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We all know The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's Ganondorf is incredibly hot, and as it turns out, that was on purpose.

As soon as Zelda fans got a good look at Tears of the Kingdom's take on Ganondorf, they all thought one thing: he's a hunk. You don't need a degree in handsome-men-ology to see that one, heck you don't even need to look him in the eyes - considering how tall he is, most of us will be looking straight into his pecs anyway. We already knew that Ganondorf looks the way he does because of one designer who just loves him that much, but in a recent interview with Nintendo Dream (translated by Nintendo Everything), director Hidemaro Fujibayashi confirmed that yes, he is meant to be sexy.

"The designer didn’t simply make him look violent; they managed to fulfil my wish of making him look overwhelmingly evil while also being handsome enough that both men and women would fall for him," said Fujibayashi. "We put a lot of thought into choosing his clothes and accessories, keeping in mind that Ganondorf himself should have a strong sense of beauty and good taste.

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The CEO of Genvid Holdings, Jacob Navrok, has released a statement following speculation that Silent Hill: Ascension - the much-criticised live service gaming collaboration between Genvid and Konami - was made with help from AI software. Navrok rejects these claims wholesale.

Writing on Twitter, Navrok stated: "Every word in Ascension was written by real people, many of whom have long-running careers in writing including Telltale titles, Pixar titles, [God of War] Ragnarok, Resident Evil Village and more. Across our 100,000+ words, zero are authored by LLMs or AI, and all are from [the] dedicated work of a talented team."

Speculation around the use of AI is typical in modern discourse surrounding writing, especially work that critics or audiences consider to be poor or substandard. In this case, the idea that Silent Hill: Ascension was using AI stemmed from various series moments that fans cosnidered especially strange, including the recently-dubbed "berry man", who was seemingly the main thing that triggered Genvid Holdings' statement.

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Battlefield 5 is latest game in the long-running series to have a major moment on Steam. After Battlefield 2042 pulled off the unthinkable and came back from the dead to not only set new concurrent player records on Steam, but also sustain them for weeks afterwards, Battlefield 5 is now trying to claim that spot.

Over the last several days, the 2018 multiplayer shooter popped off on Steam.

The newfound popularity is likely thanks in large part to a deep discount, bringing Battlefield 5 down to just $4 as part of the Steam Autumn Sale. This is an all-time low, and it gets you the Definitive Edition of the game, which includes a tonne of cosmetic content and weapon unlocks from previous seasons.

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Turns out that Baldur's Gate 3's slowdown bug occurs because you all just love thieving and vandalism so much.

Earlier this month, Baldur's Gate 3 received its fourth patch, which brought about a whole heap of changes, fixes, and additions. However, players also began to notice some performance issues once they started hitting Act 3 in the game, some of which found it to be unplayable. As explained by developer Larian Studios in a statement provided to IGN, this all comes down to a strange situation where the game wouldn't forget any acts of theft or vandalism.

"In Patch 4 we introduced a fix that would prevent the Scrying Eyes in Moonrise Towers from immediately calling the guards on you when stealing, even if you were sneaking, or invisible for example," Larian told IGN. "This fix had the unintended consequence of causing unnoticed thefts and acts of vandalism to remain stuck forever within the ‘did anyone see me’ pipeline, rather than timing out and moving on, as is intended. Essentially, your dungeon master - in a real-world sense - constantly thinks about the acts of theft and violence the player keeps doing, without ever moving on or verbalising them. Mulling on it ad infinitum."

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Starfield hasn’t achieved the kind of universal critical claim many had anticipated it would, with even hardcore fans having admitted that it didn’t deserve to be in the running for a Game of the Year award. As a result it’s amassed a fair amount of negative reviews, some of which Bethesda has now bizarrely started replying to.

Yes, that’s right. If you’re a Steam player that’s recently decided to put your disappointment with the interstellar RPG into words, you might since have received a response from one of the game’s developers. Who knows, maybe a few paragraphs suggesting that the game is actually very good or reminding you that Bethesda has been and will continue to work very hard on it going forwards will be enough to totally change your mind.

As spotted by YouTuber JuiceHead, a number of these kinds of responses have been popping up over the past month or so, with some having been posted as early as November 2, while others are as recent as November 27. The majority of these replies have been posted by users that’ve been identified by Steam as official developers, with their handles being Bethesda_FalcoYamaoka and Bethesda_Kraken.

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While we've known about it for weeks now, Bungie has officially delayed its upcoming Destiny 2 expansion The Final Shape.

At the end of October, it was reported that a number of staff had been laid off at Bungie, including longtime studio composer Michael Salvatori, who has worked there since the original Halo. Along with that report, it was claimed that both Marathon and Destiny 2: The Final Shape were being delayed, though at the time there was no official confirmation. Now, in a blog post shared by Bungie yesterday, it was announced that The Final Shape would be moving from its original release date of February 27 next year, to June 4, pretty much exactly when it was rumoured to be.

"The Final Shape is the culmination of the first ten years of Destiny storytelling and, for Guardians everywhere, countless hours spent together," reads the blog post. "We want to honor that journey, so we’re taking the time we need to deliver an even bigger and bolder vision, one that we hope will be remembered and treasured for years to come." The post also notes that there are plans to share more of the expansion next April, "including all-new gameplay, to showcase the significant content additions currently in development."

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I don’t see him hit the ground, but I definitely hear it.

By the time I turn back, the mysterious figure that’s just rode past me as we both galloped through one of New Austin’s many sandy gullies is already back on his feet. As I bemusedly watch him pick up the carcass of a small animal and reattach it to the saddle of his horse - half-expecting him to shoot me - I wonder whether it was my fault that he somehow ended up crashing his horse and being flung headlong into the dust, as has happened to every Red Dead Redemption 2 player at some point. Did my passing him on the narrow trail push him into the path of a rock that tripped up his mare?

I’ll never know if it did, because he rides off at breakneck pace without saying a word. Regardless, like all of the silent cowboys I’ve encountered during my return to Red Dead Online, I’m glad to have met him.

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Scott Pilgrim Takes Off fans likely have a season two on their minds right now, but the show's creators don't have any plans for one right now.

Announced last year, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is the third adaptation of the classic comic series, and honestly, it's really good, and really different (even if our own Kelsey can't enjoy it themself). But, like any good thing, people always want more of it, even if they don't necessarily need it. That leaves the question of whether the show could get a second season, with comic creator and co-showrunner Bryan Lee O'Malley explaining in an interview with Rolling Stone that it's pretty unlikely. "It’s self-contained for now," O'Malley said.

"We loved what we did. We put it all in there. We don’t have any ideas lying on the floor. We pretty much put them all in. I never say never, but right now, it seems like it would take about 50 different miracles simultaneously for another season to happen. So we’ll see." Co-showrunner BenDavid Grabinski also made it clear there's nothing in the works right now, saying, "We’re not working on it. We have no official ideas. We put everything we had into this, and we think it has a really great ending that we’re proud of. I don’t make any plans in general. Maybe some day one of us will text each other an idea that’s really great for a Season Two. But for now, my entire brain and heart is in this thing, and just getting it out into the world."

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Despite reports that TikTok maker ByteDance plans to restructure gaming publisher Nuverse, Marvel Snap dev Second Dinner has assured players the game isn't shutting down.

Reuters reported earlier today that ByteDance is planning to move away from the games industry, and will wind down Nuverse, its game publishing division. The report noted that this would likely impact hundreds of employees, but there was no direct confirmation of any particular studios shutting down. Over in the West, Nuverse's most notable game is the quite popular competitive card game Marvel Snap, and fans of the game have been worried that the restructuring could lead to the game shutting down. However, the official Marvel Snap Twitter has released a statement in an attempt to reassure players that there's no plans for the game shutting down, at least for the time being.

"Dear Snappers, Some of our players have expressed their concerns regarding reported structural changes at Nuverse," reads the statement. "We wish to thank you for your concern and assure you that regardless of any changes at Nuverse, SNAP will continue to operate and flourish in the future!" This obviously isn't ruling out any potential layoffs, an unfortunately common trend in the games industry in recent months, but it's something for players at the very least.

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Diablo 4 is a living game, so the opinion of its players is guaranteed to change from season to season, and patch to patch. The game wasn't especially well-received at launch, and the pre-Season 1 update caused such a controversy that Blizzard had to reevaluate its entire update process.

We're now in the middle of Season 2, player sentiment is trending much more positively, with it seeming like Blizzard learned the right lessons from the launch and the reaction to the first season. All of that is to say that user reviews - on Steam and elsewhere - are bound to reflect that changes made to the game.

It's not particuarly surprising, then, to see that Diablo 4's Steam review rating has changed from Mixed to Mostly Positive, thanks to all the positive changes made in recent months.

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Think you know what your kid wants for Christmas? According to a recent report, not many of them actually want video games.

When you think about video-game-loving kids, you probably think "easy peasy, I'll get them the newest Mario for Christmas, sorted." It would make sense, opening up a new Nintendo console and the latest game featuring the moustachioed plumber is a tale as old as time. But as spotted by GamesIndustry.biz, a recent report from the Entertainment Software Association says that US children don't really care about getting physical video games compared to other game adjacent things.

The survey spoke to 501 children of the ages 10-17, with 59% of girls and 86% of boys saying they plan to ask for video game gifts for the holidays. When it comes to specific asks, the highest ranking request is for game subscriptions at 39% of kids, with game consoles just behind at 38%. After that is game gear or accessories at 32%, and in-game currency at 29%. Meanwhile, only 22% of kids actually asked for physical video games. This one isn't entirely unsurprising, game purchases are shifting towards digital over physical, but it is a bit surprising that children want things that aren't actually games over games themselves.

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Unless you’re really embracing the introvert trait, odds are you’ve chatted to more NPCs than you can count during your adventures in Starfield to this point. Well, thanks to a new mod, you’ve now got the option to continue being friendly without having to get so up-close and personal.

We might all love Oblivion, but sometimes Bethesda’s latest RPG arguably takes its homages to The Elder Scrolls four just a little bit too far, especially when it comes to showing you pudgy visages at point blank range. After all, not everyone can look as beautiful as the Adoring Fan, whose face I could stare at for hours on end.

Well, thanks to Antonix35’s ‘Disable Dialogue Camera’, it’s now easier than ever to keep whatever distance you prefer during conversations. The mod allows you to take in these chats from the same third and first person perspectives you can adopt outside of dialogue, meaning that things won’t suddenly shift in immersion-shattering fashion every time you say hello to someone new.

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Never count casual gamers out, as Monopoly Go has apparently managed to generate $1 billion in revenue in seven months.

As reported by Forbes, Monopoly Go developer Scopely has shared that the latest mobile take on the classic (and oft-hated) mobile game has raked in a staggeringly large $1 billion in the seven months since its launch. According to Scopely this yet, this happens to be the fastest a casual game title has hit such a figure. It's obviously not the first mobile game to earn $1 billion, though Scopely says that figures from data.ai confirmed that no other casual mobile game managed to do so as fast. The game has apparently been downloaded over 100 million times, with Scopely sharing a few statistics from players since its release.

Players have passed go more than 40 billion times for one, have sent more than 150 million friend invites, and gone to jail six billion times, which sounds about right. What doesn't sound right is that nearly two billion games have been completed. I'm sorry, some of you actually finish your games of Monopoly? Sure, it's a mobile take with some slightly unique features, but I have to admire the level of commitment to a game that wasn't even designed to be fun.

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Marvel's Spider-Man 2 sounds like it almost could have been quite different, as the voice behind Venom himself said that Miles almost had the symbiote suit.

If any of you have seen Across the Spider-Verse, you'll know that canon events are somewhat of a big deal for all the various Spider-peoples. Becoming one with the alien symbiote suit seems to be one of those canon events, and Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is no different, with Insomniac's take on the swinging super-hero finally donning his classic black suit. But according to the voice behind this version of Venom, Tony Todd, Miles apparently almost donned the symbiote suit, something that obviously didn't end up in the final game.

Todd recently made an appearance at Fan Expo San Francisco, alongside Miles' voice actor Nadji Jeter, where they spoke about their work on the sequel. As shared by Twitter user Evan Filarca, Todd confirmed that he had actually recorded dialogue for some scrapped scenes that saw Miles wearing the symbiote suit, though Filarca didn't expand upon how far such a story beat made it into development. Spider-Man 2 is obviously somewhat of a transitional game though, with this one focusing more on Peter, and Miles being set up as the main Spider-Man going forward. On that point, when Jeter was asked about being the new main Spider-Man, he said he's "ready" for it. "It's gonna be crazy!"

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This year’s Game Awards show is set to see its creators begin to move away from referring to a bunch of the various trailers and previews being showcased as world premieres, as has been the trend in recent years.

Those behind the event, which is set to take place on December 7, have also apparently been working on putting additional security measures in place to stop it from being interrupted in annoying and dangerous fashion by stage crashers. So, hopefully we won’t have to endure watching yet another idiot be carted away after awkwardly spewing some nonsense about GTA 6.

Both of these topics were addressed by Geoff Keighley in a recent Twitch Q and A session about the show. “What is a world premiere?”, the host said in response to one user asking whether those tuning in can expect to see a similar amount of them to last year. He continued: “Actually, you’ll see this year with the show, we often put up those cards [saying] world premiere, world premiere, and we're kinda moving away from that.”

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Ubisoft's upcoming The Division: Heartland has recently been rated in Taiwan, potentially suggesting a release date could be on the way soon.

As spotted by Twitter user and leaker Kurakasis, Taiwan's Digital Game Self-regulation Committee has rated Tom Clancy's The Division: Heartland across multiple platforms, which was posted as of November 14. As Kurakasis points out, games are generally rated in Taiwan two to two-and-a-half months before the game is set to release, or at least receive an open beta when it comes to online games. This might suggest a release could be as soon as January 2024, but as always, best to not make any assumptions, especially when it comes to online games.

Taiwan's ratings board made mention of "violence, inappropriate language," and "antisocial behaviour" in its assessment of The Division: Heartland, which resulted in a PG-15 rating, not particularly unsurprising given the genre.

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The team behind the massive Fallout: London modding project has released one of the mod’s unique outfits as a standalone work for Fallout 4.

If you’re not familiar, Fallout: London is set to offer us Sole Survivors a chance to delve into a DLC-sized post-apocalyptic rendition of England’s capital before this year is out. This latest standalone mod serves as yet another little teaser for what to expect when you cross the Atlantic and is especially worth grabbing if you like the unhinged raider look.

Entitled ‘Fallout London - Plated Leathers’, the mod brings a fresh set of Plated Leather Armour and a Skull Helm to The Commonwealth, which form the full outfit when rocked together. You’ve obviously also got the option of incorporating one of them into an existing ensemble from your slightly irradiated wardrobe.

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For those of you looking for news on the Silent Hill 2 remake, you might need to wait a touch longer, as developer Bloober Team has asked for "a bit more patience."

After several rumours and leaks, a remake of Silent Hill 2 was finally announced last year, with Bloober Team helming development. Since then, we haven't really heard all that much about it, and it seems that players are starting to get a bit impatient. Bloober Team has recently shared a brief message to its Twitter, where it provided an update on the development of Silent Hill 2. "As Bloober Team, we are proud to be a part of Konami's plans for the Silent Hill franchise," reads the start of the statement.

"On behalf of our development team, we would like to clarify that the production is progressing smoothly and in accordance with our schedule. We understand that many players around the world are eagerly anticipating news about the game, and we appreciate your dedication. However, we kindly ask for a bit more patience. Once Konami, as the game's publisher, shares more information, we are confident that the wait will be worthwhile. Thank you for your understanding and support!"

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Despite both The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 both being out for a good few years now, it seems that there are some Easter eggs that haven't been found.

In the first episode of the official CDProjekt Red podcast AnsweRED, studio narrative lead Marcin Blacha spoke about how the studio handles Easter eggs (thanks, GamesRadar). The Witcher 4 director Sebastian Kalemba asked Blacha about how Easter eggs are made throughout development, with Blacha explaining "if we're talking about Easter eggs and all those tiny, funny things in the game, the thing is that you cannot really plan it. It's not like we have a list of Easter eggs and we make them.

"Let's say you're making a game and it's, like, the fourth year. You are really tired and then you have this idea and you cannot stop yourself from making it. That's how Easter eggs in our games start. Sometimes this idea is so good that some other people join you and something spectacular emerges.

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Wuh-oh, for some reason, an "extremely early" Left 4 Dead prototype has been found thanks to a recent Counter-Strike: CZ update.

Video games are weird little things - sometimes a dev will build something in a game that ends up unused, and it just has to get locked away as removing it could risk breaking everything else. That sometimes leads to fun little discoveries, and as shared by PCGamer, in Counter-Strike: CZ's recent 1.6 update, a Left 4 Dead prototype titled "Terror Strike" was discovered and is now completely playable. Valve content creator Gabe Follower shared word of the prototype on Twitter, pointing towards a user "The One Epicplayer" who apparently ported the zombie_city map as well as the bot navigation mesh.

According to YouTuber ilovethevopo, "what you see is gameplay of Left 4 Dead back when it was a simple project using Counter-Strike: Condition Zero. Yes, this is older than zombie_city and the leaked L4D footage that was re-discovered a few weeks ago, both of which were based on Counter-Strike: Source. Zombie_city was originally built for CZ and ported to CSS, but we never got any actual content from the CZ era of L4D until now.

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