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Last June, Jagex - the developers of medieval MMO Runescape - found themselves at odds with players after deciding not to create any new content for Pride Month. Disputed internally at the studio before the discussion then leaked online, the decision appeared to be a retreat in the face of a world turning on minority groups.
Following up in September, Games Industry asked Jagex CEO Jon Bellamy if he stood by the call to simply re-run existing Pride-themed quests and events. "Ultimately, my job is governance and protection as much as anything else, and so sometimes those kinds of harsh decisions have to be made to protect the imminent future of the game," he told them. "If there are tough decisions to be made next year, we'll make them. If the world has changed a bit and the environment is different, we will react accordingly."
Five months on and with this year's Pride Month on the horizon, we've asked if the environment is different.
This is probably a sentence that could be said literally any day of the week, but a new cosy farming sim is on the block, this time taking the form of Starsand Island. The flavour on this occasion is of the anime variety, with some slightly goofier farming mechanics (i.e. turning your watermelon patch into one singular, 10 foot tall watermelon), some very Pokemon Legends: Arceus looking combat, and some appropriately cute animals to hang out with. And there's skateboarding! But never do launches go all that smoothly, as developer Seed Sparkle Lab have had to do a dash of damage control regarding some concerns over the game.
I hope you like warlocks. Well, if you're someone who regularly delves into Diablo, I hope you at the very least don't detest warlocks with all of your hellish heart. Because yesterday evening's Diablo 30th anniversary shindig was rather heavy on warlocks, with the class coming to not just Diablo 4's next expansion, but also Diablo 2 and Diablo Immortal. Meanwhile, Diablo 2: Resurrected has moseyed on over to Steam.
I still haven’t left the starting area in Skull and Bones, but it’s a relief to know that as and when I do, I’ll have some big molluscs to bombard alongside those boring galleons. Ubisoft’s open world Jolly Rogerer forges bravely on with another season of updates, Eye of the Beast, despite Ubisoft recently jettisoning a bunch of games and studios in their efforts to buoy up the share price. Yes, this is the same Skull and Bones that has 320 in-game players on Steam as of writing, and a worryingly Biblical user review average of 66.60%.
Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.
Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.
Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.
Original Saints Row design director Chris Stockman has declared the Saints Row franchise is "dead".
I was in the gift shop of a small art gallery the other day when I bought a postcard depicting a bunch of different keys. The postcard turned out to be a reproduction from the six-volume dictionary and encyclopedia Larousse du XXe siècle (me neither) and the keys come in a gorgeous range of shapes and sizes. The Roman key is broad and boot-shaped. The Merovingian looks like part of a crank.
Bethesda Game Studios boss Todd Howard has flattened hope for a major Starfield overhaul by stating that the long-awaited update in development "is not Starfield 2.0".
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Pokémon Pokopia is almost here, and we're confident it might be a hit, especially after learning Minecraft-like persistent servers are part of the game. Now we're just hoping it delivers on all its promise when it launches on 5th March. Wanna get more hyped tho?
So, we know Pokémon Pokopia is looking impressive so far, and we've also been told it's a pretty long game even if you aren't planning on sticking around after the credits roll. With so much to do and a multiplayer option that's promising one of the most relaxing experiences of the year, how do its online functionalities work exactly?
It's tempting to believe that the Diablo 3 playerbase has been eclipsed by a resurgent Diablo 2: Resurrected on one side, and Diablo 4 on the other, but according to Blizzard, that's not the case. Apparently there's still a "massive" playerbase playing Diablo 3, and it counts players in the "millions".
Diablo 4’s segment in the big Diablo 30th Anniversary Spotlight was among the biggest, even if the reason most of us tuned in was somewhat spoiled earlier in the same livestream. Blizzard unveiled the Warlock, the second of two classes coming to the game with the upcoming Lord of Hatred expansion.
Though it may seem like we just had a big life sim release in Heartopia, 2026 actually has more than one highly-anticipated release in that particular subgenre of cozy game. The next big one on the horizon is Starsand Island, the life and farming sim from Seed Sparkle Lab.
Infinity Nikki, the free-to-play, open-world dress-up RPG, has delivered yet another big content drop in the form of Chromatic Beings Everbright. The latest update brings the game up to version 2.2, and introduces a new narrative chapter, and gameplay taking place around a festival narrative.
Arknights: Endfield developer Gryphline has a good reason to celebrate, as the upcoming free-to-play action RPG has achieved yet another milestone. The developer announced today that Endfield already has over 35 million pre-registrations.
