Posts

Halloween is right around the corner, and the Festival of the Lost event in Destiny 2 will start just a few weeks before spooky festivities kick off in many parts of the world and continue straight into early November. This year’s scary annual event is leaning into horror themes, especially with Destiny 2’s event armor. Festival of the Lost came to Destiny 2 in 2018, and traditionally lets players engage in Halloween-themed festivities and compete for special items such as masks and consumables....

Bright Memory: Infinite - one of the games presented in Microsoft’s first Xbox Series X Showcase - promises to be a gritty, atmospheric shooter thanks to new screenshots. Developer FYQD shared four new images that gave us a closer look at the game’s combat, which we’ll get to experience when the game releases in 2021. Posted through the studio’s official Twitter account, the screenshots - captured on a PC with an Nvidia RTX 3090 - ooze the shooter’s rich aesthetic with a hint of sci-fi in its design....

Studies analyzing the behavior of gamers who buy loot boxes conclude that there is “robust evidence” that the microtransactions are “structurally and psychologically akin to gambling.” In a compilation of 13 reports all but one of them found this link, which also suggests that a third of those spending the most on loot boxes are classed as “problem gamblers.” The report also found that men are the main demographic buying into loot boxes, especially those of a young age and with less formal education....

The rumor mill has begun turning on the next Assassin’s Creed title, with the codename “Dynasty” circulating thanks to someone who allegedly worked at Technicolor on the animation for the project. PlayStation Universe recently published the results of an interview with an animator who may have had a part in an upcoming Assassin’s Creed title. While an update to the article made it clear that the interviewee no longer works at Technicolor (and is thus not currently working on the game), the unnamed source did claim that the newest installment in the franchise would be titled Assassin’s Creed Dynasty....

A recent interview has revealed that cut content from the original Nier will be added to Nier Replicant, including a new boss fight. In an interview with PCGamesN, Nier producer Yosuke Saito talked about his experience revisiting the original game after the release of Nier Automata. He also revealed that the team wanted to include a bunch of content from the original Nier that didn’t make the final cut the first time around....

Arguably the biggest name in video game streaming, Ninja has successfully parlayed his streaming gig into a number of different endorsements and other projects. He even has ambitions to move from playing Fortnite to acting in Hollywood. Among these projects is a collaboration with Adidas, and Ninja has a new shoe on the way. Ninja’s current situation is a little up in the air, as the massive streaming star moved from Twitch to Mixer only to have Mixer close up shop....

Xbox head Phil Spencer confirms that Microsoft’s 2017 game lineup won’t be led by titles like Halo or Gears of War, but will feature ’new experiences with different IP'. Although most of the 2017 slate for Microsoft’s Xbox One console is known at this point, gamers had been holding out hope that a certain flagship franchise might make an appearance in the fall. And while it’s still possible that Halo will show up during Microsoft’s E3 2017 presentation, the next game in the series will not release this year, according to Phil Spencer....

The Elder Scrolls 6 is in a particularly tricky spot as gaming enters the next generation of hardware with the PS5 and Xbox Series X. Even gamers who weren’t fans of The Elder Scrolls 5 have to admit that Skyrim defined RPGs for a generation of gaming, leading many other games to begin attempting to integrate open worlds into their design to varying degrees of success. The Elder Scrolls 6 will need to pull no punches in order to live up to Skyrim’s immense legacy, but with hot competition in the first-person fantasy open-world RPG market coming from Obsidian Entertainment and its upcoming title Avowed, the next Elder Scrolls game risked being overshadowed by new a IP, especially since there has been little news about TES6 since its announcement....

We’ve been living in the GPU apocalypse for the past eight months. A global shortage of semiconductors brought on by logistical issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic meant that pretty much everything more complicated than a toaster is suddenly in short supply, and that includes both consoles and graphics cards. On top of that, demand for the latest Nvidia GPUs is sky-high. That’s both because gamers want to get their hands on the latest and greatest technology to run new games, but also because cryptocurrency miners need to keep their edge in order to maintain a steady flow of digital currency....

Square Enix Japan has announced that Octopath Traveler: Conquerers of the Continent (a mobile spin-off to the popular Switch/PC JRPG) will be releasing on Japanese smartphones on October 28, 2020. Coming to both iOS and Android, pre-registration is currently available through each platform’s respective app stores. Set in the same land as the main game, Conquerers of the Continent tells an original tale with a different group of heroes. Taking place several years prior to the main game, you could view this as a prequel that follows the tale of three famous heroes who shape the land of Orsterra for generations to come....

It’s an exciting - yet, simultaneously, frustrating - time to be an avid gaming fan. With a wave of new technology rolling in, gamers of all kinds have had new devices to look forward to, but like many of them, the Oculus Quest 2 likely won’t be hiding under the tree this holiday season. The Oculus Quest 2 launched back in October, but immediately began to fly off shelves. As with recent PS5 scalpers, many Quest 2 virtual reality headsets were scooped up via bots in order to be resold at a higher price, leaving fans hoping to acquire the affordable headsets at a loss....

Oculus Rift creator Palmer Luckey doesn’t think that Apple makes any computers good enough to run the Oculus Rift, though he would support it if the company did. Oculus Rift creator Palmer Luckey has dropped a harsh bomb for Apple-owning VR hopefuls: he doesn’t think the company produces good computers. To clarify, he’s specifically talking about the quality of their GPUs as opposed to the rest of the computer’s architecture, and is singling out the lack of high-end GPUs as a bottleneck for the Oculus headset....

With Blizzard stuck in a quagmire of controversy over the decision to change an Overwatch victory pose, one writer explores why the developer has not suffered from censorship. The notion of censorship has long been a contentious issue in video games. After all, it seems as though games have been hit with bans and cut content for as long as the medium has been around. In recent years, European and Australian South Park fans were dismayed to find that certain scenes had been cut from South Park: The Stick of Truth, in order to pass stricter ratings systems in those regions....

While the gameplay mechanics typically dominate the conversation when it comes to evaluating video games, most titles can’t survive without a great story. And a great story, of course, needs great characters. 2013 introduced to quite the eclectic bunch of video game characters, many of them new faces and all of them unique in their own ways. That being said, there were a few that stood out above the rest, and did so for a variety of reasons....

Last month, Team 17 released Overcooked: All You Can Eat, a remastered bundle of the first two games in the franchise for the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. It’s no surprise that Overcooked: All You Can Eat remains a popular title for both next-generation consoles, especially now that many families are staying home for the holidays. Unfortunately, it appears that the game contains a major bug that is currently affecting its local multiplayer mode on the Xbox Series X....

Without a doubt, the publisher and developer Blizzard’s team-based shooter Overwatch is chock full of popular heroes for fans to play as, with the studio having given each character their own unique batch of skills to set them apart from one another. Of course, most gamers are going to have favorites, and for those who adore the cyborg ninja Genji above all others, they will likely be quite excited about the Good Smile Company officially opening pre-orders for the forthcoming limited edition figurine based on the character for its figma line of action figures....

If you’re hoping to craft the last few Rampage weapons, such as the Rampage Blade II or the Rampage Cleaver II, then you need the Apex Venom Spike, and that is easier said than done when hunting for rare monster materials in Monster Hunter Rise. The Apex Venom Spike is just one of many rare High Rank monster materials you can find in MH Rise, but the Apex Venom Spike will specifically only be available through one type of quest, on one type of rank, and even then it’s not a guaranteed reward....

This past week, I opted to finally dip my toes into Baldur’s Gate 3, an early-access sequel to BioWare’s staple RPG from Larian Studios - the wonderful dev team behind Divinity - a beloved classic, something I, myself, have put countless hours into, and while so far, Baldur’s Gate 3 is an absolute feast in fun, it brings me back to an age-old problem I have with so many games: no prologue skip option....

A new character is making their way to Mortal Kombat 11, and Ed Boon is making fans work to find out who they might be. Boon, the Creative Director on Mortal Kombat 11 at NetherRealm Studios, began teasing a new character yesterday with a tweet featuring the famous Queen song “Bohemian Rhapsody.” There was no clear answer on who it could be, and the tease was so obscure that Boon added a second message calling for fans to focus on the specific lyrics: “Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see....

Mortal Kombat 11 has gone relatively quiet since the release of Spawn, with many thinking that an announcement was building for Kombat Pack 2. However, NetherRealm Studios teased something shocking today: New Mortal Kombat 11 Story DLC. As seen in the trailer below, the story DLC picks up at the end of Mortal Kombat 11, with Liu Kang and Raiden working together to forge a new history and timeline. They are stopped by none other than Shang Tsung, the franchise’s original villain an MK11’s first DLC character, who tells Liu Kang to stop or “doom us all....