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In a blog post, Activision said it had issued more than 300,000 permabans worldwide to accounts since Warzone launched in March 2020. The news follows increasing pressure from the Call of Duty community, and comes after two high-profile Call of Duty streamers announced they had quit the game over cheating. Warzone’s anti-cheat has come under intense scrutiny from players, particularly on PC, with the issue exacerbated by radio silence from its publisher and developer....

As reported by the Washington Post, the family of 32-year-old Activision Blizzard finance manager Kerri Moynihan, who was found dead during a company retreat in 2017, are claiming sexual harassment was a “significant factor” in her suicide. Moynihan’s death was one of many disturbing incidents referenced in last year’s State of California lawsuit, which called Activision Blizzard “a breeding ground for harassment and discrimination against women” and spoke of a “frat boy culture” at the company where “women were subjected to numerous sexual comments and advances, groping and unwanted physical touching, and other forms of harassment....

The Worker Committee Against Sex and Gender Discrimination has been founded by 12 current and former staff members, including high-profile ABetterABK member Jessica Gonzalez, and has presented a list of demands to embattled boss Bobby Kotick, The Washington Post reported. Issues raised include improvements to private breastfeeding areas, an end to undocumented meetings with HR, improved support for transgender employees, two weeks extra paid time off for parental leave (up to 12 weeks), and the need for independent investigations into allegations of discrimination....

Call of Duty net bookings (sales) on console and PC declined year-over-year in the fourth quarter of Activision Blizzard’s financial year, which ended on 31st December. Activision put this down to lower sales for Call of Duty Vanguard, which was led by Sledgehammer with a multiplayer and Zombies offering built by Black Ops developer Treyarch, versus 2020’s Black Ops Cold War. Perhaps more worryingly for Activision, battle royale behemoth Warzone has seen “lower engagement”, which means fewer people are playing it....

My Friend Peppa Pig, which I have actually covered before on this website, is an upcoming video game in which you become Peppa’s new friend and do various bits and bobs together. The video below is My Friend Peppa Pig’s story trailer and, reassuringly, features ACTUAL GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE. I don’t think we need to worry about a downgrade with this one. As a father of two young children, I’m buying My Friend Peppa Pig....

The original AI: The Somnium Files - which was the work of Zero Escape series creator and director Kotaro Uchikoshi - was a noir-ish murder mystery set in a technologically-advanced modern-day Tokyo. Nirvana Initiative, which once again sees Uchikoshi on scenario writing duties, retains the deductive premise of its predecessor but switches things up with a new pairing of protagonists and a new case to solve. This time around, players take on the dual role of Special Agent Mizuki (returning from the first game) and Special Agent Ryuki, along with their AI partners Aiba and Tama, as they attempt to uncover the truth behind the so-called Half Body serial killings....

Before we get into the features though, let’s take a look at the cards themselves. The chiplet design breaks a traditional monolithic GPU into several interconnected sections. For RDNA 3, that’s a single 5nm graphics compute die (GCD) that’s 300mm² and six 6nm memory cache dies (MCDs) that are each 37mm². This design means that only the most critical areas need to be made with a cutting-edge 5nm process, helping to improve CPU yields, reducing costs and ultimately consumer prices....

Announced last October, few official details have so-far been shared on the project beyond the fact it’ll be a “narrative-driven, blockbuster action-adventure” set in the Marvel universe. However, Marvel rumour collator MCU Status is now reporting that Hennig’s game takes place during World War 2, and will see Captain America and Black Panther taking on the forces of Hydra. Eurogamer understands this to be correct. Luckily, we should have first official details on the project very soon, with Disney having already confirmed it’ll be giving viewers a “sneak peek” at Hennig’s Marvel project during its game-focused digital showcase, airing tomorrow, 9th September, at 9pm in the UK/1pm PT....

This egg-themed event not only sees the return of Zipper T. Bunny, but allows you to collect a variety of special furniture and clothing rewards, which will only be available during Bunny Day. Below you’ll discover everything we know about the event, including the dates for this year’s Bunny Day and the final Bunny Day reward. On this page: The first is the event related dates - in 2021 the egg hunt began on Sunday, 28th March, while Bunny Day itself will be on Sunday, 4th April....

After downloading the Crunchyroll app from Nintendo’s eShop, members will have full access to the streaming service’s catalogue - totalling over 1,000 series across 30,000 episodes, including big hitters like One Piece and Attack on Titan to lesser-knowns and more recent offerings. Shows will be streamable in docked mode on TV or in handheld and tabletop modes. Members that subscribe to Crunchyroll’s more expensive Mega Fan and Ultimate Fan tiers will also have access to the same offline viewing features available on other devices, meaning they’ll be able to download their shows of choice to Switch and watch them on the go....

A maquette, in case you’re wondering, is a small preliminary model created by a sculptor before embarking on a full-scale project. It’s a fitting enough moniker for a game that features model-like environments placed within larger-scale versions of themselves - which, in turn, are within larger-scale versions again - and where changes made to one model are reflected in all. For instance, dropping a cube onto a model of a courtyard might (to use an example featured in the latest trailer below) cause a larger version of that cube to simultaneously materialise in the courtyard surrounding the model, perhaps providing a means to progress....

The new statement, passed to Eurogamer this evening, appears to contradict the message visible today on the game’s store page. This will now be changed. Here’s Ubisoft’s statement in full: “As stated in our support article, only DLCs and online features will be affected by the upcoming decommissioning. Current owners of those games will still be able to access, play or redownload them. Our teams are working with our partners to update this information across all storefronts and are also assessing all available options for players who will be impacted when these games’ online services are decommissioned on 1st September, 2022....

Subtitled The Last Chapter – because, of course, it’s the last chapter – Valhalla’s final expansion is expected to launch “in a few months time” and sees Eivor “say goodbye” to their people and set forth for “distant shores and new adventures”. The free quest arc will “nicely tie up some of the storylines established throughout the game” and see Eivor reunite with some key characters… “including some influential historical ones”, according to Ubisoft....

Today’s patch 1.5.1 also sets the stage for the return of the Ostara Festival, which offers fresh gear to acquire as well as the spring-flavoured cosmetics originally available when the event first ran back in 2021. Dozens and dozens of bugfixes have also been included - the full patch notes lie below. ORIGINAL STORY 14/4/22: The second year of free Assassin’s Creed Valhalla content looks set to continue very shortly, as details of a fresh set of Mastery Challenges have popped up online....

In a post on the Axiom Verge blog, developer Thomas Happ said the update owes its existence to Axiom Verge’s speedrunning community as well as the original mod developer, Pozzum. Together, they came up with an unofficial version that required a legal copy of the game to use, and since worked with Happ to incorporate it officially into the game. “They spent years working on this and refused any compensation I offered....

That’s according to multiple job listings on Bandai Namco’s Japanese website, spotted on Resetera. Those listings are for a planner and two visual artist positions, one of which specifies work to “perform HD remastering of the 3D background” (thanks google translate). The responsibilities of the artist positions involve porting existing material to an in-house game engine and creating 3D backgrounds for a 3D action game. The planner, meanwhile, requires experience of action game level design, working on a 3D action game project from Nintendo....

It is, in short, not looking like an update that will turn the tides for Battlefield 2042, a game that’s struggled since launch thanks to design decisions that sat poorly with players as well as the baffling omission of key features such as a leaderboard and voice chat. Those features have since been reinstated, and Battlefield 2042’s certainly improved a fair amount since launch - and while slim the new updates do at least seem to keep DICE’s troubled first-person shooter on the right trajectory....

In our testing, we found that upgrading to an SSD - even a budget model - reduced game load times by up to 60 per cent compared to even modern, high-performance HDDs, while NVMe SSDs reduced load times even further. SSDs also operate completely silently and are more resistant to damage, thanks to their lack of moving parts. With all of these advantages, it’s easy to see why solid state drives have become the default choice....

Although ostensibly a prequel to The Binding of Isaac, Bum-bo is a notably different proposition, building its randomised dungeon-crawling action around turn-based combat with a match-4-style puzzle system at its core. Unfortunately, despite some solid design and eye-catching presentation, Bum-bo arrived in a bit of a state when it released in 2019, and plenty of issue still lingered when, shortly after release, McMillen went radio silent for almost a year....

Fl4k is a wandering robot on a quest of self-discovery through the stars. While their robotic heart feels a connection to the animal kingdom, Fl4k find the social constructs of humans confusing. As Fl4k’s Beastmaster title suggests, they are accompanied by three loyal animal companions - a skag, spiderant and jabber. On this page: As you spend Skill Points, you’ll be able to unlock Action Skill Augments that will add extra features to your chosen Action Skill....