Gaming

Xbox warned warned in September that it would delete online backups of player captures — including both video captures and screenshots — that were 90 days old or older. After months of no action, Xbox is circulating a message telling users that May 30 is the day of reckoning for their capture library.  A representative

I think most of us are constantly trying our hardest to fill the Dark Souls and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice-shaped holes in our lives. They’re simply some of the greatest games ever, and no one can really be blamed for seeking more of them. Time and time again, studios have tried their hands at soulslikes,

Winning Wordle is tricky but start words are key. “ADIEU” has been popular since the beginning and that makes sense, since it includes four vowels. But not everyone wants to know the vowels right away. On the day that the wordle answer is ‘adieu’ social media will implode — vasili (@mockdownblues) January 20, 2022 Want

Stellar Blade, the new PS5-exclusive character action game, has tons of skills to unlock like its genre siblings Bayonetta and Devil May Cry. Across protagonist Eve’s five skill trees, some abilities increase your damage, stun your enemies, dodge attacks entirely, let you double jump, and more. It can be daunting, even though you only start

Sand Land caught my attention as soon as I saw the game’s booth at New York City Comic Con last year, with its enormous recreation of the Royal Army tank. The game’s setting, character designs, and of course the tank, stuck with me, even though I wouldn’t consider myself familiar with much, if any, of

Spoilers for Final Fantasy XVI and its expansions follow. Rarely has a game confused me as much as Final Fantasy XVI. Though I loved most of my time with it, thanks to its pulse-pounding action, heartfelt performances, luscious visuals, and impeccable score, it undoubtedly faltered. Final Fantasy 16 abandoned its most controversial and consequential storyline—centering

Tom Curtin had just secured the video game of his dreams: a factory sealed first run copy of Konami’s original 1986 Castlevania for NES with a rare hang tab on the back of the box. There are only six currently known to exist and Curtin, together with his childhood friend, paid just over $90,000 for

Spoilers for the Fallout show follow. Fallout begins on a wedding day. It is the wedding day of Lucy (played by Yellowjacket’s Ella Purnell), specifically, and she’s pretty excited. She isn’t just stoked to be wedded to someone and have a partner to share the rest of her life with, but to have sex with

With Final Fantasy XIV’s Dawntrail expansion launching for players who pre-ordered it on June 28, it’s time to start thinking about how to make the most of your downtime now. If you’re already at level 90, and caught up with the main scenario, there are still plenty of useful ways to ensure you’re in the

Stellar Blade, the PS5’s upcoming action game where you get to play as a cute lady (feels good, right?), has had a demo out since March 29. Perhaps you’ve been playing it? Whether you’ve been enjoying it or found it too cumbersome at first, it’s always a good idea to brush up on some basics

Video-game adaptations have a reputation for being bad. This is partially because there’s an inherent disconnect between an interactive medium and a passive one. Consider also, however, that many of the bad ones were made by one guy in the 2000s. Now, brands are more precious about who they give their licenses to, and as

Last summer, I reported on major studios’ valiant (but still lacking) efforts to combat toxic voice chat (of which women are often the target) in popular competitive games like Overwatch 2, Call of Duty, and Apex Legends. And though Riot Games, the studio behind the 5v5 competitive hero shooter Valorant, is one of the more

The feeling of being somewhere overwhelmingly positive is unusual. In 2024, it seems ever-more likely that even the most upbeat of events would be coated in a veneer of cynicism, if not outright skepticism. But at the Pokémon Europe International Championships (EUIC), every person I spoke to was bubbling with unadulterated happiness just to be

Video game adaptations are en vogue. One of last year’s most critically acclaimed shows—The Last of Us—was one such example, and this year, prestige television has come for another, far more unlikely, property: Fallout. Coming to TV by way of Westworld’s Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, Prime Video’s Fallout, which purports to be a sequel

Bethesda’s open-world RPG Fallout 4 arrived on PC, Xbox One, and PS4 on November 10, 2015. Given that it’s nearing ten years old and is vast enough to easily take up well over a hundred hours of your time, it’s entirely possible that you may have fallen off this title too soon. Top 10 Most-Played

On April 9, Ubisoft released the latest trailer for its upcoming open-world action game, Star Wars Outlaws. And as you might expect, this trailer is packed with small details, characters, hints at what the story will be about, and lots of Star Wars stuff to get all excited (or angry) about. Advertisement So, to help

When I first started playing Overwatch, the original 2016 hero shooter that spawned the 2022 free-to-play sequel Overwatch 2, it was right when Moira was first introduced. The morally repugnant scientist joined the game’s support roster in 2017, and for a newcomer like myself, she seemed like a good hero to start with. Cut to

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is an enormous game that easily justifies its size and scope. That said, even the best of games sometimes fall off our radar, taking up space in the seemingly endless realm of the “Backlog.” Whether another new game you were interested in came along and demanded your attention, or life

This year has carried over two significant trends for the video game industry from 2023 into 2024: a lot of excellent games are coming out, and, unfortunately, the people who make them are suffering. It’s still early, but we’ve gotten some fantastic new games like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and the surprise hit Balatro to

During March’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Nvidia set up a hotel room to show off demos of its generative AI-powered technologies. Some are available to try in beta while the more complex ones aren’t ready to implement in games just yet. They all harness generative AI in different ways, ranging from dynamically creating

Final Fantasy XIV’s latest crossover event has begun and it’s with none other than last year’s action-RPG Final Fantasy XVI. That’s right, everyone’s favorite sad boy Clive Rosfield is making the jump to the MMO, which is ironically led by Final Fantasy 16’s producer Naoki Yoshida. Clive’s a bit lost and at least a little

As has become tradition, Blizzard  has once again released an absolutely absurd, fully playable Overwatch 2 patch for April Fools’ Day. It is every competitive purist’s worst nightmare. But it is so unhinged and thorough I have to respect it. Overwatch 2’s New Story Missions: Worth The Money? Off English The patch notes detail several

Y’all, the Stellar Blade demo is finally live on PS5. It’s a short little vertical slice of developer Shift Up’s character action game, so while we still need to see a lot more before we come to any conclusions, I can at least say that the demo has me stoked for the full release. Why?

I’ve had more than a month to consider Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s ending, and it’s not often that my feelings about something get worse with each passing day. Yet, here I am, thinking about how Square Enix has chosen to cap off the middle section of its planned Remake trilogy, and I’m even more puzzled

Helldivers 2 is this year’s surprise-hit game, packing a humorous nationalism-in-space theme and frenetic third-person shooter gameplay. Exclusive to the PlayStation 5 console and Windows PCs, the game has sold more than 8 million copies since its Feb. 8 debut. (Sorry, Xbox fans — seems like it’s not coming to your console anytime soon.) Developed by Arrowhead

In a video game, you’re only as good as your weapon. Try getting through Elden Ring’s hardest boss battle without a powerful sword, or a tough multiplayer match in Halo 3 without nabbing the Needler and unloading on an incoming Ghost. Even the most elite-level gamers among us owe some of their talent to the

Rise of the Ronin is Team Ninja’s most ambitious game to date, one that takes the studio’s best elements and combines them into a kind of “Greatest Hits” album. It’s also the developer’s biggest game thus far, with an open-world environment replete with side activities to complete and map markers to chase. There are a

It’s been 12 years since the original Dragon’s Dogma, so even if you played Capcom’s cult classic action-RPG, you might need a bit of a refresh on how its signature elements work heading into the sequel, Dragon’s Dogma 2. While you could probably just brute force your way through it all by swinging your sword

Even though it launched a little over a year ago, Sony’s PlayStation VR 2 feels like the forgotten child in the VR landscape. And now reports say Sony’s pausing PSVR 2 production until it can sell through its stock because of disappointing sales. Sony could fix this, if it wanted to. The $500 VR headset

Rise of the Ronin feels like a game that’s already one or two generations old. Developer Team Ninja has called it their “most ambitious” title to date, but that ambition is overshadowed by lackluster graphics, outdated design concepts, and performance issues that put the game more in line with the PS4 or even the PS3