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I played over 40 hours of co-op survival game Core Keeper when it first arrived in early access in 2022, and I’m about to dive back in for 40 more. Or more! That’s because the subterranean sandbox graduated to version 1.0 today, bringing with it a new biome, several new bosses, and even a few new character classes.

If you’ve never played Core Keeper, here’s two pieces of good news: with its 1.0 launch, Core Keeper has finally tunneled its way into PC Game Pass, and if you’d rather have it on Steam, it’s also on sale for 20% off for the next 10 days.

Core Keeper really nails the two things I look for in a survival game. It’s dark and dangerous—like Valheim, there’s a massive procedurally generated world filled with monsters and some truly intimidating bosses&md…

Once thought far too cheesy to bring with us into the modern gaming era, FMV has been enjoying a bit of a renaissance over the last decade, thanks to games like Her Story and Alan Wake. If you’re not familiar, it stands for full-motion video—in other words, it’s when live-action filmed sequences are used in videogames. Also, it turns out it can be intensely creepy.

Even in this new age of FMV appreciation, upcoming survival horror game Tenebris Somnia uses it in an unusual way. As a woman investigating a house plagued by terrors, you explore a pixel art world reminiscent of classic point-and-click adventure games—Day of the Tentacle is what it brings to mind, for me. Colourful and a little cartoony, it doesn’t strike too creepy a tone—that is, until the game cuts…

January 3, 2024: The CCP intends to loosen its proposed restrictions, and has reportedly removed the official responsible for the draft rules in the first place. Original story follows.

Regulators of the Chinese Communist Party have come down hard on several key pieces in the live service model, leading to spiralling shares for major players in the market as investors scramble to assess the damage.

According to a Reuters report, “nearly $80 billion in market value” has sloughed off Tencent Games and NetEase Games: “Shares in Tencent Holdings (0700.HK), the world’s biggest gaming company, tumbled as much as 16% at one point, while those of its closest rival, NetEase (9999.HK), plunged as much as 25% after the National Press and Publ…

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The boomer shooter genre grew a little bit larger today with the early access release of Supplice, a game that began life as a total conversion for Doom before evolving into a standalone shooter built in the GZDoom engine by members of the Doom modding community.

The story in Supplice is very Doom-like: Humanity develops technology that enables it to travel to the stars, but unfortunately the galaxy is not an overly welcoming place. The exocolony Methuselah has been overrun by terrifying alien creatures, and it falls to you to either chase them away or wipe them out.

“The first FPS games had simple but genius premises and the Supplice team is following in those perfect footsteps,” said Mateusz Filipek, marketing manager at Supplice publisher Hyperstrange. “Our story sets the…

It’s official: at nearly $678 million in takings so far, The Super Mario Bros Movie is the biggest grossing videogame movie adaptation of all time (as well as the biggest grossing movie of 2023)—as reported by The Numbers. And given that it’s only been out a couple of weeks so far, you can expect that number to climb to even more unassailable heights before its run is over.

That’s a very healthy lead over its closest competitors, including former number one Warcraft at $439 million (despite a very lukewarm reception in the US, that one was a huge success overseas) and Detective Pikachu at $433 million. You’d think the number four spot would be one of the Sonic movies, but no—it’s Rampage at $428 million, a movie I’m convinced no one on earth could recall the plot of in…

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In the early 2010s, Luke Muscat was team lead on two massive mobile games for Halfbrick Studios—the WarioWare microgame turned macrohit Fruit Ninja, and endless runner Jetpack Joyride. A decade later he’s gone solo, and is making an indie game for PC that looks like a cross between Dave the Diver and Dome Keeper.

Feed the Deep is a roguelike diving game where you explore procedurally generated undersea caverns to collect resources—the way you launch multiple lines to pick up colorful chunky objects in the trailer looks real satisfying—while avoiding obstacles like the waving coral tentacles that try to grab you. You’ve also got oxygen to consider, and air-consuming distractions that include a terminal where you can play a Rise of the Triad clone boomer s…

Earlier this month, Polish game devs, including several from CD Projekt Red, formed the Polish Gamedev Workers Union (PGWU). This came in the wake of further layoffs at the company in July, to the tune of 9% of its workforce. At the time, CEO Adam Kiciński explained the move as something to help make the teams more “agile and effective”, but agile and effective doesn’t pay the rent.

“This event created a tremendous amount of stress and insecurity,” explains the union’s website, “affecting our mental health and leading to the creation of this union in response. Having a union means having more security, transparency, better protection, and a stronger voice in times of crisis.”

The devs at CD Projekt Red have shed more light on the situation during an interview with IGN, …

Dead Island 2, Dambuster Studio’s upcoming first-person, has put out a few more details about the tech that goes into its zombie pulverising. In a chat with Game Informer, DI2’s senior render programmer and technical art director shone some more light on the procedural FLESH system (Fully Locational Evisceration System for Humanoids) that the game uses to turn its undead shamblers into “meat piñatas”. Fair warning, I’m about to write the words ‘Flesh system’ like a hundred times. It’s too late for me, but you can still escape before the phrase starts to haunt your sleep.

Dambuster has spoken about the Flesh system before, but now they’ve gone into nauseating detail about precisely what the system does and how it manages to do it. The system will procedurally model weapon-ap…

However you’d like to play today’s Wordle, you’ll find hints and tips below designed to help. We’ve got general advice for newcomers looking to improve their daily game, today’s answer in big, bold letters if you’re struggling, and a helpful clue written just for the March 27 (646) game.

For a few guesses, today’s Wordle looked like it might be unsalvageable, just a messy scramble of yellows and one green that made no sense—until it all did. It was something of a relief to see the Wordle answer pop up immediately after that classic “lightbulb” moment. 

Wordle hint

A Wordle hint for Monday, March 27

You might not want to think about animal excrement while solving your Wordle, but I’m afraid you’ll have to today. This particular…

Get as much or as little help with your daily Wordle as you want, thanks to our wide range of helpful hints and tips. Whether you’re looking for general advice, a clue for the March 13 (632) game, or the answer to today’s Wordle delivered on a platter, you’ll find it all right here.

I unearthed three yellows on my first go today—talk about luck. Taking four more goes to finally pin them down and find the other missing two letters wasn’t ideal, but at least I got today’s answer just in time.

Wordle hint

A Wordle hint for Monday, March 13

This word means to take responsibility for a mistake or something bad that’s happened. It’s also used when someone else holds another person (or thing) accountable for a similar negative situation. There are…

Quickly blaze a path to a magnificent Wordle win with today’s answer—it’s only a quick click away, after all. Or, if you’d rather take your time, feel free to spend a while pondering our helpful clue for the January 14 (939) puzzle. Whatever helps you win your daily game: the way you want to win it, is fine by us.

I was able to quickly rule out a lot of letters early on today, which is another way of saying “I had two rows that were almost entirely grey and had a little panic about it”. This soon turned out to be a pretty helpful situation, with today’s Wordle answer revealing itself with just a few more careful guesses.

Wordle today: A hint

Wordle today: A hint for Sunday, January 14

The answer today is used when someone is performing (or …

The great Helldivers 2 rush of 2024 is behind us. The monster hit isn’t pulling the same crowds it was at launch, but it’s not a sad or surprising occasion: the $40 co-op shooter kept millions of fans on the edge of their seats for months with incredible gunplay, rapid-fire updates, and a surprisingly deep galactic war metanarrative that produced unprecedented moments of collective victory and grief. Those millions played the heck out of Helldivers 2, unlocked everything there is to get right now, and moved on.

In response to a run of unpopular patches and what Arrowhead considered an unsustainable schedule going forward, warbonds and updates are slowing down. The next warbond will be the last one for a while, and this Thursday’s patch is coming after the longest wait for balance …

Up and coming fantasy extraction game Dark and Darker has been taken down from Steam following a cease and desist as well as DMCA claim by publisher Nexon. It’s an apparent escalation of Nexon’s existing dispute with Dark and Darker developer Ironmace around the game’s development assets. Overnight, from March 24th into the 25th, assets and material from Dark and Darker’s Steam page were removed, followed by its co-op and PvP servers going dark, and culminating with the removal of the game from steam’s Store.

This follows the search earlier this month of Ironmace’s offices, where police seized materials related to the game project. At the time Ironmace said that “absolutely no stolen assets or code were used to make our game” and that players should not worry, as “nothing was foun…