Eurogamer

FTC reportedly preparing to pause in-house trial of Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition

9 months 3 weeks ago

US antitrust agency the Federal Trade Commission is reportedly preparing to pause its upcoming in-house trial focussing on Microsoft's proposed $69bn USD acquisition of Activision Blizzard, potentially paving the way for settlement talks between the various parties.

The FTC has long expressed opposition to Microsoft's proposed deal and sued to block its progress in December last year, claiming the acquisition would allow the company to suppress its games industry competition. The agency has more recently been in the news after it failed to secure an injunction preventing Microsoft from closing the deal while its in-house court deliberated whether the acquisition should be blocked.

Following that defeat, and a subsequent failed attempt to secure injunctive relief, the FTC is preparing to suspend its own trial - which was due to be heard by its in-house administrative court in August - in response to a request from Microsoft and Activision. Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the case, says the request must be granted after the FTC's unsuccessful federal court bid under the agency's own rules.

Author
Matt Wales

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Neill Blomkamp's live-action Gran Turismo movie gets a second trailer

9 months 3 weeks ago

Following a first look back in May, Sony Pictures Entertainment has shared a second trailer offering another glimpse at its Neill Blomkamp directed Gran Turismo movie - which is almost upon us, launching in cinemas next month.

Sony's live-action Gran Turismo movie was announced in spring last year, as part of a string of reveals for upcoming PlayStation game adaptations, with others including a Horizon Zero Dawn series for Netflix and a God of War show for Amazon.

Since then, Neill Blomkamp (who directed District 9, Elysium, Chappie, and more) has signed up to helm the project - which dramatises the true story of a teenage Gran Turismo player whose gaming skills put him on the path toward becoming a professional racecar driver - with the likes of Archie Madekwe, David Harbour, Orlando Bloom, and Geri Halliwell all joining the cast.

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Author
Matt Wales

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Pokémon Go's user-generated Routes feature will debut Zygarde

9 months 3 weeks ago

Routes, the latest new feature to join Pokémon Go, will begin rolling out today and introduce the Legendary Pokémon Zygarde.

In a blog post, developer Niantic said Pokémon Go players can begin exploring Routes "now" by following tracks laid down by other Trainers (though the ability to add new Routes yourself is "still being rolled out").

Routes are Pokémon Go's first major dabble with user-generated content, and are designed to be short paths for players to follow, suggested by members of local communities.

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Author
Tom Phillips

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Dolphin Nintendo emulator no longer releasing on Steam, as team abandons effort

9 months 3 weeks ago

GameCube and Wii emulator Dolphin is no longer coming to Steam, as the team behind it is "abandoning" its efforts.

The emulator was first announced to be coming to Steam earlier this year, with the team behind it calling this a "product of many months of work".

However, a few months down the line, the team has dropped plans to launch Dolphin on Valve's platform. In a blog update detailing this decision, the Dolphin team addressed the recently-reported DMCA takedown, stating Nintendo "did not send Valve or Dolphin a Digital Millennium Copyright Act", nor has it "taken any legal action against Dolphin Emulator or Valve".

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Author
Victoria Kennedy

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Roto Force - a frantic twin-stick bursting with imagination

9 months 3 weeks ago

Here are some compliments regarding Roto Force that may initially sound like backhanded compliments, but are actually just about the highest compliments I can give. First one. Roto Force is a twin-stick shooter that does not feel like a twin-stick shooter. It feels new and weird and - at first - rather claustrophobic. Rather than being given a whole arena to gad around in, you get the arena but are stuck to its inside walls. So you can do loops, left or right, aiming at spawning horrors that bubble within, but they get most of the freedom. This may seem unfair - all that space for the baddies, yet it's out of bounds for you. Not so. You can also use a trigger to dash across this space, aiming a straight line from one part of the wall to another. This is so quick it feels almost like teleportation. It's great and there's loads of nuance to how it works.

Second one. I gather Roto Force was born in a game jam, and the finished game has retained that jammy energy. It's polished and brilliantly conceived, but it has the headlong pelt and brisk enthusiasm of a sketch, something dashed out on paper and surprisingly, improbably brilliant. I reckon retaining that level of energy when you take something small and turn it into something a bit bigger is incredibly difficult. Roto Force has made the transition beautifully. It's a lovely bit of craft, but it also has that mania to it of something that has flung itself together at deadly speed.

Author
Christian Donlan

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Supernatural neo-noir shooter El Paso, Elsewhere out in September

9 months 3 weeks ago

El Paso, Elsewhere, the latest game from developer Strange Scaffold, now has a release date in September for PC and Xbox.

Described by Strange Scaffold as a "third-person love letter to classic shooters", the game tasks players, as protagonist James Savage, with battling various supernatural enemies whilst descending through 50 floors of a motel to hunt down Draculae, the lord of vampires and Savage's former lover. The Max Payne era of shooters is cited as the main inspiration for the game.

The release date was announced with an animated music video for Stay Awake, a song from the game's hip-hop soundtrack.

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Author
Liv Ngan

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Sea of Thieves' Monkey Island collaboration captures the magic of an undisputed classic

9 months 3 weeks ago

One of my favourite moments in Sea of Thieves' new Monkey Island collaboration comes right near the start of the first episode; as you sail through the familiar pea green soup of the Sea of the Damned, approaching a distant, dimly lit island, a transformation occurs. Suddenly, the familiar Monkey Island theme begins to stir in a rumbling of steel drums, the fog parts in unison with a dramatic colour palette shift, and there it is, in a sheer blast of giddying nostalgia: the unmistakable moonlit heft of Mêlée Island, sprawled beneath searing purple skies.

It's spine-tingling stuff, delivered with developer Rare's typical cinematic panache, and it's perhaps the perfect summation of a crossover that so elegantly transforms nostalgic reverence into an experience that feels both exciting and new. Rare's pulled off something similar before, of course, in 2021's beautifully observed Pirates of the Caribbean crossover, A Pirate's Life - and it was here, amid the Jack Sparrows and Davy Joneses, that the seed for Sea of Thieves' new three-episode Monkey Island Tall Tale adventure was initially sown.

Back then, after completing an optional side quest in A Pirate's Life's opening episode - appropriately structured to lend it a distinct point-and-click adventure vibe - players would encounter the shipwrecked remains of the Headless Monkey and the scattered journals of Monkey Island's famed Captain Kate Capsize, all teasing a potential crossover that felt like such a perfect, immediate fit it would have been a crime if it hadn't eventually appeared.

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Author
Matt Wales

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Pokémon Sleep exploit sees players pretend to rack up weeks of sleep for Pokémon Go rewards

9 months 3 weeks ago

Pokémon Sleep players with access to the game's £50 Pokémon Go Plus+ peripheral are pretending to sleep in order to quickly speed towards Pokémon Go rewards.

The new nap-tracking app requires you record at least 90 minutes of sleep per day - and it's this minimum which users are now recording, before manually changing the date on their phones to then record another 90 minutes, and so forth.

Repeating this method allows you to rack up rewards for recording a week's worth of sleep (albeit no less than 90 minutes at a time) in just a few hours, users writing on Pokémon fan reddit TheSilphRoad say. And doing so seems fairly straightforward, with the app's sleep sensor simply turned off and on without you actually having to be asleep.

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Author
Tom Phillips

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Gundam Evolution shutting down, launched less than a year ago

9 months 3 weeks ago

A little under a year since its debut, Bandai Namco Online's Gundam Evolution has been announced as shutting down.

A free-to-play hero shooter set in the world of the popular anime, Gundam Evolution arrived on Steam last September, with a console version then following in December.

However, Gundam Evolution evidently hasn't taken off in the way the developer had hoped, with Bandai Namco Online now announcing its service will end on 29th November.

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Author
Victoria Kennedy

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Patrick's Parabox drops onto console next week

9 months 3 weeks ago

Patrick's Parabox, the indie recursive puzzle game, will launch on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5 next week on 26th July.

Despite scooping the prize for Excellence in Design at the Independent Games Festival in 2020, the game made a relatively small splash when it first released last year for PC.

Patrick's Parabox is a sokoban mixed with recursion, filled with boxes inside of boxes. You play as Patrick, a small box, and you push around boxes to where they need to go. Sometimes, you push around boxes which contain the puzzle you're actually in, and then you can enter that box. The trailer below probably sums it up better than I could in words.

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Author
Liv Ngan

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UK actors and Equity are battling the rise of AI-driven deepfake mods

9 months 3 weeks ago

"Is my voice out there in the modding and voice-changing community? Yes. Do I have any control over what my voice can be used for? Not at the moment."

David Menkin most recently starred in Final Fantasy 16 as Barnabas Tharmr, following work in Lego Star Wars, Valorant, Assassin's Creed and more. And like many other voice actors in the games industry, he's concerned about the increasing use of AI.

"AI is a tool, and like any tool, it requires regulation," Menkin says. "We simply want to know what our voices will be used for and be able to grant or withdraw consent if that use is outside the scope of our original contract. And if our work is making your AI tool money, we want to be fairly remunerated."

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Author
Ed Nightingale

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The Witcher 3 patch adds next-gen and Netflix content to Switch version

9 months 3 weeks ago

CD Projekt has released a new patch for The Witcher 3 across all platforms, adding some of the recent content updates to the Nintendo Switch version.

At the end of last year, the game received a next-gen update with ray tracing, mods, and other quality of life improvements.

While much of this isn't possible on Nintendo's hybrid console, some of its additional content has now been added - including a sidequest and gear inspired by the Netflix show.

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Author
Ed Nightingale

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Activision Blizzard lays off 50 employees from esports division

9 months 3 weeks ago

Activision Blizzard has laid off around 50 staff from its esports division.

The layoffs come amid news of the company's record sales of Diablo 4 which helped propel its net bookings to a whopping $2.46bn.

The layoffs, as reported by The Verge, affected around 50 employees in Blizzard's esports department, with one employee stating the layoffs were "a complete shock".

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Author
Liv Ngan

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Baldur's Gate 3 story a "big spider web", as writer sheds light on purported 17,000 ending variations

9 months 3 weeks ago

Baldur's Gate 3 recently made headlines when it was reported the game would have 17,000 ending variations. It's a claim that comes from an interview with one of the game's lead writers by YouTuber Fextralife, and related specifically to the differences which might flavour the more general core paths to the game's ending.

Lead writer Adam Smith has now shed further light on these variations, and further confirmed they don't equate to endgame states. Rather, Baldur's Gate 3's narrative should be thought of as a "big spider web", he said, with the endgame in the centre.

"It's not that you start at point A, and then you keep branching and branching and branching," Smith explained to GamesRadar. "That's often how people think of it, but the problem with that would be that if I make a choice, then I branch over here, and suddenly I'm over here and I can't get back [to the trunk]."

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Author
Victoria Kennedy

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Netflix password sharing crackdown prompts new subscription spike

9 months 3 weeks ago

Netflix's controversial crackdown on password sharing has, in the short term at least, provided the streaming service with a new subscriber boost.

Subscriptions were up by 5.9m since March, BBC News reported, presenting a far rosier picture than the losses faced this time last year.

In a statement, Netflix said it had seen a "healthy conversion of borrower households" into paid accounts, and that the number of account cancellations in protest at the changes had been low.

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Author
Tom Phillips

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Diablo 4 helps Blizzard smash $1bn barrier in latest financial quarter

9 months 4 weeks ago

Activision Blizzard's latest financial earnings report has arrived, and while it's good news for the company as a whole, Blizzard in particular has had a stellar quarter, surpassing $1bn in net bookings for the first time ever thanks to the launch of Diablo 4.

In its second quarter earnings report for the latest financial year, Activision Blizzard announced 50 percent year-over-year growth in net bookings, with the company amassing $2.46bn compared to the $1.64bn it reported in the second quarter of 2022.

That's down to a mix of increased "player investment in live operations content" across games such as Call of Duty, which rose by 17 percent, and "another quarterly net bookings record at King". The big applause, though, is reserved for Diablo 4, which, as of the end of Blizzard's record-breaking second quarter - which saw the studio's segment revenue grow by 160 percent year-over-year and its operating revenue more than triple - has "sold-through more units than any other Blizzard title at an equivalent stage of release."

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Author
Matt Wales

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Overwatch 2 comes to Steam next month, more Blizzard games on the way

9 months 4 weeks ago

Blizzard is taking its first tentative steps away from Battle.net exclusivity, starting with the launch of Overwatch 2 on Steam this August and the promise of more games on the way.

Battle.net has been at the core of Blizzard's games since its release back in 1996, and the studio's PC titles have remained exclusively available through the platform in the years since, making it one of the few companies to have entirely snubbed Steam.

That will change on 10th August when Blizzard's free-to-play shooter sequel Overwatch 2 arrives on Valve's storefront, where it'll incorporate native features including Steam Achievements and Steam friends list integration. And perhaps we might even see official Steam Deck support on the way? Blizzard does note, however, that players will still be required to connect the game to a Battle.net account to enable features including cross-platform play.

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Author
Matt Wales

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Three Yakuza games leaving PlayStation Plus next month

9 months 4 weeks ago

Three Yakuza games are among the latest titles to leave Sony's PlayStation Plus subscription service, and will disappear later this month.

The 'Last Chance to Play' collection has been updated with 10 more games set to leave the service on 15th August.

Yakuza 0, Yakuza Kiwami, and Yakuza Kiwami 2 are the (chronologically) first three games in the series, so if you're looking to make a start on your karaoke minigame journey there's not much time to go.

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Author
Ed Nightingale

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Digital Foundry talks Microsoft and Activision with special guest Tom Warren

9 months 4 weeks ago

On the 18th of January 2022, Microsoft announced its plans to acquire Activision Blizzard King, kicking off an enormous process mired in complex, yet often highly entertaining legal proceedings. 546 days later - and counting - we now seem to be approaching the end of this epic. As I write this, the deadline for completing the deal has been shifted to October 18th, but with the FTC's various attempts to stop the acquisition/merger having resulted in failure and the UK's CMA seemingly eager to reach an accommodation, it now seems inevitable that Microsoft will get what it wants.

Looking back, I remember going on holiday just as the initial news was revealed, quickly contacting my colleagues to suggest recording a DF Direct Special on the topic. Today, we're doing it together, albeit with a different line-up! Myself and John Linneman can finally talk at length about the proceedings of the last 18 months, having purposefully distanced ourselves from most of the miniatiae in our standard DF Direct Weekly shows.

And to add an authoritative voice who does actually have a grasp on the detail - unlike ours! - we're thrilled that Tom Warren from The Verge agreed to join us. From my own personal perspective, Tom's Twitter feed and articles on The Verge have been essential reading, not just in delivering the news - but also in explaining what it all actually means.

Author
Richard Leadbetter

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Microsoft and Activision Blizzard extend merger deadline to October

9 months 4 weeks ago

Microsoft and Activision Blizzard have extended the deadline of their proposed merger until 18th October this year.

The self-imposed deadline was originally 18th July (yesterday), after which Microsoft would owe Activision Blizzard a $3bn fine.

It seems this has been renegotiated, as Xbox boss Phil Spencer dropped news of the new deadline on Twitter.

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Author
Ed Nightingale

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Pikmin 4 - Nintendo's oft-overlooked garden strategy reaches near-perfect evolution

9 months 4 weeks ago

I've always loved the Pikmin series' setting, and the suggestion that these tiny creatures are hiding somewhere out there in our world, overlooked but only just out of sight. And I love the idea that despite living around us, in our homes and gardens, between mud-caked plant pots and heavy-headed dandelions, that Pikmin require people with a slightly different - indeed, alien - point of view to uncover them, spend time with them, and realise their true worth.

It's a feeling I think reflects attitudes to the often slightly-overlooked Pikmin series overall, despite several major incarnations, re-releases, spin-offs, and promotion from the legendary Shigeru Miyamoto himself. In terms of sales it has never troubled the likes of Splatoon or Luigi's Mansion, let alone Mario or Zelda. It's something of an oddball concept, with a cutesy strategy wrapper that hides decidedly more hardcore demands of resource and time management. And while its characters look good as soft toys, I wonder how many plushie owners actually slogged it through to 100 percent Pikmin 3. Perhaps it's bad luck? Until now, Nintendo has unfortunately always planned new Pikmin entries for its hardware generations that underperformed. Or perhaps, despite repeatedly coming close, Nintendo has simply never quite cracked a formula that works for a wide audience. Well, after experiencing the sheer wealth on offer in Pikmin 4, I'm not sure what else Nintendo can try.

Author
Tom Phillips

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The Sonic Superstars animated intro is giving all the right classic vibes

9 months 4 weeks ago

I'm a big fan of Sonic Boom. I know, that might be controversial. Sonic fans have long debated which Sonic CD soundtrack is best between the Japanese and American releases.

For the opening at least, I've always loved the American version: Sonic Boom. The chugging electric guitars! The earworm vocal harmonies! The key shift from verse to chorus! Japan's You Can Do Anything is a funky 90s bop that just sounds inherently Sonic, while Sonic Boom set the tone for the later rock-heavy Sonic Adventure games. I prefer that classic 90s sound overall but something about "Sonic boooom Sonic boooom" gets me so excited for another high-speed adventure - what can I say, I like the cheese.

All of which is to say, I love the Sonic animation intros. And the just-released intro for Sega's forthcoming Sonic Superstars is hitting all the right notes.

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Author
Ed Nightingale

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The future of PowerWash Simulator, and developer FuturLab

9 months 4 weeks ago

PowerWash Simulator may feel like a sleeper hit, but veteran UK developer FuturLab knew early on it had something special on its hands. A brilliant blend of compulsive yet cosy gameplay, PowerWash Simulator sounds an unlikely concept - and yet it has found a legion of fans who don't want to stop playing. Now, with the successful launch of its first paid DLC - based on SpongeBob SquarePants - safely tucked under its belt, I'm keen to find out what's next for the game, and for FuturLab itself.

"The goal was the Millennium Falcon," FuturLab boss James Marsden tells me as we sit down for a catch up in Brighton - FuturLab and Eurogamer's shared home. "So, working backwards from that, what do we need to do?" Marsden is recalling the earliest conversations FuturLab had amongst themselves regarding the game's suddenly spiking popularity in early access, and the potential for the studio to popularise a concept they were rightly proud of.

Enter Elliot Greenwood, now FuturLabs' licensing and business development manager, whose job it has been to convince other brands and game developers of PowerWash Simulator's success - even before the game came out. "Literally, in my interview for this role, James said, 'we want the Millennium Falcon, can you get it?'" Greenwood recalls. "I was like, 'I'll try my best'."

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Author
Tom Phillips

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Supreme Court denies gamers' last-ditch effort to block Microsoft Activision Blizzard deal

9 months 4 weeks ago

The US Supreme Court has denied the latest effort by a group of gamers to block Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition.

In December last year, a group of 10 gamers teamed up to file a federal antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft. The case aimed to argue that Microsoft's acquisition of Call of Duty maker Activision would "foreclose rivals, limit output, reduce consumer choice, raise prices, and further inhibit competition".

In March, a judge dismissed the "so-called gamers' lawsuit" on the grounds it did not "plausibly allege the merger creates a reasonable probability of anticompetitive effects in any relevant market".

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Author
Victoria Kennedy

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Diablo 4's Sorcerer class nerfed in latest patch ahead of Season 1

9 months 4 weeks ago

Blizzard has released patch notes for Diablo 4 ahead of the game's first season launch, including a whole host of bug fixes and balance changes.

Scrolling through the hefty patch notes there are a number of buffs and debuffs across all classes, but the biggest impact is on the Sorcerer that's been nerfed.

That's due to a reduction in bonus damage for the Devouring Blaze skill, a popular choice for many playing as that class.

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Author
Ed Nightingale

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Five of the Best: Character classes

9 months 4 weeks ago

Five of the Best is a weekly series for supporters of Eurogamer. And if you didn't know, there's a free trial currently running, so that can be you too! FOTB is a series about highlighting some of the features in games that are often overlooked. It's also a series about you having your say, so don't be shy, use the comments below and join in!

Oh and you can find our entire Five of the Best archive elsewhere on the site.

I'm finally going there - I'm asking you which are the best character classes in games. And I do mean specifically. It's not good enough to say "healer" or "rogue" - I need a specific example of the healer or rogue in question. It's a tough one!

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Author
Robert Purchese

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Tears of the Kingdom shows that without change, accessibility in Nintendo games will remain accidental

9 months 4 weeks ago

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is an evolution. From the world of 2017's Breath of the Wild, Nintendo has created something richer and more malleable through a grander story, an expanded map, and the ability to build countless contraptions to torture innocent Koroks. Fifty hours in, I'm yet to even start any story-related adventure, and I'm more interested in dressing Link in cute outfits. Does that make the game good or bad? I have no idea!

As with so many Nintendo games, however, it's an evolution that comes with a price to pay for many players. Tears of the Kingdom may be a glow-up for Switch-era Hyrule, but fundamentally little has changed in the six years between titles. Which is to say that the game remains, somehow, both accessible and inaccessible at the same time.

This is only made more clear by the accessibility advancements the gaming industry has made between The Legend of Zelda releases. These are advancements that may have finally cracked the perceived apathy towards accessibility exhibited by Japanese studios, but that Nintendo continues to ignore.

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Author
Geoffrey Bunting

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Sleep tracking app Pokémon Sleep is now available in Europe

9 months 4 weeks ago

Pokémon Sleep, the new Pokémon-themed sleep tracker app for iOS and Android, is now available to download in Europe.

It's been something of a long road to Pokémon Sleep's release - the app was first announced back in 2019, when it was expected to launch the following year - but it's now finally here, giving users tools to track the length and quality of their sleep, and - crucially, given it's the whole hook of the thing - gather in-game Pokémon based on the success of their slumber.

Depending on the categories of sleep players manage to achieve during their downtime - "dozing", "snoozing" or "slumbering", for instance - they're able to attract different sets of Pokémon, and the whole process is overseen by new Pokémon professor, Neroli.

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Author
Matt Wales

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Early Pikmin concepts included creatures with AI chips in their heads

9 months 4 weeks ago

Although Pikmin as we see them today are just a series of funky, little guys, their original concept was a bit darker in nature.

In the latest instalment of Nintendo's Ask The Developer series of interviews, Pikmin creator Shigeru Miyamoto spoke alongside former series directors Shigefumi Hino and Masamichi Abe, as well as programmer Yuji Kando and designer Junji Morii on the origins of the series.

Hino revealed initially the team had planned to feature creatures with AI chips in their heads in the first Pikmin game, and players would be able to control them by assigning different chips. The concept art for this prototype was shown, and the early Pikmin would have looked like round creatures with limbs, a nose, eyes, and an antenna.

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Author
Liv Ngan

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EA Sports FC 24 makes big changes off the pitch - but what about on it?

9 months 4 weeks ago

Brace yourself: EA Sports has been at the proper nouns cupboard again. This year, EA Sports FC 24 - the replacement for FIFA 24 - is bringing a range of off-pitch enhancements, which I will smash through with as much combined detail and swiftness as is appropriate below. But on the pitch, having played quite a few games of standard, one-on-one friendlies against an old friend-slash-rival, I'm not sure it feels hugely different.

The general sentiment in the room, out at EA Sports' big reveal event in Amsterdam ("the home of modern football"), is that it was maybe a bit slower, that there are some neat new animations, and that much of this pre-beta press build will probably - and naturally, given how early it is and how important balance is - be completely changed by the time the game launches this September anyway.

Still, we go again. This year, EA Sports executive producer John Shepherd says, is set to be the "biggest leap in technology and immersion that football has ever seen." There's lots of talk about EA Sports' big buzzwords for the year - "authenticity and innovation", plus a slightly worrying obsession with triangles - but in real terms, that results in a range of changes to just about every mode, including, would you believe it, Career Mode too.

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Author
Chris Tapsell

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Exoprimal: a technically competent revival of the dinosaur action genre, tested on PS5 and Series X/S

9 months 4 weeks ago

Dinosaur-based action titles used to dominate the gaming industry. Turok and Dino Crisis demonstrated the joys of combining modern military hardware with Triassic-period beasts, but in recent times dinosaur action has all but died out. Capcom's Exoprimal is something of a revival then, a co-op third-person action title that offers dynamic combat with hordes of raptors, tyrannosaurs, triceratops and other ancient reptiles. It's an eye-catching blend of third-person action titles, combining lightning-fast horde modes with inter-team competition. The question is, can the RE Engine cope with the vast dinosaur armies - and can Exoprimal deliver a good technical experience alongside its impressive scale?

Unlike many of its forebears, Exoprimal is a polished shooter game that centres around co-op PVE combat. Each match pits two teams of five players against each other as they tackle objectives in a fixed sequence, typically tasks like defending an area or defeating a specific enemy dinosaur. The team that completes this series of objectives first wins, and in some matches the two teams will fight each other at the end. It's an effective structure that provides a good enough excuse to justify the action.

Author
Oliver Mackenzie

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Exoprimal - a surprisingly rich blend of dino-killing and team vs team

9 months 4 weeks ago

Over the past 20 years, video game developers have treated us to many cautionary AI stories with which to prise apart and comprehend today's burgeoning ChatGPTapocalypse. There's ECHO, with its baroque maze of surveillance chambers that spawn clones based on the player's activities. There's Observation, in which you are the AI - an eerie and thoughtful portrayal of a space station computer trying to figure itself out, while saving a human crew from abduction. And now there's Exoprimal, in which AI is a huge, glowing dude called Leviathan who upends big, steaming mugs of dinosaurs over maps and yells at you to massacre them so it can guzzle up your combat data and craft a better mech suit.

It's the algorithm-jinxed End of History you haven't been waiting for: ancient and futuristic pop signifiers biting and blasting each other over a single, endlessly repeating day on a tropical Bond villain-style island base, which exists outside the matches as a sort of "information pizza" of unlockable backstory documents, featuring words like "vortexer" and Much Ado about rogue timelines. It's also quite a decent shooter, offering up some fun mech classes and blending PvP with PvE in an engrossing way, though probably not worth the £55 it's currently asking on Steam. Gamepassers, rejoice! Here's another solid B-lister for your collection.

Author
Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

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Twitch is in a crucial "trust building period": it must listen to streamers

9 months 4 weeks ago

It's been a difficult year for Twitch so far. The Amazon-owned streaming platform is continuously evolving and offering new products and tools for streamers, but it never seems to quite get things right.

Take revenue split for instance. At present, Twitch offers streamers a 50/50 revenue split in comparison to 70/30 on rival platforms. Yet the introduction of a new Partner Plus programme with a higher split has been met with criticism, with streamers claiming its high threshold for acceptance is "unattainable" and "anti-community".

Then there were changes made to branded content guidelines met with a backlash from streamers frustrated at Twitch's misunderstanding of the way they generate revenue. Twitch swiftly walked those back. More positively, new labels for mature content were included following last year's controversies around child abuse and gambling.

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Author
Ed Nightingale

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Google launches Space Invaders game to celebrate franchise's 45th anniversary

9 months 4 weeks ago

Google has launched Space Invaders: World Defense, an augmented reality version of the game created in partnership with developer Taito, for mobile devices.

The game, which was developed for the series' 45th anniversary, sees players defend the real world from the titular and recognisable space invaders as they duck behind buildings in order to rack up a high score.

The game will feature social elements, Google said, which will let players compete with friends and other players nearby.

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Author
Liv Ngan

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Activision copyright strikes seem to confirm Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 title

9 months 4 weeks ago

The next Call of Duty game will be formally titled Modern Warfare 3, according to a recent spate of DMCA take down notices reported by leakers.

Activision is yet to officially announce its next game in the Call of Duty series, but recent images showing the DMCA strikes refer to "leaked content from unreleased video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3".

These DMCA notices appear to have originated from a limited alpha play test, which according to COD News & Leaks on Twitter was codenamed "Hailström".

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Author
Victoria Kennedy

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UK games industry to restrict access to loot boxes for children

9 months 4 weeks ago

The UK games industry has agreed to restrict access to in-game loot boxes for children via a set of industry guidelines.

UKIE, the industry's trade association, has alongside the government unveiled 11 Industry Principles as part of "improved protections for children, young people and adults following concerns raised about loot boxes".

The Principles include the need to flag the existence of loot boxes in a game prior to purchase, a clear list of the probabilities for loot box contents, and the need for an easy refund policy.

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Author
Ed Nightingale

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World of Warcraft has something to do with Fortnite in the works

9 months 4 weeks ago

World of Warcraft fans have spotted an intriguing addition to the veteran MMO that's distinctly themed around Fortnite.

Datamined details of an upcoming boss encounter scooped up by Wowhead reveal the abilities of a new "Renegade Looter" enemy to include "Cranking 90s", "One Pump", "Slurp Drink" and "Disco Bomb". For the uninitiated, all of these are references to Epic Games' ever-popular battle royale.

Cranking 90s, for example, refers to the player ability to build a vertical tower at speed. In World of Warcraft, it will allow the Renegade Looter boss to "rapidly construct a tower to gain the high ground".

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Author
Tom Phillips

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