Ethan Gach

Former Sony Exec Calls For Shorter Games That Are Cheaper To Make

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Most video games are too long. This common sentiment gets batted around every few months when a new blockbuster launches with dozens of hours of “content.” Shawn Layden, former chairman of Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios, seems to agree. “I would welcome the return of the 12-15…

Multiple Women Accuse Games Writer Chris Avellone Of Sexual Misconduct (Update: Two Have Retracted Their Allegations)

The Fallout: New Vegas writer later denied the allegations and sued for libel

Facebook Buys Creators Of The Order: 1886

Ready At Dawn, the makers of The Order: 1886 and more recently Lone Echo, is now part of Facebook, where the studio will work on virtual reality games for the Oculus VR platform, the social media company announced today. “As part of the Oculus Studios team, Ready At Dawn will continue creating memorable, immersive, and…

Pokémon Sword And Shield’s DLC Brings Back Exquisitely Rude Rivals

Meet Klara and Avery, the stars of Pokémon Sword and Shield’s new Isle of Armor DLC. They’re your rivals in the expansion. They absolutely hate your guts, and it’s wonderful. If you’re playing Sword you’ll get Klara, a former front woman for a punk band trying to chase clout by becoming a gym leader. If…

Blizzard Bans Thousands Of World Of Warcraft Classic Accounts For Botting

Blizzard announced yesterday that it’s pulled the plug on over 74,000 World of Warcraft player accounts involved in cheating. “The majority of these were found to be using gameplay automation tools, typically to farm resources or kill enemies much more efficiently than legitimate players can,” the publisher wrote in an announcement over on the game’s…

EA says it will ratchet up efforts to crack down on harassment and toxic behavior in its game. This includes making “additional resources and tools” available to its moderation and reporting systems. The publisher says in the past few weeks over 3,500 player-made, in-game assets were removed for being inappropriate and hurtful.

I’m Loving Pokémon Sword And Shield’s First Expansion So Far

Just a few hours in, I’m already enjoying Pokémon Sword and Shield’s Isle of Armor DLC more than the base game. While much smaller in size, it feels more free flowing and open ended. There’s a lot to explore, and plenty more Pokémon to catch, including a bunch of my favorites that didn’t make the…

Pokémon Sword And Shield’s New DLC Finally Lets Pokémon Follow You Around

Pokémon Sword and Shield’s Isle of Armor DLC adds a big new area to explore and a bunch more Pokémon to discover, but by far one of the coolest things in it is a new feature that lets you hang out with your favorite Pokémon out in the wild. Once you hit a certain point…

Pokémon Sword and Shield’s new Isle of Armor DLC is out today, but you can only access it from a certain location. You need to first head to the Wedgehurst Station and then show the man next to the gate your Armor pass. And make sure you already caught the Slowpoke.

Destiny 2 Has Players Grinding For Guns They Already Have, And It Sucks

I’ve been having a surprisingly good time a week into playing Destiny 2’s latest season. But for all it does well, it’s also exposed some very annoying flaws in the new gear sunsetting system. While intended to help streamline and focus the loot grind, sunsetting’s also added a whole new level of mind-numbing complexity. In…

PAX West Is The Latest Gaming Event To Go Online Due To Covid-19

This year’s PAX West and PAX Australia gaming conventions are cancelled and will be replaced by PAX Online, a series of live-streamed shows, panel discussions, and video game demos taking place from September 12-20, the show’s organizers announced today. PAX conventions are typically a chance for people to meet up in person, checkout demos for…

Madden NFL 21 Will Be The First In The Series On Steam

Madden NFL 21 now has a Steam page with a release date of August 28, making it the first game in the series to come to Valve’s digital storefront. The listing was spotted earlier today, complete with a trailer, screenshots, and a release date for the latest entry in the long-running sports series. EA had…

Some Of The People During Yesterday’s PS5 Event Were CGI And You Can’t Convince Me Otherwise

While Sony’s PS5 reveal event yesterday was pre-recorded rather than live, it still showed plenty of faces talking about video games. Some people would tell you that all of these faces—which all had the same silky sheen and washed out glow despite recording from seperate rooms—belonged to real people standing in front of real cameras.…

Insomniac Says Spider-Man Miles Morales Is A Standalone Game

Contrary to recent remarks by one of Sony’s executives calling it an expansion, Insomniac Games says Spider-Man Miles Morales is a new standalone game. “Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is the next adventure in the Marvel’s Spider-Man universe,” the studio clarified on Twitter today. “We will reveal more about this standalone game at a future date.”…

Paper Mario: The Origami King‘s Boss Battles Are Against Office Supplies

Prepare to face-off against roll of tape and other menacing Office Space props when Paper Mario: The Origami King comes out next month. We don’t know much about the latest Paper Mario game after Nintendo revealed out of the blue last month, but thanks to a new trailer we know a little bit more, including…

Demon’s Souls Is Being Remade On PS5

Demon’s Souls is getting what looks like a full remake by Bluepoint Games on PS5. The game was introduced by Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida as something “something very near and dear to me.” It’s apparently being rebuilt “from the ground up” and getting a new “Fractured Mode.” Sony also confirmed players will have the option of…

LittleBigPlanet‘s Sackboy Now Has A PS5 Platformer

PS5 is getting a new LittleBigPlanet spin-off called Sackboy: A Big Adventure. The game is being developed by Sumo Digital and looks like it will feature the Sony mascot hopping around colorful 3D environments in either single-player or with a coop partner. There are changing perspectives and lots of arcadey setpieces. Here’s the trailer: Sony didn’t…

Spider-Man‘s New PS5 Game Stars Miles Morales (Update: It’s An Expansion)

Miles Morales is finally getting his own Spider-Man game, Sony revealed during its PS5 event today. It’s called Spider-Man Miles Morales and is headed to PS5 sometime this holiday season. Developed by Insomniac, the game looks like it will pick up after the events of 2018’s Spider-Man with Morales taking over web-crawling and super-villain fighting…

Players Are Using Destiny 2’s New Grenade Launcher To One-Shot Raid Bosses

Behold Sanctified Mind, the big boss from last year’s Garden of Salvation Raid, instantly melting before the power of Destiny 2‘s new Witherhoard grenade launcher. One of the best ways to find out how a new Destiny 2 gun stacks up against all the others is to test it out on the game’s hardest bosses,…

Metal: Hellsinger Is A Rhythm Shooter Where You Slay Demons To A Heavy Metal Beat

In some ways Metal: Hellsinger looks like a traditional first-person shooter. At first I try to play it like one, strafing left to right while lining up my shots and keeping an eye out for health packs. It’s not until I start to play it like Guitar Hero with a shotgun that things begin to…