For ages I have been after a card game that meets very specific requirements. It must be small enough to fit in a pocket - no extra pieces or whatnot, meaning I can bust it out when and where. It must have the option to play single-player. And finally, it must be obscure or stylish enough to ensure that when I play it I feel like I'm in on some great smug secret. I appreciate this last point is not endearing.

Anyway, Bandido! Sweet Bandido! Bandido is a lovely compact card game from Helvetiq, which I discovered over half-term. It fits in a very small box and is playable with elegant cards which are all a little thinner than normal playing cards. Hold them in your hand and it's a bit like holding a small cardboard coffin - perfect, it turns out, for such a claustrophobic treat.

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Today, during a livestream from Japan, Hideki Kamiya himself announced that PlatinumGames’ shoot ’em up Sol Cresta has been delayed.

The game was supposed to release on December 9. The new release date has not been announced. The developers hope to announce it at the beginning of 2022.

According to the producer, there were scheduling and quality issues that convinced the developer that it was better to delay the game.

We also get to see some gameplay of the second stage, portraying the improvements made to the game thanks to the additional time.

For instance, formations have been changed in order to make them easier to use. We also see entirely new formations.

Next is a look at the Caravan mode, a five minutes score attack mode. We also see the achievements.

Kadokawa Games has been revealing new artwork, screenshots, and details about the upcoming mecha strategy JRPG Relayer.

First of all, we get to see more of the playable mecha that we’ll be able to enjoy in the game.

The first is the Stella Gear piloted by Jupiter named “Ferretorius.” It’s a tank-class mecha inspired by the guardian deity of single combat. It has excellent armor and melee capabilities.

• Name: Ferretorius
• Model Number: GS-TA01/Ju
• Stats
  • Armor S
  • Mobility B
  • Firepower B
  • Melee S
  • Electronic Warfare C

Sun’s Stella Gear “Amaterasu” is also a tank class with great armor and melee stats.

Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars Review on PS5

Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars isn’t actually a card game — it’s an RPG with a card-based aesthetic. And while the eye-catching art direction and D&D campaign feel make for great initial attention-grabbers, Voice of Cards starts to lose steam during its second half.

The story isn’t one that hasn’t been told before. There’s a dragon that suddenly appears to terrorize the Isle of Bliss and the Isle of Blight, and you follow a group of adventurers who get together to stop it after Queen Nilla starts the hunt. You take on the role of Ash, traveling with a witch named Melanie and a strange creature named Mar that looks oddly similar to a Quagsire from Pokemon.

Ash is a bounty hunter who’s in it for the money above all else, while Melanie seems to have a personal grudge against the dragon, along with all other monsters. The party will slowly grow as the journey continues, which only adds to the humor, bickering, and camaraderie.

There are many familiar and predictable story beats for anyone who has played a few RPGs before, but there are also some genuine twists and little surprises that keep things from getting stale.

Sadly, by the time those major plot points come around, the dragon-hunting journey overstays its welcome. It doesn’t help that there’s a serious case of “just talk it out” in this game that can get frustrating. If certain characters simply told each other what they knew or what they were thinking, a lot of the conflicts and aimless wandering could be avoided.

Atlus released another of its many trailers showcasing the over 200+ demons of its upcoming JRPG Shin Megami Tensei V.

This time around we get to see the gameplay of Aeros, a demon inspired by air elementals present in folklore from around the world and introduced in the franchise with Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II.

You can watch it in action below.

It has only been a few months since the leadership shuffle over at Blizzard that saw J. Allen Brack step down from his position as president of the company. His replacements, Mike Ybarra and Jen Oneal, took over then as Blizzard co-heads, with the idea of steadying the ship. However, it appears that plans have changed, with Oneal announcing her departure at the end of the year.

Thankfully, it appears to be something more positive that is driving the move.

“Effective immediately, Mike Ybarra will lead Blizzard, I am doing this not because I am without hope for Blizzard, quite the opposite—I’m inspired by the passion of everyone here, working towards meaningful, lasting change with their whole hearts,” Oneal said in her statement.

Sometimes, you just cannot get enough of something, and for Bethesda, it is apparently The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The running joke that Skyrim is coming to all possible gaming platforms has brought us plenty of laughter over the years, but it remains true that more players are getting the chance to enjoy the roleplaying game’s merits. Now, even tabletop gamers will have no excuses following the reveal of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – The Adventure Game.

Developed by Modiphius Entertainment with the guiding hands of Bethesda Game Studios, the upcoming board game looks set to be a deep and hopefully enjoyable experience. One to four players can embark on their tabletop adventure into Tamriel, and get a taste of that Skyrim awesomeness.

There are definitely going to be some familiar sights, with the world and inhabitants being brought to life with the help of cards and miniatures in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – The Adventure Game. Of course, we cannot forget about the extensive list of weapons, armour, enemies, events, and more.

If tabletop gaming is your kind of thing, you will be able to follow the development of this project via Gamefound. The targetted release date for backers is set for August 2022, but it is never too early to get excited about something you love.

You can also take a gander at The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – The Adventure Game trailer below:

If you have been waiting for the next big patch to drop for Far Cry 6, then your prayers have been answered. Ubisoft has prepped more content, some gameplay updates, as well as bug fixes for the guerilla shooter, and players can update their game now to see the benefits of Title Update 2.

Depending on your platform of choice, there are different sizes of the latest Far Cry 6 patch.

• PlayStation 4: Between 49 GB and 60 GB depending on region 
• PlayStation 5: ~90 GB 
• Xbox One: between 13 GB and 19 GB 
• Xbox Series X/S: between 14 GB and 20 GB 

The PC patch, alongside those for Stadia and Luna, will come as soon as possible, and weighs in at 54GB and an additional 47GB for the HD Texture Pack. The patch also removes the new Dani & Danny vs Everybody mission starring Danny Trejo, as that was apparently released by accident. The final version is still in the works.

Here is the full overview of the Far Cry 6 Title Update 2 patch via Ubisoft:

Gameplay updates 
• New Daily and Weekly Challenges have been added.
• (Available November 9th) New Special Operation: Los Tres Santos. 
• Adjusted the respawn rate of enemies in the following areas: José’s Island and Martínez (Philly’s) Airstrip. 
• General performance improvements. 

While it’s a pretty solid game at its core, New World has suffered through its fair share of problems since launch. World transfers were a bit of a confusing mess, there was a gold exploit that came with it, and now, Amazon has taken drastic measures in an effort to resolve issues surrounding another gold duplication exploit.

Those measures include halting all wealth transfers in the game including trading, sending currency to players and the guild treasury, and selling and buying items through the trading post. The tax system has also come to a halt, which means that town income is at a standstill and it’s become impossible to upgrade crafting stations or defenses.

To make matters worse, wars and invasions are still ongoing during this period of time, so if a town gets completely wrecked by an invasion, it’s pretty much impossible to bring your affected stations back to their original levels. There’s no ETA on when currency transfers will be available in the game again, but we’ll keep you updated as more info comes our way.

New World is now available on PC.

The post New World’s Economy Is on Fire As Auction House & Taxes Get Halted appeared first on Twinfinite.

Jen Oneal, who joined Blizzard as new co-leader back in August, has announced she's stepping down from the role and will leave Activision at the end of the year to explore "how I can do more to have games and diversity intersect".

Oneal, formerly the boss of Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy studio Vicarious Visions, was hired as Blizzard co-leader alongside Mike Ybarra following the departure of Blizzard president J. Allen Brack - who left amid the fallout from the State of California's ongoing lawsuit alleging sexual harassment, discrimination, and a "frat boy" work culture at the company.

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I’ve really been enjoying Foundation so far. As someone who hasn’t read Asimov’s books, and who can find joy in pretty much any movie or TV series so long as it looks great, I’ve been soaking up the spaceships and costume designs in spite of the show’s plodding pace.

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The Fortnite Item Shop has updated once again, and today's inventory largely features bundles and skins we've seen several times before, though one standout new set has arrived. It combines three fan-favorite skins into one massive bundle with V-Bucks and more thrown in on top of it. Here's what's new in the Fortnite Item Shop for November 3, 2021.

The marquee new addition is the Minty Legends Pack, which is sold for local currency, not V-Bucks. In fact, the huge cosmetic pack includes V-Bucks in addition to a slew of other styles and toys. The trio at the center of the set are Aura, Oro, and Brite Bomber, who have each been reimagined in cool blues and purples like they just left the set of a chewing gum commercial.

The full set goes for $30 and includes:

A manual save system would’ve been nice With the way Far Cry 6 forces players to rely on autosaves, things...

The post Far Cry 6 update fixes the ‘looping death’ bug and other progress blockers appeared first on Destructoid.

The location-based AR game Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is closing down early next year, Jan. 22, 2022, publisher Niantic has announced today. It will be removed from the App Store and Google Play following that date, while in-game purchases will cease to be available from Dec. 6, 2021.

Wizards Unite, which was largely based on the same blueprint as Niantic’s highly successful Pokemon GO, started off in good form with a lucrative launch month before dropping off in a drastic fashion. Presumably, the meager returns in comparison to its big brother Pokemon GO have prompted Niantic to pull the plug. That being said, no official reason for the game’s closure is stated in today’s announcement.

Niantic is not offering any refunds to those who have spent money on in-App currency or other purchases, but avid players of the game can at least look forward to a bunch of in-game rewards as a final blowout. Niantic has posted a lengthy overview in its blog post today, which details increased progression across the board until the game’s shutdown, as well as ten or so planned events over the next couple of months. You can read the full overview here.

The post Harry Potter: Wizards Unite Is Closing Down as of January, 2022 appeared first on Twinfinite.

As fantastic as Crusader Kings III is, and as much as it lets you do as the ruler of a medieval dynasty, the nature of the game has meant that war itself has always been a bit distant. You can raise your armies and tell them where to go, but never directly lead the troops into battle. Until now.

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Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics are removing Marvel's Avengers' controversial progression boosts from sale today as a "first step in rebuilding [players'] confidence in us as a team".

Square faced a furious backlash from Avengers players last month after it began selling XP booster "consumables" in the game's real-money store, despite pre-launch promises it would only ever monetise cosmetics. It was a step the community had feared was coming ever since Crystal Dynamics introduced an unpopular XP nerf back in March, and fan response to the arrival of paid boosters was swift and brutal.

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Virtuoso Neomedia, Future Club, and Perfect Garbage will all receive support from the fund In January, Glitch founder Evva Karr...

The post Moonrise Fund reveals the first three game studios it’s backing appeared first on Destructoid.

Today third-party developers had news to share about upcoming add-ons for Microsoft Flight Simulator, on top of a relevant aircraft release.

We hear from IndiaFoxtEcho, which released new screenshots of its upcoming F-35 Lightning II.

The developer also provide more information on its plans for the aircraft.

“After the latest internal review, we think we have cleared most of the quality issues that drove our decision to delay the release of the F-35, but at the moment the projected release date is around the November 15th – which makes no sense as Sim Update 7 is planned for November 18th (and it is supposed to fix a number of the shortcomings of the simulator for supersonic fighter jets). Moreover, there is always the chance that SU7 may break some of the features of the plane – so we will first wait for the release of SU7, check that everything works and if there is any important improvement we can make with the new features and then release the F-35.

The extra time will be spent in adding some features that we previously decided to leave out from the initial build… such as a reworked autopilot interface and a static CVN-78 carrier (we do not like static carrier approach as it is not very realistic, but it is a much-requested feature). Do not expect anything as good as the DCS Supercarrier, but at least you will be able to perform launch and recoveries (and if you set 30 kts wind from the bow the approach dynamics is still not realistic, but not incredibly awful).”

Long time friend of the site Janina Gavankar popped into the Bombcast preshow today to announce a new show she is executive producing along with film academic Bryan Stills. Reel Layers promises to take audiences on a journey to find deeper meaning in cinema.

It sure is a surprise, but we love and trust Janina!

Apex Legends Season 11: Escape has begun, adding Ash to the roster of playable characters as a new offensive legend. In terms of story, Ash is a narrative outlier--her condescending dialogue and cutthroat actions read as villainous, or at least antagonistic, towards the other legends. Respawn lead writer Ashley Reed has teased, however, that there's more to Ash than "villainous intent."

"Ash certainly comes off like a villain--she's cold, calculating, self-interested, and unforgiving," Reed told GameSpot over email. "She also has gripes with multiple other legends, some of whom don't even know she has it out for them. But there's more to her than just villainous intent--that's all I can say for now, but answers await in Season 11."

In terms of playable characters, Apex Legends doesn't have too many outright villains in its roster. Caustic was the closest the game had at launch, though his disposition softened when he became a fatherly figure to Wattson in Season 2: Battle Charge. Wattson--and to an extent, Crypto much later down the line in Season 9: Legacy--transformed how players viewed Caustic. He's not a good person by any stretch of the imagination, but he's not evil either.

Activision Blizzard's landscape is everchanging in the wake of the lawsuit from the state of California regarding toxic workplace culture, and another big shift happened during the company's quarterly earnings call. Jen Oneal, who was appointed co-lead of Blizzard with Mike Ybarra a few months ago, will step down and leave the company at the end of 2021. 

In a letter posted on Blizzard's website, Jen Oneal explains the leadership situation moving forward as well as where she will be off to next.

In case, five years later, you’re finally ready to fight In the five years since the release of Street Fighter...

The post Street Fighter V All Character Pack is actually, maybe, probably, SFV’s last DLC drop appeared first on Destructoid.

During its quarterly investor call today, Activision Blizzard has announced the releases of Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV are being pushed back further than expected, enough to change the company's financial outlook for next year.

While we are still planning to deliver a substantial amount of content from Blizzard next year," reads a slide from the presentation," we are now planning for a later launch for Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV than originally envisaged." You can read the slide in its entirety below.

Penn Badgley’s voice doesn’t just sound great, it makes the show transcendent

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Activision Blizzard has announced Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 will now arrive later "than originally envisaged", potentially pushing the launch of both titles into 2023 at the earliest.

"As we have worked with new leadership in Blizzard and within the franchises themselves," the publisher explained in its Q3 2021 earning report, "particularly in certain key creative roles, it has become apparent that some of the Blizzard content planned for next year will benefit from more development time to reach its full potential."

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Mike Ybarra heads up Blizzard ‘effective immediately.’ Oneal will depart by year’s end

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Ubisoft has released Title Update 2 for Far Cry 6 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. The same update for PC, Stadia, and Luna is planned to launch as soon as possible.

This new patch has a significant change, in that it removes the Dani & Danny vs Everybody mission featuring actor Dan Trejo. Ubisoft said that the mission was accidentally released too early and that the final version will come in the near future. Far Cry 6's post-launch content this month is supposed to be the Insanity Vaas DLC expansion, while Danny Trejo's mission is scheduled for December.

In Dani & Danny vs Everybody, players will receive a call from Juan asking Dani to meet with his friend Danny Trejo to help him out.

The update also has a few other notable changes, such as a new Special Operation: Los Tres Santos that is available on November 9, as well as some quality of life changes. The title sequence can now be skipped just like other cutscenes can, and a Moneda tutorial is added after finishing the game's first Insurgency.

In related news, Ubisoft also seems to email you if you don't play Far Cry 6 enough. Hopefully, the post-launch content is enough to draw players back in!

‘Twas nary a month ago that Crystal Dynamics took leave of their senses, and decided to infest sleepy hero sim, Marvel’s Avengers, with paid-for experience boosts. With one voice the universe cried out, “Er, but you promised you wouldn’t do that.” A mere 25 days’ profit later, the developers have issued a mea culpa,…

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We finally know when The Binding of Isaac’s gigantic Repentance expansion makes its way to consoles. Creator Edmund McMillen took to Twitter to announce the PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch versions launch this coming Thursday.

That’s November 4 if you don’t have a calendar nearby. In terms of specific platforms, Repentance is coming to PlayStation 5 and 4, Xbox Series X/S, and Switch. If you’re feeling left out on Xbox One, McMillen assured players the game will hit that console “not long after.” He also says to expect the physical retail versions down the line too. 

The binding of Isaac: Repentance releases on switch, ps5, ps4 and Xbox series x THIS THURSDAY! ( nov. 4th ) Xbox 1 release not long after as well as retail releases with some special goodies! pic.twitter.com/H9OSsSqShJ

More time needed for the games to reach their ‘full potential‘ During a Q3 2021 earnings report, Blizzard announced that...

The post Diablo IV and Overwatch 2 feel even more elusive after a delay appeared first on Destructoid.

Mike Ybarra will be taking over sole leadership of Blizzard One of Blizzard’s leaders has announced they’re stepping away from...

The post Blizzard co-leader Jen Oneal is leaving the company appeared first on Destructoid.

While playing a game may sometimes be a short experience for players, hundreds, if not thousands, of work hours created it, even more so for longer titles. Game development is complicated, and crossing the finish line to hit release is a feat unto itself. 

However, sadly, not every game makes it across that line. A few end up somewhere informally known as “development hell.” It’s here that games might reside for months, years, or in some rare cases, over a decade. In Part 1 of this development hell series, we detailed the development history and path to development hell for five games – Pikmin 4, Skull & Bones, Beyond Good and Evil 2, In the Valley of Gods, and Dead Island 2 – and below, in Part 2, we’ll examine five more.

Apex Legends Season 11: Escape is now live across all platforms, bringing the new map Storm Front and the new offensive legend Ash. Like the start of previous seasons, there are a ton of new items available in the game, primarily from the new battle pass and all of the unlockable items available for the new legend.

Like other legends, Ash launched with four legendary skins available as part of the base game. All four of these skins now have a chance to appear in Apex Packs or can be crafted with 1,200 crafting materials. Like other base game legendary skins, these skins cannot be purchased directly with Apex Coins, unless they are featured in the store for that week. There is also a fifth legendary skin available for Ash as part of her launch bundle.

A separate free update will also bring playable story modes called ‘Scenarios’

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