Assassin's Creed Black Flag is going from strength-to-strength for Ubisoft. After netting 2m sales in its opening few days (and then ascending to 3m within a week), Ubisoft has just announced that the game has sold through an impressive 3.5m units - meaning the remake has "exceeded annual expectations within its first 14 days", per a new financial report from the publisher.
Since 1st July, when Sony announced its intent to move away from the production and sale of physical media, we've seen plenty of backlash from both consumers and those working within the video game industry. There's plenty of evidence of this, but the most vocal and visceral has come from comments on pretty much anything Sony has posted online in the days since the announcement.
Sega is the latest publisher to make its views about physical media clear, in the wake of Sony's controversial decision to kill off the manufacture and sale of discs by 2028. The president of the Japanese publisher, Shuji Utsumi, noted that he believes physical media is still important, though digital distribution is "crucial", mostly thanks to the "steadily increasing" number of people playing on PC.
In a surefire sign Hollywood has reached the desperation stage of its insatiable hunger for video game properties to swallow up and spit out in dubiously recognisable big-screen form, Atari has somewhat improbably announced a deal with Universal Pictures to produce ten movies based on classic retro games from its expansive backcatalogue, including Pong, Breakout, and more.
It looks like we've had our first hint as to what we can expec next from the Kingdom Come stuido, Warhorse. We only heard back in May this year that a third Kingdom Come RPG may be released sooner we expected, and it seems like the barely-announced title already has a name.
I think my favourite thing about the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy so far is the specific ways in which the developers at Square Enix inject nostalgia. The games launched to date - Remake and Rebirth - manage to nod warmly towards aspects of the original RPG without it ever feeling trite. You can see it in so many aspects of the way the games are curated: the way certain musical sequences are teased as motifs, and then brought in, full-throated, for certain boss fights; the redesigns of (in)famous monsters, and how certain major enemies are deployed in slightly remixed ways for maximum effect; the reinterpretation and reimagination of dialogue to better fit the bigger, more complex world of 'the Planet' in 2020's version of the world compared to 1997's.
Here's something you don't hear very often, especially in a month as destructive as the one Xbox is having: Microsoft is seemingly uncancelling something; specifically its previously announced and then subsequently abandoned Age of Empires 3 DLC, which is now set to arrive this September.
Halo has a proud history of smuggling secret endings into its campaigns. In the very first 2001 game, there is a hidden (non-canon) ending featuring Sgt. Avery Johnson fighting and hugging an Elite. In Halo 2, there's a mid-credits scene that teases the beginning of Halo 3. In Halo 3, we get a full scene of Chief drifting, alone, in the cold, indifferent vacuum of space. ODST gives us a glimpse of the Engineers' secret. And in Reach, my personal favourite, we get that phenomenal 'Lone Wolf' ending that still sends shivers down my spine to think about today.
Lara Croft's big comeback at the hands of Amazon has hit yet another hitch. After TV show setbacks and a delay for Tomb Raider 1 "reimagining" Legacy of Atlantis, Amazon's gaming boss has confirmed yet another delay: Lara's other adventure, Tomb Raider: Catalyst, now won't arrive until sometime in 2028.
Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little about the games we've been playing. This week, Bertie goes back to ancient Greece for an odyssey of his own; Kelsey goes bird watching; and Connor crosses all his fingers and toes for Sony to fix PlayStation Network.
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Xbox has announced a test for an ad-supporting streaming service for its Xbox Insider program. It will allow players to stream select games from their library for free for one-hour sessions, with advertisements playing before play sessions.
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has chimed in on the debate surrounding Sony's planned shift away from physical disc production, stating he doesn't think it will "disturb" the industry too much.
Reports of a PlayStation Network (PSN) outage are currently spiking, as many players are struggling to connect to online services.
A new blog post has been released from ArenaNet, detailing some interesting story details for its upcoming MMORPG Guild Wars 3. However, present within the text might just be a hint to two into how magic will work in-game.
God of War Laufey will release on 16th February 2027.
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