Audience News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Stellar Blade launched last week, yet you wouldn't believe it with all the talk surrounding the title to do with censorship and the game's jiggle physics. If you were, let's say, the developer of a cozy indie farming sim that had previously shown very little concern about how bouncy their female characters' chests are, now would be the worst time to make a comment about it.

Movie theaters, and the studios that provide their content, have been clawing their way out of a financial crater ever since the COVID-19 pandemic began. After Avengers: Endgame, the live-action Lion King, and Todd Phillips’ Joker helped fuel record-breaking box-office returns in 2019, the pandemic-era lockdowns froze theaters in their tracks, and the subsequent thaw has been slow and difficult for every industry that touches cinema.

The newly-released Fallout TV show has been watched by more than 65 million people to date.

Gothic fans already know the original 2001 open-world RPG is getting the remake treatment, which is expected to arrive on PS5 sometime in 2024. Publisher THQ Nordic and developer have revealed that a Collector's Edition of the game will be available, with some appropriately leather-bound goodies.

I never had much faith in cloud gaming.

Alex Garland’s A24 movie Civil War has kicked off a vast, circular online debate over the way Garland frames his story, with minimal background detail about what led to the titular civil war or what the country’s various factions stand for. The argument over how, whether, and to what degree the film represents the actual state of 2024 America has overshadowed a lot of the conversation Garland actually wanted viewers to have after watching his movie. And in particular, it overlooks some of the movie’s finer nuances — like the crucial moment that really defines Civil War’s story.

TikTok creators can’t seem to escape a maelstrom of policy and security concerns lately. On Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed a $95 billion national security package into law. Nestled inside it was the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which gives TikTok parent company ByteDance 270 days to sell the platform or cease operations in the United States. Policymakers maintain that the bill is not a “ban,” but a way to get the China-based ByteDance to divest from TikTok. The battle over TikTok could play out in the courts for far longer than the roughly nine-month window before the deadline, but the uncertain future of the app has kicked up a fervor among its many creators, who depend on it for community, connection, and their livelihoods.

Shadow of the Ninja Reborn has been given a release date of August 29th, SEGA and NatsumeAtari have confirmed. The game originally released 33 years ago for the NES, and the original team has got back together to remaster Shadow of the Ninja for a new audience. You can see the gameplay in the trailer below.

Twitch streamer Kai Cenat has responded to Kanye West's accusation of being an «industry plant» in the middle of their feud over ill-fitting pants. The feud between Kai Cenat and Kanye West started when Cenat criticized West's new YZY clothing line for incorrectly sized pants on Twitch. This criticism sparked a series of unpleasant exchanges between the two, leading to West labeling Cenat as an «industry plant.»

This feature on Ridley Scott’s Alien and the franchise it launched was originally published as part of a package on the most beloved villains in science fiction . It has been updated and republished to celebrate Alien returning to movie theaters for an anniversary run.

The co-creators of BAFTA-winning Before Your Eyes have created a new studio called Nice Dream Games.

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for the end of Shōgun.]

With the Fallout TV series reaching new audiences and renewing interest in the games, we at RadioTimes.com thought it prudent to explain the Fallout 4 perks and skills system, as well as go over which to choose on the chart and why.

Xiaomi Smarter Living event 2024: Xiaomi has unveiled several new products during its recent event, Smarter Living, which was live streamed for audiences. Among the offerings are the Redmi Pad SE, Redmi Buds 5A, Robot Vacuum Cleaner S10, and a handheld garment steamer. These items will soon hit the market, offering consumers a range of options to consider.

The Fallout show answers the longest-running question in the series: who dropped the bombs first in the Great War? Or at least, it certainly seems to, but one fan thinks that this "reveal" is purposely misdirecting the audience.

If you were concerned that the PS5-exclusive Stellar Blade, out 26th April on PS5, might run afoul of Sony's censors, fear not. Developer ShiftUp is advertising that the game will remain entirely uncensored in all regions, including Japan.

Kaiju No. 8, the new sci-fi action anime based on Naoya Matsumoto’s ongoing Shōnen Jump Plus manga, premiered its first episode last Saturday.

The video game industry is changing. As financial growth stagnates, companies like PlayStation have experimented with ways to adapt as markets and trends change. Where it was once able to rely on its first-party blockbusters to build and maintain an audience, it is looking more likely that it will need to invest in new strategies to prepare for the ways the industry is shifting. We see this with a bigger push into live-service and mobile games, but there’s another initiative that isn’t going to pay dividends in the near future but could set the groundwork for future success: the Hero Project.

Final Fantasy is a long running series at this point — it's easily one of the most storied franchises in gaming. But when you're up to the sixteenth mainline entry, you must start wondering whether fresh installments still have the power to pull new players in. Indeed, audience growth will be an important metric for the suits upstairs at Square Enix.

Vampires are some of our most malleable monsters. They can be lonely kids, lonely teens, misunderstood lovers, mass murderers, leather-clad drifters, regular dudes, or just about anything in between. All that flexibility (and the ability, often, to pass as human) means vampires can also come as a complete surprise to both audiences and the characters in the movies themselves, waiting until more than halfway through a movie before they really sink their teeth in. That special and narrow niche of surprise vampire movies, like From Dusk Till Dawnor A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, is the exact landing point for Abigail, the hilarious new action-horror movie from the directors of Ready or Not.

Typically, the live viewership for Critical Role dips after its break around midnight Eastern, as a good chunk of the audience heads to bed with plans to catch the rest of the Dungeons & Dragons actual-play episode later on. But last week’s session was so suspenseful that viewer numbers continued to climb until the very end. The marathon five-hour broadcast was must-watch TV for dedicated fans thanks to the return of a past adversary and a bold player move that felt as if it had been pulled from a different game entirely — because it was.

The Fallout TV series is very popular, and people are hungry to enjoy the games that inspired it. Four Fallout games were in the top ten on Steam in Europe following the show’s debut. So it’s fantastic news that the next game is probably still a decade out.

We first saw Hades 2 last year when it was announced, but it has yet to receive a release date. We know it will first be coming to early access, just like the first game, but the only timeframe we have is the second quarter of 2024. It appears that Supergiant might be closing in on that date, however, as you can now sign up for the first playtest and experience the game even before it comes to early access. This technical test is a said to be a major step toward early access to resolve any technical problems before a wider audience can play. Here's how you can sign up to be part of a small team selected to play the game before anyone else.

If you’re one of the millions of fans of the Australian kids’ animated series Bluey, you’ll be aware that the show’s third season, which began airing in early 2021 in Australia, just concluded with an epic 28-minute special episode called “The Sign.” (Episodes are usually seven minutes long.) You’ll also be aware that the episode, and the lead-in to it, sent Bluey fandom into a tailspin of speculation that this was the end for the beloved show.

AMD has teamed up with Vindral to showcase 8K 10-bit HDR live streaming capabilities on its Alveo hardware, bringing high-quality and richer streams to audiences.

Games platform Roblox has tweaked how the application process works for its Marketplace.

Whether it’s black pleather gaming thrones adorned with neon green stitching or gargantuan metal desks that are absolutely covered in RGB lighting, there’s no getting around the fact that 'gaming' products normally follow a very distinct aesthetic.

Netflix sure does know how to make a chilling drama, but the streamer’s newest stalker thriller has completely shaken audiences, earning it perfect reviews and shooting it up the streamer’s top 10 charts.

It seems like the perfect concept: Dimension 20’s Unsleeping City, an actual play Dungeons & Dragons campaign about the secret magical underbelly of New York City, played live in front of a paying audience at the Big Apple’s hall of halls, Madison Square Garden, for one epic night of adventure — an event dubbed “Gauntlet at the Garden.”

Gio Corsi, the former head of third party relations at PlayStation, has now joined Nintendo in a similar role ahead of its next hardware release.

Greetings, Polygon readers!

While he may not be as well known as, say, Jim Ryan, longtime PlayStation fans will no doubt recognize the name Gio Corsi. As PlayStation’s former senior director of third party production, Corsi spearheaded a lot of initiatives – he was particularly noted as a booster of the PS Vita and was responsible for bringing a lot of Japanese Vita titles to a worldwide audience. He also was responsible for jumpstarting interest in the Yakuza/Like a Dragon franchise worldwide after the series initially kind of sputtered out in the West.

It's a big day for those of us who used to making our Transformers and G.I. Joe action figures fight. After Transformers: Rise of the Beasts teased a potential G.I. Joe crossover in a quick post-credits scene, Paramount says the film is officially happening.

Baldur's Gate 3 had a very successful night at the BAFTA Game Awards, taking home not just the Best Game award, but also accolades for the best music, narrative, and even players' choice. Speaking about the players' choice win, the CRPG's publishing director, Michael Douse, says it's "a testimony to the fact that a developer is not a dispensable asset."

The Last of Us Part II seems to have divided fans – with Abby getting the most hate. But she should be key to The Last of Us 3 and the upcoming Season 2 of the TV series.

A new Blair Witch Project movie is in the works from horror mega studio Blumhouse.

The DCU's upcoming Superman movie has got a new logo – and while it's not been officially rolled out online yet, it was seen by CinemaCon attendees during the movie's presentation.

If you ask co-creators Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo about the subtitles of their FX adaptation of Shōgun, they’re going to tell you about it in depth. As they should; like with so many decisions in making Shōgun, the details are crucial.

A newly published patent reveals that Electronic Arts is working on a branching battle pass system that would allow players to navigate a non-linear map and choose their desired reward path. Several patents filed by EA have given audiences insights into the company's research and development efforts, and this latest document has once again highlighted EA's focus on battle passes.

Diablo 3 may no longer be the newest ARPG on the block, but that doesn't mean that its fans and developers are done thinking about it. One of its former developers has been discussing the key design decisions that went into it, in fact, and comparing it to 11th Hour Games' Last Epoch, which launched to immediate success back in February, with players quick to point out the similarities between it and the Diablo series. 

We knew it was coming, but that doesn’t make it any easier to say goodbye. Nintendo shut down the online servers for both the Wii U and 3DS today. This means the end of online multiplayer gaming for both consoles, turning Mario Kart 7 for 3DS and the original Splatoon for the Wii U into single player or couch co-op experiences. The first Super Mario Maker is also effectively dead, as there’s no way to browse for and download player-created levels.

If you cast yourself back to the early 2000’s counterculture some major touchstones stand out. It was the height of emo, skateboarding was back in with loads of people (at least at my school) taking part in the sport, and alternative/indie music was one of the most popular genres. The Emily The Strange collection of graphic novels were first published in the early 2000’s, with the character herself first coming into existence in 1991 in California by artist and writer, Rob Reger.

Star Trek is bringing fans a new movie in Star Trek: Section 31 which will feature several well-loved characters in the franchise, including Captain Rachel Garrett.

Outspoken Tekken 8 director Katsuhiro Harada has made a bold claim that is unlikely to ruffle any feathers in the broader audience: younger gamers prefer team-based games because they can blame, at least partially, any losses on their teammates rather than having to take sole responsibility for losing on themselves.

Last year’s revival of Sega’s late-Dreamcast-era obscurity Cosmic Smash is coming to a much wider audience in 2024. C-Smash VRS, based on the Sega game that combined Rez aesthetics with racquetball and vintage arcade game Breakout, has been exclusive to Sony’s PlayStation VR2 headset for the past year, but it will get a version playable on PlayStation 5 without that headset sometime this summer.

If you think you have a good handle on the kind of games Devolver Digital publishes by now, you’re in for a surprise. The company’s latest game, The Crush House, is unlike anything you’ve ever played.

When I was a kid, I removed the ladder from my Sims' pool while they were blissfully doing their morning laps. They drowned, as expected, and drama ensued. I didn't do this to be mean, but to tug on my Sims' attachments to develop a tragic story. Though those stories are easier to manufacture in today's iterations of The Sims, few other games allow you to put personalities together and shake them up to see what happens. Enter The Crush House. Like The Sims, The Crush House allows players to engineer drama by casting four people with defined strengths and flaws to star in a 1999 reality TV show. Unlike The Sims, The Crush House's gameplay is more passive in how you directly impact the character's interactions as you take the role of the show's producer and camera person. Though the demo I received during GDC was hands-off, I'm excited to see not only how much chaos I'll be able to witness when The Crush House is out later this year, but also uncover a mystery that plagues the shadows of the pink mansion.

Tomb Raider's beloved protagonist, Lara Croft, has been voted the most iconic gaming character of all time by the BAFTA Gaming Awards, beating out characters like Mario, Sonic, and Hitman's Agent 47.

If you're a Nintendo fan, you may be aware of a certain incident that occurred last year that caused both Nintendo Live 2024 and the Splatoon Koshien 2023 National Finals to be canceled, with the company claiming that it couldn't ensure the safety of guests or staff if they were to go ahead. That was down to anonymous "threatening behavior" that targeted Nintendo staff, which eventually extended to Splatoon Koshien 2023 National Finals audience members.

Dev Patel’s gritty, gory revenge thriller Monkey Man is soon releasing in cinemas, and is set to unleash a full sensory assault on audiences. But it wasn’t always destined for a theatrical release.

The monthly PS Plus Essential update has arrived, granting all members of Sony's subscription service access to three new PS5, PS4 titles. They're available to download now across the UK and Europe, and availability will spread to the USA later on in the day. Here's what can be redeemed between now and Tuesday, 7th May 2024:

The Godfather director's next film has screened for a select group of people – and reactions to the movie are certainly very interesting. 

It's a stellar day for a JRPG sales update: Dragon's Dogma 2 has soared past 2.5 million copies sold, while the stellar Unicorn Overlord has sold 500,000 copies worldwide since launch.

Although the last game in the Dino Crisis series came out over two decades ago, fans are desperate to bring it back to life. In an ongoing survey from Capcom, the company asks “Are there any Capcom game series (including spin-off games) that you would like to see get a sequel or new game?” Dino Crisis is at the top of the list of requested revivals, followed closely by Mega Man.

The final season of Star Trek: Discovery will revolve around an Easter egg that fans will see at the end of the first episode, according to its co-creator Alex Kurtzman.

For a little while, it seemed like The Walking Dead was eager to use its popularity as a platform to create an entire universe of zombified television. First, there was the spinoff/prequel Fear the Walking Dead, followed by The Walking Dead: World Beyond and then the anthology series Tales of the Walking Dead. Each one intermingled with the original show, but for the most part, they were intent on telling their own stories. Fast-forward to 2024, and the former two series have ended, while Tales got an order for another season last year with no further news.

There’s an interesting thread over at Resetera where a poster has dug out the remaining games not yet officially announced from the infamous Geforce Now leak.

Although it's yet to be officially announced, we all know that the PS5 Pro is real, and it's likely dropping later this year. A mid-gen upgrade on the PS5, Sony will probably position the refreshed console as another premium product — something that it's been doing throughout the generation so far, with stuff like PS Portal and the DualSense Edge.

Sonic 3 director Jeff Fowler has announced that the movie has concluded filming.

Elon Musk has unveiled a new initiative aimed at enhancing the user experience on X. In an announcement, Musk revealed that X users boasting over 2500 verified followers will now gain access to Premium services without any charge. Additionally, those with over 5000 followers will be entitled to the Premium+ package, also free of charge.

Teja Sajja's latest movie, HanuMan, has been making waves since its release earlier this year. Mixing fantasy with mythology, the film introduced audiences to a new superhero. Now, after a wait of two months, the movie is finally hitting the digital space with its Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada versions.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empiredirector Gil Kenan knows his way around a family-friendly horror movie. Kenan’s first film was the cult-classic animated flick Monster House, a spoopy horror tale involving a haunted house that eats people, and the three young kids who venture into its depths. It’s up there with Henry Selick’s Neil Gaiman adaptation Coraline in terms of how scary it gets while still walking the line of what’s acceptable for a kids’ movie.

It's a pretty strange time for Xbox owners, with some concerned about the future of the hardware now that the company has committed to launching its flagship exclusives on rival systems. Grounded, Sea of Thieves, Hi-Fi Rush, and Pentiment have all launched on both PlayStation and Nintendo Switch systems, with rumors of bigger titles like Starfield and Halo following them refusing to go away.

From the perspective of modern computing, the Atari 400 seems like an awkward if charming object, boasting a difficult pressure-based keyboard and an unusual form factor with a central bulge for a cartridge slot. That cartridge slot, however, is the calling card of a machine that bridged home computing and gaming in a more intuitive way than its contemporaries could manage. Almost 45 years later, the Atari 400 Mini brings its namesake back to life in the now-familiar form of a downsized classic console, and it's a cleanly realized effort that could resonate within its niche.

Princess Peach: Showtime! is here, giving the Mushroom Kingdom monarch a chance to break out of the damsel role and do a little world-saving of her own. While the game is largely pitched to younger audiences, there are still a few things about the game that might inspire questions, and we’re here to help!

With Max ending the much-beloved pirate series Our Flag Means Death after two seasons, the cast is considering their next career steps. For Vico Ortiz, who played nonbinary fan-favorite pirate Jim Jimenez on the show, that includes thinking about a long-held dream of getting involved with Star Wars — a franchise Ortiz says has heavily shaped their life and their family’s lives.

From the Nintendo Switch and the Steam Deck to the many similar devices the latter in particular has spawned (including the likes of the Lenovo Legion Go, ROG Ally, and more), there’s been no shortage of evidence that there’s incredible demand within the gaming audiences for handheld devices. Interestingly, it seems like Microsoft is at least tinkering with the idea of such a device.

Look around on social media, and you’ll find a lot of wince-inducing responses to the title of Kobi Libii’s debut feature, The American Society of Magical Negroes, ranging from people offended that it exists to people expressing ghoulish delight that they have an excuse to use the word “Negro” in public. Libii’s film is a darkly comedic satire building off a common trope first popularized as a term by director Spike Lee in 2001 — the Black movie characters, particularly in ’90s movies, who only exist to support white characters and further their character arcs. In Libii’s story, that Black support network is a codified secret society of Black men and women with actual magical powers, which they use to comfort and aid white people so they’ll be less brittle, tense, and inherently dangerous to people of color.

Princess Peach: Showtime! is here, giving the Mushroom Kingdom monarch a chance to break out of the damsel role and do a little world-saving of her own. While the game is largely pitched to younger audiences, there are still a few things about the game that might inspire questions, and we’re here to help!

Rise of the Ronin, the latest tentpole PS5 console exclusive from legendary Japanese developer Team Ninja, has been subject to a colossal marketing push in Asia, where posters and billboards have been spotted around cities such as Taipei for several weeks now. That’s all culminated in an Edo period art exhibition in Huashan 1914 Creative Park – coincidentally, the former home of a Japanese sake manufacturer– where Sony has installed several 19th-century props inspired by the game.

Horror movies have really been lacking in panache lately. Sure, there have been plenty of horror movies with great narratives or structural conceits, or excellent scares. But covering the basic elements of memorable horror isn’t the same as stretching stylistically, and brazenly committing to a specific aesthetic, time period, or vibe the way Shudder and IFC’s new horror movie Late Night with the Devil does. That movie, in theaters this week, has enough flair to make up for what the rest of the movies have been missing.

You’d be mistaken if you thought that Princess Peach: Showtime! was the iconic regal character’s first ever title role.

The ongoing Korean dating show is all set to make its return with its brand-new episode 16 on TVING this March 2024. The reality show sees a group of ex-couples staying under one roof, where they try to make new romantic connections. The show’s unique concept has made it quite famous among viewers.

Princess Peach: Showtime! is here, giving the Mushroom Kingdom monarch a chance to break out of the damsel role and do a little world-saving of her own. While the game is largely pitched to younger audiences, there are still a few things about the game that might inspire questions, and we’re here to help!

Princess Peach: Showtime! is here, giving the Mushroom Kingdom monarch a chance to break out of the damsel role and do a little world-saving of her own. While the game is largely pitched to younger audiences, there are still a few things about the game that might inspire questions, and we’re here to help!

Horizon Forbidden West's long-awaited PC port finally hit Steam earlier today, bringing Aloy's second adventure to an entirely new audience. It means that more people than ever can experience one of PlayStation's best titles, but it also means that it's much more at risk of piracy, and publishers are going to start wondering what the heck they have to do for their games to stop being pirated, as Horizon Forbidden West was cracked in just 30 seconds after release.

Halo’s second season ends with the strangest episode the show has ever had. Unlike the rest of the series, which has slow-played every single one of its reveals, carefully rationing them out a crumb or two at a time, the season 2 finale threw just about every major reveal from the first Halo game at viewers in the span of less than an hour. Consequently, it was also probably the most interesting episode the show’s ever had, particularly for longtime fans of the game series.

By trying to do so much, Rise of the Ronin feels like an inferior version of everything it's inspired by. With an open world populated by map markers and side activities, it’s a worse Assassin's Creed. With a historical Japanese setting, it's a worse Ghost of Tsushima. With a combat system that prioritises parrying, it's a worse Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. At no point is it a bad experience, but the game's so run of the mill, so formulaic that attempting something new and ultimately failing would have been a more tantalising sell. You've already played better versions of Rise of the Ronin — what it's attempting is just fine, which is probably the most boring outcome possible.

News that The Sims was getting a big-screen adaptation – with Barbie's Margot Robbie executive producing, no less – made waves on the internet overnight.