About 50 minutes into my “please play as long as you want” hands-on demo with 2XKO at EVO 2024, I realized I was going to miss the first match of my Tekken 8 pool. About 30 seconds later, I also realized I didn’t care; I was having too much fun. Getting DQ’ed from my Tekken bracket would suck, sure, but if I was lucky, I could probably play my loser’s game. And besides, I was getting to play with Vineeth "ApologyMan" Meka, a noted fighting game pro who was working on 2XKO, and showing my group what the game might look like at a high level. When was I going to get a chance to do that again, or see the game played like that, live, in front of me, pre-release? Compared to that, starting out my Tekken run in the loser’s bracket wouldn’t be...
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August looks set to be one of the strongest months for top-tier indie games not only this year but possibly in the last few years. Regardless of what genre you are a fan of, you are going to have something incredible to look forward to this month. There were some many options for the month […]
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Microsoft has fully revealed its plans for gamescom 2024, and they include three days of live broadcasts.
In a post on Xbox Wire, Microsoft said it will host a series of daily streams from its Xbox booth at the show, running from Wednesday August 21 to Friday August 23. These will offer a deeper dive into various games Xbox is set to release over the coming months, with first-look gameplay, developer chats, and new trailers. Microsoft-owned Bethesda will also host daily content streams from the booth.
Games set to appear during these streams include Stalker 2, Atomfall, Age of Mythology, Star Wars Outlaws, World of Warcraft expansion The War Within, Towerborne, Avowed, and Ara: History Untold.
The Xbox gamescom 2024 live broadcast...
This year marks the sixth anniversary of The Elder Scrolls 6’s teaser trailer. And with Skyrim turning 13 years old this November, it’s safe to say that Elder Scrolls fans have endured – and will continue to endure – a long wait for Bethesda’s next fantasy RPG. But while the famed single-player studio has been focusing its efforts on nuclear wastelands and outer space, the beloved world of Tamriel hasn’t been neglected. The Elder Scrolls Online, once much-maligned and suffering sinking player counts, is now celebrating its tenth anniversary and the launch of its eighth major expansion. And while it may be an MMO by genre, by design it’s much closer to the classic Elder Scrolls RPG format than you might expect. If you’ve spent a decade...
Lazlow Jones, the host of the Chatterbox FM radio station in 2001’s seminal Grand Theft Auto 3, has many stories to tell about his 19-year stretch at Rockstar. But this one is right up there with the very best.
Speaking to IGN as part of an interview discussing new development studio Absurd Ventures, which he co-founded with fellow Rockstar legend Dan Houser in 2020, Jones recalled the "weird moment" when one GTA fan took the blockbuster video game a little too seriously.
GTA fans will know the Epsilon Program well. It’s a religious cult whose followers are known as Epsilonists. In trademark Rockstar fashion, Houser and Jones designed the Epsilon Program to satirize the likes of Scientology, complete with a modern day messiah...
“I can't avoid the internet of things now while we're doing this interview,” Lazlow Jones tells me, picking up his phone. He’s sitting in his home office in California speaking to a reporter half the world away on the south coast of England, explaining what his new venture — his Absurd Ventures — is all about. And it’s all about the internet of things. Of course, I learn this in an interview that wouldn’t be possible without the internet of things.
“My cat took a shit, and I know that because I have a litter robot that sends me a text message whenever he goes to the bathroom,” Lazlow continues, putting the world to rights from the bottom half of my laptop screen.
One of the characters in audio science fiction series A Better...
Dragon Age: The Veilguard developer BioWare has confirmed plans to announce the game’s release date, unveil a new roadmap, as well as offer further looks at the single-player RPG this month (August).
In a blog post, the developer teased its plans as publisher EA narrowed Dragon Age: The Veilguard release window down to the third quarter of its 2025 financial year. That runs from October 1 to December 2024. BioWare had announced a fall 2024 release window for Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Now we know that the game will not be released in September.
Last month, BioWare said Dragon Age: The Veilguard is “Steam native,” which means the EA App is not required to play the game on Valve’s platform. Most EA-published video games do require the...
Today, Destiny developer Bungie announced another massive round of layoffs following several months of internal turmoil and the launch of Destiny 2: The Final Shape. In a post on Bungie's blog, CEO Pete Parsons announced that 220 roles, or 17% of Bungie's workforce, were eliminated due to "financial challenges."
Now, in the wake of these layoffs, quite a few employees who were laid off (along with other members of the games industry) have taken to social media to share their concerns and criticisms about Bungie's management, with many even demanding that Parsons step down.
While fears of layoffs were reportedly prevalent within the studio, many employees expressed that their own layoffs were unexpected due to recent actions taken by...
No More Heroes developer Soichi Suda a.k.a. Suda51 and Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami are interested in returning to the Killer7 series.
The two renowned game makers discussed their potential futures during an installment in one of Grasshopper Manufacture’s Grasshopper Direct presentations. Toward the end of the 40-minute video, which primarily offers a behind-the-scenes look at Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered, Mikami and Suda were asked to comment on what they’re working on next. It was the Resident Evil veteran who brought up his desire to see more from Killer7.
“I’ve realized that I want to stay as hands-on as possible when it comes to game creation, and I’d love to see Suda make a sequel to Killer7,” Mikami said...
Sony has announced the PlayStation Plus games for August 2024: LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (PS4 and PS5); Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach (PS4 and PS5); and Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights (PS4).
In a new PlayStation Blog post, Sony Interactive Entertainment's Director of Content Acquisition & Operations Adam Michel revealed that all three games will be available to active PlayStation Plus subscribers starting Tuesday, August 6, and have until Monday, September 2, to redeem these digital copies. PS Plus subscribers who have yet to claim the free games for July 2024 (Borderlands 3, NHL 24, and Among Us) have until August 6 to redeem those games as part of their PS Plus subscription.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker...
Level Zero: Extraction is a heart-pounding, cooperative survival horror game that plunges players into a terrifying subterranean world overrun by monstrous creatures. Combining elements of stealth, action, and resource management, this intense experience is poised to redefine the extraction shooter genre, offering a thrilling new challenge for players. Be sure to keep this guide in […]
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Destiny developer Bungie has today announced significant cuts at the studio that have seen 220 people, or 17% of the studio’s workforce, let go.
The cuts affect every level of the company, including most of the Sony-owned studio’s executive and senior leader roles, Bungie boss Pete Parsons said in a post on Bungie.net. "Today is a difficult and painful day," Parsons added.
Departing staff will be offered "a generous exit package" that includes severance, bonus, and health coverage, Bungie promised.
Parsons blamed the cuts on the rising costs of development, "industry shifts," and "enduring economic conditions." Because of this, Parsons insistsed, Bungie has had to make "substantial changes" to its cost structure and focus...
Braid developer Jonathan Blow has said the recently released anniversary edition of the indie puzzle platformer has sold “horribly,” and indicated he is now struggling to employ staff full-time.
Blow, who also created The Witness, catapulted into the upper echelons of indie video game development after Braid enjoyed enormous success on Xbox Live Arcade in 2008. It’s since become known as one of the greatest indie games of all time, with a number of perfect review scores under its belt.
16 years later, in May 2024, Blow released a remaster with fully repainted artwork, new puzzles, and in-depth commentary, across PC via Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, Android, and iOS, with the mobile version...
Our obsession with the concept of the “dead game” and player counts is unhealthy for the video game industry and gamers, one of the developers behind Palworld has said.
Palworld, dubbed “Pokémon with guns,” launched in early access form to record-breaking success. It is the second most-played game ever on Steam, with an incredible concurrent player count of 2,101,867 on Valve’s platform. Only battle royale PUBG is ahead of Palworld in Steam’s all-time peak concurrents chart.
Palworld’s Steam concurrents have fallen since that explosive launch earlier this year, and now usually hit a peak in the tens of thousands rather than millions. The decline has caused some to call Palworld a “dead game,” but it is far from the only game to be...
Star Wars Outlaws has an Explorer Mode that lets players turn off all "guiding color on core navigational elements" in the world.
PC Gamer reports that Explorer Mode strips Ubisoft’s open-world Star Wars game of the “yellow paint” that has become a hot topic once again in recent months.
While the rights and wrongs of colored guides that point players in the right direction have been debated for years, Square Enix’s Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth reignited the debate earlier this year with its color-coded paint that signals the parts of the environment that can be used for platforming. That followed a similar debate sparked by the Resident Evil 4 remake in 2023.
The debate in summary: some people don’t like how in-your-face this...
Steam hit Once Human is set to go offline today, July 31, in order to release a significant update that makes a number of key changes to the game.
Once Human is a free-to-play multiplayer open-world survival game from Starry Studio, a developer owned by Chinese games company NetEase. It launched on PC on July 9 and quickly found an audience, with a huge peak concurrent player count of 231,668 on Steam, where it remains one of the most-played games.
IGN’s Once Human review returned an 8/10. We said: “Once Human combines simple but solid building and upgrading with some of the best, and weirdest, creature designs of the year to create a very enjoyable survival-crafting experience.”
While you're out collecting rare Deviations or...
Nexon has released the 1.0.5 update for looter shooter The First Descendant alongside the extensive patch notes.
The 1.0.5 update, out now across PC via Steam, Xbox Series X and S, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5, makes a long list of changes to the game.
The highlights include the addition of two new playable characters (Luna and Ultimate Valby), a new hard Void Intercept battle (Gluttony), a new Ultimate weapon (Peace Maker), and a new module (Arche Concretion).
There are various changes to the way the game works, too. For example, Nexon has blocked equipping and removing modules, changing presets, and changing loadouts to prevent module swapping from becoming a strategy in Intercept Battles and Infiltration...
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was 1313, a Star War I desperately wanted to play. Tonally, it was pitched to be darker than the inside of a tauntaun tent, and grittier than a Sand Person’s underpants. Better yet, it took an original Dark Forces approach—nary a laser sword nor space wizard in sight.
Sadly, that sci-fi spaghetti Western couldn’t exit the hangar before LucasArts took a proton torpedo to the exhaust port. Our dreams of inelegant weaponry, disintegrations for all, and skullduggery on Coruscant went the way of Padme. Just a pointless, unfair demise.
I’m therefore over the small moon/space station to say I have a new hope for a spiritual successor in Star Wars Outlaws. Ubisoft Massive, a dev that’s been...
Video game actors are currently on strike, in hopes that withholding their work from video game companies will push those companies to agree to better actor protections around the use of AI. However, at least one video game CEO — Andrew Wilson of Electronic Arts — doesn't think the strike is going to impact his company, at least in the short-term.
In today's EA earnings call, Wilson answered a question from an investor about the impact of the strike on the business. Put simply, he's not worried for now. Here's the full quote:
Wilson's confidence likely comes from the fact that EA's portfolio is almost entirely live service games right now, and games whose development began prior to September 2023 (so, basically every live service...
Mafia: Definitive Edition is headed to Xbox Game Pass on August 13, Microsoft announced today.
In a post on X/Twitter, Microsoft confirmed that the 2020 remaster will be available on the console version of Game Pass, in addition to PC Game Pass and Xbox Cloud Gaming. The news was first reported a few days ago by YouTuber eXtas1s, who previously reported that Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and Valorant were arriving on Microisoft's gaming subscription service.
Mafia: Definitive Edition was originally released in 2020 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Developed by Hangar 13, it is a remake of the 2002 game Mafia. The premise focuses on Tommy Angelo, a former cab driver turned gangster for a crime family in...
A few days ago, a frankly bizarre internet mystery took root: Garry’s Mod creator Garry Newman revealed that the “Skibidi Toilet guys” had hit him with a DMCA in a wild bit of litigious irony. But since then, an account purporting to be Skibidi Toilet creator Alexey Gerasimov (DaFuq!?Boom) has said he wasn’t behind the claim, and Newman has told IGN that the manner has been “resolved,” so… all’s well that ends well?
It all began on Sunday, when Newman posted in the S&Box Discord server, “you know what's worse than the nintendo dmca?” He then shared the news about the Skibidi Toilet DMCA, including pasting a screenshot of the letter that he was sent. Interestingly, the copyright holder that the letter is attributed to is Invisible...
Some studios will spend years of development time and hundreds of millions of dollars chasing emotional, Hollywood-quality stories and realistic graphics, but the Earth Defense Force series proudly prefers to remain the most pure video game nonsense ever conceived. Don’t be fooled by the PS3-era graphics, atrocious voice acting, absurd story, and uneven technical performance of Earth Defense Force 6 – developer Sandlot knows exactly what it’s doing with this over-the-top satire that makes Helldivers 2 look highbrow by comparison. Like its predecessors, EDF6 leans into its rough edges and silly cooperative mayhem, prioritizing mindless fun above all else, and the result is yet another wonderfully amusing entry in the ongoing saga. But...
There’s a lot riding on Dragon Age: The Veilguard for BioWare, and it sounds like the upcoming fantasy RPG has a colossal script to match the pressure.
In a recent interview with GamesRadar, creative director John Epler and creative performance director Ashley Barlow explained why it’s taken so long to get the fourth Dragon Age game, as it’s been ten years since Dragon Age: Inquisition. Barlow revealed that casting on The Veilguard started five years ago, and there’s been a lot of work done since then.
“It takes a long time to record 700 characters, you know - 80,000 lines or 140,000 lines with all the Rooks,” Barlow said. “It just takes time to make good."
It's worth highlighting the caveat that Barlow makes within that figure...
It seems impossible that Star Wars Outlaws is the first-ever open-world Star Wars game, but indeed it’s true. With that first comes plenty of expectation, but also lots of excitement – particularly when the studio handling the effort is Massive Entertainment, the talented developers of The Division. Speaking personally, I confess that I don’t often get hyped up for too many open-world games these days outside of those made by Rockstar – as those can be counted on to raise the bar every single time – but I have been plenty hyped for Outlaws. After all, it’s set after Empire Strikes Back, you play as a Han Solo-caliber scoundrel instead of yet another Jedi, and you’ve got an awesome alien creature pet named Nix by your side at all times...
If you're a Mortal Kombat fan who's been hoping to pick up some new collectibles, today's your lucky day! There are some brand new Mortal Kombat 1 Funko Pop figures available to preorder - Scorpion, Sub-Zero, and Liu Kang. They cost $13 a piece and are set to release on November 22, so you can have them in your hands just before the holidays. Preorder your favorite, or favorites, at the links below.
Mortal Kombat 1 Funko Pops Are Up For Preorder
These new Funko Pop figures follow quite a few exciting Mortal Kombat 1 announcements that came straight out of San Diego Comic-Con this year. This included reveals from the upcoming Khaos Reigns DLC - which is gearing up to launch on September 24 across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S...
The developers of Deadrop, the first-person shooter Dr Disrespect helped to promote, have insisted it remains on-track for release later in 2024 despite the streamer’s high-profile exit from the studio.
Guy Beahm, better known as Dr Disrespect, was banned from Twitch in 2020 without explanation. In June 2024, following a number of reports, Beahm admitted he exchanged messages in 2017 with a minor via Twitch's now-defunct Whispers feature that "sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate." Subsequent reports alleged the minor had informed Beahm they were underage, and Beahm continued to send "sexually graphic" messages to them regardless.
Twitch and Beahm have so far failed to respond to IGN's requests for...
After Sony itself accidentally revealed the premium warbond Freedom’s Flame for Helldivers 2, it has now made it official alongside an August 8 release date.
The theme for Freedom’s Flame is, predictably, burn damage and survivability, with new weapons, armor, emotes, capes, and skins all set to hit the game next week, Mitch Ayre, Junior Community Manager at developer Arrowhead Games Studios, said in a post on the PlayStation Blog.
As with previous Premium Warbonds, expect Freedom’s Flame to cost 1,000 Super Credits. While you can earn Super Credits from gameplay and the warbond itself, you can also buy them for real-world money. Via the in-game shop, 1,000 Super Credits costs $9.99. Premium warbonds do not expire, so you can work...
Elden Ring developer FromSoftware has released update 1.13 for the game following a period of server maintenance across all platforms.
This second post-Shadow of the Erdtree patch, live now on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X and S, follows early July’s 1.12.3 update, which tweaked the Golden Hippopotamus fight, among other things.
Publisher Bandia Namco released the 1.13 patch notes, and there are a few changes worth highlighting. For example, fans are getting excited about this quality-of-life change:
"Changed the default selection of the OK / CANCEL prompt that shows up when using the 'Spectral Steed Whistle' while the spectral steed is dead. The default selection position is now OK."
However...
Pop into the Call of Duty subreddit on any given day, and you're almost certainly going to trip over a few people complaining about SBMM, or skill-based matchmaking, and how it's ruining Call of Duty. But according to a recent study by developer Activision, getting rid of SBMM would be far, far worse for the game as a whole, and it's got the data to prove it.
In a 25-page white paper published last week, Activision reveals that it actually conducted an experiment in 2023's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 where it reduced SBMM for some of its players, resulting in more players quitting games or not coming back to the game for more sessions.
Matches Made in...Heaven?
Currently, Activision says the way matchmaking works in Call of Duty...
Forgotten Gems is a regular column about notable games that have moved out of the public eye and may not be easily accessible anymore. To see all the other games I've covered so far, be sure to check out the 13 previous issues of Forgotten Gems in our Columns section.
First-person shooters. Roleplaying games. Action adventures. Even though they’ve evolved significantly alongside the gaming hardware they run on, some of today’s most-popular genres are multiple decades old and are likely here to stay for good. It’s hard to imagine people not playing a Call of Duty game in 2030, just as it’s unlikely that fighting games like Street Fighter and Tekken will just be over and done with in the foreseeable future.
But some some genres have...