Eurogamer

The plaintiffs behind a class action lawsuit that alleged EA was secretly adjusting the difficulty of FIFA Ultimate Team to get players to spend more money on packs have withdrawn their case.

On November 2020, three Californians said EA was secretly manipulating them in a lawsuit that revolved around a patented AI technology known as dynamic difficulty adjustment.

Dynamic difficulty adjustment, known more commonly by FIFA players as scripting or momentum, is a technology that unfairly affects the results of matches in a bid to encourage more spending on packs.

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FarmVille publisher Zynga has acquired Torchlight 3 developer Echtra Games for an undisclosed sum.

Echtra Games will now join Zynga's portfolio of studios and work with CSR Racing developer NaturalMotion on "a new, yet to be announced RPG for cross-platform play".

In a statement on the purchase, reported by GamesIndustry.biz, Zynga boss Frank Gibeau said Echtra would help grow Zynga's many mobile franchises to PC and console audiences.

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The Sims 4 already has a vast amount of DLC packs, ranging from bundles to large Expansion Packs, medium-sized Game Packs and smaller Stuff Packs, but now EA is introducing an even tinier type of DLC called Kits. And one of them will deliberately make your Sim's house dirtier.

Described as "mini collections of content", EA has launched three Kits - a Throwback Fit Kit full of retro gym clothing, a Country Kitchen Kit adding vintage kitchen furniture, and the weirdest one of all... the Bust The Dust Kit. This one adds dust to your Sim's home, and it's alive: if you don't sort out the dust piles, they'll spawn "friendly bunnies and dastardly filth fiends". Frankly, anything spreading mess in my house is no friend of mine.

Successfully cleaning up will get you some buffs and rewards, and the Kit also provides two new aspirations for your Sims: Filthy and Fabulous Sims will enjoy living in disgusting hovels, while Perfectly Pristine Sims will require regular cleaning. Thankfully you'll have a new collection of full-size and handheld hoovers to help with this task.

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EA has issued a lifetime ban to a FIFA player who racially abused Ian Wright after he lost a match while playing with the Arsenal legend's in-game version.

This week, Wright slammed a judge's lenient sentence for a teenager who hurled racial abuse at the Arsenal legend on social media last year.

18-year-old Patrick O'Brien lost a game of FIFA after playing with the Ian Wright icon card in the Ultimate Team mode.

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Pokémon Go developer Niantic has apologised for the issue in the game's recent paid Kanto Tour event which let some players in for free, and detailed its bonus event for those who did purchase a ticket.

"We apologise for this issue, and to help Trainers who purchased a ticket feel like they are receiving its value, paid ticket holders will be able to participate in a bonus event," Niantic wrote in a blog post.

A new timed questline will become available in the game this Friday, 5th March at 10am local time. Completing it will reward you with a variety of premium items, including a pair of Elite TMs which are usually sold at particularly high prices, alongside a smattering of other bits and pieces.

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Pokémon Unite - the new free-to-play MOBA from Tencent's TiMi Studios, which was also responsible for Activision's Call of Duty Mobile - has just launched its closed beta in Canada, and a heap of new details and footage have emerged as a result.

Originally announced last summer, Pokémon Unite pits two squads of five players against one another, battling it out in an arena threaded with control points to secure. As a match plays out, Pokémon are able to level up, unlocking new moves as they do so.

Following the launch of Pokémon Unite's closed beta, GoNintendo has been rounding up the various bits of footage to make it online so far. Unfortunately, videos are starting to disappear one by one, but there's still a decent selection of gameplay featuring a range of characters - including Cinderace, Greninja, and Garchomp - to be found.

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UPDATE 3/3/21: The former developer of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 has confirmed this week's layoffs, but said it would continue to operate and was developing multiple unannounced projects.

In a statement issued to RPS, a spokesperson for Hardsuit Labs stated that redundancies had affected "a small number of individuals", though a specific number of people was not disclosed.

"While we worked hard to source some great work opportunities for the studio to move forward with, we were unable to provide work for a small number of individuals and thus made the difficult decision to part ways. This decision was not made lightly and was done so only after we felt we had exhausted the opportunities to avoid such a layoff," Hardsuit said. "We sincerely wish the very best to our former colleagues and thank them for their contributions to the studio and our projects during their time here."

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Microsoft has shown a Pokémon Go tech demo in which the mobile pocket monster phenomenon is playable via the company's Hololens headset.

A video of the demonstration, labelled as "proof of concept" and "not for consumer use", was part of a presentation detailing Microsoft Mesh, the company's new mixed reality platform (thanks, The Verge).

Introduced by Niantic boss John Hanke - the company's own Professor Willow - the demo shows how players can interact with creatures in mixed-reality, rather than AR, and use virtual controls which float around the user's wrist.

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For years I've been dreaming of a Left 4 Dead mod that features the cast of Frasier. Trapped between safe houses in an abandoned hospital, Niles caves someone's head in with a hardback copy of the ICD-9 codes, as Marty jams a door shut with his walking stick. Daphne - who's a little bit psychic - correctly predicts the arrival of a Jockey through a broken window while Frasier is lost in a panic, circling wildly and raging about his next trip to La Cigare Volant.

It would work, I think. A set-piece at the KACL studios, where zombie-Roz traps them all in the sound booth as Gil Chesterton - possibly not zombie-Gil-Chesterton - lights the place on fire. A frantic last-minute rescue mission back to the apartment to save Marty's armchair. Niles is wiping his new machine gun with a handkerchief because who knows who had it before him? Eddie sniffs out a cache of grenades. "Need a med-kit!" yells Daphne. I'm listening.

But is this the only way to take the greatness of Frasier and spin it into a video game? Is it even the best way? Let's go to a new caller.

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I've been lucky enough to test out a bunch of weird and wonderful tech, but I don't always get a chance to share my discoveries in a full review or roundup. That's why this column exists, to highlight bits of tech that might not fit elsewhere but nonetheless deserve a mention. Enjoy!

2020 was a year of dashed plans and weird events, but it was also one that was full of cool, novel and genuinely exciting pieces of technology. We've covered some of it here on Eurogamer and on the Digital Foundry YouTube channel, but there were also a fair few items that fell through the cracks, especially as the Digital Foundry Deals project took off and next-gen consoles arrived. This week, we're redressing some of these omissions with three of the coolest tech projects I tested in 2020 - from a miniaturised gaming laptop to a retro-future power bank and one of my biggest tech disappointments of the year. Let's get started.

The GPD Win Max is the whole reason that kicked off this column in the first place - I wanted to share the twisted genius that is an eight-inch laptop with an integrated gamepad built-in just above the keyboard. There's even a 10th-gen Intel Core i5 processor and a full Windows 10 install here; this is a legitimate machine with specs that outperform most office laptops. Of course, you're probably not going to be editing spreadsheets on this thing; as the legendary Chad Warden said, we ain't doin' geometry, we're trying to play some games.

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There's an acute kind of horror to being very, very small. A lot of it's in the timing, I think: the time it takes just to get anywhere is so long, so monotonous and lonely, that you feel oddly trapped. All that infinite expanse around you and at the same time, nowhere you can really go. Shudder. Maquette, a debut effort from San Francisco-based studio Graceful Decay, gets this - in fact it's built on it, playing with size and space and infinite regress, and the dense atmosphere that comes with it. A game of teeny tiny footsteps and giant, clanging objects all at once, plus a touch of tilting nausea if you start to think a little too hard.

Maquette is a recursive puzzler, primarily - another stylish, concept-heavy indie from arthouse publisher Annapurna Interactive - and the core is excellent. Each level, as such, occurs under a large, domed-roof structure, several stories high. Beneath this giant dome are four gated puzzle areas arranged opposite each other, crossroads-like, and in the middle is another dome, this time only about two stories high. Beneath that middle dome is a waist-high replica of the dome you're in: four puzzle areas, an even smaller dome in the middle. Inside that middle dome? An even more miniature replica. Back outside that first big outer dome I mentioned? An even bigger replica - and presumably on and on from there.

Beautiful, awful randomly generated poetry is coming to Medieval grand strategy game Crusader Kings 3 as part of its next update, and players will even be able to torture enemies into submission with the very worst of their verse.

Expanding substantially on Crusader Kings 2's Poet trait, Crusader Kings 3's attempt will bring reworked stats, character interactions, and, most importantly, randomised poetry generation, meaning you can bask in the digital ditties conjured by rhyme-loving computer-folk all day long.

Poetry will be generated in-game by combining a particular subject with one of five overarching themes - romance, legacy, mourning, strife, and incompetence - enabling characters to influence events with a catchy rhyming couplet or two. Here's one of several randomly assembled examples provided as part of Paradox's latest blog post.

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Fall Guys developer Mediatonic has been scooped up Epic Games, as part of the Fortnite and Unreal Engine developer's acquisition of the Tonic Games Group.

Announcing the deal on its website, Mediatonic called the move a "huge win for Fall Guys", claiming that joining Epic "will accelerate our plans to improve the game and bring Fall Guys to as many players as possible, while continuing to support the community."

According to the developer, it'll be business as usual for Fall Guys following the acquisition - "each season, we'll continue to expand...with new content, features, rounds, and costumes", it writes - and the game will remain available on Steam and the PlayStation Store. Fall Guys' recently announced Switch and Xbox editions will also still go ahead this summer.

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Apex Legends is making its long-awaited Switch debut next Tuesday, 9th March, and, in the run up to release, developer Respawn Entertainment has shared a brand-new trailer offering a closer look at the free-to-play shooter running on Nintendo's console.

Apex Legends was originally expected to launch on the platform last autumn, but complications caused by the coronavirus pandemic saw its release pushed into this year. The port is finally poised for its public debut, however, and Switch owners will be able to enjoy cross-platform play, all seasonal content, and full feature parity with other versions when it launches next week.

And if you're wondering how the Switch edition is shaping up, the answer appears to be (and, granted, I'm no Douglas Foundry) 'very nicely indeed', with the port - developed in conjunction with Panic Button, which also brought the likes of Doom Eternal, Warframe, and Wolfenstein: The New Colossus to Nintendo's console - getting a fresh airing in the trailer below.

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Humble, that purveyor of assorted gaming grab bags, has just launched its latest Choice bundle and it's headlined by a pair of excellent PC games: supernatural shooter Control and sci-fi strategy spin-off XCOM: Chimera Squad.

It's worth pointing out that Remedy's Control is already available through Xbox Game Pass on PC, but picking it up through Humble Choice means you'll own it forever and not be at the mercy of Microsoft pulling it from the service on a whim. It looks stunning on PC, too.

Next to these two leading stars, the March Humble Choice bundle is rounded out with ten other games. This includes the likes of side-scrolling strategy gem Kingdom Two Crowns, pyrokinetic stealth platformer Wildfire and tech-infused fantasy RPG Elex. I've popped the full list below:

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Harry Potter prequel game Hogwarts Legacy is planned to include a "trans-inclusive" character creator, as well as a transgender character, Bloomberg has reported.

The character designer will let you pick from unlinked body type and voice options for your Hogwarts school protagonist. Body types are labelled as either "witch" or "wizard", and this will also determine which of the school's dormitories your character is placed in.

Numerous video games now offer unlinked body type, voice, and gender pronoun options, or simply avoid specific gender labels, but the fact Hogwarts Legacy will as well has drawn attention due to the game's connection to Harry Potter universe creator JK Rowling.

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There's a new Aliens game on the way.

Aliens: Fireteam is a co-op third-person shooter due out summer 2021 on PC via Steam, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and Xbox One.

The gameplay trailer is below (it looks a bit like Gears of War meets Aliens to me):

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We're finally getting a little closer to the release of Rust's elusive console version, as developers Double Eleven and Facepunch have released a new trailer - and opened up registration for a closed beta.

The trailer itself doesn't show anything particularly revolutionary - it's Rust, looking quite nice on console - and we don't yet have a release date for the final product, but you can put your name in the ring for access to the closed beta. You can sign up over here, and if selected, you'll be sent a key to access the beta. According to the new Rust Console Edition Twitter account, some players have apparently already been sent keys, but according to the FAQs more players will gradually be given access over the next few weeks, with this particular window of beta testing due to end on 29th March.

Rust was originally supposed to launch on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 sometime last year, but the port had to be delayed due to the difficulties of working from home during the Covid-19 pandemic. With the console release now getting official ratings and inviting players into betas, it seems we're finally inching closer to the full release.

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The PlayStation Store will remove the ability to purchase or rent movies and TV shows on 31st August 2021.

Any existing content you have purchased will remain yours to view, and you'll still be able to access this via the PlayStation Store on all your devices. You just won't be able to buy more, and have to get Netflix instead.

Explaining the change via the PlayStation blog, PlayStation pointed to the shift away from owning individual movies or boxsets. People are now more likely to just stream content from a subscription-based service (such as Disney+ or Amazon Prime) or one that's free but includes ads (such as ITV Hub or All 4).

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Nvidia's DLSS has gradually evolved into one of the most exciting technological innovations in the PC space. The idea is remarkably straightforward: the GPU renders at a lower native resolution, then an AI algorithm takes that frame and intelligently upscales it to a much higher pixel count. There's an instant performance win, but remarkably, also a quality advantage too up against native resolution rendering. In the past, we've wondered whether this quality win comes down to mitigating the artefacts of temporal anti-aliasing - TAA - but the recent arrival of a DLSS upgrade to Nioh 2 provides us with an interesting test case. Nioh 2's basic rendering lacks much in the way of any form of anti-aliasing at all. It's pretty much as raw as raw can be. So the question is: can DLSS retain its performance advantage and still provide an actual increase to image quality up against native resolution rendering? Remarkably, the answer is yes.

14 years after it came out, Halo 3 is getting back bling.

Taking a page out of the Fortnite playbook, Halo 3 is getting a raft of new customisation options, including what are called back accessories.

These new customisation options, which do not affect gameplay, are live now in the Halo: The Master Chief Collection flight (the version of the game where upcoming features are tested).

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Nintendo has today released a new firmware update for... the Wii U.

Today's Wii U system update, version 5.5.5, is listed by Nintendo as "improving system stability". Under the hood, dataminer OatmealDome (thanks, Nintendo Life) has suggested it updates the system's SSL verification code, which powers secure connections online.

It's been two and a half years since the last Wii U update, in September 2018. Do you still have yours plugged in?

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The battle between Epic Games and Apple over in-game microtransactions is still rumbling on, and after months of arguing it seems a date has finally been set for an in-person trial. Yep, it seems this one is going all the way.

Yesterday a management conference was held in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, in which judge Yvonne Gonzalez organised a bench trial between Epic Games and Apple (as reported by MacRumors). A date has now been officially set for 3rd May, which will require witnesses to travel to Northern California to appear at court in person.

The reason for the physical trial is that judge Gonzalez feels the case is serious enough that it should be heard in person, and believes witnesses are less likely to lie when being sworn in a courtroom. Those required to travel will apparently be given the resources to quarantine for two weeks after the trial, while other Covid safety measures will also be taken, such as limited numbers of people in the courtroom at any one time.

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Ariana Greenblatt, the actress who played Young Gamora in the Avengers movies, will play Tiny Tina in the Borderlands movie.

Greenblatt joins Cate Blanchett (Lilith), Kevin Hart (Roland), Jamie Lee Curtis (Dr. Tannis), and Jack Black (Claptrap) in the movie based on Gearbox's shooter series.

Tiny Tina is described as an "unstable 13-year-old explosive expert".

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PlayStation 4 exclusive The Last of Us Part 2 has received 13 BAFTA Games Award nominations - the most for any single game in the history of the awards.

Sony games dominate BAFTA's nominations list, with 10 nods for Ghost of Tsushima, seven for Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, six for Dreams and four for Sackboy: A Big Adventure.

Supergiant's brilliant Hades - Eurogamer's Game of the Year for 2020 - has eight nominations, while Nintendo's Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Media Molecule's Fall Guys share five.

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If you've been playing the Outriders demo since it came out last week, you may have picked up on an annoyance: loading cutscenes.

The third-person looter shooter game from People Can Fly (Bulletstorm, Gears of War: Judgment) plays a short cutscene whenever you want to move to a new area.

These cutscenes show everything from a character opening a door to climbing a ledge. They include a full fade to black opening before playing the cutscene, then another fade to black before you get back into the action.

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So along with 4m other people, you're really enjoying Valheim at the moment - but perhaps there are a few quality of life improvements you'd like to see, or maybe you just want to turn the game into a building sandbox. Despite the lack of official support, the modding community has been hard at work on Valheim, and has already produced a number of mods to serve almost every community request. Here's a round-up of some of the most useful mods so far - along with a quick explainer on how to get started.

Before you get stuck into Valheim modding, you'll need to download a couple of prerequisite mods that make the rest of Valheim modding possible. One of these is Valheim Unstripped DLLs, which Vortex (Nexus Mods' mod manager) will recommend installing. Another mod called BepInExPack for Valheim carries out a similar function, providing a general purpose framework for Unity modding, which basically gives mod creators the tools they need to alter Valheim ( and you'll need to download it for these mods to work). You can find it over on Thunderstore. Oh, and remember to back up your save files before diving in - you can find them through Steam by opening the properties menu for Valheim, then 'local files' and 'browse'.

There are shooting games, and there are shooting games. Irem's 1987 R-Type can't exactly claim to be the first of its kind, and you could well argue there are more widely acclaimed shooting games, but you'd be hard pushed to find any as iconic as this stately sci-fi venture. Cold, composed and challenging, it's the archetypal 80s shooter, and a prime example of the genre in its pomp.

The popularity of shooting games would wane throughout the 90s, however, and by the turn of the century those in charge of the series wondered whether it had a future at all. Which explains the brilliantly fatalistic air that hangs over R-Type Final, the 2004 entry that was imagined as a full-stop for the series.

R-Type Final lead designer Kazuma Kujo has since discovered there's life yet in the series, though. The veteran of Nazca, Irem and now Granzella - the studio where many Irem alumni ended when the company moved away from video games - now finds himself heading up development of a sequel, somewhat bafflingly called R-Type Final 2, after a Kickstarter campaign more than doubled its targets. A month ahead of R-Type Final 2's release on April 29th, we spoke to Kujo about R-Type's return, and what it will entail.

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The developer of The Sinking City has accused its publisher of pirating the game and tricking Steam into uploading it for sale.

In the latest development in Frogwares' long-running dispute with Nacon, the Ukrainian studio issued a blog post outlining a raft of accusations against its French publisher.

Over the weekend, Frogwares recommended gamers do not download its H. P. Lovecraft-inspired horror adventure from Steam after it popped up on Valve's platform last month.

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EA has announced it will be pushing back the release of Criterion's next Need for Speed game by a year so the studio can lend development support on DICE's next Battlefield game.

At the tail-end of last year, EA revealed Criterion's new (and currently unnamed) Need for Speed title would launch in "fiscal year" 2022 - that is, somewhere between this April and the end of March 2022 - but the publisher has now announced it's shifting that release to FY2023.

The news was shared by chief studios officer Laura Miele in a post offering an update on several of the publisher's future titles. The catalyst for the post, however, is the next Battlefield, which Miele claims is "coming together to be an exceptional game...at an unprecedented scale".

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Another month means more new additions to Sony's PlayStation Now subscription service, with March set to bring co-op zombie shooter World War Z, aerial adventure Ace Combat 7, superhero romp Infamous: Second Son, plus time-manipulating FPS Superhot.

World War Z, which released back in 2019, is essentially a modern day spin on Valve's beloved Left 4 Dead series. Developed by Saber Interactive, it tasks teams of up to four players with taking on the zombie hordes, each new mission seeing them step into the shoes of a new group of survivors as the action relocates to another part of the globe - New York, Tokyo, Moscow, Jerusalem, and Marseille. World War Z was a solid enough effort on release, but it's grown considerably since then - it now features five competitive multiplayer modes, for instance - expanding and improving thanks to Saber's extensive post-launch support.

Infamous: Second Son, meanwhile, is the third game in Sucker Punch's open-world superhero series, initially launching on PS4 in 2014. It follows the super-powered adventures of street artist Delsin Rowe across Seattle, and, like earlier games, features a morality system giving players the choice of whether to use their abilities for good or evil. Oli Welsh called it "compact and likeable" in his 7/10 review, while noting, "There's not been much of an attempt to shake up the mission scenarios or structure of the game, leaving you with a very rote open-world adventure".

Destiny 2's top-tier PVP activity was forced offline at the weekend after a popular method to fix matches was suggested to have affected around 50 per cent of players on flawless runs (where teams hit the mode's goal of a seven-match streak).

Via its Bungie Help Twitter account, Destiny 2's developer said it had pulled the mode yesterday evening for the remainder of its weekly rotation due to an unspecified "issue" - though fans were quick to guess why.

Frustration at the state of Trials of Osiris, the game's sweatiest and most competitive mode, has been growing for some time. Players have long complained of cheating, team carrying, poor matchmaking and the sheer amount of effort (seven consecutive match wins) required to grind out its best rewards.

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Mastering Rainbow Road on the Switch is one thing, but what if you could set up your own terrifyingly treacherous Mario Kart course for whatever's lying around in your own home? That's part of the dream behind Mario Kart Live Home Circuit, which is now on sale for £80.

Of course, I may be over-estimating the capabilities there, considering Martin found it to be a "glorious toy hemmed in by a few key restrictions" in his Mario Kart Live Home Circuit review. Nevertheless, this cool bit of tech is the cheapest it's ever been - so that might be enough to finally tempt you with a purchase.

You'll find the offer available at both Amazon UK and Game. Currently, both the Mario and Luigi versions are available. The Mario edition has sold out a lot quicker in the past (soz Luigi) so expect that one to have gone first if you're looking a bit later in the day.

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A string of Elden Ring whispers and a report detailing leaked gameplay footage point to an impending reveal of new information on the under-wraps FromSoftware and George R.R. Martin collaboration.

The industry chatter has served to reassure some fans concerned by the fact they had not heard anything more of the project since its announcement at E3 in June 2019.

Over the weekend, Venturebeat's Jeff Grubb, speaking on the GamesBeat Decides podcast said that fans would not have to wait long for information, and alluded to having seen strong evidence the project was definitely "not vapourware". Shortly after, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier chipped in on Twitter to say there was "strong evidence floating around that the game will be shown relatively soon".

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GTA Online remains a popular (and incredibly profitable) game seven years after launch, thanks to the steady influx of new content, but one thing Rockstar seems unable to improve is the game's famously long load times. Over the weekend, an enterprising developer called t0st finally discovered why GTA Online takes so long to load - even on machines with fast processors and storage such as the PlayStation 5 and PC - and fixed those issues, reducing his load times by 70 per cent.

The blog written by t0st explaining the issues and fixes is brilliant, complete with excellent MSPaint illustrations, but it's a little hard to follow if you don't have programming experience. I'll try to summarise it as best I can!

So: after struggling through a six minute load for GTA Online on his mid-range PC, t0st opened Task Manager the next time he loaded up the game and noticed something odd: after the one minute mark, his computer's CPU usage spiked up dramatically, but storage and network usage were nearly non-existent. That suggested that the lengthy load times weren't caused by Rockstar's servers or data being read off a drive - instead, something was running on the CPU. Something that required a ton of processing to complete, and only used a single thread.

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E3 2021's live event has been cancelled, according to paperwork filed by the Board of Los Angeles Convention and Tourism.

Last month, we heard that E3's organiser the Electonic Software Association (ESA) had plans for a digital-focused show, though a live or hybrid event had not been ruled out.

Now, documentation dug up by ResetEra (thanks, Twinfinite) lists the show as a "cancelled live event", though with a potential license to return in 2022 and 2023.

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Pokémon has detailed the musical component of its 25th anniversary celebrations, following a well-received virtual concert starring Post Malone.

The franchise will release an album of music in autumn 2021 featuring Post Malone, the previously-announced Katy Perry, recent Fortnite collaborator J Balvin and a fourth "surprise superstar artist".

Each of the four will release a single for the record, along with a presumably-Pokémon-themed music video and an exclusive merch range.

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Modern games based on the perceived technical limitations of vintage systems are not uncommon. However, it takes a certain kind of courage - maybe even a tiny little bit of madness - to not only emulate the look and feel of yesteryear's classics, but to produce games for systems long past their prime. While such endeavours do happen in the indie- and homebrew-sector, it's unheard of for bigger companies to dabble in this sort of development. Nintendo, Square Enix or SNK might happily re-release their back catalogues in various physical or digital formats, it's unlikely they would ever go back to their old devkits.

Enter M2, a fascinating publisher and developer located in Tennodai near Tokyo, mostly known for producing conversions of classic games to modern hardware. M2 always goes the extra mile in order to deliver a product that not only immaculately represents the original games, but also improves them in many regards - always optionally of course. M2 is the kind of company to take the plunge into the technical depths of vintage hardware, as it has shown in the past: For one of its earlier Sega Ages projects, Fantasy Zone for PlayStation 2, the team programmed a port of the Master-System-exclusive Fantasy Zone 2 for Segas System 16 arcade-board; for the Namcot Collection in summer 2020, they helped produce impressive NES-conversions of Gaplus and Pac-Man Championship Editions.

Microsoft is reportedly testing 1080p for Xbox Game Pass cloud streaming.

According to Windows Central, anonymous but "trusted" sources sent screenshots of Hellblade running via xCloud, alleging that the streaming resolution was 1920x1080.

Up until now, the hardware had previously only been able to run in 720p, but it seems Microsoft is now planning to refresh the streaming servers from "Xbox One architecture" to that of the Xbox Series X. If successful, it will bring xCloud in line with other streaming services such as GeForce Now and Google Stadia, which already offer 1080p (thanks, VG24/7).

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Doom Eternal reportedly generated over £323 million ($450m) in the first nine months of its release.

Bethesda had already trumpeted that the launch of Doom Eternal was the series' best-ever in terms of opening week sales, but at the time the publisher didn't give exact figures, instead only confirming the game had doubled the launch weekend revenue of Doom's 2016 reboot.

Now, however, a statement on a former id Software developer's LinkedIn profile has revealed those numbers translated to $450 million in revenue (thanks, ResetEra) - that's £323 million.

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