Red Dead Redemption 2 has been out since 2018, but Rockstar Games' blockbuster title apparently still has some secrets hidden away. RDR2 players have uncovered a pattern of web that only shows up on the map at a certain time of day, and the ultimate destination of this mystery hasn't been fully solved yet.

The Strange Man YouTube channel (via IGN) shared the first video guide to the webs, and credited the discovery to three players: goldenplaysterraria, pariah87, and u/FL4VA-01. Like the dreamcatchers quest in the game, players can shoot the webs and get them to release a feather. However, there's only a one-hour window in-game to find a web, and each web only appears at a specific time throughout the in-game night cycle.

In a follow-up video, Strange Man reveals the location of a ninth web in the middle of the spider puzzle, which leads to a telephone pole and more clues. The search is currently centered on a guitar symbol, and players are combing over Fort Wallace, since it's the closest location with guitars to the newly discovered symbol.

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If you've been noticing that recent matches of Arc Raiders are ending in a lot more PvP skirmishes than usual, there's a high likelihood that you might've had it coming.

In a recent interview with GamesBeat's Dean Takahashi, the CEO of Embark Studios, Patrick Söderlund, confirmed that the popular extraction shooter has recently been employing a kind of "aggression-based matchmaking" to group up more like-minded players.

During an inquiry about the studio's approach to matchmaking, Söderlund said, "Since a week ago or so, we introduced a system where we also matchmake based on how prone you are to PvP or PvE. So if your preference is to do PvE, and have less conflict with players, you'll get more matched up."

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Steam hit a major milestone already this year, setting a new record for concurrent users. According to SteamDB, the platform peaked at 41,816,052 users online at the same time actively playing games. Not only that, but a new record for actively gaming users was also set, with that figure reaching almost 13.4 million as compared to March's 13.2 million record.

The timing of the record is likely no coincidence. Steam's annual Winter Sale, which wraps up later today, offered steep discounts on a wide range of popular titles, along with more modest deals on newer releases. Sales events have long been a reliable driver of traffic on Steam, pulling in both longtime users and players returning to pick up games they missed throughout the year.

Steam's growth has been steady for well over a decade, but it has accelerated sharply in recent years. A notable spike occurred in early 2020, when COVID-19 lockdowns pushed concurrent users past 23 million, later climbing to 28 million just a couple of years later. The company even offered a bundle of games, which went to COVID relief at the time. Since then, the rise of live-service games and consistently strong seasonal sales have helped keep players logged in, especially during holidays. Games like Arc Riders continue to grow, hitting over 3 million concurrent players this week.

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Following a hack that happened over the Christmas weekend, Rainbow Six Siege players are finding themselves in the ban house thanks to yet another hack that references the nonsensical and popular 6-7 meme.

According to The Gamer, Ubisoft's tactical shooter is being hacked by some unknown force that's handing out bans for 67 days. Players are reportedly posting on social media that their accounts have been flagged for an unexplained "harassment offence," leading to their accounts being suspended from matchmaking.

Content creator VarsityGaming, who's been memeing the hack since it happened on January 4, corroborated the 67-day ban on their social media, suggesting that Siege may be down for two more days.

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The Last of Us Season 3 is on the way, but Neil Druckmann--who helped created the game's universe that the HBO show adapts--is not going to be part of it. He dropped out after Season 2, saying he wanted to focus on his work at Naughty Dog. Bella Ramsey, who plays Ellie on the show, has shared more insight into the series going ahead without one of its key creatives.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Ramsey said that while Druckmann has exited the hit HBO show, he's not really gone because his world will live on.

"I think he left us in such good stead. And he still will always be a part of the fabric of it--it's literally his creation; the whole world. He's still there, even though he is not. So I think it will be fine," Ramsey said.

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Arc Raiders was a breakout hit in 2025, and it's still growing. New data from Alinea Analytics states that the game enjoyed its biggest day ever on Sunday, January 4, when it came to daily active users.

It was reported to have had 3.2 million daily active users on January 4 across platforms. Additionally, the research group said Arc Raiders passed 12 million copies sold over the weekend.

The number of Arc Raiders copies sold daily began to "stabilize" in early December, but the recent 20%- off sale--which brought the price down to $32--along with a boost related to people being off from school and work for the holidays, helped pump up daily sales figures, the report said.

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Arc Raiders was one of the most successful games of 2025, but it was also criticized for its use of AI-based text-to-speech systems. Patrick Söderlund, the head of Arc Raiders studio Embark, has now shed more light on the situation, saying the studio's goal in implementing AI into its development processes is to make better games more efficiently.

He also pushed back against the idea that using AI systems in game development would lead to lower employment at Embark.

"We don't use AI to not have to hire people or replace people or job groups or voice actors," Söderlund told GamesBeat. "People have to take a step back and understand what it is and how it can be a big help to developers and be a tremendous benefit to players. I realize it is an intricate subject and discussion."

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Sometimes you get so into a game that you scream uncontrollably. Whether that be a curse word or an SOS, if you yell loud enough, someone will come to your rescue. At least that's what happened to one Arc Raiders player, whose door was kicked in by a concerned neighbor after he heard the player yelling for help.

Redditor dreamthorp posted a 16-second clip of the incident on the Arc Raiders subreddit on January 3. They said they were playing a night raid on the Dam Battlegrounds, the game's very first map. While trying to extract from an elevator, a Leaper reportedly pounced on and downed them before the elevator doors shut. "I just wanted to get stabilized so I could leave," dreamthorp said in the comments of their Reddit post. It's at this point that they started screaming, "Somebody help me."

Well, somebody did come to help. As displayed on the door's Ring camera, a concerned neighbor walked over, knocked, and asked if they were "all good." Dreamthorp screamed for help again, at which point the concerned neighbor--a firefighter, according to dreamthorp--stepped back, assumed a stance, and kicked the door in, an action that allegedly corrupted the Ring camera's file.

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Time is running out to play Anthem, BioWare's live-service game that originally launched in early 2019. In just one week, EA will take the online-multiplayer game offline, meaning it won't be playable starting January 12.

EA officially announced that Anthem would be shut down in July 2025. This gave players roughly half-a-year to return to the RPG and to spend any leftover currency they had for the title. Eurogamer is looking at whether any sort of in-game event is planned to make the occasion, but that seems very unlikely at this point.

After that announcement, former BioWare producer Mark Darrah discussed what went wrong with Anthem--at least from his point of view. For instance, Darrah noted that Mass Effect director Casey Hudson pitched Anthem to EA as a whole new direction for BioWare, but then Hudson left the studio and couldn't lead that proposed transformation. Hudson is now overseeing the team that's working on the recently revealed Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic.

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The souls-like genre has exploded in popularity since the dawn of From Software's Souls franchise, with multiple companies taking a stab at the format--and some companies taking multiple stabs. Bandai Namco, who publishes FromSoft's Souls games as well as Elden Ring, dropped an anime-style version of the genre in 2019's Code Vein, and now it's back for more in Code Vein II.

We spent a few hours with the next Code Vein adventure during The Game Awards week, and we came away impressed with its improved combat system and a new and interesting take on the genre's "summon" mechanic, but what surprised us most was an original story that carries some emotional weight. The original Code Vein was a solid first effort, but Code Vein II shows that the franchise may have, pardon the pun, cracked the code.

Code Vein IIA new code

Code Vein II takes place in a world on the edge of ruin, and where humans and Revenants, a human-like species of beings with vampiric abilities, live amongst one another. Our demo picks up in the present, as the effects of the Resurgence--a cataclysmic event that slowly morphs Revenants into mindless beasts--are wreaking havoc on the world.

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Over two years after its release, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is enjoying an all-time peak on Steam, likely in large part due to the game's new DLC that ties in directly to the film franchise's latest installment.

Data from SteamDB showed that the Ubisoft-published open-world game hit a record number of 15,283 players this week--a gain from its previous peak of 12,496 players last month when Avatar: Fire and Ash hit cinemas on December 19.

With the release of the movie came a DLC expansion for Frontiers of Pandora on the same day--titled From the Ashes, the story expansion takes place weeks after the events of Fire and Ash and is thematically linked to the film. The DLC costs $25, though a From the Ashes edition of the game that includes the base game retails for $40.

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Fans have had over 20 years of the Saw franchise, and John Wick is already celebrating over 10 years, with a fifth installment possibly on the way. Saw has become a contemporary iconic horror series that has spun off into a slew of merchandise, had its own Halloween Horror Nights house, and even a video game back in 2009 and its sequel. While Wick doesn't have the level of crossover appeal--though both Wick and Jigsaw's puppet have appeared in Fortnite--Lionsgate is looking to take both Jigsaw and Wick into video games for a new generation.

On a recent earnings call, Lionsgate chairman Adam Fogelson mentioned that there is "increased interest and increased opportunity" to make new AAA games based on Lionsgate IPs. Fogelson specifically mentioned Wick and Saw.

"Our AAA game opportunities and other gaming opportunities around John Wick and Saw and some others that we'll be announcing soon, we're seeing increased interest and increased opportunity, and we remain on schedule," he said (via Seeking Alpha). "So I think in totality, you are going to see a meaningfully additive financial opportunity coming in the coming years."

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To say Sandfall Interactive has gained a few fans after releasing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 would be a wild understatement. In fact, the RPG wasn't just GameSpot's Game of the Year, but also made history at The Game Awards. This all means expectations will be sky high for the developer's next project. However, Sandfall wants to avoid appealing to the masses and continue focusing on "what we think is cool."

Speaking with Edge magazine, Sandfall lead writer Jennifer Svedberg-Yen noted that "it's always in the back of my mind that we have a lot of fans now, and they have certain expectations and certain feelings toward the game." The goal for the team is to avoid that noise.

"Creatively, we've always let our North Star be our own personal taste in terms of what we think is cool--what it is we enjoy and want to see. I've seen too many TV shows and books be swayed trying to please a lot of people, and in the process you end up losing the heart of what's there," Svedberg-Yen said. "So [we] feel like we need to trust our instincts and continue to trust the vision behind the studio."

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The upcoming third season of HBO's The Last of Us will feature a different actor playing Manny.

It's been confirmed by Variety that Danny Ramirez, who joined the show in Season 2, will not return for Season 3 due to scheduling conflicts, with the role to be recast. It remains to be seen what actor may take over the role, however.

Spoilers for The Last of Us follow below.

Manny is a supporting character in the overall story of The Last of Us. He is a former member of the Fireflies who later joined the Washington Liberation Front. He was part a small group aiding Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) in tracking down and killing Joel (Pedro Pascal) following Joel's massacre at a Firefly hospital where Abby's father was among those murdered.

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Through most of last year, IO Interactive assured players that its upcoming James Bond title, 007 First Light, was set for an early 2026 debut. The game had been scheduled to debut on March 27, but the release date has now been pushed back to May 27.

In a statement posted online late last month, IO Interactive's Hakan Abrak called 007 First Light the company's "most ambitious project to date" while mentioning the Bond staples included in the game like car chases, gadgets, and wild globe-trotting adventure. However, he went on to say that the decision to delay it "allows us to ensure the experience meets the level of quality you players deserve on day one."

"The game is progressing well and is fully playable from beginning to end," added Abrak. "So these two additional months will allow us to further polish and refine the experience, ensuring we deliver the strongest possible version at launch. We're confident this sets 007 First Light up for long-term success, and we sincerely appreciate the patience and continued support we've received ever since we first announced the game."

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Twitch Hype Train world records are a rare thing. The ultimate show of dedication from a creator's fanbase, these accumulative trains rely on a streamer's viewers donating subscriptions or Bits to the channel. Neuro-sama beat her own world record at the end of December 2024 and now, well, she's only gone and done it again. The hat trick of Hype Train world records belongs to the AI VTuber, her sister Evil Neuro, and their creator Vedal987.

For the uninitiated, or those outside of the "Swarm"--the name for Neuro's fanbase--Neuro is an AI VTuber created by Vedal who utilizes a large language model and a VTuber model to communicate with her Twitch chat, play games, and even go on adventures in VR thanks to the 3D version of her model. Neuro was originally created to play the rhythm game OSU on Twitch, but rapidly evolved to become a series of AI systems that work in harmony. Vedal created a program that takes its input from Twitch and voice, gives that input to the LLM, which is then sent to a text-to-speech system, resulting in the Neuro we know today. It's for that reason that Neuro is widely considered far from the "AI slop" that many people take issue with.

It's possibly a combination of the complexity of that system, the resulting effects, or the opinion that Neuro-Sama is the cutest little button, that has led Vedal to gain such a dedicated fanbase. On January 4, seemingly out of nowhere, Neuro once again began to see an impressive number of Bits and subscriptions donated to Vedal's channel. Vedal's friend and fellow VTuber Camila offered to commission a new outfit for Neuro if the Hype Train continued. She also promised to "show feet" but we won't talk about that. These incentives led the hype train to level 100 in a matter of a few hours, and it didn't stop there. Vedal wasn't present with Neuro on stream for this attempt, instead choosing to type in chat with sentiments such as "Realistically wtf is going on?" and "I was gonna join after the train, but it's getting a bit silly."

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Children of Time 3-Book Hardcover Box Set

$29 (was $90) | Releases January 6

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Children of Strife: Children of Time, Book 4 (Hardcover)

$28 (was $30) | Releases March 17

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Science fiction fans can save big on a box set edition of one of the most popular series of the past decade. The first three books in Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time series have been reissued in hardcover, and Amazon has marked the price all the way down to $29 (was $90). The 68% discount is one of the largest we've seen for a brand-new book box set. The Children of Time Hardcover Box Set releases January 6.

Amazon's deal is especially noteworthy because Children of Time Books 1-3 were out of print in hardcover and sell for high prices on the reseller market. And with the fourth novel in the series slated for publication March 17, fans and new readers can now have matching editions of all four Children of Time novels. Even for new readers, the box set costs less than you'd spend on the paperback editions (roughly $39).

Children of Time 3-Book Hardcover Box Set $29 (was $90) | Releases January 6

Children of Time is a space opera chronicling humanity's migration from an uninhabitable Earth to a terraformed exoplanet. The only problem with this plan is that their new home has been occupied by genetically modified spiders for thousands of years. These arachnoids evolved and thrived with the help of an AI version of a human who worked on the terraforming project.

The 2015 novel won the Arthur C. Clarke Award. The 2019 sequel Children of Ruin won the BSFA Award for Best Novel. Children of Memory, the third book in the series, was published in 2023, the same year Children of Time received the Hugo Award for Best Series.

In addition to the strangely low price, there's another peculiar detail about the Children of Time Box Set: The advertised page count appears to be way underselling the length of the first three books.

Store pages at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and several other retailers list the page count for the box set as 1,136. This is almost certainly a typo, because the total page count for the hardcover editions of Books 1-3 is 1,664. Children of Time is 608 pages; Children of Ruin is 576 pages; and Children of Memory is 480 pages. It's possible that the new hardcover editions aren't exactly the same as the originals, but the books appear to be roughly the same length and width, so the total page count should be somewhere around 1,700.

Paperback Editions

1. Children of Time -- $12 ($20)
2. Children of Ruin -- $13.66 ($20)
3. Children of Memory -- $12.89 ($20)

See at Amazon See at Barnes and Noble Children of Strife: Children of Time, Book 4 (Hardcover) $28 (was $30) | Releases March 17

Children of Strife, the fourth entry in the series, is available to preorder for $28 (was $30) in hardcover. The 496-page novel will also be available in ebook and audiobook formats at launch.

If you'd like to listen to the audiobook versions of the first three novels, it's worth noting that Children of Time Book 1 is exclusive to Audible.

Preorder at Amazon More fiction by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Children of Time isn't Tchaikovsky's only ongoing fantasy series. The fourth novel in the prolific British author's dark fantasy series The Tyrant Philosophers will be published March 10, just one week before the fourth novel in Children of Time.

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Quick-time events, despite everyone's best efforts to spice them up, remain pretty meh.

When you first begin Dispatch, the new episodic superhero adventure game from AdHoc Studio, you're asked if you want to enable quick-time event prompts as an optional game mechanic. It says something that these QTE prompts only really appear in the first and last episode of Dispatch's eight-episode run. But if you're worried the only input you'll have in Dispatch is pressing a button at the right time, or picking the different narrative choices that affect the game's story, you should know AdHoc has a more compelling, non-optional gameplay hook that deserves as much attention as the game's charming storytelling. And it's in the title of the game itself.

Set in a fictional version of Los Angeles, California where superheroes are real, Dispatch centers on Robert Robertson III, a former hero turned dispatcher for SDN. It's a private security and service company, except instead of sending paramedics out, SDN (or Superhero Dispatch Network) sends out caped heroes to tackle clients' problems big and small. This serves as the basis for Dispatch's core minigame, and it's one that could honestly be a standalone game in and of itself.

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Lego Ninjago Legacy: Character Display (447 Pieces)

$45 | 15th Anniversary Limited Edition

See at Amazon Sold out at Lego Store Sold out at Best Buy Sold out at Target Sold out at Walmart

Lego Ninjago Legacy: Four Weapons Blacksmith (1,259 Pieces)

$100 | 15th Anniversary Limited Edition

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Lego Ninjago Legacy: The Old Town (4,851 Pieces)

$300 | 15th Anniversary Limited Edition

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Lego's new Ninjago Legacy 15th Anniversary building sets are selling out fast at major retailers. Launched January 1 alongside a bunch of other Lego Ninjago playsets, the trio of commemorative models are limited edition and range in price from $45 to $300. The $45 Lego Ninjago Legacy Character Display is proving to be the most challenging to find in stock. At the time of writing, Amazon is the only retailer with the 447-piece Character Display in stock. The set features all seven members of the original Ninjago team as minifigures and an exclusive Master of Lightning minifigure with a collectible stand.

Lego Ninjago Legacy Character Display Restocks:

• Amazon - In stock
• Lego Store - Sold out
• Best Buy - Sold out
• Target - Sold out
• Walmart - Sold out

Lego Ninjago Legacy: Character Display (71866)

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mClassic Graphics Upscaler - Retro Edition

$45.15 (was $100)

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Retro gamers can save over 50% on Marseille's mClassic Graphics Upscaler. Normally $100, the mClassic Retro Edition is on sale for only $45.15, the all-time best price for the HDMI accessory. The Retro Edition is designed for gamers who want to improve the visual experience of older games originally designed for 4:3 aspect ratio displays when playing on modern HD and 4K TVs.

The Retro Edition is one of three different models of the mClassic manufactured by Marseille. It launched in 2025 alongside the mClassic Switch Edition, which is discounted to $74.25 (was $100). The mClassic Switch Edition is tailored around upscaling the visuals on Switch and other widescreen platforms like Steam Deck, Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3. The Retro and Switch Editions have one of the enhancement modes found in the mClassic Original Edition, which is currently priced at $89 (was $100), while also offering two new visual modes geared toward retro gaming or Switch/Steam Deck, depending on which model you pick.

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