D&D’s new rules will be available under a Creative Commons licence-

Last year the Dungeons & Dragons community imploded over a leaked draft of a licence change that suggested Wizards of the Coast was planning to restrict how the D&D rules could be used by anyone publishing third-party supplements, or separate games derived from D&D’s 5th edition ruleset. At the peak of the outrage, Wizards of the Coast fully retreated from the proposed changes, and …

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Obsidian’s next RPG Avowed gets a trailer hinting at a trio of factions—those who want to purge the Dream Scourge, those who want to tame it, and a secret third thing-

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Avowed is Obsidian’s next RPG—and the cause of a lot of recent ‘please be good’ whispers from yours truly. My fingers are crossed hard that a team responsible for genuine bangers like Pillars of Eternity pull it off, but the whole thing’s a big hard veer into first-person action RPG territory, and I’m not entirely sold on just yet.

Granted, Obsidian’s also responsible for F…

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Logitech says it has ‘no plans’ for a subscription mouse—let’s keep it that way-

It can be difficult not to whip up a furore when reporting on certain things, especially when we’re getting all speculative about “coulds” and “woulds”. There was quite a furore over Logitech’s recent talk of a “forever mouse”, which was a speculative idea but an understandably concerning one for many gamers, myself included. The concern was that such a “forever mouse” would actually mean a mou…

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Starfield won’t let you ride aliens or go fishing, so modders- you know what to do-

Attention all prospective Starfield modders! You officially have your first few assignments.

In an interview with Kinda Funny Games posted today on YouTube, Todd Howard was asked a bunch of direct questions about Bethesda’s space RPG. In several cases the answers to those questions were, unfortunately: “No.”

One question had to do with how we’ll be getting around in Starfield…

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Respawn’s Star Wars FPS has been cancelled, Battlefield campaign studio Ridgeline Games is being closed-

Shortly after Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson announced plans to cut 5% of the studio’s workforce, EA’s entertainment and technology president Laura Miele said the company has also decided to cancel a Star Wars FPS that was in development at Respawn and close the studio that was working on the singleplayer campaign for the next Battlefield game.

The project was one of three Star Wars ga…

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Former Marathon director Christopher Barrett was reportedly fired by Bungie for inappropriate behavior with female employees-

Bungie announced in March that its upcoming Marathon reboot had a new game director: Joe Ziegler, the former director of Riot’s online shooter Valorant, who joined Bungie in 2022. Ziegler took over from Christopher Barrett, well known among Bungie fans as a designer and director on the Halo and Destiny games who’d been with the studio for nearly 25 years. A reason for Barrett’s surprise departu…

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The next Metro game is a ‘story-driven VR adventure’ where you turn into a ‘supernatural being’ while you look for your wife-

A new addition to the Metro series was revealed at today’s State of Play showcase called Metro Awakening. It’s coming later this year, and yes, it’s a VR game.

Metro Awakening is not being developed by 4A Games but by Vertigo Games, whose previous releases include the VR shooter Arizona Sunshine and, more recently, the VR remake of The 7th Guest. It’s a “story-driven first-person adventur…

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This madcap five buck microshooter just got a surprise free content update-

Dusk creator David Szymanski has been busy, cranking out two fantastic micro games in the past year, one of which is being made into a movie. The other, more recent project, Chop Goblins, is a far more arcadey and carefree affair than Iron Lung, and the half-hour FPS just got an update with new levels and features.

The biggest addition is those “remix levels,” which Szymanski describes as…

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UK market authority lays down guidance for principled use of AI-

For good or ill, artificial intelligence is here to stay. That’s actually underselling it because the AI industry is booming. Just ask Nvidia. Industries across the world are spending billions looking at ways to integrate AI models into their businesses. But while AI has the potential to boost productivity, accelerate innovation and become a useful tool for end users, global policy has yet to c…

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Valve cracks down on ‘wild west’ of 3rd party battle passes and other real-money transactions for custom Dota 2 game modes-

As noted by SteamDB creator Pavel Djundik, Valve has requested that all Dota 2 custom game makers cease real-money monetization in their creations by August 17. A number of popular modes for the juggernaut MOBA have already gone offline in response.

The custom game tools in Dota 2 gave rise to a vibrant modding scene, with the most notable example being autobattler genre progenitor Dota A…

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