Eurogamer

Sony's chief executive Kenichiro Yoshida has warned that cloud gaming is technically "very tricky" but the company is up for taking on the challenge.

Sony will study "various options" around streaming games, even using its AI agent GT Sophy to enhance cloud gaming, said Yoshida in an interview with the Financial Times.

"I think cloud itself is an amazing business model, but when it comes to games, the technical difficulties are high," said Yoshida. "So there will be challenges to cloud gaming, but we want to take on those challenges."

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Street Fighter 6 is off to a strong start, and has clocked up a million players already following its launch weekend.

Capcom announced the player milestone via Twitter this morning, and celebrated the news with a piece of congratulatory artwork - which you can see above.

Total sales for the Street Fighter series to date have now exceeded 50m units, Capcom also said.

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Microsoft marketing exec Aaron Greenberg has teased what fans should expect to see - and what they won't - at the upcoming Xbox Games Showcase and Starfield Direct, coming as part of this year's Summer Games Fest 2023.

Responding to Xbox fans via Twitter, Greenberg said that "none of our first-party games in the show are full CG trailers". There will also be "no movie or TV show trailers in our games show," he added.

Sony was criticised by some fans for using CG footage in its recent PlayStation Showcase. That event also included a trailer for Sony's upcoming Gran Turismo movie.

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These days the term 'bullet hell' gets thrown around a little too enthusiastically, and not only in the 2D shooter space.

Thanks to the genre's now entrenched renaissance, the label has transcended its former status as part of the lexicon of a niche online community, evolving into part of the everyday language of gaming more broadly. And so it is that marketers today eagerly pack press releases with claims that a new FPS or roguelike action-RPG brings 'bullet hell' delights.

In truth, 'bullet hell' describes a very specific type of shooter, where overwhelmingly dense curtains of enemy firepower, diminutive hitboxes, aggressive difficulty, cavernous scoring complexity and frenetic pacing are all present. Others might tell you that a certain visual style defined by ornate pixel-based sprite work and gaudy firepower are equally defining.

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Remember last week when rumours began swirling that we'd get new trailers from the numerous Silent Hill projects "really soon, before June"? Well, we did, albeit just one thus far – Silent Hill: Ascension.

Ascension was one of the more mysterious projects announced alongside the news that Bloober Team was remaking Silent Hill 2, and there's not been much else said about it since, despite the release date originally pointing to early 2023.

Now, however, we've got an "official trailer" – which is more than we had last time – and confirmation that it's still on track to release at some point later this year.

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Microsoft is reportedly considering withdrawing Activision from the UK in a bid to bypass the country's merger block.

According to a new Bloomberg (£) and spotted by VGC, Microsoft president Brad Smith plans to meet UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to discuss firsthand the company's frustration at the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) decision to block the $69bn acquisition.

Though in the UK for a talk about regulating AI, Smith also hopes to hold private discussions with the Chancellor, including, according to a spokesperson, "the proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard as we remain committed to finding creative and constructive ways to address remaining regulatory concerns".

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Microsoft has allegedly stepped in and deleted an Xbox achievement after players complained that it was unobtainable.

Casual farming sim Homestead Arcana came to Xbox Game Pass in April, complete with the usual 30+ achievements that reward working your way through the game's story and various activities.

However, it didn't take long for players to realise that one of the achievements – called "You Can't Be Too Prepared" – was proving difficult to complete, as it requires players to craft every item in the game at least once.

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Capcom wants your help in deciding what Resident Evil game next gets the remake treatment.

In a new survey circulated to Resident Evil fans, Capcom first polls your thoughts on its social media channels and gauges how much you use and appreciate its community efforts.

But right at the end, once you've fed back on its various channels and websites, it asks two more questions: "Please let us know any opinions/comments you may have about the activities on the various [Resident Evil websites]" and "Let us know if there are any other Resident Evil games you want remade".

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As a huge lover of horror games, I believe that there is no better way to experience them than in VR. With that in mind, I’ve decided to rank all 12 currently available PSVR2 horror games from worst to best. This way all you fellow horror-heads out there will be able to know which VR nightmares to embrace with your face and which to avoid like a hungry alien on Sevastopol station.

You'll find the video version of this list just above these words if you want to watch some lovely trailer gameplay while I natter over the top of them. In that video I've also judged these PSVR2 horror games on how scary they are too so, if you'd like to hear approximately 35 fart sound effects, this week's episode of Ian's VR Corner is the place to go. Enjoy!

There was a lot of hype behind the recently released horror-puzzle game Hello Neighbour VR: Search and Rescue, but unfortunately it launched onto PSVR2 in such a terrible state that it’s currently almost impossible to complete thanks to a catalogue of game breaking bugs and progression issues.Not only that though, it also has incredibly poor performance and the lack of some of the most basic VR functionality going. I mean, no smooth turn option at all? What were the developers thinking?

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Grand Theft Auto 5's latest updates are here, and buried in the "action-packed update" is confirmation that Rockstar has finally introduced a hold-to-sprint alternate sprint control to your Settings Menu.

The update comes a decade after the game first debuted back in 2013, and means you no longer bruise your thumb as you spam the run button, tearing through Los Santos.

As spotted by TheGamer, that's not the only quality-of-life improvement making its debut, either. Rather than claim all of your destroyed vehicles from Mors Mutal Insurance individually, you'll now find an option to get it all over with at once. You can also add custom description tags in your garages to "help quickly locate your favourite rides", and believe it or not, snow is also making its long-awaited debut in Creator.

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The Diablo 4 team says it has "been diligently monitoring [our] feedback" and has revealed what's changing as it rolls out its next patch of fixes.

Patch 1.0.2d is now live across all platforms and ushers in "balance adjustments" to classes.

"We’ve made some balance adjustments to Classes and want to provide our reasoning behind them," Blizzard explains in the patch notes. "Overall, we're quite happy with the performance of our Classes, but we know there is always room for improvement. Our goal behind these changes is to create a better balanced and enjoyable experience across the board.

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One of the original programmers who was part of the volunteer effort to bring the Restored Content mod to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 – The Sith Lords says Aspyr Media "did nothing wrong" when it cancelled the DLC for Switch.

Aspyr Media revealed on Friday that Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 – The Sith Lords' highly-anticipated DLC, Restored Content, would now not be coming to Nintendo Switch after all. The team did not explain why the DLC would "not be moving forward", and would not offer refunds either, instead choosing to offer a complimentary key for one of seven other Star Wars games.

As fans responded to the news, modder zbyl2 – who helped bring the Restored Content mod to PC in the first place – popped up in a comment on the KOTOR subreddit, saying: "Aspyr did nothing wrong. Quote me on that. Shame it ended the way it did".

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UPDATE 6/6/23: The licensing issue affecting Diablo 4 players on PlayStation 5 has been fixed.

As below, a message was previously posted on the forum by community manager PezRadar stating the issue had been addressed, though for some players it persisted.

Blizzard has not offered an official statement, but Eurogamer understands the issue has now been fully resolved.

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The reason I love videogames, I think, is that every few years they absolutely flatten me. They destroy my sense of what's possible and replace it with something new and weird. Impossible Mission did this back on the Commodore 64 - a game, but so stylish, so transporting! (I would not have framed it that way at the time; I was probably six or so.) And then Wonder Boy 3 came along, a platformer in which left and right didn't matter - you could go anywhere.

This chain of little explosions never really ended, but maybe it did slow down a bit. The opening to Another World - actually Another World in its entirety, its sense of what gameplay could be. The sheer visual delight of Jet Set Radio. And more recently, VR.

VR absolutely astonished me. And yet I didn't expect it to. I thought at the time that it was going to be a tech thing - a thing that would impress me but leave me slightly cold, like an Unreal graphics demo. But when Oculus arrived in our office I found myself itching to unpack it. I then had a week of just screwing around with it, one of my favourite weeks in all the years of doing this job. And it turned out VR wasn't a tech thing at all. Or rather, tech had allowed for something that did not feel like tech, like frame-rates and fidelity and all that jazz that I love, but which generally goes over my head. Tech had allowed for something toylike and - that word again - transporting. As with Impossible Mission, Wonder Boy, as with Jet Set Radio's Tokyo-to, I was leaving my desk and arriving somewhere new.

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Street Fighter 6 players are struggling to access their deluxe and ultimate edition extras on PS5… while others are struggling to play at all.

Just hours after the game released, players flocked to the game's subreddit and social media channels, reporting that despite having forked out for the fighter's pricier editions, the game was stubbornly locking them out of the deluxe and ultimate edition's DLC and extras.

"There seems to be some kind of ongoing problem with either the PS5 deluxe and ultimate editions or DLC in general," posits one Reddit mod, linking to a possible workaround".

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Remember last week when Team17 revealed a mysterious new game without telling us anything about it? Well, now we know it's an all-new turn-based tactics war game called Classified: France '44.

Team17 Digital and Absolutely Games says the game is inspired by "the untold story" of the Jedburghs, "a group of heroic Allied special forces dropped behind enemy lines", and the "disparate brave Resistance groups" working across France in the lead-up to the Normandy Landings on D-Day.

Here, check out this new teaser:

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Tender Claws has dropped an all-new trailer for its upcoming Stranger Things VR game, called – predictably enough – Stranger Things VR.

The stylised game sees you play the part of villain Vecna as you battle monsters, "conquer minds", and exact your revenge. You can check it out in the teaser below:

The game's premise is simple enough: "Players will invade the dreams and memories of fan-favourite characters and harness telekinetic powers to possess minds and battle creatures, as Henry Creel’s transformation into Vecna and his influence on the events of prior seasons is revealed."

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After years of uncertainty and anticipation, System Shock has made its triumphant return and this remake is even better than I could have hoped. This Unreal Engine remake carefully straddles the line between modern and retro gaming, delivering a heartfelt interpretation of a classic. To give a better sense of what developer Nightdive has accomplished, we'll compare the remake to the original, explore its history and share some thoughts on performance too. This might be one of the best remakes ever made.

System Shock was originally developed by Looking Glass Technologies, a small Massachusetts studio known for its innovation. They pioneered a genre now known as the immersive sim, where players are plunged into a world where choices matter, problems can be solved systematically and thinking outside the box can be critical to success. The original Ultima Underworld games contained the genesis of this idea, but System Shock would be the studio's masterpiece. If you've ever played Bioshock, Prey 2017 or Deus Ex, among many others, you can thank System Shock for paving the way.

System Shock's release in 1994 may have come as a shock to players who had discovered first-person gaming through Doom and Wolfenstein, but beneath the clunky interface and abstract visuals lay a game unlike anything else on the market at the time. Facing off against the AI Shodan, you'll explore the many floors of Citadel Station non-linearly, unravelling the mystery through audio logs and emails - a fresh concept at the time.

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Diablo 4's first hotfix has nerfed the Sorcerer and Rogue classes, as well as made the monsters in later World Tiers a little trickier.

As well as the usual unspecified stability and crash fixes, a second hotfix released later that same day has also "reduced the drop rate of the Elixir of Death Evasion recipe after it's already learned", fixed items "inheriting Junk status from gems socketed into them", and addressed an issue where "Sorcerers could teleport underground in Serpent’s Passage".

The changes – which have been detailed on the official forums and the community subreddit – are live now. Here's what you can expect when you boot up today:

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Blaze Entertainment has apologised after it was forced to acknowledge that artwork accompanying the announcement of a Duke Nukem collection – shown above – for Evercade was generated by AI.

In a brief statement, CEO Andrew Byatt insisted that the studio had commissioned an artist "to produce a lead image for the new Duke Nukem 1+2 Remastered" game, but "because of "the artists' use of AI in the process", it had "fallen below the expectation and standards demanded by fans".

Fans and professional artists were immediately suspicious when the artwork was first revealed, with some providing a breakdown of why the image – reportedly designed by "professional hybrid concept artist" Oskar Manuel – looked as though it had been machine-generated.

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The director of upcoming The Texas Chain Saw Massacre game wants us to know that Hollywood licensing is "a total mess" so Gun Interactive probably can't add your favourite Texas Chain Saw character into the game.

CEO Wes Keltner broke the news on Twitter, offering a "friendly reminder" to players that despite their demands, Gun can't add just any character or location from the movie series' considerable back catalogue because it doesn't "have those rights".

"Friendly reminder. We have the interactive rights to the 1974 film. We can't put characters or locations in from other [Texas Chain Saw] films because we don't have those rights," Keltner explained. "Demanding we add them is not how Hollywood works. Licensing in general is usually a total mess."

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Aspyr Media has revealed that Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 – The Sith Lords' highly-anticipated DLC, Restored Content, will now not be coming to Nintendo Switch after all.

Whilst the team confirmed that the DLC plans would "not be moving forward", it did not offer an explanation as to why the content – which started out as a fan-made mod to restore content to the original game – had been scrapped.

After thanking the KOTOR community for its "immense passion and support for the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic series", Aspyr said: "Sadly, today we are announcing that the Restored Content DLC for the Nintendo Switch version of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 – The Sith Lords will not be moving forward for release"."

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This article contains minor spoilers for dungeons, broad plot developments and one major quest location in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

My visit to Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's Forgotten Temple began auspiciously with the tragi-comic death of my horse, Dennis. I was peering into a deep canyon north-west of Hyrule Castle, trying to work out the precise elevation of the quest waypoint on my minimap, when Dennis came charging across the grasslands and went right over the cliff, disappearing into the murk without a sound.

I plunged after him, fanning my glider a few feet from the bottom, and caught up with my valiant steed's crumpled body just as it despawned. Not in a cloud of purple smoke, as with defeated enemies - that touch of pantomime which stops Zelda's fights feeling like slaughter. My dead horse just vanished, deleted from the simulation. I felt like I'd crossed a boundary of some kind. Looking up from the space where Dennis no longer was, I found myself on a huge expanse of sandstone, cut into long blocks and raised circular designs.

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The Epic Games Store has booted Fallout: New Vegas up the bum and off its freebie list, making room for another free weekly title - which this time looks an awful lot like Midnight Ghost Hunt.

Midnight Ghost Hunt, from developer Vaulted Sky Games, is described as a "chaotic multiplayer hide-and-seek game" that casts one team of four as fearless Ghost Hunters and the other as naughty spirits intent on causing the former harm.

Ghost Hunters get the cool gadgets, as you might imagine, including a Spectrophone, Radar and Pathfinder for the spook detection bit, plus traps and vacuums to capture them, and a heap of more direct spectre-slaying tools, including sledgehammers, harpoons, and a cannon.

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Street Fighter 6 is off to a roaring start on Steam, having more than doubled the all-time record for concurrent players set by its nearest fighting game rival - and in less that 24 hours of release.

As flagged by Steam analyst Benji-Sales on Twitter, Street Fighter 6 has already secured a significant all-time concurrent peak on Valve's storefront, recorded at 66,317 players by SteamCharts at the time of writing. The figure is more than twice that of its nearest fighting competitor, Mortal Kombat 11, which currently enjoys an all-time peak of 27,301 players.

Street Fighter 6's concurrent peak is also leagues ahead of its direct predecessor, Street Fighter 5, which reached an all-time high of 13,807 players on Steam, and it's also managed to outshine the likes of Tekken 7, whose all-time peak sits at 18,766 players

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As part of its Pride Month festivities, Microsoft has made developer Don't Nod's well-received queer mystery adventure Tell Me Why free to download and keep in its entirety on Xbox and PC, in what's becoming a bit of a Pride tradition.

Tell Me Why, if you're unfamiliar, tells the story of twins Tyler and Alyson as they reunite, after several years apart, to sell their childhood home in the Alaskan town of Delos Crossing.

Their troubled past begins to resurface, though, and the slick mystery thriller gains a distinctly supernatural tinge (this is very definitely a spiritual sibling to Don't Nod's Life is Strange 1 & 2), but Tell Me Why never loses sight of the beauty and warmth in the relationship between its twin protagonists, even if it doesn't quite reach the memorable highs of its forebears.

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Hey again! We're currently looking for someone with the talent, ambition and experience to be the next Deputy Editor of Eurogamer. Perhaps that's you?

As the site's previous Dep Ed, I can say it's a job with a great mix of responsibility and freedom. The successful candidate will be someone able to assist in steering the site's direction, while still regularly writing and generating ideas themselves - and helping others around the site do so.

We're looking for a seasoned writer and editor able to uphold Eurogamer's unique style and values, as well as someone keen to make their mark on the website.

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Electronic Arts is partnering with sports brand Nike on its web3-enabled .Swoosh "digital community experience".

The partnership will allow for "immersive experiences" and "brand new levels of customisation" within EA's sports games.

Further, "in future EA Sports titles, EA Sports and Nike plan to make select .Swoosh virtual creations available allowing members and players unique new opportunities for self-expression and creativity through sport and style."

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UPDATE 7TH JUNE: What. A. Thread. I've laughed, I've been watery-eyed, and I've been taken back to the carefree days of my childhood. To everyone who took part, thank you. Seriously, thank you.

It's taken me a long time to decide upon a winner because there are so many brilliant memories. I've said it before about the Zelda and Star Wars memories and I'll say it about the Street Fighter memories too: if anyone ever asks you why people play games, show them the comments here. They warm my nerdy heart.

There's something slightly different about the Street Fighter memories, though. I notice themes emerging from the memories of each game, and a big one here, which is fundamental to what the game is about, is competition - and with it, rivalries. There have been some spectacular stories about overcoming challenges and beating - or being beaten by - an incumbent champion. Shout out to MrE26 (search for their names and you'll find their comments), turbografx16, Faseli and Neuroniky in this regard. Neuroniky, I really felt for you!

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Square Enix has issued a small update on Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth - the upcoming second chapter of its FF7 Remake trilogy. It's the first we've heard about the game officially since its name reveal last year.

In a statement issued via Twitter today, Rebirth producer Yoshinori Kitase confirmed development is progressing smoothly and a firm release date is now being considered. So that's nice.

Square Enix has Rebirth listed for a "winter 2023" release. Up next from the publisher is the all-new Final Fantasy 16, which is released later this month.

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I think it's fair to say that The Lord of the Rings: Gollum captured the headlines for all the wrong reasons on its debut with bugs, performance issues, an erratic camera and unreliable controls. Now on its latest 1.3 patch, I'm finally able to test the game on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S - but even with the extra attention, I haven't played a game in such a dire state for a tech review for a long time. At least not since Shadow of Mordor way back in 2014 on PS3, an infamous porting disaster.

Gollum is fundamentally flawed in ways that go way beyond its frame-rate, which isn't great. The game design is almost taken straight from the dark ages of PS2 movie license tie-ins - an era where movie franchises were invariably turned into 3D platformers with awkward controls, a disastrous camera, and in the worst cases, bugs, bugs and more bugs. Given that, the £50/$60 price is inexcusable - but there's still some interest to be found in examining exactly what's gone wrong here.

Daedelic Entertainment first announced Gollum in 2019 - an Unreal Engine project with some interesting ideas - a mixture of stealth, 3D platforming and a good versus evil judgement system. For the stealth sections you use shadows and bushes to crawl past enemy orcs, while in platforming bits you navigate caves by clambering up walls, often with mundane goals like pillaging ID tags from dead orcs. Beyond its technical failings, which we'll get onto shortly, the biggest gameplay issue is in terms of its visual design. It's often difficult to see where to go next in murky caves, to judge whether a nearby wall is climbable or whether it'll lead to Gollum plummeting to their doom.

A former Activision Blizzard employee has claimed he was fired for writing jokes parodying corporate greed in World of Warcraft.

Blizzard scribe Eric Covington says he wrote jokes "lampooning generic corporate gree" for the game's Loot Specialist loot goblin, a character working for the in-game Venture Company.

However, Covington claims Blizzard leadership then "saw a reflection" in his words, and he was swiftly fired after nine years of service.

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Is there a more tantalising genre name than "immersive sim"? It's not just a genre, it's an invitation. Get into this! It's deep and rewarding and filled with systems to understand and - perhaps - subvert. It's brainy and difficult but the attendant highs are as high as you can make them.

Anyway, System Shock is our game of the week this Friday, and with good reason. This is, to many eyes, where the genre began, a genre that, as Kaan put it beautifully in his review, inspires "consistent creative problem solving." Four words to live by, I reckon.

System Shock has aged pretty well, I gather, partly because the remake has been handled with real delicacy, based on an understanding of what needs to be updated for modern tastes and what would be cutting into the bone a little too deeply. It's also aged pretty well, though, because the genre itself has aged well. We ask a lot of games these days, and one of the things we ask most willingly is that they ask more of us. This is the kind of request that makes an immersive sim shine.

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Diablo 4 is suffering launch issues on PlayStation, due to an invalid licence error.

Numerous PlayStation users have reported the issue, in which they're unable to access the game and instead are met with the error message: "Unable to find a valid licence for Diablo 4".

Blizzard acknowledged the issue overnight via its official forum, writing: "We are seeing reports regarding PlayStation users experiencing Invalid Licence errors. The team is looking into this right now and will update once we have more information."

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EA will lay off the majority of staff at its mobile game studio Firemonkeys, a new report has revealed.

Up to two thirds of the company's workforce is expected to be let go, Kotaku Australia says.

EA top brass reportedly flew to Firemonkeys' Melbourne office to deliver the news last week. The studio had been working on multiple EA mobile game projects, including Real Racing 3, Need for Speed: No Limits and The Sims FreePlay.

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Final Fantasy 16 fans have spotted its demo on the PlayStation Store, though it's not available to download yet.

The listing, shared on reddit, suggests the demo is on the PSN and ready to go, but has only been seen by those who have pre-ordered the game in advance and when browsing on mobile. I've seen no mention of a demo on the console PSN myself.

Square Enix stated a demo was on the way, but no release date was given. So when might it arrive?

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Nintendo looks to be evoking the colour palette of the upcoming Barbie movie with a series of stylish pastel Switch Joy-Con colours.

The four new looks will come as two new pairs: Pastel Pink/Pastel Yellow and Pastel Purple/Pastel Green.

Both sets will launch on 30th June - which if you haven't already seen, is also the release date of Nintendo's quickly-announced 1-2-Switch sequel.

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Nintendo's next game release after The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a sequel to Switch launch title 1-2-Switch.

Everybody 1-2-Switch will cost just £25 - less than half the price of Zelda - and launch later this month on 30th June as a physical and digital release. Pre-orders are open now.

Artwork for the game shows you'll be able to play its mini-games using your Joy-Con controller or your smartphone. But details are thin on the ground as to what these mini-games will actually be.

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Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've found ourselves playing over the last few days. This time: Die, gobble holes and cough syrup.

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

I'm breaking the rules slightly in that I haven't actually played this yet, but it is a game I want to play, and it is a game I've been reading - or rather a game-book I've been reading in the interests of playing it.

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Final Fantasy 16 almost didn't include moogles due to the game's realistic style.

Not only was the team concerned the cute characters wouldn't fit in the world, they also impacted the game's performance mode.

"Probably the greatest challenge, on a fundamental level, was the moogle," said producer Naoki Yoshida, in a new interview on the Square Enix blog.

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