Ubisoft veteran Emile Morel has died at the age of 40.
Morel most recently served as creative director on the upcoming and long-awaited Beyond Good and Evil 2, though had worked at Ubisoft's Montpellier studio since 2009.
It was there, alongside Rayman creator Michel Ancel, that Morel helped crafted the brilliant Rayman Legends as its lead game designer.
UPDATE 4.30pm: The prices for Xbox Game Pass have now increased.
Game Pass Ultimate (which gives you access to games on console, cloud and PC) now costs £12.99/€14.99/$16.99 a month, while its console only option costs £8.99/€10.99/$10.99.
The original story continues below.
An update released today for Final Fantasy 16 adds a new option for players to adjust the strength of motion blur.
Many players have complained of nausea while playing the game, making this option a much requested feature.
As explained in the patch notes, the default setting for motion blur is the maximum of five - this can now be reduced or completely switched off.
Hello! All this week, Eurogamer is marking Pride with a week of features celebrating the intersection of LGBTQ+ culture and gaming. Today, Sharang Biswas takes us on a tour of bodily pleasures, exploring the perhaps surprising connection between pornography and analogue gaming - and highlighting the creators designing in the spaces between intimacy and play.
At the 2020 San Francisco Porn Film Festival, I watched a pretty arresting piece named Tidal, part of a French film project called Vespéral.
At seven minutes long, Tidal focuses on a nude brunette woman and the half-a-dozen pairs of hands that touch her, stroke her, caress her, and appear to bring her immense pleasure. The scene is scored with a thrumming, meditative track. Clips of waves hitting the beach, whose to-and-fro movement is often mimicked by the motion of the hands, intercut our vision of the woman - not interrupting but punctuating. It was an exquisitely poetic, and highly erotic film. Even I — once described by a classmate at grad school as "gay as fuck" — was titillated.
Flashback, the classic 16-bit sci-fi platformer from Delphine Software, is, as you probably already know, getting a sequel before the end of 2023, some 31 years after its original release. And new developer Microids has now offered a fresh look at Flashback 2's action - specifically the jungle-y bits - in a new trailer as it prepares for a November release.
The original Flashback, which arrived to much acclaim back in 1992 - when everything was still in black and white, and computers were powered by magic - followed the far-flung future adventures of agent Conrad B. Hart on the trail of shapeshifting aliens attempting to infiltrate human society. It was an investigation that, much like Delphine's earlier Another World, took the form of a strikingly rotoscoped platform-puzzler.
Flashback 2 (which, somewhat confusingly, isn't technically the game's first sequel, given the existence of 1995's 3D follow-up Fade to Black) sees Conrad B. Hart return for more sci-fi adventure - somewhere in the 22nd century - as he goes in search of his friend Ian. Again.
Friday the 13th: The Game's days are regrettably numbered, but developer Gun Interactive is bidding it farewell in something like celebratory style, bestowing maximum power on all players for their maximum enjoyment (but also to alleviate some pressure on servers) as the game's doomsday clock ticks down toward its closure at the end of next year.
Gun announced an end for Friday the 13th: The Game back in June, confirming the asymmetrical multiplayer horror would be pulled from stores on 31st December this year, the same day its Friday the 13th licence officially expires. There's some small solace for owners, however, in that the studio has promised the game will remain playable through "at least" 31st December 2024.
And now, it's announced some new measures that, while primarily designed to "reduce the dependence on database servers", will also allow players to go about their merry slaughtering and killer-evading survival in chaotically maxed-out fashion.
It's all change this year in the world of video game football, as EA - after some seriously big-money tussling - readies what will be its first major football game not to carry the FIFA branding in nearly 30 years. And now, thanks to a new leak, we've got a good idea of when EA Sports FC will likley be showing up - which, unsurprisingly, is pretty much slap bang in the same late-September slot FIFA has occupied for the last few years.
According to data miner billbil-kun - who has a amassed a pretty compelling back catalogue of accurate calls when it comes to video game leaks (Sony's monthly PlayStation Plus line-up being a particular specialty) - EA Sports FC will release on 29th September this year.
Given that FIFA 2023 and the series entry before it both launched on 27th September in their respective release years, it's hardly a huge surprise to learn EA's new FIFA-in-all-but-name game will follow suit, but it does give us an intriguing window to watch as we prepare to see how EA Sports FC will fair without its familiar branding.
Assassin's Creed Mirage will include an interactive history feature available in the game at launch, allowing you to delve deeper into the real world version of the game's Baghdad setting.
This option appears to be an alternative to the more involved Discovery Tour mode that popped up some time post-launch in Assassin's Creed Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla. Perhaps befitting Mirage's more condensed nature, this option too sounds less involved.
Appropriately titled the "History of Baghdad", the option is described as being similar to the series' traditional Codex, and has been built in partnership with a series of museums and international historical institutions.
From today, fans can now play as iconic actor Nicolas Cage in Dead by Daylight.
Cage is available in the Public Test Build (Steam only), with the full Nicolas Cage Chapter available to purchase from 25th July across all platforms.
Cage is a Survivor and plays himself, with an actor-like moveset meant to reflect that. Check out the new trailer below.
Tencent has made an investment into Lighthouse Games, a new studio founded by Playground Games co-founder and studio director Gavin Raeburn.
Raeburn left Playground Games last year, where he worked on several titles in the Forza Horizon series.
In late 2022, Raeburn founded Lighthouse Games. The studio aims to create a "new, genre-defining franchise", it says on its official website.
Grand Theft Auto 5 headlines the next wave of games arriving on Xbox Game Pass this month.
The blockbuster game will be available on both console and cloud, with both Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S versions available. It's out today.
Exoprimal, Capcom's online dino shooter, is the other major release this month and will be available on day one from 14th July across cloud, console and PC.
As Destiny hurtles towards the conclusion of its decade-long storyline, Bungie has discussed how it all might end - and addressed some recent criticism of how big story revelations have been handled.
Speaking out just a couple of weeks after the origins of Destiny's space golf ball The Traveller were finally revealed - to a somewhat mixed response - Bungie staff have defended Destiny's storytelling techniques, and said players should not expect to make allies with the game's villainous Hive.
"The Hive has still committed a lot of, you know, genocide," senior narrative designer Robert Brookes told Dexerto, pouring cold water on the Guardians and the Hive suddenly becoming besties.
Last year, we saw a God of War rip-off turn up on Xbox. Now, we have another PlayStation rip-off turning up on another console. In this case, it is Naughty Dog's The Last of Us on Nintendo Switch.
Yes, that's right. If you head over to the eShop right now, you can get your hands on The Last Hope - Dead Zone Survival, an "intense storyline game set in an apocalyptic world overrun by hordes of ravenous zombies". Launched on 30th June, it normally costs £8.99 but is currently on sale for just 99p.
Having played The Last Hope myself, I would advise saving your pennies for something more worthwhile. Toothpicks, perhaps. You can see a trailer for The Last Hope below (and if you were still interested in playing the game afterwards, please note there are spoilers for The Last Hope below).
The latest 1.2.0 patch for Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has removed item duplication glitches previously discovered by the community.
The update, which became available yesterday, fixes issues relating to certain quests and various other bugs but unfortunately also prevents players from being able to make money quickly.
The methods previously reported on Eurogamer, one using thrown weapons and another using frozen meat, now do not work in version 1.2.0 of the game. I've tested this myself, and am grateful I already cashed in 40k before I updated my version.
A Diablo 4 player has found what appeared to be - initially at least - a giant version of the game's terrifying Butcher enemy.
The Butcher, an infamous enemy from the first game, can randomly spawn in any dungeon, at any level, and is a particularly nasty foe to defeat.
Reddit user IronHeart_777 discovered a giant "beast of a Butcher" while running nightmare dungeons with friends, but don't worry - it's not actually a new version of the enemy.
Five of the Best is a weekly series for supporters of Eurogamer, and there's currently a free trial running! It's a series that higlights some of the overlooked features in games. It's also a series where you have your say, so don't be shy, use the comments below to join in!
Oh and you can find our entire Five of the Best archive elsewhere on the site.
Loading bars! This is another topic I can't believe we haven't had before. And do you know what my overriding thought was when it flashed up in my head? 'I wonder how accurate they are.' Well, reader, it turns out I am not the only person to have had this thought. And there's an answer. But it's a shocking answer. You see, not only are loading bars regularly inaccurate, they are, in some cases, completely made-up!
Studio Wildcard's less-than-elegant rollout of Ark: Survival Ascended, a full-price remaster of its 2015 dinosaur survival game Ark: Survival Evolved, continues with the news of a delay from August to October this year, and word it'll now launch without its first bit of remastered DLC.
Ark: Survival Ascended has already had a bumpy start to life; the remaster first surfaced when Studio Wildcard announced it'd be taking Ark: Survival Evolved's official servers offline later this year, and that the only way to continue using official servers would be to purchase its new Unreal Engine 5 remaster - exclusively available as part of a bundle with the now-delayed Ark 2. Following an outcry from players, Studio Wildcard eventually announced it would scrap the bundle, instead replacing it with a standalone version of Ark: Survival Ascended that was - amazingly - exactly the same price, despite featuring one less game.
It's in this context that Studio Wildcard has now announced a delay for Ascended, saying it has "found it challenging working with Unreal Engine 5.2".
In a court filing submitted as part of its legal battle with the US Federal Trade Commission over its proposed Activision Blizzard aquisition, Microsoft has claimed Sony is "expected to release" both a PlayStation 5 Slim and a "handheld version of the PS5" before the end of this year.
Both machines were referenced during a paragraph (as spotted by IGN) intended to demonstrate that Nintendo's Switch should not - as the FTC is arguing - be considered in a separate market to Xbox and PlayStation based on price. It's a point Microsoft is determined to prove so it can more effectively assert its stated position as the underdog in the console market.
As part of its argument, Microsoft notes the Xbox Series S is $50 cheaper than Switch's OLED model in the US, with the $399.99 PS5 Digital Edition being just $50 more. It's here the company first makes reference to an unannounced Sony machine, claiming the latter is "expected to release a PlayStation 5 Slim later this year at the same reduced price point."
As part of its ongoing legal battle with Epic Games, Apple has submitted a filing requesting the Supreme Court overthrows a 2021 ruling made by the US district court of California, which upheld a complaint against Apple's anti-steering practices.
Epic launched its lawsuit against Apple in August 2020, following the iPhone maker's decision to revoke Epic's Fortnite developer account, preventing the battle royale game from being distributed on its devices. Apple made the move after Epic deliberately circumvented contractually mandated App Store payment mechanisms within its Fortnite iOS app, which would have allowed it to avoid Apple's 30 percent platform fees.
As that case reached its conclusion, California's Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers ruled against Epic in all but one of its 10 claims. However, the one ruling made in Epic's favour - that Apple cannot block developers from linking out to alternative payment methods from within their apps (a practice known as "anti-steering") - has remained a sticking point for the company.
Today brings an updated content roadmap for the brilliant PowerWash Simulator, whose breakout success has given the game an ongoing lease of life.
Last week saw the launch of its Spongebob Squarepants paid DLC, following the free addition of new levels themed around Final Fantasy and Tomb Raider.
Now, we know that the previously-announced Warhammer 40,000 paid DLC will arrive in Q4 this year.
Mac gaming has always been a bit of a punchline, despite Apple's best efforts. The fundamental problem is that it takes substantial development resources to bring games over to the platform, which occupies a small fraction of the computing market. Every year a few high-profile games are trickled out, while most other titles skip macOS entirely - but that might be changing.
Apple recently released a tool called the Game Porting Toolkit (GPT), which simulates a Windows environment and translates DirectX API calls to Apple's own Metal API, all the while translating x86 instructions to Apple Silicon's ARM instruction set. It's effectively a translation layer, like Valve's Proton on Steam Deck, with the same capability to run high-end games at playable frame-rates. But how good is GPT - and are we really on the verge of a Mac gaming revolution?
Actually getting the Game Porting Toolkit set up on a modern Mac computer is a fairly simple process - just upgrade to macOS 14 Sonoma and download Whisky, which is a graphical interface by developer Isaac Marovitz for the Game Porting Toolkit. From there, download the disk image file for the Game Porting Toolkit, boot Whisky and drop it in.
The Lara Croft Collection has just landed on Switch, bringing together top-down arcade treats Lara Croft & the Guardian of Light and Lara Croft & The Temple of Osiris. We decided to have a chat about these fascinating and playful parts of the Tomb Raider back catalogue.
Chris: Hello! I thought it might be a good opportunity to talk Tomb Raider with you, since it's a series we both love, and these games that have just come out are a weirdly interesting entry point to them.
I see this series as sitting between the original trilogy that Crystal Dynamics did and then reboot trilogy, which I know you love - except for the last game. Anyway, starting off simply, are you a fan of this style of Tomb Raider? And how would you describe it? It feels like an arcadey, almost twin-stick take on a series which is generally a bit more cinematic, often a bit more willing to take its time with things?
Apple has reportedly scaled back its internal sales target for its Vision Pro augmented reality headset due to production difficulties.
The tech giant had previously set a target of 1m units sold in 2024, but there are now concerns it won't be able to produce enough devices.
What's more, as reported by the FT (thanks IGN), current production issues have pushed back plans for a cheaper version of the $3499 headset.
Celebrated roguelike platformer Spelunky 2 is set to leave Xbox and PC Game Pass later this month.
The game was added to the service in January 2022, but will leave on 16th July.
Two other games have also been added to the Leaving Soon section and will be removed on the same day: Exo One and PAW Patrol The Movie: Adventure City Calls.
The original director for Super Mario RPG on the SNES isn't returning for the forthcoming Switch remake.
Announced at last month's Nintendo Direct event, the remake is a faithful recreation of the original 1996 game that was never physically released in Europe.
Original director Chihiro Fujioka is not involved, however.
Persona 5 Tactica will add a new playable character to the game's group of Phantom Thieves.
Not much is known about its plot yet, but the game will feature turn-based tactical battles and takes place after the events of Persona 5.
A character spotlight video has now been released, showing fresh gameplay and new playable character Erina.
"Have you ever been on a crowded train with one of your best gay friends and, inside, a tiny part of you is cringing because he is being so gay?"
That's a question posed by my favourite drag queen and Ireland's self-proclaimed gender discombobulator, Panti Bliss, in a biting speech about "checking" herself. What she's "checking" is something most queer people "check" for in public, whether they realise it or not: their own queerness. Am I standing too gay? What about these colourful socks? Are they too much? Will holding a partner's arm in public turn into a problem? Something private and intimate altered into something shameful or political, all through other people's reactions.
That feeling's best thought of as the tension between who people expect us to be and who we really are... or who we're trying to become. Imagined futures are projected onto our bodies like film reels, blurring the skin that lies beneath. That tension feels a lot like shame. But, while video games usually have all the subtlety of a sledgehammer busting through a wall, they're occasionally a great place to explore queer topics, letting us role-play as whoever we want to be or explore those unique experiences in unique ways.
Square Enix has cancelled development of its long-in-the-works Just Cause mobile game, which had been available in regional early access - but never fully launched - since November 2021.
Just Cause: Mobile was unveiled in December 2020, during The Game Awards, where it was billed as a free-to-play action shooter set in the Just Cause universe, featuring single-player, four-player co-op, and 30-person competitive multiplayer modes.
It was originally set to launch in 2021, and, did, eventually get a release in Singapore - albeit only as regional early access title - before the year was through. Since then, Just Cause: Mobile's early access has spread to a number of other countries but development has been repeatedly hit by delays, culminating in an indefinite delay toward the end of last year and, in February, the termination of all regional early access programmes.
This week's DF Direct Weekly kicks off with an extensive discussion surrounding AMD's exclusive partnership with Bethesda Game Studios for Starfield. On the face of it, it's the kind of arrangement that's no different to others arranged by its competitors. In this case, AMD is BGS's exclusive tech partner and FSR2 upscaling is being integrated into Starfield in both PC and console iterations. However, there are concerns that this integration might come with a catch: qualitatively superior upscaling solutions from Nvidia and Intel - DLSS and XeSS - may be blocked from appearing in the game as part of the deal.
It's an uncomfortable possibility. Is AMD paying to ensure that Nvidia and Intel GPU owners can't use rival technologies that can look better than Radeon features? Instead of developing their own more competitive technologies, the suggestion is that AMD is using an exclusive partnership to ensure that all GPU owners only get image quality as good as that provided by an AMD graphics card. Crucially, AMD itself is not denying that it's blocking Bethesda from integrating competing upscalers into Starfield.
Let's put all of this into context. It started with an article posted on June 20th by WCCFTech, which pointed out that a great many AMD-sponsored titles are shipping with FSR2 upscaling, while the DLSS and XeSS alternatives are absent. In the case of games like Dead Island 2, The Callisto Protocol and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, for example, the fact that they're based on Unreal Engine 4 means that DLSS and XeSS plug-ins are readily available as part of the underlying tech, but for some reason, those plug-ins are not being used.
Last week, a Steam developer suggested Valve was banning games featuring AI-generated content on its platform, after reporting that their game had been rejected for using "fairly obviously AI-generated" assets.
The developer was given a second chance to resubmit their game but said, via Reddit, that this was also rejected - due to them not owning the necessary rights.
Now, in a statement provided to Eurogamer, Valve has clarified a few points on this post, and provided further insight into how it will police AI-generated content on Steam in general.
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Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective remains one of my favourite Nintendo DS games and I consider it a must-play for Ace Attorney fans. Not because the two feel similar, mind. Shu Takumi's supernatural adventure swaps courtroom shenanigans for Rube Goldberg machines solved by point-and-click puzzles, retaining that sharp humour and charming cast. 13 years haven't dulled this classic. Though it's better suited for touchscreens, Capcom sets a high standard for future remasters.
Playing as Sissel, Ghost Trick begins with your abrupt death. Waking up inside a junkyard as an amnesiac spirit, Sissel's journey to discover the truth brings us to Lynne, a young detective about to be killed by an assassin. Spurred on by a wise and mysterious desk lamp, Sissel soon discovers he can manipulate inanimate objects and travel back to four minutes before someone's death. That doesn't sound like much, but even minor changes can have significant consequences that ultimately trigger a new chain of events.
What follows throughout the evening is a brilliant mystery intertwined with inventive gameplay. Time flows normally in the living world, but Sissel can switch to the Ghost World at any moment, moving across set objects highlighted by blue cores. If a character has recently or previously died, he can communicate with them by linking to a yellow core, which usually leads to several questions. Objects can't be manipulated when time's frozen, forcing your return to the living world.
Word of a re-release for Rockstar's original Red Dead Redemption is doing the rounds, ahead of a potential reveal in the not-too-distant future.
A fresh rating for Red Dead Redemption via the leaky Korean Ratings Board popped up last week, setting tongues wagging that Rockstar had quietly submitted a fresh version of its cowboy classic to be approved for release.
Details of that listing pointed to a new console version of the game (thanks, Gematsu), rather than anything only for PC.
New information on The Last of Us Part 3 reportedly leaked over the weekend, from two internet tipsters better known for their scoops on Marvel TV shows and movies.
While Naughty Dog itself is keeping its plans for the series close to its chest, leaker DanielRPK revealed that Part 3 will introduce five new characters - Lucas, Mason, Val, Ezra and Gracie.
These five are reportedly part of a group of "scavengers", who are said to be "surviving on the outskirts of a post apocalyptic city", and using a Victorian house as their base.
Netflix's forthcoming stop-motion series Pokémon Concierge now has a release window.
First announced at the Pokémon Presents showcase in February this year, Pokémon Concierge will debut in December 2023.
Along with the announcement, there's a new teaser starring Psyduck and Lampent, as well as new character Haru working as - you guessed it - the concierge at a Pokémon resort.
Hello! Eurogamer is once again marking Pride with another week of features celebrating the intersection of queer culture and gaming in all its guises. Things get underway today as James Croft examines how a new generation of drag performers is combining its art and a deep love of video games to explore and reimagine what bolder, queerer gaming could be.
I was a gamer before I knew I was gay. I started gaming in 1989, at six years old, when my parents brought home an Amiga 500. A boxy, beige monstrosity with a chunky keyboard and a polygonal mouse, the Amiga, an early home computer, wasn't much of a looker. But, to me, it was a portal to other worlds. I spent hours as a child watching my father battle his way through the ThunderCats side-scrolling platformer – I can still hear the crunchy "swoosh" of Lion-O's sword and the rising chirp of his jump – and looking over my mother's shoulder as she stalked the corridors of Dungeon Master, hiding when I heard the shuffle of the mummies. And I spent hours trying to complete Barbarian, an early fighting game which saw two loin-clothed muscle-men roll and kick and hack each other to death.
I'd love to say Barbarian made me gay, that those tight thighs and pixel biceps sparked something queer in me – but my gay awakening came 20 years later. As a teen and young adult, I experienced gaming as a resolutely straight hobby: romance, if there was any, was always heteronormative; gender stereotypes were rigidly enforced; and there was no sex in games hardly ever. Gaming was not queer. Now, however, gaming has exploded from a niche hobby to a global obsession, and a new generation of fans is queering games in ways my younger self could never imagine, using drag as a medium to explore, examine, and expand gaming culture.
Source code for the original Far Cry, released back in 2004, has popped up online.
Entitled "Far Cry 1.34 Complete", the game's code was uploaded to the internet archive site Archive.org at the end of June, as highlighted by well-known modder Vinícius Medeiros (thanks, MXDWN).
It's unclear if the code includes any subsequent patches – although the .34 part of the 1.34 title certainly suggests so – and some commenters who've presumably downloaded and run the code believe the code is "not complete, but close".
Publisher Top Hat Studios has banded with a team of indie developers to bring "underrepresented and grassroots indie" games to consoles and "reach wider audiences".
The first "indie pack" initiative is out now and hopes to "highlight a variety of genres and aesthetics". All games included will be coming to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Xbox One/Series X.
Whilst called a "pack", the games aren't available as a bundle, but rather as part of an initiative to "semi-regularly spotlight small groups of indie developers' titles for the first time ever on console", and "bring more attention to these developers' titles as well as hope to create a meaningful community experience".
Disney Speedstorm - the hero-based combat racing game inspired by Disney and Pixar worlds - will complete its early access testing period and release in full on 28th September.
The racer will be coming to PC and consoles as a free-to-play title to "allow for more players to share in a fully robust competitive and co-op racing experience".
"Since the launch of Early Access, we've received invaluable feedback and support from our incredible community of players, who have been instrumental to the improvements made during Early Access," developer Gameloft said via a statement on the studio's social media channels.
Valve has banned around 40 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) traders linked to gambling sites, essentially wiping out over £1.5m ($2m) worth of in-game trade items.
As spotted by Dexerto (via PC Gamer), the bans come after gambling site CSGOEmpire published a spreadsheet of CS:GO traders it believed were part of a cryptocurrency money laundering scheme allegedly operating through a rival gambling site called CSGORoll.
Whilst Valve has yet to comment on whether or not the bans were connected to the details revealed in the spreadsheet, it seems as though all but one of the accounts leaked on the spreadsheet have now been banned.
