You can pre-save the Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree Original Soundtrack ahead of its launch later this week and unlock free wallpapers. View the full article
If you love your adventure games be sure to check out Shadows of the Afterland, with a new fully voiced demo available to try in Steam Next Fest. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article
Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead has revealed it's putting a temporary pause on content updates while it works on improving performance. In an interview on the official Helldivers YouTube channel, director Mikael Eriksson admitted the game's most recent big update, Into the Unjust, had "more issues than [the team] were comfortable with," which is why the studio has now decided "to push some of our content and feature updates a little bit into the future." Recent reviews for Helldivers 2 on Steam are 'mixed,' with most of the complaints revolving around performance trouble. The 'most helpful review' penned over the last 30 days is a negative one from a player with over 500 hours in-game. They called Helldivers 2's performance "inexcusable," pointing to stuttering and freezing during gameplay and crashes. "Arrowhead, Sony, PLEASE put less focus on new content and live service updates," they pleased. "PLEASE stop nerfing loadouts that are already underpowered or underused with the guise of 'realism' or 'balance.' It's a PvE game; no one cares if people are cheesing hulks with a flag. The game needs to be fun and PLAYABLE before you can rake in the cash with a new warbond. "FIX THE GAME View the full article
Call of Dutypublisher Activision claims its proprietary anti-cheat system, Ricochet, made history for the series during the recent open beta for Call of Duty: ****** Ops 7. The playtest was available from October 2 - 9, allowing fans to go hands-on with Call of Duty: ****** Ops 7ahead of its launch on November 14. While there were reports of cheaters gaining access to multiplayer matches, Activision claims that nearly 99% of lobbies were cheater-free by the end of the beta. View the full article
The Casting of Frank Stone is now available on Xbox Game Pass. Including the shadow-dropped Ubisoft Classic catalog added on October 1, this marks the 52nd new addition to Microsoft's subscription service since the start of the month and the 174th new Xbox Game Pass release of 2025. View the full article
Helldivers 2 game director Mikael Eriksson addresses player concerns over the game's performance, announcing a delay to upcoming content, so the studio can work on improving things. The feeling around Helldivers 2 seems to have shifted somewhat after months of positivity, as technical concerns have left fans concerned. View the full article
Borderlands 4 Bounty Pack 1: How Rush Saved Mercenary Day arrives on November 20 and a new trailer has been shared for it this week. View the full article
An owner of a Sapphire Nitro+ AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT graphics card has just reported a burned up power cable, showing that this problem isn't just limited to high-powered Nvidia graphics cards such as the GeForce RTX 5090. There is one feature this AMD card has in common with similarly fried Nvidia cards, though, and that's its power connector - it uses a 16-pin 12VHPWR socket, rather than the 6/8-pin sockets usually used by AMD graphics cards. The AMD 9070 XT currently tops our guide to buying the best graphics card, thanks to its excellent performance and 16GB allocation of VRAM, and many of the cards based on this AMD GPU use standard 8-pin power sockets. There are some notable exceptions, though. One is this Sapphire card, and another is the ASRock Taichi card that we tested for our AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT review, which has also had a melted power socket incident. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: New AMD Arm CPUs are coming, and with Steam Deck-type socket, according to leak New AMD Ryzen Zen 6 CPUs work on old AM5 motherboards, Asus appears to confirm AMD just announced a new ray tracing gaming GPU core, promises big speed boost View the full article
Сотрудники IGN поделились свежим геймплейным роликом Crimson Desert. Фрагмент прохождения грядущего приключенческого боевика с открытым миром был опубликован журналистами эксклюзивно, а игра стала темой для освещения в октябре. View the full article
Anshar Studios выпустила демонстрационную версию Painkiller. В рамках Steam Next Fest или «Играм быть» пользователи ПК могут скачать и опробовать кооперативный шутер до выхода. Полноценный релиз состоится через неделю. View the full article
Студия Aeos Games, основанная братьями Варуном и Роханом Майя, представила дебютный геймплейный трейлер Unleash the Avatar. Грядущий хардкорный экшен в духе серии Souls разрабатывается для ПК. View the full article
Blue Protocol: Star Resonance was just updated, as it seems the initial build did not actually have any anti-cheat enabled but now it does. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article
Season 2 is coming to NBA 2K26 very soon, and we have confirmation about the exact date and time. NBA 2K and Visual Concepts will follow the same schedule, as the second season will directly succeed the first one. As of writing on Oct. 14, you still have a few days to complete the Season 1 Pass. If you're all done with that, this guide will help you keep track of when the new season goes live in NBA 2K26. Table of contentsNBA 2K26 Season 2 release countdownNBA 2K26 Season 2 Pass rewardsNBA 2K26 Season 2 release countdown The release timing for the new season was confirmed when NBA 2K released the patch notes for update v2.0. The countdown below will expire once the new season is live. [hurrytimer id="1129152"] The countdown is set to the following times. 8am PT10am CT11am ET3pm UTC4pm BST5pm CEST The season goes live at the same time on both PC and console, and the Season 2 Pass will be available for all modes. NBA 2K26 Season 2 Pass rewards The exact rewards for the Season 2 Pass are yet to be revealed. However, the items will be divided across forty different levels. You can hit the milestones by gaining Season XP from all available modes. XP gained is shared across all the modes, making it easier for you to unlock all rewards. If you opt for the paid upgrade, you'll get 40 additional rewards, featuring VC, promo cards, and more. Doing so will cost you upwards of $10. The highlight rewards are likely going to be revealed on Wednesday, Oct. 15, while the complete list should be available with the new season. Like our content? Set Destructoid as a Preferred Source on Google in just one step to ensure you see us more frequently in your Google searches! The post NBA 2K26 Season 2 release countdown: Exact date and time, season pass rewards, and more appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article
The Pokémon Go level 71 to 80 requirements might test some of the loyalists of trainers as it's a tough climb to face, with a lot of things mostly revolving around a grind that could be a pain for free players, but not so much for those willing to throw a few dollars at their mobile devices. As soon as you reach level 70, you will need to complete a selection of tasks to go up every level after it. You also need to have gotten over 203,353,000 total XP to reach level 80 on top of completing these tasks. Each level requirement also gives you a slew of rewards to show off your grind, on top of the other level awards you got for the previous 70 levels. To help everyone prepare, we have listed all the new level requirements, as well as what you can expect to receive for completing them. So trainers can prepare and stock up on items or Pokémon they may need to make progress easier. Note: The information below is currently based on datamines and leaks. Most of this information is likely incorrect and will be updated when the official reveal occurs. But for now, use it as a baseline. Table of contentsLevel 71 Level RequirementsLevel 72 Level RequirementsLevel 73 Level RequirementsLevel 74 Level RequirementsLevel 75 Level RequirementsLevel 76 Level RequirementsLevel 77 Level RequirementsLevel 78 Level RequirementsLevel 79 Level RequirementsLevel 80 Level RequirementsLevel 71 Level RequirementsTasksRewardsEarn 15 platinum medalsTBAPower up Legendary or Mythical Pokémon 20 timesTBAMake 999 Nice ThrowsTBACatch 100 Pokémon in a single dayTBA Completion Reward: TBA Level 72 Level RequirementsTasksRewardsEarn 20 platinum medalsTBAComplete a Route 7 days in a rowTBAUse 200 supereffective Charged AttacksTBAEarn 1,000,000 StardustTBA Completion Reward: TBA Level 73 Level RequirementsTasksRewardsEarn 25 platinum medalsTBAPurify 100 Shadow PokémonTBAPower up 3 Pokémon to their max CPTBAWin 30 RaidsTBA Completion Reward: TBA Level 74 Level RequirementsTasksRewardsEarn 30 platinum medalsTBALevel up a Max Move 20 timesTBAExplore 200 kmTBAComplete 250 Field Research tasksTBALevel 75 Level RequirementsTasksRewardsEarn 34 platinum medalsTBAMake 999 Great ThrowsTBAHatch 75 EggsTBASend 500 Gifts to friendsTBA Completion Reward: TBA Level 76 Level RequirementsTasksRewardsEarn 38 platinum medalsTBADefeat 100 Team GO Rocket GruntsTBAExplore 300 kmTBACatch 200 Pokémon in a single dayTBA Completion Reward: TBA Level 77 Level RequirementsTasksRewardsEarn 41 platinum medalsTBAWin 100 Max BattlesTBAPower up 7 Pokémon to their max CPTBAMake 10 trades with Pokémon caught at least 300 km apartTBA Completion Reward: TBA Level 78 Level RequirementsTasksRewardsEarn 44 platinum medalsTBAEarn 400 hearts with your buddyTBAExplore 400 kmTBAComplete 500 Field Research tasksTBA Completion Reward: TBA Level 79 Level RequirementsTasksRewardsEarn 47 platinum medalsTBADefeat a Team GO Rocket Leader 30 timesTBAObtain 50 Lucky Pokémon in tradesTBAHatch 100 EggsTBA Completion Reward: TBA Level 80 Level RequirementsTasksRewardsEarn 50 platinum medalsTBAWin 80 Trainer Battles in the GO Battle LeagueTBAMake 999 Excellent ThrowsTBAWin 80 RaidsTBA Completion Reward: TBA The post Pokémon Go Level 71 to 80: All Challenges, Tasks, and Rewards appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article
Blue Protocol: Star Resonance was just updated, as it seems the initial build did not actually have any anti-cheat enabled but now it does. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article
If SimCity had a child with a mid-Industrial Revolution ice age, it would probably look like Frostpunk. After launching back in 2018, it soon joined the annals of the best city-building games, balancing storytelling with the harsh brutality of life on a frozen Earth, forcing you to make tough choices and lead the last city of humanity to the best of your abilities. If that sounds enticing, and it should, Frostpunk and all its DLC just hit its lowest price ever, at a huge 89% off. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Grab brutal survival game Frostpunk at 92% off in this management sim bundle A new game "set in the Frostpunk universe" is already in the works The greatest Fallout games with all DLC can be yours for $3 each in a PC bundle View the full article
Fallout creator Tim Cain has continued his insightful video series on the development of the original Fallout game, this time focusing on lore with a number of fun reveals that have got fans talking. Cain, the creator, producer, lead programmer and one of the main designers of Interplay’s 1997 post-apocalyptic role-playing game Fallout, released a video in which he talked about lore in the original Fallout that the team assumed was true but was never directly stated. This “non-expository Fallout lore,” as Cain calls it, is lore from the first game only, lore the original team discussed among themselves and decided was true, and then made the game based on that. “None of this was written down” by any one of the 15 core people who developed Fallout, Cain said. As a result, it is “not canon.” “This is stuff that was true in the first game, but because it doesn’t exist in a design document anywhere, Bethesda is free to invent different reasons that the things that are in the game exist,” he prefaced. “I’m not canon, not anymore. You’re not canon just because you played the game or like it a lot. Bethesda’s canon. You don't have to like that. You don’t have to like that water’s wet. I don't like that white chocolate exists, but it does. So there we go.” Why China nuked first Top of the list is the explanation for why China nuked first. This is in reference to Fallout’s Great War, which took place on October 23, 2077 (Bethesda now hosts showcases on October 23 each year, aka Fallout Day). Cain had already said China nuked first in a previous video, putting to bed decades of fan speculation. But in this latest video he explained why China nuked first. “This is not canon, but let me explain what I mean and why we thought that,” he began. “In the original game we had established FEV (Forced Evolutionary Virus) and that the U.S. was doing bio-weapons research. We weren’t supposed to. In fact, we had signed a UN treaty saying we wouldn’t do that, and I think you can find that out in the game. China discovered that we were doing it. How did they discover it? Espionage. But they found out we were doing it, and we went, ‘Oops our bad, we won’t do that anymore.’ But we kept right on doing it, we just moved the research to another base. It was the hidden base that’s in The Glow, where you eventually discover ZAX the supercomputer. “When China found out we were still doing it and we had just moved, well they had already tried diplomacy and espionage and none of that was working, so they just nuked us. They nuked us. We nuked back. Other countries nuked because all we saw, all anyone saw, were missiles flying. “China technically started it by firing the first nuke. But you could argue that the U.S. technically started it by doing ******** bioweapons research and then lying about it multiple times.” And what of Russia’s involvement? Cain went on to explain that the development team assumed Russia in the ‘90s (and therefore in the ‘50s projected future in the Fallout alternate history timeline), had broken up to become “a bunch of little bickering states.” The EU had unified, and the U.S. had annexed Canada (a prediction not lost on Cain given current events). “But anyway, we were kind of on friendly relations with Russia in the Fallout universe,” he added. This is why one of Fallout’s pre-made characters is Natalia, the granddaughter of a Russian diplomat. “Obviously, we were friendly enough with the Russian embassy that they got some of their diplomats into one of the vaults, the vault you're in,” Cain explained. “So, obviously, this wasn't a country we were at odds with.” The Vault 13 lottery So, that explains the unspoken lore behind why China nuked first. But Cain had a lot more lore to reveal. It turns out that the three pre-made characters the player could choose from were in fact selected via a lottery by the inhabitants of Vault 13 — a lottery that was rigged. “We had three pre-made characters in Fallout,” he went on. “There was Max, who was the big dumb ****** combat guy. There was Natalia, who was the dextrous thief kind of character. And then there was Albert, who was the smooth talking manipulator talkie guy. “If you look at those three characters, you may go, that's the best the vault had to offer? No, the vault did a lottery. They basically drew straws. They knew they had to send someone out. So they had people draw straws and whoever drew the short straw had to go out into what was presumed to be a radioactive wilderness that would kill them. But hopefully they would get back before the radiation killed them with a water chip replacement. “This was just assumed. The pre-made characters support it. I believe there's some dialogue here and here that kind of supports that no-one chose, especially if you play Max, no-one chose for that character to go. That wasn't their first choice. That wasn't even their best choice. That wouldn't even been anywhere near the choice. “Except one thing we also talked about and laughed about as also possibly being true was that the entire lottery for who leaves the vault was rigged. And that would explain those three characters. You have this guy who's an ******. Why would you send him out? Well, gets him out of the genepool. Then you have Natalia who's stealing everything. Probably had ******* people off because she had stolen other people's stuff. She's gone. Albert was always trying to manipulate everybody because he's such a smooth talker. He's gone. So getting rid of these characters was probably high on someone's list.” Cain said that all this is hinted at by the corpse wearing a vault suit you see as soon as you step out of Vault 13 at the beginning of the game. “They'd already sent someone out,” he said. “That also explains why they didn't have much to give you. They probably had supplies for doing external exploration, maybe a radiation suit, maybe better weapons or whatever. But you're not the first person they sent out. You have evidence of that the moment you step out. Whoever that guy was, I think we said his name was Ed, which means you knew him or you knew his name. Ed stepped out. Ed got attacked by rats. Ed died. All that's left is Ed's bones and a raggedy old vault suit. So, there's evidence that yes, there was a lottery for and and you were not the first person sent out.” Vault suits are 3D printed from a machine Here’s a fun bit of ‘Non-Expository Fallout Lore’: the series’ iconic vault suits aren’t made of cloth, nor were they sewn together. There wasn't a warehouse room full of them somewhere in the vault. Rather, vault suits were extruded. Yes, that’s right... the vaults had a machine that 3D prints the vault suits. “I know this was something we had because one of the vault ideas we had was the vault suit extruder was broken, so everybody in the vault was naked,” Cain revealed. “The reason, though, we wanted to do an extruder was first of all, that vault suit was skin tight. It was obviously highly tailored, but if this vault was supposed to be closed for hundreds of years, there's no way you could have enough suits in there for everybody because there'd be multi-generations. Suits would wear out. People come in all shapes and sizes, especially if you throw kids into the mix. So, there was no way they could possibly stock vault suits for everybody, or even cloth to make all those suits for everybody. “So, we just said, ‘Oh, there was some kind of extruder.’ You know, you typed in measurements, you stood in front of a scanner or whatever, and then a vault suit expressly for you was extruded. And that's why they were all skin tight. That's why they all had the numbers on the back. That way they didn't have to make vault suits, a different vault suit for every single vault. When it extruded, it added your vault's number on the back. “So, we used to always assume that was going to be true, but then it never ever came up again. But if you do look in vaults, you never find, at least not in the base game, you never find boxes and boxes of vault suits.” What the hell is Harold? Next up is fan-favorite Fallout character Harold, a presumed unique FEV mutant who was once a sort of ghoul, but had become a sort of tree thing. Harold appeared in Fallout, Fallout 2, and even Bethesda’s Fallout 3, where he is worshipped as a deity at Oasis, but we're never quite sure what he is or why he is in the state he's in. According to Cain, all the developers were trying to do with Harold was create a character who clearly wasn’t normal, someone who hinted at what might be possible beyond the confines of Fallout’s Southern California setting and all the horrible things that people were exposed to beyond the realm of the first game. “People called him Harold the ghoul in the hub, but we didn't necessarily agree that he was a ghoul,” Cain said. “I kind of thought he was a ghoul. Other people on the team thought he was FEV. Other people thought he was some mix of ghoul and FEV, even though FEV wasn't supposed to work right on people who had been radiated. “Harold was weird. That's what we all agreed on. Harold was our example of, there's some weird stuff out here. You want to see an example of that? Look at Harold. We don't know what Harold is. Harold doesn't know what he is.” Why Sugar Bombs? And finally, Sugar Bombs. For the uninitiated, Sugar Bombs are the Fallout franchise’s sugar-drenched cereal aimed at children despite being entirely unhealthy for anyone. Sugar Bombs didn’t actually make it into Interplay’s Fallout games, but were picked up by Bethesda for Fallout 3 and beyond (we even see them in the Amazon Fallout TV show). But Cain remembered how he came up with the idea, pointing to his obsession with the daily American comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. “We designed Sugar Bombs,” Cain said. “I found notes where I mentioned Sugar Bombs. I was a huge Calvin and Hobbes fan. I had the box set. It was designed, but it was never added. We talked about it. We never added it. And it was purely I loved Calvin and Hobbes, so of course Sugar Bombs are in one of my games.” So there you have it: why China nuked first; the lottery that decided who left Vault 13; vault suits being extruded; Harold not being a typical… anything; and the origin of Sugar Bombs. That’s quite the treasure trove from Cain, a collection of things that were a part of the original Fallout but were never described directly. But remember, none of this is canon. As Cain says: “This is just for fun.” 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
The lead designer of Skyrim is "eternally shocked" at not just the RPG's success, but its enduring appeal, suggesting it's the game's open world and "quirkiness" that keeps players coming back 14 years after its debut. Skyrim released way back in 2011. An open-world RPG, it puts players on the precipice of determining the future of Skyrim as the Empire waits for the prophesied Dragonborn to come, a hero born with the power of The Voice, and the only one who can stand among the dragons. IGN's Skyrim review returned a 9.5/10. We called it "a rare kind of intensely personal, deeply rewarding experience, and one of the best role-playing games yet produced." Now, speaking on the FRVR Podcast, lead designer Bruce Nesmith offered his thoughts on why so many people continue to play and enjoy Skyrim so many years later. "I think Skyrim did the open world in a way that nobody had ever done before and very few people have really tried to do since," he said, adding: "By all rights, a year later, some other game should have eclipsed it. And then two years later, three years later, five, 10. It’s like ‘what the hell is going on here?’ "Todd [Howard, Bethesda boss] would even go to these meetings and show us information, which I can’t give you the details of, about how many people are playing it. It’s like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me?’ Seriously, still, 10 years later." Exploring the game's legacy and lasting community, he added: "I think Skyrim did the open world in a way that nobody had ever done before and very few people have really tried to do since. And one of those things that we accepted, which a lot of developers struggle to accept, is that this means you’re going to have quirkiness. You’re going to have weird stuff happen. And if you say that’s okay, you can get this diamond." Perhaps unsurprisingly then, Nesmith believes that if a developer tries to "smooth everything out" to prevent that aforementioned "weird stuff," "you’re going to lose some of that magic" that makes some games so special. "And we didn’t make that as a conscious decision," he added. "It just sort of happened. You know, we kind of prioritize functionally and 'well, okay, that bug’s acceptable. This behaviour is less than ideal, but we can live with it because look what we’re getting over here.' “We didn’t put anything off limits. We didn’t try to manage the experience. We let it be your experience, it was a player-driven experience. And very, very few games have mastered that because open world is now almost a cliché statement... ‘Oh yeah, we have open world.’" Bethesda is of course working on its hotly anticipated Skyrim follow-up, The Elder Scrolls 6. Bethesda has said next to nothing about it, but we do know it will include a character designed in memory of a much-missed fan, after a remarkable charity campaign that raised more than $85,000 for Make-A-Wish. Meanwhile, one of Skyrim's best-known players, Shirley Curry — known to fans as Skyrim Grandma — recently announced her retirement from uploading The Elder Scrolls videos ahead of her 90th birthday. Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky. View the full article
Battlefield boss Vince Zampella has said that Activision's best-selling Call of Duty franchise only exists "because EA were dicks." It's an eye-opening but typically frank statement from Zampella, who is of course now an EA employee himself once again. Over his career, Zampella has ping-ponged between rival publishers EA and Activision, working first on EA's Medal of Honor series, then founding Infinity Ward and helping create Call of Duty — specifically so it could be Activision's Medal of Honor "killer" — before returning back to EA after helping create Titanfall and Apex Legends at Respawn. "The only reason that Call of Duty exists is because EA were dicks," Zampella told GQ, reflecting on his career. Zampella initially worked on EA's Medal of Honor franchise from 1999 to 2002, and served as lead designer on the celebrated Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. After this, Zampella co-founded his own studio, Infinity Ward, with initial plans to continue working on Medal of Honor left up in the air when EA decided to take development of its franchise in-house. "For legal reasons I will say things didn't go as planned with it," former Infinity Ward artist Justin Thomas previously revealed of the situation in an MCV interview, back in 2013. "We were left in a situation of unpaid milestones that were delivered and no finances to operate on." It was at this point that Activision answered a last-ditch call by Infinity Ward, intrigued by the potential of working with the team behind Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, and driven by the idea of creating a new franchise that could topple EA's own. The rest, as they say, is history. Call of Duty became a behemoth, though Activision and Zampella parted ways following the launch of 2009's Modern Warfare 2, prompting a bitter legal feud over unpaid bonuses and royalties that dragged on for years (until Zampella ultimately earned a sizable payout). That situation then led to Zampella co-founding Titanfall and Apex Legends developer Respawn, which EA partnered with then ultimately acquired. Zampella was then repeatedly promoted to look after more of EA's gaming portfolio, ultimately becoming boss of the embattled Battlefield franchise, turning its fortunes around to deliver this month's successful release of Battlefield 6. GQ's interview also includes a snippet on the now-distant plans for Alien director Ridley Scott to direct a Call of Duty movie, something which ultimately never came to pass. "Ridley Scott came in one time – who's a hero of mine – but he's not connected to games, so he'd ask these questions like, ‘How do you script what happens?’" Zampella recalled. "There was a bit of a talk around him doing a Call of Duty film, but we never really took it seriously. Video game movies at that point were never really that good." Battlefield 6 launched last week and earned EA its best-ever game launch on Steam, beating that of Apex Legends. For more, check out IGN's Battlefield 6 multiplayer review in progress, our Battlefield 6 campaign review, and what to expect from Battlefield Season 1. Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for EA Entertainment. Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social View the full article
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I'm not sure Simon feels the same wayView the full article