Big Games Detail Their PS5 Pro Modes, Space Marine 2 Reverts Controversial Changes, And More Of The Week's Top Stories

4 weeks ago 93

Image for article titled Big Games Detail Their PS5 Pro Modes, Space Marine 2 Reverts Controversial Changes, And More Of The Week's Top Stories

This week, YouTuber Rosanna Pansino found moldy cheese in Lunchlys, the Lunchables competitor that counts MrBeast and Logan Paul among its creators. Also, developer Fntastic, which made waves last year when its game The Day Before, once one of the most wishlisted games on Steam, was released and found to be nothing like it had appeared in trailers, is drawing ire and ridicule once again after brazenly announcing it has a new game in the works.

In other news, Space Marine 2 reverted changes that made the game harder in ways that most players found unenjoyable, and its director provided insight into why they made those changes in the first place. And as the release of the PS5 Pro nears, more games are revealing details of what we can expect from their visuals and performance on the more powerful console. All these stories and more in the pages ahead.

A screenshot from the Rating Streamers Ayyrabs panel at TwitchCon.

Streaming platform Twitch has banned several high-profile Arab streamers for a panel that took place at TwitchCon last month. The banned streamers include CapriSunnPapi, Fr0gan, Raffoulticket, DenimsTV, and Vio (who is not Arab), all of whom took part in a live-streamed panel during day two of TwitchCon San Diego where they placed popular Twitch personalities on a tier list of who could or couldn’t say “habibi,” the Arab word for “friend” or “beloved.” - Alyssa Mercante Read More

Smash Bros. Ultimate fighters crowd its key art.

It’s been two and a half years since Masahiro Sakurai, best known for directing Smash Bros. Ultimate and the other entries in Nintendo’s hit platform fighting series, took a break from development to create a YouTube channel dedicated to educating fans and players about how games are made. The channel’s final video went up today, and Sakurai capped it off with two surprise announcements. - Ethan Gach Read More

Rosanna Pansino opens a box of Lunchlys.

Lunchly are YouTuber-branded Lunchables. Created by Jimmy “Mr Beast” Donaldson, Olajide Olayinka “KSI” Olatunji, and Logan Paul, they’re supposed to be a healthier (and pricier) alternative to the space age Oscar Meyer snack packs. However, some of the Lunchlys apparently also have mold in them though. Yuck! - Ethan Gach Read More

A Mario ? box on the participation page for Nintendo's Playtest.

When Nintendo announced a secretive 10,000-person playtest for an NDA-enwrapped project, speculation naturally ran wild. While something to do with the upcoming reveal and release of the Switch’s successor seemed the most popular idea, others wondered if it might be some sort of expansion of the Switch Online subscription. Places were filled up within seconds, with participants sworn to secrecy, so of course it was only a matter of time before the details leaked. - John Walker Read More

Last week, Space Marine 2's 4.0 update arrived and many players weren’t happy about it. While the free patch did add a new mission, it also made the co-op third-person shooter much, much harder in some annoying ways. Now, developer Saber is rolling some of these changes back and promising to add public test servers, too. - Zack Zwiezen Read More

A power armor helmet is in front of the American flag

Fallout: Vault 13 is a long-in-development mod designed to recreate the original post-apocalyptic RPG using Fallout 4. An expansive demo was released just a few months ago, but the fans behind the ambitious project say it’s now been canceled due to life changes among its volunteer team as well as general “burnout.” - Ethan Gach Read More

A few traffic pylons in Grand Theft Auto V might not seem like something people would care about. But a recent GTA Online update has changed how these fan-favorite pylons react when hit. This has annoyed many and led to people begging Rockstar to fix the pylons and stop changing GTA V. - Zack Zwiezen Read More

The PS5 Pro is out in just a few weeks promising “enhancements” for over 50 games to start. One of those is The Last Of Us Part I, which was showcased in the initial tech demo for the hardware running more smoothly at higher fidelities than its current PS5-only version. The Naughty Dog hit and other blockbusters are now starting to reveal just exactly what modes will become available to players who decide to spend $700 on Sony’s newest console. - Ethan Gach Read More

You know what’s always fun? Watching grifters flail. That aside, there’s news about the clown-car developers of The Day Before, that hilariously terrible bait-n-switch 2023 game that went from Steam’s most wishlisted to most hated, over the course of an increasingly ridiculous series of delays, and the eventual release of a game that barely resembled what had been promised. Then, like a bedraggled phoenix, crawling and wheezing from the ashes, this year developers Fntastic returned with news of a new game, and with quite some brass, a new Kickstarter to fund it. Guess what?! Forget about that game too, they’ve got another new one! - John Walker Read More

A trainer stands behind Jynx on a battlefield.

Earlier this month, Pokémon developer Game Freak suffered a massive data breach and ever since, details about and assets for projects new and old have been trickling out onto the internet. These have ranged from unused Pokémon who never saw the light of day, to information on upcoming games like next year’s Pokémon Legends: Z-A. In the midst of it all, one detail that’s surfaced is concept art for an unused form of one of the more controversial Pokémon in the original 151. It turns out that Jynx almost had a more powerful mega evolution form in Pokémon X and Y. - Kenneth Shepard Read More