As a final goodbye, Google launched one last Stadia game ahead of the service’s end on January 18. Called Worm Game, the title was used by the Stadia team to internally test the cloud streaming service.
“‘Worm Game’ is a humble title we used to test many of Stadia’s features, starting well before our 2019 public launch, right through 2022,” said Google. “It won’t win Game of the Year, but the Stadia team spent a LOT of time playing it, and we thought we’d share it with you. Thanks for playing, and for everything.”
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Now Playing: The Rise And Fall Of Stadia Games And Entertainment
As the name implies, Worm Game is a game where players control a worm and the objective is to eat the fruit on screen. The Worm becomes bigger when more fruit is eaten. It’s basically the retro game Snake, but with some extra modes and different levels.
Back in September 2022, Google announced that it would shut down Stadia. Any Stadia purchases, hardware and software, would be refunded to all players. Google cited Stadia’s inability to “gain traction with users” as the primary reason for the closure.
While Stadia is winding down, there are still companies piloting cloud streaming services–like Amazon’s Luna and Xbox’s cloud streaming service.
As for Stadia refunds, by January 18, most refunds should be processed. People who had an active Stadia Pro subscription as of September 29 will not be charged for accessing their library until the shut down date–which means players have five more days, as of January 13, to give their Stadia library one last browse.
The products discussed here were independently chosen by our editors.
GameSpot may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site.
Most of us have only heard Pikachu, the lovable mascot of the all-ages multimedia franchise Pokémon, say his name when he speaks through the anime. Although, there was that time he spoke real human words to his trainer Ash Ketchum in the Pokémon: I Choose You movie, and when Ryan Reynolds gave him a new, English-speaking voice in Detective Pikachu. But most of the time, all he ever says is variations on his name. Well, today, he got to say “motherfucking,” in an officially published TikTok from the Japanese branch of The Pokémon Company. You heard it here, folks: Pikachu is a potty mouth like the rest of us.
The video, which has since been deleted from the Japanese Pokémon TikTok account, was set to an audio by user Andy Arthur Smith in which he sings an embellished version of “If You’re Happy And You Know It”. The new lyrics to the children’s song, as performed by Smith, go a little something like, “If you’re fucking happy and you motherfucking know it clap your motherfucking hands.” As a Japanese brand account, it stands to reason the people running it might not be native English speakers and didn’t know the explicit nature of the song until it was pointed out to them, and that once it was, the video was promptly removed from the account.
However, no delete button can stop the internet, which never forgets, so Pikachu singing “if you’re fucking happy and you motherfucking know it, clap your motherfucking hands” in official marketing material is still floating around social media.
All jokes aside, this isn’t the first time Pikachu has cussed in an official capacity. In the Detective Pikachu movie, the electric mouse said “hell” and “damn” in the voice of Ryan Reynolds. Sure, on a list ranking the severity of different profanity, those are much lower on the list, but perhaps when we heard Pikachu saying his name, he has always been swearing at people.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City – 2002 Screenshot: Rockstar Games
Last year, footage of the next Grand Theft Auto—assumed to be GTA 6—leaked online. While Rockstar quickly tried to erase the videos from the internet and plug the holes in the ship, it was impossible to completely contain such a massive, unprecedented leak. So fans around the world got a very good look at the future of Grand Theft Auto. And now myself and others find it hard to go back to the aging GTA Online.
Late on September 19, 2022, 90 short videos of early gameplay of what would later be confirmed by Rockstar as the next GTA entry leaked online via a hacker. The footage revealed a lot about the next game in the massively popular open-world franchise, including that the series would be returning to Vice City, Florida, a fan-favorite location last seen in GTA: Vice City Stories, the prequel to the beloved PS2 classic, GTA: Vice City. It also gave us a good look at the new protagonists of this next criminal adventure and some of the missions we might experience when GTA 6 is eventually released. Fans even began mapping out the game’s virtual world using the leaks.
Rockstar undoubtedly hates the leak and likely wishes it could rewind time and prevent it from ever happening at all, but it did end up revitalizing the playerbase. For the first time in a long time, there was excitement and energy in the GTA community, which after years of GTA Online updates and poorly received remasters was in a pretty bad place prior to the leak. Even an early, unfinished or unpolished leak of GTA 6 was better than radio silence and glitchy remasters. People were pumped and hyped about the future of Grand Theft Auto in a way I hadn’t seen in years.
But then, once the leaks were scrubbed from the web and it became clear Rockstar wasn’t going to release any official teaser or trailer to capitalize on the moment, all I and other GTA fans could do was go back to GTA Online. And that’s harder to do now that I’ve seen the future.
Rockstar Games
The latest big and free expansion to GTA Online,Los SantosDrug Wars, was released late last year at a really bad time for me to play and cover it for the site. So I just…didn’t play it. For the first time ever in the history of GTA Online, I skipped a new update completely. I’ve still not played it. At first, I blamed my skipping of the latest update on bad timing and a busy schedule due to holidays and end-of-the-year content. But now, weeks removed from all that, with more free time to play stuff, I’ve still not fired up the new update. And I think it’s time to admit to myself that my growing burnout around GTA Online was increased greatly by that small taste of what’s to come. That look at the future of GTA in Florida ruined me.
I could go back and drive around the same highways and streets of Los Santos I’ve been cruising around since 2013. I could fire up the game and check out the newest business and missions connected to it. I could, sure. The thing is, I don’t know if I want to. I mean, eventually, I will play more GTA Online. I sort of have to as it’s part of my job here at Kotaku. Yet, if it wasn’t part of my career there’s a real chance that I might just never play GTA Online again.
To be clear: It’s not because GTA Online is worse today than it was a decade ago—it’s actually much better to play in 2023 than in 2013—but because getting a glimpse of a fresh new world has killed my desire to boot up the same old Los Santos after a decade of GTA Online and GTA V. I mean, just having new songs on the radio will be amazing. I love Queen’s “Radio Ga-Ga” but you can only hear it so many times in 10 years before you’re ready for new tunes, too.
At this point, I’m hoping the wait for Grand Theft Auto 6 and its sunny beaches, palm trees, and new characters isn’t too much longer, because I’m ready to leave Los Santos behind for a tropical vacation to Vice City.
A classic turn-based RPG in the style of Dragon Quest is not exactly the first place my mind goes when it comes to thinking of game genres that would pair well with the action-heavy world of One Piece, but as One Piece Odyssey proves, it’s actually kind of a great fit. The Straw Hats make for one hell of a party of RPG characters; Eichiro Oda’s one-of-a-kind art style lends itself well to filling the world with fantastical and amusing creatures; and the over-the-top nature of battles from the actual manga and anime gives plenty of material for some of the coolest (and funniest) special attacks I’ve seen in any turn-based RPG. Those fights would’ve been better if they were a more consistent challenge, and I could’ve done with less backtracking through areas I’d already explored, but this is still a surprisingly satisfying JRPG that’s not quite by the numbers.
The story begins with Luffy and crew suddenly finding themselves marooned on the mysterious island of Waford. It isn’t long before they meet two original characters: Lim and Adio, who have an understandably deep distrust of pirates. So much so that, upon first meeting, they steal the powers of the Straw Hats, providing a convenient way to explain why Luffy and company don’t win every battle just by looking at their enemies. (Though, that does come later.)
What follows is a grand story that plays out on two fronts: The adventure in Waford sees The Straw Hat crew attempting to help Adio and Lim by defeating a handful of elemental colossi that are responsible for the giant storm that surrounds the island (I know, what’s the worst that could happen?); and another that plays out in Memoria, a world of memory created through Lim’s special ability that allows the Straw Hats to revisit specific locations and events in their history. The revelations and twists won’t shock anybody, but I still very much enjoyed both sides of Odyssey’s story. Lim, especially, is a wonderful addition to the cast, and I loved watching her go from being extremely wary and cold towards the crew to being intrigued and occasionally flabbergasted by each of their individual quirks, and eventually fully embracing the Straw Hats as her friends.
Odyssey is aimed directly at long-time One Piece fans.
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It should be noted that Odyssey is aimed directly at long-time One Piece fans, with its story picking up well after the Dressrosa arc (about 750 episodes in), and it is not shy about diving deep into some of the biggest surprises of the show. This makes it a tough recommendation for anybody new to the series, but if you’re deeply invested in the world and characters of One Piece, there are some really great payoffs in the Memoria chapters. These come in the form of “what if”-like scenarios that have the crew revisiting pivotal moments from the series with new perspectives. Even small things, like the crew reacting to seeing the Going Merry docked at Alabasta, is a moment that provides a powerful emotional gut punch for any long-time fan like myself. Moments like these are the heart of One Piece Odyssey’s story, and they’re brought to life brilliantly thanks to writing that feels totally in step with the anime and manga, excellent performances, and a fantastic art style that authentically translates the unique style of One Piece to 3D.
A Straw Hat Scrap
One Piece Odyssey’s combat is refreshingly simple, though that simplicity does wind up being a double-edged sword. The traditional turn-based combat is powered by a rock/paper/scissors logic that assigns every party member, enemy, and boss a damage type of either power, speed, or technique. Power beats speed, technique beats power, and speed beats technique. What makes this system work is that there’s no traditional turn order, and you can just freely pick whatever character you want to take the first move in combat. Even if they’re not in your active party of four characters, you can freely swap them in without taking up a turn. You’re also able to see which of your enemies will be next up to take their turn and try and plan around that as well. Once all four characters in your active party have taken an action, the round of combat ends and everyone is able to act once again.
The one complication to all of this is that there are multiple zones in the combat field, and in order for one character to move from one to another, they must first defeat all of the enemies in their own zone. So on paper, there’s some strategy involved in deciding the order of which of your characters should attack first. Let’s say for example, there’s a group of enemies in one zone that have a weakness to Technique, but my strongest technique character, Zoro, is stuck in a zone with a single enemy that’s weak to Speed. I can have Usopp, my Speed character, go first by using a ranged attack to hit enemies in other zones to free up Zoro; then, Zoro can clean up the other zone with one of his attacks that hit multiple enemies.
One Piece Odyssey is so easy for 95% of its battles that strategy is rarely required.
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That’s an example of how the strategy could come into play. The problem is that One Piece Odyssey is so easy for 95% of its battles that strategy is rarely required, and there’s no way to adjust the difficulty. I never grinded – in fact, I ran past a lot of enemies that could’ve given me even more exp – and still felt wildly overpowered for most of the 40 or so hours it took me to reach the end. A lot of this stems from the Dramatic Scenes system, which randomly gives you an additional objective during certain enemy encounters. They’re almost always trivially easy, like “defeat enemy C before a crew member gets knocked out,” but the bonus they reward is just astronomical, sometimes doubling or more than tripling the amount of exp earned for a single fight. I’ve fought packs of rats that gave more exp than big, chapter-ending boss battles. That just seems poorly balanced.
Towards the very end there’s a significant bump in difficulty, but even then I never felt like it made for more challenging or particularly fun battles. It was more that it forced me to pay more attention to my characters’ equipment loadouts, which at least is fun in its own right. Rather than find new weapons or pieces of armor, you find accessories of varying sizes and shapes that you must fit onto an ever-expanding grid. It’s a very flexible system that allows you to assign your own roles to each character, and just as easily switch them up if you want to focus on a different character or bolster a different attribute. You could even make Nami your big damage dealer by loading her up with attack gear, which is surprisingly effective given the fact that for a while, she’s the only character that can hit every, regardless of what zone they’re in. Eventually, you gain the ability to fuse these artifacts and add up to four effects on them, allowing you to really turn your party into absolute beasts.
Despite the lack of tension during fights, I still enjoyed Odyssey’s combat overall, mainly because the special skills are so much fun to watch. They absolutely nail the look, impact, and comedy found in just about every notable attack used by the Straw Hats. Whether it’s the ridiculousness of Usopp’s Rubber Band of Doom, the absolute badassery of virtually any of Zoro’s moves, or the sheer devastation of Luffy’s Gear 3rd and 4th abilities. The attention to detail when it comes to how the developers took these iconic moves from the source material and put them into Odyssey is truly something to behold.
In Memoria
In your journey through Memoria, you’ll visit four main locations from One Piece’s storied history and credit goes to developer ILCA for doing an amazing job of making each of them feel like real, lived-in locations. The Kingdom of Alabasta is enormous, with two bustling towns to explore – Nanohana and Alubarna – and vast deserts connecting them; Water Seven has the vibe of a chill Venetian city with rivers running alongside its many streets; and while you only to get to explore it after all of the birdcage related madness goes down, there’s a chilling sense of grief and overwhelming loss as you walk the streets of the recently ravaged kingdom of Dressrosa.
One Piece Odyssey Screenshots [September 2022 Update]
Of the four, the only one that wore out its welcome was the very first Memoria location of Alabasta. The main quest pads out its length by bouncing you back and forth between locations you’ve already visited, sending you on a bunch of errands and fetch quests, and forcing you through drab caves. It’s a very slow burn to get to the actual meat of the story you’re reliving, and it’s made especially repetitive due to the fact that you don’t get any new techniques or abilities when you level up. Instead, you just unlock a ton of abilities at once at the conclusion of the chapter, making the feeling of progress uneven. So it’s just hours of the same types of battles against mostly the same types of enemies until you reach the end of this one extraordinarily long chapter.
The main quest bounces you back and forth between locations you’ve already visited.
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It was especially a bummer for me because Alabasta is one of my personal favorite One Piece arcs. Fortunately, the others strike a better balance of keeping their main quest pointed and focused on the story, while relegating the more menial tasks to optional sidequests, of which there are many, though few of which were actually compelling to start or rewarding to complete. The Hysteria sidemissions are the notable exception, as they at least reward you with neat team-up special moves that gather up three party members for a single super powerful attack.
One Piece: The Complete Playlist
Every One Piece video game ever released.
Outside of Memoria you’ll explore a handful of more puzzle-focused dungeons, which typicallsy require you to use each individual character’s unique field techniques. Luffy can use grapple points to cross gaps as well as grab items from a distance, Usopp can use his slingshot to knock down items or activate certain switches from afar, Zoro can cut through steel doors, and Chopper can fit through small passages and access hidden areas. None of these abilities really enhance the puzzles or exploration in any significant way, but they do a nice job of varying up the visual design of the dungeons, adding some hidden collectibles off the beaten path, and giving you something to do other than just walk on a path fighting enemies for hours.
I’m seeing double. Must be the work of an enemy Stand.Image: Epic Games / David Production / Shueisha / Netflix / Kotaku
Recently, Fortnite has become a wacky and eclectic ensemble of the best anime characters of all time with its Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, and My Hero Academia crossovers. However, some fans are calling out the battle royale’s latestoriginal skin for not being so original at all, but rather what they see as an egregious JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure knockoff.
Yesterday, the official Fortnite Twitter account made a post about its newest character skin, Hana. Hana sports a fashionably short chartreuse hairstyle while wearing a blue suit with an exposed midriff and matching chartreuse patterns. Hana’s also got a ghoul-like “inner demon” outfit named Keleritas. If you’ve watched the Netflix anime JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean, you wouldn’t be remiss in thinking I just wrote a word-for-word description of its titular character Jolyne Cujoh and her ghost-like Stand, Stone Free.
For those without JJBA brain rot, Jolyne Cujoh is the main character of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure’s sixth part, Stone Ocean. Jolyne utilizes a magical ghost-like being called a stand to assist her in battles. Stone Ocean recently finished streaming on Netflix last month, though the show was poorly promoted online by the streaming service.
While some fans were more charitable than others when calling out Fortnite’s new character on Twitter for her uncanny resemblance to Jolyne, editing the character into the “Is That A MF JoJo’s Reference” meme and making requests for a future Fortnite x JJBA crossover, others saw it as a blatant rip-off.
This week on All Things Nintendo, Brian invites Kyle Hilliard on to preview the 2023 release schedule as it exists in January. The two cover everything from Kirby’s Dream Land Deluxe to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and all the releases in between. In addition to that, this show signals the return of the news, Definitive Ranking, and eShop Gem of the Week segments.
If you’d like to follow Brian on social media, you can do so on his Instagram: @BrianPShea. You can follow Kyle on Twitter: @KyleMHilliard
The All Things Nintendo podcast is a weekly show where we can celebrate, discuss, and break down all the latest games, news, and announcements from the industry’s most recognizable name. Each week, Brian is joined by different guests to talk about what’s happening in the world of Nintendo. Along the way, they’ll share personal stories, uncover hidden gems in the eShop, and even look back on the classics we all grew up with. A new episode hits every Friday!
00:00:00 – Introduction 00:01:22 – Pokémon Celebrates All 1,008 Pokémon 00:05:28 – Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe Abilities 00:07:51 – Toy Soldiers HD Now on Switch 00:09:43 – Ubisoft’s Underperformance/Cancellations 00:16:02 – New Wavebird-Style Wireless Switch Controller 00:20:33 – Looking Ahead to 2023 01:15:45 – Definitive Ranking: 2023 Games We’re Excited For 01:32:01 – eShop Gem of the Week: Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider
If you’d like to get in touch with the All Things Nintendo podcast, you can email AllThingsNintendo@GameInformer.com, messaging Brian on Instagram (@BrianPShea), or by joining the official Game Informer Discord server. You can do that by linking your Discord account to your Twitch account and subscribing to the Game Informer Twitch channel. From there, find the All Things Nintendo channel under “Community Spaces.”
For Game Informer’s other podcast, be sure to check out The Game Informer Show with host Alex Van Aken, which covers the weekly happenings of the video game industry!
Image: The Pokemon Company / 343 Industries / Kotaku
Halo has a long tradition of community-made maps and game modes that range everywhere from serious to silly. Recently, one map and mode combo that’s more on the playful and fun side of things caught the attention of 343 Industries as an opportunity to fix long-standing shooting issues. Named after a certain Pokémon notorious for digging and jumping out of holes, this community creation is now being used to pinpoint and fix aiming and shot registration woes, as they’ve plagued Halo Infinite since it launched just over a year ago.
Halo Infinite, the latest entry in the long-running and often critically acclaimed first person shooter series, only recently received an update that included a beta version of its in-game map creator: Forge. First premiering in Halo 3, Forge has been a staple of the series ever since 2007, allowing anyone to create a map of their own design with the tools necessary to create custom games for it, be those party and minigames or more traditional takes on the franchise’s well-known modes, like Slayer or Capture the Flag. One such community-created game, that takes its name from the Diglett Pokémon, seems to have caught 343’s eye as an opportunity to test drive fixes to the game’s core mechanics.
With community Forge maps popping up on a regular basis these days, 343 Industries’ senior community manager John Junyszek put out a tweet asking for the community’s favorite Forge minigames so far. When competitive Halo player Linz shouted out Digletts, a game where players pop out of holes to take sniper shots at one another, Junyszek followed up with an interesting bit of behind-the-scenes trivia:
Kotaku has reached out to 343 Industries for more information.
As many Halo fans have known, while Infinite’s core mechanics are solid and work well, there have been issues around aiming, with many players suspecting that the game seems particularly off when trying to line up precision shots with a sniper rifle, either descoped or while aiming down sights. Whether this is due to the game’s auto-aim function that eases controller aim (and exists on most modern shooters that take controller inputs), bullet magnetism, or the notorious desync issues many players have had with Infinite isn’t totally certain. Since Diglet is a game that only features aiming and shooting, it’s a pretty perfect test environment for studying aiming behavior. Junyszek said that the “minigame has recently helped our team further test and investigate various shot registration situations, especially in regards to latency and networking. Since it’s a curated environment without many variables, it’s helped us investigate specific scenarios.”
Check out the the Diglett game mode in action here:
343 Industries / iSpiteful
Who knew RPing as a Diglet armed with a legendary anti-materiel rifle could be so productive?
Retro platformers are not hard to come by. I count myself among the group of video game players who welcome efforts from small development teams that play to our nostalgia for an era where playing video games meant tuning to channel 3. Some are fantastic, some are too hard to be enjoyable, but most land somewhere in the middle. Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider won’t go down in history as one of the greats that both embraces the past and modernizes the action, but I would place it closer to the fantastic side of the scale, even if it doesn’t quite make it all the way.
In Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider, you are the titular Moonrider. You break out of your container and destroy the guards in a violent display that would have made you grateful your parents weren’t watching had you been playing it on your Genesis in 1992. The story is sparse but enjoyable. For most of the experience, I wondered if I was the bad guy and enjoyed Moonrider’s soliloquies about how unrestricted power isn’t appropriate for anyone, no matter how noble their intentions. I also appreciated the little bits of personality injected into every boss before beginning the fight.
The story is secondary, however, to the platforming and sword action. Moonrider moves well, bounces off walls like Samus Aran, and sprints to leap over large chasms. He feels great to move, but some annoying shortcomings appear where you can’t see your next platform due to the camera limitations. To zoom out would make it feel too much like a modern game, but I don’t know if it was worth the Genesis-era accuracy to be occasionally annoyed.
Along with the jumping and sword action, which accounts for most of the game, there are a handful of motorcycle levels. These levels toe a difficult line of looking like they could have existed on a 16-bit console, but I am almost certain they couldn’t. More importantly, however, I enjoyed them as much as the standard platforming.
Difficulty is often a shortcoming for comparable games, with many emphasizing challenge over fun. Thankfully, Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider finds a good balance. Levels are hard, but achievable thanks to reasonable lives and checkpoints, and bosses have patterns that can be tracked and exploited, but probably not on your first attempt.
Taking inspiration from Mega Man, after clearing the first level, the other six can be pursued in any order, and defeating its boss rewards you with a new weapon. The mechanic is a familiar one but it works, and it’s exciting to try out your new tornado weapon, or my favorite, a tentacle that ejects from a portal. Hidden upgrades, like a double jump or the ability to become stronger the more enemies you defeat, can also be found in every level and can optionally be equipped. I enjoyed these as rewards for exploring off the main path, but some are undeniably more useful than others. I found two early on that I never unequipped.
One of the best things going for Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider is its length. Making your way to the last level and defeating the final boss only takes a few hours. In this way, it knows exactly what it is: a brief but enjoyable nostalgic experience that doesn’t overstay its welcome. By the time you start feeling like you’ve completed a full retro meal, credits are right around the corner and I appreciate it for that. Moonrider’s adventure likely won’t linger with you, but I don’t regret playing the short, familiar, and satisfying experience.
Home » News » Upcoming Coming-of-Age Horror Is Basically The Witch But Set in the 19th Century
If you loved Robert Eggers‘ The Witch, we have great news for you as the Chilean movie Sorcerer is about to become your next favorite film. The setting is a remote island in 19th-century Chile, which, unfortunately, is not the greatest place for an indigenous girl who has just lost her father and become an orphan.
Even less if she’s looking for revenge. Her solution? Becoming part of some kind of supernatural group, so the rest of the people on the island might be in trouble. The trailer for Sorcery shows how Rosa (Valentina Veliz Caileo)) tries to survive after her father’s death and the repercussions of her friendship with some unique, strange allies that might be sorcerers.
Dead birds, rabid dogs, villagers in the night hearing strange noises, revenge is a dish best served with scares if you’re part of a group of magical beings, as Rosa seems to be here.
Sorcery tells the story of an indigenous girl named Rosa who lives on the remote island of Chiloé in the late 19th century with her father. When the foreman brutally turns on Rosa’s father, she sets out for justice, seeking help from the king of a powerful organization of sorcerers.
The Chilean film is directed by Christopher Murray, who was a Venice Film Festival Golden Lion nominee for his film El Cristo Ciego (The Blind Christ), is written by Murray and Pablo Paredes, and starts Valentina Veliz Caileo, Daniel Antivilo, and Sebastian Hülk.
Sorcery is a Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize nominee and will be released in the United States on Jan. 23, 2022.
Ringborn is a story-driven top-down RPG set in a medieval world full of choice and consequence. In Ringborn, you play as Idas, the son of a woodcutter tasked with rescuing your father in a world filled with unbridled greed, broken oaths and flawed beauty. Inspired by classical RPGs of old and medieval slashers of new, Ringborn combines action combat with interactive storytelling and dialogue to create a truly unique experience. Story Fight in the pits of the Ivory Theatre for glory and honour. You aren’t the chosen one, you aren’t a demi-god imbued with supreme power over all.
You’re the son of a woodcutter, trying to survive forces beyond your control. There is no beam in the sky, no world-ending plot. This is a medieval story, filled with medieval problems. World Journey through rugged landscapes of snow, desert, mountains, forests and plains to find resources that will aid your quest. Combat With a deep combat system that rewards skill and strategy, you’ll need to master the art of combat in order to emerge victorious. Combine slashes, parries and kicks to defeat your opponents. With over one hundred pieces of weapons and armour, you will have an abundance of choice.
Ringborn Pre-Installed:
You get to see a lot of the world through the storyline, but stepping away from that and doing side quests & contracts is where you can find yourself in extraordinary circumstances. I can’t honestly tell you another game that’s genuinely made me want to do everything. Each side quest feels like a mini-storyline, you don’t seem to get any that follow a tedious or repetitive nature. On one side of the spectrum you could be fighting the biggest and deadliest creatures that Velen and Skellige have to offer, then on the other side you’ll be hunting treasure and solving riddles, balls deep in Nekker swamps.
Features and System Requirements:
New story
Beautiful game
Full of choice
1 :: Operating System :: Windows XP/7/8/8./10. 2 :: Processor: Dual Core 2.4 GHz 3 :: Ram :: 4 GB RAM 4 :: DirectX: Version 9.0 5 :: Graphics:: 1GB VRAM / DirectX 10+ support 6 :: Space Storage:: 15 GB space
Turn Off Your Antivirus Before Installing Any Game
1 :: Download Game 2 :: Extract Game 3 :: Launch The Game 4 :: Have Fun 🙂
Now that its exclusivity period with the Epic and the Ubisoft stores has ended, The Division 2 is now available on Steam.
If that wasn’t enough, the standard edition is also on sale for $9/£7.80, and the Warlords of New York Editions are also on sale.
The Division 2: Warlords of New York Overview Trailer
The only things regarding The Division 2’s release on the service that may keep you from purchasing it are that it doesn’t feature Steam achievements, and the game requires the Ubisoft Connect launcher. If those sorts of things are a dealbreaker for you.
Some Steam users also report issues with the game crashing to the desktop randomly, which Ubisoft says is currently under investigation.
Ubisoft announced last year its PC games would return to Steam, starting with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla followed by Anno 1800, Roller Champions, and Immortals Fenyx Rising, respectively.
A new Bloomberg (opens in new tab) report says Microsoft is facing yet more opposition to its proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, as Nvidia and Google have expressed their own concerns about the deal to the FTC.
Sources told the site that both companies said in comments to the FTC that the deal could give Microsoft an unfair advantage in cloud gaming, subscription-based gaming services, and mobile gaming. That supports the position taken by the FTC in its lawsuit to stop the deal (opens in new tab), filed in December 2022 over concerns that Microsoft will use ownership of Activision Blizzard “to harm competition in multiple dynamic and fast-growing gaming markets.”
Sony has been the most vocal opponent of Microsoft’s proposed buyout of Activision Blizzard for obvious reasons, but Nvidia and Google have dogs in the fight too. Nvidia operates the GeForce Now (opens in new tab) cloud gaming service and could be worried by the potential for Activision Blizzard’s games to become exclusive to Microsoft’s competing Xbox Cloud Gaming (opens in new tab) service. The report says Nvidia did not directly oppose the deal, but “stressed the need for equal and open access to game titles.”
Google recently pulled the plug on its own cloud gaming service, Stadia, but could see similar trouble on the mobile front. An often overlooked component of Activision Blizzard (at least from the PC gaming perspective) is mobile game developer King. (That’s why the company is sometimes referred to as ABK (opens in new tab).) King is a major money-maker for Activision Blizzard, but more importantly it’s the developer of some hugely popular mobile games like Candy Crush. Microsoft has recently expressed interest in launching its own mobile gaming store (opens in new tab), and it’s not unreasonable to think that it might make King games a storefront exclusive—not the end of the world for Google, but not great, either. Xbox boss Phil Spencer has also previously stated that Microsoft really wants Activision for its mobile games capabilities (opens in new tab).
A Microsoft rep told Bloomberg that the company is “prepared to address and have been proactively addressing issues raised by regulators or competitors to ensure that the deal closes with confidence,” adding, “We want people to have more access to games, not less.”
The initial expectation was that Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard would ultimately pass muster (opens in new tab), and I think that’s still the smart bet. But resistance to the buyout seems to be strengthening rather than waning: The FTC is the only regulatory body to take action against the deal, but both the UK (opens in new tab) and the EU (opens in new tab) have also declined to simply hand-wave their approval.
At the very least, the gathering opposition could force Microsoft to make more concessions regarding access to Activision Blizzard games, similar to the 10-year agreements it struck with Nintendo and Steam in December 2022. And as Nvidia well knows, it isn’t beyond belief that the FTC could kill the deal outright: Nvidia scuttled (opens in new tab) its bid to acquire UK-based chip maker Arm in 2022, not long after the FTC sued to halt that deal (opens in new tab).
Pokemon Go is bidding farewell to the Year of the Tiger next week by welcoming the Year of the Rabbit with the annual Lunar New Year Festival.
Because it’s the Year of the Rabbit, Bunnelby and Buneary will appear more frequently in the wild, and you can look forward to other event-themed Pokemon in the wild, in raids, and hatching from Eggs.
Pokemon Go Season 9: Mythical Wishes is here!
During the event, you’ll have an increased chance of encountering Shiny Darumaka, an opportunity to receive Lucky Pokemon in trades, and a high chance to become Lucky Friends.
The in-game event will run January 19-23 from 10am to 8pm local time, and the following Pokemon will appear more frequently in the wild: Ponyta, Magmar, Magikarp, Slugma, Numel, Combee, Buneary, Fennekin, and Bunnelby. All can be shiny except for Fennekin.
You may even encounter Flareon and Darumaka.
Event Bonuses consist of 2× Stardust from opening Gifts, one additional Special Trade will b available for a maximum of two per day, and you can choose from several bonuses as a reward for Timed Research, Lucky Wishes.
Lucky Wishes features branching Timed Research that grants your wish for bonuses that revolve around hatching Eggs, the duration of Daily Adventure Incense, or collecting Stardust. The path you choose will determine which bonuses and tasks you have for the event.
No matter which path you pick, completing the research will award you with a Lucky Egg and other items. You will also have the opportunity to encounter the following Pokemon: Magikarp, Azumarill, Combusken, Darumaka, Galarian Darumaka, and Bunnelby.
During the event, the following Pokemon will hatch from 7 km Eggs: Chingling, Riolu, Darumaka, Galarian Darumaka, and Scraggy. Riolu, Darumaka, and Galarian Darumaka can also be shiny.
If you like to raid, one-star Raids during this time will feature Hisuian Voltorb, Shinx, Darumaka, and Galarian Darumaka. Three-star Raids will see you battling Flareon, Shuckle, Blaziken, Druddigon, and Diggersby.
The five-star Raid boss will be Regice (again? Where’s Rayquaza?), and Lopunny will be the Mega Raid boss – both can also be shiny.
Field Research task completion will see the following Pokemon appear: Charmander, Paras, Cyndaquil, Torchic, Chimchar, Combee, Buneary, Tepig, Darumaka, Galarian Darumaka, Fennekin, Bunnelby, and Litten.
As usual, you can also expect new stickers to attach to postcards, and the new purchasable avatar item will be a Red Lantern Backpack.
Last week, we asked you to find moments where characters ran out of luck in the game of your choice, and share using #PSBlog #PSshare. Here are this week’s unlucky highlights:
ForgottenJasmin shares Aloy falling from a snapped rope in Horizon Forbidden West.
OuterRimsPhoto shares a troll about to be whipped by Kratos’ Blades of Chaos in God of War Ragnarök
masaoandm shares an unsuspecting cat lover about to be ambushed by a headless yokai in Ghostwire: Tokyo.
GameTogg shares Sam tumbling down a cliffside in Death Stranding.
MilanesfanTJG shares Nathan Drake caught in a rainstorm in Uncharted 4.
elicitus__ shares Amicia caught up in a fire in A Plague Tale: Requiem
Search #PSshare #PSBlog on Twitter or Instagram to see more entries to this week’s theme. Want to be featured in the next Share of the Week?
THEME: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on January 18, 2023
Share of the Week grabs a lightsaber and hops in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, available as a PlayStation Plus Monthly Game for January. Share daring moments with Cal using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured.
Writing up our big guide on all the upcoming PC games of 2023, I was introduced to a number of smaller games in development I hadn’t heard about before. One of them was Broken Roads, an isometric RPG set in a post-apocalypse Australia. The gorgeous artwork was enough for me to click on the Steam page and read more, and while scrolling through the screenshots something strange caught my eye.
It was a screenshot of a fairly traditional RPG dialogue scene, with a panel at the bottom displaying all the possible dialogue options for the player. But what caught my eye was an unusual radial graphic on the right-hand side of the options. Reading on, I discovered that Broken Roads uses a rather unique Moral Compass, one which plots your overall moral stance towards the world and its people with a golden arc. Different decisions may rotate the arc, expand it, contract it, lengthen it, or shorten it. And in so doing, you’ll unlock various traits dotted about the Compass, which only remain in effect for as long as that golden arc covers those traits within the wheel.
I can see a dozen different ways in which this Moral Compass may end up being a bad idea in practice. But I don’t care. I adore it. And I’m going to play Broken Roads solely so I can see the consequences of my actions in satisfying radial form.
Welcome to Next Week on Xbox! In this weekly feature we cover all the games coming soon to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows, and Game Pass! Get more details on these upcoming games below and click their profiles for further info (release dates subject to change). Let’s jump in!
As mankind faces the remnants of a mysterious artificial intelligence, it’s up to trainee pilot Aya and veteran ace Zarak to investigate the resurgent threat against free space. Along the way, these defenders of peace will need to confront their past and learn more about themselves before they can uncover the truth of their enemies.
A refreshing and highly re-playable bullet hell style shooter that pushes you to play dangerously. “Graze” past enemy bullets to charge your Graze Counter, then unleash it upon your enemies as a highly deadly attack! Ride the razor’s edge of life and death in this high-risk high-reward danger-oriented arcade style shooting game.
If I say, there’s an hour “hidden” between one day and the next… would you believe me? Master the power of the heart, Persona, and uncover the tragic truth of the Dark Hour. Experience the iconic, critically acclaimed RPG that reinvented the Persona series! Playable on Cloud, Console, and PC.
Experience a coming-of-age story that sets the protagonist and his friends on a journey kickstarted by a chain of serial murders. The world-renowned Persona 4 Golden promises unforgettable adventures, meaningful bonds, and heartwarming experiences shared together with friends. Playable on Cloud, Console, and PC.
A slice-of-life adventure game with beautiful pixel art set in the late ‘90s rural Indonesia that tells a story about overcoming anxiety, depression, and the relationship between a boy and a girl with supernatural powers. When a mysterious supernatural power is suddenly unleashed threatening their existence, they must explore and investigate their town to uncover hidden secrets, face the end of the world, and perhaps learn more about each other.
Raid and voyage in the Caribbean; engage in tactical naval battles; parley with pirate legends, and more in Tortuga – A Pirate’s Tale. Being a pirate is not your fault, but it is your responsibility! Take action to relieve the Spanish, Dutch, French, and English colonies from their burden of drowning in riches. But be wary! Unless you are sure you are the biggest fish in the sea, don’t venture out too early or too far from your trusted hometown port.
The critically acclaimed action-RPG series returns! Set in the Japanese folklore inspired land of Kamura, players will team up to battle fearsome monsters, craft a wide variety of gear and prevent the world from falling into calamity. Rise to the challenge and join the hunt! Playable on Cloud, Console, and PC.
As the OmegaBot, dodge metallic dangers, acquire powerful weapons, and blast your way through a ravaged world full of deadly machines. Avoid various traps and deadly obstacles by using your weapons and abilities. Make your way through metallic forests, ruins of futuristic cities, and other environments. Step away from the beaten path to find hidden secrets and maybe even new friends who will help you vanquish the curse that has stricken the land.
Lone Ruin is a spell-based roguelike twin-stick shooter with a focus on replayability. Play as an explorer who seeks a mysterious ancient power and venture in a ruined magical city, built atop a source of magic used by olden mages to power and transform themselves. Dive deeper and deeper, battling your way through twisted creatures, utilising your very own magic abilities to ultimately reach the center of the Lone Ruin. An ancient city enveloped by magic.
What once was a buzzy civilisation and people living in harmony with the magic surrounding them has long since been driven mad and twisted beyond recognition by the very magic that used to help sustain them. What could have corrupted this city? Having heard the legends, you, a gifted spellcasting explorer, arrive at these hostile ruins a millenia later with the goal of seeking this ancient power and finally cleansing the city of the corruption it was consumed by all those years ago. The answer probably lies in the center of Lone Ruin… if you can make it there.
Fight your way through blood-pumping battles and more than a whole host of enemies and multiple bosses in several distinct, hellishly vibrant areas. Don’t let the horrifying creatures get the best of you! It’s dangerous to go ‘lone, so pick the spell that best fits your play style to survive the hazards of the Lone Ruin. Maximise your destructive magical setup combo through the many upgrades and customisation options available as you venture deeper into the ruins via your chosen path. Looking for a different challenge? Take on the Survival mode for a timed, wave-based game mode. How long can you survive against the rising difficulty and increasingly tougher foes?
Features and System Requirements:
Different challenge
Survival mode
Your play style
1 :: Operating System :: Windows XP/7/8/8./10. 2 :: Processor: 2.0 ghz 3 :: Ram :: 2 GB RAM 4 :: DirectX: Version 9.0 5 :: Graphics:: 128MB 6 :: Space Storage:: 44 MB space
Turn Off Your Antivirus Before Installing Any Game
1 :: Download Game 2 :: Extract Game 3 :: Launch The Game 4 :: Have Fun 🙂
Paizo, creators of the Pathfinder and Starfinder role-playing games, has committed itself to a legal battle against Wizards of the Coast, the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons. In a statement issued late Thursday, the Redmond, Washington-based company announced that it would move its products off the Open Gaming License (OGL), which is expected to be either altered or withdrawn by Wizards in the near future.
The OGL was developed and refined in the leadup to D&D’s 3rd edition, and has been in place for some 20 years. It is part of the legal framework by which creators like Paizo have been able to build their own tabletop RPG companies alongside Wizards’ own brand. In December, Wizards said it would be updating the OGL with increased specificity — that it would only apply to written content and static digital files (like PDFs), and that creators would be required to report related earnings back to Wizards on an annual basis. But many have interpreted the repeal of the OGL as an existential threat to non-D&D games like Pathfinder.
“Paizo does not believe that the OGL 1.0a can be ‘deauthorized,’ ever,” Paizo said in its statement. “While we are prepared to argue that point in a court of law if need be, we don’t want to have to do that, and we know that many of our fellow publishers are not in a position to do so.
“We have no interest whatsoever in Wizards’ new OGL,” it continued. “Instead, we have a plan that we believe will irrevocably and unquestionably keep alive the spirit of the Open Game License.”
The Open RPG Creative License, also known by the acronym ORC, is currently in development by Seattle-based Azora Law, a firm which represents Paizo and other allied game publishers. According to Paizo, Azora co-founder attorney Brian Lewis “was the attorney at Wizards who came up with the legal framework for the OGL itself.”
“Paizo will pay for this legal work,” the company said. “We invite game publishers worldwide to join us in support of this system-agnostic license that allows all games to provide their own unique open rules reference documents that open up their individual game systems to the world.”
The statement goes on to say that no one gaming company will own the ORC, but that it will be up to Azora Law to take “ownership of the process” and provide “stewardship” in order to create “safe harbor against any company being bought, sold or changing management in the future and attempting to rescind rights or nullify sections of the license.
“Ultimately,” Paizo concludes, “we plan to find a nonprofit with a history of open source values to own this license (such as the Linux Foundation).”
While Paizo will be footing the bill, other, smaller publishers have also lined up behind the ORC. Reached for comment, Paizo confirmed to Polygon that Kobold Press, Green Ronin, Legendary Games, Roll for Combat, Rogue Genius Games, and Chaosium have already thrown their support behind the initiative. Additional publishers, Paizo said, are already beginning to reach out.
As of Friday morning, more than a week since a draft of the OGL was leaked to the press, Wizards continues to remain silent.
The return of Iron Banner in Destiny 2 earlier this month was a fresh chance to earn legacy armor, try out a new mode, and acquire a shader that could give your gear a chainmail design, but the event wasn’t without controversy. With fans criticizing the PvP mode for being too much of a grind, Bungie has made a few updates to the next Iron Banner that’ll be coming sooner than expected.
Addressing the fan feedback about the tiresome grind for Iron Banner armor and cosmetics, Bungie says that it plans to increase the amount of Iron Banner Rank you earn at the end of matches, double up on the reputation multipliers that you’ll get from wearing Iron Banner gear, and “significantly increase” the multiplier you get for wearing an Iron Banner emblem. The only part of this reputation grind that will get nerfed is the multiplier for completing challenges, as that will be halved when Iron Banner returns on January 31.
“We expect this to decrease the number of games needed to earn a Rank reset by around 40% and make it more worthwhile to play earlier in the week,” Bungie said in its weekly blog post.
The other big change on the horizon is a slight increase in the number of Iron Banner tournaments held per season, as Bungie confirmed that Lord Saladin’s event will be available three times per season. This will give players more time to earn their Iron Lord title, and Bungie says that an Iron Banner emblem will be available on the Rewards track during the first reset for those who don’t already have one.
In other Destiny 2 news, dataminers recently admitted that Bungie isn’t planning a premium subscription service for the game once the Lightfall expansion is released, as they admitted to trolling players with fabricated evidence.
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