Whenever a friend asks for help in speccing out their upcoming PC build, I almost inevitably go to check if the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo V2 is in stock. Because, for lower-end and mid-range builds especially, do you truly need any other CPU cooler? The Hyper 212 Evo V2 near-perfectly balances simplicity, effectiveness, and affordability; it’s like the PC component equivalent of Charles Eames’ museum-beloved leg splint, only less stackable. More to the point, it’s down to £33 in the Amazon Prime Big Deal Days sale, equalling its lowest price of 2023 thus far.

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Team17 is poised to lay off up to 91 people - a third of the company - as part of its major restructuring programme, Eurogamer can reveal.

The publisher of Worms, Dredge and Hell Let Loose confirmed it was planning to make redundancies earlier this month, after Eurogamer broke news that extensive cuts were being made to Team17's QA department in favour of outsourcing work elsewhere.

But the job losses go much further than those at risk in QA, Eurogamer understands, with staff across a wide range of departments affected - including those employed in Team17's marketing, usability, customer service, IT and HR teams.

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Paradox Interactive has called its recent The Lamplighters League a "big disappointment" from a commercial perspective, admitting - just seven days after its release - the pulp strategy game is unlikely to recoup its development costs, resulting in a $22.7m USD write-down.

The Lamplighters League, which was developed by the Paradox-owned Harebrained Schemes, blends tactical turn-based action and real-time stealth in a globe-trotting adventure inspired by the classic pulp stories of the 1930s, giving players control of a disparate group of rogues as they attempt to thwart an occult-obsessed cabal known as the Banished Court.

In truth, it's a deeply uneven experience; at its best, it's a "sublimely atmospheric, richly rewarding tactical adventure" - as I wrote in my 3 out of 5 stars review - but it's too often let down by bland maps, uninspiring mission objectives, and woefully underdeveloped real-time stealth. And it's clearly failed to capture the public's imagination too.

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There’s a new FFVIi Ever Crisis banner, and this one is designed to offer new Prism Dress and Rod equipment for Aerith and a Killer Hornet and Attire for Matt. These are five-star weapons and gear that change characters’ appearances. Square Enix and Applibot also shared a video of an Aerith wallpaper of her in the regal gear and a teaser showing her. using the new weapon.

With the new FFVII Ever Crisis Aerith equipment, the Prism Rod gives access to the Raging Sphere wind magic attack and Prism Dress with boosted magic attack and increased wind damage with Windstrike Arcanum. As for Matt, Killer Hornet lets him use Killing Slash. Equipping Killer Attire boosts his HP and physical attack.

Here’s the video showing Aerith using Raging Sphere to damage a Shinra soldier.

Square Enix released the Bravely Default series DLC pack for Theatrhythm Final Bar Line. The new content adds six new tracks to the game in total. The first four come from the first Bravely Default, which was originally released in Japan as Bravely Default: Flying Fairy in 2012. The last two tracks are from the 2021 entry Bravely Default II.

Here is the full list of the tracks included in this DLC pack:

1. "The Horizon: Endless Light and Shadow" from Bravely Default
2. "That of the Name" from Bravely Default
3. "The Evil Wings" from Bravely Default
4. "Uroboros, the Serpent that Devours the Horizon" from Bravely Default
5. "Spurred into Flight, Drenched and Fallen - The Night Rises" from Bravely Default II
6. "The Ones Who Gather Stars in the Night" from Bravely Default II

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Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Mirage is one of the few AAA video games to feature Arabic audio and text. It's also in a smaller crowd of titles to feature classical Arabic, the language that would be prominent for the golden age of Baghdad, where the game's lead, Bassim, embarks on his adventure.

Ubisoft localization manager and cultural consultant Mohammed Alemam tells GamesIndustry.biz that the goal of localization is to capture the language's intent while staying culturally relevant.

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Nintendo has shared a new promo for upcoming release Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and it is really quite charming.

The short video in question shows Bowser trying his best to woo Princess Peach with a single flower. She looks at him with a certain amount of scepticism, before both are distracted by the bouncy arrival of one of Super Mario Bros. Wonder's elephant power-ups. And, well, when one sees the opportunity to boost one's form into that of a trunk swinging, water spraying mammal, there really is only one thing for it.

Soon, Peach has ingested (?) the elephantine delectable and is transformed before Bowser's very eyes. He is shocked to say the least, staring at his once demure princess with an open mouth and wide eyes. But, you know what? Our spikey boy is into it. Just when it may seem that Peach - in her enlarged and now tailed form - is about to blast Bowser back to his castle with a swift burst of water, he presents her with an even bigger bunch of flowers. It is a plot twist I wasn't expecting, and it is really rather sweet.

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Myth of Empires developer Angela Game and Ark: Survival Evolved publisher Snail Games have come to a settlement agreement after two years of litigation.

In December 2021, Snail Games successfully requested a DMCA takedown of Myth of Empires from Steam, alleging copyright infringement. Shortly after, Angela Game filed a lawsuit requesting a jury trial and sued Snail Games for damages.

The two companies, as well as Ark developer Studio Wildcard, have come to a settlement agreement and will work together on the redistribution of Myth of Empires, as spotted by GamesIndustry.biz. Angela Game will pay royalty payments from the game to Snail Games.

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Wonderful Works revealed on its social media account that it will start accepting pre-orders for Reisalin Stout's dress figure from the Atelier Ryza anime on October 12, 2023. The studio will involve Ryza's dress that she wore in the anime's seventh episode to the 3D figure.

The Japanese announcement tweet, which included a preview image of the figure, is available below. It simply mentioned that the studio will start accepting orders for the Atelier Ryza anime dress figure from "tomorrow." It also asked people to wait for further information.

Modded consoles are pretty awesome, letting people tap into the raw computational power of gaming machines to run emulators, custom software, and more. But what if you combine a modded console with a modded musical instrument? And not just any musical instrument, but a modded pipe organ? Well, that’s what someone just…

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Ara: History Untold's headline gimmick is actually a couple of centuries old. In this deceptively Civilization-esque 4X strategy game, all player turns unfold simultaneously, once you've decided what to build or research, where to move your units, and so on. As Oxide Games design director Michelle Menard tells me over Zoom, this approach takes inspiration from an ancient military simulator, Kriegsspiel, which was devised by the Prussian army officer George Leopold von Reisswitz, aka the "father of wargaming", in the mid-1800s.

"It was to train their generals, it was a legit apparatus of war, it was not for funsies," says Menard. "And they basically created this massive table that had a modular terrain system. At first they used sand, but that was kind of messy, [and so] they developed a system where they had interchangeable tiles, like hills and valleys and plateaus.

"They would build out this table, literally drop a sheet down the middle, and it'd be like, OK, you guys on each side, you can't see what the other person's doing. There was an actual game master, who was the referee who you would report your moves to. He would then re-set up the board and basically call people back into the room and be like, tada! It's the next turn - let's see what people did. Was it what you expected?"

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Ultrawide gaming monitors are undoubtedly a luxury, to say nothing of the powerful graphics card you’d need to power all their pixels. But cor, what a feast for the eyes these luxuries can be when they’re running a game that supports their full, wrap-around resolutions. The Amazon Prime Big Deal Days sale also just happens to be on hand to take some of the monetary sting out of an ultrawide upgrade, with several well-specced displays getting chunky discounts.

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Publisher NIS America revealed the names of all the English voice actors for the upcoming game The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak. This comes ahead of its launch in 2024.

Here’s a list of names of the confirmed voice actors and which characters they will be playing:

• Elaine Auclair - Elizabeth Maxwell
• Ellroy Harwood - Keythe Farley
• Gerard Dantès - Jason Marnocha
• Mare - Skyler Davenport
• Melchior - Kyle McCarley
• Olympia - Emi Lo
• René Kincaid - Ben Lepley
• Renne Bright - Courtney Lin
• Shizuna Rem Misurugi - Kelly Baskin
• Viola - Anairis Quiñones

Note that this is the second reveal of voice actors for The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak. In the first announcement, we learned who would play lead characters Van Arkride and Agnès Claudel, as well as some prominent other people.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak is being localized in English for the Western market following its initial release in Japan. As a part of the Trails series, the story will follow the events of both Trails of Cold Steel 4 and Trails into Reverie.

New key visuals for the Gintama 20th Anniversary Project, Gintama Sound Ultra Soul ‘24 are now live. There is also a site dedicated to it. The site opened on October 10, 2023, which also happens to be the birthday of the main protagonist, Gintoki Sakata. [Thanks, Comic Natalie!]

The key visual for the Gintama 20th Anniversary Project features Gintoki, Kagura, Shinpachi, and Sadaharu flying through space. Gintoki’s on his beloved scooter, while Kagura is riding Sadaharu with her signature parasol in hand. As per usual, Shinpachi is kind of the butt of the joke, as it looks like he fell off the back of Gintoki’s scooter and no one cares. There is also a new key visual for the live concert. It features the Yorozuya trio, the Shinsengumi trio, Katsura, and Takasugi wearing the concert’s T-shirts.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is a rare thing in modern gaming: a PC-centric release, based on unique game engine technology. When it launched last year, it certainly stood out from the crowd with detailed, evocative visuals and extremely detailed environmental artwork, along with extensive ray tracing features. However, it also arrived with a variety of performance issues, from network stability problems to frame-time hitching, even for those with higher-end kit. The game's brand-new port to Xbox Series consoles is an interesting opportunity to see just how well the game can scale to a lower-end fixed platform. Can Series X get anywhere close to a high-end PC experience, and what about Series S?

Darktide looks surprisingly impressive for a multiplayer-centric game. Most multiplayer titles sacrifice visual fidelity to achieve higher frame-rates and effectively target a wider range of potential hardware configurations, but this game is very different. For starters, there's an extreme level of environmental detail in each gameplay space.

If you take a close look at virtually any surface in Darktide, it has an intense amount of detail. The game is mostly set in indoor environments made of angular stamped metal and draped in wires and pipes, all of which hold up even at extreme close range. Everything is "greebled" or covered with nonfunctional bits of detail, that greatly enhance the complexity of the game environments. This is mostly accomplished through a mix of a high geometric density and parallax mapping - a genuine surprise for a co-op shooter.

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With great power comes great responsibility. That's not only the oft-misquoted philosophy of Spider-Man's Uncle Ben, it was also the central theme of a talk by No Brakes Games' head of studio Sitara Shefta at Develop Brighton earlier this year.

Drawing on her five years of experience leading a team of 26, plus a sister studio in Lithuania, the leader of the Human Fall Flat developer shared what she believes to be the core priorities and best practices for becoming an effective manager.

"One of the worst things, in my opinion, is working somewhere you don't get to enjoy that spark, or innovation is limited," Shefta said. "I don't think that provides people with the opportunity to flourish. I knew that I wanted to create an environment where people feel happy coming into the studio – whether in person or virtually – and where people are motivated and driven about what they're doing."

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The British Esports Association has responded to backlash following the announcement of its partnership with the Saudi Esports Federation earlier this week.

In a statement shared on social media, the UK's national body for esports said it was aware the announcement "raised questions and concerns within our community" and wanted to "address these openly and honestly."

The BEA shared its "belief that every individual, regardless of their gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation, should be able to participate and thrive in the esports industry," adding that "this has not changed and will not change."

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To promote the upcoming release of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, a 3D advertisement appeared on billboards in New York City and Los Angeles. The official Marvel Games social media account posted two clips of each of the 3D billboard ads in action.

The advertisement depicts Peter Parker and Miles Morales working together in the midst of a battle with the sinewy symbiote Venom. At one point in the advertisement, the 3D effect makes it appear as if Venom is propelling himself out of the screen, screeching as his long, prehensile tongue slings out toward the crowd. Shortly after, Peter and Miles follow, appearing as if they’re ready to jump out to save the actual New York City the advertisement is playing in. This is fitting, considering New York City is the setting of the game and Spider-Man’s classic neighborhood.

Watch the clips of the 3D Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 advertisements in the post below:

Early on in Starfield you start becoming a galactic superhero, unlocking stellar abilities like suspending gravity, slowing down time, and peering into the future (though there isn’t one to make Chunks tastier, sadly). Less cool, unfortunately, is that the repetitive process of gathering all your superpowers can…

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Lilith Moira, Diablo's demonic Queen of the Succubi, is now in Overwatch 2, but this has been even less of a heavenly debut than perhaps developer Blizzard was expecting.

The studio made a big deal out of Lilith's arrival as part of its promos for Season 7: Rise of Darkness. This got fans excited - or it did, until it didn't.

You see, it turns out this Lilith skin is only available through an Ultimate Battle Pass bundle, and that bundle doesn't exactly come cheap - it's £35/$40.

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On September 29, 2023, Nintendo renewed the trademark for the Tomodachi Life title in Japan. The trademark registration appeared on the Chizai Watch database on October 10, 2023. The original Japanese name of the game is Tomodachi Collection: New Life.

The well-beloved social simulation series is known for incorporating user created Mii characters, and focusing on comedic and absurd interaction between them. While Nintendo has reduced the inclusion and support of Mii characters since the release of the Nintendo Switch, some titles still use the beloved characters, such as Nintendo Switch Sports.

Tomodachi Life originally released for the Nintendo 3DS on April 2013 in Japan and June 2014 overseas. It is the second title in Nintendo’s Tomodachi Collection game series, and the first one to appear outside of Japan. The original Tomodachi Collection released exclusively in Japan on June 2009 for the Nintendo DS.

Crocs has teamed up with Demon Slayer for a line of anime-inspired comfort footwear. The line will be exclusively available as early-access merchandise at New York Comic Con 2023. Following the event, the themed shoes will be sold exclusively at Foot Locker's physical locations and at online stores. The crossover was announced on the NYCC social media account.

The new Crocs collection will feature footwear inspired by four main characters from Demon Slayer, including Tanjiro Kamado, Nezuko Kamado, Inosuke Hashibara, and Zenitsu Agatsuma. The Crocs feature the color of each character’s haori or take a signature color from their design.

You can see the full Crocs announcement below:

https://twitter.com/NY_Comic_Con/status/1710399563033633218?t=p9pIr8KuVzDgynlFkBCy5A&s=19

Each piece in the collection will also include custom Jibbitz with Demon Slayer motifs that can be added and removed from the footwear according to personal preference. Chachamaru, Nezuko’s wooden box, and Chuntaro are just a few examples of the Demon Slayer Jibbitz.

A two-year legal dispute between Studio Wildcard, its parent Snail Games, and Angela Game has been settled, following allegations that the latter stole the source code of Ark: Survival Evolved.

In a joint statement, the three companies confirmed the dispute has been resolved, and announced Snail Games will work with Angela Game to bring its MMO Myth of Empires back to market.

The dispute began in 2021, when Studio Wildcard and Snail Games alleged that Myth of Empires was built on the source code behind their own title, Ark: Survival Evolved.

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Fortnite will drop players back into the game's basic but beloved original map - or at least parts of it.

That's according to a wave of reports from trusted leakers such as HypeX and Shiina, who rely on insider information and details gleaned from within Fortnite's files.

Yesterday, Fortnite imagery appeared online that referenced a return to the original "Chapter 1" map, as this season's villain Kado Thorne can be seen standing in front of a time machine set to the date "2018 07 12" - that's the day the original map's fifth season launched.

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Nearly two years ago, Microsoft announced it was acquiring Call of Duty and Diablo maker Activision Blizzard for a colossal $69 billion. With reports indicating that the deal is set to close tomorrow, on October 13, the saga is almost over. Ahead of that deal's finalization, we learned Activision Blizzard will not be putting the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III or the recently released Diablo IV on Xbox Game Pass this year. Now, thanks to a new report from WindowsCentral, we've learned Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick held an all-hands employee meeting yesterday where former late-night show host James Corden interviewed him about future technology, the acquisition, and Guitar Hero. 

Five of the Best is a weekly series for supporters of Eurogamer. It's a series that highlights some of the features in games that are often overlooked. It's also about 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.

How better to represent progression in a game than have people climb to the top of a tower? It's a motif that's as old as time, if you ask me, and you probably shouldn't because then I'll say something like that. Games and towers, though, they go back. But the question is, which towers in games are the best? It's Wednesday, it's Five of the Best, let's get into it.

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Yesterday, Sony announced its "slim" models for the regular and digital editions of PlayStation 5, but not without some extra costs being introduced with the line.

For starters, both the regular and digital PS5 slim models will come with a horizontal stand, but no base. A base is included in the box with the launch models, but if you want to stand the PS5 slim vertically, you'll need to buy a separate vertical stand (compatible with all PS5 models!) for £25, or $30.

For buyers in North America, the slim model of the digital PS5 is more expensive than the launch model, costing $450 compared to $400, despite its smaller size. The slim PS5 with a disc drive will remain at the same price of $500.

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In terms of usefulness to the average PC owner, sales events like Amazon Prime Big Deal Days aren’t just for knocking hundreds off big-ticket hardware. They can also make already-affordable kit even more of a bargain, as is the case with the Logitech G413 SE mechanical keyboard: a snip at £60.

This has been on our best gaming keyboards list for a while now, specifically for delivering all the satisfying finger-feel (and durability) of a true mechanical board with a pricing that puts it closer to high-end membrane and hybrid switch models. The G413 SE employs the bumpy 'tactile' style of mech switches, so it’s good for accurate typing, and it’s easily fast and agile enough for gaming duty as well. I actually ended up using this as my main keyboard for a while, despite having more expensive linear-switch boards piled up in a nearby cupboard, and I’d extra-extra-recommend it at this price.

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Earlier this week, British eSports announced a partnership with the Saudi eSports Federation. The UK's national body for competitive video gaming said this collaboration aimed to set "new standards of excellence, education and innovation throughout the world of esports". This would include a variety of endeavours between the two parties, including internships, training programs and research projects.

However, British eSports has now acknowledged this news had sparked "concern" - no doubt fuelled by Saudi Arabia's poor human rights record, which includes the criminalisation of homosexuality, fewer rights for women and the use of the death penalty. Saudi's Prince Mohammed bin Salman has also been blamed for the assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi by US intelligence agencies.

As a result, British eSports has released a statement addressing issues raised by the esports community.

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The consolidation of the games industry threatens to continue apace, as rumours surface that senior Disney staff are urging CEO Bob Iger to acquire a major game company, such as Deluxe Paint and Shaq Fu publisher Electronic Arts (who also publish Battlefield and Apex Legends, if I remember correctly). Apparently, the aforesaid senior executives think Disney are losing out for merely licensing Disney properties to developers, but Iger is said to be "noncommittal".

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