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Creative Assembly, who you'll mostly know for the impossible breadth and depth of its library of strategy games, have announced that it's working on a new project to "sit alongside Total War, Hyenas and the studio’s other yet-to-be announced project". What's more, it's specifically looking for help from developers "with experience working on third-person titles using the Unreal 5 engine".
The new project was announced in a post released earlier today on the Creative Assembly website. It's all pretty mysterious, though. Aside from saying that a new project is underway and implying that it's going to be a third-person title, the studio says it'll be keeping shtum about further details for a while yet.
In a bid to reassure strategy fans that might worry about one of the genre's most stalwart devs branching out, the announcement concludes with a statement that Creative Assembly's Sofia studio will continue to maintain a team dedicated to working on future Total War projects.
Personally, I'm more excited about the prospect of Creative Assembly getting experimental than I am for yet another Total War entry. I'm a sucker for grand strategy, but for whatever reason the more military-focused games they put out have never grabbed me quite as firmly as the expansive diplomatic and political simulations that you get from Paradox. On the other hand, Alien: Isolation was one of my favourite experiences of the last ten years. Here's hoping that the studio can pull off that trick again with whatever this third-person title turns out to be.
This new project isn't the only non-strategy product that Creative Assembly has in the pipeline. It's currently accepting signups for the alpha of Hyenas, a new multiplayer shooter that promises zero-G battles, fast-paced battles, and… "epic merch"? Sure, okay. I might just wait and see what this other project is, if I'm honest.
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There's still no solid release date, but at least we now know that Intel plans to release the new Arc A700-series graphics cards by the end of October. October 28, to give it a deadline. That's when Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II launches, and according to the latest Arc teaser video, Intel's XeSS upsampling tech is going to be available from day one.
And, as Intel's Tom Petersen says, the XeSS launch "is going to be coincident with the introduction and availability of our discrete GPUs, no surprise."
We've been waiting a long time for some concrete information about when we might actually see the higher-spec versions of Intel's inaugural Arc graphics cards, after the low-end A380 card launched to little acclaim in China, and everything else was delayed to an ephemeral 'summer' release.
Now we have an end point by which Intel has to call time on fiddling with drivers and just get the damned things released. I mean, the software engineers can always carry on optimising those drivers after all.
'We'll fix it in post…' Says Raja.
The new video, presented by everyone's favourite buddy-movie duo, Tom Petersen and Ryan Shrout, offers some more details about Intel's own upscaler. Think about XeSS along the lines of Nvidia's DLSS and AMD's FSR features, something which will take advantage of the AI processing capabilities of its new Arc discrete graphics cards as well as offer higher frame rates on its integrated GPUs and other manufacturers' cards, too.
And it paints a pretty picture of XeSS, showing healthy performance increases across a bunch of games, and up to a 2.5x increase in the 3DMark XeSS feature test. Though it has already been shown that Intel's new GPUs are hella optimised for UL's benchmarking software, which makes those figures tough to trust.
But running in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, with ray tracing enabled too, the effect looks good, with minimal visual artefacts even on the lowest 'Performance' mode. In 'Balanced' mode the game is running at 79 fps at 1440 max RT settings, against 62 fps without XeSS enabled.
Image 1 of 3(Image credit: Intel)
Image 2 of 3(Image credit: Intel)Image 3 of 3(Image credit: Intel)It's not just the four-year-old Lara lark and a reboot of an old CoD sequel getting the XeSS treatment, however, as Intel has got another 19 games lined up for launch. Well, either at the launch of Arc proper, or when the games launch if they arrive later than Intel's A700-series GPUs.
Peak Storage(Image credit: Future)Best SSD for gaming: the best solid state drives around
Best PCIe 4.0 SSD for gaming: the next gen has landed
The best NVMe SSD: this slivers of SSD goodness
Best external hard drives: expand your horizons
Best external SSDs: plug in upgrades for gaming laptops and consolesThese range from older titles, such as Hitman 3 or Naraka Bladepoint, to upcoming games, such as Gotham Knights or Arcadegeddon(?).
Like DLSS and FSR, XeSS looks like another solid upscaler that will help negate the higher demands of modern games and their new lighting and rendering techniques, and provide gamers with another way to squeeze some extra performance out of the GPUs.
But, as with all things Arc, it's all going to come down to final execution and how the GPUs actually perform when they're out from under Intel's gaze and in our independent labs with actual release drivers. Which should hopefully be before the end of October, right?
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I'm not one for designer clothing. The closest I've come to being fashionable is the pair of Doc Marten boots I wore once, bled into, and threw to the back of my wardrobe so they couldn't hurt anyone ever again. And yet, when Microsoft asked if I'd like to try out some threads from the new Hardwear clothing line, I had a chance to once again dabble in the lifestyle of lavish fashion, and rethink my stance on buying everything second-hand.
And so, my journey into becoming a "normcore" fashion model for a day began.
The first hurdle was deciding on a size. Now, I tend to buy clothing that's a size up so I can wear it as a dress if I'm feeling fancy. What I forgot to account for was the difference between UK and US sizing—extra large seems to mean something different across the pond. In fact, I was sent an XXL which was a massive overcompensation for my little muffin-top, and frankly I'm drowning.
(Image credit: Future)Though, while I've had to roll the sleeves of this humongous denim jacket up just to be able to type this out, I will say the jacket is very nice. Good pockets big enough for massive nerdy cell phones, too. I'm sure it'll make a great autumn jacket for cool evenings loitering around the server rooms at work, or wherever normies like to hang out. It's a bit strange that they put a paragraph of print on the inside of the jacket, though. Like I'm meant to take it off and be like "Guys, guys, read my jacket!" I guess it's a nod to the questionably-worded overarching theme, which we'll get to momentarily.
I feel the need to hide the slogan from people, in case I get a complaint filed about me.
If the sizing fiasco wasn't enough to put me off designer clothing for good (despite it being entirely my own fault), the fact it started to rain on my already heavy-'donkey' denim jacket really didn't help the situation. Carrying ten pounds of sodden denim home sure is a work out. Maybe I'll only have to upsize to a large size next time.
And then there was the T-shirt slogan. I wasn't actually asked which T-shirt design I wanted, but I figured "how bad could a lucky dip be?"
Boy, did I overestimate my luck.
Microsoft could've have sent me a Bliss XP wallpaper print, or Windows 95 MS Paint icon tee. But no. Instead I got a slogan slapped across my chest that reads: "It's in you, not on you."
To your average normie, perhaps there's nothing off about this statement. Maybe all they see is the earnest positivity about it being 'what's inside that counts.' But in the circles I float between, and even among my esteemed colleagues, you can bet someone passed a risque comment or two. Don't worry, it's nothing I had to contact HR about, but you have to admit there's a potential for some misconstrued undertones here.
Dave James, Hardware Lead's experience"I'm angry at myself," says my long-suffering wife when I walk in the door. "I shouldn't have let you go outside wearing that. You basically walked in there with 'My name's Dave and I'm a sex pest' written on your T-shirt."
So yeah, maybe strolling into daycare to drop off my three-year-old wearing a shirt with "It's in you, not on you" emblazoned on the front wasn't the best plan. Particularly when his key worker then asks him: "what's that on daddy's T-shirt, Charlie?"
"It's just a silly slogan…" Says I, squirming.
Just a silly slogan with far too many sexual connotations for my liking. Suffice to say that's going to be an at-home T-shirt from now on. Though I'm still digging the denim shacket with Inbox on the breast pocket, that's a keeper.
And not casually offensive.
Perhaps that's what designer Gavin Mathieu was going for? No, Microsoft describes it as a clothing line that "puts the focus on individuals and not on the clothing they wear." That's a much more respectable sentiment than it sounds when worded the way it is. But the thing about designer clothing with slogans like this is that it's so steeped in irony, the message ends up going full circle.
Remember when everyone was walking around with "OBEY" on their T-shirts? The point was to show a "biting sarcasm verging on reverse psychology," urging people to "to take heed of the propagandists out to bend the world to their agendas."
But of course, the real irony is in spending $50 on a tee in order to blend in with your current friend group's world view, while unironically mocking conformists.
Okay, enough of my designer clothing rant. I'm here to write about cores and threads, not clothing threads. The bottom line is that I'm not feeling very normcore; I feel a bit like I'm camping in my own T-shirt, which isn't the fault of Microsoft by any stretch. But my real issue lies in the fact I feel the need to hide the slogan from people, in case someone files a complaint about me.
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Summer steams ahead over at Fanatical as we enter our third week of deals fever. As ever, if you want to make this a summer to remember (i.e. one you spend mostly indoors playing videogames), you'll want to head over there and check out what's on offer.
But if that sounds like too much decision-making this early in the day, we can help you out. We've picked out another crop of the finest discounted games for you to check out from the many that are currently on sale.
Top Pick: Soul Hackers 2—20% off
(Image credit: Atlus)£39.99/$47.99 | Fanatical link
Soul Hackers 2 is the latest in the proud line of "Shin Megami Tensei games that aren't Persona" and follows the story of a war between duelling cabals of devil summoners. It's a sequel 25 years in the making: the original Soul Hackers debuted on a mysterious monolith called the Sega Saturn all the way back in 1997. I suppose you can't rush perfection.
It's more combat-focused than the Persona games. You'll find yourself guiding your party of loveable cyberpunk demon-wranglers through various dungeons and engaging in traditional-but-rewarding turn-based JRPG combat. Even social links and confidants—the dating sim staple of the Persona series—are replaced by a set of dungeons called "Soul Matrixes" that see you diving into the minds of your companions and battling their demons, which are literal and metaphorical all at once. If you got hooked on SMT when we finally got Persona 4 in 2020, Soul Hackers 2 will tide you over until Joker and the Phantom Thieves finally land on our shores this October.
Subnautica—40% off
(Image credit: Unknown Worlds Entertainment)£14.99/$17.99 | Fanatical link
I've never been one for survival games; I struggle enough to survive in real life. But something about Subnautica meant I poured almost 70 hours into the darn thing. Maybe it's the subversive and (ironically) dry wit of its anti-corporate humour, maybe it's the well-paced mystery constantly unfolding at the heart of the game's plot. Maybe I just like hanging out with massive fish. Whatever it is, Subnautica is the only survival game I've ever loved, and I suspect that may be the case for some time.
Shenmue 3—78% off
(Image credit: Ys Net)£5.49/$6.59 | Fanatical link
The adventures of jiu-jitsu idiot Ryo Hazuki continue in Shenmue 3, which sees our beloved and baffling hero continue the search for his father's murderer in the mountains of Guilin, China. Shenmue 3 is a weird, deliberate, and languid experience that heard the criticisms people levelled at the games preceding it and responded, "Those things are all good, actually". We liked it a lot and, while it won't change the mind of Shenmue-haters, the world is a better place for its existence.
Kerbal Space Program—77% off
(Image credit: Private Division)£6.89/$9.19 | Fanatical link
We choose to go to the moon because we clearly aren't fit for survival here on Earth. Kerbal Space Program is the premiere NASA-sim on the market, painstakingly modelling the physics and mechanics of spaceflight and letting you build the astonishingly explosive deathtraps of your dreams.
XCOM 2—91% off
(Image credit: Firaxis)£3.32/$5.69 | Fanatical link
You're not playing defence anymore. XCOM 2 takes the defensive gameplay of Firaxis' first XCOM and turns it on its head: now you're controlling a cadre of revolutionary guerillas fighting to topple a tyrannical alien regime whose conquest of Earth was very successful indeed.
Elite Dangerous—79% off
(Image credit: Frontier Developments)£4.19/$6.29 | Fanatical link
The finest space-trucking sim on the market. Elite Dangerous isn't perfect: its procedurally-generated missions can get old and its last expansion was controversial to say the least, but nothing else I've played captures the immensity and sublimity of space quite like it. Just point yourself in a random direction and activate your frame shift drive. That's where the real fun is.
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Explore Sumeru these Genshin Impact 3.0 guides(Image credit: miHoYo)
Genshin Impact 3.0: What you need to know
Genshin Impact Sumeru: How to get there
Genshin Impact Dendroculus: Where to find
Genshin Impact Dori: Electro merchantThe Genshin Impact Nilotpala Lotus is one of the new regional specialities that Sumeru has added to the game. But unlike the Sumeru Rose, which you can find pretty much everywhere, some other plants are a little harder to locate. The Nilotpala Lotus, Rukkhashava Mushrooms, and Padisarahs all grow in very specific locations across the new rainforest realm.
If you were lucky enough to grab the new five-star Dendro character, Tighnari, then you're going to need a lot of Nilotpala Lotus in order to ascend him to max level, so you can actually use him and his powerful Dendro abilities. Here I'll explain the best places to farm these water-flowers.
Genshin Impact Nilotpala Lotus: Where to farm
(Image credit: miHoYo official interactive map)While a few Nilotpala Lotus can be found scattered across Sumeru, the best place to farm them is in the water around Sumeru City. If you head right from the bridge that leads into the city in the south, there are lots in the water there, and then you can continue to follow the water north, then west, then north again towards Alcazarzaray Palace, then west again. This route should let you collect lots. You can find every Nilotpala Lotus location on the official Genshin Impact map.
There are 66 dotted across Sumeru, but you're going to need 168 if you want to level Tighnari fully. This means at least two full farms, and one almost full. Like any other regional specialities, Nilotpala Lotus will respawn after two days, so it's going around 4-ish days once you account for the cooldowns. Also watch out for the crocodiles.
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All the Wordle tips, hints, clues, and more you could ever wish for are now just a short scroll away. Need the answer to today's Wordle in a hurry? No problem, the solution to the August 26 (433) challenge is just a little further down the page.
When I'm faced with what seems at the time to be an impossible half-formed jumble of yellow letters I sometimes try to make up right-ish sounding words in a desperate attempt to narrow down the potential answers. I wouldn't recommend this non-technique, but every now and then it's been the little spark that sets me on the right path.
Wordle hint
Today's Wordle: A hint for Friday, August 26
Alanis Morissette famously wrote a song about a version of this word, a term used when the outcome of a situation turns out to be the opposite of what was expected, or someone's feelings don't match the words coming out of their mouth. This contrast between the two is often used in a humorous way.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
If there's one thing better than playing Wordle, it's playing Wordle well, which is why I'm going to share a few quick tips to help set you on the path to success:
- A good opener contains a balanced mix of unique vowels and consonants.
- A tactical second guess helps to narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
- The solution may contain repeat letters.
There's no time pressure beyond making sure it's done by midnight. So there's no reason to not treat the game like a casual newspaper crossword and come back to it later if you're coming up blank.
Wordle answer
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)What is the Wordle 433 answer?
Don't worry if those greens aren't turning up today. The answer to the August 26 (433) Wordle is IRONY.
Previous answers
Wordle archive: Which words have been used
The more past Wordle answers you can cram into your memory banks, the better your chances of guessing today's Wordle answer without accidentally picking a solution that's already been used. Past Wordle answers can also give you some excellent ideas for fun starting words that keep your daily puzzle solving fresh.
Here are some recent Wordle solutions:
- August 25: CLOWN
- August 24: NEEDY
- August 23: WOVEN
- August 22: MERIT
- August 21: WASTE
- August 20: TREAT
- August 19: SHRUG
- August 18: TWANG
- August 17: TWICE
- August 16: GRUEL
Learn more about Wordle
Every day Wordle presents you with six rows of five boxes, and it's up to you to work out which secret five-letter word is hiding inside them.
You'll want to start with a strong word like ALERT—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters. Hit Enter and the boxes will show you which letters you've got right or wrong. If a box turns
️, it means that letter isn't in the secret word at all. 
means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. 
means you've got the right letter in the right spot.You'll want your second go to compliment the first, using another "good" word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn't present in today's answer.
After that it's just a case of using what you've learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there's an E). Don't forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS).
If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you'd like to find out which words have already been used you'll find those below.
Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn't long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it's only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
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Instead of kicking back on the beach like they were supposed to, Final Fantasy 14 players are stripping their pristine new island sanctuaries of every single plant and resource to feed the machine of efficiency.
This week's patch 6.2 dropped Island Sanctuaries, a solo mode that lets you tend to a farm, gather resources, craft items, and pet animals. As you explore the island and build facilities, you gain unique XP to increase your rank and ability to purchase mounts and hairstyles for your character. Naturally, MMO players have found a way to turn this laid-back diversion into a job by sharing spreadsheets, maps, and details on spawn rates.
Reddit user LucarioMagic circled plant locations on the island map to keep you from exploring for too long. Twitter user stalvtuber went further and provided exact coordinates so you can create linear paths from each resource. And YouTuber Cole Evyx made a video that warns viewers of a "noobtrap" that prevents you from building your island base and provides an entire Excel sheet of items to craft with a value per hour (VPH) number for each one.
Twitter and the game's subreddit are full of people highlighting the discrepancy between the mode's intended purpose and how people are actually treating it. MMOs have this problem a lot: World of Warcraft has implemented its own farms and other casual-friendly features over the years and many people choose to squeeze them dry instead of savoring the break from raiding and grinding mobs. While nothing in FF14 stops you from churning through island life, it also doesn't provide a lot of reasons for speedrunning it either. It purely depends on your patience and what's most satisfying to you.
two hours into island sanctuary: this is so relaxing i love taking care of my animals :)twelve hours into island sanctuary: the mammets demand a week of rest and are unionizingAugust 24, 2022
See moreFor fellow Warriors of Light that are secluding themselves in their Island Sanctuary, this path is good for your copper ore needs!Might be a better spot later in Island development though.#FFXIV #FF14 #FinalFantasyXIV pic.twitter.com/hsv4BuCRquAugust 24, 2022
See morei_love_island_sanctuaries from r/ffxiv
Several Reddit users explained in one popular Reddit thread why they've turned the island sanctuaries into a mini management sim:
"I was a math/econ major. I love factory sims and optimizing 'frack', just how my brain works," spock2018 wrote.
"It's like a puzzle. It's fun to engage your brain with how to best get things with what you have," Gorbashou wrote in the same thread.
For others, all the crop harvesting and crafting can wait. FF14's islands are where you take a break from challenging raids and quests to pet animals and let your minion companions run free. An island where you can build your dream treehouse for taking photos of your Warrior of Light or having friends over to hang out.
FF14's island sanctuaries resemble what it was like to see rabid Animal Crossing players take on New Horizons when it launched in 2020. The game that's practically synonymous with chill was harvested alive by early-pandemic players without much else to do. People used the Nintendo Switch's clock to fast forward through the game and they used dedicated websites and Discord servers to track turnip prices to maximize their profit. Clearly none of it was what Nintendo intended, and yet everyone did it anyway.
Now it's Square Enix's turn to bear witness to hordes of players who want nothing but the pure efficiency of a well-oiled farm.
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As reported by our friends at GamesRadar, On August 24, Avalanche Software revealed the very pricey $300 collector's edition version of Hogwarts Legacy.
Videogame limited editions can be hit or miss. After all, what if you just committed to a triple digit price tag "le epic nerd" swag box for a real 5/10 experience (or 50%, going by the best videogame review system on the planet?)
What if, bear with me, you get the limited edition of Dragon Age Inquisition on pre order as a birthday present in 2014 and it winds up being a fairly satisfying 7/10 (87%), but comes with a couple plastic pieces of crap and a "cloth map" that's just the same dot jpg of Thedas that's been up on the Dragon Age wiki since 2009, printed on the cheapest polyester imaginable?
Hypotheticals aside, the quality of the goods themselves doesn't seem to be at issue with the Boy Who Lived Supderdeluxe Edition of Legacy, at least. Its centerpiece is a giant cast of a wizardly tome with a map of Hogwarts printed on its open pages. It can be plugged in and powered on, activating the electromagnets under its pages and allowing the included magic wand collectible to float above—pretty neat!
That's kind of it though. The Every Flavored Bean Edition also boasts an exclusive outfit and all the digital goods of the lower-tier Deluxe edition. Players also receive a steelbook case which, for those of us on PC, will only hold a download code—another symptom of our cursed modernity. Collector's edition owners will also be able to access Hogwarts Legacy three days earlier than other players.
I can't help but compare this to the offerings of Limited Run Games and iam8bit, purveyors of fine collector's editions of indie and classic games. I recently snagged the Limited Run release of KOTOR 2, an old favorite, for around $200 after tax and shipping. It's an old game and none of its included bits and boobahs have the wow factor of Legacy's levitation rig, but its wider spread of collectibles and included art book speak to me more than Legacy's single showstopper.
I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention Harry Potter creator JK Rowling's extensive anti-trans rhetoric and political activity. Avalanche and Warner Bros have tried to distance themselves from Rowling's politics, asserting that she had no creative input on the game and including a "trans-inclusive" character creation system. Let they who have never once purchased a spicy chicken biscuit from Chick-fil-A cast the first stone when it comes to "ethical consumption," but Warner Bros declined to comment to Kotaku on whether or not Rowling would receive royalties on the game. Given her creation and ownership of the setting, her social and financial gain seems secure.
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A two-year-long storyline in Elite Dangerous ended with a bang this month. Actually, there were two bangs in Update 13: the first was the firing of a superweapon in an attempt to destroy the alien Thargoids… quickly followed by the second bang of the Thargoids totally not being destroyed and blowing that superweapon into space-smithereens.
These disastrous events, which were viewable to players via an in-game cinematic, bring Elite Dangerous into its next story arc, Aftermath, as the fallout from the failure of the superweapon opens up new events and plenty of questions for players. What exactly went wrong? What will happen next? How will the galaxy, its factions, and players react after the catastrophe?
I recently spoke with members of the Frontier Developments team about the future of Elite Dangerous, and what Update 14 will mean for the long-running simulation of Milky Way Galaxy. Naturally they prefer to let the story unfold for players instead of straight-up telling me every single detail (darn), but they did drop a few hints about the ongoing alien threat, as well as something they themselves find threatening.
"As we move towards Update 14, and the Aftermath, we'll be really escalating the Thargoid threat, to the extent commanders have not seen before," said senior producer Samantha Marsh. "I think everyone can see that bad things are coming. But the Aftermath will continue to kick that into higher and higher gear, and we're really excited to see exactly [how] everyone deals with it.
"And it's definitely safe to say the galaxy won't be the same," she added.
The in-game cinematic that ended the Azimuth Saga was a new way to share a story with players, but it's not the only tool Frontier Developments will be using as the events of Aftermath are slowly revealed.
"There's also the part of Elite that's the exploratory storytelling, and people who are sort of uncovering elements of the story and piecing it together," Marsh said. "And we love to see the players doing that part of it. I think it's really amazing to see what they find."
"Yeah, [we] love putting little mysteries in the game for players to solve," said Luke Betterton, lead game designer. "One of the things that we do quite a lot of is pretty hefty kind of narrative consideration behind a lot of what we create. So for people to be able to piece together what that narrative is when we're not quite upfront with it, for players to get those theories, all the cogs are whirring, they're trying to figure out exactly what is happening here. What's what is coming next? That's a great joy of mine."
(Image credit: Frontier)Speaking of threats, there's a new one when it comes to Elite Dangerous, but it's not of the alien variety. It's from right here on Earth. I asked the developers if astronomers—real world astronomers, that is—making new discoveries about our galaxy have an effect on the simulated Milky Way Galaxy of Elite Dangerous.
"If you're asking whether the James Webb Telescope is terrifying for Elite Dangerous' future? Yeah, it is, yeah," said Betterton, laughing. "If they start seeing stuff that we then have to retrofit into the game, that's going to be a challenge."
"We're not going to overhaul the whole galaxy if there's loads of different new discoveries, but it certainly does influence what we do," said Marsh. "I can give you an example of something that NASA renamed, I think it was a galaxy, I really can't remember exactly what, but they renamed it because the original name, they found to be a bit more offensive these days. So, we actually went in and renamed it ourselves to match the new name from NASA as well."
"I think that's also what makes Elite so interesting is it's [an] evolving, living game," Marsh continued. "It has these updates and changes and it's always kind of evolving into something really new and unique, which is really cool."
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Security skeptics and advocates have worried for some time now that exploits able to take advantage of anti-cheat kernel-mode drivers could wreak serious havoc on PC security. Now it seems to have happened: The anti-cheat driver used by Genshin Impact, the popular free-to-play RPG, has been abused by a ransomware actor to stop antivirus processes and enable the mass deployment of their ransomware.
A new whitepaper published August 24th to Trend Micro explains how the perfectly legitimate driver mhyprot2.sys was used, absent any other parts of Genshin Impact, to gain root access to a system.
"Security teams and defenders should note that mhyprot2.sys can be integrated into any malware," wrote authors Ryan Soliven and Hitomi Kimura.
"Genshin Impact does not need to be installed on a victim’s device for this to work; the use of this driver is independent of the game."
Kernel-mode drivers are at the very core of your computer's system. At the risk of gross oversimplification, software at the kernel level generally has more control over your PC than you do. Genshin Impact's anti-cheat was previously under scrutiny for continuing to run—at the kernel level—even after you closed the game. Developer HoYoVerse, then known as MiHoYo, later changed that.
The paper is clear that this is a severe security breach of the entire Windows operating environment. It notes that the driver module "cannot be erased once distributed" and isn't inherently malicious—simply an abusable piece of otherwise-legitimate software.
"This module is very easy to obtain and will be available to everyone until it is erased from existence," the paper states. "It could remain for a long time as a useful utility for bypassing privileges. Certificate revocation and antivirus detection might help to discourage the abuse, but there are no solutions at this time because it is a legitimate module."
This is hardly the first time that kernel level anti-cheat has been a security concern for the games industry. A double whammy hit in May 2020 when both Riot Games' Valorant and Doom Eternal released with kernel mode anti-cheat. At the time, Riot noted that plenty of other kernel-level anti-cheat software already existed—although not to the extent of Riot's Vanguard software, which begins when Windows boots up.
But kernel level anti-cheat technology is generally effective, and for some gamers who are sick of dealing with cheaters, that makes the risk worthwhile. By the end of last year, for instance, Call of Duty players were unhappy enough with cheaters that some welcomed Activision Blizzard having access to every bit of memory on their entire PC.
No matter the history and now-widespread usage, this kind of abuse is exactly what those who feared the spread of kernel-mode anti-cheat were warning of. If a vulnerability has been found, what follows could be significantly worse than vulnerabilities in normal, user-level anti-cheat software. I've reached out to MiHoYo for comment on the report, and will update if I receive a reply.
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Games Workshop earned £25 million from videogames in 2021, so don't expect it to stop licensing out its properties anytime soon. Apparently it's got "12 unreleased games in development and four new licences were signed in the year." Not all of those will come to PC of course, with a handful of mobile games like Total War Battles: Warhammer (being made by NetEase, co-developer of Diablo Immortal) in the works. Still, even if you're only looking at the ones on PC, there are enough that keeping track of them can be a hassle.
The advantage of the high number of Warhammer games being green-lit at the moment is that the developers making them span a wide variety of genres. We're finally getting a Warhammer CRPG, and there's a 2D platformer and a boomer shooter on the way. We can only hope a city-builder and an immersive sim aren't far off.
It's great to have Warhammer games covering so many bases. Whether you're into real-time shootybangs or turn-based thinkyplans, co-op action or competitive sports sims, there might be a Warhammer game for you. These are the four I'm most excited about.
Darktide
- November 30.
Vermintide 2 had the best first-person combat since Dark Messiah of Might & Magic, and that's reason enough to be excited for developer Fatshark's take on 40K. Like the Vermintide games, Darktide is four-player co-op with seething hordes of enemies, and what we've seen so far suggests it'll be every bit as brutal. Perhaps even more so, if you're swinging a chainsword.
It's also clear that Fatshark understands the setting. The character creation in the Gamescom trailer shows a press-ganged prisoner whose selected background explains how you ended up imprisoned before being recruited into the Inquisition: "Someone overheard you expressing disgust at the weird taste of corpse starch and reported you to a foreman."
Darktide promises to be as grim and grimy as a 40K game should be, with its heroes, explicitly called "rejects", treated as cannon fodder and having to use "skull decoders" to interface with machinery as they struggle across an awful gothic industrial nightmare of a city. Can't wait.
Rogue Trader
- Beta in 2023, no release date.
(Image credit: Owlcat Games)Owlcat knows how to make a CRPG, having released Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. Expect complicated character progression and combat, endless hours of playtime, and an expanding cast of characters so deep they should come with some kind of warning signage for divers.
Rogue Trader will cast us as the captain of a gigantic voidship on the edge of the Imperium, heir to a dynastic tradition of settlers and traders. We'll be able to explore uncharted worlds, find relics of lost civilizations, and bring new worlds into the Emperor's light—or more likely fall into heresy.
It's drawing inspiration from a tabletop RPG published in 2009, though hopefully not too much. Pen-and-paper Rogue Trader was kind of a mess—the spaceship rules in particular. Fortunately, while the Pathfinder videogames used roughly the same rules as the tabletop game they were based on, Owlcat's community manager has said Rogue Trader "won't be a direct transfer from tabletop to a videogame". It will have purely turn-based combat though, which is probably a good thing, given how chaotic Pathfinder's real-time-with-pause option made every fight.
One concern remains, and that's what kind of state Rogue Trader will launch in. Owlcat's previous games arrived with plenty of bugs and balance issues, and though patches rectified the biggest, it would be nice if the studio's next game was easier to recommend on arrival.
Space Marine 2
- No release date.
(Image credit: Saber Interactive)We'd given up hope of ever seeing a follow-up to Relic's 2011 third-person action game when a sequel was announced out of the blue in December of 2021. Get it, "out of the blue" because it's about Ultramarines… I'll get my coat.
The licence has now been picked up by Saber Interactive, developer of World War Z: Aftermath and Evil Dead: The Game, which has a lot to live up to. The original Space Marine was a bombastic hack-and-shooter with a mechanic that gave health back for performing melee takedowns that now seems ahead of its time. It also had an excellent jump pack.
Space Marine 2 will pick up the adventures of Ultramarine Captain Titus after he's been promoted to lieutenant and ascended to become one of the Primaris. A relatively recent addition to Warhammer 40,000, this new generation of space marines are even beefier than the vanilla variety, retroactively dubbed the Firstborn. He'll need all that extra strength and speed, since he'll apparently be facing "thousands of tyranids". Even after taking on a clan of orks and the forces of Chaos in the first game, the massive amount of enemies the Saber Swarm Engine can throw around should prove a challenge.
Blood Bowl 3
- In closed beta, no release date.
(Image credit: Cyanide Studio)Though kick-off has been delayed multiple times and plans to release Blood Bowl 3 in Early Access last year were scuppered, I'm still holding out hope.
Cyanide Studio's third stab at this turn-based American football parody will bring the rules into line with Games Workshop's current version, which is less restrictive about when you use rerolls, adds new skills like projectile vomiting, and brings back the Special Play cards. These inducements make the gleefully random game of Blood Bowl even more madcap. Serious competitive players aren't in favor of them, but the very existence of serious and competitive fans of a game so deliberately unpredictable is baffling, so who cares what they think. Though Cyanide has said only a selection of the Special Play cards will make it into Blood Bowl 3 at launch, even a few additions like greased shoes, catapult traps, and enchanted buckets would make it even more Looney Tunes. And that's a plus.
Cyanide's previous Blood Bowl games have had poor AI and been terrible at teaching its tactics to new players, but even if they drop the ball on both of those again I'll probably enjoy Blood Bowl 3 just like the previous two. If you're already familiar with Games Workshop's silliest game from its physical edition, then a digital version you can play online or against a braindead computer is good enough. It'd be nice if all this development-delay overtime led to a significant improvement, though.
Here's all the other upcoming Warhammer games on PC
(Image credit: Rogueside)- Shootas, Blood & Teef (October 20, 2022). Sidescrolling action-platformer with hand-drawn art where you're an ork.
- Boltgun (2023). Retro FPS about an Ultramarine fighting Chaos with the power of heavy metal and 1990s graphics.
- Warpforge (2023). Free-to-play collectible card game pitting 40K's various factions against each other.
- Untitled Age of Sigmar game (???). Not much is known, except it'll be published by Nexon and feature PvE multiplayer in a "virtual world".
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Hello Norbert,
Welcome to UnityHQ Nolfseries Community. Please feel free to browse around and get to know the others. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask.
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A new Deadline report says Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence has been signed to direct the upcoming BioShock film, while the script will be adapted by Michael Green, whose previous credits include Logan, Alien: Covenant, and American Gods.
Getting BioShock to the big screen has been a struggle. The first game in the series was released in 2007—that's 15 years ago—and while a film project helmed by Gore Verbinski was announced the following year, the project stalled and ultimately fell apart. In 2013, BioShock creative director Ken Levine blamed the failure on Watchmen, an R-rated superhero flick that didn't do very well at the box office. Universal wanted to cut BioShock's budget but Verbinski did not, so he split. Levine said he "didn't really see the match" with the director Universal brought in to replace Verbinski, so he canned the whole thing.
That was the end of things until February, when Netflix announced a partnership with Take-Two Interactive "to produce a film adaptation of the renowned video game franchise." There was no indication as to Levine's role on the new project, if any, and he doesn't appear to have publicly commented on it. The most recent BioShock game, BioShock Infinite, came out in 2013; these days Levine is working on something entirely new at Ghost Story.
With or without him, Netflix's BioShock film seems to be moving ahead with a level of purpose and urgency that the original project never had. Signing a director and screenwriter is a long way from putting images on a screen, but Netflix has a pretty solid history of getting things done, and it hasn't been shy about taking advantage of videogames for new content: The network has also released or is working on new films or series based on The Witcher, Resident Evil, Dota, Splinter Cell, Tomb Raider, Beyond Good and Evil, and The Division.
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Microsoft says there are currently no plans to increase the price of its Xbox Series S and Series X consoles. This comes after news of Sony's surprising global price hike for both models of its PlayStation 5 earlier today.
Sony cites "challenging economic conditions" as the reason for the PS5 price increase as global inflation has hit its highest levels in decades. While the company has been producing more consoles to meet its high demand, the one-two punch of supply chain issues and the current economic state of the world have not helped at all.
“We are constantly evaluating our business to offer our fans great gaming options. Our Xbox Series S suggested retail price remains at $299 (£250, €300) the Xbox Series X is $499 (£450, €500)," Microsoft said in a statement to Windows Central.
Once the news of the PS5 price hike broke, many folks online were wondering if the software and hardware giant would do the same, and it seems like we got our answer. While it's good news that Xbox won't see a price increase at the moment, there's no telling what will happen if global inflation continues to rise.
Global inflation rates and supply chain issues have been contributing factors to the "challenging economic situation" Sony is referring to. Interestingly enough, the only region that won't receive a price increase on PS5s is the United States.
As of July, the PlayStation 5 holds a 57% market share against the Xbox Series S/X's 42.3%.
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Let's get real. We're all thinking about 2023 games already, even though there's plenty of this year left to go. Some of the biggest releases we'd been anticipating this year got edge guarded into the next and there are guaranteed to be more release date casualties before December rolls around. Even though there are a lot of great games left on this year's docket, it can't hurt to take a peek ahead. I'm not the only one who starts thinking about what I want for tomorrow's breakfast while I'm still cooking today's dinner, right?
Best of the best(Image credit: Paradox)2022 games: This year's launches
Best PC games: All-time favorites
Best free PC games: Freebie fest
Best laptop games: Low-specsFor the third year running, we've seen an increase in big games willing to push back their release dates to get a bit more development time. Not even just once, either. Some are still getting multiple delays before they finally hit our game libraries. Knowing that, let's call this a tentative 2023 games list. Inevitably, some of the names here will get kicked into the year 2024—a frightful number for me to be forced to type already. When they do, we'll be keeping track right here, just like we are for the current year.
From what we know so far, 2023 is going to be a huge year for RPGs. A lot of major series with long-in-the-works sequels are targeting next year for release dates. Starfield's delay put it in the early part of 2023, Baldur's Gate 3's early access is planned to end with a full release during the year, and Diablo 4 is scheduled to turn up too.
Take a peek at next year's presents right now with all the games currently confirmed for 2023:
Biggest 2023 games
2023 games with release dates
- January 24, 2023 — Forspoken - Magical parkour adventure
- January 27, 2023 — Dead Space remake - Motive's space horror remake
- February 2, 2023 — Deliver Us Mars - Story driven space mystery
- February 3, 2023 — Dead Island 2 - Zombie survival RPG infects California
- February 10, 2023 — Hogwarts Legacy - Wizarding world RPG
- March 24, 2023 — Resident Evil 4 remake - A reimagined story for Leon
- April ??, 2023 — Mask of the Rose - Failbetter's 'sort-of' dating sim
2023 games with dates to be announced
- Alan Wake 2 - The survival horror sequel
- Aliens: Dark Descent - Alien, but an RTS
- Ark 2 - More dinosaurs, plus Vin Diesel
- Atlas Fallen - Monster Hunter by way of righteous deicide
- Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora - Open-world Avatar
- Baldur's Gate 3 - Larian's take on a classic RPG series
- Bramble: the Mountain King - Nordic horror platformer
- Creature Keeper - Real-time combat creature collector
- The Day Before - Open world zombie survival MMO
- Diablo 4 - The long-awaited action RPG continuation
- Edge of Sanity - 2D lovecraftian survival horror
- El Paso, Elsewhere - Third-person shooter
- Everywhere - A vague metaverse dream from GTA producers
- The Expanse: A Telltale Series - Telltale storytelling for best Belter bosmang
- Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth - The next chapter of the FF7 remake
- Final Fantasy 16 - The RPG series returns to medieval magic
- Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn - Soulslike for musket fans
- The Gap - Psychological walking sim
- The Great War: Western Front - WWI RTS
- Homeworld 3 - Sci-fi RTS classic returns
- House Flipper 2 - More gentrification simulation
- Hyenas - Sega's multiplayer FPS
- Hyper Light Breaker - Action adventure sequel to Hyper Light Shifter
- The Invincible - Retro-future space thriller
- Kerbal Space Program 2 - Physics disaster in space
- Killer Klowns from Outer Space - Asymmetrical horror throwback
- The Last Case of Benedict Fox - Eldritch investigation metroidvania
- Layers of Fears - More horror from Bloober Team
- Lies of P - Bloodborne, but you play Pinocchio
- Lightyear Frontier - Chill farming sim with mechs
- Lollipop Chainsaw - A remake of the zombie hack-n-slash
- Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria - A middle earth crafting game
- Minecraft Legends - An RTS spinoff
- Moving Out 2 - Packing party game sequel
- Nightingale - Crafting survival RPG in the Fae Realms
- Off the Grid - Blomkamp Battle Royale
- Payday 3 - Long-awaited co-op heist sequel
- Park Beyond - Tycoon simulator of the rollercoaster variety
- Planet of Lana - Sci-fi puzzle adventure
- Pragmata - Outerspace action adventure
- Ravenlok - An action adventure fairytale
- Redfall - Co-op open-world vampire shooter
- Sea of Stars - Classic-style turn-based RPG
- Shadows of Doubt - Neon noir detective sim
- Skate Story - Chill skateboarding through the atmospheric underworld
- Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley - A story adventure game
- Stalker 2 - Chernobyl-based zombie FPS
- Starfield - Bethesda's new original space RPG
- Star Wars Jedi: Survivor - The Fallen Order sequel
- Stray Blade - Soulslike with El Dorado flavor
- Street Fighter 6 - Ryu Ryu Ryu Ryu Ryu Ryu
- Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League - Co-op villain adventure
- Tempest Rising - Archetypal base-building RTS
- Teslagrad 2 - Electrifying puzzle platformer sequel
- Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown - Open world driving in Hong Kong
- Tortuga: A Pirate's Tale - Turn-based piratical strategy
- Under the Waves - Subaquatic psychological story
- Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty - Three Kingdoms gave from Nioh devs
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It's hard to believe that Skull and Bones is actually happening. Even though an official launch date was announced in July, the litany of delays and uncertainty leading up to that point has embedded a tiny, nagging sense of doubt in the back of my brain that's not going away until after it comes out—and maybe not even then.
But now we're one step closer to a release actually happening: Ubisoft has unveiled the official Skull and Bones system requirements, PC-specific features, and anti-cheat systems.
First things first: The hardware you need if you want to play.
Low (1080p, 30 fps)
- CPU – Intel Core i7-4790 or AMD Ryzen 5 1600
- GPU – Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB) or AMD Radeon RX 570 (4GB)
- RAM – 8GB dual channel
- Storage – 65GB SSD
- OS: Windows 10
High (1080p, 60 fps)
- CPU – Intel Core i7-8700K or AMD Ryzen 5 3600
- GPU – Nvidia GeForce GTX 2070 (8GB) or AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT (8GB)
- RAM – 16GB dual channel
- Storage – 65GB SSD
- OS: Windows 10/11
High (1440p, 60 fps)
- CPU – Intel Core i7-9700K or AMD Ryzen 5 5600 X
- GPU – Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 (8GB) or AMD Radeon RX 6800 (16GB)
- RAM – 16GB dual channel
- Storage – 65GB SSD
- OS: Windows 10/11
Ultra (4K, 60 fps)
- CPU – Intel Core i5-11600K or AMD Ryzen 5 5600 X
- GPU – Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 (10GB) or AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT (16GB)
- RAM – 16GB dual channel
- Storage – 65GB SSD
- OS: Windows 10/11
(Image credit: Ubisoft)(Image credit: Ubisoft)Owners of the PC version of Skull and Bones will also enjoy uncapped framerates, multi-monitor and widescreen display support, customizable controls, advanced graphics settings and adjustable FOV, built-in benchmarking, and for those with the hardware to handle it, support for DLSS/FSR and ray-traced global illumination. It will also have full crossplay support with all other platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Stadia.
Skull and Bones can be played solo but "is best experienced with up to two other friends," or randos you run into on the high seas, as the case may be. Either way, the game will endeavor to make your adventures both fun and fair. Players will be matched up based on their infamy level and PvP preference, and a built-in reporting system will enable players to report or block others for "disruptive behavior."
It will also employ the widely-used BattlEye anti-cheat software, and it sounds like Ubisoft won't be messing around: It warned that players will be permanently banned on the first offense if they're caught using cheats.
Barring any further delays (and these things are always possible), Skull and Bones will be out on November 8.
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Minecraft Legends creative director Magnus Nedfors and executive producer Dennis Ries sat down during the Xbox booth livestream at Gamescom this week to deliver a couple new details about Legends, including info on some new mobs—both friend and foe. As with its past genre experimentations, Mojang and Blackbird Interactive's upcoming RTS spinoff is going to make its own mark on the Minecraft world. Dungeons stepped out of the bounds of existing Minecraft lore to create mobs needed to suit its action RPG world and Legends is doing the same.
As we learned in its initial reveal trailer, the big baddies of Minecraft Legends are the familiar Nether denizens, the Piglins. While we're familiar with Piglins and Hoglins in Vanilla Minecraft, Legends is adding what Nedfors calls a "Pigmadillo," which crouches down into a cube and, despite what you'd assume based on the physics of a cube, offensively rolls towards what it's attacking. There are also "Bruisers" which Ries points out have two giant razor blades to wield. Bit horror-esque, innit? Both new mobs make an appearance in the new cinematic trailer that Mojang showed off.
Over on the friendly side, two types of golem will join your army: the Cobblestone Golem, who is apparently great for taking down enemy structures, and what it sounds like Ries calls a "Plank Golem" which is a ranged unit. They also mention something called speed wheat and a special type of mushroom for jumping extra high that you can use to get across the world and unlock new areas in Legends.
Minecraft Dungeons, for its part, also added new mobs like the Iceologers and Mountaineers. The Iceologers wound up being included in the Minecraft Live 2020 fan vote for which mob to add to Vanilla Minecraft. They lost to the Glow Squid, but I wouldn't be surprised to see one of these new Legends baddies given the same chance at Vanilla Minecraft fame.
And in case you missed it, there is definitely a badger at the beginning of the trailer too. Project Badger was the codename for Minecraft Legends before it was revealed, which may be all that's a nod to. But hey, maybe it will make its way to official mob status too.
(Image credit: Mojang) -
The demo for upcoming boomer shooter They Came From Dimension X is a blast from start to finish. Less than a minute in, I hooted so loud I startled my girlfriend from across the apartment when I stepped into the first room and started walking straight up a wall. The experience felt like it needed to be accompanied by that dude from the old Sega Saturn ads talking about the new millennium.
First spotted by Alpha Beta Gamer, Dimension X immediately resembles Quake or Dusk with its chunky, lo-fi presentation. It sets itself apart aesthetically with a 1950s Forbidden Planet raygun look and eerie soundtrack. Dimension X's official page explains its central mechanic well: "gravity is only as consistent as the ground your boots are stepping on." You can't jump and magnetize to a wall, but any contiguous path can be followed in contravention of the rules of gravity, with sloped surfaces letting you seamlessly transition from the floor to the ceiling and back again.
A highlight set piece for me was a fight in a drum-shaped room against a gaggle of Dimension X's aggressive melee monsters, a Great Race of Yith-style flower-serpent-abomination. I was constantly backpedaling, blasting the guys with the dark laundry machine room tumbling around us illuminated by the projectiles of the game's ray gun.
The mechanical and aesthetic innovation immediately make Dimension X feel fresh and surprising, despite having retro inspirations and coming in the midst of a renaissance of classic shooters. It promises to turn the one-off level design experiments of other shooters like Dusk's fantastic Escher Labs level into a full game.
The wall-walking antics feel like a revelation to me, similar to how Valve's Portal and Gravity Guns took first person shooting in such unexpected directions. I'm excited to see how nutty developer Blue Key Games gets with its level design in the full release.
There are some kinks I hope get ironed out by that time. The lighting in the demo's a bit dark at times, making it hard to parse the action. At the same time, it paid off big for me as a stylistic choice when I encountered a pitch black room absolutely full of those cthuloid enemies, patiently staring at me out of the dark with their beady red eyes. It was a striking scene for sure, and some of the later levels featured in the trailer look more vibrant, giving me hope that Blue Key will strike a good balance.
The enemies in this demo were a bit bullet spongey for my taste, but additional weapon variety in the later game could certainly refocus the balance. I do appreciate that Dimension X has a more methodical pace than other retro shooters, enhancing its horror vibe. Unfortunately, the game's framerate was quite rough on an i5 12600K and RTX 3070 at 1440p, and I'm hopeful further development time can iron that out.
They Came From Dimension X has shot to near the top of my personal "most anticipated games" list, and I only hope that we get to see and sample a bit more of it before its faraway release date. 2024 just feels like such a long way off. For now, you can check out its demo for yourself and wishlist it on Steam.
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Every game of Total War: Warhammer 3's new Immortal Empires mode ends, by default, with some disastrous event befalling the Warhammer world. It spices up the normally staid late game of a Total War campaign. You know: A mass rising of the undead, a vast horde of orcs, the dwarfs getting tired of everyone else's 'frack'.
Update 2.1, which is currently scheduled to arrive on September 6, will add a new feature to the scenario: "Ultimate Crisis Mode," which fires off every single end-game scenario at once if you select all five apocalypses. Creative Assembly helpfully notes that "this may have unexpected results" in modded games, especially those that add even more end-game scenarios.
The Ultimate Crisis mode will only get more wild as time goes on, I expect, because Creative Assembly will likely add more apocalypse scenarios over time. Fans have already datamined the skeleton of a "Chaos Elector Count" scenario for a civil war within the human Empire, and the truly infamous Warhammer Fantasy apocalypses like The End Times and the Vermintide aren't even in Warhammer 3 yet. (Come on, there's a whole series about that second one.)
The announcement of the Ultimate Crisis mode is teased in the end game scenarios trailer, above and on YouTube, as well as buried deep in the Update 2.0 notes... under the Update 2.1 heading. There are a few other tweaks coming in 2.1 as well, like starting condition tweaks, revamped Tzeentch Doom Knights, and other bugfixes.
Total War: Warhammer 3 – Immortal Empires is a sprawling, massive game mode combining the sum total of the Total War: Warhammer series into one big map. Fraser Brown said that "even in beta, it's a strong contender for the greatest Total War campaign." You can read more in his piece about this messy masterpiece.
In related messy masterpiece news, our Sean Martin completely broke Immortal Empires with a Dark Elf Black Ark super fleet, sacking cities for nearly half a million gold.
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It would be reasonable to think that Microsoft's pursuit of Activision Blizzard was driven to a significant degree by Call of Duty. It's one of the biggest game series on the planet, after all, a perennial money-maker that just can't seem to lose, even after over a decade of yearly releases. But in an interview with Bloomberg, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said what really drove Microsoft's interest was mobile games and, to a lesser extent, PC.
"The biggest gaming platform on the planet is mobile phones. One and a half billion people play on mobile phones," Spencer said. "And I guess, regretfully as Microsoft, it's not a place where we have a native platform. As gaming, coming from console and PC, we don't have a lot of creative capability that has built hit mobile games.
"One thing about the videogame space is, if you've been around maybe too long, you know most of the creators out there. So you kind of know teams that could be a good fit in terms of what we were trying to do. But we really started the discussions, internally at least, on Activision Blizzard around the capability they had on mobile, and then PC with Blizzard. Those are the two things that were really driving our interest."
It's an especially interesting point because Call of Duty is popularly seen as a major potential obstacle to regulatory approval of Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Microsoft was recently forced to respond to allegations from Sony that Call of Duty games are so "essential" that they can influence console purchasing decisions. In light of that, it's understandable that Microsoft might want to minimize the role that Call of Duty played in driving the deal.
Mobile genuinely is where the money is at, though. Activision Blizzard revealed in its Q2 2022 financial report that more than half of the total revenues it earned in the quarter came from mobile games—$831 million in all. That's more than PC and console revenues combined, and a dramatic leap from the same quarter in the previous year, when mobile revenues accounted for 35% of the total. And while both PC and console revenues were down on the quarter, mobile revenues managed a small amount of growth.
Interestingly, the vast majority of those mobile revenues come from the silent "K" in Activision Blizzard: King, the mobile developer Activision acquired in 2016, which reported total quarterly revenues of $684 million—more than 82% of the total. But the move to mobile is spreading. Diablo Immortal is a hit despite furious backlash from mainstream gamers, Call of Duty Mobile is maintaining a steady audience, and work is continuing on mobile version of Call of Duty: Warzone and Warcraft: Arclight Rumble.
Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard cleared its first regulatory hurdle earlier this week when Saudi Arabia's General Authority for Competition (GAC) gave the deal an official green light. The deal is still being investigated by more significant regulatory bodies, however, including the US Federal Trade Commission and the UK's Competition and Markets Authority. The general consensus is that the deal will ultimately be approved, but some US politicians have been critical of the role played by Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, who remains under fire for his handling of allegations of widespread misconduct at the studio, and how he will benefit from a "golden parachute" under the terms of the deal.
What role Kotick will play at Activision Blizzard if the acquisition is completed, if any, remains an open question for now: Spencer declined to comment on whether Kotick will remain, saying that until the deal closes he's "not really in a position to say" how the company is managed.
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The Microsoft Flight Simulator 40th Anniversary Edition patch now has an official release date: It'll be free to everyone on November 11. The update will bring 12 new aircraft, 20 missions from the game's past, 4 big commercial airports, 10 glider airports, and 14 heliports.
Most notably for sim fans, it'll introduce helicopters and gliders, the two things people want the most from Microsoft Flight Simulator and that've been absent since the latest version's 2020 launch. It'll also have a proper full-size airliner, per community demand: The Airbus A-310, where they say "nearly every single button works just as expected."
My excitement, however, is reserved for the historical planes: Specifically, Flight Simulator is getting the Hughes H-4 Hercules, the largest wooden plane and largest seaplane ever built, known colloquially as the Spruce Goose. The real life version only flew once. Flight Simulator versions are going to fly a lot more than that.
This giant update will also include the famous Wright Flyer, the Spirit of St. Louis, the Douglas DC-3, and more—seven historicals in all. It's part of the same series of updates surrounding Flight Simulator's 40th birthday (yep, the first one came out in 1982) that added the famous Halo Pelican dropship to the normally ultra-real simulator.
The 40th Anniversary year has also included a series of Local Legends aircraft. The latest of those, the 1919 All-Metal Junkers F 13, hits today alongside the first-ever cities update bringing photogrammetry-modeled detail to the German cities of Hanover, Dortmund, Dusseldorf, Bonn, and Cologne. We'll keep up with Xbox in case any more airplane news comes out of Gamescom, but for now, please enjoy a few more of Flight Simulator's spectacular trailers.
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If ever a game was sold on an inspired trailer, Dead Island was that game. Originally announced at E3 2006 by developer Techland, then best-known for its work on the Call of Juarez series, Dead Island suffered considerable delays before eventually breaking cover with a CG trailer that grabbed everyone's attention. Showing a family's grisly fate in reverse order, with an understated piano backing as time speeds up, slows and freezes, the quality of its cinematography was unusual then and now.
The game, of course, was nothing like this trailer. But this is what sold Dead Island to people. Fair warning: The animation is graphic, and caused controversy at the time for its inclusion of the family's young child.
Dead Island was a commercial success for Techland and publisher Deep Silver, selling over five million copies, and naturally enough the publisher wanted more of the same. The core team at Techland who'd made Dead Island, however, didn't consider Deep Silver's plans to be ambitious enough. Deep Silver, for its part, thought the studio was being too ambitious.
Instead of making Dead Island 2 with Deep Silver, most of Techland's Dead Island team would move onto another project, which would eventually become Dying Light, while the studio put another team on the standalone expansion-cum-sequel Dead Island: Riptide. This was released two years after the original game to mixed reviews, and marked the end of Techland's involvement with the series.
"Well, you know, we had our ups and downs," Techland game designer Maciej Binkowski told Eurogamer in 2014. "There's always tension between the publisher and developer. For us it turned out well, because being forced to come up with a new IP... We can't just make a Dead Island 2 and change the name; it's got to be something fresh, it's got to be something unique. It was a bit tough. I would love to make a direct sequel, but at some point a decision was made."
In 2014, Deep Silver had announced that Dead Island 2 was in development at German studio Yager, best-known for Spec Ops: The Line. It tried to once again make a big splash at E3 2014 with a trailer that, while it doesn't and couldn't quite live up to the original, is excellent in its own right and established a new and slightly more comic tone for the series (one that arguably suits the moment-to-moment gameplay better).
False start
"Having a project cancelled in such a late state is a catastrophic event on so many different levels."
Timo Ullmann, MD of YagerIt didn't last long. In July 2015, Deep Silver and Yager announced they were parting ways.
"The team worked with enthusiasm to take Dead Island 2 to a new level of quality," wrote Timo Ullmann at the time, MD of Yager Group. "However, Yager and Deep Silver's respective visions of the project fell out of alignment, which led to the decision that has been made."
Yager had, however, been working on Dead Island 2 for three years by this point and, while not complete, the game was close to being finished. Exactly how close we'll come to, but a few months after the cancellation was announced, Ullmann was more forthcoming about the effect Dead Island 2 had on Yager.
"Having a project cancelled in such a late state is a catastrophic event on so many different levels," Ullmann told GamesIndustry.biz. "It really is the worst possible outcome. Everybody involved loses."
Dead Island 2's cancellation led to the closure of Yager Productions, a division of the company created specifically to work on the game. Over half of those involved with the game lost their jobs, with others leaving Yager, bitter that the project they'd worked on would never see the light of day.
"I really don't blame them, and we wish them all the best," said Ullmann. "It's tough, and not being given the chance to finish Dead Island 2, that... that hurts, you know? Right after the announcement a part of the team was a bit shell-shocked, of course, but you have to motivate yourself to keep going. Cancellation of projects, especially if the stakes are so high, is not unheard of. It hurt us, yes, but it happens."
That wasn't the end for Yager's version of Dead Island 2, however. Five years after its cancellation, a playable build dating from just one month prior somehow leaked into the wild, and everyone could finally see that, yup, it sure seemed like a Dead Island game.
"A THQ financial report in 2019 finally blew the lid: Sumo Digital was no longer on the project."
This was clearly a game that could have been brought to market, but wasn't. At the time, Dead Island was the biggest-selling brand in Deep Silver's history, with multiple spinoffs in development as well as the sequel, and there must have been a feeling at the publisher that this game might mess things up. Given that it seems Yager was expecting, or perhaps hoping against hope, to ship the game, I'd wager that this version of Dead Island 2 wasn't bad but just risked being another Riptide, and Deep Silver didn't want to kill the golden goose.
In March 2016, it was announced that British developer Sumo Digital would be taking over development of the title.
"It's an honour to be charged with the evolution of such an important franchise in Deep Silver’s catalogue," said Sumo COO Paul Porter. "We're looking forward to exceeding fan expectation with an ambitious design that we're confident will take bone-crunching, visceral, zombie action to a whole new level."
Sumo Digital's version of Dead Island 2 was apparently something of a zombie project itself, with the British studio charged with taking the foundations of Yager's work and building on it to Deep Silver's expectations. But that's just scuttlebutt, because there's surprisingly little public information about what went on with Dead Island 2 over its three years with Sumo. Things went quiet for around a year, until rumours of development troubles led to Deep Silver issuing a holding statement about development being ongoing, a process that was repeated in 2018 when a Dead Island mobile spinoff was released and prompted more questions about the sequel.
A THQ financial report in 2019 finally blew the lid: Sumo Digital was no longer on the project. Deep Silver was being, perhaps understandably, non-committal about exactly what had been going on, and whether we'd see the game in one year or five. Probably because, and I'm just guessing here, it didn't quite know either.
Image 1 of 6(Image credit: Deep Silver)Image 2 of 6(Image credit: Deep Silver)Image 3 of 6(Image credit: Deep Silver)Image 4 of 6(Image credit: Deep Silver)Image 5 of 6(Image credit: Deep Silver)Image 6 of 6(Image credit: Deep Silver)Last call
At this point, Dead Island 2 development was given to the internal Dambusters studio. Dambuster is appropriately named in this case, but its history may surprise some: This is what ultimately became of Free Radical Design, the Nottingham-based studio set up by GoldenEye veterans, who went on to create the Timesplitters series.
Free Radical eventually went into administration, thanks largely to LucasArts cancelling Star Wars Battlefront 3, and was bought by Crytek, becoming Crytek UK. This would, in a time of financial straits for Crytek, be acquired by Deep Silver in 2014, dissolved and re-formed as Dambusters. Its first and only shipped game so far is 2016's Homefront: The Revolution. This was a fairly competent but uninspired open-world shooter, which received a lot of bad press for widespread technical issues at launch. It wasn't the disaster some claimed, but it was far from great.
After announcing its third developer in five years, Deep Silver went quiet on Dead Island 2's development and when it could expect to be seen. The whispers of vaporware had long circled around the project, arguably unfairly, when this was more of a 'ready when it's ready' deal.
Then, finally, it was time for another trailer to once more try and crank the anticipation up: You be the judge.
It seems slightly incredible that now… it may really happen. Dead Island 2 finally has a release date it might make. Whether it will remains to be seen.
Dambusters was apparently given the project in 2018, and game director David Stenton told PC Gamer this Dead Island 2 has been "built from scratch". While this is unsurprising, it's also unclear whether Stenton's talking in a purely technical sense or if some old ideas remain.
But the biggest question of all is, after this long and protracted of a development process, how on Earth can this game deliver? It feels a little like Dambusters, and Deep Silver, face expectations that will be impossible to match. Perhaps this really will be something special, something that was ultimately worth all the false starts and changes and cancellations along the way.
Or perhaps, after all that, this will just be a shambles, an animated corpse of a game patched-together from multiple dead ones. Perhaps Deep Silver is finally just cutting its losses, and relying on a great trailer to do the business once more. Soon enough, we'll know.
Catch up with our full list of Gamescom announcements from Opening Night Live and check our Gamescom schedule to find out when to watch everything else.
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One of the Week 12 Fortnite challenges tasks you with taming wildlife during a single match in Fortnite. Taming animals has been around in the battle royale for a while now—since Season 6 back in 2021, in fact—though we've only recently been able to ride those tamed animals too.
Riding a wolf or a boar into battle might not be the most conventional way of getting around, but it's certainly helpful for the taming challenge. So if you're ready to find out more, here's how to tame three wildlife during a single match of Fortnite for the Week 12 challenge.
Fortnite: How to tame three wildlife during a single match
Taming wildlife is pretty simple in Fortnite. Aggressive animals like boars or wolves might try to attack you, but if you can catch them unaware, you just need to get close enough to interact with them and jump on their back. If you're having trouble, try throwing down some food to distract them first—boars like vegetables and wolves like meat.
You'll want to make sure you drop in somewhere where plenty of wildlife is roaming around. No matter how good your taming skills are, they won't do a lot of good if you have to waste half the match searching for a target—or three.
This might seem obvious, but don't head to a built-up area. You're less likely to see a boar or wolf walking down a road than hanging out under trees. It's always worth trying your luck at an animal pen, such as the enclosure at the building east of Shifty Shafts. You can check the Fortnite Interactive map to plan your route—just be aware that other players might have the same idea.
Once your first animal is tamed, you can use the additional speed to gallop (trot?) to your next taming target. Once you've grabbed three, you'll complete the weekly challenge. Good job!
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The latest addition to the Dark Pictures anthology is officially The Devil In Me, confirming the name leaked last year. This serial killer focused entry is set to be more expansive, according to an interview with VG247, with game director Tom Heaton wanting to frighten players by giving them more agency—and more puzzles.
"We’re expanding the exploration, adding this inventory, adding puzzles, and increasing the game length, but it’s still very much a Dark Pictures game," Heaton says. "We’re not breaking the formula, it’s still going to feature intense choices, consequences, and gruesome deaths."
The Devil In Me will follow the story of a documentary crew invited to a replica of historical serial killer H.H. Holmes' "Murder Castle", only to find themselves chillingly surveyed, trapped, and tested by a wannabe copycat.
Supermassive is known for their cinematic, narrative driven horror—and having to navigate a deft QTE to escape the brutal death of one part of your entourage. The addition of puzzles absolutely scans for a sinister hotel drawing inspiration from the Saw franchise, but it will make an interesting change of pace.
You can read the full interview with Heaton at VG247. The Devil In Me is expected to come out on Steam on November 18th, where it will cost £35/$40.
Rumours of Amazon bid for EA shot down as the publisher's stock goes on a rollercoaster ride
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Earlier today a rumour began circulating that Amazon was preparing to make a formal offer to acquire EA, with USA Today's gaming blog citing its own sources that a bid was imminent. This unconfirmed report quickly circulated through the gaming media ecosystem, as well as all the usual channels, and saw EA's stock price begin to shoot up in pre-market trading, at one point rising 15% in value.
It wasn't long, however, until CNBC's stock market team began pouring cold water on the idea. In the below clip, reporter David Faber states plainly, "No, this is not going to happen today. Unless the people who have been involved [in acquisition talks] previously have no idea".
PC Gamer has heard the rumour of this potential acquisition independently, but it seems clear that whatever's happening, it may not be happening today.
The initial report cited GLHF sources in USA Today, saying Amazon finally decided to put in an offer for the company after weeks of rumours that one megacorp or another was set to acquire the publisher. The rumoured Amazon offer was framed in the context of the company's recent foray into television. That does make sense: Amazon has already been out and about signing deals with companies making shows based on the likes of Disco Elysium and Sonic.
EA's stock price initially surged on the back of these rumours: rising 15% in premarket trading based on these rumours alone. Of course, things are in constant flux, and following the CNBC rumour-quashing, it's now on a similarly precipitous decline. And the story may not end here.
It's looking like a bumpy Friday over at EA and Amazon both. It's worth saying that, while some may have jumped the gun, the acquisition rumours involving EA have been increasingly persistent in recent times, with its CEO recently having to reassure shareholders that there were no such plans. That's suit talk, of course, because deals on this scale don't tend to leak: Microsoft's offer for Activision for an incomprehensible $68.7 billion came out of nowhere, a deal that makes Take-Two's acquisition of Zynga for $12.7 billion feel relatively affordable.
There's a lot of smoke, but no fire yet. This could be a deal waiting to happen, and it could be complete pie-in-the-sky: just another example of the modern media ecosystem sending an unconfirmed report halfway around the world before the truth managed to get its boots on. We've contacted both EA and Amazon for comment and will update with any response.
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