Microsoft has confirmed five games are set to leave Xbox Game Pass in the next two weeks (by 15th January 2023).
The list includes popular high school murder adventure Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc Anniversary Edition, and Dotemu's Windjammers 2, which Martin enjoyed very much.
Here's the list:
We had heard the rumours, but now developer Nightdive Studio has confirmed its System Shock remake heads our way this March. Huzzah!
Sharing an update earlier today, Nightdive revealed the "scope and scale" of the project has "evolved dramatically" over the past few years. This, in part, is thanks to publisher Prime Matter joining the project.
With this publisher on board, Nightdive Studios has been able to "focus on quality-of-life improvements, bug fixing, and localisation support", things it calls "the last major steps towards releasing a game we're all incredibly proud of".
Ken Block, star of Codemasters' Dirt series and a figure whose passion for motorsports helped push it to new audiences, has died at the age of 55 following a snowmobile accident on his ranch in Utah.
Block was an entrepreneur who co-founded DC Shoes in 1994, using his success to help pursue his automotive passions. In the 00s Block became a professional rally driver who went on to participate in the sport at its highest level in the WRC, though his results - with only a small handful of points and no podiums to show for his 24 appearances between 2007 and 2018 - don't reflect his true legacy as he popularised the sport through his hugely successful series of Gymkhana videos.
WRC legend Sébastien Ogier led the many tributes to the great man. "Ken was a visionary, so passionate and inspiring," the eight-time WRC champion said on Twitter. "He knew like no other how to combine motorsport and a big show. He lived his life to the fullest and I'll never forget his smile and laugh."
Stalker 2 developer GSC Game World has released a new trailer for its upcoming shooter, with pre-orders for the game once again being available (they were initially refunded in the latter half of 2022).
The trailer in question, which begins with a poignant reminder this game was made in Ukraine, can be seen below. While we still don't have a firm release date for Stalker 2 as yet, the developer once more promises a 2023 launch as part of the trailer's official description.
In addition to this, we also have the PC requirements for Stalker 2. These are as follows:
Square Enix, which raised eyebrows last year with its unflinching stance on NFTs and blockchain, has further affirmed its plans to focus in on the controversial technology this year.
Meanwhile, it is steadily ending support for a selection of its games, making the company's offerings a much leaner dish for consumers (and perhaps potential buyers?).
In his recent New Year's letter, Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda stated 2023 will be a year of "major evolution and transformation" for the company, with "multiple blockchain games based on original IPs under development" at this time. Some of these, Matsuda noted, have already been announced, while others will be unveiled at a later date.
Happy new year all! Before we get on with 12 months of new games, though, here's a reminder of the games you loved in 2021! Thank you SO much for taking part in this, and have a lovely, safe 2023!
What we said: "This is not a game about rushing towards an end: this is a game about the sedate pleasures of repetitive work - a slower game about the satisfaction of a job well done. It's relaxing and calming, and that's a powerful quality."
"I can't even tell you how much I enjoyed this game," says DrDrepper, before going on to do a pretty good job of telling us how much they enjoyed the game: "It's simple and yet so well done and addictive."
Blood on moss, tattered horrors taking to the sky: Elden Ring is Eurogamer's Game of 2022. And it feels odd to say that, even if it was never really in doubt. Perhaps it feels odd to say that because it was never really in doubt. Elden Ring got roughly double the votes of the closest runner-up when we polled staff and freelancers. Over the last few weeks, games site after games site has announced that Elden Ring is the game they loved most this year. In 2022 Elden Ring is inevitable.
Real talk: at first, we were a little underwhelmed by our own choice. Not by the game, which is a grim marvel. But by that feeling of giving way to the inevitable. A game of the year pick should hit with a sense of surprise before it settles in and feels like the only choice we could ever have made. Elden Ring has a lot of the second part of that, but the first part? It was never going to feel like a surprise.
And yet. And yet, isn't that the surprise? And isn't that the thing worth celebrating? Let's step back so we don't accidentally frame Elden Ring's success through the lens of editorial decisions. Right. Isn't it kind of incredible that a game as wilful, as strange, as distinctive as Elden Ring is not just our pick but also so many people's game of the year in 2022? And isn't that brilliant?
I played many games in 2022 that felt prescient about our current moment in time but of them, Signalis felt the most personal. A sci-fi horror that folds back on itself, tied into gripping knots by its own plot threads. Within it, as android-on-a-mission Elster, you are trapped. She's searching for the woman she loves in a labyrinth of archaic technology propping up a rapidly decaying future. VHS cassettes and floppy disks join Soviet futurist spacecraft. The game itself is rooted in the past, made to look like PS1 games, evoking genre classics like Resident Evil or Silent Hill, all to depict a haunting future.
Our present is no different. Imagining our futures based on decades past with endlessly recycled nostalgia. Our media landscape dominated by whatever was popular decades ago, suffocating attempts at new expression. In the words of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, "We're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine, And the machine is bleeding to death". Within that decay, desperate to survive, is Elster and us both. Elster is denied love, all personal wants superseded by her function as a worker. Which of us isn't struggling to keep going when working seems to increasingly demand more and more from us while providing less and less. Our hopes and desires can feel illusory. Always out of reach.
As if that wasn't enough, her identity is challenged by the forces of government and society. Suppressed where possible. Her body is not made hers to own but dictated by those same forces. For women and queer people, hatred towards our autonomy and very right to exist has felt like a rising tide. Like the red meat mass growing throughout Signalis, eating up more and more of the facility, that hatred feels like it's going to take up whatever little space remains in our late capitalist nightmare.
It begins with a word: Pentiment.
It comes from pentimento, an overpainted image that is becoming visible. This is itself derived from the Italian, pentirsi, to repent or change one’s mind. It’s a rare occasion in which the game’s title tells you exactly what’s coming. This is emblematic of the confidence with which Pentiment handles its themes.
In modern games, it’s easy to become distracted exploring a vast world and lose sight of the story – as I did in Horizon Zero Dawn. Or, like South of the Circle, a game might focus so much on telling a passable narrative that gameplay all but disappears. In the delicate and complex balancing act between length, interactivity, and storytelling, video game stories are too often uneven. Or worse: written by Hideo Kojima.
This piece contains spoilers for Far Changing Tides.
What would you cling to in a world where you have nothing? The future, perhaps? The hope that one day, someday, this too would pass? What would it take for you to keep putting one foot in front of the other when nothing in this frigid place can rustle up enough enthusiasm to care if you live or die?
It turned out to be a carousel that I clung to. A carousel, then a duck, then a crudely carved deer, and finally a tiny ballerina in a box, the figure forever frozen in a pirouette. I hung them on the hooks placed strategically throughout my caravan-cum-ship-cum-best-friend, but always on the ones farthest away from the furnace, as though storing them far away meant I'd never have to burn them. It's not that I didn't care about the things I did sacrifice to the hungry engine. It was impossible to gather the discarded luggage and not wonder about who packed them and where they were now. But the deer and the duck and the ballerina symbolised something else, I think. By storing them separately from the rest of the junk I picked up along the way, I was making a choice. I was choosing to keep them safe for the future. Because there was a future - and I was choosing to survive.
Nintendo has quietly patched a security vulnerability that could give hackers access to compromised Switch, 3DS, and Wii U games.
Remember when Nintendo released its first update for Mario Kart 7 in 10 years? Well, it turns out that was to address a critical exploit that "could allow an attacker to achieve full console takeover".
Whilst the issue was reportedly first noted back in 2021, PabloMK7, Rambo6Glaz, Fishguy6564 have been credited with the discovery of "ENLBufferPwn", an exploit so serious, it was given a critical score of 9.8/10 in the CVSS 3.1 calculator.
Sonic Team boss Takashi Iizuka says that 2022 was "the biggest year in Sonic history" for fans of the blue blur.
But as well as referencing the game's movie sequel, Netflix show, and Sonic Origins and Sonic Frontiers - all of which dropped in 2022, of course - Iizuka teased that there was "a lot more outside of that" still to come, too.
"This past year was the biggest year in Sonic history, including the release of the movie sequel, new titles Sonic Origins and Sonic Frontiers, and the Netflix animation Sonic Prime," Sonic Team's Iizuka told Famitsu (thanks, Gematsu and Nintendo Life).
For the first time since August 2021, China's video games regulator has approved the publishing licences of 45 international games, including Pokemon Unite, Don't Starve, and Valorant.
As well as the games developed by studios outside of China, 84 domestic games have also been given the green light in China, which Reuters calls "the world's largest gaming market".
Chinese megacorps like Tencent and NetEase are amongst those receiving approval, with the former reportedly securing licences for six of its games in December.
The Nier: Automata anime adaptation is set to debut in Japan on 7th January, 2023.
Nier: Automata Ver1.1a - which stars protagonists 2B and 9S - is then set to be distributed in "over 160 countries and regions" on Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Crunchyroll, amongst others, although it's not clear yet when, exactly, that will be.
To celebrate the firm release date, here's a new teaser:
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Surprise! Details of five unannounced Sonic the Hedgehog Lego sets have popped up online.
According to the Instagram account of PromoBricks - a Lego site that's successfully revealed unconfirmed Lego sets ahead of time before - the sets vary in size and complexity and will cost between $30 and $100 (that's £25 to £82, although the final localised price may differ).
Beyond that, however, not much else is known, but you can get a sneaky peek at what the sets may entail in the image shared by PromoBricks (thanks, VGC).
Former Sonic boss Yuji Naka has been formally indicted for insider trading offences.
According to NHK and spotted by VGC, the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office's Special Investigation Department have indicted Naka and Taisuke Sasaki for investing millions of yen in a company based on insider information that had yet to be made public.
The prosecutors allege that neither Naka nor Saskai would have invested the ¥144.7m if they hadn't known Square Enix was about to announce a partnership with a mobile developer.
Valve's new Steam Replay feature is here with a handy summary of your 2022 PC playtime.
Just like PlayStation's annual Wrap-Up feature, Steam Replay tots up "all of your playtime between the first second of January 1 and the last second of December 14 (GMT)" - albeit only the games you've played whilst online; offline play and time spent "running tools" is not included - and presents it as a convenient infographic.
As well as a highlight panel that shows how much time you've spent on the games that have kept you busiest over the last 12 months (for me, it's been indie ghosthunting hit Phasmophobia), you also get a summary of your achievements - including the "rare" ones - and your longest streak, as well as data that lets you know how you compare with the rest of Steam's community.
There is a strong sense of yearning in the opening cinematic for Chrono Cross. A book slowly falls open as a soft melody plays, and text appears on the screen: 'What was the start of all this? When did the cogs of fate begin to turn?'
The narrator continues, eventually reflecting upon the times they used to laugh 'under cerulean skies'. This sense of pondering and longing exists all the way throughout the game itself. Even my own history with the game echoes this sensation, as I spent over two decades waiting to play it, listening to the soundtrack, reading articles on it, all the time hoping that it would be released in Europe at some point.
Finally, earlier this year, the remastered version of the game - The Radical Dreamers Edition - gave me what I'd been longing for. It's not a perfect game; there are performance issues, and the narrative is a messy, tricky one. Ultimately, it still feels special, though. Partly it's because it carries such a strong feel of SquareSoft in the original PlayStation generation, a period that lives in my heart due to my love for older Final Fantasy games. The lovely pre-rendered backgrounds, the music, even the aforementioned opening movie are all rooted in that specific SquareSoft era of the 90's, when we (at least in England) laughed under skies that were decidedly grey rather than cerulean.
We don't really get that many rhythm games when you think about it. There are some that are really great, and understandably many people's overall favourites, such as Rez, Sayonara Wild Hearts, Audiosurf, and Thumper. And I think the reason for this relative scarcity is a simple one: it's so dang hard to make a good rhythm game. So you can imagine my excitement when a new one, arriving just as the year wraps up, caught my eye.
Melatonin is a different type of rhythm game, one where you don't necessarily travel through an abstract environment to physically reach a goal at the end of a route. Made by a one-man band, the game explores the life of a young, drifting average joe, via a spontaneous nap through his dreams and waking life.
The first thing you'll notice is the welcoming cozy game aesthetic of the soft pastels that make up Melatonin's colour scheme. The game is split into five chapters, with each one letting you visit inner worlds that revolve around an activity (like going to the gym or using dating apps) or a theme (like work and money). The simple tutorial follows up with a helpful practice mode before you begin each level. This is handy as the speed and even specific buttons you have to hit to the timing of the beat changes. I cranked up the different accessibility settings to make life easier.
Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann says HBO's The Last of Us TV show "will be the best, most authentic game adaptation".
In an interview with the New Yorker (thanks, Comicbook), Druckmann said he hoped that the show will "put that video-game curse to bed", although screenwriter Craig Mazin acknowledged that it's "not the highest bar in the world" to become a great adaptation given some games, like Assassin's Creed, have "impenetrable" storylines.
"I love the ability to wander, to do nothing, in Skyrim," Mazin said, before adding that "that is not translatable!" By contrast, however, he said that "The Last of Us was always a story where the story comes first".
Amazon and Smilegate have revealed "part one" of Lost Ark's 2023 roadmap.
Following December's Wreck the Halls Update, we've now been given an early peek at "what's arriving in early 2023" for the people of Arkesia.
The update has been divided into months for ease of access, and confirms that along with January's Witcher Event, there's also a quality-of-life update with unspecified improvements to guild systems, guild PvP, and Una's Tasks.
Microsoft has hit back at Sony's objection to its planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard by revealing that third-party games like Bloodborne, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Final Fantasy 16, and Silent Hill 2 Remake are party to "exclusion" agreements that will prevent those games from coming to Xbox consoles.
The news comes as part of Microsoft's response to the FTC's lawsuit against its planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard. In the filing, Microsoft defends its position by turning the spotlight back onto Sony, detailing a handful of "prominent" games the company alleges have been barred from release on Xbox.
Whilst the filing acknowledges that "exclusivity strategies are not uncommon in the games industry", Microsoft seems to take issue with Sony's partnerships with third-party publishers, namely From Software, Square Enix, and Konami.
An update on an artist's ArtStation page may have hinted at the release window for Death Stranding 2.
Like many artists, senior artist Frank Aliberti - who currently works as a senior character artist at 2K but formerly worked for PlayStation Studios Visual Arts - has his credits listed on ArtStation.
It's Aliberti's work with PlayStation Studios Visual Arts that's caught our collective attention, however, as Aliberti's most recent credit indicated that they had worked as a senior artist on Death Stranding 2.
Any game that lets you to shoot Nazis in the testicles and then watch as an X-ray cross-section of their undercarriage unfolds to show their plums popping in slow-motion has no right to be a good-looking as Sniper Elite 5. Nevertheless, I was consistently surprised by how detailed and lifelike the miniature open-world environments in Rebellion's gratuitously gory snipe-em-up could be.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the game's Spy Factory level, which is set in and around a stunning recreation of Normandy's famous tidal island, Mont-Saint-Michel. The approach to this island is littered with photo-realistic rocks and sand dunes that feel like they've been plucked straight out of the ground from the actual location. Then there's the level's twisting network of meticulously crafted passageways that run around the lower portion of the island, which are draped with lush green ivy and covered with period authentic WW2-era advertisements. The real show-stopper however is the Abbey that acts as the centrepiece to the island. Its exterior is so highly detailed that the thought of someone creating that in a video game boggles my mind, and that's before you go inside it to see the towering stained glass windows, expansive marble floors, beautiful painted ceilings and the myriad of rooms cluttered with incidental props and rich environmental story-telling.
Warning: spoilers are here, all the way down.
Did you meet Three Fingers?
Far beneath the sewers of Leyndell Royal Capital, well off the beaten track, lies what's perhaps Elden Ring's most haunting tableau. With Mohg dispatched, a vast underground catacomb is revealed, and – as you wade through the countless corpses within, each frozen in eternal anguish – a terrible, genocidal truth is laid bare. But all this horror is just the preamble to an even greater discovery; further down still lies Three Fingers and the revelation nothing in Elden Ring is quite what it seems.
Finally, 2022 has given us an answer to the age-old debate: who's better, Mozart or Beethoven? The answer is of course Beethoven, and I can prove it. "Never liked the guy," says one achievement in Trombone Champ. Getting this achievement requires you to turd (destroy) one of the game's collectible Mozart cards. I rest my trombone case.
When people think of classical music, their first instinct is usually to associate it with the snobby upper classes - not toots and turds. My mind goes to people in suits and evening gowns sat down to watch a recital, performed effortlessly by a lone musician, themselves clad in black, on the stage. The music is played note-for-note, dictated by the manuscript. It's hard to get away from those connotations, even though I know they're not true, because of the history of and attitudes towards classical music.
I'd forgive you for thinking that Trombone Champ would fall into that category. When you first load the game, the title is printed in a gothic font on a black and white background. A very solemn picture indeed. But as soon as you press start, a burst of colour floods the screen and you're greeted with that jaunty tune at the main menu.
Surprising literally no-one, my Game of the Year is Elden Ring. It exceeded my Erdtree-sized expectations and, despite some absolute corkers being released this year, nothing else came close. The games that made me happiest, on the other hand, are games I’ve hardly played, if at all. Pokémon Legends Arceus and Scarlet brought me more joy than all the Elden Rings and Immortalities and Marvel Snaps put together.
I’m not a player of these games. I’ve tried a few, but I’ve never finished one, they’ve just never grabbed me. My fiancee Rune (yes, they’re non-binary, why do you ask?) on the other hand, absolutely adores them. Sun & Moon were the first releases after we got together and I’ve been dutifully ensuring they have every new Pokémon game to hit the shelves, even during some tough times.
It’s totally worth it though. Nothing compares to their delight as they experience the heady joys of something so comfortingly familiar liberally sprinkled with new surprises. I help with the all important starter selection and contribute to the names. (Would you believe that, as a games journo, I’m pretty good at puns?) Making them laugh is good. Making them groan and hit me with a cushion is even better!
Right from the beginning, Betrayal at Club Low wants me to know that things aren't going to go my way, thanks to a spontaneous blast of sewer vapor that drenches me in hot rancid filth. It's this hapless surrender to chaos that drives me forward - I smell and probably look like shit, but the show must go on. The show, in this case, is me turning up to my job as a pizzaiolo/covert operative, dishing out pies at Club Low while trying to help a fellow agent trapped on the inside. This isn't just a game about work, but a game about the unbeatable universal high of getting away with shit while working.
The act of performing labor - busywork, paid work, side quests for extra coin or experience - is an essential part of many games, and more and more we're seeing artists and developers use their work to mutilate the rigid seams of capitalism (one game I'm particularly excited about is Joel Jordan's subversive work/life sim Time Bandit). Betrayal at Club Low takes a basic gig work premise and elevates it into a higher state of consciousness - this dice-rolling adventure is an exercise in surreal survivalism, using the familiar trappings of a popular nightclub. It's a one-person joyride that crystallizes the essence of what I described as "slacker-hustle' mentality in my September review; since then I haven't stopped thinking about how its incredible moment-to-moment writing exemplifies the best and worst of work.
2022 has been full of farming and life-simulation games, though Disney Dreamlight Valley stood out for me above the rest of the crop. Even in its early access state (paid, or via Xbox Game Pass), its work-in-progress storybook world already unfurls into a warm and cosy Animal Crossing-alike. I love its deep customisation and its unexpected focus on story - especially the characterful and often hilarious interactions between its heroes and villains. Above all else, though, it's the game's promise of further expansion which has kept me intrigued.
Disney Dreamlight Valley primarily takes place in a cluster of biomes you gradually unlock and tame to your liking, eventually turning each land into a fitting home for the many Disney and Pixar characters you befriend. In the centre of all this sits the game's castle - a mash-up of the iconic Disneyland centrepiece with the hub experience found in Princess Peach's home from Mario 64.
Inside this castle you'll find dozens of portal doors leading to each of the Disney and Pixar characters' worlds, albeit with just a slice of each available to visit - a busy kitchen from Ratatouille, Bonnie's bedroom from Toy Story 3, the enchanted forest from Frozen 2. It's here you'll welcome further Disney faces to your valley as you slowly uncover more of its mysterious history. And it's also here, in the castle, where I get most excited.
Game of the Week is part of the Eurogamer Essentials newsletter that goes out to our supporters every Friday and hits the site on Sundays. I hope you're having a splendid day (and haven't you got better things to be doing than reading Eurogamer? Go and drink a sherry or something!)
That's it. We've made it. 2022 is wrapped - about as neatly as the awkwardly shaped bottle of toiletries that's sitting under the tree held together with copious amounts of sellotape, but wrapped it is all the same. We'll be taking a short break over the festive period, which means hitting pause on Game of the Week until we're back at full tilt in January (and when there might even be some games to write about, too - 2023's looking like a bumper year already).
For as long as I've been playing them Christmas has been inextricably linked with video games. Maybe it's because so many of the defining moments in my gaming life have started out at the foot of a Christmas tree; a Commodore 64, late into the machine's life, that was my first ever piece of hardware, on which I'd play endless amounts of WEC Le Mans. A Game Gear with a set of six AA batteries that wouldn't see past Christmas morning, packed in with its 8-bit take on Sonic the Hedgehog (it's only recently I've realised how lucky I was - Ancient's spin on what would become an iconic series still stands out as the best of the first generation of Sonic). An original PlayStation, which was the most exotic of them all; that fresh window into the new world of 3D, and the feeling that games had just changed forever.
I started 2022 by suggesting that we question the prominence of earning as a "play" activity and of economic transactions generally in videogame worlds. One way of going about that is to think about the many different currencies we've all abandoned in various save files over the years. Rupees in Zelda. Glimmer, legendary shards and bright dust in Destiny. Bottlecaps in Fallout.
Some of those currencies have colourful world-building attached; others plug into pleasingly volatile market simulations. But they feel pretty interchangeable to me in hindsight, because the process of earning dosh in most games is so bland and inconsequential, making little overall impact on the world even in games that give you a choice of economic backgrounds. Many single-player RPGs, especially, are just consolatory fantasies of steady, even passive self-enrichment, where the player's wealth floats alongside everything else, pacing progress in an abstract way. You can argue that this is worrying because it teaches us not to think critically about the economy in general, but the simpler observation is that it's a missed opportunity for drama: so many great stories are about following the money.
This piece contains spoilers for God of War Ragnarok!
I've noticed a common theme within recent PlayStation exclusives: the addition of the dual protagonist perspective. For example, you play as both Ratchet & Rivet in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and as Ellie and Abby in The Last Of Us Part 2. However, I think that Santa Monica Studios absolutely nailed the dual protagonist narrative in God Of War Ragnarok.
Embarking on my journey with Kratos and Atreus filled me with glee. Their father and son relationship was my favourite aspect of the franchise reboot, alongside that addictive Leviathan Axe recall thumping into Kratos' raised right hand.
Well give yourself a pat on the back, pour yourself a stiff drink and let out a sigh of relief: somehow we've made it through to the last working day of 2022. We're back in earnest from January 3rd, and there's plenty scheduled over the next week or two to keep you entertained with a whole host of our Games of 2022 series, Ian and Zoe providing a veritable blizzard of videos including a watchalong of some truly awful Christmas cartoons and of course the traditional festive lists. It wouldn't be Christmas without them really, would it?
We've just finished putting together the Reader's Top 50 which throws up some fascinating results - thanks, as ever, for your excellent contributions - and our own pick of 37 of the year's finest (why 37? Because we're annoying like that, but I'm sure you knew that already).
It's been enlightening running through them all, and it highlights what a year it's been. An odd year, yes - in nearly 15 years of writing about video games, I can't remember a quieter 12 months for big ticket triple-A titles, but I also can't remember a year that's offered quite so much quality or diversity. It can be easy to forget as we twiddle our thumbs waiting for the likes of Starfield or Tears of the Kingdom, but there's really never been a better time for the medium if you like your video games a little interesting.
Sports Story is out now, Nintendo has announced.
It's available on the Nintendo eShop priced £12.80.
Sports Story is developer Sidebar Games' much-expanded follow-up to its delightful 2017 sporting RPG Golf Story.
Following our look at the PS5 and Series X versions of The Witcher 3 Complete Edition, we're completing our coverage for this year by taking a look at the one version of the game we've yet to cover: Xbox Series S. Expectations need to be tempered, obviously, as we're looking at a four-teraflop GPU at the heart of the console in a world where even the 12TF Series X rendition didn't run flawlessly, so the omission of the ray tracing mode on Series S is hardly a surprise. The upside? Series S still offers a 60 frames per second performance mode and also a higher resolution 30fps 'quality' alternative - so how do they run?
Obviously the resolution targets for each differ: on performance mode we're looking at a native 1080p target, and on its quality mode, CD Projekt RED targets 1440p. Dynamic scaling is possible, but in Series S' case it's honestly been rare in testing; so often each mode hits its resolution targets. While we're comparing the two modes there's a few other differences to note above pixel count and frame-rate differences. Firstly, to hit 60fps on the performance mode, the foliage draw distance is dropped back a preset, in essence, meaning more pop-in closer to the screen on Series S at 60fps, while quality mode draws in more plant life to the far distance.
As expected, Encased is the next Epic Games Store free game. You can download it for free now until 4pm UK time tomorrow, 24th December.
Encased is a 2021 post-apocalyptic isometric role-playing game developed by Dark Crystal Games and inspired by Fallout and Wasteland. Fitting then, that it replaces Fallout 1, 2 and Tactics as part of Epic's 15 Days of Christmas free game giveaway.
Here's the official blurb on Encased:
The Pokémon Company has taken a company using its trademarks and assets to advertise an NFT-based Pokémon mobile game to court.
Australian company Pokémon Pty Ltd set up and advertised a website claiming to be launching a crypto game called PokéWorld (thanks, Vooks).
The company even claimed to have worked on Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, Pokémon Home and Pokémon Sleep.
Feral Interactive has quietly revealed the Nintendo Switch's ports for both Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light and its sequel Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris will now be released in 2023.
These ports were previously announced to be coming to Nintendo's hybrid console back in October 2021 as part of the series' 25th anniversary. However, since then, things have been quite quiet on this particular Lara Croft front.
Feral Interactive has said, however, that the team is looking forward to "sharing more" news about these ports "in the new year!"
As part of the ongoing palaver between Microsoft and the FTC, the platform holder has revealed three upcoming Bethesda games will be exclusive to Xbox and PC.
This information comes as part of Microsoft's response to the Federal Trade Commission's lawsuit against its planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard (something it called "unconstitutional").
Tucked away in the newly issued document's many, many pages, Microsoft stated: "Xbox anticipates that three future titles - REDACTED - all of which are designed to be played primarily alone or in small groups - will be exclusive to Xbox and PCs."
When Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 (2022) released back in October, players noticed that one multiplayer map available in the beta was conspicuously missing from the final game. Indeed, it was something I reported on during release.
Now almost two months on, players fear the Valderas Museum will never return. Season One saw the return of fan favourite maps Shoothouse and Shipment, but players criticised the paltry number of maps released. One wonders why Infinity Ward hasn't released a map that is seemingly complete and ready to ship.
But players have taken it upon themselves to answer this question. Some have noticed the map's striking resemblance to the real-life Getty Museum in Los Angeles.