I haven’t been keeping up with player reaction to the latest Twar and Twarhammer games, but it seems players are none too pleased with Creative Assembly right now. In a rather dramatic open letter, the company's vice president Roger Collum has acknowledged that Total War: Warhammer 3’s Shadows of Change add-on and the recent historical strategy outing Total War: Pharaoh did not ship in a desirable state, with complaints ranging from wobbly execution to overpricing. The studio will try to make things right by offering partial refunds to Pharaoh owners and giving away DLC on top of the usual updates.

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Ubisoft has delisted open world racing game The Crew, with servers shutting down next year.

The Crew originally released in December 2014, with the most recent third entry in the series - The Crew Motorfest - arriving nine years later in September 2023.

An update from the Ubisoft Ivory Tower team states that all editions of The Crew, including virtual currency packs, are now no longer available to purchase from online stores.

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It’s that time again, as the 1.6 Special Program for Honkai: Star Rail meant Stellar Jade codes. Three are available and can be redeemed either by the end of December 15, 2023 or when they run out, whichever comes first.

As usual, the three codes came up over the course of the presentation. Each one provides 100 Stellar Jades and another kind of consumable people can use to build up their characters. In total, people get 300 Stellar Jades, which is enough for one 160 pull on the gacha. By completing daily tasks, people would be able to get the additional 20 Stellar Jades needed to make that two pulls.

See the Honkai: Star Rail Stellar Jade codes for Special Program 1.6

You can claim every one of the three codes below one at a time to get the items. Almost immediately after you do, an in-game message will appear in your inbox giving you the currency and reward. The Traveler’s Guides and Refined Aether can provide EXP for characters and Light Cones.

• QTRTNC3LU9UX – 100 Stellar Jade, 5 Traveler’s Guides

Surprise! There's a free demo for Another Code: Recollection now available to download from the eShop.

Nintendo's narrative-focused mystery adventure launches fully on Switch next year, on 19th January. But you can play the game's opening chapter right now, and carry over your progress if you continue on in the full thing.

Another Code: Recollection is the souped-up Nintendo Switch version of the two Another Code games that launched across Nintendo DS and Wii: Two Memories (known as Trace Memory in the US) and R - A Journey into Lost Memories.

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3D Realms and Slipgate Ironworks are the latest studios to be affected by Embracer's restructuring program.

While Embracer is yet to publicly comment on these particular layoffs, Eurogamer understands the news to be accurate, while several team members have said they have been affected.

3D Realms founder Scott Miller shared his sadness on X (formerly Twitter). "Several sources have told me this bad news... Sorry to hear about another drop of the axe by Embracer Group, this time landing on Danish 3D Realm," he wrote.

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Creative Assembly has apologised for "missteps" it made with the Total War series and is offering partial refunds of Total War: Pharaoh on Steam.

The Shadows of Change DLC for Total War: Warhammer 3 was poorly received by players when it released in August, with mostly negative reviews on Steam posted ever since. Total War: Pharaoh, meanwhile, was criticised for its high price and lack of content.

"We again apologise for the missteps we've made," reads a new blog post from Creative Assembly vice president Roger Collum. "The mistakes of Total War are a shared responsibility by all the leaders of the franchise, and while it may not seem like it at times, we are listening."

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The first mod I ever downloaded was for Skyrim. It replaced NPCs with Shrek. The second was a texture pack for Dark Souls: Remastered. I believe that these two examples form a representative sample of what mods are: quality of life improvements, and Shrek. Doom’s modding community, known by its file package WAD, is the Ur modding community. Thanks to John Carmack’s lightning-fast engine, creating levels and content for Doom has been accessible for 30 years. WAD devs have gone on to become fully-fledged game designers, and some WADs have been released commercially. The breadth and depth of this community formed the bedrock of game developers. And yet even with this pedigree, MyHouse.WAD is a miracle.

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For a couch potato like me, being able to play dodgeball without having to be physically active is a dream come true! The fact that Death Ball includes cool swords made the experience even better. Fast reflexes weren’t enough to help me win, though!

To ensure I had the most powerful sword and champion, I had to get more Gems. The quickest way to obtain enough of this in-game currency was by redeeming Death Ball codes. Once I had enough, I was able to purchase my favorite character and defeat all the other players. If you’d also like to climb to the top of the leaderboards, redeem the codes before they become invalid. For more dodgeball fun, check out our Blade Ball Codes article to get enough Coins for better weapons in this experience, too!

This article contains spoilers for events that occur within Alan Wake 2's narrative.

I started 2023 not knowing who or what Alan Wake was, let alone that a sequel was on the way.

This was a blessing in disguise, since I didn't have to wait 13 long, arduous years to discover whether Remedy's favourite tortured writer made it out of the Dark Place.

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Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've found ourselves playing over the last few days. This time: spaceship battles, space, and classic Final Fantasy.

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

I know I wrote about Outer Wilds earlier this week, but I've been back in again and again and I keep being so thrilled by what I find I can't stop babbling about it to everyone I meet.

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Ever since AoT ended, I’ve been looking for more content to fill the void. Finally, I turned to anime-inspired Roblox experiences, with Untitled Attack on Titan being one of my favorites. Gather your friends and scout the iconic locations, or become a master strategist like Erwin in the Waves mode.

Quality gear is the key if you don’t want to end your adventure as a Titan meal. Unfortunately, everything from ODM gear to horses costs your weight in gold. Life in the Survey Corps isn’t easy, so redeem our Untitled Attack on Titan codes to become rich in an instant. And, if you want to be a top soldier in another fantastic game, check out our Attack on Titan Revolution Codes article! 

Naughty Dog has stopped development on The Last of Us Online.

The studio shared an update about its multiplayer project in a blog post on Thursday, in which it stated the decision came down to what maintaining an online service game would mean for its single-player titles currently in development.

"To release and support The Last of Us Online, we'd have to put all our studio resources behind supporting post launch content for years to come, severely impacting development on future single-player games," the studio wrote.

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Darkest Dungeon II: Binding Blade DLC on PC

When it comes to expansions, the Darkest Dungeon series is held in fairly high regard thanks to its exceptional expansions for the first game. Given this, it’s little surprise fans have been eagerly anticipating the Binding Blade DLC for Darkest Dungeon II.

Offering two new characters to choose from and an extended in-game quest that impacts runs, the new content held the potential to give players plenty of new content that builds on the base game’s solid foundation. Or at least, it did in theory. In practice, it could bog down the experience with yet more mechanics and features to juggle, further increasing the difficulty of an already punishing game.

Pokemon has completely taken over the Shinsaibashi Gate branch of Girls Mignon, a chain of purikura stores in Japan. Outside of Japan, you’ll be able to use Pokemon stickers when doing purikura if you’re using a Purimania machine.

The concept of the store is to bring Pokemon into people’s daily lives. Because your Pokemon is so cute and strong, they make you as the trainer even cuter. As such, classic “cute” Pokemon such as Psyduck, Jigglypuff, and Sprigatito decorate the walls and lockers of the Shinsaibashi Gate Girls Mignon. The store will only look like this for a limited time. Interested users will only have until June 16, 2024 to visit the Pokemon purikura.

For those who are unable to go to Shinsaibashi, you can still enjoy Pokemon stickers and frames when playing purikura. In total, there are eight variations. You can choose to decorate your pictures with Pikachu, Jigglypuff, Psyduck, Ditto, Eevee, Snorlax, Sprigatito, or a combination of them. Like the store, the stickers and frames will only be available in Purimania machines until June 16, 2024.

A24 has risen in prominence in the last few years, putting out quality films like Hereditary, Midsommar, Lady Bird, and Uncut Gems, just to name a few. On the other side of the coin, video game developer and industry auteur Hideo Kojima is a huge film buff, and it’s widely known that he enjoys A24’s works as well. With all that in mind, the A24 adaptation of Death Stranding seems like a happy marriage.

Kojima Productions and A24 announced today that the studio would be adapting Death Stranding into a live-action movie.

For those who’ll be in Sapporo for the Snow Festival in 2024, you’ll be able to check out snow sculptures of Jujutsu Kaisen characters. To be specific, snow sculptures of Yuji and Gojo will be at the venue, and the official site notes they will appear. [Thanks, ryokutya2089!]

Aside from looking at snow sculptures, you’ll also be able to purchase exclusive merchandise of the main Jujutsu Kaisen characters. They’ll use the key visual from the snow festival. All of the characters are wearing their usual outfits but with earmuffs. Yuji is the only character whose ears are out and about.

Here is the list of merchandise you’ll be able to get for Jujutsu Kaisen at the Sapporo Snow Festival:

• Acrylic keychains: 770 JPY
• Acrylic stand: 1760 JPY
• Art stand: 2420 JPY
• Clear folder: 440 JPY
• Cup stickers: 1320 JPY

Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny is now available for the PS4 and the PS5. You can get it for around $10 or for free if you’re a PlayStation Plus Premium subscriber.

As of the time of writing, the game has a rating of around 4.24 with 275 users who submitted their feedback. 70% of the ratings are 5-stars and 12% of them are 1-star. Judging by the lack of 3 or 2-stars, it seems that modern players either love it or hate it with little in between.

Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny originally came out for the PSP in 2009. While it plays similar to Soulcalibur IV, the target audience is for beginners and novice players. Kratos of God of War appeared as a new character to the Soulcalibur series. Broken Destiny also introduced original character Dampierre. The original PSP version also enjoyed generally favorable reviews. Unlike the main Soulcalibur games, Broken Destiny does have have a story or online PvP.

People will get a chance to experience Another Code: Recollection ahead of launch with a demo, as the Switch version of Trace Memory and Another Code: R was announced. It is available now, as a new trailer.

The original Another Code was a DS adventure game released worldwide. In it a young girl named Ashley is given a DAS from her missing father and called to an island to investigate. Once she does, she learns the truth about her parents’ past and their research. In the sequel, which only appeared in Europe and Japan on the Wii, Ashley is summoned to a new location, given a new device, and finds a new mystery to solve. The Switch version fo the game is updated with new appearances, additional content, and quality of life features like an ability to get hints in the event someone gets stuck. 

Here’s the new trailer.

The Last of Us came with a pretty fun and unique multiplayer mode in the form of Factions, and when The Last of Us Part II released, much of the player base was excited to see how Naughty Dog would iterate on an existing formula. We’d gotten a few updates over the past couple years, but as of today, the studio has officially decided to stop development on The Last of Us Online.

Essentially, while Naughty Dog was happy with the way things were progressing with the game, the vision for The Last of Us Online had become so massively ambitious that would require a lot of time and resources for the years to come. Things had gotten to a point where the company had to decide to either continue focusing their efforts on creating single-player games, or become a live service studio that focused on The Last of Us Online.

Following reports that development on Naughty Dog's long-awaited The Last of Us multiplayer game had been "slowed down" earlier this year, the studio has announced it's officially pulling the plug on the project, saying it didn't want to become a "solely live service games studio".

Naughty Dog's multiplayer game was initially planned to be part of The Last of Us Part 2, but the studio announced it was separating the two halves in 2019. After years of relative silence on its progress, studio co-head Neil Druckmann emerged in January to confirm more would be revealed "later this year" - but instead, May brought the news the project needed "more time".

Shortly after, a report from Bloomberg's Jason Schreier claimed Destiny developer Bungie - which had been individually assessing many of Sony's "games as a service" projects since being acquired by the company - had raised concerns about The Last of Us multiplayer's "ability to keep players engaged for a long period of time", resulting in Sony scaling back the team to just a "small group" while it evaluated the project's direction.

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Naughty Dog has stopped development on The Last of Us Online. A statement regarding this decision is available via the company’s official website.

To start with, Naughty Dog acknowledges that many fans, especially the The Last of Us Factions community, would be upset at hearing this news. However, it also provided a bit of an explanation. While progress on the game had been good, the team realized that in order for them to make The Last of Us Online according to their vision for the game, they would have to put literally the entire studio’s resources behind maintaining and supporting the game after it launches. That means Naughty Dog would be unable to work on or release single-player games in the future.

Naughty Dog has announced it has ceased production of The Last of Us Online, its long-in-development multiplayer title set within its popular post-apocalyptic universe. 

In a blog post, Naughty Dog explains it made the “incredibly difficult” decision to cancel the project after it apparently became so big that the studio realized it would need to devote precious resources to support it post-launch for years to come. When faced with the reality of having to become a studio solely dedicated to supporting a live service game or to continue making single-player experiences, it chose the latter. 

Here's Naughty Dog's full statement:

505 Games released a new trailer introducing the key features of Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. At over six minutes long, the trailer is suitable for both newbies and veterans of the Eiyuden series.

You can watch the trailer here:

At first, it starts with introducing the three main characters: Nowa, Seign, and Marisa. On their journeys, they can meet a total of a hundred unique heroes. Some of the ones that the trailer introduces include Hildi, Yuferius VII, and Mio. You can level up the characters’ relationship with each other to unlock new skills and moves to use in combat.

The Last of Us Online is dead. Naughty Dog announced today that the multiplayer spin-off of the hit series is no longer in development, citing concerns about managing ongoing content for a live-service game while still trying to produce the single-player blockbusters the PlayStation studio is famous for.

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Good Smile Company has opened pre-orders on the company's upcoming RoboCop and ED-209 Moderoid model kits, which will be released in 2024. The Moderoid kits come ready to assemble straight out of the box and do not require any painting.

Moderoid is a series of plastic model kits from Good Smile Company. The company is best known for the highly popular Nendoroid and Figma action figure lines but also has produced numerous statues based on iconic franchises.

There are two different versions of the Moderoid RoboCop model kit. One is the standard RoboCop model kit that stands about 7 inches tall and comes with an Auto 9 and Cobra Assault Canon. The model kit in dudes interchangeable face plates and hand parts, including data spike hand parts. The right thigh parts can be deployed, and holster parts can be attached to recreate the Auto 9 ejection state.

This Moderorid costs $37.99 USD and will release in Q4 2024. You can get a closer look at the kit in the gallery below:

Ultrawide monitors often come at a premium, but right now you can pick up a 34-inch gaming monitor for just $199 - just in time for the winter holidays where you'll have a chance to snuggle up and play some video games!

That's a phenomenally good price for a 3440x1440 LG model with a 100Hz refresh rate and FreeSync/G-Sync Compatible support for gaming. The monitor is even based around an IPS panel that covers 99% of the sRGB gamut with wide viewing angles and good colour accuracy, making it a good choice for content creation too.

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A new Project Voltage image has been shared on the official X (formerly Twitter) account. The new Project Voltage Hatsune Miku art celebrates the release of the Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Indigo Disk DLC.

The image depicts Hatsune Miku wearing the Blueberry Academy uniform, while surrounded by the Pokemon Scarlet and Violet starter trio, Quaquaval, Meowscarada, and Skeledirge. In the art, Miku is striking a dynamic pose holding a Tera Orb. The new artwork was drawn by artist Chika Matsuno (@TikaMatsuno on X.)

You can take a better look at the new Project Voltage Hatsune Miku art inspired by The Indigo Disk DLC here:

TeamGroup makes some of the best value RAM and SSDs on the market, and today we're looking at the latter - the MP34, a PCIe 3.0 SSD available in a massive 4TB size for just $151.99 at Newegg - down from a usual price of $199.99. This is an outstanding value for a high-speed NVMe drive that is perfect for huge game and media collections.

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Epic seems to have found the limit for cosmetic pricing. The company announced today that it is lowering the price of Fortnite’s recently added in-game cars from around $35 to around $23.

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Final Fantasy XIV has an abundant variety of jobs for players to choose from, and they’re suited for all types of adventures in Eorzea from combat to crafting and gathering. The latter two especially go hand-in-hand, as gatherers are responsible for, well, gathering all the necessary resources that crafters need to make their desired items.

One such crafter is Culinarian, which is a job that you can start early on in the game and contributes greatly to the game as a whole, particularly for EXP and stat boosts. Granted, you may not know off-hand where exactly to started, but we’ve got your covered there. Here is how to unlock and level Culinarian in FFXIV.

A new Story of Seasons spin-off is on the way, as Score Studios, Rainy Frog, and Marvelous announced the nonogram puzzle game Piczle Cross: Story of Seasons. It will come to the Switch and PC on February 27, 2024. 

As a nonogram puzzle game like Picross, this Story of Seasons spin-off involves filling in squares on a grid based on the number clues above and to the left of each vertical and horizontal row. As someone fills out a puzzle, a picture emerges. In this case, every image is based on a Story of Seasons (Bokujou no Monogatari) game that appeared over the years. Initial screenshots and the first trailer show references to the series’ cow, farmer, crops, and NPCs. The game will also include a jukebox with songs from past mainline games, information about past installments, and a background that changes and is inspired by past farms as you complete stages.

Here’s a closer look at the first trailer, which shows off some of the 350 puzzles available. References to Story of Seasons Friends of Mineral Townand A Wonderful Life appear.

Ubisoft’s The Crew, which was released in 2014 for Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC, has been delisted without warning. Its servers will shut off next year, too. And because the game is an always-online experience, Ubisoft has confirmed that it will become unplayable once that happens.

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On December 15, 2023, Omocat will release a new collection of Hololive Gamers clothing and merchandise based on Vtuber subunit. It also shared five photos teasing the items that will be available.

All of the items will show up on the Omocat Shop on December 15, 2023 at 5pm PT/8pm ET. Exact prices and items for the collection weren’t mentioned. However, the Hololive EN Omocat collection based on the Vtubers included t-shirts, hoodies, track jackets, hats, posters, acrylic stands, pins, keychains, and lanyards. The keychains and lanyards were the cheapest at $10 each, and the most expensive items were $85 track jackets.

The Omocat Hololive Gamers collection initial photos featured two hoodies, what look like two pocket t-shirts, and what looks like a jacket. The black jacket features a design with Inugami Korone, Nekomata Okayu, Ookami Mio, and Shirakami Fubuki on the back. The Fubuki hoodie and pocket t-shirt and Mio hoodie and pocket t-shirt are also teased. In the case of the apparent pocket t-shirts, it seems it will look like a chibi version of the Vtuber is hiding inside.

Here’s a closer look at all of those items.

Curious about Alan Wake 2 but never played the first? Well if you’re a PC gamer, I’ve got some good news: Grab a copy of Alan Wake 2 on the Epic Games Store during its holiday sale and you’ll get a free copy of the 2021 remastered version of the first game.

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Will we ever be finished re-litigating the Star Wars sequel trilogy? From The Last Jedi on, the movies have been a black hole of discourse that is near-inescapable if you have even a casual interest in the franchise. 2019’s The Rise Of Skywalker was such a rocky ending that it seems to have impeded Lucasfilm’s…

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Now that the finale from the live event in Los Angeles has been secured and uploaded to the site, we now have a (mostly) completed picture of everything from the sixteenth annual Giant Bomb Game of the Year festivities.

Why do I say "mostly"? Well, for one, we still need the second half of each staff member's personal top 10.

Secondly, if you haven't heard, GOTY GUEST LISTS ARE RETURNING THIS YEAR! You should be seeing them pop up on the site during the holiday break. So, stay tuned for that!

Thirdly, the Community GOTY voting will begin on MONDAY! The submission form will go live on the front page at the same time as Game Mess Mornings.

Also, if you want to see a bunch of photos from the live event including many from behind the scenes and after the cameras shut off, you can see those HERE!

Gecco opened pre-orders for its upcoming 1/6 scale statue of Artorias the Abyssbreaker from Dark Souls. People all over the world can now place orders for the statue at $759.99. Ultra Tokyo Connection, Diamond Comics Distributor, and Sideshow will also help distribute the statue in North America.

Gecco will base the figure's pose on Artorias' first appearance cutscene. The sculptor will weave the statue's chainmail in the same way as the real armor. The abyssal darkness that corrupts Artorias around his feet will also depicted in much detail as it overflows beyond the statue's base.

The 1/6-scale statue will have an overall height of around 380mm (~14.96 inches). The manufacturer will use ABS material to form most of the body frames. It will then cover them with PVC material that allows finer details and longer preservation.

Uniqlo announced the release of new t-shirts inspired by Street Fighter and Tekken as part of the Fighting Game Legends UT collection. The new collection will go on sale in Japan on February 26, 2024. [Thanks, 4Gamer!]

The new collection will include 3 t-shirts for for each game series. Each t-shirt costs 1,500 yen (or about $10.) There is no word on if the new collection will appear outside of Japan, but Uniqlo usually releases similar collections overseas.

The first Street Fighter Uniqlo t-shirt is a dark gray tee with the franchise logo on the back featuring art of Ryu inside the letters, and Ryu doing a Shoryuken on the front. The second one is a white t-shirt with the Street Fighter 2 logo on the front, and hand drawn development art of the game on the back. The third t-shirt is a navy blue tee with the Street Fighter 6 logo and main character Luke.

A24 and Kojima Productions announced their plans to adapt Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding into a live-action movie. A24 is best known for its highly-acclaimed films like Everything Everywhere All At Once, Moonlight, Uncut Gems, Hereditary, and Lady Bird.

The original video game features famous Hollywood actors like Norman Reedus, Mads Mikkelsen, Lea Seydoux, Margaret Qualley, Tommie Earl Jenkins, and Lindsey Wagner. There are currently no announcements regarding the cast for the Death Stranding live-action film adaption. No other information was revealed about the upcoming film adaption of the video game by Hideo Kojima.

To commemorate the announcement of the live-action feature film, A24 has released a special shirt with A24's logo specially woven into the style of Death Stranding's logo. The shirt comes in sizes Small to 2XL and costs $40 USD. The shirt is currently sold out on the A24 Shop due to popular demand following the film adaption's announcement.

The A24 x Death Stranding shirt and its logo can be viewed below: