Gaming News

After a three-year hiatus, Assassin’s Creed returns with Mirage. From a visuals and technical perspective, the team at Ubisoft has gone for a “less is more” approach. Powered by the latest iteration of the Anvil engine, Mirage looks stunning, often due to the myriad features it sports that are still not commonplace in all games or engines, such as real-time lighting systems that incorporate time of day, global illumination bounce of light, dense cities, vast landscapes, and huge vistas with rich and colourful flora and fauna.The bustling city of Baghdad and its tight streets look authentic and have a strong art direction. Sandstone buildings and looming palm trees are bathed with dense fog volumes and crepuscular rays obscuring long...

When Skull Island: Rise of Kong was released earlier this week, we reported on the visceral social media reactions to its rudimentary gameplay, PS2-esque graphics, and left-fielded bugs with many calling it "the worst game of 2023." The reason it's received that dubious title, however, is apparently because the developers only had a year to work on King Kong's latest video game outing.Per a new report from the The Verge, developers at IguanaBee, an indie studio based in Santiago, Chile, said they were contracted by GameMill to create Skull Island from scratch within a strict one-year turnaround, with development starting last June and expected to be wrapped on June 2, 2023. One developer said the crunch to meet that deadline "was...

The publisher of the promising RoboCop: Rogue City has quietly cancelled the Nintendo Switch version of the game.A Switch version was announced in July 2022 alongside the PC, Xbox Series X and S, and PlayStation 5. You can see the Switch logo on the trailer revealed last summer:But a note on the RoboCop: Rogue City Facebook page reveals the Switch version is no longer in the works: “At this moment we don’t have any plans for a Nintendo Switch release.”It’s perhaps an expected move from publisher Nacon given the ambition of Teyon’s stompy shooter. IGN went hands-on with RoboCop: Rogue City at gamescom 2023 and found slow first-person shooting, decision-making, and a spot of detective work is all part of this unique-feeling game...

CD Projekt has revealed Cyberpunk 2077's Update 2.02 is "coming soon" and includes a handful of bug fixes and other challenges.Revealed on CD Projekt Red's support website, the update will fix perhaps the two biggest issues left with the Phantom Liberty and Update 2.0 version of Cyberpunk 2077. The developer didn't share when Update 2.02 would be released, but its last update arrived one week after CD Projekt Red said it was "coming soon".The first issue addressed in Update 2.02 is the fixing of skill progression passives, as some players were not gaining the passive buffs that came with upgrading each skill level. The other major gripe for players will soon be sorted too, as CD Projekt will rebalance the timers in courier...

Naruto X Boruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections is, to be sure, a fighting game at its core. While not as rigid as Street Fighter or technical as Tekken, it does an exceptional job of continuing the legacy of the Ultimate Ninja Storm series by introducing a huge roster of over 130 characters – many of whom can interact with each other – as well as a brand new and very accessible “Simple Control Mode.” While some fans of the Ultimate Ninja Storm series might not be too hot on this totally optional simplified control scheme, the ability to ease things down a bit for newer players with simple single button attacks and movement is an excellent addition to the game, and still kept combat interesting and engaging in both the story mode and...

The Star Citizen alpha updates continue, adn this time we’re up to alpha 3.21 with the release of a new patch dubbed Mission Ready.Developer Cloud Imperium Games (CIG) released the update ahead of CitizenCon 2953, a two-day event that promises insight into the future of the controversial space sim.“CitizenCon is ultimately about our incredible community, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to return with our largest-scale physical event ever, while continuing to support our global community online. We have so many exciting developments and advancements to share that will make this our best CitizenCon to date,” said Chris Roberts, chairman and CEO of CIG and Star Citizen creative director.“While we look towards the future this...

Microsoft has taken over the LED display of Las Vegas' gargantuan Sphere arena to create an Xbox-themed light show that dominated the city skyline.The Las Vegas Sphere has contributed its fair share of viral moments since its inaugural show in July, during which it illuminated its 580,000 square foot ‘Exosphere’ with a spectacular light show. Since then, Earth’s mightiest billboard has manifested a plethora of spectacles to amaze and annoy the residents of the Nevada metropolis.Among the visual offering has been a menacing pumpkin, a spectacular fireworks show, a basketball, and, of course, a vast and unsettling human eye. The interior meanwhile is capable of seating close to 20,000 people, and is designed to host live musical...

Update, Oct. 20, 12:00 p.m. PT: In an attempt to address the glitch, EA has temporarily removed the Trickster+ playstyle from Ultimate Team Players Items. They'll look to add it back in "once this issue has been addressed in a future Title Update," they said on X (formerly Twitter) today.Previous story: The FIFA community is up in arms over a devastating glitch that has spread to EA Sports FC 24’s highest-level competitive multiplayer mode.The 'Trickster glitch' sees a player with the Trickster+ playstyle perform a skill move to fully attach the ball to the back of their leg, leaving them free to run straight into the goal. There is nothing the opponent can do to prevent this. FC players have called it the worst glitch ever seen in...

Magic: The Gathering is getting official 'Universes Beyond' Fallout-themed cards and sets to go alongside its many other recent partnerships (Lord of the Rings and Doctor Who). This includes four new Commander decks featuring familiar characters, enemies, and abilities from the beloved RPG series.If you've been looking to secure yourself all four new Fallout decks, or even just some boosters, preorders are now live on Amazon. Each deck will cost $45.13 (payment on dispatch), or you can opt for all four decks which is $164.15. There are also the Fallout Collector Boosters, which are $23.12 each and include 15 new MTG Fallout cards. You can find quick links to the preorders just below.Caesar is one of a handful of characters...

Obsidian Entertainment released Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire in May 2018, and it hasn't given any news of another sequel to the Pillars series ever since. Now, studio design director Josh Sawyer said he would love to develop Pillars of Eternity 3 — under the condition the game receives the same budget as Baldur's Gate 3.In a video interview with Touch Arcade about the anniversary of Pentiment, Sawyer said that, while he loved the first two Pillars games, he would love to make Pillars 3 if there weren't any time or budget constraints. He didn't say the same for Pentiment 2, however."I don’t think I would make Pentiment 2. I really do feel very satisfied with that game. It’s not like I don’t wanna return to it ever, but I just...

Diablo 4 is going free to play on Xbox this weekend with players able to log up to 10 hours of gameplay at no extra cost.Revealed on Xbox Wire, all Xbox owners can access Diablo 4 for free from October 19 to at 12:01am Pacific until October 22 at 11:59pm Pacific. Game Pass Core (formerly Xbox Live Gold) or Game Pass are not required. While this grants three full days to access the action role-playing game, players will be limited to a total of 10 hours of playtime.Diablo 4 launched in June as a smash hit, proving popular with players and critics. "Diablo 4 is a stunning sequel with near perfect endgame and progression design that makes it absolutely excruciating to put down," IGN said in our 9/10 review.Those with Game Pass Core...

The Walking Dead: Destinies comes to PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series, Nintendo Switch, and PC on November 17, 2023.The release date for the third-person narrative driven action-adventure game was revealed in a new trailer, below, which also featured a series of iconic moments from AMC's The Walking Dead TV show. While Destinies reflects the show's beginning, however, its hook is in the ability to make choices that The Walking Dead's cast of characters did not."Begin your journey as Rick Grimes, waking alone in a hospital surrounded by the dead," reads the synopsis. "Assemble allies and fight your way through the walker apocalypse across iconic locations from The Walking Dead, including Atlanta, the Greene family farm, the...

While the original Cities: Skylines practically brought its breed of open-ended city builder back from the dead (after SimCity 2013 killed it), Cities: Skylines 2 is a sequel that often feels like it took more steps back than it did forward. It's full of exciting and gratifying new mechanics for managing your economy and creating more realistic metropolises. But it also asks you to do a lot of busywork if you don't want the end product to look horrendous on close inspection, and sacrifices some of the user friendliness of its predecessor to fit in more bells and whistles. I’m not ready to tear it all down, but right now there’s an unsightly case of urban blight that’s going to take some major technical renovations to clear up.I'm...

Soulframe, you studied architecture in Beijing and New Haven. How did this education inspire development of S-Game and Phantom Blade Zero?Soulframe: Architecture is not only about building houses. It taught me almost everything that I need to complete games–from traditional drawings, to animations, to 3D modeling, to programming, and engineering–budgeting and program management. So when I began to develop my first indie game, I was a "one man army" who did almost everything on my own.Game development is a mysterious and coveted profession, how did you get your start? And how did S-Game come to be?Soulframe: I finished my first indie game before I graduated college, and after that, I moved to the U.S. for graduate school. Then I...

EA’s FIFA series has over the years suffered from the odd bug. Most of the time these bugs are hilarious glitches that result from nightmarish physics collisions between players. But the latest, currently spreading throughout FC 24, is perhaps the worst yet.The bug sees a player perform a skill move to fully attach the ball to the back of their leg, leaving them free to run straight into the goal. There is nothing the opponent can do to prevent this. Really.It’s hard to trace the origin of the bug, but it’s prevalent enough to be affecting competitive multiplayer. Players of Ultimate Team’s Division Rivals mode, results in which affect player ranking and rewards, have taken to social media to publish clips of the exploit...

Konami is finally adding the ability to pause cutscenes to the original three Metal Gear Solid games when the Master Collection launches October 24, but there's a strange catch: it takes 10 seconds.As reported by MP1st, YouTuber Irriducibile 86ss somehow got their hands on an early copy of the game and streamed it live. They showed off the new feature, revealing that pressing the pause button during a cutscene does stop the game, but only 10 seconds later does the actual pause menu appear.There's a chance this is just a mistake or bug and not intended by Konami and may be addressed in an update, of course, perhaps even before the Master Collection comes out, ready for a day one patch.The ability to pause cutscenes has been...

Valorant Episode 7 Act 3 is launching October 31st and this upcoming update brings in the 23rd Agent to enter the game. The new Duelist is named Iso, a Chinese fixer for hire with unique gun skills that translate to creating bulletproof protecting for himself. Here’s how his kit works!Iso Abilities:E - Double TapActivate your focus timer. When it’s run out, Iso will be able to harvest energy orbs from enemies he downs or damages. Once these orbs are shot, Iso will receive a shield that absorbs one instance of damage from any source.Q - UndercutThrow a molecular bolt that can pass through walls and other solid objects to catch enemies behind obstacles. When the bolt touches a player, the FRAGILE status will be applied to...

The PlayStation 5 version of co-op survival crafting RPG The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria has been delayed to December 5, just days before it was due to launch.The PS5 version now launches both digitally and physically at retail on December 5, 2023, developer Free Range Games and publisher North Beach Games said. Return to Moria launches as planned on PC as an Epic Games Store exclusive on October 24. An Xbox Series X and S version is planned for early 2024.The companies said they were using the extra time to "improve various aspects" of the PS5 version, and apologised to fans for the delay.Return to Moria is set in the Fourth Age (70 years after the destruction of the ring) of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy world of...

Laika: Aged Through Blood’s crumbling, post-apocalyptic world is brutal and unforgiving, and it won’t give you many chances to forget that. Its pain and anguish is told through a story of reluctant revenge and desperate survival, heard in the mournful lyrics of its impeccable soundtrack and blasted through the barrel of the titular character’s revolver — all while you’re flipping through the air on a motorcycle and coating the wasteland in viscera. Though a bit more punishing than it needs to be at times, Laika manages to brilliantly meld its satisfying combat, beautiful music, and heartfelt story into a dazzling, bloody action game that’s even greater than the sum of its partsLaika puts a clever spin on the 2D side scrolling...

A 38-year-old Tokyo resident has been arrested on stalking charges including on social media and, more unusually, in multiplayer video game Final Fantasy 14.As reported by Kobe News, translated by Siliconera and verified by IGN, Japanese police arrested a man for behaviour that violates Japan's Anti-Stalking Control Law. The man has been accused of sending a 28-year-old woman threatening messages.It's unclear how much of the alleged activity took place within Final Fantasy 14 itself, where players can message each other while roaming the world, but the man was also accused of using social media websites like Twitter and Line to send messages.In the game, however, the man also allegedly followed the victim's character around...

Big-name video games released in September have sold less at launch than their predecessors across Europe, according to fresh data.Data from Game Sales Data (GSD), which tracks physical and digital sales, shows declines for EA Sports FC 24, Warner Bros. Games’ Mortal Kombat 1, and 2K’s NBA 2K24 compared to launch sales of their predecessors.As reported by GI.biz, FC 24 launch sales are down 10% compared to the launch sales of FIFA 23 last year in Europe. GI points out FIFA 23 was a monster hit for EA, but FC 24 launch sales are still down compared to 2021’s FIFA 22 by 3.7%. Of course, it’s worth pointing out that EA’s football video game franchise changed its name this year after EA Sports’ relationship with FIFA broke down...

Halo Infinite is enjoying a modest resurgence following the release of Season 5: Reckoning.Developer 343 Industries' first-person shooter had hovered around the 7,000 concurrent player mark on Valve’s platform in the run-up to this week’s launch of the Flood-fuelled Season 5. According to SteamDB, Halo Infinite then spiked on October 18, with 18,000 concurrents. That’s the game’s highest peak since the launch of Season 2 some 17 months ago, and enough players for Halo Infinite to crack Steam’s top 50 most-played games based on concurrents.It’s worth remembering that the only concrete player data we have comes from Steam. Microsoft does not publish official Halo Infinite stats across platforms. But we do know Halo Infinite’s...

Our favourite plumber returns today, finally! You've probably read the review already—it's a damn fine sequel that ought to be bought. And this is where I come in, with the cheapest prices in the Mushroom or any other kingdom.Oh, and I also can't let you leave without saying this. Today is the 32 year anniversary of Streets of Rage, an all-time beat 'em up that's a personal fave. I still maintain that Yuzo Koshiro's soundtrack still slaps. And if you and I were ever to co-op this, I'd shotgun Axel but share all the floor chickens.This Day in GamingAussie birthdays for notable games and hardware- Streets of Rage (MD) 1991. Get- Battlefield 2142 (PC) 2006.- Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (PS3,X360) 2010.- Batman: Arkham CIty...

Microsoft's acquisition of Activision-Blizzard is finally done, and so we can finally stop talking about it! Or, well, at least we can stop talking about the annoying will-they-or-won't-they regulatory side of it. Now it's time to talk about the games! We discuss Activision-Blizzard games in the back catalog that we'd like to see lightly refreshed for the Xbox Series X|S (similar to the recent Quake 2 remaster), before taking turns talking about which of their IPs we'd like to see Microsoft bring back as a brand-new game. Plus: Starfield tops the sales charts, Bethesda's "Uncle Pete" Hines says goodbye, and more!Subscribe on any of your favorite podcast feeds, to our YouTube channel, or grab an MP3 of this week's episode. For more...

As a longtime Hellboy fan, it continues to astound me that there are desperately few video game adaptations of the big red monkey devil’s exploits. There’s a lot to love about Mike Mignola’s almost 30-year-old hellion, from his look, to the fable-flavored supernatural world he skulks around righting wrongs and protecting the innocent, to the often touching pieces of self-reflection throughout the many stories that touch on themes of loneliness, discrimination, found families, and the risks and rewards of rising to a higher calling. Seven hours with Web of Wyrd was a good reminder of the challenges involved with turning such a complex work into an interactive game where our actions matter. While it nails much of the look of the graphic...

Here's the thing about King Kong: He is not just an ape, he's a giant ape. It's his defining feature in the 1933 movie that birthed him and the ultimate cause of his tragic demise. Picking up people, climbing skyscrapers, fighting dinosaurs — being huge is King Kong's whole deal. Skull Island: Rise of Kong is bad for a lot of reasons, but the main one is it's a game that lets you play as an iconically large gorilla and somehow manages to make him feel exceedingly average. Rise of Kong portrays King Kong in the most bland way possible, and then it matches that mediocrity for everything else around him.Rise of Kong lets you experience how King Kong became King Kong, which was apparently by beating a lot of things to death and getting...

Overwatch 2 is following Fortnite’s footsteps and holding its first-ever musical collaboration, this one with K-Pop group Le Sserafim.Blizzard announced the collaboration with the five-member girl group, whose name is an anagram for “I’m fearless,” in an official blog post published on Wednesday. The event will see new in-game content inspired by the rising K-pop band behind hits like “FEARLESS” and “ANTIFRAGILE.”Le Sserafim — comprised of members Kim Chaewon, Sakura, Huh Yunjin, Kazuha, and Hong Eunchae — will kick off their collaboration with Overwatch 2 with the release of their music video for their new single “Perfect Night,” which premieres October 26 at 9 p.m. PT. In the concept trailer for the music video, one of the...

Whether you’re ready or not for Black Friday 2023, Best Buy has laid out its plans for the holiday shopping season — and the plans are extensive. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to save money on gifts for the people on your list, and for yourself. Best Buy’s Black Friday sales event will kick off soon, and will continue through November, even past the day itself. Here’s what to expect from the sale in 2023.Jump to:Best Buy Black Friday Dates My Best Buy Membership Details Best Buy’s Store Hours Best Buy’s Holiday Shopping Return Policy Best Buy Black Friday Deals Predictions Best Buy Shopping TipsClick the links above to navigate to the various sections of this page.When Does Best Buy Black Friday Start?While Black...

If you haven’t downloaded Diablo 4 on Steam yet, here’s a reminder that the latest title in Blizzard’s popular action RPG series is now verified on Steam Deck.Blizzard launched Diablo 4 on Steam and certified it for the Steam Deck on Tuesday in conjunction with the launch of its second season, titled Season of Blood. Community manager Adam Fletcher confirmed in a post on X (formerly Twitter) last week that they’ll be able to play Diablo 4 on the Steam Deck wherever they take it after receiving inquiries from fans about whether the game will be playable on the portable PC system at all.“We have been hearing some questions regarding Steam Deck verification for Diablo 4,” Fletcher said at the time. “We can happily say that Diablo IV...

Starfield managed to hold off Mortal Kombat 1 to be the best-selling game of September 2023 in the U.S., according to new numbers from Circana.It may not be too surprising that the big new title from Bethesda was popular, but the sales numbers are still pretty impressive considering Starfield debuted Day 1 on Xbox Game Pass. Obviously, that means that there’s a whole swath of people playing Starfield on Game Pass that aren’t factored into these sales numbers.Starfield debuted officially across PC and Xbox Series X/S on Sept. 6, followed by Mortal Kombat 1 on Sept. 19 for Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, PC, and Nintendo Switch (although that Switch release didn’t go so well initially). After Starfield and Mortal Kombat 1 are EA...