Eurogamer

TV app Britbox is now available on Xbox consoles.

The app allows you to stream the best in British boxsets, from comedies to documentaries and originals: Doctor Who, Downton Abbey, Broadchurch and more.

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Pick up a flashlight, grab a thermos and get your typewriters ready because it's time to return to Bright Falls - with Alan Wake at last making a jump from Xbox 360 to other consoles, the first time it's done so since its first release in 2010. Now remastered on PC, alongside PlayStation and Xbox consoles old and new, the recent release comes courtesy of D3T Studios in collaboration with original developer Remedy Entertainment. Alan Wake was a visually impressive game for its time for sure, but this remaster certainly does plenty in refreshing the title for the modern hardware specs.

Comparing to the original Xbox 360 release, the game is perhaps by necessity reworked in several key areas. Effects, lighting and shadow quality are bumped up, character models are reworked with new shaders for skin and hair, while texture resolution is increased. And of course, on high-end consoles like Xbox Series X, S and PS5, you get a resolution boost, plus 60 frames per second gameplay. Looking back, Alan Wake was something of a technical showcase on release, as an Xbox exclusive. Fog, object physics, and dynamic shadows all impressed 11 years ago, and largely still hold up - though the game's 544p resolution was somewhat controversial. Interplay with light also proved crucial. Not just technically, but also as a mechanic for the game: for weakening the Taken and for solving puzzles. As a precursor to Quantum Break and Control, this was the start of something special for Remedy.

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A new accessibility peripheral has been designed to allow players to see sounds through LED lights.

Audio Radar has been created by Airdrop Gaming and converts 7.1 surround sound into directional cues.

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A new twist in the ongoing and increasingly messy legal situation surrounding Activision Blizzard appears to have left California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing on the back foot (thanks, PC Gamer).

The California DFEH is, you may recall, the state department which filed the original complaint against Activision Blizzard for running a studio allegedly rife with sexual discrimination, harassment and a "frat boy" culture.

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Some people covet vintage Gibson guitars, pristine Roland drum machines or an original Fender amp handwired by Leo himself, but I've spent the past 18 months researching and collecting humble Casio keyboards - partly because they're actually affordable, but mostly because they're downright awesome.

There's a parallel, I'm sure, with one of my favourite video game companies somewhere in there. Toshio Kashio, a younger brother in the family behind one of Japan's most famous exports, repurposed the calculators he'd built to accommodate his amateur musicianship, making it possible to play simple melodies on them before they eventually blossomed into full-sized keyboards, just as Gunpei Yokoi once took those LCD displays and repurposed them for something more playful.

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Evercade VS, the home console version of the retro handheld designed with local multiplayer in mind, has been delayed.

Originally planned for early November, European stock now has an estimated release between December 8th and 17th - with US and Canada shipments being pushed to January 14th, 2022.

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Players have discovered a secret method of dispatching Kraid in Metroid Dread.

The series has long been known for its sequence breaking, where players acquire certain items and abilities earlier than intended to make the journey that little bit easier.

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Pokémon Go has detailed its bumper Halloween event, which is due to run from this Friday, 15th October until the end of the month.

Several Pokémon species will debut in Pokémon Go for the first time, most notably the gourd-like Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist, as well as the spooky tree creatures Phantump and Trevenant.

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UPDATE 12/10/21: Blizzard has responded to Eurogamer, acknowledging the issues and thanking players for their patience.

"We are aware of and are investigating issues some players have been experiencing in Diablo 2: Resurrected. We have conducted emergency maintenance across all platforms, are closely monitoring server performance, and are making further adjustments and fixes as needed. We thank players for bearing with us as we make this progress, and we want to assure them that we are working hard on both short- and long-term fixes in order to stabilize the Diablo 2: Resurrected experience for all players globally."

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Nice parquet flooring. Is it weird that that's the first thing I notice? There is some very nice parquet flooring early on during the campaign in Back 4 Blood. But maybe it's not weird at all. Back 4 Blood is the spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead - it's another zombie game. And zombie games are, perversely, often the most domestic of games. To work properly they have to take place in a recognisable world, so game designers must drag themselves in from the heavy metal album covers and space stations and focus on the things a lot of us live around. Like parquet flooring. (I wish.) Nice, perhaps a little scuffed. Maybe a bit too much blood and brain smeared about.

I have put in a few hours so far, and they have been happy hours. This I was not expecting, to be honest. Over the last few days I have getting a sense that people are a little annoyed with Back 4 Blood. Progression systems and unlocks that don't work if you play solo. Frustrations that I can easily understand.

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There's some potentially disappointing news for Monster Hunter Rise players; Capcom has revealed that it will be "unable to implement" cross-saves and cross-play between the original Switch version and its upcoming PC port.

Following Capcom's recent confirmation that Monster Hunter Rise would launch for PC on 12th January next year, players immediately began questioning how both versions might interact with each other. Some players wondered if they'd be able to team up with friends playing on a different platform, while others, eager to take advantage of the increased graphical fidelity on PC, asked if Capcom might provide a way to transfer potentially hundreds of hours of time investment from Nintendo's console to PC - particularly after an official questionnaire seemed to suggest cross-play and cross-saves were features the publisher was considering.

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Riders Republic, Ubisoft's "mass multiplayer outdoor extreme sports" game and Steep spiritual successor, will be free to try for 24 hours starting tomorrow, 12th October, on PC.

Riders Republic, if you're unfamiliar, takes the open-world winter sports action of Steep and expands it out to feature a broader range of activities, encompassing skiing, snowboarding, biking, and wing suits (of the vanilla and jet-powered varieties) in both solo and competitive play - which, in the latter case, includes large-scale competitions for upward of 50 players.

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'Tis the season to be spooky, and Rainbow Six Siege is getting into the spirit of things tomorrow, 12th October, with the return of its Doktor's Curse limited-time Halloween event.

Doktor's Curse first emerged as a seasonal treat for Rainbow Six Siege players back in Year 4, but its 5v5 hide-and-seek-style Monster Hunt mode - set across a suitably sinister Frankenstein-themed version of the Theme Park map - has, according to Ubisoft, seen a few tweaks for 2021.

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It's the new Digital Foundry Direct Weekly - our regular talk show covering the latest in gaming and technology news. In this week's episode, the team dig deep into Halo Infinite's remarkably fun big team battle mode, reveal performance analysis of this most ambitious game variation on each and every Xbox, discuss concerns about the PC version and share thoughts on how the flighting process for the shooter has radically shifted perceptions about the game, for the better.

There's also a fair bit of chat about the Switch OLED model and how Nintendo has essentially delivered a super-refined handheld with a beautiful screen that elevates the handheld experience considerably, but doesn't address perennial issues with docked play. However, adding some spice to the mix is the reveal that the new dock features an HDMI 2.0 controller, meaning that - in theory at least - it can pass through an HDMI 2.0 signal at full 4K60. It's an interesting revision for the dock, but not of much use to the existing Switch because its PCIe lanes are split between USB and display output and I'm pretty sure that a theoretical 4K30 is the limit. Which leads us onto the question of whether future Switch hardware would be able to use the same dock and deliver an actual 4K signal at 60Hz. It's an interesting theory, but ultimately, this would limit Nintendo's design choices for a future console. My money is still on the HDMI 2.0 controller simply being easier to source than a likely delisted HDMI 1.4 part.

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Microsoft is re-considering its approach to right-to-repair following pressure from shareholders.

As reported by Grist (via VG247), the shareholder advocacy group As You Sow filed a report in June urging Microsoft to analyse the "environmental and social benefits" of making device repair easier, so that consumers can repair their own tech.

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A Fortnite feature film is being considered, as part of plans for a new Epic Games entertainment division.

The move into scripted video programming was reported today by The Information (paywall), and comes as Epic's revenues have been hit by its inability to expand further on iPhones and Android devices.

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EA has trademarked EA Sports FC.

Polygon (via VGC) spotted the trademark filing on the websites of the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office and the European Union Intellectual Property Office.

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Aspyr is releasing bundle versions of its Star Wars ports on PlayStation 4 and Switch.

Star Wars Jedi Knight Collection will include single-player adventure Star Wars Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast and multiplayer game Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy.

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All N64 games in the upcoming Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack service will be offered in a 60Hz English language version, Nintendo has confirmed.

Select games will also include the alternative of the European PAL version with other language options.

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On one of the splash screens when you load up Forza Horizon 5 - the one where you usually get all the small print from brands and sponsors and the stuff about not driving like this in real life - you also get a few words from the state of Mexico, asserting its rights over the imagery depicting the country's famous attractions. It's just a bit of legalese, and I confess I never noticed whether previous editions of the series featured similar boilerplate from the UK, Australia, France, Italy or the USA. But it seems significant, somehow. This could be a sign of a national government - or at the very least a tourist board or a chamber of commerce - paying attention to the power a video game like this has to shape international perception and maybe even drive trade, the way globetrotting spy movies and handsome nature documentaries do.

If I'm right, they would not be wrong. The Forza Horizon series has always been exemplary virtual tourism (a market, incidentally, Microsoft is close to cornering, between this and Flight Sim - a very canny investment). The games have married an innocuous, celebratory and above all welcoming vibe to rock-solid driving gameplay and let both loose across artfully sculpted and condensed maps of iconic scenery: the ochre rock formations of Colorado's national parks, the sparkling decadence of the Mediterranean coast, the majestic skies of the Outback, the moody hills and cosseted villages of the Cotswolds. There is nothing but upside here. Any culture secretary worth their salt would want a piece of this.

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Boxed games for the upcoming Intellivision Amico console are now available to buy - even though the system itself is still without a release date.

A pack of four physical games costs $79.99/€79.99, or you can buy all eight games currently available as Collector's Boxed Editions for $149.99. For reference, these games are slated to cost $10 or less as digital downloads when the console arrives.

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Metroid Dread has earned the highest-grossing UK launch in Nintendo's fan-favourite series ever, and is the fastest-selling entry since Metroid Prime 1.

Even more impressive is the fact this is all just boxed sales - not digital, which Nintendo does not disclose. With those included, Dread will likely have easily beaten Prime 1. Without them, less than 1000 copies separate the two.

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Steam's catalogue is so varied now that it's inevitable, between the shovelware and chuff, you'll find something that feels like it was snipped from the centre of your brain. That's what the Lorn's Lure is to me. It's a psychological horror first-person parkour sci-fi extravaganza (perhaps 'extravaganza' is too strong of a word, but after all those descriptors 'game' would feel a little lame), available right now as a nice chunky demo.

Lorn's Lure feels like a game designed to terrify climbers, and as a climber myself I can testify that it works bloody well. Specifically, it's designed to terrify trad climbers, the people who scramble up crags with gear and rope. You play as a robot trying to climb out of a mysterious alien structure. At some point you went in too deep, and now your only option is to press on further, a little organo-mechanical thing scratching away at the walls of an unknowably vast complex of gutters and wires and porous grey cliffs. It's the same conundrum faced by every trad climber once they properly commit to a route. Downclimbing is no longer an option. The only way out is through.

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ScummVM is 20 years old - and to celebrate it's just released a big new update.

Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion Virtual Machine (ScummVM) is a program that allows you to run many classic point-and-click adventure games and RPGs on modern computers.

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Sony is reportedly considering jointly building a chip factory in Japan.

Reuters reported on a Nikkei story that claims Sony and Taiwan's TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker, are discussing a partnership to build a chip factory in Japan, with the government apparently up for paying some of the investment of about 800bn yen (£5.24bn).

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This week Rockstar announced the worst-kept secret in gaming: remasters of Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City and San Andreas.

In doing so, Rockstar confirmed its plan to delist the originals from all digital retailers on PC and consoles from next week, replacing them with Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition across multiple storefronts.

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Cloud Imperium Games has held its CitizenCon event - albeit in digital form - and it showed off a number of new features coming to the space game.

However, there was no live gameplay demo and no release dates offered for any part of the controversial, long-in development game.

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Guilty Gear Strive is getting a big patch next week - and it promises to improve one of the biggest issues I have with the game.

Anyone who's played Arc System Works' superb fighting game will be aware of the annoyingly-long login time you face when you start the game. It takes so long I've sometimes walked away from my PlayStation to put the kettle on while Guilty Gear sorts itself out.

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Amazon has U-turned on letting New World players transfer their characters to a server in a different region.

Last week, following New World's explosive launch, Amazon asked players to join servers with low wait times as it worked on increasing the population caps of existing servers.

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Over 4 million people claimed PC Building Simulator free from the Epic Game Store in just over 24 hours.

PC Building Simulator, which normally goes for £14.99, became Epic's weekly free game at 5pm on Thursday, 7th October.

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The venerable Dunia engine returns once again for the sixth mainline entry in the Far Cry franchise - and there's a certain sense of a series returning to its roots. Firstly, the latest open world evokes the more lush, jungle terrain of earlier games, while there's also the return of technologies like fire propagation - its omission much lamented in Far Cry 5. While gameplay hasn't progressed significantly, there are a range of new graphics features, along with ray tracing on PC and a focus on 60 frames per second on the latest generation of consoles - but also the sense that the game requires further polish to make it everything it can be.

Perhaps this is the Dunia Engine's last stand, but there's no doubt that Far Cry 6 is still a handsome game and some of the new additions to the engine are striking. For example, the skies are considerably more impressive than prior games thanks to the inclusion of a ray-marched volumetric cloud rendering system. Similar technologies have been seen in Horizon Zero Dawn and Microsoft Flight Simulator to name just two, but the clouds do look good in Far Cry 6, particularly in how they interact with lighting, especially during sunset. There are limitations though, with their low resolution breaking down into noise with fast movement at 60fps.

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The Pokémon Company has confirmed the Monster Hunter-style structure of Pokémon Legends: Arceus.

In a statement issued to Kotaku, The Pokémon Company described the upcoming Nintendo Switch-exclusive's typical gameplay loop:

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A new Deus Ex mod lets you play as a female JC Denton - 21 years after the game came out.

The Lay D Denton Project, created by a group of modders collectively know as Lay D Dev, dds a feature cut early in the development of Ion Storm's influential immersive sim: the ability to select the protagonist's gender.

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GOG has pulled Hitman from its own store and admitted it shouldn't have released the game in its current form.

In a post on its forum, GOG apologised to its customers, saying: "We've let you down."

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The developer of Back 4 Blood has said it's discussing ways to address the lack of progression in solo mode after a player backlash.

Back 4 Blood players reacted negatively to a reddit post that revealed a message that pops up when you pick solo campaign (play on your own with bots) in Turtle Rock Studios' Left 4 Dead-style shooter.

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Following this week's massive Twitch data breach - in which everything from site source code to streamer payouts were apparently leaked - a new report has accused the company of fostering a culture that values "speed and profit over the safety of its users and security of its data."

That's the claim made by The Verge, whose sources suggest this week's data breach "seemed inevitable" based on their time working at Twitch, alleging a company culture "where employees were very concerned about safety but management less so."

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California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing has filed an objection to a recent settlement between Activision Blizzard and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, claiming it would cause "irreparable harm" to its ongoing legal proceedings.

The settlement, announced in September, saw Activision Blizzard agreeing to set aside $18m USD for affected employees after an EEOC investigation stemming back to 2018 found staff at the video game publisher had been sexually harassed, discriminated against for becoming pregnant, and had suffered retaliation by the company after complaining about the behaviour.

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It's all go in the world of Grand Theft Auto; alongside the news of a GTA Trilogy remaster heading to PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and PC, Rockstar has teased a raft of additions and improvements for GTA Online, including an "exciting new adventure" due later this year.

Starting in autumn, Grand Theft Auto Online will introduce a "cavalcade" of special in-game gear to celebrate GTA 3's 20th anniversary - including commemorative clothing and liveries - all set to be made available as part of a series of still-to-be-announced events.

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Rockstar has finally made its much-rumoured, occasionally leaked Grand Theft Auto Trilogy remaster official and it's coming to PlayStation, Xbox, PC, and Switch later this year.

Word of an updated trilogy release - focussing on remasters of Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City, and San Andreas - first surfaced over the summer, but its existence became considerably more tangible after a Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy listing was spotted on the South Korea's game rating board website at the end of September.

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It's finally here. After multiple cancelled attempts over the years, Metroid Dread is finally here. Nintendo's collaboration with Spanish developer Mercury Steam pays off beautifully for Switch - this is the first entirely new side-scrolling series entry since 2002's Metroid Fusion and this is a true return to form for the franchise, breathing new life into the ageing Switch hardware thanks to a pristine presentation. Not only that, but the style of its aesthetic also makes it a brilliant showcase for the new Switch OLED model too.

By this point, the history of side-scrolling Metroid games has been told time and time again - but what makes this entry interesting is the way in which it was developed. Like Metroid Prime, Dread represents a fusion of eastern and western influences to create something that feels supremely polished: Nintendo brings its incredible production values to the party, while Mercury Steam's signature technical excellence shines through. Together, it's a brilliant match and a much better result than the prior collaboration between the two parties - the patchy Metroid: Samus Returns for Nintendo 3DS.

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