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Game Updates

Battlefield 6’s live action trailer is its biggest jab at Call of Duty yet, makes a point out of blowing up Zac Efron

by admin September 29, 2025

A new live action Battlefield 6 trailer has been released which takes shots at Call of Duty’s celebrity-focused marketing strategy, introducing a squad of household names including actor Zac Efron before quickly blowing them up.

This squad, which also features basketball player Jimmy Butler, country singer Morgan Wallen, and MMA fighter Paddy Pimblett walk across a ravaged bridge to Smashing Pumpkin’s The World Is A Vampire. They all represent one of the classic Battlefield specialist classes, with weapons covered in colourful camos and charms.

After Zac Efron and his crew explode, they are replaced with a collection of standard looking modern military soldier types take their place and engage in typical video game live action trailer shenanigans. It’s a two-birds with one stone affair where EA has clearly taken a little pot shot at its largest competitor, while also highlighting several key selling points for Battlefield 6 – those being a lack of gaudy cosmetics and the death of a limiting specialist system.

Here’s the launch trailer for Battlefield 6!Watch on YouTube

Battlefield 6 has proved exceptionally popular judging by its open beta tests, and has established itself as a real competitor to Call of Duty this year. It’s done so by tackling many problems FPS players have had with Call of Duty for several installments now – those being the prevalence of crossover and cameo skins, as well as a shift away from its modern military roots (at least as far as the multiplayer is concerned).

EA and Battlefield Studios recently showed off the campaign in a recent Sony State of Play, which is sticking true to the modern military presentation people seem to be craving, whereas Black Ops 7 is diving into a more mind-bending space with its campaign. It’s a real clash for the hearts and minds of FPS lovers, with Battlefield 6 on track to do the best the series has ever done in the dustup.

Earlier today, EA announced it is to be acquired by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, investment firms Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners for $55bn. Now a private company, the deal was financed with roughly $36bn from the trio and $20bn worth of debt. This deal marks the largest all-cash sponsor take-private investment in history according to EA’s official press release on the matter.

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September 29, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

What Saudi Arabia Buying EA Means For Battlefield 6, Sports Games, And More

by admin September 29, 2025

Why does Saudi Arabia want to make games? What will the largest leveraged buyout in history mean for EA and its employees? How will the consequences of the new $55 billion deal ripple out across the rest of the video game industry? I reached out to some analysts to get their take on the sale and what it tells us about the state of gaming now, and where it’s headed. Here’s what they said.

A “soft-power” play

“This is the second-largest deal in games history—$50 billion for a mature publisher whose growth engine has stalled,” Joost van Dreunen, a professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business and author of SuperJoost Playlist, wrote in an email to Kotaku. “It shows how sovereign capital, not just Big Tech, is now dictating who controls cultural IP. It also highlights how public-market fatigue with slow-growth publishers is pushing them toward privatization.”

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has mandated $38 billion be invested in turning the country into a gaming powerhouse, with sizable chunks of that already being spent on buying up mobile game makers, taking over esports, and acquiring equity in major gaming companies (it already owns 10 percent of EA going into the sale). While other private equity partners are part of the sale, Bloomberg reports that the majority of the funding comes from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

In the latest edition of his newsletter, van Dreunen points to the illogic of the the deal’s financial math, which values EA much more highly than its current cash flow would suggest it should be for a leveraged buyout in which $20 billion is financed through debt. He argues the deal underpins Saudi Arabia’s willingness to overpay for U.S. cultural IP, as well as Wall Street’s loss of interest in legacy gaming businesses whose growth potential has stalled out in recent years. “At the center sits the irrational financial logic that tells you it’s about power, prestige, and staking Saudi Arabia’s claim in American entertainment,” he writes.

Gaming continues to consolidate in search of growth

The conventional wisdom was that amid the post-pandemic flurry of market consolidation, EA would merge with someone sooner or later. It reportedly engaged in acquisition talks with Apple and others back in 2022, with a potential deal to to merge with NBCUniversal eventually falling apart over price. Pundits have called on Disney to buy the publisher of Madden and FIFA (now EA Sports FC) for decades. “We couldn’t be in a stronger position as a standalone company,” EA CEO Andrew Wilson said back in 2022.

What’s changed since then? EA hasn’t has a new runaway success story since Apex Legends, which shadow-dropped back in 2019 and stumbled last year amid declining interest. EA Sports FC, Madden, and now College Football are the core games sustaining the publisher, but it’s unclear where they go from here. Battlefield is taking on Call of Duty again for the first time in years, but it’s an expensive live-service gambit at a time when few new multiplayer games seem to be able to stick for any length of time.

“EA’s mobile games business has traditionally underperformed and should be a much larger part of its overall business,” Piers Harding-Roll, Games Research Director at Ampere Analysis, told Kotaku in an email. “This alignment could help transform EA’s mobile business. EA’s revenue growth in recent years has been benign, so the opportunity to drive growth and build out a long-term strategy by bringing together a cross-section of expertise is attractive to both parties.”

The publishers attempts to adapt its hit franchises into mobile games have either been canceled (Battlefield), quickly closed down (Apex Legends), or struggled to bring in boatloads of money (Madden). “The deal creates opportunities for Saudi Arabia to strengthen its console & PC presence, and provides EA with an opportunity for synergy with [Saudi-owned mobile developer] Scopely for ongoing mobile expansion, now that both are under the PIF,” Daniel Ahmad, Director of Research and Insights at Niko Partners, told Kotaku in an email.

Leveraged buyouts are a recipe for pain

Big private-equity deals involving lots of debt often bring with them sharp cuts. Business analysts will call this “right-sizing” or “rationalizing the business,” but what it means is people paid a fraction of their CEO’s salary get fired. EA currently has roughly 15,000 employees, a number many industry watchers expect to decline. “Leveraged buyouts deposit a large amount of long-term debt on the company being acquired and an additional $20 billion of debt will need to be serviced through cutting costs and building more margin from existing businesses to generate more free cash flow,” Harding-Roll said.

There’s been a lot of debate on whether going private will free the company up to invest in franchises long-term rather than invest almost exclusively in games that deliver predictable quarterly returns. Could a lack of shareholder pressure yield more single-player blockbusters, or provide EA with enough runway to give the next Mass Effect as much time in development as it needs? Or will the debt crunch incentivize EA to lop off anything that’s not generating revenue and retreat even further into annualized sequels?

“EA’s empire is heavy on sports and sprawling studios, so some ‘right-sizing’ is inevitable—expect a sharper split between the sports division and everything else, some studio consolidation, and likely relocation of certain functions to Saudi Arabia,” van Dreunen told Kotaku. “Being private could also tilt its content strategy back toward longer-cycle franchises rather than quarter-to-quarter live-ops churn. Battlefield gets a cushion, but there will be trims and a sports-versus-everything-else carve-out.”

Unconventional players in uncharted waters

Video games are a notoriously chaotic business, mergers are inherently unpredictable, and a sovereign wealth fund has never owned one of the biggest gaming publishers in the world before (following Activision’s sale to Microsoft, EA is the biggest non-platform, non-Chinese company in gaming by revenue). While it’s reasonable to explain the deal by pointing to Saudi Arabia’s global PR blitz and synergies in sports and mobile gaming, it’s also reasonable to think it’s way too early to tell how this will shake out, especially when you throw a $20 billion loan into the mix.

“I can’t say I know what it all means yet, or what this deal will result in when it comes to EA’s games and studios,” Mat Piscatella, Circana’s Director of Gaming Research, told Kotaku. “I’d hazard to even attempt to speculate at this point. Of course, leveraged buyouts have a certain history that generally hasn’t been great for the acquired companies, but I do not know if that will be the case here given the parties involved.”

“It’s very much about aligning gaming and esports alongside entertainment and sports as key diversification pillars for the Saudi economy,” Ahmad added. “The deal also begs the question of what will come in the future regarding mergers and acquisitions for the global games industry, given the ongoing consolidation trend, and the ability for smaller companies to break through to walk among the giants.”

While more layoffs may be a grim inevitability, the analysts Kotaku spoke with didn’t predict any seismic shifts in the immediate aftermath of the deal, set to close next summer. “I don’t expect any significant changes to the upcoming slate of games over the next couple of years,” Harding-Roll said. “The biggest opportunities remain growth of the Battlefield franchise, growth of the EA Sports FC franchise during the World Cup 2026 and bigger exposure to mobile gaming.”

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September 29, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

How Silent Hill F Is Connected To The Rest Of The Series

by admin September 29, 2025

Since the announcement of Silent Hill f back in 2022, I’ve seen one question circulating online with far more fervor and frequency than any other: Does it have any connection to the rest of the series? After years of waiting and speculation, we finally have an answer.

Warning: Silent Hill f spoilers to follow.

If you’ve rolled credits on Silent Hill f, you’re familiar with its shocking first ending. In it, it is revealed that the Hinako exploring Ebisugaoka is actually a twenty-something-year-old Hinako experiencing deep, drug-induced psychosis. Though players have witnessed what seemingly started out as an ordinary day for our high school-age main character, we come to discover that, in the real world, it’s Hinako’s wedding day, and she’s spent the last few hours of it murdering her friends and family members. Her actions are, of course, horrific, but make sense if you do a little digging around.

Turns out, Hinako has been taking Kakura-Makakura, a natural medicine made from ground Hakkokusou seeds that are then placed in small, red capsules. Originally given to her by her friend Shu to help with recurring tension headaches, it becomes obvious that the apprentice apothecary gave her the medication without properly assessing the risk in taking it or properly considering its reputation. A stack of journal entries on Shu’s desk gives us minimal insight into the medicine, as he writes he prescribed it to her to “curb her reliance” on traditional medication and made it by combining peony and kudzu root. Fortunately, documents scattered throughout the town and spirit realm give us the opportunity to learn a bit more about the medication ourselves.

Hinako looks at a pond surrounded by white flowers in Silent Hill f.

According to research papers found in Silent Hill f, Hakkokusou is also referred to as “the flower of the gods.” The documents go on to state that the herb is an important part of folklore, as it is known for giving those who consume its seeds the ability to converse with gods, visit their lands, and awaken dormant powers–all of which happen to Hinako. Lastly, the papers describe Hakkokusou as “notoriously difficult to cultivate as it requires a very specific environment in which to grow” and is “rarely found in the wild.” It makes sense then, that the one place we find Hakkokusou in Silent Hill f is near Shu’s home, which also serves as the town’s apothecary.

Gallery

Upon reaching Shu’s house, you’ll stumble upon a small pond surrounded by large, white flowers unlike any you’ve seen around town–and this is precisely where Silent Hill f shows us how it connects to the other Silent Hill games. Though referred to as Hakkokusou in Silent Hill f, Silent Hill fans will recognize these flowers as While Claudia, a “perennial herb found near water” that features white blossoms and contains hallucinogenic seeds.

Since the series’ beginning, White Claudia has played a notable role in Silent Hill. In the first game, protagonist Harry Mason stumbles upon several documents indicating the game’s cultists have been consuming the flower’s seed during their ceremonies, somewhat explaining their bizarre behavior. While visiting the town’s hospital, he also finds a broken bottle of Aglaophotis–a thick, red liquid later revealed to be refined White Claudia.

In Silent Hill 3, Harry’s daughter, Heather Mason, calls a pendant her father gave her one of her “most treasured belongings.” If you check it’s item description, it reads, “There’s a jewel inside, like a little red tablet.” Later in the game, we find out that this jewel is actually a small vial of Aglaophotis as well. Most recently, White Claudia made an appearance in Silent Hill 2’s remake, in which developer Bloober Team added a new ending that sees James take the substance and begin to hallucinate his wife Mary back before she developed her terminal illness.

Heather’s necklace.

And to make this theory even more convincing, it’s worth delving a bit more into White Claudia’s liquid form, Aglaophotis. According to Fandom’s Silent Hill page for the in-game drug, “Aglaophotis may have been a factual herb, sometimes connected in identity to the European peony. The Greek doctor Dioscorides named Aglaophotisas a member of the peony family, Paeoniaceae.” This directly coincides with Shu’s journal entries, which describe him as using peonies to produce Kakura-Makakura. Lastly, Agura no Hotei-sama–one of the item’s required to attain Silent Hill f’s Fox Wedding ending–is described as a medicine bottle containing a red liquid, similar to Aglaophotis. Later on, Hinako is forced to drink the refined “flower of the gods” to help steady herself in the spirit world.

So although Silent Hill f might not take place in Silent Hill, it feels safe to say that it definitely takes place in the same world and tugs at the same threads and themes as its predecessors. It’s also worth mentioning that it’s among the best games in the series, with our Silent Hill f review calling it, “a visual spectacle, a mastercraft in psychological horror, a work of narrative brilliance, and a new benchmark for the Silent Hill series.”

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September 29, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Capcom warn that Monster Hunter Rise, World and Wilds might not run on Windows 10 PCs after October 14th

by admin September 29, 2025

Your cuddly dinosaur aunties at Capcom have warned that they can’t “guarantee” various Monster Hunter games will run on Windows 10 PCs after uncle Microsoft end support for the operating system on October 14th this year.

When that fateful day comes to pass, Capcom “will no longer guarantee that Monster Hunter: World, Monster Hunter Rise and Monster Hunter Wilds will run on Windows 10 systems.” Which isn’t to say that these games will immediately become unplayable, but “future system updates or game title updates may make the game incompatible on Windows 10 systems”.

The developers add that if you have trouble with those Monster Hunter games on Windows 10 PCs after October 14th, “support can only be provided based on information from before support for Windows 10 was discontinued”, as they’ll be discontinuing services for investigating problems when playing on Windows 10.

If this is the first you’ve heard of Windows 10 being sunsetted/given the old heave-ho/left crying by the roadside, Microsoft have said that Windows 10 apps and drivers will continue to boot and run normally after the cessation of official support, but you won’t get any more free security updates, bug fixes and big feature updates.

It’s not quite as cut-and-dried as that in practice. Microsoft 365 apps running on personal and commercial Windows 10 PCs will get security updates until October 10th 2028, and feature updates until August 2026.

Microsoft are also offering a paid extended security update subscription for people who want to maintain Windows 10 beyond the cut-off date, with availability dependent on region and which version of the OS you’re running. In good news for people resident in the European Economic Area, Microsoft have bowed to pressure from consumer protection organisation Euroconsumers (via Particle Collider Gamer) by making ESU updates free in the EEA until October 2026.

Windows10mageddon threatens to leave a lot of PC users in the lurch, though there’s a certain amount of Y2K-style hysteria about the fallout. According to one study, around half of Windows PCs still don’t run Windows 11. If your machine doesn’t have the specs for Windows 11, it seems like you’ll need to buy a fresh one. I expect there will be plenty more bulletins from game publishers encouraging players to update their systems.

This article has been updated to mention Microsoft’s recent decision to make ESU updates free to people in the EEA until October 2026.

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September 29, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Electronic Arts Is Being Acquired For $55 Billion And Will Go Private

by admin September 29, 2025

Electronic Arts is being acquired for $55 billion by an investor consortium consisting of the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia (PIF), Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners. The all-cash transaction sees this collective absorb 100 percent of the publisher, effectively taking the company private.

The transaction is the largest all-cash sponsor take-private investment in history, said to “accelerate innovation and growth to build the future of entertainment,” according to a press release. The deal was approved by the EA’s board of directors and is expected to close during Q1 of the 2027 fiscal year, pending customary regulatory approvals.

Once the acquisition is complete, EA will stay headquartered in Redwood City, California, and Andrew Wilson will remain CEO. Stockholders will receive $210 per share in cash, representing a 25 percent premium to the unaffected share price ($168.32 at market close on September 25, 2025). Following the acquisition, EA’s common stock will no longer be listed on any public market.

“Our creative and passionate teams at EA have delivered extraordinary experiences for hundreds of millions of fans, built some of the world’s most iconic IP, and created significant value for our business. This moment is a powerful recognition of their remarkable work,” said Andrew Wilson in a press release. “Looking ahead, we will continue to push the boundaries of entertainment, sports, and technology, unlocking new opportunities. Together with our partners, we will create transformative experiences to inspire generations to come. I am more energized than ever about the future we are building.”

Battlefield 6

The acquisition group, dubbed “The Consortium,” consists of three companies. First is the PIF, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia. The PIF has expanded its reach into the video game industry through its Savvy Games Group, an entity founded in 2021. In the last four years, the PIF has purchased stakes in gaming companies such as Nintendo, Activision Blizzard, Take-Two Interactive, Capcom, Embracer Group, and Nexon. The Savvy Games Group also owns American mobile gaming company Scopley, and earlier this year, announced plans to acquire the game division of Pokémon Go developer Niantic. The PIF had an existing stake in EA before its full acquisition of the company.

The second company is Silver Lake, a multi-billion-dollar global technology investment firm based in North America, Europe, and Asia. Lastly, Affinity Partners is a Miami-based investment firm founded in 2021 by Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of President Donald Trump, who once served as White House senior advisor during Trump’s first term.

The Consortium states it will “bring deep sector experience, committed capital, and global portfolios with networks across gaming, entertainment, and sports that offer unique possibilities for EA to blend physical and digital experiences, enhance fan engagement, and create new growth opportunities.”

Madden NFL 26

The acquisition comes as EA gears up for the October 10 launch of Battlefield 6, which is shaping up to be its biggest release of the year. EA’s portfolio of upcoming titles also includes Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted, next year’s Star Wars Zero Company, and more distant projects such as the next Mass Effect, a third Star Wars Jedi title, and Motive Studios’ Iron Man.

It also comes after two years of massive layoffs across EA. In February 2024, EA laid off over 600 employees. Titanfall developer Respawn Entertainment suffered cuts this past April, which resulted in two project cancellations. In May, EA closed Cliffhanger Games, canceling the studio’s in-development Black Panther game.

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September 29, 2025 0 comments

Mrbeast hold up his product during a YouTube video.

Game Updates

MrBeast Promises Latest Grotesque YouTube Stunt Was Completely Safe

by admin September 29, 2025

The latest YouTube video stunt by one James “MrBeast” Donaldson has already wracked up over 46 million views in just one day and it’s not hard to imagine why. Titled “Would You Risk Dying For $500,000?” it shows a series of challenges in which people brave flame-engulfed obstacles in exchange for money. It’s kind of like David Blaine if, instead of doing absurd and wild stuff himself, he paid other people to do it while also explaining how it was all incredibly fake and just for grim lulz.

The infernal trap that’s been drawing the most attention is one in which a stuntman is tied to a chair inside a “burning house” and has to escape and save as much money as he can from inside the house in order to earn the highest cash prize possible. Donaldson bounces back and forth between urgent warnings about how real the flames are and mugging the camera with jokes about MrBeast product placement. The entertainment concept is more grotesquely mundane than anything Phillip K. Dick could have imagined and also, clearly, highly entertaining to millions of people.

This blew up, if you’re curious obviously we had ventilation for the smoke and a kill switch to cut off the fires. We had professionals test this extensively and the guy in the video as stated is a professional stunt man. I take safety more serious than you could ever imagine.

— MrBeast (@MrBeast) September 29, 2025

Donaldson defended his uniquely gifted intuition for creating the debased content people crave by promising the whole stunt was tested with professionals multiple times, responding to viral posts about the stunt with additional context. The last thing Donaldson needs after lawsuits last year over alleged safety violations on his Amazon Prime show is people thinking he doesn’t take the premise of potentially roasting another human being alive for less than the median home price after taxes seriously.

“We had professionals test this extensively and the guy in the video as stated is a professional stunt man,” he wrote on X over the weekend. “I take safety more serious than you could ever imagine.” He expanded on the setup in a comment on the YouTube video as well.

Content creators tend to think any spectacle is defensible if they can say health and safety concerns have been attended to behind the scenes, but that’s not really it imho. Mr. Beast’s whole thing is that his subjects’ desperation for cash allows him—a wealthier person—to indulge his sadism.

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw.bsky.social) 2025-09-29T12:45:09.235Z

“In case there’s any concern about the safety of the stuntman contestant, I just wanted to mention that we take safety extremely seriously,” he added. “Every challenge was tested by multiple stuntmen, we have a full rescue team on standby with firefighters, EMTs and divers equipped with an ambulance and fire truck. We also had a pyro team controlling the fires and multiple fire suppression methods on every challenge to ensure we could essentially turn off the fire if there was ever an issue. But our stunt coordinator did an amazing job as always, and none of these systems were ever needed. Just wanted to be transparent with you all since I saw some concern!”

This is the Catch-22 at the heart of this entire genre of extremely watchable algorithm-bait. Either the entire thing is so real and authentic that it’s an absolutely monstrous thing for everyone involved to be associated with and signals the utter depravity of modern capitalism, or the stunt is all so fake and performative that none of it matters and you’ve been conned out of 25 minutes of your week just so some guy can hock candy bars.

Either way, it kinda sucks!

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September 29, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Former Rockstar VP Talks GTA 6, Explains Why Bully 2 Never Happened

by admin September 29, 2025

In 2020, Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser left the company after over two decades as one of the driving forces behind the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption franchises. While Houser has since launched a new company, Absurd Ventures, he recently shared his thoughts on Grand Theft Auto 6 and explained why Bully 2 never materialized.

During a panel appearance at Los Angeles Comic Con (via IGN), Houser was asked about how he feels regarding GTA 6, the first Grand Theft Auto game in decades that he had no involvement with.

“I think it’s a great privilege to have worked on something that big–you know, I wrote the last 10 or 11 of them, so I think the world’s probably had enough GTA from me … There’s always a new story, so it’s not going to be a story that I wrote or a character set that I developed. I think it’s going to be exciting. The game will be great, I’m sure.”

Houser has previously voiced his desire to see a sequel to Bully, the 2006 game set at a boarding school. When he was asked about the reasons why Bully 2 didn’t come to pass, Houser cited “bandwidth issues,” before adding, “If you’ve got a small lead creative team and a a small senior leadership crew, you just can’t do all the projects you want … With certainly how we’re structuring it, [we were] trying to do two projects with a very fairly small team, and just really trying to think through that. ‘How can we do that and keep them both moving?'”

Picking a favorite game from his time at Rockstar proved to be difficult for Houser. He noted that Red Dead Redemption 2 was “the best thing that I worked on [and the] best single kind of realization of open-world storytelling thematic consistency and understanding how the games are assembled to take you on an an emotional journey.” He also cited GTA 4, GTA 5, Bully, and Red Dead Redemption as some of his best experiences at Rockstar.

Houser’s next project is a comic book miniseries called American Caper, which will be released by Dark Horse Comics on November 12. He also said that Absurd Ventures’ first video games will be a currently untitled “open-world third-person comedy,” and A Better Paradise, which he described as “a third-person dystopian tragedy.” Both games are still early in development.

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September 29, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Zenless Zone Zero 2.3 takes full advantage of the new Spook Shack faction for its Halloween season

by admin September 29, 2025

If you’ve been enjoying the politics-filled 2.2 update for Zenless Zone Zero, which came out earlier this month, you’re probably on your way to finishing the new content. Which means, of course, it’s time for the next update to reveal itself.

Version 2.3, Memories of Dreams Bygone, was officially unveiled today, and it’s going to arrive on October 15 – so in about two weeks from now.

Zenless Zone Zero’s Version 2.3 immediately addresses one of the criticisms players had with earlier installments of Version 2, which revolved around the lack of the lack of Rupture characters in its banner events. 2.3 is adding three new Agents to the roster: Lucia, Yidhari, and Komano Manato.

Lucia is an S-Rank Ether Support Agent, who’s very much into the Ethereal. Her kit reflects that, too, because she can recreate Ethereals in combat. She calls on Dream Points to enter a Dream state and unleash Ether Veil: Wellspring, which boosts the max HP of all allies, and increases the team’s Sheer Force and Aftershock frequency.

Yidhari is another S-Rank Agent, only she’s the Rupture one fans have been missing. Her Ice attacks always deal Sheer damage, and she gains Sheer Force based on her max HP. Interestingly, however, Yidhari deals more damage the lower her HP is, which adds an element of risk/reward to her kit.

Komano Manato is the only A-Rank addition, joining as a Fire Rupture Agent. Likewise, his Sheer damage scales with his max HP. As far as returning favourites, Version 2.3 will bring back Vivian (S-Rank, Ether – Anomaly), as well as Ju Fufu (S-Rank, Fire – Stun) as part of its banners.

Watch on YouTube

In this chapter, you’ll get to visit Timesworn Hills, and team up with Spook Shack. The new region – and the update itself – very much share the spooky theme of abandoned research facilities where tales of experiments going awry are buried.

The narrative kicks off like a few good Halloween mysteries: a missing person’s case. Some miners and Porcelumex employees have gone missing, and you’re being sent in to investigate. Timesworn Hills is also rich in Lumite ore.

Memories of Dreams Bygone is bringing some gameplay changes to Soldier 0 – Anby, who’s getting a buff alongside some tweaks to her combat. You can also look forward to Threshold Simulation as a new challenge activity that tests your stamina by throwing you in back-to-back battles.

Zenless Zone Zero is getting a hint of turn-based combat in this update, too, with the arrival of the When Dreams Remain Unfinished event. In it, you’ll get to play as monsters with unique abilities. You’d want to play it, too, because completing the event guarantees getting Agent Komano Manato.

Image credit: MiHoYo.

Photography event SNAP! Shining Strike returns as well, and it now offers more camera controls, filters, and frames.

As part of today’s news, we also got a glimpse at future Agents Banyue, Dialyn, Zhao, and Ye Shunguang, who HoYoverse said will be joining the game in “the near future.” Finally, if you log in during 2.3, you’ll get 600 Polychromes alongside 10 Encrypted Master Tapes, and 10 Boopons.

Before you go, it’s always a good idea to catch up on our updated Zenless Zone Zero codes. If you’re in a fighting mode, you may also jump into the comments of our Zenless Zone Zero character tier list and argue your case.

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September 29, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Randy Pitchford has found his soulmate: an edgy cowboy robot named after money that’s in Borderlands 4’s first DLC

by admin September 29, 2025

Remember when you were young, and had your first crush? All of a sudden your hormones are going nuts, and here’s this person you can’t think about without your face contorting into a goofy smile, or talk about without bashfully giggling. Well, it seems that’s how part-time Gearbox exec and full-time social media poster Randall Steward Pitchford II feels about Borderlands 4’s freshly revealed first DLC Vault Hunter.

It’s understandable to be fair. Which of us hasn’t found ourselves gazing longingly at a former casino robot dressed like a goth version of John Wayne, before volunteering to help animate its card-throwing? Sometimes, C4SH rules not just everything around you, but your very heart.

Watch on YouTube

C4SH is the name of this cowbot, whom you’ll be able to play as if you splash out for him when he arrives alongside the game’s first story DLC early next year. The Vault Hunter’s “a drifter who chases the probability-breaking highs of cursed eldritch artifacts, with his bio continuing that the first story DLC, Ellie and the Vault of the Damned, “is full of cosmic horrors that harbor uncanny curios, some of which can surely bend the odds in C4SH’s favour.”

As you might have guessed, C4SH is aimed at folks who like playing in a way that comes with high risk for potentially high reward, with the buckarndroid’s skills being deliberately unpredictable. That’s all cool, but the more important thing emphasised in C4SH’s reveal at the Tokyo Game Show is this: Randy Pitchford fucking LOVES him.

“C4SH is important to me because I think he and I have a lot in common,” the exec said during this on-stage reveal, having previously descibed the cowboy robot as “very dear to me, very personal to me.” What’s engendered these strong feelings in such a famously chill and dispassionate fellow? Well, Pitchford has both won and lost while doing some real life gambling, the CEO said, and he’s also a professional magician. “I’ve mastered sleight of hand with playing cards, and we used my demonstration to help animate the character in the game,” said the smitten Gearbox skipper.

We’ll have more to share in the coming months about C4SH and Story Pack 1, but for now, check out what’s up next in our post-launch roadmap, including our first Seasonal Mini-Event, Bounty Pack, and Invincible Boss. pic.twitter.com/FUYq5qduqO

— Borderlands (@Borderlands) September 28, 2025

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So, if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to basically be Randy Pitchford – or at least a cyborg Clint Eastwood that he sees a lot of himself in – now’s your chance to find out. I assume there’s a posting interface built into the HUD when you load in as C4SH. Either that, or you’ll have to run two monitors for the authentic experience of arguing with tweeters about the capabilities of their game-playing boxes as you play Borderlands. Remember: when it feels like you should probably stop posting, do not stop posting.

As they’ve revealed C4SH, Gearbox have also put out a DLC roadmap for Borderlands 4. Mad Ellie and the Vault of the Damned, the first story pack C4SH arrives as part of early next year, also includes extra main and side missions in a new zone of Kairos and new gear. Hopefully the majority of the performance issues which’ve plagued the shooter since release will be sorted by then, so you can enjoy C4SH rather than crash.

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September 29, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

As Chrono Trigger celebrates 30th anniversary, spiritual successor Threads of Time gets fresh gameplay trailer

by admin September 29, 2025

The Chrono Trigger-inspired retro RPG Threads of Time has received a new gameplay trailer, showing off more of its time-travelling narrative.

From Canadian developer Riyo Games, Threads of Time was first revealed at last year’s Tokyo Game Show. Now, a year later, this new trailer was shown at the PC Gaming Show Tokyo Direct and it looks to be progressing nicely.

As with Square Enix’s iconic classic, Threads of Time will take place across a number of time periods, from prehistory to a cyberpunk future, and is presented similarly to the Octopath Traveller HD-2D aesthetic.

Threads of Time gameplay trailer – PC Gaming Show Tokyo DirectWatch on YouTube

One minute the adventurers are strolling through a bustling medieval town and battling the sort of fluffy or botanical creatures you’d typically expect in an RPG; the next they’re exploring sci-fi facilities and a rain-soaked futuristic metropolis with flying cars overhead.

There are some beautiful animated scenes chopped in too, though I hope the character designs don’t lean too heavily on Chrono Trigger nostalgia – I’m looking at you, robot.

What’s really struck me, though, is the look of the battles. These are turn-based, but have a strong sense of depth with a perspective sitting between Octopath and Dragon Quest as characters fight across the foreground and background with some evocative environments.

Image credit: Riyo Games

There’s no release date yet, though presumably it’s set for release on PC.

It’s also well-timed, following the critically acclaimed Sea of Stars from fellow Canadian studio Sabotage as another Chrono Trigger-inspired retro RPG. That game’s DLC Throes of the Watchmaker was recently released, if you need an excuse to return.

What’s more, Square Enix is this year celebrating the 30th anniversary of Chrono Trigger and promised various projects would be released, sparking hope for some form of remake or remaster.

It’s still unclear what’s happening there, even as fans cry out for a re-release on current hardware. Until then, Threads of Time could well fill the gap.

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September 29, 2025 0 comments