Samus Aran might not be known as a chatty character, but a voice actor helps flesh out the heroine with grunts and mumbles. Jennifer Hale, probably best known as Commander Shepard in the Mass Effect trilogy, previously provided the voice for Samus in the first three Metroid Prime games. But for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, Erin Yvette voices the protagonist and Krystle Martin provides the motion capture, per Nintendo Life.

This isn't the first time Yvette has worked with Nintendo. Her previous experience with the company includes voicing Neilnail in Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition and Great Fairy Cotera in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. Meanwhile, IGN asked Hale about reprising her Metroid Prime role recently, and the actress seemingly implied she wasn't involved this time. "I don't know," Hale said. "I have no recollection of recording it or signing a contract, so it could be no." Hale has been on the flip side of this before, too, with Bayonetta 3.

She isn't the first voice actor replaced by Nintendo in recent years. In June, longtime Princess Peach and Toad voice actor Samantha Kelly revealed she was no longer playing those parts after not being involved with Mario Kart World. In 2023, Super Mario Bros. Wonder introduced a new voice for Mario and Luigi--Kevin Afghani. This came after Charles Martinet stepped back from voicing the iconic character following a 25-year stint.

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Recently, CD Projekt published a social media post about Cyberpunk 2077 that some took to be a teaser for some kind of announcement on December 10, the game's fifth anniversary.

This was not a teaser for anything, CD Projekt's Marcin Momot has now clarified. The developer publishes these kinds of posts every 30 days to celebrate birthdays for Cyberpunk characters, and for December, the 10th was mentioned as well to celebrate the game's fifth anniversary.

"It's not a teaser. Hope this clears things up!" he wrote.

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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been one of 2025's standout hits, and now it's been confirmed that the game broke records for Xbox Game Pass.

Microsoft announced that Expedition 33 has become the "biggest new third-party game launch on Xbox Game Pass of 2025" based on number of unique users in the first 30 days. It's not clear what title Expedition 33 took down to become No. 1 for third-party games on Game Pass.

Expedition 33 was developed by Sandfall Interactive, and it was the team's first game. Creative director Guilllaume Broche said, "This year has been so far beyond what any of us could have imagined, and it's down to how passionate and supportive our fans have been to make that a reality."

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According to one analyst, Call of Duty as a franchise is "underperforming" in 2025 due to a variety of factors. Rhys Elliott of Alinea Analytics said in an interview that some of the factors that he believes are contributing to Call of Duty's decline include "community burnout, questionable creative and business decisions by Activision/Microsoft, and strong competition."

In terms of the competition, Elliott called out Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders, along with Fortnite, which recently had a popular Simpsons season and launched its positively received Chapter 7.

"Xbox dropped the ball on the wrong year, as this year saw some of the most exciting shooter releases in years," Elliott told Eurogamer. "Attention is scarce."

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Octopath Traveler 0 is now the third main game in the series that began Square Enix's "HD-2D" renaissance, taking both cult-classic and classically styled RPGs and imbuing them with a particular visual look and feel that pays homage to the heyday of 16-bit RPG excellence. Octopath itself has been iterated on enough that it's forged its own identity within that framework, giving Octopath Traveler 0 the freedom to break some of its own conventions and iterate on others. It's a reimagining of what an Octopath game means, and more than that, an excellent game in its own right.

Octopath Traveler 0 begins with character creation, which itself is a big departure from the Octopath norm. The games have previously told eight interconnected stories, each focused on named, individual characters. This new approach has you create your own protagonist, and they remain locked in your party throughout the entire game as the rest of it is filled in by various companion characters who you meet along your journey. The character creation is simplistic, with a handful of options for aspects like hairstyle and eye shape, but rendered in a retro pixel style that's enough to give you a good deal of flexibility.

That pixel-art style is largely unchanged from the previous two installments, and like many of the HD-2D games, it's an acquired taste. I found the lighting effects on the sprites to be distracting and washed out in handheld mode on Switch 2, but it looked much better on a big screen. Still, I find the art style in general to be fairly muddy and desaturated, and would appreciate the occasional vibrant splash of color, which Octopath 0 rarely provides.

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It may come as no surprise that Valve has invested in emulation tech for Arm-based hardware, having just announced its first device running an Arm chip. But beyond its own hardware, Valve's support of open-source emulation projects may have laid the groundwork for playing your favorite PC games on Arm devices like mobiles and tablets--no ports necessary.

Valve's upcoming Steam Frame headset is the company's first Arm-based device, making use of the open-source FEX emulator to run Windows-native games. As it turns out, Valve has had more of a hand in FEX's development than it initially appeared. In an interview with The Verge, Valve engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais revealed that Valve actually initiated the FEX project, and has been largely responsible for its development.

"We were talking with a few developers that we knew were the right fit for an undertaking like that, a long-term thing that needed a very specific set of experts," Griffais explained. "We worked hard on trying to convince these guys to start the project, and have been funding them ever since."

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In September, Electronic Arts revealed that there's a $55 billion deal in place to bring the company private under Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners, the private equity firm Silver Lake, and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. Now, a new report indicates that the PIF may be given near complete control of the company, because Saudi Arabia is putting up most of the money to complete the deal.

According to The Wall Street Journal, EA's potential buyers have disclosed that PIF would be given 93.4% of EA in a document filed with Brazil's antitrust regulator. Silver Lake would only own 5.5% of the company, while Affinity would have a much smaller share: 1.1%. PIF is also a major investor in both Silver Lake and Affinity, which would leave it with more power over EA.

WSJ notes that sovereign-wealth funds like the PIF normally make much smaller investments in buyouts like this one, while private-equity firms would take the lead as the primary owners and investors. Saudi Arabia has already invested in several video game companies, including Nintendo and Take-Two Interactive. In this year alone, Saudi Arabian-owned mobile developer Scopely purchased Niantic's video game division, the company behind Pokemon Go and other mobile titles.

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Last summer, Sony filed a lawsuit against Tencent over Light of Motiram, a game that the former alleges is a "slavish clone" of the Horizon franchise. Now, the two sides have apparently struck a temporary deal ahead of an important court hearing that may determine whether the case goes forward.

As reported by The Game Post, a new filing in court acknowledges that Sony and Tencent have been "engaged in discussions in order to resolve the current dispute." Most notably, Tencent asked for more time to respond to the motion for an injunction, and Sony agreed in exchange for certain concessions. The terms call for Tencent to pause all public promotion or testing for Light of Motiram while also agreeing not to argue in court that Sony delayed its request for emergency relief by granting the extension.

The filing also notes an agreement between the two sides that Tencent won't ask for expedited discovery in connection with the preliminary injunction against Light of Motiram. It also calls for Tencent to hold the game to its Q4 2027 release window rather than moving it up. Finally, the court document revealed another area where Tencent and Sony see eye-to-eye. The two sides jointly requested that a hearing for Tencent's motion to dismiss and a second hearing held for Sony's injunction request be held on the same day: January 29, 2026.

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Journey to the 17th century Caribbean and take the wheel of a ship as Captain George Somers, James Riskinner or Joseph Bannister, three historical figures during the "Golden Age of Piracy". Each story is based at a different time, in a different settlement, from which you'll perform missions to upgrade your crew and ships. Each mission pits you against enemy vessels in pursuit of parts or plunder in a classic Real-Time Strategy experience. Command up to six ships and engage in real-time naval warfare and timed-turn-based combat when boarding ships!

Cosmo's Industry is a point-and-click, inventory-management adventure where you run an old, run-down shop that was abandoned by its previous owner. With the facilities damaged or lost entirely, it's your job and pleasure to recover as much as you can while satisfying the needs of your customers.