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Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons - the first game to be directed by Josef Fares, who has, of course, gone on to make A Way Out and last year’s acclaimed It Takes Two - tells the darkly magical story of two siblings on a quest to find a cure for their father’s mysterious affliction. It’s a truly special experience (one of my personal favourites, in fact, and a game I’ll happily revisit once a year), perfectly capturing the sense of wonder and terror inherent in the very best fairy tales....

In an interview with MinnMax, Avalanche Studios co-founder Christofer Sundberg said that the developer was approached by Disney and Marvel in 2012 and began work on the game that year. However, things quickly went awry. According to Sundberg, Disney had shortened the development time by one year, which increased the development budget since the studio would need to hire 70-80 people to finish the game in time. Those extra staff members would have become an additional liability, since the studio would have to quickly find a new project to work on following the completion of Iron Man....

“Crimesight pits players against one another as one assumes the role of the ‘villain’, who carries out a murder, and another becomes the ’target’, the villain’s future victim,” Konami explains. “The player on the Moriarty side must fulfil objectives to complete their crime, whilst the players on the Sherlock side must prevent it from happening. Over the course of a match, the villain and the target will slowly come to light....

Yes, I am talking about that damn fridge on the Milano that just will not stay shut. No matter how many times you get Star-Lord to close the door, it will always reopen again (and again and again and again). But it turns out I am not alone in my quest to get that door closed (we need to save energy here people). In fact, that little seemingly benign door has been closed a grand total of 18....

Lego Builder’s Journey originally launched as an Apple Arcade release toward the end of 2019, before launching for PC, Switch and Xbox in 2021. It is, conceptually, a fairly simple thing, tasking players with building a path across a selection of beautifully presented Lego dioramas so their little Lego pal can push onward. Eurogamer’s Christian Donlan was quite taken with Lego Builder’s Journey’s breezy, tactile charms at the time, and spoke highly of its “meditative, contemplative tapping and twisting and reworking and rethinking” in his write up....

This January, Lego and Nintendo will launch a host of new character and expansion sets. Before we go into more detail about each, you can enjoy the new trailer for these upcoming releases below. Now to the details. First of all, Mario fans will be able to get their hands on Series 6 of the collectible Mario Character Packs. These will set you back £4.99 each, with a total of eight characters to collect - Birdo, a Green Toad, an Ice Bro, a Bramball, two Cat Goombas in one pack, a Blooper (with three baby Bloopers), a Sumo Bro and a Spike....

Tell Me Why, if you’re unfamiliar, tells the story of twins Tyler and Alyson as they reunite, after several years apart, to sell their childhood home in the picturesque Alaskan town of Delos Crossing - a task that ultimately forces them to confront their traumatic past. What follows is a deft blend of supernatural mystery thriller and earnest, character-driven homecoming drama - there’s real beauty and warmth in the relationship between its twin protagonists - that’s arguably Dontnod’s most assured, consistently enjoyable outing yet, even if its perhaps not quite as devastatingly memorable as its Life is Strange forebears....

Hollywood production company Lionsgate has now taken up the project’s reigns, Deadline reported, following word earlier this year that Sonic the Hedgehog movie maker dj2 Entertainment was also involved. More promising still is the news that Derek Kolstad, creator and lead writer of the hugely-lucrative John Wick franchise, remains attached, and will reportedly develop its script and act as a producer. “When Dmitri [Johnson, dj2 Entertainment’S Sonic producer] first mentioned the idea of cracking a Streets of Rage movie, I was so immediately freaking in,” Kolstad said....

A heads up on the details though: you will have to make an account on the Bandai Namco online store, which was a little trickier for us than it seemed. The site crashed a couple of times (likely high traffic), and the option to register our account in the UK wasn’t an option, with others reporting that they have the same error on PCs, but not on mobiles. Claim Little Nightmares for Free (Steam)...

First released in 1994 and remastered using the same, sprites-meets-polygons visual style as Octopath Traveller, Live A Live is essentially Sidequest: The Game - as I probably should have realised before I compared it to a level-select cheat in Sonic. It’s a collection of loosely interwoven, 1-3 hour tales set in different historical and/or fantasy periods, each its own colourful interpretation of what an old-school Squaresoft role-playing game can be....

Now, a Sega fan has found Luigi somewhere even more unexpected - in a previously-unseen development build of Dreamcast racer Sega GT. Luigi can be seen holding a stopwatch and chequered flag in one of the game’s levels, apparently as a joke temporarily put in by developers before the game was finalised and shipped to the public. The eye-opening find was announced on Twitter by CombyLaurent1, who talked to Kotaku about the discovery....

The confirmation came over the weekend from studio general manager Roman Hladík, in an interview celebrating 20 years of the series. It was reported back in May this year that a fresh Mafia game was indeed in development at Hangar 13, and that it would apparently be set before the existing Mafia trilogy. This would place the game back in the prohibition era of the original - or perhaps earlier....

She told me this during Episode 2 of The New Eurogamer podcast, which was made available to everyone today. “I have been working on the next Outer Loop game,” she said during our talk. “I can’t really say a lot about it. I can’t even tell you the title, unfortunately. But I think if you caught the Annapurna showcase recently, they teased a little bit of Outer Loop’s new game, so I think I can say from there, there’s skating in it....

To celebrate, developer The Outsiders has “new weapon skins to collect, combos to master, and Archdevil Mode to suffer” the latter of which is an all new brutal difficulty level. There’s also a free digital artbook up for grabs, too. The changes come courtesy of update 1.5, which as well as the usual bug fixes and QoL improvements, also invites players to “rediscover each map in order to find Coats of Arms Collectibles”....

Microsoft announced a deal with Samsung to bring the Xbox App to 2022 Smart TVs at the end of the month, so you can play cloud-enabled Game Pass Ultimate games without a console. Microsoft said playing Xbox games on 2022 Samsung TVs will be a seamless experience, similar to using any other streaming app on your telly. It also means you can play Fortnite via Xbox Cloud Gaming for free and without a subscription on your telly....

A campaign overview video goes live at 2pm UK time. You can watch it in the video below. Here’s the official blurb: “The Banished have defeated UNSC forces and taken control of the mysterious Zeta Halo, threatening the survival of humankind. When all hope is lost and humanity’s fate hangs in the balance, the Master Chief returns to confront the most ruthless foe he’s ever faced. “Here’s a fresh look at the Halo Infinite campaign that introduces players to true Spartan freedom in the biggest, most wide open and adventure-filled Halo experience yet, launching on December 8 2021....

As reported by Axios, Microsoft responded to a letter from Activision staff at Call of Duty studio Raven Software looking to unionise. QA testers at the studio announced their intent to unionise back in January. Their bid continued despite Activision Blizzard missing the deadline to acknowledge their efforts. Following the announcement of Microsoft’s $69bn takeover of the publisher, staff sent a letter to CEO Satya Nadella requesting information on the company’s involvement in approving or denying unionisation efforts....

The data from reliable app store analysis firm SensorTower stated the mobile gaming market fell by 9.6 percent year-over-year to $11.4bn in the US. The only two categories that did not see a decline in the mobile gaming market were tabletop and arcade games. The arcade category saw the fastest growth, with player spending up 14.8 percent year-on-year. This equates to approximately $176m. Here, Gigantic’s Clawee (pictured above) takes the top spot for player spending, with the game making roughly $16....

Monster Hunter Rise marks the debut of Capcom’s hugely successful series on its own RE Engine, with the Switch version due out towards the end of March. It introduces new traversal options and, of course, new monsters to hunt down, and looks set to be one of the gaming highlights of 2021. Monster Hunter World saw some 16.8 million units shifted, with the profile of the series finally being raised in the west....

The new demo will give players the opportunity to explore Sunbreak’s newly revealed jungle locale, a twist on the area first encountered in 2006’s Monster Hunter 2, complete with new elements and endemic life. Here they can test their mettle against flying wyvern Astalos (from Monster Hunter Generations), a Great Izuchi, a Tetranadon, plus an especially challenging version of Sunbreak’s flagship monster Malzeno. It’ll also let players try out Sunbreak’s new Switch Skill Swap system, new Silkbind attacks, and a variety of handy tutorials....