Eurogamer

When Square Enix announced its all-new multiplayer shooter Foamstars, the internet expectedly reacted with Splatoon comparisons and endless jokes about, err, bodily fluids, on account of all the frothy foam that you'll be pumping on opponents. Funnily enough, both sentiments are only kinda true. The game's foam actually does ooze out of at least one character's body, somehow, while the rest is sourced through nuclear-type factories. Oh, and the game only sort of resembles Splatoon in both fun and unflattering ways.

Foamstar's 4v4 competitive matches have you spraying the map with coloured foam, at which point you can surf across the bits that your team has foamed for an extra speed boost (like Splatoon), although marking the map in your team's colour isn't the goal here, in any game mode.

Foaming enemies slows them down until they're so drenched, they're trapped in one giant foam ball which you can then surf into for an elimination (unlike Splatoon), unless an enemy surfs there first and bashes them out, encouraging you to get close and aggressive. My favourite part of this whole idea is that saves/eliminations can also be countered if you surf into the foam balls before they hit terrain, which sometimes leads to soapy football chaos as giant balls fly back and forth across the arena.

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Exploring Penacony in Honkai: Star Rail is like having the keys to Disneyland for a midnight soirée, but all the guests are sleazy film noir extras, and Mickey Mouse has taken the night off to let an anthropomorphic clock with the ability to manipulate people's emotions fill in. It's a morally dubious constructed paradise where everybody tells you what a great time they're having while the cheery facade is crumbling around them. Why yes, this does sound like regular old Disneyland, and it's this unexpected commentary on packaged 'happiness' that surprised me the most about the game's big version 2.0 update. But it's certainly not its only impressive addition.

For those not familiar with it yet, Penacony is supposed to be the "Planet of Festivities" where people stay at The Reverie. This is a gigantic hotel with special Dreampool beds that invoke shared experiences between all guests across twelve constructed areas - the 'real' Penacony where time stops in a neverending dreamscape. The Golden Hour is the main hub area inside this connected dream, and it's where you'll be spending most of your time exploring during the beginning of Penacony's story, and it's by far the best Honkai: Star Rail has ever been at immersing you in one of its worlds.

I love demos, so it's no surprise really that our game of the week is a Steam Next Fest demo. There are plenty I could have chosen, but the one that has stolen my heart is Hauntii.

Hauntii's first draw is its art style. It's black and white for the most part - or rather it's monochrome with various tints. And it has that stylish hand-sketched look that would be equally at home in a Mac Barnett kids' book or a New Yorker cartoon. (If Mac Barnett is new to you, BTW, do check their work out. I recommend Leo: A Ghost Story or any of his books with Jon Klassen as a great place to start.)

Before I shoot off on a major kids' book tangent, let's come back to Hauntii. And it's harmonious, really, because Hauntii is always itching to go off on a tangent. It's a game of ideas, and that's why it feels like such an ideal Steam Next Fest demo to me. Because with a demo, you're always secretly playing the same game anyway, a game called: what is this thing, how does it work?

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A series of Easter eggs point to us seeing more of Batman in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, presumably as part of a forthcoming post-launch update.

In-game calendar pages posted around the game's Metropolis map have been spotted by Batman Arkham Videos, and verified by Eurogamer. Each features a circled date, with a hidden code that spells out a secret message.

Substituting the date marked on each calendar page (the eighth of January, for example) with the corresponding letter of the alphabet (H, the eighth letter) spells out the following phrase: "He Will Return".

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Sega has reported poor financial results for the past quarter, due to the "weak" performance of some recent releases.

While specific sales have not been noted in its latest report, games released in the last quarter include Sonic Superstars, Persona 5 Tactica, Total War: Pharaoh, and Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name.

However, its latest releases suggest a more positive quarter is on the horizon, despite the company lowering its forecast.

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Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has said the company, publisher of Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, has "no current plans" to layoff staff as it continues to pursue its cost reduction program.

Details of the cost reduction program were discussed by Zelnick during Take-Two's Q3 2024 financial report, which was released yesterday.

During the earnings call with investors, Zelnick said Take-Two is "currently working on a significant cost reduction program". A similar cost reduction program was announced by Take-Two in its third quarter report for 2023, which resulted in some layoffs last year.

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Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've been playing over the past few days. This week: thumbs, Game Boys, and Lego GTA.

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

Have you ever performed stretches specifically to play a game? I suppose you can't get away from it in Wii Fit and Ring Fit, but what about in an ordinary kind of game?

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Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot believes the launch of GTA 6 will be "positive for the market" and expects it to launch after April 2025.

Take-Two itself has provided a release window of 2025, but Guillemot expects it "closer to our financial year '26 than our financial year '25".

Whenever GTA 6 releases, Guillemot said it will be good for the industry when questioned during the company's Q3 earnings call yesterday.

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A fresh set of weekly freebies has now arrived on the Epic Games Store, this time in the form of acclaimed visual novel Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! and rogue-like brawling RPG Lost Castle - with Dakar Desert Racing to follow next week.

Starting with Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!, it's the enhanced and expanded version of developer Team Salvato renowned 2017 freeware visual novel of the same name (minus the 'Plus!' bit, obviously) that starts out innocently enough - with players taking on the role of a new student who can romance the anime-styled members of the titular club - before taking a metatextual turn into considerably darker territory.

If that's not your thing - and its Epic Games Store listing makes it clear Doki Doki isn't "suitable for children or those who are easily disturbed" - your other freebie option is Lost Castle. This is a "super cute, super hard action RPG with roguelike elements and randomised dungeons" from Hunter Studio, and it supports four-player co-op and PvP both locally and online.

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UPDATE 9/2/24: Helldivers developer Arrowhead Game Studios has pushed out a "rapid patch" on Steam to sort some of its issues.

The PC update, available now, is designed to alleviate matchmaking problems and a number of instances where the game can crash.

"We've uploaded a patch to Steam that should improve matchmaking for PC," game director Mikael Eriksson wrote in an update posted to X. "The patch also includes some other crash fixes we've identified. We know there's more to solve, and we're working our way through it. Nevertheless, we hope this rapid patch goes a long way to making your experience better. Now go smash some bugs (and bots)!"

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Subnautica 2 developer Unknown Worlds has moved to address fan concerns following publisher Krafton's announcement that the underwater survival sequel will be a multiplayer title adopting a "game-as-a-service model".

Krafton made the claims in its latest financial earnings report, which also brought the news Subnautica 2 - the third game in Unknown Worlds' series, following on from the acclaimed 2018 original and its 2021 continuation Subnautica: Below Zero - would be out this year. And with fans beginning to express displeasure at the apparent swerve away from the solo, self-contained survival action of previous Subnautica games, Unknown Worlds quickly sprung into action, offering clarification on its blog.

Starting with the multiplayer announcement, that much is apparently true, with Subnautica 2 confirmed to be playable co-operatively with up to four players. However, Unknown Worlds stresses the sequel "is not multiplayer-focused", and that co-op is "entirely optional", with players able to play the game entirely solo if they choose.

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Assassin's Creed Codename Red - which takes the long-running series to feudal Japan - will launch before Ubisoft's next financial year ends in March 2025, CEO Yves Guillemot has confirmed, with the publisher's open-world Star Wars Outlaws still targeting a release in 2024.

Guillemot shared the news as part of Ubisoft's latest earnings results - for the third quarter of fiscal 2023-24 - in which he touted a "very promising line-up" for the year to come. That line-up includes a 2024 release for Massive Entertainment's highly anticipated Star Wars Outlaws, suggesting Ubisoft isn't expecting any further slippage after the game was reportedly delayed out of the publisher's current fiscal year - ending 31st March 2024 - and into the next.

The bigger news, though, is confirmation that Ubisoft's next blockbuster-sized Assassin's Creed game - currently only known as Codename Red, despite confirmation of its feudal Japan setting - will be coming in fiscal year 2025, meaning a release before 31st March next year. Historically, the Assassin's Creed franchise has avoided the spring launch window, suggesting Red could also be targeting 2024 - as previously reported - unless Ubisoft is breaking with tradition.

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This week on the Eurogamer Newscast, we discuss the bombshell news that some of Xbox's biggest exclusives are being mulled by Microsoft for release on PlaySation.

Blockbuster games such as Starfield and the upcoming Indiana Jones title could no longer be Xbox exclusives, reports now claim, following whispers that smaller titles such as Hi-Fi Rush were being considered for PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. So what has prompted Microsoft to think bigger with its third-party publishing plans? And does this finally mean the console wars are over? (Fat chance.)

Join us as we discuss the long-term factors at play - hardware sales, subscription service growth slowing - and more recent triggers such as the eye-wateringly large purchase of Activision Blizzard and the need to quickly see a return on that investment (also seen, sadly, in the recent decision to cull 1900 Xbox and Activision employees). We also consider Microsoft's next steps after all of this leaked - reportedly, by people within Xbox itself hostile to the very idea of Gears of War on PlayStation.

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In Nexus Mods' words: "A beast of monstrous proportions is approaching." Today, the mod distribution site - home to some of the best community made video game additions (looking at you Shrek and Thomas) - will hit 10bn downloads.

To put that milestone into some perspective, "if every download were a footstep, you could walk to the moon 11 times, or walk The Seven Thousand Steps to High Hrothgar 4,161,464 times," Nexus Mods said.

Meanwhile, if you are more like me and find it easier to envision things with pizza slices, if Nexus Mods celebrated each download with a slice of thick crust Margherita with extra cheese, "this pizza would cover 15 times the size of Manhattan Island". These are facts you simply knead to know to appreciate how monumental this milestone really is.

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Revealed during the latest PlayStation State of Play, Silent Hill: The Short Message is a new free-to-play horror game that stealth-dropped on the PSN store. As well as being worth playing in its own right, this 12GB PS5-only demo also hints towards what the next mainline Silent Hill entry might look like.

The Short Message is built on Unreal Engine, and developed by HexaDrive - the tech masterminds behind Okami HD and Zone of the Enders HD Collection on PS3, many years back. The whole thing can be finished in less than two hours, and has an entirely self-contained story spanning three chapters. It puts you in the shoes of Anita, who enters an apartment block in search of her deceased friend, Maya. Haunted by text messages from Maya - and armed with nothing but a phone flashlight - the goal is to explore each decaying room, uncover clues, solve puzzles and escape pursuit.

Let's address the elephant in the room first: The Short Message has major parallels with PT, released back in 2014 on PS4 as a free-to-play taster for what would have been the next Silent Hill game - Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro's ill-fated Silent Hills. Its delisting from the PlayStation store has given the game a mythical status ever since - its scarsity only adding to its allure. But the concept of running through the same area in a circuit with new details and events being added each time was a clever hook. It's an idea that's repeated here in The Short Message, too, chronicling the protagonist's loss of sanity from a first-person perspective.

Turn 10 Studios has released an initial outline of the changes it's making to car progression in Forza Motorsport.

The progression system has been heavily criticised by players since Forza Motorsport released in October 2023, and has been a frequent topic of discussion on the Forza Forums suggestions board.

The new changes are "thanks to your feedback", Turn 10 said in its Forza Motorsport car progression update announcement.

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The Knuckles TV show from Paramount finally has a full trailer and release date.

The six-episode series will debut in one swing on Paramount Plus on 26th April for the US, with additional territories following the next day. Idris Elba returns in the title role after his turn in the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 film.

You can check out the trailer below, including the reveal of a new villain played by Game of Thrones actor Rory McCann.

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UPDATE 13/2/2024: Following comments from Discworld game developer Gregg Barnett, in which the designer suggested some sort of rerelease could be on the horizon, Rhianna Pratchett has shed more light on the situation.

Speaking with PC Gamer, Pratchett - who is the joint owner of independant production company Narrativia, which was launched by Discworld author Terry Pratchett back in 2012 - clarified the company only has "rights to the characters" rather than the games themselves.

"If we did have the rights, then this would be a whole lot easier. We're genuinely not sure who does own the rights because studios have been bought and sold over the years, along with IP. Last time we investigated this, they were thought to be with Sony, but that's never been fully confirmed," she said, adding the company would "love to see the old games re-released".

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Artisan Studios has announced a new hand-painted RPG, with visuals and music from Final Fantasy veterans.

Lost Hellden is a new Japanese RPG that appears to be taking quite a traditional approach.

Hitoshi Sakimoto (who composed the scores for Final Fantasy 12, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Tactics Ogre among others) is providing music and audio direction, while Takeshi Oga (Gravity Rush, Siren, Final Fantasy 11 and 14) is providing illustrations.

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FromSoftware owner Kadokawa Corporation has acquired Octopath Traveler developer Acquire for an undisclosed sum.

The studio, founded in 1994, has previously worked with Kadokawa subsidiaries on Tenchu (FromSoftware) and Way of the Samurai (Spike Chunsoft), with the Octopath Traveler games published by Square Enix.

"To strengthen the ability to create IP in games as part of our game business strategy, we have made Acquire Corp. into a wholly owned subsidiary," reads a statement from Kadokawa in its latest earnings report.

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Persona 3 Reload has reached 1m sales globally less than a week after it released.

This makes it the fastest-selling game not only in the Persona series, but also in the history of developer Atlus.

For comparison, Persona 5 Royal's multi-platform release took two months to reach 1.3m units sold.

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Activision execs offered Infinity Ward staff a 50 percent pay increase and told staff to "take the money and get over it" after the publisher dramatically fired the developer's founders Jason West and Vince Zampella in 2010.

That's according to a fresh account with further details on the fallout from Activision's now-legendary ousting of West and Zampella, as published on LinkedIn by lead designer Paul Sandler (spotted by PC Gamer).

Sandler writes that he was told about the loss of West and Zampella by a fellow employee who rode a scooter around the Infinity Ward office, sharing the news. "I just sat there in stunned silence with my eyes wide open," Sandler wrote. "I stood up from my chair and said: 'What the fuck? ...Why?'"

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Elias Toufexis has said goodbye to his Deus Ex character, Adam Jensen, now that the franchise's in-development next entry has been canned.

Writing on the Deus Ex reddit, Toufexis - who also plays Sam Coe in Starfield - said he wanted to share his gratitude with the series' community. "I wanted to come on here and say thank you for this page, your wonderful messages over the years, and your continued, unbelievably strong support," the actor said.

"As for Jensen, we say goodbye, but hopefully not farewell. Maybe someone else will buy the licence. Maybe we'll make an animated series or finish the game. Elon Musk is a big fan, I think he has some money. Someone ask him!"

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Ah, the video game tie-in. A handful of brilliant games came about as a result of the late 90s-to-early-00s' somewhat ghoulish obsession with cross-market synergy (like Peter Jackson's King Kong, say, or GoldenEye 007) but the majority of them were, at best, forgettable.

As the obsession died down however, a younger, trendier opportunist stepped up and took its place: the anime tie-in game. Naturally, games based on anime aren't anything new. They are, however, popping up with more and more frequency - likely due in part to anime's ever increasing popularity outside of Japan - and one publisher is responsible for the majority of the most popular releases: Bandai Namco. Due to its collaboration with anime publishing giant Shueisha, Bandai Namco has the licensing rights to the most popular anime and manga titles in existence. Dragon Ball, Naruto, Bleach, Gundam, My Hero Academia - if it's an anime you've heard of, Bandai probably owns the rights to turn it into a video game.

But just as the majority of movie tie-in games used to either be cookie-cutter first person shooters or unimaginative third person action adventure games, today the fixation seems to be on arena fighting games - which, unfortunately, brings us to Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash.

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UPDATE 09/02/24: CVC Capital Partners and Haveli Investments have confirmed their agreement to acquire Jagex, though the terms have not been disclosed.

CVC is a Luxembourg-based private equity firm with over €188bn in assets - predominantly in sports. Haveli is a private equity firm in Austin with investments in gaming companies like Omeda Studios and Behaviour Interactive.

"CVC and Haveli will help Jagex build on our portfolio of forever games, furthering our aims of supporting and growing our community of forever fans," said Jagex CEO Phil Mansell. "Together we'll create more of the experiences our fans love, innovate to empower our players further, and build new forever games that capture imaginations.

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Activision Blizzard's Crash Bandicoot and Spyro studio Toys for Bob lose 86 employees as a result of layoffs.

These people are part of the wider round of layoffs Microsoft is undertaking, which will see 1900 employees across Xbox and Activision Blizzard lose their jobs.

The layoffs at Toys for Bob are much higher than previously estimated - a report from two weeks ago claimed between 30 to 40 percent of jobs would be affected, which was estimated to be around 35 people.

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Through dense digital underbrush and up sloping inclines, each quick-fire level within Children of the Sun begins on foot, as The Girl, its unnamed protagonist, runs in a distant arc around her cultist prey. Long hair covering her face, gun slung across her back, head turned down to the dirt - the sense is less of someone scoping their targets, and more that they're simply sensing the right place to finally take their shot.

Of course, it's you in control - sending The Girl left or right along a preset path as you scan the bright shapes in the distance: glowing golden figures amidst dark surroundings, highlighted as if by some sort of sixth sense. Does The Girl have some kind of special powers? Were the cult in question, the Children of the Sun, anything to do with that? The only information you're given on her backstory is that she was once one of their number - willing or not is unclear - before becoming hellbent on their destruction.

Once you have picked The Girl's position, each level then transitions to its main event: trigger pulled, the bullet fires via Sniper Elite-style slow-motion tracking shot through the air - barrelling towards its first target. Cue blood spurts, and then - on you go, again as if by magic, with a chance now to suddenly change the bullet's angle to take down a second cultist, and then a third, and a fourth... But where are they all? Regardless of where you take that original shot, each level in Children of the Sun is a miniature maze for you to navigate in bullet time. Around corners, through windows into buildings, hiding in the trees. Get your path right, and no one is safe.

UPDATE 9/2/24: Microsoft has responded to the FTC's claim that its planned layoff of 1900 people across Xbox and Activision Blizzard goes against what was said in court last year, in regards to how Activision would remain structurally independent.

"In continuing its opposition to the deal, the FTC ignores the reality that the deal itself has substantially changed," a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement to Eurogamer.

"Since the FTC lost in court last July, Microsoft was required by the UK competition authority to restructure the acquisition globally and therefore did not acquire the cloud streaming rights to Activision Blizzard games in the United States. Additionally, Sony and Microsoft signed a binding agreement to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation on even better terms than Sony had before."

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Take-Two Interactive and 2K Games have said that virtual currencies within games are "fictions created by game publishers" during a lawsuit which alleges that money is effectively stolen from players when games are shut down.

The lawsuit, originally filed in November by a Californian minor and his mother, alleges that Take-Two is guilty of civil theft and unfair business practicies for closing down servers for various NBA 2K, WWE 2K and PGA Tour 2K titles, causing players to lose access to any remaining in-game funds they have paid for.

"VC [virtual currency] is not plaintiff's property," a Take-Two lawyer stated this week, as reported by Game File. "Instead, in-game VC are fictions created by game publishers, subject to the publishers’ terms of service and user agreements."

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A city tour demonstrating the architecture of New York usually doesn't need to specify that it's "pacifist." But when it takes place in Tom Clancy's: The Division, avoiding violence is difficult. The digital tourists in Total Refusal's film Operation Jane Walk carry rifles and tactical gear, whether they want to use them or not. As they move towards Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive to discuss the work of urban planner Robert Moses and theorist Jane Jacobs, they have to avoid and ignore incoming fire. Next, they pause to watch an NPC endlessly beat something that looks suspiciously like a human corpse.

"If we don't disturb him, he'll continue his performance forever," says the tour guide.

Operation Jane Walk is one of Total Refusal's earliest productions. The collective is a group of academics and creatives making thought-provoking art by exploring the seams of AAA video games. Jane Walk captures the twin themes that underlie much of their work. Firstly, it explores how games so often reproduce an uncritical, capitalist, imperialist political perspective. And secondly, it reveals that they're actually completely absurd.

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The Walt Disney Company has announced it's acquiring a $1.5bn USD stake in Epic Games as it launches a multi-year partnership to create an "expansive and open games and entertainment universe connected to Fortnite".

This new Unreal Engine-powered "persistent universe" will "interoperate" with Fortnite to offer a "multitude of opportunities for consumers to play, watch, shop and engage with content, characters and stories" from across Disney's vast IP portfolio.

Explicit mention is made of Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and Avatar, with users able to "create their own stories and experiences, express their fandom in a distinctly Disney way, and share content with each other in ways that they love."

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If you're a fan of The Sims and Sims-like experiences, it's quite an exciting time; work on The Sims 5, or whatever it'll be called, is officially underway. Then there's the imminent release of Paradox's Life By You following a number of delays, and even the charmingly lo-fi Tiny Life for old-school Sims fans. The game that's generated perhaps the most excitement since its unveiling in 2019, however, is Paralives, and after a long old wait - and five years of crowdfunding support - its developer has announced it'll be entering early access next year.

That bit of information comes via Paralives' new live mode gameplay video (live mode in Sims parlance is the bit where digital chracters actively go about their daily business, as opposed to the customisation-focused build mode) which charts the life of Anisa as she moves into a new apartment and begins to get to know the neighbourhood and her new neighbours.

There's a look at how a Para's personality can be created - initially by raising or lowering their physique, mind, creativity, and charisma attributes, as well as adding a "vibe", social perk, talent, and various lifestyle toggles - and after that it's time to go outside.

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Marvel's Spider-Man 2's much anticipated New Game Plus mode will arrive next month - on 7th March - which means soon we can all swing back around and go for another spin with Peter and Miles.

Along with this new mode, players can also expect some new suits for the two Spider-Men and "more" when the update goes live.

The Marvel's Spider-Man 2 team has promised it will share a complete list of upcoming features a bit closer to this update's release. We will, of course, keep you posted.

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In parallel with development of a stunning-looking sequel, Kojima Productions has continued to work on the original Death Stranding, delivering a series of ports - and the latest is exceptionally intriguing, targeting MacOS and selected iOS devices. A single purchase gets you access to a game that runs on Apple Silicon Macs and iPads - as well as the iPhone 15 Pro. The promise is mouthwatering, especially on iOS: the full Death Stranding experience on portable, fanless devices.

Cutting to the chase, Apple's iPhone 15 Pro comes surprisingly close to the console experience in Death Stranding. The basic visual setup is convincing, with visual settings not too far from its PS4 counterpart. Pausing on the opening shot of gameplay, there are some differences - the rain is less prominent on iPhone, the foliage looks different in spots, and some LODs have been trimmed back, but it's otherwise a very comparable looking shot. Near-field detail is about the same between iPhone and PS4, while more distant LODs are sometimes simplified. Foliage density and quality has also been tweaked. There are obvious differences in image clarity as well, though we'll touch on that in a few moments.

Even shadow resolution - which is typically the first port of call to cut back on mobile ports - is about the same between the two systems. Screen-space reflections are maintained on iPhone, though they do look a bit coarse. Decima's volumetric cloud system does get a pretty sizeable haircut on iPhone, with chunkier and more artifact-ridden volumes. I imagine the Nubis clouds are running at a substantially lower resolution, with passable enough but somewhat noisy results.

Final Fantasy 8 director, and series producer, Yoshinori Kitase has said he would change its combat system in a hypothetical remake.

The eighth game in the series is more experimental than others, in particular with its Junction system used to boost the stats of player characters.

Kitase told IGN he would "really rework the battle system", mentioning the Junction system specifically.

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PC and PlayStation 5 versions of game creation platform Dreams were previously in development, it's been claimed.

During a recent livestream (thanks, wccftech), industry insider Lance McDonald discussed unannounced plans to bring Dreams, released for PS4 in 2020, to both PC and PS5 - and that versions of these projects were near-complete.

Back in 2020, Eurogamer was told by developer Media Molecule that Dreams already ran on PS5, though this version was part of the studio simply "exploring" the hardware. Separately, Eurogamer had heard of the game's PC port being in development, alongside other Sony projects that have released on PC over the years.

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Visual Concepts Austin - known for its work on WWE 2K23, NBA 2K24, and Lego 2K Drive - is the latest studio to be affected by layoffs across the video games industry.

While the exact number of those impacted by these recent layoffs remains unclear, the studio's former art manager Brad Bowling said he and a "group of very talented developers" were affected. "The games industry bloodletting continues," Bowling wrote on LinkedIn.

Software engineer Sydney F. is another known to be laid off from Visual Concepts Austin this month. "It's definitely rough," she wrote, stating she is one of "several other amazing colleagues" to have been affected by the studio cuts. "I will miss all of those that I worked with greatly."

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UPDATE 11.46pm: With a launch tantalisingly close for developer Blackbird Interactive's oft-delayed Homeworld 3, it's happened again: the studio has announced it'll be pushing back the real-time sci-fi strategy's release once more, this time until 13th May, to "ensure that we're making the final tweaks needed to deliver at the level of quality that we strive for".

Blackbird had most recently slapped Homeworld 3 with a 8th March 2024 launch date, after moving its release, first, from the end of 2022 to the "first half of 2023", and then to February 2024 after that. Its latest delay follows the first significant public hands-on of Homeworld 3 - seemingly not an unquivocably succesful one - thanks to a new Steam Next Fest demo.

"Watching you share your experiences, exchange and debate strategies, and gives us constant feedback has been incredible," Blackbird Interactive wrote in a statement shared on social media. "This was our first time seeing the game played at scale, which is always an equally thrilling and nerve-wracking moment."

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Arms Race has returned to Counter-Strike thanks to a new CS2 patch.

"Grab your guns and brace yourself for a chaotic race to the top," the Counter-Strike 2 team implored. "Work your way up to the knife stage and earn the final kill to secure the win. Go! Go! Go!"

This mode also comes with two maps, known as "Baggage" and "Shoots", for players to blast their way around. These are reworked versions of the maps that appeared in CS:GO. Baggage - which is set in an airport bagging handling facility - even has player-operated controls for the conveyer belts in the level.

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Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty crossover DLC for Lies of P is on the way ready for Valentine's Day.

A free update to Lies of P on 14th February will add the Azure Dragon Crescent Glaive weapon and Armor of the Honorable and Bandana of the Honorable costumes. It means you'll be able to dress up the puppet P in Three Kingdoms China gear.

This crossover follows the Lies of P collection made available in Wo Long last September - now that will be included in the newly announced Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Complete Edition.

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