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Starfield is one of the most highly anticipated games in years and you can pre-load it right now. 2023 is shaping up to be one of the best years ever in the gaming industry. The next big game, Starfield, arrives on September 6, however, you can pre-load it beginning today, August 17th. We will show you how to go through the process and discuss the different versions and what they will include. When you pre-load a game, you are downloading it before it is available to play. When a highly anticipated game is released, the servers can run slow due to millions of people trying to download the game simultaneously. If you pre-load the game though, it is available to play on the release date with no additional wait. How to pre-load Starfield on PC and Xbox Series X|S Starfield is a free download on Xbox and PC with your Game Pass membership. Remember that if you are playing on PC, you must download the Game Pass version from the Microsoft Store, not Steam. To pre-load Starfield on PC, do the following: Open up the Microsoft Store App (or click here) Search for "Starfield" Click on Starfield Standard Edition Click the button that says "Pre-install Included with Game Pass" Once you do that, you are good to go. Sit back and let it download. If you are on Xbox, boot up your console and do the following: From the home menu, hit the "Y" button Search for "Starfield" Go to Starfield Standard Edition Click the button that says "Pre-Install All Coming Sep. 5" You should now be all set up, and Starfield should download for you automatically once it becomes available. This pre-load feature is especially useful if you live in an area with limited internet where downloading a game that is 125GB might take a while. What are the different versions and how can I play Starfield early? The standard version of Starfield will arrive on September 6th. However, you can play almost a week early. If you want to pay to upgrade to the Starfield Premium Edition, you can play the game as early as August 31, 2023. In addition to the base game, you would also receive the following: Shattered Space Story Expansion (when it is released) Early Access Constellation Skin Pack: Equinox Laser Rifle, Spacesuit, Helmet and Boost Pack Access to the Starfield Digital Artbook & Original Soundtrack You can upgrade to this version for $31.49 if you are a Game Pass member. If you are not a Game Pass member and want to buy the package outright, it will cost $99.99. The price disparity is because Game Pass members don't have to pay for the base game, which is why that option is almost $70 cheaper. If you want to just purchase the base game for now, you can also do that for $69.99. Then, later on, if the expansion pack looks interesting, you can purchase the premium edition upgrade for $34.99. Suppose you are someone who likes to collect physical items. In that case, you can purchase the Starfield Premium Edition Upgrade for Xbox Series X at stores like Best Buy and Amazon. If you choose this route, you will get everything that you do with the digital version with the additional bonus of receiving a nice-looking Starfield Steelbook. There is also a bigger Starfield: Constellation Edition that includes everything in the Premium Edition Upgrade, plus a nice Chronomark watch, alongside a case for the watch. But, good luck getting your hands on it, as it's sold out pretty much across the board. What is Starfield? Starfield is the first new universe from Bethesda in over 25 years. It is set in 2330 when humanity explores beyond our solar system. Bethesda’s new adventure is all about you as you create your character, decide your backstory and skills, and build your own spaceship. No one's playthrough will be precisely the same as you have the opportunity to visit more than 1,000 planets in the game. Starfield will allow you to fly and command the ship of your dreams. One minute you could be exploring a fascinating new world. Next, you can take off and fly off into space, getting caught up in a dogfight and even potentially boarding and taking over control from enemy vessels. Who will you choose to be as you explore the universe of Starfield?

Open Beta for Palia went live last week and Patch 0.166 keeps the ball rolling. This past week, Singularity Six dropped the Open Beta for their upcoming game, Palia. Palia is a delightful MMO cozy game that lets players build their home and farm on a plot of land and then go out and adventure. Anyone familiar with games such as Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, or the like definitely should give this free game a try. But, as it is, it’s still a little rough around the edges due to it being an Open Beta. The good news, however, is that they’re actively patching the game. Less than a week after launch, we’re seeing “Patch 0.166”, which brings some great new additions to the game. The list is pretty long and can be found on their official blog. But, a quick list includes new quests and found items to discover, adjustments to EXP rates, additions to Zeki’s Wondrous Machine and the Premium Store, and (finally) pets. The important thing is that the game is going to constantly get quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes. One qualm that they’re working on is the user interface for housing, for instance, which is getting some new functions like rotating the camera. Sometimes, it’s the small things that matter. Additionally, they’re adding more story quests with this update, with the “The Acceptance Ceremony” quest. Plus, they added “Found Item” quests to the list. As this is a freemium game, they’re offering pets for players that will follow you around as you traverse and farm. Of course, they started with a feline, the Palcat. Palcats come in four colors to start off, which are Sandy (tan/orange), Nocturnal (black/gray), Island (teal/gray), and Snowy (gray/light gray). You can get them by visiting the shop. The Sandy Palcat is available as a stand-alone purchase. But, the other three come with purchasing 3000 Palia Coins, the game’s premium currency. You get all three automatically once you buy the prerequisite amount. For those that already grabbed some Palia Coins, the purchases are retroactively giving you your Palcats. We will be paying close attention to the growth of Palia as it eventually heads towards a full launch. We don’t have an exact date as of yet, but it’s coming to the Nintendo Switch this Holiday 2023 and will likely be a more full launch then. Join their open beta for free right now on PC on Palia’s website.

Larian Studios drops hotfixes, promises over 1000 fixes and tweaks in the first patch. It’s no surprise that Baldur’s Gate 3 is getting a ton of attention lately. The game is fantastic. It even got the honor of one of our sacred 10s here at GameCrate. But, Larian Studios isn’t happy with just success, fame, and glory. They want to make the game even better, somehow. They have already dropped three hotfixes to squash bugs, crashes, and blockers. This has amounted to hundreds of fixes as it is. Swen Vincke, CEO and founder of Larian Studios, took to Twitter/X to talk about the upcoming first official patch. Even though they dropped a ton of hotfixes, the first patch for a game is generally something special to a development studio. For Baldur’s Gate 3, the first patch is all about fixes and tweaks to make an already nearly perfect game even perfect-er. Vincke casually brought up a loose roadmap for Baldur’s Gate 3. Right this moment, they have a hotfix coming (likely for immediate problems to be solved). Then, they have patch 1, then patch 2. He notes that Patch 1 will have over “1000 fixes and tweaks”. Patch 2 is looking to incorporate some requests, likely some quality-of-life enhancements. It was recently mentioned in a recent Post/Tweet from Larian Studios Director of Publishing Michael Douse that they’re working on a way for players to change their look mid-game. Or, as he put it, “Things are being cooked”. It’s also a great time to mention that the PlayStation 5 version of the game isn’t even out yet. On September 6th, when the game hits PS5, players will also benefit from all of the hotfixes, patches, and upgrades that Larian has included by then.

Microsoft is done playing around with trolls and toxicity. Lately, Microsoft has been putting a lot of attention on making its flagship platform a safer place for everyone. They’ve tried various systems in the past. But, they have now officially introduced a new one: The Enforcement Strike System. In their post on the official Xbox blog, they explain that the older system was a little more convoluted and vague. They want people to know exactly what is going on at all times. Depending on your strike total determines how much time you’re suspended from using social features. Users will have the ability to get up to eight strikes, which brings your total suspension to a maximum of 365 days. The good news is that users can appeal the strikes and moderation is apparently done by real people. So, if you get a strike, you can appeal it and get a real response. With the recent addition of voice reporting, it’s easier to prove when something is or isn’t legitimately a strike. Additionally, strikes are on your account for six months before they fall off. It’s interesting to see their breakdown of how many points go into each strike, as well. According to the “Enforcement Stacking: User Journey” chart, it breaks down how it all works. For instance, profanity and cheating both only merit 1 strike point each. Being sexually inappropriate, bullying, and harassment are all 2 strikes each, while full-on hate speech draws on the big boy 3 points of a strike. The crackdown is nice to see. But, only a 3-day suspension for hardcore hate speech feels more like a slap on the wrist. All other instances only merit a single day of suspension. Stacking them is the only way to start amping the consequences up. This may have been done to keep toxic people from abusing the system, just to bully or lock out people from being able to play games. But, the punishments are super light unless you’re a multiple-time offender. I feel like there needs to be more of a balance struck. It’s better than nothing, though.

A week after PlayStation entered its beta test, Netflix is looking to let gamers play games directly from their TV. Hot off the heels of Sony doing the same thing, Netflix dropped their cloud gaming beta for a “small number” of those in the UK and Canada. It appears that they’ll be adding PC and Mac support within weeks as well. Last week, TechCrunch identified that Netflix quietly dropped a new app for mobile devices that would turn your phone into a controller, aptly called “Netflix Game Controller”. The app store description straight up says “Connect to your TV to play”. It was assumed they were imminently planning to launch their cloud gaming service. Cut to nearly a week later, and the assumptions were correct. This initial test includes two games. Oxenfree is an excellent Netflix Game Studio game from Night School Studios. The other game is a gem-mining arcade-style game called Molehew’s Mining Adventure. They were both likely included to test the capabilities of the service in speed and latency, as well as the power needed to play more advanced games. Players, as suspected last week, use the mobile phone controller app to play these games. Currently, the beta only works on TVs. But, within a few weeks or so, they’re opening up testing on PC and Mac as well, through supported browsers. When that happens, those players will be able to use the keyboard and mouse support. No word if Netflix is going to offer physical keyboard and mouse support on the TV version as well. As mentioned, this is just a small beta test for a limited amount of users within a small part of the global space that uses a small selection of TVs and devices. So, give it time if you weren’t invited yet. The “select devices” that the beta will be compatible with are: Amazon Fire TV Streaming Media Players, Chromecast with Google TV, LG TVs, Nvidia Shield TV, Roku devices and TVs, Samsung Smart TVs, and Walmart ONN. But, more will be added over time. With Xbox already offering cloud gaming, Sony and Netflix are now in a battle to get their platforms available as well. One does wonder if the entire endeavor could turn out to be as fruitless as Google learned with the Stadia. I guess time will tell.

Based on the amazing-yet-dark comic run, The Last Ronin isn’t the usual quirky cartoon universe. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, if you didn’t know, started as a much darker, gruesome comic series back in the 1980s. When it became a cartoon, they made it more kid-friendly and made it fuel a massive toy line. Sure, the TMNT have been known for their laid back attitudes, surfer vernacular, and lots of pizza over the years. But, they didn’t start out that way. As mentioned, the original comics were grim, violent, and serious. Cut to nearly 40 years later, the multiverse is full of a wide-assortment of iterations. Back in 2020, The Last Ronin told the story of one of the turtles dealing with loss and vengeance. In the story, only one of the TMNT remains, as nearly everyone else he knew is long gone. He uses all four weapons of the turtles during the story and it’s just a fantastic tale. We won’t spoil the story. Go read it. We’ll wait. It’s worth it. We’ll be here when you get back. In any case, The Last Ronin is getting a video game adaptation. It’s due out for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox One S and X. THQ Nordic dropped a teaser trailer for the project, alongside some details in the description for the game, which lines up with its comic book origin. “Who is the Last Ronin?” The YouTube video’s description asks, “In a future, battle-ravaged New York City, a lone surviving Turtle embarks on a seemingly hopeless mission seeking justice for the family he lost.” The description on the video continues by solidifying exactly what the teaser is for. “From the minds of the creators of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and based on the best-selling comic book event by Eastman, Waltz, Bishop, Delgado, and the Escorza Brothers: the official video game adaptation of TMNT: The Last Ronin.” The video is in grayscale and shows four candles. Across the 45 second teaser, three of them burn out with various backgrounds as they do. The mystery, for those that didn’t read the comic, is that no one knows who the Last Ronin actually is. The hardcore TMNT fandom already knows and has known for years. But, the mystery is part of the story, so they keep it intact for those that are learning of this for the first time. Black Forest Games is developing the game, who is best known for the remakes for Destroy All Humans and its sequel.

Atlas Fallen has plenty of good ideas, but none of them are done particularly well. Later this year, a new soulslike adventure called Lords of the Fallen will be released. You might recognize that title if you were playing soulslike games in 2014, since a completely different Lords of the Fallen was released then. While the Lords of the Fallen (2023) still has CI Games working on the publisher side of things, Deck13 Interactive, the studio behind Lords of the Fallen (2014), isn’t involved with the new project. So what has Deck13 been doing? Well, after the similarly souls-inspired games The Surge and The Surge 2, Deck13 has created the not-so-soulsy Atlas Fallen. While still an action role-playing game, Atlas Fallen sees players traversing an open-world environment while doing their best to fight colossal beasts with the combat system you’d expect to see in a spectacle fighter like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta. Sadly, Deck13’s new idea is underbaked in a lot of ways. After a completely unnecessary opening moment that teaches you the basic controls, you use a completely unnecessary character creator to make a hero that will be completely covered in armor for the overwhelming majority of your playthrough. Sure, their face is automatically uncovered when talking to NPCs, but the camera is locked behind you when these conversations play out and your face is completely covered by armor in cutscenes. Every character you speak to throughout the entirety of Atlas Fallen has a whole lot of nothing to say. Then, once your custom character who you’ll never see again has been made, you are pulled into a bafflingly long-winded intro that seems to be doing all it can to make the part where you can play the actual game as far away as possible. Rather than just letting you jump into things, you have to endure awful dialogue delivered through poorly-executed voice acting. Every character you speak to throughout the entirety of Atlas Fallen has a whole lot of nothing to say. They’ll do one of two things: repeat information you already know but in different words like they copy and pasted the info into a thesaurus, or word vomit a bunch of information about the land of Atlas or the plot that fails to give the player any reason to care about what’s going on. I’ve seen better worldbuilding from toddlers with Duplo bricks. Harsh as this all sounds, when the game finally set me loose to actually play the game (following a second tutorial on the basic controls for some reason) I was enjoying myself! The combat is flashy, and it’s fun to try and stay in the air as long as possible using careful management of one’s air dashes. Add the fact that there is an enormous number of special moves to unlock and use in different combinations, and I was beginning to think that there was plenty of fun to be found in making different move sets. Unfortunately, I didn’t find that to be the case. The game’s combat is much too shallow for a number of reasons. Unlike a true spectacle fighter like Bayonetta, your move set doesn’t evolve throughout the entire game. Sure, there are those unlockable abilities but they are often light variations of one another. Even worse, a fair number of the abilities I found wouldn’t work half of the time. One move, for example, was supposed to lock onto an enemy and dash into them for a small burst of damage. It had literally no effect more than half of the time. It would get me right next to a foe, sure, but they’d take no damage at all before pummeling me into the sand. Fights against late-game foes with a lot of moving parts felt like total chores that devolved into relying too much on the game’s parry mechanic. Special abilities, your basic move set, and the attacks of enemies all have horribly inconsistent and poorly-communicated hitboxes as well. I could be on top of a monster’s head thanks to some air dashing, and their low sweeping tail would still knock me far away. Fights against late-game foes with a lot of moving parts felt like total chores that devolved into relying too much on the game’s parry mechanic. A mechanic which, to be fair, had some neat ideas tied to it. Successfully parrying a larger creature a certain number of times causes them to freeze completely, but attacking completely frozen creatures only worked if the game felt like it wanted me to have fun. Rarely did the game think this should be the case, as my attacks regularly had zero effect on frozen baddies. In addition to wonky hit detection and lackluster abilities, the combat system got harder to endure over time because of its momentum system. Much like parrying, it’s a good idea on paper! As you hit foes, your momentum bar, composed of three chunks, starts to fill. When one chunk is full, your basic attacks become bigger and do more damage. Simultaneously, you take more damage. It’s a great idea to make the player think more about risk and reward and how they’d like to navigate a fight. Add in the fact that one or several chunks can be spent on a large, shattering, ultimate attack and there’s plenty to focus on during fights. Yet, the game later introduces enemy attacks that can drain your momentum bar. Too often these attacks were enormous, sweeping, horribly telegraphed, and overall too frequent. To make this even worse, these momentum-robbing blows also deal damage to your health bar. Whether it’s a side quest or a main quest, you go back and forth and back and forth until the game eventually ends. The idea of an occasional assault that would make you lose momentum is a good idea! Swarming the player in swaths of the things so that they feel like they’re fighting the bar on the bottom of the screen rather than the giant monsters? Not such a great idea. If you’re not putting up with the combat system that’s as shallow as a kiddie pool, Atlas Fallen has you sand-surfing all over an enormous map. Whether it’s a side quest or a main quest, you go back and forth and back and forth until the game eventually ends. Completing the main story took me a little over ten hours, but it felt three times as long. Toward the end, I was on way too many main quests that seemed engineered specifically to waste my time and artificially lengthen the game. Easily more than half of my gameplay in Atlas Fallen consisted of nothing more than holding the left stick forward for several long minutes at a time. On the one hand, the world was nice to look at. Good lighting, nice textures, and plenty of strong environmental design that made finding points of interest happen much more organically than your average open-world game. On the other hand, each time I found something to do in the open world it was either a glitchy fight against one of the severely limited number of enemies or a puzzle that interrupted my endlessly boring traversal with more endlessly boring traversal. The reward for these activities? Abilities that might not work or a useless treasure. The more time I spent with Atlas Fallen, the more its cracks became harder to ignore. Its combat system is sorely lacking, the story is entirely uninteresting and poorly told, and the whole experience has an unpolished quality to it. Perhaps Deck13 ought to give the soulslike thing another go. Pros: Visually interesting world Combat is flashy Cons: Combat is too shallow Bugs and inconsistent hitboxes abound Story is empty and uninteresting Game’s runtime feels padded out Poor quest design that includes a lot of boring traversal Score: 4/10 Reviewer played on Xbox Series X Atlas Fallen is available now on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S

Like Elden Ring did last year, Baldur’s Gate 3 stands out bereft of live-service elements to execute a clear creative vision. BG3 is a lovingly crafted game made by an incredibly dedicated and passionate team deadest on making the best choice-driven RPG ever. Six years of dedicated development and three years in early access has paid off; suffice to say, BG3 is easily the best choice-driven RPG I have played, and probably one of the best RPGs of all time. BG3 is easily the best choice-driven RPG I have played and one of the best RPGs of all time. Based in the Forgotten Realms universe (the world of Dungeons & Dragons for the uninitiated), BG3 is a lavishly produced CRPG with an incredible cast of characters, a complex story, and incredible gameplay freedom. You start out as an adventurer who has been caught by Mind Flayers, D&D’s Cthulhu-like race of psychic squid aberrations. They infect people with “tadpoles,” little parasites inserted through the eye that will eventually transform the victim into one of their own. To your surprise, something has delayed this transformation, and much larger forces are at work in the world of BG3. Larian Studios has given players unparalleled options in creating your character. While they give you the option to start as “origin” characters, which are the set party members you run into along the way, you also have the freedom to create a custom hero. Admittedly, I was disappointed at the absence of non-human types like Kenku, Tabaxi, and Tortles. Other than that, the character creator is nearly peerless in creating unique and memorable player characters that look fantastic. The consistency and quality of BG3 is frequently astounding. Once you have your class and character set, you drop into the amazing world of BG3. What is so incredible about BG3 is the consistency and quality of the writing. Every character feels realistic, and I never ran into the typically annoying characters that plague so many other games with quippy dialogue and cringe-inducing voice acting (looking at you, basically every JRPG). It shows that Larian Studios has put so much time and effort into every line. This is bolstered by phenomenal voice acting, where, once again, I didn’t run into a single line that felt off or misread. The consistency and quality of BG3 is frequently astounding. I imagine that BG3 must have been an absolute nightmare to develop, and the amount of player freedom is unparalleled. Mass Effect, The Witcher, The Elder Scrolls; none of these titles can hold a candle to the freedom Larian Studios allows players in BG3. Kill anyone, steal anything, approach quests in almost any fashion. I finished off major bosses by sneaking up and pushing them off cliffs, used necromancy to interrogate dead quest-givers to complete missed questlines, and convinced villains to off-themselves; the freedom is astounding. What is equally impressive is the sheer quantity and quality of the content on offer. BG3 is easily a 100-hour experience, but every quest feels hand-crafted, and there are no “fetch 10 pelts for me” moments or grindy, repetitive side-content. The world of BG3 is comparably small to the sprawling open worlds of its contemporaries, with acts focused on individual zones that usually feature a few major locations. These zones are filled with rich stories and tons of depth, all killer; no filler is an applicable term here. Gone is the bloat that plagues so many of BG3’s contemporaries. Elements interact; blood and water can conduct electricity, grease can spread fire, every object has tangible physics, and creativity is rewarded at every turn. Combat offers even more freedom than the story, with every attack having weight and physical impact on the world. Elements interact; blood and water can conduct electricity, grease can spread fire, every object has tangible physics, and creativity is rewarded at every turn. D&D 5E’s ruleset is painstakingly recreated, and the game’s systems are a joy to engage with. It can be challenging to understand at first, but players will quickly get the hang of it, and a generous, quick save system allows for all the save-scumming you could ever want. BG3 doesn’t just deliver on writing, voice acting, and combat. The music and visuals are of equal quality, and the world of Faerûn is a sight to behold. Textures hold up to scrutiny despite having the ability to zoom in and out at will, and the scope and quality of assets are impressive to behold. The soundtrack fits perfectly, with the game molding its main theme to fit different tones and scenarios. Every part of Larian Studios magnum opus shows the same level of care and creativity. BG3 is a highwater mark for choice-driven RPGs and the new standard to which basically every other major RPG will be compared. I feel bad for Starfield at this point and for game developers in general. Larian Studios has set the bar incredibly high. Still, I hope other publishers will see it as an example to let developers have time and creative freedom to make incredible games without all the bloated live service and microtransaction bullshit. Also, you can play this game in four-player online co-op or even split-screen locally on a single PC, and in this day and age, that may be one of the most impressive features in BG3. If you love RPGs, you owe it to yourself to play this game. Pros: Deep, engaging, and reactive combat Incredible writing Fantastic Music Wonderful Voice Acting Great Characterization Unparalleled Player Freedom Beautiful Visuals Cons: Some minor technical issues Score: 10/10 Reviewer played the game on PC Baldur’s Gate 3 is available now on Microsoft Windows and will be available on PlayStation 5, and macOS on September 6th.

The Grand Theft Auto 6 devs could be looking at a really cool future feature During the pandemic, people watched a lot of streams, played games, and were generally just stuck at home. We all found ways to keep ourselves preoccupied and kill time. But, some Grand Theft Auto 5 fans took it to the next level. Rockstar Games hasn’t always played nice with the modding community. But, the rise of roleplaying in GTA5 may have changed their minds a bit. “Over the past few years,” the official Rockstar Games Newswire post states, “we've watched with excitement as Rockstar’s creative community have found new ways to expand the possibilities of Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2, particularly through the creation of dedicated roleplay servers. As a way to further support those efforts, we recently expanded our policy on mods to officially include those made by the roleplay creative community.” Cfx.re is a modding community that has built a special tool that mods the game to allow multiplayer on private servers. It seems like a small detail, but it had huge implications for those looking to tell stories or play with only their friends and no one else. You see, GTA Online is often chaotic. If a Twitch streamer wants to tell a story, roleplay their character, or just keep things between their pals, there wasn’t really an official solution. You could be in the middle of a story and BAM, you got gunned down by a rando on the server. FiveM (for Grand Theft Auto 5) and RedM (for Red Dead Redemption 2), both made by Cfx.re, have been solid mainstays with fans of the games for years and now they’re both owned by Rockstar Games. “By partnering with the Cfx.re team,” Rockstar’s post continued, “we will help them find new ways to support this incredible community and improve the services they provide to their developers and players.” They promise to share more in the “weeks and months ahead” and left it at that. While the implications are that they could have the technology built directly into future game releases, they’ve left the door open for any possibilities. In the meantime, you can still download FiveM and RedM for your games right now on PC.

Both the CPU and GPU are very pretty and look great for any space-faring adventure, but you have to win them. During an AMD video back in June, Microsoft announced a big partnership with AMD for their upcoming release of Starfield. The fruits of that labor were all shown this week with a big team-up for marketing. Starting off, AMD dropped a really pretty video, showing off Starfield limited editions of the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. They’re basically identical to their normal counterparts but with a really nice look to them. As a majority of people cover their CPUs entirely within a case, the “limited edition” part of the Ryzen 7 CPU is just on the box. The Radeon GPU, on the other hand, has some amazing detailing. Anyone familiar with the aesthetic of Starfield knows the simple white of their controls and ships, with a multi-banded stripe for a splash of various colors. The card looks slick, sleek, and bears the Starfield logo in the corner. Basically, it looks like it came right out of the game and we’re here for it. And you can only currently find it by winning one. With only 500 units being produced, this really is "limited". These are not available for normal sale. However, it appears they may also be available to win at QuakeCon 2023, if you're lucky enough to be there. But, all is not lost! You can get yourself in on the AMD and Starfield collaboration! In addition to the partnership, AMD is offering a free copy of Starfield for select items purchased during their promotion. This is not abnormal as graphics cards and CPUs offer a free game with a lot of their products. However, this promotion is pretty nice by comparison. See deals on Starfield bundles on Newegg Depending on what items purchased will grant you either the Standard or Premium versions of the game. Obviously, the higher end the item is, the more likely it is that you’ll get the Premium Edition. There’s a nice chart on Newegg here, as well as plenty of options to buy. But, a lot of stores offer products from this campaign. (Editor's Note: Newegg publishes GameCrate. However, this is not an officially sanctioned sales post from our publisher. They just so happen to have all of the information nicely detailed on their website for this promotion. We just wanted to be transparent here.) Buying a pre-built PC with both the CPU and GPU installed also merits a full Premium Edition. But, good luck getting one of those so close to launch. With Starfield right around the corner, this game is a beast. It’s everything that the No Man’s Sky fanbase wanted out of that game years ago but is made with the proficient storytelling of Bethesda. Oh, and if you've never owned an AMD before, don't forget to also keep your AMD drivers fully updated with a beast like Starfield. We wrote a full how-to for those that take up this offer. (Editor's Note: Additional edits made for clarity.)

I feel like I have to make a “We will remember that” joke here. Telltale Games, the company that made such hits as The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us, has had a bit of a turbulent history over the years. However, that company and its assets were all purchased back in 2018 by a new company looking to continue its legacy. LCG Entertainment, Inc, known better as Telltale Games now, is full steam ahead with its business dealings. Today, they announced a new acquisition, Flavourworks. Flavourworks is probably best known for their game Erica, an interactive thriller on PC, PlayStation, and iOS. The game mixes live-action acting with interactive choices that affect the story as it unravels. While it may seem like something Netflix already did with Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, it’s the technology that powers it all that is most important to Telltale. TouchVideo is a tech created and developed by Flavourworks, which allows you to reach out and touch the answers to questions on the screen. Seeing as Telltale games tend to be all about choices, this acquisition is a pairing made for each other. Jamie Ottilie is the CEO at the new Telltale Games and spoke more in-depth about the TouchVideo tech and what that could mean for their company going forward. “Fans today want to interact with their favorite IPs more deeply, and interactive narratives are a really immersive way to do that,” said Ottilie. “At the same time, people want to access their games from wherever they are, regardless of device or platform. "Flavourworks’ technology and interactive video expertise will enable us to efficiently create story-based games and reach more people through streaming and new platforms. We’re excited about what it could mean for our portfolio of games.” Telltale recently dropped the episodic The Expanse: A Telltale Series, the first game to come out of the new Telltale. They’re also known to be working on the long-anticipated The Wolf Among Us 2, now coming in 2024 instead of its original 2023 promise.

With the tragic passing of Lance Reddick, Bungie had to recast this important character to keep him going. Back in March, we lost beloved actor Lance Reddick. It was both heartbreaking and tragic. Bungie, while paying their respects to the actor, finally has taken steps to move on. For those unaware, Reddick voiced Commander Zavala in the Destiny series of video games for English releases. Zavala, and by extension Reddick, have always played an important role in Destiny and Destiny 2. Many fans of his knew him from other films, shows, and animation as well. Rick and Morty fans would know him as Alan Rails, and he’s appeared in Ducktales, The Legend of Vox Machina, and recently in live-action as Albert Wesker in the recent Resident Evil series. The good news is that Bungie announced, today, a new voice for Commander Zavala that will feel right at home: Keith David. David is a prolific actor spanning several decades. He’s also voiced multiple characters on Rick and Morty, as well as the Saint’s Row franchise. Halo fans will instantly recognize him as The Arbiter’s voice as well. But, he’s been in movies and shows long before that like The Thing and Todd McFarlane’s Spawn. Earlier today, Bungie put out the official news on their own blog. They assured fans that Reddick’s existing likes will “remain untouched for the upcoming release”. “I am honored to continue the great work of Lance Reddick as Zavala” Keith David is quoted in Bungie’s news. “Lance captured the character's sense of integrity so wonderfully. It is my intention to continue that work.” As mentioned, Bungie has worked with David before during their run as the Halo creators and developers for several years. Knowing that Zavala is in capable hands is reassuring for fans of the franchise while offering a great amount of respect to the history of the character and those that have played him in the past. recognize