Eurogamer

Developer Amplitude is on an announcement spree, revealing a proper release date for its promising civ game Humankind, and unveiling Endless Dungeon, a rogue-lite tactical action game and spiritual successor to Dungeon of the Endless.

Humankind - which Eurogamer's Chris Tapsell took a thorough preliminary tour of back in June - was originally due to launch this year, but Amplitude eventually opted to delay release into April 2021. It's now ready to be more specific, however, announcing that Humankind will be making its way to Steam, the Epic Store, and Stadia on 22nd April next year.

What's more, those who've pre-ordered on Steam will have the chance to trial-run a new chunk of the game via Amplitude's OpenDev platform from 15th-28th December. This "Lucy" gameplay scenario will feature Humankind's first four eras - Neolithic to Early Modern - and includes a taste of various systems, including religion, civics, and diplomacy. "We hope that peoples' experiences with this build will help us to further improve the game", says Amplitude.

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Square Enix announced a Just Cause mobile game at The Game Awards.

The appropriately-named Just Cause: Mobile is a free-to-play action shooter set in the Just Cause universe due out on Android and iOS in 2021, Square Enix said. There's single-player, four-player co-op, and 30-person competitive multiplayer, "offering an on-the-go grappling, gliding, and shooting experience, all presented through exhilarating top-down gameplay."

Here's the trailer:

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Fortnite now plays host to Halo's Master Chief, following its recent addition of God of War's Kratos.

Just as with PlayStation's character, Master Chief is available on all platforms but will unlock a special style (a black matte armour colour) if you play a match on Xbox Series X.

Alongside the Chief himself is a UNSC Pelican glider, a Gravity Hammer pickaxe, and an emote which lets your drive around in a mini Warthog. You can buy all of that individually, with Master Chief at 1500 V-Bucks, or altogether as a bundle for 2600 V-Bucks.

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Activision has announced everything coming to Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War in season one.

Season one, which begins on 16th December, adds three new operators: the already-announced Stitch, Bulldozer, and Zeyna.

There are five new weapons: the MAC 10 SMG (launch week), the Groza assault rifle (launch week), the Streetsweeper shotgun (in season), the Sledgehammer melee (in season), and the Wakizashi melee (in season).

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Flying Wild Hogs, the developer behind the Shadow Warrior reboot from a few years back, has a new game on the way. It's called Evil West and it's a weird western.

The game was revealed with an entertaining but brief cinematic trailer at this year's Game Awards. A mean ornery cowboy type wanders along killing monsters with increasingly over-the-top weaponry. It looks magical and spooky and a lot of splattery fun.

The game will be out next year on PS5, Xbox Series S/X and PC.

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It's already been entertaining us for nearly half a year on PC, but we now finally have a release window for Microsoft Flight Simulator on Xbox, as the game is due to arrive on Xbox Series X/S in summer 2021. And it's going to be available on Xbox Game Pass on launch day, of course.

Announced at the Game Awards, a brief video was shown displaying the game running on Xbox Series X. It's a demanding game to run even on PC, but the Xbox Series X trailer sure makes it look stunning.

"Simmers on Xbox Series X/S can expect the same level of depth as the PC version, allowing you to experience the most authentic and realistic flight simulator we have ever created," said head of Microsoft Flight Simulator Jorg Neumann in a blog post. I guess we'll have to wait to find out what that actually means in tech terms.

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EA revealed It Takes Two gameplay at The Game Awards.

It Takes Two is the next game from Hazelight, the developer behind co-op prison break adventure A Way Out. It's due out on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC (Origin, Steam) on 26th March 2021.

There's couch or online co-op with split-screen play. With a Friend's Pass, you can invite someone to play co-op with you for free.

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Call of Duty: Warzone is getting two new Gulags, Activision has announced.

In Infinity Ward's battle royale, the Gulag is where players go when they die. It offers them a chance to get back into the game by defeating an enemy player in a 1v1.

The new Verdansk Gulag experience coming to Warzone during the launch week of Season One (from 16th December) is a secret training facility - a Nuketown facsimile built by the Soviets who constructed Black Ops Cold War's Amerika Town (one of the game's better campaign levels).

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In what was either the best or worst trailer to feature at this year's Game Awards (I'm still very much undecided on the matter), Studio Wildcard has unveiled Ark 2, the sequel to its dinosaur-themed multiplayer survival game. Oh, and an animated TV spin-off starring an absurdly over-qualified cast is coming too.

Ark 2's extraordinarily drawn-out reveal trailer featured - in the most hilarious double-take moment of the night - Vin Diesel, in the role of someone named Santiago, prowling the jungle with his tribe chums, battling weird cat people, and sidestepping the odd T. rex. It was all presented with the air of a narrative-driven single-player adventure, which is rather at odds with Ark as we currently know it, so hopefully Wildcard will explain how Vin Diesel fits into it all soon.

There isn't much more to report on the Ark 2 front at the moment, but Wildcard's second surprise of the night arrived in the form of Ark: The Animated Series.

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Ghosts n' Goblins Resurrection, a remake of the 1985 NES Capcom classic, will launch for Nintendo Switch on 25th February 2021.

Additionally, Capcom Arcade Stadium, a compilation of retro Capcom classics as they were originally released, will arrive in February 2021.

1943 - The Battle of Midway will be included for free, with other additional titles available as paid DLC.

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Why isn't the Evil Dead on its 100th video game already? No matter, the brilliant splatter series has just had a new game announced at the Game Awards tonight. It's Called Evil Dead: The Game, and it's from Saber Interactive and Boss Team Games.

The trailer suggests a Left 4 Dead sort of deal - melee and ranged weapons playing out around the movies' legendary cabin in the woods. Bruce is back of course, and the whole thing looks pleasantly scrappy.

Evil Dead: The Game is due out next year on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PC and Switch. I am excited about this.

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It's the night of the Game Awards and we've just had one of those special trailers that makes you sit up and feel rather good about things. The trailer's for a game called Season, and it was described by the awards host Geoff Keighley as a game about "exploring and recording disappearing cultures."

A brief trailer suggests a beautiful and melancholic adventure. A young hero rides about on a bike recording unusual wildlife with a notebook and a camera and other appealing gadgets. There's beautiful lighting, huge skies, ruins, overgrown highways, distant farms and an air of melancholy.

The whole thing's the work of Scavengers Studio, the team behind the survival/battle royale game Darwin Project. Season is headed for PS5 and it looks wonderful.

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ZA/UM just announced Disco Elysium: The Final Cut at The Game Awards.

It's a free upgrade for all existing players as well as a standalone release. It hits PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4, and PC via Steam, GOG, the Epic Games Store, and the App Store and Google Stadia from March 2021, and Xbox Series X and S, and Nintendo Switch from summer 2021.

The headline addition is full voice acting (Disco Elysium has a lot of text to read!), but there are also new quests and unseen areas to explore.

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Warframe is joining the Epic Games Store, and will get a pack of three classic weapons from Unreal Tournament to celebrate.

There's history to this crossover, of course. Warframe developer Digital Extremes once worked with Epic on the original Unreal Tournament, more than two decades ago.

Now, the hugely-popular Warframe will host UT's Flak Cannon, Rocket Launcher and Shock Rifle. These weapons will be free and exclusive to the Epic Games Store for a limited time, until 24th December.

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Tonight we got another brief look at the next Dragon Age, which from the below trailer looks a bit like it may end up eventually just being called "Dragon Age". Or not. New details from tonight's Game Awards trailer are thin on the ground.

We saw cities and countryside that may very well be from the game's expected new setting of Tevinter. We heard that the game would feature a new protagonist (no surprise there) and it sounds like they'll have a more down-to-earth approach. You will not have a glowing all-powerful hand this time around.

And we saw everyone's favourite returning character/egg Solas.

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If you'd been wondering what Glen Schofield has been up to since he left Sledgehammer, well it's this: The Callisto Protocol, a "next-generation take on survival horror" that looks a lot like the Dead Space series. Which would make sense, seeing as Schofield was the executive producer for Dead Space.

Set on the Jupiter moon Callisto in 2320, the game requires players to escape a maximum security prison and uncover its "terrifying secrets". Judging by the trailer shown at the Game Awards, I can kinda guess what those are.

The Callisto Protocol is being made by studio Striking Distance Studios, a new AAA studio helmed by Schofield and owned by Krafton (the publisher for PUBG). The game is set to come to PC and consoles in 2022, and while the console platforms have not yet been detailed, the description of "next-gen" has me thinking it could be Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 only. We'll have to wait to find out, but the suspense is killing me.

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Fullbright, the developer behind acclaimed narrative adventures Gone Home and Tacoma, has unveiled its latest offering, Open Roads.

"One fine fall day," explains Open Roads' newly launched Steam page, "Tess Devine and her mother, Opal, discover a cache of old notes and letters carefully stashed away in the attic of their house. Hints of deep-rooted family secrets, decades-old burglaries, a lost treasure somewhere near the Canadian border... What they uncover suggests a much darker mystery, best left well enough alone. But that's not going to happen."

The ensuing adventure follows 16-year-old Tess and mother Opal - voiced by Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart) and Keri Russell (The Americans) respectively - as they explore a series of evocative, long-abandoned family properties in search of answers. Between each destination, players can "bask in classic road trip vibes", fiddling with the radio and conversing with mum.

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Here's a new, fantastic-looking role-playing game coming out in 2021: Crimson Desert.

It's the next game from Pearl Abyss, the makers of MMO Black Desert Online.

Pearl Abyss released a new, five-minute trailer showing off gameplay for Crimson Desert during The Game Awards.

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Fatshark revealed snippets of gameplay for its next game, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide at The Game Awards - and it looks great.

Fatshark is the developer of wonderful Warhammer first-person co-op smash 'em-up Vermintide, and you can see how the studio has built upon its good work on that game for this Warhammer 40,000 first-person co-op smash 'em-up.

Here's the official blurb:

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UPDATE 12.30AM UK: As expected, the Cybercar was announced at tonight's Game Awards. It didn't win any awards itself, but it will be made available free in Forza Horizon 4 later today (11th December).

ORIGINAL STORY 12.00PM UK: I've only spent a couple of hours with Cyberpunk 2077, but I'm in love with its cars already - modelled on 80s era heroes and augmented as much as the citizens of Night City, they're fast becoming my favourite thing about CD Projekt's epic open world RPG. So I'm quite excited at the prospect of being able to take the game's star steed, the Quadra, for a spin in Forza Horizon 4, something which looks like being a very imminent possibility.

Keen-eyed Redditor acreamymeme spotted the 2058 Quadra in Forza Horizon 4 in the wake of the recent big Super 7 update that launched this week (as originally reported by Destructoid), and it looks like it's been sneaked into the game ahead of an official reveal at tonight's Game Awards show. While it's not available in the wider game - yet - it is possible to get behind the wheel of the Quadra in the new Super 7 mode that introduces obstacles and player-crafted challenges to Forza Horizon 4.

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Hello. Turtle Rock Studios, the developer of Left 4 Dead, has used tonight's Game Awards to reveal a first proper glimpse of its new game. It's called Back 4 Blood and it looks a lot like Left 4 Dead.

Over the course of a trailer and a bit of real game footage we were introduced to a world in which some sort of horrible worm has turned people into zombies. Anyway, Back 4 Blood looks like Turtle Rock is sticking to the formula - a team of wise-cracking survivors up against hordes of zombies. Guns and baseballs bats and grenades. Safe houses and graffiti all over the place.

Chris Ashton from Turtle Rock appeared on stage to say that the team was aiming to deliver "more and bigger" - variety, basically. There's a focus on over-sized specials for sure, one of whom rips away a huge gate in a nice moment. It looks brisk and fun.

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The legendary Perfect Dark franchise is back.

Our first, brief look at its new incarnation came tonight during The Game Awards via a cinematic trailer which showed a futuristic "eco sci-fi" take and introduced the Microsoft studio behind the project, The Initiative.

Perfect Dark is the first game to come from The Initiative, Microsoft's Santa Monica-based studio founded by Crystal Dynamics veteran Darrell Gallagher.

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The latest character to join the bulging Super Smash Bros. Ultimate roster has been announced at The Game Awards 2020. It's Sephiroth, from Final Fantasy..

Sephiroth is of course the second Final Fantasy character to join Nintendo's fighting crossover series, following the earlier arrival of Cloud. He'll pop into the game at some point later this month of December.

Sorry Birdo, your day will come.

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The Game Awards has given us our first look at NieR Replicant gameplay.

NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139 (phew!) is the prequel to NieR:Automata and an upgraded version of the first Nier game. It's due out on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC via Steam on 23rd April 2021.

The original Nier came out on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in April 2010. An alternate version titled Nier Replicant came out in Japan for PS3 with a younger main character. This new game is a remaster of Replicant.

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There's barely been time to admire the sweeping vistas of Colorado, but American Truck Simulator is already speeding to its next stop, with developer SCS today announcing Wyoming as the next US state to be getting the expansion treatment.

"Home to some of the country's most breathtaking national parks, " explains SCS in its announcement post, "Wyoming is best known for its red-walled gorges, hot springs, historic prairie towns, pioneer history, and historical attractions."

To accompany its Wyoming reveal, SCS has shared the briefest of video teasers, offering a peak at just some of the bison-related sights in store for those readying themselves for more hypnotically zen-like hauling across American Truck Simulator's newest state.

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Join us from 11.30pm for all the fun and festivities.

It was mere days ago that Blizzard heralded World of Warcraft's newly released Shadowlands expansion as the fastest-selling PC game of all time, but already, CD Projekt's swaggering open-world opus, Cyberpunk 2077, has stolen that crown.

When Blizzard trumpeted Shadowlands' achievement earlier this week, it revealed that the expansion had sold through more than 3.7m units globally on its first full day of launch.

As reported by GamesIndustry.biz, however, CD Projekt's investor relations Twitter account has now shared some early sales statistics for Cyberpunk 2077, revealing the game managed to shift a total of 8m pre-orders across all platforms.

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Netflix's relentless onslaught of video game adaptions continues with the announcement - apparently somewhat premature, given it's later deletion - that it's working on a new 3D animated adaptation of Sega's beloved Sonic the Hedgehog.

That news originally surfaced in an announcement posted to the official NXOnNetflix Twitter account. While accompanying details were scarce, Netflix did note the new Sonic series will be a collaboration between Sega, media and production company WildBrain (which makes the Carmen Sandiego series for Netflix), and Man of Action Entertainment - the "creative studio and writers collective" behind the likes of Ben 10 and The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

Hopefully we'll get more news on Netflix's Sonic project - which is due to arrive in 2022 - some time in the not-too-distant future. A certain Game Awards show, scheduled for tonight, might, for instance, be an excellent place to hold an proper, official reveal.

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Over the years, there has been a lot of discussion around Cyberpunk 2077 but from our perspective, it's the next-generation technology powering the game that is perhaps most exciting. Since The Witcher 2, developer CD Projekt Red has focused on delivering cutting-edge visual experiences across multiple platforms but in moving away from the rolling hills of The Witcher onto the streets of Night City, we have something far beyond the scope of anything in the studio's past.

In that sense, Cyberpunk is one of those rare games that fully embraces the latest in PC technology to deliver a true leap in fidelity - a modern day Crysis, if you like. Night City is a dense, multi-tiered, vertical city built using the latest in graphics technology alongside smart visual design. But let's be clear from the outset - it's always been our contention that this is a next generation game, and our concerns have always been around the challenging but necessary base console versions. We'll be covering those very, very soon but let's be clear here: this is a demanding game that simply doesn't work well on seven-year-old console hardware. Give Cyberpunk 2077 the horsepower it demands though - and you're in for something special.

You can now take a few tantalising first steps into developer Tarsier Studios' deliciously sinister platform sequel Little Nightmares 2, courtesy of a brand-new demo on Steam - which is expected to arrive on consoles in the new year.

Little Nightmare 2 (technically a sequel, although Tarsier has so far been a little cagey about how it slots into the series' timeline) once again stars Six - the pint-sized, yellow-raincoat-wearing protagonist of the original game - albeit now in a supporting role.

This time around, players control new character Mono (the game's AI takes care of Six's actions) on an adventure that trades the stuffy, squalid interiors of the first game's horrifying Maw in favour of some airier - although admittedly no less claustrophobic - exterior locales.

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Alright, so I think it's safe to say we all know Cyberpunk 2077 is having a bit of a rough launch. The game is looking messy on base last-gen consoles, and players are starting to discover some of the many bugs highlighted by critics in their reviews. Some of these are genuinely quite annoying, but others are pretty harmless and often hilarious, even if they break immersion. A brief glimpse of how the sausage gets made.

The glitch currently getting the most attention on social media is rather NSFW, if you hadn't guessed from the headline, and it involves the game's genital options. You can view the cursed video here - but basically, V can't keep it in their pants. If you choose to give your character a penis, it can clip outside their trousers and wiggle around a bit. It seems quite a few people have encountered this glitch, but apparently removing and re-equipping your trousers can solve the situation.

Just to make things fair, it seems a similar thing can happen with boobs, as Outside Xtra's Ellen Rose discovered during her live stream yesterday. I guess if Regina George can work a cut-out top, you can too.

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A new update for Cyberpunk 2077 has added a "risk of seizure" warning to the game's PC version.

As of writing, Eurogamer has verified this warning is currently visible only on PC and not on PlayStation or Xbox.

It follows this week's earlier report of a Game Informer employee experiencing symptoms of epilepsy while reviewing the game, and developer CD Projekt Red's subsequent pledge to update the game in response.

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Oh dear, my leg has been chopped off. I suppose I am dead. In most games, I would be. But not here, not in the amazingly named Clone Drone in the Danger Zone. Here, it is but a flesh wound, except I have no flesh. I am a robot, and on the floor lies my robo-limb. I don't even remark upon it, or do anything to suggest it once belonged to me and I rather relied on it. I just carry on, hopping, as if nothing happened at all.

Another time I didn't even realise my arm had gone until I went to use my bow and couldn't, because it required two arms.

It's all very Monty Python and it's absolutely supposed to be. Clone Drone in the Danger Zone is a comedy. A game where, and bear with me here, humans are made into robots, by robots, and are made to fight other robots in a series of gladiatorial challenges. I think. I mean, it doesn't really matter - there is a story but don't worry about it.

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Ahead of Cyberpunk 2077's release, CD Projekt Red announced the game would feature a special mode to help streamers broadcast gameplay without fear of copyright strikes. Unfortunately, it seems one song slipped through the cracks, and CDPR has now asked streamers to turn off audio for those particular scenes.

According to CDPR's tweet, the song appears in the first two Braindance sequences. Even when the "disable copyrighted music" option has been turned on, the song will still play, and streamers could face a DMCA strike on their channel if they fail to mute the audio.

"While we work on fixing it, please make sure to turn the sound off during the first two Braindance sequences," the Cyberpunk 2077 Twitter account explained. "Apologies!"

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Cyberpunk 2077 launched at midnight last night, and now the console versions are out in the wild we're getting our first proper look at the game running on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Early impressions are, unfortunately, not great.

I've been playing the PS4 version of CD Projekt's sci-fi epic and can report poor performance, including low framerate and texture pop-in when the screen is busy. Even when it's not, there is on occasion a low-res blur to the visuals. And I've encountered multiple characters locked in a T-pose, frozen in place or glitched into an object. You can still talk to these NPCs, but their mouths do not move.

I've had a chat with Digital Foundry's Tom Morgan, who provided me with some screenshots of Cyberpunk 2077 running on a base PS4 alongside some analysis:

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Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War for the PC is discounted on Battle.Net right now, with prices reduced by a third of its total - a serious discount and the lowest we've seen it priced so far.

You can check out Eurogamer's review of Black Ops Cold War here, but for many Cold War remains an excellent time-sync game for the winter with surprisingly punchy weapon physics and a plot that's… well, it's Call of Duty. At this point, you know if that sort of thing is your bag or not.

And if it is your bag, then add to cart, so to speak. Blizzard's own Battle.Net store is linked below, dropping the price by £17 or $20, depending on your location. There's also a third off the bigger, Ultimate Edition, which comes with a Battle Pass and further in-game extras.

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It's been a little over eight and a half years since Cyberpunk 2077 was announced. For the majority of the time, developer-publisher CD Projekt told us we could expect it when it's ready, and not a moment sooner. Unfortunately, it isn't. Cyberpunk 2077 has finally arrived, thunderous and yellow, after months of reported 'death march' crunch - enforced overtime extended repeatedly to shifting deadlines - and sadly it shows.

Even putting the human cost aside, it is an enormous shame. As much as the excitement has been at times irresponsibly over-fanned, Cyberpunk 2077 is a game of vast ambition. It's driven by a core of characters wonderfully written and performed, a story of genuine layer, momentum and depth, a technical feat of immersive decision-making, and pumping, sim-inspired action. But the undeniable potential is drowning under the tidal wave of little issues. An uncharacteristic carelessness to the finer points, some pervasive immaturity of thought, and distracting, recurring bugs leave Cyberpunk 2077 as a game in conflict: a world of unmatched detail, in dire need of attention.

But how I love it, nonetheless. Cyberpunk 2077 follows CD Projekt's trend for adapting its games from the grittier kinds of genre fiction. As The Witcher games drew heavily from Andrzej Sapkowski's Polish fantasy novels, Cyberpunk 2077 does from Mike Pondsmith's Cyberpunk, a 1988 tabletop RPG. The result is a strong emphasis on immersion at all costs, a slightly of-its-time tone, and far greater choice in what you can do and how you can do it than in any of the studio's previous games.

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Twitch has unveiled its new Hateful Conduct and Harassment Policy, designed to give content creators and users a clear understanding of the types of behaviour considered unacceptable on the streaming service, and the steps the company will take when its rules are broken.

"We know that many people on Twitch - particularly women, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, Black, Indigenous, and people of colour - unfortunately continue to experience a disproportionate amount of harassment and abuse online, including on our service," the company explained in its announcement post. "Not only is this blatantly unacceptable, it also undermines the community we're building on Twitch and threatens the long term viability of streaming as a career for everyone who wishes to pursue it."

To that end, Twitch's updated guidelines - which are now split into three key categories: harassment, hateful conduct, and sexual misconduct - aim to "take a clearer and more consistent stance against hate and harassment", clarifying existing policies and introducing others to more thoroughly address additional areas of concern.

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Sea of Thieves has just received its final monthly update of the year - titled the Festival of Giving - and it sees the ocean's denizen getting firmly into the festive spirit with seasonally appropriate challenges, cosmetics, and more.

Alas, it's the third monthly update in a row without any notable new feature additions, but it does offer up another calendar of activities and rewards to keep pirates busy through the holiday season and into the new year while Rare finalises its recently announced battle pass.

Starting today, 9th December, players can embark on the 12 Deeds of Giving, a series of daily challenges very loosely inspired by the old classic Christmas ditty. A new challenge will be unlocked every 24 hours for the next 12 days (you can see them in-game and here), each bestowing a piece of the new Eastern Winds gear set upon players that complete them.

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Spider-Man: Miles Morales players on PS5 will no longer face the tricky choice between 60fps fluidity and the aesthetic delights of ray tracing, thanks to a new patch from developer Insomniac that finally allows both together, albeit with some caveats.

Insomniac's latest update - formally known as patch 1.007 - is available now and introduces a third PS5 graphics mode option to complement the existing (30fps with ray tracing enabled) Fidelity Mode and (no ray tracing at 60fps) Performance Mode; now, players can select Performance RT Mode, which ushers in the coveted blend of ray tracing at 60fps.

For those wondering about the magic behind Insomniac's new Miles Morales update, Performance RT Mode's in-game description offers some clues, explaining that it delivers 60fps and ray tracing "by adjusting the scene resolution, reflection quality, and pedestrian density."

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