Back in October, Google Stadia introduced free trials with its Hello Engineer game. While the service lets users try any game they want with a $10-per-month Pro subscription, it was the first time free users were given the chance to test a game before purchase. Now, according to 9to5Google, Stadia is giving free users the opportunity to take two more games for a spin before they have to buy them. One of those games is Control: Ultimate Edition, which recently just came out for the platform.

Ultimate Edition contains the core Control game, along with the expansions that were released for it. Like Hello Engineer, players will be able to test it out for 30 minutes before they have to decide whether to pay $40 for a copy. The other game is Ubisoft's recently released Riders Republic, a massively multiplayer extreme sports game, where teams can battle each other on bikes, skis, snowboards and in flying wingsuits. Players will get the chance to try it out for two hours instead of just 30 minutes, perhaps because half an hour might barely be enough to cover tutorials when there are several extreme sports to choose from. Besides, Riders Republic isn't cheap and costs $60 to purchase.

With the addition of these two games, we can probably expect Google to make more titles available for free trial in the future. It could be an effective way to get people who'd rather own the titles they play interested in purchasing from Stadia instead of from other gaming platforms. 

Ready to buy yet another version of Skyrim? After coming to nearly every system imaginable, Bethesda’s seminal 2011 RPG is about to get the tabletop treatment. Modiphius Entertainment, the company behind Fallout: Wasteland Warfare, is working on The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim - The Adventure Game. Set to come out sometime next summer, the game will allow you to revisit Tamriel’s frozen north as an agent of the Imperial Blades. You can play either by yourself or with up to three other friends.

The narrative-driven game will ship with two campaigns made up of three chapters. Modiphius says each one should take about 90 to 120 minutes to complete. Provided you don’t get distracted by side quests and exploration (not an easy feat in any Elder Scrolls game), you can expect your initial playthrough to take about 12 hours. Worry not, you can “save” your progress at any point, and pick up where you left off. The decisions you make during a playthrough will shape how the story unfolds. And with a deck of about 600 cards driving the narrative, no two sessions should play out exactly the same.

If you want to read more about the game, Polygon has a detailed preview. You can pre-order The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim - The Adventure Game through Gamefound. The first 2,011 people to back the project’s base tier can get the game by itself for £68 (approximately $92). For everyone else, it will start at £82 ($111).

It’s been a while since we’ve heard any news from Amy Hennig, but now we know what the former Naughty Dog and Visceral Games writer and creative director has been working away at since going indie in 2018. On Friday, Marvel announced its working with Hennig’s Skydance New Media studio on a new narrative-driven action-adventure game set in its comic book universe. Details on the project are sparse, but the Disney-owned company teased the title will feature a “completely original story and take on the Marvel Universe.”

“I can’t imagine a better partner than Marvel for our first game,” said Hennig. “The Marvel Universe epitomizes all the action, mystery and thrills of the pulp adventure genre that I adore and lends itself perfectly to an interactive experience. It’s an honor to be able to tell an original story with all the humanity, complexity, and humor that makes Marvel characters so enduring and to enable our players to embody these heroes that they love.”

In some ways, it’s a surprise to find out Hennig is working on a AAA title. When she left EA after the publisher shut down Visceral, it seemed like she wanted a change of pace. "I would love to have a little company of about six to eight people, 15 at the most, and then do smaller projects," she said at the time. But then the possibility of working with Marvel may have been too difficult to ignore, especially for a new studio working on its first-ever game. Much like it’s done in Hollywood, the company has started to pull in talent from every corner of the gaming industry. Between Eidos Montreal, Firaxis and now Skydance New Media, some of the best studios are working on Marvel properties.

No one in their right mind would actually want to live in the world of A Quiet Place, where denizens walk around barefoot and move as silently as possible to avoid incurring the wrath of highly noise-sensitive aliens. But, if you'd like to find out how well you might cope in that universe, you can test your nerves in the franchise's first video game, which is scheduled to arrive next year.

Publisher Saber Interactive has announced that a single-player, story-driven horror adventure is in development by iLLOGIKA and EP1T0ME. The iLLOGIKA team includes developers who have worked on the Rainbow Six and Far Cry franchises, and the studio helped with the development of games including Hyper Scape and Cuphead.

There aren't many other details about A Quiet Place just yet, such as the platforms on which it will be available. However, it will have an original story and "gameplay that captures the compelling suspense, emotion and drama for which the series is famous," according to a press release. Saber plans to reveal more information about the game by the end of the year.

With Halo Infinite’sDecember 8th release date fast approaching, Microsoft has shared a new six-minute trailer that offers an in-depth look at the game’s single-player component. The last time the company provided an extended preview of Infinite’s campaign was during its Xbox showcase in 2020. That trailer was poorly received, with most fans agreeing the game’s visuals looked dated. In the aftermath of that reveal, developer 343 Industries said they had work to do, and Microsoft subsequently delayed the game to 2021.

In this latest preview, you can see the visuals have gotten an update (look at Craig the Brute). But what hasn’t changed too much is the emphasis on sandbox gameplay. During a community Q&A back in March, 343 Industries said they were inspired by levels like The Silent Cartographer from Halo: Combat Evolved to design the game in a way that would allow players to accomplish objectives with creativity. 

You see that ethos on display in the second half of the trailer. Master Chief stumbles upon a Banished outpost he has to take out. You can use his grappling hook to move around the facility quickly and pull enemy weapons and explosives to augment your current arsenal. Vehicles play an important part in the overall gameplay loop, as do abilities you can purchase for Master Chief. 

All of the different gameplay elements come together to form something that looks like it will offer a classic but more open Halo experience. It’s just too bad you won’t be able to play the campaign with a friend, at least not at launch.

Beyond a special-edition Xbox Series X and controller, there's more Halo Infinite-themed hardware on the way, this time for PC players. Not only have Microsoft and AMD teamed up to add ray-tracing to the game sometime after launch, they created a limited-edition Radeon RX 6900 XTHalo Infinite graphics card.

The GPU’s design is based on Master Chief's Mjolnir armor, and it features a reflective, iridium gold border around a fan, a blue light that mimics the Cortana AI module on the character's helmet and the 117 Spartan call sign. Microsoft notes that the graphics card uses the same RDNA 2 architecture as the Xbox Series X/S consoles.

Here's the rub: you won't be able to buy the GPU. Microsoft, AMD, developer 343 Industries and some of their partners will be giving away the graphics card in the coming weeks. If you're interested, it's worth keeping an eye on the Halo and AMD Radeon Twitter accounts for more details.

AMD is 343 Industries' exclusive PC partner for Halo Infinite. They’ve been working together for the last couple of years to optimize the game for AMD’s GPUs and Ryzen processors. For one thing, there’s support for AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, which reduces screen tearing and boosts HDR visuals on compatible monitors. 

Elsewhere, Microsoft released a video showcasing what the Halo Infinite experience will look like on PC. It’s the first time the company is bringing a Halo game to consoles and PC on the same day. From the outset, there will be support for ultrawide displays and old-school LAN setups, as well as framerate customization and triple keybinds. Microsoft is also promising “deep integration” with Discord and in-game events that sync with lighting on Razer Chroma RGB devices. There are some Halo InfiniteRazer peripherals too.

Halo Infinite will hit Xbox consoles and PC on December 8th. As with ray-tracing, the campaign co-op and Forge modes won't be available at launch. 343 Industries will add those features later.

Epic Games Publishing is throwing its full weight behind two more indie studios, and really, they couldn't be more different — which is precisely the point. Epic has signed Eyes Out, the brand-spanking-new studio founded by Spec Ops: The Line director Cory Davis and Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck, and also Spry Fox, a veteran, award-winning indie developer known for heartwarming games such as Cozy Grove, Alphabear and Road Not Taken. 

As a publisher, Epic offers to cover 100 percent of all development costs, and once a game comes out and breaks even in sales, the signed studio receives at least 50 percent of all profits. Epic doesn't exert creative control over its partnered games, and the developers retain the intellectual property rights to their work. Epic signed Remedy Entertainment, Playdead and genDESIGN in March 2020, and today's announcement marks the second batch of contracted studios.

"We’re open to publishing many types of games from the most talented developers, and the studios we’re partnering with are making some of the coolest, experimental and ambitious stuff out there," head of Epic Games Publishing Hector Sanchez told Engadget. "They have our full support – including Epic’s publishing and promotional services, resources, and experience – which means they can focus solely on making the best games possible."

Eyes Out is staffed with enormous creative energy, but it's unproven as a team. Davis, Finck and their collaborators are working on their debut title, a mysterious arthouse horror game with an emphasis on experimental audio and cosmic terror. The studio's teasers are filled with moody desert landscapes and unsettling layers of sound. In a chat with Engadget in September, Davis said he wants to "create mind-bending experiences that cause you to question reality."

The publisher relationship goes even deeper for Eyes Out, too — the studio received an Epic MegaGrant in 2019, which gave them the runway to build their first proof-of-concept. Epic further funded the studio's prototype, allowing them to expand their team in the process. And now, Eyes Out is officially part of Epic Games Publishing.

"From the very beginning, Robin and I knew that Eyes Out was going to require a unique publishing partner willing to empower our vision of the strange, ambitious worlds we would create together, and one capable of fueling it," Davis said about today's news. He continued, "Our collaboration with Epic continued to bear fruit. Working with Epic is really the first time I’ve felt entirely unleashed as a director, both technically and creatively. Together we’re aimed to create the thing that’s closest to my heart."

Spry Fox, meanwhile, is working on its most ambitious project to date, which it describes as a "non-violent multiplayer game designed to encourage friendship and reduce loneliness in the world." It'll come to multiple platforms, and support cross-play and cross-progression. The first bit of concept art from Spry Fox's new game depicts a pastel, Atlantis-esque world with a massive yellow whale floating across the sky.

"This is the first time in our history that we at Spry Fox have chosen to work with a publisher in this manner," studio co-founder and CEO David Edery said. "Up until now, we have only worked with publishers for much more limited regional publishing and porting arrangements. But we felt for a project as ambitious as this one, we needed more support than usual, and Epic seemed like the right company to provide that support."

Epic has positioned itself as the developer's publisher, with a goal of having "the most developer-friendly terms in the industry," emphasizing creative control and financial support for its studios. Epic also offers free access to Unreal Engine, a powerful game-development toolset, and it throws money at artists through programs like Epic MegaGrants, a $100 million fund for burgeoning creatives. The Epic Games Store went live in 2018 as a direct competitor to Steam, offering better financial terms for developers and challenging Valve to implement the same deal (spoiler: Valve didn't). 

More recently, Epic waged a very public legal battle against Apple, arguing the iPhone-maker enjoyed monopolistic control over the App Store and offered unfair terms to developers. In the end, the lawsuit played out like any other fight between multibillion-dollar corporations, resulting in little change and lots of press.

Throughout the lawsuit, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney attacked Apple for engaging in greedy, anti-consumer and anti-developer practices. This is kind of his thing — since founding Epic more than 30 years ago, Sweeney has been consistent in his mantra that game development should be accessible to as many people as possible. Even his first game, ZZT, included an editor so everyone who played it could build their own levels.

"It was in those early days that Epic's kind of core philosophy was set," Sweeney told Engadget in 2019. "We both build games ourselves and we share all the results of our work with the world to build their own games. We're the both a game developer and a service company that works with partners throughout the whole industry. Everything we're doing now is this much larger version of that."

Including, it seems, Epic Games Publishing.

Another LEGO Star Wars game is heading to Apple Arcade, and it's the first social, action-adventure title in the franchise. The upcoming game, entitled LEGO Star Wars: Castaways, will have you building and customizing your own in-game LEGO minifigure character. Once you're done designing your own blocky hero, you'll head to a new planet where you can team up with friends to battle enemies and solve puzzles. Along the way, you can unlock collectibles to solve a mystery and save your merry band of LEGO minifigures.

When you're not out on adventures — of if you really just want to hang out in a virtual world with friends — you can stay in the game's Social Hub or race Microfighters. LEGO Star Wars: Castaways is an Apple Arcade exclusive, just like LEGO Star Wars Battles. The latter is a real-time strategy game that will let you collect upgradable characters, troops and vehicles and then pit you against other players in one-on-one showdowns. In Star Wars Battles, you'll also have to build and defend your own LEGO towers, as well as attack your opponent's.

LEGO Star Wars: Castaways will be playable across iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV, so long as you have an Arcade subscription. You can now sign up to be notified when the game becomes available for download from the Mac Store and the iOS App Store, but the game won't be available to play until November 19th. 

Analogue's Pocket handheld won't arrive until late this year, but the company is betting that its software will be worth the wait. TechCrunchnotes the company has detailed AnalogueOS, the platform the Pocket and future Analogue devices will run — and it's pitched as nothing less than the "definitive" OS for retro games, a way to showcase classics that haven't always received the kindest treatment.

Rather than simply play cartridge games, the Pocket and future hardware will tap into a library that provides all the useful data surrounding a game, ranging from box art and publisher data to guides. Pop in a cartridge and you'll learn about that particular version of a game. You might know if you scored a Nintendo World Championship cart or a bootleg, for instance. That database, in turn, will help you browse your library and even create "playlists" to share with fellow nostalgic gamers (who can buy the same cartridges, that is).

AnalogueOS will also track your play time and let you remap controls or enable Bluetooth gamepads. The Pocket will enable save states for cartridge games, which can be helpful if you're trying to recreate a thandheld's original experience.

This approach is meant for a particular variety of retro gamer focused on physical copies and authenticity. It's not as convenient as the digital downloads of, say, the Switch Online Expansion Pack. If it succeeds, though, it could shake up the category. Much of the information for vintage games is scattered across websites, code and even books. Analogue could put all that knowledge in a central location, albeit one limited to the most devoted players.

The popular iOS game Genshin Impact is taking advantage of the iPhone 13 Pro's higher-refresh ProMotion display with a new 120fps mode, 9to5Mac has reported. On top of the higher framerates, developer miHoYo introduced new areas, events, missions, character banners and more. 

Apple previously wrote that all iOS developers must release updates to their apps or games to "unlock" the 120Hz mode by adding .plist file key. As with Android devices, use of the mode will drain your battery quicker, but allow for smoother gaming. 2nd-gen or higher iPad Pros don't necessarily need an update to support 120Hz refresh rates, but any game would likely require one anyway.

At the WWDC 2021 Apple Design Awards, Genshin Impact won the best game in the visual category, thanks to graphics and artwork that "push the frontier for mobile gaming," Apple wrote. While the game is also available on Android, PC and Playstation 5, iOS appears to be the first platform to support the higher framerates, according to the Brazilian site Technoblog.