Key Note Gaming

Xbox boss Asha Sharma has reacted to negative feedback at Microsoft’s decision to continue to show competing platform logos at its upcoming Xbox Games Showcase, suggesting it will stop doing so for future shows. Sharma, who took over as boss of Xbox from Phil Spencer earlier this year, has embarked upon a rebrand of the gaming business in a bid to get core Xbox fans back onside following years of disenchantment. Early decisions include the end of the controversial ‘This is an Xbox’ marketing campaign , quickfire new Xbox console features , and switching from ‘Xbox’ to ‘XBOX’ in official branding. But yesterday, following the delay of Fable to early 2027 , Microsoft confirmed it would "continue the precedent" by highlighting competing platforms during its 2026 Xbox Showcase on June 7. Xbox chief content officer Matt Booty set the stage during an appearance on the Official Xbox Podcast , telling fans to expect the company to be transparent about what platforms its games are c...

When HoYoverse drops a new game, players have come to expect sweeping, high-fantasy orchestral arrangements and space-opera symphonies. But Zenless Zone Zero completely shatters that playbook, swapping out concert halls for the gritty, high-energy pulse of underground club culture and vintage aesthetics. From the lo-fi chill of Sixth Street to the high-octane EDM pounding through the Hollows, New Eridu’s music rises above most video game soundtracks as the driving heartbeat of the entire experience. Behind this pivot into funk, acid jazz, and electronic sub-genres is Yang Wutao and the tight-knit team of producers and composers known as Sān-Z Studio. Operating more like a collective of late-night crate-diggers than traditional gaming composers, Sān-Z Studio's philosophy is fiercely straightforward: prioritize raw emotion over industry trends. Whether collaborating with global electronic icons like Tiësto or capturing the quiet, solitary headspace of a single character, the team ...

Crimson Desert has yet another patch, this time adding one of the most-requested features from fans: controller remapping. Ever since Crimson Desert's launch in March, players have fussed over the fiddly controls, which can lead to frustration. And while it's true that after a long enough time you do start to get used to the game's controls, controller remapping would help people get to grips with Crimson Desert on their own terms. Finally, it's here. Update 1.09.00 (patch notes, courtesy of the Crimson Desert website , are below) also adds approximately 30 species of small animals that can be registered as pets, alongside new animations for picking up and putting down certain pets. It’s a big patch for Crimson Desert pet lovers, basically. Elsewhere, Oongka and Damiane, Crimson Desert’s secondary playable characters, have new skills, and there are improvements to seed planting. And I want to highlight the below fix — finally those poor bears can eat their fish. Fixed ...

Infinity Ward appears to be taking a careful approach to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4's skill-based matchmaking after Black Ops 7. The developer told CharlieIntel that MW4's skill-based matchmaking will “not revert directly back to pre-Black Ops 7” and that the team is evaluating data from last year's title to inform its decisions. Although Black Ops 7 was a divisive Call of Duty game and was a fall from grace commercially, there were some changes that fans hoped developers would retain. Some feared that the game's poor reception may lead to everything being reverted, but that may not be the case. Treyarch listened to fans when it came to the franchise's skill-based matchmaking , which has been notoriously punishing for years. Players have often felt that if they perform above average for a few matches, the game will put them into lobbies that are way above their skill level. Not only that, but it wouldn't matter if you found a lobby of people who were equal...

Bungie is opening the gates to Marathon next week and letting players jump in on the action, free of cost. As part of Marathon Season 2's launch, the full game will be getting a free trial from June 2nd to June 9th on Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and PC. All of the progress you make during this time will carry over to the full game, so it's a great way to try before you buy. It's a clear move from Bungie to try to win over players, as Marathon has had soft sales and underwhelming player counts for a new game. Marathon Season 2 also plans to add more PVE content to the game as a way to lure in more players who are turned off by core modes in the game. The extraction shooter genre has had some massive wins, like Arc Raiders, but the premise can be daunting for some, pushing away more casual shooter fans. As always, Bungie has incorporated strong gunplay into Marathon, but some wish it were in a more accessible game. It seems like Bungie is trying to cater to those would-be players ...

If you’re a fan of life simulators, you’ve no doubt heard critics, developers, influencers, and all manner of social media-savvy people wax lyrical about the complexity of creating a compelling social simulation. As I said in my own inZoi review last year, curating a world that’s both representative of the murky mess that is being human and enjoyable to play is a seemingly impossible undertaking that few have managed. And yet, after spending 35 hours in Paralives crafting families, building homes, and sowing discord among residents, I have a renewed hope. This ambitious challenger to The Sims’ throne has captured not only the practical elements of humanity but, importantly, the weird ones we sweep under the rug, too. While its Early Access start has a lot of room to grow before it slays the reigning king of the genre, it’s certainly on its way. Your time in Paralives begins on a train, with a quick tutorial for how to handpick the actions of the Parafolk (the name Paralives gives to ...

The Wheel of Time is one of the best-selling fantasy book series of all time, but it's a franchise that has struggled to take hold as an adaptation. Most notably, Amazon's live-action Wheel of Time show was tragically cancelled just last year after what IGN called it's "best season yet" . But a new kickstarter for the first-ever official board game is bringing some fresh hope to fans of Robert Jordan's fantasy world that there's still more to look forward to. War of the Dragon is an upcoming strategy game for 2-4 players that according to the Kickstarter page , "combines tableau building, action selection, and area control mechanics in a thrilling struggle for conquest and survival". The game just launched on Kickstarter today with a funding goal of $50,000 that was pretty much immediately met. At the time of writing, almost $300K has already been pledged and those numbers continue to go up. This isn't the first time The Wheel of Time has b...

Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of Rockstar Games, has ordered the GTA 5 modding platform Rage: MP to cease operations. The developers of the platform relayed the news via a forum post on Monday evening, noting that Take-Two had formally requested they shut down. The reason is because Take-Two and Rockstar Games have their own modding platform, FiveM, and it's the only authorized platform for modding GTA, especially with regards to the online portion of the game. "We must share an important update about the future of RAGE: MP. Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive have made it clear that FiveM is the only authorized platform for GTAV multiplayer modding, as defined in their Platform License Agreement (PLA)," said the developers. "In accordance with that policy, and at Take-Two's request, RAGE: MP will begin a structured shutdown process. We are asking all server owners to wind down their operations and migrate to FiveM." Server owners have until...

While 007 First Light is the first actually good James Bond game in quite some time, developer IO Interactive has been making well-optimized PC games for years. It’s not surprising, then, that 007 First Light runs extremely well, at least once you clear its somewhat steep system requirements. The game requires just an AMD Radeon RX 5700 or a GeForce GTX 1660 to run, but its recommended spec is an RTX 3060 Ti or a 6700 XT . That’s quite a difference, but I will say that after testing the 3060 Ti at 1080p, it runs incredibly well, although the low VRAM means you’ll probably want to turn down the texture quality a bit, even at that lower resolution. In fact, the textures in this game are like a little sponge for video memory, and if you want to max it out at any resolution, you’re going to want to make sure you’re packing a GPU with at least 12GB of the stuff. And, at higher resolutions, you’re probably going to want to bump that requirement up to 16GB if you really want to avoid an...

PlayStation has unexpectedly pulled the plug on Destruction AllStars , a live-service game released during the PS5's launch window. The game is no longer available for sale and its servers have been shut down. Those who still own the game can still play the game's arcade mode, going up against bots offline. Typically, these kinds of shutdowns are announced ahead of time to give players a chance to buy the game or rally others together for some final online matches, but Destruction AllStars was delisted and shut down seemingly simultaneously. Players were notified via PlayStation notifications. (The game's social media account hasn't been active since 2022, when X was still Twitter.) Destruction AllStars came out in 2021 and received a mixed reception. Despite releasing during a drought of games, early PS5 adopters largely rejected the game, even after PlayStation Plus subscribers were given two free months. We gave the game a 6/10 in our review, noting that although t...

James Bond will meet social media influencer Khaby Lame in 007 First Light , developer IO Interactive has revealed. It's a reveal that has left some Bond fans scratching their heads — firstly that Lame is in the game at all, but also secondly that his cameo has been revealed ahead of the game's general release — removing the element of surprise. Lame is famous for his deadpan TikTok reaction videos, where he performs an exasperated gesture to mock things that seem obvious. Unsurprisingly, it's this same gesture that Bond fans will be able to see Lame replicating in 007 First Light, as His Majesty's agent asks for directions while standing in front of a signpost. In a video clip posted to Instagram , players can see Bond wandering up to Lame, asking for directions, only for Lame to gesticulate at the sign — which already holds the answer. Come on Bond — one too many martinis? "You will meet a familiar face in Vietnam," IO Interactive wrote. "Khaby Lame joi...

The "vast majority" of Bungie staff was reportedly unaware of the plans to discontinue support for Destiny 2 until the announcement was made public last week. The alleged insight into the goings-on at the former Halo developer came from a Forbes report and followed last week's news that it would publish one final content update next month, June 9. It was an announcement that shook an industry that had watched the studio launch its latest project, Marathon , just months ago, and it apparently came as a surprise to many of the very developers it involved, too. The site stated that, according to its sources, the "vast majority of Bungie did not know about Destiny 2 support being dropped right up until it was publicly announced." The limited number of teams privy to the information beforehand included some that had already begun working on the final content and others who had already transitioned over to Marathon. A decision to end support for Destiny is said to h...

Tekken director Katsuhiro Harada finally found the time to take a trip to Waffle House. If you're wondering why this is the news shaking the gaming industry today, you should know that fans have asked the fighting game developer to include a stage based on the 24/7 breakfast joint for years. It's something Harada's never exactly been opposed to – he mentioned trademark and rights issues as a potential hangup in 2024 – but the idea has remained just out of reach, regardless. Harada announced he would be leaving his Tekken home at Bandai Namco late last year and then went on to reveal his new company, VS Studio , just a few weeks ago, but it looks like the All-Star Special and a side of hashbrowns never left his mind. Yesterday, he let his X/Twitter followers know that he finally found the time to stop by Waffle House, and he even bought a menu. I finally made it to WAFFLE HOUSE. The staff are always friendly, and when I asked if they would sell me a menu, they sold me on...

Sony's first-party studio, Media Molecule, is reportedly working on a brand-new game with open-world elements. As reported by MP1st , information about the LittleBigPlanet and Dreams studio's next project comes from the resume of a current Media Molecule employee. The resume notes that the studio is working on an unannounced project, which will feature "open-world content." Fans have longed for a return to LittleBigPlanet, but it doesn't seem like this new project will be another Sackboy adventure. The resume specifically notes that this is a new IP, meaning fans may not want to expect a direct follow-up to the studio's previous work. That doesn't mean something like LittleBigPlanet will never return, but if the information presented in this resume is accurate, a new entry seems unlikely to arrive soon. There isn't too much else to latch on to in this resume, but it does indicate Media Molecule is going for a larger sense of scale. The studio is best...

The myth of a Forza Horizon 6 player known as bowie knife99 is sending shivers down the spines of other players. When Forza Horizon 6 launched for PC and Xbox Series X | S last week , fans noticed something: an AI driver named bowie knife99 was causing mayhem in their races. The Forza games have a feature known as Drivatars, which allows AI to replicate the behavior of real players. It's a fun feature that creates an added layer of competition by spawning an AI version of your friend, or a recognizable name in the community, instead of a generic bot. However, bowie knife99 goes beyond what fans would expect from the average Drivatar. The player's AI counterpart is known not only to drive aggressively but also to go out of its way to ram into cars, often driving off-course to nail its next target. Dozens of viral Forza Horizon 6 clips mentioning bowie knife99 have emerged in the last week, making the Drivatar a mythical force that players have yet to fully understand. Forza got...