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Bloober Team has admitted it knew it had to "evolve" after releasing The Medium, a decision which led to the development of ******* games such as the Silent Hill 2 remake and the upcoming Cronos: The New Dawn. Cronos director and producer Jacek Zieba told IGN that The Medium, which arrived in 2021 as a psychological horror adventure game alongside a Metascore of 71 on Metacritic, became a turning point for the studio as it looked to make ******* and better games. "I think after The Medium it was very clear to us that we needed to evolve," Zieba said. "It was like, 'let's end the chapter of the adventure games.' Layers of *****, Observer, and The Medium, [games that were] strange, experimental, with fixed camera tools. 'Okay, let's finish with that.' "We also want to evolve, so let's go into survival horror, let's create something of our own, something different than other games in the genre in terms of world, story, and also gameplay. Let's create another game of our dreams." The Silent Hill 2 remake was somewhat of a coming out party for Bloober Team to show it could make a big budget survival horror adventure. It arrived October 8 to glowing critical reception and strong sales, and Bloober Team is open to making more Silent Hill games too, either remakes or something completely fresh. But the "game of our dreams" mentioned by Zieba is Cronos, a sci-fi survival horror set in an unforgiving post-apocalyptic future in 1980s Poland. This will be the true test for Bloober Team as it looks to solidify itself as a developer capable of mainstream releases without having the framework of Silent Hill 2, one of the most beloved horror games of all time, to build upon. In our 8/10 review of the Silent Hill 2 remake, IGN said: "Silent Hill 2 is a great way to visit – or revisit – one of the most dread-inducing destinations in the history of survival horror." Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day. View the full article

Ahead of the launch of ****** Ops 6, Activision has said it’s using AI in its ongoing battle against Call of Duty cheaters, and hopes to kick cheaters out of the game within one hour of them being in their first match. Call of Duty has had a cheating problem for years, with free-to-download battle royale Warzone on PC suffering in particular. Activision has spent millions of dollars developing its anti-cheat technology as well as pursuing cheat makers in the courts, with a number of recent high-profile successes stemming the tide. But video game publishers face an uphill battle in the war against the increasingly sophisticated cheat makers, so Activision has announced plans to draft in AI to help. “Fighting cheats today – on the client where illicit programs are activated – is a little like battling on a bad guy’s home turf: it is their machine and their code,” Activision said in a blog post. “Kernel-level drivers on PC have enhanced anti-cheat’s reach, but cheaters are already offering cheats that go beyond the kernel, even going as far to utilize special PC hardware that is designed entirely for attacking games and enabling cheating. “What our team has been working on for the future is a suite of tools that use AI to find and ****** cheaters.” So, what does this mean in practice? Activision said that “cheaters can run and hide but a trail exists,” but what if that trail disappears? That’s where AI-powered behavioral models come into play. “Cheat developers can’t hide player behavior. How people play – the legit, the phony, the good, and the bad – gives us information and we use that to build ways to pick those bad folks out of a lineup,” Activision explained. “We already have data from cheaters but to help build out profiles for those ****-tier players we examine the data from the Call of Duty League – where every match is recorded, and every stat is preserved. “There’s more in progress around what we’re doing with AI beyond behavioral models and as work continues, we’ll share what we can.” As we near ****** Ops 6’s release on October 25, Activision has made an ambitious commitment to players: it's targeting booting cheaters out of Call of Duty within one hour. “A lot has been put into ****** Ops 6 to upgrade security, but here is the goal we’re targeting: we want to catch and remove cheaters within one hour of them being in their first match,” Activision said. Activision calls this metric ‘Time to Action,’ which it saw (eventually) make a positive impact during ****** Ops 6’s beta weekends. It saw that cheaters were able to complete just five matches before being booted out of the game, with 25% of all Weekend Two bans happening during the first match a cheater ever played. Meanwhile, 12,000 confirmed cheating accounts were stopped before they “ever saw the inside of a match” in the beta, Activision said. Cheat developers are flawed (clearly – they have to pretend to be good at video games). With this in mind, ****** Ops 6 launches with an updated version of the kernel-level driver (this also applies to Warzone), with new machine-learning behavioral systems focused on speed of detection and the analysis of gameplay to combat aim bots in place. Upgrades are set to launch alongside Ranked Play. "The people behind cheats are organized, ******** groups that pick apart every piece of data within our games to look for some way to make cheating possible," Activision said. "These bad guys are not just some script kiddies poking around with code they found online. They are a collective who profit from exploiting the hard work of game developers across the industry. But cheat developers are flawed (clearly – they have to pretend to be good at video games). Every time they cheat, they leave breadcrumbs behind. “We’re always looking for those breadcrumbs to find the bad actors and get them out of the game." For more, we've got confirmation of Call of Duty: ****** Ops 6's launch Multiplayer maps, modes, and Operators, and Call of Duty: ****** Ops 6's preload and global launch times. Wesley is the *** News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at *****@*****.tld. View the full article

Bloober Team has released the first major update for the Silent Hill 2 remake in Patch 1.04, addressing myriad gameplay issues as well as improving the survival horror game's technical performance. The patch notes were released on Steam and outline dozens of changes made to Silent Hill 2. Some address funnier bugs like protagonist James teleporting through a peephole and getting stuck in a window near Neely's Bar. On the technical front, Bloober Team has reduced visual glitches when using the latest version of Nvidia DLSS, added an option to enable DLSS frame generation in the menu when using DLSS for supersampling, and added support for AMD FSR 3.1.1. The full patch notes are available below. Bloober Team and publisher Konami released the Silent Hill 2 remake on October 8 to glowing critical reception and strong sales, leaving many fans of the previously dormant horror franchise eager for more. Bloober has said it's open to making other Silent Hill games, though at the moment is focused on its sci-fi survival horror game Cronos: The New Dawn. In our 8/10 review of the Silent Hill 2 remake, IGN said: "Silent Hill 2 is a great way to visit – or revisit – one of the most dread-inducing destinations in the history of survival horror." Silent Hill 2 Remake Patch 1.04 Notes Technical - Reduced visual glitches when using the latest version of NVIDIA DLSS. - Added an option to enable DLSS frame generation in the menu when using DLSS for supersampling. - NVIDIA Reflex is now active when DLSS frame generation is enabled. - Added support for AMD FSR 3.1.1. - Added an option to enable AMD Fluid Motion Frames in the menu when using FSR 3.1 for supersampling. - Updated Intel Nanites to support upcoming driver updates. - Improved performance and optimization for Steam Deck. - Fixed stuttering issues related to sky map generation. - Added an option to enable/disable HZB culling to fix stuttering on some AMD/Intel GPUs. - All graphic settings should be saved locally. Gameplay - Fixed an issue with translation for UI “High” preset not being translated and displayed correctly - Fixed an issue with Wooden Plank appearing during James’ ****** animation - Fixed streaming issue where staring at the walls inside the Grand Market caused problems with loading all of the environment around James - Fixed an issue where interacting with the wrong side of the peephole in Brookhaven Hospital teleported James to the other side - Fixed an issue where breaking windows near Neely’s Bar got James stuck in the window frame - Fixed an issue that allowed James to access the inaccessible balcony in Blue Creek Apartments - Fixed an issue with Abstract Daddy’s behavior during boss ****** where the ****** was not hitting James properly - Fixed multiple issues with Abstract Daddy’s 3rd TV – it should now have the correct audio, and the wall won’t interfere with its position - Fixed an issue with a question mark from the Conference Room not disappearing after obtaining Cinderella figurine in Lakeview Hotel - Fixed an issue with collision detection with the Dayroom walls in Brookhaven Hospital - Fixed an issue where James was falling under the map when approaching Laura entering Brookhaven Hospital from the bushes on the left - Removed debug numbers displayed behind wallpapers in Blue Creek Apartments' Clock Room - Resolved an issue with James not being able to leave the 3F corridor in the Lakeview Hotel - Fixed an issue with the lightbulb on the 3rd floor of Blue Creek Apartments constantly switching on and being impervious to destruction - Resolved an issue with the small coffee table blocking James in the corner of the room located in Woodside Apartments - Fixed an issue where after completing the Disgust Path in Labyrinth, the player was forced to do it all over again - Fixed an issue with Spider Mannequins getting stuck when attacking James while he is going through squeeze traversal - Fixed an issue with James getting stuck in the window frame while attacking Lying Figures located outside of the window - Added more natural movement for James when switching weapons while aiming - Fixed an issue with triggering Spider Mannequin event on ***** Path in the Labyrinth multiple times - Improved the ability to pick up items during the final boss ****** - Fixed an issue with picture frames overlapping in the Moth Room - Improved the deformation of Nurses’ skirts - Fixed an issue occurring when displaying the information about unlocking NewGame+ which didn’t appear in the player’s chosen language - Fixed visible unloading of the door of an abandoned garage in the west side of South Vale - Fixed question mark on the map during Chute Puzzle in Woodside Apartments Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day. View the full article

Atari Recharged Retro Revival Humble Bundle is live and it includes the nice big Atari 50 Anniversary Collection, along with a bunch of their modernized Recharged series games. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

Valve's not planning on doing yearly updates to its Steam Deck, the handheld's developers have reiterated. Instead, they're planning on waiting for a proper "generational leap" in teach to arrive before putting out what'll be the next generation of Deck. Read more View the full article

After you've spent hours and weeks building up to go blast a rocket off into space, Factorio: Space Age will have you continue across multiple new worlds in this DLC for the massively popular building and automation sim. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

RailGods Of Hysterra is one of those games that, as it were, shovels a bunch of relatively dried-up concepts into the squirming furnaces of something appealingly ghastly. On the one hand, it's burdened by talk of "crafting", "base-building" and "survival" - all things I have enjoyed but am currently weary of, and which together make the game sound interchangeable with half of Steam. But it's elevated, on the other hand, by talk of living helltrains that eat crocodiles for breakfast. Without further ado, here's a trailer. Read more View the full article

Vampire Survivors is getting DLC based on Castlevania. The pack, which will be called Vampire Survivors: Ode to Castlevania, is set to release on October 31 on PC, Switch, Xbox, PS5, PS4 and mobile, and will cost $3.99 / €3.99 / £2.99. According to developer Poncle, Ode to Castlevania will be the biggest Vampire Survivors DLC pack yet, and will feature “an absolutely stupidly gigantic amount of content”. Read More... View the full article

Fans of Marvel's Spider-Man 2 will need to accept that Insomniac Games isn't planning to release any more content for the popular open-world game. After the first entry in Insomniac's take on the Web-Slinger received a trio of middling story-focused expansions, the community hoped the studio would build upon the sequel having learned from the mistakes of the past. As it turns out, that won't be the case but there is good news for PC players who have yet to experience the game on PlayStation 5. View the full article

Insomniac Games made the shock announcement last week that Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 won’t get any additional story content, putting to bed fan hopes for DLC. The announcement came in the same breath that Sony announced a PC version of Spider-Man 2 launches in January — one of the quickest turnarounds from single-player PS5 exclusive to PC from the company so far. Since Spider-Man 2 came out in September 2023, Insomniac has released a number of updates for the game, adding New Game+, mission replay, new suits, and more. But fans had hoped that story DLC would give them more of a reason to return to Insomniac's wonderful recreation of New York that the addition of new features. Now, those hopes have been dashed. But fans hadn’t just hoped for Spider-Man 2 story DLC, they expected it after the game itself left a number of threads that Insomniac might have pulled on for additional content, including the introduction of Carnage. Beyond that, though, the devastating Insomniac data breach of December 2023, which revealed the studio’s upcoming slate of releases, and the accidental release of Spider-Man 2’s development game menu earlier this year, all pointed to planned DLC. Indeed, the development game menu included what looked like the entire arc of a DLC called the ‘Beetle Villain Arc.’ Throughout the turbulence caused by the Insomniac data breach, Sony made a significant round of layoffs affecting around 900 staff, or about 8% of its global PlayStation workforce. Insomniac was one of a number of PlayStation studios hit by the cuts. Alongside the layoffs, a number of in-development games were canceled, Sony said at the time. Now, a year after Spider-Man 2’s release and over 11 million sales, fans are waving goodbye to the game, issuing their verdict now they know there’s no more story content to come. IGN’s Spider-Man 2 review returned an 8/10. We said: “Marvel's Spider-Man 2 delivers Insomniac's best tale yet, and despite its open world falling short, is a reliably fun superhero power trip.” The forced hate for this game is coming back now that the DLC got "canceled" even tho they have never officially announced it No matter what anyone says Spider Man 2 will always be a Outstanding game. [Hidden Content] — James ️ (@YoshinoLover08) October 19, 2024 Today, one year ago, we join Peter and Miles on their journey to be greater together. Happy one year to Marvel's Spider-Man 2! My personal GOTY 2023. Congrats @insomniacgames and thank you very much for this series ! Screenshots I took in the game: [Hidden Content] — Ali Talibov (@Ali20011908) October 20, 2024 Insomniac was reportedly planning to release Marvel's Venom in 2025, Marvel's Wolverine in 2026, Marvel's Spider-Man 3 in 2028, a new Ratchet & Clank in 2029, Marvel's X-Men in 2030, and an untitled new IP in 2031/2032, but those plans may have changed significantly. So, what’s next? While Insomniac has a Wolverine game in the works, fans are hoping the developer will also release a Marvel’s Spider-Man spinoff similar in scope to the hugely successful Miles Morales standalone, with Venom the potential focus. To find out how Insomniac has set up its next sequel, check out IGN’s Spider-Man 2 ending explained. In the meantime, the PC release of Spider-Man 2 will inevitably spark a modding scene that may see fan creations extend the life of the game beyond its first year. Perhaps PC modders will get Venom fully playable, as PS5 players found a way to do last year before Insomniac patched the exploit out. Let us know in the comments what you thought of Spider-Man 2, now we know there’s no more story DLC, and tell us what you hope to see from the potential Venom standalone game and Spider-Man 3 next. Wesley is the *** News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at *****@*****.tld. View the full article

It was just the other day that I told PCG writer Ted Litchfield that I want a whole game—Museum of Mechanics: Lockpicking-style—that lets me walk through the ruins of all the doomed fan attempts to remake old games in a modern engine. KOTOR's Apeiron, that Resident Evil 2 redo, innumerable attempts to remake GoldenEye without attracting Nintendo's baleful gaze: They all went the way of the Dodo, lost to time... Read more.View the full article

If you're thinking about comparing Starship Troopers: Extermination to Helldivers 2, stop right there. Sure, they're both cooperative multiplayer shooters that involve blasting thousands of alien bugs, each inspired by Paul Verhoeven's 1997 satirical sci-fi flick. But apart from that, they're totally different games. Helldivers 2 is a surgically precise slapstick comedy, its goofy sci-fi action driven by pristine physics, immaculate ballistics, and its phenomenally satisfying Stratagems. Extermination is a much broader, weirder, rougher affair, one that in many ways has loftier ambitions, yet only a fraction of the budget to ******** with... Read more.View the full article

The Saurodoma Island’s strongest ****** in Throne and Liberty, Reptilian Butcher, isn’t as easy to find as you might expect compared to other dungeons. Since it can drop good loot, and you might need it for a contract, here’s everything you need to know about the Reptilian Butcher in Throne and Liberty, including how to find it and possible rewards. View the full article

The Trust GXT 1619 (also sold as the Redragon GS560) is a really simple audio upgrade option for your gaming desktop PC. Its compact, gaming soundbar form provides you with a single stereo analog input, a convenient USB power connection, and it even has a volume knob! Yes, it's that simple, but if you're after the most basic upgrade from gaming monitor speakers, it's worth a look. The best computer speakers can provide room-shaking bass and crystal-like clarity, along with a host of easy connection options, none of which you get here. However, for a super-cheap option, this Trust soundbar delivers the basics. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Hyte's Honkai Star Rail Silver Wolf Y70 gaming PC case is finally on ***** Creative Pebble V3 review: brilliant budget Bluetooth computer speakers The Nvidia app is getting an official launch alongside the RTX 5090, says ***** View the full article

Konami and Bloober Team have released the latest patch for Silent Hill 2. The update, which brings the game up to version 1.04, fixes more than 30 issues on both the PS5 and PC versions of the game. The full patch notes can be found on the official Silent Hill 2 website. Read More... View the full article

Well this is excellent news. I'm a big fan of Control and the world of Remedy Entertainment games and their new multiplayer spin-off FBC: Firebreak should get Steam Deck support. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

Things're never too routine for long in Helldivers 2, and the latest twist appears to have come in the form of this Major Order's new baddies - the automaton Jet Brigade - momentarily being shown as assaulting every bug and ****-controlled sector on the map. Thankfully, they weren't actually doing so. Read more View the full article

In a climactic scene of the original Final Fantasy VII, hero and ******** snowboarder Cloud Strife stands with his fellow adventurers as they are about to face a final, possibly fatal battle. With the steely glare of a polygonal warrior on the verge of ******** ****, he turns to them and says: "Let's mosey!" It's an unintentionally comical moment - an easy-going phrase, as if they're all going to the shops and not jumping into a big glowing pit at the end of the world. It's a result of the RPG's famously rushed translation. But maybe not in the way you think. A fan translation of Final Fantasy VII has now fixed a bunch of mistakes that were present in the original, and "let's mosey" is one of them. The fix? Have Cloud say it way more often. Read more View the full article

This is quite a funny one. Taking the basic idea of snake where you're constantly growing, but you control a wobbly car that can jump. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

With fond memories of playing the likes of Desert Strike for endless hours, Cleared Hot looks exactly what I've been wanting in a modern take on it. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

Developer Cloud Imperium Games (CIG) showed off the extended clip of Squadron 42 at CitizenCon 2954 at Manchester, ***, over the weekend. Read Entire Article View the full article

After Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2’s latest patch made pretty much everything about the PvE Operations mode *******, one heroic player has done the Emperor proud by coming up with the game’s ultimate cheese. Space Marine 2 Update 4.0 added a new PvE map and with it the terrifying Tyranid Hierophant Bio-Titan, which ordinarily must be tackled by a squad of three players working together to down this enormous xenos monstrosity. After leaving the final elevator room and entering the map's boss ****** area, players are meant to activate a central terminal to link their sidearm with ultra powerful fortress lascannons — powerful enough to down even a Bio-Titan. You then use your sidearm as a targeting system for the cannons, aiming at the Bio-Titan as the guns get to work. After one barrage the cannons are out of juice, so you have to recharge them by spinning nearby energy stations, which in turn spawns the Tyranid horde. Meanwhile, the Bio-Titan will bombard your position with high-damage artillery *****. Once the cannons are recharged, you need to activate the central terminal to link your sidearm once again, aim, and let the cannons *****. You need to repeat this process a number of times to bring the Bio-Titan down. It’s a stressful boss ****** with a lot going on; the Tyranids can easily overwhelm your squad, even on the easier difficulties, and the Bio-Titan itself can effectively one-shot you if you hang about the same area for too long. Crank the mission up to Lethal — the new, hardest difficulty added with Update 4.0 — and you’re in for a world of hurt. Or are you? One Space Marine 2 player has worked out a way to solo the Bio-Titan even on Lethal difficulty, exposing a flaw in the design of the mission that the developers at Saber Interactive may want to patch out at some point (once they’re done addressing the backlash to Update 4.0, perhaps). It all started with redditor RedditOakley’s discovery that it is possible to deal damage to the Bio-Titan when it walks past the Space Marines just after they step out of the final elevator room but, crucially, before activating the terminal (this imposing moment was used to reveal the Bio-Titan in promotional videos). This (tiny) damage is reflected when the Bio-Titan’s health bar displays, and then you do all that fortress cannon stuff we mentioned before. RedditOakley theorized that it would thus be possible to continue to damage and eventually ***** the Bio-Titan using Space Marine weapons and without having to go through the cannon activation process, and that theory turned out to be true. The only question was, from where would you safely ****** the Bio-Titan down? After all, in Space Marine 2 ammo is scarce; infinite ammo resources are ammo crates and loadout pods only; and the swarm can quickly become too much to handle. The answer is the elevator room itself, which, if you never activate the terminal, is a safe haven of sorts (although you won’t see the Bio-Titan’s health bar). “I fired up a solo Minimal [the easiest difficulty] run and progressed to where the door opens and you meet the titan,” RedditOakley explained. “We have the ammo crate next to the elevator and a loadout pod available, the door to those never closes as the room is used to spawn ****** waves. “The titan itself will walk around the battlefield, and often stay close to where you're standing. This is the range where it is possible to ****** and damage it with your guns. The titan will even lob acid globes at you here after a while. “So that's what I did. I just kept *********, and ********* and *********, clearing the waves and [tougher] extremis that came along the way. I didn't have any way of seeing my progress as the health bar isn't visible in this area, so all I could do was keep ********* and praying. “Then eventually a red hit marker showed up and the end cutscene appeared.” In their post, RedditOakley issued the Space Marine 2 community a challenge: ***** the Bio-Titan using Space Marine guns only on the hardest difficulty, Lethal. Of course, someone answered the call: redditor xD3viLzx, who used the ******* class and the Las Fusil to slowly — and I mean slowly — solo the Bio-Titan on Lethal. As you can tell from the footage of the run, xD3viLzx popped in and out of the elevator room to snipe at the Bio-Titan, returning to grab ammo from the loadout pod when needed. Whittling down the Bio-Titan’s health in this way took 45 minutes, rinsing and repeating while occasionally avoiding a barrage from the Tyranid itself and dealing with waves of enemies. It’s a monotonous cheese, for sure, but an effective one. Upon the final ***** the mission ended properly, the victory recorded as it would if the Bio-Titan were ******* as Saber intended, and the appropriate rewards dished out. It should be noted that this cheese isn't a win button. xD3viLzx still had to make it to the mission’s final area in one piece on Lethal solo, which for me is a more impressive feat than the Bio-Titan cheese itself. xD3viLzx’s perfect parry was on point, but there were a few hairy moments in the run when the AI-controlled teammates saved the day with a revive. Still, the cheese makes the hardest part of the mission relatively trivial. You just need time and the patience of a saint; the entire run took one hour and 14 minutes. So, will Saber cut this cheese out the game? It’s promised a patch this week to address balance concerns sparked by Update 4.0’s heavy nerfs. Perhaps the poor old Bio-Titan will get a buff of its own. IGN has plenty more on Space Marine 2, including a deep-***** on the game’s burgeoning modding scene and accompanying complications. Last month, Saber Chief Creative Officer Tim Willits told IGN how the breakout success of Space Marine 2 had “changed everything” for the company. And eagle-eyed fans have spotted the Space Marine chapter now all-but confirmed to get a cosmetic pack after the Dark Angels, and even an unannounced new Thousand Sons ****** type. Wesley is the *** News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at *****@*****.tld. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Webfishing has become popular on Steam, offering a casual, cozy, and friendly environment to hang out with other players while fishing for creatures or treasure—and there are some easy ways to express your emotions. While the gameplay focuses heavily on fishing and exploration, being social is a core part of the game, and expressing emotions through your avatar is the best way to show off. Whether you’re casting a line or strumming a tune on the guitar, you can always make use of chat commands to display emotion. View the full article

Mashing two of the greats together, Duake brings the Doomguy along with their full arsenal into the classic Quake. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

Fortnite continues to go from strength to strength and is rolling back the years in the next Chapter, with the launch of Fortnite OG Chapter Two. We can tell you exactly when it’s due to start and what you can expect. Fortnite Chapter Two occurred way back in 2019, bringing many new additions into the game, including boats, fishing, and new POIs, including Craggy Cliffs, Sweaty Sands, and Lazy Lake. The Chapter also included huge collaborations with DC Comics, Marvel, Star Wars, and **** of War, which could mean the return of some fan-favorite skins to the store. View the full article