“After surviving countless horrors in the Spencer Mansion and beyond, S.T.A.R.S. veterans Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine find themselves on the Island to face The Sideways’ Cube Monsters. Fend off Cube Monsters (and your opponents) like your life depends on it with the S.T.A.R.S. Team Set, available now in the Fortnite Item Shop!” Epic teases in a new blog posted earlier today. “Whether you’re taking down Cube Monsters or storming IO labs, stop evil in its tracks as boulder enthusiast Chris Redfield and the “master of unlocking” Jill Valentine....

In an interview with Famitsu, game director Chad Grenier along with Andy Boggs and Dan Hanhberg of Panic Button (the studio responsible for the port) spoke a little about the game’s expected performance on Switch. According to Boggs, Apex Legends will run at 720p when docked and 576p in handheld, with a frame-rate of 30FPS in both modes. Given that the Switch port will come with cross-play, some players have expressed concerns that Switch players will be at a disadvantage against other platforms (particularly given the game is capped at 60FPS on console and 144FPS on PC, with ways to get around the latter)....

Speaking to Eurogamer, the actress behind Returnal main character Selene Vassos and Hitman’s Diana Burnwood discussed the tension between being a parent and having a career. “I think that’s very unique, and kudos to Housemarque. I think they took a risk, they could have had a younger gal, or they could have had a man, but no,” she said. “I was talking to [game director] Harry Krueger, who is so much a part of this game....

One particular deal is the HyperX Alloy Elite 2 RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard from Currys, available for just under half price. HyperX Alloy Elite 2 RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard – £69.99 from Currys (was £129) Striking out from the standard blacks and whites of other keyboards, this RGB-lit keyboard gives you a standout piece of gaming accessory to spice up your tech-life. Whilst it’s not all about visuals when it comes to tech and hardware accessories, it’s definitely an aspect that’s important to many gamers and avid PC builders....

No doubt inspired by the runaway success of the Sonic movies, Sega looks set to adapt the two games alongside Picturestart, which is also working on the upcoming Borderlands movie (which is seemingly now in post-production). Dance game Space Channel 5 will be retitled Channel 5 and, according to Hollywood Reporter, “tell the story of a hapless fast-food worker who is recruited by a freedom reporter from the future to save the world from aliens using the one thing that unites all people on the planet: our love of silly viral dances”....

Illumination, which also makes the Minions franchise, will follow up on Seth Rogen’s debut as Donkey Kong in Super Mario Bros. with a film all of his own. Today’s report from GiantFreakinRobot suggests other Kongs may also be involved. Cranky Kong, voiced by Fred Armisen, is a likely contender - and like Rogen will also debut in Super Mario Bros. The film is not expected until at least 2023. The idea of a spin-off Donkey Kong film is interesting for a few reasons....

PlayStation Plus is available on PC and allows games to be streamed, but the library differs from the console version. The main issue is that a number of PS1, 2, and 4 games are listed incorrectly as PS3 titles, which do not load at all when selected. Correctly labelled PS3 games do play as intended. Watch on YouTube Eurogamer Newscast: What can Sony do to improve PlayStation Plus Premium?...

The report, by Insider Gaming, suggests the console will otherwise have near-identical hardware to current PS5 models, with the only difference being the removable drive itself, and an extra USB-C port for it to plug in. There’s also the suggestion this new console will be sold both on its own and with the detachable disc drive included. Why would Sony do this when it already has two PS5 models on the market, and one already without a disc drive?...

That would take its current slate of live service games to three, following the release of MLB The Show 22 and its Diamond Dynasty mode. What’s more, by 2025 it’s projected to release a total of 12 live service franchises (six by 2023 and ten by 2024). So what might those two games be? One likely candidate is Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us multiplayer mode. For the other, we previously speculated on what Sony is cooking up....

Stadia’s misfortunes are well-documented; despite initial praise for the service’s streaming capabilities at launch in 2019, a slow, problematic roll-out meant Google failed to capitalise on initial consumer interest. The extent of Stadia’s failings started to became clear when the company announced it was closing its first-party game development studios less that 14 months after launch, with subsequent reports claiming the streaming platform was missing its targets for monthly active users by hundreds of thousands....

Earlier this week, those who pre-ordered Stalker 2 began receiving messages informing them that their orders had been cancelled due to the fact that Stalker 2’s release date has been pushed back to an “unconfirmed date in the future”. At the same time, the pre-order option on the Xbox store was disabled. Following Putin’s illegal and barbaric invasion of Ukraine, the studio’s home, GSC Game World initially put Stalker 2’s development on hold, picking it up again once the studio was later relocated to Prague....

Speaking to Game Informer, director Stig Asmussen stated players will discover “five fully realised stances in the game” for protagonist Cal Kestis, including a dedicated dual blade option and Kylo Ren-esque crossguard-style lightsaber (both of which were glimpsed in the most recent gameplay trailer, which you can see below). As you may already have assumed, Asmussen said it will be “advantageous to use certain types of stances against certain types of enemies”....

Splinter Cell’s audio adaptation - officially titled Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Firewall - follows series protagonist and Fourth Echelon agent Sam Fisher on a mission to recruit and train the next generation of operatives for the National Security Agency’s covert action division. “When a lethal assassin from Fisher’s past returns from the dead on a mission of murder,” the BBC teases, “he is thrust into a race against time as a sinister threat to global security is revealed....

Twitter account PlayStation Game Size spotted the addition to the service, noting its download size of 35.730 GB. It’s possible the demo may be formally announced at tonight’s PlayStation State of Play. The State of Play will focus on Japanese publishers, so it’s a safe bet that Square Enix will feature - especially as Stranger of Paradise is their next big release. The Final Fantasy action game is due for release on 18th March across PlayStation and Xbox consoles, and PC (Epic)....

Access to the Street Fighter 6 closed beta is technically free, though as the name implies, you will need to jump through a couple of hoops to gain access. Once you do, there’s a handful of modes to enjoy, as well as cross-play - giving you a healthy taste of the game ahead of launch. This page will detail the main Street Fighter 6 closed beta release time and release date and how to get access to the Street Fighter 6 beta....

This range consists of a Sly plushy (seen in the header image), a print of some anniversary artwork by the original Sly Cooper’s art director Dev Madan and an anniversary T-shirt. The artwork is certainly an impressive collection of nostalgia for Sly Cooper fans. Madan has rammed it full of references and Easter eggs from the last 20 years. You can see how many you can spot for yourself in the image below....

In all, the event showcased 134 different speedruns with games such as Left 4 Dead 2, Super Mario World, Portal 2, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, to name but a few - and racked up over 42,000 individual donations. Summer Games Done Quick returned this summer with more charity speedruning attempts and an in-person event to complement its online component for the first time in two years in Bloomington, Minnesota....

Made by Nickireda and published on Itch.io, Return to Castle Monkey Ball is a free browser game that lets you smash Nazis in a hamster ball to your heart’s content. So yes, it’s the perfect antidote to last week’s news. The fan game has the classic Super Monkey Ball timer, goal and banana collection mechanics, but smacking into Nazis can earn you extra time… if you can avoid getting shot by them first....

It works like this: power-up cards for critical chance, physical or magic stats and the odds of triggering each unit’s passive abilities spawn semi-randomly across each isometric map, as you take turns to move your troops. Each of your units can gather up to four cards, keeping the effects till the battle is over (Tarot cards, dropped infrequently by dying enemies, confer permanent boosts). It’s tempting to ignore these buffs when they materialise off the beaten path, appearing on squares that don’t fit into your strategy, but they can be decisive in letting you temporarily override level gaps or class disadvantages....

When last we heard from Techland, the developer was insisting Dying Light 2 wasn’t, as widely reported, caught in development hell. “[As far as I know],” the company wrote in a tweet, “the definition of a dev hell requires the game to not make any development progress, while DL2 keeps moving forward. We announced the game too early but it’s far from being in a dev hell.” At the same time, Techland promised that fans could expect an update on Dying Light 2’s progress today, 17th March....