When it comes to indie success stories, there’s very few quite as big as Stardew Valley. First released all the way back in 2016 by Eric ‘ConcernedApe’ Barone, Stardew Valley’s chill farming simulation has amassed a massive fanbase over the years. There’s been an amazing amount of content added to the game through free updates since its launch, but ConcernedApe recently revealed that he’s not sure if there’ll be any more updates. Now, we know why – he’s been working on his own brand-new title Haunted Chocolatier, revealed today with a gameplay trailer.

ConcernedApe’s distinct pixel art style is all over Haunted Chocolatier, a game where you play as… well, a haunted chocolatier. With a cast of colorful characters, cute monsters to fight, and an array of materials to gather for crafting and cooking, there’s certainly plenty of similarities to Stardew Valley. However, with a brand-new start for ConcernedApe, there’s sure to be plenty of creative new features for us to sink our teeth into.

In a blog post announcing the game, ConcernedApe tried to outline what genre the game is in: “Now, you might be scratching your head, wondering exactly what type of game this is. I’m not sure how best to describe it. It’s evolving organically as I develop it, so I’m not sure where it will go. But at its core, the gameplay loop involves gathering ingredients, making chocolate, and running a chocolate shop. Of course, there’s a lot more to the game than that, but I don’t want to get too deep into at this early stage, partly because I don’t want to be tied down to any particular concept of what the game is.”

Although the trailer looks absolutely gorgeous already, Haunted Chocolatier is pretty early in development – according to ConcernedApe, it’s going to be quite a while before the game releases. Although it’s intended to come to major consoles eventually, the only platform that’s 100% confirmed right now is PC.

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The LEGO movie games have, maybe surprisingly, been pretty consistently great over the years. It all started way back in 2005 with LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game, an irreverent adaptation of the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Since then, we’ve gotten LEGO adaptations of the Avengers, Harry Potter, and even Jurassic World among many others, across pretty much all major consoles. Now, with LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga on the way next year, it seems LEGO are trying to build the hype with the announcement of a new LEGO Star Wars mobile game, LEGO Star Wars Castaways.

Castaways is an online, multiplayer game, only available through Apple’s own game subscription service Apple Arcade. After crash landing on a mysterious planet, players find they’re not alone – a thriving community has developed on this desert planet for them to explore! They’ll be able to take part in Microfighter races, duels between players in the Hippodrome, and simulations of classic Star Wars scenes, from battle with Tuskan Raiders on Tatooine to navigating the Death Star itself.

Gameloft Montreal’s Game Manager, Lee Kaburis, commented on the game’s announcement in a press release: “We’re thrilled to bring players to the island of LEGO Star Wars: Castaways, exclusively on Apple Arcade. We wanted to create an experience in which fans can see themselves included in the beloved Star Wars stories and invite their friends and family along. We took special care to include engaging features that encourage exploring together and joining forces to solve puzzles and quests, or challenging each other to quick battle rounds in the Hippodrome.”

LEGO Star Wars: Castaways will be launching on November 19th on Apple Arcade, a subscription service hosted by Apple that boasts over 200 games, all without in-app purchases. On Apple Arcade, the game will be playable across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV

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When it comes to video game characters, there are some absolutely iconic designs that have stood the test of time, from Pac-Man to Pikachu. Standing among these titans of the video game industry is undoubtedly, Master Chief, the stoic protagonist of Halo. The man behind Master Chief’s design is Marcus Lehto, who co-created Halo, worked as art director on early games in the series, and was promoted to creative director of Bungie with Halo: Reach. Now, it seems that Lehto is ready to breathe life into new projects with a new company, as he’s just announced that he’ll be joining Electronic Arts.

EA have had a pretty big year so far – they’ve been snapping up smaller development teams left, right and center, and they’ve published some of the biggest games of the year – Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, It Takes Two, Apex Legends and, of course, Battlefield 2042 have all been released under the EA banner. With this move, it seems that EA aren’t resting on their laurels, instead preparing for bigger and better projects in the next few years as not only have they hired Lehto, they’ve also created a whole new studio in Seattle that he’l be heading up as Game Director.

Lehto announced both the move and the establishment of his new Seattle-based studio in one fell swoop on his Twitter: “Hey everyone, I’m very excited to announce that I’ve joined @EA as a Game Director, building a new studio in the Seattle area working on first-person games. I can’t wait to share more about what we’re creating!“

Lehto previously founded his own studio, V1 Interactive, but unfortunately it was shut down after the release of their debut title, 2021’s Disintegration. That’s all we know on what Lehto is up to for now, but this is definitely a studio to keep an eye out for over the next year or so.

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The Steam Deck has been one of this generation’s most intriguing console announcements – first revealed back in July of this year, the Steam Deck promises to be a portable way to enjoy your Steam library – however, unfortunately you won’t be able to play all of your games on the system. While this has been known for a while now, Steam have just announced exactly what criteria must be met for a game to be playable on the Steam Deck.

First off, there are four categories of games on the Steam Deck: Verified, Playable, Unsupported and Unknown. Verified games are those that work perfectly on the Deck without any modification, Playable games may need some manual tweaking (the examples given are controller configurations and using the touchscreen to navigate the launcher), Unsupported games are not playable at all on the Deck (For example, VR games), and Unknown games have not yet been tested. As time goes on, expect there to be less and less Unknown games, as Valve have already started the long process of testing Steam’s entire library on the console.

The tests being run are depending on four variables: Input (“The title should have full controller support, use appropriate controller input icons, and automatically bring up the on-screen keyboard when needed.”), Display (“The game should support the default resolution of Steam Deck (1280×800 or 1280×720), have good default settings, and text should be legible.“), Seamlessness (“The title shouldn’t display any compatibility warnings, and if there’s a launcher it should be navigable with a controller.“) and System Support (“If running through Proton, the game and all its middleware should be supported by Proton. This includes anti-cheat support.”). On the Steam Deck, the compatibility of games will be displayed front and center on the Steam Store.

The Steam Deck has been available to reserve for a while now, with shipping set to begin in December this year.

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As the esports industry has continued to explode in popularity over the past few years, so too has the number of people willing to cheat to get ahead in online games. Call Of Duty: Vanguard saw hackers dominating matches as early as its first 48 hours, and exploits for Battlefield 2042 started going on sale even before the game’s release. However, despite the best efforts of cheaters, some companies are managing to stay ahead – including Riot, with their competitive 5v5 FPS Valorant.

Although Valorant’s anti-cheat system is fairly intrusive, starting to run from the second you turn on your PC, even if you don’t have Valorant open,along with Riot’s bounty for anti-cheat exploits it’s been incredibly efficient at catching cheaters so far. However, Riot aren’t resting on their laurels – just as cheaters are constantly testing new methods, so too must Riot continually upgrade the anti-cheat engine. To keep the community up to date on how the battle against cheaters is going, the dev team have posted a report on Valorant Episode 3’s anti-cheat system.

In the update post on the Valorant website, senior anti-cheat analyst Matt “K3O” Paoletti outlined how the team have been handling the arms race of keeping ahead of cheats: “Our team has been able to stay a few steps ahead in the battle and routinely ban cheats across a wide variety of providers and methods of execution. Despite what developers may say, the words “artificial intelligence” do not make a cheat undetectable. Not only that, we’re tackling unique forms of cheating outside of the typical aimbots, such as cheats that look to tamper with the game engine and assets.”

So far, Valorant have been doing well with keeping one step ahead of the cheaters – right now, cheating reports are at an all-time low. However, the struggle never stops, and the team are dedicated to keeping the fight going into Valorant’s future: “What are we doing next? Little surprise here, but we’ll continue to iterate on the best version of Vanguard with an emphasis on keeping cheaters out of the ecosystem for good. This includes us benefiting from the newest advancements in cybersecurity as a whole, most noticeably, utilizing security upgrades in operating systems that enable us to better identify and prevent cheaters.”

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The road to Minecraft’s Caves And Cliffs Update has been a fairly rocky one so far – originally scheduled to launch earlier this year, the update was set to re-imagine Minecraft’s underground experience, adding new creatures, plants, blocks and biomes to the game It was announced a while ago that the update would be split into two parts – 1.17 and 1.18. 1.17 is out already, bringing with it goats, glow squids and Minecraft’s new best mob, axolotls, along with a slew of new plants and block types. 1.18 was set to include three new biomes: Lush Caves, Dripstone Caves and the Deep Dark – however, in the run-up to 1.18’s release, it’s been announced that the Deep Dark won’t be included.

Found at points beneath y=0, the Deep Dark is set to be the spookiest addition to Minecraft since the Endermen – a biome at the bottom of the world where terrifying new enemies – the Wardens – lurk in the dark. The announcement of the delay was made at the Minecraft Live event, a livestream showing off everything that’ll be coming to the game over the next little while. However, it’s not all bad news, as the delay means that a whole bunch of new features are going to be added to the Deep Dark when it finally launches.

When players are finally able to explore the Deep Dark, they’ll find new structures to venture into – Deep Dark Cities. Lit by candlelight and filled with Sculk, the new block type that seems eerily linked with death, these cities are definitely the scariest areas we’ve seen in Minecraft so far. You’ll want to keep an eye out down in the shadows – the Wardens are hiding around every corner…

While the Deep Dark has been delayed to 2022’s The Wild update, the rest of the Caves And Cliffs content is set to release some time before the end of the year, whenever 1.18 finally launches.
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Over the past few weeks, Amazon’s first MMORPG New World has been one of the hottest titles in online gaming, with the player numbers growing so large so quickly that the servers just can’t keep up. Despite its success, or perhaps because of it, there’s already been plenty of controversy surrounding New World, from guild leaders scamming players out of their hard-earned gold to technical problems caused by the game (to the point of physically destroying some pretty expensive hardware). It seems that Amazon haven’t quite finished with outraging their playerbase quite yet, though, as a recent announcement has caused considerable uproar – it looks like Amazon haven’t been entirely truthful about how transferring characters between servers works.

Because of the issues with server space over the past two weeks, Amazon have been encouraging players to start up characters on less-populated servers, promising that once congestion had died down they’d be able to transfer their character to whichever server they wanted – and it was explicitly stated that players would be able to transfer between regions.

Yes, you can move between regions if you want.

— New World (@playnewworld) September 28, 2021

However, now it seems Amazon never had any plans to allow players to move between regions, with it being revealed that region transfer is impossible. Clarification came in the server transfer megathread on the New World forums, and it’s pretty clear-cut: “So the “transfer to any server” statement issues earlier was not true? – Unfortunately the original information provided was incorrect.” (yes, Amazon did make a typo in there).

This has caused fairly understandable outrage among players who started up characters in different regions to their friends due to congestion, being told all the while they’d be able to transfer. User Ozijak on the New World forum summed the community’s feelings on the matter up pretty well: “Many of us who listened to you and tried to do the right thing and don’t want to be punished for that.”

New World is available right now on PC – but good luck getting into a server these days!

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The gaming industry is all about battle royales these days – ever since Fortnite grew to massive global success, it seems that almost every major games studio has wanted a piece of the action. We’ve come a long way from the days of Minecraft Hunger Games though, and now Square Enix have announced that battle royale is even coming to the world of Final Fantasy VII.

Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier is an upcoming mobile-exclusive battle royale game from the legendary game director and character designer Tetsuya Nomaura (The mastermind behind Kingdom Hearts!). Players will fill the boots of SOLDIER candidates, fighting to secure a spot in the Shinra Electric Power Company’s elite fighting force. Up until now, four ‘combat styles’ have been revealed – the melee-focused Warrior, the mid-ranged spellcasting Sorceror, the fast-paced, self-healing Monk and the long-ranged Ranger. However, a new trailer revealed at Square Enix’s Tokyo Game Show has shown off a new combat style: the Ninja.

In a press release announcing the new combat style, Square Enix outlined what we can expect from the Ninja on The First Soldier’s launch: “The newly announced Ninja style places heavy emphasis on mobility, and is equipped with a double jump — good for stealth and ambush. Players can enjoy melee combat by throwing shuriken stars, allowing for a unique fighting style. Abilities with the Ninja style include: “Hide” – where players can turn themselves invisible for a certain amount of time, and “Flurry” – where players can throw their Kunai dagger and teleport to wherever it hits.”

Along with the ninja, Square Enix also announced a new Collection feature, allowing players to pick up components from Secret Boxes, killing monsters or special missions. These components can be exchanged for in-game cosmetics, with new collections being launched seasonally.

Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier is set to launch for free on iOS and Android devices in November 2021 – keep an eye out, because pre-registration will be opening soon!

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Of all the games to be announced at the most recent Nintendo Direct, the Final Fantasy kart racer Chocobo GP was probably one of the most unexpected ones. Launching on the Nintendo Switch some time next year, Chocobo GP is certainly set to be a fun romp through some iconic Final Fantasy locations. Recently, game director Akihiko Maeda made an appearance at Square Enix’s weekend-long ‘Square Enix Presents‘ event at the Tokyo Game Show to discuss a few details about the game.

Although Maeda didn’t reveal exactly which Final Fantasy characters will be making it onto the roster, he did give us a number – 20. With a few racers already revealed, from Final Fantasy staples like the chocobo itself and the dimension-hopping swordsman Gilgamesh to fan favorites like Final Fantasy IX’s Vivi and Steiner, that number’s been whittled down a little. It’s probably safe to assume that most of the series will get at least some representation, and we haven’t seen even a single Final Fantasy VII character yet!

However, it’s not all about the racers – we also got a good look at some of the actual mechanics of the game during the event, from the items you’ll be able to pick up along the tracks to character-specific abilities. In place of Mario Kart-style items, Chocobo GP features iconic Final Fantasy spells like Fire, Doom, MBarrier and Aero. Throughout races, players will be able to level up their spells, following the classic Final Fantasy naming convention – for example, Fire levels up to Fira, which in turn levels up to Firaga.

Chocobo GP is set to release on the Nintendo Switch some time in 2022 – although there isn’t much more information on it quite yet, it’s probably safe to assume that there may be announcements on the way for a few other consoles as well!

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Life Is Strange: True Colors is the latest installment in the supernatural teen drama anthology, and the first to be released since original developers Dontnod parted ways with the franchise. After working on a prequel to the first game, Before The Storm, Deck Nine Games have now taken the reins of the series for the foreseeable future. True Colors was good – maybe the best Life Is Strange game so far – but it wasn’t without its difficulties. Following the release of True Colors’ first DLC, the devs have fixed a few of the biggest complaints that fans had about the game – including its FPS cap.

On launch, Life Is Strange: True Colors was capped at 30 FPS on next-gen consoles, despite the fact that it’s.. well, not the most graphically intensive game out there these days. Deck Nine explained the cap: “Regarding framerate: Life is Strange: True Colors was designed to be a cinematic, performance-driven narrative adventure. Capping at 30fps allowed us to target higher cinematic fidelity on every platform.“.

Not only is a high performance mode being added to the Xbox Series X and PS5 editions of the game, finally unlocking 60 FPS play, but plenty of issues with the recent DLC launch are being addressed. In their fourth launch update, Deck Nine addressed the issues currently being worked on: “While wholly not ideal, we were happy to see that most PlayStation owners were able to download and play the content within the first 24 hours of launch after experiencing some initial difficulty. We are currently investigating the Stadia entitlement issues reported, and apologize for the delay in accessing this content.”

Life Is Strange: True Colors is available right now on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PC and Google Stadia, with a Nintendo Switch launch coming soon – and if you’ve already played it and want to spend a little more time with the people of Haven Springs, you can also check out the Wavelengths DLC episode!

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When it comes to soccer simulators, it’s not hard to tell that Fifa has been the top dog for a very long time. Last year, Fifa 21 overcame Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla to take the top spot in UK Boxing Day Sales, and despite a lacklustre last-gen release, Fifa 22 on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S seemed to be just the improvement and innovation that fans of the franchise had been hoping for. Now that Fifa 22’s launch weekend has come and gone, it seems that a trend first set with Fifa 20 is set to continue: the decline of physical sales in favor of online downloads. 

Fifa 22 launched officially on October 1, and GfK’s physical sales record suggest that Fifa 22’s physical sales on launch weekend are 35% lower than those of Fifa 21, which were in turn about 42% lower than Fifa 20. However, that’s not to say the game is underperforming – far from it. Despite the drop, it’s still the top selling game of the weekend, dethroning last week’s #1 Mario Kart 8: Deluxe. While digital sales haven’t been release just yet, it’s probably safe to assume that they’ll be quite a bit higher, similarly to the last few installments in the series.

The shift away from physical sales and towards digital downloads isn’t exactly unexpected, especially given the ongoing pandemic. Even as early as 2015, Ubisoft were reporting that almost half of all their video game sales were accounted for by digital sales, and a report by an asset management firm last year suggested that, due to the much higher profits associated with the distribution method, video game sales could be digital-only by 2022. Of course, that didn’t quite work out as we’re approaching the end of 2021 and GameStop is still in business, but it’s the thought that counts.

Fifa 22 is available right now on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, PC and Google Stadia.

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Life Is Strange: True Colors is the first installment in the hit supernatural teen drama series since original developers Dontnod were bought out be Tencent and left the franchise. Since then, Deck Nine Games, who had previously worked on the prequel title Before The Storm, have taken over the franchise, and it seems that after a bit of a bump in Dontnod’s Life Is Strange 2, Deck Nine have gotten the series back on track. Now, a little over 2 weeks since the game’s launch, True Colors’ DLC episode, Wavelengths, has been released.

Wavelengths follows a fan-favourite character, Steph, as we follow her first year working in Haven Springs’ radio station KRCT. As the seasons pass by, we’ll learn about Steph’s past and her relationships as she uncovers the secrets of the town’s record store. Along the way, Steph will have to spin some discs as a DJ, give advice to concerned callers with the help of a twenty-sided die, and navigate the terrifying world of dating apps in small towns.

Deck Nine’s Senior Narrative Designer Mallory Littleton commented on the decidion to focus a whole DLC episode on Steph: “It seemed like such an obvious route to create a DLC around such a beloved character, but it was truly important to us to do it justice. We know Steph is an important character for many people, and we wanted to further that by allowing players access to her inner monologue, emotions, and internal conflicts. This DLC is very much a love letter, not only to Steph, but to our community and those who find so much of themselves in this character.”

While the upcoming remasters of Life Is Strange and Life Is Strange: Before The Storm won’t be releasing until next February, Life Is Strange: True Colors and the Wavelength DLC are available right now on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC and Google Stadia, with a Nintendo Switch release coming soon!

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With the MMORPG business booming over the past year or so (or… at least some of them. Sorry WoW.), it’s no surprise that Amazon Games decided to dip their toe into it. Set on Aeternum, a haunted island where the dead don’t quite stay down, New World is Amazon’s new PC MMO. Despite several controversies since the launch of New World’s beta, it seems that Amazon’s gamble has paid off as there are so many players the servers can’t keep up. However, now that players have gotten into the game proper, one of the game’s worst problems seems to have reared its head again: the destruction of graphics cards. 

Graphics cards are in desperately short supply these days, so finally picking one up for your new rig only to have it be destroyed by a game must be heartbreaking. Back in New World’s beta, Amazon gave players a three-step guide to preventing your graphics card from dying rather than properly solving the issue. Now, reports are coming in that graphics cards are still being damaged – and worse, it’s not just RTX 3090s anymore.

An investigation by pcgamesn.com found that not only are RTX 3090 users reporting this issue, but now TX 3080s, RTX 3080 Tis, RTX 3060s and even the GPUs on RTX 3000 laptops. Both Nvidia and AMD GPUs seem to have been affected, with the game causing overheating and crashing. While Amazon did add an FPS limiter in the menu in an attempt to prevent the issue, it certainly doesn’t seem to have worked properly.

Despite all this ,New World has seen a massive amount of players pouring in since its full launch, and it doesn’t look like the flow is stopping any time soon. If you’re brave enough to risk your graphics card, you can check out New World right – but if you’re trying it, be ready to spend some time queuing to get in!

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The Evolution Championship series is one of the biggest events in the fighting game community’s calendar. Each year, players from around the world gather to test their mettle against each other in just about every fighting game that’s relevant these days, from Guilty Gear to Mortal Kombat.

However, after a successful online event in 2021, the Evo team weren’t quite done with 2021, announcing the Evo 2021 Showcase – a showdown between the Regional Champions crowned at Evo 2021. The event was set to be Evo’s triumphant return to the in-person events in Las Vegas that were the norm before the pandemic, but sadly the team have announced that due to ongoing complications arising from COVID-19, the event has now been canceled.

The Evo 2021 team made the announcement on their official Twitter account earlier today: “The goal of the Evo Showcase is to bring together the best players from around the world in a live, in-person format. Due to the continuing complications of COVID-19 and the spread of the Delta Variant we have made the tough decision to cancel the Evo 2021 Showcase. The players invited to participate in the Evo 2021 showcase represent many of the best fighters in the world. We’re incredibly saddened to cancel the event. The Evo team will be contacting each player individually to recognize their efforts. We remain dedicated to Evo’s mission of celebrating the FGC, and will continue to work towards the return of the big, live events that you expect from us“.

Worry not, fighting game fans – all is not yet lost! After the success of Evo 2021, it was also announced that the 2022 event would be held in Vegas, in-person – making it the return that the Showcase was meant to be. With the return of in-person battle and a few games that were absent from the 2021 event like Super Smash Bros., it’s looking like 2022 will be the year that Evo gets back to normal.

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With E3, the PlayStation Showcase, and a few Nintendo Directs behind us, the next big gaming showcase on the calendar for 2021 is the Tokyo Game Show, a presentation of the best that Japanese developers have to offer. Heads were turned when Square Enix announced that they’d be holding a “Square Enix Presents” showcase over the three days of the event, with a heavy focus on the Final Fantasy series. While they’d previously announced a lineup of games that they planned to show off, we’ve now gotten their exact schedule for the weekend – and there’s plenty more coming after the main event on Friday.

Of course, Square Enix Presents is up first on Friday, your traditional E3-style showcase of upcoming games. You can check out the games set to make an appearance right here, but Final Fantasy fans beware – it’s looking like there’ll be no news about the latest mainline title in the series, Final Fantasy XVI, until the dev team are a bit happier with how the game is shaping up. However, we will be getting a look at one of Square Enix’s upcoming new IPs, Forspoken (formerly known as Project Athia). We first saw Forspoken all the way back when Sony first showed off the PS5, and we’re going to be getting a much deeper look at the game at TGS, with a Forspoken TGS Special event following Square Enix Presents.

That’ll be it for Friday, though they’ll be starting Saturday off with a bang – a Guardians of the Galaxy livestream event, titled “ “Selling the galaxy’s most awesome misfits to SQEX CEO” You got this. Probably.”. We don’t know much about what the event will entail, but with a title like that it’s sure to earn a few laughs. Next up, the Final Fantasy block begins with the mobile games Final Fantasy Brave Exvius and War Of The Visions: Brave Exvius. However, they’re likely to get blown out of the water by Saturday evening’s showcases: The SaGa Series livestream and the Strangers In Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin showcase.

Although Sunday will be starting off a little slowly with a Final Fantasy Trading Card Game Beginner’s Hall event (the FFTCG is good guys, I promise), it’ll be kicking it into 5th gear with a look at two newly-revealed titles: Chocobo GP and Voice of the Cards: The Dragon Isle Roars. To round off the weekend, we’ll be getting a look at the upcoming Final Fantasy VII battle royale mobile game (yes, it’s real), Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier.

Even apart from Square Enix’s showings, the Tokyo Game Show is set to be a big weekend for gaming news – here at COGconnected, we’ll be ready to keep you up to date with all the biggest news!

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The Activision Blizzard case has been an interesting, if heavy, one to follow so far. To give a brief rundown of what’s happened so far, multiple allegations of a toxic workplace rife with sexual harassment and mistreatment of victims has lead to several official bodies, including the State of California and the SEC, taking legal action against them. When employees took action and staged a mass walk-out in protest of the company’s mistreatment of staff, Activision Blizzard hired a notorious union busting firm to help deal with the protest, leading to a further lawsuit by the Communications Workers of America. Now, yet another suit has been leveled against Activision Blizzard – though it seems to have been resolved almost immediately.

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard, stating “Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“Plaintiff” or “Commission”) alleges that there have been instances where Defendants Activision Blizzard, Inc., Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.,Activision Publishing, Inc., King.com, Inc., and their subsidiaries (“Defendants”) have subjected a class of individuals to sexual harassment, to pregnancy discrimination and/or to related retaliation under Title VII.” However, seemingly immediately, Activision Blizzard Announced that a settlement had been reached, and that they would be launching “workplace initiatives” including reworking anti-harassment training and providing ongoing oversight and reviews of the company’s training policies. Also as part of the settlement, an $18 million fund will be set up “to compensate and make amends to eligible claimants“, with any money not going towards claimaints instead going to non-profit organizations “that advance women in the video game industry or promote awareness around harassment and gender equality issues“

Activision Blizzard’s CEO, Bobby Kotick, commented on the settlement agreement: “There is no place anywhere at our company for discrimination, harassment, or unequal treatment of any kind, and I am grateful to the employees who bravely shared their experiences. I am sorry that anyone had to experience inappropriate conduct, and I remain unwavering in my commitment to make Activision Blizzard one of the world’s most inclusive, respected, and respectful workplaces.” However, this settlement doesn’t mean that Activision Blizzard are off the hook – quite the opposite. The EEOC was only the latest body to take legal action against them following reports of workplace harassment and discrimination, with the State of California, the SEC, and several individual victims still seeking restitution for the culture of harassment that had developed at the company.

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When it comes to RPGs, it seems that the traditional turn-based style we’ve been seeing since the dawn of the genre has been steadily falling out of style over the past few years. Some of the most iconic RPG franchises out there have abandoned the combat system in favor of a more action-packed approach – Final Fantasy is a prime example, not having had a proper turn-based main series game in over a decade now. However, a few developers are keeping the tradition going – like Ocean Drive Studios with their upcoming tactical turn-based RPG Lost Eidolons.

Lost Eidolons is Ocean Drive Studios’ debut title, and in their own words, “Lost Eidolons is a tactical turn-based strategy RPG set in a fantasy world called Artemesia. Lead Eden and his comrades through an episodic campaign in their fight to wrest back the empire. Strategize, plan your attack, and seize victory on a classic isometric grid battlefield with a modern touch.”. 

Ocean Drive Studios have opened up signups for Lost Eidolons’ first closed beta, and along with it they’ve released a new gameplay trailer that shows off some of the isometric tactical maneuvering we can expect from the game. During the beta, players will have access to the first 8 out of 27 of the game’s episodes, the character creation menu, a selection of units giving a flavor of the game’s combat and a few of the game’s pre-rendered cutscenes – although the voiceover lines for the cutscenes will be added later. You can check out the gameplay trailer for yourself right here:

Lost Eidolons will be starting its first of three closed beta periods on September 30, and running until October 6. You can sign up for it right here, but if you’ve already helped the team out by backing their Kickstarter, don’t worry! All you need to do is join the Ocean Drive Studios Discord and DM their Community Manager!

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The Resident Evil franchise has seen a massive resurgence over the last few years – the most recent title, Resident Evil 8: Village was a smash-hit success, following on from the effective reboot that came in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, moving the series back to its smaller scale horror roots. While Village… Didn’t quite keep up the low-key vibes of Biohazard, it certainly was able to bring the scares.

However, Capcom are ready to take a look back at one of the games that shaped the series for a long time: Resident Evil 4, with its more action-oriented third person shooter gameplay and its host of cultist bad guys to mow down. Alongside the development studio Armature, Capcom have now announced that they’ll be remaking Resident Evil 4 for virtual reality with an action-packed gameplay trailer.

As you might expect, this VR remake has one pretty significant difference from the original Resident Evil 4: the over-the-shoulder third person perspective is gone, instead putting you right in Leon’s shoes in first person. According to the game’s age on the Oculus site, “You’ll need swift hands to switch, reload weapons, and shoot while under siege“, suggesting that the fast-aced focus on resource management and keeping track of your ammo will be sticking around.

probably one of the most memorable parts of Resident Evil 4 were the big setpiece boss fights, something that was carried across the franchise up until Resident Evil 7 (and made a comeback immediately after in Resident Evil 8). From the parasite-laden El Gigante to Lord Saddler. As such, they get a bit of a spotlight both in the trailer and on the Oculus site – and it looks like the VR gameplay will be every bit as nail-biting as the original.

Resident Evil 4 will launch on Oculus Quest 2 on October 21 – just in time for Halloween! You can sign up for regular updates on the game until then on the Oculus site at the source link below.

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Way back in 2017, life was good for Mario fans – Mario Odyssey had just been released to critical acclaim, and it had just been announced that a Super Mario Bros. animated movie was in the works with industry juggernaut Illumination Entertainment (the studio responsible for the Minions) at the helm and Shigeru Miyamoto himself heavily involved. Since then there hasn’t been a whole lot of news about the project – we knew that they’re hoping for a 2022 release window, but not a whole lot else. Today, however, Miyamoto made an appearance at the latest Nintendo Direct to reveal some of the movie’s cast. And we gotta say, it’s not quite what we were expecting. 

First up, the leading man: Everyone’s favorite Italian plumber/princess rescuer will be played by none other than Chris Pratt. Yes, you ready that right, the Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World star will be lending his voice to the project. If that’s not weird enough, his cowardly brother Luigi will be played by Charlie Day of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia fame.

Still with me? It’s not a joke, I promise.

Princess Peach will be voiced by Anya Taylor-Joy, and Keegan-Michael Key (The Key from Key & Peele) will be Toad. When it comes to villains, a couple of Mario’s iconic enemies will be showing up – of course there’s Bowser, voiced by Jack Black, Kevin Michael Richardson as Kamek and Sebastian Maniscalco as Spike. But that’s not all: two more iconic Nintendo characters were revealed. Cranky Kong will be played by Fred Armisen, and the big ape himself, Donkey Kong, will be voiced by… Seth Rogen. Yeah. Still not joking.

Interestingly, the voice of Mario that we all know and love, Charles Martinet, will also be in the movie, although we don’t exactly know who he’ll be playing – all we know is that he’s there for “surprise cameos”. We haven’t got any more information about the Mario movie, unfortunately – Miyamoto said that they hope to be able to show a proper trailer soon, but for now we’re just going to have to imagine what this all-star cast will do to our beloved characters.

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It’s been a long wait for news about Bayonetta 3. The hack and slash sequel was announced in true Nintendo style with a vague trailer reveal all the way back in 2017, with little news except for “it exists” coming out since then. With certain other titles announced in a similar manner seemingly stuck in development hell, things weren’t looking good for Bayonetta 3 – until today, that is! Today’s Nintendo Direct rounded things out with a full trailer for Bayonetta 3, showing off gameplay and Bayonetta herself’s new design.

The trailer starts off a little vague, as most good video game trailers do – a group of soldiers face off against some massive demons in a city, and promptly get absolutely wrecked – turns out regular bullets aren’t too effective against these big guys. Luckily, Bayonetta is on hand to save the day – hiding in a bobblehead dog costume at first before the big reveal of her slick new character design! You can check the trailer out for yourself right here:

As you can see, we get a look at plenty of the game’s action here. There’s fast-paced hack and slash gameplay, all infused with the cheeky sense of humor we’ve come to expect from the Bayonetta franchise. It seems that Bayonetta has a few new tricks up her sleeve this time around – most notably, she’ll be able to summon massive monsters to help her out in kaiju-style fights, tearing through the city as they beat up the bad guys.

Officially, Bayonetta 3 is set to release on the Switch some time in 2022 – however, we may have a bit more information than the trailer’s given us. If a recent leak on the Nintendo eShop is to be believed, it seems that Bayonetta 3 is launching some time between September and December – just in time for Halloween! We’ll be keeping an eye out for more Bayonetta news as it comes!

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While games set in the grim darkness of Warhammer 40,000’s far future have been fairly hit-or-miss over the years – Games Workshop were infamous for licensing out the IP to just about whatever dev teams wanted it for a while – there’s one game that’s gone down in history as one of the best representations of the iconic setting we’ve seen yet: Relic Entertainment’s Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine. Now, 10 years after Space Marine’s initial release, Relic have launched an Anniversary Edition of the game, filled with content old and new.

Space Marine follows Captain Titus of the Ultramarines 2nd Company (the big blue lads with the chainsaw swords) as he leads his small team of genetically-engineered super soldiers on a mission to save a factory planet from Ork invasion. It received plenty of DLC for its multiplayer mode, letting players kit out their Space Marines in the colors of iconic factions throughout the game’s history – from the spectral Legion of the Damned to the vile Death Guard. The Anniversary Edition bundle includes all of the DLCs released for Space Marine, along with a few brand-new goodies.

For the first time, Space Marine – Anniversary Edition will let players get their hands on the game’s full soundtrack, classic and brand-new wallpapers, the original launch trailer, a ringtone, and PDFs of the original manual, the Official Strategy Guide, the Collector’s Edition Artbook and a series of collector’s cards.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine is without a doubt one of the most beloved video games to have spawned from Games Workshop’s tabletop empire, with fans still clamouring for a sequel even now, 10 years after its release. Although the closure of the game’s publisher THQ seems to have killed any plans for Captain Titus’ story to continue, perhaps this celebration could bring a glimmer of hope to the grim darkness of the series’ future.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine – Anniversary Edition is a free upgrade for everyone who own the original game on Steam – and you can get it right now!

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Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is set to take the fighting game world by storm – this Super Smash Bros-style fighter stars a cast of iconic characters from Nickelodeon’s past, from Aang to Zim. One Nickelodeon property, however, has become somewhat of a stale across other fighting games over the last few years – the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The heroes in a half shell have been popping up not only in their own titles, but also in crossovers with other games – like their appearance as playable fighters in Injustice 2’s Fighter Pack #3, or their epic battles against the gods in Smite. Recently, the publisher GameMill Entertainment have given us a look at how the TMNT’s leader Leonardo will play.

Unsurprisingly, Leonardo’s main attacks will use his iconic swords, though they won’t be doing all that much damage. Instead, Leonardo’s speed and his range of different techniques will allow players to pull off some impressive combos and quickly whittle their opponents’ health away. There also seems to be a few references to previous TMNT titles hidden in his moveset – in articular, his Scissors Slash and Endless Screw moves are suspiciously similar to his moves in the SNES classic Turtles In Time. You can check out the showcase trailer right here!

As the trailer shows, the turtles will also be bringing a few stages along with them. Unsurprisingly, the first revealed is Sewer Slam, representing their subterranean home. There are plenty of details here for TMNT fans to spot, from the radioactive sludge that’s pumping through the pipes to the turtles’ old ally mondo Gecko skating through the sewer.

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is set to release on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch on October 5 – keep an eye out for more character spotlights as we get close to the game’s release!.

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Last year, Square Enix revealed a whole slew of new titles in the iconic Dragon Quest series – from HD-2D remakes of classic games to spin-offs of more modern installments, it was an absolute whopper of a stream. However, one announcement overshadowed all the rest: the next mainline Dragon Quest game, Dragon Quest XII: The Flames of Fate. Since then, Square Enix have been keeping quiet with details about the game, but now a little bit of information has trickled out: We know who’ll be co-developing the game alongside Square Enix.

Orca are a team based in Shunjuku, Japan, and they’ve certainly proved that they’re worth their salt over the past few years. They’ve developed a few mobile games in the past, but don’t hold that against them – they were also co-developers on the hit fighter pilot flight simulator Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown and, of course, the critically acclaimed Dragon Quest XI: Echoes Of An Elusive Age.

The announcement came a little strangely – rather than an official reveal from Square Enix, Orca posted several job listings, including character and cinematic artists, animators, level designers and rendering programmers, all working in Unreal Engine 5, and all working on either unannounced projects or Dragon Quest XII.

Orca are the second confirmed co-developers of the game – joining them will be Hexa Drive, a development team from Osaka known for their work on Final Fantasy XV and a whole lot of HD remakes, including Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

We don’t know much about Dragon Quest XII’s release window just yet – it seems that since the heavy delays suffered by Final Fantasy Versus XIII (better known nowadays as Final Fantasy XV), Square Enix are more prone to holding out on information until they know everything is good to go. Whenever it’s released, you can be sure that we’ll be on hand to keep you up to date!

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For the past couple of years, EA have been consistently widening their reach by buying up more and more smaller developers – from Canadian-based Metalhead Software to the racing game superstars Codemasters. A while ago we heard that they were buying up the mobile dev studio Playdemic, best known for their work on the award-winning golfing game Golf Clash – and now, EA have announced that the acquisition is complete.

The acquisition comes as part of the same initiative as the Metalhead Software and Codemasters acquisitions: EA are aiming for “continued leadership in sports and mobile expansion”. Right now, they’re well on the way to achieving their goal: They’re the publishers (or developers) of the biggest sports franchises in the world with FIFA and Madden NFL, and on the mobile side they’ve got The Sims Mobile, Plants vs Zombies and, of course, Peggle under their umbrella.

Playdemic’s Head of Studio, Paul Gouge, discussed the move to EA in a press release announcing the acquisition’s completion: “This is an exciting day for Playdemic as we become part of the Electronic Arts family. I am proud to bring the amazing talent which exists at Playdemic into the EA business, to both continue to build on Golf Clash’s incredible success and to build new games, which we believe can be even more successful in entertaining and engaging audiences globally.”

In the same release, EA’s CEO Andrew Wilson also commented on the acquisition: “The addition of the incredible Playdemic team not only adds to the strength of our mobile teams globally, it also continues our expansion and investment in U.K.-based talent. With Playdemic now part of Electronic Arts, we’re excited to bring even more amazing and innovative mobile games to diverse audiences around the world.”

There’s been no announcements on the future of the studio quite yet, but you can pick up Playdemic’s award-winning mobile game Golf Clash on iOS and Android right now!

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When it comes to including full games in their subscription services, it’s fair to say that Nintendo have fallen quite a bit behind their competitors this generation – between PlayStation Plus offering multiple free titles to keep every week and Xbox launching their game-changing Game Pass system with the Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch Online is a little bit lacking. However, over the last little while they’ve been trying to catch up – last week they made the Switch original mech action title Daemon x Machina available for free, and next week another title will be made available – Story of Seasons: Pioneers Of Olive Town.

Pioneers of Olive Town is the latest title in the Story of Seasons series, formerly known as Harvest Moon here in the west. It’s got the same basic plot as just about every other farming and dating simulator of its ilk: your grandfather has left you a farm in a small rural village, and it’s up to you to fix it up! Along the way you’ll befriend or romance the local townsfolk, all by giving them a cornucopia of gifts grown on your own little plot of land. However, that’s not to say it’s a stale experience – a plethora of quality of life improvements have made Pioneers of Olive Town a worthy entry in the iconic farming series.

Starting on September 22, Nintendo Switch Online subscribers will be able to play Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town for free. However, unlike the free games offered by similar services like PlayStation Plus, it won’t be available to keep – you’ll have about one week to play through as much of the game as you can. It also looks like none of the game’s three DLCs are included – however that may be for the best, as you’ll have plenty of content to get through in the week as is.

Story Of Seasons: Pioneers Of Olive Town is available on Nintendo Switch and PC right now – the Nintendo Switch Online free trial launches on September 22, and ends on September 28!

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