Over a decade ago, Skype was one of the big features that Microsoft boasted about for Xbox One--which the company coined the "all in one experience." Today, Microsoft has announced plans to shut down the video-conferencing app entirely in May, with the ability to transfer data over to Teams.

In 2013, Skype was going to be one of the ways the Xbox One stood out in the gaming industry, letting you video chat while playing Titanfall and watching TV with Snap. Remember Snap? It was the feature that put secondary applications on the right side of the screen for Xbox One.

Additionally, Skype worked with voice controls, as Microsoft touted saying things like, "Hey Xbox, Skype Mom!" This was possible as the system was initially bundled with Kinect for Xbox One. On YouTube, Skype even marketed the features with a silly promo video featuring comedian Bobby Lee.

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Sequels are hallmark of the video game industry, but no one should expect Diablo 5 anytime soon. Blizzard's Rod Fergusson said in an interview that the studio intends for Diablo 4 to stick around "for years" to come.

Diablo 4 is embracing a sort-of live-service approach with plans for yearly expansions--however, 2025's expansion is now coming in 2026. In any event, Blizzard intends to continue to support Diablo 4 as opposed to moving on right away to a potential sequel.

"I don't know if it's eternal. I think Destiny tried and did that like, 'This is a ten-year game,' and then they quickly were not," Fergusson told IGN. "We want people to see the road ahead, because we know that, to play a Diablo game, you're probably putting hundreds of hours in and we want people to know that we're respecting their time and that we're not just here and gone."

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A recent behind-the-scenes video about how The Witcher 4's impressive announcement trailer came together featured footage of the character Ciri sporting a different look--or at least that's what some fans thought they saw in the footage. The game's director has now responded, saying the studio has not modified Ciri's look and attempted to explain why her character model in the behind-the-scenes video may appear to look different from the trailer itself.

"The behind-the-scenes video features the same in-game model of Ciri as seen in the original trailer. We have not modified it," Sebastian Kalemba said. "What you're seeing is raw footage--without facial animation, lighting, or virtual camera lenses."

Kalemba also assured fans that the newly released footage in the behind-the-scenes video represents a "work-in-progress snapshot" of Ciri's look.

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One of the wildest Batman films of all time, Batman Ninja, is getting a sequel that sees the feudal Japan-era incarnation of the Caped Crusader face down evil Yakuza versions of the Justice League. If that sounds like something you'd like to see, you can grab Batman Ninja Vs. Yakuza League on Blu-ray for $23 ahead of its April 15 release.

Batman Ninja Vs. Yakuza League $23 | Releases April 15

While the first Batman Ninja saw the titular hero and his sidekicks take on the Joker, Harley Quinn, Deathstroke, and several other supervillains, the sequel pits the Caped Crusader against Superman and the rest of the Justice League, who are now all members of the Yakuza. To make matters even more complicated, Japan has disappeared from the world map, and a huge island called "Hinomoto" has appeared in the sky over Gotham, giving Batman plenty of work to do if he wants to restore his timeline.

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In case you missed it the first Batman Ninja film, you can pick up the steelbook edition for just $16.58 (was $25). The 3D-anime film was a unique take on the DC hero, taking him out of the modern and futuristic settings where most Batman stories take place in and reimagining him as a shinobi vigilante in feudal Japan. The movie was animated by Kamikaze Douga and YamatoWorks, with character designs by Afro Samurai creator Takashi Okazaki.

Plenty of other animated Batman films and TV series are available on Blu-ray, many of which are on sale. Some noteworthy options include Batman: The Complete Animated Series for $26 (was $80), and its incredible Mask of the Phantasm movie for $17 (was $34). You can also grab its sci-fi sequel series Batman Beyond: The Complete Series for $35 (was $55), and the the underrated 2004 animated Batman series for $36 (was $70).

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Today is the release date for Capcom's Monster Hunter Wilds, and fans aren't the only ones who want to get their hands on it. Pocketpair, the developer of Palworld, is declaring today a special day off just to let its employees dive into Monster Hunter Wilds.

Via Automaton, Pocketpair wrote on social media that it had received word from several of its employees that they might be feeling sick on the last day of the month, which just so happened to be the day of Monster Hunter Wilds' release. Instead of insisting that employees show up as scheduled, Pocketpair gave them a holiday.

なぜか多くの社員から、明日体調不良になるかもしれないという報告を受けたので、明日は特別休暇になりました pic.twitter.com/KhuxHJjUDo

— ポケットペア公式 - Craftopia/クラフトピア (@PocketpairJapan) February 27, 2025

Palworld's community manager, Bucky, subsequently confirmed that this is what happened. It's a very nice gesture, and probably well-deserved. Pocketpair's dev team has a lot of work ahead of then, as laid out in the roadmap of updates coming to Palworld in its second year. Some of the game's upcoming features include co-op cross-play, new pals, and new endgame content. Thanks to the team's ongoing efforts, Palworld recently crossed a milestone with 32 million players from across the globe in the game's first year.

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Necrosoft Games, the makers of Gunhouse and Hyper Gunsport, has created a huge games bundle to assist in Los Angeles wildfire relief efforts. The Itch.io charity collection features over 400 games--including Tunic, Octodad, and Hidden Folks--for at least $10. Please keep in mind these are for Itch copies and not Steam keys.

Called the California Fire Relief Bundle, the aim is to raise $100,000 for CORE, which is assisting Los Angeles shelters, giving money to survivors, and offering resources to the affected communities (hygiene kits and air purifiers, for example). All proceeds are planned to go to this organization, outside of processing fees, according to Necrosoft.

The California Fire Relief Bundle is live!! Benefitting survivors of the SoCal wildfires through the Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE). Featuring 400+ games: Tunic! Tangle Tower! Catlateral Damage! Hidden Folks! Cook, Serve, Delicious! And more! $10 minimum!! itch.io/b/2863/calif...

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— Brandon Sheffield (@brandon.insertcredit.com) February 27, 2025 at 2:45 PM

At the time of publication, more than 4,400 people had picked up the games bundle and raised over $57,000. The California Fire Relief Bundle will be available for 13 more days and features savings of roughly $3,000 if buying all of the games separately.

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Monster Hunter Wilds launches today, February 28, and some players have run into issues with the Steam version. Thankfully, Capcom has provided steps on how to fix problems such as the game not loading or the cutscenes aren't playing.

You can read the detailed steps below.

Capcom recommended to make sure that your PC meets the minimum PC requirements for Monster Hunter Wilds and that your graphics drivers are updated. Additionally, update DirectX to the latest version and make sure that the game is added to your anti-virus program's exceptions list.

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Split Fiction and It Takes Two developer Hazelight Studios will never put microtransactions in its games, according to director Josef Fares.

In an interview with MinnMax, Fares also said that Hazelight Studios isn't available for bigger publishers to buy it out. "Hazelight is not for sale. I mean, we will always do what we do, and we love what to do period," Fares explained. "And we will never be on the stock market as well; get that in, period. And we will never have microtransactions, bullshit, no shit, just make games. Period."

Recently, Fares also said that Hazelight won't make live-service games either. Microtransactions are common to in live-service games, as studios and publishers who make them want a recurring stream of revenue.

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Monster Hunter Wilds has officially launched, and on PC, and it is smashing through several records. At the time of writing, the game has reached over 1.2 million concurrent players on Steam alone--according to Steam's charts--beating the all-time player peak numbers set by the previous two Monster Hunter games by a very wide margin. It's also the second-most-played game on Steam currently, beaten only by Counter-Strike 2, which is a free-to-play game.

In comparison, Monster Hunter World had a peak player-count of 334,684 players on Steam in 2018, while Monster Hunter Rise reached a peak of 231,360 players in 2022. What makes this even more impressive is that Monster Hunter Wilds has beaten the impressive release day records set by Elden Ring and Cyberpunk 2077, as both of those games reached 1.1 million concurrent players on their respective launch days. This also makes Monster Hunter Wilds only the eighth game in Steam history to break the 1 million concurrent players mark.

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Grand Theft Auto 5's long-awaited enhanced upgrade on PC finally arrives on March 4. Ahead of that, existing GTA 5 players can pre-load the free upgrade via the Rockstar Games Launcher or Steam.

Additionally, existing owners can now transfer their story mode progress to the new edition of GTA 5 for PC through a new option found in the Pause menu. Scroll down to see a quick rundown of how to pre-load the new edition of GTA 5 for PC and how to transfer your saves to the new version.

GTA 5's new enhanced edition on PC brings over the changes, improvements, and additions from the Xbox Series X|S and PS5 versions, including better graphics, faster loading times, and lots more.

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The Command & Conquer community is in for a treat, as EA has released the source code for four classic C&C games, as well as adding Steam Workshop support and releasing further modding tools for other titles in the franchise.

In collaboration with community creator Luke "CCHyper" Feenan, EA has released the fully recovered source code for the original Command & Conquer (aka Tiberian Dawn), C&C Red Alert, C&C Renegade, and C&C Generals--along with its expansion pack, Zero Hour. The source code for the games is available on EA's GitHub page under a GPL license, which grants users the right to run, study, share, or modify the software.

"Over the past year I have been working alongside the amazing C&C stakeholders here at EA to restore the Perforce source code archives for the C&C games back to buildable states, which now provides us with the ability to patch these classic games in a deeper way going forward," CCHyper said of his collaboration with the C&C team at EA. "As a long time modder, it was amazing to finally get a chance to deep dive into the source code for these games and see how they work!"

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Today is going to be the happiest day of young Celestine's life. Indeed, she's going to marry Prince Simon William Barry Dermott O'Sharrock the VI, born twenty years ago on the first day of Summer (which foretells prosperity, according to the tales!). But as she flaunts her gorgeous wedding dress in the hallways of the palace, Celestine doesn't realize the worst is about to happen. Cersei, Heiress of Noctopolis, is determined not to let this ceremony go through, and mere minutes before the union, the poor helpless bride can do nothing but witness in tears the abduction of her Prince! True love knows no limit, and Celestine, quickly joined by a grumpy old Knight, is about to live an adventure she would only have imagined in her wildest dreams - or nightmares! Celestine, by the makers of Final Battle, features an enthralling story with many twists and turns, and a gameplay to satisfy the itch of RPG players. It is a must-have for fans of the old Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and Breath of Fire.

A 16-bit retro-future adventure spanning three planets begins! Androids Thunder and Kaira travel the universe to find a new Earth. However, what awaits them is the daily life of bounty hunting with a mortgage on a condominium planet. During the adventure treasure hunt journey woven with mystery and drama, you may encounter unexpected characters in random events. In addition, you can freely explore while doing bounty hunting, delivery work, shopping, etc. The capture route is up to the player. There are plenty of elements to keep you going, such as a picture book system that records the characters you meet, sub-missions to unlock achievements in the game, and training to challenge strong opponents to battle! Enjoy the vast planetary exploration to the fullest!