After 40 years of Microsoft Flight Simulator, flying a plane in a realistic digital setting is more popular and accessible than ever. We sit down with Jorg Neumann, Head of Microsoft Flight Simulator, to discuss the series' past, present, and future.

The Force Engine is a three-year project from fans that is finally ready for release, allowing players to fire up LucasArts classic Dark Forces with several quality-of-life and performance features for modern PC hardware. High resolution support, ultrawide, GPU rendering with perspective correct presentation, mouse and keyboard support, controller support, and even a new save system.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is keeping busy ahead of the holidays, first by announcing that it's going to move to stop Microsoft's acquisition of Activision and now with this massive fine for Epic Games. According to the announcement made by the FTC, Fortnite, "violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and deployed design tricks, known as dark patterns, to dupe millions of players into making unintentional purchases".

The metaverse concept is one that has been floating around for a while now, though pinning down exactly what it is and its potential has been a little fuzzy. Australian metaverse project Earth 2 presents a digital twin of our planet, free from man-made structures, ready for players and users to create and build on a scale that is definitely impressive.

Ubisoft studio Massive Entertainment is certainly keeping busy these days. In addition to continued work on The Division franchise it's also developing Avatar: Frontier of Pandora and a mysterious new Star Wars Project. The latter being a story-driven open-world game that will make use of the studio's impressive Snowdrop engine.

Alongside a multi-user family plan, which has been confirmed as being in the works. The new and hypothetical ad supported tier for Xbox Game Pass comes from a new survey sent out to European customers/players (via ResetEra). With EURO 3 price-point the cheaper alternative to the base Xbox Game Pass subscription would play ads before and after each gaming session.

Kojima Productions is partnering with Hammerstone Studios (Bill and Ted Face the Music) to adapt Death Stranding into a movie. It will feature new elements and characters set in the Death Stranding universe, with Hammerstone's Alex Lebovici stating that it will be "an authentic Hideo Kojima production".

With Star Wars Jedi: Survivor getting epic gameplay-filled trailer at The Game Awards last week, and a confirmed March 17, 2023 release date, if you haven't yet played the original Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order now's the time. The game is currently 88% off on Steam, making it a steal at AUD 5.99.

Crystal Dynamics is currently developing the next game in the Tomb Raider series and today comes word that Amazon Games will be the publisher. The announcement confirms that it will be a multiplatform title, so it's expected to appear on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC.

In a surprise announcement, Blizzard veteran Chris Metzen will be returning to work on the franchise he helped shape as a Creative Advisor on the Warcraft Leadership Team. The announcement was made by Blizzard's John Hight, who confirms that Chris's initial focus will be working on World of Warcraft.

Vampire Survivors is one of the surprise hits of the year, an addictive blend of rogue-lite action-RPG automation that's hard to put down. And today it's getting its first modestly priced DLC with the arrival of Legacy of the Moonspell. 8 new characters, 13 new weapons, and a huge new stage.

And it's chock full of classics from Yakuza: Like a Dragon and other titles in the series to Far Cry 5 and Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor. On the classics side PlayStation Plus Deluxe members can enjoy the PSP's Ridge Racer 2 and the original Oddworld: Abe’s Exoddus for the original PlayStation.

Fall 2023 or Spring 2023 for us in Australia, which is when Insomniac is set to debut Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. Full details on the game will be revealed ahead of the launch, but we've got confirmation that the next game will feature "the Spider-duo of Peter Parker and Miles Morales".

Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration is more than a collection of games spanning the entirety of Atari's history. Nor is it a collection of some of the first arcade games and console titles that helped define a new medium. It's an interactive museum, a celebration, and a slice of history to savour.

The new MSI MPG X670E CARBON WIFI is a premium AM5 motherboard tailor-made for the new AMD Ryzen 7000 series. As such it’s the sort of motherboard you’d pair with the new AMD Ryzen 7900X, which is exactly what we did for this review.

With the arrival of AMD’s latest generation of Ryzen CPUs, we’ve seen a switch to a brand-new socket type - AM5. With AMD and the Ryzen line-up being AM4 based for so long, it was inevitable that the CPU maker would switch to take advantage of new DDR5 memory speeds and the new PCIe Gen 5 interface. And with that we're looking a the new ASUS ROG Strix X670E-F Gaming WiFi.

The God of War TV series over at Amazon has been given a green light with production now underway. Rafe Judkins, who was behind the recent The Wheel of Time adaptation at Amazon, will serve as showrunner with Oscar nominees Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby (Children of Men, Iron Man, The Expanse) writing and producing. As for what it will be about, well, the story will follow the events of the 2018 game.

A new behind-the-scenes Starfield video has dropped, digging into the questing and storytelling with Lead Quest Designer Will Shen. In it we learn that you'll get to visit "the old neighbourhood", learn about what happened to Earth, and even visit an early settlement on Mars.

If you own any version of the base game of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, you can now grab its next-gen self as part of a free update. For newcomers a "Complete Edition" of the game is also available (always has been) and will download as the next-gen edition of the game.

Diablo IV has something in the range of 140 dungeons, and one of the rewards for first-time completion is unlocking a Codex of Power entry. A new way to build and change classes that goes beyond finding the right items...