Steam

With a staggering 25 superheroes and villains already slated to star in Marvel Rivals, you'd think developer NetEase would be stepping on the brakes. After all, that's 25 unique characters we need to learn at release to both play as and effectively counter, which can be a hurdle for newcomers. Though we knew additional characters would be coming post-launch, NetEase has already teased that the initial roster will expand even more in the coming months. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: All Marvel Rivals characters, tier list, leaks, and full roster Marvel Rivals release date, trailers, and latest news Marvel Rivals launch date confirmed, all heroes will be unlocked View the full article

From time immemorial, politicians have struggled with the problem of how to attract young voters. How does one get through to the increasingly jaded, too-cool-to-care, 18-24 demographic as a boring career politician? According to presidential hopeful Kamala Harris, the answer ***** in Twitch. That’s right: Vice president Kamala Harris is on Twitch, streaming from—you guessed it—the kamalaharris channel. “Streaming” is sort of applied loosely here, however, as this up-and-coming streamer hasn’t actually hopped on for her big debut yet. Harris’ channel looks like any of her other social account. Since launching just this morning, it’s accrued nearly 3,000 followers, but crucially has yet to stream. Will she be trying out Among Us like fellow prominent Democrat AOC? Maybe she’ll win over the ********* gamer demographic by doing a Level 1 run in Elden Ring? View the full article

Xbox Game Pass subscribers can look forward to two more day-one Game Pass drops in Voidtrain and Lost in Random: The Eternal **** next year. The Opening Night Live event at Gamescom 2024 may be over, but Xbox continues to show off more upcoming titles, revealing Revenge of the Savage Planet, gameplay of day-one Xbox Game Pass title Atomfall, and a deep ***** into Starfield's imminent Shattered Space DLC. View the full article

[REDACTED] is an upcoming roguelike that is going to be set in the same universe as The Callisto Protocol. Developed by Striking Distance Studios, [REDACTED] takes the location of ****** Iron Prison from The Callisto Protocol and puts players in the role of a simple prison guard who is desperate to escape the outbreak. View the full article

***** by Daylight fans rejoice, as the release date of The Casting of Frank Stone, a new interactive horror title from the developers of the Dark Anthology series, is just around the corner. Here is all you need to know. When does ***** by Daylight The Casting of Frank Stone come out? The game will be set within the established ***** by Daylight universe. Image via Supermassive Games Behavior Interactive’s upcoming horror game set in the ***** by Daylight universe is going to launch on Sept. 3. The title is set in the late 20th century and follows a group of movie makers trying to make a horror film. As is customary with other titles developed by Supermassive Games, the studio behind Until Dawn (which is getting a remake), all the choices you make in the game will shape the narrative, offering each player a unique run. View the full article

When it released back in 2022, The Callisto Protocol came and went with a bit of a whimper. Despite getting decent reviews, this spiritual successor to the ***** Space franchise suffered from technical issues and lackluster sales. These ultimately led to its developer, Striking Distance Studios, to lay off some of its employees. Not only that, but the game’s director, Glen Schofield, has said the game was rushed to release because of publisher demands, leading to lots of cut content—not to mention missing dev credits that didn’t seem to have anything to do with those issues. All of this should mean the end of the road for The Callisto Protocol, but Striking Distance isn’t done yet. Announced today, the developer’s next games will be titled [REDACTED], a roguelike shooter that takes place within the same universe as the former game. In a similar premise to the original, players will be transported to the ****** Iron Prison on the moon of Callisto as it’s being overrun with a virus that infects inmates and turns them into monsters. View the full article

*********'s Creed Unity comes to mind immediately, but otherwise, we don't have that many games set during the height of the French Revolution. Bonaparte, the debut work from Studio Imugi, a new team including developers from landmark colony sim Dwarf Fortress, is about to change that. A strategy game with mech combat, it casts you as an alternate history version of France's most famous general as you navigate the political, economical, and militaristic storm of the 1790s. Combining hex-based battles, diplomacy, and a branching story, it's a seriously unique proposal, and PCGamesN has an inside look. Read the rest of the story... View the full article

Over the last decade or more, EA’s NHL franchise has almost always featured one athlete on the cover of the game. For NHL 25, however, the devs are changing the formula by bringing three athletes to the forefront and making history with three brothers as the cover stars. Unlike previous years, the upcoming game will feature a superstar sibling trio of Quinn, Jack, and Luke Hughes, marking the first NHL game with three brothers sharing the cover. Both Jack and Luke play for the New Jersey Devils—with the former being the alternate captain—while Quinn is the captain for the Vancouver Canucks. View the full article

Jafar traps you on a strange ****** and White Island when you try to confront him in the throne room in Disney Dreamlight Valley. To get off this island and stop him, you have to find some hidden ****** and White items around it. Although Mickey Mouse tells you to search around for items you can use, he doesn’t tell you what they are or where they’re located, which makes this quest a decently tricky one to work through. It’s a lot easier once you know what you’re looking for, however, so here are the locations of all the items you need to find on the ****** and White Island in Disney Dreamlight Valley. View the full article

Ubisoft have announced Heroes of Might & Magic: Olden Era, a fresh instalment in the exceedingly olden turn-based strategy RPG series, which began life under New World Computing in 1984. The new game will “return to the world of Enroth and the origins of the legendary saga”, inviting “both veterans and new players” to go on a quest to Jadame, “a mysterious continent in turmoil”. Expect new factions, biomes and creatures, together with such M&M standbys as castle management, army clashes, hex-based maps, and, who knows, maybe some heroes. Read more View the full article

The bosses in Crimson Desert are powerful. I mean really powerful. As the formidable Staglord grabbed me by the ankle and hurled me into a wall, the bone-crunching impact reminded me of how The Stranger’s blows catapulted Kratos through tree trunks and mountains in **** of War. This intense, deity-like physicality lends Crimson Desert’s battles a sense of genuine spectacle – these are the gladiator battles of myths. During an hour-long hands-on session at gamescom 2024, I was able to go toe-to-toe with three different bosses, each of which showcased a different side of this fantasy action RPG’s approach to battle. The first, the aforementioned Staglord, is perhaps the most simple (although that does the towering, barbarian-like warrior a disservice.) He’s a relentless attacker, charging across the battlefield like a bullet train that can suplex you at its final destination. But, despite his endless strength and capacity to throw you like a baseball, he’s only human. I force distance between us, quickly ******* explosive arrows to knock him out of his ******* pattern and open up a window to bury my blade into his back. The Staglord proves a real challenge of a ******. Crimson Desert is not even remotely a soulslike, but it’s not afraid to make you work really hard for victory. I spend much of the lengthy ****** learning the complexities of the combat system. There’s no lock-on, so I have to be mindful of where I position my character and where his sword will land. Rolling forward allows me to instantly follow up with a sweep-kick that surprises my foe, and then hitting both the light and heavy ******* buttons together unleashes a wide, particle-effects spraying strike that cleaves a chunk out of the Staglord’s health bar. All this is speedy without sacrificing weight. It feels fantastic, but it’s also easy to let things run away from you – I soon realise I need to be chowing down on health-restoring food with addiction-like frequency. Crimson Desert is not even remotely a soulslike, but it’s not afraid to make you work really hard for victory. With the Staglord defeated, I take his mighty sword and shield and move on to the next ******. The demo skips ahead in the story, meaning I sadly don’t get to experience any non-boss gameplay, and throws me into snow-coated lands. Here, my gruff protagonist is looking for children who have seemingly been sacrificed to some kind of mountain ****. Such a ‘****’ turns out to be the White *****; a sort of antlered abominable snowdeer that showcases just how different each of Crimson Desert’s bosses can be. This colossal creature moves like a bucking bronco and its galloping charges cause the mountains around us to break out in miniature avalanches that leave me temporarily frozen in place. Thankfully, after striking it so much that its white fur is stained almost completely red, I’m able to clamber onto its back in the ******’s second phase and stab away at its neck. The moment had me recalling my battles with towering monsters in Dragon’s Dogma 2 earlier this year. Each boss has three health bars, with each one eliminated increasing the intensity of the ******. But where the Staglord and White ***** scraps seemed to escalate much like many other action RPG boss battles – the ****** gets angrier and starts using more devastating attacks – my final battle, against the Queen Stoneback Crab, demonstrated Crimson Desert’s ambition to create memorable moments through very different mechanics. The Queen Stoneback Crab is colossally big. It fills the screen. And, smartly, you can't ****** it by just hacking away at its shins. Instead, the battle is a puzzle set piece that’s clearly inspired by Shadow of the Colossus. I clamber onto the Crab’s stony shell and grab onto the grass and flora that forms its ‘fur’, holding on for dear life while pulling myself up towards a trio of rock formations. Using a special punch skill I shatter each of the rocks to expose a weak point that I plunge my blade into. Each opened wound causes a geyser of water to blast out, which not only provides a visual spectacle but also throws me high into the air. From above I’m able to float down, almost Zelda paraglider-style, and plan how to tackle the next stage. Now I’m tasked with destroying the pottery-like crown at the peak of the Crab’s mountain-like shell – a task a Pearl Abyss employee explained to me is completed by swinging Spider-Man-style from a web and colliding with the pottery at full speed. Seriously. I’m not sure how I’d have figured that out on my own, but I’m pleased such a mechanic exists. It’s all delightfully bonkers. My hour-long session isn’t quite long enough to try all four bosses the demo has to offer, but a video presentation provided a quick insight into the only one I missed: the Reed ******, a weird little guy who creates copies of himself that can only be defeated by destroying totems that are built during the battle. Along with the three I fought, all four bosses make a promise that Crimson Desert features an array of creative, unique centrepiece battles. If they’re all like this, then Pearl Abyss really could have something special on its hands. I’m similarly impressed by the combat system’s fundamentals. Yes, it’s all quite fantasy RPG 101 – bows, swords, shields, parries – but it’s delightfully aggressive and properly impactful. There’s a seemingly deep combo system, too, and it’s because of that I wished the demo had a section that was a little more relaxed for me to sample. The heat of a relentless boss battle isn’t quite the space to learn and perfect button sequences, but I’ve got a good feeling you can pull off some cool stuff based on the combos I did learn. Of course, I also wish I’d seen more so I could say if Crimson Desert’s adventure chops are as strong as its boss battles. What little dialogue and story there was to introduce each boss didn’t suggest anything remotely close to, say, The Witcher 3. But, even if its writing proves lacking, a strong approach to exploration and world design could carry it far. Hopefully Pearl Abyss will showcase that soon, because so far Crimson Desert’s mix of **** of War’s weighty impact and Dragon’s Dogma’s creative spectacle has me very excited indeed. Matt Purslow is IGN's Senior Features Editor. View the full article

Fans patiently waiting for the release of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle can actually access the game early, thanks to a newly revealed upgrade option. This "premium" upgrade allows select gamers to play Indiana Jones and the Great Circle up to three days early, giving them the chance to explore the latest Indy adventure as soon as possible. View the full article

The Callisto Protocol deserved more. A spiritual sequel to ***** Space, despite some repetitive set pieces and fussy **** combat, Striking Distance's debut survival horror had a great melee system, a supremely well-drawn setting, and some smart ideas. Reviews weren't bad, but commercially the game struggled, and in August 2023, Striking Distance ***** off more than 30 developers. Nevertheless, the studio has survived, and now it's making a comeback with the newly revealed Redacted, a roguelike shooter set, somewhat strangely, in Callisto's own ****** Iron Prison. Formerly trailed as Project Birdseye, this is now a fully fledged game unto itself, and it looks superlatively stylish. Read the rest of the story... View the full article

Enlarge / The player has a lot of agency in this game to choose exactly how snappy their responses will be. (credit: Suspicious Developments) [/url] Tom Francis and his Suspicious Developments team spent 6.5 years crafting the perfect finale to his defenestration trilogy, and it shows. If you liked blasting people out of windows in Gunpoint or Heat Signature—or snappy writing, endearing characters, wizards, turn-based tactical gameplay, and efficiency challenges—you are going to love Tactical Breach Wizards. The game's name is as efficient as its design, telling you a lot about its tone and distinct offerings. You play as a small team of magic wielders, each of which you can control, one at a time, in a world where magic use, mana, and all the rest have been militarized and corporatized. There are stasis hexes put on illegally parked cars and even a Traffic Warlock, who, after getting on his bad side, will try to mow you down with an entire ghost highway full of spectral drivers. [Hidden Content] Tactical Breach Wizards launch trailer. Luckily, bad guys like him can only hit you if you don't plan accordingly. Owing to the powers of your teammate Zan, you can foresee everything that will happen within a round of combat (he's a one-second clairvoyant). Move team member Jen to this square on the grid, have her chain-zap three guys, seal the door next to her, then see what that leaves Zan to do. Don't like the outcome? Rewind repeatedly until you've gotten the most out of your team's actions or maybe achieved one of the game's optional achievements. You get "Confidence" for pulling off stunts like "knock three baddies out a window with one action," but they're entirely optional because Confidence only unlocks cool outfits, not powers or gameplay. The actual perks you unlock give you delicious choices to make, deciding which way to take each character's powers to complement or offset one another. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments View the full article

The original Lost in Random is one of those real indie game delights that caught me off-guard with just how much I enjoyed it. Part of the EA Originals scheme, it tells a sinister tale set in a stunning fantasy world where everyone's fates fall to the roll of sentient magical dice. News that Lost in Random: The Eternal **** is bringing us back to see where things go next, and that it's further mixing things up with a roguelike spin, has me very eager to learn more. Read the rest of the story... View the full article

Striking Distance Studios has confirmed its roguelike Callisto Protocol spin-off, Redacted, will launch for Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and PC on October 31. Previously known as ‘Project Birdseye’, Redacted is an action roguelike game set in the same universe as the 2022 survival horror game, which Striking Distance says is being worked on by a small team, alongside its next full-scale game. “Redacted takes you deep into ****** Iron Prison, a high-tech correctional facility on Jupiter’s icy moon, Callisto,” reads a description for the game. Read More... View the full article

AMD has responded to the ongoing issue of its Zen 5, Zen 4, and even Zen 3 CPUs having lower performance in Windows when users aren't logged in with an admin account, suggesting a fix is coming soon. The AMD Ryzen Windows bug fix should see users of many recent AMD Ryzen processors getting a slight performance boost if they're still using a standard user account, rather than an admin account. The Windows 11 Ryzen performance problems are affecting some of the best gaming CPUs you can buy, with a discrepancy of as much as 8% being seen between tests run with different types of Windows user accounts. AMD has stated it's working with Microsoft to issue a fix, though, with a pre-release version of Windows 11 already including the change. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: You won't be allowed to buy the Asus Warhammer 40K GPU after all AMD Ryzen 9 9900X already has its first price cut AMD Ryzen CPU gaming performance hit by Windows bug, but there's a fix View the full article

Sage is one of the many resources you must go out of your way to find in Once Human. You’ll use it in various crafting resources when you bring it back to your base, but the real trick is finding a reliable location to farm it. You can visit multiple locations to find Sage while playing Once Human, often on the side of the road or in grassland areas in the game’s early sections. You don’t want to seek it out too much in the desert biomes, even if you’re trying to track down Wolves you want to tame. We’ll share a few of our favorite locations to find Sage in Once Human, along with a reliable trick you can use to acquire a large amount of it for little effort. View the full article

****** Myth: Wukong’s Chapter Two has a couple of doorways that may lead to some head-scratching before you can open them. You need two items to see what’s on the other side: Sternness of Stone and Keenness of Tiger. Keenness of Tiger is a bit easier to find since it’s tied to a battle in Crouching Tiger Temple. Sternness of Stone, however, is located in a different area called the Fright Cliff, which also has a few secrets tied to it. In that area, you can find six Buddha’s Eyeballs for a secret boss, or complete the Man-In-Stone questline (and these two go hand in hand). View the full article

Castlevania arrives in ***** by Daylight this month with a new Survivor and the first shapeshifting *******. If you are planning on playing the new chapter as soon as it releases, we have the exact time the update goes live so you can plan your day around the new chapter’s release. ***** by Daylight Castlevania chapter release date and time Dracula will take his revenge on the Survivors. Image via Behaviour Interactive The ***** by Daylight Castlevania chapter releases on Aug. 27. at 10am CT. The countdown below is set to that date and time so you know how much time you have left to prepare. View the full article

If you've been necromantically dreaming of a Callisto Protocol sequel, I'm afraid the monkey paw finger hasn't just curled - it's jammed itself right up your nose and scratched an *** on your hypothalamus. Developers Striking Distance and publishers Krafton have revealed [Hidden Content], a scifi roguelike dungeon crawler set in the same universe. The square brackets are part of the title, yes, and they're also calling it "punk rock" - a combination of factors that fills me with a rage so obliterating, I can barely perceive the announcement trailer, below. It's a machinegun montage of comicbook panels and sizzling melee arcs and quips like "there's a lot of wankers between you and the sweet taste of freedom". I didn't even like The Callisto Protocol that much but still, what have they done to you, boy? Where did all the horror game go? Read more View the full article

Wizards of the Coast's digital Dungeons and Dragons platform DnD Beyond is deleting the 5e versions of spells and magic items, as part of the process of updating the site to contain new, DnD 2024 content. These changes are set to begin when the Player's Handbook goes into early access on September 3. Some fans are disappointed. Since the 5.5e or 2024 rules are marketed as fully compatible with old content, many believed that everything would stay up on the platform. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Everything in DnD 2024 seems to do Force damage, and that's dull Here's how the DnD 2024 Warlock works Roll20 offers giant monster manual free with DnD 2024 pre-orders View the full article

****** Myth: Wukong has a wide variety of settings designed to make the frantic action title as accessible as possible, and if you’re looking for complete intuitiveness, Compatibility Mode might be up your street. Game Science’s new IP has visual settings affecting the HUD and on-screen information, a litany of gameplay tuners to tweak your combat experience, an the opportunity to alter your preferred graphical settings. View the full article

Obsidian Entertainment's next game, Avowed, will feature more than 10 ending screens, the developer claimed in a new interview. Media outlets were recently given the chance to try out Avowed at Gamescom 2024. View the full article

The Olympics might have just ended, but the New York Times is bringing back the games with its latest clue in the Mini Crossword, asking players to guess the word for “Olympic prize.” “Olympic prize” is a clue for a five-letter down word in the Aug. 22 version of the Mini Crossword, and if you’re worried because you haven’t watched any of the games, don’t worry—this answer is a lot more simpler than you think. View the full article