Lo, a ripple in the release date sands. Stand still a moment while we study this phenomenon. Yes, yes, it is the unmistakable rumble of a large survival MMO pondering its release date. Dune: Awakening is having a think and has decided "early 2025" is a good non-specific time period to come out in early access. That could mean January or February. Or March, I guess. April? Now don't be silly, that's spring. Not April, surely. This beast seems hungry. It will eat before then. I have foreseen it. Mostly by watching the trailer that dropped at Gamescom.

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It’s been looking grim for Super Earth recently. I mean, not really. Multiplayer shooty Helldivers 2 is still sitting around 35,000 concurrent players, which is perfectly respectable, if only around 10% of its peak back in April. Still, a clutch of disgruntled ‘divers have recently found a novel way to protest an increasingly unpopular series of nerfs: laying down their guns and letting the bots take the damn planet.

“If Super Earth wanted to remain safe, they would stop nerfing our guns," reads one comment on the subreddit, in response to a post titled “Let the bots advance. Let the Super Earth burn.” It seems to have picked up some steam inside the actual game, too. As of earlier this week, there’s only around a thousand players actively trying to stop the bots advancing perilously close to the home planet, via Gamesradar.

Whether this is all massively overblown for the sake of a dramatic yarn or not, Arrowhead themselves have taken note of player concerns over nerfs. Yesterday, game director Mikael Eriksson unveiled a plan for the next 60 days, directly addressing player feedback over the controversial ‘Escalation of Freedom’ update.

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It’s been looking grim for Super Earth recently. I mean, not really. Multiplayer shooty Helldivers 2 is still sitting around 35,000 concurrent players, which is perfectly respectable, if only around 10% of its peak back in April. Still, a clutch of disgruntled ‘divers have recently found a novel way to protest an increasingly unpopular series of nerfs: laying down their guns and letting the bots take the damn planet.

“If Super Earth wanted to remain safe, they would stop nerfing our guns," reads one comment on the subreddit, in response to a post titled “Let the bots advance. Let the Super Earth burn.” It seems to have picked up some steam inside the actual game, too. As of earlier this week, there’s only around a thousand players actively trying to stop the bots advancing perilously close to the home planet, via Gamesradar.

Whether this is all massively overblown for the sake of a dramatic yarn or not, Arrowhead themselves have taken note of player concerns over nerfs. Yesterday, game director Mikael Eriksson unveiled a plan for the next 60 days, directly addressing player feedback over the controversial ‘Escalation of Freedom’ update.

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Once Human's maintenance is now complete, and the F2P open-world shooter is back online with a plethora of QoL improvements and optimisations, including a desperately-needed revision to vehicle handling.

Whilst players received a bundle of Stardust and health-related items to make up for the downtime, Once Human's long-promised controller and Steam Deck support is still nowhere to be seen (although, confusingly, the "controller" in-game item remains in place).

In terms of Memetics, you can now pick up memetic specialisation memory fragments in the wild and trade them between players. All memetic fragments will be destroyed at the end of the season – which is in a couple of weeks time – and cannot be sent to Eternaland, so be mindful of that.

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Arrowead Game Studios has detailed Helldivers 2's latest Premium Warbond. It's called Freedom's Flame and promises new fire-themed armaments and other treats when it launches alongside the bug-splattering, bot-bothering live-service shooter's previously announced "biggest ever update" next Tuesday, 6th August.

"Incinerate everything standing in your path with new weaponry almost too hot to handle," Arrowhead exclaims on the PlayStation Blog. "Survive the heat of battle with lifesaving armour; and burn brightly across the cosmos with fresh emotes, capes, and skins."

If it's specifics you want though, Freedom's Flame includes the SG-451 Cookout as a new primary weapon capable of unleashing a "burst of incendiary phosphorus pellets" at enemies. It also features the FLAM-66 Torcher lightweight flamethrower as a second primary.

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US workers body SAG-AFTRA says its voice actors strike could still impact projects that have been in development for over a year, including games like GTA 6, despite the terms of its agreement stating they should be safe.

Initially, last week's shock announcement of strike action by video game actors over AI concerns was thought to have minimal impact on games expected to release later this year, as it did not include games that commenced production before August 2023.

Now, however, SAG-AFTRA says all "members who want to show solidarity with the union can elect voluntarily not to work", intimating that it believed the strike could be more disruptive than previously suspected and impact "non-struck" games.

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Once Human's maintenance is now complete, and the F2P open-world shooter is back online with a plethora of QoL improvements and optimisations, including a desperately-needed revision to vehicle handling.

Whilst players received a bundle of Stardust and health-related items to make up for the downtime, Once Human's long-promised controller and Steam Deck support is still nowhere to be seen (although, confusingly, the "controller" in-game item remains in place).

In terms of Memetics, you can now pick up memetic specialisation memory fragments in the wild and trade them between players. All memetic fragments will be destroyed at the end of the season – which is in a couple of weeks time – and cannot be sent to Eternaland, so be mindful of that.

Read more

Arrowead Game Studios has detailed Helldivers 2's latest Premium Warbond. It's called Freedom's Flame and promises new fire-themed armaments and other treats when it launches alongside the bug-splattering, bot-bothering live-service shooter's previously announced "biggest ever update" next Tuesday, 6th August.

"Incinerate everything standing in your path with new weaponry almost too hot to handle," Arrowhead exclaims on the PlayStation Blog. "Survive the heat of battle with lifesaving armour; and burn brightly across the cosmos with fresh emotes, capes, and skins."

If it's specifics you want though, Freedom's Flame includes the SG-451 Cookout as a new primary weapon capable of unleashing a "burst of incendiary phosphorus pellets" at enemies. It also features the FLAM-66 Torcher lightweight flamethrower as a second primary.

Read more

US workers body SAG-AFTRA says its voice actors strike could still impact projects that have been in development for over a year, including games like GTA 6, despite the terms of its agreement stating they should be safe.

Initially, last week's shock announcement of strike action by video game actors over AI concerns was thought to have minimal impact on games expected to release later this year, as it did not include games that commenced production before August 2023.

Now, however, SAG-AFTRA says all "members who want to show solidarity with the union can elect voluntarily not to work", intimating that it believed the strike could be more disruptive than previously suspected and impact "non-struck" games.

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Yesterday's dramatic announcement of strike action by video game actors over AI concerns may have less of an immediate impact on upcoming titles than first thought.

While the SAG-AFTRA union has indeed voted for voice artists and performance capture personnel to strike from today, a large swathe of projects now appear unaffected.

This includes any video game in development as of a year ago, including (for now) live service games, according to statements from both SAG-AFTRA and the companies the strike will hit, first shared by Kotaku reporter Ethan Gach.

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While he's "blown away" by the beach scenes in the first GTA 6 trailer, former Rockstar North technical director Obbe Vermeij thinks the forthcoming open worlder might underwhelm players hoping for a palpable technological update on GTA 5, which has been reworked and re-released extensively since its 2013 launch. This has less to do with GTA in itself, Vermeij says, than with the fact that changes in computing capacity today simply aren't as dramatic as in the days of the very first PlayStation. It's becoming rare, he suggests, that you see a "jump" akin to GTA going 3D.

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Edwin spotted this game called Beta Decay that's not got a release date yet or anything, but looks very cool. It's being developed by Rotoscope Studios and it's a low-poly, 90s-inspired mix of dystopian RPG, survival, third and first-person shooter, with some roguelike bits slapped in there, as well. Whew, that's a lot. Potentially too much. But hey, I am here for something ambitious and interesting, of which it ticks both boxes.

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Earth Defense Force 6 players on Steam aren’t happy about having to sign into the Epic Games Store, it seems. The latest entry in the co-op ant-control shooter launched yesterday, and critics reckon it's a decent time. Still, it’s currently sitting at an angry red 'mostly negative' on Steam. In response, D3PUBLISHER have put out an apology statement, reassuring players that this third-party log in will only be required once.

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While he's "blown away" by the beach scenes in the first GTA 6 trailer, former Rockstar North technical director Obbe Vermeij thinks the forthcoming open worlder might underwhelm players hoping for a palpable technological update on GTA 5, which has been reworked and re-released extensively since its 2013 launch. This has less to do with GTA in itself, Vermeij says, than with the fact that changes in computing capacity today simply aren't as dramatic as in the days of the very first PlayStation. It's becoming rare, he suggests, that you see a "jump" akin to GTA going 3D.

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Edwin spotted this game called Beta Decay that's not got a release date yet or anything, but looks very cool. It's being developed by Rotoscope Studios and it's a low-poly, 90s-inspired mix of dystopian RPG, survival, third and first-person shooter, with some roguelike bits slapped in there, as well. Whew, that's a lot. Potentially too much. But hey, I am here for something ambitious and interesting, of which it ticks both boxes.

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Earth Defense Force 6 players on Steam aren’t happy about having to sign into the Epic Games Store, it seems. The latest entry in the co-op ant-control shooter launched yesterday, and critics reckon it's a decent time. Still, it’s currently sitting at an angry red 'mostly negative' on Steam. In response, D3PUBLISHER have put out an apology statement, reassuring players that this third-party log in will only be required once.

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An unannounced Helldivers 2 stratagem has leaked online, seemingly by a Sony email.

The unforced error – which came via an official marketing email sent out to Helldivers – proudly introduces the Airburst Rocket Launcher players unlocked after they successfully liberated Penta during Operation Legitimate Undertaking.

There's just one problem; the weapon in the image that accompanies the email isn't the Airburst… or, indeed, any weapon currently in the game. It's a gun no Helldiver has seen before.

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Chaos and comedy. Death and rebirth. Luck and, uh, running out of luck. A good roguelike doesn't treat the player like other games do. Roguelikes won't guide you helpfully along a path, or let you cinematically snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. They're more likely to dangle you deep between the jaws of defeat and fumble the rope until you go sliding down defeat's hungry gullet. This is their beauty, and it's a part of why we keep coming back for another go. Next time everything will go right. Next time you'll find the right pair of poison-proof loafers, the perfect co-pilot for your spaceship, a stash of stronger, better ropes. Next time.

Here's our list of the 19 best roguelikes on PC you can play in 2024.

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The latest Helldivers 2 patch is memorably titled 01.000.400, but for my money, it's hovering on the brink of being one of your gold-varnished "X.0" updates of note. It adds a fair few mechanics and makes various substantial adjustments to Arrowhead and Sony's liberty-humping, cheerily xenocidal squad shooter.

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Chaos and comedy. Death and rebirth. Luck and, uh, running out of luck. A good roguelike doesn't treat the player like other games do. Roguelikes won't guide you helpfully along a path, or let you cinematically snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. They're more likely to dangle you deep between the jaws of defeat and fumble the rope until you go sliding down defeat's hungry gullet. This is their beauty, and it's a part of why we keep coming back for another go. Next time everything will go right. Next time you'll find the right pair of poison-proof loafers, the perfect co-pilot for your spaceship, a stash of stronger, better ropes. Next time.

Here's our list of the 19 best roguelikes on PC you can play in 2024.

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The latest Helldivers 2 patch is memorably titled 01.000.400, but for my money, it's hovering on the brink of being one of your gold-varnished "X.0" updates of note. It adds a fair few mechanics and makes various substantial adjustments to Arrowhead and Sony's liberty-humping, cheerily xenocidal squad shooter.

Read more

Gears of War 6's development hasn't been much of a secret, but it's now finally official - with tonight's Xbox Games Showcase revealing it to be a prequel titled Gears of War: E-Day.

Set 14 years before the events of the original Gears of War, E-Day tells the story of the first Locust emergence on Sera, and the world's response to that threat.

It promises a return of the series' trademark third-person, cover-based shooting action, all within an "explosive" campaign combining "satisfying gameplay and emotive, character-led storytelling".

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Of no surprise to anyone given Nightdive's not exactly subtle tease earlier this week, cult classic squad-based survival horror shooter The Thing is getting a remaster - and it's launching later this year on Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and PC.

The Thing, developed Computer Artworks and released back in 2002, serves as a direct sequel to John Carpenter's 1982 horror movie classic. It casts players as United States Army Special Forces member Captain Blake, who heads to the Antarctic outpost seen in the movie to find out what happened to its ill-fated research team.

The ensuing action is a third-person shoot-y kind of thing, with players able to get assistance from jittery survivors they meet along the way as they confront all manner of sinewy, alien-inhabited monstrosities. And the game did alright for itself back in the day, managing to shift over 1m copies - but Computer Artworks' collapse meant a planned sequel never emerged.

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Computer Artworks' 2002 videogame adaptation of 1982 movie The Thing was a ghoulish and gripping third-person shooter with some terrific mechanics that weren't quite fleshed out, flesh being the operative word. For instance: you can enlist surviving soldiers as squadmates, but are they really surviving soldiers, or are they human-shaped warrens of teeth and mandibles poised to split open and shower you in digestive juices? You have a limited supply of blood tests with which to determine whether any people you rescue are Things in waiting - and even as you're worrying about them, they're casting suspicious eyes at you, care of some embryonic "trust" and "fear" systems.

Sadly, much of this acute paranoia could be easily gamed out in practice - back in 2002, I deduced that contact with enemies increased the odds of infection, and adopted a policy of shooting anyone who'd been in my squad for too long. But it's the kind of system an intelligent remake could pounce upon and have fun with. Sadly, Nightdive are not working on a remake, like their previous System Shock remakes. They've just announced that they're making a remaster, due later this year. Still, I will take a Thing remaster and thus, the opportunity to write more about The Thing, over no remaster at all.

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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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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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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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Destructive third-person action game Just Cause is getting made into a movie, produced by the men behind The Fall Guy and Nobody, according to the Hollywood Reporter. This isn't the first time the over-the-top explode 'em up has been in line to get the big screen treatment. Another version spent years in development hell until the rights lapsed. But it's been picked up again by Universal, who are no strangers to turning video games into box office burger bucks (they did The Super Mario Bros. Movie). So, it might result in an actual movie this time.

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Resident Evils Code Veronica and 0 will be the next entries in the survival horror series to get the remake treatment, according to rumours. “A remake of Resident Evil Zero & Code Veronica in development right now,” claimed user Dusk Golem on Le Epic Musk Zone. The claim was casually corroborated by trustworthy sort Andy Robinson of VGC. Note the wording here, which suggests a bundle package of sorts, similar to the rumoured original plan for the remakes of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3.

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Capcom is once again remaking Resident Evil 1.

That's according to noted horror genre leaker Dusk Golem and survival horror YouTuber Biohazard Declassified, both of whom have stepped up this weekend with rumours that Capcom is looking to breathe new life into the game that started it all, the very first Resident Evil.

Biohazard Declassified says they received an anonymous email that claims the game – with the working title, Biohazard: Resident Evil 1 – will be slower paced than RE2 Remake, feature a "different this person camera", and explore RE1's lore "further".

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Rockstar Games and publisher Take-Two Interactive have narrowed GTA 6's release window from the previously announced "2025" to "fall" of next year.

Take-Two shared the news during its Q4 2024 earnings report, saying it was "highly confident that Rockstar Games will deliver an unparalleled entertainment experience".

"Our expectations for the commercial impact of the title continue to increase", it added, noting it expects to see "tremendous growth" in net bookings over the next three years.

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The hugely-popular Helldivers 2 has sold 12m copies on PC and PlayStation 5, enough to become Sony's fastest-selling PlayStation game of all time.

Thanks in large part to its wild success on Steam, the PlayStation-published breakout hit shifted around 1m more than the previous record holder, 2022's God of War Ragnarök.

Sony confirmed the sales record today in its just-published financial results, which also revealed a new running total for PS5 console sales: 59.3m, meaning the hardware stands roughly equivalent to where PS4 was at the same point in its lifecycle.

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It's been a funny few weeks for Helldivers 2; one day it was riding high on its well-deserved success, the next it was being reviewed bombed into oblivion after Sony decided to foist mandatory PSN accounts on PC players. But now that drama is starting to subside following a dramatic U-turn, all thoughts have turned to one thing: was the review bomb cape developer Arrowhead's CEO Johan Pilestedt previously hinted at real? It would certain seem so.

Talk of a review-bomb-inspired Helldivers 2 cape, if you're a little behind on events, first surfaced as fans celebrated Sony's U-turn on Tuesday - an unexpected reversal that followed one hell of a weekend for Helldivers 2, in which Arrowhead's was unusually, publicly frank about its frustration with Sony and its handling of the PSN situation, and in which over 200,000 negative Steam reviews, mass refunds, and an absolute mess of a situation in territories where PSN was unavailable finally forced Sony's hand.

As the drama began to subside, Pilestedt took to social media to share a community created cape design - featuring four red vertical lines mirroring those of Helldivers 2's Steam review sentiment graph during the review bombing - offhandedly remarking when asked if it would become "a thing", that, "The team is talking about a good name for it right now." It just wasn't entirely clear to what degree he was joking. And it turns out he (probably) wasn't joking at all.

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There is a Star Wars mod for Helldivers 2 out there and it looks brilliant.

The mod in question was shared over the weekend by ToastedShoes, whose name you may recognise from that PC Pokémon mod for Palworld. And, while they say it brings Clone Wars to Arrowhead's shooter, there is something about it that makes me think of Battlefront 3, and what that could have been. Hmm...

Anyway, I will bring myself back to the present, and this mod. As you may already have assumed, it is utterly chaotic, with players in Star Wars skins fighting enemies from the franchise such as Droideka and B1 droids. Roger Roger!

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Open world crime-a-thon GTA 6 will release next “fall”, according to publisher Take-Two Interactive’s latest earning report, via Eurogamer. This narrows the previously announced release window of “2025” down by, uh, infinity I suppose? A year is an effectively endless stretch in terms of release calenders. But “Fall”, despite not being a real season, is something I can work with.

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When they’re not banding together to take on Sony or attempting to reinstate fired community managers, it turns out that Helldivers 2 players just want to make sure everyone feels included. Included in the co-op game’s endless war of attrition to protect Super Earth from bugs, robots, and basic awareness of military propaganda, and included in just having mates. Enter player ‘dremskiy’, whose tragic booting from a private game in which they just wanted to make friends has resulted in so many friend requests that their Steam account won’t accept any more.

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As Ubisoft revealed Assassin's Creed Shadows they also released their earnings report for the financial year 2023-2024. Buried among the chatter of "profitable growth trajectories" and "B2B partnerships" was a brief note about looter shooter The Division Heartland. "Ubisoft has decided to stop development on The Division Heartland," it reads, "and has redeployed resources to bigger opportunities such as XDefiant and Rainbow Six." Ah, so this is the games industry equivalent of being summarily dumped by text.

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Remember when Control came out and your mate Terry appeared out of nowhere to rant endlessly about how they’ve always loved brutalist architecture? Come on, Terry. No you haven’t. You spend weekends eating custard creams and watching Bake Off. You haven’t thought about brutalism since undergrad, be honest. Anyway, my version of that is Starship Troopers. As in, I’ve been waiting for a videogamey excuse to bang on about it in public for ages. Helldivers 2 is obviously as good an excuse as any, but really, I needn’t have waited so long. Official offerings like strategy game Starship Troopers: Terran Command and FPS Robocop: Rogue City aside, I reckon you can find Paul Verhoeven’s fingerprints all over games.

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The former lead writer of charming super-fascist simulator Helldivers 2 is working on a strategy and tactics RPG in the vein of Nintendo and Intelligent System's Fire Emblem games, which aren't available on PC and as such, are a complete mystery to you, a lifelong desktop warrior who would sooner cut their hand off than suffer it to brush against one of those filthy Nintendo witches, I mean Switches.

To fill you in, Fire Emblem is known and sort of celebrated for being a rich ensemble fantasy story with character permadeath. Helldivers 2, meanwhile, is a game in which people are as expendable as bullets, and the storytelling is deliberately brittle because it consists largely of clownish propaganda. Put the two sets of inspirations together, and what do you get? You get a headline, that's what. Beyond that, we can only dream.

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Steam representatives are informing some Helldivers 2 players that the game's publisher, Sony, pulled it from sale in regions where PSN is not available, not Steam itself.

Earlier this month, Sony announced Helldivers 2 players on Steam would soon be required to link to a PSN account for safety and security. It said this was always going to be a requirement for players on PC, but due to issues at launch, linking was made optional for a period.

The news was immediately met with intense backlash, which resulted in an influx of negative reviews from Helldivers 2 players on Steam. Many asked for a refund as Helldivers 2 was pulled from sale in 177 countries where PSN is not available, eventually leading to Sony overturning plans to enforce mandatory PSN linking for Helldivers 2 players on Steam altogether.

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It seems like Rockstar is readying up to share some more GTA 6 news with us very soon.

As spotted by the aptly named X account @GTAVI_Countdown, the developer's page was recently updated to include GTA 6 in its database. This update included placeholder spots for four screenshots, cover art, and a release date.

This page was subsequently removed by Rockstar, but not before @GTAVI_Countdown managed to grab a screenshot. In a followup post, the account noted the code with placeholders still remains in the database, as do mentions of digital purchases.

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Arrowhead CEO and Helldivers 2 creative director Johan Pilestedt has said that, at times, the team has "gone too far" when trying to balance the game.

Pilestedt's comments come in response to one Helldivers 2 player, who said they were no longer finding the game fun due to balance changes. In fact, they felt the game had become "unplayable" with the amount of changes over recent months.

"Yeah I think we've gone too far in some areas," the CEO subsequently replied, adding he will now talk to the rest of the team about its approach to in-game balancing. "It feels like every time someone finds something fun, the fun is removed," Pilestedt said.

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Following backlash from its community, Sony has overturned plans to enforce mandatory PSN linking for Helldivers 2 players on Steam.

On Friday, the publisher announced Helldivers 2 players on Steam would soon be required to link to a PSN account for safety and security. It said this was always going to be a requirement for players on PC, but due to issues at launch, linking was made optional for a period.

The news was immediately met with intense backlash, which resulted in an influx of negative reviews from Helldivers 2 players on Steam. Many asked for a refund as Helldivers 2 was pulled from sale in 177 countries where PSN is not available.

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Steam is refunding players with hundreds of in-game hours in Helldivers 2 after publisher Sony and developer Arrowhead told PC players that in order to keep playing after next month, they would have to link to a PSN account.

One player managed to secure a Steam refund despite having played Helldivers 2 for 90+ hours by simply submitting a refund request with the message: "Sony has retroactively changed how the game works and forced legal agreements upon me I do not accept".

Earlier today, we learned that Helldivers 2 has been pulled from sale in 177 countries and territories as its PlayStation Network (PSN) linking requirement rolls out, even where PSN is not available.

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Helldivers 2 has been pulled from sale in 177 countries as its PSN linking requirement rolls out in countries where PSN is not available.

Developer Arrowhead said this linking requirement was made optional when the game released at the beginning of February due to technical issues. However, that initial "grace period" for Helldivers 2 players on Steam is now over, and on Friday, Helldivers 2's publisher Sony announced that players on Steam will soon be required to link to a PlayStation Network (PSN) account.

Since then, the game has been battered by almost 200,000 negative reviews from Helldivers 2 players on Steam.

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The originally well-received Helldivers 2 now has a "mixed" review score on Steam following over 100,000 "mostly negative" review bombs from PC players unhappy about having to sign into Sony's PlayStation Network to keep playing.

Developer Arrowhead said this linking requirement was made optional when the game released at the beginning of February due to technical issues. However, that initial "grace period" for Helldivers 2 players on Steam is now over, and yesterday, Helldivers 2's publisher Sony announced that players on Steam will soon be required to link to a PlayStation Network (PSN) account. And the news has not gone down well.

Thousands of PC players have now hit back at both Arrowhead and Sony and changed their positive reviews to negative ones. Some cite Sony's data leaks as a reason not to link their account, while other blame Sony's "dictatorship" and "corporate greed".

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Hello reader who is also a reader, and welcome to Booked For The Week - our Sunday feature where we ask a selection of cool industry folks questions about books! Did you know that if you cup a book over your ear you can hear the gentle ambience of a thousand seagulls screaming how Charles Bukowski is literally them fr? I cannot judge these irritating gulls. “Air And Light..." is still one of my all time favourites. This week, it's El Paso, Elsewhere developer, Hypnospace Outlaw writer, and RPS contributor Xalavier Nelson Jr! Cheers Xalavier! Mind if we have a nose at your bookshelf?

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It seems like Rockstar is readying up to share some more GTA 6 news with us very soon.

As spotted by the aptly named X account @GTAVI_Countdown, the developer's page was recently updated to include GTA 6 in its database. This update included placeholder spots for four screenshots, cover art, and a release date.

This page was subsequently removed by Rockstar, but not before @GTAVI_Countdown managed to grab a screenshot. In a followup post, the account noted the code with placeholders still remains in the database, as do mentions of digital purchases.

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Arrowhead CEO and Helldivers 2 creative director Johan Pilestedt has said that, at times, the team has "gone too far" when trying to balance the game.

Pilestedt's comments come in response to one Helldivers 2 player, who said they were no longer finding the game fun due to balance changes. In fact, they felt the game had become "unplayable" with the amount of changes over recent months.

"Yeah I think we've gone too far in some areas," the CEO subsequently replied, adding he will now talk to the rest of the team about its approach to in-game balancing. "It feels like every time someone finds something fun, the fun is removed," Pilestedt said.

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Following backlash from its community, Sony has overturned plans to enforce mandatory PSN linking for Helldivers 2 players on Steam.

On Friday, the publisher announced Helldivers 2 players on Steam would soon be required to link to a PSN account for safety and security. It said this was always going to be a requirement for players on PC, but due to issues at launch, linking was made optional for a period.

The news was immediately met with intense backlash, which resulted in an influx of negative reviews from Helldivers 2 players on Steam. Many asked for a refund as Helldivers 2 was pulled from sale in 177 countries where PSN is not available.

Read more