Eurogamer

Immortality, the acclaimed investigative Hollywood mystery from Her Story developer Sam Barlow, is now available on iOS and Android via Netflix.

Immortality tells the story of Marissa Marcel, a (fictional) actress who filmed three movies over the course of her career - Ambrosio in 1968, Minsky in 1970, and Two of Everything in 1999 - none of which were ever released.

It's up to players to find out what happened to Marcel, which, as in Barlow's previous games, involves slowly piecing together events by scouring through reams of FMV video. But while Her Story featured faux police interview footage and Telling Lies chose "hacked" webcam video as its medium of choice, Immortality asks players to dig through an archive of film and behind-the-scenes footage, using a machine resembling an old-fashioned Moviola editing device.

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Sea of Thieves' tides are a-turning once more, and next week's Season 8 promises to be a bonanza for battle-hardened pirates, delivering an impressively exhaustive new "PvP on demand" system that, among other things, will see ships diving beneath the waves.

Core to Season 8 is a new faction system, enabling players to sign up to either the Pirate Lord's Guardians of Fortune or Flameheart's Servants of the Flame using the new Hourglass of Fate found on the Captain's Table of every ship.

Once active, players can either represent their faction simply by taking on any opposing crews they spot in the world, or they can use the war map to immediately begin matchmaking to find an equally skilled opposing crew. It's even possible to fight crews larger than your own if you're feeling particularly confident in your PvP abilities.

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Over the years we've seen some crazy challenges achieved in Call of Duty, from knife-only loadouts to insane killstreaks.

But YouTuber ThatFriendlyGuy has taken things to a whole new level.

Describing himself as an Escape from Tarkov Pacifist player, ThatFriendlyGuy decided to take on a new challenge. With the release of Modern Warfare 2, the YouTuber wanted to reach the max level of 55 without a single kill.

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Call of Duty Modern Warfare's footstep volume has increased by up to 75 percent following the release of the Season One patch.

Among the many other major changes made to gameplay in Modern Warfare 2, audio design also got a major overhaul, and many players weren't happy.

In the beta, footsteps were incredibly loud, sometimes overwhelmingly so, that was it was hard to hear anything else.

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Move over Stray, there's another cyberpunk kitty in town.

Described as a "cuddly, ultraviolent skate-slasher" on publisher Wired Productions' website, Gori: Cuddly Carnage certainly lives up to its name.

You can check out all the action in the trailer below.

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A class-action lawsuit has been filed against Nvidia over a component in its RTX 4090 cards which has been melting for some owners.

The part in questions is believed to be the 12VVHPWR power adadpters, which Nvidia claims it is still investigating the issue, nearly a month after the first cases of melting power adapters were reported by owners.

The lawsuit was filed on 11th November by Lucas Genova to the US District Court for the Northern District of California. It has been filed under "other fraud", which is defined as "action primarily based on fraud relating to personal property that cannot be classified under any other nature of suit" by the Administrative Office of the US Courts.

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After 26 years and nine generations of Pokémon games, there are now more than 1000 distinct species of Pocket Monsters available to capture and battle.

That makes for one long Pokérap to name them all.

Today marks the official launch date for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, and with them another 140 distinct species for the franchise's overarching National Pokédex.

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Sony Santa Monica left a truly heart-warming in-game tribute to a developer who passed away during God of War Ragnarök's production.

Please note, while this tribute is not integral to the main story, it does relate to one of the game's 'Favour' side-quests. If you are keen to avoid any spoilers, please refrain from reading further.

As players make their way around God of War Ragnarök's realms, they may notice love hearts adorning the environments. These hearts are connected to the Across the Realms side-quest.

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Can you still P freely? Not if you want to use this specific P, which this week has been trademarked by Microsoft.

The trademark listing, spotted by Aggiornamenti Lumia, describes Microsoft's P as "a geometric design in the shape of an uppercase 'P' in gradient shades from green to blue".

Why does Microsoft want this P in particular? Well, it's set to be used for computer software of some kind - the trademark itself covers various uses, including programs for "visualising, animating, transforming, presenting and sharing data and other information" as well as "software development tools for the creation of computer software applications and mobile software applications".

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It's one of the most infamous Digital Foundry stories of all-time. The original version of Ark: Survival Evolved arrived with a mixture of shock, horror, befuddlement and amusement owing to its incredibly bad visuals, ultra-low resolution, lack of detail, LOD popping issues, slow loading and the fact that often, textures did not seem to load at all. However, a couple of months ago, we were approached by representatives of the studio, saying that an all-new Switch version was coming - and they were eager for Digital Foundry to check it out.

Let's be clear here, while we're not exactly big fans of the Ark concept, the new version of the game is completely transformative. It's one of the biggest improvements we've ever seen, turning the game from a hideous, unplayable mess into one of the more impressive Unreal Engine 4 titles we've seen on Nintendo Switch. It's been rebuilt from the ground up and addresses virtually every criticism we had of the original game.

Nothing of the original version has been brought over to this new edition. In fact, it's based on a relatively recent Xbox codebase running on Unreal Engine 4.26 - a more modern, mature version of the Epic technology. First impressions are very positive: the extremely low resolution of the original release gives way to a pleasing presentation. Developer Grove Street Games targets 1080p and 720p for docked and portable play respectively, with dynamic resolution working in combination with TAA upscaling to deliver a clean look. The DRS window varies from 55 percent to 100 percent of output resolution, but typically what I saw seemed to operate at around the 70 percent mid-point. Either way, it holds up well.

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Call of Duty Warzone 2.0's proximity chat feature has led to some interesting interactions between players, but one has taken it to the next level.

TikToker Ziccs has taken to roleplaying as an Uber driver, picking up players and driving them to a destination in Al Mazrah of their choosing (in return for in-game cash, of course).

The result is rather hilarious, with Ziccs later encountering one of his passengers in the Gulag. Tragically, Ziccs had eliminated his former customer and apologised for it.

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Goombas are traditionally grumpy little gits in the Super Mario world - though you would be if you were repeatedly stomped on.

Yet unused graphics found in the data of DS game Super Princess Peach reveal that, at some point in development, goombas were given different emotions.

As shared in a tweet from Supper Mario Broth, several unused goomba designs have been discovered.

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Blizzard has released a new blog update for Overwatch 2, and the developer is clearly not too happy with the state the game is currently in.

This post from Overwatch 2's new executive producer acknowledges the team isn't "completely satisfied with how everything feels right now," with Blizzard now looking at the "[opportunities] for improvement that [it needs] to focus on".

Many of these future improvements will address issues with queue times, with Blizzard currently looking at ways to change the game's approach to its Support heroes as a way to remedy the long waits many players have experienced.

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Ratings for Company of Heroes 3 on Xbox and PlayStation have been listed on the official Taiwanese ratings board, suggesting the game will also be released on console.

A PC release has already been officially confirmed and was originally due out yesterday, but last month publisher Sega announced the game would be delayed until February 2023.

The game's ratings can be found by using the search term "英雄連隊", the title's translation into Chinese. The ratings for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S were all listed today (spotted by Gematsu).

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In the run up to the 20th anniversary of Metroid Prime's release, I've been watching and rewatching playthroughs on Youtube. My controllers have been scattered, my discs are in the loft, and this is as close as I can get to this vivid, potent, unsettling classic. Every video, there's always a shock right near the start: the GameCube logo. It's weird. I know that this shouldn't surprise me - I know that I'm watching these videos in part because this game is 20 years old. But when I see the GameCube logo, I always think, really? Back then?

Is Metroid Prime timeless? I'd put it slightly differently - it has an enduring sheen of recent-ness. Is that the same thing? Anyway: I watch the Morph Ball rushing through a ruined space station, the gold light on its equator lingering on the screen like burn-in, and I think: cor, those graphics are a bit special. I see the starting screen, with its bubbling microscopic horrors and I wonder if any new games will steal this unsettling method of introduction and build on it.

PETA wants Sony Santa Monica to add a new mode to God of War Ragnarök to remove violence to animals.

As reported by TheGamer, the animal rights non-profit organisation has asked the developer for a "PETA mode" so Kratos can spare the lives of animals he meets on his journey across the nine realms.

Beware, some major boss spoilers follow.

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Yuji Naka, known as the father of Sonic the Hedgehog, has reportedly been arrested in Japan on suspicion of insider trading.

The news was reported this morning by Japanese newspaper Mainichi, and comes a day after two other men were reported to have been charged with insider trading connected to Final Fantasy publisher Square Enix. Naka, you may recall, worked with the company for a brief stint, creating platformer Balan Wonderworld.

Naka, 57, is accused of purchasing shares worth 2.8m yen (around £16.8k) in Aiming, a Japanese developer which Square Enix partnered with to make a Dragon Quest mobile game, before the company's involvement was public knowledge.

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Netflix has released a new trailer for the forthcoming Sonic Prime, revealing its multiverse storyline.

Back in September, the first teaser trailer showed Sonic racing against Shadow in the Green Hill Zone.

Now, though, it seems Sonic will be travelling across a shattered multiverse - check it out in the trailer below.

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Activision Blizzard has relaxed its SMS verification rules, and now allows players to now link their Battle.net accounts with a prepaid (pay-as-you-go) mobile phone number.

SMS Protect is a system first rolled out in Overwatch 2 that is designed to stop banned players from creating new accounts and continuing to play. It was later extended to Call of Duty.

The system was controversial at launch as players with prepaid phone numbers were unable to enroll. This disproportionately affected those on the lower end of the income scale who are unable to, or simply cannot afford a pay monthly phone contract.

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Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've found ourselves playing over the last few days. This time: pirates, vampires, hedgehogs, and fighters.

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

Is it possible to feel nostalgic for a game you're still playing? Return to Monkey Island is such a brilliantly faithful return for LucasArts' long-lost adventure franchise that it also feels like an entry I half-remember playing over a decade ago, sprinkled with fresh surprises.

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It's been an eventful day for Gearbox; not only has the studio taken Saints Row developer Volition under its wing, it's also announced the acquisition of Hopoo Games' co-operative rogue-like shooter Risk of Rain.

Hopoo Games' first stab at Risk of Rain released in 2013, delivering a breathless blast of 2D co-op action pitting players against an ever-more-relentless parade of enemies in an increasingly hilarious ballet of bullets and chaos.

Its acclaimed sequel, which took the whole thing into glorious 3D, released into Steam early access in 2019, and proved hugely popular, selling 3m copies before the year was through. It's since got its full release on PC and consoles, and its most recent major update, the Survivors of the Void expansion, arrived in March this year.

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If you've already swiped this week's Epic Store freebies - Evil Dead: The Game and Dark Deity - and still remain unsated, you might want to pop next Thursday in your diary when something else shoots down the freebie pipe in the form of EA Motive's Star Wars: Squadrons.

Star Wars: Squadrons is something of a spiritual successor to LucasArts' beloved X-Wing and TIE Fighter games. It's set during the final days of the Galactic Empire, after the events of Return of the Jedi, and sees players engaging in deep space dogfights, both in multiplayer and in a bit of a solo campaign mode. There's even VR support if you're appropriately equipped.

Eurogamer enjoyed Star Wars: Squadrons when it released back in 2020, awarding it a Recommended badge and describing it as "an immersive space sim that's dazzling in VR [and] an exhilarating multiplayer experience, even if the story feels pedestrian."

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Crystal Dynamics has told fans it hears them "loudly and clearly" after a recent survey gauging their views on a potential Legacy of Kain revival received an overwhelmingly positive response.

Back in October, Crystal Dynamics launched a detailed questionnaire asking if the community would be interested in seeing the dark fantasy action-adventure series - which spanned five titles between 1996 and 2003 - make a comeback.

And the response, it turns out, was substantial. "In the past, we've found that surveys typically get between 1,000 and 3,000 responses," Crystal Dynamics and Eidos CEO Phil Rogers explained during parent company Embracer Group’s latest earnings call (thanks CVG), "but when we asked folk about Legacy of Kain, we received over 100,000 responses."

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Actor Scott Porter, who played Harry Osborn in Marvel's Spider-Man, has said he won't be reprising the role in Insomniac Games' upcoming PlayStation 5 sequel.

Porter - who recently portrayed Heimdall in God of War: Ragnarok - was heard in audio logs but only rarely glimpsed as Osborn in the first Spider-Man. However, post-credits sequences found in that game and its Mile Morales follow-up appeared to be setting the character up as Venom in Insomniac's "darker" Marvel's Spider-Man 2.

Given that Insomniac has already teased Venom as a major antagonist in next year's sequel, it seemed a distinct possibility Porter would also be making a return, but the actor has confirmed otherwise in a now-deleted tweet.

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Today marks the 20th anniversary of Ubisoft's much-loved (but distressingly absent) Splinter Cell series, and to mark the occasion the publisher has shared a smattering of concept art for its upcoming - but still "very early" in development - remake.

All this comes via a special 20th anniversary developer roundtable video, culminating in a look at the future of the franchise. There's a brief mention of the Netflix animated series - which was announced last June and is still in the works despite radio silence since then - and, of course, a bit on the eagerly anticipated Splinter Cell reboot.

Ubisoft announced its reboot - described as a ground-up remake - last December, with producer Matt West saying, "We're going to update it visually, as well as some of the design elements to match player comfort and expectations, and we are going to keep it linear like the original games, not make it open world."

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Call of Duty Warzone 2.0's launch has been a resounding success based on player statistics alone. But it hasn't been all rosy.

Players have been experiencing a range of issues, from crashing clients to not being able to download the game at all.

Activision Blizzard's Battle.Net client disabled downloads yesterday evening across America and Europe.

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Actor John Leguizamo, who played Luigi in the 1993 adaptation of Nintendo's Super Mario franchise, has said he believes Illumination's upcoming CGI film is "backwards" in its casting.

Speaking to IndieWire, Leguizamo recalled how his directors Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton "fought really hard for [him] to be the lead because [he] was a Latin man".

The actor stated that the studio had not initially wanted him to be a lead, but the directors' push to cast him eventually worked - something Leguizamo called "such a breakthrough" for the industry.

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452,281 people played Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0 concurrently on Steam last night.

This massive figure exceeded rival battle royales PUBG and Apex Legends which had a peak concurrent player count last night of 377,558 and 334,431, respectively.

The game was only beaten by the Valve behemoths Dota 2 and Counter-Strike Global Offensive, which are only distributed via Steam.

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It has, somehow, been a full year since Battlefield 2042 launched, and while it'd be premature to say DICE's shooter has bounced back from a disastrous launch it's certainly on firmer ground than it's been for a while. The belated launch of Season One in June was a small step in the right direction, while August's Season Two took bigger, bolder strides. Season Three, which kicks off on November 22nd, promises even more in the most radical season yet.

What's most promising is the influx of players that should come as Battlefield 2042 hits Game Pass and EA Play, hopefully ensuring once sparse servers are fully-populated. It's part of a bigger push to get people playing Battlefield 2042, with free play periods for everyone across all platforms across December - on Xbox you can play for nada from December 1st-4th, on PC from December 1st-5th and on PlayStation from December 16th-23rd.

Season Three - which has been dubbed Escalation - also makes some big changes, with the most profound being a return of sorts of the traditional class system to Battlefield, with specialists now being grouped by their roles. There's a new specialist in the mix, too, with Rasheed Zain joining the fray. He's a double-amputee whose traits include a faster health recharge and an airburst launcher.

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A modder has released a HD texture pack for Batman: Arkham City, following six years' worth of development.

Arkham City was first released in 2011, and has since been remastered for PS4 and Xbox One in the Batman: Return to Arkham collection. Digital Foundry called this release a "mixed bag", and stated they thought the original PC release was the "definitive" release.

But the PC version of Arkham City has not had a remastered edition - something which modder GPUnity set out to change.

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Last night's launch of Call of Duty Warzone 2.0 came with a small but mighty feature addition that has changed the gameplay dynamic between players.

Proximity chat allows players from different squads to talk to each other when they are close by.

The result has been a barrage of clips capturing these conversations, some of which are predictable moments of trash talk, while others are surprisingly wholesome.

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A former employee of Final Fantasy publisher Square Enix has been arrested and accused of insider trading.

38-year-old Taisuke Sazaki, whose video game credits include work on numerous Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts titles, allegedly bought shares in Japanese development company Aiming shortly before Square Enix publicly announced the studio was working on a new Dragon Quest mobile title.

Nippon reports that Sazaki acquired shares worth 20.8m yen (around £125k) between December 2019 and February 2020, after allegedly hearing details of Aiming's project.

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It's been a little while since we heard about Sega's plans to make a Streets of Rage movie, but the project now seems to be gathering pace.

Hollywood production company Lionsgate has now taken up the project's reigns, Deadline reported, following word earlier this year that Sonic the Hedgehog movie maker dj2 Entertainment was also involved.

More promising still is the news that Derek Kolstad, creator and lead writer of the hugely-lucrative John Wick franchise, remains attached, and will reportedly develop its script and act as a producer.

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Square Enix has revealed framerate and resolution details for its forthcoming remaster Crisis Core Final Fantasy 7 Reunion.

As perhaps expected, the game will run with 4K resolution and 60fps on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, while on PC (Steam) the frame rate can be boosted to 120fps depending on specs.

However, Xbox Series S owners should note that a day one patch will be required in order to hit 60fps, otherwise it'll be 30fps.

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Parts of Grand Theft Auto 5's stolen source code have leaked online, and swiftly been removed via copyright strike by Rockstar.

The code in question is a string of scripting functions, as shared on reddit. It includes references to game elements like camera, graphics and cutscenes, as well as gangs and DLC.

On its own, the leak isn't particularly enlightening about the next game in the series, but Rockstar's swift takedown proves the legitimacy of the recent leak.

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There will soon be more Super Mario sets to add to your burgeoning Lego collection.

This January, Lego and Nintendo will launch a host of new character and expansion sets. Before we go into more detail about each, you can enjoy the new trailer for these upcoming releases below.

Now to the details. First of all, Mario fans will be able to get their hands on Series 6 of the collectible Mario Character Packs.

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Marvel may be the name up top, but my first few hours with Midnight Suns has proved a brisk reminder of everything I love about Firaxis games - particularly the part of Firaxis that makes XCOM. For one thing, there's tactical depth on the battlefield, which leaves you with plenty of options for getting out of jams, or accidentally getting into them. There are upgrade choices that leave you frowning as you pick and choose, not between what you desperately want, but between what you least care to be without. And then of course there's a certain sense of wisdom in all things, and a belief that wisdom is in easy supply. This is a team that is not afraid to bust out a word like "commensurate" in a tool tip.

Something else too: XCOM games are surprisingly rich doll's houses. You battle aliens, sure, but then you peg it back home and decide which rooms to build and where best to place your bedroom. Midnight Suns is an excellent doll's house, by the looks of it. In the last hour I fought Hydra guards and chatted to Tony Stark. At one point, I actually punched a helicopter. But I also made it back home and spent a few happy moments deciding where to put a book case and picking out the best bedside table.

Saints Row developer Volition will become part of Borderlands maker Gearbox, Embracer announced today.

The announcement by Embracer - the parent company of both studios - comes on the same day Volition finally released the "Bright Future" update for its beleagured Saints Row reboot, which belatedly fixes several hundred bugs present since the game's launch back in August.

For fans who enjoyed Saints Row, Volition's move places the future of that franchise in doubt.

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Call of Duty players have found an easy way to unlock the M13B Assault Rifle, which is controversially locked behind a challenge that can only be completed in the new DMZ game mode.

Even more controversial is the fact that extracting the weapon only unlocks it for the player who picked it up instead of the entire squad. This means your squad will have to make repeated trips back to unlock it for everyone.

Fortunately, it appears you won't have to after all. As you only need to extract with the gun at the end of a round, a squad mate can drop the weapon earned in a previous match for you to pick up. All you need to do now is extract safely and you unlock the weapon (thanks, PC Gamer).

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Rainbow Six Siege players have been looking under the hood of the game to try and understand the new anti-cheat update.

The update was rolled out by Ubisoft on 8th November, and on the game's official website the developer listed the features included. The main feature was a new QB initiative which has been in development for several months. "While we cannot share details of the update in order to protect its integrity," Ubisoft wrote, "we're confident of the solution we've been able to put in place."

The QB feature was rolled back yesterday to allow Ubisoft to work on fixes for it. In the eight days the feature was live, players took a look at the files to try and understand how the measure worked.

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