Rockstar Games has announced a nice bonus for GTA 5 players that might encourage people to jump back in to GTA Online. Now through September 17, everyone who logs in to GTA Online will receive $1,000,000 worth of GTA$. GTA+ members, meanwhile, will get an additional $1,000,000.

This also applies to anyone who signs up for GTA+ now through September 17. Players can expect the GTA$ bonuses to hit their accounts within 72 hours.

GTA+ costs $8/month and, in addition to various perks for GTA Online, includes access to a library of Rockstar games, including Red Dead Redemption, Bully, L.A. Noire, and others.

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Hollow Knight Silksong will officially launch for PC and console on September 4. In a special presentation, developer Team Cherry revealed the official release date for its long-in-development game. While the last couple of years have been full of rumors--and summoning circles--regarding the game, recent months have seen new updates for the follow-up to the hit indie game Hollow Knight.

Tied to the release of the game is the ROG Xbox Ally, a handheld gaming PC set to launch on October 16. Team Cherry said that it was aiming to ship the game in time for the launch of the new Xbox hardware during the holiday season, and it will also be available through Xbox Game Pass as a day-one release.

Currently, Silksong has made its grand return to Gamescom, and there are already long lines snaking through the Koelnmesse for a chance to play the highly anticipated game.

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It's not long until Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 finally comes out--something that seems like an achievement in its own right given its almost-cancellation, multiple delays, and layoffs at developer The Chinese Room. That impending release does appear to come with a small caveat, however. As reported by Eurogamer, while the base game will feature four clan types, there are two more that will be available at launch--as long as you're willing to pay for them.

These two extra clans, Lasombra and Toreador, will come as part of the Shadows and Silk add-on pack, which will set you back $22, and it seems like there's no other way to get them. Eurogamer notes how one big issue here is that not only do clans affect how you play, but even shape the difficulty of your playthrough. The original Bloodlines also notably features seven clans in total.

While attending Gamescom, Rock Paper Shotgun had the opportunity to speak to The Chinese Room and asked about the decision to turn these clans into DLC as opposed to including them in the base game. The simple answer is just that the new clans were additional work on top of the developer's original plans for the game. This additional work occasionally came at publisher Paradox's request, so the overall argument is that it's fair to sell them separately because it was extra work.

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Glen Schofield, the director of 2022's The Callisto Protocol, has shared the one thing he would have changed for the game--and it was not delaying the game.

Speaking to The Game Business, Schofield said his bosses at Korean publisher Krafton mandated that The Callisto Protocol launch in December so it could release at a strategic time for its shareholders.

"I don't like when the politics get in the way, which they did with Krafton," he said. "There was no doubt about it. They told me that the game has to ship in December because of the Korean stock market. I should have just shut it down right there. I'm mad of myself on that one."

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Kaitlyn Dever's portrayal of Abby in Season 2 of HBO's The Last of Us sparked both critical acclaim and intense fan scrutiny, culminating in an Emmy nomination (one of the show's overall 16). Dever took on the role during one of the most difficult periods in her life, navigating profound personal grief while stepping into one of gaming's most controversial characters.

In a recent interview with Deadline, Dever revealed that her introduction to Abby began with her father's enthusiasm for the character, which helped shape her performance, later fueled by loss and resilience.

"It was actually my dad's thoughts and opinions on Abby that were way stronger than mine," she said. Long before being approached about the role, he urged her to watch the end of the second game: "You need to sit down, and you just need to watch this."

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Some of the best games of recent memory have been deceptively simple, and Kill the Brickman looks like it might just scratch that itch for arcade-inspired fun. Published by Vampire Survivors developer Poncle and developed by Doonutsaur, Kill the Brickman is a turn-based roguelike brick-breaker game, and it's out now on PC and Xbox consoles.

The goal here is simple, as each run will see you blasting your way through chapters, powerful bosses, and bricks featuring leering faces on them. How can you not want to smash them?

The catch here is that you'll need to build bullet-blasting loadouts by combining relics, clip layouts, and variant rounds, experimenting to find the perfect synergy to work your way through each level. If you feel like a real challenge, you can also grab an extra mission from the intergalactic bounty board for extra rewards.

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Remember earlier this week when The Pokemon Company put out a teaser image for Pokemon Legends: Z-A that looked like it could legitimately be from something like the Blair Witch Project? Well, the full trailer is out now, and unsurprisingly it isn't actually all that scary--apart from that one bit with the Espurr. That thing still is terrifying. Still, the trailer is a fun riff on the found-footage genre, and it even revealed a completely new Mega Evolution Pokemon.

Titled The Case of the Sweet Scent Incident, the trailer follows a couple of people exploring an abandoned building as they come across more and more mysterious happenings. Surprising mirrors, mysterious purple sludge, that titular sweet scent, some Pokemon-oriented jump-scares--all of it builds towards the reveal of Mega Victreebel. And it's looking … large.

Victreebel's Mega form essentially looks like a giant water balloon with some leaves growing out of it, and it bounces around the place as it moves. Over on the official Pokemon Legends website, a description explains, "It has so much acid that even closing its mouth tight isn’t enough to hold it in, so it contains the acid by wrapping its own vines around its throat." It certainly paints an uncomfortable picture.

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This week Steam made a small change to how it displays reviews and will now show a score for reviews in your language instead of an "all reviews" score. One game that has benefited from the change is Palworld, which now shows Overwhelmingly Positive for all English reviews.

Palworld has been the source of some controversy since it first came to the public's attention, with some claiming the monster-collecting title is a direct rip-off of Pokemon--an opinion that seems to be shared by Nintendo, who eventually sued developer Pocketpair for patent infringement. The game has still proven popular with players, reaching huge player numbers in its first month of release.

While Palworld used to show an all-time review rating of Very Positive on Steam, the reviews update has given the game a small boost in English, granting it the coveted Overwhelmingly Positive rating. The upgrade was celebrated by Pocketpair's communications director and publishing manager John "Bucky" Buckley, who posted to X about the milestone. Bucky clarified in the comments that Palworld isn't rated particularly low in any language--it "just happens to be higher in English," he said in a reply.

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Hell Let Loose is getting a sequel that takes place during the Vietnam War. At Gamescom, Team17 and Expression Games announced Hell Let Loose: Vietnam, a platoon-based "hardcore" FPS featuring 50v50 multiplayer battles focused on team play and strategy.

"Retaining the gameplay base that fans loved from the first title, this is a brand-new experience, utilizing combined arms, with air, water, armor, infantry, and support weapons that encapsulates the theatre of war feeling beloved by fans of the original title," the publisher said.

Hell Let Loose: Vietnam will have six maps, pilotable helicopters and patrol boats--including the famous PBR--and a tunnel system for another layer of strategy.

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Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time has a new patch on all platforms, bringing a brand-new photo mode, new abilities for mounts, a wide camera angle for the Base Camp, and a heap of other quality-of-life upgrades.

Version 1.5.0 is out now, bringing with it a brand-new photo mode that can be accessed directly from the Weird Pad. The photo mode looks pretty thorough, including plenty of options for posing multiple characters in a scene, as well as a multitude of emote expressions.

The update also adds a new item called Pride of the Mount, which can be unlocked by completing a quest from Monsieur Cobra. Once acquired, Pride of the Mount will unlock a dash-speed upgrade for your mounts, as well as two new mount abilities--double=jump and cliff climbing.

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California governor Gavin Newsom has reacted to the PlayStation 5 price hike in the US, jokingly thanking US President Donald Trump for making it happen via his controversial tariff strategy.

Re-sharing a news story about the PS5 price hike, Newsom, a Democrat, posted on social media, "Great work, Donald Trump!!"

On August 20, Sony announced a price hike for the PS5 in the US, with all models of the console going up by $50 effective today, August 21. PS5 accessories, however, will hold their prices. With the price hike now in effect, the cheapest PS5 model is $500. The PS5 Pro, meanwhile, now costs $750.

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Ahead of its release next year, The Blood of Dawnwalker developer Rebel Wolves revealed more details on the dual-gameplay loop that will drive this experience. Set in 14th-century Europe, players will step into the boots of Coen as he works to save his family from a local vampire warlord.

The catch here is that Coen has two sides to him, as his Dawnwalker abilities allow him to unlock vampiric powers at night. Daylight hours make Coen revert back to his human side, and Rebel Wolves says that players will be able to experiment with different approaches and discover how the world reacts to their actions.

"Choices and consequences in our games have three layers," game director Konrad Tomaskiewicz said in a gameplay deep-dive video shown during the Future Games Show at Gamescom livestream. "First, is quite traditional. Similar to other RPGs, you make choices and then deal with the consequences. The second layer plays into our dual-gameplay loop. Day and night often present different choices. And finally, not making a choice is also a choice. You can choose not to react, and the world will react in ways that are often hard to predict."

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Mafia: The Old Country's Sicily's turn-of-the-century setting was getting a little more explicit than Take-Two Interactive would like. The publisher has issued a takedown notice to Nexus Mods to remove a pair of custom nude mods that left the game's lead female character, Isabella Torrisi, without anything to wear.

Nexus Mods acknowledged the request from Take-Two (via PC Gamer), and complied by removing the Nude Isabella mod and the Extended Textures for Nude Isabella mod, both of which were created by a user known as norskpl. PC Gamer speculates norskpl may have used Isabella's model from her love scenes in the game. Norskpl's non-nude mods created for The Old Country appear to have been left intact. That includes a few mods that let players assume the role of other characters from the Mafia franchise.

In the context of the game, Isabella is the daughter of Don Torrisi, the boss of the player's character, Enzo Favara. Although the Don is fiercely protective of Isabella and has his own ideas about who she should marry, she and Enzo have a clandestine affair behind his back. That's the primary romantic relationship in the game, and the source of inevitable conflict.

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Earlier this week, 2K Games acknowledged a shake-up at Cloud Chamber--the studio behind BioShock 4--following reports that the game failed an internal review. Now, a new report suggests that the game could have come out as soon as next year if BioShock 4 had been more favorably received by the company.

According to Bloomberg, BioShock 4 was planned for a debut in either late 2026 or early 2027. However, the subsequent layoffs at Cloud Chamber will likely delay the next BioShock game even further. Bloomberg notes that 80 employees from Cloud Chamber were let go, leaving approximately 170 people remaining at the studio.

Studio head Kelley Gilmore was ousted from Cloud Chamber after the game's internal review, according to the report. In his place, 2K Games has hired Rod Fergusson to take over the studio following his own departure from Blizzard. In addition to leading the Diablo franchise for Blizzard, Fergusson previously worked on BioShock Infinite and helped get that game's production on track.

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Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter

$60 | Releases September 19

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The upcoming remake of The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky is getting a Nintendo Switch 2 edition. Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter's Switch 2 edition is a digital-only release, but the Switch physical edition can be upgraded to Switch 2 for one whole dollar. Preorders for the physical edition of Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter are available for PS5 and Nintendo Switch. The highly anticipated turn-based RPG launches September 19 for $60.

Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter features entirely overhauled 3D visuals, new voice acting, turn-based and real-time battle systems, and a bunch of new side quests and regions. Widely regarded as one of the best entries in Nihon Falcom's sprawling catalog of Trails games, Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter should be the ideal entry point for newcomers and a welcome treat for longtime fans.

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Jurassic Park Trilogy - Limited Edition Steelbook (4K Blu-ray)

$60 (was $65)

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Jurassic World Trilogy - Limited Edition Steelbook (4K Blu-ray)

$60 (was $65)

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Jurassic World fans can soon add the latest film in the franchise to their home media collection. Jurassic World Rebirth stomps onto 4K Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and DVD on September 9. Preorders for Rebirth's 4K Steelbook Edition are in stock for $38 at Amazon and Walmart. If you skip the collectible case, you can get Rebirth on 4K Blu-ray for only $30 at Walmart. The standard Blu-ray edition is $25, and the DVD is $20. All four editions are top sellers on Amazon, with the 4K Steelbook and standard Blu-ray proving to be the most popular picks so far.

Launching alongside Rebirth is the new Jurassic World 7-Movie Collection on 4K Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and DVD. At the moment, Walmart has the best prices for the box set. The 4K Blu-ray edition is $100, while the 1080p Blu-ray edition is $70. Notably, both of these sets include digital copies that can be added to your Movies Anywhere library. The 7-Movie DVD Collection is only $50, but you won't get digital editions.

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Goddess of Victory: Nikke--the sci-fi-RPG gallery shooter on mobile and PC from the developer of Stellar Blade--is adding one of the most famous heroines in video game history to its roster. As teased during Gamescom, the Goddess of Victory: Nikke × Resident Evil collaboration will feature Jill Valentine, one of the original RE game's main characters.

The initial teaser features a cult as it prepares to take part in a gruesome ritual. Poli--one of the characters from Goddess of Victory--is briefly seen when she is grabbed by someone with a bloodstained hand. The initial trailer hid Jill's debut, but developer Shift Up subsequently confirmed it was her.

Jill Valentine in Goddess of Victory: Nikke x Resident Evil.

Shift Up also hinted that Jill may not be the only RE character to appear during this crossover. Further details about the collaboration's story and launch date are being withheld for now. But this isn't the first time that Goddess of Victory has been given a prominent crossover. Previous collaborations have included characters from Evangelion and Nier: Automata. There was even a collaboration between Stellar Blade and Goddess of Victory earlier this summer.

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Look: Like many of you, I have suffered from Lego fatigue. No matter how much I might care about Avengers or Lord of the Rings or Indiana Jones or any of the other properties Lego has adapted over the years, there have been so many Lego games, each of them with so much to do. It was impossible to keep up or sustain my interest.

But Lego franchise games seem to have turned a corner now, as Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga was a nicely refreshed take on the entire series, even as it retained the core Lego game collectathon loop. Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight looks to be an even greater departure, standing firmly on a love of Batman across all his media incarnations.

At first, Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight looks to be an anthology of various Lego-ized Batman movies similar to Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, but even that isn't quite right. It would be more accurate to call it a fusion of Batman movies, alongside other influences and stories, to build something new and original from all of its various parts. In that way, it's perfectly Lego.

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Xbox's Design Head posted on LinkedIn about the current generation of Xbox wrapping up. That could mean a lot of things, so we can't read much into it. Given the timing though, it makes sense that Microsoft is thinking about what's next. Here's what was said, and what's happening with Microsoft's gaming division these days, to help us make sense of the situation.

"As we wrap up this journey with the Xbox Series X and Series S, the mission behind these consoles echoes everything I’ve learned over 30 years--to create technology that’s powerful, purposeful, and beautifully integrated into people’s lives,” wrote Carl Ledbetter, Partner Head of Design at Xbox.

"Xbox is about fun and playing games," he continued. "The console, the controller, the headset, all of the devices become a reflection of the people who make them, but more importantly, of the people who choose to purchase and use them. These products matter to people."

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Eight months after releasing in early access, Path of Exile 2 is set to receive its biggest update yet, one that not only adds a heap of new content in the form of Act IV, three temporary acts, and even a seasonal league, but also brings big changes to how the game is played.

GameSpot had the chance to learn more about Path of Exile 2's huge 0.3.0 update, The Third Edict, ahead of its release on August 29 during a press Q&A, which included a one-on-one interview with the game's director, Jonathan Rogers.

In addition to learning more details about the update itself, which Rogers said takes "a good crack at solving every problem people are currently unhappy about," we discussed why developer Grinding Gear Games thinks including a league as part of the update is essential, how GGG is looking to avoid the pitfalls of the game's initially poorly received Dawn of the Hunt update, when players can expect a new class and the game to leave early access, and more.

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