October 2023

The Five Nights at Freddy's movie adaptation from Universal and Blumhouse has seen some impressive numbers following its release, breaking several records in the process.

The live-action adaptation of Scott Cawthon's video game series, which stars The Hunger Games' Josh Hutcherson as troubled security guard Mike Schmidt, made its box office debut last week and has earned $78m in North America and $130m globally since then.

As noted by Variety, this makes the movie the second-largest debut of all time for a video game adaptation in the US, coming only behind that of Nintendo and Illumination's animated Super Mario Bros. Movie, which made $146.3 million.

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Square Enix revealed Kingdom Hearts Missing-Link, a new GPS-based action RPG for iOS and Android devices, last year as part of its 20th Anniversary celebration, which is also where the company revealed Kingdom Hearts IV. Now, Square Enix has released a new teaser trailer for Missing-Link alongside the reveal it will launch sometime next year. 

In the teaser trailer, we see someone who is presumably the game's protagonist in Scala ad Caelum, a special metropolis that those who have completed Kingdom Hearts III will recognize. The teaser showcases the RPG's combat as well, which seems like a mix between some of the mechanics in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and standard mobile action RPG gameplay. We also see some of the Disney characters in the game, including Ariel from The Little Mermaid, Simba from The Lion King, and Baymax from Big Hero 6, to name a few. 

Check out the Kingdom Hearts Missing-Link teaser trailer for yourself below: 

Bungie is the latest PlayStation studio to face layoffs. While the scale of the cuts wasn’t immediately apparent, multiple, now-former staff members began posting on social media on October 30 that they’d been let go by the beloved Destiny 2 maker.

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A recently uncovered Rockstar Games patent suggests the developer could be using new technology to make NPCs in its games more immersive, particularly when it comes to the highly anticipated action-adventure crime sim GTA VI.

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The end of October is nigh, which means the spooky decorations are about to make way for snow, presents, and mistletoe. But before we say goodbye to the jack-o-lanterns and trick-or-treating, we can still pay tribute to the spookiest, the scariest, the ghouliest(?) of Pokémon: the ghost types.

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From start to finish, Little Goody Two Shoes certainly pulls out all of the stops to impress the player. The quality of its artwork, music, and storytelling combine to create a mesmerizing experience you won’t want to miss.

Players step into the shoes of Elise, a prideful errand girl who isn’t immune to occasional boasting. She’s fed up with the small town of Kieferberg and wants nothing more than to be blessed with fortune and a chance to live luxuriously. Unfortunately for her, she’s currently stuck in quite opposite conditions, struggling to keep food on the table. On top of that, many of the townsfolk treat her as lesser than, despite her efforts to stand up for herself.

One dark and spooky night, Elise finds a strange girl in her storage shed. She takes it upon herself to house the poor girl for the time being. From then on, strange phenomena keep occurring in Kieferberg, and the townsfolk grow more suspicious of Elise by the day. It’s your job to help her keep the skepticism at bay, while also going on romantic dates with cute girls.

NIS America announced the PS5 release dates for The Legend of Heroes games Trails of Cold Steel 3 and 4. Both will debut on February 16, 2024. 

We already knew both games would head to the platform in the beginning of 2024. When NIS America first announced these ports, it offered an “early 2024” release window. There’s no release announced for the first two entries in this quartet, which focus on Rean Schwarzer’s early days at Thors Military Academy with the original Class VII. Only the second half, which focuses on Rean’s life as a teacher at the school’s Branch Campus with a new Class VII, which consists of Altina, Ash, Juna, Kurt, and Musse. During the course of the second half of the story, Juna serves as a deuteragonist and the quartet ties in to other entries like Trails in the Sky and Trails to Azure.

In addition to the shared release date, there’s also a refresher trailer showing what people can expect from the PS5 versions of the games. It begins with overviews of the cast of the game. Following that, we see gameplay of the characters in-battle in both installments.

Riot Games Japan announced that four VTubers from Hololive will perform the opening acts at the Riot Games ONE offline events on December 2-3, 2023. Hakos Baelz, Kobo Kanaeru, Murasaki Shion, and La+ Darknesss will be performing two of K/DA's songs.

The announcement appeared first on Riot Games Japan's official X account, which is also available to view right below. The group will feature representatives from all three active regional branches. Baelz is from the EN branch, Kobo is from ID, and La+ and Murasaki are from the Japanese branch.

The Riot Games ONE official webpage added more details on the Hololive VTubers' appearances. They will have different songs on both offline event days that start at 11 AM JST (10 PM minus one day for ET). The group will perform "POP/STARS" on December 2, 2023, and "The Baddest" on December 3, 2023.

Back in June, when our Ed got a 30-minute hands-off glimpse of Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora, he had suspicions that Ubisoft's next big open world-athon was hiding some dark, terrible secret beneath the surface. It was almost too good, and too lovely-looking to be completely true, he proposed, and the brief tour of this rather enormous-looking game wasn't quite long enough to really dig beneath the surface to see if Ubisoft's lofty promises would hold up to closer scrutiny.

Now, just over a month from release, I've finally been able to put it under a proper microscope, playing two hours of the thing from around the 25% mark of its campaign. And it really is as visually impressive as Ed suggested all those months ago. At long last, this is a game that looks and feels like an actual "next-gen" blockbuster (or as much as a game can, at least, when we're already several years into the current generation cycle). But Ed was also right to feel a wee bit suspicious of Frontiers Of Pandora. Perhaps not in the way he expected, but enough that I heard the same thing being muttered over and over again by almost everyone at the end of my preview session at Ubisoft's UK offices: "I can't work out where the heck I'm meant to be going, or what I'm supposed to do."

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Crytek have no plans to make a sequel to sweaty monster-culling FPS Hunt: Showdown, and will thus hopefully avoid the publicity problems currently faced by Activision-Blizzard's Overwatch 2 and Valve's Counter-Strike 2 - both presented as sequels with fancier technology, but in practice, more like service-game content seasons arbitrarily upgraded into replacements, with the 'previous' games, Overwatch and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, being taken offline to avoid splitting the playerbase.

Speaking to me in an interview about Hunt's evolution since its launch out of early access in 2019, the game's general manager David Fifield observed that while Crytek may yet make another Hunt game it won't be a straight Showdown follow-up - and it certainly won't come at the expense of your ability to play the original game.

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As the end of October approaches, it's time to gather in the RPS Game Club space port to talk about this month's game pick: Starfield! We'll be assembling in our traditional liveblog format on Friday November 3rd at 4pm GMT (9am PT/12pm ET) to chat about our intergalactic adventures, catalogue all the grey rocks we've landed on, and generally have an earnest (and hopefully fun!) chinwag about Bethesda's latest. So come along with your favourite biscuits and beverages as we discuss all things Starfield.

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An Itch.io game bundle launched to fund medical services and support for Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and Lebanon has raised $200,000 in five days. Organised by Esther Wallace of Oak Grove Games, and due to run till 9th November 2023, the Games for Gaza bundle includes 256 videogames, physical games, assets, soundtracks and books from 140 designers for $10, with all proceeds going to the UK-based charity Medical Aid for Palestinians.

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UPDATE 8.51pm UK: Veteran Destiny composer Michael Salvatori appears to have suggested he is included in yesterday's layoffs at Bungie.

The acclaimed composer has now updated his website to remove mention of his time with the company - which stretches back to 1997's Myth: The Fallen Lords - as well as his ongoing work on the Destiny franchise, including next year's climactic expansion The Final Shape.

Instead, the website now simply states: "Gone fishin' :)"

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We'd been expecting a game to arrive that would practically demand that you upgrade your PC hardware, and it's not entirely surprising that it would be Remedy's Alan Wake 2. However, what we didn't expect was it would be support for DX12 mesh shader hardware that would be the dividing line between a good experience and a bad one. Practically, what this means is that there's bad news here for owners of vintage 2016/2017 Nvidia GTX 10-series Pascal hardware as Alan Wake 2 performance is pretty dire, even on the majestic GTX 1080 Ti. The lack of mesh shader support also means that AMD's vintage 2019 RDNA 1 cards also suffer, though not quite to the same degree.

You can read all about what mesh shaders actually are elsewhere, but the bottom line is that it more easily allows for the efficient processing of detail-rich scenes - and Alan Wake 2 is awash with incredibly high detail assets. On PC, fallbacks exist to allow the game to run on older GPUs, but you have to accept some alarming drops in performance. Even on GTX 1080 Ti, I noted that the game could drop into the teens running at 1080p, upscaled from 720p using FSR 2 quality mode. In those same scenes, the RTX 2080 - often cited as having similar rasterisation performance to the 1080 Ti - runs 6.3x faster.

Those results are something of an outlier, but even in more standard AW2 gaming, there's still a stark divide between three GPUs that generally have similar rasterisation capabilities. In the forest at the beginning of the game, the RTX 2080 beats 1080 Ti with an additional 177 percent of performance, while the RX 5700 XT is 63 percent faster than the Pascal legend.

Update, 11/01/23:

IGN and Bloomberg have learned new information about the layoffs that occurred at Destiny 2 maker Bungie this week, including that roughly 100 employees were laid off from the company. As for why, IGN's sources report that during an employee meeting after the layoffs, Bungie CEO Pete Parsons told staff that the layoffs were due to the underperformance of Destiny 2 over the last year as well as "lower-than-expected preorders" for the upcoming expansion, The Final Shape. 

Employees were reportedly told that Destiny 2 player sentiment had reached an all-time-low and IGN's sources say employees at the studio have attempted to discuss this with Bungie leadership, asking to make the necessary changes, presumably to get player sentiment back up. 

Bloomberg reports that roughly 8% of "Bungie's game unit" staff were laid off due to Destiny play time hitting a low, and IGN's sources say roughly 100 people were laid off. Bloomberg also reports that sales at Bungie are running 45% below projections. 

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, the latest in the long-running FPS franchise and the first back-to-back sequel in years, is due out later this week, kind of. If you preorder a digital version of the game, you can play through its campaign early, starting November 2. That's eight days before the full game's release on November 10, which is when its multiplayer suite goes live. Ahead of that early campaign launch, publisher Activision Blizzard has released the PC specs and system requirements to play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III. 

If you've played recent Call of Duty entries, you likely already know what you're in for, and this year's is not all that different. But if you're new, or curious if you need to upgrade before this year's entry, we've got you covered. 

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III PC Specs And System Requirement

Below, we'll list the minimum, recommended, and 4K Ultra requirements alongside the different OS', CPUs, and more needed to run the game. 

Controversial streamer Nick “Nickmercs” Kolcheff recently announced a massive $10 million deal with Twitch rival Kick, and it seems that, although he once implored pro-LGBTQIA people to “leave children alone,” he’s not worried about teaching children how to gamble.

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In addition to an unspecified number of job cuts, Destiny 2 maker Bungie has also been racked by delays. Bloomberg reports that the sci-fi MMO shooter’s The Final Shape expansion has slipped from February to June, with upcoming extraction shooter Marathon getting delayed to 2025.

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Super Mario Bros. Wonder has levels full of secret paths to explore, but did you know a few of them lead to entirely new mini-worlds and levels for you to run and jump through? There are several levels that have secret exits that you have to work to find, and while all of them will give you a new Wonder Seed, a…

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Nintendo recently filed a patent for a handheld device with a design that might surprise you. The patent reveals a handheld that looks a lot less like what you might expect of the upcoming Switch 2, and more like if the 3DS had a third screen.

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Sega announced that Yoko Taro’s mobile shoot ‘em up game 404 Game Re:Set will end service on January 5, 2024. The game launched in Japan on April 25, 2023.

Producer Gosuke Nakamura addressed players in a Producer Letter, apologizing for the game terminating service less than a year since its launch. The 404 Game Re:Set development team had been involved in collaboration events, as well as various other plans outside of the game, but were unable to create enough interest to keep the game going.

Additionally, the development team has created a variety of content for players to enjoy during the remaining 2 months of service for 404 Game Re:Set, and even after service for the game ends.

Chapter 9 for 404 Game Re:Set will come out on December 13, 2023, and Chapter 10 will appear on the same day service ends, on January 5, 2024, when the game will also receive an offline mode. Furthermore, various events are prepared to appear throughout November 2023.

PlatinumGames team members and artists released Bayonetta 3 first anniversary art, and one of the most notable pieces is a family portrait of characters with spoilers. There are five pieces total, with the one having a spoiler-free version of it.

First, here are the pieces of Bayonetta 3 art that don’t involve spoilers for the game. Series character Mari Shimazaki designer created one of Bayonetta and Viola. PlatinumGames’ Makoto Hoshina drew Gomorrah. Daible, another PlatinumGames artist, drew Bayonetta as well. Finally, the last image that isn’t a major spoiler is from PlatinumGames’ Masami Ichikawa, who worked on PR and merchandise for the title. That image shows Bayonetta as she appeared in all three entries.

G-Mode will release Majin Tensei: Blind Thinker for Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam in Japan. However, there is currently no release date. [Thanks, 4Gamer!]

Majin Tensei: Blind Thinker originally came out for mobile devices exclusively to Japan between July-November 2007. The game is a turn-based strategy RPG, and is a spin-off part of the first game in the Majin Tensei series. Majin Tensei is itself a 1994 Super Famicom strategy sub-series of the main Megami Tensei series.

The story of Majin Tensei: Blind Thinker is set in Neo Tokyo on the year 20XX, and involves protagonist Yuji Kashiwagi finding a Demon Summoning Program left by his missing father. The game has multiple routes and endings tied to which supporting character the protagonist allies with. Staple mechanics of the series, like demonic negotiation and fusion, appear in the game, and some have been simplified.

Hololive Vtuber Akai "Haachama" Haato will return to streaming on November 1, 2023. The performer has been on an eight month-long hiatus while recovering from health problems.

Akai "Haachama" Haato teased her return on a social media post that included a picture of her model, alongside a Japanese caption that translates to “(Hi) everyone… Do you remember?” Additionally, the post included the November 1, 2023 9pm JST date and time, suggesting a return.

Shortly after, a subsequent post including the same date and hour would confirm her comeback. The post included a link to a scheduled YouTube stream, as well as a new art piece depicting Haachama with the Japanese characters for the word “return” and the caption “I’m looking forward to meeting everyone.”

You can take a look at the original Akai Haato announcement post for the VTuber's return stream below.

Bandai Namco announced the release date for Retro Game Challenge: GameCenter CX 1+2 Replay in Japan. The compilation remaster will be available for Nintendo Switch on February 22, 2024.

The publisher also updated the game's website by adding a page detailing the new features in this remaster. The main highlight among the new features will be the addition of Honoo no Kakutou Salaryman Yattaroh, a belt-scrolling action game with characters modeled after GameCenter CX staff members. The protagonist Yattaroh will be able to power up by exchanging business cards with other characters.

GameCenter CX 1+2 Replay will also add offline multiplayer and online ranking features that the original DS releases did not have. The block puzzle game Triotos DX will feature a 2-player versus mode, while the shoot 'em up game GunDuel will include a co-op mode. The compilation will also have special online ranking versions for seven games, including both Triotos and GunDuel.

Fans of Counter-Strike: GO’s Gun Game successor Arms Race rejoice: you will be able to play the popular mode in Counter-Strike 2. Eventually, that is. Valve have promised that more modes, weapons and features are headed to Global Offensive’s full-bore sequel, but they might take a little while to arrive as they respond to what players are asking for.

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The Finals, the cash-grabbing, destructible-scenery multiplayer FPS from former Battlefield devs, is currently in the middle of an open beta that allows anyone to go and give its shoot-y, smash-y, cash-y gameplay a look. You’ll also be able to give it a listen - and you might notice something a little off about the announcers for its game show-within-a-game when you do. That’s right: they’re AI-generated voices, not human actors.

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Corsair's 4000D, 5000D and 7000D cases are all brilliant options with plenty of airflow, nice tempered glass side panels and a ton of nice design and usability tweaks. Normally the mid-size 4000D Airflow costs $105, but today it's down to $80 at Amazon - a great price for a case that's easy to build in and provides excellent thermal results.

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Dell's Alienware AW3423DWF gaming monitor is a 34-inch curved ultrawide OLED that delivers an incredible gaming experience, thanks to its perfect contrast, excellent motion clarity and gorgeous colour reproduction. It's also normally extremely expensive at $1000, but today you can pick up this model for $800 at Best Buy following a $200 price cut.

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Bungie has reportedly told staff it will be delaying next year's planned Destiny 2 expansion The Final Shape, as well as the studio's upcoming Marathon reimagining.

According to a report by Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, citing "people with knowledge of the matter", Destiny 2's The Final Shape expansion - which is set to conclude the game's Light and Darkness saga - will now launch in June next year. Bungie publicly announced a 27th February 2024 launch for the expansion back in August.

As for Marathon - a PvP reimagining of Bungie's classic 90s FPS series, which was revealed in May - that has yet to be given an official release date. However, Bloomberg says this has now been moved into 2025, suggesting the studio was previously targeting a launch next year.

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Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Massive
Release: December 7, 2023

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is the next canonical chapter of the Avatar mythos. Set during the one-year gap in Avatar: The Way of Water on the other side of Pandora in a new area called the Western Frontier, players control a Na’vi raised and trained by the Resources Development Administration (RDA) who finds themselves taking the fight to the corporation. That requires, quite literally, getting back to their roots as they reconnect with Eywa while learning what it means to be a Na’vi by ingratiating themselves with the game’s three new clans. 

10 years ago, Ubisoft launched Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, an open-world pirate-themed RPG that set the stage for the modern iteration of the long-running series by revitalizing its open-world exploration and adding remarkable naval combat. And in that time, millions of people have played the game.

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After just one weekend in theaters, Five Nights At Freddy’s is already breaking records and racking up an impressive $130 million at the global box office since releasing on October 27 to less-than-stellar reviews.

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Alan Wake 2 has been out for just a weekend, and Remedy has already put out a new patch. However, the patch notes aren’t terribly specific, with one amusing exception.

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The Finals is a forthcoming free-to-play first-person shooter from new studio Embark, set in a fictional game show’s death arena. Its open beta—which you can sign up for now through November 5 on Steam, PS5, or Xbox Series X/S—promises confetti colors and similarly striking flames and explosions. It looks exciting,…

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The fact that you can, today, play Capcom’s Resident Evil Village natively on an Apple iPhone is undeniably impressive. But actually trying to play this popular horror game on Apple’s latest pocketable device doesn’t make for a great experience.

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The latest Fire Emblem Heroes character is Veyle from Fire Emblem Engage. She’s joining the roster as a Mythic Hero in the monthly banner on October 31, 2023.

Veyle is billed as the Gentle Dragon. She’s an infantry-type unit, despite being a dragon, and uses a blue tome. It’s the Obscurite she actually uses in-game. Her moveset also includes Atk/Res Tempo 4, which is the first time the B skill appeared in the game, and the character-exclusive Fell Protection C skill.

As usual, there are other returning five-star units appearing as focus characters on the Veyle banner. Here are the other people you might get if you pull on it:

• Alcryst: Tender Archer
• Arval: Cycle Keeper
• Ash: Retainer to Askr
• Citrinne: Caring Noble
• Diamant: Rising Power
• Eitri: Youthful Sage
• Felix: Lone-Wolf Blade

Prime 1 Studio revealed it is working on 1/6 scale statues of Lelouch Lamperouge and C.C. from Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2. The studio opened worldwide pre-orders on its website and will ship the finished statues around the first four months of 2025.

The full statue set is available for pre-order at $1,199.00. The package will come with swappable head parts for Lelouch to don his Zero helmet and for C.C. to alternate between a normal smile and a grin. The Bonus Version will add one more optional head part showing Lelouch with a smirking face.

Build-a-Bear announced its latest Sanrio plush toy is a purple version of Kuromi and a Baku buddy. People can get the characters alone or in a $60.50/£48.50 set together.

Here’s a list of all the different Kuromi plush options. Note that the two set options both include a pair of themed pajamas the character can wear. Said PJs can be purchased separately for $13.50/£11.

• Purple Kuromi - $32/£24
• Purple Kuromi Sleeper Gift Set - $45.50/£35
• Purple Kuromi Sleeper Gift Set with Baku Buddy plush - $60.50/£48.50

The Baku Buddy stuffed animal can be bought on its own for $15/£13.50.

Here's a closer look at the new Sanrio plush toys.

GOG teased that more of the Sony PlayStation games will be coming to the PC storefront in future. While the company initially announced this through a cryptic social media post, it also added store pages for God of War and Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection.

The initial announcement from GOG featured a blurred image overlaid with requests to bring more PlayStation games to the service. This was accompanied by blocked out text that hinted at the games that were coming. However, some commenters noted that the blurred image looked like the cover art for the 2018 God of War reboot, and that the title fit perfectly into part of the blocked-out text.