The Sims Board Game

$20 | Releases August 15

Preorder at Amazon Preorder at Target

The Sims is one of gaming's biggest cross-over hits, appealing to a wide audience of fans of all ages and demographics. Soon, the series will be playable in a whole new way with the official The Sims Board Game, which adapts the life management gameplay of the video games into a replayable tabletop experience for 2-5 players. The game technically launches for $20 on August 15--though Target is already shipping orders, so there's a chance you could get it early if you grab it there. Preorder are also open at Amazon, and orders will start shipping next week. $20 is much cheaper than we usually see for similar board games based on other board games. Given the popularity of The Sims, we expect this will be very popular and could sell out, so be sure to grab a copy while you can.

The Sims Board Game $20 | Releases August 15

While The Sims Board Game is not a one-to-one adaptation, fans will recognize the game's familiar visuals and life-sim-style gameplay. The board game is designed for 2-5 players, each of whom takes on a personality and goal to achieve. Players then explore a gameboard that looks like an iconic The Sims neighborhood, draw cards representing various life events they must respond to, and collect "SIMbols," with the goal being to be the first to collect enough SIMbols that match their specific life goal.

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The Sims Board Game is just one of the latest video games to get a tabletop adaptation. Board games based on video games have become quite popular in recent years, and you can find everything from crunchy, rules-heavy adventure games, RPGs, and skirmish wargames, to easy-to-play card games and family-friendly board games based on a long list of video game properties at Amazon.

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Earlier this summer, Hideo Kojima released his latest game, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. While Kojima is already working on his next title, fans shouldn't get their hopes up about his new stealth-action game Physint arriving anytime soon. According to Kojima himself, most of the work on Physint hasn't exited the earliest stage of development.

Kojima told IndieWire that he is "starting to work with the team on OD, because that's a new project." He then added that he is "doing Physint all by myself because that's at the conceptual stage."

Physint was first announced during the January 2024 State of Play broadcast, and it was described as using "cutting-edge" technology to create a hybrid game and movie experience. Kojima subsequently revealed that the origin of the game came from players' desire to revisit the stealth-action-espionage genre that he helped create in the Metal Gear Solid franchise.

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When I first saw it at the 2024 Xbox Games Showcase, I was surprised to see a game from a French developer with the photorealism of Western RPGs and mechanical stylings of Japanese ones. Its polished, cinematic trailer gave the impression of a AAA game, even though I'd never even heard of Sandfall Interactive at the time.

Clair Obscur moved mountains. Despite its launch on the same weekend as Oblivion Remastered, it sold 500,000 copies within 24 hours and 1 million after three days. It's still maintaining the discourse and curiosity of the games community months later--something that you'd think only a title from a more experienced studio could do. It's all for good reason, of course--it's a great game. We even rated it a 9/10 in our Clair Obscur review.

In many ways, its critical and commercial triumph has been encouraging. We should have a wide range of RPGs made by people from different backgrounds, and we should have more turn-based RPGs. However, Clair Obscur's success also magnified criticisms of Japanese turn-based games, only some of which are deserved. Finally, the haters said, a turn-based RPG that is actually good--as if those don't already exist.

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Rod Fergusson is leaving Blizzard after five years. In his time at the studio, Fergusson has primarily acted as the general manager and face of the Diablo series, overseeing a resurgence of sorts for Blizzard's storied action-RPG franchise.

Fergusson announced his departure via Twitter, saying, "After five years of driving the Diablo franchise forward with four big launches, it's time for me to step away from Blizzard/Microsoft, sword in hand, and see what's next. The teams are set up for success, with an exiting slate of releases ahead. I'm incredibly proud of what we've built together and looking forward to what comes next for Diablo, and for me."

Fergusson came to Blizzard in 2020 after a long stint at The Coalition, the Xbox-owned studio that primarily works on Gears of War, a series that he has been working on, sporadically, since close to its inception. Back in the day, Fergusson came onto the original Gears of War and shepherded its final stretch of development. Fergusson would go on to have a hand in most games in the series--and briefly helped Irrational Games on BioShock Infinite--before departing for Blizzard.

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Nintendo has filed a new patent application that suggests an interesting new way to play. The patent filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) shows a crank-like device built to attach to the side of a game controller, allowing you to crank up the fun. Eh?

The description of the patent goes into detail about the mouse-operation sensor and how the peripheral could attach to a recessed surface in the controller with a mouse operation sensor, which may suggest it could attach directly onto the Switch or Switch 2 Joy-Cons. Then with the crank attached you could explore the many possibilities of crank-based gameplay, from fishing games to probably a second thing.

World Intellectual Property Organization

While fairly novel, this wouldn't be the first example of a video game device with a crank. The indie handheld hardware Playdate has a crank and developers and homebrew artisans alike have been coming up with various applications for it. And Nintendo did once make a cardboard crank with Nintendo Labo, so the company is no stranger to cranks.

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The Battlefield 6 beta has officially begun, and it's already surpassed Battlefield 2042's peak player count on Steam. Hundreds of thousands of players have jumped in, which has led to some massive queue times, but not everyone of these players is a Battlefield veteran. The beta is full of players who are simply looking for a new first-person shooter or dipping their toes into Battlefield to see if they like the experience or not.

If you're one of those new players or a player returning to the franchise after a long hiatus, you might be confused about the different game modes available in Battlefield 6. There are four game mode options, but the game doesn't explain them too well in the menus. To find out more about the Battlefield 6 game modes and see which one might suit your playstyle the best, check out the guide below.

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• How every game mode in Battlefield 6 works

How every game mode in Battlefield 6 works

During the open beta in Battlefield 6, there are four game modes you can choose from:

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