It didn’t take long for the good Zelda fans of the world to set their sites on the Koroks when Tears of the Kingdom was released a few weeks ago, and now, after countless times of watching these little guys getting rocketed, burnt, blown up or otherwise ‘oof’-ed, it seems that the community has set its sights on another target.
We are, of course, talking about Cuccos — any Zelda fan’s nemesis since they first jokingly took a swing at one back in Ocarina of Time. Unlike Koroks, this passive poultry is capable of dropping items when flustered, and that makes them all the more attractive a target to those bent on putting them through a living shell hell.
It’s less than a week until Xbox Games Showcase and Starfield Direct. On Sunday, June 11, our huge double feature will fill you in on upcoming games from Xbox Game Studios and our incredible partners around the world, and offer a deep-dive into Bethesda Game Studios’ highly anticipated Starfield.
There’s nothing quite like watching our Summer showcases live so, with that in mind, here are all the details you need to join us in celebrating the future of gaming.
What time does Xbox Games Showcase begin? Sunday, June 11, at 10am Pacific time / 1pm Eastern time / 6pm UK time.
What time does Starfield Direct begin? Immediately following the Xbox Games Showcase.
How do I watch? Xbox Games Showcase will be streamed live on official Xbox and Bethesda channels, including the below:
The show will also be streamed out simultaneously on regional Xbox and Bethesda channels around the globe.
Please note the YouTube.com/Xbox and YouTube.com/Bethesda streams will be in 4K at 60fps, while all other channels will be 1080p / 60fps.
Is the event available in languages other than English? We will be providing subtitle support in the following languages: Albanian, Arabic (MSA), Bosnian, Bulgarian, Chinese (Simplified & Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Maltese, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Norwegian, Persian (Farsi), Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian & EU), Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish (Castilian & Latin American), Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese and Welsh. While we expect to have all languages available with the show’s live broadcast, it is possible that select languages may need to be added in the days following the broadcast if they have not finished translating.
The easiest way to find your preferred language is to check out your country’s Xbox page on Facebook or by viewing on the official Xbox YouTube channel and clicking the gear icon in the lower right corner.
Is the show going to be Accessible to those with low/no hearing or low/no vision? There will be a version of the show with Audio Descriptions (AD) in English on the Xbox YouTube channel, American Sign Language (ASL) on Xbox’s YouTube channel and the /XboxASL Twitch channel, and British Sign Language (BSL) on Xbox On’s YouTube channel at YouTube.com/XboxUK.
I’m not going to be able to watch, where can I find out what was announced? As announcements roll out during the broadcast, the Xbox Wire team will be publishing detailed blog posts containing key announcements right here on Xbox Wire (including localized versions in Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, LATAM Spanish, and Japanese). A full show recap will go live immediately following the end of Starfield Direct.
Co-streamer and Content Creator notes for the Xbox Games Showcase: We at Xbox greatly appreciate any co-stream efforts and aim to ensure you have a smooth experience if you choose to do so. However, due to forces beyond our control, we cannot guarantee that glitches or disruptions by bots and other automated software won’t interfere with your co-stream. For those planning to create post-show breakdowns of the Xbox Showcase in the form of Video on Demand (VOD) coverage, we recommend you do not use any audio containing copyrighted music to avoid any action by automated bots, and to also consult the terms of service for your service provider.
Co-streamer and Content Creator notes for the Starfield Direct: The Starfield Direct contains no licensed music tracks, and is co-streaming friendly! We invite you and your audiences across the galaxy to tune in for watch parties, and we can’t wait to see the Video-on-Demand content you create with the Starfield Direct footage afterwards, too.
Will there be an Extended Stream? Yes! Xbox Games Showcase Extended will air on Tuesday, June 13, starting at 10am Pacific time / 1pm Eastern time / 6pm UK time. The show will feature in-depth interviews focused on the news from our Xbox Games Showcase as well as game updates from our partners. As this show will air live, the broadcast’s language support will be limited to English, German, French, Brazilian Portuguese and Latin American Spanish. In the days that follow, we will add Arabic, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish and Castilian Spanish to Xbox’s YouTube page.
Xbox FanFest Watch Parties: Our virtual and in-person FanFest events are returning this year, with opportunities to watch our broadcast with local fans in Los Angeles, Mexico City, São Paulo, Melbourne, and Warsaw. Sign up for Xbox FanFest at aka.ms/XboxFanFest.
This year, Xbox has also partnered with Fathom Events to bring Xbox Games Showcase & Starfield Direct to select theaters in the U.S. on June 11. Registered Xbox FanFest fans, located near the select theaters, received an email on June 1 with the ticketing site link. Fans will enjoy special access to free tickets (first come, first served) and get to watch the double feature on the big screen with their local Xbox community. They’ll even get a $10 snack voucher! Not located near one of the theaters or didn’t register in time for the email? We have something for you too! Join us on June 11 for a virtual watch party. Sign up for Xbox FanFest to join future events such as this and FanFest Virtual on June 11: xbox.com/fanfest
We can’t wait to share our future with you during the Xbox Games Showcase and Starfield Direct double feature on Sunday, June 11.
Diablo IV’s potential for adventure knows no bounds. With its remarkable replayability and highly customisable gameplay, delving into the depths of diverse builds is an integral part of the excitement. Today, we present three favorite builds personally chosen by the developers themselves.
With the official launch just around the corner, why not try one of these for yourself? Perhaps you’ll find your personal preferred playstyle within Diablo IV’s endless possibilities…
Bad to the Bone-Spirit (Necromancer)
by Adam Z. Jackson – Lead Class Designer
The first build I would like to talk about is what I’m planning to run with for Diablo IV’s launch, which is a Bone-Spirit Necromancer!
Bone Spirit is one of our bolder skill designs in that it both has a long cooldown and removes ALL of the player’s Essence when cast. In exchange, it deals a significant amount of extra damage to enemies for every point of resource spent. The Enhancement for Bone Spirit also reduces its cooldown significantly when it Critically Strikes an enemy, adding an additional goal for players to chase.
Putting this all together, the goal for this build is to get to a place where the player can both increase their maximum Essence as well as their Essence Regeneration to the point where they can cast Bone Sprit on cooldown while reliably being able to generate enough Essence to be full again for the next cast. We’ll be prioritizing Maximum Resource, Resource Regeneration, and Critical Strike Chance as the primary stats to chase. Other stats like Critical Strike Damage or effects like bonus damage to Bone skills are also desirable. One thing that’s also very interesting about this build is that I expect it to change a lot over time as I get more gear and certain Legendaries and Uniques that I’m going to target.
Among the key effects we want is Ghastly Bone Spirit, which grants an additional 10% Critical Srike Chance and helps us reliably Critically Strike enemies that is crucial to the build until our Critical Strike Chance is high enough via gear and other methods to do it without this upgrade. At that point, we can switch over to Dreadful Bone Spirit (generates 30 Essence over the next 4 seconds after each hit) to help with our Essence generation. The Ossified Essence Key Passive causes Bone Spirit to deal even more damage when cast with a lot of Essence (1% increased damage to Bone Skills for each point of Essence above 50). Since we plan to always cast Bone Spirit at full Essence, this is going to greatly increase the damage that we’ll be able to put out.
For this build, I’m going to try only running a Bone Golem, and sacrificing my Skeleton Skirmishers for extra Critical Strike Chance (6%) and my Skeletal Mages for additional maximum Essence (18).
As far as skills, to start the game I’m going to use Bone Splinters, Bone Spear, Bone Spirit, Golem, Corpse Explosion, and Blood Wave. This set of skills gives me a way to use Corpses effectively while also having the control tools needed via my Golem and Blood Wave to keep enemies grouped up and at bay while I annihilate them with Bone Spear and Bone Spirit.
Legendaries and Uniques will improve this build further. Blood Artisan’s Cuirass greatly upgrades the build by giving an alternative method of spawning Bone Spirits by collecting Blood Orbs. After getting this Unique, my build will also be chasing spawning Blood Orbs, which now enables new connections, such as the Tidal Doom Legendary power that spawns multiple Blood Waves, which also spawns more Blood Orbs to collect!
For a more end-game setup, I swapped out Bone Splinters and Bone Spear for Hemorrhage and Corpse Tendrils so I can get more Blood Orbs. In this version of the build, I am using Bone Sprit on cooldown to deal massive damage while creating and collecting Blood Orbs to spawn additional Bone Spirits when I can.
Wolfnado (Druid)
by Adam Z. Jackson – Lead Class Designer
A Werewolf Tornado Druid is a fun and powerful build that only gets better over time.
The goal of this build is to fill the screen with as many Tornadoes as possible. To do this, you should prioritize maximum Spirit, Spirit generation, and effects that reward you for gaining and spending Spirit as much as possible.
One Unique really changes this build is Tempest Roar. Being able to cast Tornado as a Werewolf opens a lot of interactions that previously weren’t available. While the build can work without this item, it enables many powerful synergies that really take it to the next level as you approach the end game. Some other Legendaries that enable this build are Stormchasers Doom which allows Tornadoes to seek enemies and the Calm Breeze Legendary that enables Wind Shear to restore all your Spirit!
Some Skills, Upgrades, and Passives that you should consider are Perfect Storm (grants 1 Spirit and deals 15% increased damage when hitting a Vulnerable, Immobilized or Slowed enemy), which creates a Spirit generating engine by causing enemies to be Vulnerable and then using Tornado on them. Energize gives you a 15% chance to restore 10 Spirit when damaging enemies, and Masochistic is a Spirit Boon that will help with sustain; since Tornado becomes a Shapeshifting skill, it will now heal you 3% Maximum Life when Critically Striking enemies!
As far as which skills to use, there is some flexibility, but a good starting setup is Wind Shear, Tornado, Cyclone Armor, Ravens, Blood Howl, and Cataclysm. This group of skills allows you to heal, gain Spirit, and enables various ways to apply Vulnerable to enemies.
Imbue-llers Day Off (Rogue)
by Charles Dunn – Associate Game Designer, Classes
My favorite build, and the one I will be playing on Diablo IV’s launch is a Rogue Imbuement build.
Imbuements are special skills unique to Rogues that enhance their next 2 attacks with the power of Shadow, Poison, or Cold. There are many ways to mix and match these Imbuements when building your Rogue, but for this build, I will be using Shadow and Cold to take full advantage of the Icy Alchemist legendary power. Cold Imbuement applies Chill to enemies, so I can finish them off with a Shadow Imbued skill, causing lots of explosions and massive AoE damage! There are plenty of other legendary and unique items that work well with this playstyle, including the extremely powerful Word of Hakan unique amulet, which causes my ultimate Rain of Arrows skill to always benefit from all three Imbuements at once.
The Core skill in this build is Twisting Blades. Not only is it a great way to apply my Imbuements to large packs of enemies, but the Advanced Twisting Blades reduces the cooldown on all my Imbuements, keeping me constantly in the action. For mobility, I love pairing Dash with Twisting Blades in this build, since Dash lets me easily get to the other side of a pack of enemies to ensure Twisting Blades hits the maximum number of targets when they return. The Preparation Specialization is also a great way to ensure that I have maximum uptime on my cooldown skills, which leads to a very fast paced playstyle.
One of the most important stats to look for in this build is Lucky Hit Chance. The key legendary for this build, Icy Alchemist, is a Lucky Hit effect, as well as other skills throughout the skill tree like Innervation (10% to gain 8 Energy on Lucky Hit) and Enhanced Cold Imbuement (Cold Imbued skills have a 30% chance to make enemies vulnerable for 3 seconds). But Rogues aren’t known for playing fair, so I tip the luck in my favor with Alchemist’s Fortune (15% increased Lucky Hit Chance on Non-Psychical damage) and Primary Invigorating Strike (8% Lucky Hit Chance, 16% for Crowd Controlled or Injured enemies).
Finally, the Momentum Key Passive works very well in this build, giving me a bunch of stats that I want like Energy Regeneration to spam Twisting Blades, Movement Speed to maneuver around the battlefield to get all optimal angles for those Twisting Blades, and Damage Reduction which is even more important since I will be in melee range of enemies most of the time. Alternatively, the Victimize Key Passive could also work well with enough Lucky Hit chance to consistently trigger Vulnerable from Enhanced Cold Imbuement.
Diablo 4 isn’t properly out yet but early access players have already hit level 100 on Hardcore mode and secured their place on Blizzard’s Lilith statue, though not without using a controversial method.
Action role-playing specialist Carn was first to hit the maximum level in the permadeath-infused Hardcore mode using a method that has sparked debate amongst the Diablo community.
This revolves around the difference between playing Diablo 4 solo and playing in a group with other players, as the latter comes with certain advantages.
Playing in a group provides a passive bonus to experience point gain, for example, which by default gives those who party up a head start on those who play solo.
There’s also the added benefit of experience gain in dungeons going to all players in the party, so if a dungeon has branching paths, players can head off in different directions and hoover up those demons and the related XP extremely quickly.
But it’s a party-related quirk of Diablo 4 — or perhaps an exploit — that has caused some to question the legitimacy of party-based level 100 Hardcore runs.
Under normal circumstances in Diablo 4, players must wait a couple of minutes for a dungeon to reset upon completion. However, an instant reset method was discovered by players that’s very easy to use.
If you leave the party as the leader while inside the dungeon, you teleport to the entrance of the dungeon, and heading back in will have reset everything without any cooldowns. The method is so simple that some have dubbed the party invitation Diablo 4’s unofficial “dungeon reset button”.
Players aren’t sure whether it’s intentional design on Blizzard’s part or whether the method slipped through the cracks. Either way, players have embraced the process, and it was used by many who hope to be one of the first 1,000 players to hit level 100 on hardcore.
Carn himself used the method as part of a group, leaving those who are soldiering through Diablo 4’s later levels solo in the dust. “I’d rather do it solo,” Carn admitted in a livestream in response to questions from viewers. “But if you want to win, you can’t do that.”
IGN has asked Blizzard for comment, but in the meantime, Diablo global community development director Adam Fletcher appeared to give Carn’s attempt the thumbs up in a tweet (above).
People might have been sleeping on Swordship, which is as unfortunate as it sounds. It’s a dodge ‘em up about luring enemies into attacking each other while swooshing down waterways. Clean, is the word that comes to mind: a purity of purpose. Everything looks and sounds exactly like it should, while making little metal chumps shoot other little metal chumps is a fundamental joy.
It launched last December, but developers Digital Kingdom just shipped a 1.1 update that adds a new mode, overhauls unlock progression and tweaks loads more. There’s a free demo, if you don’t want to take the full plunge.
As reported by Eurogamer, a scene in Across the Spider-Verse shows Miles Morales meet his friend Ganke who’s in the middle of a gaming sesh on his PlayStation 5. The footage turns out to be from Spider-Man 2, and Insomniac community manager James Stevenson confirmed to fans on Resetera that it’s brand new.
The clip is very, very brief but it does show Peter Parker getting all acrobatic against an unknown foe, while also using mechanical limbs reminiscent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Spider-Man’s Instant-Kill Mode.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 gameplay can be seen in Spider-Man : Accross the Spider-Verse ?️?pic.twitter.com/YR0duNKHxm
— PlayStation Studios Fans (@PSFans_WW) June 4, 2023
Whether or not Peter’s suit has been given upgrades on a par with Tony Stark’s version of the iconic Spidey suit remains to be seen, of course, but it looks as though Peter has been working on it in his spare time at least.
IGN’s review of Across the Spider-Verse gave it an 8/10 and said: “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse surges with visual inventiveness and vibrance in an undeniably strong evolution of the style established in Into the Spider-Verse… Across the Spider-Verse is a more-than-worthy follow-up to an all-time classic.”
If there’s a single upside to the collapsingstandards of technicalcompetence among big-budget PC games, it’s that when something like Diablo 4 comes along and simply performs well, there’s an almost pleasant relief to it. Like your bus arriving on time, a minute after watching the previous, late-arriving one flip onto its roof attempting a handbrake turn.
It’s not perfect, but Diablo IV does run smoothly for the most part (also sorry Google, but I’m going back to Roman numberals), and its system requirements on PC are as likely to involve museum pieces as they are the latest and priciest graphics cards. I’ve put some hours into the early access build and have come up with a best settings guide, but in truth, this will likely just optimise your framerates – Diablo IV’s higher quality settings rarely trouble it, especially at 1080p.
Diablo 4 players are having a right ‘mare when it comes to the game’s horses. Hell demons, corrupt villagers, and the undead are no match for The Wanderer, but it looks as though some players have met their match when it comes to horse riding.
“I keep getting caught on tiny trees or rocks,” said one player who took to Reddit to complain. “Going downwards on the screen is beyond awkward too, making my horse stutter step and waste the charge. They’re still really useful as long as you’re going anywhere other than further down the map lmao”
And other players were somewhat less tactful. “The horse is objectively awful. Seems super sensitive to server desync, too. The Elden Ring horse is like a f**king spaceship compared to this turd.”
“The Elden Ring horse is like a f**king spaceship compared to this turd.”
Some players point out that you should use roads “as you would irl”, but others have been quick to counter that horses don’t usually need roads to get about.
On top of terrain issues, it looks as though players aren’t happy with their horse’s cooldowns, either. The most irritating thing for some seems to be that even when you purposely dismount, this triggers a 10-second cooldown before you can get back on your horse.
“What currently happens is you have to dismount, wait a second for the game to register that you’ve dismounted, and then press spacebar to interact,” said another Reddit user. “Then, you have to continue to wait the full 10-second cooldown before you can mount up again.”
Of course, players have already suggested plenty of improvements, with the most sensible suggesting that Blizzard should remove the cooldown when out of combat. “I love dismounting to break a barricade and then waiting 20 seconds to mount again,” said another.
As well as weird cooldowns and terrain issues, some players have also noticed something odd about the game’s riding speed. Essentially, it seems to be linked to how far away your cursor is from your character.
“I’m sure there are others that won’t realize this and may be wondering why they spur their horse but it doesn’t go faster,” pointed out a helpful Reddit user. “If the cursor is too close to the character then it doesn’t do much. Conversely, having your cursor far away makes it go zoom.”
IGN’s Diablo 4 review gave it 9/10 and said: “Diablo 4 is a stunning sequel with near-perfect endgame and progression design that makes it absolutely excruciating to put down.”
For those in the UK, the latest “here’s what you could have won” bit of helpful EU regulation just dropped. Valve are now required to show Steam users in EU countries a game’s lowest price over the past 30 days, which means sellers can’t display deceptively high discounts by bumping the base price before a sale. Valve made the change in order to comply with the ominously named “Omnibus Directive”, which applies to all online stores.
Steam already enforces limits on manipulating prices around sales, but it’s nice that some people get to have a little extra peace of mind.
In the 1980s, Takahashi Meijin was a supermarket clerk turned home programmer, eventually picked up by Hudson Soft to work as a software salesman. This, however, was only the start of his journey into 8-bit stardom. In 1985 he co-presented a TV show in Japan that hosted tournaments, usually for Hudson Soft’s shoot ’em up catalogue and its featured competitive ‘Caravan’ modes: quick, timed stages designed to be perfected by accruing as high a score as possible. It turned out Meijin was a skilled player himself, and with his distinctive, bald appearance, he quickly rose to fame by demonstrating his ‘trigger finger’ speed technique. Kids at home attempted to emulate his impressively fast button mashing, to the point where a Mejin-branded Shooting Watch was released: a simple two-button toy with a digital display that would record the number of presses one could achieve within a time limit. At the height of his fame, Hudson Soft used his likeness for Master Higgins, the protagonist of their Adventure Island series.
Star Gagnant, partly crowd-funded and created with Meijin’s input, features him as Captain Takahashi in anime form. It also has a cute virtual version of his Shooting Watch toy tucked away as a bonus option, allowing you to test your own trigger finger speeds.
