FMV dating sims are booming in Asia, inspired in part by ‘micro-dramas’ popular on TikTok: ‘It’s not actually real life, but it feels like real life’

If you’re like me and you’re addicted to keeping track of the unfiltered new releases page on Steam, you would have noticed the FMV genre is experiencing a renaissance. I’m not talking about Her Story, or The Bunker, or Late Shift: the most recent wave is coming pretty much entirely from Asia, spanning China, Japan,…

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The Strange Story of Phase Paradox

  It’s not uncommon for Japanese games to include English voice acting, even for games that aren’t necessarily planned for release outside of Japan, just for the sake of maintaining an exotic vibe. PaRappa the Rapper for the Playstation and Sin and Punishment for the Nintendo 64 are fairly famous examples. Phase Paradox for the…

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Palworld studio Pocketpair says its new publishing division won’t handle games that use generative AI: ‘We don’t believe in it’

Palworld developer Pocketpair kicked off 2025 by launching a publishing division, and was immediately swamped with interest: It received more than 150 pitches for publishing deals in its first week alone. Pocketpair Publishing boss John Buckley said at the time that the new division “will respect the autonomy and vision of developers and work together…

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The Sinking City 2 is delayed into 2026 because of the war in Ukraine, but not just that: Making a survival horror game requires ‘a completely different kind of design thinking’ than adventure games, and that ‘definitely makes development slower’

Frogwares announced The Sinking City 2 in 2024 with a bizarre teaser billing an overt shift to survival horror and a 2025 release target. Today, however, the studio said it needs more time, and has thus pushed the game’s release into 2026. The reason for the delay is twofold: First and foremost, Frogwares is a…

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‘Controller players are winning slightly more in close-range engagements’: Treyarch throws a live grenade into ‘controller vs mouse’ debate, says aim assist will be less forgiving in Black Ops 7

I don’t know who among you asked for it, but you’re getting it: Treyarch is looking at making changes to aim assist in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. Treyarch touched on a number of adjustments to Black Ops 7 multiplayer being made in the wake of the recent beta, including an increase in footstep…

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