December 2022

Never ones to be outdone, Valve are partnering with The Game Awards to give away one of their Steam Deck handheld PCs every minute during the three-hour livestream event on December 8th/9th. They're the 512GB model too, so you might want to raise an intrigued eyebrow and nod slowly. If you’re wondering which standouts from 2022 are up for awards on the night itself then here’s a video of host Geoff Keighley saying game names for ten minutes, below.

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Another closed beta for upcoming thwack ‘em up Street Fighter 6 is scheduled to commence punching on December 16th, Capcom have revealed. This time around you’ll have a chance to jump into the colourful gi of eight more characters in online matches and tournaments, along with a few bug fixes and balance adjustments. Battling concludes December 19th. You can see some very burly Fight Streeters going toe-to-toe, and fist-to-face, by watching the trailer below.

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Now that Pokemon Scarlet and Violet have been out for a while, players probably dabbled with the Victory Road path that sends them against gym leaders and searched for a general order to follow. They might have also noticed that, while this is an open-world game, there is still a certain order you should follow. If you’re in the midst of facing your foes and wondering who to approach first, here are some suggestions.

In What Order Should You Face Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Gym Leaders?

While there isn’t any specific order for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet gym leaders and there is some leeway, there are certain ones you should leave for later in the game. I mean, in some cases, you’d have a lot of trouble even reaching them, due to the level of the Pokemon round them and perhaps needing your legendary mount to gain new abilities to easily get there. Both the Glaseado and Montenevera gyms might be better approached later, due to the mountain being easier to handle with a higher jump and gliding abilities and surrounding Pokemon being in the level 40 vicinity.

December 1, 2022 is the fifth anniversary of Xenoblade Chronicles 2's debut, and Monolith Soft shared wallpaper of all its major characters as a "gift." While the focus are on the heroines Pyra and Mythra, all of the heroes are there. This continues a trend of the developer sharing art on special occasions.

First, here's the main Xenoblade Chronicles 2 5th anniversary wallpaper with all of the major characters. Pyra and Mythra are front and center. Dromarch, Tora, Pandoria, and Zeke are behind Mythra on the left. Azurda, Rex, Nia, and Poppi are in the middle. Vandham, Roc, Morag, and Brighid are on the right behind Mythra.

The Switch version of Digimon World: Next Order isn't the only one on the way, and the Steam product page for the PC version appeared. It showed up on November 30, 2022. It also included the recommended system requirements to run the game.

Here are the minimum system requirements for Digimon World: Next Order via Steam.
OS: Windows 10 (64 bit only)
Processor: Intel Core i3-2100 or AMD FX-4300
Memory: 4GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560, 1 GB or AMD Radeon HD 6870, 1 GB
DirectX: Version 9.0
Storage: 7GB available space

And these are the recommended PC specs for Digimon World: Next Order.
OS: Windows 10 (64 bit only)
Processor: Intel Core i5-2400 or AMD FX-6350
Memory: 4GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti, 1 GB or AMD Radeon HD 7850, 1 GB
Storage: 7GB available space

Typically, a page like this also mentions other features. However, the one for Digimon World: Next Order doesn’t mention anything about support for Steam achievements, trading cards, or cloud save support yet. It only confirms full controller support.

In case you missed it, here's the trailer for the Digimon World: Next Order new ports:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6ISYwy_l9M&ab_channel=BandaiNamcoEntertainmentAmerica

Microsoft has revealed the games heading to Xbox Game Pass this December.

Available today are a trio of games: Eastward (Xbox, PC and Cloud), The Walking Dead: The Final Season (Xbox, PC and Cloud) and Totally Reliable Delivery Service (PC).

But we also have a bunch of games to look forward to later this month.

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If there's one universal truth about Call of Duty players, it's that they will spend as much money as needed to get even the slightest advantage over their peers. They would rather rage quit than be embarrassed by death.

So when Activision releases a premium skin bundle that makes it as difficult as possible for you to been seen by opponents, players will buy it in droves.

A new operator skin designed by Call of Duty eSports team LA Thieves puts players in an all-black outfit, allowing them to hide in shadows for some poor soul to pass by.

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Just when you thought Warzone 2.0 would be safe from an impossible-to-see skin lurking in the map’s dark corners, the in-game shop drops this monstrosity.

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Turns out the upcoming Final Fantasy XVI, isn’t just leaning heavily on its Game of Thrones medieval aesthetic in jest. According to its MSRB rating in Brazil, FFXVI is rated mature for its sex scenes, drug use, and fantasy hate crimes.

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The final set of Pokémon TCG cards for the Sword & Shield era had made some impressive noise, before we’d even seen a card. Celebrating the end of the V, VSTAR and VMAX generation, the Japanese VSTAR Universe, and English-language Crown Zenith, are sets that said they were going all-out on special art cards, including…

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Yesterday in a Twitter thread, the gaming historian Frank Cifaldi said this about the work done by his organization, the Video Game History Foundation: “We all know where the ROMs are hiding online. We don’t need games, we need CONTEXT to tell stories.” It helped me realize why I think Digital Eclipse’s new…

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Games get delayed all the time, but this year had more than its fair share of companies posting wall-of-text screenshots telling fans they’ll have to wait a little bit longer to play their most anticipated release or review bomb it on Steam. 2022 was supposed to be the year we got Starfield, Breath of the Wild 2 and a…

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Frictional Games, the studio behind the Amnesia series and Soma, has revealed Amnesia: The Bunker, a new sandbox open-world horror game.

The Bunker will come to PlayStation and Xbox consoles, as well as PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, sometime in 2023. Frictional says that The Bunker equips players "with high levels of freedom to impact gameplay, choosing their playstyle as they explore at will this semi-open world." The game has hardly any scripted events, Frictional says, resulting in constant tension by way of an ever-present threat. 

Check out the Amnesia: The Bunker reveal trailer below: 

"Amnesia: The Bunker will feature a new kind of horror survival adventure that incorporates emergent gameplay and sandbox elements into the mix," a press release reads. "Players will be in total control of their moment-to-moment decisions. Armed with a revolver gun and a noisy dynamo flashlight, players will walk the course of an ill-lighted WW1 bunker on the shoes of a French soldier troubled by his amnesia and hunted by an otherworldly creature.

We are only a few days from the Fracture event in Fortnite that will be bringing an end to the battle royale’s third chapter. A new teaser trailer has dropped and reminds us that this season was Paradise, but things are headed toward disaster. As with all Fortnite finale events, this is a one-time experience. If you don’t make it, you won’t get a second chance.

While things got crazy at the start of this season with the chrome’s introduction, there wasn’t a finale event for Chapter 3 Season 3, presumably due to the still low stakes of it. But now, considering the state of the map and how much the chrome has progressed, we were never going to get a peaceful ending. Chapter 3 ends as the shortest yet, but there’s plenty of promise in what Chapter 4 can bring.

The teaser doesn’t give anything away for those hoping to get an idea of where this event might go. Our only option is to show up and witness the end together.

Destiny 2’s latest season, Season of Plunder, is coming to a close after its debut back in August. With a little under five days left, all eyes turn toward the future of Destiny. Riding the new season hype, Bungie has released a new cinematic pointing towards where the next season will take Guardians while taking a moment to awaken legendary Guardian Osiris.

Check out the trailer below.

The visually appealing trailer features Saint-14 narrating the events that set up the new season. Former House of Dusk worker turned House of Light founder, Mithrax, studies the power hidden in Nezarec’s relics which are home to some great power. Mithrax manages to remove the darkness from the relics and converts them into a drinkable source of energy that the duo of Saint-14 and Mithrax give to the unconscious Osiris.

Osiris awakens from his unconscious state to the memories of the past, due to the power of the tea. He recounts hidden secrets that even Savathûn, the antagonist who caused Osiris’ bedridden state, is afraid of. The trailer ends with a peaceful moment, as the Guardians celebrate their victory before the arrival of Xivu Arath, sister of Savathûn and Oryx is seemingly confirmed to arrive.

Microsoft revealed the latest lineup of games coming to its Xbox Game Pass subscription service for the final month of 2022 with 11 titles for the first half of December.

Three of the games are available starting today with action RPG Eastward and The Walking Dead: The Final Season out for PC, consoles, and the cloud. Meanwhile, the physics-based Totally Reliable Delivery Service is now out for PC Game Pass.

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga will be coming to PC, consoles, and cloud on Dec. 6 alongside the launch of stealth action sequel Hello Neighbor 2. I will be followed by the SNES-styled JRPG Chained Echoes launching on Dec. 8 across all platforms, while Xbox One players will be able to play the rhythmic first-person shooter Metal: Hellsinger on the same date.

High On Life, the FPS from the mind of Rick and Morty’s Justin Roiland, will be coming on Dec. 13 alongside alchemist simulator Potion Craft. Finally, Hot Wheels Unleashed – Game of the Year Edition and Rainbow Billy: The Curse of the Leviathan will be available for the service on Dec. 15.

Microsoft also announced 11 games that will be leaving the Xbox Game Pass catalog on Dec. 15:

• Aliens: Fireteam Elite
• Breathedge
• Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age
• Firewatch
• Lake
• One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4
• Neoverse
• Race with Ryan
• Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth
• Rory McIlroy PGA Tour (EA Play)
• Transformers: Battlegrounds

God of War Ragnarok has been out for a few weeks already and the public discourse about this game-of-the-year nominee just keeps evolving in more unexpected ways every day. The best recent example of this is the tweet from @MKH12Omasters looks at Ragnarok with the Japanese voice track turned on.

Kenta Miyake as Kratos and Hoshino Takanori as Thor tear it up in this short clip that The Keyblade Master shared on Twitter. Obviously, just because the voice actors are Japanese doesn’t magically make the game anime, and it doesn’t really seem like the tweet below is implying that. Since both actors have lent their voices to multiple anime characters, it’s clear why this scene sounds reminiscent of anime with their larger-than-life performances.

If you’re not quite to this part of the game, then feel free to skip below the tweet to avoid getting spoiled. The clip itself doesn’t spoil any major parts of the story if you’ve been following the pre-launch info. Still, we get that it’s fun to experience a game for the first time by yourself.

For the last six months, I've been slowly picking my way through Company Of Heroes 2 for the first time. I'm about halfway through its campaign at the moment, but the rhythm of calling up replacements and reinforcing my squads hasn't quite been engrained into my hotkey fingers yet. I keep making the mistake of thinking I can just push through with my remaining forces, but as any COH stalwart will know, that kind of road only ever leads to total disaster.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I came to preview the latest build of Company Of Heroes 3's dynamic, Total War-style Italian campaign and seemed to be, you know, actually making some pretty steady progress as I pushed up its mission maps. I was, admittedly, only playing the opening levels of this particular campaign, and I also had the aid of a handy M4A1 Sherman tank providing some welcome backup muscle. But during my four hours with it, I felt more in control of the battlefield than I've ever done while playing COH2. I was making excellent use of its reinforcement options, and heck, I was even remembering to tell units to retreat back to the nearest aid post so I didn’t lose the buffs they'd earned through their new EXP-driven promotions and veterancy bonuses. Then I played a mission from its more linear North African campaign, and had a very rude awakening indeed. Why, hello, frantic pressure and torrents of death bullets from Company Of Heroes 2 again, it's been a while.

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We've all worn the rose-coloured glasses when it comes to old games. It's a real hazard of the job when you started out covering stuff from the 90s. It's less common though, to fall afoul of whatever its opposite is. The uh, yellow-tinted glasses, maybe? My point is that I did you all a disservice when I described Emperor Of The Fading Suns as "an intriguing, ambitious, crap mega 4X" last year. It was a remarkable game, and more remarkably still, its developers Holistic Design Inc. recently updated it with a major patch, 25 years after its original release.

It's a lot better than I remember. And only some of that is down to the patch.

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With two chunky single player campaigns and a sizable multiplayer component on the way, it's no secret that Company Of Heroes 3 is Relic Entertainment's biggest COH game yet. After playing a chunky new preview build last week, it's clear there'll be lots to dive into come release day on February 23rd. But when I sat down with vice president of production David Littman to talk more about their WW2 RTS, I was curious where their focus would lie after launch. While many love Company Of Heroes for its top notch campaigns, Littman told me they "still have over 400,000 players still playing COH 1 and 2 monthly" via multiplayer, which is impressive considering the last game in the series came out nine years ago. And when it comes to COH 3, Littman says they'll go "where the players are".

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I knew the hulking Ogryn would be my class in Warhammer 40,000: Darktide as soon as I shot his starting gun: a shotgun which holds a single shell the size of a can of beans. Sounds excessive, but that's the kind of firepower you need when four outcasts face thousands of cultists, mutants, and demons. The follow-up to Vermintide is once again a Left 4 Dead-style cooperative first-person shooter with a fair whack of melee and, having played a lot of the beta and a little after launch, it's a joyously grubby brawl with a great cast of weirdos.

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Winter is coming, and Vana'diel will be ready to celebrate the occasion. Square Enix announced the schedule and details for the Final Fantasy XI Winter Wonder 2022 campaign on the PlayOnline official website. The campaign will run for a little over three weeks. It starts from December 13, 2022 and ends on January 5, 2023. The campaign will include various benefits, including bonuses to experience, seal, and crest drops.

Over the course of the Final Fantasy XI Winter Wonder campaign, players will benefit from the following bonuses:

Time is running out for Dragon Quest XI Xbox Game Pass gameplay sessions. Microsoft announced the games coming to and leaving the service in early December 2022. Square Enix's RPG will depart on December 15, 2022. As a reminder, it was available to play on consoles, PCs, or via the cloud with Xbox Game Pass.

Here is the full list of games that will be leaving Xbox Game Pass on December 15, 2022 alongside Dragon Quest XI.



• Aliens: Fireteam Elite (cloud, console, PC)
• Breathedge (cloud, console, PC)
• Firewatch (cloud, console, PC)
• Lake (cloud, console, PC)
• One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 (cloud, console, PC)
• Neoverse (cloud, console)
• Race with Ryan (cloud, console, PC)
• Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth (cloud, console, PC)
• Rory McIlroy PGA Tour (console)
• Transformers: Battlegrounds (cloud, console, PC)

As for what's joining the service, the following games are on the way.

NIS America unveiled a new gameplay trailer for Labyrinth of Refrain sequel Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society. The trailer covers some of they key features from the dungeon RPG. It also shows off footage of the game in action, emphasizing its first-person perspective and character art.

Check out the Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society gameplay trailer below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxdDVZDSR18

The game puts the player in charge of a spirit that dwells inside a magic lamp, the Lanterne de Fantasmagorie. Under the direction of the crone Madame Marta, players will lead parties of puppet soldiers into the depths of the labyrinth. There they'll find Curios, treasure, and a lot of danger. Of course, the player can't move their lantern on their own. For that they'll need the help of Eureka, a young spirit medium hired as Madame Marta's assistant.

To explore the labyrinth, players will need to assemble their own Coven of puppet soldiers, giving them equipment, abilities, and character classes. They'll also be able to improve their gear with systems like Alchemy. Puppet soldiers can take on different character classes, also called Facets in Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society. Some Facets include the Wonder Corsair, an all-round class, the Shinomashira, the Thatrical Star, the Famyu Seeker, the Raipd Venator, the Magia Maid, the Peer Fortress, and the Aster Crow.

There’s a new way to see what gameplay in the Yakuza series spin-off Like a Dragon: Ishin is like. Sega shared a new combat trailer. The almost two-minute long video shows the different styles available during the Bakumatsu Era.

As a reminder, Like a Dragon: Ishin is a period piece and remake of the PS3 and PS4 Yakuza game released in Japan in 2014. It features the Shinsengumi member Ryoma Sakamoto/Saito Hajime (who is basically Kazuma Kiryu) on a quest for justice. As you might expect, other figures also resemble major Yakuza figures like Goro Majima. As with traditional entries in the series, there are different styles Sakamoto can use for fights. The newest trailer shows how the Brawler, Gunman, Swordsman, and Wild Dancer ones all work in-game.

Here’s the full Like a Dragon: Ishin gameplay trailer. It begins by showing off Swordsman Style. After that, Gunman abilities come up. That's followed by a look at what a Brawler Style is capable of. The last one to appear is Wild Dancer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQhLakRCEvQ&ab_channel=SEGA

With The Quintessential Quintuplets Movie English dub release happening in North America on December 2, 2022, there's a way to sample it ahead of time. Crunchyroll released a new trailer showing it off. The almost two minute long video offers a look at important moments and every character.

The new video consists of segments from different periods of time featuring Futaro and the Nakano sisters. Things begin with Futaro in a suit, with the sisters in wedding dresses. From there, we see moments when they were in school together. For example, one-on-one moments with Futaro and Yotsuba, Itsuki, and Miku all appear. There are also quite a few with the sisters all together, confirming their bond.

Here is The Quintessential Quintuplets English dub release trailer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jXjZ_JVo5I&ab_channel=CrunchyrollDubs

If the characters in that The Quintessential Quintuplets movie trailer sound familiar, there's a reason. All of the English voice actors are returning for the film. Crunchyroll confirmed the cast back in October 2022.

As a reminder, this movie is designed to offer some resolution and pick up where the anime seasons left off.

DICE has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting Battlefield 2042 over the long term.

The EA developer announced that Season 5 for the game has entered pre-production, which goes beyond the obligatory four seasons of content it owed to Year 1 battle pass subscribers.

"Across our team continuing to focus on Battlefield 2042, we have a mix of veteran developers alongside those working on their first game breathing in new life," DICE states in its latest blog post.

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Like a Hans Zimmer soundtrack, the latest Call of Duty: Warzone glitch (or exploit, if you ask me) involves spamming the same tactic over and over, potentially reaping rewards with no end in sight. All you need is a revive pistol and the willingness to be obnoxious—a tall order, I’m sure, for Call of Duty players.

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After it leaked earlier this year, many were curious about the next Need for Speed game’s apparent new direction. It seemed to be going full anime, complete with cel-shaded characters. And while that isn’t entirely the case, NFS Unbound is still a fresh and exciting shift for the franchise, which might help elevate it…

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The third and final season of His Dark Materials premieres on HBO and HBO Max on Dec. 5, 2022, two years after the season 2 finale. Season 3 adapts The Amber Spyglass, the third book in Phillip Pullman’s trilogy. After the second season finale, many questions arose and piled together with previous ones that were still not addressed. As this is the series’ last season, there’s an expectation that they will be answered. While book readers might already know the answers to some of these questions, here are the seven questions we have going into His Dark Materials’ final season.

In 2014, Guardians of the Galaxy (GotG) became the second most important superhero team in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Thanks to its world-building, from the music to the colors, it was an instant hit. With two movies fully dedicated to the group plus some special appearances in other movies of the franchise, the line-up changes often, yet there’s always something differentiating about each member. Hence why, it’s so fun to watch them together. By no means are they perfect, but that’s what makes it easy to connect with them. Let’s take a look at how every member of Guardians of the Galaxy ranks in terms of likability, starting from the bottom.

Many burning questions in the Star Wars universe have been answered in various movies, TV shows, and comic books, including the shocking truth about Rey’s origins. However, there is one plot point in Star Wars: The Force Awakens that has still not been resolved: how did Maz Kanata get Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber?

We know that Luke Skywalker previously lost his weapon in Cloud City during the iconic scene with Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back. Then, we see it again in The Force Awakens when Rey finds the device in a mysterious box in Maz’s base. It isn’t until later on that Maz reveals that she “kept it locked away” without much detail on how she acquired the Jedi item in the first place.

Even though the movie was released back in 2015, the community continues to wonder how this character obtained this weapon, like this post from Reddit user Kingkrool1994:

Berserk first aired on Nippon Television in Japan in 1997 and was met with incredible commercial and critical acclaim. The 25-episode anime, based on the still-running manga series of the same name, remains one of the most beloved adaptations of the source material. On Dec. 1, 2022, nearly two and a half decades after its release, the anime is finally making its way to Netflix in all its bloody glory.

Kentarou Miura’s gritty, violent, unapologetic manga launched its way into fandom in its serialization in Young Animals magazine in 1992 and follows the story of Guts, a lonesome mercenary in a dark, twisted world of demons, monsters, and humanity at its most savage.

The classic manga adaptation lands on Netflix amid the growing buzz surrounding the Berserk franchise, thanks in part to a mysterious countdown ticking away on the official website, set to expire on Dec. 10 at 12:30 PM EST. Fans are running rampant with theories about the ticking clock, pointing to everything from a new anime adaptation to a big manga announcement.

The release also comes amid an ongoing push by Netflix to incorporate more anime on its streaming service, pulling in old staples like Death Note, and newer releases like Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre, set for release in early 2023.

Despite Miura’s tragic passing in 2021, the world of Berserk lives on, and there is certainly more Guts on the horizon as the manga continues and new projects like Berserk: The Golden Arc – Memorial Edition are released.

The Witcher crossover event will be coming to the free-to-play MMO Lost Ark next month, publisher Amazon Games announced today.

The Witcher-themed event, teased last month, will be available in the Western version of Lost Ark sometime in January 2023. The event had already kicked off in the Korean version of the game, published by Smilegate, last week and released a trailer with The Witcher and friends showing up in the game via a giant portal.

“A beautiful island’s festivities have been interrupted by a mystifying vortex,” the blog post reads. “Uncovering the mysteries will lead to encounters with iconic characters from The Witcher on an all-new island and in new event quests!”

The event will also bring The Witcher cosmetic items to the store alongside customization scars, cards, stronghold structures, emojis, and more. The publisher plans to announce more about the event in January. In the meantime, Lost Ark players will receive the Brelshaza Legion Raid, Summoner Advanced Class, and other new activities sometime in December.

It’s a week chock full of great bonuses and rewards in GTA Online, as Rockstar has just revealed that players will be able to receive two to three times the GTA$ and RP while playing missions like Biker Sell and Lamar Contracts.

Alongside all of the mission-based rewards, you’ll also be able to cash in on some cool wardrobe additions, too. To be exact, this week only, you can get a free Black LD Organics Tee to their wardrobes for completing all three Short Trips this week. Check out the full list of highlights coming right down below.

Today's Google Doodle - the daily, sometimes-interactive twist on the search engine's logo - offers up a handful of arcade mini-games to play with in your browser. They're simple novelties, but there's also an edit button on each one that allows you to tinker with them so you can plop down your own walls, enemies, switches and keys. The Doodle has been built to celebrate Jerry Lawson, a Black video game pioneer and the engineer who led the team that designed the first home video game console to use cartridges.

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