What the heck is happening with live service games?

The new Warzone map release time is nearly here, which is drawing excitement from Call of Duty fans as that’s also what time the Urzikstan map and Modern Warfare 3 Battle Pass Season 1 come out. 

2023 has been particularly tough for those of us who make Best of the Year lists. From Barbie to Baldur’s Gate 3 to The Bear, there’s just been too much good stuff this year! And this doesn’t stop at the movies, TV, and anime we watched, the video games and board games we played, or the comics and sci-fi and fantasy books we read. It’s all the little (and big) things the Polygon staff got for ourselves in 2023 that made our lives easier, cheerier, cozier, and cooler, too. From the wireless earbuds that drown out construction noise to a cat-approved pet bed, the Polygon staff’s shopping carts were brimming with purchases that genuinely sparked joy — and we’re sharing all our best buys of 2023 with you here.

Spoiler Warning: This article features spoilers for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and minor spoilers for the Witcher book series by Andrzej Sapkowski.

The devs at Creative Assembly have had a rough time of it recently. Back in September, the studio was blindsided by the sudden cancellation of its upcoming live-service shooter Hyenas, barely two weeks after it had concluded an open beta and one month after an appearance at Gamescom. The result was layoffs, uncertainty, and now the studio is going to attempt to pivot back to what it knows best: real-time strategy.

While we wait in anticipation for Rockstar Games to drop the trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6 (GTA 6), it is difficult not to imagine what the rumored game could look like. The game is predicted to offer a generational leap in gaming, and considering how Rockstar's last game, Red Dead Redemption 2 fared, these aren't entirely wild claims to make. There have been rumors that the game can be launched between 2024 and 2025, but nothing can be said for sure. However, we do know that it is under development because of a massive leak that released a huge number of early development videos online, and subsequently, the developers made an announcement that the game was indeed being made. Today, we take a look at one of these leaks, which highlights the major changes coming to the Police AI and the wanted system in the game.

It’s the most wonderful time of year — Spotify Wrapped season! Every year, the music streaming service aggregates its users’ listening data and presents them with fun little infographics about their most-listened-to artists and songs. In addition to the standard things like your Top Artist (Taylor Swift for me) and Top Song of the year (thanks to an association with an NPC in our D&D game, mine was Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville”), Spotify likes to get a little quirky and come up with other categories like listening archetypes. This year, one such category was “Sound Town,” which supposedly tells you which town’s population has the listening habits most similar to yours.

Super Mario RPG is more popular than ever, thanks to the fantastic and faithful remake recently released by Nintendo. It's a much different Mario experience than what younger fans of the plumber are used to, but it's gone down a treat, and they're already itching for more from Mario, Geno, Mallow and friends. They've already started putting their wishlists together of features they want to see if Nintendo decides to capitalize on the game's newfound popularity and greenlight a sequel.

Building a life far away from the city in comes with many adventures, not the least of which is building relationships with the marriage candidates in the game. From renovating a run-down farm to helping to restore the community center, there's never a shortage of work to do. However, amidst all the sweat and dirt that comes with farming life, offers a vibrant dating scene to explore. With 12 available bachelors and bachelorettes to romance in, picking a partner to go steady with isn't easy.

The World Ends With You fan artist @caehum on Twitter has showcased what Neku would look like in an HD remake or possibly Kingdom Hearts 4 through an immaculate 3D render. Since its publishing on Monday, it has received over 2,500 likes.

The Simpsons: Hit & Run is an odd title, as it's a game that seemingly everyone has fond memories of playing back in the day, but no developer or publisher that is willing to capitalize on that strong nostalgia. Every game is getting a remaster these days, even those that are only three years old, so it's strange that publishers are ignoring the goldmine that is The Simpsons: Hit & Run, which even had a sequel scrapped due to publisher Vivendi Games not being able to retain The Simpsons license.

The Last of Us 2 players think they've already figured out what the "Lost Levels" will be in the upcoming remaster.

Ark: Survival Ascended console commands give you complete control over your server and everyone in it, assuming you know what you're doing