Hong Kong has been the scene of protests since June, when its local government proposed an amendment that would allow extradition of Hong Kong citizens to mainland China. Publication was handed over to NetEase for the Wrath of the Lich King launch, and it remains Blizzard’s Chinese publishing partner to this day. NetEase is Blizzard’s Chinese publisher, which handles all releases in the region. “I have family in Hong Kong and I have been watching the protest for months now, and there was nothing

After Blizzard Entertainment’s controversial decision to suspend Hearthstone pro Chung “blitzchung” Ng for pro-Hong Kong statements, the publisher lost a sponsorship deal with Mitsubishi Motors Taiwan, according to a report. The Daily Beast today reported news of the canceled sponsorship, which comes after Hearthstone viewers on Reddit noticed that Mitsubishi’s logo had disappeared from broadcasts after Chung’s Oct. 8 suspension. Chung was originally suspended for a year and had his prize money

To prepare for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker you might want to dig into your pile of unfinished video games. The latest book from publisher DelRey, titled Star Wars: Resistance Reborn, puts some of the canon’s most under-appreciated characters to good use. Not only does it tie together multiple novels and comic series into a cohesive story, it also makes some very deep pulls from Star Wars Battlefront 2. [Warning: What follows contains spoilers for Star Wars: Resistance Reborn, as well as Sta

A host of Halloween-themed changes are coming to Red Dead Online, including a new limited-time showdown mode: Fear of the Dark. Fear of the Dark is a mode where players are divided into two teams: plucky Hunters and terrifying Night Stalkers. As Hunters destroy masks, Stalkers become weaker and the tables turn in favor of the Hunters. Hunters win if they destroy all masks and clear all Night Stalkers; Night Stalkers need to survive until the timer ends or all Hunters are dead. A Legendary Bounty

The first Nier: Automata raid is now playable in Final Fantasy 14, which means there are new extremely cool outfits to get, including 2B’s outfit. Three sets will drop, so only three lucky players will score the outfit per run. Her outfit is level one and can be equipped by every race and job in Final Fantasy 14, so players can use it as sweet glamour no matter what level they are. The rest of the high-level raid gear is based off of the looks of other characters from Nier: Automata, but they’re

On Oct. 23, Weiss Auctions opened bidding on a super-rare Pokémon card, Japanese Illustrator Pikachu, a promotional card created as a contest prize in 1998. Phil Weiss, a collectibles expert and owner of Weiss Auctions, knew the card was worth a lot. This particular card is a PSA 9, the closest to perfect a card could get without a 10 rating. This Pikachu card, however, went a lot higher — to $195,000 at the hammer. IGN, which first reported the sale, said the sale broke the record for the highe

Riot Games is releasing the first Louis Vuitton skin for League of Legends. The skin, True Damage Qiyana Prestige Edition, has the champion’s weapon covered in the iconic Louis Vuitton pattern. This Qiyana skin was designed by Nicolas Ghesquière, Louis Vuitton’s artistic director of women’s collections. To unlock this exclusive skin, League of Legends fans will have to buy the 2019 Worlds Pass for 1,650 RP, which is a little over $10. This skin is the first to come after Riot Games announced its

No matter which side you’re on, however, the hack of the Nintendo Wii was a very big deal when it first went down. And without a pair of tweezers, it might not have happened at all. A channel called Modern Vintage Gamer has a concise, 12-minute story that’s fairly easy to digest. It just so happens that one of those sensitive secrets was the encryption key that unlocked Wii game disks. Other hacks have evolved since then, but as far as the history of console hacking goes Modern Vintage Gamer’s v

Weiss, the co-creators of HBO’s Game of Thrones, have exited the Star Wars trilogy they were set to make for Disney. However, the two cited their recent deal with Netlfix and said that their schedules had simply become too busy to work on the new Star Wars trilogy. Disney Plus, Disney’s streaming service, is set to launch of Nov. 12 — along with the new Star Wars show, The Mandalorian. As part of that announcement three Star Wars movies were confirmed for release in 2022, 2024, and 2026. Rian Jo

Valve will no longer allow Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players to trade container keys. CS:GO container keys are now tied to the purchasing account, Valve said, so they can’t be sold on the Steam Community Market or traded with others. “As a result we have decided that newly purchased keys will not be tradeable or marketable.”“Pre-existing” CS:GO container keys already purchased are unaffected, and can still be sold or traded. A CS:GO player filed a lawsuit against Valve for its complicity

Now the race is on to crack Obsidian Entertainment’s The Outer Worlds right open. The fastest run we’ve seen so far clocks in at just over 30 minutes. We’ve embedded video of runner Jabo’s sprint through The Outer Worlds above. In the final minutes especially, Jabo makes excellent use of the game’s stun mechanics to cripple a major boss robot. I can’t wait to see what happens to The Outer Worlds speedrunning scene once folks get their heads around the science weapon set.

After a series of teases and rumors, it’s official: Electronic Arts is coming back to Steam after eight years of being absent on the distribution platform. The first new EA game coming to Steam will be Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which will arrive on Nov. 15 — and incidentally can be pre-ordered starting today. The full extent of the partnership will come to fruition in spring 2020, when users will be able to subscribe to the EA Access program via Steam. The subscription gives players access t

A new look at the upcoming live-action Star Wars show, The Mandalorian, dives into the mythos of the far reaches of the galaxy. Revealed during Monday Night Football, the trailer comes right ahead of Disney Plus’ Nov. 12 launch. While the first trailer was more atmospheric in tone, showing flashes of this new and unexplored part of the Star Wars universe, this latest one has Werner Herzog’s mysterious character narrate, setting up Pedro Pascal’s lone Mandalorian. The Mandalorian will be availabl

Steam is now asking players who have reviewed games to revisit their reviews if they’ve put more time into the game since their original review. It doesn’t appear that Steam is picking players based on whether their initial reviews were good or bad. Another reddit user says they got this prompt after playing a lot of Hitman 2. Players aren’t forced to change their reviews, but a nice reminder that your thoughts might have changed since first playing the game is sweet. Polygon has reached out to

One hundred million people play PUBG Mobile each month, according to publisher Tencent Games. The free-to-play mobile game was released in February 2018, and it’s had a consistent player base since. Tencent has been working on improvements to its cheating detection system, banning thousands of cheating players each day. The PUBG Mobile security team published an outline of its security protocol on its official blog, outlining it catches cheaters. But Tencent is hesitant to issue IP bans for fear

Just days after the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, some consumers are expressing anger at how Russian soldiers are depicted in that game. It’s ridiculous — but he’s almost robotic.”Another scene raising eyebrows among commenters is from the second act of Modern Warfare, a level called Highway of Death. Players are told that the Highway of Death is the result of a devastating Russian attack that happened decades ago, where Russian forces massacred everyone fleeing from a town under sieg

Or, you can buy it from one of the many online stores selling unofficial Fortnite goods — at least until developer Epic Games shuts them down. Epic filed a lawsuit in an Illinois court against a group of “unincorporated associations” that are allegedly creating online storefronts to sell unlicensed and counterfeit Fortnite merchandise. The bootleg storefronts are designed to look authentic, like they’re selling merch from Epic, according to the lawsuit. Specifically, Epic said the counterfeiters

Overwatch 2, long believed to be in the pipeline at Blizzard Entertainment, will be revealed at BlizzCon 2019 next weekend — with new hero Echo finally joining the game’s ranks, according to a report on ESPN.com. Rod Breslau, writing for ESPN, cited a source within BlizzCon and a training document for the event in this morning’s report. Overwatch 2 will deliver “Push” the hero shooter’s first new mode since the game launched in 2015. Push likewise takes place on a new map, “Toronto,” according t

You can have a good time without a setup, and video games such as NASCAR Heat 4 and F1 2019 both have pick-up-and-play settings to appeal to a larger crowd, and offer wide latitude in the difficulty settings to give everyone a thrill. Also working against any set-it-and-forget-it setup approach is the fact NASCAR Heat 4 is still a simulation of driving. NASCAR Heat 4 does include a practice mode, and drivers will get an hour of real time to mess around with their rides before qualification. Brad

And it also shows that a mainstream badge like video games are still available to sports outside of the multi-billion dollar Big Four of football, baseball and basketball. “We tried to do a video game for a while, but the resources weren’t really there,” said Colie Edison, the PBA’s chief executive. But also, bowling — even pro league-licensed bowling — may have no market acceptance as $60 packaged goods. “Bowling games shouldn’t be more than $20, $30 tops, regardless of licenses, in gamers’ min