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The Red Dead Online community had started planning a funeral for the game, to coincide with the anniversary of the game’s last major update. They didn't know that it would be officially declared dead in advance. On July 7, 2022, Rockstar Games pushed an update to its Newswire , confirming that Red Dead Online would not receive any more “major themed content updates,” as the studio shifts development resources onto Grand Theft Auto 6. The news came less than a week before July 13, the one-year anniversary of Red Dead Online’s last major update, Blood Money, which brought a smattering of missions, a dubious in-game currency, and The Quick Draw Club, a rapid-fire monthly iteration of Red Dead Online’s existing battle pass. You could argue the writing was on the wall last year, but that doesn’t make the news sting any less. The sun is officially beginning to set on the digital Old West, just three years after launch. “Honestly, it felt prophetic”, said Magnar, who runs the commun...

Nintendo has finally revealed the release date for the long-awaited Bayonetta 3, announcing it will arrive on October 28 for Nintendo Switch. A lengthy new trailer (below) ended with the October release date that will mark almost five years since the game was officially announced in December 2017 . Brand new gameplay also revealed in the trailer shows off one of Bayonetta's transformations and plenty of the fast-paced fighting the series (and developer PlatinumGames as a whole) is known for. Clips from several cutscenes also feature, revealing new characters and plot points fans can expect to see in Bayonetta 3. Despite causing some fans to worry following a number of no-shows at events like E3 , the game reappeared last year when Platinum said it was "progressing well" . New gameplay was revealed in September last year and the developer reiterated a 2022 release date a few months later. In our 9/10 review of the previous game , IGN said: "Bayonetta 2 buil...

Few video game characters are as iconic as Sonic the Hedgehog. The speedy little blue blur has been around for over three decades, touching every corner of pop culture along the way, from games, to comics, to TV, to blockbuster movies. But we’re here specifically to celebrate the mainline Sonic game series and pick the best of them. Before we start, let’s quickly touch upon our criteria. We tried to rank these games based on a combination of historical significance, innovation, and how well these games stand the test of time. Some games, like Sonic Adventure 1 and the original Sonic the Hedgehog, for instance, are obviously super important to the Sonic series and set the foundation for both 2D and 3D Sonic games to follow, but we felt like they both didn’t quite hold up as well as their sequels when judged by a modern standard, which was why they just missed this list. The 10 games on this list are the ones we feel are the best examples of both classic and modern Sonic style. So w...

Mass Effect developer BioWare never intended to make the now-beloved Garrus a romance option in the second game and was "blindsided" when fans asked for it. In an "Ask Me Anything" on Reddit , Mass Effect writer Drew Karpyshyn was asked if the BioWare team always intended to bring Garrus and Tali back in the second game or if it was decided later as a response to players' positive reactions towards them. "We always knew they'd come back as companions," Karpyshyn said. "I was a bit surprised fans wanted the romance options. Tali I could sort of see. You never saw her face, so it was easy to imagine something vaguely human (but she had those weird feet). Garrus blindsided me," he added. "But once we saw what fans wanted, we decided to deliver." Though Mass Effect 2 was released more than a decade ago in 2010, conversations around the game were rekindled last year when the trilogy was released in one package as Mass Effect: ...

As Doom continues to be played on just about every piece of technology available, things have finally gone full circle as someone has now made Doom playable in, well, Doom. As spotted by PCGamesN , YouTube user kgsws uploaded a video of himself modding the game into itself, before showing actual gameplay of him playing Doom within Doom on PC. The 'inner' Doom replaces a wall within regular Doom and mimics any movements the player makes. By walking right up to it, the inner Doom therefore takes up the full screen and can be played in its entirety before players return to playing the main game. While there's obviously not much practical use for this, it's just another fun and ridiculous way players have found to play the classic 1993 shooter. Other recent examples include playing Doom on a McDonald's kiosk, on Twitter , and even a pregnancy test . They join a much longer list that includes a LEGO brick, an ATM, a potato-powered calculator, a treadmill, and m...

With an elaborate set of puzzles to solve and no shortage of jolting jump scares to shock you with, unraveling the morbid central mystery of Madison is a bit like trying to evacuate an escape room while simultaneously struggling to prevent the vacuation of your bowels. Taking clear inspiration from Hideo Kojima’s superb 2014 Silent Hill teaser demo, P.T., Madison layers on the clever use of a Polaroid camera for puzzle-solving and exploration with consistently compelling results. It might not be as expertly structured as the spiraling, psychological horror hallways of Kojima’s much revered concept, but Madison’s haunted house is certainly scary enough to be situated somewhere in the same neighborhood. In Madison you play as Luca, a teenage boy who wakes in his family home covered in blood and haunted by a malignant presence. Luca’s only chance to escape is to puzzle his way through a sequence of increasingly taxing riddles and complete the distressing steps of a demonic ritual, in ...

The Halo caretakers and developers at 343 Industries are making a major piece of lost Halo history playable: the infamous Halo 2 E3 2003 campaign demo that never made it into the final game. We react to this fantastic surprise and recall the Halo 2 hype from that time. Plus: a plea for proper, native Xbox Game Pass support on the Steam Deck, our thoughts on the potential Apex Legends Universe single-player game that Respawn might be making (aka Titanfall 3?), our reaction to the long-awaited gameplay reveal of Skull & Bones, and more! Subscribe on any of your favorite podcast feeds, to our YouTube channel , or grab an MP3 download of this week's episode . For more awesome content, check out our recent interview with Todd Howard, who answered all of our Starfield questions after the big reveal at the Xbox Showcase: For more next-gen coverage, make sure to check out our Xbox Series X review , our Xbox Series S review , and our PS5 review . Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's execu...