Latest Articles (Page 222)

Cyberpunk 2077 is sitting at a "very positive" aggregate score on Steam for the first time.

Dragon Quest Treasures is now available on PC via Steam, including Steam Deck.

The teenager charged with hacking and then blackmailing a string of companies, including Uber, Nvidia, and GTA 6 developer Rockstar, has been deemed unfit to stand trial.

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has had what may be its final attempt to block Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard denied.

It took Geometric Interactive a while to find the insect in Cocoon, though it's perhaps more accurate to say that the insect found Cocoon, pupating of its own accord from the texture of this delightful but oh so eerie top-down puzzle-platformer. "When I joined the studio, the demo was just like, 2D pixels with blocks," says Erwin Kho, art director. "The little character that you're moving around was a white box with sort of a brown basket on their back. And I think we all gravitated towards sci-fi, so I just immediately started doing things with astronauts or robots.

Alex Nichiporchik, CEO of Hello Neighbor publisher TinyBuild, has raised eyebrows during a keynote in which he outlined potential uses of AI tools in the workplace, including the monitoring of employee Slack messages and meeting transcriptions to help identify "potential problematic players" - a discussion he has since insisted was "hypothetical".

If you've ever had the overwhelming desire to feel exactly what it would be like to shimmy up a wall in 9th-century Baghdad, help is at hand; a company has just announced a "haptic gaming suit" that'll be compatible with - and themed around - the upcoming Assassin's Creed Mirage.

Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb, long one of the most recognisable presences on the Xbox team, has announced his departure from Microsoft after 22 years.

Atari's 1979 arcade classic Lunar Lander is being reimagined by Dreams Uncorporated, the studio behind last year's striking Cris Tales, for release in early 2024.

Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass Friends and Family preview will come to a close next month, on 15th August.

UPDATE 4pm UK: Genshin Impact developer miHoYo has issued a firm response to news that several of the game's voice actors were still waiting to be paid for work completed months ago.

Forspoken was one of the most promising early PS5 showings, revealed with death-defying parkour, wide-open landscapes and beautiful visuals throughout. At launch, the game was far less impressive though - a repetitive, empty game with surprisingly dated graphics despite its high budget. A dedicated patching campaign seems to have improved the title's plight, with reported visual and performance improvements in tow as of version 1.2. Have recent patches turned Forspoken into a technically sound title, or does the game remain a bit of an open-world mess? Some might say it's both of these things, but let's be clear - improved lighting, dramatically better ambient occlusion, higher resolutions and even superior frame-rates represents an often night-and-day improvement over the original launch.

Simogo's Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is a game about "unravelling a big secret".

PlayStation pasta is now available to purchase, for all your culinary needs.

FC 24, the first game from EA Sports since it left the big FIFA licence behind, got off to a slightly awkward start with its first big reveal earlier this week, when its Ultimate Edition cover art took a bit of a ribbing from fans.

The Last of us composer Gustavo Santaolalla has suggested that a new version of Part 2 is on the horizon.

Noctivagant is a word worth knowing. According to Penguin's beloved Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Words, it means "night-wandering", and there are quotes from T.C. Boyle and John Gardner to illustrate it. (We're also asked to compare with "divagate," which I'm delighted to discover means "to wander about, to take a side trip." Apologies for this divagation.) Anyway, noctivagant: it rules. I try to get it in print around once a year. I guess I'm sorted for 2023.

Insomniac has released Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart's PC specifications.

Microsoft previously forecasted that Starfield and Indiana Jones and The Great Circle would sell 10m units on Playstation consoles, before deciding to make them both Xbox console exclusives.

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority has extended its deadline for a final decision on Microsoft's Activision Blizzard takeover bid.

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has seen its initial motion to appeal against this week's Microsoft and Activision Blizzard ruling promptly denied.

UPDATE 14/7/23: Craig Mazin has debunked the report suggesting he used a pseudonym to distance himself from the upcoming Borderlands adaptation, stating it is "false".

Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've found ourselves playing over the last few days. This time: sports, more sports, and sports.

I saw sides to Baldur's Gate 3 last week - at an event for the launch version of the game (due 3rd August on PC) - I didn't realise were there. I saw the game transform into a horror not far removed from Silent Hill, in an eerie Victorian-style hospital where nurses with rotten faces cooed around a grotesque surgeon who had scalpels for fingers and torture on his mind. I saw the game revel in gore through a headline-grabbing Dark Urge origin players can choose to play with, although it's not recommended for first-timers because, at certain points, The Dark Urge will take over your character and make you do horrendous things that will change your playthrough irrevocably. Seriously; I offed a major companion at the beginning of the game and that's it for me now - they're dead forever. I loved it.

Antstream Arcade is soon to launch as the first third-party cloud gaming service on Xbox.

It is, alas, almost time to bid a fond farewell to Henry Cavill's stoically sweary take on Geralt of Rivia in Netflix's The Witcher adaptation. He'll be hanging up his sword and locks of white in the show's upcoming Season 3 Volume 2, which Netlix is now teasing in a newly released trailer.

After developer Larian shifted the release date of Baldur's Gate 3 forward a month to avoid clashing with Bethesda's highly anticipated Starfield, Dragon Age creator David Gaider's roleplaying musical Stray Gods is now moving back a week to avoid Baldur's Gate 3.

This year's Call of Duty is still awaiting its official reveal, but that hasn't stopped an actor - who claims his likeness is being used for a main role in next year's instalment - from revealing what may well be the first story details for Call of Duty 2024.

EA has finally whipped back the veil of secrecy around its FIFA replacement EA Sports FC in cash-splashing style, revealing a whole heap of new league licensing deals, new gameplay details, and (as widely expected) a release date of 29th September this year.

Sony has announced its Access controller for PlayStation 5 will launch globally on 6th December.