Everything

Since Black Myth: Wukong released its first trailer three years ago, every year on August 20th, the developer Game Science has shown something new about the development progress of the game. However, what's different this year is that we finally got to play it. Game Science held a large-scale Black Myth: Wukong hands-on event in Hangzhou China, inviting over one thousand players from all over the country to personally play the latest trial version of this anticipated action-RPG. This 45-minute demo provided three different boss fights and a relatively complete chapter experience. It’s worth noting that after the event, the dev team made some adjustments to the trial version based on the feedback and suggestions received during the closed-door evaluation I participated in. As a result, my experience may differ slightly from what others experienced in Hangzhou and at Gamescom in Cologne. Due to time limitations, this trial version did not include the level-up system. However, it

The snowball of games delayed out of 2021 and 2022 has settled in 2023, coalescing into the most exciting games lineup of the decade so far. This year, arguably, marks the proper start of the PS5 and Xbox Series X generation with Unreal Engine 5 support building and an increasing number of developers dropping support for last-gen hardware. Each of the three console manufacturers has at least one blockbuster release scheduled this year — Starfield for Xbox, Spider-Man 2 for PlayStation, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom for Nintendo — complemented by a generation-best third-party lineup that includes Hogwarts Legacy, Resident Evil 4, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Street Fighter 6, Diablo 4, Final Fantasy 16, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Hades 2, and Mortal Kombat 1. Over halfway through 2023 and already the year has lived up to its lofty expectations: 48 games have received a review score of 8 or higher from IGN, including four 10s. Click through the gallery below or continue

The Mortal Kombat 1 pre-order beta went live for Xbox and PS5 players on Friday, bringing with it multiple new characters for players to try as well as some returning stalwarts. The most popular of them so far seems to be Johnny Cage, who is winning over fans with big celebrity energy, big combos, and surprise sunglasses finishers. Over on the Mortal Kombat subreddit, one of the top posts has the plaintive title, "This win cost me 500$." It shows Li Mei on the verge of finishing off Johnny, only for his sunglasses to flip through the air and hit her square in the face. "He’s tons of fun in the beta, I tried everyone but I didn’t expect Johnny to click so well," the player wrote. Another thread title gushes, "The quips, the mesmerising fatal, the phone. Johnny is top tier!" It features match highlights of Cage launching a powerful attack on Sub-Zero to chants of "Johnny, Johnny, Johnny," at one point smashing him into the camera. "As

Call of Duty fans are talking about Modern Warfare 2 — not to be confused with the game under the same title from 2009 — following yesterday's reveal of Modern Warfare 3 . Last year's entry in the long-running annual franchise made a lot of changes that angered fans. In fact, these changes drew so much heat from the community that Sledgehammer is completely walking many of them back for Modern Warfare 3, which is set to release on November 10th. Changes included gameplay-level overhauls to the shooter's movement systems, minimap, player health, and perk systems. MW2 also removed players' ability to vote on maps in-between multiplayer matches. Call of Duty's success is partially thanks to its consistency, so needless to say, Infinity Ward's fixing-what's-not-broken approach drew widespread ire from the game's player base. In tandem with the reveal, Call of Duty's official Twitter account released a thread detailing what fans can expect from the se

The co-creator of the Dragon Age franchise has commented on the reaction to one of Baldur’s Gate 3’s main female characters, saying fans “always treated male characters with more forgiveness”. The comments revolve around Lae'zel , a female Githyanki Fighter who can be a companion throughout Baldur’s Gate 3. Lae'zel’s personality has prompted much discussion since Baldur’s Gate 3’s explosive launch on PC, with some praising her no-nonsense attitude, others criticising it, calling her “hostile”, "rude", and “unfriendly”. This criticism of Lae'zel’s character has approached meme status , with parts of the community saying they’d ditch the character altogether if not for her impressive damage output and tanking ability. Twitter user PleasantKenobi called Lae'zel “the RPG party member equivalent of ‘the show gets really good after season 4’." "I'm glad she has an arc, but I’m not putting up with her shit for 10 hours for her to eventually maybe

Starfield preload kicked off this week, which means players have already downloaded Bethesda’s hotly-anticipated sci-fi role-playing game. It also means the burgeoning Starfield community is bracing itself for leaks. At the time of publication, Starfield leaks are limited , but some story spoilers are floating about online, as well as a datamined list of space powers (we see the main character using a space power in Bethesda's Starfield Direct video, below), and the Starfield main menu screen. Titles for the 79-track OST, if you consider track titles as a spoiler, are also online. Perhaps more spoilerific is the list of Starfield achievements, which are now online. Bizarrely, the official Twitter account for fellow space game Everspace 2 issued its own Starfield spoiler warning to players, shining a light on a “bad actor” who is accused of mentioning Everspace to spoil a Starfield plot point. Hey all. There's a bad actor mentioning EVERSPACE who is using multiple accoun

The Frog Detective series is coming to consoles as a single game called Frog Detective: The Entire Mystery, developer Worm Club has announced. Frog Detective: The Entire Mystery contains all three Frog Detective games, and is due out later in 2023 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X and S, including Game Pass. The Entire Mystery also includes an exclusive new scooter minigame. This new release marks the first time Frog Detective will be localised into multiple languages. The game will be available in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. Frog Detective is a first-person mystery series that enjoys a cult following of over half a million players. "I have spent countless hours learning many languages just to translate every word meticulously myself,” said Grace Bruxner from Worm Club. “Unfortunately I am not very good at learning languages so we had to hire help, but I feel like it’s only polite that ever

Creative Assembly has addressed a backlash to the price of new Total War Warhammer 3 DLC and called on players to stop directing abuse at staff. Total War Warhammer 3 Shadows of Change, which adds three new Legendary Lords for Tzeentch, Grand Cathay, and Kislev, and 11 additional units, costs $24.99 / £19.99, or 40% of the price of the base game itself. This is higher than previous DLC packs for the fantasy strategy game. The Champions of Chaos Lords Pack, for example, adds four new playable Legendary Lords and costs £12.99. Lord and Race packs for Total War Warhammer 2 are even cheaper, and offer greater value, players have pointed out. The price increase for Shadows of Change sparked an angry response that spilled over into Total War Warhammer 3 Steam reviews. There, the game has a “mostly negative” user review rating for recent reviews (it’s “mostly positive” overall, showing the backlash relates to recent events). “The DLC policy is a complete rip-off,” Steam user Jolsn wrote