In a recent appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, prolific actor J.K. Simmons dove into his relationship with the games he’s acted in. While not much of a gamer himself, the script for Portal 2 (where Simmons voiced Aperture founder Cave Johnson) seems to have left its mark on the actor. “Tom Britney from…
Like it or loathe it—and for the record, I am firmly in the latter camp–generative AI has continued to seep into every aspect of game development. What felt like the odd shovelware AI thumbnail here or generated texture there has transformed into “developers” parading around entirely vibe-coded videogames as if it’s something to be celebrated,…
Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, a game with a title that feels like it ought to have a colon or an em dash somewhere in there, is finally here and it’s selling like whatever the nautical equivalent of hotcakes is. Hardtack, I guess. Not only did it sell 2 million copies in a single day,…
A vulnerability in Meccha Chameleon, which has already been patched, allowed multiple Steam Workshop maps to distribute malware to players. As a post on Medium from user Feint discussed (via Kotaku), “A couple of my friends reported seeing a command prompt window briefly appear while Steam was downloading a custom workshop map … What I…
Disk Cleanup (Image credit: Future) Welcome to Disk Cleanup, our regular weekend feature delving into the PCs of PC gaming luminaries. Come back every weekend to read a new interview, digging into the important questions, like “How tidy is your desktop?” and “What game will you never uninstall?” Raphaël Colantonio became a PC gamer for…
I still remember the long ritual of installing World of Warcraft to my parents’ laptop as a young’un, mystified by the sheer number of discs it took to squeeze the game onto a hard drive. The more discs a game took to install, the better it must be, I figured—child me would be aghast at…
It’s almost here. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 – Switch 2 Edition is out next week, and store listings for the standalone game and upgrade are now live on the Nintendo eShop. According to Nintendo, this version of the game has an estimated file size of 45.8 GB. This size is subject to change before and after…
If you feel like you don’t read enough books—which is entirely possible with the many other distractions clamouring for our collective attention—there are various ways to boost your literary consumption. Pick a book that really excites you, rather than something you feel you should read. Choose something short that you’re less likely to get bogged…
One aspect of Helldivers 2 I’ve repeatedly lamented is how many of its new toys are locked away inside Warbonds, with too few new weapons, equipment and stratagems unlockable through regular play. Hence, it’s worth giving Arrowhead credit when they do let you unlock a new toy through spending requisition slips and nothing else. Such…
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 was not the series’ finest hour, but one aspect of the sequel that has gone down well with players is its experiments with matchmaking. For years, players have complained about the effects of skill-based matchmaking (SBMM), which is intended to level the playing field by sorting players into groups…