Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth seemingly locks New Game+ behind expensive special editions

Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth releases this coming week and takes the series’ best boy protagonists to the new shores of Hawaii. It’s one of our most anticipated games of 2024. There’s a slight snag though: New Game+ mode, a staple of both the genre and the series, is this time locked away within the more expensive Deluxe and Ultimate Editions.

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Work on PCs with this 77-piece $10 screwdriver set from Walmart

If you’re working on computers, sooner or later you’re going to have to face the facts and pick up a screwdriver set. Sure, that old Phillips screwdriver your dad gave you does the job most of the time, but wouldn’t it be nice to put it somewhere safe and get something a little more adaptable?

Walmart are doing a good deal on a Hyper Tough 77-piece screwdriver set, which is $10 versus its regular $16 – a good deal for a set that includes everything you’d need for PC building and maintenance and has attracted a 4.5/5.0 star average after 245 reviews.

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Last Epoch continues to look like a worthy Diablo challenger ahead of next month’s full release

Last Epoch is gunning for the action-RPG crown long held by Diablo (and recently contested by the likes of Path of Exile and Grim Dawn). With the power of time travel – and a flash-looking launch trailer – on its side, the indie hopeful certainly looks set to put up a decent fight when it exits Early Access in just over a month.

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Genshin Impact 4.4 ends January with a Lantern Rite, lets you transform into a fish to explore its new area

Genshin Impact’s next update, version 4.4, will drop on January 31st. As well as bringing back the game’s Lantern Festival with rewards including a new outfit, Vibrant Harriers Aloft in Spring Breeze will bring the usual additions of new characters, quests and a boss. There’ll also be a new area showcased with some shiny new visual tech, that you’ll be able to explore by transforming into a flying fish.

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Pokémon-with-guns game Palworld is so popular its servers are struggling to keep up

Palworld was obviously destined for success the moment a million games journalists and Twitter users wrote “Pokémon with machine guns”. (Acceptable alternate nicknames include “Eevees with uzis” and “Abras who’ll stab-ya”.) Having finally launched into Early Access on Steam and Game Pass this week, that prophecy has rung true as the monster-catching survival game has caught (ha, ha) so many players that its servers are struggling to handle the load.

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The Cub learns all the wrong lessons from Limbo’s do-by-dying platforming

It always breaks my heart a bit when a game I’ve been looking forward to for a while absolutely biffs it on arrival. Having quite enjoyed Golf Club Wasteland a few years ago (now called Golf Club Nostalgia for, I don’t know, reasons), I was quite pumped when developers Demagog Studios announced not one, but two further games set in the same post-apocalyptic universe. The first to come out (albeit only on Netflix at the moment) was the turn-based strategy game Highwater (also a bit of a dud, based on the early Steam demo I played last year), but it’s the second game, The Cub (out today on Steam) that has prompted this current moment of teeth-sucking sadness.

I’ve been playing a bit of it over the last week, and oh man, it’s trying so, so hard to be like Limbo and Inside, but just… doing quite a terrible job of it all. I was looking forward to any excuse I could get to have the soothing sounds of Golf Club’s dystopian Radio Nostalgia From Mars show back in my ear drums, but alas. I simply cannot hear it over the sound of my own screams of frustration.

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Kingsvein review: monster-splatting RPG goodness that leads with its weak foot

I disliked turn-based RPG Kingsvein at first. Quite a bit, in fact. An earlier version of this review would have been a very negative on, filled mostly with complaints and annoyances about opaque and frustrating systems, most of which I’ve since got over as the intent behind its design has become more clear.

It could definitely explain some things better, and its inscrutably tiny graphics remain a minor nuisance. But it’s grown on me a lot, and though it may not be quite the kind of turn-based RPG I get on with best, it’s an enjoyable one with a refreshing lack of bloat and timewasting, and with a class and combat system that will be pure catnip to a particular kind of player.

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Diablo 4’s Season 3 developer update reignites “controversial topic” of how to pronounce WASD

Earlier this week, Blizzard announced what’s coming up in Season 3 of Diablo 4, and underneath the mountain’s worth of lore and loot updates, there was the surprisingly good news that WASD key controls were finally being added to help provide even more accurate and precise movement in the game over the series’ traditional mouse clicks. Not that any of them could decide how to actually pronounce WASD when it came to talking about them on last night’s Developer Update stream, though, as there were competing cries of “was-dee”, “wased” and “double-you-ey-es-dee” all over the shop as they debated this clearly very “controversial topic” live on air. Read on for more details about what they’re hoping to achieve with WASD controls in the game, but more importantly: how do you pronounce WASD? Let’s get a poll up asap.

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More layoffs as Behaviour Interactive and CI Games “adjust scope” and make “optimisations”

About 20 years ago, a travel company declared this Monday just gone, the 15th, to be the most depressing day of the year. They call it Blue January. Enter yet more studio layoffs. 2023’s trend continues with Dead By Daylight developer Behaviour Interactive getting rid of about 45 staff, per Kotaku, while CI Games has laid off 10% of its workforce, including from Lords Of The Fallen studio Hexworks and Sniper Ghost Warrior studio Underdog (via GI.Biz).

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