The latest UK chart data for boxed sales shows that 260k physical games were sold in just the first week of January 2021 (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz), up by a third on last year, with 15 slots in the top 40 taken up by Nintendo Switch exclusives. Nintendo’s colourful and cheerful games are performing particularly well - which may perhaps come as no surprise. Sales of Nintendo games were up by 123 per cent on the same period last year, and the top-selling boxed game in the UK last week was, once again, Animal Crossing: New Horizons....

It’s ironic, then, that my solution to the resulting crippling inertia is to sink over a hundred hours in Islanders. This is a game that makes no demands on my time, in which the only aim is to slide buildings, Tetris-like, against each other to create dense and tranquil cities. It’s part of a growing trend in casual games. While blockbuster titles become bigger, brighter, and more bombastic, these games – appropriately – gently slide into the mainstream to offer a less demanding alternative....

The developer of Age of Rust, a blockchain game that uses NFTs, took to Twitter to say it had been notified that Steam “will be kicking all blockchain games off the platform, including Age of Rust, because NFTs have value”. Valve’s rules for what can be distributed on Steam now include a note to say apps built on blockchain technology “that issue or allow exchange of cryptocurrencies or NFTs” shouldn’t be published....

I know that on the surface Vampire Survivors isn’t strictly about running. It’s about being a sort of tooled-up magical hero taking on hordes of undead horrors. And yet! One of the things that fascinates me about running is how it’s a sort of metamorphosis engine. It takes things and turns them into other things. It turns time into distance, and distance into time. I am slow, so one circuit of a football pitch in the park near my house becomes a unit of time (90 seconds) while just over three circuits of the football pitch is turned back into distance (just about a kilometre)....

There’s a slightly tweaked format this year as we move to a new platform - so if you’d kindly leave your EG username in the survey alongside your comments then we can properly attribute them when we run the final piece over the Christmas break. It’s always a highlight of EG’s Christmas programme and this year there’ll be plenty more, with our own top 30 games of the year plus a feast of write-ups on some of our favourite games and a bit more besides....

The mod ban accompanies the integration of Easy Anti-Cheat in an attempt to combat “malicious modded clients”. The latest debacle began earlier this week, when VRChat announced the ban and the inclusion of Easy Anti-Cheat, as well as an open beta beginning immediately to test the update. On Discord, VRChat staff member Tupper revealed they expected the update to be rolled out to all players within 24 hours. Unsurprisingly, many players have been vocal about their worries and disappointment in the mod ban....

ORIGINAL STORY 14/4/21: If you’re a Nintendo fan comfortably nestled in the nook of the two-circle Venn diagram also marked ‘indie’, you may wish to prepare yourself for imminent excitement: Nintendo has another indie showcase scheduled for tomorrow, 14th April. Proceedings get underway at 5pm in the UK/6pm CEST, with Nintendo promising “roughly 20 minutes focused on fresh and new indie games” for Switch. Quite where the distinction between ‘fresh’ and ’new’ lies, I do not know, but perhaps all will be revealed tomorrow....

Overwatch 2, as Edwin Evans-Thirlwell pointed out in his early impressions piece - he’s currently working on the full review - is overwhelmingly Overwatch. And it’s hard not to agree. Faced with the same maps and the same characters, Overwatch 2 seems to be the same game so many of us will have played so many times before. However, the differences as there, and given time, they make themselves felt....

The silver-haired Witcher will join Fortnite Chapter 4 Season 1, giving players the chance to earn a bunch of The Witcher themed items. Here’s when Geralt is set to be added to Fortnite, and what to expect once he’s in the game. On this page: Fortnite Geralt release date, and when The Witcher items are coming to Fortnite While there hasn’t been official confirmation from Epic social channels as to when Geralt of Rivia is coming to Fortnite, we do have some information listed in the Battle Pass which points to a date....

So let’s talk performance. Combined, Nvidia claimed these new Ada Lovelace cards can be up to two to four times faster than their Ampere predecessors in the most demanding 4K RT workloads, and that’s borne out by our testing. The extent of the increase depends on the game and the settings, but this card more or less “solves” current-gen games - you can basically choose the highest possible settings and enjoy high frame-rates, maxing out even a 4K 144Hz monitor in most titles....

For the uninitiated, the aim of Wordle is to work out a daily five-letter word within six guesses. The fewer the guesses, the better - and if you fail to guess it at all, you’ll break your streak. The latter is why working out today’s Wordle answer is such a priority, as players pride themselves on keeping their streak going. So why gamble on a risky final guess when you can learn a few clues and, failing that, get the definitive answer?...

This should save quite a bit of time for completionists, who will no longer have to resort to Google in order to find the one pesky achievement that haunts your nightmares. To find the hidden details, just open the Xbox Guide from within a game and go to Game Activity and then Achievements. After that, you just need to find the achievement you’re after and manually select to unhide it....

It started with a reveal that had the internet thirsting; it ended with voice actress Maggie Robertson winning best performance at The Game Awards. 2021 was the year of Lady Dimitrescu. The tall vampire lady of Resident Evil: Village is truly the icon of the game - so much so that her infamy has transcended the game itself. Lady Dimitrescu was first revealed at the Resident Evil Showcase in January of this year, and it didn’t take long for fans to collectively lose their shit....

Though we’re seemingly not going to see a hotfix deployed until 3rd February “at the earliest”, it should be good news for larger groups of friends who have been struggling to connect to a lobby with their fireteam intact. “Using the telemetry we received from the hotfix on January 19, we were able to make a new build with an update that we believe should address the core issue impacting the BTB playlist,” senior community manager, John Junyszek, explained in an update on the Halo Waypoint website....

Season 8, which launches later this autumn, may prove to be MCC’s last season, as 343 moves away from the game’s season model to focus on smaller updates “that can land when they’re ready based on development status and studio roadmap alignment”. 343 insisted these updates will continue to be free and will include the unreleased features and content from this year, and it will make a continued effort to improve stability and tackle legacy fixes where possible....

After this point, the ability to buy games or download free-to-play titles and demos will be gone for good. Download codes will also not function. However, you will still be able to redownload previously-purchased games and DLC, receive software updates, and play online. You will no longer be able to add funds to a Wii U or 3DS eShop account via credit card from 23rd May this year. And from 29th August this year, you will no longer be able to add funds from a Nintendo eShop Card....

A Plague Tale: Requiem, which was officially announced back in June, picks up immediately after the first game, following sibling protagonists Amicia and Hugo on a perilous new quest, “doing whatever it takes to survive a brutal, uncaring world.” “After escaping their devastated homeland,” explained publisher Focus Interactive previously, “Amicia and Hugo travel far south, to new regions and vibrant cities. There, they attempt to start a new life and control Hugo’s curse....

This isn’t the first time the brand has paired up with Sheeran - he previously starred in a crossover event with Pokémon Go last year. This time around, the collaboration will be in Sheeran’s area of expertise. Sheeran confirmed on Twitter he will be releasing a new song called Celestial on 29th September in collaboration with Pokémon. This is the same song Sheeran previously played on a video posted on TikTok, where he laid down on “only half of the collection” of his Pokémon plushies....

That’s according to Yoshimi Yasuda, the game’s executive producer, who recently formed a fresh company to work on projects unknown. Does this mean a re-release, a remaster or a sequel to the original Lollipop Chainsaw, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this week? Yasuda declined to mention. “Lollipop Chainsaw is back by Dragami Games,” Yasuda said, namechecking his new company. “Please look forward to it.” Lollipop Chainsaw stars an American cheerleader in a skimpy outfit who chops up zombies while aided by her former boyfriend Nick - now a disembodied head....

Kerri Moynihan, a 32-year-old finance manager at Activision, died in 2017 while attending a company retreat. The incident publicly came to light as part of California’s still-ongoing lawsuit against Activision, filed last July, which has alleged multiple instances of discrimination and misconduct at the company. In March, the Washington Post reported that Moynihan’s family were suing Activision Blizzard for wrongful death, and were claiming sexual harassment had been a “significant factor” in their daughter’s suicide....