Market analyst Superdata has published its January report on the state of the digital games market. Spending declined in January on consoles across both the free-to-play and premium segments. Revenue in free-to-play dropped by a whopping 42% on consoles compared to last year, mostly a result of Fortnite’s decline. The lack of big new games in January also contributed to a 19% drop in the premium segment on consoles compared to 2019....

Thanks to a brand new Stories from the Outlands trailer (embedded below) released by Apex Legends developer Respawn and publisher EA today, we know the name and backstory of the next character we’re going to get to play as: Ash. If you’re big into your Titanfall/Apex Legends lore, you may remember Ash from the second game; Ashleigh ‘Ash’ Reid is a Simulacrum Pilot and baddy from Titanfall 2. She’s changed a bit since we saw her in the last game, though, and the video embedded above gives us some insight into how she became this odd android creature she is today....

In a recent interview with Kotaku, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla creative director Ashraf Ismail confirmed that the iconic instakill hidden blade would be returning to the franchise for Ubisoft’s upcoming Viking sim. This resurrection will occur after the blade became unreliable in Assassin’s Creed Origins, and completely unequippable in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. “Eivor receives the hidden blade quite early on,” Ismail told Kotaku. “We continue with the idea that Eivor is not a trained assassin....

The delay was announced during the firm’s Q1 2022 earnings call, and the title is now expected sometime during the company’s 2023 fiscal year. What this means is it could be 2024 before the game is released. According to Ubisoft’s chief financial officer Frederick Duguet, the additional development time is due to the “current ongoing constraints on productions across the industry.” Announced back in 2017, the first-person action-adventure game was to release this year, and many were hoping it would arrive around the same time as James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water....

Originally released in 2001 for PlayStation 2 and Xbox, then later ported to GameCube and Game Boy Advanced, Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance is coming to PS4, Switch, and Xbox One tomorrow. It will run you $29.99/£29.99/€29.99 and features enhanced graphics and up to 4K resolution on supported devices. Co-op is also supported. 4K will be supported on PS4 Pro, PS5, Xbox One X and Xbox Series X (thanks, IGN). Interplay and Wizards of the Coast are re-releasing the game, so don’t expect a remaster going into it....

Damn, can you believe that it’s already coming up to a year since Elden Ring came out? No, I don’t want to think about it either, the existential dread that comes from thinking about the passage of time is too much. Bandai Namco doesn’t care about that though, as earlier this week it announced it would be hosting a livestream dedicated to the game’s first anniversary, packed with all sorts of activities....

Following on from the Battlefield Portal reveal, the technical alpha is the next big step in the developer starting to test the game, its servers, and how players interact with various elements of what DICE and a suite of other EA studios have been working on lately. EA’s technical playtest for the game runs from August 12-15, and already we’re seeing people start to surreptitiously post footage of the title around the internet....

After yesterday’s launch, it’s clear that the world has a soft spot for Experiment 101’s open-world, post-apocalyptic RPG. Something about the free-form kung-fu combat has certainly drawn people in, with SteamDB registering 55,048 players at the game’s peak yesterday. Once you add those numbers to however many units publisher THQ Nordic shifted on other platforms, it’s likely we’ll see the game chart quite well when the rankings are released next week....

EA’s BioWare studio was once working on a Mass Effect spin-off inspired by more morally gray characters like Star Wars’ Han Solo. Speaking to The Gamer, the studio’s then-development director Dorian Kieken said that after the first Mass Effect title shipped in 2007, the firm was toying around with new concepts for future entries in the series. “We explored a game concept back in 2008, a bit after the shipping of [the first] ME, where you were playing a Han Solo type of character in a Star Control-inspired game in the Mass Effect universe,” Kieken said....

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War developer Treyarch released a small update to the game on Saturday. The patch mainly consists of bug and exploit fixes, but it does have one big change for competitive play. League Play, the recently launched competitive ruleset, received a new friendly fire rule. Friendly fire is on by default in the competitive playlist, but the most recent update ups the penalty for team killing....

According to the various Season 1 leaks, some of which have been removed off Twitter, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War players will be able to indulge in four new maps, and a Starter Pack filled with items. Raid, Rebirth Island, Launch, and a snowy mall map seem to be the four maps coming with Season 1. There is also a new Adler skin, emblems, a calling card, and points coming with a Starter Pack, going by the various leaks....

With any big new multiplayer game, there’s gonna be some big issues with cheating. While Overwatch 2 is only kind of a new game, it has brought in a lot of new players, so obviously cheating is going to be a problem somewhere along the line. As shared by Reddit user t33hee on the Overwatch subreddit though, it looks like Blizzard is cracking down on cheating software, in this case a piece called Rijin....

That’s according to Blizzard community development lead Adam Fletcher, who said fake Diablo 2: resurrected alpha scams are making the rounds. Fletcher said on Twitter there were numerous places stating they were running contests or giving away access. This is not the case, and if you want in on one or both of the two technical alphas which will be available you need to opt-in on the Diablo 2 website....

Centered around the marriage of Wainwright & Hammerlock, the new DLC sees the return of Gaige the Mechromancer - this time in the role of wedding planner on the hostile ice planet of Xylourgos. Borderlands 3 - Guns, Love, and Tentacles: The Marriage of Wainwright and Hammerlock is the second campaign DLC for the game. First announced last month as a Lovecraft-influence add-on which will see you team up with old and new pals in a fight against eldritch horror, the new game content launches March 26 on Xbox One, PS4, and PC....

We have this little bit of serendipitous timing to thank for two free weekends of indie tactical shooters aligning. Beyond the Wire is hosting a free weekend on Steam, and Nine to Five’s open beta is also live. Beyond the Wire is the big-scale WW1 shooter from Redstone Interactive, which entered Early Access back in October and recently received a free update that added new factions, new maps and an assortment of new weapons....

The game and its DLC will also be made available to Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass subscribers. Released through the Epic Games Store and on PlayStation consoles in the fall of 2020, if you are unfamiliar with Bugsnax, in it you play as an investigative journalist exploring Snaktooth Island. Home to legendary half-bug half-snack creatures, you have been invited to the island by explorer Elizabert Megafig. You arrive to find your host no where to be found, her camp in disarray, and her followers scattered about the island....

This week’s Warzone and Modern Warfare patch apparently also included a treasure trove of details about the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. The information, published by COD Tracker, includes the game’s full description, as well as its various editions, which will seemingly be up for pre-order tomorrow following the game’s big reveal. The official blurb confirms that Cold War takes place in the early 1980s, after the events of the original Black Ops, with series characters Woods, Mason and Hudson all returning....

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War appears to have an aim assist issue on console which hinders the player’s ability to stay on target, rather than, well, assist. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War has had a rough go of it since it landed last week. The game has seen several issues, from the current grind demands to the game turning off PlayStation controllers. It’s even the most common culprit of the infamous ‘Queued to Download’ bug....

Following in the footsteps of Take-Two/2K Games, Activision has now confirmed that the standard edition of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is priced $70 on PS5 and Xbox Series X. In a blog post breaking down the game’s different editions, the company tucked away that detail towards the end of the page. This makes Black Ops Cold War the second next-gen game, after NBA 2K21, to have a starting price of $70 on next-gen consoles....

Japanese publisher Capcom has issued a warning about a scam claiming to offer folks early access to the upcoming Resident Evil Village. The firm said that it is not messaging people this way and this isn’t someone working on their behalf. Capcom warned people who received these emails to delete them straight away without downloading any files. “We’re sending this message as we’ve been made aware that there are currently emails circulating that pretend to contain ‘Early Access invitations’ to Resident Evil Village,” the company wrote....