FIFA didn't exactly get out of the video game business after parting ways with EA. Soccer’s governing body has teamed up with Konami to host two editions of the FIFAe World Cup on the console and mobile versions of eFootball later this year.
Qualifying for both tournaments starts today, with FIFAe world champs (one each on mobile and console) to be crowned later this year. Eighteen FIFA member associations are taking part, namely those in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, England, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea Republic, Malaysia, Morocco, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Thailand and Türkiye. They were selected based on previous performances of esports competitors from those countries as well as the eFootball player base in each.
FIFA is bringing eFootball into its esports fold alongside Rocket League (car soccer) and Football Manager (soccer management). It's too early to tell whether Konami's title will become FIFA's official licensed partner for major soccer games and adopt the governing body's name. Still, it seems clear that FIFA and Konami are on positive terms and this could be a step toward a larger partnership. Hey, both even use that silly "e" branding.
While EA Sports FC is far and away the most popular soccer sim series around, eFootball is the closest thing it has to a true competitor. It had a peak concurrent Steam player count of 17,610 over the last 24 hours, compared with 98,400 for EA Sports FC 25.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/fifa-cozies-up-to-ea-rival-konami-for-soccer-esports-185538485.html?src=rss
Just 10 days after announcing a late November release date for Football Manager 25, Sports Interactive has delayed the soccer sim by several months. The developer and Sega, the game's publisher, said in September that they were pushing back the release date by a few weeks to "deliver the best possible experience for this first installment in a new era of Football Manager." However, the team says it still needs more time to "ensure the game quality and experience meets your expectations and our very high standards." As such, Football Manager 25 is now slated to arrive in March.
Sports Interactive is giving the long-running game a major overhaul in its upcoming iteration, but the studio says it's been a difficult process. "Many things have been moving slower than we had predicted — despite everyone in the team working at an incredible pace to try and get everything done," Sports Interactive said in a statement. "Timelines were already tight and, as rightly pointed out by many of your recent comments, we were simply rushing too much and in danger of compromising our usual standards. This has put an enormous amount of pressure on everyone working across the studio, who are all passionately committed to delivering the best game possible."
We have made the tough decision to delay the release of Football Manager 25 until March 2025.
The studio noted that Football Manager 25marks the series' "biggest technical and visual advancement" in many years, which includes a switch to the Unity engine. To that end, it "simply cannot compromise the delivery of this crucial juncture in Football Manager’s history by rushing to release it in November." Sports Interactive now plans to offer a first proper look at gameplay in January. There will still be an advanced access period for players on PC and Mac.
The developer and Sega typically release each year's edition of Football Manager in early November (EA puts out its FIFA/EA Sports FC games in late September or early October). That gives Sports Interactive some time to account for any player trades that take place during the summer transfer window and any other significant real-life happenings to make the game as up-to-date as possible.
However, with Football Manager 25 now slipping to March, that cadence has been seriously disrupted. It could have a knock-on effect for the following entry. It also means the game will arrive close to the end of the European soccer season.
In response to Sports Interactive's announcement, some players are calling for the studio to at least release a database update for Football Manager 2024 that reflects real-world changes for the current season. Some have even suggested that the developer scrap the planned game and focus on Football Manager 26 after bringing the current version up to date.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/football-manager-25-is-delayed-until-late-in-the-european-soccer-season-155746335.html?src=rss
Just 10 days after announcing a late November release date for Football Manager 25, Sports Interactive has delayed the soccer sim by several months. The developer and Sega, the game's publisher, said in September that they were pushing back the release date by a few weeks to "deliver the best possible experience for this first installment in a new era of Football Manager." However, the team says it still needs more time to "ensure the game quality and experience meets your expectations and our very high standards." As such, Football Manager 25 is now slated to arrive in March.
Sports Interactive is giving the long-running game a major overhaul in its upcoming iteration, but the studio says it's been a difficult process. "Many things have been moving slower than we had predicted — despite everyone in the team working at an incredible pace to try and get everything done," Sports Interactive said in a statement. "Timelines were already tight and, as rightly pointed out by many of your recent comments, we were simply rushing too much and in danger of compromising our usual standards. This has put an enormous amount of pressure on everyone working across the studio, who are all passionately committed to delivering the best game possible."
We have made the tough decision to delay the release of Football Manager 25 until March 2025.
The studio noted that Football Manager 25marks the series' "biggest technical and visual advancement" in many years, which includes a switch to the Unity engine. To that end, it "simply cannot compromise the delivery of this crucial juncture in Football Manager’s history by rushing to release it in November." Sports Interactive now plans to offer a first proper look at gameplay in January. There will still be an advanced access period for players on PC and Mac.
The developer and Sega typically release each year's edition of Football Manager in early November (EA puts out its FIFA/EA Sports FC games in late September or early October). That gives Sports Interactive some time to account for any player trades that take place during the summer transfer window and any other significant real-life happenings to make the game as up-to-date as possible.
However, with Football Manager 25 now slipping to March, that cadence has been seriously disrupted. It could have a knock-on effect for the following entry. It also means the game will arrive close to the end of the European soccer season.
In response to Sports Interactive's announcement, some players are calling for the studio to at least release a database update for Football Manager 2024 that reflects real-world changes for the current season. Some have even suggested that the developer scrap the planned game and focus on Football Manager 26 after bringing the current version up to date.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/football-manager-25-is-delayed-until-late-in-the-european-soccer-season-155746335.html?src=rss
We are so close to getting season two of Squid Game — the show famously rejected for nearly a decade before becoming a sensation on Netflix. The streamer has just shared a full-length trailer ahead of the season's December 26 premiere, calling for viewers to "Get back in the game."
It features Gong Yoo reprising his role as the salesman. Yoo starts his day calmly, looking at the cityscape and getting ready alongside cheery music before the atmosphere turns sinister as he opens a safe, grabbing ddakji pieces. He then heads to the subway and approaches a new player, asking, "Sir, would you like to play a game with me?"
Netflix first announced Squid Game season two in 2022 but only set a release date in August — nearly three years after the first season came out. Next time, there shouldn't be as large a gap as Netflix also shared that the show's third and final season should arrive in 2025.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/watch-the-trailer-for-squid-game-2-133047996.html?src=rss
Walkabout Mini Golf has been filled with players ever since it launched around the same time as the Meta Quest 2. Now the multiplayer mini-golf game is making the jump to iOS devices.
The developer Mighty Coconut is currently beta testing its mobile mini-golf game Walkabout Mini Golf: Pocket Editionand plans to release a full version on the App Store on October 10.
The Pocket version may be on mobile devices but the miniature version of the mini-golf game isn’t straying away from its virtual interface. The iOS Walkabout game can be played in two different modes: “Touch-to-Putt” mode in which you use the touch screen to tap and drag your shot and “Swing-to-Putt” mode in which you hold your iPhone like a putter and take your swing the same way you would in the VR version.
Walkabout Mini Golf is one of the most popular multiplayer VR games for the Meta Quest series. The virtual mini-golf game has an extensive series of stylized courses including some based on movies, TV shows and games like Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, the puzzle game Myst and the animated clay characters Wallace & Gromit. Mighty Coconut also designed a golf course with the immersive art company Meow Wolf and a series of courses based on the works of Jules Verne.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/vr-hit-walkabout-mini-golf-is-getting-a-mobile-edition-214918605.html?src=rss
The Game Devs of Color Expo 2024 kicks off on Wednesday. Now in its ninth year (and fourth as an all-virtual conference), the event celebrates and highlights the game industry’s creators of color. The event's Direct livestream today will include over 30 new game announcements and updates (and there will be a corresponding Steam sale!) You can watch the stream here at 4PM ET.
Today’s Direct will include “exclusive reveals, the latest launches, and more updates” and will highlight a diverse group of industry creators from around the world.
The event is orchestrated by Game Devs of Color, a nonprofit that has run the annual conference since its 2016 debut. The group aims to amplify the creative power people of color hold in games. “Creators of color make great games but are often pushed to the margins,” the nonprofit’s webpage states. “We fight to create a better games industry that is intersectional and equitable.”
The event runs from Wednesday through Saturday. Tickets are still available for the whole week of discussions, panels and interviews. Standard pass pricing starts at $50, but a $20 option is available for those who can’t afford the regular ticket cost.
You can check out the kickoff stream below at 4PM ET:
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/watch-the-game-devs-of-color-expo-direct-livestream-here-at-4pm-et-193040011.html?src=rss
What the Car? is a celebration of gaming through pure creativity, unfettered by the trappings of narrative logic. It isn't as wildly surprising as What the Golf?, and it doesn't have the VR immersion of What the Bat?, but like those previous two games, it still delivers more charm and whimsy than you'll see in most other titles. Why does the car have legs, you ask? Shut up and play.
As we learned from What the Golf?, the developers at Triband Games specialize in subverting your expectations. So while your main character is indeed a car, you won't actually be racing on four wheels over boring old tracks. Your car sprouts legs early on, and that alone teaches you to expect the unexpected. Every level you play twists the weirdness a bit further: You'll get long legs; you'll get a rocket pack and springy legs; you'll be transformed into a soccer ball.
What the Car?escalates its gameplay ideas to levels of sheer absurdity, but that's what makes it so great. After playing as a soccer ball for a bit, a few stages transformed into massive foosball tables. The game didn't need to pause and explain the changes or tell me which buttons to press. I intuited that the car's action button flipped the kickers, and my brain quickly remapped itself around foosball rules. This experience might be a little frustrating for those unfamiliar with the glory of tabletop soccer, but the game effectively uses failure as a teaching tool.
After debuting on Apple Arcade last year, What the Car? is now available to PC players on Steam. And before you ask, yes, it does make for a truly perfect portable Steam Deck experience. While it's lush with a vivacious aesthetic and cartoonish characters, the game doesn't require advanced graphics hardware. (Its minimum specs? A mere 2.6GHz Intel Quad Core chip, 2GB of RAM and an 11-year-old GeForce GT 750M mobile GPU.)
Triband
For the most part, levels in What the Car? aren't too difficult, but if you want more of a challenge you can try to get gold trophies by completing stages faster. That carrot was enough to make me replay stages multiple times. There's also a hidden collectible card in every stage, as well as other secrets.
While Triband Games claims you’ll be able to complete What the Car?’s core stages in three to five hours, it estimates it’ll take another nine to 12 to get all of the secrets and gold trophies. There are also user-generated levels to consider (most of which are truly punishing), as well as a level builder for your own creations.
Triband
These days, I'm often playing games side-by-side with my five year old daughter Sophia, who in the past few months has become absolutely Minecraft-pilled. (Is there some sort of Minecraft support group for tired parents who never got into it? Someone please hook me up.) She ended up sacrificing some of her limited gaming time just to watch me play What the Car?. She was thrilled when I was able to reach gold on particularly tough stages, and she couldn't stop laughing at the car's silly transformations and the damage it would inevitably inflict on bears populating the levels.
I could relate to her sense of awe. Through its whimsy and delirious inventiveness, What the Car? is a testament to the power of games. It's something I felt at the same age, when I first encountered Super Marios Bros. on the NES. I didn't question why mushrooms made Mario get stronger, or why I could go down pipes. My daughter never questioned why the car had legs, or why the rules of the game kept changing. She was just thrilled to be along for the ride.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/what-the-car-hits-steam-and-its-still-one-of-the-best-games-youll-play-this-year-153007118.html?src=rss
More standard streaming services include live sports now — Sunday Night Football on Peacock, CBS NFL games on Paramount+, Thursday Night Football on Prime Video — but if you want a comprehensive suite of sports channels, plus other live programming and local news, Fubo might be the way to go. It came out on top for sports in our guide to the best live TV streaming services and right now you can get your first month of Fubo's Pro-tier subscription for $50 instead of $80. The Elite with Sports Plus plan is down from $100 to $70 for the first month and the top-level Deluxe package is $80 as opposed to the usual $110.
Whichever plan you go with, you'll get more sports coverage than a human person can reasonably consume — even the cheapest tier grants access to ESPN and ESPN2, FS1 and FS2, multiple NBC Sports channels, CBS Sports, Fubo's own sports networks and more. The Elite with Sports Plus tier throws in NFL RedZone and about 100 additional channels, and enables 4K streaming quality. And, finally, the Deluxe plan gets you all that plus international sports.
Fubo makes it easy to record games you want to watch later and every plan comes with unlimited DVR cloud storage with a nine-month expiration for recordings.
When you're not watching athletic matchups, you can try out the rest of what Fubo offers. When I tested it out for our guide, I found the service to be nicely organized with a clean and easily navigable interface. It really shines at showcasing live content (though browsing through VOD content wasn't quite as breezy).
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/fubo-tv-streaming-plans-are-30-off-for-the-first-month-right-now-171510242.html?src=rss
Worlds Part I, the No Man's Sky update that rolled out in July, made waters in the game more responsive to wind, depth and weather conditions. An artist drew fan art of their character fishing while perched on the wing of their boat after the update went out, which in turn inspired Hello Games to add a fishing mechanic to No Man's Sky. If you look at No Man's Sky communities online, you'll see a lot of people talk about wanting a fishing feature. Make sure to be on the lookout for the the game's latest update called Aquarius that's going out today if you're one of them.
Aquarius is packed with new features, all centered on fishing. You can either fish on your own or fish with friends if that would make it easier to wait for a bite. While you can sit, cast your line and wait for a catch on the shore, you can also set up automated traps. It's also possible to fish in deep water from an "Exo-Skiff" platform, which can be personalized with colors and comes with an inventory for storing your catches. Ocassionally, you'll pull up non-aquatic items like messages in bottles and technology upgrades. The Aquarius update also arrives with a new expedition, Expedition 15. Completing the various quests over the six weeks the expedition runs will unlock customization options like a deep-sea diving suit, a special fishing rod and a nautical-themed Aquarius jetpack.
The developer says it's releasing a huge array of fish in the game, "from common minnows to wild alien catches," and some can only be caught using fishing pots that can bait and trap rare catches. And while you can fish to relax, you can also challenge yourself by completing the fishing logs and taking part in expedition quests to find the biggest catch of the day.
Finally, you can cook whatever you catch using new recipes that you can discover around the No Man's Sky universe. It sounds like Hello Games intends to expand the game's fishing mechanic, though, so we may get more equipment, competitions and species to catch in the future. For now, if you enjoy fishing mini-games like I do, you may want to grab some snacks and prepare for hours of virtual angling.
Update, September 4, 5:50PM: This story was updated after publishing with more details on the Aquarius update and the expedition unlocks.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/you-can-finally-fish-in-no-mans-sky-as-its-aquarius-update-rolls-out-today-130042560.html?src=rss
Even though Concord evidently didn't sell anywhere close to the number of copies it needed to be sustainable, the team shooter does have some dedicated players. Sony and Firewalk Studios have stopped selling the PS5 and PC game before taking it offline this Friday, two weeks after its launch. And yet, some folks are still striving to unlock Concord's Platinum trophy before the servers are shut down. What's more, many of them are taking a creative approach to earning that honor, which they get after unlocking the rest of a game's trophies.
Outside of a few slightly more difficult objectives such as killing five enemies in a row without dying, Concord's trophies are largely based around grinding. They include eliminating a total of 50 opponents as each character (or Freegunner) and reaching level 10 with each. Earning one trophy is as simple as playing a match with a friend.
Perhaps the most time-consuming trophy to earn is a Silver that requires players to reach a reputation level of 100. After news of the game's shutdown emerged, some players called for Firewalk to offer extra XP (or experience points) to help them earn the Platinum before Concord goes offline. One of them, GoodGameKofi, wrote on X on Tuesday that they were at level 48 and wouldn't have enough time to hit level 100 in order to claim the last remaining trophy based on how much XP players earn per game.
However, as noted by Gene Park of The Washington Post, Concord players have found a way to speed up matches and farm XP faster. They're yeeting themselves off the map over and over again. It seems that they're primarily doing so in Rivalry, a mode in which players only have one life and don't respawn.
new concord meta is how fast a squad can commit suicide.
That said, the strategy won't get players to level 100 in a hurry. After claiming to hurl themselves off the map constantly for an hour, X user Radec "only went from Level 44 to 45... I am NOT getting this Platinum bro."
I’ve been doing this shit for an hour and only went from Level 44 to 45 I am NOT getting this Platinum bro 💀 pic.twitter.com/EA3wuVvFgX
After taking down Concord, Firewalk and Sony plan to "explore options, including those that will better reach our players." That suggests that Concord may return at some point, and if so it will probably have a free-to-play model. However, if Concord remains offline for good, the game will have one of the rarest of all Platinum trophies. According to one trophy tracker site, just 14 players have earned the Platinum so far. Those are some valuable bragging rights for those willing to do nothing but jump off the map for dozens of hours.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/concord-players-keep-jumping-off-the-map-in-a-race-to-claim-the-platinum-trophy-143258391.html?src=rss