Steam

Hero shooter Marvel Rivals has seen sharp declines in its player count on Steam nearly every month this year so far. Marvel Rivals hit the scene in December 2024 and was an instant success. Featuring a roster of iconic heroes from Marvel Comics, a 6v6 format, and fast-paced, exciting gameplay, Marvel Rivals managed to draw in both lapsed Overwatch 2 players and those who may have never played a hero shooter before. View the full article

When players reach rank Gold 3 in Marvel Rivals' Competitive mode in Season 2, they can coordinate with their team to ban specific characters before a match starts. The most banned heroes in Season 2 reflect what counters a team might have to prepare for if those characters are still allowed. Knowing what heroes are voted for the most in a ban pick can help teams better adjust their composition. View the full article

May Madness has landed at Fanatical, and it offers a great chance to grab some truly great games at up to 96% off their MSRP. Better still, these games also run great on the Steam Deck, and we're highlighting some of the games you need to add to your backlog. The Steam Deck still reigns as the best gaming handheld for most gamers, in large part because of the vast library of compatible games, and because it's simple to get them running. We've selected five standout games from the Fanatical May Madness ***** that run great on Valve's portable, as well as seven honorable mentions that are still well worth your time, especially at their current price. If you're keen to check out any of these games, you can follow the link to the Fanatical store, which is attached to the price of each entry. Alternatively, if you want to check out the entire catalog of May Madness ***** games, you can follow this link. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Grab Ultrakill and other Steam FPS games at huge discounts in new Fanatical ***** Survival horror Silent Hill 2 remake has dropped to its lowest price yet Don't miss your chance to get Clair Obscur Expedition 33 for just $8 View the full article

An outstanding Marvel Rivals fan concept art for an Invisible Woman skin, based on a design by Marvel Comics writer and artist Peach Momoko, is getting a big thumbs up from fans. Invisible Woman joined the roster at the beginning of Marvel Rivals Season 1, and since her entrance into the game, she has quickly become a fan favorite and one of the most played characters in the game. With that popularity comes several skins, including her Malice dark version and a wedding dress. Now, fans seem to be desiring this cool Momoko-inspired skin. View the full article

I've kinda turned around on Peter Molyneux. The man cannot stop over-hyping and over-promising, and it makes it hard to trust anything he says—especially after the Curiosity and Godus fiascos—but increasingly I feel like he's just the sort of person who dreams big and can't contain their excitement, even when it's only going to lead to disappointment... Read more.View the full article

Cyberpunk 2 theories are swirlingView the full article

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate has added Tales of Kenzera: Zau to its ever-expanding content catalog. This is the 13th new title to reach Microsoft's subscription service in May 2025, as well as the 57th Xbox Game Pass Ultimate release since the start of the year. View the full article

Andor actor Muhannad Ben Amor has joined the ranks of fans asking EA for Star Wars Battlefront 3. It's been nearly eight years since EA and DICE's last Battlefront game came out, and as players have dived back into it, more have started calling for a third entry in the revamped series. Now, the voices demanding a Star Wars Battlefront 2 sequel include someone actually involved with the Star Wars franchise. View the full article

Former Destiny 2 developers claim that Bungie’s monetization strategy was influenced by internal "greed," which added unnecessary friction to the creative process and resulted in large-scale disappointment within the community. The developer of Destiny 2, currently working on the extraction shooter Marathon, has faced waves of criticism following layoffs, art plagiarism allegations, and reports of toxic management from former employees. View the full article

Developer Neowiz will add two new difficulty options and a new boss rush mode to Lies of P in an upcoming free update. These additions will arrive alongside Overture, Lies of P’s upcoming prequel DLC. View the full article

Damn, the nice little friendship thing Embracer Group had decided to morph into after earning the ire of lots of folks by going hard on the layoffs, closures and sales is no more. Read more View the full article

From the original creative team behind the Hand of Fate series, Hordes of Fate : A Hand of Fate Adventure is a mixture of deck-building and auto-shooting as yet another developer attempts to put their own spin on Vampire Survivor-like action. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is packed full of secrets and mysteries that have kept players busy over the first few weeks of its launch, and some discoveries weren't necessarily things the developers at Sandfall Interactive put there on purpose. Turns out there's an exploit that players have discovered that allows you to take advantage of one particular enemy's unique ability in order to farm an absurd amount of Colour of Lumina. If you're going to take advantage of this "glitch," I'd highly recommend you do it before Sandfall releases an update. View the full article

Every Thursday we share the weekly Famitsu sales charts, which tracks physical boxed game sales and hardware sales in Japan. ... Read more View the full article

Giving a really odd and unique blending of genres and game mechanics, Drop Duchy is a wonderful choice for you to pick up and play. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

A Dungeons and Dragons fan has taken on the behemoth task of building a 3D-printed Castle Ravenloft, which stands over seven feet tall. The files for recreating the iconic Curse of Strahd castle first appeared late last year, but due to its size, building it would remain a pipe dream for most. Czech D&D podcasters Bez Zástěny, however, said "challenge accepted", and posted a build video to social media on May 21. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: All DnD classes and subclasses - a player's guide DnD Paladin 5e class explained DnD sizes explained View the full article

For rhythm game sickos, what might otherwise be a simple minigame could have dire ramifications View the full article

Расположенная в Казахстане студия Rhinotales, известная по интерактивному фильму She Sees Red, представила анонсирующий трейлер Critical Shift — хардкорной пошаговой тактики с элементами хоррора и выживания.View the full article

Monster Hunter Wilds has officially unveiled its Street Fighter 6 collaboration, bringing Akuma, Cammy, and Chun-Li to the game. Fans had already anticipated the crossover following a tease during Monster Hunter Wilds' first title update showcase. Now, Capcom's popular action RPG has revealed all the details of this highly anticipated partnership. View the full article

I never expected kicking a member of the Foot Clan to the curb before skateboarding over to pick up a pizza as an orange-clad Ninja Turtle would work just as well in a tactics game as it does in a classic beat-em-up, but Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown cleverly translates the approachable pick-up-and-play action and slim scope of the team’s arcadey adventures like Turtles In Time into a compelling, if barebones, turn-based tactics game. While missing some of the necessary communication that make the best strategy games tick, it’s still a blast to raise some shell as New York’s bodacious band of brothers. Trim and concise, Tactical Takedown doesn’t waste time on an ooze-spilling origin story to get its story moving. You’ll know just about everything you need to after the first five minutes, though I’m sure you can guess: The Foot Clan, led by Shredder’s daughter Karai, is up to no good as always. This time, they’ve teamed up with mad scientist and fellow stalwart TMNT villain Baxter Stockman as they unleash a new plot to take over New York. Dialogue is relegated to only a minute or two of text boxes before and after each level, but Tactical Takedown still manages to make the most of that slim territory – it delivers a personal story about loss that does a great job of coloring outside the lines in vibrant blue, purple, red, and orange when it has to, especially with Leo and Raph’s relationship. Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michaelangelo all ring true to the rhyming taglines about them that you may remember from your theme song iteration of choice, but this tale also sees the soon-to-be-20-something turtles facing the challenges of fighting without their brothers. That’s because all of the levels are solo missions, each carried out by a pre-determined turtle on his own turf. I’m disappointed with how exactly Tactical Takedown chose to reckon with that theme of isolation in its third act, but it does give every brother a chance to shine on their own while fighting. Each unit, including the Turtles, looks like a static figurine on a grid-based board, almost like what you’d get from a tabletop game. They’re more animated than static game pieces, shifting poses based on their attacks, the last action they took, or what kind of status effect they may have, but are mostly still. It’s a clever, lo-fi homage to the Turtles’ static origins in the panels of Eastman and Laird’s comics, but a zoomed-out camera obscures the personality you’d expect from the colorful, action figure-like combatants. Couple that with a surprising lack of voice acting, these often larger-than-life caricatures of teenagers can feel more like lifeless game pieces. These larger-than-life characters can feel more like lifeless figurines. Although the adolescent ninjas all have six health points, six action points to spend on stuff like moving and attacking each turn, and three arcade-style continues for when the going gets tough, they have distinct movesets that play into their weapons and personalities well as they disrupt the Foot in their territory. Leo’s straightforward prowess over martial arts gives him a satisfyingly rhythmic flow that matches up nicely with the tight lanes of the subway. Dispensing debuffs that set up a more devastating blow on the next action, while stacking a buff that allows him to evade any attack, made him my favorite as I cleared a few of his missions without taking a single hit. Meanwhile, Donnie’s complex but rewarding traps and map control made poisonous sewer water my ally. It was fun to use his kunai attack to stop Foot ninja when they were waist-deep in the toxic sewage, then knock away at their health from dry ground with his bo staff while throwing out electrical traps to keep my perimeter safe. Raph’s powerful bursts of strength suited the small Manhattan rooftops well as I kicked ninja to their doom, which granted a buff that let me deal extra damage and collect extra action points with his sai attack. Then, I’d cannonball into another group of enemies, sending out a damaging shockwave and dishing out a debuff that let me deal extra damage to every enemy around me, reaping even more action points. Finally, Mikey’s skateboard made him a dependably acrobatic street fighter whose mobility made it easy to jet from one end of a stage to the other before kicking obstacles at Foot ninja like in a classic martial arts movie. Every turtle has extra unlockable abilities to buy from a shop using shells, which are doled out based on your performance in each level, but they don’t feel necessary to reach the end on your first try – in fact, I didn’t even notice the shop until after I rolled credits on Tactical Takedown’s 6-ish-hour campaign. It wasn’t until I started chasing high scores in a few levels that I realized how transformative those new abilities could be, and I loved how customizable each turtle’s moveset ultimately felt. My favorite added useful moves to Raph’s kit that came with downside of damaging himself, but then paired with less powerful attacks that had a vampiric healing effect to balance things out. Building new loadouts also highlighted something that annoyed me about Tactical Takedown, though: Communication, or lack thereof (ironically, a core theme of this turtles story). This take on TMNT doesn’t make important gameplay elements clear in some moments, which can be a widowmaker in any game where strategy is king. For example, new moves only describe their range or area of effect (ie: 1-meter cone) rather than showing you what that shape or range might look like on the tactics grid. Another move I discovered applied a debuff I hadn’t seen yet, but it didn’t say what that debuff actually did, frustratingly leaving me to find out a few turns into a battle. Basic tooltips like this have been in strategy games for years, making their absence even more confusing and frustrating. I loved how customizable each turtle’s moveset felt. These issues aren’t nearly as pronounced when you’re actually in the heat of a battle, but they still pop up in frustrating ways. Instead of just showing what buffs or debuffs an enemy has when hovering over them with your cursor, like most other contemporary strategy games, you need to enter a separate inspection mode to figure out what that move you just used did to the Foot ninja you’re about to take out. Thankfully, you can always hit tab before using a move to check exactly what it does. But other stats, like a Turtle’s likelihood to dodge incoming attacks, which happened at random, just weren’t clear enough to me. Once I wrapped my mind around what each buff and debuff did, I got into a comfortable rhythm with Tactical Takedown. These effects are visualized on the board by altering the game piece-like characters, each causing different poses or cartoonish flourishes that add some rare life and personality, which eventually made it so I didn’t need to tab over a move to remind myself of a specific effect every other turn. Things also become easier to track because Tactical Takedown doesn’t really grow or evolve after the first hour or so. Once you’ve played each Turtle’s first level, you’ll have seen a surprising chunk of the enemy types, obstacles, and design ideas the whole package has to offer. This leaves all sense of progression to wholly optional unlocks and the small bites of story, and there’s never much of a challenge until the very last level. Such a narrow scope reflects that of a classic TMNT beat-em-up, and like those bygone classics (and Shredder’s Revenge), Tactical Takedown largely gets by on the merit of its combat and how accurately it nails the feel of each character. Fully clearing the board of Foot soldiers in a single turn using a masterful understanding of each Turtle’s moveset was consistently satisfying and enjoyable, but I still kicked the same nameless ninja off of a lot of different rooftops. Tactical Takedown further echoes those classics by grading your performance in each level with an arcade-style scoring system. Each takedown adds to a multiplier, further encouraging that hunt for a satisfying screen wipe. And once you’ve cleared a level, your number of KOs, remaining continues, and total damage will contribute to both a final score and the amount of shells you’ll earn to spend in the shop. Each mission comes with a par score to shoot for or surpass, which was a fun motivator to get me back in action and try some levels with new movesets. The places where this formula breaks from its arcade inspirations don’t do it any favors, either. Disappointingly, it doesn’t have that many boss fights – and what few are present are saved for the very end and aren’t very memorable (except for the very last one), which only worsens that stale feeling. But the lack of a meaningful team-up makes for an even worse break from canon than the sparse bosses. While I understand that Tactical Takedown is all about the Turtles growing apart, it’s frustrating that we never get to see the Turtles at their best: Together. Tactical Takedown partially remedies this in its fourth chapter, but not in a very satisfying way. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

It feels like we only just started our vacation under the Alolan sun in the last Pokémon TCG Pocket expansion, but ... Read more View the full article

The Lost Ark Abyssal Assault update has landed, bringing a new region to explore in the Amazon Games and Smilegate MMORPG. This latest overhaul whisks us away to a previously inaccessible continent in search of adventure, unleashes the third act of the Kazeros Raid, and heralds the return of the Arkesia Grand Prix event. As Amazon Games prepares to deliver some of its biggest changes to the multiplayer ARPG yet, in service of making Lost Ark more approachable and reducing its notorious grind, this update is set to deliver some of the endgame challenge that veterans have been craving. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Free MMORPG Lost Ark is getting a new way to play as Amazon cuts back the grind Lost Ark is on a journey of redemption as Smilegate takes aim at progression The best MMO and MMORPGs to play in 2025 View the full article

A new draft patch series for the Linux kernel has been submitted, which should hopefully bring up expanded support for the MSI Claw handheld. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

Grinding Gear Games has big news as it details Path of Exile 2 patch 0.2.1, the next update for the early-access ARPG. With the current seasons for Last Epoch and Diablo 4 now in the rear-view mirror, GGG is ready to entice us back to the continuing Dawn of the Hunt by "significantly improving" the drop rates on a lot of items and crafting currencies that it has deemed too rare. It's also aiming to make sure the endgame feels a lot more interesting, without constantly forcing you back into Hidden Grotto. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Best Path of Exile 2 classes ranked New Path of Exile 2 update vastly improves Breaches and endgame quality-of-life The next Path of Exile 2 update brings endgame improvements and more stash tabs View the full article

"It will definitely be done by 2090"View the full article