Eurogamer

Player recreations of Call of Duty maps in Fortnite's Creative 2.0 mode are being removed, in accordance with the updated policy set out by Epic Games.

Creative 2.0, which launched last month, allows players to add custom assets and programming to their creations on PC. Shortly after it became available, Epic updated their terms and conditions to allow players to create and publish remakes of old Fortnite maps from Chapter 1.

Epic also reiterated that players are not allowed to use Creative 2.0 to "create, publish, or monetise content based on others' copyrighted IP", though that did not stop players.

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It's taken 30 years, but Nintendo finally has a Super Mario Bros. movie to please the masses. As a life-long Nintendo fan, I still can't quite believe it exists - even seeing photos of Shigeru Miyamoto rubbing shoulders with Chris Pratt on the Hollywood red carpet this week felt like a bizarre collision of galaxies - and yet in this age of Sonic the Hedgehog film sequels and Mushroom Kingdom theme parks, it's simultaneously odd it has taken this long. Here we are then, with 90 minutes of bright and breezy fare bringing Mario and the gang to the big screen in an adventure which is all-action and wafer-thin on plot - just like most Mario games! - albeit with a few tantalising hints at character development buried between the constant cameos and continual laughs.

Aside from those cameos, it's almost impossible to spoil the Super Mario Bros. Movie's story, such that it is. Mario is the everyman from New York, a do-good plumber with an extended pasta-eating Italian family and little brother Luigi who he's always looked out for. The film spends longer than expected setting up Mario's Brooklyn background (accompanied by a couple of nice voice cameos from original Mario voice actor Charles Martinet), though never dares sit still for too long. Amidst several plumbing and platforming action sequences, the movie finds time to smartly acknowledge Mario's new Chris Pratt accent (which quickly settles on the ear) and hand-wave the practicalities of a plumber in pristine white gloves. Quickly, however, both brothers end up magically sucked into the Mushroom Kingdom, leaving them separated and placed on two very different paths.

Composer Grant Kirkhope has taken to Twitter to express his disappointment in Super Mario Bros. Movie for failing to credit him for the DK rap.

The DK Rap, created by Kirkhope for 1999's Donkey Kong 64, is quite the legendary number, if you've never heard it before.

And last week, Seth Rogen, who voices leader of the bunch Donkey Kong in the Mario movie, revealed the DK Rap would feature in the film. Kirkhope initially responded with excitement, which has now turned into frustration.

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Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of the Super Mario series, has revealed the difficulty faced when creating Mario games for mobile.

Mario has had a few mobile outings over the last seven years - starting with Super Mario Run in 2016, and then Mario Kart Tour and Dr. Mario World in 2019.

Nintendo has since moved away from Mario on mobile, after it shut down Dr. Mario World for good just two years after it launched.

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Five of the Best is a weekly series for supporters. It's a series about highlighting some of the features in games that are often overlooked. It's also a series about you having your say, so don't be shy, use the comments below and join in!

Oh and you can find our entire Five of the Best archive elsewhere on the site.

It's a bit of a running joke here how much I like dragons. Has it got a dragon in it? Give it to Bertie. And it's true, I do like them! I like them a lot. If I could have my way, dragons would be in everything. It's because of what they represent to me - they represent adventure. They are my memories of being whisked away as a kid by The Hobbit, or by A Wizard of Earthsea. Ah! What memories. And they are me playing countless role-playing games after that. Dragons are role-playing games, as far as I'm concerned. And I can't believe it's taken me this long to do a Five of the Best about them.

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Paradox Interactive's acclaimed grand strategy game Crusader Kings 3 is ready to hit the road, with its Tours and Tournaments expansion now confirmed to be launching on 11th May.

Tours and Tournaments - Crusader Kings 3's second major expansion, following last year's Royal Court - has something of an outdoor theme. Those "tours", for instance, arrive as part of a new travel system, giving players the tools to plot either a modest trip - perhaps navigating their realm, gifting or extorting their vassals along the way - or a far more elaborate globe-trotting jaunt, whether that be through dangerous or civilised lands, alone or with an entourage.

Tournaments, meanwhile, can be hosted around the map, their demonstrations of combat drawing nearby nobles and wandering knights, and potentially boosting players' social standing or military prowess. Additionally, players' best knights can be honoured with special titles and accolades granting bonuses to both them and the armies they lead.

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Call of the Sea VR, the virtual reality adaptation of developer Out of the Blue's acclaimed 2020 tropical island mystery adventure, launches for Meta Quest 2 and Quest Pro on 13th April.

Call of the Sea, if you're unfamiliar, tells the story of Norah Everhart (voiced by Firewatch and The Walking Dead: Season One's Cissy Jones), as she embarks on an adventure, circa 1934, across a beautiful but strange South Pacific island in search of her missing husband.

What follows is a bit of a delight - Eurogamer's Robert Purchese called the original a "dazzlingly different debut" in his review - melding story, exploration, and some surprisingly challenging puzzles into a thrilling, affecting yarn with a touch of cosmic weirdness about it.

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Microsoft's perpetually expanding line-up of wireless Xbox controllers continues to flourish with a new 'sustainable' variant released to coincide with this year's impending Earth Day.

The new Xbox Wireless Controller – Remix Special Edition, as it's known, takes some design inspiration from nature, sporting a two-tone green facade - apparently drawing on lichen found in the Pacific Northwest Forest - as well as earthy grips finished with a topographic pattern. It also incorporates a blue underside, presumably representing the sky, or the sea, or a blueberry.

As for the sustainability bit, one third of the controller is made from a mix of reclaimed materials (including plastic jugs and CDs) and regrind - regrind, in this instance, being a process that mechanically recycles leftover Xbox One controller parts into a raw material that can be used to partially create new controllers, Microsoft explains.

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Energy drink maker Monster has another video game trademark victim in its sights - this time, indie game Dark Deception: Monsters & Mortals.

According to the game's developer Glowstick Entertainment, Monster has lodged a legal complaint that takes exception to Dark Deception: Monsters & Mortals including the word "Monsters" in its title.

Glowstick founder Vincent Livings has chosen to make the situation public via a thread on Twitter (as spotted by TheGamer), and pledged to fight Monster's claim in court.

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With another patch expected today for The Last of Us Part 1 on PC, Naughty Dog has said it is focusing on improving the performance of the game before considering submitting it for Valve's Steam Deck Compatibility Review.

Today's patch will address camera movement and game crashes amongst other fixes. Another patch has been confirmed for Friday by Naughty Dog, which will share details of what the patch contains before it's rolled out.

The Last of Us Part 1's PC port has not been well-received, with the game gaining largely negative reviews on Steam at launch. Naughty Dog responded to the criticism by promising to address issues in patches.

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Microsoft has announced its next wave of Xbox Game Pass games, this time for the beginning of April.

Arriving today, we have Loop Hero, which is available across console and PC. Our Christian Donlan was rather taken with Loop Hero on its release, awarding it a Recommended badge. You can see a little trailer for it below.

Following this, we then have Iron Brigade arriving on 6th April across cloud and console. Then, on 12th April, Ghostwire: Tokyo will join the service via cloud, console and PC.

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When Asus ROG announced its handheld gaming PC on 1st April, many people were sceptical.

One weekend later, and either Asus is showing way too much commitment to the bit, or its handheld PC is real.

Titled the ROG Ally, much hasn't been officially announced in terms of specs or price, but here's what we've seen of it so far.

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I found Citizen Sleeper gently moving. It's one of those experiences that pushed beyond its game boundaries, for me, and spoke to deeper things I hold to be important in my real life: things like friendship and belonging, and helping people out while asking for nothing in return. It touched me on a deeper level, and even months later, I remember it.

But it's a strange game to tell other people about, which is something I was reminded of this morning while finishing the last part of the new three-piece DLC story arc (which is free, by the way, and all episodes are out now). I tried to tell my partner what it was you did in the game. "Well, you go around the space station talking to people, and you roll dice to spend on doing tasks." She looked at me blankly. "It's not my kind of thing," she said, and walked away.

I get where she's coming from: Citizen Sleeper doesn't seem, outwardly, very eventful. There's some detailed character art but beyond that, everything plays out in text. There are no voice overs or animations or cutscenes. It's all, to a large degree, in your head. And when you layer on top of that some clinical boxes for dice rolls, and pie-chart gauges, there's an air of impenetrability about it, at least initially.

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With the imminent arrival of Disney Dreamlight Valley's Pride of the Valley update, developer Gameloft has shared its full patch notes.

From tomorrow (5th April), players can expect to see Pride Rock's own Simba and Nala padding their way through the game, as the doors to the Lion King realm open.

Meanwhile, there will be some new items for players to purchase from Scrooge McDuck including some "mushroom inspired" sets - an actual toad stool, perhaps - and "snazzy bathroom equipment".

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Activision Blizzard has settled a lawsuit lodged by the US Justice Department regarding a controversial tax planned for the wages of esports players.

Overwatch and Call of Duty esports teams were set to be given an effective salary cap, dubbed the Competitive Balance Tax, which was designed to kick in after teams earned over a certain threshold.

This tax "effectively operated as a salary cap, penalised teams for paying esports players above a certain threshold and limited player compensation in these leagues", the US Justice Department alleged.

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Overwatch 2's newest Support hero has leaked ahead of their official reveal by Blizzard. Here's an introduction to Lifeweaver, a plant-based pansexual and the game's first Thai hero.

In a now-deleted article over on PCGamesN, Overwatch 2's senior character technical artist Chonlawat Thammawan revealed a number of inspirations for Lifeweaver (also known as Niran Pruksamanee), such as the mandala shape. Thammawan, who originally pitched the idea of including a Thai character, said Lifeweaver is a celebration of Thai culture, while lead narrative designer Gavin Jurgens-Fyhrie spoke more of the hero's warm character.

As for Lifeweaver's skill set, it all sounds pretty nifty. He uses a technology of his own invention called "biolight" to help heal those that are sick and wounded. Along with these healing abilities, Lifeweaver can also manipulate the positions of Overwatch 2's enemies and even his allies should the need occur. This is all thanks to his Life Grip skill.

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UPDATE 5/4/23: Just a day after Legendary Entertainment announced it had secured the film and television rights to Capcom's Street Fighter series, it's been confirmed the company already has a new live-action movie in the works.

That's according to the official Street Fighter Twitter account, which noted the project will be a co-production between Capcom and Legendary Entertainment. Beyond that, details are scarce, but we're told to expect "more news to come in the future".

ORIGINAL STORY 4/4/23: The film and TV rights to the Street Fighter series have been bought by Legendary Entertainment.

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Since Resident Evil 4 Remake released, there's been an influx of Ashley Graham fanart depicting her as a tiny mouse.

If you're wondering how and why Moushley has turned up on your Twitter feed, even without all the random changes Elon Musk implements daily, here's what happened.

When character redesigns for the remake were first revealed, a few people (myself included) mourned the loss of Ashley's ears poking out from under her hair. I think it's cute! I've always jokingly considered them Dumbo ears, though others see the similarities to a mouse.

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Accessibility tags are being added to the PlayStation Store globally this week across both PS5 and PS4 games.

The tags will highlight which accessibility features are supported in games when viewed on the store.

At launch, the tags will be shown for a number of first party titles, with Sony collaborating with a "wide range of developers to implement this feature" in the near future.

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N64 classic Pokémon Stadium will soon be playable via the Nintendo Switch Online game catalogue.

Pokémon Stadium is most famous for its ability to feature your hard-fought and caught creatures from the Game Boy's Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow, which could originally be transferred over for you to play with on your telly.

However, sadly, there's no method for this (yet) on Nintendo Switch. Despite the console now featuring both Game Boy and N64 titles, Red, Blue and Yellow are yet to be made available.

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Wildfrost is a new card battler and Roguelite coming at a time when neither are in particularly short supply. But to play this game is to fall for it a little, so we thought we'd sit down and try to work out why it feels so good to play.

Chris: Bertie! I know you love a good card battler, and so do I. I had felt like I was done, though, at least for a while. Like I'd played enough and they couldn't show me anything new. So it's weird that I'm finding Wildfrost so refreshing?

And what's weirder is that the thing I love most so far isn't a clever twist on the formula or a particular card. What I love is the presentation, specifically the animation. The cards just spring and bounce onto screen here, there's a lovely thick squashiness to them? It's 2D art but it's been animated and brought to life with such care, and that alone keeps drawing me back for another go. What do you reckon?

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The Saudi Arabian government is reportedly planning to invest $38bn into the country's gaming industry.

Most recently, the Saudi government increased its stake in Nintendo to 8.26 percent through the Public Investment Fund, the state's sovereign wealth fund, and it also holds millions of shares in EA and Take-Two.

Savvy Gaming Group, a subsidiary of the Public Investment Fund, hopes to work with the companies it has invested in to "work together on publishing, run their Esports business, or develop new IP together", Savvy's CEO Brian Ward told Bloomberg.

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Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order didn't launch in the best of states - or at least not if you were playing on the base versions of the PS4 and Xbox One. There were a few jitters here and there, a few crashes, and for me a couple of especially memorable, minutes-long hangs on those weird, Sonic-style slip-n-slides where I could genuinely get up and make a cup of tea and come back to the game just unfreezing itself again. But as much as the tea-break freeze was a novel feature, those things really aren't what stuck in the memory for me.

What stuck for me was the slides themselves, strange level design relics caught slightly out of time. And Oggdo Bogdo, the exceptionally-named, wild difficulty spike of a bog frog mini boss. And the byzantine, multi-layered holomaps. And all the weirdly edgy finishing moves Cal Kestis, a baby faced, good-to-the-core Jedi, would pull off when taking those mini bosses down. There is a word for this stuff, this scuzzy, late noughties not-retro vibe, but I can't find it. The lazy part of me thinks it's just "PlayStation 3", which makes sense when you realise much of the Jedi team at developer Respawn have PS3 action game pedigree with the original God of War series, including game director Stig Asmussen and design director Jason de Heras.

Guerrilla has released a new patch for its PSVR2 title, Horizon Call of the Mountain.

As with most updates, this patch (known as Patch 1.04) addresses a collection of bits and bobs across the game - for example, this patch fixes an issue that saw the Aim Assistance re-enabled when some players rebooted the title. Meanwhile, a user's UI should no longer disappear after fighting the Scrappers.

In addition to this, Guerrilla has also fixed the glitch that could cause a Watcher to become inactive and not attack the player, so stay on your guard.

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We've already shared our thoughts on The Last of Us Part 1's PC port, but the frustration and disappointment crosses over into this week's DF Direct Weekly, beginning with our thoughts on how we would actually cover a game that is clearly some way off completion?

Digital Foundry has been trying to carve out a niche in the crowded, very high quality PC scene by concentrating on the games rather than the benchmarks, demystifying what graphics settings actually do and then offer optimised alternatives to the idea of whacking everything up to ultra and hoping for the best. The thing is, The Last of Us Part 1 not only has one of the most massively exhaustive settings menus we've ever seen, but it's equally clear that there are foundational issues that prevent an optimal experience in the first place, making our concept borderline pointless in this case. Clearly there are bigger fish to fry in assessing this game.

The brilliant Tetris Effect Connected, perhaps the best Tetris version of all-time, has temporarily unlocked its two secret levels for general play in celebration of the new Tetris movie.

If you're late to the party, yes, there's a movie about Tetris - though it's less about the blocks themselves and more the game developer who dreamt them up.

It's available on Apple TV+ now, if you have that. If not, just go play some more Tetris Effect Connected - now with two additional levels!

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UPDATE 6/4/23: The curious matter of Quantum Break's expired licensing issues continues today, with the game's (temporary) removal from storefronts.

You can no longer purchase Quantum Break on either the Microsoft Store or Steam (thanks, RPS) while these unexplained issues are resolved. The news comes after Microsoft previously admitted Quantum Break would also go missing from the Xbox Game Pass catalogue.

There's still no detail on what the issue here is, or how long Quantum Break will remain unavailable.

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UPDATE 4/4/23: UK consumer rights group Which? has called on Nintendo to go further in its attempts to compensate customers with faulty Switch Joy-Con. Yesterday, Nintendo quietly confirmed it would now offer free Joy-Con repairs regardless of warranty. But for Which?, that offer does not go far enough.

In a fresh statement, Which? stated Nintendo needed to address the underlying mechanical fault which it said was to blame for the frequent cases of Joy-Con 'drift' which have been "plaguing gamers for years". It also called on Nintendo to offer compensation to those who had been affected ever since the Switch launched back in 2017.

Here's that statement in full:

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The Super Mario Bros. Movie had its premiere over the weekend, and so far the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

In the words of KindaFunnyVids Tim Ghetty, the film was "awesome", with the creator stating the "music is the star of the show".

"Nintendo fans are gonna be obsessed. I'm not sure ANY movie in history has ever had THIS MANY easter eggs. AND GOOD ONES," he wrote (his use of capitals, not mine).

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The modding community for Resident Evil 4 Remake remains hard at work, giving us more costume and character swaps to enhance the experience.

We've already seen Shrek and shirtless Leon (I am looking respectfully), but since our last scour of Nexus Mods some quintessential and hilarious mods have been uploaded.

Here's some more of the best mods which have caught our attention.

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A new and cheaper option to expand the capacity of your Xbox Series X/S now looks to be on the horizon.

That's according to a swiftly-deleted retailer listing for a fresh 1TB expansion card in Western Digital's WD_Black range, which popped up on US site Best Buy before being removed.

The appearance of this expansion card is notable as it will be the first alternative option to the initial Seagate-made expansion cards launched alongside the Xbox Series X/S themselves.

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Pinch punch...third of the month! It was April Fool's Day over the weekend which meant a deluge of fake news across the internet.

There were certainly some amusing ones this year, though, from joke videos to entire, playable games.

Let's take a look at the best.

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Ark 2, the upcoming Vin Diesel-fronted dinosaur survival game, has been delayed until the "end of 2024". In its stead, we have a remaster of the first game heading our way, with Ark: Survival Evolved's current online servers set to shut down later this year.

In an update over the weekend, developer Studio Wildcard stated it needs more time to work on Ark 2, as the team is still getting to grips with Unreal Engine 5.

"Unreal Engine 5 is incredibly new technology to us (and all developers), and we aim to use this cutting-edge tech to its fullest potential while creating a game with never-before-achieved scope at Studio Wildcard," it wrote.

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Mortal Sin is a recently early access first-person roguelike that blends a boomer shooter's ferocious speed with an oppressive dark fantasy world. It's bleeding with style, but it starts off quite simply: a black screen and text that reads "You have retained your sense of self. And that is my gift to you. But who are you really? If not a part of me." That question echoed in my mind from then on.

A similarly cryptic, almost threatening message greets you at the start of every new run, which is appropriate, considering how unpredictably bloodthirsty this world's cave, dungeon, and forest levels are. In underground passageways, looking up will reveal an unnatural starry skyline. In the silence, you'll hear far-off whispers. Walking a little closer will reveal that a mountain of flesh was the source of those hushed noises, flailing out of the wall with an outstretched hand. Huge, vacant eyeballs similarly bulge out of the walls, rivaling Junji Ito's impressive collection of dilated pupils.

Every static-dotted sight is obviously beautiful, but also haunting. Every sign of life is skewered and distorted. Those eyes I mentioned a moment ago, for instance, look tangentially human. Step closer though, real close, and their pupils will reveal an empty cosmic blackness. Corpses are also sewn into the walls, overlapping like a Satanic recreation of Michelangelo's Catholic paintings.

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Trackmania's new season is now available to play for free.

The spring 2023 campaign brings 25 new tracks to race and 100 additional medals to earn for free.

"Creativity and fun are the motto of this Spring 2023 campaign with welcoming tracks designed for the future console players," teases Ubisoft.

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Physical editions of Sifu on Xbox One and Xbox Series X are out now in Europe, and will be coming later this month for our friends in North America.

To celebrate the launch of acclaimed martial arts adventure Sifu on Xbox and Steam after a year of PlayStation and Epic Games Store exclusivity, Xbox fans can also grab the Vengeance Edition, which includes the game on Xbox One/Xbox Series X, an "exclusive" SteelBook case, The Art of Sifu print artbook, a digital copy of the game's original score, and three lithographs.

"Players who already own the game on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch or PC won't be left out as the Redemption Set collector's box set is already available," the team reminds us. That includes an 8-inch/20cm figurine of the Student, a tenacity pendant, and a 160-page Behind the Art of Sifu developer's diary.

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The Last of Us Part 1 on PC puts us in a somewhat difficult situation at Digital Foundry. How can you produce a technical review for a game that is essentially unfinished and - at the time of writing - has already received two hotfixes? We're told that a further patch is coming next week that should have more significant improvements, so the best we can provide is a snapshot of how the game looks right now, based on testing conducted last Friday. We'll return to the game if there's a noticeable improvement, but in the short term, we've got to move on to other projects.

Our snapshot - taken on Friday, March 31st - is embedded on the page below, taking the form of a limited playthrough of the game carried out on three systems. At the forefront sits the game as it plays on what is close to best-of-the-best PC hardware. That's my own test kit, featuring a Core i9 12900K, 6000MT/s DDR5 and Nvidia's RTX 4090. Alex Battaglia plays through simultaneously using a more mainstream-level PC system based on a Ryzen 5 3600, with 3200MT/s DDR4 and an Nvidia RTX 2070 Super. Meanwhile, sitting pretty on PlayStation 5 in performance mode is our #FriendAndColleague, John Linneman.

We've got an hour of real-time comparisons, CPU tests, GPU analysis and much more, in the embedded video below, but what I'm going to do in this piece is attempt to summarise how the port is right now and what needs to happen to get the code into shape, comparable with some of Sony's most impressive ports - including Marvel's Spider-Man and Days Gone.

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Hideo Kojima has partnered with a "luxury London designer" to create a unisex line of "Death Stranding-inspired" clothing.

The range includes tracksuits, shirts, a bucket hat, a bomber jacket, and silk tux jacket, too, with prices starting at £65 for the hat and creeping all the way up to £1050 for the silk jackets. The shirts are currently retailing for around £150, and the tracksuit jackets for £245.

There are also matching trousers, too, it seems, but they're currently unavailable from the store.

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Sega celebrated April Fool's Day by teasing a new game called The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog. The twist? It's actually real.

Described as a "labour of love from the Sonic Social team", the point-and-click visual novel adventure is available now on Steam, featuring "fully hand-drawn landscapes and characters".

The Sonic Social team thanks "a host of amazingly talented people who are just as passionate about Sonic as we are".

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Before I start talking about my time with The Last Worker, I feel I should preface this week's episode of Ian's VR Corner with a couple of points.

Firstly, the game's publisher Wired Productions should be absolutely praised for not only making The Last Worker available to play in both flat-screen and VR modes, but also its upcoming Lemmings-like puzzler Tin Hearts too. If this trend were to be continued by the majority of publishers and developers, the world of VR gaming would be a much busier and better place and the sooner other studios and software houses follow the example set by Wired the better.

Secondly, my impressions below, and in this week's VR Corner above, are only based on approx 2 hours of gameplay and I was feeling rather ill with what could possibly be Covid (although I'm still testing negative) at the time of recording. Perhaps that's why I didn't seem to enjoy The Last Worker as much as other reviewers did, I don't know, but it's certainly possible that the gameplay could markedly improve after this point.

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