Path of Exile 2 players prepare for ‘the coming war’ between pets as the devs add an infamous singing goblin troupe and a bird made to kill them

Most Path of Exile players agree that premium cosmetics should carry over between the two games, but they also agree that adding the annoying goblin troupe pet will be a blight on every town and player hideout as soon as today’s update goes live. But just when everyone was dreading having to hear the little … Read more

NetEase closes studio founded by Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies veteran before it can release a single game

T-Minus Zero Entertainment, the NetEase first-party studio founded in 2023 by veteran MMO developer Rich Vogel, has closed its doors just two years after it was founded, and without releasing a single game. NetEase told Game Developer that it has had to “reassess our business priorities,” and has thus ended funding for the studio. The … Read more

Auto-run is enough to get me to reinstall Dune: Awakening, but customization do-overs and trainer fashion sweeten the deal

I will neither confirm nor deny that I was among those miffed that a powerplanning mistake got their base pillaged and destroyed in Dune: Awakening, but I will say auto-run sure could make the recovery process from such an error less painful. Funcom must’ve heard that complaint more than once too, as Dune: Awakening has … Read more

8 months after moving on from Helldivers 2, Johan Pilestedt returns to thank everyone for welcoming Xbox divers into the fold: ‘All the stories I read make my heart sing’

One nice thing about Helldivers 2 is that you can join random sessions with strangers all night and never find a bad egg. Emerge from the cryostasis transportation pod on another diver’s ship and you’re likely to be greeted with a salute, handshake, or hug emote. That’s just how Helldivers roll. The community’s been on … Read more

To help speed up unlocking those Battlefield 6 items, Battlefield 2042 is turning on the double XP hose every weekend until the new game launches

As Battlefield fans far and wide channel their Battlefield 6 anticipation into revisits of older chapters of the series, only one is offering goodies usable in the new game. Battlefield 2042 is hosting a “Road to Battlefield” event with a free battle pass offering new guns and 24 exclusive cosmetics for Battlefield 6. Good deal, … Read more

The vibes are bad because ‘vibe hacking’ is real: AI company Anthropic says agentic AI has been ‘weaponized’ and is now being used to do major international crime

AI company Anthropic says it recently disrupted “a sophisticated cybercriminal operation” that relied heavily upon its Claude code in a “vibe hacking” scheme targeting at least 17 separate organizations, including government agencies. “The actor used AI to what we believe is an unprecedented degree,” Anthropic wrote (via the BBC). “Claude Code was used to automate … Read more

Hollow Knight’s creators didn’t want to be constrained by the ‘metroidvania’ label, but they accidentally set a standard that every game since—even Silksong—has to reckon with

In a 2017 interview about the making of Hollow Knight’s map, designer William Pellen told me that Team Cherry “shied away completely” from describing the game as a metroidvania. Artist Ari Gibson added that they didn’t want to “let a genre dictate” the decisions they made about Hollow Knight’s design while they were making it. … Read more