Digitaltrends.com News, Tips, Tricks, Ideas

The finale of X-Men ‘97 aired this week, and it’s making me reflect on just how important these mutants are. Ever since their emergence in the 1960s, this superhero team has served as a cultural touchstone, providing a fictional world where issues of social oppression can be explored. And on top of all that, they’re still superheroes with radical powers. X-Men ’97 has doubled down on that to create the best Marvel series on Disney+ yet. That’s exciting, but it’s made a certain void all the more tangible: Where are all the X-Men games?

Ubisoft’s biggest upcoming game is arguably Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which is set to release on November 15 across all the usual platforms, including PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. That also seems to include some unusual ones, too, including Mac.

It’s been a long time coming, but we’re finally seeing stock for the PlayStation Portal creep through. That means one of the better PlayStation deals right now is being able to buy the PlayStation Portal at Best Buy for $200. It wasn’t that long ago that stock was non-existent, so if you’ve been itching to play PS5 games on the move, this is your chance to do so. Here’s what to expect from your purchase.

If you’re on the hunt for monitor deals to pair with a top-of-the-line gaming PC, you’re going to want a display like the Alienware AW2524H gaming monitor. If you’re interested, it’s currently on sale from Dell at $200 off, which brings its price down to just $500 from $700. It’s still relatively expensive after the discount, but it’s a reasonable price for a screen with a 500Hz refresh rate. However, since this is a clearance sale, there’s a chance that stocks run out sooner than you think, so proceed with the purchase immediately if you want to pocket the savings.

Ubisoft announced Wednesday that it would be canceling its in-development,free-to-play third-person shooter Tom Clancy’s The Division Heartland, citing a recalibration of its resources. It also said that it would be moving workers at Red Storm, the support studio in charge of the game, onto other projects.

If you somehow haven’t played the 2018 open-world classic Red Dead Redemption 2 yet and you have a PlayStation Plus subscription, we have good news. PlayStation announced in a blog post Wednesday that the game will be available for free for the Plus program’s Extra and Premium tiers.

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Ubisoft released the first trailer for Assassin’s Creed Shadows on Wednesday, revealing for the first time that the game will have two protagonists: Yasuke, the historical black samurai, and Naoe, a Japanese shinobi.

Steam has evolved a lot since it initially launched. What was once a simple storefront has developed into the largest PC gaming community in the world, with millions of people around the globe logging on and playing. Because Steam is a digital-only storefront, and games are tied to a single account, it did have a drawback when multiple people in a family wanted their own accounts. There were questions about parental controls, game sharing, and more, but Valve has been working away at a solution. Currently available in the Steam Beta, Steam Families offer a range of options and features that any household should look into. Let’s dive into how it works and what you can do with it.

There are tons of ways to earn all the different forms of currency and items in Genshin Impact, but you can only get so much in a day before you run out. While the game isn’t going to grind to a halt if you don’t have enough items like Primogems, you will be significantly slowed down in terms of progress. While you could turn to spending real money to get over these humps, there are alternative ways to get a huge influx of items completely free, with no grinding required. Each month, there is a new set of Genshin Impact codes you can take advantage of to add tons of Primogems, experience, Mora, and more to your inventory. Here are all the current ones you can claim and how to access them.

Strands is a brand new daily puzzle from the New York Times. A trickier take on the classic word search, you’ll need a keen eye to solve this puzzle.

Love crossword puzzles but don’t have all day to sit and solve a full-sized puzzle in your daily newspaper? That’s what The Mini is for!

Connections is the latest puzzle game from the New York Times. The game tasks you with categorizing a pool of 16 words into four secret (for now) groups by figuring out how the words relate to each other. The puzzle resets every night at midnight and each new puzzle has a varying degree of difficulty. Just like Wordle, you can keep track of your winning streak and compare your scores with friends.

The residents of Pelican Town are friendly enough when you begin a new farming adventure in Stardew Valley, but you need to do some work to really earn their affection.

The go-to voice and text-chat platform for gamers the world over, it was rather surprising how long it took Sony to add Discord integration for the PS5. As it stands, there still isn’t a native Discord app you can use on the console. That being said, you can still use the Discord app on your phone or tablet to access voice chat on the PS5. We’ve put together this guide to teach you how it’s done.

You should be willing to spend some serious cash if you want to get a powerful machine from gaming PC deals, but you should always be on the lookout for chances at huge savings. Here’s an offer that you have to consider: the Lenovo Legion Tower 5 Gen 8 with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super graphics card is $590 off, so it’s down to $1,490 from $2,080. It’s still pretty expensive, but the 28% discount will give you amazing value for your purchase. You’ll need to complete the transaction as soon as possible though, as we’re not sure how much time is remaining before the bargain ends.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons‘ laid-back gameplay has taken the world by storm and shows no sign of slowing down. There’s never been a better time to stay inside and enjoy the leisurely island lifestyle — and people are loving what the title has to offer. But once you’ve burned through your first 40 hours, New Horizons is best played in short bursts. Most people will log in for a few minutes each day, see what’s happening on the island, finish their daily tasks, and quickly log out. While mods can add more variety, sometimes you need a fresh take to really scratch that itch. None of the following suggestions are identical to New Horizons, but they all offer a unique combination of crafting, exploring, and chatting with your NPC neighbors that New Horizons fans are bound to enjoy.

Pokémon is one of the most successful video game franchises of all time. With a history spanning nearly 30 years, there are a lot of Pokémon games that you can pick up and play — but where do you start? Unless you’re a Pokémon professor, it might be tough finding the right game to play.

Behaviour Interactive is committed to growing Dead by Daylight as a franchise. That much is clear given that three spinoff games from the multiplayer horror hit were shown off during a live stream today. One of them is even out now.

Every new season in Fortnite is a massive event. While not quite on the scale of a new Chapter, seasons still bring about a ton of changes to the ever-evolving battle royale phenomenon to keep players engaged. New skins, abilities, missions, weapons, and a new battle pass to complete are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of new content. If one season doesn’t quite hit for you, or if you’ve already crushed all the content there was and are eagerly awaiting the next season’s start, knowing when to mark your calendar is essential. Let’s dive into when you can expect the next season of Fortnite to begin.

Behaviour Interactive revealed some of the game-changing updates that are coming to Dead by Daylight this year. That includes a new 2v8 mode and crossovers with two iconic franchises.

Prior to founding Midsummer Studio, a new development team that was announced today, Jake Solomon’s last big credit was working as creative director on Marvel’s Midnight Suns. In an interview with Digital Trends, Solomon gave some frank answers as to why the superhero strategy game got off to a disappointing launch.

The Pokémon series has been around for nearly 30 years, so it’s no surprise that its fan base has quite a large age range. While the franchise does have complicated mechanics in place — a vast knowledge of Pokémon states is needed to play competitively and shiny Pokémon hunting has been broken down into a science instead of a surprise — but, as a whole, the series’ story and overall difficultly has always been family-friendly and aimed toward a younger audience. This can leave older, more experienced Pokémon trainers wanting more when they cruise through a new Pokémon title.

If you have a Netflix subscription, but have yet to try any of the games included with it, you’re missing out. The streaming service has quietly put together a strong library of titles over the past few years, from certified classics like Hades to strong original games like Laya’s Horizon. Next week, Netflix subscribers can get another charming indie with their subscription: Paper Trail.

Gamers who are on the hunt for gaming PC deals should turn their attention towards Dell’s offer for the Alienware Aurora R15. This particular configuration of the gaming desktop that originally goes for $3,900 is on sale with a $1,100 discount that drops its price to $2,800. It’s still not cheap, but you’ll quickly understand why it’s worth every penny once you’ve started playing your favorite games on this machine. We’re not sure how long the bargain will remain online though, so if you’re interested, you should buy the gaming PC right now.

Game developer Jake Solomon first made a name for himself by helming Firaxis’ revival of XCOM and Marvel’s Midnight Suns. In an interview, Solomon told Digital Trends that he has no problem being known as “the XCOM guy,” and he joked that there is a world where he could see himself dying during a playtest of XCOM 17. But after Marvel’s Midnight Suns, Solomon wanted something different.

Strands is a brand new daily puzzle from the New York Times. A trickier take on the classic word search, you’ll need a keen eye to solve this puzzle.

Connections is the latest puzzle game from the New York Times. The game tasks you with categorizing a pool of 16 words into four secret (for now) groups by figuring out how the words relate to each other. The puzzle resets every night at midnight and each new puzzle has a varying degree of difficulty. Just like Wordle, you can keep track of your winning streak and compare your scores with friends.

Love crossword puzzles but don’t have all day to sit and solve a full-sized puzzle in your daily newspaper? That’s what The Mini is for!

If you’re fresh from buying a powerful machine from gaming PC deals, you should also purchase a premium display to maximize its potential. We highly recommend the 45-inch LG UltraGear OLED curved gaming monitor, especially now that it’s available from Best Buy with a $400 discount that slashes its price from $1,700 to $1,300. It’s still not cheap, but it’s worth every penny as the perfect screen for PC gaming. You’ll have to act fast though, as we’re not sure how long this lowered price will hold.

Even though VR has been around for a while, the market has only really started booming in the last half-decade, with the best VR headsets that are actually affordable coming out in the past couple of years or so. One great example is the Meta Quest 3, which is so new that it essentially has no deals available for it right now. That said, you get some bonuses when you buy the Quest 3, including a free game and a few months of Meta’s game subscription service if you buy the larger 512Gb Quest 3. You could also try checking out some Meta Quest 2 deals if you feel the Quest 3 is still too pricey for you.

If you’re searching for a powerful gaming machine from the available gaming PC deals online, we highly recommend going for the HP Omen 40L gaming desktop. From its original price of $1,480, it’s down to a more reasonable $1,250 for savings of $230. You’re going to have to hurry with your purchase though, because we’re not sure how much time is remaining for this bargain. If you delay your transaction to tomorrow, there’s a chance that you miss out on the discount.

Not all gaming laptop deals are worthwhile purchases, as some devices will have trouble meeting the needs of gamers. If you need a recommendation to avoid any disappointments, we suggest going for the Dell G16 gaming laptop, which is on sale from Dell at $600 off. Instead of $1,900, you’ll have to pay just $1,300 for this dependable machine, but you’ll have to be quick with your purchase because the gaming laptop may be back to its regular price as soon as tomorrow.

Everyone who has played a Pokemon game knows that the most powerful ball is the legendary Master Ball. Most games only provide you with one of these overpowered items that lets you catch any Pokemon you want without a fight, but Pokemon GO didn’t include them at all for many years. That all changed in 2023 when they were introduced as part of a special event and finally gave trainers the chance to add one to their bags. If you log in today looking to get one for yourself to have ready for when you find that elusive Pokemon you’ve been struggling to catch, you won’t see any signs of how to get one. Like any good professor, we will instruct you on all the things you need to know about getting a Master Ball in Pokemon GO.

After spending a weekend with the Marvel Rivals alpha test, I discovered that I had almost completely forgotten it was a Marvel game.

Love crossword puzzles but don’t have all day to sit and solve a full-sized puzzle in your daily newspaper? That’s what The Mini is for!

Connections is the latest puzzle game from the New York Times. The game tasks you with categorizing a pool of 16 words into four secret (for now) groups by figuring out how the words relate to each other. The puzzle resets every night at midnight and each new puzzle has a varying degree of difficulty. Just like Wordle, you can keep track of your winning streak and compare your scores with friends.

Square Enix, the Japanese developer and publisher behind recent PlayStation 5 exclusives like Final Fantasy XVI and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, plans to release more multiplatform titles in the future.

Strands is a brand new daily puzzle from the New York Times. A trickier take on the classic word search, you’ll need a keen eye to solve this puzzle.

This summer, we’re living in a brave new world. E3 is officially dead — for real this time. That means there’s a vacuum to be filled as publishers still look to showcase their games during high-profile events. There’s both good news and bad news for anyone who looks forward to E3 season. The good news? Summer Game Fest is filling that gap, alongside several streams that’ll orbit around it. The bad news? Keeping track of it all is a huge pain.

Decorating and designing your dream island in Animal Crossing: New Horizions takes a lot of Bells and materials. There are hundreds of ways to decorate your dream island, but the grind to get there can be a little daunting, especially with so many items being seasonal or part of holiday events. You are always encouraged to go out and visit your friend’s islands via Dodo Airlines (as long as you have a Nintendo Switch Online membership) so you can trade for or snag some items from their islands. You might also have heard of special Treasure Islands you can visit. These are said to be jam-packed with all sorts of rare items to collect. As you know, you can’t randomly visit other players’ islands, so here’s how you can reach them.

One of the major advancements the PlayStation 5 brought with its new DualSense controller was a new form of haptic feedback. In addition to more dynamic rumble, this included adaptive triggers that could adjust how it felt to pull the triggers to match the action on-screen. This could mean simulating resistance, or stopping the trigger short at different intervals. While novel, it isn't always great if you want to be playing at your best. The last thing you want is to struggle to fire your weapon in an online first-person shooter. Thankfully, this is an optional feature you can easily disable from your console.

For gamers of a certain age, Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64 was a landmark moment in gaming. This spy-themed shooter was the culprit behind countless sleepless nights and arguments over screen-peeking with friends. Since then, James Bond games never really hit those same highs and even disappeared for over a decade. Now, a new developer has taken up the iconic franchise to make a new 007 game, and the pairing seems almost too good to be true. IO Interactive, fresh off the stellar Hitman trilogy, revealed that it is creating a new James Bond game currently referred to by the code name of Project 007. Details are so scarce that even Bond himself would have a hard time uncovering them, but we’ve compiled all the intel so far on this new title.

Connections is the latest puzzle game from the New York Times. The game tasks you with categorizing a pool of 16 words into four secret (for now) groups by figuring out how the words relate to each other. The puzzle resets every night at midnight and each new puzzle has a varying degree of difficulty. Just like Wordle, you can keep track of your winning streak and compare your scores with friends.

Strands is a brand new daily puzzle from the New York Times. A trickier take on the classic word search, you’ll need a keen eye to solve this puzzle.

Love crossword puzzles but don’t have all day to sit and solve a full-sized puzzle in your daily newspaper? That’s what The Mini is for!

After years of speculation and wild rumors, it’s official: Nintendo’s new console is on the horizon.

There are few experiences better than gathering a crew of friends and embarking on a thrilling pirate adventure in Sea of Thieves. When everything is working as intended, Sea of Thieves is a fun and addicting time, but players have reported a number of technical issues and bugs that can interrupt your voyage. We compiled a list of the most common problems players have reported, as well as how to fix them.

There are ways in which you could play as a solo pirate in Sea of Thieves, but adventuring is so much more fun and rewarding when you’re part of a crew. Once you’ve gotten a handle on how to play the game, taking on voyages and attacking other players with fellow pirates is where the real fun begins. Alliances make it much easier to coordinate and team up with your fellow scallywags, but how you form them and all the benefits they can provide are somewhat obfuscated. It isn’t as simple as joining a party through a menu like in other games, so follow our treasure map to learn all about how alliances work in Sea of Thieves.

BioWare has had a rough few years. Following the critical and commercial success of Dragon Age: Inquisition, the studio moved on to Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem, two games that abandoned the tenets of previous BioWare titles under mounting publisher pressure.

After Fortnite unleashed a flood of crossovers into the gaming world, there’s almost nothing that’s off the table anymore. Call of Duty getting a Nicki Minaj operator, for example, would likely never have happened 10 years ago, and yet here we are. The rapper/singer is often called the Queen of Rap, but she’s expanded her talents to dolphin-diving and no-scoping noobs on the battlefield. If you want to strut your stuff as Minaj in your next match, complete with her own set of pink weapons and vehicle skin, there are a few bits of information you need to know before loading up your next game.

Love crossword puzzles but don’t have all day to sit and solve a full-sized puzzle in your daily newspaper? That’s what The Mini is for!

Connections is the latest puzzle game from the New York Times. The game tasks you with categorizing a pool of 16 words into four secret (for now) groups by figuring out how the words relate to each other. The puzzle resets every night at midnight and each new puzzle has a varying degree of difficulty. Just like Wordle, you can keep track of your winning streak and compare your scores with friends.

You can’t say State of Decay 2 hasn’t gotten more than its fair share of developer support. Not only did it receive plenty of extra content and updates after launch, but it even continues to be worked on years after State of Decay 3 was announced. Being an open-world zombie survival game with tons of RPG and management elements, it wasn’t long before modders saw all the potential there was to tweak, add to, and fully customize this great game to be even better. Modders have done everything from increasing the difficulty to enhancing the immersion with new lighting, so we’ve scavenged the net for only the best State of Decay 2 mods to recommend.

Strands is a brand new daily puzzle from the New York Times. A trickier take on the classic word search, you’ll need a keen eye to solve this puzzle.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes hits theaters this weekend. If you were hoping to find ways to spend more time in that world through video games, your options are surprisingly slim. Your only easy option is Planet of the Apes: Last Frontier. This is a game I’ve seen almost no one talk about since it was released, but it’s a fascinating title that warrants a revisit.

Obsessed with New York Times’ games? So are we, and Spelling Bee is one of our favorites. But just like any other NYT game — Wordle, Connections, Strands, and The Mini — we have trouble finishing it occasionally.

The popular Dell G15 gaming laptop will probably get picked up by more gamers due to Dell’s $250 discount on this configuration with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 graphics card. From its original price of $1,050, it’s down to only $800, which is a fantastic price for this machine. You’re going to have to hurry with your purchase though because the offer may end at any moment. Add the gaming laptop to your cart and check out immediately to make sure that you’re able to pocket the savings.

One of the key features of vampires, at least in their original depiction, is their ability to take the form of a bat to quickly traverse the night. In V Rising, you technically can shapeshift but it won’t make a big impact on your ability to travel. You have all the normal weaknesses of the mythical creature, such as aversion to sunlight and the need to suck blood in order to survive, but you must stick to normal methods of transportation most of the time. Getting on a horse certainly speeds up your traversal, but the map is quite large and sometimes you just want to get from one side to the other quickly.

Homeworld 3 MSRP $60.00 Score Details Pros

V Rising had little hype before it came out in 2022, but quickly become one of the year’s breakout hits on PC. Combining elements of the survival genre, action RPGs, and wrapping it all up in a gothic vampire tale has resulted in an incredibly deep and addicting game that is sure to suck hours of your life away. After creating your own unique vampire, you’re almost immediately let loose in a world that, understandably, wants nothing more than to see you dead. You have a lot of ways to fight back, but that amount of choice, and multiple progression systems you need to balance, would be hard for even an immortal creature of the night to keep track of.

We all love GTA 5 for letting us live out our more chaotic and destructive fantasies, but you aren’t just limited to being a criminal in the world Rockstar Games has created. The single-player version is packed with content, but jumping online is where the possibilities really open up. Role-play servers, also called RP servers, modify the game and rules, with players expected to fully commit to whatever character they choose to embody. If you’re a cop, you shouldn’t be recklessly driving and shooting civilians, for example. You can’t expect to randomly jump into an online lobby and have everyone follow the rules, though. You will need to join very specific RP servers to get the true experience. While we wait for GTA 6, here are the best role-play servers out there.

Connections is the latest puzzle game from the New York Times. The game tasks you with categorizing a pool of 16 words into four secret (for now) groups by figuring out how the words relate to each other. The puzzle resets every night at midnight and each new puzzle has a varying degree of difficulty. Just like Wordle, you can keep track of your winning streak and compare your scores with friends.

Love crossword puzzles but don’t have all day to sit and solve a full-sized puzzle in your daily newspaper? That’s what The Mini is for!

If you've installed another internal SSD in your PlayStation 5, you probably did so to increase your overall storage capacity for games. It's always great to have so much room for as many games as you'd like to keep installed at any one time, but you may wondering how to move certain games to your additional SSD to clean up space on your main SSD. In this guide, we'll tell you how to do so.

Strands is a brand new daily puzzle from the New York Times. A trickier take on the classic word search, you’ll need a keen eye to solve this puzzle.

If you only tend to follow the biggest video game releases, it may seem like the Nintendo Switch is currently in a game drought. The system has only gotten a handful of niche releases last year, like Endless Ocean: Luminous, that haven’t been Zelda-level hits. Zoom out a bit, though, and you’ll find that Nintendo’s aging system is still thriving. That’s thanks to vibrant indie and third-party scenes that are keeping the platform engaging.

The weekend is here, so you probably want to sit back and relax by playing some video games. If you’re subscribed to PlayStation Plus Premium or Extra on PS4 or PS5, then there are tons of fantastic titles to choose from in the subscription service’s vast game catalog. It’s a lot to sift through, so I’ve handpicked three titles I think you should check out if you haven’t played them already.

Whenever we recommend games at Digital Trends, we tend to go heavy on titles available on subscription services like Xbox Game Pass. Rather than telling our readers to buy new games, we always try to find ones that might be on services they’re already paying for. Still, that doesn’t cover every player. There are plenty of more casual gaming fans who aren’t subscribed to any service that offers extra games. We don’t want to leave them out, do we?

This may feel like an odd weekend to play Xbox Game Pass because it has been such a devastating week for Xbox. It shuttered four studios that fell under Bethesda’s umbrella, with Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks being the most notable closures. Although it can be tough to enjoy playing games during a time when the game industry is so clearly hurting, it also offers us an opportunity to look back at what these developers created and appreciate hard work. That’s how I chose the three titles I’m spotlighting today.

One of the reasons Among Us took off in popularity was how simple the game is to understand. It has charming, but basic graphics, and the mechanics of one team trying to secretly kill the other without getting caught was hugely appealing. bur what made it so accessible were the social elements where everyone would argue their case and try to convince others of who the killer was to send them out of the airlock. As great as that simplicity is, it does eventually get a little old even with the new roles added in 2021. Among Us mods breathe new life into this fantastic game with quality-of-life upgrades and entirely new ways to play. We understand that a lot of mods out there are pretty sus, but you can trust that these are the best ones available.

For more than 25 years, developer Game Freak has found a way to reinvent the Pokémon franchise for each new generation of gamers. Both brand-new Pokémon trainers and seasoned Pokémon masters are captivated by these cute (and sometimes scary) little monsters. Maybe it’s the drive to catch ’em all that keeps players coming back. Or perhaps it’s how adorable these little pocket monsters can be. Whatever the reason, players continue to return to or start exploring the Pokémon franchise.

A large-scale sci-fi real-time strategy series is finally coming back with Homeworld 3, and its release is imminent. This is the only RTS series that places you in direct control of entire fleets of ships in 3D combat in some of the most beautiful regions of space we’ve seen. While we have to wait to see if the story has a satisfying conclusion after all these years, there are always the co-op and PvP modes to sink your time into long after the credits roll. Let’s make sure your ships are refueled and ready to take off when Homeworld 3 releases.

Connections is the latest puzzle game from the New York Times. The game tasks you with categorizing a pool of 16 words into four secret (for now) groups by figuring out how the words relate to each other. The puzzle resets every night at midnight and each new puzzle has a varying degree of difficulty. Just like Wordle, you can keep track of your winning streak and compare your scores with friends.

Unless you’re a lefty, you may not notice that every shooter, including Counter-Strike 2, always has you playing as a right-handed character. While it may not seem like a big deal, it just feels awkward for people who primarily use their left hands to get used to seeing games that way, especially when previous versions of this game allowed you to play as a southpaw. And, if you’re playing at the highest level, swapping hands can make peaking corners much easier. While it was missing for almost the first year of the game, Counter -trike 2 has finally allowed players to swap hands and play however is more natural and comfortable for them. Here is how to set your preferred handedness in Counter-Strike 2 and swap it on the fly.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve found myself reflecting a lot on the kinds of games I played as a kid growing up in the 1990s. That’s not just for nostalgia’s sake; several new releases this month hark back to that era.Crow Country is a throwback to PlayStation 1 horror games, while Endless Ocean: Luminous almost plays like a big-budget educational game. But nothing has brought me back more than Cryptmaster.

Best Buy is currently hosting an absolutely huge Spring sale. There are countless items on sale here with seemingly everything you can think of available. That means fantastic TV deals like being able to grab an

Animal Well MSRP $25.00 Score Details Pros

Strands is a brand new daily puzzle from the New York Times. A trickier take on the classic word search, you’ll need a keen eye to solve this puzzle.

Love crossword puzzles but don’t have all day to sit and solve a full-sized puzzle in your daily newspaper? That’s what The Mini is for!