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Every so often, it seems fun and interesting to give you a peek behind the curtain so you can see how we do our jobs and the tools we use that can make life easier. Will has spoken in the past about how useful a 'triple-screen laptop' has been to help him cover Prime Day sales, which became a boon for having multiple screens in a decently portable form factor.
Team Cherry has teased more Hollow Knight releases beyond Silksong, which (if they ever do materialise) would sit alongside the studio's previous games, rather than act as any kind of continuation that would require an understanding of earlier lore to appreciate.
Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've been playing. This week, Kelsey discovers the joys and stresses of managing border control in Papers, Please; Tom holds off his Kojima dislike and plays Death Stranding; Victoria looks for anyone she can to talk to about Dispatch; Ed can't stop thinking about balls; Connor finds himself back in Guild Wars 2; and Bertie finds himself back in Dungeons & Dragons, getting everyone in trouble again..jpg?width=690&quality=85&format=jpg&auto=webp)
Did you know that the Xbox Live Arcade actually started as a disc based distribution service on the original Xbox? Chances are you didn't (though I eagerly await the one person in the comments who stands to correct me), because Microsoft's mini marketplace only gained widespread popularity once it relaunched alongside the release of the Xbox 360. As someone who bought a 360 close to launch, when there weren't a huge amount of games out and backwards compatibility with OG Xbox games was limited, I used to look forward to every single new XBLA drop. I'd snap up whatever was on offer at the time, be it a new title like Zuma or a port of an old school arcade classic like Gauntlet. Some were great, some were bad, but none were ever as truly terrible as Yaris, a game that many regard to be The Worst Game Ever Released(TM) on the Xbox Live Arcade.
When I look back on most consoles, I'm largely looking back at the games. The PS3 is LittleBigPlanet and Metal Gear 4, as far as I'm concerned, and even the GameCube, that squat, characterful delight, is largely hidden behind Mario Sunshine, Wind-Waker and Animal Crossing. (Even just typing that: cor, what a time that was.)
Remedy has delayed FBC: Firebreak's Rogue Protocol update to January 2026, reporting it "still needs a bit more time".
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 has had a disappointing launch in Europe, with sales reportedly down 63 percent compared to Battlefield 6's bumper debut week.
The Xbox business today is pretty unrecognizable from that of 20 years past, which on this week all that time ago was launching the Xbox 360. There's all the changes to the business, a different suite of executives at the top, and an entirely different first-party portfolio, of course - but when I think of the changes, one absence comes to the forefront of my mind: Japan.
Time can be cruel. I'm not talking about the ravages of age when I say that - although, christ, the closer I creep to forty the creakier I become - but I'm thinking, I suppose, about legacy. The very nature of history, especially when it's oral in its delivery, is that it becomes truncated. Short-form takes over. For instance - think of a Prime Minister or President (back when we had normal ones of those, anyway), or the manager of a sports team, their tenure often ends up defined very broadly, no matter how much nuance there was at the time. Oftentimes, it's good or bad, with little in between. Which is a shame - because sometimes the nuance is where the most interesting thinking resides.
When Konrad Tomaskiewicz, the former director of The Witcher 3 and now the director of The Blood of Dawnwalker, tells me his new role-playing game has no main quest, I have to ask him to repeat himself because that's an unusual thing for someone making an RPG to say.
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Ubisoft has announced "Teammates", an "AI experiment to change the game" and "deepen the player experience".
Microsoft is reportedly considering another price hike for Xbox consoles.
Veteran actor Udo Kier has passed away. He was 81.
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