May 2023

In various The Legend of Zelda games, we end up meeting all sorts of allies, enemies, and folks just hanging around, and shortly after the introduction Tears of the Kingdom introduces the Constructs. After awaking on Great Sky Island, a number of helpful ones like Stewards and on alert Soldiers can appear. But what especially struck me is just how personable they are, even if they’re on the attack.

When I first met the friendly Steward Construct after coming out of the game, I was struck by how novel their design is! It’s expressive, even though the face is motionless. The extended arms and neck allow for these exaggerated movements that lend additional personality to them. Whether it was one I was approaching to learn more about this area and perhaps what I should do next or one that wanted to bop Link on the head with wooden stick, I loved seeing these animations that made them both goofy and a bit of a threat.

[caption id="attachment_963056" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Screenshot by Siliconera[/caption]

Remedy's Control has always been a special game for Digital Foundry. Originally released in 2019, the PC version in particular wowed us with its slick destruction physics and groundbreaking ray tracing implementation. The studio has since moved onto new projects like Alan Wake 2, but remarkably one of the developers - Filippo Tarpini - has continued to refine the PC version of the game, adding an excellent implementation of HDR sorely missed in the original release (and the Ultimate Edition upgrade) along with a range of other improvements, including improved fidelity to the already excellent RT, improved texture streaming and a more fully featured DLSS implementation.

The HDR upgrade is the most game-changing improvement, added because Tarpini is such a big fan of the feature. Control always featured a contrast-heavy vidual design, and HDR gives greater local brightness and contrast, rich colour tones without banding errors - and even extra detail resolved owing to the greater dynamic range, along with less blown-out bloom effects. I won't waste too many more words describing this improvement, because we've put together a video captured and mastered in HDR to show the improvement. If you're watching on a standard, non-HDR display, you'll get a tonemapped presentation - but what surprised me is that the difference can still be seen to a certain degree.

The world and his dog may be ignoring the sunshine this weekend and shutting themselves away in favour of playing Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, but what happens when you can't even pet the dog?

That's my clumsy segue into confirming the devastating news that no, you cannot pet the dog in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. And no, fans are not happy about it.

"We waited six years, and for what?" opined one commenter, and another responded: "That's it I'm not buying."

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Brace yourself, Fortnite fans, but it looks like ranked mode is on the way.

Epic Games stopped short of confirming it outright, of course, but instead dropped a mysterious tweet and a 20-second video teaser that declares that "a new way to grab the Victory Royale is coming", inviting you to "rise through the ranks".

The real clue, however, is in that accompanying video; whilst short, it seems to take us through eight different ranks, seemingly starting at bronze and progressing through silver, gold and more until it goes all the way to… I don't know, super-duper-platinum or something.

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In Monster Menu: The Scavenger’s Cookbook, players face off against a roguelike dungeon-crawler with turn-based, strategic battles. However, there are no default characters. Like games like Etrian Odyssey, you’re customizing your own crew. What shocked me though, after sampling the Monster Menu demo, is how cute the character creator really is.

[caption id="attachment_962659" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Screenshot by Siliconera[/caption]

To start with, there are eight base “characters” to choose when you begin the Monster Menu demo and enter its character creator. However, you’re not really choosing a default avatar. What you’re really doing is picking their outfit. Once you pick one of the eight options, each one lets you completely customize all other elements of the character.

Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best community-created works from the previous week.

First, let's address the elephant in the room: the on-site video player. As most of you are now aware, the video player is working for a majority of people. Increasingly, the issues associated with the video player and even podcasts appear to be a conflict with on-site cookies. The current workaround is:

1. Clear all cookies
2. Click on "Show Purposes"
3. Enable "Performance Cookies" only.

Be aware that there was a full-site refresh that should have done this to all accounts, but there seems to be a small portion of accounts where this did not happen. If you are on mobile and want to fix the issue, scroll to the bottom of the site, or anywhere where you can find this, and find the "do not sell my personal information" button at the bottom. After clicking this, select performance cookies.

If none of these steps help AND the site-wide refresh did not fully address the problem, please drop a comment here. Everyone reading this should note that the engineering team does not view this workaround as a permanent solution and will be having multiple meetings this week and next to devise a permanent solution. Also, this does not appear to work for everyone and as such the tickets you filed in previous weeks will still be treated as high priorities.

Some Honkai: Star Rail sidequests can involve both multiple steps and picking an answer to complete it. Typically, the stakes aren’t too high. One of these questions comes up while going to complete the mission “A Teacher and a Friend” in Honkai: Star Rail, as you’ll need to help Qingque find a certain manuscript while aiding Chengjie on the Xianzhou Luofu. It isn’t difficult at all to pin it down, and most of the mission is fairly straightforward and involves fights against enemies and taking pictures at clearly marked spots.

Editor’s Note: There will be Honkai: Star Rail “A Teacher and a Friend” spoilers below.

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The “important” decisions come up right after meeting with Qingque and Chengjie Artisanship Commission. You’ll be told where Master Ryan’s manuscript will be. Once you reach the spot, there will be an option to choose who goes in to search. I sent Qingque to do it, and went uneventfully. (It’s one of those famous HoYoVerse incidents of white text on a black screen explaining what happened.)

1998 was arguably one of the best years for video games. Ocarina of Time, Half-life, and Resident Evil 2 all released in the space of twelve months - to name only a few. While we celebrate the 25th anniversaries of our most foundational games, however, one shouldn't be forgotten. Sometimes, it seems like anyone with a PC at the end of the 90s had a copy, and while not all of us will remember it fully, most will remember it fondly. Released on the 30th April 1998, Might and Magic 6: The Mandate of Heaven is now 25 years old.

I don't remember if I played Might and Magic 6 in 1998 or in the next two years, but then I don't recall much of yesterday. What I do remember is getting our first Gateway PC - which came in the same dirty beige all PCs of the time seem to use - and Might and Magic 6 appearing soon after. I also remember sinking so many hours into the game that I spent weeks seeing it when I closed my eyes.

Might and Magic 6 plants you on the world of Enroth, as a party of four whose hometown of Sweet Water is destroyed by "devils." The path to revenge, however, is blocked by the Medieval equivalent of the United Nations, whom you must appease to access the mysterious Oracle. The secret to defeating the "devils" it turns out? Lasers. Big lasers.

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As you play through Honkai: Star Rail, you might pick up a Light Cone or two. These are the equivalent of weapons in the game, which means that leveling them up and ascending them will drastically improve your party’s performance in battle. However, keep in mind that you can only equip a Light Cone on a character if they share the same Path.

In lore, Light Cones are characters’ memories, but in a physical form. The Garden of Recollection, who worship the Aeon Fuli, are the ones behind this technology. So every Light Cone is actually somebody's memory. Recognizable characters start to appear from 4 and 5-star rarities. This is very similar to how Craft Essences work in fellow mobile game Fate/Grand Order. Unlike in Fate/Grand Order though, HoYoVerse has not commissioned any guest artists to illustrate Light Cones for Honkai: Star Rail.

While Light Cones are attainable through the gacha, you can also get them through Nameless Honor or Simulated World. They also appear as drops from the weekly boss fights. In order to level them up, you will need materials from Golden Calyxes. Thankfully, the Golden Calyxes, as well as the domains for ascension materials, are open every day.

Choosing what Light Cone to use really depends on what you want a character to do, as well as if you’re willing to make some sacrifices. Some three-star Light Cones might have a really good passive ability. But in terms of stats, it will almost always lose to a four or five-star rarity Light Cone at the same level. You can choose either to prioritize the passive ability or to use the Light Cone as a stat stick instead.

PlayStation-backed Deviation Games has reportedly laid off as many as 90 employees.

That's according to VGC "sources" and personal announcements shared on LinkedIn which describe a "difficult situation" that "forced" the layoffs.

"A bunch of my colleagues and friends were laid off from Deviation Games today," wrote Christopher Berry, while software engineer Kyle Perras added: "my studio recently ran into a difficult situation and was forced to make a number of layoffs which I was a part of".

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Sundays are for marvelling at the sun sticking around for longer each day. Before you enjoy the extra light, let's read this week's best writing about games (and game related things).

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I've got so many fond memories of playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater on the PS1. Those heady, hazy days spent huddled around a small TV as me and my pals chatted nonsense and competed for high scores to the tunes of the game's punk rock soundtrack were so carefree and full of laughter.

It feels like those days of shoulder-to-shoulder pass-the pad action are long gone now though, and they're something that I'm not sure modern generations will ever get to experience in the way that I did. You know, what with that there speedy internet and all the other futuristic nonsense we have now.

But of course with every loss caused by futuristic nonsense comes a gain, and this particular gain is virtual reality, which is something that has allowed VR Skater to be a thing that exists. VR Skater is a VR skateboarding game (obviously) that does a very good job of translating that ever so moreish gameplay loop of a Tony Hawk's game into a virtual reality experience and for this week's episode of VR Corner (above) you can watch me play through a preview build of the upcoming PSVR2 port.

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Co-op farming and life simulation game, Roots of Pacha, has been removed from Steam by its publisher following a "dispute".

Developer Soda Den took to social media over the weekend to claim that the game was removed "without [its] knowledge or consent" following "issues" with publisher Crytivo.

"As you may have noticed, the Roots of Pache Steam page is temporarily offline," the statement begins. "We are sad to report that we have been engaged in a dispute with Crytivo over the rights to Roots of Pacha. We worked hard to amicably resolve our issue with Crytivo internally. Instead of working with us to address the issue, Crytivo went to Valve and authorised them to remove Roots of Pacha from Steam without our knowledge or consent.

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Blizzard's "Server Slam" weekend is finally upon us, and if you're "feeling" those Necro nerfs, Diablo 4 GM Rod Fergusson wants you to know that he "hears the feedback" and a fix is rolling out.

"Definitely hearing the feedback on the Necro nerfs," he tweeted over the weekend. "I'm feeling 'em too. Remember, balance is a journey, not a destination - it takes tweaking to get it right."

"PSA - We're in the process of rolling out a server side hotfix buff to Necro skellies," he added earlier today (thanks, GamesRadar+).

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Following confirmation that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is now the highest-rated game of the year thus far on Metacritic - and the highest-rated game of all time on OpenCritic – an industry analyst has opined that Nintendo's all-new adventure could impact the charts not just for the next few months, but "years".

That's according to industry analyst Mat Piscatella, who took to Twitter to reflect on Tears of the Kingdom's legacy both in relation to its predecessor Breath of the Wild, and the charts more generally.

"Sometimes I wonder if a game can last a few months on the top 20 best-seller charts," he tweeted ahead of the game's release earlier this week.

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Welt is one of the more enigmatic characters in Honkai: Star Rail. As a player character, he is currently the only character that can cause Imaginary damage and all his attacks involve him breaking space by waving a cane around. He’s a five-star Nihility character, meaning that he is incredibly useful at debuffing and damaging enemies. This is especially true if your Honkai: Star Rail Welt build includes the right Light Cones and Relic sets.

What Are the Best Light Cones for a Welt Build in Honkai: Star Rail?

Welt’s strength is in his ability to reduce enemy SPD with his Skill and his Ultimate, then follow up with huge damage on enemies inflicted with that status. He is also capable of inflicting the Imprisoned status with his Weakness Break and Ultimate, which can be incredibly useful at keeping enemies at bay. Naturally, you’ll want a build that enhances his ability to do damage to debuffed enemies, and he has some great options.

Loop is your best choice for a three-star Light Cone. It increases damage done to Slowed enemies by 24% at its lowest level. This means he has a high chance of boosting his own damage output just by using his Skill, so it’s incredibly useful.

However, his four-star and five-star options are even better. Good Night and Sleep Well is a good four-star match for him due it stacking additional damage for debuffs. Not only is this a good combo with his abilities, but it makes him stronger when paired with other characters who can are good at inflicting debuffs, such as Serval.

After quite a bit of build-up, new VShojo VTuber Henya the Genius debuted on May 13, 2023, and she hit follower milestones and got her own merchandise when she did. On multiple fronts, she already passed 50,000 subscribers. There are already five different kinds of items to buy with her likeness on them. Also, she confirmed her first stream of her playing a game will air at May 14, 2023 at 5pm PT/8pm ET.

In case you missed it, here's her first stream. She spoke both in English and Japanese when she did. We had some idea this would happen, as her tweets leading up to her launch appeared in both languages as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALSbR4FLDMY&ab_channel=HenyatheGenius

Here are the follower and subscriber milestones VShojo's Henya the Genius hit after her first day as a VTuber with the company.

• Twitch: Over 55,000.
• Twitter: Over 60,000.
• YouTube: Over 40,000.

So far, it seems like her Twitch streams will be archived on YouTube after they air.

She also shared a "thank you" message to new fans for supporting her launch.

Metacritic has finally opened The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom open to user reviews, and over three hundred players have left mixed or negative feedback.

Although The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is now the highest-rated game of the year thus far on Metacritic - and the highest-rated game of all time on OpenCritic – and industry analysts are opining that Nintendo's all-new adventure will impact the charts not just for the next few months, but "years", some fans are making their disappointment more than clear, and whilst the critic score sits at a lofty 96, the user score aggregated from over 1600 reviewers is 8.5.

Yes, admittedly, some people are devastated that you cannot pet the dog, but that doesn't account for the hundreds of reviews that cite the sequel hasn't address the purported issues of its predecessor, calls the gameplay "boring", or reports ongoing performance issues.

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The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has a day-one item duplication glitch that lets you make copies of new weapons and shields. It’s a handy exploit that’s easy to do and can cut down on a lot of the headaches that stem from the Breath of the Wild sequel’s weapon degradation system.

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The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is the biggest boxed video game launch of the year so far in the UK.

According to our sister site GamesIndustry.biz, that makes it the series' biggest ever launch week in the UK, surpassing the launches of even early games like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time which were only available physically at the time.

According to GI and UK chart firm GfK, Tears of the Kingdom's instant pole position pushes Hogwarts Legacy from its top spot as bigges boxed game of the year so far, and moves Star Wars Jedi: Survivor into third place.

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While Overwatch 2 is still under a year old, it's very much a continuation of the original game that launched back in 2016. As a result, it can be intimidating for new players to get into Overwatch 2, since they have to make sense of a roster of over 30 characters while going up against players who have potentially been playing the game for seven years. Thankfully, there are several heroes that are beginners friendly and we've compiled a guide to the best Overwatch 2 ones to try out.

[caption id="attachment_962538" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image via Blizzard[/caption]

As with Advance Wars and some other games, Nintendo doesn't say which voice actor voices which character in the credits for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Instead, it listed all of the people playing major characters at once. However, many of the performers took to social media to confirm their roles. (Though, in the cases of some, they're withholding their virtual identities for a time.) Still, thanks to those reveals, we already know a number of people who are either back or debuting as certain residents of Hyrule.

Here is the list of all of the English voice actors for major The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom characters who confirmed their roles online.

WonderCon, held every year in LA at the Anaheim Convention Center, is a show we haven’t been able to get to for a few years, so it’s great that we’re now back and able to run a feature on some of the incredible cosplay present at the event for 2023.

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For the second time in two years, things in the Battlefield community—or at least the worst elements of it—have gotten so toxic that it has led to some pretty stern requests for people to get a grip and cut it out.

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Honkai: Star Rail Adventure Missions can sometimes ask us to help influence the ending. In “To the Faint Star,” we need to decide whether to tell the truth or a lie. The same happens in another questline called “From Xianzhou with Love.” It involves a members-only Foxian Beauty Chat. You’re tasked with aiding Asta in helping a Herta Space Station researcher enamored with a possible scam artist called Daiqing. Along the way, you’ll need to find an “in” to talk to her “manager,” try to lure her into scamming you, and then deciding what to do with the person behind the persona once you hit the end. There are a lot of steps to “From Xianzhou with Love” in Honkai: Star Rail, so here’s how it all goes.

[caption id="attachment_963253" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Screenshot by Siliconera[/caption]

Koroks are back in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. As with its predecessor, Breath of the Wild, Link can search the lands of Hyrule to find these woodland spirits, and return the seeds to Hestu. As in Breath of the Wild, Hestu will then add these seeds to his prized maracas, do a little shimmy, and grant you a new weapon slot. It's all very wholesome.

Or, at least it was in Breath of the Wild. However, Tears of the Kingdom has upped the ante when it comes to Korok puzzles. This time around, Link often has to reunite two separated Korok companions. This sounds innocent enough - who doesn't want to see two long lost friends reunited? Well, apparently many Tears of the Kingdom players, that's who.

Thanks to the sequel's new Ultrahand ability, which allows Link to pick up, move, and rotate objects (including Koroks), many players out there have taken to fusing these poor blighters to homemade crucifixes, rockets and even spit roasting the innocent spirits.

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Like a lot of people I've spent the weekend poking through the early moments of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. It's a dauntingly huge and complex game, filled with riches, so I've been taking it slowly, working my way between sky towers to unlock the map and stopping at any shrines I can find.

Something's really surprised me, though. It's something I noticed early on, and then have noticed again and again in the ten or so hours that have followed its introduction. It's this: Ascend is absolutely my favourite of Link's new skills.

This is unexpected. Ultrahand is clearly the star in this game, allowing Link to cludge together all sorts of vehicles and machines whenever the situation calls for it. It's a little fiddly, but it also benefits from Tears' general attitude to building, which could be summed up as "good enough". If a build is just good enough to get the job done, that's a win. It's quite forgiving, and additional elements, like fans and - just found these - genuine rocket motors, only makes Ultrahand more fun to play with.

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Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma has stated the Breath of the Wild style of gameplay, continued in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, is a new kind of format for the future of the series.

In an interview with Game Informer, Aonuma was asked if the open world design would be the foundation for the next several games, just as Ocarina of Time previously established the 3D format.

Aonuma agreed Ocarina of Time did create a format but it was ultimately restrictive for the designers, while Breath of the Wild offered a new type of play.

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The up-and-coming farmlife indie Roots Of Pacha has been pulled from Steam, following a dispute “over the rights” of the game between developer Soda Den and publisher Crytivo. The game is a prehistoric take on Stardew Valley’s crop-growing, dungeon-exploring, people-romancing formula. Its PAX East demo caught our eye earlier this year, and the full release late last month charmed many fans on Steam for the short time it was available.

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It is not just Koroks that are getting transported around Hyrule in a myriad of unusual ways thanks to Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's new Ultrahand ability. Link is also making his merry way through Hyrule's many regions and camps in a range of eclectic creations, from mechs to trucks and tanks.

As a reminder, Link's new Ultrahand ability allows players to pick up, move, and rotate objects. These objects can then be fused to other objects, and with a bit of creativity players can conjure up their own vehicles and such to beetle across Hyrule.

While I have been happy enough to just place a fan on the back of my timber board to make it go, others clearly have a much better imagination (and a lot more patience, I won't lie, I am still finding Ultrahand quite fiddly to get the hang of) than I do. As a result, there have been some truly remarkable Ultrahand designs making the rounds online.

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The next patch for Final Fantasy 14 arrives on 23rd May and a new trailer has given a glimpse of what to expect.

Continuing the story post-Endwalker, patch 6.4 will include new main story quests, as well as trials, dungeons, and extended Duty Support.

The patch is titled The Dark Throne - check out the trailer below.

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In Honkai: Star Rail, all players will receive a free copy of Asta as part of the Warp Tutorial. Despite how easy it is to get her, she is an invaluable support unit due to her Ultimate. She can also serve as a decent (albeit not fantastic) sub-DPS if needed against single targets. Here is a guide on how to use and build your Asta in Honkai: Star Rail with Relic sets and Light Cones.

Asta is a Fire Harmony unit whose Skill is very good at Breaking an enemy who is weak to Fire. Because it’s random, it’s the most useful when all enemies have a Fire weakness or when there is only one enemy for her to hit. Against a single target, her Skill can hit a whopping five times, which can easily Break and Burn an enemy. Asta has a Trace, Ignite, that can increase how much Fire DMG her allies can dish out as well. And that’s not all! Her Astrometry Talent increases her allies’ ATK by 7.0% (capping at 35%) for every Charge she has. She gains a Charge for every different enemy she attacks, so you can use her Skill to hit multiple targets at once for a massive boost.

On the flip side, she really can’t take that much damage, so you need to run her with a good Abundance or Preseveration unit. Her main asset is her Ultimate though, which greatly boosts the party’s Speed. This will in turn increase how many times your party can move per cycle.

Over the years I’ve caught many a Pokémon memory. From my first glimpse of the poster for Pokémon: The First Movie in a movie theater as a young child, to facing the final boss of last year’s Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, my nearly lifelong experience with Game Freak’s multimedia franchise forms a flowing tapestry of…

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