Xbox series x/s News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

A while back Ubisoft revealed about a billion Assassin's Creed projects. The first of these to leap into the carefully placed haystack of release was Mirage, which I liked. Up next, it seems, is the artist formally known as Assassin's Creed: Codename Red. All we knew about red was that it would be set in feudal Japan, something fans have been clamouring for for literal years. Now we know that it's an AC game set in feudal Japan called Assassin's Creed Shadows, and it's getting an "official cinematic world premiere trailer" debut on YouTube tomorrow, at 5pm BST.

Redfall is getting a final update which will add an offline mode and singleplayer pausing, among other changes. The news was announced via the Redfall account on X, which also thanked players for their "supportive messages" in light of developer Arkane Austin's imminent closure by Microsoft.

The wait for a new college football game has dragged on far longer than anyone could have expected, but that wait is almost over. Earlier this year, EA Sports College Football 25 was officially announced, with a full reveal set for May. That reveal is now here, with EA have released a new trailer that showcases a couple of minutes of in-game footage, while also detailing the game’s key features and modes in a blog post.

You might remember Enotria: The Last Song as the Italian-inspired Soulslike that shifted its release date from June to August to avoid Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree... but found itself nestled next to Black Myth: Wukong. Well, scratch that August release, as now it's been shifted back to September instead! But hey, there's a demo coming out real soon that'll hopefully give us a better sense of what the game's like. I imagine it'll involve a lot of fighting spindly monsters, dying, and resurrecting at whatever object they've decided will be the equivalent of Dark Souls' bonfires. Likely something Leonardo da Vinci made or drew or invented. That man's stats were specced high.

Open world crime-a-thon GTA 6 will release next “fall”, according to publisher Take-Two Interactive’s latest earning report, via Eurogamer. This narrows the previously announced release window of “2025” down by, uh, infinity I suppose? A year is an effectively endless stretch in terms of release calenders. But “Fall”, despite not being a real season, is something I can work with.

EA previously announced the highly anticipated revival ofCollege Football with EA Sports College Football 25 a couple of months ago. A full reveal trailer was slated for May, and while fans haven’t received many updates since then – but we now know that the full reveal is set for tomorrow i.e. 17 May 2024.

Ah, it feels like only yesterday that Microsoft shut down Tango Gameworks, creators of Hi-Fi Rush, and now here's Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, telling Microsoft staff at an internal townhall meeting that "we need smaller games that give us prestige and awards" - a sentence we might plausibly lengthen to "...like Hi-Fi Rush".

Vampire shooter Redfall was to receive an offline mode via update this very month before Microsoft staked creators Arkane Austin, according to a report. To spell it out, the cancellation of the offline functionality means that Redfall will now be officially playable for only as long as Microsoft run the servers. Another win for videogame preservation!

Gears of Warhammer sequel Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 will feature some kind of PvP multiplayer mode, similar to the first Warhammer 40k game, going by an early look at an art book for the upcoming third-person shooter.

While they ponder which developers should face the difficult task of following up one of the most acclaimed games in a long time by making a sequel by Baldur's Gate 3, the makers of Dungeons & Dragons are also putting their own money into making video games themselves. Over a billion dollars of their own money, in fact.

Popular WWE 2k24 modder Status was banned from the game and their creations taken offline earlier this week, with an in-game message stating that the cause was violation of the game's End User License Agreement. Today, Status has been reinstated, after backlash to the decision caused #FreeStatus to trend on X for several days, with at least some of his mods due to return.

Microsoft has released its latest financial results, showing significant growth in gaming revenues — thanks in no small part to the acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

Capcom are working on another Dragon's Dogma 2 patch, and this one takes as its target the dreaded dragonsplague, which causes the game's AI-controlled pawns to go nuts and murder everybody, including story-critical NPCs, if you allow it to go untreated for long enough. It'll reduce the infection frequency of dragonsplague, which is spread when pawns mingle with other pawns online, and make the symptoms more obvious. Pawns already get glowing eyes when they're dragonsplagued - I guess they'll be all the glowier in future.

Perhaps you are fatigued by orcs and swords. Maybe you yearn for a simple life of bucolic betterment to recover from your addiction to spicy wedding bands but still fear to stray too far from your beloved fantasy franchise. Oh look, it's Tales of the Shire, a game set in Middle-earth which features not a single ounce of stabbing nor - as far as I can tell - any gigantic spiders at all. It's a life sim about building a home in Hobbiton and keeping up with the Proudfeet. Maybe you will also get to lie around getting totally blazed on halfling reefer. Although I did not spot that in this hearthful new trailer.

Sonic x Shadow Generations has been rated in South Korea.

Ahead of Final Fantasy 14’s next massive expansion, Dawntrail, arriving this summer, Square Enix recently put out a graphical benchmarking tool. Dawntrail’s benchmark is especially noteworthy as it’s the first time we’ve really been able to put the MMO’s much-anticipated graphical update arriving with 7.0 into practice and see what sort of demands it might make on our hardware by overhauling the 10-year-old game’s visuals.

Capcom will release a new update for Dragon's Dogma 2 which will make some changes to Dragonsplague and adjust some Pawn behaviours, making them less prone to falling off the side of cliffs in the process.

Star Wars: Outlaws isn't just an open world retread of existing Star Wars locations, like Tatooine. It contains a whole new moon of developer Massive Entertainment's creation - Toshara, which is home to the Pyke criminal gang and visually defined by huge deposits of crystalline orange material and cities hacked out of mountains. What's it like adding a whole bloody world to Star Wars? Here are some quick thoughts from Massive Entertainment's creative director Julian Gerighty.

Getting through Balatro is easier said than done. A solid understanding of Poker will only get you so far, and if we are being honest, it won’t get you all that far. The trick is to overcome each blind by scoring enough chips. The amount of chips required increases for each Ante, and every Ante has three Blinds.

Baldur’s Gate 3 keeps receiving many different updates whether that is for bug fixes, or even more intense things like adding even more alternative endings to the game. Something that that is amazing about this RPG is just exactly how many different ways the story can unfold while playing. No matter how many times a player was to play through the game, the story would always be different.

Five Nights At Freddy’s: Help Wanted 2 is a VR-only title that players have been able to get and download from the Meta Quest store or Steam online VR store. But there is something exciting coming up for those who might want to try out the game that owns a PS5 and its VR headset.

Dead by Daylight is one of the most popular horror games to date, but the developers have decided to make some changes to how players will be able to purchase DLC and expansions. The game constantly has a lot of different DLC to purchase from ones from Stranger Things to Scream, and more. There was even rumors of Five Nights at Freddy’s coming to the game but that hasn’t been confirmed yet.

With the world of Dungeons & Dragons now officially behind it, Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian Studios has confirmed it currently has two new projects in development, both based on its own IPs, which studio founder Swen Vincke has described as «our best work ever.»

Hot off the heels of its BAFTA wins, developer Larian has given a little tease for Baldur's Gate 3's upcoming «improved» evil endings.

Larian aren’t just not making Baldur’s Gate 4 – they’re treating Baldur’s Gate 3’s success as an opportunity to develop their own intellectual properties, with two new games in the works. These games will build on the “sensibilities” of Baldur’s Gate 3 in being “immersive experiences shaped by your choices”, but by the sounds of things, they won’t be adaptations of anybody else's narrative or setting. Divinity: Original Sin 3? It’s the obvious call, but come now, free your mind. How about a kart racing game, Larian, or a banging old school mascot platformer? When are you going to make a platform game, Larian?

More playable characters in the upcoming fighting game Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO have been confirmed in the newest issue of V-Jump. Whis, Beerus, Gohan, Future Gohan, and Videl have been added to the already-stacked roster. Of particular note: this is the first time Beerus and Whis will appear in a Budokai Tenkaichi game, as this is the first new entry in the series in over a decade.

By now, you’ve probably heard that the Amazon Fallout show is accurate to the video games, down to the last detail. In fact, Fallout: New Vegas happened in this universe, and they’re all part of one big Fallout continuity.

It was just talked about a few weeks ago that Larian Studios, the creators of Baldur’s Gate 3, which won the game of the year for 2023, would not be working on a sequel or even DLC for the game, which has left some people really sad as this game is just so amazing who wouldn’t want more. During their announcement, they said they would be moving away from Dungeons & Dragons type of games all together according to TechRadar.

It seems that the famous actor Jack Black has confirmed he is playing Steve in the Minecraft movie while also not confirming at all that he is at the same time. In a recent social media post, he shares him singing about a rainbow, which is a hint to another internet classic according to GameSpot.

The developer 2K is reportedly getting ready for a Mafia announcement, and this comes from a user on Twitter who is known for sharing many different leaks, but they have become a proven source for them. Earlier this year, Kurakasis – the twitter user – actually revealed Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra, Marvels Rival, Metro Awakening, and Indiana Jones and the Great ahead of their officially announcements according to VGC.

The vice president of World of Warcraft, Holly Longdale, has discussed what it is like being with Microsoft from a developer standpoint after an interview was shared with VGC. Especially after the official closing of $68.7 billion acquisition with Activision Blizzard which happened in October, there is a lot to be curious about.

We’re walking you through the first major puzzles of Derceto in Chapter 2 of Alone in the Dark (2024). This is when you’ll get (mostly) free reign of the mansion grounds, with multiple rooms to explore and several puzzles to complete. To get to the second major level you’ll need to get two broken plates — and each one of those plates requires a puzzle. The puzzles here are no joke, so let’s talk about solving them. We’re covering everything up to and including the Bayou Oil Rig level. Here’s how to reach it and a quick run through to beat it.

Disney Speedstorm always seems to be doing confusing things, but last week they kinda ticked off a lot of their fanbase. The developers of the game recently announced the theme of Season 7, which is Wreck-it Ralph, while right now we are still in Season 6 which is The Little Mermaid.

If you're a person of exceptional taste, you'll already known developer The Gentlebros' adorable quick-fire action-RPG series Cat Quest is a bit of a winner, so you'll likely be chuffed to hear the next instalment — Pirates of the Purribean — will be arriving for PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and Steam on 8th August. Oh, and a demo's out for Switch today.

Borderlands 3 is the latest game in the franchise, and recently, a study was done to show that 4.5 million gamers worldwide can significantly advance through a microbial research just by playing a minigame that is located within Borderlands 3, according to GameRant.

Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe has stated that he is seeing Chinese studios copying Palworld, and thinks that that’s a good thing.

Get your dealing hands ready, as Star Wars Outlaws will let us all participate in a round of Sabacc or two.

GTA 6 publishers Take-Two Interactive have announced that they're "rationalizing" their "pipeline" and positioning/restructuring/streamlining for growth by, you guessed it, laying off a load of people and cancelling a bunch of games. As detailed in a Security Exchange Commission filing, Take-Two are doing away with five per cent of the approximately 11,000 people who work for them, and have cancelled several in-development projects worth tens of millions of dollars.

Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two has announced it will lay off five percent of its 11,000-strong workforce — equating to around 550 people — and cancel multiple in-development projects. The company said the move was the next stage in its ongoing restructuring plan, which began in February.

Call of Duty League has announced major changes to the way they deal with their esports teams.

Take-Two Interactive has announced they will be laying off 5 % of their workforce, and cancelling several games in development.

Call of Duty Warfare and Warzone has received another update bringing bug fixes and other updates to the game. Just a few weeks ago Season 3 began for both games as well as the release of the new mobile Warzone game for mobile devices.

Mortal Kombat 1 is set to have a DLC update in just a few days bringing a new character to the game. The update is bringing Ermac to the game as a playable character. Last week some gameplay was released showing Ermac and other features. The character will be available for everyone on April 23.

Larian Studios didn't so much smash last year's Baldur's Gate 3 out of the park as launch it straight into orbit, collecting countless Game of the Year awards and even a few BAFTAs along the way. But while the studio has made it clear it has no interest in returning for a Baldur's Gate 4, Dungeons and Dragons owner Wizard of the Coast is definitely onboard for more, and is currently «talking to lots of partners» about the future of the series.

The Sims 4 has received a brand new update this week, just a couple days before the new DLC packs release. Next week there are two new pack DLCs coming to the Sims 4 which players can purchase as bonus content, one including a party bundle which provides everything someone would need for their Sim to host the perfect party.

With Larian having now officially handed the reins of the Baldur’s Gate series back to Dungeons & Dragons owners Wizards of the Coast (and their Monopoly-making parents at Hasbro) - with the developers saying they have no plans to make any DLC or a sequel - the ball for a Baldur’s Gate 4 now sits in Wizards’ court. The good news is that, yes, they also want to make a follow-up to one of the most acclaimed and successful video games of the last few years. Just don’t expect that to necessarily be anytime soon.

Off The Pilfered Path is one of the more complicated quests in Dragon’s Dogma 2. Like most quests, the game really doesn’t explain what you need to do — and you can fail this quest spectacularly if you’re not playing carefully. This quest is only unlocked after completing a different quest to clear out the Coral Snakes Camp on the road to Bakbattahl. In that quest, you’ll meet the character Hugo who’s captured at the end and locked in jail. While exploring Bakbattahl, you’ll be contacted to try and locate the hidden location of the Coral Snakes boss — and the rest of the quest gets complicated. Getting Hugo to talk is a real challenge that requires patience. Here’s what you need to do. And even if you do something wrong, it is possible to complete this quest anyway.

Overwatch 2 has been banning players after some were caught cussing and now players are very confused. However, what is odd about this is players have swore in Overwatch for many years, but now players are being banned for it suddenly which has many shocked when they can’t get into their accounts.

GTA 5 was no doubt a big hit for Rockstar, but come to find out, actors have confirmed that there was a lot of behind-the-scenes footage from the making of the game that were never released online. These scenes and clips are now kept somewhere on a harddrive or something else by one of the flimers during the time of the game being made never to be seen.

Palworld, the viral survival game that stirred up controversy (and found plenty of success) on the back of being a Pokémon-a-like - with added guns and factory labour, mind - is now due to become the inspiration for its own generation of clones, according to the head of its developers.

Mortal Kombat is set to be receiving a new DLC which will feature a brand new character named Ermac, who will have a new Brutality that many fans from the franchise years ago will recognized is inspired by a much older feature by almost 30 year old fatality.

Jokers are the beating heart of Balatro. Whilst there are many ways to gain power in Balatro, the most direct is to simply buy an assortment of powerful Jokers that synergise in some way. Heck, just having access to high-quality Mult cards can be enough, and that’s where Balatro’s legendary banana enters the conversation.

Following a mild-to-moderate outcry, Ubisoft have clarified that queasy worm gangster Jabba The Hutt isn't, in fact, a Star Wars Outlaws special edition or season pass exclusive. The apparently much-beloved star slug will appear in every edition of the game, but if you scrape together the credits for the Gold or Ultimate Editions, you'll get access to a Jabba's Gambit mission as part of the game's season pass.

Playing every round in Balatro to earn the required cash to enhance your deck is the most obvious way to beat the game. At least, that’s would one would assume. In reality, the path to victory can take an assortment of mysterious turns, and skipping Blinds is sometimes the correct choice.

Baldur's Gate 3 players who have modded their games are seeing references to a popular NPC character that suggests they were once set for full-on companion status.

The Walking Dead publisher Skybound has plans for a new AAA Invincible game, and is now crowdfunding to make it all happen.

Insider Gaming believes they know the date for XDefiant’s upcoming Server Test Session.

We have an update on rumors about EA’s plans to bring back Fight Night.

A new interview with a former Rockstar employee sheds some new light on how the company’s workplace environment had grown toxic around the time they released Grand Theft Auto V.

Metaphor ReFantazio is getting a big livestream event next week.

Ubisoft has responded to the outcry over Star Wars Outlaws' Jabba the Hutt mission, which will be available at the game's launch only to owners of the game's pricey Gold or Ultimate Editions.

Sand Land is set to release at the end of this month, with a demo dropping in March and excitement for the manga-inspired title reaching new heights. Bandai Namco and developer ILCA have released a new trailer for the game, featuring extremely well-fitting background music.

As MMORPG Final Fantasy 14's upcoming Dawntrail expansion gets ever closer, Squeenix have released a benchmarking tool that lets you see how your rig might handle its graphical update. Not only that, but it also lets you sample the new female Hrothgar playable race. So far, folks seem to be happy with the tool and the catmoms.

Ahead of the release of the Dawntrail expansion for Final Fantasy XIV, Square Enix has released a handy-dandy free benchmark tool for players to test whether their setup can handle 7.0’s improved visuals. The new update will improve textures, hair, grass, shadows, and reflections, and will be the title’s first graphical upgrade since it was released in 2013.

Perhaps this should go without saying, but there's no need to drop £115 on Star Wars: Outlaws' expensive Ultimate Edition, which includes an «exclusive» mission with Jabba the Hutt.

We have a strange story today about the longest running, and most successful, Grand Theft Auto game of all time.

The Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail benchmark tool is now live, allowing players to check out the graphical upgrade on the way with update 7.0.

Midori has confirmed we are getting some new rereleases of Persona 1 and 2, of some sort.

The Black Panther video game from Electronic Arts appears to be an open sandbox game.

A new job opening has confirmed that Motive’s upcoming Iron Man game will be an open world title.

Gun Interactive has confirmed a fix for Texas Chain Saw Massacre's latest Victim is on the way.

Balatro has well over 100 Jokers to find, unlock, and collect. Each Joker is a unique blend of mechanics and interactions that help mould your run into something truly unique every time you boot the game. Whilst rarity doesn’t necessarily translate to power directly, rarer Jokers do tend to have more complex mechanics.

Just Cause developer Avalanche has confirmed plans to enter a collective bargaining agreement with Swedish unions.

Possibility Space, the studio founded by State of Decay producer Jeff Strain, has reportedly shut down — with Strain blaming the closure on confidential leaks by employees.

There's a little game coming out next year you may have heard of. It's called GTA 6, and it's the next entry in Rockstar's prolific, rather chaotic and often debauched Grand Theft Auto series.

Larian's Baldur's Gate 3 has been celebrated for the performances of its voice cast, who received several performance nominations for this year's BAFTA awards and which last night won the coveted Best Game award.

Last night, the BAFTA Games Awards 2024 took place in London, bringing together the stars of the gaming world for a night of fancy dress and celebration. Despite being released eight months ago, Baldur’s Gate 3 continued to steal the show, bringing home five total awards including Best Game and the EE Players Choice Award.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 may be announced as soon as next week.

Former Blizzard head Mike Ybarra has an interesting idea regarding video game prices.