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CultureE3 Fan Registration Opens Up Next Week
Following a year off as a result of the covid-19 pandemic, E3 will return next month as an all-digital event. It’s free—despite what some earlier reports suggested—but you’ll still have to register if you want access to what passes as a show floor at an online event without an actual show floor. Registration will kick…
By Ari Notis -
CultureFinal Fantasy XIV‘s Getting Electric Guitars Two Ways
In a move that makes complete sense given the amount of electric guitar that shows up in the online RPG’s soundtrack, Square Enix has partnered with Fender to create an official Final Fantasy XIV Stratocaster, both as a physical instrument you can purchase, and a virtual one playable in game. In other news, I am…
By Mike Fahey -
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CultureLatest Outriders Bug Is Killing Players Instantly
To follow Outriders’ post-launch journey is to watch an Olympic game of whack-a-mole. Developer People Can Fly will stamp out one issue, only for another to pop right up. The latest: Some players are apparently getting instantly killed by attacks that otherwise would not cause instantaneous death. “We are aware of the issue whereby damage…
By Ari Notis -
CultureOne Month Later, Outriders Still Can’t Catch A Break
Baffling nerfs. Connection issues. Inventory wipes. Since Outriders launched a month ago, the game has been plagued by issues. For every step forward, the loot-shooter seemingly takes two back. Today’s update, the first significant one in several weeks, is no exception. Amajor patch released this morning is billed as the “biggest” one yet, and purports…
By Ari Notis -
CultureKotaku Game DiaryMy New Favorite Stormblood Character Is A Random Pirate
In a development shocking to absolutely no one, Stormblood is fucking awesome. I started Final Fantasy XIV’s second expansion mere days ago, and it’s already made the leap from, “this is not Heavensward. I want Heavensward back,” to, “Ok, give me more of this.” I was prepared for Stormblood to underwhelm me. In the FF14…
By Ash Parrish -
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CultureOdds and Ends8-Bit Theater Avoids Final Fantasy Copyrights With 20th Anniversary Script Book
From 2001 to 2009, writer Brian Clevinger of Atomic Robo fame produced a hilarious webcomic called 8-Bit Theater, which follows the misadventures of a dysfunctional adventuring party. Unfortunately, that adventuring party is comprised of Final Fantasy game sprites, so Clevinger can’t reprint them without getting sued to hell by Square Enix. That is unless he…
By Mike Fahey -
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Tips & GuidesLet’s Hear It For ‘Death Chains,’ The Best Weapon Mod In Outriders
Like any loot-shooter, Outriders is based on chance. But you can sidestep luck by leaning on the game’s intricate network of gear mods, many of which can significantly change the way your guns and armor behave. Most are good, but none compare to Death Chains, a tier-two weapon mod that—and this is putting it lightly—fucks…
By Ari Notis -
CultureIO Interactive Opens Third Studio, Working On Third Game Alongside Hitman And 007
Danish developer IO Interactive announced today that it has opened a third studio in Barcelona, Spain to work alongside its existing locations in Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmö, Sweden. “All three of the IO Interactive studios are treated as Elite studios and will each make a significant impact to ongoing development and publishing efforts across all…
By Ian Walker -
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OpinionOutriders Could Really Use A Self-Revive
Outriders is a game about balance, but it’s not always finely balanced. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the game’s revive mechanic, which is seriously biased toward players of the game’s cooperative mode. If you’ve played Outriders by yourself, you’ve no doubt encountered the absent revive. You’re doing your thing (turning baddies into bloody…
By Ari Notis -
OpinionImpressionsFinal Fantasy XIV Runs Like A Dream On The PS5
If I weren’t holding a DualSense controller while playing the PlayStation 5 beta of Final Fantasy XIV I would think it was running on my gaming PC. As much as I love my massively multiplayer online role-playing games, I hate playing them on game consoles. They always look muddy and the frame rates are always…
By Mike Fahey -
CultureOdds and EndsEven Outriders Has Flat-Earthers
Outriders is set on an exoplanet roughly a dozen light years away from Earth, so it’s no surprise the game features some anomalies, like electromagnetic hurricanes and tank-sized, fire-spitting arachnids. But perhaps the strangest entity in People Can Fly’s loot-shooter is also a familiar one: human beings who believe the planet is flat. Giovanni “Hailstorm”…
By Ari Notis -
CultureOutriders Can’t Catch A Break
It’s been a long week-and-a-half for the loot-shooter Outriders, a game rocked by eleven days of missing functionality, server issues, and player uproar. The latest wave of problems started Friday afternoon when developer People Can Fly pushed out a patch for PC and PlayStation consoles, with an Xbox version to follow at a later, unspecified…
By Ari Notis -
CultureOdds and EndsMore Donald Ducks In Kingdom Hearts, Please
With the arrival of the Kingdom Hearts series on PC last week, enterprising players can now tinker with the games in ways that were either too difficult or downright impossible to achieve on consoles. Naturally, this has resulted in a mod that lets folks spawn (among other things) hundreds of Donald Ducks “You thought having…
By Ian Walker -
CultureNeo: The World Ends With You Returns To Shibuya July 27
It took nearly 14 years, but the long-awaited sequel to 2007 action RPG The World Ends With You is right around the corner. Neo: The World Ends With You launches for PlayStation 4 and Switch on July 27, setting a new cast of characters, as well as some familiar faces, loose on the 3D streets…
By Mike Fahey