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Piggyback Reveals Metal Gear Solid V Strategy Guide Cover

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MGSVCE_UEWhy yes, there will be a strategy guide for the upcoming Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, and Piggyback will be responsible for publishing and distributing the guide in North America, South America, and Europe.

“We have worked closely with Piggyback on the guides to all Metal Gear Solid game releases over the past 15 years and it is a real pleasure to continue that collaboration with Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain,“ Sandra Arcan, Senior Manager, Licensing and Merchandise – EMEA at Konami Digital Entertainment B.V. said in a press release.

The two have continued their ongoing collaboration with MGSV, and both have promised that the strategy guide will contain a “single, comprehensive source to 100% game completion.”

Piggyback has both a paperback and a hardcover collector’s edition in the works for the MGSV strategy guide. The CE will include an art gallery as well as an exclusive lithograph by Yoji Shinkawa. The cover art for this limited CE has been revealed as above. I’m not a fan of the Metal Gear Solid series, but even I have to drool a little bit at that artwork.

Piggyback will release the Metal Gear Solid V strategy guide on September 1, 2015, the same day the game will release.

Prima Games and BradyGames Officially Merge

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PrimaGamesThe writing has been on the wall for awhile, but today marks it as official: Prima Games and BradyGames are now one entity. There is now only one strategy guide publisher in the United States, as Double Jump and numerous others I have forgotten folded years ago.

As part of the merge, the name of BradyGames is also melding into Prima Games. My orange books will soon be a classic as all of my strategy guides will have the red branding.

We’ve seen this in the works for quite some time. BradyGames was under the Penguin Books publishing umbrella, which is owned by Random House. Random House also owns Prima Games. Then BradyGames’ online e-guides merged with Prima Games’ website a few months ago. Really, this was a matter of time.

I’m mixed in how I feel about this. I really like the idea of competition for guides, because to me, that’s how things improve. If there’s not much competition for best quality strategy guides, then the only motivation for improvement is via the dollar. Granted, BradyGames and Prima haven’t exactly had much competition between the two, as they do not publish guides for the same game. The only competition they really had was in convincing publishers and developers to work with them over the other.

But no point in complaining about what is. This is how it is, and this is how it may stay. Maybe we’ll see more competition in the future with smaller publishers or perhaps with the online market. It’s an interesting time for strategy guides, and to be reviewing them, that is for certain.

The entire press release is below.

Prima Games, an imprint of Penguin Random House Inc., has joined forces with the team at BradyGames. Uniting these two iconic strategy guide publishers brings together over 40 years of expertise, creativity, and passion for the video game industry. Whether in print or digital—from traditional strategy guides to map apps, video content, and eGuides—Prima Games helps players get the most out of their games.

As the premiere provider of official, expert strategy content, Prima Games has the largest catalog of detailed strategy delivered in the most convenient and easy-to-use formats. Products include interactive web-accessed guides, iTunes/Google Play apps, console strategy apps, cheats and codes databases, and traditional print guides. Web-accessed strategy guides (eGuides) are available 24/7, directly from primagames.com with no download or DRM required. Print guides feature complete walkthroughs, detailed maps, instructional screenshots, and a free eGuide for access to updated content. Collector’s editions go even further with exclusive extras such as posters, interviews with game developers, lavish art sections, lithographs, and even in-game DLC.

We Are Prima Games. We Are Strategy. Visit primagames.com for more information.

Bloodborne Strategy Guide Set to Release April 14th

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bloodbornecoverBeen wondering where the Bloodborne strategy guide has been? Surely there is going to be one, right? The Dark Souls games had strategy guides, so certainly Bloodborne will get the same treatment.

Yes, there is going to be a strategy guide, and the fantastic hardcore strategy guide, uh, people at Future Press are hard at work on this project. Unfortunately, as you can tell, it’s been delayed a smidge. It will release in both Europe and the US on April 14, 2015.

If you’ve rage quit more times than you have fingers on your hands, then put the game aside, run to Amazon and preorder the sucker because you know it will sell out, and then be patient and wait. Considering Future Press‘s quality of strategy guides in the past, it will be well worth the wait.

Or this could be the first time one of Future Press’s guides has totally bombed and I’ll be a liar and end up in a van down by the river.

Somehow though, because of all of the extra time they had to take, I’m sure it will be fantastic.

 

Bloodborne Strategy Guide Official Announcement

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Future Press has hinted via Twitter for awhile now that they are working on the official strategy guide for Bloodborne, and the publisher has made this official. Future Press is indeed publishing the Bloodborne strategy guide, and as is Future Press’s tradition, the strategy guide will only be available in a collector’s edition format. It’s a beautiful hardcover strategy guide complete with lore information and art book within. I cannot stress enough how well Future Press prints their guides. Even though I haven’t seen the guide myself, I’m confident that it’s as stellar as their guides have been in the past.

Need more to drool over? Future Press has released a video going over the strategy guide. Even though I am not excited about Bloodborne because I’m a big baby, I’m thrilled to see that the people behind the book are excited. I don’t think it’s an excited due to relief of releasing a product either; they really look genuinely happy about the product.

Check it out for yourself!

Bloodborne and its corresponding strategy guide will release on February 20, 2015.

February 2015 Strategy Guides

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January was super slow for strategy guide releases, so I hope everyone enjoyed the brief respite, because February is about to get crazy. The games are quite varied, so there is something for about everyone. I’m going to be rather busy, to say the least. I better do better with these than I handled all of November, which I obviously DID NOT. I’m a horrible EIC at times.

Enough of the self-flagellation…here are the strategy guides you can expect for February 2015!

Strategy Guide Date  Description
February 10, 2015 Evolve is essentially a monster hunting game, no matter if you’re playing the single-player or multiplayer versions of the game. I don’t believe it’s a horror game, but a FPS for those who enjoy killing a lot of monsters. Think Gears of War, but with different monsters. The emphasis seems to be primarily on multiplayer, and the strategy guide has a strong focus on that as well, which is rather interesting to say the least.
February 13, 2015  Yeah, this one hardly needs an introduction. I just hope it’s written by Steve Stratton, as he’s written pretty much every Legend of Zelda guide I own and he’s darn good at it.
February 20, 2015  I have been so pumped about The Order: 1886 ever since the first prerendered footage surfaced at E3 2013. I love all things alternate history, Victorian London, and steampunk. This game should feed all of those loves quite nicely.

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