PC: Celebs Rumors

Toys For Bob, the developer of Crash Bandicoot 4 and the remastered Spyro collection, has confirmed it’s going independent.Toys For Bob was founded in 1989 before being acquired by Activision in 2005, where they worked on Skylanders. As well as heading up a number of sequels, Toys For Bob also developed Crash Bandicoot 4 and was behind 2018’s Spyro Reignited Trilogy.As part of the recent wave of layoffs at Activision Blizzard, Toys For Bob lost 89 members of staff and saw the closure of their Californian offices.In a new blog post though, Toys For Bob has confirmed it has broken away from Activision.

Nacon’s open-world Terminator game now has a title and an Early Access launch date.Originally announced back in 2022, Terminator: Survivors is the first survival game set in the Terminator universe and was promised to feature “an original story that builds on the events of the official films”.“We can’t say much more for now, but this is definitely something to keep your eyes on,” said Nacon at the time. Now, after months of silence, the studio has confirmed Terminator: Survivors will launch later this year in Early Access.Due for release October 24 on Steam, Nacon have also promised Terminator: Survivors will be released on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S “at a later date” during their Nacon Connect 2024 showcase.“Play as a survivor in an open world set after Judgment Day where you, alone or in co-op, scavenge resources to build a base of operations for mankind. But you’re not alone,” reads the official Steam listing, with the game set after the events of the first two films.“It’s been four years since the day humanity nearly perished.

Stardew Valley is set to receive its first major upgrade since 2020 next month, with the launch of the 1.6 updateTaking to social media to celebrate the 8th anniversary of Stardew Valley, creator Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone thanked fans for their continued support before confirming the 1.6 update would be launching for PC users on March 19.Console and mobile will follow as soon as possible. “I really really don’t want a big delay between [them].

Hunt: Showdown turns six this month, we caught up with design director Dennis Schwarz and acting game director Scott Lussier to discuss the game’s anniversary and future.Though developer Crytek already had experience with making first-person shooter (FPS) games thanks to its Crysis series, Schwarz told NME that Hunt: Showdown forced developers at the studio to rethink the way they were used to making games.“Many of our devs at the time came from a boxed-product mindset, where they’d work on a game for some time, release it, and then move on to another project,” said Schwarz. “With Hunt: Showdown being intended as a live product, the plan was to improve and maintain it for years to come.

Call Of Duty kicked off a crossover with AMC’s The Walking Dead, as original leading character Rick Grimes joined the game as a playable operator. With an operator skin for fan-favourite swordswoman Michonne Grimes still on the way, NME caught up with the people responsible for the crossover.Speaking to NME, Clayton Neuman, head of franchise at AMC, said that from “very early conversations,” it was agreed that Rick and Michonne were the best picks to represent The Walking Dead.“Since Rick’s last episode in season 9, there’s been this sort of fan fervour about what happened to him,” shared Neuman.

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege creative director Alexander Karpazis has shut down talk of a sequel to the online tactical shooter.Despite being released in 2015, Rainbow Six Siege still has a huge playerbase, with over 100,000 concurrent players logging in over the weekend (via SteamDB) and regular updates from Ubisoft. However, Karpazis has no interest in a sequel.​​”I can confidently say that we have probably one of the best engines in the world when it comes to live PvP shooters,” he said at the 2024 Sieve International in Brazil [via PC Gamer].

Hi-Fi Rush has been officially announced for release on PlayStation 5 next month, alongside several other formerly Xbox console exclusive titles.The title will launch on March 19 on PlayStation 5, with physical versions for the platform available exclusively through Limited Run Games. While a Switch release for Hi-Fi Rush has been rumoured, there is currently no official notice on if those rumours were actually true.Alongside Hi-Fi Rush, Xbox is also bringing three other previously exclusive games to new systems.

Arrowhead Studios has said the ongoing issues with players accessing Helldivers 2 can’t be fixed by simply buying more servers.Helldivers 2 was released earlier this month and quickly became Sony Interactive Entertainment’s biggest ever launch on PC. It went on to rack up over one million sales in a handful of days.

Ghost Ship Games and Funday Games have removed an “out of place” line from Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor over concerns it will upset some players.Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is a single player survivor-like auto-shooter set within the world of Deep Rock Galactic. The spin-off was released into Early Access last week (February 14) with the launch going “well over” the expectations of developers.Earlier this week, Survivor surpassed Deep Rock Galactic’s peak of concurrent players. “That was not supposed to happen,” said Ghost Ship Games CEO Søren Lundgaard.“We have seen a massive interest in the game,” started the patch notes for the update launched earlier today (February 21).

Helldivers 2 has seen Starship Troopers rush up the charts to become the 19th most popular movie online, per today’s ranking of Television Stats (February 20).A closer look at the surge of popularity for Starship Troopers on Television Stats’ graph shows that its rise coincided with February 15, which was one week after Helldivers 2 hit PC and PS5.The increase caught the eye of creative director Johann Pilestedt, who called it “incredible”. Starship Troopers and Helldivers 2 share a similarly satirical characterisation of the military action and expansion of humanity into space in their respective storylines.This is incredible! https://t.co/UmreTNdMhj— Pilestedt (@Pilestedt) February 19, 2024Starship Troopers, based on the novel of the same name by Robert A.

Fallout London has announced that actor Neil Newbon, who played Astarion in Baldur’s Gate 3, has been added to the cast.The “final progress video” for the mod was uploaded to Team FOLON’s official YouTube channel yesterday (February 19). In it, the developers issued updates on the status of the mod and why the delay to April was necessary, as well as revealing a number of the new voices in the game.PCGamesN spotted Newbon’s arrival, portraying a dark haired character that is presently unnamed.

Arrowhead Game Studios appeared to be hinting at a third faction for Helldivers 2 players to fight in an in-game announcement about “Illuminate sightings”.The Illuminate appeared in the first entry in the sci-fi shooter series. As an extremely advanced alien race, they used their cognitive abilities to create a web of surveillance and technology to both explore space and inform themselves about their enemies.The Loadout reported that an in-game Easter egg in the form of a ship broadcast referenced “rumours of Illuminate sightings” which was chalked up to the “work of dissidents”.At the moment, Helldivers 2 fights are against the Automatons or the Terminids, requiring different strategies to take out their different approaches.Automatons’ defence is focused on armour and they remain out of the line of fire with ranged attacks.

Star Wars Jedi series, has said that he would like a live-action appearance of his character as long as it was “right”.Speaking at a panel at Fan Expo Vancouver 2024 on February 17, Monaghan was asked if he had thought any more on the possibility of reprising his role in a film or TV show.“It would have to be right,” answered the actor (via The Direct). “By that I mean, it has to continue the story or the character in some way.

Arrowhead has released a new patch for Helldivers 2 which makes its hardest mission easier.Released today (February 19), the 1.000.009 patch for Helldivers 2 sees developers “continue to focus on stability and matchmaking”.However, the team at Arrowhead has also adjusted the difficulty of a number of missions. According to the patch notes, the Defend event, which is regarded as the hardest mission in the entire game, has had its difficulty “reduced”.It’s not all nerfs though.

Arrowhead is still working on a number of server issues caused by the continued popularity of Helldivers 2.Helldivers 2 was released earlier this month and quickly became Sony’s biggest ever launch on PC. It went on to rack up over one million sales in a handful of days and continues to be one of the most popular games on Steam.However, last week Arrowhead was forced to apologise after players were unable to access Helldivers 2 servers and when they could, rewards and XP were not being received as they should be due to the number of people trying to play the game.Despite a number of rapid-fixes, those issues continued and on Friday (February 16), deputy game director Sagar Beroshi confirmed a weekend-long bonus to apologise.

Fallout: New Vegas that adds Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst to the game has been rediscovered, years after it was supposedly lost.The original but unofficial Limp Bizkit mod was released in 2015 and saw a Fred Durst lookalike take on the role of Fallout: New Vegas companion but would only talk in song lyrics.However, less than a year after it was released, it was seemingly wiped from Nexus Mods forever. The only clip of it to survive the purge was this 40-second Youtube video, “My Fred Durst Mod For Fallout: NV”.Despite apparently being lost to time, the original Limp Bizkit mod was rediscovered over the weekend and swiftly restored.“Ladies and Gentlemen, today we’ve made modding history,” wrote YouTuber MickyD on social media.

Remedy Entertainment has confirmed plans to “expand and grow” the Alan Wake franchise following the success of Alan Wake 2.The long-awaited sequel to the 2010 original was finally released in October last year to critical acclaim. Alan Wake 2 was named NME’s Game Of 2023 and picked up two awards at The Game Awards including Best Narrative.Now Remedy has confirmed the game is the studio’s fastest selling title, with over 1.3million units sold [via VGC].“We are happy with the start of the sales,” explained Remedy’s CEO Tero Virtala.

Microsoft has confirmed that Diablo 4 will be the first Activision Blizzard title to come to Xbox Game Pass.Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard was finally approved in October 2023 after being announced in January 2022 via a deal thought to be worth £50billion.Now the first of Microsoft’s new franchises is coming to its subscription-based Game Pass service. Head of Xbox Sarah Bond confirmed the news during an official Xbox podcast last night (February 15).Diablo 4 will be available to play via Game Pass from March 28 and is said to be the first of multiple Activision and Blizzard-developed titles coming to the service.Elsewhere in the podcast, Xbox boss Phil Spencer announced that Game Pass now had 34million “fully paid” subscribers compared to 25million in 2022.

Palworld player has spent two weeks creating an entire Attack On Titan-inspired city.Sharing his creation on Reddit, Commercial_Neck8986 revealed a massive replica of the iconic central city from the Attack On Titan anime.Work began two weeks ago with a recreation of Attack On Titan’s Paradis Island. “My mission, make The Forgotten Island the next Paradis Island,” wrote Commercial_Neck8986 and things expanded from there.The entire project took two weeks and was created without the use of mods.

PC, Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo Switch in November 2023.Games that had this content tag accounted for less than two per cent of Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo’s roster of titles available on their digital storefronts.

Helldivers 2 and CEO of Arrowhead Game Studios, has disputed the idea that the game is pay-to-win in a series of social media posts.Helldivers 2 has two battle passes, termed “Warbonds”. One Warbond is freely accessible to all players whereas the other premium Warbond is priced at 1,000 in-game Super Credits.Players are able to harvest Super Credits from playing the game, though it is significantly easier and faster to purchase the premium Warbond by spending $10.In order to unlock items in the Warbond, players must spend Medals, which are gained when completing missions or exploring the mission area.The pain point for some players is that the premium Warbond contents are not only cosmetic; they include improved versions of basic weapons with buffs like stunning enemies and explosive damage.On X, Pilestedt responded to a player who was countering the claims of Helldivers 2 being a pay-to-win title, pointing out that Super Credits are earnable through in-game activities.I'm partial but we really applied ourselves to not make it p2w even though items are functionally different.

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has shared the release windows for both Assassin’s Creed Codename Red and Star Wars Outlaws.Speaking as part of the company’s most recent financial report, Guillemot confirmed Ubisoft were already looking forward to the 2025 fiscal year, which runs April 2024 to March 2025.“Moving forward, we’re gearing up for a very promising line-up for fiscal year 2025,” said Guillemot. He went on to confirm that Star Wars Outlaws, an action-adventure game set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi, would be released before the end of 2024.“It should be a major milestone in the video game industry, especially given the undeniable appeal of this legendary franchise that will be coming for the first time to the Open World territory,” he added.Star Wars Outlaws was announced last year.

Atlus has announced that Persona 3 Reload is the fastest-selling game in the history of the company.Atlus West posted on X (formerly Twitter) that Persona 3 Reload has sold over a million copies in the first week of release, making it the fastest-selling game that the company has ever published.The game was launched on February 2 across all platforms. The game was originally revealed by Xbox in June of last year, along with the reveal that the game would be launching on Xbox Game Pass at no additional price to existing subscribers.As reported by Persona Central back in 2021, the Persona series had hit fifteen million sales by the end of Fiscal Year 2021, meaning that Persona 3 Reload has already sold roughly a fifteenth of what the entire series had sold in by the end of its 25th anniversary year.NME reviewed Persona 3 Reload, with our reviewer calling the game a “must-play marvel”.“As the sums of its parts, Reload is phenomenal as both a remake and a standalone game.

Rocksteady Studios has been forced to take Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League offline, less than an hour after it was launched in early access.Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League is due for release February 2 via PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Steam but players who purchased the more expensive deluxe edition can access the game 72 hours early.That early access window opened earlier today (January 29), starting with players in New Zealand, but the game was quickly taken offline due to a bug. When some players logged in for the very first time, they found that the game had auto-completed itself.Posting on social media, Rocksteady wrote: “We’re aware that a number of players are currently experiencing an issue whereby upon logging into the game for the first time, they have full story completion.”To fix the bug, the studio confirmed it would be performing “maintenance on the game servers” with Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League taken offline soon afterwards.

Pocketpair Inc has shared a demo for upcoming metroidvania roguelite game Never Grave: The Witch And The Curse.READ MORE: Pocketpair Inc’s CEO: “We don’t want ‘Palworld’ to be beautiful and perfect. We want to inject elements of darker themes, including exploitation and violence”Never Grave: The Witch And The Curse is the first game from Pocketpair since the publisher released Palworld into Early Access earlier this year.According to the studio, Palworld sold over 8million copies in less than a week and became one of the most popular games on Steam.

Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League will launch with controversial anti-piracy software Denuvo.While Rocksteady Studios hasn’t officially confirmed the inclusion of Denuvo, an updated Steam listing said Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League “incorporates 3rd-party DRM” while an entry on SteamDB’s changelist from January 20 reads: “Added third-party DRM – Denuvo Anti-Tamper.”Denuvo is a digital rights management system designed to protect games from piracy and requires a regular online connection to confirm a player owns a license to play the game. However it’s one of the more intrusive DRM systems and has been accused of slowing down several games.Back in 2021, hackers claimed that Denuvo was to blame for Resident Evil Village‘s performance issues while Humankind developer Amplitude Studios said Denuvo’s integration was “not good enough” to avoid performance issues, and dropped it ahead of launch.The news about Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League’s use of Denuvo hasn’t gone over well with fans either.“It’s like someone is trying to sabotage the game,” wrote one Reddit user.

Gears Of War designer Cliff ‘CliffyB’ Bleszinski has revealed he once pitched a game similar to Palworld to Epic Games, but was turned down.Released earlier this month in Early Access, Palworld has quickly become one of the most popular games on Steam. Creators PocketPair have reported upwards of 8million copies of the game have been sold in a week while earlier today (January 26), it became only the second ever game to pass 2million concurrent players on Steam, with PUBG being the first.Now Bleszinski has taken to social media to talk about how validating Palworld’s success has been for him.“Palworld‘s success kinda validates my pitch that was turned down at Epic many years ago,” he wrote with his idea revolving around “medieval Pokémon with baby dragons instead.”Responding to a fan, Bleszinski revealed that his pitch for the mobile game “just never went anywhere”.It just…never went anywhere.

Ubisoft has announced an open beta for Skull & Bones, with its February release looking set to actually happen.Development on the co-op pirate open-world RPG experience Skull & Bones started in 2013, with the game being made public at E3 2017. Since then, it’s been delayed numerous times with several different directors taking the helm.“Nobody knew what the fuck they were doing,” one former developer claimed, but it seems Ubisoft is now sticking to the February release date it confirmed at The Game Awards 2023.The studio has now announced an open beta for Skull & Bones.

The Pokémon Company has released a statement promising to “investigate” any and all titles that infringe on their intellectual property rights following the release of Palworld earlier this month.Developed by Pocketpair, Palworld tasks players with using a variety of creatures known as Pals to build, fight or collect.Since it was announced, the survival game has been compared to Pokémon with creators telling NME: “We were surprised by the comparisons to be honest, especially those labeling it as ‘Pokémon with guns’. Pokémon definitely inspired us, but Palworld is far more action-orientated in comparison.”They went on to say they were more inspired by the likes of Rust, Minecraft and ARK: Survival Evolved.Earlier this week, an unofficial Pokémon mod was revealed for Palworld but footage was quickly taken down due to a Nintendo copyright strike.

Palworld could be coming to PlayStation soon, per a post on X (formerly Twitter) from PlayStation head of indies Shuhei Yoshida.Yoshida replied to a post which asked for the team to “support SIE [Sony Interactive Entertainment] so that the PS5 version can be released as soon as possible”.Yoshida tagged the development partner at PlayStation in the reply, writing “Yes”.Previously, the community manager of Palworld posted that the title “won’t be on PlayStation” and will only be available on “Xbox and Steam“. However, on January 21 the community manager posted on X to state that Palworld may still come to PlayStation.“The above post said Palworld may release on PS4, PS5, Xbox or PC.

Avowed, the latest fantasy action role-playing game from Obsidian Entertainment, has received an updated release window.First announced back in 2020, it was then confirmed Avowed would be released in 2024 last June. Obsidian have now said the game will release Autumn 2024 via an update at the latest Xbox Developer Direct.During a deep-dive, game director Carrie Patel said: “Avowed is an adventure into the heart of the Living Lands, a frontier at the edge of the known world.

ZeniMax has revealed big plans happening in The Elder Scrolls: Online over the next twelve months, including a new expansion, a roadmap and a pack of downloadable dungeons.Revealed as part of Microsoft’s most recent Xbox Developer Direct, ZeniMax confirmed that the Gold Road expansion would be released in June for The Elder Scrolls: Online.Released June 3 for PC and coming to Xbox and PlytStation consoles on June 18, Gold Road will bring 30 hours of new main quest content to Elder Scrolls: Online, including a storyline with never-before-seen characters and new, but familiar zones for players to explore.The new chapter of The Elder Scrolls: Online will pick up where last year’s Necrom left off, and will return players to locations last seen in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.“In Gold Road players must investigate Ithelia, a Daedric Prince never seen before in the Elder Scrolls series and it’s up to players to uncover the schemes of her most devoted followers. Adventurers will encounter opportunistic woodeElves, and protect the people of West Weald from the chaos of the Forgotten Prince’s return,” said ZeniMax in a blog.

Bethesda and MachineGames have shared the first full trailer for Indiana Jones And The Great Circle as part of Microsoft’s most recent Xbox Developer Direct – check it out below.The 3-minute gameplay video sees Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones headbutt Nazis, explore crypts, assemble ancient puzzles and use his whip to escape life-threatening situations as he tries to uncover the truth about The Great Circle. Despite the likeness to Ford, he hasn’t returned to voice Indiana Jones with Troy Baker stepping up instead.“Uncover one of history’s greatest mysteries in Indiana Jones And The Great Circle, a first-person, single-player adventure set between the events of Raiders Of The Lost Ark and The Last Crusade,” reads the game’s official description.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Xbox save woes should be over from today following a new update.Baldur’s Gate 3 launched on Xbox in December 2023 after winning Game of the Year at the 2023 Game of the Year awards. However, it wasn’t released without several issues, such as reports of save files deleting themselves after a crash.

Stalker 2: Heart Of Chornobyl has received a new release date.After previously being announced for a Q1 2024 release window, the game has been delayed to September 5 and will be released on Xbox Series X|S and PC. The game will be released on Xbox Game Pass at launch.The trailer announcing the new date is weirdly calm and features a very nice campfire song being played as the point-of-view character reaches for a cup of what looks like coffee.Stalker 2: Heart Of Chornobyl was originally revealed back in 2010, with a release date set for 2012.

T-Pain is apparently working with Rockstar Games on Grand Theft Auto 6.Speaking to fans during a recent livestream that’s now circulating on social media, T-Pain (real name Faheem Rashad Najm) revealed that he’s working on Grand Theft Auto 6.Responding to a fan question about playing Grand Theft Auto Online, T-Pain explained that he used to be an active member of the GTA role-playing server NoPixel before being asked to quit because of the conflict of interest.“I used to be on NoPixel, then I started working on Grand Theft Auto 6, and [Rockstar] told me I couldn’t do role-play anymore because it kind of goes against [their rules].