Eurogamer

Dead Cells, the ever-expanding rogue-like action-platformer from developers Motion Twin and subsidiary Evil Empire, continues to swell, this time with the newly released Enter the Panchaku update, which introduces pet petting, a formidable dual frying pan weapon, and more.

The ability to pet your pets in a rogue-like action-platformer mightn't be at the top of your own personal list of exciting additions, but - as revealed in Evil Empire's extremely extensive release notes - the feature is now in, giving players the ability to show their companions some love between biomes. And why wouldn't you want to do that, you monster?

Elsewhere, the free Panchaku update introduces the new Panchaku weapon, which keen-eyed players might recognise as originating in the animated trailer for Dead Cells' Bad Seed expansion. It's described as "two frying pans tied together with a piece of string, which crits on enemies facing you and has a slick combo with hits behind and all around you". It'll also reflect bombs and projectiles mid-combo.

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This week on the Eurogamer Newscast we're talking Pokémon, following the franchise's huge announcement livestream that divulged fresh details on upcoming games Scarlet and Violet.

The star of that show? Well, obviously it was Fidough - a freshly-baked dog Pokémon made of bread, whose popularity has now set the internet ablaze. But, dear viewer, we have questions. If Fidough is bread... can you eat it? Should you eat it? Why wouldn't you eat it? And how does it evolve?

Tom Phillips, Ed Nightingale, Victoria Kennedy and Liv Ngan discuss all of this and show off our own two-minute art challenge concepts for whatever Fidough evolves into, while pondering how it might taste.

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With Apex Legends' 14th season coming in fast and its pre-launch promotional push in full swing,developer Respawn Entertainment has shared further details on new hero Vantage - this time focusing on her abilities - ahead of her arrival next Tuesday, 9th August.

Vantage was officially unveiled as Apex Legends' 22nd hero at the end of July, in a new Stories from the Outlands video introducing her as a young hunter on the snowy planet of Págos. Adding a sport of drama to her backstory, her mother is an escaped prisoner (wrongly convicted) who was forced to turn herself in after Vantage was badly injured in an accident.

With that lore dump out the way, Respawn has now turned its attention to detailing what Vantage will bring to Apex Legends in gameplay terms, revealing her abilities to be based around two core elements: her sniper rifle and her bat-like companion Echo.

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The second wave of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe DLC is now available to download - and alongside it, there's a surprise update for one of the first wave's tracks.

That's right, Wii classic Coconut Mall has been fixed, so the Shy Guy-driven cars at the end of the course are no longer static.

Bizarrely, however, rather than just move back and forth as they did in the Wii original, the vehicles now pull off doughnuts. I'm not sure this was an improvement.

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German musician Remute is known for releasing albums on retro hardware - and now his latest is available on a Game Boy Advance cartridge.

The album, titled Unity, features 15 songs about "unification, division, and trust".

The cartridge is compatible with all GBA, SP, Nintendo DS Lite, or Analogue Pocket consoles, without the need for a region lock.

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Turtle Rock Studios has revealed new details for Back 4 Blood's second major DLC expansion.

The expansion, called Children of the Worm, will feature a brand-new story campaign with a new enemy type.

There's also new playable Cleaner known as "Prophet Dan," a gun toting, self-proclaimed preacher of the end times.

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A Goldeneye 007 mod has taken Roger Moore's third outing as James Bond and turned it into a Nintendo 64 game.

The Spy Who Loved Me fan project from N64 Vault is a "full campaign mod for GoldenEye". It adds Moore's likeness, along with Bararba Bach's Anya "XXX" Amasova and Curt Jürgens' Karl Stromberg, into the blocky and pixelated world of game's gone by.

Levels for The Spy Who Loved Me 64 include The Alps, where Bond famously skied off the side of a cliff only to deploy a Union Jack parachute, much to the chagrin of his perusers.

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Square Enix has revealed some new details about its fantasy farming sim Harvestella, unveiled at Nintendo's Direct Mini in June.

The Final Fantasy meets Stardew Valley meets Rune Factory game takes place across multiple seasons, with towns to match.

Square Enix has now revealed the gorgeous pink and purple cherry blossoms of spring town Nemea.

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Battlefield 2042's latest map is set to arrive with the release of Season 2 in September.

In a developer interview hosted by DICE, lead level designer Shashank Uchil said the team had taken on player feedback by focusing on adding cover and small spaces:

"We want to make smaller levels; we want to have levels with more cover. All of that is in this level."

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Beyond Good & Evil 2 is still alive, despite more than a decade of on-again, off-again development and the departure of its creator two years ago.

Narrative designer Sarah Arellano, formerly of Blizzard, today announced via Twitter that she had joined the project as its lead writer.

Arellano previously worked on World of Warcraft, following a stint at Saints Row studio Volition.

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The internet went barking mad over all the new information revealed in yesterday's Pokémon livestream, but in particular the new breed Fidough, who yesterday became one of main topics of discussion on the internet.

I've been asked (read, allowed) to bring you the best freshly-baked Fidough content that we've been enjoying. Consider this as a bit like a Paul Sudowoodo handshake.

Right. Let's get this bread.

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Someone once wrote - I can't find the piece, of course - that the reason Peanuts is better, and also weirder and sadder, than other gag comic strips is that it has four panels rather than three. Most comic strips find that three is enough, and why wouldn't it be enough? Setup, development, punchline. The fourth panel in Peanuts is where things get weird and sad. A moment after the joke. A human moment, awkward and brilliant and often deeply memorable.

Anyway, I thought of this yesterday when pondering why most XCOM-alike tactics games have two action points, while Hard West 2 has three.

Let's take it back to the start: Jake Solomon's XCOM reboot Enemy Unknown hit on something very special when it reduced the complexity of a turn-based tactics game down to a simple idea: each unit can do two things per turn. You can move and shoot, or you can move twice, etc etc. It's not really a reduction in complexity, actually, but a clever repositioning of complexity. By making the rules of the game clear and non-fiddly, it allowed players to understand that the really engaging decisions lay out there on the actual battlefield. It wasn't how to move and shoot, it was what you might do through moving and shooting.

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Koch Media, which owns video game publishers such as Deep Silver and developers such as War Horse, has rebranded itself as Plaion (pronounced 'Play On').

In a press release, the company, itself part of the vast Embracer empire, stated this name was chosen to "better portray who we are and the journey we are taking".

"Over the last 28 years, we have built an incredibly strong business, partnering with many of the best-known names in the industry," wrote Plaion CEO Klemens Kundratitz.

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Have you bought a brand-new LG television recently? Perhaps you picked one up during last month's Prime Day sales. Or maybe you are overdue an upgrade to make full use of your shiny new PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/S.

Either way, Google, ever desperate to prove Stadia is still alive and kicking, is offering new LG TV owners a free three-month subscription to Stadia Pro.

The Stadia app launched last year on LG TVs and supports any model from 2020 onwards.

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Long ago, I was a muso. At school I was the kid who never had a lunchtime or afterschool spare between choirs, orchestras, and jazz bands. At university I spent as much time with the musical theatre society as I did studying for my actual music degree. And with Two Point Campus, this gives me one ultimate objective: to create the ultimate fantasy music school.

Before that though, the basics. To those who've played spiritual predecessor Two Point Hospital, Two Point Campus will be very familiar. The two games are near-identical in their approach: take something typically mundane and make a game of it, adding a healthy dose of oddball British humour. The controls are reassuringly familiar, the art style bright, detailed and easily readable, and university life is accompanied by an appropriately 80s soundtrack for all the gossipy, John Hughes drama.

The game's campaign is essentially an extended tutorial, each new level providing fresh challenges to explain core mechanics and systems, and serving as preparation for the endless customisable sandbox mode. Each campus begins as a blank slate of buildings ready to be filled with lecture halls, classrooms, dormitories, bathrooms, private tuition rooms, libraries, and more. Staff need to be hired to teach, clean up, and keep students happy. Students have their own needs which pop up in the form of mission requests: I need a party! I need a bookcase to study! I need a love bench! (More on that later).

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Bungie employees were doxxed and received death threats following a Destiny 2 collaboration with a streamer.

A tweet from a Bungie employee in June listed a collaboration with African-American streamer Uhmaayyze, who the employee described as a hero.

The tweet received death threats in response, which was followed by several Bungie employees receiving calls, texts, and voicemails from anonymous callers on their personal phones filled with racial slurs, reports The Record.

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Cyberpunk RPG The Ascent's next DLC, Cyber Heist, is set to be released on 18th August.

The story DLC pack is set after the events of the main game's story, where players will be treated to a whole host of new main missions and side quests.

The nature of the DLC means that players will need to complete the base game before it's accessible to them.

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Tencent is trying to become Ubisoft's single-largest shareholder - overtaking that of the company's founding Guillemot family.

That's according to a new Reuters report, which cites a number of sources close to the company with knowledge of ongoing discussions.

Tencent already owns around five percent of Ubisoft (alongside chunks of dozens of other video game companies). Now, it's seeking more.

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UPDATE 04/08/22: The decision to delay MultiVerus' first season has nothing to do with Discovery's aquisition of Warner Bros., game director Tony Huynh has clarified.

The original story continues below.

ORIGINAL STORY: 04/08/22: The MultiVersus team has announced a delay to the platform fighter's first season.

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A Twitch streamer has achieved the impossible by completing the $20,000 (£16,400) Halo 2 challenge.

The challenge, set earlier this year by streamer Charlie "Cr1tikal" White, was that someone had to complete the entirety of the Halo 2 Anniversary campaign without dying on Legendary difficulty, with all "Skull" modifiers on.

The effect of the modifiers range from increasing the health of enemies to all enemies being permanently cloaked. The only modifier that must be kept off is "Envy" skull, which replaces Master Chief's torch with an active camouflage system (because that would make things too easy).

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You can now sign-up to the upcoming Among Us VR beta.

A link to the process was provided alongside the announcement.

The VR version was first announced in December at The Game Awards, with speculations rising of a release date during this winter.

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Rumours suggest EA is currently working on a new Iron Man video game.

Earlier this year, Jeff Grubb reported that a Black Panther game was in the works with EA. Now, the loose-lipped journalist has shared that another Marvel project is also underway with the company.

Chatting as part of Giant Bomb's Game Mess Mornings stream, Grubb stated: "[EA is] making that Black Panther game we spoke about... and [it's] making another Marvel game that's single player". This comment was said in a rather throw away manner, but, of course, it was quickly picked up by the internet.

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Nintendo won't launch another new Switch model during the current financial year, ending in March 2023.

That's according to a new Nikkei (paywall) report, which follows up on Nintendo's latest financial results issued earlier this week.

During those results, Nintendo said it faced manufacturing issues due to component shortages. Speaking to Nikkei, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa said that sorting these was now Nintendo's immediate goal.

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Spider-Man Remastered, the PC release of Sony's PS5 game, will be playable on the Steam Deck.

Insomniac confirmed the news in a tweet, noting the game is Steam Deck verified.

It means you can swing through New York City on the go... in actual New York City if you want.

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Microsoft has revealed a new widget for Windows, showcasing the latest games available on PC Game Pass.

It's the first widget to be released for Windows 11 since the operating system was released in October 2021.

The widget is currently under preview and only available to Windows Insiders running the latest Windows 11 Preview Build.

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Have you ever met a cheater in Red Dead Online? I have - a few times, in fact. The latest encounter came at the worst possible moment, after I had spent an hour painstakingly hunting animals to fill up my wagon with pelts. I had set off on a trader mission across the map, opting for a risky long-haul voyage that left me open to attack.

A potential shootout with a player was a risk I could accept: combating an invisible god-like assailant, however, was something I really hadn't signed up for. Out of nowhere, I was transformed into a flying saucer. It didn't take long for me to realise what was happening - Red Dead Online is notorious for its cheaters, and one of them had decided to spend their evening targeting me.

It turns out that driving a wagon as a spaceship is quite difficult. The ship was so vast that it obscured my view, and the glow from its lights made navigating the pitch-black desert almost impossible. Using my mini-map to steer, I somehow made my way to my destination, but my ordeal wasn't over quite yet. I had some bandits to deal with.

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For those who've been with Sea of Thieves since its release back in 2018, the captaincy update is a thing of legend; originally intended to be the multiplayer pirate adventure's very first post-launch update, it would give players the opportunity to acquire their own persistent vessel on the seas, and - in a proposition that still excites the pirate in me to this day - start their sessions in a gloriously dramatic fashion, bursting through the Legendary Hideout's massive waterfall out into the world. But then Sea of Thieves' slightly wobbly launch happened, and Rare shifted its focus to fleshing out the game's sandbox following criticism of its limited core. With that, the captaincy update was set aside, but never quite forgotten by the player base, gradually becoming the stuff of legend with the passing of time.

But then, earlier this year, it returned. As announced during Microsoft's June showcase, captaincy and boat ownership were, after all this time, back on the cards. Now, the wait is finally over, with Sea of Thieves' near-five-years-in-the-making captaincy update launching later today. It promises to deliver an elaborate new framework for adventures to come - minus any waterfall-busting ship shenanigans, unfortunately - and ahead of its arrival Eurogamer had the opportunity to chat with Rare about what it hopes captaincy will bring to the Sea of Thieves.

With NBA 2K23's 9th September release date rapidly approaching, publisher 2K has shared a closer look at this latest series instalment's new features - including a new trailer - playing up the concept of "authenticity" across its defensive and offensive tool kit.

It's an extensive list of new features, as detailed in a lengthy new blog post, with 2K saying this year's gameplay changes should "should translate to more wins, and more seamless actions".

On the offensive side of things, there are new gesture combos to the Pro Stick, which 2K says has allowed it to "expand the dunking controls to let you dunk exactly how you want". That includes the addition of a new rim hang control which, on new gen consoles, incorporates physics-based simulated rim hangs.

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Behaviour Interactive's output has been dominated by horror game Dead by Daylight, but the developer is going... beyond that with its Behaviour Beyond showcase.

This was the company's first ever showcase, streamed live on Twitch and YouTube.

Here's everything that was shown.

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Dead by Daylight developer Behaviour Interactive has revealed its next game: Meet Your Maker.

It's a first-person building and raiding game that takes place in a hellish, post-apocalyptic wasteland, with players building towering industrial outposts filled with traps to protect genetic material - and then infiltrating the outposts of others to steal the precious resource.

It certainly feels like a departure from the popular horror multiplayer game, both in its genre and its aesthetic. But there are more similarities than you might think.

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Jetpack Joyride 2 - the sequel to developer Halfbrick Studios' enormously enjoyable (and hugely successful) 2011 endless side-scrolling mobile shooter - has finally resurfaced and will launch as an Apple Arcade exclusive on 19th August.

Halfbrick - also the studio responsible for mobile classic Fruit Ninja - initially announced an iOS and Android sequel to Jetpack Joyride back in February 2021, with an accompanying trailer suggesting some very familiar action, albeit with a slightly slicker new HD art style.

That announcement was accompanied by a limited launch in select territories, but Halfbrick suddenly pulled the game from Google Play and the iOS App Store in March this year, saying it had "entered a new closed phase of development for an indefinite period".

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Today's Pokémon livestream, gave us a look at the exclusive plushies that'll be sold at London's upcoming Pokémon Center.

The Pokémon Company had already announced the Pokémon Centre pop-up store will be returning to London, but hadn't given away any details on what new Pikachu design will be appearing. Images of the plushies have now been released, via today's Pokémon livestream.

The previous pop-up store in 2018 had Pikachu suited up and topped off with a bowler hat, and was so popular the store ended up having to limit purchases and opening hours in order to cope with demand. This time, Pikachu has an even more iconic London look.

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It is impossible to get your head around memory. It's intangible, yet all-powerful. It can be like living with a ghost, but the ghost is Arnold Schwarzenegger.

If I was making a game about my own memories, my own experience of interacting with memory, I am confident that it would be the worst game ever made. An open-world affair, but an endlessly glitchy one. Landmarks disappear and shift. The same journey can take hours one day and seconds the next, and when you reach the destination it's entirely different anyway. And wherever you go, you're always at the centre of the map. I do not want to play this game.

But what about a game exploring someone else's memories? What form would that take? What problems might it run into? Hindsight is an attempt to answer the first question, I think, and it also provides plenty of answers to the second.

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New data reveals that most mobile gaming genres have seen a decline in revenue during the first half of this year.

The data from reliable app store analysis firm SensorTower stated the mobile gaming market fell by 9.6 percent year-over-year to $11.4bn in the US.

The only two categories that did not see a decline in the mobile gaming market were tabletop and arcade games.

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Activision Blizzard and Chinese publisher NetEase have reportedly cancelled an unannounced World of Warcraft MMO following a disagreement between the two parties.

As reported by Bloomberg, the unannounced project - internally known as Neptune and in development for three years - wasn't a direct adaptation of the existing WoW MMO, but rather an MMORPG spin-off set in the same universe but during a different time period.

However, despite the project's already lengthy development, NetEase is now said to have disbanded its creative team - consisting of more than 100 developers - after a disagreement with Activision Blizzard "over financial terms" resulted in both parties pulling the plug.

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If I was a cat, I think I would've lost one of my nyan lives already with my pun game in my first mod round-up. But alas, the Stray modding community continues to give, and I am therefore compelled to continue cataloguing their work (see, that one wasn't even noticeable! That wasn't painful now, was it?).

First up, there's another mod for the dog lovers among us, thanks to MrMarco1003, this time with Bolt from the titular Disney movie. The mod also changes Stray's meows into barks, and you'll get to see Bolt chilling out with his identically-shaped fur-iends at the beginning of the game.

With the dog lovers placated, let's move onto the modifications for us cat lovers.

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A dedicated Sonic fan has taken the Sega Game Gear's Triple Trouble release and given it a 16-bit reimagining.

"What if Sonic Triple Trouble had been originally released on the Sega Genesis / MegaDrive, after Sonic 3 and Knuckles," asked fan game developer Noah Copeland. Well, Copeland not only asked this question, but they also answered it.

After releasing a demo for their creation several years ago, yesterday saw Copeland's passion project fully realised (thanks, The Deleter).

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On May 7th 2020, Microsoft kicked off the new generation of consoles with a gameplay showcase featuring a wide range of games planned for the Xbox Series X - and Bright Memory: Infinite was the very first game shown off during this presentation. Now, more than two years later - and half a year after the arrival of the PC version - Bright Memory: Infinite has arrived on console. Given its prominent placement in that original showcase, I felt that we needed to check it out here on Digital Foundry. On the face of it, this is indeed a 'next-gen only' exclusive - you can't play the game on PS4 or Xbox One consoles - which makes the launch of a Nintendo Switch version all the more intriguing.

Bright Memory: Infinite is a fast-paced first-person shooter which combines snappy gunplay with sword driven melee combat. It's not a long game but what's here is solid and reasonably well executed - it almost recalls the 2013 reboot of Shadow Warrior, though with more focused, linear level design. Plus, if you're playing on the latest consoles, Bright Memory Infinite promises support for 120Hz output and ray traced reflections, though not simultaneously.

Where it surprises the most, perhaps, is in its development history. Bright Memory: Infinite is a showpiece title for what modern development tools can offer when in the right hands - you see, most of the development duties on the game were executed by one person. In creating the game, Infinite was built using Unreal Engine 4 with additional support software and Quixel assets to speed up development time. That's not to say this is entirely a solo project - artists, musicians and voice actors were all required to complete the game but considering the quality of the presentation, it's an impressive accomplishment.

Apple Arcade users will soon be getting a new game in the Bomberman series to add to their collection.

Amazing Bomberman will be available to download on the iOS Apple Arcade this Friday (5th August).

The release of Amazing Bomberman will introduce "musical mayhem to the storied series" and see players "use various bomb types to smash obstacles and collect special items as the stage changes to match different songs". You can check out the new trailer for it all below.

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Over the weekend, a leak with potential details of the next Tomb Raider game made its way around the internet. These details came from an audition script for a role in the game, and told of Lara Croft leading a team of younger tomb raiders as she deals with the isolation of success.

Now, Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics has issued a DMCA takedown notice to the Sacred Symbols Patreon, which leaked the audition script in question - and in doing so pretty much verified the details as accurate.

Sacred Symbols has since released a video about this takedown, saying the company had "[forced] our hand" on the matter.

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