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Wizards of the Coast parent company, Hasbro, is on pace to reduce approximately 1,100 job positions.
The latest round of layoffs is in addition to the nearly 800 that have already taken place across the firm.
Cospa announced that two new Naruto Shippuden and One Piece T-shirts will be available for sale at Jump Festa 2024. Both T-shirts will cost 3,500 yen (or approximately $24) and each one includes a special limited edition sticker.
The Jump Festa 2024 event will be held at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan on December 16-17, 2023. In addition, both T-shirts will also be available for purchase on the Cospa online store from January 18, 202.
The Naruto Shippuden T-shirt features protagonist Naruto Uzumaki striking a pose. The Hidden Leaf Village symbol is displayed behind him, and the caption “Village Hidden In The Leaves – Naruto Uzumaki” appears below him.
Meanwhile, the One Piece T-shirt features the Straw Hat Crew Jolly Roger. The symbol is adorned with a textured paisley pattern. The names of all the members of the crew are written on the back of the T-shirt, including the latest addition of Jinbe.
Today, Sony and Insomniac confirmed that the PlayStation-5-exclusive open-world superhero action game, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, will receive a big, free update in “Early 2024” that will add highly requested features.
“Do you miss E3 in-person events?” Geoff Keighley reads calmly.
It would not have been, all things considered, an unusual question to ask one of the game industry’s leading personalities. The Entertainment Software Association’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, better known as E3, has long been a dominating feature of the summer. But in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ESA hasn’t been able to open the doors to the highly regarded in-person convention.
However, Keighley is the driving force behind Summer Game Fest, a newly established but increasingly successful showcase effectively competing with E3. The query came from one of the many viewers who tuned in to see him speak candidly on YouTube following the Xbox/Bethesda showcase, one of Summer Game Fest’s crowning jewels. Keighley’s answer notably dropped any mention of the ESA’s show.
Admittedly, talking about the rival event and the current, contentious shape of the summer showcases is a strange way to begin a look back at the renowned show. But, curiously, the question above underscores just how impactful E3 has been for the game industry. Without the apparent intention to slight Summer Game Fest’s producer, the viewer conflates the idea of a summer gaming convention with E3. The question concisely articulates what the show still means to many: a traditional, inevitable, and unshakable mainstay of the industry’s yearly agenda – even if E3 has undergone cancellations, adjustments, criticisms, and competition in the last few years. Despite its recent stumbles, the expo continues to hold on to its carefully cultivated clout, which goes back decades.
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Following the ESA's bringing E3 to an end, CEO Stanley Pierre-Louis says that gaming firms have various methods to promote their titles to meet business needs.
In an interview with GamesBeat, the executive reflected on what led to abandoning the event.
If you were wondering where Fallout 4's "next-gen" update had got to, there's a bit of bad news; Bethesda has officially pushed its release out of 2023 and into next year.
Bethesda initially revealed it was working on a "next-gen" update for Fallout 4 back in October last year, as part of its 25th anniversary celebrations for the series. It promised Performance and Resolution mode options, enabling players to choose between high frame rates or 4K resolution gameplay, as well as miscellaneous bug fixes and "bonus" Creation Club content.
The update was originally planned to arrive for Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC at some unspecified point this year, but Bethesda has now shunted the whole thing into 2024, saying it needs "a bit more time" to get things in order for release.
Tesla is recalling and updating almost all of its two million electric cars sold in the United States to place additional limits on their included self-driving assistance mode, Autosteer. Investigations have shown Autosteer can be extremely dangerous, and it’s been blamed for multiple accidents and deaths.
I really don't know how long I've played Baldur's Gate 3. When I check my Steam account, it says I've racked up close to two hundred hours, but I find that hard to believe. When I check my save files, I have four different characters, some finished and others in stasis due to multiplayer sessions that have been held off due to other obligations. But the Baldur's Gate 3 epilogue has me jumping back in the saddle.
Originally, I was just going to call it quits until an eventual Definitive Edition released or when Larian Studio would announce the final patch for the sprawling CRPG. No, I'm back and I'm deep in it.
It only took a friend on social media to announce that they were playing Baldur's Gate 3 for the first time, and the moment she started telling me about her campaign I was ready to give the game another shot. (This being the fourth or fifth time.) While I've basically exhausted what you can do in the main scenario and completed all available side quests, bar romancing everyone in the cast since I tend to gravitate towards Gale or Shadowheart, I'm in it for the epilogue.
Generally, I don't have favorable opinions of games that release loads of post-launch content that isn't labeled as DLC. This is largely because I'm harsh on the current state of the industry, with developers being forced to push out half-finished games for this is a very expensive hobby. Paying $60 to $70 for a half-baked product wouldn't fly in any other creative medium.
Since rolling credits (and platinum-ing) God of War Ragnarök shortly after its release last year, I have craved more of developer Santa Monica Studio’s take on Norse mythology. I was satisfied with how the story wrapped up, although admittedly, I would have liked a more bombastic finale worthy of the name “Ragnarök,” so I wasn’t necessarily looking for new story content just yet. I was fine to wait for a sequel years down the road, perhaps with Kratos and Atreus traversing through a new line of mythological lands and gods. But I wanted some reason to return to its beautiful world, adrenaline-inducing combat, and top-tier characters.
Crunchyroll announced its Winter 2024 new anime line-up, which will begin on December 29, 2023. Things kick off with Burn the Witch and include a new One Piece arc, Solo Leveling, Frieren, and other shows.
There are 28 shows that will be streaming on the subscription service starting in January 2024. Some are new seasons or arcs of existing ones. These include Burn the Witch, Mashle, and One Piece Egghead Island Arc. But many are entirely new, like Fluffy Paradise or Solo Leveling.
Here’s the full list of the new shows, including when they will air. If dubs are confirmed already, those are noted.
Take the Fleischer-style cartoons behind Cuphead’s stunning visuals, slam them together with a classic first-person shooter in the vein of Doom and you’d likely end up with something that looks like Mouse, an upcoming FPS with a hell of a stylish look.
Larian Studios have launched "A Very Baldur's Gate Christmas," a 12 day series of simple puzzles containing snippets of a Baldur's Gate 3 Christmas story. The first puzzle and story piece are available today, with the others becoming available day-by-day until December 24, 2023.
The puzzles are a simple card-matching memory game, which upon completion will let you read the day's story snippet. The Baldur's Gate 3 story snippet for December 13, 2023 concerned the Gremishka, a malevolent and folkloric creature that despises the holiday. As the other days unlock, a narrative will play out, which is promised to contain "a Larian twist." Tabletop gaming-themed prizes are also promised, however details about them do not seem to be available through the site.
Larian also recently made Baldur's Gate 3 available for Xbox, with the game appearing on the marketplace during 2023's The Game Awards after being previously teased. The developer also released some statistics from the game, including the reveal that Shadowheart was the most popular romance option.
George Carlin famously said “a house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it.” At its core, Lego Fortnite is the same. Epic’s new collab with Lego has become an absolute phenom since it launched December 7, seeing a daily peak of around 2 million concurrent players. Like all good sandbox survival games, it’s driven…
Developer Sledgehammer Games and publisher Activision Blizzard have released a detailed look at the new accessibility options that launched with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, the best-selling game of last month. In it, the companies reveal some interesting statistics that show accessibility options and features are very popular with players and useful for everyone that plays Call of Duty games.
For example, more than 40 percent of players customized their analog stick deadzone input in last year's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II. More than half of all players in that game adjusted graphical accessibility settings, too, like motion blur, field of view, and camera movement.
For this year's entry, Sledgehammer says, "Modern Warfare III provides even more ways to customize the visual experience for all players," like the High Contrast mode available in the campaign that "enables players with vision impairment or color blindness to see their allies and enemies more clearly." In this mode, allies are outlined with a blue-green color and enemies are outlined in red, and these visual markers change in real-time as you play.
The Moonstone Island winter update is now out, bringing new decorations, some quality-of-life changes and a collection of new spirits. To celebrate this major update, the game is also receiving a 20% discount until December 20, 2023.
Studio Supersoft had previously announced the free contents of the winter update, which includes a collection of seasonal decorations. These include a gingerbread house, presents and snowflake garlands. More decorations will be available in a paid DLC. In addition, players will have access to a bigger Spirit Barn and will be able to store up to 300 Spirits at the Science Center. There will also be a Warp Totem which will add fast travel to the game. A new infinite dungeon and new spirits have also been added, but the details of these are being left for players to discover for themselves.
A few issues have also been patched as part of the update. This includes a bug that prevented progress in the Earth Temple if players used fertilizer instead of the Alchemist’s Wand, an exploit allowing players to reap double crops by pressing two buttons at once and the mysterious appearance of Dark Matter in chests.
New data reveals that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III is already the second-best selling video game of 2023, despite awful reviews, a low Metacritic score, and complaints that its campaign was too short.
Escape Simulator has added a free virtual escape room based on Among Us, letting you puzzle your way out of the backstabby party game’s spaceship The Mini Skeld in a bit of crossover DLC.
Insomniac Games has quickly become Sony’s most prodigious first-party studio. In the span of just five years it released Spider-Man, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, and Spider-Man 2. Now alleged leaks from a ransomware hack potentially point to a Spider-Verse spin-off being in development.
The release date for the new Black Butler: Public School anime adaptation is pinned down to April 2024. However, there’s no exact date or time for when it will begin airing on the official Japanese website.
The announcement included a number of stations that will be showing the anime. For example, MBS, TOKYO MX, and Tochigi TV were among those named. Outside Japan, we know that Crunchyroll picked up the show. Back at Anime Expo 2023, it confirmed that it would show the CloverWorks show in 2024 when it begins airing. At the time, a first trailer also appeared.
In case you missed it, here’s that teaser. It mainly focused on confirming who would be involved in this new adaptation of the series while showing footage of Ciel and Sebastian Michaelis. It also confirmed that Daisuke Ono would play Sebastian and Maaya Sakamoto would be Ciel. Both are reprising their roles from past arcs and adaptations.
Valve have asked Steam Deck owners to stop inhaling the fumes from the Steam Deck’s air vent, after the portable PC’s uniquely moreish smell became an obsession among the community.
Oh hey, we’re just burning through December, aren’t we? Well if the 2024 release calendar is lookin’ rather slim to you, might I interest you in some new additions to Sony’s PlayStation Plus service? This month includes quite a few tempting offers.
Last time, you decided that ricochet attacks are better than blue shadows on dodges and dashes. I expected this outcome but am still glad to see a good quarter of you favoured cool essence over cool effort. We continue. This week, in honour of Doom's 30th birthday (we've already written about John Romero's memories, motion sickness, and inviting monsters to a birthday party, with more to come), I ask perhaps an impossible question. How could anyone ask you to pick between two iconic tools of ultraviolence. What kind of monster would. Yet we must. What's better: Doom's shotgun or Doom 2's super shotgun?
The final episode of the Pokemon Scarlet and Violet anime series Paldean Winds, titled "Breathe Together", is now live and viewable on the Official Pokemon Youtube Channel. The series was produced by Wit Studio and was first announced back in August, 2023, with the first episode appearing in September and the second in October.
This episode begins with a segment showing off the Paldean countryside and other scenes set to accompanying music, before transitioning to a performance by Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's Ghost-type gym leader Ryme. After that comes a segment when Electric-type leader Iono streams her attempt to name all Paldean gym leaders within a minute, before another musical section. Finally, the anime closes with a scene of the characters Aliquis, Ohara, and Hohma reacting to the success of the video they produced through the series.
In case you still needed to do some last-minute Christmas shopping for the gamers in your life (or for yourself), Microsoft has temporarily slashed the price of its most powerful gaming console, knocking the cost down by $100.
Sony's final PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium catalogue additions for 2023 have now been revealed, with next Tuesday, 19th December introducing the likes of Grand Theft Auto 5, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, and MotoGP 23.
That's just the start of a pleasingly diverse line-up for PlayStation Plus subscribers in December, as it turns out, with the above being joined by the likes of boisterous rhythm shooter Metal: Hellsinger and 2D Souls-like sequel Salt and Sacrifice.
December also ushers in first-person retro shooter Prodeus, Capcom's acclaimed Mega Man 11, plus a triple helping of turn-based tactical RPG action in Shadowrun Returns, Shadowrun: Dragonfall, and Shadowrun: Hong Kong.
Othercide from French developer Lightbulb Crew is one of my favourite recent tactics RPGs. It's an atmospheric and rewardingly meticulous experience that typically pits you against overwhelming numbers, where victory comes about by carefully exploiting reaction abilities, positioning your troop of weary warriors just-so, and manipulating the initiative bar. At times, for me, it's up there with Into The Breach.
But I do acknowledge that it's an acquired taste, not least because the narrative and extra-dimensional setting are relentlessly unpleasant - a terrible soup of mother metaphors and Penny Dreadful imagery, in which you pit clones against Silent Hill monsters, then liquefy the survivors to spawn new characters. What's the appropriate way to follow up a game like that? Ah yes, with an episodic dating sim.
Revealed during last week's Geoffening, Exodus is the first game from Archetype Entertainment, a new studio that includes former members of BioWare and Naughty Dog. It's a sci-fi odyssey with third-person shooting that looks and sounds a lot like Mass Effect, but it has one differentiating Big Idea (aside from Matthew McConaughey): time dilation, whereby time passes different in different places, depending on relative velocity and local gravity.
It feels like Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is still working to win back fans following the mixed reception to its initial reveal earlier this year.
This is an all-new game in the Prince of Persia series with a new main character and stylised art style - something which initially seemed to rub long-term Prince players up the wrong way. But how does it actually play? Eurogamer's Ian Higton has now gone hands-on with three hours of the 2.5D Metroidvania game, and reported back below.
The gist? Ian reckons the game's movement and combat are fun and fluid, while its exploration and puzzles will entice you to keep on playing until you've uncovered the whole map. But - as yet - it doesn't yet rival the best of the Metroidvania genre, or the best of the Prince of Persia brand either.
Back in May when I first played Ubisoft's new Metroid-like Prince Of Persia game, The Lost Crown, ahead of its reveal at this year's Summer Game Fest, I got to sample several hours' worth of some of the early areas inside its cursed mountaintop citadel of Mount Qaf. Some of protagonist Sargon's powers had been unlocked early to give us a taste of his abilities, and on the whole, I had an exceedingly good time with it. One thing was missing though, and that was any kind of narrative framing for why Sargon was here in the first place. Sure, we'd been told ahead of time that Sargon's main mission in The Lost Crown is tracking down and saving the eponymous Prince of this game, but I didn't actually see any of this in action. Anything with the slightest whiff of story about it had been expertly excised from that initial demo build, and I was left none the wiser about how those opening hours of The Lost Crown would really play out in the final game.
God of War Ragnarök’s new, free DLC Valhalla is out now, and it’s a pretty great combat showcase that has the added benefit of giving Kratos some much-needed therapy. But if you’re unfamiliar with the punishing, repetitious nature of the roguelike genre or just haven’t booted up Ragnarök lately, it can knock you on…
Bethesda updated the status of the Fallout 4 PS5 and Xbox Series X next-gen update over a year after it was announced. It is now coming in 2024.
Here’s Bethesda’s official statement, which ended up shared on social media on December 13, 2023. This next-gen update was supposed to debut before 2023 ended, according to the October 24, 2022 reveal. The announcement didn’t explain what might have caused the delay. It only cited the developer as needing more time to complete the update.
Prior to this reveal, one of the last times it came up was when former Bethesda Head of Publishing Pete Hines responded on social media on it prior to his retirement. When someone asked for an update, he mentioned Starfield was the priority and said, “When we have an update, we will share it.”
For an informed, insightful take on E3's end, please go and read Alice0's piece on why she misses it because it only lasted a week, not months. Here, you'll find markedly less insight, but a more personal take on why my E3s lay, largely, with others. More than anything, I'll miss E3 because I liked watching the original Gametrailers crew react to it live. And I liked watching them form Easy Allies once GT closed and continue the tradition, suiting up and completely losing it to the big reveals.
Video games love spiders but arachnophobes obviously don't, and we've seen an increasing number of studios attempting to find a comfortable middle ground - usually an adorable, blobby middle ground - for all involved in recent times. Enter developer Zeekerss, which has now taken its own delightfully literal approach to solving the ongoing spider problem in its smash-hit co-op horror Lethal Company.
Lethal Company - which has proven to be an unexpectedly huge success since launching into early access in October, remaining high on Steam's top-selling and most played charts - runs the gamut of horrors, pitting players against everything from ghost girls and mechanical bees to eyeless dogs and spring-loaded mannequins as they scavenge its moon bases.
But as of this week's Frosty Update, players will no longer be forced to recoil in horror as its scuttling bunker spiders do their rounds. In perhaps the simplest, most effective attempt yet at making a game less of an ordeal for those with an aversion to eight-legged creatures, Zeekerss has introduced an arachnophobia mode that swaps out their scuttling heft for the word "spider", comically overlaid where the critter in question should be.
Update, 12/13/23:
Bethesda announced last year that Fallout 4 would be receiving a free new-gen update for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in 2023. However, as the year comes to a close, Bethesda has delayed the update to next year.
"Than you for your patience with us as we work on the Fallout 4 next-gen update," a tweet from the official Fallout account reads. "We know you're excited, and so are we! But we need a bit more time and look forward to an exciting return to the Commonwealth in 2024."
Thank you for your patience with us as we work on the Fallout 4 next-gen update. We know you're excited, and so are we! But we need a bit more time and look forward to an exciting return to the Commonwealth in 2024.
— Fallout (@Fallout) December 13, 2023
The original story continues below...
Original story, 10/25/23:
Bethesda has revealed that Fallout 4 will receive a free new-gen update next year.
Epic's tradition of giving away free games over the Christmas period has returned and begins today.
The giveaways will occur over the course of the holiday sale Epic is holding over on Epic Games Store, which runs from today (13th December) until 10th January 2024.
In 2021 and 2022, Epic gave away 15 games, but this year the company is giving away 17.
It's no surprise to hear that E3 is officially dead. The games industry's annual mega-marketing event had been suffering for years, then skipping 2020 due to covid without an online alternative left space for its killers to aggressively expand and make clear quite how redundant E3 had become. On one hand, E3 was a week of misleading marketing, dubious claims, expensive stunts, and empty hype. On the other, the 317 assorted online events replacing E3 are just as bad, and now they sprawl across months. I miss E3. Bring back E3. I'm sorry, E3. I didn't know how good we had it. Please, bring back E3.
Yeah, so that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III campaign wasn’t great. The multiplayer though? That’s a different story. And if you’re at all curious about some shooty fun between friends across some classic maps, good news: You can play the game for free from December 14 to 18.
Bandai Namco and Apple announced that a new Tamagotchi game starring Mametchi called Tamagotchi Adventure Kingdom will launch on January 4, 2024. Apple Arcade subscribers will be able to access the game.
The product page for the title is already live. In this game, the familiar Tamagotchi mascot Mametchi, who players of the pet sim usually get by taking exceptional care of their character, takes part in what seems to be a simulation with RPG elements. Players will take on quests, work with other characters, collect materials, craft, and restore a community. The first trailer shows some of the different biomes, shows how characters can be dressed up, shows activities like mining, fishing, and chopping trees, and shows how someone can decorate rooms. Both Memetchi and Kuchipatchi are shown alongside Mametchi.
Here’s the first look at the game.
