Valve’s early access auto battler has lost most of its playerbase since its launch on Steam six months ago. As discovered by eagle-eyed Reddit user Sharkylzrod, Steam Charts shows a peak of 200,000 users playing concurrently when it first launched back in June, but a mere 15,000 players over the past day. The average player count in Dota Underlords has likewise been dropping monthly, recently hitting just over 11,000 users, with a peak player count of just under 20,000....

The patent, filed for in March last year, was published today. SteamDB’s Pavel Djundik picked it up, distilling its most interesting concepts on Twitter. In short, this is a system that allows Steam to track read operations performed by the exe file of a given game, in order to draw a map of what and how often data is being accessed. Valve would then use this telemetry to, for instance, prioritise certain files during the download process to allow players to get started early without having to wait for the whole thing to finish....

She’d left work to surprise him. A lovely little act of kindness on what would have otherwise been a completely ordinary day. Just another feature-less weekday blended in with all the rest – the palatable home-made protein smoothie of life. A posh afternoon tea from the local fancy-for-the-area cafe that sits on the park. Sandwiches with pickle that isn’t Branston’s. Cheese that isn’t 40% lighter cheddar. Scones with a hint of cinnamon....

Today’s EA Play Live Spotlight will focus on the role indies play in the industry. Todd Martens of the Los Angeles Times will host the panel featuring Josef Fares of Hazelight (It Takes Two), Olov Redmalm of Zoink (Lost in Random), and others. It kicks off at 10am PT, 1pm ET, 6pm UK. You can watch it below. Next up is a presentation that will focus on Madden NFL 22 and how fans impacted the development of Franchise Mode, and it will also take a deep dive into the new scouting feature coming to the game....

The next Night City Wire broadcast will carry on the trend of the developer holding virtual briefings on Cyberpunk 2077 online. The stream will detail yet more features and content from the game. This time, the broadcast is set to focus on the aural side of the game, with more details landing about Keanu Reeves’ character – Jonny Silverhand – and more information about the music in the game, too....

In a statement to IGN, the company said the names of the DLC “are not DLCs for Cyberpunk 2077.” As IGN notes, it’s possible these names are just not finalized yet, could be code names or even placeholders the company added before choosing the actual titles. Original story follows Some details about the upcoming free DLC packs for Cyberpunk 2077 have emerged. Thanks to the Epic Games Store, it looks like we have the names of nine pieces of content....

Keanu Reeves’ character Johnny Silverhand and music from Cyberpunk 2077 will be the focus of the upcoming fifth edition of Night City Wire. In another timeline, the gaming community is gearing up to play Cyberpunk 2077 in less than a week. The hotly anticipated RPG from CD Projekt RED has been delayed a couple of times, and hunger for the game is at a fever pitch. Alas, the wait continues until December 10....

Fortnite’s Chapter 2 live event starts at Saturday 4 December at 4PM EST - that’s 1PM PT and 9PM GMT for the rest of us - but read on for the kick off in every region and a breakdown of what to expect from the event! Our courageous heroes from every franchise under the sun will face off against the Cube Queen in a showpiece finale like no other. The End is coming soon, and you’ll want to carve out some time in your schedule if you want to see what Epic has in store for the season’s close....

There are a few specific requirements you need to meet and stages you need to complete to be able to summon the Putrid Rat. We’re going to show you how to do this, how beat the Putrid Rat, and how to unlock the Rat Form to morph into a seemingly harmless rodent yourself. What is the location of the Putrid Rat? Surprise! It’s right behind you… once you’ve met the requirements....

The official Wo Long Twitter account shared yesterday, February 5, that a demo for the action role-playing game would be released February 24. You’ll be able to try the demo out on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. “Save data from this demo will transfer to the final game,” explains the tweet announcing the demo. “Complete the demo to obtain the ‘Crouching Dragon Helmet’ DLC in the full game....

Players—both new and old—will have the opportunity to return to Outland when World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Classic launches on June 1. Beginning on May 18, after each regional scheduled maintenance, the Pre-expansion Patch will be released, and each character must choose whether to advance onward to Burning Crusade, move to a Classic Era realm, or use the Character Clone service to play in both games. More on that here....

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands’ minimum specs have been updated to include both SDD and HDDs. The change comes after players complained this week about the minimum requirements, known since December 2019, that required users to have an SSD. Blizzard has since updated the minimum specs to allow HDD support but states that “player experience may be impacted on HDD” depending on the drive’s performance (thanks, RPS). So, it may be prudent to upgrade to an SSD, and you can get a rather decent one for a good price now and days....

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands releases on October 27. In it, the Horde and the Alliance will “forge their own fate” in the eighth expansion for the MMO. Upon entering the Shadowlands, you will find the otherworld in disarray. Souls are being wrongfully cast into the eternal darkness of the Maw, while the Covenants face “ruin and strife” as the flow of the Shadowlands’ essential anima dwindles. As evil gathers the strength, players must go into the beyond, forge a pact with the Covenant that most aligns with their own principles and purpose, and restore balance to the hereafter....

You can watch it yourself below, but for some context this wasn’t created by the usual team of talented CGI artists who put out stunning cinematics for expansions (like the excellent Dragon Isle trailer). Instead, it comes from fan creator Hurricane, who has previously been responsible for a range of custom mind-blowing raid trailers. In the trailer, you can see all the major features of the Wrath of the Lich King launch, including the scourge invasion of Azeroth, players arriving to the various Northrend zones and battling various monsters you can find there, taking on dungeons and of course some Wintergrasp PvP....

One of the low-key bigger surprise reveals at Summer Game Fest’s kick off show earlier today has been the new Painkiller. Yes, a new entry into the classic shooter is in the works. Saber Interactive, mostly known for World War Z, Snowrunner and the Crysis remasters, is taking lead on the new game. The project seems to be very early in development. At a recent preview event VG247 attended, we were only introduced to a single piece of concept art....

Once xCloud integration kicks off on consoles, anyone using an Xbox One, Xbox Series S or Xbox Series X can simply click play on an Xbox Game Pass game and immediately start playing it via stream, effectively allowing players to try games before they downloading them (costing you both time and data). As per Microsoft, over 100 Xbox Game Pass titles will be available as part of this first wave of xCloud integration....

The trailer sees a pair of (what we have to assume are) protagonist characters, playing the flute as footage zips between epic sword battles, monolithic mechs, and high-octane anime-inspired drama. If we’re to expect what we’ve seen in the other games in this sequel, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 will feature a massive open-world, brimming with real-time combat. Whether we’ll see the likes of Shulk, Rex or Pyra return in the game remains to be seen, but given Xenoblade Chronicles 3 teases a future of those worlds, we assume there’ll be some link to them....

The thing about streaming games on Twitch and posting let’s plays on YouTube is that it sits in a bit of a grey area. It is technically showing off copyrighted material, but most developers know that it ultimately makes them more money though, as it’s essentially free promotion. Atlus doesn’t seem to acknowledge that too often though, as back when Persona 5 released you couldn’t show certain parts of the game, something that’s still in effect with the recent release of Royal on modern platforms....

For those who’ve been keeping up with YuGiOh Master Duel, you may remember that the game only recently passed 10 million downloads across all platforms a month ago. With the recent xyz festival standing out as the first special event for the popular card game, it seems as though we’ve got plenty of duels left to go before the game runs out of steam. For those looking for some good ideas on what to spend these gems on, YuGiOh is dominated by a selection of excellent meta decks through all ranks, so constructing one should be a top priority....

After two years, I step back and look at the Xbox Series X and S, and realize… Does this thing really have any must-play exclusive games? Is there any one game you can point at to make you feel brilliant about your purchase? I’m not even strictly talking about true exclusives here. Cross-generation games are a reality and a necessity right now for numerous reasons – so I’m cool with the hot Xbox Series games also being on Xbox One....