As Tom summarised for us earlier this week, eFootball - the new name for PES - arrived in a disastrous state late last year, even though Konami warned players it would arrive in extremely limited form akin to a demo. Now, however, the beleaguered publisher has acknowledged the “incompletion” of the game to our sister site VGC, pointing the finger to several factors it believes contributed to the game’s dreadful reception on release....

As dataminer and streamer Lance McDonald shared on Twitter, menu strings were found (by sennoutantei) relating to ray tracing features. What’s more, references have been found to two new maps that don’t yet exist in the game. McDonald has since attempted to implement those ray-tracing features by bumping the quality to maximum, but they somewhat break the visuals. At launch, the PC version of Elden Ring was criticised for running poorly, so it could be that FromSoftware is looking to improve the visuals in future....

The remedy in question is referenced toward the bottom of the patch notes accompanying today’s 1.03.2 release for Elden Ring, explaining the update has “fixed a bug in multiplayer that allowed players to teleport others to incorrect map coordinates”. This directly addresses an exploit malicious hackers were using to teleport players beneath the map after having invaded their world. This would first manifest as a game crash during an invasion, but when affected players attempted to restart their game, they’d find they’d been teleported beneath the map, falling infinitely to their doom - with no way to salvage their potential many-hundreds-of-hours save....

It follows an earlier round of job losses last November, when 200 positions were at risk, and the departure of the studio’s head Haden Blackman earlier this month. These latest job losses will affect Hangar 13’s main location in California, Kotaku reported. Staff were informed remotely by Hangar 13’s new boss Nick Baynes, who ran the company’s Brighton location before succeeding Blackman as overall company head. The losses will reduce Hangar 13’s headcount to around 40, it’s expected....

The lead developer of GTA Underground, one of the largest, most ambitious mods for the 16-year-old Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, announced development had ceased and all downloads hauled offline after six years of work. This was “due to the increasing hostility towards the modding community and imminent danger to our mental and financial well-being”, chief developer dkluin wrote in a post on GTAForums.com. “We would like to thank the community for the immense support they’ve given us for the past years and our talented modding team for the incredible work, dedication and great times we had together....

Which is why I was intrigued by Slime-san developer Fabraz’ follow-up, which goes somewhere surprising yet also familiar - here’s the same tripped-out wit and charm, only this time it’s a fully 3D platformer, all of which seems like quite the leap for the small New York studio. At the heart of Fabraz is Fabian Rastorfer, a developer who, you can tell after half an hour’s chat, brings a whole lot of heart to his video games....

Alpha skip-ahead Insiders on an Xbox Series X connected to a 4K display can now begin testing an increased resolution user interface, Microsoft said. This change means Home, Guide and other areas of the UI are displayed in a higher native resolution for increased sharpness and text readability. Currently, Xbox Series X runs its dash at 1080p. Microsoft didn’t say this new resolution is 4K, but surely the goal is to get there....

Marvel’s Midnight Suns, if you’re unfamiliar, draws inspiration from the Midnight Sons comic book run of the mid-90s to deliver a superhero strategy game blending turn-based combat, card-battling, and Fire-Emblem-style relationship building. At launch on 2nd December, it’ll include 12 playable heroes, ranging from the immediately familiar - think the Avengers and X-Men - to perhaps lesser-known characters from the likes of the Runaways. However, publisher 2K has now confirmed Midnight Suns’ roster will begin to expand in early 2023, when Deadpool joins the line-up as premium DLC....

The new changes were first introduced a month ago in a pre-release of version 1.19.1 and players were already voicing their concerns online. JewelTK, who runs their own Minecraft server, posted a video on Minecraft’s subreddit explaining why they were against the change. JewelTK said they, along with other server hosts, now feared banning players from their servers due to potential abuse of Player Reporting. The new system is a tool which “allows players to report inappropriate chat messages or dangerous behaviour” for human moderation....

As with previous Call of Duty betas, PlayStation players get early access on the first weekend - with other platforms rolling out on a second weekend, including a period of open access for all. If you want to get in early, you need Modern Warfare 2 beta access - which is available in a variety of ways. To help you prepare for the launch of the open beta, you’ll find beta release times for whatever platform you’re playing....

As confirmed on the game’s official website, Monster Hunter Rise’s first Free Title Update will expand the current creature roster by welcoming in Chameleos - a mist-themed Elder Dragon that debuted in 2006’s Monster Hunter 2. This, incidentally, is the same upcoming monster referred to as Onazuchi by the game’s Japanese Twitter feed. Chameleos will be joined by “several” additional new monsters in April’s Version 2.0 update, one of which will be the Apex Rathalos, as revealed at the end of Rise’s launch trailer below....

Moonlighter, Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt, and Dragon Up join Netflix’s original Exploding Kittens - The Game. All four will be out on 31st May, bringing Netflix’s total games to 22. Watch on YouTube Eurogamer Newscast: Will we subscribe to PlayStation Plus Premium, and how does Xbox cope with the loss of Starfield this year? Moonlighter in particular is well worth a visit. Originally released on PC, PS4 and Xbox One (followed by Switch and Stadia releases), it sees you balancing dungeon crawling with selling your wares in a customisable shop....

New data released by Ubisoft last night as part of its annual financial results revealed Valhalla had more unique players in the past 12 months ending 31st March 2022 than it did in the four months after its hugely-successful launch. The stat suggests players are still picking up - and sticking with - Valhalla. Indeed, Ubisoft also said that the past year - free from a new Assassin’s Creed release - notched up nearly double the money than the year after 2018’s Odyssey arrived....

First up, there’s another mod for the dog lovers among us, thanks to MrMarco1003, this time with Bolt from the titular Disney movie. The mod also changes Stray’s meows into barks, and you’ll get to see Bolt chilling out with his identically-shaped fur-iends at the beginning of the game. With the dog lovers placated, let’s move onto the modifications for us cat lovers. mal4m has added Cait Sith to the game, and he looks absolutely adorable....

Bandai Namco, which has handled previous MHA tie-ins, announced My Hero Academia: Ultra Rumble in the latest Weekly Jump magazine (thanks, Gematsu). Expect it to turn up at some point for PC, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and Xbox One, and offer 24-player battles. Closed beta tests will be held in the future. Despite its popularity, previous My Hero Academia games have been a bit of a mixed bag. My Hero One’s Justice - a 3D fighter developed by Byking and published by Bandai Namco in 2018 - received a lukewarm reception from fans....

The game originally came out on the Switch, PS4, and PC (via Epic) last year. To celebrate, it has a 25 percent discount on the Steam Store until 25th October. Watch on YouTube NEO: The World Ends with You | Final Trailer A sequel to DS RPG The World Ends with You, it likewise takes place in Tokyo and has a group of stylish characters forced to take part in the “Reaper’s Game”....

Netflix confirmed filming on season 3 was officially underway earlier this month, sharing a behind-the-scenes shot of the show’s Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri (that is, Henry Cavill, Anya Chalotra, and Freya Allan) on-set and in the snow. It also offered a brief summary of where things will be heading following the conclusion of last season, revealing that it’ll see Geralt taking Ciri of Cintra into hiding. “Entrusted with Ciri’s magical training,” the streaming service explained, “Yennefer leads them to the protected fortress of Aretuza, where she hopes to discover more about the girl’s untapped powers; instead, they discover they’ve landed in a battlefield of political corruption, dark magic, and treachery....

However, Badowski failed to address the allegations of crunch and Cyberpunk 2077’s unrealistic release timeline detailed in Bloomberg’s report. Quote tweeting Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier, Badowski published a statement pointing out Cyberpunk 2077’s demo was labelled as a “work in progress”, and while it is different to the end product, “our final game looks and plays way better than that demo ever was”. Missing features, Badowski insists, were “part of the creation process”....

Attorney general Letitia James announced the investigation last night, in response to the attack which killed 10 people and wounded three more. The perpetrator livestreamed the attack via Twitch for two minutes before the video was removed. Before the attack took place, he had posted numerous messages discussing and promoting his plans via Discord, as well as on the notorious imageboards 4chan and 8chan. All will now be part of James’ invesitigation....

However, while great, these games are a product of their time, and as such can look a little rough around the edges. Well, not anymore! Now, thanks to an emulator developer that goes by the name of Darío, these legendary games have been given not only ray-tracing upgrades, but also object motion blur, widescreen, DLSS and 60+ FPS. You can check out a clip of the emulator in action via the tweet below....