Gaming

It’s been a long time since voice actor David Hayter stepped into the role of Snake. For years, the character had been voiced by David Hayter, who became synonymous with the role. Though Kiefer Sutherland joined the ranks as Venom Snake, fans still carried Hayter’s banner. Hayter’s rendition of the character was seen in other properties as Super Smash Bros., with the game reusing previously recorded dialog, but the actor seemed to tease a return to the role in an unspecified project.

Taking to his Twitter, the actor said he was back in the recording booth Thursday, saying he was playing a role he hasn’t done in a long time. He then replied to that tweet with a GIF from the upcoming Snake Eater remake, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater.

Fans immediately and collectively lost their minds over the tease. It’s more than likely too late for him to record something for the Snake Eater remake, so it’s unclear when this teased project will be announced and all fans have now are hope and speculation.

Seeing how Konami is focused on continuing the narrative and not looking back on remakes (outside of Delta, obviously), a new Solid Snake game may be in the pipeline. What’s unclear is when the game would take place, as Snake was very rapidly aging by the end of Metal Gear Solid 4.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl has been a long time coming. Not only have fans been waiting for a follow-up to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl since 2007 but an unexpected event further delayed developer GSC Game World’s plans: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Kyiv, Ukraine-based developers have been transparent on social media about all the violence and world-upending situations that have caused the game to be delayed out of its original 2022 release window. Their story has since been compiled into War Game: The Making of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, a 97-minute documentary about struggle, war, and determination that’s now available on YouTube. You can watch it above.

The documentary starts out with a history of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series and the studio, but then transitions into how the war afffected both development and the lives of the team members. At first they didn’t think Russian President Vladimir Putin would go so far as to attack Ukraine, but CEO Ievgen Grygorovych and his wife, executive producer Mariia Grygorovych, made plans to evacuate team members on buses to Uzhhorod, a town in western Ukraine within 50 kilometers of a theoretically secure NATO border. Buses were booked and parked outside the offices with drivers 24/7, ready to transport employees, their families, and some former staff to relative safety.

Mariia said they didn’t tell the team at first about the buses to not cause a panic. “I doubted myself and wondered if I hadn’t lost my mind,” she says in the documentary. The team had had very different thoughts about what they would do in the event of an invasion. Some knew they would be staying to volunteer and join the military, and many just wanted to keep working on the game.

In total, the team transported 183 employees, their families, and former staff and set up stays in a hotel. The other 139 declined and stayed in Kyiv. In February 2022, the team were all called into the office on a Sunday at 6 a.m. While Russia hadn’t officially attacked Ukraine yet, they all packed up essentials, wrangled their family members (including children), dropped off pets, and went to Uzhhorod for a stay at a hotel.

Not too long after the evacuation, Russia launched its attack on Kyiv, which was way closer than they anticipated. One developer in Kyiv said he was set to go and get his newborn child’s passport paperwork when the attack began. Another said he felt like a “traitor” because his mother refused to leave. “Subconsciously, we were all ready to die,” one developer named Alina says.

Mariia and Ievgen took people willing to evacuate to nearby Hungary from the hotel, while others stayed to fight, but that was easier said than done. The border was only open until 6 p.m., so much of the team had to travel by foot through the Ukrainian winter weather to cross.

Following the start of the war, many of the developers wondered if they’d even go back to working on the game. Their equipment, including a huge motion capture studio, was stuck in Kyiv. Some didn’t have access to internet or could communicate with the outside world. One concept artist, Anton, was stuck in his basement and took to continue development on pen and paper. However, the team set up a new office in Prague, recast their actors, set up spaces for the developers still in Ukraine to work and stay warm. They eventually showcased what they had at Gamescom 2023, but due to a mediocre reception, delayed the game into early 2024. It was delayed again into September, and is now eyeing a November launch.

Digital Trends has since played a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 preview, and by all accounts, it seems like it’ll be worth the wait.

The feud between WP Engine and Matt Mullenweg, WordPress co-founder and Automattic CEO, recently came to a head when the web hosting service sued the latter, accusing him of “abuse of power, extortion and greed.” In a new blog post, Mullenweg said his opponent’s attacks on him and his company have been effective enough so that “a good chunk of [his] Automattic colleagues disagreed with [him and his] actions.” As a response, he created a “buy-out package” that offered employees $30,000 or six months of salary, whichever is higher, if they resign. A total of 159 people, or 8.4 percent of the company, took the offer.

Most of the employees who left came from the company’s Ecosystem / WordPress business, while the rest came from the division working on apps like Tumblr and Cloudup. As TechCrunch notes, Mullenweg gave the event a positive spin and exclaimed that “the other 91.6 percent gave up $126 million of potential severance to stay!”

Mullenweg called WP Engine a “cancer to WordPress” and accused the company of violating WordPress’ trademarks. He said they offered WP Engine the option to “pay a direct licensing fee, or make in-kind contributions to the open source project,” but the company refused. WP Engine argued that its use of the WordPress trademark was legal. In response, the WordPress Foundation changed its trademark policy page to say that the “WP” abbreviation is indeed not covered by the WordPress trademark, but to please not use it “in a way that confuses people.” It named WP Engine outright and even said that the company has “never once even donated to the WordPress Foundation, despite making billions of revenue on top of WordPress.” The WordPress co-founder also banned WP Engine from accessing some of WordPress’ plug-ins and themes, which broke a lot of the websites it’s hosting.

WP Engine accused Mullenweg of demanding eight percent of the company’s monthly revenue as royalty and of libel, slander, as well as of violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and IRS fraud. In a statement, Automattic’s lawyer Neal Katyal said he stayed up all night reading the complaint and found the whole thing “meritless.” He added that he’s looking “forward to the federal court’s consideration of [the] lawsuit.”

Update October 4, 2024, 1:57PM ET: We updated the post to attribute the quote at the end to Automattic’s lawyer.

For over a decade, Grand Theft Auto Online players have largely had a free hand to explore Los Santos. Not all of the locations from Grand Theft Auto 5 have been readily available, but Rockstar Games has revealed plans to reopen a fan-requested area as part of an upcoming zombie mode.

Rockstar made the announcement in this week’s patch notes that North Yankton will be featured in “a Community Challenge to dispatch marching tides of undead in a new limited-time mode.” This snowy location was featured in GTA 5’s prologue as two of the main characters, Michael and Trevor, ran into some serious problems during their attempt to rob a bank and get away clean. GTA Online players have previously only been able to get back there by using glitches and exploits.

While Rockstar hasn’t yet shared the full details about GTA Online’s zombie mode, GamesRadar notes that data miners have “found evidence of a wave-based survival mode,” which suggests that it will be a horde-style event. However, there’s no word about whether the zombie action will be limited to North Yankton or if it will spill out into the larger areas of San Andreas and Los Santos. Additionally, Rockstar has announced a number of Halloween-related items for GTA+ members, including the fearsome-looking HVY Nightshark SUV and demon biker gear.

With Grand Theft Auto 6 on the horizon for a 2025 release, it seems likely that GTA Online as we know it may be due for a significant overhaul in the future. But Rockstar has successfully kept the world of this game fresh for a long time, and players aren’t ready to let go of it just yet.

While the response to Earth Defense Force 6, the latest in the gory sci-fi shooter series, has been generally positive, many PC users had complaints, specifically about how they were required to sign in with an Epic Games account to play online co-op.

The developers have good news for those players. On Thursday, developer Sandlot released a small update on Steam that removed that requirement. Now you can play online missions without the account. “This application has been modified so that you can play online missions without signing into your Epic Games Account,” the post reads.

Players who have already connected their Epic and Steam accounts can unlink them on the Epic Games website in a browser by following these steps.

Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming

This is just the latest instance of a video game team removing a second account requirement for a PC game. This practice has fallen out of favor with players and the industry, with players specifically often review-bombing games to protest those decisions. This has come up a lot with recent PlayStation PC releases such as Helldivers 2, where even developers at Arrowhead Game Studios spoke out against the PlayStation Network account requirement. Granted, this became an issue months after the game released, but the outcry was so loud that PlayStation walked back the decision.

However, it still hasn’t responded to similar criticism for its God of War Ragnarok PC port, which also needed a PSN account and caused it to launch to mixed reviews on Steam (although it’s now sitting at “Mostly Positive”). A community member even created a mod that allowed players to get around the account requirement, although it has since been taken it down.

But discussions around account or launcher requirements have moved to the forefront. Ubisoft just announced that it is going back to releasing its games day one on Steam after years of launching them on its own platform. Additionally, The Dragon Age: The Veilguard will be launching natively on Steam. This facilitates the experience of playing on Steam and — sort of more importantly — the Steam Deck.

Casetify is bringing back the accessories based on Neon Genesis Evangelion that it originally launched in 2023, giving you another chance to grab one or two cases for your Apple devices. The crown jewel of the collection is perhaps the collectible case for the AirPods Pro and Pro 2, which was designed to look like the head of Evangelion Unit-01. It opens from the back to reveal a removable inner case that provides another layer of protection. You could also just carry the inner case if the Unit-01 head is a bit too bulky to fit in your bag or if you want to keep it pristine.

In addition, the collection features cases for iPhones and iPads, including all iPhone 16 models, with photos of Eva pilots, as well as typography highlighting key terms from the anime series. Casetify says its cases aren’t just for collection purposes, though, and can actually protect your devices with their impact-resistant design. There’s also a MagSafe charger with a cord that resembles Evangelion units’ umbilical cables, as well as other MagSafe-compatible accessories. The collection is now available from Casetify’s Co-Lab page, its Co-Lab app and its physical studio locations. Take note that some of these items sold out quickly the first time around, especially the AirPods case which Casetify called a “sought-after item.”

Blizzard’s Diablo IV will receive an update to take advantage of the PS5 Pro’s increased horsepower. It is the first Microsoft game to have a publicly confirmed PS5 Pro upgrade, though others could be in the works.

Blizzard’s Diablo boss Rod Fergusson confirmed this on social media, stating that Diablo IV and the Vessel of Hatred expansion will be “PS5 Pro enhanced.” Fergusson added that he is “very proud of our hardworking team to make this happen.” More details will come later.

Diablo IV launched in June 2023 across PlayStation, Xbox, and PC–this was just a few months before Microsoft’s deal to buy Activision Blizzard closed in October 2023. Since then, Microsoft has brought a number of other games to PlayStation, including Sea of Thieves and Grounded.

Diablo IV is the 55th publicly confirmed game to receive a PS5 Pro enhancement. You can see the full list of titles in the gallery below. The Vessel of Hatred expansion launches on October 7, but it remains to be seen if the PS5 Pro enhancement will be ready at launch or if it may come at a later date.

The PS5 Pro, priced at $700, launches in November. The system has no disc drive, but is compatible with the $80 disc-drive add-on (if you can find it in stock anywhere). Sony began PS5 Pro preorders on September 26, and the console is not selling out as some thought it might. The 30th Anniversary edition, however, sold through all of its preorder stock very quickly.

For more, check out GameSpot’s Diablo IV Vessel of Hatred preorder guide.