May 2023

The Wonderful 101: Remastered's After School Hero DLC - which was promised as a Kickstarter stretch goal back in 2020 - has now arrived, and it's free to download on PlayStation and PC.

After School Hero was one of several stretch goals detailed when developer PlatinumGames opted to take a remastered version of Wii U cult classic The Wonderful 101 to Kickstarter back on 2020, and promised a side-scrolling adventure focused on a "young hero" named Luka.

The Wonderful 101: Remastered's other DLC stretch goal, a Time Attack mode, launched back in 2021, so it's been a bit of a wait for the DLC originally referred to as "Luka's First Mission".

Read more

Today's Dead by Daylight seventh anniversary livestream has brought a whole host of announcements for year eight of the game.

The livestream was preceded earlier this week with the news that Nicholas Cage will be facing off against the game's Killers as a Survivor, with more specific information due in July.

The announcements made include details of the next chapter, quality of life improvements, and partnerships with the likes of Slipknot, Iron Maiden, and Ikumi Nakamura.

Read more

"We also fully understand the importance of PS5 exclusive titles. As I mentioned earlier, PlayStation Studios' main responsibility is to make games for the latest PlayStation hardware that players will enjoy. We are increasing the number of PS5 exclusive games, and staggering the release of the PC versions," Ryan said in a quote translated by IGN Japan.

As the recent Reddit commercials have made clear, there’s a community for everything. Nihilist horror, Game of Thrones’ Hodor, avocado food porn (because why not)...you can always find your people. Case in point, there’s a subreddit dedicated to atrocious user interfaces, which is now seeing members attempting to best…

Read more...

As was the case in Breath of the Wild, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom lets Link use his shield as an improvised surfing device. It’s both fun and useful for getting out of trouble if you know how to do it. But TotK adds a little twist to this fun mechanic by way of the game’s new Fuse ability. If you…

Read more...

Before I became a game reviewer, an investigative reporter, and an all-around troublemaker, I was an award-nominated game designer who put stories in video games. Alas, that didn’t pay very well or consistently. So, as I ran out of my parents’ healthcare, I moseyed over to this website thinking I might give this…

Read more...

While Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are widely beloved, there are some Legend of Zelda fans who miss the more streamlined, non-open-world approach of games like Ocarina of Time. To those of you who fall into that category, I’m sorry to tell you it doesn’t sound like the series is returning to its roots…

Read more...

Though other threats face Hyrule, Lorule, Termina, and everywhere in between, Ganon is clearly the biggest and most prominent adversary Link faces over the course of the Legend of Zelda series. He's the ultimate evil that necessitates the perpetual rebirth of the legendary hero. Since Ganon takes several incarnations over the course of the games, we decided to rank his various appearances in the Legend of Zelda franchise.

Before you proceed, be warned: This list contains spoilers for all the games listed, though we did try to be appropriately vague for the Tears of the Kingdom entry for now.

For this list, we excluded Demise from Skyward Sword, as that isn't Ganon, as much as it is the evil force that will eventually create Ganon. We also left Hyrule Warriors Ganon off, as that version exists outside of the canon. His appearance in Phantom Hourglass is also limited to a short recounting of the events of The Wind Waker, so that version is also left out.

Check out our rankings below and let us know your rankings in the comments section. For more Zelda rankings, check out our ranking of every game in the series.

Otomate released new information for three of its upcoming Switch otome games. Cupid Parasite: Sweet & Spicy Darling, 9 R.I.P, and Wand of Fortune R2 FD: Epilogue For You are all on the way in Japan. In addition, it opened up pre-orders for Spade no Kuni no Alice ~Wonderful Black World~. Wonderful Black World is the second part of Wonderful White World. That is the eighth entry in the Heart no Kuni no Alice series. It will come out on August 3, 2023 for the Nintendo Switch in Japan.

Cupid Parasite: Sweet & Spicy Darling will come out on September 9, 2023 for the Nintendo Switch in Japan. Pre-orders are now open. This is a sequel to 2021’s Cupid Parasite and continues the story of Parasite6. This time they are holding a bachelor party, even though none of them are going to get married.

[gallery columns="1" ids="964169" link="file"]

Dead by Daylight has been knocking it out of the park with these recent announcements; first it was confirmed that they’re having a film adaptation in development with Blumhouse and Atomic Monster, and just a few days ago they shared a teaser of the next survivor coming to the game, which is none other than Nicolas Cage. It’s something that no one was expecting, I mean, we’ve been asking for Sidney Prescott from Scream for years, but sure, I guess I wouldn’t mind playing as Cage instead.

Aside from Sidney, fans have been begging the devs to bring characters from Until Dawn as survivors, most specifically Sam and Emily. It seems the two have been listening to the community as Supermassive Games and Behaviour Interactive recently made an announcement video, along with their subtle tweet directly to Dead by Daylight that confirms they will finally be working together on a collab.

After the success of its first-week launch, Tears of the Kingdom has received an update that improves the gameplay experience even further.

In particular, issues with the Closed Door main quest have been addressed, which previously prohibited players from clearing it despite meeting the objective requirements. Those who have already encountered this problem can download the update to get back to clearing the mission.

Although it isn’t explicitly clear what other bugs have been fixed, the Nintendo Support page states, “Several issues have been addressed to improve the gameplay experience.” Therefore, fans may notice improvements with Tears of the Kingdom if they encountered any bugs in the past.

Many players on Reddit were concerned that the update would eliminate the handy duplication glitch that can boost up your inventory by a considerable amount.

So you’ve just embarked on your epic adventure in Hyrule Kingdom but you’re struggling to make a dent in the ranks of Bokoblins, Constructs, and Chuchu blobs. Well, your first port of call is to find yourself a decent weapon. But what are the best early game weapons, upgrades, and fuses in Nintendo’s latest Zelda title? Good question! Here are our five choice offerings to help you start your journey off on the right foot. Let’s do it!

The Legend of Zelda series is one that I’ve always associated with its puzzles and challenges which always give me just the right amount of challenge. Tears of the Kingdom is no different, with Shrines and Temples reactivating that problem-solving area of my brain. While those puzzles are a huge part of the game, Tears of the Kingdom manages to challenge me in ways completely different than what I expected.

Tears of the Kingdom is a large game. It’s not only large, but complex on top of that, and there’s a lot to try to remember. While learning games isn’t something I’ve necessarily struggled with in the past, this is an entirely different beast for me to tame, especially because I really never played much of Breath of the Wild. I’ve lost count of the number of simple things that I’ve completely overlooked while even just navigating Hyrule, but I’ve done my best to document some of the most common and funny ones.

During Take-Two Interactive’s recent earnings call with investors, CEO Strauss Zelnick was asked about other publishers selling AAA games at a discounted price shortly after launch. His company has been one of the many to start charging $70 for games, and at least according to him, he hasn’t seen any “pushback” on the…

Read more...

Extremely high-speed DDR5 memory is becoming eminently more affordable, with this DDR5-7000 kit costing just $125 for 32GB at Amazon US. That's an awesome deal, especially for a RAM kit with RGB lighting addressable via Corsair's popular iCUE software.

Read more

Razer's BlackShark V2 X is an incredible value gaming headset even at its £60 RRP, but today you can pick it up in a fetching white colourway for just £37 at Amazon UK. That's by far the cheapest we've ever seen this model and a pretty much unbeatable bargain for a gaming headset of this quality.

Read more

It's a simple formula: good weather + time outdoors + exercise = a happy me. I know this formula to be true. I have learned to leverage this formula. I crave this formula. And yet, every year, around this time, here I am going "Oh my god I feel so good why do I feel so good all of a sudden why did I feel so bad for so long." Good weather and time outdoors and exercise, Alice. You know that. You've only had time outdoors and reduced exercise. That's why it didn't work. I hope you too are relearning this. Anyway! What are you playing this weekend? Here's what we're clicking on!

Read more

I wonder sometimes whether BioWare will ever do another trilogy of games again, because the more time that passes, the more I appreciate what an ambitious idea that was, with Mass Effect. Three games that would tell one story and that you could carry one hero all the way through - that's not just bold, that's borderline outrageous, especially when you consider all the choices and consequences typically in one of the studio's games. And it's only now, really, when I see no one else attempting to do the same thing - not to that degree, anyway - I realise how special it was.

Perhaps it was so hard to do, BioWare never wanted to do it again. It's a thought that leads me down a rabbit hole and to someone I've dubbed Mr Mass Effect: Mac Walters, the writer who spent 19 years at BioWare, and most of it writing and making Mass Effect. He was senior writer on ME1, lead writer on ME2 and ME3, creative director (eventually) on Andromeda, and then project director on the Legendary Edition remaster. He wrote Mass Effect books and graphic novels, and, it turns out, he was there at the very beginning, when a core group of people - project leader Casey Hudson, systems designer Preston Watamaniuk, and writer Drew Karpyshyn - dreamt Mass Effect up.

And the trilogy idea was already there then, he says. "It was definitely Casey [Hudson's] idea," Walters tells me, in a larger podcast interview you'll see embedded in this piece, and is available wherever you listen to podcasts.

Read more

Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is now Japan's seventh biggest game launch of all time.

According to Game Data Library – self-described as "the largest collection of Japanese games sales on the internet" – it has surpassed the launches of huge games across all platforms, including Final Fantasy 7, Pokémon Sun/Moon, and Monster Hunter: World.

Only Pokémon Scarlet/Violet – which holds the top spot – Splatoon 3, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Pokémon Black/White, Final Fantasy 8, and Dragon Quest 9 have shifted more copies in Japan at launch (thanks, mynintendonews).

Read more

This piece contains spoilers for the approach to the first dungeon in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

I can see now that I came to Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom excited but slightly nervous. I think I was unable to easily put into words exactly what I hoped for from it. This is because I loved Breath of the Wild, but I didn't always like it. I knew Zelda had to change and I really admired the way this ingenious, generous, agenda-shifting game rethought the basic template. I would play it for hours on end. But maybe there weren't quite enough of those hours where I genuinely felt I was playing a Zelda game.

Five or six hours into Tears of the Kingdom, though, something happened. I suddenly realised that, while I was clearly playing a game built on the foundation of Breath of the Wild, I was also playing a game that was starting to feel like Zelda. Easy to say, but hard to actually explain. I still don't have the words easily to hand. So instead, I'll return to the point at which I started to feel this way, and we'll see what happens.

Read more

Crypt of the NecroDancer studio Brace Yourself Games has confirmed it has laid off half its staff.

As spotted by Game Developer, senior producer Crystal Savin posted a notice to Twitter stating that the workforce had been cut by "50 per cent". Studio founder Ryan Clare and director of communications Madeline Gray later retweeted Savin's tweet, essentially confirming the layoffs.

"Yesterday, senior management at Brace Yourself Games made the incredibly difficult decision to lay off a portion of the company’s staff," Brace Yourself Games told PC Gamer. "This decision was not made lightly, as we deeply value our talented and dedicated employees.

Read more

Pokémon has apologised for putting "the cart before the Mudsdale" and walked back an announcement that had confirmed Pokémon Home version 3.0.0. – which connect the latest Pokémon games to the service – would be available from 24th May 2023.

Earlier this week, we reported that the latest Pokémon games for Nintendo Switch will finally connect to cloud service Pokémon Home following an update due next Wednesday, 24th May. Now, however, the official Pokémon website says that "the actual release date is yet to be announced".

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet first arrived in November last year, and until now have been unable to connect to Pokémon Home, the service which lets you transfer creatures to and from other Pokémon games.

Read more

Kenichi Kondo’s Dark Gathering is yet another supernatural manga involving otherworldy, demonic sorts of forces. However, there are a number of differences that set us apart. An eerily adorable young girl named Yayoi is involved in collecting ghosts, for example. Also while the protagonist Keitaro can sense spirits, he’s extremely reluctant. But what really intrigued me about the series is how it approaches sharing character motivations.

We know what Keitaro is up to right away, what with him being the protagonist and the reader directly following his adventures. The Dark Gathering manga kicks off by explaining how he was cursed, how a classmate close to him was also hurt as a result of it, and that he only just started trying to integrate into the world again upon starting college and develop more confidence in himself. He even becomes a tutor, which results in his being paired with Yayoi, in an attempt to become more social and reach out to people.

Though Kaveh has been present in Genshin Impact ever since HoYoVerse granted us access into Sumeru, he only became a playable character in the Version 3.6 update. As a four-star character, he will remain in the gacha even when he isn’t a pick-up character on a banner. In order to properly ascend Kaveh, you will need to have access to the Girdle of the Sands, which is the northern desert region of Sumeru.

In order to fully build Kaveh in Genshin Impact, you will need to collect these Ascension Materials:

Baizhu is a Dendro Catalyst user who can be both a healer and a shielder in Genshin Impact.  He is only available during the Immaculate Pulse Event Wish, which debuted in Version 3.6. In Genshin Impact, you usually need Ascension Materials from a character’s region, but Baizhu mostly takes items from Sumeru. So if you get him, expect to find yourself trekking through the rainforest or desert more than scaling mountains.

Here are the Ascension Materials Baizhu Needs in Genshin Impact:

Ascension 1

• 1 Nagadus Emerald Sliver
• 3 Violetgrasses
• 3 Fungal Spores
• 20,000 Mora

Ascension 2

• 3 Nagadus Emerald Fragments
• 10 Violetgrasses
• 15 Fungal Spores
• 2 Evergloom Rings
• 40,000 Mora

Ascension 3

• 6 Nagadus Emerald Fragments
• 20 Violetgrasses
• 12 Luminescent Pollens
• 4 Evergloom Rings
• 60,000 Mora

Ascension 4

• 3 Nagadus Emerald Chunks
• 30 Violetgrasses
• 18 Luminescent Pollens
• 8 Evergloom Rings
• 80,000 Mora

Ascension 5

• 6 Nagadus Emerald Chunks
• 45 Violetgrasses
• 12 Crystalline Cyst Dusts
• 12 Evergloom Rings
• 100,000 Mora

Ascension 6

It's here - and as manufacturer Asus promised - sooner than expected. The Asus ROG Ally arrives just over a year since Steam Deck added a new dimension to PC gaming: portability. Not longer the domain of the bedroom or office, it's now possible to play your library of games anywhere and not just your legacy titles either, but the latest triple-A epics... to a certain degree. The Steam Deck struggles with the latest, most demanding games but the Asus ROG Ally doesn't just offer up the hardware spec improvements we've love to see added to Deck - but adds anything up to 71 percent in gaming performance. So what's the catch?

At the heart of the Ally sits the latest AMD mobile APU - dubbed the Z1 Extreme. This seems to be a tweaked rendition of its flagship 'Phoenix' silicon, specifically the Ryzen 7 7840U. CPU core count doubles up against Steam Deck and frequencies increase dramatically, while employing the latest Zen4 designs. Meanwhile the GPU has 50 percent more compute units, an architecture upgrade via RDNA 3 and - once again - a lot more frequency. 16GB of LPDDR5 across a 128-bit memory interface completes the core spec. At this point, it's not entirely clear how the Z1 Extreme differs from the 7840U as those spec points are very similar, right down to the new 4nm processor node - another advantage vs the Deck's 7nm design.

Since its inception, League of Legends has always been about its characters. Whether that be through their kit design and what they can bring to the table regarding gameplay or what a character could contribute to world of Runeterra at large. However, Riot Games effectively succeeded at not only making League of Legends characters interesting through their unique designs, but also through individual skin lines. These skin lines are sometimes purely for aesthetic, but are also tied to totally unrelated alternate universe storylines, and have an incredible amount of production put into them. These four especially are among the best skin lines in League of Legends.

Bilgewater

[caption id="attachment_963989" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Image via Riot Games[/caption]

Despite the fact that Kaveh in Genshin Impact looks and acts like he has never held a weapon in his entire life, he fills in the DPS niche in your part. To make the most of him, you should run him with someone who can apply Hydro. This is because his kit revolves around the Bloom Elemental Reaction. Here are some weapons and artifacts you can consider on your Kaveh in Genshin Impact to take advantage of his Skill and Burst.

Here are the Best Weapons for Kaveh in Genshin Impact

As mentioned earlier, weapons you put on Kaveh should focus on the fact that most of his damage comes from Dendro Cores. The main stat that you should focus on should be either his Energy Recharge or his Elemental Mastery. Weapons that focus on the traditional DPS stats, such as ATK or Crit, will not maximize his potential.

You can consider giving him the Mailed Flower, the Makhaira Aquamarine, or the Forest  Regalia. An advantage Kaveh has is that rare or 5-star weapons are not necessary to bring out his best. Forest Regalia is free in the game through Aranara quests, and Mailed Flower was exclusive to the Windblume’s Breath event. While Elemental Mastery weapons like Mailed Flower and Makhaira Aquamarine help to increase how much damage Dendro Cores deal, the Forest Regalia is probably his best weapon. This is because its main stat is Energy Recharge, which helps him to use his Burst more, and the effect increases his Elemental Mastery when he causes a Reaction.

A studio has posted a warning to fellow indie developers after it was unable to claim its own username on Discord.

In a Twitter thread, indie team Rusty Lake detailed the trouble it has experienced securing its own username for its 240K+ member Discord community.

Discord announced plans to change its usernames earlier this month. At present, usernames are case sensitive and have a four-digit identifier, called a discriminator, appended to create a unique username, but the new changes remove the need for the discriminator, meaning you don't have to remember the random number combination when trying to add friends.

Read more

Dying Light developer Techland plans to "ramp" things up in the zombie game's next update, hinting that a new "even scarier" night-time experience will make players "sh*t their pants".

With plans to "pull out all the stops - gameplay mechanics, visual tricks, and audio scares", director Tymon Smektała says the new "tense experience" will ensure that horror remains a big part of Dying Light's DNA "moving forward".

"Horror became a huge part of Dying Light’s DNA so we’ll keep it as a part of the experience moving forward," Smektała told TheGamer.

Read more

The Kickstarter campaign to crowdfund a new rogue-lite board game inspired by Dead Cells hit its target within 13 minutes, raising almost £400,000 more than its £29,764 target.

The board game - which can be played solo or with up to four players - was first unveiled back in March, and has been backed by over 5500 people.

"We can tell that the designers had played Dead Cells and that they weren't interested in simply doing a carbon copy," The Motion Twin team and Arthur Décamp, Dead Cells Game Director says of the project. "They had thought deeply about how to best adapt Dead Cells into board game format. The overarching principles of the game have been preserved (the energy, the visceral nature of combats, and the build options) without altering the experience expected for a modern board game.

Read more

Gran Turismo 7 producer Kaz Yamauchi has dropped a teaser for the next three cars coming to PlayStation's exclusive racer.

In a tweet, Yamauchi confirmed that the update would drop "next week" and shared the now customary shadowy screenshot of the new arrivals.

Whilst the vehicles won't be confirmed until next week, it looks as though the new line-up includes the Nissan Skyline (R32) GT-R Nismo and a couple of retro cars – a 1960s Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GT and the Greening Auto Company 1971 Ford Maverick (thanks, Traxion.gg).

Read more

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! We have notably more positive site-related news this week, especially regarding the video player, so, let's jump right into it.

Another site refresh hit went out this week. Hopefully it has resulted in even more people being able to watch videos on site. If that is not the case, the workaround I described last week is now confirmed to work on all browsers where videos are not playing, and not just Chrome. That work around is:

1. Clear all cookies
2. Click on "Show Purposes" OR "Do Not Sell My Personal Information" at the bottom of the site
3. Enable "Performance Cookies" only.

The last two steps on that checklist seem to be what is helping most people. As I said last week, the engineering team does not view this workaround as a permanent solution. If you are still not able to watch videos even after enabling these Performance Cookies or do not wish to, please drop a comment here.

Crypt Of The NecroDancer developers Brace Yourself Games have laid off around half their staff. Employees began tweeting about being affected cuts yesterday, with Brace Yourself Games later confirming the decision to "lay off a portion" of staff. The studio had around 43 employees before the cuts, according to LinkedIn.

Read more