Weeks after his detainment by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), fighting game community member Ludovic Mbock is going home after being granted a low bond at a hearing.

According to Mbock's friends and family in a GoFundMe update post, around 20 people were in the courtroom at the hearing, with over 20 other people showing support online. "The judge was clearly moved," the post read. "Everything he said was in favor of Ludovic." Per Aftermath, Mbock was moved to facilities in Louisiana and then Georgia during his detention.

Friends and peers quickly took to social media to celebrate, with one post from fighting game community member Fem!Shep noting that Mbock's team is "optimistic" about a forthcoming hearing set for May.

If Donkey Kong Bananza is a game all about destruction, then the feature that allows for the most destruction could arguably be the best part of the game. According to a developer who worked on the game, the most destructive transformation for Donkey Kong might have gone too far, but that isn't a bad thing.

Speaking to Game Informer at GDC, Donkey Kong Bananza programmer Tatsuya Kurihara spoke about DK's Elephant Bananza transformation, which lets the primate inhale a large volume of destructible terrain and store chunks of it to throw. "I think we can agree the most destructive transformation is the Elephant Bananza, and honestly speaking, it probably went too far," Kurihara said. "But at the same time, it's fun, it feels good. And that's what matters most."

It's hard not to agree with that sentiment--the Switch 2 game practically invites you to wreak as much havoc as possible, and if you want to strip an entire layer of all its terrain, sucking it all up with the Elephant Bananza is the most efficient and satisfying way to do so.

Prime Video has announced a price increase for the subscription service, and it means the best way to watch Fallout--or anything else on the service--will soon be more expensive.

What we're talking about here is the ad-free version of Prime Video. Currently, it costs $3/month extra to watch content without ads. Starting April 10, however, the fee is going up to $5/month extra, and the tier is being re-branded as "Prime Video Ultra" (via The Hollywood Reporter).

Prime Video Ultra includes access to 4K/UHD streaming--and paying the $5/month extra is the only way to get this. Additionally, Prime Video Ultra supports up to five concurrent streams, which is up from three. Subscribers can also download up to 100 titles at once, up from 25.

Patrick Söderlund, the head of Arc Raiders studio Embark, has once again defended how the studio uses AI and revealed that the game now has fewer AI lines after the team re-recorded some parts.

Like Embark's previous game, The Finals, Arc Raiders uses an AI-powered text-to-speech system. A lot of people took issue with this, and Söderlund has now clarified how Embark pays the actors and revealed that Arc Raiders has removed AI voice lines since launch.

"We pay our actors for all time spent with us in the booth and continue to bring many of them back as we carry on updating the game," the developer told GI.biz. "For select usage, we also pay them for the approval to license their voices through text-to-speech for lines that aren't as essential to the immersion of the experience, mostly ping system audio."

Data firm NewZoo's annual PC and console gaming report reveals an interesting fact about Roblox and Minecraft players: They're far less likely to engage with popular AAA titles like Ghost of Yotei or Assassin's Creed: Shadows because they aren't too picky about realistic, lifelike graphics in games.

"I think there's been a shift in the last 10 years where the idea of chasing graphics has kind of faded and now you see the most popular games on the planet are not the most graphically high-fidelity games," NewZoo director of consulting Ben Porter explained at GDC (via gamesindustry.biz).

Per Porter, Roblox is leading the pack when it comes to massively popular but visually underwhelming games.

Despite being in development for over five years, almost all of Crimson Desert's pre-release footage has been from its PC version rather than consoles. Considering that this open-world fantasy is only a few days away from release, players have been understandably wary about that. Now, new console footage of Crimson Desert has been shared, but only from the PlayStation 5 Pro.

Digital Foundry has shared its early impressions of Crimson Desert on PS5 Pro, and for the most part, it sounds very promising. The video notes that the game's visual modes--optimal, balanced, and quality--all performed well, with only some occasional hiccups including PSSR upscaling artifacts.

Digital Foundry's Richard Leadbetter told IGN that developer Pearl Abyss offered the PS5 Pro preview without any restrictions. He added his primary concerns about the game have centered on its CPU demands.

Hawked is the latest casualty of the live-service gaming market, as the studio behind the Fortnite-like shooter has announced that it'll be pulling the plug on its servers later this year. Developer My.Games has already disabled all in-game purchases and payments, and the current Renegade Pass will be extended until September 7.

"It was a great hunt, and we are grateful to every Renegade who joined the journey: exploring the jungles and ruins of X-Isle, chasing Caravans and Relics, solving puzzles and uncovering mysteries, battling VEKTR, and simply enjoying the adventure together," My.Games wrote in a blog post. "We are closing this chapter to focus on new challenges ahead."

Servers for Hawked will remain operational until June 9 for PC players, while the deadline for console players is September 7. After those dates, the game and its online services will be permanently retired. First revealed in 2022, Hawked launched for PC a year later and then made its way to PS5 and Xbox Series X|S in 2024. The core loop of Hawked saw teams of up to three players race to collect and extract Artifacts from an island known as X-Isle, using the unique skills of one of several "Renegade" characters.