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You may have heard that videogame director Hideo Kojima has some new games on the way, mainly because the man has gone into maddeningly vague marketing overdrive for the last month or so. The first big one was the reveal of actor Elle Fanning for the new project, alongside which Kojima began tweeting out garbled phrases like "WHO IS WHERE?" and "TGS→'WHO'→ ELLE / PAX→'WHERE'→??? / ???→'???'→???". No, I didn't make the last one up, and predictably enough the internet's finest gaming sleuths have been poring over all of Kojima's nonsense to bring together the strands. Now our mischievous friend has another announcement, though there are a few more straightforward and interesting elements to this one. The main reveal is that actor Shioli Kutsuna (probably best-known for her role in Deadpool 2) will join Elle Fanning in the new project, which is all of-a-piece with Kojima's affinity for casting actors he once liked in something. The reveal for Kutsuna has her face under red lighting with the question "WHERE AM I?" To quote my colleague Ted Litchfield, all I want to know at this point is WHERE is my ASPIRIN. The post also features the text "A Hideo Kojima game", just in case anyone was confused about that, and the actor's name. WHO AM I ?→ElleWHERE AM I ?→Shioli HOW COME ?→???? pic.twitter.com/0P0zLP72BXNovember 2, 2022 See more There's a little trick to this one though: the poster features a second layer, an all-black image with the words "HOW COME?" and a small silhouette of something tentacled with fins. There are two Kojima Productions games known about: One is the collaboration with Microsoft, which Kojima modestly reckons may be less a game than a "new sort of medium", and there's the sequel to Death Stranding. The latter is known about thanks to Norman Reedus, who must have quite annoyed Kojima when he just blurted out that it existed in May (Kojima responded by telling Reedus to "go to his private room," an in-joke about the game). Some enemy and thematic spoilers for Death Stranding follow. The silhouette of this tentacled creature suggests to me that we're looking at the Death Stranding sequel. While the game has become somewhat defined by the global pandemic that hit shortly after it was released, Death Stranding was never a game about a pandemic. It's a slightly clumsy parable about humanity's inability to act collectively in the face of a global crisis like climate change, which towards the end becomes quite blatant to the extent you're eventually blasting away at a giant whale made of oil. The ocean's depths and the death and decay of marine life is one of the game's major visual themes, which repeats throughout in some ingenious mechanical ways. All of which is to say that, if this project involves something vaguely squidlike and sinister, my money's on Death Stranding 2: Electric Boogaloo. To be clear this is just speculation, and of course this could turn out to be something different: It's long been rumoured that Kojima Productions is working on a horror project called Overdose, for example, though take that with a grain of salt. Hopefully we'll find out soon enough because, even as a Kojima liker, I want some red meat to look forward to, rather than more photos of actors alongside 20 questions. View the full article

Halloween is over. Done. Donezo. Finished. Jason Voorhees is out and Mariah Carey is in. Nothing horror is allowed for the rest of the year, and that means we've got to make some sacrifices. In dedication to the oncoming festive period we should all respect that scares are over until 2023 and install this symbolic mod, which swaps the Charger in Left 4 Dead for Homer Simpson driving his lilac sedan. Why is Homer driving his lilac sedan a festive mod? I will not be taking questions at this time. But I can say that nothing has made me laugh today quite as much as seeing Homer Simpson run over this poor player fighting for their survival. Left 4 Dead is almost unrecognisable in this small clip from Twitter because of how many mods are stuffed into it. I'm pretty sure Overwatch loot boxes aren't even in Overwatch anymore, right? And then suddenly the team is torn apart by my favourite doughnut-loving idiot. (Image credit: Minnie Mouse) The Homer Simpson's Car - Charger mod was developed by a user on Steam named Minnie Mouse (does Mickey know you like horror games, Minnie?) and it has quite the positive rating on the site. Even just the clip that you can see advertising the mod is ridiculous, as instead it's Peter Griffin being mauled by the zombie car. I don't play a lot of Left 4 Dead these days, so I'm surprised to see this Charger mod is less of one of one and more of a genre. The Homer Simpson replacement is inspired by another previous mod from November last year which instead replaces the Charger with Shaggy from Scooby Doo on a tractor. Equally absurd and hilarious, so it's up to you to take your pick on which you'd prefer to be running away screaming from. Just remember to do it festively, as the season demands. View the full article

One of the best surprises of 2022 was the launch of co-op survival game Core Keeper, a mining and crafting sandbox for up to eight players. Set deep underground, Core Keeper's sprawling subterranean world is filled with hidden dangers and brutal boss monsters but also manages to pull off a cozy, comfy, Stardew Valley-like feel. While the rest of the PC Gamer staff were dodge-rolling through Elden Ring back in March, I was happily digging my way through the various biomes of the underground world. I wasn't alone: Core Keeper became a hit on Steam with half a million downloads in its first two weeks of Early Access. Since then developer Pugstorm has been busy expanding the sandbox with an undersea update in June, a crossover with Terraria in September, and a Halloween event last month. On November 10, Core Keeper is getting another update, and it's the biggest yet. The Desert of Beginnings is a sandy, scorchingly hot new biome being added to the underworld, along with a new sub-biome called the Molten Quarry. It's already looking like there's lots of new stuff to do and a fun new way to get around in the world: It has go-carts, y'all. Go-carts! In the new desert biome players will be able to find and mine Galaxite ore, a new resource, which will allow them to build a new type of workbench. There they'll be able to craft three different kinds of go-carts to use for traveling the underworld, speeding away from enemies, or racing other players. And when you're done offroading, there are two big new bosses to tackle, Igneous the Molten Mass and Ra-Akar the Sand Titan. Like the rest of the Core Keeper bosses, these fights are always brutally tough and it'll be fun seeing players come up with strategies to defeat the new behemoths. The update also contains some new base-building options, and a new insect-catching net will allow you collect 12 different bugs including beetles and fireflies to display in your home. Below you can get a nice look at what's coming in a trailer showing off the new biomes, one of the bosses, and those fun-looking go-carts: Along with the new biome and bosses, Pugstorm says there are other features in the update, such as "the ability to fish from boats and minecarts; clickable recipes to add ingredients to the cooking pot automatically; and the option to destroy, pick up and place a selection of larger world objects," like those big chunks of ruins that can be found in the world. More Caveling enemy types are also being added, and the soundtrack is expanding with new music, too. Core Keeper is available on Steam, and you can read more about the November 10 update right here. There's a little gallery of screenshots below as well. Image 1 of 4 (Image credit: Pugstorm)Image 2 of 4 (Image credit: Pugstorm)Image 3 of 4 (Image credit: Pugstorm)Image 4 of 4 (Image credit: Pugstorm) View the full article

There are many recipes to discover in Disney Dreamlight Valley. Some of them will be a bit of trial and error with different ingredients, others will be given to you as part of a quest. You can serve meals to your fellow villagers in Remy's restaurant, sell them for some Star Coins or eat them yourself to boost your energy levels while you're fishing, mining, or planting crops. In this guide, we'll take a look at how to make some quest-specific meals and the best three, four, and five-star meals to boost your energy and earn you some cash. There are several ingredients you'll need to cook in Dreamlight Valley, including: Fish Spices/ seasoningVegetablesFruitGrainFatSeafoodSweet Disney Dreamlight Valley best recipes to earn Star Coins Aside from farming pumpkins and other high-value vegetables, another way to earn Star Coins is by cooking some meals. You'll want to stock up on a bunch of high-energy snacks while you run around farming and fishing for these goods, so remember to take a fishing or foraging buddy with you for maximum yield. Best meals to earn Star Coins RecipeIngredientsSelling priceBasil omelettebasil, egg, cheese and milk982BouillabaisseAny two seafood, shrimp, tomato and a vegetable671Lancetfish paellalancetfish, shrimp, any seafood, tomato and rice1700Lemon garlic swordfishswordfish, lemon and garlic1100Lobster rolllobster, lemon, garlic, butter and wheat1900Pan-fried angler fish angler fish, potato, tomato and zucchini2500Poached basil-buttered sturgeonsturgeon, basil, butter and lemon2200Potato leek souppotato, leek, milk, onion and garlic1400Pumpkin puffspumpkin, egg and cheese1400Pumpkin soupumpkin, any other vegetable, ginger and milk1500Smoked peanuts and anglerfishpeanuts and anglerfish2200Soufflécheese, egg, milk and butter1200Steamed fugufugu, garlic and ginger1400Walleye en Papillotewalleye, basil, oregano and a vegetable1700 Image 1 of 2 (Image credit: Gameloft)Image 2 of 2 (Image credit: Gameloft) Disney Dreamlight Valley energy recipes All that farming, foraging, and fishing is hard work, so what better way to replenish your energies than eating a tasty meal? Of course, you could just go back to your home for a minute to regain your energy levels, but you won't earn any Dreamlight that way. Best meals for energy replenishment RecipeIngredientsEnergyArendellian pickled herringherring, lemon, onion, garlic, any seasoning2112Birthday cakeegg, butter, sugarcane, wheat and cocoa bean2310Carp saladcarp, letuce and lemon2310Lobster rolllobster, lemon, garlic, butter and wheat4928Pan-fried tilapia and vegetablestilapia and two vegetables2194Pastry cream and fruitsthree fruit, sugarcane and milk2332Smoked peanut and anglerfishanglerfish and peanuts3960Spicy baked breambream, butter and chilli pepper2075Steamed fugufugu, garlic and ginger3668Sweet and sour kingfish steaklemon, sugarcane and kingfish2992Fugu sushifugu, rice and seaweed3261Gumboshrimp, tomato, onion, chilli pepper, okra2226Walleye en Papillotwalleye, basil, oregano and a vegetable3689 Disney Dreamlight Valley quest recipes We already have guides on how to make ratatouille for Remy, extra fizzy root beer for Scar, and those pesky crudités, but here are a few more quest-based recipes to help you out. Sake make: rice, salmon and seaweedTekka maki: tuna, rice, seaweed and soya beansCreamy soup: potato, vegetable, milk and a spice/seasoningFish sandwich: fish and wheat View the full article

One of the most intriguing demos I played during the Steam Next Fest back in February was The Past Within. It's an asymmetric co-op puzzle game set in the deeply weird world of Rusty Lake, which until now has been exclusively a singleplayer realm. Despite the move to multiplayer, The Past Within retains all the hallmarks of the series, including unsettling music, creepy narration, and simplistic yet somehow deeply disturbing graphics. The basic idea is that memories live in cubes, and you're going to explore one of them to uncover the mysteries of Albert Vanderboom, who in life was not a particularly good man. It's a two-part process that places one player in the future, operating the cube containing Vanderboom's memory, and one in the past, in the actual world he inhabited. Players share instructions, clues, and other information as they go, through dedicated voice channels on the Rusty Lake Discord or whatever other method of communication they prefer—the chat bit isn't integrated into the game, so it's up to you to figure something out—in order to solve the puzzles, discover the secrets, and complete the game. To be clear, the co-op angle is mandatory: You either play with someone else or you buy the game on two separate devices—say, your PC and your phone—and use them simultaneously. Rusty Lake (the name of the game series is also the name of the studio) said in a Q&A on Steam that The Past Within was originally intended to be a singleplayer game, like the other entries in the series, but early testing of a 3D puzzle box with a peephole gave developers other ideas. "The more we playtested the game, the more it became clear it was way more interesting to separate these worlds and let one player control the inside of the cube (a 2D room like Cube Escape) and the other player the outside of the cube (a 3D puzzle box)," Rusty Lake wrote. "As soon as we changed the experience and tried it with two players, we knew we were onto something new and exciting. For the first time, we saw two fans enjoy communicating and puzzling together while having different perspectives, and for them it came very close to a real-life escape room experience." This is also Rusty Lake's biggest game ever, involving a core team of eight—previously the studio only had two members—and various freelancers and helpers who brought the total to more than 25 people "that have been working relentlessly behind the scenes." "The development of the game has been an amazing journey of over 2.5 years that lead us to this point," Rusty Lake wrote in a launch post. "It all started with a simple shoe box idea that turned out to become quite the unique co-op experience which—in our opinion—is the closest we’ve ever gotten to creating a real-life escape room! "We are incredibly proud that we made it through all the hurdles and can finally share this unique co-op experience with you all. Many of you are probably already familiar with our devlogs where we shared the struggles we had to overcome for this project to come to life: our first 3D project, switching from Flash to Unity, and above all creating our first co-op puzzle game!" Rusty Lake games have always been creepy—eerie, sinister, ominous, whatever adjective of the sort you prefer—in unexpected ways, and for me the co-op adds to that element. Unless you have a friend who also wants to play, you're going to be talking to a stranger—and not just idle chit-chat, but with a purpose. That's not the easiest thing for some people, and for them it will no doubt elevate the tension, at least in the early going: As one player in the Rusty Lake Discord put it, "It's kinda scary to have to communicate with strangers to play games this complicated." (For the record, my experiences playing the game so far have been lovely.) The Past Within is available now on Steam and Itch.io, at a 40% launch week discount, as well as for Android and iOS devices. If you'd like to get a taste of how it plays before you commit, The Past Within demo is still available on Steam, and you can get a crash-course version in the gameplay video below. View the full article

Atomic Heart, the retro-futuristic Soviet FPS from Russian developer Mundfish, finally has a solid release date. In a trailer released earlier today, the game showcased explosions, mutated horrors, robot assassin women, and announced a release date of February 21, 2023. Also, a man flipped the bird at the camera, which is just rude. The game's release date has been in a sort of flux in the past few months. Originally announced for Q4 2022, the game's release was changed to a slightly more vague "This Winter" after Focus Home Interactive came on board to publish the game in early September. At the time, Focus Home suggested the delay was a matter of "Polishing and delivering a game of the highest quality". The trailer doesn't tell us anything new, release date aside. It consists mostly of fast cuts between scenes of intense peril: mutated scientists whose heads split apart like orchids, bemasked Soviet soldiers, blood, gore, people having a bad time in prison, and all manner of weird androids. It's nothing we've not seen before, and I think it's finally time we actually got to play the darn thing. With the release date three months away, it looks like Mundfish agrees. Atomic Heart came out of nowhere when it released a jaunty, surreal trailer in 2018, and it quickly became one of our most anticipated games that we knew least about. We know it's set in an alternate reality in which the USSR still exists, technology has reached the point of robots and holograms, and that you play an unstable KGB agent investigating a manufacturing facility that's gone dark. We also know the developers have unimpeachable taste in '80s Soviet pop music. Mundfish seems to be drawing inspiration from Stalker, BioShock, and the new Wolfenstein games. You'll get an arsenal of Soviet armaments and superhuman powers and use them to fight a lot of enemies that probably double as metaphors. Based on what we've seen, the best word to describe it is intriguing: It might fail to come together when the game releases, but so far the vibes are immaculate. Atomic Heart releases on Steam and the Windows Store on February 21, 2023. View the full article

The Best Black Friday deals Jump straight to the deals you want... 1. Early deals 2. Gaming PC deals 3. Gaming Laptop deals 4. Gaming Chair deals 5. Gaming Monitor deals 6. SSD deals 7. Gaming Headset deals 8. TV deals The time of discounts is upon us, and Black Friday PC gaming deals are already creeping their way onto our radar. With Amazon Prime Early Access having wetted our pallet, we're now staring down deals from all over the web, not least some tasty PC gaming deals that'll make you proud not to have splashed out the second some fancy new tech landed. We'll most likely see the whole of November becoming a bit of a bonanza, with it all kicking off on the 25th of November with the more intense PC gaming deals. They'll stick around through the weekend, into Cyber Monday and beyond. With so many deals coming out of the woodwork, being able to tell deal from dud isn't always easy. That's why we're here—we'll be heavily curating the deals on this page to make sure you can see where your hard-earned money should go. And, at a time with an increased focus on the cost of living across the world, it makes sense to save any large purchase for an event such as Black Friday, where every retailer in every corner of the globe will be cutting prices to tempt you into spending your money with them. Whether you're desperate for an upgrade to your PC setup, or a whole new machine, the Black Friday sales event is a great time to bag a bargain. Just make sure to check below for the best of the deals PC gaming this sales season. We're sending our deal bots, and deal humans, scouring from sunrise to sunset for the best deals this month, and using our years of combined expertise to determine how worthy they are of your wallet. This page will be curated throughout November, until the deals well finally dries up. When is Black Friday 2022?Black Friday 2022 is on the 25th of November this year and will effectively last through until Cyber Monday on the 28th of November. Though, in reality, Black Friday is now a month-long event running pretty much throughout the entirety of November. Indeed, since Amazon kicked things off with its Prime Early Access event in October, the deals have been rolling along since then. Where are the best Black Friday PC gaming deals? Amazon UK - Asus laptops from £200 and Dell monitors from £100 Newegg - discounts on everything from pre-built PCs, to components and peripherals Scan - save £40 on Thermaltake PSUs and £100 on gaming PCs Box - save up to £800 on gaming PCs and up to £500 on Razer gaming laptops Ebuyer - £80 off Razer gaming chairs and HP laptops from £500 Cyberpower - Next day shipping on gaming PCs and laptops Dell - save over £350 on Alienware gaming monitors and over £500 on gaming laptops Overclockers - save £200 on Alder Lake gaming PCs with RTX 3070 Ti GPUs HP - save £100 on Omen gaming monitors and £120 on Chromebooks Corsair - Corsair gaming keyboards for £37 and Corsair mice from £28 at Amazon Razer - save over £230 on Razer gaming laptops Laptops Direct - get £400 off MSI gaming laptops and over £200 on monitors PC Specialist - save £200 on Intel and AMD gaming PCs What deals can I expect on Black Friday 2022?If there's one thing we've learned from the two Amazon Prime Day events this year, it's that it looks like graphics card deals are back on the menu, boys. Despite the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 cards launching ahead of Black Friday, there will still be a lot of old stock left on the shelves come the big day and into Cyber Monday. But that doesn't mean every GPU deal is going to be a good one. We've seen a bunch of discounted RTX 3090 Ti cards recently, but even with heavy discounted prices, they're not cheap enough to make sense in a world where the RTX 4090 has made the ultra-enthusiast GPU market a one card deal. Your best bet is in the mid-range or budget end of the graphics card spectrum. It's going to be a long while before we see new, genuinely affordable GPUs arrive, so if you're not in the market for some super-expensive slab of graphics silicon, there could well be some great deals. Honestly, the best deals are likely to be on AMD cards if past experience is anything to go by, but Nvidia will also be under some pressure to ship its more mainstream GPUs, too. It's also worth noting you will be able to find all these cards in either a pre-built gaming PC or last-gen GPUs in a new gaming laptop, and that's arguably where the best deals for gaming upgrades will happen. With the launch of new Intel and AMD processors, the last-gen chips could be cheaper too, in order to clear older stock from the inventory of retailers. That's good news, because the Intel 12th Gen, and AMD Ryzen 5000-series chips are all still great gaming CPUs. With an imminent price correction on memory expected soon, we might see some other component deals, as well. DDR5 has also started dropping in price now that AMD is supporting it as well, and there seems to have been a glut of great SSDs deals. Screens are another regularly discounted commodity around Black Friday, and we doubt this year will be any different. This means both the best gaming monitors and the best TVs for gaming could get some tasty deals, too. And there will always be gaming mice and keyboards on sale come Black Friday too, so they're worth taking a look at. It's a great time of year to treat your butt to a quality gaming chair as well, which tend to enjoy some healthy price cuts this time of year. What should I avoid buying on Black Friday 2022?Anything you don't need. It's distressingly easy to be duped into dropping cash on something just because there's a hefty discount attached to it… even though you have absolutely no use for it. If you're considering making a purchase around Black Friday, have a plan of attack. That probably sounds needlessly aggressive, but you need to know what you actually want to buy first or you'll end up with no end of crap. Cheap crap, maybe, but crap nonetheless. Do some research on the products you'd like to pick up in the sales (we offer detailed hardware buying guides), and maybe some alternatives in case those don't pop up. Set yourself a strict budget too. Products like graphics cards and processors have obvious tiers (though the different companies work damned hard to make product names as confusing as possible), and SSDs have rated speeds, but for peripherals, it's tougher to tell from the specs whether they're worth the money. Checking for reviews, from such luminaries as ourselves, should guide you on your way, and checking price trackers such as CamelCamelCamel will let you know if a deal's more than just skin deep. Are there any Black Friday tips and tricks?If you haven't already used it up during a credit card splurge around Amazon Prime Day, then you ought to take the opportunity to sign up for a free 30-day trial of Amazon Prime. That will get you early access to the Lightning Deals, and help you grab some of Jeff's best deals of the day. It will also net you free shipping on a host of products and speedy delivery too, and at the very worst it'll be handy when it comes to bagging some last-minute Christmas gifts for that aunt you always forget about. Early Black Friday deals Razer Blade 15 base | 15.6-inch | Intel Core i7 11800H | Nvidia RTX 3070 | 16GB RAM | 512GB SSD | 165Hz | 1440p | £2,149.99 £1,916.99 at Box (save £233) The specs could be a little more generous in terms of storage space, but the Blade is one of our favourite portable gaming machines. This config comes with a great processor and capable Ampere GPU which should be able to make the most out of that tasty 1440p panel and it's 165Hz refresh.View Deal Razer Blade 14 | Nvidia RTX 3080 | Ryzen 9 5900HX | 14-inch | 1440p | 165Hz | 16GB RAM | 1TB SSD | £2,749.97 £1,947.97 at Laptops Direct (save £802) The Blade 14 is absolutely one of my favourite ever gaming laptops. The 14-inch chassis is beautiful and the 1440p resolution screen matches perfectly with the RTX 3080 graphics card. The rest of the spec, with 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD, is pretty standard for the money, but won't let you down, either.View Deal Razer BlackShark V2 X | Wired | 240g | £59.99 £44.90 at Amazon (save £15.09) This is the budget spin of one of our favourite gaming headsets with a pretty nifty discount. It may not have the freedom of a wireless headset but these are comfy, cans at a great price. And the sound will not disappoint, especially at that price.View Deal Back to top ^ Black Friday Gaming PC deals Infinity X125 | Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti | Intel Core i5 12400F | 16GB RAM | 1TB WD Blue SSD | £1,241 at CyberPower This one's technically not on sale but it's a killer config for the price. The RTX 3060 Ti gets you blistering frame rates at 1080p at the top settings, and can manage pretty darn well at 1440p, too. You get 16GB of RAM and it's dual-channel, so more than enough for gaming. Plus it's topped with a nice, high capacity WD Blue PCIe SSD.View Deal Back to top ^ Black Friday Gaming Laptop deals Razer Blade 15 base | 15.6-inch | Intel Core i7 11800H | Nvidia RTX 3070 | 16GB RAM | 512GB SSD | 165Hz | 1440p | £2,149.99 £1,916.99 at Box (save £233) The specs could be a little more generous in terms of storage space, but the Blade is one of our favourite portable gaming machines. This config comes with a great processor and capable Ampere GPU which should be able to make the most out of that tasty 1440p panel and it's 165Hz refresh.View Deal Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 | Nvidia RTX 3060 | Ryzen 5 5600H | 15.6-inch | 1080p | 120Hz | 8GB RAM | 512GB SSD | £899.99 £789.98 at Amazon (save £110.01) This is the cheapest RTX 3060 gaming laptop we've found so far. Granted there are some sacrifices made to deliver the GPU performance at this price. Notably, the RAM and SSD are pretty miserly, but compromises always have to be made when you're on a tight budget, and the CPU and GPU combination will deliver great gaming performance on the 120Hz 1080p screen.View Deal Medion Erazer Deputy P25 | Nvidia RTX 3060 | Ryzen 5 5600H | 15.6-inch | 1080p | 144Hz | 16GB RAM | 512GB SSD | £999.99 £799.98 at Ebuyer (save £200.01) Okay, it's not the cheapest RTX 3060 machine, but it's only a tenner more than the Lenovo and that gives you a full 144Hz screen as well as a set of 16GB memory. Yeah, it's a chunky chassis to be sure, but that will give it ample cooling, and this is a great spec for a great price.View Deal MSI Katana GF66 | Nvidia RTX 3070 | Core i7 11800H | 15.6-inch | 1080p | 144Hz | 16GB RAM | 512GB SSD | £1,399 £949 at Very (save £450) This machine has been discounted below £1,000 across all the retailers so far this sales season, but this is the cheapest we've seen it at. And to be able to get an RTX 3070 laptop for less than a grand makes this svelte MSI machine a great deal. The only issue I have with the spec is that 512GB SSD, and that there is only a single NVMe slot in which to upgrade your storage.View Deal Razer Blade 14 | Nvidia RTX 3080 | Ryzen 9 5900HX | 14-inch | 1440p | 165Hz | 16GB RAM | 1TB SSD | £2,749.97 £1,947.97 at Laptops Direct (save £802) The Blade 14 is absolutely one of my favourite ever gaming laptops. The 14-inch chassis is beautiful and the 1440p resolution screen matches perfectly with the RTX 3080 graphics card. The rest of the spec, with 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD, is pretty standard for the money, but won't let you down, either.View Deal Razer Blade Pro 17 | Nvidia RTX 3080 | Core i7 11900H | 17.3-inch | 1080p | 360Hz | 32GB RAM | 1TB SSD | £2,999.97 £1,899.97 at Laptops Direct (save £1,100) It may be rocking an 11th Gen CPU, but if you're after a big screen laptop, the Blade Pro 17 is one of the best 17-inch notebooks around. The only downer is that it's only a 1080p screen, but damn, it will fly on an RTX 3080 and comes with a 360Hz panel. View Deal Back to top ^ Black Friday Gaming Chair deals Noblechairs Epic | 4D armrests | 120kg | £329.99 £284.99 at Overclockers (save £45) The snazzy, and asymmetric looking Copper Edition of this top-tier gaming chair is on offer right now. For that money you get fantastic build quality in the form of a sturdy, understated gaming chair which we gave an... epic score of 91 in our review.View Deal Razer Iskur | 4D armrests | built-in lumbar support | 136kg | £379.98 £279.99 at Ebuyer (save £99.99) A premium chair from a trusted manufacturer, what more can you ask for. With built-in lumbar support, sturdy, adjustable armrests, and a gorgeous snakey aesthetic, it's worth a look for that price.View Deal Back to top ^ Black Friday Gaming Monitor deals Acer Predator X35 | 35-inch | 3440 x 1440p | IPS | 180Hz | £2,083.99 £669.49 at Box (save £1,414) Don't pay too much mind to the inflated 'was' price (it's down from more like £1,351.99), but do note this is one of our favourite gaming monitors ever. Not only do you get an extra-wide curved screen, but one that comes with a 180Hz refresh rate and G-Sync Ultra for smooth frames, too. And that's topped with a 2ms response time, and it even sports built-in speakers.View Deal LG 27GN800-B | 27-inch | 1440p | IPS | £519.97 £284.97 at Laptops Direct (save £114) Given the name, Laptops Direct is probably not your first port of call for monitor deals, but this 27-inch LG is a great price right now. Even if the 'saving' looks a trifle generous compared to the level it's been retailing for... But with a 144Hz refresh rate, a genuine LG IPS panel, and a 1ms response time, this will make for a great gaming monitor.View Deal Back to top ^ Black Friday SSD deals WD_Black SN850 | 1TB | PCIe 4.0 | 7,000MB/s read | 5,300MB/s write| £153.99 £118.48 at Amazon (save £35.51) The first-gen PCIe 4.0 drives are seeing some decent discounts now that faster drives, based on the Phison E18 controller, have been released. Just a few months ago this was the price of a 1TB PCIe 3.0 SSD, but now you can get twice the speed for the same price. Though do make sure you have a motherboard and CPU capable of running a PCIe 4.0 SSD first.View Deal Samsung 970 EVO Plus | 2TB | PCIe 3.0 | 3,500MB/s read | 3,300MB/s write | £217.79 £189.88 at Amazon (save £27.91) The Samsung vs. WD battle for SSD supremacy has one winner: us. The constant attempts to beat the other manufacturer has led to some outstanding drives, and the 970 EVO Plus is about as fast as PCIe 3.0 SSDs get. And this is a great price for a speedy 2TB drive.View Deal Samsung 870 QVO | 2TB | SATA | 560MB/s read | 530MB/s write | £176.99 £159.99 at Amazon (save £16.20) A quick look at the read/write performance and it's clear that SATA SSDs aren't a patch on their PCIe-based brethren. But if you don't have a spare socket for one on your motherboard, then that doesn't matter a whole lot. In which case a SATA drive is a great option for offering a chunk of extra space. The 870 QVO has been cheaper than this, but it's still one of the cheaper 2TB options out there.View Deal Back to top ^ Black Friday Gaming Headset deals Razer BlackShark V2 X | Wired | 240g | £59.99 £44.90 at Amazon (save £15.09) This is the budget spin of one of our favourite gaming headsets with a pretty nifty discount. It may not have the freedom of a wireless headset but these are comfy, cans at a great price. And the sound will not disappoint, especially at that price.View Deal Razer Nari Ultimate | Wireless | 432g | £199.99 £93.50 at Amazon (save £106.49) I'll be honest, the haptic audio feedback built into the Nari does not float my boat, but that doesn't mean this isn't still a quality wireless gaming headset. And given that the wireless premium usually pushes headset prices well over £100, that makes the Nari Ultimate great value right now.View Deal HyperX Cloud Alpha | Wired | 336g | £89.99 £64.31 at Amazon (save £25.68) The venerable Cloud Alpha may be getting on a bit now, but that doesn't stop it from being one of the best, and best-sounding gaming headsets of all time. The smart driver design has been recently aped by Razer's impressive BlackShark V2 range, and sounds as close as you can get to an expansive open back design in noise-isolating closed back headset.View Deal SteelSeries Arctis Pro | Wired | 426g | £179.99 £109.99 at Amazon (save £70) The outstanding Arctis Pro briefly dropped lower than this, but this is still a solid deal on a set of seriously hi-res gaming headphones. The 10–40,000Hz response of these cans makes them ultra-clear for gaming, and deliver great depth for music too.View Deal Back to top ^ Black Friday TV deals Back to top ^ View the full article

The Dendro Hypostasis may not be quite as fearsome as that nuke dragon or the mirror machine bosses from Sumeru's previous versions, but this new flavour of cube-based boss is still a little trickier than most of its pals. If you plan to fight it, you'll definitely want to make sure you have a Dendro character first, even if it's just lil ol' Collei. It's also quite a hard boss to find. Like the Hydro Hypostasis of Watatsumi Island, you've got to search around a bit to find the entrance to its underground arena. In this Dendro Hypostasis boss guide, I'll explain where to find it in the Sumeru region, and what you need to do in order to defeat it so you can get Nahida's ascension materials. Dendro Hypostasis location: Where to find the boss Image 1 of 2 The tunnel is hidden below the waypoint to the south-east (Image credit: miHoYo)Image 2 of 2 The Dendro Hypostasis is to the south of Dar al-Shifa (Image credit: miHoYo) You can find the Dendro Hypostasis in the Sumeru desert, specifically the Land of Lower Setekh, just south of Dar al-Shifa. Since this is a boss you'll likely want to farm again and again, it's a good idea to unlock the waypoint just to the west of the arena. If you head to the waypoint north of Dar al-Shifa, then head south-west along the path through the cliffs, you'll come to an oasis. Head south-east past the water and you'll find an updraft on the cliff that will lift you up so you can get to the waypoint. Jump off the cliff to the south-east of that waypoint to find a tunnel leading underground. Run along the tunnel and you'll find yourself in the Dendro Hypostasis boss arena. How to beat the Dendro Hypostasis (Image credit: miHoYo) For the most part, this is your typical Hypostasis boss: it'll attack, and in-between its attacks, the core will be vulnerable to damage. Once you get it down to a sliver of HP, like other Hypostasis bosses, it'll start healing itself. This is the trickier part. To defeat the Dendro Hypostasis and stop its healing, you'll need a Dendro character to activate the three nodes that appear using Dendro damage. I'd suggest Collei for this, since she's free, and only needs to fire a few charged shots to activate the nodes. She doesn't even need to be levelled, since this is the only time in the fight you'll need her. When you activate all three, the bar below the bosses health will start to build, and once its full, it'll be defeated. View the full article

Harvestella, the upcoming farming sim from Square Enix, will offer a non-binary gender option in its character creator. It was first revealed a couple of weeks ago, when the developer shared some screenshots of its character creator on Twitter. It showed separate pronoun and body options as well as standard hair and eye colours. The gender selection in particular stood out, and now Harvestella's producer has offered some more insight into the decision behind it. Speaking to Eurogamer, Daisuke Taka said that the decision to add more pronoun options to Harvestella was a no-brainer, saying "I think it's completely normal these days for non-binary to be included in gender selection. The visibility of gender non-conforming people has become much more commonplace, so we thought it was important to reflect this within the game and show that all players are welcome to Harvestella." Put your best self forward in #Harvestella.Upon starting the game, you'll be able to choose your protagonist's hair color, their appearance, and how others in the world refer to them.Try these options out now with the free demo on Nintendo Switch: https://t.co/jD3nmWE1S6 pic.twitter.com/CSdDI15FncOctober 21, 2022 See more Taka added that "there's no major impact on the game other than pronouns changing, but we hope that this means everyone feels included." He continued that Harvestella is designed to be a game "for everyone," and that "using gender-neutral pronouns takes a relatively small amount of effort, yet the positive impact is huge." Specific non-binary option choices in character creators are still few and far between. More creators are leaning towards 'body types' rather than gender and a lot of dialogue is being neutralised, which makes it all the nicer that Square Enix has gone out of its way to include a variety of pronouns. Even if they don't matter to you, they sure as hell matter to someone else, and as Taka said its impact is minimal to those it doesn't affect. View the full article

Frontier Developments, maker of games in which you tinker with spaceships and games in which you tinker with race cars, has announced that it is acquiring Complex Games, the Canadian studio behind Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate — Daemonhunters. The deal is the first time Frontier has acquired a development studio, which is probably why it opted to buy one it had worked with before: Daemonhunters was published by Frontier Foundry, the company's publishing arm. Beyond the boilerplate talk about enhancing portfolios and growth and expansion, Frontier's announcement of the acquisition is all about location, location, location. Picking up Complex Games will "create a core development footprint for Frontier in Manitoba, Canada," granting the company a toehold in "a region with an extensive and growing talent pool for videogame development." Manitoba's a bit of a hotbed for games at the moment, in no small part due to the region's tax credit for game development. Ubisoft announced that it would triple its Winnipeg workforce earlier this year, and now Frontier is picking up a studio based there all the way from its headquarters in Cambridge in the UK. Complex Games currently consists of a 20-person team, and the acquisition by Frontier is meant to enable the company to "develop even more ambitious future titles" in the years to come. Not to worry, though: the announcement is explicit that Complex's growth will occur "whilst nurturing Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters," so we'll hopefully avoid another furore like the one that broke out when it looked like Frontier was about to stop major updates to F1 Manager 2022. It's hopefully good news for Complex, which holds the rare honour of making an actually good Warhammer 40K game—one that holds the #12 place on our own list of the Best Warhammer 40K games, in fact. We gave Daemonhunters 87% in our review, praising its "vivid, meaty art style that makes corrupted levels and enemy units ooze with character," and complimenting its smart mixture of Warhammer nonsense with XCOM-style tactics and strategy. If Frontier's ownership gets us more games like that, then I'm all for it. View the full article

Black Friday SSD deals Jump straight to the deals you want... 1. NVMe SSD deals 2. SATA SSD deals 3. External SSD deals Black Friday is coming, and you know what that means. Black Friday SSD deals, baby! If you're still using an old HDD, it's time to upgrade to a speedy SSD. Or perhaps games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Elden Ring are simply taking up too much space on your current SSD. Whatever the case, these discount prices on lightning-quick SSDs and gigantic HDDs should not be overlooked come Black Friday weekend. NVMe SSDs are the drives you want inside your gaming PC (and your modern games console). They make stellar boot drives and improve your overall Windows experience, but they may also profoundly affect gaming thanks to the imminent arrival of DirectStorage, which greatly reduces load times. Before shopping, you'll want to make sure your motherboard has the requisite M.2 slots for an NVMe SSD—as soon as you sort that out, you can take advantage of the deals we found. Even better, prices are already at a point where there's no good reason for a gaming PC not to use a solid-state drive even before these Black Friday discounts. You can find 500GB class drives for less than $100 / £100 and 1TB of SSD storage for less than $200 / £200. There are even NVMe M.2 drives for newer systems that further improve performance, and the best part is they are pretty affordable. We're curating all the best Black Friday PC gaming deals right here. At a minimum, you want at least 1TB of storage for your new SSD. Anything above that starts to get expensive, which is why most folks wait until Black Friday before pulling the trigger on a new SSD. Below we've found deals for all sorts of internal and external SSDs that will hold all your precious games and memories. Where are the best Black Friday SSD deals?In the US: Amazon - Up to 50% off internal and external SSDs Walmart - Deals on internal and external SSDs starting B&H Photo - Save on NVMe SSDs Best Buy - Great prices on Samsung SSDs Staples - Save up to 30% on a range of SSDs, USB sticks, and external SSDs Newegg - Plenty of NVMe SSDs In the UK: Amazon UK - Save on HDDs, SDDs, and external drives Scan - SATA drives as low as £21 Box - Save up to £82 on Western Digital SN750 NVMe SSDs Ebuyer - 500GB SSDs starting from £34.98 Overclockers - Save up to £51 on Samsung SSDs Currys - Save £33.00 on WD Black SN750 Laptops Direct - Save on SSDs for your laptop What should I look for in a Black Friday SSD deal?The main things to watch out for are the same for Black Friday SSD deals as with any other technology bargain hunting you do around this November period. Go in there with an idea of what you want and, above all, what you need. It's easy to get carried away at this time of year, but if you know how much you want to spend and what sort of SSD you're after, you'll be in good stead. Capacity is a good starting point, and at the moment, we're looking at some excellent 1TB offers, but a 512GB SSD will still afford you a lot of speed storage for a boot drive, with enough space for your most regularly played games. I mean, they're not all Call of Duty, right? Then think about the interface. Chances are, if you've been rocking a PC for the last five years, you'll have an M.2 slot in your motherboard with NVMe support. However, it's worth digging into the specifics of your motherboard to ensure it can support booting from such drives as not all can. Check out the manufacturer's pages and maybe forums too. It's also worth thinking about which version of the PCIe interface your storage slots operate on. On the AMD side, from the Ryzen 3000-series and up you should expect to have PCIe 4.0 slots on your motherboard, and from Intel's 11th Gen Rocket Lake chips the same should be true. PCIe 4.0 drives are the current fastest (until Gen 5 drives drop, that is), but they still demand something of a premium. That said, PCIe 3.0 drives are still incredibly speedy compared to anything that has come before, so you'll be in a great place with any high-performance NVMe SSD purchase. There are some things to look out for, however. Some budget PCIe 3.0 drives only operate at x2 speed, which means they're half as fast as the standard x4 NVMe SSDs. It's also worth ensuring your M.2 SSD is an NVMe drive. There are some M.2 SSDs that still operate over the SATA interface and can only reach a maximum theoretical speed of 600MB/s, while the theoretical maximum of an x4 PCIe 3.0 interface is 4,000MB/s. BLACK FRIDAY NVME SSD DEALS WD_BLACK SN850 without heatsink | 1TB | PCIe 4.0 | 7,000MB/s reads | 5,300 MB/s writes | $229.99 $147 at Amazon (save $83) This impressive SSD consistently gives the Samsung 980 Pro's performance a run for its money and is arguably the PCIe 4.0 drive to beat. It's our favorite high-speed SSD, and at this price makes a great upgrade for your gaming rig's boot drive.View Deal Samsung 980 SSD | 1TB | PCIe 3.0 | 3,500 MB/s reads | 3,000 MB/s writes | $139.99 $89.99 at Amazon (save $50) For just over $100, you can bag a full 1TB of fast PCIe 3.0 SSD storage. That's plenty of space for a boot drive and a host of your most often-played games. You would have to be a Samsung fan to pick this over the WD Black SN770, but if that goes out of stock, the Samsung 980 is a great backup. Back up. See, SSD deals with humor; we've got it all.View Deal WD Black SN770 | 1TB | PCIe 4.0 | 5,150MB/s reads | 4,900MB/s writes | $129.99 $98.88 at Amazon (save $31.11) It may not match the peak performance of the pricier SN850, but this is a great budget option. And a good shout for anyone still stuck on a PCIe 3.0 motherboard but with a yearning for an upgrade soonish. This SSD will be as fast as any PCIe 3.0 drive but will reach its top speeds as soon as you upgrade to a PCIe 4.0 board.View Deal Intel 670p SSD | 2TB | PCIe 3.0 | 3,500MB/s reads | 2,700MB/s writes | $169.99 $129.99 at Newegg (save $80) An oldie but goldie! There was a time when the Intel 670p was the definitive budget SSD. SSDs have gotten much quicker since then, but this is still one of the cheapest ways to add a big chunk of storage to your machine. View Deal Our state-of-the-art price-searching bots are all over the web, tracking down the best prices all the time. That means this list will be regularly curated multiple times each day. Back to top ^ BLACK FRIDAY SATA SSD DEALS Our state-of-the-art price-searching bots are all over the web, tracking down the best prices all the time. That means this list will be regularly curated multiple times each day. Back to top ^ BLACK FRIDAY EXTERNAL SSD DEALS Our state-of-the-art price-searching bots are all over the web, tracking down the best prices all the time. That means this list will be regularly curated multiple times each day. Back to top ^ View the full article

Wordle clues, hints, and even the answer to the November 2 (501) challenge all in one convenient place. If you've never played before and would like to learn how to join in the fun, or if you're a dedicated Wordle fan looking for ways to strengthen your daily game, then the tips, guides, and Wordle archive below will surely help. I seem to be having a lucky streak this week: a strong pair of openers left me with just one letter to find on my third go, so today's puzzle wrapped up quickly and without any fuss. Let's hope tomorrow goes just as smoothly. Wordle hint A Wordle hint for Wednesday, November 2 The Wordle word you're looking for today is a term used to describe someone who is really quite bad at a particular task, someone who is not just unskilled or untrained but truly incompetent, a walking disaster. There are two vowels to find today. 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. Today's Wordle answer (Image credit: Josh Wardle) What is the Wordle 501 answer? There just aren't enough guesses some days. The answer to the November 2 (501) Wordle is INEPT. 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: November 1: PINEYOctober 31: APTLYOctober 30: WALTZOctober 29: LIBELOctober 28: SNEAKOctober 27: CARRYOctober 26: FLOUTOctober 25: FOGGYOctober 24: FAULTOctober 23: MUMMY 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. View the full article

PC gamers have spent years living in uncertainty when it comes to hardware availability. The silicon shortage, pandemic, production issues, environmental disasters, and crypto mining all ravaged the market. For a while there it was slim pickings for anyone looking to upgrade, especially if you were on the hunt for a new graphics card. We even had a guide up, offering tips to help people buy a new GPU during the shortage. Now, the self-proclaimed King of VGA, Vietnam's Lê Thành, is hawking them on the street. After a few years that felt like decades, the GPU shortage of the past is basically behind us. GPUs are far easier to pick up from retail stores now, and brand new hardware is already here. The next generation of Nvidia cards are already out in the wild, though expensive and still a little tricky to get. That said, the Nvidia RTX 4090 Founders edition is a new force to be reckoned with, and we've seen images of the new AMD RDNA 3 cards looking super promising to boot. With crypto mining starting to lose its shine and new cards on the scene, it's no surprise that second hand cards are cropping up all over the market. These worn-out cards are unlikely to be worth the money, especially with the power washing treatment some get before sale. Still, there's something special about seeing them sold by the kilo on the side of the road. Lê Thành posted images to his Facebook account (via Tom's Hardware) featuring a setup like a street trader selling fruits and vegetables, but instead of apples it's mountains of GPUs. The machines are stacked on top of each other, some in boxes, some out. Next to Thành, sits an old style mint green set of grocery scales. Your next machine (Image credit: Future)Best gaming PC: The top pre-built machines from the pros Best gaming laptop: Perfect notebooks for mobile gaming There's even a fun parody video where Thành starts by waving a net over his produce, like a vendor keeping away flies. A scooter drives past to pick up a weighted order of cards, which after some bartering is unceremoniously placed into a red plastic grocery bag. It's enough to make those of us running older GPUs cry a little. Or maybe a lot. Once again, we absolutely don't recommend you pick up used mining GPUs. They're almost certainly not going to be worth the money. Maybe if they're really cheap they'd be good for some gaming, or DIY use, or maybe even art pieces. Even if those side-of-the-road cards are probably all burnt-through, I'd still kind of like to buy one bag full of GPU, please. Thành's Facebook page is filled with other pictures of just unfathomable amounts of graphics cards just kinda hanging around. Name brand cards basically wall to wall to the point where it almost starts to look like a badly repeated texture graphic in some place. With all the changes to crypto and the current market, hopefully a dragon's hoard of GPUs is not something we'll have to see again for a long, long time. View the full article

It's November, also known as "the month Starfield was going to release." By delaying its big new space RPG to early next year, Bethesda will let Starfield's original 11/11/22 release date—exactly 11 years after Skyrim's 11/11/11 release date—go by like just another day. What a tragedy: a novelty release date wasted! I guess the bigger reason to be disappointed is that there's no big Bethesda RPG out this month, but Starfield's absence means we can devote more attention to the games that are coming out in November. If I were to do a poll, I'm certain that Warhammer 40,000: Darktide would be the PC Gamer team's most anticipated game still to come in 2022. Other November releases to look forward to: the next big WoW expansion, Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0, a new Dark Pictures horror game, and Tactics Ogre: Reborn. Scroll down for an overview of November's big PC game release dates and events, and head to our full 2022 games release calendar to see what's coming in December. November's biggest PC game releases November events and updates Day of the Devs — Game showcase livestream — November 3LoL Worlds Finals — League of Legends — November 5, 2022IEM Rio Major 2022 — CS:GO tournament — Ends November 13Elisa Masters Espoo 2022 —CS:GO tournament — November 16-20DreamHack Atlanta 2022 — LAN party and esports — November 18-20DreamHack Winter 2022 — Same, but in Sweden — November 24-27 More games coming out in November Horse Tales: Emerald Valley Ranch — November 3The Chant — November 3Harvestella — November 4Football Manager 2023 — November 7A Little to the Left — November 8Tactics Ogre: Reborn — November 11 Floodland — November 15Pentiment — November 15Goat Simulator 3 — November 17Dark Pictures: The Devil in Me — November 18Evil West — November 22Ship of Fools — November 22 View the full article

During an update for investors today, EA said that it plans to release a "major IP" sometime before March 31, 2023. For reasons I'll get into, there's a good chance it's Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, the sequel to 2019 Respawn action adventure game Jedi: Fallen Order. First, though, a few words from EA CEO Andrew Wilson on why EA isn't being specific about what this "major IP" is. "The nature of marketing in our industry has meaningfully changed in the past five or six years," Wilson said. "You might remember that when we launched Apex Legends, we didn't tell anybody about it until about 48 hours before the community got to play it. "...The big shift of course in the recent decade was a move from television [marketing] to digital. We've moved into more targeted digital, and now we've moved into more targeting timing around digital, and so for each franchise, our development teams and marketing teams come together and think through what is the most appropriate time to begin meaningfully communicating with our community about what titles are coming." That seems to be a long way of saying that EA has had some thoughts about when to start marketing things, and has decided that close to a game's release is a good time. It saves money, I assume, and it worked out for Apex Legends, as Wilson mentions. Apex was announced right as it went live back in February 2019, and turned out to be one of the biggest battle royale games and shooters of the past few years—last year, it won our award for Best Ongoing Game. EA originally teased this upcoming unrevealed game in its investor slideshow from May of this year, where "major IP" was listed for early next year along with a "partner title," "remake," and a "sports title." The "partner title" was rumored to be Jedi: Survivor at the time, but it now seems clear that EA was referring to Koei Tecmo game Wild Hearts, which it's publishing under the EA Originals label. (EA acquired Respawn in 2017, so it's just an EA studio now, not an "EA Partners" studio.) The "remake" in the list is Dead Space, whose January release date was only announced recently, and the sports title is a new Super Mega Baseball. That just leaves the "Major IP" yet to be revealed. EA previously announced that Jedi: Survivor is releasing in 2023, and Giant Bomb's Jeff Grubb has maintained for a few months that, according to his sources, it's coming out in March 2023. A couple weeks ago, Grubb reiterated that claim, saying that the "big partner game" coming from EA early next year is Jedi: Survivor. A recent PlayStation database leak also put Jedi: Survivor in March. I don't think that EA was referring to Jedi: Survivor when it referenced a "partner title," but that's just a nitpick: There's still a "major IP" slot to fill before the end of March 2023, and Jedi: Survivor is the most likely candidate to fill it. Also lightly relevant here is the list of games that slipped out of a leaky Nvidia server in 2021. Nvidia said at the time that it was just a bunch of testing material, but too many games on the list have since gotten PC announcements for us to accept that. There were two EA entries on the list: "Mirror's Edge RTX Remaster" and "Untitled Respawn Game." The Untitled Respawn Game there is almost definitely Jedi: Survivor. There could be a secret EA game nearing release that isn't one of those two games, of course, but I think it adds a smidge of credence to this rumor that the list doesn't offer such an alternative. I don't think EA would refer to a Mirror's Edge remaster as a "major IP," and it's too soon for the new games from BioWare or EA's expanded Battlefield division to be releasing. If it's something else, then EA has done a really good job of keeping it a secret while dangling Jedi: Survivor in front of us as a red herring. We'll know sometime in or before the end of March next year. Part of me hopes that it is actually a secret game. Keeps the job exciting, you know? It's possible. I wouldn't trust Ubisoft to keep anything a secret, but EA did manage it once with Apex, so maybe it's done it again. (But it's probably the Star Wars game.) View the full article

In August the all-devouring holdings company known as Embracer Group glommed up multiple Square Enix studios as part of a $300 million deal. It devoured Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal, and Square Enix Montréal in a single bite, giving it access to the Deus Ex, Thief, Legacy of Kain, and Tomb Raider IPs. Just two months after the acquisition was finalized Square Enix Montréal is being shut down, Bloomberg reports. The studio responsible for Hitman Go, Lara Croft Go, and Deus Ex Go had only just renamed itself Onoma in anticipation of the acquisition. It was a five-month process you can read about in the studio's "brand story" if that sounds like the kind of thing you're interested in. Though the Go series was well-liked, and we gave Hitman Go: Definitive Edition a respectable score of 72 in our review, the studio's focus on mobile saw it abandon premium games in favor of free-to-play with its recent releases Hitman Sniper: The Shadows, Tomb Raider Reloaded, and Avatar Generations (as in Avatar: The Last Airbender, not the James Cameron movies). According to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, Embracer "informed staff at a 2pm ET meeting today that Onoma is shutting down as the company pivots to focus only on PC and console". In a statement to Games Industry.biz, Phil Rogers, director of Embracer's business group CDE Entertainment, said that, "We see the growth opportunities centered around our premier franchises and AAA games. Closing publishing QA and our Onoma studio is a difficult decision and one that we've taken with great care and consideration. We greatly thank all those team members for their contributions over the years and hope to find proper placements for as many as possible." Bloomberg's sources suggested that some of Onoma's staff would be transferred to Eidos-Montréal following the closure, where a new Deus Ex is reported to be in "very early" development. Embracer's other recent acquisitions have included the Lord of the Rings adaptation rights, Killing Floor developer Tripwire Interactive, Teardown developer Tuxedo Labs, and Limited Run Games, who release fancy physical editions of indie games. View the full article

Today's announcement of the closure of Studio Onoma came as a real surprise—the name was only given to the studio formerly known as Square Enix Montreal a few weeks ago. But amidst that unfortunate news was a very faint, distant spot of light for Deus Ex fans: According to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, work on a new game in the Deus Ex series has begun. Deus Ex developer Eidos Montreal, which Embracer acquired in August, is still intact, according to the report, and some employees of Onoma will be transferred there. A "Stranger Things-inspired" game that was reportedly in development at Eidos has been cancelled, but the studio is now working on a "recently rescoped" new property, is partnering with Xbox on games including the new Fable, and has a new Deus Ex game "very very early" in development. The report comes a few months after Giant Bomb's Jeff Grubb (via GamesRadar) said Eidos Montreal "wants to immediately get back into Deus Ex." That didn't seem likely to happen under Square Enix, which has kept the series on ice since Deus Ex: Mankind Divided in 2016 and ultimately offloaded it to Embracer Group, along with Tomb Raider and the studios that make them, for what struck me as a fire sale price. But Embracer has expressed interest in carrying on with the series, and it also seems somewhat more consequential since Eidos Montreal made a point of announcing in September that it "is now the owner of the games it developed," including Deus Ex and Thief, which had been owned by Square Enix prior to the Embracer acquisition. One person who apparently does not have an inside scoop on the situation is actor Elias Toufexis, who voiced lead character Adam Jensen in Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Mankind Divided. Somewhat ironically, given what is undoubtedly the most famous line uttered by Jensen in the games, Toufexis would like fans to stop asking him about this. "I’m glad they are (seemingly?) working on a new DeusEx," he tweeted. "Please stop asking me because I don’t know anything about it or if Adam Jensen is even going to be a part of it. I love the series and I hope to play Jensen again. I have zero info!" I’m glad they are (seemingly?) working on a new #DeusEx. Please stop asking me because I don’t know anything about it or if Adam Jensen is even going to be a part of it. I love the series and I hope to play Jensen again. I have zero info! https://t.co/CRaoRjJkzgNovember 1, 2022 See more Toufexis clarified in a followup tweet that he doesn't dislike the attention that follows every new mention of Deus Ex or Adam Jensen, "I just wish I had some answers." As a long-suffering Deus Ex fan myself, I wish he had answers too—as long as at least one of those answers is, "Yes, they are definitely making a new Deus Ex," that is. I've reached out to Eidos to ask if it's really happening, and will update if I receive a reply. This was such a good teaser. View the full article

A Call of Duty player upset with what he believes is an unwarranted Modern Warfare 2 ban reportedly caused a stir when he attempted to visit an Activision office in Austin, Texas in order to "speak with an employee" about his problem. In a Reddit post which has since been deleted by moderators of the r/activision subreddit, the player said they were banned from Modern Warfare 2 on October 28. Following the denial of a ban appeal, they set up a new email address and re-purchased the game on Steam, only to be banned again on October 29. "Today (10/31) I decided to go to the nearby Activision office in Austin, TX to attempt to speak with an employee due to the fact that it is impossible to speak to someone over the phone," they wrote. "I was met by a security guard in the parking lot at Activision who told me that I would not be able to speak with anybody." The guard conveyed the message, according to the post, but there was no contact between the poster and Activision employees. "The fact that I can't speak with someone at Activision Blizzard is very frustrating when I simply just want to enjoy this game that I spent 140 dollars on," the player concluded. (Image credit: Reddit) Frustration with unresponsive customer support is understandable and common, but going to a random studio office to "speak with" whatever employee you come across first is never a good idea. For one thing, the person you'll be speaking to—if you end up speaking to anyone at all—will almost certainly have no idea what you're talking about or how to help you. Second, and more importantly, it's the sort of action that can easily be seen as potentially threatening, and in an era in which political tensions are high and workplace violence seems more common than ever, that's the sort of thing that can end very badly. Aspyr Media associate producer Jacob Garcia spoke to exactly that point on Twitter. "These employees are getting like $15/hr and still can't afford the rent they split with three other people," he wrote. "Please don't visit gamedevs in their offices. It doesn't help and we fear for our safety." These employees are getting like $15/hr and still can't afford the rent they split with three other people. Please don't visit gamedevs in their offices. It doesn't help and we fear for our safety. https://t.co/JeXK0zewIvNovember 1, 2022 See more "That's honestly terrifying what the 'frell' lmao," Corsair social media manager caehlin tweeted. "Was my worst fear while working in support, that people would just show up at our building for stuff like this or with worse intentions." "I've also (previously) been incorrectly banned without any fix and it sucks but like not grounds for being a gamer Karen," Twilo developer advocate tyranny siren tweeted. "Literally not the workers' fault." In contrast, many replies to the original post on Reddit enthusiastically support the action. "Thank god someone is taking action, I can’t believe they have no real customer support," redditor csrano wrote. "I was going to go to their Santa Monica offices later this week," devontyb wrote. "All I wanted to know is that they’re aware of the situation. Strange to me how at the very least they couldn’t take 5 seconds out of the day to make a tweet explaining that they’re aware of the situation. Interested to see how we’ll get compensated because at this point an unban isn’t enough." Some redditors are pushing back on the support for the original post and urging people not to start "vigilante campaigns" against Activision employees. "Its a 'frelling' game. Go outside, play a different game, whatever," Big_Slice_Gaming wrote. "It is never okay to show up to the studio like that. Its terrifying enough being online as a developer. Having an angry fan show up to your workplace has to be utterly terrifying. Just don’t." The post also claimed that Activision employees told the security guard that they are short-staffed and thus "it will take a few weeks for the wrongful bans to be resolved," which could be taken as acknowledgment that there is an issue with false bans. But it could just as easily be an attempt to get the guy off the property, or at least calmed down, without any trouble. I've reached out to Activision for comment on the situation, and will update if I receive a reply. View the full article

Three days after its debut on Steam, Activision has disabled family sharing in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The change was made without notification, but SteamDB indicates that the feature was switched off at 12:21 ET on October 31. Steam's family sharing feature was fully implemented in 2014 and as the name suggests, enables users of a shared computer—"family members and their guests," as the family sharing Steam page puts it—to have their own saved games and achievements on a single digital copy of a game. It's a pretty generous system, allowing up to five Steam accounts to access shared games on multiple devices. It's not universal, however: The family sharing FAQ states that "due to technical limitations, some Steam games may be unavailable for sharing," including those that require third-party keys, accounts, or subscriptions. What's odd about the Modern Warfare 2 situation is that it launched with family sharing enabled, and it remained that way for three days before Activision pulled the plug. That suggests the issue isn't technical but an intentional choice on the part of Activision. Quietly taking the feature away days after launch has not gone over well with some players. (Image credit: Activision (via SteamDB)) "You already put in two hours of gameplay into the game so now you can’t get a refund," chino869 wrote on Reddit. "If game share was not allowed from the beginning I would have bought it on console instead and the family would have had fun. Also, they might be getting ready for Warzone. It’s time consuming to level guns up and their attachments. The only option people will have to level up faster is buy the game or buy a bundle." "I own the game on Steam and I work, I can't play as much as my younger cousin can and neither of us want to play on the same account cause we got our own level, classes, friends, etc," hollowinside19 wrote in the same thread. "This is just pure stupid, this works on PlayStation and Xbox why tf not on Steam?" Some players are also angered by the perception that Activision was trying to sneak the change through without anyone noticing: "The issue is them disabling it without saying a damn thing three days after release," Designer_Cockroach68 said. The lack of transparency is predictably leading to speculation and assumptions ranging from "Activision wants to crack down on cheating" to "Activision wants to bleed gamers dry." It's a bit academic at this point—the bottom line is that you cannot share Modern Warfare 2 on Steam—but I've reached out to Activision for comment on the situation, and will update if I receive a reply. View the full article

Following his acquisition of Twitter for $44 billion, troll billionaire Elon Musk has wasted little time in sweeping out the old guard and indicating what's to come under his leadership. A new filing shows that Musk is now the sole director of the company, with nine executives including former CEO Parag Agrawal being ousted, while The Washington Post reports that major layoffs could also be on the way, the suggestion being 25% of Twitter's total workforce. Musk wasted little time before indulging himself, changing his bio to first "Chief Twit" which has now become "Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator". He's also began to address reports that the verification process will become a subscription service, with a price of $20 initially rumoured. Author Stephen King then had a bit of a moan about paying $20 for verification (you'd think he could afford it) and said he'd be "gone like Enron" should such a scheme be implemented. $20 a month to keep my blue check? 'frell' that, they should pay me. If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron.October 31, 2022 See more This prompted Musk to say in response: "We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?" Soon afterwards, Musk expanded on what he sees as a possible future for the platform's 'blue checkmark" accounts. At the moment, Twitter verification is a process of proving one's identity to the company, and was intended to ensure users could trust that a given public figure's account really does belong to that public figure. Of course, what was intended as something of a security feature has become its own source of clout on the platform, and everyone grumbles about the verification process. "Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullpucky," wrote Musk. "Power to the people! Blue for $8/month." You really have to possess mighty chutzpah to frame a subscription service for something that is currently free as "power to the people", but then this is Musk's big problem with Twitter. The acquisition total includes $13 billion in debt financing, which Musk will have to service, and the ideal way to do that would be for Twitter to pay for itself: to become, in other words, a company that makes profits such that it could justify a $44 billion price tag. If Twitter doesn't make considerable amounts of money soon, in other words, then Musk is going to lose a lot of it. Musk went on to further flesh-out what he thinks an attractive subscription offer would look like. The $8 price will be adjusted by country, "proportionate to purchasing power parity", and blue checkmark accounts will also have: "priority in replies, mentions & search, which is essential to defeat spam/scam." These accounts will also have the "ability to post long video & audio" and, here's the sting in the tail, "half as many ads". So even if you pay for it, you'll still be getting ads on Twitter, and the odds are that the ads will get even worse for non-paying users. One of Musk's more interesting ideas is bundled-up with this, however, which is that a Twitter subscription could feature a "paywall bypass for publishers willing to work with us". That is, if you're a blue checkmark account, you'll have access to certain paywalled sites without having to subscribe to them individually. This is undoubtedly a problem on the contemporary internet that needs solving. Many of us would be happy to pay for quality online content, but few are able to afford multiple $5 or $10 monthly subscriptions across a range of outlets. One solution may ultimately be a centralised subscription service that divvies-up a user's monthly fee among the sites they actually use that month and, given Twitter's tentacles are so firmly wrapped around the media ecosystem, it is in a strong position to offer something on those lines. Musk reckons this kind of service would "destroy the bots" and a subscription fee "raises the cost of crime on Twitter by several orders of magnitude." Crime is an odd term in the context of Twitter, though some of Musk's own memes probably fit the description. Anyway: changes are a-coming to Twitter, and it's already had consequences for one small part of the gaming ecosystem on there. Musk has to make this business profitable, he has to do it fast, and he clearly thinks a major potential revenue stream is to make all the Twitter addicts pay for it. For those of us who can't or won't, we're going to be getting a hell of a lot more adverts: and that's the good news. View the full article

Spry Fox, the Seattle-based developer of games including Triple Town, Road Not Taken, and Cozy Grove, is now a Netflix studio. Netflix said the addition of Spry Fox to its stable of in-house studios "will help accelerate our creative development in another beloved genre and add to the growing variety of Netflix’s games catalog that will have something for everyone." Netflix didn't specify which "beloved genre" it was speaking about, but given Spry Fox's history, it's a safe bet that it will be something 'cozy.' "When David and I founded Spry Fox twelve years ago, our goal was to create a place where kind, creative people could make beautiful, original games in a supportive environment that brought happiness to the people who played them," Spry Fox co-founder Daniel Cook said. "After many heartfelt conversations, we are all excited about joining Netflix as an in-house game studio and building amazing games together." In a separate post, Spry Fox said the deal will enable it to continue making games as it always has, "but with more support and resources" and without stressing about profitability. It will also open the door to collaboration with other creative types at Netflix, which will help it "to hopefully get better at what we do and how we do it." The studio's existing games will continue to be available on their current platforms, and its current projects—Cozy Grove 2 and a "larger, non-violent MMO"—will continue development unabated. "Real talk: we’ve been at this for almost 13 years," Spry Fox said. "It’s been exhilarating, humbling, endlessly interesting and often challenging. We’ve always known that above all else, we wanted our games to bring people happiness. But in other ways, it feels like we only recently figured out what 'we want to be when we grow up.' "What has become clear over the course of all of our adventures: We are a studio that builds original, world-class cozy games. Especially games that bring people together. And we are confident that Netflix is going to help us do that." Netflix announced its intention to get into gaming in 2021, and Spry Fox will be its sixth in-house development studio. Netflix's focus was primarily on mobile gaming at the outset, but it's also indicated an interest in bigger and better things, most recently saying that it is "seriously exploring" a move into cloud gaming. View the full article

The Sims 5 has finally been announced and, much to our surprise, Electronic Arts has already started rolling out small peeks at features for the next main Sims game. Get more out of Sims 4 (Image credit: EA)Sims 4 cheats: Life hacks Sims 4 mods: Play your way Sims 4 CC: Custom content Sims 4 expansions: Worth it? Right after making the base game Sims 4 free-to-play and committing to continued gameplay updates and DLCs, Maxis also let on that it's actively developing the Sims 5, even though that may not be its final name. Unlike development on past Sims games, Maxis is even committing to showing off some of its in-development features years in advance. So while we still have a lot of open questions about the next Sims game, we've actually had some of our speculation answered already. Here's everything we know so far about the next Sims game, including new (and returning) features, early gameplay footage, and the rumors about multiplayer. So is Project Rene the name of The Sims 5? For now, yes, but likely not forever. As Maxis explained, Project Rene is essentially the codename for the next Sims game. Usually these are used internally to talk about a game before it's been announced, but occasionally developers will use these titles publicly too. Think of Riot's Project L, for instance. Presumably, the next Sims game won't be called either "Project Rene" or "The Sims 5" and will have a totally different name that communicates the way that Maxis has been referring to it as the "next generation" of Sims and a "creative platform." Does The Sims 5 have a release date? Electronic Arts has not given a release date or year for the next Sims game yet. When it was first announced as Project Rene in October 2022, Maxis said it planned to share inside looks at development "over the next few years" so we can safely assume that The Sims 5 won't launch any time before at least 2024. Another detail to know about The Sims 5 is that Maxis expects it to be around for a while when it does eventually launch. The Sims 4 launched in 2014 and it seems like Electronic Arts is expecting the "next generation" of The Sims to stick around at least as long. So far, creative VP Lyndsay Pearson said "I have the privilege to help usher the franchise into the next decade and beyond," during the Project Rene reveal. It was a lot of buzzword corporate speak, honestly, but it feels safe to assume that the next Sims game is going to have a lengthy lifetime. Check out a peek at some early Sims 5 gameplay As Maxis said, the clips it showed off during the Behind the Sims Summit in 2022 were early on in development, likely not reflective of final gameplay or visual style. But in a loose sense of the word, we did see a tiny bit of early gameplay footage. Here are some of the features we've seen: The Create-A-Style tool from Sims 3 is backCross-platform multiplayer build modeUploading a custom selection furniture layout to the GalleryModular furniture editing, including accent piecesMultiple axis rotation, at least for accent pieces Create-A-Style making a return is definitely a win for Build Mode fans, especially with the addition of modular pieces. In the initial reveal, we saw how players will be able to swap pieces like the headboard and footboard of a bed separately and edit patterns and colors too. Another improvement on the style tool of old is the ability to add accents like throw pillows and blankets to a couch, which we also saw lots of in the initial Project Rene video. Another bit of the first reveal that players are speculating on is whether apartment lot types will be a part of the next Sims base game. The first footage we saw did make the space it was editing look a bit like one unit connected to others. (Image credit: Electronic Arts, Maxis) Will the Sims 5 have multiplayer? The Sims 5 will have multiplayer in some capacity, yes, but Maxis hasn't yet been specific about the scope of what it's referred to so far as "collaboration". "With Project Rene, we want to make it easier to work together and share. You can choose to play and create by yourself or with your close friends," Pearson said during the Project Rene reveal. So we do know that you'll be able to choose how heavily you dig into online play. In the Sims Summit from 2022, the developers did show off cross-platform play between a PC and a mobile phone. Both devices appeared to be editing the same room simultaneously by placing furniture. When it comes to Live Mode multiplayer, we don't know what Maxis is planning yet. What we've heard are the few comments from Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson during a financial call in 2020. "As Maxis continues to think about The Sims for a new generation—cross-platforms and a cloud of a neighborhood world, you should imagine while we will always stay true to our inspiration, escape, creation, self-improvement, motivations—that this notion of social interactions and competition like the kind of things that were actually present in The Sims Online many many years ago—that they will start to become a part of The Sims experience in the years to come," Wilson said. The interesting parts of Wilson's answer that we don't know more about yet are the "social interactions and competition" bit. Invoking the Sims Online name really makes us wonder if EA and Maxis are shooting for a true new MMO Sims game. That seems so unlikely, but there's no doubt that the next Sims game will feature some kind of online play. View the full article

A long-lost and big-budget Sega Saturn game has been unearthed, and it's a slice of saucy history from the '90s console wars. Sacred Pools was a game in development by SegaSoft, an American studio, and was one of those FMV titles that accumulated around the early stages of CD-ROM technology. The appropriately named website Gaming Alexandria has managed to secure several CD-ROMs of the never-released project, from former SegaSoft employee David Gray. Alpha builds for the game on Saturn, PC and, surprisingly, Sony PlayStation have now been uploaded online. The PlayStation port may have been down to Sega's lousy fortunes with the Saturn. It was always up against it when Sony arrived on the scene, and had been fatally undercut at that year's E3 when PlayStation was announced to retail at $299 dollars ($100 cheaper than the Saturn). SegaSoft was set up in 1996 with an eye on the future, as a PC-focused developer oriented towards more adult products: remember, at this time, Sega's reputation was as the 'edgy' alternative to Nintendo. This relative freedom was also what would allow it to develop for PlayStation. Sacred Pools is set on the island of Amazonia, where various puzzles and several scantily clad ladies await you. It was also known as Rebellion and Amazonia, and had an at-the-time huge budget of between $2-3 million, mainly because it required so much live footage. The player character was going to go around the island, exploring a maze, collecting crystals and talking to various NPCs. It also features some amusingly terrible jump scares. The game's selling point was going to be more the suggestion of erotic delights than anything overtly sexual. "There was no nudity," said cameraman Ross Judd in 2000, "although the costumes did get a bit racy." This was a tactic that had worked wonders with Night Trap, which had become a tabloid target thanks in part to its saucier elements and sold bucketloads off the back of it. Unfortunately for Sacred Pools, the FMV trend was slowing down and Sega's own internal teams thought that the game wasn't very good. Despite a large E3 showing, the game missed its release date and then disappeared from Sega's release schedule. Shortly afterwards, Sega would end active Saturn development as it looked to transition to Dreamcast, and Sacred Pools was forgotten about. Until now. You can watch several minutes of footage from the game, and Gaming Alexandria has a long and detailed account of the game's development here. View the full article

No one is quite sure why Bloodborne is not yet on PC but it's really just a meme now. Sony just recently tweeted a close up picture of Bloodborne asking people to guess what game it was, before being forced to delete it once rumours once again circulated that it was news of a remaster or port. Many of PlayStation's biggest PS4 games have made the jump to PC but Bloodborne is still missing. "But", I say sobbing quietly while cradling my PS5, "who needs Bloodborne on PC when you can add the parrying mechanic to The Witcher 3." We can all simply pretend that Bloodborne is on PC together, yes, with a mod adding the parrying mechanic to The Witcher 3. If you've yet to play Bloodborne, one of its main features strayed from the rest of FromSoftware's work by eliminating shields. Bloodborne was bored of seeing players cower behind shields holding out for openings while shivering in their boots, and gave hunters something a little more aggressive. Instead of shields you get a gun. And if you fire this gun into someone's face at the right time it stuns your enemy, giving you an opportunity to unleash a visceral attack instead, which knocks them back and does a lot of damage. It's a very important technique to learn in Bloodborne, and screwing it up can be fatal, but man, is it satisfying. (Image credit: Mugijang / Nexus Mods) One modder on NexusMods has taken it upon themselves to add this very mechanic to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Mugijang's' Bloodborne Gun Parry and Execution mod can be downloaded after adding a different firearm mod to the game, and allows you to parry both human and monsters. The timing is also just as specific as Bloodbornes: "A successful gun parry requires the bullet to hit on the target at the start of an attack, which is when the red light first appears on his health bar." Brutal. Of course this is like putting a little tiny Star Wars R2D2 plaster on the massive gaping visceral wound of Bloodborne missing from PC but hey, it's at least a new way to experience The Witcher 3. We're not getting another Witcher game for a while anyway. View the full article

Imagine voicing one of the most iconic villains in all of gaming. Imagine laying down the foundation that every other actor who took on the high profile role would base their own performances on—the deep laugh, the cool-headed attitude, the enjoyably over-the-top acting. We were not coached when we did the lines... I barely remember understanding that this was to be a game Pablo Kuntz Now imagine not realising you'd done any of that. One man on earth doesn't have to imagine what that feels like: Pablo Kuntz, the original voice of everyone's favourite sunglasses-wearing and virtually unkillable Resident Evil antagonist, Albert Wesker. He just forgot about the job. The work, which he describes as "a wonderful experience," was just one of a string of freelance gigs he took while living in Japan in the late '90s, in addition to various modelling and acting jobs. One of several voice acting gigs completed well over two decades ago does seem unlikely to rank as a vivid memory. I like imagining key Capcom staff agonising over every minor detail of the game that would go on to coin the term "survival horror," but the reality seems to be there was simply a job that needed doing, and Pablo was the person who got it done. "We were not coached when we did the lines and truthfully I barely remember understanding that this was to be a game. It was all so new," he says. "I was a young 24-year-old adventurer at the time and just did the best I could." The original Resident Evil's campy acting and dialogue make sense in that context. But even without much direction and even less awareness of what he was acting in, Kuntz still gave it his all and delivered a memorable performance. "I do remember having a little snicker on my face when delivering many of the lines, that’s natural for me. I wasn’t trying to ‘put on’ a voice per se. In truth, I was pretty much being me. I think people can hear/feel a genuine authenticity with RE1 Wesker." That authenticity has helped keep his lines fresh in fans' minds all this time—even if he wasn't personally aware of it. Kuntz only found out how and where his work was used a few years ago. "You can only imagine my surprise when I became reacquainted with it all," he says. As surprises go, finding out you were the original villain in a series that's sold some 115 million copies is a pretty big one. The character he voiced is so popular not even his in-game death has been enough to keep Wesker from popping up in everything from Marvel vs. Capcom 3 to Teppen. It seems inevitable he'll somehow turn back up in Resident Evil at some point. Fans have been eager to share that success with every member of the largely unknown original voice cast for a long time now, but they've been notoriously difficult to track down. Capcom only credited the English voice actors in Resident Evil with first names if they were credited at all—Pablo wasn't. At least the effort to reach out has been well worth it for everyone on both sides of the fan/actor divide, and Pablo has clearly been having fun discovering just how fondly his work is thought of in Resident Evil circles. The catalyst was one simple comment on an unrelated video about Japanese swords, which has since spiralled into an outpouring of love for his most famous work. "Reconnecting with fans has quite honestly been a life-changer," he says. "It’s been a huge blessing, meeting a large number of great people that are supportive, kind, and witty. …It may have been a bit surprising at first, the incredible affection that people have for the game, but I don’t feel that way now. I (we) get it!" The "we" he's referring to is his son Lexonal: the pair formed a rather sweet father-son survival horror double act on YouTube last year. The first game they tackled was of course the original Resident Evil, with Lexonal playing, Pablo sprinkling the action with a mix of general commentary and personal anecdotes, and fans offering a steady stream of positive encouragement and practical assistance in the comments below each video. These sessions also happened to be the first time Pablo had seen his voice acting in its original context, and it turned out to be an unexpectedly emotional experience. "It was very trippy watching your own son play the game and actually hearing one’s voice from the game. That opening mansion scene was unforgettable. Even though I had seen the clip on YouTube, when we actually played the game, it all hit me like a freight train. Recording the voice, my overall time in Japan (I lived there for 18 years or so), just all these memories came flooding back." These cozy playthroughs have even led to a growing personal appreciation of the series—and perhaps best of all, a personal appreciation of Pablo's own much-memed work. "The dialogue, the puzzles, the laughs, the frustrations, the overall challenge of it all… I know the acting was slightly over-the-top, but you know, the more we played RE1, the more the voices seemed to harmonize with everything the gameplay offered," he says As all kids are about their parent's achievements, Lexonal was initially not quite as outwardly impressed about his dad's old job. "I think I got a 'that’s cool' in his unique deadpan kind-of-way once when he found out about Wesker," Kuntz says. But in spite of this Lexonal has embraced playing the series, and their shared playthroughs have become something special for both of them. "As a dad, I know this is a brilliant chapter in time that I won’t ever forget. I honestly cherish every episode we do together and try to encourage him along the way as we encounter what’s behind those doors!" When Pablo's not helping (or "helping," as he does during this memorable scene from Resident Evil 2) his son survive the games, fans have encouraged him to work on fresh redubs of classic Wesker scenes he didn't get to voice the first time around. It's a challenge he's been happy to take on, in part to satisfy his own curiosity and also to bring "a certain consistency [read: Canadianness!] to the voice" that had been getting conspicuously more British as the series went on. His work on these videos is impressive even without considering the fact that he's been away from the role for 25 years, and his restrained take on Wesker speaking with Jill in the first game's remake show he cares about nailing his evil alter ego's characterisation and isn't simply dialling up the cheese for an easy laugh. "I suppose there’s evil lurking in all of us, and voicing Wesker must be therapeutic on some rather dark level," he says. Even the villainous laughs come naturally. "My personality tends to laugh a lot in general and so when I saw the chuckling being called upon in Code Veronica I was genuinely excited to throw myself into it—pretty much as I would in real life." Kuntz says he's enjoyed redubbing Code Veronica the most so far, but he has no intention of stopping there (I can't wait until he finally reaches Resident Evil 5's deliberately overcooked "COMPLETE. GLOBAL.SATURATION." speech). These voluntary dubbing sessions all have to fit around his day job, which may not deal in bioweapons but does involve—as Kuntz's own dad affectionately refers to his chosen profession—being a different sort of "arms dealer," selling beautiful antique samurai swords online. "It’s a big passion of mine and I am fortunate to have clients from around the world that share the same enthusiasm for collecting these rare and meaningful objects of art," he says. But how does anyone go from voice acting horror games to selling high-end examples of traditional Japanese craftsmanship? "All I can say to those reading as quasi-life advice, is listen to what feels right in your bones, have faith in that feeling as it's remarkably powerful. And pursue that while keeping your eyes and ears open to adjustments along the way because you’ll need to. It all starts with commitment, being truthful and taking responsibility. Then enjoy the ride that comes as a result! And don’t play the blame game, ever." That's not the sort of positive encouragement you'd expect to hear from Wesker, but then again Pablo is no ordinary Wesker—he's the original. He just happened to forget that, for a few decades. You can catch Pablo and Lexonal on YouTube, where they're currently working their way through Resident Evil 3. View the full article