Month: September 2024

Only five days post-launch, Palworld has sold over seven million copies and become the second game ever to log over two million concurrent players on Steam. Its unexpectedly absurd level of success has led to much speculation over the source of its appeal—as well as some condemnation—but the notion that it’s “Pokémon with guns,” while not exactly accurate, must be at least part of the answer.

Finding someone to design Palworld’s firearms was apparently a challenge for Japanese developer Pocketpair, though.  

“Japan makes a ridiculous amount of RPGs,” said Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe in a lengthy blog post last week (translated from Japanese). “But how many Japanese-made shooters are there? The only one that comes to mind is Resident Evil, and that didn’t have guns as the main focus. I decided that Palworld would be a shooter at the very beginning of the project because those are the most popular games globally.”

There are other Japanese-developed shooters out there—you could count Splatoon and the Earth Defense Force games, for example—but it’s certainly not the most popular genre to develop in Japan, and Mizobe said it wasn…

Hideo Kojima recently gave an interview to the magazine Weekly Tokyo Keizai, in which he talked a little about the run-up to the release of Metal Gear Solid 2 and how real-world events almost scuppered the game’s release. At the time MGS2 was probably the most anticipated game in the world, and was due to release in November 2001. Then two months before the game’s release, the September 11 terrorist attacks happened, killing just under 3,000 people and changing the course of the world.

MGS2, which featured terrorist factions attacking New York, was suddenly a project with very bad timing indeed. Kojima and Konami went into crisis mode, with Sony also involved, realising that it simply could not release the game as-was in this context. Particular scenes, such as Arsenal Gear crashing into Manhattan and collapsing various buildings, were now unthinkable (the bookends of this scene survive, but what happens in-between is left to the player’s imagination). 

“The depiction of [the] game’s themes and its numerous similarities with the real-world events on September 11 rendered it unfit for release at the time,” said Kojima (thanks, GR+). “After consulting with …

The original PlayStation 5 is getting on a bit these days. First launched back in November 2020, the console set tongues a-wagging with its reasonably impressive spec sheet, including a fast SSD, a custom eight-core AMD Zen 2 CPU, and an RDNA 2 GPU that brought it up to greater performance parity with gaming PCs of the time.

While this latest leak for the upcoming PS5 Pro doesn’t go into those sort of hardware specifics—although we have summarised rumoured hardware specifications previously—it does reveal some potential performance numbers and upscaling features that might give us more of a clue as to what Sony has been cooking up behind the scenes for the new model. 

This latest information comes from YouTube channel Moore’s Law is Dead, which has traditionally been a bit hit-and-miss when it comes to the accuracy of leaked information. Still, in a recent video the channel reveals “leaked documentation from within Sony” that supposedly reveals the existence of PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR), Sony’s own in-house upscaling solution for the PS5 Pro.

The upscaler is described as a machine learning-enhanced version of a Temporal Anti …

Overwatch 2 has had some trouble in the past year-and-a-bit since its release—between promised PvE content being absent, an outright admission that the game has been in decline, and a ‘colourful’ reception on Steam, the game’s freemium model has been a point of contention—especially for players who bought Overwatch 1 fully-priced.

A recent controversy has made that sentiment worse, with players responding to the bitter fact that they wouldn’t be able to earn every cosmetic in the Winter Fair event even if they went for the premium option—things worsened after executive producer Jared Neuss responded to a player in a post on X, where he wrote: “It’s $5 for 4 Legendary skins”—though some of them are recolours of past skins—”which feels squarely in the spirit of the Holidays to me.”

The event (which went live yesterday) gives you tickets for every nine games you play (though wins count as two towards that number). The issue lies in how those tickets are distributed and their weekly cap—which isn’t enough to get you everything tickets can buy. Unless you shell out for the shop bundle, of course, which—aw man, wait a minute. That’…

French indie studio Evil Empire, which has spent the last five years working on expansions for roguelike sensation Dead Cells, prides itself on being a “triple I” developer: independent, but still big enough to make “world-class” games. Evil Empire likes the label so much, in fact, that it’s spent the past few months organizing a new showcase with some other indie superstars, including the developers of Slay the Spire, Darkest Dungeon, Vampire Survivors, and Terraria. The Triple-I Initiative will be streaming on April 10 and will show off more than 30 games.

“We did collaborations with many indie studios [for Dead Cells]: Slay the Spire, Risk of Rain, Terraria,” Evil Empire’s marketing director Bérenger Dupré told me in an interview at last week’s Game Developers Conference. “It was a cool experience taking those games and putting them into Dead Cells, but we were always wondering if there was a way to collaborate with our indie friends outside of games.”

When Evil Empire started getting ready to announce its next game, the team thought there was an opportunity for a showcase that sat somewhere between the triple-A announcements of The Game Awards and m…

Starfield is out today—you may have heard something about that already—and if you want to be a part of the Big Launch Moment but would also like to save a few bucks, Newegg is currently offering $8 off the Premium Edition of the game, or $5 off the standard.

To take advantage of the lower price, head ’round to newegg.com and choose the Starfield edition of your choice. The deal applies to both Steam and Xbox versions of the game, but do note that if you go for the Standard Edition, you will not be able to start playing today: Early access is only available through the Premium and Constellation editions of Starfield.

On the checkout screen, you’ll see a field to drop in a promo code: Use STARFLD8 for the Premium Edition, or STARFLD5 for the standard edition, and the price will be reduced accordingly. And that’s it, you’re discounted and done—finish the checkout process, get the game key, and start your download.

(For the record, STARFLD10, STARFLD50, and STARFLD100 do not work. Trust me, I tried.)

Newegg isn’t the only place offering Starfield at a reduced price right now. The website isthereanydeal.com is very handy for tracking prices a…

“I’m going to do something ridiculous every day until [x videogame thing happens]” might be a little pat now⁠—hell, there’s probably a sociological paper to be written about gamers performing devotion for companies as if they were implacable deities⁠.

But JPNB on YouTube was a pioneer of the form, fighting secret Elden Ring megaboss Malenia every week (initially every day) over a span of months until we finally got that Shadow of the Erdtree announcement last February. He hung up his spurs after that, but now he’s back once more to tango with the Blade of Miquella.

Watch On

During his original run, JPNB started out trying to fight Malenia every day until we got news of an Elden Ring expansion. As the wait dragged on, that quickly became “every few days” before he settled into a sustainable pace of fighting her once a week with a new, fun, themed build each time. With 11 days to go until the release of Shadow of the Erdtree, JPNB committed to a Malenia sprint as one last hurrah: beating her each day without getting hit and using a fresh idiosyncratic build each time.

I think my favorite so far was his “Arcane Archer,” a riff on one of …

Unity’s found itself under fire from the public these past few months—and for decent reasons. In June, for instance, it announced that it would incorporate AI programs into its developer tools, something it didn’t really elaborate well enough on to soothe artists and developer fears alike.

Unsurprisingly, it then had to drop one of its AI partners after it was found to have just been pulling models wholescale from SketchFab, like this cat from Murdered Soul Suspect. Then there was the whole pricing fee fiasco, which is pretty much still ongoing, with revelations that it was a rushed-out decision in October amidst its CEO’s resignation. Trust in Unity has eroded, which makes any calls of ‘we’re doing the right thing here, we promise’ a hard sell.

Now, in an interview with gamesindustry.biz, Unity Create general manager Marc Whitten wants you to know that its AI tools are all above-board and squeaky clean. The Muse suite includes a chat function, a texture generator, and sprite generator, which all use “data and images that Unity owns or has licensed”, according to Whitten.

“To ensure that the outputs are safe and don’t contain any copyrighted materia…

In August 2022, Embracer Group added Middle-earth Enterprises to its ever-growing lineup of studios and properties. And it’s not wasting any time doing something with it: Embracer revealed in its Q3 2022 financial report that it now has no less than five LotR games in development.

“There are currently five games in production by external partners, to be released in financial year 2023/24,” the report states. “There is also one film in production by an external partner.”

Embracer’s 2023/24 fiscal year runs from April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024, meaning that, if the schedule holds, all five games will be out within little more than a year.

The report doesn’t give any indication of titles or platforms, but it’s possible that we know of at least three of the games in development already. Gollum and Return to Moria have been on our radar for a while, and the third potential project is The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth, a mobile game being developed by Electronic Arts.

None of these games are being developed or published by an Embracer company—Gollum is Daedalic and Nacon, while Return to Moria is being developed by Free Range Games and publish…

If you’re struggling with today’s Wordle you’ll find a helpful clue below, as well as a range of general tips designed to make the most of every guess. And if you’re more than a bit struggling and would just like someone to tell you the answer to the October 15 (848) puzzle, please? I’ve got your back.

A nice, simple, win in three was just what I needed after all the frantic fun I seem to have had the rest of this Wordle week. I may not be able to boast about any fantastic turnarounds or sudden sparks of inspiration with this one, but at least I had one day where my eyebrows didn’t repeatedly crash into each other as I scoured my previous guesses for clues to today’s Wordle answer.

Wordle today: A hint

Wordle today: A hint for Sunday, October 15

Anything that can’t keep whatever liquids it was supposed to hold on the inside could be described in this way. Think of dripping pipes or a bucket with a tiny hole just below the waterline. 

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Is there a double letter in Wordle today? 

No, there is no double letter in today’s puzzle. 

Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day …

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Most headset or webcam mics are a disappointment at best, so a dedicated desktop microphone can be an easy way to hugely improve most setups. Most gamers could benefit from having a better quality mic for multiplayer sessions, and with streaming becoming ever popular, a good mic can be the difference between welcoming viewers or scaring them away. This makes mics a great addition to most setups, and often a great choice for the gamer who has everything else already.

The downside is mics are not the cheapest accessories, often seen as a bit of a luxury rather than a necessity. While there can…

Microsoft must be wringing its hands in frustration as it tries to get users to move on from Windows 10 and embrace the wonders of Windows 11. It seems no matter what it tries, users just stubbornly refuse to move on from that old dinosaur of an OS. 

According to Statcounter (via Neowin), as of March 2024, Windows 10 accounts for just over 69% of desktop market share worldwide. That’s an increase of nearly two points from February. By contrast, Windows 11 claimed 26.7% in March, down from 28.16% in February. A couple of points here and there isn’t what you’d call a dramatic change, but a year’s worth of data shows Windows 11 has failed to win the hearts and minds of those users familiar with Windows 10.

It’s quite an oddity to see the market share of the latest Windows OS decrease over time. You’d expect users upgrading their PCs to gradually adopt the latest version of Windows. It could be just a data outlier, but if not, Microsoft has a real problem on its hands.

The truth is, Windows 10 is a decent OS that doesn’t lack much in the way of functionality compared to Windows 11. A new user interface and start menu are not the game changers Microsoft says th…

Guarantee yourself a Wordle win with our help. Make today’s game a little easier for yourself with a freshly written clue for the November 7 (871) puzzle, break it completely with today’s answer, or just polish up your general skills with our tips and tricks. 

Some days the grey letters help more than the greens. My opening guess only revealed a single yellow, and I have to admit I was a bit disappointed about it—until I took a breath and remembered that if it definitely wasn’t those letters, then it must be one of these instead. With that helpful thought in mind, a win in three came quickly. 

Today’s Wordle hint

Wordle today: A hint for Tuesday, November 7

The word you need to find today is the upper edge or boundary beyond which someone or something mustn’t (or can’t) go. Speed, for example. A car will be restricted to a certain mph depending on the road it’s travelling on. 

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Is there a double letter in Wordle today? 

Yes, a vowel is used twice in today’s Wordle. 

Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day 

Looking to extend your Wordl…

Keep your Wordle win streak going straight through the weekend—today’s Wordle answer is waiting for you on this very page. Like to clear the daily puzzle in your own time? Then take a minute to browse our helpful tips and guides, or use the clue for the February 4 (595) Wordle below to nudge you in the right direction without giving the game away.

I turned up yellow after yellow until… ah, not quite. Luckily I had one last guess available, and that was just enough to see me through to a satisfying victory.

Wordle hint

A Wordle hint for Saturday, February 4

The answer today refers to any room or area lacking light. This can either be because a light source is present but has been switched off or because there was never any light at all. You’ll need to uncover two vowels today. 

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Is there a double letter in today’s Wordle? 

No, there is no double letter in today’s puzzle. 

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…