The Boys, Invincible, and Superman & Lois are all exploring the same thorny theme

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Hello! It’s time for Kotaku’s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon.

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A certified refurbished Ring Video Doorbell Pro and an Insignia digital air fryer lead Sunday’s best deals.

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Buckle up, Titanfall fans - "a ton" of Titanfall-flavoured content is coming to spin-off battle royale, Apex Legends.

During a panel at BrownGirlGamerCode, Apex's senior writer, Ashley Reed, hinted that the studio was working "to integrate Titanfall" into future updates, as "Titanfall's very much a part of the universe".

Apex's game director, Chad Grenier, went a little further, too, confirming that Apex would host some "really cool stuff" we might recognise from Respawn's critically-acclaimed shooter series.

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Hades was love at first sight for me. It has the bright and stylized art that I love, roguelikes are one of my favorite gameplay genres, and I was one of those Greek mythology kids who was obsessed with the Percy Jackson series growing up. Check, check, and check. My immediate enthusiasm for the game may have been predictable, but the fact that I'm still playing it over 250 hours and 200 runs later? Not so much.

Developer Supergiant Games released three games prior to Hades, and each one was an indie darling. The studio has racked up dozens, if not hundreds, of awards since their debut in 2011, and they've also been lauded for promoting a healthy work-life balance for their employees, something that's not very common in the games industry.

The FBI is reportedly investigating cheating in professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive matches in North America.

As spotted by Kotaku, the commissioner of the Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC), Ian Smith, said the organisation was working alongside the FBI on an ongoing investigation into "a relatively small but significant group of players over a long period of time, organising match fixing in North American MDL".

"[It's] what I would describe as classic match-fixing - players being bribed by outside betting syndicates in order to fix matches, rather than players just doing it off their own bat opportunistically. It's been going on for longer, [and] it's much more organised," Smith told YouTuber slash32.

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Another Eden: The Cat Beyond Time and Space is an enjoyable single player experience marred by a gacha mechanic.

The post Another Eden Brings a Charming Single Player Experience to PC appeared first on Siliconera.

The Outriders team says it is still "working through" the shooter's numerous connection and server issues, but revealed it would, "in the near future", "share more specific details about what [went wrong] and what we've been doing about it".

As servers suffered for the third consecutive day since the shooter launched on 1st April - with some still reporting issues even today - players are now calling for a "proper post-mortem" to explain "what went wrong and lessons learnt".

In a quote tweet shared on the official Outriders Twitter account, the community team said it would "absolutely" look into sharing the lessons learned with players.

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Finer Form Gym Quality Foldable Flat Bench | $100 | Amazon Gold Box

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Back in January, I wrote up an impressions piece for my hands-on with the Balan Wonderworld demo, saying it was saving its best bits for the final game. That statement wasn't really supported by any concrete evidence, it was more wishful thinking based on my memories of the wonderfully imaginative reveal trailer from last summer.

Now that I've played through the full game, I'm happy to say that I was right. Balan Wonderworld did indeed save its best levels, costumes, and ideas for the final game. However, if you hated that demo — and I know a lot of people did — nothing here is going to change your opinion of it. In fact, there's a good chance you'll actually end up hating it a whole lot more.

ICYMI, Black Ops Cold War League is "escalating match penalties" suspensions for players that habitually quit or indulge in friendly fire.

We've already detailed many of the major changes that came with the launch of Season Two Reloaded earlier this week, but Treyarch also confirmed that it's doubling down on its efforts to curb the mayhem caused by griefers and players who quit.

"With the new additions of Apocalypse Hardpoint and Express S&D to the League Play rotation, we're constantly working on more ways to improve the competitive experience," the studio explained in a recent update. "We've heard the recent feedback on Wildcard selection and agree: we want players to commit to a playstyle in League Play.

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Tencent's Timi Studios, the studio behind Call of Duty Mobile and Honor of Kings, generated revenue of $10 billion - £7.23bn - in 2020.

Reuters, which broke the story, reports that if true, that makes Timi "the world's largest developer", providing the studio with "a hefty basis for its ambitions to move beyond mobile games and compete directly with global heavyweights developing expensive AAA titles on platforms such as desktop computers, Sony's PlayStation, Nintendo's Switch and Microsoft's Xbox".

The news comes after Tencent publicly reported it had generated 156.1 billion yuan (£17 billion) in revenue from its game business, but stopped short of revealing the revenue for each individual studio. According to two sources "with direct knowledge of the matter", Reuters posits that Timi alone accounts for 40 per cent of all game revenue (thanks, TheGamer).

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Putting a game out early to the public can be tricky, but Early Access is not new to Larian Studios anymore. The RPG studio utilized a staggered launch with Divinity: Original Sin and its sequel to their success, and now with Baldur's Gate 3, it's looking for a third win.

That doesn't mean there haven't been growing pains, though. Baldur's Gate 3 is a different kind of game from Original Sin 2; it has a different combat system, a more cinematic approach, and is firmly rooted in the old tomes of Dungeons & Dragons.

Following the recent addition of the Druid class and another Panel From Hell, we reached out to Larian to see just how its Early Access has been progressing. On a call with studio founder Swen Vincke, the studio head says they've been receiving a lot of feedback from the community, through both analytics and vocal feedback on forums like Reddit, and there have been a few course corrections.

"I know that the community wants us to go faster than we can," Vincke tells me over a video chat. "It does take time to implement things, especially for a game that's as vast as Baldur's Gate 3—also a game that we're still developing—so we have to balance the two things to each other."

Nier: Automata kind of blew the doors wide open on the Nier series. Sure, back in the day I loved this little Drakengard spinoff that could. But it wasn't until Platinum Games and Yoko Taro came together that Nier really came into its own in terms of a mainstream mainstay. 

Now is the perfect time to capitalize on that goodwill. Enter Nier Replicant, a PC, PS4, and Xbox One re-release of the original Nier vision, due out in April. I'm glad it was greenlit.

"US Outriders - Get back in there and f**k sh*t up," the Outrider Twitter account writes. "Apart from our servers please. We need those. Our teams will continue to monitor the overall situation. Sorry we kept you waiting.

• Of the 93% of children who play video games, up to 40% opened loot boxes
• About 5% of gamers generate half the entire revenue from the boxes
• Twelve out of 13 studies on the topic have established "unambiguous" connections to problem gambling behaviour
• Young men are the most likely to use loot boxes - with young age and lower education correlating with increased uses

The Genshin Impact Childe rerun banner, which includes the new character Rosaria, will begin this week and include Barbara and Fischl.

The post Genshin Impact Childe and Rosaria Banner Characters Revealed appeared first on Siliconera.

Believe it! Steve Aoki's newest street apparel line features popular Naruto characters such as Itachi and Kakashi.

The post Steve Aoki Teams up With VIZ for Dim Mak X Naruto Clothing appeared first on Siliconera.

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight. I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best user-created offerings from the last week! Well, I am now fully vaccinated. As a member of the teaching profession I was able to get both doses and while there may have been bumps along the way, I am eternally grateful to those in the medical profession that both helped in creating the vaccine and in distributing it. I say all of this as a reminder of everyone's personal duty to get vaccinated whenever possible and with the support of their medical practitioner. Yes, getting the vaccine does not entitle you to no longer invest in social distancing or face mask mandates. However, this pandemic highlights a grave need for everyone to fight against vaccine hesitancy and stand in support of science. Certainly, more can be done to distribute the vaccine equitably and it is a travesty that communities that most need it are struggling to get it. Yet, by working together there is hope and it is through that collective effort that I end my introduction as we transition to the site-related housekeeping.

FuRyu released a large batch of screenshots and art of its upcoming JRPG Caligula 2, or The Caligula Effect 2 as it’s going to be titled in the west.

The images come from a press release and an update of the official site, mostly focusing on the characters that we’ll encounter during the adventure, including playable ones, who have two forms.

We also get to see an auto battle feature that lets you set your companions to be controlled by the AI, but you can still decide parameters dictating how they’ll fight.

On top of that, fulfilling certain conditions in battle will prompt the the friendly virtual doll χ to start singing, empowering the protagonists of the Go-Home Club and possibly reversing difficult situation. The effect changes depending on the song.

You can check out all the screenshots below.

Food is good. Food on a stick...even better. Last week, in honor of the lazily named National Food On A Stick Day, I asked you all to create images featuring food, sticks, and video games.

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It's rare that I'm impressed by graphics anymore, but The Ascent's recent trailer had me stepping through it frame-by-frame just so I could squint at the details. It's a co-op, topdown shooter set in a cyberpunk world, and it bangs, fizzes, smokes, and glistens in pleasing ways.

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Focus Home Interactive released a new trailer of its upcoming first-person shooter Necromunda: Hired Gun, set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

The trailer showcased perhaps the most iconic gun in the setting created by Games Workshop, the Boltgun, also-known-as Bolter.

We get to see it in action, and it looks quite good. That being said, the sound certainly could use some work. Boltguns fire  .75 caliber explosive rocket-propelled ammunition. One would expect them to sound a bit louder than this lawnmower.

You can judge for yourself below.

If you’d like to know more about Necromunda: Hired Gun, you can check out the announcement trailer and read the official description below.

“Navigate an ocean of crime and corruption to balance the bloody ecosystem of Necromunda as a merciless hired gun. The money’s good, the dog’s loyal, and the gun’s reliable – but can you survive the hunt? Necromunda: Hired Gun is an indie fast-paced, violent, and thrilling FPS set in the darkest reaches of Warhammer 40,000’s most infamous hive city.

All 25 episodes of the first season will come to YouTube for free.

The post Tiger & Bunny Season 2 Coming in 2022 appeared first on Siliconera.

Torn Banner Studios released another trailer of its upcoming medieval combat multiplayer game Chivalry II.

The video introduces the Dark Forest map that will be included in the game. It’s a Team Objective map on which knights will be able to turn each other into potted meat, as the abundance of severed heads in the trailer indicates.

We already know that a cross-platform closed beta from Friday, April 23 at 10:30 am EDT through Monday, April 26 at 10:30 pm EDT.

You can check out the trailer below.

If you’re unfamiliar with the game, you can read an official features list below. You can also watch the previous trailers introducing the factions.

Ubisoft’s open-world hack-’em-up Watch Dogs Legion is set to receive an update on PS5 and Xbox Series X that’ll boost the performance of the game to up to 60 frames-per-second.

This interesting tidbit was confirmed during a recent Reddit AMA with the developers behind the title. Specifically, the game’s live producer Lathieeshe Thillainathan said a 60FPS update is in the works and is coming to the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions of the game in a future update.

“60FPS for next-gen consoles is in development and we’ll announce the exact release dates with our future [title update],” Thillainathan confirmed.

Surprisingly, Watch Dogs Legion only runs at 30FPS on next-gen consoles. If you compare that to other PS5 and Xbox Series X titles developed and published by Ubisoft, like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Immortals Fenyx Rising, Watch Dogs Legion comes up short performance-wise. In fact, both of those aforementioned open-world action-adventure experiences give players the option to run at a buttery smooth 60FPS, at the cost of some visual effects like ray-tracing, of course.

This week on Snapshots, we’ve got some desolate landscapes, a cool-looking hovercar, a curious bear, a lonely flower, an old guy wearing a hat, and a superhero in a green cloud of... gas?

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Final Fantasy XIV's next expansion is Endwalker, which will conclude the story that's been running through the massively multiplayer game since A Realm Reborn launched in 2013. Before that will come update 5.5, which will bridge the gap between Endwalker and the previous expansion, Shadowbringers, and there's a new trailer for it below.

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Today Another relevant scenery add-on for Microsoft Flight Simulator has been released, while more have been teased, from Africa to Japan.

Firstly, let’s go to Africa with Okavango Delta by SimWorks Studios and Área77 Simulations. It has been released and it’s now available on SimWorks’ own store for €22.99.

This is quite different from the usual scenery, focusing on exploration and adventure as you can fly around the beautiful and expansive Okavango Delta area in Botswana, Africa.

An unopened copy of Super Mario Bros. has sold for $660,000, smashing the world record for a video game sale. The previous record was $114,000 for another sealed copy of Super Mario Bros.

The copy of the NES classic sold on Friday at Heritage Auctions in Dallas. It is the finest known copy of the oldest sealed hangtab Super Mario Bros.

The game was labelled "Super Mario Bros. - Wata 9.6 A+ Sealed [Hangtab, 1 Code, Mid-Production], NES Nintendo 1985 USA".

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Experience's pack of Saviors of Sapphire Wings and Stranger of Sword City Revisited makes for an excellent introduction to the genre.

The post Review: Saviors of Sapphire Wings Is a Great Intro to Dungeon-Crawling appeared first on Siliconera.

Today Marvel Studios revealed a new trailer of the next film in its Cinematic Universe, Black Widow.

The trailer confirms that the movie directed by Cate Shortland will be in theaters and streaming on Disney+ with Premier Access on July 9.

The movie has recently been delayed, but its release date still isn’t too far off, so if you’re eager to enjoy it, you only have a few months left to wait.

You can check it out below and take a look at the action.

If you’re unfamiliar with Black Widow, you can read an official description below.,

“In Marvel Studios’ action-packed spy thriller “Black Widow,” Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.”

Earlier today, I was playing Outriders. I was in the middle of a mission, about to beat a tough enemy, when I was disconnected from the servers. An error message popped up and that was that. But I was playing alone, in an area only filled with NPCs in a game with no PVP. So why did I even need to be online?

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While Scarlet Nexus now has a release date, Director Kenji Anabuki keeps showcasing new images and sharing more commentary about the upcoming JRPG.

The goodies were shared through the developer’s official Twitter account, and as usual the commentary is kindly translated in English.

We get to see costumes and accessories, another look at what our operatives do while relaxing, an interesting “incident,” a location, and Arashi’s “two faces.”

You can check out all the relevant tweets below.

Classics new and old return!

The post Kamen Rider Black Sun and Kamen Rider W Sequel Series Announced appeared first on Siliconera.

The ‘final’ trailer also takes us back to Natasha’s childhood

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Action RPG Wolcen felt like it burned bright and fast, attracting a peak of over 100k concurrent players at launch last February, and retaining only a little over a thousand a few months later. Bugs and a lack of endgame content seemed to be the issue.

The game's latest patch addresses both. Update 1.1.1.1 adds four new environments that can be played in endgame expeditions, lets you progress 30 more levels in that endgame content, and tweaks and fixes lots of other stuff.

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Every Pokemon is interesting and worth talking about. I don’t play a ton of Pokemon, but I do enjoy the universe and I love learning more about the creatures in it. So, Here’s Another Pokemon! It’s Vullaby!

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