The Desert Trader in Stardew Valley can be found in the Calico Desert. They offer a selection of different items, many of which cannot be bought from any other vendor. The catch here is that the Desert Trader isn't interested in your money, so you will have to trade other items for their wares, with the asking price changing for each item.

Desert Trader

The Desert Trader is open 24/7 almost every day of the year.

The Desert Trader is found in the Calico Desert, just a little east of where you get off the bus and they are open all day every day, except for during the Night Market on Winter 15-17. In order to reach the Calico Desert, you will need to repair the bus, which can be done in two ways. If you are pursuing the community center path, you need to complete the Vault, which requires four donations totaling 42,500G. If you are doing the Joja Mart path, it costs 40,000G to have the bus repaired.

With the bus repaired, you can head to the Calico Desert and see the Desert Trader whenever you want for the price of 500G for a ticket. The Desert Trader's inventory is made of two categories; permanent items and rotation stock, the ladder of which changes depending on the day of the week.

Desert Trader Permanant Stock

Item	Cost
Artifact Trove	5 Omni Geode
Warp Totem: Desert	3 Omni Geode
Triple Shot Espresso	1 Diamond
Spicy Eel	1 Ruby
Mega Bomb	5 Iridium Ore
Bomb	5 Quartz
Warp Totem: Desert Recipe	10 Iridium Bar
Butterfly Hutch	200 Bat Wing
Green Turban	50 Omni Geode
Birch Double Bed	1 Pearl
Midnight Beach Bed	15 Iridium Bar
Midnight Beach Double Bed	30 Iridium Bar
Dark Piano	999 Coal

Desert Trader Rotating Stock

Item	Cost	Availability
3 Hay	1 Omni Geode	Monday
Fiber	5 Stone	Tuesday
Cloth	3 Aquamarine	Wednesday
Magic Rock Candy	3 Prismatic Shard	Thursday (only 1 per week)
Cheese	1 Emerald	Friday
Spring Seeds	2 Summer Seeds	Saturday
Summer Seeds	2 Fall Seeds	Saturday
Fall Seeds	2 Winter Seeds	Saturday
Winter Seeds	2 Spring Seeds	Saturday
Staircase	1 Jade	Sunday
Magic Turban	333 Omni Geode	Even days
Magic Cowboy Hat	333 Omni Geode	Odd days
Void Ghost Pendant	200 Void Essence	Must have max hearts with Krobus

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Earth Defense Force 6 launched this week for PC, PS4, and PS5, and the Steam version has faced criticism for requiring an Epic Games Store login for online play. But a change to this controversial requirement is already being explored by the game's developer."

The announcement seemingly came out of nowhere, as the Epic requirement wasn't communicated to players until launch day when the developers revealed it in a Steam post. Of course, players weren't thrilled about this, and the review status of the game was "mostly negative" upon launch, as Gamesradar reports.

Developer Sandlot responded to the backlash with a new post on Steam, saying, "The EDF 6 development team for Steam is reviewing and planning changes to the specification that requires sign-in to Epic Games account, which has received the most feedback."

The studio didn't provide a timeline or what it would change, but the team is now working on a solution. As of right now, Earth Defense Force 6's review status is sitting at a slightly better "mixed" on Steam. The Epic requirement for a game on Steam is unusual, but not unprecedented. Another game, Bigfoot, previously required an Epic account on Steam before later removing it.

Earth Defense Force 6 is the latest entry in the series that lets players kill giant alien bugs and creatures bent on destroying the planet. The game has been compared to Helldivers and Starship Troopers: Extermination. Coincidentally, Helldivers 2 faced similar criticisms earlier this year due to Sony implementing mandatory PSN account logins after launch, but walked back the requirement following a backlash.

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M. Night Shyamalan's latest movie, Trap, is scheduled to hit the big screen on August 2. A fan recreated the Grand Theft Auto 5 the film launch, and Shyamalan recently praised the fan-made project.

The video was initially posted on the Final Flame Productions YouTube channel. This account has a history of recreating movie trailers within GTA 5, including Joker 2 and Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. Shyamalan caught wind of the video featuring his new movie, prompting him to say on X/Twitter, "This is so cool!"

Trap tells the story of a father who takes his daughter to a pop concert. But the catch is that the father is a serial killer, and the police have set up the concert to catch him.

The video's YouTube description reveals that the trailer was made using the GTA 5 PC Rockstar Editor. Instead of having Josh Hartnett play the killer, the fan-made trailer has Michael De Santa, one of the game's main protagonists, take his spot. This is oddly spot on, given how Michael acts throughout the majority of the game.

GTA 5 was released way back in 2013, but a sequel, GTA 6, will finally launch in 2025. Its ongoing development will not be impacted by the just-launched video game voice actors strike.

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When constructing a base in Minecraft, one of the essential items you need to have is a simple door. While it might seem obvious, a door is the only way for you to enter your base with ease and protect it from the outside world. To see the crafting recipe for a door in Minecraft and how to place one at your base, read the guide below.

Making a Door in Minecraft

Fortunately, the process to craft a door only requires one basic resource, and it's available as soon as you begin a new world in Minecraft. This means you can have a protected base up and running within the first 15 minutes of a game if you're so inclined. You can see the crafting recipe for a door below:

• At a crafting table, place six wood Planks/Iron Ingots in two columns

The crafting recipe for a door in Minecraft

As you can see, a door only requires six wood Planks to craft at the start of Minecraft. You're able to use any kind of Planks you want, but they need to all be from the same wood. You can't mix Oak and Spruce Planks for the recipe, for instance. To obtain wood Planks in Minecraft, chop down a tree and secure its logs. Then, at a crafting table, place the logs in the middle box and you'll make dozens of Planks that match the wood logs you chopped down.

All types of wood Planks create a differently colored and styled door, but they're all doors just the same. However, you're also able to use Iron Ingots to make an Iron Door, which is much sturdier than a Wood Door. An Iron Door requires six Iron Ingots instead of six Planks, but they need to be oriented the same way at a crafting table.

When you have a door ready to be installed, simply create a spot for it in the wall of your base. The door is two blocks high, so that's how much space you need to make. You can also make a set of double doors by clearing out four blocks (two by two) and placing two doors next to each other. Opening a door requires a simple right-click and the same goes for closing it.

And that's just about everything you need to know about making doors in Minecraft. It's a simple item for your base, but one that shouldn't be overlooked.

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Indie developer The Behemoth outlined its plans for the future in a recent livestream, and it includes major updates to games like Castle Crashers and BattleBlock Theater, as well as work on a new game that will soon be in the prototype phase.

Castle Crashers, the side-scrolling beat-em'-up originally released in 2008, will receive a major update on Steam called Painter Boss Paradise, which is the first new content added to the game since the introduction of new playable characters back in 2012. The update will add Steam Workshop support, allowing for players to create their own characters and share them with others. The Behemoth states in its roadmap trailer that creating characters will be as simple as swapping out a single image and then letting the game handle all the hard stuff like animations.

For those who don't want to craft a character of their own, there will also be an official new playable character, Paint Junior, who uses their imagination to create art and defeat enemies. Painter Boss Paradise will additionally introduce redrawn models for all of the game's playable characters and weapons, but don't worry: The new models can be toggled on or off in the options menu.

For the studio's platformer BattleBlock Theater, an update for the Steam version will allow for higher frame rates, support for more controller types, better rendering, and higher audio bitrates for improved sound. The game will be coming to modern consoles as well, something also in the works for Alien Hominid HD and Alien Hominid Invasion, which are currently available on Xbox and PC but will soon be coming to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 too.

Not to be left out, The Behemoth's quirky strategy title, Pit People, will also be receiving some quality-of-life improvements, though specific details were not shared.

No release dates were given for any of these updates, and no additional information was shared in regards to when The Behemoth's next new game would arrive. In a press release, the developer states that all of the aforementioned updates "will be rolling out while the team looks ahead to prototyping and developing new titles."

The roadmap served as a way to "address several popular far requests from the past 21 years while establishing a new level of transparency with players," according to the press release. The studio's most-recent projects were Alien Hominid HD and Alien Hominid Invasion, both released in 2023.

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Riot's 5v5 hero shooter Valorant has now entered open beta on consoles. Anyone playing on a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X|S can join the fun.

Before the announcement, the only way to play Valorant on console was through a closed beta that players needed to sign up for. In a series of posts made on the official Valorant X/Twitter account, the studio explained that console players won't be able to play PC players. However, those on Xbox and PlayStation can join each other's games.

There'll also be shared cross-progression for PC and console, which will give players full access to everything they've purchased. All progress made towards the battle pass will count towards both platforms. Those who are subscribed to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate will automatically unlock all agents. The open beta is currently only available in the United States, Canada, Europe, Brazil, and Japan.

Bringing Valorant to console did require a lot of work. As an Xbox Wire post explained, the standard way to shoot on PC was hip firing. This didn't translate well when it came to console, so to combat this, Riot created Focus, a new type of shooting mode that acts like hip fire but with reduced sensitivity.

If you're jumping into Valorant for the first time, check out our guide, which details everything you need to know about getting the upper hand.

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Activision is shining some light on how it approaches skill-based matchmaking in Call of Duty multiplayer, and in a detailed blog post, the developers of the popular FPS series reveal that the sometimes-controversial practice is still used for a fairly simple reason--fewer players quit under a skill-based system than they do without it.

The topic of skill-based matchmaking (or SBMM, as it's often abbreviated) in Call of Duty has been a long and ongoing one, with some arguing that behind-the-scenes skill ratings that help determine who matches up with whom should be a thing of the past. Those against SBMM argue that since there are ranked playlists, those who want to be matched with players of equal skill can simply play there, leaving the rest of the game's modes open to a more luck-of-the-draw-type of matchmaking experience.

From the blog post, it doesn't seem like Call of Duty will ditch SBMM any time soon, largely because the developers have revealed they have solid data on the effects doing so would have on the game. In a test conducted with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 where one group of players played with the current SBMM rules and another group that played under "loosened skill consideration," the developers found that the group playing with a wider skill gap were "more likely to quit matches in progress and did not return to the game at a higher rate than players with unchanged matchmaking."

The developer also ran another test where skill requirements in matchmaking were actually increased. It had the opposite effect, with players more likely to finish a match, particularly when it came to low-skill players. However, the developer notes that high-skill players were impacted in some negative ways by the stricter skill requirements, and as a result, the changes were not rolled out to the live game.

"The system strives for team balance, where players are not consistently on the wrong side of blowout matches," the developer states. "Players who frequently experience blowouts are seen to quit matches in progress and the game itself, which negatively impacts the experience for players of all skill levels."

Should low-skill players leave the game in droves due to being frustrated by blowout matches, it creates an environment where lobbies are largely made up of high-skill players, something the developer states is the case when players go back and play many older Call of Duty titles today.

"We will always strive to improve our approach to matchmaking to ensure that players of all skill levels are having the best possible experience," the developer states." A healthy player population is good for everyone in the community."

Modern Warfare 3 Season 5 just launched, adding new maps, modes, and weapons to the popular FPS, just in time for its arrival on Xbox Game Pass. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 releases on October 25 and will be available on launch day for Game Pass Ultimate subscribers.

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Our favorite modular PS5 controller, PDP's Victrix Pro BFG, is getting an official Tekken 8 edition. The new model comes with all the same features and components that make it one of the best PS5 controllers available--including a six-button module that's perfect for fighting games--plus a unique Tekken 8-themed Rage Art design. Preorders for the Victrix Pro BFG Tekken 8 Rage Art edition are available now at Amazon.

In case the Tekken 8 Rage Art edition sells out, you can also grab the standard Victrix Pro BFG. The standard black version is on sale for $159 (down from $180), or you can pick up the white variant for $180, and the Call of Duty Midnight Mask edition for $200. Aside from the different paint jobs, all three are nearly identical to the Tekken 8 Rage Art version.

• Victrix Pro BFG wireless controller (Black) -- $159 ($180)
• Victrix Pro BFG wireless controller (White) -- $180
• Victrix Pro BFG wireless controller - Call of Duty Midnight Mask edition -- $200
• Victrix Pro BFG wireless controller - Tekken 8 Rage Art edition (preorder) -- $200

Victrix Pro Fight Sticks

Fighting game fans who prefer using arcade-style controllers can also pick up PDP's excellent Victrix Pro fight stick. It's available in a six-button arcade stick version and a 12-button leverless Victrix Pro FS-12 version, and you can bundle either model with a copy of Tekken 8. The fight sticks work on PS5, PS4, and PC, and all models are available in either white or purple color options.

• Victrix Pro FS (white) -- $350 ($400)
• Victrix Pro FS (purple) -- $400
• Victrix Pro FS-12 (white) -- $400
• Victrix Pro FS-12 (purple) -- $400
• Victrix Pro FS With Tekken 8 bundle (white) -- $417 ($470)
• Victrix Pro FS With Tekken 8 bundle (purple) -- $468
• Victrix Pro FS-12 With Tekken 8 bundle (white) -- $468
• Victrix Pro FS-12 With Tekken 8 bundle (purple) -- $468

Along with the new Victrix Pro BFG model, PDP is also releasing an official Tekken 8 version of its Tournament Backpack that's perfect for carrying your new controllers. It's currently out of stock but should come back soon. However, in the meantime, the standard edition Tournament Backpack is available for $100 and the smaller Crossbody Bag is on sale for $30 ($50).

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Returning Elden Lord MissMikkaa has once again reminded everyone why she's among the best in the game. Just recently, she beat the Shadow of the Erdtree final boss while simultaneously playing on a dance pad and a controller.

Spoilers for Shadow of the Erdtree below

Shortly after she was done giving Promised Consort Radahn a back-to-back whooping, MissMikkaa posted a clip of her accomplishment on X/Twitter. What was even more impressive about this is that she was able to kill both versions of him within seconds of each other.

In a follow-up post, Miss Mikkaa gave a little more insight into her final run. She had died over a thousand times (accounting for both screens), and 35% of her deaths were due to Radahn's gravity attack. As for her build, she was level 194 and invested 60 points in vigor, 54 in endurance and strength, 40 in faith, and 33 in mind.

During the fight, she was using the Giant Crusher with Prayerful Strike Crimson Seed Talisman +1, Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman, Shard of Alexander, and Golden Braid. Lastly, she mixed the Holy Shrouded Cracked Tear and Opaline Hardtear in her flask.

If this sounds familiar, it's because this isn't the first time MissMikkaa has done something like this. Last year, she defeated Malenia using a dance pad and a controller, just like she had with Radahn.

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If you love mining in Stardew Valley, you're going to spend a ton of time fighting monsters. As you fight monsters, your combat skill will improve and at level 5, you are presented with the choice of two professions: Fighter or Scout. Fighter focuses on dealing more damage consistently, while Scout boosts your critical hit chance. Here's which profession you should choose.

Fighter or Scout

At level 5 you get to choose a profession, which changes your options at level 10.

In most cases, it's generally better to go with the fighter profession, since the more consistent damage allows you to reliably defeat monsters. Fighter grants 10% more damage and an additional 15 HP. Fighter also leads to the two level 10 options of Brute and Defender, with Brute increasing your damage by 15%, stacking with Fighter. Defender gives you 25 more HP. Going with Fighter into Brute gives you a massive damage output and you can still land critical hits, which take advantage of the boosted damage.

Scout increases your critical hit chance by 50%, with no additional HP. Scout leads into either Acrobat, which reduces the cooldown on special moves by 50%, or Desperado, which doubles critical strike damage. While building Scout into Desperado does make for some high damage critical hits, the extra 25% damage and 15 HP from going Fighter into Brute does more damage consistently.

There are also plenty of weapons and rings that can boost critical hit chance and damage, which can allow you to build the extra damage skills and get extra crit. If you find yourself unhappy with your choice, you can change skills for 10,000G per skill at the Statue of Uncertainty in the sewers.

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We are currently enjoying a golden age of fighting games. The latest in long-running series like Street Fighter, Tekken, and Guilty Gear are fantastic. Both newer (Dragon Ball FighterZ) and older games (Street Fighter 3rd Strike, Guilty Gear +R) are getting updates that add rollback netcode, enabling fans to enjoy the best player-to-player connections possible. And many new games are also being ported to nearly every platform, so it's easier than ever to play what you want, with who you want, when you want.

Some games have long been neglected and rendered unplayable on modern hardware, causing members of the fighting game community to call for developers to re-release or update them to be more accessible. Streamer Maximilian Dood's #FreeMVC2 movement is perhaps the most notable of these and, thankfully, this particular situation is about to be rectified. Marvel Vs. Capcom 2: New Age Of Heroes is coming back, ensuring the granddaddy of tag fighters will find a place in the hearts of brand-new fighting game players, not just the old heads.

The game is being released as part of the Marvel Vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics, which also includes X-Men: Children of the Atom, Marvel Super Heroes, X-Men Vs. Street Fighter, Marvel Super Heroes Vs. Street Fighter, Marvel Vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes, and The Punisher.

I dabbled in MvC3 and have played thousands of hours of Dragon Ball FighterZ, a spiritual successor to MvC, but growing up, none of my local arcades (or friends' houses) had Marvel Vs. Capcom, so my access was limited. I was curious to see how these older games held up for someone like me, who has little nostalgia for them, but my fears were laid to rest when I started playing through each one. I spoke to MvC Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics producer Shuhei Matsumoto after playing, and he confirmed that newer players like me are a key part of the collection's target audience.

The preview build I played at Evo granted access to three games from the collection; X-Men: Children of the Atom, X-Men Vs. Street Fighter, and Marvel Vs. Capcom 2. So how do these games from 1994 to 2000 hold up? Quite well it seems. These games don't have the level of polish when it comes to balance in comparison to newer games, where players can expect most of the roster to be competitively viable and roughly equivalent in power, but the MvC games themselves have character and style in spades, and are still incredibly fun to play. And that sense of wildly unbalanced gameplay is part of its charm.

All the games in the collection are faithful recreations of the original arcade games.

Fluid and responsive controls match the gorgeous sprite-based graphics in MvC2, and it's fast and easy to jump from one part of the collection to another. Games like X-Men: Children of the Atom and X-Men Vs. Street Fighter are slightly less chaotic, but attacks are still chunky and fun and movement is pretty dynamic. Characters are diverse in how they play, which is appropriate given the varied powers of the X-Men characters, and the fighting styles of the Street Fighter roster.

I played Iceman in Children of the Atom, and it was a blast calling down massive boulders of ice on opponents. Cyclops can shoot his optic blasts across the screen, and Storm can summon small whirlwinds and lightning, keeping enemies on their toes. Street Fighter characters generally play similarly to their Street Fighter 3 versions, with some notable differences. Ken's grounded fireball doesn't go fullscreen in every game, but much like Akuma in the mainline games, X:Men Vs. Street Fighter's Ken and Ryu can throw fireballs in the air, with Ryu's going straight ahead, and Ken's moving downwards at an angle.

For newer players, I recommend starting with X-Men Vs. Street Fighter, and Matsumoto-san recommends jumping into the similar Marvel Super Heroes Vs. Street Fighter, or MvC2. Marvel Vs. Street Fighter is more focused, with a smaller roster and fewer things to think about, so players who have never tried any fighting games but the 1v1 ones (Street Fighter, Tekken, most Mortal Kombat games, etc.) would likely do better starting there.

You can't go wrong with Spider-Man.

Although the collection is releasing this year, Matsumoto-san said the team has been working with Marvel for three or four years to figure out when a collection like this could be released for modern platforms to bring it to new audiences. As the collection's title suggests, each game is a port of its arcade version. Matsumoto-san said the team thought very carefully about which versions to include, focusing on ones that were the most beloved by fans. I'm also pleased to say that, instead of being a simple port, this collection is robust and the team has included quite a few quality of life improvements.

Each game has a special menu you can access before you launch, for example, letting you adjust settings on everything from arcade screen scan lines to aspect ratios, and use or hide different sidebar art. Accessibility options have been added, too, including single player difficulties, flashing light reduction, the ability to change which coin mode you use, secret character and hidden color toggles. One-button supers are also available for people who want to jump in and start beating up their friends without learning standard inputs, or lack the physical dexterity to do so. Quick save and quick load functions also mean you can stop playing and pick back up where you left off.

A training mode is also available, and while it isn't as robust as the one in Street Fighter 6 (a high bar to clear, to be sure), it does have startup information for moves, hitboxes, hurtboxes, and input readouts, making it much easier to get started and work out new combos and situations. You can also go into training mode with two players, which is nice.

Years later, it's still funny seeing Hulk get tossed around like a rag doll.

Some other changes have been made to better align the content of the game with modern day standards. Matsumoto-san said the team modified certain parts of the game which would impact the rating, such as altering "expressions or content that may not be appropriate for modern times." But game balance and gameplay elements are "faithfully reproduced for modern platforms."

Much like other Capcom collections, (such as the Mega Man Legacy Collection) Matsumoto-san confirmed the Marvel Vs. Capcom Collection includes "a gallery where you can check out some of the design documentation from when those original games were being made, past promotional illustrations and music." A music player will allow players to listen to the soundtrack of each of the games, and legacy art and assets are included, too.

I wasn't able to try out the online play, so I can't say how the netcode will stand up yet, but if Capcom's previous work on Street Fighter 6 is any indication, we're in for a buttery smooth online experience.

So many of the mechanics and features that are popular in tag-team fighters today were popularized in MvC games.

So what does this collection mean for the future of Marvel Vs. Capcom? Well, if the collection sells well, we may see another new Marvel Vs. Capcom game. I asked Matsumoto-san what he would do with that opportunity, whether he had an idea for what new characters he would want to include, and which gameplay elements they would add or subtract from previous entries. He said, "The hardest thing to decide on would definitely be the character choice, because you look at Marvel's roster now and there's a lot more characters now than there were back 20, 30 years ago. My impression of these MvC-type games is that it's almost like… ‘have fun, [be] cheerful, almost like a party,' with all these different characters and personalities and I think that aspect is something that's important to the series, and should be maintained."

"It also has to be fun for kids," he continued. "Kids gravitate towards their favorite superheroes, and they want to play with those superheroes. So given that opportunity, it's important to the series." This was certainly true for me. The first character I put on my MvC2 team was Spider-Man, my second favorite superhero ever. Coincidentally, the shirt I wore to the interview bore the symbol of my #1 superhero, Superman. Matsumoto-san laughed about it when I told him, saying "We probably wouldn't be able to include him," before going on to joke, "Guest character!" While we may never get Marvel Vs. Capcom Vs. DC (or Marvel Vs. Capcom Vs. DC Vs. Dragon Ball, as we joked about afterwards), the future's looking bright for this crossover fighting game series.

Player love for Marvel Vs/ Capcom has been strong for a long time, and lines were long to play the collection on the Evo show floor, showing the enthusiasm is still there. From my preview time, that love is shared by Capcom, which is putting a good foot forward with this (so far) high quality collection. With that in mind, I asked Matsumoto-san what he thought about the current state of fighting games, particularly considering newer games--like 2XKO and Dragon Ball FighterZ--clearly draw some inspiration from what Capcom had previously done with MvC. When I told him I felt we are in a new golden age, he said, "I definitely agree with your own impression" and that, with HunterXHunter and 2XKO, he hopes to see more people become interested in fighting games.

As far as I'm concerned, Matsumoto and the team at Capcom are doing their part by putting out this collection. I'm looking forward to playing more (and trying to convince all my friends to join me online) when it comes out later this year.

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<p><img loading="lazy" src="https://www.gameinformer.com/sites/default/files/styles/body_default/public/2024/05/17/12f65c45/bioshock-2k-remastered-remake-new-franchise-iteration.jpg" width="800" height="450" alt="Bioshock film Netflix " typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-body-default" /></p> <p>Netflix’s upcoming film adaptation of Bioshock is still happening, but it won’t be as grand as originally planned. During a panel at the San Diego Comic-Con yesterday, the film’s director and producer revealed the movie now has a reduced scope due to budget cuts.</p> <p>As reported by <em><a href="https://variety.com/2024/film/news/bioshock-movie-scaled-down-netflix-more-personal-1236085711/">Variety</a></em>, producer Roy Lee (<em>Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire</em>, <em>The Lego Movie</em>) revealed during Collider’s Producers on Producers panel that since the film’s <a href="https://www.gameinformer.com/2022/02/15/netflix-partnering-with-take-two-on-a-bioshock-film">announcement</a> in February 2022, a regime change at Netflix has affected the project. Netflix’s film chief at that time, Scott Stuber, has since been replaced by Dan Lin. While Stuber emphasized large spending for an expansive film slate, Lin has scaled back to a more modest strategy. This means the Bioshock film’s budget has been reduced, with director Francis Lawrence (<em>I Am Legend</em>, <em>The Hunger Games: Catching Fire</em>) stating its been reworked as a “more personal film”.&nbsp;</p> <p>“The new regime has lowered the budgets,” Roy Lee said. “So we’re doing a much smaller version. … It’s going to be a more personal point of view, as opposed to a grander, big project.”</p> <p>A partnership between Netflix, Bioshock publisher Take-Two Interactive, and Vertigo Entertainment is bringing the Bioshock film to life.&nbsp;In addition to Lawrence and Lee serving as director and producer, respectively, Michael Green (<em>Loga</em>, <em>Blade Runner 2049</em>, <em>American Gods</em>) was announced as its writer in <a href="https://www.gameinformer.com/gamer-culture/2022/08/25/netflix-has-found-a-director-and-writer-for-its-bioshock-movie">August 2022</a>.</p> <p>[<em>Source: <a href="https://variety.com/2024/film/news/bioshock-movie-scaled-down-netflix-more-personal-1236085711/">Variety</a></em>]</p>

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• Category: Games

Valorant’s Xbox Series X|S Open Beta Begins Today – Here’s Why It’s No Simple Port

Valorant enters Open Beta on Xbox… today! It comes ahead of a full console launch that brings some major bonuses for Game Pass members. Having been lucky enough to have had a chance to play it at Riot’s Los Angeles studio, it’s clear that this is no simple port –  the team has meticulously retooled this modern classic team shooter for Xbox.

For those unfamiliar, Valorant follows in the genre footsteps of competitive shooters like the legendary PC title Counter-Strike. Unlike that game’s military-themed setting, however, Valorant is set on a futuristic version of Earth, where players pick from a variety of Agents rooted in a specific culture, location and visual style. Beyond their weaponry, each is equipped with a distinct set of tactical skills that can be used for things like gathering intel, reinforcing areas, scouting enemy positions, breaking through defenses, and dominating territories in various ways.

It offers a deft mix of dynamic action and tactical considerations, driven by kinetic gunplay and the creative use of unique player abilities. All of this adds up to a highly skill-based but also highly strategic shooter, which has kept the      Valorant community vibrant – and the game ever-evolving – since its PC debut in 2020.

Riot is sparing no effort in bringing the title to Xbox. Primarily, that comes through reproducing the finely-tuned balance that’s made the PC title such a hit – the team went through many iterations of translating the original mouse-and-keyboard controls to gamepad input. Perhaps the landmark new feature in this regard is what’s being called Focus mode.

On PC, Hip-Fire is the primary shooting mode, and Aim-Down-Sights is a secondary, supporting mode; the team experimented with multiple adaptations and gamepad sensitivities to try to accurately reproduce this on console, but never found a combination they were completely happy with. Hip-Fire didn’t feel the same, and the player didn’t have the same range of possibilities; the result was an overall dampened level of player expressiveness.

Enter Focus, a new shooting mode that functions much like Hip-Fire, but with reduced sensitivity. This lets players shoot from the hip whenever they need speed in moving both their camera and aim (think: peeking around corners and dodging) but with the ability to utilize Focus mode whenever they need to pull off a precise, calibrated headshot. Some of the Agent abilities have been adapted for the new input controls, and various tunings across the board have all contributed to the team’s number one priority: capturing the dynamic pacing and mechanically expressive feel of the original.

It’s worth noting that while there will be cross-play across consoles, cross-play will not be available between PC and console player matches; this is primarily due to a focus on maintaining the title’s competitive integrity, given the control changes required to bring the game to console. There will, however, be shared cross-progression across PC and console, meaning that your inventory will carry over—if you unlock skins on PC or on console, they’ll work across the two. Battle Pass, likewise, will maintain progress on both versions.

In terms of content, Valorant on Xbox maintains 1:1 continuity with everything the PC title has accrued since launch: all maps, weapons, modes and characters are included (and, with a Game Pass membership, you unlock every Agent released so far, as well as any new additions on day one). The game has received countless updates and tweaks since its debut, and all of this polish will therefore be available in the day one build on Xbox.

Jumping in on Xbox Series X, Valorant feels immediately familiar and playable with Xbox controller input. In the game’s standard mode (dubbed “Unrated”), two teams compete in a points-based 5v5 format, taking turns attacking and defending positions across six  maps. As in Counter-Strike, players can buy guns, armor, and abilities at the start of each round, and careful strategy in this phase is essential for achieving the most effective loadouts possible.

The game’s punchy, colorful visuals feel at home on big living room TV screens, and everything runs at a silky-smooth framerate. Most importantly, the game feels great with the Xbox controller, from running and gunning to scoring a clutch headshot in Focus mode.

As with Counter-Strike, Valorant’s seemingly simple mechanics and structure belie an extremely deep, strategic experience. While it’s an easy game to pick up for anyone with experience playing first-person shooters, there’s a lot beneath the surface: learning all of the 24 current characters’ abilities and eccentricities, the 15 unique maps, and achieving both the muscle memory and strategic exploits required to win entail a level of dedication that has certainly helped give the game its long tail.

Indeed, Valorant’s console release speaks to Riot’s hope that this long tail will keep extending itself. “We’re getting to the starting line as we like to say,” says executive producer Andy Ho. “This is a game that we don’t have an end date in mind for. We want to invest in it on an infinite horizon, so that players feel like their investment into the game is always going to be worth it.”

Valorant begins its Xbox Series X|S Open Beta today. In Open Beta and the full launch version, Game Pass members will unlock all Agents.

The post Valorant’s Xbox Series X|S Open Beta Begins Today – Here’s Why It’s No Simple Port appeared first on Xbox Wire.

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• Category: Next Week on Xbox

Next Week on Xbox: New Games for July 29 to August 2

This is your friendly reminder that Microsoft is set to close its Xbox 360 digital store on 29th July – that's next Monday – so you have just a few days left to make the most of those last discounts on some of the best Xbox 360 games of the generation.

Microsoft announced a raft of discounts on Xbox 360 digital games back in May. Whilst some games will live on via other platforms and services – including Microsoft's comprehensive backwards compatibility system – there are a handful of games that will disappear from sale forever. So, if you've ever fancied one, now's the time to pick it up.

X user Kalyoshika has shared a list of the games/DLC that "will not survive", as well as "a couple of games that are going from cheap, easy-to-get digital copies", to "impossible-to-get, expensive, piracy only, jump-through-hoops to play".

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<p><img loading="lazy" src="https://www.gameinformer.com/sites/default/files/styles/body_default/public/2024/07/26/456ca0e3/dateeverythingmagicals_fridge.jpg" width="800" height="450" alt="Date Everything trailer" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-body-default" /></p> <p>In Date Everything, those looking for romance don’t need to look any further than their refrigerator, smoke alarm, or dining room table. That’s because this wacky sandbox dating sim by developer Sassy Chap is all about forming relationships with everyday household objects that, it turns out, are actually pretty hot.</p> <p>The game bestows players with special “Dateviator” glasses that allow them to speak with objects and see them in their true, absurdly attractive forms. Dozens of objects await your affection – even elements like air and water can be courted – and branching dialogue can lead to three relationship resolutions for each character (Love, Friend, Hate). Whatever you decide will be reflected in the ever-changing 3D overworld that is your house.&nbsp;</p> <iframe width="560" height="315" frameBorder="0" allow="autoplay" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dlxxzmOXRf0" width="640"></iframe> <p>Date Everything boasts over 100 voiced characters played by performers that include Felicia Day (<em>Critical Role</em>, <em>Supernatural</em>), Johnny Yong Bosch (<em>Mighty Morphin Power Rangers</em>, <em>Bleach</em>), and Grey DeLisle (<em>Scooby-Doo, Avatar: The Last Airbender</em>). Given the huge amount of speaking roles, Date Everything boasts 1.2 million words and 70,000 voiced lines.&nbsp;</p> <p>Date Everything looks delightfully silly, but it unfortunately doesn’t have a release window. It will be available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, and PC.</p>

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The post Double Fine PsychOdyssey: The Acclaimed Documentary Available in a Blu-ray Collector’s Set appeared first on Xbox Wire.

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This week on the Eurogamer Newscast, we discuss the downsides and upsides of the video game battle pass.

In a week where PlayStation live-service hopeful Concord trumpeted the fact it won't sell you a battle pass as a marketing beat, and Apex Legends dialled back (some of) its battle pass changes following fan fury, we consider the options available to video game makers hoping to ensure their latest releases keep being played - and paid for - well after release.

Would more people play Concord if it was a free-to-play title with a battle pass? Or is it better served by being a £40 launch? Not everyone can promise they'll never sell post-launch content, as Stardew Valley's creator did this week. But there's clearly a balance to be struck to ensure players don't feel fleeced, particularly when full-priced launches like Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League are getting in on the act too. Joining me this week are Eurogamer's Ed Nightingale and Victoria Kennedy to discuss.

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Yesterday's dramatic announcement of strike action by video game actors over AI concerns may have less of an immediate impact on upcoming titles than first thought.

While the SAG-AFTRA union has indeed voted for voice artists and performance capture personnel to strike from today, a large swathe of projects now appear unaffected.

This includes any video game in development as of a year ago, including (for now) live service games, according to statements from both SAG-AFTRA and the companies the strike will hit, first shared by Kotaku reporter Ethan Gach.

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CEO of Paradox Fredrik Wester has admitted the publisher "made the wrong calls in several projects", following the cancellation of its The Sims competitor Life By You.

The game was cancelled back in June, and the internal studio behind the project, Paradox Tectonic, was closed.

Wester commented on Life By You as part of Paradox's latest financial earnings report, stating the cancellation was a "difficult decision... as the game would not be able to meet our expectations."

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No Rest for the Wicked developer Moon Studios has released its first new content update for the early access release.

Known as The Crucible update, it brings a "whole new Crucible" (seems fitting), as well as a new fungal enemy faction known as the Gloam, a new Exalted item status, the promise of "more visceral" combat and more.

You can check out a little teaser for the update in the video below.

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Netflix's BioShock adaptation has been "reconfigured" to be a "more personal" film with a tighter budget.

That's according to producer Roy Lee, who told fans at a panel at San Diego Comic-Con that changes at the top of Netflix's movie department have seen the budget streamlined.

"The new regime has lowered the budgets," Lee added, as reported by Variety.

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UK actors' union Equity stands "in solidarity" with SAG-AFTRA following news of a strike, though won't be authorising a strike itself.

Yesterday, the US actors' union announced a strike after failing to reach a deal with major video game companies over the use of AI following "more than a year and a half of negotiations".

"Equity stands in total solidarity with SAG-AFTRA who have taken the brave decision to authorise a strike against US video games companies," reads a statement from Equity assistant general secretary John Barclay.

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Coral Island developer Stairway Games has responded to the lack of Switch port, blaming the recent layoffs at Humble Games for leaving console versions "in a place of uncertainty".

The cosy life-sim game received over $1.6m in Kickstarter funding. However, some backers who specifically backed the game for a Switch version are angry at the lack of news for a port. Other backers have claimed requests for PS4 keys have been automatically upgraded to PS5 without consent.

At present, the game is available on PC via Steam, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S (plus Game Pass), but not Switch.

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Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It's a car in Gran Turismo 7.

Gran Turismo 7 players have flocked to social media to share examples of, uh, unusual driving physics after the racer's 1.49 update added a new setting that seemingly fills vehicles with helium.

Where developer Polyphony Digital had hoped to introduce "more natural weight" for players, cars are instead launching themselves into the air, making for some extraordinarily amusing clips:

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