Digitaltrends.com News, Tips, Tricks, Ideas

Games have steadily become larger and larger as the generations go on. Thanks to the most advanced console and PC technology, developers are able to craft massive worlds and stories that would have been impossible in the past. While many of us enjoy sinking our teeth into a meaty 100-hour-long game from time to time, eventually fatigue will set in. That’s where games on the other end of the spectrum come in. These games aren’t afraid to tell a tight, compact story, or to explore a single gameplay concept, and then call it a day without stretching things out. They are no less impactful or memorable than their massive counterparts, and may even be superior in some player’s eyes. Here are a few of the best games you can beat in a single day to cleanse your palate with some more experimental titles.

Valve might be more known for its Steam Deck handheld and its video game retail platform Steam these days, but according to leaks, the company is working on its next game — a third-person, hero-based shooter known as Deadlock.

We’ve been asking for it ever since the series debut, and now we’re finally getting an Assassin’s Creed game set in Feudal Japan. Previously known by the code name Assassin’s Creed Red, Assassin’s Creed Shadows will be the latest entry in the long-running Assassin’s saga. Ubisoft let us know we would be getting the world premiere trailer first, but it turns out there was a lot more to show than just a first glimpse at the game. We’ve managed to gather all the footage and information shared online to deliver you the goods about Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

Despite news that Microsoft was stopping development on Redfalland closing its studio, Arkane Austin, the game will get one final update.

“Finally, it is here,” says the announcer in the first trailer for EA Sports College Football 25, kicking off the countdown to the release of the first College Football game in 11 years.

With Fallout being everywhere right now, it’s only fair that it joins Fortnite, too. Epic Games teased on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday that the iconic open-world RPG series will be coming to Fortnite.

Activision Blizzard, which is now owned by Microsoft, is gearing up to announce the next Call of Duty game soon and release it later this year. There’s been one major point of contention ahead of this year’s Call of Duty: Will it be on Xbox Game Pass at launch? A new report from The Wall Street Journal suggests that is the case.

Love crossword puzzles but don’t have all day to sit and solve a full-sized puzzle in your daily newspaper? That’s what The Mini is for!

Connections is the latest puzzle game from the New York Times. The game tasks you with categorizing a pool of 16 words into four secret (for now) groups by figuring out how the words relate to each other. The puzzle resets every night at midnight and each new puzzle has a varying degree of difficulty. Just like Wordle, you can keep track of your winning streak and compare your scores with friends.

When Marvel’s Midnight Suns was released in 2022, some were disappointed that players were unable to romance any of the superhero characters in the game. While players have wondered whether or not that was Marvel or Firaxis’ decision, Midnight Suns‘ Creative Director Jake Solomon has now affirmed to Digital Trends in an interview that he truly never considered romance for the game.

Strands is a brand new daily puzzle from the New York Times. A trickier take on the classic word search, you’ll need a keen eye to solve this puzzle.

Helldivers 2 was a massive hit right out of the gate for developer Arrowhead Game Studios, and the game’s popularity has only grown since its release in February of this year. Shedding the top-down perspective of the first Helldivers, this cooperative third-person shooter took the world by surprise by being equally hilarious, fun, and challenging. It demands everyone work together to overcome massive hordes of bugs while also dealing with the fact that one player’s slipup could derail the whole mission in the most humorous fashion. It’s a total riot, and it’s not hard to see why.

One of the most underrated features of PlayStation Plus Premium is the game trials that it offers. Although Sony does not put its AAA games on the service the day they release, it and several other third-party publishers offer up free demos that essentially give players full access to the game for a limited period of time. It’s a great way to test a new game before you buy and it also gives you an excuse to try out a variety of different games this weekend without making the time commitment to beat them all. I looked through the full list of game trials that PlayStation Plus Premium offers and pinpointed three of the demos that are most worth your time.

As the weekend approaches, you’re probably happy that you’ll soon have more time to check out some video games. And if you’re an Xbox Game Pass subscriber and aren’t sure what to play, you have a lot to choose from. That’s where I come in. I’ve looked through the Xbox Game Pass lineup and found three games that I think all kinds of players can have a good time with this weekend.

What do you do when you have to stop development on your video game? You release it anyway.

Best Buy has become one of the biggest retailers on the market, with everything from TVs to blenders on sale, meaning you can pretty much grab whatever your heart desires directly off Best Buy. In fact, we draw a lot from Best Buy when it comes to the best TV deals, best laptop deals, and best phone deals, so we know how great of a source it can be for solid deals. To that end, we’ve gone out and collected some of our favorites in various categories and collected them for you below.

If you’re willing to shell out a significant amount of cash on gaming PC deals to get a powerful machine, here’s a recommendation that you should consider — the Alienware Aurora R16 gaming desktop, with a configuration that usually costs $4,695, is available from Dell at $795 off. The discount brings its price down to $3,900, which is still pretty expensive, but it’s the only purchase that you’ll have to make for at least the next few years. We’re not sure how much time is remaining on this offer though, so proceed with the transaction as soon as you can.

Gamers who are planning to upgrade their gaming PC‘s display should consider LG UltraGear gaming monitors, especially now that they’re on sale from LG. Among a wide range of models and sizes that are available in the brand’s monitor deals, we’ve chosen our top five picks to help you narrow down your choices, with discounts of up to $500. This UltraGear sale lasts through June 2. Whether you’re planning to stick to a tight budget or you’re thinking about going all out, complete your transaction for an LG UltraGear gaming monitor while you can still enjoy the savings.

Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Rockstar Games’ parent company Take-Two Interactive, just confirmed a more specific release window for the highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI.

Phoenix Labs is seeing its third round of layoffs in just over a year. According to reports, over 100 people were affected this time around and projects have been canceled.

It’s hard to overstate the massive appeal of Roblox. Millions of players from around the world are hooked on this creation tool that lets players experience thousands of games made by others, or start making games for themselves to share with the world. It has evolved beyond being just a game and into a platform rivaling Fortnite. There are plenty of games out there that say they’re free only to push players to spend real money on in-game items or currencies. If you want to know if there’s a cost of entry to Roblox, or if you will need to spend any money once you’re playing, we can break it all down for you.

Activision is known as the Call of Duty publisher, but now it’s trying something different. The company announced Thursday that it’s formed a new internal studio called Elsewhere Entertainment that is dedicated to developing a “new narrative-based and genre-defining AAA franchise.”

Despite fan concerns that the recently announced Assassin’s Creed Shadows would be online-only, Ubisoft has confirmed that this won’t be the case.

Strands is a brand new daily puzzle from the New York Times. A trickier take on the classic word search, you’ll need a keen eye to solve this puzzle.

Connections is the latest puzzle game from the New York Times. The game tasks you with categorizing a pool of 16 words into four secret (for now) groups by figuring out how the words relate to each other. The puzzle resets every night at midnight and each new puzzle has a varying degree of difficulty. Just like Wordle, you can keep track of your winning streak and compare your scores with friends.

Love crossword puzzles but don’t have all day to sit and solve a full-sized puzzle in your daily newspaper? That’s what The Mini is for!

The finale of X-Men ‘97 aired this week, and it’s making me reflect on just how important these mutants are. Ever since their emergence in the 1960s, this superhero team has served as a cultural touchstone, providing a fictional world where issues of social oppression can be explored. And on top of all that, they’re still superheroes with radical powers. X-Men ’97 has doubled down on that to create the best Marvel series on Disney+ yet. That’s exciting, but it’s made a certain void all the more tangible: Where are all the X-Men games?

Ubisoft’s biggest upcoming game is arguably Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which is set to release on November 15 across all the usual platforms, including PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. That also seems to include some unusual ones, too, including Mac.

It’s been a long time coming, but we’re finally seeing stock for the PlayStation Portal creep through. That means one of the better PlayStation deals right now is being able to buy the PlayStation Portal at Best Buy for $200. It wasn’t that long ago that stock was non-existent, so if you’ve been itching to play PS5 games on the move, this is your chance to do so. Here’s what to expect from your purchase.

If you’re on the hunt for monitor deals to pair with a top-of-the-line gaming PC, you’re going to want a display like the Alienware AW2524H gaming monitor. If you’re interested, it’s currently on sale from Dell at $200 off, which brings its price down to just $500 from $700. It’s still relatively expensive after the discount, but it’s a reasonable price for a screen with a 500Hz refresh rate. However, since this is a clearance sale, there’s a chance that stocks run out sooner than you think, so proceed with the purchase immediately if you want to pocket the savings.

Ubisoft announced Wednesday that it would be canceling its in-development,free-to-play third-person shooter Tom Clancy’s The Division Heartland, citing a recalibration of its resources. It also said that it would be moving workers at Red Storm, the support studio in charge of the game, onto other projects.

If you somehow haven’t played the 2018 open-world classic Red Dead Redemption 2 yet and you have a PlayStation Plus subscription, we have good news. PlayStation announced in a blog post Wednesday that the game will be available for free for the Plus program’s Extra and Premium tiers.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes Score Details Pros

Ubisoft released the first trailer for Assassin’s Creed Shadows on Wednesday, revealing for the first time that the game will have two protagonists: Yasuke, the historical black samurai, and Naoe, a Japanese shinobi.

Steam has evolved a lot since it initially launched. What was once a simple storefront has developed into the largest PC gaming community in the world, with millions of people around the globe logging on and playing. Because Steam is a digital-only storefront, and games are tied to a single account, it did have a drawback when multiple people in a family wanted their own accounts. There were questions about parental controls, game sharing, and more, but Valve has been working away at a solution. Currently available in the Steam Beta, Steam Families offer a range of options and features that any household should look into. Let’s dive into how it works and what you can do with it.

There are tons of ways to earn all the different forms of currency and items in Genshin Impact, but you can only get so much in a day before you run out. While the game isn’t going to grind to a halt if you don’t have enough items like Primogems, you will be significantly slowed down in terms of progress. While you could turn to spending real money to get over these humps, there are alternative ways to get a huge influx of items completely free, with no grinding required. Each month, there is a new set of Genshin Impact codes you can take advantage of to add tons of Primogems, experience, Mora, and more to your inventory. Here are all the current ones you can claim and how to access them.

Strands is a brand new daily puzzle from the New York Times. A trickier take on the classic word search, you’ll need a keen eye to solve this puzzle.

Love crossword puzzles but don’t have all day to sit and solve a full-sized puzzle in your daily newspaper? That’s what The Mini is for!

Connections is the latest puzzle game from the New York Times. The game tasks you with categorizing a pool of 16 words into four secret (for now) groups by figuring out how the words relate to each other. The puzzle resets every night at midnight and each new puzzle has a varying degree of difficulty. Just like Wordle, you can keep track of your winning streak and compare your scores with friends.

The residents of Pelican Town are friendly enough when you begin a new farming adventure in Stardew Valley, but you need to do some work to really earn their affection.

The go-to voice and text-chat platform for gamers the world over, it was rather surprising how long it took Sony to add Discord integration for the PS5. As it stands, there still isn’t a native Discord app you can use on the console. That being said, you can still use the Discord app on your phone or tablet to access voice chat on the PS5. We’ve put together this guide to teach you how it’s done.

You should be willing to spend some serious cash if you want to get a powerful machine from gaming PC deals, but you should always be on the lookout for chances at huge savings. Here’s an offer that you have to consider: the Lenovo Legion Tower 5 Gen 8 with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super graphics card is $590 off, so it’s down to $1,490 from $2,080. It’s still pretty expensive, but the 28% discount will give you amazing value for your purchase. You’ll need to complete the transaction as soon as possible though, as we’re not sure how much time is remaining before the bargain ends.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons‘ laid-back gameplay has taken the world by storm and shows no sign of slowing down. There’s never been a better time to stay inside and enjoy the leisurely island lifestyle — and people are loving what the title has to offer. But once you’ve burned through your first 40 hours, New Horizons is best played in short bursts. Most people will log in for a few minutes each day, see what’s happening on the island, finish their daily tasks, and quickly log out. While mods can add more variety, sometimes you need a fresh take to really scratch that itch. None of the following suggestions are identical to New Horizons, but they all offer a unique combination of crafting, exploring, and chatting with your NPC neighbors that New Horizons fans are bound to enjoy.

Pokémon is one of the most successful video game franchises of all time. With a history spanning nearly 30 years, there are a lot of Pokémon games that you can pick up and play — but where do you start? Unless you’re a Pokémon professor, it might be tough finding the right game to play.

Behaviour Interactive is committed to growing Dead by Daylight as a franchise. That much is clear given that three spinoff games from the multiplayer horror hit were shown off during a live stream today. One of them is even out now.

Every new season in Fortnite is a massive event. While not quite on the scale of a new Chapter, seasons still bring about a ton of changes to the ever-evolving battle royale phenomenon to keep players engaged. New skins, abilities, missions, weapons, and a new battle pass to complete are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of new content. If one season doesn’t quite hit for you, or if you’ve already crushed all the content there was and are eagerly awaiting the next season’s start, knowing when to mark your calendar is essential. Let’s dive into when you can expect the next season of Fortnite to begin.

Behaviour Interactive revealed some of the game-changing updates that are coming to Dead by Daylight this year. That includes a new 2v8 mode and crossovers with two iconic franchises.

Prior to founding Midsummer Studio, a new development team that was announced today, Jake Solomon’s last big credit was working as creative director on Marvel’s Midnight Suns. In an interview with Digital Trends, Solomon gave some frank answers as to why the superhero strategy game got off to a disappointing launch.

The Pokémon series has been around for nearly 30 years, so it’s no surprise that its fan base has quite a large age range. While the franchise does have complicated mechanics in place — a vast knowledge of Pokémon states is needed to play competitively and shiny Pokémon hunting has been broken down into a science instead of a surprise — but, as a whole, the series’ story and overall difficultly has always been family-friendly and aimed toward a younger audience. This can leave older, more experienced Pokémon trainers wanting more when they cruise through a new Pokémon title.

If you have a Netflix subscription, but have yet to try any of the games included with it, you’re missing out. The streaming service has quietly put together a strong library of titles over the past few years, from certified classics like Hades to strong original games like Laya’s Horizon. Next week, Netflix subscribers can get another charming indie with their subscription: Paper Trail.

Gamers who are on the hunt for gaming PC deals should turn their attention towards Dell’s offer for the Alienware Aurora R15. This particular configuration of the gaming desktop that originally goes for $3,900 is on sale with a $1,100 discount that drops its price to $2,800. It’s still not cheap, but you’ll quickly understand why it’s worth every penny once you’ve started playing your favorite games on this machine. We’re not sure how long the bargain will remain online though, so if you’re interested, you should buy the gaming PC right now.

Game developer Jake Solomon first made a name for himself by helming Firaxis’ revival of XCOM and Marvel’s Midnight Suns. In an interview, Solomon told Digital Trends that he has no problem being known as “the XCOM guy,” and he joked that there is a world where he could see himself dying during a playtest of XCOM 17. But after Marvel’s Midnight Suns, Solomon wanted something different.

Strands is a brand new daily puzzle from the New York Times. A trickier take on the classic word search, you’ll need a keen eye to solve this puzzle.

Connections is the latest puzzle game from the New York Times. The game tasks you with categorizing a pool of 16 words into four secret (for now) groups by figuring out how the words relate to each other. The puzzle resets every night at midnight and each new puzzle has a varying degree of difficulty. Just like Wordle, you can keep track of your winning streak and compare your scores with friends.

Love crossword puzzles but don’t have all day to sit and solve a full-sized puzzle in your daily newspaper? That’s what The Mini is for!

If you’re fresh from buying a powerful machine from gaming PC deals, you should also purchase a premium display to maximize its potential. We highly recommend the 45-inch LG UltraGear OLED curved gaming monitor, especially now that it’s available from Best Buy with a $400 discount that slashes its price from $1,700 to $1,300. It’s still not cheap, but it’s worth every penny as the perfect screen for PC gaming. You’ll have to act fast though, as we’re not sure how long this lowered price will hold.

Even though VR has been around for a while, the market has only really started booming in the last half-decade, with the best VR headsets that are actually affordable coming out in the past couple of years or so. One great example is the Meta Quest 3, which is so new that it essentially has no deals available for it right now. That said, you get some bonuses when you buy the Quest 3, including a free game and a few months of Meta’s game subscription service if you buy the larger 512Gb Quest 3. You could also try checking out some Meta Quest 2 deals if you feel the Quest 3 is still too pricey for you.

If you’re searching for a powerful gaming machine from the available gaming PC deals online, we highly recommend going for the HP Omen 40L gaming desktop. From its original price of $1,480, it’s down to a more reasonable $1,250 for savings of $230. You’re going to have to hurry with your purchase though, because we’re not sure how much time is remaining for this bargain. If you delay your transaction to tomorrow, there’s a chance that you miss out on the discount.

Not all gaming laptop deals are worthwhile purchases, as some devices will have trouble meeting the needs of gamers. If you need a recommendation to avoid any disappointments, we suggest going for the Dell G16 gaming laptop, which is on sale from Dell at $600 off. Instead of $1,900, you’ll have to pay just $1,300 for this dependable machine, but you’ll have to be quick with your purchase because the gaming laptop may be back to its regular price as soon as tomorrow.

Everyone who has played a Pokemon game knows that the most powerful ball is the legendary Master Ball. Most games only provide you with one of these overpowered items that lets you catch any Pokemon you want without a fight, but Pokemon GO didn’t include them at all for many years. That all changed in 2023 when they were introduced as part of a special event and finally gave trainers the chance to add one to their bags. If you log in today looking to get one for yourself to have ready for when you find that elusive Pokemon you’ve been struggling to catch, you won’t see any signs of how to get one. Like any good professor, we will instruct you on all the things you need to know about getting a Master Ball in Pokemon GO.

After spending a weekend with the Marvel Rivals alpha test, I discovered that I had almost completely forgotten it was a Marvel game.

Love crossword puzzles but don’t have all day to sit and solve a full-sized puzzle in your daily newspaper? That’s what The Mini is for!

Connections is the latest puzzle game from the New York Times. The game tasks you with categorizing a pool of 16 words into four secret (for now) groups by figuring out how the words relate to each other. The puzzle resets every night at midnight and each new puzzle has a varying degree of difficulty. Just like Wordle, you can keep track of your winning streak and compare your scores with friends.

Square Enix, the Japanese developer and publisher behind recent PlayStation 5 exclusives like Final Fantasy XVI and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, plans to release more multiplatform titles in the future.

Strands is a brand new daily puzzle from the New York Times. A trickier take on the classic word search, you’ll need a keen eye to solve this puzzle.

This summer, we’re living in a brave new world. E3 is officially dead — for real this time. That means there’s a vacuum to be filled as publishers still look to showcase their games during high-profile events. There’s both good news and bad news for anyone who looks forward to E3 season. The good news? Summer Game Fest is filling that gap, alongside several streams that’ll orbit around it. The bad news? Keeping track of it all is a huge pain.

Decorating and designing your dream island in Animal Crossing: New Horizions takes a lot of Bells and materials. There are hundreds of ways to decorate your dream island, but the grind to get there can be a little daunting, especially with so many items being seasonal or part of holiday events. You are always encouraged to go out and visit your friend’s islands via Dodo Airlines (as long as you have a Nintendo Switch Online membership) so you can trade for or snag some items from their islands. You might also have heard of special Treasure Islands you can visit. These are said to be jam-packed with all sorts of rare items to collect. As you know, you can’t randomly visit other players’ islands, so here’s how you can reach them.

One of the major advancements the PlayStation 5 brought with its new DualSense controller was a new form of haptic feedback. In addition to more dynamic rumble, this included adaptive triggers that could adjust how it felt to pull the triggers to match the action on-screen. This could mean simulating resistance, or stopping the trigger short at different intervals. While novel, it isn't always great if you want to be playing at your best. The last thing you want is to struggle to fire your weapon in an online first-person shooter. Thankfully, this is an optional feature you can easily disable from your console.

For gamers of a certain age, Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64 was a landmark moment in gaming. This spy-themed shooter was the culprit behind countless sleepless nights and arguments over screen-peeking with friends. Since then, James Bond games never really hit those same highs and even disappeared for over a decade. Now, a new developer has taken up the iconic franchise to make a new 007 game, and the pairing seems almost too good to be true. IO Interactive, fresh off the stellar Hitman trilogy, revealed that it is creating a new James Bond game currently referred to by the code name of Project 007. Details are so scarce that even Bond himself would have a hard time uncovering them, but we’ve compiled all the intel so far on this new title.

Connections is the latest puzzle game from the New York Times. The game tasks you with categorizing a pool of 16 words into four secret (for now) groups by figuring out how the words relate to each other. The puzzle resets every night at midnight and each new puzzle has a varying degree of difficulty. Just like Wordle, you can keep track of your winning streak and compare your scores with friends.

Strands is a brand new daily puzzle from the New York Times. A trickier take on the classic word search, you’ll need a keen eye to solve this puzzle.

Love crossword puzzles but don’t have all day to sit and solve a full-sized puzzle in your daily newspaper? That’s what The Mini is for!

After years of speculation and wild rumors, it’s official: Nintendo’s new console is on the horizon.

There are few experiences better than gathering a crew of friends and embarking on a thrilling pirate adventure in Sea of Thieves. When everything is working as intended, Sea of Thieves is a fun and addicting time, but players have reported a number of technical issues and bugs that can interrupt your voyage. We compiled a list of the most common problems players have reported, as well as how to fix them.

There are ways in which you could play as a solo pirate in Sea of Thieves, but adventuring is so much more fun and rewarding when you’re part of a crew. Once you’ve gotten a handle on how to play the game, taking on voyages and attacking other players with fellow pirates is where the real fun begins. Alliances make it much easier to coordinate and team up with your fellow scallywags, but how you form them and all the benefits they can provide are somewhat obfuscated. It isn’t as simple as joining a party through a menu like in other games, so follow our treasure map to learn all about how alliances work in Sea of Thieves.

BioWare has had a rough few years. Following the critical and commercial success of Dragon Age: Inquisition, the studio moved on to Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem, two games that abandoned the tenets of previous BioWare titles under mounting publisher pressure.

After Fortnite unleashed a flood of crossovers into the gaming world, there’s almost nothing that’s off the table anymore. Call of Duty getting a Nicki Minaj operator, for example, would likely never have happened 10 years ago, and yet here we are. The rapper/singer is often called the Queen of Rap, but she’s expanded her talents to dolphin-diving and no-scoping noobs on the battlefield. If you want to strut your stuff as Minaj in your next match, complete with her own set of pink weapons and vehicle skin, there are a few bits of information you need to know before loading up your next game.

Love crossword puzzles but don’t have all day to sit and solve a full-sized puzzle in your daily newspaper? That’s what The Mini is for!

Connections is the latest puzzle game from the New York Times. The game tasks you with categorizing a pool of 16 words into four secret (for now) groups by figuring out how the words relate to each other. The puzzle resets every night at midnight and each new puzzle has a varying degree of difficulty. Just like Wordle, you can keep track of your winning streak and compare your scores with friends.

You can’t say State of Decay 2 hasn’t gotten more than its fair share of developer support. Not only did it receive plenty of extra content and updates after launch, but it even continues to be worked on years after State of Decay 3 was announced. Being an open-world zombie survival game with tons of RPG and management elements, it wasn’t long before modders saw all the potential there was to tweak, add to, and fully customize this great game to be even better. Modders have done everything from increasing the difficulty to enhancing the immersion with new lighting, so we’ve scavenged the net for only the best State of Decay 2 mods to recommend.