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Starfield's Trackers Alliance missions set a terrible precedent, both for the game itself and for the industry as a whole. The latest Starfield update, revealed alongside the Shattered Space DLC during Summer Game Fest, includes a fair bit of new content. From new missions to entire new planets, players will find they have a lot more to do in the Settled Systems after installing the new update. View the full article

Konami has revealed eFootball Season 7: King of the Continent. Headlining the free-to-play game’s latest major update is the addition of two tournament-style campaigns – ********* Cup and ********* Cup. These are launching to coincide with Euro 2024, which kicks off in Germany today, and the Copa América, which begins on June 20 in the US. Read More... View the full article

David Gaider, a former BioWare writer who worked on Baldur's Gate 2 and helped establish the setting of Thedas, shared his opinion on the romance system in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Though BioWare has famously pushed the envelope when it comes to inclusion in video game romances, some fans have seen Dragon Age: The Veilguard as a step backwards. Whereas Dragon Age: Inquisition and Mass Effect: Andromeda had explicitly gay characters, the companions in The Veilguard are all designed as romance options for the Rook, regardless of gender. View the full article

With just days until FromSoftware rolls out its highly anticipated Shadow of the Erdtree expansion for Elden Ring, the studio has officially shared release times for the DLC, as well as the specifications needed to run the expansion on PC platforms. Shadow of the Erdtree releases on June 21, 2024, and is poised to be one of this year's biggest gaming releases, offering Elden Ring players the chance to step back into the world of The Lands Between, as well as new, uncharted areas. View the full article

Blizzard has revealed everything players will get when they purchase the Overwatch 2 Rose Gold Mercy Bundle, which is being released as part of a charity campaign to help fund ******* ******* research. The Overwatch series has a strong history with the ******* ******* Research Foundation, and its past charity drive resulted in one of the most popular skins in the series. View the full article

A remaster of Final Fantasy Tactics, the grid-based strategy spin-off from the RPG series that easily ranks as one of the best Final Fantasy games ever made, is reportedly in the works - giving hope of its first official PC release. Read more View the full article

Bulgarian game dev Pavel Kolev, better known as Pavel, the creator of Disney Lorcana Pixelborn, was shot down by Disney a second time in less than a month—and the community isn’t happy about it. Pavel’s creation of Pixelborn before the release of Disney Lorcana‘s The First Chapter was a life raft for many players who couldn’t get their hands on physical cards due to printing and shipping issues. Heading into the fifth Lorcana set, Disney decided Pixelborn shouldn’t exist and asked Pavel to shut it down. The Bulgarian game dev complied without a ****** and spawned another idea called Pixelborn Connect, a webcam platform featuring ranked play among players who already own Disney Lorcana cards. Disney quickly reached out to Pavel and “advised him not to proceed with the project or make it public,” according to the game dev. View the full article

Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Lego Ideas Tuxedo Cat review New Lego Minecraft set fits an entire world in one block Best Lego sets 2024 View the full article

Elon Musk is at it again, this time criticizing Assassins Creed Shadows, with a senior Ubisoft official responding, saying Musks comments are "feeding hatred. But what are the comments, and what are they in response to? Lets get into it. View the full article

To say that Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s gameplay trailer was met with backlash from fans would be an understatement. Tons of criticism fell upon BioWare’s shoulders, though the original creator of the franchise has stood strong in the game’s defense. David Gaider, creator of Dragon Age and leading writer for the franchise in the past, created a series of posts on his social media regarding the latest Dragon Age: The Veilguard trailer. Contrary to the community, he praised it instead of launching a series of negative feedback, becoming an exception in the discussion. View the full article

Following layoffs at ZA/UM earlier this year, some of the developers affected have provided some details about the Disco Elysium spin-off game they were busy working on prior to it being cancelled as part of them being let go. As with all of the Disco Elysium stuff we haven't gotten since the orginal came out, it sounds very cool. If you're out of the loop, to say it's been a turbulent time for those working at the studio since Harry and Kim arrived in our lives back in 2019 would be a bit of an understatement. Prior to this year they're already been key figures in that first game's development parting ways with the studio, and documentaries exploring just how messy the situation had gotten. Now, in report from PC Gamer, a number of former staff at the studio have shed some light on what the project codenamed X7 was looking like before it was canned. Read more View the full article

Elden Ring has announced a new patch for June 20, one day before the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is released. This update for the base game of Elden Ring will also serve as the day one patch for the DLC and will include bug fixes, new features, and balance adjustments. View the full article

According to a journalist on the ******** social media platform Weibo, ****** Myth: Wukong is experiencing a harassment campaign from western critics and journalists after rejecting offers from DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) consultants. The post (in ********) mentions how these consultancy firms “interfere“ with games like **** of War: Ragnarok, *********’s Creed, or Dying Light 2: Stay Human. […] Source View the full article

We are our choices. It may be a cliche, but it’s true. Our choices define us: where we go, what we do, who we meet, how we handle problems, and why we are, ultimately, who we are. Imagine all the key decisions of your life ***** out before you. How many would have to change to turn you into a different person? Two? Three? Or just one, in the right place, at the right time? What choice would that be for you? And who would you have become if you’d chosen differently? Those are the questions at the core of The Alters, a narrative survival game from 11 bit Studios, the team behind This War of Mine. In The Alters, you take on the role of Jan Dolski, a simple worker on a mining mission gone horribly wrong. Stranded and alone on a strange planet after his ship crashes, Jan must figure out a way home. But he can’t do it by himself. He’ll need the help of alters, alternative versions of himself who made different choices in life and have the skills and expertise Jan needs. But alters aren’t just another body and set of skills; they’re entirely different people with unique personalities, hopes, dreams, traumas, and ambitions. To get home, Jan will need to not only get along with his alters, but make some hard choices - and come to terms with some of the choices he made in the past. To better understand The Alters and how this unique set-up affects the many branching story paths you’ll encounter as you play, we sat down with game director Tomasz Kisilewicz and lead designer Rafał Włosek. The interview that follows has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity. IGN: One of the most interesting things about The Alters is, well, the alters themselves, and the branching narratives that are going to come out of the possible lives of Jan Dolski, but to understand the branches, I think we have to start with the tree. Can you tell us a little about Jan, and this predicament he finds himself in? Tomasz Kisilewicz: So Jan, the main character of our game, he's got many regrets in his life, and he tends to ask himself this question, “what if?” “What if I'd made some different choices in the past? Where would I be right now?” So he's using this space mining mission that he's on as a chance to put his life on a different track, but unfortunately, things go south and he ends up all alone on this distant, desolate planet where, in order to survive and go back home, he needs to face even more tough choices, including the creation of the alters. But from that point on, the decisions he will have to make are entirely up to the players. IGN: The idea of basing The Alters on different outcomes of decisions Jan regrets is really interesting. Can you talk about where that idea came from, a few of those decisions, and the alters they lead to? Are there any decisions Jan doesn’t regret that become an integral part of the game’s story? Kisilewicz: When we were creating the life path of Jan and designing different decisions that shaped him into who he is in the game, we really wanted this to feel relatable. So we were gathering our own experiences internally in the team, asking ourselves, what is your what-if question, what is the thing maybe you regret in your life? And they can come from different places. It can be career-related or maybe relationship-related. Things like, “what if I didn't leave my hometown? Or what if I fought ******* to save this relationship I had,” things like that. In the end, we really want every player to find something relatable to them. At least one of the choices that Jan had in his past, I hope will be something the players can relate to. "We were gathering our own experiences internally in the team, asking ourselves, what is your what-if question, what is the thing maybe you regret in your life?" IGN: Creating alternate versions of yourself to get more manpower and access to different skillsets is a neat idea, but these are also different people with different hopes, dreams, fears, and regrets. Can you talk about how those things affect these different versions of Jan, and how they might behave as a result? Kisilewicz: We are bringing new alters to the base in order to solve the problems that Jan, the main Jan, wouldn't be able to solve on his own. So for example, we can bring the scientist Jan, who will be able to conduct research and create a technology that will allow us to move our base, and run away from the sun. And he solves our problem. But at the same time, we are bringing a new person to the crew with an entirely new personality. Jan's scientist is a very career-driven, ambitious alter. Soon he might start undermining our decisions as a leader. So while solving one problem, we are creating new ones. And in order to effectively manage our crew and find solutions for everything, we have to really understand who they are, what is their personality, what affects them, and successfully manage them. IGN: Jan is obviously going to have to manage the relationships between himself and his alters, and probably going to have to intervene when problems arise. Can you talk about what that looks like? What are some of the things we’re going to have to manage here, and how do those decisions affect the outcome of the narrative? Rafał Włosek: In order to get along with the alters well, we'll have to understand the emotions that they have and what people they become because of their life decisions. And the emotions are handled by a pretty sophisticated emotional system that is more complex than just they're feeling good or bad, and a single bar. And because of that, we can have emotions like frustration or rebellion. They may be amused by something or maybe stressed by something or saddened by something. And all those different emotions allow us to create different alters who act differently in different situations because then those emotions translate to the things they do. So they may rebel against the player or may help the player somehow, or maybe boost the morale of the crew. Or on the other hand, they may be so sad that they don't want to work anymore. IGN: Clearly, keeping all of these different versions of Jan happy is going to be a big challenge. What happens when some of the alters aren’t happy or don’t have a good relationship with our Jan or the other alters? Can you talk about how that affects the narrative? What about when they are happy, or we’ve managed to build a productive relationship? Włosek: If the alters are not happy, they're ******, sad, afraid, or they're in conflict with Jan or the other alters, they may influence the game on many different levels. They may try to rebel against the player. They will lower their efficiency. They will not want to work for the mission, but they will also influence the story of themselves, of their own storylines or the stories of the other alters. Also, there's a lot of things going on on the emergent storytelling level. So if they're in a bad shape, they may start some narrative bits that will create a different gameplay experience. But let's not forget about the fact that if the alters are in good shape and they're happy and highly motivated, they will on the other hand help the player. They will help him in achieving his goals. It'll be easier for them to fix their problems, but they can also help the other alters with fixing their problems and dealing with their past and decisions. IGN: One of the things that fascinates me about The Alters is the base itself, and it seems the decisions you make regarding how it is managed have the potential to have just as much impact on what can happen in the story as the other Jans do. Can you talk about that, and maybe give us some examples of how the base itself plays into what happens in the story? Włosek: Base management is very important for many aspects of the game. First, it influences the economy part. Of course, this is pretty obvious, but also has to be maintained. If you don't maintain your base well, it'll deteriorate. There will be accidents. Those accidents will create emergent stories and will influence the general alter storylines or the main story. And finally, the ******* the base is, the more rapidly we can bring back home. And this is very important for Jan, for the people back on earth. So this is another way you can influence the narrative. Base management is very important for many aspects of the game. IGN: The root of any good story is conflict, and there are a lot of conflicts in The Alters. We’ve got to manage our relationships with the other Jans and we have to manage the base, but it also seems like we’re in a race against time because of how the star that the planet we’re on orbits. Does the amount of time we spend on this world affect the ways the narrative can play out? If we progress very quickly, do we get access to branches in the story we wouldn’t otherwise see? If we’re struggling and taking a long time to make progress, do certain paths become closed to us? Kisilewicz: We want to spend time with our Alters. We need to invest time in our relationship because only then we will be able to uncover their stories and understand them fully, and with this crew that we understand, and that we know how to manage, we will be able to succeed in the mission. Time is a very important resource in our game. Everything we do requires some time, whether it’s excavating the resources, or crafting stuff, or conducting the research, all of the tasks require some time. And that’s why we need the alters on board, because Jan won’t be able to make everything in time. He’s being chased by a giant rising star, so he’s got this ticking clock behind his back, but at the same time, we don’t want to rush things too much. IGN: In the past, you’ve said that The Alters is “using a mix of classic and emergent” narrative and reflects how splitting the life of the main character opens up new paths for the story. Can you talk more about what that means, and how we’ll see that mix in the game specifically? Kisilewicz: From the very beginning, we wanted to tell the story of Jan in a classic manner, but also create a game that is more open-ended and allows players more freedom in creating their own stories. So the narrative structure in our game consists of different layers. On top, we have this more classic narrative structure, which is a branching story of Jan landing on the planet and finding his way home. And it is a branching story with multiple different endings. But underneath there is this second layer of the alter storylines, and it's up to the players what alters they create. It's not possible to have all the alters in a single playthrough. So when you replay the game, you will be able to create different alters and also within their storylines make different choices to shape their story in your own way. And underneath all of this, we have this giant layer of the emergent narrative that comes from the decisions you make. Economical decisions, strategic decisions, the way you handle your base, the way you treat your alters. It all affects them and can result in some unexpected outcomes, different reactions, different events, different mini-scenarios that can happen. In the end, we hope it all adds up to this unique experience of each player having their own unique playthrough. IGN: You’ve talked about how The Alters is a spiritual successor to This War of Mine, which is really interesting given the drastic change in setting and genre. Can you talk about what you learned from This War of Mine, and the impact that had on The Alters in how the story plays out, or anywhere else? Włosek: And there's also the topic of emergent gameplay. This is also something that showed up in our games for the first time in This War of Mine. In The Alters, we do the same thing. We use a lot of emergent narration, but in this game, we also connect that with a more classic approach to the narration, where we have a single storyline that is branching and we enforce this storyline with those emergent systems that make this story richer. IGN: Is there any aspect of The Alters that players can’t see or isn’t immediately obvious that you’re particularly proud of, and hope players get something out of? Włosek: There are a couple of mechanics in-game that I am proud of, but they're not easily visible at first glance. One of them is the emotional mechanic, which is pretty complicated. It consists of many different variables, and we don't show them as values or numbers, but more like adjectives that are floating around the alters. They have different sizes and those variables connect into even more sophisticated emotions. And all of this makes it very hard for our analytical brain to process. But it's quite easy if you try to use your empathy to process. So the idea behind making this so complicated is not only to create different personalities for the alters that are very nuanced, but also to make the player use this proper part of the brain when they're trying to cope with alters. The other thing would be the way we use the exploration. Of course, it is a tool to get a gameplay loop. You're going to go explore, look for the resources, go back to base, and face the problems with the alters, and so on. But it is quite important that we also wanted to use this exploration part to create a special environment for the player to actually think about all those decisions that the alters made and ultimately maybe create a space for them to think about their own decisions. IGN: What are you most excited for players to experience in The Alters? Is there anything we haven’t covered that you’d like folks to know about? Kisilewicz: We can’t wait for the players to meet the alters, learn their different stories, and, understand what made them who they are. In the end, we just hope that everyone will find something, and learn something about themselves through the alters. Wishlist The Alters on Steam if you're interested to learn more. 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It’s not every day that the choices you make in a video turn you into a hero outside of one, but the Helldivers 2 development team gives the playerbase a chance as they donate to the Save the Children charity after players complete a Major Order to save the children. The team shared the announcement on their Discord server after the Helldivers 2 creative director, John Pilestedt, detailed the donation on their social media page. The Major Order players had to decide between launched a few days ago, and is wrapping up today. During the hours leading up to it, the Helldivers 2 community had been joking about what reward they’d receive for making this decision, and this unexpected one was a fantastic choice by the development team. Everyone wins. View the full article

Hong Kong manufacturer DeepComputing has introduced a new laptop built around the RISC-V ISA. The DC-Roma RISC-V Laptop II expands on the hardware capabilities of the previous generation and is touted as the world's first RISC-V laptop capable of running the Ubuntu Linux operating system. Read Entire Article View the full article

The final Letter from the Producer Live has debuted just ahead of Dawntrails release, with Naoki Yoshi and Toshio Murouchi once more debuting brand-new content for the upcoming expansion. At the forefront of the announcement was a brand new Launch Trailer that showcases the story like never before. While weve seen a handful of snippets of the story in past trailers, this goes into far more detail than ever before, showcasing the events that will transpire throughout our time in the New World. View the full article

Games are an interesting artform. They get updated to grow and evolve over time, like us. I've been playing Minecraft since its alpha days, back when you couldn't even stack food and The End dimension didn't exist. I've mostly watched it grow up from afar, only dipping back in occasionally, but the reception to the new Minecraft update, Tricky Trials (or to give it its technical name, 1.21), has me itching to sink my teeth into it again. And I'm not the only one who's happy. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: The best games on Xbox Game Pass June 2024 Minecraft 1.21 update release date and features How to make a Minecraft Mace View the full article

Look, everyone wants to play Bloodborne on PC. It’s one of those universally accepted truths, like gravity or pizza being delicious. And, yes, nobody really knows why Bloodborne isn’t on PC yet, almost a decade after it released on PlayStation 4 - despite Sony’s apparent delight in bringing every other PlayStation exclusive to PC, just to mock us. It’s one of those universally accepted unknowns, like how gravity works or the actual best pizza topping. (It’s glue, if you believe AI.) Read more View the full article

MADFINGER Games has just released the second patch for the Gray Zone Warfare public playtest. And while new landing zones and quality-of-life updates are good, one of the game’s biggest issues is still rampant. Nine new landing zones have been added to the Gray Zone Warfare public playtest servers, but the lack of available helicopters to take players to and from these landing zones ******** an issue. Even as the game has dipped in popularity slightly after its red-hot launch, players such as myself have been left stuck calling for a helicopter for anywhere between 10 to 20 minutes. View the full article

Fallout 4 could have featured terrifying monsters called Centaurs. Bethesda went as far as to conceptualize the monstrosities, but ended up dropping the idea of their inclusion during the development of Fallout 4. View the full article

The North ********* League of Legends is back on June 15 with the beginning of the 2024 LCS Summer Split. A few teams changed their rosters, like Dignitas, who added Spica, and the jungler revealed he wants to defeat one particular player in the competition. For Spica, signing with Dignitas marks a return to competition after a half-year hiatus. Previously, the ******** League jungler was benched on FlyQuest, with which he spent a year and a half. During his latest break, the player was active in solo ******, which sparked his ******* to take down Team Liquid’s mid laner, APA, for trash talking. View the full article

The possible romantic partners in Stardew Valley can be genuinely sweet at times, but sometimes they miss the mark, by a lot. Now, it isnt uncommon for romances in the game to start off a little rocky. Haley, for instance, starts by insulting the player character before getting to know them better. However, whats far more uncomfortable is when the residents of Pelican Town try to flirt with the player, but instead just end up saying something undeniably cringe-worthy. View the full article

Tango Gameworks has officially closed its doors, meaning ZeniMax Asia is no more. In an X thread on Friday, developer Takeo Kido shared a series of pictures of the ********* studio on what he said was its last day, They included pictures of the lobby and reception, boxed up office equipment, and pizzas the employees presumably ate as a last meal together. Read More... View the full article

Spare a thought for all the mid-budget RPGs set to release in the next few months. Launching a game in a genre as storied as this is hard at the best of times. Adding to it less than 12 months after it was shocked into the limelight by a universally beloved phenomenon feels faintly masochistic... Read more.View the full article