Latest Articles (Page 919)

Never mind Thanos - who would be foolish enough to take on Avengers: Endgame? The blockbuster has felt like global culture's ultimate end-of-level boss, dominating the online conversation while raking in over two billion dollars in less than two weeks. Yet one other franchise went toe-to-toe with Endgame last month, attempting to make an artistic and commercial dent in the same release window. Was that brave? Foolish? Or simply an act of hubris comparable to creating a cool playable ninja that is you and your buddy's surnames backwards?

State of Play, PlayStation's own take on a Nintendo Direct, will return to your screens this week.

We're still a month away from E3, but Ubisoft is ready to tip its hand on a big 2019 reveal a little early.

I'll admit I was at the nodding-off stage with Forager when I discovered the weird altar thing. Forager is an exploration and crafting game, and it's also a clicker game. Everything you do makes the numbers go up, and everything you get for making the numbers go up makes the numbers go up faster. This is why I was starting to nod off, I think. Forager is filled with bespoke wonders, but they are delivered via a deliriously enjoyable grind. A luxurious grind. Grind that is like a warm bubble bath. Grind that might make you nod off.

The arrival of Nvidia's RTX line of graphics cards may not have immediately ushered in a new era of games built around the concept of ray traced rendering but it has put the technique on the map, with results impressive enough to inspire developers to add ray traced effects to existing games - several of which do not actually require Nvidia hardware acceleration. We recently looked at a stunning path traced version of Minecraft, but what if RT techniques could be applied to all DirectX9 and DirectX11 games? And what happens if we apply that new technology to classic PC mangler, Crysis? Watch the video embedded on this page and you'll see that it works to a transformative degree - albeit with limitations.

The final frames of this year's World Snooker Championship will take place later today, and a new Hearthstone meta is in full swing too. Republished from 2015, here's John Bedford's take on the curious mind games that unite the worlds of the Crucible and the tavern.

EA has added 12 Star Wars games to its PC subscription service, Origin Access, including the original Battlefront II.

Ubisoft is doubling down on efforts to prevent grey market PC code sales with a new process called silent key activation.

Microsoft has updated its community standards for players and included some examples of how - and how not to - behave online.

Released towards the tail-end of PS2's lifespan, Final Fantasy 12 is a masterpiece in JRPG design that holds up beautifully in its modern day remasters for current-gen hardware. We've seen PC, PS4 and Pro releases of FF12: The Zodiac Age - each delivering higher resolutions and improved effects. But now there are two new further updated releases of the Square classic with even more to offer. FF12 is now available on Switch while enticingly, the Xbox One X version offers the first chance to play this iconic game at 60 frames per second on a console. Portable FF12 or full frame-rate - which offers the best way to play? And how do the existing PS4 versions compare?

PlatinumGames has teased it's working on a new game that is "unlike anything done before".

Xbox's Phil Spencer has revealed Microsoft's game-streaming service, Project xCloud, has moved to its "take home" release.

17,000 Pokémon Go and Ingress players have helped developer Niantic collect 145 tons of rubbish across the world in celebration of Earth Day 2019, smashing the company's top target of attracting 7000 players.

Claptrap voice actor David Eddings is reportedly not reprising his role in Borderlands 3 because development studio Gearbox "all of a sudden [...] couldn't afford [him]".

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice may be a bit of a departure for From Software, but, like all the studio's recent work, it's resurrected the discussion regarding difficulty in video games.

Fresh-faced battle royale shooter Apex Legends is a hit, having already amassed well over 50 million players. But if we've learned anything about online games over the years, it's that big success inevitably heralds an endless parade of unscrupulous sorts, eager to ruin legitimate players' games - and Apex Legend is no exception. Developer Respawn has revealed that it's now banned over 770K very naughty players, and doesn't intend to stop anytime soon.

In response to threats of staff walkouts, League of Legends developer Riot Games has made 13 specific commitments to improving its much-maligned studio culture, all rolling out within the next 90 days. It has also promised to scrap its mandatory arbitration clause in new employee contracts.

Mordhau is a medieval multiplayer slasher built around first-person hand-to-hand combat. It's daft, gory, and has rocketed up Steam's concurrent player chart since launching on April 29th. Unfortunately, its sudden success has caught developer Triternion off-guard, with wonky server performance rather spoiling the fun of lopping someone's head off with a well-swung sword.

A few days ago, Pokémon Go fans around the world were surprised when Niantic announced the latest legendaries would be given a wild release for the first time ever. Almost as surprising is the news these legendaries are now catchable in tier five raids - only two days after debuting in the wild.

Total War developer Creative Assembly believes it would be "really stung" by reviewers if multiplayer - still a relatively new addition to the game's turn-based campaign mode - was removed.

Pokémon's upcoming live-action Detective Pikachu movie will star up-and-coming actor Justice Smith, Variety reports.

Anyone who's kept an eye on the recent Borderlands 3 livestream and subsequent Twitter furore will know there's been plenty of confusion over the game's monetisation system over the past few days.

BioWare has insisted it remains committed to embattled looter shooter Anthem after players expressed concern about key developers potentially moving on to Dragon Age 4.

Following a surprise million-selling launch for co-operative Left-4-Dead-a-like zombie shooter World War Z last month, developer Saber Interactive has unveiled a new post-launch content roadmap, outlining a variety of free updates.

It's been almost four months since Life is Strange 2's second episode arrived, but now, finally, Episode 3 is on the cusp of release. As previously announced, it comes to Xbox One, PS4, and PC on 9th May, and developer Dontnod has released a brand-new trailer to celebrate.

You'd think it wouldn't need to be said, but due to several recent reports detailing the severity of crunch problems in the games industry, many studio bosses have begun criticising unsustainable work schedules for developers - particularly for live service games. The latest of these is Chris Wilson, Grinding Gear Games co-founder and lead developer for action role-playing game Path of Exile.

Super Mario Odyssey and Zelda: Breath of the Wild running in virtual reality on Switch? Count us in. On paper, the idea sounds insane - but from Gear VR to Oculus Quest, there's a proven track record of mobile chipsets delivering some good experiences. On top of that, as Martin and Ian have already described, Labo VR's various demos, games and experiences are an absolute delight. But pushing VR to titles that already tax Switch hardware to its limits? That's another challenge altogether.

Dealing with criticism - particularly from random people on the internet - can be difficult for anyone, but the developers of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night seem to have responded to some scathing comments in a pretty spectacular way: by mocking their own game, of course.

"Blades, at its heart, is a pure Elder Scrolls game; a massive, first-person RPG with console-quality graphics. Yes, running on a phone - it really looks and plays incredible." That's what Todd Howard said at E3 when he announced The Elder Scrolls: Blades to the world, and it sounded quite exciting. Except, it's a load of old tosh. Blades isn't a pure Elder Scrolls game and it doesn't have console-quality graphics, unless we're talking about an old console, nor does it play incredibly.

If you can't rely on the present to deliver solid Star Wars games, we can at least look to the past - and thanks to Steam and GOG that just got a whole lot easier, as the Star Wars Battlefront game from 2004 has just been made available on both stores.