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Sony has announced PlayStation Showcase 2021, which will be broadcast on September 9 at 1pm Pacific / 4pm Eastern / 9pm UK (that’s September 10 at 6am AEST).

The event promises to offer a “sneak peek at the future of PS5, with updates from PlayStation Studios and industry-leading devs,” and will last around 40 minutes. It will show off games releasing this holiday “and beyond”.

📅 Save the date!

PlayStation Showcase 2021 broadcasts live next Thursday. Full details: https://t.co/SN76KFLspG pic.twitter.com/KuN93OMq2d

— PlayStation (@PlayStation) September 2, 2021

One thing you can count on not being part of the show is the (still officially untitled) PlayStation VR 2. The new headset, and its next-gen controllers, is reportedly due late next year, and a PS Blog post about the event makes clear it won’t make an appearance in the showcase.

It’s been a long wait for Sony to put out a summer event. PlayStation wasn’t a part of E3 2021 and had only a limited presence at Gamescom this year. The company put out a State of Play broadcast in July, but didn’t include any of its major studios’ projects – presumably holding them back for this event.

It’s not been a quiet summer for Sony, though. PlayStation has bought Returnal developer Housemarque and PC port specialist Nixxes, and sold a lot of PS5s. It’s also seen criticism for its handling of smaller games, and made a major U-turn on shutting down the PS3 and PS Vita stores.

Sony’s made no mention of specific games being shown at the event, but the “holiday and beyond” timing for games at the event means we could very well see Horizon: Forbidden West (recently delayed to February 2022) and God of War Ragnarok (also delayed to 2022). More speculatively, we could get word on The Last of Us Part 2’s standalone multiplayer, or perhaps even the reported remake of the original Last of Us.

Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

While Cookie Clicker might not be the most technically advanced game ever, an excessively long achievement name hidden in the game suggests the developers had a lot of fun porting it to Steam. The absurd achievement was picked up by Wario64 on Twitter, who noted that the remaster of the iconic clicker game was released today to Steam.

“There’s really no hard limit to how long these achievement names can be and to be quite honest I’m rather curious to see how far we can go,” the achievement begins. “Adolphus W. Green (1844 – 1917) started as the Principal of the Groton School in 1864. By 1865, he became second assistant librarian at the New York Mercantile Library; from 1867 to 1869, he was promoted to full librarian. From 1869 to 1873, he worked for Evarts, Southmayd & Choate, a law firm co-founded by William M. Evarts, Charles Ferdinand Southmayd and Joseph Hodges Choate. He was admitted to the New York State Bar Association in 1873. Anyway, how’s your day been?”

The paragraph in the middle is paraphrased from the Wikipedia page for Adolphus W. Green, who went on from his legal beginnings to found the National Biscuit Company, AKA Nabisco.

While the wordy and educational text may have set a record for the longest Steam achievement name, the achievement itself outdates the Steam port. It’s been part of the game’s baked-in achievement system since they were introduced in version 1.026.

The achievement is gained by reaching the milestone of 10 sextillion cookies baked per second, not that you’d be able to tell that from the name. Interestingly, the next achievement in this progression, gained for baking 1 septillion cookies in one second, is simply called “Fast.”

Despite its ostensibly simple mechanics, Cookie Clicker boasts eight years of being “very actively developed,” and is now available on Steam for $4.99.

As part of Pokemon Go‘s current Season of Mischief a new Pokemon, Inkay, and its Evolution, Malamar, will be debuting in game. The psychic-type Pokemon was first introduced in Pokemon X and Y, and Niantic has said that its unique method of evolution will be carried over from the mainline games.

Inkay will be arriving as part of the Psychic Spectacular event that will include a number of other psychic-type Pokemon, running from September 8 to September 13–just a small segment of the three-month-long Season of Mischief. Inkay will be available as a rare wild encounter, but can also be caught from one-star raids, or by completing Field Research tasks. Inkay can be evolved into Malamar “only under unique circumstances,” the Niantic update says, adding that “trainers who have journeyed through the Kalos region in Pokémon X and Pokémon Y may have an inkling as to what those circumstances might be.”

The event will also give players more chances to catch other psychic Pokemon in encounters, raids, and through Research Tasks. These include the likes of Abra, Drowzee, Gothita, Solosis, and Elgyem in regular encounters, and Staryu, Chimecho, Bronzor, Espurr, Alolan Raichu, Wobbuffet, Medicham, and Metagross in raids.

Players will also be able to complete the next part of the Season of Mischief Special Research task, which will unlock more about the season’s mysterious Mythical Pokemon Hoopa.

A new month and a new batch of games coming to different services. PlayStation announced its September 2021 PS Plus lineup, and now Xbox has announced what games are coming to Xbox Game Pass this month also.

Leading the charge on September 2 is Craftopia, an ID@Xbox game about living on a small island by hanging out, fighting bosses, crafting items, really whatever you want. Or if you want to try out something completely different, Final Fantasy 13 is also heading to Xbox Game Pass for both console and PC.

Square Enix’s RPG has something of a mixed reputation, but it’s undeniably one of the best-looking Final Fantasy games even over a decade after it was first released in 2009. There are also new indie releases coming out day-and-date this month including Surgeon Simulator 2 and The Artful Escape.

What’s Coming to Xbox Game Pass in September 2021

• Craftopia (Cloud, Console, and PC) ID@Xbox – September 2

• Final Fantasy XIII (Console and PC) – September 2

• Signs of the Sojourner (Cloud, Console, and PC) – September 2

• Surgeon Simulator 2 (Cloud, Console, and PC) ID@Xbox – September 2

• Crown Trick (Console and PC) ID@Xbox – September 7

• Breathedge (Cloud, Console, and PC) ID@Xbox – September 9

• Nuclear Throne (Console and PC) ID@Xbox – September 9

• The Artful Escape (Console and PC) ID@Xbox -September 9

Here’s What’s Leaving Xbox Game Pass in September 2021

• Red Dead Online (Cloud and Console) – September 13

• Company of Heroes 2 (PC) – September 15

• Disgaea 4 (PC) – September 15

• Forza Motorsport 7 (Cloud, Console, and PC) – September 15

• Hotshot Racing (Cloud and Console) – September 15

• The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics (Cloud, Console, and PC) – September 15

• Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales (Cloud and Console) – September 15

If you missed it, a bunch of Quake games including the newly announced Quake Remaster also went up on Xbox Game Pass in August. The collection was announced at, where else? Quakecon.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

In NBA 2K22, gone will be the generic public-address announcer from past games. 2K is emphasizing the local flavor of NBA games by including every team’s specific PA announcer–people who are often beloved by their teams’ communities.

Sports stadiums aren’t just characterized by their architecture, but also by the sounds, style, and people who make them unique. This includes PA announcers, the people who commentate over the speaker system at a stadium while a game is going on. Much like TV commentators, PA announcers can become local legends based on particularly memorable calls in big games. You can see some of how the announcers will be incorporated in the game in the video below.

The inclusion of local PA announcers is just one of the changes that 2K is implementing for the next entry in its basketball series. Gameplay is also getting a variety of additions, changes, and improvements. For example, every shot meter now has dynamic resizing, meaning that it rewards players for taking smart shots with strong shooters. On defense, 2K has overhauled shot blocking and changed stealing to better emphasize a particular NBA player’s attributes.

NBA 2K22 launches on September 10 across PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Nintendo Switch. As with past NBA 2K games, there are a few different editions you can purchase. Check out GameSpot’s NBA 2K22 coverage for more on preorders and the game’s new social spaces.

DICE’s new military shooter Battlefield 2042 releases in October, but you’ll be able to get a crack at the game ahead of time through a public beta. Now that the calendar has flipped over to September, which is when the beta is rumored to begin, EA has begun to tease the trial–and troll fans, too. While we wait for official word on the beta, here’s what we know so far.

What We Know So Far

The Battlefield 2042 beta was announced back in June when Electronic Arts revealed the game itself. At the time, EA confirmed the existence of a beta, but stopped short of sharing any concrete specifics. What we do know is that EA Play members who preorder the game will get early access to the open beta, but it’s unclear how much sooner subscribers will get in.

A tweet from Battlefield Bulletin in July that has since been deleted outlined all the key timing details for the Battlefield 2042 beta. According to the Battlefield Bulletin, the Battlefield 2042 open beta will begin on September 4 for those who preorder, with everyone getting in on September 6. The beta will then wrap up on September 11, according to the report. The tweet with all this information was deleted, so this information should be taken with a grain of salt.

If history is any indication, the Battlefield 2042 open beta will offer a glimpse at some of the game’s maps and modes, and you shouldn’t expect progress to carry forward to the full game. You should also expect to encounter bugs, issues, and other oddities, given it’s a pre-release product.

If the Battlefield 2042 beta does indeed begin this week, it’ll do so just ahead of rival Call of Duty: Vanguard’s multiplayer reveal event on September 7. Activision is planning an open beta as well, slated for multiple weekends in September. If everything here comes to fruition, fans of both franchises will get to try each game this month ahead of launch. And with another Halo Infinite multiplayer beta coming too, it could be a very busy time for FPS fans.

We’ll update this story with more details on the Battlefield 2042 beta as they become available.

Battlefield 2042 is a multiplayer-only game that has three main modes: All-Out Warfare, Portal, and Hazard Zone, the latter of which hasn’t been revealed at this stage. For more, check out GameSpot’s recent preview of the ambitious mash-up mode, Portal.

Battlefield 2042 is scheduled to release on October 22. Not long after, Activision will release Call of Duty: Vanguard on November 5, and then Microsoft will launch Halo Infinite on December 8. Get your wallets ready.