Immortals of Aveum would really like you to give it another shot, so now there’s a free demo on Steam-

The magic-powered FPS Immortals of Aveum didn’t really blow our doors off when we reviewed it back in August: The shooting was fun, but its characters and story left us cold. But as is the way with modern game development, multiple updates have been released since then, including a big one that dropped yesterday, and now Electronic Arts and developer Ascendant Studios is hoping that the release of a free demo will convince gamers to give it a second look.

The demo comes alongside the release of the big Echollector update, which adds new endgame content, a New Game+ mode, and a new Grand Magnus difficulty level, which as you might surmise from the name is meant to be very difficult indeed: Enemy health, defense, power, and behavior have all been “adjusted,” which I take to mean “in…

Read more

A former Grand Theft Auto dev weighs in on GTA 6’s delayed PC version- ‘it’s hard to do that as a developer, because the team isn’t big enough’-

Grand Theft Auto 6 didn’t get a PC release date along with its trailer. Historical precedent isn’t promising either, since Red Dead Redemption 2’s port took 13 months to make the jump, while GTA 5 took a whopping 19. 

At the time of writing, though, GTA 5 is number 10 on the top sellers list of Steam. Part of that’s due to GTA 6 hype, sure, but this is Grand Theft Auto we’re talking about. I’m willing to bet it’s sold like hotcakes on all platforms. Despite that, the PC has received the middle child treatment from Rockstar Games, with GTA Online lagging behind in terms of key updates and some major issues with RDR2’s port on release.

Mike York, who was an animator at Rockstar Games between 2012 and 2017 working on both GTA 5 and RDR2, has an inkling to why that is. “One…

Read more

If Friday the 13th must die, it’s going out with all players on a high-

Early June brought the sad news that the excellent Friday the 13th: The Game would be removed from sale at the end of the year and eventually become unplayable, due to the expiry of its license for the horror property. Despite its quality the game is now relatively old, and it unfortunately existed alongside the similar and hugely popular Dead by Daylight, but it had retained a solid player count: which is probably why publisher Gun Media has committed to keeping the servers online until the end of 2024. 

Gun Media’s now announced that, as of tomorrow, Friday the 13th: The Game is going to boost all players to max level, give them all available Legendary Perks, unlock all the kill animations (barring DLC) and strip out all the XP nonsense. It’s even removing any negati…

Read more

It’s Glorbin’ Time again! Now Destiny 2 players have tricked an AI site using the fake boss Glorbo-

Enterprising World of Warcraft fans took it upon themselves last week to demonstrate that AI is actually AS—that is, absolutely stupid—by making up a new (and, for the record, not real) character named Glorbo, and then posting about it in the WoW subreddit. This had the effect of tricking AI article generators that were trawling the subreddit into “thinking” the character was real, and then creating and posting stories about players who “eagerly anticipate the changes Glorbo will bring to the game.”

It was all very funny and stupid, and a clear demonstration of the inherent weaknesses of AI and fallacy of over-reliance on automated systems. And if you think any lessons were learned, think again, because Glorbo is back, baby, this time as a Destiny 2 secret boss.

Read more

Modern Warfare 3’s gameplay reveal was dull, but it also teased something legitimately exciting-

Every year when the clock strikes Call of Duty, you can count on Activision to do the same two things: tell us this year CoD is the biggest, most innovative one yet, and then undermine all of that by dropping an underwhelming gameplay video.

For a series that’s constantly fighting the perception that it doesn’t change enough to justify buying another $70 game (a battle that’s especially uphill this year), it’s remarkable just how unremarkable Modern Warfare 3 looked during Geoff Keighley’s Opening Night Live stream.

You could watch the reveal above, or I could save you nine minutes by describing it in the form of a Modern Warfare bingo card: 

  • A dark, stormy stealth infiltration
  • A squad rappelling up a wall
  • Nightvision on
  • AI teammate ex…
    Read more

Leaked Intel Arrow Lake CPU benchmarks show generational performance regression but that might not be the whole story-

What with the ongoing 13th and 14th Gen CPU debacle, wouldn’t it be nice if Intel had a hot new generation of desktop processors to fix everything. In theory, that would be Arrow Lake, due out later this year.

The problem is, some new leaked benchmarks spotted by X account Benchleaks (via Tom’s Hardware) don’t exactly paint a stellar picture of Arrow Lake’s performance prowess.

The chip in question is the upcoming Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF. It’s expected to slot into the range in the same spot as the existing Core i7-14700KF. So, it’s a second rung model with the integrated GPU disabled.

But what of those benchmark results? Well, we’re talking Geekbench 6, which comes with the usual caveats. Whatever, the leaked numbers for the 265KF are 3,219 single-thread points and 1…

Read more

Modiphius has announced the year’s most obscure tabletop RPG adaptation-

When it comes to TTRPGs based on licensed properties, there are some weird examples out there. Just recently there was a crowdfunded set of books based on the original Planet of the Apes movies, I was surprised in February by the announcement of a Tomb Raider RPG, and going back to the hobby’s early days you can find such oddities as games based on Dallas and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. 

Still, the latest announcement from publisher Modiphius is definitely the most obscure I’ve seen this year. Space: 1999 is based on the TV show of the same name, a UK sci-fi series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson (of Thunderbirds fame) that ran for two seasons in the ’70s, and will use the 2d20 system (which you might know from the Fallout TTRPG) to enable adventures on Moonbase A…

Read more

Stellar Blade studio is now ‘considering’ a PC release, and a sequel too-

Stellar Blade was originally introduced in 2019 as Project Eve, after which it fell off our radar until 2021, when we said it looked like a cross between Nier and Bayonetta. A year later it got a new name—Stellar Blade—and became a PlayStation 5 exclusive, and that was pretty much that for us.

But it may not remain that way forever: Developer Shift Up said in its latest financial report, shared on Twitter by Okami13_ (via RPS) that it is now looking into a possible PC release.

The English-language wording of the Google-translated report is a bit wonky in spots, but it specifically notes the importance of the PC market: “The expansion of PC-based gaming platforms such as Steam and the Epic Games Store has made AAA titles more accessible to PC users, pushing them b…

Read more