Eurogamer

Is Bulletstorm VR really as bad as everyone says it is?

3 months 1 week ago

It's never a good sign when you're promised review code for a game that then never appears. Especially when your subsequent emails chasing it up are ignored, even though you can see multiple content creators on YouTube publishing first impressions pieces about the game before launch.

That's exactly what happened in the case of Bulletstorm VR though. I was down to review the game for the site but without any access to review code, I only got to play the game on launch day after buying it myself. And, by this point, I had already seen some pretty damning previews and reviews that slated everything from the game's VR implementation and AI through to the graphics and overall performance.

But was it really as bad as everyone was saying? Due to the fact that I absolutely loved Bulletstorm on the Xbox 360, I went into this week's VR Corner hoping to give it the benefit of the doubt and you can watch me play through the first hour of the game in the video below.

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Author
Ian Higton

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Palworld developer Pocketpair apologises once again as co-op servers go down as game sales top 3m

3 months 1 week ago

No, it's not just you – Palworld's co-op servers are down again.

Yesterday, developer Pocketpair explained on social media that as Palworld exceeded 700,000 concurrent players, it had to hold "an emergency meeting" with Epic Games to "add an update to the Epic Online Services", and in the last hour, the team says the servers are "currently experiencing outages due to an unusually high load worldwide" once again.

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Author
Vikki Blake

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This toddler-sized Psyduck plushie is available to pre-order now

3 months 1 week ago

A "life-sized" plush of Psyduck is once again available from the online Japanese Pokèmon store.

Pre-orders for the 80cm long Psyduck, known as Kodak in Japan, are now live, but will close on 19th February or whenever it sells out – whichever is sooner. The toy itself is expected to ship in mid-July, and costs ¥30,800, which is around £165 / $207.

Sadly, the plushie will only ship internally in Japan, and there's no sign of the larger-than-life version in either the UK or US Pokémon online stores just yet.

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Author
Vikki Blake

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Palworld's "Memory Reset Drug" bug is "impossible to recover" from

3 months 1 week ago

Palworld developer Pocketpair has advised players not to use an in-game item as it may cause a bug that is "impossible to recover" from.

Right now, players who use the "Memory Reset Drug" may see a permanent reduction in their capture power, and whilst the development team says is investigating the issue, it suggests players "please refrain from using it until the investigation/correction is complete".

"Currently, using the item 'Memory Reset Drug' that resets the player’s status may reduce the player’s capture power and make it impossible to recover," Pocketpair's Kei told the Discord community (thanks, PCGN).

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Author
Vikki Blake

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Raven Software apologises for "the disruption" caused by Warzone's Season 1 Reloaded launch

3 months 1 week ago

Call of Duty Warzone developer Raven Software has apologised for "the disruption" caused by Warzone's Season 1 Reloaded launch.

After players began peppering the game's social media channels with reports of bugs and glitches – including one which kicked up an error whenever players tried to access the menu – Raven said that "conflict between live player data and our servers" was causing problems, and the team "rallied" to "get these issues resolved as swiftly as possible".

"We’ve been laying the groundwork for the return of some fan-favourite features in upcoming seasons, which has required a degree of preemptive setup in our live environment," Raven explained on X/Twitter.

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Author
Vikki Blake

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Hotel Dusk's ambitions were a perfect fit for the DS

3 months 1 week ago

I wish Hotel Dusk: Room 215 was more accessible than it is. It has all the requisite ingredients to become a giant hit. It's a Japanese adventure game with a fantastic localisation, it was released on the Nintendo DS in 2007, at the height of its popularity, and it has a restless sketch-based visual style that immediately makes it stand out. The last decade's seen plenty of similar Nintendo DS adventure games get another chance at life and become wildly successful: Ghost Trick, Phoenix Wright, and the Zero Escape series.

Despite what the PEGI 12 rating on the box art says, Hotel Dusk is aimed at a more mature audience. You play as Kyle Hyde, a former detective who quit the force after killing his partner during a case. This trauma ends up haunting Hyde in every aspect of his life, and daily, he refuses to accept that his partner is really gone. Since leaving the police, Hyde's taken up a job as a door-to-door salesman, but it's his search for answers surrounding his partner's disappearance that brings him to Hotel Dusk.

It sounds intense, but Hotel Dusk isn't entirely doom-laden. It's hilarious when it needs to be, and more than anything, it's a relaxing text-heavy experience. You spend the entirety of the game inside the hotel, and all you do as Hyde is walk around the various rooms, investigate clues, solve puzzles, and have conversations with the hotel's other guests. It might be the least "adventure" ever put into an adventure game. The other residents staying at the Hotel Dusk are equally as complex as Hyde, each holding on to some sort of event in their past that they can't let go of. And as an ex-detective, Hyde can't help himself from getting involved in other people's lives in the first place.

Author
Jai Singh Bains

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Pokémon fans hit back at Palworld's "lazy" Pal designs

3 months 1 week ago

As the multiplayer monster-collecting game Palworld continues to clock up staggering sale numbers and break its own concurrent player record, some less enthused Pokémon fans have taken to social media to share just how similar they think Palworld is to Pokémon.

"Pokémon with guns" survival game Palworld – which released as an early access title yesterday, 19th January, and has already sold over 2m copies – but it's now facing claims that the similarities between it and Pokémon are too great to be coincidental.

"Reminder not to support Palworld," wrote one unhappy user on X/Twitter. "It's not even subtle about its rip-offs, how much else has it stolen?"

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Author
Vikki Blake

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There was a Quake tease hiding in full sight in the Developer Direct showcase

3 months 1 week ago

Fans think they've spotted a reference to a new Quake game hiding in plain sight in Microsoft's latest Developer Direct presentation.

As spotted by ResetEra's JigglesBunny – in a segment about puzzles in the newly-announced Indiana Jones and the Great Circle game – players think they can just make out the Quake symbol and a little text: "AKE 6" written in the foreground on a whiteboard.

No, it's not concrete proof – for one thing, it's hard to imagine there'll be a Quake 6 before a Quake 5 – whilst the letters themselves could be coincidental, it's unlucky that the logo itself is there by accident. And though it's plausible that the game could be on the board simply as an inspiration for puzzle design, that still wouldn't explain the "6" next to the letters and logo, too. Curiouser and curiouser.

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Author
Vikki Blake

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Palworld has clocked up 2m players in just 24 hours

3 months 1 week ago

Yesterday, we learned Palworld had already sold a staggering 1m copies just hours into its early access launch on Steam and Xbox Series X/S. And now, just a few hours later, it's topped over two million sales.

Developer Pocketpair took to social media earlier today to reveal the latest milestone for the "Pokémon with guns" survival game, which released as an early access title yesterday (19th January).

The team revealed the milestone in a message posted to X/Twitter and thanked everyone for playing.

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Author
Vikki Blake

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Palworld's co-op connectivity issues were caused by exceeding 700,000 concurrent players

3 months 1 week ago

UPDATE 21 January, 2024: Pocketpair has since updated Twitter to amend its prior statement, saying: "We accidentally said Epic Games backend instead of Epic Online Services. We apologise for this misunderstanding!"

Original story follows.

Palworld developer Pocketpair says it has now resolved the connectivity issue that was preventing some players from hosting co-op.

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Author
Vikki Blake

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Halo Infinite's season 5 will be the last as it switches to smaller updates and 343i works on "new projects"

3 months 1 week ago

Halo Infinite developer 343 Industries has confirmed there will be no further seasons after season 5.

In a community livestream broadcast overnight, 343i revealed that after season 5 goes live for the sci-fi shooter on 30th January, seasons will be retired and replaced by "operation" events instead.

Operations will run for just four to six weeks at a time, and their accompanying battle passes will sport just 20 tiers. It's a significant change from the free-to-play shooter's typically weighty, long-running seasons, and could be a sign that 343i is now scaling back on the 2021 game.

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Author
Vikki Blake

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Elegoo Neptune 4 Plus review: 3D printing for fun and rockets

3 months 1 week ago

I've always been fascinated by 3D printers but I've never known what I would do with one. When Shenzhen-based firm Elegoo offered to send their $350/£300 Neptune 4 Plus for review, I figured I'd better take them up on their offer and find out just what's possible with a modern 3D printer - and what challenges awaited me as a complete beginner. Here's what I've discovered - from the gauntlet of the initial setup process to the successes and failures that have defined the first few weeks of 3D printing.

First, the setup process. The Neptune 4 Plus comes in pieces, so you need to follow an IKEA-style assembly process to join the major components, mount the included control pod and connect a bunch of wires. There's a printed manual provided, but there's also a digital version on a USB stick. That stick also contains a video tutorial for the setup process, which I followed carefully. The build itself is quite straightforward and ought to take around an hour, with no real challenges - each step's smaller components like screws are neatly labelled in separate bags and all of the tools are provided which is nice.

Author
Will Judd

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Yearly Supporters, we've got OlliOlli World and Rollerdrome keys for you

3 months 1 week ago

Yearly supporters, I've got a treat for you. To accompany the piece I published about Roll7 today, I've got some keys to give away for the studio's games. Rad! That's what skateboarders say isn't it?

Specifically, I've got a small batch of PC keys to give away for the studio's two most recent games: the brilliant Rollerdrome and OlliOlli World, which I still can't believe were released in the same year (2022).

Remember, key giveaways are only for yearly supporters of Eurogamer. They're an exclusive perk for laying down an annual fee. Everything else - all the exclusive articles, podcasts, ad-free viewing and so on - benefits the monthly members too. In case you're wondering, an annual sub costs £30/€30/$30.

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Author
Robert Purchese

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What's next for OlliOlli and Rollerdrome developer Roll7?

3 months 1 week ago

I've been thinking a lot about how to define Roll7 because actually, it's quite hard to do. You could call it the OlliOlli studio but would that really be correct, because what about Rollerdrome? What about Laser League? What about Not a Hero? You'd miss half of what the studio has done.

Maybe it's that Roll7 is an inventor; I like that. Because think about it: who knew 2D skateboarding could be a thing before OlliOlli came along? Hold the down button and release it to perform an ollie - it's the foundation of the game. Then gradually layer on other moves and you have an experience that feels more like playing with a tiny finger skateboard than a video game.

And who could have predicted Laser League? It had nothing at all to do with OlliOlli, so where did it come from? It was a multiplayer game where two teams of three fought in small arenas, to activate spinning lasers that would fry the other team. It was unusual. But play it and any trepidation about the idea vanished. Laser League was immediate fun. It's just a shame it doesn't seem to be playable anywhere any more.

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Author
Robert Purchese

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Resident Evil 7, Tekken 7, and everything else leaving PlayStation Plus Extra in February

3 months 1 week ago

Sony has revealed the next batch of titles bidding a fond farewell to its PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium subscription tiers in February, which this time include the likes of Resident Evil 7, Tekken 7, and Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown.

Thankfully, that's where the curse of the video game sevens ends, with no sign of the number across the remaining seven PlayStation 4 titles currently listed under the 'Last chance to play' section of the PlayStation dashboard. Oh.

Alongside the zombie, fight-y, plane-y departures mentioned in the opening paragraph, Sony has revealed Playstation Plus Extra and Premium subscribers will soon be losing access to sci-fi narrative adventure Tacoma, colour-based platform-puzzler Hue, ageing indie darling Thomas Was Alone, and Lost Words: Beyond the Page.

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Author
Matt Wales

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Palworld has "sold over 1m copies" just hours into its early access launch

3 months 1 week ago

Eye-catching 'Pokémon with guns' survival game Palworld has already sold a staggering 1m copies according to its developer Pocketpair, just hours into its early access launch on Steam and Xbox Series X/S. That's as the studio addresses the lack of 32-player dedicated servers on Xbox and PC Game Pass, saying the situation is "not up to us".

Palworld's whole thing, if you're unfamiliar, is that it combines Pokémon-style creature catching with open-world survival and crafting, giving players the option to exploit (or eat) their Pals in the name of completing tasks more efficiently if they so choose.

It's a proposition that's evidently resonated with players in a big way; Pocketpair has taken to social media to announce that Palworld "has sold over 1m copies in about eight hours since release". That's an astonishing number, particularly given that Palworld's day-one inclusion on Game Pass means plenty of people can play right now without directly purchasing the game.

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Author
Matt Wales

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Did Microsoft's Developer Direct showcase a better year for Xbox?

3 months 1 week ago

This week on the Eurogamer Newscast, we discuss Microsoft's Xbox Developer Direct 2024, our first look ahead at the year to come from one of the big three console makers.

The big draw was Indiana Jones and The Great Circle from Wolfenstein maker MachineGames, a blockbuster action adventure clearly set up to be Microsoft's answer to Uncharted. But there was also the brilliant-looking Hellblade 2, the eye-catching sequel from Ninja Theory we've been looking forward to for years.

Then there's Avowed, a fantasy RPG to satisfy those waiting patiently for the next Elder Scrolls and who might prefer a bit more colour to their role-playing than in Starfield. Finally, we saw Visions of Mana from Square Enix and Ara: History Untold for PC. But was this enough to make for a satisfying show - and more importantly, set the tone for what is hopefully a better year of Xbox first-party launches than in 2023? I'm joined by Eurogamer's Ed Nightingale, Victoria Kennedy and Liv Ngan to discuss.

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Author
Tom Phillips

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West Weald awaits in The Elder Scrolls Online's Gold Road expansion

3 months 1 week ago

As The Elder Scrolls Online thunders toward its 10th anniversary this April, Zenimax Online Studios has whipped back the sheet to reveal the fantasy MMO's latest expansion chapter, Gold Road, which launches for PC and Mac on 3rd June with a PlayStation and Xbox release to follow a few weeks' later on 18th June.

Gold Road gives players the opportunity to explore the bountiful region of West Weald (split into temperate, woodland, and highland zones) as well as the city of Skingrad, first seen in the The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Unfortunately, the region has now been "beset by Daedric incursions and the encroaching jungles of Valenwood", meaning there's heroing to be done.

As players journey across West Weald, they'll encounter new quests, challenges, rewards, and stories, with Gold Road's new main storyline - said to offer around 30 hours of quest content - focusing on Daedric prince Ithelia, and the chaos their followers may bring to Tamriel.

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Author
Matt Wales

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Palworld servers struggle as players pile on via Steam

3 months 1 week ago

Palworld, the upcoming open world survival and crafting game which the internet has dubbed 'Pokémon with guns', is already seeing some impressive player numbers on Steam - to the detriment of its servers.

At the time of writing, a bumper 352,361 potential Pal catchers are making their way through the game's colourful, eclectic and perhaps slightly dubious world. (I recently learned you can catch and sell humans.)

Palworld developer Pocketpair has said that the game is proving so popular, its servers are struggling to keep up.

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Author
Victoria Kennedy

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A decade later, Destiny will finally let you change your face

3 months 1 week ago

The original Destiny arrived 10 years ago this year - and finally, Bungie will let players modify their character's face.

To be clear, if you have been playing as the same character since Destiny 1, this will be the first time in a decade that you will have been able to update your Guardian's basic appearance.

The ability to do so has been a long, long-requested thing from fans. Now, Bungie has said the option will be implemented this year, ahead of its climactic (and delayed) expansion The Final Shape.

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Author
Tom Phillips

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Next Street Fighter 6 DLC fighter arrives in February

3 months 1 week ago

Street Fighter's bad boy of boxing Ed will join Street Fighter 6 next month.

Capcom announced his release window alongside a teaser trailer of Ed, which shows him facing off against some opponents inside a moving subway train.

We get a glimpse of Ed using his nimble footwork to outsmart his opponents, and his Psycho Boxing powered-up moves. Check it out below.

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Author
Liv Ngan

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Sony refunds The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered players who accidentally missed £10 upgrade

3 months 1 week ago

Sony is issuing refunds to those who purchased The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered full price by accident, if they have it on PS4 already.

Players who got swept up in the moment and accidently purchased the full price game ahead of time, rather than going along the £10 upgrade path, will be met with a nice message of goodwill from Sony, stating they are being refunded.

"As an owner of the PS4 digital version of The Last of Us Part 2, a digital upgrade to the PS5 digital version will be available at a deeply discounted price on launch day," this message reads.

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Author
Victoria Kennedy

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Square Enix must diversify its gaming output, company president says

3 months 1 week ago

Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu believes the company needs to diversify its gaming output, but also focus on fewer releases.

Kiryu's comments are from an investor Q&A from November just recently published in English, in which he addressed multiple questions - in particular regarding the company's medium-term business plan and what Kiryu described as "the limited diversity of our title portfolio".

"Because we possess strong IPs like the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy franchises, I believe that we have tended to be overly reliant on certain gameplay styles or genres," he said. "Meanwhile, the tastes of customers in the gaming market have diversified, and customers have come to enjoy content from a variety of genres."

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Author
Ed Nightingale

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Halo TV show star says Master Chief's romantic relationship was a "huge mistake"

3 months 1 week ago

Pablo Schreiber, the face (quite literally) behind Master Chief's helmet in Paramount's Halo adaptation, thinks it was a "huge mistake" to introduce a romantic relationship for the Spartan warrior. In fact, he pushed back against it.

As a reminder, in the first season of Halo, Schreiber's John-117 has sex with human-turned-Covenant agent Makee, as Cortana watches on. They were Cortana in the act, if you will.

While the intercorse itself wasn't actually shown, with the two lovers merely seen touching scars and so on before waking up in bed together, it is very heavily implied. Many felt this was a mistake for the series, along with Master Chief showing both his face and his naked derriere.

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Author
Victoria Kennedy

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Game of the Week: Another Code and the pleasure of in-game gadgets

3 months 1 week ago

Our Game of the Week is Another Code: Recollection. It's a lovely, generous reworking of two weird classics, and it's a perfect example of the oddities you get towards the end of the lifespan of a Nintendo console. But today I'd like to use it as a bit of a jumping-off point. Playing it this week I was reminded of how much I love games that give you gadgets to mess around with.

Another Code games are point-and-clicks, basically. You wander around a world, talking to people, interacting with puzzles, and trying to solve a grand mystery. But to help you, the hero Ashley has a device, known as a DAS, that she carries with her.

I love this stuff. In the original game, which came out early in the DS' lifespan, the DAS looked just like a DS - the original model before it got that sleek Jonty Ives reworking that propelled it to stardom. For the remake, running on the Switch, the DAS got an update. It resembles a Switch, but a Switch where the controls are all virtual, picked out on a touchscreen in bright neon lines.

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Author
Christian Donlan

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Tekken 8 to update accessibility features following health concerns

3 months 1 week ago

Tekken 8 will be making some changes to its accessibility features after players and specialists raised concerns when playing the demo.

Last month, players using the game's colour blind options reported falling ill with vertigo and migraines, and many people spoke about the need for changes on social media.

Tekken 8 director Katushiro Harada responded and said people had "misunderstood" the accessibility options, which developer Bandai Namco had "never claimed or publicised" would be useful to all colour blind players.

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Author
Liv Ngan

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What we've been playing

3 months 1 week ago

Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've been playing over the past few days. This week: creepy fish, fantasy romances, and words.

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

On a whim, my partner decided to buy a Steam Deck OLED last week. So, naturally, I've stolen it.

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Author
Ed Nightingale

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Hundreds of developers say they're working on Nintendo Switch 2

3 months 1 week ago

A growing number of video game developers are now quietly working on projects for Nintendo's unannounced Switch 2.

Eight percent of respondees to GDC's newly-published 2024 State of the Game Industry report say they are developing their current project for Nintendo Switch 2. Out of 3000 people polled, that accounts for 240 responses.

Nintendo recently issued a blanket denial to address various reports that have mapped out the company's ongoing march towards launching the inevitable Switch successor.

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Author
Tom Phillips

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Indiana Jones and The Great Circle's trailer got me thinking: has there ever been a great Indy game?

3 months 1 week ago

Like a lot of people, I suspect, I watched the trailer for Indiana Jones and The Great Circle, Bethesda's new game and pondered: what's the best Indy game we've gotten so far? I remember that NaturalMotion game from a while back which never came out - I've spoken over the years to people who played bits of it and said it was wonderful. It's harmonious, really: a game that has become a bit of a myth, buried by the sands of time.

But what about games we actually got? This is a tricky question with something like Indiana Jones, I reckon, because Indy's been game-adjacent since the days of Pitfall! in 1982. Just as Raiders of the Lost Ark was inspired by the pulps and serials its creators grew up watching, Indy himself has given a lot to games without really being in them as such.

So it's tempting for me to say something like Spelunky is the best Indy game ever. You certainly have the iconography - the hat, the whip, the idols, the traps. Spelunky would look very different if the opening fifteen minutes of Raiders didn't exist. But the more I think about it the more that doesn't seem fair to Indy or Spelunky. Spelunky is an Indiana Jones game, perhaps, in the same way that Super Mario Bros is an Alice in Wonderland game - there's a jumping-off point there, but the unexpected richness that emerges makes each game its own thing.

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Author
Christian Donlan

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One-third of developers impacted by layoffs in last 12 months, according to GDC survey

3 months 1 week ago

35 percent of game developers have been impacted by layoffs in the last 12 months and half are concerned more job cuts are on the way. That's according to GDC's newly published 2024 State of the Game Industry report, which highlights current sentiment among developers based on a snapshot of 3,000 industry professionals polled.

According to the report, while 54 percent of developers canvassed said there had been no layoffs at their company over the last year, 35 percent said either they or their colleagues had lost their jobs. Quality assurance positions are said to have been hit the hardest, with 22 percent of QA workers saying they'd been laid off compared to seven percent of all developers.

56 percent of those polled said they were concerned their company could announce more layoffs in the next 12 months, with many citing post-pandemic course correction, studio conglomeration, and economic uncertainty as possible explanations.

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Author
Matt Wales

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Indiana Jones in 2024 and everything else announced in Xbox's Developer Direct

3 months 1 week ago

Microsoft's January Xbox Developer Direct has been and gone, bringing first looks and long-awaited release news for some of the company's most highly anticipated titles. MachineGames' Indiana Jones and The Great Circle was the biggie of course, showcasing first gameplay and featuring confirmation of a 2024 release, but there was more besides, with Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2, Avowed, and Oxide Games' Ara: History Untold all putting in an appearance.

And if you missed the showcase - which included a surprise visit from Square Enix to offer another look at this year's Visions of Mana - you'll find a brisk round-up below.

We've known Obsidian Entertainment's Avowed was aiming for a 2024 release for a while, but the studio has now narrowed that launch window down a little further, announcing that Xbox Series X/S and PC players will be able to get their hands on the first-person fantasy RPG this autumn.

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Author
Matt Wales

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Indiana Jones and the Great Circle reveal shows globe-trotting escapades, spiders and a Game Pass promise

3 months 1 week ago

MachineGames has given us our first look at its Indiana Jones game, now officially called Indiana Jones and The Great Circle (as suspected). And that's not all! We officially now know it is coming this year. Get your fedoras at the ready, our beloved professor will be whipping his way onto Xbox Series X/S and PC, including Game Pass, in 2024.

Thanks to the new footage, which was shared at this evening's Xbox Developer Direct, we also have some nice background bits about the upcoming game, which we will play through the eyes of Indy as a lot of it is first person (it's the "ideal perspective," the developer said). Oh, and Todd Howard also popped up to compliment how accommodating Lucasfilm has been.

Now, let's talk new footage. It, of course, all started with Nazis, with the Great Circle taking place between the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Last Crusade (and yes, Indy looks like Harrison Ford complete with scar on chin). Oh, I really want this to be Xbox's Uncharted but more. The new footage provides plenty of little gameplay snippets that are also in the films, such as a hole filled with spiders that I assume has a lever inside. Indy is shown reaching in as a spider pops out, anyway.

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Author
Victoria Kennedy

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Ara: History Untold arrives autumn 2024

3 months 1 week ago

Alternate history strategy title Ara: History Untold will launch for PC in autumn 2024, developer Oxide Games announced tonight during the Xbox Developer Direct presentation.

Via a deeper dive into the game, Oxide showed some of its world leaders and infamous players in history whose skills you'll be able to use as you build your own version of history on an alternate Earth. Jeanne d'Arc, Boudica and Genghis Khan are all on the list.

You win games by competing against rivals, taking turns simultaneously while trying to gain Prestige - such as by constructing Triumphs, monuments from throughout history such as the Great Pyramid of Giza.

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Author
Tom Phillips

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Obsidian's Avowed releases this autumn

3 months 1 week ago

Obsidian Entertainment has revealed its first-person RPG Avowed is set to release this autumn.

The launch window was announced during tonight's Xbox Developer Direct livestream, along with a short look at combat, quests, and the game's environments.

Players will be able to quickly switch between playstyles using custom loadouts, meaning you can quickly switch from a melee build to a ranged magic build in the middle of combat.

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Author
Liv Ngan

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Hellblade 2 finally gets May release date

3 months 1 week ago

Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 finally has a release date: 21st May 2024.

Announced at tonight's Xbox Developer Direct, the game will be released across Xbox Series X/S consoles and PC, arriving on Game Pass on day one.

The game will be similar in length to the first and cost $49.99 as a digital-only release, according to an Xbox Wire blog post released after the Direct.

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Author
Ed Nightingale

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Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters gets February release date on consoles

3 months 1 week ago

Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters, the acclaimed turn-based tactics game from Complex Games, is launching for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Series X/S on 20th February.

Daemonhunters originally launched for PC back in 2022, delivering what Eurogamer contributor Edwin Evans-Thirlwell called a "brutal but graceful and comprehensible mix of ideas from Warhammer, XCOM and Gears Tactics". Also, Andy Serkis is in it.

The whole thing is focused on the Grey Knights, a mysterious Chapter of the Space Marines, who go up against the Death Guard and the forces of Chaos god Nurgle in a story told across a cinematic, narrative-driven campaign. It features a fully customisable squad of units - which can be tailored with different skills, psychic abilities, equipment, armour, class specialisations, voices, and facial options - and is, all in all, a jolly good old time.

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Author
Matt Wales

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GTA Online ditching PS4 and Xbox One clips editor as platforms "approach the limits of what's possible"

3 months 1 week ago

Rockstar has announced it's removing Grand Theft Auto Online's clips editor on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One from 20th February this year, explaining it's making the move as it approaches the "limits of what's possible" on previous-generation consoles.

The clips editor - officially known as the Rockstar Editor - was introduced back in 2015, enabling players to create, edit, and share videos of Grand Theft Auto 5 and Grand Theft Auto Online. However, from 20th February, the editor, including all clips and projects saved within, will no longer be available to PS4 and Xbox One users.

"As we begin to approach the limits of what's possible within the technical capacity of previous-generation consoles," Rockstar explained in a post on its blog, "we are taking necessary steps to allow for future GTA Online updates on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One." It added that removing the editor from last-gen consoles will "help to ensure the stability of these platforms and keep them updated with GTA Online additions for as long as possible."

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Author
Matt Wales

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Join us for the Xbox Developer Direct

3 months 1 week ago

We're going to get a look at some of Microsoft's big new Xbox games tonight, in a brand new Xbox Developer Direct. We've been promised a look at the new Indiana Jones game, Obsidian's new RPG Avowed, and Ninja Theory's Hellblade 2.

We'll be watching and covering it all live, from the moment it begins at 8pm UK time (GMT), to the moment it ends an hour later. And it'll be much more fun with your comments and reactions, so please join us in the comments below.

So, what exactly can we expect? Well, Indiana Jones developer MachineGames - the team behind the brilliant Wolfenstein games - will apparently show more than 10 minutes of the game, detailing how it's played, the story, the setting, and premiering a first trailer.

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Author
Robert Purchese

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Can game design help you beat The Traitors?

3 months 1 week ago

Could a strong knowledge of game design help you win The Traitors? This was the question UK series one contestant Ivan Brett had in mind when he joined the show last year, keen to beat the odds for as long as he could while playing as one of the game's Faithful. The author of The Floor is Lava and Bored? Games!, a professional D&D Dungeon Master and long-time fan of social gaming, Brett's own pitch to the series' producers was that he could beat them at their own format. Of course, things didn't entirely go to plan.

Still, he believes there's a method to the series' format, a meta to follow to avoid being murdered, and several social game design tweaks he would make to keep the series feeling fresh for years to come. I sat down with Brett this week ahead of a big week of episodes in the show's hit second season to discuss all of that and more.

"I love social deduction and social strategy games - adore them - and have for many years been running them as part of my job," Brett says to me of his gaming background - a similar pitch to the one he used to apply. "I was running a lot of Mafia, Werewolf, those kinds of games in youth clubs and for corporate training exercises when I saw this advertised, and I thought 'brilliant!', obviously - if I was ever going to apply for a reality show it would be this.

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Author
Tom Phillips

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