Microsoft is developing a browser-based workaround to get its game-streaming xCloud service onto iPhones and iPads.

That's according to Business Insider and The Verge, which reported on comments made by Xbox boss Phil Spencer to staff in a recent company meeting.

"We absolutely will end up on iOS," said Spencer, who mentioned an early 2021 launch for the . "We'll end up on iPhones, and iPads with Game Pass."

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The 25 pictures in a cluster foxer are arranged in 5 discretely/discreetly themed clusters. Pictures in a particular cluster must be cardinally contiguous to be valid. For example, a1, b1, c1, d1, d2 is a possible cluster, unlike a2, b2, c2, d2, e3. To fully defox today’s enlargeable puzzle identify the themes and constituent images of all five clusters. (more…)

Five games will be played throughout the length of the online competition.

The post ARCREVO 2020 Online Tournament Will Begin in Japan October 10 appeared first on Siliconera.

Fallout 76 is still playing the catch-up game in terms of making up for all of its bugs at launch, but the team is slowly getting there (minus new glitches that pop up along the way).

The next update finally has a confirmed release date (October 13), at which point "a number of bugs and community-reported issues" will be fixed. Naturally, since this is Fallout 76, new items are being added to the Atomic Shop and more "behind the scenes groundwork" is happening for the upcoming Steel Dawn update, still slated for later this year.

Treasure hunting Mole Miners are also coming back via an event, which will kick off on October 15. Bethesda is touting "improvements" for their return, allowing them to spawn all over the map and dynamically scale up to level 50. In short, they should be dropping more relevant loot now and actually feel like they're part of an event; and not just a random useless mob. The reward pool has also been scaled in a way that provides players with unique items. Yep: this is all Destiny-esque stuff that should have never been stingy!

I wanted to burn the following appetisers onto a CD then sellotape the disc to the front cover of today’s column but Graham said that was “technically impossible” so links and enticing descriptions will have to suffice. Be aware that most of the demos detailed below will self-destruct when the ongoing Steam Game Festival ends next Tuesday, and that the line-up is the result of careful curation not haphazard Googling. Not all of the trials I played this week passed my fussy quality control criteria. (more…)

Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s daily hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today we’re going to talk about Fallout 76’s pastoral ode to nuclear death and irradiated rebirth. No other soundtrack in recent memory has breathed so much life into an otherwise empty and broken game.

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For years, a common Final Fantasy XIV (and by extension, PS4) "hack" has to been to install an SSD drive in your PS4 just to lessen the load times for hardcore XIV players. Given that the whole process won't be necessary on PS5, it stands to reason that the in-house SSD will provide some sort of benefit. Square Enix confirmed today that this is indeed the case.

Revealed on the Letter from the Producer LIVE stream, Square Enix says that by the time patch 5.4 comes out (which is titled Futures Rewritten), it will allow the game to not only work on the PS5, but also take advantage of faster load times. Otherwise, the game will mirror a PS4 Pro's performance on a PS5.

As someone who has played FFXIV on an SSD-ready PC, a PS3 and a base PS4/PS4 Pro, this improvement is a godsend. Even on a Pro, load times between areas (which is very common for high level players, teleporting around at will) can be prohibitively long. That said, producer Yoshi-P did note that a proper PS5 edition has not been fully confirmed yet.

As far as other big 5.4 fixins go, there's going to be a new trial, an unreal trial, more story ("MSQ"), another raid wing (Eden's Promise) and the Matoya's Relict dungeon. Once again Square Enix is ambitiously trying to sate both the hardcore and casual playerbases with these two different approaches.

Final Fantasy XVI seems like it's in good hands.

We already sort of knew this because Yoshi-P was on the case, but Square Enix seemingly hasn't jumped the gun years in advance like they have in the past. In fact, a good deal of Final Fantasy XVI's foundation seems like it's already done.

Laid out plainly on Square Enix's own recruitment site (as translated by Gematsu), developers have "already completed basic development and scenario production," with "most of [their] staff carrying out work remotely." Right now the team is working on "large-scale resources and boss battles," as well as "large-scale cutscenes and stages/fields."

In other words, most of the story seems mapped out, they just need to fill in the details. This is basically a done deal when it comes to the framework of the game, so there probably won't be a "Versus XIII" style complete reworks at this point. It's a subtle comment, but it's an impactful one.

No one wants a repeat of Final Fantasy XV's troubled development cycle: which had issues up until the bitter end when multiple DLCs were canceled. Yoshi-P is handling this fantastically so far, both tempering expectations while giving the fans what they want: a debut trailer with actual gameplay and not vague cutscene-based promises.

Recruitment [Square Enix via Gematsu]

Sony published a teardown video of their new PlayStation 5 console the other day, revealing an intriguing detail about its expandable storage options. While its internal 825GB SSD is soldered straight onto the PS5’s mainboard, you’ll also find there’s an M.2 slot for additional SSDs underneath the main white cover. The same slot we PC folk currently have on our motherboards for connecting NVMe SSDs to it. Handy!

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Save up to 30% on Shanchar Adjustable Dumbbells | Amazon Gold Box

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Ever since Sony confirmed that the PlayStation 5 would be backward compatible with PS4 games, there has been a cloud of confusion hanging over its functionality. It doesn't extend to any generations before PS4, and PlayStation architect Mark Cerny says "nearly all" last-gen games will run on PS5. We've been left wondering how vast that list of omissions will be.

As it turns out, it's not bad at all. Sony released a list of the 10 games that won't be available via backward compatibility and are only playable on PS4. Here they are:

According to The Mainichi Daily News (via Tokyo Reporter), former Splatoon pro Kai “YIG” Asano (pictured) has been arrested for the alleged rape of a middle school girl.

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Earlier this year, Bithell Games helped UK micro-indie Grey Alien Games publish Ancient Enemy, the latest in a series of what can only be called solitaire adventures by Jake Birkett. Mike Bithell - of Thomas Was Alone and John Wick Hex - must have enjoyed the experience, because here he is with his own twist on solitaire-with-a-story, The Solitaire Conspiracy, as part of his Shorts series of smaller-scale projects. It's out now for PC and Mac on Steam and the Epic store.

Now, two of my favourite time-wasters of the last decade have been Birkett's delightful, Jane Austen-inspired amuse-bouche Regency Solitaire and Klei Entertainment's mini-masterpiece of future espionage tactics, Invisible, Inc. The Solitaire Conspiracy appears strongly influenced by both, so I was excited to try it. Like the Klei game, it features a cast of augmented spooks and hackers on daring undercover missions, and has a sharp-edged, neon-lit aesthetic, all violet and cyan over midnight blue and suspenseful synth music. Like Regency Solitaire, it playfully - perhaps arbitrarily - frames a ripping yarn around hands of solitaire, where the aim is to clear a layout of cards to progress to the next chapter.

Both comparisons are unfortunate ones for The Solitaire Conspiracy. Invisible, Inc. found, in a procedurally generated, XCOM-style turn-based tactics game, a perfect engine for creating knife-edge stealth scenarios for its cartoon espionage action. Bithell tries to find a similar thematic sympathy in solitaire, envisioning the cards as unruly agents, the suits as spy teams of contrasting styles, and the player as spymaster, brooding over the field of play and trying to bring order to the chaos.

As you roam the dark crypts and monster-filled plains of Baldur’s Gate 3 you’ll want to keep your party’s HP filled, as well as any spell slots for applicable party members. A great way to do so is by using rests. There are two kinds of rests available: short rests and long rests. Each has its benefits, which we’ll explain below.

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#サイバーパンク2077 無事ゴールドマスターです！ひとつの大きなマイルストーンに到達しましたが、これからも引き続きブラッシュアップしていきます！まだまだやれることはある！

The educational programming kit Make Rockman will be available in Japan on November 5, 2020. The book is also available separately.

The post Make Rockman Will Be Released in Japan on November 5, 2020 appeared first on Siliconera.

It looks like Valorant is getting a new healer that might take some of the pressure off of all you Sage mains this month. Last night, Riot Games gave us our first proper look at the upcoming agent, Skye. Her kit comes with a big old area heal, as well as various animals she can throw at people to blind them, and she’s arriving in the tactical FPS on October 27th.

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[Update: The full patch notes have been released by Blizzard. You can find a list of some of the bigger changes below, or check out the entire thing here.]

Big changes are coming to World of Warcraft, and they're happening before the Shadowlands expansion. On October 13, actually, when the pre-patch hits.

The most important thing to note is easily the "level squish," which is bringing level 120 players down to 50, to make progression more meaningful (read: leveling will grant you new abilities and talents).

You can also change your gender and appearance at the barbershop at will, which grants you more customization options, like tattoos for dwarves and less/more bone exposure for undead. Corrupted gear will be cleansed when Shadowlands hits and season four will end.

So that's all of the housekeeping stuff. In terms of content, you're called into action to combat an undead invasion in Icecrown. It's confirmed as a "limited time event" with special rewards: aiming to end around when Shadowlands launches. Par for the course! I hope that the "tee-up" pre-patch questline has some meaningful beats.

Shadowlands Pre-Expansion [Battle.net]

I think it's fair to say Star Wars: Squadrons hasn't had the smoothest of take-offs, with the game launching with a variety of issues for flight stick and PC VR users. At least some of those issues have now been solved, thanks to a patch deployed last night which took aim at some of the most annoying technical problems.

One of the game's more frustrating bugs has related to Fleet Battles ranking, in which players could not rank after completing their initial placement matches. Thanks to the patch, players who are yet to start their placement matches will now be able to rank normally, while those who were caught mid-way through the process will have their remaining matches use the corrected system. Unfortunately for those who already played all their placement matches, there will be no rank resets "at this time" to even the playing field, and it looks like you'll be graded on your matches going forwards.

At launch, many flight stick users complained Squadrons had an oversized deadzone (the area of your controller that doesn't respond to stick movement) which players described as "mak[ing] flying with HOTAS feel like your ship is drunk". Motive has now introduced a menu option to allow players to modify the deadzone individually, rather than having to use workarounds with their HOTAS software. No more death sticks for you. On top of this, the default input curves for flight sticks have also been adjusted, which should apparently make the controls feel more responsive.

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FIFA 21 has made a raft of gameplay changes while retaining long-standing issues that drag the series down (more on that over at our FIFA 21 review). But one fix made on the down-low that most players will never notice, is that FIFA 21 has got rid of the giant goalkeepers that plagued FIFA 20.

It's an issue that has been a part of FIFA 20 ever since it came out late 2019, but it went under the radar because it was limited to a single mode - one that doesn't tend to grab the headlines.

With FIFA 20, EA launched a brand new mode called Volta. This FIFA Street-esque mode sees up to 5v5 matches on small pitches, with skill and style the focus. Here, you create an avatar, then build your squad as you play. Here's how it looks:

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Marvel's Avengers developer Crystal Dynamics has said it is working on new updates for the game "as fast as we safely can" in a bid to reignite waning player interest.

Yesterday a Forbes report highlighted SteamCharts numbers suggesting the game's PC audience had slumped to between 1000-2000 people a month after launch - low enough for the game to begin experiencing matchmaking issues.

In response, Crystal Dynamics boss Scot Amos issued a lengthy statement to Kotaku on the studio's plans for the game in the near-term future, and said he is confident players will "return" to the game on PC, as well as on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

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Despite having only launched one month ago, Crystal Dynamics' superhero extravaganza Marvel's Avengers is struggling to maintain a strong community. Recent statistics for the PC platform show a daily engagement of less than 2,000 players, which is already leading to matchmaking problems for the multiplayer-heavy title.

Speaking with Kotaku, Crystal Dynamics CEO Scott Amos directly addressed the drop-off in users, and laid out plans for Marvel's Avengers going forward - plans that the developers are confident will see players return for another round of comic-book action-adventure.

"Every day we fight to make the best game possible for our community," said Amos. "We have a great community management team at Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix who funnel all of your concerns, suggestions, and feedback to the development team daily. We are listening. We are making fixes, improvements, and additions as fast as we safely can to make Marvel's Avengers the game we all aspire it to be."

"We will continue to add new content to the game in the coming months as we address issues and overall game balance, including loot distribution and quality of life features everyone is clamoring for to improve our day-to-day experience from accessibility to co-op communication tools to balancing the economy! We are confident that we’ll see PC players (as well as those on Xbox One and PlayStation 4) return to the game as we add exciting new late-game content and demonstrate that we continue to be focused on improving the game."

A life-sized Godzilla attraction will open this weekend at the Nijigen no More amusement park on Japan’s Awaji Island.

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The mysterious girl with horns makes her appearance in the new Higurashi anime adaptation sooner than later.

The post Higurashi When They Cry Anime Trailer Teases Hanyu appeared first on Siliconera.

VR has been innovating for some time now, creating completely new spaces for experiences that demand more physical activity: perhaps best showcased with the 1v1 dueling subgenre.

Insomniac did some amazing things in The Unspoken nearly four years ago and CCP rocked it with Sparc a year later. While Resolution Games' Blaston isn't quite as ambitious as those two, it's also keeping that same competitive spirit alive in 2020.

Best Buy, no. I will not accept that you can start your Black Friday sales on a Tuesday. It simply doesn’t make any sense. Sure, maybe if you’d called your legally distinct [cms-block] event something like, “Black Friday Tuesday Wednesday”, it might have been vaguely acceptable. But just straight up calling your October 13-14th sales event next week the new Black Friday will not stand. I refuse.

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Dicebreaker Recommends is a series of monthly board game, RPG and other tabletop recommendations from our friends at our sibling site, Dicebreaker.

It's unsurprising that horror is a popular theme in tabletop roleplaying games. After all, roleplaying is all about immersing yourself in a world or scenario and some people just really enjoy being scared - myself included. Hence the likes of Call of Cthulhu, Vampire: The Masquerade and Dread.

An indie roleplaying game released way back in 2005, Dread was designed by Epidiah Ravachol and was something a little out of the ordinary when it came to TRPGs. Whereas RPGs such as Dungeons & Dragons 5E have specific worlds for players to explore, Dread doesn't have an official setting. Instead, the book contains a set of rules for the games master and the players portraying the main protagonists to use within a variety of horror settings, from haunted carnivals to derelict spaceships and beyond.

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It’s barely been a month since Hades finally got its full proper release on PC and Nintendo Switch, and speedrunners have already started optimizing their runs to beat the game as inhumanly fast as possible. The current world record for the game is 7 minutes and 16 seconds in-game time, held by Vorime.

You can check out the full run for yourself down below:

It’s worth noting that this is the IGT record, which means that it only counts in the in-game clock or timer, and does not account for the time spent menu-ing and managing builds. We’ll likely see RTA (real time attack) speedruns in the future that rival the current IGT record, but for now, the record only accounts for the in-game clock.

This speedrun makes use of the Adamant Rail, which is the final weapon you’ll unlock in Hades. Vorime also had the Aspect of Eris unlocked for the weapon, which increases your base damage output whenever you take damage yourself to help with clearing out rooms and bosses faster.

Hades is now available for PC via the Epic Games Store and Steam, and the Nintendo Switch.

As we get ready for the next phase in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, more news is starting to trickle in for the cast and plans for the upcoming movies. One of the most anticipated releases is the new Spider-Man installment, starring Tom Holland in the titular role.

While we’ve definitely seen crossovers between all of the Marvel movies and characters before, it’s definitely nice to know that Benedict Cumberbatch will be joining the cast of the Spider-Man movie to reprise his role as Doctor Strange, as reported by Hollywood Reporter.

His inclusion definitely makes sense after the events of Avengers: Endgame. With Iron Man officially out of the picture, Doctor Strange would certainly fit well into the mentor role for a young Peter Parker and help to push both their character arcs forward in a meaningful way.

The new Spider-Man movie will also see the return of Jamie Foxx as Electro, who had also played the same role in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, starring Andrew Garfield. The movie is set to start shooting later this month.

The post Benedict Cumberbatch to Join the Next Spider-Man Movie as Doctor Strange appeared first on Twinfinite.

Video game movie and series adaptations are all the rage these days, as it looks like Warhorse Studios’ Kingdom Come: Deliverance is also getting its own live-action adaptation soon. Whether it’s going to be a movie or extended TV series remains to be seen, but it’ll be produced with Warhorse Studios and Erik Barmack, formerly the head of Netflix’s international originals.

According to Variety, both Barmack and Warhorse have started to “reach out to potential writers and directors” for the project.

‘Both deals show Barmack, the former Netflix head of international originals, zeroing in on what he calls “amazing, non-U.S. worlds that are locally relevant, but with a regional and global popularity that streamers are looking for as they become more and more global.”
“It’s especially interesting that video games with heavy narrative, like ‘The Witcher’ and ‘Kingdom Come: Deliverance,’ are uniquely adaptable, and local but global all at once,” he added.’

Kingdom Come: Deliverance was released back in 2018. It was praised for being a truly open action RPG with a heavy emphasis on realism. Your character could get injured in all sorts of ways, and the combat was so focused on being as realistic as possible that it could feel clunky at times. Overall, while the game certainly had its fair share of flaws, it also felt unique in a market of overly polished open world games.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance is now available on consoles and PC.

Disney has announced Thursday that Pixar’s Soul is nixing its theatrical release and will be streaming exclusively on Disney+ this Christmas.

Soul was initially scheduled to be released in theaters June 19, but the pandemic forced Disney and Pixar to postpone it to Nov. 20. However, according to Variety, Disney was exploring other release options as it was unable to make the theatrical release for Thanksgiving weekend. Now families can expect to watch Pixar’s next anticipated animated release while roasting chestnuts over the fireplace.

A few months back it seemed pretty unlikely that Microsoft would be able to bring its Xbox Game Pass (via xCloud streaming) to iOS devices, but a report today says that games boss Phil Spencer is telling employees it’ll be ready next year, and it’ll likely be using a browser to get around Apple’s restrictions.

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Photographer Nikolay Zharov put this incredible shoot together featuring the work of three cosplayers: Tina Morbid (Good Hunter), Shion (Father Gascoigne) and Zep Hindle (Old Hunter Henryk).

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