Destructoid News, Tips, Tricks, Ideas

Last year’s Alan Wake 2 was a triumph, not only in the survival horror genre but in AAA gaming in general. Given the high praise, it’s no wonder we declared it one of our favorite games of 2023. And for good reason, too.

After a lot of rumors, Xbox released a roughly 23-minute podcast in which its heads came together to address the rumors and talk a bit about the future of Xbox. The big takeaway is that four specific, unnamed titles will be coming to other consoles in the future, but Xbox’s stance on exclusivity isn’t changing otherwise. Oh, and Starfield and Indiana Jones are not one of those four games.

After finally securing its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft is now bringing the company’s games under the Game Pass umbrella. Activision Blizzard titles will be heading to the Xbox Game Pass service, starting with Diablo IV this March.

Those who adore retro fighting and arcade games should check out this month’s Capcom Humble Bundle. It provides 70 games, including Street Fighter V: Champion Edition, Final Fight, Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, Darkstalkers: The Night Walkers, and many more Capcom titles.

If you’ve not yet heard about Synthetik 2 and its predecessor, Synthetik (as featured in our Steam Deck Roguelites recs), we can’t blame you, as they’re both niche. However, if the idea of a retro-futuristic tactical twin-stick shooter inspired by Robocop tingles, Synthetik 2‘s Update 14 may be of interest.

Plenty of praise has been already directed at Arrowhead Studios’ latest flagship release, Helldivers 2, but the fact of the matter is that the game is only just kicking off. Notably, the cyborg Automaton faction has mounted its first full-fledged onslaught in Helldivers 2, and it’s a wildly different sort of battlefield.

It’s been over ten years since the release of EA Sports’ NCAA Football 14. The college football fanbase has been rabid for its reintroduction for years. They’ll get their first look at the series’ evolution soon.

Bungie has been uncharacteristically generous as of late. At first glance, it seems that Destiny 2 players are eating well. But Bungie’s change of pace doesn’t read like its usual exchange for goodwill — something that especially rings true when looking at the state of the studio. 

Embracer Group has released its fiscal report for Q3 2023, and while much of it is operational information for shareholders, it does provide some insight into where they are in regard to the vicious restructuring that has resulted in a tremendous number of lost jobs.

Early this year, Turn 10 promised to improve Forza Motorsport in three key areas, one of which was its controversial car progression system. Less than a month later, the car progression revamp was outlined, but the studio also noted that it wouldn’t be released until Update 6 hits.

Hello Games has announced the next free content update for No Man’s Sky, and like all their hefty content updates, the Omega update is a hefty one.

The “bullet heaven” genre was not something I seriously encountered until I started playing Vampire Survivors. It’s got that dopamine hit that comes when you’re the one the enemies have to watch out for. But if you want something that’s less about castles and spells and more about basic shapes in space, Geometry Survivor is where it’s at.

To keep the Minecraft juggernaut rolling along, Mojang is getting ready to release version 1.21 of its mighty IP. As part of the said update, the studio is introducing a new mob for when you think the game isn’t hostile enough.

Since the launch of season two and ranked Resurgence in Call of Duty Warzone, the community has had a few complaints. None were more common than the way SR is distributed when players earn kills. Developer Treyarch announced via X (Twitter) on Wednesday that a future update will fix the many issues it received complaints about.

Path of Exile developer Grinding Gear Games has provided an updated timeline for the release of the PoE expansion. Typically new expansions and leagues have launched about three months apart, but the 3.24 expansion will be a few weeks later than usual and is now planned to launch in late March.

The day you have been waiting for has arrived. Death Crimson 2: Meranito no Saidan for Dreamcast has finally received a fan translation. It’s time to break out the light guns. If you have one.

Last month’s PlayStation Plus Game Catalog additions were decent. But this month, PlayStation really brought the goods if you’re an RPG fan. While the headliner for the month is the newest Need for Speed title, Need for Speed Unbound, the true gems in my opinion are the addition of Tales of Arise, The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition, and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.

Good news PlayStation Plus members and Call of Duty fans! The latest Combat Pack for Modern Warfare 3 is now available for free if you’re a PS+ subscriber. Combat Packs are a nice way to get some extra cosmetic content for your profile, so might as well nab this one for free if you’re a member.

As part of Sony’s third-quarter earnings report, and as reported by Bloomberg, Sony has described the PlayStation 5 as entering the “latter half” of its life cycle. 

Nintendo last treated us with a performance from the Mushroom Kingdom’s Princess a few weeks ago in its first transformation trailer for Princess Peach: Showtime! Today, it’s time for Act II.

Since being released, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth fans have reported some not-so-pretty visuals when switching to Performance Mode in the newly released demo. Thankfully, it looks like some upgrades are on the way as Square Enix plans to apply some improvements to the visual quality of Performance Mode in an update rolling out on February 21.

I suppose it’s appropriate that we get a Helldivers 2 patch on Valentine’s Day to address matchmaking. With the community lamenting disconnection issues, no doubt plenty are getting tired of the messy break-ups. Hopefully, today’s stability patch touches the hearts of all Helldivers 2 players.

Another week, another game-changing Call of Duty update. This week’s patch notes include plenty of welcomed fixes, changes, and content shifts. However, the big change to ranked Modern Warfare 3 game modes is the removal of all snipers.

February 14 arrives every year in a shower of roses, chocolates, and stacks of overpriced cards, but this year Palworld players have turned to the DIY approach in order to incorporate game-based puns into the yearly celebration of love. 

If you’ve been enjoying the Apple Arcade-exclusive Sonic Dream Team, you’ll have more to dig into later today. SEGA has the first content update scheduled to go live at 2:00 pm PT. 

The creator of Suikoden and Eiyuden Chronicles, Yoshitaka Murayama, died on February 6 due to “complications with an ongoing illness,” as announced by his company, Rabbit and Bear Studios.

It’s not always an easy decision when trying to choose a new graphics card. Nvidia alone recently launched three new SUPER models (not those kind) in its 4000 series. But if you want a GPU that sort of reminds you of what it was like to help your dad with household renovations, this could be right up your street.

For prospective Destiny 2 players looking to pick up the game before The Final Shape releases, now’s your chance. Humble Bundle is offering a bundle called Destiny 2: The Story So Far, and it includes every expansion plus a few extras for $40. 

The web-heads at Insomniac Games must be celebrating, as Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 sales have reached over 10 million copies as of February 4, 2024. The news was provided to us by Sony, who just released its financial results for the latest fiscal quarter. 

Patch 1.3.2 just dropped in Diablo 4 which gave us a lot of bug fixes and an adjustment to the Cursed Shrine events, but the meat and potatoes of this update lie with the newly implemented Uber Unique crafting system. Yeah, that’s right; we can now “target-farm” Uber Uniqes. 

As expected for anything in early access, there have been some performance issues with Palworld since day one. However, following the release of patch 0.1.4.1 (Steam) and 0.1.1.4 (Xbox), there’s a noticeable uptick in community reports of lag and disappearing floors.

RPGs are having an amazing year in terms of sales, with Persona 3 Reload and Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth raking in the dough. Now, another reaches one million copies sold: Cygames’ Granblue Fantasy: Relink.

Recently, Eilas Toufexis, the voice behind Adam Jensen from the later Deus Ex games, posted a heartfelt goodbye to the character he’s best known for. With hopes of a new entry fading fast, the actor has since said he’s been asked to ease up when talking about the Mankind Divided and Human Revolution protagonist.

For good or ill, Dead Island 2 came and went without a huge amount of fanfare. Currently, the game has a Metacritic score of 73 (7.7 from users), which is pretty good, but not exactly boundary-breaking.

It seems that whenever something becomes popular, AliExpress isn’t far behind and knock-off merchandise can be ordered across the globe. Palworld, it seems, is no exception to this law of the internet and this has frankly terrifying consequences.

It’s dangerous to base an entire game, movie, book, or anything on a single joke – especially a referential joke. Yet the developers of Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore did exactly that.

NIS America has confirmed the latest Ys entry for a western release date. Ys X: Nordics will arrive sometime in Fall 2024 for the PlayStation 4, PS5, PC, and Nintendo Switch.

With a little over a month until the release of Dragon’s Dogma 2, director Hideaki Itsuno has confirmed that the game will run with an “uncapped” framerate on current-gen consoles.

I’ll admit, the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series is one that’s passed me by. While I enjoy 2D platformers a fair bit, and certainly love my Nintendo handhelds of yore, these puzzle-focused adventures were never really on my radar. A remake feels like a natural time to hop on and see what I’ve missed.

The Tomb Raider series is what got my love for video games rolling in the first place. Conversely, the trend of remastering and remaking every great game in existence — instead of boldly giving the rough ones a retry — is what’s led to me falling out of love with it once in the past.

Paradox Interactive has announced that they’ll be handling publishing duties for XperimentalZ Games’ Escape the Mad Empire under their Paradox Arc (alternative game publishing) label. It’s set to launch into early access sometime this year.

Boomer shooters, retro FPS games, whatever you want to call them. They’re popular on Steam, and for a good reason: they’re loads of fun. But what if you stepped back into a classic ’80s and early ’90s anime, with big guns and an even bigger need for speed?

Everyone loves a promotion, right? A little extra compensation for all that hard work. Well, training and promotions aren’t just key to the modern capitalist landscape of 2024; they’re also crucial to the battlefields of Unicorn Overlord.

The hype train for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth already left the station with the surprise launch of a demo earlier this month. Before pulling into the final station on February 29, 2024, Square Enix is making a quick stop for Valentine’s Day. After all, what says love like subconsciously stealing the identity of a girl’s dead, but now not dead, boyfriend while also being oblivious to the affections of your childhood friend?

The Sims 4’s Delivery Express (SDX) feature that Maxis regularly releases to introduce new, free content to the game. It typically consists of a few Create-A-Sim (CAS) or build items between their major pack launches. The highlight of the latest The Sims 4 SDX, introduced on February 13, 2024, features a wide array of additions to CAS in the form of new Vitiligo skin details as part of a collaboration with supermodel Winnie Harlow.

D4 Enterprise has made good on its promise, and the original PC-88 version of Ys is being released on Switch as part of their EggConsole line. It releases on February 15, 2024. Don’t get too excited just yet.

Patch 6.57 for FFXIV dropped in the early hours of February 13, bringing a host of updates in preparation for the upcoming Xbox open beta, lifted raid restrictions, and better A Realm Reborn quest rewards. It’s not a big patch, but it’s one worth mentioning.

Can you believe it’s been about a year since Splatoon 3’s Expansion Pass became available for purchase? Until now, buyers have only had Inkopolis Plaza to provide value for their dollar, but on February 22, 2024, the Side Order campaign will release.

This article is sponsored by War Thunder, get it on PC for free here or through the PlayStation and Xbox store.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent is easily one of my favorite horror games of all time. While a little dated now, I still recall the first time I encountered the Grunt, the slack-jawed monstrosity with the bloodcurdling wail. Such terror. So imagine my surprise when I saw that developer Frictional Games is launching a plush of the creature.

Looking for something to scratch that retro role-playing game itch, but don’t want to purchase a brand-new game? Well, if you’d rather make your own, you can always check out the expansive list of RPG Maker toolkits, which are currently on sale.

Fancy ordering a fake pizza in Oblivion (or even a real one)? Modding allows you to do that. But it’s not all about hot slices of ‘za delivered by a skeleton. After almost 20 years, people are still looking to tinker with the visuals of the fourth Elder Scrolls game. Just not always in the way you might expect.

Ubisoft’s recent investor meeting revealed unannounced information about the arrival of XDefiant. The shooter is slated to release sometime during the company’s fiscal fourth quarter, which ranges from January to March 2024. As a result, the new shooter could be available sooner than most may have anticipated.

I don’t think it’s really possible to quantify the “worst game of all time” or even compare kusoge that well. There are so many ways that a game can be deficient, and it’s hard to say what the worst way is.

Deep space exploration, spaceship customization, and good ‘ol dude-bashing card games don’t seem like they go together, but after playing the demo for Breachway, I can confidently say this actually makes a perfect trio. 

Recently, successful survival-crafting releases like Palworld and Enshrouded have turned early 2024 into a competitive market for the genre. Inflexion Games has been crafting their take on the genre, Nightingale, for over five years now.

Some intrepid fans have been able to reproduce the lost tracks from the BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2 Satellaview SoundLink event and have created BS F-Zero Deluxe, a patch to incorporate them into the SNES game.

While the most topical discussions about the Forza franchise at large usually have something to do with the latest game’s many fumbles and stumbles, now’s the time to take a look at something different. Did you know that the Forza community maintains a humongous list of real-world car paint specifications?

A week later, Xbox is ready to share its new business plans with everyone this Wednesday, February 15. Head of Xbox Phil Spencer, President of Xbox Sarah Bond, and Head of Xbox Gaming Matt Booty are coming together on the official Xbox Podcast at 3 p.m. EST on February 15 to share updates on the Xbox business.

Action-RPG Sword of the Necromancer has a sequel on the way that takes it from top-down 2D to a fully 3D perspective. Ahead of that, the devs at Grimorio of Games plan to sample the new style with a 3D remake of the original sometime in 2024.

Super Rare Originals has announced that they’re bringing Bynine Studio’s Cavern of Dreams to Switch on February 29, 2024.

D3Publisher and Sandlot have announced that bug-basher Earth Defense Force 6 is being pushed back from its intended release window of Spring 2024 and into Summer 2024.

Let’s play a game. Let’s see how long I can talk about No Man’s Sky without bringing up its redemptive arc (this doesn’t count, by the way).

Oh, Doom. Is there any method by which you can’t be ported? Evidently not, it seems. The latest in a near-endless attempt to get id Software’s iconic FPS up and running on just about everything on the planet is one that will be music to your ears. Or not, as is the case.

It seems as though, since releasing at the tail end of last week, Helldivers 2 has become the new flavor of the month (Palworld, who?). Evidently, Arrowhead Studios’ new third-person shooter must be doing something right, judging by where it is on the Steam charts.

It would appear that the studio behind Helldivers 2, Arrowhead, didn’t quite anticipate the massive surge in popularity the game received following its February 8 release date. With an all-time Steam peak of over 155,000 concurrent players, Helldivers 2‘s servers simply couldn’t keep up with the attention.

For one brief second, let’s forget both the monumental juggernaut that will be Final Fantasy VII Rebirth to wish Final Fantasy VIII its very well-deserved happy 25th birthday. You’re reading that right. Exactly 25 years ago, hundreds of thousands of Japanese players got to discover what was beyond that still amazing-looking beach (sorry, US fans, your anniversary isn’t until September).

Kingdom Hearts and Street Fighter 2 composer Yoko Shimomura will receive a Lifetime Achievement trophy during the D.I.C.E Awards this year. It will occur on February 15 at the Aria Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.

PlayStation’s previous State of Play featured an…interesting trailer for Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. However, the headline coming out of the event was Kojima’s announcement of a return to the genre he arguably created: action espionage.

If you have looked at any website for the past month or so, you have heard about Palworld. It is avoidable. Inescapable. Inevitable.

If you’ve played Call of Duty Warzone since its release, you’ve seen plenty of oddities, from glitches to overpowered weapons. One that seems to keep coming back, though, is players’ ability to survive for extended periods in the gas.

Though Destiny 2‘s Season 23 narrative is more or less concluded, there are still some new rewards inbound for the game. Bungie has revealed that a new suite of weapons will soon arrive for pinnacle activities. And players will have plenty of time, even through The Final Shape, to earn them.

Have you ever wanted to listen to the music of The Legend of Zelda live? Well, consider your wish granted. Nintendo has dropped the VOD for The Legend of Zelda Orchestra Concert onto their YouTube after canceling the originally Tokyo-exclusive performance at Nintendo Live 2024 TOKYO.

Genshin Impact has a new web event for this year’s Lantern Rite celebration for Lunar New Year. If you’re someone who usually skips web events, you might want to participate in this one, lest you miss out on an exclusive in-game reward.

Growing up, I played a lot of puzzle games, but I didn’t have much love for them. This is because my mother loves puzzle games, and I probably didn’t like them much because it was one of the genres she could beat me at.

The ’80s and early ’90s were a haven for a very specific type of arcade side-scroller. Ripped heroes brandished blades and vile wizards attempted to stop them at every turn, and that spirit is very much alive in Abathor, which is available to try out as part of Steam Next Fest.

According to the recently listed Steam store page, Digital Dreams Entertainment’s Mutant Football League 2 will launch into Early Access in March 2024.

The video game industry is one that has been built on trends. If a game reaches escape velocity and becomes a big hit, it’s inevitable that others will be lining up to get a slice of that turkey. This has had some unfortunate consequences.

Had your eye on that Destiny 2 Exotic weapon ornament or emote but find yourself Bright Dust poor? There is no need to despair or mindlessly grind out Bounties. Bungie announced it will start giving away Bright Dust for free every week beginning in March.

The studio behind Octopath Traveler and Octopath Traveler 2, Acquire, has been acquired by none other than Kadokawa Corporation. In effect, this means that Octopath Traveler and Dark Souls are now under the same umbrella, as Kadokawa also owns From Software, for one.