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A beautifully written and illustrated tale of young people trying to change their world, which comes alive on replay.

I seldom feel like completing a game's story twice, even when a single run only lasts 3-4 hours and I know I've left mountains of stones unturned, but Amarantus amply justifies starting afresh. It's not just that a second playthrough gives you the chance to know characters in different ways - seducing him rather than her, or perhaps both at once; alienating an old friend while forming an unnervingly close bond with somebody who, last time round, threatened to kill you if you let your ideals get the better of your empathy. Nor is starting again just about uncovering what's really going on with the wider plot, with multiple playthroughs introducing people and backstories that exist initially as shadows, dancing between the lines of the prose and in the delicacies of character performances.

Amarantus is a tale of political revolution, but revolution can also mean repetition, and repetition is crucial here, not just in terms of learning and "mastering" this glorious visual novel's small, rewarding assortment of choices so as to reach the Best Ending, but also in the growing resonance of recurring scenes that explore "recurrence" as a theme. Starting again isn't simply about learning what you missed, and making less-terrible decisions. It's about learning what it means to start again, though it's hard to say more without spoiling things.

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Baldur's Gate 3 will allow players to re-spec their characters and create "multiclasses" in order to "avoid having to restart the whole game".

That's according to Larian's Nick Pechenin, who confirmed in a recent livestream that as well as bumping into a character who "will allow you to reset your class, and reinvest all of your levels", players can also explore some "really cool" multiclass combinations.

"We wanted to avoid players having to restart the whole game, because it's a very heavy narrative experience," Pechenin said (thanks, PC Gamer). "There's a character you might meet – you will most likely meet – that will allow you reset your class, and reinvest all of the levels."

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Skullgirls 2nd Encore is finally coming to current gen Xbox consoles later this month.

Ten years after it first debuted, Skullgirls will hit Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on 19th July after it was indefinitely delayed coming to Microsoft systems back in 2019 "due to unforeseen development and production challenges".

Three years later, however, and it seems those "challenges" have been overcome, because – as spotted by TheGamer – a fresh store page for the game has now gone live on the Xbox store.

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Square Enix is reportedly "considering" remastering some of its older titles after the success of Final Fantasy 1-VI Pixel Remaster.

Addressing questions at its 43rd Annual Shareholders’ Meeting Q&A, Square Enix's board members "refrained from sharing information about new titles", but did acknowledge that it was "considering various ideas [about remastering older titles] within the company", adding: "we hope that you will look forward to forthcoming announcements".

"Final Fantasy I-VI Pixel Remaster has been well received," posited one shareholder, as spotted by VGC. "Are there plans to remaster other past titles? Personally, I would like to play Xenogears."

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Jagged Alliance 3 has detailed how it will support two-player online co-op.

Haemimont Games programmer and designer, Vlad Abadzhiev-Jahn, explained how the co-op system will be implemented in a new dev diary posted ahead of the highly-anticipated RPG's threequel release next week.

"Multiplayer brings a whole other energy to a game's campaign. It allows you to explore tactical differences with your partner and devise strategies together, experience and discuss the story side by side, and it also adds replayability," Abadzhiev-Jahn explains (thanks, PC Gamer).

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"Ultrafast roguelite" Ninja or Die: Shadow of the Sun will launch on PC via Steam on 2nd August 2023.

To celebrate, publisher Marvelous Europe has released a playable demo that can be downloaded on Steam from now until 17th July.

Check out the frenetic action yourself in the teaser below:

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Good news, Resident Evil fans – more remakes could be on the cards.

At its most recent general shareholder meeting Q&A, the publisher/developer was asked directly if it planned to continue "providing high-end visual remakes of only the main numbered entries in the Resident Evil series".

Whilst Capcom wouldn't commit to remaking fan-favourite unnumbered Resident Evil games like Code Veronica, it also didn't rule it out, either.

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Capcom has confirmed that cross-platform party chat will not be available at launch for its upcoming team shooter, Exoprimal.

In a series of tweets, the developer/publisher revealed that whilst it was "investigating ways to allow you to play together with your friends on other platforms", "this may take some time".

"We've seen the Exoprimal community discussions happening regarding the ability to create parties between players on different platforms, and would like to clarify the game's feature set around this at launch," the team explained via its official social media channels.

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Hello! All this week, Eurogamer has been marking Pride with another series of features celebrating the intersection of queer culture and gaming. As ever, it's been both a privilege and pleasure to have so many wonderful writers share their enthusiasm, stories, and visions of a hopeful future throughout the week - and you'll find a complete round-up of this year's features, conveniently assembled for your leisurely perusal, below.

Once again, a massive thank you to our stellar contributors (in order of appearance): James Croft, Ozzy Smith, Ed Nightingale, Sharang Biswas, Eli Cugini, Gareth Damian Martin, Alex Meehan, Ebonix, Nikatine, Lottie Lynn, Llaura McGee, Eve Golden Woods, Wren Brier, Deere, August Aiden Black, and Dr Lloyd (Meadhbh) Houston. Additional thanks go to Christian Donlan for his ever-invaluable behind-the-scenes assistance, and to Malaika Hardy-Fraser for this year's wonderful Pride Week artwork and logo.

We hope you've enjoyed this, Eurogamer's fourth annual Pride Week, and we will, of course, continue celebrating the achievements of, and highlighting the issues affecting, the LGBTQ+ community in gaming throughout the year. We'll be back with another week of Pride celebrations in 2024, and if you've missed out on Eurogamer's previous Pride Week festivities, you can catch up here, here, and here. Until next time!

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For the first time in the 25-year-old basketball franchise's history, NBA 2K24 will feature crossplay across PS5 and Xbox Series X/S when it releases worldwide on 8th September.

2K has also revealed that the "18-time All-Star, five-time NBA Champion, two-time Finals MVP, two-time Olympic Gold Medalist, all-time leading scorer for the Los Angeles Lakers and Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer", Kobe Bryant, will be featured as the NBA 2K24 Kobe Bryant Edition and Black Mamba Edition cover athlete.

New features include Bryant's "Mamba Moments" mode, which allows you to channel your "inner-Mamba" and "recreate some of Kobe’s most captivating performances and progress through his transcendent journey from a young phenom to one of the greatest players of all time".

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Twitch is introducing a new Stories feature, providing streamers with a further way to reach their followers when not livestreaming.

Stories will last for 24 hours and appear on the Twitch mobile app, similar to other social media platforms.

The news was shared at this year's TwitchCon Paris event, along with other new features joining the platform.

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More storage space is on the way to Diablo 4.

Responding to a fan question on a recent livestream, Diablo 4 associate game director Joe Piepiora confirmed that the team "definitely hears everybody about" the cramped storage allocation.

But whilst confirming that Blizzard had "good plans", Piepiora did admit that the team was "still figuring out how we're going to get that accomplished".

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Bokeh Game Studio has given us a fresh look at its upcoming horror-but-not-too-horror game, Slitterhead.

In an all-new developer diary posted to YouTube (see below), Bokeh revealed new details about its inaugural title, including a sneaky peek at some of the game's enemies, abilities, and – surprise! – the ability to play as a dog.

Given "early development footage" is stamped across all snippets of gameplay and most of the action comes from early tests, it's safe to presume that development has moved on since this footage was captured, but nonetheless, it provides a tantalising glimpse at what's in store.

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The open beta for the real-time strategy game The Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin is now available on PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.

The test – which plans to test the game’s servers and "assist the developers in faction balancing" – is now live and runs until 23:59 UK/BST time 10th July (4pm PT / 7pm ET / 1am 11th July, CET).

As well as 1v1 cross-platform multiplayer with two complete factions, the Stormcast Eternals and Orruk Kruleboyz, players can expect to "engage in a brutal tug-of-war for control of the map" and "take command in fiercely competitive and visually spectacular fantasy battles".

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UK games trade body Ukie's latest diversity campaign, Impact, has revealed the first six individuals selected to "level up the games industry for disabled and neurodiverse people", celebrating their "outstanding passion, success and contribution to disability advocacy".

Impact, which aims to "showcase and celebrate the talents" of six disabled and neurodiverse UK-based games industry professions", launched back in April. The "annual long-term initiative" hopes to feature people from across various areas, specialisms and levels and "have stood out in their career [as] are proud advocates of their identity".

The six individuals selected from 80+ nominations are:

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Hello! Eurogamer's latest week of features celebrating the intersection of LGBTQ+ culture and gaming is nearing its end, but we're not quite done yet! Wrapping things up in style, we've spoken with some of our favourite creators, passed notes among the team, and even delved into the Eurogamer archive to spotlight just a few of our favourite queer and queer-positive games.

Some are joyous, others are intended to disturb and challenge, and maybe even a few are more than just a little bit profound. But hopefully you'll find something here to enjoy, that compels you to investigate further, and if there's something we've missed - after all, it's a far-from-definitive list, given the breadth and richness of queer stories being brought to life by talented studios today - perhaps you'll even share a few of your own favourites in the comments below.

As selected by Gareth Damian Martin, creator of Citizen Sleeper.

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Two years after its debut, Naraka: Bladepoint is going free-to-play.

From 13th July, the "up to 60-player PVP mythical melee battle royale game" – which crossed 20 million unique players just ahead of its second anniversary – will be free to download not only PC and Xbox consoles, but PS5, too.

To celebrate, "new content, features and updates" are on the way, including a new 12v12 mode called Capture The Spirt Well, a new Dual Halberd weapon, PlayStation 5 "exclusive items", and a new 1000-year-old fox demon hero called Tessa is joining the roster.

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Maggie Robertson, the actor who played the iconic Lady Dimitrescu in Resident Evil Village, is set to play another memorable villain, this time in Baldur's Gate 3.

Larian confirmed this to me at an event I went to this week, where I played the launch version of the game.

Orin the Red, as the character is known, is a magical, shape-shifting menace. A sexy but sadistic presence who will appear time and time again through the game - towards the latter parts of it - to test your resolve.

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Hello everybody! Christian Donlan is away for this week's Game of the Week, so I'm afraid you all get a sorry consolation prize in the shape of me waffling about poltergeists. Why poltergeists? Because of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, of course. The current gen remaster has just launched and our Henry Stockdale was tickled pink, hailing it as a "brilliant mystery" and a work of "comedic absurdity" in his review, while noting some slight awkwardness with the PlayStation and Xbox versions based on translating a touchscreen game to analog stick control.

In Ghost Trick, you're a dead guy possessing objects and rewinding time to thwart a series of assassinations. Each level begins with you chatting to a recently disembodied ghost, then time-warping back to four minutes before their death, so as to hop between objects and nudge them about to interfere with the order of events. Your feats of poltergeisting are unremarkable in themselves - pop open an umbrella, knock a cupboard door - but when you chain these tiny interruptions together, you can rewrite history. There's probably a mental health maxim in there somewhere.

What's your morning phone routine? After your alarm sounds but before you get out of bed, do you scroll through your mobile? Half asleep, I clear notifications, read BBC News, do the Wordle. This week, that changed - I checked in with Snorlax first instead.

Pokémon Sleep is the franchise's big play to dominate the one part of my life previously free from Pokémon gaming - the six to eight hours a night I'm typically asleep. The app tracks sleep quality and offers rewards each morning - and yes, it also gives you another Pokémon thing to check in on during the day.

If you've tried a sleep-tracking app on your phone before, Pokémon Sleep likely works in a similar method. You lay your device next to you in bed - with the app open and the phone unlocked - and it detects your night-time noise and movement. (Pokémon Sleep asks you not to put your phone directly under your pillow in order to avoid it overheating.)

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Street Fighter 6 has sold 2m units since its release at the start of last month.

That's an additional 1m sales for the game over the last four and a bit weeks, with earlier figures revealing Street Fighter 6 clocked up a million players over its launch weekend.

In celebration of these latest sales figures, Capcom has gifted its players with some rewards, or "a small token of our appreciation", in its words.

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Sega will keep its biggest franchises free from third-party blockchain gaming projects, but won't keep its smaller series away fron the technology.

The company also remains committed to investing in blockchain and Web3, but is shelving plans for internal development on blockchain games.

Sega co-chief operating officer Shuji Utsumi revealed the company's strategy in an interview with Bloomberg.

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Nintendo has released a new trailer for Pikmin 4, ahead of its release in a couple of weeks.

The video is a short primer on what the titular Pikmin are and how they can be used in-game. The overview follows a new traveller as they meet the Pikmin and learn how to work with them.

The traveller looks on in confusion at various points, before a Pikmin confidently approaches them and instructs them to blow their whistle, or launch it towards a task to do, which got a chuckle out of me.

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Yuji Naka, Sonic's co-creator and the man behind ill-fated platformer Balan Wonderworld, has been found guilty of insider trading, but will avoid prison for now.

Naka was first arrested back in November 2022 following reports of alleged insider trading at Square Enix. He pleaded guilty in March, and then, in June, the developer was sentenced to serve two and a half years in jail, with a final judgement in July.

At this time, Naka was additionally fined twice for ¥2.5m and ¥170m (just under £1m total), with his defence seeking a suspended sentence and to lower the fines. They claimed Naka "accidentally saw information that was extremely unrelated to [his] work". However, prosecutors said Naka "showed no signs of remorse" for his actions.

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Diablo 4's first season will go live on 20th July, with the promise of a new boss battle, questline and gear to get your hands on.

Known as Season of the Malignant, this season will introduce the fittingly named Malignant Monsters. These monsters are described by Blizzard as "decaying abominations" that roam through Sanctuary in a frenzy. They will not hesitate to attack anyone or anything that gets in their way.

A new questline will focus on sorting these new foes out, with Cormond, a former priest of the Cathedral of Light, helping you on your way. He will train you to "capture the Malignant hearts" that are the source of the monsters' power, and "convert them into build-altering powers".

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Hello! Eurogamer is once again marking Pride Month with another week of features celebrating the intersection of queer culture and gaming. Today, Eli Cugini celebrates the clumsier side of LGBTQ+ representation and the strange, raw beauty that sometimes lies within.

My favourite rhythm game, which I won't name because I pay it £10 every month and I want you to make better life decisions than I do, recently tweeted that they were featuring Muse's Plug In Baby in their Pride Month season pass. Their reasoning? "Muse has continuously made efforts in writing LGBTQIA+ positive lyrics. Their 2001 hit Plug In Baby was originally supposed to talk about transhumanism, before becoming more abstract. Play the catchy riff now via our Tour Pass: RAINBOW RHYTHMS!"

For those not versed in what 'transhumanism' means (it means technological human enhancement and does not have very much to do with transgender people), this is very stupid. Hilariously stupid. It is the funniest thing I have read all week. Come, trans humans, play my catchy riff. But there's a warmth to it: some social media rep, somewhere, is clumsily reaching for people like me. They don't really speak my language, and they don't have the most effective tools to get to me, but the result isn't harmful or flattening. It's funny. It might even be unintentionally profound.

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Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've found ourselves playing over the last few days. This time: second impressions, profound truths, and literal-mindedness.

If you fancy catching up on some of the older editions of What We've Been Playing, here's our archive.

I reinstalled Baldur's Gate 3 at the weekend, and it made me think a bit about second impressions. Because we hear a lot about first impressions, don't we, and how you can't make those twice, but we never hear about second impressions - and I'm starting to think there's something magical in them.

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The steady drip of Mortal Kombat 1 info continues in the run-up to the sort-of-rebooted fighter's 19th September launch, with developer NetherRealm having now confirmed Smoke and Rain as playable characters, alongside some familiar faces returning as assistive Kameos.

Not including today's announcements, NetherRealm has so-far confirmed a total of 10 playable characters for Mortal Kombat 1: Johnny Cage, Kenshi, Kitana, Kung Lao, Liu Kang, Mileena, Raiden, Scorpion, Shang Tsung (available via pre-order), and Sub-Zero.

Two more additions have now been revealed as part of NetherRealm's latest Kombat Kast livestream. Assassin-turned-cyborg Smoke is in, marking his first playable appearance in the main series since 2011's Mortal Kombat reboot. He's joined by moody demi-god Rain, who hasn't been benched quite so long, having appeared in Mortal Kombat 11 as a DLC character.

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A new trailer for EA's magic FPS Immortals of Aveum has been released, sharing details on its tri-magic system and story.

The world of Aveum is at war, with five kingdoms battling over control of magic. As Jak, players will manipulate all three colours of magic - he's what's known as a Triarch.

Using a sigil to augment magical powers, players must switch between red, blue and green magic to defeat enemies. You can see it in action in the trailer below.

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Legendary game developer - and game development tease - Peter Molyneux has discussed his next project, and talked up its gameplay as featuring a mechanic that's never been seen before.

Speaking to GameReactor at the recent Gamelab conference in Barcelona, Molyneux was reluctant to give many firm details of the game or this idea to avoid - in his words - people subsequently getting "very annoyed and angry" when their expectations of Molyneux's words are met with reality.

"In days gone by, I would just start telling you about the whole game and the whole game design and why it was going to be the most brilliant game in the world," Molyneux said. "I'm not going to do that."

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Return to Monkey Island will be making its mobile and tablet debut on 27 July.

Guybrush Threepwood's latest outing will be available on the App Store and Google Play, with pre registrations open now.

You can see a little trailer for Return to Monkey Island in the video below.

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It's unlikely we'll see a follow-up to Kid Icarus: Uprising, director and writer Masahiro Sakurai has said.

Sakurai made the comments in the latest episode of Game Concepts, a series on his YouTube channel in which he discusses the development of various games.

Uprising released in 2012 for the 3DS and is the third game in the Kid Icarus series, released 21 years after the previous title Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters. A future release in the series, whether in the form of a sequel or re-release, "seems difficult", Sakurai has said.

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IO Interactive, the developer behind the Hitman series and the upcoming James Bond game, has announced the opening of a new studio in sunny Brighton.

The studio marks the fifth for IO, which already has offices in Copenhagen, Malmö, Barcelona, and Istanbul.

All five studios are working on the next James Bond game, codename Project 007, which was first announced in 2021 and will be a "wholly original" origin story, a first for the secret agent in video game form.

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Final Fantasy games are well-known for their elaborate CGI movies - pre-rendered sequences which have traditionally highlighted key in-game moments where real-time rendering might prove insufficient. Final Fantasy 16 uses the technique rarely though, with a mix of real-time and pre-rendered in-engine footage largely used instead. With that in mind, I thought it would be interesting to investigate how FF16's in-game or in-engine sequences compare to the last mainline Final Fantasy title to use CGI, 2010's FF13. Just how close is FF16 and can its visual qualities and techniques exceed the CGI movies of its predecessor?

Despite being famous for it, the Final Fantasy series has used less and less CGI over the past decade or so. Final Fantasy 13 featured almost an hour of beautiful CGI footage, but Final Fantasy 14, 15, and FF7 Remake have only used CGI for a few key sequences per game, like opening movies. Final Fantasy 16 appears to feature no fully offline CGI sequences, with just a limited use of pre-rendered video on occasion that's entirely or almost entirely in-engine. So if significant use of CGI is a thing of the past for Final Fantasy, can FF16 replicate the same glory within the strict budgets of real-time rendering?

The characters in Final Fantasy 13 were lavishly rendered in CGI form. Excellent materials were paired with very detailed models, highlighted of course by the signature expressiveness of their Final Fantasy hair. If you do look very closely you can make out occasional flaws - like a broken shadow or the slight hint of a polygonal edge in tight close-ups, but the work holds up well.

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The next wave of courses is set to arrive in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe next week, for those with the Booster Course Pass.

On 12th July a further eight courses will be added to the game, as well as four new characters: Birdo, Petey Piranha, Wiggler and Kamek.

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I grew up in the countryside. My home was surrounded by fields of sheep, cows and mud (so much mud). I would often spend my days running over to the various farms nearby to greet the animals behind the fences, feeding them with grass and leaves from my hands. I would get myself in a bit of a mess doing this, coming home with my once-bright outfits and shoes a very different colour than they had been at the start of the day. My mother was probably incredibly frustrated at my constant desire to launch myself into the farmers' fields, just so I could acquaint myself with their livestock, but I kept on doing it. I was fascinated by the gathering of cows and sheep that met me at the fence.

And the animals seemed equally curious about me. Or, perhaps they were just eager for the greenery I would tantalisingly wave around in a bid to get their attention. But, whatever it was, I would soon amass quite an assortment of faces as I leaned in to tend to my own little flock, before I was called home again for dinner. I may not have realised it then, but it was a truly special time.

I thought of this recently, when watching a trailer for Flock, the upcoming game from Richard Hogg and Hollow Ponds, the pairing behind I Am Dead. In Flock, players are tasked with acquiring a flock of their own. But this is not your typical shepherding experience. Rather, it is a gloriously colourful sky-bound delight, featuring flying sheep and a collection of eclectic wildlife.

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The Callisto Protocol has joined PlayStation Plus Premium's ever-expanding trials programme - good news indeed for those yet to try the space horror game.

You can now play the game for one hour, which will give you a little taster of what's in store for protagonist Jacob Lee as he negotiates the perils of the galactic prison facility he finds himself in on Jovian moon Callisto.

It is a shorter trial than previous PlayStation Plus offerings, with the likes of God of War Ragnarök giving players three hours of gameplay, but still a nice addition to the service.

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The first episode of Sonic Prime season two is now available to watch ahead of the full series release.

That will be on Netflix on 13th July.

Until then, episode one is available to watch now on YouTube as a teaser. It's titled Avoid the Void.

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Capcom has announced Rashid, who previously appeared in Street Fighter 5, will join the roster of Street Fighter 6 later this month. Rashid will be the first fighter added to the game post-launch.

Rashid can be encountered across all three game modes. In World Tour, players will be able to apply his moves to their own avatar, whilst he'll be available to play as in Fighting Ground.

This month's battle pass contains gear, emotes, and music all related to Rashid. Take a look at Rashid in action in the gameplay trailer below.

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Pokémon Go celebrates its seventh anniversary this week with the rollout of a fresh new feature: contest-like Showcases.

Hosted at specific PokéStops, Showcases act as local leaderboards for Pokémon with particularly impressive stats. First up will be a contest to find and show off your biggest sized Squirtle.

Up to 200 Pokémon can be entered into any PokéStop Showcase, with in-game prizes offered for those who rank highly - including premium items such as Star Pieces and Incubators.

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