Barking up the wrong tree Activision Blizzard has quietly pulled a new DLC skin from its billion-dollar shootersCall of Duty: VanguardandCall of Duty: Warzonefollowing accusations of plagiarism from an online artist. The “Loyal Samoyed” skin is a bizarre conception that features a realistically depicted head of a Samoyed breed canine plastered on the body of a heavily armed mercenary. The strange look is part of a new range of in-game skins just released forVanguardandWarzone— a pack that also includes looks stylized after characters from moviesThe TerminatorandTerminator 2: Judgment Day....

Wheely good deal Longtime publisher Codemasters has acquired fellow Brit developer Slightly Mad Studios, the team behind theProject CARSseries. The $30 million acquisition brings into the fold Slightly Mad’s 150-strong personnel, as well as three projects currently in development at the studio. Codemasters has been focused on the driving/racing genre for some years now, having published multiple titles in theGRID, DirtandF1series, as well as more arcade-based racers such asMicro MachinesandOnrush. Bringing on board a local studio dedicated to the genre is a logical business move....

Featuring art from and inspired by the new game [Update:Contest over! Winners are Blazergamer112, MikeDoesntKnow, and Scield!] Ahoy! Our mateys at Titan Books have given us three copies ofThe Art of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flagto give out to arrrrr wonderful community! This gorgeous hard-cover features locations and characters from theupcoming high-seas adventure, and you can plunder yourself a copy right now! Good luck, ye scurvy dogs! (Because pirates.)...

[Today’s promoted blog on Digital Distribution comes from AwesomeExMachina, who tells us about a downside to no longer having physical packaging. As an added bonus and companion piece, watchthis hilarious gifof him trying to catch his cat while you read his blog. It’s pretty adorable. Want to see your own blog on the front page? Write a blog for this week’s current topic,Downloadables! — JRo] For nearly all four years at university, I had a colorful map which fully detailed the technology tree fromCivilization IVtaped above my desk....

Stop it, daddy! BioShock: The Collectionisn’t exactly the best remaster. In addition to a plethora of bugs, some crashes, and basically downgradedPC ports, it looks like artistic changes are part of the ordeal. I don’t sit well with that. I know some people will be fine with different textures or altered lighting, but I am all about preserving the past. When Double Fine announced thatGrim Fandango Remasteredwould retain a 4:3 aspect ratio, I was thrilled....

The Cristiano Ronaldo Flashback SBC is now live inEA FC 25, and you can unlock a truly special card in Ultimate Team. For the first time this year, we can unlock a Ronaldo item via SBC. This SBC can be costly, so let’s consider how to complete the challenge first. EA FC 25 Cristiano Ronaldo Flashback SBC tasks The Cristiano Ronaldo Flashback SBC has 21 tasks, and here are their conditions....

Club Nintendo successor is almost here? Rumor buzz warriors in Nintendo land have been on high alert of late. Between the clamor around theburied listing forTwilight Princess HDand the hopes/dreams/nightmares thatShovel Knight will aSmash Bros.DLC character, fans have done a great job of generating their own speculative Nintendo news in the wake of a dearth of major announcements from the company since E3. The latest potential doing down Nintendo road to inspire many a passionate prediction is the publishers upcoming online maintenance that’s occurring between tomorrow, October 19, and late in the day on October 20....

It feels like just yesterday that patch 7.1 dropped inFinal Fantasy XIV, but the development team at Square Enix is already looking ahead to patch 7.2, and we’ll hopefully be getting some long-awaited details about upcoming additions during Live Letter from Producer 85 on February 7. AnyFFXIVplayer is intricately familiar with the update process by this point. Updates with one number after the decimal point are the biggies, bringing a host of new content to dive into and additional MSQ quests....

Thanks to another producer letter presentation, we know the timeline Everyone has been waiting forFinal Fantasy XIV: Endwalker‘s first big patch, and now the release window has been confirmed: mid-April. The news comes fromanother lengthy, nearly-three-hour-long “Letter from the Producer Live,”which is now on a whopping issue LXIX. Here are the main talking points forEndwalker‘s first big patch: As usual it’s a lot to unpack. In case you aren’t familiar with howFinal Fantasy XIVhandles patches, generally the “main” numbered updates (6....

The WinterFortnitefrivolities are underway once again [Update:Epic has confirmed that servers areback online. “We appreciate everyone’s understanding as we worked to resolve these issues and we’ll have more details next week on what we’re doing to help you make up for lost time,” their statement read.Our original story follows below.] You might have noticed if you were looking to make some Battle Pass progress today thatFortniteis down. The battle royale game has been unavailable to play for several hours today, as Epic is looking into the matter....

Go download Here’s a trailer for a demo for…well, if you’re at work or something. Otherwise, don’t watch this trailer and get to downloading the demo forFuse! The demo takes place midway through the game, giving you a chance to play as all four of the Overstrike operatives. Everything from single-player up to all four going at it in co-op is supported in the demo, in both online and split-screen drop-in-drop-out modes....

Hasbro’s classic board gameThe Game of Life(remember that clicky colored wheel?) is making the move to the Nintendo Wii, and Famitsu has some new screenshots from the TOMY developed title. It’s all the fun of the original without the little “people pegs” to accidentally choke on! It looks like theLifeboard has been turned into a three-dimensional world that your Mii can move through, although some of the background imageslook to be more Japan-centricthan you might remember....

In addition to shouting ‘SEEEGAAAAA’ When I saw that aSonic ManiaCollector’s edition went up for roughly 40 bucks (at some retailers) and included a game code, I immediately leapt on a pre-order. A lot of people did the same it seems as it sold out pretty quickly, but folks are running into one minor issue with the statue — it doesn’t light up. I noticed this when unpacking it, that as advertised, the iconic “SEEEGAAA” sound effects plays, but there’s no red LED “power” toggle....