Eurogamer

Mario movie voice actor Chris Pratt says you should stick around after the film ends for a post-credit scene which hints at a potential sequel.

Without going into detail on what the scene might contain, Pratt did suggest that it was one direction a second Mario movie could continue in - if this one was a success.

In a round of press interviews ahead of the film's impending premiere, Pratt also spoke about the mixed response his casting had been given from some Nintendo fans - who Pratt described as "passionate".

Read more

Looking at Steam reviews is an odd little pastime of mine, and I've noticed some rather... peculiar reviews for Resident Evil 4 Remake.

At time of writing, the highest rated review says "Shoot the lake water for a secret costume". There's plenty of others too, promising items.

Now, if you've played the original or HD re-release of RE4, you'll probably know what happens. Some poor unsuspecting newcomers to the game, however, might not.

Read more

Curious to find out which Fortnite mini-games are most played? Now you can see for yourself, via a neat change enabled by Epic Games.

All modes in Fortnite will now display a live player count figure - including Epic's own main modes such as Battle Royale, Zero Build and Team Rumble.

It's an intriguing peek behind the scenes at how many people are playing Fortnite at any given moment, and another nudge from Epic to go try some of the many other experiences built by creators for the Fortnite platform.

Read more

Tray Racers!, the free-to-play online party racer, now has a release date of 13th April.

The next game from Bit Loom Games, the creators of Phogs!, it will launch on PC and Nintendo Switch.

Alongside the free-to-play base game is the Tray Racers! Supporter's Pack that includes cosmetics only: the desert fox and robot characters. It's priced at £4.99.

Read more

Do you know how Vikings used to work out who'd die of their wounds and who wouldn't? And I mean internal wounds here, not obvious external ones.

Onion soup.

The Viking healers would feed the warriors really stinky onion soup and then, if the healers could smell it, it probably meant the stomach had been perforated and old Bjorn was on their way to Valhalla.

Read more

UPDATE 31st March 2023: Since publication of this piece, SEGA has been in touch to clarify a few things about Endless Dungeon's shared progression.

"Any story progress that you get with the hero that you are playing in a multiplayer game you do indeed get to keep on the main game. So, let's say you are playing Bunker and you advance her quest - that would still be the case on your 'main' game and any solo or other multiplayer games after that.

"When you play with a person who is hosting, you get to keep everything you earn, except for unlocking new heroes. So to clarify - any currency earned, quests advanced, hero chips, district keys, beverages, and any progression unlocked in a co-op game you can keep and take home to your main game.

Read more

The Australian government is looking to make improvements on its classification ratings for video games.

Australian MP Andrew Wilkie proposed a bill to the government in November last year which would enforce a R18+ or RC (refused classification) rating on all games which include sales of loot boxes. The new motion, announced earlier this week, seeks to add a "mandatory minimum" classification of Mature (not recommended for under 15s) to these games instead.

Games with simulated gambling, such as in-game casinos, would be required a R18+ rating under the proposed changes.

Read more

Sony is adding 120fps support to driving sim Gran Turismo 7 with its latest update.

The 1.31 update is now available to download and will allow PlayStation 5 users to play with the increased frame rate (if they own a display capable of 120Hz output).

The addition is not available for PlayStation 4 users.

Read more

The Last of Us Part 1 has launched on PC in a bit of a state, and owners are now turning its glitches into memes.

Earlier this week, developer Naughty Dog admitted it had heard the numerous player "concerns" regarding issues present in the PC port at launch, and was "actively investigating multiple issues".

In the meantime, players have been sharing various clips of their experiences on social media - including a version of Joel found when playing on Steam Deck with enormous eyebrows.

Read more

Square Enix has announced further details on its Final Fantasy 7 trading cards and NFTs.

Last year, the NFTs were revealed as part of a celebration of Final Fantasy 7's 25th anniversary.

Now more information on the trading cards has been revealed: the collection is called Final Fantasy 7 Anniversary Art Museum: Digital Card Plus and consists of 207 cards, reports VGC.

Read more

Sony is set to sell fewer than 300k PlayStation VR2 headsets in its first six weeks, a new report has claimed.

Sales analysis published by Bloomberg has pegged the VR2's sales total at around 270k units, as of the end of March.

The publication previously reported that Sony had slashed the shipment forecast for its new VR headset, and expected to sell around 1m units at launch following underwhelming pre-order numbers.

Read more

I have a memory of talking to Tomas Sala over Zoom or whatnot. He's in a room in his house cluttered with children's toys - I think his family had just welcomed a new baby - and he was talking about his game The Falconeer with such quiet passion, talking about an idea so good he could barely seem to control it. I have a memory of all that, and of thinking - oh, this guy is special.

And then The Falconeer came out and it was special, an aerial combat game with lovely controls, but also - and more importantly for me, I think - an astonishing sense of place. Its oceans and sparse outcroppings of land where tentative, often warlike civilisations were forming like coral? This didn't feel so much like something Sala was making up. It felt like something he had found and was showing to us. It had this astonishing fictional integrity, which was all the more powerful for the gaps that the game left for the player to fill in.

When I heard Sala's next game, Bulwark, was set in the same universe and was a sort of city-builder - emphasis on "sort of" - I knew it was going to be special, too. Special and odd and defying easy category, which, let's face it, is one of the best things you can say about a game. I pictured something a bit like Townscaper, and so I was wonderfully befuddled when I loaded up the game's evolving demo on Steam and - what? A tutorial? A campaign? What is this exactly?

Read more

EA has announced a round of "restructuring" it says will likely impact around six percent of its workforce, potentially amounting to over 750 job losses based its latest employment figures.

In a letter to staff, later shared publicly on EA's website, CEO Andrew Wilson announced the job cuts while simultaneously insisting the company was "operating from a position of strength".

"As we drive greater focus across our portfolio, we are moving away from projects that do not contribute to our strategy, reviewing our real estate footprint, and restructuring some of our teams," Wilson told workers at the company. "These decisions are expected to impact approximately six percent of our company's workforce."

Read more

Minecraft is setting forth for adventure in the Forgotten Realms, as developer Mojang teams up with Wizards of the Coast for an official Dungeons & Dragons DLC launching this "spring".

The newly announced DLC - created in collaboration with developer Everbloom Games - takes players across five familiar Forgotten Realms locations, including Candlekeep and Icewind Dale, all reimagined in chunky block-o-vision, just as you'd expect in a Minecraft crossover.

The DLC, however, goes the extra mile and then some by introducing a fully voiced 10-hour story campaign enabling adventurers and their friends - playing as either barbarians, paladins, wizards, or rogues, complete with associated abilities - to take on familiar D&D enemies including beholders, mimics, mindflayers, and, yes, dragons.

Read more

Wildfrost, the card-battling roguelike from Caveblazers studio Deadpan Games and artist Gaziter, now has a released date, and will be hitting the deck on Switch and PC on 12th April.

Wildfrost sends brave adventurers on a perilous journey through monster-infested tundra and icy mountains as they battle to reach the mysterious Sun Temple and save the town of Snowdwell from an everlasting winter - a quest that'll require "determination, sharp strategy and deck-building skills", according to its developer.

Stats and skills are randomised at the start of a run once players have selected their preferred Leader, and, along the way, there'll be companions to rescue and recruit, elemental treasures to unearth, merchants only too willing to flog their wares to weary adventurers, plus "wondrous wobbly charms" - with each decision contributing to a battle deck that's unique to a run.

Read more

Developer Deck13, best known for its Souls-likes The Surge and Lords of the Fallen, has announced a three-month delay for its desert-based action-RPG Atlas Fallen, with the game now scheduled to arrive on 10th August.

The delay news comes just weeks after Deck13 confirmed a 16th May release for Atlas Fallen, with the studio now saying it's pushing that launch back to August in order to "deliver the best possible version" of the game.

"Our goals has always been to create a memorable action-RPG experience in a unique setting, with exciting gameplay and the option for fully playable seamless co-op with a friend," the developer explained in a statement shared on Twitter. "We'd love to give the game some extra time which will allow us to deliver the best possible version of Atlas Fallen."

Read more

Sackboy: A Big Adventure headlines the PlayStation Plus games list for April, available to Essential, Extra and Premium tier subscribers.

Also on the list are Meet Your Maker and Tails of Iron, all available to download for PlayStation 4 and PS5 from Tuesday 4th April until Monday 1st May 2023.

If you're yet to give it a go, Sackboy: A Big Adventure is the multiplayer platforming spin-off for LittleBigPlanet hero Sackboy, which originally launched back in November 2020.

Read more

Forspoken might not have particularly dazzled on release, but anyone eager for more will have their wish granted - publisher Square Enix has now revealed - on 26th May, when the beleaguered action-RPG's previously announced prequel DLC, In Tanta We Trust, arrives.

In Tanta We Trust's action takes place 25 years before the events of the main game, after protagonist Frey is catapulted back in time to the Purge of the Rheddig - the battle that devastated the land of Athia and drove the Tantas, its corrupted matriachs, to madness.

The DLC's ensuing quest to save Athia promises a new set of magical abilities for Frey, new companion Tanta Cinta, and "unique, vertically-designed" environments to explore.

Read more

The full release of the Resident Evil 4 remake has landed on PC, bringing nearly the exact same performance and graphical characteristics as the demo - for good and for ill. That means you can expect better-than-console performance and image quality, but there are still improvements for Capcom to make - and serious bugs you'll want to avoid. With that in mind, we'll focus our analysis on the optimised settings that'll help you get the most out of the game.

Let's start with the most important setting first: image upscaling. This is key as the game's temporal anti-aliasing (TAA) unfortunately doesn't produce great results, while an enforced sharpening filter tends to degrade the image further. Even with a static camera, you'll notice that vegetation crawls, edges shimmer incessantly and the whole scene has a posterised look.

Normally we'd look to the likes of DLSS, XeSS or FSR2 to solve these problems, but while FSR2 is available it doesn't look right. The presentation with FSR2 enabled is overly soft, shimmery and some areas are visibly aliased. We'd only really recommend it at 4K, where the base resolution is sufficient to produce a reasonable result. FSR1 is available too, but it's even worse, as it compounds the image quality issues by sharpening and upscaling an already oversharpened and poorly aliased image.

Read more

Activision Blizzard's acrimonious breakup with Chinese publisher NetEase was affected by boss Bobby Kotick feeling "threatened", the New York Times has reported.

Specifically, Kotick believed NetEase boss Ding Lei had suggested his company could sway the Chinese government's decision over whether to pass Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard in the country.

But this threat was simply a misunderstanding by Kotick, according to a number of New York Times sources familiar with a crucial Zoom call between the two company leaders via the use of translators.

Read more

Silent Hill 2 remake developer Bloober Team has issued a statement responding to rumours around the game's release date.

Last week, Bloober Team president Pitor Babieno spoke with Polish site Bankier.pl, which reported the game was "technically ready".

Bloober has now stated this was mistranslated and taken out of context, before clarifying it has not yet announced a release date.

Read more

Capcom has announced its Resident Evil 4 Remake has already sold over 3m copies in its first two days after release.

It said the title was "off to a solid start".

Sales are an improvement over other recent releases in the series, with Resident Evil Village and Resident Evil 2 Remake both selling over 3m units in their initial four days of release.

Read more

Japan's JFTC has approved Microsoft's proposed $69bn takeover of Activision Blizzard.

In a press release on its website, the JFTC "reviewed the transaction and reached the conclusion that the transaction is unlikely to result in substantially restraining competition in any particular fields of trade. Accordingly, the JFTC has notified the Parties that the JFTC will not issue a cease and desist order, resulting in the completion of its review."

Japan joins the likes of Brazil and Saudi Arabia to approve the merger, while the deal remains under review across the world.

Read more

Note: this article contains depictions and images of war that some readers may find harrowing.

"We are doing what we can. We are working. We're trying to unite people with games and as human beings."

That's a producer from game studio Aurum Dust, about to release its next game in the Ash of Gods series: the tactical turn-based card game Ash of Gods: The Way (27th April). The producer - who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals from Russian authorities - is just one member of the development team in Russia, working alongside developers from Ukraine, Cyprus, Armenia, and more - a development team that is vehemently against Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Read more

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has sent an email to staff stating Sony's behaviour is "disappointing" but won't affect the long term relationship between the two companies.

In a bid to prevent Microsoft's proposed $69bn takeover of Activision Blizzard, Sony has claimed the deal would be anti-competitive and even stated Microsoft could release a deliberately buggy version of Call of Duty on PlayStation.

Kotick directly addresses these statements in his email.

Read more

Bandai Namco has shown off Jun Kazama gameplay from Tekken 8.

This is a big moment for Tekken fans: Jun made her debut in 1995's Tekken 2 and hasn't been a playable character in the mainline Tekken series since. 28 years later, she's back and it looks like she hasn't aged a day. Tekken time logic!

The footage kicks off with Jun fighting her own son, Jin, but the highlight is Jun's long-awaited encounter with Jin's dad, Kazuya Mishima. It's all a bit Jerry Springer.

Read more

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.

Be gone, drab and dreary walls of plainness, for in your place we shall have walls of kaleidoscopic colour and mystery! It certainly seems like fewer walls are left bare in games now, as though designers know the potential a well-placed tag or slogan can have, either for evoking an overall feeling, or for imparting specific clues. But the question is, which of these do you remember, and why?

Read more

Is themed food, or, more specifically, video game-themed food a tacky over-priced con? I used to think that, until the food also became my highlight at Super Nintendo World during my visit to Japan.

I mean, you are basically forking out for fast food with a licence slapped on. Even so, there was a particular magic to eating at Kinopio’s Cafe (or the Toadstool Cafe as it’s called in the Hollywood version), which was every bit as themed with decorations and displays as the park’s rides. And the waiting times were just as long, if, like me, you decided to go during the lunchtime rush.

Hilariously, I’d have to say my chosen main dish was pretty plain, a hamburger steak topped with an egg gratin, and a green mashed potato in the shape of a tree with a Super Star-shaped cookie on top. That was the winter special at the time. But it was the extras that made it for me, in particular having mushroom soup served from a Super Mushroom-shaped bowl!

Read more

UPDATE 29/03/23: Naughty Dog has released a statement on Twitter responding to issues with the PC port of The Last of Us Part 1, confirming patches are in the works.

"The Last of Us Part I PC players: we've heard your concerns, and our team is actively investigating multiple issues you've reported," reads the statement.

"We will continue to update you, but our team is prioritizing updates and will address issues in upcoming patches."

Read more

Developer Volition has shared a new post-launch roadmap for its beleaguered Saints Row reboot, detailing some of the free and paid content coming before the end of August.

Volition's newly released roadmap marks the first time the studio has discussed additional content for the reboot since last October when, following a particularly bug-riddled launch, it announced it would initially be prioritising "improvements over new features".

Now though, having released a number of significant patches to address Saints Row's most pressing issues in the months since its launch last August, Volition is ready to talk new stuff, starting with a free Dead Island 2 cosmetics pack this April.

Read more

UPDATE 29/03/23: Both Sega and Tencent have now backed out of attending E3 2023.

As reported by IGN, Sega stated: "After careful consideration, we have decided not to participate in E3 2023 as an exhibitor. We look forward to sharing more information on announced and unannounced projects in the future."

Tencent confirmed through a spokesperson that Level Infinite would not be attending. Other publishers IGN contacted have not responded.

Read more

Company of Heroes 3's first "major" update is out today, 28th March.

Known as Operation Sapphire Jackal, this update comes with a hefty number of bug fixes, along with an array of quality of life enhancements and the like.

It also introduces challenges, which will give players the chance to complete both daily and weekly in-game objectives. These will earn players merit that can be used to unlock a variety of cosmetics.

Read more

Important questions first: what's the deal with Lords of the Fallen's name? The first one, you'll remember, came out the best part of a decade ago in 2014, but that was also called Lords of the Fallen - and this new one isn't a remake. Or maybe it is.

Talking to Cezar Virtosu, HexWorks' Creative Director, out at GDC, I realised there's a bit more to this one. You'll probably know Lords of the Fallen (2023) was, up until just last week's big tech reveal at the Unreal showcase, originally called The Lords of the Fallen, a confusingly close name to the original but at least one that's marginally different. Now, developer HexWorks has dropped the "The" - but before that there was another name too. The first plan was, Virtosu tells me, to call it Lords of the Fallen: the Dark Crusade, "because this is about the Dark Crusade, you'll see it in promotional materials - but that felt like we were possibly making DLC."

So, he explained, then the studio dropped the subtitle and added the "The", then realised the confusion and, also, that the studio really was "utterly rebooting it - this is Unreal [Engine] 5, none of the previous tech, none of the previous paradigms, it could only be Lords of the Fallen. It sounds meandering, but it's been a trip to arrive here!"

Read more

Nintendo has released 10 minutes of new footage for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, showing off new abilities, enemies and the sky islands.

In a special gameplay video, we get to see Link use a new Recall ability, that allows him to rewind time. Link uses this to ride a rock that had fallen from the sky back up to where it came from. Here, he then glides on to one of Tears of the Kingdom's sky islands, where he comes across new enemies known as "constructs".

This trailer also gives us a look at the new weapon fusing mechanic. Link can add keese eyeballs to arrows to make homing arrows, and mushrooms to shields (yes, mushrooms to shields). When the shroom shield is struck by an advancing enemy, the mushroom creates a cloud of spores that engulfs the fight in a fog. This fusing technique can also be used to make vehicles like rafts from stray logs and fans, or even flying ships, thanks to the Ultrahand ability.

Read more

Far Cry 5 was a beautiful game when it launched back in 2018. The game portrayed a sprawling open-world set in the American countryside, with impressive foliage rendering, vast draw distances, and detailed texture work. It was a big step up from prior games, packing excellent support for the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X. Five years on, Ubisoft has released an update that unlocks the full potential of the old code on current-gen consoles by unlocking the frame-rate and allowing the game to reach 60 frames per second - so is this a smooth experience? Or are gamers in for a bumpy ride?

As with all backwards-compatible patching efforts, it's important to set expectations right off the bat. Far Cry 5 on current-gen machines isn't a full port of the game to current-gen consoles - it's just a patch, with limited impact on the game experience beyond the performance enhancement. This isn't a bad thing necessarily, but this is more in line with prior Ubisoft game updates - like the Assassin's Creed Origins 60fps patch - than it would be with a rebuilt current-gen version.

But that's not really a bad thing, because Far Cry 5 is still a visually impressive title. Dense foliage blankets the game's forested areas,with detailed greenery and excellent shading. Materials and texture work are both top-notch, and hold up perfectly well even at close range. Lighting in general remains attractive, especially outdoors, and interiors even hold up passably well, packing evocative, if slightly crude, GI coverage. Despite its five year old vintage - a detail Ubisoft is eager to emphasize - Far Cry 5 continues to stand strong from a graphical perspective. It's not all perfect of course, and there are some inconsistencies that do betray its last-generation heritage, but it's hardly an unattractive game.

I'm excited. I've been playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive for 11 years now, since its release in 2012, and it's gone from being a LAN party curio to my go-to game I've sunk literally thousands of hours in, whether I'm testing hardware or testing my mettle in its online matchmaking. I'm joined online by 1.5 million concurrent players, and even when I take a break from playing, I follow the thrilling competitive scene that awards millions of dollars in prize money to its participants each year – not bad for a slow-paced, strategic shooter series that started life as a Half-Life mod in 1999.

The game has continued to develop and evolve all this time, but for the last few years developer Valve has been quiet – no new operations, Counter-Strike's take on a battle pass, have been released, once-frequent weapon balance tweaks have ceased, and updates of any kind have slowed to a crawl. That's because, since Half-Life Alyx was released in 2020, Valve has been secretly working on a new Counter-Strike: Counter-Strike 2. I've been taking part in the game's Limited Test, and despite some technical failings typical of pre-release software, I'm having a blast.

Developers have spoken about the "morally and physically exhausting" crunch culture at Ubisoft Paris.

In a report by NME focused primarily on the development of Just Dance 2023, members of the Solidaires Informatique union group for Ubisoft Paris said pre-production for the game was a "mess".

Reportedly, the Just Dance 2023 team was "tasked with changing the Just Dance 2023 engine just 11 months before launch", while bosses continued to push ideas "that had to be considered at all costs". This was despite developers saying they were "already underwater" at this point.

Read more

GameCube and Wii emulator Dolphin is coming to Steam in Early Access for free in Q2 2023.

It's currently available to wishlist in advance of a download through Steam. At launch a longer article will detail the features of the Steam release.

For now, there's a blog post on the Dolphin site (thanks Nintendo Life): "We're pleased to finally tell the world of our experiment. This has been the product of many months of work, and we look forward to getting it into users' hands soon!"

Read more

US Members of Congress have raised concerns to the Biden administration about Sony's "monopoly" on the gaming market in Japan.

Senator Maria Cantwell last week remarked during a Senate Finance Committee hearing that Sony was engaging in "blatant anti-competitive conduct", reports Politico.

Further, she called upon US Trade Representative Katherine Tai to "investigate these exclusionary conducts".

Read more

A quick PSA for you all - From the 1st January, 2024, Steam will no longer support Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 operating systems.

In a brief update on the site, the platform stated that following the 1st January, the Steam Client will "no longer run on those versions of Windows".

Those still using these versions of Windows will need to update to a more recent version to continue running Steam, including any games and products purchased through the platform.

Read more