Gaming News

Forza Horizon 5's PC Specs Have Been Released

Playground Games has announced a range of details surrounding the PC version of Forza Horizon 5, including its recommended system requirements for AMD and Nvidia setups. In a post released on the Forza website, the developer says that it has worked diligently to ensure that everyone experiences the best version of Forza Horizon 5 as players look to set out across the game's stunning Mexican landscapes. In order to deliver that experience, Playground Games says that it has updated its minimum specifications "from the previous estimate given on the Microsoft Store and Steam." At the low end, Forza Horizon 5's minimum specs are relatively modest. Player's harnessing older graphics cards such as a Radeon RTX 470 or Nvidia GTX 970 should...

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Xbox Showcase at Tokyo Game Show 2021: The Biggest Announcements and Reveals

Xbox held its digital showcase at Tokyo Game Show 2021 today, announcing Cloud Gaming for multiple countries, as well as introducing new Game Pass games and seeing Phil Spencer announce his intention to add more Japanese games to the Xbox line-up. To ensure sure you don't miss anything, we've included all the big news from the showcase (which you can watch below): Cloud Game Streaming Coming to Australia, Japan, Mexico and Brazil Tomorrow In a video presentation at Tokyo Game Show 2021 Online, Microsoft's Phil Spencer and an assortment of guests revealed that Xbox Cloud Gaming will be available in Japan, Mexico, Australia, and Brazil starting Friday, October 1. Spencer expressed his gratitude to Japanese Xbox fans, stating that the...

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SWERY's The Good Life Coming to Xbox Game Pass on Launch Day

White Owls Inc. and Playism have announced that The Good Life, the next game from Deadly Premonition creator SWERY, will be available on Xbox Game Pass from launch. The Good Life, which will release on October 15, is a "debt-repayment RPG" that lets you experience a slice of life in the small British town of Rainy Woods. It will launch on Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and Steam, as well as on the Game Pass subscription service. If you're curious as to what weird and wonderful things Hidetaka “SWERY” Suehiro and his team has dreamed up for The Good Life, a demo is available right now on Xbox One. PC players will be able to play this demo when it arrives on Steam as part of the Steam Next Festival, which begins October 1. That demo will...

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King of Fighters 15: SNK Reveals Its First All-New Character - Tokyo Game Show 2021

SNK has unveiled the first brand-new character for the upcoming The King of Fighters XV. This new fighter, a young woman named Isla, is a "rival" to Shun'ei, who was the hero of The King of Fighters XIV. Revealed during a special video program amid the first day of Tokyo Game Show 2021, Isla's most striking feature is a pair of "phantom hands" which hover beside her at all times. This makes sense for a rival to Shun'ei, who is famed for his own oversized phantom hands – although his ones only deploy during certain moves. Isla's "hands" are closer to human-sized and are always visible. Most of her attacks make use of them, giving her an array of long-range moves. In that sense, Isla more closely resembles Verse, the monstrous final...

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Aussie Deals: Up to 89% Off VR, Half Off Square Enix RPGs, and More!

Tokyo Games Show has landed with a big splash of savings. Practically all of the online stores have some sort of "Made In Japan" deal going on, and I've grinded through the lot to locate the best bargains. One other thing worth mentioning: keep an eye out for some great backwards compat stuff on the MS Store. All those goodies await you below! Notable Sales for Nintendo Switch Purchase Cheaply for PC Exciting Offers for XO/XS Product Savings for PS4/PS5 Sign up to get the best Aussie gaming deals sent straight to your inbox! Adam's all about Far Cry 6's disc launcher, but despises the Macarena. He's not big on socials and is @Grizwords. Continue reading...

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Dread Hunger Is a PvP Adventure That Will Put Your Friendships to the Test

Whether I was plotting the deaths of my fellow crewmates via occult magic or killing my ally out of fear that they’d betray me, Dread Hunger never allowed me to feel at ease – but in a good way. As I worked with my teammates to navigate an explorer’s ship past icebergs and through chilling blizzards, the threat of betrayal from within was omnipresent, and the temptation to keep checking over my shoulder was at odds with accomplishing the tasks set before me. As an evil Thrall working against the group, being outnumbered and the fear of being found out forced me to be smart with when and where to act against the group. Dread Hunger was constantly challenging me to be more clever no matter which side I was on, and it had me nervously...

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Ikumi Nakamura, Who Found Fame With Ghostwire Tokyo, Remembers Her Rocky Beginnings At Capcom

Ikumi Nakamura is gearing up her independent studio, and a new profile charts her career and details the highs and lows leading to this exciting new chapter. In a new profile in Game Informer, Nakamura shared her history in game development starting with her first job at Capcom’s Clover, a beloved sub-division known for its work on Okami and Viewtiful Joe. While it was at Clover that Nakamura met future co-workers, Hideki Kamiya and Shinji Mikami, Nakamura said her time at Clover and Capcom was difficult. She says Capcom viewed Clover as “just the group of weirdos” and a “totally separate entity.” Nakamura cited the Wii-port of Okami which left out the name of Clover and its developers in the credits, something Capcom says was due...

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Evo Showcase 2021 Canceled Due To COVID-19 Concerns

Evo 2021's return to Las Vegas has been canceled due to rising concerns surrounding the Delta Variant of COVID-19. In a tweet, Evo's organizer said they will continue to work on bringing back big, live events. The statement said, in part, "The players invited to participate in the Evo 2021 Showcase represent many of the best fighters in the world. We're incredibly saddened to cancel the event." You can read the whole statement below. Evo 2021 was scheduled to take place in Las Vegas on November 27 and 28. The lineup was set to include Guilty Gear Strive, Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate, Skullgirls 2nd Encore, Street Fighter V: Champion Edition, and Tekken 7. Evo is still scheduled to hold an in-person event in Las Vegas in August of 2022...

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Bungie Removes Controversial Employee Contract Clause As It Promises to Improve Workplace Diversity

Bungie has published a blog from the company’s CEO Pete Parsons outlining steps the Destiny 2 developer is taking to improve Diversity & Inclusion at the workplace, including removing a controversial employee contract clause. In a lengthy blog post, Parsons discussed how Bungie has reacted to recent months where companies like Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft grapple with the fallout of gender discrimination and sexual harassment at the workplace. As part of Bungie’s promise to continue improving its workplace culture, Parsons announced that it is “eliminating the mandatory arbitration clause” in all the employee agreements. Mandatory arbitration is an agreement where employees settle disputes with their employers privately instead...

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Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Review

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is big. It is a massive, life-dominating endeavor likely to take weeks of playing before completion, dominating your thoughts and plans during that time. Sometimes that size means spending hours on frustrating time as an army manager, but the role-playing, exploring, and especially combat make it very much worth it. Wrath of the Righteous leaves a memorable mark on the throwback-style RPG genre, with strong companion personality and turn-based combat.The pedigree of Wrath of the Righteous is big as well, adapting another of the Pathfinder tabletop game’s epic “Adventure Paths” and honing the concepts of 2018’s similarly large Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Kingmaker's generic fantasy kingdom is replaced here...

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Halo's Creator Offers a Gorgeous Glimpse of Halo In Unreal Engine 4

Macus Lehto, co-creator of Halo, has given fans a look at what the original Halo: Combat Evolved might have looked like if it had come out in 2021. The image, which was made using 3DS Max and Unreal Engine 4, features Master Chief, the Warthog, weapons, and the iconic Halo ring itself. Lehto also showed off a shot of Chief from the back, showing that he included the easter egg of his initials on the bottom of Chief's right foot. Lehto was a longtime art director with Bungie, who developed the original Halo trilogy, as well as Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach. Lehto was the director on Halo Reach. He later formed V1 Interactive, which released FPS title Disintegration in 2020. Earlier this year, the studio shut down. Recently, Lehto...

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Halo Infinite Multiplayer Review in Progress: Test Flight Impressions

Halo Infinite’s multiplayer just finished its second “preview test flight” this past weekend, and it’s been able to successfully showcase how this modern-day reimagining of the game that popularized online multiplayer shooters will be able to contend with the current competition. It’s not the full picture quite yet – the test flight was limited to Slayer, Capture the Flag, and strongholds for the modes Bot Arena and Social Arena, Weapon Drills, and Training Mode – but Infinite’s multiplayer easily shines at the top with updated movement, familiar power weapons/items, and classic game modes. The gunplay alone feels highly satisfying thanks to the way that each weapon I’ve used so far has its own personality and playstyle to it. Not to...

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Windows Store Will Soon Let You Download the Epic Games Store

Windows will soon let you download the Epic Games Store as an app as it announces a significant update that will allow third-party apps to be discoverable on the Microsoft Store. As detailed as part of a wider blog post, the Windows team says that both Amazon and Epic Games will be bringing their apps to the Microsoft Store and that it is looking forward to welcoming further stores in the future. In a similar fashion to apps on the store, third-party storefronts will have a product detail page that allows their customers to check out user reviews and notable information about an app before installing it. Windows has said that the decision to bring in third-party storefront apps shows its "commitment to being an open store for an open...

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Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania Review

Nostalgia is a funny thing. It can be a comforting sensation, but it sometimes makes things from the past seem better than they actually are. Unfortunately, the latter is the case with Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania, which compiles over 300 levels from previous Super Monkey Ball games and updates them for modern consoles. I have fond memories of playing the GameCube versions with friends nearly 20 years ago, so I expected Banana Mania to be a welcome return to those carefree nights staying out past curfew and rolling down increasingly difficult courses. Sadly, rollin’ just isn’t as fun as it used to be. As the name implies, Super Monkey Ball is a series about monkeys in balls rolling their way through hundreds of stages and avoiding...

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PlayStation Plus Games for October 2021 Announced

Sony has announced that PS5's Hell Let Loose and PS4's PGA Tour 2K21 and Mortal Kombat X are the PlayStation Plus games for October 2021. Announced on PlayStation.Blog, all three of these games will be available from October 5 through November 1 for all PlayStation Plus subscribers. Hell Let Loose is a WWII-inspired multiplayer game that was first released on PC in July 2021 after being in Early Access since 2019. This PS5 title includes " 100-player battles with a unique resource-based RTS-inspired meta-game, where Commanders direct the flow of battle and co-ordinate powerful in-game abilities that influence the team’s march to victory." PGA Tour 2K21 was released back in August 2020 and is the inaugural 2K Games PGA Tour golf...

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New World: Amazon's Prohibitively Popular MMO Is Trying to Reduce Queue Time Across the Globe

New World was absolutely huge at launch yesterday, to the point where it became very hard to actually play the game. Thankfully Amazon Games has been working on lowering queue time across the globe to help get new players into the MMO. The developer has been updating the New World forums throughout its first day of release. So far, the EU Central, North America West, North America East and Australia servers have had additional worlds added, with the aim of offering more of an even spread of players. With the team promising to monitor world congestion, you can likely expect more expansions as time goes on. If you're looking to jump in while the hype is hot, a new fan-run website, New World Status aims to offer live data for player...

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Battlefield 2042: How to Access the Open Beta

EA has finally revealed the dates for its upcoming Battlefield 2042 Open Beta, and it starts real soon. Early access will be starting on October 6, with only those who have preordered (see at Amazon), alongside EA Play members, playing the Beta until October 7. From October 8-9, the Beta will open up to everyone, with downloads freely available. If you want to jump into the Battlefield 2042 Open Beta from October 6, here's how you can get early access. Battlefield 2042: How to Get Early Access to the Beta Battlefield 2042's Open Beta will commence in two stages in the coming week. Starting from October 6 at Midnight PT, those who have preordered the game, or are a member of EA Play, will be able to get early access to the Open Beta...

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Halo Infinite's Multiplayer Is Glorious (So Far) – Unlocked 513

Battlefield 2042's short delay has set up a heck of a Fall/holiday season for first-person shooter fans. We discuss each of the five major FPS games out between now and the end of the year: Far Cry 6, Back 4 Blood, Call of Duty: Vanguard, the aforementioned Battlefield 2042, and Halo Infinite. And please welcome back guest panelist NeoGameSpark! Subscribe on any of your favorite podcast feeds, to our new YouTube channel, or grab an MP3 download of this week's episode. For more awesome content, check out our Halo Infinite Flight performance preview, which does a deep-dive tech analysis on the still-in-development slice of Halo Infinite multiplayer: Oh, and you can be featured on Unlocked by tweeting us a video Loot Box question...

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New World Review in Progress

Amazon’s New World is finally available in our world (which is now technically the old world, I guess?) and its servers are so packed on day one that I haven’t been able to get in yet. However, I’ve spent the past week running around a finalized version of this colonial-era MMO, albeit without nearly the same player count or queue times that many are currently experiencing. Note that, since I’m also responsible for a large chunk of IGN’s official wiki guide, almost all of that time was spent running around as a pre-made level 60 character and poking various Corrupted bee hives to see what I could shake out of them so that you don’t have to. But that has given me some time to get the lay of the land and get a sense of how everything...

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Netflix Just Acquired the Award-Winning Studio Behind Oxenfree

Netflix big foray into games is now underway in earnest, and one of its first major acquisitions is a darling from the indie space. In a blog post on its official site, Night School Studio announced it would be bringing its adventure game expertise to the streaming service. "Night School wants to stretch our narrative and design aspirations across distinctive, original games with heart," Night School co-founder Sean Krankel wrote. "Netflix gives film, TV, and now game makers an unprecedented canvas to create and deliver excellent entertainment to millions of people. Our explorations in narrative gameplay and Netflix’s track record of supporting diverse storytellers was such a natural pairing. It felt like both teams came to this...

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Best Laptop Cooling Pad 2021: Laptop Coolers For Your Desk and Lap

A laptop's portability is one of its greatest assets, but with the compact form factor come some trade-offs. The cooling in laptops is generally not as robust as desktop PCs, unless you've got a beefy gaming laptop, and the tight confines inside a laptop don't take as much dust and hair getting before performance can really start to decline. A laptop cooling pad is a helpful way to handle a device that's getting uncomfortably warm. In general, laptop cooling pads will help ensure your device gets good airflow. Throwing your laptop onto a pillow or blanket can smother its air intakes, but a laptop cooling pad won't. Many also include fans to blow additional air through your laptop, which can aid in cooling the internals and chassis...

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Netflix's Next Three Games Take Aim At the Casual Market

Netflix is continuing its foray into video games with three new titles aimed at casual audiences. However, most people around the world still can't try out the service. As reported by TechCrunch, Netflix subscribers in Spain, Italy, and Poland can access three new games starting today: Shooting Hoops, Teeter Up, and Card Blast. Users in these regions can find the titles under a new 'Games' tab in the Netflix app, but only on Android devices. Users will not have to pay extra to access games on Netflix. The games added today also won't include ads or in-app purchases, which is consistent with Netflix's previously detailed mobile game strategy. This project is still in its experimental phase for Netflix. This summer, the streaming...

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New World is Already Steam's Most Played Game of 2021 Despite Server Struggles

New World is already Steam's most-played game of 2021, even though it's only been out for a day. Not only is Amazon Games' new MMO the most played game of 2021, but its all-time player count peak is also more than 200,000 players higher than Valheim’s, which previously held the record. At the time of this writing, New World has 684,364 concurrent players and an all-time peak of 707,230, which it hit about half an hour ago. Valheim, which was released earlier this year to much acclaim, previously held the record as the most played game on Steam this year with an all-time peak of 502,387. Over on Twitch, 947,000 viewers are watching New World streams. Perhaps those viewers are watching the game because it's really hard to play the...

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Xbox Games With Gold for October 2021 Announced

Microsoft has announced that the October 2021 Xbox Games with Gold are Aaero, Hover, Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, and Resident Evil Code: Veronica X. These four titles represent a value of $74.96 and come with hundreds of Gamesrcore points to earn. Aero (Xbox One) will be available starting October 1 through October 31 while Hover (Xbox One) will be available starting October 16 and lasting until November 15. On the Xbox 360 backwards compatibility side of things, Castlevania: Harmony of Despair will be available from October 1 through October 15, and Resident Evil Code: Veronica X will be available from October 16 through October 31. These two titles are perfect for anyone trying to play something spooky before the Halloween...

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Battlefield 2042 Open Beta Dates Announced

EA has revealed the dates for its upcoming Battlefield 2042 open beta and it begins next week. More specifically, you'll be able to jump (or perhaps, wingsuit glide) onto the battlefield from October 6 through October 9. Anybody interested can simply download the beta and play. Alongside the announcement of these open beta dates, EA also revealed what players can expect during the four-day period. For starters, only one map will be in the beta and it's called Orbital. In this map, there is a massive space rocket counting down and the fight on this map takes place around its imminent launch. This map and the chaos that's sure to occur on it can be seen throughout the new Battlefield 2042 official open beta trailer released today so...

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Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye DLC Review

Exploring Outer Wilds’ stunning clockwork solar system in 2019 was truly something special, so getting the chance to return in a DLC expansion feels like Christmas came early – or, in this case, more like Halloween. Echoes of the Eye weaves one more thread worth pulling into the already complex tapestry of Outer Wilds, handily recapturing its charming, woodsy-sci-fi aesthetic and intricate time-loop puzzle solving, but this time with a creepier tone and a few sections that fully shift genres from adventure to horror game. That’s not exactly what I ended up wanting from more Outer Wilds, and its siloed nature does make it a little more linear to explore, but Echoes of the Eye is still a great reason to revisit this ever-exploding star...

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Marvel's Avengers Is Coming to Xbox Game Pass

Square Enix has announced that Marvel’s Avengers is coming to Xbox Game Pass this week. Revealed in an Xbox Wire post, Marvel’s Avengers will be added to Xbox Game Pass on September 30. It will be available across PC, console, and cloud. The Xbox Game Pass version will be the complete package of all Marvel’s Avengers content so far, including Kate Bishop, Hawkeye, and the brand new Black Panther: War for Wakanda expansion. The game's arrival on Game Pass will come just in time for the Quad XP event, which runs from September 30 to October 4, in celebration of the game’s one-year anniversary. Earlier this year, Square Enix launched its looter shooter Outriders on Game Pass, and surpassed 3.5 million unique players in its first...

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Venom 2: Carnage Explained - Who Is Woody Harrelson's Character?

Venom 2, a.k.a. Venom: Let There Be Carnage, finally arrives this week! But for the non-comics fans out there, some may be asking... who exactly is the very red, very scary symbiote bad guy in this movie? It all started with Spider-Man's black alien costume in the comics, which betrayed him and wound up in the hands of his bitter rival Eddie Brock -- who became Venom. But it also spawned an even meaner and deadlier nemesis in the form of Carnage. This bloodthirsty sadist has racked up quite a body count over the years, and even the Avengers have been hard-pressed to bring him to justice. And now the Woody Harrelson character (also known as Cletus Kasady) is finally getting his due on the big screen. With that in mind, here's...

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Halo Infinite Datamine Offers Glimpse Of the Scorpion Tank And Lots Of Other Material

Halo infinite's second multiplayer tech preview was this past weekend, and as you could guess, dataminers dug through the game and uncovered a lot of interesting images, from vehicle attachments to Spartan poses and even a render of the Scorpion battle tank. First spotted by Redditor marcopolo444, the user posted a series of links and images, which show off a ton of content that did not make it into the latest technical preview for Halo Infinite. The post suggests that a lot of content will make its way into Halo Infinite at some point. This includes a helmet attachment that adds a Santa Claus hat on your Spartan, three images of maps we have yet to see in the technical preview, and a series of emblems that seem to take inspiration...

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Horizon Forbidden West’s Gear Provides Aloy With New Skills

Outfits in Horizon Forbidden West will have skills attached to them, Guerrilla Games has revealed. In a post on the PlayStation Blog discussing how Horizon Zero Dawn's lead protagonist Aloy will shape up in the franchise's upcoming sequel, Guerrilla Games Community Lead Bo de Vries spoke about the range of outfits that will be available to Aloy throughout Horizon Forbidden West and how the studio is building up versatility within this aspect of the game. "Horizon Forbidden West will have a range of outfits for Aloy to benefit from; similar to and perhaps familiar from the first game, outfits allow for protection against a variety of dangers that Aloy encounters and can be purchased from Merchants or found in the world," says de...

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