Game Informer News, Tips, Tricks, Ideas

Jack Black has joined the cast of the in-development live-action Minecraft movie. Rumors about this casting popped up yesterday, January 2, with Deadline reporting that Black would play Steve (the Minecraft guy with the teal shirt and blue pants). Notably, Black starred as the villainous Bowser in The Super Mario Bros. Movie last year, giving us the instant-classic «Peaches,» too. 

Dave the Diver has surpassed 3 million units sold, developer Mintrocket has revealed. The studio announced this achievement on X today, alongside some new art from the game to celebrate the milestone. Selling 3 million units is no small feat, especially considering Dave the Diver is Mintrocket's first game. 

It’s a new year, and Xbox is kicking off January with its first batch of new Game Pass titles for 2024. This month is headlined by the additions of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and the remake of Resident Evil 2. As always, when new games enter a few must leave, and one big departure is Grand Theft Auto V in just a couple of days. Check out the full list below and check out the links to our reviews for applicable titles.

Update: Earlier today, a Disney Parks blog pointed to Star Wars Outlaws releasing in late 2024, but the term «late» has now been removed from the post so that is now reads just 2024. Ubisoft also confirmed to Kotaku that, «the timing was incorrect and has since been amended.» So, Star Wars Outlaws' release window has moved from late 2024 back to some general time this year.

Star Wars Outlaws, Ubisoft's upcoming open-world Star Wars game, has enjoyed a vague 2024 release window since it was revealed at an Xbox Showcase last year. However, a recent post on Disney's official park blog has given the game a more specific window. According to the blog, Star Wars Outlaws is releasing late 2024. The blog post, which is a collection of 24 exciting Disney-things happening in 2024 reads, «And for Star Wars fans – Star Wars Outlaws, the open-world Star Wars game is set to release late this year.»

With the year almost behind us, it's hard not to look back at 2023 with conflicted feelings. It was a fantastic year for gamers at home with great tentpole releases from PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo, and some excellent indies, too. For years to come, we will all likely argue that 2023 was one of the best – if not the best – year for games. But it was also a terrible year for the people who make games, with more than 10,000 developers laid off, studios closed, and more. 

While most of the major gaming companies released player-specific wrap-up stats earlier this month, today Valve decided to share some platform-wide statistics, highlighting the most played Steam games of the year. To avoid divulging specifics, the entries are not ranked individually but by category. The top twelve games are in the platinum section, the next 13 are in the gold section, the next 25 are in the silver section, and the last 50 are in bronze. Within those categories, however, entries are «randomly sorted,» so it's unclear which specific game came out at the top of the heap in any specific category.

2024 is right around the corner, and what better way to kick it off than to get some complimentary games from your PlayStation Plus subscription? As announced in the PS Blog, this month's selection of games is headlined by A Plague Tale: Requiem, Asobo Studio's 2022 tale of sickness and siblings. While he thought it dragged on a bit in the second half, our reviewer said, «Calling Requiem a standard sequel is a disservice; Asobo has created a Plague Tale epic.» You can read that full review here and take a look at the other two offerings below.

Valve has released its annual «Best Of» list highlighting the top-performing games on Steam measured by gross revenue and player engagement.

Now that Tekken 8’s 32-character launch roster has been unveiled, Bandai Namco has been releasing gameplay trailers for the fighters that didn’t get one the first time around. It's Kuma's turn now, and the fighting bear is embearrassing challengers left and right.

It's December 26, which means Christmas has come and gone, and other seasonal holidays are underway while we all wait for the new year to kick off next week. Everyone knows that the days between your winter holiday and New Year's Eve are for gaming, right? At least, we hope you're doing some gaming today, tomorrow, and the day after! Or maybe you're kicking back with a good book, or watching a new movie?

Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon hit PlayStation, Xbox, and PC back in August – read Game Informer's review here – and if you've been looking for another reason to dip into its mech-action combat, look no further than the latest update for the game. Developer From Software released a new update last week that adds ranked online matchmaking, a ranked leaderboard, and more to the game. 

Team FOLON revealed Fallout: London, its DLC-sized mod for Fallout 4, back in 2021, and it captured the interest of players quickly. We got a 2023 release window alongside a new trailer back in 2022, but the mod needed more time, missing a release this year. Now, Team FOLON has revealed Fallout: London will be released in April, as reported by Eurogamer. 

Bendy and the Ink Machine released as a set of chapters back in 2017 before a full complete release hit PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC the following year. Since then, it's become a fan-favorite horror game, thanks to its unique classic cartoon art style and fun puzzles. Now, players will officially get to see the haunts of Bendy and the Ink Machine on the big screen one day. 

TinyBuild, the games label behind the Hello Neighbor series, has laid off the entire staff of Versus Evil, an indie publisher under the TinyBuild umbrella, just days before the holidays. This news comes from various former Versus Evil employees on Twitter. 

Fntastic announced earlier this month that it would be closing down, just days after launching its controversial game, The Day Before. It said at the time that servers for The Day Before would remain in operation but that the game's future was unknown. Now, the studio has announced that it has officially ceased operations and The Day Before's servers will be turned off next month. 

South Park: Snow Day, the upcoming four-player cooperative adventure first announced in August, is coming on March 26. A new trailer shows off more of the game’s frosty action and, of course, the series’ signature foul-mouth humor.

Earlier this week, ransomware group Rhysida released more than a terabyte of data it illegally obtained by hacking Marvel's Spider-Man 2 developer, Insomniac Games. The hacked data comprised of more than 1.3 million files, for a total of 1.67 terabytes of data, including information about Marvel's Wolverine, future Insomniac Games titles, release schedules, private employee information like tax and employment forms, internal studio messages, and more.

First Contact Entertainment, the team behind VR games like 2018's Firewall: Zero Hour and this year's Firewall Ultra on PSVR 2, has announced it is closing, as reported by Gematsu. After almost eight years as a studio, it will shut down at the end of the year. It cites a lack of VR support within the industry. 

Earlier this month, developer Bethesda Game Studios revealed on the Starfield subreddit that it was working on new ways to travel, mod support, and more for the game. Now, the company has expanded on its 2024 plans for Starfield in a new end-of-year update, including additional ship customization. 

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has announced he’s stepping down from his position on December 29. The news comes two months after Microsoft officially completed its acquisition of the developer/publisher. 

Following its launch last year, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet has received two DLCs as part of its Hidden Treasure of Area Zero storyline. The first, The Teal Mask, hit Switch in September; the second, The Indigo Disk, arrived last week, bringing with it plenty of returning legendaries and favorite starter Pokémon, too. Now, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company have revealed The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero will be getting an epilogue that hits the game in January. 

Sony has announced that the PlayStation 5 has hit a sales milestone of over 50 million units. It achieved this milestone just over three years into its life cycle.

If you subscribe to the digital edition of Game Informer, you can now learn all about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth! Following the cover reveal our digital issue is now live on web browsers, iPad/iPhone, and Android devices. Alongside the cover story, you will also find big features on Marvel's Spider-Man 2 credits, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Penny's Big Breakaway, the remake of Riven, and much more. We've also got previews for the next Grand Theft Auto, Tekken 8, our year-end best ofs, including the top 10 games of 2023, reader picks, and much more!

Fresh off its win for «Most Anticipated Game» at The Game Awards, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth lands on the cover of Game Informer. The second part of the Final Fantasy VII Remake series breaks Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, Barret, and Red XIII out of the confines of Midgar and into a vast, open map where players can explore to their hearts' content. We spent two days at Square Enix's headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, seeing new sections of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and speaking to the legends of the team that made it. This cover story, along with our exclusive coverage spread out over the next few weeks, should give you a good idea of what to expect when the game launches in February. On top of that, this issue dives into our favorite games of 2023, giving you a full rundown of the best that the year had to offer.

Last week, ransomware group Rhysida revealed it had hacked Marvel's Spider-Man 2 developer, Insomniac Games. It posted images to prove the validity of its claim, demanding 50 bitcoin – roughly $2 million – from Sony within seven days or it would leak what it had discovered, as reported by CyberDaily. Sony did not comply with the demand and now the group has released more than a terabyte of hacked data pertaining to Insomniac Games. 

Update, 12/18/2023

If you’re looking forward to playing Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, especially to experience its story, your time on the internet just got a little bit harder. Some big plot points have leaked online, and naturally, developer Rocksteady isn’t happy.

James McCaffrey, actor best known to video game fans as the voice of Max Payne, among other characters, has passed away. He was 65.

Sea of Stars took home the award for Best Independent Game at The Game Awards 2023 earlier this month and now, developer Sabotage Studio has revealed the RPG has surpassed 4 million players since launch. Sea of Stars is available on PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and PC, launching back in August, and is free to subscribers on Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass, as well as PlayStation Plus' Extra and Premium subscribers. 

Netflix has announced that it is remaking the first saga of One Piece, and it's doing it with one of the best animation studios out there. 

More than two months after leaving Platinum Games, co-founder and The Wonderful 101 and Bayonetta director Hideki Kamiya has revealed why he left the studio. In a new interview with IGN, Kamiya told the publication he decided to leave «because I felt that the direction the company was heading in was different from my beliefs as a developer.»

Rocket Arena, the multiplayer rocket-powered shooter, developed by First Strike Games as an EA Originals title, was removed from sale last month without warning or a word on why, as reported by RockPaperShotgun. Now, roughly a month later, First Strike Games has announced Rocket Arena will be sunset and its servers shut down in March. 

Naughty Dog has announced it has ceased production of The Last of Us Online, its long-in-development multiplayer title set within its popular post-apocalyptic universe. 

Marvel's Blade was one of the most exciting reveals from the Game Awards. Not only is it the first proper video game adaptation of the beloved Marvel character, but it's being made by Arkane Lyon, developers of games like Deathloop and the Dishonored series. That said, the reveal trailer isn't that long, and fans are understandably hungry for more.

Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy — Definitive Edition didn’t launch in the greatest state, but after months of fixes, the game has been deemed ready to launch on mobile devices. The remasters of the series’ defining trilogy are now available on iOS, Android, and Netflix.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is one of the biggest successes of the year, but it launched missing a few features present in Insomniac's two prior Spidey games. The biggest omission was New Game Plus, but Insomniac assured fans it would come in an update to the game before the end of the year. Unfortunately, the developer won't be able to hit that deadline, as it posted this update on social media yesterday.

Mouse, an upcoming classic first-person shooter sporting a vintage rubber hose animation style, turned heads in May with its first look at gameplay. Although that initial showing was very much a work in progress, today’s video offers a more polished look at what’s to come.

Update, 12/13/2023:

Developer Hexworks and publisher CI Games have launched the Season of Revelry in its RPG Soulslike, Lords of the Fallen. This festive update includes new quests, weapons, armor, spells, snowball fights, and more, and it's available right now. Plus, it's only part one of this free two-part update, with Trial of the Three Spirits launching next week on December 21. 

Developer Sledgehammer Games and publisher Activision Blizzard have released a detailed look at the new accessibility options that launched with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, the best-selling game of last month. In it, the companies reveal some interesting statistics that show accessibility options and features are very popular with players and useful for everyone that plays Call of Duty games. 

Update, 12/13/23:

Update, 9:37 a.m. ET, 12/14/23:

God of War  Ragnarök's Valhalla DLC is out now on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4, less than a week after it was revealed at The Game Awards 2023. It features a good bit of story content that acts as an epilogue to the events of Ragnarok, and it's packaged within a roguelite structure, meaning it's heavy on combat. Apparently, there's an endgame challenge in Valhalla so difficult that nobody on the dev team could complete it on the DLC's «Show Me Mastery» difficulty, according to Valhalla's director Mihir Sheth. 

Video game analyst group Circana has released its November 2023 U.S. Video Game Market Highlights report and in it, the company reveals that, unsurprisingly, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III was the best-selling game of the month. It launched on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC on November 10 and is already the second best-selling game of 2023, behind Hogwarts Legacy. 

Developer Bethesda Game Studios is working on bringing mod support, city maps, and «all-new ways to traveling» to its recently released sci-fi RPG, Starfield. It announced this by way of a Starfield subreddit comment from the official developer Reddit account, as reported by IGN. The team says it's working on other things, too, like quest fixes, hotfixes, and more. 

Tekken 8 hits PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC in just over a month, on January 26, 2024. As the release date nears, developer Bandai Namco has been releasing more and more about the latest entry in its flagship fighting series. We learned about newcomer Reina last month, and recently went hands-on with the game, too – read Game Informer's Tekken 8 preview here. Now, Bandai Namco has revealed the first gameplay trailer for its «mechanized space ninja» Yoshimitsu. 

The Entertainment Software Association announced today that E3 is officially dead. After more than two decades, the long-running video game conference where developers, publishers, businesses, and press met to check out new games, watch reveals, and more, has been permanently canceled. 

Update, 12/12/23: 

The Entertainment Software Association has announced that its long-running Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is officially dead, as reported by The Washington Post. The last in-person E3 conference happened in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic and other complications prevented it from coming back in full form since. Despite struggles, the ESA attempted to bring E3 back in various ways. 

Hasbro, the parent company behind Wizards of the Coast, which itself is responsible for both Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering, is laying off 1100 employees, as reported by Dicebreaker and The Wall Street Journal. The company, which is also behind the Transformers franchise (toys and other media),  announced this decision yesterday, on December 11. 

Update, 12/12/23:

Terra Nil, the «reverse city builder» from developer Free Lives and publisher Devolver Digital, is coming to Switch next week. More specifically, it will hit the Nintendo console on December 18, as revealed in a new trailer you can watch below. 

At the top of the month, developer Epic Games launched Chapter 5 of Fortnite's popular Battle Royale mode. But with the start of this new chapter, the team also launched three new experiences within the Fortnite launcher. The first was Lego Fortnite, a survival Minecraft-like game, and soon after, the second, Rocket Racing, a new racing mode created by Rocket League developers Psyonix, went live. The third and final new experience of Chapter 5 (so far, at least) went live over the weekend – it's called Fortnite Festival and is basically Rock Band-lite but in the universe of Fortnite. 

Update, 12/11/23:

Hogwarts Legacy hit PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC back in February – you can read Game Informer's Hogwarts Legacy review here. Now, as 2023 comes to a close, Google has released the top 10 trending searches in games on Google over the year and in the top slot is Hogwarts Legacy.

Fntastic, the studio behind The Day Before, is shutting down. It announced the closure today with a statement that arrives just four days after the The Day Before launched into Early Access on December 7. 

Developer Dlala Studios and publisher Walt Disney Games released Disney Illusion Island, a 2D Metroidvania-esque platformer, exclusively on Switch earlier this year. It was nominated for Best Family Game at The Game Awards 2023 – check out all the winners here – and now, Dlala has revealed it is launching new content this week. 

The Game Awards 2023 was a massive night for games, with more than 30 announcements, premieres, and more. It ended with developer Larian Studios taking home the Game of the Year award for its critically acclaimed RPG, Baldur's Gate 3. Shortly after the win, Larian revealed that the game was now available on Xbox Series X/S, meaning it's finally playable on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

The Game Awards 2023 was full of announcements big and small, so if you're having trouble keeping track of them all, we've gathered up all our stories here in one place. You can also check out the full list of award winners here. Let us know which announcement excited you most in the comments!

During The Game Awards, we learned that The Outlast Trials is wrapping up its time in PC early access and is heading to consoles next March. The game was first announced in 2019 and entered Steam Early Access in May. 

Alan Wake 2 hit PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on October 27, but shortly before its release, developer Remedy Entertainment revealed that it would be getting a New Game Plus mode with an alternative narrative and nightmare difficulty, amongst other things. During The Game Awards 2023 last night, Remedy, which picked up three wins during the show, revealed that «The Final Draft» update, which includes the aforementioned New Game Plus mode, goes live next week. 

Mecha Break is an new multiplayer co-op mech game by Seasun Games that premiered during The Game Awards tonight. Fans of games like Armored Core VI and Zone of the Enders may want to keep it on their radar. 

As Dusk Falls, the narrative adventure game about two families linked together by a burglary gone wrong, hit Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC in July of last year. More than a year later, developer Interior/Night is bringing the game to PlayStation, but you'll have to wait just a bit longer to play it.

Tonight during The Game Awards, Capcom revealed Monster Hunter: Wilds – the next tentpole title in the Monster Hunter series. The game is expected to be released on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC sometime in 2025. 

Last Sentinel is a new triple-A open-world game announced at The Game Awards from Lightspeed LA, a Tencent-owned US-based developer. Lightspeed is led by Steve Martin, who previously worked on Rockstar Games and Electronic Arts.

The Game Awards are packed with eager looks at highly anticipated games, but the ceremony is full of plenty of surprises too. One of them is a flashy Metroidvania called Tales of Kenzera: Zau, the debut game from Surgent Studios.

Following Hello Games' celebratory video commemorating 10 years since the initial No Man's Sky reveal trailer, Sean Murray had one more video for viewers of The Game Awards. The trailer showed off an all-new game called Light No Fire, which appears to be on a similar level of ambition as the universe-sprawling No Man's Sky.

The Finals, the free-to-play, team-based shooter from Embark Studios, is out right now. The team surprise launched it during The Game Awards 2023, and you can download and hop into the first-person shooter action right now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam. 

Despite claiming that it had no plans to release DLC for Final Fantasy XVI, Square Enix announced at The Game Awards that Final Fantasy XVI is getting not one but two pieces of DLC. They're called Echoes of the Fallen and Rising Tide, and the former is available to play right now.

Ten years ago, at Geoff Keighley's awards show (then known as the VGX Awards), the development team at Hello Games revealed No Man's Sky. The ambitious space-exploration title promised a universe of possibilities and has since become the poster child for bouncing back from a challenging launch period.

The First Descendant is a free-to-play looter shooter from Nexon. There have been beta sessions before now, but the game is getting a full, proper launch next Summer. The exact date is up in the air still, but according to a blog post from the developers, it will be announced as soon as they can pin it down. Check out the latest trailer below.

10 Chambers, the studio behind the hit shooter GTFO, has another game in the works called Den of Wolves. It announced the project at The Game Awards, and it's a co-op heist first-person shooter.

Developer Sharkmob, makers of the battle royale Vampire: The Masquerade- Bloodhunt, have revealed a new open-world extraction shooter called Exoborne.

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, the latest from Life is Strange developer Don't Nod Entertainment, hits PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC in February. Ahead of its release early next year, the studio released a new cinematic trailer to highlight the game's narrative at The Game Awards 2023. 

Hoyoverse, the team behind Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail, has released a new trailer for its next game, Zenless Zone Zero. Unlike its other two games, Zenless Zone Zero puts players in a futuristic metropolis in control of various characters capable of fast-paced, stylish action. 

Last Sentinel is a new triple-A open-world game announced at The Game Awards from Lightspeed LA, a Tencent-owned US-based developer. Lightspeed is led by Steve Martin, who previously worked on Rockstar Games and Electronic Arts.

Former Tango Gameworks designer Ikumi Nakamura stepped on the stage of The Game Awards to reveal the first game from her studio, Unseen, called Kemuri.

Earlier this year, Supermassive Games, the team behind The Quarry, The Dark Pictures Anthology, and Until Dawn, announced it was collaborating with Behaviour Interactive to create a single-player game set in the latter's Dead by Daylight universe. After teasing an appearance at The Game Awards 2023 yesterday online, the teams have officially revealed The Casting of Frank Stone. It hits PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC sometime in 2024.

While they may have been tided over by recent remakes and re-releases, fans of the Mana series have gone a whopping 15 years without a taste of a new mainline entry. Luckily for them, the fast is over; Visions Of Mana was just announced at The Game Awards, and it's out next year. Check out the reveal trailer below.