Stage News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

The Callisto Protocol developer Striking Distance Studios has opened up some new positions for an upcoming project that’s being built in Unreal Engine 5. It seems the studio is on the hunt for additional talent, just months after last August’s layoffs.

Nintendo Co. will launch a new game console this year with an 8-inch LCD screen, according to Omdia analyst Hiroshi Hayase. The new device from the Kyoto-based games maker will be responsible for a doubling in shipments of so-called amusement displays in 2024, Hayase said in Tokyo on Friday. His research focuses on small and medium displays and he bases annual forecasts on checks with companies in the supply chain.

While I wouldn’t say I’m bad at games by any stretch, I know a game I’ll be bad at when I see one. NanoApostle is one such game, and the frenetic boss rush actioner from developer18Light Game (Pronty) is due out on PC in summer 2024. 

Following the news that Microsoft is laying off around 1,900 people from its video game workforce, there is further confirmation that a survival game that was in the works over at Blizzard Entertainment has now been canceled. 

Alongside the announcement of 1,900 layoffs and the departure of Blizzard President Mike Ybarra and Co-founder Allen Adham, Blizzard's unannounced survival game has been cancelled. Revealed shortly after news of the Microsoft acquisition in January of 2022, little information about the game was ever released to the public aside from vague recruitment posts, though the abandonment of unfinished projects is not unheard of, as the cancellation of the ambitious MMO Titan famously led to the development and release of Overwatch in 2016. As reported by the Verge, Microsoft Game Content and Studios President Booty says Microsoft will be “shifting some of the people working on it to one of several promising new projects Blizzard has in the early stages of development.”

Dune: Awakening, the upcoming survival MMO based on Frank Herbert's sci-fi masterpiece, has shown off its base-building systems for the first time.

Game developer People Can Fly has laid off around thirty developers from an unannounced Square Enix game codenamed Project Gemini. The news was broken yesterday by Kotaku, which obtained an email sent by Development Director Adam Alker to his fellow employees. Alker chalked the layoffs to budget limitations and a decision to shrink the game's scope.

One artistic Pokemon fan has created a new final evolution for the Water and Electric-type pocket monster, Chinchou, complete with a Pokedex entry. Over the years, Pokemon fans have been reimagining what their favorite pals from the series would look like with different elemental typings and even evolutions, such as another gamer's newly designed third stage of the Kricketune line, dubbed Kricketrello. These designs are often lauded online as other players are captivated by the reimaginings, which, for some, are a way to see their favorites in a new light.

After plenty of online speculation around whether it would actually happen, The Pokémon Company has released a statement about “another company’s game” released in January 2024. And we can say what we’re all thinking: Palworld.

With the news that Blizzard and ESL FACEIT are preparing to launch a new esports circuit for Overwatch 2, mere months after the death of the Overwatch League, it's a good time to take stock of the entire esports scene. Things are looking slightly frantic, at least in North America. League of Legends and Rocket League are particularly messy, entering their 2024 seasons with lean budgets and major shakeups. Meanwhile, an expansion of the open-qualifiers model should provide more opportunities for everyday players to compete in Valorant, Overwatch 2, Rocket League and all manner of fighting games. Get those fingers ready, folks.

Hey there, fellow navigators! As we dive into the brand new year 2024, it’s time to set sail on another exciting adventure with Alchemy Stars. The producers have dropped an Alchemy Stars newsletter, and guess what? There’s a boatload of exciting stuff coming our way.

A new Tekken 8 mod for the game's demo version, allows users to enable Unreal Engine 5's Lumen tech, and more.

The first Palworld roadmap is here, with developer Pocketpair promising improvements, but only after it's addressed the mass of bug reports it's facing after its smash-hit success.

Twitch streamers are known for doing some pretty wild stuff, some of which gives the platform real headaches over what to do about them. One such streamer is Boggles1, who you may know due to a video of his going viral over the past few days, which appeared to show the streamer sticking two metal forks into two toasters and exploding as a result.

Overwatch 2's competitive scene is moving past the tearful death of the Overwatch League with a brand-new format likely to please esports traditionalists.

astragon Entertainment and Mi’pu’mi Games have released Howl on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S today. It was initially released in November 2023 on PC and Switch.

We’re getting closer to Princess Peach’s next act on the main stage. Princess Peach: Showtime! is coming to the Nintendo Switch in March, and Nintendo dropped a new trailer today teasing what’s on the way.

Overwatch is a competitive game at its core. It's fast, dynamic, and at its best when two closely matched teams are battling it out for victory.

Nintendo is honoring Princess Peach with a set of appropriately colored Joy-Cons. On Tuesday, the company posted on X (Twitter) that a set of pastel pink Joy-Con controllers will launch alongside Princess Peach: Showtime! on March 22.

The enduring popularity of the Where’s Wally books tells you one thing: people love to find things. That probably doesn’t extend to your keys, matching socks, your mobile phone, or a clean spoon, but Hidden Through Time 2: Myths and Magic poses an interesting question: what if it was a goblin’s spoon?

Riot Games announced another big round of layoffs for the second year in a row. This time around, the studio mainly known for the League of Legends franchise plans to remove 11% of its large workforce. Around 530 employees will lose their jobs, although they will get benefits such as six months of severance pay at minimum, cash bonuses, and others.

The newest is ready to be solved and January 23rd's answers are a great mix of misdirections and tough category choices. If you find yourself stuck we've got the daily categories list as well as the fully spoiled answer groupings below.

A Palworld Pokémon mod is inbound even though the new hit title doesn't officially support mods at this stage.

As CD Projekt staffs up for its various projects in development, the boss of the company has said it is considering adding multiplayer to the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel.

Cyberpunk 2077's sequel, codenamed Orion, could have a multiplayer component. In a recent interview, CD Projekt Red CEO Michał Nowakowski confirmed that the studio is still "considering" multiplayer for the sequel, adding an element that never made it into the first game.

With Wrestlemania 40 on the horizon, WWE 2K24 appropriately celebrates the milestone by highlighting four decades of the grandest stage of them all. The «American Nightmare» Cody Rhodes graces the cover of this year’s installment. Additionally, Bianca Belair and current Women’s World Champion Rhea Ripley share the Deluxe Edition cover, making them the first women to receive a dedicated cover. 

It starts as a flash — the briefest glimpse of something horrific, something freezing to the point of black. We get more: a head, a limb, a grimace. It starts to come into focus, around the scene, through bits of dialogue: These men froze to death in clearly agonizing terror, their bodies suspended mid-writhing as well as in the ground. Frostbite abounds; some even clawed their eyes out. Once they finally excavate the bodies, it will be as a singular, frozen mass, transported on a tongue of ice to the local rink so they can slowly defrost. It is Lovecraftian and spectacular. It is exactly what True Detective: Night Country production designer Daniel Taylor hoped it would be like.

iOS 17 launched with a fair share of bugs and issues that prolonged months after its release alongside the iPhone 15 lineup. While the company managed to fix some of the crucial bugs, some issues exist to this day, almost five months later. The company is working with developers to fix the iPhone's ongoing battery drain and connectivity issues. iOS 17.3 update will be released with a potential fix for the iPhone's connectivity issues and a significant feature that protects the iPhone after it is stolen.

We already know that Dragon's Dogma 2 will feature a massive map, four times the size of that in the original game. But after a conversation with series creator Hideaki Itsuno, we now know a bit more about how that map was created, and just how stuffed it's going to be with interesting things to do. The answer? Quite stuffed!

Davos [Switzerland], January 19 (ANI): In a Davos session themed 'Technology in a Turbulent World,' Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, delved into the future trajectory of artificial intelligence (AI), offering profound insights into its role as a driving force for global economies and societies.

2023 was a weird year for Apple. We saw the launch of the iPhone 15 series, the Apple M3 chip, and new MacBooks. There was even a new iMac! However, one Apple product did not get any love - the iPad. The iPad 10th Generation was the last time we saw any major updates come to the iPad, but it seems to have kept the cash registers flowing for the Cupertino-based tech giant, so much so that Apple did not mind not introducing a new iPad in the whole of 2023. But that doesn't mean that buying the iPad 10th Generation is a bad bet, not by a long shot. It is, for all intents and purposes, one of the most sensible iPads to consider, especially now that Apple sells it at Rs. 5000 cheaper than its launch price in India.

I’ve got some cool news for all you gaming pals: the Wuthering Waves Closed Beta II Recruitment is officially in full swing! Get ready to dive into the awesome world of Wuthering Waves, this epic open-world RPG about to hit the global stage. But before you get too pumped for this adventure, let’s unpack some critical details about Wuthering Waves CBT2 recruitment.

Farming materials for Dr. Ratio’s character Ascension in can be a long and tiresome process, but it is extremely valuable in case you want to take the 5-star character to his limits in combat. Dr. Ratio is a 5-star that uses Imaginary Damage and follows the Path of the Hunt. His choice of Path makes him a DPS unit in the turn-based RPG by HoYoverse. Due to his element and Path, this character is great to have around, and luckily, you can get a free Dr. Ratio in until the end of Version 2.1.

Rock Band 4’s weekly DLC drops are coming to an end. Harmonix said Wednesday the upcoming batch of new songs on January 25 will be the game’s last. Although all other live services will remain active, the developer plans to give full attention to the Rock Band-like Fortnite Festival, a rhythm game inside Epic’s digital world.

There is a sizeable pile of role-playing games arriving in 2024, making for a pretty packed start to the year. But even with Infinite Wealth, Rebirth, and more on deck, one game has continued to spur our interest in the (virtual) Destructoid offices: Unicorn Overlord.

Galaxy Unpacked: After months of anticipation, Samsung finally took the wraps off the Samsung Galaxy S24 series at the Galaxy Unpacked event held in San Jose, California on January 17. As always, the highlight of the event was the unveiling of the Samsung Galaxy S24 series in which the Galaxy S24 Ultra got plenty of stage time. However, it wasn't the only big reveal. The South Korean tech giant also focused heavily on AI and showcased its latest tech innovation, Galaxy AI, which will empower the Galaxy devices to offer much more than just a traditional smartphone experience, and event went to the extent of calling it Samsung's ‘Eureka moment'. Samsung also took a page out of Apple's book by having its ‘One more thing' moment where it showcased its latest health innovation. Check out the 10 big announcements from the Galaxy S24 series launch event.

Speedrunning is, from my own outsider’s perspective, an impressive effort in constantly chasing new goals. At first, runners might try to simply finish a game as fast as possible. Then, they might try to fully finish it, or complete certain objectives, or hit credits with limiters on themselves. It’s that last bucket that CarcinogenSDA’s run of Resident Evil 2 Remake at AGDQ 2024 falls under.

The main currency of is Gems, or special items that can be farmed to purchase various materials and upgrades. Vault Breakers, Runes, and other resources needed to pull banners are all bought through the number of Gems you have. A few tricks to obtaining many jewels at once can prevent you from always undertaking a tedious grind for this currency.

Arknights Global is celebrating its 4th anniversary with a major update and lots of rewards. There’s also a new side story event titled ‘So Long, Adele: Home Away From Home’ kicking off the celebrations. Keep reading to know more about the Arknights 4th anniversary event. Catch a glimpse of the teaser below!

If you’ve been put off getting into Disney Lorcana due to its complexity, Ravensburger is releasing the product for you this August. Gateway is new beginner-focused way to gradually learn the game. Each one will come with two decks and a number of prize cards, allowing you to progress through tutorials for the game until your decks become fully viable precons for regular play.

Baldur's Gate 3's Xbox Series X|S save bugs may finally be at an end. 

The iPhone 16 family may have another selling point to encourage upgrades, particularly targeting potential customers who want more internal storage. Apple is reportedly procuring shipments of QLC NAND flash for its future devices, giving it the flexibility to introduce larger storage models later this year. The only problem is that using QLC NAND technology has several drawbacks, though manufacturers still opt for it since it allows them to save costs while offering heaps of storage in the same surface area.

The World Economic Forum (WEF 2024) at Davos has been going on with full force with various tech CEOs attending the event including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. On Tuesday Altman discussed about the future of AI and said it was an energy guzzler and that its future would be secure only if we get an energy breakthrough. Additionally, Microsofit's Satya Nadella also talked about the impact of AI in science. Know what the two tech giants said about Artificial intelligence (AI).

Like many theatrical adaptations of stage musicals, Mean Girls(2024) doesn’t include all the songs from the Broadway version. After all, the musical has a two-and-a-half-hour run time, which wouldn’t translate well into a breezy, snappy film. Directors Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. had to make some cuts.

A week ago, I told you about how MIS was the next tech firm to be gunning for Steam Deck’s title in the portable PC market, with a device called The Claw. Well, it seems the company is thinking long, long term, with some newer versions of this yet-to-be-released system on the horizon.

Starfield will be updated later this year with 'new ways to travel', said Bethesda a while ago, though the developers haven't shared any specifics yet. In the meantime, an enterprising group of modders called Tau.Ceti Voidworks have announced their plan to introduce flyable jet fighters to the sci-fi roleplaying game.

The upcoming story-driven dark fantasy RPG from Rebel Wolves, a studio comprised of former CD Projekt RED developers and backed by NetEase Games, is officially titled Dawnwalker, the developer announced.

In February 2022, former designers from CD Projekt Red announced the formation of a new studio called Rebel Wolves. The team revealed its first project would be, unsurprisingly, an RPG, and today, we learned a couple more details about the game, including its title.

Arena Breakout season 3 is just around the corner. On January 19, MoreFun Studios will release the “Enter the Vault” update with new content, weapons and equipment. The free-to-play tactical FPS update will be available for Android and iOS both.

Square Enix has released a new Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth trailer, which is viewable below.

Eddy is Tekken 8’s first DLC character, Bandai Namco has announced.

Rapper Faheem Rashad Najm, better known by his stage name T-Pain, reveals that he was once active in the GTA RP community before he began work on Grand Theft Auto 6.

This is not investment advice. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Wccftech.com has a disclosure and ethics policy.

Devil May Cry: Peak of Combat is not as bad as I thought it would be when I decided to download it.

A Chinese company called Betavolt Technology has started working on nuclear batteries, and if this turns into something that actually works, you can say goodbye to smartphone charging. Based on the information we have received, the company is working on batteries across several devices.

The Prince of Darkness has vanished from Hell, leaving the Infernal Throne vacant and a vast power vacuum to fill. Who can step forth and claim the throne for themselves? Solium Infernum – a 2024 reimagining by League of Geeks – sees a menagerie of Archfiends sending out their legions to conquer the underworld, put forth plots and schemes to undermine their rivals and ultimately ascend to the throne.

Call of Duty cycles through its lineup of villains on a yearly basis. Sometimes it's Nazis, other times it's Russian nationalists or zombies. But the most dangerous threat is one without a lust for brains or access to weapons of war; it's stagnation. And while many Call of Duty teams often switch up just enough variables to stave off monotony, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III fully submits to the annual churn.   The campaign embodies this, as it rushes to a conclusion with little care for the details. COD missions usually follow a predictable yet mostly effective formula of packing together various one-off gameplay mechanics through fluctuating levels of intensity. Modern Warfare III cuts out necessary buildup and most of the variety, leading to basic stages riddled with pacing issues. Many max out at around 15 minutes, which means the usual rollercoaster of ups and downs has been stripped down to only include the descents. The spectacles are also less bombastic, and the abbreviated journey to them only further diminishes their appeal.

Following the events of Tekken 7, the stage for Tekken 8’s story is set up to be perhaps the most over-the-top yet. In the six months since the defeat of Heihachi Mishima, his son, Kazuya Mishima, has installed a reign of terror over the planet using his devil powers. And while the setup is, quite frankly, a lot to take in, if the first four chapters I played are any indication, the level of spectacle and bombast reaches new levels in Tekken 8’s Story Mode.

I've been playing a ton of Super Mario Bros. Wonder over the last couple of weeks (in addition to the hands-on I had as a part of our current cover story), and the review embargo has officially lifted. However, due to restrictive embargo guidelines that don't allow us to discuss large portions of the game, we have opted to hold our final review until the game is available for purchase. With that said, I did want to share some brief thoughts within the confines of the embargo.

As far as pitches go, Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, the next game in what used to be called the Yakuza series, is hard to beat: Find out what happened to series protagonist Kiryu Kazuma between Yakuza 6: The Song of Life and Yakuza: Like a Dragon. The former ended with Kiryu faking his death to keep his adopted family of orphans safe. The idea was his story was over – he was moving on to the next chapter of his life. Developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio pitched it as such. Until the latter, when he showed back up, playing a large part in a game that was supposed to, and somewhat did, launch new series protagonist Ichiban Kasuga into the limelight. For the most part, Gaiden is an interesting bridge between those two games – even if it doesn't always go as deep into Kiryu's character as I hoped.

As a series that has been around for nearly four decades, Super Mario Bros. should have shown signs of slowing down years ago. But continuous thoughtful reinvention has helped the franchise remain a genre leader. Super Mario Bros. Wonder represents the next step of evolution, delivering the tight, tried-and-true gameplay in the context of the most creative 2D entry in nearly 30 years.

There’s a newMean Girlsmovie out! Tina Fey, who scripted the original Mean Girlsback in 2004, wrote the script for the new movie based on her book for the Broadway musical version. But this time, the lead roles are played by Angourie Rice (Mare of Easttown), Reneé Rapp (The Sex Lives of College Girls), and Auliʻi Cravalho (Moana), The trailers make it look like a soft reboot of the 2004 movie directed by Mark Waters, but set two decades later. But that isn’t quite the case. While the 2024 Mean Girls includes a lot of references to the 2004 movie (and some returning cast members), it comes with a distinct new twist.

Smash Remix is a massive mod bringing tons of new characters, stages, and features to Super Smash Bros. on N64, and the 13-minute trailer for its latest update has me absolutely mesmerized.

Following a series of closed beta tests, the Devil May Cry: Peak of Combat release kicked off globally on January 10, 2024. Now offering a streamlined yet authentic Devil May Cry experience on the mobile platform.

AMD's Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF) technology has been part of a regularly updated preview driver since late September, and the red team has been adding support for a host of different RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 GPUs since then. And buried in the unveiling of the Radeon RX 7600 XT at CES 2024 this week is the announcement that AFMF is going to be part of the release driver for the new mid-range graphics card.

Whalsea Legends is a new ocean-themed strategy title by SkyRise Digital, a subsidiary of IGG Games.  The new title is in the early access stage and is exclusively available for Android users in the United States.

After years spent dominating living rooms, big flat-screen televisions could start getting out of the way of the decor. That is if new see-through TV models showed off by South Korean consumer electronics giants LG and Samsung catch on. "How about a screen that gives you back your space?" an LG executive asked on stage Monday while introducing a transparent Signature OLED T planned for release later this year.

Sony is showcasing an upcoming collection of PlayStation 5 Slim console covers.

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It used to be that when a video game adaptation was announced, gamers would roll their eyes and watch as a trainwreck would slowly unfold before them. But more recently, movie and TV people have put much more time, effort, and budget into these adaptations, and the results have been worthwhile. TV shows and movies about video games have been nominated for awards recently, and some future adaptations are some of the more anticipated things coming out. For example, gamers were very curious when it was announced that a God of War adaptation was coming to Amazon Prime Video.

Sony showed off the latest prototype of its electronic vehicle collaboration with Honda by driving the car on stage using a PlayStation 5 controller.

As predicted, Sony's CES 2024 conference was very light on PlayStation and gaming in general. However, there were a few tidbits scattered throughout the keynote.

At its recent CES 2024 press conference, Sony took the chance to show off the company's future tech possibilities by driving a car onto the stage. Admittedly, that in itself isn't all that remarkable, but what makes this little stunt more interesting is that the car was being controlled by a PlayStation DualSense controller.

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Prepare your heart, because EastAsiaSoft is bringing two of the Hakuoki games to Switch as part of Hakuoki: Chronicles of Wind and Blossom. It will bundle together 2017’s Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds with 2018’s Hakuoki: Edo Blossoms.

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Baldur's Gate 3 director Swen Vincke says he's finally settled on the first part of his next project, after four months of trying.

Final Fantasy 14 has only just revealed the new Pictomancer job, and players are already loving it.