Gaming

I knew this was coming, I just didn’t expect it so soon. FromSoftware has released a patch for Shadow of the Erdtree. Among the casualties...I mean “bug fixes” is a nerf to super busted but super satisfying perfume bottle build that basically turned anyone who used it into a walking nuke. How dare you FromSoftware, over a long holiday weekend no less?!

A year after Nintendo Japan announced it would stop repairing the Wii U when its supply of parts ran out, the company confirmed this week its Japanese support teams are no longer able to fix the 12-year-old console, as spotted by Nintendo Life.

After Nintendo shuttered the console’s online play in April, this week’s announcement feels like the Wii U’s final death blow.

Nintendo’s July collection of classic games coming to NES Online includes Golf, programmed by the company’s former CEO, Satoru Iwata, who passed in 2015.

Shortly after the Switch’s debut a copy of Golf was discovered as an Easter Egg on the console, which some assumed to be a tribute to the late CEO, but finding and playing the game is now much easier.

From a Bloomberg interview with Hironobu Sakaguchi:

“On a rare occasion — I want to stress ‘rare occasion’ — sometimes one of the Mistwalker team members will hop on Final Fantasy XIV, and I’ll see a message saying, ‘Hey, the meeting’s started,.”

Evercade first debuted this adorable handheld last year, and now it’s expanding the line with two new versions: one packed with 50 Atari classics, the other 15 Japanese arcade games like Double Dragon and River City Ransom. Both are also compatible with Evercade cartridges, and they’re expected to start shipping in October. Pre-orders open on July 31st.

Amazon has a new 3D ��Gaming Zone” online showroom, which feels like it was designed to fit a marketing executive’s idea of “gamer aesthetic.” Also, the showroom is a chore to navigate. And you can’t even play the arcade cabinets!

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Epic Games has submitted the Epic Games Store and Fortnite to Apple for notarization. The company aims to launch them both in the EU on iOS in “the next couple months.”

In January, Epic said it planned to bring both to iOS “this year.”

Oh, and about those rumors you may have heard about a feature film or television series based on ELDEN RING… I have nothing to say.  Not a word, nope, not a thing, I know nothing, you never heard a peep from me, mum mum mum.  What rumor?

I can’t stop checking boxes on https://onemillioncheckboxes.com/, and I’d really like for them to stay checked.

Horizon Forbidden West, Ghost of Tsushima, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, and both Spider-Man PC games now support the upgrade to AMD’s upscaling and framerate boosting tech. It reduces shimmering, ghosting, and flickering of earlier versions and lets you use frame generation independently of upscaling.

God of War Ragnarök will also get FSR 3.1 “soon.”

The Nintendo DS-like’s lower screen will soon double as a virtual keyboard, triple as a virtual touchpad, and quadruple as a dual-screen task switcher with the company’s Ayaspace v2.5 software update. Those could all make it a bit easier to navigate Windows handheld!

With new Lovestruck expansion pack, coming to The Sims 4 on July 25th, your Sims too can experience the horrors of modern dating.

Create dating profiles for your Sims, define their attractions, plan and execute dates, and even get your Sim’s heart broken. The expansion adds new romance-themed traits, aspirations, and fears, and adds a new location, Ciudad Enamorada, where Sims can enjoy their new romantic interludes.

The anime streaming service followed Netflix by adding games to its service late last year, and today it announced a batch of 15 upcoming titles, including Crypt of the NecroDancer and Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness. Check out the full details right here.

The years have been rough for bounty hunting Star Wars games; Boba Fett’s turn in 1313 was never released, and Respawn’s Mandalorian game has reportedly been cancelled as well. But we’ll always have the PS2 / GameCube-era Bounty Hunter starring Jango Fett. Now it’s getting a re-release on Switch, Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox — launching on August 1st.

The Minisforum DEG1 is just $99, it’s already on sale, and your existing desktop PC parts (GPU, PSU) can make it work.

It connects with Oculink, not USB4, so it won’t work with most laptops — mostly boutique handhelds. But it could be more powerful than existing Oculink eGPUs with a desktop card at its disposal!

Sony’s Street Fighter movie is set to release on March 20th, 2026, according to Deadline. The publication also reports that Danny and Michael Philippou, the directors of Talk To Me, are no longer directing the Street Fighter film.

reports Dexerto. And the San Francisco 49ers are now cutting ties with him, too.

The game studio he co-founded also cut ties, and so did peripheral manufacturer Turtle Beach, following my colleague Ash’s reporting that he sent inappropriate messages to a minor. On Tuesday, he shared his side of the story.

Game developer Creator just showed a new trailer for Starship Home, its augmented reality cosmic gardening sim for the Meta Quest 3, during the UploadVR Showcase. The game is up for preorder now at a discounted $17.99, with a “Summer 2024” release date, Meta announced.

Some jitteriness aside, I still think the game is promising in a casual Tamagotchi or Animal Crossing sort of way.