EA and BioWare are "pretty confident" that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf will be released later this year.

That's according to industry insider Jeff Grubb, who said on yesterday's Game Mess podcast that whilst it wasn't clear when the game would next be shown, "it will be released this year".

"I suspect [Dragon Age: Dreadwolf] ] will probably pop up this summer," Grubb said (thanks, wccftech). "I don't know when it'll be shown, but [I] assume it will be shown sometime this summer. Could happen at any time, though.

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Up front: I have never played Final Fantasy 7. I'm one of those unbearable hipsters who has only played 12, and won't shut up about it. But with the new game out, I've discovered that I have fond memories of FF7, this massive game that I have never played. Also: although I didn't play it, there was a period, around its release, when I was super into the idea of it. And I watched it a lot once it was out. And these memories and how odd they are have made me realise that games have changed a lot over the years, and FF7 marks one of the really big changes.

I played computer games as a kid and video games quite a bit as a teen, but I checked out somewhere in the 16-bit era because there were other things going on. This meant when I went to university in 1996, I was flung together with games again: people in halls had battered SNESs, and a few had PlayStations. I didn't get back into games, but as someone interested in film at the time, I found these early 3D games completely fascinating just as artefacts that I watched unfold themselves as other people played.

Listen: this is all distant history to me now, and I'm not going to go back to untangle the chronology, so apologies if I have games and their releases in the wrong order. What follows is how I remember it, and the first PlayStation game I remember making a big impact on me - again, I didn't play it at the time - was Tomb Raider.

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Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley, the lovely looking musical adventure based on Tove Jansson's classic series of children's stories, finally has a released date and will be launching for Switch and PC via Steam on Tuesday, 7th March.

Melody of Moominvalley sees players slipping into the oversized green hat of the wanderer Snufkin, as he harnesses the power of music - and his trusty harmonica - to restore nature after the Park Keeper and his minions build hideous parks all over Moominvalley.

"As Snufkin you will distract police officers, pull out signs, and knock over misplaced statues," explains Norweigian developer Hyper Games, "as you vigorously try to restore nature and the inhabitants' home while putting an end to the industrious Park Keeper's plans."

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Balatro, the poker-themed rogue-like from solo developer LocalThunk that's been a huge critical and commercial hit since releasing last week, has been unexpectedly yanked from sale in some countries, with publisher Playstack blaming the issue on a surprise ratings change.

Playstack addressed the issue in a lengthy statement shared on social media, explaining Balatro's temporary removal from console stores had so far only happened "some countries". It admitted it could not "estimate with complete confidence which stores" had been impacted, adding, "Our hope is that only a minority of stores will be affected". It says it remains "highly confident" Balatro will remain available on PC, including Steam.

The cause of all this frustration is an unexpected "overnight change" to Balatro's age rating, which has been bumped from 3+ to 18+. According to Playstack, this change stems from an unspecified ratings board's "mistaken belief that the game 'contains prominent gambling imagery and materials that instructs about gambling'".

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Ori and the Blind Forest developer Moon Studios has announced its dark action-RPG No Rest for the Wicked will launch into Steam early access on 18th April.

No Rest for the Wicked, which was unveiled during last year's The Game Awards, is described by Moon Studios as an "expansive" and "visceral" action-RPG that's "set to reinvent the genre". It casts players as a Cerim - a holy warrior "imbued with remarkable powers" - who embarks on a journey across the harsh Isola Sacra to defeat an unholy plague.

Its campaign promises a "mature, dark" narrative, as well as "brutal, precision-based" combat, and a hand-crafted world, with players can take on No Rest for the Wicked's challenges, quests, and bosses either solo or with up to three friends by their side.

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Four new cast members have been announced for The Last of Us Season 2.

As reported by Variety, Danny Ramirez, Tati Gabrielle, Ariela Barer and Spencer Lord have all joined HBO's adaptation. Those who have played The Last of Us Part 2 will recognise their characters as members of the Washington Liberation Front (WLF).

Ramirez, whose previous acting credits include Top Gun: Maverick and Marvel's The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, will play Manny. The show's description states Manny is "a loyal soldier whose sunny outlook belies the pain of old wounds and a fear that he will fail his friends when they need him most". Barer, meanwhile, will play Mel, described as "a young doctor whose commitment to saving lives is challenged by the realities of war and tribalism".

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Frost Fatales, the winter version of Games Done Quick's Frame Fatales charity speedrunning initiative, is back this Sunday for a week of impressively fast gaming escapades.

This year marks the fourth annual Frost Fatales event - which, like its summertime equivalent Flame Fatales, is specifically intended to showcase women and femmes in the speedrunning community - and proceedings get underway this Sunday, 3rd March, at 5.30pm UK time.

Then, across the next seven days, Frost Fatales has scheduled over 60 speedruns - which, as always, cover a broad spectrum of games, including acclaimed indies, retro classics, and oddities, with a small selection of more modern blockbusters also putting in an appearance.

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Sony's PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming service was introduced last October for PlayStation Plus Premium subscribers, offering 4K streaming of PS5 titles in addition to the old PlayStation Now 720p PS3 and 1080p PS4 experiences. We've been critical of cloud streaming in the past, as what you gain in convenience you often lose in image quality and latency - so how does the Sony offering compare to the native experience on PS5 on that front? And what about Xbox's cloud gaming offering, dubbed Project xCloud? The latter point threw up an interesting curveball during testing: Microsoft's servers are based on Xbox Series X silicon, but the games being streamed are definitely the Series S versions.

We've looked at xCloud before (though admittedly, it has changed dramatically since then) but it's worth having a quick primer on how the PlayStation Plus Premium streaming system works on PS5. In short, you'll see a yellow cloud icon next to any game that supports the tech in the PS Plus catalogue, whether you have it installed locally or not. By comparison, Xbox only offers its cloud option for games that are not yet installed. The range of games supported on Sony's service is certainly impressive, from first-party heavy hitters to popular third-party options and indie darlings. And the biggest perk is that titles sporting hefty 200GB+ installs are playable this way in under a minute.

In terms of video quality, the service supports 60fps at resolutions up to 4K with HDR, though a true 4K is only possible on PS5 titles. This sadly means that PS4 games played over the cloud still only run at 1080p while PS3 titles are limited to a 720p video stream. The resolution cap for older consoles is a huge shame I think, as some PS3 games had the ability to run at native 1080p on original hardware while PS4 games were often playable at 1440p or higher via a PS4 Pro. That said, the audio options are at least respectable, with 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound offered, alongside PS5's Tempest 3D Audio where possible.

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Developers at GTA 6 studio Rockstar Games have criticised the company for telling employees they must return to the office full-time next month, calling leadership's decision "reckless".

As reported yesterday, employees at Rockstar have been told to return to the office five days a week, now that GTA 6 is entering the final stretch of development. Studio management cited security and productivity reasons for this upcoming change, which will come into effect in April.

Since this announcement, the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain (IWGB) has blasted Rockstar for its plans to withdraw remote working provisions for the "majority" of its staff, noting the studio said any exceptions to the new rules will be "rare".

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Pokémon, Warcraft and Sea of Thieves have joined in with this week's Glasgow Willy Wonka Experience memes.

The £35 ticketed knock-off event went viral this week, and now it's not just players commemorating the occaison with memes. Video game makers and publishers are now using their official social media accounts to join in with the fun.

Both World of Warcraft and Sea of Thieves have given us their renditions of the sad Oompa Loompa:

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There's a certain kind of game that has you running in circles. This isn't because it's poorly designed or lacking waypoints. It's because it's frantic, endlessly generous, and loves to throw horrible things in your path. It's unfair in the very best way. It's an arcade game. Specifically, it's a twin-stick.

All twin-stick shooters bow at the altar of running in circles, often the altar of running backwards in circles. Now I am a grown-up and know a little of the mysteries of baking, I often think of Robotron and its glorious ilk as being Churning Games. You're in the kitchen, spoon and bowl in hand, and you're getting the air into that egg mixture.

Going in circles isn't just the optimal way to play something like Robotron, it's also the most beautiful way to play. When you're going in circles you get to see the emergent heart beating at the centre of everything. Different enemy types, obeying slightly different rules of engagement, break into separate patterns. Grunts flock together into a bait ball. Brains seek out family members. Enforcers work their way to the corners. Hulks just hulk about, the big idiots.

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If you, like me, fell rather in love with Visai Games' narrative cooking game Venba last year, I have good news. Its Cookbook DLC is on the way, with a release date set just two weeks away.

Venba's Cookbook DLC will arrive on 13th March and - even better - when it does arrive, it will be free for all owners of the base game.

Venba's upcoming DLC will offer players a way to look through detailed recipes for the dishes made in the game. This is something, let's be honest, we all wanted while playing along. Everything just looked (and sounded) so delicious.

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Two fake Helldivers 2 games popped up on Steam last night, both masquerading as Arrowhead's hit shooter in a bid to scam people into buying their product. Each title listed Arrowhead as its developer, and PlayStation as its publisher.

A message sent around the official Arrowhead Discord this morning warned the community of these fake games, stating that the only legitimate releases were Helldivers 2 and Helldivers 2: Super Citizen Edition with the correct release date of 8th February.

"People posting as us trying to scam people is obviously very sad and frustrating, and for that as well as for security reasons we urge you to stay clear of them," Arrowhead's community manager wrote. "Again, the only two Helldivers 2 products we market are Helldivers 2 and Helldivers 2 Super Citizen Edition."

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There's a lovely line in Rick Lane's review of Star Wars: Dark Forces. Actually, the piece has no shortage of lovely lines, but one stood out for me in particular. "The result is a game that looks sharp and fresh, but crucially, not new."

Dark Forces is our Game of the Week, of course, and I think this line gets at why. It's an old game - 1995, so it's as old as Elastica's first album, for those of us who use that metric. A remaster has to bring it up to date without losing that thrilling sense of oldness. The right kind of oldness, though. Complicated.

Remasters are on the rise. They have been on the rise for a number of years, as games have more and more history worth revisiting. But questions like this - of how to make a game look sharp and fresh, but not new, are going to get more important. Dark Forces hits the sweet spot perfectly, I think: look at the screens and it's clearly an old shooter, but your eyes don't reject it as being an interesting relic that's probably unplayable. Subtle tweaks have been made to ensure it looks modern-old rather than relic-old.

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Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've been playing over the past few days. This week: faewilds, tins, and liars.

If you fancy catching up on some of the older editions of What We've Been Playing, here's our archive.

I've been playing Nightingale for a couple of days fairly intensely now, and I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. It starts off really brightly, really full of, apparently, interesting new ideas. A Victorian setting, a faerie realm story idea, where everyone is scattered across these pocket realms, trying to find their way home. There's a semblance of story here, a whiff of RPG to go with the survival crafting core, and a clever card-based mechanic for generating your own realms and then messing with them. And yet, two days later, I'm still waiting for the game to hit its stride.

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Crash Team Rumble will have no further content updates after 4th March, less than nine months after its launch.

The strategic platformer MOBA launched on 20th June 2023 on PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Since then it's had three seasons of new content, the latest being a crossover with Spyro the Dragon.

There will be no further seasons, however, per an in-game news update spotted by players of Crash Team Rumble. As of yet, there's been no official announcement from publisher Activision itself.

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Destiny 2 is adding a new kind of vehicle - the hoverboard-esque Skimmer - in its next update due on Tuesday, 5th March.

Skimmers will let players zoom around looking cool, pull off tricks and even grind on rails. They'll live alongside Sparrows - the game's traditional Star Wars speeder bikes - in your inventory.

As with anything fun or cool, the first hit is free - all players will get a Skimmer as part of the upcoming Guardian Games All-Stars event. A second Skimmer "inspired by a beloved Destiny weapon" will be available to buy via Destiny 2's Eververse microtransaction shop.

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Another Thursday, another Epic Games Store freebie to add to your ever-growing backlog, this time in the form of stylish 3D side-scroller Never Yield.

Never Yield - also known as Aerial_Knight's Never Yield to ensure you don't forget who developed it - released back in 2021, offering up an experience something like a classic endless runner. It sees players stampeding across a strikingly designed future Tokyo, all to a winning soundtrack created by Detroit artist Danime-Sama.

"Take the role of Wally," explains Never Yield's official description. "A mysterious character that has recovered what was taken from him. Hopefully, you're fast enough to outrun your enemies. Expose the truth and try to uncover the mystery of what happened to them."

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Vampire Survivors might continue to be suspiciously devoid of vampires, but it does now have a bunch of new cosmic sci-fi bits (clearly last year's Among Us collaboration just wasn't space-y enough), courtesy of its latest free update on Steam, Switch, Xbox, and mobile.

Space 54, as the update is known, introduces a new bonus stage going by the same name - officially described as a "cosmic border-realm between this plane of existence and a sinister, third dimension" - as well as two new characters to deploy.

One of those characters, Space Dude, is the star of developer Poncle's energetic Space 54 trailer (or Space-54, or Space54 - the studio doesn't seem to have entirely made its mind up), and there're also four new weapons, a new relic, and seven new EXTRA achievements.

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Terminator: Survivors, the previously untitled open-world Terminator game announced by publisher Nacon back in July 2022, has resurfaced with a new cinematic trailer and a Steam early access launch day of 24th October this year.

Terminator: Survivors is being developed by Nacon Studio Milan, the team behind motorcycle racer Rims Racing and TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3, and is set four years after the catastrophic Judgment Day prophesised in the first two Terminator films.

Cast as a survivor of humanity's near-extinction, players - either working solo or co-operatively with up to three friends - must attempt to "reestablish some semblance of society in a world that seems hell-bent on eliminating you and the last vestiges of mankind."

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Toys for Bob - the Activision Blizzard studio behind the likes of Skylanders, Crash Bandicoot 4, and the Spyro remasters - has announced it's parting ways with Activision to become an independent company once more. It also says it's "exploring a possible partnership" with Microsoft as development on its new game gets underway.

Toys for Bob, which was founded back in 1989, formed a publishing partnership with Activision in the 2000s that would lead to the studio's acquisition by the publisher in 2005. Toys for Bob has been part of Activision Blizzard ever since, initially working on the hugely popular toys-to-life Skylanders series before developing 2018 remaster Spyro Reignited Trilogy and 2020's well-received Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time. Since then, it's served as a support studio for Call of Duty while also releasing last year's Crash Team Rumble.

Earlier this month, following Microsoft's $69bn acquisition of Activision Blizzard and subsequent decision to lay off 1,900 workers across its Xbox teams, it was confirmed 86 Toys for Bob employees had lost their jobs. It was also reported the studio's physical office would be shutting down and that remaining staff would transition to working from home. And it's in this context that Toys for Bob has now announced it's splitting from Activision to go independent.

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Following reports last year that Embracer Group was considering selling Borderlands studio Gearbox as part of its ongoing "comprehensive restructuring programme", it's now being claimed a sale to a third party is in the "late stages" of being finalised.

That's according to Kotaku, which says Gearbox CEO and co-founder Randy Pitchford had previously told staff the studio was facing one of three possible scenarios: it would either stay with Embracer, be sold, or would finance a buyout and become independent once more. However, Pitchford reportedly shared an update with employees earlier this week, saying a decision had been made about Gearbox's future, with more to be revealed next month.

Kotaku says it understands Gearbox will sell to an unnamed buyer and that the sale is currently in the "late stages of being finalised". And while Embracer Group - which purchased Gearbox for $363m in 2021 - did not respond to Kotaku's requests for comment, Pitchford deflected the website's inquiries, saying, "We will be thrilled to share whenever we have projects to announce or news to share as we work hard towards our mission to entertain the world."

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Leap day is now upon us and a couple of games aren't happy about this sudden affront to their usual calendar expectations. Both EA Sports WRC and Theatrhythm Final Bar Line are currently protesting the arrival of 29th February by refusing to function on consoles - but, luckily for rally fans and beat tappers, there's a pretty straightforward workaround.

Theatrhythm Final Bar Line players noticed the Final Fantasy-themed PS4 and Switch rhythm game was failing to connect to Square Enix's servers after the clock struck midnight heralding the arrival 29th February, leaving it functionally unplayable.

Similarly, EA took to social media earlier today to acknowledge Codemasters' World Championship Rally was encountering an "issue on console in which the game may crash on startup." And while it didn't explicitly blame the problem on today's leap year, the publisher's follow-up solution makes it clear 29th February is the culprit.

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Embracer Group is set to sell Saber Interactive in a deal worth up to $500m, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Saber will continue to work on its remake of Star Wars: The Knights of the Old Republic after development was removed from Aspyr in 2022.

This deal is just the latest from Embracer as part of its restructuring programme that's already seen over a thousand staff laid off and studios closed.

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Amazon is offering eight games to Prime Gaming subscribers in March, including Fallout 2 and Invincible Presents: Atom Eve.

The month will start out with Fallout 2 to promote Amazon's upcoming Fallout adaptation, which is set to premiere on 12th April. We got a good look at the show in December when Amazon released a teaser trailer, following numerous set leaks and official promotional photos.

If you haven't played it, Fallout 2 is one of the classic RPGs which still holds up today. In 2017, Eurogamer was able to visit Obsidian Entertainment and speak to Feargus Urquhart, Leonard Boyarsky and Tim Cain, who all previously worked on Fallout 1 and 2 whilst at Interplay Productions.

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The second part of the long-awaited Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy is finally here. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth releases today, an expansive RPG that is perhaps this year's most significant PS5 console exclusive. We took a quick look at the first few hours in a piece last week, but with all embargo restrictions now removed, now it's time to crack open the full game and see what's under the hood. How does the Unreal Engine 4-powered Rebirth take advantage of PS5 hardware? What are the enhancements over Remake? And are there any unexpected visual follies along the way?

Let's start with what Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth does well and that begins with its excellent cutscenes. These are bombastic, beautifully-directed sequences that provide stunning views of near-CGI level character models in a mix of expository and action scenes. The level of visual quality achieved here is very impressive, and the cinematics are often outstanding. That was true of 2020's Final Fantasy 7 Remake as well - so what's changed? Character designs have been tweaked quite a bit for these sequences, with higher grade - and subtly more realistic - modeling.

Skin is more detailed with better-defined specular highlights, while hair rendering is significantly improved. The card-based hair system is less angular and possesses more fine detail, with less dithering and break-up. There's more obvious light occlusion and self-shadowing, looking shinier than its Remake counterpart. The cutscene lighting has also been improved, often going for cinematic three-point lighting setups that bring the characters into sharper relief against backgrounds. There's effective indirect lighting in these scenes too, with obvious light bounce from reflective surfaces like sand.

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Ghostrunner 2 publisher 505 Games has shut down offices in Germany, Spain and France.

The office closures were first reported today by Gamereactor, though 505 told Eurogamer this is part of a previously announced review.

"Today's news regarding our European offices is a part of our original announcement from November regarding 505's business review," 505 told Eurogamer.

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Sony-acquired studio Firesprite has recently suffered high profile exits amid accusations of a toxic workplace culture, Eurogamer has been told, as part of an investigation into the studio begun ahead of the layoffs announced by Sony this week.

The Liverpool-based developer released PlayStation VR2 launch title Horizon Call of the Mountain last year, after being acquired by Sony in 2021. But the impact of crunch for that game's release and changes in the company's senior leadership have subsequently led to discontent within the studio, staff have told Eurogamer - something one source described as "death by a thousand cuts".

Most concerning are reports from sources that two senior leaders from Sony support studio XDev, brought in to help lead Firesprite, have since been accused of sexual discrimination and ageism. A subsequent internal investigation by Sony is said to have resulted in the claims being dismissed as a "misunderstanding".

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Dark Forces emerges from Nightdive's bacta tank refreshed and ready for action, combining classic FPS mayhem with thrilling espionage-themed missions.

"This is too easy" quips Kyle Katarn as he snatches the Death Star plans in Dark Forces' opening mission. What took Rogue One two-and-a-half ponderous hours to unspool, LucasArts' shooter pulls off in ten thrilling minutes. For Katarn, a cocky mercenary in tentative accord with the Rebel Alliance, stealing the Death Star plans is just another contract. In, out, job done.

Katarn's confidence and competence is echoed both in Dark Forces at large and Nightdive's work restoring it. The remaster is a consummately professional overhaul, making the game look just how you remember it in a way that belies the work involved to get it to this stage. In doing so, Nightdive reveals a shooter that hits the brief like a proton torpedo, a Doom clone elevated by its vivid, imaginative expansion upon the Star Wars universe.

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If you go down to your web browser today, you're sure of a big surprise.

To honour today's release of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Google has hidden a little Chocobo treat for us all. All you have to do is type the words "Chocobo" or "Final Fantasy" into the search bar, and you will be met with a little Chocobo icon in the lower right corner.

Hit this button, and soon your screen will be full of charging Chocobos, their feet pounding away making everything shake and shimmy. Cloud even pops up riding on the back of one, his Buster Sword held aloft as though he is riding into battle. You can see how it looks in the video below.

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If you, like the rest of the internet, have been swept up in the trainwreck that was the Willy Wonka Experience held in an empty warehouse in Glasgow last weekend, we have good news. While you may no longer be able to witness the real event in person, you can always relive it vicariously through your Sims.

Glasgow's Willy Wonka Experience has gone viral for its emptily-decorated space, its AI-generated scripts, and the random shadowy figure called The Unknown who was scaring children.

The whole thing went so badly, it was cancelled halfway through Saturday after police were called to the event, but not before someone could snap one of the most memorable pictures from it - a sad Oompa Loompa being forced to conduct experiments by event organiser House of Illuminati.

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Today I learned there is a Dungeons and Dragons-like Game Master (GM) working behind the scenes on Helldivers 2.

His name is Joel, and his job title at Arrowhead is, well, Game Master. "We have a lot of systems built into the game where the Game Master has a lot of control over the play experience. It's something that we're continuously evolving based on what's happening in the game," Helldivers 2 game director Johan Pilestedt told PC Gamer.

This continuous evolution has actually seen Joel getting up at unsociable hours to sort out situations when the Helldivers 2 team realised the game wasn't as balanced as it could be. "There have been some sudden moments where maybe one planet was too easy or one was too hard and [Joel] had to get up in the middle of the night to give the Automatons a bit of reinforcement so the players don't take [the planet] too quickly," Pilestedt said.

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Larian has released another Baldur's Gate 3 hotfix across PC, PS5 and Mac. It is expected to arrive on Xbox at a later date.

This hotfix takes aim at several bugs and quirks still lingering in Baldur's Gate 3. This includes a fix for banding and shader issues in cinematics and those times characters claimed to be too busy to talk to you. "They were lying," Larian explained.

Meanwhile, Minthara should no longer refuse to follow along with the party in Acts 2 and 3. In the developer's own words: "You should find her more willing to fall in line now - at least in terms of keeping up. She's still something of a free spirit."

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Gameplay footage of Helldivers 2 shows off in-game playable mechs - something that isn't currently available to users in the public version of the game.

We already knew these were on the way - the game's Report for Duty trailer (below) features mechs captioned "coming soon after launch", plus the first game featured mechs.

But now that server issues due to the game's popularity have been sorted, it seems developer Arrowhead Studios is finally moving on to more interesting improvements.

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Immortals of Aveum is a game which will continue to be discovered by players for "years and years" like Dead Space, according to its director.

Ascendant Studios founder Bret Robbins, who also served as creative director on the first Dead Space game, made the comment in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz reflecting on the launch and future of the developer's debut game.

Despite initial poor sales and lacklustre reviews for Immortals of Aveum when it released in August 2023, Robbins said he believes the game's future will be successful like Dead Space. "People were discovering [Dead Space] for years and years," Robbins stated, "I think Immortals will be the same."

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Employees at Rockstar have been asked to return to the office five days a week, now that GTA 6 enters its final year of development.

As reported by Bloomberg, an email sent to staff by Rockstar's head of publishing Jenn Kolbe stated the decision to end hybrid work was made - in part - with security reasons in mind.

Rockstar was the subject of a high profile hack in 2022, in which over 90 screenshots and videos were released online showing work on the then unannounced GTA 6. Then, last year, the studio released its first official GTA 6 trailer ahead of schedule, after it too leaked online.

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EA's closure of Ridgeline Games last night was a "gut punch", the company's former boss Marcus Lehto has now said.

Ridgeline - previously led by ex-Halo co-creator Lehto - had been working on a narrative-led Battlefield campaign. The project will now be completed by Need for Speed studio Criterion Games.

Writing on social media platform X last night, Lehto said: "Gut punched to see EA lay off my team. So many very talented devs who were incredibly valuable to the Battlefield franchise."

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A week into Balatro - Balatro were jesters and fools in ancient Rome; I googled it - I'd say that this is the Goldberg Variations of Poker. It's Poker: Possibility Space Edition. It's a roguelike deckbuilder that starts with the basic poker hands and then allows you to level up the winnings of those hands, add new cards to the deck and alter existing ones, and bring in a range of jokers that modify the game rules in bizarre ways. And yet, it's still poker underneath it all. (Actually, the solo dev says it's Big Two, and I will take their word for it.) So, like the Goldbergs, it's expansive, ingenious, eager to turn every closet over and every pocket inside out. But also, like the Goldbergs, its invention is a thing of precision, of sounding out specific possibilities. So it feels really, really big - bottomlessly big - and also extremely compact: localised, particular.

Over the last few weeks it has taken over the gaming world completely, and I can see why. A poker roguelike is such a brilliant idea you almost don't need to make it to see how clever it is. There are a few of these, and Balatro is comfortably the best I've played. It really is ingenious - and it's also ingeniously simple. Let us get into this.

It's poker. Honestly it is. And for the first rounds of a new run, before you've started to flare things in weird directions, you'll be playing pretty straight poker. You are dealt cards. You make poker hands. A flush? Nice. A straight? Absolutely fine. When it comes to real poker in the real world, I am the earnest, plodding friend of two pair. Two pair is it for me: nice try, not going to blow people's minds, you did your best.

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Following its decision to cut six percent of its workforce last March, EA has announced another round of layoffs - this time affecting five percent of staff (around 670 employees) - as it moves away from "future licensed IP" toward its "owned IP, sports, and massive online communities".

In an email to staff announcing today's layoffs, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said the cuts were part of a continuing effort to "optimise our global real estate footprint to best support our business".

In order to achieve its goals, Wilson said EA will be "streamlining [its] company operations", "sunsetting games and moving away from development of future licensed IP that we do not believe will be successful in our changing industry". Additionally, it'll "double down on our biggest opportunities — including our owned IP, sports, and massive online communities".

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Paranormal Activity - the found-footage horror series that's spawned seven movies since its debut instalment blew up the box office in 2009 - is being turned into a game by The Mortuary Assistant developer DarkStone Digital horror and renowned indie horror publisher DreadXP.

DarkStone Digital's Paranormal Activity project, which follows the launch of last year's VR-focused Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul from developer VRWERX, is being made in conjunction with Paramount Game Studios and promises to "bring the franchise's groundbreaking found-footage style to horror enthusiasts in surprising new ways".

Specifics are limited at this seemingly early juncture, but DarkStone Digital (AKA solo developer Brian Clarke, who's also co-director and creative director of DreadXP) makes mention of a dynamic "haunt system" in the game's announcement, explaining it'll alter the types and intensity of scares players encounter based on their actions.

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Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile, the iOS and Android version of Activision Blizzard's battle royale hit, is officially getting its worldwide launch on 21st March following a limited release in select counties over the course of the last year.

Warzone Mobile, which is being developed by Activision's Digital Legends, Beenox, Shanghai, and Solid State studios, initially launched in Australia back in November 2022. Following its roll-out across a number of other countries, Activision announced it would be getting its full release in autumn last year - but plans changed in October, when the publisher confirmed it had made the decision to postpone its launch to "spring" 2024 in order to "polish up" the experience.

With Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile's worldwide release now locked down to 21st March, Activision has started talking specifics, confirming the game will launch with two maps: Verdansk - which supports 120-player battle royale matches - and Rebirth Island, which supports 48-player battle royale matches using Gulag-free Resurgence rules.

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Alan Wake developer Remedy Entertainment has announced it's acquired the full rights to its Control series from publisher 505 Games for €17m.

As detailed in an investor announcement on Remedy's website, the rights acquisition - which includes those for publishing, distribution, and marketing - cover the full Control franchise, including the supernatural third-person shooter's 2019 debut game, the upcoming Control 2 and multiplayer spin-off codenamed Condor, and all future titles in the series.

Remedy's publishing agreement with 505 Games for Control 2 and Condor terminates immediately, and 505 will continue to serve as the publisher of Control until 31st December this year, when the transition period ends.

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This week on the Eurogamer Newscast, we discuss the shocking news that the next big Pokémon game is mysteriously set to arrive in 2025. Hey, that sounds a lot like the intro to last week's episode, when we were discussing Switch 2! Say, could Pokémon Legends: Z-A also be set to arrive on Nintendo's next console?

It's been a long time since Nintendo didn't launch a major Pokémon game or expansion in a calendar year, and Pokémon Legends: Z-A's arrival in 2025 certainly looks suspicious - as does yesterday's reveal of the game without any look at actual gameplay.

So, have we just been given another piece of the Switch 2 puzzle? What do we expect to see in the mysterious Z-A when it is fully revealed? And how many bad French-themed Pokémon ideas can we come up with? With me this week are Eurogamer's Ed Nightingale, Victoria Kennedy and Liv Ngan.

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UPDATE 29/2/24: This week's social media post by Jar-Jar Binks actor Ahmed Best in which he tagged himself with #Activision is - sadly - not a tease that the star will soon be popping up in Call of Duty.

Internet sleuths have now scoured Best's social media posts for more clues - and discovered he is currently shooting motion capture scenes with someone named Anamaria Musca - who is a producer on the upcoming South of Midnight, from We Happy Few developer Compulsion Games (thanks, AltChar). In November last year, Best also tagged another photo of himself on a mo-cap stage with #compulsiongames, seemingly confirming his work on the project.

So, why Activision? As Eurogamer reader SoVeryTired pointed out in the comments of this very article, Activision has a Los Angeles-based mo-cap studio it regularly leases out to other projects - and it seems Best and Musca are there working on South of Midnight right now.

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Sony has announced its PlayStation Plus games for March.

As previously reported, Sloclap's third-person brawler Sifu will be arriving on the service next month. It will be available on both PlayStation 4 and PS5. Joining it are three other games - or rather, two others plus the Destiny 2: Witch Queen expansion (for which you'll need Destiny 2 in your library to play).

The full list of PlayStation Plus games for March includes:

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It's been a long old wait for UFO 50 - the 50-strong anthology of 8-bit-inspired games from Spelunky creator Derek Yu's Mossmouth studio - but as the seventh anniversary of its announcement approaches this August, Yu has revealed the promising project is currently on track to release in the second half of this year.

When UFO 50 was announced in 2017, the goal was to launch it the following year. That, obviously, didn't happen, with Yu last year explaining the longer-than-expected development time was simply down to the team having wildly underestimated how long it would take to make 50 games, particularly given Spelunky 2 was being made in the middle of it all.

UFO 50, if you're unfamiliar, isn't a mini- or micro-game compilation, but a collection of complete 8-bit game experiences (albeit of varying sizes) created as if from a long-forgotten fictional 80s video game company, with sequels and recurring characters creating a sense of shared continuity. It promises everything from platformers and shoot 'em ups to puzzle games, roguelites, and RPGs, with over half featuring local multiplayer, including co-op and versus play.

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UPDATE 29/02/24: Cloud Imperium Games has responded to Eurogamer confirming "some minor staffing changes" due to a return to office work.

The statement in full reads: "As part of our normal processes, we regularly look for ways to make our operations more efficient, which can include restructuring in order to place a position closer to the team it supports.

"Now that we are back in office and seeing the progress and quality of work when our teams are in-person working together, we have decided to co-locate as much development as possible, which has resulted in some minor staffing changes as we move some development positions closer to their core teams. As a result of this consolidation, a small number of positions were eliminated and we continue to recruit for key roles within the company."

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UPDATE 1/3/24: Aspyr has seen all the Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered chatter about the differences between the Epic Games Store version and other versions of the game. And, well, it has left me a tad confused.

Apparently, the Epic Games Store version was a "development build with incomplete assets", despite it looking better than other versions.

"Content in that Epic Games Store build contained some work-in-progress materials that do not represent our final quality expectations. We have corrected the build to match the live Steam version," the developer wrote on Steam.

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We're now 20 years on from the release of The Simpsons: Hit & Run and we're still without a sequel. That said, we now have a nightmarish glimpse into what could have been, perhaps, with a Mario Kart parody sequence in the latest episode of the animated series.

Episode 12 of season 35, Lisa Gets an F1, aired on 25th February, and follows Lisa as she becomes a professional kid go-kart racer whilst dealing with her anxiety stemming from Homer's dangerous driving. As Homer worries about Lisa's safety, one night he has a nightmare where he, Lisa, and a number of other children are driving in an off-kilter version of Mario Kart.

"It's me, Lisa Mario," Lisa proclaims at the starting line of Rainbow Road, fully decked out with a blue hat, moustache, and her dress altered to look like Mario's overalls. She's joined by Ralph dressed up as Toad, Nelson tranformed into Bowser, and one of the Mackleberry twins as Princess Peach.

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A new documentary has shed more light on Resident Evil 4 Remake's development, and shows its director concerned the game would not be ready for its release date.

A recent episode of 100 Cameras - a Japanese documentary series which puts 100 cameras in situ to capture the goings on in any given place - focused on Capcom. Along with a look behind the scenes of Street Fighter 6, the episode also showed a slice of Resident Evil 4 Remake's development (thanks, GamesRadar).

At the time of recording, there was only one month left before Resident Evil 4 Remake was set to release, but the game was reportedly riddled with a "storm" of issues. These included game freezes, visual glitches such as characters' hands not connecting when they are meant to be holding on to each other, and Leon getting sent to "another dimension" as he falls through the floor. One tester said they had found "around 70" new bugs in one day. Things were once so bad, Resident Evil 4 Remake director Yasuhiro Anpo admitted: "At this rate, we won't make the release".

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