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Bandai Namco has announced that a brand new game in the Katamari Damacy series is set for release later this year. Once Upon a Katamari will be released onSwitch,PS5,Xbox Series XandPCon October 24 as a digital-only release. It will be the first entirely new Katamari game to be released on consoles since Touch My Katamari, which was released onPlayStation Vitain 2011. According toBandai Namco, the latest game will see players travelling through time, rolling their giant katamari ball to gather up objects from various locations and time periods including the Far West, ancient Egypt and the Jurassic era....

Activision claims to have banned over 27,000 Call of Duty accounts over the weekend. The company said improved detection systems and fresh security updates are helping it root out bad actors, and that players should expect further ban waves. The latest wave followed last week’s launch ofModern Warfare 3 and Warzone Season 3, and coincided witha free multiplayer trialwhich ran from April 4-8. “#TeamRICOCHET identified and banned over 27,000 accounts over the weekend through a series of upgraded detection systems,”Activisionsaid in a statement (viaCharlie Intel)....

Activision Blizzard views new cloud gaming platforms as “a great opportunity” to grow its business, according to CEO Bobby Kotick. Speaking duringActivision’s Q1 earningscall, Kotick said the likes ofGoogle’sStadiaandMicrosoft’s xCloud require great content if they’re to succeed, and argued that with its rich catalogue of IP,Activisionis perfectly placed to capitalise on this need. “When you own 30 years of IP like we do, there’s probably never been a better time to be in the games business,” Kotick said....

Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford has revisited comments he made in 2019 predicting that Steam could be a “dying store” by now, following the news that Borderlands 4 will launch on the platform. In 2019, the lastBorderlandsgame,Borderlands 3,was announced as an Epic Games Store exclusive– a controversial decision at the time, due toSteam’s stranglehold on PC game sales. Ina lengthy Twitter threadfollowing the 2019 news, Pitchford had claimed that “when we look back at Steam in five or ten years, it may look like a dying store”, and pointed toEpic’s significant investment into its own platform, and more attractive commercial terms....

Alleged images of the Nintendo Switch successor console have appeared online, showing a design that’s not too dissimilar from the previous console. The images, whichappeared on Redditbut were originally sourced from a Chinese social media site, show a device with a larger 8-inch screen, magnetic Joy-Cons, and USB-C ports on both the top and bottom. While the images are unverified, one source, who has not seen the final ‘Switch 2’ console but has been briefed onNintendo’s plans, told VGC that the Reddit images match what the company has told partners to expect from its design....

Amazon’s US arm is currentlyoffering ‘3 for the price of 2’on a range of products including video games. Customers can mix and match across different product types, which also include toys, electronics, books, office and sports goods. When VGC checked earlier on Thursday, there wereover 100 games available in the promotionincluding some big new releases. Titles on offer includeElden Ring,Ghostwire: Tokyo, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, Stranger of ParadiseFinal Fantasy Origin, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands andDying Light 2....

Arrowhead Game Studios has teased plans to introduce mechs in Helldivers 2 in the near future. Mechs were said to be “coming soon after launch” in a pre-release trailer for the game, but plans to add new content were held up while its developer worked to address server issues with thePS5andPCmultiplayer hit. With thosenow seemingly resolved, players shouldn’t have long to wait. “The EXO-45 Patriot Exosuits are in full production in the factories of Tien Kwan,” reads a message on the game’s X account....

Xbox boss Phil Spencer wants to see the games industry work towards a legal game emulation solution, to better preserve older software, he’s said. Preservation has become an increasingly important topic in the games industry in recent years, as older games gradually become unavailable due to obsolete hardware or closed online services. Speaking toAxios,Xboxexec Spencer advocated software emulation as a solution to game preservation. Emulators, which allow modern hardware to simulate older hardware and run games, are widely used by fans and preservations, but currently there’s no universal support for them across the industry....

Ubisoft is adding 60 FPS support to Assassin’s Creed Odyssey when played on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S via backwards compatibility. The feature will be introduced on August 24 as part ofAssassin’s Creed Odysseytitle update 1.6.0 forPS4(470MB) andXbox One(370MB). Theupdatewill be released at 7am BST / 8am CEST / 2am ET (11pm PT on August 23). Assassin’s Creed Odyssey released in October 2018 and was supported with a significant amount of DLC, including theFate of Atlantis story expansionanda story creator modeenabling players to craft their own quests and share them with the community....

Babylon’s Fall’s concurrent PC player count briefly dropped to just one user this week. That’s according toSteam Charts data, which claims that the game fell to just a single player at midnight BST on Wednesday, May 4. The incredible stat comes just two months after theSquare Enixtitle’s release, and follows weeks of dwindling player counts onPC, which is the only launch platform that can be reliably tracked (Babylon’s Fallis also available onPlayStationconsoles)....

Released in 2016, Battlefield 1 focuses on WW1 and currently costs £17.99 fromEA’s Origin store. However, it is now available free for Prime customers until August 4. WW2 shooterBattlefield Vreleased in 2018 and currently costs £34.99 from Origin. It will be free forAmazonPrime customers from August 2 until October 1. Prime members can now claim one game code redeemable on Origin for the Battlefield 1 standard edition, and will be able to claim a code for the Battlefield V standard edition from August 2....

The open beta for Battlefield 2042 is now live, meaning players have started sharing footage. Early access for the beta launched todayand players have already begun posting footage of their experiences. EAPlay members and pre-order customers have 48 hours early access before the beta becomes open to all on October 8. Once it’s available to everyone, Battlefield 2042’s open beta will launch at 12am PT / 3am ET / 8am BST / 9am CEST on October 8 and will run until the same time on October 10....

Battlefield 2042 will have “reduced map sizes” and a lower player count on Xbox One and PlayStation 4, publisher Electronic Arts has confirmed. 2042 was revealed during a live stream event on Wednesday, in which it was confirmed that the current-genPS5andXboxSeries X|S consoles, plusPC, will support up to 128 players in a single match. However, in documents sent to press alongside the reveal,EAconfirmed that “Xbox OneandPlayStation 4are capped at 64 players and reduced map sizes”....