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In Chapter Six, Season One, Fortnite introduced adorable little magic-infused Sprites that assist players in battle. There are three types of Sprites, each with different effects when thrown. Water Sprites restore health and shields to nearby players, Air Sprites are the new movement tool of the season and create updrafts of wind that will help players to fly, and Earth Sprites — which cannot be picked up — give players rewards in return for being fed certain items. View the full article

Fallout 76 has revealed the Gleaming Depths update patch notes, delivering the most significant overhaul to its endgame experience yet. At the heart of this Fallout 76 update is The Gleaming Depths raid, a new endgame activity for teams of four seasoned Vault Dwellers. Players can also explore new 4-Star Legendary items, personalized Player Titles, and the addition of C.A.M.P. Pets to enhance their adventures. View the full article

Players who consistently purchase the Call of Duty: ****** Ops 6 Blackcell battle passes will qualify for "loyalty bonuses," according to a new announcement. Developer Treyarch and Microsoft reintroduced the Blackcell battle pass with the debut of Call of Duty: ****** Ops 6 Season 1 in November 2024. View the full article

Dragon Quest III HD-2D is one of many reiterations of its original release on the Nintendo entertainment system. Originally released on February 10, 1988, in Japan, Yuji Horii and his team set out to continue their growing successful Turn-based RPG Franchise into the much-celebrated IP it is today by attempting to make it far more […] Source View the full article

laloth is a strange ******: it's a sprawling isometric RPG both immediately familiar and unlike anything I've played before. It's as indebted to Diablo as it is to the ye olde Infinity Engine games, but it's also unmistakably inspired by Dark Souls. It's a weird hybrid that took me a long time to come to grips with, but after five or so hours its rhythms started to make sense. After two years in early access, Alaloth: Champions of the Four Kingdoms released into 1.0 earlier this month... Read more.View the full article

In a recent behind-closed-doors demo, we played a section of Monster Hunter Wilds and asked the developers about changes made to weapons and other systems, the biggest being the separation of Equipment Skills between weapons and armor. Read on for more details. As I played the demo, I realized major changes have been made to the Skills system, where damage-increasing skills and *******-specific skills like ******* Up and Focus can only be found on or applied to the weapons themselves – a pretty impactful change. Watch new gameplay of Monster Hunter Wilds above, including footage of Seikret and camp customization. This is the new Equipment Skill system. In interviews, the dev team referred to skills for your weapons casually as ******* Skills. Running with that unofficial terminology, let’s call equipment skills for weapons ******* Skills, and equipment skills for armor Armor Skills. This means that equipment skills in Wilds are split up into these two categories. ******* Skills generally include skills that affect actions and damage output, while Armor Skills assist in other ways. Armor Skills include support skills like Speed Eating and Divine Blessing. This new system also affects slots, and the devs confirmed that weapons can only use decorations with skills categorized as ******* Skills, while armor can only use decorations with skills categorized as Armor Skills. This really opens up a lot of new ideas. I asked director Yuya Tokuda about his intentions here, and he replied, “Only armor had [built-in] equipment skills until now, but when a piece of armor had a type of skill only effective when used with a certain ******* type, that meant you would have to choose the corresponding *******. This led to an unavoidable situation where it was ******* for people to use those kinds of armor pieces.” The new system solves that issue. Monster Hunter Wilds now lets you take two weapons with you on a hunt, which must have been another reason behind the change. Since you can now swap to a sub-******* mid-hunt, it's great to be able to keep on hunting while maintaining the skills you need to increase your damage to a suitable level or handle your ******* better. There is one thing I'm still curious about. While I was able to confirm that skills like Guard are indeed on weapons that can block, I'm still not sure which type of equipment utilizes skills like Evade and Evade Distance. ******* Balance Next up is ******* balancing. Producer Ryozo Tsujimoto confirmed that there will be significant ******* balance changes in Wilds. He told me, “There will be major changes not just after what we saw in the open beta, but also in the form of changes we had always intended to add to the final product.” Tokuda said, “In particular, we plan on putting quite a lot of work into the Lance, Switch Axe, Insect Glaive, and Sword and Shield based on feedback from the open beta.” He continued, “We've tweaked values across the board relating to ******* damage and overall balance, including balance regarding endgame content.” In addition to these numerical changes, the four aforementioned ******* types have (quote) “plenty of work put into how they feel to use." While the development side is certainly listening to the voices of the players, they were already taking a proactive stance toward ******* balance changes, and it seems that a proper announcement about the topic will come at a later date. Seeing their attitude put me at ease; the game is clearly in good hands. We’ll see how their intentions pan out when the final game is released in February 2025. Next, the team told me about the direction and concept of the Switch Axe and the Insect Glaive. Insect Glaive Changes and the Return of Vaulting Dance The Insect Glaive is one of my main weapons, and my very first impression was that there were fewer aerial attacks available. It made me wonder if the concept was to reduce the relative number of aerial attacks and make it a primarily grounded *******. I brought this up with Tokuda, and he began by revealing to me that Vaulting Dance is making a return! This is one of the actions that was so important to opening up possibilities for aerial combat with an Insect Glaive. As to why it wasn't there before, Tokuda said, "We were concerned that putting it in this time around would cause players to use nothing but existing movements, rather than focus on the new parts of the game. That's why we decided to remove Vaulting Dance for a time." As for the reason it was brought back, he replied, "Many players at gamescom and Tokyo Game Show told us that it's not about how strong or weak it is, but that Vaulting Dance is part of the Insect Glaive's very identity. We realized that we weren't on the same page as our players there, and so we immediately decided to bring Vaulting Dance back while balancing the ability." I was happy to hear about this balance decision as an Insect Glaive user. That said, I did have difficulty during the open beta with the controls for its new charge *******, and I'm hoping that they'll make it easier to use as well. Updating the Switch Axe to be More Attractive to Players I then asked about what direction they want to take with the Switch Axe. Tokuda told me the concept of the Switch Axe had not fully gotten across to players, and that the dev team is balancing it in order to convey what makes it a good *******. Specifically, he said, “The Full Release Slash that comes at the very end of an ******* didn't fully stand out, both in terms of feel and numbers, making it less attractive when compared to similarly positioned attacks for other weapons. We'll be sure to address that." After hearing about the developers' plans to balance the Switch Axe to make it a more attractive *******, it's clear to me that it's being properly discussed. Their process to come to the decision to make changes to the Switch Axe backs that up even more, so I don't think that should be a point of concern any longer. I'm sorry to admit that I can't go into as much depth on the Switch Axe as with the Insect Glaive, as it isn't one of my main weapons, but other media outlets were also present at this hands-on session, and I’m sure some of them include players who go hard on the Lance, the Gunlance, the Bow, the Long Sword and more, so keep an eye out online for more information on your favorite *******! Translated by Ko Ransom. View the full article

Despite being a new release, Infinity Nikki is already offering players free items with time-sensitive promo codes. You'll want to stockpile as many different outfits as you can straight from the get-go. View the full article

Stardew Valley has many animals but a snake isn't one of them, which is why one player was very confused when they saw what looked like a small snake hanging out by the pigs. The animals that appear in the cozy farming sim are mostly farm animals like cows, sheep, chickens, dogs, and other animals you might find on a farm. It turns out that the snake was nothing more than an optical illusion. View the full article

NetEase Games announced that all players will have the opportunity to claim a free Iron Man skin when Marvel Rivals launches on Friday, December 6. Marvel Rivals had a successful beta earlier in 2024 and is hoping it can keep up momentum ahead of release. In order to keep the hype going, NetEase Games is running several promotions and collaborations set to go live upon the game's official release. View the full article

Solo ********* developer METASLA has announced an earlier release for Sea Fantasy, their pixelated open world fishing RPG for PC and consoles. Sea Fantasy is launching on January 7th, 2025 for Windows PC (via Steam) and Xbox consoles, worldwide – a month earlier from its original February release. Here’s a rundown on the game, plus a […] Source View the full article

The Finals is introducing Season 5 with an array of new changes, including a new map named Bernal. There have been several new updates showing the developers' determination to keep the title thriving. Along with a PS5 Pro patch, The Finals has been announced for a launch on PlayStation 4. Although there have been struggles, The Finals is setting up an exciting future. View the full article

Genshin Impact has made some major changes to Mavuika in the latest beta build, and players may not necessarily like what these changes imply. Traditionally, Archons in Genshin Impact have leaned towards support roles, usually in a way that best exemplifies their element. While Raiden Shogun can be played as a hypercarry, her ability kit primarily offers Energy Recharge and off-field Electro Damage. On the other hand, Zhongli is considered to be the best Shield Support in Genshin Impact – which certainly fits Geo as an element. View the full article

We have just shipped an updated Steam Deck Client to the Stable channel. General Fixed audio desync that occurs for some game recording videos when played in Steam or Chrome browser. Fixed game notes being reset sometimes when enabling/disabling spell checking. Fixed hardware video acceleration setting showing as enabled when GPU accelerated rendering in webviews is disabled (both must be enabled for hardware video acceleration to work). Game Recording Added settings button to allow resetting the game recording folder to the default path. Fixed issue causing some users to encounter failures while exporting video clips. Fixed bug which applied background recording retention interval to manual recordings. Fixed issue preventing Linux users with Nvidia cards from using their GPU to accelerate video encoding. Remote Play Fixed store and community features being disabled when streaming to a Mac. Fixed issue preventing Linux users with Nvidia cards from using their GPU to accelerate video encoding.View the full article

A new Steam client has been released and will be automatically downloaded. General Fixed some causes of rare crashes in Steam Client. Fixed game notes being reset sometimes when enabling/disabling spell checking. Fixed hardware video acceleration setting showing as enabled when GPU accelerated rendering in webviews is disabled (both must be enabled for hardware video acceleration to work). Game Recording Added settings button to allow resetting the game recording folder to the default path. Fixed audio desync that occurs for some videos when played in Steam or Chrome browser. Fixed successive recording exports after the first one sometimes exporting the wrong clip. Fixed issue preventing audio capture by the steam overlay in some games on Windows. Fixed issue preventing Linux users with Nvidia cards from using their GPU to accelerate video encoding. Fixed issue causing some users to encounter failures while exporting video clips. Fixed bug which applied background recording retention interval to manual recordings. Fixed potential ****** when exporting a clip to file when the machine has previously installed Nvidia GPU drivers but no longer has an Nvidia GPU. Remote Play Fixed store and community features being disabled when streaming to a Mac. Fixed issue preventing Linux users with Nvidia cards from using their GPU to accelerate video encoding. Fixed a regression in audio capture for Remote Play Together. Steam Input Fixed duplicate controllers showing up on the ROG Ally X. macOS Fixed Steam Client crashing on store age verification page.View the full article

A new Steam client has been released and will be automatically downloaded. General Fixed some causes of rare crashes in Steam Client. Fixed game notes being reset sometimes when enabling/disabling spell checking. Fixed hardware video acceleration setting showing as enabled when GPU accelerated rendering in webviews is disabled (both must be enabled for hardware video acceleration to work). Game Recording Added settings button to allow resetting the game recording folder to the default path. Fixed audio desync that occurs for some videos when played in Steam or Chrome browser. Fixed successive recording exports after the first one sometimes exporting the wrong clip. Fixed issue preventing audio capture by the steam overlay in some games on Windows. Fixed issue preventing Linux users with Nvidia cards from using their GPU to accelerate video encoding. Fixed issue causing some users to encounter failures while exporting video clips. Fixed bug which applied background recording retention interval to manual recordings. Fixed potential ****** when exporting a clip to file when the machine has previously installed Nvidia GPU drivers but no longer has an Nvidia GPU. Remote Play Fixed store and community features being disabled when streaming to a Mac. Fixed issue preventing Linux users with Nvidia cards from using their GPU to accelerate video encoding. Fixed a regression in audio capture for Remote Play Together. Steam Input Fixed duplicate controllers showing up on the ROG Ally X. macOS Fixed Steam Client crashing on store age verification page.View the full article