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Open-world RPG Infinity Nikki just had its release date revealed, and it's very soon. Popular singer Jessie J also sings the theme song "Together Til Infinity," and a behind-the-scenes video has been published on YouTube. View the full article

From Fallout to Baldur's Gate 3, Civilization to Cyberpunk 2077, a lot of the greatest PC games are based on the idea that your choices as a player really, truly matter. But nowhere is that more keenly felt than in This War of Mine, the unique, historical survival game first launched by Frostpunk 2 maker 11 bit way back in 2014. A fictionalized portrait of the Siege of Sarajevo, it makes the simple act of cooking a meal, putting wood on the *****, or even answering the door feel laden with consequences. Now, a decade since it originally arrived, This War of Mine is suddenly back with an entirely new DLC. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Frostpunk dev's decade-old strategy hit suddenly has 132% more players Brutal 9/10 strategy game is free on Steam, but just for a few days Buy this brutal new war strategy game, get one of the best for free View the full article

AMD has confirmed that 4% of its employees around the world are about to lose their jobs, as the company seeks to focus on its "largest growth opportunities." The announcement comes just two weeks after AMD announced its third quarter 2024 financial results, which showed that revenue from its gaming division had plummeted by 69% year-on-year. It's this division that makes custom chips for the PS5 and Xbox, as well as AMD Radeon gaming GPUs for PCs. While AMD is currently celebrating the success of its new Ryzen 7 9800X3D gaming CPU, which is so popular it's sold out practically everywhere right now, the picture is less rosy for the company elsewhere. In particular, revenue from its gaming segment sat at just $2,032 million in the nine months up to September 28, 2024, compared to $4,844 million over the same ******* last year. AMD might make the best gaming CPU right now, but its gaming GPU products are struggling. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: This burned-out AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D gaming CPU isn't what it seems This gaming handheld just stomped on the Asus ROG Ally X, thanks to new AMD GPU New AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D stock not expected until 2025, says gaming CPU retailer View the full article

A curious Reddit post showing a burned-out AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D could have new AMD CPU owners concerned. Questions have been asked about whether the motherboard or CPU itself is faulty, but it looks like it could be down to a simple user error, rather than a more serious design problem. A worst-case scenario for AMD would be a wider fault with its brand new chip, which is already the best gaming CPU you can buy. That would certainly put a spring in the steps of Intel, which itself has faced a terrible crisis with voltage fluctuations in its Raptor Lake CPUs, leading to game crashes and even damaged CPUs. However, the physical evidence of this burned 9800X3D doesn't point to a flawed design that needs fixing in this case, as we'll explain. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: AMD is laying off over 1,000 staff, as gaming GPU revenue plummets This gaming handheld just stomped on the Asus ROG Ally X, thanks to new AMD GPU New AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D stock not expected until 2025, says gaming CPU retailer View the full article

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered just received a new update for November 2024, providing a variety of bug fixes and technical improvements across the board. The original Horizon Zero Dawn was released for the PlayStation 4 back in 2017 and introduced gamers to the ongoing saga of Aloy and her journey to find her place in a post-apocalyptic world filled with animal-like machines. Guerrilla Games and Nixxes Software released a remastered version for the PlayStation 5 and PC on October 31, allowing fans to reexperience the story of Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered with updated graphics and new accessibility features. View the full article

The video game industry is currently in the thralls of a paradox. For players, it could be argued we’re in one of the greatest times for gaming – there’s incredible breadth of choice across consoles, handhelds and PCs made ever-more accessible through gaming subscription services like Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus. But from an industry perspective, things could not be more dire. More and more studios seem to be closing, original IPs are being scrapped mid-development, and vast legions of game developers, programmers, artists, and animators have been cut loose. To put it simply: the AAA video game bubble has finally burst. Across the past two years, over 23,000 jobs in the video game industry were lost, with a staggering 6,000 in January 2024 alone. Over 30 video game development studios have ceased operations including Arkane Austin, Volition, and most recently, Firewalk Studios. What’s worse, this trend only shows signs of continuing rather than diminishing. How did we get here? Some analysts have concluded these closures and redundancies are a necessary remedy to companies having overextended themselves in response to inflated demand in the market during the COVID-19 pandemic. While that’s undeniably a factor, I believe the truth ***** in other long-gestating issues within the AAA project bubble. Just five years ago, AAA projects’ average budget ranged $50 - $150 million. Today, the minimum average is $200 million. Call of Duty’s new benchmark is $300 million, with Activision admitting in the Competition & Market Authority’s report on AAA development that it now takes the efforts of one-and-a-half studios just to complete the annual Call of Duty title. It’s far from just Call of Duty facing ballooning costs. In the same CMA report, an anonymous publisher admits that development costs for one of its franchises reached $660 million. With $550 million of marketing costs on top, that is a $1.2 billion game. To put that into perspective, Minecraft – the world’s best-selling video game of all time – has of last year only achieved $3 billion. It took 12 years to reach that figure, having launched in 2011. The realities of these budgets mean entire publishing houses are massively overstretched and are now desperately facing the consequences: if their developers’ huge projects don’t make money immediately, they must ****. *****’s sci-fi shooter ‘super game’ Hyenas was in development at Creative Assembly for seven years, and – just as it was publicly playable for the first time via alpha testing – it was cancelled. The reason? ***** preemptively concluded Hyenas couldn’t make its money back. Blizzard’s survival project Odyssey had a similar trajectory. Odyssey would’ve been the studio’s first new IP in eight years and, given the market’s love for games like Minecraft and Rust, such a gaming titan should’ve undoubtedly made waves with this project. When Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard, the project was swiftly ******* with little reason publicly given beyond inconveniences in switching engines to increase player count on the servers. The current AAA publishing cull reflects a deep-rooted ***** to engage with anything new and original. These examples of the current AAA publishing cull reflect a deep-rooted ***** to engage with anything new and original, with publishers perhaps more risk-averse than ever to stray out of their established IP safety bars. But even well-known IP that could be worth millions in sales and revenue is being left to rot. Despite owning Infamous, Jak & Daxter, Killzone, Resistance and Sly Cooper to name a few entries in PlayStations’s sprawling dormant library, Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki recently claimed the company lacks enough original IP to consolidate itself as a true gaming powerhouse. What Totoki may mean is that Sony’s older catalogue of library IP does not fit the mould of what every publisher has been mindlessly chasing for the better part of the decade – the next big live-service money printer. It’s difficult to imagine much fanfare for a Sly Cooper reboot where Bentley and Murray are purchase-to-play, grand heists are season pass bonuses and worlds are delivered half-baked instead of fully formed. It’s undeniable that on some level, the video game market has changed forever because of the live-service model. New video games don’t just have to compete with new rivals but somehow find space in an increasingly crowded market dominated by decade-old titles like Fortnite and Grand Theft Auto: Online – games which will continue to hold higher player counts than many of the top-sold games of the last few years. But live-service titles require investment of not only money, but time to find their audience – neither of which was afforded to Firewalk Studios’ Concord. The recent fate of Concord’s Firewalk Studios serves as a microcosm for the increasingly bleak outlook for the next few years in video game development. Concord was Firewalk’s first game, its baby in many ways. An eight-year development bolstered by a Sony acquisition (with a reported cash injection of $200 million plus), PlayStation reportedly believed it had the next Star Wars-esque franchise on its hands. But the game struggled significantly across both its beta testing ******* and launch, and was soon completely shut down by Sony, with Firewalk closed for business shortly after. Concord’s downfall happened faster than any other ******* game of the live-service era. Just a decade earlier, though, a similar disaster was plaguing Blizzard’s Diablo 3 – the crippling ‘Error 37’ message made the game unplayable and fans worldwide decried the absolute ******** to launch. Soon after, the game’s real-money auction house left players with a foul taste in their mouth and Diablo 3’s reputation was roasting in the fires. But rather than abandoning it, Blizzard not only repaired the game and removed the Auction House, but fundamentally upgraded and evolved it to Diablo 3 2.0 with its Reaper of Souls expansion, finally cementing its comeback as a brilliant game. It’s a similar story we’ve seen with CD Projekt Red’s hard-fought battle to win Cyberpunk 2077 fans back. If the alleged $200 million + budget had been lowered, the project direction refocused as a spark for a new universe rather than a Big Bang, it doesn’t seem hard to believe that Concord may have found its audience with some Blizzard or CDPR-like shepherding from Sony. Many projects akin to Concord could be the medium-size successes they deserve to be, if not for the financial corners these publishers have found themselves backed into. If everything is ‘******* and bolder’, who possibly has the time to play more than one or two games each year? Not that such financial corners are anything publishers should always attempt to navigate. Gamers are beginning to wane interest in these monolithic projects. You need only look at a top rated games of 2024 list – whereas 2023 award lists were littered with AAA titles from 500-strong studios, 2024’s show a revitalised hunger for a smaller, more independent spirit. Arcade machine throwback UFO 50, the Metroidvania-esque Animal Well, poker roguelite Balatro, and text-based pixel-art adventure The Crimson Diamond are just some of the games you’ll see appearing again and again on these lists. Despite their numerous differences, they share a commonality – a smaller, more refined experience that recalls earlier eras of gaming where marriages of mechanics and storytelling were key through technological craftiness, rather than literal country-sized game worlds. The nostalgia they create for older video game generations are central to the heart of their creation: they just want you to pick them up and have a good time now and again. The slow but increasingly clear pivot of video game audiences to a potential indie game renaissance is a clear message to publishers that if everything is ‘******* and bolder’, who possibly has the time to play more than one or two games each year? That’s not to undercut the difficulty in getting those independent titles made. UFO 50’s Mossmouth LLC team consisted of six developers working over many years, while both Animal Well and The Crimson Diamond share similar stories of being crafted by solo developers - Billy Basso and Julia Minamata, respectively – over several years. Even a smash-hit like Lethal Company started life as one-man-band developer Zeekerss learning to develop games on Roblox before expanding his knowledge. All of these developers put everything they had over several years of their lives into creating these games – not in pursuit of money, but because of a passion. That’s why they don’t need humongous worlds or 300+ side-quests to tick off – these games all feel like lean enjoyment machines. It feels like the top-end of the video game industry is currently faced with two paths to choose from. The first is the status quo; it can continue to engorge on ******* budgets with impossibly-open-yet-incredibly-empty worlds filled with 80+ hours of content that has about 10 hours of meaning to its players, or hopelessly pursue the live-service train which left the station over 5 years ago, with late passengers wondering why the money isn’t rolling anymore. These billion-dollar gambles could pay off, but it’s becoming less and less likely. Or, they could opt for the second path and take a page out of Julia Minamata, Billy Basso and Zeekerss’ books – a wider breadth of projects, smaller in scope and scale with a refined focus on gameplay mechanics, and perhaps a return to older styles of video games long-dormant. Projects where developers aren’t afraid to take weirder choices and unexpected left-turns lest they ****** their $400 million ship into a ‘mixed-to-decent’ initial reception. Maybe studios can remember that we used to play video games because they were fun – not because of their *******-than-last-year maps carpeted by denser, higher-resolution grass that you walk across to finish another piece of side content that pushes you one digit closer to 100% completion. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Originally called MineClone2, VoxeLibre is a free and open source sandbox game that's inspired by Minecraft and it recently hit a big milestone. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

Undisputed developer Steel City Interactive has surprised fans with a new patch update after previously stating that the boxing title would not be updated until mid-December. Despite being in early access for almost two years before its full release in October, Undisputed launched with a myriad of bugs and balancing issues that have plagued the game for weeks now. But following the release of today's update, fans should see a noticeable difference in their gameplay experience. View the full article

Though its global release is still one day away, I can already say that MTG Foundations is going to be my highlight of 2024. This Standard set is nothing short of a triumph. It has something for everyone involved in the hobby, good for players old and new, for fans of draft or constructed. Opening Foundations packs or looking over the card gallery genuinely feels like a salve on the soul, a return to tradition in a very non-traditional year for the TCG. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Space Marine MTG card sees sudden 660% price spike MTG card that can build a bunny horde sees 300% price spike Marvel MTG card creates 250% price spike for Gruul legend View the full article

Disclosure! Philippa Warr is the wonderful writer on Trash Goblin, who also used to work at PC Gamer. I don't have a personal relationship with Philippa, her time here being before I joined, and all these opinions are from my noggin and mine only... Read more.View the full article

As some countries, including the ***, prepare to receive Gladiator 2 this weekend before next week's North ********* debut, we're learning more and more behind the scenes trivia from the biggest actors in the long-awaited sequel. Perhaps the chattiest one so far has been Denzel Washington, who said a few days ago he's set to be part of ****** Panther 3. Read more View the full article

It might not be the full-scale nuclear war that predates Fallout 4 and its recent, fan-made, and highly praised successor Fallout London, but the disaster that gives us new survival RPG Atomfall has still left Britain in a bad way. Scrapping through a quarantined society, you'll have to face everything from cults to rogue government agencies as you do your best to survive. Previously loosely scheduled for March 2025, we now know exactly when we can get our hands on this next taste of the British wasteland. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Atomfall launch window confirmed, as Fallout rival gets closer Fallout London has a rival in new British apocalypse survival RPG View the full article

It's nearly Half-Life 2's 20th anniversary, and if that makes you feel old, you probably are. But good news, Nvidia is giving away a custom Half-Life 2 themed RTX 4080 Super Founders Edition to make you feel better about your own mortality and lack of Half-Life 3... Read more.View the full article

For the first time ever, the Call of Duty ******* camo grind has arrived in Warzone. Step aside for now, multiplayer and Zombies, because there are another set of new camos to earn. ****** Ops 6‘s integration into Warzone has arrived with an additional four new Mastery camos added into the game as part of BO6’s season one update, which also adds all of the game’s guns, operators, omnimovement, and a lot more into Warzone. View the full article

Developer Respawn Entertainment has confirmed it missed a patch note in the Apex Legends Season 23 update that should have informed players that Charge Rifles can now break down doors. While the Apex Legends Season 23 update introduced many gameplay changes, players were not informed about the Charge Rifles change and had to discover it on their own, sparking discussion on social media about whether this feature had been hidden in previous seasons or was a recent addition. View the full article

In Infinite Craft, there are multiple combinations you can discover as you create elements, tools, fantastical creatures, and everything in between. Humanity is a solid starting point for many recipes, so you’ll want to make Human in the browser-based game sooner or later. To create Human, you’ll need two main ingredients: Adam and Eve. And guess what? You’ll need to make those, too. Using your starting elements—Earth, Wind, Water, and *****—only takes a few quick steps to create the biblical figures. Here’s how to make your first pair of humans in Infinite Craft. View the full article

You can't play Concord anymore. The servers were taken offline, digital PlayStation copies were revoked and refunded, and developer Firewalk Studios was even shut down. That hasn't stopped this one Steam player, however. View the full article

Sandwiches made their debut in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, giving players a brand new way to interact with their party while hosting picnics. A good-quality sandwich can help with everything from shiny hunting to catching specific Pokémon. One essential item to make sure you have in your sandwich making inventory is a sandwich pick. These seemingly unimportant trinkets hold sandwiches together and come in a variety of designs. Here’s how to get sandwich picks in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, including the best shop location. View the full article

With the release of Call of Duty: ****** Ops 6's own era of Warzone and all that juicy battle royale goodness, we've gotten a vast list of patch notes and intriguing information to go alongside it. However, one point is controversial to a subsection of the community: an adjustment to the ping threshold in order to curb VPN usage. Read more View the full article

Opening packs is the name of the game in Pokémon TCG Pocket. But without splashing the cash, there’s a restriction on how regularly you can open them. Fortunately for players, there are many ways to earn free packs. Pokémon TCG Pocket is a collector’s dream with a wide array of cards to collect and regular updates are planned to bring more and more into the game. Of course, that means it’s going to be even more challenging to complete your Dex. View the full article

Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has explained the reasoning behind Avowed's delay, stating that the upcoming action role-playing game from Obsidian Entertainment wasn't pushed back to give the studio more time, but rather to pace out the number of games coming to Xbox's lucrative Game Pass service. Avowed will be the next big RPG to come from the Pillars of Eternity studio, and was originally scheduled to launch in Fall 2024 before being pushed back to February 18, 2025. View the full article

When Twin Peaks came out in 1990, little did the show’s creators know that it would become a juggernaut and influence countless forms of creative media. Video game developers especially latched onto its quirks and style, incorporating many surrealist qualities that made it such a profoundly enduring show ever since. It was about an FBI […] Source View the full article

Rockstar has removed Grove Street Games credits from the start of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – Definitive Edition, following a major graphical upgrade. The surprise patch was released on Tuesday, and made notable improvements to the much-criticised remasters. However, one of the other changes is the apparent removal of Grove Street Games’ logo at the start of each game, and references to them in the game’s copyright blurb. Read More... View the full article

The “Clickable symbol” clue on today’s NYT Mini Crossword is a tough one. It’s tricky to figure out what the hint is referencing and what type of word you need to think of to solve it, so you might need some help navigating through it. If you’re struggling to find the solution to this clue, here are some hints and the official answer for the “Clickable symbol” clue on the Nov. 14 NYT Mini Crossword puzzle. View the full article

I have played my fair share of shooters in the many years I've been gaming, but I have never played a single Call of Duty game. This changed with Call of Duty: ****** Ops 6, and it's all thanks to split screen. The Zombies mode of ****** Ops 6 is the very first time I've ever played a CoD game, and it made me realize that a functional split-screen mode may be the way for Activision to draw in brand-new players like myself. View the full article