During Minecraft Live today, Mojang announced Minecraft Dungeons II. The sequel to 2020's dungeon-crawler is set for release this fall, and people can start wishlisting the game today.

Back in May 2025, it was reported that a sequel to Minecraft Dungeons was in the works, and has been for several years, so the announcement today was not a total surprise.

Minecraft Dungeons is a Minecraft-flavored take on ARPGs like Diablo, and the game was released across Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and PC. The game also got an expansion and an ultimate edition. GameSpot's Minecraft Dungeons review scored the game a 7/10. "It scratches the dungeon-crawler itch with a sense of goofy charm and expands what Minecraft can be," reviewer Steve Watts said.

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During Minecraft Live, Mojang announced its next drop: Chaos Cubed. While the drop doesn't have a confirmed release date as of yet, we're already excited for the chaotic potential it's sure to unleash. Among the things coming to Minecraft in Chaos Cubed is the brand new Sulfur Cube, which sees its physics and properties change as it absorbs various materials, though how that might work remains a mystery for now. We're taking the "Chaos" in Chaos Cubed pretty seriously, though.

Based on our first look, we're imagining that feeding Sulfur Cubes wood will cause them to become sturdy, structural blocks, while perhaps sneaking them a slime ball will turn them into gelatinous, bouncy bundles of fun. While Mojang hasn't gone into the specifics of the physics that can be affected, that hasn't stopped us pondering the possibilities. You'll be able to feed a Sulfur Cube manually, or it can choose to absorb a material of its own accord, as long as it's in range.

The Sulfur Cube will be found in the new Sulfur Caves environments. These areas can spawn in many of the overworld's biomes, meaning there should never be one too far away. Digging down should lead you to a cave with sulfur pools and new blocks to mine. Be careful though--sitting near these pools of water for too long will cause you to obtain the noxious effect, which we imagine will cause you damage over time.

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Degrees of Freedom: Delta is a climate strategy sandbox where you learn how greenhouse gases and radiative forcing shape future warming and its impacts. Run scenarios from today to 2075 and see how today’s choices reshape Earth’s climate, societies, and future.

There are a lot of improvements coming to Windows 11 in March and April, according to Microsoft's Windows chief, Pavan Davuluri. And while some of the adjustments may not arrive right away, one of the more immediate changes will give users more control over how they use Windows 11 while also cutting down on AI integration in programs that don't need it.

Davaluri detailed the upcoming changes in a blog post. One of the first notable options will be the ability to reposition the Windows 11 taskbar, which Davaluri noted was one of the most-requested changes. He later wrote that Microsoft will "be more intentional about how and where Copilot integrates across Windows." Programs like Notepad, Snipping Tool, and Photos will subsequently have "unnecessary Copilot entry points" removed.

Users will also have more flexibility to decide whether to skip updates or schedule them at their leisure rather than being forced to go through with those downloads just to shut down or start up their systems. Davuluri added that File Explorer will be given a refined performance that will allow it to function more quickly and reliably. Widget options are also on the way that will allow users to choose how often they appear.

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Anya Taylor-Joy is returning as the voice of Princess Peach in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, but she recently shared that voicing the character wasn't quite what she expected. During an appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers, Taylor-Joy said she threw up the first time she had a recording session for The Super Mario Bros. Movie.

"It's super fun," Taylor-Joy told Meyers. "But I will say the first time I ever did a session, I did not realize how taxing it would be because you're yelling continuously the whole time. I think the first time I ever did it, I threw up. I'm pretty sure, like, I drank so much water and I was like, 'Gotta do it.'"

Taylor-Joy went to explain that she had to take part in the "efforts" at the end of the session. That's the part where she had to act out Peach's actions with every yell, grunt, and gasp called for in the script. She said that it felt "really cool" to do them, before adding, "You kind of visit yourself back and you think, 'God, I hope no one ever sees this,' because they do film them."

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The Sims 4 (and its developers at Electronic Arts and Maxis) have come under fire recently for adding microtransactions and paid mods to the game, Bethesda Creation Club-style, with a new feature called The Sims 4 Marketplace. Naturally, players are unhappy that a game with over 100 DLC packs (that can cost you $1,600) is implementing more monetization tactics, but the problems with The Sims 4 Marketplace go deeper than player frustration with what they perceive as EA's greed.

To get a better idea of what exactly is going on in The Sims 4, I decided to take its new player-creation marketplace for a spin, and what I found was disappointing, but not surprising. Perhaps the first thing to note is that EA has now implemented a premium in-game currency, called Moola, which players must purchase before they can buy Maker Marketplace items. And it turns out, the Maker Marketplace is everything Sims 4 players don't want in a game update, but it's far from the first time EA has plugged its ears and yelled "I can't hear you!" in response to Sims players' complaints.

To understand how the game ended up here, we'll have to travel back to early 2025. It's been a strange year for The Sims, and the game's path to a paid mod marketplace has been a bumpy one. The franchise celebrated its 25th anniversary in February 2025, which EA and Maxis marked with multiple Sims 4 content creator collaborations, promises to fix game-breaking bugs that had gone ignored for years, and of course, the announcement of even more paid DLC. Naturally, players were excited to see long-standing bugs addressed, and were happy with new base game updates that fleshed out Sims' personalities and romantic aspirations, along with DLC packs that introduced romantic new locales and even new ways for Sims to kick the bucket.

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Middling reviews and plummeting stocks haven't prevented Crimson Desert from reaching a tremendous 2 million units sold merely a day after its release. However, a new controversy surrounding developer Pearl Abyss's massive RPG seems to be brewing, and it involves everyone's favorite subject these days: AI-generated art.

In the past few hours, a number of Crimson Desert players have taken to Reddit, Bluesky, and other social media platforms with images depicting what they suspect to be generative AI-created art. In each instance, it seems to be environmental art--like ornate portraits or medieval woodcut-inspired paintings--that is being called into question. In one example, Reddit user Ok-Error-403 explained their reasoning, writing: "Signs of AI: [T]hree fingers on the hand holding the bag and four on the left hand is the biggest giveaway. Also AI does linocut patterns this way where the strokes aren't consistent and has wonky folding for clothing. I could be wrong ... would love to be, but I'm 99% sure it's AI."

On Bluesky, user Lex Luddy shared a series of images of an ornate portrait which, upon closer inspection, depicts mushy-faced warriors atop many-limbed horses. It only takes a cursory glance to realize this picture doesn't suit Crimson Desert's more grounded art direction, and is far more in line with what we see in generative AI-created images. These images were also shared on Reddit, with user Rex_Spy writing that those who wish to see it themselves should go to "Oakenshield Manor, in the southwest part of the first city/town. It's the staircase in the back of the manor."

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World of Warcraft: Midnight is here, and with it the long-awaited arrival of player housing in Blizzard's two-decade-old MMORPG. It's a wildly impressive system that allows for boundless creativity, even if there's still significant room for improvement.

For my full thoughts on WoW's 11th expansion, check out GameSpot's WoW: Midnight review, but as Midnight's biggest selling point, housing is worth digging into in greater detail. With 20 years' worth of hopes and dreams attached to housing in WoW, Blizzard finally pulling the trigger on the feature is a big deal, and one that filled many players, myself included, with anxiety regarding whether Blizzard was up to the task.

Thankfully, Blizzard's vision for housing mostly delivers, avoiding many of the housing pitfalls seen in other contemporary MMOs. You get your house for free. You can put your house anywhere in the game's designated housing area as long as the plot you want isn't occupied, and if it is, you can just keep visiting identical instances of the same neighborhood until you find one where it isn't. You can make a neighborhood of just your friends or guildmates. You don't have to pay taxes on your home. You can easily move to a new plot or neighborhood. Players with millions of gold (or a higher credit card limit) don't get to buy a mansion while you can only afford a small shack. Everyone gets the same house, but both the inside and outside can be customized largely how you see fit.

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A game doesn't survive for decades without evolving, and World of Warcraft has evolved more than most in its 22 years, slowly transforming to cater to players' changing tastes and expectations. But despite being around for so long, many of the biggest, most foundational changes to Blizzard's MMO have happened more recently. It was only the game's previous expansion, The War Within, that added proper account-wide progression and the ability to earn endgame gear playing solo. It was only four years ago that Blizzard made it so Alliance and Horde players could finally team up.

WoW's new Midnight expansion continues that evolution. It's not as dramatic a transformation as The War Within, but nonetheless sees Blizzard continue to confidently push WoW forward in ways that just a few years ago would have been unthinkable. New systems like Prey bring actual challenge and endgame rewards for those who prefer to quest out in the game's outdoor world. Blizzard's new built-in user interface tools, like the Cooldown Manager and damage meter, give players the information they need to succeed without having to rely on third-party add-ons like in the past. Midnight also introduces the biggest new feature in the history of the game with player housing, finally allowing players to properly call Azeroth home after decades of waiting.

Even as Midnight advances WoW's various systems, the expansion leans more heavily on WoW's past than ever before. Modern WoW has rarely felt nostalgic, but it's hard not to think fondly of the game's early Burning Crusade days while running around a lovingly revamped Silvermoon City and Eversong Woods. That duality is Midnight in a nutshell. As a game, WoW has never felt more modern and approachable in its gameplay. At the same time, Midnight is more willing than ever before to pay homage to the past, mostly to its benefit.

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Assassin's Creed Shadows is celebrating its 1-year anniversary today, March 20. Below, we look back at how its dual protagonists could have made an even more meaningful impact.

It's been a year since Assassin's Creed Shadows launched, and I'm still thinking about it. My opinion on what the game is remains largely unchanged--I've talked about this at length in both my Assassin's Creed Shadows review and Claws of Awaji DLC review--but if I could take a moment to talk about what Shadows isn't, I fervently have one wish. Shadows' best idea, that it tells its story via a split perspective, should have been pushed further. In fact, that should have been the entire focus of the game's second act--I want Act 2 to have solely been about two distinct characters growing simultaneously, and perpetually being unable to see eye-to-eye with one another while still unified in a shared purpose.

Shadows has two playable protagonists: the shinobi Naoe and the samurai Yasuke. The former is fictional, native to Japan, and driven by vengeance; while the latter is a real person from history, an African outsider, and motivated by duty. The point is that they're very different people, reinforced by differing playstyles--Naoe primarily relies on subterfuge and stealth, while Yasuke is geared toward excelling in open combat as a powerful warrior. Save for specific missions, Shadows allows you to freely switch between the two as you explore 16th-century Japan.

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After Amazon's first effort in the smartphone market came up short more than a decade ago, it appears the retail and technology giant is trying again, and with the help of a former Xbox boss.

Reuters reported that Amazon is working on a new phone, known inside the company as "Transformer," and it will be AI-driven and meant to push people to Amazon's products and services.

Amazon is said to be developing this phone via its "ZeroOne" unit, which sources said is a team with the goal of creating "breakthrough" products. J Allard, the former Xbox boss who helped created the original Xbox and the Zune music player at Microsoft, is leading the team.

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FBC: Firebreak bombed. The multiplayer spin-off of Remedy's hit game Control, which imagines players as squads of gun-toting supernatural janitors meant to clean up the messes inside its eerie and magical setting, did not find the audience that the original game did. If the readily available Steam charts are any indication, it missed the mark by a sizable margin and Remedy itself has since confirmed that the title underperformed. And yet, the multiplayer title, which Remedy has spent the better part of a year tuning up and molding into something more appealing to players, isn't just disappearing from the face of the Earth after failing to connect with audiences. With its dying breath, it is actually setting a standard that the rest of the games industry ought to rise to meet.

When Remedy announced that it would be sunsetting FBC: Firebreak after one final update, I was prepared to see an expiration date: a finish line or resignation of sorts. Instead, I found this: "FBC: Firebreak will stay online and continue to be playable for years to come. We have done engineering work to ensure we can sustain the upkeep of the relay servers when the player volume is lower." This move, and the addition of a friend pass system--allowing one person to own the game and share it with others who don't--has assured that FBC: Firebreak will have legs for some time to come.

This is a shocking, and very welcome, development at a perilous time for multiplayer games. While titles like Marathon try to find an audience (let alone one the size of its most immediate competition, the viral sensation Arc Raiders), others, like Highguard, have come and gone seemingly in the blink of an eye. And when a game like these is deemed dead, the industry all but assures it stays that way. Like Concord, games are ripped off of physical and digital store shelves. They are delisted and pulled from libraries. Teams are laid off and studios are outright shuttered. The servers powering these games are given an end date and, before long, they are shut down and all we're left with is memories of them.

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Blizzard is aware it's hard to keep up with Diablo 4 when it receives foundational changes regularly, but that doesn't mean it's going to let "obsolete" parts of the game live on without being reworked or fixed.

Diablo 4 has been in a near-constant state of change since release in 2023, with major updates significantly overhauling loot, endgame bosses, monster behavior, and difficulty in the last few years. And that's on top of new seasons every few months that introduce limited-time mechanics and features of their own.

In an interview with PC Gamer, Diablo 4 game director Zaven Haroutunian made it clear that Blizzard knows the frequent changes to how Diablo 4 works isn't ideal, especially for casual players.

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Almost a year after it first launched for PS5, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach has landed on PC, and so far, it's doing pretty well. At the time of writing, the game has reached 55,444 concurrent players on Steam, surpassing the peak player counts of the first game (32,515) and its Director's Cut edition (22,080).

That figure also puts it ahead of several other PC ports of games from PlayStation Studios, such as Marvel's Spider-Man; Miles Morales (13,539), Marvel's Spider-Man 2 (28,189), The Last of Us Part 1 (36,496), and The Last of Us Part 2 (30,690). Currently, Helldivers 2 holds the record for the highest CCU amongst PlayStation PC ports on Steam, at 458,079 concurrent players. One thing to point out here is that while player CCU is important, ultimately, that single data point isn't meaningful in measuring the overall success of a single-player game.

The number may rise even further, as the first weekend of a new game launch is usually responsible for its best performance. It's an impressive start for the game, as it'll be sharing the weekend with Crimson Desert. The Pearl Abyss-developed action-RPG is already off to a strong start, with 2 million sales, and a peak player count--so far--of 239,045.

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Mega Crit released the patch notes for v0.100.0, the first major post early-access launch update for Slay the Spire 2, as it enters testing on the game's beta branch. One of its most notable additions is a Phobia Mode toggle, which lets players adjust the art of things in Slay the Spire 2 that people are more likely to have issues with.

Within the roguelike's settings menu, players can turn on Phobia Mode. Doing so will turn off the animation for the infection affliction card overlay and swap in alternate art for hive backgrounds, The Insatiable, Phrog Parasite, Wrigglers, Terror Eel, and the Entomancer. The fundamental mechanics and gameplay of encounters with any of those creatures will stay the same.

Those are mostly bug and worm-related elements in Slay the Spire 2 that may prevent people from continuing to play the game due to their fears. As games like Grounded have previously shown, visual toggles to address or cover up common phobia triggers in video games go a long way to help certain players experience great games.

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