Ghosts are people too. Or, more accurately, ghosts were people too. They need a helpful hand every now and then just like the rest of us.

Give ghosts all the help they need in the new slice-of-life game Cozy Grove from developer Spry Fox (who made Alphabear). Cozy Grove is about exploring a haunted island and performing tasks for the local ghosts, eventually restoring color and joy. There's a prominent crafting angle, probably by collecting a lot of resources to eventually make items the ghosts need.

It sounds like the perfect thing to kill a little time with each day, much like Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley. Spry Fox says Cozy Grove has a campaign that reaches beyond 40 hours, and is "designed to span months of playtime."

Cozy Grove comes to PC (Steam and Epic), PS4, Switch, and Xbox One sometime in the first half of next year. Until then, the ghosts will have to live in misery just like the rest of us. There is no escape.

Like many of you, I'm sure, last Thursday night I was a little bewildered to see Vin Diesel pop up mid-Game Awards and start smashing his way through a dinosaur-filled jungle. Eventually, the trailer was revealed to be Ark 2, with Vin Diesel starring as character Santiago in the sequel to the original multiplayer game. But his involvement doesn't end there, as it turns out Vin Diesel is a serious Ark fan: and he's even helping produce the game.

A press release from Studio Wildcard explains Vin Diesel has joined the team as an executive producer, not only for Ark 2, but for the animated series also shown at the Game Awards. He's earned himself the title "president of creative convergence" - whatever that may be - but there's a reason why Vin Diesel is so heavily involved with Ark, as he's a huge fan of Ark: Survival Evolved. In fact, he's apparently put "thousands of hours" into Ark, according to Studio Wildcard CEO Doug Kennedy. "He understands the game intimately and is providing direct feedback to the development process. With [Thursday] night's reveal of the Ark sequel and animated TV series, Vin will be involved with each as we look to expand the Ark franchise even further, now and into the future."

Well, with that many hours sunk into the game, I think that qualifies Vin Diesel to get fully involved with Ark. Also, it's Vin Diesel.

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The Cyberpunk 2077 refund situation only gets weirder and weirder. Developer CD Projekt Red is now telling players who requested a refund for the game’s PlayStation 4 version to sit tight.

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Update (12/17/2020): Red Candle Games has issued a response to GOG reversing its decision to re-release Devotion. The statement says that while the studio finds the news regretful, it ultimately respect's GOG's decision. After apologizing to fans, the studio goes on to say that "this is a difficult predicament to overcome, but we won't stop striving.". 

pic.twitter.com/SKI3SeW18s

— redcandlegames (@redcandlegames) December 17, 2020

Original Story: The sad saga of Devotion continues. The psychological horror game by Taiwanese developer Red Candle Games released on Steam in February 2019 to rave reviews only to be delisted just days later after an in-game meme mocking the Chinese government drew the ire of players and officials in that country. Horror fans have spent the last year hoping and begging for the game to return, and their prayers were seemingly answered this morning when Devotion was announced to be returning to sale. Unfortunately, the high was short lived as the storefront in question, GOG, has cancelled the game’s re-release. 

For someone who spends a lot of time cursing nostalgia culture and lamenting the fact that the vast majority of new entertainment—from movies to Broadway musicals—seems to exist only to milk a little bit more money out of some valuable IP, I sure do love Netflix’s Cobra Kai.

Based on the 1980s franchise The Karate Kid…

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Reader dear, what do you want for Christmas from RPS? We’ve opened a new survey all about that. While our annual reader survey asks questions about you, this one focuses on us: what do you like about RPS, how well do you think we’re doing, and what more do you want from us? I’m sure I won’t find this experience at all humbling. It also has questions to help us shape the perks of our RPS supporter program.

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Update: Red Candle says it will respect GOG's decision, but described the u-turn as "regretful" in a brief statement. ...

Understanding the role that psychology plays within the science of game development is crucial to creating memorable and engaging games. ...

Earlier today, Taiwanese developer Red Candle Games announced that it would finally re-release its horror game Devotion on GOG.com.

Just a few hours later, CD Projekt’s digital distribution platform followed up announcing that after receiving “many messages from gamers” they’re not going to list the game in the store.

You can see both tweets below.

Within hours of Red Candle Games' announcement, CD Projekt announced Devotion won't appear on GOG and pulled its product page.

The post Devotion GOG Release Canceled appeared first on Siliconera.

For the past three years, I've posted the nominees for Destructoid's annual Best Remaster/Remake award of the given year. While it's fair to suggest that the category is hardly considered a "leading" topic in the annual GOTY discourse, it's not without its charm, having seen some solid winners in its past.

2020 is a little different. 2020 was a year where the general run of up-scaled and re-tweaked classics was replaced by a selection of varied, creative, and both conceptually and critically adored re-imaginings of some of the industry's most fondly-remembered titles. The year saw the return of several PlayStation paragons, a selection of tightly-held PC favorites, and one of the greatest PS3 titles of all-time. All of these titles paid respect to the past, while using today's technology and contemporary design culture to offer modern experiences to both new audiences and those of us with older souls.

As such, this year's Remaster/Remake category not only features a selection of truly excellent titles, but it is actually one of the premier – and most hotly contested – awards of this 2020's Game of the Year discourse. I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks.

These are the nominees for Destructoid's Best Remaster/Remake of 2020:

Two years of PlayStation Plus and the Amazon Echo Dot lead Wednesday’s best deals.

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All of Black Ops Cold War’s weapons added to Warzone

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A new teaser from Compile Heart suggests a Nintendo Switch version of Death end re;Quest is in development.

The post Death end re;Quest Switch Version Teased by Compile Heart appeared first on Siliconera.

We're seeing PS5 upgrades pop up in unlikely places, and that's exactly how I'd categorize Terminator: Resistance. Teyon's "for the fans"-at-best Terminator shooter is getting an enhanced edition in 2021.

More than just a visually-boosted 4K60 re-release with added DualSense support and faster load times, Terminator: Resistance Enhanced will also have a new Infiltrator mode ("players can get under the skin of a T-800 series Infiltrator unit and strike out against Resistance forces") and balance changes.

The PS5 edition is launching on March 26 as a free upgrade for PS4 owners of Terminator: Resistance.

What's more, the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game are getting a balance/difficulty update in Q1 2021 – and the PS5 and PC versions are planning to add a paid story expansion in summer 2021.

No word on any Xbox Series X/S enhancements, but yeah, I'm surprised. Prime bargain-bin fodder.

@Reef_Games [Twitter]

Recently, Microsoft Flight Simulator add-on developer SamScene3D released the “Seoul City Wow” package featuring the capital of South Korea.

The Asian country is one of the major nations included Microsoft Flight Simulator that has received the least attention from add-on creators, including freeware.

On top of that, the default local scenery in the base simulator is far from stellar, making the Republic of Korea look a lot more boring than it actually is.

Funnily enough, I was able to find more (freeware) add-ons portraying secretive North Korea than the whopping zero I found enriching its southern counterpart.

One of the reasons behind this issue is that South Korea’s political situation dictates part of its legislation, including some really strict regulations about maps. This is the reason why no Google Maps 3D view exists of Seoul, despite the fact that it’s a massively-relevant capital city home to almost ten million people.

A number of British MPs have tabled an Early Day Motion that calls for a ban on the resale of gaming consoles and computer components purchased using automated bots. ...

Today Koei Tecmo revealed the new footage of the upcoming Nioh 2 DLC titled “The First Samurai” which was announced back in November.

First of all, we get to see the trailer of the DLC, providing a good idea of what we can expect.

Then producer Fumihiko Yasuda presented some single-player gameplay, including a look at the new Scampuss hat.

Incidentally, Yasuda-san also confirmed that the game has sold over 1.2 million units worldwide as of September.

Next is the inevitable multiplayer gameplay. Of course, both sessions end with a boss battle.

As a bonus, we also get to take a look at the adorable and super-soft Scampuss plushie.

You can see them all out below already set at the correct timestamp of the livestream.

The DLC releases tomorrow, December 17.

pic.twitter.com/SKI3SeW18s

— redcandlegames (@redcandlegames) December 17, 2020

Earlier today, it was announced that the game Devotion is coming to GOG. After receiving many messages from gamers, we have decided not to list the game in our store.

Ubisoft+, the $15-a-month service that gives subscribers access to premium versions of games like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Immortals: Fenyx Rising, and Watch Dogs Legion, is now available as part of Google’s Stadia streaming platform. Finally an alternative to streaming Ubisoft games on Amazon Luna.

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Happy holidays, everyone! Can you actually believe that Christmas is already next week? And that 2021 is right around the corner? I sure don’t. But many people have started decorating their homes with their Christmas trees, and it turns out that Grogu, aka The Child, aka Baby Yoda, has been replacing angels and stars as the number one choice for tree toppers and it’s quite wonderful and wholesome.

Thanks to the ever-growing popularity of the character from Star Wars: The Mandalorian series on Disney+, Baby Yoda is taking the world by storm in a way that we could not even imagine.

Nick Taylor on Twitter has even gone out of the way to somehow place a floating ornament in this image below to make it seem like Grogu is using his force powers to lift it. Is it a string? Is it magic? Who knows!

Power up your Ray Gun!

The post Yu Yu Hakusho Netflix Live-Action Series Announced appeared first on Siliconera.

Idea Factory International has announced that Neptunia Virtual Stars will be arriving on PC via Steam, alongside its PS4 edition, when the action-adventure RPG wings its way westward sometime in 2021 on PC and PS4.

Originally released in Japan this past summer, Neptunia Virtual Stars (or VVVtunia) sees our favorite CPUs enter a brand new virtual realm, where they encounter, and then team up with V-idols MEWTRAL in a last-ditch effort to fend of the imposing might of the Antis invaders, who are bringing chaos to the planet Emote. Video games.

Neptune Virtual Stars features a cast of series regulars such as Nep-Nep, Vert, Blanc, and Noire, but also crosses over with legendary "real-life" V-idols who you may know from streaming brands such as Hololive, ReVdol!, Horror Academian, and upd8. Is "Korone" one of those?.. I'm so old, I'm so, so old.

Hello! I have a favour to ask. We'd love it if you could take 20 minutes of your time to fill out this survey about Eurogamer.

It's a little different from the surveys we usually do, which are about building a picture of our audience and what they're into. This one is a bit more involved and is aimed at getting your opinion on what we can do to expand and improve on the website experience - including offering a paid membership or subscription option.

This is something we're looking at very closely at the moment, and if we're going to do it, we want to get it right, so your feedback would be very much appreciated. Your answers will be confidential.

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The battle between the Autobots and Decepticons is a serious conflict spanning millions of years. Hasbro’s new holiday-themed Transformers stop-motion short recalls the time Megatron and his cronies very nearly stole Christmas from Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Windblade, and Grimlock.

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Game director Luke Smith’s super long-term plan to update all of the Supers in Destiny 2

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The game was pulled from Steam shortly after its release date — and now blocked from GOG before it even got there

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Though it's not a big sale, demand is certainly high enough that we thought it worth mentioning: Super Mario 3D All-Stars is currently going at a reduced price from select retailers in the UK. Certainly worth paying attention to, as a) a lot of people will be buying over Christmas, and b) physical copies of 3D All-Stars won't be around forever.

Yes, it's true: Nintendo are only planning to make physical copies until the end of March, and the game has been in high demand partly for that reason (though Nintendo has also said that digital downloads of the game will be around indefinitely). 3D All-Stars is a collation and remastering of three classic Mario games - Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy. Everybody has their favorites, but you're sure to find at least one here that you love.

There's a lot more deals laid out for you here at Eurogamer! Check out the full list of the best Nintendo Switch deals, or find out where Star Wars games are going cheap! Or you can always see what we've mentioned at the Jelly Deals Twitter, where there's all manner of offers waiting for you!

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Teardown co-creator Dennis Gustafsson discusses the making of 2020's biggest (and only?) heist-themed voxel game. ...

The FIFA 21 Ultimate Team grind is real - if you don't splash the cash on loot boxes, that is. So, to speed things up a bit, players have come together to create their own, unspoken Golden Goal rule.

This unofficial rule was sparked by the release of the first batch of Icon Swaps rewards. These tokens are eventually "swapped" for powerful Icon cards, for the likes of a 90-rated Thierry Henry, a 90-rated Frank Rijkaard and a 91-rated Prime Ronald Koeman.

To get these tokens you need to complete objectives, and the first eight of these are live now. Five are completed in the Live FUT Friendlies playlist, and three in Squad Battles (Ultimate Team vs the AI).

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Once again, people will be able to buy copies of Devotion.

The post Devotion Will Once Again Return to PCs via GOG (Update) appeared first on Siliconera.

In a wildly unnecessary turn of events today, the PC horror game Devotion won't be sold on GOG after all – despite the fact that developer Red Candle Games only just announced the release this morning.

Earlier today, it was announced that the game Devotion is coming to GOG. After receiving many messages from gamers, we have decided not to list the game in our store.

— GOG.COM (@GOGcom) December 16, 2020

In a statement posted to Twitter, GOG cited "many messages from gamers" as the reason it "decided not to list the game in our store." It's another bad look for GOG's owner, CD Projekt. (It's been a week.)

There's no denying that Devotion has had a bumpy road – it was pulled from Steam soon after its original launch in February 2019 due to backlash over an unfavorable reference to Chinese president Xi Jinping – but GOG's justification for supporting Devotion only to reverse its decision is something else.

It's one thing to choose to avoid carrying a game on your digital storefront, but to say you're going to help revive it only to immediately flip-flop on the same day? Talk about being your own worst enemy.

GOG hasn't released a more in-depth explanation yet. I'm curious to see if one will ever come.

As for Red Candle Games, the studio is "busy working" on its next video game.

This post details (with actual numbers) the revenue and the expenses of Starlight X-2. It's a mobile puzzle game released on Android and iOS in June 2020. ...

Free content will also release alongside the last DLC expansion.

The post Nioh 2 The First Samurai DLC Will Include End-Game Activities appeared first on Siliconera.

The launch of EA Play on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for PC has been delayed until 2021 to give Microsoft more time to deliver a "great experience." ...

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I wouldn’t open the sixteenth door of the RPS Advent Calendar if I were you. Pretty sure there’s someone on the other side ready to punch and/or kick you. Oh, you’re going for it anyway? Okay, well. On your head be it.

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