Something for the Easter Weekend – 30/03/24

We’re coming to the end of the “get up obscenely early to watch Formula 1” season for UK fans, but that hasn’t been helped by F1’s decision to make the Chinese GP a sprint race, with a 4AM start time for the mini-race this morning. Having dutifully set my watch alarm to tap my wrist a few minutes before, I managed to sleep through it… but was then woken by a repeat alarm an hour later, and struggled to get back to sleep. All of the pain, none of the gain.

Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke recently discussed various topics in an interview published by GamesIndustry. The director of Baldur's Gate 3 talked about avoiding overlap with Bethesda's Starfield (Larian's game launched in early August on PC, while Starfield was released in early September) and his respect for the studio.

While Xbox Game Pass is set to gain a selection of fantastic Day-One releases in the back half of April, subscribers may want to act fast to play the six games leaving the service in the coming weeks. To offset the amount of titles the platform offers, Microsoft always removes a handful of games whenever it brings in a new selection for players to experience. While that might sound like a bad deal, it makes sense given the already massive catalog on offer and users can still pick up the departing games for a discount before they eventually leave.

Helldivers 2's popularity is still sky-high, but more and more demands have been flooding in lately for developer Arrowhead to put a greater focus on squashing bugs rather than adding new content, something which the devs have pointed out isn't exactly straightforward. It's rather ironic, really, given the game's massive focus on killing democracy-hating bugs.

It looks like it’s going to be a lovely weekend, so I’ve got plans to head out into the garden and do some gardening. There will obviously be some gaming in the evening, but I’ve got to make the most of the weather! What are you getting up to this weekend?

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Final Fantasy fans have a lot to unpack today, as the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Ultimania book has now launched in Japan, giving us more juicy details about the recent RPG as well as the next chapter in the Remake trilogy. Notably, we've gotten a little more indication as to how long we can expect to wait for Part 3, even if no release window has been confirmed yet.

Fallout games are having a moment in the wake of glowing reviews for the new TV series adaptation on Prime Video. Amazon has added two of the series’ best games as freebies for Prime members on Luna, its cloud streaming service. Fallout 4 is also getting some love, as Bethesda said it will drop the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S update for the 2015 game on April 25.

Earlier this week, the servers supporting online services for all 3DS and Wii U games met their end. Although it's a sad time for anyone who has a place in their heart for the games affected, the community efforts that have followed since are so wholesome that it almost makes the whole thing worth it. Tributes have been flooding in to honor the fallen online modes, and a dedicated subsection of fans are somehow still holding on as the last survivors of the official servers.

Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas are now free for Amazon Prime members.

Tekken 8 developers have announced a wave of fixes will be coming in the game's next update that address several key issues affecting the game. These fixes address a variety of issues currently affecting Tekken 8 gameplay, ranging from animation distance and length, hitboxes, and move sets, as well as balancing changes for several characters.

It’s fair to say it’s been a slower week than usual round these parts. Perhaps it’s the comedown from the chocolatey sugar highs of Easter, or just it being a shorter week after a long weekend? So, let’s quickly race through what’s happened.