August 2022

Apex Legends' 14th season, officially known as Hunted, is right around the corner, and Respawn is currently in full-on hype mode ahead of its 9th August arrival. And now, following the official unveiling of new hero Vantage last week, the developer now confirmed a major overhaul for its original Kings Canyon map, alongside a level cap increase for players.

Kings Canyon has, of course, been around since Apex Legends' launch back in 2019, and Season 14's extensive overhaul aims to improve some of the ageing map's more troublesome issues. Before we get to the mechanical stuff though, there's perhaps the most immediately obvious change - upgraded lighting and a new skybox, both intended to make for a "more immersive, vibrant environment".

In terms of gameplay changes though, there's the new Relic point of interest, which is designed to help create a little bit more breathing space on the map in the early to mid game so squad battles are less likely to be interrupted by third parties. This has been achieved by filling the Skull Town and Thunderdome area sunk in Season 5 with sand and building a new series of winding, interconnected buildings for fresh skirmishes, complete with a giant skull centerpiece.

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EA has detailed FIFA 23's Career Mode, which lets you play as a famous manager for the first time.

In the manager career portion of Career Mode, you can use the likeness of a raft of famous managers from the Premier League, including Jürgen Klopp, Pep Guardiola, Antonio Conte and Thomas Tuchel.

"We've seen feedback from players wanting to play as some of their favourite managers, and we're happy to say FIFA 23 enables you to play as one of the 350+ authentic football managers, of which 30+ have star heads, in Career Mode," EA said in a detailed blog post.

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Welcome to the latest edition of DF Direct Weekly - the 72nd, in fact. This is Digital Foundry's weekly show, where the team down tools for an hour or so to discuss the latest gaming and technology news. After a couple of weeks away, myself and John Linneman have returned to the mics, discussing the latest PlayStation 4 firmware beta offering 1440p display support, along with sharing some thoughts on the latest The Last of Us Part 1 footage. VR is also a hot topic too, with Sony revealing new headset features in the same week that Meta ups prices on the Oculus Meta Quest 2 and the massive multi-billion burn-rate on its metaverse gamble comes into focus.

Kicking off with PlayStation 5's 1440p update, we'll be covering this more extensively, but the headline points are fairly straightforward - the beta firmware works fine with 1440p displays, with a new test option that puts any connected display through its paces at 1440p resolution in both 60Hz and 120Hz, and in both HDR and SDR modes. From there, everything works exactly as it should - typically, games are downscaled from their 4K outputs to 1440p, providing a form of super-sampling anti-aliasing. In the Direct, we talk about why this is a good thing and how responsive Sony has been to feedback in recent times - something we've not necessarily experienced so readily in the past. Quite how native 1440p game content runs with the 1440p display output is something we're testing right now, so look out for a piece on this soon.

Gran Turismo 7 will be dropping new in-game items in collaboration with French luxury fashion house Dior.

The collaboration was announced on 30th July at the World Series Showdown, a global online tournament for the Gran Turismo series.

The items were specially designed by Kim Jones, British fashion designer and Artistic Director of men's collections at Dior, for inclusion in the game. This marks the first time Dior has ventured into a "virtual space".

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A Brazilian governmental filing has given us a rare glimpse into Sony's thoughts on the impending $69bn Microsoft buyout of Activision Blizzard - and specifically, the fact that Xbox will soon own blockbuster first-person shooter franchise Call of Duty.

In Brazil, companies within the same sphere of any such corporate transaction are asked for their thoughts on deals of this magnitude. And, intriguingly for us, Brazil also posts all of these details online (albeit in some cases with redacted passages).

Sony's response is largely public, and contains a number of arguments which paint the potential of Xbox owning Call of Duty in a problematic light (as spotted by ResetEra, and translated for us by Eurogamer Portugal).

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The internet is quite the place. You can find everything on here, from how to boil an egg to, checks notes, make a toilet into a gaming PC. Huh.

But yes, it is actually a thing.

This recent computer creation was made by Basically Homeless, who turned their loo into a fully functioning "12700 & 3060 gaming PC".

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The year 2020 was a big year for the Cyberpunk genre in video games because the hotly-anticipated (and long-in-development) Cyberpunk 2077 was finally released that year. However, it wasn't the massive generation-defining game CD Projekt Red (and admittedly, many of us fans) propped it up to be. 

I played it on Xbox Series X at release, and it ran fine enough that I could roll credits thinking I had just completed a fun game that I'm glad I played. However, getting an Xbox Series X or a PlayStation 5 around the time Cyberpunk 2077 was released in 2020 was challenging, and many had to play CDPR's latest RPG on last-gen consoles. You probably already know the story of how that went – it was not a good game to play on last-gen consoles at all. CDPR choosing not to give reviewers codes for those consoles ahead of time on top of the way the studio opted not to really talk about last-gen versions of Cyberpunk 2077 was deceitful, dishonest, and frankly disrespectful to consumers. 

The English version of Fate/Grand Order will make its way to Europe, New Zealand, and several Latin American countries. The mobile game's administrative team published a new post announcing the region expansion on the English website.

On August 2, 2022, at 01:00 PT (04:00 ET), Aniplex will launch the English mobile game to 19 new countries. But at the same time, it will also reset the Terms of Use agreement for all users. Existing players will have to reselect their country of residence when they log into the game.

Here is the list of countries where Fate/Grand Order will be newly available on August 2, 2022:

Sony announced it will increase the production of the PlayStation 5 in preparation for the holiday shopping season. The company still plans to hit its projected 18 million units sold for the 2022 fiscal year, but a new financial earnings report published on July 29 reveals that “significant improvements” in the supply…

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Sony updated its important notices page today to tell PlayStation 5 users that the console’s Accolades feature will, as of this fall, “no longer be supported,” citing that it “hadn’t seen the level of use we anticipated.” Like most PS5 users, this was the first time I’d heard that the console had a built-in…

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Minecraft is a game of infinite customization, where players attempt to push boundaries on what can and cannot be done in a video game. The game has been used to recreate the entire country of Denmark, as an educational tool to introduce children to programming, and even has applications in secondary school science…

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The new Apex Legends: Hunted gameplay trailer for the upcoming season 14 is definitely not light when it comes to new content.

In lieu of a new map, Kings Canyon is getting a bit of a facelift. This new map update is referred to in the gameplay trailer as “Reforged” and it seems to be bringing back the Skull Town locations as well as updating a few of the most popular fight areas such as Cage.

You can see the trailer and all the battle royale glory below.

The trailer also gives a more detailed look at Vantage than we have seen in the Stories from the Outlands or the launch trailer. Not only can Vantage zip to the location of her pet bat Echo, she can also scan enemy teams for their armor types.

The Apex Legends level cap will also be raised with the new season. For many seasons now it has capped out at 500. This has meant players can still get Apex Tokens to use on characters and some cosmetics, but they can’t get new Apex Packs for leveling up.

2K Games and Firaxis Games revealed another trailer about the turn-based tactical game Marvel’s Midnight Suns, dedicated to one of its playable superheroes.

This time around we get the introduction of Carol Danvers, A.K.A. cosmic heroine Captain Marvel.

While the video is rather brief, we’re still getting the gist of Captain Marvel’sexplosive powers.

Given the pattern of previous videos, we can expect a much more extensive video explaining these powers and Captain Marvel’s card deck in detail on top of another on the history behind the heroine herself across the next few days.

In the meanwhile, you can check this one out below.

This follows the trailer that showcased the gameplay of Steve Rogers A.K.A. Captain America, and another that delved into his history.

Aniplex Online Fest 2022 has just announced its official line-up, which is set to include a lot of big names and even some reveals. The third annual version of this program is set to feature shows like My Dress-Up Darling, Demon Slayer, and BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War, just to name a few.

You can check out the full line-up for the event right down below.

Aniplex Online Fest 2022 Line-Up

Featured shows for Aniplex Online Fest 2022 include:

Today Microsoft released a new video about the Xbox Cloud Gaming platform and the recent progress it has made.

We hear from head of product Catherine Gluckstein and head of platform Kevin LaChapelle as they reveal that gaming hours on the service have increased more than 1,800% year-on-year.

We get a reminder about the implementation of Fortnite, which can be enjoyed without an Xbox Game Pass subscription (we recently heard from Satya Nadella himself that 4 million users played Epic Games’ battle royale game on Xbox Cloud Gaming, of which a million were completely new to the Xbox ecosystem), the work being done to improve the touch control and compatibility with the Steam Deck, and more.

Over the last year the service has reached six new markets, while its developers are keeping an eye on feedback to implement ideas provided by the users.

You can check out the video below.

At the moment, the Xbox Cloud Gaming service lets anyone with a Game Pass Ultimate subscription (or even without one if you just want to play Fortnite) in the supported regions enjoy a large catalog of games via streaming on mobile, PC, xbox consoles, and Samsung smart TVs.

Battlefield 2042 is roughly halfway done with its first season, and the new patch 1.2 has dropped.

Among the big new changes, the Kaleidoscope map has been improved to “offer an improved gameplay flow through new cover assets, flag positions, terrain elevations and visual updates to several locations on the map.”

Cover has been added not only with the placement of new assets, but also in the raising of terrain to help break sightlines and let infantry move more purposefully around the map. Most importantly, these new assets bring more tactical destruction which help to ensure that the map evolves throughout the duration of each round, and provide both Attackers and Defenders with new options when playing in key areas.

From the sound of it, players will have a much different experience next time they load in to Kaleidoscope.

A player profile has also been added to the game, including player statistics. These are retroactive, so you’ll be able to see your progress from the start of the game, not just from the launch of the patch.

Today, Techland revealed that its hit open-world RPG, Dying Light 2, would be dropping a lot of new content in a couple of weeks alongside its Patch 1.5. Players will get to experience new missions, bounties, and enemies as a part of the game’s next post-launch implementation, and all for free.

Included in that content is a mysterious new character, Shen Xiu: a Chapter Agent and expert tracker that players will meet her in the new story “A Huntress and a Hag.” You can check out a little bit more about her and the upcoming content in the video below.

Meet Shen Xiu, AKA The Huntress—our newest Chapter Agent! Who is she? Where does she come from? What is her business in the City? For now, just know this extremely proficient tracker and archery expert has a very special task for Nightrunners.

Will you become the hunter… or the prey? Stay tuned in the upcoming weeks as we reveal more information about new missions, bounties, enemies, and weapons that the second Chapter will introduce.

Dying Light 2 is available now for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, with a Nintendo Switch version set to arrive later this year. Anyone interested can check out our official review of the game right here.

Today Riot Games released a new video dedicated to the upcoming League of Legends 2D fighting game code-named “Project L”

The video stars director Tom Cannon as he provided an update following a similar video from last year.

We hear the confirmation that the game will be free to play, which may indeed not be too surprising to fans of the other games by Riot.

That being said, the developers promise to be respectful of the players’ time and wallet in terms of monetization.

Basically, their rule is that if they wouldn’t like something as fighting game veterans, they won’t implement it. They also want everyone to be able to play regardless of the money they have to spend on the game.

We also take a look at a new character named Illaoi, a Kraken Priestess who will appear in the game.

You can check out the full video for yourself below.

If you’re interested in League of Legends, Riot Games has recently launched a new Star Guardian event, which is currently going on in the main game.

Today, EA Sports revealed that significant changes are coming in regards to the career mode in FIFA 23, as they’ll be implementing a new player personality system, playable highlights, and even an overhauled menu system. In the deep dive trailer, we see each of these new implementations will be ever-evolving, changing and improving as their careers progress.

You can check out the new trailer and all of the exciting new changes that are coming right down below:

While the Tour De France Femmes ended on Sunday and the Tour Hommes the week before, I'll not be rushed on my own Tour De Jeux. I can't keep pace with professionals so it's fine if I run long, and today I want to take my time and enjoy the journey. I'm playing Aran's Bike Trip, a visual novel/interactive diary/thingamy where Dutch indie dev Aran Koning (the designer of Stacklands) documents a two-day bike tour with 360° photos. It's a lovely little adventure, taking in sights including an art deco radio station and the tallest waterfall in the Netherlands. The waterfall is... about what you might expect in a notoriously flat country.

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Microsoft have justified their $68.7 billion ($56 billion) purchase of Call Of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard by telling regulators that the company doesn’t produce “must have” games. If that’s making you ask why they’d stump up more than any other tech buyout in history for the privilege of owning a company that doesn’t have any killer apps in its stables, then you can line up right behind me, bosmang.

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DICE has detailed its imminent 1.2 update for the beleaguered Battlefield 2042, which will, among other things, herald its first batch of planned map improvements based on the player feedback it requested earlier this year.

This initial round of improvements will target Battlefield 2042's Kaleidoscope map, and will - as previously detailed - focus on adjustments to cover, intensity, line of sight, pathing, and traversal. These have been achieved by adding new flag positions, by placing new areas and assets around the map, and by raising terrain.

DICE says terrain changes will "break sightlines and let infantry move more purposefully around the map", while new assets will "bring more tactical destruction", giving players new options as the environment evolves throughout a game.

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Key is working on its next visual novel, Stella of the End (a.k.a. Tsui no Stella). First announced back in 2020, the game is due out on September 30, 2022. With the game coming soon, Key released the Stella of the End opening to get fans excited.

Check it out below. The OP is set to the song "breath of stella" by Zero Aimiya.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CozHHU_yhwo

Stella of the End is a "kinetic novel", a subtype of visual novel that eschews gameplay conventions like multiple endings. Some of Key's other works, like Planetarian and Harmonia, are also classified as kinetic novels.

The game's set in the future, in a time when humanity is forced to live in the shadows of the machines it created. Earth is now under the control of a group of machines that gained sentience and created the long-theorized "singularity".  "Transporters" shuttle goods between human settlements, braving the elements, hostile machines, and human bandits. One day, a transporter named Jude Grey receives an odd request: To transport Filia, an android in the form of a young girl. Developed as a substitute family member, the android is somehow unaffected by the Singularity Machines. The transporter and the girl set out on their journey, trying to make their way to a space elevator. Rumor has it that androids who make it to the space elevator's summit can be made human. Is it true?

With the new Grand Theft Auto Online update released last week, the game has become easier after Rockstar added more ways to make money that don’t involve ripping your hair out and putting up with annoying trolls. But a big update like this for an already massive game can be very overwhelming.

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Diablo Immortal’s pay-to-win mechanics have been controversial since the game launched back in June. Now they’ve also apparently broken the game for at least one YouTuber who reportedly spent over $100,000 on beefing up his Barbarian character. The player’s win rate is seemingly so good the game won’t even match him…

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Thirsty Suitors has all the makings of the next big game.

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Those dastardly loot boxes containing randomized goodies might be a thing of the past come Overwatch 2’s launch later this year, but a recent survey suggests the hero shooter’s monetization may become more aggressive elsewhere.

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We’ve all heard the rumors of Yoshi’s criminal nature. Well, the truth has finally surfaced with the upcoming mod turned full game, titled Yoshi Commits Tax Fraud 64.

As you can see below, the final trailer from game designer and modder, Cheezepin, shows off the latest iteration of their Super Mario 64 mod featuring Yoshi and tax evasion, showing off a whole lot of unique platforming, new worlds, and gambling.

The trailer highlights the gameplay for Yoshi Commits Tax Fraud 64. You’ll work a minimum wage job, spend your hard-earned money any way you please, and go to court after avoiding your tax payments. As a modded version of Super Mario 64, it will feature similar movement and mechanics with a healthy amount of unique twists and new levels.

Thor: Love and Thunder has been out for just about a month now, and we are still finding a bunch of interesting new bits of lore and easter eggs hidden amidst Marvel’s latest blockbuster. Those included everything from what the tattoo on Thor’s back mean to what the inspiration behind the screaming goats was.

Amidst all of these cool nods, though, a keen-eyed Redditor managed to spot arguably the most interesting hidden detail of all, and it’s that Miek can predict the future. As you can see in the post to the Marvel Studios subreddit by NightCrawlingNoodle, about a fourth of the way through the movie, you can actually see that everyone’s favorite Sakaaran insectoid warrior has storyboarded the entire plot of the movie.

You can see everything from Gorr’s confrontation with his god at the beginning to Thor and Love heading into battle at the end. Miek’s whiteboard art is only able to be seen for a few moments, so that’s probably why it hasn’t been mentioned until just now.

Gotham Knights will finally hit PlayStation and Xbox consoles, and PC too, in just a few months – Oct. 25 to be exact – and Warner Bros and WB Montreal have been steadily releasing more and more information about the multiplayer Bat-family game. 

Today, as part of IGN First coverage, the studio released the first 16 minutes of Gotham Knights gameplay and the focus is exclusively on Batgirl. If you're worried about spoilers, don't fret – there's not much revealed story-wise in this gameplay, but it does feature a look at the first mission as well as some of the in-game mechanics we'll be utilizing to solve mysteries and fight crime. According to the video, this takes place right after the prologue. 

Check it out for yourself below: 

For more about Gotham Knights, be sure to watch this Batgirl-centric trailer and then check out this one detailing some of Robin's moveset. After that, check out Game Informer's exclusive interview with the game's executive producer and director for details about alternate suits, missions, and the Elseworlds-like cooperative play. 

Logitech have launched the Aurora Collection, a set of bright, customisable PC gaming peripherals built to be “gender inclusive”. Fortunately, that seems to be more than just pastel colours and cynical “For girls” marketing – the G375 headset, G705 mouse, and the G715 and G713 keyboards are all proper gaming-spec accessories, and they’ve been crafted by mostly female design and engineering teams based on feedback from women PC players.

The G705, then, is a wireless mouse designed for smaller hands, while the G375 headset – also wireless – is proportioned to fit smaller heads and has more space in the earcups to accommodate earrings. It’s safe to say I’m not the Aurora Collection’s target audience, but having used the G705, the G375, and the G715 wireless keyboard as my main peripherals for a few days, I can say all three are pretty swish playthings regardless of how you identify. What’s more, their light, soft-cornered aesthetic is a nice break from the blacks, greys and harsh angles that have become standard design language for gaming gear. Anyone who’s ever cringed their face inside out at a peripheral resembling Megatron’s running shoe may indeed find these more to their tastes.

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Netflix is readying for the September arrival of its animated Cyberpunk 2077 series, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, with the release of its first full trailer, introducing some of the story's key players.

Edgerunners, which was announced back in June 2020, is a 10-episode collaboration between Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt and Japanese animation studio Trigger, which has previously worked on the likes of Little Witch Academia and Kill la Kill. It tells the story of a street kid trying to survive in the technology and body modification obsessed Night City.

"Having everything to lose," explains Netflix, "he stays alive by becoming an Edgerunner - a mercenary outlaw also known as a cyberpunk."

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Metal Max: Wild West may have been cancelled, but like one of its hardy survivors, the Metal Max series lives on. Granblue Fantasy developer Cygames acquired the rights to the series from Kadokawa Games, announcing the pickup on July 29, 2022. Along with the IP, series creator Hiroshi Miyaoka also moved to Cygames to continue shepherding the brand as a game director. Alongside producer Kenichiro Takaki (creator of Kandagawa Jet Girls and producer on Senran Kagura), Miyaoka will lead development on a new, console-based title in the franchise.

Right now the game doesn't actually have a name beyond Metal Max Project. Cygames debuted a logo for the for the project that featured pixel-style renditions of the various Metal Max lead characters.

Cygames' announcement commits to "creating a new future" for the now 30-year-old series. Miyaoka said that the rights transfer represents a great opportunity for Metal Max. He thanked Cygames for picking up the IP, and Kadokawa Games for agreeing to send it off.

Nier: Automata spent the last week in the headlines, the result of a secret door that sent the community into a scramble. The mystery itself may have come to a sudden, surprising conclusion, but that doesn’t mean the base game it was part of should drop off your radar. In fact, it’s all the more reason to revisit what…

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Netflix just dropped a new trailer for its anime series based on Cyberpunk 2077, and it’s more breathtaking than CD Projekt Red’s action role-playing video game.

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Over the weekend, Bungie disabled Destiny 2’s in-game text chat across all platforms after trolls discovered a way to use it to crash other players’ games. Now, the chat still remains off and Bungie hasn’t provided an ETA for when it will return.

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Today Activision announced its financial results for the second quarter of the calendar year 2022, related to the period between April 1 and July 30.

We hear that both revenue and operating income (profit) for both Activision and Blizzard dropped year-on-year due to lower engagement for the Call of Duty and World of Warcraft franchises.

This was partly offset by the improving performance of Hearthstone and the contribution brought by the launch of Diablo Immortal.

That being said, results were higher than in Q1 on all fronts.

Warner Bros. newest fighting game, Multiversus, has featured many beloved characters, including ones like Arya Stark and Batman. However, an unexpected character from Breaking Bad may be joining the cast based on a leaked image currently trending on the internet. Here is everything you need to know about if Gustavo “Gus” Fring is in Multiversus.