Xbox and PlayStation have had their rivalries for years — and they started playing in the sandbox together as infants. Even though these players have grown up — they’re still in competition for gamer’s time and money. Famous rivalries in video game history exist, such as Sonic vs. Mario, Crash vs. Cortex, Link vs. Ganon, and Switch owners vs. Joycon Drift.

The PS5 has succeeded better than the Xbox Series X by a wide margin, to the extent that there have been rumors that Microsoft may forego developing consoles completely in favor of the next generation.

But Phil Spencer, CEO of Xbox reassured all Xbox employees that the company will not stop producing consoles. Saying that Xbox has no plans to quit consoles — and then having a podcast format announcement on February 15th has a few fans a bit nervous? Might we see Xbox announce a new harde, or perhaps a Pro version of the Series X — or forget a remake or update — might there be something completely new? The Ad on X says to watch on “YouTube.com/Xbox or where you listen to your podcasts.” Also, “Hear from Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond, and Matt Booty as they share updates on the Xbox business.”

Many wonder why Xbox continues to make exclusives and not go multiplatform? For many fans, the hope this week is that Microsoft will reveal plans to go multi-platform with some of the biggest Xbox games — and Game Pass, of course.

This would be an interesting move because among of the Xbox Series X’s major selling points are games like Sea of Thieves, Starfield, and Hi-Fi Rush. It should come as a relief to fans of studios like Bethesda and Activision Blizzard who joined with Microsoft, as this would virtually guarantee that PlayStation titles like Fallout and Call of Duty will continue to have a presence.

We await Phil Spencer’s news on February 15 to find out the destiny of our beloved Xbox.

Featured Image Credit: Luca Nardone; Pexels

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The Arrowhead and Sony game Hellldivers surpasses other record-setting titles such as God of War and Spider-Man on Steam.

The two were eclipsed by the third-person cooperative shooter that now boasts the top spot and 155,000 concurrent users on the PC platform, according to SteamDB.

The bug-blasting game is described as a “squad-based shooter that sees the elite forces of the Helldivers battling to win an intergalactic struggle to rid the galaxy of the rising alien threats.”

Helldiver’s director and Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt has been responding to positive messages from the community about the game’s continued success.

He said on X (formerly Twitter):

You think sony will say any public statement on the units sold? Congrats on the success!!

— GamerUP (@GamerUPGaming) February 11, 2024

The future of the title

Arrowhead has said that the game will deploy free updates to users and new enemies to fight, with the always vocal CEO saying on Discord that “we are constantly going to add more stuff to the game! Enemies, objectives, biomes, etc., are always going to be free and expand the experience.”

Pilestedt commented on the pay-to-win elements of games, saying, “You have to earn the right to monetize’—I truly believe that. If people want to support this title, they have an option, but we are never forcing anyone to do so.”

The CEO said of the only pay-to-win element on X in a tongue-in-cheek jibe:

I'm partial but we really applied ourselves to not make it p2w even though items are functionally different. The only item that's p2w is the revolver – which will win you any "cool gun" competition. Only (minor) problem is that it's not that good. https://t.co/c8T8TruLVi

— Pilestedt (@Pilestedt) February 11, 2024

The game has been battling some bugs, with the studio keeping gamers posted about the downtime in a statement on X from the ever-active Pilestedt;

”Thank you for your patience,” He said. “With it, we deployed three “rapid-fixes” aimed at improving the situation with rewards often not being handed out properly, login issues, and server capacity. “

“For now, please once again accept our sincere apologies for the issues you’re facing, and rest assured, we’re doing our utmost to make it right..”

After a long night, the developers are hoping for some well-deserved shut-eye, with the game designer capping off his post by saying, “Right now, it is crucial that our team gets some sleep, and we will be back at this again in a few hours.”

Image: Sony blog

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Sometimes you just do not need a team of 400 coders and a billion-pound budget to make something that people enjoy playing. For hours. In the last few days, a web-based sandbox “game” called Infinite Craft has taken the internet by storm, as people desperately “craft” items trying to make discoveries and become the owner of the “First Discovery” badge on something, meaning you were the first player to get that combination.

If you haven’t played Infinite Craft, this will sound like absolute gibberish, but bear with us!

How to play Infinite Craft 

To get in on the action you need to head to the Infinite Craft website in your browser. This will take you to developer Neal Argawal’s site and you will be faced with an empty screen and a column on the right-hand side containing boxes named after four elements, Water, Wind, Fire, and Earth.

To craft new things you must first drag one of the elements into the center of the screen. Let’s Start with Earth. Now drag Water on top of it and it will change to Plant. Congrats, you have just made your first thing in Infinite Craft. You will notice that Plant has now been added to your items on the right.

Now drag Fire onto Plant and you get Smoke. And so on and forth. Add Wind to Smoke and you now have Cloud as well. Keep going. There are some crazy things in there, most of which make perfect sense if you think about it. 

For example, if you drop Earthquake onto Tunnel it gives you Cave. Drop Hot onto Cave and now you have a Sauna. It’s a wacky train of thought but you will soon get an idea of how it all works in the mind of Neal at least.

How to make monsters in Infinite Craft

Right, let’s make some monsters. Here’s how we get to the Loch Ness Monster

Make the Loch Ness Monster in Infinite Craft

• Clay+Clay = Brick
• Brick + Brick = Wall
• Flood + Flood = Ocean
• Ocean + Flood = Tsunami
• Clay + Brick = House
• Stone + House = Castle
• Castle + Castle = Palace
• Palace + Tsunami = Atlantis
• Swamp + Atlantis = Loch Ness
• Loch Ness + Ocean = Monster
• Loch Ness + Monster = Nessie

Want another?

Make Godzilla in Infinite Craft

Let’s try Godzilla. Here goes:

• Water + Water = Lake
• Lake + Water = Ocean
• Ocean + Earth = Island
• Island + Island = Continent
• Earth + Earth = Mountain
• Mountain + Continent = Asia
• Asia + Earth = China
• Mountain + Mountain = Mountain Range
• China + Mountain Range = Great Wall
• Water + Earth = Plant
• Plant + Plant = Tree
• Tree + Fire = Ash
• Ash + Fire = Phoenix
• Phoenix + Great Wall = Dragon
• China + Asia = Japan
• Japan + Dragon = Godzilla

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The Switch 2 has the rumor mills of the gaming world turning and fans are holding their breath for a Nintendo update.

For the past five years, the Japanese gaming titan has held an event consecutively around this time of year for the flagship console and future games in development.

It has been eerily silent from the console company, with the only major reported successes being those of the existing Switch.

Across seven years of existence, the device has a recorded total of 32,027,938 units sold in Japan and the top ten games sold in the country were all Nintendo Switch titles.

So there is life in the older console, but rumors abound of specifications and hardware we could see in a successor to the Switch.

Switch 2 hardware rumors

Reuters reported that a “new version of the Nintendo Switch console expected this year is likely to include a Nvidia custom design.”

The news comes from a source close to those in the know about the new console’s chip of choice, stating that “Nintendo’s current Switch handheld console already includes Nvidia’s Tegra X1 chip.”

In a recent Q&A, translated to English and titled ‘Nine Months Financial Results Briefing for Fiscal Year Ending March 2024’, some key questions were asked of the company after a successful year.

President and Representative Director Shuntaro Furukawa responded to questions about new devices:

“Regarding new hardware, we are unable to make any comments beyond saying that our company is constantly conducting research and development on new hardware and software,” he said.

”As we mentioned before, articles claiming to reference information released by Nintendo and other speculations have been appearing mainly on the internet lately. Information that has not been officially announced by Nintendo can mislead consumers and investors.

The President concluded that the journalists present at the Q&A “exercise good judgment based on the information we provide on our official websites and social media accounts. It takes a long time and thorough planning to get ready for new hardware, and those plans are not impacted by whatever the latest business conditions might be.”

Furukawa was tight-lipped on a new Switch, but did confess that “as Nintendo Switch is entering its eighth year, we do not think it will be easy to maintain sales at the same level as in the past.”

Gamers will have to wait on news from those official channels it seems to get concrete news of the new console and the details of when it will drop.

Featured image: Pexels/Michael Adeleye

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Losing the FIFA license does not seem to have damaged EA Sports’ standing as the publisher of the best, and realistically, only football game that people still play in large numbers. The change of title to the clumsier EA FC 24 is more or less the only downside between this year’s offering and FIFA 23 from last year.

EA did not want to pay FIFA’s asking price for the license and decided it was big enough and had enough fans of its game to go it alone without the world governing body, not that this is some plucky underdog story, the FIFA licensed football games are said to have generated over $20 billion in revenue in the last two decades, with a healthy chunk of that coming directly out of my bank account courtesy of my kid being a huge fan.

FIFA’s ever-popular Bond-villain leader Gianni Infantino said last year (in not his only odd quote in the last few years), “The new FIFA game – the FIFA 25, 26, 27 and so on – will always be the best egame for any girl or boy, we will have news on this very soon.”

Now I can’t remember ever hearing the term egame either before or indeed since that moment, but it seems as though if rumors are to be believed, that 2K may be responsible for the new said FIFA egame.

A post on X from tech leaker Zuby_tech simply states, “Rumour FIFA Chooses 2K To Make The Next FIFA!”

Rumour FIFA Chooses 2K To Make The Next FIFA!#FIFA #2K pic.twitter.com/g8CSsqfmvi

— @Zuby_Tech (@Zuby_Tech) February 12, 2024

It’s not really backed up by anything but 2K would be a good position to make the game having other top sports franchises in its portfolio already. Konami’s eFootball is not in a great position, but it is also difficult to see any real competition for EA FC, if only because, while not having the FIFA license, EA holds the licenses for most of the top Leagues, teams, and player likenesses in the world, and that counts volumes for players who want a minimum level of realism in their games. Nobody wants Theo Messy to score a goal when they could be playing with Leo Messi.

Not popular

The reaction to the rumor on Reddit has been far from positive, with these just a selection of reactions:

“The Greatest Money Milking Fight”

“You’ll have two publishers that will want to milk you dry. EA vs 2K is a competition from hell.”

“2K vs EA is like getting to choose between two muggers down a dark alley”

It’s worth pointing out that the reliability of the leaker is not great, so this may not turn out to be true, but having missed a FIFA football game in 2024, the world’s governing body for Football will not want to hang about much longer. As yet there is no comment from either FIFA or 2K to the legitimacy of the rumor.

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Believe it or not, there was a time when multiplayer games didn’t have microtransactions. You bought the game, played it, and if you liked it you picked up any expansions that came out further down the line and the world rested peacefully.

Then came the era where you could buy horse armor for your mount in Skyrim and turn your automatic assault rifle pure gold in Call of Duty and the cosmos shifted. Now, with our bank accounts permanently connected to constantly hacked developers servers and payment gateways, we can open up a Loot Box and hopefully get a player card with a rating of 84 instead of 83, at least for this season, before we lose them all when next years version of the game comes out.

Until now one game has bucked the trend, Escape from Tarkov has been Escape from Microtransactions but sadly, not for much longer. Somewhat more irritatingly, not all the purchases are purely cosmetic either like we get in Fortnite. PC GameN reports that beyond paying to unlock new clothing options early, you can also purchase the offline co-op mode. 

Okay fine, that’s newish to the game and it has been around for eight years so is a decent additional feature. The next change though allows you to pay for a quality-of-life addition by increasing your Stash size by up to 280 slots.

You will be able to earn these extra slots in the game without paying for them also, but this will obviously involve a grind or what’s the point in buying them, potentially making the game more enjoyable for those who wish to purchase.

These features were previously available in the Edge of Darkness edition of the game which has now been removed, and if you bought that you will not have to get them again. A post from Battlestate Games’ chief operating officer Nikita Buyanov says:

“So, the thing is that we want to add purchasable options for EFT players cause:

1. We removed the EoD version and some of the EoD features need to go back (offline co-op for example).
2. The game is running for eight years without any additional flow. You just buy and play it forever, and it’s a pretty unique situation for a game such as EFT.”

It also goes on to state that there will be no in-game currency gear packages and the like to buy, just what has been mentioned so far.

These changes will arrive in “the near future” and be available from your profile page on the Escape from Tarkov website as we wave goodbye to the end of an era.

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According to community leaks the rugged frontier of Fortnite’s LEGO Survival will be getting new content to battle and build in the coming weeks.

The Danish constructible toy creator dropped the collaboration with the games studio in December last year and there have been multiple skins and creations available to players who enjoy the standalone survival title.

We’ve previously reported on the now-released Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the upcoming One Piece collabs, and the leaks keep coming.

Lego Fortnite Leaked items

This LEGO take on the genre will be receiving a host of new items in the coming weeks for the hardy adventurers braving the brick-laden expanse.

They were announced by active community leaker FN Assist via X.

ALL upcoming #LEGOFortnite updates:

– Legendary Tools (Rift Sword, Titanium Pickaxe, Iron Axe, Titanium Shovel, Darkwood Crossbow, Titanium Shield)
– Hammers (Stone, Marble, Obsidian, Malachite, Rift)
– Dagger weapons (Common-Legendary)
– Wrist Trinkets (Give effects like… pic.twitter.com/bneO6t6gOa

— FNAssist (@FN_Assist) February 5, 2024

New enemies are part of the new update including animals such as horn beetles, skeletons, bears, and wolves. More complex characters or mini-bosses could come in the form of baddies named Swooper, Rift Brute, Rift Blaster, Forest Beamer, Ice Beamer, and Slammer.

New Legendary Tools will combat these dark denizens of the cubed world including the Rift Sword, Titanium Pickaxe, Iron Axe, Darkwood Crossbow, and Titanium Shield. More crafting features will be unlocked for gamers who love to take the raw materials of an environment and build their LEGO dream base. These include an anvil, rift processor, smelter, food Cart, and a Tier 5 Crafting Bench to name a few.

The leak goes on to show the other items coming to the game.

• Hammers (Stone, Marble, Obsidian, Malachite, Rift)
• Dagger weapons (Common-Legendary)
• Wrist Trinkets (Give effects like Charms)
• Steering Wheel
• Enchanted Guitar
• Ghost Chests & Keys (seems like you can only use them at night)
• Vending Villager NPCs (Original LEGO Characters – Racoon, Fox, Wolf)
• Quest Villager NPCs (Witch, Duke)
• Stud Gun
• Grab-itron
• Gong
• Riding (Animals/Objects)
• Ziplines
• Catapults
• Cannons
• Impulse Grenades
• Gravestones
• Working seats

What is LEGO Fortnite Survival?

The brick-based test of the great outdoors is a mode similar to titles like Minecraft where resources are harvested, buildings are progressively scaled and the odd monster turns up to ruin it all. Players collect, build, and delve into dungeons for precious resources to enhance their camps with more content coming to the game each time a new season or pack is launched. The game is free to play on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, PC on Epic Games Store and cloud-based gaming streaming services.

In related Epic Games news, Disney announced earlier this month that they would be investing $1.5 billion to create a new world with the studio.

This could unlock the potential to work with intellectual properties such as Star Wars and Marvel in a more substantial manner to the timed releases of content packs across the Fortnite-verse.

With the studio trusted with so many household and global staples, the rest of the year is set to be a good one for LEGO fans and those of Disney’s beloved characters.

Image: LEGO Newsroom.

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Rumors have been circulating for a few months now that the highly-anticipated DLC for Elden Ring, The Shadow of the Erdtree was about to drop, potentially by the end of this month, which coincidentally is the two-year anniversary of the original game’s release. 

Such is the popularity of Elden Ring, a two-year hiatus has not damaged the yearning from its fans to get back into the fiendishly difficult Soulslike, to the point where leakers and those who want to be the first to spread the word, have been poking around in the inner sanctums of the Steam backend for any trace that an update may be on the way.

Plenty of evidence had been uncovered, and new files, some even with DLC in the title appeared to have been uploaded, leading to rife speculation that From Software was about to do what From Software does, and just release new content without warning.

Several publications including PC Gamer have now poured water on the rumor because of a line in a financial report from Kadakow – FromSoftware’s parent company, which said, “We are currently working hard on the development of DLC for Elden Ring but we have not announced a release date at this time.”

Having said that, Shadow of the Erdtree is definitely on the way, the Steam updates cannot point to anything else at this stage. They would have nothing to do with the recent leak of a mobile Elden Ring being worked on by Tencent, and there previously hadn’t been any new files uploaded to Steam since the original game’s release. Something is going on, but as yet, it does not seem as though it is going to be any of our business any time soon.

An awful lot would need to happen now in the next two weeks until the anniversary for Shadow of the Erdtree to arrive. Perhaps it will just be an announcement. We will have to wait and see.

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In all the years of Fortnite and its collaborations, perhaps one of the biggest surprises is that we have never had any content from anime powerhouse One Piece appear in the game. The number one Manga of all time with an estimated sales revenue of over $516 million, the marriage of One Piece and Fortnite seems to be an eventual no-brainer.

And we might be about to see it finally realized if the latest Fortnite leak from the game’s leaking community, who also broke the scoop on the recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles collab is correct.

Although details are thin, there is no smoke without fire and while a One Piece collab has been requested many times by fans of the series, bringing characters such as Monkey D. Luffy, Nami and Nico Robin wouldn’t seem to be as complicated or riddled with danger as we saw in with the arrival of the recent Family Guys skins, which caused problems for some players. Although we would love to see Tony Tony Chopper make an appearance on the Island too.

As for timelines, nothing is known at the moment, we are still in the middle of the Turtles Cowabunga event, so we are likely talking at least a month away, although we could get initial skins earlier.

Even though One Piece has been tremendously successful since its first Manga back in 1997, its following transition to Anime and a series starting in 1999 has propelled it to a new audience. Last year Netflix streamed Season one of a new live-action version series, bringing the content to more people than ever before.

There have also been several One Piece games including last year’s One Piece Odyssey across all major formats that was an enjoyable, largely-open world romp across the story’s main settings.

Featured Image: AI-Generated with Ideagram

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The chances of the cult classic Discworld game series being remastered is in the hands of the United Kingdom’s Monarchy, according to the game’s former studio designer and co-founder of Perfect Entertainment.

Gregg Barnett was integral to Perfect Entertainment and GT Interactive’s development of the three titles that took on the setting of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld and the characters that roamed the cobble-stoned streets of Ahnk-Morpork.

Discworld, Discworld 2, and Discworld Noir were part of the pantheon of established point-and-click adventure titles in the 1990s. The latter is known for its slow jazz soundtrack and legendary H.P Lovecraft-meets-Casablanca vibes. They sat alongside the likes of LucasArt’s Day of the Tentacle and Grim Fandango, as well as Broken Sword and Monkey Island, as the definitive narrative-driven video game tales of their time.

The Pratchett-verse titles have never seen a remaster like those other formative games that managed to grace consoles and platforms like Steam in recent years.

Vacant Goods

Barnett recently told Time Extension that a Discworld release is “on the cards. It may happen. And then it could advance to new versions of them.”

”May” is the Prefect Entertainment co-founder’s operative word, as there is a bit of mist for the missing part of the ownership rights. Fifty percent of the ownership rights have fallen into the lap of the UK Monarchy, so Barnett’s statement shows that a consultation with the Crown “may” be necessary for any remaster to happen and “may” take time.

Barnett continued on the topic of a remaster, saying, “There have been discussions, and something may be happening down the track — a rerelease or a remaster. But it’s obviously a complicated process when you’re dealing with the Crown.”

Barnett owns 50% of the rights to the three titles. Still, due to the expiry of the game’s licenses and the closure of Perfect Entertainment, the other half falls to agents of the British Crown when a company’s property becomes the flotsam and jetsam of the business world.

This department is known as the ‘Bona Vacantia’, which means vacant goods in Latin, the name given to ownerless property, which by law passes to the Crown.

According to the UK Government’s website “the Treasury Solicitor acts for the Crown to administer the estates of people who die intestate (without a Will) and without known kin (entitled blood relatives) and collect the assets of dissolved companies and other various ownerless goods in England and Wales.”

Pratchett Estate’s say

PC Gamer recently reached out to Terry Pratchett’s Estate and the daughter of the Discworld creator and much-loved British writing icon, Rhianna Pratchett.

Rhianna Pratchett is responsible for the intellectual property (IP) of the late great writer with the company Narrativa. She told PC Gamer, “we’d certainly love to see the old games re-released. It’s news to us if His Majesty owns 50% of the Discworld games. Who knows what might happen if that’s really the case? Maybe he’s a fan!”

Barnett’s dream may yet come true to work on the remaster for modern platforms and consoles, but for new titles, Rhianna Pratchett was clear about the IP rights and ideas that could be approved.

“We still own the IP rights… The reason why Gregg got the rights to do the games was that he came up with solid ideas that fitted the nature of Discworld. The simple reason that there’s never been a fully-fledged Discworld game since then is no one has come to us with the right ideas and the resources to actually make it happen.”

Fans of the Discworld setting and the wonderfully unique characters the legendary writer conjured will hope that the remasters go ahead and that new titles could take us back to the world of a mystical land perched on the back of four elephants riding on the shell of a giant space turtle.

Image: Pexels.

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Xbox has announced the games available in the upcoming Free Play Days, which is on right now — until 11.59 pm PDT on Sunday, 11 February.

Xbox Free Play Days are recurring events where subscribers of Xbox GamePass Ultimate and Xbox GamePass Core gain access to full game releases for free for a limited time. If they then choose to purchase the games they played in the Free Play Days event, progress and achievements will carry over.

One of the best parts of Free Play Days is that the games in the event are often steeply discounted, so if you try out the game for free and enjoy it, you can score a huge saving by buying the game while the discount lasts.

What games are in Free Play Days this weekend?

There are two games currently available to play through Free Play Days:

• Two Point Campus by SEGA – currently discounted by 65%
• NBA 2K24 by 2K Games – currently discounted by 70%

Two Point Campus is a fun take on the management sim genre where players build a thriving school. As well as a sandbox mode where players can truly design the university of their dreams, there is a campaign with 12 levels to challenge yourself with. Several DLC packs are also discounted at the moment, including a Space Camp pack.

NBA 2K24 is a basketball game where players engage in games as a single player or the whole squad. It includes many famous athletes to engage with and a career mode where gamers follow a basketball player throughout their careers.

But wait, there’s more!

As well as Free Play Days, this weekend also has a free weekend for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3. Players are invited to test limited versions of the game’s iconic multiplayer mode as well as the newly introduced Zombies mode. Multiple maps are available to try out.

The free weekend for Call of Duty and Free Play Days events for Two Point Campus and NBA 2K4 means Xbox GamePass subscribers will have a great weekend ahead at no cost and the chance to grab some excellent games for a bargain. Don’t wait, you only have until February 12 to enjoy!

The post What games are in the Xbox Free Play Days in February? appeared first on ReadWrite.

And this is why Baldur’s Gate 3 was last year’s Game of the Year. A consistent striving to give the people what they need. Yes, BG3 fans,  romantic smooching is on the cards for our pointy-eared friends as next week’s Patch 6 goes all Valentine’s Day and brings improvements to First Base in Faerûn.

A tweet (or post, or whatever it is now) from the official Baldur’s Gate 3 account says, “Love is in the air in Faerûn, and we’ve made improvements to locking lips with your romantic partner!

Releasing next week, Patch 6 includes improved smooches, new camp idle animations, new Legendary Actions in Honour Mode, and plenty of bug fixes”.

It comes along with a lovely kissing gif that will warm your hearts, probably right up until you get banned from Xbox Live for recording the action and uploading it you smutty adventurers you.

Love is in the air in Faerûn, and we've made improvements to locking lips with your romantic partner!

Releasing next week, Patch 6 includes improved smooches, new camp idle animations, new Legendary Actions in Honour Mode, and plenty of bug fixes pic.twitter.com/z0tgqaMaQF

— Baldur's Gate 3 (@baldursgate3) February 9, 2024

It also follows up with a further post saying, “It’s a hefty one, so we’ll be sharing the full patch notes on the official website – make sure to keep an eye out!” suggesting we will be seeing more improvements than just tongue animations.”

We don’t know at this stage what day the patch will be released on and at this stage, a lot of the bugs are minor ones as the game is so well polished now. We are keen to see the new animations and actions the patch will bring as Larian continues to strive to complete the perfect RPG. And if nothing else it might make the romantic speedruns a bit more steamy.

It’s unlikely Baldur’s Gate 3 will be the only game spreading a bit of extra love around the world as Cupid sets his sights on gamers everywhere.

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As if snatched straight from the world of Pokémon itself, an inventor has created an actual, working Pokédex using generative AI.

YouTuber abe’s projects has made a seeing, talking Pokédex using a 3D printer, ChatGPT, and some electronic components. It’s extremely cool and highly nostalgia-inducing for Pokémon fans of the 90’s.

A Pokédex is a device from the Pokémon anime and games that the protagonist uses to scan and identify the Pokémon they encounter. It then provides information about that Pokémon back to the user.

Abe recreated the device’s distinctive red case using a 3D printer, switching to beige for the bezels around the screen and buttons. Abe chose to use a black and white screen for his Pokédex despite the anime featuring a color screen because he wanted to call back to a toy from the ’90s which also had a black and white screen.

Abe incorporated a small camera in the front of the device for scanning Pokémon. It then connects with ChatGPT and the Pokémon API to determine what creature it’s seeing. Abe used a tool called PlayHT to modify the AI-generated voice to make it have the sound and cadence of the Pokédex in the anime for an even higher nostalgia hit.

Abe overcame many bugs in his quest to recreate the Pokédex

In the YouTube video, Abe outlined some of the bugs he had to overcome to get the device working. Early on he mentioned how fragile the miniature display screens are, having already broken one before completing the project. He also faced multiple software bugs and crashes, but his ingenuity allowed him to overcome them.

This included a strange ticking sound in the audio. Abe couldn’t identify how or why the sound was being added to his audio output but he was able to find the sound signature and manually code in a fix.

If you’re a fan of Pokémon, cool personal electronics projects, or both, the video is very much worth watching.

Featured image credit: abe’s projects YouTube video

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The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been floating around in Fortnite for a few weeks now, but it has all been leading up to this – the Cowabunga Event which has just started. It brings with it a new Battle Pass with both a free and premium tier depending on what cosmetics you want to hook yourself up with. Let’s see what’s on offer and what else we can expect from the event.

Fortnite x TMNT Cowabunga Battle Pass

As with all Fortnite Battle Passes, there is a free track in case you do not wish to shell out any hard-earned V Bucks. If you do want to buy it it will set you back 1,000 V Bucks and open up a host of new cosmetics while you play.

As you play you will earn Ooze (hopefully you will know enough about the Turtles universe to know that is not just a random thing), and as you collect Ooze you can unlock tiers of the Battle Pass, simple.

You need 11,000 Ooze to complete the Battle Pass and unlock Super Shredder as you can see in the image above.

Cowabunga Battle Pass Rewards

Whatever track you choose to go down with the TMNT Battle Pass there are rewards to be gained. To make it easy to remember, we have listed them below.

How to get the Krang Back Bling

There is a final item you can collect during the Cowabunga event and that is the Krang Back Bling. This item does not require the collection of Ooze, rather you need to scour the map to collect in-game Blueprints. You get blueprints by completing quests that will go live over the course of the event. Complete all the quests and you will be awarded the back bling. Completing the quests and the Battle Pass will give you all the TMNT gear available.

The quests you need to complete and when they go live are as follows.

Stick to the Shadows – 9th Feb
Gear Up! – 12th Feb
Cowabunga Clash – 15th Feb
Give ’em Shell – 18th Feb
Showdown Shred – 21st Feb
Shellebrate – 24th Feb

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At the end of last year, we ran a story that resonated with a lot of people when Sony lost the rights to some digital content it had previously been selling via its online store. This content was subsequently removed from PlayStation owners’  libraries even though they had bought it with their own money.

It caused a bit of a stir and served to highlight that you don’t really own what you “buy” in a lot of cases anymore.

Anyway, they have just done it again, so prepare for another backlash along similar lines.

Sony has confirmed in a rather bland and extensive statement that it will be shuttering the Funimation service – an anime streaming service on 2nd April so that it can focus entirely on Crunchyroll, another similar anime streaming service, and will migrate Funimation subscriptions to Crunchyroll. 

Sounds fair enough, until you get to the bit that reads, “We understand that you may have concerns about your digital copies from Funimation. These Digital copies available on Funimation were a digital access to the content available on the DVDs or Blu-rays purchased. Please note that Crunchyroll does not currently support Funimation Digital copies, which means that access to previously available digital copies will not be supported.”

Another kicker is that a juicy price hike to Crunchyroll has also been announced. Previously Anime fans were paying just $54.95 a year for Crunchyroll, but from next January that will almost double to $99.99.

Gizmodo reports that this price hike is not down to a “flood of new shows” from Crunchyroll’s acquisition of Funimation, as they acquired the service two years ago and have only now chosen to put it out to pasture.

While this move affects a very specific audience, ie the anime crowd, consumers are once again left with zero protection against these moves and many are alarmed when they hear comments from industry figures keen on moving everything to digital subscriptions.

Featured Image: AI-generated with Dalle-3

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Yves Guillemot, the CEO of Ubisoft, has defended the company’s decision to price Skull and Bones at $70. As the company gears up to launch the Skull and Bones open beta, Guillemont stated during a Q&A that the game is “quadruple-A”.

During the Q3 2024 earnings call, an investor inquired as to why the game was maintaining a high price point usually reserved for huge triple-A single-player titles when the game was taking a live service approach which is traditionally accompanied by either a free-to-play entry point or a low-cost game purchase (Sea of Thieves is less than $45).

Guillemont responded with an assertion that the game’s scale deserves the high price point. “You will see that Skull and Bones is a fully-fledged game,” he said. “It’s a very big game, and we feel that people will really see how vast and complete that game is. It’s a really full, triple… quadruple-A game, that will deliver in the long run.”

When is Skull and Bones coming out?

Skull and Bones is due to release on February 16, 2024.

Two versions will be available at launch: standard and premium. If players have preordered the premium version of Skull and Bones for $99.99, they will be able to play the game three days early on 13 February.

In addition to early access, the premium version of the game comes with two extra missions and a Smuggler Pass which will unlock the premium battle pass, whenever it is launched.

Where can you play Skull and Bones?

Skull and Bones will be available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC when it launches. Notably, it will be on Ubisoft’s subscription service Ubisoft + for subscribers. Because the game uses Ubisoft’s launcher, Ubisoft Connect, it will not be available on Steam. Players can go through the Epic Game Store but even then will still need to download Ubisoft Connect to play.

Featured image credit: Ubisoft

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Retro gaming is huge and shows no signs of slowing down. One of the best features of the Nintendo Switch (and hopefully Switch 2 when it arrives) is the ability to play so many old games and arcade classics on it but we often have to play them on these new-fangled controllers.

CRKD, the premium collectible gaming brand behind the award-winning Nitro Deck – an all-out Switch makeover where you basically keep the screen – has just launched a new controller – the NEO S, a retro-inspired controller with a modern feature set that comes in nine distinct designs.

The NEO S is compatible with the Nintendo Switch, but is also Bluetooth compatible so can be used with your PC, mobile devices, and Smart TVs. The controller launches in nine designs, including three Special Editions designed by renowned game controller artist POPeART.

To complement the striking design, the NEO S is packed with high-end features. Like the Nitro Deck before it, the NEO S is equipped with state-of-the-art Hall Effect Thumbsticks, providing drift-free, precision gaming, and adjustable actuation Hall Sensor Triggers allowing gamers to tailor trigger sensitivity to individual preference.

Lee Guinchard, CEO of Embracer Freemode commented, “Our launch of the Nitro Deck was met with an overwhelmingly positive response from the gaming community, and we’re excited to grow the brand further with the announcement of the NEO S. An ideal companion to the Nitro Deck, we believe the NEO S sits apart from the sea of mediocre controller designs available, presenting a highly collectible product which houses an array of advanced features. We look forward to introducing the NEO S later this spring and to the continued growth of the CRKD brand.”

The NEO S will be available in nine distinctive designs:

• Retro Gold Edition
• Classic Clear Edition
• Atomic Red Edition
• Emerald Green Edition
• Orange Zest Edition
• Electric Pink Edition
• Splatter Edition by POPeART
• Blossom Edition by POPeART
• Junkyard Edition by POPeART

The NEO S is available for pre-order from today and is expected to ship sometime in April, priced at £49.99.

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In its Q3 2024 earnings call on Thursday, Take-Two Interactive, the owners of Rockstar Games, announced that Grand Theft Auto 5 has now sold over 195 million copies, and Red Dead Redemption 2 has sold over 61 million.

Grand Theft Auto as a whole franchise has sold over 420 million units, more than the populations of the US and Canada combined.

This means that since its last earnings call in November, Grand Theft Auto 5 has sold an additional five million copies. This suggests that the announcement of Grand Theft Auto 6, which is due in 2o25, has had a buoyant effect on the rest of the franchise. This was acknowledged by Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two.

“I do think that excitement around GTA 6 has had a halo effect on the entire franchise,” Zelnick said during the call.

Despite this, Take-Two reported a 3% year-on-year decrease, with net bookings sitting at $1.34 billion. This translated to a net loss for the gaming giant of $91.6 million. Although recurrent consumer spending (microtransactions and subscriptions) accounted for 75% of their total bookings, this was down 7% year-on-year.

As a result, Zelnick expressed that the company is working on a “cost reduction program” that will “maximize margins while still investing for growth.” Despite a nod to developers in the statement (“Our Company’s potential is vast and unique, driven by our creative talent”) it is likely to concern staff with the state of the gaming industry at the moment being rife with layoffs.

What games do Take-Two have upcoming?

Alongside the highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6, Take-Two is set to release multiple games in the next two years which are sure to be a hit with franchise fans. Zynga will be releasing a mobile Game of Thrones game as well as a Star Wars game which will be on mobile and Nintendo Switch.

On top of that, there’s Tales of the Shire, a cozy Lord of the Rings game set in the home of the Hobbits, which is coming out on PC and consoles in 2024 and is causing huge excitement in Lord of the Rings fans and cozy gamers alike.

Featured image credit: Take-Two Interactive

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There are a few metrics you need to keep on top of in Ubisoft’s Skull and Bones. If you have played your way through the Open Beta you will likely have found out that not only do you need to level up your Infamy in order to unlock new items such as ships and weapons, but also that Crew Morale is super important if you don’t want your shipmates to tag you as a loser and start to desert your ship.

The last thing you want on your hands is a mutiny, walking the plank is no fun, so in order to keep them on side you need to appease their baser instincts, one of which is simply by keeping them fed – no pirate likes to live off the weevils in the dry biscuits.

Cooking in Skull and Bones

While pirates will happily eat raw food to keep them fed, nothing makes them happier than a hearty cooked meal. As soon as you get a free moment from starting out you should practice killing sharks and other fish with spears from within your Dhow. The meat you collect from these fish can then be taken to a campfire which you will find on islands and at pirate hubs. From there you should interact with the fire and a crafting box will pop up showing you the recipes you know.

As long as you have the ingredients – and it first it is solidly just of the fishy variety you can cook up a nice grilled meal and keep your men happy.

Crew morale

Your men also like a good scrap and morale can be boosted by regularly keeping them in the action. Look for fights you can win rather than just sailing the High Seas and keep them happy with kills and victories as well.

Other Skull and Bones pages you may be interested in

• How to access the Skull and Bones Open Beta – everything you need to know
• All ship types in Skull and Bones
• How to raise Infamy fast in Skull and Bones

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The hugely successful survival game Subnautica is to get a sequel according to a leaked financial report that has found its way out of publisher Krafton, and everything in the document points to a release this year.

UPDATE at bottom of the page.

The last few months have seen countless leaks plague the industry as information that is perhaps not ready for prime time has found its way to the public domain. The PowerPoint presentation detailing Subnautica 2’s release among many others is just the latest of them.

It’s hard to imagine a time when pouring over any PowerPoint doc was considered interesting, but when the sequel to such a popular game is name-dropped, it is going to get attention. We are not going to link the source as it is a file on Krafton’s website that should be more secure than it is, especially now the link has started to do the rounds of the internet.

From the slide we have seen it suggests Subnautica 2 will be multi-player with a model of a “game as a service”, which may not delight everybody. Subnautica 2 Battle Pass incoming anybody? (Update: see below)

Bringing with it a new alien planet to get stranded on Krafton’s slideshow extraordinaire states the game will let you “explore an oceanic world in stunning stylized graphics powered by Unreal Engine (which is cool, because that means we can probably play it in VR too then!)

You will be able to play the game with one to four players in what is billed as a “multiplayer sequel to the original IP pursuing fandom snowballing”. Make of that what you will. It is listed under the header of “Strategic Titles for 2024”,  so if this is to be the case, expect to be hearing more about it soon.

The original Subnautica was published as far back as 2014 in Early Access for Windows, with Xbox and PlayStation versions following. It has gone on to sell almost six million copies since and developer Unknown Worlds Director and lead Programmer Charlie Cleveland set out in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting to create a videogame that only contained non-lethal weapons.

Update:

Since the publication of the story Unknown Worlds has reached out to us via its PR company with the following update:`

“A few of you noticed some information shared online by our publisher, KRAFTON

While some of the news is exciting, we’d like to clarify:

• Early Access is not intended for release in 2024, but we plan to share a lot more information later this year!
• In reference to “Games-as-a-Service,” we simply plan to continually update the game for many years to come, just like the previous two Subnautica games. Think our Early Access update model, expanded. No season passes. No battle passes. No subscription.
• The game is not multiplayer-focused. Co-op will be an entirely optional way to play the game. You’ll be able to enjoy the game as a single-player.

As always, we are so proud and incredibly grateful to have such a passionate and engaged community, who love the Subnautica games deeply. 

Thanks for keeping an eye out for any news about our progress on the next game.

We’re so excited to show you what we’ve been working on and hope that you love it as much as we do.

– The Subnautica Team”

It’s great to see a company reaching out so proactively after being hit by a leak.

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