May 2023

I've played a couple of games where I've been cast as a journalist, but in most of these games you're a journalist in the same way Tintin is a journalist - kind of, but not too much. Beyond Good & Evil probably takes it the most seriously. You're a photographer trying to get the truth about an alien invasion. You break into places and have fights and solve puzzles, but you also get the shots you're after before you get out. But still, you know, the fights, the breaking in, the solving puzzles. You're a journalist, kind of...

Times & Galaxy, which was announced this week goes much further. (There's a demo here so you can see it for yourself.) Suddenly I'm a journalist who's expected to go and research actual events, build a sense of what happened and then sculpt a story afterwards. Sure, it's the future and I'm also a robot exploring a colourful sci-fi world, but it goes a lot deeper than I had expected.

On my first mission I'm sent to a planet to write up an RTA. But as I chat to people things start to get strange. A ship crashed because the cops were chasing it, but the cops won't take any blame for a crime they caused in the line of duty. Furthermore, there didn't appear to actually be anybody in crashed ship, and the flight recorder is missing.

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Apple Arcade has received a major shot in the arm today, with the addition of 20 further titles for the smartphone subscription service.

These include all-new games from the developers behind What the Golf?, Words with Friends and Sim City, plus a fresh Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles roguelike.

A number of existing favourites are also getting Apple Arcade versions - meaning no adverts, and no microtransactions. These include Kingdom Two Crowns, Limbo, Octodad: Deadliest Catch, Snake.io, Temple Run, Very Little Nightmares, Farming Simulator 20, and Getting Over It from Bennett Foddy.

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UPDATE 11/5/23: App store analytics firm AppMagic has now responded to Niantic's claim its report on Pokémon Go revenue was "incorrect".

"Surely, there's an inevitable inaccuracy in our estimates as in any other service of the same type as ours. For such large apps like Pokemon Go monthly discrepancy is usually around +/- five percent," an AppMagic spokesperson told Eurogamer.

"What we do to estimate revenue is analyse positions of apps in the platforms' top grossing apps rankings. And since it's publicly available data, anyone can see that the current position of Pokémon Go (on average across countries, weighted on their impact) in March-April 2023 was at the lowest since February 2018.

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Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat is using Counter-Strike to provide Russian players with accurate news on Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

The newspaper created a map in CS:GO to distribute "independent journalism", which launched yesterday on World Press Freedom Day.

The map (pictured), based on a war-torn Slavic city, includes a secret room that shows uncensored footage of the Ukraine invasion in Russian.

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The Xbox app for Windows PC has been updated with new collections on the Home screen with categories that list quick games to play.

A selection of the longest games on offer is also available, listed by average gameplay times.

Also included is the ability to filter the all games view by accessibility features, so games with said features can be more easily found. This brings the PC app in-line with the Xbox console.

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Former Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aimé has seen those Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom leaks and the people boasting about having acquired the game early, and he is not happy about it. In fact, the whole situation has made him embrace his inner Liam Neeson.

In response to one Twitter user sharing an image of their Switch home screen, which had Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom lined up and ready to play (presumably obtained by illegitimate means, but I can't say for sure), the Nintendo of America alum decided to flex his muscle by quoting from the Neeson-fronted action film Taken.

"I don't know what you want. What I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career, skills that make me a nightmare for people like you," Fils-Aimé wrote.

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UPDATE 9pm UK: Developer Night Dive has told Eurogamer that the social media posts made on the official System Shock Twitter account were made by the game's publisher Prime Matter. "Nightdive Studios was not responsible," a spokesperson said.

We've updated our earlier story, below, to reflect this.

ORIGNAL STORY 11.45am UK: Prime Matter, the publisher behind the System Shock remake, recently boasted about using AI to create artwork of its game's own evil AI. And, well, things slightly backfired.

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The PlayStation 5 has another special edition bundle thanks to the impending release of Kaiju battle simulator Final Fantasy XVI. The good news is it’ll save you $10. The bad news is the limited-edition design cover and DualSense controller are only coming to Japan.

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The Star Wars universe is massive, filled with hundreds of books, games, TV shows, and more. And let’s not forget the movies, which started all of this wild nonsense back in 1978 with A New Hope. Throughout all of Star Wars, from all the fan fighting over Last Jedi to people going wild over Grogu, one thing has…

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Digital festival LudoNarraCon is back for its fifth year, showcasing games that are all about story-telling and narrative. It kicks off today, May 4th, at 10am PT/6pm BST and runs until next Monday, May 8th. The event is being hosted on Steam where you can sample 36 demos, enjoy discounts on over 140 games, and watch 15 panels through a livestream. Highlights this year include three ‘fireside chats’ with Ron Gilbert of Monkey Island fame, the designer of the OPUS series Scott Chen, and Life Is Strange: True Color’s staff writer Felice Tzehuei, who’s sitting down to chat with our lovely reviews editor Rachel.

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Hello folks. I meant to kick off this list last month, but I accidentally put it in the wrong airlock in the RPS Treehouse and poof. Off it went. (I also ran out of time to put our voting form together - apologies!). But as we all continue zhoooming our lightsabers around in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor or jumping aboard the stellar space train in Honkai: Star Rail, it still feels like an appropriate time to ask you this all-important question: what are your favourite space games of all time?

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When Nintendo first released their level-building game Super Mario Maker, many fans hoped for a similar set of tools based on The Legend Of Zelda series. The Big N haven’t gotten around to it yet, but indie developers Rokaplay and Firechick have beaten them to the punch with Super Dungeon Maker, which just released out of early access. It’s what the name implies: a game where you can build your own classic Zelda-like dungeons, share them online, and then play through other people’s whacky creations.

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"What will ye do, when steel hearts break, and courage does abscond?" reads the penultimate line of The Pale Beyond’s poetic prologue. Actually, it’s less of a poem and more a call to action: how on earth will you keep a ragtag bunch of sailors alive in the harshest conditions on the planet? If you hadn’t already twigged, The Pale Beyond is a narrative survival sim that puts you in the frostbitten boots of First Mate aboard The Temperance - a coal guzzling steam ship that set out on a polar expedition in search of its sister, The Viscount, which went missing five years prior. As Captain Hunt’s second-in-command, you’ll take daily requests from the crew, manage the food rations, and settle petty squabbles on the poop deck.

Beginning life as a way for co-founders Michael Bell and Thomas Hislop to create World of Warcraft mods, Bellular Studios grew alongside its gaming and Warcraft YouTube channels into a fully-fledged development team based out of their hometown of Belfast, Northern Ireland. The Pale Beyond is their debut game that fittingly draws on Ireland’s rich maritime history, although, as Hislop tells me, this wasn’t always the plan. "We initially didn’t set out to do so, but it quickly emerged as a core influence that we kept finding ourselves drawn back to," he says. "The further we delved into the golden age of exploration, and its very local routes, the more it resonated with us personally."

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Ironmouse, VShojo’s most recognizable VTuber, passed a Twitch milestone in May 2023. She officially has over 1.5 million subscribers on her channel. She has over 816,400 on Twitter and over 909,000 subscribers on YouTube. Her content consists of various sorts of streams, in addition to reaction ones and the "Speak of the Devil" talk show.

Ironmouse herself shared a message thanking her fans for their support.

AHHHH LETS GOOOO THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH FOR CHANGING MY LIFE. 🥹 pic.twitter.com/3YdPWu1aSz

— ironmouseVSHOJO (@ironmouse) May 3, 2023

Bandai Spirits revealed the prizes that will be in the The Super Mario Bros Movie Ichiban Kuji. The lottery will be available in Japan from May 13, 2023. Prizes will include cups, towels, and cushions. [Thanks, Game Watch!]

The prizes that you will be able to pull for from the The Super Mario Bros Movie Ichiban Kuji are:

• A Prize: Question Mark Block Cushion
• B Prize: Super Mushroom Cushion
• C Prize: Tumbler cups
• D Prize: Towels
• E Prize: Small melamine plates
• Last One Prize: Super Star Cushion
• Double Chance Campaign: Pipe Long Pillow

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Everyone who purchases a lottery ticket will be eligible for the Double Chance Campaign. We will simply need to match the campaign number to see if you can get it. The tumbler cups, towels, and plates all feature different designs. Characters are on the cups, items are on the towels, and the plates have more variety.

In a recent interview with 4Gamer, popular horror manga artist Junji Ito talked about his experience working with Wizards of the Coast designing illustration for Magic: The Gathering cards, and the fear of art created through AI technology. Wizards of the Coast directly contacted Junji Ito, and the artist didn’t know about MTG prior. [Thanks, 4Gamer!]

Junji Ito said that after researching Magic: The Gathering, he was impressed by the fantasy worlds and beautiful illustrations used for the cards, and felt that he wanted to work with Wizards of the Coast.

Drawing the final illustration for Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines took Ito about three days of work. In addition to that, there was a previous period of trial and error creating rough sketches that the artist and Wizards of the Coast went through until a final design was decided. Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines had three different initial sketches before the final one was chosen.

The Competition and Markets Authority is launching an investigation into AI foundation models, following the emergence of AI within several industries.

AI is very much a topic of concern for the games industry right now. Recent releases, such as High On Life, have used AI during development and its use has raised eyebrows among players.

There was a mix of concerns and excitement regarding AI among developers at GDC in March, Chris Tapsell reported. Following the UK government's white paper on AI which was published in March, the CMA is now assessing potential effects of the technology on markets and consumers.

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Bugsnax, the game that tasks its players with finding and capturing the eponymous half-bug-half-snack creatures on the mysterious island of Snaktooth, is heading to the iOS app store "this summer".

On its release, it will boast touch screen controls, but will also support "a wide array of third party gamepads" developer Young Horses says.

Other than that, news on this upcoming release is fairly barren, but the developer has promised more details (I presume such as a firm release date rather than the broad release window we have now) in the future.

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Korean studio Npixel has revealed fresh gameplay footage of its forthcoming MMORPG Chrono Odyssey.

The game is being built on Unreal Engine 5 and this second trailer for the game really shows off the power of the engine.

The setting is a western-style fantasy world of magic and dragons, but the pretty graphics are certainly eye-catching. Check out the trailer for yourself below.

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EA has announced when F1 23 will be out alongside a reveal trailer which shows off some of the new features this year's instalment brings to the series.

F1 23 brings back the series' story mode, Braking Point, which was first introduced in F1 21 but was absent from F1 22 last year.

Take a look at the trailer below, which includes protagonists Aidan Jackson, Devon Butler, and new kid on the block Callie Mayer (who is also Devon's sister), plus some glimpses of two new circuits.

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The three main Call of Duty games available right now—Modern Warfare 2, Warzone 2.0, and Mobile—are gearing up for a new season of content, which will include all the usual additions: blueprints, skins, weapons, and the like. Tucked in this May 10 content drop, however, is a rather unique operator skin for the Phoenix…

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Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer was contrite following the overwhelmingly negative response to Redfall this week. In a new interview with the Xbox podcast Xcast, the executive confessed to being disappointed with some quality issues and the critical reception of Arkane’s vampire shooter this week.

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You’ve probably head by now that Redfall is a few virgins short of a vampy picnic, mainly by un-virtue of its undercooked co-operative cryptid blasting. But there are plenty of PC performance problems to contend with as well, despite it getting a helping hand from DLSS and FSR 2.1.

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On account of not loads happening in the last week apart from the Actiblizz acquisition news, which I do not want to talk about under any circumstances, the Electronic Wireless Show podcast talks this week about DLC, because a couple of good games got some DLCs - good, but different games getting different kinds of DLC expansions. Thus we discuss DLCs in general and what the difference is between a live service game and a game that is supported with DLC for years. As usual, we all talk about what we've been playing - what's up with Redfall, y'all? - and have some recommendations. The mini-game this week is to imagine feeding beans to Quentin Tarantino.

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Capcom offered another glimpse at what to expect from Street Fighter 6's Arcade mode, and the latest teaser showed Cammy taking on a truck. As people go through the mode, there will apparently be minigames akin to the ones in past Street Fighter games. Among them are ones beating up cars and hitting back at basketballs. There will also be changes to earn scores, then share them to place on a leaderboard.

Here's Capcom's latest Street Fighter 6 Arcade mode teaser starring Cammy and Guile. For the first part, Cammy is beating up a semi-trailer truck. After a point, she causes the hood and parts to fall off. After that, Guile is shown hitting basketballs being thrown at them to “counter” the attack. In his segment, he already countered 9 and is dealing with a remaining nine.

Truck along in Arcade Mode to get a high score that can be uploaded to online leaderboards. ⛟ pic.twitter.com/eE4vjRJ6Zz

— Street Fighter (@StreetFighter) May 4, 2023

Ever since Baizhu was introduced in Genshin Impact, he’s always been seen with the talking snake Changsheng around his neck. Now that he’s a playable character, his Lagenaria Act 1 Story Quest is also live. Part of it explains the connection between the two, and HoYoVerse shared the cinematic going over their relationship and past online.

Editor’s Note: The Genshin Impact Changsheng teaser features spoilers for the Baizhu Story Quest.

The video explains Changsheng’s full history. Apparently, years ago, a doctor dealing with a plague headed to Chenyu Vale to find an “herblord.” That is Changsheng, who was apparently ill and dying. Any doctor who made a contract with the snake would be able to use extraordinary healing abilities at the cost of tying their life to hers and dying young as a result. Since that first meeting, each doctor’s passed the contract on to one of their apprentices. As a result, Baizhu formed a contract with Changsheng in Genshin Impact, which involves him accepting a shorter lifespan and illness in exchange for being able to heal people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFZcl2vTtm8&ab_channel=GenshinImpact
This is reflected in Baizhu's moveset. He acts as a healer in Genshin Impact, with snake imagery when he attacks or uses abilities.

Genshin Impact is available for the PS4, PS5, PC, and mobile devices, and the Baizhu banner is available until May 23, 2023.

HoYoVerse released two looks at music from Honkai: Star Rail, with one being a soundtrack and another a video with insights from the composers. Honkai: Star Rail - Of Snow and Ember is actually the second album. It only features music from the planet Jarilo-VI’s locations. Meanwhile, “Song of Distant Planet” Vol.1 features HoYo-Mix composers talking about making music for that area.

We can hear the Honkai: Star Rail - Of Snow and Ember soundtrack on Apple Music and Spotify. There are 31 songs on the album.

Here's the full tracklist:

People get a chance to hear some songs from the Crymachina soundtrack. NIS America shared an eleven minute video going over 10 songs from the soundtrack. The last time NIS America showed off Crymachina, it involved a look at the game's opening movie.

Here's the Crymachina soundtrack sampler. It kicks things off with the opening theme song, "NotToNotice();" by Hikaru Tono. All songs on the soundtrack were composed by Sakuzyo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwnPW4YR7kw&ab_channel=NISAmerica

Notably, the description for the Crymachina soundtrack noted an October 24, 2023 release date. However, NIS America only mentioned a Fall 2023 release prior to this video's debut and the end of the video reiterates that window.
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As a reminder, people can get the full soundtrack with one of the physical options when Crymachina releases. NIS America announced a Limited Edition. This PS4, PS5, and Switch option costs $99.99. That comes with the Crymachina Hanamaru soundtrack CD. However, we don't know exactly how many songs will be on the album. People also get an Eden Database art book, an acrylic display, a cloth poster, and an art print in this edition of the game.
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Don't Nod, French developer behind Life is Strange, has announced the release date of its forthcoming narrative adventure Harmony: The Fall of Reverie.

The game is set for release on 8th June across PC and Switch, with a PlayStation 5 and Xbox release following on 22nd June.

A demo for the game will also be available on Steam until 21st May if you're keen to try it out. Check out the latest trailer below for more.

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Xbox boss Phil Spencer has personally apologised for the failure of Arkane's Redfall, which was widely panned this week.

The triple-A first-party shooter has suffered a disastrous launch, with players and reviewers criticising everything from the blandness of its world to the many bugs, its uninspired looter shooter mechanics to performance issues. It is Arkane's worst-reviewed game, and has a "mostly negative" user review rating on Steam.

The failure of Redfall has also brought into question Microsoft's ability to launch high-quality games with any regularity after a string of high-profile flops, and has caused some to cancel their Game Pass subscription between now and the upcoming launch of Bethesda's Starfield in September.

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The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan has been surprise-released on Switch today.

The first game in the horror series, this release marks developer Supermassive Games taking its first steps on Nintendo's console.

If you're yet to play it, check out the trailer below.

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The tumultuous digital age we find ourselves in has become a modern horror story for professional voice actors and artists witnessing “AI” machine-learning technologies go from being harmless-seeming fun to capitalist tools of extraction that copy and sell their voices and art without permission or compensation.…

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This June’s animated sequel Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will clock in at a substantial two hours and 16 minutes, its listing on AMC Theatres indicates. That is 136 minutes. That’s approximately how long it takes to escape a bad conversation. It’s 10 minutes longer than Disney’s 1940 epic Fantasia, and a little…

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Hollywood writers have been on strike ever since media executives and the Writer’s Guild of America failed to come to an agreement at the bargaining table. Now, multiple video game writers are currently having public discussions about how their craft is undervalued by those looking in from the outside. One of them is…

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