February 2023 - Page 47 of 56 - Gaming Army United

This turn-based deconstruction of the fighting game is blowing minds

A quiet corner of the Fighting games scene is blowing up thanks to the release of Your Only Move Is Hustle. Yomi Hustle, as adherents call it, is an indie that viciously strips the Fighting genre apart and puts it back together in a turn-based format that still has all the hallmarks and features you’d expect.

At its core nothing changes, this is still a game about moves and counter-moves, frame-focused interactions between distinct characters, and mastering movesets. Yomi Hustle, however, makes it turn-based with simultaneous execution. You still have to plan and choose what you want to do, but there’s no memorizing of combos because everything you execute is frame-perfect as you planned it.

The fighting game is stripped back to the rich strategies at its core. Your decisions are fundamentally strategic, about which move is best, not whether or not you can physically input a combo fast enough.

What plays out from those basics are incredibly over-the-top fights between wild characters with insane, Dragonball-Z style movesets which send enemies flying in wild arcs or pummel them into the dirt with repeated strikes. There are currently four full characters: Cowboy, Ninja, Robot, and Wizard. The game community, however, is already modding the crap out of this thing, and Steam Workshop support is planned in the future.

Yomi Hustle was inspired by the way people play tool-assisted speedruns, using outside software and hardware to achieve absurd, inhumanly perfect or otherwise unattainable scores. (See this Zelda run (opens in new tab), or this Doom one (opens in new tab), for good examples.) The trick is that you get that inhuman precision in character control all the time.

To be very frank, I haven’t wanted to play a serious fighting game against other people in years. Yomi Hustle, however, offers explosive fights that are not just incredible entertaining, but fun to watch. Lightning-fast combat plays out at an approachable pace, and every combo feels like a new, unique chain of attacks that you might have never seen before. For the first time in a while, I’m just enjoying being here and losing a lot.

It’s not just local and online multiplayer, however. The singleplayer mode is a full-on fight choreographer where you control the motions of both characters. There’s no AI to fight against, just a delightful set of tools for creating wild fight replays between two chunky stick people.

Yomi Hustle is made by a solo developer who goes by Ivy Sly, a self-described (opens in new tab) “disabled slovenly idiot” who despite that particularly negative bit of self-talk made a pretty dank videogame that lots of people seem to like and so should perhaps reassess their self-image.

You can find Your Only Move is HUSTLE on Steam for $5. You can also try an older, free version on itch.io. It has less content than the Steam release, which, to be clear, is only $5.

Anyway, here’s what a complete shutout looks like, via Twitter (opens in new tab).

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Fully voiced DLC-sized Fallout 4 mod adds 50 quests and a new ending

Back in 2019, modder MunkySpunk uploaded The Bleachers, a Fallout 4 mod that added a new district to Diamond City, beneath the bleacher seats of Fenway Park stadium. It was well-received, becoming “mod of the month” for October on Nexus Mods, and MunkySpunk’s been working on an expanded version ever since.

Two-and-a-bit years later, The Fens Sheriff’s Department (opens in new tab) has arrived. Building on The Bleachers, it plonks a significantly enlarged new area under the stadium’s bleachers, with “two residential districts, a commercial district, two restaurants, and The Fens Sheriff’s Department, populated by 15 uniquely named and voiced NPCs.”

There’s a storyline to go with it, in which the paramilitary FSD pushes out into the Fens where Diamond City Security fears to tread. There are sidequests and radiant quests too, as well as a questline involving a recruitable companion who has 4,700 of the mod’s 17,500 total lines of voiced dialogue. None of those are for the protagonist, by the way, who stays silent for the duration.

You can also choose to side with the FSD over any of the existing factions in Fallout 4, in which case—assuming you haven’t already finished the main storyline on the same save—there’s a new ending you can unlock. Other additions include a new player safehouse, new workshop items, four new weapons (the FSD Tomahawk, FSD Blade, the FSD Synth Head Mace, and the Flamer Pistol), and a new paint job for your power armor complete with animated police lights.

If you’ve also got the popular companion mod Heather Casdin (opens in new tab) installed, its creator LlamaRCA has recorded almost 150 lines of additional dialogue in case you bring her along on the new quests. To pal around with multiple companions, Unlimited Companions Framework (opens in new tab) is recommended for bypassing the regular follower limit. It’s worth it just to have Dogmeat around without having to dismiss someone.

If you’ve already installed The Bleachers, you’ll need to uninstall that before installing The Fens Sheriff’s Department (opens in new tab), as all the earlier mod’s contents have been included in a tweaked and improved form. Though if you’re halfway through it, you should wrap that questline up first. Oh, and if you’re a fan of Chris Livingston favorite Sim Settlements 2, don’t worry, The Fens Sheriff’s Department is fully compatible with it.

A power-armored character from The Fens Sheriff's Department mod

(Image credit: MunkySpunk)

To trigger the mod’s questline, head to Diamond City and find the Left Field Diner up the ramp at the back of the stadium. Walk in, and an NPC will approach to set things off.

Fallout 4 continues to inspire plenty of modders seven years after its release. Some varied examples of recent highlights have included gleaming white synth power armor, the return of horror mod Pilgrim: Dread the Commonwealth in remastered form, and the realism mod that kills you when the bomb goes off during the intro. Here’s some more of the best Fallout 4 mods.

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FromSoftware drops a lengthy new interview about Armored Core 6

Elden Ring makers FromSoftware have given out some new details about the next entry in their mech combat series, Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon (opens in new tab). In an interview broadcast from Taipei Games Show 2023, game producer Yasunori Ogura spoke with a host about the game and spoke not only about the game but about how massive successes like the Dark Souls series and Elden Ring have affected development at the now-quite-famous FromSoftware (opens in new tab).

Ogura emphasized the customizability that’ll be in Armored Core 6 regularly, as well as assuring fans that it will be just as difficult and rewarding a game as you expect FromSoftware to make. Those were much the same talking points that CEO Hidetaka Miyazaki gave in an interview (opens in new tab) after the AC6 reveal last year.

He also went over topics like making concepts easier for series newcomers to understand, the game story, and balancing the customization with a very aggressive and dynamic combat style. Ogura also emphasized that Armored Core 6’s story mode would be single-player only, but online multiplayer arena battles were planned.

The decade since the last Armored Core game has been a huge one for FromSoftware. The biggest change in the last decade? “The freedom to spend more on the game’s development and resources,” said Ogura. That’s right, folks: FromSoftware just straight-up has a lot more money than it once did.

Ogura also focused on ways that customization affects how mechs control, and vice versa.

“We were determined to take advantage of FromSoftware’s experience and know-how to really establish freedom for the player in terms of what can be done with game controls and the customization that lies at the series’ core. That was the key point we focused on. When you play the game, you will see how changing parts affects the action elements. The action and customization elements really do work together symbiotically, and I really think this is the most important thing,” he said.

Ogura later said that while the mech customization will be in-depth, it’ll also be more approachable. “It is the element of the game with the most depth, and for many fans, it is the most enjoyable. Seen from the perspective of new users, though, it is a very detailed and complex system,” he said. “This time, we have put a number of new measures in place to help make assembly and customization more intuitive and logical than it has been in the past.”

As for what kinds of components might be out there? Ogura pointed enthusiasts towards the trailer itself, saying you could identify many mech parts, and hints at parts, in key frames.

As for the action itself, Ogura gave as an example how dynamic movement is—a huge difference from the games FromSoftware has made since 2013. “Because of the use of mechs, both the player character and enemy characters have extremely dynamic movements. As robots, their dynamism is only matched by the aggressiveness of their movement. Attack distance, in particular, changes frequently, from close range to far, then from far back to close again,” he said.

Most games in the Armored Core series are standalone stories, though particularly popular entries have received sequels and spinoffs, comparable in structure to how the Final Fantasy series operates. The last mainline entry was Armored Core 5, released in 2012, which had a sequel release in 2013.

“In terms of actual storyline, there is no direct connection between V and this latest title, which means there is no need to have played previous titles in the series,” said Ogura.

You can watch the full interview, in Japanese with subtitled translations, on YouTube (opens in new tab).

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Why use fans when you can cool your CPU with 8 lbs of copper?

When it comes to PC gaming one of the biggest trials is keeping things cool. You can have all the power in the world packed into your case, but it’s for naught without cooling. More power often means more heat thanks to that big jerk physics, and plenty of builds bottleneck due to temps, rather than capabilities. This is why we see overclockers do crazy things like douse their CPUs in liquid nitrogen or use about 8 lbs (nearly 4 kgs) of solid copper.

Copper is an amazingly conductive material, great for cooling, but it’s also hideously expensive. This is why I was in no way prepared to see a honking tower of solid copper sitting casually on top of one enthusiast’s CPU. The awe-inspiring, yet wallet-crushing image was posted to Reddit by That Desktop User (opens in new tab) and was also shared by Fanless Tech on Twitter (opens in new tab).

Unsurprisingly, this wad of incredible thermally conductive metal does a fairly good job of keeping the CPU cool. This one is sitting on an i9 chip, which are known for turning up the heat. Apparently the setup maintains an idle temp of 95° Fahrenheit (35°C) and only gets to around 176° Faherenheit (80°C) max. I like to keep my situation cooler than that and use an AIO (opens in new tab), but it’s doing better than what just the fans in my PC could manage with an older i7.

Despite the efficiency this incredible copper phallus provides, it’s unlikely we’ll see this implementation reach the mainstream, no matter how much I’d love to. You could add flourishes to make it look like a cool lighthouse or rocket or something. With a little artistic flare it could go from a large obtrusive block to something aesthetic.

But again, copper isn’t exactly cheap in such hefty quantities. Since it’s a great thermal conductor it’s not uncommon to see it used in PC builds, just in much smaller amounts. These IHS copper lid replacements (opens in new tab) are a great example of that for the keen DIY enthusiast.

And copper isn’t just used by those looking to cool down their CPUs. One modder used some copper and thermal paste to bring their card temps down from over 100C to closer to 60 (opens in new tab). Thanks to the size of the copper used, this is a much cheaper endeavour than say a giant tower on your CPU, too.

Speaking of size, we’re learning to make copper super thin (opens in new tab), which could be great for the future of chips. Gold is another metal that’s used extensively thanks to its conductive properties, and thin copper could eventually replace it. Anything we can do to lower costs and reduce rare mineral mining is going to be great for PC gamers. Plus we have plenty of great recommendations for keeping your PC cool, even if you don’t have access to a girthy block of copper.

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Here’s a detailed look at Tekken 8’s new battle system

As part of the Tekken World Tour 2022 Global Finals, Tekken 8 game director Kohei “Nakatsu” Ikeda and executive director Katsuhiro Harada gave a keynote on the upcoming game’s fighting mechanics. Bandai Namco also took the opportunity to show a new trailer featuring returning character Nina Williams, no long dressed in the bridal gown that was her default outfit in Tekken 7 and instead wearing an outfit more like something Ada Wong would rock in a Resident Evil game.

During the keynote, Nakatsu and Harada emphasized that the keyword for Tekken 8 is “aggressive”, which informed all the changes made to the next game in the series. They highlighted four elements that have been changed or added to Tekken 8: the Rage System, the Recoverable Gauge, the Heat System, and Controller Style.

Rage has been part of the series since Tekken 6, where it activated when fighters were low on health and boosted their damage. Tekken 7 added Rage Arts, powerful attacks that could only be activated while Raging, and Rage Drives, more powerful versions of regular attacks. While the Rage Drives have been ditched in Tekken 8, the system still exists, and Rage Arts cause more damage the more hurt you are when you activate them. The main change is that every character’s Rage Art is activated the same way. As Nakatsu said, “all characters have the same command, which is to forward diagonal down and both punches.”

The Recoverable Gauge is new, though inspired by similar ideas in Tekken Tag Tournament. It lets you get back some of the damage you take while blocking or in aerial combos, but where Tekken Tag Tournament’s red gauge represents health you get back over time, here it’s a white gauge that is replenished by going on the offensive. “We have made it so that the player regains strength by hitting with an attack,” Nakatsu said, “or by making the opponent guard against an attack. In other words, it is as if adrenaline is released from the body to recover from the damage.” Though there isn’t a time limit restricting how long you’ve got to recover that health, the white gauge can be reduced by low attacks.

The Heat System lets fighters power up for a short time, entering a state in which they’re covered in blue fire and have their specialties enhanced. Examples given included Marshall Law’s nunchaku attacks getting stronger, and King’s run becoming a Power Crush. While in the heat state, attacks cause chip damage even if blocked (though this chip damage is recoverable and cannot KO), and two special actions are available. The first is Heat Smash, a super attack that seems to be a replacement for Tekken 7’s Rage Drive, while the other is Heat Dash, which acts as a cancel and, well, dash.

Fighters can go into the heat condition whenever they want by pressing R1, which is called a Heat Burst, but it’s also engaged automatically whenever you use a Heat Engager. These are each character’s most important moves, roughly five for each fighter, and the ones players are encouraged to learn first.

Finally, Nakatsu and Harada discussed Tekken 8’s two Controller Styles. Arcade Style is described as the “Authentic Tekken traditional play style with a high degree of freedom,” while Special Style is an evolution of the Easy Combo and Assist features from Tekken 7. As Nakatsu explained, “Each button has a recommended move for that character, and just by pressing that attack button, you can play the game like an action game.”

Tekken 8 doesn’t have a release date and is probably a fair way off, but a closed alpha test (opens in new tab) is coming up. It’ll be conducted at “selected locations around the world” beginning with EVO Japan 2023.

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These GameCube keycaps are adorable and on sale

Keycaps are one of the easiest, cheapest, and cutest ways to personalise your PC. The world of artisan keycaps goes deep (opens in new tab), with designs to suit any gamer or typist. You can get keycaps in shapes like vicious dinos (opens in new tab), cute rainbow rubber ducks, (opens in new tab) and even GPUs (opens in new tab). While these are all great, if you’re wanting a bit of console gaming nostalgia then we’ve found the perfect keycap for you.

These GameCube-styled (opens in new tab) caps are perfect for those longing to bring back the ’90s. While not named after the Nintendo console no doubt for legal reasons, the MMI Keycaps Video Game Console is the spitting image of the portable Super Smash Bros. Melee machine we all remember.

The models look to have a fair amount of detail despite their tiny size. You can see the top disc tray is molded into the plastic as well as the front panel complete with controller ports. There’s even venting on the side. Plus they come in some of the most iconic GameCube colours like not-quite-purple blue, orange, and black. Seeing a stack of them together is almost like walking into Akihabara’s famous retro gaming Super Potato shop.

The caps are listed as being handmade with resin and acrylic paint and should be compatible with most Cherry-like switches. As an added bonus they’re on sale at the moment down from $55 down to $35 USD on Drop.

You can find a bunch of other nice-looking keycaps (opens in new tab) on the store too, including these $20 kitty paw ones (opens in new tab) complete with toe beans. Though if you’re looking for more retro Nintendo inspired caps, perhaps these ones modelled after Game Boys (opens in new tab) are more your speed. They’re also included in the current sale with $5 off making them $40.

There are a few really wild keycaps up for sale on the website at the moment too. There’s a clear resin cap with Marvel’s version of Thor’s hammer Mjolnir (opens in new tab) encased within. Or this refreshing succulent-looking cap (opens in new tab). Of course they do tend to get a bit pricier with the added level of detail but I think getting to look at one of these on your keyboard every day makes it very worthwhile.

Of course, if you’ve blown all your cash on sweet keycaps you’re never going to use, they even sell some keycap holders (opens in new tab) themed after Dwarf Factory. Of course, the other option is investing in a nice new gaming keyboard (opens in new tab) to go with your keycap obsession.

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First ever Grammy award for videogame score goes to AC Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok composer

The Grammy awards, considered among the most prestigious music awards in the world, have inaugurated a new category dedicated solely to games. The inaugural award in “Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media” was presented today, and went to Stephanie Economou, the composer behind the soundtrack for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok.

It was a fierce field, with Austin Wintory nominated for Aliens: Fireteam Elite, bear McCreary for Call of Duty: Vanguard, Richard Jacques for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, and Christopher Tin for Old World. Of the candidates only Tin had previously won a Grammy—his history-making win (opens in new tab) for an arrangement of Baba Yetu, a piece he first composed for Civilization 4 (opens in new tab). That was the first piece of music composed for a videogame to ever win at the awards show.

Economou, on the other hand, is somewhat of an underdog victory. Though she is an experienced composer and violinist, her scores for Assassin’s creed: Valhalla DLCs The Siege of Paris and Dawn of Ragnarok were her first outings in the world of videogame composition.

“I was thrilled to be able to do it, but truly I am—as the people in our videogame community would say, such a noob when it comes to videogame scoring,” said Economou in an interview with billboard (opens in new tab). “It’s tough to be nominated against these literal giants in videogame music, I’m so honored to be in their company, but also there’s a bit of like, do I belong here? And I think most artists sort of feel that to some extent, but I’m really honored and I’m really proud of the score.”

You can listen to the entirety of the Dawn of Ragnarok score on YouTube (opens in new tab), where you can also find the Old World (opens in new tab), Call of Duty: Vanguard (opens in new tab), Guardians of the Galaxy (opens in new tab), and Aliens: Fireteam Elite (opens in new tab) soundtracks out there, in case you want to judge for yourself if the award was warranted.

Economou’s Twitter bio (opens in new tab) is particularly funny in this moment, to be honest. It currently reads “Non-award-winning composer.” I guess she’ll have to update it.

Image of Stephanie Economou's Twitter page as of the morning of February 2 2023. Her description reads

(Image credit: Stephanie Economou and Twitter)

The soundtrack for Dawn of Ragnarok is a fierce one, dominated by sounds more at home in neofolk or black metal music, and features vocals and songs by Einar Selvik, a drummer for the band Gorgoroth.

You can read more about the award and its nominees on the official website for the 2023 Grammy Awards. (opens in new tab)

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Five new Steam games you probably missed (February 6, 2023)

On an average day about a dozen new games are released on Steam. And while we think that’s a good thing, it can be understandably hard to keep up with. Potentially exciting gems are sure to be lost in the deluge of new things to play unless you sort through every single game that is released on Steam. So that’s exactly what we’ve done. If nothing catches your fancy this week, we’ve gathered the best PC games (opens in new tab) you can play right now and a running list of the 2023 games (opens in new tab) that are launching this year.

Superfuse

Steam‌ ‌page‌ (opens in new tab) ‌
Release:‌ January 31
Developer:‌ Stitch Heads Entertainment
Launch price:‌ ‌$25 |‌ ‌£21 ‌|‌ ‌AU$36.50

Take Diablo 2, replace its oppressive dark fantasy vibes with an edgy comicbook veneer, and you have yourself Superfuse. Launched into Early Access last week, Superfuse offers the usual primal pleasures of clicking hordes of foes to death, but it offers a slight twist on build crafting. There are only three classes, but you’re able to “fuse” together special moves towards some pretty hectic results. Writing about the game last year, Andy Chalk, mentioned a “staggering number of possible skill combinations”, which is of course complimented by the usual oodles of loot. Four player coop is supported, as is solo play, but do note this current Early Access build doesn’t include the whole story campaign: that will be completed over the next year, along with the addition of new features and content based on feedback.

Perish

Steam‌ ‌page (opens in new tab)‌ ‌
Release:‌ February 3
Developer:‌ Item42
Launch price:‌ ‌$18 |‌ ‌£15.74 |‌ ‌AU$26.05

Perish is a first-person shooter roguelite set in a hellish underworld blending sci-fi elements with dark fantasy. The presentation is what stands out at first, but the most exciting thing about Perish is its online cooperative play, which supports up to four-players. That should take the edge off the lingering threat of permadeath as you and some buddies rage through “dilapidated temples, volcanic foundries and ancient shipwrecks” wielding weapons ranging from battle hammers through to flamethrowers. If you dig the likes of Ziggurat, City of Brass and Gunfire Reborn, this could provide some additional moreish ‘n’ murderous fun.

Prototype原型

PROTOTYPE原型

(Image credit: Nikita Kryukov)

Steam‌ ‌page (opens in new tab)‌ ‌
Release:‌ February 4
Developer:‌ Veronika Orfeeva
Launch price:‌ ‌Free

Here’s a grim, narrative-driven adventure game that evades easy description, mostly because the Steam page keeps things tantalizingly vague. Set in a near-future Hong Kong amid ever rising political tensions, Prototype原型 is the developer’s attempt to “convey the voice of those who are dismissed and forgotten in the stream of indifferent progress”. What stands out most is the sinister monochromatic pixel art, which gives Prototype原型 the aura of contraband software found on a ye olde CPC 464 floppy disk, discovered somewhere in the bowels of a long-forgotten dystopia.

I’m Looking For 3024 People

Steam‌ ‌page (opens in new tab)‌ ‌
Release:‌ ‌February 3
Developer:‌ Bakodun Game Studios
Launch price:‌ ‌$18 |‌ ‌£15.07 |‌ ‌AU$26.55

What the heck is this? Let’s see if I can explain: it’s an alternate reality game that was originally designed to only accommodate 3024 players: if you didn’t get in quickly, you’d miss out forever. That concept has since been abandoned—as has a controversial NFT implementation—but what remains is no less perplexing. This is an adventure game at heart, but in order to complete it you’ll need to reduce the game tab, because it’ll send you across the internet, into Discord channels, and on the receiving end of live webcams. The “point” of the game is to infiltrate a dodgy corporation known as Grebi Interactive, but watch out: apparently you’ll “be involved in a horrific experiment conducted within the company”. Sounds fascinating.

Interference: Dead Air

Steam‌ ‌page‌ (opens in new tab) ‌
Release:‌ February 3
Developer:‌ Fear of Corn
Launch price:‌ ‌$13.49 |‌ ‌£10.25 |‌ ‌AU$19.35

In Interference you’re tasked with monitoring a security booth in a slightly creepy research facility. When all hell breaks loose—as it is wont to do in creepy research facilities—it’s up to you to save the day, but only via the use of the security booth tools at your disposal. That means communicating remotely with stranded facility workers, fiddling with needlessly complicated control panels, or… completely ignoring the chaos. Seriously: you can opt to watch TV, or play word puzzles instead. Interference has a branching narrative that is designed to be replayed, so make sure you do try inaction at least once.

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This adorable, Wind Waker-inspired platformer casts you as a friendly delivery witch

Mika and the Witch’s Mountain (opens in new tab) has an immediately arresting look, an aesthetic and premise practically lab-grown to immediately pierce your average millennial’s lizard brain nostalgia cortex. It’s Wind Waker and Kiki’s Delivery Service (opens in new tab), together at least to melt your heart in 3D platformer form.

You take the role of a little chibi Witch named Mika who’s come to a faraway island to apprentice with an elder witch. That elder witch turns out to be kind of a jerk, and she kicks you all the way back down the mountain, your wax-on, wax-off witch training demanding that you clamber back on up to the top.

To that end, Mika takes on a delivery job, hoping to earn enough scratch to buy progressively better brooms and fly closer to the top of the mountain. The game’s demo only contains a brief quest sequence, and locks you into a small portion of the island, but I can already see how developer Abraham Cozar could create a varied, exciting platformer out of these mechanics.

One of the demo deliveries has you take a fisherman his lunch, but if you fall in the water on your way, it’ll get all soggy and you’ll fail the delivery! Mika has to fly from the dock and make a precision landing on the fisherman’s boat, a fairly fun and exciting platforming challenge that makes clever use of Mika’s unique flying broomstick mechanic.

The next delivery demands you scoop some fish out of the ocean and deliver them to a kindly old man for his aquarium, flying low over the water to catch your prize before flying back to the client. And then the demo ends⁠—pretty light, but it does a good job of pitching the full game. Mika’s also already runs decently well on Steam Deck⁠—its animated cutscenes don’t work yet on the platform, but the game itself can keep a stable 30 or even 40fps. With the game also targeting a Switch release, Deck playable status seems a pretty sure bet.

Mika and the Witch’s Mountain is currently live on Kickstarter (opens in new tab) where it has blown past its initial $40,000 goal with over $225,000 at the time of writing⁠—Cozar already has to come up with some new stretch goals! Otherwise, you can wishlist Mika and the Witch’s Mountain on Steam (opens in new tab), as well as check out its demo yourself starting tomorrow with the Steam Next Fest.

Image 1 of 4

(Image credit: Chibg)

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Activision Blizzard will pay a $35M fine to the SEC

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s investigation into Activision Blizzard has ended with a $35 million payment to the SEC to settle charges that Activision Blizzard violated government rules for the protection of whistleblowers and for failure to disclose information to investors. The settlement’s terms state that it is neither an admission of guilt, nor a denial, by Activision Blizzard.

The SEC’s investigation started in 2021, when the state of California’s Civil Rights Department filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard (opens in new tab) over a pervasive culture of sexual harassment. That lawsuit’s allegations prompted an investigation from both the SEC and the United States’ Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC investigation ended in a lawsuit which was settled for $18 million in 2021.

The alleged behavior took place over years, from 2016 for the separation agreements which did not protect whistleblowers, and from 2017 for the information disclosures. Activision Blizzard changed those practices over the course of 2020 to 2022. The $35 million fine represents just over 0.5% of Activision Blizzard’s 2022 gross profits (opens in new tab) of $6.486 billion, or 0.11% of its gross profits from 2016 to 2022.

What sets the SEC investigation apart is that it wasn’t about sexual harassment or workplace misconduct, but how Activision Blizzard internally analyzes and reports that information, then discloses those reports to investors. It also looked into the separation agreements employees signed when leaving the company, which had a clause mandating that departing workers tell Activision Blizzard if they intended to disclose information to government agencies.

A news release by SEC regional office director Jason Burt about the settlement and ordered payment said that “Activision Blizzard failed to implement necessary controls to collect and review employee complaints about workplace misconduct, which left it without the means to determine whether larger issues existed that needed to be disclosed to investors.”

The SEC further stated that Activision Blizzard’s “Taking action to impede former employees from communicating directly with the Commission staff about a possible securities law violation is not only bad corporate governance, it is illegal.”

In a statement to Polygon (opens in new tab), Activision Blizzard spokesperson Joe Christinat said the company was “pleased” to resolve the investigation amicably: “As the order recognizes, we have enhanced our disclosure processes with regard to workplace reporting and updated our separation contract language. We did so as part of our continuing commitment to operational excellence and transparency. Activision Blizzard is confident in its workplace disclosures.”

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This turn-based deconstruction of the fighting game is blowing minds

Fully voiced DLC-sized Fallout 4 mod adds 50 quests and a new ending

FromSoftware drops a lengthy new interview about Armored Core 6

Why use fans when you can cool your CPU with 8 lbs of copper?

Here’s a detailed look at Tekken 8’s new battle system

These GameCube keycaps are adorable and on sale

First ever Grammy award for videogame score goes to AC Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok composer

Five new Steam games you probably missed (February 6, 2023)

Superfuse

This adorable, Wind Waker-inspired platformer casts you as a friendly delivery witch

Activision Blizzard will pay a $35M fine to the SEC

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