Phasmophobia's latest update Chronicle is here to provide a major overhaul for the way players document evidence of haunting, allowing them to record video and audio evidence for the first time in the horror game. Read on for the details, and everything else new in the latest major update.

The new update includes some changes to photo evidence, as well as adding two brand-new types of evidence to collect--videos and audio recordings--with the latter attached to a new piece of equipment, the Sound Recorder.

Where previously players could take up to ten photos per investigation, they'll now be able to capture five photos and five videos, as well as three sound recordings. Some of the types of evidence photos that didn't make a lot of sense--such as flipped light switches and items that had been manipulated by a ghost--have now become video-only evidence, meaning you'll have to capture these incidents as they happen.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 developer The Chinese Room appears to have been hit by layoffs less than four months before the game is due to release in October. Despite the concerning timeline, publisher Paradox Interactive claims the cuts will not impact the game's intended release.

Game Developer first reported that UK studio The Chinese Room, known for its unique original titles like Dear Esther and Still Wakes The Deep, has suffered a wave of layoffs. While not publicly announced, at least nine now-former employees of the company posted to LinkedIn about losing their jobs, with the posts' wording implying they were far from the only ones impacted.

When reaching out to The Chinese Room's parent company Sumo Digital about the cuts, Game Developer also discovered that a number of employees have been cut from Sumo's communications team. Sumo Digital announced it would be restructuring earlier this year, as part of a plan to pivot away from original projects entirely to focus on co-development work. Sumo also cut 15% of its total global workforce in an earlier round of layoffs this time last year.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

28 Years Later Steelbook Collector's Edition (4K Blu-ray)

$45

Preorder at Amazon Preorder at Walmart

More than two decades after the release of 28 Days Later, director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland have teamed up again for a new film beloved post-apocalyptic zombie franchise. 28 Years Later hit theaters on June 20, earning strong reviews from critics and fans. It's the third entry in the series, though Boyle/Garland didn't work on 28 Weeks Later, the 2007 standalone sequel. Fans may want to consider locking in a preorder for the 28 Years Later Steelbook Collector's Edition, which is available for $45 and comes with 4K and 1080p Blu-ray discs as well as a digital copy.

At the time of writing, the Steelbook Collector's Edition is the No. 1 best-selling movie on Amazon. It's not uncommon for steelbook preorders that top Amazon's charts to sell out. The 4K Blu-ray release date for 28 Years Later hasn't been announced, but you won't be charged until your order ships (likely two to three months from now).

If you need to refresh your memory before watching 28 Years Later, Prime Video has deals on the first two movies. You can buy 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later for $15 total.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Megan Limited Edition Steelbook (4K Blu-ray)

$27 (was $35) | Released on June 24

See at Amazon See at Walmart

Amazon and Walmart are offering nice discounts on the newly released Megan Limited Edition Steelbook, dropping the price to only $27. If you're an Amazon Prime or Walmart+ member, you can get the 4K Blu-ray--and a collectible case featuring an AI doll who will stare at you from your display shelf--as soon as tomorrow. This means you'll have time to rewatch the 2023 sci-fi horror hit before Megan 2.0 debuts in theaters this Friday, June 27.

Megan Limited Edition Steelbook (4K Blu-ray) $27 (was $35) | Released on June 24

Megan's Limited Edition Steelbook includes the unrated and theatrical cuts on 4K Blu-ray, standard Blu-ray, and digital. You'll also get a few behind-the-scenes bonus features:

Megan Steelbook Edition Special Features

• A New Vision of Horror
• Bringing Life to Megan
• Getting Hacked

The back of the steelbook case has a diagram with Megan's tech specs. The interior artwork is designed to look like the front cover of Megan's user manual. It shows the scene where Megan reads to Cady. The right side recommends alternative outfits for the doll, and reminds customers that each outfit is sold separately.

See at Amazon See at Walmart Megan Limited Edition Steelbook

Megan tells the story of a lifelike doll equipped with highly advanced artificial intelligence. It’s supposed to serve as a friend to children and an assistant to parents--but when Megan begins going to extreme lengths to protect Cady, things get quite gruesome. It's a science fiction horror film, but it's also an effective dark comedy.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

EA has been revealing a ton of detail about the changes and additions it's bringing to College Football 26, and today it revealed its stadium rankings. Taking into account crowds, noise, and "hostile atmosphere," EA has produced a list of the toughest stadiums in college football for visiting teams.

Part of EA's focus on improving its representation of the traditions, spirit, and overall vibes of particular campuses, this list of tough stadiums is probably not going to be too surprising to most college football fans. LSU's infamously loud and hostile Tiger Stadium, for instance, comes in at the top spot, and most of the rest of the SEC is not too far behind. Aligned with college football stereotypes and memes, you're not going to find any California schools on the list. However, college football fans are nothing if not ferociously loyal, so I'm sure this list will still find a way to spark heated debate. You can see the full list below.

Among EA's changes to the CFB formula designed to up school spirit include more rivalry trophies, school-specific events like marching band formations and run-outs, and a much bigger roster of mascots.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Bandai Namco has announced that Little Nightmares III will launch on October 10, and a Switch 2 version is in the works. In addition, the publisher is giving away the remastered original game as a bonus for preordering.

Alongside the release date, the publisher also released a new trailer, which you can see in the embed below. The trailer shows what you can expect from the adventure game, including the characteristic tilt-shift style, dark and atmospheric environments, and cartoonishly spooky enemies.

Preordering the game comes with an in-game costume set as well as Little Nightmares Enhanced Edition, a remaster of the original game. The Enhanced Edition has improved graphics and performance, allowing the game to run at 4K/60fps and boasting features like ray-tracing and volumetric lighting. The remaster is unlocked as soon as you place your preorder. If you already own the original game, you'll get a free upgrade to the Enhanced Edition on October 10.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

After some delays, 7 Days To Die is finally launching the big 2.0 Storm's Brewing update on June 30. Storm's Brewing adds deadly elemental effects and completely changes how biomes work on the map. The experimental beta build is currently available to play on PC, and here we'll guide you through how to earn biome badges and unlock all areas of the map.

Table of Contents [hide]

• New biome progression change

New biome progression change

In the 1.0 build of 7 Days to Die, you could traverse each biome without weather or elemental effects, but 2.0 adds new conditions to survive for each one. You'll need to complete challenges and craft consumables and remedies for surviving damage from smoke, heat, cold, and radiation.

The game still starts you in the forest biome. There are no elemental hazards in the forest, but in order to venture beyond this starting area, you'll need to complete a series of challenges and earn a biome badge for each. The biome badge will grant you the ability to survive the deadly element for each.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Fan-made video games based on popular franchises always run the risk of having the official rights-holder step in and shut things down, but that's not happening with Spartan Survivors.

The community-developed game, which has players fighting hordes of Covenant and Flood enemies as Master Chief or the Arbiter, has been given an official blessing from Microsoft. The developers said Microsoft reached out to them to say they "really love to see the passion" from the team. People at Microsoft apparently played the game as well. "It really is fun and we look forward to getting further in our playthrough and unlocking more stuff," the Halo representative said.

Microsoft, did, however, have one specific request for the developers. Microsoft reportedly asked the team to add language to the legal disclaimer in the game's credits and on store pages to make it ultra-clear that the project is not an official Halo game or made in partnership with Halo Studios.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

The latest update for Assassin's Creed Shadows comes out tomorrow, and it adds free new content alongside numerous tweaks and improvements. Title Update 1.0.6 is headlined by a quest developed in collaboration with Critical Role, as well as a new, more challenging difficulty setting.

The update's new questline is called A Critical Encounter, and its narrative centers around Rufino, a character first created during Critical Role's one-off Assassin's Creed-themed series. Rufino is voice-acted by Critical Role's Robbie Daymond, and completion of the quest unlocks Rufino as an Ally. In addition to this quest, Ubisoft is also adding a Critical Role-themed weapon pack that can be purchased in the in-game store.

The update also adds a new Nightmare difficulty setting, designed to significantly increase the challenge that players face. Nightmare increases enemy skill and decreases the effectiveness of player abilities; enemies are not only stronger, but also faster and smarter, according to the patch notes. Players will also have to be more careful about noise; on this setting, Naoe will make a sound even while crouching.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

One of Diablo 4's main endgame activities, Nightmare dungeons, will be permanently changed come Season 9, as Blizzard looks to make them both more challenging and surprising going forward.

As detailed in a new blog post, when Season 9 launches July 1, Nightmare dungeons will receive some major updates. Most notably, there will be a new activity within them called Horadric Strongrooms. Described as a "potent micro-dungeon," strongrooms will be found more frequently on higher Torment difficulties and can also be reliably found by using a Nightmare dungeon sigil that guarantees the appearance of a strongroom.

Once players are inside the dungeon, players can discover a portal that will take them to the strongroom. In a system somewhat similar to Diablo 4's Infernal Hordes activity, players will be able to select from a number of statues that add modifiers to the strongroom, increasing the challenge but also the rewards.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

2K and Firaxis released Update 1.2.2 for Sid Meier's Civilization 7 today. It's one of the most substantial updates for Civilization 7 since launch, adding Steam Workshop support, bigger maps, new Advanced Game options, and a lot more.

Civilization games always have healthy modding communities, and Update 1.2.2 strengthens official support for mods. From the player perspective, it'll now be possible to find and install mods right from Steam now that there's official Steam Workshop integration. Modders can also use Steam Workshop to promote their mod and use the official Civilization 7 Modding SDK to help speed up the process of creating and uploading them. This is an important addition to Civilization 7, although it's one that mainly benefits PC players.

Update 1.2.2 thankfully contains a lot of other improvements that equally apply to all platforms Civilization 7 is on. There are a lot of new Advanced Game Options for players to adjust for custom games. All map types now have Huge and Large versions, players can toggle certain Legacy Paths, Score Victories, and Crises on and off, and can now turn on the ability to turn on whatever new Civilization they want after an age transition.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

A decade after Dying Light came out in 2015, developer Techland is revisiting the zombie game with a major new update to refresh the game's visuals and other elements--just don't call it a remaster.

The "Retouched" update, as it's called, launches on June 26. This update is focused on "squeezing out even more" from Dying Light, the studio said. "It's not a complete overhaul or remaster," the developer clarified, adding that the team has found new ways to "squeeze more from the tech we already have."

"One day, someone just started applying those learnings to some old assets--and it just clicked that we could do that across the whole game," technical game director Grzegorz Świstowski said.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

In 2020, the ArcForged team of fan developers released Sonic Smackdown, a fighting game featuring several characters from Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. Now, ArcForged has returned with an upgraded version of that game, Ultimate Sonic Smackdown. And as seen in the announcement video below, it's clearly inspired by Capcom's Marvel vs. Capcom games.

This project is not affiliated or endorsed by Sega itself. But it does look pretty polished for a fan-made creation.

Unlike its 1-vs-1 predecessor, Ultimate Sonic Smackdown has 3-vs-3 tag battles on tap. The roster isn't as deep as the 17 characters in the original Sonic Smackdown, but the primary characters are back including Sonic, Shadow, Knuckles, Mecha Sonic, and Doctor Eggman.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Dune: Awakening offers four starting classes for you to choose from after you've gone through the character creator. These classes are Bene Gesserit, Trooper, Swordmaster, and Mentat. Each of these classes has its own ability trees, starting abilities, and stats that you can use to get through the early portion of the game. However, seeing as you're not given a ton of information about any of them, it can be difficult to know which one is the best starting class.

Today, we'll be going over the best overall starting class in Dune: Awakening. This class is primarily aimed towards beginners who are looking to get their footing in Arrakis. We'll also explain what build you should go for in the early game so you know exactly which abilities to target as you level up.

If you're just looking for the best classes in the game, check out our class tier list for Dune: Awakening.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

At the beginning of Dune: Awakening, you're able to select one of four classes for your character, with another being available later on in the game. Your class determines the ability trees you have access to, your stats, and certain playstyles that mesh better with specific classes. While you can make any class into what you want, it's most beneficial to choose a class that you can scale properly and efficiently as you advance in Dune: Awakening.

There are some classes that are best for beginners, but these classes won't benefit most players in the long run. If you're just looking for the best overall classes in Dune: Awakening, then you can check out the guide below to see a full class tier list and explanations for why each class is ranked where it is.

Dune: Awakening class tier list

One of the most important aspects of the class system to remember is that you're not locked to your class's ability trees for the entire game. You can eventually interact with "trainers" in Dune: Awakening that allow you to unlock other classes' ability trees, giving you the chance to create a new build entirely or add some abilities you previously didn't have access to.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

The Nintendo Switch 2 makes some big improvements over the first console, especially when comparing it to the first iteration that came out in 2017. A lot of that has to do with the significantly more powerful APU, but the larger, crisper screen is certainly the upgrade you'll notice first. It could also be the area where you might notice where the Switch 2 falls short of its predecessor.

Shortly after release, some discussions regarding how blurry the on-board display seemed to be started surfacing, prompting some hardware publications to take a closer look. Hardware Unboxed, known for detailed reviews of PC hardware and monitors, conducted a few tests on the Nintendo Switch 2 display, taking a closer look at the screen's response time. Running the display through 20 gray-to-gray transitions to measure response times, Hardware Unboxed determined that the Switch 2's LCD was one of the slowest it's ever tested, coming in at 33.3ms.

To put that into context, Hardware Unboxed compared this to an average LCD panel you'll find in entry-level displays today. These were tested in the same manner and averaged out to a response time of 6.3ms. Perhaps the most damning was the comparison to the original Switch's LCD, a display that is more than eight years old, that presented a response time nearly twice as fast a 21.3ms. Digital Foundry noted the same issues with the display in its extensive Nintendo Switch 2 review earlier this week, noting that, "The Switch 2 LCD has blurring characteristics that are easily worse than the 2017 Switch's display"

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Few games pack the technical punch of Cyberpunk 2077, making it an interesting proposition for Nintendo's shiny new handheld. While the Switch 2 is a significant upgrade to the original, Cyberpunk 2077 is considered one of the most hardware-intensive games in recent years. Despite this, CD Projekt Red's ambitious Switch 2 port is a commendable one that makes the most of the console's power, but with some noticeable drawbacks.

Cyberpunk 2077 for the Switch 2 offers a performance mode and quality mode for both docked and handheld play, with the key difference between the two play styles being resolution. While docked, Cyberpunk 2077's resolution ranges between 540p and 1080p. In quality mode, it shouldn't fall below 720p. Handheld play, depending on the graphics mode, scales between 360p and 810p. This sounds rough, but given the screen size and DLSS, Cyberpunk 2077 looks pretty palatable on the Nintendo Switch 2. Post-processing effects help offset this low resolution and the Switch 2 screen boasts a clean image, especially at a standstill. The quality can vary depending on what's happening on screen, though. If you're speeding through Night City or in the heat of combat, the resolution may plummet, but most players probably won't be able to tell.

Johnny Silverhand looking at V with Night City in the background captured on the Nintendo Switch 2

Quality mode targets 30 frames per second and performance mode targets 40. The caveat is that performance mode while docked only works with 120Hz TVs and monitors, meaning that not every display can utilize the frame rate boost. However, in my testing, the frame rate boost seemed pretty negligible when compared to quality mode. This is largely due to the fact that the Nintendo Switch 2 does not support variable refresh rate while docked, meaning the frame rate dips are noticeable. Fortunately, the quality setting appears to be more consistent. The frame rate can fluctuate depending on where you are in the world and what's happening. Thanks to the Switch 2's built-in VRR screen, performance mode feels pretty solid while playing handheld. That said, Dog Town--the new district added in the Phantom Liberty DLC--appears to be particularly taxing on the Switch 2. It's far from unplayable, but it does run slightly worse than other parts of the city. This shouldn't come as a surprise considering Phantom Liberty never made it to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One due to technical limitations. That makes its inclusion on the Switch 2 all the more noteworthy.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Nothing beats the thrill of completing a challenging platformer, and while we've been spoiled for choice lately, you can put your skills to the test with a real gem in this genre. Better yet, it's on sale for $5 and you'll get some other PC games included as well. As usual, each game here is provided as a key that can be redeemed on a Steam account.

Available through Fanatical's Nemesis Bundle, Bzzzt is the kind of game that platforming fans and speedrunners will get a kick out of. If you enjoyed games like the all-time classics Celeste and Super Meat Boy, then Bzzzt is very easy to recommend.

It has delightfully charming pixel art, each level is a masterpiece of design, and the controls are designed to keep the momentum going once you hit your stride. Overall, it's a showcase of precision-platforming and it's also Steam Deck Verified, so you can take it on the go with you.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Her Story is celebrating its 10-year anniversary today, June 24, 2025. Below, we speak with creator Sam Barlow about the central mysteries driving the game, its legacy, and his own autobiographical inspiration.

Spoilers for Her Story follow.

Sam Barlow wants to put something on the record.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Destiny 2's next expansion, The Edge of Fate, is headlined by the mysterious new Kepler destination, but developer Bungie is also adding a bunch of new Exotic gear. Specifically, three new Exotic armor pieces are coming--one for each class--and they boast new perks to change up gameplay.

In a developer livestream today, Bungie went into detail about what to expect from each new armor piece. First, Warlocks can acquire Eunoia, a Solar gauntlet that enhances the Hellion class ability. Specifically, Eunoia makes the Hellion mortar shatter upon impact into a bunch of smaller, enemy-seeking projectiles. It's also got some neat aesthetic stylings to go along with its Solar emphasis.

Second, Hunters get Moirai, a Strand gauntlet that enhances and combines the effect of the Threaded Spike melee and Tangles. After deploying a Tangle, Moirai allows Hunters to use the Threaded Spike melee to detonate the Tangle and then return it back to the player. As Bungie put it, the gauntlet allows for "yo-yoing" Tangles.

Continue Reading at GameSpot