Rust is finally adding backpacks to kick off its second decade

Having marked its 10 year anniversary last year, survival shooter Rust is seeing in its second decade by adding the long-awaited ability to boost your inventory with a backpack. The update will continue what developers Facepunch Studios say will be even more updates and improvements throughout 2024, even as other long-requested additions slide back to 2025 or later.

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Now is the best time it’s ever been to jump into Overwatch 2

This past Christmas marked the anniversary of me playing Overwatch 2. 7 years of my partner and I swearing at seemingly impenetrable enemy teams, then whooping in victory when we finally pull together a plan that cracks them apart – or just as our chill W+M1 game while we chat about our days.

For the uninitiated, Overwatch is a bright, colorful, and very funny team v team FPS that ditches the dour gunmen for a cast that doesn’t all require raw aim skill. Spider-themed snipers and six-gun slinging cowboys share space with winged angelic healers and a talking gorilla with a Tesla cannon – characters who reward positioning and timely ability usage just as much as one’s ability to click on heads. When the game went free to play and slapped a 2 on the end in 2022, it got a more muted reception, but the dev team have displayed a great willingness to experiment. In fact, there’s never been a better time to give Overwatch 2 a go.

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Silent Hill 2 and Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater remakes listed for 2024 release

Did we put the Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Silent Hill 2 remakes on that list of our most anticipated games of 2024? The article is so voluminous I’m not sure I have the energy to check. I get halfway down the page and feel like I need to pitch camp below one of the paragraph breaks, like a mountaineer sleeping beneath a crag in one of those dangling tents. Assuming we didn’t, both have been slated for 2024 release by the PlayStation blog.

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Kojima says horror game OD is as “experimental” as Boktai, so here’s a quick overview of solar powered gaming

Hideo Kojima’s new Xbox Game Studios project OD is a horror game that is “also a movie, and at the same time a new form of media” and who knows, perhaps it also runs on solar power. That’s the extremely direct and literal reading of Kojima’s latest social media tease, in which he compares his latest endeavour to Boktai: The Sun Is In Your Hand, an isometric vampire-hunting game for Game Boy Advance, which Kojima worked on while at Konami in the early noughties. Boktai stands apart to this day for making use of solar energy. There’s a sun sensor built into the cartridge, which allows you to re-energise your weapon by using the console in sunlight, though this isn’t outright necessary to prevail.

I doubt OD employs a similar peripheral, though a Steam Deck verified horror game that can only be played outdoors in pleasant weather would be an… interestingly contrary experience. But it’s an opportunity, at least, to jump aboard one of my personal hobby horses and give you a scrappy rundown of older and recent games that employ similar functionality.

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Lexar’s RPS-recommended NM790 4TB SSD is £204 at Scan and a bloody great drive

Lexar’s NM790 is one of the best NVMe SSDs we’ve tested, offering excellent performance whilst keeping prices down lower than rivals like the Samsung 990 Pro or WD SN850x. Data hoarders are particularly fond of the 4TB model, which is now discounted at Scan in the UK – it’s down to £204 and comes with a free NVMe heatsink, making it an awesome fit for a range of gaming PCs as well as Sony’s PlayStation 5.

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Apex Legends’ Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth crossover arrives on January 9th

Every game is Who Framed Roger Rabbit now – or, less charitably, a metaversal hellscape where canonical integrity matters far less than providing a platform through which to sell cosmetics.

Apex Legends is the latest live service game to take the plunge with its first crossover event. It’s with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and it’ll bring the Buster Sword, Aerith, and other elements from the JRPG to the battle royale on January 9th.

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Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown’s accessibility options are a neat deconstruction of metroidvania design

I have been bouncing off Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, partly because the new protagonist design leaves me cold, and partly because it being a 2D affair has me yearning for something closer to the 1989 Apple II original, with its finicky platforming and sword-fighting. Katharine says it’s decent, however, and the latest trailers are intriguing. One is an overview of the new metroidvania’s locations, of which you can read much more in Katharine’s last preview. The other is a quick dive into the game’s approach to accessibility, which appears to be a lot more holistic than you’ll find in many games.

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MapleStory publisher Nexon fined record $8.9 million for misleading loot box mechanics

Korean publisher Nexon have been fined 11.6 billion won – around $8.9 million – for secretly altering the drop rates of coveted items in free-to-play MMO gacha game MapleStory. The fine, issued by the Korea Fair Trade Commission, is the largest penalty ever doled out for violation of South Korea’s Act on Consumer Protection in Electronic Commerce.

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