The Strong National Museum of Play has revealed this year's inductees into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. There are four games in the class of 2023: The Last of Us, Wii Sports, Barbie Fashion Designer and Computer Space. They were selected based on a number of criteria, including their influence and popularity over time.

The Last of Us is the most recent one of the bunch. Naughty Dog's post-apocalyptic action adventure has rarely been out of the limelight over the last 10 years. A TV series based on the game debuted on HBO in January and it was an enormous hit with critics and audiences. A remake of the original game hit PS5 in September and PC in March, though the latter had a buggy launch, unfortunately. 

Going backwards from there, Wii Sports arrived in 2006. Partly because it was bundled in with the massively successful Wii and partly because everyone was playing it, the ever-entertaining sports sim went on to become one of the biggest-selling games of all time. Last year, Nintendo recaptured the magic fairly well on Switch with Nintendo Switch Sports (for the record, my Mii's nickname is Party Gramps).

Back in 1996, Mattel and Digital Domain released Barbie Fashion Designer. It allowed players to design clothing that they could print and dress their real-life Barbie dolls with. The game was a hit, selling half a million copies in two months.

“Barbie Fashion Designer became a jumping-off point for the girls’ games movement and shook up the software and gaming scene," Kristy Hisert, collections manager at The Strong, said. "It also sparked important questions and debate. What does it mean to be a game for girls? Should there even be games ‘for girls’? What are the implications of these games? What are the consequences of gendering games?”

The final member of the class of 2023 is the first ever commercially available video game. Computer Space was an arcade title based on 1962's Spacewar!, which was primarily found on the DEC PDP-1 minicomputer in computer labs. The success of 1971's Computer Space spurred creators Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney to found a little-known company called Atari.

These four titles are well-deserving inductees into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. This year's other finalists were Age of Empires, Angry Birds, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, FIFA International Soccer, Goldeneye 007, NBA 2K, Quake and Wizardry. The Strong, which is in Rochester, New York, will showcase the 2023 inductees (and presumably the ones from previousyears) on a permanent basis in a new World Video Game Hall of Fame space, which will open on June 30th.

Five months after Marvel's Midnight Sunsarrived on PC, Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5, the game will at last land on last-gen consoles. Firaxis' turn-based RPG will hit Xbox One and PS4 on May 11th.

There's a disappointing update for those who've been waiting for Marvel's Midnight Suns to come to Nintendo Switch, however. That version is "no longer planned," according to a post on the game's website. In other words, Firaxis and publisher 2K have canceled the Switch port.

That may not be a huge surprise, given the extra time that Firaxis already needed to get the PS4 and Xbox One versions ready. Both of those consoles are considerably more powerful than the Switch and it may be the case that the extra work required to get the game running on Nintendo's console ultimately wasn't worthwhile. After all, despite strong reviews, the game was a "commercial flop," according to Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick.

On a positive note, the Xbox One and PS4 versions will drop on the same day as the game's fourth expansion. Marvel's Midnight Suns: Blood Storm will add Storm as a playable character and introduce new missions to the ongoing vampyre storyline. All of the DLC installments will be available to PS4 and Xbox One players out of the gate, enabling them to add the likes of Deadpool, Venom and Morbius to their hero rosters.

Now that The Super Mario Bros. Movie is finally (almost) done racking up coins, it’s time for another video game adaptation to head into theaters. Sony’s Gran Turismo film, highlighting the esteemed racing sim, has set a release date for August 11th and dropped a first-look trailer to prove it.

According to the trailer, this is not your standard video game adaptation. It doesn’t seek to adapt the “story” of Gran Turismo, but is rather set in a world obsessed with the racing sim. There's a tournament to find the best virtual racer out there (shades of The Wizard) and the winners get to race in real life (shades of The Last Starfighter).

Even weirder? This is all based on a true story. The film follows current professional racer Jann Mardenborough (Archie Madekwe), who actually was a teenage Gran Turismo obsessive. He really did win competitions and even managed to parlay that into an actual career. David Harbour, Orlando Bloom, Djimon Hounsou and Geri Halliwell round out the cast.

This might be an odd choice for a video game movie plot, but it’s not as if the Gran Turismo series has a deep well of lore to pull from. The film is directed by Neill Blomkamp, who made District 9 and Elysium, so this is at least worth keeping an eye on. In any event, August is just around the corner, so we don’t have long to wait.

If you like your fake racing with a bit more clown-based hyper-violence, Peacock just dropped a trailer for a Twisted Metal adaptation.

Redfall is not fit for public consumption. It may not give you salmonella, but Arkane Austin’s vampire-infused world is unpolished, underpopulated and littered with glitches. From the jump, there are signs the game would’ve benefited from another delay before launch day. That’s not to say Redfall is a bad game filled with terrible ideas, but in its current form, it’s difficult to see the brilliance among the bugs.

Redfall is an open-world first-person loot shooter in the vein of Borderlands, but with a bunch of vampires and cultists instead of bandits, and set in a picturesque fictional town off the coast of Massachusetts rather than an arid wasteland. It has four playable characters, each with a magical skill set powered by pesky local pharmaceutical experiments.

Arkane Austin

The characters represent a bright spot in the game, so let’s start with the good stuff. I primarily played as Layla, a student whose special abilities include a glowing purple umbrella that soaks up bullets and a psychic elevator that propels friends and foes into the sky. Her final ability summons her former boyfriend, a ghostly vampire who shows up to pull focus and deal damage (typical ex behavior). I also spent some time with Remi, a support-class character with an adorable robot dog. Each character has a skill tree with a few dozen upgrade slots, plus a backpack that can be stuffed full of firearms, and three guns equipped at any time.

Running in Redfall is incredibly satisfying, and this is crucial, considering a large portion of the game is spent exploring neighborhoods on foot. The run mechanic feels like gliding, providing a significant and immediate speed boost that never feels too slow.

The actual town of Redfall is charming. The campaign is spread across two maps, a suburban center and a historic district, each with a distinct vibe. While this is definitely not Prey or Dishonored, Arkane’s DNA runs through Redfall, and the map contains a variety of locales sprinkled with world-building lore – abandoned churches and homes, lootable shops, spooky mansions, hiking trails, farmland, an amusement park.

Missions are structured to slowly reveal new areas of the map, and along the way there are safe houses to unlock, side stories to uncover and special vampires to vanquish. A highlight is clearing vampire nests, which teleport you to twisted versions of the town, providing a welcome break from the idyllic landscapes. All told, Redfall is a neat place to explore. I just wish it didn’t feel so empty.

Here’s where things start to fall apart. Redfall’s entire world feels dead, and not in the on-brand, reanimated corpse type of way. There are long stretches of road and entire neighborhoods without enemies or points of interest, and groups of cultists and vampires are often incredibly easy to spot. Combine this with shockingly dumb enemy AI and an oppressive amount of aim assist, and most basic encounters end after a smattering of bullets and little tension. There are always plenty of shinies to collect, at least.

Arkane Austin

I played on an Xbox Series S and PC, and experienced numerous bugs and crashes, particularly on the Xbox version. The game is limited to 30 fps at launch on both Series S and X, and suffers immensely because of it, with heavy-handed motion blur barely smoothing out the judders. Playing with a gamepad on Xbox is especially jarring – hefty aim assist mixes with a significant dead zone to create an unpleasant, weirdly imprecise shooting experience. I was able to tweak things to make it bearable, but basic gunplay in Redfall feels bad.

And then there are the bugs. Prompts to talk to people or read notes often fail; environments pop in with half-loaded textures; framerate drops result in stop-motion animations; sniper rifle scopes break completely; the game fully crashes. In 15 hours with Redfall, my game crashed three times. Arkane says it’s addressing a handful of known crash areas with the game’s day 0 patch, so hopefully these are cleared up for prime time.

While you can technically play Redfall solo, the game was clearly designed to be played with a team. Characters’ abilities dovetail cleanly, and wandering the town is way more fun with a teammate. Once I started playing with a friend, the game made more sense, with strategy talk and shared curiosity filling those long, empty stretches of road, adding intrigue to easy shots. However, co-op also introduced fresh glitches, including floating character models and choppy collision physics.

As a feature-complete AAA experience with a price tag of $70, Redfall is a massive disappointment. However, that’s not how most people are going to play – Arkane is a subsidiary of Xbox Game Studios, and Redfall will be available to Game Pass subscribers on PC and console, day-one and at no extra charge. The barrier to entering Redfall is low and this might be its saving grace, allowing developers to continually update the game while thousands of playtesters provide live feedback. Hell, that might even be the plan.

Right now, Redfall makes sense as an early access game. It’s a mess, but it’s still largely playable; Redfall’s core loop is actually thrilling when all the mechanics line up correctly, but the details need attention. The early access process is a crucial tool for developers, especially when it comes to online experiences, and there are pipelines for works in progress on every major platform, including Xbox. Redfall feels like a work-in-progress.

But in reality, Arkane and Xbox aren’t pitching Redfall as an early access game. They’re calling it a finished product and they’re charging $70 – or at least one month of Game Pass, set to automatically renew – for the privilege of playing its glitchy, imprecise missions.

It’s all reminiscent of Sea of Thieves, the original “day one on Game Pass” title. When it came out in 2018, Sea of Thieves was roundly criticized for feeling unfinished, lacking direction and being light on actual content. With years of updates and a consistent presence on Game Pass, Sea of Thieves stabilized, nurtured its player base, and eventually picked up a BAFTA award in the evolving game category in 2021. Its ninth season rolled out in March.

Arkane Austin

Redfall could easily follow a similar path. The game has good bones, and it could evolve into an engaging co-op shooter with plenty of room for replayability and expansions – Left 4 Dead for the Twilight generation; Borderlands meets What We Do in the Shadows; small-scale Destiny with a Stranger Things typeface. There’s room for Redfall, but only if Microsoft gives Arkane the runway to save it.

Redfall is less ambitious than Sea of Thieves, and it really shouldn’t be in this poor shape: Arkane Austin has plenty of experience crafting AAA first-person shooters, and Redfall is a traditional loot shooter with online play. Nothing in this game falls outside of Arkane’s or Xbox’s capabilities, and personally, I’m interested to see how it shapes up over time.

That doesn’t make Redfall’s launch state feel any less shady. If Xbox plans to use Game Pass as an early access hub, then the terms need to be clear. Players deserve to know when they’re spending $70 on potential, and potential alone.

Despite suffering a significant blow this week in its attempt to take over Activision Blizzard, Microsoft still believes it can get the job done. The company has signed a 10-year agreement with Spain-based cloud gaming provider Nware to make PC games it builds in-house available to stream on that platform, along with Activision Blizzard titles if and when the $68.7 billion deal goes through.

"While it's still early for the emerging cloud segment in gaming, this new partnership combined with our other recent commitments will make more popular games available on more cloud game streaming services than they are today," Microsoft president and vice-chair Brad Smith wrote on Twitter. "We are full speed ahead in our mission to bring players more ways to play their favorite games," Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer added.

In a similar fashion to NVIDIA's GeForce Now, Nware offers users access to a number of their game libraries via the cloud including those from Steam, Epic Games and Ubisoft. Users can use the service to stream their games on Windows PCs, Android smartphones, tablets and smart TVs.

The latest agreement follows similar deals Microsoft has struck with Nintendo, Steam, NVIDIA, Boosteroid, Ubitus and EE to make its games available on those companies' platforms. Microsoft says it has offered Sony, the biggest opponent of the proposed Activision merger, a 10-year agreement to keep the likes of Call of Duty on PlayStation. However, Sony hasn't taken up the offer.

These partnerships are part of a charm offensive Microsoft and Activision have been carrying out in an attempt to win over antitrust regulators. European Union officials will decide whether to rubber-stamp the blockbuster deal by May 22nd. Reports suggest that the European Commission will approve the acquisition.

However, Microsoft and Activision ran into a major obstruction this week when the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) blocked the deal. The watchdog voiced concerns over Microsoft's dominant position in the cloud gaming market.

Documents submitted to the CMA showed that Microsoft already had a cloud gaming market share of between 60 and 70 percent in 2022 — that was before Google killed off Stadia, which had under five percent of the market. Smith has attempted to counter the CMA's concerns by claiming that Microsoft's infrastructure only allows it to offer cloud gaming access to a maximum of 5,000 concurrent users in the UK.

Microsoft and Activision Blizzard plan to appeal the CMA's decision, a process that may take many months. The companies had hoped to close the deal by this summer. In December, the US Federal Trade Commission sued to block the takeover. The case is set to go to trial in August.

Everyone loves a good to-do list, and now they're spreading into PC games. Along with a slew of other new features, Steam's latest update includes an integrated Notes app as part of a re-vamped in-game overlay tool. It lets you write thoughts and tasks down about the game you're playing then runs on top of the game while you play, which you can access across any PC you log into and when playing offline.

Valve

At any time you can pin the to-do list right to your gaming screen, adjusting its opacity based on your preferences. Guides, discussions and whatever is on your browser (even the show you're watching) can also be clipped to the game. 

Steam's other updates to the in-game overlay include a revamped toolbar and overview. The new toolbar has everything from chat to guides, customizable depending on fields you want to see and in either icon or list mode. The game overview will fill you in on information like accomplishment progress, friends' game play and news about that title.  

Notifications have also cleaned up a bit with less interruptions of things unrelated to you. The tray will only display newest notifications, but you can still view all if you want. The last in-game Steam update is for screenshots, allowing you to choose between large and small thumbnails, while also sorting screenshots by most recent, instead of per game. 

These features are only available through the Steam Client Beta at the moment, but if you’ve never opted into the Beta version before, it’s pretty simple. All you need to do is go to settings (it will be called preferences if you're on a Mac), click the change button where it says Beta Participation in the Accounts tab and choose Steam Beta Update. Once you restart Steam, the Beta features will become visible.

Valve asserts that a lot of its recent work has gone towards improving code sharing between Steam Desktop Client, Deck and Big Picture mode. The company claims this should allow future features to roll out quicker across the different platforms. 

Acclaimed developer Young Horses just dropped four free games on Steam as part of a collection it's calling the Free Range initiative. The team behind the beloved PS5 launch title Bugsnax is known for making off-kilter takes on traditional game formulas, and these four titles look like they carry on that proud tradition.

These are not bigwig releases, as they were mostly developed as side projects and at various game jam events. The strangest one of the four, and therefore the most intriguing, is called Antbassador, which was originally developed for the Ludum Dare game jam. Have you ever wanted to control a giant finger in a tophat as you try to accommodate the needs of a bustling ant colony? Now’s your chance.

If you haven’t had your fill of picnic ruiners, there’s IndependANT. The 3D open-world platformer casts you as an ant trying to locate a missing queen. This is a new and original title that did not begin life as a game jam, but rather as a tech demo to show off the newly-implemented Unreal 5 engine.

We move from insects to reptiles with the hilariously-titled Snakedate. As the name suggests, you are a snake at a club looking for dates. This mostly involves swiping right on a snake-based dating website and then, uh, wrapping your slithering body around any creature that catches your fancy.

Finally, there’s Octodad: Student Edition. This is the original version of the standout hitOctodad: Dadliest Catch, first created when many key developers at Young Horses were still in college. It's a bit rough around the edges, as it's more than 12 years old, but this is Octodad through and through. This is the OG design that fueled a Kickstarter frenzy and started it all for the company.

All four titles are available for download right now, but only via the Steam Store. Octodad: Dadliest Catchfinally launched for the Switch some years back, but it looks like these four games are all PC exclusives for now.

With nearly 60 million daily active players, Roblox is one of the most popular games on the planet. So it’s surprising then that it’s taken until now for a company like Razer to partner with the game's creator to release a line of Roblox-branded gaming gear. 

Razer

Announced today, the line includes new versions of some of Razer’s most popular accessories, like the Orochi V2 gaming mouse. There’s also a Roblox-themed BlackWidow V3 mechanical keyboard and Barracuda X headset. What makes Razer’s Roblox Edition peripherals different from some of the other collaborative gaming lines released in the past is that each Razer device comes with an in-game Roblox item. The Orochi V2, for instance, comes with the “Razer Cyberpack,” a backpack shaped like a mouse. Meanwhile, the BlackWidow lets you adorn your Roblox avatar with a set keyboard wings. If that wasn’t weird enough, none of the in-game items are one-for-one recreations of their real-world counterparts.

Pricing starts at $90 for the mouse, while the headset and mechanical keyboard will cost $130 and $180, respectively. In other words, each Roblox Edition accessory costs more than you would pay for those devices normally. For instance, the standard black, white and quartz Orochi V2 colorways cost $70 when they’re not on sale. You’re basically paying extra for your kid to show off to their friends on Roblox. The entire line will go on sale on April 28th through the Razer website and select retailers.

Developer Dramatic Labs has set a release date of May 23rd for the narrative adventure game Star Trek: Resurgence. It was supposed to come out in spring of 2022, but better late than never, right? The title launches for the PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and PC via the Epic Games Store. So pretty much everything but the Switch.

If the term “narrative adventure game” brings to mind Telltale classics like The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us, there is a good reason. Dramatic Labs is made up of former Telltale developers, some of which worked on those iconic adventure games. So you can expect a title that prioritizes making tough decisions over whiz-bang action. Star Trek as a franchise seems especially suited to this style of play, given the often thoughtful nature of the stories.

Star Trek: Resurgence is set shortly after the events of Star Trek: The Next Generation, placing it before the events of Star Trek: Picard but relatively concurrent with the events of Star Trek: Lower Decks. This is Star Trek. There are lots of timelines to keep track of.

The game features two playable lead characters, neither of which will be familiar to fans. However, Dramatic Labs has teased the presence of legacy characters from throughout the universe, and it has already revealed that the one and only Spock will feature heavily in the storyline. This is not the Spock from the original Star Trek and its sequel movies, but rather the aged Ambassador Spock as seen in The Next Generation timeline. The story involves stopping a war between two alien races, which is something the Vulcan ambassador would most certainly get behind.

Resurgence uses the Unreal 5 engine, which should eliminate some of the jankiness surrounding old-school Telltale games. There is also plenty of talent behind the scenes, so this is something to be cautiously optimistic about, as it has been a long time since a truly iconic Star Trek game appeared on our radar. In any event, we only have a month to find out if Resurgence lives up to classic early 2000s titles like Star Trek: Bridge Commander.

Blizzard Entertainment is being sued by former Chinese publishing partner NetEase after servers shutdown in January when the two failed to reach a continuation agreement. NetEase is seeking ¥300 million Yuan (roughly $43.5 million) in damages, which the company says will be put toward issuing refunds for discontinued games and recouping investments from unsold merchandise inventory.

The suit has multiple components. NetEase says Blizzard was supposed to handle customer refunds with regard to discontinued games and that it got stuck with the bill. NetEase also alleges that the original contract was worded in such a way as to grant Blizzard “unequal terms and conditions” in favor of the publisher’s “unilateral rights," as reported and translated by MMO-focused gaming website Wowhead. A representative from Blizzard’s parent company Activision told Engadget that it has yet to see any formal paperwork announcing the lawsuit and said that NetEase is “contractually responsible” for refunds and anything else that falls under the “operations” umbrella.

NetEase also alleges that it provided Blizzard with a large advance to make future titles. The Chinese developer says that not only were these titles never finished or released, but that Blizzard never returned any of the seed money. Again, Activision had no comment as it has not seen the suit. 

Blizzard and NetEase were successful partners for the past 14 years before negotiations broke down to renew the long-term licensing agreement. This led to a complete cessation of all Blizzard games and services in the region, including popular properties like World of Warcraft, Overwatch 2, Starcraft and Diablo III, among others. Millions of Chinese players lost access to their accounts and related data. Some started fresh with new accounts in other regions, but most (112 million people) opted for a refund.

The agreement did not end amicably, with reports of NetEase staffers tearing down the Blizzard offices and livestreaming the destruction of a World of Warcraft statue. NetEase's president of global investment and partnership, Simon Zhu, also seemed to call out a high-ranking Blizzard staffer as a “jerk” in a LinkedIn post. Now there’s an alleged lawsuit to add even more fuel to the fire. This is a developing story so we will update this post when and if Activision/Blizzard receives a copy of the lawsuit.