Eurogamer

The Monster Hunter movie's controversial "Chi-knees" dialogue has been pulled from all versions of the film globally, Deadline reports.

The decision came as director Paul W. S. Anderson issued a public apology for the dialogue, which was described by some as racist.

Over the weekend, Eurogamer reported on how Capcom's Monster Hunter World was getting review-bombed on Steam as part of the backlash to the dialogue.

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If there are two things I like on this Earth, it's Star Wars and Fallout: New Vegas, so you can imagine my excitement when I found out about this mod.

Made by Tank_Girl444 and Karim Najib, Star Wars: Open Worlds is a total conversion mod for Fallout: New Vegas. It seeks to create 12 galactic planets for players to explore, complete with their own environments, stories and characters. It's been in progress for at least three years, but received significant attention earlier this week when it was spotted by YouTuber JuiceHead. And it looks like the modders have put those years of development to good use, as there are dozens of videos displaying their progress so far.

The most recent showcase, which you can find below, explores a toxic planet called Felucia (which briefly makes an appearance in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith). There's plenty of other videos showing everything from AT-AT battles to a ship travel system, so it's well worth browsing the channel if you're interested.

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The recommended specs for Respawn's Medal of Honor VR game are out - and they're surprisingly demanding.

The recommended specs are listed on the Steam page for Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, which comes out 12th December. Here's how it weighs in:

All that's listed under minimum specs is the line: "Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system." I'm guessing you'll need more than that.

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Microsoft will roll out its iOS and PC options for streaming Xbox games in the spring of 2021.

On PC, you'll play through the Windows Xbox app. On iPhone and iPad, you'll play through a mobile web browser. Both options will require you are a member of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.

We've been hearing about Microsoft's latest plans to get Xbox cloud streaming on iOS for a few months now. Back in October, Xbox boss Phil Spencer outlined the company's plan to use a browser-based solution for Apple's platform.

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UPDATE 09/12/20: After Nintendo sent a cease and desist to the creator of Etika-themed Joy-Con shells that were being sold for charity, the design of those shells has now been modified - and the product has already met its first fundraising goal.

Earlier this week creator CptnAlex indicated he wanted to release a new design for the shells, minus the Joycon Boyz and Switch logo references, which were seemingly the trademarks causing the trouble. CptnAlex set up a new fundraising round to pay for the production of the altered design, and it's currently sitting at £4.2k, meaning it's already made the initial fundraising goal of $5k (£3.7k) required to fund the initial production run.

The shells cost $35 (£26) per set, with 30 per cent going to the JED Foundation (an American charity for mental health and suicide prevention), and the remaining amount covering production costs. If the fundraiser reaches its $10k (£7.4k) goal then a backplate design will be funded. The fundraising pool closes in 18 hours, so if you want to contribute you'll need to donate today.

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The Gears 5: Hivebusters campaign expansion is included with an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription, Microsoft has announced.

Hivebusters comes out on Tuesday, 15th December, and is available with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate on console, PC and Android devices the same day as its global release.

Otherwise, it's sold separately for $19.99, or is included with the Gears 5: Game of the Year Edition, also due out on 15th December.

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Destiny 2 crossplay is coming at some point in 2021, Bungie has announced.

Destiny 2 crossplay has been a long-requested feature by fans, and will let you play with others regardless of platform.

In an update on Bungie.net, assistant game director Joe Blackburn teased some other things coming to Destiny 2, year four. Transmog, for example, arrives with Season 14. Bungie shared work-in-progress screenshots of the feature, below:

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One game really leapt out at me during the Xbox Series X showcase earlier this year, leapt out like a big wet fish. It was Call of the Sea. I'd never heard of it and never heard of the developer. But even among all the other blockbusters it stood out. And once I'd seen it, I couldn't stop thinking about it.

It was partly the setting: a vintage, 1930s exploration mission to a dazzling tropical island, where colours burned brighter than life. Literal red sun baked the sands, literal green shone luminously from pools. It was a cartoon exaggeration of paradise.

But it was also the tone. Here was a non-violent and eerie game about a lone female on a voyage to find her husband, whose expedition hadn't returned from the island. An island that appeared to be calling to her. Who was she, Norah Everhart, and what happened to her husband? And what was waiting for her there?

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Hot on the heels of volcanic Season 9 map Paramo, PUBG Corp is introducing yet another new map in Season 10 - and this one's all about city living. Or dying, perhaps.

Available now on PC test servers, Season 10 adds a dense urban map called Haven. It's a 1x1 area featuring 32 players set in the heart of the American rust belt. Despite its small size, players will find distinct areas including carbon steelworks, coal yards, an industrial zone, residential zone, overpass and docks. It's a seasonal map, however, meaning it will only stick around for Season 10 - and it can only be played in duos (or you can go it alone as a one-person duo). As the matches are faster, you can expect to receive approximately 70 per cent of the BP you normally would for full-length matches on larger maps.

As the map promises plenty of verticality, a new emergency parachute item is being introduced to help players navigate the highways and tall buildings of Haven. These don't open automatically, so remember to activate the parachute before you go splat. Oh, and they're single-use only.

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Halo Infinite has a new release date of autumn 2021, Microsoft has announced.

343's hotly-anticipated Xbox Series X, S, Xbox One and PC first-person shooter was originally due out as an Xbox Series X and S launch title in November 2020, but was delayed to 2021 after the studio faced a number of "development challenges", including those relating to the coronavirus.

"It is not sustainable for the well-being of our team or the overall success of the game to ship it this holiday," 343 said at the time.

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Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros, Nintendo's throwback to its very first handheld gaming console, has been reduced by £10 at a number of retailers.

Launched back in November for £49.99 as part of the Super Mario Bros. 35th Anniversary, this special edition of the Game & Watch includes playable versions of Super Mario Bros and The Lost Levels sequel. It also features a Mario edition of the game Ball and a digital clock with various little secrets and easter eggs you can trigger.

It's a neat little piece of kit and a cool collector's item for any Mario fan out there - especially if you're after a stocking filler for this time of year.

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How would you make a game about Orson Welles? I had never thought about this until I read, these past few weeks, One Man Band, the third part of Simon Callow's ongoing biography of the director and writer and actor and occasional seller of Paul Masson wine, this volume covering the period from 1947 to 1964 - from Othello to Chimes at Midnight.

Now I can't think about anything else. In a way I've been growing up with Callow's books on Welles; I read the first instalment when it came out in 1995 when I was 18. And in a way that means I've been growing up with Welles too. He was 24 by the end of that first book. With One Man Band, Welles and I are both in our forties and a bit knackered. I'm a bit knackered anyway. Welles is actually still a bit knackering.

The man loved chaos. His life, his lies, his imagination, his failings, his appetites: everything about him is exhausting. And it must have been exhilarating and terrifying to be there with him, pulling films together as he hopped across Europe, staging plays that only came into focus - if at all - on the night of first performance. I want to get a bit of this world for myself, but from a safe distance: no broken bones, no unpaid debts. After the biography, games, inevitably, seem like the best way to do it. But how? How would you do Welles in a game? How would you capture someone - above six foot and pretty heavy by his forties, the cliche is made for him - larger than life?

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Developer Hinterland's acclaimed wilderness survival adventure The Long Dark is welcoming visitors to a brand-new region, Ash Canyon, as part of its free new Survival Mode Hesitant Prospect update, available now on all platforms.

Ash Canyon is described as a hard-to-reach area - "defined by steep cavernous walls and burned-out forest" - located on the far side of Timberwolf Mountain. "If you can navigate your way through the treacherous landscape," teases Hinterland, "you might find an abandoned mine that hides treasures worth more than gold to any survivor. Just be careful when crossing the harrowing rope-bridges. It's a long way down!".

To assist survivors willing to brave Ash Canyon, Hinterland has introduced two new gear items in its December update. There are Crampons, which help prevent sprains and makes it easier to travel over weak ice, and the Technical Pack, adding a permanent capacity buff to the inventory.

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Ignition Entertainment's cult classic - and visually sublime - PS3-era action-adventure El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron is, in delightfully unexpected news, heading to PC.

El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron originally launched for PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2011, and recounts the story of blond, be-denimed Enoch (in the first and probably only game to be inspired by the apocryphal Book of Enoch) as he hunts seven fallen angels at the behest of God.

The ensuing adventure gamely hops between platform segments - both 3D and side-on - and a deceptively simple, but thrillingly balletic three-weapon combat system that rewards those willing to inject some rhythmic flair into their strikes and dodges. Granted, platforming is only passable, and limited enemy types and a lack of combat evolution do let the side down, but El Shaddai's flaws are surprisingly easy to forgive, thanks to the delights it offers elsewhere.

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UPDATE 7.45pm: CD Projekt has responded to reports that certain effects and sequences in Cyberpunk 2077 are a potential epilepsy risk and may trigger - and indeed have triggered, in the case of one reviewer - epileptic seizures in certain individuals.

In a brief statement posted to Twitter in response to a PSA article from GameInformer, CD Projekt confirmed it's now "working on adding a separate warning in the game, aside from the one that exists in the EULA". It also offered assurances that it's exploring "a more permanent solution", and that one will be implemented "as soon as possible".

ORIGINAL STORY 3.25pm: UK charity Epilepsy Action has called for an urgent update to Cyberpunk 2077 in response to a warning the game could be a trigger to those with epilepsy.

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Eight months after its initial beta launch, Mojang and Nvidia's free raytracing update for Minecraft's Windows 10 edition has officially launched for all players.

You'll need an RTX-enabled graphics card (perhaps easier said than done) to take advantage of Minecraft's official ray tracing update, and those suitably equipped gain access to a special physically based rendering texture pack that, explains Mojang, "interplays with the ray-traced effects to further enhance the experience". Expect "brightened blocks, emissive pixels, water reflections, accurately cast shadows, and rich global illumination."

As Digital Foundry's Alex Battaglia explained earlier this year, the results really are impressive. "Let's not mince words here - path tracing in Minecraft is one of the most transformative uses of ray tracing we've seen," he wrote. "In Minecraft RTX, everything is ray traced: every element is realistically, correctly lit - and...the extent of this implementation produces effects we've never seen in games before."

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UPDATE 8/12/20: Following last week's trailer leak, Atlus has confirmed Persona 5 Strikers (known as Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers in Japan) will be getting a western release on Switch, PS4, and Steam early next year, on 23rd February.

The previously pulled English language trailer for developer Omega Force's musou-infused Persona 5 spin-off - which blends "explosive action-combat with pause-and-plan sequences" - has re-emerged to accompany today's official announcement, and you can see it below.

Pre-orders, if you're into that kind of thing, open for all platforms this Thursday, 10th December.

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Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 is coming to iPhone, iPad and Android on 18th December priced $14.99.

The mobile version of Obsidian's role-playing game is the work of Aspyr, which has created new touch screen controls. Here's the trailer:

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, which came out for the original Xbox in December 2004 and then PC in February 2005, is set 4000 years before the events of the film Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, and starts five years after the events of Bioware's wonderful KOTOR.

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UPDATE 5PM UK: Ubisoft UK has now confirmed its Prince of Persia delay also applies here too.

ORIGINAL STORY 2PM UK: Ubisoft has apparently delayed its upcoming Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake until 18th March 2021, according to the publisher's Czech Republic Facebook page.

The remake was previously due to arrive in January.

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Pokémon Go marks the franchise's 25th anniversary in February 2021 with a ticketed global event celebrating all of its original 151 Kanto creatures.

Two different ticket types for Pokémon Go Tour: Kanto will be offered, Red and Green, which will each offer a slightly different selection of Pokémon. Of course, this mimics the choice between the two original games released 25 years ago in Japan: Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green.

Every Kanto creature will be available in their Shiny form, some for the first time within Pokémon Go. And, following the announcement of the game's upcoming Shiny Celebi release, special research will lead to the release of an exclusive one-off Shiny Mew.

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Call of Duty: Warzone players are using a high-profile glitch to spawn unlimited Juggernauts on the map.

YouTube channel Cable711 published a video showcasing how to use the glitch:

Here's how it works: by solving the subway Easter egg puzzle you get guaranteed access to a Juggernaut. Once done, locate the Juggernaut and a killstreak. You need to activate the Juggernaut while you activate the killstreak at the same time. Time it just right and you'll pull out the Juggernaut canister as you drop the Juggernaut on the ground, allowing you to throw as many Juggernauts as you can time correctly. The timing is very tricky, but it is doable - in the video, Cable711 throws 14 Juggernauts in just a couple of minutes.

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World of Warcraft Shadowlands is the fastest-selling PC game of all time, according to Blizzard.

World of Warcraft's eighth expansion sold through more than 3.7m units globally on its first full day of launch.

Shadowlands was originally set for release on 27th October 2020, but was delayed until 23rd November, the 16th anniversary of the release of the original, groundbreaking MMO.

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The producers of the Monster Hunter movie have apologised after the movie was pulled from Chinese cinemas over a racist joke scene.

Over the weekend, Eurogamer reported on how Monster Hunter World was getting review-bombed on Steam because of a racist joke in the Monster Hunter movie.

The Paul W. S. Anderson-directed Monster Hunter movie launched in China last week - and was soon pulled from theatres after a backlash to a clip of the movie that shows an American soldier ask another American soldier: "What are my knees?... What kind of knees are these?... Chi-knees."

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Earlier this year, Sims 4 players asked Maxis to improve the skin tones available in the game. Many pointed out that the darker skin tones lacked vibrancy and looked ashy - while makeup often appeared patchy on some of these tones. In response, executive producer Lyndsay Pearson acknowledged the team needed to do more to include a variety of skin tones and hairstyles in the game: and an update to help with that has now arrived.

Today's free update adds over 100 new skin tones to the character creator, along with a customisation slider to change the light to dark value of a skin tone. Skin tones are now filterable to warm, cool, and neutral tones - along with miscellaneous to cover occult skin tones like blue and green.

Sliders are now also available when applying a sim's makeup, which means players can alter hue, saturation, brightness and opacity. Maxis has currently locked the sliders "where it did not provide an optimal experience or make sense for the makeup," but is working to improve these issues in future. You can also save custom swatches as you tweak your sliders, which can be saved for later should you want to reuse a look.

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Project Athia, the upcoming PC and PS5 project from Square Enix, has a two year period of console exclusivity.

There's no release date yet for the mysterious fantasy game but, whenever it does arrive, it won't be seen on Xbox Series X/S for a further two years.

Sony clarified this exclusivity for the first time in a trailer for various upcoming PS5 games released last night:

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In the late 90's, I was a primary school student. I remember reading a book while the teacher called out names for the daily register. She called out my name and I didn't hear her, but when she finally managed to grab my attention, she wasn't angry. She actually seemed pleased. 'I wish I could get that absorbed in a book', she said.

Around the same time period, one of the most famous games in history was released - Final Fantasy 7. I was similarly absorbed by the long conversations between the characters, interactions that relied on text with no voice acting. (Tellingly, some have argued that the Final Fantasy series contains literary elements.) I recently rewatched a vital scene from 7 and noticed how Cloud's dialogue suddenly overlaps Sephiroth's ranting to convey a furious interruption, and how at another point Cloud's words stay locked within a single text box, slowly moving up to give way to the next sentence rather than appearing in separate boxes. It's strangely fitting for the emotional nature of the scene - the words feel agonised.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's Season 6 battle pass has come to an end - and there's no sign of a Season 7.

Infinity Ward's first-person shooter launched on 25th October 2019. Since then, it's seen the launch of free-to-play battle royale Warzone, Treyarch and Raven's Black Ops Cold War, and six seasons' worth of new content and battle passes.

But it looks like the focus from Activision's point of view is now squarely on Warzone and Black Ops Cold War. Modern Warfare players noticed this morning that the game's current battle pass had expired with no replacement or playlist update from Infinity Ward.

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A huge stash of Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 graphics cards have been reported stolen from manufacturer MSI's own warehouse.

The haul amounts to 40 cargo boxes, Tom's Hardware reported, worth $336,500 (£252k).

MSI believes the theft was likely an inside job, considering the fact the RTX 3090s were stolen from an area of the company's own facility under high surveillance.

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It's been two years since Forza Horizon 4 first zoomed onto our screens, but the team at Playground Games have provided us with yet another surprise twist - as the game is getting a significant free update today.

Players can expect to find a new mode called Super7, which allows players to create individual challenges "based on drift, speed, air and more". The mode is all about celebrating community-created challenges, however, so you can also take on challenges made by other players. When playing Super7 you will be presented with seven randomly selected challenges, and winning all seven in a row will net you an "exclusive reward" of some sort. Hopefully more than just a gold star.

Perhaps the most exciting addition is the Blueprint Builder, which will allow you to enhance your challenges by placing stunts, structures and scenery wherever you desire. Basically Trackmania, but set in some idyllic British countryside.

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Treyarch has released a significant update for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War that paves the way for the launch of Season One on 16th December.

The patch weighs in at 23.686GB on PlayStation 5, 12.7GB on PlayStation 4, 13.8GB on PC, 24GB on Xbox Series X, and 14.64GB on Xbox One. It focuses on bug fixes and stability, but also adds a 6v6 Motherland Moshpit playlist, and new Zombies intel and updates.

The new Motherland Moshpit playlist features TDM, Domination, Kill Confirmed, and Hardpoint on Moscow and Crossroads Strike. Hardcore Motherland Moshpit is also be available in Quick Play, featuring hardcore TDM, Domination, and Kill Confirmed.

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Rebirth Island has been confirmed for Call of Duty: Warzone.

In the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War - season one cinematic video, below, we see new operator Vikhor "Stitch" Kuzmin hold a photo of Rebirth Island.

Rebirth Island, which was revealed by Call of Duty dataminers last week, is expected to be a remake of Blackout's Alcatraz that is playable as a standalone map and mode in the battle royale Warzone.

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Editor's note: After years of hype and controversy, CD Projekt's Cyberpunk 2077 is arriving later this week. We've spent around 40 hours in Night City so far and will be delivering our final verdict later in the week. In addition to wanting to spend a bit more time with the game, the pre-launch build we have has some stability and performance issues, and we'd prefer to give CD Projekt a little more time to squash bugs and get the experience to the same level players will see later this week. Before the final review, here are our impressions of this vast and frequently impressive open world adventure.

If I were to sum up Cyberpunk 2077 quickly - and I'm not suggesting that's a very good idea - I'd say it is quite a bit smaller than you'd think. That sounds like a criticism, but it isn't. For all of Cyberpunk 2077's vastness - in the sheer height and width and length of it, in the sprawling, monolithic Night City, and in the noise it's made, the attention it's demanded ahead of launch - it is often quite surprisingly focused.

In case you've somehow missed it, there's been a lot of talk lately about the excellent value of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. And it's just got even better, as you can now pay a measly £1/$1 to try Microsoft's gaming subscription service on for three months.

Quick caveat from the off: this latest promotion is only open to new members. If you've even had a Game Pass Ultimate membership or been on a free trial in the past, you won't be able to take advantage. If not, though, it's an incredibly cheap way to get access to games on the entire range of Xbox consoles and PC.

Now's as good a time as any to give Game Pass Ultimate a go as it's just received its biggest haul of new games so far - mostly thanks to the recent inclusion of EA Play at no extra cost. That's added the likes of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, FIFA 20 and the entire Mass Effect series to the service. Bioware keeps teasing a new entry of the sci-fi RPG, so why not treat yourself to another playthrough?

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Activision made headlines at the next generation console launch by adding 120fps support To Call of Duty: Warzone on Xbox Series X - an extra that was not mirrored on PlayStation 5, which continues to top out at 60Hz. Confusion followed, but clarifications came when Rocket League developer Psyonix revealed that Sony does not allow 120Hz support on legacy PS4 apps running on PlayStation 5. It's a shame to not see it yet, especially since other enhancements have been delivered to PS4 games through back-compat (most notably on Days Gone and Ghost of Tsushima, which both now run at 60fps on PS5). And so, we wondered to what extent Warzone has been improved when running on both next-gen machines. 120fps support is allowed on Series X, but is there any other advantage here? The answer? Absolutely yes.

To get the comparison data we needed, we leaned into Warzone's crossplay functionality, which allows up to four different gamers using any supported console or PC to play together on the same server. Not only that, but we can actually get precise, lined up shots of gameplay from all systems by allowing all members of the squad to perish, then sync capture in spectator mode. Four consoles, four gamers all recording footage of the same player. From there, the analysis can begin proper.

This year has often felt like a survival game in itself, but if you were hoping to play Rust on your console this Christmas then there's bad news, as the console port will no longer release this year.

Rust's planned launch on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One for sometime in 2020 was initially annnounced back in November 2019. The developer responsible for the port admitted it had kept quiet this year simply because there had been no meaningful updates to share with the community - up until now.

"It's been a while since we shared anything in the public domain and as the end of 2020 is nigh, we want to confirm that Rust is still coming to console, just a little later than planned," Double Eleven said in a blog post. "We're sorry that we haven't been able to bring you Rust on console in 2020 as planned. We know from all of the messages that you're excited to play it and we hope that with the dawn of 2021 we can restore your trust as we edge closer to being able to share something with you."

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Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game - Complete Edition comes out 14th January 2021, Ubisoft has announced.

That's for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Stadia.

The Complete Edition includes the remaster of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game and its original DLCs: the Knives Chau and Wallace Wells add-on packs.

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Cristiano Ronaldo is now a cyberpunk character in a mobile battle royale.

The Juventus forward - considered one of the greatest players the world has ever seen - plays a character called Chrono in a mobile battle royale game called Free Fire.

Here's how he looks in the game:

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If you've been watching Disney's excellent Star Wars show The Mandalorian, you may have noticed it's dipped into the video games to unearth its latest terrifying set of baddies.

THE MANDALORIAN SPOILERS ARE AHEAD.

In chapter 14 of The Mandalorian, evil Empire chief Moff Gideon sends a squad of Dark Troopers down to a planet called Tython to kidnap poor old Baby Yoda. They succeed.

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Everyone knows it's tough to get a PlayStation 5 for Christmas, with stock limited, allegedly stolen, scalped, re-sold at ridiculous prices, and literally swiped from moving trucks like a scene from Fast and the Furious.

Well, even Saturday Night Live has noticed, and this weekend the long-running US sketch show broadcast its own take on this holiday's must-have item.

Arrested Development and Ozark star Jason Bateman plays Santa in a spoof of the Eminem song Stan. This time around, however, it's an insistent man asking for a PS5, after being unable to find one at Walmart or GameStop.

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Gangs are hitting lorries on the run to steal PlayStation 5s, a new report has revealed.

Over the weekend The Times (paywall) reported that deliveries of PlayStations, TVs, cosmetics, mobile phones and cigarettes have all been raided in recent months using a stunt known as "the rollover".

This involves gangs using multiple cars to box in a lorry going at speeds of up to 50mph. One gang member climbs out secured by rope through a sunroof or modified hatch, then uses cutting tools or a crowbar to break into the lorry, climb aboard and throw out the goods.

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