Feedback received from previous beta period It’s time to get your fighting fantasy kick on once more, as publisher Square Enix has announced a new run of dates for theBabylon’s Fallclosed beta. Developer PlatinumGames has released an in-depth feedback report, packed out with info pertaining to the player base’s experience to date, along with the studio’s plans to improve various aspects of the multiplayer adventure. Among a huge laundry list of thoughts and responses, perhaps one of the most interesting is that players did not findBabylon’s Fall‘s gameplay to be particularly exciting, with a deliberate pace that some players felt makes the title slow and lacking in exhilaration....

Batman: Arkham City has received its first big PC patch, fixing a number of bugs and finally allowing the game to berun with DirectX 11. That is, unless you’re using a 32 bit system, in which case you’ll still have to use DX 9. “Users running Windows 7 32 bit or Windows Vista 32 bit should ONLY use DX 9 settings until a future patch that addresses this specific issue is released,” said Warner Brothers....

How handsome! [Update:Sony is publishing the title, and Iron Galaxy Studios — the makers ofDivekick— helped on on bringing the console shooter to the handheld. Borderlands 2 Vita will be out in 2014, and will feature everything the console versions had, including four-player co-op.] Borderlands 2is coming to PlayStation Vita. Yep, the Gearbox loot n’ shoot sequel is going portable, with an upcoming port on the way. That’s pretty cool!...

Bated breath And here I thought the tardy release of a thirdGolden Sunwas awkward. Show of hands: Who has been waiting patiently for a properBreath of Firegame? Well cut your filthy peasant hands off and slap yourselves in the face with them because Capcom has announcedBreath of Fire 6, a browser/tablet/smart phone game slated for 2014 release. I’m not sure all the bravest of us could handle such news. I mean, it makes sense....

If you want tocreate a little animal armyinMinecraft, you’ll want to tame as many mobs as possible. This includes animals that could be traditionally seen as unorthodox. Here’s whether you can tame polar bears inMinecraft. Can you make a polar bear a pet in Minecraft? While manyMinecraftplayers want to know how tame a polar bear, especially given how cute they are, it’s sadly impossible. Even if you walk up to it with some fish, it won’t begin to follow you around and kill mobs like wolves....

Steam and Oculus Quest keys up for grabs Enter our contest and pick up a copy of breakout VR titleMossfor Steam or Oculus Quest! Being a silly human, I can’t say I’ve ever experienced what it’s like to be a cute little four-legged creature. Imagine scurrying around the forest solving puzzles and stabbing bugs instead of going to work and sitting in traffic all day! If only there were some sort of augmented reality through which we could experience such a specific scenario…...

Last, but not least To commemorate the launch of new consoles, we’ve taken to retrospective pieces to remember some of the best titles on each system. We did it with theWiilast year, and we’ve done it with thePS3andXbox 360over the last two weeks. But, that doesn’t really paint a complete picture of the past eight years of gaming. Undoubtedly, third-party published games were just as important to the growth and prosperity of the last generation of consoles as first-party titles were....

$35,000, Buy It Now! Dude’s on crack. You could buy a small house in the midwest with $35k. You could buy a fantastic automobile for $35k. And he’s asking the same for a Nintendo Entertainment System? It does come with 42 games, with some of them being pretty rare. It’s a clean system with a new 72-pin connector and has four controllers, but even with that, I’d thinking somewhere in the sub $1,000 range....

‘Have a little Faith’ This is the announcement a lot of us have been waiting for! Electronic Arts has officially unveiled a newMirror’s Edgeproject. For this entry, EA has consulted with actual parkour artists to really get the details right, and noted an increased focus on tighter combat. I just hope the latter will be optional yet again this time around, as I was never a fan of it in the first game....

Grabbing the Brass (Elden) Ring After years of nervous anticipation, major marketing, and even a pesky delay, FromSoftware’sElden Ringfinally launched on PlayStation, PC, and Xbox platforms on February 25. And, according to publisher Bandai Namco, the epic fantasy adventure has already left sales charts shaking, racking up an amazing 12 million sales in just over two weeks. As perGSD data obtained by GamesIndustry.biz, the mighty figure cementsElden Ringas the most successful “new IP launch” since Ubisoft shooterThe Division, which hit the shelves way back in 2016....

Whereas Capcom had a fantastic 2024 fiscal yearwith record-high profits, Square Enix has not enjoyed the same level of success. In fact, it’s reported its profits are down by nearly 70% (69.7% to be exact) compared to the previous fiscal year. As such, Square Enix is committing itself to a new business strategy, which includes a greater focus on multiplatform releases. Ina presentation shared on May 13, Square Enix outlined a plan it’s calling ‘Square Enix Reboots, and Awakens,’ with the goal of achieving long-term growth over the course of three years....

The one with the best chocobo mini-game Square Enix’s Japanese website has just announced thatFinal Fantasy IX(which should be subtitledVivi and his Less Cool Friends) will be coming to PC and Smartphones soon. There’s no set release date, but I’m hoping it’s soon. Final Fantasy IXis probably my least-replayed game in the series, and I’m not quite sure why. I loved it at the time. And that chocobo treasure hunting mini-game!...

Eldar, for the uninitiated, are spacefaring elves. That is to say that they areelves from space. Elves from space which allowed their near-utopian civilization to become mired in hedonistic pleasure, their legendary debauchery giving rise to a demon which threatens all of the universe. It’s stuff like that which — while I’ll likely never play any of its myriad gaming forms — draws me to the canon of theWarhammer 40kuniverse. Badass space elves with high technology and millennia of guilt driving them....