Gaming News

Bandai Namco Now Investigating Elden Ring After 'Serious Exploit', Dark Souls PC Servers Stay Offline

Bandai Namco has made an official announcement recognising the current technical difficulties with the Dark Souls games on PC, and has said that it is now looking into Elden Ring ahead of launch to ensure the problem does not affect the new FromSoftware game. In a statement on Twitter, Bandai Namco and FromSoftware said that they are "aware of the technical difficulties players have experienced with the Dark Souls suite of games on PC", referring to the fact that servers are down after a "serious exploit" was discovered. The companies offered their thanks to fans who have reported the issue. "Thanks to you, we have identified the cause and are working on fixing the issue." "In addition, we have extended the investigation to Elden...

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60,000 Battlefield 2042 Players Have Petitioned For Their Money Back

More than 60,000 Battlefield 2042 players have signed a petition asking for their money back, as the game continues to receive criticism for its slow update roll out and perceived lack of features. Eurogamer spotted the petition, which requested that refunds available on Steam be extended to PlayStation and Xbox customers, and said EA made "a mockery" of customers who purchased the game. The publisher admitted itself that Battlefield 2042 "did not meet expectations" and developer DICE has recently delayed a number of updates to the game including its first season pass and the addition of a scoreboard. The petition reads: "EA’s release of Battlefield 2042 was a mockery of every customer who purchased this video game for $70 (USD)...

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RPG Time: The Legend of Wright - The Final Preview

We got to play roughly two hours of RPG TIME: The Legend of Wright. From it’s unique pencil drawing style to diverse gameplay and creative world building, it left us craving for more. Luckily, RPG Time: The Legend of Wright releases soon on March 10 on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC. Playing an extended demo of RPG TIME: The Legend of Wright reminded me of seeing the classical animation of Cuphead for the first time. While pencil drawings in a notebook are something we’ve all seen before, it feels unique when brought to video game format. Walking around inside the notebook of an elementary school student is a fresh experience, and crossing from one page to the next genuinely made me feel like I was controlling a character in a way...

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Lost Ark Is One of Steam's Biggest-Ever Games, Even Before It Goes Free-to-Play

Lost Ark is already one of Steam's biggest-ever games, overtaking the likes of Apex Legends and Among Us in peak concurrent users, even before it goes free-to-play later this week. Per SteamDB data, the game's peak concurrent users currently stand at 532,476, placing it sixth in Steam's all-time list behind only New World, Cyberpunk 2077, Dota 2, CS: GO, and PUBG. Incredibly, it hit that number within 4 hours of going on release as a paid game, even though it will become free-to-play on Friday. That sheer influx seemed to be causing some problems initially, with users reporting connectivity issues and increased queue times that prompted developer Smilegate to open another North American server shortly after launch: Lost Ark is an...

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Far Cry 6 Joseph: Collapse DLC Review

After two of these roguelite DLCs so far, the formula for Far Cry 6’s villain-centric expansions has become predictable: you enter a character’s mind, confronting their demons and learning more about their backstory while shooting everything in sight. Thus, Joseph: Collapse has a lot of the same strengths and shortcomings of Vaas’ Insanity and Pagan Min’s Control that came before it. Unlike those, though, this final entry in the trilogy has the critical flaw of starring the weakest villain of the bunch – by quite a wide margin – in Joseph Seed. The Zen-like militant cult leader from Far Cry 5 never made much of an impression on me aside from his unmistakable love of yellow aviators, and Collapse does little to make him more interesting...

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Aussie Deals: Far Cry 5, 6 and Blood Dragon Going for Far Less, Reduced Switches and More!

Whether you call it Hump Day (or Book of Boba Fett Night, as we do in my household,) Wednesday is upon us. You've made it this far relatively unscathed. Let's go ahead and populate the tail end of your week with cheap video games to make that home stretch all the sweeter. Notable Sales for Nintendo Switch Purchase Cheaply for PC Exciting Offers for XO/XS Product Savings for PS4/PS5 Adam’s our Aussie deals wrangler. You can watch him game on YouTube. Continue reading...

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Our GTA 6 Hopes and Wishes – Unlocked 530

Rockstar has officially acknowledged Grand Theft Auto 6's development, so we spend time mulling over some key questions: When will it be out? Will the long gap between GTA 5 and GTA 6 help or hurt it? Where will it be set? What do we want out of it in terms of main characters, gameplay features, etc. Plus: Infinity Ward confirms the next Call of Duty game and we debate what big and small steps the franchise should take next in order to stay fresh, PlatinumGames wants to bring back Scalebound, and more! Subscribe on any of your favorite podcast feeds, to our YouTube channel, or grab an MP3 download of this week's episode. For more awesome content, check out our latest IGN Unfiltered interview, where Joseph Staten – one of Halo's...

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America's Army is Shutting Down After 20 Years

America's Army: Proving Grounds, the video game used as a recruitment tool for the United States military, will shut down on March 5 after more than 20 years on various platforms. As first reported by Vice, It will be delisted from Steam and PSN, and online matches will cease to be hosted. Offline and private matches will still be available. America's Army is a first-person shooter released in 2002 and developed and published by the U.S. Army. The game was explicitly designed to encourage American citizens to join the United States military, and represented the United States' government's first major use of video games as a recruitment tool, as well as being a free-to-play game long before such a term became standard practice in the...

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Bandai Namco to Spend $130 Million on a Metaverse Project

Bandai Namco announced Tuesday that it plans to develop an "IP Metaverse" for its library of games, and is spending 15 billion yen (or 130 million USD) on the project. First reported by VideoGamesChronicle, the three main goals of the metaverse project include connecting Bandai Namco with fans of their games, enhancing the value of Bandai Namco's IP, and connecting each IP's world into an interconnected universe known as the "ALL BANDAI NAMCO concept." Bandai Namco also plans to invest 25 billion yen (or 216 million USD) to "maximize IP value" through new IP creation, "groupwide IP projects," and innovation. The metaverse is a popular term in the tech and entertainment world for a persistent virtual world where people can interact...

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Apex Legends Season 12 Defiance: Maggie Kit, Olympus Map Changes, and Patch Notes Details

Apex Legends season 12 Defiance is here and, as usual, there’s a lot to cover. If you’re interested in how the new limited-time mode Control plays I have a whole other article on that that you can check out. But let’s cover the new Legend Mad Maggie and all the map and gun changes coming to Season 12. To start, Apex is having its third anniversary and there’ll be free rewards for every player logging on during the first three weeks of Season 12. All you have to do is log in during February 8th and March 1st to unlock your rewards. With the three year anniversary, Season 12 will feature map rotations of Olympus, Storm Point, and Kings Canyon for the Casual playlist and will have Olympus for Split 1 of Ranked and Kings Canyon for Split...

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Crusader Kings 3: Royal Court DLC Review

As I sit perched atop my throne and welcome another throng of unwashed petitioners to track mud across my brand-new Persian carpet, surely bringing with them all manner of trivial frustrations to waste my time, one thought sits at the front of my mind: where has this been all my life? Royal Court is the first major expansion for Crusader Kings 3, and between a full 3D throne room that puts you in the world, to the return of the inventory system from Crusader Kings 2, to wonderfully customizable cultures, everything feels like it was meant to be here all along. While the base game of Crusader Kings 3 was already a masterpiece, it's remarkable how incomplete it would feel to go back to it after playing Royal Court. Some recent...

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Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands: How Spells Matter as Much as the Guns – IGN First

Quick, what's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Borderlands? Is it guns? Well if you didn't think of guns, just play along with me please. My entire intro kind of hangs on it. Thanks. So Borderlands is famous for guns: billions of them, actually. Everything from guns that shoot acid bullets to guns that become grenades when empty. Much like the USA, the heart and soul of the Borderlands experience is built on a foundation of guns. Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, which is an off-shoot of the Borderlands experience, is also brimming with guns, but there's something magical in the air, too. Literally, it's magic! Now that you've made it through this tortured opening, let's take a good, long look at how magic changes the...

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Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters Looks Like XCOM with Space Marines

If you've ever been on your way out of work and someone stops you to do one more thing, you might understand how your crew of Grey Knights feels at the start of Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters. The "one more thing" they asked you to do probably wasn't to fight off a daemonic plague threatening an entire sector of space, but you know, details. Fresh off of a pitched battle against cultists of the blood god, Khorne, these dutiful servants of the Imperium have been rerouted by the Inquisition to shoot, psi-blast, and chainsword their way through turn-based missions and a dynamic strategic layer. It has the feel of 40K meets XCOM, and that is entirely my kind of campaign. The problem with this unplanned detour is that their...

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Miyazaki Explains Working With George R.R. Martin on Elden Ring: 'It Was Like Speaking With an Old Friend'

Dark Souls creator Hidetaka Miyazaki said meeting Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin to discuss Elden Ring was "like speaking with an old friend" in an interview with Edge – and explained more about how the two legends of their fields collaborated. Martin helped construct the fantasy world of Elden Ring – effectively its history and major figures, but not the game's plot – and Miyazaki has good memories of travelling to America to have the initial conversations, saying Martin already knew about the Dark Souls games before they met. Miyazaki said: "I knew immediately from talking to him, it just became apparent his skill and his passion for the fantasy genre, and for games as well. There was a little bit of a generation gap...

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PlatinumGames Appeals to Xbox to Help It Make Scalebound: 'Phil! Let’s Do It Together!'

PlatinumGames wants to return to Scalebound, the dragon-filled Xbox exclusive it cancelled in 2017 – and has appealed to Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer to begin those discussions. Speaking to IGN Japan, Platinum president Atsushi Inaba explained that Scalebound creator Hideki Kamiya, “has been talking about wanting to work on Scalebound again for a while.” Kamiya himself added: “I’d like to appeal to Phil Spencer directly! Let’s do it, Phil!” Kamiya has not been shy about expressing his regret over the game's cancellation, and the develoepr has said before that that it would love to return to the game with Microsoft's permisssion. However, Inaba made clear that this isn't an idle wish, and they'd like to reopen talks with...

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Gayming Awards 2022 Nominations Announced

The nominations for the 2022 Gayming Awards have been announced, with Life is Strange: True Colors and Boyfriend Dungeon leading the pack with four nominations each. The Gayming Awards celebrate LGBTQ+ gaming with awards for industry diversity, the most authentic LGBTQ+ representation, the most popular LGBTQ+ streamer, and more. Last year's inaugural awards proved so successful that the category list has been expanded to include comics, esports, and tabletop gaming, with winners set to be announced on April 25 at the Troxy Theatre in London, hosted by gaming presenter Julia Hardy. The full list of nominations for the Gayming Awards 2022 follows: Gayming Awards 2022 Game of the Year Nominees: Boyfriend Dungeon Life is Strange...

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GTA Remastered Trilogy May Have Sold Up to 10 Million Units Despite Technical Issues

The GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition, which launched back in November, landed with a whole host of technical issues that earned plenty of criticism from fans (and us). But that doesn't seem to have stopped it from selling very, very well. Take-Two just gave its quarterly earnings report, during which the company said the trilogy, "significantly exceed[ed] our commercial expectations." That's nice to hear, even if it doesn't really tell the whole story, as companies can essentially set whatever metrics they want internally and then say a game exceeded them. But a bit of clever math on the part of VGC might have gotten at its actual sales metrics. Take-Two reported that the entire GTA series to date has sold over 370 million copies...

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Valentine's Day Gift Ideas for Aussie Gamer Couples in 2022

Oh, crap. Not again. Are you short a gift for the international day of love? Well, that relationship-destroying bomb is ticking now, friend. You could just do what I do every year: hand over some out-of-date choccies, some flowers ripped from the neighbour's yard and an amorous limerick scrawled on a napkin. Alternatively, if you and your partner both love tech and playing games, why not actually go to some effort? Games can often make great gifts (though I've also got stuff to appease any unenlightened significant other). That said, I honestly believe that with the right multi game, couples who game together, stay together. Anyway, here's some cool stuff to shower upon that special Valentine’s Day someone. Non-Gaming Gifts Play...

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Epic's Tim Sweeney Says Fortnite Won't Be Updated To Run On Steam Deck

When Valve's Steam Deck releases later this month, it should be possible to play Fortnite on the new handheld. However, it won't be easy. In series of tweets posted over the weekend, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney told fans that there no current plans to update Fortnite so that it works with Proton — the compatibility layer that allows Windows games to run on Steam Deck's default operating system. As a result, Fortnite fans will have to jump through a few additional hoops if they want to get the battle royale running on Valve's handheld. The crux of the problem is Epic's Easy Anti-Cheat system, which is not currently compatible with Proton. With Linux being a more open-ended platform than Windows, Sweeney says he's not confident that it...

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Best External Hard Drive 2022

With any luck, our gaming laptops and gaming PCs are cruising along at high speeds thanks to zippy solid-state drives. Even the latest generation of consoles are built around solid-state storage. But, where those drives excel in speeds, they tend to lack in capacity. Unfortunately, adding more storage to a lot of these devices can be a serious undertaking. External storage drives provide an easy, effective alternative that can let you make up for a lack of space on your devices. You'll find external storage comes in all shapes and sizes. You can get massive capacity with external hard drives, or you can even go for high speeds with external SSDs. Using more recent USB and Thunderbolt connections, you can even see external drives...

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Take-Two CEO Says Play-to-Earn Games Aren't Currently Entertaining; But They Could Be Someday

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has historically voiced a healthy mixture of curiosity and caution whenever it comes to new trends in the games industry, and thus far, his stance on blockchain and NFTs has been no exception. Previously, Zelnick has expressed interest in blockchain technology as technology, but thought its uses for cryptocurrency and NFTs are solidly in the camp of speculation. Only a financial quarter later, that view hasn't changed, even though his company's visible interest in the tech has grown. Take-Two announced its intent to acquire Zynga back in January, and with it, its interest in NFTs and recently hired of a VP of blockchain gaming. Speaking to IGN to coincide with Take-Two's third-quarter earnings today...

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Best Budget Gaming Monitors 2022

A gaming monitor is an essential part of any gaming battlestation even if you have a laptop. Competitive and immersive games look and play better on a standalone monitor. Even a modest 24-inch monitor is a big upgrade over a laptop display. Gaming monitors have an expensive reputation, but there’s plenty of options for gamers on a tight budget. You can easily snag a display with a high pixel density and refresh rate for a few hundred dollars. 4K gaming monitors or a 240Hz refresh rate are within reach – and click here to see them in the UK. TL;DR – These are the Best Budget Gaming Monitors: Dell 2721HGF Asus TUF Gaming VG259QR LG 27GN800-B Asus TUF Gaming VG289Q Asus ROG Swift PG329Q Dell S3422DWG Alienware AW2521HF Dell S3222DGM...

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The Wolf Among Us 2 Reveal Event Announced for This Week

If you've been waiting for more info on The Wolf Among Us 2, you'll be able to watch a 30-minute news event on February 9 that will reveal the first official trailer, as well as details on the upcoming sequel. Geoff Keighley announced that he will be hosting the half-hour stream and it will include the premiere of the first official trailer captured in-game. The event will then go behind the scenes to reveal more about the development of the upcoming Fables video game. The Wolf Among Us 2 is a sequel to 2013's narrative-adventure game by Telltale Games. The sequel was formally announced in 2017, but Telltale Games closed in 201,8 effectively canceling the project. However, LCG Entertainment revived Telltale Games and acquired the...

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Every EA Game in Development

With Microsoft set to acquire Activision Blizzard, EA is on the cusp of becoming gaming’s biggest western third-party publisher in terms of revenue and market cap. The company has sustained success for decades — despite notable controversies surrounding its business practices — thanks to a diverse portfolio of games, from mobile money makers and annual sports titles to AAA experiences from renowned in-house studios like Respawn, DICE, and BioWare. Considering how difficult it is to keep track of all that’s going on within such a massive publisher, we decided to compile this list of every EA game we know to be in development for consoles and PC. (This list doesn’t include rumored projects or the publisher’s many phone games in...

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King Arthur: Knight's Tale Preview: Tactically Trash, Smash, Crash, and Slash

A plodding team of armored knights crashes into their enemies, scything them down with blows left and right. They're much more powerful than those they fight, but far fewer, and in the tactical combat of King Arthur: Knight's Tale you're the one in charge of making sure those knights triumph. I sat down with a preview of the second act of this story-driven strategy RPG, and I found myself intrigued by its mix of combat, knightly tales, and casual castle management. I'll be straight with you here: this remix of Arthurian legend plays fast and loose with the myths, and I'm here for it. Arthurian legends are the comic book stories of the medieval period, all about larger-than-life heroes and wildly inconsistent in how they're depicted...

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GTA 5 Gets a Batman Mod With Gadgets, Melee Attacks, and Multiple Batmobiles

An incredibly detailed Batman mod has been created for Grand Theft Auto 5 that includes multiple Batsuits, gadgets, a dozen bat-vehicles, and more. JulioNIB, who's previously modded Godzilla, Superman, and Jaws into the game, released their latest creation on February 2 with a video showcasing its features (spotted by GameRant). JUlioNIB's Batman Script Mod lets PC players don multiple Batsuits (or even walk around as an un-costumed Bruce Wayne), and run, glide, and grapple around Los Santos. The mod also adds its own melee combat reminiscent of the Arkham series, which includes that series' slow-motion finishers. Players can also enjoy not one but 12 different bat-vehicles, including the 1989 Batmobile and the Tumbler from The...

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Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - The Hinokami Chronicles Comes to Switch in June

Anime adaptation Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - The Hinokami Chronicles will come to Nintendo Switch on June 10. The arena-based fighting game will arrive on Switch alongside all the post-release content that's hit previous editions – including 6 new characters, online missions, and balance changes. A physical edition of the game is available to pre-order now, which comes with a bonus character unlock key for Kimetsu Academy Tanjiro Kamado. Teh fighting game follows the same plot as the anime and manga it's based on, following Tanjiro and Nezuko Kamado after their family are killed by demons, each on a path for revenge, and a cure for a demon curse placed on Nezuko. When it arrived on other formats last year, we awarded The...

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It Takes Two Sells a Huge 5 Million Copies

It Takes Two has sold five million copies, including two million since October, developer Hazelight Studios has announced. The developer tweeted (below) that "our team is absolutely stunned just thinking about how many players have now enjoyed our game." Hazelight previously announced on October 13 that the award-winning co-op game had passed three million units sold, showing that It Takes Two had a strong holiday period performance with at least two million sales. It Takes Two won several categories at The Game Awards 2021 including overall game of the year, best multiplayer game, and best family game. It was among the nominees for IGN's game of the year but in the end fell to Forza Horizon 5. We called the game "amazing"...

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Dying Light 2 Has Shambled Onto Steam's 25 Most-Played Games of All Time by Concurrent Players

Dying Light 2 appears to be off to a strong start, as it has already shambled its way onto Steam's top 25 most-played games of all time with a peak concurrent player count of 274,983. According to SteamDB, Dying Light 2 - which has greatly outperformed the original Dying Light's all-time peak of 45,876 players - has passed both KHOLAT and Halo Infinite to place 23rd on the list of Steam's most-played games of all time by concurrent players, and it sits behind The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. For comparison, PUBG: Battlegrounds is holding strong onto the #1 spot with an all-time peak of 3,257,248 players. In a distant second sits Counter-Strike: Global Offensive with 1,308,963 players. Additionally, the original Dying Light had an...

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Batman: Arkham Collection for Switch Possibly Leaked by Retailer

According to French retailer WTT, Nintendo Switch may soon be getting the Batman: Arkham Collection, which includes Rocksteady's three Batman games - Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, and Arkham Knight. As reported by VGC, this listing by WTT is of note as the retailer had previously listed the Switch port of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt before it got its official reveal. It's important to remember that this doesn't necessarily confirm that these games are coming, as this could have been a mistake or otherwise, but it should give some hope to those looking to take Batman on the go. The listing, which is still up as of this writing, has a placeholder date of August 31, 2022, which could hint it may be planned for a summer 2022 release date. Who...

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