Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has commented on the success of the Fallout TV series on Prime Video, saying it helped the "quirky" Fallout game series appeal to a wider audience.This was made possible, he said at a Variety event, in part because of the creative trust and collaboration between Fallout executive producer Jonathan Nolan and game developer Todd Howard from Bethesda."It was critical early on to have that creative trust so that our game teams could both understand what they brought to the equation in terms of the world, the setting, some of the camp humor, but also be willing to step back and let another very talented creator take the reins in a medium that we don't have an expertise in," Spencer said. "Anytime we try to do something new it should be advancing what that world is. One thing I really loved about the television show is it made the somewhat quirky world of Fallout more accessible to more people."Continue Reading at GameSpot

Despite prominent Disney-owned Marvel heroes like Spider-Man and Wolverine having long-term deals on Sony's PlayStation 5, Xbox has deals for a few Disney properties of its own including Marvel's Blade and Lucasfilm's Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has previously expressed his wariness towards licensed games, but he recently praised Disney and Lucasfilm for being strong partners on their upcoming projects together."I feel great about our partnership with Lucas and Disney," Spencer told Game File. "They've been good partners. We're obviously doing Blade with Arkane Lyon with them. I was just out there visiting with that team."During the same interview, Spencer explained that one of the reasons he dislikes dealing with licensed titles is that the licenses can expire, which leads to games being delisted over time. Instead, he prefers to focus on IP owned by Microsoft's umbrella of developers and studios. But for games like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Spencer is willing to make some exceptions in part because the developer--MachineGames--has such an intense passion for the property.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Pokemon TCG Pocket is a free-to-play mobile version of the popular card-collecting phenomenon, allowing players to open two packs daily for free. Of course, you can head into the shop and spend real-world money to open as many cards as you want, but it's totally doable if you want to go the F2P route.

Half-Life 2 is widely recognized as a landmark title in gaming history, celebrated for its engaging narrative, dynamic gameplay, and impeccable level design. This timeless classic continues to attract new players, challenging them with its balance between action and puzzle-solving. Knowing some initial strategies can transform the experience, making it even more satisfying and immersive.

UnderPath A Survival Horror Game in Development for 3.5 YearsUnderPath is an atmospheric survival horror game that blends intense exploration, strategic puzzles, and a deep narrative experience. Developed over the past 3.5 years by a solo developer, this project is the result of years of dedicated work, with the goal of delivering a unique and engaging indie horror experience.About the GameIn UnderPath, players explore dark forests,

We are a live project looking for additional talented Graphics Programmers to join our team on a full-time basis.Were looking for someone with strong experience in DirectX (like shader programming and rendering). We need someone who thinks about performance first, making sure new features don't slow things down. Developing new things at the cost of performance is a big no-no to us. Someone who shares our vision to update and improve this game as much as we can. Also, confidentiality i

Hi everyone. Thank you so much for all of the brilliant reactions to LEGO Horizon Adventures launch this past week. Weve been enjoying all of your comments and content, and on behalf of Guerrilla and Studio Gobo: we really appreciate you!Of course, weve also seen the plethora of comments since the games announce back in June asking for a new LEGO set and some of our eagle-eyed fans already spotted a tease in our recent Building Aloys World Brick by Brick behind-the-scenes video. Surely we couldnt create a LEGO game without also working together with our friends over at the LEGO Group on something extra special:Play VideoWere excited to announce the new LEGO Horizon Adventures Aloy & Varl vs. Shell-Walker & Sawtooth playset.This 768-piece set allows LEGO fans to recreate the iconic adventures of Aloy and her loyal ally Varl. Armed with their trusty bow and spear capable of producing fire, shock or chill attacks, join the duos battle in jungle surroundings against two fully jointed machines, Shell-Walker and Sawtooth.The Shell-Walker has posable legs and arms, opening claws and a detachable cargo pod and energy shield, while the fully articulated Sawtooth has opening jaws, a swivelling torso and a posable neck, head and legs.The set will be available from March 1, 2025, but you can already pre-order from today via LEGO.com and selected retailers around the world. In the meantime, we hope you continue to enjoy LEGO Horizon Adventures out now across PC, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch.

Good news for Diablo 4 players who picked up Vessel of Hatred: future seasons will have content exclusive to players who own the expansion, Diablo franchise boss Rod Fergusson told Polygon in an interview earlier this month. The goal, Fergusson said, is for expansion owners to continue to feel theyre getting value from their purchase beyond the current season.Typically, each season of Diablo 4 has been self-contained, so players can enjoy starting new characters (the games Seasonal Realm requires a fresh start) and power through the new seasonal content. Sometimes, a seasons content and features are shared with the games Eternal Realm, where non-seasonal characters and characters from previous seasons live.Fergusson, the general manager of the Diablo franchise, explained that Blizzard launched season 6 alongside Vessel of Hatred so players could start fresh with the expansions new Spiritborn class but then worried the expansion could feel too much like a single moment in time that future seasons might move beyond.Because we know that the beginning of a season is sort of a fresh starting point, we wanted to launch the expansion at the same time as the beginning of a season, Fergusson said. Thats why we launched at the beginning of season 6, so you could roll a Spiritborn as your new thing. So it can feel like a little bit like this expansion is just a single moment in time, and I just wanted to highlight that thats not the case. Were going to continue to develop features that will be, essentially, exclusive to Vessel of Hatred owners.Fergusson mentioned that Blizzard thinks of Diablo 4 as being divided into chapters, which are chunks of seasons in between major expansion releases. Season 1 to Vessel of Hatred was chapter one of Diablo 4, he said, and season 7 to the future is chapter two the future presumably being the games second expansion.As we continue chapter two, as a Vessel of Hatred owner, youll get access to other stuff in chapter two as part of your ownership, Fergusson said. So were going to continue to have [Vessel of Hatred] be valuable beyond season 6 as well.Fergusson didnt mention what these exclusive seasonal features might look like. Vessel of Hatred has plenty of elements that are ripe for modification and expansion, including customizable companions in the form of Mercenaries, new build customization options via Runewords, and new dungeon playstyles in Kurast Undercity and Dark Citadel.Blizzard is on a promotional push for Diablo 4 through the rest of November. The base game and Vessel of Hatred are currently on sale on Battle.net and Xbox, and starting Tuesday, Nov. 19, a selection of free-trial and character-boost options go live to tempt new and returning players to dive in.From that date, players can select one character on the Eternal Realm to boost to level 50 with a Welcome Back Booster. A boosted character can pick from three preset builds for that class, each of which comes with a full set of Legendary gear. All Altars of Lilith (stat-boosting collectables) are unlocked, and some currency and other useful items are thrown in. Vessel of Hatred owners can select two characters to boost to level 50.From Nov. 19 to Dec. 2, players who havent bought Vessel of Hatred yet can try the Spiritborn class for free up to level 25. Therell be a free trial for the base game over the same period, also capped at level 25.Fergusson said that the booster and free trials were motivated by a desire to show off the many changes and improvements to Diablo 4 over its first 18 months, including the game-changing itemization update in season 4, Loot Reborn, and the overhaul of character progression released alongside Vessel of Hatred.We were looking at ways of creating a boost for players to be able to say, Hey, welcome back, Eternal player. Maybe you havent played in a while. Lets get you cleaned up. Lets give you a shave and haircut here. [] So you dont have to do all the, I got to spend two hours just cleaning up before I can go and play, he said. In the last 18 months, so much has changed. But if youre an Eternal player who played the campaign and then stopped, you dont know. You havent felt this 18 months of evolution.

[Ed. note: This story contains spoilers for Arcane season 2 Act 2.]For eagle-eyed League of Legends fans, the reveal of Warwick in Act 2 of Arcane season 2 was a heartbreak we saw coming; too many things lined up just right between the disappearance of Powder and Vis father figure and the creation of the horrifying werewolf creature to be a coincidence. What we might not have seen coming, however, is just how incredibly Warwicks perspective would come across on screen. Then again, excellent animation in Arcane probably shouldnt come as a surprise anymore. Fortiche has been delivering impressive visuals from the very beginning, and Warwick is a great example of how the studio gets inside its characters heads.Showing how terrifying Warwick is would be one thing, but what makes Fortiches presentation of the character so effective is the way it shows us the world through his eyes. Whenever we see him chasing down his prey, the show shifts into a highly stylized vision of the world. Its played at a lower frame rate than normal, giving the whole thing a stilted, hazy, slow-motion effect, and the entire screen is tinted with a red glow that makes everything read like bloodied prey.It beautifully transports us inside the head of Warwick, a drug-fueled, mutated hunter in constant search of blood, but its also a tremendous way to show the pieces of Vander that are still left over. When Warwick spots Jinx or Vi, Vanders softness comes back; the world loses its red hue and for a moment, and hes a loving father again. We understand it perfectly because were seeing it through his eyes, a passenger to the perspective of the character.This idea of letting the audience inside a characters head is something that Fortiche has proven itself to be particularly adept at. In Arcane, the studio is constantly swapping in new and unique animation styles to communicate that its taking us out of the world of the show and into the world of a character. In the first season, this mostly crops up when Jinx starts hearing voices, with the faces of the friends she killed popping up behind her with sketches over their faces. All of this lets Fortiche flex its animation muscles, all while giving the audience a more intimate look at the characters interior lives than we could ever get from simple dialogue. Its a beautiful testament to the power of animation, and an incredible storytelling technique. But leave it to Fortiche to have been working toward something even more clever on top of the clearly beautiful art.In the second season, the studio ramps these ideas up even more, with moments like the first episodes black charcoal segment to show Caits grief. By the time we reach the conclusion of season 2s second act, Fortiche starts using its motif of unique animation as a way inside characters heads to show us how the characters entire perception of the world might be changing. Take Mel, for example. When we see her locked inside the Black Roses thorny prison, its clearly an unreal space. Were seeing her mind wrapped up in the horrifying psychological prison the organization is enveloping her in.Even more important is how Fortiche uses unique animation for Viktor. Plenty of movies and TV shows, both in live action and animation, have depicted characters ascending past regular humanity and growing disconnected from it, but few have given us the kind of perspective Arcane does on Viktors glorious evolution. Its easy to see the ways that Viktor is starting to disassociate from humanity but once we see how he perceives things now, its easy to see why. The brilliant bright lights, the constant presence of Skye in his ear and at his side, the way he sees straight through the appearance of people and creatures and machines and directly into their heart and head are equally beautiful and disorienting. Suddenly it becomes easy to see why someone who experiences the world like this enveloping cosmos might subtly lose his grasp on moment-to-moment human concerns.Each of these examples (just to name a few from the show so far) feels like a perfect display of the incredible way that Fortiche approaches animation with Arcane. Sure, animation as a medium allows Arcane to have a neat visual style, and provides a vehicle for excellent fight scenes. But it also lets the series pull viewers deeper into the emotional lives of its characters, exploring complicated points of view in a way thats more elegant than dialogue. Whether its a person ascending to machine-infused godhood or a werewolf on the hunt, Fortiche has proven that it can find the perfect animation style to let us into the head of any of its characters, and even more impressively, the studio manages to make every single one of these unique art styles fit within Arcanes beautiful world.

Lens experts Leica and apparel brand AETHER are proud to present the Reporter Jacket, a smart, simple solution for all types of weather. The clever pockets allow for quite a good amount of storage, with special spots for notebooks, camera equipment, and electronics. Life is a journey, so take the Reporter Jacket along with you.This jacket is perfect for the casual or professional photographer, whether youre winding your way though frost-capped peaks or taking a stroll at your local reserve. It has an ample amount of pockets, enough for a notebook, several compact lenses, and extra SD cards, ensuring youll never run out of charge or card space while covering lifes most unforgettable moments.Boasting a windproof shell and water resistance, this jacket is meant to go places. It features a relaxed fit, perfect for adding slim layers on colder days. Equal parts rugged and refined, the jacket is perfect for the demands of fieldwork.Minimal branding graces the back pocket of the jacket, an unassuming touch that is quite novel in placement. Durable and functional, the pockets are meant to really hold a good amount of items, ready for whatever you might have to throw in there.A small label on the inside tells us a bit more about the specifications of the jacket, including a designated SD card pocket, underarm grommets for venting, and an attached microfiber cleaning cloth, ready for all lenses and glasses alike. Waterproof, one-way zippers help ensure all electronics are safe from a sudden storm while out and about, while the extra sturdy flaps on the pockets allow for optimal wind and rain resistance. The front snaps are covered by the body material, preventing any snags or rips from wandering tree branches.AETHER is born out of a self-described not a wrong turn, but a detour by founders Palmer West and Jonah Smith. Filmmakers turned apparel designers, they lead with a sense of adventure, offering uncompromising products meant to go above and beyond out of office. With a rugged line meant to withstand the worst nature has to offer, AETHER creates thoughtful clothing, accessories, and outerwear for any type of extreme environment. They pose the intriguing thought, You think adventure is dangerous? Try routine.Leica is one of the oldest and most venerated camera brands in the world. Founded in 1869 by Ernst Leitz, the company takes the first three letters of his name, Lei-, and the first two letters of camera, -ca, to create the name Leica. They specialize in cameras, lenses, binoculars, and rifle scopes. Developing some of the first lens exchange systems along with the incredible demand for lens-based products at the turn of the century helped them gain notoriety among the industry. A longstanding tradition of progressive labor policies sets them apart pensions, sick leave, and health insurance were all standard within the company, from the start. In response to the election of Hitler in 1933, Ernst Leitz II established a program in which Jewish employees (whether or not they worked at the company) were sent to work abroad, where they would be helped to find jobs and stable housing when they arrived. This and many other policies continue the proud tradition of deep respect for workers rights, a beacon of hope and progress.Sadly, the Reporter Jacket sold out quickly but theyll alert anyone interested when they restock via aetherapparel.com.This post contains affiliate links, so if you make a purchase from an affiliate link, we earn a commission. Thanks for supporting Design Milk!