Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is a game that I have been waiting a long time for. It's not quite the first 40k video game that I dreamed of - that'd be the Primarch fighting game my friends and I dreamed up at age 11 - but ever since getting over my youthful "wow, cool Space Marine" phase, I've wanted a 40k game that really gets into the finer details of the setting.

The Imperium, the form that human society takes in the grim darkness of the far future, is by far the best thing about 40k - but it's frequently obfuscated. 40k adaptations tend to either go all in on the action, or stick with the warfare and high level strategy of the tabletop game. On top of that, I suspect Games Workshop's need to market to children conflicts with how truly horrible the Imperium is. After all, it's much easier to get Little Timmy's Mum to splash out on toy soldiers when they're depicted as heroic defenders of humanity, instead of the brainwashed fascist enforcers they truly are. As a result, the darkly satirical elements of 40k tend to be buried in the novels and other ancillary media, making it all too easy to take the surface at face value.

I am slightly kicking myself for not taking Friday off to chase what was possibly the final good snow of winter. Well, I say "good snow", it wasn't great. It quickly turned to sleet in many places and was carried by monstrous gusts in others. I likely would have ended up sodden and sullen halfway up a hill. But what if...! Ah well, what are you playing this weekend? Here's what we're clicking on!

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VTuber Eilene posted her will on YouTube, explaining that her business partner (H) defrauded her for over 20 million yen (around $134k). She explains in a statement that she is telling her story in hopes that she can prevent someone else going through what she did in the future, and that she wants someone to help her family after she is gone.

The whole message and story is available on both Eilene’s YouTube account and her Twitter (X) account. To summarize, Eilene explains that she created a certain VTuber agency (H) in 2022 and sold her company after she became sick. She sold it to a Chinese person (G) with powerful connections and a lot of money. However, G refused to pay the livers in the agency, as well as insulted VTubers in the company. For a year and a half, Eilene had to work for free and pay the livers out of her own pocket.

In a recent interview with Famitsu, Silent Hill: The Short Message Producer and Director Motoi Okamoto talked about the decision to release the game for free. [Thanks, Famitsu!]

During the interview, Okamoto revealed that the original purpose of creating the game was for research and development, and so that younger audiences unfamiliar with the series could access the game easily and without reservations. The developer also said that, while the series has a well-established popularity it hasn’t received a game for more than 10 years, so even if people know the game a lot of them have not played a game.

Additionally, Okamoto mentioned that had Silent Hill: The Short Message been a paid title, the developers might have needed to add more conventional elements to the title such as combat mechanics, or include various different endings.

Atlus will release a new issue of the Persona Magazine for the first time in 5 years to celebrate the release of Persona 3 Reload. The last issue of Persona Magazine came out in 2019 with the release of Persona 5 Royal. [Thanks, PR Times!]

The main focus of the new magazine is the P3 series, including the latest Persona 3 Reload. Some of the issue's features include interviews with the development team of the latest remake, a new Tartarus Theater four-panel comedy manga, and various appendices with information on the games. A smaller section of the magazine will also include an art gallery for Persona 5 Tactica.

The Persona Magazine #2024 Spring issue is set to be released on March 22, 2024, in Japan, and pre-orders are now open. The regular edition costs 3,300 yen (or about $22.) Meanwhile, the limited edition Ebten DX Pack costs 5,500 yen (~$37,) and it can be pre-ordered from the Atlus Ebten online store. The limited edition includes a tapestry featuring the illustration cover art of the P3R Famitsu issue drawn by Shigeki Soejima.

You can check out the cover for the new issue as well as the tapestry here:

Whenever a Mario Kart entry arrives, it immediately becomes a must-have on its respective platform, thanks to its universal appeal to gamers of all experience and ability levels. That widespread appeal has translated to sales, as nearly every Mario Kart game ranks near the top of its platform's sales chart. But it goes beyond mainstream success; Mario Kart is fun whether you're spending the evening alone perfecting a drift around a corner or gathering your closest friends for a marathon session. 

Sure, the rubberband A.I. and the randomization elements are enough to make us want to jump up and down in frustration, but it's never quite enough to deter us from driving up to the next starting line. Check out our ranking of the entire Mario Kart series below, and let us know how you would rank the series in the comments section!

Hello everyone. Welcome to Friday. You made it to the end of the week. Congrats. I have a treat for you all: Taco Bell’s 2024 Live Mas Event. What’s that? It’s basically a Taco Bell mini-E3 complete with musical acts, announcements, and all the cringey moments you crave from something like this. Yes, if you guessed…

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Within the last few years, video game industry layoffs have unfortunately become more commonplace. In 2023, we saw near-weekly layoffs across the entire industry. When the dust had settled, at least 6,000 jobs across publishers, developers, and other video game-related companies had been terminated. Sadly, it appears…

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A recreation of the original 1997 RPG, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth lets us revisit more than a few classic video game locales. The demo is set in Nibelheim, Cloud’s hometown, and it has been beautifully recreated, featuring his and Tifa’s home, the Mt. Nibel reactor, and, of course, Shinra Manor.

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This week on All Things Nintendo, we have a party for Mario Party! The long-running four-player party series starring everyone's favorite cast from the Mushroom Kingdom turned 25 this week, so Brian and guest Dom Mahoney from Wicked Good Gaming talk about the first game's development and legacy. Before that, the two get caught up on all the latest news from the world of Nintendo.

If you'd like to follow Brian on social media, you can do so on Instagram/Threads( @BrianPShea) or Twitter (@BrianPShea). You can also follow Dom on Twitter (@WGGPapaDom). You can find Not Another Gaming Podcast on Spotify or wherever else you get your podcasts.

The All Things Nintendo podcast is a weekly show where we celebrate, discuss, and break down all the latest games, news, and announcements from the industry's most recognizable name. Each week, Brian is joined by different guests to talk about what's happening in the world of Nintendo. Along the way, they'll share personal stories, uncover hidden gems in the eShop, and even look back on the classics we all grew up with. A new episode hits every Friday!

Nitroplus published a new trailer for Dolls Nest. Even though the trailer is officially titled "Dolls Nest Story PV," it also includes a sneak peek of the customization and action gameplay in the upcoming mecha musume/girl action game. The Japanese game publisher has also opened a Steam page for the title.

When Nitroplus uploaded the first teaser trailer in late October 2023, it barely provided any details about Dolls Nest other than that it is slated to appear on Steam. With this new trailer, the studio also announced a 2024 release window for the game.

Users on YouTube and X/Twitter have been comparing Dolls Nest to Armored Core, and the newly published trailer further reinforces that idea. The character customization examples shown in Dolls Nest so far include the spider-like quad legs and tank-like caterpillar treads. Meanwhile, the action gameplay footage features sideway boosts that are used frequently by Armored Core players. The video also teases battles against gigantic machines in a similar fashion to Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon.

Bandai announced that it will release a new line of Splatoon 3 toys, which consist of Golden Egg Power Egg bath bombs with Smallfry figures inside them. They will debut in Japan on February 26, 2024 for ¥495 (~$3.30). [Thanks, Game Watch!]

In Splatoon 3, there will be times when people will collect Salmonid Power Eggs and Golden Eggs. They feature prominently in Salmon Run. Someone could consider the bath bomb “hatching” when placed in water. It features a chamomile scent as it dissolves. 

Inside the bath bomb will be one of seven different Splatoon 3 Smallfry figures. Each one is designed to resemble the mascot character that accompanies the player during the campaign, right down to the different possible hairstyles a person can set for them. Each one also comes with a green, purple, or yellow ink splatter that can be used as a stand when displaying them. 

Here’s a closer look at all the upcoming figure options:

An upcoming game about taking planet-wrecking corporations to court hopes to go beyond its onscreen battles by raising money for real-life environmental aid. Behind All Rise is a team including both climate experts and top-notch games talent with credits spanning Horizon Forbidden West, Thirsty Suitors, League of Legends and Paradise Killer.

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In the first four decades of the Super Mario series, Mario and his friends appeared in hundreds of titles, but in the core "Super Mario" series, the plumber was present in just 22 titles (if you include Lost Levels, Bowser's Fury, and Super Mario Run). While the series has some entries that are stronger than others, the Super Mario series doesn’t have a bad entry to date, so this list proved difficult to put together in an order we all felt comfortable with.

In 2018, we ranked the top 300 games of all time in our 300th issue. While that list was more about ranking games in terms of quality, importance to the industry, and cultural relevance, this list is just about our favorite games. So check out our rankings of the 22 core Super Mario games below!

Our Top 300 Games of All Time

In our  April 2018 issue, we ranked the top 300 games of all time. As you may have guessed, Mario’s core series made several appearances on that list. That list may have had different criteria than this one, but now you can check out where Mario fell on our list of the top 300 games of all time in 2018.

Given the nature of the series Jujutsu Kaisen, a fighting game based on it only seemed to make sense. And so, now there’s one available worldwide. Siliconera spoke with Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash Producer Misaki Kai to learn more about how characters were picked and gameplay was implemented for this latest take on the series.

Jenni Lada: When did work start on Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash?

Misaki Kai:We have talked with Shueisha, the IP owner, for a while regarding the project, but the development itself took around two and a half years.

How familiar were you with the series before you started working on the game?

Kai: Personally, I was already a fan since it was still serialized in JUMP GIGA. I remember how happy I was as a fan when it was later serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump.

There are 16 playable characters in Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash. How did you determine who would and wouldn’t make it in for this first fighting game?

We all sort of know that Sony’s PS5 is outselling Microsoft’s Xbox Series X/S. Sony gives us sales data, Microsoft hasn’t in years. You generally don’t stay quiet about that stuff when the news is great. And new data seems to indicate what we all suspected: The Xbox Series X/S is getting shellacked by the PS5, with…

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Former Fortnite and Blizzard developers have formed new studio Lightforge Games to make a multiplayer RPG that applies the collaborative world-building and storytelling of original tabletop Dungeons & Dragons to the polished video game presentation of its successors in the likes of Baldur's Gate 3.

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Developers Ludosity and Fair Play Labs announced today that Mr. Krabs from SpongeBob SquarePants will join the Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 roster next week. The Bikini Bottom resident joins his neighbors SpongeBob, Patrick, Squidward, and Mecha Plankton, who were all part of the platform fighter's launch roster.

Mr. Krabs arrives on February 15 as the first character included in the Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 Season Pass. That pass costs $25 and grants you access to four additional characters – Mr. Krabs from SpongeBob SquarePants, Zuko and Iroh from Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Rocksteady from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – throughout 2024, as well as "The Quickster" outfit for SpongeBob. 

Get ready, Mr. Krabs drops on 2.15!#NASB2 pic.twitter.com/p3RQmhxYKZ

— Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl (@NickBrawlGame) February 9, 2024

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 arrived on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC on November 7, 2023. For more on the platform fighter, check out our review here.

Jagex, the British developers of veteran fantasy MMO RuneScape, have announced their acquisition by a potentially surprising new owner: the private equity firm best-known for owning major sports brands including Six Nations Rugby, Spanish football league LaLiga, French football governing body Ligue de Football and the Women’s Tennis Association. The deal was reportedly closed for almost a billion pounds.

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Back when the Pokémon anime first premiered in the ‘90s, nearly every kid had a Pokédex—the renowned red device that identified the delightful creatures—on their wish list. Nearly three decades later, a YouTuber has created a real-life version of the Pokédex using ChatGPT—and it looks like it actually works.

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Bandai has published more details about Ride Kamens. The new Kamen Rider-themed mobile game will be available in early summer 2024. Ride Kamens will feature sixteen characters split into five groups.

The company also revealed the game's world setting on the Japanese official website. The player will take the role of an Agent who supports the Kamen Riders while managing the Kamen Cafe and Rider Station as bases of operations.

The characters who can transform into Kamen Riders will be grouped into five different class groups, with each group having its own primary activity area. So far, Bandai has revealed five out of the sixteen total characters. One of them is the character featured in the initial teaser, and he shall now be known as Saigo Mikami.

Here are the Ride Kamens characters known so far—along with their voice actors and affiliations—as listed in the image from left to right:

• Taiten Takato - Voiced by Jun Fukuyama - Affiliated with Tower Emblem - Residing in Corporation District

Every RPG faithful has that formative experience that turned them into a lifelong fan. But what if you could experience it again for the first time? Or if you could recommend it to those who haven’t played it without needing to explain away the parts that haven’t aged well? In today’s gaming landscape, remasters are common, but we’ve seen an influx of full-on remakes of classic role-playing games in recent years.

While 1990’s Ys I & II is likely the earliest example of remade role-playing games, perhaps the most prominent early examples came in the form of the Pokémon franchise. Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen, 2004 remakes of the series’ debut titles less than a decade after their initial release, showcased the technological leap from original Game Boy to Game Boy Advance. However, when those games were remade for a second time through Pokémon Let’s Go, Pikachu & Let’s Go, Eevee on Switch in 2018, it was an even bigger jump ahead.

After all the delays, trailers, and start-and-stop hype cycles, Ubisoft’s highly(?) anticipated pirate sim Skull and Bones is in beta. The game was meant to release in 2018, then 2019, but at least now there’s an open beta and your progress will carry over into Skull and Bones when it launches on February 16. So,…

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It’s a new month, which means that PlayStation Plus subscribers have a new collection of games to download for free. For February, PS Plus has added Steelrising and Square Enix’s multiplayer shooter Foamstars. But the highlight of the new offerings is Rollerdrome from developer Roll7. The third-person…

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Ahead of the Lunar New Year, The Pokemon Company International and Hanmu Chunhua (HMCH) shared a new Pokemon anime short called “Tadaima.” The over two and a half minute short features lots of people and their Pokemon heading home to spend time with family and friends for the holiday. 

Every “story” in the Pokemon “Tadaima” short is told entirely without dialogue. For example, around the three second mark we see a young man boxing with a Lucario. At the 1:06 point, that same character reunite with his mother, who then embarrasses him with her concern over a boxing injury to his face. The first portion of the video covers people getting ready or heading out, followed by them all traveling back in different ways. After that, we see folks reunite, all before everyone starts celebrating the Lunar New Year with fireworks, festivals, and loved ones. 

Here’s the full Pokemon “Tadaima” short:

Romance sim masquerading as fantasy RPG Baldur's Gate 3 is putting vaseline on its lips, wiggling a little bit of tongue out and practising in the mirror for its next big update. That’s right, just in time for Valentine’s Day (or maybe just after), Larian are dropping the “Improved Smooches” patch.

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My excitement for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth went into overdrive this week. Not only did we get 20 more minutes of its gorgeous open worlds, mini-games and story nuggets to gawp over this week thanks to Sony's dedicated State Of Play stream for it, but the internet has also been awash with previews, interviews and all sorts of other Final Fantasy-shaped goodies. Honestly, it's like a second Christmas for me over here at the moment, it's great.

But one thing that really stuck out to me this week was a comment made by series producer Yoshinori Kitase in an interview with our friends at Eurogamer. When they asked him why remake Final Fantasy 7 at all, his response hit me much harder than I was expecting. He said that the original FF7 is "probably going to be always that game my dad played, and I don't want it to be that." Aside from making me crumble to dust with irrelevancy, this really got me thinking about older games, the way we play them now, and just what role remakes and remasters have in today's PC gaming landscape. So come and feel incredibly old with me as I try and get my (very jumbled and loosely-related) thoughts in order.

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We’ve arrived at another weekend. But it’s no ordinary weekend, since there’s now a demo for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth we can play through a million times before the game launches on February 29 (there’s also an open-world section that’ll be added to said demo later this month).

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Hideo Kojima dropped a bombshell at the end of January, announcing that - alongside development of Death Stranding 2 - he would also be returning to the action-espionage genre that put him on the map with the Metal Gear series, in the form of Physint for PlayStation 5. And now, in a new episode of his HideoTube web series, the designer has explained how a period of sickness and surgery - and thoughts of his own mortality - convinced him to 'change his priorities' and do something fans had been asking him to do for years.

During the hour-long episode (thanks GameSpot), Kojima explained how, after departing Konami and establishing his independent Kojima Productions studio, he "wanted to do something new with my own IP" and "challenge myself", leading to Death Stranding. "Then, to create a franchise," he continued, "I made Death Stranding 2. And I wanted to do something even newer, so I started working on OD. And since then, there have been a lot of new ideas."

However, Kojima revealed that during those eight years, "Every day on social media, from users all around the world, people have been asking me to create another Metal Gear and stuff like that." But it wasn't until he became ill in 2020, in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, that those requests began to take on a more significant meaning.

Helskate is a rogue game where you are trying to escape Hell on a skateboard. The game is heavily inspired by the Tony Hawk series, which makes sense as its game director, Steve Swink, worked on Tony Hawk's Underground. Join me and Game Informer's resident Tony Hawk expert, Blake Hester, as we play a bit of the game, discuss its Tony Hawk overlap, and what sets it apart.

Helskate is entering early access on February 15.

Head over to Game Informer's YouTube channel for more previews, reviews, and discussions of new and upcoming games. Watch other episodes of New Gameplay Today right here.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and What’s Next For Xbox | Let’s Chat Read More »

Kiara Takanashi, a member of the Hololive English Myth Vtuber group, announced on social media that she expects to return to her activities on February 13, 2024. She went on hiatus in the middle of January 2024. 

Back on January 18, 2024, Kiara noted she’d been taking her first major break to “detox” for the sake of her mental health and well being. At the time, she said it would last for “about 3 weeks.” In her latest update, she said she actually expected to perhaps return between February 10-11, 2024. However, she noted that a technical issue got in the way.

Here’s the Kiara Takanashi tweet teasing her return. She also showed an image showing that she’s also around “watching” ahead of her return.

The second episode of Halo’s secondseason isn’t bad, by any means, but it’s not quite as memorable as the previous episode. Instead, “Sword” is a reminder that the Halo series is strongest when it focuses on the Spartans’ stories, whether it’s John’s attempts to set the record straight about what happened on…

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When playing any character-driven videogame I sometimes experience a sensation akin to my eyes unfocussing, and remember that I'm not, strictly speaking, controlling a body in a world, but interacting with a simulation that includes representations of a body and a world. The character is just an interfacial node in a vast tangle of visible and invisible elements; by moving the character, I cause objects, surfaces, creatures to load or unload, spring into motion or change colour and a million things besides.

Some games foreground these interdependencies by fictionalising the simulation as a giant organism or ecosystem, a more intriguing kind of "living, breathing" environment which is aware of your presence within it. Amongst these games is Ultros, a side-scrolling, psychedelic metroidvania - or as developers Hadoque might prefer, "gardenvania" - which launches next week.

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Dead Cells developers Motion Twin have announced their roguelike Metroidvania will receive its final update with the launch of the appropriately titled Update 35: 'The End Is Near'. It's been a pretty great run as these things go: over the course of seven years, Dead Cells has received four major DLC expanions, a mobile release and, of course, 35 of those big title updates. However, current custodians Evil Empire are now moving on to greener, "secret projects"-flavoured pastures - the emphasis being on pastures plural there, if their Xweet about it is anything to go by, too.

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Atlus is selling a pouch that looks like the Compendium book Elizabeth holds in Persona 3 Reload. You can get it from Amazon for around 3,190 JPY (~$21.35).

The pouch is fairly small, with its dimensions clocking in at 135 x 200 x 40 millimeters. You can use it for items like your stationery or make-up. The pouch looks like a book, with an Arcana card charm on the zipper. When you open it inside, there are two main compartments, as well as a sleeve on one side. It’s got a dark blue interior, complete with a pattern of the Velvet Room V and the Arcana mask on the back of the Persona 3 Reload Tarot cards.

Here's a closer look at the book Elizabeth from Persona 3 Reload holds recreated as a bag:

The brilliant Baldur's Gate 3 will let you lock lips with your love interest better than ever before as part of its big Patch 6 update, due next week.

Just in time for Valentine's Day, your hero's affection for their romance option now includes more realistic smooching and a soft forehead kiss, as seen in a brief clip you can see below.

But that's not all, of course. Patch 6 also includes new idle animations for your party while in camp, plus new Legendary Actions if you're brave enough to tackle Baldur's Gate 3's Honour Mode.

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A new trailer for the first DLC of Fate/Samurai Remnant appeared, with Ibuki-Douji taking the main stage. The DLC “Record’s Fragment: Keian Command Championship” will come out on February 9, 2024.

You can watch the trailer here:

The trailer starts with setting the stage. Gilgamesh has organized a competition for all Masters and Servants to participate in. You’ll be able to play as the other Master teams aside from Iori and Saber, with them interacting with each other and fighting each other in a tournament. Ibuki then shows up as an enemy.

Take your protein pill and put your headphones on for the free demo of Asterism, an "interactive music album" exploring a solar system one song at a time. Each visit to a planet lasts as long as the song, whisking us through scenes reflecting the lyrics and mood, rendered with a mix of 3D computer art and a range of handmade physical mediums. I was delighted from the first twang. And impressively, it's mostly the work of one developer, Claire Morwood. Do have a look!

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Ah sure I've enjoyed the nostalgic resurgence of Quake/PlayStation-grade 3D art in video games, but I am fully blown away by indie game Fragrance Point looking like the truest classic 3D computer graphics: the shiny pre-rendered CGI from TV show transition cards, adverts for double-disc dance music compilations, and Windows Media Player skins. My eyes are still reeling from the gloss and glitz and pulsating lights of the Steam Next Fest demo, and I welcome this pain. Grab the demo now and set out to explore a space station as a bopping security bot with snazzy boots and endless projectile lipstick.

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