Green light.
After last week’s 3DS 15th anniversary, we knew it was only a matter of time before another big hardware birthday sent us spiralling; we just didn’t expect it to come this quickly.
Today marks 20 years since the launch of the DS Lite in Japan — a fact that we are totally comfortable and okay with. Yes, on 2nd March 2006, Nintendo launched the slimmer, glossier, more colourful counterpart to the OG phat DS, and it was a beauty.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Over the years, World of Warcraft has started to feel like a big plate of comfort food to me, with big servings of quests piled up high, a generous scoop of lore on the side, with a nice, refreshing new expansion every so often to wash it down. It’s familiar. It’s cozy. It’s home.
Having been a casual WoW player for about 20 years now, which is a bonkers thing to type out, I’ve always enjoyed going at my own pace while exploring Azeroth. That’s to say I still don’t consider myself good at the game — sometimes all I want to do is collect a couple of boar pelts and call it a night, y’know? Now with the release of World of Warcraft: Midnight, the stakes continue to mount for the future of our heroes, and Azeroth itself, as we’re all being asked to take up arms… to move furniture.
Housing is one of the biggest features included in the newest expansion — maybe even one of the biggest new features in years — making World of Warcraft truly feel like a home. After a hard day of adventure, what’s better than taking a nice stroll through the neighborhood, hitting up a fishing spot, repairing a neighbor’s fence, and becoming envious of some of those larger houses down the street, to help round out your day in Azeroth?
For the last few weeks, I’ve been dabbling with the new Housing feature as part of the early access period of Midnight. While I may not be the most creative designer, I’ve found that the more time I’ve spent with the tools, the more adventurous I’ve felt in coming up with new layout ideas to stake my little corner of this fantastical world that I can call my own.
Things started off briskly when I first arrived in Razorwind Shores, the Housing island zone for Horde players (my main is a forsaken warrior) – Alliance players have Founder’s Point. The initial tutorial of finding a spot to live was a lot of fun, as Toncho Cloudhide — think of him as a Tauren realter — guided me through the various biomes that I could choose to live in.
From the lush forests of the Cragthorn Highlands, the impressive rocks along The Bluffs, and the seaside retreat along Saltfang Shoals, there’s sure to be a spot for anyone to call home. Selecting an available plot is as easy as clicking on the signpost and paying a small fee. But if there’s a particular patch you really have your heart set on, you can cycle through various servers to see if that spot has been claimed.
I didn’t have trouble finding an area that suited what I was looking for. In fact, I’ve already moved my house once! I initially set up shop in the more densely wooded area near the Highlands (one of the more popular biomes based on availability). Now I’m more central in Runetotem’s Bounty, which is a tropical mix of elegant flora and palm trees, complimented by fishing streams, beautiful waterfalls, and friendly creatures. It’s also a much closer walk to The Common, which works as a central hub full of vendors and neighborhood quest givers.
Having amassed quite a treasury over the years during my adventures, my gold stockpile is pretty healthy. As such, buying up a variety of furnishings in town from Decor Vendors isn’t hurting my bank account at all – and I don’t imagine it will hurt yours either. Most items like frames, chairs, desks, and light fixtures are priced at just a few gold coins, with the larger structures like tents and water fountains costing a bit more.
You can find most of the vendors located in The Common, with some others hiding just outside of town, down by the shore. What I would suggest, however, is finding a particular style that suits you before you start buying up everything on offer from these vendors. It is all about finding one who appeals to your design sense, like the wooden Bel’ameth style or the lavish Silvermoon interior to name a couple sold by Jehzar Stafall. For me, my go-to vendors are Shon’ja and Gronthul – I love that rugged Orgrimmar style for my home.
The large number of customizable home goods is another area I am incredibly impressed by – the sheer number of unique items you can purchase is a little mind-boggling. It’s clearly understood by the crafters of this world that not all sizes fit all, especially in a massive game like World of Warcraft, as these designs are intended to serve every type of player in Azeroth.
As I’ve mentioned, I’ve never considered myself a very creative person when it comes to designing a virtual living space in video games. Even in time with life sims like The Sims and Animal Crossing, I’ve usually erred on the basic placements of living room furniture: a bed, a table, a desk, and some chairs. Maybe a fun wallpaper. But something about the Housing feature for World of Warcraft has hit different.
I think a big part of it is that it finally feels like I can give my hero, whom I’ve spent years with, a place to live. I’ve gone on hundreds of quests over the years but, really, all I’ve been able to show for it has been a nice set of armor, a fancy mount, and a cool-looking sword. Which are all great — who doesn’t love a new piece of loot? But now these contributions in the world can be more noticeable and memorable. Housing gives me something more tangible to connect to within this world I’ve enjoyed participating in. There’s now a mark on the ground that I was here. And that really resonates with me.
Another nice feature is how my legacy has found a way to be included amongst the variety of decor I can add to my home. Alongside the variety of chairs and rugs, my collection includes mementos from adventures long ago (and some pre-order tie-in bonuses). It’s modest, but it’s my collection.
As such, I have the Head of the Broodmother sitting above my fireplace, the Nesingwary Elk Head adorned on a wall in my living room, and the Prime Evil chest from Diablo sitting in the corner. I also found a great place to put a miniature replica of The Dark Portal that I’ll share in a minute, which is a limited-time log-in bonus that players can grab right now.
When I started out, placement of my furniture was basic. A chair by the fireplace. A writing desk in the corner. A rug in the middle of the room. Then I started to play with the scaling and height of these objects. I put a few pictures up, windows, and then some candle lighting. Soon I found myself becoming more critical of where I’m positioning tables and bookshelves, leaning coffin lids up against walls, and creating a staircase to the second floor. Where a few weeks ago I wasn’t sure how to properly place a chair, now I’m meticulously placing cobwebs in my hallways… and building secret bookcases that lead to Dark Portals…
That’s to say the more time I’ve put into the creative tools, the more ideas have started to flow on how else to decorate my home. It’s a very cool and different approach to playing within World of Warcraft – I’m not trying to min/max anything. Instead, I’m fretting over what to do about that dark corner underneath my staircase. I’m no longer worried that I’m not carrying weight during a raid; now I need to find things to put on my bookshelf. I like it. It gives Azeroth a more “lived in” feel than anything that has been here before.
Over the years, the grand adventure of World of Warcraft has felt centered around fighting alongside iconic heroes, saving the world from numerous cataclysmic events, and charging into battle alongside names like Sylvannas and Thrall. But that was always in knowing that everyone gets to experience these same adventures too. Sometimes together, other times alone. Warcraft has always wanted you to feel like you’re contributing to this massive world. Now with the addition of Housing, that feeling is coming through stronger than anything Blizzard has done before.
A lot of care and attention has been spent to make sure every player has what they need to make their own home within Azeroth, be it in Razorwind Shores or Founder’s Point. It has really started to feel like I am here in Azeroth. This is my little slice of comfort. Now as I continue the next grand adventure with the launch of World of Warcraft: Midnight, I can’t wait to bring home some new tokens of adventure to adorn my little corner of this magnificent world.
The post Coming Home – World of Warcraft: Midnight’s New Housing Feature Adds a Cozy Paradise Within Azeroth appeared first on Xbox Wire.
ILL is a first-person action-horror game coming to PS5 that aims to deliver relentless terror, both when the player is in full control and during the game’s motion-captured cutscenes. I’m Max Verehin, Co-founder of Team Clout, and I’m honored to give the PlayStation community a behind-the-scenes look at the work that goes into creating the cutscenes that complement the game’s immersive, horrific gameplay.
This challenging new phase of development has been intense and unpredictable, but not entirely a leap into the unknown. Our background is deeply embedded in the language of cinema, with team members bringing extensive industry experience from working on major horror projects like the Until Dawn film and It: Welcome to Derry television series. We’ve spent years learning how a monster should move, how shadows should fall, and how a creature needs to command a frame to evoke true fear. Join us to catch a glimpse into our wonderfully engaging and deeply collaborative process.
At its core, ILL is grounded, emotionally honest horror. The story unfolds inside a massive research fort overrun by a mysterious force and the Aberrations it creates. The game leans into grotesque realism and intense binaural audio designed to keep players constantly on edge.
But beyond the brutality, our focus is immersion. We want moments to feel frightening, but also human. Characters aren’t just obstacles, they are three-dimensional people with motivations and personal stories that deepen the experience. Similarly, the locations in ILL are spaces designed to feel real, like you’re actually navigating them in person. We’re creating an environment that makes the player’s imagination work against them.
Our cinematic experience influences how we approach tension, pacing, and character presence. But the interactivity of video games as a medium changes that process. On set, every filming decision came back to one question: how will this feel once the player is in control?
Unlike traditional filmmaking, every scene in ILL connects directly to gameplay. The game stays in first-person, and most performance moments begin and end inside active play without cuts. We can’t rely on cinematic tricks—transitions have to return control naturally to the player, guiding what they do next and how the moment feels from their exact viewpoint.
Some cinematic ideas didn’t survive that test. If a scene disrupted the gameplay flow, we reworked it. It wasn’t an easy process, but one that ultimately made the overall play experience stronger.
Even though we’re making a game about monsters, the performances came from real people, and that changed our expectations fast. Dramatic scenes—those including expressions of fear like screaming, and crying—are physically and emotionally demanding. They drain real energy and real emotion. We quickly adjusted our schedule to match that reality, giving actors more creative breathing room to tackle the heaviest moments earlier in the day.
Some sequences we thought would be simple turned into hours of work, requiring precise choreography and tight synchronization between performers. Capturing believable horror isn’t just about acting: it requires timing, movement, and constant iteration.
Another surprise we encountered: not every scene can be played “into the void,” or without an audience. Sometimes actors need something tangible to react to. At different points, our own producer and supervisor stepped in as stand-ins for enemy creatures so our performers had a real presence in front of them.
And despite the grim material, the set itself wasn’t always heavy. After long days, the exhausted cast would suddenly crack jokes or start singing—small human moments that made the contrast with the final in-game atmosphere even sharper.
Working closely with actors became one of the most rewarding parts of the process. Watching performers grow into roles, get more comfortable with their characters—from rehearsals to final takes—changed how we saw certain scenes.
We came in with a clear script, but actors often suggested different deliveries or interpretations. Many came from dramatic or cinematic backgrounds, and their perspective helped shape the emotional tone. Instead of feeling rigid, filming became a genuinely collaborative space where ideas evolved in real time, with contributions from differing points of view.
In addition to the challenge of not having real monsters to react to, one of the other hurdles for our performers was to imagine a fully realized environment while standing in a nearly empty space. On set, props are minimal—sometimes nothing more than a stick representing a creature—while actors have to visualize the entire world around them.
To help, we used monitors showing a rough in-engine perspective from the protagonist’s POV, so performers could see their digital models moving in real time. It helped, but it also demanded focus: some actors instinctively glanced at the screens instead of staying fully in character. Directors and staging leads constantly guided performances by describing invisible walls, obstacles, and even threats. One of the game’s monster types, visible below, is just one of many that we need actors to clearly imagine in front of them.
In the end, a lot of solutions were invented on the fly: where to stand, how far to turn, how to capture emotion without breaking the technical side of the process. It’s a constant balance between creative intent and practical limits—and that’s where the “magic” happens.
ILL is in development for PlayStation 5, with release information to follow.
The cryptic Final Puzzle challenge in Resident Evil Requiem seems to have been fully solved, with video evidence of the method now circulating online.
Earlier today, Pokémon YouTuber Gengar Collects provided proof they were the first in the world to complete the Final Puzzle — but there was still confusion over how he’d done it, despite his attempts to try and help other fans.
Now, a repeatable method for finishing the puzzle has been published online — albeit only after datamining work was carried out to reveal the necessary requirements. The solution is bizarre, and there’s still discussion among fans now over why exactly it works this way. But first… here’s what you have to do.
RE9s Final Puzzle SOLVED!!!👀(Huge Game Wide Easter Egg Puzzle)
by the datamining tool that’s been solving Call of Duty Zombies Easter Eggs…This hunt has taken 4+ days & has been driving people INSANE
Solved by: Rantsy, @KyroGeorge & the entire RE9 Community
(Me & @Nanik0s… https://t.co/uVnyHgB399 pic.twitter.com/uQVcTxD8fO— ZoneX (@ZoneXbez) March 2, 2026
Warning! Spoilers for Resident Evil Requiem follow:
In a video published to YouTube, Resident Evil fan Kyro says they and fellow player Rantsycancy “spent two days tirelessly working through” Requiem’s Final Puzzle challenge based on a “datamining background.”
Step one requires you to wait 15 minutes at the game’s meat processing plant, where a conveyor belt of bodies are dumped into… well, a meat processor. In the following meat grinder sequence, you then must ensure all zombies die to the grinder, rather than shooting them yourself. All of this is to ensure that enough zombies have been harvested here, something the game quietly counts in the background.
Next, head to the toilets in the restroom area and flush one eight times. This is all you reportedly need to do to spawn Marie’s Doll during the facility escape sequence — the same doll that Gengar Collects accurately reported finding and using to complete the puzzle himself (though he wasn’t sure what he’d done to make it spawn).
From here, the solution resolves as Gengar Collects previously stated. You’ll need to complete the game, start a new save, then have Marie’s Doll in your inventory when inputting the now infamous code sequence into the DNA sequencer machine that players previously worked out last week. And with all of that done, The Final Puzzle is finally complete.
Fans are still working to deduce why this process is the solution to the puzzle. There’s speculation about a note referencing Marie that mentions extracting “a 2.3 millilitre sample from the 524.3 litres of blood collected from 115 infected,” which may be the count of bodies (or bodies not wrapped up) on the conveyor belt. Why you then need to flush a toilet eight times, though, remains to be seen.
For now, however, Resident Evil Requiem’s biggest mystery does at least have a full working solution. Are you planning to give it a go yourself?
IGN’s Resident Evil: Requiem guide will help you every step of the way through RE9. Take note of these key tips and tricks before you get started, and focus on finding these important items early. Plus, our comprehensive walkthrough will make sure you don’t miss a single Bobblehead or file as you try to survive from the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center all the way to Raccoon City.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Resident Evil Requiem released last Friday, and while many players are slicing up zombies as Leon S. Kennedy and creeping around as Grace Ashcroft, players of the Japanese version have noticed something is amiss. Namely, Requiem’s censorship of gore in its home country is being criticized for being immersion breaking and uncreative compared to past games in the series.
Warning! Resident Evil Requiem spoilers follow:
With Resident Evil being one of Japan’s major survival horror series, Capcom has previously come up with creative ways to censor domestic releases to meet the strict requirements of Japan’s CERO game ratings board. As The Gamer pointed out, in Resident Evil 7’s Japanese release, Capcom replaced the decapitated head found in a fridge with a photo of the deceased character. Other times, gory scenes (particularly decapitations) were removed entirely in Japan, including some of Leon’s most brutal death scenes in Resident Evil 4.
In a pre-release interview with Japanese news site Game Watch, Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi commented on the CERO Z (18+)-rated trial version of the game, noting: “While it’s not completely identical to the global version, I think that the content you will experience in (the Japanese release of) Requiem is quite comparable.”
However, many players of the Japanese version have since voiced their dissatisfaction with censorship in the final release.
As one player of the Japanese version pointed out in a (NSFW) Reddit post, Capcom started to show cutting off limbs in Resident Evil 4, implementing a workaround whereby gore and entrails would be blacked-out. With Resident Evil Requiem, Capcom has also opted for blacking out the gore, however, this has extended to covering whole missing areas of bodies in black to the point where it is really noticeable.
For example, in one puzzle in Requiem, you have to find an artificial heart and lungs to place inside a dead body in order to get the Level 2 ID wristband. In the Japanese version, the entire upper body and the heart and lungs themselves are completely black. As the Redditor noted, this “censorship is way more noticeable imo, to the point where it really kills immersion.”
Although many longtime Japanese fans have come to expect domestic releases of Resident Evil games to be censored, many opined that Resident Evil Requiem’s censorship was more excessive or distracting than previous entries. “I get that restrictions are unavoidable but the problem is that it’s gotten worse from RE4 onwards. If the censorship was on the same level as RE4, I wouldn’t have any complaints,” tweeted one user in Japanese. Despite saying the game lived up to their expectations, a Requiem completer noted, “The CERO censorship (blacked-out sections and stuff you couldn’t see) felt so jarring and overemphasized.” Another user added, “It really bothers me that although blood during cutscenes is red, damage dealt to zombies (headshots or severed arms) is black.”
Resident Evil Requiem players on Steam also reported that the Japanese version of the game on PC is censored too, with at least one English-speaking user requesting a refund because of it. Some users on X have recommended that those in Japan who want the full, gory experience should get the uncensored overseas releases on Steam (such as the UK version), noting that they have Japanese language support.
But why is the Japanese version censored in the first place? In order to get a game physically released on consoles in Japan, it has to pass CERO, the country’s ratings board. CERO has five age categories, the highest being CERO Z (18+), which Resident Evil Requiem falls under. However, even CERO’s top age rating has historically cracked down on gore, particularly on depictions of severed body parts, decapitations, and body horror. Previously, The Callisto Protocol’s Japan release was cancelled because developer Striking Distance Studios was unwilling to make the changes demanded by CERO’s rating board, as such censorship would compromise player expectations (according to the studio’s tweet).
For download-only games, publishers can try and get an IARC (International Age Rating Coalition) rating instead, as IARC is supported by many online storefronts in Japan, such as the Nintendo eShop and PlayStation Store. However, for physical console releases, games have to pass the CERO board. It’s worth noting that if a game fails to pass CERO the first time, the developers not only have to make changes to the content, but they also have to factor in the time it takes and the cost of paying a review fee again. In addition to the review fee, publishers have to pay a porting fee for each of the platforms they want to release a physical copy on. This makes gaining a CERO rating costly in terms of both time and money (especially for indie developers).
Although Capcom is far from a cash-strapped indie developer, CERO’s strict censorship of gore, combined with Resident Evil Requiem’s close-up, realistic depictions could have prompted the company to play it safe by shading problematic areas in black.
We’ve got plenty more on Resident Evil Requiem, including the hunt for the solution to its cryptic Final Puzzle solution, which has been confusing fans for the past week. Today, one person does now appear to have solved the Final Puzzle — but the mystery around the challenge remains, as it’s unclear exactly how they did it.
IGN’s Resident Evil: Requiem guide will help you every step of the way through RE9. Take note of these key tips and tricks before you get started, and focus on finding these important items early. Plus, our comprehensive walkthrough will make sure you don’t miss a single Bobblehead or file as you try to survive from the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center all the way to Raccoon City.
Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.
Welp. The Cities: Skylines series turns 11 years old today, so publishers Paradox have announced a bunch of stuff designed to celebrate that occasion. Look, look, they’ve said, here’s a brand new expansion for the original Cities: Skylines and it’ll launch next week. Oh and, they’ve also said, recently under-new-management sequel Cities: Skylines 2 is getting a couple of creator packs.
Hooded Horse and Mohawk Games have announced a new expansion for their resolutely pre-modern 4X strategy game Old World. It’s called Empires of the Indus, and as you may guess, it concerns the nations and cultures that once flourished along the banks of the river Indus, running through central and south Asia. Nations and cultures like “the mighty Mauryas, who founded one of the greatest Iron Age empires under the rule of Emperor Ashoka” and “the nomadic horse lords of the Yuezhi who transformed the region as the Kushan Empire”.
You wanted more?
Clearly not content with its barrage of presentations recently, Nintendo has announced that it will be airing an Indie World showcase tomorrow, 3rd March.
As revealed on Nintendo Today!, the showcase will kick off at 2pm GMT, and promises 15 minutes of info on all the indie goodness coming to Switch systems in the coming months.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Reliable video game leaker billbil-kun has revealed the release date and price for Starfield on PlayStation 5 ahead of an official announcement from Bethesda and Microsoft.
In a post on Deadlabs, billbil-kun said Starfield will release on PS5 on April 7, and it will indeed have a physical edition.
Assuming this release date is true (billbil-kun regularly and accurately leaks PlayStation Plus games, so we have no reason to doubt it), Bethesda’s sci-fi game launches on PlayStation two-and-a-half years after it debuted on PC and Xbox Series X and S, back in September 2023.
Billbil-kun also revealed Starfield will launch on PS5 in Standard and Premium editions, as you’d expect, but there’s no early access for the Premium edition.
As for a price, billbil-kun said it will cost €49.99 / £44.99 for the standard edition, and €69.99 / £59.99 for the Premium Edition, with pre-orders expected on March 18. There’s no word yet on when the announcement will be made.
That price is interesting though as it’s cheaper than Starfield’s PC and Xbox Series X and S launch price from 2023. The Standard Edition of Starfield currently costs £59.99 on Steam, and the Premium Edition costs £85.99, so perhaps a price-cut to align all versions is coming soon.
Last month, Bethesda boss Todd Howard confirmed that Starfield is not getting a huge 2.0-type update. “Obviously, we’ve been working on a lot of Starfield content. I can tell everybody we are going to be talking about [the new content] really soon,” Howard told Kinda Funny. “We’re moving into a phase where we’re ready to talk about Starfield. And really show that in the right way, and what’s coming to the game. We’ve been doing a lot of work that we like a lot.”
Howard added: “You know, I’ve seen some of that, so for expectation-setting, I think it’s the kind of thing where if you love Starfield, we think you’re going to love this. It’s updates and things that change the game, not in an isolated way, but sort of meta. Using outer space and things in ways that we haven’t.”
Interestingly, Howard made a point of saying that ”if Starfield is something that didn’t connect with you right away, or you bounced off it, or found it boring in places, I don’t think this is going to change that fundamentally.”
Though Howard was coy about timelines, he did say we may find out more “soonish.”
Starfield launched in September 2023 as Bethesda’s first brand new IP in 25 years, but it was not as well received as the studio’s previous games in the Fallout and The Elder Scrolls franchises, and the Shattered Space expansion, released a year later in September 2024, has a ‘mostly negative’ user review rating on Steam.
Starfield went on to reach 15 million players, but the question of whether Bethesda might walk away from the game to focus on its other franchises has been a running theme since release. In June 2024, Bethesda insisted it remained committed to supporting Starfield, and confirmed at least one other story expansion would come out following Shattered Space. And in an interview with YouTube channel MrMattyPlays, Bethesda Game Studios’ Todd Howard said the developer was aiming to release an annual story expansion for “hopefully a very long time.” That, obviously, hasn’t happened. In August last year, it was reported that Starfield’s second expansion and much-anticipated PlayStation 5 port would now arrive in 2026, following the poor reception to Shattered Space.
Bethesda has confirmed plans to improve Starfield space gameplay “to make the travels there more rewarding” after datamined fragments of code suggested the developer had a more streamlined space travel experience in the works. Based on this datamine, while you may be able to travel between planets within the same system, you won’t be able to fly all the way between systems, nor fly directly from a planet’s surface into orbit, like No Man’s Sky.
In a new video discussing his career, veteran Bethesda developer Tim Lamb confirmed that the studio had been working on Starfield’s space gameplay, and that a new DLC story was still coming at some point.
“I think as it comes to Starfield, I’m really excited for players to see what the teams have been working on,” he said. “We have some cool stuff coming, including free updates and features the players have been asking for, as well as a new DLC story.
“I can’t go into all the details just yet, but I will say part of the team has been focused on space gameplay to make the travels there more rewarding. We’re also adding some new game systems, and a few other smaller delights. There’s also some really interesting stuff coming down the pipe from our verified creators. There’s some fun stuff.
“I just want to say thanks. We really appreciate the support and the enthusiasm. We can’t wait to get it into the hands of our players.”
Last month, Bethesda teased new content for Starfield — at least that’s what fans thought after they spotted a hidden message in a social media video released to celebrate the game’s two-year anniversary.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
