The week in review.

Weekly Recap: Kojima Signs With Sony, Destiny Gets Paid Level Boosts

Click through the images here to see the week’s biggest stories and some you might have missed.

Speed up

Bungie’s shooter Destiny is taking a page out of World of Warcraft‘s playbook by offering a paid level boost. You can now pay $30 to instantly boost any Hunter, Warlock, or Titan character to level 25. [Full story]

Hideo Kojima Grows a Beard

Oh, and he also announced a new studio, Kojima Productions 2.0 basically, and signed a deal with Sony to have their first game debut on PlayStation 4. It’ll come to PC sometime later. [Full story]

Hand of Fate Expansions

Missed out on Hand of Fate? Then you’re missing quite a bit of content. Developer Defiant Development shipped four major (free) updates this month. They are:

Winter’s Hunt: Discover then defeat the mythical White Minotaur

White Council: Uncover the secret of the Mages when investigating why The White Council has begun to increase its reach, demanding taxes and tariffs from neighboring towns

Hall of the Goblin King: Everyone’s favorite poorly disguised Goblin, Mister Lionel, has a new quest. Journey to the hall of the Goblin King to steal his crown

Underworld: Take a trip into the depths of the underworld with the promise of riches and unspeakable danger

Not the Singer

Neil Young, no, not the singer, has launched a new game called Mafia Watch–and it’s an Apple Watch exclusive. The MMORPG sees players teaming up with friends and doing battle against others in your attempt to “become the Don.”

“When we set out to build Mafia Watch, we wanted to create something that was woven into the way we use Apple Watch,” the developer said. “We were fascinated by the power of the notification in Apple’s new device and it felt to us like that communication mechanism could become a core part of the fabric of a new type of game experience. And so, Mafia Watch was born.”

You can download the free game from iTunes here or read more about it here.

C’mon, really?

Someone beat Bethesda’s Fallout 4 in an hour. No, really. It’s been done. Get the full story here on Kotaku.

Gorgeous

Have a Guild Wars 2 fan on your holiday shopping list who is also big into music? Here’s a gift you may want to consider. ArenaNet and iam8bit have collaborated for a new collector’s edition vinyl of the Heart of Thorns soundtrack. The 180-gram colored vinyl can be bought here.

Looking Ahead

What’s coming to DayZ in 2016? Bohemia provided some guidance this week, announcing a roadmap of features it plans to deliver in the open-world zombie game in the next year. These include the following:

• Barricading

• Aerial Vehicles

• New Renderer

• New robust Animation System

• Enhanced Audio System support

• Predators

• Finalized Chernarus +

• Animal Companions

• New more modern UI & Inventory

• Public Server Binaries & Servlet/Database Release

• New User Actions & Fluid movement within the game world

• Steam Workshop Support (Modding)

Soon (Maybe)

According to Amazon France, the PC version of Rise of the Tomb Raider will launch on January 29. The retailer has since updated the page, suggesting the first date may indeed be accurate. We followed up with Square Enix and were told the company is not commenting at this time. [Full story]

Adorable

From Frank Cifaldi on Twitter: “This is Zdog, a plush dog that is also a video game console. The guts are in its backpack. I am not making this up.”

NASA + PlayStation VR

Did you know NASA is using PlayStation VR headsets to help train robot astronauts? That’s a real thing that’s happening now. Road to VR has a great story on it.

This Is Why

Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 is not coming to the West due to cultural differences. That’s according to PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida, who broached the controversial topic in a recent interview.

More Conan

Funcom has announced a partnership with Conan Properties to make the developer the “preferred partner” for all PC and console games based on the Conan the Barbarian brand in the future. Funcom’s already has a Conan game in Hyborian Adventures, so this is an extension of that partnership.

Kingdom Come

A beta for no-fantasy RPG Kingdom Come Deliverance will begin early next year, developer Warhorse has announced. Check out the bullet points below for a quick idea of what to expect.

Beta content includes:

• First introduction to an epic story
• All core game mechanics
• Enlarging the current game map (triple)
• The first important key battle/siege
• A new weapon Type: Sword and Shield
• And many more…

The Surge

New images and more details about Lord of the Fallen co-developer Deck 13’s next game, an RPG called The Surge, emerged this week. Check out one of the images here, while some basic details about the game are available in the game’s description below.

“Set in a heavily dystopian future as Earth nears the end of its life, those who remain in the overpopulated cities must work to survive as social programs become saturated by an aging population and increasing environmental diseases.”

The single-player RPG is scheduled to launch in 2017 for PC, Xbox One, and PS4.

Free Is a Nice Price

Christmas comes early for Dragon Age: Inquisition fans, as BioWare has released five songs from the game’s Songs of the Exalted Council soundtrack. Get them for free here, but you’ll need to act quickly, as the offer expires on December 31.

Ch-Ch-Changes

Blizzard is making significant changes to World of Warcraft’s PvP system for the upcoming Legion expansion. Check out this detailed and thorough blog post for a rundown of what to expect.

Rock On

Harmonix wants your thoughts about online play for Rock Band 4 (a feature not yet in the game) and has launched a survey to collect feedback. You canfill out the survey here.

The Road Ahead

After delaying Xbox One/PC game Gigantic to 2016 and laying off some staff, developer Motiga has written a blog post in which it outlines the game’s roadmap for 2016. The studio also answered lots of questions as part of a Reddit AMA.