March 2022

Activision Blizzard is being sued for wrongful death by the family of an employee that died by suicide after allegedly being sexually harassed.

As reported by the Washington Post, the family of 32-year-old Activision Blizzard finance manager Kerri Moynihan, who was found dead during a company retreat in 2017, are claiming sexual harassment was a "significant factor" in her suicide.

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Square Enix previously laid out the roadmap for Final Fantasy XIV, including the expansion of the Trust System which helps out solo players. Now they've shared more details of patch 6.1, due mid-April, which promises the MMO's first post-Endwalker content.

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Another week is in the books, and a new month has risen. We're officially in the thick of March, and while game releases are still coming in hot as they did all throughout February, something about this weekend feels like there's a tad of a respite. With Triangle Strategy's launching today, many may choose to sink time into its engaging political tactics, while others may take in a showing of the newest iteration of the dark knight in The Batman. But what is the Game Informer staff keeping tabs on over the next couple of days? Read on to find out...

Wesley LeBlanc – This weekend, my plans are quite similar to the last: Elden Ring. I’m obsessed with this game and can’t stop playing it. 35 hours in, and I’m not even 30% through it, I think. However, I will be taking a small break from The Lands Between to go watch The Batman in theaters (again lol) and to play 7 Wonders, the popular board game, for the first time ever with some friends. I’m also very excited to check out the new HBO Max show, Our Flag Means Death. Taika Waititi? Pirates? What We Do In The Shadows-style comedy? Sign me up!

Jill Grodt – Despite the pull of Elden Ring, Horizon Forbidden West, and all the other great games begging to be played right now, my weekend is full of board game nights with multiple groups of friends. However, nothing can keep me from hopping on Torrent and galloping through The Lands Between for long!

Dan Tack – Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster. And Elden Ring.

Yesterday, EA Sports announced it would remove the national Russian team and Russian clubs from FIFA 22. The announcement came as the Russian invasion of Ukraine entered its second week. As the news spread, the game’s community has begun to react.

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Rocket Panda Games released a new trailer of the upcoming 2D fighting game Phantom Breaker: Omnia, showcasing a match,

To be precise, we take a look at Rimi, which is actually a guest character from the Science Adventure visual novel Chaos;Head, pitched against the Bruce Wayne wannabe Tokiya.

You can check it out below.

Phantom Breaker: Omnia releases for PS4, Switch, Xbox One, and PC via Steam on March 15, 2022. You can read an official description and feature list below and check out another gameplay trailer and one focusing on the basics.

The Witch Queen expansion, Destiny 2's latest chapter, is the culmination of an approach to the game's story that developer Bungie has been honing for some time. Between the expansion and Destiny 2's recent seasonal offerings, the game's storytelling is the best it's ever been. But the seven-year history of Destiny and Destiny 2 also has its share of storytelling failures--and Bungie needed those failures to get to this point, the studio says.

In the past, Destiny 2 has seen its sprawling narrative of immortal heroes fighting god-like aliens divided into discrete chapters and mostly unrelated chunks. The Witch Queen, however, is something else--a conclusion of threads the developer has weaved throughout the game for years, and a story that was built up through developments in seasonal content episodes that have been coming to the game since Fall 2020.

Now entering its fifth year, the current Destiny 2 story feels strikingly different from what was on offer just one expansion earlier. Year 4's seasons were thematically linked, spinning stories that looked at distinct aspects and characters in the game world, but which were all ultimately pieces of a puzzle that was building toward The Witch Queen. Its story feels like one that's only possible as a live-service game or MMO, where the game world changes and evolves over time, and the story evolves along with it.

This story involves reports of sexual harassment, abuse, and suicide.

Following Activision Blizzard coming under fire over claims of equal pay violations, sex discrimination, and sexual harassment, the company is now being sued by the family of one of its former employees who died by suicide in 2017.

According to The Washington Post, the family of Kerri Moynihan--a former finance manager at Activision Blizzard--is now suing the company for her wrongful death. Moynihan was found dead during a company retreat back in 2017. The family says the sexual harassment Moynihan experienced while working at Activision Blizzard was a "significant factor" in her death by suicide, which occurred shortly after her male co-workers circulated nude images of her. In the official 2021 California Department of Fair Employment and Housing lawsuit which first made mention of the incident, one of Moynihan's supervisors was also accused of contributing to this sexual harassment by bringing sex toys with him on a business trip Moynihan accompanied him on.

Activision recently announced Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War was getting Year 2 content on March 4, with a new weapon, cosmetic bundle, and the return of WMD. Originally introduced Black Ops 1, Treyarch's WMD map has been remastered for Black Ops Cold War. However, it looks like players will need to wait a bit longer before jumping back into this classic Black Ops 1 map.

Players quickly noticed the WMD map was missing from Black Ops Cold War's Year 2 content release, and now Treyarch has announced the map's arrival has been delayed. "We'll need to delay the release of the WMD map until a future update," the developer said in a tweet. "Thanks for your patience, and stay tuned for more info."

The most recent addition to Lost Ark's roster of classes in the Korean version, the Sorceress, was included at launch for players of Smilegate's free-to-play MMORPG in the West. As such, she's been a popular pick for new players looking for a casting-based entry point into the world of Arkesia. She's a hard-hitting DPS that fulfills the fantasy of a spell-slinging glass cannon, a class that lacks defense but packs a huge punch to make up for it.

There are two main ways to build a Sorceress for PVE, each defined by the class' two class-specific engravings. One focuses on delivering some truly massive damage during very specific burst windows (and as a result requires more precise timing and coordination) while the other offers more steady, consistent damage at the cost of forgoing a key Sorceress ability--Arcane Rupture. Figuring out which build to strive for can be a challenge, so this guide will dive into what each class engraving does, which skills complement those engravings, and how to play each build effectively.

Playing games alongside friends and family members can create some of the most memorable gaming moments, especially when you're working as a team to overcome the challenges thrown your way. We've rounded up the best Xbox co-op games in 2022. Whether you're looking for a game to play online with friends or something light and fun to enjoy on the couch with your partner, we think you'll find something that stands out on this list. From live service games like Sea of Thieves and Destiny 2 to lovingly crafted platformers such as It Takes Two and Unravel 2, there's no shortage of rewarding co-op games on Xbox, regardless of which genres you're into. We've organized the list in alphabetical order and will continue to update it as more excellent co-op games are released for Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One.

If you're looking for more games to play on Xbox, check out our lists covering the best Xbox Series X games, best Xbox One games, and best Xbox Game Pass games. We also have a bunch of roundups for other platforms, including the best Nintendo Switch games, best PS5 games, best PS4 games, and best PC games.

Amazon's MMORPG New World will not receive a Russian localization, with Amazon Games confirming the decision is a direct response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking with TechRadar Gaming, Christoph Hartmann, vice president of Amazon Games, said, "We were looking into localizing New World for Russia, and we stopped that." An Amazon spokesperson later confirmed to TechRadar that the decision is due to the ongoing war.

Amazon is also responsible for the recent Western localization and release of the free-to-play Korean MMORPG Lost Ark, which has been playable in Russia since 2019. While Amazon wasn't involved in the Russian localization of Lost Ark, Amazon has been working closely in partnership with developer Smilegate RPG on the Western version. Smilegate RPG has yet to comment on whether or not Lost Ark will continue services as normal in Russia.

FFXIV's meatiest patch since Endwalker's release, 6.1, will be released in mid-April. In a three-hour long FFXIV Live Letter, director Naoki Yoshida and global community manager Toshio Murouchi shared the details of what's new in the 6.1 Patch, dubbed the Newfound Adventure.

This Live Letter did not have real-time Japanese to English translations, but most of the important info was shared in English in slides. Many thanks FFXIV Discord's translations-and-liveletters channel for sharing the untranslated spoken bits with the community. All quotes below were translated by Discord users Miuna and lluna.

New Main Scenario Quests, 6.1

We got a teaser image of WoL sitting with Tataru and Estinien handing us a rolled up piece of document. Actual in-game footage will be shown in the next Live Letter, which will be before the mid-April patch release.

Shadow Warrior 3 is an adrenaline-fueled romp through a violently chaotic world. Full of demons, wise-cracking gods, and a protagonist seemingly ripped from a bad grindhouse film, this juvenile but mostly entertaining shooter doesn’t pull its punches. Essentially, Shadow Warrior 3 offers a wild ride with a few challenging twists and turns.

Most of your time in Shadow Warrior 3 will be spent shooting and dodging projectiles in various arena like environments. As Lo Wang, you’ll need to know how to properly use an assortment of weapons while engaging in fast-paced combat akin to id Software's Doom. What makes this task difficult at times is the number and variety of enemies that spawn during a given encounter. Thankfully, Shadow Warrior 3 offers a range of tools built around new game mechanics that not only help in staving off death but also to brutally dispatch foes. Here are some of the ways you can utilize these tools early on.

Use your katana to reload

Shadow Warrior 3 features a revamped combat system. Gory kills, environmental hazards, highly kinetic firefights--it’s more akin to Doom Eternal than it is to previous Shadow Warrior games. That said, the devs over at Flying Wild Hog made sure to keep certain elements, like melee weapons, at the forefront. This includes Lo Wang’s trusty katana. This weapon can disembowel enemies in quick fashion. It even receives an elemental upgrade that allows it to do electric, fire, and ice damage. What makes the katana such a valuable tool though is its ability to reload your guns.

Like so many From Software games to come before it, Elden Ring is tough. However, unlike these games, Elden Ring is also open-world and mind-numbingly large, making all of its mysteries and madness even harder to keep track of. Though Elden Ring might offer players a generous amount of icons to scatter about their map and some very helpful sites might be hard at work creating some very helpful guides to get you through the game's toughest bits, I'd argue the best companion to help you on your journey from "tarnished" to triumphant is actually something a bit more personal: a journal.

More so than any other form of record-keeping, journaling allows us to perfectly preserve our experience--which matters quite a bit when exploring a world that's so uniquely alive and non-linear it almost feels custom-tailored. Journaling gives us a space to not only keep track of where certain NPCs are located, what tasks we have yet to accomplish, and where that boss is that left us battered and bruised is lurking, but also to note our personal observations--observations that could very well come in handy down the line. Beyond that, journaling also provides us with our own unique history of how we spent our time and, more importantly, how it made us feel that we can remember years later. It is irreplicable and completely subjective data, whether that "data" be a tally count of times you perished fighting Margit or quick remark on how the Erdtree Burial Watchdog is absolutely a cat.

An important part of FromSoftware's latest game, Elden Ring, is leveling up both your character and your weapons. Upgrading weapons provides higher base damage stats and improves the attribute scaling that a weapon has. However, upgrading weapons, especially multiple weapons, is going to require a ton of Smithing Stones. Smithing Stones can be found throughout the Lands Between, but here are some of the locations in Elden Ring where each Smithing Stone and Somber Smithing Stone tier can be found. As we find more Smithing Stones, we'll add them to this list.

Smithing Stone Locations

Smithing Stone 1

• Church of Elleh
• Limgrave Tunnels
• West Limgrave statue
• Sold by Twin Maiden Husks in Roundtable Hold after acquiring Smithing-Stone Miner's Bell 1

The first Smithing Stone 1 is located on an anvil located inside the Church of Elleh in Limgrave, one of the first Site of Grace's you will find following the golden path. The Limgrave Tunnels are located in the lake to the east of the Church of Elleh, in the northern part of the lake, indicated on the map by an orange circle. The West Limgrave statue is located to the east of the Stormhill Shack by some trolls. Bait one of the trolls into breaking the statue open. The Smithing-Stone Miner's Bell 1 is acquired in the Raya Lucaria Crystal Tunnel, which is in the northeastern part of the Liurnia Lake, indicated by the orange circle on the map. The bell is awarded for defeating the boss at the end of the dungeon.

As you progress through Elden Ring, one thing is going to remain true: Enemies are going to get tougher. They're going to have more HP and resistances to different types of damage. The best way to counter these effects, especially if you're using melee weapons, is to upgrade your gear at a smith using Smithing Stones. However, there aren't enough Smithing Stones in Elden Ring's open world to upgrade everything. That's why it's important to get the game's base-level Smithing Stone Miner's Bell Bearing as soon as possible. By giving this innocuous item to the Two Maiden Husks at the Roundtable Hold, you can unlock early-game weapon upgrade materials for purchase.

Into the tunnels

Elden Ring's first-level Smithing Stone Miner's Bell Bearing is found in the Raya Lucaria Crystal Tunnel, just to the northeast of the academy itself. Although it's a short dungeon, it's packed with somewhat difficult enemies. If you're primarily using melee weapons, be sure to equip a weapon that does striking damage. The enemies throughout the dungeon, as well as its boss, are vulnerable to this type of damage. Alternatively, magic users should have no problem breezing through this area regardless of which damage type they deal.

The Nintendo Switch and Switch OLED come with a dock that is needed to display the picture on your TV. While the console itself is easily movable, unplugging your dock and hooking it up in another room in your home can be a hassle. That's why it might make sense to have a secondary dock if you game in multiple rooms. You also may want a more compact docking option for travel. We've rounded up the best Nintendo Switch docks below, and yes, the official option leads the way, but there are quality solutions available for a fraction of the cost as well.

More Nintendo Switch best lists

Fortnite Chapter 3, Season 1 has put a lot of focus onto Marvel's Spider-Man, including him in the battle pass while also adding his archnemesis Green Goblin to the item shop. Now leaks are showing another of Peter Parker's co-stars is set to drop into the island, but this latest addition is one Spidey would be happy to see.

Mary Jane Watson, longtime friend and love interest of the webslinger, will soon join Fortnite via the Item Shop according to two prominent Fortnite leakers. Both FNBRIntel and InTheShadeYT have leaked an image of the new skin featuring Mary Jane as portrayed in the comics, donning her signature red hair and wearing the shirt of her favorite superhero.

While Microsoft Flight Simulator is playable with a standard Xbox controller, dedicated players will undoubtedly want the realism that's added by using a flight stick. Ever since the rebooted franchise released on PC and Xbox Series X|S, the niche flight stick controller category has seen a resurgence in popularity. If you're interested in playing Microsoft Flight Simulator (or other games like Star Wars Squadrons) with a proper control scheme, we've rounded up the best flight sticks available now.

Most of the products here are HOTAS (or Hands-On Throttle and Stick), the industry standard for joysticks, and they'll simply give you much greater control over your flight experience and significantly heighten the immersion as well. It's best to stick with reputable brands like those mentioned above, even though some flight stick options can cost hundreds of dollars, because you can be sure of the flight stick's quality and durability.

You can see concept art for two of these "Lone Wolves" above, and they give a first look at Spartan Sigrid Eklund (left) and Spartan Hieu Dinh (right). Players will learn more about them and Spartan Commander Laurette Agryna during Season 2's story - "a mix of cinematics, story-themed events, Battle Pass items and more that embody the Lone Wolves theme."

When you watch a speedrun, you're not really watching a single run. You're watching a culmination of work: the glitch hunters who figured out how to skip parts of the game, the previous runners who learned how to move around as quickly as possible, and the countless practice hours of the person currently trying to beat their personal best.

Every speedrun has a story behind it. But these stories aren't always immediately obvious. The runner, focusing on their own actions, probably won't be able to explain too much. Even at events like Games Done Quick, where runners have commentators to help them contextualise the runs for an audience who might be unfamiliar with the game, there's only so much information they can fit in. The goal is for the run to be over as quickly as possible, after all.

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Good morning, pals. I hope you're all having a lovely weekend. A bunch of us are on holiday, or about to go on holiday, and it seems like a lot of that free time is going on Elden Ring. I am still not sure what that ring is but apparently it might as well be a vacuum. Imagine that thoug, imagine if Henry Hoover was a boss in Elden Ring. Modders, get on it.

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Amazon has banned over a million Lost Ark accounts it believes were bots.

"Following launch, botting has been a growing issue for Lost Ark," the studio said in a blog update on the official forums. "Our team has been hard at work on crafting effective tools and methods to identify and remove bots from the game.

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2K has revealed what's coming in its "innovative"," "franchise-first" new MyFaction Mode.

"MyFaction is a new take on a classic team-building mode in which players collect, manage, and upgrade an array of WWE Superstars and Legends to create their ultimate four-person factions," 2K explains via a press release. "Managers and Side Plates boost performance, while Logos, Wallpapers, and Nameplates allow for creative customisation."

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A Koei Tecmo fan survey for those who have played Atelier Sophie 2 includes questions about a possible English dub. In addition to basic questions such as which platform version you purchased, the survey also asks fans to rate various aspects of the game. There's also a section of the survey where fans can freely provide feedback and suggest changes.

https://twitter.com/KoeiTecmoUS/status/1499912175510384642

The survey opens with a series of standard questions, such as age, gender, and country of residence. Following that, the survey asks where you first learned about Atelier Sophie 2, and why you decided to buy the game. Most of the questions are multiple-choice. Then, the survey asks for feedback on the game itself. Features range from the story, characters, and graphics, to more specific aspects like difficulty, port quality, and the amount of content in Atelier Sophie 2.

Interestingly, there are two questions that are specific to the localization of Atelier Sophie 2 and an English dub. One question asks fans how important it is that a game is localized in their own native language. Another question asks whether or not fans would prefer having English voices in-game. The second question also allows users to answer that they'd like to have both Japanese and English voices.

Platform: PlayStation 4
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Developer: Naughty Dog
Release: May 10, 2016
Rating: Teen

After tackling Metroid in season 1 and then Halo in season 2, Game Informer's Video Gameography podcast turns its gaze to one of Sony's biggest properties: Uncharted. This week we're bidding farewell to Nathan Drake by discussing his final adventure in Uncharted 4: A Thief's End.

2B from NieR Automata is going to be in Super Smash Bros Ultimate... through a mod. 2D/3D artist and modder “Mastaklo” uploaded the mod onto their website. While it was initially a Patreon exclusive, it is now available to the public.

There is also a short trailer that Mastaklo released in February 2022 showing off how 2B will play. In the video, she faces off against Venom from Spider-Man and Fused Zamasu from Dragon Ball, showing off other mod characters that Mastaklo has made. It appears that Mastaklo used Lucina as she appears in Super Smash Bros Ultimate as the base for 2B.

You can watch the mod trailer here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulad2QGOJeg
 
While this Super Smash Bros Ultimate appearance is unofficial, 2B will appear on television screens in the future as an anime character rather than a video game one. During the game’s fifth anniversary, Square Enix announced that an anime adaptation of NieR Automata is in production. 2B is also one of the crossover characters in Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent. Fellow YoRHa units 9S and A2 are also part of the event.

Late yesterday, developer Kaizen Game Works and publisher Fellow Traveller announced that its acclaimed detective thriller, Paradise Killer, will be launching on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One on March 16.

Coinciding with its new console release will be a new content update for all platforms that is set to add “new music, mysterious new beings, quests, rewards, collectables, and Steam achievements for PC players, as well as general performance enhancements.”

Originally released on PC and Nintendo Switch back in 2020, Paradise Killer is a much-praised mystery game that centers on a strange murder on an idyllic island paradise.

Go ahead and take a gander at Paradise Killer’s freshly-cut trailer down below:

President and co-founder of the Nintendo-owned Next Level Games, Douglas Tronsgard, has announced plans to retire, offering a "special thank you" to Nintendo "for believing in me and Next Level Games".

Tronsgard originally served as CEO from the company's inception to the time it was acquired by Nintendo in January 2021, after which he took up the reins as president.

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Halo Infinite developer 343 Industries says it needs "more time" to work on the cooperative campaign and Forge, and cooperative missions will not be available in May as hoped.

The team was keen to stress that while it's making "great progress on Campaign network co-op" and that work on that and Forge has been "occurring in parallel to Season 2 work", "the reality is that it's going to take more time to land a high-quality, full-featured 4-player network co-op experience in the massive, wide-open world of Halo Infinite".

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How Polyphony Digital has scaled Gran Turismo 7 across three different PlayStation consoles, each with a very different performance profile is absolutely fascinating - not least because the developer has also given us the mechanism to easily produce a vast array of comparison assets to pore over, laying the differences bare in a remarkable way.

Race replays can be saved and share over the cloud across all consoles, while access to in-game cameras effectively gives us the ability to switch between versions at will. It's clear that the game is indeed based on the existing Gran Turismo Sport engine, but the balancing act in exploiting PS5 while still looking and running great on PS4-class hardware is remarkable.

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UPDATE 07/03/22: An update for the Steam client has been released, meaning the issue with saving Elden Ring to the Steam Cloud should now be fixed.

A tweet from the official Elden Ring account states: "An update for the #Steam client has been released which should prevent the issue of conflicting local and cloud save data. Please update your Steam client to the latest version."

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Wonder no more about how water from a water Pokemon’s mouth will taste with this Psyduck teapot from Ensky. Pre-orders for the teapot opened on March 4, 2022, and it will ship in late April 2022. The Psyduck teapot will cost 13,200 JPY, which is around $114.15. [Thanks, Game Watch!]

According to the article, each teapot is handmade by a minoyaki artisan. Minoyaki is a type of ceramic from the Gifu prefecture in Japan. It makes up over 50% of the ceramic types that are available in Japan. The teapot comes with a strainer for tea leaves, and is 150 x 110 x 180 millimeters tall. It is big enough to make tea for about two people. You will have to remove the head to put water and tea leaves inside, and when you pour it, it looks like the water is coming out of Psyduck’s bill.

Here are some more pictures of the teapot:

[gallery columns="2" ids="918916,918915" link="file"]

Ensky often collaborates with Pokemon on making household items that resemble various species of Pokemon. For example, in January 2022, it revealed a wrist rest that looks like the Pokemon Yamper from Pokemon X and Y. While pre-orders for the wrist rest closed on January 13, 2022, it also has a release window of April 2022.

The Psyduck teapot is open for pre-order and has a release window of late April 2022.

Frontier Foundry released a new trailer of its upcoming turn-based tactics game Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters.

This time around, the trailer focuses on showcasing two of the ranged weapons that our Grey Knights will be able to wield in the game, the iconic Storm Bolter, which Grey Knights have on a wrist mount, and the Incinerator flamer.

We also get to see skills used with these weapons, like the classic overwatch.

You can check the trailer out below.

Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters launches exclusively for PC on May 5.

Below you can read an official description and you can also check out our preview.

Microsoft and 343 Industries shared new information about the future of Halo Infinite, specifically Season 2.

With the end of Season 1 on May 2, Season 2 will start right away the day after, on May 3. The official title is “Lone Wolfs,” which is also reflected in the theme.

“Lone Wolf Spartans are hunters. Trackers. They’re resourceful improvisers, operating deep in enemy territory without resupply or support. They’re fierce, rugged, and prefer to work alone—but they’re still loyal to the Spartan pack”

We get to see concepts for spartans Sigrid Eklund and Hieu Dinh, on top of the free Fracture armor core that will come with the new season.

More updates include the following:

“During Season 2, we will also be shipping playlist updates, balance changes, new modes, and maps, specifically, one Arena map named “Catalyst” and one BTB map named “Breaker.” The new modes include “Last Spartan Standing”, a free-for-all elimination mode, as well as another new mode named “Land Grab,” plus the return of an updated, all-time favorite mode, “King of the Hill.”

Concept art for Catalyst and Breaker can be seen in the gallery as well.