Eurogamer

Sea of Thieves players of a certain vintage may well recall Wanda.

Wanda was a weaponsmith on Golden Sands outpost back in year one, as unremarkable a background character as any of Sea of Thieves' NPC shopkeepers. One day, though, something strange occurred. Word began to spread among players that Wanda was behaving shiftily; she forgot her name, lost her voice, and started hiding her arm behind her back whenever anyone was in range. More inquisitive sorts thought to catch her unawares, scaling atop her shack to peer through a window unseen. That's when the truth was revealed; Wanda was undergoing a horrific transformation, slowly turning skeletal as the weeks progressed. Things only got stranger from there; pungent plumes of smoke could be seen rising from her chimney, a mysterious companion was spotted lurking at the back of her store, and then she was gone.

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Free games! It's hard to pass up on such an offer. In Epic's bid to steal market share from Steam, the Fortnite and Unreal Engine developer has been continuously giving away games since the launch of its Game Store.

Right on schedule, Epic has announced next week's free title: Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair.

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If you're planning to upgrade your phone this month and the Google Pixel 6 or Google Pixel 6 Pro has been on your radar, you can land some great data deals over at Mobiles.co.uk right now.

The cheapest Google Pixel 6 deal at Mobiles.co.uk offers 30GB of data plus unlimited minutes and texts with Vodafone, from just £23 per month. It's worth noting these offers do come with upfront fees, but this will at least reduce your monthly costs.

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IO Interactive has today announced a series of free upgrades for Steam owners of Hitman 3, following fan criticism of the game's arrival there last week.

Steam users have review-bombed the game and complained it should not have released with the same £49.99 price tag it launched with on the Epic Games Store back in January 2021.

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Amazon has announced its Prime Gaming offerings for February.

Its own free-to-play MMO action RPG Lost Ark is due out on 11th February, and Prime members can get exclusive in-game items.

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Epic Games has issued a set of stats on its store's growth last year, and detailed upcoming improvements due to arrive in 2022.

The PC marketplace increased its registered users by 34 million in 2021, up to 194 million total, with a daily active user peak of 31.1 million.

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As we've gotten closer to Horizon Forbidden West's release, Sony has ramped up its barrage of marketing announcements with videos and blog posts highlighting various aspects of the game.

Perhaps more interestingly, Sony has today released the first footage of Horizon Forbidden West running on the PlayStation 4 Pro.

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Giftable Atari NFTs are being released for the company's 50th anniversary.

Produced by Republic Realm, active developers in the metaverse and NFT ecosystem, the "GFTs" are giftable NFTs that "unwrap" on a specific date with a "surprise" inside.

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Two Point Campus now has a release date: 17th May.

It's coming out across PC and consoles: Xbox, PlayStation and Switch. It's also coming to Game Pass on day one for both Xbox and PC.

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Sony's Uncharted movie is nearly upon us, and today we got one final glimpse at the long-awaited Tom Holland adventure.

This final trailer comes just two weeks ahead of the film's 11th February release date and is perhaps our best look at the overall project to date.

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Car combat game Destruction AllStars has had a bit of a bumpy ride - and now looks set to go free-to-play.

After originally planning Destruction AllStars as a £70 PlayStation 5 exclusive, Sony reconsidered the game's launch plans and eventually released it as part of PlayStation Plus. Since then, it has been sold for £17.99.

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A cyberattack on a major Minecraft tournament was so substantial it took down the internet of Andorra.

The European microstate, bordered by France to the north and Spain to the south, suffered an internet outage when hackers targeted the tournament, which led to the elimination of Team Andorra (thanks, IGN).

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Nintendo has had limited luck in the mobile space, but Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp stands as one of its continued success stories.

Today, more than four years after the campsite sim first went live, a fresh update has added several new features and another optional monthly subscription. The number of animals you can invite to your campsite has been doubled from eight to 16, and the game now hosts a Pocket Planner diary where you can track in-game events.

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With the imminent release of the first batch of Steam Decks to the public, Valve has quietly been working behind the scenes to optimise the experience to make gaming on the handheld machine as accessible as possible.

Those optimisations appear to go as far as updating older titles. Valve has released a beta update for Half-Life 2 that gives the game's user interface a facelift.

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Wolfstride reminds me, in a powerful but rather hard to pin down way, of Invitation to Love, the make-believe soap opera that everyone's watching in the first season of Twin Peaks. I've heard the game described as an anime like Cowboy Bebop, or even an actual soap opera, and that's true. But there's a freedom here, a willingness to contain chaos and clashing elements, that outstrips even the wilder animes or least rigorous soap. It feels like the anime that someone watches inside an anime. Each time you catch a glimpse it's a bit zanier, a bit more willing to go there. It has the wonderful power of the raised eyebrow. Everything is serious, but nothing is too serious.

You may have caught a glimpse of Wolfstride and thought: cool! A game about turn-based mech battles. Half right. Wolfstride is half that game. The other half of the time it's a game about what it's like to be in the business of turn-based mech battles. You patch up your crappy mech as best you can. You earn money for bigger repairs. You train your pilot to learn new skills. You choose a load out to take into battle after learning as much as you can about your opponent. And you also bomb around a town, a greyscale pixel burg built of a few locations - a bar, of course, a scrapyard, of course. A hospital, a convenience store. You know the deal.

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PlayStation's London Studio is working on a new PS5 online game.

The studio is best known for its work on Singstar and Blood and Truth, which utilised the microphone and VR peripherals respectively.

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eBay has extended its Authenticity Guarantee service to trading cards.

Now individual cards sold over $750 in the US will be authenticated, with a plan to expand to include graded, autograph and patch cards sold for over $250 by mid-2022.

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Latest (27.01.21): In the UK, Amazon UK dropped exclusive Xbox Series X bundles in stock including an Xbox Series X with a physical copy of Far Cry 6 Limited Edition for £483.98, and a bundle which includes an Xbox Series X with Back 4 Blood for £473.98. These have now sold out but we'll let you know as soon as any other restocks go live.

Keep your eyes on the retailer list below for the latest stock updates on Xbox Series X and deals info for the Series S.

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Microsoft will make changes to how it handles auto-renewal for subscriptions to Xbox Live Gold and Game Pass after agreeing to a set of commitments with the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

The regulator is currently investigating auto-renewal practices from the big three platform holders: Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft.

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The infamous, long-ago cancelled Star Wars 1313 has surfaced again, this time via a chunk of previously-unseen gameplay featuring Boba Fett.

A fresh video featuring footage of the bounty hunter was uploaded to YouTube today - well timed with the ongoing release of The Book of Boba Fett show!

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Same-sex marriage is being added to Crusader Kings 3 in its next update.

While the base game allows players to express same-sex attraction, it's not possible to formalise this in marriage.

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SayGames, the company behind a widely-criticised clone of top indie game Unpacking, has apologised.

"Unpacking Master", as its rip-off was titled, hit the headlines this week after it topped app store download charts - despite it being a microtransaction-fulled asset flip of the original.

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The recent Mortal Kombat movie is getting a sequel, Deadline reports.

Jeremy Slater, head writer on the upcoming Disney+ series Moon Knight, is on board to write the film.

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Taiwanese indie gaming has come a long way in a short time. It's only five years since Red Candle released Detention, a surreal and harrowing expedition into the 'white terror' of political purges and martial law that dominates the island's 20th century history, and - I'm pretty sure - the first game of Taiwanese origin I'd ever played. Since then, I've discovered that more and more of the indie games I've been enjoying have been made in Taiwan. Detention now feels like a spark that led to a quiet explosion.

The growth has been equally evident to those in the midst of it. "When I first attended the indie game section at Taipei Game Show five years ago," Scott Chen, co-founder of Taiwanese developer SIGONO, tells me. "There were only around 15 Taiwanese booths, and this was the biggest game convention in Taiwan! Now there would be over 50 local teams showcasing their work among the 100 or so booths, and the overall quality has gone up significantly."

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Following a bit of a delay at the end of last year, Steam Deck is almost upon us, with Valve now confirming its highly anticipated portable gaming PC will begin shipping on 28th February.

Given the manufacturing constraints that continue to dog the tech industry amidst the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Valve will be disseminating Steam Deck - as it confirmed when its reservations system opened last July - in waves throughout 2022 and beyond.

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With February (you may better know it by its more common name, Elden Ring month) less than a week away, it's time to do the subscription service additions dance once more. First up is PlayStation Plus, with Sony now confirming Planet Coaster, UFC 4, and Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep as February's library additions.

It's a pleasingly eclectic bunch, that, starting with Frontier Developments' Planet Coaster, which joins PlayStation Plus for PlayStation 5 only. It's a game that seeks to serve up a heap of classic theme park management action, but even speaking as a huge management sim fan that's happy to hoover up anything the genre has to offer, Planet Coaster comes up disappointingly short if you're looking for a tycoon game with mechanical depth and interesting strategic play. Where it shines, though, is in its immensely powerful creation tools, giving players everything they need to build some truly breathtaking parks and rides.

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No Man's Sky studio Hello Games is bringing its much-loved Joe Danger series back to iOS with various enhancements after an earlier operating system update left the games unplayable.

Joe Danger Touch and its sequel Joe Danger Infinity (which initially came to iOS in 2013 and 2014 respectively) both fell foul of Apple's decision to end support for 32-bit apps with iOS11 back in 2017. However, over the last few years, Hello Games has, as detailed in its new announcement, been tinkering on the titles to get them playable again.

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The start of a new year means many tech companies are announcing new products, which in turn means last year's products like TVs get discounted. And you'll be pleased to know, this includes the fantastic LG C1 OLED TVs. Right now at John Lewis, you can get 10 percent off this model in all size variants.

This Digital Foundry-recommended TV is available in four different sizes at John Lewis: the 48-inch option is normally £939, the 55" is £1,199, and the giant 83" is £4,999. The 65" model is the most popular and is £1,678.

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Norco, a twisted gothic take on Southern America via a point-and-click-adventure, now has a release date for its full version.

You'll be able to venture into its rusted suburbs and swamps from 24th March, publisher Raw Fury announced today.

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PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of Crusader Kings 3 will launch on 29th March, publisher Paradox has announced.

The historical strategy threequel originally launched for PC in September 2020, and has long been set for a console launch at some point.

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A demo for Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires is now available ahead of its release.

The full game launches on 15th February, but before then you can test out a demo of the game across PlayStation and Xbox consoles, and Nintendo Switch.

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Computer storage is something we all need, and whether you're looking to upgrade to something faster or just need more space for your games, getting a portable SSD can be a useful way to make sure you're never short of space.

The great thing about portable SSDs is that you can use them for almost anything. If you like taking photos and working on the go a lot, or if you want to work across different computers. You can even use them on your PS5 for more space.

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Maddy Thorson, creator of the tricky yet accessible platformer Celeste, has written a self-reflective blog on the game's fourth anniversary.

Released on 25th January 2018, the story of Celeste - that of overcoming impossible odds to climb the titular mountain - resonated with plenty of people, none more so than Thorson herself.

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When Uncharted 4: A Thief's End was first revealed during E3 2014, Naughty Dog presented a stunning teaser trailer featuring Nathan Drake waking on a beach... the detail was unprecedented and astonishingly, it was running at 60 frames per second. Of course, that 60fps dream never came to pass - beyond multiplayer mode - but 30fps was just fine, bearing in mind the quality of the final game. That said, we were left wondering what might have been. Certainly, simulated 60fps gameplay using the game's slow-motion mode looked absolutely beautiful - but now, thanks to PlayStation 5, it's running at 60fps in real-time. Or 120fps, if you prefer.

Revisiting Uncharted 4 and its Lost Legacy spin-off - both remastered now for PlayStation 5 - reminds us of the sheer level of achievement delivered by Naughty Dog in the last generation. Both are impressively executed games that essentially perfect the cinematic action formula, delivering strong characterisation, stunning locations and exceptional set-pieces. Across the PS4 generation, the studio proved time and again that it had mastered the balancing act of delivering engrossing player agency within a tightly-defined cinematic experience.

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KartKraft, the highly acclaimed sim that was so good Motorsport Games went and bought it all up and set up a new Australian studio for some of the team at original developer Black Delta, is finally leaving early access and having its full launch today.

Having first hit Steam in 2018, Motorsport Games moved in on KartKraft last year, and the full release will see some 10 laser-scanned tracks, 20 kart manufacturers and plenty by way of mod support. It's also one of the better racing experiences you can get in VR, so is worth a punt if you prefer your driving games a bit more immersive.

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The £239/$249 Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 is the long-awaited desktop equivalent of the RTX 3050 that debuted in laptops last year, bringing with it a massively expanded power envelope and double the VRAM of the mobile version. That ought to allow for much better performance on the desktop, but how much can Nvidia wring out of the GA106 die? To find out, we've paired the new GPU with a high-end PC system and tested it in all of our favourite games.

Normally, we'd expect a next-generation GPU to perform within the same ballpark as the previous-gen part from the same tier. So for the RTX 3050, the hope is that we see performance in line with the outgoing RTX 2060, which remains a pretty strong choice for 1080p to 1440p gaming - and has the ability to use DLSS to boost performance significantly, often compensating for the extra strain caused by enabling ray tracing. If the RTX 3050 can bring those features down to a lower price point without compromising performance, then Nvidia would be on to a winner.

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It's a strange kind of punishment, being a long-term player of Game Freak's collective Pokémon works. To have played all these games as they came out is to be forever tormented by the series high of Pokémon's early gems. For many these are all-time video game highs: deep, vast, iconic giants, games that launched and subsequently bottled the lightning of a generational craze. Continuing on beyond them means suffering a kind of constant haunting by the hypothetical, the what-if world where the studio is given the time and budget and technical talent it so obviously needs - and that the Pokémon Company, owner of the highest-grossing media franchise of all time, can so obviously afford.

But it's also to be dragged along still by the series' superlative, enchanting, uber-compelling core: battle, trade, collect. Yes, there's a lingering sense of austerity and belt-tightening, of a kind of savage, self-inflicted economisation and distillation of Pokémon games into the absolute barest necessities for existence. Of a publisher with a fondness for ever-tougher rounds of development-budget limbo. But this is just what it means to enjoy Pokémon, now. You want more, you feel you really should want more, but by some twist of dark magic you're left feeling grateful for what you've got.

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Well hi, hello and how do you do? I'm new here, so please don't bite.

Okay, so I'm not exactly new around these parts - my 11th anniversary is going to quickly roll around later this year, and I'm sure a fair few of us will have crossed paths in the past - but I'm still relatively new at all this editor lark. Seeing as this is the first time I've had the privilege of writing one of these letters, I thought I might as well try and sketch out what some of that might all mean.

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Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto has admitted to disliking Navi, calling Ocarina of Time's fairy companion the "biggest weakpoint" of the game.

The comments come from a 1999 interview with Miyamoto originally printed in a Japanese strategy guide and now published online.

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Last night's report that Activision is developing a sequel to live service battle royale Call of Duty Warzone has sparked concern among fans who have spent countless hours - not to mention money - on the original.

Activision is yet to officially confirm it is making Warzone 2, but its existence emerged last night as part of a Bloomberg report which listed it as one of three upcoming Call of Duty games still to launch on PlayStation despite Microsoft's planned $70bn takeover of Activision Blizzard.

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