAaVYFOME

Tour the World of Assassination in interactive 360-degree format & The Real Life HITMAN Experience 

SYDNEY, 10^TH March 2016 – Io-Interactive today released a unique 360-degree video welcoming viewers into a world of killer fashion. Set in Paris, the Sanguine Fall Fashion Show is the red carpet event of the year and you are invited to join in this interactive video experience. Shot in 4K resolution, it shows off the Paris location from the first episode of the upcoming HITMAN game in stunning visual fidelity, allowing viewers to enter the fashion show itself and even inviting them backstage for a peak behind the curtains of mystery that surround this event.

From moment you move through the flashy entrance of Palais de Walewska to the second you see the outside fireworks setting off in the evening sky, the video gives you an immersive experience inside the secret World of Assassination unlike anything you’ve seen before in a Hitman game.

The HITMAN Sanguine Fall Fashion Show 360 video can be experienced here on YouTube. For a fully immersive experience, we recommend mobile as the preferred viewing platform.

Io-Interactive and Realm Pictures also recently invited a select group of people to become Agent 47’s handler as he goes on a mission to eliminate a Serbian arms dealer in a real life Hitman experience unlike anything created before. Among the participants were YouTubers AliA, NukemDukem, SUP3R KONAR and Pietsmiet as well as Jane Perry, the voice actress behind Agent 47’s handler Diana Burnwood. The full video experience is available here and you can go behind the scenes with Realm Pictures here to learn much more about the elaborate setup required to pull this off.

HITMAN will launch on March 11^th for the PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system, Xbox One, the all-in-one games and entertainment system from Microsoft, and early on March 12^th for Windows PC (ANZ).

Related Links

Official Website: hitman.com / Official Facebook Page: facebook.com/hitman / Follow @Hitman on Twitter: twitter.com/hitman / Visit the subreddit: reddit.com/r/hitman

TORN BANNER STUDIOS REVEALS NEW ACTION GAME SET IN A WORLD OF FANTASY AND MAGIC, MIRAGE: ARCANE WARFARE

Obliterate your enemies with powerful magic or silence them with a sword in a new multiplayer FPS project from the creators of Chivalry: Medieval Warfare set to debut at GDC

TORONTO, CANADA, March 9th, 2016— Torn Banner Studios, the creators of the popular first-person medieval combat simulator Chivalry: Medieval Warfare are proud to finally reveal to their fans a first look at their upcoming magic and blood-soaked title, Mirage: Arcane Warfare.  To introduce their newest IP Torn Banner has released a gameplay trailer which can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/0rBFSkJELuw. Additionally, the official website has launched offering more details about the game: MirageArcaneWarfare.com. The game will make its debut at GDC 2016 (San Francisco, March 14-18) – interested media can schedule a private meeting to learn more about the new game.

In Mirage: Arcane Warfare, the calm of a strange fantasy world is shattered by ruthless civil war. Warriors armed with steel and magic bring violence and death as they do battle across a fantastical Arabian and Persian-inspired setting of desert sands, market bazaars and grand palaces. Built using the powerful new capabilities of Unreal Engine 4, Mirage: Arcane Warfare presents visually stunning backdrops to some viscerally brutal multiplayer combat.

“Our last game Chivalry was about chopping off people’s heads with a sword. Mirage takes that core gameplay DNA and explodes with a range of new bloody, brutal combat possibilities thanks to the addition of powerful magic” said Steve Piggott, Torn Banner CEO and game designer on Mirage: Arcane Warfare. “Mixing in the elements of fantasy and magic allow us to add entirely new components and levels of complexity to that core team-based combat concept that we find so much fun to play.”

“Our artists have created a rich and unusual world in Mirage, full of colour, character and a unique setting that is so rarely explored in video games,” according to Torn Banner environment artist Lucas Annunziata. “Working with Unreal Engine 4 has not only helped us bring to life the exotic locales of Mirage, it also gives us the tools to make magic effects that dazzle and bloody gore that make us cringe.”

Slated for release on PC through Steam later this year, Mirage: Arcane Warfare will feature a range of diverse player classes each with their own unique weapon and skill sets, exotic fantasy locales, multiple multiplayer game modes including objective-based challenges, brutal gore and a host of other innovative new features. Currently in development, Torn Banner will roll out more information and progress about Mirage: Arcane Warfare in the coming months.

Torn Banner will have a private meeting room off site during GDC week on Wednesday, March 16 and Thursday, March 17. Interested media are invited to schedule a meeting to reserve a session with the team to learn more about Mirage: Arcane Warfare.

For the latest information on Mirage: Arcane Warfare, please visit @MirageGame on Twitter, on Facebook or go to MirageArcaneWarfare.com.

About Torn Banner Studios

Torn Banner Studios is a small indie games studio that makes BIG games. Based in Toronto Canada, Torn Banner Studios was founded in 2012 by a group of passionate game developers who are dedicated to creating powerful and unique games for a dedicated audience of fans. The nucleus of the team first came together from a group of modders who created a well-known Half-Life 2 mod called Age of Chivalry. Their first full game, Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, was a critical and commercial success and has driven the dedicated team at Torn Banner to continue to develop great games and ongoing content for their passionate community of fans. For more information visit TornBanner.com or follow @TornBanner.