We might be in the middle of a heat wave, but Sega is now selling Sonic loungewear ready for the winter.
The main garment is a Sonic hooded robe priced at £54.99 - a full length blue dressing gown with spikes on the back of the hood.
Then, to complete the look, Sonic boot slippers are available for £19.99 to keep your feet warm.
It's a genuine pleasure to introduce one of the most well known faces of the UK games industry to you today, and more than that, someone who's helped bring among the biggest and most beloved game series to our shelves. I'm talking about the likes of The Witcher and Dark Souls - and they don't come much bigger than that.
I distinctly remember talking to this person around the launch of The Witcher 1, in fact, back when no one here knew what it was. Then several years later we were in a Scottish castle together at a lavish play test event for The Witcher 3 - an event they had a large hand in organising.
They've also had a significant hand in delivering many other games here, from Enslaved: Journey to the West to Ni No Kuni, and from Enter the Matrix to Pac-Man. There's a good chance they've been involved with many of the games you like in the more than two decades they've been promoting and marketing them.
Rumours of a GoldenEye 007 remake have swirled for some time, though we'll likely have to wait a while longer to see the game announced.
The ongoing effects of Russia's invasion of Ukraine have left the project's announcement in "limbo", Venturebeat's Jeff Grubb has said, writing on Twitter that "GoldenEye is still in limbo because of the war".
Eurogamer also understands this to be accurate. We have contacted Microsoft for further comment.
A new Reality Mod for Battlefield 3 is due out this week.
It's been in development for seven years by over 80 contributors and will now finally be released on 17th July.
The mod aims to "create an immersive gameplay and a more realistic experience", with a focus on team play, communication and combined arms.
The newly-released Skyrim Together Reborn co-op mod has got off to an incredible start. In fact, it has already been downloaded more than 50k times since its release on Friday.
Along with this new mod for The Elder Scrolls 5, the Together team has also shared a little update about its purpose. Calling it a "passion project" by a small handful of volunteers, the developer revealed it had tested it out with "30+ players", although this did not strictly make it an MMO.
"The aim of the mod is to develop a true Skyrim multiplayer experience that brings online multiplayer into this otherwise strictly single player game," the Together team explained, stating it is aimed for use by two to eight players at a time.
Yes, there's another weird and wonderful way to play through Elden Ring - playing the piano.
Omunchkin13 posted a video over on reddit of his Elden Ring completion using a piano as a controller.
While the piano still plays music, don't expect a full concerto - it's more experimental jazz - but this is still a very impressive feat.
Kojima Productions has threatened legal action over social media posts identifying Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima as the man who assassinated ex-Japanese prime ministor Shinzo Abe.
Abe, the highly-respected former leader of Japan, died last week in a shooting that shocked Japan and prompted international outcry. A 41-year-old suspect was arrested at the scene.
Over the weekend, internet users began to circulate an old photograph of Kojima online, identifying the image as that of the suspect.
Low sales of the Wii U weren't the only reason Nintendo decided to not offer dual GamePad support on its somewhat underwhelming console. The decision was also due to a general lack of suitable games to actually make its implementation worthwhile, former Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aimé has said.
Speaking to MinnMax, Fils-Aimé stated:
"What was interesting is that with the Wii U, there was a full development plan for all of the interesting interactions and all of the interesting capabilities that the system could do, and so in that case, technically could multiple gamepads communicate with a Wii U? Answer was 'yes', but the install base never got large enough that that type of implementation made sense."
We wanted her to step on us. Now we can step on her.
PureArts is releasing a 1/4 scale statue of Resident Evil Village's Lady Dimitrescu, priced at over £1200.
Unfortunately, this exclusive statue has already sold out, but you can still join the waiting list.
UPDATE 5.45pm UK: Ubisoft has said that owners of Assassin's Creed Liberation HD will still be able to play and redownload the game after its servers shut down on 1st September.
The new statement, passed to Eurogamer this evening, appears to contradict the message visible today on the game's store page. This will now be changed.
Here's Ubisoft's statement in full:
Professional gamer Philip "ImperialHal" Dosen hit the headlines this weekend after he held off from shooting an opponent in a competitive match when he realised the enemy player had been disconnected.
As spotted by Apex Legends Intel, ImperialHal was competing in the Apex Legends Global Series 2022 - a championship with a cool $2 million up for grabs - when he spied a lone player off in the distance. After monitoring them for a couple of seconds, he told his TSM teammates: "Dont shoot him. Don't shoot him, bro! He's crashed".
You can watch the full exchange in the tweet below:
A developer who worked on Naughty Dog's upcoming PS5 remake of The Last of Us Part 1 has hit back at claims it's "just a cash grab".
In a tweet on his personal Twitter account, Robert Morrison - whose credits also include Resident Evil 7, Injustice 2, and Santa Monica Studios' 2018 God of War reboot - countered such claims by insisting it is "the most meticiously built and crafted project" that's had "the highest level of care and attention to detail possible".
Animator Morrison - who worked on The Last of Us Part 1 and now works at fellow Sony studio, Bend - said: "Actually, it’s the most meticulously built and crafted project that I have ever seen or been a part of in my entire career.
Sony's PlayStation 3 first launched in November 2006 and right from the get-go, the platform holder faced a stiff challenge in the form of Microsoft's Xbox 360. Here we were looking at two machines of the same generation, Sony's fiercest rival launching a full year ahead of the competition - and packing a hardware advantage in the form of its Xenos GPU from AMD. With hardware locked years prior, how did Sony react? Part of the marketing response was to concentrate on something Xbox could not deliver: full support for the new HDMI digital video standard, including the ability to output at full HD - 1080p.
Of course, in the years since, we know exactly how this situation played out - or do we? I'm really excited to reveal the public launch of DF Retro's biggest project yet: a generation-wide analysis of just how well PlayStation 3 delivered on its initial 1080p promises. Split into four parts, with a new episode launching every Sunday at 3pm BST, John Linneman aims to cover every single PS3 title we've managed to track down that supports 1080p resolution, to rank them all, and then - at the end - to see which year was best for full HD gaming on the 'Triple'.
First up, a disclaimer: we can't cover every single 1080p game. Some may have slipped through the net, others supported 960x1080 output (or even lower on the horizontal axis) as a fallback option when 720p was not available, and we're not particularly interested in those. However, across the four episodes, we cover a total of 88 titles. In an era where many PlayStation 3 (and indeed Xbox 360) games struggled even to deliver native 720p rendering, the full HD credentials of Sony's machine were left in tatters across the years, but perhaps surprisingly, there are many, many highlights - as you'll discover over the weeks.
Sony's PlayStation 3 first launched in November 2006 and right from the get-go, the platform holder faced a stiff challenge in the form of Microsoft's Xbox 360. Here we were looking at two machines of the same generation, Sony's fiercest rival launching a full year ahead of the competition - and packing a hardware advantage in the form of its Xenos GPU from AMD. With hardware locked years prior, how did Sony react? Part of the marketing response was to concentrate on something Xbox could not deliver: full support for the new HDMI digital video standard, including the ability to output at full HD - 1080p.
Of course, in the years since, we know exactly how this situation played out - or do we? Today, I'm really excited to reveal the public launch of DF Retro's biggest project yet: a generation-wide analysis of just how well PlayStation 3 delivered on its initial 1080p promises. Split into four parts, with a new episode launching every Sunday at 3pm BST, John Linneman aims to cover every single PS3 title we've managed to track down that supports 1080p resolution, to rank them all, and then - at the end - to see which year was best for full HD gaming on the 'Triple'.
First up, a disclaimer: we can't cover every single 1080p game. Some may have slipped through the net, others supported 960x1080 output (or even lower on the horizontal axis) as a fallback option when 720p was not available, and we're not particularly interested in those. However, across the four episodes, we cover a total of 88 titles. In an era where many PlayStation 3 (and indeed Xbox 360) games struggled even to deliver native 720p rendering, the full HD credentials of Sony's machine were left in tatters across the years, but perhaps surprisingly, there are many, many highlights - as you'll discover over the weeks.
Surprise! Valve has pushed out another update for its beleaguered bot-ladened shooter, Team Fortress 2.
Whilst not quite as impactful as the last patch, the game's Steam page explains how the update hopes to address "exploits and stability issues".
The long bulletpointed list includes mostly quality of life (QoL) fixes, but some new game server settings will now enable server operator to "limit the amount of processing time the gamer server can spend on processing packets for each client per tick". Clients that send packets causing server CPU processing time to exceed the configured number of milliseconds will be kicked.
Respawn has a new singleplayer FPS set in the Apex Legends universe in early development.
Known only as "Apex Universe FPS Incubation Title", the game is clearly in the very early stages, but already the team is looking to bring a host of new developers on to what seems to be a singleplayer shooter that will be a "brand new Respawn single-player adventure".
Respawn's careers page, first noticed by Dextero, is currently hiring for numerous projects, including Apex Legends, its Mobile equivalent, the upcoming Star Wars FPS, and Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, Fallen Order's recently announced sequel. But also included in the list is that Apex Universe FPS Incubation Title, too.
Crisis Core Final Fantasy 7 Reunion will reportedly run at 120fps on PC.
That's according to producer Mariko Sato, who told IGN (via NME) that the remaster will be "visually aligned and up to the standards of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake", meaning it should run at 120fps on PC, and 60fps on PS5 and Xbox Series X.
As for Nintendo Switch? Sato reportedly didn't expand on that, only saying that there would be “differences” in the resolution and FPS on Nintendo's handheld system.
Blizzard has confirmed that it will be tweaking both Mercy and Symmetra in the Overwatch 2 beta mid-cycle patch.
In a blog on the official website, Blizzard said that the team has been hard at work "compiling player feedback, [and] squashing bugs", and revealed that part of this will be revisiting Mercy's changes in light of fan feedback.
Healer Mercy received some minor nerfs when the beta test kicked off, such as her character automatically launching into the air when reaching an ally. Now, however, Blizzard is changing it so that you can decide if and when to jump… even though it seems as though that particular ability was a complete accident in the first place.
There hasn’t been a James Bond game that captured the superspy’s spirit as perfectly as Everything or Nothing. GoldenEye 007 remains the fan favourite, sure, but I’ve always preferred 007’s original experiences to direct adaptations. When EA had the Bond licence in the Pierce Brosnan era, 007 got creative. Not always successfully, sadly. Excluding spin-offs like 007 Racing, Agent Under Fire was a middling first attempt, though Nightfire brought a considerable improvement. For me, it never got better than this.
Many fans unofficially consider for Everything or Nothing to be Brosnan’s fifth Bond film, and it’s not hard to see why. Having worked on GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, and The World is Not Enough, Bruce Fierstein was brought back once again, penning a script fitting that era. Linking back to A View to a Kill, we found Max Zorin’s apprentice, Nikolai Diavolo, seeking revenge on Bond for Zorin’s death. That, and he’s trying to recreate the Soviet Union with the help of Nanobots. Because… well, it's worth a go, I guess?
It wouldn’t be a Bond film without the star-studded cast, and the game didn’t disappoint. While Nightfire simply used Brosnan’s likeness with a different voice actor, Everything or Nothing brought back the Irish actor one more time, marking his last ever appearance before Daniel Craig took over. Judi Dench, John Cleese, and Richard Kiel returned as M, Q, and Jaws respectively, while fresh faces like Heidi Klum’s Dr. Nadanova and Shannon Elizabeth’s Serena St. Germaine rounded this out. Willem Dafoe’s casting as Diavolo was particularly inspired though. It’s a damn shame we’ll likely never see him cast in a main film but for this, he played Diavolo well. We can’t forget Mýa either, nor her high energy theme song that I still remember now.
A new leak has given us an early peek at what games may be coming to PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium next month.
According to ResetEra's BlackBate - a mysterious poster who's correctly leaked games ahead of schedule before - it looks like subscribers to Sony's top two PS+ tiers will see the following games join the collection: Stray (which ties in with what we already knew), FFVII Remake Intergrade + FF7R EPISODE INTERmission, Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag, Assassin's Creed Unity, Assassin's Creed Rogue Remastered, Assassin's Creed Freedom Cry, Assassin's Creed The Ezio Collection, and Saints Row IV: Re-Elected.
BlackBate reckons the games will join the PS Plus library on 19th July - yes, Stray's release date - and states that these are only "some of the games", perhaps hinting there are more to come.
Award-winning writer and narrative designer Anna Megill has taken over as narrative lead on Playground Games' Fable reboot.
Megill - who was previously lead writer for the project and is who we have to "thank" for those nightmareish puppets in Control - made the announcement on Twitter, saying she had some "exciting news to end the week".
Megill's CV is an impressive one, featuring story-rich games such as Control - for which she was also narrative lead - Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, and Ubisoft's upcoming Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.
The late 90s were many things - but for me, it was all about Pentium PCs and Windows 98. That being the case, I was delighted to learn that the DOSBox Pure RetroArch core had recently received support for the venerable OS, opening the door to a range of classic PC games that can now run on today's Microsoft console hardware. Quake, Half-Life, Turok: The Dinosaur Hunter, Command and Conquer... put simply, any Win98 game is now available to play on Xbox Series hardware and there's even emulated support for 3dfx Voodoo Graphics too.
Be prepared for a lot of installing, however, via a somewhat torturous procedure. That starts with an unusual workaround to get the RetroArch emulation system installed on Xbox, which in turn runs DOSBox Pure. I used this video guide to get going, without the need for developer mode. Once you have DOSBox Pure running on your Xbox console, you also need to - get this - install Windows 98 itself. It was a surreal moment to install this 20th century operating system on a vintage 2020 Microsoft console, but this must surely be the bright future that Bill Gates envisaged back in the day... but perhaps not in such a user-unfriendly manner. All software, including Win98 itself, has to be sourced and loaded via RetroArch's support for disc ISOs. I chose the FTP approach in beaming these ISOs across from my PC to my Xbox consoles - unfortunately, the more logical approach of the Xbox optical drive isn't possible.
Blizzard is celebrating the recent seventh anniversary of its MOBA Heroes of the Storm by trimming development in order to focus only "on client sustainability and bug fixing".
In a brief update posted yesterday on the official website, Blizzard said it would now treat the MOBA in a "manner similar to our other longstanding games, StarCraft and StarCraft II" by continuing seasonal rolls and hero rotations, but with no plans for new "for-purchase content to be added".
As a thank you to all who've stuck with the game, Blizzard is offering the "incredibly rare" Epic Arcane Lizard mount to all players with next week’s patch.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt's summer update will rollout on 14th July, bringing a host of new features, including a new 8v8 Team Deathmatch mode and a refreshed battle pass system.
This new Team Deathmatch sees four duos duking it out to take control of five arenas across the Prague map, whilst the new Summer pass - offering 100 "levels of progression" - will be available for "only" 600 tokens.
Sharkmob also confirms that instead of the "standard" 12-week battle pass, Bloodhunt will now focus on monthly content drops instead.
Bungie has marked Bungie Day with the release of a limited edition NERF gun styled after Destiny's iconic rocket launcher, the Gjallarhorn.
At one meter/four feet long, it's a "faithful" 1:1 replication that includes an illuminated scope and comes in "premium showpiece packaging, covered with intricate details inspired from Destiny lore".
"In addition to capturing the look of this overpowering launcher, the NERF LMTD Gjallarhorn blaster includes the first-ever NERF Mega dart shells, which each hold 3 NERF Mega darts and fire 3 darts at a time," Bungie explains. "Load a shell into the breech, prime, and pull the trigger to send all 3 darts bursting from the blaster. The NERF Gjallarhorn blaster includes 3 shells and 9 darts."
PUBG wants you to check out Deston, "summer's hottest destination" and the first new map to come to the battle royale since it went free-to-play.
Out on 13th July as part of Update 18.2 - initially just for PC, I'm afraid; the console release will follow on 21st July - Deston includes a flooded downtown, a swamp, coastlines, "one of the tallest skyscrapers in the game" as well as the Lodge, the "biggest building ever made" in the game.
I first read about Lord Dunsany - I am happy to report his full name was Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett - in a collection of Arthur C. Clarke's non-fiction. In an early essay, Clarke describes going to see Dunsany, a beloved fantasy and science fiction author, when Clarke was young and Dunsany, who was born in 1878, was already getting on a bit. There is a moment in this essay that has stuck with me.
Clarke is getting one of his books signed. "I took with me a copy of his fantasy The Charwoman's Shadow...which he duly autographed with a sweeping DUNSANY running right across the page; it was the only time I ever saw anyone use a quill pen and then sprinkle the result with fine sand to dry the ink." That is wonderful, but re-reading the piece this morning I am delighted to see that Dunsany also corrected a mistake in the text. "'The Country Towards Moon's Rising' was transformed into 'The Country Beyond Moon's Rising.'"
I tried to get into Dunsany shortly after reading that. His books were hard to come by at the time and the only printings I could find were cheap and unpleasant - if Dunsany had tried to sign these, his autograph would have bled through from the first page to the last. But also this: Dunsany is a writer of serious whimsy - more on this in a bit - and serious whimsy is something you have to be in a certain mood to enjoy.
Welcome to another Weekly, the show where we recap Eurogamer for you.
Remember, premium supporters of Eurogamer get these episodes every Friday, when they're freshest, and everyone else listens from Monday - today!
In this episode of Weekly, I'm joined by reviews editor Chris Tapsell and managing editor Matt Reynolds - no relation to Ryan Reynolds - and our major talking point is our brand new State of the Game series. Maybe you've seen Chris' League of Legends piece or the Final Fantasy 14 piece.
IO Interactive has given us a first look at the new level coming to Hitman 3, known as Ambrose Island.
Agent 47 is certainly not one to stay put for long, and he is now readying himself for his next holiday (sorry, I mean mission). While many of us can only dream of having the opportunity to see the world as readily as he does, for Agent 47 this is all just part of a standard day. So, what of his next destination?
Well, once you set yours and 47's feet onto the tropical isles of Ambrose Island you will most definitely be stepping into dangerous territory. In fact, you will be stepping into pirate territory. So, you had better get ready for your buckles to be swashed. You can check out the new reveal trailer below.
Rockstar has told fans not to expect any further major updates for Red Dead Online, as it continues to shift development resource towards Grand Theft Auto 6.
It's bad news for Red Dead Online players, who have for some time complained the game had been underserved and overlooked by Rockstar in comparison to the more lucrative GTA Online.
Now, Rockstar has laid out its plan to keep Red Dead Online on life support and acknowledged its greater focus on GTA6.
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Aconcagua, a Japanese-only PS1 game, is finally receiving an English translation.
Hilltop, a translator of Japanese games, is releasing a patch for the game - available from 11th July.
The game was originally released by Sony in 2000 but never made its way to the west.
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It is time to take another trip to Middle Earth, this time with the precious-seeking Gollum.
A new trailer for the upcoming release of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum has given us all a closer look at gameplay. Here, we see the titular Gollum scaling walls, skulking in the shrubbery, and popping off orcs with rocks.
We also get to have a closer look at some of the other characters from Middle-earth. These include Gandalf and the elven king Thranduil, a mysterious new elf (who I suspect may be Mel from the preview I was invited to earlier this year), the Nazgûl and the eight-legged wonder Shelob. You can check it out for yourself below.
Psychonauts 2 is set to receive a physical release on Xbox and PS4.
Known as the Motherlobe Edition it will come with art cards, stickers, and a reversible sleeve.
Additionally, there will be a Collector's Edition from iam8bit - priced at $129.99, it includes exclusive pins for the Feast of the Senses, two exclusive posters, Pyschonauts 2 and Psychonauts 1 on disc, downloads for the soundtrack, and more.
Facebook's parent company has detailed its new Meta account system, which will be offered as an alternative way of logging in to Meta VR devices.
Previously-announced plans to make Facebook logins a requirement for Meta VR headsets had been hugely unpopular and plagued with problems.
Now, we know roughly when and how an alternative plan will be put into practice: in August, and via the launch of a fresh, pared-back account system with a separate social profile named Meta Horizon.
EA is battling further leaks of Skate, as videos of its playtest emerge online.
The playtest was recently announced, allowing players a look at an early build of the game. But already details have been leaking from it, including information on its map, character customisation, and in-game currency.
Now videos from the playtest have popped up on reddit, giving everyone a look at the game.
Hot off the heels of The Quarry, another horror-filled game from Supermassive is coming our way. This time, we're heading back to its Dark Pictures series, with The Devil in Me.
A new trailer for this upcoming release has given us two things. The first is a launch window of this autumn. The second is an unnerving look at the game's Saw-like story, which sees a group of film makers make their way to to a replica of the 'Murder House' of HH Holmes, America's first serial killer. Obviously, things are not going to go smoothly for our group of intrepid young'uns.
Unlike previous entries in its Dark Pictures series, The Devil in Me does not appear going down the paranormal or supernatural route. Rather, it looks to be rooted in a pretty grim but very believable reality akin to the aforementioned Saw and the Hostel series of films. There are traps for our unsuspecting victims to trigger, there're torture rooms, there is tension, and there are some creepy-as mannequins. You can see for yourself below.
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: Sonic, Egypt, and a proper classic.
If you fancy catching up on some of the older editions of What We've Been Playing, here's our archive.
Sonic was my first love. The Master System game was my introduction to gaming and I became obsessed. Wearing Sonic clothes. Writing Sonic stories. Doodling Sonic everywhere - I can still do this by heart. And collecting tons of editions of Sonic the Comic, which is probably what got me here to Eurogamer eventually.
Pokémon Puzzle League for the N64 will be the next Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack game, Nintendo has announced.
Originally launched in 2000, this pocket monster puzzler plays similarly to Panel de Pon, albeit with tiles themed around Pokémon types.
Perhaps my favourite thing about it is the game's heavily influence from the early days of the Pokémon anime - so expect appearances and slightly distorted sound clips from Ash, Misty, Brock and Team Rocket as you clear tiles. Here's a refresher:
We're getting a pair of new games themed around 1980s action movie icons Terminator and RoboCop.
Both were announced last night during publisher Nacon's latest showcase, with RoboCop: Rogue City coming from Teyon, the developer behind the very wonky Terminator: Resistance.
RoboCop: Rogue City will be a first-person shooter, and of the two new games looks to be one we'll see launch first - in June 2023 for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Let's take a look:
Supermassive Games and 2K have released a new patch for The Quarry, which adds the Wolf Pack multiplayer component to the game.
"Wolf Pack is an invite-only mode where a host can invite up to seven friends with access to the game to watch along. While the host plays, their audience votes on each key decision, with the majority vote determining the outcome," publisher 2K explained.
"With endless replayability already built into The Quarry's deep narrative experience, Wolf Pack offers a whole new take on the unimaginable choices you face during your journey, enabling you to experience the fright with friends."