Month: October 2024

Warning: Major Spoilers for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt lie ahead.Which ending to the base version of The Witcher 3 you get depends on a lot of things. There are the big obvious choices, along with a heap of smaller ones, and it’s the former that really shapes the final proper cutscene you get before the game paints a picture of the rest in storybook style. As it turns out, there was a little more to one of these final cutscenes, and a modder’s now restored it.As with the majority of the more interesting works that’ve popped up as part of a Witcher 3 modding rennaisance over the last few months, this one wouldn’t have been possible without the REDkit modding tools. You know, the ones that’re providing a lot of cool stuff to help tide us all over while we wait for more news on The Witcher 4 an…

I don’t mean to alarm you, but some Final Fantasy 16 players on PS5 have recently found their nice little playthroughs invaded by large black blobs or boxes that threaten to ruin poor Clive’s day. No, this isn’t some DLC, it looks to be part of some graphical issues that’ve followed a recent update to the console’s firmware, which Sony and Square Enix have said they’re looking into.Taking a glance at Reddit or Twitter, you’ll find a number of posts with players showing off or talking about problems they’ve run into. My personal favorite is the clip I’ve embedded below of someone having to outrun a void that’s seemingly decided to chase them around a bit and momentarily swallow Mr Rosfield whole.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings “The PS5 system updat…

Despite only being delayed just the other week, Tales of the Shire already has a release date, and it’s not much later than you might have expected.Earlier this month, Wētā Workshop Game Studio announced that its debut title, the cosy life-sim Tales of the Shire: A Lord of the Rings Game, had been delayed. It wasn’t clear by how much, but yesterday, during a Hobbit Day Showcase, the developer alongside the game’s publisher Private Division announced that you can now expect to play Tales of the Shire on March 25, 2025. That’s pretty much exactly six months away, and just a few months into the new year, so considering it was meant to be out in 2024, you’ve really not got that much longer to wait.A Hobbit Day Showcase | Tales of the Shire Exclusive Inside Look Watch on You…

Empire of the Ants, which you may know as that Unreal Engine 5 game in which you – a real life human being – play as an ant, has been confirmed to be hitting 60 FPS when it arrives on PS5 Pro as a day one launch title for the console on November 7.Yes, a game where you play as an ant will be “one of the first to fully harness the power of the PlayStation 5 Pro”, and to be fair, it looks like a pretty good use of all that tech that’s gone into the expensive box that you could have bagged a retro-styled version of if you’d been desperately queuing to empty out your wallet this morning.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings The reveal that this is a thing came alongside some fresh gameplay from Empire of the Ants, which shows an ant getting up to exactly th…

The Franchise has received a new official trailer, and it certainly looks like it’s going to capture how terrible making a superhero must be.I think we all know by now that making a movie is often a stressful experience, and that’s putting it lightly. You can only imagine how awful it must be to work on a Marvel film in particular, considering how terribly (allegedly) those that make all the CG are treated, not even mentioning how literally everything is greenscreened these days. But clearly Succession writer and producer Jon Brown felt that after almost 20 years of Marvel movies, and a bit less than that of DC ones, it was time for a satire that tackled actually making one of those blockbusters. Enter, The Franchise.The Franchise | Official Trailer | Max Watch on YouTubeYou can check out …

Legendary’s MonsterVerse is in a pretty good spot after its last two crossover movies and Apple TV+’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters surprisingly being one of the best super expensive tie-in shows based on big-screen properties. Now, it’s juicing up its cast ahead of Season 2, and Amber Midthunder is first in line.Variety broke the news on October 8, revealing the rising star is joining Season 2 of the show “in a heavily recurring role.”To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings While Midthunder had already made a splash in TV shows like FX’s Legion, it was the 2022 Predator prequel/spinoff Prey that made her one of Hollywood’s new favourites and young talent to watch out for. As it stands, Prey 2 is happening at 20th Century Studios, but the creatives behind i…

Bandai Namco – publisher of games including Elden Ring, Tekken 8, and the recently released Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO – is repordely seeking to reduce its staff headcount, having decided to “either cancel or pause development” of several titles.This is according to a report from Bloomberg, which alleges that the company is “sending workers to rooms where they are given nothing to do, putting pressure on them to leave voluntarily.”To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings The report claims that Bandai Namco has moved “about 200” of its around 1,300 employees to such rooms – known in Japan as “oidashi beya, or ‘expulsion rooms'” – so far, with “nearly 100” having resigned.The purpose of such rooms, in a country with strict employment laws that make laying f…

VariousThere are so many ways to be a Dungeons & Dragons fan these days. The tabletop RPG mainstay has been synonymous with pen-and-paper adventuring for 50 years now, and 2024 marks a major reworking of its core rulebooks to make the game more approachable. Anyone who’s played even just a couple of sessions knows how easy it can be to covet a friend’s set of custom dice, appreciate the care a Dungeon Master has taken in setting the right ambience for a crafted campaign, or even obsess over their choice of pen and notebook — after all, it’s what you’ll be spending a large chunk of time staring into as you ponder your character’s next heroic action.But what’s amazing is that you can be a huge D&D fan without ever touching a character sheet. D&D and the Forgotten R…

Traveller’s TalesAlice Jovanée (she/her) is a commerce writer, and she has been writing about gaming and tech since 2005. Prior to Polygon, she worked at publications such as The Verge.Regardless of how you feel about the current season of Rings of Power, if you’re looking for another way to satiate your Tolkien love you’ll definitely want to check out the current catalog of free games available to Amazon Prime members. Earlier this month, both Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor GOTY Edition, and Lego The Lord of the Rings were made available to Amazon Prime members for free through Sept. 30. However, you can now also pick up Lego The Hobbit for free through Oct. 23. Just head to the corresponding Prime Gaming page and you’ll be presented with a code that you can redeem on GOG.com fo…

Nintendo of AmericaCameron Faulkner (he/him) is Polygon’s commerce editor. He began writing about tech and gaming in 2013, and migrated from The Verge in 2023.One of the best unofficial October Prime Day deals has come early at Woot, where you can get a new Nintendo Switch OLED with either white or neon blue/red Joy-Con for $299.99 ($50 off). It’s not typical for this console to receive any kind of discount, so we’re usually skeptical that there’s something amiss when one pops up, like an iffy warranty, or that it isn’t the U.S. version, which includes a different power adapter. However, there are no strings attached; you’re just getting a great deal.Nintendo Switch OLED$300$35014% off$300Nintendo’s hybrid console still has plenty of staying power, especially with this year�…