With Palworld's addition of new Pals in the Feybreak update, there are several new upgrade materials available. The Feybreak Island area is six times the size of the original Palworld landscape, giving players multiple opportunities to explore the new area that PocketPair has released. One of the newest additions is an updated version of the Ancient Pal Manuscripts that can be found throughout the world. This item is one of the reasons that reading the full update patch notes is important, as the manuscripts might just look like clutter. View the full article
The Epic Games Store has revealed Hell Let Loose as the final free mystery game. The latest Epic Games Store free mystery game event started in mid-December and is wrapping up now, with users treated to a total of 16 free games. View the full article
If you've been too busy reading about giant old TVs to take part in this year's Ars Technica Charity Drive sweepstakes, don't worry. You still have a little bit of time to donate to a good cause and get a chance to win your share of over $4,000 worth of swag (no purchase necessary to win). In the first weeks of the drive, hundreds of readers contributed tens of thousands of dollars to either the Electronic Frontier Foundation or Child's Play as part of the charity drive. But we're now in the final day of our attempt to best 2020's record haul of over $58,000. Entries have to be received by the end of the day today (Thursday, January 2) to be considered for the sweepstakes, so if you've been putting off a donation/entry, now is the time to pull the trigger. Do yourself and the charities involved a favor and give now while you're thinking about it. Read full article Comments View the full article
Tackling weekly quests is a great way to easily accumulate lots of XP in Fortnite. Sometimes they can be a bit tricky to navigate though, as is the case with the damage opponents in Shogun’s Arena task. Once you fully understand everything this quest entails, it’s an easy enough one to get done. The toughest part is knowing where to find the right location for it, so here’s how to damage opponents in Shogun’s Arena in Fortnite. View the full article
2024 was a big year for survival games, and Once Human stood out among the likes of Palworld, Valheim, Sons of the Forest, and Rust. The free Steam game continues to hold onto a hefty player base as 2025 gets underway, with even the likes of the Palworld Feybreak update not dissuading people from checking in. Developer Starry Studio has plenty of plans for the coming year, and they start with the launch of Once Human update 1.3.5, which is out now and introduces some welcome features and improvements. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: The best new MMOs worth playing in 2025 Free Steam survival game Once Human unveils packed 2025 roadmap Once Human codes and how to redeem View the full article
Master Chief and the Doom Slayer almost came face to face in a crossover I didn't know I wanted until now. The embattled first-person shooter icons, the former of Halo fame and the latter from Doom, were part of a pitch for the Amazon Prime anthology Secret Level, but powers that be at their parent company Microsoft quashed the idea. Boo! Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: This official Doom themed Starfield mod lets you play a hellish new quest The first two Doom games have been rebuilt with 64's assets, and new content Famous Doom mod reportedly banned by Bethesda due to politics View the full article
If you’re a Pokémon card collector, chances are you’ve got a box or two of bulk cards stashed away somewhere nearby as you’re reading this. No matter how often you build decks or sell cards online, finding a use for your unwanted cardboard critters can be rather tricky. As with any hobby-based problem, the best place to find solutions is to scour online communities and forums. Collector Soundwve earned the praise of the Pokémon TCG community online by sharing their clever way to repurpose bulk cards. View the full article
A popular Marvel Rivals leaker has shared an image that could be official artwork and suggested The Thing, Mister Fantastic, Human Torch, and The Invisible Woman may be coming to the game in Season 1. Marvel Rivals is currently nearing the end of Season 0, which has seen two variants of Doctor Doom creating havoc within the multiverse. While the Dooms are the title's current antagonists, NetEase Games has already teased the appearance of the villain Knull in the future. View the full article
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle puts action in the forefront, but despite how many thrilling moments take center stage, I'm obsessed with everything that's happening behind them. Considering the legendary franchise name that it bears, delivering cinematic excitement is one of The Great Circle's main prerogatives, and major set pieces and showdowns all drum up the requisite level of excitement. Being truly cinematic requires a lot more than just explosive highlights, however, and the way that the game keeps a second fiddle playing might be the more important ingredient in its winning recipe. View the full article
The weird, wonderful world of Baldur's Gate 3 cosplay is vast and varied. Some cosplay is shockingly game-accurate, fooling fans into thinking they're looking at actual screenshots. Other cosplay takes its own liberties, but manages to capture familiar characters in new and refreshing ways. View the full article
I think the last time I read an actual, original Garfield comic was in 1998. Since then, my experience of the character has been one long litany of Gar-memes and in particular, Gorefield memes. For those blissfully unaware, Gorefield is a version of Jim Davis’s otiose, lasagne-loving housecat who has broken his comic strip shackles and become a cosmic abomination. Gorefield's manifestations are many: centipede Gorefields, arachnid Gorefields, Gorefields that extend serpentine necks of unfleshed bone towards a cowering Jon Arbuckle, demanding to be fed in a voice that sounds nothing like Bill Murray, a voice as deep and velvety as the eternal Monday before the Big Bang. In Gar-Type, a free Gorefield fangame from Youtuber and pixel artist LumpyTouch, Garfield has become a planet. The good news is that, unlike many other Gore-variants, this Gorefield is vulnerable to bullets. It falls to ace pilot Jon Starbuckle and his prototype starfighter, Gar-Type D, to save the Earth from lasagnnihilation. Read more View the full article
Thanks to Larian itself and modders, Baldur's Gate 3 keeps getting new bits added to it, because clearly the absolutely huge base game hasn't been enough to totally eat up the free time of hardcore DnD partiers. Read more View the full article
There are certain, well, certainties in life. Death and taxes are two of them, while the fact that Half-Life 3 is probably never coming is a fitting third. Despite a bevvy of occult rumours and whisperings, prayers and sacrifices to the periodic table have never borne fruit. Silksong, for all its despair and mania, can't even hold a candle to the long, 21-year old flame that fans of Half-Life 2 have been holding for the sequel that never was... Read more.View the full article
While Celebi Ex got the most attention when the (still relatively) new Pokémon TCG Pocket set Mythical Island came out, it has since been cleanly supplanted by the real powerhouse of these packs, the monster that is Gyarados. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Pokémon TCG Pocket's pack spin may do nothing, but it makes a monkey out of me This Pokémon Pocket x MTG mashup is fun, but hilariously broken Pokémon Terastal Festival gave me some superb pulls ahead of Prismatic Evolution View the full article
Phasmophobia first launched in early access on Sept. 18, 2020, and it’s still yet to reach its big 1.0 debut. This means we can still expect plenty of fresh updates throughout 2025 as the ghost-hunting game moves closer to its official release. There’s much to look forward to, with many new additions and big changes arriving throughout the year. Here’s a breakdown of the 2025 roadmap for Phasmophobia so you know what to expect in future updates. View the full article
Helldivers 2 has regularly come under fire from its community since it launched last February, with one of the biggest controversies being its Escalation of Freedom update. View the full article
Marvel Rivals has been a tremendous success, swooping onto Steam in true superhero style and proving itself a true challenger to the might of Overwatch from day one. The free game's first season begins in early January, and now a new image shared from a ******** app suggests we'll be getting the full Fantastic Four complement when the update rolls out - and that it could be as soon as next week. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: All Marvel Rivals characters and full roster Marvel Rivals Season 1 release date estimate and news All Marvel Rivals codes and how to redeem - January 2025 View the full article
The dating sim genre is full of games ranging from comedic to dramatic and relatively realistic to strange and outlandish. This wide variety of options has helped make the genre a very popular one in the world of gaming, and with different takes on the genre come new relationships to explore and new matchmaking techniques to experience. View the full article
A prominent Marvel Rivals leaker surprised many fans by showing off gameplay footage of a Lunar New Year skin for Mantis, which could be coming to the game very soon. NetEase Games has been steadily rolling out new cosmetics for the popular hero shooter since its December release. Four holiday bundles came to Marvel Rivals as part of the game's Winter Celebration event, and new skins for Moon Knight and Squirrel Girl are set to make their debut January 3. View the full article
Just the thought of another tank meta makes League of Legends players tremble in fear. The idea of these five thousand health behemoths one-shotting your ADC is terrifying. Sadly, that is the case in 2025, but one player believes they have cracked the code to kill these tanks. Tanks at certain points in League history have been too problematic for the game. There were the dreaded periods between 2016 and 2017 where tanks were simply unkillable. The ROX Tigers base defense against Albus Nox Luna, where Poppy and Trundle felt like end-game bosses, comes to mind. Then there was the Banner of Command meta, where tank top laners were left alone on their island to split with the buffed-up minions. View the full article
Surviving the wasteland is tough. Resources are scarce, defenses are limited and, as ever, people are the most terrifying monsters of all. That's the unique promise of the survival game - it's brutal, but then again, the harsh landscapes of DayZ, Fallout, and The Long Dark nowadays feel like escapism. Stalker 2 was one of the genre's best in 2024. Should you now feel like you're done with that iteration of The Zone, there's an incredible fan-made installment to check out that players are loving. Essentially an unofficial Stalker game, it's now mod of the year. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Stalker 2 is a more convincing and complex survival game than any Fallout As Stalker 2 updates continue, GSC is giving the original trilogy some love Best Stalker 2 mods View the full article
Grand Theft Auto 6 could generate more than $1 billion from pre-orders alone this year, a prominent industry research firm has predicted. Rockstar Games’ long-awaited sequel is officially due to release this fall, and analysts at DFC Intelligence have confidently predicted it will be by far the biggest launch of the year in all entertainment. Speaking to the FT (paywalled), DFC predicts that GTA 6 will generate $3.2 billion during its first year on *****, which is double what its predecessor managed back in 2013, and significantly more than 2024’s biggest movies Inside Out 2 ($1.7bn), and Deadpool & Wolverine ($1.3bn). Read More... View the full article
Recent rumors from industry insiders indicate that Ubisoft's famed Splinter Cell series could be coming to Fortnite in some capacity in the near future. Fortnite continues to rapidly evolve following its origin back in 2017, as the game continues to not only be massively popular with players, but continues to stay well within the public eye. View the full article
I spent a great deal of time over the holiday ranking up in Marvel Rivals. I had previously thought that my journey to Diamond was fought with hard work and skill, but it turns out that there's a pretty significant bug that might've been holding my opponents back... Read more.View the full article
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MSI’s new 27-inch 4K OLED monitor. | Image: MSI 27-inch 4K OLED 240Hz monitors seem to be like buses: you wait ages for one and then three turn up at once. Asus, Samsung, and MSI are all announcing the industry’s next-generation QD-OLED gaming monitors that offer the benefits of 4K OLED 240Hz panels at the smaller 27-inch size instead of 32 inches. All three appear to be using the same fourth generation QD-OLED panel from Samsung Display, which Asus says offers “a longer lifespan over previous-gen OLEDs.” Both the Asus ROG Swift OLED PG27UCDM and the MSI MPG 272URX QD-OLED (who names these things?) include DisplayPort 2.1a (UHBR20), which offers 80Gbps of bandwidth to support 4K at 240Hz without the need for Display Stream Compression (DSC). Samsung’s press release about its Odyssey OLED G8 (G81SF) doesn’t mention DisplayPort 2.1a compatibility, but it’s reasonable to assume it’s part of the spec list. Image: Asus Asus’ latest OLED monitor has a 26.5-inch viewable display. Image: Samsung Samsung’s Odyssey G8 now comes in a 27-inch OLED 4K 240Hz variant. MSI and Asus’ models both support DisplayHDR True ****** 400, and Asus also supports Dolby Vision HDR. Both MSI and Asus are offering a three-year warranty that includes burn-in protection, but Samsung hasn’t confirmed its warranty situation for its latest G8 model. Samsung also hasn’t fully detailed the specs of its latest G8 OLED model, but it’s reasonable to assume it will support DisplayHDR True ****** 400 at the minimum. Interestingly, Asus’ model only has a 26.5-inch viewable display, but both MSI and Samsung are marketing their monitors as 27-inch ones. With all three offering the 0.03ms response times of OLED, 240Hz refresh rates, and above 160PPI for improved text clarity, the choice will really come down to design, features, and pricing. Unfortunately, Samsung, Asus, and MSI haven’t announced release dates or pricing yet. View the full article
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If you've been too busy reading about giant old TVs to take part in this year's Ars Technica Charity Drive sweepstakes, don't worry. You still have a little bit of time to donate to a good cause and get a chance to win your share of over $4,000 worth of swag (no purchase necessary to win). In the first weeks of the drive, hundreds of readers contributed tens of thousands of dollars to either the Electronic Frontier Foundation or Child's Play as part of the charity drive. But we're now in the final day of our attempt to best 2020's record haul of over $58,000. Entries have to be received by the end of the day today (Thursday, January 2) to be considered for the sweepstakes, so if you've been putting off a donation/entry, now is the time to pull the trigger. Do yourself and the charities involved a favor and give now while you're thinking about it. Read full article Comments View the full article