February 2024

Sorry to get all TikTok MBA on you, but if you're employing the rule of three in your marketing, you really want to make that third element count. It needs to sing. It needs to be explosive, or at least thoroughly radioactive. More than anything, it needs to upend any breezy certainties that elements one and two have lulled you into. It needs to be an agent of rapid recontextualisation.

Thank you for attending my TED Talk. And look at the giant screen behind me and you'll see Ultros, a Metroidvania that mints pure gold from the rule of three. What are we in for here? Action, exploration, and gardening. Wait. Gardening? What? Where am I?

The first two of these elements, in Ultros' case, are relatively easy to get your head around. It's the third that, for me, took a while to make its influence - and its fascinating impact - clear. So let's discuss all of these pieces in turn. But first, let's talk about the art, because, the rule of three aside, the art is the primal draw here.

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Ultros is one of those games that's born to stick in the memory. Not only is it one of the most visually vibrant games of the year so far with its neon colour palette that's an instant-KO-to-my-eyeballs, but the way it twists and rewires core tenets of the Metroidvania rulebook also make it one of the boldest and most daring examples of its genre. I'll say it now: it doesn't always stick the landing. But if there's one thing Ultros does constantly throughout its 15-odd hour runtime, it's that it's always, always interesting. And for that, it has my respect - even if by the time the (first) end credits rolled, I was ready to never touch it ever again.

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The demo for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has been out a week and, beyond sharing piano covers, now players are arguing about yellow paint.

It's a familiar trope in many video games: essentially, developers indicate the correct path by adding bright yellow paint to scalable ledges and ladders.

It's also a debate that has raged for years. When the Resident Evil 4 remake demo was released, players complained about yellow paint being used on breakable objects. Now the discourse has erupted again.

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Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Game Studios has apologised to players for the "frustrating" issues they're facing in the game and said it was now "crucial" its team get some sleep.

The sentiment was relayed in a note posted on Steam following server maintenance yesterday, in which the developer released three "rapid-fixes". The issues addressed during maintenance were related to logins, server capacity, and progression and rewards.

However, the issues haven't been fully resolved and Arrowhead said it is "doing our utmost to make it right". "In order to do so," the studio added, "right now it is crucial that our team gets some sleep and we will be back at this again in a few hours".

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It's the middle of February, and the games are afoot. This week brings at least one major news event in the shape of a "business update" from Microsoft about "our vision for the future of Xbox", which is widely rumoured to be the announcement that first-party Xbox titles will come to rival consoles. Why is this of interest to us, a PC gaming site? Well, because console gaming can't help but shape the weather for PC gaming; more specifically, Microsoft's alleged multiplatform ambitions seem to reflect the plateauing of Game Pass subscription growth, which has become the cornerstone of the Xbox biz.

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Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is getting a new leaderboard thanks to a "major unintended bug" which caused the Burn status to scale incorrectly.

Rocksteady became aware of the bug when players began reaching Mastery Levels during the postgame "beyond our wildest expectations", the developer said on the Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Discord server.

"As Mastery levels increased, Burn's damage also increased," Rocksteady explained, adding this was not "what the game was balanced for at launch". The developer is fixing the scaling bug, it said, and once the fix is in place a new leaderboard will begin.

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When is the magical turning point in time that something considered old becomes cool again? I ask because I just enabled a CRT filter in Skald: Against the Black Priory and I squealed with joy to see it. Distortedly curved edges: phwoar - who knew? What's strange is that I can distinctly remember when I binned CRTs off in favour of flat screens, wondering in wide-eyed awe at the visible corners of my screen. I didn't think then that I'd ever go back. And yet now: squeal! So old it's cool again.

It's not the only element of old that Skald: Against the Black Priory plays on. Really, the whole thing is dressed to evoke exactly that feeling, specifically for the C64 crowd. If you played an RPG there, or thereabouts, you'll know this. You'll know the turn-based combat, you'll know the text-driven adventuring, you'll know the interface with the empty spaces, which yearn for companions to fill them. You'll also know the look, and as with the CRT filter, the game doesn't hold back - there's even the option to enable a faithful C64 colour palette if you wish.

But there's a cleverness underneath. This isn't a one-to-one recreation because, if it were, chances are you'd find it quite annoying to play. What's appealing is the emotional memory; your mind has worn away the aggravating edges of old experiences over time, like a stone tumbling smooth in the sea. That's what these retro games have to be: smoothed memories.

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UPDATE 13/2/24: The BBC has told Eurogamer there are no "current" plans for Doctor Who within Fortnite.

Yesterday, Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies appeared to pour cold water on a long-rumoured collaboration between the Beeb's top sci-fi show and Epic Games' metaverse. Now, the BBC has confirmed it.

"We have nothing in current development in Fortnite," a BBC spokesperson told Eurogamer today.

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Helldivers 2 is yet another example of a predominantly co-op game being a victim of its own success. Since its launch, the servers have buckled under the weight of keen conscripts ready to exterminate some bugs. There's been frequent disconnects, matchmaking issues, and post-game rewards not showing up for some folks. But Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt has offered some comfort, saying that they've popped three hotfixes live to fix some of these issues.

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There is a lot of advice out there about how to maintain a healthy relationship with your significant other. Communicate effectively, set aside time to spend with each other, things like that. Having been in a relationship with my partner for nine years, I like to think we are pretty good at these things. Not much can…

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I'm a very visual person. The first thing I notice about any kind of medium is how good it looks. I've put down comic books, games, and movies I otherwise liked because the art didn't hit right. Inversely, I've also enjoyed things I otherwise may not have because I love the style. Although, of course, the ideal would be good art and something enjoyable. Luckily, Ultros fell on the high end of that spectrum.

Ultros is a psychedelic sci-fi Metroidvania that takes place inside something called The Sarcophagus. The main character seemingly crash-landed on this entity or vessel. As a result, she becomes entangled in the overarching narrative of events unfolding there. From a storyline perspective, that's really as in depth as I feel I can go without starting to spoil things.

The instant appeal of the art style cannot be overstated. I don't think I've ever seen a game lean this heavily into a psychedelic aesthetic like Ultros. The world, the characters, and the UI all stand out and are simply dripping with style. Such excellence is unsurprising given Niklas Åkerblad, also known as El Huervo, spearheaded the art direction. For those unaware, Åkerblad did the critically acclaimed cover art for both Hotline Miami games. However, there are accessibility options to turn down saturation or blur the background. This way even if you feel the colors and everything on screen is too much, you can adjust to your taste. I always appreciate when devs include this sort of forethought when designing their games.

HoYoVerse offered insight into two new Honkai Impact 3rd characters, as it briefly went over the Battlesuits for Coralie 6626 Planck and Erdos Helia. These are called Valkyrie Blastmetal and Valkyrie Boltstorm, respectively, and each one is an A-rank unit.

Coralie is going to be a free Battlesuit, as you can get her by playing Part 2 Chapter I, but she’ll also be in Battlesuit Supply. She’s a PSY character who deals fire damage with her Rocket Hammer. Her basic attack is capable of a three-hit combo and is called Gently Wakes Up Sleeping Hearts. Her skill is Secretly Sweeping Away Obstacles and hits enemies multiple times either on the ground or in the air, and this can be weapon-enhanced if she has the Hammering Feel buff. Her Ultimate is Quietly Blasting Open Shut Doors and deals AOE damage while also possibly dealing more damage if the player mashes the action button. She also has the Astral Ring Skill Carinae: Secretly Relying on the Rite of Oblivion, which uses Quantum Mech Energy to hit harder.

There’s yet another new Shonen Jump manga series to ready, with Super Psychic Policeman Chojo now available worldwide. People can read it in English on MangaPlus or Viz Media, as this is a simulpub release. 

As the title suggests, this is something of a buddy cop comedy with supernatural elements. Meguru Chojo is the “super psychic policeman” in question, and his partner who we follow in the first chapter is the ordinary, but extremely capable, Nao Ippongi. The game begins by explaining that psychic investigators use telepathic and precognitive powers to solve crimes, and Meguru is someone who ended up as a cop instead of with the CIA or FBI. The two are stationed in Kabukicho, and Nao quickly learns the downside of working with such an individual and that the team takes “absolutely no pride in” him. The rest of the chapter goes over Nao learning more about this “special” individual and how to work with him.

This is the second new manga to appear in Shonen Jump in February 2024. Astro Babyalso made its debut. It also features supernatural elements, as a strange virus tied to a meteorite causes abnormal, cannibalistic behavior in those affected and the lead is a young soldier protecting the baby of a woman he loves.

If you’ve played the original Final Fantasy VII, you know the game ends on a bittersweet note. Sure, the day is saved by the remnants of the revolutionary group Avalanche, but as illustrated in the film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, the gang is left to deal with a lot of residual trauma from their journey.…

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Rachell Hofstetter always wants to do more. With four million subscribers on YouTube, the streamer known as Valkyrae has become one of the top women creators in gaming since she started back in 2015. Viewers can’t get enough of her bubbly personality and quirky antics, devouring her streams as she trash-talks in Valora…

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Every weekend, indie devs show off current work on Twitter's #screenshotsaturday tag. And every Monday, I bring you a selection of these snaps and clips. This week, my eye has been caught by high-speed platforming, a creative use of your own corpse, a contribution to the yellow paint discourse, and more. Check out these attractive and interesting indie games!

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You may not know his name, but Richard Wells is one of the most-heard voices in video games - and now he's blowing up on TikTok.

Wells' TikTok account, which he created last Friday, now has over 17m views - mostly on his first video, where he reveals himself as the voice of video gaming's PEGI logos.

Yes, Wells voiced the "PEGI 12" and "PEGI 18" logos that play before video game trailers - and now, he's told fans he was only paid €200 (£170) years ago to do it.

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Former lead designer and developer on Dead Cells Sébastien Benard has called the decision to end development on the game "the worst imaginable asshole move" by publisher Motion Twin.

Benard worked on Dead Cells until late 2019, before establishing his own one-man studio called Deepnight. Now, he's posted his thoughts on Dead Cells' development being ended on the game's Discord server, after being asked for his opinion (as spotted by PCGamesN).

After a quick check by Eurogamer, Benard's posts no longer seem to be available on the server at the time of writing, though many users are still discussing what he wrote.

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In this week's DF Direct Weekly, we spend some quality time with Helldivers 2, get to grips with the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth demo and say a lot of positive things about the upcoming Penny's Big Breakaway - but discussion is dominated by the big Microsoft story. Just what's going on with its multi-platform plans? Why didn't the Xbox team provide immediate clarity and shut down rumours that have clearly spiralled out of control? If a 'business update' is coming this week, does that mean that some or all of the rumours are true?

The rumours in question are suggesting that a number of Xbox-exclusive titles are on their way to other platforms. On the face of it, that's nothing new. A number of Xbox properties have transitioned across to rival platforms - including PlayStation. Acquired IPs such as Minecraft and Call of Duty have always been multi-platform and will continue to be. The notion of lower profile games such as Hi-Fi Rush or Pentiment moving over to other consoles also shouldn't be that much of a big deal. Indeed, by exposing more users to these games, Microsoft may even gain some converts to its ecosystem - whether it's on console or PC.

The bone of contention appears to be its higher profile exclusives, with the likes of Halo and Indiana Jones mentioned - and that's caused a spectacular backlash, particularly amongst the Xbox influencers on Twitter/X who have relationships with Xbox execs. The theory, as I understand it, is this: if the crown jewels of the Xbox experience are available on PlayStation, why would anyone need an Xbox? Buying a PlayStation would offer access to the best of both worlds, negating the need to buy an Xbox in the first place. In turn, this has led to conjecture that Microsoft may even exit the hardware market.

The Thaumaturge will now launch slightly later than planned, on 4th March, despite work on the game being complete.

Writing on social media today, publisher 11 Bit Studios said it had actively chosen to delay the game due to "February's busy launch period". This month's releases include Ubisoft's Skull and Bones (on the 16th) and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth (on the 29th).

"The game is complete, but we want to give it space so it can be enjoyed the way we believe it deserves," the publisher wrote in a post on X. "See you in 1905 Warsaw and thank you for your patience!"

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Palworld has its Pokémon (of the legally distinct variety); Ark has its dinosaurs; Enshrouded is like a third-person action-adventure in a survival game skin; Conan is Conan; Valheim immediately taps into the Viking fantasy; but even after eight or so hours with Inflexion Games' upcoming survival and crafting adventure Nightingale, it's not so easy to define its thing.

But let's start with the fae; in Nightingale, Inflexion – a studio founded by former BioWare bigwig Aaryn Flynn - has conjured up an alternative history of magic and Victoriana that's at least partially indebted to Susanna Clarke's sprawling novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Magic in Nightingale's version of Victorian-era Earth is, thanks to humanity's early brush with the fae, both real and commonplace, and Nightingale - the pioneering city of magical research and portal travel that gives the game its name - was the pride of mankind until calamity struck and the world was engulfed in a deadly miasma. Some attempted to escape through Nightingale's portals, but when the network collapsed, they were catapulted into distant fae realms – and you as a player count yourself in this unlucky group known as Realmwalkers – forced to fend for themselves in hostile climes as they seek a way home.

Sega offered a better look at the digital Demon Slayer board game Demon Slayer: Sweet the Board in a new trailer. It highlights playable characters, gameplay, and some of the minigames available.

Things begin by showing off some of the playable characters. We then see them navigating a few boards as they go through some of the turns. Like a digital board game like Mario Party, this Demon Slayer installment will have players limit how many turns will be played, with the footage here showing 10 turn games. After that, it moves on to the character select screen to show the full cast.

Here’s the full list of characters shown in the character selection portion of the trailer:

• Giyu Tomioka
• Gyomei Himejima
• Inosuke Hashibira
• Kyojuro Rengoku
• Mitsuri Kanroji
• Muichiro Tokito
• Obanai Iguro

Square Enix teased new art of the FFXIV Scions of the Seventh Dawn characters Y’shtola, Urianger, and Thancred. All three designs involve their updated looks as of patch 6.55, leading into Dawntrail, and are drawn by Yusuke Mogi.

The Urianger art from FFXIV patch 6.55 was the first to appear. It shows him in his Lithomancer attire, and he has his cards spread out in front of him in the image.

The Thancred FFXIV art appeared after that. It showed him as a Gunbreaker, which has been his role for a number of expansions.

Helldivers 2, the third-person shooter that launched on PS5 and PC on February 8, is enjoying a fair bit of popularity. It rocketed to the top of Steam charts shortly after launch, and it quickly soared past God of War’s top concurrent player count to become PlayStation’s biggest PC launch. It’s so popular, in fact,…

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A new report claims Xbox boss Phil Spencer told employees that Microsoft has no plans to exit the console business. This comes during a large online firestorm around Xbox and its future following rumors that some big exclusives might land on PlayStation 5.

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Watch out, Final Fantasy VII fans. It looks like clips and details about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth are starting to leak out onto the internet. If you’re looking forward to the game and want to go in without any spoilers beyond the incredibly spoiler-filled trailer Square put out at its PlayStation State of Play, log…

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Marvel Studios is only releasing one movie this year—but, from the looks of it, it’s going to be unforgettable. That movie, of course, is Deadpool & Wolverine, which brings the R-rated, fourth-wall-breaking hero from Fox’s X-Men Universe into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Ryan Reynolds stars and, this time, he’s…

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From the moment protagonist Squall Leonhart is dragged onto the dance floor by a headstrong girl in the opening hours of Final Fantasy VIII, I knew it was love. I would grow to adore this game and appreciate it despite its flaws, and much of that was because of the central story of Squall and Rinoa. In the 25 years…

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Twas brillig, and the RPS editors did gyre and gimble in the wabe: all mimsy were the studio executives, and the guides writers outgrabe. If you’re still reading, congratulations, you’ve either got a dangerously high tolerance for bad literary jokes or you’re really eager to hear about Nightingale, the new survival sim from Inflexion, which launches into early access on 20th February. A quick recap on Nightingale, in case you missed our early access preview today: it's a strongly British-influenced "gaslamp fantasy" experience in which players travel alone or in groups between procedurally generated fairy realms using magic portals. You can build bases in each Realm, go on story quests and hunt the wildlife for crafting materials.

Last week, RPS adventurers Edders, Kiera, Jeremy, Ollie and myself had a chance to play co-op with Aaryn Flynn, Inflexion’s CEO and former general manager at BioWare, while chatting to him about the game over Discord. The resulting, not entirely planned group interview lasted two hours and consisted mostly of people yelling at each other about ice ammo and tree monsters, but we did find time for some proper Q&A. Please find below an abbreviated transcript.

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When I first saw Never Grave: The Witch And The Curse rising up the Steam Next Fest charts at the end of last week, I thought, "Oh! That's a neat Hollow Knight-looking Metroivanida roguelike, I'll definitely give that a go." And having played its demo over the weekend, I can confirm: it's certainly an intriguing little thing that I'll be keen to keep an eye on when it launches into early access, possibly sometime next month.

The biggest surprise was that, despite its very Hollow Knight-looking visuals, it actually plays more like Dead Cells in practice. Instead of being a sentient lump of flesh able to inhabit infinite bodies, you're a magical witch's hat that can possess, discard and rematerialise your chosen sack of limbs at the touch of a button. The second thing that surprised me was that it also has quite a substantial base/village building aspect to it on the side, and the third - well, perhaps this isn't so much of a surprise given everything I've just said, because it also turns out this is the next game from Palworld developers Pocketpair. Yep, it all makes a bit more sense now.

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I remember reading about The Grannies a while back. They're a group of game devs based in Melbourne who formed a gang (the titular Grannies) of older people in Rockstars rootin', tootin' cowboy RPG Red Dead Redemption 2 - specifically Red Dead Online. In the pursuit of fun, The Grannies, using a glitch known to a lot of the community, broke through the invisible walls in the game's wild west and into another, wilder west - a landscape nobody was really meant to see.

Marie Foulston, a curator who specialises in installations focused on video games, made a short documentary film about them and what they saw in 2019. Now V Buckenham (who has made many things, but may be known to most as the creator of Cheap Bots Done Quick!) to present The Grannies to watch for free online, in an immersive website experience that itslef looks like a glitching out landscape.

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"Banishers took a while to kick in," I wrote in the RPS group chat last week, "but I fought a monster made of angry witch-hunting jam last night." It was a pivotal boss fight about half way through Don't Nod's ghost hunting action-adventure RPG Banishers: Ghosts Of New Eden, and typical of the over-the-top, slightly ridiculous, but entirely earnest drama of the game that joyfully pulls you along. Don't Nod - who I am starting to suspect make their magic teen angsthologies to fund their real passion for "grimdark grown-up fantasy that you sort of suspect should be a book series" - have followed up 2018's third-person action effort Vampyr with this new semi-epic.

Banishers has a lot in common with the interwar bloodsucker, including methodical investigations and stacking moral choices, but is a much more accomplished effort. Banishers combines a sweeping, tragic love story with some very decent swashbuckling, shooting possessed skeletons in the face, and being disappointed at Puritans. A perfect game, some may say. I'd elevator-pitch it to you as a sort of goth Uncharted where you find-and-replace "treasure" with "ghosts".

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The major thing Inflexion's fantasy survival sim Nightingale gets right is that it makes procedural generation feel like sorcery. "Procgen" has become a ubiquitous concept in game design and especially survival game design, and I fear we've all lost sight of how magical it is to summon a landscape full of idiosyncratic flourishes from a hidden dataset. It's partly, in fairness, that many semi-randomised settings feel indistinct, smooshed together with little of the character you'd get from a "hand-made" environment and setting. Nightingale slices through the ennui in a couple of ways.

One is that this is a relatively storied and text-driven survival experience, with a self-summoning fairy narrator, Puck, who immediately buries you in Shakespearean turns of phrase as he weaves the history of a multiple-dimensional universe of "Fae" realms, roamed by creatures of Irish, English and Scottish myth and legend. I'm not sure Puck will be everybody's cup of tea as principal quest-giver and narrator - according to Inflexion boss Aaryn Flynn, some early players have struggled to make head or tail of his dialogue. But he helps conjure up an eldritch mood that sets Nightingale apart from most genre fantasies, including the Dragon Age titles Flynn once worked on at BioWare.

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As a big fan of moody first-person games where you follow procedures to do a job, I'm quite interested in the recent announcement of Threshold. Made by a former Arkane level designer, it's about a train maintenance job at a border post atop the world's tallest mountain, where the air is so thin you need to huff top-ups from cans. Concrete information on Threshold is a bit thin at this point but I can tell you that you have a bucket and some planks, so what more do you need to know? Check out the announcement trailer, below.

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Last week, Xbox head Phil Spencer announced a “Future of Xbox” event, which we now know is taking place on Thursday, February 15. Speculation has run rampant about what the event entails amid rumors that several first-party Xbox title are making their way to other platforms, with some believing this event will confirm those reports. On the extreme end, others believe Spencer may announce the end of Xbox as a console platform altogether. According to one report, that may not be the case.

Inverse journalist Shannon Liao reported in her weekly gaming newsletter that Spencer held a company town hall last Tuesday and told employees there are no plans to stop making Xbox consoles. Furthermore, it was stated that “Xboxes would continue to be part of a strategy that involves multiple kinds of devices.” Microsoft did not respond to Liao’s request for comment.

The first Tomb Raider was released in 1996, nearly 30 years ago, and in a few days, developer/publisher Aspyr is bringing the original trilogy back with some much-needed upgrades. The controls have been modernized and the games look better, but thankfully, the original versions of the three games are available as part of the package as well. Join Brian Shea and me as we check out the first levels of the three games, discuss what works about them, and where there are some shortcomings.

Tomb Raider I-III Remastered releases for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC, and Switch on February 14.

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.

Independent Vtuber Dokibird released her first schedule on social media, and it includes collabs with fellow Vtubers Unnämed, Dtto, and Amatsuka Uto. This is her first set schedule since she returned with a February 7, 2024 stream. However, Dokibird cut her Neopets stream short due to Nijisanji EN making an announcement through its talents to consult with her lawyer.

The first collab stream will be on February 15, 2024. Both dtto and Uto will appear with her to play Apex Legends Ranked. That will happen at 7pm PT/10pm ET.

The second of the two Dokibird collabs will be on February 16, 2024. That’s when Unnämed will appear alongside Dokibird. That stream is dubbed “Inside the Backrooms.” It will happen at 6pm PT/9pm ET.

Here’s the full schedule for Dokibird for the week of February 12, 2024:

• February 12, 2024 at 5pm PT/8pm ET: Neopets - Cut short due to needing to consult her legal team.

Two Urusei Yatsura figures of Lum appeared at WonHobby 38, with one being a PLAMAX plastic model kit figure and the other a Nendoroid. The two are at various stages of development.

The PLAMAX Lum is the one that is further along. It appeared as a painted prototype at the event. It features the heroine in her trademark Oni bikini.

Here’s how that one is looking:

As for the Nendoroid, it seems like it will show Lum in her school uniform. She wears this once she gets to Earth and starts living there and attending Ataru’s school.

After over a week of swirling rumors that have sent the Xbox community into meltdown over the future of the console and its exclusive games, the company is ready to clear the air on what’s to come. The Xbox Twitter account posted today that it will be releasing a special edition of the Official Xbox Podcast on…

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Super Bowl LVIII, with its thrilling overtime finish and luxury box shots of Taylor Swift and Blake Lively, has come and gone, and so now we must honor those generous corporate patrons who shell out millions so Tom Brady can stay on television. This is all we have, for the staff of The A.V. Club has spent far more…

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