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Anti-MTX "Experiments" will start next month with Treasure Hunter being disabledView the full article

What are all the Borderlands 4 legendary weapons so far? Fortunately, Gearbox has confirmed that legendaries are rarer and harder to obtain in Borderlands 4, making them feel well earned when encountering a tough boss fight or randomly stumbling on them thanks to sheer luck. Both Borderlands 2 and Borderlands 3 had a tricky time with finding the right balance when it came to legendary loot, and although there are some returning fan favorites, it's the new inventions we're most looking forward to getting our hands on in Borderlands 4. As the Borderlands 4 release date approaches, we've already seen some of the legendary weapons coming to the looter shooter. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Borderlands 4 skill trees are so big they eclipse the size of BL2 and 3 combined Borderlands 4 system requirements Borderlands 4 pre-orders confirm it isn't an $80 game after all View the full article

Crisol: Theater of Idols aims to blend Bioshock with Resident Evil-style gameplay in a horror FPS influenced by classical Spanish folklore. I crawled through abandoned streets, popping zombie-like enemies with guns that used my blood for bullets, ducking in and out of derelict storefronts looking for the ever-reliable genre staple bolt cutters, and dodging powerful enemies along the way. While Crisol showed more to set itself apart from stalwarts in the genre during my hands-on demo, its weapon designs and distinct aesthetic in particular left me interested to see more. Exploring a horrific, reimagined version of Spain called Hispania, Crisol’s world and character designs blew me away – especially the guns. Here, your blood is your health and your ammo, so reloading each gun triggers a spine-tingling reaction like when your handgun’s handle bristles with little needles, drawing blood from your hand, or when needles stick out of the base of your double-barrelled shotgun’s barrel, waiting to trade health for survival. This push-and-pull forces you to keep tabs on both to keep yourself from wasting either and landing yourself in a sticky situation. You can pick up healing syringes to help restore ammo, but Crisol also encourages you to drain the blood from dead bystanders, killed by your mysterious foes, to heal and reload. Crisol also encourages you to drain the blood from dead bystanders, killed by your mysterious foes, to heal and reload. The gun designs themselves are cool too; gilded with red accents, they add a gothic pop of color that stands out, but doesn’t clash with the environments I saw in my short demo. The environments, on the other hand, didn’t have nearly as much character to them. While the trailer promises some pretty cool-looking set pieces, the dark streets of Hispania I wandered didn’t offer much deviation from the norm. That’s surprising considering just how well-designed the enemies and guns are. Crisol doesn’t waste any time throwing you into the action. Within seconds of picking up the controller, lurching, puppet-like enemies stumbled towards me. Low light revealed unsettling details in their mask-like faces as they approached, eventually collapsing under my gunfire. Each enemy I encountered (or at least each one I was able to kill) reacted based on which part of their body I shot; crawling headless after I kneecapped them, and popped their heads. Both of the blood-soaked firearms I tried have an older feel to them, more like the oomph of the original BioShock than the punchy crack of the guns found in most contemporary shooters, though Crisol’s trailer (and weapon wheel) promise a seemingly diverse arsenal of sanguine shooters. After making my way through a few city blocks, absorbing blood from dead bodies and popping zombie-like critters blocking my path, I came across a locked gate with a winch. Locked by a padlock with a chain – classic! Like clockwork, I set out looking for the bolt cutters I’d found in half a dozen survival horror games before. But before I could start looking, some kind of gigantic, arcane cyborg – a towering mass of blood-soaked bones and clanking machinery with a mask of a woman’s face crying blood – picked me up and tossed me around. The beast chased me down the street to the window (conveniently) of the hardware store, but couldn’t touch me once I dove in. Safe for now, I grabbed the bolt cutters from the back storeroom and every coin in the cash register and set out to snip the chains that kept me from safety. But the beast was back at my heels practically the moment my feet hit the dirt road, hurling threats my way as it hunted me down. I hope Crisol doubles down on these two different kinds of survival horror to produce layers of tension between the blood-for-bullets combat and high-stakes stealth in the full release. Crouching to minimize the noise I made, I found a shortcut through a fish store, making a bunch of noise at one end before cutting through the store, snipping the chains, and cranking away at the winch to open the gate in front of me. I heard the creature thudding towards me, and just pushed away in the quick-time event faster, hoping I could squeeze through instead of running back to cover. The gate opened with just enough time to spare; I rushed out of the courtyard to safety, the gate snapping shut before my assailant could catch me. This puzzle-like stealth section, though very simple, added a lot to my demo. I can see the ways this could evolve into a tense blend of stealth and shooting if I eventually need to dodge ******* enemies at the same time as popping the smaller, stoppable ones with my sanguine arsenal. I hope Crisol doubles down on these two different kinds of survival horror to produce layers of tension between the blood-for-bullets combat and high-stakes stealth in the full release. While I enjoyed my demo well enough, I felt like I hadn’t seen anything new beyond the Bloodborne-like, health-for-ammo trade-off and some really cool weapon and enemy designs. I’m sure puzzles and progression will begin to differentiate themselves from Resident Evil as the game gets more complex. But I didn’t get to see much of that in this demo, which was clearly very early in the campaign. Still, I have a feeling Crisol: Theater of Idols will be worth checking out for its distinct take on survival horror with a Spanish flair. View the full article

Spartan Survivors is coming to mobile and Xbox later this year, and PS5 in the futureView the full article

The Lost Ark June update is here, and it introduces a new location to the free-to-play Amazon Games MMORPG, along with some extra story following on from its newest raid. The patch also makes several previous raids easier, with difficulty nerfs and the introduction of a resurrection system, and introduces a style book that helps you manage your character customization. It's the latest in an ongoing series of changes as Amazon attempts to spice things up in an attempt to win players back. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: The best MMO and MMORPGs to play in 2025 Lost Ark Abyssal Assault takes the free MMORPG to an all-new region Free MMORPG Lost Ark is getting a new way to play as Amazon cuts back the grind View the full article

A real-world ad blocker for Snap Spectacles raises interesting questions about what shipping AR glasses will allow. On the internet, ads are shown to enable companies to offer products and services for free. Much of UploadVR's revenue, for example, comes from the programatic ads you see on this page unless you're a member. If everyone used an online ad blocker, services like ours would have to charge, and most likely go bust. In the physical world though, ad spaces like billboards are often sold by already profitable businesses and public services charging money. Further, these ads are visible in public spaces. One day, could these physical ads be blocked? Software developer Stijn Spanhove used the newest SDK features of Snap OS to build a prototype of this for Snap Spectacles. 0:00 /0:29 1× If you're unfamiliar, Snap Spectacles are a bulky AR glasses development kit available to rent for $99/month. They run Snap OS, the company's made-for-AR operating system, and developers build apps called Lenses for them using Lens Studio or WebXR. Spanhove built the real-world ad blocker using the new Depth Module API of Snap OS, integrated with the vision capability of Google's Gemini AI via the cloud. The Depth Module API caches depth frames, meaning that coordinate results from cloud vision models can be mapped to positions in 3D space. This enables detecting and labeling real-world objects, for example. Or, in the case of Spanhove's project, projecting a red rectangle onto real-world ads. Snap Spectacles Are $100/Month AR Glasses For DevelopersThe company behind Snapchat just unveiled upgraded AR Spectacles, available to developers for $99/month.UploadVRDavid Heaney However, while the software approach used for Spanhove's real-world ad blocker is sound, two fundamental hardware limitations mean it wouldn't be a practical way to avoid seeing ads in your reality. Firstly, the imagery rendered by see-through transparent AR systems like Spectacles isn't fully opaque. Thus, as you can see in the demo clip, the ads are still visible through the blocking rectangle. The other problem is that see-through transparent AR systems have a very limited field of view. In the case of Spectacles, just 46 degrees diagonal. So ads are only "blocked" whenever you're looking directly at them, and you'll still see them when you're not. Snap Says It Will Launch Consumer AR Glasses, Called Specs, In 2026The company behind Snapchat says it will launch fully standalone consumer AR glasses, called Specs, next year.UploadVRDavid Heaney Earlier this month, Snap announced that it plans to launch "much smaller" AR glasses as a consumer product, called Specs, in 2026. While it will have a slightly wider field of view, it will almost certainly be in the same ballpark, and thus its prospects for practical real-world ad blocking will be much the same. View the full article

Summer Preview 2025 | Just thinking about Sleep Awake makes me tiredView the full article

A work-in-progress version of Dune: Awakening's first big post-release patch is now testable on Steam, so you can hop in and check out the changes Funcom's making early doors before it rolls out for everyone in a few weeks. A bunch of the changes the game's devs teased or confirmed during their recent AMA and letter to players haven't found their way into the patch, or at least this early version. Though, you'll at least be able to try out PvE in the Deep Desert, something folks have demanded en-masse. Read more View the full article

s you may have discovered earlier while reading about its modkit requiring almost a full terabyte of space, Stalker 2 got a pretty gargantuan patch today. GSC is calling it the "Guns and Looting update," which I feel undersells it a little, and the rest of us are calling it patch 1.5. It's a doozy, folks... Read more.View the full article

IO Interactive has revealed that the studio's new James Bond game, 007 First Light, will receive post-release content updates in the same vein as Hitman: World of Assassination. 007 First Light is a single-player reimagining of James Bond's origin story, first announced just a few weeks ago during PlayStation's State of Play presentation. It will be available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC in 2026. View the full article

Team Fortress 2's Mann vs Machine mode will soon receive a "much-needed update", developers Valve have announced in a whimsical blog post. Both the blog post and the venerable bot-fighting mode itself are a throwback to a kinder age, before genAI started eating everybody's lunch together with imagery, sounds and written descriptions of everybody eating their lunch. Read more View the full article

Yesterday’s launch of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5050 laptop GPU was quiet, yet nonetheless featured a surprise: there’s also a desktop version of the RTX 5050, set to release (exclusively in third-party garb – there’s no Founders Edition) in "the second half" of July. Quite the turnaround for the non-laptop XX50 lineage, which was widely assumed extinguished following 2022’s RTX 3050. Read more View the full article

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl has a sizeable game update that promises to finally get the game's A-Life system working as intended. For those just joining us - perhaps because you only popped into existence the second you entered my field of view - A-Life is developer GSC Game World's noughties-era buzzword for the pervasive simulation of NPCs throughout the open world, leading to unpredictable interactions and conflicts and the general sense that things are happening without your input. Read more View the full article

The enigma of when we'll get to play Hollow Knight Silksong might feel agonizing, but to me it's an opportunity. There are some incredibly strong 2D Metroidvania games that have arrived in recent years, and the next one I have my eye on is Fallen Tear: The Ascension. Built by Winter Crew Studios and published by CMD Studios, it features a JRPG-style party system that delivers combat assists, a vast, sprawling world to explore, and even a soundtrack featuring the work of Dark Souls and Golden Sun composer Motoi Sakuraba. In even better news, there's a new demo you can try now. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Beautiful new 2D Metroidvania Fallen Tear The Ascension sets release window JRPG Metroidvania Fallen Tear smashes crowdfunding target in six hours View the full article

Opinion | Dawnwalker might fix the most boring thing about vampire RPGs: morality in immortalityView the full article

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 fans should eagerly circle an upcoming August date on their calendars, as there is an exciting new release for the dark, action-adventure title. Hellblade 2 was first launched in 2024, developed by Ninja Theory and published by Xbox Game Studios, and made great use of the higher budget and Unreal Engine 5 visuals to build a spectacular sequel to its 2017 predecessor, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. View the full article

It's still a long way out until the release of IO Interactive's 007 First Light, but the developers have already showcased plenty of exciting gameplay aspects to look forward to. From exhilarating car chases, stealthy espionage, and bombastic action sequences, First Light looks like it will be a more than faithful adaptation of the film series after a decade-long absence since the last gaming entry in the franchise. While I'm still more than optimistic about 007 First Light's release, I can't help but be a little disappointed by the complete lack of multiplayer for the upcoming spy thriller. View the full article

Maybe costume DLC to make him become Robbie Williams instead of just looking like himView the full article

It's a big day in the Zone: Stalker 2's mega 1.5 patch is here, bringing with it a suite of improvements to the game's ever-so-slightly busted and dearly missed A-Life system, a load of fixes, and some new content... Read more.View the full article

Hang on, soldierView the full article

With pushbacks, missed deadlines, and a long ******* of radio silence, more than a few questions loom large over Ark 2. An ambitious sequel to Ark Survival Evolved and its enhanced remaster, Survival Ascended, its most recent release window came and went without any new information emerging. However, speaking exclusively to PCGamesN, Studio Wildcard has revealed what's been going on with Ark 2, its current status, and a rough timeline for when it hopes to get it in your hands. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Ark 2 release date estimate, trailers, gameplay, and latest news Ark Survival Ascended's Lost Colony expansion "leads into the events of Ark 2" So, erm, where the heck is Ark 2? View the full article

The upcoming Everybody’s Golf reboot has been given a release date, as well as confirmation that Pac-Man will star as a playable character. Everybody’s Golf Hot Shots will be released on September 5, and will be available on PS5, Switch and PC. According to a new trailer, the game will feature “the largest roster in the series”, with more than 25 characters, and will include courses from 10 different regions. Read More... View the full article

Sony has announced the PlayStation Plus monthly lineup of games for July 2025, which also marks 15 years of PS Plus. PS Plus launched on June 29, 2010. In a post on the PlayStation Blog, Sony Interactive Entertainment's VP, Global Services, Global Sales and Business Operations, Nick Maguire, thanks fans for their support of PlayStation during this time. “From all of us at Sony Interactive Entertainment, we want to send out a huge thank you to all our fans for your support throughout these years,” Maguire said. “We hope you can join us for a number of celebratory activities we have planned this summer to commemorate this incredible milestone. But first, here are the July Monthly Games for PlayStation Plus members available July 1 until August 4.” As such, PS Plus has some big hitters in July. Blizzard’s Diablo 4, SNK’s King of Fighters 15, and Don't Nod’s Jusant are all available to PS Plus members from July 1 to August 4. It’s worth noting the PlayStation Plus launch of KOF15 includes the “Classic Leona” DLC costume, which lets you change Leona’s costume to her KoF ‘96 look. PlayStation Plus Monthly Games July 2025:Diablo IV | PS5, PS4 The King of Fighters XV | PS5, PS4 Jusant | PS5 PlayStation Plus 15th Anniversary Celebrations kick off today, June 25, with a trial of WWE 2K25 for PS Plus Premium members. A trial for Monster Hunter Wilds goes live on June 30. “In the last 15 years we have been focused on providing access to quality game experiences through PlayStation Plus, along with key benefits such as exclusive PlayStation Store discounts, online multiplayer access, Cloud Game Streaming and more,” Maguire continued. “Since the launch of our Monthly Games benefit (previously known as Instant Game Collection), more than 500 monthly games have been offered. “PlayStation Plus Game Catalog for Extra and Premium/Deluxe members also launched three years ago with the reintroduction of PlayStation Plus. Some of the recent top games played based on playtime hours (April 1- May 28, 2025) include Ghost of Tsushima, God of War Ragnarök, Grand Theft Auto V, Hogwarts Legacy, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and The Last of Us Part I. “Thank you again for coming on our PlayStation Plus journey. There’s plenty more to look forward to, including many more great games to come.” 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

Netflix is delisting over 20 mobile games in July, including fan-favorite titles Hades and Monument Valley. In the latest clue that Netflix's gaming division could be troubled, Engadget spotted that 22 games were set to exit the subscription service. It's not clear why, or if they will be replaced with alternative titles, but What's On Netflix cites the removals trim the streaming giant's gaming catalog by almost 20%. Most games will disappear on or around July 15, although dates may vary. It's unclear if they'll be made available for mobile players via other services or stores. Games leaving Netflix Games on July 1:BattleshipBraid, Anniversary EditionCarmen SandiegoCoComelon: Play with JJDeath’s DoorDiner Out: Merge CafeDumb Ways to DieGhost DetectiveHades (Note: Only available on iOS devices)Katana ZeroLego Legacy: Heroes UnboxedLudo KingMonument ValleyMonument Valley 2Monument Valley 3Rainbow Six: SMOLRaji: An Ancient EpicSpongeBob: Bubble Pop F.U.N.TED TumblewordsThe Case of the Golden IdolThe Rise of the Golden IdolVineyard Valley It follows a recent interview with Netflix's president of games, Alain Tascan, in which he said he expects future generations to rely less on gaming consoles as major players like Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo push forward with new hardware. Back in October 2024, Netflix shut down its AAA gaming studio set up in Southern California, leading to the exit of a number of high-profile developers like former Overwatch executive producer Chacko Sonn, veteran Halo creative director Joseph Staten, and art director Rafael Grassetti, sparking questions about its gaming ambitions. The closure came mere months after Netflix said Netflix Games was doing better than ever, but that might not have been saying much, given past data on the streaming service's gaming offering. Netflix said gaming engagement "tripled" last year, in part due to the release of The Grand Theft Auto Trilogy on the service near the end of 2023. Netflix called the GTA Trilogy its "most successful launch to date in terms of installs and engagement, with some consumers clearly signing up simply to play these games." 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

Dinosaurs belong in tabletop wargames - just put any model dinosaur side by side with a 28mm scale miniature and you'll see how perfect they are together. And there's no shortage of miniature wargames with dinosaurs in them, whether that's fantasy dinos in Warhammer, sci-fi dinos in The Drowned Earth, or real dinosaurs in various indie games going all the way back to the 70s. Now ****** Site Studios is filling an evolutionary niche that has been empty until now: We Played God is a dinosaur miniature game with the vibes of a Jurassic Park-style disaster movie. Read the rest of the story... View the full article