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What we’ve been playing – we’ve made a change but don’t panic

by admin August 18, 2025

16th August

Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we’ve been playing. This week, we’re making a slight change in an effort to get you a wider view of what the team – the entire team – has been playing. Expect to read more opinions on what we’ve been playing, but slightly shorter entries so we can fit them all in.

What have you been playing?

Catch up with the older editions of this column in our What We’ve Been Playing archive.

Mafia: The Old Country, PC

Don’t be Sicily!Watch on YouTube

I’ve been excited about this for a while because who doesn’t want to live their Al Pachina Sicilian Mafia dream? Those al fresco lunches are to die for. Sometimes literally.

The set-up here is turn of the 20th Century Sicily and you’re a hard-up miner who: has a mine collapse on them, gets into a fight, goes on the run, and ends up working with a Mafia family. So far it’s been linear and a bit boring. Gorgeous though – that scorched Sicilian landscape is to die for. Sometimes literally. (It’s the same joke Bertie.)

But I haven’t been able to experience anything else because the game keeps crashing on me. Six crashes in a row I had so I gave up. I expect it’ll be patched soon, but that a game can perform like this at all, at launch, is outrageous, and definitely not to die for.

-Bertie

Rocket League, Xbox Series X

In an attempt to prove to my son that I’m not an inept old man who can no longer accomplish things in my life, I played a few games of split-screen Rocket League with him. Of course, he won, but importantly I wasn’t rubbish and I did score quite a few goals. Well done me! Not time for the scrapheap yet.

-Tom O

The House of The Dead Remake, Switch 2

It’s been a very busy and stressful time, as you can imagine, getting ready for Gamescom and helping the new, updated version of Eurogamer get to its feet. So as I was browsing the Switch 2 eShop and saw The House of The Dead Remake was going for less than the price of a pint, I snapped it up. There’s nothing quite like the cathartic release of furiously tapping on a screen to blow the heads off zombies. It works just as well with your index finger as it ever did with a light gun.

-Dom

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, PS5

Wuchang, Wuchang.Watch on YouTube

I’m not sure if the Wuchang developers’ interest in sexy ladies with feathers and wings is down to the iconic status of Elden Ring’s Malenia boss battle, or if they just like sexy ladies with feathers and wings. Regardless, it’s a repeated design across the game, though it certainly speaks to the somewhat derivative nature of the game as a Soulslike. However, as I pointed out earlier this week it does have enough ideas of its own and a peculiar rhythm to combat that makes it stand apart. Annoyingly, I finished it a couple of days ago before the most recent patch came to console, with its much-needed balance tweaks and more controversial story adjustments.

-Ed

Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin, PC

Yes, Drangleic has called to me once more.

I don’t know exactly what it is about FromSoftware’s games, but there’s something about the intricate spaces it creates – the sheer totality of their design – that worms so deep into my brain. Every now and then, I get a yearning that feels impossible to ignore, and this time around it was the melancholy song of Dark Souls 2 calling me back to its blighted peaks and forsaken shores.

I appreciate I’m an outlier here, but I adore Dark Souls 2, warts and all; its sheer ambition, its idiosyncratic invention, and, yes, an atmosphere so overwhelmingly forlorn it practically seeps into your bones. This, I should say, is my very first dance with Dark Souls 2’s Scholar of the First Sin do-over, and it’s a lot like coming home after a long time away and seeing everything with brand-new eyes. Right now, I’m venturing hole-ward into Majula’s suffocating, accursed depths – perhaps the closest From has ever come to full-on horror. It’s good to be back, even if there’s still plenty of pain to come.

-Matt

Silent Hill 4: The Room, PC

This is the video Ian was making that prompted him to play The Room. While he was working in A Room.Watch on YouTube

During a recent edit for a video feature about Silent Hill f, I had to source some gameplay for Silent Hill 4: The Room. I remember playing The Room on the original Xbox at an ex-girlfriend’s house back when it released, but for some reason I never completed it. I’ve long since lost my original copy, but looking back at that footage inspired me to pick it up on GOG and give it another spin.

And you know what, I love the first-person stuff in room 302. It’s kind of a proto-P.T. with its slight, sometimes unnoticeable changes every time you return to the room, which adds more mystery to the experience. There’s some really neat touches too, like looking out of the window to see neighbours going about their business, through the windows of their homes across the street, or seeing handprints appear on the wall outside your room every time someone meets a tragic end.

The Otherworld stuff is definitely on the weaker side of the Silent Hill spectrum though, demonstrated in both its repetitive level design and the fact the game is full of bizarre stock sound effects that really don’t fit the atmosphere. Special shout-out to the nurse monsters that emit echoing Homer Simpson burps every time you hit them.

Despite its flaws, I love that The Room is doing something a bit different. I’m about five hours in and determined to see it through to the end, mainly to finally finish what I started 20+ years ago. But also because I severely doubt this one will get a Bloober remake!

-Ian

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition, PC

I picked up this returning classic yesterday after work and am, so far, a very happy chap. I remember being a teenager and blasting through Dark Crusade on my friends PC, so seeing a lot of those old models reworked with shiny new graphics, in a proper resolution, has been wonderful.

I’m not too far through it yet, having only completed the first three missions of the base games’ campaign, but I do reckon this’ll be a game I’ll chip away at over the next few months. Special shout out to the legendarily horrible yell during the game’s opening cinematic, a relic of the original game the folks at Relic Entertainment could have justifiably removed. It’s a proper AAARGH, one of the all time greats. Also, Chaos Space Marines forever.

-Connor

Tiny Bookshop, PC

Tiny Bookshop has been sitting at the back of my mind ever since I played the demo way back at EGX 2022. Yet, the more I longed for its release, the more a worry grew inside of me – would I enjoy the full game as much as I loved the demo?

Thankfully, the answer is a resounding yes. I’ve easily become completely absorbed in the world of Bookstonbury. In fact, it’s to the point that some evenings I’ve forgotten I can go outside and read at a real beach rather than sell books in a virtual one. Still, it’s a worthy price to pay if it means I can continue selling books and solving the occasional mystery in my little bookshop wagon. Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to sell this pile of travel books and discover who destroyed the shopmarket mascot at the same time…

-Lottie

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition, PC

After reading above that Connor is a Chaos Marines guy I had to include this one, if only so I could comment on how appropriate that is. Anyway, it’s an absolute treat of a game – look forward to a thousand-plus more words of waffle to the tune of that from me very soon. Alongside this I’m still chipping away at Pokémon TCG Pocket, and a couple of very, very good things that are under embargo, oooohhhhhh (sorry I realise that’s actually really annoying to do that and not say what it is, promise I won’t make it a habit).

-Chris T

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August 18, 2025 0 comments

Esports

Umamusume player claims to get “boosted luck” by playing the game on a fridge

by admin August 18, 2025

An Umamusume fan has managed to use his smart fridge to play the game to train Minoho Bourbon, claiming that it boosts his luck.

While Umamusume: Pretty Derby has been around in Japan for some time, the popularity of the game truly went through the roof following the release of its global version.

The premise of the game itself is quite simple. In this gacha game, you can train a plethora of different horse girls in their Careers as well as see them participate and thrive in all sorts of races.

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One of the most common ways to play this game is through mobile, considering it’s available on iOS and Android. However, one fan decided to take it a step further and essentially repurposed his fridge into a device to play this simulator title.

Umamusume fan uses smart fridge to train horse girls

User soultgs on TikTok has gone viral for showcasing his Umamusume: Pretty Derby gameplay on his Samsung refrigerator.

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While a fascinating and unique way to play, at the same time, it also poses the question of whether or not it’s comfortable to play on a fridge for long periods, considering the position you’d have to be in, as well as the lack of an armrest.

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In one of the clips, he was seen training Mihono Bourbon when a family member asked him what he was up to. When asked why he played on the fridge, he jokingly said, “Why wouldn’t I play on the fridge? Come on now, it’s a lot bigger on my phone and on my PC. If I can use a fridge, why can’t I use a fridge?”

Eventually, he was met with a decision of having to gamble on a 24% failure on Guts while training. That’s a risky move at first glance, but it certainly didn’t discourage him at all, as he suggested that playing on the fridge helps him with his luck.

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In his own words, he said: “24% failure, but it’s on the fridge, so I have a boosted luck.” As if predicting his own future, the risky option ended up being a success.

Ultimately, in a separate clip, he showcased the labor of his hard work in training his Umamusume. Although she didn’t end up winning the race in the end, he seemed pretty content, mentioning that she had “tried her hardest” in the comments.

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August 18, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition removes all possible barriers to playing one of the greatest strategy games of all time.

by admin August 18, 2025

Hurtle back through space and time with me, will you, to my living room sofa in 2005. Hunched over, Ork-like and sallow, I used to balance my laptop on one of those nesting coffee tables that was a tiny bit too small, a squeaky little bluetooth travel mouse on the even smaller one beside it. It got so uncomfortable at one point I had to give up on the luxury of my squishy wrist-pad mouse mat, and just wedge a whole cushion under my arm instead. All that for another few minutes running my army around the corners of the map, looking for the final building to demolish, any straggling xenos I’d yet to expunge.

Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition

Developer: Relic Entertainment
Publisher: Relic Entertainment
Platform: Played on PC
Availability: Out now on PC (Steam)

The original Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War is one of the all-time greats of real-time strategy. It’s Relic Entertainment, an RTS powerhouse, approaching if not outright hitting its utmost peak, the three brilliant expansions it developed in-house (plus Iron Lore Entertainment’s Soulstorm later on), arriving at just the same time as its equally superlative first Company of Heroes. To look back on that time now – an early teenager, surfing the early-ish, pre-algorithmic internet, playing a favourite genre in a pomp we’ll probably never see again – is to summon that phrase which increasingly feels like the defining cliché of life as an older millennial. We didn’t know how good we had it.

Anyway, I’ve got that out of my system. Back to the grimdark violence of the far future! Dawn of War was and is brilliant because it is just frightfully silly. In writing that, I can hear a thousand mouths cry out in pain, as I think the Aspiring Champion put it. For many, Warhammer is serious business. But not me. Ye olde editor of mine Martin Robinson used to describe 40K as like Tonka Toys for grownups, as if the little models were something you’d imagine smashing together while making duf-duf-duf noises and giggling with glee. I’ve never been able to see it another way since – no faction captures it more than the flag-bearing Space Marines, being all domed shoulders and coned shins and big, cool trucks. Dawn of War was intricate and keenly balanced and vast, but it was also simple. What if you could play your goofy pre-teen imagination, and what if doing that was awesome?

Here’s a trailer for Dawn of War – Definitive EditionWatch on YouTube

Dawn of War – Definitive Edition, which has just released, was more than enough of an excuse to return. As a remaster it’s a pretty low-key one. For everyday users arguably the biggest fix is the one made to the previously clunky choose-your-resolution options on start-up. There were no good options, for anyone not playing on a monitor from 2005 (Dawn of War and the first expansion, Winter Assault, are 4:3 aspect ratio for instance, and Dark Crusade onwards just stretched-out versions of that), where now it scales nicely all the way up to 4K.

There’s a prettifying effort that’s been made to textures, lighting, shadows and the like – the type of thing that you notice the first time you play the new version and then immediately forget. That’s a compliment, if a back-handed one: the nature of these kinds of upgrades is that, while noticeable side-by-side, in practice the new one simply bumps your memory of the old clean out of your head. I must’ve played the original Dawn of War for hundreds, maybe thousands of hours; within about three with Dawn of War – Definitive Edition my subconscious has already decided that’s just how it always looked.

Image credit: Relic Entertainment / Eurogamer

Naturally, of course, it isn’t. Go back to the original again and you’ll be blown away by just how claustrophobic the level of zoom is with the camera. Or how greedy the UI’s taskbar is, taking up the entire bottom edge and what must be close to about 20 percent of your entire screen. These are little snags you didn’t even know were snags, sanded off and 2025-ified for modern consumption. Plenty of old bugs have been tidied up too.

The headline for the true nerds is the move to a 64-bit version of the game from the previous 32-bit. I’m not going to even attempt to get all Digital Foundry about this but the top-line point here is that it’s a major boon for the modding scene, adding extra headroom where modders would previously come up against hard limits to RAM usage. Part of the justification developer Relic gave for this specific type of somewhat limited remaster, in fact, was that it “didn’t want to break anything” modders had made for the original, as design director Philippe Boulle told some guy called Wes at IGN.

Absolute state of this lad. | Image credit: Relic Entertainment / Eurogamer

The headline for me, meanwhile, is that I once again have a reason to play this game again – and a functional, borderline thriving online community to repeatedly lose to once more. (Anyone who ventured onto old DoW servers in recent years would’ve encountered one of about nine, five-star-rated experts who still lurked there, and who were often very nice, in that Warhammer shop assistant way, as they absolutely obliterated you in about 45 seconds flat.)

I started up my playthrough here at the very beginning, with the first Dawn of War’s main campaign. This lasted a few pleasantly xeno-purging missions until I had one of those who am I kidding moments, and turned straight to the conquest mode of Dark Crusade – one of the very greatest RTS campaigns of all time, and a mode I’ve personally replayed so many times, on so many chunky laptops after school, or friends’ parents’ PCs when attempting to jank together some rudimentary LAN party, that even the tutorial voiceover guy’s weirdly impeccable enunciation is burned into my ears. This mode is just magic. Put a conquest mode in everything, I say (and realise I’ve also said before).

Memories… | Image credit: Relic Entertainment / Eurogamer

In saying that, I realise I’m trying to sell you on it. And in realising that I’m landing on something else. The other big millennial realisation that is forever destined to haunt us, as it’s done to every generation before. A lot of people are about to experience this thing you’ve always loved for the first time today. I like that one much better. So much has been said and written about the demise of the RTS. And indeed of Relic, a sensational developer that’s gone through the ringer like so many others in recent years. Now’s your chance to remind yourself what they were all about; or to realise it for the first time. If you’ve never played Dawn of War – hell, if you’ve never played a real-time-strategy game – this is the time to do it.

Dawn of War is grim, jagged, frequently some shade of sludgy grey, green or brown. It’s also campy, emphatic in its spectacle and quite happy to be bizarre. It’s a game where teching (or turtling, as some call it) can be genuinely viable, letting you pile up defensive turrets and mines, pack choke points (all great strategy games must have choke points!) and outlast your enemy’s assault as you bide your time through unit upgrades. As can rushing to a specific unit or upgrade for some niche, edge-case means of assault, like teleporting a builder over a chasm and having them construct cloaked buildings right under the enemy’s nose. It’s a game you can take very seriously, with a real competitive edge, or likewise not even a little seriously at all, giggling at line deliveries and old quotes you’ll find yourself muttering to friends years later. And all of it’s just drenched, dripping, squelching away in peak, secondary school oddball fantasy. I refuse to play this game and be sad about the state of the RTS, to feel sorry for what we’ve lost or what could’ve been. Instead I’m simply glad to have it at all. I say get your big fancy power armour on and wade in, like the rest of the Emperor’s finest.

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August 18, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Why is everyone playing Star Wars Battlefront 2?

by admin June 23, 2025

On Sunday, Star Wars Battlefront 2, a nearly eight-year-old game, hit a peak concurrent player count of more than 35,000 players on Steam. That’s just part of the story of renewed interest in Electronic Arts and DICE’s Star Wars shooter, which has become a must-play for fans of George Lucas’ space saga — and a rallying cry for Battlefront fans who are desperate for a Star Wars Battlefront 3.

How did Star Wars Battlefront 2 become a 2025 hit on Steam, some five years after its final update? You can thank a big year for Star Wars, led by the popularity of Andor and the return of Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith to movie theaters for that film’s 20th anniversary, in part. Major Star Wars-themed events in Fortnite and mobile hit Monopoly Go may have also given Battlefront 2 a lift.

Renewed interest in Star Wars Battlefront 2 started to grow in early May, right around Star Wars Day (aka May the Fourth), which landed right in the middle of season 2 of Andor. Player counts quintupled, according to data from SteamCharts, as daily peak concurrents went from about a thousand players to 5,000.

Interest grew as Revenge of the Sith returned to movie theaters on May 19, and as longtime Battlefront 2 players rallied supporters to the cause. They wanted to break the game’s previous Steam concurrents record — 10,345 back in January 2021 — to hopefully capture the attention of publisher EA. Player counts crested as the makers of Kyber, a Battlefront 2 dedicated server and community mod manager service, recruited Star Wars fans for a “resurgence” event on May 24.

Interest begat interest, and as former Battlefront game developers began posting to social media to recognize the Battlefront 2 craze.

“As a former developer of SWBF2 it’s amazing to see old and new players check out the game,” wrote Manuel S. Llanes, design director on Battlefront 2 in a post on Reddit. “While us devs are a bit scattered across the galaxy I am sure I can speak for all the rebels and say that it means a lot.”

This weekend, Star Wars Battlefront 2 reached an all-time peak 35,321 on Steam. And according to research firm Circana, the game has appeared in the top 15 most-played PlayStation and Xbox games, based on player engagement, over the past month. A Death Star-sized discount from publisher EA (and the game’s availability on subscription service EA Play) probably helped; Star Wars Battlefront 2’s Celebration Edition is now just $3.99 on Steam, until July 10.

What’s more, Battlefront fans have a friend in multi-year NBA All-Star Kyrie Irving, who streamed Battlefront 2 on Twitch this weekend. “I love this game,” Irving said. “I want them to make Battlefront 3 already, bro.”

Whether all of this interest will translate into a third Star Wars Battlefront from EA remains to be seen, but it seems unlikely to happen any time soon. EA and DICE are all-in on the next Battlefield game, and reportedly focusing on a small handful of franchises: Battlefield, The Sims, Skate, and Apex Legends. That’s in addition to the already in-development Iron Man game at Motive, Respawn’s third Star Wars Jedi game, and the EA Sports lineup.

But maybe there’s a chance in the long run. Star Wars Battlefront 2 has evolved, after all, from a hated pay-to-win, microtransaction-infested pariah to a fondly remembered shooter. So anything is possible.

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June 23, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

What we’ve been playing – cops, kicks, cups and climbs

by admin June 21, 2025

21st June

Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we’ve been playing. This week, we’ve got a bumper crop! Alex tries out being a police officer, Tom O tries out being a footballer, Dom excels as a monk, and Connor lets it die.

What have you been playing?

Catch up with the older editions of this column in our What We’ve Been Playing archive.

The Precinct, PC

The Precinct trailer.Watch on YouTube

My internet went down the other day. When this happens, it’s always pretty stunning to realise how reliant we are on a constant internet connection; most of the stuff I’d been playing requires some sort of internet validation. Even though you can play Magic the Gathering: Arena against bots, you can’t do it without a connection. While you can boot Hitman, it feels a bit pointless to play it without the persistent progression online hooks provide – something that feels likely to make the Switch 2 version more irrelevant than it should be. So, with Virgin Media bequeathing me 24-hours of downtime, I had to find something truly offline.

I already had The Precinct installed, after a friend of mine mentioned it. A game recommendation in a ‘boys chat’ of guys I went to school with is pretty rare, so I figured this was worth a look… and then promptly forgot about it. But here it was, installed, ready, with no connection required. Fate.

The Precinct is an interesting thing. Brazenly inspired by the 2D Grand Theft Auto games, it’s a top-down(ish) perspective title set in an open world city – but this time, you’re on the other side of the law. I never quite know how to feel about stuff like this – there’s always the risk of sliding into weirdly reverent copaganda, but I have a soft spot for the Police Quest adventure games, and there’s shades of that here.

The Police Quest echoes come in the form of how procedural the gameplay feels. There’s a heavy focus, literally, on police procedure. You can patrol the open-world city streets and issue parking tickets for being incorrectly parked or having expired tickets, or issue verbal warnings to graffiti artists. There’s a bit of discretion here – do you arrest, fine, or simply warn someone who was speeding? You’re meant to follow the book, and only use force as necessary. There’s also shootouts and car chases, of course, but so far the charm comes from the focus on the minutiae of the process, hammering a separate button to ensure someone is read their rights as you cuff them.

I’ve only played a few hours – I’m not that far removed from the game’s late, title card drop, in fact. But what I’ve played so far is a promising little start. I’ve no idea if it’s going to become grindingly repetitive, as is always the danger in games structured like this,but I intend to return. That’s a pretty good start for a game picked out on a no-internet whim.

-Alex

Rematch, PS5

The Rematch trailer.Watch on YouTube

“The idiots are winning.” Fans of underappreciated British TV comedy will recognise that one, but importantly it sums up a lot of my time with the recently released 3/4/5-a-side footy game, Rematch. It’s a team-based online game, and let me tell you, the people playing are testing me. Usually a calm, level-headed man, a few sessions this week have taken me close to breaking point.

In the spirit of playground football, goalkeepers are fluid. If one player leaves the zone around the goal they become a standard outfield player while another can run over and magically have gloves on and be ready to dive about. This is great, in theory, but it encourages people to go on little walks up the pitch. Again, fine, as it pulls opposing players towards them, leaving gaps for attackers to exploit. That is, if the goalie doesn’t fluff it almost every time.

It’s early days in Rematch, a game that has only been on release properly for a day at the time of writing this, so I’m hoping people learn from failure. A goalie who has discipline is far better than one who thinks they’re Mbappé, gets dispossessed by the first attacker and then leaves the goal wide open. Fair play for having the belief in yourself to do such a brazen act of team sabotage, over and over, I guess – I feel sheepish if I accidentally misplace a pass. If there is a gaming god out there, please tell these fools to understand the very basics. The fact that my team mates, absolute liabilities to be kind, generally score more points in each game than I do is bananas.

-Tom O

Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster, Switch 2

The Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remaster trailer.Watch on YouTube

“I just summoned your Tiz,” reads a text from a friend I got at some point in the last week. “And he absolutely one-shotted the boss I was fighting!” Mmm. Yes. Good. My minions are doing their work. This was always my favourite part of the original Bravely Default on the 3DS, making use of the social elements to feel like you’re almost shortcutting through the grind of the game.

But you’re not, you see: it’s designed this way. The devs at Square Enix were incredibly smart in the way they balanced the Final Fantasy-like RPG, allowing for little areas where super-powered friend summons could rush in to help you out and trivialise otherwise difficult boss fights. After a few hours of play time, you can customise your Limit Break-like attacks with unique names, effects, and animations.

My Tiz, for example, is a beefed-up monk that can deal 4x unarmed damage to human enemies – which a lot of early bosses are – and apply debuffs whilst he’s at it. My friend used this to great effect. The move I crafted, I’m afraid to reveal, is called “Get Fisted”. Monks gonna monk. You still need to pay attention to the gimmicks and the way things work (many boss fights have multiple enemies, and typically a Friend Summon will only take down one), so this isn’t some sort of game-breaking panacea.

Another little boon is that by connecting with mates, you can start rebuilding an in-game town. Gather 10 in-game NPCs or people from your friends list, pop them all into the item shop, and have them work for 45 real-world minutes, and you’ll be able to purchase new wares from travelling merchants. Commit enough resources to, say, the weapons shop, and you can start getting late-game items as early as 10 hours in. It’s a wonderful way of utilising player downtime, and a delightful reworking of a tool that used to rely on the oft-mourned StreetPass feature on the 3DS.

Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster is a charming little game. And I should hope so, since it’s pretty much the biggest draw the Switch 2 had for me at launch.

-Dom

Let it Die, PC

The Let it Die trailer.Watch on YouTube

Every now and again I’ll remember some bit of games industry news from a year or so ago, and it’ll send me down a rabbit hole. Let it Die has been this rabbit hole for me recently.

I really like Let it Die! It’s this super bizarre, charming action game with a rad multiplayer component which allows other players to invade your base for spoils. Sounds simple enough, but it’s a Grasshopper Manufacture game, so there’s a lady obsessed with mushrooms, you pull different bodies from an industrial chain of body bags, and Death is your companion throughout. Not, like, the concept. The literal reaper – and he does kickflips.

The game remains a lot of fun. It’s a free-to-play title so there are some pretty gnarly microtransactions present but I’ve yet to feel the desire to buy any. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. It’s got jagged edges and can feel a tad repetitive from time to time, but it’s got soul to it which I value more, the older I get.

There was a multiplayer PvP spinoff called Deathverse: Let it Die which had an incredibly brief life. It wasn’t great, but again, it had that golden soul to it that I loved. The game was taken offline some time ago, and as far as we know, it’s still in the process of being remade into a totally new thing. I’m aware that you can’t keep a game running with only 100 players online, but darn it, I do find myself missing Deathverse every so often.

Anyway, tangent over. Let it Die is a bombastic little game that has had years of free updates, so if you’ve got little else to do this weekend, why not give it a try!

-Connor

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June 21, 2025 0 comments

GameFi Guides

Ripple Says Negotiated Settlement Levels the Playing Field

by admin June 17, 2025

Enterprise blockchain company Ripple has filed a supplemental letter in support of its motion for an indicative ruling.

Ripple argues that approving the recently negotiated settlement would place the company “on more comparable footing” compared to other industry participants.

“…the settlement would also place Ripple on more comparable footing with other industry participants whose cases were dismissed much earlier in their lifecycle as a matter of SEC discretion,” the letter said.

The SEC previously dismissed cases against such major players as Coinbase and Kraken.

When it comes to Ripple, the SEC agreed to slash the company’s penalty to $50 million while also lifting the injunction targeting institutional sales in the US.

What we’ve been playing – lessons in communication and, um, trash-talking

by admin June 14, 2025

14th June

Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we’ve been playing. I bet you didn’t even notice it’s a couple of hours late this week. Shh, don’t say if you did. This time, Bertie learns a lesson or two about communication while Tom O tackles Mario Kart World’s Free Roam missions.

What have you been playing?

Catch up with the older editions of this column in our What We’ve Been Playing archive.

Split-Fiction, PS5

There’s a level towards the end that elicited more “wows” from me than I can remember or count.Watch on YouTube

I’m nearly there with Split-Fiction – just the last boss to go (there’ve been some interruptions) – and one thing that keeps coming to mind when I play it is communication. This is hardly a revelation for a game built around co-op and playing together but it’s something I don’t think about a lot, probably because I play games mostly on my own. Lonerrr! That’s an insult I haven’t heard since school. So I’m not very good at it, communicating, because I just assume other people know what I’m thinking.

But you can’t really get through Split-Fiction without communicating, not unless you have a telepathic link with someone, which I don’t think is possible outside of Dungeons & Dragons yet. There are moments where you have to speak up. Still, it doesn’t come naturally to either my partner or me, so we have these weird and amusing stand-offs where both of us are offended that the other person didn’t magically know what to do.

I’m taking a long time to say that I’m learning something of a new skill here. I’m learning to push the thoughts outside of my head and to make sure I’m keeping another person in the know, and that feels profound to me, like a lesson much bigger than overcoming the final Split-Fiction boss.

-Bertie

Mario Kart World, Switch 2

Magnetic! Watch on YouTube

I’ve played a lot of Mario Kart World but I’ve still got things to do in the Free Roam mode’s open world, and I expect I’ll be chipping away at it for some time yet. On Thursday night I sat down for a few minutes to see how many more P-switch missions I could mop up, only to be stumped by one that I simply couldn’t figure out.

This mission was simple. Race down a straight section of track while holding a golden boost mushroom, then leap off a ramp into the finish. The only thing stopping me from doing this was some explosive bombs that were also racing towards the goal, so I had to get there before they did.

Easy. I had DK, a character with a high top speed, and a kart with a high top speed. I’d just boost along and complete the mission. But I simply couldn’t do it. Unknown to me, my son had mistakenly started playing Mario Kart World on my Switch 2 instead of his after school, and I hadn’t noticed he’d popped DK into the Ribbit Revster – a mid-tier kart for speed. It was only after I took to social media to ask for help that my misery could be explained.

-Tom O

Mario Kart World, Switch 2

I really hope DF agrees with my frame-rate analysis.Watch on YouTube

Tom copied me, but like, he wrote his entry first so I don’t know how that works. Anyway this week I played my first proper bout of multiplayer Mario Kart World – using one Pro Controller and two halved Joy-Con – so I got my first dose of the real magic of the game.

Thoughts: the performance dips a bit, doesn’t it? I know that’s a dry thing to notice but I sat near Digital Foundry’s Tom Morgan for so long in our Gamer Network office that his digital scrutiny rubbed off on me. In screen-quartered multiplayer the frame-rate appears to drop. It’s not horrendous but it feels different to the silky-smooth performance of solo mode.

Nevertheless, the magic of Mario Kart was stronger in multiplayer. I see a lot of talk about unfairness and rubber-banding in Mario Kart, by which I think people mean how the game can batter you out of position with its arsenal of shells and other weaponry, then favour those who drop behind with various speed boosts to get them back in contention. And, yeah, I know this can be annoying. But it’s also the source of the game’s trash-talking magic – there’s a lot of trash-talking in Mario Kart, I find – and that beautiful belief that no one is ever out of reach, even if they raced smugly ahead at the beginning. Remove this and what do you have?

I don’t think you have Mario Kart.

-Bertie

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June 14, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Mio: Memories in Orbit has all the wonder of playing Inside for the first time and its devs are working hard to make it even better

by admin June 13, 2025

To say that I had absolutely no idea what was going on the first time I played Mio: Memories in Orbit is probably an understatement. I was far too busy admiring and exploring the beautiful if slightly creepy landscape to pay much attention to any greater goal. But after getting smacked around by a couple of robots I came to my senses.

You play as Mio in this metroidvania, who has woken up in an enormous technological ark which is floating through space. The catch being you don’t really know what it is or what you’re doing there at first. So the only thing to do is to explore and figure it all out as you go along.

“As you progress into the intricate environments of the Vessel, you’ll be able to unlock new memories,” a news blog says. “Strike enemies that block your way and meet with different powerful guardians, holders of the spaceship’s darkest secrets. These encounters will make you grow into a formidable force.”

The more I think about it, the more I realise that I play a lot of games where the main character starts off with no knowledge of what’s going on and has to grapple with a new mysterious environment at the same time I do. Playing through Mio felt like the first time I picked up Inside or Limbo—dropped in a kinda unsettling world, clambering around, trying to make it out somewhere safe and maybe piece together what was going on as I went.

My favourite game last year was Ultros which had the same premise of landing on an odd spaceship full of psychedelic plants, masked travellers, and godlike creatures, and exploring it to uncover its odd secrets. I’m thrilled to be able to walk down that path again with an equally stunning metroidvania, even if I’ve traded the vibrant plants for a techno-dystopia.

(Image credit: Focus Entertainment)

It took a little getting used to but the platforming and fighting is also a ton of fun. There’s not just a bunch of different enemies for you to take on, some of which pack a real punch. My advice is if you see a little dude with a hammer, don’t get swept up in how cute it looks, because they are aggressive little critters who’ll bonk you on the head at first sight.

To help deal with the more aggressive bots in Mio you can collect a couple of useful abilities. With the grappling hook you can spring around the place like a robo Spider-Man and the glider makes me feel like one of those flying squirrels.

Mio may be a ton of fun right now but it’s still just in its demo phase. Developer Douze Dixiemes has promised players that it’s going to keep working hard to make sure it’s in its best possible state for launch.

Image 1 of 5

(Image credit: Focus Entertainment)(Image credit: Focus Entertainment)(Image credit: Focus Entertainment)(Image credit: Focus Entertainment)(Image credit: Focus Entertainment)

“We’ve already collected some feedback, and it seems that you particularly appreciated the art direction overall, the boss fights (especially when they gave you a hard time) and the soundtracks,” the blog post continues. “This is exactly what we were going for.”

So far the bug reports which you can log on the game’s Discord server have been few and far between. There is a log of the game refusing to launch, which I haven’t personally had any issue with. Then there’s a complaint about the jump button on both a controller and keyboard not working when you have both plugged in and an issue with someone fixing a plate with nacre (a resource you collect by killing robots) and then coming back the next day and finding it all broken up again. But it seems that the majority of players are loving their time with Mio’s demo.

The devs even compiled some of their favourite fan responses they’ve received so far. “Demo before [Silksong]! And it’s really good,” one player says. “So much love for this game that I stayed more than three hours inside, [mostly] just afk listening to the Satuary soundtrack,” someone else commented. I’m certainly excited to carry on my adventures, encounter more angry bots, and just marvel at this absolute work of art.

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June 13, 2025 0 comments

Musk vs Trump shake the market, but which memecoin could 100x from the chaos?

NFT Gaming

Are Trump and Musk Playing chess with the market? Which coin will win the game?

by admin June 7, 2025

Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.

Trump–Musk feud shakes markets as Tesla drops, crypto hit; investors brace for fresh waves of uncertainty.

A public feud between Donald Trump and Elon Musk just rattled global markets. The two titans clashed over Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” with Musk publicly blasting the policy for threatening economic stability.

Trump, never one to back down, responded by hinting at halting government support for Musk-linked ventures like SpaceX and Tesla. Within hours, Tesla shares nosedived, and the ripple effect slammed into the crypto space, signaling more than just political drama. For investors, the message was clear: uncertainty is back, and the smart money is already repositioning.

Elon Musk vs Trump sends the crypto market falling

After Elon Musk and Donald Trump clashed online over the weekend, the entire crypto market took a heavy hit. Bitcoin fell sharply, dropping below the $101,000 mark, while Ethereum slipped by over 6%. In total, more than $170 billion was wiped from the market in just a few hours.

The sell-off was quick and brutal. Within a single day, over $950 million in long positions were liquidated. Traders were forced out of their bets as prices dropped fast, and panic spread across exchanges. It was one of the most sudden crashes seen in recent months.

Some believe it was just a healthy correction. Others think it might have been triggered on purpose. With two of the loudest voices in tech and politics, Musk and Trump, now at odds, tension is rising. Trump criticized Tesla and hinted at policy changes, while Musk fired back online. Tesla shares took a hit, and soon after, crypto followed.

Now many are asking the same question: Was this just a coincidence… or a move to reset the market and shake out weak hands?

Either way, this dip has created new chances, and sharp investors are already moving toward the next breakout.

After the drop, some investors panic – others spot opportunity

Big crashes don’t scare everyone. In fact, they often light the path for those paying attention. While most eyes are still on the feud and the market chaos, some investors are already shifting their focus toward something that’s been quietly building: a frog. Not just any frog but Pepeto.

Back when memecoins first took off, Elon Musk once changed his X profile picture to a frog, sparking wild speculation about what he was hinting at. Some now believe that move wasn’t random. Fast forward, and Elon’s name is being tied to the Trump token launch — a coin that surged, then slumped, all while his public feud with Trump heats up.

Now, enter Pepeto , a memecoin born from the same roots as Pepe, but with a story of betrayal and revival. Rumors in the crypto world say it was sidelined in the early days, only to return now with stronger tech and bigger plans.

📣 Announcement 📣 :

PEPETO EXCHANGE DEMO VERSION IS READY, SET TO BE DISPLAYED IN PEPETO OFFICIAL SOCIALS, IN LESS THAN ONE WEEK – APPLICATION FOR LISTING VIA OFFICIAL WEBSITE WILL RESUME AFTERWARDS –

Comment – $PEPETO is the God of all frogs- if you are all set up and ready… pic.twitter.com/29jey8Oqrg

— Pepeto (@Pepetocoin) June 6, 2025

More than hype, Pepeto runs on Ethereum, features zero-fee trading with PepetoSwap, and allows for fast cross-chain token transfers via its custom bridge. It’s the rare project with both narrative and infrastructure , and as whispers of a Tier 1 listing grow louder, early buyers are racing in before the price moves.

Why Pepeto is quickly becoming a top contender

• Ethereum-based with zero-fee PepetoSwap
• Cross-chain bridge for seamless trading
• Fully audited contract for user protection
• A revived meme story tied to Elon-era speculation
• Tier 1 exchange listing expected to be announced soon

Discover Pepeto before the listing goes live.

In a market that runs on stories, timing, and tools, Pepeto checks every box. It’s not just a comeback; it might be the next 100x. And this time, no one’s ignoring the frog.

Disclosure: This content is provided by a third party. crypto.news does not endorse any product mentioned on this page. Users must do their own research before taking any actions related to the company.

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June 7, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

What we’ve been playing – Switch 2s and sand worms

by admin June 7, 2025

7th June

Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we’ve been playing. This week, we get all excited about the arrival of Nintendo’s new console, the Switch 2, and we pop on our filtration suits and head into the deserts of Arrakis with the launch of Dune: Awakening.

What have you been playing?

Catch up with the older editions of this column in our What We’ve Been Playing archive.

Switch 2

What are you doing, Jim? We’re very much here for it. Watch on YouTube

Switch 2 has arrived! Yay!? I might elaborate on this a little at some point, but I’m somehow both very excited by this new console and simultaneously a little bored. Key to this, I think, is the lack of a classic Nintendo platformer or adventure to dive into. Mario Kart World is great fun, but Mario Kart has always been my side game, the one I play for 30 minutes here or there, not the main event.

I know Zelda is there, but I’ve played a lot of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom already. Maybe I’m greedy, but I just wish this launch had a little more to it.

-Tom O

Dune Awakening, PC

Wakey wakey, Paul Atreides. Dune Awakening is here.Watch on YouTube

For the past few months my only experience playing Dune Awakening was through closed press previews and solo trips through the betas: solitary experiences! But with the public release on the 5th I was able to finally hop into this Survival MMO with friends.

I’ve got to say, it’s a blast. Grouping up together, building a cramped shared accommodation, blasting through scavenger camps and nicking each other’s materials from chests. I already had fond thoughts of Dune Awakening but the social aspect adds another layer that’s incredibly moreish. Even with a Switch 2 sitting next to me I long for the sands.

It is also endlessly entertaining to watch fresh-faced Dune players run into the worm for the first time. Their audible gasp when they see it emerge, and their panic on Discord when they know the chase is on. A reminder that the social aspects of multiplayer games are where the real juice is.

-Connor

Mario Kart World, Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Switch 2

Beep, beep, beeeeeeeep.Watch on YouTube

I’m doing a medley because that’s what famous singers like me do, isn’t it? A trio of my greatest hits, except, it’s not my greatest hits but Nintendo’s Switch 2. What a laboured introduction.

I spent an evening with Switch 2 and I like it a lot. The device is sexy and slinky, and alternating between it and the Switch OLED model really highlights what’s changed. Everything feels better – the thumbsticks, the size of the thing, the feel on the skin. It feels expensive.

The games also look better running on it. I’ve been really keen to see what the Zelda upgrades are all about, so I fired up Breath of the Wild and bought the upgrade to see, and I’m impressed. Frame-rates often feel like such a cold thing to talk about but the buttery smooth 60fps, which I assume is what it’s running at now, makes a huge difference, and I think the picture has improved too? That’s hardly a Digital Foundry analysis but it’s enough to say I immediately noticed the change.

Mario Kart World: what a delight. I love moments of discovery like this, as people rush to find what’s possible in the new game. I haven’t properly gotten into a Mario Kart game in generations so there’s a lot that’s new to me, but I’m enjoying grinding on rails and performing tricks in the air as ways to get speed boosts; the battle royale-like tournaments bring a new dimension; and free-roam I’ve only nosed around but it feels gently transformational. The 24-player races make difference, too, and somehow energise races without over-crowding them.

Great start.

-Bertie

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June 7, 2025 0 comments