League of Legends’ ‘classic’ mode has a release date, and it isn’t just an old version of the game—players will vote on new patches, Old School RuneScape-style

What’s old is new in League of Legends Classic, which was teased a couple of weeks ago in the wake of leak after leak. The full reveal came during yesterday’s MSI Finals, where the mode debuted in a showmatch starring pros like Doublelift and Cpt Jack. It’s a Frankenstein’s monster of different eras with a…

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Black Flag Resynced certainly scratches my nostalgia itch, but do you know what else does? Assassin’s Creed Black Flag

I’ve sunk legendary galleons, sailed across the Caribbean procuring plunder, and I’ve experienced Edward Kenway’s redemption arc from start to finish. But upon rolling credits on Ubisoft’s nostalgia-fuelled remake, I came to a realisation: almost everything good in Black Flag Resynced exists in the original game. Play This Right Now Welcome to Play This Right…

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Helldivers 2 dev cracks down on ‘suspicious super credit activity’, though it would help if earning premium currency wasn’t so boring to begin with

I’d never considered the prospect that some people might cheat at playing Helldivers 2. But I suppose it’s inevitable given some people will find ways to cheat at anything. In this case, rogue Helldivers have found ways to game super credits—the premium currency used to buy Warbonds—to earn them at impossible rates, and it’s become…

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Tempest Rising’s elusive third faction will get its own singleplayer campaign as a paid expansion, and you can play the demo right now

When the excellent Command & Conquer successor Tempest Rising released last year, it featured three factions battling for supremacy across a war-torn future Earth. But only two of those factions—the GDF and the Tempest Dynasty—were playable with their own singleplayer campaigns. The third faction, the mysterious Veti, were wholly computer controlled. Developer Slipgate Ironworks has…

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Valve has rewired Counter-Strike 2’s bomb to make it more spectacular, but potentially less deadly

have huge ramifications. There aren’t many games where the addition of volumetric smoke grenades would be a headline feature. But in CS2’s hyper tense battles, true 3D smoke cover has game changing consequences. Now, with the advent of Season 5, Valve has made another tiny-yet-huge change. Put simply, it’s changed how the bomb works, giving…

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Obsidian game director is sick of hearing bad takes about the state of the studio: ‘The through line from KotOR2 to our current games is pretty clear’

Earlier this month, Microsoft announced “the most significant restructure in Xbox history”, which is what you call it when you lay off thousands of people and cut four game studios loose. Double Fine and Compulsion Games returned to their indie roots; Ninja Theory and Undead Labs were sold off. While it seemed at first like…

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I’ve found my perfect summer game: A stomach-churning horror story about Czech train conductors built over a bafflingly deep simulation of a fictional subway

I’ve developed a bit of a reputation among my coworkers for loving niche, lo-fi indie games that make you feel bad and gross and weird on the inside. I’m flattered to stand out in such a way, but I also don’t ever want to be typecast. Anyway, Brno Transit is a game about being trapped…

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Steam has raked in an estimated $11.1 billion gross revenue so far this year, says market analyst—its ‘biggest-ever six months’

It’s easy to feel like the videogame industry is an endless tornado of shattered dreams and hellfire, and that’s because it is. But it also brings in a lot of money, and our beloved PC gaming space in particular is growing faster than both mobile and console markets. Thursday, a report from Alinea Analytics said…

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College Football 27 to remove microtransactions after player backlash, though EA maintains they were only added to ‘give players more choice’

The latest EA Sports College Football game has finally arrived, which is tantalizing news if you were excited for the series’ hotly anticipated comeback a couple years ago. Less tantalizing is the game’s reception, which so far has been marred by widespread backlash to its egregious microtransactions. Complaining works: in a post on X yesterday,…

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