Last week, Epic and Lego announced their intent to build "a space in the metaverse" for children. Today, Sony and KRIKBI - the investment company behind The Lego Group - announced that they'd each invested $1 billion (around £769m) in Epic Games to aid more broadly with "the company's vision to build the metaverse." As always, all of this is more fun if you replace the word "metaverse" with, for example, "Habbo Hotel." I don't doubt that children will spend a lot of time in virtual spaces in future. It's just that it's the school holidays in the UK at the moment and I have Covid, so my six-year-old and I already spent most of the day in the metaverse called "Kirby And The Forgotten Land". It's a videogame, sure, but we've also spent a lot of time expanding its town and hanging out there to play the fishing minigame. A metaverse, therefore.

  The parent company of Dungeons & Dragons developer Wizards of the Coast, Hasbro, announced Wednesday it is acquiring D&D Beyond, one of the franchise’s most popular officially licensed digital toolsets and online storefronts. Wizards said on its official website it has “no plans to stop supporting D&D Beyond,” and all purchases made by consumers will be honored going forward. D&D Beyond is the creation of Curse, and launched in 2017. The platform is, at its core, a web application and mobile app that provides players and Dungeon Masters (DMs) with the tools they need to play D&D in person or online. Features include a character builder, a character sheet, and a digital dice-rolling function. For DMs, it allows users to purchase official campaign books and other materials digitally for use inside the app. Prices for D&D books are traditionally more or less the same on D&D Beyond as they are on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and at your local...

  The wait is almost over! After months of rumours, and a surprise announcement during the last Nintendo Direct, Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition will be hitting Switch consoles around the world tomorrow. This package contains the 1999 PS1 classic  Chrono Cross , along with the never-before-localised sound novel  Radical Dreamers . Chrono Cross is most distinctly remembered for its stunning score - which Square Enix has been acutely aware of, promoting the many accompanying arrangements - and beautiful artwork. And to celebrate the game's upcoming release, Chrono Cross' character designer, Nobuteru Yuuki, has sketched up some gorgeous new artwork featuring two major characters from the game - the Aussie-accented thief Kid and the mysterious Franglais-speaking Harle. Yuuki also had this to say about this upcoming remaster, which has been kindly translated by Genki_JPN on Twitter: "The disturbing state of the world is a shame, but now...

  Having fully shifted into poyo-mode with roughly two-thirds (or three fifths, some sort of fraction. Math is hard) of   Kirby and the Forgotten Land   finished, I can finally say I’ve nestled myself into a comfortable groove of go-to power load outs. Venturing out into the dystopian world with nothing but my wits and Kirby’s cuteness about me has become a cake walk, thanks to Kirby’s rad powers and their even radder evolutions. I’d even caution to say they’ve managed to offset the shock from viewing any of Kirby’s   Mouthful Modes . (I’m looking at you  Initial D Karby . Like anatomically, how does he drive? Does he use his tongue?) Anyway, in experimenting with different powers and becoming familiar with their use cases in several time-trial Treasure Hunts, I’ve started the habit of picking out three power abilities based on how drippy his fits are, along with how much light work they make out of enemies and boss fights. Honorable mentions to the  Bayone...

Elden Ring can be a little too tricky for some users, it seems. FromSoftware’s notoriously difficult title throws more than its fair share of boss fights, enemy ambushes, and deadly areas at its players. To get stronger, players must grind for Runes to level up at Sites of Grace. But what happens if you can’t earn Runes fast enough to keep up with the challenge? Right now, several malicious fans are taking advantage of a new Rune farming trick in Elden Ring PVP – and it’s ruining the game for others. If you really want Runes fast, but you don’t want to ruin the experience for your fellow players, we’ve got you covered. After all, there’s a  way to reset the sleeping dragon Rune farm in Elden Ring  for thousands of easy Runes!

Final Fantasy XIV's patch 6.1 is edging closer, close enough that it now has a released date, April 12th, and a new trailer. The trailer is below, showing some of the main scenario quests which continue the story from the end of the recent Endwalker expansion. Everything is so decadent in Final Fantasy, I love it. The costumes alone would bankrupt a movie studio attempting ot make a live action adaptation. I'm also particularly fond of the boss who seems to tie adventures in ribbon, then unravels it to send them spinning away. Patch 6.1 will bring new main scenario quests, a 24-player alliance raid, a new residential area for players to buy houses in, and a bunch more. One of the most interesting changes is the expansion of the 'Duty Support System', which will let players complete any 4-player dungeons and trials from the base game alongside NPC companions rather than needing to find a party of humans. "Major revisions to Cape Westwind and later duties are also...

  Developer Guerrilla Games has rolled out a  massive patch  for  Horizon Forbidden West , purporting to fix more than a dozen quests, plus a litany of minor hiccups. It also aims to make the game less shimmery. Those who made it through the era of  puddlegate   unscathed  should rejoice. Horizon Forbidden West , released last month for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, is the sequel to  the best open-world game of 2017 . Like its predecessor, you, as a young woman named Aloy, explore a 31st-century post-apocalyptic America in search of an artificial intelligence program. Along the way, you use futuristic bows and arrows to hunt robots modeled after prehistoric beasts. It rules. Since launch, players have taken umbrage with the game’s shimmering—essentially, that some objects, the fauna in particular, look as if you’re viewing them through the glass wall of an aquarium. Players say it’s more noticeable in  Horizon ’s performance mode, which ru...