Imagine you are reborn into a world as an adventurer and end up forming a party with a dumb goddess who drinks too much, an explosion-happy wizard who complains about being flat-chested, and a noble warrior who gets turned on by the idea of being eaten by monsters. What sort of hijinks would you think you’d end up stumbling into while adventuring with an eccentric party like that? Konosuba: Love for These Clothes of Desire answers that question by giving Konosuba fans a wacky dress-up visual novel filled with sexy, salacious outfits to dress the Konosuba women in, producing some interesting storylines that range from humorous to straight up raunchy. 

The first Steam Next Fest of 2024 is officially upon us, though this year there have been so many demos going live early that you may well have played a bunch of them already without even knowing it. Still, in case you need a helping hand cutting through the many hundreds, if not thousands of free demos that are currently jostling for your eyeballs on Steam, we've put together this shortlist of recommendations to get your started.

There are 15 picks here, covering everything from citybuilders to horror games - and a lot of these are games we've never written about before, either. But, in case you are looking for demos of more well-known PC games, we've also listed some of the big obvious choices you might want to check out as well (and all the other demos we've written about over the last couple of weeks). You know, because we're nice like that. So come and join us for 15 (plus!) Next Fest demos to get you going.

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Apex Legends is celebrating its fifth anniversary in style, with major changes coming to the battle royale across the loot pool, armor system, and Legend abilities later this month. During a two-day presentation and hands-on media preview, developer Respawn also outlined extensive plans to rework Apex Legends Ranked…

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Persona 3 Reload is by no means a definitive remake of the 2006 original. It’s missing the Portable release’s female protagonist as well as FES’s epilogue The Answer (although maybe not for long). That said, Reload has a lot going for it. A graphical update, new social link content that fleshes out characters, and…

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Veteran trading card game and master of the heavily-kerned, overly-long monster name Yu-Gi-Oh! turns 25 this year. Among the card game’s quarter-century celebrations during an event in the Tokyo Dome this past weekend were a number of announcements, including the reveal of a collection of classic Yu-Gi-Oh! video games headed to Steam.

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If you'd told me back in 1999 that a rudimentary grasp of sound editing software would stand me in surprisingly good stead as a strategy game player, I'd have asked you who the hell you are and what you're doing in my house. But in the years that followed, after you'd been sent to the slammer for crashing through my window bellowing about cheap Audible subscriptions, I might have checked out games like Ghost Trick and Phantom Brigade - each sort of an exercise in placing actions on a timeline like audio layers to produce a winning composition - and thought "hey, that hysterical burglar was onto something".

I wouldn't say there's an abundance of games in which you place actions on timelines, mind you. But those that do exist are neat, as Marge Simpson would say. Take Tarnished Blood.

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Recent reports suggest that Xbox Studios games like Starfield, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and Hi-Fi Rush are coming to PlayStation 5 (and Switch, in Hi-Fi Rush’s case). Though some old quotes from Xbox’s big boss Phil Spencer made it clear this was always a possibility, the notion that Xbox’s in-house games…

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Roblox is today introducing a new AI feature that will translate a user's real-time text into other languages. Following this, the Roblox team has plans for a feature which will translate voices into different languages with the use of its AI tech.

Today's addition to Roblox will allow users to type a message in their own language, to then see it translated into other languages supported by the gaming environment instantaneously.

This feature will available within all Roblox experiences that leverage TextChatService.

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Ahead of the 2.0 Honkai: Star Rail launch, HoYoVerse shared a new Black Swan trailer and announced a fan art contest. The trailer shows her alongside the Trailblazer Stelle and in battle, while the fan art contest runs until February 29, 2024 and offers a chance to earn money and Stellar Jades.

First, here’s the new Black Swan Honkai: Star Rail trailer. It features Stelle being chased by an enemy in the Dreamscape. It is there that she runs into Black Swan and hears her discussion of memories.

I've never been a true "Football Enjoyer". I'll weirdly get into it at certain times, like when the World Cup is on and I get suckered into the belief that, "It's actually coming home this time". But maybe I could be a football enjoyer, now that there's a roguelike out there that combines football skills with room-clearing. I'd give Footgun Underground's demo at least 90 minutes of your time.

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Johnsto's Law states: if a game has a level editor, someone will recreate de_dust2. The iconic Counter-Strike map is, I have argued, "one of the fundamental shapes of video games". Recreating levels from other games is a mapping tradition as old as creating your house (not to be confused with MyHouse). I am delighted to see this done en masse, with a twist. A new player-made map pack for Quake offers 30 new singleplayer levels based on multiplayer levels from other games including Unreal Tournament, Valorant, Perfect Dark, and Mario Kart 64. Yes, of course it has a de_dust2.

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It seems like the crew of the Astral Express has been loitering around the streets of the Xianzhou Luofu forever now. To be fair, there hasn’t been a new planet for Trailblazers to explore since Honkai: Star Rail’s launch back in April of 2023. But after a number of updates that added new characters and side quests to…

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Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is one of the biggest Xbox exclusives on the horizon. According to a new report, however, Microsoft might be thinking of bringing Indy to other platforms.

The Verge has spoken to an insider familiar with Microsoft’s plans who claims the publisher is considering the idea of bringing several first-party titles to other consoles, like releasing Indiana Jones on the PlayStation 5. The source claims that Bethesda is tentatively targeting a December release for the title and that it will launch as an Xbox/PC title before possibly coming to PlayStation 5 after a short exclusivity window. 

Apex Legends: Breakout, the 20th season of the fast-paced battle royale is due to launch on Tuesday, 13th February and there are a few big changes coming including a new Legend Upgrade system, Shields being removed from ground loot and a ranked reset.

To celebrate the game's fifth anniversary, maps will be strewn with celebratory confetti and balloons, plus the potential to earn six Legends previously only available through premium currency.

If you're playing Apex on a next-gen console, then you might be pleased to hear that Breakout will be introducing 120Hz for you as well as haptics and adaptive triggers for controllers. This will apply from launch for all PS5 and Xbox Series S/X users.

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Five years after its surprise-launch and subsequent success, the team behind Apex Legends is not afraid to change up its formula. So when season 20 aka Breakout debuts later this month, developer Respawn will dramatically adjust aspects of the battle royale’s gameplay in the hopes that these changes will both nurture A…

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I’ve played Apex Legends Season 20, and it might be the fastest and fiercest that the battle royale FPS has ever been – while also being the richest in tactical opportunities and metagame theorycrafting. It's all thanks to a drastically expanded Evo experience system, one that now not only boosts your shield capacity, but unlocks the branches of a MOBA-style skill tree that permanently buffs your character for the duration of a match. Even for a season with no new playable Legend to headline, it’s an update that feels exciting and genuinely game-changing – if a little scary at the same time.

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Like many Titanfall enjoyers, I look at the gleaming success of battle royale spinoff Apex Legends with both a smidge of pride and a gutful of sadness that I haven’t had any wall-running, mech-dropping FPS adventures since. Indeed, an unannounced single-player Titanfall game was quietly shelved last year, and if there’s any burning sense of unfinished business among series devs Respawn Entertainment, it wasn’t evident during my recent visit to try out Apex Legends’ Season 20 update.

Even so, it turns out some still carry the fire, at least as source of inspiration for Apex lore and mechanics. I asked Respawn’s narrative lead Ashley Reed whether Titanfall was keeping in anyone’s minds, and was told that if anything, the references need reining in.

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If there’s a secret to how Apex Legends has endured the past five years, an era marked by as many FPS failures as successes, then it might be this: there are no sacred cows in live service. Since its surprise launch in February 2019, developers Respawn Entertainment have chopped and changed everything from hitbox-shrinking Naruto run animations to entire character designs and ability kits, gutting and reworking gear and class mechanics along the way. The incoming Season 20 update, titled Breakout, represents the latest large-scale rejig, adding upgradeable skill tress for its playable Legends that promise MOBA-esque progression and the maddest fights yet.

Square Enix released more details for the upcoming Open Beta for Final Fantasy XIV on Xbox Series X/S. The test is set to begin on February 21, 2024, and will function similarly to the free trial version of the game available on other platforms.

Ahead of the test, Square Enix detailed some setting adjustments that may be necessary for the game to function, including enabling cross-network play. The company also stated that it will only be available to new players, and asks that existing players wait until the official release following the conclusion of this test. While there is nothing to stop an existing player creating a new account, it would require linking Microsoft and Square Enix accounts, which cannot be unlinked. This could mean that when the game is released officially on the service, said player would not be able to then link their main account for playing on console.

The Free login campaign for FFXIV also returned in February 2024, allowing lapsed players to return for four days. Square Enix has also shown off the new emote added as part of the Valentine's Day celebrations, which will begin later this month.

A new manga called Astro Baby just launched in Shonen Jump. Chapter 1 is now available to read in English on MangaPlus and via Viz Media. 

In Astro Baby, the world is faced with a cannibal disease called Couper-29 as the result of a meteorite in the town of North Hill. Those infected become cannibals. A young man named Billy grew up in a town where it started to appear, and only one scientist named Eleanor believed him when he saw it starting to happen. Billy returned as a soldier years later for her sake, especially since she’s now about to be a single mother. Now, he’ll have to help protect her child as well.

This new series comes from Shiro Moriya. The mangaka previously worked on Soloist in a Cage. That story ran for three volumes and also featured dystopian themes. That also appears on MangaPlus.

As for past new series in Shonen Jump, one appeared in January 2024. That was a spin-off of Kaiju No 8called Kaiju no 8: B-Side. 

A number of leaks happened over the weekend that seem to have big implications for Microsoft’s Xbox plans moving forward. Reports from The Verge and XboxEra claim that two major Bethesda releases, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Starfield, could both come to PlayStation 5, adding to the pile of Xbox…

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The upcoming Deadpool 3 unexpectedly has a lot riding on it. Not only is it going to serve as the first example of how mutants and more R-rated characters will interact with the MCU, it’s also got to appease those excited by the return of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. Unfortunately, it’s also got another expectation it…

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Sanrio revealed that new earrings featuring its characters have appeared in Japan. Officially titled Sanrio Characters Stainless Hoop Pierce, the earrings come etched with small illustrations of iconic characters like Hello Kitty and Cinnamoroll.

Sanrio also revealed that the silver-colored earrings are made of surgical stainless steel with a low probability of causing metallic allergies. The collection features a total of ten characters:

1. Cinnamoroll
2. Pompompurin
3. Kuromi
4. Pochacco
5. Hello Kitty
6. My Melody
7. Hangyodon
8. Little Twin Stars
9. Tuxedosam
10. Bad Badtz-maru

Sunrise has opened the Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Series GP2024 poll where fans can vote for their favorite character and Mobile Suit or Armor. The poll features 127 characters and 102 mechs from one of the popular Gundam sub-series. It also includes characters and Mobile Suits that debuted in Gundam SEED Freedom. The latter movie launched in Japanese theaters in late January 2024 and grossed over a billion yen within the first three days.

Despite the numbers mentioned, this poll only features content from the three mainline anime entries: the inaugural 2002 show, the 2004 sequel Gundam SEED Destiny, and the new Gundam SEED Freedom movie. The Cosmic Era universe also has numerous side-story entries, such as the Astray series, the Gundam SEED Eclipse manga, and the 2006 net animation Gundam SEED C.E. 73: Stargazer. None of the content from the latter titles appears in this poll.

I have a strange relationship with The Last of Us Part II. During its launch in 2020, I was part of a publication dedicated exclusively to highlighting accessible innovations and disabled perspectives in the games industry. As the Mobility Editor of Can I Play That, I edited plenty of features, news posts, and reviews…

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Square Enix will hold the Final Fantasy VII Remake / Rebirth Fireworks & Music show in Osaka on March 23, 2024. The show will feature a synchronized lighting and fireworks performance timed with tracks from FFVII Remake and its sequel Rebirth. The latter will be already available by the time this show goes live, as Square Enix will release Final Fantasy VII Rebirth for PlayStation 5 on February 29, 2024.

Tickets for the show will be available at ¥8,800 (~$59). Each ticket will come with a leisure sheet mat and have a designated spot in one of the two areas: Dynamic Area and Panorama Area. Each visitor will have to purchase a ticket for themselves, but a child aged up to 6 years old can attend for free if they sit on an adult's lap.

The show will run in the eastern plaza of Osaka Expo '70 Commemorative Park. The venue will be open to the public from 11 AM JST, but the organizers will restrict it to the FFVII Remake / Rebirth Fireworks & Music show ticket holders at 5 PM.

If there's a sense of burning injustice at Rocksteady Studios, it's probably understandable. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is filled with little moments of brilliance: humour, style, expression, that signature rhythmic, flow-state approach to combat. There's no question - as there rarely is with any video game - that its team was remarkably dedicated to making it as good as it could be. It's just that for each upshot there's a matching, crashing downturn, and in looking for a cause it's difficult to see beyond the ambitions that this game has been asked to juggle.

All at once, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League must be a live service game that pays for its extraordinary, almost nine-year run-up time after 2015's Batman: Arkham Knight, plus the support of those live services beyond launch. It must feature multiple main characters that not one, but two distinct Hollywood films - plus Birds of Prey - have failed to generate any kind of public good will towards (or even mild interest in). And it must deliver, or at least seem to deliver, on its promise of making antagonists out of and subsequently killing the Justice League - a group of beloved, decades-old icons that have in part earned their iconic status from not dying. (And which come with a subsection of fans - emphasis on the subsection - known to be as toxic as they are dedicated). All together, it means the question that arose for most onlookers the moment Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was revealed in 2020 remains the same now, and even well into its perpetual grind of an endgame: why?

Anycolor announced the graduation of Nijisanji EN Vtuber Selen Tatsuki via Termination. She is no longer with the agency effective immediately, with the company citing breaches of contract and behavior online as the reasons.

Here’s the official announcement from social media. In the statement, the company alleged it has been warning Selen since May 2023 about violations of the Activity Rules for its Vtubers. It also cited the release of the cover of the song “Last Cup of Coffee” and her behavior after its was privated as one of these violations. It also noted that February 5, 2024 is her official last day, her social media is now private, her YouTube membership is closed, and merchandise sales will gradually end.

Here is the Selen Tatsuki termination announcement.

Naughty Dog's grand panjandrum (co-president) Neil Druckmann has a concept in mind for The Last Of Us: Part 3, following on from the original PlayStation 3 action-adventure's tale of parental love and the PS4 game's theme of "justice at any cost". This isn't confirmation that a third single player Last Of Us game is in development, with Druckmann reiterating comments from this time last year that Naughty Dog feel no obligation to continue the tale. Nonetheless, "it does feel like there's probably one more chapter to this story." Will we ever really see the last of The Last Of Us?

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Action-RPG Granblue Fantasy: Relink has had a successful launch weekend on Steam, peaking at over 100,000 concurrent players and debuting high on the global top-selling games chart.

Granblue Fantasy: Relink recorded a peak of 114,054 concurrent players last night (recorded by SteamDB), which makes it one of the most played action-RPGs alongside Monster Hunter: World on the platform.

Currently it's the second top seller globally on Steam, beaten only by the record-breaking Palworld.

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Composers Stephen Barton and Gordy Haab won at the Grammy Awards last night for their Star Wars Jedi: Survivor score.

The pair beat out the likes of Austin Wintory and Bear McCreary for Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and other Interactive Media.

The other nominees included Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Sarah Schachner); God of War Ragnarök (Bear McCreary); Hogwarts Legacy (Peter Murray, J Scott Rakozy & Chuck E. Myers "Sea"); and Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical (Montaigne, Tripod & Austin Wintory).

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Every weekend, indie devs show off current work on Twitter's #screenshotsaturday tag. And every Monday, I bring you a selection of these snaps and clips. We're a bit short this week because of the rolling technical disaster that is modern Twitter, but I've still enjoyed ogling everything from a must-have immersive sim feature and a very unpleasant nighttime drive to lovely simulated water and strange spaceship shenanigans. Check out all these attractive and interesting indie games!

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Tencent was developing a new mobile game for the Nier series but stopped development in December, according to a new report.

As reported by Reuters, sources said the game had been in development for almost two years. There was reportedly a playable internal demo, which showed some of the game's combat and story.

The company is said to have "struggled to find a compelling monetisation model" to offset the high costs of the mobile entry.

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A remake of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was "considered" to be in the pipeline at PlayStation, a new report has claimed.

XboxEra's Nick Baker and Jon Clarke said they both had received "evidence" that Sony has ideas to remake the first Uncharted game from the "ground up".

"It is worth saying that the additional detail I got was that this was, this was quite old - like I am talking a number of years," Clarke warned. "But it wouldn't surprise me, right... as a way to bring the series back into the limelight again and get people hyped."

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The Final Fantasy 14 open beta test for Xbox Series X/S will begin on 21st February.

The test will only be available for new players playing the game for the first time. Players who already have the free trial, or a licence for the game registered to their Square Enix account, will be unable to participate.

The official version of the game will launch on Xbox Series X/S "immediately following the conclusion of the open beta test" according to the official announcement on The Lodestone, though the exact date of this is unknown.

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Major Xbox console exclusives such as Bethesda's Starfield and the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Great Circle are being considered for launch on Sony's PlayStation 5, as part of a huge shift in strategy by Microsoft.

Previous reports suggested Xbox would bring a handful of smaller titles to PlayStation beginning this year, including Hi-Fi Rush - something Eurogamer understood to be true and also which has now seemingly been confirmed by its in-game files. But the idea that Microsoft will also - at some point - drop exclusivity for some of its biggest games marks a policy change far bigger than previously expected.

A swathe of reports emerged last night suggesting Microsoft's PlayStation plans now included Starfield - Xbox's tentpole release for 2023, albeit one which received a somewhat mixed reception - and potentially also Indiana Jones - the company's biggest release currently on the calendar for 2024.

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The clouds over London have settled into the shapes of loading icons. The birds are singing old Celtic ditties. There are extinct species of fern growing through the vents of my i7 12700F. All these troubling signs point to but one, dire outcome: it's time for another week of new videogame releases, and another week of feeding videogame gossip and reportage to the Maw, our weekly news liveblog.

Here are a few games we're aiming the ol' scrying crystals at this week: alchemy-themed puzzle adventure CLeM (6th Feb); 1980s-styled "Tetris + flying car" puzzler Space Garbage (6th Feb); Coven-building "4X card game" WitchHand (7th Feb); spoofy sci-fascist shooter Helldivers 2 (8th Feb); alt-theological dark fantasy The Inquisitor (8th Feb). Mind you, this week it's all about the demos. That's right, it's time for another Steam Next Fest - have you had a chance to play any demos so far? Participating developers have taken to stuffing them up a few days in advance to beat the rush.

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In 2022, Paramount+ finally released the first season of Halo, the long-awaited live-action adaptation of the popular video game franchise. While various action scenes served as fan-pleasing sequences, the series was maligned among the community for simply not feeling true to the source material. In addition to focusing on too many side characters and interpersonal drama, the series also took far too many liberties with its main protagonist, Master Chief. With Season 2 starting on Paramount+ this week, I sat down with Xbox's head of IP expansion and entertainment Kiki Wolfkill and Halo Season 2 showrunner and writer David Wiener to learn more about the direction they're taking.

According to Wolfkill, who has worked on the Halo series since her role as executive producer on Halo 4 in 2012, making the Paramount+ series more faithful to its game series was of the utmost importance going into Season 2. Even though the team was working on Season 2 before having the opportunity to collect feedback from the series' viewers, once the reviews and fan feedback came across the team's desks, they knew that they had committed to the correct changes. 

The Persona series has always had a wide cast of characters. Whether you loved them or hated them, they often left an impression. Below, we've made a list of who we think could be the best Persona character in the series. Feel free to let us know what you think in the comments.

Don't get mad at me, but Yosuke from Persona 4 is the best character. Why might that be? I think he's a character who undergoes a lot of growth. He starts out hypersensitive about what people think about him and wants to prove himself as somebody worthy of attention rather than derision.

He can be rather bigoted over things he doesn't understand, and many of his jokes come at the expense of hurting other's feelings, but as Persona 4 progresses, he learns how to let go of his prejudices and become a genuine friend. He's loyal, goofy, and always striving to do the right thing. He's a dumb teenager, but he's also a dumb teenager who cares about others. Also, he has a disco frog as a Persona, and that's really neat. — Arielle

I might get flak for this one, but my favorite character in Persona is actually Rise Kujikawa from Persona 4. I know, at first glance, she's the typical pop idol, but her story really resonated with me. At first, Rise is a bubbly celebrity who beams with energy. But then we quickly learn that she's actually struggling with her happiness and the image she has to project for others.

The Last of Us Part 2 was originally designed as an open-world action game that was heavily inspired by Bloodborne.

Confirmation came via co-game director Anthony Newman, who revealed during in the fantastic behind-the-scenes documentary, Grounded 2: Making The Last of Us Part 2, that for the first four or five months of development, The Last of Us Part 2 was a "purely melee focussed" game that "kept getting bigger and bigger as you explored", as inspired by FromSoft's fan-favourite adventure.

"When we started out making The Last of Us Part 2, Neil actually wanted to be very ambitious about changing the game almost entirely," explained Newman.

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