Pre-Orders News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Meta announced its newest Meta Quest 3 mixed reality headset back in June, promising twice the graphical performance of its predecessor, the Quest 2. Now, with increased competition in the mixed reality segment from Apple, the company has revealed more details about its next-generation headset at its Meta Connect 2023 annual conference on Wednesday, including an official launch date. The Meta Quest 3 will start shipping October 10, with pre-orders for the headset live right now. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also showed off immersive virtual reality capabilities of the headset, while keeping your physical surroundings in sight with full-colour passthrough.

Attention, soldiers: Helldivers 2 is now available to pre-order. Published by Sony and developed by Arrowhead, this is a third-person sequel to the top-down original, and has you blasting away the bad guys in tactical four-player co-op. A new trailer has been released to give you the gist: cool weapons, aliens, robots, and friendly fire combine for what should be a very fun co-op title.

US: $499.99 at Meta

Pre-orders for Helldivers II are now available for PlayStation 5 via PlayStation Store and PC via Steam, publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment and developer Arrowhead Game Studios announced. Physical edition pre-orders are also available via PlayStation Direct, with other retailers presumably to follow.

Arrowhead Game Studios’ Helldivers 2 will be released next year, but new gameplay continues to roll out. The latest trailer showcases the Automaton faction, which contrasts the bug-like aliens seen thus. Touted as “intelligent and relentless”, they’re dedicated to wiping out Super Earth.

Pre-orders for strategy RPG Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes are now available via digital stores across all platforms, publisher 505 Games and developer Rabbit & Bear Studios announced.

Despite taking as big a step away from the formula as it ever has done before via Final Fantasy 16, the backbone of the Final Fantasy series is RPGs. Perhaps none more so than Final Fantasy 14 which continues to grow and has a massive following even though two more games in the series have been released since. Soon, your Final Fantasy 14 experience won't be limited to your screens as the game will be getting an official tabletop RPG adaptation.

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It's not often that one of the biggest takeaways from a Direct is whatever amiibos Nintendo has to show off, but that was the case on Thursday. Tucked in between news about a long list of upcoming Mario games was confirmation Sora really will be getting amiibo, and it will complete the Ultimate collection in 2024. Also revealed were release dates for a number of other upcoming amiibos, including Tears of the Kingdom's Zelda and Ganondorf which are now available to pre-order.

A lot of Pokemon have already been turned into Funko Pop! figures, but with more than 1,000 'mons created, and more being added all the time, it seems likely Funko will never catch up. Especially if it wants to give every Pokemon Pop! a pearlescent and flocked variant. Considering how much trainers like shiny hunting, I'd imagine there's probably quite a lot of demand for that. Just regular Pops will do for now, and Sobble has officially joined the Funko party.

The rest of September and the entirety of October are so packed with big video game releases, it might feel like Super Mario Bros. Wonder's arrival is still a long way off. In reality, the first truly new 2D Mario game in well over a decade is only a little more than five weeks away. Probably time to get those pre-orders in if you haven't already, especially with so many other games to potentially buy over the course of the next few months, and if you pre-order Wonder through Walmart, you'll get a pretty special bonus.

As someone who's recently become a VR convert, the one big complaint I (along with other VR users) have is how the headset's weight can keep me from gaming for long periods. Bigscreen aims to solve that problem by releasing Beyond, a pair of lightweight, compact VR glasses that look like sci-fi goggles straight out of Cyberpunk 2077. The Bigscreen Beyond only weighs 127 grams, which makes it nearly four times lighter than our favorite VR headset, the Meta Quest 2. Size-wise, the wired headset is only 143mm long and 52mm thick and can fit in the palm of your hand, at least according to the video above. The Beyond uses pancake lenses like the Meta Quest Pro, which provides the 3D effect of VR with less space. Behind them are a pair of MicroOLED displays with a total resolution of 5,120 x 2,560, or 2,560 x 2,560 per eye, at up to 90Hz refresh rate.

RuneScape has been a part of the video game zeitgeist for so long that whether you still play it today or not, odds are you have played it, and played it extensively, at some point in your life. It has naturally evolved over its more than two decades of existence, but now RuneScape is about to get two entirely new ways to play. A tabletop RPG and a board game, both based on the original game, and both falling under the RuneScape Kingdoms banner.

There's a lot of crossover between video games and board games, and not only through their shared use of the word game. Fans of one quite often also enjoy the other which is why there are so many examples of video games being turned into board games and vice versa. A very popular example of that vice versa is Stardew Valley: The Board Game which sold out pretty sharpish. The good news is ConcernedApe has revealed they're back in stock and pre-orders are available now.

Fans of shooting and floating, take note, because Gunbrella has a launch date. The latest from Doinksoft is set for September 13, 2023 on Nintendo Switch and PC. Described as a “gritty side-scrolling adventure,” Gunbrella certainly looks the part in the new release date trailer.

It’s impressive when someone manages to create a beloved game experience on their own; or at the very least with a small team. Such was the case with Stardew Valley , and its developer Eric Barone, also known by the pseudonym “ConcernedApe.” What’s even more impressive than that, though, is how that experience was converted into a highly coveted board game. While Stardew Valley: The Board Game was available for a limited run, it’s coming back very soon.

The Stardew Valley board game is back in action as developer ConcernedApe announces pre-orders are about to begin. 

While next month may belong to titles like Starfield and Mortal Kombat 1, CD Projekt RED’s Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty is also heavily anticipated. It received a new trailer and extensive gameplay at Gamescom 2023, and in the company’s first half 2023 earnings conference, CD Projekt revealed it was “very happy” about current pre-orders.

The Kun, Ayaneo's latest addition to its ever-growing range of handheld gaming PCs, will be available sooner rather than later. It’s expected to go up for pre-order on September 5, with the Indiegogo campaign beginning at 8AM ET.

Pre-orders for the upcoming and eagerly-anticipated Starfield were the third-biggest-selling item on Steam last week. 

Fans will soon be able to enter the world of survival horror once again, as pre-orders have opened for Resident Evil: The Board Game. This game will allow you to recreate the events of the original entry in the Resident Evil series as the S.T.A.R.S team ventures into the Spencer Mansion and face the undead horde within.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 pre-orders are officially underway, following today's announcements from Activision. The UK has jumped first, with very early pre-order options available at Amazon. We're still waiting on US options, but retailers are readying their troops as we speak.

Starfieldis making its long-awaited arrival on Sept. 6 for the Xbox Series X and PC. The most affordable way to play it is with a Game Pass Ultimate or PC subscription, costing you $16.99 or $9.99 per month, respectively. The second most affordably way is to buy a digital pre-order through Newegg. The retailer is knocking $10 off the standard and premium editions through Aug. 22, and is offering codes for Steam or through the Microsoft Store. The only thing to remember is that you have to paste in the offer code SAVEXDPP at checkout.

With the game just a week away from releasing, publisher Gun Interactive has announced that is now available for pre-order.

It used to be that video games never came with anything outside the game, the instruction manual, and select other things depending on what you bought. True, there were the occasion bundles that put the games together with a console, but the point of the purchase was to get the video game and nothing else. However, as time went on, stores and services started competing to get people to buy their version of the game, hence starting the “pre-order bonus” era that continues to this day. For example, Detective Pikachu Returns has a fantastic set of pre-order bonuses. That is, if you live in Japan.

It's time to celebrate the upcoming release of Marvel's Spider-Man 2 in web-slinging style - Spider-Man PS5 pre-orders are open now. We don't know how quickly these consoles will zip off the shelves, but it's the first special edition PlayStation 5 and it's tying in with one of the most popular titles in the brand's catalog - so all bets are off. 

Sony has opened pre-orders for the Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 special edition PlayStation 5 console bundle, console covers and DualSense controller.

Dungeons & Dragons Online ’s brand new mini expansion, Vecna Unleashed, is on the way, and available for preorder today. 

Pre-orders for the upcoming Remnant 2 were the second biggest game by revenue on Steam last week.

There’s no shortage of hype and anticipation over Bethesda’s next big RPG release. We’re just months away from the Starfield video game hitting the marketplace. But that has also some fans worried that their big expensive pre-ordered Constellation Edition might not be coming after all. Thanks to a report from Gamerant, we’re finding out that some fans are being vocal over a potential cancellation of their orders, with no word as to if this cancellation is something that will be fixed or not.

Starfield fans are starting to panic as it seems Walmart is canceling some of their customers' pre-orders for the Constellation Edition of the upcoming game.