Valve's making a list, and checking it twice; it's gonna find out who's naughty and nice. And if you happen to be on its Naughty List - which pretty much applies to any one of the "thousands" of DOTA 2 players now identified as being dirty, filthy cheaters - you can expect a cheerfully gift-wrapped lump of toxic coal and a permanent ban in your stocking as your festive treat for 2023.

DOTA 2's annual Frostivus celebrations are now officially underway, meaning everyone on Valve's Nice List - as per its Frostivus 2023 update announcement - can look forward to various festive treats and quality of life improvements. It's less of a jolly holiday for those who've been placed on Valve's Naughty List, however: King Kringle is now doing the rounds with his ban hammer to "pulverise the smurf accounts of all the naughty boys and girls, before handing out penalties to their associated main accounts."

Following Valve's brutal culling of over 90,000 smurf accounts back in September, the company says it's "continued to invest in player behaviour monitoring" and will be handing out still more punishments for smurf accounts and other "questionable choices", including "bad actors...playing like jerks, ruining games and losing behaviour score because of it, then hiring behaviour score farmers to drive it back up."

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Following a bit of a tease, it was revealed the new Hololive HoneyWorks track is the Usada Pekora and Houshou Marine song “Bridal Dream.” here’s also a schedule for more music videos, as well as two new albums of original songs and covers from multiple Vtubers.

This is essentially a PekoMari song, as the lyrics often repeat. The video begins with A-chan dressed as a nun hyping up the crowd asking “is this awesome” and “is this pure bliss.” From there, we get to hear Pekora and Marine’s duet, with the two in wedding gowns and various elements of marriage and a wedding discussed. Throughout the course of the video, we see Marine’s fantasies and, eventually, Pekora’s reaction.

Here’s the full Usada Pekora and Houshou Marine music video for the song “Bridal Dream.” An English translation is available if closed captions are turned on.

This week on All Things Nintendo, Brian is back in the office, so as promised, he spends much of the episode catching up on the biggest news items from the world of Nintendo. After that, he and Wesley LeBlanc share E3 memories, recap Brian's recent interview with Eiji Aonuma and Hidemaro Fujibayashi, and chat about Brian's recent trips to The Game Awards and Tokyo.

If you'd like to follow Brian on social media, you can do so on his Instagram/Threads @BrianPShea or Twitter @BrianPShea. You can follow Wesley on Twitter: @LeBlancWes.

The All Things Nintendo podcast is a weekly show where we celebrate, discuss, and break down all the latest games, news, and announcements from the industry's most recognizable name. Each week, Brian is joined by different guests to talk about what's happening in the world of Nintendo. Along the way, they'll share personal stories, uncover hidden gems in the eShop, and even look back on the classics we all grew up with. A new episode hits every Friday!

The Elden Ring DLC Shadow of the Erdtree may be set for a February, 2024, release date according to a recent Thrustmaster leak. Said leak also suggests a second addition of some sort possibly scheduled for 2025 [Thanks, ChiefLeef22 on Reddit and Wario64!)

The alleged leak comes via a collaboration between Bandai Namco and gaming controller and peripherals company Thrustmaster, which was found by Reddit user ChiefLeef22. Apparantly, a Phillipines-based vendor called DataBlitz listed unintended images in the pre-order page for the Elden Ring-themed Thrustmaster controllers. These images listed a February 2024 release window for the controllers, which was intended to sync with the release of the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. The page has since been taken down, along with several screenshots being hosted, but a cached version can be found in the Reddit post.

Also listed are two more controllers based on the characters Malenia and Ranni, which the page states are intended to be released alongside a "major keybeat or game expansion" in 2025.

You can find the leaked images in Wario64's tweet below:

Sword Art Online Last Recollection is an action RPG at its core that brings along some of the best features from its MMO roots. Dropping the overly ambitious systems from past games, the 2023 title from Bandai Namco has more in common with games like Tales of Arise than its predecessors. As a result, SAO Last Recollection is one of the most fun hack-and-slash games I've played all year.

While the Sword Art Online game adaptations have gone through many changes over the years, Last Recollection dives further into the direction of action-adventure games than ever before. So, if you are a fan of the more MMORPG-heavy projects from the series' earlier entries, this game will not likely win you over. However, if you love action-RPGs like Tales and Xenoblade, then there is a lot to love about this entry that is worth checking out.

HuneX announced a follow up to the otome game Steam Prison, called Steam Prison: Beyond the Steam, is in development. No platforms were mentioned, but it appeared on the Nintendo Switch and PC worldwide in 2024.

The reveal included a look at the new design for Cyrus Tistella, the game’s heroine. It takes place after the events and will allow people to see what happened further between her and Adage, Eltcreed, Fin, Ines, Ulrik, and Yune and the game’s world. The announcement did confirm that it follows the “best” canon ending from the original game.

Here’s the reveal. It reminds people that the original Steam Prison otome game debuted on PCs in 2016 in Japan. MangaGamer handled the PC worldwide release in 2019. A Vita version launched in Japan in 2017. However, it wasn’t until 2021 that the game appeared on the Nintendo Switch eShop worldwide.

With Grand Theft Auto VI set to take players back to Vice City (albeit in contemporary times), we decided it was a good time to take another look back at the series' first spin on South Florida. Join Kyle Hilliard and Marcus Stewart as they dive right into the middle of Tommy Vercetti's rise to power and stay tuned for the reveal of our next Super Replay. 

If you enjoy our livestreams but haven’t subscribed to our Twitch channel, know that doing so not only gives you notifications and access to special emotes. You’ll also be granted entry to the official Game Informer Discord channel, where our welcoming community members, moderators, and staff gather to talk games, entertainment, food, and organize hangouts! Be sure to also follow our second YouTube channel, Game Informer Shows, to watch other Replay episodes as well as Twitch archives of GI Live and more. 

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Ubisoft has announced that The Crew, the first game in the franchise, has been delisted from all online stores.

The Crew 1 was released in December 2014; it will remain playable until its servers are shut down on March 31, 2024.

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Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom will launch in Japanese theaters in late January 2024, and Sunrise is preparing multiple exhibitions to prepare for the movie's arrival. The exhibitions will primarily feature merchandise related to characters and Mobile Suits from the Gundam SEED sub-series.

The first exhibition will be titled "Y2K Sunrise Mecha Exhibition," and it will take place at Bandai Namco Cross Store Tokyo in Ikebukuro's Sunshine City from December 23, 2023, to February 25, 2024. This exhibition will showcase not only the first Gundam SEED, Destiny, and Stargazer. It will also celebrate many other mecha anime shows from the 2000s, which include Zegapain, Wings of Rean, Argento Soma, Overman King Gainer, and Zone of the Enders' 2167 Idolo and Dolores,i.

If you’ve been holding out hope that Baldur’s Gate 3 might find its way onto PC Game Pass in the future, I’ve got some bad news for you: it’s very unlikely to happen.

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Recently, my wife and I went out to do some Christmas shopping. We also grabbed some lunch while we were out, brought dinner home, rented a movie, and bought a game to play the next day. It should have been a chill weekend, but it wasn’t. In 2023, thanks to greedy billionaires and giant, shitty companies, buying just…

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Video game companies have gotten very creative when it comes to punishing cheaters, from cutting their parachutes’ strings in Call of Duty to blowing them up in Grand Theft Auto Online. But Valve just set a new benchmark for trolling players: sending them permabans wrapped up like Christmas presents.

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A new 1.2.0 My Time at Sandrock PC update is about to debut, with PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Switch versions of the patch on the way. It adds a challenge dungeon, new weapons, additional hairstyles, and new quests with players’ spouses after getting married.

There’s no exact release date for the PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Switch My Time at Sandrock patch. The YouTube description said it could be out the week of December 17, 2023 for PCs, but noted it could slip to the week after. The social media announcement said it will be a “Christmas” update on the PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. It didn’t have as pinned down an update for the Switch version of the update, but noted Pathea sent it to Nintendo. 

Here’s a list of some of the new features that will be a part of the 1.2.0 patch.

• Challenge Dungeon
• Magic Mirror Planting
• New Date Spots
• New Hairstyles
• New Weapons

The upcoming film adaptation of Norman Reedus Walking Simulator - aka Death Stranding - has signed up arthouse darlings A24.

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Hideki Kamiya, the prolific action game director who co-founded the legendary developer PlatinumGames, surprised the industry when he left the studio behind on October 20 after nearly 20 years there. He said the decision was of his own accord, but questions about why still lingered. Now, Kamiya’s spoken out to share…

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The next FFVII Ever Crisis Christmas banner is live and features Zack, with him getting a Twinkling Star Sword and three-piece Holiday Suit costume. There’s also a new Bramble Spine weapon on the banner for Matt, as well as a new Crisis Core FFVII story chapter.

There is only a new outfit for Zack in this banner, as Matt only gets the new weapon. Zack’s Twinkling Star has the C. Ability Dual Onslaught. It deals non-elemental physical damage to one enemy while also reducing its magical attack and, if your health is over 50%, its physical defense. With Matt, the Bramble Strike has the Stalwart Bravery C. Ability. That heals an ally, bestows Regen on them, and increases their physical attack. Both C. Abilities need four bars of the ATB to trigger.

As for the new Zack Christmas Holiday Suit costume in FFVII Ever Crisis, it is less Christmas themed and more of a general fancy outfit that could be worn for any winter holiday. Its R. Abilities are Boost HP, which increases his health, and Boost Phys. Ability Pot. That second R. Ability pairs well with the Twinkling Star, as it increases his physical damage if the command gauge for the attack stance is maxed out.

Ubisoft’s open-world multiplayer driving game The Crew will switch off its servers next spring, just shy of the series’ 10th anniversary. The shutdown will leave the car-based MMO impossible to play, with the game pulled from sale ahead of the move.

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Can you believe it's already been over four hundred years since Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree expansion was announced? And while this year's Game Awards failed to make the interminable wait any easier with a first trailer or some small morsel of news for fans, we might finally have something resembling a potential release window - courtesy of a retailer leak, by way of an official Bandai Namco partner, pointing to a February 2024 launch for the DLC.

As spotted over on Reddit, details of a new Elden Ring collaboration between publisher Bandai Namco and peripheral manufacturer Thrustmaster - one that'll apparently see the latter release a series of limited edition controllers themed around the game - were today shared, briefly and presumably mistakenly, by online retailer Datablitz.

Notably, the accompanying promotional material revealed the first batch of controllers would arrive in February next year to "sync with the new Shadow of the Erdtree expansion release". It's a launch window that seems highly unlikely at first glance, not least because it's barely two months from now with no peep of marketing from Bandai Namco - but on the other hand, who's to say that if I wish for something hard enough I can't make it happen? Plus, a surprise second anniversary launch would be in keeping with the amusingly understated way the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion was announced in the first place.

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Good Smile Company has opened pre-orders for the new Nendoroid of the Hololive English VTuber Ninomae Ina'nis. People residing in the U.S. and Canada can now place orders on the Good Smile Online Shop U.S. Those living elsewhere worldwide can instead order on the Japanese global web store, which supports not only Yen, but also Euros and US Dollars.

Ina's regular Nendoroid is available to order at ¥6,900 / $43.99. The set will come with alternate face parts showing her normal, angry, and cheery faces. It will also include a miniature pen, glasses, a Takodachi, and the Book of the Ancients.

A number of staff have been laid off at 3D Realms and Slipgate Ironworks - the developers behind Ghostrunner, Shadow Warrior, Duke Nukem and more - as the game industry devastation wrought by Embracer’s restructuring efforts continues.

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I don't look for Christmas games. Partly because they're basically all terrible, and partly because of how tiresome it is when everything is saturated with the same theme wherever you look. But Ebenezer And The Invisible World is about helping Scrooge run around London bashing capitalists and other evil spirits with his cane, and summoning friendly ghosts to prevent Caspar Malthus from genociding the working class. I simply could not find out what the hell was going on there.

Turns out, it's kinda good. But it has too many problems to reach much beyond that.

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The Blueberry Points grind is the worst part of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s Indigo Disk DLC. To access most of the new features the expansion adds, you have to earn Blueberry Academy’s fake currency by doing menial open-world tasks. The game barely gives you any BP for each Blueberry Quest, and it just feels like a…

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Wakatsuru will collaborate with Arc System Works to release Saburomaru whiskey featuring Sol and Ky from Guilty Gear on the labels. You’ll be able to put your name in a lottery for the Sol and Ky bottles from December 14, 2023, and directly purchase whiskey from December 21, 2023.

These bottles are to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Guilty Gear series. An blended whiskey featuring how Sol and Ky look in the first Guilty Gear game will come out on December 21, 2023. The Sol Badguy Version whiskey and the Ky Kiske Version whiskey will only be available via lottery.

Streaming platform Twitch recently announced a change to its sexual content policies that allowed some forms of fictionalized nudity—such as digital characters, sculptures, or drawings—as long as it was properly labeled. But now, just a few days later, it’s rolling back these changes and has apologized to the…

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It's always saddened me that Simogo's brilliant text-based adventure Device 6 has been trapped on iOS-only devices since it first came out... ten years ago? Hell's bells, now I feel old. If you're unfamiliar with it, it's about a girl named Anna who must escape from a mysterious island, but the whole game is presented like you're reading a book - only one that you can click on and prod with your fingers to reveal new puzzles within that text. It's very clever, especially when it occasionally asks you to rotate your device to navigate parts of its game worlds - there's an excellent bit with stairs that I won't spoil, but seriously, if you haven't played Device 6 and you own an iOS device, go and download it now.

Once you've done that, you should also have a look this year's Delete After Reading, which does a very good impression of it for us folks on PC, hiding smart, tactile text puzzles inside its interactive spy thriller.

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Next month, January of space-year 2024, sees the release of a whole new set of shiny Pokémon cards. Paldean Fates is a muddle of reprinted cards from 2023's sets and a ridiculous 100 new shinies. It will also features a brand-new shiny Charizard, which is going to cost all of the money. However, old fire-face is…

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Prime 1 Studio has revealed new Cutie1 Plus figures featuring Asuna and Kirito from the Sword Art Online series. Both figures are immediately available for pre-orders worldwide in a single set at $54.00. People in Japan can also order the figures separately at 4,180 yen (~$29.54) each.

The chibi figures will be handmade and also feel like plushes. Each figure will stand at around 9 cm (~3.54 inches) tall.

Some of the sample images for both figures are available to view right below:

Anime World Tower Defense is a thrilling strategy game that features many anime characters! I got to summon heroes from my favorite series and defend my base against the armies of the Corrupted Hero. Every wave granted me cash to indulge in gacha and pull more units!

I cleared 20 waves, thanks to Anime World Tower Defense codes. By claiming free goodies, such as puzzles, I summoned ultra-rare heroes and defended my base more easily! Protect your ground and bring peace by getting your hands on these valuable freebies! If you enjoy strategizing and playing tower defense games, check out our Roblox SCP Tower Defense Codes article to redeem more codes and get other interesting freebies!

Back in July of 2023—the month before Baldur’s Gate 3 finally released after spending years in early access—Larian Studios’ director of publishing Michael Douse said that the Dungeons & Dragons-based role-playing game has some 17,000 possible endings. “Wow,” you might be thinking, “that’s a lot of finales! How long…

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A new report says that the game industry in Ukraine has seen shifts in its workforce and operational structures.

According to Values Value, during Q1 and Q2, difficulties in securing new business contracts for the sector have resulted in redundancies.

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