November 2023

Bandai Namco revealed a new character for Tekken 8 named Victor Chevalier. He was shown in a trailer as part of the final round of character announcements.

Victor is a newcomer to the series created for Tekken 8. He is an older French gentleman in a suit who appears to be a secret agent, based on the weapons used in his moveset. These include a pistol, knives, and a glowing katana. He also appears to have a gadget allowing for shifting and shielding. He will be voiced by veteran French actor Vincent Cassel, also known for his recent appearance in Westworld.

Victor is the penultimate character reveal for Tekken 8. The final character reveal will take place on November 12, 2023.

The rest of the Tekken 8 roster features:

• Asuka Kazama
• Azucena
• Bryan Fury

A huge Pokemon plush based on a snoring Clodsire from Scarlet and Violet is open for pre-order via Takara Tomy. It’ll come with two plushes of Paldean Woopers as well.

The Clodsire and Wooper plushes will cost 19,800 JPY ($131.65). Pre-orders will close on November 24, 2023, and Takara Tomy will start shipping them out from late April 2024 in Japan. There are two additional sets for people who want more Woopers. The base 19,800 JPY set will come with two Woopers who are sitting down. There is also a set that costs 27,500 JPY ($182.85) that’ll come with five sitting Woopers and five sleeping ones. Finally, for 42,900 JPY ($285.25), you can get 30 Woopers. All of the sets will only come with one Clodsire.

Payday 3 hasn't exactly had the smoothest of launches; matchmaking issues, online-only requirements, and a hugely unpopular challenge-focused progression system immediately soured its arrival for players back in September, and a highly anticipated first patch promising "200+" quality of life improvements has been repeatedly delayed. Finally though, after much waiting, the heist-shooter's 1.01 update is here on all platforms.

Payday 3's 1.01 update was initially planned to launch on 5th October, but developer Starbreeze delayed its release to mid-October in order to "ensure its stability". After weeks of silence, the developer re-emerged to announced another, this time indefinite delay, explaining it had "identified some issues that need to be fixed".

As the wait has dragged on, Payday 3 player numbers have slumped to the low thousands, with the game's predecessor currently pulling in ten times more than the new version. As such, Starbreeze will doubtless be hoping the long-awaited arrival of 1.01 today will help reverse the game's fortunes. And it's a big one too, weighing in at 2GB (on PC, at least) and spanning an enormous number of improvements and changes.

The second season of HBO's The Last of Us adaptation is currently expected to enter production in early 2024.

That's according to HBO boss Casey Bloys (as reported by Variety), who shared the news during an HBO press event held in New York earlier today.

Bloys remarked that the recent WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes meant production on the upcoming season had been delayed. This was first suggested as a possibility earlier this year and has since been confirmed by members of the show's team.

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The premise of The Talos Principle 2 is a springboard for a number of thought experiments. In a post-human Earth, you have a thousand robots who think, feel and act exactly like humans, without ever having met one or sharing their history. Are they doomed to repeat the same mistakes? The fear that they are is the justification behind limiting their numbers to exactly one thousand, and you play as that one thousandth robot, starting on the day of their creation. It should be a momentous occasion, but instead it's the catalyst for unhappiness to bubble to the surface - and, apparently, for the vast spectre of Prometheus to summon you to a nearby island stacked with puzzles.

For the first third of The Talos Principle 2, I thought I had a good grip on what it was doing. The puzzles are short and light, and feel like a vehicle for the more important thing: the story about a faltering society of robots, terrified of re-enacting the world-changing mistakes of their long dead human ancestors, but confronted with dwindling resources and dissatisfaction with their intentionally limited lifestyle. That you have to solve puzzles at all is heavily lampshaded, with your exploration companions teasing you for your apparent aptitude for them. And then the puzzles steeply increase in complexity, and it suddenly feels like a puzzle game first and foremost.

As the game swings its weight between its various aspects, it's difficult to know how to feel. The group you travel around with are sometimes written as characters you're meant to care about, as people with pasts and relationships and a pet cat called Bruce who is loud and loves specifically to chew on cables. Then they shift into being specific argumentative roles: The Sceptic, The Optimist, The Pessimist, The Pragmatist.

Bungie called this week “one of the most difficult” in its history in its first address to Destiny 2 players since news broke of mass layoffs and delays at the studio. The statement went on to double-down on Bungie’s commitment to the upcoming The Final Shape expansion, but left many more questions unanswered.

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The final episode of Attack on Titan is almost here, as Crunchyroll set the Attack on Titan Final Season The Final Chapters Special 2 release date. Depending on where you live, it is either November 4, 2023 or November 5, 2023.

Those in North America, Central America, and South America will be able to see the final episode on November 4, 2023. On the other hand, people everywhere else, including Europe, will be able to watch it on November 5, 2023. In addition to streaming on Crunchyroll, those of us in the United States will also be able to watch it on Hulu.

The final episode of the series will be available in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide on Crunchyroll. The episode will be available with English, German, Latin American Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese subtitles. The English dub version will arrive at a later date.

A teaser trailer is also out, hinting at what’s to come:

Koei Tecmo is teasing a collaboration between Team Ninja soulslikes Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty and Nioh 2. Wo Long previously ended up involved in crossovers with several other games, including Lies of P and Naraka: Bladepoint.

The teaser for this upcoming collaboration appeared on Twitter and consists of a short video showing a Wo Long player character dying to a blast of the distinctive black and white energy found in Nioh 2, before fading into that game's death screen. Previous collaborations have brought new weapons and cosmetics, but judging from this teaser the Nioh 2 crossover may bring some kind of new enemy that uses Yokai-like abilities.

You can see the full teaser below:

There’s a Hello Kitty Island Adventure update on the horizon, and that means new avatar customization options, the My Sweet Piano debut, and a new event. 1.3 arrives on November 17, 2023.

While Apple announced it, there are also details at the official Discord. As usual, the story will continue. There will be storyline quests, some mission involving a Guiding Light, and a Give & Gather Celebration to tie in with Thanksgiving and other seasonal holidays. 

However, there will also be Hello Kitty Island Adventure character additions like My Sweet Piano, visitors, and avatar customization options. My Sweet Piano will be a resident, rather than a visitor, which means the player will get to build up a friendship with her. The new avatar type wasn’t announced, but all existing ones are based on animals and creatures like birds, cats, and dogs. There will also be four more visitors, though they weren’t named.

Here are the official initial patch notes for the Hello Kitty Island Adventure update for November 17, 2023 from the Discord Announcements channel:

Bethesda announced that the next Starfield update will be put into Steam Beta starting next week. Once the new update has been tested and feedback provided by players on Steam, it will release the new update for all PC and Xbox players.

The new update will feature Nvidia DLSS support with frame generation, display and HDR controls were supported, and other optimizations, improvements, and fixes. Bethesda is allowing fans to opt-in to try the new Starfield update through the Steam Beta options on Steam.

More details about the upcoming Steam Beta update will be released at a later date. We do know it will arrive on or after November 5, 2023.

Ads for Kingdom Hearts Missing-Link are appearing on places like Facebook and Instagram and show characters and new art for the game. The ones appearing online are promoting the closed beta test.

One of the major images showing up in these advertisements looks at the player avatar options. We get to see the full-body male and female designs. Each one is wielding a Keyblade, though the designs are slightly different. They also wear white coats and hits over black shirts, purple pants, and black boots.

After a week that's seen significant layoffs at Bungie, as well as reports of a delay for Destiny 2's The Final Shape expansion, the studio has told players "we know we have lost a lot of your trust" and promised to reveal plans to "take us all out of this Darkness and into the Light."

Reports of widespread layoffs at Bungie began circulating on Monday, and were confirmed in a statement from studio CEO Pete Parsons. Bloomberg later reported around 100 employees - approximately eight percent of Bungie's 1200-strong workforce - were affected by the job cuts, and that the layoffs followed internal warnings studio revenue was 45 percent below projections due to a "sharp drop" in the popularity of Destiny 2.

Further reports have continued to paint a bleak picture of Destiny 2's fortunes; pre-orders for The Final Shape are said to be disappointing, while "good" rather than "great" feedback has reportedly lead management to delay the expansion from February to June next year.

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If you fired up your Xbox today, you might’ve seen something you didn’t expect: A darn full-screen advertisement for the latest Call of Duty game, Modern Warfare III (see on Amazon). Though Microsoft has done this before with exclusives like Starfield, it’s already rubbing some gamers the wrong way.

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Grand Theft Auto V is one of the bestselling video games of all time. It’s been released on multiple console generations and its online multiplayer component, GTA Online, is still one of the biggest games in the world. But before all that, 12 years ago today, Rockstar Games blew people’s minds and got folks hyped with…

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Call of Duty filesizes are completely out of control. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (see on Amazon), the latest in the long-running military FPS franchise recently acquired by Microsoft, consumes over 200GB of storage on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S when you add up everything it contains. The new Call of Duty…

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Silent Hill: Ascension carried the weight of the entire Silent Hill franchise, of which there hasn’t been an official installment in about a decade, and immediately fumbled it during a disastrous October 31 premiere. The series—essentially, an extended choose-your-own adventure cutscene progressed by a live…

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Some PlayStation 5 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III players looking to enjoy the game’s newly released single-player campaign are encountering a bizarre problem: The game is locking them out from playing and asking for the Modern Warfare II disc.

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Arc System Works will hold an open beta test for Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes globally on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4, according to an announcement on its Japanese website with an English translation. The open beta test client will be available from November 17, 2023, at 10 AM JST / November 16, 2023, at 8 PM ET to November 20, 2023, at 4 PM JST / 2 AM ET.

Players in the open beta will be able to try offline and online matches. The latter will feature a rollback netcode and players do not have to subscribe to PlayStation Plus. The beta version will have 23 out of 24 characters set to be playable at the full game's launch. Kuon will be the only character yet to be accessible in this build.

Arc System Works will also open digital pre-orders for the PS5 and PS4 versions of Under Night In-Birth II at the same time as the open beta release. People who purchase the Deluxe Edition will gain a 72-hour early access to the full game. While the fighting game is also slated to appear on the Switch and PC, the company has still yet to announce the pre-order dates for those platforms.

Gameloft announced plans to release Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition on Apple Arcade on December 5, 2023, the same day the game is leaving Early Access on other consoles. It will be available on devices in the Apple Arcade ecosystem, which includes iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and Mac.

Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition will be optimized for use on touch screens and give players access to the base game and the newest expansion called A Rift in Time. The Arcade Edition will receive all of the latest story updates, but due to Apple's restrictions, there will not be seasonal Star Paths or the Premium Shop for players who play it.

The latest Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash characters appeared in a new trailer, and Aoi Todo, Hanami, and Jogo will all be playable. They join the established launch roster for the game.

Of the three new fighters, one is a hero and the other two are villains. Aoi is a student at Kyoto Metropolitan Curse Technical College, rather than the Tokyo branch the main characters attend. He’s known for his incredible strength and speed. 

Both Hanami and Jogo are villains. They also worked together during the course of the series. Jogo is known for his speed and his fiery abilities. Hanami is known for plant and earth-based abilities, as well as speed and strength.

The final chapter of Noragami will have 45 pages and it’ll be in the February 2024 issue of Monthly Shonen Magazine. The release date will be January 6, 2024. [Thanks, Manga Mogura RE!]

There will be a color page in the February 2024 issue for Noragami. In total, there will be 27 volumes for the series. It’s unclear if the Adachitoka duo will continue to collaborate on future projects, or if they will release something individually. Before Noragami, they illustrated for the late Tadashi Kawashima’s Alive: The Final Evolution. This manga series ran from April 2003 to February 2010. Right after they finished, they started to work on Noragami.

News of Noragami ending first came out in mid-February 2023. At the time, we only knew that the manga would end some time in late 2023. So technically, the manga continued a little bit past its initial end date.

Ferrero U.S.A. is sponsoring a Final Fantasy VII Rebirth x Butterfinger "Game Better With Butterfinger" sweepstakes. Fans in the United States can enter for the chance to win over 600 prizes.

Prizes in the sweepstakes include an Ultimate Gaming Bundle containing a Sony OLED Bravia XR television, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Deluxe Edition game code, branded gaming chair, Hyper X Cloud headset, and a $500 USD eCheck. The sweepstakes runs from now until January 31, 2024.

By purchasing a Butterfinger, Crunch, Babe Ruth, or 100 Grand bar, players can enter their UPC code on the sweepstakes website to be entered in the drawing for one of the 632 prizes available. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth fans may also enter the sweepstakes by handwriting an entry and mailing it out. Mailed entries must be postmarked by February 1, 2024, and received by February 8, 2024. The complete rules and entry instructions can be viewed on the Official Rules page.

The following Ferrero U.S.A. products will serve as valid entries into the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth x Butterfinger sweepstakes:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is almost upon us (its campaign early access is upon us for those eager enough to have pre-ordered the game), and system requirements are pointing to an absolutely behemoth install size of more than 200GB in some cases come its full launch next Friday, 10th November - and Activision has now moved to explain what's going on.

In a statement shared on social media, the publisher blamed Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's potentially massive hard drive footprint on an "increased amount of content available Day 1", which includes open world Zombies, support for items being carried forward from Modern Warfare 2, plus map files for the current the Call of Duty: Warzone.

The good news for anyone staring at their dwindling gigabytes like they're modelling for Munch's The Scream is that Modern Warfare 3 appears to offer a decent amount of control over exactly which bits are and are not installed. "You can manage your Call of Duty files in the 'manage files' section of the COD HQ launcher menu," Activision notes. "This includes the ability to uninstall specific content you are not actively playing."

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, the latest in the long-running FPS series that's also the first back-to-back sequel in years, is almost here – in fact, if you've preordered a digital version of the game, it's already here, kinda. That's because all digital version preorders unlock early access to the Modern Warfare III campaign. That's eight days before the full release on November 10, which is when its multiplayer suite goes live. Earlier this week, publisher Activision Blizzard and developer Sledgehammer Games released the PC specs and system requirements for the game. Now, we have our hands on Modern Warfare III and can tell you what the best graphics mode is on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S and what visual settings to use. 

On November 3, 2023 at 12am Japan Time, Studio Ghibli shut down its official Twitter account. Studio Ghibli's official account was opened three years ago in order to promote the release of Hayao Miyazaki's latest film The Boy and the Heron, known as How Do You Live in Japan.

In their social media post that is now deleted alongside the account's termination, Studio Ghibli thanked everybody who followed and supported the account over the last three years. The team also stated that The Boy and the Heron's promotion will continue throughout the end of 2023 and into the New Year.

The now deleted Tweet stated the following [Thanks, Anime News Network!]:

11/3 午前0:00 をもって、スタジオジブリの公式Twitterアカウントを終了します。
宮﨑駿監督「君たちはどう生きるか」の公開へむけて3年前に始まった本アカウント、沢山の方々に支えて頂き、ありがとうございました。心より御礼申し上げます。
映画は年末年始も続きます。カヘッ

Square Enix opened pre-orders for Star Ocean The Second Story R acrylic stands on its Japanese web store, and the lineup will feature thirteen key characters from the RPG title. The company will release and ship the merchandise in early February 2024.

Here is the full list of all thirteen Star Ocean The Second Story R characters who will have their acrylic stands available for sale:

1. Claude C. Kenni
2. Rena Lanford
3. Celine Jules
4. Bowman Jeane
5. Dias Flac
6. Precis F. Neumann
7. Ashton Anchors
8. Leon D. S. Gehste
9. Opera Vectra
10. Ernest Raviede
11. Noel Chandler
12. Chisato Madison

Square Enix has been showing off various comparison shots between the original Final Fantasy VII, released on PlayStation in 1997, and 2024's Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Their latest screenshot shows how the Mog House has evolved in the PlayStation 5 reimagining. 

The Mog House in the original release of Final Fantasy VII was a tree with a giant red mushroom cap. On the house's exterior were two windows and a sign that said "MOG" in bold yellow lettering. The iconic location was also surrounded by pink, blue, and yellow flowers.

Lotte revealed a collaboration between its Koala March snack brand and Attack on Titan. It will release boxes of snacks with exclusive Attack on Titan designs to help celebrate the anime's 10th anniversary.

The box will include ten snack packages, each featuring a key Attack on Titan character. The ten characters set to appear here will be Eren Yeager, Mikasa Ackerman, Armin Arlert, Jean Kirstein, Sasha Blouse, Historia Reiss, Connie Springer, Levi Ackerman, Erwin Smith, and Hans a.k.a. Hange Zoe. Each package will also feature the snack's mascot koala getting dressed up as Eren Yeager and the Colossal Titan.

Pre-orders for the Attack on Titan Koala March box will open on the Lotte Online Shop on Monday, November 6, 2023, at noon JST. The set will be available at ￥3,880 (~$26), and a person can order up to two boxes simultaneously. Lotte will close pre-orders on November 19, 2023, or earlier if it has reached the limit of 1,500 boxes. It will start shipping the finished products in mid-December 2023.

Hey everyone! It's that time of year again, Extra Life season!

First off, if you don't know me yet, hi! I'm (Turbo)Shawn, and I've been doing social media & editing for Giant Bomb for most of the year now. More relevant to this article, I'm the captain of Team Giant Bomb for Extra Life 2023! I've been doing all the behind-the-scenes work on getting everything organized on our end for this event. (Yes, that means that if you need to talk to any of us about Extra Life stuff, I'm your guy. Feel free to reach out!)

A new WarioWare is upon us! And with it comes a whole collection of throwback Nintendo games from the recurring character, 9-Volt. WarioWare: Move It is full of truly surprising games that take advantage of the Switch's unique control options, but it's arguably always the most fun to see what retro Nintendo games make it into any WarioWare collection.

Join Brian Shea and me as we go through all of them and even see what some of the game's look like when played at their second and third tier.

Follow the link for Game Informer's WarioWare: Move It review.

Head over to Game Informer's YouTube channel for more previews, reviews, and discussions of new and upcoming games. Watch other episodes of New Gameplay Today right here.

Fortnite Chapter 4: Season OG goes live in a few hours once its downtime is complete, and it brings players back to 2018's Chapter 1 map, with throwback weapons, loot, vehicles, and more, too. While it's technically Season 5 of Fortnite Chapter 4, which follows the previous Last Resort season, developer Epic Games is calling it Season OG, and it makes sense considering how much of Fortnite 2018 is making an appearance.

The throwback nostalgia continues throughout the season because each new update brings with it a different phase of Fortnite Chapter 1's past, starting with Season 5. That means weapons like the Assault Rifle and Pump Shotgun, and vehicles like Shopping Carts, will be featured in both Zero Build and regular Battle Royale Fortnite. 

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: The Simpsons, dressing up as a cleric, and city building.

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

I didn't play much of the original Cities Skylines, much to my regret, but I am a sucker for city-building games. To me, the idea of waking up at the weekend to lazily map out a new city - while still in my pyjamas and sipping coffee - is the stuff dreams are made of. So last weekend I did exactly that.

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I, for one, am thrilled that we are currently seeing a spate of weird and wonderful games set in Middle-earth. Although these games take creative risks that don't always work out, it's fascinating to see how developers can interpret Tolkien's legendarium in ways that are a little bit unexpected. And it's particularly exciting when a game focuses on a specific location or people in Middle-earth to really explore them in detail. (Pencil that cosy Hobbit game releasing next year into your diaries.)

Which brings us to The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria - a game that, as Gimli describes it in the introduction, allows the dwarves to tell their own story from their perspective. Set after the fall of Sauron and the destruction of the One Ring, Gimli has called for dwarves across Middle-earth to help him reclaim the underground kingdom of Khazad-dûm from darkness and shadow. You play as one of the members of this expedition, ready to help Gimli swap out hordes of orcs for hoards of treasure. But before you can enter Moria in an organised and orderly fashion, a mysterious explosion separates you from the rest of the group. You (and any co-op friends) wake up alone in the dark - unable to get out, and with no sign of Gimli. You venture forth to find the rest of the expedition, uncovering the secrets of Moria along the way. And so the stage is set for a game that blends survival-crafting mechanics with the lore and mystique of Tolkien's Middle-earth.

Sony has acquired iSize, a UK-based company using AI technology to improve video delivery.

The company aims to deliver bitrate savings and quality improvements for the media and entertainment industry, including allowing video to be streamed at a lower bitrate and using AI to upscale to higher quality.

"The acquisition provides SIE with significant expertise in applying machine learning to video processing, which will benefit a range of our R&D efforts as well as our video and streaming services," reads a press release on the acquisition.

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Fortnite has gone back to basics today with the long-awaited return of its original, classic Fortnite island map - albeit for a limited time only.

Still, that hasn't stopped the game's celebrity crossovers continuing - and next up is Millie Bobby Brown's Eleven from Stranger Things, who is set to debut in Fortnite's item shop in the coming days.

Already, images of Eleven's character skin and assorted items are floating around the internet, allowing you to take a look at what you'll be forking out for next.

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Like a Dragon developer RGG Studio has revealed Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name was created in half a year, as it was originally conceived as DLC for the next main entry to the series, Infinite Wealth.

Gaiden is a shorter spin-off to the longer campaigns of the main Like a Dragon games, and sees gameplay return to the action brawling roots of the series.

In a new interview with Automaton, studio director Masayoshi Yokoyama and chief producer Hiroyuki Sakamoto said Gaiden was made in half a year, with the former seemingly making a slight jest at Bayonetta creator Hideki Kamiya.

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Alan Wake 2 released last month, with the promise of more content to come after launch. This will include a New Game Plus mode, known as The Final Draft, which will add some kind of alternative story.

The game's two DLCs - Night Springs and The Lake House - have also been teased by developer Remedy. Both of these are due to arrive sometime next year, and while the Alan Wake 2 team has alluded to what will be included, dataminers have managed to dig even deeper into the game and found more details about what's next.

Please note, there will be spoilers for Alan Wake 2 and its relation to the Remedy Connected Universe below. If you are keen to keep the game as much of a surprise as possible, this is your cue to head elsewhere.

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Shoot-em-up Radiant Silvergun is now available on Steam for the first time.

The release was announced back in August but a specific date was unknown.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Treasure classic, first released in Japanese arcades in 1998 and ported to the Sega Saturn.

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There's a new Blizzard game available today, very slightly earlier than planned.

Warcraft Rumble is the company's new free-to-play tower defence strategy title for mobile devices, featuring a cast of familiar faces from the World of Warcraft universe.

Originally announced last year as Arclight Rumble, Blizzard's latest effort arrived on app stores last night, a day ahead of this evening's big BlizzCon opening ceremony.

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Lords of the Fallen has received a new patch with over a hundred changes, including buffing various bosses.

Players complained that some of the game's bosses were too easy - this is a challenging Soulslike after all - but now the likes of the Sanctified Huntress, Griefbound, the Sundered One, and "a boss at the bottom of a very dark place" will be more formidable.

What's more, the Scarlet Shadow has been made more difficult to cheese - that's the reaper who chases players in Umbral. Now, he no longer takes fall damage and players can no longer hide and shoot him from above.

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