Gaming News

If you've been noticing that recent matches of Arc Raiders are ending in a lot more PvP skirmishes than usual, there's a high likelihood that you might've had it coming. In a recent interview with GamesBeat's Dean Takahashi, the CEO of Embark Studios, Patrick Söderlund, confirmed that the popular extraction shooter has recently been employing a kind of "aggression-based matchmaking" to group up more like-minded players. During an inquiry about the studio's approach to matchmaking...
Steam hit a major milestone already this year, setting a new record for concurrent users. According to SteamDB, the platform peaked at 41,816,052 users online at the same time actively playing games. Not only that, but a new record for actively gaming users was also set, with that figure reaching almost 13.4 million as compared to March's 13.2 million record. The timing of the record is likely no coincidence. Steam's annual Winter Sale, which wraps up later today, offered steep discounts on...
Following a hack that happened over the Christmas weekend, Rainbow Six Siege players are finding themselves in the ban house thanks to yet another hack that references the nonsensical and popular 6-7 meme. According to The Gamer, Ubisoft's tactical shooter is being hacked by some unknown force that's handing out bans for 67 days. Players are reportedly posting on social media that their accounts have been flagged for an unexplained "harassment offence," leading to their accounts being...
The Last of Us Season 3 is on the way, but Neil Druckmann--who helped created the game's universe that the HBO show adapts--is not going to be part of it. He dropped out after Season 2, saying he wanted to focus on his work at Naughty Dog. Bella Ramsey, who plays Ellie on the show, has shared more insight into the series going ahead without one of its key creatives. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Ramsey said that while Druckmann has exited the hit HBO show, he's not really gone because...
Arc Raiders was a breakout hit in 2025, and it's still growing. New data from Alinea Analytics states that the game enjoyed its biggest day ever on Sunday, January 4, when it came to daily active users. It was reported to have had 3.2 million daily active users on January 4 across platforms. Additionally, the research group said Arc Raiders passed 12 million copies sold over the weekend. The number of Arc Raiders copies sold daily began to "stabilize" in early December, but the recent 20%-...
Arc Raiders was one of the most successful games of 2025, but it was also criticized for its use of AI-based text-to-speech systems. Patrick Söderlund, the head of Arc Raiders studio Embark, has now shed more light on the situation, saying the studio's goal in implementing AI into its development processes is to make better games more efficiently. He also pushed back against the idea that using AI systems in game development would lead to lower employment at Embark. "We don't use AI to not...
Sometimes you get so into a game that you scream uncontrollably. Whether that be a curse word or an SOS, if you yell loud enough, someone will come to your rescue. At least that's what happened to one Arc Raiders player, whose door was kicked in by a concerned neighbor after he heard the player yelling for help. Redditor dreamthorp posted a 16-second clip of the incident on the Arc Raiders subreddit on January 3. They said they were playing a night raid on the Dam Battlegrounds, the game's...
Time is running out to play Anthem, BioWare's live-service game that originally launched in early 2019. In just one week, EA will take the online-multiplayer game offline, meaning it won't be playable starting January 12. EA officially announced that Anthem would be shut down in July 2025. This gave players roughly half-a-year to return to the RPG and to spend any leftover currency they had for the title. Eurogamer is looking at whether any sort of in-game event is planned to make the...
Over two years after its release, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is enjoying an all-time peak on Steam, likely in large part due to the game's new DLC that ties in directly to the film franchise's latest installment. Data from SteamDB showed that the Ubisoft-published open-world game hit a record number of 15,283 players this week--a gain from its previous peak of 12,496 players last month when Avatar: Fire and Ash hit cinemas on December 19. With the release of the movie came a DLC...
The souls-like genre has exploded in popularity since the dawn of From Software's Souls franchise, with multiple companies taking a stab at the format--and some companies taking multiple stabs. Bandai Namco, who publishes FromSoft's Souls games as well as Elden Ring, dropped an anime-style version of the genre in 2019's Code Vein, and now it's back for more in Code Vein II. We spent a few hours with the next Code Vein adventure during The Game Awards week, and we came away impressed with...
To say Sandfall Interactive has gained a few fans after releasing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 would be a wild understatement. In fact, the RPG wasn't just GameSpot's Game of the Year, but also made history at The Game Awards. This all means expectations will be sky high for the developer's next project. However, Sandfall wants to avoid appealing to the masses and continue focusing on "what we think is cool." Speaking with Edge magazine, Sandfall lead writer Jennifer Svedberg-Yen noted that...
The upcoming third season of HBO's The Last of Us will feature a different actor playing Manny. It's been confirmed by Variety that Danny Ramirez, who joined the show in Season 2, will not return for Season 3 due to scheduling conflicts, with the role to be recast. It remains to be seen what actor may take over the role, however. Spoilers for The Last of Us follow below. Manny is a supporting character in the overall story of The Last of Us. He is a former member of the Fireflies who...
Through most of last year, IO Interactive assured players that its upcoming James Bond title, 007 First Light, was set for an early 2026 debut. The game had been scheduled to debut on March 27, but the release date has now been pushed back to May 27. In a statement posted online late last month, IO Interactive's Hakan Abrak called 007 First Light the company's "most ambitious project to date" while mentioning the Bond staples included in the game like car chases, gadgets, and wild...
Twitch Hype Train world records are a rare thing. The ultimate show of dedication from a creator's fanbase, these accumulative trains rely on a streamer's viewers donating subscriptions or Bits to the channel. Neuro-sama beat her own world record at the end of December 2024 and now, well, she's only gone and done it again. The hat trick of Hype Train world records belongs to the AI VTuber, her sister Evil Neuro, and their creator Vedal987. For the uninitiated, or those outside of the...
Quick-time events, despite everyone's best efforts to spice them up, remain pretty meh. When you first begin Dispatch, the new episodic superhero adventure game from AdHoc Studio, you're asked if you want to enable quick-time event prompts as an optional game mechanic. It says something that these QTE prompts only really appear in the first and last episode of Dispatch's eight-episode run. But if you're worried the only input you'll have in Dispatch is pressing a button at the right time...
Note: MASSIVE spoilers for the final section of Donkey Kong Bananza. Read on at your own risk! All throughout Donkey Kong Bananza, DK and Pauline are battling Void Company and its leader Void Kong. However, with each new level, there's a reptilian presence permeating the experience. Some enemies bear a striking resemblance to the Kremlings of DK adventures past, hidden treasure chests are green and bear what look like crocodile teeth, even the Banandium Root--Void Company's main goal in...
Lego's latest batch of 3-in-1 Creator sets includes a pretty cool gaming-themed kit. The 268-piece Lego Retro Gaming Console retails for $20 and can be built as a handheld game system, miniature arcade machine, or desktop computer. Recommended for builders ages eight and up, the Lego Creator 3-in-1 Retro Gaming Console launched January 1 and is in stock at Amazon, Best Buy, and the Lego Store. New Lego Creator 3-in-1 Building Sets (January 2026) The Retro Gaming Console is one of nine new...
Four scouts on an end-of-year trip, flying across the world for what should be a life-changing experience. What could go wrong? An engine malfunction. The squad crash-lands somewhere in the Pacific. They’re the only survivors on a mysterious island that only grows stranger the deeper they venture and the longer they stay. This is Peak. Sound familiar? The stories of Lost, the Emmy-winning 2004 mystery-laden drama series, and Peak feel like two parallel tracks that move in an eerily similar...
At the beginning of 2025, I fully believed I had grown tired of stories about multiple timelines. During the past decade, the Marvel Cinematic Universe pushed the classic comic book narrative device into the mainstream, fueling a film conglomerate with legally approved cameos, flashy visuals on the silver screen, and loose plots that, eventually, came together for one final pay-off. While the concept of the multiverse has been explored in film and TV even before Marvel's takeover, it...
Obsidian's Avowed is one of the better action-RPGs released in 2025. While it doesn't reinvent any particular wheel, it benefits from an engaging campaign, fun combat systems, and charming characters. Aside from the occasional bug--a common element of Obsidian's open-world games--and an overabundance of homicidal bears, I liked nearly everything about the game. That includes Avowed's most controversial game mechanic: enemy respawns, or the lack thereof. When it comes to RPGs, players often...