E3 is officially over forever

The vastly different personalities of companions are the perfect recipe for some serious tensions among party members, but it's possible to kindle romance between the most unlikely of characters despite their typical frostiness. The biggest divides between characters in the game tend to come as a result of disparate cultural values or outlooks on morality, building on the traditional races, backgrounds, and alignments of while allowing for some growth and flexibility. From Karlach's fundamental optimism to Astarion's penchant for flippant cruelty, the party has the perfect dose of dysfunction that seems to be a crucial adventuring recipe.

This past week, Blizzard revealed new Hero Talent Trees in a First Look at the new system coming with the The War Within expansion. Our Holy Paladin guide writer, Clarius, offers an early review of the Lightsmith Paladin Hero Talents for Holy and addresses why there might be a lot of frustration with the current design. First Look at Hero Talents in The War WithinHero Talents Overview

, one of Nintendo's most iconic, flagship series, is almost assuredly going to continue after its most recent outing, 2023's incredibly successful. With no news (or even confirmation of) the next entry, it's impossible to know what it'll look like, whether it iterates on the more recent open-world formula, embraces the series' more traditional trappings once again, or breaks new ground entirely. One thing almost guaranteed, though, is that the next game will feature the series' ever-present hero, Link, and even an innocuous change to the protagonist could pay homage to his past.

Activision Blizzard has agreed to pay more than $54 million (and an additional $47 million for affected employees) to settle a lawsuit filed by California’s Civil Rights Department in 2021. The lawsuit was filed over accusations of sexual and gender harassment, along with discrimination, including pay disparities.

The Electronic Entertainment Expo, better known as E3, is officially dead. A statement on the official website simply reads: «After more than two decades of E3, each one bigger than the last, the time has come to say goodbye. Thanks for the memories.»

Naughty Dog has today shared the news its The Last of Us Multiplayer project has been officially cancelled. A post on the developer's official website states: «We’ve made the incredibly difficult decision to stop development on that game.»

We’d known for a while now that Naughty Dog was working on a standalone multiplayer Last of Us game, but recent months have raised questions about what state the project is in behind-the-scenes. Reports have claimed that its development team has been scaled back, and that though it hadn’t been completely cancelled, it had been put “on ice”. And though the project’s director confirmed as recently as last month that it was still in the works, that is officially no longer the case.

Naughty Dog officially canceled its planned multiplayer spin-off of The Last of Us today, ending months of speculation about the planned game's status. The reason given? It would come at the expense of the single-player games the studio creates.

Naughty Dog has officially announced that it is canceling its highly-anticipated online multiplayer game based in the universe of The Last of Us, claiming that it would need to take more attention away from its single player projects than it wants to.

Following reports that development on Naughty Dog's long-awaited The Last of Us multiplayer game had been «slowed down» earlier this year, the studio has announced it's officially pulling the plug on the project, saying it didn't want to become a «solely live service games studio».

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E3, what was once the biggest video game expo, is officially dead. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) confirmed the news on Twitter, thanking the fans and developers who attended and supported the in-person show for over two decades. Its closure was only a matter of time, slyly signalled in March, when the 2023 edition got cancelled due to a lack of interest from several publishers including the big three — PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo — all of which pulled out. Add to that pandemic-era disruption which caused global lockdowns, competitors such as Summer Game Fest, and the general audience preferring to catch up on game reveals from the comfort of their homes, eventually leading to its demise.