Category: Video Gaming

Uber One is teaming up with IGN to launch an epic giveaway to help budding EA SPORTS FC™ 25 players who are Uber One members improve their game on the pitch. Thanks to Uber One, three Uber One members have a chance to win an EA SPORTS FC™ 25 prize pack which includes a 4K Ultra HD TV, PlayStation 5 Slim Disc Console and more!

Better yet, every Uber One member who enters will score an EA SPORTS FC™ 25 Ultimate Team™ Pack*!

Three prize winners will score:

• A 4K Ultra HD TV and soundbar
• A PlayStation 5 Slim Disc Console
• A copy of EA SPORTS FC™ 25 on PlayStation 5
• 1-on-1 coaching session with EA SPORTS FC™ 25 pro Dylan Banks FC

For EA SPORTS FC™ 25 players looking for tips on how to improve their in-game skills, be sure to checkout the Uber One Underdog Academy hub to access a series of quick, insightful video guides, presented by Uber One.

For your chance to win, all you need to do is join Uber One if you are not already a member and answer this question:

In 25 words or less, tell us who’d be the star player on your ultimate team, and why?^

Got a good answer? Want to boost your gaming setup? Click here to submit it and you could win!

*Each Uber One member who enters the Uber One X EA SPORTS FC™ 25 Ultimate Team competition between 25 Oct 2024 and 25 Nov 2024 will be entitled to receive an EA SPORTS FC™ 25 Ultimate Team pack. Details on how to redeem the EA SPORTS FC 25 Ultimate Team packs will be shared to members via email within 2 weeks of competition entry. See Uber One T&Cs here.

^T&Cs – See full program terms and conditions [here] (t.uber.com/EAAUTC2).

Hello reader who is also a reader, and welcome back to Booked For The Week – our regular Sunday chat with a selection of cool industry folks about books! Most of us know about the novel, the novella, and the rare novito, but did you know that Penguin briefly tried to market the ‘big nov’ – single sentences of much larger works, bizarrely serialised into hardbacks weighty enough to club the equally rare giga-seal? Some things are best left forgotten, but not Dragon Age! It’s Dragon Age month, and here’s Dragon Age veteran and good YouTuber, Mark Darrah! Cheers Mark! Mind if we have a nose at your bookshelf?

What are you currently reading?

Currently I am reading the Power Broker by Robert A Caro. It’s the story of Robert Moses the urban planner who defined much of New York (and arguably American) urban design. Also, he’s the villain from the first season of Unsleeping City on Dimension 20. This is the best written book I’ve ever read and I’m a bit concerned it may become my entire personality.

What did you last read?

Power Broker is a slow read so I read the Avatar prequel The Reckoning of Roku between chapters.

What are you eyeing up next?

The new D&D 5.24 Player’s Handbook is out so I’ll read that next. Looking forward to the Dungeon Master’s Guide as well. I likely won’t switch my campaign over right away but I see a lot of promising stuff in early reviews.

What quote or scene from a book has stuck with you?

I tend to synthesize and integrate from things that I read. As a result, I don’t usually have a quote at hand. That said, they will sometimes come bubbling out uninvited.

What book do you find yourself bothering friends to read?

The Power Broker. It may become a problem…

What book would you like to see someone adapt to a game?

I’d love to see someone take a crack at something like Parable Of The Sower by Octavia E. Butler. Though its feeling a bit too real these days…

Well, I suppose one technique to rage against the futility of naming every book ever written (the very secret goal of this column) is to use a single book for multiple answers. I admire Mark’s technique, even if I must – as with every guest thus far – decree him a terrible failure. I’m re-reading John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, a book I read in uni then forgot about, then found again after furiously googling ‘fat man legal pads lives with mother’. As always, let me know what words you’re staring at. Book for now!

There isn’t much of the year left to release it in any way, but Digital Extremes has finally confirmed (roughly) when you’ll be able to play Warframe 1999.

Ever since Digital Extremes revealed Warframe 1999 last year, lots of you Tennos out there have been desperate to get your hands on it, and while it’s been known to be releasing in 2024 for a while now, a price release date hasn’t been offered just yet. Unfortunately, there still isn’t a 100% precise release date, but Digital Extremes has at least offered a release window: December! And considering October is basically over already (Halloween counts for less and less the earlier Christmas chocolates end up in the shops if you ask me), you barely have any time to wait at all for the upcoming update.

“Our biggest update of the 20th century arrives this December when Warframe: 1999 launches on all platforms,” explains Digital Extremes on the Warframe website. It also notes that you should make sure your account is ready to “ensure that you’ll be able to jump straight into the action on launch day,” though again, didn’t specify when that would exactly be. With December being so close you can only imagine an exact date is right around the corner, so just keep your eyes peeled for that one in the meantime. There’s also a demo you can play right now too, if you can’t wait any longer to try it out.

Our own Connor had the chance to speak with creative director Rebecca Ford about the upcoming update earlier this year, where she explained that its very European-feeling setting was actually inspired by one of its older games that you might have forgotten about, Dark Sector – you can read more from that conversation here, as well as a bit about how the team came up with the blend of Warframe’s look and a ’90s aesthetic.

In one way or another, you’re about to win today’s Wordle. Whether you do that after spending some time with our tips, using our hint for the October 27 (1226) puzzle to get on the right track, or simply dashing towards today’s answer. We’re just happy to help.

I was surprised today, I thought Wordle would put up more of a fight. Instead, I barrelled through this one in record time, and now I don’t quite know what to do with myself. Yay?

Wordle today: A hint

Wordle today: A hint for Sunday, October 27

The Fortnite-themed PS5 controller has been restocked at a few major retailers, including Best Buy and Target. If you missed out on preorders when they initially went live on October 3, now’s your chance to secure the Fortnite Limited Edition DualSense ahead of its November 7 release, the same day the PS5 Pro hits store shelves. If you’re interested in pairing the Fortnite controller with the new high-powered PlayStation console, preorders for the PS5 Pro are still available at multiple retailers, including Amazon, Best Buy, and Target. For more details, check out our PlayStation 5 Pro preorder guide.

Preorder Fortnite Limited Edition DualSense Controller at:

Retailer inventory as of October 26 at 6:30 PM PT

The Fortnite-themed controller launches alongside two controllers from PlayStation’s new Chroma Collection: Chroma Pearl DualSense ($80) and Chroma Indigo DualSense ($80). Meanwhile, the Chroma Teal DualSense ($80) releases January 23.

Chroma Collection DualSense Controllers and PS5 Console Covers

PlayStation’s new Chroma Collection features three DualSense controllers and console covers in iridescent color options: Chroma Pearl, Chroma Indigo, and Chroma Teal.

Chroma controllers retail for the new $80 price. Console covers for the PS5 Slim cost $65 each, five bucks more than than existing color options. Chroma Pearl and Indigo accessories release November 7, but Chroma Teal won’t be available until January 23, 2025.

November will be a busy month for PlayStation gear, as the PS5 Pro is also slated for a November 7 launch. Preorders for the PS5 Pro started September 26 on PlayStation Direct and October 10 at major retailers. Two weeks after the PS5 Pro’s launch, PlayStation’s 30th Anniversary Collection will bring limited-edition consoles and controllers.

Official Fortnite Controllers for Xbox, Switch, and PC

If you’re interested in the Fortnite DualSense controller but aren’t able to get one, there are new wireless third-party gamepads with official Fortnite themes for Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PC. Two of them also happen to have very busy designs.

Despite its bright yellow design, the Peely-themed wireless Switch controller by PowerA is the most understated of the bunch. It connects wirelessly via Bluetooth and has a pair of remappable back buttons. The Peely controller released earlier this year for $65 and comes with a code for the Prickly Axe skin.

Xbox and PC users can buy PowerA’s newly released Fortnite limited-edition controller for $100. Released on October 1, this limited-edition controller has a range of notable features, including Hall Effect sticks and triggers, four remappable back buttons, trigger locks, and custom profiles. It comes bundled with the Tooth Pickaxe skin. This controller has very similar features as the recently launched PowerA OPS V3 Pro for PC, which we found to be quite impressive for the price.

The more budget-friendly controller in the OPS line, the V1, has a Fortnite-themed edition for $55. A wireless controller for PC and mobile, the Fortnite Edition OPS V1 is equipped with Hall Effect sticks and triggers, four remappable back buttons, and three-way trigger locks. You can connect wirelessly via 2.4GHz or Bluetooth. It’s available now at Amazon and comes with the Assault Bomber glider skin.

For the majority of its runtime, Cyberpunk 2077 is an action-packed RPG. Even if you hone your protagonist, V, into a stealth ninja assassin, the neon-soaked Night City is still frequently the stage for tense combat encounters. That is, however, until Somewhat Damaged, one of the Phantom Liberty expansion’s final quests. Inside a bunker buried deep beneath the city, Cyberpunk 2077 leaves its RPG structure behind and morphs into a survival horror. A relentless robotic hunter stalks you through chambers and corridors, and there’s nothing your weapons can do to stop it.

To find out how this level and its terrifying mechanical monster were created, we spoke to staff from developer CD Projekt Red. With their insight, we examine how Somewhat Damaged makes use of logical environment design, increasingly stressful objectives, and resourceful AI scripting to manifest Phantom Liberty’s terrifying crescendo.

Phantom Liberty tells the story of Song So Mi, better known as Songbird, and Reed, two NUSA agents and former partners. Throughout the campaign it’s revealed that Songbird is on a personal mission to escape the toxic grip of her employer. If you help her, she will save you from your terminal brain virus (AKA Johnny Silverhand) using a Neural Matrix she plans to steal. As the campaign reaches its climax, you’re given a choice: work with Songbird, or betray her and let Reed take her into NUSA custody. Choosing that second option triggers Somewhat Damaged, a terrifying final quest that’s unique to this branch of the story.

Somewhat Damaged sees a devastated, mentally unstable Songbird flee to Cynosure, an abandoned facility beneath Night City. There she connects with the Blackwall, a defence network that protects the world from unknowable digital horrors, and activates a rogue AI to stalk, hunt, and kill you. Within the dark, decaying corridors of the bunker, all you can do is run and hide. It’s a bold left turn for a game normally so focused on action.

“I really wanted to do something Eldritch horror,” says Patrick Mills, CD Projekt Red’s former Cyberpunk 2077 loremaster and the person responsible for Somewhat Damaged’s initial design document. “I went to [quest director] Paweł Sasko and I said, ‘Hey, I want to do this. A lot of people aren’t going to like this, but I think the people who do are really going to like it.”

From near enough the very beginning, Mills wanted to create the quest alongside Miles Tost, a senior level designer he knew would be on the same page. Tost immediately agreed to join the project. “I wanted to make something that was way out of my comfort zone,” he says, “and just pushed everything that I knew about working with our engine. We tried to come up with how we could push our technology and our encounter system to create this truly unique experience for the player.”

The Invincible Beast

Like some kind of restless spirit from beyond the veil, Songbird’s rogue AI possesses a Cerberus. It’s a maintenance robot, but don’t let that basic purpose fool you: this is a relentless, powerful beast. And, unlike any robot you’ve faced in the campaign before this point, it’s completely impervious to damage or hacking. The first thing the development team had to do, then, was to teach players that the Cerberus wasn’t a boss to fight, but a monster to avoid at all costs.

“The ideal of a great RPG boss fight is a boss that acknowledges the skills that you’ve chosen in order to defeat the boss,” says Mills. “But in this case, I went completely against that. None of your abilities are really going to help you here. We just have to disable all of those things because if you give a player the ability to chase the thing off or to disable the thing, if your guns do anything to this thing, that’s what players are going to try to do to get through it.”

“We need them to understand the very first time it kills them there’s nothing you can do,” he explains. “It’s the only way to immediately communicate that idea.”

To put players in the right headspace, the development team carefully designed the path towards the initial Cerberus encounter with a focus on tone. After betraying Songbird in the previous quest, Reed and V attempt to capture her in an explosive raid on a MaxTac convoy. From that point onwards, as V follows Songbird into the bunker, things begin to veer further and further away from the experience you typically expect of Cyberpunk 2077.

“I need to make sure as you’re moving through this space that there isn’t any shooting,” says Mills. “There’s as little traditional gameplay as possible. I’m moving you through thematic airlocks, one after the other, to just keep that sense of space between those things. The objective is to make sure that the player understands that it’s a different game now.”

That different game is, perhaps rather obviously, partially informed by a landmark survival horror. “The Cerberus monster itself came from Alien: Isolation,” reveals Paweł Gąska, who took over quest design duties from Mills. “They nailed this idea of an unpredictable predator that is hunting you on the level and is keeping you tense even when it’s absent. We thought ‘This is exactly what we want.’”

Achieving such an experience is easier said than done, though. The entirety of Alien: Isolation revolves around the cat and mouse gameplay between the player and the xenomorph, and so developer Creative Assembly could put significant time and resources into coding its sophisticated artificial intelligence system. CDPR, on the other hand, only needed such a hunter for one single quest… a quest that many players wouldn’t even experience thanks to the branching narrative. And so the team had to find a way to replicate that hunted feeling using craftier techniques.

The first section of the level, known internally as the outer bunker, is a collection of five rooms linked by a T-shaped corridor. “The game does a check of where V is,” explains Tost. “Is V in this room? No. Okay. Is V in that room? No. Okay. Is V in that room? Yes. And then it basically sends the Cerberus into that room.”

It’s a fairly straightforward process, but there are layers to the programming that ensure the robot feels authentically autonomous. For example, there are multiple different patrol paths that the robot can follow. When the system completes its room check and discovers where you are, it randomly assigns one of those paths to the Cerberus. The robot then follows that circuit, which will by design eventually lead it to the room you were discovered in.

“From the robot’s perspective, it’s never actively actually hunting the player, sorry!” laughs Tost. “It happens to walk within the area that V is in. So that coincides, which is a bit of a problem for V, but really the robot is just on a walk.”

It may be just an illusion, but that doesn’t keep the terror from feeling very real. That result is partly thanks to Tost and the team realising that “the horror really lives in the absence of the robot compared to its presence.” That’s why close attention was paid to the Cerberus’ distinct audio signature. Its six metal legs thud against the flooring with a regular pattern, allowing you to approximate its position even when it’s far out of view. You can hear the whine of its servo motors as it climbs into the air vents that snake around the facility – a signal that the corridors are now free of its presence.

But making this hunter operate as intended was a much more difficult task than making it sound right. Before the final Cerberus was a prototype based on Royce, the cybernetic psychopath from the main Cyberpunk 2077 campaign, but his programming “had the issue of not really understanding when to stop running after you and fighting you,” says Tost. Royce was later replaced with another enemy, the Blood Ritual cyberpsycho, who “was less of what we wanted in the final version, but functionally worked a bit better.” Finally, after a less than ideal length of time, the final Cerberus mesh was given to the design team. “He worked even worse than both [Royce and the cyberpsycho]!” laughs Tost. “He would just glitch in animations. Most of the time he didn’t have animations!”

These difficulties almost saw the entire idea of a stalking enemy scrapped. “There were quite a few moments throughout development where we were this [close to] just making it a combat encounter,” Tost reveals. “There was actually a long time where we did have a fight with the robot planned, but we really couldn’t get it to work. That basically forced us to really commit to [the hunter idea].”

The Haunted Bunker

The Cerberus is an important part of Somewhat Damaged, but avoiding it is not your primary task. Instead, this predator is a constant threat as you attempt to fulfil your main goal of venturing deeper into the Cynosure facility and finding Songbird at its core. Accessing the core first requires opening the colossal bulkhead door that connects the inner and outer bunker, done by disabling four different data terminals: Alpha, Bravo, Sierra, and Victor. Each is located in different rooms around the facility. It’s hardly a scary prospect for a horror-themed level, but a smart shift in how the world is presented makes the simple act of finding computers much more interesting than you’d first expect.

“The belief that I had back then, together with Patrick and the rest of the team, was that in order to really put the player into this horror mindset, we need to get their attention and their eyes on what was happening as much as possible,” says Tost.

The solution was to eliminate the minimap. When you enter Cynosure, Songbird hacks your GPS link. This removes the distraction from your screen, but also cuts you off from your location data and objective markers. That manifested a whole new challenge – the bunker had to be designed as a space that clearly communicated its pathways through architecture and in-game signage. While the majority of Night City’s geography does adhere to some level of real-world logic, this was a new and unfamiliar approach for Somewhat Damaged. Thankfully, Tost had recently conducted a deep-dive analysis on how immersive sim developer Arkane Studios approaches its best-in-class level design. The findings of that investigation formed the bedrock of Cynosure’s layout.

“What we came up with was that we gave each room a name, and we put the names very visible on the level,” explains Tost. “We needed to have an in-game map. We needed to have this terminal where you can look at the status of the door and for it to be really, really clear that it has four locks and these locks are linked to these data terminals that you need to get to them.

“How does the player understand which data terminal is activated and which one isn’t and all that? We worked with the UI team in a collaboration and they really helped us with that.”

This meticulously designed, easy-to-read environment is just one of the components that make this whole level work as intended. The second is the Cerberus and its clever AI behaviour. The final piece comes in the form of objectives. With the Cerberus inflicting so much pressure, the mission’s tasks had to be carefully balanced. They couldn’t ask players to do anything overly-complex. And so opening the bulkhead door is simply a case of activating four data terminals. The resulting challenge is not the terminals themselves, but the tense exploration required to find them.

“It’s a high stress environment so it’s difficult to make complicated decisions,” explains Tost. “So we make the [objective] difficult through the Cerberus being around, but we keep the things themselves simple.”

“A lot of this is really inspired by other horror games and looking at what they’re doing,” Mills reveals. “What is it that you have to do in Soma or Alien: Isolation to progress? Well, the gameplay comes from you’re being hunted. You need to go and press this switch and operate this device and when you’re doing it, you can’t see behind you, and there’s that fear of this thing lurking.”

While much of the objective design was fuelled by the quest’s horror approach, the team still had to ensure that some element of Cyberpunk’s RPG design remained. “Your objective has to give you some chance [against the indestructible Cerberus],” says Gąska. “You are not a passive person here. You are disempowered, you cannot do what you’ve been doing before, but bits of [your character build] remain. If you invested in the stealth tree, your footsteps will not be as loud, so you have more room to check stuff out.”

To allow all players, not just those with high stealth stats, to successfully avoid the Cerberus while exploring the outer bunker, a number of hiding spots were built into the design of each room and corridor. Such areas of cover are signposted through lighting, with flashing bulbs indicating safe havens. “One benefit of having the fixed patrol lines [for the Cerberus] was that I could predict for each patrol point where cover should be to make each and every one of them fair,” says Tost.

With all four data terminals activated, the door to the inner bunker opens and you can continue your search for Songbird. The next task is to shut down the facility’s core, which requires you to sabotage three key systems: the Neural Network, the Datafront’s firewall devices, and the Thermic Control. Similar to the outer bunker, you once again need to cautiously explore the environment to find these objectives, but this time each task involves more risk and danger. With the Cerberus still very much on your tail, the section ratchets up stress and panic levels.

“The idea was always to have the outer bunker be the tutorial area, and the [inner bunker] was where we wanted to switch it from just the sheer terror of being in this space to you being confronted by that thing much, much more often,” Tost reveals. “So this section tends to be much more stressful. The rooms are smaller, the spaces are more claustrophobic.”

“The objectives are no longer just you hooking yourself to the system and shutting it down,” says Gąska. “You have to be more visceral, you have to rip the cables, you have to destroy stuff.”

That destruction always, without fail, summons the Cerberus. “We’re really forcing the player to interact with the robot and the environment in a way that they know will end badly for them,” says Tost with a smile.

With all three objectives complete, the facility goes into emergency lockdown, trapping you in the observation room. It makes you a sitting duck for the Cerberus, which of course turns up for one final hunt. Thankfully the room is arranged in a circle, allowing just enough space for you to stay out of the patrolling robot’s vision cone provided you keep moving. It makes for a white-knuckle finale to Night City’s most terrifying game of hide-and-seek.

“We have this issue of balancing how often the robot should be there,” explains Tost. “In this particular section, which generally is smaller, we had moments where the player would be able to simply speed run it without the robot having any chance to show itself. So the decision was made to just lock the door and you have to endure the robot being in there.”

With the objective locked in, Tost settled on using the observation room as the Cerberus’ final hunting ground, as no matter what order you complete the inner bunker objectives, it’s always the last room you progress through. To suit the envisioned gameplay, the room was increased in size to create a large, circuit-loop environment.

“The patrol there is basically just an ‘O’, and what the player needs to do in order to hide is basically either tail him or be ahead of him,” Tost says. “But you can’t stay static.”

Successfully avoiding the Cerberus here isn’t the final showdown, though. That comes as you head back to Core Control to shut the system down for good. But rather than an explosive battle, the Cerberus is instead defeated thanks to an emotional heart-to-heart with Songbird. Convinced by your words and worn down by the world, she finally calls off the hunt and powers down the robot.

As previously mentioned by Tost, an early draft of the quest involved a traditional boss battle with the robot. Its temporary inclusion was an admission of defeat – a blip in the design timeline that marks a period when the team just couldn’t get the Cerberus to work correctly. But it wasn’t just the team’s determination to realise their ambition that saw the boss battle wiped from the level.

“We decided that [defeating the Cerberus in a boss battle] would give you a sense of victory,” says Gąska. “But we don’t want you to have that sense of victory. We want you to be in the stage of, ‘Okay, damn, I survived this’ and not ‘I finally killed that bastard.’ And then we let you settle down, and after all this we hit you with the big question at the end.”

The Final Choice

Two missions prior, Phantom Liberty serves up the campaign’s biggest choice: will you stand by Songbird, or betray her? During Somewhat Damaged, in the very heart of the Cynosure bunker, you reach the campaign’s most important choice. You betrayed Songbird to get here, but will you stick by your decision? Will you force this devastated woman into the clutches of the people who broke her, or will you allow her one final mercy and end her suffering – knowing full well that if you do, your chance to cure your own terminal illness will be lost forever? It’s a duology of decisions that demanded a huge amount of work to ensure they felt both challenging and satisfying for players to navigate.

“Do I help So Mi or do I betray So Mi?” asks Mills. “And if you help So Mi, you learn things that make you doubt your choice. And then in the other path, where you decide to betray So Mi, you’re going to learn things that make you doubt your choice. And that’s really important because then we offer you another choice at the end of those two paths. Do you regret your decision now? How do you feel about this? So it was really necessary to get So Mi’s story in there once we had a better idea of who she was, what her backstory was, and what those dilemmas were going to be.”

To reveal the final, vital pieces of Songbird’s story, a series of flashback visions were added to V’s journey through the bunker. Each one shows a key moment of So Mi’s life, pulling the curtain back on her mistakes and misfortunes.

“The bunker was a metaphor of going deep into Songbird’s mind,” says Gąska. “But there are two sides of Songbird. One is this caged bird. We wanted to tell you that ‘Okay, she did betray you and all that, but while she’s wrong, she was also a victim of circumstances.

Those circumstances are depicted through each flashback. The first shows Songbird meeting with Phantom Liberty’s villain, Kurt Hansen, during the events of the expansion itself. Each subsequent flashback winds the clock further and further back. “You have her operation, so you see her still without cyberware,” explains Gąska. “You have her oath to Myers, just like you had your oath. You have her first encounter with Reed.

“And then you jump into Brooklyn, where it’s an even happier time,” he continues. “This is the core of her identity, her happy place, where she’s safe from whatever else was happening in the world. Where she had friends, where she had relationships. Relationships that she herself failed and when it all went down she was forced into this life. We wanted you to have this knowledge because you would soon be choosing what to do with her. If you just see her as this crazy person who betrays you, you will just be antagonistic towards her. You already chose [to hand her over to] Reed once, so there is no reason for you to not choose him again unless we give you additional information.”

While the flashbacks tell a very sympathetic story, CD Projekt Red prides itself on moral ambiguity. Its narrative branches are rarely, if ever, a choice between good and evil. To communicate the two sides of the upcoming choice, the visions of Songbird’s troubled life are delivered while her broken, current-day self is trying to kill you with a deadly robot. “She is an unstable individual that is packed with top cyberware and has an active connection to AIs from beyond Blackwall,” says Gąska. “She is like a cyber nuke in this world, and left alone she’s extremely dangerous. If you think that running away from one maintenance robot in one small area of the world was scary, think of what would happen if she hacked the whole of Arasaka headquarters!”

Armed with that knowledge, you can make your final decision: will you hand Songbird over to the NUSA, the organisation that ruined her life and turned her into a cybernetic weapon? Or will you grant her wish of death, finally allowing her some peace?

“Killing So Mi felt to me like the mercy option,” says Mills. “Returning her to the people who effectively tortured her should feel gross. It should feel really icky.

“She’s broken, she’s pathetic,” he says. “She is someone who has been tortured. She’s been mistreated, and whatever your feelings about her, I want you to feel sympathy. I want you to feel that nobody deserves this. That whatever she’s done, that’s wrong. This is too much. This is not okay. I want you to really be torn up when you make that decision whether to mercy kill her or give her back to Reed. I want the player to find that place in themselves that has sympathy for broken things.”

“I’m not that concerned if people are having fun,” Mills admits. “Am I engaged? That’s the important thing. Are my emotions being played with? How am I doing it? And I don’t want you to feel manipulated either. I want you to just go with it, feel the vibes, go with the vibes.”

Somewhat Damaged is, arguably, not a very fun mission – at least in the traditional sense of the word. It’s an incredibly stressful experience in which you must face Phantom Liberty’s most terrifying foe using a set of unfamiliar gameplay tools. It forces you to confront one of Cyberpunk’s most depressing storylines and then asks you to permanently pull the plug on one of its best characters. It is, in almost every way, a bad time. And yet that’s what makes it one of CD Projekt Red’s finest ever creations. It is undeniably engaging thanks to its complete commitment to the vision; a vision that jettisons many of the game’s fundamentals in the search for something special. The result is a truly unique mission. This is a horror level through and through. Of course it isn’t meant to be fun. It’s meant to be terrifying. And that’s exactly what Something Damaged is.

Matt Purslow is IGN’s Senior Features Editor.

Weekends are for walks in the woods, washing your whites, wolfing down waffles, and other domestic pursuits that start with “w” – please, continue the list. Alternatively, play some video games. I will not insist that you alliterate your video game picks, but I won’t tell you not to, either. Here’s what the Treehouse are up to.

(more…)

The Last Ronin has proven to be one of the most popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stories of all time, and in case you’re looking for some extra material to go along with it, a new hardcover related to the dark TMNT story is now up for preorder. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin Lost Years – The Covers is a comprehensive collection of the front-page art for the prequel series, and it’s available to preorder for $30 ahead of its November 19 release.

$30

As mentioned above, this is a compilation of cover art that was created for The Lost Years mini-series, and it included the talents of TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman and artists Ben Bishop, SL Gallant, Gavin Smith, Mateus Santolouco, Michael Dooney, Steve Lavigne, Jim Lawson, and many more. In total, there are over 125 pieces to marvel at, so you’re getting a TMNT art gallery in a hardcover format.

The Last Ronin is a mature graphic novel set in an alternate TMNT universe where New York City had become a battle-ravaged wasteland and only a sole Ninja Turtle remains alive. It was followed by a sequel, The Last Ronin – Lost Years, which fleshed out the events before and after the original comic’s storyline. If you need to catch up on the series, you can grab both graphic novels at big discounts from Amazon right now.

The Last Ronin: Lost Years – The Covers isn’t the only new TMNT graphic novel releasing soon. Those who want to experience a selection of the Turtle’s entire four-decade comics run can preorder two big TMNT comics anthologies releasing November 12.

First up is the the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: 40th Anniversary Comics Celebration. The deluxe edition anthology includes a selection of fan-favorite stories from throughout the TMNT comics run. You can preorder it for $18 (was $20) at Amazon.

The other anthology releasing that day is TMNT: Black, White, and Green, which collects the various standalone TMNT one-shots stories from throughout the years. Preorders are available for $22 at Amazon.

The TMNT comics compendiums are some of the best bang for your buck, as you’re getting massive collections of comic issues at their best prices yet. There are multiple compendiums available now, including several of which are available at big discounts from Amazon, alongside new volumes releasing later this year that are available for preorder.

Finally, the IDW TMNT series is highly recommended reading. Featuring a mix of veteran and new talent, there are 16 volumes of collected comics so far. What’s really nice about this series is that it’s a remix of TMNT history, making it a great read for longtime and new fans to the series. There are some fascinating shifts in familiar power dynamics, incredible worldbuilding, and fantastic storylines that help makes this run of comic books an essential part of the TMNT franchise.

Happy Halloween, Survivors! My name is Julia Wolbach, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Dead Drop Studios.  Today we are launching our next-generation survival horror bloodbath, Outbreak Shades of Horror Chromatic Split, on Xbox Series X|S. As Detective Lydia Daniels, players will begin in a sprawling sewer system beneath the city of Cypress Ridge on the eve of a massive zombie apocalypse.  Players must explore, solve puzzles, and take advantage of their limited resources to survive in an ever-changing world filled with dangerous enemy zombies and a recurring, massive monster.

Dare to Explore an Underground Labyrinth Alone and Afraid.

Initially, players will be unarmed and at the mercy of the environment before discovering a repertoire of melee weapons and firearms such as the lead pipe and the shotgun.  These and other key items will give players a fighting chance and also open up new and secret areas to explore in the game’s colossal maps.  Resourceful players can find crafting items to create healing items, ammunition, and even precious ink for saving their game.  For example, players can use unique types of gunpowder and shell casings to fabricate different types of ammo, or in a pinch, players can combine gunpowder with a virus kit to produce antiviral items.  Explore a multitude of different crafting combos to manufacture the valuable supplies needed to ride out the zombie storm!

Play in Third Person or Through Lydia’s Eyes.

Players can switch between first person and third person perspectives at any time as they fight to survive in a ruthless world.  If you’re looking to fully immerse yourself in Lydia’s journey, first person view may be your cup of tea, while if you enjoy more of a traditional survival horror experience, third person view will provide you with a full look at your character.  Utilize melee combat to try and stagger foes and sneak by, or use your limited bullets to carefully place shots that can dismember and severely cripple zombies’ offensive options.  Be warned, as enemy zombies can stun you or even knock you over, leaving you vulnerable to an unholy beating!   Explore and carefully take advantage of your tools to open new pathways and discover a bevy of secrets, such as bonus crafting items and more.

Strategize and Think Quickly to Best Utilize Your Limited Items.

Lydia’s supplies will be limited, so she’ll need to find materials to give herself a fighting chance!  Combine gunpowder with other items to create ink for saving, items for healing, additional bullets, antiviral solutions, and more.  Lydia can’t afford to shoot first and think later, so think carefully about how you use your items!  Will you consume raw gunpowder in an act of desperation to bail yourself out in the moment, or will you wait to find an empty ink canister so you can save your progress?  Inventory space is also limited, so take time to optimize your pocket space and put excess items in linked item boxes occasionally found throughout the game for later use.  Remember that opening your inventory to combine components will pause the game, but to reload your weapon you must find a safe spot to hide in the cruel, chaotic underground of Cypress Ridge!

Satiating Side Content Expands the Breadth of Gameplay.

Once you’re done with Lydia’s campaign, there’s still more fun to be had!  Unlock an additional wild campaign for a more action-oriented game style. Try out the Onslaught and Besieged modes for arcade zombie-splatting fun against piles of enemies on unique maps.  Looming Dread Mode challenges you to survive and clear a unique scenario in as fast a time as possible.  You can also replay Lydia’s campaign in New Game Plus to keep all of your upgrades from the end of the story or enjoy built-in Developer Commentary!  Can you find all of Chromatic Split’s hidden achievements and cheat codes?

Will you Save Cypress Ridge or Die Trying?

With so much content and multiple replayable modes all horrifyingly crafted in Unreal Engine 5, the standalone Outbreak Shades of Horror Chromatic Split is the perfect way to prepare for the main Outbreak: Shades of Horror game releasing soon episodically.  On the eve of a massive zombie outbreak, can Lydia survive long enough to help her city in its time of need?

Outbreak: Shades of Horror Chromatic Split

Dead Drop Studios LLC

☆☆☆☆☆
2

★★★★★

$24.99

Cypress Ridge – September 28,1999

Go back to the beginning of the end in the prologue to Dead Drops’ Studios upcoming Outbreak: Shades of Horror. Play as both the heroes and the villains of the outbreak as you attempt both to avoid an outbreak of epic proportions and to stop word from getting out.

As Lydia, a veteran police officer, race against time through the Cypress Ridge sewers to spread the truth of the Outbreak before it’s too late but beware there is more than sludge and rats waiting for her.

As Hank, keep sight of your target while navigating rooftop of insanity as he tries to stop the truth from coming to the surface. But remember, the higher you are, the harder you fall when the zombies attack!

Leads into the upcoming Outbreak: Shades of Horror, a spiritual successor to online survival horror from the early 2000s.

Once again Xbox has teamed up with Mountain Dew, Doritos, and Rockstar Energy Drink to give fans access to more than 100 top games through Game Pass Ultimate (new members only) and a chance to score in-game content, games, custom merch, and Xbox hardware including the new Xbox Series X – 1TB Digital Edition in Robot White.

Beginning November 4, 2024, through January 31, 2025, gamers in the United States can purchase specially marked Mountain Dew, Rockstar Energy Drink, and Doritos products and submit on-pack codes at DoritosDewRockstar.com for points. Those points can be accumulated with multiple purchases and redeemed for epic gaming rewards, such as Xbox hardware, game codes from Xbox titles including Avowed, exclusive Xbox + Mountain Dew gear, and these in-game content items:

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024

• Mountain Dew Erickson S-64 Air-Crane

Diablo IV

World of Warcraft

• Bot Wrangler’s Violet Apron (Tabard)

• Bot Wrangler’s Crimson Apron (Tabard)

Madden NFL 25

• Madden NFL 25 Ultimate Team Exclusive Player

The Elder Scrolls Online

• Morthal Jarl Finery in-game costume

But Wait, There’s More!

New flavor alert! To celebrate the joining of these brand forces and the 20^th anniversary of World of Warcraft, Mountain Dew is bringing back Mountain Dew Game Fuel in two flavors – Citrus Cherry and new Citrus Blackberry – perfect for every gaming sesh. These limited-time flavors will begin to hit shelves nationwide on November 4, 2024, so grab them while you can!

In celebration of the World of Warcraft 20^th Anniversary Mtn Dew Game Fuel Citrus Cherry bottles and cans feature iconic Orc Shaman Thrall. Commemorating the release of World of Warcraft: The War Within, Mountain Dew Game Fuel Citrus Blackberry bottles and cans will feature Xal’atath the Harbinger.

Look for these Mountain Dew, Rockstar Energy, and Doritos products featuring Xbox Games at your local grocery and convenience stores:

• Mountain Dew 20 ounce and 12 pack cans featuring Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred
• Diet Mountain Dew 20 ounce and 12 pack cans featuring Madden NFL 25
• Zero Mountain Dew 20 ounce and 12 pack cans featuring Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024
• Mountain Dew Game Fuel Citrus Cherry 20 ounce and 12 pack cans featuring World of Warcraft
• Mountain Dew Game Fuel Citrus Blackberry 20 ounce and 12 pack cans featuring World of Warcraft
• Rockstar Energy Recovery Orangeade 16 oz cans featuring Avowed
• Rockstar Energy Recovery Lemonade 16 oz cans featuring The Elder Scrolls Online
• Doritos Nacho Cheese XXL bags featuring World of Warcraft: The War Within
• Doritos Cool Ranch XXL bags featuring Madden NFL 25
• Doritos Tangy BBQ XXL Bags featuring Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred

You can find code locations on Doritos packaging, under the tab of Rockstar Energy Drinks, and under the cap and inside paperboards on Mountain Dew. For more information and to start banking your points visit DoritosDewRockstar.com.

Email us at PSPodcast@sony.com!

Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or download here

Hey folks! This week the team got to sit down with Bioware Game Director Corinne Busche and Creative Director John Epler to talk Dragon Age: The Veilguard. We also discuss the newly released Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero and Fear the Spotlight.

Stuff We Talked About

• Next week’s release highlights:
  • Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered | PS5
  • Dragon Age: The Veilguard | PS5
  • Life is Strange: Double Exposure | PS5
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 pre-launch overview
• Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered first look at bosses and new map details
• Monster Hunter Wilds Open Beta Test launches on PS5 next week
• 10 great horror games available with PlayStation Plus
• Interview with Corinne Busche and John Epler (begins at 12:59)
• Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero
• Fear the Spotlight
• Silent Hill 2
• Theatrhythm Final Bar Line

The Cast

Thanks to Dormilón for our rad theme song and show music.

[Editor’s note: PSN game release dates are subject to change without notice. Game details are gathered from press releases from their individual publishers and/or ESRB rating descriptions.]

Undisputed is a game that exists because, for far too long a time, there simply wasn’t another big boxing game around. Ash Habib, a boxing fan from Sheffield in the UK, found himself wondering why games like the Fight Night series had disappeared (the last was in 2010), with big publishers having seemingly decided there was no future in the genre.

Such thoughts eventually led Habib and his brothers Asif and Asad to found Steel City Interactive in 2020, which has since enjoyed significant venture investment and four years on boasts around 70 employees. Undisputed launched in early access in 2023, and PCG’s own slugger Tyler Wilde calls the game “an aggressively complex boxing sim“, with a focus on authenticity and a large licensed cast of real world fighters (both contemporary and historical).

Looking for Ninjitsu Master of Elements codes? This Roblox game is inspired by the beloved LEGO spin-off franchise, with plenty of combat and opportunities to upgrade your fighter. Fortunately, you can level up even further by using these codes to get freebies.

All Ninjitsu Master of Elements Codes

Ninjitsu Master of Elements Codes (Working)

• MOE2024: Random scroll and epic chest
• lightning: Rare chest
• talent fix: Two stat refunds
• Ninjitsu: Two stat refunds
• locking stone: Locking Stone x10
• chest: Epic chest
• talent: Two stat refunds
• weapon upgrade: Elemental Shard x200

Ninjitsu Master of Elements Codes (Expired)

How to Redeem Codes in Ninjitsu Master of Elements

The redemption process in Ninjitsu Master of Elements is incredibly easy. Here’s what you have to do:

• Load into Ninjitsu Master of Elements from the Roblox game page.
• Once you’re in a lobby, press the Code button at the top of the screen.
• Type a code from our list into the text box and press Claim.
• Check the pop-up message that appears below to see what you’ve unlocked!

How Do You Get More Ninjitsu Master of Elements Codes?

You’ll find codes on the Ninjitsu Master of Elements Discord server. Once you’ve joined and selected your permissions, look out for the ‘update-log’ channel. Here, the devs share weekly codes, often coinciding with updates or milestones. There’s also an X page, but no codes there yet.

Of course, you can also bookmark this page and visit Twinfinite each time you play Ninjitsu Master of Elements. We’ll keep an eye out for codes, adding new ones to our list as they arrive. That way, you don’t need to look for them yourself!

Why Are My Codes Not Working?

Unfortunately, the greatest chance is that the code you want to use has expired. This happens an awful lot in Roblox games, where each code has a limited period before it expires. Therefore, you’ll want to redeem each one the instant you spot it on our list.

If it does seem active, ensure you’re typing the code in exactly as it’s displayed on our list. Even the slightest typo will cause the code to not work, so it may be easier to copy and paste them instead.

Those are all the Ninjitsu Master of Elements codes available right now! For more Roblox, check out the Type Soul Trello link, our Anime Vanguards tier list, and Five Nights TD tier list. We’ve also got Capybara Go codes, a Black Ops 6 Terminus easter egg guide, and the Liberty Falls easter egg.