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ORIGINAL STORY 29/11/22: December’s PlayStation Plus Essential games will be Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Biomutant and Divine Knockout. That’s according to reliable source Dealabs, which routinely leaks the list of games in advance. These games will reportedly be coming to PlayStation’s Essential subscription tier on 6th December, where they will remain until 3rd January. Mass Effect Legendary Edition is the recent rerelease of the series’ trilogy, and sees players taking on the role of Commander Shepard....

It’s been three years since Undertale creator Toby Fox released Deltarune: Chapter 1 for free, and it’s been a long wait without more information on when future installments might arrive. That all changed overnight, with this short teaser posted to the official Undertale Twitter account: It’s worth noting, of course, that this release date is for PC and Mac only. Anyone with a save file from the first chapter will be able to continue the story right from where it left off....

Returning in Destiny 2 during Season of the Lost, following on the likes of Braytech Werewolf and Horror Story from previous years, the Jurassic Green is a possible drop during Festival of the Lost. If you’ve been on the lookout for a new pulse rifle, the Jurassic Green is one worth hunting for. This page explains how to get the Jurassic Green and our Jurassic Green god roll recommendation - alongside other rolls which might come in handy....

It’s a hard question to answer, as undoubtedly the team at Guerrilla Games wants their work to be playable at the best possible quality, but the 2017 PS4 release already runs well on PS5 thanks to a patch - and the PC edition from 2020 remains one of the best-looking games on the platform two years later. Creating a remake could be a good way for the developers to work on a PS5-only engine for future titles but that same development time could also be devoted to an entirely new Horizon game, albeit one that won’t result in an influx of cash for the company quite as soon....

On the docket this week, we talk about a story we helped to break - the 60fps upgrade for The Last of Us Part 2 for PlayStation 5, discussing the timing, the tech and the parallels with The Last of Us Remastered on PS4, which was Naughty Dog’s latest transition game moving from one generation to the next. We talk about the remastering of Mass Effect in its new Legendary Edition, plus we cover off the latest ray tracing and DLSS upgrades for a big bunch of games....

Once you find five lost pages as part of the event in the library, you can make a Portal Tome. When used, the Tome has the chance of spawning the Fleshcraft Hydra or Sandstone Golem world bosses. If the difficult bosses do spawn for you, you can find out their locations in Diablo Immortal below, as well as other useful information you should know about activating this world event. On this page:...

When the world outside feels a little scary, there’s nothing better than curling up with something comforting. Patchwork, a two-player tabletop title about making a quilt, is the absolute definition of a comfort board game. Its theme is seeped in an old-timey Americana or Scandinavian feel, so much so that you can almost smell the dust bunnies and fresh baking whenever you open its box. That theme isn’t the only aspect that makes it comforting - the gentle pace and light competitiveness of its gameplay allows it to be a kinder experience....

You’ll be able to play Avatar: Reckoning in three modes: via single-player story missions, PVP or co-op, as you explore “never-before-seen parts” of Avatar’s world. “Meet new Na’vi clans fighting to defend their home, battle powerful RDA troops seeking to exploit the resources of the moon, and encounter spectacular alien creatures,” a press release today boasted. There’s no footage yet, just this singular piece of artwork. Chinese studio Archosaur Games, which made World of Kings and Naval Creed, is on development duties....

You play as someone called Nobody in Nobody Saves the World, which drops the wrestling metroidvania costume of Guacamelee (barring a few familiarly chicken-sized tunnels) for the fantastical cloak of a dungeon-crawling action RPG. It’s not the genre I expected, after battering my way through Guacamelee, but it’s a result of the studio wanting to keep “engaged and creative,” as lead designer Ian Campbell put it, and the result is a game that feels the same: energetic and zippy and full of snap....

Paul “Rushy” Rustchynsky tweeted to say the project will be announced this year and will come from the new Avalanche studio in Liverpool that opened last year. “In 2022 we’ll get to announce the game we’ve been working on for the past year,” he tweeted. “We’re working on another new IP that’s yet to be announced. There are more projects being worked on at Avalanche than most people would expect!...

His concern, presumably, is that Duke Nukem Forever is such a monumental event, such a literally game-changing, epoch-shaking moment, that the pressure to accommodate its many facets in a single review - to boil down 14 years of expectation into a fair critical summary - is too terrible a burden for any writer to bear. Duke Nukem Forever! It’s here! How can things ever be the same again? I certainly felt that pressure....

The exchange followed news that players who pre-order the forthcoming Need for Speed Unbound: Palace Edition will receive three days of early access ahead of release. One particular fan criticised this, which began an argument in which the official account called the fan “milkshake brain” and told them to “cry about it bro or buy regular price idc”. Watch on YouTube Need for Speed Unbound - Risk & Reward Gameplay Trailer The tweets have since been deleted and an apology message released....

Before that, though, there’s a lot more Zelda going on in the way Eastward plays out too. The action is stripped back and there’s a neat crunch to the combat, while the puzzles involve plenty of pushing of crates and bombing of rickety old walls. There’s a certain twist provided by the dual character mechanic - miner John has a trusty frying pan to hand, and brings explosives into the mix, while young Sam has access to an energy blast that can light the way forward while also stunning enemies, with both switching in and out of the lead role at the touch of a button....

So after the hype, the praise and the widespread love, comes an inevitable note of backlash. T’was ever thus with the big games, wasn’t it, but it seems to be particularly inevitable when FromSoftware is involved. Ah, The Discourse. Always the toughest enemy in a Souls game. This time, however, the conversation is not about difficulty, though having seen what awaits in Elden Ring’s later areas I am sure that discussion is in the post....

Many years ago, I spent an evening in the pub with a cohort of fellow game journalists. Among them was the wonderful Graham Smith, who these days is doing audience-development stuff I shan’t pretend to understand at Rock Paper Shotgun, but I believe at the time was editor of PC Gamer. I was stressing about something I had to write: a post script for the Edge review of the PS4 launch title Killzone Shadow Fall....

Zullie the Witch is well known on YouTube for playing around with the Souls games, examining characters and exploring the world design. In their latest videos Zullie unmasks Elden Ring’s NPCs by uncovering their specific values in the character creator (spotted by PC Gamer). The values mean it’s possible to recreate any NPC, without their equipment. For instance, Sorceress Sellen, who the player meets early on to learn sorceries, wears a stone mask....

There are two types of flasks you can use, Flask of Crimson Tears (red) for recovering HP, and Flask of Cerulean Tears (blue) for recovering FP that is used for abilities like weapon skills and summoning ash spirits. There are two types of upgrades to get more from these flasks - Golden Seeds to increase flask uses, and Sacred Tears to increase flask potency. It’s the latter we’ll focus on with this page, looking at Sacred Tear locations - enough to completely upgrade them....

Details on the titles each studio is developing for Epic are limited but previous word from Eyes Out - whose other co-founder is Cory Davis, creative director and designer on Spec Ops: The Line - revealed the team is working on a new single-player cosmic horror game. The trailer celebrating Eyes Out’s partnership with Epic doesn’t reveal much more than that, alas, but does feature a short blast of music from Finck, alongside some suitably woozy visuals....

Last Friday’s ruling was a mixed result for both companies, though Epic lost the majority of the points it had tried to raise. Late on Friday night, Epic boss Tim Sweeney offered his thoughts on Twitter, and said the judgement “isn’t a win for developers or consumers”. In a series of messages, Sweeney said Epic would “fight on”, and later categorised the result as a loss. Epic failed to prove Apple acted as a mobile gaming monopoly, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers decided in last week’s ruling, which meant Apple could continue to run its App Store as it did currently, and continue to take a 30 percent cut of purchases....

Sony’s approach clearly differs from Microsoft - it sees no need to bundle in its £70 games on day one. But does this then create confusion for PlayStation fans down the line? When will new games join the Premium service? Chatting with me about PlayStation Plus - and also Nintendo’s delay to Zelda - are Eurogamer news reporters Ed Nightingale and Victoria Kennedy. Join us to hear what we think this might mean for Wind Waker and Twilight Princess ports, and whether we’ll be subbing to PlayStation Plus Premium…