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The Sims 4. | Image: Electronic Arts Midsummer Studios is a new game studio founded by two former Firaxis developers, Jake Solomon and Will Miller. Before founding Midsummer, the two worked on XCOM, Civilization: Beyond Earth, and Marvel’s Midnight Suns. Today, the new studio has announced its first game: a next-gen life sim game with former The Sims director Grant Rodiek leading the project as executive producer. According to the studio’s press release, this debut project “emphasizes player-driven narratives, allowing communities to share memorable moments that grow out of the creativity of players themselves.” The project doesn’t currently have a title or release date. This new game will face stiff competition in the life-sim genre, which has been dominated by big-budget... Continue reading… View the full article

Building off of the original Hades' extensive pathways to the final boss, Hades 2 offers players an entirely new pathway to explore alongside the Underworld; in this new world, you'll also find new resources like Bronze. Bronze is just one of many new things introduced on the path to Olympus, but it is one of the first surface materials you'll want to look out for. Make sure you have the Crescent Pick unlocked before heading out! View the full article

While Sony has said there are no plans to release sequels in its major franchises this financial year, ruling out new games in the Spider-Man and **** of War series until at least April 2025, we do know of one new first-party PlayStation game coming out this year: Concord. Announced during Sony’s May 2023 PlayStation Showcase, Concord is a new PVP multiplayer FPS from Sony-owned studio Firewalk Studios set for release on PlayStation 5 and PC at some point in 2024. During a financial call focused on the investment community, Sony listed Concord as a live service game coming out in 2024 alongside Bungie’s Destiny 2 expansion The Final Shape. That’s a commitment to the new IP launching during what looks like a particularly quiet financial year ending March 31, 2024 for PlayStation games. Sony has yet to announce a price for Concord, or whether it will launch on PS5 and PC at the same time. But given the explosive success of Helldivers 2, a live service co-op shooter that sold 12 million copies in just 12 weeks after launching across PS5 and PC with cross-play, it seems likely Sony will ****** for something similar for Concord. Sony may be set to reveal more on Concord soon, if it plans a showcase for May. In February, Sony announced a significant round of layoffs affecting around 900 staff, or about 8% of its global PlayStation workforce. The layoffs affected a number of PlayStation studios, including Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla, Firesprite, and, most significantly, PlayStation's London studio. Alongside the layoffs, a number of in-development games were canceled. The PS5 launched November 2020 during the height of the pandemic, and has now sold 59.3 million. Sony is expected to launch a PS5 Pro model later in 2024. 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

Sony had originally forecast that it would move 25 million PS5 units during its financial year, but lower-than-expected sales meant the only way to reach that figure would be for 10 million PS5 consoles to be sold in the final quarter. That was never going to happen, so Sony revised... Read Entire Article View the full article

Xbox Game Pass has added Starbreeze Studios' original classic narrative adventure game, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, to the subscription service. Known for being an incredibly touching story with a unique gameplay mechanic, the addition of Brothers to Xbox Game Pass is an ideal opportunity for gamers to check it out if they missed it when it first launched in 2013. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Weird new xenos mini could upend Warhammer 40k lore How Achtung Panzer! channels World of Tanks into a wargame Get every book from one of the funniest RPGs ever for under $20 View the full article

Every mission in Helldivers 2 has modifiers that can make your time on the planet **********. These modifiers range from harmful weather conditions to a reduced number of stratagems, and players are wondering if we’ll ever get something helpful instead. There are only a few beneficial modifiers in Helldivers 2, and most grant an additional Stratagem. Unfortunately, these modifiers appear rarely, while the negative ones are present almost all the time. For a successful mission, you must consider the planet’s environmental conditions and mission modifiers like AA Defenses. In a Reddit thread on May 13, Helldivers 2 players came up with a list of ideas for helpful modifiers that would be fun and in-keeping with the core mechanics. View the full article

Another quality bundle is live on Fanatical with the Trinity Bundle - Immortal Edition, giving you a chance to grab multiple really good games for a ridiculous price. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

A Honkai: Star Rail ***** reveals bountiful rewards players will obtain for participating in the Divergent Universe: The Human Comedy. It was previously leaked that Honkai: Star Rail will introduce a new Simulated Universe, called Divergent Universe: The Human Comedy, in version 2.3 this summer. Some trusted insiders claimed that this domain is divided into five difficulty levels, unlike other gameplay modes in the space RPG. View the full article

It's an oddly freeing experience playing Cryptmaster, a game where I can type almost anything (as long as it's one word) and receive some sort of response for my effort. Scream-typing "******" into the void? The void answers... Read more.View the full article

I wouldn't blame you if you felt more inclined to play a flashy modern RTS over a game that came out more than two decades ago, but in the case of Homeworld, that would be a mistake. Really, that goes for so many real-time strategy romps. Even though we're in the midst of a resurgence, the '90s were the glory days of the genre, and there's a reason why the likes of Command & Conquer, Age of Empires and Homeworld ended up with highly celebrated remasters... Read more.View the full article

One of the new Animal Wells stand-out features should undoubtedly be replicated by other Metroidvanias. Playing through the strange, puzzle-filled world of Animal Well can often be tense, but the intriguing triple-layer structure of the game is perfectly designed to draw people ever deeper into its world. Animal Well has arguably quickly become one of the best Metroidvanias currently available to play, and its unique take on the genre will hopefully inspire future titles in turn. View the full article

PlayStation’s first half of 2024 has been quietly successful without necessarily setting the world alight. Helldivers 2 proved a surprise megahit in both a critical and commercial sense, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is one of the best RPGs of the year so far – even if it hasn’t quite sold the number of copies both Square Enix and Sony may have been hoping for – and, as recently as a few weeks ago, both Rise of the Ronin and Stellar Blade launched, bringing with them exciting brands of sharp action. These exclusives have been bright spots in an industry otherwise plagued by layoffs and studio closures (of which Sony has played no small part in), but when it comes to what else to expect to play on your PS5 in the back half of 2024, there’s a worrying lack of announced games and dates – especially compared to the strong first-party offerings Xbox currently has lined up. Of course, this could all change soon as we rapidly approach the summer showcase season where exciting new reveals will undoubtedly steal the headlines. Sony will, presumably, want something shiny to show alongside a potential unveiling of the heavily rumored PS5 Pro. But how many of those fresh announcements will actually be playable within the next six months is another question, though. My guess is very few. Beyond this year’s upcoming Silent Hill 2 Remake, ****** Stranding 2 in 2025, Bungie’s Marathon, and a couple of other first-party releases we’ll cover shortly, PlayStation’s cupboard is looking relatively bare, especially when it comes to games from those keystone PlayStation Studios. It begs the question of what each of these teams – those that helped build the PlayStation library into the strong place to play it is today – are up to now, and how long before we get to both see and play them. So let’s take a look at what each of those developers (not including support studios) are doing, and when we can realistically expect to see new games from them. Naughty Dog Arguably the jewel in the PlayStations Studios crown, Naughty Dog’s last full release was 2020’s The Last of Us Part 2. The Uncharted developer hasn’t been completely quiet since then, releasing both remastered versions of The Last of Us Part 1 (in collaboration with Iron Galaxy) and Part 2 as recently as this January. But Naughty Dog’s most notable recent announcement wasn’t a new launch, but the cancellation of a multiplayer entry in the series that the studio had spent many years on before deciding to turn its attention back to where its proven skills lie: single-player adventures. In March 2023, co-studio head Neil Druckmann stated the developer had chosen its next project but didn’t confirm if it was The Last of Us Part 3 or something else. In the 14 months since we’ve heard very little, aside from a small tease in The Last of Us Part 2 making-of documentary where Druckmann stated he has a “concept” in mind and that there's "probably one more chapter to this story." Could we see a reveal of this new project soon? Whether it’s a continuation of Ellie’s story, a return to Nathan Drake’s adventures, or something completely new entirely, I wouldn’t be too surprised to see an announcement this year, even if playing it is still a way off. The relatively short two-to-three-year gaps between Uncharted and The Last of Us games are long gone, sadly, with four already having passed since Naughty Dog’s last. Santa Monica Studio Santa Monica Studio released **** of War Ragnarok to huge success in late 2022 and followed up with the surprisingly lengthy free Valhalla DLC in December of last year. However, what’s next for the studio is a mystery, although we do know Cory Barlog – game director of 2018’s **** of War – moved on to helm a new project in 2021 after leaving Eric Williams to fill Ragnarok’s director seat. Little to nothing is known about that new project, but given it’s been in development for a number of years already it wouldn’t be beyond belief to see it revealed this year. As for a new **** of War game, well, we likely can’t expect that as quickly. Despite the gap between Ragnarok and its predecessor being only four years, the end of Kratos’ Norse saga signals a new direction for the series which, naturally, means it’ll require a lot more work from the ground up. We can hope, of course, but don’t expect to see everyone’s favourite ****** dad any time soon. That said, we wouldn’t say no to a remake of the original trilogy… Insomniac Games Insomniac is arguably Sony’s most prolific studio, releasing either a Spider-Man or Ratchet and Clank game every couple of years for almost a decade now, most recently last year with the hugely successful Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. But in a worrying sign of the fragile state of the games industry, even a game of that magnitude couldn’t prevent layoffs from occurring this year in what turned out to be a doubly damaging couple of months for the developer, following a huge data breach and subsequent theft. The data theft revealed that the highly anticipated Wolverine game is not expected until 2026 at the earliest, but also that a Venom game may arrive before it in 2025. Either way, it’s highly unlikely Insomniac will be springing any surprise games this year, and after all the studio has gone through recently I think it's fair to allow it as much of a break as anyone. ******* Punch Productions ******* Punch has been very quiet since 2020’s Ghost of Tsushima. Work is presumably underway on its next game but, truth be told, we have little idea what exactly that is. Common wisdom would suggest a direct sequel would be the most logical move due to the success of the first game, and a 2022 job listing might be a small clue towards this notion. A posting on the studio’s career page looking for an Encounter Designer noted that responsibilities would include delivering “interesting and varied encounters in an open-world game, with a particular focus on melee combat and stealth”. This certainly suggests a return to Japan, but could easily also suggest (to an admittedly lesser extent) a new Infamous or Sly Cooper game, or something altogether different. The truth is we have no real idea, but let’s just hope that silence is broken soon. Guerrilla Games Guerrilla followed up 2022’s Horizon: Forbidden West with last year’s Burning Shores DLC as it continued to build out Aloy’s story. With the West Coast-set sequel ending on a cliffhanger, it’s not a stretch to expect the Amsterdam-based studio to be working on the third part of the trilogy next. We wouldn’t expect any news on that one soon however – the development time between Zero Dawn and Forbidden West was five years so we’re likely a little while away from seeing Aloy and her metal dinosaur friends again soon. We do know that a multiplayer Horizon game is currently in the works, though, starring “a new cast of characters and a unique stylized look”. Perhaps this is something we can hope to see more of sooner rather than later, although this year may be a stretch. Housemarque Returnal brought Housemarque a level of mainstream appeal that had previously evaded the Finnish studio, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it returned to that world. However, that seemingly won’t be the developer’s next game as back in 2022 it confirmed it had started work on a new project that was in the “early days with us starting a new game, a new IP.” It’s currently unclear how the departure of Returnal director Harry Krueger – who had been at Housemarque for 14 years – has affected the development though. For now, this new game ******** a mystery but maybe we’ll hear something soon. Firewalk Studios Firewalk is the first studio listed here to actually have a game (albeit tentatively) listed for a 2024 release. Revealed last May, Concord is a PvP multiplayer shooter with a retro-futuristic sci-fi aesthetic that can be gleaned from its CGI announcement trailer. But, we’ve heard practically nothing since. We’re hoping to see some gameplay soon, otherwise that 2024 date might start to look a little shaky. Haven Studios Fairgame$ is set to be the first game from ***** Raymond’s Haven Studios and is a competitive heist game we’ve seen little of beyond a stylish CGI trailer. With no release window as yet, we’d be surprised to see it drop later this year – last November, Sony president Hiroki Totoki said it was reducing the number of live service games due for release before March 2026 from 12 to six. With the continuing success of Helldivers 2, PSN/Steam hiccups aside, I’m sure PlayStation will look to learn the positive lessons from its development and apply them to future projects such as Fairgame$. The next step will be seeing a gameplay reveal, which is something we can realistically hope for this year. Bend Studio Bend has been pretty quiet since the release of Days Gone way back in 2019 but in 2022 a few slithers of detail were revealed about what the Oregon studio is currently working on. It shared that its new game will “build upon the open-world systems of Days Gone” but won’t be announced until “the time is right”. Apart from knowing it won’t be a continuation of Deacon St. John’s story, we really know nothing. Enough time has passed, though, that hopefully new info isn’t too far away. Media Molecule Media Molecule spent most of the past decade working on Dreams, the game creation and curation project that was released in 2020. But as a result of significant layoffs at the studio earlier in 2024, live support for the game will soon end as MM aims to ensure “Dreams transitions into a self-sustaining platform”. There has since been no news on what the developer’s next project will be. Team Asobi Team Asobi has brought everyone’s favourite little ******, Astrobot, to both traditional and VR platformers for the entirety of its 12-year existence. Previously part of Japan Studio, in 2021 it became a standalone studio following the success of PS5 launch game, Astro’s Playroom. What’s next though is yet to be revealed, but in 2022 studio director Nicolas Doucet revealed it would be Asobi’s “biggest to date." This is one we could theoretically see soon as plenty of time has passed since the developer’s last release and we know development has been in the works for multiple years now. Hopefully, the long-rumored PS5 Pro would be a perfect place for Asobi to replicate the success of Astro’s Playroom as a technical showcase for a new console that was also incredibly fun. Fingers crossed we get a reveal this year at the very least. Bluepoint Games Following the success of both the Shadow of the Colossus and ******’s Souls remakes, Sony acquired Bluepoint Games as a first-party studio in 2021. We don’t know what its first project since joining the PlayStation Studios family is, though, but we do know that the developer has expressed its ******* to create an original game, rather than reimagining another classic. Perhaps we could see a reveal this year. Polyphony Digital Polyphony has been making Gran Turismo for 25 years now so it would certainly be a shock to see it veer from that path in the near future. Having only released GT7 less than two years ago, it’s unrealistic to expect anything new from the racing masters any time soon. Let’s come back to this when the PlayStation 6 arrives. San Diego Studio Similarly, San Diego is well established as the MLB The Show studio. This year’s entry only dropped in March, so we can expect to see another next Spring if history is anything to go by. Firesprite Having recently focussed on VR games, Firesprite most recently developed Horizon: Call of the Mountain for PSVR 2. What’s next is anyone’s guess, however. A new VR game would be the educated guess, but given Sony’s lack of commitment to creating games for its second headset, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the *** studio pivot to something more traditional. With recent reports of layoffs and unrest at the developer, a live-service Twisted Metal game was reportedly canceled, with the studio supposedly working on a new PlayStation game called Project Heartbreak. Details are thin on what this is though, and when we can expect to see it. That’s everything we know about upcoming first-party PlayStation games, and the truth is very few release dates look to be coming up quickly. Of course, this can and likely will change soon, and with GTA 6 looming on the horizon in 2025, it does make sense that many publishers are waiting for Rockstar to make the first move when picking a window. That said, that doesn’t prevent 2024 from still looking relatively empty when it comes to PS5 exclusives. Let’s hope that after a summer of reveals the outlook will look a lot brighter, not only for players waiting for new games to play, but for the developers who work so hard to deliver them to us. Simon Cardy wouldn't love nothing more than another adventure with his little Astro **** friend. Follow him on Twitter at @CardySimon. View the full article

Fallout 4's 14.4GB "next gen" update dropped at the end of April, dovetailing neatly with the very popular Fallout TV show on Amazon. It promised all sorts of bells and whistles to bring the (nearly decade old, my ****) game up to date to the standards we expect from videogames in 2024... Read more.View the full article

It can be unkind, capricious, and totally unfair, but sometimes life extends its hand and offers you a surprise little gift out of nowhere. 2024 is looking pretty packed release wise - we've got Frostpunk 2, Stalker, and of course the Elden Ring DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree - but that doesn't mean we shouldn't stop to look back from time to time. After three years of complete silence, one superb but forgotten action game has suddenly, without any hype or build up, received a huge new update that makes it way better on PC. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: No More Heroes 1 & 2 HD remasters release on PC next week No More Heroes 1 and 2 rated for PC by ESRB View the full article

Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and need Iron Gate to make a Valheim anime now. The Valheim: Ashlands update has landed and the trailer is simply awesome. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

Things got off to a rocky start after an app called iGBA was pulled from the App Store less than a week after its debut over violating spam and copyright violations. The next app to try its luck, an emulator known as Delta, did things the right way and quickly... Read Entire Article View the full article

New details have been leaked regarding the huge Legend of Zelda LEGO set due to release later this year, though models of the build show some big absences. First revealed in January, the Legend of Zelda set is expected to be a two-in-one offering with separate builds for the Great Deku Tree from The Ocarina of Time, with green leaves, and The Breath of the Wild, with pink leaves—but it’s there where the set falls short. View the full article

Manjaro 24.0, based on Arch Linux, has been released pulling in a whole lot of upgrades across every part of the system. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

Having to choose to pull for Wanderer or Baizhu in Genshin Impact 4.6 can be tough, especially when considering the two characters can provide significant benefits to players' team comps even if they exercise fairly different roles in parties. Both characters have been available in the game for quite some time, with Wanderer arriving as a playable unit in Version 3.3 and Baizhu making his debut in Version 3.6. Both of these characters in Genshin Impact 4.6 banners have many *****, though they also have some ***** that should be considered by players before making a decision. View the full article

More competitive League of Legends tournaments are implementing the fan-favorite Fearless mode. On May 14, reports claimed LCK Challengers League is following suit. The second-tier League competition in South Korea is reportedly about to launch the Fearless Draft mode this summer, according to Korizon Esports journalist, Kevin Kim. The change is expected to be applied to all matches, including playoffs. View the full article

Bethesda and id Software parent Zenimax Media has trademarked the classic ***** cheat 'IDKFA', adding fuel to rumors that a new game in the landmark FPS series will be revealed imminently... Read more.View the full article

Square Enix has admitted Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Final Fantasy 16, and Foamstars ******* to meet its expectations. In a financial call reported by Bloomberg, Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu told analysts that sales for all three games ******* to hit expected revenue and profit, resulting in an overall hit to operating income for the business. Square Enix announced launch sales of three million for Final Fantasy 16 after it went on ***** in June 2023, but it has yet to announce a follow-up figure since. According to Bloomberg, while this initial momentum was in-line with expectations, sales have slowed. It’s a worse story for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Initial momentum ******* to reach Square Enix’s target, Bloomberg said. Tellingly, Square Enix has yet to announce a sales figure for the game, the second in the company’s planned trilogy of Final fantasy 7 remakes. As for Foamstars, Square Enix has yet to announce a sales figure for this live-service, Splatoon-like game. Bloomberg reported that Square Enix admitted it had fallen short of expectations. On the bright side, Square Enix said it’s confident Final Fantasy 16 can achieve its goal over the original 18-month sales plan. And, according to Bloomberg reporter Takashi Mochizuki, Square Enix said sales of Rebirth and Foamstars “aren't necessarily bad.” Square Enix said: -FF16 sales fell short of expectations. Initial momentum was in line with expectations, but the games ******* to reach FY goal as its momentum slowed. No updates from sales number last announced at 3 million -FF7 Rebirth sales fell short of expectations. Initial… — Takashi Mochizuki (@6d6f636869) May 14, 2024 This week, Square Enix announced a significant company reboot amid tumbling profits. Final Fantasy 16 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth both launched as PlayStation 5 exclusives, but Square Enix said it will now “aggressively pursue a multiplatform strategy that includes Nintendo platforms, PlayStation, Xbox, and PCs.” Overall, it’s a tough time for Square Enix, which had already absorbed ¥22.1 billion (approx $140.9 million) in what it called “content abandonment losses” ahead of today’s financial report. Square Enix did not name the canceled or rescoped in-development titles. Looking ahead, Dawntrail, the expansion for ongoing MMO Final Fantasy 14, launches in late June. Square Enix also has Kingdom Hearts 4, the third game in the Final Fantasy remake trilogy, and Dragon Quest 12 in the works. In January, Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida said it might be time for a younger generation to lead the franchise and helm Final Fantasy 17. 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

PlayStation has officially revealed that Helldivers 2 has surpassed 12 million copies sold across PS5 and PC. The sales figures for the smash hit co-op shooter were announced at Sony's recent earnings call for financial year 2023 (ended March 31, 2024). It's no secret that Helldivers 2 has been incredibly successful, but as it turns out, it unexpectedly broke a big PlayStation sales record as well. View the full article

Despite its rekindled popularity, Fallout 4 just can't seem to catch a break as Bethesda's latest update manages to break the game even more, angering veterans and newcomers alike. Following the success of Prime Video's streaming series, Fallout 4 has seen a massive resurgence in players as the most recent dedicated single-player RPG in the franchise and while that's been a boon for the community, the recent "next-gen" patches have only hampered the experience. The latest release, which was meant to fix many of the game's most recently introduced problems, has only managed to make things worse. View the full article