You know, at this point I’m not sure if games, or even just aspects of games, that rely on licensing other works, is really all that good of an idea. It’s probably part of why there are some Fortnite skins you never see in the shop anymore, it’s absolutely why the Friday the 13th game shut down, and I have a hunch that that’s what has happened to Evil Dead: The Game. Recently, the multiplayer game disappeared from both the PlayStation Store and Epic Games Store, leading to a bit of confusion as to its status. Now, the game is no longer purchasable on Steam, and developer Saber Interactive have put out a comment addressing the situation.
Scopely has partnered with Disney for a Star Wars collaboration that brings characters and locations from across The Skywalker Saga and The Mandalorian to Monopoly Go!.
The two media giants detailed their crossover event further with a trailer this morning, explaining that Monopoly Go! players can unlock and enjoy Star Wars content for the next two months starting today. Scopely says the event is “rooted in a deep and compelling narrative” that follows local robot Peg-E after she visits Mr. Monopoly’s movie theater.
“Captivated by the cinematic magic of Star Wars, her daydreams take flight, reimagining the MONOPOLY GO! universe within the Star Wars galaxy,” an official description says. “In the ensuing adventure, players will be transported into timeless tales of good and evil, Jedi and Sith, and the light and dark side — kickstarting a series of action-packed in-game events, collectibles and surprises.”
With the Monopoly Go! Star Wars crossover comes a limited-time 22-sticker album that ties to the Star Wars universe. May the 4th, specifically, will see players gifted an exclusive token, with a variety of other themed additions available to nab throughout the duration of the collaboration. You can see a list of highlights included, as outlined by Scopely, below.
Monopoly Go! x Star Wars Crossover Event
‘Pod’ and ‘Rebel’ Racers: Race iconic Star Wars vehicles through the Mos Espa Grand Arena and the frozen wasteland of Hoth in a twist on MONOPOLY GO!’s high-stakes multiplayer event, Tycoon Racers.
‘Star Wars’, ‘Jedi’ and ‘Hyperspace’ Partners Events: Team up with friends to construct larger-than-life Star Wars-themed statues of iconic characters and starships from the Star Wars galaxy, and reap fantastic rewards together.
‘Tatooine’, ‘Jawa’ and ‘Tusken’ Treasures: Journey to the Outer Rim planet Tatooine in three special dig-themed events, uncovering relics and treasures inspired by the Star Wars canon.
Exclusive Collectibles: Collect themed tokens, emojis, signature dice, and shields by completing sticker albums and event challenges, bringing galactic flair to the MONOPOLY GO! experience.
The launch of the Monopoly Go! and Star Wars crossover follows its official reveal as the latest Scopely collaboration last month. Its full debut today gives players until July 2 to enjoy what it has to offer. For more, you can read up on how Scopely made headlines in March when it confirmed it would purchase Pokémon Go-maker Niantic Inc. for $3.5 billion.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
I really quite like how simple a title Ratopia has. It’s a 2D strategic survival city builder, where you have to build a nice place for rats to live. Ratopia! It gets straight to the heart of it, and it just received its 1.0 release today after an early access period of 18 months. The game has had a lengthy development time too, starting way back in 2020, and in a Steam post discussing the 1.0 release, developers Cassel Games left a nice and lengthy list covering everything that’s been added across its early access release.
The death of physical media has been looming for decades now, essentially since the internet made digital downloads a viable option for purchasing games – or purchasing your licences to play games. While Nintendo got involved relatively quickly (for Nintendo, at least) with WiiWare and Virtual Console digital downloads, there’s still always been a strong link between this particular platform holder and the physical article.
And it’s not just the need to provide stocking-fillers for parents and grandparents of a younger-skewing demographic; perhaps Nintendo’s general preference for carts is also a factor. Cartridges have a more substantial, chunky physicality compared to discs – and even when the company went for optical media, the GameCube’s cute 8cm discs and the curved edges of Wii U games injected some personality. Carts, with their unique forms and chip-filled innards, somehow feel more than just a blank medium with some data burned in. Just me?
Free Play Days – Forza Motorsport and The Escapists
Kyle Ocean, Marketing Manager, Xbox
Spring is in the air and May kicks off with a double feature! The Escapists is available this weekend for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, Standard and Core members to play from Thursday, May 1 at 12:01am Pacfic until Sunday, May 4 at 11:59pm Pacific.
Additionally, Forza Motorsport is free for all Xbox members to try during the same time (Xbox Game Pass Game Pass Ultimate, Standard and Core membership not required).
How To Start Playing
Find and install the games on each of the individual game details page on Xbox.com. Clicking through will send you to the Microsoft Store, where you must be signed in to see the option to install with your Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, Standard and Core membership. To download on console, click on the Subscriptions tab in the Xbox Store and navigate down to the Free Play Days collection on your Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.
Keep The Fun Going
Purchase the game and other editions at a limited time discount and continue playing while keeping your Gamerscore and achievements earned during the event! Please note that discounts, percentages, and title availability may vary by title and region.
Free Play Days (Xbox Game Pass Membership Required)
Forza Motorsport Optimized for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox Play Anywhere Immerse yourself in a world of competition in Forza Motorsport! Download and play the game for free this weekend with Xbox’s Free Play Days for All and get up to a 50% discount! Race over 500 cars and enjoy the latest game updates and features, including Proximity Radar, Drift mode, and more. Make every lap count across 29 world-famous tracks with fan-favorite locations Bathurst, Nürburgring Nordschleife, and Sunset Peninsula – each featuring live on-track scoring and dynamic time-of-day with weather. Invite your friends and we’ll see you at the track!
The Escapists The Escapists is an award winning prison break simulation that provides players the opportunity of experiencing a light-hearted insight into everyday prison life. Master the routine, plan your strategy then execute your Escape.
Don’t miss out on these exciting Free Play Days for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, Standard and Core members! Learn more about Free Play Days here and stay tuned to Xbox Wire to find out about future Free Play Days and all the latest Xbox gaming news.
Last month, we had breakout runaway hits, indie darlings, and a few surprises. Which game spoke to you the most? Some of the big new releases included Blue Prince, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Forever Skies, and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered.
How does it work? At the end of every month, PlayStation Blog will open a poll where you can vote for the best new game released that month. After the polls close we will tally your votes, and announce the winner on our social channels and PlayStation.Blog.
What is the voting criteria? That’s up to you! If you were only able to recommend one new release to a friend that month, which would it be? Note: re-released games don’t qualify, but remakes do. We define remakes as ambitious, larger-scale rebuilds such as Resident Evil 4 (2023) and Final Fantasy VII Remake.
How are nominees decided? The PlayStation Blog editorial team will gather a list of that month’s most noteworthy releases and use it to seed the poll.
I’ve put way too many hours into Stardew Valley building my own cozy little farm. And although taking care of a farm is its own full-time job, I always try to find time to make every character’s favorite foods. The recipes in Stardew Valley can be pretty simple but the final pixelated result always looks appetizing to me. I’ve definitely imagined what each dish tastes like as I whip it up in the game, but I never really thought about making the recipes in real life until I came across the Stardew Valley cookbook.
The official cookbook for the game was written in collaboration with the game’s creator ConcernedApe (Eric Barone). As someone who loves Stardew Valley and cooking, I’ve put this video game cookbook at the top of my gift wishlist for 2025.
The Official Stardew Valley Cookbook – On Sale Now
The Official Stardew Valley Cookbook came out back in May 2024, so it’s been almost an entire year of me not knowing it existed. Thanks to all of that time, however, it is currently down to its lowest price ever on Amazon. At just under $20, it’s one of the cheapest gifts you could get for Stardew fan (other than the actual game).
The cookbook itself contains 50 recipes that are based on the actual in-game meals. Similar to the game, it’s ordered by season so you can follow along and make each recipe when the ingredients are most likely to be at their freshest. Included are a ton of original illustrations as well as recipes written in the voice of various characters from the game. You can check out a quick preview of what to expect in the slideshow below.
See more video game cookbooks
Altough the Stardew Valley cookbook is my favorite one of these, there are actually quite a few other video game cookbooks you can buy right now. There are options from Elder Scrolls, The Witcher, Fallout, and even Minecraft. You can preorder cookbooks made for Pac-Man (sure, why not) and Borderlands, both of which are coming out in 2025. This is a whole genre that is absolutely thriving.
Infinity Nikki has fallen from grace a touch, it seems. The dress-up RPG arrived on Steam last week, almost five months since it launched on the Epic Games Store, but it did so with quite a few caveats. For starters, the game’s latest update 1.5 arrived around the same time, leading to a plethora of issues with the game, quite notably frequent crashes. Then there’s also been a large number of Chinese players expressing their frustration with some of the changes on the game’s Steam forusm, namely the increase in cost of banners. This has led to the game hitting a Mixed rating on Steam, so the game’s dev has come out with a big ole apology literally asking for “one more chance.”
Helldivers 2 is gearing up for some news, and developer Arrowhead Game Studios seems confident it will impress. Or, as Arrowhead’s CEO is framing it, you might want to prepare yourself.
As spotted by VideoGamer, Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani was discussing Helldivers 2 in the game’s Discord when a user asked him if he could “offer up anything, however small, of what’s coming down the pipe.” His response?
“You’ll shit your pants.”
While not specific about what’s in store, it does at least give us an idea of the impact of what’s in store. And the possible consequences to our britches, too.
Jorjani took a few other questions, with some notable mentions of wanting to add more bladed weapons and some thoughtful responses to worries about content droughts. There’s some open transparency about the technical debt of something like Helldivers 2, and how the team handles it over time, that’s really cool to see alongside funny quotes about distressing your jeans.
There’s already been some tease about what’s to come, involving a flag with both a pointy end and a grippy section. Currently, Arrowhead said it is aiming for May 8 to announce its next Warbond, and there will be “more exciting news to come not long after.”
In a recent interview with IGN, Arrowhead’s production director Alex Bolle said the studio wants to be around for “years and years and years to come,” and that it’s continuing to work on developing Helldivers 2 while staying true to what the team wants to do.
“The more we figure out how to thrive in a live environment, and we still have a way to go to figure out a lot of things around that, the more we can let creativity loose on new systems that we would’ve never thought about a year ago when we released,” Bolle told IGN. “I’ve worked on live games before and it’s where you feel like you have something you can figure out: what if I would do this cool thing I’ve seen in other games and adapt it to our sauce, that still makes it true to ourselves? I’m looking forward to this moment.”
We’ll start to find out what cool things Arrowhead has in store for Helldivers 2 next week. You might want to bring some extra pants.
Back in the decidedly less macabre context of a week ago, I played a few matches of Apex Legends‘ Season 25, which centres around new legend Sparrow. His debut is scheduled for May 6th, barely enough time for EA’s ink to dry on their mass laying-off of the people that made him (fifth most played game on Steam, y’know, maybe tells you something). He’s Space-Italian, has a folding bow on his arm, and – fittingly for how I feel about this game right now – is a massive bastard.
