As an old man yelling about deals at the clouds, I’ve often felt a bit jealous of these back-to-school sales. By my recollection, unless you wanted a new writing pad, some stationery, or a backpack, these deals didn’t really exist.
I need your clothes, your boots, and your new game.
Reef Entertainment has released a new overview trailer for Terminator 2D: No Fate, and sorry, but we know you’re all excited for Silksong and whatnot, but this looks bloody amazing.
Clocking in at just over three minutes, the trailer takes us through some of the levels you’ll be exploring, the types of gameplay at hand, and the modes available at launch. You can go through the campaign as standard, partake in a boss rush mode, an infinite mode, or an arcade mode to really get those nostalgia juices flowing.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
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Madden NFL 26Electronic Arts
Madden NFL 26 leverages a new AI-powered machine learning system trained on thousands of plays from nearly a decade of real NFL data to deliver more explosive gameplay—with new player-specific traits, authentic playstyles, and adaptive counters that match on-field tendencies and strategies of NFL quarterbacks and coaches.From the Skol chant in Minnesota to the light show in Baltimore, immerse yourself in new presentation across the NFL including game-impacting weather, team traditions, and dynamic halftime shows with Scott Hanson.
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The post Hit the Gridiron in EA Sports Madden NFL 26 with EA Play Now appeared first on Xbox Wire.
Hey everyone, this is Mike Tucker, Design Director and Programmer at Bitmap Bureau. We hope you’re all excited for Terminator 2D: No Fate, coming October 31, 2025. On behalf of everyone at the Bitmap team, we’re thrilled to reveal the new Gameplay Overview Trailer! The trailer gives an in-depth summary of T2D’s various gameplay systems, including info about game modes, pickups, the scoring system and more.
Beyond what’s covered in the trailer, we thought this blog would be a great chance to delve into the game even further, specifically covering the different difficulty settings. Hopefully this overview will help you decide which difficulty to choose when picking up the game for the first time.
First things first, when you start the game, you’ll be asked to choose your preferred difficulty setting. From easiest to hardest, the difficulties are:
These difficulty settings are available for all game modes, but for Story Mode in particular, the choice means that the complete T2D story can be enjoyed by everyone regardless of skill level. We recommend first-time players start with the No Problemo difficulty setting for the most balanced experience, while those more experienced with the genre can try their hand at Hasta La Vista; that’s the one most of us here at Bitmap use as our Normal difficulty.
Broadly speaking, the differences between the difficulties revolve around enemy placement and damage output, the number of continues and whether the time limit is turned on. The Easy Money difficulty features no time limit (except for one level) and unlimited continues. However, there are more specific differences between the difficulties, affecting enemy placement, environmental trap timings and more. While it would be impossible to go over all of these changes in the span of this blog, below are a few examples to help you get a sense of the kind of differences you can expect between difficulties.
The Cyberdyne Factory level is a little different from the more run n’ gun levels in the game, testing players’ platforming and timing abilities with various environmental hazards. This level, set within a top-secret Cyberdyne facility, features automated welding arms, used by Cyberdyne in their early terminator experiments. These arms periodically drop down and ignite their torches, causing damage to the player if they come into contact with the sparks created by the arms or the arms themselves. These arms are scattered throughout the level, but how many of them are active will depend on the difficulty the player has chosen.
This isn’t the only difference between difficulties in this level, however. There is also a section of the level in which flames will periodically shoot out of jet engines. The player must evade these flames to avoid taking damage, and time their upward jumps in the periods in which the flames are inactive. You can see below that choosing harder difficulties increases the number of active jet engines and reduces the period of time between bursts of fire, greatly altering the level of challenge.
Here is an example from another level, Freeway Chase, a recreation of the classic chase sequence in Terminator 2: Judgment Day in which John, Sarah, and the T-800 are trying to escape from the T-1000 piloting a stolen police helicopter. In this level, the encounter with the helicopter alternates between two gameplay sections, driving and shooting. In the shooting section, there is a crosshair visible which illustrates the helicopter’s weak spots. As the difficulties get harder, the size of the crosshair gets smaller, meaning that the player has to be much more precise with their aiming to do damage.
Your choice in difficulty will also result in differences in the game’s boss fights, including changes to attack patterns, tighter timing windows and more. At the end of the first Future War level, the player will have to battle a Centurion, a behemoth Hunter-Killer quadruped built by Skynet. Below, you can see that in harder difficulties, the Centurion’s ground-sweeping machine-gun attack moves faster, meaning quicker reactions are needed to avoid taking damage.
These are just some examples of the kind of the differences you can expect to see between Terminator 2D: No Fate’s difficulties. When developing the game, we aimed to give it a sense of challenge that would feel authentic to the feeling of old-school arcade games. However, we realise that controller-smashing difficulty isn’t for everyone, so we implemented these difficulty choices to ensure that everyone can pick their desired level of challenge, regardless of skill level or experience.
Whichever way you choose to play, thank you for reading and we hope you look forward to Terminator 2D: No Fate, coming October 31, 2025.
Elden Ring Nightreign has been out for over two months now, which means players have had ample time to puzzle over and tease out every morsel of its lore. But there’s still one ultra-rare item in the game that most players have probably never seen before, but which some in the community believe still holds an enormous secret: the Cord End.
If you play Nightreign and, like me, had no idea what this even was until just now, here’s the rundown: the Cord End is a legendary consumable item that only appears in big and small churches in Nightreign from breaking boxes. Its drop percentage is ridiculously low – just 0.035% – meaning most players will likely never even run into it. Its listed use is cryptic: “Gain entry somewhere.” If you don’t know where that somewhere is, the item is totally useless to you.
But for those in the know (or those following our handy guide), it’s not too hard to find the secret door it opens. Hidden in a cliff wall in a ravine at the center of the map, there’s a sealed entrance that only opens if you have the Cord End on hand. Inside is a strange statue of a girl, and three Sacrificial Twigs, talismans that allow the wielder to die exactly one time without losing runes or levels. It’s an interesting reward, to be sure, but admittedly a little underwhelming given the ridiculous rarity of the Cord End required to get them.
Now, granted, it’s likely at least part of the Cord End’s mystery is in adding lore details to Elden Ring Nightreign via its description and the statue of the girl in the chamber it opens. We won’t cover that here, as the meaning behind it is pretty deep into endgame spoiler territory for Nightreign, but lore YouTuber VaatiVidya has a great breakdown of what the Cord End is from a lore perspective and why it matters.
But that all said, the lack of real mechanical payoff for such a rare find has players speculating that there’s something more to this secret door. For the last two months, the community has been testing out theories around the Cord End and the Sacrificial Twigs. With a lack of any new or recent clues, the secret hunting had largely slowed down, but a cryptic post on the Nightreign subreddit recently fired up everyone’s curiosity again, inspiring people to float new theories about how to do… something… with those twigs.
The biggest barrier to finding anything is the sheer rarity of the Cord End. Some players are reporting seeing their first one after hundreds of hours of play. So anyone who wants to test theories has to get extremely lucky in actually getting a Cord End to begin with, and then also getting the exact perfect other circumstances they’re looking for (specific bosses, certain locations appearing, certain characters in the party, and so forth) to test out whatever it is they want to test. So while it’s unlikely that there’s anything new to discover regarding the Cord End at this stage, there’s at least a whisper of possibility in the fact that so few people are in a position to make that discovery to begin with.
Is it a secret? Is it merely lore? Is it something we’ll be able to unlock in a future DLC, as some have theorized? Who knows! But what’s genuinely cool here is that an ultra rare item is still sparking this level of curiosity and discussion and mystery in the community months after the game’s release. Whether there’s anything deeper to the Cord End or not, its enticing rarity is sufficient to get me, at least, fired up… if I can ever get one to drop.
We gave Elden Ring Nightreign a 7/10, saying that “when Elden Ring Nightreign is played exactly as it was designed to be played, it’s one of the finest examples of a three-player co-op game around – but that’s harder to do than it should be, and playing solo is poorly balanced.” Nightreign recently saw the addition of a duos mode, and the game had sold five million copies as of July.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Oh, hello there, Is This Seat Taken? The logic puzzler with a name that’s real awkward to stick midway through a sentence has surprise-released today, August 7th, right off the back of an appearance in a Nintendo Indie World showcase.
When we woke up this morning, all we knew was that this game about telling people where to stick their bottoms would be coming out in August – a vague window previously announced during June’s Whole Direct. Now, it be here.
Marshall Mathers III is no stranger to other names. You probably know him as Eminem, or Slim Shady, or as the latter half of hip-hop super duo Bad Meet Evil. Or, perhaps if you’re a little younger, you might know him as… ‘The Guy From Fortnite.’
Eminem’s involvement with Fortnite goes back several years, with a guest turn in 2023’s The Big Bang live event that saw him rapping over a post-apocalyptic skyline, before popping up in the game’s in-game shop as a skin.
Next, Eminem returned for the conclusion of 2024’s Chapter 2 Remix, this time holding a rap battle version of the battle royale’s memorable monster versus mech fight — one of the funniest things the game has done in some time. (That mini-season included Eminem’s hideout as an in-game location, and also featured an exotic minigun that rapped Eminem lyrics as you fired.)
Popular stars who have made appearances in Epic’s battle royale subsequently being referred to “as that guy from Fortnite” is not a new meme, but someone has now taken the (brave) step of referring to Eminem as such in front of his face.
Thankfully, judging by the video of this moment, the rapper took it humorously and laughed along.
Eminem cracked up when someone called him “The guy from Fortnite” 😭 pic.twitter.com/h15QpUo5cY
— The Eminem Bible (@Shadyind) August 7, 2025
Fortnite’s new season kicked off today with more characters from Halo, plus the Power Rangers battling a fresh insect invasion of the game’s beloved battle royale Island. No word on a fresh appearance by Eminem just yet — though his skin is rarely out of the item shop.
Earlier this week, Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney refuted a report that suggested the game’s mysterious upcoming Disney offering had been hampered by slow decision-making.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Promise Mascot Agency, Kaizen Game Works’ thing about running a business that revolves around costumed weirdos, fairly intense menu shuffling and a lot of driving around, has gotten a free update that adds in a host of new features. The ability to grind along rails like Michi’s truck’s a skateboard, for instance.
Sure, you can already unlock the ability to fly said truck around the spooky Japanese countryside, but come on, if there’s something every management game needs, it’s tricks from the X Games.
Class is in session.
After a few lengthy delays, the tactical RPG Demonschool has finally secured a final release date for the Switch, and you’ve not got long to wait. As announced during the Indie World Japan showcase, the Necrosoft Games-developed title will launch on 3rd September 2025.
The game is influenced by the likes of Persona and Shin Megami Tensei, along with – and this is brilliant – italian horror cinema..? Excuse me?! So cool. Plenty of footage has already been made available through trailers and gameplay showcases, so if you haven’t checked out Demonschool yet, then definitely take a peek when you can. It looks awesome.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Ding ding! Time is up and we’re ready to pull our final party game creation out of the oven for a piping hot reveal. Cookie Haus is the fifth and final party game coming this fall in The Jackbox Party Pack 11.
Cookie Haus is a brand new drawing game that puts an emphasis on silliness and simplicity. In this game, you are a decorator at a bakery undergoing some creative chaos. Patrons come in to give you their decoration requests and you have a limited amount of time to design a cookie that fits their needs. Player designs are then pitted against each other while everyone votes for their favorite.
It’s one of our most approachable drawing games yet. Players will be able to customize their icing tools and draw simple designs on pre-shaped cookies. Did we mention there will be sprinkles? Because, boy, do we have sprinkles! And the timer is ticking! You’ll need to get frosting on those cookies before the situation crumbles.
“I can’t wait for folks to meet the ridiculous customers and check out the fresh, but familiar drawing tools,” says Chase McClure, Director of Cookie Haus. “But really, this is a simple drawing game about decorating cookies and I’m excited for people to see how fun, funny, and satisfying that is to do in this game.”
Cookie Haus is one of five entirely new party games in The Jackbox Party Pack 11. If you’re a fan of joke writing games like Quiplash or Survive the Internet, you’ll want to check out Doominate, a fast-paced, hilarious party game with killer style!
In Doominate, players are given a wholesome situation that they have to destroy with their response. Players work on both of their prompts for the round at the same time (as opposed to writing one and then tackling the next after you’re finished, like you do in Quiplash). This way, they can go back and edit before submitting. “We’ve found that it has led to some inspired answers and hopefully relieves some of the pressure that comes with those writing moments,” says Brooke Breit, Director of Doominate, “Players will also get a chance to save some scenarios from disaster in a heavenly final round.”
Fans of audio-focused games like Earwax or Dodo Re Mi can expect to see a new twist on the genre with Hear Say, a game that provides a prompt and then asks players to make sound effects or record dialogue in response. In a Jackbox first, players will use their phone’s microphone to record themselves before it is played back for the group. “Recording your voice is an exciting, raw and unusual thing to do in a game. Seeing it played as a soundtrack to delightfully absurd characters and videos expands everyone’s humor, and allows you and your friends to discover new sides of yourselves together,” says Alina Constantin, Director of Hear Say.
We’re taking trivia to a new world in Legends of Trivia, a fantastical game that asks players to work together to defeat monsters using their wits and smarts. “Cooperative trivia is a new feature that we’re excited to debut,” says Warren Arnold, Director of Legends of Trivia, “A lot of our games require players to communicate and interact with each other and I think it’s going to be a fun and different experience to incorporate into a Jackbox trivia game.” If you enjoy games like Quixort or You Don’t Know Jack, this could be the game for your group!
Rounding out the pack is Suspectives, a detective-inspired game that asks you to interrogate fellow players based on what you know (or don’t know) about them. “Suspectives takes that social-deduction-game moment of ‘questioning each other to see who’s hiding something’ and opens it up, allowing for everyone to signal whether they’re buying an explanation or not,” says game director Tim Sniffen. “A player can really get a sense of whether they’re losing the room or have everyone on their side – I can’t wait to see people try it out!” Fans of Fakin’ It, Push The Button or Role Models should feel right at home in the world of Suspectives.
The Jackbox Party Pack 11 releases on PS4 and PS5 this fall.
