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Add some more fuel to the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater remake rumor fire! Singapore's rating board has rated "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4" for a 2025 release. The rumored remake, consisting of the next two mainline games in the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series, would be heading to a hefty lineup of platforms. The ratings board lists Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S as platforms for the THPS collection. No official confirmation has arrived just yet for this collection, though a countdown timer spotted in Call of Duty: ****** Ops 6 is teasing some Tony Hawk's Pro Skater news is coming. The countdown is ticking down to March 4, 2025. Additionally, Tony Hawk told Mythical Kitchen that he's been talking to Activsion again, and that they are working on something. "It will be something the fans will truly appreciate," Hawk said. Following the by-all-accounts stellar remake of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 from 2020, a remake of the next two games seemed like a no-brainer. Though 3 and 4 felt like an almost surefire bet to happen next, Activision folded the THPS remake developer Vicarious Visions into Blizzard in 2021 and dedicated the team to "Blizzard games and initiatives." According to Tony Hawk, the original plan "even up util the release day" of the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 remake was to tackle 3+4 next. But when Vicarious Visions got absorbed, the publisher sought other developers. “The truth of it is that [Activision] were trying to find somebody to do 3 + 4 but they just didn’t really trust anyone the way they did Vicarious, so they took other pitches from other studios,” Tony Hawk said in a Twitch livestream in 2022. “Like, ‘What would you do with the THPS title?’ And they didn’t like anything they heard, and then that was it.” The question remains, then: if a Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 remake is happening, and it sure looks like it is, who's making it? The Singaporean ratings board only lists Activision as the publisher and developer. March 4, next week, seems like the day we'll learn some more answers. Eric is a freelance writer for IGN. View the full article

Achievements are a mainstay of modern gaming, even if you're the kind of gamer who doesn't want a magnificent scene interrupted by a popup saying "Achievement unlocked: lord tearjerker". I generally loathe achievements, though that might be out of yearning for a time when games did achievements discreetly. If you happen to be ancient enough to recall, the Tomb Raider series of games was one of the first to feature some sort of non-point-based achievements, which came in the poignant form of archeological secrets discovered. The original Tomb Raider games did achievements right Sure, the first game had secret achievements in the form of med packs and ammo clips that didn't really make much sense in the context of undiscovered tombs. Still, Tomb Raider 2 fixed that by including dragon-shaped artifacts. They were useless for gameplay purposes but did a great job of making players feel like an accomplished entertainment archeologist, which is the term I use to describe movie and video game archeologists who steal stuff instead of doing an actual archeologist's job. On top of hitting the mark on a visual and gameplay level, the Tomb Raider 1-3https://www.destructoid.com/tomb-raider-remastered-i-iii-is-a-nostalgic-walk-through-the-croft-museum/Remaster nailed the spirit of the game, meaning it also upped the ante for the original games' achievements. The first remaster package brought in dozens of new achievements — some offer a neat challenge by being really hard to figure out, some are hilarious, and many are both. Luckily, the team at Aspyr behind the second batch of classic Tomb Raider classics (and the not-so-classic Angel Of Darkness), did it again. The best achievements in the Tomb Raider 4-6 Remaster Trilogy The remaster features 168 achievements of varying difficulty levels. Unlocking many of them is a straightforward affair, like "Finish the Cairo Chapter", for example, but it gets so much better. The best achievements in a game about solving mysteries and finding stuff are those that require mystery-solving skills and then reward players with a hilarious achievement name. Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation starts with a secret achievement named "What's Up, Doc?", which you get by lying down next to a skeleton. That's not a regular skeleton, however, but rather a skeleton donning a hat and a whip, so an obvious reference to Indiana Jones. There's also "Self Defense Guide", which you get by tricking three scorpions and three jackals into getting killed by fire. Among other things, this trilogy is infamous for having Lara partake in various acts of unnecessary evil, so it's nice to see the devs daring players to do even worse. Any average pun enjoyer will like "Blade Outrunner", which you get by avoiding getting hit by any pedestal blades. The "This is fine" achievement probably requires no explanation, but you unlock it by taking the time to find all the secrets in a specific level despite it being on fire. When it comes to mystery-solving, skill, and pure evil, it's hard to beat "Cooler than Henry". You'll unlock it by blinding three assassins, poisoning them, and then one-shot them in a row. I'm also partial to "Prop with no purpose", which you get by grabbing Von Croy's glasses, provided it's meant a comment on the nature of achievements. I don't much care for the name "Jason's Apprentice", but that's the achievement you get for drowning five skeletons in water — one of the most bizarre things to happen on any of these already pretty out-there games. "Scarabicide" is the beautifully-titled achievement you get for running over a scarab with your motorcycle. "Theomachist" is a really cool achievement you can get from doing a handstand in front of a bunch of statues. Then there's the very darkly-comedic "High Five to Maahes", which you get by obliterating five enemies with one grenade. Lastly, TLR features an achievement called "Oops", which you get from breaking every destructible item in the game. Now that's video game archeology done right. Tomb Raider Chronicles begins with "To the Envy of Venus", which Lara naturally gets by showing off with a handstand in front of a gate. There's also the hilariously cruel "Fail Compilation", which you get from watching all of Lara's failures on the young Lara level. One of the funniest achievements in the entire series is "Gassassin", which you get by killing a guard with gas. Why is this so funny? Because the guard is a robot. Good thing this achievement isn't optional otherwise it would prove pretty hard to guess for many. Tomb Raider 6 features an achievement called "Darwin Awards", which you get by finding all the silliest ways to die, and thus is something I have no idea how to unlock since this game features infinite dumb ways for Lara to perish. There's also the hilarious "Chococollection", which you get by collecting all the chocolate bars in the game and eating none. One of my favorites is "Snake Eater", whose description reads "Why are you still here? Just to suffer?". That's a brilliant double reference, this time to the Metal Gear Solid series, as well as to the lackluster state in which the game was released. You unlock it by climbing a long ladder that takes you to a large area with nothing for you to do. [Hidden Content] The Angel Of Darkness culminates with "I Feel Stronger Now", which you get from beating the game. This is a brilliant reference to the infamous phrase that Lara says whenever she "levels up" and I believe a welcome congratulatory note to anyone resilient enough to beat that game. Do you know why I believe that? Because the achievement for beating the game in New Game+ is called "Never Again". You can now achieve all of these on Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered on PC, Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. The post Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered continues the first trilogy’s trend of hilarious achievements appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article

Do you struggle to stay motivated while sitting at your desk? Is there something lengthy you need to write but you lack the drive to do it? Well, this Bongo Cat desktop buddy might be here to save the day, and up your work output. Bongo Cat, a favorite 2018 meme that originated on Twitter and now has its very own music-making website, has been brought to the desktop by developer Marcel Zurawka, and published by Irox Games as part of February’s Steam Next Fest event. Downloading the demo allows you to have Bongo Cat wherever you like on the screen, and every time you push a button or click the mouse, Bongo Cat performs his trademark slap. Screenshot by Destructoid As well as the basic adorable slappy animation, there’s a counter beneath Bongo Cat that goes up with every button you press. As this number goes up, you’ll gradually be rewarded with pop-up treasure chests containing hats for your Bongo Cat. This is, essentially, a productivity-boosting clicker, which is preferable to clickers that serve only to distract — such as the bizarre Banana that seemed to take over Steam at some point in 2024 and is somehow still maintaining a place within the top 10 most played games. I just don’t understand the appeal of clicker games. Clicking isn’t exactly the most thrilling of experiences, and yet people seem content to spend hours doing just that. I don’t get it. Still, I have to admit that I’m kind of obsessed with this Bongo Cat desktop buddy. In the hour since I downloaded it, I’ve tapped out over 4,000 on the counter and unlocked two hats! Screenshot by Destructoid And now, because I am apparently very easily pleased and excited by the prospect of hats, I’m trying my best to unlock more of them. I’m actively looking for ways to press more buttons, clicking aimlessly around the internet in the hopes of seeing the counter go up and more treasure chests appearing for me to open. According to the Steam page for Bongo Cat, any hats earned during the demo will not be transferable or marketable. This does suggest that hats earned in the full game might be, with a whole host of Bongo Cat hats springing up on the Steam Community Market when the game goes live in March. Having Bongo Cat on my desktop is a surprisingly good motivator, and I’ll definitely be making the most of the Next Fest demo and then downloading the full game once it is released next month. The post The best thing from Steam Next Fest is a productivity-boosting Bongo Cat with unlockable hats appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article

Monster Hunter Wilds has released its first update ahead of its official launch on PS5, with the hefty patch totaling 18GB in size. As the next entry in the famous franchise, Monster Hunter Wilds is set to make some waves when it launches on February 28 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. View the full article

The 90s were an incredible time to be alive, for so many reasons. Great music, baggy jeans, graphic tees, and the origins of true survival horror games. Gamers like me who yearn for the fixed camera angles, tank controls, and PlayStation 1 aesthetic will be pleased to know that those like us have gone on to develop some incredible tributes to that era. And one such game was brought to my attention by Steam Next Fest. View the full article

The seemingly relentless wave of video game industry layoffs has seemingly hit yet another team, as The Callisto Protocol creator Striking Distance Studios has reportedly let go of a majority of its developers. This revelation comes just shortly after Striking Distance Studios teased a new in-development project, leaving audiences to wonder what the immediate and long-term implications of these layoffs will be for the creatives behind The Callisto Protocol. View the full article

Last night, Marvel Rivals' servers went down. After confirming the issue, NetEase took a bit of time to figure things out and implement a fix. After all was said and done, it took less than an hour, but even still, players have been given some Marvel bux for the inconvenience... Read more.View the full article

It feels like a long wait between the announcement of Monster Hunter Wilds and its release, but at long last we're in the home stretch towards launch. It's time to cook your meals, craft your potions and sharpen your weapons. There's no "advance access" ******* for PC, so you don't need to worry about doing too much to prepare. But you should check out when you can preload the game to guarantee the most seamless start... Read more.View the full article

Silent Hill 2 remake wranglers Bloober Team have emerged from the newly high-resolution, volumetric fog to threaten us with the prospect of another "game based on Konami's IP". Thank heavens, I was beginning to think we'd never get a new Frogger. Whatever the project is, we won't hear about it for a while. Read more View the full article

There's a strong chance you haven't heard of Ne Zha 2, but it's the highest grossing animated film of all time, and it just passed Spider-Man: No Way Home too. Read more View the full article

If you're a budding Muad d'ib who can't wait to sweep across the sands in an ornithopter, or see an enormous sandworm, then you'll want to download the new Dune Awakening benchmark. You can now give your PC hardware a workout to see how it will handle the new game, and the good news is that the game not only looks good, but it will also run at a decent frame rate at maximum settings. With the Dune Awakening release date approaching, now is a great time to download the benchmark for yourself and see how your rig copes with its demands. I've had a play with the benchmark myself over the last day and night, and I'm pleased to report that you won't need the best graphics card ever in order to run Dune Awakening at a decent frame rate. It also supports the key Nvidia DLSS and AMD FSR upscaling and frame-gen technologies. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Dune Awakening release date, trailers, and latest news Survival MMO Dune Awakening finally has a launch date, but you can sample it now New MMO Dune Awakening owes everything to one survival game classic View the full article

Infinity Nikki has revealed the full slate of outfits that will be featured on the Limited Banners in Version 1.3, including three sets that players will be able to obtain for free via the Heartfelt Gifts system. While Version 1.3 is smaller in scope compared to Version 1.2, Infinity Nikki continues to expand on its core concept – all the while listening to its players for valuable feedback. As a result, Infinity Nikki players can look forward to new outfit slots and vertical camera mode in the upcoming update, as well as housing and dyes in the near future. View the full article

Initially slated to be released sometime in 2025, the highly anticipated Fable reboot has now been delayed to some point in 2026. Fans have waited for a new entry in the action RPG series for years, and while many were gearing up to get their hands on some fresh content this year, Fable reportedly needs a little extra time before it's ready to appear on store shelves. View the full article

It looks like that Tony Hawk's Pro Skater thing being teased over the last week or so will turn out to be Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4, assuming a new rating in Singapore provres trustworthy. Read more View the full article

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 has already put itself in contention to be this year's best new RPG, but Fable has constantly been lurking on the horizon. The new reboot of the fantasy series by Playground Games has all the right ingredients to go toe to toe with KCD2 - well, apart from one rather important thing. It's no longer coming out in 2025. Dang. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Fable 4 release date estimate, trailers, and latest news Fable finally has a launch window, and a gorgeous new trailer Is Fable 4 on Steam? View the full article

SteamOS 3.6.22 has been released to the Stable channel for Deck with the following changes: General Fixed a recent regression where pre-compiled shaders wouldn't be downloaded. View the full article

Call of Duty’s sloppy season two for ****** Ops 6 and Warzone added another sad chapter recently, as Activision has confirmed that the company uses generative AI game development. Sadly, no one is really surprised about the news and basically everyone hates it, just like when a winter-themed zombie loading screen went viral this past December as a suspected AI creation. Now that AI usage is confirmed, the news is even more disappointing than most expected it would be. View the full article

Mecha Break recently launched into a new round of open beta play on Steam, and quickly dethroned some titans in the process. Even though it's just a glimpse of the final experience, Mecha Break's demo is bumping elbows with the likes of Marvel Rivals, Grand Theft Auto V, Apex Legends, and Naraka Bladepoint. So why's it got such a bad rating on Steam? The open beta launch pulled in over 300,000 players on Steam, deseating Marvel Rivals and hitting a top-four place in the most played games on Valve's platform. Even right now, at the time of writing this, Amazing Seasun Games' mecha battler has the fourth-highest concurrent players per SteamDB, though it falls behind Rivals' 24-hour peak. Popularity doesn't naturally incur positivity; Apex Legends has a 'Mixed' overall rating on Steam, as does Delta Force, and both have substantially more recent players than many other games on the PC platform. Yet Mecha Break's demo is sitting at 'Mostly Negative' right now, with over 6,500 reviews. Taking a look through the reviews, there are a few discernible complaints. The most easily addressed are the server issues. With hundreds of thousands of players flocking to the open beta, which apparently overwhelmed the servers. Amazing Seasun responded, saying the studio has addressed the problem and is issuing several batches of "Ultimate Maintenance Boxes" to players as compensation. Those boxes are a constant, and longer-term, point of concern among players though. Individual mechs are unlocked through the store or battle pass, as well as cosmetic purchases. There's also a loot box mechanic for mods, which come with mild upsides and downsides, that has players worried about long-term balance and time investment. It seems that while many aspects of Mecha Break can be unlocked for free, it will take at least some time to do so. "Outside of missions, the match to match reward of currency is very low. In order to unlock the entire roster you'll likely have to play hundreds of games to get there," one reviewer said. Another repeat critique across several reviews is the anti-cheat measures. Mecha Break uses the kernel level anti-cheat Anti-Cheat Expert, or ACE. These often allow for greater access to users' machines, in exchange for monitoring for more extensive cheating options. Usually, players aren't too happy about anti-cheats like this. The anti-cheat is also apprently causing problems for Linux desktop users, per GamingOnLinux. Tack on some extra customization woes, like spending currency to re-customize your in-game pilot, and the negative reviews paint a fairly stark picture of frustration over currencies and grinding for unlocks. Mecha Break is set to be a free-to-play game, so some of those do end up coming with the territory. And interestingly, there does seem to be a counter-movement of positive reviews, though it's still lagging behind the negative ones by raw numbers. At the very least, while there are some gameplay concerns, those sentiments seem to be broadly positive compared to the out-of-combat critiques. Most of the positive reviews and even many of the negative reviews praise the actual mecha battles, as well as the pilot and mecha customization options, which include a bunch of cosmetics and paints to create, say, your very own Evangelion Unit-02 or Gundam Heavyarms. We'll see if Amazing Seasun works to address the negative responses leading into the full release sometime later this year. Eric is a freelance writer for IGN. View the full article

Marius is one of Avowed’s four companions and can be very effective in a fight if used properly. Since Marius is one of the earlier companions you’ll pick up, you’ll likely use him for at least a short stretch before picking up Giatta in Emerald Stair. You’ll also need to use him during his companion quest later on in Galawain’s Tusks, so it’s worth knowing how to spend your upgrade points on him to keep him as a viable option. Depending on your class, you may want to run Marius for the majority of Avowed. View the full article

There was a time when a slight tweak to a forest path would send my Dota 2 clan’s heads into a collective spin. Valve’s venerable MOBA used to be much more conservative with map changes, and big ones are still rare—but they happen, now. In 2023 the map got 40% *******, and Roshan relocated to the edges of the map. As of last week’s Wandering Waters update, Dota 2 has more rivers, frogs and crafting than ever before, plus Roshan has returned from the suburbs... Read more.View the full article

There seems to be an endless amount of Marvel Rivals leaks these days. However, recent voice lines from one of the most renowned leakers in the game might have just revealed the next two heroes to debut. On Feb. 24 and 25, a leaker named X0XLEAK shared voice lines for a few currently-existing Marvel Rivals heroes. These recordings show them interacting with two characters that have been already rumored to join the game—Captain Marvel and Angela. In a few of these lines, they’re named directly, hinting that their potential addition to the roster is closer than we thought. View the full article

Fable has officially been delayed until 2026, but head of Xbox Game Studios Craig Duncan says the title already “feels amazing.” Developed by Playground Games, Fable is a reboot of the beloved franchise that shone in the Xbox 360 era and was tentatively given a 2025 release window. However, following a ******* of radio silence, it’s now been confirmed the title will be pushed back until 2026. View the full article

Fable, a big new release from Playground games and Xbox Game Studios, is being delayed to 2026. This was revealed in the latest episode of the official Xbox Podcast, in which Head of Xbox Game Studios Craig Duncan broke the news. Read more View the full article

It’s been a bit longer than usual since the last Disney Dreamlight Valley update, but Tales of Agrabah seems to be packed with plenty of content that makes it well worth the wait. If you’re eager to learn what it includes, you may want to review the patch notes. The name of the update gives a bit away about it, primarily that it includes Jasmine, Aladdin, and a Realm inspired by the film they’re from, but there’s plenty more waiting to be discovered. Here are the patch notes for the Feb. 26 Tales of Agrabah update in Disney Dreamlight Valley. View the full article

“It's me again. Once more I'm here to cut down the time almost in half." With those words, Groobo introduced the speedrunning world to his 2009 Diablo record, the fastest Diablo run the world would ever see. In 2004, he beat the previous best time of 53 minutes with a staggering 17:38. In only five years, he brought the record down to 3 minutes, 12 seconds. No one has taken over the record since. No one ever overtook any of Groobo’s times. The Diablo speedrunning community moved away from the unbeatable Groobo runs, retreating to the increasingly popular categories of single segment, no negative HP glitch. 15 years later, Groobo would be accused of cheating, and all his Diablo records would be scrubbed from leaderboards. How spliced runs work Screenshot via Speed Demos Archive Even though Groobo’s run is much shorter than any previous attempts, he divided his video proof into segments. The previous record holder had taken 5 separate videos to record their 53-minute-long attempt, making each video about 10 minutes long. Uploading videos to the internet wasn’t easy in 2004, so this was nothing out of the ordinary. Meanwhile, Groobo’s first record of 17:38 was divided into 19 sections, less than one minute per video on average, which grew to 40 sections as his time shrunk to 06:07. His 2009 run was just 03:12 long, but it was delivered in 27 videos, each only 7 seconds long. Was this not suspicious? Couldn’t Groobo have optimized his run by retrying each 7-second-long section until he had done each perfectly? Why, of course he did. That’s what a segmented run is. Most challengers might not have used as many segments as he did, but a high number of slices alone is not enough to raise the alarm. As the [Hidden Content] said in 2009, before being edited: “Use as many segments as is optimal to achieve the fastest final time. We will not be more impressed if you use a small number of segments.” Splicing rules used to be quite loose, too, clearing Groobo of what would otherwise be cheating. You can see something wrong in the version of Diablo used for the world record before the run even begins. The copyright notice on Diablo’s splash screen reads “Copyright 1996-2001”, which would make this version 1.09. It certainly isn’t the 1.0, or it would just say 1996. Meanwhile, the main menu on the next screen calls itself Diablo v1.00. Groobo used two different versions of the game, and yet he wasn't disqualified. SDA’s rules state clearly that runs are allowed to “have discrepancies between two segments as long as none of it is to your advantage”. The run only begins when Groobo starts a new game, and we’re still on the main menu, so this isn’t cheating. Suspicions of ******** splicing Screenshot via Speed Demos Archive There are multiple instances of Groobo not splicing his 2009 run as he should have. To be fair, instructions on how to splice runs are vague, but it’s clear that he didn’t act as he was expected to. The worst offender by far is the disappearing magical ring, which is placed in the inventory before vanishing without a trace, only to reappear a few seconds later. But again, this might not be against the rules because the discrepancy doesn’t help the runner in any way. But even if Groobo didn’t need that ring, its disappearing act indicates some serious meddling with the sections. Those suspicions might have led to the realization that the (very convenient) map layout found in Groobo’s record must be the result of editing together different runs with different seeds. Even if they did, proving this is extremely complex because it requires retro-engineering the way the game generates its map and distributes the side quests. These inconsistencies can be inferred by the shape of the randomly generated map, but they can’t be intuitively understood by players, not even other runners. Extremely convenient stairs and items did raise the suspicion of cheating, but finding definitive proof meant more work than anyone was willing to put into debunking an old speedrun record. Evidence of multiple Diablo versions Screenshot via Speed Demos Archive Unlike dungeon layouts and improper splicing, evidence that Groobo used multiple versions of Diablo is not hard to find, if you know the game well enough. Here’s the short version. Groobo uses a lot of glitches in his run, but only two stand out: item duplication (dupe) and negative HP. The negative HP bug is pretty much banned in modern Diablo speedrunning while duping is important to bridge the two biggest categories, Any% and Any% No Dupe. The duplication glitch became much easier to perform starting with version 1.02. Not easy, but easier. Performing it multiple times in a row, as Groobo does, is so unlikely to be basically impossible in version 1.00. At the same time, the negative HP glitch was removed in version 1.07. Thinking back to the main menu inconsistencies between version 1.00 and version 1.09, you might realize something. 1.00 is smaller than 1.02 and 1.09 is higher than 1.07. The first is incompatible with item duplication while the second doesn’t feature the negative HP glitch. If Groobo was running not 1.00 nor 1.09 but on a third version of the game, why were both versions in the first two screens of the run? The only reasonable answer is that the whole playthrough, not just the splash screen and the main menu, is based on multiple runs of multiple versions of Diablo. That, surely, must prove cheating. Why was Groobo not caught immediately Screenshot via Speed Demos Archive None of this proves cheating. Sure, it strongly suggests the possibility of cheating, and if the 2009 record had been set by a no-name first runner, it would have raised a lot more attention. Proving that the run was impossible required the creation of dedicated software to find that no seed could recreate the run’s procedurally generated map. No one is going to do that much work to debunk the record of a somewhat well-known speedrunner who was, ultimately, a prolific member of a small community. That’s the reason it took 15 years to catch Groobo. No one wanted to look. The investigation only started when TASbot founder Allan Cecil began using Groobo’s 2009 record as a foundation for his tool-assisted speedrun. He was caught because a competitor looked at his record for inspiration. Because speedrunning is a sport, and no one watches the Olympics looking out for possible cheaters. No one likes to think their idols don’t deserve a place on the podium. And no one, especially not a volunteer-run website from 2009, wants to stop their rising star from celebrating a new victory. The post Why it Took 15 Years to Debunk this Diablo 1 Speedrun appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article