EA has called on fans to provide feedback on the art direction of the reimagined of Plants vs. Zombies 3.

"We ran some external tests to gather insight into which art styles sparked interest among participants in our focus groups! We’re actively gathering that data, but we also know that there’s no better feedback than yours--the passionate PvZ community," EA said in a new blog post.

EA showed three images of the same plant punching a zombie but in three different art styles and is asking fans to share their thoughts on social media with the hashtag #PvZ3 and which one they prefer. The first one is a slightly 3D cel-shaded art direction compared to the second one. However, the third one is much more dynamic, looking like a comic-book panel.

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Kinetic Games revealed its 2025 roadmap for Phasmophobia updates in a new blog post, including two new modifications to how ghost hunts work and plans for extensive map reworks. None of these updates have firm release dates yet, though Kinetic plans to release its first map overhaul in March 2025.

The news comes alongside another announcement from Kinetic, which is that Phasmophobia has sold more than 22 million copies since it first entered early access in September 2020.

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The Art of Returnal

$33.90 (was $50)

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Housemarque recently teamed up with Dark Horse on a pair of books about Returnal, the 2021 roguelike shooter that became one of the PS5's earliest hits. Returnal fans can now save big on one of those books at Amazon. The Art of Returnal is on sale for only $34 at Amazon for a limited time. This hardcover book was published in December and normally carries a $50 price tag.

Returnal is a terrific roguelike shooter built around challenging, fast-paced combat scenarios, which means stopping to admire the intricately designed world isn't always an option. If you want to spend time in the world crafted by Housemarque at a more leisurely pace, The Art of Returnal is worth checking out.

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Roblox is one of the most popular gaming platforms, but there may be trouble ahead. The US Securities and Exchange Commission has confirmed that Roblox is "part of an active and ongoing investigation."

Hunterberg Media originally reported last fall that Roblox was under investigation by the SEC over charges that it "inflated key metrics" for investors on Wall Street and for its lax safety measures regarding potential child predators on the platform. The SEC did not confirm that Roblox's parent company, The Roblox Corporation, is under investigation. However, Bloomberg has confirmed that the SEC refused to provide details of its investigation because it may "harm... the ongoing enforcement proceeding."

In November 2024, The Roblox Corporation laid out new safety guidelines for children on the platform. Children under the age of 13 are no longer allowed access to unrated experiences created within Roblox, and only children 13 and older will be allowed to utilize the social hangouts and free-form user-creation experiences. That move came after a previous Bloomberg story which noted that The Roblox Company reported over 13,000 instances of child exploitation to authorities in 2023. Moreover, two dozen people were arrested for abusing children after making contact with them through the platform.

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The Order: 1886 developer Ready at Dawn pitched a sequel to Sony but was ultimately rejected. While the reason was unclear, the developer thought that had the game's critical reception been higher, there would've been a better chance.

"We really thought that with The Order, we had set up such a unique and appealing baseline that people were going to forgive some of its shortcomings," Ready at Dawn co-founder Andrea Pessino said in an interview with MinnMax. "It would've been an incredible sequel, I can tell you for a fact."

Despite The Order 1886's lukewarm critical reception, sitting at a 63 on GameSpot's sister site Metacritic, Ready at Dawn pitched a sequel. Pessino explained that it was actually better that Sony passed on the sequel because the budget would've been small and the studio didn't have any leverage to negotiate a better contract. However, Pessino said that the team would've taken the opportunity anyway in order to redeem The Order: 1886.

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Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Warzone's latest double XP event was supposed to end on February 10, but Activision is extending the promotion for 48 more hours due to the PSN outage.

In a social media post, the developer said, "Didn't get to play as much as you wanted over the weekend? We got you." The double XP event will now end at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET on February 12. It was previously expected to end at the same time on February 10.

This double XP period covers double XP for player progression, weapons, and Gobblegum earn rate. Only the PSN went down this weekend, but the double XP event is extended across all platforms. Activision also held a Black Ops 6 free trial February 6-10, but that event doesn't appear to be part of the extension.

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Marvel Rivals will receive its mid-Season 1 update on February 21, bringing new heroes, big changes to the game's meta, and a rank reset for competitive mode enjoyers, developer NetEase has announced.

In a blog post, NetEase said competitive players will have their ranks drop four divisions following the mid-season update. The mid-season rank drop is happening due to "major balance changes" that are expected to "shake-up the battlefield" for the remainder of the game's first competitive season.

There are a few additional changes coming to competitive as well, with a new Gold rank and above costume for players to earn and Crests of Honor cosmetics for players at Grandmaster rank and above that will have a unique design each season. NetEase said players will need to complete 10 matches in competitive mode in order to claim the rewards for any given season.

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Amazon has kicked off its latest Buy 1, Get 1 50% Off Sale on Blu-rays. As usual, you simply need to add two eligible movies or TV shows to your cart, and you'll receive a discount equal to half the cost of the lower-priced item at checkout. Like other Amazon BOGO promotions, this is a mix-and-match sale, so you can combine 4K Blu-rays with books, board games, and select toys. It's not always easy to find eligible items using the search function on Amazon's sale hub, so if you're looking for a specific item, we'd recommend using Amazon's regular search bar to find the direct listing.

Amazon's B1G1 50% off movie and TV show sale runs through February 15. We've rounded up some of our favorite deals in the promotion. Keep in mind that Amazon has been known to add and remove products from these promotions before the sale officially ends. We'll be adding to these B1G1 50% movie and TV lists throughout the week, so bookmark this page and check back for more deals.

Shop B1G1 Half-off Sale at Amazon B1G1 50% Off Movie and TV Box SetsThe Lord of the Rings Trilogy | Predator 4-Film Collection

If you're interested in adding to your movie box set collection, there are some great 4K collections included in Amazon's promotion. The ever-popular Lord of the Rings Trilogy, which features theatrical and extended cuts of all three of Peter Jackson's beautiful adaptations, is up for grabs for $68. You can also get Back to the Future: The Ultimate Trilogy, Predator 4-Film Collection, and The Mummy Trilogy.

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In the lore of Resident Evil, two of the franchise's top villains--Nemesis and Albert Wesker aka The Mastermind--have never crossed paths. But starting today in Dead by Daylight's third collaboration with Resident Evil, Wesker and Nemesis are teaming up as two of the killers in the game's latest 2v8 mode.

Behaviour Interactive has shared a trailer for the new Dead by Daylight x Resident Evil crossover, as Nemesis and Wesker corner a handful of RE's heroes including Jill Valentine, Leon Kennedy, Ada Wong, and Rebecca Chambers. Among this crew, Jill is the one who has experience fighting Nemesis in Resident Evil 3 and Wesker in some of the other games. But even with backup, Jill and the others are significantly outmatched by this duo.

The Dead by Daylight collaborations take place outside of Resident Evil continuity, so the game doesn't have to explain how any of this fits into RE's storylines. But the 2v8 mode does feature a map from Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3 that recreates Raccoon City's Police Department. Additionally, Resident Evil's green and yellow herbs can be found and used for healing by the heroes. But if either Wesker or Nemesis find the herbs first, they can destroy them and get a boost of speed.

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Valve has seemingly introduced new rules that ban games that require users to watch paid ads (or rely on other such ad-based revenue models) from Steam. However, some sources report that these rules may have already existed, and that Valve has merely created a dedicated page on Steamworks to clarify this policy.

The page explains that Steam does not contain paid advertising, and that advertising-based revenue models are not allowed on the platform. It further states that developers are also prohibited from using advertising as a way to provide value to players, such as giving players an in-game reward for watching or engaging with ads.

"Developers should not utilize paid advertising as a business model in their game, such as requiring players to watch or otherwise engage with advertising in order to play, or gating gameplay behind advertising," the rule reads in part. "If your game's business model relies on advertising on other platforms, you will need to remove those elements before shipping on Steam."

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Since it's only February, it might be too soon to say that the action-RPG Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is going to be a game of the year contender. But this title's popularity is already exploding. After launching on Steam last week with 150,000 players concurrently, the game hit an even larger peak over the weekend.

SteamDB has shared a chart of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's performance, and it rose from 176,000 players on February 5 to 190,000 on February 7. During the weekend, the game reached its current record of 256,206 concurrent players before settling back down to 188,000 players today. Regardless, the upwards trajectory of this title is impressive and it appears to still have room to grow. The game is also available on Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5, so the Steam numbers may only represent a small part of the overall picture.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 has also been highly rated on GameSpot's sister site, Metacritic, with an aggregate score of 88. GameSpot's review of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 gave it a 9/10.

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Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl LIX performance has generated a lot of online chatter, and surprisingly, not all of it has to do with Drake. When the Grammy-winning rapper took the stage for the halftime show, the stage itself took the form of a tic-tac-toe board--but X's and O's were accompanied by a triangle and a square, which were meant to evoke the aesthetic of a "PlayStation-style controller," according to the show's coordinators and set designers. The idea--which Lamar personally dreamed up--was meant to represent the rapper's life as though it were a video game.

"I think the [video game theme] was symbolic, his way to reach young people," art director Shelley Rodgers told Wired. "A lot of it is showing his journey, [showing him] traveling through the American dream."

Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl halftime show set was inspired by the PlayStation controller, show's art director says

"Each performance space was shaped like a button on a PlayStation-style controller, a performance intended to portray Lamar’s life as a video game."

Via: @WIRED pic.twitter.com/OhQZmjTWEM

— CharlieIntel (@charlieINTEL) February 10, 2025

Creative director Mike Carson added that Lamar and his production company, pgLang, are "really into keeping things clean and minimal."

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Back in the '90s, nothing was better than sitting down in front of a TV to watch a color-coordinated group of teenagers with attitude beat the putty out of various monsters. Fast-forward to today, and Angel Grove's finest warriors are back in the spotlight with the co-op side-scrolling brawler Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind. The digital version of the game launched on consoles and PC back in December 2024, but publisher Atari is finally releasing physical PS5 and Nintendo Switch versions on May 30. A $35 Standard Edition and $50 Deluxe Edition will be available for both systems, and preorders for both are in stock at Amazon.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind Standard Edition $35 | Releases May 30

The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind standard edition includes the base game on either PS5 or Nintendo Switch. Preorders are available for $35 at Amazon.

Preorder at Amazon (PS5) Preorder at Amazon (Switch) Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind Deluxe Edition $50 | Releases May 30

The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind Deluxe Edition is available for PS5 and Nintendo Switch and comes with a bunch of collectibles. Here's everything included:

• Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind base game
• Green Ranger-themed steelbook case
• Six collectible trading cards of each Ranger
• Poster
• Lenticular postcard
• Collector's box

Note that the PS5 version has gone in and out of stock, and while both versions are available at the time of writing, it's worth preordering a copy soon in case they sell out again.

Preorder at Amazon (PS5) Preorder at Amazon (Switch)

Designed to look and play like an old-school '90s beat-'em-up, Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind is a charming retro throwback. It's not quite as good as similar games like Streets of Rage 4 or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, but it's still an enjoyable and nostalgic romp if you can overlook a few annoying issues. "Rita's Rewind is a pretty good retro brawler throwback, but one with some of its own special charms--as well as its own frustrations," Steve Watts wrote in GameSpot's review.

Along with these new PS5 and NintendoSwitch physical editions, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind is also available digitally on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

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Resident Evil 5 has received a new rating for Xbox Series X|S from the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB), prompting speculation that an enhanced version might be released soon. The ESRB listing follows a recent rating for Resident Evil 6, and Capcom does have a history of releasing its older Resident Evil games on newer consoles.

Capcom hasn't commented on this rating, although the ESRB M for Mature age restriction does mention instances of realistic gunfire, salty language, occasional dismemberment, and other instances of violence like being exposed to the nasty side of a chainsaw. Typical Resident Evil stuff, most fans would agree.

First released in 2009 for PS3, Xbox 360, and PC, Resident Evil 5 was later re-released in 2016 for PS4 and Xbox One. It is also currently playable on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S via backwards compatibility. The game was notably heavier on action when compared to its predecessors and it featured a co-op gameplay mechanic that was new to the series at the time. While its control scheme and allegations of racism did draw some criticism, it was still a well-received game overall and is one of Capcom's best-selling games of all time.

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Capcom has announced that it is extending the second open beta test for Monster Hunter Wilds on all platforms as a result of PlayStation Network being down this past weekend.

In a statement, Capcom said, "Hunters, we're pleased to confirm that due to the PlayStation Network outage that occurred during the first week of OBT2, we're extending the second week of OBT2 by +24 hours on all platforms!"

The second weekend of the open beta test will start at the normal time, February 13 at 7 PM PT / 10 PM ET. However, the open beta's end time has been extended by a full 24 hours, meaning that it will now ends on February 18 at 6:59 PM PT / 9:59 PM ET.

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Square Enix hasn't forgotten about Dragon Quest XII: The Flames of Fate. In fact, series creator Yuji Horii reportedly confirmed that the company is working hard on the RPG over the weekend, with the hope that more info will be dished out piece by piece.

Automaton states that Horii chatted about Dragon Quest XII with his radio show group KosoKoso Hōsō Kyoku on YouTube. That's when Horii reportedly made it clear his team has been toiling away at the RPG. Dragon Quest XII was revealed almost four years ago at this point, with minimal official updates since that time. For instance, no platforms have been announced.

However, in April 2024, producer Yu Miyake reportedly stepped down from working on Dragon Quest XII at Square Enix because of repeated delays for the RPG. This caused some public concerns about the development of the game.

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Nintendo finally announced the Switch 2 during an event in January, and what was the reaction from fans? Many people thought it was a bit underwhelming. Nintendo's own president has said it's too early to gauge the reaction to the system because Nintendo has not shown much.

That will change in April during the big-time Switch 2 Nintendo Direct--and that might be a better time to analyze how fans think about the system, Shuntaro Furukawa said during Nintendo's latest earnings briefing.

"We are happy that many people all over the world watched the trailer. But because we only revealed the name and form factor, we will need to wait until more detailed information is released on April 2 to get a good sense of their reaction," Furukawa said. "There is currently a lot of interest, so we will first focus on the preparation for the April 2 announcement, and then offer opportunities for many people to get their hands on the hardware, so we can convey its appeal."

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Some new details about Nintendo's plans for the Switch 2 launch have been revealed in the company's latest earnings briefing, with president Shuntaro Furukawa revealing that Nintendo is preparing for a high level of demand for the new console. The executive also discussed Nintendo's philosophy regarding pricing for the Switch 2 and confirmed there are no plans right now for a Switch price cut.

While answering shareholders' questions about the launch, Furukawa revealed that Nintendo is anticipating a high level of demand for the new console. "As of now, we are taking the risk and proceeding with production to meet as large a demand as possible," Furukawa said, adding that Nintendo would be estimating the initial demand for the console based off the reaction to its April 4 Switch 2 Nintendo Direct, as well as the response to its hands-on Switch 2 Experience events.

Nintendo is also making preparations in case it needs to quickly ramp up production of the consoles, as was the case when the original Nintendo Switch experienced supply issues in 2020. "As was true with Nintendo Switch, we believe it will not be easy to rapidly increase production capacity," Furukawa said. "So based on our prior experience, we are making preparations to be able to respond as quickly as possible."

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