Culture

Board Game Designer Eric Lang Suspended From Twitter [Update]

Eric Lang, one of the most famous board game designers on the planet, has been suspended from Twitter after what he says was a targeted campaign by a “scumbag serial harasser”. Lang, designer of stuff like Blood Rage and the Star Wars and Game of Thrones card games, has worked with everyone from Fantasy Flight…

Activision Is Quietly Reversing Unfair Call Of Duty Bans

A recent wave of bans of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone accounts swept up a number of players who said they were perfectly innocent. Now, Activision seems to be quietly cleaning up the mess. Cheating has been rampant in Modern Warfare since the launch of the free-to-play Warzone battle royale, and its developer…

When Nintendo Struggles To Manage Expectations

Earlier this evening, while promoting an upcoming gameplay session for the new Paper Mario on Treehouse Live, Nintendo dropped a teaser for “a first reveal and gameplay for a title in a franchise new to developer WayForward”. And people lost their God damn minds. WayForward have a loooong history of making platformers across all kinds…

Over 50 Sexual Misconduct Allegations Have The Super Smash Bros. Community In Turmoil

The competitive community for Nintendo’s popular Super Smash Bros. series has recently been rocked by an overwhelming amount of sexual misconduct allegations. An endless stream of victims—many speaking out against highly-skilled, popular, or otherwise powerful individuals—has come forward to expose the dark underbelly of a scene built around playing an ostensible children’s game. This has…

The Last Of Us 2‘s Scariest Scene Has A Gameplay Problem

Between the screaming fungus zombies and the overtones of mindless militarism, The Last of Us Part 2 is basically one big, playable nightmare. But the scariest moment of the game comes at the midway point. At the end of Abby’s “Seattle Day 2” chapter, you end up at the Washington Liberation Front’s hospital base. Your…

Sony Invests $250m In Epic Games For ‘Further Collaboration’

Sony has purchased a $250 million minority stake in Epic Games, makers of Unreal Engine and Fortnite, according to a joint announcement by both companies today. $250 million isn’t a huge amount relative to Epic Games’ overall value, which a recent report by Bloomberg estimated at over $16 billion, but it’s a lot for one…

Just-Revealed Superhot Sequel Is Free For Owners Of The Original

What started out as free downloadable content for time-manipulation action game Superhot has blossomed into Superhot: Mind Control Delete, a new standalone game four times as large as the original. It’s launching on July 16 for PC, PlayStation 4, and PC, and owners of the first game get this new one for free. The Superhot…

Sony Shakes Things Up, Adds Big White Rectangle To PS5 Boxes

After months of rumors, pleading, and undercover operatives gone missing, Sony’s finally revealed the final look of PlayStation 5 retail game cases. Please contain your excitement. Also, I hope you like white rectangles. The new case design was shown off in a small post on the Official PlayStation Blog. The new case design is very…

I Love Cracking Safes In The Last Of Us Part 2

The Last of Us Part 2 has 14 locked safes scattered throughout its world. In contrast to the rest of the game, where resources are limited and ammo is scarce, these safes are loaded with supplies. In a game where visceral fun isin short supply, cracking these safes is a pleasurable experience that forces you…

Valorant‘s First ‘Ultra’ Skin Set Is A $100 Investment

If you looked me square in the eyes and said that you didn’t love the idea of a dragon-shaped gun with funny little arms—a tiny, handheld battle buddy that spits bullets and belches flame—I’d call you a damn liar. That’s the kind of admirably goofy universal appeal resting in the ammo chambers of Valorant’s first…

How’s It Going?: Celery Edition

It’s Thursday, which is almost Friday. Welcome back to our daily open thread. I got a giant head of celery in my CSA this week. Celery pisses me off—I don’t know how anyone gets excited about what is essentially stringy water. This particular celery extra pisses me off because it’s so big it barely fits…

Tetris Is Getting A Competitive Game Show On Smartphones

Thirty six years after it was invented, Tetris is finally getting the game show treatment, complete with cash prizes and a wry host. Called Tetris Primetime, the game show mode announced earlier today by Tetris mobile makers N3TWORK has you compete every night starting around 7:30 p.m. for a chance to win actual money. The…

Crash Bandicoot Gets A New Mobile Runner, Courtesy Of King

Doesn’t Crash Bandicoot seem like a great candidate for a mobile runner? Activision thought so, so they tapped Candy Crush makers King to put one together. It’s not called Candy Crash Saga, though. It’s Crash Bandicoot: On The Run, coming soon to iOS and Android. Crash Bandicoot: On The Run is a free-to-play runner. What…

Uluwatu Temple. Bali. By Aristidis Chalkidis. JPGs is a photo peek into wherever gamers might find interesting. If you’re a photographer and have images you want to share, drop us a line!

Burnout

Tomek Pietrzyk is an artist based in Poland. You can see more of Tomek’s stuff at his ArtStation page

What One Artist’s Work On The Last Of Us Part 2 Looked Like

We took a big look at the art behind The Last Of Us Part 2 last week, but given the way Fine Art tends to be a feature that deals in scale and volume, I thought it might also be cool to take a deeper dive into the game and find out what a single…

“OK” Hand Gesture Removed From Call Of Duty

The “OK” hand gesture, added to both Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Warzone earlier this year, has been removed from the games, presumably because of its growing association with white supremacists While neither Activision nor developers Infinity Ward have yet to comment on the removal, as Eurogamer report it’s been missing…

Shantae‘s Very Rare, Very Expensive Game Boy Color Game Is Getting A Re-Release

The lowest price on eBay for a legitimate used copy of 2002 Game Boy Color platformer Shantae is around $530. That’s just the cart. Open with box and manual? Nearly $4,000. Sealed and graded? $10,000. As long as the new physical release Limited Run Games announced this afternoon is in the low three figures, I’ll…

Fortnite YouTubers Buy Mansion, Decorate It Like Sad Teenagers

Behold the One Percent Fortnite house, a mansion some gaming YouTubers bought and proceeded to turn into a vaguely fun-looking giant home office. It’s both a reminder that even when you’ve “made it” as an influencer the grind never stops, and also that most people have no idea how to decorate a home like a…

Metal Gear Solid V Is Leaving Xbox Game Pass Next Week

Tomorrow, Fallout 76 and the one-of-a-kind action-RPG CrossCode are coming to Xbox Game Pass. But as life giveth, life taketh. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain will soon depart Microsoft’s games-on-demand service. Metal Gear Solid V is a massive game—so massive, in fact, that you probably won’t be able to finish it before it…