PCGamesN Sunday, August 10, 2025 12:00 PM What do the frighteningly classic FPS FEAR, the rush of hitting criminals in the Batman Arkham games, and the Left 4 Dead-style action of Back 4 Blood have in common? Well, they are all games published by Warner Bros. Games, but they're also part of the new WB Play the Legends Bundle from Humble, and you can score 16 excellent games for just $12 / £10.93 right now - which is ridiculously cheap, and well worth the price. Continue reading Get the entire Batman Arkham series and 12 other games for $12 MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Arkham Knight System Requirements, Best Batman games, Best superhero games |
PCGamesN Sunday, August 10, 2025 10:49 AM In many stealth games, from Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell to Hitman, you are the danger in the shadows. Being spotted in the Batman Arkham series can lead to a fast death, but your enemies are still more afraid of you than you are of them. Intravenous 2 makes stealth feel not like an advantage, but a necessity. You aren't slipping through the darkness to strike the fear of god into your foes, but because you'll be killed in a flash if you don't. Ruthless and intense, it gets my heart pounding in ways that few games manage. Now, for its one-year anniversary, developer Explosive Squat has delivered a free update and mini-expansion, and you can even grab it at a discount. MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best stealth games, Best indie games, Best action games |
PCGamesN Sunday, August 10, 2025 9:42 AM Giving your newly launched game away for free is a bold strategy, and it's led to some dramatic results for co-op action roguelike Guntouchables. Built by Game Swing and published by Deep Rock Galactic studio Ghost Ship, it's a vicious apocalypse survival shooter about a group of preppers trying to fight back against an evolving mutant horde. Bringing together elements of Enter the Gungeon, The Binding of Isaac, and Hades, it was available totally for free on launch day. During its 24-hour giveaway period, it racked up an incredible two million players, and the good news is that you won't need to break the bank to join them. MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best indie games, New PC games, Best PC games |
PCGamesN Sunday, August 10, 2025 8:11 AM Dawntrail is over. The FF14 7.3 patch this week brought a conclusion to Final Fantasy 14's divisive expansion story, and did so in style. I'm not really here to talk about narrative however; without getting too deep into spoilers, the finale played out in relatively the manner I think most people expected, though that didn't stop me from yelling out loud twice during its closing scene. That's fairly standard for the MMORPG; while 'third patch' climaxes are typically great, they're usually a known quantity by the time they arrive, with all the pieces already on the board. What has me most excited for the future is everything else; a litany of smaller but important changes that suggest Square Enix is listening to feedback. MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best MMOs, FF14 Dawntrail review, FF14 Island Sanctuary guide |
PCGamesN Sunday, August 10, 2025 7:00 AM I know not every game should be all about the romance, but I'm not going to lie, what drew me to The Sims 4's latest expansion pack was definitely the ability to woohoo in the sky. I'm a self-proclaimed hopeless romantic, and my strict diet of fantasy had me picturing this as a dramatic, magical, cloud-shrouded kind of moment. Think 'Thumbelina and Prince Cornelius bringing spring back with their singing; Garret showing Kayley the wonders of the forest in Quest for Camelot. Perhaps I got ahead of myself, though, because when it finally came time for my new fairy Sim to woohoo in the sky, I was left disappointed. Continue reading I woohoo'd in the sky in The Sims 4 and honestly, it really sucked MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best Sims 4 mods, Best Sims 4 sex mods, The Sims 4 cheats |
PCGamesN Sunday, August 10, 2025 6:37 AM Back before the mighty Baldur's Gate 3 took over the world, it was Dragon Age: Origins that really opened my heart to the old-school fantasy RPG. Set against the much more modern-feeling Mass Effect, Bioware very deliberately built something that appealed to the classic CRPG crowd. While every entry in the series has its fans, DAO is still my personal favorite, and I'd love to see it make a comeback. Unfortunately, Bioware legend Mark Darrah (who worked as executive producer on the first three Dragon Age games) claims that, while such an idea was pitched by the studio, publisher EA wasn't willing to provide the funding needed to make it happen. MORE FROM PCGAMESN: The best RPG games, The best fantasy games, Dragon Age 4 release date |
Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed Sunday, August 10, 2025 11:00 AM  Hello reader who is also a reader, and welcome back to Booked For The Week - our regular Sunday chat with a selection of cool industry folks about books! I'm obviously using regular in the metafictional sense here but my intentions are pure, I promise. |
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Siliconera Sunday, August 10, 2025 9:00 AM
In the cozy game genre, a growing category of home and room decoration titles involving being creative and designing a room, started to grow in popularity. (I blame Unpacking.) The idea of getting to set things up, arrange them how you like, and make it look pretty, is very soothing and appealing in a chaotic world. MakeRoom, from Kenney and Wholesome Games Presents, is the latest sort of lo-fi approach to setting up rooms, backyards, and backs of vans to create welcoming, pretty, cute, intricate, and creative spaces with the decorations and tools you're given. While it could use some QOL additions and is really best on a PC with a mouse, it's definitely giving us plenty of options.
MakeRoom is, at its heart, a sandbox creation tool. You are given a blank slate. You determine what sort of space you would like to decorate. You are placed in it. It is possible to go through menus consisting of various types of furniture and parts based on function. Colors can be customized for some parts. With some, elements like lights can even be toggled on to change the appearance. Essentially, you're creating miniature dioramas with few restrictions. Over 1,000 items are present, and Steam Workshop allows you to adjust and create more furniture or sample what others put together. Layering is also possible, so you can adjust and combine to change appearances from different perspectives.
Unlike many entries in this genre, MakeRoom does also feature what you could consider a "campaign" of sorts, as you can also opt to visit MakeRoom Island. This is, as the name suggests, a small landmass with a number of specific rooms in need of sprucing up. Each one will have a theme, such as one for a vampire, a spy hideaway, a gamer room paradise, a home cinema, or so on. The little house mascot on the side of the screen will make requests. Some of them will limit you. For example, the first request in the vampire room is to remove windows. But when you get to ones like "add two lamps" and "I want a cat," you get more options to do what you want. The downside is, these "challenges" only take a few minutes to fulfill and aren't as intensive or detailed as I'd hope.
I'm a big fan of all these divisions. In some ways, it does almost feel like three different types of experiences. In the furniture creation section, you're actually in a "workshop" space with a number of different types of object parts and designs. You pick colors for things. You arrange it all. It's very hands-on and tactile, with some really detailed possibilities. MakeRoom Island is honestly among my favorite parts of the experience, since you do have a sense of direction, but still the freedom to experiment. And of course the general sandbox is lovely as well, especially once you have played around in the other two modes and started to get an idea of possibilities. I just wish the MakeRoom Island part was as rich as the furniture creator and general sandbox.
I would have appreciated, though I get could be due to technical limitations or other factors, is more varied room options. We can choose from the back of a truck to make a camper, a room in a building, or an outdoor space. While we can adjust walls or flooring and the range of tools mean we could make residential or professional spaces, I did feel a bit limited. I wished I could have had more room or extra opportunities for deciding on the way the blank palette looked before we started setting up. Because since there are limitations on how small something can get, we can't just make everything teenier for different types of forced perspectives.
There are two major problems I encountered with MakeRoom. The first is while it is possible to layer items, select colors, duplicate items, and really make a number of adjustments to refine each scene, it isn't always convenient or easy. I'd kill for an undo button or options that made it easier to arrange, flip, and fine-tune furniture and accessory placement. There's no quick undo button. You need to rearrange or find the delete again to adjust. I'd have appreciated an option that would let me toggle between multiple items when clicking in a section with a lot going on, like a bookshelf, table, or bed fully decked out with sheets and accessories. I will note that the UI is easier to navigate on an actual PC, as opposed to a handheld gaming one, due to the title being designed with mouse controls in mind.
The other thing that gets in the way of my really relaxing with MakeRoom is its lack of precision. It's an issue not only when playing on a handheld gaming PC like a Steam Deck or Lenovo Legion Go, but came up when I used a laptop and mouse. There are times when it is quite difficult to place things perfectly. Especially if you are trying to go through some cleaning up sections in the levels or engage in some layering. Getting into certain positions is a little limiting, and sometimes even the cleanup tools might not help with cobwebs if you aren't clicking things just right.
MakeRoom is one of the better room decoration diorama options out there, offering more and looking better than something like My Cozy Room. The bargain price paired with the diversity of items is quite nice. I also appreciated that, for those who might draw a mental block for their next creation or want to get a grasp on things, there are levels with certain goals and restrictions. I do wish it was a bit more precise or offered more UI features. But if someone plays on a PC, then they might be okay since the mouse controls will be on their side.
MakeRoom is available for PCs via Steam.
The post Review: MakeRoom Lets You Decorate Creative Spaces appeared first on Siliconera. |
Destructoid Sunday, August 10, 2025 1:13 PM
Battlefield 6 is on a rampage as its open beta attracts over 520,000 concurrent players. The game is yet to launch fully, and it's already stomping most of the competition, Call of Duty included. Mike Ybarra, former Blizzard exec, said this is a good thing—and he's absolutely right.
According to Ybarra, BF6 will "boot stomp CoD" in 2025, which should prompt Call of Duty to not be "lazy" anymore, in turn resulting in everyone getting better first-person shooters down the line. That might seem like a pretty straightforward take, but not everyone agreed with it. Lots of players, especially those favoring Call of Duty, disagreed with Ybarra's message, while those on Battlefield's side ran with it like their lives depended on it.
However, reality lies somewhere in the middle.
BF6 is the solution to a stale market
Call of Duty maintains a large player base both on PC and consoles, selling millions of copies every year and topping charts across the world every time it launches. No matter what, the CoD franchise will almost certainly never fail, and it'll be a long, long time before we see Activision's pride and joy roll off a cliff (if ever).
What Ybarra is implying here is that Battlefield 6, given how popular it already is, will bash heads with CoD and, potentially, steal a bit of its market share (both BO7 and BF6 launch around the same time).
Given EA and DICE's decision to speed gameplay up a bit and lower the TTK (time-to-kill), a lot of CoD players are finding comfort in Battlefield 6, particularly its smaller-scale modes like Domination and King of the Hill, which they'll surely find familiar. Additionally, the game completely walks back most of the decisions made in 2024, making BF6 more akin to 4 and 3 than newer entries in the series, opening it up to veterans to come back and, hopefully, stay.
It is a win-win situation for two groups of players who have gotten tired of both EA's newer shooters and Call of Duty's yearly regurgitations, and the open beta numbers prove it.
What I hope ends up being true is that Battlefield 6 will maintain its popularity and dominance post-Oct. 10 when it fully launches, disturbing Activision hopefuls who believed they could just roll the same old dice again and rake in the millions. I mean, sure, they probably still will, but a few million less is certainly going to get some coats pulled, with the company rethinking how CoD can survive in this new market environment.
No competition killed CoD
CoD hasn't had a proper competitor since Battlefield V, and even that was a lackluster release compared to its predecessor, Battlefield 1, which is by far the best Battlefield game ever made (at least, it is for me). With 2042's horrible launch in 2022, CoD has had free rein over the arcade shooter market, which, as we all know, saw its games get progressively worse since MW2, while Activision continues to chase trends and ludicrous partnerships.
Battlefield 6 thus stands to not only revitalize an ailing franchise, but to revamp the shooter genre as a whole, leading to both Call of Duty and Battlefield becoming bigger, better, more serious franchises with games that people actually like and love and do not whale out over.
It all depends on EA, though.
The post Mike Ybarra is right: Battlefield 6 stomping CoD will benefit both appeared first on Destructoid. |
Destructoid Sunday, August 10, 2025 12:33 PM
Unfortunately for some staffer at Ubisoft, the company has revealed that a Far Cry TV show is currently in the making at FX. In a now-removed news article on its website, Ubisoft detailed this upcoming TV adaptation of its long-standing franchise, including who will run it.
Though the post is now long gone and hopefully didn't get the staffer fired, users on the Far Cry subreddit were quick enough to note down everything it had to say. Far Cry is set to star Rob Mac (Rob McElhenney) known for It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, while Noah Hawley of Fargo fame will serve as the showrunner. Both Mac and Hawley are going to serve as executive producers, among others.
FX was purposefully chosen to work on the series, as its productions are often darker, grittier, and more serious in tone.
"This collaboration is really an embarrassment of riches. Far Cry is a psychological tailspin that doesn't shy away from the darkest and most absurd parts of humanity, which aligns perfectly with FX's bold and fearless storytelling style," said Ubisoft's film and television content chief, Margaret Boykin.
While this is by no means a comprehensive list of details regarding this upcoming Far Cry adaptation, one thing is certain: it's in the works and coming, hopefully soon.
Video game adaptations have been on the rise in the past few years and, to the shock of just about anyone, have been actually turning out good. Popular both among newcomers and hardcore fans, video game movies and TV shows are at the top of their game, washing away (most of) the stigma surrounding early 2000s attempts at the same.
How Far Cry will turn out is anyone's guess, and especially because of Ubisoft's overall track record this past decade, but the people involved certainly are promising.
The post Uh oh, Ubisoft has accidentally revealed a Far Cry TV show appeared first on Destructoid. |
Destructoid Sunday, August 10, 2025 12:32 PM
The Franchise mode in Madden 26 and its gameplay are different from the typical online-based competitive action, and there are different game styles to pick from.
Separate from the in-game difficulty settings, Game Styles determine how the AI reacts and operates in the game. The three choices are all vastly different from one another—and one of them is definitely more suitable than the rest.
Table of contents
All Game Styles in Madden 26
The three options available this year are the same as the last game.
Best Madden 26 Franchise mode gameplay
While Competitive is usually the favorite for most players (it's the default for all online games), the best choice is Simulation. The beauty of Franchise mode isn't the action happening on the field. Instead, having unexpected outcomes is also part of the fun, which is where Simulation comes in.
For example, managing the workloads of your athletes is an important task for any NFL coach. If you're going with Arcade or Competitive, your players will never get injured. In Simulation, your athletes will pick up injuries, and more so, if you're not careful with your rotations. On one hand, this might seem irritating, but in the long run, injuries add a flavor of excitement in Franchise mode.
The realistic nature of on and off-field aspects makes Simulation the best choice in my books, and by some distance. To enjoy Competitive, modes like Ultimate Team and Online H2H is far more suitable.
The post Best Game Style for Madden 26 Franchise Mode appeared first on Destructoid. |
WGB Sunday, August 10, 2025 7:31 AM Former BioWare executive Mark Darrah revealed that multiple pitches for a Dragon Age remaster were made to EA, but the company declined due to funding and a general aversion to remakes. |
