Tomas Franzese

Embracer, the embattled gaming company that went through a massive restructuring over the past year, just announced that it will split up into three different companies: Asmodee, Coffee Stain & Friends, and Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends.

This has been a pretty busy week for new releases, with the likes of Another Crab’s Treasure, Stellar Blade, Sand Land, and more coming out. Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft’s video game subscription service, has also had quite a busy week. Three games in particular stand out as must-plays this weekend for those who want to delve a bit further into the service rather than spend money on a new game.

World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch maker Blizzard Entertainment confirmed that BlizzCon 2024 will not be happening.

The Tribeca Festival returns this June, and it will once again feature official games selections and even a game-focused panel. This year, the selections are all promising indie games, including a successor to 2021’s excellent Before Your Eyes. The show will also feature a talk on the making of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

Supercell’s Squad Busters will launch globally on May 29. That’s notable because it’s the first game from the Clash of Clans and Brawl Stars developer to get a global release in over five years.

Sand Land MSRP $60.00 Score Details Pros

El Paso, Elsewhere, one of Digital Trends’ favorite indie games of 2023, now has a film adaptation in the works.

The first video game console I ever owned was an original Xbox that came bundled with two games: NCAA Football 2005 and Top Spin. My appreciation for both Madden and tennis games can be traced back to those being two of my first-ever console gaming experiences.

Private Division revealed a new game set in the Middle-earth universe called Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game. The title, developed by Wētā Workshop Game Studio, is a cozy life simulator set within the world of the books by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Something about postapocalyptic video games makes them perfect for adaptations. Fallout, The Last of Us, and Twisted Metal all have that kind of setting and have been some of the most well-liked video game adaptations ever. Maybe it’s because the apocalypse provides such a rich sandbox to play in, or maybe it’s because that kind of setting forces characters to make difficult choices, but it’s the kind of setting that makes for both good gaming and TV.

Warhorse Studios and Deep Silver finally announcedKingdom Come: Deliverance 2, a sequel to a popular 2018 RPG that gained notoriety for grounding itself in a realistic medieval world.

Cities: Skylines 2 developer Colossal Order confirmed that it will be offering refunds to people who purchased theBeach Properties DLC, adding more content to the Ultimate Edition version of the game, delaying the launch of Cities: Skylines 2’s console ports and its first expansion, and focusing on free updates and patches in the short term.

We learned that SteamWorld Heist would finally be getting a sequel during the April 2024 Indie World showcase.

We’ve learned about the titles that will come to Xbox Game Pass throughout the back half of April, and several of them are games getting added to the catalog the day they launch. Of those, the most notable is Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes.

Nintendo will hold the first indie world presentation of 2024 tomorrow, April 17. The event will shine a spotlight on some of the most exciting independent games coming to the Nintendo Switch in the coming months. Past showcases have revealed highly anticipated indie games like Another Crab’s Treasure, as well as long-awaited ports for games like Outer Wilds.

In 2023, Strange Scaffold released El Paso, Elsewhere, a horror-tinged throwback to the likes of Max Payne that also told a deeply personal and unsettling story about a toxic relationship. Its next game, Life Eater, puts players in the shoes of a serial killer seeking out new targets to kill and sacrifice to a god he’s starting to question the existence of. This isn’t a Manhunt- or Hitman-style stalk-and-kill game; it offers a feeling of detachment by having players parse through timelines to learn everything they need to abduct and properly sacrifice a target.

Typically, playing city-based or civilization-building games is a relaxing experience for me. There’s an inherent satisfaction in something I created in Cities: Skylines 2 or Mini Motorways running efficiently based on my actions. I’m content with spending dozens of hours crafting a functioning world, and only occasionally having my skills tested in a high-intensity situation. Frostpunk 2 from 11 bit Studios is a city-builder where those feelings are often reversed. Most of my time playing its beta was extremely stressful, as I constantly had to make difficult decisions in order to preserve a society that established itself in a frosty postapocalypse.

An enhanced PlayStation 5, colloquially known as the PS5 Pro, is all but officially confirmed now, with a new report revealing that dev kits for the enhanced console are in the hands of developers and that Sony wants games for it ready by August.

The Fallout TV series just released on Amazon Prime, and it’s one of the best video game adaptations out there. It perfectly captures the tense, humorous feel of the postapocalyptic video game series while telling a new story with original characters. If you’ve just watched the show, you’re probably itching to play a Fallout title again or check out one of the games the series is based on for the first time. Thankfully, if you’re subscribed to one of the major video game subscription services, that’s very easy to do.

A TV show based on the Fallout series of video games debuted on Amazon Prime this week, and now Fallout Shelter and Fallout 76 are both getting new content themed around the show.

Bethesda has confirmed that the current-gen update for Fallout 4 will finally release on April 25.

Elgato is releasing several Fallout Edition-themed items in the wake of the release of the Fallout TV show on Amazon Prime.

The Prince of Persia series’ renaissance is continuing, and I couldn’t be happier.

Sony revealed the batch of video games that will come to PlayStation Plus Premium and Extra’s Game Catalog over the next month. The headliners are three new day-one additions to the service, including the already-confirmed Tales of Kenzera: Zau andDave the Diver as well as Animal Well.

MegaCrit Games announced Slay the Spire 2 during the Triple-i Initiative Showcase.

This April, several different indie studios have come together to hold a showcase of their own instead of relying on ones from companies like Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo. Over the course of this 45-minute event, developers and publishers such as Darkest Dungeon 2’s Red Hook Studios, 33 Immortals’ Thunder Lotus, Dead Cells’ Evil Empire, and Hyper Light Breaker’s Heart Machine will showcase new trailers for their upcoming titles.

The video game demo is starting to come back into fashion.

We finally got another look at the Destiny 2: The Final Shape expansion today via a new gameplay preview from Bungie. We learned more about the new Prismatic subclasses and other features coming to the expansion.

EA Motive, the studio behind 2023’s excellent Dead Space remake, confirmed that the next Battlefield game is in development and that it will assist with its development. Unfortunately, work on that new game also means that seasonal updates for Battlefield 2042 will cease after the conclusion of Season 7: Turning Point.

Ubisoft Japan accidentally beat its global counterparts to the release date announcement punch, leaking the fact that Star Wars Outlaws will launch on August 30.

Black Salt Games and Story Kitchen announced their intention to make a movie based on the 2023 horror indie game hit Dredge.

Ereban: Shadow Legacy is a throwback to an era of single-player video games that I miss.

Following Embracer Group’s sale of Gearbox Entertainment, Gearbox Publishing has rebranded to Arc Games. The newly minted label will handle publishing for Hyper Light Breaker when it launches, as well as other Gearbox projects.

All of us have gaming opinions that go against the grain or zeitgeist around certain titles. Oftentimes, it’s because your personal opinion on a title is negative — I was like that with Sonic Frontiers — but it can go in a more positive direction. For me, a game I’m a very positive outlier on is Back 4 Blood, a Left 4 Dead successor developed by Turtle Rock Studios and published by WB Games.

Vocaloid idol Hatsune Miku’s next video game crossover was announced and released today, and it’s the perfect kind of collaboration for the character. If you buy a new $2 DLC, you can now play as Crypton Future’s popular virtual singer in the PC and PS4 versions ofCrypt of the NecroDancer.

The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition will be one of the next free games offered on the Epic Games Store, and that’s a can’t-miss freebie for fans of RPGs or sci-fi.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 intentionally gives players a hard time.

Both Dave the Diver and Tales of Kenzera: ZAU will launch for PlayStation 5 this month, and both will included in PlayStation Plus Premium and Extra’s Game Catalog from day one.

We’ve learned what games will come to Xbox Game Pass over the first half of this April, and leading the batch is Lego 2K Drive, a Lego racing game that’s a solid alternative to the Forza Horizon games that are also available on Microsoft’s subscription service.

While indie video games from smaller developers tend to get more attention on platforms like Steam or Nintendo Switch, that isn’t for a lack of trying on Xbox’s part. Since 2013, it has run the ID@Xbox program to help fund and highlight games from independent developers all around the world. While some Xbox fans feel uncertain about the platform’s future because of Microsoft’s multiplatform push, Microsoft reaffirmed its efforts to uplift indie game developers at this year’s Game Developers Conference by highlighting some of its upcoming ID@Xbox titles.

It’s April Fools’ Day yet again, so social media is rife with fake announcements and gags to celebrate. The video game industry also loves making these jokes, and while not all of them land well, one of the funniest this year comes from The Pokémon Company and Pokémon Sleep.

April 2024 will likely be one of the quieter months of the year in terms of new game releases, but it is also poised to be a very fulfilling one. Harold Halibut, a game over a decade in the making, will finally launch. Akira Toriyama’s underappreciated Sand Land will finally get a video game adaptation just over a month after its creator’s passing. RPG fans will be thriving with a new SaGa game and the long-awaited spiritual successor to Suikoden. It’s also quite a heavy re-release month, with remasters of Gigantic and Braid and multiplatform ports of two Xbox Game Studios titles also coming out.

It’s only March and 2024 is already full of bold, big-budget games like Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, and Dragon’s Dogma 2. But one of my favorite games of 2024 isn’t available on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, or even Nintendo Switch. It’s Mars After Midnight, a game from Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn developer Lucas Pope. The only place you can play it? On the Playdate, Panic’s quirky little 1-bit handheld with a crank.

Embracer Group finally confirmed that it is selling Borderlands studio Gearbox Entertainment to Take-Two Interactive, but there’s a catch: Embracer Group will retain ownership of Gearbox Publishing.

Sega Europe is going through some major restructuring, and as a result, it is laying off about 240 developers and letting Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and Company of Heroes developer Relic Entertainment spin off as an independent company.

Sony outlined all the new offerings PlayStation Plus Essential subscribers can expect in April; surprisingly, Microsoft is the company behind two of this month’s four offerings, Minecraft Legends, and the Overwatch 2 Mega Bundle.

The “hero shooter” is a popular competitive multiplayer game subgenre where players control characters with powerful preset abilities rather than a customizable loadout. Although “hero” is right there in the subgenre name, and Overwatch proved how well superheroes could work with the concept, we haven’t gotten a true attempt at this style of game from Marvel or DC.

Stunlock Studios and Konami have revealed that the survival crafting game V Rising will feature Castlevania crossover content when it leaves early access this May.

Capcom revealed what the first updates for Dragon’s Dogma 2 will fix and change following the RPG’s first weekend on the market.

Shift Up and Sony Interactive Entertainment revealed that a free demo for its upcoming sci-fi action game Stellar Blade will launch this Friday, March 29.

Riot Games has revealed Clove, the next agent that will come to Valorant as part of Episode 8, Act II. This character brings some pretty awesome “post-death” abilities that give players a way to fight back after getting killed, continuing the trend of Riot adding game-changing new agents to Valorant.

As we reach the middle of this current console generation, people are wondering when improved “Pro” versions of consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X will arrive. PS5 fans had their curiosity rewarded this week when Moore’s Law is Dead and Insider Gaming leaked the specs of what has become colloquially known as the PS5 Pro and is reportedly referred to as “Trinity” internally at Sony.

Baldur’s Gate 3 game director Swen Vincke shocked fans of the Dungeons & Dragons RPG when he revealed that the critically acclaimed game would not get any expansions and that Larian Studios would not go right into making Baldur’s Gate 4. Considering how much of a runaway success Baldur’s Gate 3 has been, it seemed like that would be the most logical continuation of things. Larian isn’t the only studio to leave behind a wildly successful game either; Nintendo has confirmed The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom also won’t get any expansions.

Overwatch 2 finally got some of its long-awaited PvE content last August, but it doesn’t look like more is on the way, according to some new reports.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 launched today, and while it had a warm critical reception, players are having a lot of problems with its PC port in particular. Currently, it has an overwhelmingly negative user score on Steam, with over 13,000 reviews as of the writing. Capcom has addressed common criticism of the game in the hopes of quelling the frustration of PC players.

Publisher 11 bit Studios revealed that Indika — a very weird game from Odd Meter Studio that left a strong impression on me during February’s Steam Next Fest — will finally come out on May 8.

The second half of Invincible season 2 is airing weekly on Amazon Prime right now, and one of the new free games on the Epic Games Store perfectly complements it. Between now and March 28, you can get Invincible Presents: Atom Eve for free on the Epic Game Store.

Epic Games affirmed its commitment to bringing the Epic Games Store to iOS and Android before the end of 2024 during its State of Unreal presentation at GDC 2024.

We finally learned the title of the Captain America and Black Panther video game that former Uncharted creative director Amy Hennig is making at Skydance New Media. It’s titled Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra and will come out sometime next year. This was all revealed during Epic Games’ State of Unreal presentation at GDC 2024.

Dragon's Dogma 2 MSRP $70.00 Score Details DT Recommended Product Pros

Cyan’s classic PC adventure game Riven: The Sequel to Myst is getting an Unreal Engine 5 remake later this year. Although Cyan’s last game experienced controversy surrounding the use of AI content, Cyan confirmed to Digital Trends that the Riven remake does not use any “AI-assisted content.”

Microsoft unveiled the batch of titles coming to its gaming subscription service throughout the back half of March. Quite a few awesome titles are making their way to the service, but by far, the most notable addition is Diablo IV, the first Activision Blizzard game being made available on Xbox Game Pass.

Irdeto, the company behind the controversial Denuvo DRM utilized in many PC games, just announced a new technology meant to combat game content leaks in the video game industry.

Sony is reportedly pausing production of the PlayStation VR2 headsets because it has a backlog of unsold headsets.

Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection should have been a slam dunk.

Nvidia revealed in a blog post that Ubisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws will be on GeForce Now and use some of its proprietary technology when it launches sometime this year.

Embracer Group confirmed it is selling Saber Interactive to Beacon Interactive on Thursday morning, following rumors of a sale last month. Saber Interactive is a massive company that not only develops games like Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 and Expeditions: A Mudrunner Game but also owns several studios.

Sony today unveiled the March 2024 lineup of new games for the PlayStation Plus Premium and Extra catalog. Jak and Daxter fans, whom PlayStation and Naughty Dog rarely acknowledge, got a win today as the PSP version of Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier is getting rereleased for the first time via PlayStation Plus Premium on March 19.

Although I enjoy a wide variety of games from different genres, there are still parts of the video game zeitgeist I have little knowledge of. One of those blind spots is Korean MMOs like Nexon’s Vindictus, which attracts lots of players in Asia, but has made less of an impact in the U.S. Thankfully, my lack of familiarity with that space didn’t make the playtest for Vindictus: Defying Fate any less enjoyable.

Summer Game Fest, Geoff Keighley’s annual summer event full of new game reveals and trailers will return for its fifth edition on June 7.

The Finals made a big splash when it launched at The Game Awards 2023, and it has maintained a healthy player base in the months since. Tomorrow, The Finals Season 2 begins and it brings new weapons and gadgets, another battle pass, a new map, and the Power Shift mode with it. Although I dropped from off playing The Finals a few weeks after its release, my early taste of Season 2’s new content was more than enticing enough to draw me back in.

Sony rolled out another beefy PlayStation 5 update today with the main goals of improving the speakers and mic on the DualSense and DualSense Edge controllers and deepening the number of Share Screen viewer interactions.

Baba is You, one of the most mind-bending indie puzzle games I’ve ever played turns five years old today.

After a boom of video game studio foundings, acquisitions, and developer recruiting in the late 2010s and early 2020s, the industry is headed in the opposite direction. Acquisitions have slowed down, layoffs happen multiple times a week, and news of canceled projects and studio closures has overtaken that of studio announcements. During this time, an industry veteran and game director behind titles like God of War 3 and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor has started a new studio

WB Games and Player First Games announced that MultiVersus, their free-to-play fighting game featuring characters from various Warner Bros.’ owned properties, will return on May 28.

Capcom has heavily discounted Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen across all of the platforms it’s available on ahead of the launch of Dragon’s Dogma 2.

Among its many highlights, FinalFantasy VII Rebirth makes simple sidequests a lot more engaging than I had expected. Take an early-game sidequest called When Words Won’t Do. On a surface level, it’s a simple escort mission where players must get a dog from Under Junon to Crow’s Nest unscathed. I did not initially have high hopes for this sidequest due to the poor reputation of escort missions; thankfully, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth defied that fate. To make this optional content more worthwhile, Square Enix gave it a strong narrative backbone.

Electronic Arts owns the rights to a rich back catalog of PC games from series like Populous, Command & Conquer, and Dungeon Keeper, but many of them weren’t readily available on Steam. That changed today as EA brought many of its classic PC games and expansions to Valve’s PC gaming platform today.

Blizzard Entertainment announced that Overwatch 2’s next crossover is with Cowboy Bebop, and a snazzy trailer recreates the anime’s iconic opening with the collaboration’s character skins.

Dune: Part Two has taken theaters by storm after a relatively quiet start to the 2024 box office. It’s getting even more people into this franchise, which is the grandfather of a lot of modern sci-fi stories. Dune also has a more storied history with video games than you may think. If you’re in the mood to return to Arrakis and experience more entertainment set within the Dune universe, you don’t have to wait for Dune: Awakening.