Skull and Bones - Ubisoft's extraordinarily long in the works (and not particularly good) open-world pirate adventure - is getting a free week-long trial next week, and it'll coincide with the launch of the live-service game's second season of post-launch content. When Skull and Bones released in February - some 11 years after its troubled development started - Ubisoft trumpeted "record player engagement", but did not share sales figures. It's unclear just how well the pirate game has done for the publisher, then, but Ubisoft evidently believes it needs a bit of a boost given its impending we ..read more

A new entry in Sony's beloved Astro Bot series is reportedly in development and set to be officially unveiled very soon. That's according to extremely reliable PlayStation leaker Billbil-kun, writing for Dealabs. Word of a new Astro Bot game first surfaced earlier this year via journalist and prolific leaker Jeff Grub, but Billbil-kun says the project - in development at Astro Bot studio Team Asobi - is set to be formally unveiled within the next two weeks. Details are limited but it's claimed the new Astro Bot - likely be called exactly that - is partly set in a desert environment and will f ..read more

Welcome back! Let's Get Evil is a monthly series for Eurogamer Supporters in which Bertie rampages through games being as evil as he can. It sounds easy, but is it? And how much freedom to be horrible does each game afford? There's only one way to find out. Note, spoilers will naturally occur as Bertie gets further and further through Baldur's Gate 3. Currently, he's dealing with events in Act 3, especially those revolving around the Dark Urge. If you're joining us for the free trial this month, make sure you catch up on the earlier instalments - then you'll know the true power of the Dark Si ..read more

Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 is one of the most visually stunning games of the year. Built on Epic's Unreal Engine 5, the game takes place in an incredibly detailed and strikingly lit world, featuring outstanding character rendering. At least that's how the game fares on Xbox Series X, so the question is how lower-specced hardware can handle this rendering juggernaut. We decided to take a look at how well Hellblade 2 runs on Xbox Series S, which has a fraction of the GPU compute of its larger sibling, followed by Valve's Steam Deck and the Asus ROG Ally. How scalable is Hellblade 2 and can less ..read more

Ubisoft's free-to-play arena shooter XDefiant's first patch has been released. Entitled "Preseason Patch 1", it addresses a number of specific issues, including one with loading into the Practice Zone – some players found themselves "in a hellscape" outside the world – and another that sees devices dropped at players' feet should they die during device deployment. Up until now, they would still be thrown as if you hadn't just carked it. This means Practice Zone has been turned back on, although the team warns "it's possible weird things could still happen". So make of that what you will. Read ..read more

Avalanche founder Christofer Sundberg has hit back at Mad Max film director George Miller for claiming the studio's game "wasn't as good as [he] wanted it to be". During promotion for the new Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga film, Miller was asked by GamingBible about whether a new game was considered alongside the film. He responded that Avalanche's previous game "wasn't as good as I wanted it to be", adding "I'm one of those people that I'd rather not do something unless you can do it at the highest level". He then said he'd love for Hideo Kojima to take on the challenge of a Mad Max game - because ..read more

If you are looking to get your hands on Dave the Diver's free Godzilla DLC, there is a limited time you will be able to do so. This DLC adds three new missions to Dave the Diver, each of which will be available after chapter five's close. There are also new dishes to discover, and a number of Godzilla figures scattered throughout the ocean for players to collect. You can see a little teaser for Dave the Diver's Godzilla DLC in the video below. Read more ..read more

I've had a week of vampires. I finally managed to get my thoughts together in a V Rising review after being quite frustrated with the game, then quite smitten by it, and then I wrote about vampires for Five of the Best, and I'll be writing about vampires again for Bertie's Evil Adventures. Blimey - let's hope I still have something incisor to say after all of that! I promise you that introduction wasn't just an elaborate set-up for a terrible pun. But as much as I want to write about vampires again for Game of the Week, there's another game I simply can't ignore (even though Lorelei and the L ..read more

Apex Legends developer Respawn is recruiting a design director with "multiplayer FPS experience" to join its incubation game team. While there are no clues about whether the position will contribute to a new franchise or an existing one, the fact Respawn is applying its first-person shooter chops to an unannounced game is welcomed news for many shooter fans, particularly as the studio's Star Wars project - reported to be a Mandalorian game - was cancelled amidst EA's recent cull of 670 employees. Whatever the project is, don't expect a gameplay trailer any time soon, though. The position is d ..read more

Arrowhead's chaotic alien-shooter Helldivers 2 became PlayStation's fastest-selling game ever, but despite its initial success, player numbers have since declined. A look at the game's Steam charts shows a steady drop since February, when the game launched. According to SteamDB, at its peak in February shortly after launch, there were 458,709 concurrent players. In comparison, its peak over the last 30 days is 166,305. That's a drop of 64 percent. Looking by average players, February had 208,303 helldivers in the game. That average player count has dropped to 78,634 over the last 30 days (a 6 ..read more