Last week, Apex Legends developer Respawn finally unveiled Apex Legends Season 9 via an intense cinematic trailer that introduced us to the incoming playable character, Valkyrie. The eight-minute video (at the bottom of this article) introduced us to the incoming Legend but didn’t show an awful lot about what we can expect from this new Season – though it was nice to get a little video to celebrate the game hitting that massive 100 million player landmark....

Since Seer was introduced to the game at the beginning of Apex Legends: Emergence, players have expressed frustration his power level and utility. You can tell EA is serious to implement these chagnes quickly, because we’ve traditionally seen bigger balance changes arrive in mid-season or seasonal updates, not smaller offerings like this. Seer’s controversial Heart Seeker ability – which lets him scope out other players’ heartbeats on the field – was particularly egregious when it came to the game’s balance....

Reportedly pulled from the Ubisoft Store, the image shows the back of a person wearing assassin’s garb, and we presume this person is Basim from Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, as rumored. The leak (thanks, RPS) comes from Assassin’s Creed community The Codex Network, which credited Synth Potato for providing the image, which was also shared by leaker ScriptLeaksR6. Some accounts removed the image due to DMCA notices. It appears that the image is for a quest called The Forty Thieves, seemingly based on the folk tale from One Thousand and One Nights and the most familiar of the Arabian Nights tales....

Coming day one to Xbox and Windows PC with Game Pass, the first gameplay of the third-person asymmetrical horror experience was shown off during the Xbox Game Showcase Extended today. In the game, college student Maria Flores has gone missing, and local law enforcement has stalled in their search. Her younger sister, Ana, has teamed up with some of Maria’s friends to find her. Based on the iconic 1974 horror film, you will take on the role of one of the notorious Slaughter family to seek out, track down, and stop guests from escaping....

Square Enix has shared a new letter from Balan Wonderworld producer Noriyoshi Fujimoto that explains what developer Balan Company is doing to implement changes into the game after the demo it released in January 2021 was met with near-universal criticism. If you’re picking up the game for launch on Steam for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on March 26, you can expect to download a significant day one patch that’ll address issues with camera movement, controls, and the game’s difficulty....

Responding to our request for comment on the situation, Larian would not comment on the ongoing debate surrounding the leaked changes to the Dungeon and Dragons Open Gaming License (OGL) nor their thoughts on those changes. However, they did confirmed that Baldur’s Gate 3 would not be affected by them. Ever since the OGL leak by io9, as well as the reported closure of several studios creating licensed Dungeons and Dragons games, a portion of the fanbase has been concerned whether or not Larian, Baldur’s Gate 3, or any future titles would catch any strays from these changes....

But don’t worry lovelies: Bayonetta 3 is still in development and things are progressing nicely. That’s according to Nintendo’s Bill Trinen and Nate Bihldorff speaking in an interview with Gamespot. “I can definitely confirm it still exists,” said Bihlfroff. “I will even go one further and say that not only does it exist, but it’s progressing well,” added Trinen. “We like to show things when we’re ready to show them, and certainly, we like to show things when the developer is ready to show them....

However, with GPU and other component shortages, buying a pre-built desktop from a trusted brand could be the way to go this holiday. Not only will it save you time and hassle, they’ll often come with a manufacturer guarantee and save your wallet from the pain inflicted by a scalper through eBay. Here are some of the best ready-to-play gaming desktops available this holiday. UK: Lenovo Legion T530 with Intel Core i5, 8GB Memory, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060, 256GB SSD/1TB HDD for £800 Acer N50-610 with Intel Core i5, 8GB Memory, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Super, 512GB SSD/1TB HDD for £880 Alienware Aurora R11 with Intel Core i5, 8GB Memory, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, 256GB SSD for £1242 Acer Predator Orion 3000 PO3-630 with Intel Core i5, 16GB Memory, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060Ti, 256GB SSD/1TB HDD for £1200 Lenovo Yoga AIO with AMD Ryzen 7, 16GB Memory, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060, 512GB SSD for £1775...

Black Adam stands out as an addition that people have been waiting about for, with their sudden and unceremonial arrival on loading screens quite some time ago alongside Stripe, who only just made it to the game themselves earlier this month. Nonetheless, with the Black Adam film out and the world aware of his dastardly approach to punching things, he’s finally getting the fanfare he deserves. Now, arcade mode is something really interesting....

In a new quarterly update released last night, Diablo 4‘s director of product, Kegan Clark, noted that any items that can be purchased for real money in the game’s shop will impact gameplay. “Nothing offered in the Shop grants a direct or indirect gameplay advantage,” says Clark. “So, while many of these may look like powerful pieces of gear, they have no in-game stats.” In the update, Blizzard shared that the game will be a full-price release that will also include a premium and free battle pass at launch....

This is according to a call for staffers to help shore up the development team. According to the company, the game will be set in a whole new universe, will be “full of heroes we have yet to meet,” “stories yet to be told,” and “adventures yet to be lived.” That’s all of the information that was posted. The lack of information probably has more to do with the fact the project appears to be in the very early stages of developmet, so the studio is hiring for five art poisitions, has two design positions open, and is looking for four folks with software engineering experience....

Layers of Fear initially released in 2016, with its sequel, Layers of Fear 2, launching in 2019. Bloober Team then unveiled, during October 2021, that a brand new Layers of Fear project was in the works, inviting players back to the horrific mind of a tortured artist once more. As a part of the revelation, Bloober Team shared a short clip made in Unreal Engine 5; Layers of Fear has never looked so hauntingly terrifying....

Inti Creates will release Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 on July 10 for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One. The game will run you $14.99 or the regional equivalent. Alongside new characters, Miriam, Alfred, and Gebel from the first game will also be playable (thanks, Gematsu). You can also play the game with a friend through local co-op. The game, announced during the New Game+ Expo, is a sequel to 2018’s Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon....

Back in 2020, Destiny 2 players were treated to a next-gen port of the game, which didn’t add anything new, but did boost the game to a higher resolution, 60 frames-per-second, and fasting loading times. This was something both PS5 and Xbox Series X players could upgrade to, should they be lucky enough to own a console at the time. Except in the latest This Week at Bungie blog post, the developer is giving PS5 players a “heads up” about the fact a non-zero amount of players are playing the PS4 version of the game (thanks, Kotaku)....

Today’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare game update has been datmined to reveal some of the content planned for release during the game’s Season 3 of content. This is how we found out about Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered, and Warzone Duos. But there’s still plenty more for players who want to stick to traditional multiplayer. Backlot, the classic Call of Duty 4 map - which also made a return in Modern Warfare Remastered - is being remade for Modern Warfare....

Infinity Ward recently announced the latest patch for Call of Duty: Warzone and Modern Warfare. The update was meant to be going live late last night/early this morning, but it’s sadly been pushed back. The developer posted a tweet confirming the delay, but did not provide a new release date, only saying it will arrive “in the coming days.” This was meant to be Warzone’s first big update, and likely would have been the last one for Modern Warfare this season....

The game is set to launch on PC, PS4, and Xbox One on May 25 – meaning it’ll be available on new-gen hardware via backwards compatibility – and it’ll sell invincibility across all games in the pack as paid DLC. There’s no word on how much this bonus bit of cheat-tech will cost at the time of writing, though. Similarly to when Capcom Arcade Stadium launched on Nintendo Switch back on February 17, the game will come free as a ‘container’ for multiple add-on packs with one game gratis – 1943: The Battle of Midway....

The World guides aren’t the only Automata books around, though. There are also the novelizations of the game, Long Story Short and Short Story Long. Short Story Long is also cool because it includes the novelization of the related stage play, which gives important backstory to one of the characters. Let’s not forget about the YoRHa Boys novelization either, which is another stage play that’s important to overall world-building. Since the stage plays were only in Japan, these books are the only way to get those tasty Automata lore bits!...

Just ahead of its big reveal it was leaked that Shin Megami Tensei 5 would be coming to Nintendo Switch in November, with Nintendo later confirming the title would launch exclusively for Switch systems in Japan on November 11, then worldwide on November 12. Now, developer Atlus and publisher Nintendo are showing off more of the game than ever before. Below, you can see an in-depth gameplay trailer (the same one that was shown during the Japanese Nintendo Direct at E3 2021) that gives a better insight into how the game will actually play....

Naughty Dog is known for planting secrets in its games, which are often self-referential in nature. It’s no wonder, then, that there are quite a lot of The Last of Us Part 2 Easter eggs tucked away in the studio’s latest blockbuster. I won’t divulge a huge amount here, as it’s often nice to discover Easter eggs on your own, purely by chance. However, a couple of well-known The Last of Us Part 2 Easter eggs are already doing the rounds on Reddit, so I’ll share them in a minute....