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Bandai Namco confirmed that Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero will receive some major improvements to online matches and other important network features after the game goes into maintenance. A new Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero update will be released after maintenance to introduce adjustments that fans have been calling for in recent weeks. View the full article

Treyarch has revamped the Call of Duty: ****** Ops 6 Zombies Liberty Falls map with a Holiday theme for the Jingle Hells limited-time mode. Going even further than earlier entries in the series, Call of Duty: ****** Ops 6 celebrates the Holiday season in numerous ways. View the full article

A bit of information coming from Take-Two Interactive appears to have narrowed down the release window for Borderlands 4. Fans are eagerly awaiting Borderlands 4, but weren't previously given much to go on other than a general window of 2025. View the full article

Not a Switch 2. Think *******. | Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge Last Friday, we brought you leaked dimensions of the next Nintendo Switch from the most likely source yet: a “3D scan of the actual hardware” obtained by case manufacturer Dbrand. But case manufacturers aren’t the only source of leaks. A Redditor named “NextHandheld” claims to have seen and touched an actual final retail unit of the Nintendo Switch 2. I spoke with them, and I’ve now heard and seen enough to think they might be legit. [/url] In particular, I’ve seen two photos of a possible Nintendo Switch 2 dock, and one photo of the inside of a possible Switch 2 controller rail, covered in certification logos and with copper contacts exposed, which also shows its metal kickstand hinge open at an angle. Notably, the dock was not included in the 3D scan that’s circulating among case manufacturers. If NextHandheld is telling the truth, we now know a good bit more about Nintendo’s next console. For example: as much as we’d love it to be called the “Super Nintendo Switch,” it’ll likely be introduced as the Nintendo Switch 2. Name and date Officially, Nintendo has only called it “the successor to Nintendo Switch,” promised to formally announce the new console by March 31st, 2025, and... Read the full story at The Verge. View the full article

Image: Intel Intel’s new Arrow Lake CPUs came out in October promising high performance at lower power levels, but reviews, including ours, noted surprisingly lackluster gaming performance. Tom Warren said of the Core Ultra 9 285K, “...in many titles, it provides worse performance than the 14th Gen chips it was designed to replace.” Now, the troubled chipmaker says it has been gradually releasing updates that fixed most of the issues it identified, as reported earlier by Tom’s Hardware. “At the end of the day, there were four root issues that we needed to address, and fixes for those are actually already in the field right now,” Robert Hallock, Intel’s VP and GM of client AI and technical marketing said during an interview with HotHardware. “They’ve been coming out over the last two weeks or so in drips and drabs, as update schedules allow.” [Hidden Content] One issue stemmed from a “mistimed” update that was supposed to optimize Windows’ processor power management (PPM) system for Intel’s Core Ultra 200S-series processors. (PPM adjusts the performance of a CPU based on the current power plan, such as Balanced, High Performance, Power Saver, etc). [/url] Instead of releasing the PPM update before reviewers got their hands on the processors, Intel says it scheduled the update to go out when it became widely available, which may have caused reviewers to see worse-than-expected performance. Due to the missing PPM update, Intel’s performance-boosting Application Performance Optimizer (APO) also couldn’t take effect in games, while “misconfigured” performance settings also had a negative impact on reviewers’ benchmarks. Image: Intel A fix was already applied for these issues in Windows 11 build 26100.2161. Intel also says Epic Games resolved a driver compatibility issue causing the blue screen of death when running games with Easy Anti-Cheat, such as Star Wars Outlaws. Intel is planning to release another set of performance upgrades for Arrow Lake CPUs in January, and it will “provide a comprehensive performance update” at CES. For now, Intel recommends updating Windows and applying the latest BIOS update to your motherboard if you haven’t already. Otherwise, you can wait until the “final” performance update next year. View the full article

Patch 8 of Baldur's Gate 3 has been announced for 2025. The new update will introduce 12 new subclasses, one for each class. Many of these new additions were excellent choices and fit well into the existing game. Many have pointed out the potential for a Shadow Magic sorcerer in the Shadow-Cursed lands or how the Swashbuckler fits the pirate characters found in Act 3. View the full article

World of Warcraft just shared a map of the Siren Isle that shows where and when each rare spawn shows up. By using this map, fans should be well-equipped to find these elite enemies while exploring the new zone in World of Warcraft Patch 11.0.7. View the full article

We're starting to see glimpses of the Christmas and Boxing Day sales already, folks. Case in point: You can land a current-day CoD for way less than usual. I'm also tracking 90% savings on Hitman, Oddworld(s), and Mass Effects on Steam. Last but not least, I'd definitely sling hard-earned credits at a 42% off Metaphor: ReFantazio and the fandangle version of Outlaws. In my opinion, it's a criminally underappreciated, heist-centric Star War. In retro news, I'm celebrating the 36th birthday of Castlevania, one half of that famous sub-genre portmanteau, which loosely translates to: "Backtrack with your doodads to unlock more doodads." I vividly recall scoring this NES must-own at launch, in the bicentennial-obsessed year of 1988, and being on the edge of my Hypercolor beanbag the entire time. Making like Devo and whipping problems that come along in Casa de Drac was taxing, spooky, and seriously toe-tapping with this rad soundtrack. Stone-cold classic. This Day in Gaming Aussie birthdays for notable games. - Castlevania (NES) 1988. Get - Street Fighter EX (ARC) 1996. eBay - Terranigma (SNES) 1996. eBay - World of Goo (Wii) 2008. Get - Assetto Corsa (PC) 2014. Get Table of ContentsNintendo SwitchPCXboxPlayStationLEGOLEGO Advent Face OffNice Savings for Nintendo Switch Streets of Rage 4 (-60%) - A$15Golf Story (-82%) - A$3.99Super Mario RPG (-20%) - A$64Crisis Core: FF7 Reunion (-25%) - A$63.62Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (-75%) - A$17.48 Expiring Recent Deals Mario & Luigi: Brothership (-20%) - A$64Super Mario 3D World (-20%) - A$64New Super Mario Bros Del. (-20%) - A$64Okami HD (-75%) - A$7.48Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (-10%) - A$54 Or gift a Nintendo eShop Card. Switch Console Prices How much to Switch it up? [/url] Back to top Purchase Cheap for PC Oddworld Complete Col. [6 games] (-99%) - A$1.69Mass Effect: Andromeda Del. (-90%) - A$4.99Hitman: WoA (-90%) - A$4.39Spelunky 2 (-60%) - A$11.58 Expiring Recent Deals A Way Out (-90%) - A$3.99Hitman Col. (-94%) - A$5.27Mud Runner (-80%) - A$5.99Valheim (-50%) - A$14.47Build a VR Bundle (-80%) - A$49.95Jedi Bundle (-78%) - A$22.48 Or just get a Steam Wallet Card PC Hardware Prices Slay your pile of shame. [/url] Back to top Exciting Bargains for Xbox Tomb Raider Survivor Trilogy (-70%) - A$20.98Star Wars Outlaws Gold (-55%) - A$77FFXII: Zodiac Age (-66%) - A$26.86CoD: BLOPS 6 (-31%) - A$75.95Metaphor: ReFantazio (-42%) - A$67.03 Expiring Recent Deals FC 25 (-55%) - A$49It Takes Two (-80%) - A$11.99LEGO Harry Potter Col. (-35%) - A$39Top Spin (-43%) - A$34 Or just invest in an Xbox Card. Xbox Console Prices How many bucks for a 'Box? [/url] Back to top Pure Scores for PlayStation Star Wars Outlaws (-46%) - A$59Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero (-14%) - A$99CoD: BLOPS 6 (-42%) - A$64Metaphor: ReFantazio (-40%) - A$68.55 Expiring Recent Deals Red Dead Redemption II (-73%) - A$24Gran Turismo 7 (-60%) - A$44Dragon Age: The Veilguard (-42%) - A$64Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (-43%) - A$71.43The Witcher 3 (-80%) - A$9.59 Or purchase a PS Store Card. What you'll pay to 'Station. [/url] Back to top Legit LEGO Deals Sonic: Knuckles Shrine (-40%) - A$35.99Creator: Exotic Parrot (-40%) - A$23.99City: Excavator, Digger (-35%) - A$52 Expiring Recent Deals City: Rocket Launchpad (-44%) - A$1393in1 Modern House (-42%) - A$99Simba The Lion King (-37%) - A$19 This holiday season, I'm doing something different with the LEGO section. In Mathew Manor, my sons and I are racing LEGO Advent Calendars—we open our respective ones daily and compare the mini-prizes for "Coolness" and "Actual Xmas-ness". Winner gets extra eggnog. If you're also feeling festive, here are the cheapest prices for the three calendars we're using. Or just live vicariously through us. LEGO Star Wars Advent 2024 - A$59.95 $45LEGO Spider-Man Advent 2024 - A$59.95 $45LEGO CIty Advent 2024 - A$59.95 $45 Back to top Adam Mathew is our Aussie deals wrangler. He plays practically everything, often on YouTube. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

The comeback wasn’t going to happen. I was blowing it. I lost my first character in my first match of The Hidden Ones because I didn’t cash out with my Ultimate Skill, but I made a comeback with my mid before losing her to my opponent’s anchor. I didn’t have a great answer for what he was doing, and I was convinced I was going to waste what had started off as a great comeback. Then my anchor came out. It was my first game; I’d never used her before. And at first, it was going about the same, and then I realized what I was doing. I canceled my default combo into another combo then another, and cashed out with my Ultimate. And on the last hit, I got the kill. God, I love fighting games, and if my time with it is any indication, The Hidden Ones is living up to what makes the genre so great. If you’re not up on The Lore ™, The Hidden Ones is based on the anime Hitori No Shita: The Outcasts, which in turn is based on Under One Person, a ******** webcomic. Whew. Okay, so the history is a little complicated, but you don’t really need to know what’s going on with the other parts of the series to vibe with The Hidden Ones. I have no experience with the anime, but I was able to follow what I saw pretty easily. I started with the story mode, which dropped me into the shoes of Wang Ye. Ye is one of the Outcasts, blessed with one of the Eight Secret Arts, which were generally believed to have been lost to time. Once people figure out what Wang Ye has, though, they go after him to get it. Wang Ye tries to **** this in the bud by speaking with Li Gaofeng, the head of the Li Troupe, and trying to convince him to leave Wang and his family alone. Impressed by Wang’s gumption and fighting prowess, Li agrees to let him go and leave his family alone. Of course, things don’t go as planned and Wang finds himself framed for Li’s ******* and battling the Li Troupe as he tries to escape. The ******’s in the Details Whew, okay, set up. What’s cool, though, is the game Morefun games has made out of this. The Hidden Ones would probably be best described as an arena fighter, but you don’t just go from fight to fight. Between the fights themselves, you’ve got the ability to run around and check out The Hidden Ones’s world, whether that means enjoying the environmental detail on display or checking out a ledger or diary you find in the world. This attention to detail is important: during an interview that happened between my two play sessions, Lead Game Designer Fox Lin and Senior Game Designer Stan Fan told me that the team at Morefun spent a long time capturing the detail of these environments, many of which are based on actual, individual ******** streets. They wanted the world of The Hidden Ones to feel real, and that comes across even in the relatively small area I was playing in. The same is true of The Hidden Ones’s visual style. This game is stunning, and that attention to detail is clear in everything from the characters to the way they fight. This is intentional, too. The story and world of The Hidden Ones are based heavily (though not exclusively) in ******** martial arts and myth, and that meant getting the little details right, right down to the motion capture done by real martial artists. These are regular people, and that’s a major part of the story here, even if they are throwing punches and casting magic. Morefun is also quick to note that while the Outcasts are incredibly powerful, they’re also folks going about their day. Maybe they’re going out to buy groceries or just using their abilities to accomplish their goals in subtle ways. The point is these are regular people, and that’s a major part of the story here, even if they are throwing punches and casting magic. Like a Flowing Stream Speaking of the fighting, The Hidden Ones feels great when you’re throwing punches. This is an arena fighter, so movement is crucial, but the rock-paper-scissors interactions of what makes a fighting game a game fighting work are here, too. You’ve got your basic attacks, which lose to special attacks; those losey to your defensive stance; and your defensive stance loses to attacks, which become throws if they’re in that stance. There’s also a dodge, which costs a limited amount of stamina, and you can time perfectly for a Witch Time-style slowdown that will allow you to retaliate when you otherwise wouldn’t, and a parry that you can perform out of your defensive stance during special attacks, so you can swap from defense to offense with a well-timed button press. Stamina also comes into play on offense. You can spend it to cancel actions — whether they’re physical or special attacks — allowing you to build custom combos and combos into your Ultimate Skills, which is how I won that match I told you about at the start. If you’re the one getting your face rearranged, you can also spend stamina to break out of combos and reset to neutral. Put together, all of this means that, despite The Hidden Ones’s fairly simple control scheme and combo structure, you’re constantly making interesting choices where you’re alternating between playing neutral, reacting, and pre-empting your opponent, all while managing your character’s unique skills (Wang Ye, for instance, has a special attack that can go into three different variations). The right play at the right time, like say, throwing out a special attack when you think they’re going to swing at you, can swing a match. Nah, He Just Looks Big The real meat and potatoes, and my favorite part of my time with The Hidden Ones, is going to be the mano a mano fights between your three-person teams against other players, but I also really enjoyed the three boss fights I got to play. The first, which I ran into during the story mode, started off as a one-on-one brawl before the boss in question brought out her skyscraper-sized snake, forcing me to play around its massive fangs before its master would come down and I could get back to the fine art of knocking her out. Arena fighters are a tricky business, but so far Morefun has nailed the balance of simplicity, depth, and game feel that any good fighter needs. If that’s not enough for you, though, there’s also Trial mode, where you can face off against a boss with any of the characters you’ve got. There were two available in the demo I played, and both were challenging, especially on the highest of the available difficulties. Both eventually went down, but they forced me to use characters I knew, pick my spots, and learn their patterns. It’s a fun change of pace for a game like this, and I’m eager to see what other fights look like in the future. When my time with The Hidden Ones ended, I left excited, and wishing I could have played more, especially more multiplayer. But I left with a good idea of what Morefun is trying to accomplish, and I liked how much cool stuff there was and how unique and interesting the characters they’ve created here are. Arena fighters are a tricky business, but so far Morefun has nailed the balance of simplicity, depth, and game feel that any good fighter needs while providing more to do if you’re not looking to throw down online. I’m excited to see where The Hidden Ones goes, and in the meantime, I’ll be thinking about landing that Ultimate Skill at the right moment, and how cool it was that The Hidden Ones gave me the options to play how I wanted in that moment. Like its characters, The Hidden Ones knows even when the chips are down and the outcome is uncertain, there’s always a play to be made, hidden in plain sight. View the full article

Since XCOM and XCOM 2 cemented themselves as the definitive PC strategy games of the 2010s, the Long War mods likewise became the definitive enhancements for both games. Longer, tougher, more varied, the Long War mods upped the complexity of some already impressively complex games, to the point we had XCOM expert John "Beagle" Teasdale write us some tips for surviving Long War 2 back in 2017. Time marches ever onwards, of course, and these days the version of the mod to play is Long War of the Chosen, which incorporates XCOM 2's incredible expansion... Read more.View the full article

Indiana Jones & The Great Circle is littered with puzzles and mysteries you can solve, including one called "A Snake in the Garden." Despite Indiana's hatred of snakes, this mystery can provide you with great rewards if you pursue it to completion. You'll have to sneak around the Apostolic Palace in the ******** to find the clues you need to unravel one of the church's ongoing secrets. View the full article

There are multiple mysteries for you to solve throughout the several regions you visit in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. When you arrive to Sukhothai, there’s one known as the Elephant in the Room where you have to figure out how to access the mysteries of the Buddha statue. The way you have to go about this is by placing the elephant statue you find nearby at different pedestals. The different active pedestals offer another secret, and you’ll have to explore the temple to find them all. Knowing the proper order of these elephants and where they have to go can be complicated, especially given how different it is to other puzzles. We’ll be showing you where to place the statues for the Elephant in the Room mystery, and how to solve it in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. View the full article

A new trailer for Lost Soul Aside shows off fresh gameplay that bears a distinct resemblance to some of the best parts of ****** May Cry. Although Lost Soul Aside appears to take plenty of clear inspiration from action-gaming hits like the ****** May Cry franchise, the game offers a different art style along with gameplay that seems to mix things up as well. View the full article

The SCAR-H is a top-tier choice for the Engineer class in Delta Force, offering excellent accuracy and stopping power. With a 585 RPM, it excels in close to medium-range combat and improves at long range with proper leveling. You can create the Best SCAR-H build in Delta Force by equipping the right attachments and calibrations, turning it into a reliable powerhouse for dominating any game mode. View the full article

The last 12 months or so have proved that despite mega budgets and the best intentions, it's tough out there for live service games. Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League. Concord. Most recently, Ubisoft's XDefiant. These are just some of the titles that have met (or will soon meet) their ends. Another name that I thought would be destined for the videogame graveyard would be fellow Ubi project Skull and Bones. The co-op game appears to have been struggling, but according to a new report, support for the game may continue well into the future, with a second year of content allegedly planned. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: If you've avoided Skull and Bones so far, it's finally time to give it a chance Skull and Bones sinks on Steam, has fewer players than AC ****** Flag After six months, Skull and Bones is freed from Ubisoft Connect View the full article

Valve have put up Steam Replay, their end of year little look over your Steam account, so you can show off how many hours you put into games across various platforms. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

It’s that time of the year again, Switch fans. As the end of December approaches, Nintendo once again has opened the doors to the Nintendo Switch Year in Review. The fun in these yearly recaps is to see how much time you dedicated to your favorite hobbies—in this case, playing the games you love—and some cool stats like when you played the most. Here is all you need to know about how to access your Nintendo Switch Year in Review 2024 and what you can expect from it. View the full article

Christmas came early for me yesterday. After previously announcing Project Zomboid's long-awaited Build 42 would be out by the end of the year, developer The Indie Stone released the absolutely colossal update on Tuesday. In terms of the sheer number of features—from a total crafting overhaul to a considerable expansion of the already huge map—this is the biggest update Zomboid has ever gotten. And for me? It's the biggest game release of 2024. Move aside, Shadow of the Erdtree... Read more.View the full article

A recent Genshin Impact leak from a reliable source has revealed that Kinich will be the only male 5-Star in the Natlan era, further implying that Capitano won't be playable until at least Version 6.0. The cast of playable characters in Genshin Impact has more than quadrupled since launch, and while it maintained a balanced gender ratio for most of its history, a recent trend has stirred unrest in its community. View the full article

There are several chests that require codes for you to open up lockboxes in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, but the Serpent’s Chest is vastly different. For this one, you’ll have to return to Gizeh and track down the ancient keys if you want to break it open. These keys are in different locations that you have to locate. The Serpent’s Chest is a mystery you find while visiting Sukhothai, but you must retrace your steps and return to Gizeh, The ********, and China to unlock it. It won’t take you too much time to retrace your steps. Finding the keys takes a lot of effort and exploring to track them down, though. We’ll share where you can find the ancient keys to unlock the Serpent’s Chest to complete this mystery in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. View the full article

When Radiant Entertainment was acquired by Riot Games all those years ago and tasked with making a fighting game, I would've expected the League of Legends creator to have immediately established that it must be set in the universe of Runeterra. Well, I thought wrong. It turns out that Radiant had the opportunity to create whatever kind of fighting game it wanted with its upcoming 2XKO, and that includes having the freedom to set it in a brand new universe. However, Radiant co-founders, twin brothers, and fighting game legends Tom and Tony Cannon have revealed that despite Riot not forcing them down the path to Runeterra, it was an easy decision for them to make. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: All 2XKO characters and movesets 2XKO release date estimate, playtest, characters, and more League of Legends fighting game 2XKO is coming back for another playtest soon View the full article

GTA 5 may be over 10 years old, but it’s still incredibly popular. On average, over 100,000 players still log in every day on Steam. Among them, some are daredevils who perform death-defying stunts, some are desperados who love to cause chaos and some are speed demons who love cars. If you’re a speed ******, you probably love cars with a streamlined design, vibrant colors, and most importantly, a lot of horsepower. The faster they go, the better. You might own some of these cars in GTA 5 already, but if you don’t, this is a sign to treat yourself. View the full article

Balatro has revealed interest in partnering with a highly popular action-RPG, Path of Exile 2, which rolled out in early access recently. In the past, Balatro has teamed up with various popular games, including Cyberpunk 2077, Among Us, Vampire Survivors, and more to bring themed content for its players. View the full article

Warframe‘s Cyte-09 focuses on using his weapons to take out foes, and his abilities help him make the most out of his deadly accuracy. With the right build, you can take enemies packs of enemies with a single bullet, even if there’s a wall or two blocking your way. The 59th unique Warframe can be devastating with his kit, especially when using his exalted sniper rifle, the Neutralizer, or his powerful invisibility skill, Evade. He’s a truly versatile frame, so there are multiple ways to build him. Here are some of our favorite Cyte-09 builds in Warframe. View the full article

‘Tis the season for yearly recaps, and things are no different with Steam. You can already find your 2024 Steam Replay to see details of your gaming year in numbers. You might have noticed that this name was a little different before. Yes, Steam Year in Review is no more. The Steam team decided to return to the original branding of 2022, when it launched the first edition of the year-end compilation. Everything else, however, remains pretty much the same as before. If you can’t wait to see how your gaming year went, here’s all you need to know about the 2024 Steam Replay—and what’s in it. View the full article