The Finals, the highly-destructible FPS from ex-Battlefield devs, surprise launched at The Game Awards last night. The shooter had just recently ended a very successful open beta that attracted hundreds of thousands of players, but many (myself included) wondered if Embark Studios still planned to get the game out before the end of 2023. Now it’s here, and launch day is going well: The Finals is one of the most-played games on Steam right now, peaking at over 200,000 concurrent players on PC alone.
There is one hangup, though—a lot of people aren’t happy that Embark slowed down player movement between open beta and launch. The pushback is strong enough that The Finals currently sits at “Mixed” on Steam with over 3,000 negative reviews, and a lot of them are about movement. Read more
Feel free to give the answer to today’s Wordle a click if you need to turn Sunday’s game around in a flash, or take a look at our clue for the July 28 (1135) puzzle if you’d like to try that out first and have a few guesses to spare. Whatever makes Wordle fun for you, we’ve got something here to help you make the most of it.
Oh, that was so nearly a lightning fast win in two. If only I’d had some sort of amazing clue to help guide the way, or maybe even the chance to sneakily peek at today’s Wordle answer, I could’ve avoided being one letter off an incredible win. Go on—treat yourself.
Wordle today: A hint
Wordle today: A hint for Sunday, July 28
Today’s answer refers to an item of clothing, a long, loose, shirt-ish, dress-ish thing. This c…
Read moreWizard101, an MMO for kids that’s older than most of its playerbase, is coming to Steam. Well, kind of. Wizard101 has already been on Steam for US players since 2018, but as of yesterday the venerable and family-friendly massively-multiplayer online RPG (FFMMORPG) is also available on Steam in Europe, where it had previously been absent.
If you’re anything like me, that news has you asking yourself one question: Why the hell does Wizard101 sound so familiar? Here’s the answer: This is the game that found itself beset by bizarre messages from a hacker in September 2022, which said things like “BRADLEY COME DOWN TO MY OFFICE THIS INSTANT,” “dick and balls,” and—my personal favourite—”The next world is my boss’s asshole,” a statement of such weighty profundity it sounds m…
Read moreAll the help you need to win today’s Wordle is waiting below. Give your own guesses a nudge in the right direction with a fresh clue just for today’s game, or skip to the win with the answer to the March 10 (995) puzzle. However you play, we can help.
A solid block of three greens became something of a sticking point today, the Wordle answer clearly within reach but refusing to come to mind. Knowing some letters just couldn’t work with the combination I had in front of me wasn’t as helpful as it could have been, because if it wasn’t those, then what the heck was it? A quick break and a fresh angle helped a lot with this one.
Wordle today: A hint
Wordle today: A hint for Sunday, March 10
You’ll want to grab on tight to any …
Read moreI think it fair to say that Crystal Dynamics should now be viewed as the savior of the Tomb Raider franchise. Picking up development after Eidos dropped development duties following the nadir of Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness, it rebooted the series not once but twice, leaving Lara in the position she is today—a relevant hero who’s had some cracking adventures as of late and is reportedly getting more soon, too.
View Tomb Raider: Underworld on GOG
The most recent trilogy of Tomb Raider games was great (culminating in 2018’s Shadow of the Tomb Raider), but the trilogy of releases that Crystal Dynamics released before that (Legend, Anniversary, and Underworld), showed plenty of quality, too, and especially the last release, Tomb Raider: Underworld.
RPG fans have been eating good this year. Even setting aside monster releases like Baldur’s Gate 3, Starfield, and the second coming of Johnny Silverhand, there are tons of great games on Steam vying for our leftover attention. But only one of them lets you play as a treasure chest.
Just a Chest, from a small Chinese dev called 42TeaParty, stars a protagonist named Issac—standard stuff so far—but Isaac isn’t a valiant knight or devious demon lord. Isaac is a humble treasure chest. Joined by some wacky companions, he sets out on a journey to… well, I’m not exactly sure. Probably to find some gold to put in his belly or something.
As an unrepentant loot goblin myself, I approve of the choice of protagonists. Just a Chest looks like a mashup of vario…
Read moreWin today’s Wordle with our help. There’s a brand new hint for the July 23 (1130) puzzle just below if you need a clue, and if that doesn’t work out there’s no reason why you can’t take a cheeky peek at Tuesday’s answer. You’ve got this—and if you haven’t, we’ve got you.
I made things infinitely more difficult for myself today by getting all caught up on one word that almost but definitely didn’t fit the clues I had. That kind of shoved everything else, including all of my usual puzzle solving thoughts, straight out of my mind. Once I actually looked at the letters I had available the answer soon turned up—weird, eh?
Today’s Wordle hint
Wordle today: A hint for Tuesday, July 23
Sharp and pointy ends are the thing to think about today.…
Read moreIt’s ten days to Christmas, and you know what that means: It’s time for the world’s most famous jolly, bearded man to draw up naughty and nice lists, handing out rewards to the latter and pitiless justice to the former. That’s right, Gabe Newell is sticking it to Dota 2 cheats once again.
Well, Valve is, anyway. Newell is probably busy hanging out on his yacht. This year, the studio has come up with a crafty way to lure Dota criminals into their well-earned bans. It’s given out Christmas (or Frostivus, in Dota terms) presents to people on its naughty list that spit out a “Highly Toxic Lump of Coal,” when opened. The description on that lump of coal reads “Your Dota account has been permanently banned for Smurfing, or other violations of the Steam Terms of Service.” Here’s a clip o…
Read moreA prologue-style demo for an upcoming action platformer has you wielding a magic staff and two-fisted kung fu to battle enemies and explore a metroidvania-style world of myth and magic. Akatori’s big pitch si that your way of moving depends on a magic staff that can be thrown not just as a weapon, but to hover in midair as a pole to jump off of.
Developer Code Wakers calls Akatori a “blend of classic metroidvania and intense action platformer.” In it you play as Mako, a teenager raised in a temple who must take her magic red bird staff into the land of the gods to solve a crisis.
Akatori’s combat relies on a combination of strikes with Mako’s martial arts skills and staff. Each attacks in its own way, and blending the two styles into a cohesive whole so that you’re getting t…
Read moreAmazon Games is taking another crack at a Lord of the Rings MMO, it revealed on Monday. The news that it will focus on the period covered by the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit puts it in direct competition with the established Lord of the Rings Online MMO, however, and developer Standing Stone Games has been trying to reassure its community that it’s not in trouble.
Lord of the Rings Online has been kicking around for 16 years and continues to be updated, even as so many of its former MMO peers have fallen by the wayside. But the news of a rival with extremely deep pockets has left some players wondering what the future holds for the classic free-to-play MMO.
Spotted by Gamespot, Standing Stone has responded to its community with a brief forum post. “We…
Read more