Your eyes are not deceiving you, reader — the hugely influential FPS DOOM is now fully playable inside a PDF file. Did anyone ask for this? Probably. And it’s a pretty impressive feat.
Reported on by IGN (via Push Square), a high-school student known as ading2210 on github has ported DOOM into a PDF that you can play inside a Chromium-based browser. Dubbed DOOMPDF, it’s missing some text and sound, but it’s otherwise a fully functioning black-and-white version of DOOM.
We’re back! My name is Blake Stone, Lead Designer at VitruviusVR, the development team behind Mervils & Shadow Legend VR on the original PS VR. We are very excited to launch our newest title Arken Age, a single-player VR adventure set in a terraformed sci-fi fantasy world.
In the game you engage in full physics-based combat using Arkenite infused swords & guns; and can freely explore the densely filled environments under siege by Hyperion’s neural corruption. Arken Age has a full 15-hour story driven campaign, was built from the ground-up for PlayStation VR2, and is launching tomorrow, January 16.
10 years of developing for PlayStation VR
In 2015, we were demoing an early version of Mervils: A VR Adventure, our third-person VR platforming game at the Immersed Conference in Toronto, Canada when we were approached by Richard Marks, Head of Sony’s Magic Lab at the time. He couldn’t tell us too much, but said that his team “had something really cool in works for VR” and that Mervils could be a great fit for it. He later sent us a prototype of the Project Morpheus headset which would later be renamed PlayStation VR, and since then we have never looked back.
We released Mervils in 2017 and later launched Shadow Legend VR in 2020, a first-person medieval sword-fighting game, and we learned a ton from the PlayStation VR community’s feedback on those games that we have directly applied to Arken Age.
From Shadow Legend we learned that players loved the Climbing Picks both for their fluidity of movement in VR and haptics on impact. For Arken Age we took the Climbing Picks one step further and physically integrated them into the players forearms and added the ability to flick your wrists upwards to deploy them at any time during the game.
The Climbing Picks is only one example, but there’s so much more included in the game. We further refined our custom VR inventory system, weapon crafting, character interactions, unique combat features, exploration elements, and our design philosophy behind building high-fidelity worlds in VR.
In order to take full advantage of the PlayStation VR2 we worked hard to ensure Arken Age’s rendering, shaders, particle-effects, and post-effects were compatible with Dynamic Foveated Rendering (DFR) for the best image resolution possible. Although, image quality is not the only benefit of the PS VR2, with the vibrant world of the Bio-Chasm in Arken Age, it really showcases the importance of HDR graphics in VR with the bright blue waters, lush foliage, and emissive energy bloom from Arkenite weapons, buildings, & the robotic Hyperion soldiers in the world.
VR weaponry & custom adaptive triggers
When developing Arken Age our biggest focus was on realistic physics-based combat and one-of-a-kind VR weaponry; each with their own unique Adaptive Trigger haptics. In the game you begin with 3 fully customizable & paintable weapons and can collect over 30 unique weapon mods in total. Each attachment is custom designed for VR gameplay, ranging from the Hyperion God Axe; a throwing axe that uses PS VR2’s eye-tracking & can be recalled at your will, the Tempered Cutter; a deployable saw blade that dismembers enemy limbs, and the Astral Ballista; a high-powered chargeable bow, to name a few. In addition, eye-tracking is used to enable the sniper scopes in the game, just close one eye when your head is close to a scope and watch the magic happen!
Uncover the story of Bio-Chasm & your full VR alien body
In Arken Age you are a biological alien creation, built with full locomotion and the ability to freely jump, crouch, climb, & swim. You can view your full body in first-person and holster all weapons physically onto your character.
Your journey begins in Celestial Custodian’s Tower on the shores of the Bio-Chasm, a terraformed realm created to harvest Arkenite Energy. Its divine founder, the Grand Arborist, has ceased cultivation of your planet and every transmission sent to him has been met with abject silence. In Arken Age you uncover the truth behind the disappearance of the Grand Arborist, forge alliance with the Nara alien race, take up arms against Hyperion’s legion of corrupted soldiers, and learn how your character; who is part Nara and part Hyperion tech, fits into this world.
Arken Age takes the player through a full 15-hour adventure, combines both physics-based sword combat with long-range gun combat, has a wide-range of custom VR interactions, epic VR boss fights, and gives the player full freedom to explore the dense environments of the Bio-Chasm.
We want to thank everyone in the PlayStation VR community for their support over the years and we hope Arken Age will be something PS VR2 fans can enjoy this Jan 16 and for the years to come!
Promise Mascot Agency just announced its voice cast, which includes a number of surprise additions from the world of video game development.
Kaizen Game Works’ open-world narrative adventure sees players explore a cursed Japanese town and recruit mascot friends. You even help a living finger work through anger issues.
Where Promise Mascot Agency is punching above its weight is in the voice cast department. It’s nabbed PlayStation developer legend Shuhei Yoshida in his first ever video game voice role, and the announcement comes hot on the heels of Yoshida’s last day at Sony.
Shuhei Yoshida worked on PlayStation from the very beginning, playing a key role in the original console’s success from 1993. He was one of the more public-facing PlayStation executives while President of SIE Worldwide Studios from 2008 to 2019, championing indie and VR success in particular. Yoshida announced his exit from Sony in November during his 31st year at PlayStation.
“When I hit 30 years, I was thinking, hmm, it may be about time for me to move on,” he explained at the time. “You know, the company’s been doing great. I love PS5, I love the games that are coming out on this platform. And we have new generations of management who I respect and admire. And I’m so excited for the future of PlayStation.”
While Yoshida long-term plan remains up in the air, in the short-term he’s turned to video game voice acting, and that’s where Promise Mascot Agency comes in. Yoshida plays Monouge, an odd-looking green-skinned former mascot who is opening their own game center.
Yoshida isn’t the only big name joining the Promise Mascot Agency voice cast. Yakuza: Like A Dragon’s Takaya Kuroda, who plays series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu, and Legend of Zelda’s Ayano Shibuya also star, as do Eri Saito (Chainsaw Man, Metal Gear Solid 4, Way of the Samurai 3) and Swery, developer of Deadly Premonition, The Good Life, and Spy Fiction.
You can see what Yoshida and co sound like in-game in the exclusive trailer, below.
“We can’t believe that our weird game managed to attract such a strong voice cast,” said game director Oli Clarke Smith.
“When our lead Japanese localiser, Roppyaku Tsurumi, told us that Kuroda-san had auditioned, we just about lost our minds. All of the cast have brought our group of misfits to life wonderfully. After working on these characters for four years, they have become like friends to us, and we’re so happy that they have all been given a voice. The team at the recording studio, Xenorex, did an amazing job.”
Here’s the official blurb:
Takaya Kuroda voices the disgraced ex-yakuza Michi, exiled to the forgotten (and quite definitely cursed) Japanese town of Kaso-Machi with two goals: pay off his debt and restore glory to the town’s defunct mascot agency! Recruit the weird and wonderful mascots across town with help from your severed finger assistant manager and chaos goblin, Pinky☆ – voiced by Ayana Shibuya, negotiate their contracts and assign them jobs they love.
Promise Mascot Agency will be available on PC and consoles early 2025.
Photo by Stuart Wilson/BAFTA/Getty Images for BAFTA.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Nintendo is famously litigious when it comes to emulators. In March 2024, developers of Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu were ordered to pay $2.4 million in damages after a court settlement with Nintendo. In October 2024, Switch emulator Ryujinx ceased development following “contact from Nintendo.” In 2023, the developers behind Dolphin, an emulator for Gamecube and Wii, were advised against a full Steam release by lawyers at Valve, who were contacted by Nintendo’s lawyers alongside “strong legal wording.”
Perhaps most famously, in 2023 Gary Bowser, a reseller of Team Xecuter products that allowed users to bypass the Nintendo Switch’s anti-piracy measures, was charged with fraud and ordered to pay $14.5m back to Nintendo, a debt he will repay for life.
Now, a patent lawyer representing Nintendo has lifted the lid on the company’s approach to piracy and emulation, and discussed how the propagation of emulators could lead to software piracy.
In a report from Denfaminicogamer (via VGC) at Tokyo eSports Festa 2025, “Intellectual Property Managers” from Capcom, Sega, and Nintendo gathered to discuss the laws designed to protect companies’ intellectual property. Speaking for Nintendo was a patent attorney and Assistant Manager of the Intellectual Property Division, Koji Nishiura. In a translation by Automaton, he explained:
“To begin with, are emulators illegal or not? This is a point often debated. While you can’t immediately claim that an emulator is illegal in itself, it can become illegal depending on how it’s used.”
Nishiura explained further that if an emulator copies a program from the game it is running, it may constitute copyright infringement, and this is also the case if the emulator can disable a console’s security mechanisms.
This is largely down to Japan’s “Unfair Competition Prevention Act,” or UCPA, which is only enforceable in Japan itself. This makes it more difficult for Nintendo to pursue legal action overseas.
The example given in a slide during the Tokyo eSports Festa talk was the Nintendo DS “R4” card, which allowed users of the cartridge to circumvent and run backed-up or pirated versions of games on a single cartridge. Ultimately, after Nintendo and 50 other software manufacturers cried out about the R4, Nintendo won a ruling that the manufacturers and resellers violated the UCPA, effectively outlawing sales of the R4 in 2009.
Nishiura further explained that tools that allow users to download pirated software within an emulator or piece of software would also constitute copyright law infringement. Named “reach apps” in Japanese law, these third-party tools like the 3DS’s infamous “Freeshop,” or third-party app installer “Tinfoil” for Switch, may also violate copyright laws.
In its Yuzu lawsuit, Nintendo claimed that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was pirated one million times. Specifically, the filing claimed that Yuzu’s Patreon page allowed its developers to earn $30,000 per month by providing subscribers with “daily updates,” “early access,” and “special unreleased features” to games like Tears of the Kingdom.
Sayem is a freelancer based in the UK, covering tech and hardware. You can get in touch with him at @sayem.zone on Bluesky.
Ubisoft has finally fixed the Windows 11 versions of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Origins but Odyssey remains broken.
The Ubisoft games broken by Windows 11 version 24H2 in November are therefore now, almost, fully fixed. While Ubisoft released updates to Viking era England-set Valhalla and Ancient Egypt-set Origins, Ancient Greece-set Odyssey is still without a fix.
“Hello everyone, we have just deployed a new title update for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla,” Ubisoft said on the game’s Steam page, alongside a similar one on Origins’. “This patch fixes compatibility issues with Windows 11 update 24H2.”
This finally came two months later, though obviously Odyssey remains broken. Ubisoft has not said when it will release a fix for this final game.
These issues come amid a stream of other bad news for Ubisoft, which hoped it would now be celebrating big hits in Star Wars Outlaws and Assassin’s Creed Shadows but is instead scrambling amid poor sales of the former and a handful of delays to the latter.
The current sole creator of immersive sim-shooter Fortune’s Run has abruptly announced that the project will be going on hiatus, because they are going to jail. Team Fortune’s lead developer, Dizzie, has been handed a three year sentence for a “violent crime”, following around five years of legal proceedings. The other developer, Arachne, recently left game development after recovering from a mishandled surgical procedure last year. According to Dizzie, her departure doesn’t have anything to do with the aforesaid violent crime, which pre-dates their relationship.
Artist and author Phillip Summers is back with another ‘Hand-Drawn Game Guide’, this time looking at the classic hard-as-nails action title Mega Man.
Soaring past its Kickstarter funding goal in just 12 hours, the Capcom-licensed book is aiming to launch in August 2025 for backers and will boast over 200 pages of stunning hand-drawn images looking at the original Mega Man for the NES and the Game Boy. Character illustrations will be included along with full level maps, tips, tricks, and gorgeous two-page spreads.
There are currently 35 heroes in Marvel Rivals, split between the roles of Vanguard (tanks), duellists (DPS) and Strategists (support). That’s plenty to get your head around, and the roster is expanding rapidly. NetEase have announced that they plan to introduce a new hero approximately every six weeks – in other words, twice per three-month season. I wonder how long it’ll take them to probe beyond the obvious Marvel headliners and start seriously abrading the bottom of the Connected Universe barrel. Nagneto, for example. Or how about J. Pennington Pennypacker, who shoots coins out of his wrists?
But via new financial results we now know just how much money it has made for Games Workshop, the British company behind the tabletop hobby upon which Space Marine 2 is based. Reporting results for the first half of its financial year ending December 1, 2024, Games Workshop CEO Kevin Rountree hailed the success of Space Marine 2, which contributed significant royalty revenue to the business.
In fact, licensing revenue from royalty income increased in the period by a whopping £18 million (approx. $21.9 million) to £30.1 million (approx. $36.7 million). Earned income, which is the key figure here, was £26.1 million (approx. $31.8 million), up from £5.9 million (approx. $7.2 million), an increase Games Workshop said was mainly from Space Marine 2. 98% of Games Workshop’s total licensing revenue came from PC and console games (Space Marine 2 launched on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S).
A win all round, then. As you’d expect, Games Workshop is on the hunt for the next blockbuster Warhammer video game, but Rountree also expressed a degree of caution on potential future video game success, admitting hits like Space Marine 2 are few and far between.
Here’s the statement:
During the period, our licensing partners launched two new video games; Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, a third person shooter for PC and console and Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks, a combat racing game. Established games continue to contribute, alongside royalty income earned following the success of Space Marine 2. We recognise that successes like these for Warhammer are not a given in the world of video games. Clearly we are looking for the next one. We remain cautious when forecasting royalty income.
So, where could this big Warhammer video game hit come from? It seems inevitable that Saber Interactive will get the chance to continue the Space Marine story with Space Marine 3, and indeed has said it has ideas for a third game.
In the shorter term, Bulwark Studios’ turn-based tactics game Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus II looks set to scratch a very different itch. There are also rumblings that Creative Assembly is finally giving Warhammer 40,000 the Total War treatment, something fans have hoped for for years.
As for Space Marine 2, Saber continues to update the game with cosmetics, new Operations, and new weapons. Season 3 is set for launch this spring.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
You know when you drop your nice, shiny pen and it rolls under your bed, and you look under there and see it winking from the depths of a stygian expanse of superannuated dust bunnies, lakes of mildew and anomalous debris that absorbs far too much light? Just me? I need to get out the mould spray more often.
OK, how about when you were a kid and you lifted up a nice, round stone and the damp, fertile soil beneath writhed away from you in a fervent knotting of pellucid, boneless bodies and the tickling of a thousand little legs? Right. Anoxia Station is that and also, a turn-based strategy game about drilling for oil. The recently released Itch.io demo is rough around the edges, but I do adore the vibe.
