Jake Tucker: Celebs Rumors

God Of War Ragnarok: Valhalla has a challenge that is so tough that the development team didn’t even beat it before the game shipped.Mihir Sheth, game director of God of War Ragnarok‘s Valhalla update, posted on X (formerly Twitter), writing that “there is an endgame challenge in God Of War Ragnarok Valhalla that no one of the dev team has completed on the hardest difficulty ‘Show Me Mastery”.Sheth continued, stating “I am so, so curious to see how quickly players will humble us… as they often do… but maybe this time we’ve beaten them?”‘Show Me Mastery’ is a difficulty mode available in God Of War Ragnarok, and is the hardest difficulty available in the game.God Of War Ragnarok Valhalla was revealed during The Game Awards 2023 and launched earlier this week. The DLC is a free update to the base game and sees Kratos and Mimir travelling to find some closure on their adventure in the base game, with the gameplay style shifting from a traditional third-person action-adventure game to a roguelike.NME reviewed God Of War Ragnarok when it was released, with our writer calling the game a “blast”.“God Of War Ragnarok is a good game but never particularly surprising,” Jake Tucker wrote.“Shifting the focus onto Atreus’ story feels like a smart move and the universe painted here is as beautiful narratively as it is graphically, but some players may feel like they have ridden this ride before.”In other gaming news, a new Squid Game title has been announced by the Netflix Games division.

God Of War Ragnarok DLC has been unveiled at this year’s The Game Awards – and it’s arriving next week.While at The Game Awards, Sony Santa Monica made the blockbuster announcement, revealing a new trailer for a Kratos-led DLC campaign, titled Valhalla. While little is known of the DLC’s plot, it will seemingly take place after the events of Ragnarok due to Atreus’ absence.Fans won’t need to wait long to jump back into the world of God Of War though, as the DLC goes live on PS5 and PS4 next week, on December 12.

Marvel Snap publisher down, the official X (formerly Twitter) account for the game has reassured fans not to worry about the future of the popular digital card game.A report from Reuters states that ByteDance, which also owns the popular social media platform TikTok, is looking to “wind down its Nuverse gaming brand and retreat from mainstream video games”, with the decision likely to impact “hundreds of employees”.According to sources that have spoken to the outlet, the company will look to tell its employees to “stop working on unreleased games by December”, before looking for ways to “divest from titles already launched.”While both the aforementioned Reuters report and the statement offered by ByteDance don’t mention layoffs, a separate report from TechCrunch suggests that a round of mass layoffs started “on Monday”, with many members of the development team still “anxiously awaiting a verdict on their future.”The official Marvel Snap X account offered a statement on the matter yesterday.“Some of our players have expressed their concerns regarding reported structural changes at Nuverse,” the post read.“We wish to thank you for your concern and assure you that regardless of any changes at Nuverse, SNAP will continue to operate and flourish in the future!”NME writer Jake Tucker reviewed Marvel Snap last year, calling the game an “essential play”, explaining that: “It won’t turn every player into a card shark, but it’s bound to win fans in unusual places, and with a low barrier to entry you’re really only hurting yourself if you don’t give it a go”Elsewhere in gaming, Cult of the Lamb has denied that an update adding sex to the game is coming with the newly announced Sins of the Flesh update.

Diablo franchise at Blizzard, has shared that not all classes in Diablo 4 should feel equally balanced at all points.Diablo 4 kicked off its first beta on Friday (March 17), giving players an opportunity to play three of the game’s classes before the game’s next open beta on March 24.While two classes – Necromancer and Druid – are yet to be unlocked for players, those who took part in the early beta got to try out the Sorcerer, Rogue and Barbarian classes.However, a number of social media posts and threads on the game’s subreddit have claimed that Diablo 4‘s Barbarian class feels much weaker than its counterparts.Speaking to NME‘s Jake Tucker, Fergusson acknowledged that balancing would play a larger part in Diablo 4 since the game will place more emphasis on player versus player (PvP) interactions.However, Fergusson shared that although classes should feel balanced to play against each other, not every class should feel as powerful at the same time as others.“There is a lot of balance there, but the trick around balance is that it’s a balance over time — not a balance of the moment,” shared Fergusson. “Not all classes at level five should have the same power.”“Due to the enchantment specialisation, Sorcerers will have the most skills of any class because [with] Barbarians having four weapons, they will have the most legendary slots of any class.

BAFTA has announced its six nominees for the EE Game Of The Year Award, inviting members of the public to vote on games ranging from Elden Ring to Marvel Snap.The six nominees in the running are Elden Ring, God Of War Ragnarok, Horizon Forbidden West, Immortality, Marvel Snap, and Stray. Fans can vote for their preferred nominees here.The shortlist was decided by a jury panel of 10 including Jake Tucker, NME‘s commissioning editor for games.“Huge congratulations to all of this year’s nominees for the EE Game Of The Year award,” shared Tara Saunders, the chair of BAFTA’s games committee and studio head at PlayStation London Studio. “All six of these games have captured the imaginations of people around the world and represent a diverse range of genres, storylines and gaming experiences.”The rest of BAFTA’s gaming category nominations will be announced through the organisation’s Twitch channel on March 2, with the winners being announced on March 30.Out of the six nominations, four of them – Elden Ring, Immortality, God Of War Ragnarok and Marvel Snap – featured on NME‘s 20 best games of 2022.Earlier in the year, we spoke to those who featured in BAFTA’s Breakthrough programme to meet the next generation of gaming talent.

Horizon Forbidden West was the number one game in the UK boxed charts, according to GfK sales figures.As tracked by Gamesindustry.biz, sales figures found that Horizon Forbidden West was “comfortably” the biggest game of the week. It was also the second biggest PS5 launch so far, behind Spider-Man: Miles Morales which came out the same day as the console.

Back 4 Blood developer Turtle Rock Studios has released a new hotfix to make the game’s campaign mode a bit easier.It’s only been out for a few days, but Back 4 Blood already has a bit of a reputation for being a pretty difficult game.Our own review of Back 4 Blood explains that “even with three like-minded friends this game is hard.” Editor Jake Tucker suggests that “it feels like there’s a middle difficulty level between Recruit and Survivor that might be well suited for people who want a challenge but don’t want to be sat, sweating, in their chair after each major engagement.”Instead, the Back 4 Blood developers have decided to fine-tune the existing difficulties.A new hotfix, released quickly to address players concerns before the first