Eurogamer

Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard has filed a last-minute attempt to delay the counting of votes from some of its workers seeking to form a union.

Last month, Blizzard's Albany-based band of Diablo testers formally won the right to form a union following a months-long process. Ballots were subsequently sent out, with the result due to be announced on 18th November.

Now, Activision Blizzard has entered a motion to impound those ballots, GamesIndustry.biz reports. The company's top brass is currently appealing the Diablo testers' ability to unionise, and claims any announcement of the results would prejudice future results.

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A Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 fan has redesigned the game's user interface, which has been heavily criticised since the game's launch last week.

Reddit user InterventX shared a mockup of what a more functional user interface would look like, which as it turns out just looks like the interface from Modern Warfare (2019).

Eagle-eyed fans have pointed out Infinity Ward got a new UX/UI Director following Modern Warfare's launch in 2019. William Faler joined the studio in October 2020, having previously been the head of UX at the American streaming platform Hulu.

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New evidence has been discovered that points towards PVP DLC coming to Elden Ring.

As found by dataminer Sekiro Dubi, the latest update to the game includes data for text banners that read "You Win", "You Lose", "Draw", and "Begin Match".

Elden Ring players have long speculated on the empty colosseums in the game and the potential for a future PvP mode - is this now on the way? Sekiro Dubi thinks so.

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Sony has now officially detailed the full suite of graphical options available in God of War Ragnarök across both PlayStation 4 and PS5.

Some of these we knew already - specifically, the "Favour Resolution" and "Favour Performance" settings on PS5 which you can then modify further by applying the separate High Frame Rate (HFR) Mode.

Today, Sony has now detailed the potential for VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) to modify these settings even further, and also detailed the various specs you can expect across both PS4 and PS4 Pro. Phew!

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Sony has now officially detailed the full suite of graphical options available in God of War Ragnarök across both PlayStation 4 and PS5.

Some of these we knew already - specifically, the "Favour Resolution" and "Favour Performance" settings on PS5 which you can then modify further by applying the separate High Frame Rate (HFR) Mode.

Today, Sony has now detailed the potential for VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) to modify these settings even further, and also detailed the various specs you can expect across both PS4 and PS4 Pro. Phew!

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Perhaps you're already familiar with developer Rusty Lake's eponymous puzzle series, but if you're not that isn't entirely surprising. Despite an enthusiastic fan base, the Rusty Lake games - and their free-to-play companion series Cube Escape – are yet to receive much in the way of mainstream recognition and acclaim. Which is a shame! They're wonderfully macabre things, combining atmospheric, casual room escape puzzling with some point-and-click flair. But it's the vast, interconnected plot that really sets the series apart, each self-contained title ricocheting back and forth along a gleefully grim timeline of grisly murder, shadowy rituals, and resurrection. It's another kind of mystery in a series all about mysteries, and with Rusty Lake's latest project - the marvellously ambitious co-op puzzler The Past Within – now here, Eurogamer set forth to find out more about the unassuming Amsterdam studio.

Rusty Lake, the developer, was founded in 2015 by friends and occasional collaborators Maarten Looise and Robin Ras. Before that, Looise, who was studying landscape architecture, had enjoyed decent success making news-inspired Flash games in his spare time, while Ras, who was studying law, ran a number of gaming portals. It was when their paths crossed online, while Ras was looking to collaborate with developers for his website, that a successful working partnership was born.

Ubisoft has finally got around to sharing more concrete information on Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope's season pass, which has been available to purchase for some time now, breaking down the three content drops owners will receive throughout 2023.

First up is The Tower of Doooom, planned for launch in "early 2023". This sees Madame Bwahstrella enlisting Mario, Rabbid Peach, and pals to help save her friend Spawny - a task that'll require players to battle their way to the top of the titular tower in what Ubisoft is calling a "highly strategic" new combat game mode.

The Tower of Doooom will be followed by a currently unnamed second DLC instalment in "mid 2023", taking players to an "enchanting" new planet. Here, they'll be able to "explore new environments, meet fun characters, discover secrets, and face off against new enemies."

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I put together the intro of the video embedded on this page to highlight not just the main problem with Sumo Digital's PC port of Sackboy: A Big Adventure - but also a recurring blight on a wide range of PC titles coming to the market at this time. Rendered side-by-side against PlayStation 5, one of the most powerful and expensive gaming PCs you could conceivably build cannot the game as smoothly as the far less capable Sony console. It should be astonishing, unbelievable - ridiculous even. Instead, it's becoming the norm with a great many PC releases. It is, of course, the #StutterStruggle I've been railing against for a long time now - and it's simply unacceptable that games continue to ship in this state. And if you think the first-play experience looks bad on a top-spec PC, your mainstream rig runs even worse.

Sackboy: A Big Adventure is a perfect example of what's going wrong in the PC gaming landscape at the moment, delivering not one, but two different types of stutter, depending on how your settings are configured - and it's equally true to say that the PS5 version is completely unaffected. The problems this game has are extremely unfortunate, because elsewhere, the title is very impressive. It pains me when so much good work is being undone by basic performance problems that simply shouldn't make their way into final software.

With Modern Warfare 2 now out in the wild, developer Treyarch studio has confirmed the game's ranked play won't be launching until sometime in 2023.

In a tweet announcing Modern Warfare 2 ranked play's planned release window, the studio said it was working with partners to deliver a number of key features at launch, including competitive modes, competitive rewards, ranked skill divisions, and top 250 leaderboards - with more details to be shared at a later date.

As part of its announcement, Treyarch also confirmed Activision will be terminating league play in Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War and ranked play in Call of Duty: Vanguard as of 22nd November this year. It recommended players "grab their rewards" in both games before then.

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Ahead of Harvestella's full release on 4th November, Square Enix has released a list of tweaks it will push out with a day one update.

Details of the update were shared alongside more information about in-game content in an official blog post.

Square Enix said the day one changes have been made based on feedback from the demo available on Nintendo Switch.

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Today, Sony lifted the lid further off its PlayStation VR2 headset, revealing its February release date and eye-watering £530 price tag.

Now, we also have a closer look at some of the games that will be heading to this new virtual reality set, including The Dark Pictures Anthology: Switchback VR, a spiritual successor to Until Dawn: Rush of Blood.

Switchback is coming from Supermassive Games, and sees players embarking on the most terrifying roller coaster ride I have ever seen. It is all set in the world of The Dark Pictures Anthology, with director Alejandro Arque Gallardo calling it "your own personal nightmare". You can see the trailer for this VR blood-fest below.

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Sega and developer Sports Interactive have announced a last-minute delay for the PlayStation 5 version of Football Manager 2023, citing "unforeseen complications which have arisen during the submissions and approvals process."

Football Manager 2023 was to mark the series long-awaited debut on PlayStation 5, with Sport Interactive boss Miles Jacobson having previously blamed its absence on Sony's unwillingness to send dev kits to the studio. "To make games for a platform, you need a dev kit," he explained in 2020. "To get a dev kit, the platform holder has to want the game on the platform. We spoke with Sony, we have no dev kits. We spoke with Microsoft, they sent them to us."

Football fans with PS5s finally got the news they'd hoping for earlier this year, when Sports Interactive revealed Football Manager 2023 would be heading to Sony's platform on 8th November. Now, however, the studio has been forced to announce an indefinite delay for the title due to "unforeseen complications" relating to Sony's submissions and approvals process.

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Dune: Spice Wars will be added to PC Game Pass "soon", Xbox has announced.

Following from yesterday's blog post revealing the November line-up forXbox Game Pass, the addition of Dune: Spice Wars was revealed yesterday as part of Paris Games Week.

Dune: Spice Wars is currently in early access, and its latest update back in June added plenty of key features including multiplayer on dedicated servers and peer-to-peer connections.

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God of War Ragnarök will include a transmog system on its release.

A transmog system allows players to change the visual aspect of their gear to that of another, while maintaining the stats of the original piece.

In a recent developer Q&A on the official Discord server, Sony Santa Monica's lead combat designer Mihir Sheth confirmed the game's transmog system.

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Sony has announced official launch and pricing details for the PlayStation VR2 - its new virtual reality headset designed to work specifically with the PlayStation 5.

The PSVR2 will launch on 22nd February 2023 and cost £530. In the US, that's $550. In Europe, that's €600. For that price you'll get a PSVR2 headset and its controllers, plus a pair of stereo headphones.

A pricier bundle will pack-in the PSVR2 launch title Horizon Call of the Mountain. That costs £570, $600, or €650.

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An upset Call of Duty player has sparked criticism for turning up in-person at an Activision Blizzard studio to try and get their Modern Warfare 2 ban overturned.

Writing in a now-deleted post on reddit (thanks, PC Gamer), the first-person shooter fan stated they had been stopped by a security guard after entering the car park of the company's office in Austin, Texas on Monday, 31st October.

The fan says they "politely" asked to be let into the office to complain about their "wrongful" Modern Warfare 2 ban, having spent $140 on a special edition version of the game. The fan was refused entry, and told to wait for customer support to resolve the issue.

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There's a The Last of Us board game in the works.

This project comes from Themeborne, which is known for its Escape the Dark series.

Themeborne will be working closely with The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog on the upcoming release, with its Kickstarter campaign kicking off later this month.

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Microsoft has released its proxy statement ahead of its annual shareholders meeting in December. In it, the company's board of directors advises shareholders to vote against two proposals for independent reports to be conducted into Microsoft's military contracts.

Proposal four, submitted by Boston Common Asset Management and Impact Investors, concerns the ethics of how the US government uses Microsoft's technology. Proposal five, submitted by Harrington Investments, cites the potential impacts of being involved with development of weapons for the US military.

Both proposals include statements made publicly by Microsoft employees about their disagreement on involvement with military contracts.

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Few games are bold enough to require co-op. Fewer still go as far as to obscure an entire half of the game from the other player, meaning the two people playing need to constantly communicate in order to grasp what's going on. The Past Within is one of these games. It separates two players across two timelines, one in the future, one in the past, then presents them with a series of puzzles they cannot solve without clues from the other person's present. Only when solved, will the shared story move on.

The Past Within's fundamental use of two players means it's a game someone cannot review alone, so we didn't try to. Instead, Matt Wales and Victoria Kennedy paired up and here, collectively, in dialogue format, is what they think.

Matt: Hi Victoria! What can you see?

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UPDATE 2.30pm UK: And, just as expected, Atomic Heart's release date has been confirmed as 21st February.

Along with this news, we also have a new trailer for the Bioshock-like shooter, which you can see below.

ORIGINAL STORY 11am UK: It looks all but officially confirmed that Atomic Heart will be finally arriving on 21st February 2023.

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Elite Dangerous and Planet Coaster company Frontier Developments has snapped up Complex Games, the studio behind Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters.

It's the first time the British-based Frontier has acquired a development studio, albeit one which the company has worked with in the past. The well-received Daemonhunters arrived in May this year as part of Frontier's own third-party games label.

Frontier has paid £8.3m upfront, with a further £3.3m due over the next year if milestones are met.

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Star Wars Jedi: Survivor looks set to launch by the end of March 2023 - even though publisher EA is yet to make it official.

Speaking to investors in a financial briefing last night, EA said it had a "major IP" due to arrive before 31st March next year - but that it was holding off on its big reveal until nearer the time.

The sequel to 2019's popular Jedi: Fallen Order is really the only thing on EA's slate this "major IP" without a release date could be. We already know the launch dates of EA's upcoming Need for Speed return, its Dead Space remake and its collaboration with Koei Tecmo on Wild Hearts.

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The latest PlayStation Plus subscription figures have fallen again, Sony has confirmed.

There are two million fewer subscribers than this time last year, despite Sony's big relaunch of the service back in June.

On the other side, Microsoft missed its own targets for Game Pass subscriber growth, but still grew a healthy 28 percent year-on-year.

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Sony is ramping up the hype for its upcoming Norse epic God of War Ragnarök with some pretty eclectic marketing.

Yesterday, we got to see Ben Stiller leading a group therapy session with John Travolta, LeBron James and their children, and today we get to witness Japan's newest Ragnarök trailer.

This trailer is an upbeat little number complete with its own (quite catchy) song and dance routine. The parent in me likens it to Australian children's music group The Wiggles, but with weapons added in to give it that bit extra. It is quite something, and I sort of love it. See it for yourself below.

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EA's latest financial results have revealed a 10 percent rise in sales for FIFA 23 compared to last year's entry, while the series' popular Ultimate Team mode seeing a six percent rise in players.

FIFA 23 is the final footballing game from EA to feature the famous FIFA branding. It will also benefit from modes reflecting the upcoming 2022 and 2023 World Cups in Qatar and Australia/New Zealand. The first of those arrives next week for all major platforms except Nintendo Switch.

EA previously boasted FIFA 23 had been a "record-breaking" release for the series, hitting 10.3 million players in its first week, making it the "biggest launch period in EA Sports FIFA franchise history".

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Darkwood is a lot stranger than I expected. I was drawn to it by the promise of no jump scares - I wondered whether a horror game really could resist the urge to suddenly surprise me, and if it couldn't, how it could scare me. It also happened to be Halloween so I wanted to be scared, and Darkwood had just arrived on PS5, so the um, pumpkins aligned.

But now I feel misled. Not because Darkwood isn't scary, or because it uses jump scares - it has surprised me a few times (maybe there's no getting away from this in horror), though not enough to suggest it leans on this as a scare tactic. But because reducing Darkwood to a conversation about scares misses so much of what I think it's about.

Darkwood is deep - surprisingly so. It's surprising because the top-down, retro presentation - it's quite like Hotline Miami but without the lurid colours - and the base-defence set-up make it feel quite simple. You've played this kind of game a million times before. Find wood to barricade windows. Find fuel to power a generator. Craft things. Keep the lights on, keep the enemies away at night.

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A new Deus Ex title is reportedly in the works at Embracer Group's recently acquired Eidos-Montréal studio, albeit one that's still in the "very very early" stages of development.

That's according to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, who made the claim in a tweet accompanying today's news of Square Enix Montréal's closure.

Although no further details on the new Deus Ex project were shared, this would seemingly be the first known instance of a major Square Enix IP being revived under Embracer Group's watch since it acquired the likes of Tomb Raider, Thief, and Deus Ex - plus Square Enix Montréal, Eidos-Montréal, and Crystal Dynamics - as part of a $300m deal in May.

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A new Deus Ex title is reportedly in the works at Embracer Group's recently acquired Eidos-Montréal studio, albeit one that's still said to be in the "very very early" stages of development.

That's according to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, who made the claim in a tweet accompanying today's news of Square Enix Montréal's closure.

Although no additional details on the project were shared, this would seemingly be the first known instance of a major Square Enix IP being revived under Embracer Group's watch since it acquired the likes of Tomb Raider, Thief, and Deus Ex - plus Square Enix Montréal, Eidos-Montréal, and Crystal Dynamics - as part of a $300m deal in May.

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Embracer Group is closing its down Square Enix Montréal studio - which it purchased as part of a $300m USD deal with Square Enix back in May - just weeks after rebranding it Studio Onoma.

In its Square Enix Montréal guise, Onama was a predominantly mobile-focused developer, perhaps best known for its Go series of puzzles games. It was working on Tomb Raider Reloaded, Avatar Generations, and a new Space Invaders game when it was acquired by Embracer Group alongside Crystal Dynamics and Eidos-Montréal in May.

As reported by Bloomberg, however, Embracer Group today informed staff it will be closing the studio in a move the company says will affect around 200 employees. Bloomberg's sources claim some members of the Onama team will be transferred to Eidos-Montréal, although it's unclear how many employees will be left without jobs following today's news.

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A little over a week after Jodie Whittaker's Doctor Who regeneration thrust David Tennant upon us again, everybody's favourite Time Lord (not including Missy, obviously) has materialised in Mediatonic's knockabout battle royale game Fall Guys for a spot of cross-promotional fun.

From today, 1st November, until Sunday, 6th November, players can find four Doctor-Who-themed costume sets in Fall Guys' premium item shop, costing 800 Show-Bucks apiece.

There's one inspired by Tom Baker's legendary fourth Doctor, one based on Jodie Whittaker's incarnation, and a third modelled after the latest David Tennant regeneration - which the BBC is officially referring to as the Fourteenth Doctor - as seen at the end of showrunner Chris Chibnall's recent swansong The Power of the Doctor.

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Kojima Productions has revealed Japanese-Australian actress Shioli Kutsuna will star in its upcoming, and for now somewhat mysterious, new game.

Kutsuna is best known for her role as Yukio in Deadpool 2, and has also had roles in Murder Mystery and The Outsider.

This news came in true Kojima style. As with the earlier reveals of Elle Fanning's participation in this new game, Kutsuna's role was shared on Kojima's website.

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16-year-old PC sim Dwarf Fortress is getting a new lease of life - and a fresh lick of visual paint - via its long-awaited Steam and Itch.io versions, which we now know will launch on 6th December.

This version of the game will be sold for $30, and include a slightly-less-old pixel art style to make the whole thing a little easier on the eye.

There'll also be a "new helpful tutorial" to assist new players into Dwarf Fortress' labyrinthine ways, as well as a fresh soundtrack and UI.

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God of War Ragnarök's release is just around the corner and, in anticipation of this, Sony has released a new live-action trailer for its Norse epic.

The trailer in question sees Ben Stiller (yes, of Dodgeball fame) dressed up as Kratos, as he leads a group therapy session with John Travolta, LeBron James and their children. Apparently, the father and son relationship we see in God of War between Kratos and Atreus is key to these famous faces nurturing their own parent-child bonds.

The resulting trailer is described as "a Super Bowl-level spot", which you can see below.

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Kelsey Danger, community manager for Pokémon Go, has reported receiving "violent threats" following discussion of a recent bug within the game.

Fixing the bug involved Pokémon Go developer Niantic briefly disabling the game's Bluetooth device support - used by auto-catching accessories such as the officially-licensed Go Plus device and unofficial Gotcha wristband.

Support for these gadgets was re-enabled this morning when the bug was fixed, following a weekend of fan fury directed at Danger.

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EA has finally detailed the free World Cup update set to hit FIFA 23 on 9th November.

The update hits FIFA 23 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One - but Nintendo Switch is not on the list.

As with recent versions of FIFA on Nintendo Switch, FIFA 23 on Nintendo Switch is a "Legacy Edition", which means it includes the same gameplay features from FIFA 22 Legacy Edition without any new development or significant enhancements.

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Despite saying differently on both the front and back of the game's box, it sounds like owners of Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong's PS4 version won't actually get their promised free PS5 upgrade.

A post on Reddit detailing a message from Nacon's customer support claims the publisher made an error advertising the upgrade.

"We inform you that the developers confirm that if you bought the version of the video game for PS4 it is not possible to update the video game for the PS5 version," Nacon explained in a reply to one owner of a PS4 version of the game.

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Popular Overwatch 2 character Mei has been temporarily disabled by Blizzard due to a game-breaking exploit - and won't return for two weeks.

Mei, one of the game's damage characters, has an ability called Ice Wall, which projects a huge wall of ice in front of her.

Ice Wall is a useful ability which can block the opposing team's path and line of sight. Players found a novel way to use it, but not without some bugs.

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Modern Warfare 2 has given Call of Duty its biggest opening weekend in terms of revenue in the series' history.

In its first three days, the blockbuster game generated $800m worldwide. According to Activision's numbers makes it the highest grossing piece of entertainment all year, more than 2022's biggest films Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Top Gun: Maverick combined.

The previous opening record was held by 2011's Modern Warfare 3, which made $775m worldwide over five days. The latest game beat this record in just three.

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Return to Monkey Island will launch on Xbox via Game Pass, Microsoft has confirmed.

The newly-launched entry in the classic adventure game series will arrive for Xbox consoles, cloud and PC via Game Pass on 8th November, following its previous release on PC and Switch. A PlayStation version will also arrive on the same date.

Our Christian Donlan described the game as "a deft and heartfelt journey through nostalgia" in Eurogamer's Return to Monkey Island review.

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I recently got word there was a Monkey Island-like game in the works. This in itself is not exactly unusual - point and click games have always been around, even if they are not as prevalent as they once were.

But this Monkey Island-like game has something else going for it that made my ears prick up. Not only is it described as a "merry and macabre point and click adventure game" by its developers, but it also happens to have Jonathan Ackley (Curse of Monkey Island's co-director) giving it his seal of approval. Colour me interested!

The game in question is Foolish Mortals, and it comes from the minds at Inklingwood Studios - you can see a teaser for it below. Heavily inspired by the Monkey Island series, this game takes place in an exotic locale and, as luck would have it, there is a demo for it available right now on Steam. So, of course, I headed on over to give this upcoming release a whirl.

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