The Fridge

Hollow Knight’s creators didn’t want to be constrained by the ‘metroidvania’ label, but they accidentally set a standard that every game since—even Silksong—has to reckon with

In a 2017 interview about the making of Hollow Knight’s map, designer William Pellen told me that Team Cherry “shied away completely” from describing the game as a metroidvania. Artist Ari Gibson added that they didn’t want to “let a genre dictate” the decisions they made about Hollow Knight’s design while they were making it….

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The vibes are bad because ‘vibe hacking’ is real: AI company Anthropic says agentic AI has been ‘weaponized’ and is now being used to do major international crime

AI company Anthropic says it recently disrupted “a sophisticated cybercriminal operation” that relied heavily upon its Claude code in a “vibe hacking” scheme targeting at least 17 separate organizations, including government agencies. “The actor used AI to what we believe is an unprecedented degree,” Anthropic wrote (via the BBC). “Claude Code was used to automate…

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Path of Exile 2 players prepare for ‘the coming war’ between pets as the devs add an infamous singing goblin troupe and a bird made to kill them

Most Path of Exile players agree that premium cosmetics should carry over between the two games, but they also agree that adding the annoying goblin troupe pet will be a blight on every town and player hideout as soon as today’s update goes live. But just when everyone was dreading having to hear the little…

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Elijah Wood reveals his favorite videogames and the chill indies he’s playing now on Steam Deck

Celebrities: they’re just like us! Except they’re not, usually, because they possess wealth and power and success beyond our mortal imaginings. Occasionally, though, we get to feel like we’ve got a little something in common with movie stars—like when we find out what kind of games they’re into. Take former-Frodo Elijah Wood, for example, who…

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Under Microsoft, Double Fine has made its weirdest game yet—and this is only the beginning: ‘We can take more risks.’

During a behind-closed-doors look at Double Fine’s latest game Keeper, I’m struck that this is probably the studio’s strangest game yet. With a back catalogue that includes everything from psychic summer camps to living Russian dolls, that’s really saying something. It stars a living lighthouse—tottering about on tree root legs—who travels through a post-apocalyptic world…

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Steam users in the UK who want ‘mature game content’ must now register a credit card on their accounts to prove they’re old enough

Steam users in the UK who want to access “mature content games” or related community hubs are now required to have a valid credit card associated with their account. The new requirement was implemented to ensure Valve’s compliance with the country’s Online Safety Act, which mandates age checks in order to gain access to adult-oriented…

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