A recently uncovered Rockstar Games patent suggests the developer could be using new technology to make NPCs in its games more immersive, particularly when it comes to the highly anticipated action-adventure crime sim GTA VI.
Grand Theft Auto 6 Comments: A Dramatic Reading
As spotted by Reddit user Tobbelobben30 (via Eurogamer), former Rockstar Games lead AI and gameplay programmer Tobias Kleanthous issued a patent in April called “System And Method For Virtual Character Locomotion.” The 11-page document, as Kleanthous described on LinkedIn, was “architected and implemented for games” at the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption studio. According to the paper’s abstract, the patent houses “a system and method for controlling the animation and movement of in-game objects.” In layperson’s terms, Kleanthous’ tech should make characters way more life-like. Tobbelobben30 detailed the patent’s contents in their Reddit post:
“Based on this patent, it seems like they’re using a clever system. They’ve built a library of small building blocks for character movements. These blocks can be combined in various ways to create a wide range of animations. For instance, think about a character in the game walking in the rain, feeling tired, or getting injured. Instead of designing separate animations for each of these situations, they use these building blocks to put together the character’s movements naturally. This means GTA 6 can have more diverse and lifelike animations. So, when you play GTA 6, you’ll see characters moving in ways that match the weather, their energy level, and their injuries. This makes the game feel more immersive. It’s like having characters that can adapt to different situations, making the game world feel more real and thrilling.”
“Immersive” can so often be an empty marketing buzzword thrown around ahead of game releases, but when it comes to this patent, the adjective couldn’t be more apt. Based on the tech described, Rockstar Games’ games—particularly GTA IV—should have characters with more dynamic animations, giving their worlds unparalleled realism. While Tobbelobben30 couldn’t verify if the system was used in Red Dead Redemption 2, they did say that the animations in Rockstar’s upcoming game will be “incredible.” (Kleanthous gave a talk during GDC 2021 about some similar tech used in the cowboy RPG.)
Various Reddit users have shared their reactions to this new locomotion patent. “Yeah it’s gonna be mind-blowing, even in the leaks the animations and physics looked insane,” ArkhamIsComing2020 said, referring to leaked development footage from September 2022. “Soo procedural animation? Niceeeee,” quipped ProceduralFish. “So basically if my arm gets hit with a bat I won’t be able to shoot as well? That’s kinda cool,” noted rustynutsbruh.
Kotaku reached out to Rockstar Games and Tobbelobben30 for comment.
Mortal Kombat 1, NetherRealm’s newest entry in its three-decades-old fighting game series, continues its predecessors’ tradition of pulling gut-yanking, brain-pounding final moves, or Fatalities, to the delight of its gore connoisseur fans. But some of those fans are frustrated. MK1’s recent patch introduces seasonal Fatalities—cool, but you have to pay for them.
The Week In Games: What’s Coming Out Beyond Mortal Kombat 1
Is no body horror sacred? October 23 patch notes indicate NetherRealm issued a ton of gameplay and performance changes to its $70 game, like improved AI and more balanced combat, but it hid the less desirable details about the premium Halloween Finisher among them. It won’t actually make it to the game’s Premium Store until later this week, publisher Warner Bros. Games said on Twitter, but it seems likely that it’s the same themed Fatality Mortal Kombat leakers revealed in September.
Leaked footage shows that, during the Fatality move, you slam a grimacing jack-o’-lantern over your opponent’s face and wait for bugs to slink out. Your enemy then doubles over and you pop their head off with a powerful kick, observing as it flies through space and slams into a front porch decorated for Halloween. The doorbell rings like you’re trick-or-treating, and blood waterfalls around the cracked pumpkin skull. “FATALITY,” the screen announces in vampire red.
Update 10/27/2023 8:24 p.m. ET: The “Happy Halloween” fatality is now up for sale in Mortal Kombat 1‘s Premium Store. It’s price? A whopping $12 USD. Original story continues after the tweet.
It looks like a fun move, and it’s October-ready, but fans stopped feeling as excited about it when they realized they’d have to pay extra for it.
“Pretty bad new precedent set by the devs charging for Fatalities now, and if people pay for it then it will only get worse,” one Reddit user said. “Next they might start charging $0.10 every time we call out our [support fighter] Kameo.”
“Why the hell did I pay for a [$110] Premium Edition […] yet NR has the cheek to try to force more paid content already?” a Twitter user responded to WB Games. “Greedy business practices before quality.”
NetherRealm apparently hasn’t learned from its 2019 game MK11, which gained notoriety among fans for what Kotaku writer Mike Fahey called its “oppressive” grind, which encouraged players to spend thousands of dollars on in-game currency to avoid suffering through tedious amounts of gameplay to unlock rewards. MK1 is also offering a free Halloween Variant, a purplish, cobwebbed middle school dance, to the Cage Mansion Arena, but it doesn’t take the sting out of giving more money to a game you thought you already paid for.
Image: Capcom / Remedy / Devolver Digital / Kotaku
It’s nearly Halloween, so it’s once again time for Valve to throw a big ol’ spooky-themed Steam sale. And this year there are plenty of great deals on new and old games, most of which are scary and perfect to play on Halloween night. Also…
Horror Game You’ve Never Heard Of Is Scientifically The Scariest Ever
BOO! Did I scare you? Probably not. Let me try again. *Clears throat* We live in a rapidly declining civilization that is being destroyed by powerful corporations and dangerously disruptive technology that will, quicker than most people realize, make it nearly impossible for folks to earn a living and live a comfortable life. Scared? Well, I can’t stop all of that but I can help you save a few bucks for the future with some of the best deals currently available via Steam’s “Scream: The Revenge” Sale.
Check out our list below for some highlights, and don’t wait too long to grab some of these creepy classics, as the Halloween sale ends November 2.
7 Days To Die $6 – ($25)
Alan Wake – $3.75 ($15)
Batman Arkham Knight – $4 ($20)
The Callisto Protocol – $24 ($60)
Cult of the Lamb – $15 ($25)
Darkest Dungeon – $5 ($25)
Days Gone – $17 ($50)
Dead By Daylight – $8 ($20)
Dead Space remake – $36 ($60)
Dredge – $19 ($25)
Project Zomboid – $14 ($20)
Resident Evil 2 – $10 ($40)
Resident Evil 3 – $10 ($40)
Resident Evil 7 $8 ($20)
Resident Evil 4 & Separate Ways DLC – $40 ($60)
Resident Evil Village – $16 ($40)
Strange Brigade – $2.50 ($50)
The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series $12.50 ($50)
Weird West – $10 ($40)
The Quarry – $15 ($60)
And good luck to everybody with the robot AI overlords and the fall of humanity and all that. Perhaps share in the comments below any good deals you find on Steam during this Halloween sale to help distract us from the doom and gloom of the future.
If, while exploring Starfield’s vast, planet-filled galaxy, you’ve felt at times that its size and sheer number of possible destinations may actually be too much for the game’s own good, well, it sounds like some folks who were part of the development team may agree with you. Hindsight is 20/20, after all.
Diablo IV – Bear Bender Build
Starfield has around 1,000 procedurally generated planets to explore. There are definitely some interesting areas to find, but much of that terrain feels largely empty. In an interview with MinnMax (thanks GamesRadar), former Bethesda employee Bruce Nesmith, who worked on Starfield as senior systems designer, talked about the decision to make Starfield’s galaxy so massive, as opposed to smaller and more focused in scope.
In the interview, Nesmith said that player expectations around the size of Bethesda’s open-world games influenced the team to opt for this approach. The argument was made that once the team had successfully established the foundation for the game’s design philosophy in one solar system, replicating those ideas across dozens more wouldn’t add that much to the workload.
“[Game director Todd Howard] pretty much pulled the number 100 for the number of solar systems out of thin air,” Nesmith said, “but the more we went on, the more it was like, ‘OK, so all core activity takes place in these two dozen in the settled systems and the rest of it is open space, but people love our big games. They love that open area to explore, so let’s go ahead and let ‘em have it’.”
Minnmax
Nesmith went on to describe how developing Starfield, like any other game, was about making compromises to the original vision, and that meant more crafted areas came at the expense of player freedom and exploration, such as allowing you to build your own spacecraft and traverse a huge, expansive galaxy. While the space is bigger, Nesmith says this may have come at the expense of more meaningful things to find within it.
“I think some of the exploration stuff didn’t come through as well as it could’ve because they decided to make other choices,” he says. “And never misunderstand this. In every game studio on the face of this planet, they know the choices they’re making. They know the things that are not going to be in there. They know what the players are going to moan about. But you got to make the hard choice.”
Hopefully whatever lessons Bethesda has learned in making Starfield will be implemented in the upcoming Elder Scrolls VI. Given that the series is in a fantasy setting, it’s likely to be somewhat less vast than Starfield, so maybe it can better capture that sense of exploration without it being so full of empty, inconsequential dead space in between all the good stuff.
Disney Dreamlight Valley, the cozy life sim set in a magical world filled with iconic Disney characters, has been in Early Access since August 2022. It’s set to finally leave Early Access this December, but a recent blog post has divided fans: Disney Dreamlight Valley will not be free-to-play upon launch, despite developer Gameloft promising just that for more than a year.
The Top 10 Most-Played Games On Steam Deck: August 2023 Edition
During the Early Access period, those who wanted to immerse themselves in one of Dreamlight Valley’s six Realms had to purchase one of three Founder’s packs, which gave them access to the game along with a collection of Moonstones (in-game currency) and in-game cosmetics. The Founder’s pack tiers were Standard ($30), Deluxe ($50), and Ultimate ($70), with the more expensive tiers offering more Moonstones and more cosmetics. Xbox Game Pass subscribers could enjoy Disney Dreamlight Valley for free, however.
Check Out Disney Dreamlight Valley (Standard) GameStop Check Out Disney Dreamlight Valley (Deluxe) Amazon Check Out Disney Dreamlight Valley (Deluxe / Ultimate): Xbox
Throughout the entirety of the Early Access period, Gameloft promised that, upon the December 5 launch, Disney Dreamlight Valley would shift to a free-to-play model with purchasable expansion options. An FAQ response that is still on the Gameloft site reads: “After Early Access, we have plans to add paid expansions that will add significant content to the game. These optional expansions will add new content (including characters) to the base game. However, we are currently focusing on delivering a great, complete experience first.”
But now, Gameloft says that won’t be the case. Instead, there are three launch editions: the $40 base game, a $50 physical Cozy Edition, and a $70 Gold Edition that includes the upcoming A Rift in Time expansion.
Disney Dreamlight Valley launch editions
Image: Disney / Gameloft
“As we look ahead to the official launch, with the learnings we’ve gained from Early Access, we’ve made the decision to remain a paid game for the foreseeable future. This means we will not make the transition to be a free-to-play game when we leave Early Access on December 5,” the Early Access update on the official Disney Dreamlight Valley site reads. “This choice ensures that Disney Dreamlight Valley will be able to continue delivering on a premium game experience for all players. It’s important to us that we maintain our promise to keep delivering free content updates that add new characters, realms, clothing, furniture, and more surprises to your Valley. Purchases requiring moonstones will remain optional, fair, and match the level of quality players have come to expect. Players will still be able to collect free Moonstones via Dream Snaps and Chests, or optionally choose to purchase them.”
Reactions from players have been mixed, with some praising the decision to avoid the messiness that is often standard with F2P microtransactions, and others lambasting the decision to renege on a year-long promise. “I didn’t buy it since I was waiting for free to play, guess I’m not buying it ever,” one X user wrote in a reply to my post asking for responses. Others, replying to the official post announcing the update, were confused as to how their Founder’s Edition purchases would carry over to the official game launch.
Though the update makes clear that Founder’s Edition owners will retain access to the game, get all unique cosmetic items from the Gold Edition free of charge, and receive 2,500 Moonstones, it seems that they will have to shell out the $30 for the expansion pack, even if they spent $70 on the Ultimate Edition Founder’s option. “Seems super scummy that founders/legacy players will have had to pay more, overall,” wrote a commenter on X.
Kotaku reached out to Gameloft for clarification and was directed back to the aforementioned blog post, which also stated that a November 1 live stream will provide more details on the expansion pass and future updates. Disney DreamlightValley launches on December 5 for PlayStation, Xbox, PC, and Nintendo Switch. You can buy Founder’s Editions up through December 4.
Games routinely cycle in and out of Game Pass every month, but the Xbox subscription service is about to lose some really good ones. You have less than a week left to try Persona 5 Royal, Signalis, and Gunfire Reborn. Here’s why you should give them a try before they’re gone.
I Didn’t Play Final Fantasy XVI ‘Right,’ And That’s OK
Leaving Game Pass on October 31, you have approximately zero chance of actually completing Persona 5 Royal by then if you haven’t already started it. But there’s still plenty of time to discover why so many other players have fallen in love with the demonic high school RPG sim. Signalis is much shorter and the perfect spooky Resident Evil-like puzzle adventure to play in the leadup to Halloween. Gunfire Reborn is sort of the opposite: a furry roguelike loot shooter about meditating to the flow of arena combat. Taken together, they serve up the perfect little weekend gaming buffet (and each one is available on console, PC, and over the cloud).
Persona 5 Royal
Screenshot: Atlus
The Persona series has always been great, but Persona 5 takes the turn-based RPG to a whole other level. A hyper-stylish presentation and jazz-infused playfulness makes it easier than ever to get through some of its more grueling and grindy parts. One moment you’re taking pop quizzes in class or helping friends after class, the next you’re chaining together demon-fueled combos against evil adults in surreal dungeons. Imagine being a kid all over again but with demons and the freedom to min-max your relationships and personal growth.
“Persona 5 offers the fantasy of a perfect teenage life,” Kirk Hamilton wrote in Kotaku’s original review. “With a little help from the Internet and a willingness to reload your saves, you could live this year in the ‘best’ possible way.” The Royal edition takes that same fantasy and ratchets it up even more with additional confidants, a longer school year, and tons of other tweaks like a grappling hook for dungeons. Famously, Persona 5 takes about 100 hours to beat. Consider its last few days on Game Pass as an expanded demo to decide whether you’re ready to take the full plunge.
Signalis
Screenshot: rose-engine
One of my personal top ten games of 2022, Signalis sort of came out of nowhere. Made by developer rose-engine, it’s eerie, haunting, and beautiful. You play as a mysterious person uncovering what happened in a weird facility full of little puzzles blocking your path and disturbing revelations lurking around every corner. If you’ve played the original Resident Evil games, its top-down view and low-poly horror atmosphere will feel instantly familiar and unsettling.
But punctuating the exploration and gameplay are anime cutscenes that hint at the larger story without ever letting you feel completely certain of what’s going on. There’s also gun combat that is surprisingly crunchy and requires you to be extremely mindful of not wasting ammunition. The music is incredible, too. As one Steam user wrote, “This game has done irreversible damage to my soul (it’s a masterpiece).” You can also finish it in under 10 hours.
Gunfire Reborn
Screenshot: Duoyi Games
Imagine if Borderlands and Enter the Gungeon had a baby and you get pretty close to Gunfire Reborn. The roguelike shooter is simple enough: run through dungeons, kill lots of stuff, unlock new characters and upgrades for future playthroughs. The key to Gunfire Reborn is that everything from the guns to simply throwing a grenade and watching it blow stuff up looks pretty and feels incredibly satisfying. Don’t let the fact that you’re playing as cute little colorful animals fool you: this is a first-person shooter fan’s shooter.
Every time you kill enemies you get coins you can use to purchase new weapons for your loadout. Your evolving arsenal changes how you approach each new encounter and the calculus everytime you can swap out a new ability or upgrade. Even when you’re feeling at the top of your game, Gunfire Reborn has a way of throwing something at you to knock you back down again. Thankfully, starting over again is half the fun.
Even once these three games are gone from Game Pass, you can still buy them outright for 20 percent off if you’re a current subscriber. But there will always be new stuff to play as well. Dead Space was just added today and Personal 5 Tactica, the strategy spin-off, arrives on November 17. You probably won’t beat Persona 5 by then either, but it’s plenty of time to figure out why all of the game’s characters are wearing Eyes Wide Shut masks.
Pay no mind to the horrifying mascots in the background. Screenshot: Sega / Kotaku
During today’s Xbox Partner Preview, a showcase for Microsoft’s upcoming third-party games, we got a new look at Sega’s next Yakuza adventure. No, not Gaiden, the other one: Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. Instead of showing off dual protagonists Ichiban Kasuga and Kiryu Kazuma kicking all kinds of street punk ass across Hawaii, today’s trailer pumped the brakes and gave us a peek at its madcap new Animal Crossing-inspired game mode.
The Yakuza Devs Should Cast These Celebs In Their Next Hostess Club Minigame
Infinite Wealth’s new Happy Resort Dondoko Island mode will have you managing your own island resort. Like Nintendo’s cozy 2020 life simulator Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you can go fishing on the beach, customize the island’s buildings and furniture, and have Ichiban craft special DIY projects. The similarities between Dondoko Island and AC:NH don’t end there. DonDonki Island will also let you forge friendships with the island getaway’s many outlandishly dressed tourists while you manage the island’s influx of funds and infrastructure just like Animal Crossing’s Tom Nook.
Dondoko Island may provide Ichiban and company some much-needed reprieve from the melodrama of his crime-riddled life, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have to sock a couple of uninvited guests along the way—this is a Yakuza game after all. Along with making sure everyone is having a good time on the island, you’ll also have to defend it from intruders.
This isn’t the first time the Yakuza series has turned a Nintendo game like AC:NH into its own game mode. In fact, Yakuza: Like a Dragon had Mario Kart-esque and Pokémon-inspired stints in the form of Dragon Kart Racing and Sujimon, respectively. Aside from providing players with a fun alternative to punching fools, these minigames were also a great way to earn a bunch of cash to purchase health items and upgrades for the main campaign’s challenging boss fights.
Screenshot: Sega / Kotaku
But not everything is about the money. Sometimes you just need to sit back, grab a guitar, and sing karaoke in front of a roaring bonfire. Catch a vibe, if you will. I can already see myself ignoring Infinite Wealth’s main quest to sink countless hours into perfecting my island fortress. Speaking as a longtime Yakuza enjoyer, January can’t come soon enough.
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth launches on January 26 for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and Windows.
Payday 3 devs have extended their apology tour that began back in September, when Starbreeze Studios CEO had to apologize for the state in which the co-op heist game launched. The always-online bank robbery simulator suffered from major server and matchmaking issues that were fixed a little over a week after launch, but the game still needed another major patch to fix some of its remaining major issues (particularly quality-of-life stuff). The team is now apologizing for going radio silent in the absence of said update.
Why The Hot New Redfall Gameplay Trailer Left Us Feeling Cold
An October 25 post on the official Payday website attempts to “lift the curtains a little” and let players know why the major patch, which was initially promised to arrive in early October and bring with it over 200 improvements, isn’t yet here. “We’ve been quiet over the last few days, and for that we apologize,” it reads. “It’s not easy to communicate when we have not been able to offer any updates on the one big topic that’s on everyone’s mind right now: When are the patches coming to Payday 3?”
The post promises that the team is still working on the upcoming patch, before getting into the true cause of the delay: Starbreeze Studios’ update pipeline.
The reason it has taken so long to get this first patch is very long and complicated, but the short version is that we discovered critical errors with our update pipeline shortly after the game releases. There was a significant risk to player progression being wiped if we didn’t address this and ensure a solid test environment.
The issue is so prominent that the team can’t “consistently deliver patches” in the game’s current state, which means new content has to wait, as well—though the blog does promise that there will be “free content updates for the game before the end of the year.”
Though Payday 3 boasted an impressive 90,000 concurrent players on Steam shortly after its September 18 launch, those players were quickly inundated with the now-infamous double “matchmaking error” screen. Since the game requires players to have an internet connection even if they’re playing solo, the server issues rendered it unplayable for many.
As Kotaku reported on September 25, the cause of the matchmaking issues were twofold: “a technical issue made things bad right out of the gate” but “a faulty update on September 24 by a third-party online services partner broke things all over again.” It’s unclear what is the cause of the current flaw in Payday 3’s update pipeline.
Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 gathers some of the best games ever made and puts them all on modern platforms in one convenient package. Unfortunately, a laundry list of weird caveats and shortcomings at launch make the new anthology hard to celebrate. Why is one of the best franchises in gaming history not pulling out all the stops?
Tears Of The Kingdom’s Newspaper Questline And The State Of Hyrulean Journalism
Out October 24 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, and Windows PC, Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 has been stalked by controversy for months now, with questions about subpar performance on Nintendo Switch and a lack of bells and whistles on “next-gen” platforms like PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. The anthology features five main games—Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater—and includes the oddball Snake’s Revenge and the NES and Famicom ports of Metal Gear as bonuses.But now that it’s finally here, it’s hard not to be disappointed by how publisher Konami has gone about assembling it.
First up is the lack of a visual upgrade on new platforms, or parity with the original versions on Switch. As shared prior to release, Metal Gear Solid still only plays at 30fps across all versions (it was never remastered for 2011’s Metal Gear Solid HD Collection by Bluepoint Games). The Switch version of Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 are also locked at 30fps (MGS2 originally ran at 60fps on PlayStation 2). All three games max out at 1080p as well, with no 4K resolution options for the stronger hardware versions.
Even without any big improvements, Konami notes that the launch versions still suffer from various bugs and performance issues it plans to patch sometime in the future. A full list of the shortcomings was provided to IGN. “Across Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, and 3, bug fixes are also planned, specifically on MGS2,” the site noted. “Konami warned the game may significantly slow down in certain cutscenes, which sounds worrying. A patch to reduce processing load is planned.” Visual options like CRT scanlines and the ability to switch between windowed and full-screen mode in the options menu in the two MSX games are also MIA at the moment.
There’s also the laggy pause button. Konami added the option to pause during cutscenes, a long-requested feature for the story-heavy stealth series. Footage from copies of the game that leaked early, however, showed that it can take up to 10 seconds for the game to register the pause after the button’s pressed, taking some of the shine off the new option. It’s still unclear if that’s intentional or will be patched down the road.
The Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 is, perhaps less surprisingly, encountering issues on PC as well. Initial Steam reviews are very mixed, with players complaining about unintuitive keybindings, poor UI, and a lack of aspect ratio options. “Take this with a grain of salt, the game literally just launched, but damn the video settings, button mapping, and poor UI/UX for the collection is pretty sour,” wrote one player. “I am sure it will improve over time, but yikes.”
Most galling for me personally are the games altogether missing from the physical Switch version of the collection. In North America at least, only Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, and Snake’s Revenge are actually on the game card. The three Metal Gear Solid games, which are the main ones advertised on the front of the box, must be downloaded separately. As someone who treats their Switch like a physical repository for retro remasters and re-issues, it’s frustrating to have to rely on an internet connection and a temporary online storefront to have access to all-time classics. It sounds like the Japanese physical release at least also includes the first Metal Gear Solid on the game card.
Many of the initial reviews for Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 have noted these shortcomings while still pointing out that at the end of the day these games still play great and remain some of the most profound meditations on geopolitics, war, and the military industrial complex the medium has ever produced. “I think it’s great that such a huge swathe of Metal Gear history is now readily available and easily playable on modern systems,” writes The Verge’s Jon Porter. “But there’s also a part of me that thinks Konami missed an opportunity to give Metal Gear Solid in particular a fresh coat of paint and update it for a modern audience.”
The video game industry is generally so bad at preserving its past I wish it would go all out when it decides to finally take the opportunity to repackage old games and sell them again. If that means charging more so be it. I’d gladly pay $100 for the definitive edition of all of these games. Maybe we’ll eventually get that one day. In the meantime I hope Konami’s planned post-launch updates give the collection some of the additional love it deserves.
Spider-Man 2’s New Web Wings Make It Feel Like A Proper Sequel
It’s not technically tofu per se, but that’s certainly what some players think it looks like. The strange bug sees a small cube you might associate with early development prototyping completely replace the titular superhero’s body. Spider-Block as some are calling it (me, I’m calling him that) can still do all the amazing things the neighborhood web-crawler normally does, like web-slinging through New York and comboing bad guys skyward. The weird glitch transforms the experience from cool comic book stuff to extra-surreal fever dream.
Social media is already full of players encountering the cube glitch:
Despite the bug’s prevalence, no one really seems to be sure exactly what causes it. The tofu slabs just appear any time either Peter Parker or Miles Morales’ suit model fails to load. Then it’s cube time. You can fix it by going back to the suit menu and swapping to a different costume. It’s smart to do that quickly, too, since there are reports of some cubed players falling through the map after their unexpected transfigurations. Perhaps therein lies a portal to the blockverse, but your best bet is just to reload from the last checkpoint if that happens.
Fortunately, my 40-hour experience with Spider-Man 2 was mostly bug free, though some players have reported game crashes or occasionally getting stuck on parts of the environment. A few players have even reported being unable to play the disc version of the game at all, with installations getting stuck at 36 percent. Insomniac Games hasn’t yet provided an official workaround, though the issue doesn’t seem to be too widespread. Hopefully it gets solved soon so those players can also experience the glory of Spider-Block.
Doug “Censor” Martin got heated and started flaming his teammate during a recent Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Twitch stream. Things got so bad that he eventually called the other player a “f*****.” The former two-time national Call of Duty champion immediately took to social media to apologize.
Why The Hot New Redfall Gameplay Trailer Left Us Feeling Cold
Censor was streaming Modern Warfare 2 on his 283k-follower Twitch channel on October 16 when a particularly bad match saw him begin to berate one of his teammates on the open mic chat. “I don’t respect you period you suck dick at the game bitch fuck off p****,” Censor said during a clip of the stream shared online.” “Unfollow me on social media too you little fucking f*****.”
The current Boston Breach Call of Duty League team captain took to Twitter later that night to apologize. “I have to be honest with myself and say this now,” he wrote in a tweet sent at around 1:00 a.m. “If I was to wait, this wouldn’t feel right. If you understand I appreciate you, but if you don’t I understand too. Either way, I know this is the only way I want to move forward.”
The Call of Duty content creator, who first made a name for himself by winning the 2011 MLG National Championship for Black Ops, tried to explain himself further in a short video attached to the tweet. “I slipped up and I said a word I shouldn’t have said,” Censor said. “I let someone get under my skin and I said the F-word. I’m not proud about it. I’m not happy about it. I’m definitely disappointed in myself about it because regardless of what anyone is gonna think it’s absolutely not something I stand for or something I say in my private life ever.”
Online gaming chats are a well-known bastion of toxicity where the tenor can range from heated trash talk to explicit slurs and hate speech. Call of Duty is no different, and live chat in its online matches can often be one of the worst examples, in part due to the sheer breadth and depth of people who buy and play it every year. Censor, a long-time pro who recently suggested Modern Warfare III could be the best Call of Duty ever and is currently aiming to be the oldest Call of Duty world champion ever, said he hopes none of his fans think it’s okay to use homophobic slurs just because they saw him do it.
“That’s not okay, it’s not right, it’s just wrong,” he said. “If you feel some type of way about it I am sorry because it’s the truth.”
Update 10/23/2024 3:04 p.m. ET: Last week, Censor also said the n-word while arguing with a random player online. He didn’t release another apology, but his channel was temporarily banned from Twitch today. It’s unclear if the ban is for one of these incidents or a seperate one, or how long it will last.
Persona 3 Reload, a full-fledged remake of Atlus Games’ beloved 2006 role-playing game Persona 3, is set to release on February 2, 2024, for Xbox, PlayStation, and Windows. So take a deep breath and relax, you’ve still got a bit of time to play through October’s busy fall releases before hunkering down for an RPG-filled winter.
HD-2D, The Unique Retro-Inspired Art Style, Took Off In 2022
The remake is far from being the definitive version of Persona 3, given its lack of Persona 3 Portable and Persona 3 FES content, which means no appearance from fan-favorite female protagonist Kotone Shiomi. However, its various pre-order versions (and the bonus items that come with them) might soften the blow for longtime fans. Here’s a guide for what each pre-order version of Persona 3 Reload will get you.
What You Get: Pre-orders of any version of Persona 3 Reload will get you the base game, as well as six Persona 4 Golden background music tracks as bonus DLC. The bonus DLC will let you listen to “Reach Out to The Truth,” “Time to Make History,” “I’ll Face Myself,” “A New World Fool,” “Fog,” and “Period” in P3R. So if you just wanna jam to some P4G tunes and don’t wanna pay a little extra for something extra, this is the version of P3R for you.
Persona 3 Reload Digital Deluxe Edition
Atlus
Price: $80
What You Get:P3R’s digital deluxe edition will get you the base game, six bonus P4G tracks, the game’s 64-page digital artbook, and its 60-song soundtrack of newly arranged and all-new songs by the Atlus sound team.
Persona 3 Reload Digital Premium Edition
Atlus
Price: $100
What You Get:P3R’s Digital Premium Edition includes the base game, P4G’s bonus tracks, the digital artbook and soundtrack, as well as all of Reload’s DLC on launch.Here’s a description of P3R’s DLC pack:
Persona 5 Reload Phantom Thieves Costume Set
P5R Shujin Academy Costume Set
P5R Persona Set 1
P5R Persona Set 2
P4G Yasogami High Costume Set
P4G Persona Set
Persona 3 Reload Aigis Edition
Screenshot: Atlus / Walmart / Kotaku
Price: $200
What You Get: Last is the big kahuna: Persona 3 Reload’s Aigis Edition. Pre-ordering this eye-wateringly expensive version will get you the base game, a physical art book, a two-disc P3R soundtrack, a P3R DLC pack voucher, and an Aigis figure. There’s no clear information on the size of that Aigis just yet, although it looks like a standard 6-inch prize figure.
Why The Hot New Redfall Gameplay Trailer Left Us Feeling Cold
If you plan on playing Spider-Man 2 and haven’t finished the first half-hour yet, you should go do that first.
Gif: Insomniac Games / Sony / Kotaku
Spider-Man 2 stars Peter Parker and Miles Morales, so naturally the first mission features both of them working together like a well-oiled superhero machine. Miles is a high school student and Peter is teaching his class. When dust starts coming in the windows and an emergency breaks out downtown, the two bounce out of the building and strip down to their uniforms as the game’s hip-hop theme (“Swing” by Atlanta-based duo EarthGang) plays.
Gif: Insomniac Games / Sony / Kotaku
The opening cleverly makes use of Spider-Man 2’s bigger New York City map, which adds t Queens and Brooklyn on the other side of the East River. The first thing Peter and Miles do is web-swing across the Brooklyn Bridge to get to Manhattan’s Financial District where another villain is once again on the loose. It’s immediately clear just how much more expansive the game looks and feels, with glistening skyscrapers in full view across the shimmering water.
Gif: Insomniac Games / Sony / Kotaku
The villain in question is none other than Sandman, probably my least favorite entry in the Spider-Man rogues gallery. His shoehorned inclusion in 2007’s chaotic Spider-Man 3 did little to help that. But there’s no origin story here, just Flint Marko transformed into a 40-story-tall sand monster rampaging through the Financial District. He’s massive, but not so massive the Spider-Men can’t web his eyes shut and punch him in the face. It’s absurd but immensely gratifying.
Gif: Insomniac Games / Sony / Kotaku
The initial slugfest is just the start. The fight also takes Peter and Miles inside a nearby building, battling armies of mini-Sandmen while they run through the halls saving civilians and scrambling to get to the water tank on the rooftop as everything around them breaks apart. It’s an incredibly elegant sequence of real-time action and quick-time cutscenes that’s visually stunning and feels seamlessly stitched together.
Gif: Insomniac Games / Sony / Kotaku
This intro alone, topped off with a final boss fight sequence that looks better than most Marvel movies, would be enough to make it one of the best setpieces ever in a first-party PlayStation game. But then there’s something Insomniac does just because it can: fling Miles halfway across Midtown and back again in a 20 second shot that never cuts.
Gif: Insomniac Games / Sony / Kotaku
The entire encounter feels like some of the best tricks from Uncharted and God of War blended into Insomniac’s unique spin on cinematic comic book choreography. It even uses the action-packed chain of events to introduce the web wings, Spider-Man 2‘s best new trick which lets Peter and Miles glide through the air like Batman.
Gif: Insomniac Games / Sony / Kotaku
The opening scene takes less than 20 minutes and succeeds at both reminding players how to play a Spider-Man game and proving why Spider-Man 2 is more than just more Spider-Man. Some games start with drawn-out conversations or extended cutscenes. Others have you rigidly go through a tutorial bogged down in explanations and button prompts. Spider-Man 2 is like getting dropped into a rocket that’s just started counting down to lift off. More games should do that.
Bethesda’s newest giant role-playing game Starfield, which hit Xbox’s Game Pass service the day of its release, enjoyed a very loud launch last month.In fact, its developer singled it out as “the biggest Bethesda game launch of all time.” Now new data from consumer analytics company Circana backs up that boast with some numbers.
This Stylish Noir-Punk Side-Scroller Is Like Celeste With Guns
If you look at Circana’s sales data for September, you’ll see that Starfield was the best-selling game in the U.S. that month. “Add-on spending,” like the $35 Premium Edition upgrade many Game Pass members tacked onto their free base game to get into its Early Access, wasn’t accounted for in the data, which makes Starfield taking the number-one dollars earned spot here even more impressive.
Really, Starfield achieved these record sales in spite of Game Pass, which parent company Microsoft reportedly recognizes causes a “decline in base game sales 12 months following their addition [to the service].” Starfield’s next 11 months of sales, then, could be more contentious. There are already signs of its fresh paint chipping.
On Steam’s global Top Sellers chart, the latest Bethesda RPG fell a steep 26 spots from last week’s placement to a miserly ranking of 45, sitting between The Division 2 (#44) and Lies of P (#46), the latter of which also seems to be suffering from dwindling hype. Starfield is performing a bit better on Steam’s U.S.-only chart, lazing around the 27 slot, though it dropped 12 spots from its ranking there last week.
Big releases, especially during this packed October, keep threatening its standing. Mortal Kombat 1 and EA Sports FC 24 are right behind Starfield in September U.S. sales, Circana’s chart indicates. By some wizard magic, Hogwarts Legacy was the U.S.’s fifth bestselling game in September, though its concurrent player count seems to be shrinking ahead of its Switch port’s upcoming November 14 release.
The wizard game’s surface-level magic has carried it pretty far, though—Circana’s analysis positions Hogwarts Legacy as the bestselling game of 2023 so far. And, to Starfield’s credit, its first month was impressive enough to help it creep up to the year’s number-seven spot, right under Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. There are worse places to be.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is almost here (or already out if you’re reading this after October 20) and you might want a refresher on the first game, from way back in 2018, before swinging back in and seeing what’s next for everyone’s favorite webhead.
The Week In Games: What’s Coming Out Beyond Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
Spider-Man 2 actually does include a short recap video before you start playing, and it’s worth watching. But that video leaves out some key details and moments from the first Spider-Man game’s DLC episodes, as well as theMiles Morales-focusedspin-off. Never fear, True Believers. I’ve taken the time to concisely (as much as possible) summarize everything that happened in the first game, all its DLC, and the PS5 launch title, Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Ready? Here we go!
Marvel’s Spider-Man (2018)
Spider-Man starts with a call to Peter Parker from NYPD Captain Yuri Watanabe to assist with the arrest of Wilson Fisk, aka Kingpin. Spider-Man—with a hyphen as explained by the superhero himself—joins in, helps the police capture Fisk, then quickly leaves to get back to work at his day job.
Peter Parker aka Spider-Man (don’t tell JJ Jameson) is revealed to work for Dr. Otto Octavius. In the comics and films, he’s known as the villain Doc Ock, and has giant mechanical arms. But this time around, Dr. Octavius isn’t evil and instead wants to help people, even if it doesn’t always pay the bills, which inspires Parker to be even better. Boy, I hope this lovely relationship between surrogate father and son doesn’t get ruined…
A few days later, after defeating C-tier villain Shocker, Spider-Man encounters Mary Jane Watson during a museum heist. But Parker and Watson aren’t dating or married in this version of the Marvel universe. Instead, they broke up before the game started and are now separated. And yeah, it’s kind of awkward.
digitalshot / Marvel / Sony
After working together to help foil the heist—though failing to stop the gang from stealing a folder with important info—MJ and Parker meet up at a favorite restaurant to chat about things. It goes about as well as you’d expect between two exes who haven’t talked in a bit. Later, after some police sirens bring their meeting to an abrupt end, Parker heads over to FEAST, a homeless shelter run by his Aunt May and created by Martin Li. During the heist, MJ grabbed a creepy mask worn by the gang members and Parker thinks Li—an art expert—can help shed some light on it. Li warns Parker the masks are used by a dangerous gang and that he should stay away. Li seems nice but actually…
Li is a powerful supervillain, Mr. Negative, and is running a gang called the Inner Demons—the same ones who robbed the museum and grabbed the folder. It turns out Li hates Norman Osborn, who is mayor of New York City. With Fisk gone, Li and his gang take over Kingpin’s turf and resources with plans to use them against Osborn and the city. Oh and also, guess who else hates Osborn? Dr. Otto Octavius. He holds a grudge against the mayor for betraying him and kicking him out of Oscorp after they founded the company together.
We also learn that Octavius is suffering from a disease that’s destroying his body. However, Peter helps the doctor work on mechanical prosthetics that can be controlled via neural implants. Regardless, the disease (and hatred) corrupt the doctor and soon he’s scheming to hurt Osborn and get his revenge. Anybody else in this city have problems with Osborn…?
Later, at a rally for Norman Osborn’s re-election, Li and the Inner Demons attack. Norman Osborn gets away, but Miles Morales’ father—a police officer who helped Spider-Man—isn’t so lucky, and perishes in a suicide bomber’s blast. Parker tries to connect with Morales, as he knows how he feels, and ultimately gets him to join FEAST. Oh, and during the attack on the rally, Peter Parker sees Martin Li turn into Mr. Negative.
At some point, while helping out at FEAST, the still grieving Miles Morales is bitten by a strange spider accidentally brought in by MJ after she sneaks into Osborn’s labs. Wonder if that means anything…
Santosx07 / Marvel / Sony
Following some investigating, Spider-Man and MJ discover that Martin Li has stolen a bioweapon, called the Devil’s Breath, that Osborn inadvertently created while searching for a universal cure for all diseases. (Wonder why he wants that…) Li and his demons then attempt to deploy it but are stopped by Spider-Man and MJ. He’s arrested and sent to the Raft, a super-secure prison. Meanwhile, Dr. Octavius goes full Doc Ock, building powerful mechanical arms and staging a prison break of the Raft, freeing classic Spider-Man villains including Rhino, Scorpion, Vulture, and the recently arrested Martin Li.
After almost dying while trying to stop all of the villains from escaping, Spider-Man is left drifting in the waters outside NYC. Meanwhile, Doc Ock goes to Times Square and releases the dangerous Devil’s Breath bioweapon into the air, causing any who come into contact with it to develop a deadly disease. But don’t worry, there is a cure! Bad news: Osborn has it and he’s hiding behind private mercs he hired to capture the Demons. These mercs are led by the badass Silver Sable. She… doesn’t like Spider-Man.
Later, Spidey is rescued by NYPD Captain Watanabe. He’s hurt, but he pushes through the pain and goes after the villains who are now causing chaos across an infected NYC. After cleaning up that mess, Spider-Man tracks down Martin Li, who has discovered Osborn’s location and is holding him hostage.
Spider-Man fights Li, but eventually convinces him to give up his need for revenge against Osborn, who in the past tested Devil’s Breath on Li, which gave him his powers, but also led to the deaths of his parents. However, at just that moment, Doc Ock shows up and overpowers Spider-Man, nearly killing him. Octavius then leaves with Osborn and the cure. Silver Sable, who at this point realizes that Spider-Man is good and Osborn sucks, helps bring Spider-Man to FEAST where he recovers for a bit.
Targa / Marvel / Sony
Once he’s feeling better and has built a new, tougher suit, he goes after Doc Ock. During the fight, Octavius reveals that he’s known about Peter’s secret identity for quite some time now, angering Peter as it means that the doctor has, essentially, been trying to kill him or at least let him get killed for days now. Rough stuff. Thanks to Peter’s new suit, he beats Doc Ock, who gets arrested, and brings the cure back to FEAST, where Aunt May is dying from exposure to Dragon’s Breath.
Because this is a Spider-Man story, Peter is forced to make a gut-wrenching choice. There is only one vial of the cure. He can use it to save Aunt May, but that’s it. Or he can give it to a scientist helping them who can, in a few days, turn it into a cure for everyone. Although Peter wants to save May, he knows he can’t. Before she dies, May reveals that she’s known Peter’s secret for a while. May also tells him how proud she is of him and reassures Peter about his choice to save the city over her. She then quietly dies next to Peter. And I cried.
In a mid-credits scene, we learn that Morales has developed Spider-Man-like powers and Peter Parker reveals his secret to the young teen. In a post-credits scene, Norman Osborn’s son and Parker’s best friend, Harry Osborn—who is said to be visiting Europe—is revealed to be in a coma inside a large medical tank. A strange black goo is wrapped around him, helping him fight a disease that killed his mom.
Marvel’s Spider-Man DLC (2019)
A few months have passed since the destruction of Fisk’s empire, and all the damage wrought by the Inner Demons and Dragon’s Breath. After all that, another power vacuum has formed in NYC and the Maggia crime families want to take over. MJ learns that a lost painting is currently on display and the Maggia crime family wants it. Spider-Man is alerted and stops them from stealing it; however, master thief Black Cat gets her hands on it and breaks it open to grab a secret data drive.
Spider-Man learns that Hammerhead, one of the five heads of the Maggia crime empire, has hired Black Cat to steal four data drives belonging to the other dons. Spidey tracks down Black Cat and confronts her about why she’s working with Hammerhead and what’s up with these drives. She won’t say what’s on the drives, but reveals that if she doesn’t do what Hammerhead wants, they will kill her son. Later, MJ discovers that long ago the families agreed to combine all their assets in one place to create peace. The ability to access these assets was split across five USB drives, and whoever gets them all can take everything and bankrupt the families.
Eventually, Spider-Man tracks down the last data drive, but Black Cat beats him there, and a chase ensues. When he finally catches her, he convinces her to let him help her break free of Hammerhead. The plan: Spidey will look for Black Cat’s son while she stalls the gangster. This leads to Black Cat learning about a massive vault Hammerhead recently bought, and she deduces that her son is being held in there.
With Spider-Man’s help, and after learning that Hammerhead has taken Sable merc weapons and tech from the NYPD after the Devil’s Breath crisis, Black Cat finds the vault. (Yes, Silver Sable’s mercenary company is called Sable.) But she leaves right as some goons show up. Once defeating them all, Spidey enters the vault and sees a briefcase inside that once held a USB drive.
Shirrako / Marvel / Sony
Black Cat then traps Spider-Man in the vault and reveals that she took Hammerhead’s own drive—contained in the secure vault—and gave the gang leader fake USB drives and kept them all for herself. Also, she lied about having a son to trick Spider-Man into helping her. She escapes, but Hammerhead soon learns of her deception and plants bombs in Black Cat’s penthouse, blowing it up and seemingly killing her in the process.
A few days pass and all-out war engulfs NYC as the Maggia families have united against Hammerhead’s goons. Spider-Man and Captain Watanabe help lead a SWAT team assault on one of Hammerhead’s bases to possibly capture him. But after getting split up, Yuri Watanabe and her team are ambushed by Hammerhead who kills everyone and nearly gets Watanabe before Spider-Man saves her. This deeply traumatizes the NYPD captain and she vows revenge.
Later, Spider-Man learns that Hammerhead is after “Project Olympus” and plans on capturing and killing the other Maggia family dons. Despite police trying to protect the family heads, Hammerhead captures them and brings them to a construction site to kill them.
Spider-Man shows up just in time to save them, but runs into Hammerhead who is now wearing a powerful suit of armor—revealing what “Project Olympus” was—and the two fight. Spider-Man wins (duh…) but Watanabe interferes and shoots Hammerhead dead. Or so everybody thinks, as we later see him revived and carried away by his goons.
A short while after all that, Spider-Man and MJ learn that Hammerhead is alive and in hiding. He’s trying to steal more Sable tech and this leads to Sliver Sable returning to stop him. She works with Spider-Man and they discover Hammerhead wants to meet her on top of a tower in NYC. She goes after him, even though Spidey warns it might be a trap. Spoilers: It’s a trap.
Spider-Man saves Silver Sable and they fight together to defeat Hammerhead’s goons. Eventually, Hammerhead himself shows up and is now a full-on cyborg thanks to more Sable tech he stole. He fights the Sable and Spidey, nearly winning. But Black Cat shows up and saves Spidey, while Hammerhead gets away with Silver Sable. Black Cat apologizes for all the deception and gives Spider-Man a data drive that will help him beat Hammerhead.
MrRedRivers / Marvel / Sony
Spider-Man tracks down Silver Sable, who is being held in the sewers. He saves her from being tortured and, using the data drive, they discover they must melt down Hammerhead’s steel head with a massive amount of heat to finally defeat him. Using a powerful Sable-tech laser, Spider-Man and Silver Sable break through his steel-plated head and they eventually defeat him.
In a post-credits scene, Miles Morales is seen training with Spider-Man, which takes us right into…
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (2020)
Set roughly a year later, Miles Morales opens with Peter and Miles working together as Spider-Men and fighting Rhino. During this fight, Miles Morales discovers he has a unique electricity-like power referred to as “Venom.” (Not to be confused with Venom, the character that is appearing in the sequel.) Anyway, Parker tells Morales that he is leaving with Mary Jane to help her with a news story in Symkaria, aka the homeland of Silver Sable.
Now alone, Miles Morales is protecting NYC by himself. To help the lone Spider-Man keep the city safe, Morales’ friend Ganke creates an app that lets people report crimes and strange events happening around New York City. Later, Morales has to stop a criminal gang known as the Underground from stealing a powerful prototype energy source, Nuform, from the Roxxon Energy Corporation.
While all this is happening, Mile Morales’ uncle, Aaron Davis, figures out his nephew is Spider-Man. He promises not to tell his mom and tells the young Spidey to call him if he ever needs help. He seems like a good dude!
Jekavac TV / Marvel / Sony
Shortly after all that, another big fight happens between Roxxon and the Underground. During this tussle, Spider-Man learns that the leader of the gang, a villain known as The Tinkerer, is actually none other than his childhood friend Phin. Cue the dramatic music! While trying to stop more Nuform from being stolen, Morales accidentally destroys it with his new Venom powers, and the citizens of New York grow upset with the new Spidey. But Morales does figure out another neat trick he can do: This Spider-Man can turn invisible.
After some investigating and punching, Miles learns that Phin, aka The Tinkerer, had a brother, Rick, who created Nuform while he worked at Roxxon. However, the powerful energy source made him sick. Phin and Rick work together to try and expose the truth about Nuform, that it’s dangerous and deadly, but Rick gets killed before the public can be warned. Phin, desperate and angry, works with Miles to help stop Roxxon and its CEO, and warn people about Nuform.
But wait, remember Uncle Aaron? Well, he is the Prowler, a dangerous villain who sometimes kills people for money. Boy, Miles Morales knows a lot of secret superheroes and supervillains.
At first, Prowler helps Miles infiltrate Roxxon to get revenge for Rick’s death and expose the truth about Nuform. But eventually, Prowler betrays Miles, capturing the younger Spider-Man and holding him for his own good, or so he believes. He explains that it’s best to let Roxxon and the Underground destroy themselves. But Miles disagrees, explaining that heroes don’t sit back while people get hurt. Spider-Man escapes using his powers and fights Prowler, beating up his uncle in the process.
Miles Morales then learns that Phin and the Underground’s plan to destroy the Roxxon building will also destroy most of Harlem. Wishing to save his neighborhood and stop Phin, Morales quickly goes after her and stops her just before it’s too late and convinces Phin that what she’s doing is wrong. She agrees and helps Miles stop the explosion.
Cinema Clips / Marvel / Sony
To do so, Morales uses his Venom abilities to absorb all the energy of the Nuform into his body and Phin flies him into the air high above the city, where he can detonate all that stored-up power safely. Miles Morales lives, but Phin doesn’t.
The incident puts a spotlight on Roxxon, its CEO, and Nuform. Roxxon ends up in hot water and its CEO is arrested. Aaron, inspired by his nephew, turns himself in as the Prowler and reveals to authorities that Roxxon hired him to do criminal acts. He testifies against Roxxon, helping seal the CEO’s fate.
Meanwhile, after he risked his life to save Harlem, NYC’s populace is back on Miles’ side. Peter Parker returns and the two Spider-Men catch up and get back to protecting New York City, together.
Finally, in a post-credits scene, we see Norman Osborn talking to Curt Connors aka the Lizard. They are discussing Harry Osborn, who is once again seen inside a tank covered in black goo. It seems he’s getting released soon…
Grand Theft Auto Online’s latest update unleashes ghosts across the world of Los Santos, letting players track down and photograph them for rewards. And one of these ghosts might look kinda familiar if you’ve played GTA IV’s Lost and the Damned DLC…
Grand Theft Auto 6 Comments: A Dramatic Reading
Every October for years now, GTA Online has enjoyed an influx of spooky new game modes and creepy secrets to celebrate the Halloween season. Last time it was killer carsand aliens. This year, Rockstar has added 10 ghosts to the online crime sim and tasked players with photographing these haunting spirits. One of these phantoms is returning GTA character Johnny Klebitz, making real an old GTA urban legend.
GTA Series Videos / Rockstar Games
Fans have already figured out where and when all 10 ghosts appear, as seen in the video above. They’re spread out all around the large GTA Online map. Some appear in places you’d expect, like old cemeteries or abandoned homes. Others are chilling near waterfalls or inside trailers. The ghosts only appear during certain in-game hours, and players have to photograph them to “expose” them.
One of these ghosts is not like the others…
Once you’ve captured the first nine ghosts—who appear to be random, generic characters—on film, you can find a 10th and final ghost in Sandy Shores, north of Los Santos.
This 10th apparition, haunting a trailer park, is none other than the ghost of Johnny Klebbitz, the protagonist from Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and the Damned. And, spoilers for a 10-year-old game, Klebitz was beaten to death by GTA V protagonist Trevor Phillips in the opening hours of that game. In fact [lowering voice and putting a flashlight under chin] he was killed in the same spot where, a decade later in 2023, his ghost now lingers! According to players visiting Klebitz’s spirit, you can hear him yelling about Trevor before you snap a pic.
Seeing the ghost of a former GTA protagonist is a neat Easter egg by itself, but this is also Rockstar making real a previously debunked urban legend that after Klebitz was killed you could find his ghost hanging around the Sandy Shores trailer park. Although players claimed to hear his ghost yelling or found evidence of his spirit haunting the area, these were all lies and hoaxes spread online in the years following GTA V’s release.
Have you ever wished you could exercise your Second Amendment right on a formidable video game boss? Well, one upcoming Soulslike will let you pull out a gun and one-tap bosses if it prove too impossible to “git gud” and vanquish them the normal way.
This Brutal Gothic Metroidvania Is Shaping up To Be Something Special
Another Crab’s Treasure, by Going Under developer Aggro Crab, is a 3D “Shellslike” in which you play as a hermit crab named Kril as he scours the land for his long-lost shell. Somewhere along Kril’s journey, you’ll explore the littered ocean floor for a makeshift home and duke it out with other ocean-faring beasties. The game has a Windows demo for Steam Next Fest and is slated to come out sometime next year on the Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
Now, about the gun thing. Another Crab’s Treasure’s Steam page notes that you can play the game at your own pace, saying it was “designed to be an approachable experience for newer Soulslike players as well as provide a challenge for hardcore fans.” Typically, any online conversation about whether or not a Soulslike game should have lower difficulty option or (gasp) some sort of assist mode is met with vitriol from genre die-hards. Nonetheless Another Crab’s Treasure’sdemo happily showcases one of the game’s apparently many assist modes, which equips Kril with a gun that completely eviscerates his foes.
Aggro Crab definitely buried the lede by omitting the fact that the game offering “something for any level of skill or time commitment” would include a freaking gun available to anyone who tires of panic-rolling with only a rusty spork with which to defend themselves. I don’t have much more commentary to add to the sheer power of the above clip except to say that I hope more video games follow suit by arming players, be they animals or lowly dung-eating swordsmen, with proportionally enormous guns.
![Mortal Kombat 1’s New Microtransactions Are Scarier Than Its Fatalities [Update]](https://reportwire.org/wp-content/uploads/https://i.kinja-img.com/image/upload/c_fill,h_675,pg_1,q_80,w_1200/4d698e896ca7380fdd055c9cf6d222c3.jpg)
![Former Call Of Duty Champion Apologizes For Homophobic Slur [Update: Now He’s Said The N-Word]](https://reportwire.org/wp-content/uploads/https://i.kinja-img.com/image/upload/c_fill,h_675,pg_1,q_80,w_1200/90885be81157fc72d4e774897b71d7de.jpg)
