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

The post How to make cool monsters in Infinite Craft appeared first on ReadWrite.

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.

The post We might be getting a new FIFA game from 2K and fans aren’t best pleased appeared first on ReadWrite.

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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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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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.

The post Elden Ring DLC is not coming any time soon, leaks and rumors foiled 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.

The post Next Baldur’s Gate 3 patch includes better kissing appeared first on ReadWrite.

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

The post Fortnite’s TMNT Battle Pass and Cowabunga event – all you need to know appeared first on ReadWrite.

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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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.

The post The NEO S is a wireless collectible controller with a nod to retro gaming appeared first on ReadWrite.

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

The post Skull and Bones: How to raise crew stamina and morale with cooking appeared first on ReadWrite.

We tagged Against the Storm as one of the best games of last year that you may not have played with good reason. It is a fantastic town-builder with dark twists and a fiendishly high stress level, as you try to keep things the way you initially planned them in your head.

Anyway, it’s great, it is on Game Pass and you should definitely put Palworld down and go and play it. Do that now.

It’s exciting then here at Readwrite Towers to hear today that it now has a roadmap and has two more updates on the horizon before a big DLC release later this year. This is all good news.

The devs at Eremite have posted on Steam that Update 1.2 is due next month and will include a Production/Consumption trends window which the devs say is, “ The big headline feature of this update is the Production/Consumption Trends window. It will include a 30-minute resource history graph and a 5-minute “latest” interactable graph with an option to select a point on it and check the log of resource operations.”

This will be hugely useful in the game and will be a great QoL addition. As yet Update 1.3 has no new features to announce, these will come later, but after that, we do have a clue as far as what the paid DLC will bring with it and it sounds very cool, bringing with it a new biome and a new species to play with.

With new orders and events to deal with as well, it sounds like we will have to relearn from scratch what works and what doesn’t. It’s going to be an exciting year for Against the Storm fans.

Against the Storm update Roadmap

The posted updates in full are:

Free Update 1.2

• Production/Consumption trends window
• Blightpost Upgrades
• World Events’ unique art
• Latin American Spanish localization

Free Update 1.3

• To be announced

Paid DLC

• New playable species
• New biome
• New buildings
• New events
• New perks
• New orders

Against the Storm Patch Notes 1.1.6

Alongside the dev update, we also got a new patch for the game today, 1.1.6. Here are the changes that has brought with it.

• Fixed a bug that would occasionally cause haulers and hauling carts to get stuck.
• Fixed a rare bug that caused some settlement saves to get corrupted.
• Fixed a bug where the numbers would sometimes disappear from the need icons in the species menu.
• Fixed a bug that caused the Blood Flower spawn animation not to play when the game was paused.
• Fixed a bug that allowed a map to be played with both the Ominous Presence modifier and the Flooded Mines modifier.
• Settlements started before this hotfix will still have both effects active. The fix will only prevent this from happening in future games.
• Fixed a bug that caused the entrance arrow to disappear the second time you clicked on a building.
• Fixed a bug where the progress of a standing level would sometimes not update correctly.
• Fixed a bug that caused some tooltips to scale incorrectly in the Thai version of the game.
• Fixed a bug that allowed production limits to be set as negative numbers.
• Fixed a bug where the camera would reset when the options menu was opened.
• Fixed a bug that made it possible to have both the Unyielding Corruption Forest Mystery and the Monastery of the Holy Flame modifier in the same game.
• Settlements started before this hotfix will still have both effects active. The fix will only prevent this from happening in future games.
• Fixed a bug where the camera would sometimes behave strangely when going into tree marker mode while a building was selected.
• Fixed a bug where a disabled recipe in the Blight Post would not cause the recipe slot to be greyed out.
• Buying an automaton upgrade in a deactivated Geyser Pump will now automatically activate the building.

The post Against the Storm has a major update due next month appeared first on ReadWrite.

Anybody can be a pirate, but if nobody has heard of your name, are you really a pirate? In Skull and Bones, you will find your character climbs through the ranks of Infamy, which in turn unlocks new stuff, better ships etc

What is the max level of Infamy in Skull and Bones?

There are 10 levels of Infamy at launch. This is likely to increase as time progresses, but for now, this is what we have. Each level you rank up will open up new opportunities, so if you wish to get as far as you can, as quickly as you can, then read on. It is also worth remembering that if you are playing during the Open Beta of Skull and Bones that all progression carries over to the game proper when it releases, so any ranks you can climb now, will not need repeating come release time.

Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it infamy

Raising your Infamy level is not difficult in Skull and Bones, doing just about anything piratey will keep the meter ticking, but if you want to raise it more quickly than just pottering about on the seven seas, you will want to focus your game specifically.

Completing contracts that you get offered along the way is definitely a good way to keep your Infamy climbing, the slight problem is, if you fail to complete a contract will hit your Infamy. Nobody wants an unreliable pirate it seems. So have a careful read of what is being asked of you and don’t just accept anything and everything. Only take a contract if you intend to carry it out, or they will end up doing your status more harm than good very quickly.

Exploration also yields an amount of infamy, albeit not as much as completing contracts, and if you come across any treasure hunts be sure to complete them too. 

With each level of Infamy you gain you will open up new aspects of Skull and Bones, and it won’t be long before you are crashing through the waves in something a bit more suitable and your Dhow. Take a look at some of the ships you could be sailing in.

The post How to raise Infamy fast in Skull and Bones appeared first on ReadWrite.

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.

The post Subnautica 2 looks like it will be multiplayer according to leak appeared first on ReadWrite.

The Skull and Bones Open Beta has landed. If you haven’t tried it out yet and are wondering how to get into it, remember you only have a couple of days on free play until it disappears over the horizon until launch day. Check out all the information you need to maximize your time with the open beta and get downloading.

Skull and Bones is mainly set at sea, therefore you are going to need a ship. As you might imagine you are going to start off with little more than a plank of wood and a bedding sheet for a sail (well not quite, but luxury is some way off).

So let’s have a look at your starting vessel choices (you don’t have any), especially with the Open Beta in mind, and see what kinds of ships you can work your way up to as you increase your Infamy levels and become one of those cool pirates that they make movies about. Ubisoft says we will get 10 craftable ships and launch, and doubtless, there will be additions as the year progresses.

Every ship in Skull and Bones at launch

This handy table shows you every vessel in the game at launch and cross-references its type with its perk, so you don’t have to!

The post All ship types in Skull and Bones appeared first on ReadWrite.

Gearbox Publishing and Blackbird Interactive have taken the decision to push back the highly-anticipated Homeworld 3 two months until the middle of May.

Until overnight, the game was scheduled for a release on 8th March. A new demo was released for Steam Next Fest a couple of days ago and the devs released a documentary on the making of the game as recently as December. Now, the decision has been taken after feedback to delay, although two months may only allow for a little extra polish to be applied.

The Statement says, “Watching you share your experiences, exchange and debate strategies, and give us constant feedback has been incredible. This was our first time seeing the game played at scale, which is always an equally thrilling and nerve-wracking moment.  

We also recently gathered a dedicated group of players from outside our organizations to play through the full game. This resulted in additional insights and perspective that will be incorporated to make Homeworld 3 the best experience possible.”

It continues, “After careful analysis of feedback, we made the decision to delay the global launch of Homeworld 3 until May 13, with advanced access set for May 10, to ensure that we’re making the final tweaks needed to deliver at the level of quality that we strive for and you deserve.”

Players who pre-purchase Homeworld 3 and get either the Command Edition or the Collector’s Edition will be able to play the game from May 10th

Which version of Homeworld 3 should you buy?

Depending on what you actually want — and, more importantly — what you are prepared to spend, Homeworld 3 has several tiers to hook you into.

• Homeworld 3Standard Edition | $59.99
  • Base Game
  • Pre-order bonus – Kushan Carrier War Games Skin
• Homeworld 3Deluxe Edition | $79.99
  • All contents of the Homeworld 3 Standard Edition
  • Year One Pass
• Homeworld 3Fleet Command Edition | $89.99
  • Play the game 72 hours early on March 5, 2024
  • All contents of the Homeworld 3 Deluxe Edition
  • Homeworld 3 Soundtrack (Digital)
  • Multiplayer Name Color (Digital)
  • Ship Decals (Digital)
  • Engine Trail Color (Digital)
  • Banners (Digital)
• Homeworld 3Collector’s Edition | $174.99
  • Play the game 72 hours early on March 5, 2024
  • All contents of the Homeworld 3 Fleet Command Edition
  • WW2-Inspired Spotter Deck
  • Homeworld 3 Logo Keychain
  • Lithograph
  • True-to-Scale Homeworld 3 Ship Figures including:
    • Mothership Khar-Kushan
    • Hiigaran Torpedo Frigate
    • Hiigaran Destroyer
    • Hiigaran Recon in Delta Formation

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Despite 2023 being the start of a period of mass game industry layoffs across the board, some companies do not seem to have done that badly out of it. The Roblox Corporation has just announced an increase in revenue of 26% from 2022, totaling some $2.8 billion.

Roblox started out in 2006 and these days positions itself as a virtual metaverse. It has seen major promotion events and hosted stars such as Nicki Minaj of late. European Champions Manchester City FC even launched its alternative playing strip in the game in 2022.

Roblox allows its players to create their own games within its universe, alongside buying and selling customizations for their avatars using the Robux in-game currency. Roblox says in these latest figures that it average “monthly unique payers” stands at 14.5 million in 2023, with each payer amounting to $81.05 in revenue, again on average.

The Roblox Corporation also unveiled its Q4 figures at the same time and revenue here was almost $750 million with bookings at $1.126 billion.

The game’s average daily user count for the period was an incredible 71.5 million players.

Projecting forward, Techraptor says Roblox is estimating around $3.4 billion in revenue this year, with bookings around $4.25 billion.

It is clear Roblox has transcended its original roots. Now available on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation, as well as mobile where it initially took off, its ability to draw in huge brands and offer them a space in its own “metaverse” is unique in the gaming space. 

Fortnite has dabbled with the occasional pop star and commercial tie-in, but Roblox, which was originally earmarked to be called Dynablocks has come a long way since those early demos back in 2004.

The post Roblox financial results show it raked in nearly $3 billion in 2023 appeared first on ReadWrite.

Somewhat inevitably, rumors that Generative AI was going to be baked into the next generation of consoles were going to appear sooner rather than later, and it is the (probably) in development PlayStation 6 where the two shall first meet

Despite the turmoil in the other main camp, we reported yesterday that there are perhaps not one, but two new Xbox consoles on the design table. The rumors around a Nintendo Switch 2 being launched this year won’t go away.

As anybody who has been gaming for a couple of generations of new hardware will be aware, we know it goes along the lines of Microsoft and Sony both announce new consoles with relatively similar hardware. Fanboys on each side of the fence point out why each will be better than the other. Nintendo pops along with a console that is seemingly vastly underpowered compared to its two rivals and sells over 30 million units in Japan alone and many more worldwide. All the while the PC master race sits back quietly and chuckles that none of them are a patch on PC gaming when it comes to hardware specs.

So what could possibly new new this time? AI that’s what.

YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead has had a lot of coverage in the last few days, both in relation to Microsoft and Sony leaks. However, in the video below he claims to have heard that a key feature being designed into the PlayStation 6  will be the ability for AI to enhance the games it plays on the hoof.

The prospect of a console actively enhancing NPCs so that they don’t just operate with static lines of pre-recorded scripts is either amazing, or possibly scary (especially if you make your living as a voice actor), and even if any new machine is a few years away, it still seems far off in terms of what generative AI is capable of. And then, of course, Sony doesn’t make the games in the main. Would GTA VI ever be coded differently to take advantage of this on a PlayStation? That would make it a totally different game to an Xbox version unless it happens in a new Xbox as well.

Generative AI is coming to gaming, make no bones about it and it will be interesting to see how it ends up actually manifesting itself inside our next generation of gaming consoles.

Featured Image: AI-generated by Dalle-E 3

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If you are in the PS5 beta program a system update is rolling out to bring some changes just for you. Well, a select few at any rate.

This update is only being rolled out at this stage to a limited number of invited participants, but the intention is to release it globally “in the coming months”. Taking a look at what has changed, there has been a sizable update to the DualSense controller software which sees the following changes.

Controller speaker enhancements. The controller speakers can now produce higher volume sound, allowing you to hear in-game sounds and voice chat audio more clearly.

Improved noise cancellation. The mic input quality on these controllers has been improved, courtesy of a new AI machine learning model. Background noise from button presses and game audio are suppressed, resulting in a better voice chat experience. Install the system software beta and update the controller device software to enjoy enhanced clarity of your voice chat audio when using the controller mic.

With this update, you may feel that the sounds coming from your controller speaker may sound louder. You can adjust the controller speaker volume from the control center.

There have also been changes made to Share Screen Interactions and players watching games in this way can interact in new ways.

The PlayStation blog states: 

“Viewers can move a pointer around, send a ping, or draw a line on the shared screen, allowing them to highlight certain objects or areas to guide the host player more accurately. Viewers can send emoji-based reactions to the host’s screen to visually encourage and celebrate gameplay actions. Note: this feature is available by default but can be turned off by the host in the Share Screen settings. Both the host and the viewer must be participating in the beta to use this feature during the beta period.”

We aren’t sure just how many people have been invited to this PlayStation 5 beta update, or whether it will be rolled out further before its main launch, but it’s a good insight into what is coming to your DuelSense later in the year.

The post PlayStation 5 Beta update brings big changes to DualSense controllers and audio appeared first on ReadWrite.

When a grand strategy game gets it right the potential to pour in hundreds and hundreds of hours in it is endless. Paradox Interactive has three on the go at the moment with Hearts of Iron IV, Europa Universalis IV, and Crusader Kings III, each offering a different flavor of history.

The latter is the youngest of the trio and will, next month, receive a huge update with Paradox unveiling a 2024 roadmap that will have fans of the game readying their armies for an invasion onto foreign soil, medieval style.

It all spins up around an expansion called Legends of the Dead – Paradox is calling this a Core Expansion. Game Director Rageair said in a dev post on Steam, “Chapter III is definitely our most ambitious chapter yet, with a Core Expansion, Major Expansion, and an Event Pack (as well as an instant chapter unlock!) New ways of playing the game, and big, sweeping systems are the name of the game this year.”

Part of this initial core expansion will feature the arrival of major diseases that swept the time period – the likes of plagues of consumption, measles, and Holy Fire (the Dancing Plague), before, as the game progresses, the inevitable sweep of The Black Death plague, wiping out all the good work you have managed before it.

The overarching aim of Legends of the Dead is to, “Turn yourself into a figure of legend in this Core Expansion, where great feats and effective propaganda can enhance the power of your bloodline through the centuries. Direct the course of your dynastic legend through Court Chroniclers, whether building a reputation for great buildings or legendary feasts.”

Legends of the Dead is due to be released on the 4th of March.

The whole 2024 roadmap is being referred to as Chapter 3 of Crusader Kings and, later in the year we will get the Major Expansion, Roads to Power which is billed as, “The majesty of the Byzantine Empire takes center stage in this Major Expansion. Rule from Constantinople through a new Administrative Government form and experience a variety of new Byzantine-themed events and flavor. Or, be truly daring and live a life where your noble reputation is not tied to the land, roaming the map as an Adventurer for hire.”

There is no date for this new major expansion yet other than Q3, so we should be expecting it around Fall potentially.

Crusader Kings III is a great game, and if you haven’t played it yet, now would be a good time to get used to its key mechanics before the new stuff arrives.

The post Crusader Kings III Chapter 3 is bringing the Black Death to gaming appeared first on ReadWrite.

Say what you like about Palworld but its extraordinary popularity and the fact that the devs Pocketpair have been very active in patching the game and adding new features are both things that have surprised a lot of people.

A new patch for Palworld has been pushed within the last couple of hours that addresses several failings of the previous version.

The main takeaway from the patch notes is that Pocketpair has finally managed to fix the issues where the save game crashed and corrupted if you had a lot of Pals captured by your guild. 

This is huge as it now should mean you can continue to build out your guild without fear of losing a month’s worth of work.

Another fix has sorted out the problem of disappearing weapons, but the other major line of note in the description that was posted on the X account is the only fix marked under the others section and simply reads, “Implemented countermeasures against some cheats and exploits.”

This will be welcome news to many, and although Palworld is not going into detail about what countermeasures have been implemented for obvious reasons, it is hoped that it may have at least fended off some of the rampant cheating that has been noticeable due to the size of the player base of the game.

Let’s take a look at the full patch notes.

Palworld Patch Notes 0.1.4.1

The version number 0.1.4.0 is for the Steam version where the patch has been pushed already, the Xbox version will be released “as soon as it is ready” – this is still annoying for Xbox users, and will be numbered v0.11.4

Major Fixes

・Fixed an issue where the game would always crash and save data would be corrupted when the total number of Pals captured by the guild reached approximately 7000. 

・In the previous patch, save data that had already been in this state (for servers, the server’s world data) remained in a broken state that made it impossible to load, but after applying this patch it will be resolved and will load properly.

・Fixed an issue where some weapons equipped by other players would disappear when a player used a grenade in multiplayer. 

・Fixed an issue where, although the displayed capture probability increased when the capture power was strengthened with Lifmunk Effigies, the capture probability did not actually increase at all due to an internal processing bug. 

Base related 

・Fixed an issue where if a Pal that was manually assigned to a breeding farm went to sleep, it would not wake up forever. 

・Fixed an issue where no wood would drop when Pal at the base felled a tree.

Others 

・Implemented countermeasures against some cheats and exploits.

We will continue development placing top priority on fixing major problems and issues.  Thank you for your continued support of Palworld.

More Palworld pages you might be interested in

• Everything you need to know about Palworld
• How to Fast Travel in Palworld
• How to buy and sell Pals
• How to assign roles and jobs to your Pals in Palworld
• How to change your character’s name
• How to level up fast in Palworld
• Palworld’s latest patch may help those who can’t log in actually play, but it’s not fixed yet

Featured image: Palworld

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