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Game of the Week: Crow Country and handling people's memories with care

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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PlayStation upsets VR fans as it kicks off this year's not-E3 hype cycle

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 and Crash Bandicoot studio Toys for Bob confirms Xbox will publish new game

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 memoir Doom Guy getting not one, but two screen adaptations

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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Little Nightmares 3 delayed to 2025

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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Can FSR 3 frame generation deliver the 120fps dream on PS5 and Xbox?

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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It's hard to stay excited about the PlayStation VR2 if even Astro Bot won't wear one

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 The Final Shape will be down for 25 hours before launch

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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Valorant studio head tells toxic players to "play something else, we won't miss you"

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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GTA 6 publisher addresses lack of PC news, stating Rockstar "will make more announcements in due time"

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 brilliant Marvel's Midnight Suns looks to be next Epic Games Store freebie

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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$400k worth of stolen Playdate consoles make heroic return after getting dumped outside a restaurant

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 patch is here, marking the end of an era for Arkane Austin

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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What we've been playing - kingdoms, underworlds and caped crusaders

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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Wordle owner New York Times suing one-man country-guessing game Worldle

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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Everything announced at PlayStation's State of Play

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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Silent Hill 2 Remake releases on PS5 and PC this October

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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PlayStation announces new Astro Bot game

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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Sony's Concord is a 5v5 sci-fi shooter with Guardians of the Galaxy vibes

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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God of War Ragnarök next Sony game coming to PC - and an account for PlayStation Network is required

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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Todd Howard says Fallout renaissance is "beyond anything" he's seen in his career

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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Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Vault edition details seemingly leak

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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Minecraft animated series announced for Netflix

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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Resident Evil 9 Revenant Shadows pops up online along with PS5 versions of Code Veronica, Zero, and Resi 5

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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Bungie responds after Destiny 2 The Final Shape was "accidentally pushed live on PS5" early

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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Dungeons of Hinterberg is about a holiday - which is why everything feels so important

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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Homelander joins Mortal Kombat 1 next week

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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Sony explains why it's not bringing "tentpole" games to PC at same time as PS5

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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Activision wins £11.3m in lawsuit against Call of Duty cheat maker

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 won't be locked behind a new Xbox Game Pass tier

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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PlayStation 5 "most profitable generation to date", Sony says

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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Star Wars: Battlefront 2 free with Prime Gaming for June 2024

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 removes controversial Neil Druckmann interview after finding "significant errors and inaccuracies"

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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PlayStation VR2 unannounced PC adapter spotted

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 publishing narrative-led racer from former Forza Horizon devs, Skins co-creator

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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No Man's Sky's latest update lets players explore a lonely abandoned universe devoid of life

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 still doesn't have a release date, but has raised over $700m

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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Crow Country review - retro horror thrills that offer much more than mere nostalgia

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 relaunch comes with character restrictions, and people aren't happy

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: Dashes

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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Does Mario Kart's Blue Shell even work? An investigation

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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Cyberpunk 2077 development has finally wound down after three and a half years

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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How AI is changing video game development forever

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 Sim 4's "summer of love" continues this week with Riviera Retreat and Cozy Bistro Kit DLC

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 team to be laid off in June, says senior manager

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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Rocksteady co-founders' new studio reportedly developing single-player action-adventure for Microsoft

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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Legend of Zelda Great Deku Tree Lego set officially revealed by Nintendo

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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Resident Evil Zero and Code Veronica remakes currently in development, leak claims

Capcom currently has remakes of both Resident Evil Zero and Resident Evil: Code Veronica in development, according to prominent leaker Dusk Golem.

In a long thread of posts on social media platform X, Dusk Golem attempted to clarify what has been a confusing time for claims about the future of the Resident Evil series, following the huge success of the recent Resident Evil 4 Remake.

Capcom's main team behind RE4 Remake is now worked on Code Veronica, Dusk Golem stated, while its secondary studio that worked on RE4 Remake's Separate Ways DLC is handling work on Zero.

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Genshin Impact developer's upcoming urban action RPG lands summer release date

Zenless Zone Zero has secured itself a release date.

The upcoming free-to-play RPG from the Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail team is set to release across Android, iOS, PC and PS5 on 4th July. This date was previously suspected, when Apple's App Store on mobile said the game was "expected" on 4th July here in the UK.

"Dear Proxy, Thank you for your ongoing interest in and support of Zenless Zone Zero," the team shared on social media platform X earlier today. "We look forward to meeting you on Sixth Street when entry to New Eridu is granted."

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Yakuza was "flat out rejected" by Sega in its first proposal, says series creator

Sega initially "flat out rejected" the first proposal for Yakuza, as it wouldn't attract the masses.

That's according to series creator Toshihiro Nagoshi on the latest News Picks video, in which he discusses the origins of the series (thanks Automaton).

The Like A Dragon series (Yakuza in the West) debuted in 2015, but initially wasn't seen as a profitable idea.

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Silent Hill announcement stream scheduled for this week

Konami has announced a second Silent Hill Transmission show.

This show will cover game updates, another look at the Return to Silent Hill film adaptation, and merch, Konami said.

While Konami has kept further specifics for the show under wraps, I have a few ideas for what we can expect. First of all, I am sure we will see more of the Silent Hill 2 Remake, and perhaps even get a release date. Back in January, a promotional video from PlayStation appeared to suggest the remake would be released at some point this year.

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Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D remake teased

Square Enix has teased a HD-2D remake of Dragon Quest 3.

Yesterday, 27th May, was Dragon Quest day, celebrating the release of the original Dragon Quest game in Japan in 1986.

The short tease was shared on social media platform X featuring the Dragon Quest 3 logo with the words "The legacy begins". The post reads "The legend of Erdrick draws near", Erdrick being the most common name to refer to the third game's protagonist - chronologically the first in the series, though some fans are hoping for remakes of the first three games together.

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Microsoft confirms Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 day one Xbox Game Pass launch

UPDATE 3pm UK: It's now official. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will launch directly into Xbox Game Pass when it arrives later this year.

Microsoft made the brief statement this afternoon after its earlier leak, and pointed to its upcoming Xbox Showcase event for "even more details on what's coming in this all-new Call of Duty".

Notably, there's no mention at all today of Xbox Game Pass tiers changing in offer or becoming more expensive as a result of Black Ops 6's inclusion. But stay frosty for more details on Call of Duty coming to Game Pass as part of that 9th June showcase.

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DF Weekly: FSR 3 frame generation comes to consoles - and we've tested it

Another week, another episode of DF Direct Weekly (hence the name) and this episode was actually split into two recording sessions. Normal filming occured on Friday morning, but at around 3pm, Ascendant Studios in association with Enduring Games, finally released its AMD FSR 3 frame generation upgrade for Immortals of Aveum. Initial testing from myself and John Linneman confirmed that it's in, it's working and it's well worth talking about, so I put together some data and assets and we added a second part to the Direct. And here it is!

As a proof of concept for console frame generation, Immortals of Aveum is compelling, but let's first deal with the basic details. Similar to Nvidia DLSS 3 frame-gen, AMD's take works on buffering up an extra frame, on top of the one last rendered, then inserts an interpolated frame between them. In a best case scenario - basically when you're CPU-limited with GPU cycles to spare - you'll double the frame-rate from the host system, so a 60fps game becomes a 120fps game. However, when you're GPU-limited - as is almost certainly the case with Aveum - gains will be lower.

The plus points are obvious though. In the case of Immortals of Aveum, which tends to run at between 40fps to 60fps, the experience moves beyond the 60fps limit and into HFR (high frame-rate) territory, making the game more compelling for those with 120Hz displays. However, there are minus points. Interpolated frames - particularly those sandwiched between two very different frames - will lack the fidelity of standard frames. Also, the process of buffering up an extra frame adds latency... and that will be the time taken to generate the extra frame along with the time taken to calculate the interpolated frame.

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The love and loss behind Pine Hearts, a cosy camping Metroidvania

"When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure." I don't know who first said these words, but they have given me great comfort over the years. I truly believe memories can be treasure, and often the most precious treasure there is.

But what if we were to take those memories, and channel them into creating something special and new, which then goes on to help others going through something similar? This is what Hyper Luminal Games has done with Pine Hearts, its wholesome take on the Metroidvania genre, and similar to what fellow Metroidvania Tales of Kenzera: Zau did on its launch in April.

Pine Hearts welcomes players into the hiking boots of Tyke, an adorable little bean of a chap who returns to the Pine Hearts camping site he used to visit as a child. As Tyke makes his way through the grounds, he can assist other campers with tasks such as collecting firewood and scaring off crows. So far, so indie. But quickly you realise there's more to the game underneath its bright and unassuming exterior - a deeper story of love and loss that serves as a heartfelt ode to creative director Rob Madden's father.

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Larian Studios' CEO says, "we did have to do a bit of crunch" making Baldur's Gate 3

Larian Studios' Swen Vincke has opened up about crunch culture at the studio, acknowledging that the team did, at times, "have to do a bit of crunch" when "things happened that [the studio] didn't foresee".

In the Q&A Vincke hosted after his address at the Digital Dragons conference in Poland, Vincke was asked if the team ever had to crunch – that is, the term given to the extreme overtime studios compel staff to do to get a game ready for its release date – and whilst Vincke said the team wasn't "overly" required to crunch, and it was "certainly less on BG3 than we did in the past", "It would be a lie to say that we didn't" crunch at all.

"We didn't overly crunch," Vincke said (thanks, GR+). "but we did have to do a bit of crunch. And I think, to be honest, you will always have a little bit when you're trying to finish something, especially when there's so much complexity that needs to be brought together."

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2K will develop the next FIFA game, leaker claims

2K is rumoured to have secured the official FIFA license to develop the next FIFA game.

That's according to unverified claims from retailer @mohplay_inc_, which alleges that "the partnership is confirmed, and 2K will be developing a new football game series", albeit without sharing their source.

Whilst not confirmed in any official capacity at all – which means we can only take this news has a hefty rumour for now – it does back up prior claims from earlier this year that 2K and FIFA may have been in talks for the former to succeed development of the FIFA series after EA announced it would be taking its football franchise forward without FIFA branding.

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Senua's Saga: Hellblade II looks stunning in VR thanks to Praydog's UEVR mod

Greetings all! Sorry for the fairly short VR Corner this week but I'm actually on holiday right now and this, combined with the recent Eurogamer news, meant that I didn't have much time to do a fully fleshed-out VR Corner for you.

I couldn't bear to leave you without the usual Sunday shenanigans though, so I did manage to squeeze in a quick look at Senua's Saga: Hellblade II running in VR, thanks to Praydog's amazing UEVR mod. It's a shorter Corner than usual and there's a bit at the end that wouldn't be there if I'd had the time to go back and work out a fix for the error, so please accept my apologies for the scruffiness of this one!

The game itself is a bit of a graphical powerhouse on PC anyway, so running it in VR is going to be a test of even the beefiest of rigs. But, after a bit of fiddling, I got the game running pretty well on my rig that has an i9 CPU and 4080 GPU and I show off the graphical settings that I used to make it all smooth and stuff in the video above. Oooh I almost felt like I knew what I was talking about when I wrote that bit about the CPU and GPU! Digital Foundry, watch out!

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Chillblast's new range of Edge gaming PCs promise sleek looks and beefy specs

Chillblast has just announced a new range of pre-built gaming PCs that aim to provide good all-round specs, beefy performance and fantastic aesthetics for what are generally decent prices. Named Edge, this range of three new PCs hits the mid-range, upper-mid-range and absolute top end of the market in generally compelling packages that you may well want to consider.

For most people, the Karve (from £1,449.95) is likely to be a good choice, pairing a six core & 12 thread AMD Ryzen 5 5600X, a derivative of one of our favourite budget CPUs with an RTX 4060 Ti to offer a system that should muster 1080p HFR gaming, and push into 1440p. Elsewhere, this PC also doesn't skimp on components with a 240mm AIO for cooling the 5600X, as well as offering a 2TB Crucial P3 Plus inside for storage, which is an excellent PCIe 4.0 SSD in a good capacity, 16GB of DDR4-3200 RAM, and an 80+ Gold-rated Corsair RMe 750W PSU for powering the system. The 4060 Ti inside is also vertically mounted for better aesthetics, which goes hand in hand with the white case that the Karve comes in.

Going up the price ladder, the Vantage (from £2,029.99) swaps to using a Hyte Y60 case, which is in-keeping with the trendier angle Chillblast is going for with these new PCs, and packs in Intel's marvellous i5-14600K CPU with 14 cores and 20 threads. This is a CPU that, in our testing, offers strong performance in content creation workloads, and while it isn't as impressive as AMD's -X3D chips for gaming, it's still more than competent. This is paired with an RTX 4070 Super, which is the best of Nvidia's Super refresh of cards, and offers fantastic results at 1440p with RT on demanding titles such as Cyberpunk 2077, as we noted in our review. The Vantage uses the same Crucial P3 Plus 2TB NVMe drive, adds in 32GB of DDR5-5600 CL40 RAM, and opts to up the PSU to an 850W 80+ Gold Corsair RMe option. The 14600K is cooled by a 360mm AIO this time, while the 4070 Super is also vertically mounted, too.

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Helldivers 2 is "working on a solution" for griefing lobby leaders who kick teammates before the mission ends

Don't worry, Helldivers – developer Arrowhead has a solution for unscrupulous hosts who are kicking fireteam members from the lobby just before they secure their rewards.

Asked if players could "keep 50 percent of the samples collected if [they] get kicked by an arsehole lobby leader when the dropship has been called" – a fair question given griefing does happen in Helldivers 2 – community manager Twinbeard stressed that a "solution" is on the way.

"We're actually working on a solution to mitigate problems with, well, 'getting kicked by an arsehole lobby leader' as someone once eloquently put it," Twinbeard responded in the game's Discord community. "No ETA on that, but it's coming."

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Halo Reach remains a masterpiece of dread - and the greatest prequel story of all time

This piece contains spoilers for Halo: Reach.

In the pantheon of platform exclusives, few loom so large as Halo. Since it was launched by Bungie in 2001, Microsoft's first-person shooter series has spawned no less than 15 games, alongside endless volumes of novels, comics, art books and a TV adaptation. It's also provided the world with one of the most iconic characters in science fiction: John-117, aka the Master Chief. To many people, the Chief is Halo. But what happens when you leave him out?

To put this another way: typically you'd expect that the first entry would be the best place to start when looking to dive into the series, and Halo: Combat Evolved remains a fantastic jumping off point. But I'd argue that it's the sixth mainline game, and Bungie's swansong, 2010's Halo: Reach, that provides one of the most complete and rewarding gaming experiences in all of Halo - and all without the Master Chief himself.

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Warner Bros is "threatening to destroy" a YouTube channel because of its Mortal Kombat 1 videos and mods, owner claims

A Mortal Kombat YouTuber and modder is accusing Warner Bros of "threatening to destroy" his YouTube channel.

In a lengthy statement on social media platform X, ToastedShoes - an Australian YouTuber with 800K subscribers and 1.7m followers on TikTok - claims he has received an "Intellectual Property Infringement Notification" directly from Warner Bros which asks him to delete "all Mortal Kombat 1 videos from [his] channel or else".

"This morning I received an IP infringement notification directly from Warner Brothers stating that the Mortal Kombat mods in my content 'infringe' on their intellectual property rights," Toasted said. "I've been requested to delete all Mortal Kombat 1 videos from my channel or else they will issue copyright strikes and essentially delete my channel in its entirety.

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Bungie wins court battle against Destiny cheat site AimJunkies

Bungie has won its court battle against cheat and mod site, AimJunkies.

As reported by journalist Stephen Totilo, AimJunkies, aka Phoenix Digital, was instructed to pay the Destiny 2 developer $63,210 in damages – that's the revenue the company is thought to have earned selling the cheats – setting a new precedent in what's thought to be the first lawsuit wherein a jury has ruled on a game-cheating case.

The jury threw out AimJunkie's countersuit that Bungie had illegally accessed one of its computers, but founder David Schaefer says they will "fight this" and appeal the verdict.

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Ghost of Tsushima on PC delivers impressive upgrades over PS5

Four years after its initial PS4 release, Sucker Punch's Ghost of Tsushima arrives on PC, ported by Nixxes Software. Initial impressions of the port were favourable, but having now spent around a week with the game we're able to give you a much more nuanced appraisal of the conversion, suggest some optimised settings and offer up those all-important PS5 comparisons.

This may be a new engine for Nixxes to deal with, but the overall framework of the game has much in common with its prior ports - which is generally a very positive thing. It means you get a settings menu that lets you tweak as you like, your changes reflected in the background in real-time - no restarts required! And as usual for Nixxes, there's support for dynamic resolution scaling and all major upscaling technologies, along with both FSR 3 and DLSS 3 frame generation (though the new FSR 3.1 spatial upscaling upgrades are not included). Nixxes has also liberated FSR 3 frame-gen from requiring FSR 2 spatial upscaling, which is a welcome change.

In terms of the quality of the upscalers, we see the usual hierarchy, though DLSS has some issues in this title with depth of field effects, with some off-putting jitter. This manifests itself with XeSS but to a lesser extent, while it's not a problem at all with FSR. It would be nice to see this remedied in due course.

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Uvalde school shooting victims sue Activision, claiming it's the "most prolific marketer of weapons in the US"

The families of those killed in the Uvalde school shooting in 2022 have filed lawsuits against Call of Duty publisher Activision, accusing the company of "grooming" the 18-year-old who shot and killed 19 children, two teachers, and injured 17 others.

As reported by The New York Times (£) (thanks, PC Gamer), the dual lawsuits – one filed in California, the other in Texas – claim that the killer bought a Daniel Defense M4 V7 on his 18th birthday after seeing the gun in Call of Duty games.

It's the lawsuits' position that by using real-life weapons, Activision is "the most prolific and effective marketer of assault weapons in the United States".

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Baldur's Gate 3's PS5 physical edition is delayed again in North America due to "production issues"

Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian Studios has shared the "disappointing news" that its physical PS5 North America deluxe editions have been delayed once again, this time to July 2024.

In a statement posted to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, last night, the team said it was "so hoping not to have to update [...] with any further news of delay", but it had "run into more production issues", further delaying the shipping of physical copies of the North American PS5 version until later this year.

"Due to production changes outside of our control, we have had to follow certain processes specifically set by production companies when manufacturing the PS5 discs, and unfortunately, the approval for particular regions has taken much longer than expected," Larian explained in the statement.

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Ubisoft's beleaguered pirate adventure Skull and Bones is getting a free week-long trial

Skull and Bones - Ubisoft's extraordinarily long in the works (and not particularly good) open-world pirate adventure - is getting a free week-long trial next week, and it'll coincide with the launch of the live-service game's second season of post-launch content.

When Skull and Bones released in February - some 11 years after its troubled development started - Ubisoft trumpeted "record player engagement", but did not share sales figures. It's unclear just how well the pirate game has done for the publisher, then, but Ubisoft evidently believes it needs a bit of a boost given its impending week-long trial.

That'll take place across all platforms - Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5 and PC (via Epic and Ubisoft Connect) - from Thursday, 30th May until Thursday, 6th June. During that time, players can sail as much as they like with access to the whole thing, and progress will be carried over should they decide to purchase the full game. And to tempt those wallets out, Ubisoft is slashing the price of Skull and Bones by 50 percent across all platforms for a "limited time".

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Epic says it's bringing Fortnite and the Epic Games Store to iOS in the UK next year

Epic has announced it's bringing Fortnite back to iOS devices in the UK at some point "in the second half of 2025" - and launching its Epic Games Store on the platform at the same time - as the UK's Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act passes into law.

The new Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act gives the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) - the regulatory body that made headlines when it initially blocked Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard - new powers to prevent tech giants from using their position to disadvantage competitors and consumers.

As per the government's announcement, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act could "give consumers the room to freely choose the services they use, or stop companies from withholding information consumers need to make good decisions." It also gives the CMA powers "to intervene and direct a firm to change its behaviour to boost competition – whether that is to benefit people using smartphones or businesses dependent on cloud services."

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New Astro Bot game reportedly being unveiled by PlayStation soon

A new entry in Sony's beloved Astro Bot series is reportedly in development and set to be officially unveiled very soon.

That's according to extremely reliable PlayStation leaker Billbil-kun, writing for Dealabs. Word of a new Astro Bot game first surfaced earlier this year via journalist and prolific leaker Jeff Grub, but Billbil-kun says the project - in development at Astro Bot studio Team Asobi - is set to be formally unveiled within the next two weeks.

Details are limited but it's claimed the new Astro Bot - likely be called exactly that - is partly set in a desert environment and will feature a robot character resembling a fennec fox.

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Let's Get Evil in Baldur's Gate 3: Part 7 - helping Astarion achieve his horrid potential

Welcome back! Let's Get Evil is a monthly series for Eurogamer Supporters in which Bertie rampages through games being as evil as he can. It sounds easy, but is it? And how much freedom to be horrible does each game afford? There's only one way to find out.

Note, spoilers will naturally occur as Bertie gets further and further through Baldur's Gate 3. Currently, he's dealing with events in Act 3, especially those revolving around the Dark Urge. If you're joining us for the free trial this month, make sure you catch up on the earlier instalments - then you'll know the true power of the Dark Side.

This month, I have mostly been helping others reach their horrid potential. Think of me as an enabler, if you like - a demonic enabler bent on bringing out the very worst in people. Today's enable-ee: Astarion. But first a quick catch-up. I left you last time after the seismic reveal that Bhaal, the god of murder, was my father. Not only that, I discovered I had instigated this whole sorry Elder Brain plot to take over the world to begin with. Gortash, Ketheric Thorm and I started it, and then Orin came along and turfed me out. I remember now, more or less. Gortash is up for rekindling our old alliance and conquering the world together, which I'm all for. Now all I have to do is kill Orin. It will be my pleasure.

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The Last of Us season two casts Jeffrey Wright, reprising his role as Isaac

UPDATE 28/5/24: A photo showing Jeffrey Wright on the set of The Last of Us has started making the rounds online.

Wright was announced to be reprising his role as Isaac - whom he also played in The Last of Us Part 2 - for the show's second season at the end of last week. The photo appears to suggest that we will be getting more of Isaac's backstory told when season two airs next year.

You can see the photo below, if you want to see a clue to how the show is (perhaps) developing Isaac's story, however please be aware of potential spoilers.

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Can Xbox Series S handle Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2?

Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 is one of the most visually stunning games of the year. Built on Epic's Unreal Engine 5, the game takes place in an incredibly detailed and strikingly lit world, featuring outstanding character rendering. At least that's how the game fares on Xbox Series X, so the question is how lower-specced hardware can handle this rendering juggernaut. We decided to take a look at how well Hellblade 2 runs on Xbox Series S, which has a fraction of the GPU compute of its larger sibling, followed by Valve's Steam Deck and the Asus ROG Ally. How scalable is Hellblade 2 and can less capable hardware still deliver a good experience?

As you may expect, Hellblade 2 on Xbox Series S has a few key visual cutbacks relative to its Series X counterpart. The most obvious hit here comes down to reflections. On Series X, there's Unreal Engine 5's full Lumen reflections system, combining a mix of screen-space reflections and software ray tracing to accurately portray reflections of the world. It looks pretty good for the most part, although the SDF-based reflections do look a little crude, especially on foliage elements, while skinned objects are represented only in screen-space. It's not perfect, but in general gameplay, when not examining it at point-blank range, it produces a pleasing result.

Series S instead swaps in screen-space reflections, without Lumen's ray tracing to fall back on. You see good-looking results when the reflected detail is in screen-space, but the technique fails when you try to examine a reflection from steep angles. Water surfaces can look bereft of lighting detail, and sometimes have a somewhat matte appearance. There are also the more typical SSR occlusion issues when Senua gets between the camera and the water surface, as we don't have a good reflection method to fall back on, producing a void in the reflection. This usually doesn't have a big impact on the visuals, but in some water-filled spots it can produce annoying results.

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XDefiant releases first patch, but it's not tackling cheaters just yet

Ubisoft's free-to-play arena shooter XDefiant's first patch has been released.

Entitled "Preseason Patch 1", it addresses a number of specific issues, including one with loading into the Practice Zone – some players found themselves "in a hellscape" outside the world – and another that sees devices dropped at players' feet should they die during device deployment. Up until now, they would still be thrown as if you hadn't just carked it.

This means Practice Zone has been turned back on, although the team warns "it's possible weird things could still happen". So make of that what you will.

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Mad Max developer hits back at film director George Miller after claim game "wasn't as good as [he] wanted it to be"

Avalanche founder Christofer Sundberg has hit back at Mad Max film director George Miller for claiming the studio's game "wasn't as good as [he] wanted it to be".

During promotion for the new Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga film, Miller was asked by GamingBible about whether a new game was considered alongside the film.

He responded that Avalanche's previous game "wasn't as good as I wanted it to be", adding "I'm one of those people that I'd rather not do something unless you can do it at the highest level". He then said he'd love for Hideo Kojima to take on the challenge of a Mad Max game - because, of course.

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Dave the Diver free Godzilla DLC out now but only available for a limited time

If you are looking to get your hands on Dave the Diver's free Godzilla DLC, there is a limited time you will be able to do so.

This DLC adds three new missions to Dave the Diver, each of which will be available after chapter five's close. There are also new dishes to discover, and a number of Godzilla figures scattered throughout the ocean for players to collect.

You can see a little teaser for Dave the Diver's Godzilla DLC in the video below.

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Game of the Week: Hellblade 2 shows what games can do when given enough time

I've had a week of vampires. I finally managed to get my thoughts together in a V Rising review after being quite frustrated with the game, then quite smitten by it, and then I wrote about vampires for Five of the Best, and I'll be writing about vampires again for Bertie's Evil Adventures. Blimey - let's hope I still have something incisor to say after all of that! I promise you that introduction wasn't just an elaborate set-up for a terrible pun. But as much as I want to write about vampires again for Game of the Week, there's another game I simply can't ignore (even though Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is trying its best to vye for my attention) and it's Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2.

You'll be forgiven for not even noticing it's come out. Microsoft hasn't particularly advertised it, which I find strange, given the lack of high profile exclusives Xbox currently has to crow about. Perhaps you were also somewhat distracted, like we were, by the news Eurogamer has a new owner in IGN. That's a development I'm sure you're keen to understand the finer points of - I'm planning to record an episode of Inside Eurogamer in a week's time to explore it more, once we have a bit more to say there. But: back to Hellblade 2.

Hellblade 2 reminds me of an old kind of game, which isn't supposed to sound in any way shady - it's actually complimentary. What I mean by it is Hellblade 2 is not surrounded by modern business model trappings, like live service elements and microtransactions. It's a one-and-done story-led, cinematic adventure, produced in a way that screams "that's enough", but still given room to be experimental with the form. I feel strange saying it but it's unusual. It's special.

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Titanfall and Apex Legends studio seeks new senior director with "multiplayer FPS experience"

Apex Legends developer Respawn is recruiting a design director with "multiplayer FPS experience" to join its incubation game team.

While there are no clues about whether the position will contribute to a new franchise or an existing one, the fact Respawn is applying its first-person shooter chops to an unannounced game is welcomed news for many shooter fans, particularly as the studio's Star Wars project - reported to be a Mandalorian game - was cancelled amidst EA's recent cull of 670 employees.

Whatever the project is, don't expect a gameplay trailer any time soon, though. The position is described as "a rare leadership opportunity to drive the game design on a new incubation project in the early stages" – pre-production, in other words – which suggests we're a long way off getting concrete details yet.

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Helldivers 2 sees huge drop in player numbers since release

Arrowhead's chaotic alien-shooter Helldivers 2 became PlayStation's fastest-selling game ever, but despite its initial success, player numbers have since declined.

A look at the game's Steam charts shows a steady drop since February, when the game launched. According to SteamDB, at its peak in February shortly after launch, there were 458,709 concurrent players. In comparison, its peak over the last 30 days is 166,305. That's a drop of 64 percent.

Looking by average players, February had 208,303 helldivers in the game. That average player count has dropped to 78,634 over the last 30 days (a 62 percent drop).

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GTA 5 leaves PlayStation Plus next month

GTA 5 will no longer be part of the PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium games catalogue offering as of the middle of next month, as the countdown continues to GTA 6.

Rockstar's hugely-popular open world is now listed among the games labelled as being your "Last chance to play", visible from your PlayStation console.

Eurogamer has spotted a dozen games set to depart the service on 18th June, with other top picks including indie adventure Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and sci-fi puzzler The Talos Principle.

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MultiVersus developer in "arms race" to prevent datamining

The developer of MultiVersus has gone "above and beyond" to ensure the game is protected from dataminers.

The free-to-play fighter is out next week and includes villains like The Joker and Agent Smith from The Matrix, both of which were rumoured long before their reveals.

Now, it seems the developer has put stronger defences in place to protect the game from future dataminers, though there's no guarantee there won't be further leaks.

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Destiny 2: The Final Shape teaser lets us hear Keith David's first lines as Commander Zavala

Here it is, Guardians: our first look – well, hear, technically – at Keith David's Commander Zavala in Destiny 2: The Final Shape.

We already knew that Bungie had no plans to remove Zavala from the Destiny 2 story given he was "central" to the upcoming The Final Shape expansion, but this is the first time we've heard Zavala voiced by David. Up until now, Zavala's voice work had been recorded in advance by his original voice actor, Lance Reddick, who sadly died last year.

The line is brief, yes – "I used to think I'd give anything to bring you back", is all he says – but it's especially powerful given the team had to unexpectedly recast the commander after Reddick, who was a committed and celebrated Destiny player himself, died.

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Wuthering Waves developer apologises for launch issues

UPDATE 5PM UK: Wuthering Waves developer Kuro Games has detailed its improvement plan for the game following a shaky launch.

Major improvements include redesigning the skip function and increasing the number of skippable scenes, plus optimising combat with better controller use and feedback. These points and more are outlined in a new blog post.

As further compensation for the disruption, players will be given ten Radiant Tides for gacha pulls, as well as a free custom 5-Star Standard Resonator voucher.

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What we've been playing - haunted pirate ships, space monks, and chefs

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 lean on sailor superstition to scare a boat full of pirates, we voyage across space in vast gothic monasteries, and we learn a hard lesson about communication in an outrageous kitchen.

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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Fortnite's new season adds Fallout Nuka-Cola, as files point to upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean crossover

Infused with Mad Max-y vibes, Fortnite's new season is here - bringing with it the game's Fallout crossover.

We knew to expect the Fallout T-60 Power Armour, and now know the iconic suit is its own skin in the game, not a power-up. Joining it are a range of other punky wasteland warriors, Magneto from the X-Men, and a character named Peabody that's a pod of... peas.

Speaking of power-ups, Fallout's Nuka-Cola is available for you to chug as a health power-up, while the new Nitro power-up will buff both you (your speed, knockback, stamina rate, reload speed and fall damage immunity) and your vehicle (speed, ramming power, fuel consumption, attack mods).

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Warhammer 40,000 retro shooter Boltgun is getting an expansion in June

If you're a fan of Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun's retro-inspired first-person shooting action - and you might well be given how positively it was received - you've got a fresh chunk of the stuff to look forward to in a few short weeks now that developer Auroch Digital and publisher Focus Entertainment have announced an expansion is coming on 18th June.

Forges of Corruption, as Boltgun's first expansion is officially known, includes a brand-new campaign spanning five new environments. Three of those have been revealed so far - the Graia Battlefields, Manufactorum, and the heretic-infested Daemonic Forge - and there's also promise of new enemies inhabiting these dangerous locales.

Ultramarines stepping forth into Forges of Corruption can expect to encounter the vicious Black Havok Legion, the Helbrute, and the Terminator with its Lighting Claw. Luckily, there's a bit of (literal) extra bang for your expansion bucks in the form of two new weapons: the Multi-Melta and Missile Launcher.

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Epic Games Store's latest weekly freebie is available now and I can barley contain myself

With another week of 2024 now crossed off the calendar, Epic has delved deep into its big bag of treats to reveal the Epic Games Store's latest freebie - and this time it's Farming Simulator 22.

This not-quite-latest instalment in developer Giants Software's long-running agricultural sim (and I'm about to paraphrase the official blurb here seeing as I'm not much of an expert on this one) gives wannabe farmers the tools to establish their own vineyard or olive orchard in the south of France; to grow wheat, corn, potatoes, and cotton in the US Midwest, or even establish an animal farm in alpine climes. Presumably you can grow a potato in France too if you want to mix things up, but don't hold me to that.

Farming Simulator 22 squeezes in 400 machines and tools from over 100 real agricultural brands, alongside a "multitude of new gameplay features" - including a new character creator, an expanded build mode, and new ground working options including mulching and stone picking. Best of all, Farming Simulator 22 features cross-platform multiplayer support so you can build your agricultural empire with friends.

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The Sims 4 pledges more bug fixes more often as it looks to address years of 'frustrating' technical issues

The Sims 4 is getting on a bit these days, and, as regular players will know, the whole thing - which includes over 70 bits of DLC piled onto the base game over the last 10 years - is starting to feel a bit creaky. And that's something EA has finally acknowledged, confirming it's now assembled a team specifically to tackle the 'frustrating' technical issues amassed over time.

EA made the proclamation in a statement shared on social media, telling the community, "We know that technical issues with The Sims 4 have interrupted your gameplay over time and we recognise that this has caused you much frustration."

"Today we can share that we have assembled a team to invest in the core game experience," it continued, "including tackling your reported concerns." EA says its new taskforce will result in more fixes arriving at a greater frequency, with the first of these patches due later this month.

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Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 is a defining moment in the evolution of real-time graphics

Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 is a carefully paced cinematic game - almost like the logical conclusion of those early 90s FMV experiments. I mean that in the best way and I'm fascinated by its existence - in an era where it feels as if publishers are pushing to fill their games with arguably too many features, Hellblade 2 is a tight, pure experience more so than a typical video game. The focus is so tight, in fact, that some may be put off by the lack of interactivity, but let's be clear - it's his singular focus that allows it to shine, becoming its own thing that you won't soon forget. It's a masterpiece in audio-visual design from developer Ninja Theory and an astonishing demonstration of Unreal Engine 5's core technologies.

As a story-focused game, characters and character rendering play a significant role in the presentation. However, while the pre-release media largely focused on Senua herself, Hellblade 2 features a surprisingly large number of other humans. It's without doubt one of the games defining visual features - the character rendering in Hellblade 2 sets new standards, delivering sequences that, at times, almost resemble actual filmed scenes with real actors. This is one of the first examples of a game that stands up against the promise of the UE5 demo The Matrix Awakens. The scenes feel very natural and realistic in a way that manages to somewhat sidestep the uncanny valley almost completely.

When the camera zooms in for a close-up, the level of detail is such that it left me guessing whether I was looking at real-time graphics or a pre-rendered cutscene. Thankfully, with Photo Mode being available at any time, you can easily confirm that they are, in fact, real-time.Of course, it's really the animation you experience while playing that impressed me the most. The expressions visible while engaged in combat or simply exploring really help bring the characters to life.

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Indie publisher Devolver Digital announces summer showcase

There is another date to add to your diary for next month's showcase spectacular.

On Satuday 8th June, at 1am UK time, indie publisher Devolver Digital will be hosting its summer showcase, wrapping the presentation up as a 15th birthday party for its tongue-in-cheek mascot Volvy.

The showcase - sorry, birthday party - will last for around 20 minutes, and feature updates, release dates and all-new reveals the company has called "exciting". While Devolver has not stated exactly what games are going to be shown, I am hopeful we will get another look at the delightful looking Plucky Squire, which is currently slated to release some time this year.

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Assassin's Creed composer on the franchise's evolution, and scoring larger, more adventurous worlds

Listen carefully to the finale of last week's Assassin's Creed Shadows trailer, and a familiar musical theme can be heard. Originally titled 'Earth' but best known to fans of the franchise as 'Ezio's Family', you may as well at this point just call it The Assassin's Creed Series Theme.

Unfortunately, when I speak to the brains behind it, veteran composer Jesper Kyd, he says he can't say more about Assassin's Creed Shadows at all - or at least, not yet. That's despite his work scoring numerous games across the franchise to date - and despite his iconic theme being used within Shadows once again.

Whether he's involved more deeply in the upcoming feudal Japan-set Shadows is a closely-guarded secret, it seems. But presumably he can confirm he has at least heard Shadows' version of his theme that's now out in the public domain? "I have," he nods, smiling. "It's a great rendition, it sounds great and it really fits. It always surprises me to hear that theme and how many ways it can be presented. And how it always just reminds you of Assassin's Creed."

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Atari buys Intellivision brand, ending longest running console war

Atari has purchased the Intellivision brand, ending what Atari claims to be the "longest running console war in history".

Atari's home consoles went head-to-head with Mattel's Intellivision in the late 1970s and 1980s, long before Nintendo and Sega competed in the 1990s. Intellivision even enlisted actor George Plimpton for an infamous series of adverts comparing the two consoles.

Now Atari owns the rights to over 200 games from the Intellivision portfolio and its trademarks. However, Intellivision Entertainment will continue developing and distributing the Amico console under a new brand and with a licence from Atari to distribute new versions of Intellivision games on that console.

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Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann claims he didn't say his next game "could redefine mainstream perceptions of gaming"

Update Saturday 25th May 2024: Naughty Dog co-studio head, Neil Druckmann, has pushed back on claims he said Naughty Dog's next project "could redefine mainstream perceptions of gaming", saying his "words, context, and intent were unfortunately lost" in an interview with Sony.

In an image appended to his message, Druckmann highlighted the eyebrow-raising phrase, "[Naughty Dog's next game] could redefine mainstream perceptions of gaming", and then appended his original response to the interview question "is there a personal vision or dream you hope to see realised in the realm of entertainment", which I've written out in full below:

"Well, I've been very lucky, in that I've already had that. I got the chance to make several of my dream projects. I am working on a new one right now. And it's maybe the most excited I've been for a project yet. I can't talk about it or our bosses will get very mad at me. And I guess in general, there is something happening now that I think is very cool. Which is there's a new appreciation for gaming that I've never seen before. Like when I was growing up, gaming was more of a kid's thing. Now it's clearly for everyone. But it's like, if you're a gamer, you know about the potential of games, and non-gamers, they don't really know what they're missing out on.

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Why is Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door so brilliant? Because it embraces Mario for the blank slate he is

This piece is a retrospective rather than a review and contains spoilers for Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door.

Simply the thing I am? Oli Welsh, gone and much-missed (he didn't die), once made an excellent point to me about the Mario RPGs. There's this brilliant running joke in some of them that I had not spotted until he mentioned it. The joke's simple: nobody recognises Mario when he first arrives in a new location. They don't recognise him up to the moment when he jumps. Jumping is Mario's thing. Jumping, the games seem to be saying, is Mario. Without jumping, he could be anyone.

What this joke gets at is the notion that there's this...how to phrase this? I don't think it's fair to say that there's a hole at the centre of the character, because lots of people feel very strongly about Mario, particularly if they grew up with his games. He hasn't got a hole through the middle of him! But there is a plasticity to the character that allows you to do a lot of different stuff with him. Look at his visual design, which is brilliant but was also originally conceived because of animation limitations. Look at the ease with which a brother was conjured from him via a simple palette swap. Look at the way he's been dropped into sports games, educational games, RPGs over the years. It's because we know who he is, but there isn't so much of him to stop things from being harmonious wherever he ends up. Trevor Phillips from GTA 5 is a huge star, particularly in our house because my wife loves him. But you couldn't put him into an SSX. (Okay, bad example, that actually sounds freakin great.)

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Nightingale introduces highly-requested offline mode in new early access update

Nightingale now has an offline mode as part of its latest update.

The early access survival crafting game's update 0.3 also introduces new quest NPCs Joan of Arc and Edgar Allan Poe among others, as well as new tiered creatures, Bound enemies, and questlines.

Developer Inflexion stated earlier this year that offline play was a priority, despite the game's focus on co-operative exploration.

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After almost 28 years, Super Mario 64 has been beaten without using the A button

An intrepid Super Mario 64 player with far more skill and patience than I can ever hope to obtain has done the once unthinkable. They have completed the game without pressing the A button - you know, the one that makes Mario jump and therefore is pretty darn useful when navigating the platform and enemy laden world - once. Not one single time. Really.

While Super Mario 64 first released in 1996, the Super Mario 64 A Button Challenge started picking up traction in the 2000s. And, while there have been many attempts at completing the game without that pretty essential button, no one has managed to complete the game without using A. Until now.

This Super Mario 64 feat was achieved a couple of days ago by a streamer known as Marbler (thanks, GamesRadar). Thanks to a number of glitches, secrets (like green shells and air currents) and countless heroic dives, Marbler managed to complete the world's first no A button run on the Wii Virtual Console version of the game. Apparently this is the only version that it is actually possible to complete the game without pressing A. They did not remap any buttons to achieve their goal.

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