Cyberpunk 2077 and the Phantom Liberty expansion have sold over 38 million copies
There’s stiff competition for the greatest gaming comeback stories, but Cyberpunk 2077 will always be part of the conversation. CD Projekt Red was coming off the back of the outstanding Witcher 3, had all the time and money in the world, and the dream setting: Hell, it even had Keanu Reeves. Anticipation and expectation were […]
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has a face-melting 4 hours of cutscenes: ‘This is the biggest and longest game that Machine Games have ever done’
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle launches in just under two weeks, bringing a heaping helping of puzzle pondering and Nazi hurting—a helping so heaping, in fact, that Machine Games says it’s the longest game the studio’s ever made. Amidst a flurry of 141 questions in a quick format interview with MinnMax, Machine Games creative […]
The Witcher 4 is finally in full production: ‘Ahead of us lies the main and most intense stage of development’
As part of today’s CD Projekt Q3 financial update, the studio has announced that Polaris, the game we like to call The Witcher 4, is now in full production. You can tell the shift to full production is a pretty big deal by the full-page slide used to announce the development shift in the group […]
Valve was going to ship The Orange Box in a white box before staff ‘destroyed’ the idea, and yes they saw you all doubting Portal before release: ‘You guys are gonna eat those words’
On October 10 2007 Valve released what is perhaps the greatest deal in gaming history: The Orange Box, a compendium of Half-Life 2 with both episodes, the long-awaited Team Fortress 2, and the unknown quantity Portal. OK, Half-Life 2 was a few years old by this point (Episode 2 was new), but every single game […]
Don’t let the PlayStation branding fool you, this excellent Razer headset is great on PC and $60 off for Black Friday
Razer Blackshark V2 Pro (2023) | 50 mm drivers | 12-28,000 Hz | 2.4 GHz, Bluetooth 5.2 | Passive noise cancelling | 70 hours (2.4 GHz) | 320 g | $199.99 $139.99 at Best Buy (save $60)As noted in our Razer Blackshark V2 Pro review, this headset is not only super reliable in its connection […]
I’m willing to bet there won’t be a better Black Friday gaming chair deal than this Corsair banger
Corsair TC100 | Fabric and leatherette | $249.99 $179.99 at Best Buy (save $70)The TC100 is our favorite affordable gaming chair right now, following up on the popular T3 Rush with a great look and genuine comfort. You can read more in our review. Right now, even with only a light discount, it’s a truly […]
Bad news for skull-havers: The Skulltaker is here to take your skull in Total War: Warhammer 3’s just-announced DLC
The Skulltaker is here, and he’s coming to Total War: Warhammer 3 in its new Omens of Destruction DLC this December 12. Now let’s see if I can make it through a whole article without accidentally calling it Total Warhammer 3. Announced just today, Omens of Destruction introduces “new content for the armies of Khorne, […]
Logitech, I don’t care if it’s Black Friday, please make this the last discount on my favorite gaming mouse so I can stop writing about it
Logitech G Pro X Superlight | Wireless | 25,600 DPI | 5 buttons | 70-hour battery | Right-handed | $159.99 $81.97 at Amazon (save $78.02)Ignore the fact that this model has been around for a while because it’s still a great lightweight, wireless gaming mouse. It’s been my daily driver for ages, and I wouldn’t […]
We’re getting a new and improved Geoff Keighley added to Fortnite using MetaHuman technology, ready for The Game Awards
Epic Games has scanned the show host and media personality Geoff Keighley into Fortnite for this year’s The Game Awards Island of the Year vote, so you can encounter a lifelike version of Big G while you’re trying out all the nominees and minigames for yourself. “The Game Awards Vote in Fortnite, which debuted last […]
‘My personal failure was being stumped’: Gabe Newell says finishing Half-Life 2: Episode 3 just to conclude the story would’ve been ‘copping out of [Valve’s] obligation to gamers’
Rumors and facts about the contents of Half-Life 2: Episode 3 and why it was never finished have circulated for years, but a new documentary released for Half-Life 2’s 20th Anniversary is particularly revealing, showing us a glimpse of unfinished Episode 3 guns and enemies—including an ice ray that had “kind of like a Silver […]
Gabe Newell ponders the future in new Half-Life 2 documentary: ‘I think that Half-Life represents a tool we have and promises made to customers’
To celebrate Half-Life 2’s 20th anniversary, Valve dropped a few surprises in our lap on Friday afternoon, like putting together the original dev team to record in-game commentary for the legendary FPS, which is free for the weekend on Steam. Awesome! Valve also posted a two-hour documentary on the making of Half-Life 2 on YouTube. […]
Valve gets the original Half-Life 2 development team back together for a huge 20th anniversary update—and the game is now free for the weekend on Steam
November 16, 2024 is the 20th anniversary of Half-Life 2, one of the biggest, most enduring videogames of all time. To celebrate the big birthday, Valve has released a 20th Anniversary Update for the game, which adds Half-Life 2: Episode 1 and Episode 2 to the base game, along with all new commentary tracks featuring […]
Diablo 4’s next patch hands out courtesy buffs to the poor fools who aren’t playing its overpowered new class
Earlier this week, Blizzard said 63% of all Diablo 4 players are spending their time with its newest class, the spiritborn. The other 37% of players who choose to play lesser classes are probably standing off to the side as their new sibling wipes out entire dungeons in seconds. It’s rough out there for non-spiritborn […]
Twitch forbids the use of ‘Zionist’ to ‘attack or demean,’ but says you can still use it to talk about the political movement
Twitch has changed its hateful conduct policy to prohibit the use of the term “Zionist” to attack or demean individuals or groups. “As part of our Hateful Conduct policy, we prohibit the use of terms that may not be harmful or abusive in isolation, but can be used as a slur or to denigrate others […]
This cute but spooky farm sim starts unlike any other: in a town where you don’t remember all the locals who somehow already know you
As it is in Groundhog Day, so it is being a farmlife sim fan. In many lifetimes I have woken up as the inheritor of an overgrown property, been given a watering can, hoe, and five carrot seeds, and been the new-in-town novelty to a bunch of rural neighbours. Everholm isn’t different there, but it […]
A Forbes 30-under-30-er involved in at least 2 Disco Elysium successor studios has sued the lead dev at a third, blocking him from working on a new game
Recent updates 11/15/24: This story has been updated with an official statement from Longdue. Argo Tuulik, Disco Elysium writer and co-founder of new RPG studio Summer Eternal, says he’s being sued by Riaz Moola, the founder of competing RPG studio Longdue, with an injunction preventing Tuulik from working on or promoting his new studio’s work. […]
Cancelled Splinter Cell movie starring Tom Hardy was ‘going to be hardcore and awesome,’ says producer: ‘That’s one of the ones that got away, which is really sad’
The Splinter Cell movie that was set to star Tom Hardy has been canned, according to one of the producers on the project, who told The Direct that the project has been dropped because they “just couldn’t get it right.” First things first: Yes indeed, a live-action Splinter Cell was in the works, to some […]
After a transformative ‘buff everything’ patch, Helldivers 2’s bottom barrel guns are the new top dogs
There is no other game I’ve had a better time playing than Helldivers 2 this year, but it’s weird to think about just how different it was just a few months ago. Back then, picking a loadout was always this exercise in compromise: There were only a handful of guns and stratagems powerful enough to […]
It’s not quite the end-of-generation sale price I’ve been holding out for but an RTX 4070 for a penny under $500 isn’t too bad
Price watch: 🔽Zotac RTX 4070 | 12 GB GDDR6X | 5,888 shaders | 2,490 MHz boost | $629 $499.99 at Walmart (save $129.01)The RTX 4070 is a popular card and can be difficult to find at a discount, but it’s important to remember that this price is way cheaper than it was at launch. You’re […]
Ubisoft’s NFT dumpster fire flares up as a matchmaking bug leaves every player connecting and losing to the same confused, unkillable guy
Last week, Ubisoft baffled us all by launching Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles, an NFT tactics game, in the year of our lord 2024. Its characters cost as much as $63,000 in cryptocurrency, despite the fact that I’m not entirely sure what you can do with them once you own them. Mostly, it seems like they’re […]
This chill puzzle game is so good I bought its prequel before I even finished it
There’s a great feeling you get when you read a book you like or watch a film you enjoy, and it turns out the writer or director has done some other stuff that also looks promising. “Yes! I liked this stuff! And now there’s the potential to like more stuff!” That’s the long way around […]
The fix to Destiny 2’s ‘Weightgate’ scandal will be rolled out tomorrow, Bungie is going to say sorry by giving away god-roll guns to everyone
A little over a week after Destiny 2 players proved that “Weightgate” is real, Bungie has announced an upcoming fix and a way of saying sorry: They’re going to sell a bunch of god-roll guns in the game. You can read the detailed lowdown on the problem in our detailed Weightgate analysis, but the crash […]
Dragon Age boss says a Legendary Edition-style remaster of the old games in the series is unlikely because there’s ‘maybe 20 people left at BioWare’ who know how their engine works
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a hit, but creative director John Epler recently said that BioWare currently has “no plans for downloadable expansions” to carry the story beyond its big finish. Sadly for fans who are new to the Dragon Age series, it’s also very unlikely that the older games in the series will ever […]
Stardew Valley has a troublesome new ‘disappearing chickens’ bug, which Eric Barone is explaining away by declaring invisible coyotes are stealing them
After months of waiting, Stardew Valley’s big 1.6 update is finally live on consoles and mobile, and as if that wasn’t enough creator Eric Barone also surprised the world by rolling out yet another update on top of the update: Stardew Valley 1.6.9, which introduces a fresh array of fixes, tweaks, updates, and new content—and […]
Treyarch has nerfed Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s loathed Recon perk, meaning your wallhacks won’t last quite as long after respawning
In the 10 days since Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s release, one perk has quickly become a focus for the player base’s contempt: Recon. It’s one of Black Ops 6’s “combat specialties,” which reward players for equipping a full set of perks with the same color-coded theme. Equip a set of blue perks, and […]
Squid Game season 2’s first trailer shows player 456 returning to the lion’s den, as the creator basically confirms an English-language adaptation
Squid Game’s second season has a new trailer, and if you haven’t watched the first then do yourself a favour and avoid spoiling it. Netflix’s biggest-ever launch and a global smash hit, Squid Game followed 456 indebted competitors taking part in a series of deadly childrens’ games for huge cash prizes, all observed and controlled […]
Not content with finally getting Stardew Valley 1.6 live on all platforms, Eric Barone has piled a bunch of other new stuff on top of it in yet another big update
“I have this problem where once I start, I can’t stop,” Eric Barone said in an interview earlier this year, and boy, he wasn’t kidding. Case in point: Stardew Valley, which Barone started in 2012, released in 2016, and has relentlessly hammered away on since, despite having plenty of other things he’s supposed to be […]
Star Wars Outlaws has a new creative director, promises more work on three ‘key areas’: Combat, stealth, and controls
As part of its ongoing effort to turn Star Wars Outlaws into a game that more people might actually want to buy, Ubisoft has rolled out its first developer update, revealing that creative director Julian Gerighty has been replaced as creative director by The Division and Avatar veteran Drew Rechner. “I’m very excited to be […]
Real Madrid is so popular, Real Madrid vs. Real Madrid outranks nearly every other matchup in EA Sports FC 25
Last year saw EA finally transition from its long-running FIFA series of licensed football games towards its own upstart competitor. Except EA Sports FC wasn’t so much an upstart as the moneybags incumbent, and the same yearly upgrade alongside a marketing blitz that saw it plastered across seemingly every football ground saw the audience move […]
Modder adds something big that’s been missing from Starfield: daily routines, schedules, and inner lives for NPCs
One of my favorite things about Bethesda RPGs like Oblivion and Skyrim is that NPCs have lives of their own. Yes, technically, merchants have been brought into existence specifically to stand behind store counters and buy whatever garbage you’ve collected on your last quest, but these shopkeepers also close their stores at a certain time […]
Borderlands fan with terminal illness asked to see Borderlands 4 early and Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford says ‘we’re going to do whatever we can to make something happen’
Caleb McAlpine, a 37-year-old “diehard Borderlands fan” recently diagnosed with terminal stage 4 cancer, asked the Borderlands 3 Reddit yesterday if anyone could help him get in touch with Gearbox developers to see Borderlands 4 early. In the post, McAlpine says the doctors estimate that he only has seven to 12 months to live, and […]
Do you want to go to Boston? Because CD Projekt is looking for people to come to its studio to help test some new stuff
CD Projekt is a Polish company but the runaway success of The Witcher and (eventually) Cyberpunk 2077 has seen it expand beyond those borders: Polaris, better known as The Witcher 4, is being developed in Warsaw, but Orion, the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel, is being made in CD Projekt’s Boston studio. The Witcher spinoff game, currently […]
A former Nvidia employee discovered the world’s largest known prime number and all it took was some free software and a few thousand datacenter GPUs
Earlier this month, Luke Durant, a former Nvidia employee from San Jose, California gained one of the rarer accomplishments in mathematics. With the help of just a few thousand graphics cards spread across 17 countries’ datacenters and some free software, Durant discovered the world’s largest known prime number: 2136,279,841-1. I’d write that out for you, […]
Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s launch trailer brings a summer blockbuster vibe to BioWare’s newest RPG
With just one week to go before the release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Electronic Arts has dropped the official Dragon Age: The Veilguard launch trailer, an action-packed extravaganza of sound and fury signifying that a videogame will definitely be arriving soon. Also arriving soon, as seen in the trailer, is a pair of elven […]
‘It is an affront to God’: Fans react with horror and delight as Monster Hunter Wilds unveils its nastiest freak yet
Monster Hunter is no stranger to outlandish creature designs. Many of the monsters we’re sent to slaughter are majestic beauties, but the roster’s also got its share of freaks. Standing beside the regal Teostra and imposing Zinogre are monsters like the Khezu: a flabby, drooling, lipped lamprey with wings, whose veined, rubbery flesh gains new […]
Baldur’s Gate 3 publishing chief calls out Ubisoft’s ‘broken strategy’: If gamers need to get used to not owning games, ‘developers must get used to not having jobs’
Larian director of publishing Michael Douse, never one to be shy about speaking his mind, has spoken his mind about Ubisoft‘s decision to disband the Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown development team, saying it’s the result of a “broken strategy” that prioritizes subscriptions over sales. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is quite good. […]
Actually, 1890s Colorado is a reasonable place for the Scream guy to show up, says Hunt: Showdown developer: ‘We believe the latest Ghost Face Rampage DLC fits into the dark, supernatural atmosphere’
Crytek has responded to complaints about a new paid cosmetic in Hunt: Showdown 1896, saying that, actually, the mask from the Scream movies does fit into a supernatural monster-hunting game set in the 1890s. As Morgan observed last year after being executed by Diablo 4’s Lilith in Call of Duty, every successful multiplayer shooter these […]
Overwatch 2 will return to 6v6 in 2 test modes next season, but Blizzard won’t keep them around if they don’t attract ‘a surge of players’
A decent chunk of Overwatch 2 players have been ranting and raving about the good ol’ days of 6v6 ever since the sequel opted for the new 5v5 format. Players are incredibly passionate about this issue, so much so that they managed to make Blizzard flinch and announce upcoming 6v6 playtests, which we now know […]
Balatro adds new card backs from Stardew Valley, Cyberpunk 2077, Slay the Spire, and Binding of Isaac, and they’re all free
The Balatro party is getting bigger: Two months after surprising everyone by adding Geralt and Dave the Diver to the game in the Friends of Jimbo “collaboration pack,” LocalThunk and Playstack have rolled out a new one with card art from Cyberpunk 2077, Slay the Spire, The Binding of Isaac, and Stardew Valley. The Friends […]
I can only assume this upcoming Witcher children’s book takes it easy on the folk horror, fantasy racism, and brutal violence I associate with the series
Gaming cookbooks have been done, it’s time for a new dawn of hardcover tie-ins. It’s time for videogame children’s books. And I’m not talking about easy money picks like Spyro or Mario, show me some real deal M-rated stuff filtered in such a way that little Billy isn’t scarred for life—he’ll get enough of that […]
Epic wants its Fortnite-Disney metaverse project to be ‘what every Disney fan has ever wanted,’ but don’t expect Mickey Mouse to pick up an assault rifle
In an interview with The Verge, Epic Games executive vice president Saxs Persson explained some of what we should (and shouldn’t) expect from the publisher’s partnership with Disney to create a “persistent world” for the media giant that will also connect with Fortnite. “Disney wants a persistent place where all things Disney can be there, […]
Check out the micro-strategic base defense action of Thronefall
Stratregy hit Thronefall has released its 1.0 update and is properly done, say developers GrizzlyGames, with the full release bringing three new levels, new equipment, and other excellent little game features. That’s just gravy on what is already one of the best indie micro-strategy games of the past few years—a real gem from the emergent […]
Incredibly, you can now play Teardown in third person
“You can now play Teardown in 3rd person” reads the very short, succinct update from developer Tuxedo Labs that released this week for wildly popular, million-selling game Teardown about breaking things and/or breaking into things and stealing the other things you find inside. Which, I’m going to be very frank, is a remarkably humble way […]
Y2K beat em up Star Wars: Episode 1 – Jedi Power Battles is back for some inexplicable reason
Roughly 25 years after its PlayStation release back in April of the year 2000, Star Wars: Episode 1 – Jedi Power Battles will re-release on Steam this coming year: on January 25, 2025. Courtesy of publisher and game port specialists Aspyr, Jedi Power Battles is coming back. I’m not sure who was asking for this […]
Pokémon dev Game Freak appears to have suffered a ‘teraleak’ that includes 25+ years of never-before-seen Pokémon art, assets, documents, and even canceled movies
First reported by Nintendo Life, there has been a flood of never-before-seen Pokémon art, design documents, and other development material on social media, all apparently originating from a catastrophic security breach of Pokémon developer Game Freak. Game Freak itself has put out a statement confirming it was hacked and that employees’ names and contact information […]
Today’s Wordle answer for Sunday, October 13
Breeze through today’s Wordle with our help. A quick look over our tips will give your Sunday puzzling a boost, and if you need a little more our hint for the October 13 (1212) game is definitely going to help you out. Need something more to the point? Coming right up. Today’s answer is never […]
Starship Troopers: Extermination brings its chaotic 16-person bug fights to a 1.0 release
Cooperative first-person shooter Starship Troopers: Extermination has released out of early access and into 1.0, bringing its 16-person giant space arachnid/beetle/wasp/scorpion/bug shooting action to a state that developer Offworld considers properly done. Though development will continue, the core of the game is now out there complete with persistent corpses, six classes to play as, and […]
The developers of the final 2D Fallout game had no idea their publisher was gasping for air: ‘We weren’t told anything about Interplay’s financial problems’
Similar to beloved classic PC developer Looking Glass Studios, ’90s RPG powerhouse Interplay’s legacy seems defined almost as much by its persistent financial difficulties as its great games. In an interview with PC Gamer contributor Jeremy Peel for a wider retrospective on Fallout Tactics, the game’s lead designer, Ed Orman, recalled how that instability trickled […]
Lead Skyrim designer argues that Bethesda’s primeval Creation Engine is ‘perfectly tuned’ to the studio’s needs, so an Unreal switcheroo probably isn’t in the cards
In an interview with VideoGamer, ex-Bethesda developer Bruce Nesmith defended the studio’s continued use of its proprietary Creation Engine and predicted that the RPG giant would likely stick with the tech in the future, even as more big name devs like BioWare, CD Projekt, and Halo Studios (formerly 343 Industries) trade in their bespoke engines […]
A Valve engineer used ChatGPT to find a new matchmaking algorithm for Deadlock, and now it’s in the game
A survey conducted about a year ago found that 31% of game developers were already using generative AI in some way. I’d wager that the percentage has increased significantly since then. We know Valve is using it: Fletcher Dunn, an engineer who’s been with Valve for over a decade, has been posting his “ChatGPT wins” […]
