Key Note Gaming

Guild Wars 2's public events have always been a strength, in my book. Players scattered across maps flock together to defeat a boss or defend a fort, and endgame group events sometimes require a lot of coordination to nail. As cool as they are, they've long been a source of bickering (shoutout to the early days of the boss break bar being introduced) because inevitably, not everyone is on the same page. Now Guild Wars 2 players are once again at war with each other over a public event, only this time it's… because they just can't manage to lose? As spotted by MassivelyOP , Guild Wars 2 players are currently struggling to not defeat the Risen High Wizard in a particular event chain in a level 80 zone. I'll spare you as much MMO lingo as I can: the long and short is that one of the newly-added legendary weapon skins requires a shopping list of items and achievements to unlock. One step requires killing a boss called the Risen High Wizard, with the in-game achieve...

Suit up, pilot. The best PC joystick is one that will make piloting that Tie-Fighter in Star Wars: Squadrons or gently cruising over your old neighborhood in Microsoft Flight Simulator an unbelievable experience. These joysticks provide a level of control and immersion you can't get with a gamepad or keyboard and mouse. The intensity that comes from manually throttling up, or pulling out of a nose dive to avoid a crash, is second to none. If you think of yourself as a budding virtual pilot, you need to step up your home cockpit game. The most important piece of hardware, more important than any chair, fancy screen, or aviator glasses, is a joystick. For most people tinkering around in a flight sim, any of these joysticks below is a good choice because they are easy to set up and use. Consider it the building block for your full cockpit experience. Companies like VKB and Virpil have anything you need for a wildly more advanced cockpit environment if you want something closer t...

The Callisto Protocol is one of the most anticipated horror games in years and happens to be our June cover story . One of the project’s more intriguing aspects was that it canonically took place in the same universe as popular battle royale PUBG: Battlegrounds, albeit in the distant future and on another planet. As of today, that’s no longer the case. Glen Schofield, The Callisto Protocol’s creative director, took to Twitter to announce that the game now unfolds within its own story and fiction and not PUBG’s.  FYI @CallistoTheGame is its own story and world. It no longer takes place in the PUBG Universe. It was originally part of the PUBG timeline, but grew into its own world. PUBG is awesome, &we will still have little surprises for fans, but TCP is its own world, story and universe. — Glen A. Schofield (@GlenSchofield) May 26, 2022 FYI @CallistoTheGame is its own story and world. It no longer takes place in the PUBG Universe. It was originally part of ...

Striking Distance Studios CEO Glen Schofield revealed that upcoming game The Callisto Protocol no longer takes place within the PUBG universe. "FYI @CallistoTheGame is its own story and world," he explained on Twitter. "It no longer takes place in the PUBG Universe. It was originally part of the PUBG timeline, but grew into its own world. PUBG is awesome, and we will still have little surprises for fans, but TCP is its own world, story and universe." FYI @CallistoTheGame is its own story and world. It no longer takes place in the PUBG Universe. It was originally part of the PUBG timeline, but grew into its own world. PUBG is awesome, &we will still have little surprises for fans, but TCP is its own world, story and universe. — Glen A. Schofield (@GlenSchofield) May 26, 2022 The survival horror game was originally announced in December 2020 and was going to take place within the same universe as PUBG several centuries into the future. However, it was u...

According to reporting from Kotaku and Bloomberg , 2K subsidiary and Mafia 3 developer Hangar 13 has suffered a round of substantial layoffs. Hangar 13 consists of three studios worldwide, and the Kotaku report claims that "nearly 50" of the Novato, California location's 87 employees have been let go. It is currently unknown how heavily the developer's Brighton, UK and Brno, Czech Republic offices have been affected, if at all. In our 2016 review of Mafia 3 , Andy Kelly was impressed by the game's bold choice of setting and gripping opening, but ultimately let down by Mafia 3's commitment to shallow open world repetition. He was much more impressed by Hangar 13's more recent work on the remaster of the original Mafia , writing, "The new tech doesn't quite hide the fact that it's a game built on 18-year-old foundations, but it's a fun, pacey, and nicely presented gangster epic with great set-pieces and a rich setting." The years s...

Just days after QA workers at Raven Software voted to unionize , Xbox’s head Phil Spencer announced that he will recognize the new union after the company acquires Activision Blizzard . According to a report by Kotaku , during an internal meeting today, Spencer said he would “absolutely support” the union. “Once the deal closes, we would absolutely support [an] employees’ organization that’s in place,” he told employees during the internal meeting, according to Kotaku. “We think it is a right of employees and something that can be a part of a relationship between a company and people who work at the company.” Previously, Microsoft had announced that it wouldn’t “stand in the way” of unionization , though today marks the first time a Microsoft executive has officially announced their support for the union. The company’s move to acquire Activision Blizzard is still being investigated and has been muddied by various complaints and protests against Activision Blizzard, including a l...

Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park novels and their adaptations all serve as a warning against playing God, but Let's Build a Zoo's new expansion Dinosaur Island reminds us: isn't playing God actually really tight ? Indie management sim Let's Build a Zoo already boasts godless genetic experiments and exotic meat sales, so it was only a matter of time until developer Springloaded added the full Jurassic Park experience on top. The expansion adds over 50 new specimens to track down and show off, including the titular dinos, cavemen, sabertooths, and woolly mammoths, all accessible through fossil digs and morally dubious cloning. Speaking of questionable ethics, the base game's creature splicing and exotic meat vending return, with promotional screenshots showing the sliding scale of "caveman meat" quality you can feed your guests, as well as some alarming genetic hybrids like a pterodactyl with a triceratops' head. The expansion comes alongside...