Eurogamer

After a cheeky announcement on Twitter back on Tuesday, the Nintendo Switch eShop Blockbuster sale is now live with discounts of up to 75 per cent available on a number of the console's biggest games.

Perhaps not the ones you want, though.

Starting with Nintendo's first-party releases, these are all at that very familiar £33.29 price point we've come to expect from a Switch eShop sale. Only four are included: Super Mario Maker 2, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Super Mario Odyssey and Xenoblade Chronicles 2. A decent if not spectacular discount, then.

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Looks like some Pokémon Sword and Shield players using Surprise Trade are getting more than they bargained for, as hacked Pokémon have been crashing games - and even disabling online features.

First made public by Pokémon modder Kurt on Twitter, the bug occurs when a "maliciously-crafted" Pokémon is sent via the game's Surprise Trade feature (basically Pokémon roulette). While receiving one of the malicious Pokémon doesn't corrupt save data, it crashes the game when the player attempts to access online features: effectively disabling online functionality in that particular Sword and Shield save.

According to player accounts, the bug can also occur when a hacked Pokémon is sent during a normal link trade - but this only happens once, and the offending Pokémon can simply be released afterwards.

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A trio of brand new promotions is underway over at Green Man Gaming, featuring some all-new low prices on the likes of Borderlands 3, The Outer Worlds, Temtem and more.

Kicking things off is the retailer's new 'FEB22' voucher code, which will take 22 per cent off the price of almost all full-price games. Whether you're looking at something new, old or not even released yet the coupon can be applied - as long as any already existing discount on the game isn't higher.

To give you some examples, then, you can use it to get Temtem for £21.83. The Pokémon-a-like has (perhaps unsurprisingly) proven to be incredibly popular already even though it's only still in Early Access. If you're unsure whether on not to get involved with the monster hunting just yet, our Temtem Early Access guide will tell you everything you need to know.

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Microsoft's test of its Project xCloud service for iPhone went live today - and immediately hit its initial limited capacity for sign-ups.

Project xCloud is Microsoft's technology to allow the streaming of games from the cloud to phones and tablets. It means you can be playing Sea of Thieves on your smartphone on the bus while others play elsewhere on PC/Xbox One. All you need is a compatible device and Bluetooth Xbox controller.

xCloud has been available on Android for some time, though this is the first public trial for iOS devices.

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Nintendo will attend E3 2020, E3 event organiser the Electronic Software Association (ESA) has confirmed.

The announcement was made last night in a statement detailing plans for this year's show, released following a bruising day for the ESA in general.

Yesterday afternoon, a draft of the event's website popped up online early - and an incomplete list of publisher attendees which omitted Nintendo sparked gossip the platform holder would be the latest to drop out, following Sony ditching the show in PlayStation 5's launch year.

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Update: Amazon stock of this deal has run dry now, so we recommend buying from Very instead. Original article continues below:

The excellent Microsoft Xbox One controller normally retails for around £45, but today it's been reduced to just £35 at two online retailers. You'll also get a free Xbox Wireless Adapter for Windows bundled with the gamepad, which normally costs £20 by itself and unlocks a convenient long-distance, low-latency wireless connection for PC users.

This is a great chance to pick up our top-rated PC gamepad on the cheap with everything you need to get started, or simply get a good price on a second gamepad for your console.

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I've been playing the new Watcher character in Slay the Spire and it's a delight. New characters are a real moment in Slay the Spire because it doesn't get them very often. The Defect, the one before this, came out a year ago. There are only four characters in the game.

The Watcher ups the complexity and getting to grips with it is like learning a new game. You know the rudiments but it doesn't work in the same way. The Watcher relies on stances and moving in and out of them to trigger effects. Wrath stance doubles your damage, which is amazing, but it doubles the damage you take, too, which is not so amazing. Calm stance, meanwhile, gives you two valuable blobs of energy when you exit it. There's also Divinity, a third stance, but it's a special occasion ability. It grants three energy and triple damage, but you need 10 Mantra to use it and it only lasts one turn.

The Watcher hasn't been released on console yet but we know it's in the works. I asked MegaCrit about it after I published this piece and co-founder Anthony Giovannetti told me:

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The funny thing about video game movies is that the unlicensed ones seem to understand their source material better than the official tie-ins do. Look at 1982's Tron, or 2012's Wreck-it Ralph (with all due props to Disney, which produced both): the appeal of these two pictures hinges on an invitation to step through the screen and inhabit the weird and wonderful world of video games. The visuals are surreal and spectacular, while the friction between a conventional movie narrative and the bizarre, harsh and arbitrary rule-making of video games furnishes ample gags and tension. (Turns out dissonance can be fun when experienced from the other side of the great ludo-narrative divide.)

It's a good formula, especially if you're trying to make a movie about a retro game that has no story. But the producers of the new Sonic the Hedgehog movie have got it all back to front. Instead of inviting us into Sonic's world, they've brought Sonic into ours - with charmless results.

Almost a decade after its last appearance on home consoles, Ubisoft's much-loved Prince of Persia series is being revived. You'll probably want to keep your expectations in check, however; it's returning in the form of a virtual reality room escape game.

Those familiar with Ubisoft's activities away from consoles will likely already be familiar with the concept. The publisher has released two other room-scale VR room escape games to date - designed to be played by teams of participants at dedicated, specially equipped venues - both themed around the Assassin's Creed series.

Ubisoft's first Prince of Persia VR room escape offering, subtitled The Dagger of Time, tasks players with reaching the Hourglass Chamber of the mysterious Fortress of Time (last seen in 2004's Warrior Within) at the behest of Kaileena, the Empress of Time. There's an evil Magi to be stopped, and an army of sand monsters to thwart along the way.

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Back in January, Magic: The Gathering publisher Wizards of the Coast unveiled Archetype Entertainment, a new video game development studio particularly notable for the fact that it's being helmed by two ex-BioWare veterans - and now Mass Effect 1 and 2 lead writer Drew Karpyshyn has confirmed that he's joined the team too.

Archetype's studio head is former BioWare creative director and lead designer James Ohlen - who previously worked on the likes of Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age: Origins, Neverwinter Nights, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - while another BioWare alumni, Chad Robertson, will be vice president and general manager. Karpyshyn, who left BioWare for the second time in March 2018, joins the Austin, Texas studio as lead writer.

Fans of BioWare's classic output were already intrigued when Archetype Entertainment revealed it's first title would be a new story-driven sci-fi RPG; couple that with the news its lead writer will be the man behind Mass Effect 1 and 2 - and who also has an enviable resume featuring the likes of Baldur's Gate, Knights of the Old Republic, and Dragon Age - and that excitement is likely to raise a few notches higher.

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Developer Brave At Night's long-in-the-works pixel art kingdom management sim Yes, Your Grace is finally making its way to Steam on 6th March.

Those entering its world of regal manipulations will don the crown of King Eryk, put-upon ruler of the medieval kingdom of Davern, and set about juggling their royal responsibilities and tumultuous family life, ultimately influencing the fate of their three bickering daughters.

Predominantly, those duties involve listening to the plight of visiting petitioners - be they penniless peasants or royalty from neighbouring regions. Players will decide who's most deserving of the kingdom's gold and resources; they'll hire generals, hunters, and witches to aid in their efforts; they'll even forge alliances to garner support in the event of battle.

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It's been a little over three months since Nintendo last added a fresh batch of NES and SNES titles to its Switch Online retro games catalogue, but its sporadic updates will finally resume next Wednesday, 19th February, with the arrival of four new games.

There are two new additions on the NES front, the first being the rather self-explanatory Eliminator Boat Duel, which originally launched in Europe back in 1993. It's a predominantly top-down powerboat racing affair, pitting challengers against a variety of successive AI opponent across 24 courses in single-player mode, or against a fellow human if you prefer.

NES game number two, meanwhile, is developer Natsume's side-scrolling action-platformer Shadow of the Ninja, which originally came to Europe in 1991. Here, two ninjas (its playable solo or with a friend) time-travel their way to the New York City of the future in a bid to assassinate a megalomaniac ruler and destroy his empire.

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Just when you thought you might be making a dint in Monster Hunter World: Iceborne's increasingly teetering mound of creature-bothering delights, Capcom is back with word of two new - and extremely angry - subspecies heading to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 soon as part of the expansion's free March update.

First on the list is a beefed up and stressed out version of everybody's favourite slime-spreading ground-rattler Brachydios. Based on Capcom's reveal trailer below, this smouldering new variant's biggest distinction would appear to be slime attacks that super-heat and explode much faster than usual, leaving considerably less time to get the hell out of the way.

And it sounds like the Brachydios' already adrenaline-exploding fight theme is getting an appropriately dramatic remix for the arrival of Iceborne's Raging Brachydios subspecies.

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare has not been having a great week for leaks, and things have only been getting worse, as further details of the game's battle royale mode have been splashed across the internet.

Most importantly, we now have a likely name the battle royale: Warzone.

The Warzone title stems from leaked promo art that reportedly first appeared on Reddit, and has since been backed up by Call of Duty leaker TheGamingRevolution on Twitter. According to his sources, the battle royale will be free-to-play and available as a direct download even for those who haven't bought Modern Warfare.

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In their latest bargain collection, the bulk games dealer ventures into another world entirely with the Humble VR Bundle.

A maximum of seven games are up for grabs for cheap, all of which are compatible with Windows Mixed Reality headsets, the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.

To start with, you can hand over a measly £1 and you'll get both Cosmic Trip and Smashbox Arena. The former is an experimental real-time strategy game that places you right in the thick of the action, while the former is a team-based action game chock-full of wild physics-based weaponry.

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A draft version of this year's E3 event website has been discovered online - and quickly made private.

This early version (discovered by ResetEra) was hosted at new2020-e3-expo.pantheonsite.io and appeared to contain the full new site due to go live at e3expo.com tomorrow.

Load up the site now and you're greeted with a "Site Locked" message and a request for a username and password. But, prior to this, Eurogamer was able to view the site in its entirety.

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The Need for Speed franchise is doing a U-turn: and by that I mean EA is moving development back from Sweden to UK studio Criterion.

That's because the current franchise developer, Ghost Games, is set to become EA Gothenburg once more as it becomes an engineering hub to assist with EA's wider portfolio. This is partly due to issues finding the right talent to continue developing Need for Speed in Gothenburg.

EA is hoping to transfer many of its staff from Ghost Games to Guildford-based Criterion, although the publisher told GamesIndustry.biz that 30 roles remain at risk. "Outside of the engineers and those that we plan to transfer to other positions, there would be 30 additional staff in Gothenburg, and we would hope to place as many of them as possible into other roles in the company", EA explained.

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This is not a review. I want to spend more with Dreams as a whole before I think about that. These are impressions of the story campaign.

There's a message at the beginning of Dreams' story campaign that made my heart sink. I'd been waiting for this campaign. I hoped it would prove what Dreams as a package would be. I knew there was a powerful editor because people have been playing with it in early access for months. But what about the other bit? What about what Media Molecule can do with the tools? What about the game?

Finally, yesterday, it - Art's Dream - arrived. Time to see what Dreams was really capable of. Then, though, that message: "This story was made entirely in Dreams to give just a glimpse of what's possible with our tools." Just a glimpse? It's been how many years and that's all we get? A couple of hours and that's it? Sadly, yes.

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Stardew Valley's creator and sole developer Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone has detailed two new projects he currently has in the pipeline.

Writing on Twitter, Barone described one as a non-farming game set in the world of Stardew Valley, while the other will "tie into Stardew Valley in some way".

Both will be single-player, top-down 2D games with pixel art styles, Barone continued in a follow-up email to IGN. The former game, he said, will have "twice the 'detail' of Stardew Valley".

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The Nintendo Switch Lite has been given its first major discount since Black Friday, bringing it down to the same low price we saw during the end-of-year sale bonanza.

Currys PC World is currently boasting the £169 price point on each of the console's three main colours - down from the usual £199. Amazon appears to have already fallen out of stock (how?). It was only Asda that dropped the price that low in stores last November.

There doesn't appear to be any particular event surrounding this sudden price drop, but we're more than willing to take advantage of the sale all the same!

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Pokémon Home, the new storage app which allows you to transfer creatures between various games, is live now on Nintendo Switch, iPhone and Android devices.

Boot it up and you'll be welcomed by this strange gentleman, who refers to himself as Grand Oak. Has anyone checked on Professor Oak lately? Is he okay? Is Grand Oak a relation, or does the professor need to go outside and get some fresh air?

Once past that, you'll be able to see the app's National Pokédex, trading and Mystery Gift features, all of which are live now.

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World's Edge has only just been graced by the moody presence of new legend Revenant, but another hero could be arriving fairly soon, as players have spotted a possible hint running about the map.

Shared by the appropriately-named Sheepless Wolf on Reddit, a shadowy canine has been spotted running through the new Harvester area. A slow-mo shot reveals this probably isn't a rogue Wraith - although the hitbox is probably just as small.

Backing up the mystery sighting, a number of players have also reported hearing distant howling noises. Perhaps they're not just crying wolf.

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Hello, and welcome to our new series which picks out interesting things that we'd love someone to make a game about.

This isn't a chance for us to pretend we're game designers, more an opportunity to celebrate the range of subjects games can tackle and the sorts of things that seem filled with glorious gamey promise.

Check out our 'Someone should make a game about' archive for all our pieces so far.

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In 2008, Media Molecule launched its debut game LittleBigPlanet. The idea behind the ambitious project was to make a game where players could create their own stages and share them with a community of players, or as the tagline more succinctly puts it: "Play, Create, Share."

Upon its release, LittleBigPlanet received almost unanimous acclaim from critics, becoming one of Sony's most interesting exclusives for the PlayStation 3. But two sequels and several spinoffs later, the series has become somewhat dormant, with the lack of support frustrating the most dedicated fans.

Media Molecule appears to have put the series largely behind it, focusing its attention on its latest passion project, another creation game called Dreams. Meanwhile, those who are still playing LittleBigPlanet 3, the third game in the series developed by Sumo Digital, are reporting persistent problems with corrupted profiles and other glitches that are driving the community away. Problems that have led to some players posting tips on Reddit to avoid or limit the damage done. Things were looking grim for LittleBigPlanet fans. That was, until late 2019, when there was a beacon of hope.

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's second season of post-launch content has, following several days of major leakage, finally been officially revealed, and its array of new maps, modes, and battle pass rewards are available now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. Furthermore, there are strong hints that a battle royale mode is imminent.

Modern Warfare's second season themes its additions around the fight against Al-Qatala, as it attempts to isolate the city of Verdansk using a stolen Soviet nuclear warhead. "On the brink of a global catastrophe," explains Activision, "Captain Price sends in Ghost to track down the location of the warhead and lead key Operators before it's too late."

That bit of scene-setting leads us on to the good stuff, with Season 2 promising five new maps as the weeks go by, with three of those available now.

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UPDATE 11/2/18: Cupid has terrible aim, it seems, and his mighty arrow currently appears to be embedded not in the hearts of lovers across the land but in the fritzing remnants of one of Respawn Entertainment's servers. According to the developer, Apex Legends' Valentine's Day limited-time event - which re-introduces the free-to-play battle royale game's much-loved Duos mode - will no longer begin today as previously revealed.

No reason for the delay was given in Respawn's apologetic announcement tweet, but the good news is that players eager to buddy up with a loved one shouldn't have too much longer to wait. Proceedings are now scheduled to get underway tomorrow, 12th February, with Respawn promising to communicate with fans once the update goes live.

ORIGINAL STORY 10/2/18: Apex Legends' much-loved Duos mode is returning tomorrow for a limited-time, as part of the free-to-play battle royale game's Valentine's Day celebrations.

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Ubisoft has unveiled Warlords of New York, a brand-new paid expansion for online shooter The Division 2 that's heading to Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC on 3rd March.

Warlords of New York, as its name implies, sees The Division 2 leaving its current base of operations in Washington DC and returning to the city in which the series started in order to tie up a few narrative loose ends left dangling in The Division 1.

Players - either working solo or with friends via online co-op - are tasked with bringing down rogue former Division Agent Aaron Keener, as well as his four lieutenants, in a campaign that unfolds in the hurricane-ravaged summertime streets of Lower Manhattan. It's open-world, as you'd expect, and Ubisoft is attempting another 1:1 recreation of the area, incorporating real-life locations including Battery Park, Wall Street, Chinatown, and Two Bridges.

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Bulletstorm developer People Can Fly has offered up fresh information on its co-op sci-fi shooter Outriders, confirming it'll now be heading to PS5 and Xbox Series X - as well as Steam, Xbox One, and PS4 - this "holiday", slightly later than previously revealed.

Outriders received its official unveiling, along with a tentative "summer 2020" release window, back at E3 last year. It's described as a "dark modern shooter with a traditional voice", and promises intense, RPG-infused action - playable solo or co-operatively in teams of up to three.

"As mankind bleeds out in the trenches of Enoch," explains People Can Fly, "you'll create your own Outrider and embark on a journey across a hostile planet. With rich storytelling spanning a diverse world, you'll leave behind the slums and shanty towns of the First City and traverse forests, mountains and deserts in pursuit of a mysterious signal."

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