Closed beta set for next week PlanetSide Arenawas revealed last monthfor a release at the end of January 2019. While everything seemed to be moving along nicely, developer Daybreak Games has now announced that its massive scale battle royale title will be delayed until March 2019. According to a blog post on the official website, Daybreak “agonized about this decision down to the deadline.” “What we’ve discovered during playtesting is that while we’ve made significant strides towards that goal [expanding player count],” reads the blog, “there are crucial feature enhancements and core systems improvements we can make that will liftPlanetSide Arenato the level it deserves…we ultimately decided taking extra time to supplement our feature set, fully optimize engine performance, and improve server infrastructure was absolutely necessary to deliver the quality, polished game thePlanetSidecommunity deserves....

Complimentary EA Access January 19-24 Electronic Arts has a subscription program — EA Access — that allows you to play from a catalog of games for a flat fee every month. EA recently launched the previously Xbox One exclusive service on PC andrebranded it as Origin Access. Sometimes it even lets you play things likeStar Wars Battlefrontearly. Its latest, post-holiday-season move is to try and lure new Xbox One owners into subscribing by offering “free play days” from January 19-24....

Last Bronx image used for gamer cred As Sega prep theirMega Drive/Genesis Minifor what they hope to be NES/SNES Classic levels of success, video game fans continue to wishlist ideas for further retro devices based on consoles such as the Nintendo 64, Game Boy and Sega Saturn. According to Sega Mega Drive Mini head Hiroyuki Miyazaki, that last one remains a pipe dream at the very least. Speaking in an interview withIGN Japan, Miyazaki was asked about the possibilities for a Saturn Mini, recreating Sega’s brave little box that did its damnedest, but was ultimately crushed by the Sony PlayStation back in the mid ’90s....

We’ve all had a hearty laugh atStreet Fighter X Tekken‘s take on the Blue Bomber — part homage and part caricature. For better or worse, people will be talking about fat, middle-aged Mega Man for years to come. Still, how exactly did the artists settle on such a bizarre look for one of gaming’s most noticeable icons? When Inafune still worked at Capcom, he suggested a more “unique” look for Mega’s inclusion inSFxT....

Anyone who has seen Klei Entertainment’sShankor Hothead Games’DeathSpankwill tell you these are two games that were destined for the Xbox LIVE Arcade/PlayStation Network/Steam trifecta from the beginning. Of course, with today’s announcement that EA Partners will be publishing these two promising games —DeathSpankfor XBLA/PSN sometime this year andShankfor PC/XBLA/PSN this summer — those very same individuals would probably love to rub it in your face. What a pack of jerks!...

The Day Before Launchedtoday, two-and-a-half hours ago at the time of writing. I really have no interest in it. I didn’t evenknow it existeduntil today, and my job is to keep up with this stuff. However, that’s probably for the best because it already has around 1900 negativereviews on Steamout of 2200. Destructoid’s own Steven “Axel Grease” Mills is currently on the case, but he reports that he can’t even get onto a server....

Last year this time, we were making fun of the H1N1 swine flu. No one’s laughing this year. We’ve only been here a day, and already we’ve seen the “swine fear” in their eyes. Upon entry to the airport, they had their sick radar on. At check-in at our hotel, all the stations were manned with bottles of hand sanitizer, which all hotel staff have been using frequently. At each, a note in several languages warns of contact and potential sickness....

Now thatPalworldhas firmly established itselfas one of the most popular survival gamesever, it’s time to acknowledge the fact thatit’s remarkably moddable, too. We’re not too interested inPalworld’sPokemonmodshere, mind: just the regular, gameplay-improving kind, instead, and that’s what we’ll discuss below.Though it remains to be seen whetherPalworldever ends up on our list ofthe best PC games with mod support, there are some very interesting mods out and about already. Most of them are, granted, relatively simple gameplay tweaks and quality-of-life improvements, but as long as they improve the game, we’re fans of ‘em!...

Can I borrow some money? PC desktop speakers usually suck. Most of the ones you see in electronics stores center around a particle board subwoofer and satellite speakers that remind me (and sometimes sound like) the cups with string tied to them that you used to play ‘telephone’ with when you were a kid. As gamers, we have countless headsets to pick from, but pickings are slim when it comes to quality desktop speakers....

It’s never enough My first “loot-based” game wasDiablo. I blame my addiction entirely on my friend Joey, who I played the game with online by way of a dial-up connection. Yep, it wasn’t my fault at all in the slightest. He just had to tell me about the coolest uniques in the game, and how he had a few and I had none. Many hours were spent chasing that loot in the darkest depths of Diablo’s dungeon, attempting to best or at least meet my friend’s newly found equipment....

So…2008 just ended, and you probably thought you were in the clear when it came to year-end listmania. Well, you were technically right — this list isn’t looking backward; it’s looking forward. We here at Destructoid have put on our videogame analyst prognostication caps in order to bring you our picks for the most hotly anticipated games of 2009. We’ll have lists for all kinds of platforms, but today, we’re starting with Sony’s black beast, since it’s looking like it very well may turn out to finally be the Year of the PlayStation 3....

Pokemon My Nintendo rewards will never stop [Update:The new set of Pokemon My Nintendo rewards are live. You can get theTeam Galactic ring holderor thePiplup ring holderfor 500 Platinum each.] AnotherPokemon, another chance for Nintendo and The Pokemon Company to reap the benefits of endless merch. Coming soon:newPokemonMy Nintendo rewards. This set is forBrilliant DiamondandShining Pearl, and actually consists of two rewards: Piplup and Team Galactic phone ring holders. As you may recallNintendo has offered phone ring holders before, which, simply put, allow you to “use it to hold your phone, or rotate the ring so you’re able to use it as a kickstand....

Yo dawg, I heard you like subscriptions… Following on fromyesterday’s updateon the revamped PlayStation Plus service, publisher Ubisofthas announced that it plansto bring its own paid subscription service, Ubisoft+, to PlayStation platforms. The service, already available on PC, Stadia, and Luna devices, includes over 100 titles from the Ubisoft catalog, including games from theAssassin’s Creed, Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, andWatch Dogsfranchises. The paid service also includes classics from Ubisoft’s past, including titles such asBeyond Good and Evil, Prince of Persia, Child of Light, The Settlers,andSilent Hunter....