The first thing Bungie asked LucasFilm about its Star Wars-themed Destiny 2 expansion was: ‘What is the bad version of this?’

You know the emergency lights are blinking at Bungie when the developer starts putting out balance changes with triple digit percent buffs in a bid to lure Destiny 2’s dwindling playerbase back. That was the case with yesterday’s ability tuning blog, which saw the Hunter class eating especially well. (About time too.) Today, attention turned…

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Moonlighter 2 made me reckon with how ‘cozy’ a shopkeeping roguelite with a heavy helping of Hades can get

When Moonlighter released in 2018, it was to a fairly positive critical reception. Players seemed to enjoy the combination of cozy shop simulator and dungeon crawling roguelite, inspired by the Rogue Legacies and Stardew Valleys of the time. Some grumbled about a lack of depth and incentive to keep returning to the dungeon again and…

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Finally some good buyout news: A writer just bought back the game she co-created from a blockchain company so it ‘doesn’t end up being turned into AI slop’

After years of buyouts, consolidation, and layoffs referred to as “efficiency” in the game industry, we deserve a little win for the workers, as a treat. Our small ray of sunshine is this: One novelist and games writer has just bought back the rights to the zombie-themed fitness app that she’s been writing for over…

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After splurging on EA, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is reportedly tightening its pursestrings, due to ‘financial distress’ caused by numerous troubled projects

Over the last few years Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has become a significant presence in the games industry. It’s the owner of Monopoly Go creators Savvy Games Group, has stakes in Nintendo, Embracer Group, Capcom, and Take-Two, among many others,and most recently was involved in the $55 billion joint acquisition of Electronic Arts. But…

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Hero modder who started the Thomas the Tank Engine meme with Skyrim thumbs his nose at ‘legal threats’ and ‘black vans with the Mattel logo’ by modding Thomas into Morrowind: ‘I have issues with authority’

For many years now, the children’s character Thomas the Tank Engine has been something of a modding phenomenon. You can find Thomas in everything from Hogwarts Legacy to Elden Ring, but it all began with a 2013 Skyrim mod that replaced all dragons with the resplendent blue engine, as well as adding sound effects from…

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Horror game maker accuses Valve of ‘censorship’ after its game about nude human ‘Horses’ is rejected by Steam: ‘Lawful works should not be made unreachable by a monopolistic storefront’s opaque decisions’

On December 2, Italian game dev studio Santa Ragione will release Horses, a first-person horror adventure telling a story of “the burden of familial trauma and puritan values, the dynamics of totalitarian power, and the ethics of personal responsibility,” using what the studio calls “grotesque, subversive imagery” of a ranch where nude human beings in…

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