Games

Half-Life 3 Is Reportedly Playable In Its Entirety (engadget.com) 50

According to Valve insider Tyler McVicker, Half-Life 3 is finally playable from start to finish and could be announced this summer, with a release as soon as winter 2025. Engadget reports: Besides McVicker's hours-long livestream, there have been other recent hints about Valve's progress on its highly anticipated title. In March, Valve concept artist Evgeniy Evstratiy claimed that he was in the room where Valve made Half-Life 3 on CG Voices Podcast. In the same month, another Valve leaker, Gabe Follower, claimed that Half-Life 3 would be the "end of Gordon's adventure," potentially signaling a non-cliffhanger ending to one of gaming's best franchises. Outside of these rumors, internet sleuths discovered code referencing HLX, which is widely thought to be the codename for Half-Life 3, in major updates to Deadlock and Dota 2.
Games

How Riot Games is Fighting the War Against Video Game Hackers (techcrunch.com) 55

Riot Games has reduced cheating in Valorant to under 1% of ranked games through its controversial kernel-level anti-cheat system Vanguard, according to the company's anti-cheat director Phillip Koskinas. The system enforces Windows security features like Trusted Platform Module and Secure Boot while preventing code execution in kernel memory.

Beyond technical measures, Riot deploys undercover operatives who have infiltrated cheat development communities for years. "We've even gone as far as giving anti-cheat information to establish credibility," Koskinas told TechCrunch, describing how they target even "premium" cheats costing thousands of dollars.

Riot faces increasingly sophisticated threats, including direct memory access attacks using specialized PCI Express hardware and screen reader cheats that use separate computers to analyze gameplay and control mouse movements. To combat repeat offenders, Vanguard fingerprints cheaters' hardware. Koskinas admits to deliberately slowing some enforcement: "To keep cheating dumb, we ban slower." The team also employs psychological warfare, publicly discrediting cheat developers and trolling known cheaters to undermine their credibility in gaming communities.
Games

Budget Titles Dominate 2025's Top-Rated Games as AAA Prices Climb To $80 (bloomberg.com) 70

The highest-rated video games of 2025 are all budget-priced titles, with Metacritic top performers Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Blue Prince, and Split Fiction costing just $50, $30, and $50 respectively. This comes as Microsoft announces certain Xbox titles will now cost $80, following Nintendo's similar price hike for Mario Kart on Switch 2.

Clair Obscur, developed by a small French studio, sold 1 million copies in its first week. Split Fiction, despite being published by EA, was created by a small Stockholm team and has reached 2 million sales. Blue Prince, a puzzle-roguelike largely created by a single developer in Los Angeles, is showing strong performance on Steam, Bloomberg reports.

All three games share key traits: they use commercially available engines, take creative risks that big-budget projects couldn't afford, and target specific player demographics rather than trying to appeal broadly. The contrast is striking -- Clair Obscur's developers celebrated reaching 1 million sales while EA declared Dragon Age: The Veilguard a failure with similar numbers, underscoring the economic realities of different development scales.
First Person Shooters (Games)

'Harassed by Assasin's Creed Gamers, A Professor Fought Back With Kindness' (apnews.com) 209

A Dartmouth College associate professor of Japanese literature and culture became a narrative consultant for Ubisoft's game Assassin's Creed Shadow (which launched in March). Sachi Schmidt-Hori's job "involved researching historical customs and reviewing scripts, not creating characters," writes the Associated Press.

But when a trailer was released in May of 2024, some reacted to a game character named Yasuke who was a Black African samurai, according to the article, "with gamers criticizing his inclusion as 'wokeness' run amok". And they directed the blame at Schmidt-Hori: Gamers quickly zeroed in Schmidt-Hori, attacking her in online forums, posting bogus reviews of her scholarly work and flooding her inbox with profanity. Many drew attention to her academic research into gender and sexuality. Some tracked down her husband's name and ridiculed him, too. [One Reddit user described Schmidt-Hori as a "sexual degenerate who hate humanity because no man want her," while another called her a "professional woke social-justice warrior" who confirmed "fake history for Ubisoft."] Learning Yasuke was based on a real person did little to assuage critics. Asian men in particular argued Schmidt-Hori was trying to erase them, even though her role involved researching historical customs and reviewing scripts, not creating characters.

Ubisoft told her to ignore the harassment, as did her friends. Instead, she drew inspiration from the late civil rights leader and congressman John Lewis. "I decided to cause 'good trouble,'" she said. "I refused to ignore." Schmidt-Hori began replying to some of the angry emails, asking the senders why they were mad at her and inviting them to speak face-to-face via Zoom. She wrote to an influencer who opposes diversity, equity and inclusion principles and had written about her, asking him if he intended to inspire the death threats she was getting. "If somebody said to your wife what people are saying to me, you wouldn't like it, would you?" she asked. The writer didn't reply, but he did take down the negative article about Schmidt-Hori.

Others apologized. "It truly destroyed me knowing that you had to suffer and cancel your class and received hate from horrible people," one man wrote. "I feel somehow that you are part of my family, and I regret it. I'm sorry from the bottom of my heart." Anik Talukder, a 28-year-old south Asian man living in the United Kingdom, said he apologized at least 10 times to Schmidt-Hori after accepting her Zoom invitation to discuss his Reddit post about her... He was shocked the professor reached out to him and hesitant to speak to her at first. But they ended up having a thoughtful conversation about the lack of Asian representation in Western media and have stayed in touch ever since. "I learned a massive lesson," he said. "I shouldn't have made this person a target for no reason whatsoever."

Games

GTA 6 Delayed To May 2026 (ign.com) 67

Rockstar has delayed Grand Theft Auto 6 to May 26, 2026. It was due out fall 2025. From a report: In a statement, Rockstar apologized for the significant delay to the game, expected to be the biggest entertainment launch of all time.

"We are very sorry that this is later than you expected," Rockstar said. "The interest and excitement surrounding a new Grand Theft Auto has been truly humbling for our entire team. We want to thank you for your support and your patience as we work to finish the game."

"With every game we have released, the goal has always been to try and exceed your expectations, and Grand Theft Auto VI is no exception. We hope you understand that we need this extra time to deliver at the level of quality you expect and deserve. We look forward to sharing more information with you soon."

IOS

Epic Games Is Launching Webshops To Circumvent App Store Fees (techcrunch.com) 18

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Epic Games is taking a victory lap. After notching a big win against Apple in a years-long legal dispute, Epic announced that its Epic Games Store will allow developers to open webshops, which can offer players out-of-app purchases to circumvent fees from Apple and Google. [...] With the Epic Games Store's new webshops feature, other developers will be more easily able to follow suit.

Usually, Epic takes a 12% share of a developer's earnings from the Epic Games Store, which is still a better deal than what developers get from Apple. But starting in June, Epic Games will not take a cut from the first $1 million each game earns annually. Only after a game eclipses $1 million in revenue will Epic begin taking a cut. "With new legal rulings in place, developers will be able to send players from games to make digital purchases from webshops on any platform that allows it, including iOS in the European Union and United States," Epic said.

XBox (Games)

Microsoft Hikes Xbox Console Prices By Up To $100, Games To Hit $80 (videogameschronicle.com) 101

Microsoft is raising prices for Xbox consoles globally, with the flagship Series X jumping $100 to $599.99 in the US. The more affordable Series S will increase by $80 to $379.99, while game prices will reach $80 later this year.

The company cited "market conditions and the rising cost of development" in a statement, adding that it continues to focus on "offering more ways to play more games across any screen and ensuring value for Xbox players."
Businesses

Electronic Arts Lays Off Hundreds, Cancels 'Titanfall' Game (yahoo.com) 18

Electronic Arts is laying off hundreds of workers and canceling a Titanfall game that was in development at its Respawn Entertainment subsidiary. From a report: Between 300 and 400 positions were eliminated, including around 100 at Respawn, according to a person familiar with the cuts. The company had about 13,700 employees at the end of March 2024.

"As part of our continued focus on our long-term strategic priorities, we've made select changes within our organization that more effectively aligns teams and allocates resources in service of driving future growth," Justin Higgs, a spokesman for the Redwood City, California-based company, said in a statement.

The canceled project, code-named R7, was an extraction shooter set in the Titanfall universe, according to people familiar with its development. It was not close to being released.

Businesses

EA Lays Off Hundreds, Cancels 'Titanfall' Game (ign.com) 18

Electronic Arts (EA) has laid off around 300 employees across multiple departments, including about 100 at Respawn Entertainment. IGN reports: IGN understands that these wider cuts largely impacted EA's Experiences team, which includes groups such as EA's Fan Care team and various others working on customer support and marketing, though other EA departments saw reductions as well. As with other cuts at EA, those impacted will be given the opportunity to apply for other roles internally prior to being let go.

The roughly 100 jobs impacted at Respawn included individuals in development, publishing, and QA workers on Apex Legends, as well as smaller groups of individuals working on the Jedi team and two canceled incubation projects, one of which we reported on back in March, and the other of which was, per Bloomberg's reporting, a new Titanfall game.
"As part of our continued focus on our long-term strategic priorities, we've made select changes within our organization that more effectively aligns teams and allocates resources in service of driving future growth," an EA spokesperson said in an official statement. "We are treating our people with care and respect throughout this process, working to minimize impacts by helping affected employees explore new opportunities within the company when possible and providing support during the transition."
Games

11-Year-Old GTA V Dominated Twitch in 2024 (theverge.com) 13

Grand Theft Auto V topped Twitch viewership charts in 2024 with a staggering 1.4 billion hours watched, according to data released by the streaming platform. The 11-year-old game outperformed all competitors, including League of Legends, which also surpassed the billion-hour mark.

Competitive shooters filled the remaining top spots, with Valorant recording 804 million hours, Fortnite exceeding 500 million, and Call of Duty reaching 451 million hours watched. V-Tubers -- streamers using animated avatars instead of showing their faces -- saw viewership increase by 10% year-over-year, accumulating over a billion hours watched collectively.
Role Playing (Games)

D&D Updates Core Rules, Sticks With CC License (arstechnica.com) 35

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Wizards of the Coast has released the System Reference Document, the heart of the three core rule books that constitute Dungeons & Dragons' 2024 gameplay, under a Creative Commons license. This means the company cannot alter the deal further, like it almost did in early 2023, leading to considerable pushback and, eventually, a retreat. It was a long quest, but the lawful good party has earned some long-term rewards, including a new, similarly licensed reference book. [...] Version 5.2 of the SRD, all 360-plus pages of it, has now been released under the same Creative Commons license. The major change is that it includes more 2024 5th edition (i.e., D&D One) rules and content, while version 5.1 focused on 2014 rules. Legally, you can now design and publish campaigns under the 2024 5th edition rule set. More importantly, more aspects of the newest D&D rule books are available under a free license:

- "Rhythm of Play" and "Exploration" documentation
- More character origins and backgrounds, including criminal, sage, soldier, and the goliath and orc species.
- 16 feats, including archery, great weapon fighting, and seven boons
- Five bits of equipment, 20 spells, 15 magic items, and 17 monsters, including the hippopotamus

There are some aspects of D&D you still can't really touch without bumping up against copyrights. Certain monsters from the Monster Manual, like the Kraken, are in the public domain, but their specific stats in the D&D rulebook are copyrighted. Iconic creatures and species like the Beholder, Displacer Beast, Illithid, Githyanki, Yuan-Ti, and others remain the property of WotC (and thereby Hasbro). As a creator, you'll still need to do some History (or is it Arcana?) checks before you publish and sell.

Nintendo

Nintendo Seeks Discord User's Identity Following Major Pokemon Leak (polygon.com) 45

Nintendo has filed a request for subpoena in California's Northern District Court to compel Discord to reveal the identity of user "GameFreakOUT," the alleged source of last year's extensive Pokemon leak. The company is demanding the name, address, phone number, and email of the individual behind the "Teraleak," which contained claimed source code for upcoming title Pokemon Legends: Z-A, next-generation Pokemon games, builds of older titles, and numerous concept art and lore documents.

Court documents obtained by Polygon show Nintendo included a partially redacted Discord screenshot as evidence, where GameFreakOUT shared files in a server named "FreakLeak." The breach occurred around October 12, 2024, two days after Game Freak publicly acknowledged a hack affecting employee information without confirming game data theft.
Moon

ESA Video Game Trains AI To Recognize Craters On the Moon 4

Longtime Slashdot reader Qbertino writes: German public news outlet Tagesschau reports (source: YouTube) on an ESA video game that helps train a future moon lander's guidance AI to spot craters. Games have already helped collect visual data on millions of craters. The University Darmstadt developed the game, called IMPACT, to support ESA's efforts to establish a base on the moon. An older article from August 2024 provides further details on the project.
Nintendo

How Nintendo's Legal Team Destroyed Atari Games Through Courtroom Strategy (mit.edu) 40

Nintendo's lawyers systematically dismantled Atari Games in a landmark 1989 legal battle that reshaped the gaming industry, killing off the Tengen brand until its surprise resurrection recently.

When Atari Games (operating as Tengen) attempted to circumvent Nintendo's control by reverse-engineering the NES security system, Nintendo's legal team discovered a fatal flaw in their rival's approach: Atari had fraudulently obtained Nintendo's proprietary code from the Copyright Office by falsely claiming they were defendants in a nonexistent lawsuit.

Though courts ultimately established that reverse engineering was legal under fair use principles, Atari's deception proved catastrophic. The judge invoked the centuries-old "unclean hands" doctrine, ruling that Atari could not claim fair use protection after approaching the court in bad faith.

"As a result of its lawyers' filthy hands, Atari was barred from manufacturing games for the NES. Nintendo, with its stronger legal team, subsequently 'bled Atari to death,'" writes tech industry attorney Julien Mailland. The court ordered the recall of Tengen's "Tetris" version, now a rare collector's item.

After a 30-year absence, Tengen Games returned in July 2024 with "Zed and Zee" for the NES, finally achieving what its predecessor was legally prohibited from doing.
First Person Shooters (Games)

Limited Edition of Doom Includes Game Box That, Itself, Plays Doom (engadget.com) 30

Limited Run Games is releasing physical editions of Doom and Doom II, including a $666 "Will it Run Edition" that features a literal game box capable of playing Doom. Engadget reports: It costs $666, which is a nod to the devilish source material, and is being kept to a limited run of 666 copies. It comes with the aforementioned screen-enabled game box that runs Doom, but that's just the beginning. The combo pack ships with the soundtrack on cassette, a certificate of authenticity and a trading card park with five cards.

It comes with a couple of toys based on one of the franchise's most iconic enemies. There's a detailed three-inch Cacodemon that connects to a five-inch base, which looks pretty nifty. There's a smaller handheld Cacodemon that, you'll never guess, also runs Doom. This edition is available for Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. The PC version, however, ships with a download code and not physical copies of both games. Preorders start on April 18 and end on May 18, with a release sometime after that.

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