May 2022

Today Atlus released the usual daily trailer for its upcoming JRPG Soul Hackers 2, showing one of its demons in action.

This time around, we take a look at Moh Shuvuu, another demon that debuted in the Shin Megami Tensei series in Soul Hackers’ predecessor Devil Summoner, and even appeared in Shin Megami Tensei V.

As usual, the trailer also includes the daily horoscope, which places Scorpio at the top of the luck ranking and Aquarium at the bottom.

Soul Hackers 2 releases for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC (Steam and Windows Store) on August 26, just one day after the Japanese launch on August 25.

While E3 2022 is cancelled, NotE3 2022 is starting to take shape and... oh thank god, so far it's looking clustered around one week. For all E3's faults, two years of NotE3 stretching one week of event content across two months was agonising. Please, NotE3 2022, stick to that early/mid-June cluster of the Xbox show and Geoff Keighley's Level Up Megazone. Please, for your old pal Alice. But enough about the future: what are you playing this weekend?

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Retro game remakes are tough to do well - in addition to making old games playable on modern hardware, you've also got to understand the intent of the original creators to keep the spirit of that game alive, especially if you're looking to produce a proper remake rather than a mere remaster.

Perhaps that's what makes Pocky and Rocky Reshrined, a 2D scrolling action game for Switch and PS4, so compelling: it was developed by the same core staff that created the SNES version of Pocky and Rocky 30 years ago. As such, it goes way beyond a typical retro remake, preserving the action and aesthetics of the original title while significantly expanding its length and breadth. Reshrined is also a shining example of a Unity game done right on a technical level - more or less, anyway.

The journey from Super NES to modern platforms was a long one for developers Tengo Project, beginning in 1986 with an arcade game known as Kiki Kaikai. Created by Taito, Kiki Kaikai is an overhead run and gun shooter rooted in Japanese mythology. Its core game design resembles Capcom's Commando from a year prior, but its unique themes and twist on that formula results in something truly magical. Following its release in arcades, it would receive multiple ports but remained an exclusive to Japan - until 1992, when a home console focused sequel was produced for Nintendo's Super NES. It follows the same basic design of the arcade original but features far more scenario variation and creative level design pushing the concept further. It's also the first entry that would be released in the West under the title Pocky and Rocky - but unlike the arcade game, this one wasn't developed by Taito at all. It was simply licensed out to, and developed by, Natsume's internal Japanese development team.

In case you’re eager for some more Halo content but want to wait until Infinite figures itself out first, one of the best campaigns of the series just received an impressive mod that widens the sandbox, throws new enemies at you, and promises more updates around the corner.

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The team at Sabotage Studio is continuing to release short but intriguing clips of their upcoming RPG Sea of Stars on the weekends, and today a new video has been revealed.

The clip is even briefer than usual, but it shows something near and dear to the hearts of fans of classic RPGs, sailing in the overworld’s seas.

You can check it out below

Pokemon products can get pretty creative in Japan, as we’ve seen a lot of lately. Now, Converse is teaming up with Pokemon (as reported by Soranews24) to release a limited edition line of shoes called the “All-Star Light” series for both adults and children in Japan, and we absolutely adore each of the designs.

The company has created unique designs for both adult-sized shoes and for child-sized shoes. On the adult-sized high-top shoes, a Pokemon is featured on the tongue; Pikachu, Eevee, Charizard, and Mewtwo are each represented. On the children-sized high-top shoes, there is a Pokemon design on the side near the heel; the choices here are between Pikachu, Eevee, Piplup, and Mew. There are also two sneaker-styled neon Pikachu designs with velcro straps in this line of shoes.

Hearthstone Battlegrounds is but a few days away from a major shakeup. On May 10, Blizzard will be releasing pats 23.2, which includes the significant Rise of the Naga update for Hearthstone's auto battler. With it comes a new hero, Queen Azshara, and a brand new minion keyword called Spellcraft that gives the player temporary spells out of thin air each turn to buff their team of minions. 

Speaking of minions, a new race of creatures will be coming with Rise of the Naga, and it will, of course, be the Naga themselves joining the fray. No longer will the Murlocs be the only amphibians making their presence known in the Battlegrounds. In total, Rise of the Naga will add 23 minions to the Battlegrounds pool of cards, all of which you can gaze upon below. 

Telltale's The Walking Dead: The Final Season brought a sense of closure for Clementine in video games, but her story is apparently far from over and is continuing in comic books. We got a small taste of her next adventure in a 12-page short story in the comic book Skybound X, and now, if you run out to your comic book store today, you can see what happens next for absolutely free.  Each year, retailers celebrate Free Comic Book Day by giving away dozens of comic books from various publishers for free. One of this year's books is Clementine: Issue One by publisher Skybound Comet and Eisner and Ignatz award-winning writer and artist Tillie Walden.

This free book is surprisingly lengthy, giving readers 27 pages of Clementine's next story, as well as an interview with Walden. This story leads into Clementine: Book One, a graphic novel that releases in June. Here's the official product listing from Skybound for the forthcoming book:

Earlier today, a parade linked to the Pokemon Air Adventures initiative has been hosted in Japan.

The parade happened in Chatan, one of the towns on the main island of Okinawa, and featured a team of super-cute dancing Pikachu, traditional local music, the local band HY, and the Pokemon Air Adventure theme song “Sorairo” which translates into “Sky Color.”

It will be followed tomorrow by a live concert in the same city, and we’ll make sure to publish the video for that as well when it goes live so that you can enjoy it on-demand.

You can check the video out below. Interestingly, the speakers presented the parade both in Japanese and in English, which certainly makes sense considering the fact that it was mainly an attraction for tourists.

If you’re not familiar with it, the Pokemon Air Adventures project was born to promote the return to flying and tourism in Japan after the slump caused by the pandemic. Among its initiatives, there are two Pikachu Jets operated by Skymark (The second of which will debut at the end of May).

Today Square Enix announced a brand new collaboration that will come to its popular tactics JRPG War of The Visions: Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, and it’s with Final Fantasy XIII.

The collaboration, which for now has been announced only for Japan, will include Lightning, Snow, and Hope from Square Enix’s JRPG originally released in 2009.

It will start on the Japanese servers on May 14, and will likely be ported to the western servers sometime down the line, as it usually happens with content that appears first in Japan.

Below you can check out the trailer of the crossover, on top of the relevant segment of the 2.5-year anniversary liverstream.

If you want to learn more about the game, you can check out our interview with global version producer Hiroki Fujimoto.

A new investigation by Fanbyte has revealed more details of the downfall of Funomena, the indie studio responsible for Wattam. It includes new allegations shared by former Funomena employees, including details of the company's internal response to People Make Games' report in March.

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Path Of Exile regularly gives players new ways to customise their experience, and in particular loves to gift players new ways to make the game harder. Sentinel, the next expansion, is no different. It launches on May 13th and will introduce new items that follow you around and make the enemies around you stronger - and the rewards for killing them greater.

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NOTE: This story contains spoilers for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

As a lifelong Marvel Comics reader, I often get a huge kick out of the post-credits sequences in the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. Marvel does a fantastic job of teasing new characters and storylines, giving fans just enough information to get excited and debate what might be coming next to the movies and TV. Thanos' reveal in The Avengers made my theater erupt with comic fans gasping over the potential of an Infinity Gauntlet story, and non-comic fans saying, "Who was that purple guy?"

Since the movie is over at this point, people are freely chatting about the tease of note as the credits roll, and I've had many conversations with strangers to fill them in on who a character may be or why a particular item may be of importance. It's an unexpectedly fun part of the Marvel movie experience.

The same thing happened after Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness' mid-credits sequence aired in my theater. I heard a bunch of people ask their friends and people near them who Charlize Theron's character was. I too was a bit baffled. I had my suspicions, but Theron's suit didn't lineup with the vision I had in my head. I thought she may be Clea or perhaps a different cosmic character that would tie into the next Guardians of the Galaxy or Captain Marvel movie. It turns out she's playing Clea. You may not know her now, but she will become a household name if she eventually takes over as the Sorcerer Supreme. Don't act surprised. You know Doctor Strange is probably going to die. Like really die. The Earth-616 version.

Recently, Netmarble announced the next character that will join the roster of its open-world mobile action RPG Marvel Future Revolution, and today a new trailer shows Scarlet Witch in action.

The trailer provides a look at her moves as she fights a variety of enemies, on top of her in-game character model.

You can watch it below, alongside her cinematic trailer and another video with her music theme “Chaos Queen” in case you’ve missed them.

Today third-party developers had plenty of news to share about upcoming airport add-ons for Microsoft Flight Simulator.

We start with UK2000 Scenery, which despite the name is continuing work on American airports. This time around, the developer announced Gary/Chicago International Airport (KGYY) in Indiana, United States.

Despite being located in Indiana, the airport bears the Chicago name due to its proximity to the largest city of Illinois.

Despite not hosting any scheduled passenger flights anymore, it’s a relevant business, general aviation, and cargo airport, on top of supporting Blackhawks Indiana Army National Guard.

You can see what the scenery looks like below. It will be released “soon,” but no release date has been announced, for now.

Lost Ark is in an interesting position. It's an MMO hack-and-slasher which made its enormously popular western debut earlier this year, but which has been out in South Korea since 2019. That means that there's a wealth of already existing endgame content that its developers need to decide when its appropriate to bring across to the western release.

They have decided that time is: this month.

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Weird West patch 1.02, the Snake-In-My_Boot update, is live now, and brings new ways to stealthily bean cowboys around the head to the supernatural cowboy RPG. Though the combat changes seem the most significant, the update also introduces inventory UI improvements and new travel encounters.

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Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best community-created works from the previous week.

Alright, this week we have a couple of important announcements about video player apps related to Giant Bomb. You may have noticed that the original Roku/Chromecast/Apple TV Megathread was locked last week. As Mr. Rorie explained in the last comment in the thread, all of these apps and video players are becoming so wildly different from one another that it seems best to have several dedicated threads rather than one mega-thread. As a result, the site has a dedicated thread for those of you with issues using the Apple TV app as well as a dedicated thread for those of you that encounter bugs or issues with the Roku App. If there are any of you that feel like we need dedicated threads for other streaming platforms (i.e., Chromecast, Amazon, etc.) feel free to drop a comment here and I will relay your input to Rorie.

On a more light-hearted note, our sister-site GameSpot set up and recorded their first studio podcast since the start of the pandemic! If you want to hear Tamoor, Lucy, and Jean-Luc have a ton of fun sharing how excited they are to be back in a studio, give the most recent GameSpot After Dark a listen!

Today relevant news has been shared about two of the most anticipated aircraft for Microsoft Flight Simulator.

We start with the Airbus A320 by Fenix Simulations. The team has been fairly quiet for the last couple of months, but project lead Aamir Thacker confirmed on the developer’s Discord server that “provided the incoming MSFS patch doesn’t break too much,” he expects the aircraft to be released “in days, not months.”

Thacker also provided a very small hint about the possible pricing. To a user saying that they had put aside £140 for the aircraft, he responded by asking how many copies he was planning to buy for that sort of money. You can make of that what you will.

If you’re not familiar with it, Fenix’s Airbus A320 is a high-precision rendition of the CEO version of the popular airliner which will initially ship with the CFM56 engines and wingtip fences. Further options may be added down the line.

It has been in beta since February and Microsoft Flight Simulator fans have been eagerly waiting for it since its announcement back in July 2021.

Following the tease launched a few days ago, Spike Chunsoft updated the website of what appears to be a new game codenamed “Hidden Bats.”

The cryptic minigame is based on the video at the bottom of the post and two Twitter accounts for two characters that have been kidnapped, Aine Ichirai and Binato Sotobara.

Every day they’re going to tweet a clue (the first can be seen below) which will lead to discover a code which will eventually lead to the solution.

Here are the full rules:

This is a case, a plan, an experiment.

Aine Ichirai and Binato Sotobara are locked up in hidden rooms.

Placed in each room is a smartphone which is only activated for 21 minutes, at a fixed time, once every two days and a box with a 9-digit lock.

The phone cannot be used freely.
The box cannot be opened without solving a riddle

Today Atlus released another of the daily trailers for its upcoming JRPG Soul Hackers 2, showing one of its demons in action.

This time around, we take a look at Setanta, another demon that has been part of the Shin Megami Tensei series for quite a while and even appeared in Shin Megami Tensei V.

As usual, the trailer also includes the daily horoscope, which places Sagittarius at the top of the fortune ranking and Virgo at the bottom.

Soul Hackers 2 releases for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC (Steam and Windows Store) on August 26, just one day after the Japanese launch on August 25.

Today developer HoYoverse (previously known as MiHoYo) has opened a teaser website for what appears to be a new game titled Zenless Zone Zero.

The new site indicates the date of the reveal as May 13 and plays an in-lore news broadcast.

If you’re unfamiliar with the name HoYoverse (or MiHoYo), it’s the Chinese development studio that works on the super-popular online action-RPG Genshin Impact.

The video talks of a “sub-Hollow” that has appeared in the city as public security have established a “level-2 control zone” and is currently evacuating the resident.

The “sub-Hollow” is likely the Black-Hole-like sphere in the middle of the image that appears to cover part of the city.

The description embedded in the site’s code reads as follows:

“Inside the mysterious TV, a record of unknown time awaits your discovery. Zenless Zone Zero officially
announces on 22/05/13″

Interestingly, the tags include “Beta” and “recruitment,” so it’s likely that we’ll get the announcement of a beta test on May 13.

At the moment, nothing else is officially known about the game, but the room depicted on the teaser site has a decidedly retro look, with an old CRT TV, plenty of VHS tapes, and a VHS recorder.

There is also a partly-visible movie poster of what appears to be a Mafia-inspired movie titled “Familia,” but it’s hard to say whether it’s actually a hint or simple decoration.

You'd be hard pressed to name a bigger powerhouse in the early 2000's than Capcom; the house of Mega Man was on an absolute tear with near constant hits like Devil May Cry and Viewtiful Joe. Enjoying a similarly strong run was The Legend Of Zelda series. In the space of just five years, Ocarina of Time had revolutionised RPGs, Majora's Mask and the Oracle games offered unique takes on the Zelda formula, and The Wind Waker stood as arguably the series' best adventure yet.

So why is Capcom's The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap seemingly so underappreciated?

The Minish Cap was released in 2004, and follows a new incarnation of Link who seeks to break a curse placed on Princess Zelda, after the destruction of the 'sacred blade' by the evil sorcerer Vaati. To do this, Link must seek out the Minish - a race of microscopic beings who forged the original sacred blade for a previous hero - to repair the blade and return Zelda to her former self. Aside from giving Ganon a break for once in favour of the fantastic Vaati, it's a pretty standard Zelda plot. Thankfully, Minish Cap really shines in other aspects.

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Sundays are for training for an off-road 10k that's scarily close. Before you sweat profusely, let's read this week's best writing about games (and game related things).

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Lost Ark's first Legion Raid, Valtan, is set to release in the western version of the game now developer Smilegate believes "enough of [its] player base has reached the item level needed to participate".

In an update on the game's official blog, the team confirmed that the "difficult team-based activities" will require an item level of 1415 for normal difficulty, and 1445 for hard mode and will release later this month.

"Valtan will introduce the first Legion Raid into the western version of Lost Ark. Legion Raids are difficult team-based activities that require teamwork to understand and execute the strategy necessary to counter each Legion Commander's unique characteristics, abilities, and mechanics," the team said.

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Exploring the Lands Between in Elden Ring is a mind-blowing experience as it is, but just you wait until you see this new R.E.A.L. VR mod from master modder Luke Ross in action. Experiencing FromSoftware's brutal but beautiful world from a first-person VR perspective will melt your brain quicker than the burning breath of an angry dragon!

This latest update to Luke's R.E.A.L. VR mod is now available to download from his Patreon page and it's easily his most impressive work yet. Not only does it allow you to play through the entirety of Elden Ring in either third or first-person VR but it also comes with an easy to use quick menu that lets you pause the gameplay and alter the mod at any point in the game.

You can watch me make a whole load of wonderment noises as I go face-first into Elden Ring in this week's episode of VR Corner, which you can find below these words. In it, I try out a big portion of third and first person gameplay in VR as I explore Limgrave, the Lakes of Liurnia and take on Margit, Godrick and even a couple of dragons. Oh, and I also use VR to accidentally uncover one of Elden Ring's most well kept secrets - Torrent has a realistically modelled butt hole hidden underneath his tail.

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It looks like Gotham Knights may be expanding its co-op plans to encompass four player co-op instead of just two.

That's according to an eagle-eyed fan on Reddit (thanks, PCGN) who spotted that the PSN Store's listing of the game has been updated to state it supports "four network players".

Acutely aware that anyone can knock up a fake screenshot, I took the liberty of checking the PSN Store listing myself and yup, it's there in black and white, although the description itself curiously still says you can play "in solo-play or with one other hero and drop in on criminal activity wherever you find it".

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Babylon's Fall, Platinum Games' action RPG, saw its concurrent PC player count drop to just a single player on PC on Wednesday, 4th May, 2022.

It's yet another sign that the troubled game - which only released at the beginning of March - seemingly continues to struggle to maintain a player base on PC (Babylon's Fall is also out on PS4/5, but there's no similar way for us to monitor player counts for PlayStation consoles).

Just a couple of weeks back, we reported how SteamCharts - a site that, predictably enough, charts the performance of games on Steam - noted that in mid-April, global players on PC dropped below ten. Fast forward to May, and it looks as though like things are getting worse, with concurrent PC players failing to top 100 at all this week (thanks, VGC). Its highest ever peak sits at just 1166 players.

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Double Fine Productions has spoken out after a leaked document reveals the US Supreme court plans to overturn Roe v Wade, a 50-year old judgement that legalises abortion across North America.

In a statement posted to its social media channels, the Microsoft-owned studio said it stands "steadfast in [its] support of essential healthcare rights for all".

"We at Double Fine Productions stand steadfast in our support of essential healthcare rights for all," the studio said.

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Today marked the second day of the Pokemon Air Adventures event in Japan, with a live concert hosted in Okinawa.

To be precise, the live concert was hosted in the local town of Chatan and it featured the Okinawa-based band HY and Taiko drummers, on top of the inevitable and adorable team of dancing PIkachu.

Of course, among the music performed there was the Pokemon Air Adventure theme song “Sorairo” which translates into “Sky Color,” which was also featured during yesterday’s Pikachu parade in the same city.

The event also featured “Pokégenic,” a series of Pokemon-themed photo spots in Mihama American Village.

The concert was streamed live onYouTube, and you can watch it for yourself below.

If you’re not familiar with it, the Pokemon Air Adventures project was created to promote the return to flying and tourism in Japan after the slump caused by the pandemic. Among its initiatives, there are two Pikachu Jets operated by Skymark (The second of which will debut at the end of May) on top of events in Pokemon Go and much more.

Microsoft is reportedly set to launch an Xbox cloud gaming streaming device in the next 12 months.

According to VentureBeat, this may be a stick or puck similar to Amazon and Roku devices, although there are also reports that an app for Samsung smart TVs is on the way, too, which is also expected to launch in the next year or so.

If true, it means players will not only be able to stream games to their PC and mobile devices, but also play them on TVs, all without the added expense of buying consoles or their expensive accessories.

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Just over a couple of months since its initial launch, Valve's Steam Deck continues to evolve and its latest beta firmware features three key features that aim to significantly improve the gaming experience. In turn, those features are the ability to change the display's refresh rate from anything between 40 to 60Hz, optional static variable rate shading (VRS) plus improved acoustics. Addressing issues of loudness, battery life, gameplay fluidity and more, the overall takeaway is that Valve's makes the mobile experience better - but not every new feature is a hit.

Let's tackle the disappointment first and that's the addition of variable rate shading. At a basic level, VRS reduces the internal resolution of objects, but keeps their silhouettes crisp. Apply that variable rate of shading to elements on-screen where you're unlikely to be able to tell the difference (eg darker areas) and you have a simple way to improve performance - and/or improve battery life for a device like Steam Deck. In short, why spend the same amount of GPU power painting a pixel you'll barely notice versus those you will?

VRS can be achieved via software means, but the latest GPU generations support it at a hardware level and as Steam Deck is based on the latest RDNA 2 architecture, it comes into play on the handheld - but there's one key difference here. Because it's a system-level feature, it cannot vary rendering quality based on subjective weights: every render target is compromised. Based on my tests in Crysis Remastered, for example, it has an intense and obvious degradation in image quality and using it only improves performance by a couple of percentage points. It's a neat trick but very niche in its use case.

Ron Gilbert has responded to fans unhappy with Return to Monkey Island's art style, stating "Return to Monkey Island may not be the art style you wanted or were expecting but it's the art style I wanted".

In a candid blog post, Gilbert said the game had "a team of incredible artists, animators, sound designers, programmers, and testers all pouring their souls into this game and it’s beautiful to see, play, and listen to".

As Victoria so perfectly summarised for us earlier this week, the Monkey Island series has taken on a new look as well as a new creative team in its third outing, The Curse of Monkey Island. However, this new art style was not simply because of the change in management behind the game's development but because of the tools being used behind the scenes, and not all fans are happy with the new look.

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Today Conan Exiles developer Funcom released a new video focusing on celebrating the 4th anniversary of the game.

The game officially launched on May 8, 2018, after spending a bit over a year on Steam Early Access, so today marks the anniversary of the actual release.

Interestingly, the video includes a tease of “one of the biggest updates Conan Exiles has ever received.”

Details weren’t shared besides the fact that we received “a little taste of what’s to come” during the Grave Matters event that launched on December 8, 2021, and ended on January 10.

It is likely that the update mentioned is going to be patch 3.0. One thing is for sure. Conan Exiles has come a very long way since its early access.

We’ll have to wait and see, but in the meanwhile, you can take a look at the video below.

Conan Exiles is available on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. You can take a look at the latest DLC, People of the Dragon, focusing on the Nemedian culture.

If you’re unfamiliar with it, here’s how Funcom describes the game:

Today third-party developers shared news and a release about Microsoft Flight Simulator aircraft and scenery addons.

We get new screenshots of the Honda Jet by Marwan Gharib posted on FlightFX’s discord server.

The publisher mentioned that the creator is polishing the aircraft, a release date has already been decided, and will be announced soon.

We already know it’ll cost $24.99.

Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games released a video in which the game developers talked about all things graphics.

We hear from developers from the graphics and engine teams about these topics, on top of the ongoing transition to the Gen12 renderer, and performance improvements.

You can check it out below.

In other Star Citizen news, the crowdfunding total is almost at $457 million and it’s currently sitting on $456,928,547.

The number of registered accounts has recently passed 3.7 million, and it’s at 3,729,839 at the moment of this writing.

As usual, you should keep in mind that it’s known that not all of them are paying players. The number includes free accounts created for a variety of reasons, including Free Fly events like the one coming later this month.

A few months ago, we got an extensive look at what’s coming to Star Citizen with several panels hosted at CitizenCon.

Sega and Two Point Studios released a video of the upcoming comedic university management game Two Point Campus.

The video features Two Point Studios co-founder Gary Carr, art director Mark Smart and head of animation Chris Knott as they talk about the creative tools you’ll be given to customize your university.

Not only you can use the same tools used by level designers to create buildings in any shape and decorate them however you want, but you can also freeze the start of the academic year in order to take your time to do so.

You can check out the video below.

Two Point Campus releases on August 9, 2022, for PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

Below you can read an official description if you’re unfamiliar with the game.

If you pick up Two Point Campus nice and early, you’ll get your hands on these classy bonus items with which to adorn the grounds of your marvellous University creations. Spruce up the garden with a fittingly shaped ‘U’ Topiary, quench your thirst for learning with the Fountain of Knowledge (but please, don’t drink the water) and bask in the warm, academic glow of your very own Pearl of Wisdom!

Playwing released a new trailer of its multiplayer dragon dogfighting game Century: Age of Ashes.

The trailer focuses on showcasing the new map that will be added with the upcoming Season 1: A Shadow Over Skeld.

It’ll be titled Valkürian Sanctuary, and it’ll release as the season launches on June 15, 2022.

You can watch it below.

Century: Age of Ashes is a free-to-play game available for PC. If you’re unfamiliar with it, you can read an official description below.

Compete in intense online games ranging from 3v3 to 6v6 and discover the fast-paced gameplay of Century : Age of Ashes! Dive into the arena alone or with friends and fight for your survival! Three varied game modes await you: Carnage, Spoils of War and Gates of Fire.

Here's how yesterday went for me: I turned on my Xbox Series X with the anticipation of spending a couple of relaxing hours playing Fortnite. After seeing the game's title screen, a system alert appeared, telling me I wouldn't be able to play due to an online connection error. I knew my Xbox was connecting just fine since I could see all of the online functionality on the home screen. I assumed this alert was a boot-up hiccup – something I experience from time to time when reawakening my console. I reset my Xbox, tried to relaunch Fortnite, and just when it appeared to connect, I was booted out again, now receiving an alert that the person who owns this game needs to log in.

At this point, I knew Xbox or Epic Games was having an issue. I then tried to play Ravenous Devils – an offline single-player game – and that too brought about an ownership claim. I rebooted my Xbox a second time and tried relaunching both games. The same errors popped up. Xbox's online service was down.