The best Epic Games Store holiday sale deals you’ve got to check out

We’ve rounded up the best Epic Games Store holiday sale deals and discounts, including Spider-Man, Death Stranding, Dying Light 2, and more

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The 2023 Epic Games holiday sale is here, and there’s a lot of pretty sweet deals to go around on video games of all kinds. Remedy Games is offering discounts on all its hit games, including the recently-released Alan Wake 2. NIS America dropped the price of several games, including the hit Trails RPG series, Square Enix’s underrated gem of a sequel to The World Ends With You, Death Stranding, and a whole lot more. 

The Epic Games holiday sale lasts until Jan. 10, 2024, so you’ve got a bit of time to plan what you’d like to get, and Epic is running its usual coupon deal as well, where you can get 33 percent off most games over $15.

The best Xbox Black Friday deals on the Xbox Store

We’ve rounded up the best Xbox Black Friday deals on the Xbox Store, including Cyberpunk 2077, Monster Hunter Rise, Sekiro, and more

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Xbox Black Friday deals on the Xbox Store are live, with discounts on big names across the spectrum. Whether you’re after a Fromsoft classic, a recent AAA blockbuster, or an older hit you never got around to before, you’ll find plenty to entertain your wallet while these deals last. Most of the games available playable on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One, though we’ve noted when there may be a conflict.

The Xbox Black Friday deals are up now through Nov. 30, 2023.

The Game Awards 2023 nominees: BG3, Zelda, Resident Evil 4, and more

The Game Awards 2023 nominees are in, with Baldur’s Gate 3, Alan Wake 2, and Spider-Man 2 leading the charge with the most nominations

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Geoff Keighley announced The Game Awards 2023 nominees, the Oscars for video games, and to the surprise of few, Baldur’s Gate 3 and Zelda Tears of the Kingdom show up quite a lot. Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Alan Wake 2, and Spider-Man 2 might have launched much later in the year, but they landed their fair share of nominations, along with Hi-Fi Rush.

Honkai Star Rail and Final Fantasy XIV pop up a few times, and Final Fantasy 16 even makes an appearance.

The 2023 Game Awards airs on Thursday, Dec. 7, 2023, and you can cast your vote on the TGA website for the community picks up until the show date. 

Starfield voice actor speaks out against Microsoft’s gaming AI plans

Microsoft announced a partnership between Xbox and Inworld AI to create AI-driven development processes, and voice actors aren’t happy.

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Microsoft announced a partnership between Xbox and Inworld AI to create AI-driven development processes, and voice actors aren’t happy about it. Starfield’s Same Coe voice actor Elias Toufexis and Star Wars Jedi Survivor’s Shelby Young spoke out on Twitter about the negative effects this move could have on the acting industry (thanks, GamesRadar).

“I’ve said it for years now: If you want to start a voice-acting career, don’t bother,” Toufexis said. 

“All those jobs of nameless background NPCs that gave us all our start in the industry …they’re all going away. I’m already bitter.”

“Recording NPC’s is how many voice actors cut their teeth in this industry,” Young said on Twitter. “This will make it even harder for new talent to break into video games (which tbh can already be pretty difficult to begin with). I’m worried for game devs and writers as well.”

Here’s what the Xbox Inworld partnership entails, for now:

  • An AI design copilot that assists and empowers game designers to explore more creative ideas, turning prompts into detailed scripts, dialogue trees, quests and more. 
  • An AI character runtime engine that can be integrated into the game client, enabling entirely new narratives with dynamically-generated stories, quests, and dialogue for players to experience.

While the description makes no mention of voice acting, that kind of spontaneous dialogue probably won’t include human voices unless the developers record dozens of lines and feed them into the procedural generation tool. Maybe that’ll happen, but since most studios want to use AI to reduce costs, it seems unlikely.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

Turgle is Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s cute frog-man that’s making fans go wild

He’s just a little guy… inhabiting a galaxy that’s far, far away.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away… there was a little guy named Turgle – the adorable frog-man from Star Wars Jedi: Survivor that everyone is falling head-over-heels for.

If you’re one of the many playing Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, then you’re undoubtedly familiar with Turgle – for everyone else: he’s a sweet, tiny frog-like character. Known to some as “a little cutey” and the show stealer to others. Like The Mandalorian‘s Grogu and Rise of Skywalker‘s Babu Frik before him, Turgle continues a long-standing franchise tradition where an endearing little weirdo becomes arguably one of the most popular Star Wars characters to come along in ages. We can’t explain why this keeps happening – just go with it!

According to Star Wars Jedi: Survivor designer Justin Perez, the development team at Respawn Entertainment knew they were cooking up something special with Turgle.

“All of us on the dev team were pretty sure Turgle was going to be the breakout star of [Star Wars Jedi: Survivor], and the main takeaway from today is that we were absolutely correct,” Perez said on Twitter. “Our internal slack channel dedicated to pictures from photo mode is filled with Turgle glamour shots.”

As you’ve undoubtedly seen by now – social media is drowning in love for Turgle. We’re talking top-tier memes, outstanding fanart, and even brands capitalizing on the anthropomorphic amphibian’s popularity – so we’ve gathered the best reactions to Turgle for your viewing pleasure below.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor patch addresses performance woes

Respawn Entertainment is slowly addressing the game’s larger issues.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s launch has been rough, but its latest patch addresses some of the more significant issues.

Respawn Entertainment released Patch 3.5 for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor for PC on Monday. More specifically, it brings performance improvements for “non-raytraced rending” systems. There were no specifics beyond that, though publisher Electronic Arts did confirm that more fixes are coming.

As for the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions, Respawn Entertainment also revealed a bug-fix update for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor on consoles that will release on May 2, 2023. We’ll list the fixes below.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Console Patch Notes

  • Multiple crashes fixed across PlayStation and Xbox Series X|S and various areas of the game.
  • Fixed crashes that were tied to skipping cinematics.
  • Performance improvements across PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
  • Fixed an issue with dynamic cloth inside the Mantis.
  • Fixed various rendering issues.
  • Fixed an issue with registered Nekko colors not saving.
  • Fixed an issue with registered Nekko disappearing from the stable.
  • Fixed issues with cinematic dialogue overlapping.
  • Fixed various collision issues.
  • Fixed an issue with enemy AI remaining in T Pose during photo mode.
  • Fixed a freeze that occasionally occurred while talking to Doma.
  • Fixed a bug where the BD-oil VFX did not properly render.
  • Fixed an issue where players were getting stuck inside the Chamber of Duality if you didn’t save after leaving the chamber and die.

There’s a long way to go until Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is ship-shape – especially on PC, where players are leaving loads of negative Steam reviews.

Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.

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EA is ‘committed to fixing’ Star Wars Jedi: Survivor on PC

The company is aware of fan outcry and will share updates soon.

It’s no secret that Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is rough on PC – though Electronic Arts (EA) is committed to fixing it.

On Friday, EA released an official statement regarding Star Wars Jedi: Survivor‘s glitches and sub-optimal PC performance.

“We are aware that Star Wars Jedi: Survivor isn’t performing to our standards for a percentage of our PC players, and in particular those with high-end machines or certain specific configurations,” EA said on Twitter. “While there is no single, comprehensive solution for PC performance, the team has been working on fixes we believe will improve performance across a spectrum of configurations.”

You can read the complete statement below.

EA hasn’t provided any sort of timetable for when those much-needed updates and fixes might start rolling out, but those can’t be too far off – fingers crossed, anyway.

Fans have been anything but quiet about Star Wars Jedi: Survivor‘s problems on PC. The Steam page is overflowing with negative user reviews, with some stating that they can’t open the game due to loading screen crashes. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor only came out on Thursday, so the development team at Respawn Entertainment is likely still scrambling to patch things up.

While the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions also have slight performance issues, it’s nothing compared to what’s happening to people playing Star Wars Jedi: Survivor on PC. Regardless, it’s still a beautiful game.

Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.

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Star Wars Jedi: Survivor universally panned on Steam for technical problems

The PC version of Respawn’s space epic has not been well received.

It seems the PC version of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor isn’t quite up to snuff, as thousands of players are encountering severe performance issues.

As of this posting, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is currently sitting at “Mostly Negative” user reviews on Steam – with roughly 64 percent not recommending the game. Not so much because people don’t like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, but more that there is a myriad of bugs and technical woes hindering everyone’s enjoyment on PC.

“So far, the loading screen is pretty okay,” said White_Wolf_9946 on Steam. “I have no idea what it’s like past the title screen because it doesn’t load past that at the moment.”

Ouch – snark certainly isn’t an issue for this person, at any rate. 

Others are more specific, specifying what sort of hardware they’re rocking, and even those with powerful desktops are not having a great time.

“Game is extremely fun but performs terribly,” said Doctor TacoChocolate on Steam. “I’m using a 3090 FE and 5700x and getting a consistent 30 fps in some areas. Other areas give me a mostly consistent 45. This is at 1440p. Lowering the settings and using FSR don’t make a tiny bit of difference.”

On Wednesday, publisher Electronic Arts announced there would be a patch that addresses bugs – though it would appear that wasn’t enough for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor‘s launch.

It’s a shame, especially since Star Wars Jedi: Survivor was stunning in its latest gameplay trailer.

Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.

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Be careful: Star Wars Jedi: Survivor spoilers are on social media

EA asks players not to reveal important plot points ahead of release.

Well, it’s happened: Star Wars Jedi: Survivor spoilers are all over social media ahead of release – so consider this your unofficial spoiler warning.

On Monday, several developers behind the project began asking fans not to share plot and story details for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor before its release on Friday, April 28, 2023.

“Please, friends, don’t spoil the game,” Pete Stewart, senior writer at Respawn, said on Twitter. “We all worked very hard to create something that hopefully surprises and delights you all. I know a lot of people will be upset to see spoilers before they get to play, and for us, it’s REALLY disheartening to see as well.”

EA’s Star Wars Twitter account also kindly asked fans not to share spoilers – officially confirming that the leaks are real.

According to VGC, these leaks are due to unspecified retailers selling Star Wars Jedi: Survivor before launch – and we can confirm numerous Twitter posts from users showing off early copies. So if you’re at all wary about spoilers for this one, maybe mute the proper keywords (like the game’s title) or avoid social media entirely for a bit.

It’s no secret that Respawn is particularly proud of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, especially with how longtime franchise fans have embraced Cal Kestis – that final trailer sent everyone into hyperspace in particular.

Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.

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Lucasfilm wanted a much different Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Respawn’s Star Wars Jedi game was so popular that it’s getting a sequel soon, but Lucasfilm originally had some big doubts

Respawn’s Star Wars Jedi game was so popular that it’s getting a sequel soon, but Lucasfilm originally had some big doubts. Star Wars Jedi Survivor director Stig Asmussen told The Guardian that Lucasfilm expressed concern over making Cal Kestis, the protagonist, a Jedi.

“We wanted to do third-person action adventure, and we wanted to have a Jedi with lightsabers. And then they’re like – wait,” Asmussen said. “At that point, to Lucasfilm, the Jedi are like the holy grail. I mean, it’s something that they’re probably the most protective of, except for maybe Baby Yoda. So we had to kind of earn that. We had to go through a whole process of, why do you want it to be a Jedi? What do you want to do with the Jedi? They were really uncomfortable with Jedi.”

Asmussen said Lucasfilm tried convincing Respawn to change the focus and use a smuggler as a hero or even to make a first-person shooter starring a bounty hunter. However tantalizing the prospect of a Star Wars Bounty Hunter made by Respawn might be to some fans, it wasn’t what Asmussen wanted.

“I’m like, ‘well I think you have the wrong person for the job,” he said. “That’s not my background. My background came from God of War … I’ve never worked on a shooter, and you need a different team to do that.’ And eventually over time, we built that trust to the point where we ended up calling [the franchise] Jedi.”

Aside from combat, Asmussen said telling the Star Wars story from a fledgling Jedi’s viewpoint just fit with the team’s vision. Asmussen wanted to take players on a journey of growth, from being an isolated trainee who wasn’t even fit to be a Padawan to a proper warrior with a deeper understanding of the galaxy.

Jedi Survivor tells the story of what happens next, with a grimmer, more determined Cal facing the might of the Empire with a handful of allies. It launches for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on April 28, 2023, and you can check out the final trailer now.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

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