Where You Buy Your Computer Cases?

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I've always thought there was something presumptuous about hero shooters. Building an entire game around a bunch of characters I'm expected to like purely on vibes is a big ask. Even BioWare, with its decades-long legacy of character-driven storytelling, recently got dinged for assuming players would immediately buy into Dragon Age: The Veilguard's new party in the game's misguided initial trailer.
Sure, Blizzard got away with it back in 2016. But putting aside the fact Blizzard gets away with a lot of things it probably shouldn't, the developer had two big advantages with Overwatch. First, the hero shooter was a new and shiny concept following a decade of playing with toy guns as faceless military men (with the exception of Team Fortress 2, although that's a slightly different kettle of fish). Second, Overwatch was a masterclass in mascot manufacture.
Sadly, neither of these things are the case with Concord. Firewalk Studios' hero shooter arrives several years after the bandwagon departed, boasting a roster of characters that, while not entirely without their charms, certainly wouldn't be Nick Fury's first choice when assembling the Avengers. Which is a shame, because there's a decent multiplayer shooter here, one that's lithe and snappy and highly rewarding of teamwork. But that doesn't change the fact that it misses its own brief, leaving it struggling to stand out elsewhere.
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As Dame Shirley Bassey once famously bellowed, "It's all just a little bit of history repeating". And so it is with this week's Epic Games Store giveaway of the Fallout Classic Collection, which Tim Sweeney previously wafted at storeshop visitors in December 2022 and February this year.


For those who didn't grab it previously, the good news is there's some neato stuff in the Fallout Classic Collection. You get, for instance, the game that started it all - Black Isle Studios' original 1997 post-apocalyptic RPG, Fallout - plus its 1998 sequel. Both, of course, are bona fide classics, and Eurogamer sang their praises as part of a retrospective back in 2011.


"From the unrelentingly bleak, darkly ironic tone to the novelty of the open-world, post-apocalyptic setting," Keza MacDonald wrote, "from the inspired, cerebral turn-based combat system to the immense degree of variety and personality in the character-customisation, the superbly-written quests and characters and the gallows humour that underpins the games without lessening their emotional impact, even the well-placed, gritty violence; there's very little about the games that doesn't command as much respect now as they did a decade ago."

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As a huge fan of both developer Supermassive Games' interactive horror marathons and publisher Behaviour Interactive's asymmetrical multiplayer Dead by Daylight, I thought The Casting of Frank Stone might have been a daydream I conjured during yet another sleepless night. Unfortunately, it's actually a drawn-out multiverse adventure with pacing as lethargic as I am.
The game follows Supermassive tradition – as in the developer's 2015 cult hit Until Dawn and 2022's The Quarry – by focusing on a group of small-town teens and finger-wagging adults as they all discover the supernatural evil saturating their lives. Frank Stone, the game, effectively serves as an explanation for Dead by Daylight's cyclical set up, its repetitive Killer-versus-four-Survivors trials. Though it does this peripatetically, with an original cast of characters facing an original set of circumstances.
Their story unfolds in two overlapping parts: in the 80s, a group of friends filmed a horror movie at an abandoned steel mill. In 2024, Frank Stone, the guy, is a serial killer whose screaming soul is trapped on cloudy slices of their Super 8 film. After dying at the mill decades prior, Frank was incorporated into the billowing, unexplained Entity, a cosmic spider-being Dead by Daylight players will recognize as that game's progenitor. So layers of interdimensional sorcery are somehow responsible for this circuitous plot. In this origami timeline, you control different iterations and family members of the original friend group – the young and older versions of stoic director Linda, the grieving daughter Madison, and so on.
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Gearbox founder Randy Pitchford has defended recent flops such as the Borderlands film and its Risk of Rain 2 DLC by comparing the company to one of the most highly-regarded bands of all time. Yes, The Beatles.
Replying to a user who had commented on the developer's recent "judgement and shot calling ability", Pitfchford stated he was "going to keep making stuff" and subsequently brought the English rock band into the conversation.
"I wish everything could be a hit, but that is not how it works," Pitchford wrote in the exchange on social media platform X (spotted by PC Gamer). "The greatest musical act of all time, The Beatles, had a 25 percent hit rate."
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Hello! You might have spotted Eurogamer is 25 this week, and so alongside the first appearance of a few permanent micro-wrinkles and a sharp decline in people asking us for ID, we're marking the occasion with something special.
Actually, it's several things that are special, as editor-in-chief Tom Phillips explained at the start of the week, but this one warrants a bit of explanation. Today marks the launch of the Eurogamer 100, a list of the very best video games to play right now.
The emphasis, you might have spotted, is on that last bit. Somehow, in Eurogamer's 25 years of publication, we've never actually run a list of the best video games full stop. We've had lists by platform, by genre, by series, by month and most prominently of course, lists of the best games released each year - with avid contribution from you to our readers' top 50 alongside it, of course. But to our knowledge we've never had one, big all-timer.
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It takes a lot for an online shooter to stand out these days. Just ask Concord. But FragPunk's Shard Card system looks to be the twist needed to ensure it stands out above the rest.



The game was revealed back at the Xbox Games Showcase in June, but is set for release next year across Xbox Series X/S and PC. In fact, it had a Steam alpha test in June and a further beta is due in October to give more players a chance to check it out.



If anything, FragPunk has the most in common with Valorant. Like Riot's shooter, it's a five-versus-five free-to-play shooter in which teams take turns attacking and defending - the aim is to either plant a bomb in the enemy's base, or prevent them from doing so.

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Funcom - the developer behind Dune: Awakening - has admitted that getting the game ready for Microsoft's lower-powered Xbox Series S will be a "challenge".
Speaking with Connor Makar from VG247, Dune: Awakening's chief product officer Scott Junior said "there's a lot of optimisations we need to do before we release on the Xbox". He noted this is "one of the reasons we're coming out on PC first".
As revealed last month, Dune: Awakening will debut on PC early next year, however console versions for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S are yet to secure a release date. But, if you are keen to give Dune: Awakening a go on your Series S, don't worry just yet. Later in the conversation, Junior said the Dune: Awakening team would "be able to do it", and work was progressing.
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Ex-Blizzard president Mike Ybarra believes "consoles will never die" and that failing companies are pushing "the narrative that fits for them".
Ybarra replied to comments on X comparing Sony's focus on exclusivity and Microsoft's multiplatform approach for Xbox games.
"If your strategy is to win the living room, you need exclusive hits because winning is both a platform and games perspective," said Ybarra. "Sony knows how to make hits, and how to pick the hits from others to be exclusive. If I was them I would double down right now because the blood in the water is all over the place."
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Hopoo Games, the studio behind Risk of Rain and Deadbolt, has announced it will be joining Valve to work on game development.


The Seattle-based indie has cancelled its unannounced next project, a game named "Snail", as a result.


In a statement posted to X, Hopoo Games described the news as "exciting", and said its small team would continue to make games "for years to come".

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Enotria: The Last Song, the "summer Soulslike" from Italian indie developer Jyamma Games, has been delayed indefinitely on Xbox - just weeks before its planned 19th September release - with the studio claiming Microsoft has "decided to ignore us" as it attempts to navigate certification.


Enotria - a third-person action-adventure set in a sun-lit world inspired by Italian folklore - has had an erratic relationship with Microsoft's platform so far. Back in March, Jyamma revealed it would no longer be launching Enotria on Xbox at the same time as other platforms, so it could focus its efforts on creating a "superior experience for PC and PS5 players".


However, two months later, it announced a revised release date - shifting the game's launch from August to September - with an Xbox version suddenly back on the cards. But Jyamma is now slamming the brakes on once more, delaying Enotria: The Last Song indefinitely on Xbox as a result of what it initially only referred to as "challenges".

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Thatcher's Techbase - the Doom WAD that sees players descending to the Tenth Circle of Hell to thwart the return of "one of humanity's greatest threats" - has been yanked from Bethesda's new in-game mod browser after being reported for "real-world politics".


Thatcher's Techbase initially released back in 2021, but developer Jim Purvis recently decided to take advantage of Bethesda's official community-published mod support - which launched for PC and consoles as part of Doom 1 & 2's enhanced bundle back in August - giving Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox owners the opportunity to play the WAD for the first time.


But alas, the four-map Thatcher's Techbase - which includes a soundtrack by Paradise Killer composer Barry "Epoch" Topping and voice work from Hades' Laila Berzins - has now seen its moment in the console spotlight come to a premature end.

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Xbox boss Phil Spencer has admitted he's made "the worst" decisions "passing" on some of gaming's biggest franchises over the years, including Bungie's Destiny and Harmonix's Guitar Hero.
In an interview called "Story Time with Phil Spencer" at PAX West over the weekend, Spencer opened up about the games that mattered most to him over the years, including Bungie's 2014 sci-fi shooter, Destiny, in his list.
"There's so many mixed emotions and stories for me around Destiny," Spencer explained.
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It's hard not to talk about Sumerian Six without summoning the spirit of the sadly now defunct Mimimi Games. Sumerian Six might technically owe its existence to the real-time, sight-cone-dodging stealth-tactics classics of the 90s and early 2000s - think Commandos and Desperados - but Mimimi's wonderful genre refinements, seen in the brilliant likes of Shadow Tactics and Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew, are in ample evidence as developer Artificer's rip-roaring, globe-trotting, Nazi-bashing pulp adventure unfolds. But for all its mechanical familiarity, Sumerian Six is - as I approach the seven-hour mark, at least - an absolute hoot, an inventive, richly conceived take on the genre that more than holds its own.
It's 1944 and, as our story begins, cocky young adventurer Sid Sterling is attempting to locate his sister Isabella in a Nazi-infested castle somewhere in the snow-covered Alps. Isabella has been working undercover to keep tabs on scientist (and scoundrel) Hans Kammler, a former member of her father's disbanded Enigma Squad, who's been experimenting with a mysterious, devastatingly powerful substance known Geistoff - one that might, if the Sterlings can't put a stop to it, win the Third Reich's war.
Sumerian Six is properly rip-roaring comic book stuff, full of pulpy action, globe-spanning adventure, and wise-cracking heroes, that - with its witty banter, warm camaraderie, and a wonderfully weird soundtrack - is an immediately winning affair. And it's a gorgeous thing too, its expansive stages - or at least the mountaintop Nazi HQ, verdant German countryside, vertiginous Moroccan-inspired city, and sprawling factory in the heart of the desert I've seen so far - absolutely packed with detail.
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The official social media accounts for Tony Hawk Pro Skater have been freshened up ahead of the series' upcoming 25th anniversary - and it's got some fans very excited.
Whilst news that YouTube, X/Twitter, and Facebook are getting a commemorative banner may not sound all that newsworthy, interestingly, all images now boast a new 2024 copyright notice, suggesting Activision has recently renewed the copyright of the series… and that's the bit that's sent the rumour mill into overdrive.
Perhaps most noteworthy of all, however, is news that Activision is marking the series' 25th anniversary "all month long"... leading some to hope that the 3 and 4 remasters could be unveiled sooner rather than later.
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Another gigantic DF Direct Weekly arrives today (well, on Saturday if you're signed up to the DF Supporter Program) and amongst topics as diverse as the latest PS5 Pro rumours and Tom Morgan's impressions of MGS Delta and the Silent Hill 2 remake, we have our own thoughts on the Black Myth: Wukong Xbox drama. Why hasn't it appeared on Microsoft's consoles? Is there really some kind of PlayStation exclusivity deal? Is Series S the problem? Should we take developer statements about ongoing optimisation at face value? And what about the recent 'memory leak' story - can this really have put the Xbox version on indefinite hold (spoilers: no).
News journalists with good track records have corroborated the Sony exclusivity angle (and to be clear, we've heard the same ourselves from sources with good knowledge of the situation) and the fact that Microsoft itself heavily hinted at such a deal being in place adds extra weight - all PR statements have some degree of legal vetting before they're put out there. That said, audience reaction has quite rightfully pointed out that if there is a PlayStation deal in place, Sony is keeping awfully quiet about it. Well, the truth is that exclusivity deals can take many shapes and forms, and don't necessarily need to include marketing.
Even so, there may well be the case that Game Science did/does require more time to get an Xbox version into shape. Back in June, a statement said, "We are currently optimising the Xbox Series X|S version to meet our quality standards, so it won't release simultaneously with the other platforms. We apologise for the delay and aim to minimise the wait for Xbox users. We will announce the release date as soon as it meets our quality standards."
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