Patch 3 went live for Baldur's Gate 3 on September 22, so players have had a good few days trying it out and seeing what changes Larian Studios has made to the game this time around.

The patch introduced full support on Mac devices, and the long-awaited Magic Mirror that finally lets players change the appearance of their character in-game. So, whether you want your Tav to look more aged and haggard as time goes on, or simply fancy a change in style, you can do that!

Though, not everyone is happy with Patch 3. Considering that Patch 2 went down a treat, introducing an improved ending for Karlach and Wither’s Wardrobe of Wayward Friends, this comes as quite the surprise. Alas, two days ago, one Reddit user took to the Baldur’s Gate 3 subreddit to share a lengthy list of qualms with the patch, and lots of fellow players agreed.

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The Sims 4 is the game that just keeps on giving, especially if you are one of many Simmers who looks forward to the life-simulation games regular updates and expansions. These show no signs of slowing down, even with Project Rene (The Sims 5) in development.

The latest update to grace The Sims 4 fans will feature updates to the base game, bug fixes, and the Home Chef Hustle Stuff Pack. As we noted last week, it’s actually almost been three years since The Sims 4 was in receipt of a Stuff Pack, which cost a little more than DLC Kits such as Bathroom Clutter, Modern Menswear, and so forth.

As such, many assumed we wouldn’t be seeing a Stuff Pack again, but alas. The Home Chef Hustle Stuff Pack promises to fulfill the hearts of culinary-talented Sims and Simmers, but can very well lead to some kitchen nightmares, too. We’ve all been there… letting our Sims cook up a complicated meal that goes up in flames, and then locking them in with said flames. Oops!

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Activision Blizzard has quietly laid off several staff from its Hearthstone team, in what the company has called "organizational changes". This has left former staff - one of which was close to 20 years at the company - looking for work.

The first signs of this news came from LinkedIn, where colleagues and onlookings discovered Hearthstone staff - including software engineer Hunter C and senior producer Joe Belousek - announcing their sudden departures from the company.

Activision Blizzard has responded officially in a statement to Kotaku senior reporter Ethan Gach. The company states: "Organizational changes were made to the Hearthstone team; as a result a small number of roles have become redundant. We want to thank these employees for their many contributions." Gach also claims that sources have told him that a total of 10 employees have been affected.

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Chris Metzen, former senior VP of story and franchise development at Blizzard has returned to the company after a seven-year hiatus.

Metzen announced in 2016 that after almost 23 years at Blizzard, he would be retiring at the age of 42. It seems retirement isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Blizzard announced Metzen's return today on X (formerly known as Twitter), stating his role is that of executive creative director of the Warcraft universe.

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Upon The Crew Motorfest’s reveal at this year’s (frankly bizarre) Ubisoft Forward in June, I think I had the same dismissive reaction as most people: some variation of “we have Forza Horizon at home”. I’m pleased to say I was hasty, and wrong, in this initial assessment. To be clear, The Crew Motorfest is a fine open-world racer, and in my view is actually better than Microsoft’s flagship driving game in a lot of ways, particularly in terms of its structure, but also because it at no point makes you drive through Edinburgh.

Sure, the Horizon inspiration is clear and undeniable. All the bits are there: the glossy Instagram-fresh presentation, the optimistic sunshine, the infinite-budget "motoring festival" that takes over an entire territory for an indefinite amount of time. The boffins at Ivory Tower can forgive us for our healthy scepticism.

But you could easily argue that Ivory Tower are actually reclaiming the genre from Forza, given its origins as the team behind Test Drive Unlimited: a seminal open-world racer which people loved because it was a great road trip simulator with interesting life sim elements, despite being a bit of a rubbish racing game with a driving model that left a lot to be desired. That’s a description which, incidentally, applies just as well to The Crew and arguably The Crew 2, games which were very much conceived as spiritual successors to TDU.

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Square Enix has announced a PC version of Final Fantasy 7: Ever Crisis is in development.

Set to release on Steam at an undetermined date, the game was first developed for iOS and Android. Upon release on PC, you will be able to share your mobile game data with the Steam version (thanks, DSOGaming).

Final Fantasy 7: Ever Crisis tells the never-before-told story of a young Sephiroth. The game is a chapter-structured RPG experience that will cover key elements of the Final Fantasy 7 timeline, including the events of the original game, plus new story elements penned by Final Fantasy 7 Remake story and scenario writer Kazushige Nojima.

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After an almost three year long wait, the first (and only) expansion for Cyberpunk 2077 is here. Phantom Liberty offers a whole new storyline to explore, one that sees you getting wrapped up in a political spy thriller as you're tasked with saving the president of the NUSA. It also adds in a whole new area to explore, Dogtown, a cordoned off section of Night City that has its own rules and militia. Dogtown isn't the biggest area compared to the rest of the game's locales, but honestly? I think it's better than the entire rest of the map.

Yesterday I wrote about my feelings on how Cyberpunk has changed with its 2.0 update, and how we shouldn't really be saying "it was always good," because I do think there are some bigger problems that a skill tree overhaul and various other tweaks can't fix. One of my problem's is Night City itself. For a futuristic city, I think big parts of it aren't all that interesting.

As I outlined in yesterday's piece, there are pockets of interesting places to find in Night City. In particular I like Pacifica, because from its design alone you can quickly garner it's not quite as affluent as other areas in Night City. But again, spaces like these that I feel genuinely interested in exploring feel few and far between; all the other monolith buildings exist for no other purpose than set decoration.

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If you can believe it, the PlayStation Plus Essential headline games have leaked again, but you might not be that fussed.

As reported by billbil-kun, who has an incredibly accurate record for leaking PlayStation Plus games, October's headliners includes one of 2022's most disappointing titles, The Callisto Protocol, as well as Farming Simulator 22. Upon its release, The Callisto Protocol was met with pretty average reviews, our own review giving it 3/5. Touted as a spiritual successor to Dead Space, and even made by the original creator of the EA published horror series, The Callisto Protocol didn't quite reach sales targets. The developer of the game Striking Distance Studios unfortunately suffered from layoffs last month, and studio founder/ Dead Space creator Glen Schofield has also left the company.

Farming Simulator 22 didn't have as many ups and downs as The Callisto Protocol did - in fact, oddly enough it had more players than Battlefield 2042 a couple of years ago. Still, though, if it's not your kind of game, and you think the consensus around The Callisto Protocol sounds pretty accurate, it's not a great month to be a PlayStation Plus subscriber. Is it just the done thing to put mediocre games on subscription services a year later now?

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You'd think that the smarter the video game AI the better, but according to Bethesda's Todd Howard, enemy ships in Starfield used to be just that bit too smart.

Getting AI right in games is a tough balancing act - make an NPC too smart, and it can feel unfair, but make them too stupid and it can feel frustrating or overly easy. Speaking on The AIAS Game Maker's Notebook Podcast, Starfield director Todd Howard shared some details on the steps Bethesda took to get the balancing act for the game's enemy ships right in particular (thanks, GameSpot). "Forever we were just jousting," Howard shared.

"It turns out you have to make the AI really stupid. You have to have them fly, they need to turn and basically be like: 'Hey, player one, you can just shoot me for a while.' And then you give the AI tools where the player can see: 'Oh, he's boosting away, I can do that.'"

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One of the many underwhelming things about Starfield is that its version of space travel boils down watching cutscenes to transition to space/surface or to travel between planets. It's basically a collection of loading screens that never stop reminding you that you're loading between different levels, and not actually travelling in space.

So, of course, there's a Starfield mod to fix that, though it's not quite what you might expect.

Modder 105gun is reponsible for the clunkily-named Slower Than Light - Fly in a Star System, available to download right now on Nexus Mods. The mod does two things.

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If you're looking for a reason to get back into Diablo 4 ahead of the launch of Season 2 next month - assuming you've already finished the battle pass - Prime Gaming is offering members some nice skins for free.

This is another major in-game item given to Prime subscribers, and it follows the four free tier skips.

The current promo is for the Vermilion Dark Tome, and the Vermilion Bolt Thrower. These are cosmetic variants that can be used by Rogues, Necromancers, and Sorcerers. You get them both if you're an Amazon Prime member, and all you need to do is claim them.

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If you want to see Cyberpunk 2077's Phantom Liberty all the way through to the end, you should be careful about which work you say no to.

Phantom Liberty is a big expansion, with the main quests taking up to 20 hours to beat on their own, making it the size of its own game. That's a whole lot of new story to experience, but you do need to mind yourself, as you can miss pretty much all of it. As noted by PC Gamer, there's a point early on in the DLC where you can opt out of helping a particular set of characters, and if you do so, you'll be locked out from finishing it. Some early spoilers ahead, but I'll keep them light!

The big decision comes at the end of a mission called Lucretia My Reflection, where you're talking with the president of the NUSA herself Rosalind Myers, and the new character Idris Elba plays, Solomon Reed. There's a point during your conversation with the characters where Reed will ask you, "is it worth it?" with three dialogue options. The first two will let you press on with the story, but the bottom option is the one you want to look out for, which reads "You're right, I'm out."

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Everyone's favourite way to learn about upcoming video game releases, rating boards, are in the news again thanks to an updated listing about Red Dead Redemption 2.

The Rockstar game's page on Brazil's government rating board now includes Nintendo Switch among its supported platforms, alongside the existing PC, PS4, and Xbox One. This is not a new, separate listing for Switch, however.

The listing, which was spotted by Twitter user necrolipe, has very limited information. It includes the date the rating was published, which is September 12, 2018. That means it was submitted just before the release of the PS4/Xbox One versions in October of the same year.

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While we wait for the big Starfield update, currently in the works, Bethesda released a smaller patch across all platforms. This one addresses a couple of serious bugs that (at their worst) could block quest progress.

It also has a few minor fixes for ships, as well as graphics, performance and stability.

The patch fixes an issue that caused some characters to not be where they should, which could mess with certain quests. It also made it so you don't access a vendor's entire inventory.

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Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice represents a period of experimentation for From Software. Eschewing some of the heavier mechanics of Dark Souls in favour of something altogether more fast-paced and aggressive, Sekiro is the product of a developer at home in its own skin – one that has learned all the rules purely so it can break them. Again.

As From Software celebrates a massive 10 million sales for its esteemed action-RPG, it’s worth looking back on Sekiro to see a game that excels at what it sets out to do. It’s a game that wantonly puts distance between From Software and the genre it pioneered, intentionally twisting the mechanics of the ‘Soulslike’ into something wholly new. Even today – with a new Armored Core game and Elden Ring continuing to iterate on the FromSoft formula – Sekiro acts as the single biggest departure from the developer’s modern oeuvre. And only for good reasons.

Though that indefatigable Souls DNA permeates almost every aspect of Sekiro being (menu UI, controls, camera, levelling systems), the realisation of it all is more evolved Sekiro's combat, for example, feels more akin to Bloodborne aggressive, parry-centric setup – it’s fast, nasty, and hard. Perfect for anyone that got a taste for aggression in Yharnam and never stopped thinking about it thereafter.

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When I first heard of Resident Evil Village coming to iPhone and iPad, I was overjoyed. That was until I realized I’d have to fork out for a whole new iPhone from Apple if I wanted to play Village from my mobile.

Alas, being able to run one of the best horror games - Resident Evil Village - from your smartphone is quite the technical feat, and one that I can’t quite believe until I see it for myself. On that note, those who own the all-new iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max will be able to play Village from the comfort of their handheld device as soon as October 30.

If you happen to own an iPad Air or iPad Pro that’s in possession of an M1 chip or better, you’ll also be able to play Resident Evil Village from your Apple device, albeit with a larger screen!

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Voice actors represented by SAG-AFTRA - a US-based media union - have voted overwhelmingly to authorize strike action. Of all eligable members, 98% voted to approve a potential strike, according to a SAG-AFTRA news post.

It's important to note that this does not mean a strike is necessarily going to happen. Authorization means that SAG-AFTRA will be able to call a strike when negotations with various video game companies continue throughout this week and beyond. These companies include some of the industry's biggest: Insomniac, Epic Games, Take Two, Activision, EA, and more.

We recently spoke to just a handful of voice actors - both SAG-represented and not - on why these strikes are important right now. Key issues include protections from AI, lacking pay that doesn't match with inflation rates, and various other workplace protections. As negotations have failed to secure these for voice actors, strikes have become the latest tool in order to secure them for future contracts.

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Persona 3 Portable is getting a physical edition from Limited Run Games, and there's even a collector's edition that comes with the game's signature Evoker.

Earlier this year, Persona 3 Portable arrived on PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox digital storefronts, making the game available on modern platforms for the first time in a long while. But now you'll have the chance to pick the game up physically, as yesterday Limited Run Games announced that it would be producing a (would you guess it) limited run of the game. It will still be available on PS4, Switch, and Xbox, but there are also a couple of fancy editions, and yes, the fanciest version comes with a scale replica of the game's iconic Evoker, a literal gun.

The slightly fancy version, the Grimoire Edition, comes with a fancy grimoir book box and slipcover, a physical version of the game, and a steelbook, so nothing to write home about honestly, which will set you back $70. If you want your own Evoker, though, you'll want to pick up the S.E.E.S. Edition, which comes with all of the above, alongside a S.E.E.S. armband, a certificate of authenticity, character trading cards, the game's soundtrack, a school patch, an "all out attack 3D shadowbox," and of course, a 1:1 Evoker replica shadowbox which lights up. This one will, unsurprisingly, set you back $200 though, so you might want to save up. Pre-orders go live September 29, and run until November 12.

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It should not be a controversial stance to believe that you, as an actor, own your own voice. However, this belief is at the center of what could be a second major video game voice actor strike. The second such strike in a decade.

On September 1, SAG-AFTRA – an American union representing artists across various mediums including video games – announced its decision to seek strike authorization from voice actor artists it represents. If approved, SAG-AFTRA will gain a powerful tool as it re-enters negotations with video game giants including EA, Activision, and Insomniac. A tool that proved vital for WGA writers that struck a tentative deal early this morning and essential for voice actors back in 2016.

With the deadline of the vote looming later today, we spoke to actors from some of the most popular games this year about why they believe now is the time to take a stand.

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Cyberpunk 2077 is going through something of a redemption arc at the moment, helped last year by the honestly quite good Edgerunners from Studio Trigger, even more so now thanks to its 2.0 update and soon-to-be released expansion, Phantom Liberty. There's been a number of "it was always good" type of comments cropping up recently, which to be honest I'm not entirely confident about. Yes, the 2.0 update certainly has improved the game in a number of ways, but personally I think some of the changes the game needed should have taken place long before the game was finished.

I came quite late to the Cyberpunk 2077 party. It didn't interest me for a number of reasons when it released, and paired with that, well, infamous (to put it mildly) launch, I didn't exactly want to fork over the full cost of a game that was incredibly broken, and not even something I wanted to play all that much. Fast forward to a couple of months ago, and a number of updates later, I found myself thinking "why not! Let's finally give Cyberpunk a go."

Very quickly, I found that I really didn't like how the game played. I'm not the best at shooters in the world, but I'm not awful at them either, and when they don't feel good to me I'd rather turn something like aim assist on just so I can experience the world and story, at the very least. Except that didn't work very well, either. Outside of that, the skill tree was an unreadable mess that never felt worth investing in, and yes – even with all those patches – the game could sometimes suffer from such severe frame rate issues it turned into a slideshow.

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