Eurogamer

UPDATE 27/6/23: After several days of confusion and conflicting statements, Bethesda has confirmed to Eurogamer the details in its freshly resurfaced Starfield pre-order bonus page were recently updated to provide clarification on the inclusion of a disc in certain versions of the game's physical release - and that the information now featured on the page is correct.

As such, its final word on the matter appears to be that, as below, Starfield's physical Standard Edition for Xbox will contain a disc, but that the physical Standard Edition for PC will not, instead including a digital download code for the game. Meanwhile, all versions of the physical Constellation Edition will only include a digital download code.

Starfield launches for PC and Xbox Series X/S on 6th September.

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Just a day after Bethesda said Starfield's physical release would not include a disc, a resurfaced post on the company's website has further suggested otherwise - for Xbox users at least.

Word that Starfield's physical editions would not include a disc first came via a tweet from Bethesda support over the weekend, which, in answer to a customer query, said, "All physical editions include a code for the chosen platform. There are no physical discs".

The outcry was immediate, with fans understandably concerned Microsoft was planning to take advantage of Starfield's high-profile release in order to plunge its customers into a digital-only future. That now appears to be less of a concern, however, based on details included in a newly resurfaced pre-order bonus breakdown post on Bethesda's website - which corrobrates a tweet unearthed over the weekend on the company's Twitter account for Spain,

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If you're a VR fan and desperate for yet another subscription service to sign up to, you're in luck! Meta has announced - and launched - Meta Quest+, a new subscription package promising access to "the best titles" on its virtual reality platforms.

Meta Quest+ isn't quite the Game Pass or PlayStation Plus Extra-style smorgasbord you might be envisaging, however; instead, it'll give subscribers access to two "handpicked VR titles" each month from a selection of Quest's "biggest hits, hidden gems, and back-catalog classics".

Meta Quest+ is available to Quest 2 and Quest Pro users, and costs £7.99/$7.99 USD a month or £59.99/$59.99 annually - a savings of over 37%, Meta notes. Curious sorts can get their first month's subscription for £1/$1 as long as they sign up before 31st July.

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Closing in on three years since its announcement, Microsoft's Perfect Dark reboot is still nowhere to be seen, and a new report claims a succession of unfortunate setbacks has lead to "little meaningful progress" on the project since its 2020 unveiling.

When Microsoft revealed its Perfect Dark reboot for Xbox during The Game Awards in December 2020, it confirmed the project was being developed by The Initiative, the Santa Monica-based studio founded by Crystal Dynamics veteran Darrell Gallagher.

Since then, sporadic reports have suggested something of a tumultuous journey for the project; Crystal Dynamics was brought in to assist The Initiative in September 2021, game director Dan Neuburger departed the studio in March last year, and an exodus of over 30 key staff was reported shortly after - causing head of Microsoft Studios Matt Booty to insist the game wasn't in trouble during a panel talk in September 2022.

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Xbox, along with Warner Bros. Pictures and Mattel, is bringing exclusive Barbie content to Forza Horizon 5.

Forza Horizon 5 players will be gifted two cars inspired by the upcoming Barbie film - a classic 1956 Chevrolet Corvette EV Corvette, driven by Margot Robbie's Barbie (see image above), and a 2022 GMC Hummer EV Pickup as favoured by Ryan Gosling's Ken.

Both cars can be downloaded from Forza Horizon 5's in-game Message Centre. They will then appear in your garage, ready for you to hit the road (or track).

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On the surface, Payday 3 isn't a sequel that radically changes the series' established formula. Instead, it improves on what was already good about Payday 2, and makes the series' heisting action feel far more believable. Starbreeze has always said it wanted to make the ultimate criminal fantasy game and, from what I played at a recent hands-on event, it definitely feels like Payday 3 takes a big step in the right direction.

The two missions I played during my hands-on included a traditional bank heist and a raid on an art gallery, the latter of which was tailored more towards players who prefer the stealthy approach. You can watch 4K gameplay from both of these missions, along with stealthy and loud playthroughs of the bank mission in my preview video below.

The first difference you'll notice is the change of location. Gone are the bank vaults of Washington DC, as the action is now all set in New York. As you might expect, this change of place brings with it a brand new collection of buildings to ransack.

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Another week, another DF Direct Weekly, and we kick off our show with 'reaction to the reaction' to our Final Fantasy 16 review. Square-Enix delivers a beautiful, visually accomplished game but one that is (in our opinion at least) best played in its 30fps quality mode. There is a 60fps alternative, but performance is highly variable and resolution takes a substantial hit. In our show this week, my colleague John Linneman suggests that the game may have been developed with 30fps in mind and that the performance mode was added later, explaining why it seems like a poor fit for the content. I'm inclined to agree.

Final Fantasy 16 is not a cross generational game, meaning that its visuals were designed from the ground-up with the features and performance of the PlayStation 5 specifically in mind - and that's important. We've perhaps been spoiled by so many games arriving with performance modes because they were primarily designed to accommodate the last generation of console hardware. In this scenario, the CPU and GPU power of the new machines makes doubling up on performance while improving resolutions and features a lot simpler. However, to push visuals to the next level, those same console resources need to work more intensively, meaning that 60 frames per second is not always possible.

Warner Bros' Minecraft movie adaption will be filmed in New Zealand, with production kicking off on 7th August.

That's according to KFTV, which reports that Minecraft: The Movie will focus on the "malevolent Ender Dragon who sets out on a path of destruction".

Thankfully, however, a group of brave and "unlikely" adventurers, headed up by a yet to be named young girl, will "set out to save the Overworld" from the dragon's wrath.

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As we learned in May, from an FAQ provided by developer Remedy, Alan Wake 2 will only have a digital release when it launches on October 17th later this year, with "no plans" for a physical release on disc at the time.

This has naturally sparked some concern among certain fans, with digital-only downloads posing issues for both game preservation, as shown by the closure of the Nintendo 3DS eShop in March this year, as well as ownership rights, exemplified by the infamously de-listed survival horror spinoff PT.

Speaking to Eurogamer at Summer Games Fest earlier this month, Alan Wake 2's creative director Sam Lake and game director Kyle Rowley gave us a little more detail on the reasoning behind going digital-only, explaining that, actually, it was to allow Remedy more time to polish the game to an acceptable level - something publisher Epic Games had also been on board with.

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It's been eight years - eight years! - since Pikmin creator and Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto announced the existence of Pikmin 4 to Eurogamer back in 2015. Now, excitingly, it's just a few weeks away. Was the version Miyamoto had in mind back then similar to the one I've now played? How did the project change over the years since? I'd love to know, as Pikmin 4 is certainly a different beast from its immediate predecessor on Wii U. Changes have indeed been made - and nearly all for the better - as the Pikmin series looks back to the best of the series' past while ultimately seeking a more modern approach overall, with its eyes set on securing a wider audience.

For those new to Pikmin, the series has always offered a cute-looking experience with a deeper layer of strategy underneath - one that requires planning and skill to maximise both your time and available Pikmin reserves in order to explore garden-like environments, defeat bug and bird-like enemies, collect resources and treasures - and crucially to do so within a limited time frame. With your worker ant-like Pikmin able to be grown and replenished fairly easily, strategic time management is where Pikmin's greatest challenges often lay - both in terms of maximising what can be done during each in-game 15-minute day before you must scurry back to safety, and in the limited days remaining to complete your overall goal. For Pikmin 4, it feels like Nintendo has worked to soften this challenge - to make the game's skill level better match its friendly-looking visuals - or, at least, that's the case early on.

An update to Sonic Frontiers has added extra momentum options in addition to a new spin dash, making the blue blur more satisfying than ever to control.

The update was launched after last week's Sonic Central showcase to celebrate the hedgehog's birthday.

Fans have praised the new options and have been sharing some wild stunts on social media.

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The Yakuza Complete Series - which comprises of seven games from Yakuza 0 through to Yakuza 6: The Song of Life - recently released on GOG. However, along with this release, changes have been made to the games' credits, with several former Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio staff members and entire support studios not being acknowledged for their work on the series.

As spotted by Timo653 over on Reddit, developers such as series creator Toshihiro Nagoshi and producer Daisuke Sato - who both left Sega several years ago to form Nagoshi Studio, a subsidiary of NetEase Games - are no longer credited for their work on the games.

Meanwhile, the entirety of Lab42 (which worked on 0 and Kiwami 1, helping to bring these games to PC) and QLOC (which worked on Kiwami 2 to 6) have also seen their credits removed.

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In Eurogamer's Star Wars Jedi: Survivor review, Chris Tapsell had a lot of fun picking apart the ways various action games present genre-standard mechanics, such as parrying. "In God of War the entire game around you slows, warps, and your shield returns the blow with some almighty elastic snap," he wrote. "In Sekiro a parry is a small chip on the enemy's stance gauge - the real health bar of Sekiro - one of a dozen rapid, immaculately-timed strikes you might have to land just right."

I like videogame criticism that lingers on vicious little details like these. The most popular games rely heavily on quite a small collection of commercially proven concepts and themes, which makes it easy to skim the delicate touches that set individual works apart. Sometimes, those smaller tweaks and flourishes are more functional and contained - a touch of slow mo for your parry, to make the combat system slightly easier to master than its nearest competitors. But in careful hands, they can give you the soul of the game.

Death of a Wish from Colin Horgan, aka Melessthanthree, feels like one such game, a hack and slash that retunes the staple mechanics of combos, dodges and parries to further a story about overthrowing a torrid metaphysical world. It's a follow-up to Horgan's LUCAH: Born of a Dream, which I got embarrassingly overwrought about way back in 2019.

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A Bethesda Twitter account has stated that Starfield's physical editions will not include a disc - although this message has now been removed.

The tweet, posted by @BethesdaSupport earlier today, stated that "all physical editions include a code for the chosen platform" and that there would be "no physical discs".

The message has since been deleted, but is still available to view via Wayback Machine. A screenshot has also been provided below.

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Blizzard is currently experiencing a "DDoS attack", preventing players from logging into Diablo 4 and other games such as World of Warcraft.

In a message posted to the Blizzard customer services account, the company said it was "currently investigating an issue affecting our authentication servers, which may result in failed or slow login attempts" and preventing players from getting online.

According to screenshots posted to the Diablo 4 subreddit, players are also receiving notifications on Battle.net, which state that "we are currently experiencing a DDoS attack, which may result in high latency and disconnections for some players. We are actively working to mitigate this issue".

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Thank God for air conditioning. Here in the UK there's a bit of a heat wave going on at the moment and without it there's no way I'd have gone anywhere near my PSVR2 this week, let alone played a full-body immersion VR game like C-Smash VRS.

I realise I'm in the air-con owning minority where I live though, so I can't help but think that maybe, just maybe, launching an intensly physical VR game like this one at this time of year may hurt its sales figures a bit. Which is a shame because C-Smash VRS is a lot of fun. But honestly, it's not fun enough to risk your health for.

Now obviously the above criticism doesn't apply to countries with easy access to aircon and whose houses are built to keep heat out rather than keep it in, that's mainly a European problem. Even still, please do bear in mind that I did feel a bit of sweat run down my face after about 30 minutes of play time, even with my aircon unit set to 20°C.

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Mortal Kombat's signature "quitalities" are back.

Content creator and fighting game pro Ryan "Ketchup" Neal caught just one example during this weekend's console stress test when his opponent quit at the start of the second round.

Neal shared a video of the animation on Twitter with the message: "Ten minutes into the MK1 Stress Test, and I've already had my first QUITALITY. It's good to be back?"

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A Blizzard dev wants to "clear up" the confusion around some of Diable 4's rarest unique items.

Adam Jackson, Diablo 4's lead class designer, revealed that the six rarest unique items – Andariel’s Visage, Doombringer, Harlequin Crest, Melted Heart of Selig, Ring of Starless Skies, and The Grandfather – can drop "anywhere you can get a regular unique", but confirmed that they are "realllly rare" and there are currently only "six of them in the game".

"Hello! I wanted to clear up some details on the rarest Unique items in Diablo 4," Jackson tweeted. "1. They can drop from level 85+ enemies 2. You get them anywhere you can get a regular Unique, and they always drop at 820 ipower 3. We currently have 6 of them in the game 4. They're realllly rare!"

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The latest Sons of the Forest patch introduces drivable golf carts, decorative animal heads, and a new boss battle and end-game cutscene.

Along with the usual list of quality-of-life and bug fixes, Endnight Games' latest patch, Patch 07, continues to build on the survival horror's impressive launch by introducing several new features, as well as improving the hitherto stark environs to the east side of the map. Oh, and there are new dedicated servers, too.

"This patch adds a new boss battle along with a new cutscene to the end of the game, as well as drivable golf carts, a rifle which can be found in one of the caves, frogs that sit on lily pads and chirp, the ability to chop heads off dead animals and use them as wall decorations, a bunch of stone building improvements and lots more," the development team explains.

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One of horror's most iconic figures is making a comeback: Slender Man.

Whilst, as yet, developer Blue Isle Studios is keeping tight-lipped on what's next for the supernatural being, the team recently dropped a tweet teasing a return for the creepypasta mascot a full decade after Slender: The Arrival.

Born by way of an internet urban legend in 2009, Slender Man has popped up in many fan-made and indie horror games, but his most notable in-game appearances include Slender: The Eight Pages in 2012 and 2013's Slender: The Arrival before a highly-publicised stabbing incident and moral panic saw the fictional entity go dark for several years.

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Escape From Tarkov developer Battlestate Games has vowed to ban "all personalities" found to have datamined "information that is intentionally hidden from users" and any players who share it.

In a statement, the studio defined what it believed datamining to be – the practice of "extracting information from massive datasets" and "illegal infiltration of in-game code and databases in order to extract information that is intentionally hidden from users" – and said that "in-game accounts involved in datamining and/or sharing data originating from datamining" will be banned, and "further actions taken afterwards".

"Throughout the past few years, there was an increase of datamined information circling around various websites as well as accounts on social media," the team explains. "While some players believe that the developers of Escape from Tarkov are not sharing information about hidden changes of the game, we also would like to remind that any data retrieval without official permission is a direct breach of [...] the license agreement."

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The Elder Scrolls 6 is unlikely to release for at least "five-plus" years.

That's according to Xbox boss Phil Spencer, who recently confirmed that the latest instalment of the highly-anticipated RPG series was still "five-plus years away".

As reported by Axios' Stephen Totilo – who had been live-tweeting the outcomes from day two of the US antitrust agency the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)/Microsoft court case all yesterday – Spencer was "asked a lot" about how Microsoft decides platform exclusivity, with much of the questioning framed around Bethesda's parent company, ZeniMax.

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Even if you're not a mechanical keyboard fanatic, it's fun to keep tabs on what's happening in this famously creative and competitive cottage industry. Previously, we spotted the debut of gasket-mounted and foam-filled keyboards that upgraded the typing experience, plus some truly strange layouts all the way down to tiny 40 percent size options that fit in a jeans pocket. New for 2023? It's tiny full-colour displays, eye-catching hues and powerful knobs - if the keyboards I've been testing recently are any indication.

Here are short reviews of the six most interesting keyboards that have passed over my desk so far in 2023, from sci-fi designs with cruel and unusual colour schemes to hearty, tank-like models made even heavier with the addition of brass weights. You might not find your keyboard here, but some of the trends pioneered by these more boutique brands are sure to arrive on more mainstream designs too - so take a look at the future, in roughly ascending order:

After testing quite a few tasteful keyboards last year with stylish, retro-inspired designs, I was happy to see the Nubia Redmagic GK001J - a keyboard that runs shamelessly headlong into the gamer aesthetic.

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Mortal Kombat 1's stress test scalpers are selling their codes online.

Mortal Kombat 1's stress test – a finite testing period designed to "deliberately stress [NetherRealm's] online infrastructure and identify potential issues" ahead of its launch later this year – is currently underway.

As the test is private and open only to pre-selected players, scalpers are trying their luck and flogging their codes, even though the test is free and only running this weekend, closing at 4pm BST/8am PDT on Monday, 26th June.

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For all its emphasis on nightmarish mystery and confounding dream logic, Alan Wake 2 sounds frightfully coherent. Like a lot of media that high-budget games often seek to embody, Alan Wake 2's development seems to have been focused from top to bottom on its story - or at least that's how it's sounded, from my recent conversation with creative director Sam Lake and game director Kyle Rowley, plus an extended demo of it in action behind closed doors.

As you've probably already heard, Alan Wake 2 will be a survival horror game, rather than the action game that was the series' original, and the team at Remedy had quite specific reasons for it. Part of that is a response to the original Alan Wake's reception - there was some "dissonance," as Rowley put it to me, in the amount of combat Alan Wake featured considering its apparent focus on narrative - but it's also just a better fit for the story of Alan Wake 2 itself.

"Horror gives us a slower tempo," Lake said. "Less combat, through the whole experience, meaning that we can spend time on building it up. And then the actual combat is a bigger event, which means we can add strategic elements, resource management into it, and make it really intense." And then because there are fewer encounters, he continued, that means you're able to have a wider variety of enemies and boss fights as well.

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It's almost time for American Truck Simulator to cross over a new state line as SCS Software readies its new Oklahoma expansion for release - and in the run-up to its arrival, the studio has shared a soothing 15-minute drive through its digital reimagining of the Sooner State.

Oklahoma will be American Truck Simulator's 13th explorable state when it makes its eventual debut - it joins California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Texas - and promises a tour of "wonderful state parks, several natural marvels, and historical places full of mysteries and legends."

You can get a brief taste of the expansion's highways, byways, and sweeping vistas in SCS Software's newly released Oklahoma gameplay preview trailer below - which, as ever, is basically video game ASMR, so dim the lights, grab a pillow, and let your cares drift away amid the gentle murmur of digital wheels on digital tarmac.

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Inside Eurogamer is a monthly podcast that takes you behind the scenes at Eurogamer, where the people who work here talk about what we do, how we do it, and why. Inside Eurogamer is exclusive to Eurogamer Supporters, and you can become a supporter for £3/€3/$3 a month, for this and for many other benefits besides.

For years now, we've been bringing you coverage from the biggest gaming events on the calendar, be it E3 - the annual epicentre of it all - or its Summer Game Fest stand-in, or Gamescom, the Game Developers Conference, the Tokyo Game Show, BlizzCon, QuakeCon, PAX, EGX and the myriad other conferences and events which fill the schedule the year around.

There are so many - or there were, pre Covid - that it was possible to be at an event every couple of weeks if someone really wanted to. I think Rami Ismail, the co-founder of Vlambeer and general indie development figurehead, probably has done it. I used to see him everywhere I went.

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Stadia, Google's most recent high-profile foray into gaming, might have been notable flop, but the company isn't giving up on games just yet; the Wall Street Journal is reporting Google is now looking to incorporate playable online games into YouTube.

The initiative - which Google is reportedly branding Playables - will enable users to instantly play online games via YouTube's website or via its mobile apps on iOS and Android.

Citing an email sent to Google employees, The Wall Street Journal says the project is currently being testing internally, and that staff are now being invited to participate in the process.

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With Konami's Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 officially announced but still readying for its launch this October, it might seem premature to be discussing Vol. 2 - but here we are with apparent word of at least some of what it'll contain, including Metal Gear Solid 4.

It all started after Twitter user Nitroid began poking around the Metal Gear portal website and noticed a spot of oddness with Konami's updated Metal Gear timeline.

The gist of the discovery is that Konami's revised graphic featured a number of inactive buttons for old games pointing to new pages, leading to speculation that these particular titles - Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, and Metal Gear Solid 5 - were being primed for a re-release as part of a Master Collection Vol. 2.

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As part of a special Sonic the Hedgehog birthday showcase, Sega has revealed a new Lego Dr. Eggman set arriving alongside four previously announced sets on 1st August this year.

Lego formally unveiled its second wave of Sonic the Hedgehog sets back in April, confirming an August arrival for Amy's Animal Rescue Island, Sonic's Speed Sphere Challenge, Sonic's Green Hill Zone Loop Challenge, plus Tails' Workshop and Tornado Plane.

However, the promotional video released alongside the April announcement teased a fifth Dr. Eggman themed set, and now, two months on, all has been revealed.

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Famed writer Stephen King granted Remedy the rights to use his infamous quote that opens the original Alan Wake for the nominal sum of just $1.

Alan Wake memorably begins with a voiceover from the game's main character quoting King in a description of what nightmares really mean.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Remedy boss Sam Lake revealed he had "really, really, desperately wanted" to be able to open the game with a quote from King himself - whose style matches much of the spooky supernatural horror that follows.

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It's time to pop on party hats and toot appreciatively at Sonic the Hedgehog to celebrate his latest birthday - and Sega is doing something similar in its own way with the release of a free content update for Sonic Frontiers, introducing a New Game Plus mode and more.

A special birthday update for Sonic Frontiers has been on the cards for some time now, having been announced as part of an expansive post-launch support roadmap at the end of last year. Now, however, with Sonic's big day finally here, we've got a clearer idea of what it'll bring.

For starters, the ordinarily rather drab world of Sonic Frontiers gets a splash of birthday cheer, festooned with the likes of balloons, wrapping paper, and other decor. Additionally, there's a jaunty party hat outfit for Sonic so everyone can properly get in the mood.

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Almost three years after the release of Cyberpunk 2077, its expansion Phantom Liberty was unveiled at Xbox Showcase 2023. Set to release on the 26th September, it's worth stressing Phantom Liberty is the only expansion currently planned for the game - and it's being developed just for PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC this time. With the game unshackled from last-gen machines there's a unique opportunity here to push graphical boundaries - to create a more detailed, complex slice of Night City. Conveniently enough, we received high quality gameplay footage of PS5, Series X and PC running through the same mission, making a first look possible ahead of release - from PS5 vs Series X comparisons to PC-exclusive special features and console performance.

Horizon Forbidden West now has a memorial to commemorate actor Lance Reddick.

Reddick, who played Sylens in both this game and its predecessor, passed away earlier this year aged 60.

In the latest update for the game, players have now discovered a fresh memorial situated on an island visited in the game's DLC Burning Shores. It's an official homage to the late actor, added by developer Guerilla.

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You can now play as The Witcher's Ciri and Yennefer of Vengerberg in Fortnite, following the addition of main man Geralt at the end of last year.

The pair arrive in Fortnite today ahead of The Witcher's third season of episodes arriving on Netflix next week, on Thursday 29th June.

Ciri and Yennefer both appear in their Witcher 3 game guises, with Ciri able to wield the Zireael Sword as a pickaxe that causes her hands to glow.

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Diablo 4's seasonal content will require players to create a new character - a fact that's dividing fans of the game.

Blizzard previously detailed its plans for seasonal content (which begins next month) in a blog post but failed to mention the need for a new character.

However, Diablo franchise general manager Rod Fergusson has now confirmed the requirement, while responding to a fan via Twitter.

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Bungie has at last served up some backstory for The Traveller, Destiny's long-running space moon/golfball thing which has been floating above Earth for much of the past decade.

Destiny 1, which launched almost nine years ago, introduced The Traveller as a mysterious dormant entity that previously held magical powers, as well as the ability to hold back the ominous-sounding Darkness.

Where had it come from? What were the nature of its powers? Was the Traveller actually a bad guy? I remember wondering all of these things as I looked up at the orb from Destiny's first Tower hub.

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Hello! This week's Game of the Week is Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life. It's a farming simulator and a remake - the third remake! - of the first game that our reviewer Lottie can remember counting down the days for. It seems like a proper treat, with judicious tweaks but nothing that alters the texture of the original too much. I will give it a go at some point.

Even if the remake hadn't completely nailed the job, games like Story of Seasons are always worth thinking about. I remember reading EDGE in the early 2000s, and a game like this - or a game like Animal Crossing - would always stand out. They seemed so different. What's that? Where does it come from? How does it work?

I suspect the reason - for me at least - why farming simulators and Animal Crossing type stuff always felt so strange and new is because my introduction to console games was mainly in the form of platformers and other side-scrollers. Looking back at it now, videogames, from the early days of home computers even, were games that saw me going somewhere. I started on the left of the screen and moved to the right. I scrolled or the screen switched or whatever, but staying put was never an option. Onwards! Movement! Run!

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Matthew McConaughey was once in the running to play Joel in HBO's TV adaptation of The Last of Us.

Rumours that McConaughey, along with Mahershala Ali, were both in talks for the part were discussed by Josh Horowitz on his Happy Sad Confused podcast (thanks IGN). Here, The Last of Us' TV showrunner Craig Mazin confirmed he had spoken with McConaughey about playing Joel.

"I actually never talked to Mahershala," he confirmed. "I did talk to Matthew. I wouldn't say that it was serious, it was more of just like, 'Hey, here's something we can talk about'."

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Sony was never seriously worried about losing access to Call of Duty if Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard, a bombshell email revealed last night has suggested.

The message, sent by PlayStation boss Jim Ryan, was quoted in court by Xbox last night as the US Federal Trade Commission began its hearing into Microsoft's attempted $68.7bn Activision Blizzard buyout.

"It is not an exclusivity play at all," Ryan wrote in an email to former PlayStation Europe boss Chris Deering. "They're thinking bigger than that.

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