December 2022

Despite no official announcement coming down from Microsoft as of yet, it looks like nine games are leaving Xbox Game Pass very soon, including the very good game The Outer Wilds.

Pure Xbox was first to notice that the official Game Pass app states that The Outer Wilds is listed under the "leaving soon" tab for console and PC. GameSpot has confirmed this as well. Other titles leaving the service soon, according to the app, will include Embr, Gorogoa, Iron Harvest, Immortal Realms: Vampire Wars, Scarlet Nexus, Secret Neighbor, The Pedestrian, and Tropico 6. Again, Microsoft has not made any official announcements about titles leaving Game Pass yet, so this is not yet completely confirmed. The titles are reportedly set for removal on December 31.

Microsoft typically adds and removes titles from the Game Pass library twice per month. As of yet, however, Microsoft has not announced a Wave 2 of additions and removals for December, despite there being fewer than two weeks left in the month.

Keep checking back with GameSpot for more on the next titles coming to and leaving Xbox Game Pass. As usual, Game Pass members save 20% on all games, so subscribers can buy the games leaving the service at a nice discount.

Xbox Game Pass Titles Leaving December 31

According to the Xbox app

• Embr -- Console, PC
• Gorogoa -- Console, PC
• Iron Harvest -- PC
• Immortal Realms: Vampire Wars -- Console, PC
• The Outer Wilds -- Console, PC
• Scarlet Nexus -- Console, PC
• Secret Neighbor -- Console, PC
• The Pedestrian -- Console, PC
• Tropico 6 -- Console, PC

Who doesn't enjoy a little Thursday Wordle action every now and again? We're quickly approaching the holiday weekend, but that doesn't mean Wordle is going easy on players. In fact, the answer on December 22 is one of the toughest this month has had to offer.

If you haven't started the Wordle just yet, then you can check out our list of recommended starting words. However, if you're already past the starting point, then you're likely looking for some hints. Luckily, we provide just that further down in this guide. We will also spell out the full answer for players looking to simply get out of today unscathed.

Today's Wordle Answer - December 22, 2022

We'll begin with a few hints that directly relate to today's Wordle answer, but don't give it away immediately.

• Hint 1: This word is defined as being exceptionally good at something. There's also a popular piece of software from Microsoft named after this word.
• Hint 2: This word has one vowel, but there is two of this vowel in the word. The word has no other repeating letters. It contains an "x" somewhere in it.

If those hints weren't enough to get the ball rolling for you, then you can keep reading for the full answer to the Wordle. The full answer to the December 22 Wordle is... "excel." It's not often we see an "x" make an appearance in Wordle. The repeating "e" in addition to the "x" makes this an extremely tough Wordle. Hopefully, every player was able to get this Wordle correct and continue their streak. Check back tomorrow for another edition of our Wordle guides.

An ad for Goat Simulator 3 featured some trollish antics typical of the game itself, as it included gameplay from the massive GTA 6 leak that emerged earlier this year. It didn't take long for GTA publisher Take-Two to issue a DMCA notice to take down the video.

The ad, which is currently unavailable, featured a humorous overview of an NPC named Shaun, who describes his duties as walking around in circles, picking things up, and sitting on a bench. The GTA 6 clip comes late in the ad, when Shaun says that you can see him in some "footage that was leaked a couple of months ago."

The fact that the Goat Simulator developers responded to the original tweet with the memetic "I'm in danger" GIF from The Simpsons indicates that they probably knew what they were doing here. It remains to be seen if Take-Two will take further legal action beyond just this DMCA notice.

Goat Simulator 3 is the misleadingly titled sequel to the original Goat Simulator, a humorous sandbox game that featured Tony Hawk Pro Skater-esque combos and a lot of silliness. The game came out in November to lukewarm reviews.

Atari recently released its half-year earnings report for the current financial year, and it didn't seem to have much good news for the Atari VCS console. As picked up by Tom's Hardware, the report pointed to a decline in Atari's hardware sales, along with a reorganization of the hardware side of the business that would involve suspending relationships with the VCS' manufacturer.

The report points to a 92% decrease in hardware revenue year-on-year, dropping from $2.44 million to only $212,466. Atari points to a decline in "cartridge activity" to account for this drop, as well as "underperformance by the VCS." Overall, Atari reported a 27% decrease in revenue from the same period last year.

The report also mentions that Atari have been busy with a reorganization of its hardware business for the first half of the financial year. This includes "the suspension of direct hardware manufacturing relationships, notably with regards to the Atari VCS." Atari specified that it wouldn't be giving up on the console, instead opting for "a new commercial strategy [that] has been implemented as of the end of calendar year 2022 and that will continue in calendar year 2023."

In a statement sent to Tom's Hardware, Atari reaffirmed its commitment to the console, saying: "We suspended our relationship with the original manufacturing partner of the Atari VCS, but we continue to maintain inventory and fulfill new orders."

In addition to the Hierarchy of Needs Exotic bow and The Manticore Exotic SMG, Destiny 2's Season of the Seraph brings a new Exotic pulse rifle called Revision Zero. Revision Zero's intrinsic trait makes it strong against Barrier Champion's with its shield-piercing ammo. It also gathers target data from precision kills that lets you temporarily swap for a high-damage scope. Completing The Hidden Shape quest steps will give you Revision Zero and its weapon pattern for shaping it.

First, continue Season of the Seraph's Week three questline--called More Than A Weapon--and at Step 22 of the quest, you must speak with Elsie Bray at the Holoprojector. Accept The Hidden Shape Exotic quest and complete the Operation: Seraph's Shield mission--which you can access from the H.E.L.M. and is set at Power level 1580 for Normal mode. This mission doesn't have matchmaking, so you can complete it solo.

Operation: Seraph's Shield Mission Guide

Once at the facility entrance, avoid tripmines and head further into the facility. Defeat the Scanner Splicer to get the Scanner Augment, a mechanic that should be familiar from the Deep Stone Crypt raid.

Homing magic spells aren't anything new for From Software games, and Elden Ring sports quite a few of them. One of them--Glintstone Stars--ranks among the best for tracking extremely fast targets, even if its FP cost is a bit on the high side. If you'd like to give it a try, read on to find out where you can buy it.

Glintstone Stars explained

Glinstone Stars is a sorcery that requires 12 Intelligence to cast. It creates three magical homing stars that chase down and damage foes. Due to the spell's rapid traveling speed, it makes a solid choice for homing attacks on fast-moving enemies.

Glintstone Stars' item description reads:

One of the glintstone sorceries of the Academy of Raya Lucaria. Fires three magic shooting stars that pursue the target. This sorcery can be cast while in motion. Charging enhances potency. A sorcery of the Olivinus Conspectus, which attracts sorcerers from Sellia, Town of Sorcery.

Where to find Glintstone Stars

Glintstone Stars can be purchased from Sorceress Sellen, who is found within Waypoint Ruins in Limgrave. The spell costs 3,000 runes, and she sells it by default, so you don't have to find and provide her with any of the scrolls scattered throughout the Lands Between in order to purchase it.

Marvel's Midnight Suns contains a few side quests and collectible hunts that you can choose to complete when you're not busy fighting Hydra and stopping Lilith's demon-related plans. There are 22 Marvel-themed tarot cards to find inside the Abbey home base and the surrounding forest, but you'll need to get all Words of Power to access the entire map. We're here to show you exactly where to look for each card.

All Tarot Card Locations

The Moon

Three tarot cards can be found inside the Abbey's main building, and The Moon is included in that trio. It's inside the forge room, next to a large bookshelf. The Moon is, of course, represented by Moon Knight for the card's art.

The Star

The Star is in the same room as The Moon--it's on the opposite side of the forge, on top of a red workbench. Nova is the character who was chosen to represent this arcana, and he's used in its card art.

If you own any Ubisoft games on Stadia, you'll receive Ubisoft Connect copies of them at no additional cost. This will happen automatically if you have linked your Ubisoft account to Stadia. If you haven't already, you'll need to do that before Stadia shuts down on January 18, 2023 in order to receive your games.

It's important to note that in-game currency will not transfer to Ubisoft Connect, but any items you purchase will, if the game in question has cross-progression. You can check out an FAQ from Ubisoft for more details of what exactly will transfer.

If you subscribed to Ubisoft+ Multi-Access through Stadia, you'll get an email with instructions on how to sign up directly on the Ubisoft website. You'll also receive a voucher for a free month of Ubisoft+. If you're in the US, you can continue streaming Ubisoft+ through Amazon Luna. If you're outside the US, you'll get a discount for six months of Ubisoft+ Multi-Access. Every Ubisoft customer on Staidia, whether a subscriber or an owner of games, will get a coupon code for one free month of GeForce Now Priority Membership.

Soon after the death of the cloud gaming service was announced, Ubisoft joined many other companies in announcing that it had plans to enable players to move their saves and progress from Stadia. You can check out the full details on the Ubisoft website. The service will shut down on January 18, 2023.

If you're in the mood to go to a galaxy far, far away, Fanatical's Star Wars Collection offers an affordable trip down memory lane. The bundle comes with 14 Star Wars games, including several of the best Star Wars games of all time. The Star Wars Collection is only $21, so you're getting the 14 titles (Steam keys) for only $1.50 each.

Three of our 10 favorite Star Wars games our featured in the bundle: Knights of the Old Republic, Star Wars: Republic Commando, and Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. KOTOR is arguably the most beloved Star Wars game, and with a remake in the works, now's not a bad time to revisit this all-time classic.

Once you roll credits on KOTOR, you can jump into Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, which is also included in the collection. And if you're looking for a more action-focused Star Wars game, both Force Unleashed games are in the Star Wars Collection.

While Jedi Knight II is probably the best in the sub-series, three other titles from that era are up for grabs here: Jedi Academy, Dark Forces II, and Mysteries of the Sith.

If I were a PC graphics bigwig, choosing which aged game to spruce up with ray tracing as an elaborate mod tools advert, I wouldn’t have gone for one with as timeless an aesthetic as Portal's. Maybe that’s why I’m not one – Portal with RTX is a gorgeous return to Aperture Science, a borderline must-play for anyone with a premium GeForce RTX GPU, and a mightily impressive demonstration of the Nvidia RTX Remix tools that built it.

Admittedly, that’s in spite of some shortcomings, including utterly broken performance on even the strongest Radeon RX graphics cards. Equip yourself with RTX hardware, however, and this free mod is a real Christmas treat.

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Sometimes, I like to daydream about what games could have been like if they’d taken another direction during development. Raising The Bar: Redux is exactly that, a reimagining of Half-Life 2 as though Valve never dropped their original concepts for the sci-fi shooter sequel. The next instalment in the modding project to bring that abandoned game to life, Division 2, is releasing soon. You can watch the fairly hefty trailer for Raising The Bar: Redux: Division 2 below.

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Super quick, very good card battler Marvel Snap rolls out a new location every week, then boosts it with a 40% likelihood to appear for 48 hours. New, temporarily common locations are a clever way of mixing things up, imposing restraints or possibilities depending on how much you tinker with your decks.

The latest location, Vormir, is a bit borked. I just spent a minute or so swapping emotes with someone while the game tried to load our (unrelated) animations, which might not sound like much but constitutes a good third of a match's normal running time.

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If you're tempted to hop on a dragon in World Of Warcraft's latest expansion but don't want to pay £40/$50 for it, you can currently try out Dragonflight with a regular WoW subscription. That means the skies can be yours for just £10/$15, if you pay for a month. The trial's only available until Jan 2nd, though, so best hop on it quick.

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Cute, free little thief homage Li'l Taffer starts you off in front of a door to a big manor, along with five instances of an ability called 'knock'. Reader, I am telling you this so that you don't waste all of them pointlessly knocking on the door like I did, as you are in fact supposed to use them to knock out guards.

It's a procedurally generated game made for 7dfps 2022, a game jam that challenges folks to make an fps game in seven days. Your manor will be different to mine, but the toilets will probably still be silly.

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Rockstar's parent company, Take-Two, have had a Goat Simulator 3 ad taken down because it included the goat photoshopped over some of the leaked GTA 6 footage from a couple months back.

Goat Sim developers Coffee Stain Studios knew this would happen, and they knew people would report on it when it did. I am facilitating shenanigans, and I can hear that damn goat laughing at me from within the black void of its copyright takedown notice.

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I’m a big fan of life-sim mini-games. Cooking, crafting, mining, gardening, and all those other videogame-y tasks make something that's a bit mundane into a fun little treat. It looks like developers Niceplay Games agree, as they’ve taken the joy of tactile crafting and created an entire potion-brewing sim around it - and not only is their crafting system both creative and clever, it's oh so satisfying.

We've written about it before, but Potion Craft is out now. You play as an alchemist who has set up shop in an old wizard’s hut, ready to sell your many bubbling brews and concoctions to the locals. People will come by the shop during the day banging on about their problems, so you need to listen to each customer's issue, create an appropriate potion to help, and receive a lovely handful of gold in return. It’s essentially a shop management sim, since you make money, buy ingredients, and haggle to get a good deal. But the best part of Potion Craft is all in the title; it's getting to grips with the art of potion brewing.

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Some point-and-click adventures prefer their heroes all comedic and wacky, your Guybrush types. Others are more stoic and action-orientated, such as Indy Jones or Graham of Daventry. Who fits better as an adventure game protagonist than Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, though? The Lost Files Of Sherlock Holmes: The Case Of The Serrated Scalpel taught me that when I was about eight years old, trying to figure out its mysteries while sitting at my dad’s Amstrad 286 accompanied by my sister Gem. Okay, I was definitely the Watson of that duo.

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Bricky puzzle game Lego Builder’s Journey is the latest freebie being given away on the Epic Games Store as part of their Christmas sale. Honestly, I did not immediately mistake this for Lego Bricktales, which I’m sure you didn’t either. Builder’s Journey tasks you with solving puzzles by, well, building with Lego. It’s also a bit of a looker, with some snazzy visual accoutrements such as ray tracing and global illumination. You can have a watch of the very pretty Builder’s Journey trailer below.

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Last time, you decided by a narrow margin that becoming overpowered is better than a chunky manual. With no chunky manual to teach you a game's systems, I guess you'll be busy experimenting with that for a while. This week, I've had a queer fancy to (for once) make you pick between things which have absolutely no connection. What's better: seasonal events, or dynamic snow? I know, it's a bit of a silly choice, but hey, it's the last week of work before Christmas, let's goof off.

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Two weeks ago, after much hoo hah, the Federal Trade Commision launched a lawsuit with the aim of blocking Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Yesterday, a bunch of CoD players did the same.

The private consumer complaint from the 10 #gamers claims the deal would give Microsoft "far-outsized market power in the video game industry". Power to 'em. Power to the gamers.

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As you might have noticed, there’s just a few days until Christmas lands on us all like an overladen sleigh pulled by some very exhausted and confused reindeers. Overwatch 2’s marking the occasion by turning robotic damage hero Bastion into a gingerbread automaton with a new legendary skin. Seeing as it’s the holidays, Blizzard are charging just a single Overwatch Coin for the skin, which is way, way less than the thousands that legendaries usually cost. Bastion’s fresh look is also quite a bit more involved than some of the other legendary efforts Blizzard’s dreamt up for Overwatch 2 so far.

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I've been playing Blacktail, ostensibly for review, but with all the seasonal nonsense going on I haven't played enough to give you a big wot I think. It's worth writing about though, so here I am, doing that. It's a weirdo little first-person action-adventure game where you play as the 16-year-old Yaga, who has been run into the forest because the local villagers think she's in league with the witch Baba. If you know any European folklore you may have reason to suspect they're right.

Yaga's childhood friends have all vanished, along with her sister, and the game sends you off to breadcrumb trails around a bright, unreal forest, to find the memories of what happened to the unfortunate kiddies. Along the way you grow in power and skill, using different types of arrows with your bow, as well as lures and spells. I like Blacktail because it's a little bit janky in ways that don't break the game, and is absolutely committed to its own particular flavour of odd. It's the kind of game you used to see a lot in the early-mid 00s, and just don't get much anymore.

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If you want to open today's door on the RPS Advent Calendar you're going to have to jump and pull on the handle, or scratch on the door until someone comes to open it for me. Unfortunately, today you don't have opposable thumbs - but you're way better at climbing, which is going to come in useful.

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Just as Tiktok riffed on Vine for a new generation, co-op rhythm game Disaster Band’s taken the bold spirit of Wii Music and turned it into a nail-biting way for up to four people to parp out the greatest hits of Edvard Grieg. There’s Steam Workshop support too, so you can always chuck in your own self-penned future hits to jam along with. Have a watch of the game’s trailer below, if you don’t overly value your ears.

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Respawn showed a little more of upcoming sci-fi Soulslike Star Wars: Jedi Survivor at The Game Awards earlier this month, but they didn’t mention that you’ll be able to tame the galaxy’s beasts and ride them. In an interview with Game Informer, Jedi Survivor’s director Stig Asmussen discussed some of the features that distinguish the action RPG from its predecessor Fallen Order, including mounts and new fighting stances for Cal Kestis’ trusty lightsaber.

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Call Of Duty: Warzone 2 devs Infinity Ward have locked down DMZ mode's recently opened Building 21 after a "significant infiltration", but say it’ll be operational again within the week. For now, the keycards needed to enter Building 21 are disabled. It seems like these keycards may have been the reason for the lockdown, although Infinity Ward have yet to explain just why Building 21 is shutting its doors temporarily. The lockdown was announced in a tweet, which only cryptically referred to the cause.

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Underwater citybuilder Aquatico will submerge players on January 12th, 2023. This new release date comes a little more than a month after its release was set for January 19th, but I won't look a gift seahorse in the mouth. There's also a new trailer below which breaks down how you'll build your very own Rapture equivalent.

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The cat game reigned supreme in 2022, but there's a chance 2023 could be the year of the gecko game. That's how I feel after watching the trailer for The Gecko Gods, at least. It's an action adventure in which you control a cute little lizard who can crawl across walls and ceilings, and also solves puzzles, fights golems and pilots a boat.

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Wolfenstein: The New Order rebooted the classic FPS series back in 2014, turning it into a tonally incoherent, ultra-violent sometime-stealth 'em up about murdering robo-Nazis in an alternate 1960s. It was surprisingly great. It's also free to keep if you grab it from the Epic Games Store right now.

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Last month it was announced that the Risk Of Rain IP was now fully owned by Gearbox Publishing and that original developers Hopoo Games would not be working on future updates for Risk Of Rain 2. There was also the promise that Hopoo and Gearbox were working on one remaining Risk Of Rain project together, however.

It was announced today: Risk Of Rain Returns, a remaster of the 2013 2D roguelike with all new pixel art, new survivors and new everything else.

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Larian's now-traditional Panel From Hell method of update delivery dumped some important Baldur's Gate 3 news last week. The weighty Dungeons & Dragons fantasy RPG has been in early access for a couple of years, but it's now scheduled for a 1.0 release in August next year. As well as that, BG3 got its ninth update, the last significant one before release, which raises the level cap to 5 and adds Paladin as a playable class. I caught up with Larian's founder and director Swen Vincke (this time sans full suit of armour) and he told me that, despite Update 9 being a big one, there's still a lot to come.

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If I were only allowed to give a single, solitary reason for trying Control, I’d probably settle on this: it has the most satisfying “throw desk at face” interaction I’ve experienced in a game. Yes, even more so than Half-Life 2. Maybe it’s the slower flying speed of the desk, giving you more time to anticipate the blow. Maybe it’s the recoil of the face. Or maybe it’s just how the desk, or whichever piece of office fixture you’re telekinetically hurling, impacts in a hilarious explosion of shards and scraps.

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Martial art fest Sifu will make its way to Steam in March 2023 together with a new free update, devs Sloclap have revealed. From the snippets Sloclap have shown, the update will have a new arenas mode that seems to be similar to combat challenge maps from the Arkham series. A new patch, 1.16, has also gone live for Sifu today to duff up some pesky crashes and bugs, although patch notes haven’t been released yet. You can watch the teaser for the arenas mode update below.

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The Winter Sale continues over on GOG, and they’re giving away Revolution Software’s classic point-and-click Broken Sword for free until Thursday. It’s the Director’s Cut too, which adds some more stuff for nosey American tourist George ‘Goat-wrangler’ Stobbart and French journalist Nico ‘Curtains’ Collard to investigate. Good grief, I can’t even remember the last time I played a Broken Sword. The first one is a classic adventure game from a time when they were beginning to fade from PC, goat puzzle notwithstanding.

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Shipmas arrives in Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 tomorrow, with the game’s Christmas update for multiplayer. The reimagined version of the classic Shipment map - introduced with last week’s Season 01 Reloaded midseason update - will be festooned with decorations, along with the bodies of your enemies. COD now has its own Santa, too, and I wouldn’t want to tangle with him. You can see what I mean, and catch a glimpse of the holiday version of Shipment, by watching the trailer below.

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The skeleton-smashing and lock-picking action of first-person dungeon-crawlers combines with the PvPvE tension of Escape From Tarkov in Dark And Darker, which currently has a free alpha playtest running. Alone or with a party of pals, you head into dungeons to mash AI-controlled monsters and fill your pockets with loot. Other players are out there doing the same, and might come to claim your goodies, especially as you're all competing for the limited escape portals that let you keep your shinies. It's an interesting one, and doing well on both Steam and Twitch.

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Exercise caution when opening door number 20 on the RPS Advent Calendar, because it's an uncaring world of manual labour in space out there. If you open the door wrong you could cause a huge explosion that kills you - but to mitigate that risk you can spend money buying an Official Safe Door Opener. Don't worry, you can just work more to pay it off.

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It’s okay everyone, call off the search. I’ve found my Christmas game. LucasArts shooter Star Wars: Dark Forces has been given a modern makeover by The Force Engine project, and they’ve just released version 1.0 to the public after three years' work. During that time, the team’s reverse engineered Dark Forces and added a whole bunch of mod-cons, such as support for modern high resolutions and mouse-look. The project even has a trailer, which you can watch below.

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Hello, yes, I know this is our fourth post on the subject but it’s mostly good news – The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s next-gen update is now considerably less of a technical muddle. After applying yesterday’s PC hotfix, performance with the new ray tracing settings is majorly improved, and if you don’t (or can’t) use those, The Witcher 3 no longer runs slower than it did before the next-gen update hobbled it.

That’s judging by some tests I’ve run using the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070, on which overall stability seems to have improved as well. I’m still having trouble with AMD graphics cards, however, with FSR upscaling being a particularly reliable source of crashes.

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"Do not be afraid to die." That's the advice of Haemimont Games' CEO Bisser Dyankov when it comes to playing their new open world survival sim Stranded: Alien Dawn. Having launched into early access in mid-October, the latest game from the Surviving Mars devs has just recently doubled in size to include a brand-new desert biome in its Dunes And Moons update, adding harsh temperature extremes to deal with, new alien lifeforms to observe, and, you know, just the odd Chaos Moon to endure while you're at it.

The world of Desertum is certainly a marked change from Stranded's initial mountainous forest planet, Sobrius, but after a few weeks of trying (and inevitably failing) to stay alive in them, I do feel like I've settled on a couple of vital dos and don'ts now. For example, Do: invest in defences early on. Don't: eat that weird alien zebra camel until you know whether it's going to give you gut rot. The list goes on, and has only grown larger with the addition of Desertum, which was deliberately designed to "challenge players to plan better and not rely on their previous knowledge," Dyankov tells me. "Our aim here has been to find a balance between the familiar and unfamiliar within the Desertum Biome, to ensure it's a challenging place to build your base, but is also enjoyable." I'll try to remember that the next time horned dinosaurs are gnawing my survivors' legs off.

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