It's a dangerous thing, toying with people's gaming memories, because they've often welded to our sense of self and who we are. They're not impartial any more, if they ever were. These memories are a powerful thing to appeal to, and a smart way for a game to get attention, but it's also dangerous ground to tread. Because what if in aping the past, you undermine it? What if in the harsh light of reality, you expose old games for what they were - limited in comparison to what we have now?

I've been thinking about this because of two games: Skald, the Commodore 64-styled role-playing game, and Crow Country, the PlayStation 1-styled survival horror. Skald came out this week and we have a review in the works, and Crow Country came earlier in the month and our review aired this week. That's partially the reason I'm making Crow Country our game of this week.

It's a gorgeous thing. It's got that muddy colour palette PS1 games used to have, and that sense of claustrophobia caused by a low screen resolution. The camera angle is fixed, the characters are chunky, and you can almost count the number of polygons on them. It really does look like a PS1 game, and people have been giddy about it on social media for weeks. But is that all games like this are - superficial nostalgia plays?

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This week on the Eurogamer Newscast, we look back on the start of this year's June hype cycle, the period formerly known as E3, now a potpourri of other events and announcement livestreams.

PlayStation got the ball rolling last night with its latest State of Play broadcast, which included a look ahead at its rather meagre first-party plans for the remainder of 2024: a moderately buffed-up port of Until Dawn, online shooter Concord, and the charming Astro Bot. But, as our Ian wrote earlier, even the cute robot has got some people (VR fans) disgruntled. Still, as a flat-screen game, surely more people will now play it?

And then there was Silent Hill Transmission or, this time around, basically just a longer look at the upcoming Silent Hill 2 and a chance for Konami to promote a load of tie-in tat. Joining me this week are Eurogamer's Victoria Kennedy and Vikki Blake to discuss.

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Spyro developer Toys for Bob has formally confirmed its next game will be published by Xbox, in a teasing statement that ends with a decidedly purple-coloured heart emoji.

Toys for Bob was previously part of the now-Microsoft-owned Activision Blizzard, and made its name making Skylanders, then working on the Crash and Spyro trilogy releases.

But more recent years saw it pulled into work on Call of Duty as a support developer, and earlier this year it lost 89 staff members as a part of Microsoft's wider layoffs of 1900 staff.

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John Romero's autobiography Doom Guy: Life in First Person is being adapted for screen in two different forms.

As reported by Deadline, the story of the id Software co-founder is being made into a documentary by Canadian filmmaker Rob McCallum.

Meanwhile, a dramatised adaptation of the Doom creator's book is also in the pipeline. Both of these projects are going to be executive produced by Naomi Harvey of Golden Possum Productions.

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Supermassive Games has delayed the release of Little Nightmares 3, saying it needs "a little extra time to prepare".

In a statement posted to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, the Dark Pictures developer said that "as much as [it] can't wait for you to return to the Nowhere", "quality is a top priority" and that's why it's decided to "shift the release of the game to 2025".

"Ever since the announcement of Little Nightmares 3 at Gamescom last year, we've been thrilled to see our community buzzing with excitement and anticipation," the team said.

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Frame generation technology has arrived on consoles, amplifying frame-rates and potentially transforming experiences. We shared initial thoughts earlier this week via DF Direct, but we've gone further now - testing out Immortals of Aveum's FSR 3 frame-gen implementation across all supported consoles. In all cases, the promise of a high frame-rate experience for 120Hz screens has been delivered - and what's fascinating is that it's Xbox Series S that gets closest to delivering 120 frames per second.

Before we go on, let's circle back and cover the basics. AMD's brand of frame generation tech is similar in principle to Nvidia's pioneering work with DLSS 3, the difference being that there's no hardware tie-in here - AMD does it all with software whereas Nvidia demands the use of RTX 40-series cards. Either way, two frames are generated in succession and then a third - an interpolated frame - is sandwiched between the two and so it goes on. What you're getting is like a concertina effect of standard generated frames and interpolated frames, strobing at high speed.

In a very best case scenario, you can effectively double frame-rate but more typically the gain is lower. Frame generation isn't 'free' - there's a computational cost. The GPU needs to process the interpolated frame and that takes time. In a purely CPU-limited scenario, you may see cases where there are spare GPU cycles, allowing you to basically double output frame-rate but that's not the case here in Immortals of Aveum. In the recent DF Direct, we showed some clips of Series X Aveum and this particular cutscene from the beginning of chapter three - a proper stress point - shows the vast improvement in frame-rate. Across the board, it's a 72.3 percent boost.

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I should have learned to not get my hopes up by now but, as a huge fan of Sony's PSVR2, it's hard not to get excited when a State of Play featuring new PSVR2 games is announced. Now, I'm not naive enough to believe that Half Life: Alyx is ever going to come to the headset (even though I desperately want it to) but, when one of my favourite VR games ever is the PSVR1 exclusive, Astro Bot Rescue Mission, I think it's fair to hold out hope for an Astro Bot Rescue Mission 2 for the PSVR2. (I mean, I'd even take backwards compatibility for the original Astro Bot Rescue Mission at this point!)

That's why yesterday's announcement of Astro Bot was so bittersweet for me. Like everyone, I'm pumped for a new Astro Bot game, they're such joyful, heart-warming and uplifting games - and on top of that this new one looks a bit like a StarFox x Mario Mash-up. "How can that not be a Game of the Year contender?!" I thought, as I watched the reveal. But then, as the trailer passed the one minute mark without showing footage of anything that looked like VR gameplay, my heart started to sink. That sunken heart then broke completely in two when, at the very end of the trailer, big bold words saying "COMING TO PS5" appeared. So no PSVR2 support at all?! For a character that technically only became big thanks to Astro Bot Rescue Mission on PSVR1? What gives?

To add extra salt to the wound, as I was scouring the trailer for potential PSVR2 clues (just in case, you never know, etc...), I noticed that there is a bit in the trailer during the casino world section, where Astro Bot is wearing a VR headset. The only trouble is... IT'S A PSVR1! Sorry for shouting there - but, come on. How can Sony and PlayStation expect its fan base to stay excited about the future of the PSVR2 if its main mascot won't even wear one?

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Destiny 2 will go offline for 25 hours ahead of the launch of its final expansion, The Final Shape.

The downtime – which is scheduled to kick off at 5pm UK time on 3rd June (that's 9am PT, 12pm ET) and end at 7pm on 4th June – is required to prep for the new expansion, which is estimated to take up at least 129GB of free space on every platform, and almost 300GB on Steam.

As detailed in the latest This Week in Destiny update, players can pre-download update 8.0.0.2 from 6pm UK time (10am PT, 1pm ET) on 1st June on PS3, while PC and Xbox players have to wait until the same time on 3rd June.

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In a frank discussion about the "current state of player behaviour" in Valorant, Riot Games' head Anna Donlon has outlined upcoming changes designed "to make our community a better place".

Though Donlon acknowledges that the development team had no plans to "sanitise gaming" or suppress harmless banter, she said players should not be expected to "grow a thicker skin" when playing video games.

"There's no room in our community for the most egregious behaviours, and we're not going to compromise on that point," she said.

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The highly-anticipated GTA 6 is set to release next year across PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. However, Rockstar is yet to say anything at all regarding a PC release.

Now, publisher Take-Two has given further comment on the lack of Grand Theft Auto 6-related PC news, stating Rockstar would "make more announcements in due time".

During an interview at a TD Cowen conference (as transcribed by VGC), Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said "the lack of an announcement is not something that could be set in stone as near as I could tell, because the only thing that happens after the lack of an announcement is an announcement, I suppose, or a continuing lack of an announcement, I guess that could happen too. It doesn't seem to me that either would be set in stone".

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The next Epic Games Store freebie as part of the company's ongoing Mega Sale promotion will be Marvel's Midnight Suns.

That's according to Dealabs' always-reliable billbil-kun, who notes the game will be available to download next week from Thursday 6th until Thursday 13th June.

If you're yet to give it a go, Marvel's Midnight Suns is a brilliant character-centric role-player with Firaxis' trademark turn-based combat. Actions are made by cards, yes, but don't worry too much about that. It's fun, it's well-written, and being able to build up a secret base full of interesting Marvel superheroes is a blast.

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If you cast your minds back to March, you may recall the story about some missing Playdate consoles. During a talk at GDC, company co-founder Cabel Sasser revealed pallets containing $400k worth of Panic's palm-sized, crank-operated console had gone AWOL in Las Vegas.

At this time, Sasser called the whole situation "a bit of a true crime drama".

However, fast forward a couple of months, and the consoles have now been returned to their rightful owner, although the circumstances still seem rather bizarre.

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Redfall's final ever update has been released, marking an end to Arkane Austin's work on the game - and indeed the now-shuttered studio's work in general.

Known as version 1.451.3.0 - a nod to video games' ongoing 0-4-5-1 easter egg, which dates back almost 30 years - this update adds features such as an offline mode and single player pausing, among others.

While these features have long been sought after - and long promised, it is a bittersweet moment. This marks the end of the game's development, roughly one year after it first released.

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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 we return to an old series to see how it's evolved, we go to the underworld and play with the gods, and we go back to the Arkham game that started it all.

What have you been playing?

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

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The New York Times, owner of Wordle, is suing a one-man geography-guessing alternative project named Worldle.

Hit puzzle game Wordle was the work of British designer Josh Wardle, until it was bought by The New York Times in 2022 for a seven-figure sum. It's now operated as part of The New York Times' growing games portfolio and is played by millions daily.

The browser-based Worldle, meanwhile, was built and is still run by one man - Seattle-based Kory McDonald, and has around 100,000 players each month.

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Sony's PlayStation State of Play May Showcase 2024 may have been announced at short notice, but packed within its 35-minute presentation we got a look at a whole host of brand-new PS5 games coming in 2024 and beyond. There were also two new PSVR2 games announced here, as well as the surprise return of one of PlayStation's most beloved mascots, Astro Bot.

Whether you missed the showcase or just want a handy round-up of all the trailers again, here's everything that was announced in Sony's State of Play May Showcase.

First up, we got a long-awaited look at Concord, Firewalk's upcoming PvP shooter, both in the form of a cinematic vignette and a proper gameplay trailer (embedded below). Big Guardians of the Galaxy energy, this one. Lots of big guns, lots of colourful moons and planets, and a very chatty cast. Could this be the perfect second course after Helldivers earlier this year? We'll find out when it launches on PS5 and PC on August 23rd 2024.

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At this evening's State of Play, we got another look at Bloober's upcoming Silent Hill 2 remake.

Perhaps learning from its previous combat-focused tease, the Silent Hill 2 Remake team went down the more atmospheric route for this trailer. Gone were the parkouring nurses from yore, and in its place we got crumbling gravestones, creaking floorboards and plenty of fog. After all, this is Silent Hill!

The trailer gave us all a closer look at James, the game's protagonist. He is trying to get to Silent Hill, having received a letter from his deceased wife. "James heads to where they shared so many memories, in the hope of seeing her one more time," the trailer description reads. You can check it out below.

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Sony has announced a new Astro Bot game during tonight's PlayStation State of Play. It's simply called Astro Bot, is once again developed by Sony's Team Asobi, and launches for PlayStation 5 on 6th September.

A charming-enough-looking platformer, this is Astro's first starring role since 2020's PS5 launch title Astro's Playroom.

In the past, Astro has been used as a showcase for Sony's hardware, with Playroom designed to show off the PS5 DualSense, just as 2018's Astro Bot Rescue Mission was built for PlayStation VR.

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Tonight brings our first proper look at Concord, as part of the latest PlayStation State of Play.

The first new game developed by Sony's Firewalk Studios, Concord is a sci-fi shooter for PlayStation 5 and PC with a beta in July and a full launch on 23rd August.

There's bags of character on show in the game's cinematic reveal trailer - which clearly owes a lot to James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy. Interestingly, Sony has said that each week will bring another small slice of story via a similar vignette, containing deeper dives at the game's characters and ongoing narratives.

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Boy! You read that right - God of War Ragnarök is coming to PC. The news came as part of this evening's State of Play, with Sony adding it will arrive with its Valhalla DLC included.

An accompanying blog post notes that an "account for PlayStation Network is required" - something unlikely to please fans after the Helldivers 2 debacle. Eurogamer has contacted Sony for more details. A PSN is also required for fellow PlayStation PC port, Until Dawn. [UPDATE: God of War Ragnarök's Steam page is now online and also warns you'll need a PlayStation Network account.]

The upcoming PC port - which was rumoured to be in the pipeline prior to this evening's announcement - will join other former PlayStation console exclusives such as Days Gone, Horizon Forbidden West and Marvel's Spider-Man, which have all made the transition to an additional platform over recent years.

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Bethesda's Todd Howard has called Fallout's recent renaissance "beyond anything [he's] ever seen in [his] 30 years of doing this".

This renewed interest in the series all came about thanks to Amazon's Fallout adaptation. The show's success - which saw 65 million viewers tuning in in its first 16 days of release - led to droves of players venturing into one or many of Fallout's wastelands, to find out what delights were in store.

Fallout 4 actually became the best selling game in Europe at one point in April, despite having been out for almost a decade. Meanwhile, earlier today, it was announced that Fallout 76 has now welcomed 20 million total players, several years after its initial release.

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A Just Cause movie is in on the way.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the movie – based on Square Enix and Avalanche Studios' action series – will be led by Blue Bettle director Ángel Manuel Soto, and produced by Kelly McCormick and David Leitch, who also produced The Fall Guy.

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Dataminers have found new details about Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.

As shown in the posts below, the next Call of Duty game will reportedly release on both previous and current generation consoles. This ties in with reports earlier in the month, when images of a GameStop pre-order screen for the game started making the rounds online.

Additionally, those interested will seemingly be able to pick up a 'Vault' edition of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, as well as the 'Standard' edition.

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A new animated Minecraft series has been announced for Netflix.

The series was revealed as part of Minecraft's 15th year anniversary celebrations, with a short teaser trailer. This trailer shows a lone Creeper making its way onto the scene, before it explodes. The camera then pans through a blocky lava filled cavern in the Nether, before it comes to rest on Netflix's large red 'N' logo perched atop a rock. Bats fly overhead.

"This just happened," the description reads. "The best selling game of all time and the biggest streamer in the world are teaming up to bring you a brand NEW Minecraft Netflix animated series!" You can check it out for yourself below.

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A retail listing for Resident Evil 9 has popped up on Play Asia, along with PS5 versions of Code Veronica, Resident Evil 0, and Resident Evil 5.

Whilst the remakes have long been rumoured to be in development, the former includes a hitherto unknown subtitle, "Revenant Shadows", "preliminary" cover art, and a description of the game.

"Resident Evil 9: Revenant Shadows is the latest instalment in the iconic survival horror series by Capcom," the store description says, without actually telling us anything meaningful about the game, suggesting it's just placeholder text.

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UPDATE 31/5/24: Bungie has released a statement after "a portion" of Destiny 2's The Final Shape expansion was "accidentally pushed live" on PS5's streaming service.

The studio acknowledged spoilers were being shared online, and that a "small group of players" were able to access the campaign, Collections, Echoes, and "other reward info".

Consequently, the team advises players who don't want the experience spoiled to "be very careful" on social media in the lead up to The Final Shape's release next week, and asks those who have seen the spoilers to "please be considerate of others".

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What's at stake? In Dungeons of Hinterberg, refreshingly little. But the more I played of this strange and lovely combination of dungeon diver and life sim, the more I realised that wasn't quite the case. Sure, in terms of the stakes of a lot of video games, Hinterberg's are definitely quite low. You're on holiday and your job, in essence, is to relax. But sometimes just getting away and having a break is really pretty important. A few hours in, I realised that I wanted to do it properly.

Dungeons of Hinterberg is a game about Luisa, who's training to be a lawyer and is young and thoroughly burned out. She's come to Hinterberg, which is a sweet Alpine town touched by magic, to do what all tourists here do. They stroll and eat cakes and sit by the lake, certainly. But they also descend into a range of dungeons to whack enemies around with swords and magic.

The dungeons I've played so far are delightful, combining puzzles and combat in a way that feels like you're playing a really good Zelda shrine. Dungeons often have their own gimmicks - one is about manipulating jelly-like platforms that pop in and out of the walls allowing you to access specific areas. Another is all about mine carts, with puzzles that involve switching the tracks around and opening gates.

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The Boys' Homelander will join Mortal Kombat 1's roster next week.

As shared by Mortal Kombat creator Ed Boon on social media, Homelander is set to fight from 11th June, although early access players with the Kombat Pack DLC will have access to him from 4th June.

Ferra, on the other hand, will join the Kameo roster at an unspecified date "later in June".

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Soon-to-be PlayStation CEO Hermen Hulst has shed more light on the company's strategy for bringing its games to PC.

Speaking as part of this morning's business segment meeting and investor presentation, Hulst stated live service titles will be released day and date on PC.

However, its plans remain more "strategic" with single player and narrative driven titles, as the company hopes this will entice PC owners to play any subsequent sequels on a PlayStation console.

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A federal court has awarded Activision £11.3m ($14.4m) after it ruled in favour of the publisher's lawsuit against cheat makers EngineOwning and Garnatz Enterprise Ltd, and 11 individual people.

As spotted by VentureBeat, the lawsuit, which was filed at the beginning of 2022, accuses the companies and individuals – Valentin Rick, Leonard Bugla, Leon Frisch, Marc-Alexander Richts, Alexander Kleeman, Leon Schlender, Bennet Huch, Ricky Szameitat, Remo Loffler, Charlie Wiest and Pascal Classen – of profiting from cheats and giving an unfair competitive advantage to players prepared to pay for auto-aim and auto-fire software cheats.

At the time, Activision said it sought "to put a stop to unlawful conduct by an organisation that is distributing and selling for profit numerous malicious software products designed to enable members of the public to gain unfair competitive advantages", and described EngineOwning as a "German business entity... engaged in the development, sale, distribution, marketing, and exploitation of a portfolio of malicious cheats and hacks for popular online multiplayer games, most prominently the COD Games".

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Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will be available across all Game Pass tiers, Microsoft has confirmed.

"Upon launch, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will be playable on Xbox and PC for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, and Xbox Game Pass for Console members," a Microsoft spokesperson told Eurogamer earlier today.

The company initially confirmed Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 would be coming to Game Pass day one earlier this week, after the information leaked ahead of schedule. At this time, however, some wondered if Microsoft may use the game's debut to change Xbox Game Pass' pricing or tier structure in some fashion.

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Sony has called the PlayStation 5 its "most profitable generation to date".

During this morning's business segment meeting and investor presentation, the company revealed its PS5 generation had hit $106bn in sales. It is close to catching up with its predecessor the PS4, which generated a total of $107bn sales for the company.

Operating income for the PlayStation 5 generation, meanwhile, has surpassed that of the PS4, having now reached $10bn. To compare, the PS4 is sitting at $9bn.

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Amazon has unveiled its Prime Gaming lineup for June, along with the usual monthly bonuses for Prime members.

This month's collection features seven free titles that Prime members can download and keep forever. The most popular of which is Star Wars Battlefront 2, supported by six indie titles including Genesis Noir and Mythforce.

The full list of free games with Prime in June will include:

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Sony has announced its next State of Play showcase.

After being rumoured and speculated about for some time, the Playstation maker has finally confirmed that yes, we will be getting a showcase event in May.

It all kicks off tomorrow, 30th May, at 11pm UK time. That's 3pm PT / 6pm ET for those across the pond.

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Sony has scrubbed an interview with Naughty Dog head Neil Druckmann from its website after finding "several significant errors and inaccuracies".

Last week Druckmann took part in an interview with Sony as part of the company's corporate strategy meeting, and at the time, Druckmann was reported to have said that Naughty Dog's next title could "redefine mainstream perceptions of gaming", and that "AI is really going to revolutionise how content is being created".

Soon after it was published, however, Druckmann took to social media to state that what he said had been lost in translation. Or, to quote Druckmann, his "words, context, and intent were unfortunately lost".

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Sony has certified a PlayStation VR2 PC adapter in South Korea, as the company readies its plans to make its latest VR headset compatible with computers.

The gadget was approved by South Korea at the end of March for use in the country. As yet, however, Sony is yet to announce it publicly.

A report on the device by UploadVR speculates that the gizmo will allow the headset to simply plug into your PC via the adapter device.

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Amazon Games is publishing a new narrative-led, open-world racing game from former Forza Horizon developers.

Developer Maverick Games is based in the UK and was founded in 2022 by key members of the Forza Horizon development team at Playground Games.

Its first AAA game is set for release on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, with lead writing from Skins co-creator Jamie Brittain (yes, that E4 teen drama show).

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Exploratory space sim No Man's Sky increasing tilt into the wonderfully bizarre continues today with the launch of a brand-new update, titled Adrift, which this time lets players explore an abandoned universe where civilisation has come to an end.

Adrift is, at least in part, a nod to No Man's Sky's earliest days - where lifeforms were scarce and exploration was an entirely solo, wonderfully lonely endeavour against a seemingly endless backdrop of stars. "There's so much we love about the game now," Hello Games says, "but there was something unique at release in how alone you felt in the universe."

To that end, Adrift gives players the option to explore an alternative universe of broken, rusted buildings and lost Travellers graves, that's free of other lifeforms, shops, trading, shortcuts, or help - all creating what Hello Games calls a "very different survival experience".

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Star Citizen has raised over $700m in crowdfunding, even though it still lacks a full release date.

As spotted by Neowin, the funding tracker for Cloud Imperium Games' space sim has seen an uptick in donations recently. On 25th May alone, almost $3m was raised.

This has coincided with Star Citizen's free play period which kicked off earlier this month, and allowed non-backers to give the game a whirl for themselves. At the time of writing, Star Citizen has raised a whopping $702,634,839. And - again - it isn't even fully out yet, and is still in an early access build.

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I didn't realise how much 90s horror lives on in my muscle memory until I sat down with Crow Country. My head is still full of things I forgot to forget as games grew and evolved and expanded beyond the blocky figures and pixelated gore I grew up with. Stuff like the sound of the cursor flicking over the items in the inventory, or knowing I can reload from the menu, or knowing, with cast iron certainty, that I'll find more handgun ammo than shotgun shells around here, which in turn will be more plentiful than the magnum ammo. Perhaps that's why Crow Country feels so much like coming home.

Well. You know. If I stomped around home melting deformed denizens with my flamethrower, anyway.

I'll be honest, though; these kinds of retro homages? I'm kinda done. And by kinda, I mean totally, and by done, I mean I've absolutely had my fill of them. Maybe they're a little more impactful to those who missed these kinds of experiences the first time around, but I'm old enough that I didn't, which is possibly why I'm more surprised than anyone that after reluctantly picking up Crow Country, I found it astonishingly difficult to put it down again.

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MultiVersus welcomed over 100,000 Steam brawlers on its relaunch, but new character restrictions have left a bad taste in the mouth of players.

The multi-franchise Warner Bros. fighter re-released last night across PC, Xbox and PlayStation, following the end of its open beta last year. On Steam, it recorded a concurrent player peak of 114,515 in the last 24 hours.

However, despite some fairly impressive numbers, the free-to-play brawler has come under fire from the community for a number of reasons, with the main issue being new character restrictions.

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Five of the Best is a weekly series for supporters of Eurogamer. It's a series that highlights some of the features in games that are often overlooked. It's also about having your say, so don't be shy, use the comments below and join in!

Oh and if you want to read more, you can - you can find our entire Five of the Best archive elsewhere on the site.

Which was the first game to have a dash move in it? The earliest I can think of is the Mega Man series. But was that a slide or a dash? Because although they serve similar functions, I think they're distinct things. It's tricky! Today of course, dashes are synonymous with action games, and even other kinds of games, and it's probably more common to play games with them than without them. Dashes have become a fundamental part of our gaming lexicon. But the question is, which dashes have been the most memorable - which dashes are the best?

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Mario Kart's Blue Shell (officially, the Spiny Shell) is one of the most iconic items in video game history. It's also one of the most controversial. A mainstay of the series since Mario Kart 64, the Blue Shell is a laser-guided missile targeted at the player in first place. It is near-unavoidable, and completely unavoidable in older games. Every Mario Kart player knows the feeling of dread - and childlike injustice - that accompanies the Blue Shell's sudden, high-pitched siren whine, announcing an unceremonious end to your pleasant race lead. But a research project at Queen's University Belfast has asked a fascinating question about the Blue Shell: does it even work?

Of course, the Blue Shell works in a literal sense - it blows up first place's hopes and dreams with depressing accuracy. The question is whether it does what it's designed to do, and what people believe it does. And if it doesn't, then why is it such a core part of the game?

The Blue Shell's fame can disguise its unusual status in gaming: it's surprisingly rare for items in competitive multiplayer to specifically target the leader, let alone to incapacitate them for multiple seconds. "Isn't it [...] a little bit unfair?" Kotaku sceptically asked Hideki Konno, 'the man behind Mario Kart', back in 2011. Now, one answer would be that it doesn't have to be fair: 'unfair' game mechanics are deeply important to how many games function. Overly hard bosses, unforeseeable traps, and harsh punishments can help build a world, give a game a sense of risk and difficulty, and shape player responsiveness.

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Three-and-a-half years after its disastrous December 2020 debut, after dozens of patches and the launch of last year's Phantom Liberty expansion, CD Projekt Red no longer has anyone working on Cyberpunk 2077.

Just 17 people had been working on the game still as of 29th February this year, CD Projekt previously shared as part of their last financial update. Now, as of 30th April, that number is zero.

It's a small but significant moment for CD Projekt as it finally leaves Cyberpunk 2077 behind - with the vast bulk of its development might now focused on its next game in The Witcher series, currently still codenamed Polaris.

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AI NPCs. AI scriptwriting. AI voice acting. AI artwork. AI creation tools. Yes, AI is everywhere in game development. In the past couple of years it's arisen as something of a dirty word, an inevitable future. But the future is already here.

A report by Unity earlier this year claimed 62 percent of studios use AI at some point during game development, with animation as the top use case. This report was based on responses from developers using Unity tools, which may skew responses to the more indie and mobile end of the market - but it seems a familiar story across the industry. Last year, Microsoft announced a partnership with Inworld to develop AI tools for use by its big-budget Xbox studios, and in a GDC survey from January, around a third of industry workers reported using AI tools already.

Some uses of AI have been widely criticised: take, as just one example, the cast of Baldur's Gate 3 revealing the darker side of the game's success fuelled by AI voice cloning. US actors union SAG-AFTRA has had to scramble to work on an AI voice agreement to protect workers, while a new AI licence from Speechless aims to provide an ethical approach to AI in voice acting. But does AI spell doom and gloom for the games industry generally, or are there some positive use cases? What does an AI future look like? And why, now, is the progress of AI for positive means also under threat?

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The Sims 4, you might recall, is currently embarking on a sexy "summer of love" - which, so far, has mainly involved some new swimsuits. Now, though, EA has revealed the next two items on its vaguely saucy list: the Riviera Retreat and Cozy Bistro Kit DLC, both arriving on 30th May.

First up, for those summery sunny days of relaxation and shameless undress, is the Riviera Retreat - a "secluded oasis" incorporating "stucco textures, beautiful archways, and shimmering waterfalls with comfortable linen furniture, wicker lounge chairs, and vine-covered pergolas."

This one's all about creating an "ambience of serenity and connection" for your Sims, says EA, whether reclining and rejuvenating alone or together with a smooching pal.

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Kerbal Space Program 2 developer Intercept Games will lay off its employees at the end of June according to a senior team manager, despite Take-Two Interactive boss Strauss Zelnick insisting earlier this month that the studio hadn't been shut down.

Word of Intercept Games' impending demise - and the loss 70 jobs at the studio - came earlier this month via a decidedly official Washington state closure notice submitted by Take-Two itself, and was corroborated by affected employees on social media. Later, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier - after viewing an internal Take-Two Interactive email to staff - reported OlliOlli World developer Roll7 was also being closed down.

That didn't stop Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick from later repeatedly insisting, "We didn't shutter those studios." But whatever semantic technicality Zelnick was invoking at the time, it isn't one likely to impress employees at Intercept Games.

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Xbox Game Studios has reportedly signed a deal to publish the first project from Hundred Star Games, the new studio established by Rocksteady co-founders Sefton Hill and Jamie Walker.

Hill and Walker announced their departure from Batman Arkham studio Rocksteady in October 2022, and Hundred Star Games was founded the following April. However, the pair's connection to the studio wasn't spotted until early this year, alongside the discovery a "handful of lead developers and director-level ex-Rocksteady employees" was already working there.

While little official is known about Hundred Star Games' activities to date - aside from its stated aim of employing a "small team of only 100 industry veterans and emerging talents" - reliable leaker eXtas1s now reports Microsoft's Xbox Game Studios has signed on the dotted line to publish and finance the developer's first title.

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After what has felt like forever for this Legend of Zelda-loving-Lego-nerd, the long-rumoured set based on The Great Deku Tree has been officially revealed by Nintendo.

The upcoming Lego set will be a two-in-one number, with the option to recreate Ocarina of Time's Great Deku Tree or Breath of the Wild's. The Breath of the Wild version comes with a buildable Hestu figure, as you can see in the header image above, and a little cooking pot inside the tree himself and a Korok at the top. Also, check out the Deku Tree's blossom brows!

When it is in its Ocarina of Time form, meanwhile, users will also be able to build Link's treehouse from Kokiri Forest, which has a little Navi perched on the balcony.

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Sony has announced next month's PlayStation Plus games.

From 4th June, all PS Plus members will be able to get their hands on the following three games:

Then on 11th June, those on the Premium tier will also be able to get their hands on the following PS2 games, as part of the Classics Catalogue:

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