Vivendi has balls French media conglomerate Vivendi has completed itshostile takeoverof mobile publisher Gameloft. Now that it’s a done deal, Vivendi is welcoming Gameloft employees to their new family. In aletterthat, ostensibly, says “you work for us now,” Vivendi greeted the Gameloft team. “You will join shortly an international content and media group where creativity is the heart of its organization and its activities.We are very pleased to welcome you and to pool your talents with ours, so that together, we will be a stronger presence on the worldwide entertainment market,” it reads....

It starts at 11am Pacific It’s the biggest weekend of the year for Blizzard and for the people who play its games. BlizzCon 2016 is taking place in Anaheim, California right now, and it’s almost time for the biggest hour of the biggest weekend. At 2pm Eastern/11am Pacific, BlizzCon’s keynote takes place. That’s when any significant news to come out of this show will be announced. Some possible candidates are a long-awaited Sombra reveal forOverwatch, aHearthstoneexpansion, a Necromancer class forDiablo III, and, if the gods are smiling upon us, maybe aDiablo 4announcement....

Congrats, soldiers, you’ve made it to another weekend. And you know what that means: 48 hours of unhealthy gaming. Lots of stuff on the table this time around (and more waiting just around the corner), because there’s never a dull moment in video games. As good a time as any for REMATCH Now, look, I’m not all too much of a sporty dude. Last time I rolled a ball over the ground didn’t end very well, and don’t even get me started on when I had to roll itaroundanother dude....

Artificial intelligence is growing by the day, with updated models making life-realistic videos in seconds, computing questions and answers even faster, and having conversations daily. One of the most prolific AI right now is Grok, run by Elon Musk’s company xAI. The bot gets countless commands each day by users on Twitter/X, and it’s been in the news for some very unfortunate reasons of late. Recently, Musk said Grok was too “woke” so he announced plans to make it less politically correct....

The two games that won’t ever die come together through a little hackery. Cloud Strife, the spiky haired hero of Square Enix RPGFinal Fantasy VII, has been inserted into Nintendo’sSuper Smash Bros. Brawl, Buster Sword and all. Cool idea, I guess, but the modders must have made sure Cloud had his Generic Materia equipped as it looks like Cloud is wearing a tight-fitting Janitor’s worksuit. You can see him in action in the video above?...

And used games will require a fee to play Wired already has gotten its hands on theXbox Oneahead of time, and as a result, has abit of in-depth informationto report beyond what’s been seen in Microsoft’s presentation. For starters, the outlet learned that the Xbox One isnotbackwards compatible, stating “Neither of their new machines are backward compatible with their current ones. That means your seven years’ worth of digital game purchases made over the Xbox Live Marketplace won’t function on the new machine....

GOTY version on the Switch? It feels weird reporting on all this radPokken Tournamentnews and having Nintendo and Bandai Namco staying completely silent about the Wii U version, but here we go again. As revealed by the game’s official Twitter account, another mystery Pokemon is set to grace the arcade edition, following Darkrai and Scizor. They’ll be revealed on November 1, and based on the [correct] leaks given so far, it will be Empoleon....

It’s becoming a trend The troubled launch of 343 Industries’Halo: The Master Chief Collectionhas been well-documented. Ever since its November 11 release, players routinely experienced difficulties getting the multiplayer component of the game to work, as 343 scrambled to develop patch after patch hoping to rectify the situation. While the situation is less than ideal, 343 and Microsoft are attempting to make amends. Over the weekend, it was revealed that anyone who playedMaster Chief Collectiononline between launch and December 19 would receive a remake ofHalo 3: ODSTfree sometime in the (presumably) near future....

A frantic infection-style multiplayer mode It’s simultaneously neat, funny, and impressive thatA Hat in Timeis still rolling out new contentafter all this time, and the latest release, theVanessa’s CurseDLC, is releasing on November 27 — but only on Steam. It’s a crown-collecting online multiplayer mode. As the trailer shows,Vanessa’s Cursebuilds on the loreof the main story, but it’s all about multiplayer with a gameplay hook similar to “infection” modes in other games....

Well, if euthanasia is cute Did you play the dystopian Soviet nightmarePapers, Pleaseand think “this is good, but I bet it would be better if I was accepting or rejecting cute pets instead of these dreary Eastern Bloc sad sacks.” If so, you’re a lunatic. But, the good news is some other lunatic went ahead and made that game. Animal Inspectorcasts you as bureaucratic cog in a machine that eats adorable pets....

If you’ve been trying to enjoy the early access ofMadden 26but can’t do it properly, you’re not alone. The opening night of early access has been highly problematic for the servers. Numerous in-game issues and bugs have already appeared, particularly on the PC version. As a result, EA Sports has called in an emergency maintenance, which is already underway. Table of contents Is Madden 26 down? As the time of writing this article,on Aug....

Kill dicks in (better) HD! Months ago during E3, someone “let loose” screenshots of a remasteredBulletstorm. While fans got excited, nothing was ever confirmed or denied regarding the status of a next-gen port. While this isn’t an official statement about the existence of a remaster, the Brazil Advisory Rating Board has given a rating to something calledBulletstorm: Full Clip Edition. The platforms listed in theratingare PC, Xbox One and PS4. The publisher is everyone’s favorite, Gearbox Software....

In summation: Year 1 with benefits Destiny 2‘sShadowkeepexpansion arrives on October 1, which is going to be relevant to hardcore players everywhere. But for everyone else it’s also the start of the “New Light” version ofD2, which is basically “Destiny 2: Limited Free-to-play Edition.” Although Bungie has been very transparent on what that entails, they’ve put out a handy infographic this week to clarify exactly what you’re getting. New Lightincludes Year 1 content, which isthe baseDestiny 2game, and the pannedCurse of Osiris/Warmindmedium-sized expansions....