Nintendo fans are frothing over freshly-posted images purporting to show the under-wraps Switch 2. The pictures include apparent 3D models of the console and its Joy-Con, as well as photos of the console's shell - including its circuit board. Read more

If you're a Minecraft fan with a penchant for playing while wearing Sony's PlayStation-branded VR goggles, prepare youself for some disappointing news: developer Mojang has announced it's ending Minecraft's PSVR support in March next year. Read more

Amid ongoing player complaints and claims Ubisoft's free-to-play shooter XDefiant is underperforming, the publisher has insisted the game is "absolutely not dying" as it unveils plans to tackle a range of issues in an updated development roadmap. Read more

Earlier this week, EA took its first steps toward reveal Battlefield's next series entry - mostly in the form of teasing chatter from series boss Vince Zampella, but also by way of an enigmatic bit of concept art. But now, an internet sleuth reckon he's identified the real-world location featured in the image, potentially revealing where Battlefield is heading next. Read more

Behaviour Interactive has cancelled its Dead by Daylight four-player co-op spin-off, known only as Project T, after early player testing "yielded unsatisfactory overall results". Read more

Netflix's new Doug-Cockle-starring animated Witcher movie, Sirens of the Deep, has had its release pushed back from "late" this year to 11th February 2025. But to tide everyone over until then, the streaming service has shared a two-minute clip featuring some familiar faces. Read more

EA has announced plans to move "beyond linear, sequential Sims releases" that'll see it forego a direct Sims 4 "replacement" - that is, a The Sims 5 - in favour of a new approach enabling players to keep their progress between titles and "really [have] an ongoing experience". Read more

4J Studios - the award-winning developer best known for bringing Mojang's Minecraft to consoles - has shared details on its next game: Reforj. Read more

Overwatch 2 is making its way to Xbox Game Pass today, 17th September, bringing some exclusive benefits with it.These include six hero skins (Cardboard Reinhardt, Turtleship DVa, Cyberdragon Hanzo, Street Runner Genji, Bee Mercy, and Cleric Lifeweaver), 30 Mythic Prisms, an additional 10 percent XP boost and access to select Overwatch 2 Shop cosmetics from the free-to-play game's past three seasons.Game Pass users will need to link their Battle.net account to an active Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, Xbox Game Pass for Console, or PC Game Pass account by 11th November to get their hands on these perks. Read more

If (like me) you found developer Ironwood Studios' wonderfully weird four-wheeled survival game Pacific Drive just a bit too exhausting when it launched earlier this year, now might be the time to go back: its new Drive Your Way update introduces a whole bunch of custom difficulty settings and presets to make things easier - or masochistically more difficult, if you prefer.With Pacific Drive's new update installed, players can immediately choose from seven presets enabling them to tweak the difficulty of their adventures across the Olympic Exclusion Zone. These range from the standard Pacific Drive experience to Joyride - which retains the same fundamental core but reduces gathering, crafting, and research requirements - to presets that lean hard in the other direction. Nuclear Journey, for instance, smears everything in lethal radiation, while Iron Wagon doesn't just make things tougher, it deletes your save if you fail.However, it doesn't end there; the Drive Your Way update also makes it possible for players to create their own presets, with over 50 considerably more granular settings available - complete with tweakable value sliders for each - as detailed in the video below. Read more

Sony's recently appointed joint CEO Hideaki Nishino says consoles will remain at the "core" of the company's business going forward, but it will still continue to offer titles on other platforms as well.Nishino - who serves as CEO of the company's Platform Business Group - recently took part in an interview with Japanese publication Nikkei. Here, the company executive was asked to summarise the value of PlayStation consoles within Sony.In response, Nishino said: "I think that with mobile devices, there are many games that show advertisements, and PCs are difficult to set up, but with PlayStation, once you turn it on, you can experience the content you bought straight away" (translated by VGC). Read more

Microsoft has laid off a further 650 Xbox staff, though no games have been cancelled or studios have been closed this time.The news was shared by CEO of Microsoft Gaming Phil Spencer in an internal memo obtained by IGN, with changes made to "organise our business for long term success".The layoffs follow the 1900 people who lost their jobs at the company in January this year. It means Microsoft has now laid off 2,550 staff in the last year. Read more

The Borderlands film has made headlines for, sadly, not the right reasons recently. The adaptation based on Gearbox's games of the same name failed to capture the hearts (and wallets) of audiences on its August release, and was widely panned by critics.And, now, we have a better idea of just how much of a commercial flop the Cate Blanchett -fronted film actually was. According to film industry data website The Numbers (via PC Gamer), the film's theatrical release has closed with just $30,975,300 to its name.While I certainly wouldn't sniff at a little shy of $31m in my bank account, from a Hollywood big screen release perspective, that figure really isn't great. To give more context, it was estimated Borderlands had a production cost of around $115m. Meanwhile, its marketing and distribution costs were said to be $30m. Read more

Hoyoverse has confirmed Xbox players will not need to purchase a Game Pass subscription in order to access Genshin Impact's online multiplayer mode.The confusion began soon after Hoyoverse announced Genshin Impact would be making its way to Xbox Series X/S and Game Pass. Initially, the game's Xbox store page listing stated: "Online multiplayer on console requires Xbox Game Pass Ultimate or Xbox Game Pass Core (sold separately)."Those on ResetEra pointed out this is a different approach to other free-to-play games on the platform, such as Fortnite. Read more

Flappy Bird, the infuriating mobile game, is set to make a return later this year.The game grew to tremendous popularity with over 100 million people playing it, but in 2014 original developer Dong Nguyen removed the game from sale despite it generating a reported $50,000 a day in advertising revenue.A decade later and Flappy Bird will return this autumn, followed by dedicated mobile apps coming to iOS and Android next year, as well as other platforms. Read more

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor has today received its ninth patch, which brings "substantial performance improvements" on PC and removes Denuvo DRM.EA promises framerate improvements for various hardware configurations, fixes for specific framerate hitching elements for smoother gameplay, and optimised CPU usage for ray-tracing.Importantly, Denuvo DRM has been removed, which is often criticised for hampering performance. Read more

Ballistic Moon's Until Dawn remake is set to release on PC this October. Ahead of this, the studio has shared its PC requirements for the upcoming teen-horror.When Until Dawn makes its PC debut, it will boast "advanced graphical features, customisability, accessibility features and run on a wide range of hardware," the studio said. You can check out Until Dawn's PC features trailer below. Now, without further ado, here are those all important PC requirements for Until Dawn: Read more

Black Myth: Wukong is one of the most interesting console games I've seen in a while. There's a clear PC focus, with the PlayStation 5 version featuring a trio of awkward graphics modes - none of which quite hit the target. I also get the sense it's a game tailor-made for the PlayStation 5 Pro, assuming that the features of the hardware are put to good use. Using the PC version of the game, I decided to look at 'BMW' on a number of fronts. Could the resources of the standard PS5 be better utilised for smoother gameplay? To what extent would PS5 Pro be a game-changer? And what of Series S: if Game Science had issues with the PS5 version, can Microsoft's junior Xbox hack it?First up, let's quickly recap what BMW is doing on PlayStation 5. Quality mode targets 4K and has a dynamic resolution between 1224p and 1584p. Frame-rate looks to be unlocked to my eye, so I'm curious how the dynamic resolution system may be working. Even so, I think this is the most competent mode in the current game. Next up, the balance mode: this looks like a hard-set 1080p resolution with no DRS but an utterly bizarre 45fps cap which makes it jerky on any display likely to be connected to the PlayStation 5. Finally there's the performance mode - this is using frame generation from 30fps to 60fps. It's fundamentally a bad idea as one of the key ideas behind a performance mode is to reduce lag, not increase it as is the case here.For my tests, I used the Digital Foundry Frankenstein's PC - a Windows unit built on a motherboard hosting the actual Xbox Series X CPU, paired with the Radeon RX 6700, an AMD graphics card that has much in common with the PS5 GPU. It's a mish-mash of console-equivalent parts, yet it's proven to be capable of delivering very console-like results. By using the balance mode with its fixed resolution, paired with graphics options matched to console equivalents, we can benchmark our set-up to see how close to PS5 performance we get. It turns out that the console is slightly faster - around seven to 10 percent in some scenarios. So, when we carry out our tests, we could likely expect console performance to actually be a touch faster. Read more

Planet Coaster 2, the sequel to the popular theme park management game, now has a confirmed release date of 6th November 2024.Developer Frontier first announced the game back in July, which adds water parks to its list of thrills, as well as various enhanced tools and quality of life changes.The release date is across all platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. The game is now available to pre-order. Read more

Unity has cancelled the controversial Runtime Fee for use of its game engine tools, which charged developers for each game install, with immediate effect.The pricing plan was introduced in September last year and was heavily criticised by game developers, calling it an "astonishing scumbag move" among other responses.Today, in a blog post from new president and CEO of Unity Matt Bromberg, the company announced it will revert back to a traditional subscription model "after deep consultation with our community, customers, and partners". Read more

Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead has revealed its next Premium Warbond, known as Chemical Agents.Chemical Agents comes complete with some "seriously deadly toys", including stratagems, utilities, emotes and more.On the Warbond's release, players will be able to get their hands on the likes of the TX-41 Sterilizer, the G-4 Gas grenade (which will "cover the whole area in a cloud of noxious fumes") and the new utility P-11 Stim Pistol. You can check out the gas-filled trailer for Chemical Agents below. Read more

The world of Assassin's Creed Shadows is beautiful. At Gamescom 2024 in Cologne last month, Ubisoft refrained from providing a fresh chance to go hands-on with its highly-anticipated upcoming epic - for that, we'll have to wait just a little bit longer. Instead, the publisher gave press a look behind the scenes at more of the game's visual prowess, via a presentation on Shadows' environmental upgrades and new graphical fidelity.Ubisoft's vast virtual version of Japan features in the first Assassin's Creed made solely for the current-gen of consoles - and it looks the part, with dense forests and towering mountains, dynamic weather and shifting seasons. The game's exact technical specs are still to be confirmed, but I was impressed by its clear upgrade from other Assassin's Creed games past, particularly in its eye-catching smaller details, such as rain running realistically down bamboo guttering, or stalls full of fruit you can topple, sending their contents scattering across a road.Online, however, some of the response to Shadows has been less pretty. In June, Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot condemned "the malicious and personal online attacks" directed at the game's developers after its initial reveal. Separately, Assassin's Creed franchise head Marc-Alexis Ct has spoken about having to take "a step back" rather than respond to criticism of the game on social media from X owner Elon Musk. Read more

Tony Hawk has revealed he's "been talking to Activision again" about the Pro Skater series ahead of its 25th anniversary this September.The original Tony Hawk Pro Skater debuted on 29th September 1999, and would go on to receive four further numbered entries - alongside dozens of spin-offs - culminating in 2020's critically acclaimed (and record-breaking) remake of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 & 2.Unfortunately, plans to give Pro Skater 3 & 4 a similar remake treatment were reportedly scrapped after Activision made the decision to merge developer Vicarious Visions into Blizzard - so it could serve as a support studio for the Diablo franchise and other titles. Read more

Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've been playing over the past few days. This week we've been returning to the Dragon Age game that started it all, Origins; we've been revelling in Sony's latest PlayStation blockbuster, Astro Bot; and we've been returning to the tender times of teenage life in Until Then.What have you been playing?Catch up with the older editions of this column in our What We've Been Playing archive. Read more

Last night, the industry was shocked to learn the entire staff at indie video game publisher Annapurna Interactive had resigned. This exodus followed after negotiations with Annapurna owner Megan Ellison met an impass.As Matt reported last night, these departures caused "chaos" among Annapurna Interactive's game developer partners. An Annapurna spokesperson confirmed all existing games and projects will remain with the company, while new president Hector Sanchez reportedly told developers all contracts will be honoured and that all Annapurna Interactive staff will be replaced.In the time since, many developers have taken to social media to assure their communities of the status of various projects tied to the publisher. Read more

Bungie has "resolved" a plagiarism accusation after an artist accused the studio of lifting their alternative design of an "iconic" Destiny 2 weapon.Earlier this week, Bungie revealed a physical Nerf LMTD blaster based upon Cayde-6's hand cannon, Ace of Spades.Shortly after the blaster was revealed, artist Tofu_Rabbit called out the developer on Twitter/X, stating the Nerf design was not merely "similar" to a design they did back in 2015, but essentially a carbon copy, down to the "same brush strokes and scratches/smudges". Read more

The Communications Workers of America union (CWA) has denounced Microsoft's decision to lay off an additional 650 video game workers yesterday as "extremely disappointing".In a statement, the CWA said that as one of the world's "largest and most profitable corporations", Microsoft could have achieved its goals for "long-term success without destroying the livelihoods of 650 of our colleagues".Whilst the union acknowledges that organising does not "always protect against layoffs", "collective bargaining does give workers a voice in the policies that affect them, including how layoffs are handled". Read more

Tales of the Shire: A Lord of the Rings Game has been delayed.The upcoming cosy Hobbit life sim from Wētā Workshop and Private Division was initially slated for a release in the latter half of this year, across Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S."All of us here at Wētā Workshop are excited to have you join us in the Shire, a peaceful corner of J. R. R Tolkien's world. When a new Hobbit steps into Bywater for the very first time, we want that moment to be everything you're hoping for," the Tales of the Shire studio wrote last night, announcing the delay. Read more

Merciless. That's what this man is. Every enemy you encounter every identikit soldier in combat fatigues, their red, dead, bug-like masks obscuring the human faces beneath them will succumb to the same fate as you slip past, corpses hitting the ground before they even realise they're dead. Such is the life of a contract killer, I guess.I Am Your Beast is glorious. Gloriously brutal and bloody and brash and intense in that Superhot, Children of the Sun way that means I can only play in fifteen-minute bursts for fear of giving myself an aneurysm. You barely have time to breathe as blood and bullets fly past, let alone carefully plot your route, which means much of your initial playthrough will be a panicked scramble as you shoot, punch, parkour, and plunder anything and everything that gets in the way between your position and the hatch that leads you the hell away from here. With even the longest level in the entire three-hour-ish playtime clocking in under two minutes, there's no time for mistakes, either. Mistime, misthrow, or misfire anything, and it's over. This time, anyway.You fly through pulpy, comic-book shoot-em-up I Am Your Beast as Agent Alphonse Harding, an assassin born, and arguably broken, by the US military. Despite revelling in retirement and by revelling, I mean embracing his hermit era out in a frozen forest in the middle of nowhere handler Burkin asks you to do one last job one time too many. He doesn't take kindly to your refusal, and you don't take too kindly to that, either. To use his own expression, Harding "snaps", and for the next three-ish hours, you're on a one-man murder spree. Read more

Goichi "Suda51" Suda says game companies are too hung up on how their games perform on Metacritic.Talking to our sister site, GamesIndustry.biz, Suda said that whilst he will check scores when a game releases - "Sometimes a media outlet has given us zero. That makes me feel shitty - why go that far and give us zero?" - but apart from that, he "tries to avoid Metacritic"."Everybody pays too much attention to and cares too much about Metacritic scores. It's gotten to the point where there's almost a set formula if you want to get a high Metacritic score, this is how you make the game," Suda said. Read more