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If you’ve been cruising around the Terminid border planets in Helldivers 2 lately, you might’ve noticed something weird about the planet Meridia: It’s green. Not unheard of in this particular galaxy, but you’ve gotta understand that Meridia used to be a beautiful shade of blue broken up by fluffy white clouds. It’s one of the prettiest locales I’ve visited in Helldivers 2, or, it was until a few days ago.

Earlier this week, a new patch dropped that came with a monumental major order to turn off the Terminid Control System towers going haywire on the border planets. The “Termicide” gas that divers were led to believe would control the spread of the Terminids in the galaxy has had the opposite effect, exploding the population of bugs on Erata Prime, Fenrir III, and Turing. At the ce…

Techland has released the Summertime update for Dying Light 2: Stay Human, which comes with the kind of sunshine news every player loves to hear about: the game’s added a premium currency. Yay! Microtransactions are not new to Dying Light, with the first game offering several bundles over the course of its long and well-supported life, but these have previously been purchasable via online stores and the trusty method of the US dollar (or whatever your local currency may be).

So clearly Techland wants a bigger slice of the pie. The developer has posted an FAQ about DL Points which claims they are “a straightforward way for you to buy bundles without the need to leave the game [and] also make our lives easier, because we won’t have to set up the bundles on multip…

When I was writing about pirate games you should play instead of Skull and Bones, I had to give a nod to Blackwake, even though it didn’t quite make the cut. The multiplayer naval FPS   left early access back in 2020, after making a bit of a splash initially on YouTube thanks to its emergent mayhem. Think of it as a more aggressive, less cartoonish Sea of Thieves, where the focus is on blowing up ships and fighting their crews. Sadly, the player count dwindled soon after, and it stopped receiving updates before the year was out. 

Possibly in response to Skull and Bones’ launch, someone from the now defunct studio is attempting to inject new life into the game, specifically by making it free to keep. Hop onto Steam and you can download it right now without spending a…

The traditional view has always been that games consoles were a useful but relatively petite contribution to AMD’s overall revenues. Turns out that’s not entirely true. In fact, Sony’s PS5 alone represented fully 16% of AMD’s revenues in 2022 and likely a quarter of revenues came from Sony and Microsoft consoles combined.

That’s according to an official AMD filing (via Tom’s Hardware). “One customer accounted for 16% of our consolidated net revenue for the year ended December 31, 2022. Sales to this customer consisted of sales of products from our Gaming segment,” the filing revealed.

That customer can only really be Sony and the PS5, which comfortably outsells the Xbox Series consoles. Of course, AMD wasn’t just responsible for the PS5’s APU, it also created the chips for b…

A finance employee at an unnamed major multinational corporation has been fooled into transferring $200 million Hong Kong dollars (around $25.6 million) to scammers using deepfake technology to impersonate his colleagues. The AI-created simulacra of the man’s fellow workers included a deepfake of the company’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), and Hong Kong police say the scam took place via a video conference call (as reported by CNN).

The scammers “invited the worker to a video conference that would have many participants,” said senior superintendent Baron Chan Shun-ching to broadcaster RTHK. “Because the people in the video conference looked like the real individuals concerned, the worker made 15 transactions as instructed to five local bank accounts, which came to a…

Final Fantasy 14 isn’t a typical game to watch people speedrun—while certain parts of the game do have a speedrunning history, and there is a dedicated community running the game, completing it in record time still typically takes hours. These cutscene-skipping blitzes are impressive, sure, but they don’t exactly make for great viewing unless you’re really into the nuts and bolts of the game.

If you want to speedrun for charity, like how gamers at the European Speedrunner Assembly (ESA) have been this week, you might be stuck on ways to make Square Enix’s flagship MMO watchable for hours on end. As it turns out, all you have to do is give viewers the power to screw you over for 20 dollars.

While raising money for the Swedish Alzheimer’s Association, speedrunners Nashla…

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Geralt of Rivia is a well-known card game aficionado, and not just for Gwent. It turns out the famed witcher is also a big fan of Balatro—so big that he’s now actually in the game.

Geralt and a couple of familiar friends have joined Balatro in the game’s first ever “Collaboration Pack,” a crossover that adds optional face card backs from not just The Witcher 3, but also Dave the Diver, Vampire Survivors, and Among Us. The card cosmetics can be unlocked through a new “deck settings” menu that enables players to customize their decks with new cards.

“It was surreal having these conversations,” Balatro developer Localthunk said. “Some of the biggest names in gaming praising my little project and wanting to collaborate—absolutely wild. I’m glad we made…

Tinybuild CEO Alex Nichiporchik stirred up a hornet’s nest at a recent Develop Brighton presentation when he seemed to imply that the company uses artificial intelligence to monitor its employees in order to determine which of them are toxic or suffering burnout, and then deal with them accordingly. Nichiporchik has since said that his presentation was taken out of context online, and that he was describing hypothetical scenarios aimed at illustrating potential good and bad uses of AI. 

As reported by Whynow Gaming, Nichiporchik said during his presentation that employee communications through online channels like Slack and Google Meet can be processed through ChatGPT in what he called an “I, Me Analysis” that searches for the number of times an employee uses those words in c…

This Prime Day deal isn’t exactly the Bloodborne you’ve been waiting for, but it’s the one you’re getting. Bloodborne: The Board Game has weird monsters and weird weapons just like FromSoftware’s action RPG. And, right now, it’s the only way to play Bloodborne on your “desktop.” (You know, like on your desk.)

In this tabletop version of a game everyone still desperately wants to come to PC, you (and up to four other players) take on the role of a hunter in the cursed city of Yharnam. There are secrets to find and grotesque beasts to fight, and it’s a race to cleanse the city before the Blood Moon rises. All the action happens via a complex combat deck that mirrors the game’s satisfying, transforming trick weapons.

Bloodborne: The Board Game typically costs around $87.99, but…

Google’s Stadia is due to close on 18 January and, in its final weeks, those that enjoyed the service are mourning its demise. It has to be said that, whatever mistakes Google may have made with Stadia, the way the company has handled the wind-down is exemplary (for consumers, anyway). No doubt it helps to have all the money in the world behind you, but the way the company has pro-actively refunded its backers and prepared its controller for future bluetooth use can only be applauded.

The last couple of days of service have brought a somewhat sentimental surprise from the Stadia service: Google has released the first game Stadia was ever used for, an internally developed version of Snake called Worm Game. This solo and multiplayer title was “used to tes…