Like pretty much every day, third-party developers have showcased and released new content for Microsoft Flight Simulator.

First of all, we get to take the first look at the work-in-progress cockpit of the Airbus A220 from Whiskey Jet Simulations.

Next is IndiaFoxtEcho that showcased its current projects and provided an update about them.

EA has temporarily disabled content granting--the ability for items to be directly given to a player's account--as it continues investigating where an employee was responsible for selling high-rated items on the black market in order to profit.

The news comes a short time after the company started an investigation to see if one of its own employees had been granting access to rare cards in FIFA 21 to buyers online for hundreds of even thousands of dollars. The community has dubbed the scandal "EAGate," and leaked messages appear to show someone--possibly an EA employee--explaining to a buyer how they can send these items to their account for the right price.

Because EA isn't sure who is behind the black market sales yet, and isn't even sure if it's actually an employee or someone who compromised an employee's account, content granting has been disabled for now.

Who’s been messing up everything? It was almost someone else.

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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 Mudbray!

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Korean developer Sonnori released a teaser trailer of White Day 2: The Flower That Tell Lies.

The studio is known for its previous game, White Day: A Labyrinth Named School, and apparently, this is the follow-up.

This is not the first time we hear about White Day 2. The game, announced years ago, was titled White Day 2: Swan Song and was slated for 2018. It then disappeared in the shadows basically with no further notice.

Now it’s back with a new title. At the moment it isn’t know whether this is a reboot of the project, a continuation, or something else.

You can check out the foreboding teaser trailer below.

If you’re unfamiliar with the original White Day (or more precisely its remake), it’s available for PC via Steam, PS4, and Mobile. You can check out a description below.

Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection runs at a 4K resolution and 60fps+, according to the Microsoft Store.

The mention of 60fps+ for the collection, which includes 2007's Ninja Gaiden Sigma, 2009's Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 and 2012's Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge with most of the previously-released game modes and DLC costumes, suggests the much-loved action games could push to 120fps on current-gen consoles.

The trailer is below:

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Strategy game Stellaris is giving you even more ways to explore the vastness of space and control it how you see fit. The expansion Stellaris: Nemesis is out on April 15, and it gives you the power to literally end all life in the known universe.

Stellaris: Nemesis features a “destabilizing galaxy,” with several paths to power and peace available to choose from. These include a role as “Galactic Custodian,” where you can persuade the powers that be to give you emergency abilities in order to restore order. It’s up to you to decide whether to relinquish these powers once the conflict is solved, and you can use new ship sets to make your fleet look particularly imposing.

If you prefer something a bit more sinister, you can also become a merciless empire that can eventually “unleash enough power to stop all of existence,” which sounds like it could make for a unique endgame. You can use espionage to learn about your enemies’ secrets in order to come up with a plan, even instigating incidents to make them look bad and secretly consolidate your own power. It’s certainly a dastardly way to grow your influence, especially if your true motives aren’t discovered until it’s too late.

You can now easily listen to “I’m Your GPU” all day, every day.

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Surviving Mars is back in active development, now with Mass Effect: Legendary Edition and Ark: Survival Evolved studio Absraction Games leading the way. More expansive content is in the works, and a free tourism update goes leave on Monday for all players--that “all players” total just so happens to have reached 5 million.

The news was made as part of the Paradox Insider presentation on March 13, which also featured news and gameplay from several of the publisher’s biggest series. The tourism update includes an RC Safari, which arrives from Earth, but you can also make own. You can then set different points of interest on your colony and let visitors explore. Additionally, there’s a hotel feature you can use after completing a research task, as well as a low-gravity amusement park. Depending on the rating tourists give you, you’ll get a certain amount of funds and rewards.

EA has suspended all discretionary content granting indefinitely amid the ongoing "EA Gate" scandal that has rocked the FIFA series.

Earlier this week Eurogamer reported on how the FIFA community had unearthed direct messages that appeared to show an EA employee selling coveted Ultimate Team cards for thousands of pounds on the black market.

These direct messages mentioned FUT Icon cards in packages priced 750-1000 euros. In one WhatsApp message, three Prime Icon Moments cards were offered for 1700 euros.

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Cblogs of 3/6 to 3/12/2021

-RedHeadPeak is enjoying his first "Family Game" experience through playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

-Exber responds to this month's Band of Bloggers prompt about video game mysteries.

-Kerrik52 reviews Thief (2014) as part of his Traveler in Playtime review blogs.

-Eggs&Brewsterjr discusses five games he didn't quite lay as intended.

-Necrowondo shares his thoughts on Moon, the famously weird JRPG game.

-Eggs&Brewsterjr thinks that Valkyria Chronicles is an exceptional experience.

-PhilsPhindings discusses the similarities between the soundtrack of Final Fantasy IX and some traditional folk music.

-Black Red Gaming shares their gaming collection.

-The Baked Potato is being subjected to poor service from Blizzard and isn't going to take it.

-TaviaM introduces herself and her hopes to blog to our community.

-BrwnC0at will start a fantasy journal project that focuses on surviving with a bunch of nerdy activities for entertainment.

The 2015 release of Cities: Skylines delivered something fans of the mid-'90s city builder titles had been sorely missing: a modern, yet faithful reimagining of the genre. While Cities: Skylines was every bit a modern entry in the genre many grew up loving, it forewent the negative aspects of the modern formula, while embracing the community wholeheartedly. The result is a game that today, six years later, still has a dedicated community playing the title and delivering a vibrant mod scene. 

We had a chance to speak with Mariina Hallikainen, CEO of developer Colossal Order, about the development and continued support of Cities: Skylines. You can see our full Q&A below.

When the team started development on Cities: Skylines, what inspirations did it look at and pull from for the initial concepting? 
We had some serious SimCity fans in the dev team and wanted to achieve a spiritual successor to SimCity 4. Naturally, the ambition was much greater than our resources at the time, so we had to prioritize on the amount of content and different features. Visual work such as day and night cycle and seasons were out of the question and we would have loved to create more variation for the assets. We tried to focus on making the game feel bigger than it actually was by allowing as much freedom for the player as possible and supporting modding as extensively as we technically could.

KFC and Genshin Impact joined forces for a crossover event to reward hungry fans with exclusive rewards. Unfortunately, the finger-lickin' good promotion in China attracted so many excited fans that it was forced to shut down over COVID-19 protocol violations.

As reported by Kotaku, Kentucky Fried Chicken in China was holding a special promotion with Genshin Impact to award special pins to customers who yelled out to employees when purchasing food.

In both the Shanhai and Hangzhou locations, the promotion had to be canceled soon after it began because of COVID-19 protocol violations. Due to the game’s huge fanbase and our collective desire to get exclusive merchandise, it’s easy to see how it could have gotten out of hand. Despite China’s relative return to normalcy--even at the virus’ starting point in Wuhan--the country is taking no chances.

Genshin Impact is one of the most successful games to ever come from mainland China. Studio miHoYo released the game as a free-to-play title on PC, PS4, and mobile, with PS5 and Switch versions on the way. It has received a steady stream of post-launch content and its gacha-style system for getting new characters has made it hugely profitable.

It isn’t the only impressive RPG coming out of China, either, as the action-heavy Black Myth: Wukong is also in development from studio Game Science. Based on Journey to the West--the same classic Chinese novel that served as the loose inspiration for Dragon Ball--its intense combat looks to be on par with what we’ve seen from studios like From Software and Team Ninja.

A Dyson humidifier and fan and a 42-inch Westinghouse Roku TV lead Saturday’s best deals.

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This week on Morning Checkpoint we find out what secrets still lurk in Bloodborne, learn how much money Roblox is worth to Wall Street, check out a new trailer for Outriders, eat a bad burger (again) and hear horror stories from game devs who worked through the recent winter storm.

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It's Saturday, so it's time to take a gander at the newest entry in the Arcade Archives range, courtesy of the retro fans over at Hamster. This week sees the publisher fall back on the tried-and-tested shmup genre, with the release of NMK's sky-high battler Thunder Dragon.

Released in arcades in 1991, Thunder Dragon puts players in the pilot seat of a highly advanced helicopter, fending off an almighty invasion by what appears to be an alien force but - according to the game's flyer - is actually a terrorist organization piloting stolen military technology. Huh. Thunder Dragon offers fast-paced, vertically scrolling action in efforts to capture the gameplay style of the then mega-popular Raiden series, but with a super patriotic U.S. aesthetic. Amusingly, the bootleg version of the Thunder Dragon JAMMA board actually went as far as to rip-off the Raiden's actual OST. 

Despite being packed with explosive effects, flashy weapons, and a head-bangin' soundtrack, the forgotten shmup did not receive a home conversion and, as such, is a very welcome addition to the Arcade Archives range. Thunder Dragon is available to download now on PS4 and Nintendo Switch, priced at around $8. Check out the action in the video below, courtesy of YouTuber Urien84.

2-Pack: Mophie PowerStation Power Banks | $14 | Meh

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Leon and Claire fight a zombie outbreak at the White House in Netflix's upcoming Resident Evil CG anime series.

Netflix released a full plot description for Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness, which is due out at some point this year.

"In 2006, there were traces of improper access to secret Presidential files found in the White House's network. American federal agent Leon S. Kennedy is among the group invited to the White House to investigate this incident, but when the lights suddenly go out, Leon and the SWAT team are forced to take down a horde of mysterious zombies.

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Licensed games are sort of a low-hanging fruit in terms of kusoge, and I have no shame in picking them. They have always, always been hit or miss. You either get a developer that loves the property and tries to do it justice, or you get someone that’s just cranking games out of contractual obligation. That’s why, on one hand, we have Batman on the NES, which is awesome, while on the other hand, we have Predator on the NES, which is the video game equivalent of drinking a warm glass of garbage water.

Then there are these games that are in between. They’re not horrible, someone on the team obviously had some affection for the license, but somewhere along the line, something was lacking. Maybe it was talent, maybe it was vision, or maybe it was corporate meddling. The Tick on SNES and Genesis is one such game. It’s not completely bad at first glean, but dig too far beneath the frosting on top, and you wind up eating sand.

Two Call of Duty: Warzone cheaters were banned on Twitch after the actress behind in-game character Mara called them out on Twitter.

Mara is a Warcom operator character in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone who was released as part of the battle pass during the first season of Infinity Ward's shooter in December 2019.

The actress behind Mara is Alex Zedra, who took to Twitter to expose two cheaters - a boyfriend and girlfriend couple - who were using aimbots in a Warzone tournament played on Friday, 12th March.

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Someone played the Outriders demo for an eye-watering 254 hours so far.

The demo, which has been played by over two million people, went live on 25th February. Developer People Can Fly made the announcement about this player's feat yesterday, 12th March. That means this mystery player clocked 254 hours in just 15 days.

That also means someone has played the demo for an average of just under 17 hours a day since it came out.

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Last year, one of Path of Exile's three-month-long leagues was titled Harvest, allowing players to grow gardens of seeds to spawn monsters and ultimately use "deterministic crafting" on their items. This meant that if players had some sweet loot that was just missing one special statistic (say, additional life), they could put in the work to get just that. Most players weren't big fans of the gardening aspect of the league, but just about everyone loved the ability to improve their gear with specific mods.

This mechanic, like many before, has since made its way into the core game. The current league, Ritual, allows players to come across the Harvest zone while playing the endgame and get a small selection of randomly selected crafts to use on gear. Not everyone is crazy about how it is implemented, but in general, many are happy to have "Harvest crafting" back in some capacity as it allows for some great build diversity and plenty of strong gear.

Naturally, developer Grinding Gear Games (GGG) is nerfing the system for players moving forward.

A little while ago, I suddenly found myself caring about Max Raid Battles in Pokémon Sword and Shield. Pokémon has a knack for this: you play, you finish the story and the afters, and for a while that's it. But then a long weekend appears. A bit of time in lieu needs using up. You catch yourself thinking, actually, why not? Why not finish the Pokédex? Why not get into competitive training? I'll do it - and this time I'll mean it. And down the rabbit hole you go.

The problem is, raids are important for doing those things in Sword and Shield - and raiding is not enormously fun. For one, much the same as the raids of Pokémon Go, when it comes to actually finding a proper group and coordinating a session, most of the work is left to communities outside of the game itself, the slack picked up by fans on Twitter, or reddit, or Discord. More than that, however, raids are painfully time-consuming - when you're in the raid itself, but more so when you're actually trying to find something specific. (As I found out the hard way, amateurishly working through the 'dex).

In other words then, raids might be a neat idea, designed in that typically Pokémon way to get fans playing together - but in that other typically Pokémon way, they're no fun without the community's help.

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KFC was forced to shut down several restaurants in China this weekend after masses of Genshin Impact players turned up to take part in the fast-food outlet's crossover event.

KFC announced that it would be offering exclusive Genshin Impact pins and in-game items to customers who turned up and shouted the phrase "Meet in another world, enjoy delicious food!" at the restaurant's employees. However, as reported by Kotaku, KFC outlets in the Shanghai, Nanjing, and Hangzhou district were overrun with fans. Despite authorities' best efforts to maintain crowd control, it was deemed that the gatherings violated China's particularly strict COVID-19 regulations, forcing the partial-abandonment of the event.

As noted by industry analyst Daniel Ahmad, COVID-19 figures are currently relatively low in China, making the country safer than several other major international communities. Regardless, holding an in-store promotion for one of the zeitgeist's biggest video games while a worldwide pandemic is still in effect is somewhat irresponsible. I feel sorry for the poor saps who were in-costume portraying Genshin Impact characters Diluc and Noelle. I hope they got out of there before being swarmed by fans, huggers, and selfie-takers.

The in-game items from the event are expected to be made available to all players later this summer, while the physical pins have very limited availability. As such, these are highly sought-after items in the Genshin Impact community, which is currently estimated to rank in the region of 30-35 million players.

Time might be a man-made construct, but that doesn't necessarily mean I, a man (I think), am either its master or have any control over it. This was proven to me earlier this week when I spent the whole of Tuesday completely convinced it was Wednesday. Then, at midnight, I was setting my alarm and it was NOW Wednesday. Essentially, I added an entire working day onto my week. What fun. Is a good thing I love all y'all and they dropped that TMNT trailer to help push me through to the weekend. Because now it is finally Saturday. OR IS IT?

This week has seen me mostly squinting into my Nintendo Switch, while my medically prescribed glasses stare at me from the sidetable like "What the Fuck?" I've been elbow-deep in cutesy platformers, having spent time with the Switch port of Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time, and retro-painted styling of Kaze and The Wild Masks. Who doesn't love rabbit gals? Apart from all those people who got salty about Space Jam: A New Legacy, obviously. Anywhoo, you'll be hearing about both those titles from me soon. Stay Tooned!

But let's hear about some video games from you, the Destructoid community. Hoppity-hop into the comments below and let us all know what you've been playing this week/weekend. It blows my mind the way y'all gobble through video games with reckless abandon, but I'm very happy that you still find so much love and joy in the happy medium. Whether you're playing something new, replaying a classic, or abandoning a disappointment, join in the discourse below, before time runs out for ALL OF US.

Have a safe and pleasant weekend, from all of us at Destructoid.

In an era when Hades can win IGN’s Game of The Year award for reinventing the roguelike wheel, and more straightforward games like Dead Cells remain fun after countless runs, PixelJunk Raiders is a major disappointment. Despite a distinct visual style reminiscent of trippy synthwave albums or Moebius paintings, PixelJunk Raiders (perhaps the final Google Stadia exclusive) fails to distinguish itself from the competition in any meaningful way. It does put forth some inventive ideas, but at the same time stumbles over the basics too much for them to matter.

As a fresh-faced bounty hunter, it’s your job to rescue a bunch of desert-dwelling aliens from squid-faced baddies. But beaming down there in the flesh would be stupid, so you’ve got a limited number of digital avatars to complete your mission. It’s a thin setup, but certainly a familiar one. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really go anywhere, and you’ll often hear the same lines from your swarthy mentor congratulating you on nabbing some treasure.

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Somehow, horrifyingly, it has been nearly a full year since most of us went into lockdown to wait out covid-19. And while there is a light at the end of the tunnel in the form of a slowly, confusingly distributed vaccine, we’re still in the thick of it. On this week’s episode of the Splitscreen podcast, we reflect on…

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The landscape of digital art is being upended by NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, to the point where it's difficult not to have heard the term in passing. But what is an NFT? Why are people spending millions of dollars on JPEGs? And could it change how microtransactions in games work?

Just what is a Non-Fungible Token?

First and foremost, NFTs are intrinsically tied to the blockchain--an online ledger that is maintained by thousands of users globally through the process called mining. Transactions on the blockchain aren't centralized, so it's difficult (but not impossible) to edit the ledger to make fraudulent transactions. This is the same technology that powers cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin ($BTC), Dogecoin ($DOGE), and Ethereum ($ETH) around the world. NFTs exist on various blockchains, but most being sold are found on the Ethereum blockchain. Unlike the currency, however, they're non-fungible. That means that one NFT is entirely unique from the rest, unlike the fungible Ethereum, where one coin is identical to all others, thus allowing it to be used as a currency. NFTs, then, are one-of-a-kind in a way, which can explain why they're being used to verify purchases of digital goods. The goods themselves are specifically unique to the token (an image sold as an NFT can still find its way online for anyone to see) but the token itself is an indicator of the purchase.

The Borderlands movie has already cast several of the series’ most well-known characters, from Roland to Claptrap to Tiny Tina. The latest casting announcement, however, is for a mysterious new character that actress Haley Bennett has been tapped to portray. 

Bennett starred in 2019’s Swallow and has appeared in films such as The Magnificent 7 (Emma Cullen), The Girl on the Train (Megan), and, most recently, Hillbilly Elegy (Lindsay) and The Devil All The Time (Charlotte). According to IGN, the only clue to Bennett’s character is that she’ll be have some sort of important connection to Lilith. That’s an interesting clue, and it’s not surprising to see an original character appear in this thing, as video games adaptations tend to do. 

There's a lot to know about in Valheim, from crafting, to survival mechanics, to combat and exploration. We've compiled a whole lot of guides and walkthroughs that can help lead you through the Viking world of Valheim, and even help you cheat. Below, you'll find information about everything Valheim has to offer, to help you find Iron, create Bronze, best bosses, and craft amazing gear.

Stay tuned, as we'll continue to update this list with more and more Valheim guides, tips, walkthroughs, and information as we discover it.

How To Create And Join Dedicated Servers

The first thing you're going to need to do in Valheim is jump into a game world, and if you want to play with friends, you'll probably need a dedicated server. Here's everything about how they work.

• How To Create A Dedicated Server, Invite Friends, And Join

Console Commands And Cheats

While Valheim is a game that's all about survival, it's also very creative, allowing you to build and customize structures and bases in a way that's similar to games such as Minecraft. There's no creative mode in Valheim, but if you wanted to circumvent the survival components--or just cheat in general--we've got a guide for that.

Over the last two generations, Arkane Studios has made a name for itself with the Dishonored franchise. Dishonored, Dishonored 2, and Dishonored: Death of the Outsider garnered critical and fan acclaim for their unique, empowering gameplay that made you think through every move and approach each situation with care. Deathloop is a different experience altogether, but the Dishonored DNA is undeniably there, and the lessons Arkane took from the development of those three beloved titles have served them well in the development of the studio's new IP.

Before the team at Arkane Studios starts each project, game director Dinga Bakaba says they go through a discovery process to ensure the team is only carrying forward the elements that work, while simultaneously auditing what has previously worked to ensure those elements are still fun6. "We always try to ask ourselves the same questions to be sure that we are still happy with the answers," Bakaba says. "In some ways, it's an excruciating process because you need to be constantly in doubt, but at the same time, I think it's healthy, like, don't rush to a solution because it worked in the last game."

The rumors of its demise on the early morning of June 15, 2016 have been greatly exaggerated: Dead by Daylight has spent the last five years coming into its own as one of the best takes on asymmetrical multiplayer out there. Its very distinctive premise – a multiplayer horror game where one person is a monstrous killer who stalks, slashes, and attempts to capture a team of four survivors before they can accomplish objectives and escape – has been copied many times since, but never surpassed. Intricate but intuitive checks and balances and thoughtfully designed characters create an escalating back-and-forth that naturally recreates the tense arc of a horror movie, often ending in close calls.

Drug-addled bank robbers, night terrors, and no-rules parenting in this week’s newest VOD releases

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Riot is also introducing TFT Labs, a place to try experimental new game modes

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After launching the FPS Boost feature in February with a handful of games, Microsoft has announced that five more games, all from Bethesda, will soon be enjoying FPS Boost support.

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Do you know you can hit yourself with a Blue Shell in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe? Speedrunners do, and they’re going all out to blow themselves up with the first place-targeting item as quickly as possible.

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