Folk News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Tickets for The International Game Summit on Mental Health (TIGS) Gala evening event on November 16 are now on sale.

Alan Wake 2 is almost here, and not only is the game great (check out our full review here) but it’s a real visual feast on PC, provided you have the beefy hardware needed to run it (check out our extensive PC testing here). But what about consoles? A lot of recent high-end games have been pushing even current-gen consoles to their limits and beyond, and Alan Wake 2 may be our most eye-popping visual showcase yet, so how’s the game hold up? Well, the folks at Digital Foundry gave the PS5 version of Alan Wake 2 a spin (Xbox Series X/S impressions will come later) and the results are a somewhat mixed bag. You can check out their full video below, provided you have around 15 minutes to spare, or you can scroll on down for our recap of the key points.

Payday 3 is in a rocky state. Its launch was dreadful, its fans are angry, and its promised patch keeps getting punted further and further into the future (though for what sounds like a good reason). There's only one thing to do if you're a developer in this dicey situation: launch a Fortnite Island. It's the oldest trick in the book.

Even a year-and-a-half after release Elden Ring retains mystique, secrets, areas of the game that even the most dedicated cannot fully unravel. This is of course by design and has been the way ever since Demon's Souls, with FromSoftware always aiming to leave plenty of room for player interpretation: it's arguably one of the reasons that the lore of these games really sticks with people.

Since the first trailer for Super Mario Bros. Wonder, the world has been contemplating a single, horrible question: what does elongated Mario really look like? Well, folks, we now have an answer, and it's every bit as horrifying as you might've imagined.

The Yakuza/Like a Dragon series are known for their variety of wacky side content and minigames, but it seems like the upcoming Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is really going over the top in this respect. Sega has already revealed the game will have side activities inspired by Crazy Taxi and Pokemon, but that’s just the beginning. In a new trailer shown during the Xbox Partner Preview showcase, Sega revealed Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth will have its own full-on Animal-Crossing-style mode.

The folks at volunteer organization Roguelike Celebration have set up a Steam event uplifting all things permadeath and procedurally generated, and the easy-to-miss festivities have also collected some solid discounts on some of the best roguelikes around. 

When two of a game's weapons are nailguns, you should probably expect players to be enthusiastic about construction. Following last year's excellent Brutalist Jam map pack, Quake mappers have reunited to release another free load of levels inspired by Brutalism and concrete. The 30 maps offer good honest fragging in everything from concrete cities to murderous mystical puzzle boxes. Honestly, I'd recommend downloading the pack even if only to see the hub level and marvel at quite how good Quake can look when made for modern PCs.

The packaging for the PS5 Slim seems to have been spotted in the wild, and it seems that players will need an internet connection to install its optional disc drive.

Remember back in the day when you could set it up so that your tweets automatically posted to Facebook? Facebook killed that functionality with an API crackdown in 2018, but it's revisiting the idea in a bid to drum up interest in its Twitter alternative, Threads. And a lot of people hate it.

Super Smash Bros. fans are sounding the alarm over Nintendo's strict new community tournament guidelines, which could indeed be devastating to local organizers and competitors.

Excellent news today, folks. The RPS guides team is once again back at full strength as we welcome two fresh faces to the Treehouse. Please give a big warm hello and welcome to Kiera Mills and Jeremy Blum.

No luck on the dating apps? Maybe your inner circle will be better at finding you a match. Tinder this week rolled out Tinder Matchmaker, which gives your friends and family the power to recommend profiles for your consideration.

Is Apple releasing a new iPad this year or not? Several reports, including those from Supercharged and 9to5Mac, suggested that new iPads were coming last week. But all we got was a new Apple Pencil with a USB-C connector, and the latest rumor now pushes the next iPad launch to spring 2024.

Secretfinders, rejoice! A major step in the search for Diablo 4's Cow Level has been completed: a player found out how to obtain the three relics that are needed to access the Forlorn Hovel. Most experts agree that this particular cellar could be the location to open a portal into Sanctuary's parallel cowmension! Diablo 4 Cow Level — What We Know So Far More Secret Cow Level Details Unveiled As it appears, players need to kill exactly 666 cows to get one of the three relics needed to craft a key that opens a secret cellar, which is assumed to be the summoning location for a portal into Diablo 4's Secret Cow Level.

Folks, it is with a heavy heart that I must tell you all: American Horror Story is good again.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2is finally here, folks. After Marvel’s Spider-Manin 2018 and Miles Moralesin 2020, Insomniac has brought the two Spider-Mans fully together in the new PS5 game. By all reports, it’s a lot of fun.

Alan Wake 2 is very well optimized across PS5 and Xbox Series, Remedy's Communications Director has said.

Bet you didn’t have “The Pokémon Company doing an American Psycho parody on its social media” on your bingo card for this Friday. But this is the reality we live in, where a Marshtomp plush stands in for delusional sociopath Patrick Bateman in a contest of (non-business) cards at the Pokémon offices, where Pokémon do their mergers and acquisitions.

If you want to flash your smartphone rather than pulling out a driver's license at the airport, three more states this week added support for the functionality on Android.

Lords of the Fallen makes some significant changes and additions to the usual Soulslike co-op formula, and the head of developer Hexworks reckons it makes the RPG's multiplayer just plain "better than other Soulslikes."

Apple's upcoming iOS 17.1 update reportedly solves a screen burn-in issue spotted on the iPhone 15. But it does not yet address another problem vexing owners of the company's newest smartphone.

By Sean Hollister, a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.

Steamforged Games is heading back to the world of Sony’s Horizon series for Horizon Forbidden West: Seeds of Rebellion, and the Kickstarter campaign will go live on November 21.

Spider-Man 2 features two unlockable Spidey suits for Miles Morales that are clear references to Wolverine and Black Panther. There's your Wolverine cameo sorted, folks.

Update: Six to Start founder Adrian Hon confirmed to GamesIndustry.biz that the departures are the consequences of a wave of redundancies and "contract terminations/non-renewal."

Both Peter and Miles can snap nearly two-dozen specific pictures for this side quest chain.

It happened again. Diablo 4 Season 2 brought a bunch of highly requested changes to the action RPG – and also some new short shorts for Rogues which are somehow even more revealing than the last pair.

Apex Legends developer Respawn Entertainment has revealed the next character coming to its free-to-play battle royale game. The good news? The reveal trailer for the new Legend known as Conduit is full of exciting Titan-on-Titan action. The bad? Despite continued hope from the Titanfall fanbase, it’s not the Titanfall 3 reveal some were desperately holding out hope for.

The folks over at Remedy Entertainment have been pushing for an Alan Wake sequel. It took the development studio years to get the project off the ground. So this passion project is now gearing up for a release this month. Of course, if you’re keen on picking this game up, you might be trying to steer clear from any spoilers. Meanwhile, those who want a bit more insight into the game could be persuaded to check out the achievements. Fortunately, it looks like some of the achievements have been published. 

Netflix is indicating that its account-sharing crackdown will expand and target its remaining freeloaders over the next two quarters.  

We’re moving into the holiday season soon. That means we will see plenty of marketing materials released to hype up console platforms. Thanks to Tom Warren, who pointed out a new trailer drop, Microsoft has already kicked off its holiday marketing campaign. The folks over at Microsoft are highlighting their Xbox Series X/S platform. Featured in the video is the line of video game titles, both first-party and third-party, that you can enjoy. That said, you can look at the first video trailer in the player embedded below. 

It looks like your adventure into Moria’s depths on PlayStation 5 will be pushed back until the end of this year. The Lord of the Rings has always had a strong fan base, but there has been a resurgence as of late. Thanks to the Amazon Prime series, fans have a prequel to the cinematic films with The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. However, the more recent attempt to bring out a smash hit video game to capitalize on this newfound hype failed to deliver. I’m referring to The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, which received terrible reviews from both critics and players. This is a title to avoid, and hopefully, the next title release for the franchise, The Lord of the Rings: Return To Moria, won’t see the same fate. 

Twitter owner Elon Musk has come up with a bold new plan to rid the platform of bots and attract legitimate new users: Charging new subscribers $1 per year for access.

With Twitter's blue checkmark no longer conveying as much authority as it used to, the service's Community Notes feature is perhaps the next best way to know if what you're reading in a tweet is legit. But where are these crowd-sourced posters getting their data?

Microsoft made several headlines when they unveiled their interest in bringing on another acquisition. After Zenimax Media, Microsoft went after a massive name with Activision Blizzard. The purchase brought in over $68 billion, and it was an uphill battle for Microsoft. They had to go through a series of regulators to ensure that this deal wouldn’t hurt competition. Of course, the significant component that hit the headlines was the fact that Microsoft would own Call of Duty. That made many players worried about a scenario in which Call of Duty would no longer be available on the PlayStation line of consoles. The folks over at Xbox continued to ensure this wouldn’t be the case. 

Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic: The Gathering, started a game studio called Popularium and now the company is showing off its title Chaos Agents.

When it comes to Sony, there is plenty of speculation that the company is seeking a big move. Since Microsoft revealed they were interested in Activision Blizzard, which cost them over $68 billion, Sony has been vocal against the deal. It was mainly due to one franchise, and that was Call of Duty. However, after several back-and-forths and court cases, regulators have signed off on the deal. The CMA was the last one to give their approval, which Microsoft was waiting for. That happened last week, and fans might wonder if Sony is stepping up to bat with their big purchase.

Netflix has released a new look at its 2024 live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender series, featuring only the hottest benders: The Fire Nation royal family.

Adobe Flash is, of course, dead. It was deprecated back in 2021, putting a scruffy little bow on this particular niche of PC gaming. Line Rider, Happy Wheels, and Bloons all started their careers via Flash, and while some of these games do make a return every so often, as the upcoming Alien Hominid remaster, they’ve certainly fallen out of favour with the younger crowd.

Something Wicked Games' stable of notable ex-Bethesda developers is gaining a new member. Will Shen, former design director on Starfield and veteran of Bethesda going all the way back to Fallout 3, is joining the all-remote studio as the lead content designer of Wyrdsong.

With a new day comes yet another Lords of the Fallen patch. The folks at Hexworks certainly aren't resting on their laurels despite the game's positive commercial debut hinted by CI Games CEO Marek Tyminski on Twitter.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is almost here and Wccftech’s Alessio Palumbo has given his overall thoughts on the game, but what about the technical nitty gritty? Insomniac Games are known for their technical prowess, and according to the folks at Digital Foundry, they’ve come through again. Spider-Man 2 looks to be pretty much a best-case scenario for a boundary-pushing current-gen console game, avoiding some of the issues we’ve seen with a lot of other recent titles (low native resolution in Performance mode, unstable framerate, ect.) No, it seems Spidey has his cake and eats it too. You can check out the full Digital Foundry video below, provided you have around 20 minutes to spare, our you can scroll on down for our recap of the most salient points.

Usually, when you say you’ve got a bug in your system, you’re talking about a software glitch. Less often, you might mean a hardware bug, such as a defect affecting one of your components. However, in the case of YouTube repair channel, northwestrepair, it found an actual bug in an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090. As in, a real insect.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage is the latest in Ubisoft’s blockbuster series, and a bit of a throwback to an earlier time for the series. Rather than a big overstuffed RPG, Mirage is more of a traditional action-adventure experience, and as such, some folks more used to recent games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Valhalla may need to adjust slightly.

Assassin's Creed Mirage is a third-person stealth game, but there's a camera glitch that can give it an isometric perspective similar to the Diablo series and, more aptly, some Prince of Persia games.

If you’re a digital content creator, chances are you still sketch out ideas, layouts, or illustrations on paper—or perhaps you like to take physical notes. Pens and paper still have a place in the lives of some of the most digitally savvy and connected professionals. Some of those same folks, though, swear by a stylus and onscreen input. MSI dares to ask: Why not have both?

The Meta Quest 3 launched just a few days ago, so it's time for the teardowns. But while the folks at iFixit find the usual problems with VR repair, the most interesting Quest 3 reveal shows how much better the Quest Pro could have been.

Intel's upcoming 14th Gen Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs have been tested in the Factoio, a top-down sim builder game but the performance lacks severely against AMD's Ryzen 3D V-Cache chips.

It’s October, ladies and gentlemen, and we’re almost halfway through the month! Do you understand what that means? It means we’re almost to one of many people’s favorite holidays, Halloween! Yes, the time to dress up, scare people, and get lots of candy is almost near! That means that numerous gaming properties will be dropping Halloween-themed items and events. You might recall that a certain franchise is bringing Halloween-themed characters into their battle royale, and now, Splatoon 3 is getting in on the act! How? Well, they announced today that there will be a special “Splatoween Splatfest” that takes place just before the holiday!

Assassin’s Creed Mirage is the latest in Ubisoft’s blockbuster series, and a bit of a throwback to an earlier time for the series. Rather than a big overstuffed RPG, Mirage is more of a traditional action-adventure experience, and as such, some folks more used to recent games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Valhalla may need to adjust slightly.

After SDCC, New York Comic Con is one of the year’s biggest pop culture gatherings. And even in a year when writers and actors have largely been on strike and unavailable for fan events, the convention still promises to be packed with surprises.

Haus, the first story expansion for the zombie beatdown romp Dead Island 2, promises to take players on a journey through a «surreal, psycho-horror dreamscape» as they investigate a previously unknown cult that's fighting to survive (and spread a somewhat dubious vision for the future of humanity) in an all-new region of undead-infested Los Angeles.

Starfield isn't the most complex of games, but it does have a few sneaky tricks that players can take advantage of if they know how to pull them off properly. We've already seen players uncover methods of killing civillains in broad daylight without angering the local law enforcement, and several ways to obtain unlimited cash. Now players are just discovering a much easier way to pinch things, and it involves tricking poor helpless NPCs into pretty much stealing things for you.

Fantasy Flight Games is one of my favourite board game publishers, publishing great games like Descent: Legends of the Dark and Lord of the Rings: Journey’s in Middle Earth. Many folks have gotten their hands on Star Wars Unlimited, the newest trading card game from Fantasy Flight Games, but a release date wasn’t available. Until now.

I've had my eye on dwarven roguelike Below the Stone for several months, so I was eager to give its Steam Next Fest demo a play. Folks, I'm pleased to report that the Terraria and Deep Rock Galactic vibes I was picking up were dead-on. This is shaping up to be something really special, and handily one of the best Steam Next Fest demos to play this week. 

The dust is beginning to settle on the launch of the Meta Quest 3, and while folks who pre-ordered the new mixed-reality headset seem happy, there are plenty of people who will still be looking for a bundle or deal now that reviews are out. 

The backlash to Unity's controversial install fees has now gone far enough to inspire the ultimate protest: a satirical idle game called Install Fee Tycoon.

Silent Hill Ascension will premiere on Halloween, aka October 31st, at 9pm ET/6pm PT, Konami has confirmed. For UK folks, that is 1am GMT on November 1st.  The first episode of the live series, where the audience determine the story and the canon of the Silent Hill franchise, will mark the beginning of a six month journey with a new episode dropping every day.

Magic: The Gathering is going strong in 2023 with back-to-back-to-back best-selling sets of new cards. That high-quality churn is a nightmare for card flippers, but a huge boon to folks trying to get into the hottest card game around for the first time. Discounts for the October Amazon Prime Day include Collector Boosters, Set Boosters, Draft Boosters, and even Commander decks. Below you’ll find all the best MTG deals, plus some recommendations.

Hello folks. It's been a while since we've done one of these (apologies for that), but off the back of our free month RPS Premium trial in September, I wanted to put out another call for reader questions from our fine crop of supporters - as an extra thank you and benefit for your continued support of the site.

By Sean Hollister, a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.

Good news, folks. Today, I'm very pleased to announce our new Reviews Editor, and it's our very own Ed Thorn! After spending two and a bit years flexing his typing arms as our senior staff writer, Ed will now be stepping up to wrangle our reviews section into bigger and better shape than ever before - or rather, he already has, as he officially took over the role at the start of October. He will henceforth be known not simply as Edders, but as the new and improved Reviews Edders, so please come and congratulate him on his ascension in the comments below.

DLSS is coming to Starfield, but it won’t be today. Developer Bethesda has released a bite-sized update for Starfield, bringing an FOV slider and support for Intel Arc GPUs. And that’s roughly about it, folks.

Here’s a stat that might not surprise you: The average mobile phone user gets an average of 14 spam calls each month.

As author Robert Jordan observed, the Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass. The same is true of prestige TV shows, including Amazon Studios’ Wheel of Time adaptation, which just wrapped up its second season. Ostensibly, the focus of season 2’s finale, “What Was Meant to Be,” is protagonist Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski) taking yet another step toward embracing his destiny as world messiah/destroyer the Dragon Reborn.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage lives up to every aspect of its name.

Silent Hill Ascension will premiere on Halloween, aka October 31st, at 9pm ET/6pm PT, Konami has confirmed. For UK folks, that is 1am GMT on November 1st.  The first episode of the live series, where the audience determine the story and the canon of the Silent Hill franchise, will mark the beginning of a six month journey with a new episode dropping every day.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage is the latest in Ubisoft’s blockbuster series, and a bit of a throwback to an earlier time for the series. Rather than a big overstuffed RPG, Mirage is more of a traditional action-adventure experience, and as such, some folks more used to recent games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Valhalla may need to adjust slightly.

Microsoft recently revamped its Teams app for Windows and Mac to improve its functionality. And the company is not stopping at that. Yesterday, October 6, it also launched the new web app store for Windows. This new web app store is not a mere redesign or addition of new functionalities, in fact, the company claims that it was built from scratch using a new user interface (UI) to make it more intuitive and seamless when looking for new Windows apps and Xbox PC games.

Activision has revealed the Twitch drops for the Modern Warfare 3 beta.

It’s a funny thing when you follow an indie game from its initial announcement to its release. I’d say it’s an equally funny thing when you live in ignorance throughout an indie game’s development, only finding out about it when a release trailer is posted. In the case of Knuckle Sandwich, developed by Andy Brophy, I think there will be a fair amount of both column ‘A’ and column ‘B’ when the game drops in November.

Loki season 2 scripts were already written when Marvel casting director Sarah Halley Finn saw an early screening of Everything Everywhere All at Oncein 2022. It was March 2022, the movie was just about to go nationwide and take over the film landscape for the next several months, and she was positive they had to snap up Ke Huy Quan. Fast.

Transcripts of analyst-facing conferences, held by multi-billion dollar organisations, are usually terminally dull affairs. But a recent Intel chat contains a wee snippet we can add to the rumour fire about when the next version of Windows is due. And in this particular case, Intel is hinting that it's definitely next year.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage is the latest in Ubisoft’s blockbuster series, and a bit of a throwback to an earlier time for the series. Rather than a big overstuffed RPG, Mirage is more of a traditional action-adventure experience, and as such, some folks more used to recent games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Valhalla may need to adjust slightly.

The developers behind the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 have revealed a few details on how the new Create-a-Class system, which is all about picking a tactical vest and stuffing it full of the gear you want.

Detective Pikachu isn’t the only live-action Pokemon offshoot in existence. There’s also a Japanese TV series on the way, but don’t expect to see more CG-animated Pokémon waltzing about in this one. Per Crunchyroll news, Pocket ni Boken o Tsumekonde — Pack Your Pockets with Adventure, or PokéTsume for short —is a Pokemon-inspired drama that aims to mine a very specific type of nostalgia. In particular, nostalgia aimed at folks who grew up on the original Game Boy and the first Pokemon games. 

Blizzard hosted the first of their two Devstreams regarding the upcoming Diablo 4 Season 2, Season of the Blood, yesterday. And, I have to say…it was actually pretty good. In the trove of quality-of-life changes and enhancements coming to the ARPG, a buff to the drop rate of Uber Uniques was mentioned. Diablo Designer Joe Shely followed up on Twitter afterward confirming the buffed drop rate.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage is the latest in Ubisoft’s blockbuster series, and a bit of a throwback to an earlier time for the series. Rather than a big overstuffed RPG, Mirage is more of a traditional action-adventure experience, and as such, some folks more used to recent games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Valhalla may need to adjust slightly.