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Battle passes have a lot of problems when it comes to FOMO, but one of the worst ones is that they disappear after a season is over, locking you out of all the rewards you missed. It should be more common for games to let you keep them after they expire, or, better yet: not have them expire at all... Read more.View the full article

D4 Enterprise has been gradually releasing ports of the game from multiple versions, ranging from PC-8801 to MSX2. View the full article

There’s something uniquely satisfying about putting down roots in a sleepy town in games like Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, or Disney Dreamlight Valley. Palia evolves this tradition to great effect, injecting large-scale multiplayer into that tried-and-true formula. After 50 hours of chopping down trees, hunting woodland critters, decorating my home, and hanging out with my fellow Palians, I’ve had a fantastic time catching up on all I’ve missed since the early days of the beta. I still have to dive into the new content and loads of updates that arrived today with its console launch and first major expansion, Elderwood, but I am eager to do so ahead of my final review.= Palia is a cozy life sim with one major tweak: you’re in an online world that occasionally compels you to come out of your shell and interact with other humans – a sometimes Herculean task for the introverts often drawn to this genre. As you explore, you’ll encounter others out in the shared world going about their business, and are encouraged (or sometimes required) to cooperate with them. For example, you’ll get a buff for fishing with others and will find magical trees that can only be chopped down with the help of one or more friends. This has led to a community that’s astoundingly positive and helpful, with the vast majority of the public chat being PSAs from players who have found a valuable resource they’d like to share with strangers, then waiting for minutes on end for everyone to assemble before collecting it as a group. I spend a lot of time playing multiplayer games defined by the community’s potent toxicity and savage greed, so this kind of culture has truly been a shock to my system that I’m still adjusting to. Although multiplayer is its signature twist, you can still do the vast majority of Palia’s activities by yourself. There’s also just a whole heck of a lot for you to do however you decide to tackle it, all in service of building up your home and improving your relationships with the NPC townsfolk. The usual zen-like staples like cooking and catching bugs are all here and actually quite good – the fishing minigame, for example, is less mindless than you usually find in the genre, having you tug and pull on your rod as the fish leaps into the air and puts up a fight. There’s even a few less common options like hunting, where you’ll pick off poor critters who burrow into the ground and leap into trees as you pepper them with arrows. While an absence of stress is an intentional focus of Palia’s design, it sometimes tries a bit too hard to accomplish that goal, like in how your arrows will magically home in on your target incredibly aggressive, sometimes turning corners to aid your aim. I’m all for a laid back experience, but it can be a bit obnoxious when you’re trying to line up a shot and the magnetism training wheels curve your arrow toward a different creature altogether, frustrating what’s supposed to be a chill activity. Palia has a surprisingly full-featured main story as well. It has you exploring ancient ruins to uncover the truth about a world which was once populated by humans who are curiously gone now, and the dark history of magic that seemingly caused the collapse of society. This adventure is much more light-hearted than that might sound though, and you’re mostly just given opportunities to learn about the world and hang out with the characters who accompany you on quests while you platform around and solve simple puzzles. Per Palia’s adherence to cozy virtues, none of this is particularly demanding, and the mainline quests can be completed in a matter of hours if you focus on them, but I enjoyed diving just a tad deeper into the world and the break from grinding for iron ore to craft the next piece of furniture I just couldn’t live without. The story was quite incomplete ahead of the Elderwood expansion though, so I’m intrigued to see where it picks up after that abrupt end. Palia has one of the better home building systems I’ve seen. Then there’s other minigames that further mix things up, like a hotpot-themed card game I spent way too much time playing, or a surprisingly intricate platforming puzzle that took me hours to master. Sometimes these experiments exceed Palia’s grasp, like the platforming puzzles in particular, which are held back by clunky controls that don’t seem like they were designed with precision in mind. Climbing can be a quite irritating experience as your character will let go of surfaces inconsistently, sending you plummeting to your death. Thankfully the stakes in taking these spills are always very low, so there’s not much to lose aside from a bit of your time wasted, but it can definitely make some of the quests feel a bit tacked on. Other times, you’ll find yourself doing a sliding picture puzzle and think “y’know, this is pretty nice,” so I mostly found myself happy they took these shots nonetheless. Of course, the purpose behind all these various undertakings is to gain as much gold as you can to upgrade and decorate your home, and Palia has one of the better home building systems I’ve seen. Rather than giving you no control over the blueprint of your house like in Animal Crossing or Disney Dreamlight Valley, or making you monkey around with a building mode that has you placing individual walls like The Sims, Palia favors a modular system: You unlock schematics for pieces of a home that you can freely snap onto various parts of your building, making it easy to design the general layout without having to get lost in the weeds. Then, once you’ve built your place, you can decorate it down to the most minute detail, dragging furniture, dolls, and cups around on a grid to make it just so. I could probably spend dozens of hours on this part of Palia alone, were it not for my insatiable need for cold hard cash to fund my homestead expansion. But that desire to make your place exactly as awesome as you want it to be is a serious motivator that sent me out in search of lumber and iron ore time and time again. A Switch in the System In playing Palia across all of the platforms it was available on ahead of this review, I noticed the Nintendo Switch version performed significantly worse than PC. I know, I know – the sky is blue, and the ocean is wet. But with constant texture pop-ins, incredibly long load times, and more, it got to the point where if I were to review this life sim on the Switch alone, it would very likely warrant a separate review and yield a different score. For that reason, I’ll be focusing on the platforms I spend most of my time with Palia so far, which has mostly been PC, and quite recently, the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. Just be advised that if you plan on playing on the Switch, it can make for a pretty rocky time. [/url] Those resource grinds each have their own progression systems as well, as you level up by repeatedly going out into the world and bringing back your haul of raw materials and collectibles to sell. I played dozens of hours of Palia as part of an early preview way back before it was even in its current open beta (and had my save file from that time tragically deleted), and the biggest change has been that its progression systems for these activities are much more streamlined and feel less grindy. Now, as you plant trees and craft furniture, you’ll unlock new equipment like a loom for creating fabric or a furnace for creating glass. You’ll also get better tools to perform cozy chores with, like a hoe that lets you till land faster or a bow and arrows that will let you take down prey in fewer shots, each of which feels like a handy upgrade that shows up at exactly the right moment you start feeling a need for it. The timegating that sometimes boxes you out of marathoning through everything in other life sims is mercifully absent here for the most part, so you can move as fast or as slow as you care to. The other major pursuit in Palia is in getting to know and develop relationships with its 25 NPC residents, most of whom are really well-written and have a lot more to them than meets the eye upon first glance. I quite enjoyed hanging out with the sarcastic and moody daughter of the mayor, Kenyatta, who worked the front desk with all the enthusiasm of April from Parks and Recreation – but after helping her down the extremely chaotic path of discovering what she’s passionate about in life, I grew to appreciate her in a less superficial way. Even characters I really didn't jive with, like the cryptid-obsessed hippy who annoyed me to no end, Elouisa, was at least entertainingly irritating and I’ve learned to appreciate how much her personality bothers me over time. (We’ve all got a friend like that, don’t we?) Most characters have an arc that takes place over several quests where they let you see a bit more of their personality as you forge a friendship. And, of course, if you’re looking for more than friendship you can partake in Palia’s quite strong dating mechanics to get yourself a girlfriend or boyfriend, or several of them – no judging here. Relationships are the one area where timegating gets in the way. Unfortunately, this is one area where timegating gets in the way of a good time, and is one of the only places Palia boxes you out. You’re only allowed to chat with each character once per in-game day (a 30-minute ******* of real time), which improves your social links a very small amount, and you can only give each character a gift once per real world day. So if you’re trying to finish a particular character’s story, you’ll have to log on with regularity and be subjected to the same rotation of brief banter before you’re able to make any real progress. This is especially painful early on when your citizenship in Kilima Village is dependent on having someone in town to vouch for you – a task that’s made impossible to do in a short span of time by timegating. When every other area of Palia lets you play to your heart’s content, it’s pretty annoying to see such an essential part of this slice of life block you from progressing at your own pace. Palia has come a long way since I played it over a year ago, but one thing that remained true ahead of this latest update is that it’s still missing quite a bit. The two maps I’ve explored are fairly small, and though they’ve got nooks and crannies to run around, you can more-or-less see most of what’s available in a few hours. Social features, though awesome when they happen, still feel quite slim for a game where the killer feature is supposed to be its online functionality, and there aren’t enough activities that encourage group play. And although there are quite a few options for decorating your house, surprisingly little of it can be interacted with once placed. You can’t lie in bed, turn on the sink, or really do much of anything with most objects, which sometimes made me feel like I was building a museum rather than a home. They did add the ability to flick the light switches on and off, which is at least something, but there’s a lot missing. These are all issues likely to be built out in the future, and I’m interested to see if Elderwood helps at all, but I’m a bit surprised that some of these aren’t farther along all the same. The other major issue with Palia has been its bugs and performance issues on PC, which have gotten remarkably better since I last played, but are still pretty common. I quite frequently see NPCs sink into the floor, sometimes altogether hidden underground to the point where I can’t interact with them, there’s a bunch of very visible pop-in that happens while you’re running around, and loading times when traveling between each section of the map feel far longer than they should. Playing on the Nintendo Switch is especially eyebrow raising, as everything looks pretty awful and runs significantly worse, to the point where I really can’t recommend it on that platform in the same way I enthusiastically would elsewhere. I’ve put quite a bit of time into Palia over the past week and have had a hard time putting it down, even as I’ve completed all the major activities available before the Elderwood expansion arrives. I’m looking forward to seeing how it runs on the PS5 and Xbox, checking out the new area and quality of life improvements, and continuing my chase for unlimited money to flex on my friends with my meticulously decorated estate. 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Although it has broken new ground for gaming, there's something delightfully old-school about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, from its turn-based combat to how non-corporate the entire project feels. From its complex and heartbreaking story to how every part of the game is dripping with style, there's a chance gaming won't see another project like Expedition 33 for a long time, but Sandfall Interactive has made up for this with plenty of side content. There's a New Game Plus too, for those who are brave enough to suffer constant heartbreak all over again. View the full article

Palworld’s next big update is just around the corner, and developer Pocketpair has already teased a bit of what’s in store. Out of everything previewed, though, fans have their eyes on one adorable little beast. Pocketpair unveiled the update, Tides of Terraria, in a Steam post today. As its name suggests, the update is part of a collaboration with sandbox game Terraria and will introduce a few new pals and islands to the Palpagos region—including a shadowy creature in a derpy dinosaur-like costume and a floating jellyfish. But one new pal in particular stole the show for fans: an absolutely adorable little seal. Image via Pocketpair In a Reddit thread posted shortly after the update’s announcement, fans honed in on this little guy, speculating what the Pal would be called and how they’d make the most of its inclusion in the creature-collector. “Oh, that's the new Pal whose job is to stand around in the base and look adorable,” one Redditor wrote. Others joked how it resembled both Seel and Spheal from Pokémon, drawing the inevitable connection between the two games. “N bout to sue over their copyright ice type seal,” another user commented. We can't say that last comment is exactly out of left field, either. Both Seel from Pokémon and this new seal creature from Palworld share a couple of key characteristics, including the ***** on its head and its goofy tongue sticking out. The Pal is also chubby like Spheal and shares a similar—though distinct—color combination, but that's where the similarities end. While many fans understandably fixated on the cuteness in this one new Pal, another feature seems to have fallen lower on players’ radars. In the same image where the seal creature appears, the player character can be spotted holding a fishing rod, reeling in a Pal that shares similar traits to an anglerfish. This mechanic may be a new way to find and catch rare Water and Ice Pals—though we won’t know for certain until Pocketpair shares more details in the weeks leading up to the update’s release. Fans of the two games can expect to learn more about the crossover in the weeks to come, according to Pocketpair. “In addition to the collaboration content, further new content will be added, including new Pals and new islands,” the post from the Palworld developer reads. “The contents of the update will be announced across official Palworld social media channels over the next few weeks, so please follow!” Image via Pocketpair The update is expected to hit live servers sometime this summer, so you won't have to wait too long before you can catch the game's newest Pals with Tides of Terraria. Which of the newly teased Pals do you like the most? More importantly, what are you going to do once you catch an adorable seal friend of your own? Let us know in the comments below! The post Pocketpair teases next major Palworld update—and one adorable new Pal has sealed the deal for players as game’s cutest creature yet appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

A specialized build can be a wonderful thing in The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered, but sometimes, what you really want is options. Enter the Battlemage, a balanced class that blends magic and melee for a rough-and-ready character who can face threats both near and far. Unlike some other Elder Scrolls games, including Skyrim, Oblivion lets you equip items in both hands in addition to your preferred magical spell or power. That means you can use either a one-handed weapon and a shield, or a two-handed weapon alongside your spells for maximum flexibility. View the full article

Crossovers! Collabs! Whatever you want to call them, love them or hate them, in an age where the biggest companies only seem interested in serving you the same thing over and over again, we're stuck with them. This time around, it's a bit of an odd one, as Palworld is getting a Terraria-themed update sometime this summer. Why Terraria? Genuinely no idea, I suppose they might appeal to a similarish kind of crowd, outside of that I haven't the foggiest. Read more View the full article

I have long suffered from RPG FOMO. It’s a debilitating condition that causes me to question every choice I make in roleplaying games. My selected spells, skills, and methods may “work” in the moment, but then I’ll hear about some incredible solution another player found that leaves me feeling inadequate... Read more.View the full article

Arrowhead Game Studios’ Helldivers 2 has quietly shifted its iconic tutorial from the familiar canyons of Mars to a new world. The training grounds are now located on a different planet as imminent danger threatens Super Earth and the entire Solar System. This change makes the introduction of Helldivers 2 different from how it used to be and tweaks the way players learn how to defend freedom across the universe. View the full article

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include: Re-enabled all players to be able to use voice commands and party chat Added more detailed options for server visibility and privacy when creating a serverThe "Use Steam Networking" checkbox has been replaced with a dropdown, allowing the creation of Local, Friends Only, Unlisted and Listed servers -- defaulting to Unlisted Using map command by default will no longer create a join-able gameFixed a ****** on exit under Linux View the full article

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is the hottest new TRPG by Sandfall Interactive. It was inspired by multiple classic JRPGs. However, despite that, it's not doing well in Japan. View the full article

The 8th-generation entries just joined the app's lineup, way later than Scarlet and Violet. View the full article

Студия Frogwares выпустила ремастер The Sinking City на PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S и PC. Детективный хоррора перенесли на современный Unreal Engine 5 с поддержкой глобального освещения Lumen, трассировкой лучей и другими особенностями движка. View the full article

At 1,400 Infamy, it's safe to say this Oblivion scoundrel is pretty infamousView the full article

Doom: The Dark Ages has 11 different weapons that you can choose from. You won't start with them all, but you will have a full arsenal before you reach the final level. Going back and replaying earlier levels, you'll also be able to use every weapon you've collected so far. On a second playthrough, you can use the better weapons in earlier levels, so it's worth knowing what your best options are. View the full article

Rumors are beginning to swirl about a remaster of Max Payne 3that's reportedly in development at Rockstar Games. Max Payne 3was originally released in 2012 by Rockstar, who took over development of the third installment after purchasing the IP from Remedy Entertainment, the maker of the first two games. While Max Payne has always existed in the shadows of Grand Theft Auto and later Red Dead Redemption, Max Payne 3 helped bring the series to an even wider audience of fans who are still passionate about the high-octane action trilogy today. As such, Remedy Entertainment is currently deep in development of ground-up remakes of the first two Max Payne titles, which have been in the works for several years. View the full article

While working on our review of Doom: The Dark Ages last week, I was unable to test the game on the Steam Deck thanks to a bug that prevented it from launching on SteamOS. I didn't consider this much of a loss at the time, since I figured the Deck's 3-year-old portable hardware was rated way below the minimum PC specs for the game, which call for ray tracing-capable graphics cards at a minimum. Over the weekend, though, Valve released a preview build of a new version of SteamOS that allows Doom: The Dark Ages to actually launch on the Steam Deck. And after a bit of testing, I found the game is surprisingly playable on Valve's portable hardware, provided you're prepared to turn down the graphics settings. With all the graphical quality sliders set to "Low" (and FSR upscaling set to "Performance"), I was able to run Doom: The Dark Ages at the system's native 1280×800 resolution and a reasonably steady 30 to 40 fps. Read full article Comments View the full article

FBC: Firebreak is a bit of a departure from Remedy's usual games, given that it's a three-player multiplayer first-person shooter. The shooty bit is nothing new, that's pretty typical of Remedy's games, even if the shooting always has something slightly off about it. It's the multiplayer angle that sets it apart, and, funnily enough, the fact that Remedy don't always make shooting feel all that great, so it's left me curious as to how it actually plays. I'm assuming some of you feel the same way, and there's some sort of good news: you can sign-up to playtest it this week. Read more View the full article

If you've been trying to play Destiny 2 lately, you've undoubtedly come across a number of errors along the way. Cacao and Currant have been particularly common as of late, but Destiny 2's Cat error is no pushover, either. Notably, Destiny 2 error code Cat is a very specific kind of error that's only ever going to pop up when your version of the game is out-of-date with the current server version. Or, at least, that's how it should work, though it's entirely possible that you may have come across Cat even when your game was fully up-to-date already! Here's everything we know about this particular error code, from Bungie's own sources. Table of contentsDestiny 2 error code Cat explainedBest way to fix Destiny 2's Cat error Screenshot by Destructoid Destiny 2 error code Cat explained As per the official Bungie error explainer, error code Cat signifies a version mismatch between your build of the game and the latest version present on the live server. Usually, when Cat pops up, you'll also see the following message: "A new update to Destiny is available. If you are seeing this error the first time you launch Destiny, please exit the game and apply the update before relaunching." Best way to fix Destiny 2's Cat error To fix Destiny 2's Cat error code, close out your game, head to your launcher of choice, and check for updates. If there is an update, install that bad boy and relaunch the game. Cat is therefore far more straightforward and less frustrating than some of the more common error codes, such as the two mentioned above or the infamous Weasel. Fixing it should, generally speaking, be as simple as turning the game off, confirming there's an update you haven't installed yet, downloading and installing the package, and then re-booting the game. One potential issue you may come across, of course, is your game management solution (i.e. Steam or the Epic Games Store on PC) might not detect the incoming update in time, thus allowing you to run the game's out-of-date client. Restarting the service in question should, however, help resolve the problem with minimum fuss, so error code Cat is once again proving to be far kinder on the end user than, say, Weasel. If you're not seeing an update but you know one exists, check your internet to ensure your connection is secure. Occasionally, the platform you're using might not update due to issues in your connection speed. The post How to fix Destiny 2 error code Cat appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article

Stardew Valley took the world by storm back in 2016, and it seems some players are still learning things about the game even after "years of playing" the acclaimed title. Stardew Valley is an open-ended farm life simulator with features like farming, fishing, and mining to restore the player character's grandfather's farm. That requires a lot of work, naturally, and despite major development ending recently for Stardew Valley, things as simple as the watering can can still hold surprises. View the full article

Upcoming first-person co-op shooter FBC: Firebreak is hosting a technical test ahead of its full launch that's accessible by invitation only. The Control spin-off has players assume the role of a Firebreaker in the Federal Bureau of Control tasked with keeping a Hiss invasion at bay. Firebreak game features plenty of Control's signature paranatural elements, including evil sticky-note enemies and deadly piggy banks. View the full article

Steam Early Access has been tough on Path of Exile 2 so far. While Grinding Gear Games' sequel has proved incredibly popular, plenty of the studio's changes have also been controversial. PoE 2's endgame has been under constant surveillance, as it evolves alongside the rest of the ARPG. Now, with update 0.2.0h, GGG is introducing some game-changing improvements, and they should be here very soon. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: The next Path of Exile 2 update brings endgame improvements and more stash tabs Path of Exile 2 release date estimate - when does PoE 2 leave early access? New Path of Exile 2 update dramatically improves your loot drops across the game View the full article

Fans have created a mod for The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remasteredthat gives all NPCs lore-accurate heights. Oblivion has always been known for its...shall we say, detailed character faces. Whether it's swollen, alien monstrosities created on its custom character screen, or the strange, exaggerated expressions made during its persuading mini-game, Oblivion has always prioritized style and expressiveness over photorealism. The same goes for its beautifully designed, often unrealistic world - but unfortunately, it doesn't extend to every detail of Oblivion's character models. View the full article

Age of Empires 4 has received a new patch as part of its seasonal structure, bringing fresh content and gameplay improvements to the real-time strategy title and its multiplayer gameplay. Since launching in 2021, the game has followed a consistent update cycle across PC and Xbox. The Age of Empires 4developer, World's Edge, has released patches ranging from minor quality-of-life changes and bug fixes to larger updates offering new features and seasonal events. View the full article

****** Mesa is mostly lauded for its reimagining of Xen, but I prefer Crowbar Collective's take on the opening Anomalous Materials section. The reception area with the chunky, CRT security monitors. The changing room with the HEV suit. That iconic little cafeteria area, where you blow up Magnusson's casserole. The original Half-Life has a distinctive, generational aesthetic - the sights and sounds of Valve's shooter are etched into the collective memory of an entire epoch of PC players. But ****** Mesa adds a new layer of detail. Once a fan-driven modding project, it's now ten years since ****** Mesa first arrived on Steam, and to celebrate, it's gotten a worthwhile update and a severe price cut. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: New tactical FPS from Half-Life ****** Mesa dev may just fix live-service fatigue Half-Life remake gets massive update and 80% off Steam ***** Half-Life remake ****** Mesa gets massive VR overhaul View the full article