Today third-party developers shared news about add-ons for Microsoft Flight Simulator, including both aircraft and scenery.
We start with another look at the vintage military transport Transall C-160 in development at AzurPoly.
The rear cargo door will be functional and the developers will work on parachuting capabilities.
Cyber Monday deals have started, and with it the best deal we've seen yet on the Xbox Series S console. The Xbox Series S dropped to as low as $239.99 on Black Friday and we thought that was the best deal we were going to get. We were wrong. Right now, Amazon is still offering the Xbox Series S Holiday console for $239.99. However, if you enter the coupon code "XBOX" during checkout (it may be automatically applied when you click the link below), you'll also get a free $40 Amazon credit. Amazon credit is basically as good as cash, and that means you're effectively paying $199.99 for this current gen console.
The Xbox Series S is normally priced $200 less than the Xbox Series X but can still play all of the same games. It doesn't have the power of the Series X, so games are displayed at 1440p resolution instead of 4K in order to maintain the consistent 60fps-120fps graphics you'll find in most games. If you don't have a 4K TV or feel like the $200 could be better spent elsewhere (or in this case, $300), then the Xbox Series S might be a smarter purchase.
For more Xbox deals, check out our best Xbox deals, and for more Cyber Monday deals in general head over to our best Cyber Monday deals of 2022.
One thing I've always loved about the work I do is hearing about people's lives. I like hearing their stories, I like hearing about the things that shaped them, because they not only relate to me as a fellow human being but inevitably, they are the things that end up shaping what they make. The games they make. The games we love.
It's a privilege to be able to focus on this in my podcast One-to-One which, hey, you should listen to (search "Eurogamer Podcasts" wherever you get them). And I've had some wonderful guests. But few struck me the way Obsidian design director Josh Sawyer did - the lead mind behind Pentiment - in the latest episode.
Sawyer was not what I expected - and I say this as someone who's met him a few times. But on those occasions I got only a glimpse of him. He demoed a game, or we traded pleasantries while thinking about what work we were doing next - it was that kind of thing. But this time I got a chance to sit with him for a chunk of time and hear about his life, hear about who he is. And there's much I didn't know.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet bring 400 Pokemon to the land of the Paldea Region, with 104 of these specimens being new creatures of Generation 9. While you can obtain each of these 400 Pokemon in-game, some are much harder to find than others for various reasons, including needing to meet special circumstances, tricky disguises, high rarity, and low spawn rates. But don’t worry; we’ve compiled everything you need to know before you begin your hunt for these creatures. Here are 10 rare Pokemon and where to find them in Scarlet & Violet.
Developer Nexon celebrated the anniversary of Blue Archive this month, and released an animated promotional video to commemorate the occasion. The promo shows off a montage of scenes from the game's four main story campaigns. The montage also animated a few key moments that only appeared as still event art in-game, while emphasizing the involved characters.
Check it out below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhTcck9ShqI
Nexon first launched Blue Archive in February 2021 in Japan, and its English-language global edition launched in November 2021. The game is set in the city of Kivotos, where schools rule each district, and every student has a halo and a gun. The player is Kivotos' only "sensei,” put in charge of the troubleshooting organization Schale. They're tasked with solving problems around Kivotos, often involving the relations between the armed academies.
Fans of Supermassive Games' Dark Pictures Anthology are unhappy at the long wait for what they see as crucial fixes to earlier games in the series.
The horror franchise's first two titles - Man of Medan and Little Hope - were updated on 28th September with a spruce-up designed to introduce difficulty settings, QTE warnings and more accessibility options. Man of Medan even gained a "previously unseen" story chapter.
But these updates also had the unintended consequence of introducing a raft of bugs to the games, with a number of players complaining of being unable to save or make progress past certain points.
Fran Lebowitz once said, "You're only as good as your last haircut," and perhaps she has a point. After all, Joel Miller from Naughty Dog's The Last of Us series is easily recognisable, with his full head of hair and slightly scruffy facial furniture.
However, it turns out that if you remove all of his hair (bar his eyebrows, thank goodness), he looks really quite different... and I am not sure that is a good thing.
As shared by prolific modder Speclizer, who recently unlocked God of War Ragnarök's unfinished photo mode, there is now a The Last of Us Part 2 mod that makes Joel's head and face almost as smooth as a baby's bottom.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet players have noticed that the RNG of the Battle Stadium is not working as intended.
As shared on reddit, user Lord-Trolldemort noticed that the accuracy of certain moves was rigged.
And as the Battle Stadium is the game's ranked online mode, this could have serious implications.
Hello! Today we're taking a look at one of Fortnite's greatest features - the option to visualise sound effects.
Chris: After a decade of mishearing people in the office, I've been wearing a hearing aid for most of the last year or so. It's been absolutely incredible. I have mild hearing loss, mostly high frequency sounds, which is why I have had trouble with human speech - I can't hear the consonants anymore. When I first put my hearing aid on at the hospital and then walked outside, I don't think I'd ever heard so much birdsong in my life - all the birds in the world came back to me.
Anyway, one of the things I'd noticed slipping before I got my hearing aid was fast-paced games like Fortnite. It's a game you play with your ears a lot of the time - I wasn't hearing chests or the sounds of people healing or approaching - all sorts of things. My daughter introduced me to the Fortnite Sound Ring - the official term, I think, is the visual sound effects setting - and it's been transformative. For someone with hearing issues like me it's a game-changer, but I've been talking to a number of people who don't have hearing issues and who also use it and also find it to be a brilliant thing - is that a fair way of putting it?
If you thought Pokémon Scarlet and Violet had been mined of all its weird, buggy content - well, here's another one for you. Players have discovered you can kiss your Meowscarada. Or at least make Meowscarada lean in and call it a kiss.
In what was presumably an oversight from the developers at Game Freak - and not intentional - fans have found you can align your character and Meowscarada just a little too well, allowing for a kiss-like interaction when out picnicking.
Why would you want to kiss Meowscarada? Well, when its design leaked shortly before launch, people quickly made hordes of fan art, some of which was not particularly wholesome or Safe For Work.
Details of Fortnite's upcoming Chapter 3 ending have leaked online, days ahead of the game's Fracture live event - scheduled for this Saturday, 3rd December at 9pm UK time.
The leak contains audio files including dialogue, as well as assets and artwork, and appears to have come from someone able to bypass Epic Games' own in-game encryption for these files.
Eurogamer will not be spoiling any details of the event itself ahead of time.
A Pokémon fan is creating a 60fps mod for Scarlet and Violet that significantly boosts performance.
The mod, created by theboy181, is not yet complete or publicly available, but videos have been posted on Twitter showing the smoother frame rate.
Of course, this is all happening on a PC emulator rather than the Switch directly.
Following his appointment as co-chairman and co-CEO of DC Studios alongside Peter Safran, filmmaker James Gunn has confirmed that future DC video games will indeed be part of a larger connected universe for the Warner Bros. franchise.
In a back and forth on Twitter, Gunn stated the "DCU will be connected across film and TV (and animation)." When asked further if this statement also included games, Gunn replied with a simple and clear "yes".
This news is not surprising. Earlier reports revealed that Warner Bros. Discovery head David Zaslav had spoken to the wider company about plans to "build a bible for a cohesive DC universe" that would include media such as "live-action films, TV, animation, gaming and more".
Sega released Sonic Frontiers earlier this month and while fans have been finding plenty of fun in this new open world-ish take on the blue blur, they've also been running into some bugs. Fortunately, Sega is releasing a new Sonic Frontiers patch on all platforms to address some of these bugs and bring additional optimization to the game.
This news comes by way of a new tweet from the official Japanese Sonic the Hedgehog Twitter account that reveals update 1.10 "fixes an issue where the boss would sometimes disappear when retrying the boss battle on Chronos Island," as reported by Video Games Chronicle. This update is already live on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 and is expected to begin rolling out to other platforms very soon.
Other fixes in the 1.10 patch include fixing the Chaos Island map to display properly after clearing the island, fixing crashing bugs and audio issues, adding UI improvements, optimizing stability and performance, and more, according to Update Crazy, as noted by VGC.
Warner Bros. Discovery revealed last month that it had hired Peter Safran and Marvel Studios alum and director James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy, The Suicide Squad, Peacemaker) to lead as co-CEOs of DC Studios, as reported by Variety. Since then, Gunn has been fielding questions about DC Studios, the DCU's future, and what his plans are as a new lead within DC's entertainment output.
When asked on Twitter yesterday if he and Safran are "planning to give more DC characters TV shows that'll add to the story for the DCEU," Gunn responded, "Yes, most definitely, the DCU will be connected across film and TV (and animation)." In a follow-up tweet, another user asked is there are plans to connect games to this larger DCU canon as well, to which Gunn simply responded, "Yes."
Yes.
Matthias Linda is feeling tense. Chained Echoes, the retro Japanese-inspired RPG he's been working on as a solo dev for the last seven years, is almost ready to release on Steam, but he tells me there's "still so many little and not so little things to do" before the big day hits on December 8th. "[I] still need to patch the languages into the console versions. Still need to pass one submission," he says over email. "I can’t really think about the release itself, just about the things I need to finish till then."
But he also says he's "happy at the same time". After a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2019, Chained Echoes has been gradually gathering steam ever since - and judging by the 90-minute demo I was able to play recently, it's clear Linda's got something really quite special here. Not only do its 16-bit-style visuals look absolutely stunning, but its turn-based combat's also unlike anything else I've seen. You've still got your classic list of commands to pick from, but as battles progress you'll need to maintain a kind of flow state known as Overdrive to deal the optimum amount of damage. Overextend your party's abilities and you'll leave yourself vulnerable to critical hits from your enemies, but go too slow and you'll need to build your Overdrive bar back up to regain those lost stat buffs. It's a fascinating system, and was borne out of Linda's desire to "build a bridge between the worlds" of considered, turn-based tactical combat and the fast-paced action of real-time.
Grim co-op action game Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is out on PC on Wednesday, and devs Fatshark have taken a load off players’ minds by confirming that progression from the pre-order beta will carry over. Although Fatshark had mentioned in previous Steam updates about the game’s beta that player progression might not be fully guaranteed, they tweeted over the weekend to let players know that progression will be maintained once the game’s released. I do like that they address everyone as “rejects” in their announcements, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
All of the best Cyber Monday deals on desktop gaming PCs are, quite simply, the same offers that were up for grabs on Black Friday. I suppose you could grumble that they weren’t eighty-sixed in favour of newer, better, Monday-er deals, but if you’ve been weighing up a new prebuilt PC, think of today as another chance to find a deal you missed.
Black Friday 2022 is dead but as long as Cyber Monday is here to shamble around, wearing its skin, you can still take advantage of some of the former’s best PC gaming hardware deals. The vast majority, in fact – I was expecting to spend most of this morning sweeping away expired deals, but most of the hardware that was discounted on Black Friday is still on sale for Cyber Monday at identical prices. Sometimes, even for a few coins less.
PlayStation-exclusive racing sim Gran Turismo 7 might make its way to PC, series lead and creator Kazunori Yamauchi has let slip in an interview. GTPlanet report that Yamauchi made the comments when asked about the possibility of a port, given that more and more PlayStation games are heading in PC’s direction. The 25-year-old racing series has always been a die-hard exclusive for Sony’s consoles up until now.
More Danganronpa 1•2 Pop Up Parade figures are on the way. Good Smile Company confirmed a new selection will appear at WonHobby G 2022 Autumn. During the event, it teased ones for the Danganronpa characters Makoto Naegi, Chihiro Fujisaki, Hajime Hinata, and Mikan Tsumiki. As a reminder, this is the figure line in which every one is about seven inches tall and tends to have a default price of ¥3,900 (~$28).
The Danganronpa Chihiro one is the one that is furthest along in development. A painted prototype of it appeared:
#WonHobbyG 2022 Autumn Figure Update!
Good Smile Company
Danganronpa 1•2 Reload
POP UP PARADE Chihiro FujisakiWeb Gallery: https://t.co/XZnoQ04Ha9#Danganronpa #PopUpParade #goodsmile pic.twitter.com/2yktsORVPC
— GoodSmile_US @axchibi✨(Booth #305) (@GoodSmile_US) November 26, 2022
Members of the Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core Reunion team confirmed that there are currently "no plans" for a FFVII Before Crisis or Dirge of Cerberus remake or remaster. The info comes from an interview with Korean site Ruliweb.com, which spoke to Crisis Core Reunion Executive Producer Yoshinori Kitase, Creative Director Tetsuya Nomura, and Producer Mariko Sato. Also hinted at in the interview were why the team chose to remaster Crisis Core Reunion in the first place, and how it's connected to the Final Fantasy VII Remake project. [Thanks, @xenosaga7]
Glico is going a step further for its crossover event with Capcom. From November 29, 2022, the companies will bring a classic fighting game together with a classic snack. The result: Street Fighter II Pocky. [Thanks, Dengeki!]
The Street Fighter II Pocky promo mainly involves specially decorated packages of chocolate-flavor Pocky. Pocky is the classic Japanese snack consisting of flavor-coated biscuit sticks, sold in Japan and around the world since 1966. The special "Pocky KO" limited edition packages feature the character sprites from the game on the box and snack wrappers.
The other key aspect to the promotion is a special PC and mobile-based edition of Street Fighter II itself. Called Street Fighter II Pocky Edition, the web-based game can be accessed by entering a code included in the Pocky KO packages into the campaign site. Rather than standard SFII, the Pocky Edition adjusts the game graphics to be more Pocky-like. For example, the health bar is replaced with a "Pocky chocolate-to-pretzel ratio." There's also a special "Pocky KO" rule where players have to defeat their opponents once their health hits the right chocolate-to-pretzel ratio of coating on a Pocky stick. Victory screens and poses have also been modified to feature Pocky. The game supports single-player play as well as online multiplayer play.
New reveals from the NieR Automata anime series introduce three characters. Two are from the game proper and one is new to most people outside Japan. The latest character promos for NieR Automata v1.1a showcase the broadcast-ready looks of Adam, Eve, and the android Lily. The promos include brief teaser videos and key visual art shared via the official website and Twitter account.
The latest promo reveals a character from the deeper lore of NieR Automata: Lily. In the series, Lily is a member of the Android Resistance (the same group as Anemone from the game). She is a character in the Pearl Harbor Descent Record - A NieR: Automata Story manga series. Lily participated in the Pearl Harbor Descent, a battle during the 14th Machine War and a key incident in the life of Android A2. However, Lily's existence predates NieR Automata itself: She was originally a character from YoRHa, the stage play created by Yoko Taro that was eventually adapted into NieR Automata. Lily will be voiced by Atsumi Tanezaki, who played Chise from The Ancient Magus' Bride, Anya in Spy x Family, Chihiro Morimura in 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUqANf327tE
Activision was kept busy over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend fixing a popular Call of Duty glitch which granted infinite money and weapon XP.
The now-fixed exploit let you repeatedly sell weapons at the game's Buy Stations in exchange for XP. In a quick fix for the issue, XP from Buy Stations was nerfed to counter the number of people quickly levelling up their weapons.
But, as fans quickly found, this still left the game's white dumpster Dead Drops as an option. This lasted another half day or so, until it too was countered by another behind the scenes change.
With the release of Need for Speed Unbound this week, Criterion Games is properly back. Not that the Guildford studio's been away, of course, but in recent years its role shifted towards a support studio, lending a hand with the Battlefront and Battlefield series among others - and its last standalone title was the X-Wing VR mission for Star Wars Battlefront back in 2016.
It's something of a moment, then, to have Criterion Games back - and back on Need for Speed for a second stint behind the wheel following 2010's Hot Pursuit and 2012's Most Wanted. Need for Speed Unbound marks the start of a new chapter, with Criterion now overseeing the series once more and to mark the occasion I spoke to studio veteran and Unbound's creative director Kieran Crimmins.
Thanks for chatting to me, I'm sure you're exceptionally busy with launch not many days away. Before we get into that, I just wondered if you could tell me a little bit about yourself and your history at Criterion because I believe you've been there quite some time.
The Gran Turismo racing series could make the leap from PlayStation to PC according to series' creator Kazunori Yamauchi.
As reported by PC Gamer, Yamauchi told GTPlanet at the Gran Turismo World Finals that developer Polyphony Digital would consider bringing the racing franchise to PC, saying "yes, I do think so", when asked if it was a possibility.
However, the PlayStation exclusive series would only make the leap if they thought that a port could be developed to meet their standards.
"Gran Turismo is a very finely tuned title," said Yamauchi. “There are not many platforms which could run the game in 4K/60p natively, so one way we make that possible is to narrow down the platform. It’s not a very easy subject, but of course, we are looking into it and considering it."
The Xbox Series S is one of my favorite purchases. It’s the little machine that could, a less powerful version of a next-gen console, that somehow is able to run everything anyway. Today you can get one for under $200, the cheapest it’s ever been—even cheaper than last week’s cheapest ever. You know, if you don’t mind…
When the Chill Season comes to Splatoon 3, Tableturf Battle cards will too. Nintendo confirmed new cards are coming to the minigame. According to the reveal, it looks like there will be 13. The new update also explained a way in which it will be easier to keep track of Splatoon 3 music in stages.
Here’s the full list of new Splatoon 3 Tableturf Battle cards shown in the announcement. Both the completely new weapons and new variants of existing ones will appear in the minigame.
Here are pictures of all the new cards. The first one shows the three new weapons joining the game. The second shows the new variants.
[gallery columns="2" size="full" ids="941374,941375" link="file"]
However, while there is an update on new Splatoon 3 Tableturf Battle cards, Nintendo didn't note when people will be able to play the card game online.
A new month is about to begin, which means HoYoVerse prepared a new image. The Japanese Twitter account shared the Genshin Impact December 2022 calendar, complete with Ganyu as the featured character and a host of birthdays. It continues the trend set with past calendars of showing chibi versions of characters' faces on their birthdays. Also, new folks like Dori, Layla, Nilou, and Tighnari appear.
First, here's a closer look at the Genshin Impact December 2022 calendar.
As for the December birthdays, Ganyu got to be the “star” Genshin Impact character as hers came first. It is December 2nd. Here’s the full list of birthdays coming up this month. If you show up in-game that day, you get a “gift” in your mailbox from the character with items like their favorite meal.
Good Smile Company's WonHobby G 2022 Autumn event involved a peek at the Helltaker Cerberus and Modeus Nendoroids. Prototypes of each of the characters appeared. Cerberus' were in painted forms, suggesting they are further along. Meanwhile, the Modeus one showed up as an unpainted prototype.
First, here's a look at how the Cerberus Helltaker Nendoroids will look. The characters appear as a set of triplets in-game. Following a survey asking which folks from the series should get figures next, they were among the characters chosen. Good Smile Company didn't note how it would handle this one, given all three characters always show up at once. However, it seems there could be one standard-sized Nendoroid produced.
The new Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes character Clarke, details about the Theater, and insight into preparation of its Hot Springs area came up in the November 2022 update. Clarke runs the theater in-game, which will feature voiced lines for its "shows." Also, Producer and Art Director Junichi Murakami brought up challenges in creating hot springs versions of characters, while still making them recognizable.
With the hot springs, Murakami noted that the Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes character designs meant it was easier to keep people distinct when preparing their sprites. He noted that he didn’t encounter as much trouble when making each one.
Here’s his full statement from the Steam update.
Simply putting characters into hot springs is tough in Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. One scene alone means X(100 + α) more cuts to make (lol).
To that end, and to avoid panicking down the road, I'm doing my own work whenever I get a chance. But in doing that, I’m faced with a number of questions.
For example, “Isn’t it weird for this character to wear a hat in the hot spring?” or “They’ll have to tie their long hair up before getting in the water,” are just for starters. What about what they’re wearing under their outfits?
The ’90s was pretty much the golden era of action-adventure creature features, but these days, the genre doesn’t seem to get as much love as it once did. Chalk it up to shifting trends, ballooning production costs, and ever-changing audience preferences, but whatever it is, it’s safe to say that action-horror releases with big budgets are getting fewer and farther between nowadays. One in particular, however, is receiving a ton of praise from fans who feel that it didn’t quite get a fair shake when it first launched.
More specifically, the film in question is 1998’s Deep Rising, which is a sci-fi horror-thriller that released to tepid reviews and ultimately failed at the box office. Yes, the action flick – which was initially titled Tentacle during pre-production – allegedly cost Hollywood Pictures a staggering $45 million to bring to fruition. However, critics loathed it, as reflected by its 30 percent critical rating over on Rotten Tomatoes, as well as a disappointing 43 percent audience score.
Set aboard a luxury cruise liner, Deep Rising focuses upon both a heist to raid the ship’s vaults and the attack from a bunch of mysterious creatures that are hellbent on eating the crew. Of course, the mercenaries who’ve been hired to raid the boat get a lot more than they first bargained for. Looking back at it now, it’s surprising how many elements are similar to Capcom’s Resident Evil franchise.
It’s been little over two weeks since Warzone 2 launched, and unsurprisingly Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II’s battle royale spin-off has proven hugely popular. How could it not be, after all? Its predecessor was one of the biggest in the world until it was taken offline in tandem with Warzone 2’s arrival, essentially forcing players over to the new game. But not for good: the original Warzone is going back online later today, rebranded as “Caldera” and giving players a chance to return to their old stomping grounds. Sadly, though, not with the smaller Resurgence Rebirth Island map included in the playlist.
It’s a particularly touchy subject for Warzone fans, many of whom absolutely adored Rebirth for its smaller, compact design that encouraged a faster playstyle and resulted in a more intense battle royale experience. Why Activision hasn’t opted to make it available in the newly rebranded Caldera hasn’t really been made clear; we only know that it isn’t being included, and there are no plans for it to return in the near future.
You know you've walked into a cool space for serious cyberdudes when someone is casually getting tattooed at a filthy table littered with unspooled cable, PCI cards, rollerblades, and crushed energy drink cans. But how will they know that you too can jam with the console cowboys in cyberspace? Because you will establish your cybercred with a flash of your kewl knuckle tattoos. You do have some, don't you? If you're coming up clean-handed, there's no better day to fix this than Cyber Monday. Scroll through this gallery above of 13 kewl ideas for inspiration!
It’s Cyber Monday, all you computing peripheral fans, and that means you’ve got one last shot at many of the best gaming keyboard deals to come out of Black Friday. Looking back over this list of discounted wares, which includes several models to have graced our best keyboard rankings, it does seem that most of last week’s highlights are still available.
A remake of Like A Dragon spin-off Ryū Ga Gotoku Kenzan could potentially happen, but devs RGG Studio say they'll only consider it if the series' other upcoming spin-off Ishin is a “a huge hit.” The comments came up in a recent interview by Ungeek with RGG Studio executive producer Masayoshi Yokoyama and chief director Hiroyuki Sakamoto. Although the remake of Ishin was announced during Sony’s September State Of Play stream, Kenzan seems quite far from being picked up for a revamp.
Pokémon Go has revealed details of its ninth season, Mythical Wishes, which will carry the game through the next three months: from 1st December to 1st March.
Mythical Wishes is a reference to Hoenn's Mythical creature Jirachi, which has only appeared in Pokémon Go once previously. It looks set for a reappearance (and possible Shiny debut?) at 2023's Pokémon Go Tour event, which is set to be detailed fully tomorrow. More tangibly, today's new trailer also teases the release of Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre at the end - some of the most powerful creatures in the series, and a big deal for fans.
Hoenn creatures dominate much of the next season, with the introduction of the region's three Starter creatures in their Mega evolved forms: Mega Sceptile, Mega Blaziken, and Mega Swampert. The trio will debut via a Raid Day event this Saturday, 3rd December which will offer a number of extra free raid passes.
Three years after it released on PC, Red Dead Redemption 2 broke its all-time peak of concurrent players yesterday.
Single-player DLC for the game looks unlikely, and the bundled multiplayer offering Red Dead Online was pronounced "dead" by its community of players after developer Rockstar confirmed it would no longer push major updates to the game to shift development to Grand Theft Auto 6 instead.
That hasn't put people off enjoying Red Dead Redemption 2 and Red Dead Online, however (with some help from the Thanksgiving holidays across the pond and Steam's autumn sale).
