Activision has detailed the second Call of Duty Vanguard multiplayer free access period. It’s set to take place from December 16 at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm GMT until December 21 at the same time. Players will be able to sample 10 maps and four modes during the free access period, including Team Deathmatch, Domination, Hardpoint andVanguard’s new survival tournament modeChampion Hill,Activisionsaid. During the free access period, Vanguard will offer maximum double XP bonuses (Player XP, Weapon XP, Operator XP, Clan XP and Battle Pass XP)....

Activision’s latest Call of Duty title, Vanguard, reported 36% fewer sales than its predecessor Black Ops Cold War in the UK last year. That’s according to new software sales data from GSD – reported byGamesIndustry.biz– which follows an earlier VGC report thatVanguard’s UK launch wasthe lowest of any series entry in the modern era. Although the decline will likely be disappointing to publisherActivision, Vanguard was still the second best-selling game in the UK last year, according to GSD, behindEA’sFIFA 22....

Call of Duty: WWII will be free to download for PlayStation Plus members beginning on Tuesday. Sonyannounced on Monday thatSledgehammer’s FPS will be one of June’sPlayStationPlus titles, with the game being made free to download earlier than normal. May’s PlayStation Plus games, Cities Skylines and Farming Simulator 19, will remain free to download until June 1, when they’d normally be expected to be replaced. PS Plus members: Call of Duty: WWII is part of the monthly games lineup for June, and will be available for download starting May 26....

Capcom has announced that its third-person dinosaur shooter Exoprimal will launch this summer on Xbox Game Pass. The game will hitPS5,PS4,Xbox Series X/S,Xbox OneandSteamon July 22, 2025. The release date was confirmed onSteam, ahead of aCapcomSpotlight digital event on Thursday. In addition to the release date, the publisher confirmed an open beta test for the game, which will take place on consoles andPCfrom March 17 until March 19, with cross-platform play....

CD Projekt has shed more light on the apparent decision to go back to the drawing board with ‘Project Sirius’, a new take on the Witcher series first announced last October. In a regulatory announcement last week the company told investorsit had established an impairment allowancerelated to expenses incurred developing the game. It said the value of the expenses incurred totalled 33.4 million PLN ($7.6m) in 2022 and 9.5 million PLN ($2....

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will retail for $70, it’s been confirmed. FollowingNintendo’s latestNintendo Directlive stream on Wednesday, the company confirmed theSwitchtitle will have an increased price point. In addition to the standard version, which will be available at a suggested retail price of $69.99, a Tears of the Kingdom Collector’s Edition will release at a suggested retail price of $129.99, and includes a physical version of the game, an artbook with concept art, a Steelbook case, an Iconart steel poster and a set of four pin badges....

Cyberpunk 2077 on Xbox Series X offers “the best visual quality by quite some margin” on consoles, according to a new analysis of the game’s performance on next-gen hardware. Digital Foundrytested the open-world title running in backwards compatibility mode onXbox Series X, Series S andPlayStation 5and found that theXboxversions have several advantages over the game onSony’s console. When played on Series X, the Xbox version ofCyberpunk 2077offers the ability tochoose between quality and performance modes– a choice that the PS5 game doesn’t....

Microsoft has announced the release date for the digital-only Xbox Series X, and two other console variants. The white, disc-less 1TB console will be released on October 15, with select countries following on October 29. This console will be released alongside a white 1TBXboxSeries S and a special edition 2TB ‘Galaxy Black’Xbox Series Xwith a disc tray. Thethree consoles are currently available to pre-ordernow and according toMicrosoftwill be made available in “all currently supported Xbox hardware regions....

Capcom has released an update for Dragon’s Dogma 2 on PS5 and PC, adding a frame rate cap option on consoles, improving DLSS quality, and more. Aspromised, thePS5version of the game now has an option to toggle motion blur and ray tracing on and off, as well as the option to set the game’s frame rate to either Variable (which it currently is), or to a 30fps cap. However,Capcomnotes that these options won’t significantly affect frame rate....

EA Access members won’t get to play Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order ahead of its official release as publisher EA claims it wants to reduce the risk of spoilers. One of the subscription service’s headline features is the ability to play newEAtitles before launch day, with save progress carrying over to the full game if users choose to purchase it. But there’ll be no early access toStar Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which is available from Friday November 15 onPS4,Xbox OneandPC....

Electronic Arts has reportedly greenlit the decision to rebrand its FIFA series of games as ‘EA Sports Football Club’, it’s claimed. That’s according to journalist Jeff Grubb who claimed on his premiumGiant Bombshow Grubbsnax that sources had confirmed to him that the long-running sports franchise will indeed be renamed. “EA SportsFootball Club, EA Sports FC, that’s the name of the game,” he said, before adding that the move comes after much-documented tension between the football governing body andEA....

Konami has revealed eFootball Season 7: King of the Continent. Headlining the free-to-play game’s latest major update is the addition of two tournament-style campaigns – European Cup and American Cup. These are launching to coincide with Euro 2024, which kicks off in Germany today, and the Copa América, which begins on June 20 in the US. “As the two biggest footballing continents take to the field, users ineFootballcan do so too via these two in-game campaigns,”Konamisaid....

Embracer Group shares plummeted by over 40% on Wednesday after the Swedish company said a major deal had fallen through unexpectedly. As part of its quarterly earnings report, the company said it had been notified on Tuesday night that a $2 billion partnership wouldn’t be going ahead as planned. The company, which owns the entertainment rights for The Lord of the Rings as well as popular gaming franchises like Tomb Raider andBorderlands, said it had slashed its earnings forecast because of the deal’s collapse....