📰 Aktuelle Gaming News

Does this cozy puzzle game benefit from more powerful hardware? The post Everything You Need To Know About Playing Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker On Switch 2 appeared first on Kotaku.

Mafia: The Old Country: The Kotaku Review

Rote, dated gameplay burdens this entry in the Mafia saga, but its depiction of one man's struggle for a better life resonates The post Mafia: The Old Country: The Kotaku Review appeared first on Kotaku.

Suit Up With All Of Our Marvel Rivals Hero Guides

The hit hero (and villain) shooter is still going strong well into its third season, so why not improve your skills with a variety of the game's characters? The post Suit Up With All Of Our Marvel Rivals Hero Guides appeared first on Kotaku.

Two Of The Worst-Reviewed Games On Switch 2 Come From Nintendo

Drag x Drive and Switch 2 launch game Welcome Tour are both at the very bottom of Metacritic's Switch 2 rankings The post Two Of The Worst-Reviewed Games On Switch 2 Come From Nintendo appeared first on Kotaku.

Battlefield 6 beta offers more control, new maps, and more in weekend 2

In addition to new modes like Rush and maps like Empire State, Battlefield 6 beta players are getting some much-needed quality of life changes

Ryan Reynolds teases Deadpool's MCU future amid Elektra Netflix surge

Ryan Reynolds sparks Deadpool speculation with cryptic Avengers post as 2005's Elektra trends on Netflix, fueling anticipation for the Merc with a Mou

Smoke grenades are the meta for the Battlefield 6 beta

Battlefield 6's time to kill problem might actually just be a lack of smoke grenades, which make a major difference on maps like Liberation Peak

The next Fast & Furious video game might be good?

Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition is coming to Switch, PS5, and Xbox Series X, and it's got Cruis'n Blast DNA.

Weapons' hot dog meme explained: the Easter egg goes deep

There's a surprising connection between Weapons and a sketch from director Zach Cregger's old comedy troupe, The Whitest Kids U'Know.

Bendy 1930s-styled roguelite Into the Unwell looks for laughs within its misery

Into the Unwell is a cooperative hack n' slash roguelite where your characters – cartoonish yet barely upright lost souls, one and all – draw fighting prowess from their vices. My vice, it turns out, is booting sentient pizza slices off cliff edges. It certainly makes me feel better. Read more

Football Manager 2026 revealed, after last year's edition was left in the changing rooms

Whack out your not-at-all-weird-to-own spreadsheet of teenagers with incredible left feet, a Football Manager thing has happened. Namely, Football Manager 2026 has been announced by developers Sports Interactive, with a quick trailer. There's no release date as of yet. If you recall, Football Manager 2025 ended up being delayed and then cancelled, the studio admitting at the time that "the overarching player experience and interface is not where we need it to be." Refunds were issued to folks who'd pre-ordered the touchline-prowling sim, and the devs shifted their focus on to Football Manager 2026. Read more

Krafton claim former Subnautica 2 leads have "resorted to litigation to demand a payday they haven't earned"

Subnautica 2 publishers Krafton have issued their response to the lawsuit filed against them by the game's former lead developers. If you're wondering whether things have cooled off a bit between the two parties now we're in Saul Goodmanville, think again, because the second paragraph of the response sees Krafton accuse the leads of having "resorted to litigation to demand a payday they haven't earned." It's an almost impossible task at this point to sum up the Subnautica 2 saga in less than a War and Peace length novel, but here's my attempt to give you the abbreviated version. Krafton delay the game from a 2025 early access release to 2026 and fire three leads on it: Charlie Cleveland, Max McGuire, and Ted Gill. The company accuse those leads of abandoning their duties and argue the game wasn't ready for early access. The leads disagree and file a lawsuit. A big part of what makes the disagreement so noteworthy is a $250 million bonus to be paid to Unknown Worlds staff if the game hit certain targets by the end of 2025, which Krafton have now said they'll still pay out a fraction of. Annnnddd breathe. Read more

Mafia: The Old Country now has a first-person driving mod that's ideal for capo cruisin', when it's not utterly terrifying

To me, the best part of Mafia: The Old Country is getting really into the idea of pretending you're living in 1900s Sicily and drinking in the gorgeous vistas that the game's world offers up like sips of wine. You can imagine, then, how keen I was to give its new first-person driving mod a go. Having already knife-fought my way through the main story, I thought this sounded like a pleasant change of perspective to take in when motoring around the Valle Dorata, hoovering up the last of those Explore Mode collectibles. I wasn't wrong either, the mod's great. Well, when it's not accidentally showing you the back of Enzo's teeth and eye sockets. Read more

Valve explain why using PayPal for Steam purchases isn't currently an option in a whole bunch of countries

If you've tried to pay for something on Steam via PayPal over the past month and a bit, only to be told you can't, Valve have now offered an explanation as to why, pointing to a bank that previously handled PayPal transactions in certain currencies as having suddenly terminated its support. Folks in affected countries first noticed notifications informing them PayPal was "currently unavailable" in their part of the world around a month ago. There's been a steady stream of Reddit posts from folks who've gotten to checkout and been told this since then. Read more

How payment networks control the definition of acceptable sex in videogames

To speedily summarise a lot of very knotty reporting, last month a bunch of credit card companies and payment processors forced Steam and Itch.io to alter their definitions of acceptable sexual material in PC games. Seemingly faced with the prospect of having all transactions blocked, the two storefronts now require developers to comply with the extremely open-ended adult content policies of their financial partners. This has led to a spate of delistings or outright takedowns across Steam and especially Itch, with projects affected ranging from anime stepdaughter fantasies on Steam to bundles of self-described "games for girlthings with something wrong with them". Read more

The Sunday Papers

Sundays are for admiring for the nine different houseplants you successfully repotted on Saturday, a moment of quiet appreciation that lasts just long enough to forget that you willingly spent real money on bags of what could accurately be called dirt. You paid. For dirt. And now it’s back. Read more

What are we all playing this weekend?

There's a fox in the back garden outside my window right this second, dragging its bum along the grass like Santa's Little Helper. Thankfully I love foxes, and care little for the garden. None of this has anything to do with games, of course. I just thought you'd like to know. Now then: what are we all playing this weekend? We'll start, then you can follow in the comments! Read more

What's on your bookshelf?: Starcraft II writer and Warhammer design veteran Andy Chambers

Hello reader who is also a reader, and welcome back to Booked For The Week - our regular Sunday chat with a selection of cool industry folks about books! I'm obviously using regular in the metafictional sense here but my intentions are pure, I promise. Read more

"Legend In The Mist" Is What You'd Get If Studio Ghibli Made An RPG

Breathtaking stuff.

Battlefield 6 Is The Shooter We Haven't Seen For A Long Time

A Battlefield game worthy of following in the footsteps of Battlefield 3.

Marvel's Spider-Man Movie Cycle: Hype Overshadows Releases

Spider-Man movie projects are stuck in a cycle of hype, with hype overshadowing releases. Here's how the Spider-Verse has led to oversaturation.

Over 10 Years Later, Brand New Day Is Finally Giving Us A Real Spider-Man Film

We’re finally back to the friendly neighbourhood.

The Tutorial Is Way Too Long In Mafia: The Old Country

If you've played just about any action game in the last twenty years, you can play Mafia.

Feature: "It Should Be The Creators On The Packaging, Not The Publishing Label"

Kevin Toms talks 'Football Star Manager'. While Championship Manager and Football Manager might be considered the giants of the soccer management genre, Kevin Toms deserves his place in history for creating the original Football Manager franchise all the way back in 1982. The first title effectively created the entire genre, and is fondly remembered by many who owned home computer in the '80s. Toms revived the series for smartphones as Football Star* Manager in 2016, and launched a Kickstater in 2022 to fund the development of a new title. Read the full article on timeextension.com

Feature: "It Started To Get Really Uncomfortable" - Before GTA & Def Jam Fight For NY, Ice-T Starred In This Supernatural Action RPG

"Y’all should make a video game about drug dealers and pimps". Sanity: Aiken's Artifact isn't a title that typically comes up in conversation all that much today. But, regardless, I'd argue it's one of Monolith Production's more fascinating projects. Released in the year 2000 for Windows PCs, the 3D top-down action RPG was part of a two-game deal with Fox Interactive, which also included The Operative: No One Lives Forever (the Washington studio's 1960s-themed first-person shooter), and was notable for a few different reasons. Not only did it feature a fairly innovative Magic the Gathering-inspired mechanic that saw players collecting special spell-like cards, called "Talents", to unlock new elemental abilities, but it also included the video game debut of the rapper/musician/actor Ice T, who starred as Nathaniel Cain, a rough around the edges paranormal agent tasked with stopping a world-ending conspiracy. Read the full article on timeextension.com

Feature: The Story Of Jet Set Radio's Unexpected Journey From Dreamcast To Game Boy Advance

"We ended up hacking the Dreamcast disc, because we couldn't get any actual assets.". If you were to ask a group of people to put together a list of games that defined the Sega Dreamcast, it’s almost certain that Jet Set Radio would make the cut. The stylish roller-blading game, developed by the Sega subsidiary Smilebit, was one of the console’s most original titles, presenting the player with an exciting and original premise about graffiti-spraying street gangs battling for turf in a futuristic version of Tokyo, wrapped up in a groundbreaking cel-shaded visual style, and accompanied by an eclectic soundtrack comprised of everything from rock, hip hop, funk, jazz, and dance. Read the full article on timeextension.com

The Making Of: Chibi-Robo - How Miyamoto Saved A Cult Hit From The Scrapheap

We speak to director Kenichi Nishi. We're republishing this feature to celebrate Chibi-Robo's impending arrival on Nintendo Switch Online, which originally went live in 2022. Even the most enthusiastic Nintendo fan could be forgiven for overlooking Chibi-Robo. Not just because he’s a mere four inches tall, but because his GameCube exclusive debut arrived so late in the west that most of the console’s owners had either moved on or were saving up for a Wii. With a short print run and barely any marketing campaign to speak of, its release went by almost unnoticed. But those who did play Chibi-Robo remember it fondly as one of Nintendo’s great hidden treasures – though it almost wasn’t a Nintendo release at all… Read the full article on timeextension.com

The Making Of: Earthion - "Working On It Again Reminded Me Just How Incredible The Mega Drive Really Is"

"The Mega Drive is my favourite console of all time". The Mega Drive / Genesis certainly hasn't been short of new software recently, which is remarkable for the console that saw its debut all the way back in 1988. However, few modern projects for Sega's 16-bit system have generated the frenzied level of interest that Earthion has, and a lot of that is down to the person behind it. Yuzo Koshiro is a name that will need no introduction to console players who grew up in the glory days of the SNES and Mega Drive console war. He gained international fame thanks to his amazing soundtracks for titles such as ActRaiser, Revenge of Shinobi and Streets of Rage and has written music for countless games since then, including Etrian Odyssey, Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin and Sol Cresta. He also runs the small Japanese studio Ancient, which he established in 1990 along with his mother and sister. Read the full article on timeextension.com

GenCon 2025

Unwinnable

Once again, Stu journeys to the biggest tabletop gaming convention in the US. The post GenCon 2025 appeared first on Unwinnable.

Take My Hand

Unwinnable

Peak begins with a plane crash. This is approximately how things feel in general. The post Take My Hand appeared first on Unwinnable.

Then They Came for the Porn

Unwinnable

My first exposure to pornography was smut. And it made me a better person. The post Then They Came for the Porn appeared first on Unwinnable.

Metaphor: ReFantazio is Painfully CisHet and We Need to Talk About It

Far and wide, Metaphor: ReFantazio is celebrated as the latest, and potentially greatest, role-playing game

Press X To Die – How Playable Deaths Shatter the Illusion of Choice

Video games, just like any art form, are too vast to put in one box.

Slay the Princess and the Multiversal Language of Love

“You’re on a path in the woods. And at the end of that path is

Solace State and the Return of Bio-awareness in Cyberpunk

“The Sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”

The Shortness of Horror Game Demos Makes Them All the Sweeter