Software & Gaming

Following last week’s announcement of Origin Access Premier, Electronic Arts has quietly put its “On The House” freebie program on the shelf. PC players will get to keep their claimed games, however the promotional page now redirects to EA’s Origin Access. EA introduced its On The House scheme back in …

Over the last couple of years, we've seen an exodus of writers at Valve, with multiple veterans leaving the studio to work on other projects. This included Half-Life writer, Marc Laidlaw, The duo behind Left 4 Dead and Jay Pinkerton, who worked on Portal 2 and some of the Team …

Despite a tiny £1.29 price tag, the collective sales on indie game Little Adventure on the Prairie has managed to fund developer Infinite Madaa Studio’s next title. This is thanks to its shift in target market, aiming to please achievement hunters with an easy-to-unlock Platinum trophy for an accessible price. …

A popular Final Fantasy Discord server lost its partner status this week, after allegedly breaching the relatively new policy regarding not safe for work (NSFW) content. Although admins rectified the situation in record time, Discord has refused to reinstate its title, prompting concerns over double standards and inconsistency within the …

Nintendo Labo has impressed many people with its ingenuity when it comes to cardboard. The first instalment released back in April of this year with the “Variety Kit”, and since then Nintendo has tasked the community with the Creators Contest. Nintendo is now bolstering the Labo line-up with the vehicle …

Microsoft has taken a decidedly aggressive approach with Windows 10, with the operating system regularly interrupting users in order to push updates and installations. The introduction of the snooze button last year did little to quell complaints of random reboots, prompting the company to look into machine learning to teach …

Respawn Entertainment has been decidedly quiet since EA placed the studio in charge of a brand new Star Wars title, leaving fans curious as to how the Titanfall developer plans to handle it. Revealing the name to be Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order last month, EA is currently looking ahead …

At E3 this year, EA announced that it would soon be launching Origin Access Premier. Similarly to Microsoft's Game Pass, Premier will give players day-one access to brand new games from EA's library, including the likes of Battlefield V, FIFA and Anthem. At the time, EA didn't announce a launch …

Microsoft’s new Xbox One Adaptive Controller made its debut back in May, designed to make gaming with disabilities significantly easier. Working alongside specialist companies, a lot of thought has been put into every area of the controller, including how users will open its packaging. The Xbox One Adaptive Controller gained …

Last year, we saw a huge rise in the number of Triple A games utilising loot boxes to make extra money. Two of the biggest examples were Battlefront 2 and Middle Earth: Shadow of War, both of which ended up removing those microtransactions. Now, Microsoft's Turn 10 Studio will be …

Google recently made it known that its security key trial for 85,000 members of staff was a resounding success, with no account compromises since the introduction of the YubiKey. Google has now announced its own security key for the public- the Titan Key, which will be available in both USB …

While some fans are still recovering from the polarising news that Fallout 76 will be online only, others have found solace in the upcoming Fallout: Miami mod. The 20-person fan-made project maintains Bethesda’s signature single-player style and has finally dropped an official trailer, replacing the dreary Boston landscape of Fallout …

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice released a year ago to much critical praise. It had fantastic voice and motion capture work, in addition to very engaging gameplay. Now, Ninja Theory has announced that a VR version of the game will be available at the end of the month as a free update …

Over the last couple of years, a cracker known as Voksi has been tearing down Denuvo's anti-tamper protection one game at a time. Voksi became renowned for getting through the protection pretty quickly over the course of 2017, but it looks like the police have managed to track him down. …

While Valve has removed loot boxes from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in the Netherlands after the country’s conclusion that the practice is gambling, it looks like the developer is trialling a different method for Dota 2. Still in compliance with newly introduced laws, Dutch players will now be able to see …

SX OS is colloquially known as a “piracy-enabling” custom firmware that stole code from open-source projects and sold it back to the community. Various groups have been working on a crack for SX OS since its release, but this has led to someone exploiting that and packaging brick code as …

Like it or not, Fortnite has gone on to become a huge success and is one of few games to cross over into the mainstream public eye. Epic Games has always had success thanks to the Unreal Engine, but Fortnite has given it a substantial push, with the studio as …

No Man’s Sky NEXT has breathed new life into a game that was left behind by many. The introduction of multiplayer, for example, finally delivers on the promise made by Hello Games when first marketing No Man's Sky. Whilst Steam owners yesterday got to play with their friends, GOG players …

Last month, Valve began rolling out the revamped Steam Chat client in an effort to better compete with the likes of Discord. The UI received a complete overhaul and a few features were improved, including group chats, inline multimedia support, better voice chat etc. The new client has been in …

Despite its disastrous implementation throughout this year, the UK government and Metropolitan Police have set in motion plans to expand their efforts with real-time facial recognition in order to catch criminals. This has prompted concern from non-profit privacy advocate, Big Brother Watch, which is now crowdfunding in order to combat …

No Man’s Sky garnered a significant amount of backlash during its 2016 launch, with many features discussed in interviews noticeably missing from the final launch. This caused Hello Games to fall silent on its communication with fans as the team worked hard to get the game in a state that …

HORI make fantastic third-party accessories, whether it be carry cases or fighting sticks, they usually offer great quality products. They are looking to continue that trend for the Nintendo Switch with the announcement of three GameCube style controllers for the console. Nintendo Life reports that HORI will be releasing three …

While Android’s ecosystem is flush with a variety of applications, its operating system adoption rate has always been noticeably slow when compared to its rival. Android Oreo seems to be no exception, finally hitting double digits 10 months after its release. Although Oreo’s adoption started off distinctly slow in comparison …

Google revealed in February that they would be branding every single website that didn’t use HTTPS as “Not Secure”. They followed through with that promise today with the release of Chrome version 68, meaning that visitors of HTTP websites will now be shown a warning that says the website cannot …

Given its divisive shared-world approach, Bethesda will be conducting a much-needed beta test of Fallout 76 at the beginning of October. Although we’ve known for quite some time that Xbox will be leading the way, with test periods for PC and PS4 shortly following, it seems that not everyone will …

Update (24/07/18): Yesterday, reports began circulating that developer Trion Worlds had let go some of its staff as a result of Defiance 2050's performance just weeks after it had launched. While developers have indeed been let go from the company, Trion has clarified that the decision had nothing to do …

When it comes to loot boxes in video games, one of the big topics of conversation has surrounded the disclosure of drop rates for certain items. A few publishers have revealed drop rates for their games, and now Rocket League is joining in. Rocket League is set to get a …

Despite not releasing as many exclusive games as fans would like, Microsoft's Xbox division seems to be doing very well for itself. Microsoft recently revealed its end of fiscal year results, with the Xbox division bringing in $10 billion in total. This is a major year-over-year jump for Microsoft's gaming …

It’s clear that the thirst for a traditional JRPG on the Nintendo Switch is huge, and Square Enix seems to be reaping the benefits thanks to the release of Octopath Traveller. In the biggest markets across the world the game completely sold-out, leading to Square-Enix having to apologise for underestimating …

At the height of Snapchat’s popularity, Snap saw fit to introduce a peer-to-peer payment service that would allow users to send money to their friends and family quickly and easily. It never really took off, and now Snap is shuttering Snapcash for good at the end of next month. It …