Culture

Crusader Kings III’s New Ruler Designer Is, Ahem, Very Nice

Crusader Kings III got a free update this week, introducing a new “ruler designer” that lets you completely customise the leader you begin the game with. From their beards to their sexuality to their statistics. It’s all very personal and cool, but let’s just focus on those statistics for a second, which can be pushed…

Counter-Strike Player Says He’s Been Offered Thousands For Match Fixing

Esports match fixing has been on the rise lately, so much so that we’ve seen charges, arrests and direct accusations of links to organised crime. And in perhaps the clearest signal of how rife things are getting locally, one player has spoken up about how much they’ve been offered to fix CSGO games. The detail…

In The Console Wars, Astro’s Playroom Is Extraordinarily Effective PlayStation Propaganda

As I finished the short delight of Astro’s Playroom, sitting back in satisfaction at having defeated those daft dinosaurs, I found myself bathing in the warm glow of affection for a quarter-century of Sony technology, reminiscing about the days of… wait, hang on? I’ve never given a toss about PlayStations before. What is happening to…

Cyberpunk 2077 Is Very Definitely Coming Out December 10, Probably

You would be forgiven for being dubious. Cyberpunk 2077 was originally due to come out in April 2020, and while some certified geniuses entirely correctly stated this would never happen, many were convinced. Come January the release date was enormously extended until September, then by June it was bumped to November. So in October, a…

From Xenogears To Xenoblade: The History Of Monolith Soft

If you’d told me back in 2006 that Monolith Soft would go on to become one of Nintendo’s most talented and indispensable first-party development groups, I would have said the same thing as everyone else: “The guys who did Xenosaga?” It’s an old joke at this point, but for years that was Monolith Soft’s reputation:…

Fall Guys Reveals Inevitable Season 3 Theme In Laborious Manner

If you’re in the Northern hemisphere, you’ll likely have noticed it’s getting chillier. That’s because of a global phenomenon called “winter”. Winter, as they said on the popular soap opera Game Of Thrones, will be popping its icy head around the door any time now. And if you’ve ever played a video game, you’ll know…

Track: The Man Who Sold The World [2020 Mix] | Artist: David Bowie | Album: Metrobolist

The Art Of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

Ah, this is always one of my favourite times of the year, the evening where we get to share a ton of artwork that went into the production of a game in one of my favourite series, Assassin’s Creed I’ve run Fine Art features on almost every major game in the series dating back to…

Why Do Demon’s Souls Players Keep Falling Off This Ledge?

There are a lot of ways to die in the Demon’s Souls remake. Believe me, the transition to PlayStation 5 has not made this game any more forgiving. But I can’t help but wonder what’s up with this one ledge in the Tower of Latria from which players can’t stop tumbling. I first happened upon…

My PS4 Was Fun, But It Was Also A Piece Of Junk

The Xbox 360 was as famous for its catastrophic hardware failures as it was its A-tier catalogue of video games. My PlayStation 4 is very close to being remembered in the same way. Let me ask you a question, and I want you to be 100% honest with me: if you have ever owned a…

WWE Crackdown On Wrestlers’ Twitch Accounts Is Causing A Lot Of Drama

Over the last few decades, numerous events have sparked talk that pro wrestlers in the United States might finally unionize. In 1986, Jesse “The Body” Ventura tried and failed to start a wrestlers’ union before WrestleMania 2. More recently, the financial hit wrestlers took from the 2014 launch of the WWE Network streaming service got…

Fallout 76 Camps Get Wheelchairs, Following Player’s Request

Almost two months ago, a Fallout 76 player who uses a wheelchair made a post on the game’s unofficial subreddit asking for the mobility aids to be added to the camp customization options. The latest Fallout 76 update, released today, honors that request. “It would make me so happy to have that little piece of…

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands Manages To One-Up War Crimes in New Questline

I can’t imagine a fate worse than death, but thankfully, the writers of World of Warcraft don’t suffer from my same lack of imagination. In a new campaign introduced in the Shadowlands zone Bastion, the WoW writers have managed to concoct a scenario as horrifying to me as when Sylvanas Windrunner decided to do a…

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Update Adds 60 FPS Option To All Next-Gen Consoles

The next Assassin’s Creed Valhalla update, dropping tomorrow, introduces an option to play the game in 60 fps across all next-gen platforms. While the game was already nearing that mark on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, the Xbox Series S previously hovered around 30 fps, making this a pretty big deal for the budget…

In Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, Nintendo Refuses To Acknowledge BotW’s Darkness

I had high hopes for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, particularly for its story. As a prequel, it promised to tell a more in-depth tale of the fight against Ganon 100 years before Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. But AoC failed that expectation in nearly every regard. What I didn’t expect, and what…

Yep, That Was A Baseball Cameo In Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

The most fascinating characters in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla are the bit players. There’s the unmistakable nod to a popular anime. There’s the cadre of musicians paying tribute to the Prodigy, an electronic band whose frontman, Keith Flint, tragically passed last year. There’s Axehead. But the one who’s most likely to make you go, “Wait, what?”…

Watch Dogs: Legion‘s Online Mode Delayed As Team Focuses On Fixing Bugs

It’s no secret that Watch Dog: Legion has been pretty buggy since it launched late last month, but Ubisoft sounds dedicated to tracking down these experience-ruining glitches and getting them sorted out. So dedicated, in fact, that the game’s planned online mode has been delayed to next year to give the team more time to…

Twitch Streamers Are Opening ’90s Pokémon Card Boxes Worth Thousands Of Dollars

When many of us were kids, popping open a pack of Pokémon cards and flipping to a holographic Charizard meant bragging rights or a hypothetical hundred dollars if we chose to sell it on eBay (or, in my case, if an eBay-addicted aunt could pry the card from my cold, dead hands). But now those…

Here’s December 2020’s PlayStation Plus Games

There are three games in December’s PlayStation Plus lineup. Last month also saw the lineup depart from its disappointing standard of two, though the third game, Bugsnax, was only available to PS5 owners. December’s three games are available on PS4 and PS5, since the PS4 titles are backwards compatible with PS5. As always, the games…

Grab My Head And Fly, World Of Warcraft Angel

World of Warcraft’s newly-launched Shadowlands expansion takes players to Bastion, a world populated by angels who fly majestically through the sky, gripping our faces tight. Bastion, the first major questing area of the expansion, is basically where the white Magic: The Gathering cards live. It’s got rolling alabaster plains, gorgeous mythical creatures, and a race…