Botany Manor is an enigmatic puzzle adventure game that tasks players with solving riddles to grow plants within a mysterious estate. The game first raised eyebrows during its reveal at a Nintendo Direct last November, and we can exclusively reveal that it’s arriving next spring.

Players control Arabella Greene, a retired botanist looking to bring life back to her massive collection of rare, long-lost plants. Doing this involves exploring a giant 19th-century manor in search of clues, notes, and other items to uncover the proper methods and conditions to make her plants grow. This involves finding the ideal habitats to place seedlings, for example, which may require some creative problem-solving and mature plants have mysterious qualities. 

As players find and examine clues, they’ll also learn about the ups and downs in Arabella’s life, both personally and professionally. Overall, the game has a peaceful atmosphere accented by a calming presentation and a pleasant soundtrack. Botany Manor is the debut title by the small team at Balloon Studios and is published by Whitethorn Games. 

Botany Manor is coming to Xbox consoles, Switch, and PC. It will also launch day one on Xbox Game Pass.

I'm in a weird place with the Meta Quest. It's really its own platform these days, with its own specs and increasingly divergent library of games. At the same time, the Meta's standalone headsets are by far the most popular PCVR devices. Therefore, most PCVR gamers will also have access to the Quest's handful of VR exclusives. Generally, this column sticks to covering games you can play with any PCVR headset, Quest or no. But since I reviewed the Meta Quest 3 last month, it feels odd not to check out at least one of its new titles, especially when it's probably the most notable VR release of the year – Assassin's Creed Nexus.

Also, I'll admit, a VR Assassin's Creed game intrigues me. The idea of cavorting across historical rooftops and shanking templars in the sternum sounds brilliant. It also sounds like barf city. Most VR games limit the need to move around as much as possible, so translating a game as kinetic as Assassin's Creed into VR seems mighty challenging.

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Sanrio released a new line of crossover merchandise involving the anime and manga series Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon worldwide. Several new crossover products are available and on sale now on the company's online store.

For this crossover, each Sailor Senshi has been paired with a fitting Sanrio mascot. Additionally, a new illustration has been created for each duo.

Here is a full list of the new Sailor Moon X Sanrio products, along with the prices for each piece of merchandise:

• Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Cosmos 44-pc Sticker Set: $12 (Currently $9.99)
• Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Cosmos Acrylic Stand Blindbox: $14.99
• Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Cosmos Charm Blindbox: $18 (Currently $14.99)

Nintendo's Hidemaro Fujibayashi and Eiji Aonuma have spoken more about the monsters they created for Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, including the all new Horriblins and the return of Gleeoks.

In an interview with Nintendo Dream, which was translated by Nintendo Everything, Fujibayashi said the team "prioritised gameplay" when deciding which monsters to include in Breath of the Wild's sequel.

The Tears of the Kingdom director noted that with the introduction of caves and underground areas, as well as sky-based action, the studio needed to consider which enemies would be able to "do well" in each area of Hyrule's expanded map.

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Fae Farm and Dauntless developers Phoenix Labs have cut 34 jobs following an internal review. It's a sad end to a busy year for the Canadian studio, who bought their independence back from previous owner Garena in February, and laid off 9 per cent of their workforce in May.

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Jet Force Gemini on Switch has a broken widescreen mode.

The N64 cult classic is set to hit Nintendo Switch Online for Expansion Pack subscribers in December, but is already available in Japan.

The game supports both 4:3 and 16:9 modes. However, the widescreen mode does not properly scale and instead stretches the image with letterboxing, as reported by Nintendo World Report.

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Have you ever felt like you're at least ten years too old to be playing certain video games? Whether it's the humour falling flat, or just the general hyperactivity of its main cast being a bit too much, there are some games out there that you can't help but bounce off. Hard. Alas, in the case of In Stars And Time, I've been thrown from its time-looping RPG trampoline with such violence that I now can't even look at it without breaking out into a sweat.

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NetherRealm has released a new trailer for Mortal Kombat 1, offering up some sorcery-infused Quan Chi gameplay and a release date for his arrival in the game. As well as that, this trailer also shows Khameleon in all her lethal glory, and gives us our best look yet at John Cena's Peacemaker in-game.

Quan Chi will be arriving in Mortal Kombat 1 later this month. The sorcerer is one of the characters from Mortal Kombat 1's Kombat Pack. If players have this DLC or the Premium edition of the game, they will be able to put him through his paces from 14th December.

Alternatively, Quan Chi will be available to download separately from 21st December.

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Phoenix Labs, the developer behind recent indie success Fae Farm, has laid off 34 staff.

This is the second round of layoffs for the studio this year.

"After a rigorous review we made the decision to change the structure of our support teams, and we have made the tough decision to reduce our workforce by a total of 34 people, across our publishing, HR, IT, and shared services teams," a studio representative told GamesIndusty.biz.

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This week is the week of The Games Awards, aka Geoffest, aka the Ke3ghleys - an absolute banquet of trailers, release dates and game announcements for the Maw. There are a few reveals in the offing. Some, we already know about, and may even have written up in advance; others, we'll learn about together with your good selves when the livestream begins at 4.30pm Los Angeles time on 7th December, which equates to 12.30am on 8th December (ouch) in the UK. There's the trifling matter of the first GTA 6 trailer on 5th December, too.

Some games out this week that we're keeping in the corner of our eye, in case they turn on us: A Highland Song (5th Dec), Blood West (5th Dec), Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader (7th Dec), Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (7th Dec).

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Gosh, Micro SD cards are so cheap now. Right now you can get a fast and capacious 512GB Samsung Evo Select memory card for just $24.99 after a $10 price drop. That's an absurd price for this amount of storage, especially for an A2-rated card that's ideal for Steam Deck, ROG Ally and Nintendo Switch.

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Keyboard company Royal Kludge aren't doing themselves any favours with that name, but they do make some of the best cheap options on the market. Today their RK61 keyboard is down to $39.99 at Amazon US, a great price for a 60% keyboard with 2.4GHz wireless, Bluetooth and USB-C connectivity, hot-swappable switches and single colour backlighting.

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Ever since its debut in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1999, Naruto has grown into a worldwide phenomenon. With its popular Shippuden anime adaptation and spin-off series consisting of decades of material, we wanted to discuss who we think is the best Naruto character in the entire franchise.

I feel like Gaara is such a cop-out answer because who doesn't like Gaara? But no matter how I rack my brain, I can't really think of a Naruto character I legitimately like more than him (I like Itachi too, but I feel like Itachi is also everyone's favorite). His character arc was really intriguing, his character design after the time skip was super nice, and Ishida Akira knocked it out of the park with his performance. My only complaint about Gaara is that I don't like to play as him in the Naruto games. — Stephanie 

I adore Kakashi and think he’s the best Naruto character. He’s a good teacher who cares about his students but isn’t above being a little silly and childish sometimes. Which is especially appreciated, seeing he can have those moments considering his past. I want only the best for him and all his dogs. — Jenni

A gang of volunteer modders and developers have just released a huge expansion for the 25-year-old first-person stealth game, Thief: The Dark Project.

The Black Parade – a seven-year-long labour of love described as an "unofficial free expansion" for the game's Thief Gold edition – bundles 10 new missions, four new tools, and "30 minutes of gorgeous cutscenes and more" into this free-to-play add-on.

You can see it in action in the teaser below:

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A special version of Volume 12 of Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End will come out on December 18, 2023. It will come with a special short novel that was written specifically for the Frieren anime opening. [Thanks, Dengeki Online!]

The Frieren light novel is readily available to read on the official website for the show. But Volume 12 will come with a physical copy of the book. In total, there will be 32 pages, as well as three illustrations. Tsukasa Abe, who draws for the manga, worked on these pictures. Though it’s unclear who the author of the novelization is, the original writer Kanehito Yamada supervised the entire time. If you get the bundle, you will only get the novel. Volume 12 itself is the same no matter what.

This is not the first time that someone wrote an official short story for a show. Prior to Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury coming out, a short story was available on Sunrise’s website that focused on the Aerial’s feelings for a young Suletta. At the time, the author stated that reading the novel and then listening to the song again will affect how you feel about the lyrics.

Xbox spends "over a billion dollars a year" on its Xbox Game Pass subscription service.

That's from Xbox boss Phil Spencer himself, who confirmed the eye-watering figure in an interview with Windows Central earlier this week.

"We've put a lot of money into the market, over a billion dollars a year supporting third-party games coming into Game Pass," Spencer said.

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Amazon has dropped a new meaty teaser to get us in the mood for the upcoming Fallout TV show.

From the creators of Westworld, executive producers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, and starring Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten, Chris Parnell, Lost's Michael Emerson, and Walton Goggins, Fallout is set to arrive on Prime Video on 12th April 12, 2024. And the teaser has got a lot of us very excited, not least because Dogmeat is now all but confirmed.

You can check out the full two-and-a-half-minutes-long video below:

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Amazon’s Fallout Series Teaser Trailer Read More »

I adore puzzle games, even if I’m not particularly good at them. There’s something incredibly satisfying about finally cracking the last move in a complex level. Howl takes that same feeling of puzzle games and adds tactical RPG elements to create a more flexible and creative gameplay loop, all without simplifying the experience.

Howl is light on plot, but what it has of it is delightful. The player steps into the shoes of the Prophet, a deaf woman and the latest in a line of people with the ability to fight back against the titular Howl, a terrible curse that turns anyone that hears its call into a feral wolf-like monster. The Prophet embarks on a quest to find her lost brother, trying to save any innocent that is being threatened by the werewolves.

Electronic Arts has filed a trademark application for the words Neon Fox.

Filed just Friday, 1st December, the trademark application has been filed in numerous categories, including one for computer game software and online entertainment – which means some think this may be a new game – and another in the category "video game development services", which has others opining that it may be the name of a brand-new studio.

"Personally, I think it's a new studio," said professional leaker and rumourist, Kurakasis. "EA studio trademarks are filed with IC 042: Design and development of interactive, computer, video... unlike games. I think it's going to be announced pretty soon.

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Wondering how Peter Griffin got in shape for Fortnite? Well, wonder no more.

Epic has drawn back the covers on what's next for Fortnite and, as previously leaked, Peter Griffin from Family Guy and Solid Snake are part of the Chapter 5 Season 1: Underground battle pass.

But while Griffin's appearance in Fortnite may not be all that surprising to some who've been paying attention, his actual appearance is.

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PlayStation has begun emailing players to inform them that due to "content licensing arrangements", from 31st December, some Dicovery content will be removed from players' libraries – even if they've paid for it.

The statement, which says the change affects only Discovery content for now, doesn't explain why content is being removed, nor apologises for it. All it does is thank players for their "continued support".

"As of 31 December 2023, due to our content licensing arrangements with content providers, you will no longer be able to watch any of your previously purchased Discovery content and the content will be removed from your video library," the brief statement explains.

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Bandai Spirits will start selling a new Ichiban Kuji lottery series with Goddess of Victory: NIKKE merchandise from December 2, 2023. It’ll cost 780 JPY per attempt. [Thanks, Famitsu!]

Excluding the Double Chance Campaign and Last One Prize, there are ten different prizes that you can get in total from the NIKKE Ichiban Kuji. You’ll be able to participate from any Animate, Ichiban Kuji shop, hobby shop, game centers, et cetera in Japan. Those outside of Japan will need to ask their local hobby shop if they have the NIKKE Ichiban Kuji. The lottery will end in late March 2024.

Here are the prizes from the Chapter2 collection:

• A Prize: Rapi figure
• B Prize: Anis cushion
• C Prize: Pioneer team acrylic board
• D Prize: Heretics team acrylic board
• E Prize: Clear posters
• F Prize: Print collection

Over Black Friday 2023, Sanshee started to expand its Persona 5 line of merchandise with plush items based on Makoto Niijima and Morgana. What’s fun is how both the Makoto collector’s plush and Morgana plush hanger tote bag ended up being quality items that allow someone to appreciate the characters in different ways. 

In the case of the Makoto collector’s plush, it’s a fun item to display on a shelf, bed, or couch. Given it is about 10 inches tall, it’s not exactly something that could go on a shelf alongside figures. But it’s a cute display item. Especially since it is so intricate. While the hair is made of a really soft, typical “plush” fabric, I felt like the rest came across as more of a decorative doll. 

The long awaited (official) debut of Grand Theft Auto 6 is nearly upon us, Starfield is shedding like a bad wig, and Coral Island has hunks in every direction.

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It's door number three! This one leads to a night out. Can you pet a dog? No. But you can pet the rats.

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From one AMD CPU to another - the last deal we posted was on an AM4 gaming-focused processor, the 5800X3D, and now we're looking at the opposite end of Team Red's lineup: the 7950X. This Zen 4 design includes 16 cores and 32 threads, making it their ultimate consumer CPU for highly threaded workloads like video production, 3D rendering... and yes, many video games too!

This is still a pretty expensive processor, but it's a relative steal versus its launch price of £770. Amazon are now asking just £483 for this flagship-grade model, and that seems a fair price given just how well this CPU performs in everything from games to scientific computing and video rendering.

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AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor is well-known for offering a sharp upgrade to gaming performance over all other CPUs compatible with the company's now defunct AM4 motherboard platform. These days the processor costs around £290, but today the price has dipped to £271 - making it a good time to get that final CPU upgrade for your Ryzen 1000-5000 system.

Update: This article's headline had an incorrect price, which has now been updated to match the body text. I regret the error. Original article continues below.

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I'm stuck on Starfield. There are a million mission icons dotted around the screen, and I keep getting my ass handed to me in space by a bunch of pirates. Fortunately, it's 2023. I grab my smartphone, and within a few seconds, I'm looking at a page from Eurogamer's excellent guide to the Bethesda space epic. Ah, I press that button - now, only my current mission icon shows up. And I need to upgrade my ship. Or buy a better one. Here are the best ones, how much they cost and where to get them. Job done.

Rewind almost 40 years. I'm stumped on Ultimate's latest isometric epic, Pentagram. In typical Ultimate style, the instructions are eloquent but useless. I'm wandering around, exploring the two-colour world, occasionally jumping over blocks and avoiding the odd nasty. Eurogamer is just a twinkle in its founder's eyes, and in any case, how would I access it? The concept of networking computers was gathering pace, but it would be many years before the internet, as we know it today, would be available to proles such as me.

So, we networked, old school style and tips and tricks were swapped in the playground. But that didn't always work, especially with tougher games like Pentagram. There was one avenue left. Our internet, our network of (in my case) Spectrum fans, eagerly engaging with the experts and each other: the games magazines.

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SteelSeries has been on something of a roll recently, with their redesigned Arctis Nova Pro headsets and new Arena speakers both attracting plaudits from press - including Eurogamer - and users alike for their design, audio quality and software. Now the Danish firm has turned its attention to the other side of audio: microphones. We've seen even great audio brands like Epos fail to deliver a convincing microphone for the gaming and streaming market, so how does SteelSeries fare with its Alias and Alias Pro microphones? In a word: superbly.

Let's start at the beginning. The Alias microphones are both built around a one-inch condenser capsule in a cardioid pattern, designed to capture your voice while sitting at a PC - rather than the Blue Yeti approach of offering four different pickup patterns for different recording scenarios that use up to four smaller capsules in combination. This focus allows for a noticeably slimmer microphone without sacrificing on sound quality. (The Alias's main body is around 190x55x45mm or 470cm³, compared to the 702cm³ Blue Yeti X and 590cm³ Shure SM7B.)

Perhaps the Last Of Us TV show on HBO getting it right was the dawn of a new era of good TV based on video games, but I still approach each adaptation with trepidation. That includes Amazon's Fallout series from Westworld and Person Of Interest writer/director Jonathan Nolan, which just got its first trailer.

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Stardew Valley developer Eric Barone, also known as ConcernedApe, says he is currently in "(self-imposed) extreme crunch mode" while working on the pastoral life sim's 1.6 update. When asked what motivates him to keep working on the already-beloved game, Barone called Stardew his "life's work."

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Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best community creations from the previous week.

With it being the start of December, that can mean only one thing: Giant Bomb is officially in the midst of GOTY FEVER! In case you missed it, Giant Bomb has already started its GOTY coverage, category discussions, and podcasts so the staff can attend The 2023 Game Awards and host their own GOTY live show on December 9th! Friday, December 1st, saw the staff debate the site's first seven GOTY categories and the programming will continue on December 5th! If you want the VOD, here you go! If you are wondering about the future, here's a programming schedule in case you were wondering:

Cyberpunk 2077 is finally getting the feature I most crave from every open world game: public transport. Update 2.1, due for release next week, is adding a fully-functioning metro system of the sort seen in Cyberpunk 2077's 2018 cinematic trailer - as well as new hangouts with your romantic pals, repeatable car races, and new accessibility settings.

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The first official glimpse at Fortnite Chapter 5 is now available to watch online, and shows a host of new upgrades available on an all-new battle royale island.

The ability to ride trains, wield riot shields, mod weapons, scramble across buildings and grapple up structures is shown in the official launch trailer below.

Fortnite's Chapter 5 Island clearly features a number of biomes, including one with sunny vinyards, alpine mountains, and ancient ruins.

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Tonight's Fortnite live event - the first in almost a year - was an eye-popping rollercoaster ride for those lucky enough to see it. After a throwback season based on the game's original map, it was perhaps fitting that The Big Bang also saw the return of Fortnite's old capacity issues - as more than 10 million players reportedly swamped the game's servers, while many millions more were left to watch the event online.

In-game, as the event's countdown timer hit zero above Dusty Divot, players were initially treated to an abbreviated version of the game's original The End event, with its apocalyptic meteor causing the Island to get sucked into a black hole once again (although, Epic has already confirmed, the OG map will emerge just okay due to public demand in 2024).

With the battle royale Island beyond Epic's event horizon, players next witnessed the birth of three major new Fortnite modes due to make a proper debut in the coming week: Lego Fortnite, Rocket Racing, and Fortnite Festival.

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A seven-second TikTok video claiming to be a "first look at GTA 6" has gone viral, and unsubstantiated rumours reckon the leak comes via the son of a Rockstar developer.

It's almost impossible to go online these days without being smacked in the face by at least half a dozen purported GTA 6 "leaks", but this one was more plausible than most, which is probably why it gained traction. Quickly.

Two videos have been posted by the seemingly throwaway account i_see_in_4k, and both have - in the last couple of hours – shared a few tantalising seconds of what the poster insists is GTA 6.

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WWE 2K24 has been rated in Brazil, ahead of the sequel being formally announced by publisher 2K.

Its predecessor, WWE 2K23, was officially announced in January 2023, and released swiftly thereafter in March of that same year, leading some pundits to suggest that a similar timescale could apply here, too.

Whilst it's unlikely to come as a shock that the sequel was on the way, the rating board has seemingly confirmed the game's existence ahead of 2K's own marketing schedule.

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I was so excited coming into the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Stone Ocean manga. I loved the anime when it aired on Netflix, and there always tend to be more details and depth in the original source. The first volume doesn’t disappoint, and I feel like that’s especially true concerning Stone Ocean characters. 

If you did happen to see the anime adaptation, then a lot of the first volume of the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Stone Ocean manga will feel quite familiar. It’s a very faithful adaptation. If it is new to someone, Stone Ocean is yet another fantastic example of Hirohiko Araki’s intricate designs for characters and storytelling. 

Things start off a bit fast-paced, to help swiftly introduce the reader to Jolyne Cujoh and her situation. After taking the fall for a deadly hit-and-run her boyfriend committed, she’s on the way to trial and prison. However, before going before the judge, her lawyer presents her with a locket her mother was holding for her from her absentee father, Jotaro Kujo. It contains a fragment of the arrow from Diamond is Unbreakable and, upon handling the item, unlocks her ability to use the Stand Stone Free. 

EA has "opened up" its accessibility tools and technology for "wider use to help gamers".

In a statement, EA reiterated its commitment to inclusivity by making its "easy-to-use photosensitivity analysis tool" available publicly via open source.

The tool, known as IRIS, automatically analyses and identifies frames within videos that could potentially impact players who experience photosensitivity.

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