Death Stranding 2’s frankly incredible visuals seem to be a bit too much for somePS5s to bear, as players are reporting that their consoles are overheating or getting hot to the touch while playing. As I’m sure you’re all very sick of hearing,Death Stranding 2: On the Beach has to be one of the best-looking games ever made. The original was a looker, sure, butKojima Productionshas absolutely taken things to the next level in the sequel....

Quick Links One of the biggest improvements thatDemon Slayer: The Hinokami Chronicles 2makes from the original game is with its roster,which totals 46 characters in all. That’s a far cry from the original game’s launch roster of 18 fighters. With so many characters to play as in The Hinokami Chronicles 2, you may be sure that the game is going to make you work for a good portion of them. In fact,you’ll only start off with 26,leaving a good 20 to unlock by playing the game....

There aren’t many video game series that can compare withGrand Theft Autoin terms of commercial success. Each entry in the series has performed fairly well, but the main ones have been hugely successful and rank among the highest-selling games ever. Altogether,the series has accumulated over 450 million sales,which is an outrageous number. To put that into perspective, the entireFinal Fantasy series has sold approximately 200 million copies, so GTA is more than double that, despite being around for a shorter time and having fewer entries....

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33was a surprise success, especially considering it was a brand-new series from a new team of developers. It was so successful that it had reactionaries claiming that ‘turn-based games are finally back’, but turn-based games never went anywhere. There’s been a consistent stream of fantastic turn-based games released every year, so what was it about Expedition 33 that made it stand out above all those games? While Clair Obscur is certainly a turn-based game, it shifts plenty of genre conventions to feel like a distinct product, so what lessons can other turn-based games learn from Expedition 33’s success?...

FBC: Firebreak, the multiplayerControlspin-off, has been a disaster for Remedy Entertainment.Despite hitting over one million players in its first month, boosted by Xbox Game Pass and PS Plus, it’s struggling to keep most of them. As of writing, it only hasa 24-hour peak of 85 playerson Steam, dropping into the double digits after just three weeks. For comparison, it took PlayStation’s infamous hero shooterConcordone week and five days to reach sub-100 numbers—it’s hardly a flattering comparison, but already players on the Steam Forums aredeclaring FBC a “Concord competitor”....

Jakub Szamalek landed a job at Polish developerCD Projekt Redin the strangest of circumstances. Halfway through his archeology PhD, he came to a realisation that he was already bored of academia and couldn’t face a career in the very subject he’d spent so long training for. Naturally, he started playingThe Witcher 2. It was only when faced with technical issues that he navigated to theCDPRwebsite and noticed an advert for a game writer....

Summary Fortnite’s latestStar Warsupdate has revealed thatEpicwill soon let players chat to an AI-powered Darth Vader, although there are tons of topics he’s programmed not to talk to you about. If there’s one unavoidable and depressing truth about the gaming industry lately,it’s that AI is becoming a more common tool for developers, and seems to be making its way into more releases.Considering how massive Fortnite is and how often it’s updated to keep up with the times, it was inevitable that we’d eventually see AI introduced to the game in some fashion....

I checked out of theJurassic Worldseries after the mediocre first film. Chris Pratt didn’t do it for me as a leading man, while its modern recreation of the iconic theme park appeared more interested in taking advantage of our nostalgia and rehashing set pieces instead of telling an interesting story. From what I’ve heard, the two sequels aren’t much better despite being big hits at the box office. So I haven’t watched them, but I’ll be first in line for Rebirth this July....

Summary WhenGhost of Yoteilauncheson PlayStation 5 this October 2, one of the franchise’s most popular side missions will return. That much was revealedvia the game’s ESRB rating, which was revealed at some point over the last week. The upcomingPS5title, which will be rated M for Mature by the way, will bring back the Hot Springs scenes. Only this time, instead of Jin Sakai, it’ll be Yotei’s female protagonist, Atsu. “During the course of the game, a female character’s exposed buttocks is depicted in a hot spring,“the ESRB rating detailed....

Quick Links Check out theGrow Crystals codeslisted below to claim free in-game rewards and boosts; they will give you a helpful start as you jump into the game. Just remember, these Roblox codes expire quickly, so be sure to redeem them as soon as you can. Keep in mind that we’re always on the lookout for new codes and regularly update this list, especially after game updates, so you don’t miss out on the latest rewards....

Summary A few days after confirmingGTA 6 won’t be here for another year,Rockstar dropped a second trailerfor its highly anticipated game out of nowhere. Just threw it out there on a random Tuesday. The millions waiting for it have been dissecting the trailer frame-by-frame ever since, hyper-focusing on every little detail they can find, right down to the very realistic bubbles in a bottle of beer. By the timeGTA 6launches next year, 13 years will have passed between it and the last game in the series....

We all have that one game we swear we only downloaded ‘as a joke.’ Or maybe it was ‘for research.’ Or ‘just to see what the hype was about.’ Next thing you know, you’ve logged 40 hours, decorated your in-game cafe, and developed very real emotional attachments to cartoon dads or anthropomorphic puffles. Look, we’re not here to judge, we’re here to confess. These are the guilty pleasure games we can’t stop playing, even if our pride wishes we would....

For HANABIE., the last two years have been transformational. The Japanese “Harajuku-core” band has broken through internationally, touring Europe and America, and hitting the festival scene in the process. With summer festival season in full swing, HANABIE. is once again about to depart Japan for stops in Spain, Germany, and Poland, before embarking on a headline UK and Europe tour later this year. Ahead of that, though, we got to sit down with the band to discuss their music, anime, games, and what it’s like being one of the most unusual bands in the world....