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Thu, 28 Mar 2024 19:43:46 +0000

Now that Horizon Forbidden West is out on PC and we have had a good deal of time with the final shipping game, we can tie up some loose ends that were left hanging after last week's first look. What do optimised settings look like? What about Steam Deck? And are any lingering issues that should be addressed in future updates?Kicking off with those all-important optimised settings, we had additional insight into making our selections owing to our in-depth conversation with Guerrilla Games and Nixxes, as documented on Eurogamer last week. For example, some settings are there for completeness's sake but won't really impact performance on most gaming PCs. Take ambient occlusion, for starters. There's an SSAO option and the ability to turn it off - and that's it. The performance win in disabling it is inconsequential, so keep that on. It's the same thing with screen-space shadows. Such options may exist for the benefit of Steam Deck and ultra-low spec hardware but they should be left on for the majority of users.Beyond that, there are some presets that can safely 'whacked up to max' in the finest PC tradition without too much in the way of a performance hit. PS5 delivers many of its textures with 4x anisotropic filtering, but the cost of texture filtering is minimal on PC, meaning 16x is perfectly viable. You'd want the detail increase of 8x over the console version but on an RTX 3070, there's no performance impact at all in going up to 16x. Hair quality can also be run at max (ie 'high') as that's a match for PS5 and while lower quality settings are available, the frame-rate boost is negligible - even at native 4K on the same RTX 3070. Read more


Thu, 28 Mar 2024 19:32:12 +0000

Epic has announced the next lot of games going free on its PC store front, with The Outer Worlds and Thief getting the Epic Games Store freebie treatment starting Thursday, 4th April. The Outer Worlds - Obsidian Entertainment's 2019 satirical space-faring RPG - arrives in the form of its Spacer's Choice Edition which, if you're unfamiliar, is last year's all-inclusive spruce-up. Alongside the base game ("RPG comfort food that never stretches the imagination", is how Eurogamer described it on release), it includes various visual enhancements, alongside The Outer Worlds' Murder on Eridanos and Peril on Gorgon DLC. As for Thief, it's the 2014 reboot of the legendary stealth series, which regrettably didn't quite live up to the quality of its predecessors. "It's a game that adds up to less than the sum of its parts," Eurogamer wrote at the time of its release. "Undeniably, Thief suffers greatly by comparison to Dishonored - it's more coherent, more thoughtfully and successfully designed cousin, in whose shadow Garrett and his game now cringe." Read more


Thu, 28 Mar 2024 17:40:57 +0000

Capcom's big Monster Hunter Wilds reveal in December might have been eye-catching, but it was a little light on detail; but now, new leaks have shed a little more light on the developer's plans, claiming this latest series instalment will be fully open world and launching in Q1 2025. That's according to reliable leaker Dusk Golem, who recently shared a few scraps of fresh Monster Hunter Wilds information over on Discord. Perhaps the biggest claim is that - as had been speculated following December's striking trailer reveal - Wilds will be "fully open world" rather than segmented into discrete explorable areas as was the case in previous games. "That was [Capcom's] idea from day one apparently," Dusk Golem wrote, "the entire game revolves around it, from story to endgame." They also say Wilds has been in development since 2019, and will feature "a lot of the scrapped ideas from World". Additionally, it's claimed Wilds' director (Yuya Tokuda, who also helmed Monster Hunter World) has been given "complete freedom [for the development of Wilds], pretty much no questions asked." Read more


Thu, 28 Mar 2024 17:19:00 +0000

"Greed has been fucking this whole thing up for so long, since I started," said Swen Vincke, founder and head of Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian, while collecting Game Developers' Choice award for Best Narrative last week. "I've been fighting publishers my entire life and I keep on seeing the same, same, same mistakes over, and over and over."Vincke's speech - an impromptu one, he says - quickly took off, attracting an outpouring of support from developers on social media and echoing the frustration and, at times, outright anger of other developers at those awards. But alongside the understandable sense of indignation at the seemingly endless wave of layoffs hitting the industry over the past year, Vincke's speech - and the reaction - also highlighted something broader: video games are having a moment of introspection.Amongst all that - and after the extraordinary success of Baldur's Gate 3 - Larian has become something of a beacon for the industry. A rare case of not only a fully independent studio but a large one, with hundreds of employees around the world, Larian has sustained that size while producing a game that people genuinely love. Baldur's Gate 3 swept awards and dominated headlines in a year that also featured a new Zelda game, a new Mario, and new RPGs from Blizzard and Bethesda, but it's also become a form of living proof for those who'd argue there is another way - and that this way is the path through the industry's problems. Read more


Thu, 28 Mar 2024 17:05:51 +0000

This week on the Eurogamer Newscast, we discuss who might pick up the baton and develop a potential Baldur's Gate 4 - now that BG3 studio Larian has confirmed it is leaving the franchise behind. The rights to Baldur's Gate of course belong to Wizards of the Coast, who are free to enlist another studio to make further games in the Dungeons and Dragons universe - and even use Larian's characters. And considering how well BG3 has been received, it would seem financially prudent for a publisher to mount some kind of follow-up at some point. Perhaps BioWare might like to give it another go?Alternatively you could argue - and Larian's own Swen Vincke has done so - that there really shouldn't need to be a Baldur's Gate 4 at all. BG3 was great, but why does that mean there has to be more? Joining me this week to discuss are Eurogamer's Ed Nightingale and Victoria Kennedy. Read more


Thu, 28 Mar 2024 17:00:00 +0000

Valheim publisher Coffee Stain has announced a deck-building roguelike from a couple of developers previously at Stunlock Studios, the outfit best known for V Rising. Box Dragon was set up by Kevin Chang and Karl Bergström two years ago; today they announce details of the studio's debut game As We Descend. The game will feature turn-based card battles set in a dystopian "feudal cityscape". Read more


Thu, 28 Mar 2024 15:55:41 +0000

Earthblade, the next project from Celeste developer Extremely OK Games, won't be out in 2024, but progress is being made. The studio's director Maddy Thorson shared a new update and while "this game ain't coming out in 2024", progress is not "stagnant" and the team is "still excited to work on it". Game designer Kyle Pulver has now joined the development team - Pulver has worked on a number of small projects and was world champion of TowerFall. Read more


Thu, 28 Mar 2024 14:13:44 +0000

Another entry in the Spyro series is reportedly in development with Toys for Bob.In a new video posted by Canadian Guy Eh - an insider known for their coverage of Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon - the YouTuber said he'd heard from multiple sources at PAX East that Toys for Bob is working on a new Spyro title."Spyro 4 is in development. That's a statement. No theory crafting, no evidence-based assumptions, no conspiracies, or even a heavy-handed hint," he said. Read more


Thu, 28 Mar 2024 13:00:00 +0000

I have quite distinct memories of SNES classic Secret of Mana, despite not playing it too much. It's the visuals that stick in my mind: the bright greens of its forest environments, the electric yellows and pinks of its cute plant and bug enemies, and of course the colossal tree and its tangled roots seen in the game's iconic box artwork. All of this came flooding back to me as I played a demo of Visions of Mana, the next game in the long-running series. Its key artwork alone is a callback to the original, its heroes looking out at another giant tree as the sun sets behind, bathing its autumnal growths in a warm light. And that's before you step into the game's open world. It turns out, this artistic callback is deliberate. "The key art [of Secret of Mana], or the package art, was illustrated by an artist named Hirō Isono," series producer Masura Oyamada told me. "And so, [in Visions of Mana] we really wanted to be able to create a field design that captures the mana tree that was depicted in the artwork. With the advances made in modern platforms, being able to adhere to these key components still helps retain that feeling of this being a Mana game even as everything is getting modernised." Read more


Thu, 28 Mar 2024 12:33:07 +0000

Twitch has once again updated its community guidelines to prohibit sexualised content, this time preventing streamers using their bodies as a green screen. From 29th March, "content that focuses on intimate body parts for a prolonged period of time" won't be allowed, defined as buttocks, groin, or breasts. "Content on Twitch is always evolving, and we want to make sure our rules work as intended and keep up with emerging behaviours," reads a post from Twitch on social media site X. "When needed, we make updates to our rules to capture those shifts in behaviour, and so it's clear to the community what is allowed." Read more


Thu, 28 Mar 2024 12:15:56 +0000

Sony has successfully won a patent infringement lawsuit in which it was being sued for $500m, after a US District Court judge ruled in the PlayStation company's favour. The lawsuit was based on Sony's controller-to-console communication method, with Genuine Enabling Technology - a company with a history of lawsuits over technology patents - seeking $500m in damages. GET initially filed a complaint against the company back in 2017, claiming Sony had infringed on its patent. Specifically, this patent was entitled 'Method and Apparatus for Producing a Combined Data Stream and Recovering Therefrom the Respective User Input Stream and at Least One Input Signal'. Read more


Thu, 28 Mar 2024 12:09:03 +0000

Dragon's Dogma 2 developer Capcom has begun quizzing fans on what they'd like to see in future DLC for the game. A public user survey is now available to complete, and asks whether you would be interested in purchasing extra content for Dragon's Dogma 2 if it was released. A follow-up question then asks what you'd like to see in that future DLC, and how much you might pay for it. The topic of DLC has been a hot-button issue for Dragon's Dogma 2, after the game received backlash at launch for an array of paid unlocks to make the experience easier (although all items you can buy can also be found in-game, albeit in more limited amounts). Read more


Thu, 28 Mar 2024 10:00:00 +0000

Occasionally in a game I'll look up and I'll notice the clouds. I'll be shooting someone, or collecting something, or just walking over the crest of a hill as I follow a waypoint marker, and my gaze will drift upwards, entirely unmotivated, and--And suddenly I'll see the huge bowl of the sky overhead. Maybe there will be thunderheads, those towering stormclouds that turn to anvils at their summits, lurking on the horizon. Maybe there will be a lacy veil of high atmosphere clouds dithering away to an iridescent nothing. Whatever's there, it's always a moment to stop and to marvel. It's an intrinsic pleasure, pure unnatural natural beauty, suspended above a landscape that sometimes foregrounds extrinsic pleasures: map icons, quest-givers, the kind of loot that comes in treasure chests.Then what? Then I'll move on, caught up once more in the map, the quest, the endless hunt for treasure, and I'll forget what I saw in the sky. Read more


Thu, 28 Mar 2024 09:31:29 +0000

Sega will shed 240 staff across its European studios, and sell off Company of Heroes developer Relic Entertainment as part of a cost-cutting drive. The majority of job losses will be at Total War developer Creative Assembly and at the publisher's Sega Europe office. These follow earlier cuts to the UK-based Creative Assembly last year, after the cancellation of live-service shooter Hyenas. The Vancouver-based Relic will become an independent studio, meanwhile, backed by an unnamed "external investor". In a statement posted to social media this morning, Relic confirmed Company of Heroes 3 support would continue. The developer has also recently faced layoffs, with 121 staff let go in May 2023. Read more


Thu, 28 Mar 2024 08:00:25 +0000

Embracer has entered an agreement to sell Gearbox Interactive to Take-Two for $460m.When this transaction is complete, Take-Two will acquire the Borderlands and Tiny Tina's Wonderlands franchises, as well as Homeworld, Risk of Rain, Brothers in Arms and Duke Nukem. Closing is expected to be finalised in Q1 FY 24/25, ending June 2024.Following this, Embracer will still retain a number of assets such as Lost Boys, which Gearbox acquired in 2022. Read more


Thu, 28 Mar 2024 08:00:00 +0000

It's not often we get to hear a senior developer of a Super Mario Bros. game philosophise about game design. At gamescom last year, Takashi Tezuka, executive officer at Nintendo and producer on Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and Shiro Mouri, the game's director, gave us a glimpse, as they spoke with Eurogamer about their intentions for Super Mario Bros. Wonder.At the time, Tezuka said "There was a lot of feeling about creating something else, something new," with Mouri adding that "in terms of the concept for creating a new Mario, we came up with the concept of mystery and secrets".Much of that was echoed by the pair's talk at GDC last week: Tezuka noted the team's mantra this time was "Big Changes," while Mouri mentioned the sense of lingering familiarity again, and the desire to evolve things in light of it. Only this time they opened up a little further, offering detail on cut ideas, development approaches and more - but they began with the same point they made to us. Read more


Wed, 27 Mar 2024 23:19:07 +0000

Images allegedly showing the white, digital-only Xbox Series X reported to be in the works earlier this year have leaked online. An "adorably all-digital" Xbox Series X refresh, planned for a 2024 release, first surfaced as part of a mammoth leak of official Microsoft documentation during last year's court battle with the FTC. Despite Xbox boss Phil Spencer later downplaying the leak, a report emerged last month claiming not only was Microsoft's all-digital Xbox Series X still alive, it was aiming to release "sometime between the upcoming months of June and July". That claim was made by noted leaker eXtas1s, who has now resurfaced with (extremely low-resolution) images allegedly showing a seemingly near-release version of the all-digital console. Read more


Wed, 27 Mar 2024 22:23:04 +0000

Europa, the absolutely lovely looking Ghibli-inspired exploration adventure from developer Helder Pinto, has been delayed - and will now likely launch for PC this "summer". Europa - a "peaceful game of adventure, exploration, and meditation" set on a terraformed moon in Jupiter's shadow - has been in the works since 2017 (Pinto, a former principle art lead at Blizzard has described it as a "passion project"), but it finally got a release date at the end of last year, with the team aiming to launch on 16th April 2024. However, with that date just weeks away now, Pinto has made the decision to push Europa's release back by a couple of months, "probably until summer". Read more


Wed, 27 Mar 2024 21:33:31 +0000

Nintendo has reportedly cut 120 contractor testing roles at its North American operation - with an unspecified number said to have been converted to full-time positions - as part of a major restructuring effort that comes amid claims of a testing "lull" ahead of Switch 2's arrival. That's according to Kotaku, which describes the restructuring - based on word from a number of former and current contractors - as a "massive downsizing" of Nintendo's Washington-based games and hardware testing team. While the publication doesn't put a number on the job cuts, reporter Ethan Gach said he understands "roughly 120 contractor positions have been eliminated at Nintendo of America" in a follow-up post on social media. In a statement confirming its restructuring, Nintendo told Kotaku it had reorganised its Product Testing functions to "drive greater global integration in game development efforts" and "better align [Nintendo of America] with interregional testing procedures and operations." Read more


Wed, 27 Mar 2024 18:55:17 +0000

Vampire survival game V Rising is getting an official Castlevania collaboration, introducing vampire hunter Simon Belmont and a range of series-inspired cosmetics, in May. V Rising's Castlevania collaboration consists of two parts; legendary vampire hunter Simon Belmont will be available as a boss fight for all players in the base game - anyone that manages to overcome his holy arsenal and defeat him unlocks the new whip weapon - and he's accompanied by the Legacy of Castlevania Premium Pack DLC. This paid cosmetic DLC enables players to give their vampiric castle hangouts a bit of a Castlevania makeover with decor and trimmings inspired by the series. This includes the option to use two classic series themes - reimagined by V Rising composer Aleksandria Migova - as castle music. Additionally, the DLC includes new character customisation options inspired by familiar Castlevania characters, and a skeletal mount. Read more


Wed, 27 Mar 2024 17:14:43 +0000

Sony has announced its PlayStation Plus games for April.The following titles will be available to PlayStation Plus subscribers from 2nd April until Monday, 6th May:In addition, subscribers can also get their hands on The Overwatch 2 Mega Bundle. Read more


Wed, 27 Mar 2024 17:00:00 +0000

A gentle adventure into a family's secrets that's nicely crafted but over before it really begins.I had some concerns about Open Roads when I saw a demo of it earlier this year, mostly because in what I saw, nothing much seemed to happen. A teenage girl walked around a house looking at objects and talked to her mother about them. We were promised a family mystery but there was barely any sight of it, and I wondered when it would all kick in. Now having played it, I realise why that was: there wasn't much there to tease to begin with. Open Roads is a slight game, I now know, both in terms of running length and scope. There aren't grand ambitions or wild adventures. Instead, there's a story about smaller details, about the seemingly mundane but no less important moments when relationships change, and about the imprints we leave behind.In the game, you are Tess, a teenager who serves as the spark in the story. It's her curiosity, following the death of her grandma, that provokes the discovery you'll make, which leads to the adventure you'll have, and it's her tenacity that sees it through. It all begins in your grandma's house, which you and your mother shared with her up until her death, and which you're now packing to leave. Why you're leaving is something you don't immediately know - like so much else in the game, you'll discover it as you go along. Read more


Wed, 27 Mar 2024 16:52:29 +0000

Yellow Brick Games, the studio founded by former Dragon Age creative director Mike Laidlaw, has released a teaser trailer for its "ambitious new action RPG", ahead of a full reveal in April. Laidlaw announced the formation of Yellow Brick Games at the tail-end of 2020, following a brief stint at Assassin's Creed Odyssey studio Ubisoft Quebec. Prior to that, he'd worked on some of BioWare's most beloved titles before departing the studio in 2018 after 15 years. Little has been formally revealed about Yellow Brick Games' debut title beyond the fact it'll be an "ambitious new action RPG", but that's all about to change. The developer has now shared a 22-second teaser trailer, offering a first look at the still-unnamed project's gently stylised fantasy world, in the run-up to a proper unveiling very soon. Read more


Wed, 27 Mar 2024 16:19:55 +0000

It Takes Two - the co-op platformer from Hazelight and Josef Fares (yes, of that Oscars rant) - celebrated its third anniversary earlier this week.To commemorate the occasion, Hazelight shared a new piece of artwork and the news It Takes Two had now sold 16m copies. This is an increase of six million sales over the last 12 months.The developer said its game has now been played by over 30 million people, a statistic it called "mind blowing". It Takes Two is also available on Game Pass. Read more


Wed, 27 Mar 2024 15:00:05 +0000

Marvel Rivals is an upcoming free-to-play, team-based PVP shooter for PC with the backing of Chinese publishing giant NetEase. Described as a "thrilling, fast-paced, cooperative gameplay experience", Marvel Rivals will pit teams of six against each other as they fight it out over a variety of destructible environments with characters from across the Marvel universe. This includes the likes of Iron Man, Groot, Scarlet Witch and more. Along with a "deep" roster and those aforementioned environments, the development team - which comprises Call of Duty and Battlefield alum - promise some dynamic hero synergy on the game's release, with the ability for players to coordinate various combinations. You can check out a trailer for Marvel Rivals below. Read more


Wed, 27 Mar 2024 14:26:26 +0000

Microsoft is adding the ability to use a mouse and keyboard to its suite of games available through Xbox Cloud Gaming via browser, or the Xbox App on Windows PCs. For now, only a small number of games offer mouse and keyboard support, and only for Xbox Insider members testing new features via the early Alpha Skip-Ahead ring. The option will then be rolled out to more players in the future. Currently supported titles from Microsoft include Sea of Thieves, Grounded, Pentiment and Halo Infinite. Other big-name games include Fortnite (through a browser only) and ARK Survival Evolved. Read more


Wed, 27 Mar 2024 14:00:00 +0000

Orbital, the 27th major update to No Man's Sky, will arrive today and revamp the game's space stations. These deep space locations can now be "vast, procedurally generated, and incredibly diverse", developer Hello Games said today, announcing the update. The aim is for space stations to feel bigger, more individual, and offer new activities and shops for you to explore. It's here you'll also find the new Guild system, with envoys to visit. Advancements to space stations mean No Man's Sky can also now offer customisation for basic spaceships. The long-requested addition of a ship editor means you can now gather and trade parts and cobble together all-new ship types. Here's how it all looks in action: Read more


Wed, 27 Mar 2024 13:18:15 +0000

Tomas Sala's Falconeer series will be a trilogy, the developer has announced. In a press release to coincide with the launch of Bulwark: The Falconeer Chronicles across PC, PlayStation and Xbox, Sala and publisher Wired Productions revealed work on a third instalment had already begun. For now, the third entry is being worked on under the codename Project Ancient Waves. While details are still thin on the ground, Sala said the game will "attempt to bring the perspective of the grand world, created over the first two releases, down to a human scale". Read more


Wed, 27 Mar 2024 12:40:52 +0000

$400k worth of Playdate game consoles have disappeared in Las Vegas. That's according to Panic, the hardware maker behind the palm-sized, crank-operated console, with company co-founder Cabel Sasser calling it "a bit of a true crime drama" (thanks, Game File). Sasser spoke at GDC last week, when he revealed this news, stating pallets containing the consoles had gone missing in Las Vegas. Panic, he said, was still trying to track them down. Read more


Wed, 27 Mar 2024 12:29:30 +0000

Reviving the beloved Mass Effect series - again! - may be a tough mission, but the veteran crew behind the upcoming Mass Effect 5 know a little something about assembling a squad to take on impossible odds. Writing on social media platform X this week, Mass Effect 5 executive producer Mike Gamble highlighted some of the upcoming project's experienced leadership when responding to a fan who questioned whether anyone on the game had worked on the original Mass Effect trilogy. "EP, Art Director, Creative Director, Game Director are all trilogy vets," was Gamble's response. Read more


Wed, 27 Mar 2024 12:27:57 +0000

Creature collecting RPG Cassette Beasts will receive a multiplayer update in May, plus it's heading to mobile devices this year. Publisher Raw Fury held a Cassette Beasts showcase (below) detailing a number of new features coming to the game. The big addition is multiplayer, coming to all platforms on 20th May, which not only allows players to battle each other and trade monsters, but also explore cooperatively. Read more


Wed, 27 Mar 2024 12:00:24 +0000

Another F-Zero game is on the way to Switch. F-Zero: Maximum Velocity will join Nintendo Switch Online for Expansion Pack subscribers on 29th March. The high speed racer was a launch game for the Game Boy Advance and took its cue from the SNES original with its flat, twisting tracks and pixel graphics. It was generally well regarded on release, alongside the likes of Castlevania: Circle of the Moon and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2. Read more


Wed, 27 Mar 2024 11:40:47 +0000

Xbox head Phil Spencer wants to see more digital storefronts such as Epic and Itch.io on Microsoft's consoles. Speaking with Polygon, Spencer said he would like to break down the 'walled gardens' that limit players to buying games on a particular platform's official digital store. "[Consider] our history as the Windows company," he explained. "Nobody would blink twice if I said 'hey, when you're using a PC, you get to decide the type of experience you have [by picking where to buy games]'. There's real value in that." Read more


Wed, 27 Mar 2024 11:38:57 +0000

Phil Spencer has discussed the devastating wave of layoffs that has impacted the video games industry, and said he was "most concerned" about the overall "lack of growth". The Xbox boss presided over the departure of 1900 people across Xbox and Activision Blizzard in January of this year, a decision he described at the time as being one aimed at achieving "a sustainable cost structure that will support the whole of our growing business". Across the video games industry as a whole, more than 15,000 people are thought to have been let go over the past 18 months. Read more


Wed, 27 Mar 2024 11:27:03 +0000

The next expansion for MMORPG Final Fantasy 14, Dawntrail, is up for pre-order, but the process has been beset with issues. It began with failed card payments when pre-ordering on the Square Enix Store, which Square Enix acknowledged. In a post on X, it suggested using PayPal instead and then stated transaction difficulties had been resolved, before admitting some issues persisted. Using the 'Guest Checkout' was recommended instead. And that was if users could even reach the store. The website was unable to cope with the amount of traffic, meaning fans were beset with error messages before even reaching card payments. Read more


Wed, 27 Mar 2024 10:00:00 +0000

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.Neo said it best in The Matrix when Morpheus leapt irresponsibly off the side of a building onto another one nearby, demonstrating how rules could be bent in a simulation like the Matrix. "Whoa," he said, perfectly encapsulating the complexity of the issue. Later of course, he would go on to dodge bullets in a way he once believed wasn't possible - the bullets moved quickly but he moved quicker. And he could do that because time was under his control. Read more


Wed, 27 Mar 2024 10:00:00 +0000

In January 2019, The Invisible Guardian (or 隐形守护者 in Chinese), a story-rich historical full-motion video game, or FMV, was published on the Chinese, Hong Kong, and Taiwanese Steam pages, as well as WeGame. It became a great hit, despite not receiving much advertising. It maintained a rating of 9/10 on Steam with over 48,000 reviews and 9.6/10 on Douban (essentially the Chinese equivalent of IMDB for games, movies, books, and other media), with around 32,000 reviews. Additionally, it earned a BAFTA Breakthrough China trophy, solidifying its status as one of the most acclaimed and best-selling games of recent years. Its nuanced storyline and multi-layered characters pleasantly surprised those who initially thought the game would be a typical anti-Japanese war drama. It even shattered the expectations of those who believed it might be a cheap imitation of the beloved Japanese adventure game, 428: Shibuya Scramble. Where did it come from? In 2015, a group of six individuals passionate about interactive filmmaking embarked on experiments with various game design formats. They also enlisted students to act out their scripts. One of their initial projects was The Secret Life of the Empress Dowager Cixi, an interactive novella game (often called 'visual novel') featuring live-action actors. This narrative explored the real-life journey of a concubine who ascended the ranks to become the Empress of China. Read more


Tue, 26 Mar 2024 18:13:13 +0000

It's been 10 years since BioShock Infinite, and creator Ken Levine is still not done with follow-up project Judas. But the game is inching closer, evidenced recently by its appearance in trailers and now, a marketing beat where select people such as Game Awards host Geoff Keighley have now played it for a number of hours. On the surface, this is a BioShock game in all but name, with gunplay and elemental powers in an offbeat alternate universe setting. And this is essentially what trailers have shown us of the game so far. Now, Levine has discussed how this all fits with his long-standing desire to make a game from "narrative Lego" - essentially, from hand-crafted bits that are combined differently each time you play. Read more


Tue, 26 Mar 2024 17:19:31 +0000

Diablo 4 is set to make its Game Pass debut this Thursday, 28th March.Ahead of this, Microsoft has laid out a step-by-step guide explaining how PC players can get it all set up, because there are more steps than you may have perhaps expected.PC players looking to dive into Sanctuary later this month will need to make sure they have set themselves up on Battle.net - Blizzard's digital distribution service - before they can play the game. Read more


Tue, 26 Mar 2024 16:30:13 +0000

I've been very much enjoying my time in Dragon's Dogma 2 so far. Bumbling around, getting into emergent scrapes with giant enemies one minute and then tossing my more aggravating pawns off of cliff tops the next. But there's nothing that I like doing more in this game than watching the live action meat grilling videos playing out each time I set up camp for the night.There are eight different types of meat that you can grill in the game and each one has two different live action videos that can play out, depending on whether or not you're doing your grilling during the night or during the day. Except for the Dried Meat and Exquisite Dried Meat that is, those two share their videos for some reason. This means there is a grand total of 14 different videos that feature hot meat action in Dragon's Dogma 2 and, in the video above, I've tried my hand at ranking them from worst to best.So, give it a click and a watch to find out which meat is the number one treat and which one is utterly offal! Stay watching until the very end for a special 'sizzle' reel too, in which you can see all the meat videos, both from day and night, in one, uninterrupted meat compilation! Read more


Tue, 26 Mar 2024 16:14:55 +0000

Ubisoft's Hawaii-based, open-world racing game The Crew Motorfest will arrive on Steam next month. The game's sales page is now live on Valve's storefront, touting a release date of 18th April. As well as this date, Ubisoft has said those interested can enjoy the game for free "for five hours" on release. "Experience the best that car culture has to offer as you compete in intense races, experience themed events, and collect hundreds of iconic cars," Ubisoft writes. Read more


Tue, 26 Mar 2024 15:50:23 +0000

Sony is introducing a new Community Game Help feature on PlayStation 5.This opt-in feature, which is an evolution of the console's Game Help function, will create gameplay clips automatically, which will in turn help other players with their own gaming endeavours.If users choose to contribute to the Community Game Help feature, their PS5 will capture a gameplay clip when an activity within a supported title is completed. "Then, it will be reviewed by a moderator, and if approved, your video will be published as a Game Help hint for PlayStation players to watch, learn from, and rate," Sony's Sabrina Meditz explained in a blog post detailing the forthcoming update. Read more


Tue, 26 Mar 2024 15:19:23 +0000

Rise of the Ronin is an open-world samurai action RPG, and perhaps developer Team Ninja's most ambitious project to date. Building on the same in-house technology that powered Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty and Stranger of Paradise, the pure focus on PlayStation 5 development makes the project particularly tantalising in what has become a prolonged cross-generation era. To that end, fully open world streaming is incorporated into the engine plus ray-traced reflections. Despite these engine breakthroughs, Team Ninja has a huge challenge in following 2020's Ghost of Tsushima, Sucker Punch's open-world samurai action game which set a high bar for visual quality despite its cross-gen release. How does Rise of the Ronin fare in comparison, and which of its three graphics modes are the best way to enjoy the game? The good stuff first: Rise of the Ronin takes the winning Souls blueprint for its combat, with a particular focus on counterattacks - much like Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. The more counters in a row you nail, the lower the opponents's stamina gauge falls until they're left open to a finishing move. It's brilliantly executed, and the tight action - together with a wealth of weapons and the ability to quickly switch characters and styles - make for a satisfying challenge. Read more


Tue, 26 Mar 2024 14:37:05 +0000

For many, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is still seen as a kind of Breath of the Wild 1.5 - a half-sequel that builds on 2017's revolutionary hit but, in using the same Hyrule as its overworld, doesn't fully transform it into something new.The Zelda developers at Nintendo would probably disagree. In a packed-out talk at GDC last week - which may go down as one of the conference's great talks of the last few years - technical director Takuhiro Dohta, lead physics engineer Takahiro Takayama, and sound programmer Junya Osada explained the complexity and sheer scale of the task at hand.The goal, they said, was to take the two central ideas of Breath of the Wild - the notion of a "vast and seamless Hyrule" as one; the other its "multiplicative gameplay", where physics and chemistry combine to give you new solutions in-game - and expand on them. (As well as, crucially, enabling you to "dig holes," a much-memed desire of the series' legendary producer Eiji Aounouma.) Read more


Tue, 26 Mar 2024 14:00:00 +0000

A gentle and unusual building game that's memorable but missing some purpose.Bulwark is a city-building game that works differently to any city-building game I've ever played. Faced with the barren rocky outcrops of a stormy archipelago, and a handful of buildings to place on them, I thought I knew what to do. In a sense, I did - I knew I needed to build all over it. But how I'd end up doing that would be in a way completely of the game's own. Bulwark is eccentric. Bulwark is its own thing, for better and for worse.I expected that, to a degree. To fill you in a bit: Bulwark is the second game in what we now know will be a trilogy - the Falconeer Chronicles - made by solo designer Tomas Sala. The first game, The Falconeer, came out a few years ago and had you fly around a stormy archipelago on the back of a giant falcon. It was an aerial combat game. This second game takes you back to the same stormy archipelago but puts a zoomed out, city-building perspective on it. And the third game, known as Project Ancient Waves, will take us there again in a different way. I like this. Read more


Tue, 26 Mar 2024 13:56:12 +0000

There is a Stellar Blade demo coming to PlayStation 5.It will arrive this Friday, 29th March, and be available from 2pm UK time.Stellar Blade's demo will take place at the very beginning of the game "when Eve, a member of the 7th Airborne Squad is sent to Earth on a mission to reclaim the planet from the Naytiba". You can check out a teaser for Stellar Blade's upcoming demo via the video below. Read more


Tue, 26 Mar 2024 12:55:34 +0000

Lego Fortnite gets its second major update today, with the arrival of vehicles to build and drive around. The survival crafting game, playable within Fortnite, now lets you zoom about its world in a variety of vehicles you can build and customise. These range from the single-seat Speeder quad bike to the four-seat Offroader buggy, to the huge Hauler flat-bed truck. Vehicles are cobbled together using a selection of new parts: power cells, wheels and seats. You will need to keep your vehicles fuelled, but pleasingly, all fuel in Lego Fortnite is eco-friendly, and generated as biomass from the new Compost Bin station. Read more


Tue, 26 Mar 2024 12:28:46 +0000

Alan Wake developer Remedy has shared more details on its upcoming live-service multiplayer game, currently known as Condor. As shared in the company's annual report, the Control spin-off has an initial development budget of €25m and is being built on Remedy's own engine, Northlight. The game entered production readiness at the end of last year, and will release across PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S (although, the developer has not said when we can expect it to arrive). Read more


Tue, 26 Mar 2024 12:21:34 +0000

Baldur's Gate 3 boss Swen Vincke has revealed a number of ideas cut from the game during its development - including the ability to recruit a major antagonist as a companion character. Speaking to IGN, Vincke also mentioned plans to feature a wider range of locations in the game - including several that will be familiar to Dungeons and Dragons players. If you're still playing (I'm only just on Act 3!), a final warning that Baldur's Gate 3 plot details follow. Read more


Tue, 26 Mar 2024 11:37:10 +0000

It is understood the "majority" of Xbox games will eventually be coming to PlayStation. That's according to Chris Dring from Eurogamer's sister site GamesIndustry.biz. Speaking on the GI Microcast, Dring said his takeaway from GDC was that "Xbox is in real trouble as a hardware manufacturer". Sources who spoke to Dring during the conference last week said that "Xbox's performance in Europe is just flatlining", and some publishers were now expressing concerns about supporting the console. "The phrase one major company who released a big game last year said [was], 'I don't know why we bothered supporting it'," Dring shared. "We mentioned on a previous podcast that we'd heard retailers in Europe are considering or had already been cutting back their Xbox stock on their shelves - hardware, games, that kind of thing - and now you've got third-party publishers going, 'we're putting in a lot of effort trying to create a Series S version and an X version of a game when, to be honest with you, for us the market is PC and PS5'." Read more


Tue, 26 Mar 2024 11:16:41 +0000

Xbox gaming boss Phil Spencer has discussed the idea of a Microsoft handheld games device, and how Xbox games should play on third-party handheld hardware. Spencer, a keen handheld PC enthusiast, told Polygon that Microsoft was discussing "different hardware form factors and things that [they] could go do" to grow the Xbox audience further. "What should we build that will find new players?" Spencer mused. "That will allow people to play at times when they couldn't go play [in the past]?" Read more


Mon, 25 Mar 2024 17:32:28 +0000

Dragon's Dogma 2 is full of surprises, and players are still working to discover all of them. Chief of interest at the moment is the curious Dragonsplague affliction that can be acquired by Pawns.Players believe Dragonsplague can be contracted by Pawns after they fight against a dragon - but the condition can also be passed between Pawns, too.If ignored, the consequences can be "devastating", Capcom warns. The official Dragon's Dogma 2 website describes Dragonsplague as a "contagious disease-like condition that infects pawns as they travel between worlds". Read more


Mon, 25 Mar 2024 17:25:07 +0000

This week on the Eurogamer Newscast, we digest the last seven days of headlines from GDC 2024 - a conference that was unsurprisingly coloured by the past 18 months of industry turmoil. Eurogamer's Chris Tapsell was there, and joins us today to report back on what was being said on the ground. From this side of the pond, we saw the widespread anger at mass layoffs and the scepticism surrounding AI. But what was the mood at GDC 2024 really like - and how did game developers there actually feel? Chris fills us in on what he heard - and why, at a conference filled with dozens of developers presenting their best work, the mood wasn't exclusively doom and gloom.Take a listen to hear Chris' favourite moments from the show - plus renditions of a Mario power-up sound effect from him and Newscast regular Victoria Kennedy. Blup-blup-blup! Read more


Mon, 25 Mar 2024 16:32:19 +0000

CD Projekt's patched-up Cyberpunk 2077 will be free to play on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S this weekend - perfect for the Easter bank holiday. Cyberpunk 2077 will be available free from this Thursday 28th March at 3pm UK time, until Monday 1st April at 7.59am. No subscription is required to access the free trial, meaning you won't need PlayStation Plus or Xbox Game Pass. But, unfortunately, you will be limited to five hours' worth of game time within the free play window. There's also no word of a similar offer on PC. Read more


Mon, 25 Mar 2024 16:00:00 +0000

Speaking as a journalist, it feels somewhat odd to see things you say become news stories, but it sometimes happens owing to Digital Foundry's profile. So it was last week, when the big takeaway - for many - from our PS5 Pro specs reaction was our contention that Grand Theft Auto 6 on the new machine would likely not run at 60 frames per second. Of course, there are caveats to that particular statement, and we spend some time in DF Direct Weekly #155 discussing it.The whole PS5 Pro/GTA 6 discussion began when the mooted release date for the new Sony machine seemed to position it as the most performant hardware on the market for running Rockstar's next generation blockbuster. Assuming PS5 Pro arrives later on this year, it's an entirely logical supposition, bearing in mind that Rockstar's current release date sees the game arriving in 2025. Rockstar may elect not support PS5 Pro, but the balance of probabilities suggests it will.From there, the question moves onto how the enhanced console is improved over the standard one: what it was designed for, what specifications it has, and how the extra resources may be used in an open-world game like GTA 6. And here's where we can make some fairly confident predictions, because even more so than PS4 Pro and Xbox One X before it, PS5 Pro has what you might describe as a somewhat lop-sided balance between CPU and GPU enhancements. Read more


Mon, 25 Mar 2024 15:26:43 +0000

The Elder Scrolls 6 exists as a work-in-progress early build, Bethesda has confirmed, in a brief statement which notes the game is now very much "in development". "Even now, returning to Tamriel and playing early builds has us filled with the same joy, excitement and promise of adventure," the company wrote in a message released today to celebrate the series' 30th anniversary. Word that The Elder Scrolls 6 is on the way is no surprise, of course. Bethesda first confirmed it would make the game six years ago, when it released a CGI teaser trailer back at E3 2018. But it was clear at the time that Bethesda had other things to finish first - such as last year's sci-fi RPG Starfield. Read more


Mon, 25 Mar 2024 15:05:26 +0000

Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition was released on PC last week, and has seen a respectable number of players flocking to partake in Aloy's latest outing.The Horizon sequel and its Burning Shores DLC currently has a concurrent player peak of 40,462 on Steam - ahead of other big Sony games such as The Last of Us Part 1, which has had a peak of 36,496 concurrent players.Forbidden West player numbers still sit a touch behind its predecessor Zero Dawn, however. The first Horizon game, which came to Steam back in 2020, boasts a concurrent player peak of 56,557. Meanwhile, no Sony-published game is close to surpassing juggernaut Helldivers 2, which quickly became PlayStation's biggest Steam launch ever and currently has an all-time concurrent peak of over 458,000 players. Read more


Mon, 25 Mar 2024 14:01:23 +0000

If you have been following the Dragon's Dogma 2 discourse over the last few days, you will be aware of the game's paid DLC. On release, developer Capcom introduced a number of items that players could purchase with real-world money, such as the Art of Metamorphosis - Character Editor DLC, which costs £1.69.While many of these purchasable items are also available to find within the game itself, they can be relatively rare, perhaps making the option to just outright purchase them more appealing.However, modders have now done what they do best, and given players on PC a third option. Yes, the option of mods. Read more


Mon, 25 Mar 2024 13:00:00 +0000

In Timemelters, time is a shoelace. It bends and twists. What you've done with one part of the lace can effect the other parts in unusual ways. You get loops, but also knots and snarls and tangles. Sometimes, you get bows.Listen. Just yesterday - yesterday in the real world - I was running up a snowy hill - this part was not in the real world - and I saw a bunch of enemies ahead of me, closing in on a friend of mine who had no defences. If my friend died, it would be bad: game over. I was out of range and out of mana, but I was also close enough to attract my enemies' attention, and they started to run at me. Stumped, my hands left the keyboard: I had pretty much given up. And then I watched, stunned, as someone entirely new raced into frame and briskly zapped all the enemies dead. I blinked. My friend who had no defences survived. I, who was out of mana, survived. And the person who had come to our aid was...me? An earlier me. Me from about five minutes ago. Welcome to Timemelters.Fittingly for such a temporally complex game, let's start by going back a bit. Not back to the 16th century, where Timemelters is set, in a Scotland riddled with witch trials and supernatural paranoia, but back to Sang-Froid: Tales of Werewolves, a gloriously weird strategy-action hybrid from 2013. Sang-Froid is a proper masterpiece if you ask me, and it's a strange masterpiece, which makes it even better. You play as a lumberjack whose sister, I think, is being targeted by the devil. Every night the devil sends wolves to attack your farm and so you place traps, lay defences, and also run around the joint in real-time smacking these beasts about with an axe. During the day, you work chopping lumber to earn money to build up your traps and defences for the night ahead. Read more


Mon, 25 Mar 2024 12:46:57 +0000

A senior staff member behind the continually-delayed Ubisoft shooter XDefiant has denied a report which claimed the game's late launch was due to developers "chasing Call of Duty". Writing on social media platform X, XDefiant executive producer Mark Rubin - who previously held the same position at Call of Duty: Modern Warfare studio Infinity Ward - addressed a new Insider Gaming report that claims the game's developers are becoming creatively frustrated by demands they must "copy" features found in Call of Duty. "Just FYI, nothing about our delay is due to any new features," Rubin wrote. "In fact not much has changed from a gameplay standpoint. The delay has been due to the tech issues we've talked about." Read more


Mon, 25 Mar 2024 12:27:25 +0000

Capcom has laid out its plans for future Dragon's Dogma 2 updates.The developer will be adding new features such as the option to start a new game when save data already exists and changing up the number of Art of Metamorphosis items available to buy at Pawn Guilds to 99. These particular updates will be available across PlayStation, Xbox and PC.Meanwhile, specifically on PS5 and Xbox, players will soon be able to switch ray tracing and motion blur on or off. There will also be the option to set Dragon's Dogma 2's frame rate to either Variable or to a 30fps cap. Those playing on Steam will get improved visuals with DLSS. Read more


Mon, 25 Mar 2024 11:19:07 +0000

Apple and other tech giants face another legal fight - this time from the European Commission, which is now investigating the iPhone maker's alleged non-compliance with EU rules. Apple, Google owner Alphabet and Facebook owner Meta are all being investigated by the EU under the Digital Market Act (DMA), key legislation designed to keep competition fair. Both Apple and Google will be investigated over their mobile app stores, which the EU previously ordered must allow greater competition on their respective platforms. Read more


Mon, 25 Mar 2024 10:50:21 +0000

PlayStation has released a digital Jim Ryan bobblehead to commemorate the exec's time at the company. Back in September, Ryan announced he would be retiring from Sony in March, after nearly 30 years with the company. Now, to honour the occasion, Sony has released a bobblehead collectible in the exec's likeness, which can be obtained through PlayStation Stars (the console's loyalty programme where players can earn rewards by completing a variety of campaigns and activities). Read more


Sun, 24 Mar 2024 19:17:17 +0000

Yes, there are a lot of references to Final Fantasy 9 in Final Fantasy 14 Dawntrail's collector's edition… and no, that's not a coincidence."You may have noticed a lot of Final Fantasy 9 references here… And the reason is a secret," producer/director Naoki "Yoshi-P" Yoshida said via translator during his PAX East panel. He then mimed zipping his mouth closed, and steadfastly refused to reveal anything more. The tease.It's not totally a secret, of course. Some of you may remember that rumours of a remake began when Final Fantasy 9 was one of several unannounced games leaked by the GeForce Now database leak a couple of years back, which also included the Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Kingdom Hearts 4, and the Chrono Cross remaster. Read more


Sun, 24 Mar 2024 18:34:07 +0000

Dragon Ball Sparkling! Zero has secured an ESRB rating, leading to hopes the game is content-complete and we'll get a formal release date soon.At the same time, eagle-eyed fans have noted that the Bandai Namco Europe YouTube channel has at least one unlisted video – the sister American account does not – leading to speculation that it may be a pre-prepared launch date reveal teaser.Without formal confirmation from Bandai Namco all of this can only be taken with the requisite bucket full of salt, but some hope that we'll know more around 9th May, colloquially known as "Goku Day". Read more


Sun, 24 Mar 2024 17:53:24 +0000

Our first look at the gameplay of Sonic Toys Party – which is a Sonic and Fall Guys-esque mash-up – has popped up online.YouTuber The Sonic Show has shared an all-new Japanese trailer for the upcoming mobile game, which not only shows the high-octane gameplay, but also some of the game's monetisation systems, which looks to include a premium battle pass.You can see the video embedded below. Jump to 6:10 to get straight to the trailer in full: Read more


Sun, 24 Mar 2024 17:15:20 +0000

Bend Studios' next game will be a "AAA live-service" game.That's according to a new recruitment advert posted to the studio's website, which reveals the team is looking to secure a new lead project manager with "hands on game development experience in leadership roles shipping AAA live-service games".The role also specifically seeks someone with experience in "redefining studios from traditional 'boxed product' focussed game development into live service development studios in a key leadership role". Read more


Sun, 24 Mar 2024 15:49:15 +0000

CD Projekt Red says it turns down "over 90 per cent" of its team's side quest pitches.In an interview with PC Gamer, lead quest designer Paweł Sasko said that even a "good designer" has just 10 per cent of their ideas accepted."If someone has 10 per cent, this is probably one of the best people we have in the team," Sasko explained. Read more


Sun, 24 Mar 2024 15:28:33 +0000

Spyro studio Toys for Bob has reportedly reached an agreement with Microsoft for its first independent game.That's according to Windows Central's Jez Corden, who revealed over the weekend that the deal first teased by studio heads Paul Yan and Avery Lodato has now been finalised.Toys for Bob - the Activision Blizzard studio behind the likes of Skylanders, Crash Bandicoot 4, and the Spyro remasters - announced it was parting ways with Activision to become an independent company again back in January. It also said that it was "exploring a possible partnership" with Microsoft as development on its new game gets underway. Read more


Sun, 24 Mar 2024 14:00:00 +0000

Let's start this week's VR Corner on a positive note shall we? Whoever was behind the art and level design of HappyFunland VR absolutely smashed it out of the (theme)park! The detail to the world and its props is top notch, the environmental storytelling is excellent and it often had me laughing out loud and the character design is both imaginative and suitably creepy.It's a real shame then that the fundamental VR mechanics that tie it all together, plus some really bizarre design choices, cheapen the entire experience altogether. Smooth locomotion but no smooth turn? Horribly garbled, aggravating narrator audio but no subtitles? Clumsy, non-immersive interations? These are just a few things from a long line of annoyances that rob HappyFunland VR of its fast-pass to a must-play VR title.If you'd like to find out more and see me play through the first hour of the game, please do check out this week's episode of VR Corner (above). Just remember to keep your arms and legs inside the video at all times as I am not responsible for any injuries that may occur while you watch it. Read more


Sun, 24 Mar 2024 10:00:00 +0000

Not to brag, but I'm pretty sure I know what Mars After Midnight smells like. I reckon Mars After Midnight smells of church halls and community centres, which means it smells like warm dust, floor polish and feet. These are the kinds of places that cater to many different parts of the community, altering and reorganising themselves as the hour dictates. The line dancers are in at seven, and then the book club comes at nine. Will the model railway enthusiasts remember to switch off and lock up?All of which should tell you that, while Mars After Midnight is a Lucas Pope game, it's a very different kind of Lucas Pope game, as different - if such a thing is possible - as it is familiar. This makes sense, I guess. Mars After Midnight is a game made specifically for the Playdate, that funny little handheld with no backlighting to the screen and a crank on one side. If there was ever an invitation for the mind behind brilliantly sinister games like Return of the Obra Dinn and Papers, Please, to mix stuff up, it's this device.On the surface, at least, there's a little of Papers, Please, Pope's totalitarian passport-checking mega hit. For quite a bit of Mars After Midnight you're guarding a doorway, making sure only certain people come through. But context is everything, and the context here is, well, warm dust, floor polish and feet. You're guarding the entrance to a community centre - a shipping and receiving centre by day, and a community support centre by night. Each night you run a different support group, and you make sure only the correct people attend. Read more


Sat, 23 Mar 2024 19:31:26 +0000

Overwatch 2's beleaguered PvE content has reportedly been scrapped.That's according to Bloomberg, which reported yesterday that following "poor" sales of its prior PvE missions, the company "does not plan to finish" any PvE content currently in development, and will instead "double down" on PvP gameplay. Read more


Sat, 23 Mar 2024 18:59:56 +0000

Final Fantasy 14's Dawntrail will release in full on 2nd July, 2024 – the early access will drop one week prior on 28th June – so both you and the Dawntrail development team has "one week" to get through Elden Ring's eagerly anticipated DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree.Talking at PAX East this weekend, producer/director Naoki "Yoshi-P" Yoshida teased that the team had hoped to open in early access a week earlier but then… "Elden Ring DLC…""We figured everyone would be interested in playing the Elden Ring DLC," Yoshi-P said, and then held up one finger. "I'll give you one week!" Read more


Sat, 23 Mar 2024 18:14:50 +0000

Velan Studios' director of marketing, Josh Harrison, has one recommendation for studios looking to close down or "sunset" a live-service game: "make a private hosted version of your game".Talking at GDC, Harrison said that offering a standalone version of its now shuttered live-service project, Knockout City, was "the single biggest thing [Velan] did to impact the positive reception of the sunset" and not only did it garner positivity from the press and community alike, but it also "keeps the game that everybody worked so hard on alive forever"."If you take one thing away from this talk, this is it: Make a private hosted version of your game," Harrison said at this year's GDC (thanks, PC Gamer). "It is the single biggest thing that we did to impact the positive reception of the sunset. It got great press, got great reactions from players, and ultimately, it keeps the game that everybody at the studio worked so hard on alive forever, even with the live servers offline. Read more


Sat, 23 Mar 2024 17:49:33 +0000

Resident Evil 9 is reportedly being developed as an open-world game.That's according to noted leaker Dusk Golem, who said that following Capcom's improvements to the RE Engine when developing open-world experiences like Dragon's Dogma 2, Capcom is eager to capitalise on the expanded tech when making Monster Hunter Wild and Resident Evil 9."So here's a little tidbit I'll share," Dusk Golem said on X/Twitter. "Capcom often will greenlight new initiatives in threes closer together. Read more


Sat, 23 Mar 2024 15:46:53 +0000

Jyamma Games has "officially apologised to the Xbox community" after deciding not to release the soulslike Enotria: The Last Song on Xbox in order to ensure a "superior experience" for players on PC and PS5.In a press statement, CEO Giacomo Greco apologised for taking so long to tell Xbox players that the game would not be coming to Xbox Series X/S, saying it was a "choice that has just been made" and that "making the release on all platforms would lead to a decrease in the overall quality of the product and a further delay of the same"."I want you to know that the delay caused by the launch on the same date of [Elden Ring's DLC] gave us the opportunity to take more time to further improve the product, this led to raising the bar and, as CEO, I'm responsible for the final quality of the product," Greco said. Read more


Sat, 23 Mar 2024 14:35:21 +0000

New co-op action roguelike, Sworn, will release on PC and consoles later this year, and it's running an open playtest next week.Set in the world of "Arthurian legend", Sworn sees you fight to reach Camelot via a "beautiful, hand-drawn world" that offers multiple biomes and up to four-player co-op so together, you can "combine strengths of characters and individual skills to overcome Arthur and his knights". Read more


Sat, 23 Mar 2024 11:44:58 +0000

GTA 6's development has reportedly fallen so far behind, the eagerly-anticipated game may miss its 2025 release window.Anonymous sources have told Kotaku that development on GTA 6 has "fallen behind", which is allegedly why management has asked developers to return to the office full-time as leadership is worried the game may slip to 2026.Right now, Rockstar is apparently still "aiming" for a spring (Q2) 2025 release, although the same sources suggest that an autumn (Q3) release seems more realistic. Read more


Sat, 23 Mar 2024 10:00:00 +0000

Earlier this year I spoke to Tomas Sala, the developer of The Falconeer and his new game, Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles. I was particularly eager to chat while development on Bulwark was wrapping up, since, as a pretty-much solo developer, Sala's process has always seemed so explorative.In the case of Bulwark, this explorative process has resulted in a truly fascinating game: an adventure that tasks you with building a civilisation in the middle of the ocean. Partly shaped by The Falconeer's universe - and partly shaped by an "evolving demo" - it's another Sala-made game that's impossible to pin down. So how does it feel to emerge from such an intuitive development?How are things? Read more


Fri, 22 Mar 2024 21:57:33 +0000

You might have heard: while Larian isn't done with updating Baldur's Gate 3, the studio's next game won't be Baldur's Gate 4 or anything to do with D&D.But while studio founder and head Swen Vincke mentioned the team was working on "a new thing" in his enjoyably open talk at GDC, it wasn't exactly clear what "new" meant. Speaking to Eurogamer at the event however, Vincke elaborated just a little further. The next thing will be "New in the sense that it is different from the things that we've done before." It will be "Still familiar enough, but different," he said, while the "tone, style, way of doing it, are for us certainly new - and I think very appealing. I would love to talk about it already - because I'm very excited about it - but I can't say more. But it's new in that sense." Read more


Fri, 22 Mar 2024 17:30:20 +0000

Following the release of Echoes of the Fallen in December, Final Fantasy 16 is set to get its next slice of DLC as soon as April. Final Fantasy 16: The Rising Tide - which takes place before the ending of the main game - is set to release in just under a month, on 18th April. This expansion will be available to purchase individually or as part of the discounted Expansion Pass on the PlayStation Store. "An unmarked letter arrives at the hideaway containing a most curious request: the Dominant of Leviathan, the long-lost Eikon of Water, needs rescue," Square Enix teases. "To heed this call, Clive and his companions must journey to Mysidia - a hidden land under a blue sky - where they will uncover the tragic history of a forgotten people." You can check out a new trailer for The Rising Tide below. Read more


Fri, 22 Mar 2024 16:59:03 +0000

Dragon's Dogma 2 is a highly anticipated open-world RPG and the most advanced RE Engine title we've seen to date. Beyond the excellent gameplay and concept, this game undeniably looks good, combining high-detail assets with beautiful lighting, but performance concerns are also widespread amongst reviewers and users alike. With that in mind, how have graphics and performance been balanced in the final release? What compromises does the Series S bear against Series X and PS5, and what about PC performance and visual quality? Dragon's Dogma 2 opens with something unconventionally compelling: an in-depth character creator that provides a lot of flexibility to tweak our Arisen and create something unique. The rendering of the character is impressive, even though high-fidelity facial rendering isn't exactly a key part of the game. Juggling through various presets and options for a few minutes doesn't reveal anything particularly uncanny or off-putting, which is a good accomplishment for this kind of player-driven character editor. After a short introductory sequence, users enter the game's open-world setting proper, which is quite stunning at times. The standout technology here is the game's use of ray-traced global illumination (RTGI), which makes the environmental lighting look consistently high quality across a range of conditions. There's beautiful subtle occlusion in the intersections of rock faces, diffuse shading from tree branches, and fine shadow falloff around the mouths of caves. In these indirectly lit areas - which are already depicting areas of the world that are draped in shadow - there's a fine impression of how light is subtly occluded by surrounding geometry. Read more


Fri, 22 Mar 2024 16:29:32 +0000

A long-running website for Pokémon fan game enthusiasts has shut down after being served a DMCA takedown notice.Relic Castle was a repository and forum for makers and players of Pokémon fan games, and had gained over 20,000 members in almost 10 years. In a statement posted to X, the Relic Castle website revealed it was served a takedown notice, which it has now complied with.Navigating to the Relic Castle website now shows the website has been stripped of all of its resources, other than the statement on the home page. Read more


Fri, 22 Mar 2024 15:19:48 +0000

Enotria: The Last Song was initially set to release in June, but its launch date is being pushed back by developer Jyamma Games, ensuring it avoids a certain Elden Ring DLC. The Italian Soulslike will now release on 21st August, well clear of a clash with the much-anticipated Elden Ring expansion. As well as announcing the new release date, Jyamma Games also said it was no longer planning to launch Enotria: The Last Song on Xbox alongside other platforms. This is to ensure "a superior experience for PC and PS5 players," Jyamma Games CEO Giacomo Greco wrote in a statement on Steam. The exec suggested the studio will reassess an Xbox release once the game has launched elsewhere. Read more


Fri, 22 Mar 2024 13:59:59 +0000

Shinji Mikami, the legendary developer behind Resident Evil and a string of other classics, has founded a new company. Titled as KAMUY, the new company was spotted in a biography for Mikami listed on the official Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered website (thanks, Gematsu). Mikami worked as creative producer on the original Shadows of the Damned game, though is not thought to be directly involved in its upcoming remake. Mikami announced he was quitting his studio Tango Gameworks in February 2023, after 12 years as its CEO. At the time, it was unclear what Mikami would end up doing next. Read more


Fri, 22 Mar 2024 13:48:40 +0000

Path of Exile 2 will no longer have its beta release this summer.The beta's delay was one of several announcements developer Grinding Gear Games made during its three-and-a-half-hour-long showcase yesterday. The showcase included a reveal of the ranger class from Path of Exile 1 which will be available in the sequel, and details on the next expansion, Necropolis, which will release for the original game on 29th March. Read more


Fri, 22 Mar 2024 12:41:24 +0000

Ubisoft's open-world RPG Star Wars Outlaws has been rated in South Korea as adults only due to its inclusion of in-game gambling elements.The game's 19+ rating was published yesterday on the website for the Game Rating and Administration Committee, the South Korean games rating board, as spotted by reddit user Ajxtt.According to the GRAC's rating guide, a 19+ rating is used when its deemed that a game contains "representations of anti-societal idea, religion and public morals that would be harmful to children under 19 emotionally and physically". Read more


Fri, 22 Mar 2024 12:34:11 +0000

The rather charming-looking Harold Halibut has landed itself a release date. The stop-motion-style narrative game will arrive across PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on 16th April. It will also be available on Game Pass. "Having a release date is incredible and surreal to us! It represents the end of an era: The marathon of bringing this dream of ours to light," the team at Slow Bros. said following this announcement. Read more


Fri, 22 Mar 2024 12:00:00 +0000

Oh, and we're off into the hot zone, and with a hot phone. There's snow on the ground in Verdansk, but after five minutes of playing the mobile version of Call of Duty Warzone this morning, my aging iPhone 11 was getting pleasantly warm. Warzone's a beast on phones, actually: even before the game began, there was a battle royale of sorts as I deleted apps to free up space. Then the download. Then the various EULAs and all that jazz.But it's a beast where it counts, too. This is Warzone on phones, and I think it's probably a pretty decent version of that concept. You can automate plenty of actions and resize elements of the HUD, and within a few seconds after loading up, I was into my tutorial missions, settling into 'left thumb to move and right to aim' and choosing between auto-fire, which kicks in politely once you're hovering over a target, and manual fire. (I chose auto because I'm old, and it's fine if a bit leisurely when it comes to starting to shoot. I suspect the pros will all opt for manual.) Mess around with the buttons for aim-down-sight, jumping, and crouching, and then I was off into the AO.Graphically it's pretty good! I don't really see COD as a game where the finer details of the environment truly matter; it's more important that things move at a clip, as Warzone on mobiles does. The draw distance is generous and, while I had worried about visibility issues with spotting enemies on the horizon on such a small screen, I've been fine so far, even with my 45-year-old eyes. The whole thing's as battery hungry as you'd expect, but it also does a good job of feeling like proper Warzone. The launch pages are a muddle of Battle Passes (the Pass costs 1100 CP, incidentally, which, with a current 10 percent bonus in the shop, translates to £8.39), event notices and flash sales, and the main mode offers 120 players - although given the number of people I've actually been able to kill so far, I suspect there are quite a few bots knocking about. Read more


Fri, 22 Mar 2024 11:59:47 +0000

2022's Horizon Forbidden West is one of the most technically accomplished games produced for PS5, and today it gets a full release on PC with the Complete Edition that aims to add in new features and scale gracefully across a wide range of CPU and GPU hardware. Porting specialists Nixxes created this new edition of the game with original Horizon Forbidden West developers Guerrilla Games, and key members of both teams spoke to Digital Foundry's Alex Battaglia ahead of the game's PC release. From Nixxes, this interview includes Patrick Den Bekker (principal lead programmer), Craig Leach (senior systems programmer), Michiel Roza (principal optimisation programmer) and Julian Huijbregts (community manager). Guerrilla is represented by Jeroen Krebbers (lead tech programmer), Jeremy Laumon (principal tech programmer) and Misja Baas (senior art director). As usual, the text has been edited for length and clarity. Read more


Fri, 22 Mar 2024 11:30:16 +0000

Game of the Week is a column exclusive to Supporters of Eurogamer. If you'd like to become one, it's £3/€3/$3 a month, or £30/€30/$30 a year, and for that you get an advert-free website, access to exclusive articles and podcasts, and more.I love an exciting moment in games, and there are few more exciting than the arrival of an unexpectedly brilliant game. That's not to throw any shade at Dragon's Dogma 2, by the way, only to say I didn't realise it would be as good as it apparently is. That's why it's our Game of the Week and not Rise of the Ronin or Princess Peach: Showtime! instead, both of which are very strong in their own right.What a golden five-star moment such as Dragon's Dogma 2's does is pull people in beyond the audience the game would normally get, a bit like a black hole out for a stroll somewhere, which in turn leads to a wonderful moment where newcomers are sucked in and experience something very loudly for the first time. What is this, they collectively bellow, and why haven't we seen it before? They are people like me who flock to see what the five stars are all about, and then bump into something quirky, like the game's ridiculous ye olde English, and say they can't believe this is what constitutes a five these days. Whoops! I'm giving away my commenting habits again. Read more


Fri, 22 Mar 2024 11:28:19 +0000

UPDATE 12.40am: As I was writing this morning's story, Capcom released a blog post regarding Dragon's Dogma 2.Here, the developer acknowledged the game's performance issues further, stating it will be addressing crashes and bug fixes in a future patch. It once again affirmed it is also looking at a way to improve the game's frame-rate.Capcom also addressed Dragon's Dogma 2's paid DLC, sharing a list of items that can both be purchased or obtained in-game. These items are as follows: Read more


Fri, 22 Mar 2024 11:03:24 +0000

Larian Studios won't be making any expansions for Baldur's Gate 3, but the developer isn't quite done with the game yet.Following Larian founder Swen Vincke's GDC talk yesterday, in which he confirmed the company would not make Baldur's Gate 4 or any BG3 expansions, Vincke took to social media platform X to talk more about the studio's future with BG3 and clarify its future plans."I understand there will be disappointment because people fell in love with what we created," Vincke said of the popular RPG, "but it was a story with a beginning, middle and an end and it doesn't need more". Baldur's Gate 3 and its characters "now belong to [Dungeons & Dragons owner Wizards of the Coast]," he said, adding he thinks the properties will be "treated with respect". Read more


Fri, 22 Mar 2024 10:51:11 +0000

A third of staff are at risk of losing their jobs at Velan Studios, the company behind Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit and shutdown dodgeball game Knockout City. Velan Studios announced the likelihood of layoffs in a statement from the company's founders, Guha and Karthik Bala, who said that 46 people out of the team's current total of 121 had been given notice their positions may be impacted. In the statement, posted to social media platform X, the founders blamed a "major project" being "suddenly cancelled by an external partner, which means we may not be able to maintain our full studio size". Read more


Fri, 22 Mar 2024 10:31:06 +0000

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: zombies, personas, and erased names.If you fancy catching up on some of the older editions of What We've Been Playing, here's our archive.It seems strange to be playing a series in reverse. Persona 5 was my introduction to the RPG series and I loved it, but last year's Persona 4 re-release left me cold once I realised just how formulaic the series is. Armed with that knowledge, though, I'm enjoying Persona 3 Reload a lot more. Read more


Fri, 22 Mar 2024 00:02:43 +0000

Surprising the audience at his GDC talk today, Larian's founder and CEO Swen Vincke announced the Baldur's Gate 3 and Divinity: Original Sin developer won't be making any DLC or expansions for the game, and in fact will be leaving the Dungeons & Dragons world behind entirely. Finishing up his talk, Vincke said: "I told you at the beginning that we were a company of big ideas. We are not a company that's made to create DLCs, expansions. We tried that actually, a few times. We failed every time - it's not our thing. Life is too short. Our ambitions are very large." Vincke continued, "Baldur's Gate will always have a warm spot in our heart. We'll forever be proud of it, but we're not gonna continue in it. We're not gonna make new expansions, which everybody is expecting us to do. We're not gonna make Baldur's Gate 4, which everyone is expecting us to do. We're gonna move on - we're gonna move away from D&D and start making a new thing. Read more


Thu, 21 Mar 2024 22:00:00 +0000

Despite months in Steam Early Access and hundreds of positive player reviews, Stellaris Nexus is no more. Instead, the spin-off is taking the rare step of rebranding itself - dropping its Stellaris branding entirely - to launch with a new name. Announced last year as a speedier version of the 4X genre, the project will now be called Nexus 5X (the fifth 'X' is for 'eXpress'). "The whole point of Early Access is to figure out what about your game works and what needs to be better - and the big lesson for us was that our name needed to be better," Whatboy Games studio director Dax Ginn told Eurogamer. Read more


Thu, 21 Mar 2024 21:15:00 +0000

Still Wakes the Deep, the promising-looking narrative horror game set on an oil rig, will launch for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on 18th June. This is the much-anticipated next project from British studio The Chinese Room, which previously made Dear Esther, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture. Set on a remote Scottish oil rig in the 1970s, Still Wakes the Deep looks to be an atmospheric period horror piece with a dash of the supernatural and plenty of psychological fear elements. You play as a worker on the platform, initially surrounded by a crew - at least, until disaster strikes. Read more


Thu, 21 Mar 2024 17:31:18 +0000

Apple is facing another antitrust lawsuit - this time from the US government.Earlier today, the US Department of Justice announced it is suing Apple for monopolising the smartphone market. The lawsuit has been filed by the Department of Justice, 15 other state and district attorneys general, and Washington DC, in the District Court of New Jersey. In the lawsuit, the Department of Justice alleges Apple engages in an "anticompetitive course of conduct", using tactics such as making it difficult for consumers to switch to other smartphone platforms, maintaining a closed-off system which is incompatible with apps and peripherals from other companies, and blocking third-party digital wallets. Of most relevant to video games, perhaps, is the claim Apple has blocked the development of cloud-streaming game apps. Read more


Thu, 21 Mar 2024 17:19:49 +0000

Capcom has confirmed it is aware of frame rate issues in Dragon's Dogma 2 on PC and is looking to improve performance in the future. The open world RPG is released tomorrow, 22nd March, but does suffer from an inconsistent frame rate when playing on PC. "In Dragon's Dogma 2, a large amount of CPU usage is allocated to each character and calculating the impact of their physical presence in various areas. In certain situations where numerous characters appear simultaneously, the CPU usage can be very high and may affect the frame rate," reads a statement from Capcom shared with Eurogamer. Read more

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