Music News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

The Bad Guy herself, Billie Eilish, will be the next musical megastar to grace the Fortnite Festival mainstage, following in the footsteps of Lady Gaga and The Weeknd. Eilish revealed she will take the stage today, 23rd April, presumably with a list of free-to-player bangers.

Normally this is where we would introduce the game of and chat about a few ways to win, but that can't happen today. Today we need to discuss the deep roots that Beyoncé has built in our brains and wonder why the editors over at dared to invoke the Queen Bey without actually paying her homage in a category.

It’s only been a few days since I loaded my copy of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door onto my Nintendo Switch, but I’ve already played through the entirety of what I can cover in this preview, and let me tell you – it’s been a blast. The Thousand Year Door is one of my favourite, if not my absolute favourite, video game of all time. To see it remade on the Nintendo Switch is amazing, and while some like to grumble about paying full price for old games, Nintendo has done enough here I think to justify the price being charged.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door originally launched on GameCube in 2004 to widespread acclaim, and the upcoming Nintendo Switch rerelease won’t mess with perfection. Nintendo and Intelligent Systems’ remaster of the landmark role-playing game — which also represented the Paper Mario series at its peak — will instead give Mario fans a better-looking version of the original game, with a few welcome tweaks. It will also give the massive Switch audience a chance to experience this classic Nintendo game for the first time.

Love crossword puzzles but don’t have all day to sit and solve a full-sized puzzle in your daily newspaper? That’s what The Mini is for!

The full Persona 3 Reload soundtrack is now available on music streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. Spanning 62 songs across 2 hours and 15 minutes, the soundtrack is one heck of ride, made up of immaculately smooth beats and rousing battle themes. We can't recommend it enough.

Just yesterday, we learned that Billie Eilish would be headlining Season 3 of Fortnite Festival, the free-to-play music mode which has slowly but surely cornered the periphery market. With the update now live, there were a few welcome extra additions. For starters, guitar controller support for Harmonix's previous effort, Rock Band 4, is now available, meaning those dusty old axes can finally be put to good use.

The Lost Ark Team is excited to reveal the second part of the 2024 roadmap, including major planned content pieces arriving in Arkesia over the next three months. Checkout the full roadmap post , as well as the video roadmap from the team.

Stellar Blade is one of those action-adventure boob games. You probably know the ones I mean, where you fight off huge monsters using incredible powers whilst wearing skin-tight fetish outfits. We’re talking head-to-toe black leather that looks like it was painted on with incredibly thin paint, and that’s one of the more reserved options you have for dressing up Eve. Once you’ve adjusted to the constant fetishisation, there’s a pretty enjoyable game to be found in here with quite a few interesting quirks, along with a few not-so-interesting ones.

Thandiwe Newton has joined the cast of Wednesday season 2.

Modern smartwatches are more than simply an accessory, with complex capabilities like voice assistants, crash detection, call and text compatibility, and long battery lives. They've also become one of the most popular health and fitness trackers, thanks to sophisticated sensors and large app suites. Smartwatches are very useful and one of the most convenient gadgets for tracking your fitness and health activity, such as heart rate, oxygen level, sleep monitoring, steps and distance covered, calories burned,women's health monitoring and so on, and they also include emergency aid.

First days on the job are always hard to deal with, but Nowa is absolutely thrown in the deep end at the start of Eiyuden Chronicles: Hundred Heroes. Our hero is drafted into a joint military operation between their nation and the Empire, but before too long they’re raising an army for the resistance against imperial invasion. Along the way you’ll meet and recruit more than one hundred heroes (hence the name) to bolster said army.

With the help of Diablo 4 Music Director, Derek Duke, Blizzard has released another soundtrack arrangement, this time featuring the beautifully haunting scores of Scosglen. Perfect for accompanying anything from studying to demon-slaying, this newly released video is just in time to tide players over while waiting for the as-yet-unscheduled Diablo 4 Season 4 Campfire Chat! This bite size playlist highlights several Scosglen locations, including Eldhaime Keep, the Highlands, Tur Dulra, and Umbralwood and features pieces by Leo Kaliski and Ted Reedy. Which Diablo 4 zone soundtrack is your favorite to listen to on repeat? Let us know in the comments below!

You may be able to give those plastic Rock Band guitars you have stuffed away in the attic a new lease of life. Fortnite Festival (a Rock Band-style mode that debuted in Fortnite in December) now supports several Rock Band 4 controllers across PlayStation, Xbox and PC, as detailed in a blog post.

Metaphor: ReFantazio, the new RPG by the team behind Persona 5 among other RPGs, officially has a release date. In a special showcase streamed Monday, Atlus revealed that Metaphor will be out October 11, putting it squarely in the holidays.

As we step up to recognise Earth Day 2024 – the 50-year-old global event that seeks to highlight issues affecting our climate, oceans, and planetary peace – not-for-profit organisation PlanetPlay wants to help game studios and players make meaningful change.

Tales of Kenzera: ZAU is an ambitious. This is a Metroidvania not content with only including the usual genre constants of an underpowered protagonist, plentiful power-ups, and a vast labyrinthian land to explore. Instead, developer Surgent Studios has woven the theme of grief throughout everything the player does and experiences. From the visuals, to the combat, to even the rhythm and pacing of exploration; grief underpins it all. The only problem with this is that, so intent were the developers in building a palace of elaborate emotional adornments, they seem to have forgotten about some of the Metroidvania bits.

Apple has announced the launch of AirPlay in select hotel rooms across North America, enabling guests to seamlessly stream content from their Apple devices to compatible LG TVs. This long-awaited feature was initially unveiled at WWDC 2023 but faced delays until now, coinciding with the release of collaborative playlists for Apple Music earlier this year.

Developer SHIFT UP and Sony have released an official Stellar Blade BIBI 'Eve' music video ahead of the game's launch on PS5 next week.

K-pop singer Bibi has released a new song for the upcoming PS5 exclusive Stellar Blade.

After months of anticipation and sleuthing for clues by her fans, Taylor Swift’s 11th studio album is finally out in the world. The Tortured Poets Department continues the pop megastar’s seemingly endless wave of momentum, following up a busy few years filled with enormous stadium tours, a smash-hit concert film, several rerecordings of her old work, and a Grammy-winning album in Midnights. It feels like Swift has done it all by now, but there’s one final frontier she’s yet to take on: video games.

Stellar Blade developer Shift Up quite clearly took a lot of inspiration from PS4 great NieR: Automata during the making of its soon-to-be-released PS5 exclusive, but in the case of Automata director Yoko Taro, he thinks that the student has already become the master. In an interview with IGN Japan (via Eurogamer), Taro says Stellar Blade «is a really amazing game. I'd say that it's much better than NieR: Automata.»

Synth Riders' impeccable slate of DLC just doesn't seem to have an end in sight, does it? Well, here we are once again, as the team at Kluge Interactive has cooked up something really special for this latest DLC: 80s Mixtape — Side A.

Star Wars: Jedi Survivor was one of our favourite games of last year (here's our five-star review to prove it), so we couldn't resist the opportunity to ask a few questions to its composers at the BAFTA Games Awards.

MrBeast vs T-Series: In the realm of YouTube, a digital battleground is heating up as two titans, MrBeast and T-Series, wage war for the throne of the most-subscribed channel. Jimmy Donaldson, known as MrBeast, has long been a force to reckon with in the online world. Yet, despite his colossal following, he has never clinched the top spot- until now, perhaps. T-Series, India's powerhouse of music and cinema, currently holds sway with a staggering 263 million subscribers. However, MrBeast is rapidly narrowing the gap with an impressive 252 million subs of his own.

Baldur's Gate 3's next patch is underway and it looks to be one of the biggest yet. Larian Studios is bringing us new evil endings with brand-new cutscenes and music, as well as official mod support and a whole boatload of bug fixes.

Fallout the video game was about the world after it ended. We never really found out why the world ended. We saw maybe a little bit before it ended and then the game was set all the way after. Fallout Season 1, on the other hand, goes into the origins of the world of Fallout. We find out who was responsible for the end of the world and why.

Taylor Stewart and Andy Grush have been scoring movies together as the Newton Brothers for 15 years. They’ve worked with contemporary greats like Hans Zimmer and Danny Elfman, they composed the scores for Five Nights at Freddy’s and The Fall of the House of Usher, and they just spent who knows how long marinating in the music of X-Men: The Animated Series in order to craft the music for its sequel, X-Men ’97.

This month, the “Darkness Unleashed” Update arrives in Arkesia, and with it the Thaemine Legion Raid, new Transcendence progression system, Veskal Guardian Raid, and so much more!

I don’t know about you, but I think the 1980s are awesome! Big hair, big shoulder pads, and huge hits. So we put together a mixtape: Synth Riders 80s Mixtape – Side A… and it’s coming to the PlayStation VR2 on April 23.

The TopSpin 2K25 soundtrack has been unveiled by 2K Games, and it will feature 18 songs. Artists such as Drake, Fall Out Boy, Justin Timberlake, and Swedish House Mafia are amongst some of the musicians that feature. There is also an original score by BT, aka Brian Transeau, a musical pioneer in the world of trance. The ‎TopSpin 2K25 Soundtrack by 2K is on Apple Music, so those interested, and have an Apple Music account, can listen to it now.

Rapture Innovation Labs Pvt Ltd, an audio technology start-up, has announced that Sonic Lamb headphones are now available on Amazon.in. This move aims to provide customers with easy access to the unique sound quality and innovation offered by the headphones.

Bandai Namco's new trailer for Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama's desert wasteland manga, Sand Land, committed what could possibly be the most intellectual marketing song choice of 2024 by having it accompanied by the iconic 2001 dance hit, Darude's Sandstorm. While folks rightfully lost their minds at the trailer's apropos song choice, eagle-eyed Dragon Ball Z fans spotted a clue toward a Dragon Ball Z crossover.

Welcome to the first day of the holidays. Bored yet? I am, which is why I've scoured the stores for the best deals on the hottest games. The Fallout series is still the thing to replay, plus Hogwarts Legacy has gone halfy Potter on PS and PC. Awful wordplay aside, save often and do stay safe during these holidays.

One of the hallmarks of modern Fallout games is getting to listen to a radio while you trek around the Wasteland. The radio is, of course, full of sweet tunes to enjoy, but the radio hosts often take the mic in order to share some fun world-building facts and keep the player company on the road. Many of these songs show up in the Amazon Prime Fallout series — but which radio station is the best listen?

Greetings, Polygon readers! Each week, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.

Why not catch some magical music notes while you’re out and about? Well, if gaming and music are the two loves of your life, then Melody World is perfect for you. Indie game developer Daniel Santer has just rolled out the game exclusively on Android, and it’s all about melody.

Love crossword puzzles but don’t have all day to sit and solve a full-sized puzzle in your daily newspaper? That’s what The Mini is for!

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."

Baldur's Gate 3 continues its unbreakable winning streak to become the first-ever game to grab gold at all five major Game of the Year awards.

The highly successful indie survival game V Rising is exiting early access on May 8, so Swedish developer Stunlock Studios has released new information on what players will find in version 1.0.

The 2024 BAFTA Games Awards have come and gone but didn’t leave without another round of wins for Larian Studios’ Baldur’s Gate 3. The Dungeons and Dragons RPG rolled away from the show with five wins (including Best Game) while other highlights saw solid wins for projects like Alan Wake 2, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and Viewfinder.

Stunlock Studios have announced a collaboration with Konami to feature Castlevania content in its vampire survival ARPG, V Rising.

Square Enix recently published a 42 minute Final Fantasy VII Rebirth “Special Talk Session” on its Square Enix Music YouTube channel. The video features series composer Nobuo Uematsu, writer Kazushige Nojima, and creative director Tetsuya Nomura.

The Joker 2 trailer is here, and it's packed full of Easter eggs and callbacks. 

Instagram offers a fun way to enhance your Stories by adding music, boosting both mood and engagement. However, saving Instagram Stories with music from the platform's catalogue isn't always straightforward due to copyright restrictions. Nevertheless, there are workarounds available.  

Hikaru Utada, best known in the gaming world for her work on Kingdom Hearts, has released a re-recorded version of Hikari, the Japanese version of Simple and Clean.

Come one come all, Silas Darkmoon and his Darkmoon Faire will start making regular appearances in Warcraft Rumble later in Season 5. Once the Darkmoon Faire arrives, you can tap the Darkmoon Faire icon in the center of the map to complete challenges, earn prize tickets for you and your guild and then exchange tickets for marvelous rewards of your choice.

Nearly five years after the release of Joker, the Oscar-winning DC comics-inspired drama starring Joaquin Phoenix, its sequel is finally ready for a spotlight. The first trailer for Joker 2 debuted on Tuesday at CinemaCon, the trade show for all things theatrical release, and shows off Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn, and some of the new music that has been rumored for the film.

Beat Saber is not stopping! Hip Hop has long been one of the most requested music genres and the least represented within the game, but the wait is over: the Hip Hop Mixtape is out now on Beat Saber for PS VR2 and PS VR. The track list includes some of the biggest names in Hip Hop like Snoop Dogg, Nicki Minaj, Eminem, and 2Pac, covering different eras and styles of this influential music genre.

You can pretty much do anything in Fortnite these days. You can hunt down Greek gods, watch the solar eclipse virtually, or unleash a Waterbending fury as a character from Avatar: The Last Airbender. And starting Tuesday, players will once again be able to attend a virtual version of Coachella, the popular music festival, in the game.

Love crossword puzzles but don’t have all day to sit and solve a full-sized puzzle in your daily newspaper? That’s what The Mini is for!

Apple has entered into a partnership with Shutterstock, a stock photos and videos library, to utilize its data for training its artificial intelligence (AI) models. The agreement suggests that Apple is making strides towards developing its proprietary foundation model. Despite previous speculations regarding the integration of Google's Gemini AI and Baidu's Ernie Bot (in China) into the iPhone 16 series for AI functionalities, it seems Apple's long-term strategy involves incorporating its own native AI model.

Apple updated its App Store rules Friday to allow emulators for retro console games globally with an option for downloading titles. However, the company warned that the developers are responsible for making sure that they follow copyright rules.

The Battle Cats is gearing up for another round of virtual idol adventure with the iconic Hatsune Miku. From April 8th until April 22nd, 2024, you get to dive into the 4th rerun of the collab since we got our last taste of it back in March 2021.

Greetings, Polygon readers! Each week, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.

Despite Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown releasing just a few months ago, there's apparently another spinoff Prince of Persia title currently in development, and it's heading to early access through Steam later this year. According to Insider Gaming, this next game is a roguelite adventure, suitably titled 'The Rogue Prince of Persia' — which we think is a rather clever name.

We live in a world in which a Bob Marley biopic has grossed nearly as much as Aquaman 2, completely outpaced Madame Web, and currently stands as the third-highest-grossing movie of 2024. Bob Marley: One Love, which stars Kingsley Ben-Adir (Peaky Blinders, Secret Invasion)as the reggaetitan, and Lashana Lynch (No Time to Die, The Woman King) as his wife and confidante, Rita, is pure grounded drama — and another major win for director Reinaldo Marcus Green.

Vocaloid idol Hatsune Miku’s next video game crossover was announced and released today, and it’s the perfect kind of collaboration for the character. If you buy a new $2 DLC, you can now play as Crypton Future’s popular virtual singer in the PC and PS4 versions ofCrypt of the NecroDancer.

When Homeworld 3 was first announced, I kept hoping for a VR mode announcement that never came. Wouldn’t it be great to see all of the iconic ships flying around, dogfighting and exploding all around your head? It’s a no-brainer! It turns out that the lack of VR support wasn’t because Homeworld 3’s developers at Blackbird didn’t see the potential; it was because there was another studio, FarBridge, working on a parallel Homeworld game that’s built for VR – specifically the Meta Quest 2 and 3 – from the ground up. It’s called Homeworld: Vast Reaches (see what they did there?) and, as coincidence would have it, after Homeworld 3’s delay to this coming May, both will launch very close together.

Best noise cancelling headphones: What makes noise cancelling devices popular? These devices have the power to eliminate background noise so the users can listen to music, and podcasts, or stream content online with greater focus. While there are several types of noise cancelling devices available in the market, the most effective ones are said to be headphones. If you are looking for high-performing headphones, then we have curated a list of all the best noise cancelling headphones from top brands such as Bose, Sony, JBL, and others to help you find the one which suits your requirements. Check out the list of headphones and pick the one which is coming to your liking.

Unix, a rapidly expanding brand in the mobile accessories and consumer electronics sector, has unveiled its latest offerings: the "Made in India" smartwatches – Breeze and Hydra. These smartwatches, designed to cater to the evolving needs of consumers, come packed with advanced features including BT Calling and Hindi language support, among others.

In order to make the best viral video possible in Content Warning, you need the proper equipment. Once you and your crew of friends go down into the Old World, all manner of spooky monsters and events will start popping off, but you only have so much air and battery life to get the best shots. Each video you post to SpookTube earns you cash to invest in better items to catch even scarier stuff on tape next time, but not all the items are very clear in how they will help you rack up the views. These items can get quite pricy, so save up that ad revenue and check out what all the items are in Content Warning before quitting your job to be a full-time SpookTuber.

Legendary composer Nobuo Uematsu will compose the central theme for the as-yet-unnamed third game in Square Enix's Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy, tentatively committing to the job after being put on the spot by Rebirth director Tetsuya Nomura.

The Grand Theft Auto franchise has been indulging in all sorts of madcap nonsense over almost three decades, from sophisticated criminal operations and heists at one end to sandbox shenanigans on the other, with the player running around, blowing stuff up, and attracting increasing amounts of police attention. However, Talita, a nonprofit agency based in Sweden, decided to use Grand Theft Auto 5 to tell a more important story, focused on saving women from the hands of traffickers rather than pursuing personal wealth and indulgence.

As AI eventually starts branching out into the music industry that may potentially harm the livelihood of famous musicians, notable stars such as Katy Perry, Billie Eilish and a multitude of others have decided to collectively address this problem by reaching out to developers, companies, services and other entities the only way they know how; through a letter. The contents of this letter reveal that these high-profile artists have become voices of those who cannot be heard in the AI era, and do not wish that this technology replaces the raw talent and skill that humans possess.

Square Enix has officially begun development on the third and final part of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy.

Dave The Diver will be added to the PS Plus Extra and Premium game catalogue on its PlayStation launch day of April 16th, Mintrocket has confirmed. Dave The Diver mixes a lot different gameplay elements together from ocean exploration, running a sushi restaurant, seahorse racing, and an anime music rhythm game all mixed together in this pot. There is also a Godzilla DLC coming in May.

Have you ever wondered how the iPhone’s Dynamic Island might look on Android? Well, it’s not just a wild fantasy. You can actually bring the free-floating, shape-shifting pill to your Android phone and make it your new notification hub. Sounds cool? Let's dive in.

If you've ever caught yourself jamming out to a Latin-filled song in a Final Fantasy game, or any other game in which Nobuo Uematsu was credited as a composer, you might've been wondering just what the heck the singers are saying so elegantly, yet powerfully.

To get free trials to Apple subscriptions like Apple TV Plus and Apple Arcade, you typically have to buy new Apple products. Some phone plans include them as perks, too. However, Best Buy is offering free trials to new and returning customers who have a free Best Buy account.

AI roundup: A Pune-based startup, Glovatrix has taken advantage of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to introduce a voice translation device for sign languages. This is a great step to discard communication barriers among the deaf community. In other news, OpenAI looks for expansions and opens a new office in Tokyo. Know more about such AI news from today. 

Google's Podcasts app, boasting over 500 million downloads globally, is set to cease operations for users in the United States on April 2. Despite its large user base, only a small fraction of U.S. podcast listeners, around 4%, utilize the platform. This imminent shutdown has prompted concerns among users who now need to transfer their podcast subscription data to alternative services. However, this migration process can be complex and may expose users to potential security risks such as scams and credential theft.

There's been a lot of chatter about this Stellar Blade demo recently. First, it was released accidentally, and although Sony took it back down pretty quickly, it wasn't fast enough to stop a few people playing and sharing footage online. So, we knew a demo was coming, and it wasn't much later that we got official confirmation. Now, the time has come: it's available to download and play right now on PS5. Those in the US can click here, and it's here for UK readers.

Ghost Trick is a detective story with a supernatural twist. In it, you play as a ghost with amnesia, trying to solve your own murder. As many of you recall, this used to be a handheld in 2010 (it seems like forever ago!). It launched on Google Play on March 25 2024.

Koji Kondo joined Nintendo in 1984 and ended up composing basically every memorable theme from the Mario or Zelda series. The legendary composer had a particularly wild idea for a stage effect in last year's Super Mario Bros Wonder, and while that idea was rejected, it did end up giving Kondo the opportunity to bring his voice to the game.

The next game from the studio behind Celeste and TowerFall won’t be releasing this year as originally planned.