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Microsoft Flight Simulator will receive free virtual reality support in its next update on December 22. VR support was first announced in July, with developer Asobo originally aiming to time the release of that content with the launch of HP’s Reverb G2 headset and support for other devices coming at a later date.

Those plans have changed, as executive producer Martial Bossard confirmed in a Twitch Q&A that VR support will arrive for all PC headsets in Sim Update 2.

“It will be open to all devices,” executive producer Martial Bossard said in the stream. “Oculus family, Valve family – every family of headset is going to be supported.”

VR will be used in both gameplay and menu navigation so that the experience can be seamless and won’t require users to remove their headsets during play. Beyond the addition of VR, there’s a lot more content scheduled for Microsoft Flight Simulator in 2021 and beyond.

World Update 3 will launch on January 28 and add new landmarks, bush trips, and between 50-60 points of interest to the United Kingdom, replay functionality, multiple-screen setups, and even flyable helicopters.

In our Microsoft Flight Simulator review, critic Edmond Tran described the game is a “spectacular technical achievement and a deeply inspiring experience filled with glorious possibilities.”

Crash Bandicoot’s unlikely career renaissance continues unabated. The former mascot’s Twitter account posted an amusing video of Crash and his sister Coco playing Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. This is presumably a reference to the fact that Uncharted developer Naughty Dog first became a household name thanks to the Crash series.

While it’s nice to see PlayStation mascots enjoying each other’s games, this animation is seeded with unfortunate implications regarding the proximity of these game worlds and their canonicity. Is Nathan Drake simply a fictional video game star in the world of Crash Bandicoot? An Easter Egg in Uncharted 4 allows you to play the original Crash Bandicoot in Nate’s house, so it would appear that the reverse is true as well.

Thus, we find ourselves in an infinite recursion situation. DeviantArt artist KempferZero illustrates the matter well.

Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time released back in September to positive reviews. “Even more so than playing the N.Sane Trilogy, which literally remade the original Crash games from my youth, playing Crash 4 felt like getting back in touch with the series,” wrote Mike Epstein in GameSpot’s Crash 4 review. It’s an injection of new ideas into now-classic gameplay that surprises and delights, even as it feels like a homecoming. Truly, games like this are why we come running back to long-dormant franchises with open arms.

Recently, Crash-themed gear came to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2. Crash’s next game will be a mobile runner called Crash Bandicoot: On the Run.

PixelJunk Eden 2 hasn’t received much attention since it was casually announced during a Nintendo Direct, but now the game appears closer than we realized. According to Nintendo UK, the sequel to Q-Games’ 2008 game is coming on December 10.

The release date was dropped on the Nintendo UK site. The Nintendo of America site still lists Eden 2 with a more general “Fall 2020” release date. (Technically, winter begins on December 21 in the northern hemisphere.)

When it was announced, Q-Games said you’d guide your Grimp through stages that will be generated in real-time based on your actions. This is similar to the first game, which had you swinging through stages, but those were pre-made. In fact, one of the criticisms in GameSpot’s PixelJunk Eden review was that requiring you to gather five spectra from unchanging stages made the experience repetitive.

Q-Games produced several PixelJunk games around a decade ago, including PixelJunk Monsters and PixelJunk Shooter. The series went dormant for a long while after that, until recently when PixelJunk Monsters 2 released in 2018.

It’s been almost two weeks since the PlayStation 5 launched in the UK, and many Ubisoft game owners are still unable to upgrade their PS4 copies of Watch Dogs: Legion and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla to their respective PS5 versions.

The issue is only affecting those who own physical copies of either game, with the PlayStation Store failing to offer the free upgrade option when inserting a disc–despite the free upgrade path featuring prominently on the front cover of both games. Fan uproar has gradually intensified since the PS5’s launch back on November 19, with many taking their complaints to Twitter and Ubisoft’s official forums. The company has finally acknowledged the problem publicly for the first time, saying that it’s working to resolve the issue via the Ubisoft Support Twitter account.

There’s still no word on when a fix might arrive, nor is there any explanation for why this is specifically affecting Ubisoft games in the UK–though there are also reports of the same problem impacting people in Greece, Bulgaria, South Africa, and other countries.

I’ve run into the issue myself since I own a physical version of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla on PS4. I eventually lost patience waiting for a response from Ubisoft and used one of the workarounds that people have been sharing. This involves creating a new Turkish PSN account and downloading the free PS5 upgrade from there.

With Immortals Fenyx Rising launching on December 3, it will be interesting to see if this issue also affects Ubisoft’s latest open-world adventure. The upcoming game earned a score of 7/10 in GameSpot’s Immortals Fenyx Rising review, with critic Suriel Vazquez saying, “Even as it lives in the shadow of better games, its puzzles, combat, and open-world loop come together often enough for me to not only see it through for a few dozen hours, but also want to keep filling out its almighty checklist, even if it lead me by the nose most of the way through.”

The newest patch for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War has arrived, and the big-ticket change is a tweak to how fast you’ll earn weapon XP.

Across multiplayer and Zombies, Treyarch has increased the earn rates for weapon XP. With the update applied, players should now level up their weapons faster than before, allowing them to unlock new gear and attachments at a quicker pace.

The update also fixes an XP-related problem with the Zombies mode that caused the game to not pay out enough XP in solo matches and later in rounds.

As a thank you to players for their patience for these XP issues, Treyarch will offer “even more” double XP events throughout December, the studio said.

Finally, the new update fixes an out-of-bounds exploit for the newly released Nuketown ’84 multiplayer map. You can see the full November 30 patch notes below, as posted by Treyarch on its website.

Black Ops Cold War November 30 Patch Notes:

GLOBAL

Progression

• Increased Weapon XP earn rates for both Multiplayer and Zombies.

ZOMBIES

Progression

• Addressed an issue that was causing lower-than-targeted Weapon XP in solo matches and in later rounds.
• Addressed an issue where the Napalm Burst Ammo Mod wasn’t consistently awarding Weapon XP when equipped.

MULTIPLAYER

Maps

• Nuketown ‘84
  • Closed an out-of-bounds gap that allowed players to stay alive outside of the playable space.

HBO recently greenlit the Last of Us TV show, meaning it might enter production relatively soon. An official release date for the program has not been announced yet, but people are guessing that it may debut around the time that another show with zombies–The Walking Dead–airs its 11th and final season in 2022.

Scott Gimple, the head of content for The Walking Dead at AMC, said in a new interview with Insider that he’s not worried about potentially competing with The Last of Us.

“I think there’s room for all of us, with zombies and the different ways of telling zombie tales,” Gimple said of the two shows. “I’m going to be watching both. I hope a lot of people will be watching.”

Gimple went on to point out that The Last of Us and The Walking Dead are very different properties, so both should be able to find their own audiences.

“It’s an amazing game,” Gimple said in reference to The Last of Us. “There are some amazing creators that have gotten involved in it and I think it’s incredibly different than ‘The Walking Dead.’ It’s a very, very different take.”

HBO’s The Last of Us TV show is produced by Craig Mazin (The Hangover series, Chernobyl), with the game’s writer and director, Neil Druckmann, also on staff. There have been no casting announcements yet, but those are expected in due time now that the show has been officially picked up for season one.

Not much about the show is known. The series is expected to follow the events of the first game, with the possibility of also overlapping on content present in the game’s recent sequel. The adaptation is said to not invalidate or retcon the events in either games, but instead to “expand” on them.