Eurogamer

Death Stranding on PC made £20m in 2020

3 years ago

Death Stranding's PC version made £20m last year, its publisher has revealed.

Digital Bros, parent company of publisher 505 Games, released its half year financial report to 31st December 2020, and in it said Death Stranding's PC release made 23.192m euros in 2020.

Kojima Productions' game launched on PC in July, so this figure includes all money made by the PC version last year. It does not include money made in the first quarter of this year.

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Outriders is only a week old and players are already kicking out Devastators from endgame co-op

3 years ago

Outriders is just a week old and players of a certain class are finding themselves frowned upon by some at the endgame.

Once you finish Outriders' campaign, the Expeditions portion of People Can Fly's looter shooter presents itself. This is Outriders' endgame - what will keep people playing for months on end. The video below explains how Expeditions work.

There are 15 unique missions here, each housing high-end loot. Layered on top is the Challenge Tier system, which affects the difficulty of the enemies you face and the loot level.

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Abandoned developer forced to deny Kojima collab rumours

3 years ago

Blue Box Game Studios, developer of mysterious PlayStation 5 exclusive Abandoned, has issued a statement denying the project is a secret collaboration with Hideo Kojima.

Whispers the Dutch studio was working with the legendary Metal Gear Solid creator were sparked by a teasing reveal of its new project Abandoned on the PlayStation blog yesterday - and fuelled by Kojima fans curious who the little-known Blue Box Game Studios really was.

Abandoned is described as a cinematic survival sim, set in a snowy and ultra-realistic looking wilderness. Its first teaser, below, received praise for its visuals and creepy setting - with parallels to Silent Hill's atmosphere being drawn.

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Infinity Ward pulls two of the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare maps surprise-added to the game last week without explanation

3 years ago

In another twist in the 'has Activision abandoned Call of Duty: Modern Warfare?' saga, Infinity Ward has now pulled two of the new maps surprise-added to the game last week.

Last week, we reported how 2019's Modern Warfare unexpectedly received three new maps, four months after Activision left the game behind to focus on Black Ops Cold War and Warzone.

The maps, added to the game as part of the mammoth mid-season two update, are Killhouse, Al-Raab Airbase (6v6) and Drainage (Gunfight).

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Fantasian gets the original Final Fantasy team back in a JRPG for all

3 years ago

Fantasian is a game from Mistwalker, the studio founded in 2006 by Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of Final Fantasy. It is, by its nature, a game with history behind it, vested interests and storied careers, and if you're particularly fond of that history then I'm sure you'll love it: it has turn-based battles and timid, oddly-dressed, techno-magical characters; it has small parochial towns with chatty villagers; it has a fantastical story, something about malevolent gods and machines taking over nature; and it has music from Nobuo Uematsu. Sakaguchi, for what it's worth, has suggested this one might be his last.

I have more or less no familiarity with any of this though, having dipped toes in a number of Final Fantasies and reliably found their water a little cold - but I'm sinking into Fantasian quite nicely. A welcoming kind of "onboarding" is not something I've associated with JRPGs, but - maybe because of its launch on Apple Arcade, with the different, presumably quite specific kind of audience that brings - Fantasian does it well. Deftly, in fact.

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Stop-motion-style space adventure Harold Halibut looks sublime in new story trailer

3 years ago

Developer Slow Bros' "handmade" space adventure Harold Halibut has given its handcrafted sets and claymation-style characters another gorgeous airing in a brand-new story trailer.

Harold Halibut is part stop-motion movie, part narrative-driven adventure, and tells the story of the titular Harold - a young lab assistant forced to live his life onboard on a city sized spaceship submerged beneath an alien ocean, 250 years after it fled Earth to preserve the human race.

"While most of the ship's inhabitants have reconciled themselves to a life lived aboard the sunken ship," explains Slow Bros, "[lead scientist Jeanne Mareaux] still works tirelessly to find a way for the ship to leave the planet and find a new, dryer home.

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Bloober Team's haunted house horror Layers of Fear heading to PSVR later this month

3 years ago

PlayStation VR owners with a lust for unease and a taste for the disorientating will soon be able to traipse the halls of Bloober Team's psychedelic haunted house horror Layers of Fear VR, which opens its door on 29th April.

Originally released for PC at the tail-end of 2019, Layers of Fear VR does pretty much exactly what it says on the label, delivering a more intensely immersive version of Bloober Team's delirious 2016 horror specifically designed for virtual reality headsets.

Layers of Fear, if you're unfamiliar, tells the tale of a tortured painter as he attempts to complete his masterpiece - a process that draws players into an increasingly hallucinatory nightmare, with the game's beautifully realised gothic mansion setting warping and reconfiguring itself into ever-more-impossible arrangements, and delivering some deliciously disorientating, frequently unforgettable set-pieces in the process.

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Here's what's coming in Stellaris' free Dick update next week

3 years ago

Stellaris' galaxy menacing Nemesis expansion comes to PC on 15th April and, as is the norm, it'll be accompanied by a free update for all players on the same day. In the run-up to next week's launch, publisher Paradox has now offered a quick taste of Dick, as the update is officially known, in a handy new video summarising the various changes it'll bring.

Stellaris' 3.0/Dick update (which, as with previous free updates, takes its name from a famed sci-fi author, in this case Philip K Dick), offers a number of notable reworks, starting with the game's First Contact system. Currently, the options players are able to select from when encountering a new alien civilisation for the first time have minimal impact on future relationships - something Paradox aims to remedy with Dick.

Come Stellaris 3.0, initial contact promises to be "more engaging and impactful", presenting players with more options and decisions to make across multiple stages, differing depending on whether their First Contact Protocol is proactive, cautious, or aggressive.

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Previously PlayStation-exclusive FMV thriller Erica heading to Steam

3 years ago

Erica, the formerly PlayStation-exclusive interactive live-action thriller from developer Flavourworks, is heading to Steam on 25th May.

Initially released on PS4 back in 2019 as a PlayLink title before making its way to iOS earlier this year, Erica tells the story of the eponymous Erica Mason (played by Holly Earl) who finds herself embroiled in a murder investigation after receiving something sinister in the mail.

As events unfold, Erica is forced to revisit the events of her youth in order to uncover the truth - with players helping guide the narrative in new directions by interacting with objects or choosing how to respond to the action at various junctures along the way.

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Brazilian authorities to investigate loot boxes

3 years ago

It seems like yet another country is taking a close look at how loot boxes fit with current law, as Brazilian authorities have accepted a request to investigate and potentially ban the controversial microtransactions.

The inquiry comes in response to a recommendation by the National Association of Child and Adolescent Defense Centers (ANCED), which has filed several lawsuits against game companies over their use of loot boxes. ANCED argues that loot boxes are a harmful form of gambling - a banned activity in Brazil (via The Esports Observer).

Brazilian website The Enemy had access to the legal process involving publisher Garena (known for mobile battle royale game Free Fire), and reported that companies including Activision, Electronic Arts, Riot Games, Nintendo, Konami, Valve, Ubisoft, Tencent, Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Sony have been cited in the lawsuit. ANCED is apparently asking for Free Fire's loot boxes to be suspended until their use by children and adolescents can be properly evaluated, with a daily penalty of $4m real (£517k) for Garena if it fails to comply. It's also asking for $1.5bn real (£193m) in compensation from Garena, and individual compensation of $1000 real (£130) for each child or adolescent user of its games.

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Fortnite's new gun reminds me of Luigi's vacuum cleaner

3 years ago

Last night, Fortnite suddenly released the Recycler - a new heavy weapon unlike anything else in the game.

While it might look like a mix between a weed trimmer and a grenade launcher, it offers a decent element of build destruction and splash damage. Also, while using it, I feel like I'm holding the Poltergust-3000 in Luigi's Mansion.

The Recycler holds up to three explosive shells at a time, mixed together from whatever you've sucked into its nozzle - trees, rocks, lamp posts, or other player's builds.

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Diablo 2: Resurrected technical alpha lets players try single-player this weekend

3 years ago

Blizzard will hold a technical alpha test for Diablo 2: Resurrected's single-player on PC this weekend, starting at 3pm UK time this Friday, 9th April.

A limited number of sign-ups will be granted access, and the test will conclude on Monday, 12th April at 6pm UK time. You can try your luck at being randomly chosen by registering your interest via the Diablo 2 website.

Three classes will be available to play as - Barbarian, Amazon and Sorceress - across the game's first two acts. That means you'll revisit Diablo 2's monastery, mess with the Maiden of Anguish, then head to Lut Gholein for some lovely lut, er loot.

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Warhammer - Age of Sigmar: Storm Ground comes out in May

3 years ago

Warhammer - Age of Sigmar: Storm Ground comes out on 27th May on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.

The new trailer is below:

Storm Ground is a turn-based strategy game where you lead one of three customisable armies: the eternal Stormcasts, the ghoulish Nighthaunt and the rotting Maggotkin. There's a roguelike single-player campaign as well as online PvP.

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Capcom shows off Street Fighter 5 DLC characters Rose, Oro and Akira Kazama

3 years ago

Capcom has released gameplay footage showing off upcoming Street Fighter 5 DLC characters Rose, Oro and Akira.

First up is Oro, the hermit character who made his series debut in Street Fighter 3. In Street Fighter 5, Oro holds his pet turtle in one hand to make sure he fights with one arm only. Oro comes out this summer.

Rose, who debuted in Street Fighter Alpha, uses tarot cards to either buff herself or debuff her opponent. Rose comes out 19th April.

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Pac-Man 99 is the next Nintendo Switch Online battle royale

3 years ago

Nintendo has announced Pac-Man 99, the next battle royale take on an arcade classic coming to Nintendo Switch Online.

99 players play Pac-Man simultaneously, and attempt to be the last Pac-person standing.

As with other 99 games, you can disrupt your fellow players. Chomping ghosts will send "Jammer Pac-Mans" to their screens, which will slow them down.

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Call of Duty: Warzone players are seeing nukes launch and land early - with hilarious results

3 years ago

Call of Duty: Warzone's upcoming nuke event doesn't officially begin for another two weeks, but some players have seen the missiles launch and land early - with hilarious results.

Redditor AmedeeO10 uploaded footage of a King Slayer Trios match of the battle royale in which the nukes launched into the sky then fell back to earth with no accompanying graphical effect. Talk about an anti-climax.

"Was playing a game of King Slayers when missiles started launching and then crashing/disappearing in the ground," AmedeeO10 said.

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Someone should make a game about: the Birmingham Superprix

3 years ago

There are many bygone racing tracks worth mourning, from the eye-wateringly steep banked curves of Brooklands to Berlin's Avus, a five-mile long wall of death once run by outrageous looking Mercs and Auto Unions, but for all that glamour and glory it's a more mundane lost race that's won my heart. In the late 80s and early 90s we had the Birmingham Superprix, a series of F3000 and BTCC races remarkable only for the awful driving and high attrition the cramped layout provoked, and yet an event that lived up to its billing as the Monaco of the Midlands. Here was motorsport at its most bare knuckles, racing that wasn't necessarily pretty to watch yet was heart-thumpingly raw.

You had to be there to really appreciate the shock of a score of screaming V8 DFVs rattling the windows of the boozers and bookies just south of Birmingham city centre as the likes of Irvine, McNish and Hill hustled their way past in alarmingly close proximity. I was lucky enough to be standing the other side of the armco at the Superprix' last running in 1990, and I reckon you had to be there to really appreciate how surreal the whole enterprise was; an image that's stuck with me ever since is of a woman putting out her washing as if it were any other Sunday afternoon, heroically oblivious to the gaggle of Honda Civics noisily trading paint just beyond the back gate. It was motorsport at its preposterous best.

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BioWare offers detailed breakdown of Mass Effect Legendary Edition's extensive changes

3 years ago

Mass Effect Legendary Edition is almost upon us, and in the run-up to its launch on 14th May, BioWare has detailed its multitude of tweaks and enhancements in an thorough new blog post.

The Legendary Edition, if you're unfamiliar, bundles all three games and single-player DLC from the original Mass Effect trilogy and gives the whole thing a modern-day sheen, with support for 4K and HDR, and 60 FPS on PC and consoles from PS4 Pro/Xbox One X onwards.

Most of the Legendary Edition's top-level improvements - which include extensive work on the original Mass Effect, ranging from dramatically improved environments to overhauled Mako driving - have been detailed previously, but a new post on the BioWare website breaks these down still further, giving fans a comprehensive list of everything due on launch day.

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Microsoft adds touch controls to 50+ titles in Xbox Game Pass' cloud-enabled line-up

3 years ago

Microsoft has given a wide selection of Xbox Game Pass titles a mobile-friendly makeover, introducing new touch control options to over 50 games in its current cloud-enabled line-up, including Sea of Thieves, Gears 5, Dragon Quest XI S, Killer Instinct, and more.

Microsoft's first touch-enabled Xbox title, Minecraft Dungeons, launched last September. "Since then," the company writes in its announcement post, "touch controls remain one of the top-requested features for cloud gaming, to unlock new ways to play on your Android mobile devices without the need for an external controller."

To that end, Microsoft says it's now implemented touch controls in 54 games from its existing range of cloud-enabled Xbox titles, and Xbox Game Pass subscribers can put those efforts through their paces by downloading the Game Pass app to their Android devices.

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Sea of Thieves teases new additions ahead of Season 2's launch next week

3 years ago

Sea of Thieves will be raising anchor and embarking on its second official season - bringing new content, fresh player progression, and associated rewards - next Thursday, 15th April.

There's not a lot to report on Season 2 just yet, but - barring minor tweaks to the formula - it should continue the template established by Sea of Thieves' current, inaugural season, offering a three-month-long schedule of content updates and events, built around a fresh battle pass.

Expect another 100 levels of rewards in the free tier - progressed through by completing various activities while out on the ocean - plus a small selection of Pirate Emporium goodies and exclusive cosmetics that can be unlocked by purchasing the paid Plunder Pass.

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Pokémon Go's Easter event is an unexpectedly bad example of its loot box-style incubators

3 years ago

Pokémon Go's latest event has come under fire from fans trying to collect a rare, costumed creature - Flower Happiny - which has only a tiny chance of hatching from one of the game's loot box-style eggs.

This creature was advertised as one of several new additions to Pokémon Go in its Spring into Spring 2021 event, and was listed as being available only from eggs with 10 other species.

But the reality is a huge number of creatures are available in the game's event egg pool - and Flower Happiny has a very low chance of actually appearing.

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Raven nerfs two of Call of Duty: Warzone's most effective weapons in meta shake-up bid

3 years ago

Raven Software has nerfed two of Call of Duty: Warzone's most effective weapons in a bid to shake up the battle royale's meta.

In an update pushed live this afternoon, the developer nerfed the super popular AUG and FFAR 1.

First up, the AUG - or as it's known in the patch notes, Cold War Tactical Rifle Charlie (quite why Call of Duty insists on using this nomenclature for its guns is beyond me).

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GTA 5 returns to Xbox Game Pass this month

3 years ago

If you somehow haven't tried out Grand Theft Auto 5 yet, another opportunity to take it for a spin has arrived, as the game is once again joining Xbox Game Pass.

As announced on Xbox Wire, GTA 5 is coming to the cloud and console versions of Game Pass on 8th April. This isn't the first time the game has joined the subscription service: it was available between January and May last year, before it was replaced by Red Dead Redemption 2. You may recall that GTA 5 was also given away for free on the Epic Games Store in May 2020, and was so popular that it caused Epic Games' services to go a bit wobbly.

Joining GTA 5 on 8th April, you can also expect to find Zombie Army 4: Dead War (for cloud, console and PC), along with Disneyland Adventures and Rush: A Disney/Pixar Adventure on the cloud. On 12th April, you can access NHL 21 on console, while on 15th April indie game Rain on Your Parade (about a cardboard cloud that rains on people) will become available on cloud, console and PC. 12th April will also see turn-based tactics game Pathway come to Game Pass on PC.

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E3 2021 will be a free online-only event, ESA confirms

3 years ago

Following reports that E3 would be returning this year as a digital event, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has now officially confirmed that E3 2021 will be an online-only affair: and it will be free to watch.

Taking place between 12th to 15th June, E3 will return as a "reimagined, all-virtual" event allowing developers to showcase their latest games and news. "The ESA will be working with media partners globally to help amplify and make this content available to everyone for free," the ESA said.

"We are evolving this year's E3 into a more inclusive event, but will still look to excite the fans with major reveals and insider opportunities that make this event the indispensable centre stage for video games," said ESA president and CEO Stanley Pierre-Louis.

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Clap Hanz' first non-PlayStation title is essentially more Everybody's Golf

3 years ago

After a huge drop of games on Apple Arcade, we're going to spend some of this week picking through the new stuff. First up, it's a PlayStation favourite with a new home...

Where exactly to start with the mega drop of new games on Apple Arcade late last week? As tempted as I've been by Mistwalker's outrageously gorgeous Fantasian, or Platinum Games' overdue iOS debut World of Demons, it's the one that took me completely by surprise that I downloaded first. Its very existence is a remarkable thing of itself: after 23 years as a PlayStation exclusive developer, this is Clap Hanz first release beyond the world of Sony's consoles.

If you've been a fan of Clap Hanz' PlayStation work, it'll be immediately familiar: Clap Hanz Golf on Apple Arcade really is the Everybody's Golf experience on mobile, all that character and class accumulated over the years surviving the process intact, with a few nips and tucks here and there.

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Marvel's Avengers and Borderlands 3 join PlayStation Now lineup

3 years ago

This month's PlayStation Now lineup has been announced, and starting today, subscribers will now have access to Marvel's Avengers, Borderlands 3 and The Long Dark.

As announced in the official blog post, Marvel's Avengers will be available on PlayStation Now until 5th July, while Borderlands 3 will be available until 29th September. It looks like The Long Dark will remain on the service for the foreseeable future, as Sony has not given a removal date for the game. Both Marvel's Avengers and Borderlands 3 will be released on PlayStation Now in their PS4 versions (thanks, IGN).

To accompany the addition of these games, Sony is also launching a free seven-day trial for PlayStation Now, which will be available from tomorrow onwards.

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Homefront Easter egg designed to make TimeSplitters 2 fully playable

3 years ago

We've known for years that Homefront: The Revolution hides an arcade cabinet where you can play a couple of levels from TimeSplitters 2. Now, evidence has come to light that the entirety of TimeSplitters 2's campaign was designed to be fully playable in native 4K.

Why can't you play the rest? Well, unfortunately, an unlock code designed to open up the rest of Free Radical Design's PS2 classic has been lost to time - via an unfortunate Discord ban.

Let's rewind back to the 2014 release of Homefront: The Revolution, the work of Deep Silver Dambuster Studios. The developer is the latest incarnation of the Nottingham-based company formerly known as Crytek UK, and before that, Free Radical Design itself.

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Respawn tells disgruntled Titanfall community "help is coming ASAP" after years of DDOS attacks made online "unplayable"

3 years ago

Respawn has finally declared it is prepared to tackle long-running problems with Titanfall on PC.

In a tweet, the developer said "help is coming ASAP" in response to ongoing DDOS attacks that affect those trying to play the first-person shooter online.

Titanfall has had multiplayer issues on PC for years now, and they are blamed on a somewhat mythical figure known in the community as "Jeanue".

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Oddworld: Soulstorm launches with a couple of significant bugs

3 years ago

This week marks the grand return of the Oddworld series, with Lorne Lanning's reimagining of 1998's Oddworld: Abe's Exodus hitting PC, PS4 and PS5 today - though unfortunately it does so with a couple of bugs that could well inhibit your progress.

Review copies for Oddworld Inhabitants' game were released yesterday, with a note on the bugs that have shipped alongside the game. "There have been a few instances in our testing over the Easter weekend where Abe gets stuck in an infinite falling loop," reads the note to reviewers. "This happens when jumping, falling, or death isinterrupted over a single (just one) frame by another state."

If players encounter the bug, which freezes Abe in place, they're advised to reset to the last checkpoint, where they'll be able to resume progress. Another bug seems to be specific to PS4 Pro and PS4 consoles, which results in players being booted to the home screen. Both bugs are being addressed for an imminent patch, and the developer notes that neither will result in players losing and save data.

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Metroid Prime 2D fan demo released

3 years ago

There's now a playable demo of Metroid Prime 2D, an ambitious fan attempt to remake the GameCube classic as a side-scroller, and fans are rushing to download it before Nintendo inevitably deletes it from the internet.

Metroid Prime 2D reimagines Retro Studios' brilliant first-person adventure as one of the franchise's earlier 2D side-scrollers. A team of fans have been working on the idea on-and-off since April 2004 using original artwork, music and sounds inspired by the original.

"Instead of copying the source material exactly, we are instead focused on taking the core concepts, translating those, and then implementing them in a logical 2D solution," the team wrote in a new blog post.

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DF Direct Weekly: Is Intel's Rocket Lake really that bad?

3 years ago

Yes, it's a public holiday, but Digital Foundry Direct Weekly continues nonetheless! In this 91 minute episode, myself, John Linneman and Alex Battaglia tackle a number of topics, kicking off with the controversy surrounding Intel's Rocket Lake. From our perspective, it's certainly performant in games but with the Core i9 dropping two cores and the entire range debuting on a platform that will be phased out within the year, there's plenty to count against it too. Regardless, is it really as bad as the PC tech channels say it is?

The discussion moves onto to a bunch of Xbox Series X performance tests - John took a look at Octopath Traveller and Samurai Shodown's 120Hz patch, while also revisiting Crash Bandicoot 4 on Xbox Series X. Is it really less performant than the PS5 version? After that, the team mourns the loss of the PS3 and PlayStation Vita digital stores and ponders Sony's commitment to its hugely important console back catalogue.

After a collective moan about the state of the Windows Store, we move on to our favourite part of the show, where we take questions directly from users on the Digital Foundry supporter programme. What do we expect specs-wise from PlayStation VR 2? What about Elite Dangerous' new planetary rendering technology? And if we didn't have image quality and performance metrics to consider, what would Digital Foundry video content actually consist of... and are we able to enjoy video games regardless of technical issues? These are just a few of the highlights - be sure to watch or listen for the full-fat experience!

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Letting your mind go in dense, dark worlds: an interview with author Karan Mahajan

3 years ago

A few years ago, I had some time to kill in Huddersfield and decided to check for any interesting books in the Oxfam shop. I'd never seen a copy of Granta before nor hunted one down, presuming my intelligence was below its target readership and assumed my pretentiousness lay elsewhere. (Spoiler: despite ongoing questions regarding my intelligence, it didn't.) But here it was, an issue dedicated to the best young American writers.

It included a short story by Karan Mahajan called The Anthology. I'd previously read his second novel, The Association of Small Bombs, and the queasy, uncertain feelings it gave me were reason enough to make me a fan. The Anthology brought out a similarly uneasy reaction in me, as it's another dark story, one about the aftermath of a bombing and it begins in Delhi in 2000 at a literary event. It's a world away from video games, but Mahajan's focus on politics and world-building felt relevant to the spaces where games often find themselves these days. Mahajan's work reminds me of Donna Tartt's theory of "density and speed" as being central to her work, something she emphasised during the release of The Goldfinch. "You're building a big, heavy article but you want it to go fast. You want the readers' experience of it to be fast. And you want there to be detail in it."

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Cyberpunk 2077 patch 1.2: big boosts for PS4 Pro but what about the other consoles?

3 years ago

Cyberpunk 2077's 1.2 patch arrived last week, accompanied by an absolutely gigantic list of bug fixes, tweaks and upgrades. Dedicated players should see game-breaking bugs addressed, but fundamentally, has the game been fixed on consoles? Can we now recommend purchasing the title on last-gen systems? To cut to the chase, there's good news for PlayStation 4 Pro owners, but in terms of performance and stability, there's still a long, long way to go.

What the patch notes don't spell out in great detail is any particular push to optimise the experience for the PS4 and Xbox One generation of consoles, though there is a long list of engine-specific optimisations that should in theory improve the experience for all users. There are also promised improvements for the controversial temporal anti-aliasing solution, plus improved screen-space reflections. Xbox One is singled out for memory management optimisations too - but it's the streaming optimisations that caught our eye as it's this that seems to be the key for dramatic improvements on the title on PlayStation 4 Pro.

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Get three Oddworld games on one Switch cartridge with The Oddworld: Collection

3 years ago

The Oddworld: Collection will launch on Nintendo Switch on 27th May.

The bundle - which includes Oddword: New'n'Tasty, Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee, and Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath - was announced on 1st April, leaving some fans uncertain if the news was real or an elaborate April's Fool joke, particularly as all games are already available separately on the Nintendo eShop.

Thankfully, the official Oddworld Twitter account was on hand to assure players that yes, the announcement was real.

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Here's when free-to-play PUBG Lite shuts down

3 years ago

The free-to-play, low-spec version of PUBG, PUBG Lite, will close down at the end of the month.

Originally known as PUBG Project Thai, PUBG Lite is a low-spec version of PUBG that allows players with basic PCs and laptops to access the game. It was first trialled in Thailand, before rolling out to other territories a couple of years back.

Now, however, the free-to-play game is being shut down on 29th April. No reason was given for the decision.

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There's a "ton" of "really cool" Titanfall content coming to Apex Legends Season 9

3 years ago

Buckle up, Titanfall fans - "a ton" of Titanfall-flavoured content is coming to spin-off battle royale, Apex Legends.

During a panel at BrownGirlGamerCode, Apex's senior writer, Ashley Reed, hinted that the studio was working "to integrate Titanfall" into future updates, as "Titanfall's very much a part of the universe".

Apex's game director, Chad Grenier, went a little further, too, confirming that Apex would host some "really cool stuff" we might recognise from Respawn's critically-acclaimed shooter series.

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The FBI is investigating Counter-Strike: Global Offensive cheating

3 years ago

The FBI is reportedly investigating cheating in professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive matches in North America.

As spotted by Kotaku, the commissioner of the Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC), Ian Smith, said the organisation was working alongside the FBI on an ongoing investigation into "a relatively small but significant group of players over a long period of time, organising match fixing in North American MDL".

"[It's] what I would describe as classic match-fixing - players being bribed by outside betting syndicates in order to fix matches, rather than players just doing it off their own bat opportunistically. It's been going on for longer, [and] it's much more organised," Smith told YouTuber slash32.

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Outriders team hopes to share "specific details" about what went wrong at launch

3 years ago

The Outriders team says it is still "working through" the shooter's numerous connection and server issues, but revealed it would, "in the near future", "share more specific details about what [went wrong] and what we've been doing about it".

As servers suffered for the third consecutive day since the shooter launched on 1st April - with some still reporting issues even today - players are now calling for a "proper post-mortem" to explain "what went wrong and lessons learnt".

In a quote tweet shared on the official Outriders Twitter account, the community team said it would "absolutely" look into sharing the lessons learned with players.

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Black Ops Cold War griefers and quitters warned to "play nice or pay the price"

3 years ago

ICYMI, Black Ops Cold War League is "escalating match penalties" suspensions for players that habitually quit or indulge in friendly fire.

We've already detailed many of the major changes that came with the launch of Season Two Reloaded earlier this week, but Treyarch also confirmed that it's doubling down on its efforts to curb the mayhem caused by griefers and players who quit.

"With the new additions of Apocalypse Hardpoint and Express S&D to the League Play rotation, we're constantly working on more ways to improve the competitive experience," the studio explained in a recent update. "We've heard the recent feedback on Wildcard selection and agree: we want players to commit to a playstyle in League Play.

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Tencent's Timi Studios may be the "world's largest developer" now

3 years ago

Tencent's Timi Studios, the studio behind Call of Duty Mobile and Honor of Kings, generated revenue of $10 billion - £7.23bn - in 2020.

Reuters, which broke the story, reports that if true, that makes Timi "the world's largest developer", providing the studio with "a hefty basis for its ambitions to move beyond mobile games and compete directly with global heavyweights developing expensive AAA titles on platforms such as desktop computers, Sony's PlayStation, Nintendo's Switch and Microsoft's Xbox".

The news comes after Tencent publicly reported it had generated 156.1 billion yuan (£17 billion) in revenue from its game business, but stopped short of revealing the revenue for each individual studio. According to two sources "with direct knowledge of the matter", Reuters posits that Timi alone accounts for 40 per cent of all game revenue (thanks, TheGamer).

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