September 2023

Grapefrukt - the studio whose backcatalogue of mini-wonders includes the acclaimed likes of Rymdkapsel, Holedown, and Twofold Inc. - has unveiled its latest game, Subpar Pool, which is coming to Steam, Switch, iOS, and Android on 12th October.

Subpar Pool is described as a "whimsical adventure of playful pocket antics at the intersection of golf and pool", where players are challenged to progress through four varied worlds and a series of tables by pocketing balls within a set number of shots.

Play-throughs of Subpar Pool are procedurally generated based on parameters players can set beforehand by combining cards from a special 18-strong deck to suit their particular whims, with more than 14,000 combinations said to be possible.

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Released earlier this month, Starfield is Bethesda’s long-in-development and much-hyped open-world space RPG. And while the hundreds of planets and spaceship building are cool and all, I particularly enjoy Starfield’s fantastic lockpicking minigame. Apparently I’m not alone, because someone out there has taken the…

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Epic Games acquired Mediatonic in 2021 after its colorful battle royale, Fall Guys, became a multiplayer sensation early in the covid-19 pandemic. Now, it’s laying off tons of developers at the UK-based studio as part massive cost cutting at the Fortnite maker.

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I’m seeing Saw X tonight. The ever-wearier death game horror movie franchise has been toying with soft reboots since 2017’s Jigsaw and 2021’s Chris Rock-led Spiral, but neither really got the series back off the ground. Saw X is a prequel injected between the 2004 original and its 2005 sequel, and marks the first time…

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Bloodsucking build 'em up V Rising got its first major Early Access update earlier this year. Its next major update will be its 1.0 release and it will arrive sometime in "the second quarter of 2024", according to a new developer post which also details underway engine upgrades and details features-to-come.

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Stardew Valley's next update will bring a new major festival, support for 8-player multiplayer, and over 100 new lines of dialogue. It still has no release date yet, alas.

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At the time of writing, Counter-Strike 2 has 7.5 million reviews on Steam, 88% of which are positive. That's pretty good going for a game that released less than 24 hours ago.

Except, of course, that the vast majority of those reviews are for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, a game that is no longer playable. If you filter the reviews to just yesterday and today, you'll find that there have been 3450 of them, just 59% of which are positive, which would give Counter-Strike 2 a rating of "Mixed".

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Movic opened pre-orders for two new plush keychains based on the tactical support Pod units from the NieR Automata Ver1.1a anime adaptation and video game. The plushes cost ¥1,650 yen (or about $11) each, and the are scheduled to release in Japan on December 2023. Pod 042 and Pod 153 are now available for pre-order from the Movic online store. [Thanks, Famitsu!]

Pod 042 features a light grey finish accompanied by orange highlight colors, while Pod 153 has a darker black frame and more vibrant red highlights.

Take a better look at the new NieR Automata Ver1.1a plush keychains on the gallery below.

Crunchyroll announced a Halloween initiative that involves free anime series throughout October 2023. Starting on October 1, 2023, people with free accounts can watch certain titles with ads. These can be shows that often aren’t available as an option to watch for free with ads. Among some of the more notable ones are the recent release Hell’s Paradise, as well as ones like Hellsing, Higurashi: When They Cry - GOU, and Zombie Land Saga. 20 total will be available.

Here’s are the Crunchyroll free with ads anime series available throughout October 2023. Many of them are fairly recent adaptations. For example, Mieruko-chanand The Vampire Dies in No Time are about as recent as Hell’s Paradise. The company did note that depending on your region, you might not get access to certain shows.

• Blood Blockade Battlefront
• Blue Exorcist

Five years after its initial unveiling, developer Mojang has confirmed development on Minecraft Dungeons has reached its end, and that the game's 1.17 update - which released ten months ago, back in November 2022 - will be its last.

Minecraft Dungeons, a collaboration between Mojang and developer Double Eleven, was well-received when it launched in May 2020 - Eurogamer's Tom Phillips called it a "strong extension to the franchise, and by far the most promising Minecraft spin-off released to date" at the time.

By the time February 2021 rolled around, Minecraft Dungeons had amassed over 10m players, and was popular enough that a second season pass of DLC content was announced after its first came to and end. Mojang then announced it would introduce a live-service style seasonal model - complete with battle pass - as 2021 drew to a close.

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After years of pulling the strings from behind the scenes, GameStop chairman and billionaire Chewy founder Ryan Cohen appointed himself CEO of the ailing video game store on Thursday. His first email to staff, obtained by Kotaku, called for “extreme frugality” and said “time wasters” would not be tolerated as the meme…

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Corsair's recent Airflow cases have been great, mixing smart and stylish designs with huge cooling potential, and now you can pick up the mid-size 3000D Airflow for just £58 from TechNextDay via Ebay using the code SAVINGS20. By comparison, this case costs £80 on Ebay, making it a sweet little discount.

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Beijing-based audio brand Edifier makes some of the best value speakers in the business, often offering significantly better performance, functionality and aesthetics than more well-known Western brands. I've reviewed a half-dozen of their speakers over the years, and each one has been impressive.

I'm currently recommending Edifier's R2000DB and S3000PRO speakers over at Eurogamer, but today an even more affordable model is on sale at Amazon US: the R1700BTs. These 2.0 bookshelf speakers normally go for $199, but today you can apply a $40 coupon on the product page to bring these speakers down to... $159, if my maths are correct. That's a solid deal for speakers that come with a litany of positive critic and user reviews.

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Delightful destructive heist sim Teardown is getting four paid DLCs, with the first to be released on November 15th. It's called Time Campers and will transport players back in time with a caravan to tackle new heists with "old-timey tools and architecture" in the Wild West.

It'll be followed by a second DLC, the destruction derby-focused Folkrace, and two more before the end of 2024.

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There are countless horror games you can play this year for Halloween, but these are the best horror games we recommend you check out. Many of these games are quite recent, offering exceptional experiences that will impress both in the scares department but also in their gameplay. Here are the games you should check out this year if you haven’t already.

Great Horror Game for Multiplayer Fans: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Many of the best horror games focus on single-player content, but what about multiplayer fans? Enter The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a 2023 video game version of the iconic horror movie. It features gameplay very similar to Dead by Daylight, where a group of survivors try to escape the basement and home of a group of powerful serial killers.

There are many amazing Japanese horror games for all platforms, especially over the last few years. Whether you like a bit of action in between the jump scares or a pure experience that will have you on the edge of your seat, these are the best Japanese horror games that you need to check out this year for Halloween.

Great Japanese Horror game for zombie fans: Resident Evil 4 Remake

Sega Sammy Holdings Inc. announced a major shake-up to its European operations, including the cancellation of the upcoming extraction shooter Hyenas. The company cited an economic downturn in Europe as a reason for the cancellation and expects to take a loss of 14.3 billion Yen this fiscal year.

The announcement came as part of a plan to implement structural reforms in its consumer area with a focus on European operations. As well as Hyenas, a number of unannounced projects developed in Europe have also been canceled. You can read the entire notice here and the Hyenas shut-down statement below:

Bethesda's next fully fledged Elder Scrolls game might still be five-plus years away from release, but if you're truly suffering from series withdrawal symptoms, the company has just unceremoniously shoved a Fallout Shelter-style Elder Scrolls game onto Google Play.

As spotted by IGN, The Elder Scrolls: Castles is now available to download, tasking players with managing their own, yes, castle through a steady process of room-by-room expansion, while also dealing with the whims of their kingdom - by deciding how to respond to their subjects' requests, Reigns-style - at the same time.

Oh, and there's a questing element too, in which players will need to create heroes, kit them out with gear, and send them into battle against "classic Elder Scrolls foes" in order to collect resources that'll come in hand elsewhere.

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Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is shaping up to be one of the hottest games to release in 2024. With the Final Fantasy VII Remake sequel only a few months away at this point, there are some features and changes we’d like to see in the upcoming PS5-exclusive RPG. These improvements would help Final Fantasy VII Rebirth become even better than Final Fantasy VII Remake.

Note: Spoilers ahead for both the original Final Fantasy VII and Remake.

An engaging open world

In this episode of The Game Informer Show, Marcus discusses his recent hands-on Alan Wake 2 preview session, in which he played both as returning protagonist Alan and newcomer Saga Anderson, an FBI agent looking into a mysterious case. Kyle breaks down his review of Resident Evil 4's Separate Ways DLC, and then Charles shares the bad news that Super Bomberman R 2 is flawed. Lastly, the guys chat about Cocoon, a must-play puzzle game from developer Geometric Interactive and publisher Annapurna Interactive.

Watch Game Informer's Weekly Podcast:

Follow us on social media: Alex Van Aken (@itsVanAken), Kyle Hilliard (@KyleMHilliard), Marcus Stewart (@MarcusStewart7), Charles Harte (@Chuckduck365)

A teaser for a Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake coming to PlayStation 5 nearly stole the show at Sony’s September 2021 showcase. But reports surfaced last year that the project was already in trouble. Now Star Wars fans have noticed that Sony recently deleted tweets about the game and has hidden the…

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Hello! Since today sees the celebration of 2023's Mid-Autumn Festival, we decided to take another look at Midautumn, which Liv wrote about beautifully back in June. Enjoy!

Roguelikes have a hell of a reputation: unforgiving, inscrutable, and not for the faint of heart. After all, the genre is a lineage of games that emerged from Rogue, an ASCII game known for being notoriously challenging. But the genre's penchant for loops and repetition - which stems from its games' deadly combination of brutal combat, limited health and permadeath—also makes it a rather unorthodox medium for developers looking to deliver a narrative-driven experience. This is a mould that the roguelike Hades has already broken with its atypical accessibility and multi-layered storytelling, and it's this particular formula that Midautumn is inspired by. To its team of developers, Hades has paved the way for the game to impart a story about an Asian diaspora community, faced with the threat of gentrification.

"We were very excited by the idea of roguelikes in telling stories, in types of stories that are harder to tell," says creator Sherveen Uduwana. "What [Hades] opened up for us was, suddenly there are a lot more people that are familiar with some of these conventions and mechanics of how you tell stories in roguelikes, so it's doing some heavy lifting for us in being able to tell a less well-tread story in games."

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UDPDATE 5.45pm: Following the discovery that trailers for the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake were being systematically scrubbed from the internet, Sony has blamed a music licensing issue, describing the steps as "normal".

"As part of normal business, we delist assets with licensed music when the licenses expire," a Sony spokesperson said in a statement provided to Eurogamer. The only music featured in the Knights of the Old Republic Remake trailer was the Disney-owned main Star Wars themed, so that very much appears to be the culprit.

The original story continues below.

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The final update for Sonic Frontiers is now live and adds playable Tails, Amy and Knuckles for the first time in a 3D game since Sonic 06.

Sega had previously teased the update would bring new playable characters, but now the update is live we know for sure it's those three. Though let's be honest, it was pretty obvious.

The update brings a new story expansion, which takes place before the final boss and envisions an alternative ending, with the three characters attempting to change their own fate. Check out the trailer below to see them in action.

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Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've found ourselves playing over the last few days. This time: salvaged parts, Idris Elba and animal brawls.

If you fancy catching up on some of the older editions of What We've Been Playing, here's our archive.

I'm fascinated by the new story missions in Overwatch 2 because in them, I can so clearly see Blizzard's ambitions for a fully-fledged PvE game. Except, of course, that vision didn't pan out and so the work was salvaged and released as paid-for add-ons instead.

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This week on the Eurogamer Newscast, we bid farewell to PlayStation boss Jim Ryan, who has announced his departure from the company after almost three decades of service.

We look back at Ryan's tenure at the top of Sony's console business, which included the launch of PlayStation 5 and the acquisition of Bungie. Sony has seen huge sales successes, of course, but is this down to the company's continued direction or simply an open goal from the last console generation?

Announced just before we recorded this week's show, we also discuss the shock cancellation of Hyenas, the loot shooter from Sega's UK studio Creative Assembly that was being demoed to the public only last month. Such a last-minute scrubbing of a game launch is startling - we discuss why the decision may have been made.

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Legacy, the upcoming blockchain business sim from Fable creator Peter Molyneux, is set to release next month, on 26th October.

According to the game's publisher Gala Games, which specialises in this blockchain/Web3 business, Legacy's upcoming launch is "more than just a game release". In its words, this is "the beginning of an extraordinary journey where creativity, strategy, and business innovation meet".

As someone who remains more than a touch sceptical about blockchain, I feel this remains to be seen.

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An Xbox exclusive update for Cuphead is now available to celebrate the game's sixth birthday.

The update includes a new Bonus menu of artwork, music, and behind-the-scenes videos, showing never-before-seen concepts and unused art as well as the entire Cuphead soundtrack.

"Original sketches, concept art, process footage of painting or model work, unused music tracks, orchestra session footage, you name it," Studio MDHR co-director Chad Moldenhauer told Xbox Wire discussing the additions.

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Following recent leaks and rumours, Mortal Kombat boss Ed Boon is now teasing fans with potential future DLC for the series' most recent release.

In a new post over on X (formerly Twitter), Boon shared an image of some of media's most famous slasher-flick faces. Leatherface, Freddy Krueger, Jason, Mike Myers, Pinhead, Chucky, Jigsaw, and Ghostface all showed up in Boon's image, with a collection of either ticks or question marks across their faces.

Many have surmised this means these less than friendly faces will soon be making their way into Mortal Kombat 1 as part of the game's DLC. As one fan noted in the replies, "Jigsaw would be perfect with the new Saw coming out".

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The week's Game of the Week was not a tough pick. Cocoon is astonishing stuff, and happily the most thrilling game I have played this year - quite a thing to say when the year's been as rich as 2023.

I reviewed the game yesterday, but I was very taken with Polygon's piece, by Grayson Morley. Morley writes this: "A late-game puzzle involves the creation of an impossibility. Something that seems to break the game’s rules, and yet doesn’t, under the ever-thickening logic of Cocoon." Firstly, yes, "ever-thickening" is lovely, suggesting that logic is some kind of homeostatic process, something like myelin bunching in the nervous system. Secondly, though, I read that and realised: I know the exact moment being discussed. In fact I will never forget it.

I love games and art in general that go from the possible to the impossible and remain comfortable with what they have done. In literature, there's a brilliant term for this, which I probably misunderstand and misuse, but anyway, here goes: it's called negative capability. As it was once explained to me, negative capability is an author or artist's ability to pursue truth and beauty past the point which they are logical. It's a pursuit of beauty into a realm that cannot fully be understood, but which must instead be appreciated on an emotional level. To put it another way, it's about how good you are at using words when you're in pursuit of the wordless.

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Update: A spokesperson for Sony sent Kotaku a statement regarding the delisted Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic reveal trailer, stating it was due to licensing issues. 

Here's what Sony told Kotaku:

Curiously, this begs the question: why have the involved parties allowed the license associated with the music of the KOTOR remake reveal trailer to expire? Game Informer will update this story if it learns more. 

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