September 2021

The Sims 4 has gotten a heck of a lot of DLC game packs and expansions over the years and now Maxis are going back to give some extra love to one of them. One of the earliest game packs, from back in 2015, was Spa Day which added things like yoga, meditation, and massages. Maxis have doubled down on the relaxation with new wellness aspirations, the ability to earn money in wellness gigs, and, for the first time, actual nail art. Here's everything that's being added to the pack, and some bits for the base game, next week.

Read more

Aloy deserves to be in the Genshin Impact collaboration and the world it exists in. I’m not just saying that because she’s a great character. I enjoy seeing her thrive in Teyvat, which is kinder to her than her own Earth ever was.

Read more...

I was born in 1991, which means that I wasn’t a teen until the early 2000s. I still think of myself as a ‘90s kid, though, because the early 2000s were just the 1990s with more internet. So The Big Con, out now on Xbox and PC, reminds me of my youth, a time when trips to the video store were common, payphones were…

Read more...

Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games released two new videos about the growing space simulator.

The first video is split into two parts. The first is a look at upcoming ships in the development pipeline, from the Drake Vulture to the Aegis Redeemer.

The second part focuses on additional content and feature that will be implemented in the game in the semi-near future.

The second video is a discussion with core gameplay director Rich Tyrer about the creation of gameplay features for both the persistent universe and Squadron 42.

you can check both videos below.

Diablo 2: Resurrected is stepping up the promos ahead of its Sept. 23 release date. There’s really not too much else to show to be honest, though. Not only is it a game that many people over the age of 25 have played (and I’m sure plenty under) but multiple betas have gone out at this point for those that couldn’t wait to jump in. That said, it doesn’t hurt anyone if Blizzard releases a 40-second sizzle reel of the Druid, does it?

The Druid is perhaps the most unfamiliar class to anyone that started with Diablo 3. It never really got an equivalent or near equivalent class in Diablo 3, it really kind of is its own thing, then.

The gameplay should be very familiar to anyone who played the original but it’s a remaster so it obviously looks quite a bit different visually. The trailer below will give you a little peek at what the updated Druid looks like around the campfire, and in battle.

The Druid relies on the power of the elements and his ability to shapeshift into powerful animals in order to overpower the demons that gets in his way.

Check out the short trailer below. Diablo 2: Resurrected releases on Sept. 23 on PlayStation, Switch, Xbox, and PC

Might And Delight of Shelter series fame were planning to launch their tiny MMORPG Book Of Travels in early access at the end of August. Unfortunately, they ran into some gnarly bugs during their beta and had to delay launch without picking a new date. They've still not firmly announced one, but M&D have explained just what's holding up Book Of Travels and reassured folks that the team is actually pretty close to squashing the worst issues. Launch is "not as far off as some of you have been speculating," they say.

Read more

We were all a little surprised just how quickly the recent Quake remaster came about, going from rumors and ESRB sightings to available on PSN and Steam in no time flat. Now, many people are playin’ id Software’s landmark 1996 first-person shooter for the first time. Welcome!

Read more...

Today Microsoft announced that the Top Gun: Maverick expansion for Microsoft Flight Simulator has been delayed.

The announcement is sad but not unexpected, considering that the movie starring Tom Cruise itself has been delayed again to May 27, 2022.

The plan has always been to release the expansion at the same time (so much that the developers can’t even talk about it independently from the movie’s marketing), so the delay of the movie inevitably means that the expansion had to be pushed back as well.

At the moment, we don’t know much about what the expansion will include, even if the developers teased the possible involvement of two aircraft.

Recently, we published our massive interview with head of Microsoft Flight Simulator Jorg Neumann, focusing on the Xbox version and short and long-term plans for the sim (on both platforms).

One of The Sims 4's earliest expansions, 2015's Spa Day, is getting a refresh next week, introducing a whole range of new features and improvements that'll be free to existing owners.

The original Spa Day (one of EA's mid-tier Game Packs, sitting between the smaller-scale Stuff Packs and more substantial Expansion Packs) brought a focus on health and relaxation to the Sims 4, adding the new spa building type where visiting Sims could de-stress and re-energise, enjoying everything from steam baths and stone massages to yoga and meditation.

As outlined in developer Maxis' latest livestream, next week's surprisingly expansive update to Spa Day will bring new features and tighter integration with the core game. There's a new High Maintenance trait, for instance, which can be soothed by a day at the spa, giving a little more impetus to use the facilities. Meanwhile, the old Wellness skill has now been expanded so that child Sims can take advantage of its calming benefits by participating in yoga and meditation (while wearing some new activity appropriate clothing, no less).

Read more

Hello, and welcome to quasi-autumn! Heretical adherents of meteorological autumn will tell you that we are now in leaftime. They are, as the name suggests, heretics. Astronomical autumn doesn't start until the 22nd, and are you honestly telling me you're done with summer? This summer? This short summer? I do like autumn with its crinkles and cocoa and cardigans, but don't you take time away from precious summer. I'll swap you December 1st-21st for these three weeks, you can extend autumn out the back if you must. Oh, but in the meantime, please do tell me what you're playing this weekend.

Read more

Do you remember your first Fall Guys win? For me, it was soon after launch. I'd been playing for a week, reached a few finals previously and Fall Mountain was up. Eight players were left, my three party members were out and crucially, I started at the back row. Not great odds, but once we began, the cannons became my new friends. Knocking over several contenders, I swiftly dodged those spinning hammers, two players jumped early and once they'd missed, that crown was mine. What a rush that gave me.

Generally, big multiplayer games aren't my normal go-to and shooters rarely grab my attention, so battle royales like Apex or Fortnite never cut it. As a platforming fan, Fall Guys held my interest immediately through its unique premise, offering a 60-player game show as we (usually) competed across platforming courses. I was hooked but that initial feeling didn't last. I'm familiar with Season 2 and 3's content, having played it in subsequent seasons, though I barely recall them at the time.

For a time, my interest waned gradually, only playing once or twice a month. Like any live service game though, Fall Guys gradually evolved and a year later, Mediatonic's implemented significant changes which cemented this experience. Show Selector let us choose which playlist to participate in, stage variants were introduced, while challenges provided extra kudos and crown shards. That's without mentioning custom lobbies and PC/PS4 cross-play, I can go on. All great additions, but what brought me back was Squads Show in Season 4. Arguably, nothing's transformed this experience more.

Read more

Halo Infinite developer 343 has tweaked the game's radar so it feels more like the motion tracker seen in previous Halo titles.

Infinite's combat sensor sparked a debate within the Halo community after it made its debut during the recent technical preview.

The combat sensor is the radar that sits in the bottom-left of your HUD. In the classic Halo games, the radar shows all movement except crouch-walking. But Halo Infinite's radar worked differently - it only displayed enemies when they were sprinting or shooting - a change that made it similar to Halo 5's Threat Tracker.

Read more

Hello Kitty is striving to be the next greatest Hokage in this cute collection of Funko Pops.

The post Naruto Shippuden Sanrio Funko Pops Turn Hello Kitty Into Naruto appeared first on Siliconera.

Developer SimulaM released another gameplay video of its upcoming Jesus simulator I am Jesus Christ.

A few weeks ago, we saw how the developer decided to switch from Unity to Unreal Engine, providing the first look at tests made with the new engine,  another, one more, and a fourth.

Today we get to see more gameplay or an interestingly “not-so-gamey” part of the game, the episode in which Jesus Christ fasts in the desert for forty days. To be precise, we get to see the last three days of that.

You can watch it below.

Atlus has released another trailer showing off the gameplay of one of the over 200+ demons that will be featured in its upcoming JRPG Shin Megami Tensei V.

The demon showcased today is Seth, a demon that has had many shapes throughout the history of the franchise.

You can watch the trailer below. Incidentally, this is number 80, and we aren’t even halfway through.

Microsoft Flight Simulator's Top Gun expansion has been delayed to lineup with the Top Gun: Maverick movie's revised May 2022 release.

This week, Paramount delayed the rest of its 2021 film slate, moving Top Gun: Maverick from its Thanksgiving weekend release date to 27th May 2022.

(It also delayed Jackass Forever from 22nd October to 4th February, and Mission: Impossible 7 from May to 30th September 2022.)

Read more

The makers of another long-running GTA San Andreas mod have pulled it offline themselves amid the ongoing crackdown by Take-Two.

The lead developer of GTA Underground, one of the largest, most ambitious mods for the 16-year-old Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, announced development had ceased and all downloads hauled offline after six years of work.

This was "due to the increasing hostility towards the modding community and imminent danger to our mental and financial well-being", chief developer dkluin wrote in a post on GTAForums.com.

Read more

Ubisoft has warned Rainbow Six Siege AFK abuse "will be sanctioned".

The developer said it had noticed the "rising issue" of players abusing AFK methods in recent weeks, which it said had disrupted play in the competitive online shooter.

Last night, Ubisoft issued a wave of manual sanctions as it confirmed it was "evaluating design changes" to address the problem. Meanwhile, it's adding new automatic AFK detections.

Read more

The next beta phase will add PS4 support and focus on server stress testing.

The post Babylon’s Fall PS4 and PC Beta Dated appeared first on Siliconera.

With the dominance of the internet and computer technologies, fields of work that never existed in the past have grown to astronomical size and importance. And it's possible to lose big from this kind of development if you're working in a more traditional field. But from an optimistic perspective, it's possible to benefit greatly and make a lot of money working the kind of job that 10 years ago would have been completely irrelevant to the general population. One of those jobs is, surprisingly enough, hacking.

To most people, hacking is a malicious act. But there are actually multiple types of hackers, and of those kinds is the white hat hacker, a type of hacker who works on the side of the government or corporations to test the infrastructure in place protecting against other hackers. In order to become this kind of hacker, the Ultimate 2021 White Hat Hacker Certification Bundle is an ideal online, learn-at-your-own-pace collection of courses and lectures. Valued at $1,345, it's on sale now for just $40.The program has earned 25,373 positive ratings from 146,300 students enrolled.

There's a new Cyberpunk 2077 mod available to download on PC that adds a healthcare system, one in which you pay a premium for a team of trained in-game medical professionals to revive you really quick.

The mod, Death Alternative by Nexus Mods user 3nvy, circumvents the death screen by giving you an option to revive in a nearby hotel room. Which room is anyone's guess, but the amount of time treatment takes and the Eddies needed to activate a package is dependent on which tier you select. There are three available: Silver (10,000), Gold (25,000, and Platinum (50,000), which restore 25%, 50%, or 100% of your life, respectively.

This is how it works: You head over to the Trauma Team building located in the MedCenter, where you then select one of the three available plans. There's no cost upfront, so you could choose the Platinum tier if you want. Once you die, you're asked if you want to revive or go out the old-fashioned way: Watching the death screen and reloading a previous save. If you have enough Eddies in your pocket for your chosen plan, you'll revive at a hotel room. End up short on funds and the Trauma Team cancels your insurance.

Hypothetically, you can revive yourself as many times as you want--as long as you have the Eddies to afford whatever your health insurance premium is.

The new Jackass Movie, Jackass Forever, was scheduled to be released on October 22, but due to the pandemic, it was delayed to February 4, 2022. Series star Johnny Knoxville staged his own delay announcement for the film, and it's exactly what you'd expect.

Knoxville climbed onto a billboard for Jackass Forever and and spray-painted "February 4, 2022" onto the advertisement, high above the ground. After the person taking the video asks Knoxville to move over to better showcase the date, Knoxville does so, but asks, 'What?' The video then promptly cuts out, adding to the silly nature of the stunt.

In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, publisher 505 Games acknowledged the controversy around the upgrade path for Control Ultimate Edition on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.

When Control Ultimate Edition was first announced last year, it was revealed that those who had bought the original Control back in 2019 for PS4 and Xbox One would not be able to upgrade that copy of the game to the Ultimate Edition. The only way to be eligible for the new-generation versions of the game was to purchase Control again via its Ultimate Edition on PS4 and Xbox One.

Despite initiatives like Microsoft's Smart Delivery, that allowed players to receive both Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S versions of a game when purchased on the platform's ecosystem, 505 Games president Neil Ralley said that it was something that the industry had never faced before.

"For Control, we made certain decisions restricted how we could perform Smart Delivery for the next-gen version of Control," explained Ralley. "They were the correct decisions at the time, but they created those blockers. We were unable to backtrack and reorganize how we were developing the Ultimate Edition for there to be a sensible and fair way to do Smart Delivery."

Labor Day is this coming Monday, September 6, which means it's another opportunity for retailers to blow out some stock at deep discounts for you to pounce on. That's certainly true at Best Buy, where you can already find some great deals on TVs, laptops, wireless earbuds, gaming monitors, and more.

Although the sale is rather large, we've combed through to find some of the best ones you can grab right now, with many at some of their lowest prices ever. If you're looking more for software as opposed to hardware, Amazon has a bunch of deals on videogames that we've rounded up separately, with discounts on titles such as Demon's Souls, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Monster Hunter Rise, and more. All these deals are available through Labor Day (or while supplies last), giving you all weekend to take advantage of these offers.

Just about every week brings something new to Destiny 2, whether it's story beats, new activities, or interesting new combinations of elements that let players devastate each other in the Crucible. Iron Banter is our weekly look at what's going on in the world of Destiny and a rundown of what's drawing our attention across the solar system.

I have to say, I'm loving the way Destiny 2 has been telling stories this year. Weekly seasonal story beats coupled with new activities to explore has provided a great way to drop into the game, even just for an hour or two, and watch the world expand and unfold. This week, we got a new creepy conversation with Savathun, listened as Mara Sov let the mask slip as relates to her late brother Uldren, and wandered around an excellently fragmented new Shattered Realm area. But just as with the seasons before it, it's the story that continues to enthrall me.

Queens' Gambits

On a stream last week, Destiny 2's new creative director, Joe Blackburn, described the Season of the Lost as being something like The Silence of the Lambs with the presence of scary Hive god Savathun just hanging around. Like the frighteningly calm Hannibal Lecter in that movie, Savathun is already working on us. This week, she said a lot of cryptic things about what's really going on in Destiny's story, hinting at there being something more frightening and more powerful over and above the game's central conflict between Light and Darkness.

I particularly like this take on Savathun's head games from developer and podcaster merritt k:

From its scenic landscapes to sharp action, Ghost of Tsushima has plenty of strong selling points. One of its best and most distinctive features, though, is the game's collection of foxes, wild canines that lead players to Inari shrines and definitely deserve a pat on the head afterward for their hard work.

They're also even better now, as a new update for Ghost of Tsushima and its Ikki Island expansion has added a lethal amount of charm to foxes inside of the game. As spotted by Twitter's most important account, Can You Pet The Dog, foxes will now happily tap their feet on the ground in anticipation of a belly rub.

There are of course other animals that you can pet on Iki Island, but nothing beats the enthusiasm of a fox doing a quick tap dance. In the base game, foxes would lead players to well-hidden shrines that contained various charms which could be collected.

We finally met Savathun in Destiny 2 at the beginning of Season of the Lost. She has multiple targets on her back and is now seeking refuge at the Dreaming City, under Mara Sov's protection. She wouldn't do this without a cunning reason, and I have an idea as to where this is all headed.

When our Guardian met the crystalized Witch Queen in the first week, she claimed in a cutscene that she is not a villain and the Guardian is not a hero. "We are paracausal," she explained. Paracausal, in the Destiny world, means that something is not part of causality; it is free of cause and effect. The last few seconds of the cutscene showed a cloud that looked similar to the worm god Xol wrap around the Traveler. This imagery could simply refer to the Light and Dark being entwined paracausal forces, but it made me question the worm gods. It doesn’t seem likely that the worm gods would stand on the sidelines while Savathun seeks aid from light-bearers to free her from her worm. The worm gods are servants of the Darkness, after all.

These worm gods are the bad guys; they're the Hive's Dark deities that gave Savathun and her siblings their worm larvae, allowing the three siblings to become powerful and immortal. It was initially young Sathona's, Savathun’s pre-Darkness name, idea to meet with the worm gods on their homeworld, Fundament. Worm gods were confined to lore books until we had a showdown with one in Destiny 2’s Warmind expansion. There could be more within our solar system and could potentially be bosses again because of Savathun.

Next year's Destiny 2 expansion has plenty of content to kick off a new era for Bungie's action RPG, but perhaps the biggest game-changer is the inclusion of Hive Guardians on the Battlefield.

For years, the paracausal powers of the Light have been almost exclusively wielded by humans, Exos, and Awoken, but The Witch Queen is teasing Hive soldiers who not only wield the same gifts but can also resurrect themselves from the dead to continue a fight. Just from the trailer alone, it looks like players will have to deal with Hive versions of Gunslingers, Sentinels, and Stormcallers.

According to Bungie, these new enemies alter the playing field in interesting ways by making players face dark reflections of themselves. Speaking to Polygon, game director Joe Blackburn added that the race to take out a Hive Guardian's Ghost adds a new layer of vulnerability to the game as players will be exposed as they race to prevent one of Savathun's soldiers from being revived.

"Hive Guardians immediately elicit this response that’s like, 'Hey, this is a threat, and I need to take care of it,'" Blackburn explained. "It's like an invader in Gambit coming out. 'Oh, OK. Guardian on the field.'"

How a Hive Ghost is destroyed still remains unclear, although last week's gameplay trailer made it appear as if players would use a finishing move to crush it. Using the newly-revealed Glaive weapon will also make dealing with Hive Ghosts easier, thanks to the mobile shield that it can create.

The latest flight for Halo: The Master Chief Collection Season 8 includes a ton of new customization options for players. However, along with armor that makes their character look scarily like Skeletor, some additional, previously unannounced customization choices have been added to the game. Notably, developer 343 Industries has separated Spartan's body types from their voices, letting players mix and match how their walking tank looks and sounds.

These new customization options are currently only available for Halo Reach, with every other Halo game's options staying the same. In the main version of Halo: The Master Chief Collection, a Spartan's voice changes with their body, with the larger body coming with a male voice and the smaller body having a female voice.

While it's not clear if these changes will make it into Halo: MCC with Season 8's launch--not all features included in flights make it in the game's seasonal updates--they do let players pick and choose how their Spartan looks and sounds with more freedom than ever before.

Rainbow Six Extraction is Ubisoft's upcoming PvE-focused spin-off of Rainbow Six Siege, and players of Ubisoft's tactical PvP shooter will likely already be familiar with how Extraction's operators play.

A new gameplay video highlighting operator Finka shows off the similarities between Ubisoft's two Rainbow Six titles. Just as is the case in Siege, Finka's primary operator ability is adrenaline surge, which allows her to give teammates a health boost with the press of a button. The ability can also revive downed teammates, and, like in Siege, improves weapon handling and recoil.

Unlike in Siege, the abilities of Extraction's operators can be upgraded over time. In Finka's case, her adrenaline surge can be improved to be usable even when downed, allowing her to revive herself.

Ubisoft insists the two games will appeal to different audiences. Creative director Patrik Méthé has said that even though Extraction features many of the same characters, weapons, and abilities from Siege, the unique situations presented in Extraction will change how each operator is played.

With Call of Duty: Vanguard's multiplayer reveal slated for September 7, it appears Activision has begun to hype up the announcement by sending a special care package to influencers.

CharlieIntel received one of these. It includes a military green utility bag, a water bottle, and an ammo crate that is apparently locked. Maybe Activision will deliver the combination as the reveal date gets closer. For now, you can see all the goodies in the image below.

Activision will reveal Vanguard's multiplayer on September 7 as part of a special event. It's not the first look at the game's multiplayer, however, as PlayStation users got to try the new Champion Hill mode as part of an alpha test last weekend.

Take-Two Interactive has launched a lawsuit against the creators of reverse-engineering open-source software called Re3 that recently made headlines for allowing GTA III to run on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation Vita. The lawsuit, which was filed on September 2 in the United States District Court in California and seen by GameSpot, says Re3 is acting unlawfully by copying, adapting, and distributing the source code to GTA III and GTA: Vice City without Take-Two's consent.

Take-Two's lawyers said the Re3 technology allows anyone to play these games on platforms the games were never released on, including Nintendo Switch and PlayStation Vita.

"Defendants' conduct is knowing, willful, and deliberate. Defendants are well aware that they do not possess the right to copy, adapt, or distribute derivative GTA source code, or the audiovisual elements of the Games, and that doing so constitutes copyright infringement," Take-Two's lawyers said.

The lawsuit specifically calls out Re3 developer Angelo Papenhoff. He is reported to have publicly stated that he is "very much worried" about Take-Two finding out about Re3.

This lawsuit comes after Take-Two tried to remove the source code from the internet earlier this year. In response to this, the company's lawyers say the defendants "knowingly filed bad faith counter-notifications that materially misrepresented the legality of their content, apparently claiming that because they allegedly 'reverse-engineered' the games' source code, they somehow cannot be liable for copyright infringement."

"Yet while making this claim, Defendants also have bragged that their derivative versions of the Games are functionally and visually identical to the originals, and have even suggested they be used for unauthorized 'modding purposes,'" the suit says. "As such, defendants' software plainly infringes Take-Two's exclusive rights to copy, adapt, and distribute the games."

If you're in the market for a gaming laptop, Amazon has one of the best deals we've seen all year. The Razer Blade 15 Advanced is on sale for only $1,600, down from $2,600. This beats the best deal we've seen on this particular model by $200. The Razer Blade 15 Advanced is one of the company's best gaming laptops. To sweeten the deal, you'll also get digital copies of Humankind and Crysis Remastered Trilogy--and yes, Crysis will run just fine on this laptop.

Electronic Arts has revealed a new gameplay trailer for Battlefield 2042's Specialist system, which is based on Battlefield's four Classes: Assault, Support, Engineer, and Recon. Each Specialist has one unique Specialty and Trait, but the rest of the loadout can be customized.

Webster Mackay comes from the Canadian military and is a part of the Assault class. He has a grappling hook that can help him get around to other areas quicker. Mackay also has the Nimble Trait, which allows him to move more quickly when aiming down sights.

Mary Falck served in the German army for six years and is a combat medic, based on Battlefield's Support class. Her S21 Syrette Pistol fires syringes that heal allies and damage enemies. Being a combat surgeon, she can nurse downed enemies back to full health when reviving.

Pyotr "Boris" Guskovsky is a Russian engineer and a weapons expert. He has a SG-36 Sentry that automatically spots and shoots at enemies within a certain radius. When his sentry gun locks onto a target, he also becomes aware of the enemy's position as well.