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STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl's A-Life 2.0 system currently isn't working due to performance issues, senior GSC Game World officials have said. This revelation was shared as part of a recent interview that also saw GSC developers address allegations of misleading fans about the state of A-Life in STALKER 2 ahead of the game's release. View the full article

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

Although all the villagers' homes in Disney Dreamlight Valley are unique to their respective characters, not all of them are as charming as the developers may have hoped. Whether it's entirely immovable or just a giant brightly ******** eyesore, the less desirable villagers' homes make decorating the valley a pain for most players. View the full article

Publisher Ubisoft and developer Ubisoft San Francisco have announced they’re shutting down XDefiant, their free-to-play multiplayer shooter. XDefiant will be shut down on June 3rd, 2025 and is being delisted from various storefronts today. Players that had the game will be able to play until the shut down next summer. XDefiant was originally released back in […] Source View the full article

Despite Ubisoft's success in supporting a multiplayer FPS game for many years with Rainbow Six Siege, it was always up against it with Call of Duty rival XDefiant. Now, following reports of dwindling player numbers and in-game revenue, Ubisoft has confirmed that the game is shutting down. While existing players will still be able to play it for the next few months, the game is being taken down from storefronts today. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: XDefiant lead denies the FPS is shutting down but admits "numbers are down" Is XDefiant Steam Deck compatible? XDefiant public test server canceled due to security risks View the full article

If you've been looking for something to freshen up your Minecraft experience, Mojang's latest game drop might be exactly what you've been waiting for. While nowhere near as sizable as the updates of old, these smaller but more frequent game drops get new content into the sandbox game as quickly as possible. The latest, which is called The Garden Awakens, is now live, and it adds a spooky new biome, new materials, and a new mob that's straight out of a horror movie. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: The 101 best Minecraft skins 2024 The 32 best Minecraft servers list 2024 - Java and Bedrock Next Minecraft Update - The Pale Garden Winter Drop details View the full article

Nighdive Studios seems to have quietly announced a The Thing: Remastered release date of December 5, 2024. It’s a launch plan that will see the survival horror reimagining arriving later this week if the release date promised in a recent Xbox Wire post is accurate. The post, which was published late last week, specifically covers new Xbox game releases from December 2 through December 6, mentioning titles such as The Thaumaturge, Marvel Rivals, and early access for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Considering Nightdive has yet to announce a proper date and its official Steam page still says launch is simply “coming soon,” The Thing: Remastered’s inclusion should raise some eyebrows. Nightdive announced its latest remaster at IGN Live in June of this year, promising to deliver a bone-chilling upgrade for the classic 2002 adaptation before 2024 came to a close. A post from the studio’s X/Twitter account promised that the release date is in December earlier today but did not clarify whether the December 5 date shown in the Xbox Wire post is accurate. If it is, then we shouldn’t have to wait much longer before the full experience is available for everyone to play for themselves. In addition to Xbox One and Xbox Series X | S, The Thing: Remastered is currently set to come to PC via Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5. Nightdive has made a name for itself as an experienced remaster studio throughout the last few years. Other titles in its catalog include remasters for the Turok trilogy, Star Wars: Dark Forces, System Shock, Shadow Man, and more. The Thing: Remastered promises a suite of additions to help bring the original experience to modern platforms. These include dynamic lighting, up to 144fps, 4K resolution, antialiasing, and other general gameplay improvements. While we wait for Nightdive to share more about its plans for The Thing: Remastered, you can read about PO’ed: Definitive Edition, another one of its projects that launched earlier this year. You can also read up on why we think remakes and remasters are great for gamers, and the top 10 Konami games we think deserve a fresh coat of paint. Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx. Be sure to give him a follow on Twitter @MikeCripe. View the full article

Ubisoft is officially discontinuing XDefiant in 2025, the publisher announced Tuesday, with all new purchases and registrations being discontinued immediately. As part of the shutdown, the publisher plans to shut down its production studios in San Francisco and Osaka while ramping down its site in Sydney, with up to 177 employees losing their jobs. Roughly half of the XDefiant team will be assigned roles elsewhere. Chief Studios and Portfolio Officer Marie-Sophie de Waubert revealed the news in an email sent to Ubisoft employees that was subsequently posted online, saying that the shooter was "not able to attract and retain enough players in the long run to compete at the level we aim for in the very demanding free-to-play FPS market." The full message can be found below. Today, I wanted to share with you that we’ve made the difficult decision to discontinue development on XDefiant. Despite an encouraging start, the team’s passionate work, and a committed fan base, we’ve not been able to attract and retain enough players in the long run to compete at the level we aim for in the very demanding free-to-play FPS market. As a result, the game is too far away from reaching the results required to enable further significant investment, and we are announcing that we will be sunsetting it. Concretely, that means that as of today, new downloads, player registrations and purchases will no longer be available. Season 3 will still launch, and the servers will remain active until June 3, 2025, out of appreciation for both our dev teams who worked on it and for XDefiant’s active players. Unfortunately, the discontinuation of XDefiant brings difficult consequences for the teams working on this game. Even if almost half of the XDefiant team worldwide will be transitioning to other roles within Ubisoft, this decision also leads to the closing of our San Francisco and Osaka production studios and to the ramp down of our Sydney production site, with 143 people departing in San Francisco and 134 people likely to depart in Osaka and Sydney. To those team members leaving Ubisoft, I want to express my deepest gratitude for your work and contributions. Please know that we are committed to supporting you during this transition. Developing Games-as-a-Service experiences ******** a pillar of our strategy, and we’ve achieved significant successes, like Rainbow Six, The Crew, and For Honor, among others. It’s a highly competitive market, and we will apply the lessons learned with XDefiant to our future live titles. Globally, we are determined to take the necessary steps to put the company back on a path to growth, innovation and creativity and make sure we can set you up for success. This means continuing to radically evolve our mindset for Production and Business practices, which we will share more about soon, and doing targeted restructuring when necessary. I know that the situation brings questions and expectations, and we will share regular and transparent updates. My sincere thanks for your continued dedication as we navigate these trying times together. XDefiant Executive Producer Mark Rubin also shared a message thanking fans and saying he was "heartbroken." He also shared refund details, saying that any purchases made within the last 30 days will be fully refunded and that those who purchases the Ultimate Founder's Pack will also get their money back. Refunds should happen automatically with 8 weeks, he said. I am unfortunately here today to announce that XDefiant will be shutting down. Starting today (December 3, 2024), new downloads and player registrations will no longer be available. We will still release our Season 3 content in the near future (exact date TBD) and the servers will remain active until June 3, 2025. For those who purchased the Ultimate Founder’s Pack, you’ll receive a full refund. Players who made any purchases within the last 30 days will also be fully refunded. Those refunds should happen automatically within 8 weeks of today and you can find more details on our official website, [Hidden Content]. A few years ago, Ubisoft and the SF Dev team embarked on a bold adventure to develop a new arcade shooter called XDefiant. It was from the start, an incredible challenge. Not only were we trying to shake up the genre by removing Skill-Based Matchmaking (SBMM) while bringing back a more “old-school” arcade shooter experience, but we were also diving into the high-risk, high-reward realm of free-to-play. And for that I want to applaud not only the Dev team but also Ubisoft leadership for taking that chance! Free-to-play, in particular, is a long journey. Many free-to-play games take a long time to find their footing and become profitable. It’s a long journey that Ubisoft and the teams working on the game were prepared to make until very recently. But unfortunately, the journey became too much to sensibly continue. I am, of course, heartbroken to have to be writing this post. Yes, this game has been a personal passion for me for years and yes, I know that not all challenges lead to victory, but I also want to recognize all of the developers who are being affected by this closure. Each and every one of them is a real person with a real life separate from our own and they have all put so much of their own passion into making this game. And I hope that they can be proud of what they did achieve. I know that I will always be proud and grateful to have worked with such a great team! A team that really punched above its weight class. And what they achieved is truly remarkable. The early response from players when XDefiant launched was amazing—we broke internal records for the fastest game to surpass 5 million users and in the end we had over 15 million players play our game! That is something to be extremely proud of, especially considering how tough this genre is. So, thank you to all of the developers who put their passion into making this game! If there’s one thing, I hope we can all take away from this experience, it’s the importance of open, honest communication between developers and players. This “player-first” mentality along with respectful, non-toxic conversations between developers and players has been one of the standout differences that made XDefiant so special. From my very first post about XDefiant, this was the vision I wanted to champion, and I hope it leaves a positive mark on how the game industry treats its players and communities. To our players, THANK YOU! From the bottom of my heart, I want to express my deepest gratitude for the incredible community that has grown around XDefiant. Your passion, creativity, and dedication have inspired us every step of the way. With the utmost of love and respect, Mark XDefiant joins Concord as the latest service game to abruptly shutter not long after launch. Unlike Concord, though, XDefiant will be given a bit of grace, with its servers not due to shut down until June 3, 2025. Ubisoft also plans to go forward with releasing Season 3, though downloads and purchases will no longer be available. Hello XDefiant Fans, I am unfortunately here today to announce that XDefiant will be shutting down. Starting today (December 3, 2024), new downloads and player registrations will no longer be available. We will still release our Season 3 content in the near future (exact date… — Mark Rubin (@PixelsofMark) December 3, 2024 First announced in 2021, XDefiant endured several delays before finally launching in May. We wrote in our review, "XDefiant joins the free-to-play shooter crowd as a respectable competitive FPS built around various Ubisoft franchises, but little makes it really stand out." Despite middling reviews, XDefiant got off to a fast start, pulling in a million unique players within two and a half hours, but its momentum soon dissipated. In October, Rubin acknowledged that players numbers were down while denying persistent shutdown rumors. XDefiant's impending shutdown adds to Ubisoft's woes in 2024, which has included lower-than-expected sales for major releases, delays, and other setbacks. Its share price collapse reportedly has the Guillemot family and Tencent considering taking the company private. It's far from the only publisher to struggle in 2024 though as game developers of all sizes have been racked by abrupt shutdowns and layoffs. Kat Bailey is IGN's News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot. View the full article

After assuring players there were no plans to shut down XDefiant just two months ago, the game’s official Twitter account and executive producer Mark Rubin revealed that’s exactly what will happen in 2025. The announcements came today swiftly after a report from Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson indicating the same news. According to Henderson’s report and confirmed by Rubin’s statement, XDefiant is beginning the sunsetting process for the game now. Season three of the title will still launch, but starting today, “new downloads and player registrations will no longer be available.” The game’s servers will remain online until June 3, 2025, at which point they’ll go offline and nothing will remain of XDefiant are the memories of playing a game that was kind of like Call of Duty. View the full article

Mark Rubin, executive producer of Ubisoft's first-person shooter XDefiant, has confirmed that the game will be shut down next year. XDefiant was released in May 2024, and positioned itself as a true Call of Duty competitor, although it hasn't quite worked out for the live-service title. View the full article

With every new season, Fortnite unvaults a lot of weapons and adds new weapons to the game. That can be great for players, and knowing which ones are coming out always gives an advantage, especially when dealing with this season's bosses. This is because many weapons get vaulted due to their power and efficiency, so most players always keep an eye on what strong weapons are coming back or being released. So any player that wants to do well should know what's coming. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]