Eurogamer

Some eleven years after Diablo 3, Blizzard is back with another barnstorming hack and slash adventure. Diablo 4 is a return to the dark, realistic stylings of the first two series entries, with modern rendering tech and a focus on current-gen consoles and PC. At a glance, it's definitely a pleasing effort, especially when you consider the colossal visual leap from the prior games - but can it sustain the 60fps delivered by its predecessor? Do the new visuals take special advantage of the latest console hardware? And what about last-gen consoles?

The most impressive aspect of Diablo 4's visual presentation is the lighting. Essentially, most lights within the game world are shadow-casting, and the player gets a sort of soft frontward-facing light to illuminate the area around them that also casts shadows. The subtle play of the shadowmaps as you move through each interior space is very cool, very attractive, and very atmospheric. Light just dances through dark spaces in a really pleasing way, with softly diffused shadows moving in concert with the player character.

There are some interesting tricks going on here as well. Certain light sources showcase a kind of variable penumbra effect at times, with shadow detail falling off at range. And in some circumstances the lighting can cast multiple shadows at once off the same object. Diablo 4 isn't pushing any boundary-expanding tech here as far as I can tell, but a lot of attention has clearly gone into lighting the game, especially in the game's softly-lit, dark dungeon interiors.

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Just a week after its leap onto Mac, No Man's Sky is back with another update, this one ushering in a new limited-time expedition focusing on AI corruption and robotic uprisings - and promising hints at future updates and "a deeper story to come".

Expeditions, for those unfamiliar with No Man's Sky's ways, are something like Hello Games' stab at live-service-style seasonal content, serving up limited-time, curated experiences that condense and reshuffle the exploratory space sim's various systems into a series of progression-based milestone challenges with some nifty rewards.

Its latest expedition, Singularity, which launches today, continues the story started in April's Interceptor update (the one with weird, corrupted worlds and strange Sentinel oddities), asking players to investigate curious robot heads delivering cryptic clues across the galaxy. Its events are said to be part of a longer narrative that'll play out as the year goes on.

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UPDATE 11/6/23: Those Payday 3 leaks were right! Starbreeze Studios has confirmed its long-awaited co-op heist sequel will be launching for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam and the Epic Store on 21st September - and as a day one Game Pass title.

Payday 3's release date confirmation during the Xbox Showcase was accompanied by a first look at the game in action - so enjoy a taste of its spruced-up heisting below.

ORIGINALY STORY 7/6/23: Payday 3 looks set to arrive on 21st September, according to a new launch date which has leaked online.

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A Diablo 4 designer has confirmed that Sanctuary is in fact a round planet, not a flat world.

This may seem obvious - after all, our own planet is of course a sphere (sorry Flat Earthers) - but when so many games present a flat map, it's easy to misinterpret.

Harrison Pink, senior quest designer on the game, shared this "tiny lore nugget" on Twitter.

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The bundle building rascals at Humble are offering Ghostwire: Tokyo as part of June's Humble Choice.

In addition, this month's Choice bundle also includes Remnant: From the Ashes - Complete Edition, Curse of the Dead Gods, Eternal Threads, Honey, I Joined a Cult, GRIME, Meeple Station and Turbo Golf Racing.

As with every month, five percent of every Humble Choice membership is donated to the team's featured charity. This month's charity - in honour of Pride Month - is The Trevor Project, which is the leading suicide prevention and crisis intervention organisation for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) young people.

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Sometimes it's interesting to put genre aside and think in terms of traditions. When it comes to genre, Planet of Lana is very easy to pinpoint: it's a 2D side scrolling puzzle platformer, more specifically one that focuses on stealth and cinematic storytelling. Traditions, though? That makes it much more intriguing.

The genre stuff alone is enough is to slot this in alongside games like Inside and Somerville - games with which it also shares an apocalyptic focus. the world is being over-run by horrors! Escape if you can! All good, but traditions can be surprising, and as I played Planet of Lana I found myself thinking a little bit about the idea of masterpieces. Not masterpieces in the modern usage of the word perhaps, but in the old sense - I may have this wrong but let's go with it for now - of the piece of work someone makes to show to the world that they are very good at something.

UPDATE 8/6/23: Twitch has now removed the new Branded Content Guidelines, following a backlash from the streaming community.

In a fresh statement on Twitter, it wrote: "Yesterday, we released new Branded Content Guidelines that impacted your ability to work with sponsors to increase your income from streaming.

"These guidelines are bad for you and bad for Twitch, and we are removing them immediately."

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Amazon and Rovio have announced a new animated TV series based on the popular mobile game Angry Birds.

Angry Birds: Mystery Island will follow the escapades of three new hatchlings - Mia, Rosie, and Buddy. There is also a new foreign-exchange piglet, and his name is the rather brilliant Hamylton.

According to a press release, these four "rambunctious tweens" receive an all expenses paid island getaway, but of course things are not going to go to plan. Rather than landing where they intended, they instead get unceremoniously catapulted onto an "uncharted island" (where I assume they will meet Nathan Drake).

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Five of the Best is a weekly series for supporters of Eurogamer - if you want to become one, it's really easy to do. It's 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.

Dogs! The ultimate companions. They smell, they're messy, and they lick your face after eating fox poo. What? I've never licked someone after eating fox poo - don't look at me!

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UPDATE 9/6/23: Pokémon Go will host an apology raid event this Sunday, 11th June, allowing players another chance to try their luck finding a Shiny member of the Legendary Lake Trio.

Earlier this week, players discovered that the likelihood of finding a Shiny Legendary had been massively nerfed - after days of buying and using Remote Raid Passes. After the issue was brought to light, Niantic apologised and told Eurogamer this was due to an unfortunate error.

All Remote Raid Passes used on Lake Trio Legendary raids during this period are being refunded - which is good, because you'll need them once again on Sunday (there's no raiding them with regular passes, unfortunately).

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One major obstacle to fighting long COVID is that we're still working out what it is. In the absence of a scientific consensus on what is still an emerging medical phenomenon, the World Health Organisation defines the condition loosely as "the continuation or development of new symptoms 3 months after the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection, with these symptoms lasting for at least 2 months with no other explanation." The most common long COVID symptoms, according to the UK National Health Service, are extreme tiredness, shortage of breath, muscle aches and loss of smell. But patients may experience many other, seemingly random symptoms, from tinnitus through diarrhoea to memory loss. The condition's progression can be unpredictable, too: people may get better only to relapse weeks or months down the road.

EA has confirmed reports it's in talks to move the development of BioWare's long-running free-to-play MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic to a third-party so the studio can focus on its upcoming new Mass Effect and Dragon Age instalments.

News of EA's plans were first reported by IGN, who claimed the publisher was currently considering shifting The Old Republic's development to Broadsword Online Games, a company run by former BioWare vice president and Mythic Entertainment co-founder Rob Denton, who previously worked on the Star Wars title in its early days.

Broadsword is no stranger to MMOs, of course - its other projects include ongoing work on Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot - and IGN reported EA had already signed a letter of intent with the studio, which would see The Old Republic deal finalised "as soon as this month".

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Gameloft's wonderfully entertaining village life sim Disney Dreamlight Valley continues its early access journey tomorrow, 7th June, with the launch of its fifth major update, The Remembering, adding Cinderella's Fairy Godmother, a new Star Path reward track, and more.

The big news this time around is that the Forgotten Lands' mysterious pumpkin house, which has sat vacant amid gloomy woods since launch, will finally have an occupant as part of what Gameloft is calling Dreamlight Valley's "biggest story update yet".

To the surprise of no-one with at least a passing interest in Disney, its new occupant will be Cinderella's Fairy Godmother - who comes complete with her own set of Friendship Quests - with her arrival seemingly signalling a conclusion for Dreamlight Valley's first major story arc.

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Frontier Developments' park management sim Planet Zoo is jet-setting off to sunnier, sandier climes on 20th June, introducing the likes of dromedary camels and African crested porcupines as part of its newly announced Arid Animal Pack DLC.

Planet Zoo's Arid Animal Pack marks the game's 15th DLC expansion since its launch at the end of 2019, and - as with all Animal Packs - is predominantly focused on expanding the game's wildlife roster, this time with eight new creature additions.

Purchasers get access to the single-humped dromedary camel, the African crested porcupine, the black rhino, the addax (today I learned what an addax is!), the Somali wild ass, the sand cat, the dama gazelle, and the desert horned viper, which appears as an exhibit animal.

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343 Industries has shared more on Career Rank, Halo Infinite's previously teased new progression system, ahaed of its Season 4 arrival on 20th June.

Career Rank is described as a "larger progression system" that reflects players' time across the entirety of Halo Infinite's multiplayer modes, and is said to be similar to the progression systems found in Halo: Reach and Halo: The Master Chief Collection.

According to 343, Career Rank is tied to a player's Personal Score, meaning that while all multiplayer matches will help players rank up, better match performance means faster progress through its various tiers: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, and Onyx.

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Blizzard seems pretty chuffed with the response to Diablo 4, and is now trumpeting the fact that, not only have players cumulatively already racked up over 10,000 years of play time, Diablo 4 is also the company's "fastest-selling game of all time".

Blizzard is calculating those impressive-sounding play time figures based on the number of in-game hours players have accrued since 1st June, the date when Diablo 4 entered "early access" for those willing to pay extra for the privilege.

The company reckons over 93m hours of Diablo 4 have been played across the first four days, equating to over 10,000 years (actually more like 10,616 years according to my calculator, but who am I to quibble maths?) - or, as Blizzard puts it, the equivalent of one person "playing 24 hours a day since the beginning of human civilisation".

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It's the news you've been waiting for: I'm going to be in Pikmin 4!

And so, in fact, are you! And so is everyone else, really, thanks to the game's new character creator.

A fresh trailer for Pikmin 4 released this afternoon shows off the game's character creation toolkit, which features Mii-like hairstyles, skin tones, body types and more.

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Western Digital has announced its previously-rumoured expansion card range for Xbox Series X/S.

This is the first alternative option to the initial Seagate expansion cards made available alongside the Xbox Series X/S themselves back at launch.

WD_Black's 512GB expansion card is priced at £90 ($80), while its bigger 1TB brother clocks in at £150 ($150). Both are available to buy now via WD_Black's website.

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Capcom and Sony Pictures have announced when CGI movie Resident Evil: Death Island will be out.

The upcoming animated film was announced in February. It's a big deal for fans, as it'll mark the first time favourite characters such as Leon Kennedy and Jill Valentine are on-screen together.

The pair, as well as returning protagonists Rebecca Chambers, Chris and Claire Redfield, are brought together when investigating a number of bioweapon-related cases.

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We've got some Arcade Paradise keys to give away to yearly supporters of Eurogamer.

They're PC (Steam) keys and you can claim one by going to the "My account" section of Eurogamer (top-right on desktop site; in the Menu on mobile) and navigating to "Codes" section once there (there's another Menu on mobile that gets you there). Then, simply scroll down and find the Arcade Paradise box and claim your key.

Arcade Paradise was one of our stand-out games of 2022. I've just published an interview about Arcade Paradise that's worth checking out, too, if I don't say so myself.

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Have you played Arcade Paradise yet? It's a game about running a laundrette while building the arcade of your dreams in the back room - an arcade which eventually takes over. We loved it - it was one of our games of 2022. And if you haven't played it: good news - we're giving away Arcade Paradise game keys to supporters right now. If you have played it, well, there's new DLC to tempt you back in, but also: can you imagine the game without the laundrette? Because it very nearly didn't have one.

In fact, the original idea was to set the whole thing in a video shop, the kind you might have visited in the 90s, which, if you remember, looked like libraries of VHS boxes showing covers of films you'd probably never heard of before. A physical Netflix, if you like - and you don't know how much it pains me to say that. "You'd be working in a Blockbuster or something like that," says Andreas Firnigl, designer of the game and founder and CEO of Nosebleed, the company behind Arcade Paradise.

This idea, though, had a few problems. "A," Firnigl tells me, "to be authentic, we would have needed hundreds of video cassette covers with cool custom art and all that sort of stuff in it, because it needs to feel like here's Jaws but it's not Jaws; here's Critters but it's not Critters, and all those pastiches." Arcade Paradise is a game of pastiches - a game where the many arcade cabinets you collect are all loving riffs, let's say, on real-life machines, and part of the fun is guessing what the original inspirations were.

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Microsoft has been fined $20m by the FTC for violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

The fine is in response to the collection of personal information from children via Xbox without parents being notified or giving consent, as well as the illegal retention of that information, the FTC has said.

As a result, Microsoft is required to make a number of changes to improve privacy protection for children on Xbox.

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Diablo general manager Rod Fergusson has confirmed that two expansions are in development for Diablo 4.

Fergusson was interviewed by Kinda Funny Games and discussed the live-service format for the game and how it allows for substantial updates.

"As I sit here we're about to launch the main game, we're finishing up season one, we're working on season two, we're working on expansion one, we're kicking off expansion two," said Fergusson. "All that's happening right now and we haven't even launched the game yet."

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Nintendo has announced the next games to join its NES, SNES, and Game Boy libraries.

Switch Online members can now access Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble, Blaster Master: Enemy Below, Harvest Moon, and Mystery Tower through the subscription service.

Take a look at the compilation video below to see the games in action!

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Capcom has announced its own summer game reveal event, to take place next Monday, 12th June at 11pm UK time.

The livestream will run for "roughly 36 minutes", Capcom has said, and features "news and updates on our latest games".

No specific titles are mentioned, but it seems likely we'll see more of dinosaur shooting game Exoprimal (which is out next month) and perhaps a bit of Dragon's Dogma 2 (which we got a glimpse of last month at Sony's PlayStation Showcase).

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Thirsty Suitors is a game about how games can serve as props during difficult conversations - playful tasks that occupy your hands and impose a sense of equilibrium, while you and the other party do the tough work of airing and settling your differences. Created by Falcon Age developer Outerloop, it's a fantastical yet serious account of a queer South Asian immigrant woman reckoning with her cultural heritage, complex family life and torrid relationship history. It does this by means of a blend of gametypes that loosely resembles a traditional RPG, but unlike in most RPGs, each system exists primarily for the sake of the story.

As the tale begins, main character Jala has returned to her old Washington, USA hometown, Timber Hills, to attend her sister's wedding. She's on a journey of self-discovery following a rough break-up, beginning with the personality quiz she daydreams through on the bus - an introduction to both the game's laidback skateboarding, with Jala grinding rails between Qs and As, and her judgy inner narrator, who resembles her sister. But finding herself also means reconciling with her six ex-lovers, all still local and very much Not Over It, to say nothing of her parents, whom she hasn't seen in years. There's also the looming figure of Jala's overseas grandma Paati. She's the unseen hand behind the pop-up paramours you'll have to duel while roaming town, and from the sounds of things, she's the key individual you'll need to wrangle at your sister's wedding.

Hideo Kojima has announced Death Stranding Director's Cut will be launching for Mac later this year, with future Kojima Productions games also said to be heading to Apple's machines.

Kojima broke the news during Apple's WWDC 2023 keynote presentation, beaming onto Apple's expansive digital set to express his enthusiasm for the company's products. "I have been a die-hard Apple fan since I bought my first Mac back in 1994," Kojima explained. "It has been a dream of mine to see my team's best work come to life on the Mac."

To that end, Kojima said his studio's support for Mac would begin "later this year", with the launch of its expanded package-delivery-in-a-damp-valley extravaganza, Death Stranding Director's Cut. "This is just the beginning," Kojima added, "and we are actively working to bring our future titles to Apple platforms".

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With just days to go until the launch of Fortnite's Chapter 4 Season 3 on 9th June, Epic is steadily ramping up its teases for some of the season's big new additions, including the apparent confirmation of a previously rumoured new jungle biome.

Word that Epic might be preparing to bring a jungle biome to the latest iteration of Fortnite's map first came via leakers back in April. And a couple of recent official social media asset updates - including some art of a city bordered by vines - lent further credence to those reports.

But now, thanks to a new 8-second teaser shared on the Fortnite Twitter feed, a jungle biome is a good as confirmed. Peer closely betwixt the lettering and a brisk flyover awaits, the camera skimming over raging waters and lush, mist-shrouded tropical foliage before coming to a halt in view of some squat stone ruins perched atop a cliff.

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After years of rumour and speculation, Apple has unveiled its long-in-the-works augmented reality headset, Vision Pro, which is due to release "early next year" for $3,499 USD.

Vision Pro - which Apple is insisting on referring to as a "spatial computer" - is designed around the idea of staying "present and connected to others", whether at home or at work. Which, in more practical terms, means its entire 3D interface is built around experiencing apps and other media directly within a user's immediate environment, as viewed through its internal display.

Apps can been relocated and resized in the physical space using Apple's new VisionOS 3D interface, which is primarily controlled through a mix of voice commands, eye tracking, and hand tracking - although traditional keyboards and trackpads are compatible.

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Extensive gameplay of Ubisoft's open-world racer The Crew Motorfest has appeared online just a week ahead of its planned appearance at the publisher's Ubisoft Forward showcase.

Ubisoft unveiled The Crew Motorfest for Xbox, PlayStation, and PC back in January with a 49-second trailer featuring a handful of "in-engine" cinematics. It's a live-service game themed around a "one-of-a-kind" motoring festival, promising "tailor-made races, themed events, and other unique challenges", all taking place on the scenic Hawaiian island of O'ahu.

Since that official announcement, Ubisoft has hosted several "insider programme" closed testing sessions for registered players, with the fourth phase currently underway. It's this latest closed test that appears to have generated the spate of new gameplay videos Ubisoft is currently playing copyright-strike whack-a-mole with online.

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Capcom has been hitting it out of the park recently with its Resident Evil remakes, but what would it look like if the publisher decided to take its games in the opposite direction?

Well, you don't have to wonder any longer, thanks to a group of modders creating a Resident Evil 0 demake. The game was originally released in 2002 for the GameCube, and looks and plays similar to the HD Resident Evil remaster.

This demake for 0 does the opposite, however, and turns the game into a Resident Evil experience like that of the first three games on PlayStation 1. Footage of the project in action can be seen below, via El Rincon del Lobezno's YouTube channel, who is one of the modders involved in its creation.

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Square Enix has confirmed it has "made preparations" to ensure Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth can still be enjoyed by those who missed the first game.

Beginning at the end of last week, Square Enix has issued fresh comments on the game each day - thankfully remembering the project still exists, after nearly a year of no news.

The first comment confirmed a release date was being considered, while subsequent comments have noted that the game will have a "multifaceted world with a high degree of freedom" - which some fans are interpreting to mean "open world". Lastly, Square Enix has clarified that yes, this game will in fact contain a story and characters. Who'd have thought?

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On the face of it, last week wasn't exactly crammed with gigaton news announcements - and so we were expecting a fair light edition of DF Direct Weekly, but the announcement that Ratchet and Clank is coming to PC next month changed all of that. It may not be a game designed to appeal to the core PC audience, but how well the port turns out is crucial to the future of the PC format.

If that sounds somewhat hyperbolic, allow me to explain. The new consoles have much in common with PC: they are based on x86 processors, they use Radeon graphics and they have SSDs. These have been staple components of a mainstream gaming PC for many years before the arrival of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X in 2020. However, Ratchet and Clank leans in heavily to proprietary PS5 components and their equivalents in the PC space have yet to be established nor have they been battle-tested in a triple-A release. Ratchet and Clank looks set to change that.

Let's spell out the challenge here. Insomniac's game is built from the ground up for PlayStation 5. With its rich visuals, ultra-fast loading and portal mechanic that literally zips you between dimensions within the blink of an eye, it's heavily reliant on two aspects of the PlayStation 5: its solid-state storage and its hardware decompression blocks. The SSD streams in data at lighting speeds, the decompression blocks take care of losslessly decompressing the data for the game to use.

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Indie roguelike smash hit Dead Cells has now passed a hugely-impressive 10m copies sold.

First launched in early access back in 2017, Dead Cells is now available for PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation and Xbox, as well as on smartphone for iOS and Android.

It also remains regularly updated - and today, we heard word that Dead Cells would continue getting further updates for at least another two years, until 2025. Gosh, that sounds like the future!

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The first player to hit level 100 in Diablo 4's hardcore mode is streamer cArn_.

The streamer made the announcement on Twitter and has a Twitch clip of the moment in question, which Diablo community manager PezRadar has responded to in congratulations (thanks GamesRadar).

Ahead of the game's early release on Friday, Blizzard announced a "race event" where the first 1000 players to reach level 100 on hardcore difficulty will be "immortalised on a statue of Lilith". Now we know the first.

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I didn't think I'd close out this week being best friends with a generator, but here we are. It may be the delirium talking – I'm tired and scared and endlessly seeing things that aren't really there in the gloom of the corridors (at least, I hope they're not really there?) – but as long as I'm in here, standing next to my warm, chattering chum, I think I'll be okay.

How distressing it is, then, to know that standing beside the generator for the next few hours would be little more than a death sentence. How awful it is to know that no matter how safe you feel here, listening to the rumble of the furnace, your very survival depends on getting out and exploring the warren of tunnels and rooms that spread out from your safe space like blood from a wound. For starters, you need more fuel to keep it running. There are passcodes to find and tools to recover. Bandages, too, are required to stop the blood gushing from your dirt-encrusted fingers. Because there will be blood at some point, comrade – it's perhaps the only certainty you have down here.

Amnesia: The Bunker does an admirable job of making the titular location feel like both your cell and your sanctuary and, like the generator, it too will soon begin to feel like an old friend. Though small and tight, its claustrophobic corridors devoid of light and hope, you'll find yourself boomeranging back to the places you recognise with a rush of adrenaline and hopeless gratitude. But its confined little world will unfurl, slowly, as you creep about the place, grabbing the right keys to unlock its secrets. So creep about you must.

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The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a sequel to 2017's Breath of the Wild, and even before the game was released we knew some time had passed between the two.

How much time? That remains something of a mystery - and something Nintendo itself has shied away from providing any official timeline for.

However, I - and other fans - think we may have sussed it. Please note, there are some minor Tears of the Kingdom spoilers below.

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Developer S-Game has stated that its upcoming game Phantom Blade Zero will have no gacha mechanics or microtransactions, and will focus on being "approachable" whilst incorporating some Souls-like elements.

Phantom Blade Zero was officially announced a couple of weeks ago at Sony's PlayStation Showcase, where it gained attention for its slick wuxia-influenced combat and Souls-esque vibes.

The plot follows Soul, an elite assassin for an organisation known as The Order, as he attempts to track the person who framed him for killing the The Order's patriarch on limited time. S-Game made the comments on what players can expect in its Discord server through a series of developer Q&As.

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Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse opened in cinemas this weekend and includes a short snippet of footage of Insomniac's forthcoming Marvel's Spider-Man 2.

What's more, Insomniac community director James Stevenson has confirmed that the footage is brand new.

When fans on Resetera noted the footage wasn't in the recent PlayStation Showcase trailer, Stevenson replied: "It is new".

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As players continue to dig into the vast world of Hyrule in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, new discoveries and inventions surface every day.

The newest of these discoveries are two unused paraglider fabrics, found by dataminers.

Fabrics can be taken to the dye shop in Hateno Village, where you can customise your glider with different designs. While some fabrics can be gained by completing side quests, others are (annoyingly) locked behind scanning Amiibo.

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