As teased, Fortnite‘s Fortnitemares event has returned. The Halloween-themed festivities are now underway on PS4, Xbox One, PC, Nintendo Switch, and mobile devices, and they include new limited-time modes, along with a new set of challenges to complete and some devilish skins and other cosmetics to earn.
Headlining this year’s Fortnitemares event are three special LTMs. The first is called Storm King, and it has players taking on the titular super boss. This mode, however, is currently disabled while Epic addresses an issue. Additionally, the developer has highlighted two community-made LTMs: Gun Fright and Mansion of Power.
Alongside the LTMs is a set of Storm King challenges. These are, fittingly, Halloween-themed, and they have you destroying haunted household furniture, searching chests in a ghost town, and leaping out of hideouts when unsuspecting players are nearby. Complete the challenges and you’ll unlock Halloween-themed cosmetics, including a special Storm Sail umbrella.
Finally, Epic has added the Cryptic Curse Bundle to the in-game store, which includes the Phantom Outfit and Time Keeper Back Bling. You can unlock different styles for both of these cosmetics by completing the Cryptic Curse challenges. Fortnitemares runs until November 4. You can read more about the event on the official Fortnite website.
Epic kicked off Chapter 2 of Fortnite earlier this month, and it made a ton of changes to the hit battle royale game. Not only are there new mechanics like fishing and weapon upgrading, the map has also been revamped, and a variety of new challenges are already available. If you need help completing those, be sure to check out our ongoing Fortnite Chapter 2 challenges roundup for our maps and guides on this season’s trickiest missions.
After an hour-long tutorial, Doraemon Story of Seasons has me running out of battery faster than my Switch. It’s been 62 minutes, and I’ve barely touched a thumbstick. Soon, this licensed farm life spin-off will have me familiarly watering crops, collecting bugs, and rearing livestock in a farming sim that borrows from both Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley. But first, I have to get through the boring part.
Doraemon, one of the best-selling manga in the world, has come together with Marvelous, the original developer behind the Harvest Moon farming series. The crossover is as unusual as it sounds. What do a sleepy 10-year-old and a robot cat from the 22nd century have to do with farming? As it turns out, not much! The characters are lost in an alternate dimension, and the only way they can get home is to befriend the townsfolk. There’s just one problem: this town puts its children to work, and I’m not talking about mowing the lawn.
Note: this is a mostly spoiler-free advance review of Excalibur #1, which releases on Wednesday, October 30.
Another week brings another new addition to Marvel’s growing Dawn of X relaunch. This time it’s Excalibur up to bat, with writer Tini Howard and artist Marcus To crafting a new take on a familiar X-Men-adjacent franchise. Excalibur #1 isn’t quite the home run Marauders #1 was last week, but it does find similar success in terms of offering readers something that’s both very different from Jonathan Hickman’s work while still feeling like a cohesive addition to the line.
Unlike Marauders, which has basically nothing to do with the original band of mutant killers employed by Mister Sinister, Excalibur does dabble in some of the expected tropes. This series is heavily centered around the Braddock family in general and Psylocke in particular. It’s also heavily steeped in the mythology of Camelot and Otherworld and even features Morgan le Fay as a major antagonist. But in other ways, the new series is a major deviation from the norm. Most of the old Excalibur mainstays are ignored in favor of a new team that includes iconic X-Men characters like Gambit, Rogue and Jubilee. And that’s to say nothing of the central role played by Apocalypse.
The products discussed here were independently chosen by our editors. GameSpot may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site.
Most gamers are generally aware of the free monthly games that come with PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live Gold, and you’ve probably snagged a free game from Steam, Epic, Humble Bundle, or some other digital store from time to time. But if you have an Amazon Prime subscription, you might be missing out on another regular source of free PC games: Twitch Prime, a premium membership that comes free with Amazon Prime.
Twitch Prime has been handing out free games and loot like candy for quite some time now, and if you’re not checking their monthly offerings on a regular basis, you’re missing out. You still have a few more days to grab October’s free games, including The Walking Dead: Michonne and Deadlight: Director’s Cut, but Amazon has also announced the free games and in-game loot that will be available during the month of November.
Darksiders II: Deathinitive Edition
Kicking things off next month is Darksiders II: Deathinitive Edition, an RPG and hack-and-slash adventure where you play as Death, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. The Deathinitive Edition includes the remastered game in 1080p and improved graphics as well as all DLC.
The game earned a solid 8.5/10 in GameSpot’s Darksiders II review, in which Kevin VanOrd praised the fluid, colorful action, expertly crafted dungeons, and apocalyptic tone of its audio and visuals. “Darksiders II is remarkably well put together, particularly in light of its impressive scope. Bigger doesn’t mean better, of course, but this isn’t a ‘more of the same, just bigger’ kind of sequel. The game uses its expansive geography to cultivate a poetic tempo in which your intellectual triumphs are rewarded with the immediate pleasures of fleet-footed platforming and demonic brutality,” he wrote.
Planet Alpha
Get stranded on an alien world in Planet Alpha, a 2D puzzle-platformer where you play as an unnamed space explorer on a mysterious, beautiful planet. The game earned a 7/10 in GameSpot’s Planet Alpha review, in which James O’Connor wrote, “While there are moments of frustration in its platforming, and the puzzles are relatively unsophisticated, the locations of Planet Alpha will most certainly stick with you. It doesn’t matter why you’re there, or what it is you’re looking for. There’s great pleasure in just existing on this planet, in navigating its harsh terrain and admiring its vistas, and the sheer beauty of it all makes the game’s shortcomings easy to bear.”
Several other free games will also be available in November: a turn-based tactical RPG set within a reimagined King Arthur mythos, Sword Legacy: Omen; a tongue-in-cheek simulation game based on the 19th-century oil rush, Turmoil; and an interdimensional action-platformer, Double Cross.
To claim any free loot or free games, you just have to link your Twitch and Amazon Prime accounts. An Amazon Prime account costs $119 / £79 a year and gets you other benefits like free two-day shipping, access to Prime Video streaming, and more. You can also sign up for a 30-day free trial anytime (it might not be a bad idea to do it before Black Friday).
Jurassic World 3 director Colin Trevorrow has opened up about his decision to bring back Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum for the next movie, which he refers to as “Jurassic Park IV.”
In an interview with Empire, Trevorrow, who is co-writing the upcoming trilogy-capper with Emily Carmichael, revealed that he had always wanted the original franchise stars to feature in the Jurassic World trilogy in some capacity, but he needed to establish the best way to continue their legacy.
“We’d have to come up with a reason why Ellie, Malcolm and Grant all went to the theme park on the exact same day it broke down – again,” he said, addressing their absence in Jurassic World. “The next film allows the legacy characters to be a part of the story in an organic way.”
Red Dead Online, the multiplayer mode in Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2, has gotten a spooky update just in time for the Halloween festivities. The new additions include an anxiety-inducing game mode, a new bounty to collect, more items in the shop, and even cosmetic masks.
To start, the game has added a “Fear of the Dark” limited-time mode to the Showdown Mode selection. It pits super-strong Night Stalkers against human Hunters. The deck is stacked against the mortals, but skull masks are littered around the battlefield, so the more masks the Hunters collect, the weaker the Night Stalkers become, while the Hunters have their weapon power increased. Hunters win by collecting all the masks and wiping out the Night Stalkers, while Night Stalkers win by defeating all the Hunters or just surviving until time expires.
The mode will be available through November 12. Don’t wait to play, though, because you can get 3X Gold and 2X RDO$ through November 3.
The announcement also details a new bounty, the former mayor Tobin Winfield. He was caught embezzling public funds and went into hiding near Thieves’ Landing. Plus this week you can get 30% off sharp objects like cleavers, machetes, tomahawks, and throwing knives.
Finally, you can claim an exclusive mask by marking a specialization. Bounty Hunters get a Creature mask, Traders get a Swine mask, and Collectors get a Masquerade mask. If you achieve Tier 10 and 20 of the Outlaw Pass, you can get special Freak and Horror masks, too. Winning a round of Fear of the Dark will also earn you an exclusive tint for the Freak Mask. Those are available through November 3.
Plus as usual, the update brings a new selection of items for sale through the catalog, and more stipends to collect for Collectors.
The Fear of the Dark mode will still be going when the PC version of Red Dead Redemption 2 launches on November 5, so presumably PC adopters will have a little time with it too–though they’ll miss out on some of the timed rewards. For more details check out our Red Dead Redemption 2 PC pre-order guide.
Since EA launched its Origin service, it has been the only place that players have been able to purchase the publisher’s games on PC, but that will change very soon. EA has announced it is bringing a variety of its titles to Steam, beginning with next month’s highly anticipated Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
Ahead of its release on November 15, Respawn’s upcoming Star Wars game is now available to pre-order on Valve’s storefront, marking the first new EA game to hit Steam in six years. The publisher says it will be followed by The Sims 4, Unravel Two, and “other major titles” in the next few months. Apex Legends, FIFA 20, and Battlefield V will arrive next year, and those will support cross-play between Steam and Origin.
All of this is leading up to the Steam launch of EA Access, EA’s premium subscription service. EA touts that this is the “first and only” game subscription service to be available on Valve’s storefront. No release date has been announced yet, but EA Access is slated to launch on Steam sometime next spring, and subscriptions will cost the same as on consoles: $5 a month or $30 a year.
The Steam version of EA Access will give subscribers similar perks as on other platforms. Along with access to the Vault–a library of titles that users can play for free–subscribers will be able to take advantage of exclusive discounts and more. “We anticipate that the core benefits of the subscription service as it exists on Origin or Xbox or PlayStation will be the same as those which you would get on Steam,” EA senior VP Mike Blank told GamesIndustry.biz. “And when I say the core benefits, I’m talking about things like early access, the 10% discount, or that catalog of games that you might see on EA Access today on Xbox or on PlayStation 4.”
The arrival of EA Access on Steam seems to open up the chance that the service could launch on other PC storefronts as well, such as the Epic Games Store. It appears EA has no such plans as of now, but Blank hasn’t dismissed the possibility: “What I’ll say today is we are open to new partnerships. While I don’t have anything to announce today, we are always open to new partnerships that make sense for our players. So we’ll see what the future holds.”
Sony has published five new trademarks that secure the company names for up to five generations of potential PlayStation consoles.
The trademarks, initially filed for earlier this month, provide Sony with exclusive use of ther terms PS6, PS7, PS8, PS9, and PS10. The publishing of these trademarks was picked up by trademark blogger Piercesword.
This is not an uncommon approach for Sony. PS2 and PS3 trademarks were filed a year in advance of each console’s release, while trademarks for the PS4 and PS5 were filed back in 2006.
It should be noted that these trademarks don’t indicate that Sony is definitely planning to make these consoles. Rather, it makes sense for the company to own the trademarks to consoles it potentially may make in the future in order to prevent other businesses snapping up the PS branding before Sony does. So even if PlayStation 6 is never made, the trademark is still safe and can’t be used by anyone else to capitalise on a brand Sony has spent over two decades building.
Amazon is offering big discounts on a number of big video games right now. So whether you’re a PS4, Xbox One, or Nintendo Switch owner, you can save some cash on games you’ve probably had an eye on. But some of the deals are sneaky, so make sure to click the coupon checkbox on the listings that require it. And if these deals don’t do it for you, check out the 3-for-2 deal on games and movies Amazon is also offering now.
You stand in a room and the floor is the ceiling, or maybe it’s the other way around? No, everything is the floor and you’re falling through infinity. Welcome to the Manifold Garden, a game where you need to prepare to have your mind warped by the beauty of repetition and some seriously impressive puzzles. It is an Escher-inspired fever dream of a game–you have the ability to allocate gravity to any side of an environment at any time, and it’s surprising just how many different puzzles the game manages to pull from this concept, with new elements gradually being introduced at just the right pace to grant further complexity without being completely daunting.
To start, there are colour-coded cubes which need to be placed on switches to open doors or other mechanisms. It doesn’t take long to discover these colours are also relevant to their own personal gravity and as such, cubes can only be moved when the world is in that orientation. Add stairs going in different directions, switch combinations, and staggered environments, and even these relatively basic puzzles take some mind-bending to get accustomed to, which makes for further payoff when solutions come.
It takes a while to adjust to the changes in orientation, so for the first few hours, I often found myself getting lost and even feeling a little nauseous and headachy (though it’s worth noting that there are settings to adjust field-of-view, which helps). I found that the more I came to understand the concepts, the less this happened, as my mind stopped fighting what it was seeing. Towards the end of the game, I could rapidly make these changes; I could almost hear the click in my brain when everything started to become intuitive and second nature. Things that weren’t immediately obvious, like understanding that the gravity of one block can be used to stop another from falling in order to trigger a seemingly impossible switch, went from edge-of-the-brain concepts to be instinctual.
There was one particularly devilish puzzle where I had to use several different cubes to hold a single, vital cube in place. It had to be done in a specific way and sequence to take advantage of their individual gravities. When I first approached this problem, it hadn’t previously occurred to me that this was even possible, and I was left stumped for ages. The payoff for working it out, however, was not only immensely satisfying but helped open my mind for further puzzles. I began using cubes to hold various things in place, and even as steps for myself (even when it was unnecessary to solve an actual puzzle). It’s in these moments where I felt like my power in this ever-changing space was growing, where the game made me feel like a master of my own domain.
The aesthetics of Manifold Garden are confrontingly beautiful, in that they are both stark and complex. The music is minimal, though it builds in peak moments with intense synths which seem to mirror the environment. There are practically no textures to speak of and almost everything is made of simple polygons; the environments are littered with stairs which seemingly go in every direction, whether or not you know that’s what they are at the time. Some of the environments are simple, like a beautiful block tree with running water displays in a sort of Japanese garden aesthetic. Others are incredibly complex with moving parts in multiple directions. When looked at up close, it can appear dull and barren, but a step back will often reveal the psychedelic beauty in greater patterns.
The physical stages themselves actually repeat endlessly into the void of the world, and this is more than just an aesthetic choice–it allows you to fall off a ledge forever and then land back on otherwise unreachable areas, creating another obtuse mechanic that comes into play during later puzzles. In every way, Manifold Garden’s world challenges you to think differently while maintaining that you’re always safe–there isn’t death or fall damage of any kind. This allows you to explore without fear, while also taking the time to internalise the game’s logic.
As you progress through the increasingly layered architectural stages, you’ll find little-to-no hand-holding and for the most part, this is fantastic. There’s just enough direction that you get the satisfying sensation of working things out yourself, which comes with a deep feeling of accomplishment. Even as new, unexpected elements are added, they’re grounded with enough familiar imagery that you can eventually decipher new solutions with minimal prompting. For example, cube trees grow cube fruits, which can be planted in special areas and given water to provide new trees and more fruit; water can move a turbine to provide the power that opens a door, allowing you to move forward. I was stumped multiple times throughout my playthrough, but it was never due to an obtuse new mechanic being added. Instead, the puzzles are all legitimately clever and tricky, which required me to look at them from literally all angles in order to work out a solution.
There’s also an incredible density of puzzles. Sometimes, even traversing from one room to the next provides you with a new obstacle to reconcile your way around. Very rarely did I feel like Manifold Garden provided much reprieve. Instead, it keeps your mind constantly thinking, always looking for new angles, and firmly on the tips of your toes. But, there’s also no pressure–no enemies, no time limits–and this makes Manifold Garden feel like an intensely cerebral experience from start to finish.
There was one puzzle in Manifold Garden that was so tricky I couldn’t solve it myself–and I later discovered it was only because I’d missed something from an area I thought was finished. The game doesn’t always do enough to provide you with clues to solve its problems–in this one occasion, I wasted possibly over an hour trying to find a solution where there was none. There were a few other moments where I felt that a little more direction would have been welcome, or where I solved a puzzle on accident and missed an important lesson as a result. However, being forced to work out every other problem in the game for myself was so gratifying that in the end, I felt like it was worth the hours lost to obscurity.
As I stood in the impossible world of the Manifold Garden, I felt tested and worthy. Its puzzles are incredibly satisfying and offer a very clever blend of step-by-step knowledge-building with increasingly challenging solutions. The environments are awe-inspiring in their endless repetition, but repetition isn’t a trait reflected in the game’s challenges. There is always something new, or a new way to look at something old, as you traverse through the infinite horizon. Manifold Garden is a feast for the eyes and the mind, so long as you can wrap both around what it has to offer.
