Gaming News

Ark: Survival Ascended Dev Pulls Windows PC Version From PVP Crossplay Over Rampant Cheating

The developer of Ark: Survival Ascended has pulled the Windows PC version from PVP crossplay amid a vociferous backlash over cheating. Ark: Survival Ascended came out on Windows PC and Xbox on November 21, and since then players have called on developer Studio Wildcard to remove the Windows PC version from PVP crossplay due to the use of cheats such as speedhacks and the ability to kill through walls. Now, with the community in uproar over cheating, Studio Wildcard said it had made the “difficult” decision to temporarily disable Windows clients from joining official crossplay PVP servers while it works with Microsoft and anti-cheat software BattleEye to add “robust” anticheat measures for the Windows version of the game. “We...

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Beyond Good & Evil 20th Anniversary Edition Pops Up on Xbox Store

Beyond Good & Evil 20th Anniversary Edition has appeared again, this time on Microsoft’s Xbox store. The unannounced game appeared on the Xbox store overnight with a raft of screenshots before Microsoft pulled the listing offline. The internet noticed and splurged the details online, of course, including Wario64 on X/Twitter (below). According to the listing, the Anniversary Edition has 4K resolution and 60 frames per second performance, with “improved graphics, controls, and audio, along with brand-new autosave and cross-save features”. Apparently there’s a new speedrun mode, too, and updated achievements. Here’s the official blurb: Ubisoft’s Beyond Good & Evil first launched on November 11, 2003, so we’ve skipped past the...

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Forspoken on PS5 Is Down to Just £10 at Amazon for a Limited Time

Amazon in the UK has dropped Forspoken on PlayStation 5 to just £9.99 (see here). This is a huge £50 drop from the original £59.99 RRP, and a reasonably good deal in the post-Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. We did already see this deal a couple of weeks back, but the stock didn't last too long, so not many of us got the opportunity to pick the game up at such a discount. But, with the deal now available again, we're recommending taking advantage of it ASAP to avoid disappointment. Considering the popularity of the offer last time, we're predicting this deal to expire again incredibly quickly. But, also let us know in the comments your thoughts on whether Forspoken is now worth buying for £10. For more UK deal updates, be sure to...

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A Free AC, Two VR Super Bundles, Last Minute Cyber Monday Bargains, and More!

Welcome to the (surprisingly still target-rich) aftermath of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. I'm tracking a bunch of good deals for those of you who are still somehow, miraculously, cash liquid. Wish I could say I was in that boat myself. Am not. Occupational hazard... In historical news, it's somehow been exactly a decade since the PlayStation 4 landed in Oz. Though it had some multi-plat launch goodies, bona fide exclusives were few. Basically, we had a choice of the underwhelming Knack or Killzone: Shadow Fall, a franchise-stalling entry I've not thought about in...well, 10 years. Even still, the PS4 went on to become the fastest home console to reach 100 million unit sell in, and now sits at 117.2 million in sales. This Day in...

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Dragon's Dogma 2 Showcase Brings Back Memories of Shadow of the Colossus With Latest Reveals

Capcom just brought its latest Dragon’s Dogma 2 Showcase to a close, but it still made sure to show off towering new enemies like Talos, a new vocation in the form of the Trickster, and more immersive RPG gameplay. It was a short presentation that had its show stolen almost immediately when Capcom began to introduce fearsome foes like Talos, a giant statue capable of destroying its surrounding environment. It appears players can take Talos out by climbing around its body and striking weak points Shadow of the Colossus-style. Talos is proof that Dragon’s Dogma 2 is bringing a gigantic scale to the series, but that’s not the only thing that’s new. While the world may appear similar to the original adventure, Producer Yoshiaki...

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The Walking Dead: Destinies Review

Zombies can be fun to mow down, but they also run the risk of being one of the least interesting monster enemy types around: a slow, lumbering, decaying husk that’s better off buried than occupying our attention. If nothing else, The Walking Dead: Destinies, based off the otherwise fantastic early seasons of the TV show, succeeds in embodying all their worst qualities. In its ugly, shuffling attempts to stand tall even while looking like rotting husk of a game from the Xbox 360 days, Destinies deserves neither your attention nor access to your wallet – and we would be better off if this boring mess had stayed buried in the past, from which it seems to have exhumed its broken mechanics. While it earns a small amount of credit for at...

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Cyberpunk 2077 Live Action Project Isn't Coming Until 2025 at the Earliest

Cyberpunk 2077's live action project won't be released until 2025 at the earliest, CD Projekt Red has confirmed. Speaking during the developer's latest earnings call, chief commercial officer Michał Nowakowski didn't say exactly when the project would debut, but did confirm it won't be in 2024 when asked how CD Projekt Red plans to maintain Cyberpunk 2077 sales going forward. "In terms of promotional activities, there is the Ultimate Edition launching soon, but when it comes to the Cyberpunk IP we're going to be nurturing it and developing it through activities going outside of the game as well. "We're not really discussing specifics here but one of the obvious things that we have announced, not happening next year, but going to be...

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Vampire Dynasty Announced for PC

Mehuman Games and Toplitz Productions have announced Vampire Dynasty, the latest and boldest entry in the Dynasty series. It features open-world exploration, four-player co-op play, castle building, vampiric powers, and "a wide variety of possible main story endings." Check out the announcement trailer above and the first screenshots below. “We are excited to escort the Dynasty series on a dark and sinister path,” said Michał Ciastoń, CEO of Mehuman Games and Lead Designer on Vampire Dynasty. “We embrace the challenge to deliver a gaming experience that both veteran Dynasty players as well as fans of dark fantasy and horror games can equally enjoy. We have always been fans of both the occult and sinister as well as of sandbox games...

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Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Passes 4.3 Million Sales

Cyberpunk 2077's Idris Elba-starring expansion Phantom Liberty has sold 4.3 million copies since it launched, developer CD Projekt Red has confirmed. Revealed during its latest earnings report, the developer confirmed the expansion, which launched September 26 to high critical acclaim and three million sales within its first week, has continued to perform for the company. "According to our estimates, after last weekend total sales of the expansion topped 4.3 million copies," said chief financial officer Piotr Nielubowicz in a video. "This means that every fifth person who owns a copy of the base game for the PC or next-gen consoles has also purchased the expansion." These numbers also come ahead of the Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate...

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Sony Signs Partnership With Guild Wars Maker NCSoft, Mentions Mobile Games

Sony has signed a “strategic global business partnership” with NCSoft, the South Korean company behind massively multiplayer online role-playing games such as Guild Wars and Lineage. Outgoing Sony Interactive Entertainment boss Jim Ryan and NCSoft CEO Taekjin Kim issued a joint statement signaling the deal, which will see both companies “collaborate in various global business fields, including mobile”. No projects or games were mentioned, but it sounds like the idea here is for Sony to leverage NCSoft’s tech as it plots to make inroads into the huge mobile game market. Partnering with NCSoft advances our strategy to expand beyond console and broaden PlayStation’s reach to a wider audience. “This partnership with SIE is the...

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Dragon's Dogma 2 Steam Page Confirms Release Date Ahead of Planned Announcement

Dragon's Dogma 2's Steam page has revealed the game's March 22, 2024 release date ahead of a planned announcement later tonight. The release date visible on the Dragon's Dogma 2 Steam page confirms a recent leak spotted earlier this month in which the PEGI rating for the game revealed it would release on March 22, 2024, for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. The news comes hours before the Dragon's Dogma 2 showcase, set for 1pm PT / 4pm ET. The showcase will be co-hosted by Dragon's Dogma 2's director, Hideaki Itsuno, and producer, Yoshiaki Hirabayashi. The pair will present new info, gameplay, and the release date. The stream will run for approximately 15 minutes. Dragon's Dogma 2 is the long-awaited sequel to the original...

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Future Avatar Movies Could Feature Elements Created for Ubisoft’s Frontiers of Pandora Game

Future movies in the Avatar series may feature elements that have been created by Ubisoft for its upcoming Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora video game. The game, developed by Ubisoft’s Massive Entertainment studio, is a canon part of the Avatar universe. Taking place in the newly developed Western Frontier, every new plant, creature and Na’vi clan is considered an official part of the lore. Talking to IGN, creative director Magnus Jansén explained that “The Western Frontier is no less a part of the world of Avatar than what's in the movies.” One of Ubisoft’s original creations has already made the leap to a different medium. “One of the species that we conceived and that we built together with [Avatar movie studio, Lightstorm...

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Silent Hill Ascension Developer Insists It Was ‘Written by Real People’ Amid AI Accusations

The developer of Silent Hill Ascension has insisted the controversial interactive streaming series was written by real people after a number of observers accused it of being authored by AI. The group-based choose-your-own-adventure project, which lets some viewers appear as character cameos, initially came under fire for its microtransactions, with Genvid CEO Jacob Navok telling IGN that "the notion that users can 'win' by paying is generally false". But more recently, a series of tweets from user @VoidBurger that called into question Ascension’s dialogue went viral for highlighting some odd lines as well as their odd delivery. Here’s a snippet: Responding, Navok tweeted to say that across the project’s 100,000+ words, “zero are...

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Sentimental Skyrim Players Booting Up Xbox 360s and PS3s to 'Retire' Original Characters

A wave of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim players are getting a little sentimental and booting up their old Xbox 360s and PlayStation 3s to "retire" their original characters. Skyrim is now more than a decade old — 12 years, two weeks, and six days, to be exact — but remains in player consciousness as much as it did at launch. Bethesda's beloved role-playing game lets players explore a vast open world, fight great evils, and become a living legend, not to mention build a house, get married, and have kids. Several players are currently taking that role-playing one step further, however, by revisiting their now veteran adventurers and retiring them. Though this isn't a particularly new concept for RPG fans, the current trend was triggered...

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Looks Like Cult of the Lamb Is Getting its 'Sex Update' After All

Cult of the Lamb fans have successfully pressured developer Massive Monster into adding sex to its cult 2022 game as part of the free Sins of the Flesh update, which is set to release in early 2024. Cutesy horror infused roguelike Cult of the Lamb launched in August last year with a simple brief: to allow gamers to step into the cloven hoves of its possessed fluffy sacrificial protagonist, who must repay a debt to a mysterious stranger by establishing a cult in their name. The juxtaposition of the game’s cutesy aesthetics and overriding horror-infused theme has succeeded in delighting fans, who have been kept well-fed by a series of post-launch content updates that have introduced new cosmetics, items, crossovers, and game modes to...

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CD Projekt Settles Lawsuit That Alleged It Misled Investors Over Cyberpunk 2077's Launch

CD Projekt has finally settled the class action lawsuit that alleged it misled investors over the launch state of Cyberpunk 2077. Revealed in a regulatory announcement, CD Projekt confirmed it had received the final approval of the class action settlement, which ends the legal proceedings related to the lawsuit. The $1.85 million settlement agreement was revealed in December 2021, but the case has been ongoing for longer. Rosen Law Firm first filed the lawsuit on December 24, 2020 as it sought to recover damages for CD Projekt investors under the federal securities law. Settling the suit, as CD Projekt has now done, means no wrongdoing was admitted. While Cyberpunk 2077 has returned to form and regained the good graces of fans as...

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Baldur’s Gate 3’s Hefty 3-Disc Xbox Series X Physical Edition Includes Patch 5

The Xbox Series X physical edition of Baldur’s Gate 3 includes Patch 5 on-disc, developer Larian Studios has confirmed. Patch 5 was announced as launching this week, and, as IGN revealed, fixes slowdown issues with Act 3 caused by Patch 4, among many other things. Fans had wondered if this latest patch would make it onto the physical edition, which is set to launch early 2024. In a post on X/Twitter, Larian director of publishing Michael Douse confirmed the Xbox Series X physical edition will indeed ship with Patch 5 on disc. However, Larian is still working on the exact version for the PlayStation 5 edition. While the Xbox Series X version of the Baldur’s Gate 3 physical edition comes on a whopping three discs, the PS5 version...

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Bethesda Is Responding to Negative Reviews of Starfield on Steam

Bethesda has taken the unusual step for a triple-A video game maker of responding to negative reviews of Starfield on Steam. As spotted by Project Zomboid developer Andy Hodgetts and flagged in a tweet, representatives of the Microsoft-owned company have been replying to negative reviews on Valve’s platform since early November amid Starfield's ‘mixed’ user review rating of 69%. Many of the negative reviews echo common complaints with the sprawling space game, like this one posted on November 6 from a player with 56 hours in Starfield. This review sparked a response from someone called “Bethesda_Kraken [developer]”, who signed off their post as coming from Bethesda Customer Support: It’s a pretty stock response, and quotes...

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Assassin's Creed Syndicate Is Currently Free on PC

Assassin's Creed Syndicate is currently free on PC as part of a special offer available to anyone with a Ubisoft account. The 2015 title is currently part of an "exclusive giveaway" on Ubisoft's website that lets players pick up the Victorian London-set Assassin's Creed for nothing. The offer is available until December 6. There are some very slight caveats in that players must have the aforementioned Ubisoft account and use the Ubisoft Connect launcher to access it instead of Steam or the Epic Games Store, but Assassin's Creed Syndicate is otherwise genuinely free. Taking on the role of twin protagonists Evie and Jacob Frye living in 1868 London, players must rally and lead the underworld to break the corrupt stranglehold on the...

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SteamWorld Build Review

I'm not sure I've seen a more original premise for a city builder than "grow a frontier boomtown populated entirely by retrofuturistic steam-powered robots" in a long time. That makes SteamWorld Build a refreshing drink of water in a trackless desert compared to the many, many trend-chasing builders we've seen over the last few years – and while you build a town above, it sets itself apart further by having you simultaneously excavate a mine below in search of both mineral resources and pieces of ancient technology that can be used to escape your dying planet. It's a short, sweet city builder that doesn't do too much new beyond that setup, but uses the parts it has to make a fun whole I know I'll revisit in the future. As has been the...

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The Division Heartland Gets a Rating in Taiwan, Hinting a Release Date Could Be Imminent

The Division Heartland has been rated by the Taiwan Digital Game Rating Committee. First spotted by X/Twitter user Kurakasis, the rating first appeared on Nov. 14, 2023. As Kurakasis points out, the rating, which includes mentions of PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X | S verisons, suggests that a release date could arrive as early as late January or early February 2024 if we’re lucky. While it’s best not to get your hopes up for an official schedule update until Ubisoft has more to say, the rating could be a sign that things are moving in the right direction. Ubisoft announced its free-to-play PC and console take on The Division series in 2021. It’s planned to release for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox...

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Baldur's Gate 3 Fan May Have Mapped Out Exactly Where the Nautiloid Crashes on D&D Map

Big as Baldur's Gate 3 is, fans of Dungeons & Dragons know that the expansive world of the game is only a tiny, tiny fraction of the massive world of D&D. But one intrepid fan thinks they've found exactly which tiny fraction of the world some of the game's key moments take place in. In a Reddit post by u/CommanderRasseru, the author claims to have pinpointed on a D&D map exactly where the Nautiloid crash site and Moonrise Towers are located. They admit this is their "best rough guess," since the D&D map and the Baldur's Gate 3 maps don't line up absolutely 100% in every way, but some pretty major clues point to their guess being a fairly accurate one. The most obvious landmark is the city of Baldur's Gate itself, as well as the...

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Destiny 2: The Final Shape Officially Delayed to June 2024

Following rumors and reports that the expansion was delayed, Bungie has officially revealed that Destiny 2's next expansion, The Final Shape, has been pushed back to June 4, 2024. In a blog post, Bungie confirmed that it is delaying the expansion, stating it needs "more time to become exactly what [Bungie] want it to be." The expansion was supposed to be released on February 27, 2024. "The Final Shape is the culmination of the first ten years of Destiny storytelling and, for Guardians everywhere, countless hours spent together," Bungie wrote in the blog post. "We want to honor that journey, so we're taking the time we need to deliver an even bigger and bolder vision, one that we hope will be remembered and treasured for years to...

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Next Witcher Book a Standalone Story Focused on Geralt, Author Andrzej Sapkowski Confirms

Andrzej Sapkowski's next The Witcher book will be a standalone novel based on Geralt of Rivia, the author has confirmed. Speaking to Beyond Pixels, as translated by Redanian Intelligence, Sapkowski said during Comic Con Vienna that the next book, which currently lacks a title, won't be part of a larger series within the Witcher world. "No, that's not my plan now," Sapkowski said when asked if this would be connected to the other Witcher titles. "This new book is going to be a standalone, but maybe, who can say. The book is directly about Geralt, but I won't say more. It is outside the pentalogy." This places it in the same style as Season of Storms, the eighth and latest Witcher book released and the only one to exist as a...

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Baldur’s Gate 3 Has Slowdown Issues Because It Keeps Thinking About All Your Theft and Violence

Baldur’s Gate 3 gets Patch 5 this week, and developer Larian Studios has promised it will fix issues caused by the recently released Patch 4. Players reported increased performance issues in Act 3 following the release of Patch 4, with some who contacted IGN calling Baldur’s Gate 3 “unplayable” due to crushing lag. In a statement issued to IGN, Larian explained what had caused the problem. It all boils down to the game refusing to forget unnoticed thefts and acts of vandalism, which eventually bogged down performance in the late game. "In Patch 4 we introduced a fix that would prevent the Scrying Eyes in Moonrise Towers from immediately calling the guards on you when stealing, even if you were sneaking, or invisible for example,"...

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Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth's Hawaii Map Is 3 Times the Size of Yakuza's Isezaki Ijincho

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth's Hawaii will be the biggest Yakuza map to date, coming in at three times the size of Yakuza: Like a Dragon's Isezaki Ijincho and nine times the size of series mainstay Kamurocho. A post on X/Twitter from developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio revealed the new map, which will take the series outside of Japan for the first time, will dwarf Isezaki Ijincho, which was already considered huge compared to past Yakuza locations. The post also showed off the different districts available in the Hawaii map, officially called Honolulu City, such as Aloha Beach, the Anaconda Shopping Centre, and Chinatown. Because this is a Yakuza game, Infinite Wealth will of course also feature an area called District 5 which is home...

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New Starfield Mod Gives Players a Fresh Perspective During Conversations

A new quality-of-life mod lets players turn off Starfield’s fixed first-person dialogue camera in the PC version of Bethesda’s sprawling sci-fi RPG. Starfield released back in September laden with design choices that drew clear inspiration from earlier Bethesda titles, including a sometimes jarring Oblivion-esque dialogue camera that forces players into a first-person perspective as it zooms in on a conversational partner. Now, a new mod created by AntoniX is giving RPG enthusiasts the chance to disable Starfield’s dialogue camera and set their own personalized parameters for the chatty encounters. Alongside disabling the initial zoom, the mod lets players force a first or third-person perspective during conversations, while also...

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TikTok Maker ByteDance Reportedly Ditching Gaming, Marvel Snap Tries to Reassure Worried Players

Well-received online card game Marvel Snap has issued a statement aimed at reassuring concerned players after its publisher was reportedly set for significant trouble. Reuters reports that TikTok maker ByteDance plans to wind down its Nuverse gaming brand and retreat from mainstream video games, and is looking for ways to sell off launched titles. That would include Marvel Snap, developer Second Dinner’s Marvel-themed Hearthstone-a-like that launched in 2022. Nuverse publishes Marvel Snap across mobile and PC. According to Reuters, ByteDance will tell employees today to stop working on unreleased games by December, and will look for ways to divest from titles already launched. It’s a decision likely to impact “hundreds” of employees...

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Worms Maker Team17 Issues Profit Warning, Insists Next Year Will Be Better

The UK video game industry continues to suffer poor results, this time at Worms maker Team17. The veteran indie publisher and developer issued a profit warning for this financial year, saying that despite revenue expected to come in “modestly” ahead of current market expectations, profit is expected to be down. That’s because certain games “are not meeting internal expectations”, which has in turn caused a “less favourable mix” between higher margin owned intellectual property games and third-party games with higher royalty payments. In short, Team17’s own games are selling well enough. Meanwhile, Team17 said it was too slow to address some project overspend, and has seen delays in cutting costs. Last month, Team17 confirmed a round...

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Skyrim Player Accrues 267,000 Bounty Murdering 5,000 NPCs in Quest to Kill 'Everything Killable'

The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim features a ton of colourful characters, and while some can't be killed for story reasons, one player has claimed to have "killed everything that was killable". As reported by GamesRadar, Reddit user Amelix34 accrued a bounty of more than 267,000 in the process of purging the likes of Whiterun, Dawnstar, and more of (inconsequential) life. This terrible tirade saw Amelix34 kill 3,310 human NPCs, which includes the likes of bandits, assassins, and other baddies, but also innocent villagers, honourable soldiers, and more, alongside 693 animals, 401 creatures, 947 undead, and 55 daedra. Unlike some player freedom-focused games like 2023 smash hit RPG Baldur's Gate 3, in which players can essentially kill...

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