Dune: Awakening's First Player Test Took Place This Month, With the Next Planned For 'Early Next Year'

Microsoft debuted its Xbox Developer Direct event in January last year, and the company looks set to return with a second edition in 2024. A recent rumour claimed that another Xbox Developer Direct presentation was set for sometime this month, and further details on its timing may now have surfaced.

Square Enix’s Creative Business Unit 3 is delivering lots of new content to Final Fantasy 14 with Dawntrail this Summer. Of course, fans can partake in plenty before that, like an upcoming crossover quest with Final Fantasy 16. It’s planned to go live in early April with patch 6.5X.

After being revealed at the Las Vegas Final Fantasy Fest in July, and then detailed at the London Fan Fest in October, the Final Fantasy XVI crossover event is scheduled to hit the popular MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV in Early April. We’ve known the event was in the works for a while now, but this is the first time we’re seeing an actual release timeframe. The event will launch with the current expansion, Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker, ahead of the release of the new one Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail.

January 2023 saw Microsoft taking a swing at the Nintendo Direct formula with its own Xbox Developer Direct, where it showcased the likes of Redfall, Forza Motorsport, and Minecraft Legends, along with announcing and shadow dropping Hi-Fi Rush. Interestingly, it seems like the company might have something similar planned for 2024 as well.

Infestation 88 was announced by developers Nightmare Forge Games yesterday (January 1) in the New Year celebrations as the iconic black and white cartoon character Steamboat Willie (an older version of Mickey Mouse) is now in the public domain. 

This is a weird post, but it's a slow news week — we had the chance to chat with the HyperX Arena in Las Vegas about covering MMOs, the industry at large, as well as show how bad Bradford actually is in game.  Also, estuaries come up way too frequently for a show about video games.

One of the biggest strengths of Lego is that you're only limited to your imagination. You're given a bunch of blocks and told to make whatever you like, and the same can mostly be said for Lego Fortnite, the free-to-play Minecraft-style mode recently added to Fortnite. While players are managing to make airships and recreate Star Destroyers, there's one big problem players are running into that's stopping them from unleashing their true creativity.

There are a lot of ways to judge a great performance. In 2023, as in every year, some of the year’s best movies were quirky, colorful, boundary-pushing challenges to the cinematic status quo, and some were low-key, emotionally intense stories, either tracking the lives of famous historical figures or just trying to evoke the pains of real life. Our list of the best performances of the year honors both extremes: outsized performances that tickled and surprised us, and realistic ones that made us forget we were watching a performance. Here are our favorites among the many great performances we saw in movies in 2023.

Starfield developer Bethesda has released some player stats to round up the RPG's launch year, and it revealed a lot about its fans. 

Bethesda’s spacefaring role-playing game, Starfield still has many updates to come, according to a new blog post from the developer. The blog post shares that Starfield has enjoyed the biggest launch in Bethesda history, with 13 million players since September. Future updates will release every six weeks or so, and include “everything from quality-of-life improvements to content and feature updates.”

Penny Dragon Games and IGN are teaming up to present Lost Odyssey: Shadows of Destiny, a one-shot set in Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game that will raise money for Extra Life and star the voices of Avatar: The Last Airbender's Aang and Toph and Yakuza: Like a Dragon's Ichiban Kasuga alongside professional Athena Palmer and Game Master TJ Storm.

EVE Vanguard's fist test, First Strike, has come and gone, and CCP Games has revealed some interesting tidbits from the test, including the fact that over 100 thousand Vanguard clones were killed by other Vanguards.