Activision has claimed that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is seeing record engagement levels compared to its predecessors. “Thank you for a historic launch,” it said on Tuesday. “Just two weeks in, MWIII has already set records with the highest engagement in the new Modern Warfare Trilogy!” According to the publisher, the game has seen “more hours per player overall” than 2019’s Modern Warfare and last year’s Modern Warfare 2. It also called the game’s Zombies mode “the most engaging third mode in MW history”, and said campaign players have put in “more time per player in MWIII then the previous two instalments”. What’s probably more telling than the game’s engagement stats is what hasn’t been announced – sales figures and revenue generated. Activision has traditionally been quick to publish sales figures when new series entries have performed relatively strongly, although Modern Warfare 3 has tough footsteps to follow in. Modern Warfare 2 topped $1...

  Alan Wake II   is a fantastic game. It tells a twisted, serpentine story of paranormal murder, shifting realities and demonic possession, with two brooding investigators at its core. Developers at Remedy Entertainment are masters of mood and   Alan Wake II  is their latest showpiece, highlighting the studio’s eye for psychedelic terror and complex mysteries. This game is packed with monsters, ghosts, cults, Old Gods, rock operas and mind-bending perspective swaps. And on top of all that, its character models and set pieces are absolutely gorgeous. Even though it just came out at the end of October, it’s no surprise that   Alan Wake II   is nominated in multiple categories at The Game Awards, including Game of the Year. There’s a lot more than clue-gathering going on in  Alan Wake II . The game regularly mixes full-motion video with CGI in a way that doesn’t feel silly or contrived; set in a universe of broken realities, the visual styles bleed into e...

  Great horror RPGs are more difficult to find than you might think. Despite clever innovations like the sanity stat, role-playing designers still tend to favor swords and sorcery over everything else ( just ask sci-fi fans ). That doesn’t mean there aren’t some perfectly scary RPGs out there, though. Whether they feature raw psychological horror or more traditional werewolves and vampires, there’s plenty of spookiness to be found in the role-playing genre. So on this, the spookiest day of the year, here are five great RPGs to play on Halloween Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines Troika was an RPG studio that was aptly named. Led by Fallout developers Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, who would later go on to work on The Outer Worlds, Troika produced a trio of classic RPGs – Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, The Temple of Elemental Evil, and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. Bloodlines was barely more than half a game when it launched, rife as it was with bugs and hidden...

  Baldur's Gate 3  has 17 different "narration styles", according to actor Amelia Tyler. As part of her role as the narrator of  Baldur's Gate , Tyler says that she and the team created all of these different tones and variations on the lines spoken in the narration to reflect all of the playable characters, better suiting the internal monologue that tells their particular story. This reveal comes from the Baldur's Gate 3 panel at EGX London this week, bringing much of the cast together to walk us through their performances in the game. Here, Tyler broke down how she approached narrating such a dialogue-heavy game, revealing that the workload was even larger than we thought, as lines had to be repeated in different tones, or reworded altogether to match the player character. "A lot of people that are on their first playthroughs don't realise there are distinct narration styles, depending on who you're playing as," says Ameilia Tyler. "So we ...

  onsidering Considering  the massive worlds, endless side activities, and propulsive “numbers go up” progression systems of recent Assassin’s Creed games, it can be easy to forget that the series began as a detective game.  Assassin’s Creed Mirage  seems hell-bent on reminding us. Touted as a return to the franchise’s roots in social stealth and investigation,  Mirage  also strikes me as a reset, maybe even an attempt at a course correction, before whatever comes next. I played two and a half hours of Ubisoft Bordeaux’s upcoming release, and while much of it served as a pleasant reminder of Assassin’s Creed’s past, just as much reminded me why the series evolved to begin with. My time with the game was split between three non-consecutive chapters. In the first, I explored the streets of Baghdad as Basim Ibn Ishaq, who many players will remember as their mentor in  Valhalla . Being a prequel to the Nordic adventure,  Mirage  ca...

Nintendo and DeNA have confirmed that they will soon stop creating new content for mobile game Mario Kart Tour, four years after it was launched. In a message sent to players, the companies confirmed that after the game’s new ‘tour’ of content, the Anniversary Tour (starting September 20), all future seasons will consist of content from tours that have appeared before. “No new courses, drivers, karts, or gliders will be added following the Battle Tour starting 04/10/2023,” the messages reads. “We hope you continue to enjoy playing Mario Kart Tour.” The news potentially hints at an imminent release for Nintendo Switch title Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s sixth and final DLC wave, since it has often shared new course releases with the mobile title. The Mario Kart Tour represents another hint at Nintendo’s lessening focus on mobile games. Compared to other big publishers like Activision and Take-Two, which regularly see mobile make up more than half...

  Sony is hiking its PlayStation Plus Premium subscription cost by $40 starting next month, the company announced on Wednesday. The price adjustment will apply across all tiers under the 12-month subscription   and will take effect in all countries where PlayStation Plus is available. The previous Essential subscription is jumping to $80 from $60, while the Extra plan will jump from $100 to $135, and the Premium tier will increase from $120 to $160, the company said in a  blog post . Sony says it’s already looking forward to September’s game lineup of Saints Row, Black Desert – Traveler Edition, and Generation Zero, all of which will be available to download between Sept. 5 and Oct. 2. The company said in a blog post that this price increase will help bring quality games to subscribers, writing: “This price adjustment will enable us to continue bringing high-quality games and value-added benefits to your PlayStation Plus subscription service.” Sony has not discl...

  Baldur’s Gate 3  just changed the game. I don’t mean the fact that it’s become the second most played game on Steam right now, catching up to Steam mainstays  CS:GO  and  DOTA 2 . I don’t mean how it’s enjoying incredible success without elements like a battle pass or microtransactions. And I don’t even mean how it’s a game crafted to appeal to a wide range of players across race, gender, and sexuality. Any one of these qualities alone makes  Baldur’s Gate 3  an incredible game. On Thursday, with yet another hotfix, Larian Studios blew the doors off the hinges for what a developer can do with a game with one simple sentence: “As of today, we’re also reactivating cross-saves as we near our PlayStation 5 launch.” (Cross-saves were deactivated earlier this month after the feature was apparently responsible for some players experiencing bugs with the PC launch.) You mean I’ll be able to take my  BG3  Steam sav...

  Ark: Survival Ascended was revealed in April as an Unreal Engine 5-powered remaster of the 2015 open-world epic, but it served to quickly irritate fans the world over. It was made clear that current players – regardless of the time and effort they’d sunken into the game – would be forced to completely restart with the release of   Ark: Survival Ascended   as Ark: Survival Evolved (the original game) will be taken offline. There is a staggering suite of changes coming hand-in-hand with ‘ASA’, but it’s still not enough to placate angry and disappointed fans. It was originally supposed to be released in August 2023, but owing to difficulties presented during the development of this ambitious remaster, it has been delayed to October – and a discount has been applied, for some reason. What The Hell is Even That Here’s the timeline, in case you’re confused: Ark 2 announced Ark 2 was delayed, but Ark: Survival Ascended (the remaster) announced Fans were made angry by the revel...

  Remember when Nintendo launched a subscription service last year for Switch repairs in Japan called 'Wide Care'? Well, the company is now about to end the service entirely. In an announcement posted on its official website (thanks, Perfectly Nintendo), Nintendo states that it will no longer be offering new subscription contracts or renewals as of  August 31st, 2023 . That's just over a year since the service launched in July 2022. Customers who are currently under contract will not be immediately affected and their service will remain in place until their contract ends. Theoretically, then, a customer could still take out a year's subscription on July 31st, 2023, and remain covered until July 31st, 2024. The service allows customers to claim up to six repairs each year on the Switch consoles themselves, the Joy-Con controllers, the dock, and the AC adapter at a cost of 200 yen per month (roughly $1.50/£1.20) or 2000 yen per year ($15/£12). Nintendo h...

  It has been a confusing couple of days for the fans of The Last of Us that are eagerly awaiting news of Part III’s development – or any tidbits of information about Factions, for that matter. Recently, it appears that information has emerged regarding both of these projects, but things have gotten a little twisted. From leaks discussing ‘casting info for The Last of Us Part III’ that almost certainly points towards Factions to claims that Part III is ‘starting filming’ this year, there are plenty of notes to clean up. This is what seems to be happening… Set The Record Straight Let’s tackle the ‘casting info leaks’ first of all. DanielRPK posted a claimed leak behind his Patreon paywall that discussed ‘The Last of Us Part III’ casting details, which spoke about a series of characters  ‘surviving on the outskirts of a post-apocalyptic city, crammed into a Victorian house that serves as their base.’  It referenced five characters that Naughty Dog is seeking to cast: L...

  An update to NASCAR Heat 5 that includes the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season and the NASCAR NEXT Gen car released in DLC form on 22nd June for $9.99. The long-awaited 2022 Season Update to NASCAR Heat 5 has finally released as of Thursday (22nd June). Links to the DLC were made public on Steam and the PlayStation Store earlier in the week and the content unlocked around 10:00 pm BST / 5:00 pm EST on PlayStation, Xbox and PC via Steam. Originally planned to release in October of 2022, the update to the title from 2020 was delayed for quite some time. The predecessor to NASCAR 21: Ignition has been the base for the last two releases from Motorsport Games, in the NASCAR Heat Ultimate+ and NASCAR Rivals releases on the Nintendo Switch the last two years. Here’s what is included for the price point of $9.99. This DLC will be playable in Race Now, Career and Online Multiplayer modes. What this DLC will include is, first and foremost, the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series in terms of the cars. That’...