Year 2026 might finally have good news for FC 26 players as EA Sports is all set to make some much-needed changes to AI defending. AI defending has been a massive frustration for the community. It's been so overpowered that many players simply don't control their defenders or attempt to make manual tackles at all. Thankfully, the upcoming changes promise improvement, and EA Sports spoke about what they plan to do. FC 26's AI defending changes could finally sort out an old issue On Dec. 22, EA Sports briefly explained changes it plans to make in Ultimate Team. The AI defending will be nerfed to a great extent from what we have now. In the current meta, the AI-controlled defenders move too quickly, especially when moving sideways. [Hidden Content] This allows the defenders to effortlessly close down opposition attackers without much influence from players. In some ways, this completely reduces the need for you to defend manually. In many cases, it's better to let the AI-controlled defenders make the tackle to win the ball. However, the upcoming changes will greatly reduce the movement speed of AI-controlled defenders. This includes the speed at which they move sideways, and also the rate at which they can close down attackers on their own. Once the patch goes live, the meta should shift significantly as the slower movement will definitely affect AI-defending as we know it. In other words, manual defending should be making a comeback soon. However, plenty of promises have been made in the past, and it remains to be seen whether these changes will have the effect that EA hopes for. The post FC 26 set to begin the new year on positive note with drastic changes to AI defending appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article
Stephan Bugaj, chief creative officer at Genvid, announced the commercial release of The Seeker, an emotionally compelling sci-fi film created using generative AI. Bugaj was the winner of last year’s Emmy Award for Outstanding Innovation in Emerging Media. He used GenAI for all visuals and music, and all but two of the voices in the film. It’s a pioneering work, but it’s also the kind of thing that will cause conversations, given the controversy around the use of gen AI in gaming. .memberful-global-teaser-content p:last-child{ -webkit-mask-image: linear-gradient(180deg, #000 0%, transparent); mask-image: linear-gradient(180deg, #000 0%, transparent); } Read This Article Free Get instant access by joining the GB MAX Access tier — it’s free to sign up and unlock premium content.Join Now to Start ReadingAlready a member? Sign in The post Genvid releases sci-fi film The Seeker made with generative AI appeared first on GamesBeat. View the full article
Since first releasing in 2022, open-world racing game CarX Street has gotten countless updates and pieces of new content, but the update it just dropped is one of its biggest yet. Titled Showdown, it adds a brand-new PvP team mode that pits street racers against pursuing law enforcement. The mode can be played by up to 16 people at a time, eight on each team. On one side, street racers need to reach a designated area to earn points and then deliver them to a garage. On the other side, police officers are rewarded for neutralizing racers in several different ways, which we’ll cover in detail in a bit. Each match is played in two rounds, with everyone randomly assigned to either the racers or police, then switching sides between rounds. So you’ll always play as a racer once and a police officer once. The racers have HP, and if their HP is brought down to zero, they lose all their undelivered points and respawn at the garage to try again. Racers lose HP when they run into environmental objects or other cars, so you can’t drive recklessly. But speed is still very important. If a racer drives too slowly while police cars are nearby, their HP will gradually be drained. So you need to make use of your nitro boosts and consistently drive as fast as possible while still keeping your car under control. While racers earn points for safely reaching certain parts of the map, police officers earn points for actions that prevent it. They can score points for ramming racers’ cars, arresting racers, or using their unique ability to deploy spike strips that puncture racers’ tires. Plus, they can get points for assisting their teammates, so if you ram a racer that’s later arrested by someone else, you’ll still get points. Police cars can also teleport between police stations scattered across the city, meaning they can strategize and cut off escape routes. But the police aren’t the only ones with a trick up their sleeves: Racers are equipped with an EMP that can temporarily disable any police cars caught in its radius. Both the police’s spike strip and the racers’ EMP are on cooldown timers, so be careful not to waste them. And for the sake of a fair match, cars in this mode are restricted by class, and tire wear and fuel are both ignored. So it’s all about driving skill and strategy, not raw vehicle stats and durability. Each round lasts for about 10 minutes, and whichever team manages to score the most points after two rounds wins. Developer CarX Technologies has said that the dev team dreamed of creating a cops-and-racers mode since before the game originally launched in 2022, but it was too labor-intensive and complex to develop in tandem with the open-world experience the rest of the game offers. And the inclusion of unique features and visual effects makes it clear how much work went into this mode. Police cars have flashing lights and sirens, arrests are accompanied by voice lines from a police radio channel, and collisions and EMP activations feature unique glitch-like effects. The gameplay experience of this mode is in stark contrast to the rest of the game, which sees you travel around the fictional Sunset City and its outskirts, facing off against local racing clubs that each have their own unique identity and narrative. You fine-tune your car, from the body kit and brake discs to the engine and suspension, gradually upgrading so you can qualify to take on more difficult opponents. A lot went into the development of that core gameplay loop, which then needed to be polished for each platform CarX Street released on. It came to mobile first in 2022, then PC in August 2024, then finally PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S earlier this year. Its multiplatform approach resulted in success, reaching more than 1 million sales across Steam and consoles. Once they had it successfully running on all platforms, the dev team was able to focus on development of the new mode, which started about six months ago with the first concepts and prototypes. It was meant to feel unlike anything else in the game, and police chases were always the primary focus. However, after extensive internal testing, the dev team realized police chases alone weren't enough. That’s how the unique abilities arose, resulting in the addition of spike strips and EMPs. It’s safe to say that the result accomplishes the goal of introducing a mode with completely different gameplay, but this is far from the end of the game’s evolution. CarX Technologies has stayed engaged with its community and gets regular feedback that helps guide their updates and new content, and that won’t stop anytime soon. Based on that feedback, they’ve previously mentioned that their future plans include additional competitive multiplayer modes, a dedicated highway network added to the open-world map, and a full story campaign with quests. On top of the new mode and other planned updates, CarX Street is also currently on ***** on Steam and Xbox, and it just launched a special promotion on PlayStation as well. So there’s never been a better time to get behind the wheel. If you’d like to join the community, you can follow CarX Technologies on Instagram, X/Twitter, or Facebook. Or you can check out the official website to keep up with the latest info on all their games. View the full article
2025 has given us plenty of entertainment worth celebrating, but it’s also gone and brought us consoles that cost more now than when they were first released, a Tron movie featuring Jared Leto, and an even ******* hole in our lives where Grand Theft Auto 6 was supposed to be. From price hikes to lowlights, and missed expectations to cruel cancellations, these are the biggest disappointments of 2025. Box Office Blunders Marvel may have kicked off 2025 by sending a brand new Cap into a Brave New World, but audiences clearly had more than a few gripes with Anthony Mackie’s turn in the Stars and Stripes. Despite what pre-release trailers had suggested, Captain America: Brave New World held back Harrison Ford’s transformation from President Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross into a scarlet shade of Hulk until the final few minutes of the film, which certainly had fans seeing red – just not in the way the filmmakers had intended. All told, Captain America: Brave New World suffered a 68% drop-off at the box office in its second weekend and is yet to break even on its estimated $425 million budget, making it closer to a Hulk shrug than a Hulk smash. Meanwhile Tron: Ares turned out to be yet another lacklustre system reboot for a franchise that should have probably been shut down, boxed up, and sent to an e-waste disposal center by now. The latest instalment in Disney’s videogame-inspired sci-fi series may have featured a certifiably ******** soundtrack from Nine Inch Nails, but audiences weren’t exactly burning doing the new Tron dance. Not since Jared Leto’s Morbius had a Jared Leto-led movie performed so poorly at the box office, with Tron: Ares’ mustering up just $60.5 million worldwide in its opening weekend. Despite its disastrous reception, Tron: Ares features a mid-credits scene that seemingly sets up a potential fourth film. Just don’t expect it for at least another 15 or so years, which appears to be the typical Tron cycle. (Not to be confused with one of those ********’ motorbikes.) Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off live-action Disney remakes that audiences seem to have gone, or at least that’s how it appeared after the middling performance of 2025’s Snow White. To be fair, a tick over $200 million in global box office revenue is nothing for Sneezy to, well, sneeze at. However, there was clearly only one live-action adaptation about short people carrying pickaxes and singing catchy songs that most families wanted to see this year, and that was A Minecraft Movie, which hit theaters just two weeks after Snow White and completely dwarfed its performance at the box office. Disney would live to live-action again, though, since its Lilo & Stitch reboot would crack a billion dollars just a couple of months later, possibly due to the fact it was actually a good film. So who’s the fairest of them all? Moviegoers, it would seem. Elsewhere, The Alto Knights proved that drafting in the writer of Goodfellas, the director of Rain Man, and a double dose of Robert De Niro, didn’t guarantee a good time at the movies. In spite of positive reviews from critics (IGN gave it a 9/10), Elio suffered the worst opening weekend of any Pixar movie ever. (Yes, even worse than The Good Dinosaur.) Sony videogame adaptation Until Dawn managed to both fumble its source material and fail to properly credit the series’ creators. And Dwayne Johnson’s The Smashing Machine failed to punch above its weight, returning $6 million on its opening weekend against A24’s reported budget of $50 million, not including “many millions more on promotional efforts”. It seems fair to say that The Rock is no longer cooking. Now it seems he’s just cooked. Streaming Piles The bombs weren’t confined to the big screen, though, and there was certainly no shortage of disappointment conveniently streamed directly to our televisions, tablets, and toilet televisions (that’s what we call our phones). Anyone who made the mistake of watching Star Trek: Section 31 must have been begging Scotty to beam that stream back up to Paramount+’s servers, because this intergalactic block of generic sci-fi schlock was so surprisingly awful it left audience faces set to stunned. IGN handed it a rare 2/10, stating that “Section 31 will infuriate Star Trek fans and bore everyone else.” Star Michelle Yeoh, coming off an Oscar win in 2023 for Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, was forced to concede that “it’s very hard to please all of your audience all of the time.” We’d argue that Section 31 didn’t even manage to please some of its audience any of the time, and that this particular Star Trek would have been better off lost in space. Unfortunately, Star Trek wasn’t the only legendary sci-fi property to be completely mishandled in 2025. In July, Prime Video went back to the well – or specifically, H.G. Wells – to produce a modern-day adaptation of The War of the Worlds. The century-old classic novel has previously inspired radio plays, feature films, comic books, and video games, but in the hands of director Rich Lee, The War of the Worlds was reimagined as… a 90-minute-long Ice Cube reaction GIF. To be fair, we can’t say that this braindead disaster didn’t deliver on its promise – at least if you took the “It’s much worse than you think” tagline from its trailer as an honest appraisal of the movie’s quality rather than a reference to the alien invasion in its plot. War of the Worlds debuted with a rare 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, although has since skyrocketed to a whopping 4%. Meanwhile its producer insisted that there wasn’t any product placement in the film, despite the fact that it’s a movie on Amazon’s streaming service that makes a hero out of an Amazon delivery driver and hinges its climax upon the daring piloting of an Amazon drone. You couldn’t get product placement more intentional than that if it was a package left on your doorstep. Dropping a US president into Die Hard-style scenarios is nothing new, see Harrison Ford in Air Force One or Morgan Freeman in the Has Fallen films, but despite its lack of originality, Amazon’s G20 still had a couple of big positives going for it – namely Viola Davis as the *****-kicking commander-in-chief, and The Boys’ Antony Starr as Homelander turned hammy Hans Gruber. Sadly neither had an approval rating high enough to elevate the dopey dialogue and choppy action sequences of this formulaic action flick. IGN awarded the film a 3/10, stating that “G20 isn’t just another streaming movie that feels designed to be half-watched; at times, it only feels half-made, too.” The Electric State could also be accused of being half-made, at least by human hands, given that it was seemingly a co-production between the Russo Brothers and Netflix’s machine-learning algorithm along with help from some AI-based post-production tweaks. The controversial practice of using AI in film is widely assumed to be a way to keep production costs down, yet despite that the budget for this thoroughly disposable hodgepodge of superior sci-fi stories still spiralled to a reported $320 million, making it the most expensive film Netflix has ever made. IGN handed it a 4/10, stating that The Electric State “feels calculated to remind you of something you’ve already enjoyed.” For all that money and in spite of the star power of Chris Pratt and Millie Bobbie Brown, The Electric State failed to really spark. Game and Shame Any year in video games is invariably going to be a bit like a Guns N' Roses album. That is, chock full of absolute bangers but, shortly after you’ve worn out your neck headbanging to You Could Be Mine, My World arrives and promptly ruins the good times. Like the infamously terrible final track on Use Your Illusion II, 2025 has had us leaping for the eject button faster than a flaming fighter jet pilot on more than one occasion. With a pile of performance issues and a complete lack of freedom, substance, and… an ending, MindsEye was far and away one of 2025’s most disappointing games. Unfortunately, its June launch went so badly that more than 90 staff at its developer Build a Rocket Boy later referred to it as “one of the worst video game launches this decade” in an open letter to company management. The letter called for change at the studio, apologies for not listening to staff concerns about the game, and “proper compensation for laid-off employees.” On the topic of compensation, 2025 marked the year when Nintendo decided it ought to be compensated in some way for instructional tech demos of its new products, leading the company to release Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour as a paid product, also in June. You want a tutorial about the console you just bought? Better cough up some more cash. Want to fully complete it? Better cough up some more for the required accessories. Remember the much-celebrated free pack-in Wii Sports? Former Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aimé does, and he certainly posted about it on social media at an intriguingly coincidental time. Of course, just because a game is free, doesn’t mean it’s good. For evidence of that, look no further than EA’s reboot of the much-loved Skate series. 2025’s early access, free-to-play Skate is just like the old Skate games, only without the style, the atmosphere, the pros, the customisation, the campaign, the music, the varied maps, the humour, or the intro movies. It did, however, have a cardboard costume inspired by the Isaac Clarke’s Dead Space exosuit that cost around $35 to secure. Call of Duty went back-to-back ****** Ops in 2024 and 2025, but the only thing to come out of the decision is backlash. Containing what’s quickly becoming regarded as the worst Call of Duty campaign in the long history of the series, ****** Ops 7 has been widely shredded to pieces following its November release for its unwelcome reinvention of campaign mode. Now always-online and co-op focused, ****** Ops 7’s campaign mode has none of the rollercoaster-like pacing of a cinematic Call of Duty story, and opts instead for multiplayer-inspired maps and progression, with no checkpoints, and no ability to pause (even when you’re playing alone). The result is quite baffling, which is some result considering the fact ****** Ops 7 is intended to be a direct sequel to ****** Ops 2 despite releasing immediately after ****** Ops 6 is already confusing enough. In the weeks that have followed, the Call of Duty team has promised no more back-to-back releases of sub-series like Modern Warfare or ****** Ops, but this guarantee feels unlikely to help ****** Ops 7 at this stage. Sales figures or player counts are still yet to be discussed, which strongly suggests ****** Ops 7 is deep in the red. This is by no means an exhaustive list of all the games that disappointed in 2025, and we haven’t even touched on FBC Firebreak, Game of Thrones: Kingsroad, Football Manager 26, Project Motor Racing, or the grammatically abhorrent Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game. Have we missed any? Let us know in the comments. Rainchecked Release Dates Some of the biggest gaming disappointments of 2025 weren’t the games that came out, but rather the ones that didn’t. After its public alpha test in April drew a heated response from fans and even accusations of plagiarism, Bungie decided to delay its live-service shooter Marathon from its intended September 23, 2025 launch to a March 2026 release window. In a post on its website, Bungie stated “we know we need more time to craft Marathon into the game that truly reflects your passion.” To be fair to the former house of Halo, it is a Marathon and not a sprint. Meanwhile, Microsoft made the call to hold back its Fable reboot for another year. The fantasy RPG series that hasn’t been seen since the Xbox 360 era is currently being reimagined by the talented team at Playground Games, best known for its Forza Horizon open-world racing series. We’re keen to find out how the developer makes the adjustment from speed racers to chicken chasers, but for now Fable is a tale that won’t be told until sometime in 2026. At least Fable was only delayed just once, though, unlike Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra. In May, the planned release of the narrative-driven adventure featuring Captain America, Azzuri, and the ****** Panther of the 1940s, was pushed out of 2025 and into early 2026. Then in November, Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra was delayed again, this time to the somewhat vague sounding window of “beyond early 2026.” Considering we haven’t seen anything new from the single-player superhero story since an Unreal Engine 5.4 tech demo way back in early 2024, we’re inclined to assume that this one is still a ways off. Will it be worth the wait? Well, the fact that it’s being directed by the creator of the Uncharted series fills us with more optimism than a pep talk from Steve Rogers. Of course, the most devastating delay – and arguably the most predictable – was that of Grand Theft Auto 6. Rockstar Games proved with Red Dead Redemption 2 that it was prepared to take its time in order to produce the best game possible, and that steadfast approach clearly paid off. Still, given that we’ve been waiting for a new GTA game since Ben Affleck was Batman, Game of Thrones didn’t yet *****, and everyone was still doing the Harlem Shake, it certainly left a lot of fans crying in their Pißwassers when the series’ long awaited return to Vice City was pushed back from Fall 2025 to May 26, 2026. Things only got all the more agonising when that date slipped again, with GTA 6 currently not expected to launch until November 19, 2026. Beyond leaving fans feeling the lowest of Lazlows, the further postponement of Rockstar’s landmark launch will likely cast major ripples across the games industry, with analysts predicting everything from frantic release schedule reshuffling by competing Q4 2026 titles looking to get out of GTA 6’s way, to even a potential delay to the arrival of the next console generation. Will GTA 6 live up to the unprecedented level of hype and expectation? Will GTA 6 suffer another delay? And why do men have nipples? We’ll have the answers to at least a couple of those questions in a little less than a year’s time. Unhappy Endings While game delays are frustrating, they’re typically a considerably more tolerable option to the alternative: cancellation. That is, being postponed is better than never arriving at all. One is steaming into New York a day or two late, the other is hitting an iceberg and becoming James Cameron’s favourite holiday destination, two-and-a-half miles below the surface of the North Atlantic Ocean. In July, Microsoft cancelled the long-gestating Perfect Dark reboot and completely shut down The Initiative, which was the development team behind the troubled project. The Initiative had been developing the game alongside Crystal Dynamics, which was revealed to be partnering on the project in 2021. Xbox officially revealed Perfect Dark’s return at The Game Awards 2020, but it had established The Initiative back in 2018 as the company’s first “AAAA” studio. Unfortunately, it appears AAAA appears to have simply been shorthand for, “AAAArgh, it’s all gone wrong.” Perfect Dark actually didn’t completely cease development at that time, however, and remained in production at Crystal Dynamics up until August. Crystal Dynamics was reportedly close to securing a deal with Take-Two to save the game, but this fell through. This resulted in an unconfirmed number of layoffs at Crystal Dynamics as the lights finally went out on Perfect Dark, permanently. Avalanche Studios’ Contraband was also shut down at this time. The studio behind Just Cause and Mad Max had been developing Contraband in conjunction with Xbox for four years, but it appears we’ll never see it. A co-op, open-world smuggling game set in the 1970s, Avalanche confirmed at the time that active development on the game had stopped while it evaluated the project’s future, but since then Avalanche has laid off staff in Malmö and Stockholm in Sweden, and closed its *** studio in Liverpool. Legendary *** studio Rare’s Everwild was also cancelled by Microsoft during this same *******. Everwild was announced way back in November 2019 during Xbox’s X019 presentation, but little concrete information about how the end product was going to play was ultimately revealed over the nearly six years that followed. These cancellations were associated with mass layoffs at Rare and elsewhere around Microsoft as the company grappled with… record financial performance levels in 2025 and a 15% increase in revenue, at $281.7 billion. These layoffs also hit Forza Motorsport developer Turn 10, with some reports claiming that the Forza Motorsport team was essentially “no more.” It’s since been clarified that Forza Motorsport will apparently continue to see support in spite of the staff cuts, but whether the racing series will have any future after 2025 remains to be seen. Sadly, one racing game with no future is EA Sports WRC, with Codemasters confirming in May that there will be no follow-up to its official WRC game and that the team has “reached the end of the road” working on the series after just one game. Unfortunately, alongside this news came the additional confirmation that the EA-owned studio is also “pausing development plans on future rally titles,” which is a big dose of dirt to cop in the face from a team that’s been at the forefront of rallying video games for almost three decades, dating back to 1998’s iconic Colin McRae Rally. WRC wasn’t the only victim at EA, either; the company was swinging the axe quite liberally in 2025. In March it was reported that EA had quietly cancelled an unannounced, multiplayer first-person shooter from Apex Legends developer Respawn Entertainment, although the game in question was apparently only in extremely early development. It’s not at all uncommon for things like this to happen, however, and if you poured one out for every unannounced, unnamed project that didn’t make it out of incubation you’d die of thirst. That said, a month later it came to light that EA had also reportedly cancelled an unannounced Titanfall game, which does hurt slightly more than usual considering Titanfall 2 contains what’s widely considered to be one of the very best FPS campaigns in the history of the genre. We’re officially living in a world where Bubsy 3D can have a sequel announced in 2025, while Titanfall 2 has one cancelled. Nothing makes sense anymore. This unknown Titanfall game appears to have been a victim of EA layoffs that hit 300 workers, around 100 of which came from Respawn Entertainment. No other details regarding what this Titanfall project was are known. But wait, because EA wasn’t done: in May it cancelled its ****** Panther game and shuttered Cliffhanger Games, which was producing ****** Panther as its debut project. ****** Panther, which was announced back in July 2023, was set to be a single-player open-world game. EA claimed at the time that the decision to ditch the project was made in order to “sharpen” the company’s focus and put its “creative energy behind the most significant growth opportunities.” We’re guessing EA’s spreadsheet squad were unenthused by this single-player game’s lack of a Wakanda Ultimate Team mode. ****** Panther isn’t the only superhero to have the rug pulled out from beneath them in 2025, either. In February 2025 it was confirmed that Warner Bros.’ Wonder Woman game was cancelled and developer Monolith would be shut down. In a horrible twist, Wonder Woman would have been Monolith’s follow-up to its much-loved Middle-earth series and was expected to feature Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War’s excellent and patented Nemesis system. First announced at the 2021 Game Awards, Wonder Woman was a victim of a Warner Bros. decision to restructure its operations around “building the best games possible” with its “key franchises.” Of course, despite an overt focus on more Warner Bros. franchises than you could poke a carrot at, this restructure also didn’t involve the survival of WB brawler MultiVersus, either. The free-to-play fighting game was taken offline permanently and delisted in May. A Price To Play Rising prices are impacting plenty more than just video games. Hell, if supermarkets get any more expensive, groceries better start coming gold-plated. In the context of video games, however, 2025 has been like Quentin Tarantino sitting down and watching back-to-back Paul Dano movies: it’s just one massive disappointment after another. In April, Sony raised the recommended retail prices of PlayStation 5 consoles across Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, citing “a challenging economic environment, including high inflation and fluctuating exchange rates” as the catalyst for the increase. Following similar price hikes made back in 2022, the PS5 was now considerably more expensive in many territories than it was at its launch. Sony subsequently also pumped up the price of all PlayStation 5 models in the US, with the RRP of each of these jumping by 50 bucks in August. Microsoft raised the prices on Xbox consoles and various accessories back in May, and in October it kicked Game Pass prices into the stratosphere, with prices now reflecting a 50% hike in subscription costs since the previous 2024 price bump. Microsoft tempered this October surprise by stressing that there'd be no further price increases for Xbox… outside the US. Inside the US, however, Xbox console prices climbed by a further $20-$70, for the second time in less than six months. Xbox Series X|S? More like Xbox Series Excessive. Not to be outtrumped, Nintendo also announced a range of price increases in August – for the eight-year-old original Switch and its proceeding Lite and OLED models. Pricing for the Switch 2 was left alone, but Nintendo’s move did come with a warning that price adjustments to things like the Switch 2, physical and digital Switch and Switch 2 games, and Nintendo Switch Online memberships “may be necessary in the future.” Nintendo is likely trying to prepare us for the worst here, but there’s no escaping the fact it sounds like the kind of ultimatum you typically get from two heavyset guys carrying baseball bats, driving a 1979 Cadillac Coupe DeVille. That said, Nintendo president Shuntaru Furukawa recently indicated Switch 2 pricing should stay put for now, saying Nintendo believes it can “maintain the current level of profitability for hardware for the time being unless there are significant changes in external factors, such as a shift in tariff assumptions, or other unexpected events.” It’s already been widely discussed how US tariffs have resulted in significant adjustments to how companies balance the books, with increased costs unsurprisingly being passed onto consumers. Inflation pressure is also a contributing factor; after a long ******* of stability since the global financial crisis in 2008, global inflation surged dramatically in the wake of the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The frustrating part, however, is that this remains all quite unprecedented. That is, this generation Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft have completely flipped the script on console pricing trends that date all the way back to the ’70s and ’80s. Over many decades, consoles have reliably and traditionally dropped in price over their lifespans – first via slow but natural erosion in value caused by the effects of standard inflation, and then by overt price cuts that bring the price of entry right down. This current crop of consoles, however, is not dropping in price – in fact, they’re going the complete opposite way. Unfortunately, if people keep buying them at these prices, console price drops may go the way of old-timey bicycles and the funniest two-digit number between 60 and 70 being 69: a thing of the past. Tristan Ogilvie is a senior video editor at IGN's Sydney office. Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. View the full article
Taking a slower approach with inspiration taken from the likes of Aliens, the Doom II conversion named Siren looks really awesome for retro FPS fans. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article
По решению Роскомнадзора (РКН) популярная среди детей и подростков игровая платформа Roblox от американской компании Roblox Corporation была заблокирована в России, но, похоже, готовит почву для возвращения в страну.View the full article
Battlefield 6 players have accused EA of using generative AI for one of the cosmetics in the new Windchill bundle. The use of AI in game development has remained a controversial topic across the industry as more studios announce plans to utilize it and fans notice what appear to be AI-generated assets in a wider range of games. While Battlefield 6 has not taken a hard, formal stance for or against the technology, some users think AI is responsible for at least one new cosmetic. View the full article
A new free PC game on Steam is a perfect blend between Resident Evil and Call of Duty, which will likely please fans of either game franchise, even if for a limited amount of time. The end-of-the-year ******* has arrived with several goodies for players on the platform. In addition to the deals of the Steam Winter *****, you can also get some titles for free, like a free festive game on Steam called This Winter of Ours. View the full article
If there's one good thing to come out of this year, it's the huge influx of horse-brained sickos (hello) who are now well and truly engrossed in the ******** of retired racehorses thanks to gacha game and anime series Umamusume... Read more.View the full article
Inspired by British and Irish folklore, Hungry Horrors is a deck-builder with an unusual purpose - to have you feed the monsters to keep them away. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article
Grand Theft Auto 6 fans still have a long wait ahead of them, and while you keep your fingers crossed that the game doesn't receive another delay, there's a massive fan-created project in the works that will distract you from GTA 6 at least for a little while. View the full article
Battlefield 6 fans have accused EA of selling an AI-generated image after spotting a sticker of what looks like an M4A1 with two barrels in the in-game store. Following a similar generative AI controversy for rival shooter Call of Duty: ****** Ops 7, Battlefield 6 has come under fire for selling what some fans have called “low quality AI generated garbage.” The sticker in question comes as part of the Windchill cosmetic pack for Battlefield 6, which costs 900 Battlefield Coins. It includes six items, one of which is a player card sticker called Winter Warning. The red flag here are two barrels on the M4A1, but the hand position of the soldier as well as the scope do not look properly aligned. “Remove this AI s**t from the store,” said redditor Willcario in a thread upvoted 4,600 times. “Two barrels on the M4A1, sure. I would literally prefer to have no sticker than some low quality AI generated garbage. You can look at BO7 and see how many favors AI generated rewards won with them.” Remove this AI ***** from the store byu/Willcario inBattlefield .reddit-embed-wrapper iframe { margin-left: 0 !important; } The use of generative AI is one of the hottest topics in the video game industry, with the pressure on publishers to cut costs and speed up development in order to boost profits despite the risk of backlash from some fans. Indeed, according to a report by The Financial Times, EA’s new prospective owners (the ones who just spent $55 billion to take the company private) are betting on the use of generative AI to do just that. And EA itself, even before it was bought out, had signalled that it was all-in on generative AI, with CEO Andrew Wilson insisting AI is at “the very core of its business.” This definitely looks AI Generated right? #Battlefield6 [Hidden Content] — Battlefield 6 News (@BF6Updates) December 21, 2025 While EA has yet to issue a statement on the Battlefield 6 allegations, fans are digging up past comments from Rebecka Coutaz, general manager of original series developer DICE in Sweden, and Criterion, the *** studio now also a part of what’s collectively called Battlefield Studios, who in October said players wouldn’t see anything made by generative AI in Battlefield 6. Coutaz said that while generative AI “is very seducing,” currently there is no way to work it into the developers’ daily work. However, Coutaz clarified that generative AI is used in preparatory stages "to allow more time and more space to be creative.” While this is Battlefield 6's first significant generative AI controversy, Call of Duty has suffered a number of gen AI controversies in recent years, including the now-infamous six-fingered zombie Santa bundle. Earlier this year, Activision was forced to add an ‘AI generated content disclosure’ to the Steam page for ****** Ops 6 after Valve changed its storefront rules. Currently, Battlefield 6 has no such AI content disclosure on Steam. And last month, Activision issued a statement in response to a player outcry regarding the seeming use of generative AI art assets in a number of areas of Call of Duty: ****** Ops 7. Players took to social media to complain about images they believed to be AI-generated across the game, primarily focusing on calling card images that they claimed used Studio Ghibli styling, following a trend of AI-Ghibli images from earlier this year. The Call of Duty: ****** Ops 7 Steam page also includes the following disclaimer: "Our team uses generative AI tools to help develop some in game assets." This week, IGN reported on video game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which was stripped of its Game of the Year award by The Indie Game Awards over its use of generative AI. Meanwhile, Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian plans to address concern over its use of gen AI in upcoming game Divinity following a backlash online. Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at *****@*****.tld. View the full article
A week has gone by since Crimson Blaze came out, and plenty of tournaments have now played out, giving us a much better idea of where the chips have fallen, and which decks are now the best. The results show that one Pokémon is the undeniable king, the clear top dog-goat thing: it's Mega Absol ex. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Pokémon Pocket's new set has loads of fantastic new decks, but Mega Charizard isn't one of them Pokémon Pocket reveals a disgustingly strong Mega Charizard in newest set Pokémon TCG Pocket's Mega Blaziken card looks OP, but it's getting demolished in every tournament View the full article
While the first Arc Raiders wipe window opened last week, today finally saw the game's most dedicated looters depart Speranza one last time before resetting their accounts and characters. While some extraction shooters force account wipes on all players, Arc Raiders makes this optional, incentivizing you to do so with boosts and bonuses for the next cycle and exclusive rewards. However, there's one final treat players didn't know was coming - a cinematic ending that shows you leaving Speranza (and Scrappy the chicken) one last time. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Here are our favorite Steam Winter ***** 2025 deals, including The Witcher 3 for $4 and Arc Raiders' first price drop Arc Raiders' blueprint bonanza just got nerfed, but it's not all doom and gloom Arc Raiders leans more heavily into survival games in new Cold Snap update, with frostbite being a new threat to your loot View the full article
Opinion | It should've been a great year for sci-fi games, but too many of them are using the very technology that the genre's always warned us aboutView the full article
The Epic Games Store has officially revealed Paradise Killer as its free game for December 22. The highly rated open-world adventure is available to claim for the next 24 hours. View the full article
Redditor Leading-Growth-8361 posted in the r/pcmasterrace subreddit that he bought some Corsair Vengeance DDR5 for his PC, but got a ****** surprise instead. Read Entire Article View the full article
Rumors of remakes or remasters circled for months before Microsoft unveiled Halo Campaign Evolved at the World Championship earlier this year. The news was eaten up by rabid fans, starved of decent sci-fi gameplay after the disappointment that was Halo Infinite. The original Halo game, the one that started it all, remade in Unreal Engine 5 - what a prospect. However, there may be even more to come. Prominent Halo leaker 'Rebs' has shared evidence of further remakes after Campaign Evolved, which will complete the original trilogy in UE5 glory. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: The 'father of Master Chief' calls Trump and ICE's Halo posts "absolutely abhorrent" as former devs speak out The White House responds to Trump Halo AI images, and it's as cringe as you'd expect Halo Campaign Evolved reworks its most infamous mission and adds sprinting, but its dev is "not trying to rewrite Halo's legacy" View the full article
You get Cursed Techniques in Jujutsu Zero by clicking on the star icon in the top left and spinning for them using Lumens. I'll talk about the best Cursed Techniques below and rank them individually as well as show you how to farm Lumens for them. Here's my Jujutsu Zero Cursed Technique tier list and guide. Table of contentsJujutsu Zero Technique Tier ListSSS-Tier Cursed TechniquesS-Tier Cursed TechniquesA-Tier Cursed TechniquesB-Tier Cursed TechniquesC-Tier Cursed TechniquesHow to Farm Lumen in Jujutsu ZeroJujutsu Zero FAQ - ****** Flash, Domain, Skill Tree & MoreJujutsu Zero Technique Tier List Image by Destructoid My ranking criteria for this Jujutsu Zero Cursed Technique tier list was overall DPS for PVP and PVE Raids/Grinding but also the number of moves and whether a Technique had a Domain Expansion. Currently, only Limitless has a Domain Expansion so that's why it's S+ though this might change once Shrine and Disaster Flames get DEs. I'll update the tier list when new CTs or DEs are added. For now, check out individual ranking reasons below. Tier Breakdowns: SSS-Tier : Like S-Tier but has a Domain Expansion. S-Tier : The best DPS for Raids, PVP and PVE grinding. A-Tier : Excels in both PVP and Raids but doesn't deal as much damage as S-Tier. B-Tier : Great alternatives for PVP and sometimes Raids. C-Tier : Underpowered or weak options that only work well as supporting secondary CTs for beginners. Weapons VS CTs: The top-tier Cursed Techniques are in general more powerful than Weapons. Best Skill Tree for CTs: The best skill tree to prioritize (90%) is Offense for the ATK nodes since it boosts all damage and then Vitality as a secondary for HP/Damage reduction in Raids. Once you can reliably survive Easy and Medium Raids, you can put points into Cursed Energy/Cooldowns too. SSS-Tier Cursed TechniquesSSS-TierRanking Reasons Limitless Special Grade You don't need Gojo for Limitless• Currently the only CT with a Domain Expansion which you get from the Domain Fragment dropped from Raid Chest rewards (You have to have Limitless Mastery 100 then just buy it in the Technique menu) • The Domain Expansion puts Limitless above others because it's a perma stun for NPCs and a massive slow for players • As for base skills, Reversal Red is the best base skill here since it's a fast AOE burst that's good for Raids, PVE farming and PVP as a combo extender • Lapse Blue isn't the best for Raids but is great for PVE farming as an AOE around you but it also grabs players in PVP which is good • Maximum Blue is a bit slow for Raids but is great for PVP and PVE farming • Lastly Hollow Purple is a massive DPS burst for Raids and all other modes with great range, AOE and damage • Overall it's a lot of damage that's about as equal as Shrine and Disaster Flame but the Domain Expansion puts it aboveS-Tier Cursed TechniquesS-TierRanking Reasons Shrine Special Grade• Only lower than Limitless since Shrine doesn't have a Domain Expansion • Otherwise the damage is equal to Limitless but some moves are better for Raid than Limitless • Cleave has great range and is fast for Raids while Dismantle is good for quick damage combo extend in all modes • Web Slam is a decent AOE for PVE and PVP but it's a bit awkward for Raids • That said Fuga is amazing for Raids to output damage from range which is important for bosses when you're low • Overall, Shrine has really good damage that can sometimes be better to use than Limitless, but Limitless wins out in the end due to the Domain Expansion Disaster FlamesSpecial Grade• Excellent Raid damage plus Molten Ray is easy to land constantly from range for safe DPS • Flame Fields is a fast AOE that's great for all modes and especially PVP • Meteor Smash is really difficult to land in PVP since it has a start-up but works great for Raids and PVE • Maximum Meteor doesn't have the range that Shrine and Limitless ultimates have but it deals a ton of damage and it's easier to land in PVPA-Tier Cursed TechniquesA-TierRanking Reasons Star RageGrade 1• While it doesn't deal as much damage as S-Tiers, Star Rage is still really strong for Raids • This is because Bullet, Punch and ****** Hole all have great DPS with a lot of range so that you can damage bosses from a safe distance on Hard/Nightmare and kite them • You can even use ****** Hole while air-borne during retreats • All three of these skills are also great in PVP if you're getting ganked so that you can output damage while retreating • Use Star Rage if you're struggling on Raids as a safe DPS option that can be better than S and SSS-Tiers based on your playstyleB-Tier Cursed TechniquesB-TierRanking Reasons RatioGrade 2• While Ratio doesn't deal as much damage as A and S-Tiers it's really good for PVP and easier Raids • This is because Fraction comes out fast for some AOE damage and Dividing Lunge is great mobility with some decent damage on top • These two are really great moves for PVP since they're fast and have great hitboxes • Split Barrage is also really good for more damage and mobility for PVP and decent for Raids • Overall Ratio is IMO better than Blood Manipulation and all the other B-Tiers and C-Tiers • Best beginner CT Blood ManipulationGrade 1• Blood Manipulation deals more damage than the rest of B-Tier and C-Tier but it's not in A-Tier due to the awkwardness of Blood Whip and only 3 moves • Blood Whip deals really good damage but it's a melee skill with a long start-up which kills it for PVP though it's still decent for Raids • Blood Rain is much better and is overall an A-Tier quick AOE damage skill with good range but it gets dragged down by Blood Whip • Blood Orbs also deal great damage at a safe distance with good range but you have to channel them in place and you cannot move so they're not the best for PVP • Overall this is a great Raid and PVE alternative to the higher tiers but it's not good for PVP or Hard and above Raids due to only 3 moves Straw DollGrade 3• Straw Doll is the weakest B-Tier but it's still pretty good as a beginner CT since it deals decent damage • Piercing Rain is good farming AOE for PVE but since you have to channel it, it's not the best for PVP and Raids • Nail Gun is a better skill since it's faster for Raids/PVP and a good combo extender for PVP • Resonance can deal good damage for Raids and PVE but it's a bit more difficult to land in PVP since you'll get interrupted out of it • Overall a beginner CT leaning more toward PVEC-Tier Cursed TechniquesC-TierRanking Reasons Cursed SpeechGrade 2• A two-move CT that doesn't deal that much damage but at least has some utility with two AOE moves for PVE • Overall I wouldn't use it unless you're a beginner and you're using Cursed Speech as a second support CT Exploding FleshGrade 3• The worst and weakest CT in the game but works okay as a secondary support CT as you're starting out • Replace when you get anything elseHow to Farm Lumen in Jujutsu Zero There are three main ways to get Lumen in Jujutsu Zero which you can use to spin for Cursed Techniques: Chests: Simply explore the map and look for chests which can give you a lot of Lumens and Yen. They don't respawn but they can give upwards of 3500 Lumens or more which is enough for 10 Technique spins.AFK Realm: If you go AFK you'll enter the AFK Realm where you'll accumulate spins which can win you tons of Lumen.Quests: Simply progressing the game by doing quests and Raids and increasing levels can give you a lot of Lumens passively from quest rewards. You can also buy Lumens with Yen but it's not worth it as a beginner since you'll need Yen to unlock Masteries. Lastly, you can buy Lumens with Robux in the Shop but I wouldn't recommend it since the AFK Realm is free. Jujutsu Zero FAQ - ****** Flash, Domain, Skill Tree & MoreWhat is the best Cursed Technique in Jujutsu Zero? Limitless is currently the best since it's the only CT that has a Domain Expansion. Shrine and Disaster Flame are really close and Star Rage is also really good for Raids. How to Get Domain Expansion in Jujutsu Zero? Limitless is currently the only CT with a Domain Expansion. You unlock it by getting Domain Shards from Raid Chests. Then just go into the Techniques menu, find Limitless and buy the Domain Expansion using the Domain Shard. When can I play Raids? Raids are available starting from Level 100. They're worth playing since they drop Raid Chests which contain the best gear, Domain Shards and more. That said do not pull on banners on raids right now since the pity is bugged. Save your Lumens for after the fix. You can check for fixes on the Jujutsu Zero Discord. How to do a ****** Flash in Jujutsu Zero? When fighting enemies or bosses you will see two circles when they attack with the larger one rapidly shrinking to fit the smaller one. To do a ****** Flash you have to do an M1 at the exact same time when the two circles align. How to farm Lumens in Jujutsu Zero? Look for chests in the open world which can drop Lumens. These chests don't respawn. Also, go AFK and you'll enter the AFK realm where you can get reward spins based on how long you were AFK. Use these spins in the AFK realm and one of the rewards are Lumens. That's it for my Jujutsu Zero Cursed Technique tier list and guide. Check out our Jujutsu Zero codes for a bunch of free clan spins, Lumens for technique spins and more. The post Jujutsu Zero Cursed Technique Tier List [BETA] appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article
Steam has just seen the release of a new festive PC game for free, and it boasts very positive user reviews on the platform. There are several titles you can download and play for free on the platform, many of which are becoming temporarily free as part of the festive *******. There are also several good deals during the Steam Winter *****, allowing you to get titles at a discount for a limited time. View the full article
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