The Last of Us Season 2 is almost here, and the showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann are assuring fans that they have plenty of surprises in store. Season 1 of the show expanded certain elements of the story and switched things around to make it more palatable for television. Season 2 will be no different.

While we know some of the story of The Last of Us Part 2 will be used, the game's playtime is at a minimum of 25 hours--double that of the first game--so there's a lot of story to spread out. Talking to ScreenRant, Mazin said he's confident with the changes made and lots of swerves to surprise even the hardcore fans.

"There are things where we think, 'We love this, but it's worth expanding on or changing to fit the new medium,' and there are things that we think actually wouldn't translate well," he said. "I think you probably should expect the unexpected. We won't always do the things you think we're going to do. Sometimes we do the things you thought we were going to do in a different way, at a different time."

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Diablo 4 Season 8 will be all about taking on the game's endgame bosses and channeling their powers, Blizzard revealed, along the way confirming the return of one of the franchise's biggest bosses ever.

As part of a recent Campfire Chat livestream, Blizzard discussed what players can expect from Season 8. Alongside a slower pace, difficulty changes, and class balance updates, the theme of Season 8 will revolve around a revamped endgame boss system that will make channeling them more straightforward and rewarding.

Three new endgame bosses in total will be added as part of Season 8: Urivar and the Harbinger of Hatred from Diablo 4's Vessel of Hatred campaign, and a third that will be familiar to Diablo 3 players. That boss is none other than Belial, the Lord of Lies, who will serve as the game's new pinnacle boss. Players may remember him from his multi-phase Act-2 battle in Diablo 3, the final phase of which his massive form took up the majority of the screen.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Kaitlyn Dever joins the cast of HBO's The Last of Us as Abby for its upcoming second season, and anyone who's played the game or knows the game's story understands how central Abby is to the story. When The Last of Us: Part II came out in 2020, the response to Abby was extreme, with actress Laura Bailey receiving death threats, including threats against her newborn child. Dever said in an interview that while she is aware of the stigma surrounding Abby, she remains focused on doing service to the character and making fans proud.

"Well, it's hard not to see those things on the internet. It's hard not to stop myself from looking at it every once in a while, especially going into this, for sure," she told ScreenRant. "And I want to do this character justice and make the fans proud by bringing her to life in this kind of way."

Dever went on to say she worked with showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann to make sure she was "getting to the core of" who Abby is as a person and what drives her. "Her anger and her frustration and her grief and all of that. I wanted to make sure that that was what I was focusing most of my energy on," she said when asked how much she paid attention to the online chatter about Abby.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Progression in Diablo 4 will slow down and become more challenging in Season 8, according to Blizzard, citing player feedback as the reason behind the change.

In a recent Campfire Chat livestream going over the changes coming to Diablo 4 next season, Blizzard revealed a number of statistics around the currently ongoing Season 7, namely how quickly players can complete it. On average, it took players only around nine hours to reach max level in Season 7, half the time it took players to reach the same point in Season 6. Additionally, Blizzard found that 50% of players are reaching the game's max difficulty of Torment 4 within 15 hours of hitting level 60, much faster than was the case in Season 6.

According to Diablo 4 design director Colin Finer, there are a few different reasons for the unintentional increased pace of Season 7. Part of it is the new Season 7 powers that give players even more ways to tear through armies of demons. The new seasonal content, Headhunts, are also quite lucrative in the amount of XP and items they reward, as is the seasonal journey.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

There's a hot new machine from Nintendo that everybody's talking about that just received a major update, and you know we don't mean the Switch 2. Yes, Nintendo's motion-activated alarm clock got a free update recently that adds scenes from the original NES Super Mario Bros. to the proceedings.

According to the social media post announcing the move, you can receive these new scenes by connecting your Alarmo to the internet and linking it to your Nintendo Account. These scenes are the first from a retro Nintendo game, as the rest of those with scenes featured are all on the Switch. Those games include Super Mario Odyssey, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Splatoon 3, Pikmin 4, and Ring Fit Adventure. Connecting your Nintendo account will also give you access to scenes from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Retailing for $100, the Alarmo is a motion-activated alarm clock with sleep tracking features. It offers a variety of alarms, including "Gentle," which keeps the tone at one set volume, and "Steady," which makes the alarm increasingly louder. The Alarmo does not interact with other Nintendo devices and is not a limited-time or limited-edition product, unlike some other Nintendo devices from over the years.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Remedy Entertainment has released a new 1.30 update for Control: Ultimate Edition on PC today. The update will also come to PS5 and Xbox Series X|S at a later date.

The main draw of the update is that the mission, Dr. Yoshimi Tokui's Guided Imagery Experience, will now be available when players pick up the Dr. Tokui Tapes collectibles in the Extrasensory Lab of the Research Sector. This mission features voiceover by Hideo Kojima, and was previously exclusive to the PS4 digital deluxe edition of Control.

There were several suits that were locked away as a preorder bonuses or rewards for completing certain tasks, but now they're available to all players by equipping them from the Control Point in the Central Executive area. They are the Astral Dive Suit, Tactical Response Gear, Urban Response Gear, and Extradimensional Suit.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

With a new Professor Layton game on the way this year, now is a great time to get reacquainted with the crime-solving sleuth. You can do just that with Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva, which is finally coming to Blu-ray in North America later this year. Scheduled to be released on May 27, you can preorder this for $25 through Amazon.

Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva $25 | Releases May 27

The new Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva Blu-ray includes both the original Japanese language track and its English dub. That includes Christopher Robin Miller as Professor Layton--a role that he first took up with the original Nintendo games--and several other familiar voices from the games. While the film has been available on streaming platforms before, this is the first time that it has received a US Blu-ray release. You'll also get the original trailers as extras.

Preorder at Amazon

For those unfamiliar, Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva is the first animated feature based on the popular detective series. "Shortly after taking the young Luke under his wing, the world-famous Professor Layton finds himself humming along to the tune of an age-old mystery," the official plot synopsis for the film reads. "When an old student calls upon the professor for help, his investigation leads him to a night at the opera. But what starts off as a riveting night of song is quickly transposed into a game of eternal life or death. Can Layton and Luke solve this deadly puzzle in time? Or is a devious dissonance lying in wait?"

If you're interested in more animated adaptations of popular video game series, you'll want to check out Ace Attorney: Complete Season 1 - Essentials on Blu-ray, which is on sale for just $26.24 at Amazon (was $35). Based on Capcom's popular series of courtroom adventure games, the anime is set in the early days of lawyer Phoenix Wright's legal career and sees him slowly learn what it means to be a defender of justice. All 13 episodes from the first season are included on this Blu-ray, alongside clean credit sequences, trailers, and outtakes.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

A new ESRB rating for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle could indicate that the game's PlayStation 5 launch is just around the corner. Though the ESRB rating itself doesn't provide a release date for the PS5 port, its timing does line up with the roadmap previously laid out by Microsoft and Bethesda. Last year, the companies stated that the action-adventure title was scheduled to release on PS5 in Spring 2025. A report from Dealabs, meanwhile, states that The Great Circle will launch on April 17.

Last month, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle had a strong showing at the 2024 DICE Awards, winning three major categories: Adventure Game of the Year, Outstanding Achievement in Story, and Outstanding Achievement in Character. For the last one, Harrison Ford has also praised Troy Baker for his work to bring Indy to life in the video game. Ford has played the character on the silver screen in five different movies since the 1980s.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has seen over 4 million players already across PC and Xbox Series X|S. It's also not the only big-name Bethesda (and Microsoft) game planned for PS5 this spring. Doom: The Dark Ages will launch May 15 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Following a big showing at SXSW, Death Stranding 2 now has an official release date of June 26. Preorders will open on March 17, with three different versions of the game available to pre-purchase, each fo which includes a selection of bonuses items you'll get for securing your copy in advance. The most exclusive edition is the Collector’s Edition, which is sold exclusively at PlayStation Direct and comes bundled with heaps of physical goodies, but standard and Digital Deluxe Editions are also available.

Death Stranding 2 Preorder BonusesDeath Stranding 2 Preorder Bonuses

Pick up any version of Death Stranding to get the following in-game bonuses:

• Quokka Hologram
• Battle Skeleton: Silver (LV1, LV2, LV3)
• Boost Skeleton: Silver (LV1, LV2, LV3)
• Bokka Skeleton: Silver (LV1, LV2, LV3)

Along with these bonuses, the Death Stranding 2 Digital Deluxe and Collector's Editions will also include up to 48-hour early access to the full game starting June 24.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Sony Santa Monica and Gallery Nucleus are collaborating on an exhibition to celebrate God of War's 20th anniversary later this month, but don't expect any new announcements.

"With such a stellar lineup and all the anticipation we’ve seen around the anniversary, we do want to be clear that there are no planned announcements for this event," Sony Santa Monica clarified on Twitter.

The exhibition runs between March 15-23, with a panel cast and game dev taking place on March 15 and 22. While there won't be any new announcements, attendees will be able to check out and grab limited edition prints, Phantasy Arcade Cabinets, God of War-themed donuts from Moonbridge, and a Kratos beach towel.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Lego Mario Kart: Mario & Standard Kart (1,972 Pieces)

$170 | Releases May 15

Preorder at Lego Store Preorder at Amazon

Lego celebrated Mario Day by revealing its latest Nintendo display model for adults: Mario & Standard Kart. The 1,972-piece replica of Mario and his iconic red racing kart releases May 15 and is available to preorder now at the Lego Store for $170. Like several previous Nintendo display models for adults, Mario Kart: Mario & Standard Kart is exclusive to the Lego Store at launch, but the exclusivity window appears to be shorter this time. Amazon was briefly taking preorders for the upcoming set with a launch date of July 1; we'll update this article if Amazon or other major retailers list the Lego Mario Kart display set.

Lego Mario Kart: Mario & Standard Kart (1,972 Pieces) $170 | Releases May 15

At nearly 2,000 pieces, the Mario Kart display model is one of the largest Super Mario Lego sets. Compared to the smaller-scale Mario Kart playsets for kids that launched in January, the finished build has a lot more detail. This is the most realistic recreation of the mustachioed character's modern design--his head and arms are posable--and the kart looks ripped straight from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

The completed model measures in at approximately 12.5 inches long, 7.5 inches wide, and 8.5 inches tall. The set can be displayed flat or at a drifting angle with the included, buildable display stand.

Like other Nintendo display models, Mario & Standard Kart comes with a physical instruction booklet and support for an interactive guide in the Lego Builder app on iOS and Android. With the free app, you can watch each step of the build process in 3D and manipulate the diagram to look at the work-in-progress from any angle you desire.

Preorder at Lego Store Preorder at Amazon

The new display model will bring the total number of Mario Kart-themed Lego sets to six. As mentioned, the five existing building kits are playsets geared toward kits. Mario's Standard Kart is one of those five kits, though the $20 build is substantially smaller and less detailed at just 174 pieces.

In addition to the six retail sets, there's a Lego Store-exclusive Toad Pit Crew figure set that's available through March 11 to all customers who spend $40 or more on Lego Super Mario sets. The freebie promotion excludes preorders, so you'll need to buy kits that are already available to take advantage of the offer.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Split Fiction, the newest co-op game from writer-director Josef Fares and his Hazelight Studios, released on March 6 and had a gigantic opening weekend.

The game reached a peak of 259,003 concurrent players on Steam on Sunday, March 9. That makes it the No. 2 game of all time published by EA in terms of Steam concurrents, surpassed only by the free-to-play battle royale game Apex Legends. These data points come from SteamDB and were first spotted by Twisted Voxel.

The top five EA games on Steam ranked by peak concurrent players are:

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Fans of '90s animation and arcade fighting games can soon add another Blu-ray to their collection with the upcoming Street Fighter: The Animated Series Blu-ray. The $40 Blu-ray includes the entire series and a selection of bonus content. Preorders are available now ahead of its May 27 release date. We've checked the calendar, and yes, that is a Tuesday.

Street Fighter: The Animated Series Blu-ray $40 | Releases May 27

Street Fighter: The Animated Series Blu-ray features all 26 episodes of the original series in their original standard definition presentation and 4:3 aspect ratio. Each episode has an optional commentary track hosted by Fighting Game YouTubers like Matt McMuscles, Maximillian Dood, Justin Wong, Brady, Arin "Egoraptor" Hanson, Alexis Le, Lythero, and Guile Win Quote. See the full list of bonus features below.

Preorder at Amazon Street Fighter: The Animated Series Blu-ray Special Features:

• Commentary tracks for each episode hosted by Matt McMuscles with FGC guest stars Brady, Maximillian Dood, Justin Wong, Arin "Egoraptor" Hanson, Alexis Le, Lythero, and Guile Win Quote.
• Street Fighter: The Animated Series intro storyboards
• Art gallery
• Street Fighter meme compilation video
• Game-inspired menus

Street Fighter: The Animated Series was surprisingly faithful to the source material, and despite being a family-friendly Saturday Morning cartoon, it still features plenty of action. The show takes a GI Joe-inspired approach to its storyline. With M. Bison's Shadaloo crime syndicate threatening the world, Guile puts together a team of elite world warriors like Chun-Li, Blanka, Ryu, and more to take him down. Of course, the series was also designed to be something of a toy commercial, but it's still a fun relic from a bygone age of entertainment.

To flesh out your Street Fighter Blu-ray collection, you can pick up a couple of films based on the long-running fighting game franchise. The 1994 live-action movie starring Raul Julia as M. Bison and Jean-Claude Van Damme as Guile is still the best of the bunch thanks to its many quotable lines. You can pick it up in either a standard Blu-ray format for $10.33 (was $15) or in a premium Steelbook Edition that's on sale for $25 (was $35), and is perfect for displaying alongside your painting of M. Bison Crossing the Alps. There's also a new 4K remaster of Street Fighter 2: The Animated Movie that's on sale for $26.37 (was $35), which has been seen as a massive influence on the series thanks to its stylistic action and groundbreaking animation.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Square Enix released Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake last year, offering a modern way to relive the iconic RPG. The company is now gearing up to launch a series of Dragon Quest 3 Pixelights on September 24, all four of which are now available for preorder. These official Square Enix products offer a unique way to illuminate your game room, each based on the likeness of various characters from the original NES version of the classic RPG.

Square Enix Dragon Quest 3 Pixelights $30 Each | Release September 24

Four different versions of the Pixelights are up for grabs based on the Hero, Warrior, Mage, and Priest character classes. Each one stands about five inches tall and is designed with a pixelated art style, and when turned on, they’ll give a blue, purple, or green glow to your space. All four are available to preorder at Amazon.

Dragon Quest 3 Pixelights

• Hero Pixelight
• Warrior Pixelight
• Mage Pixelight
• Priest Pixelight

Preorder at Amazon

Each Pixelight requires three AAA batteries, so consider picking up the affordable Amazon Basics AAA Battery Pack (36-Count) for just $13.82. They come with a 10-year shelf life and should be good for all your electronics beyond these Pixelights.

If you’ve yet to play Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake, it's on sale at Amazon. The Xbox Series X version is the cheapest at $46.54 (was $60), though there are also nice discounts for Switch and PS5.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

After two years, The Last Of Us Season 2 premieres on April 13, and some of the actors are doing their best to cope with the more difficult scenes. Bella Ramsey, who plays Ellie, took comfort in a classic meme jingle on set--and it apparently worked.

Some of the cast and crew from The Last Of Us spoke with Variety ahead of the premiere, with Ramsey explaining that they get nervous before the show's big emotional scenes. To get themselves in a mood that would balance out the darkness of a particular scene, they would listen to the Buckwheat Boyz classic, "Peanut Butter Jelly Time".

"I was on the floor, my eyes absolutely burning with these menthol tears, and I'm just saying, 'Peanut Butter Jelllll-y.' You’ll probably be able to tell which one that is when you watch it," Ramsey said. They didn't specify which scene, but given the gravity of the source material, you're not short on moments that take Ellie to her limit.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Players who purchase Forza Horizon 5 on PS5 will need a Microsoft account in order to play it. But don't worry, it's a free service you can sign up for if you don't already have one.

According to the game's PS5 FAQ page, Forza Horizon 5 will ask players to link their Microsoft accounts when it boots up for the first time on the console. Players already need a PSN account when logging into their console, so a Microsoft account is just another step in the process.

Microsoft also clarified that linking Microsoft and PSN accounts is permanent, and the requirement to do so will differ on a title-to-title basis. While players have the ability to unlink their accounts, they will be limited to relinking their PSN accounts with the initial Microsoft account.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

EA and DICE recently conducted the first public test for Battlefield 6, and while participants were prohibited from sharing their gameplay footage online, the participants shared their gameplay footage online anyway. Some of the latest clips to emerge reveal that Battlefield 6, or whatever the new game is called, features the ability to drag a downed teammate to safety.

This would be a brand-new feature for the series, but it's not confirmed for the game, of course, as the Battlefield Labs test is not necessarily representative of gameplay and features that will be in the final product. In any event, you can see this new feature in action in the clip below.

You can drag a teammate to another position in the new #Battlefield game.

What do you think of the mechanics of this feature?#Battlefield6 pic.twitter.com/mFL8UceAYL

— Battlefield 6 News (@Battlefield6Hub) March 8, 2025

Another piece of footage shows a player getting thumped by a bolt-action sniper, with the player flying backwards in response to the hit. It looks pretty devastating in action, but again, it's not necessarily confirmed for the final version of the game. As you can tell from these gameplay clips and others--which have highlighted gunplay and destruction--Battlefield 6 is still very much a work in progress.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Barbarian director Zach Cregger may be helming the next Resident Evil movie, but Paul W.S. Anderson--the man who directed or produced the first six Resident Evil movies--is turning his attention to bringing Sega's House of the Dead back to the big screen. According to Anderson, that film may begin production as soon as this year.

"The script is almost done," Anderson told Variety. "We're aiming to shoot in the fourth quarter of this year. I'm really going to push the envelope on this one. It's going to be something different for me."

Anderson added that he's attempting to recreate the feel of the arcade game by dropping audiences in on the story and letting it play out in real-time until the end of the movie.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach has an official June release date locked in, and judging by the new trailer, a few nods to the Metal Gear Solid series that Hideo Kojima worked on during his tenure at Konami. During the new look at the game, a character by the name of Neil--played by Italian actor Luca Marinelli--was introduced. While his dark past with the Bridges organization was teased, it's the brief moment where Neil dons a bandana that had Metal Gear Solid fans pointing at their screens:

Solid Snake, is that you?Gallery

As seen in the image above, Neil looks remarkably similar to Solid Snake once he dresses up for a fight. Back in a 2020 Instagram post, Kojima mentioned that Marinelli would be the "spitting image" of Snake if he ever decided to wear the character's bandana, and it looks like that prediction has come true in Death Stranding 2.

What's also interesting to note here is that the character is flanked by several soldiers, similar to how Death Stranding's antagonist Clifford Unger would surround himself with troops whenever he appeared in the game. That suggests that Neil has died and has become a post-death entity, someone who finds himself driven to complete his unfinished business and can journey to battlefield beaches.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Sony and Kojima Productions have announced that Death Stranding 2: On the Beach will launch on June 26 for PS5 for $70. Additionally, preorders for the game will start on March 17.

A lengthy 10-minute cinematic trailer was also released, showcasing the original song for the game called "To the Wilder" by the artist Woodkid. The trailer also has shots of the different actors playing the game's characters, including Norman Reedus, Lea Seydoux, George Miller, Troy Baker, Elle Fanning, Fatih Akin, Shioli Kutsuna, Alastair Duncan, Alissa Jung, Nicolas Winding Refn, Lucas Larinelli, and Deborah Wilson.

The end of the trailer, it shows a group of gunman with the narrator talking about how the United Cities of America's predecessor, the United States of America, had a prominent gun culture. It's possible that one of Death's Stranding 2's themes will be about America's culture and fascination with firearms.

Continue Reading at GameSpot