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Yesterday Sony finally announced the long-rumoured PS5 Pro in a technical presentationn hosted by Mark Cerny. The console is a more advanced version of the PlayStation 5 that boosts its graphics capabilities, and even improves backwards compatibility with some PS4 games.
Yet the biggest catch of all is its £700 price tag. What’s more, with this being a digital-only console, the £100 disc drive add-on is required for physical games, not to mention the additional £25 needed for the optional stand just to hold the console vertically. That’s a total of £825 – without games, as well as the fancy TV necessary to really show off those extra pixels.
The reaction so far has been overwhelmingly negative, predominantly thanks to that audacious price. …

Among the many questions observers had following this week’s shock shutdown of PlayStation 5v5 shooter Concord (albeit not necessarily at the top of their list) was if the now-defunct live-service title would still make an appearance in Amazon’s upcoming animated video game anthology series Secret Level – and the answer, according to a new report at least, is yes.

Secret Level, if you haven’t been following along, is a 15-episode series from the creators of Love, Death & Robots that’ll feature original stories set in the world of games. More specifically, it’ll include episodes centred on Armored Core, Crossfire, Dungeons & Dragons, Exodus, Honor of Kings, Mega Man, New World: Aeternum, PAC-MAN, Sifu, Spelunky, The Outer Worlds, Unreal Tournament, Warha…

With Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s October release looming, BioWare is starting to discuss the finer details of its latest fantasy RPG. And its newest deep-dive provides a look at how progression will work for protagonist Rook and the companions they’ll meet along the way.

Rook’s progression systems won’t, it has to be said, be much of a surprise to anyone that’s had even the faintest brush with a video game in the last decade. Players do stuff, earn XP, gain a new Skill Point each level, then spend them to unlock new abilities on a skill tree.

BioWare’s latest blog post does, however, go a little deeper into the minutiae of things – explaining, for instance, that the biggest experience boost comes from completing quests, although there’s still XP to be earn fr…

The mobile release for the supremely popular card roguelike Balatro is later this month.
The game will be available on both the iOS App store and the Google Play store from 26th September. Further, it’ll be included as part of the Apple Arcade subscription from the same date.
Playstack has released a new trailer to celebrate the release, which you can watch below.

Balatro Mobile – Official Release Date Trailer

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Microsoft is kicking off the cooler months with its next batch of Xbox Game Pass titles.
Day one additions within September’s first wave of games include Star Trucker, which is available today, as well as Age of Mythology: Retold and Train Sim World 5.
Here is the full list of titles heading to Game Pass in the coming weeks:

3rd September: Star Trucker (Cloud, Console, and PC)
4th September: Age of Mythology: Retold (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X/S)
5th September: Expeditions: A MudRunner Game (Cloud, Console, and PC)
11th September: Riders Republic (Cloud, Console, and PC)
17th September: Train Sim World 5 (Cloud, Console, and PC)

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The Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 team has laid out those all important PC requirements, ahead of the game’s release this autumn.
Those jumping in on PC will need a minimum of 8 GB RAM, although Activision recommends 16 GB.
Players will additionally need an SSD with a minimum of 149 GB available space on the game’s launch. Activision notes that it comes down to 78 GB if COD HQ and Warzone are already installed on your PC, however.

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Rocksteady staff have told Eurogamer of redundancies at the studio, following the underperformance of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.

The company’s QA department has seen its size almost cut in half over the past month, Eurogamer understands, from 33 team members to 15, with poor sales of Suicide Squad directly cited as a reason for its “restructuring”.

The job losses extend outside of QA, too. One staff member posting publicly on social media over the weekend revealed they had been told they were being made redundant in the middle of their paternity leave.

Eurogamer has contacted Suicide Squad publisher Warner Bros. for comment, but has so far not received a response.

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Stardew Valley creator Eric ‘ConcernedApe’ Barone has been so “committed to finalising Stardew 1.6 first”, he hasn’t actually touched Haunted Chocolatier “in a long time”.
Barone shared a post on social media platform X earlier today addressing the highly-anticipated console and mobile ports of the Stardew Valley 1.6 update. The developer assured his followers that these ports are still in the works, but things are taking a while.
“They have been our primary focus since 1.6 came out for PC,” Barone wrote. “It would be a huge relief to me if they were ready today, but they aren’t, so all we can do is continue working on them until they are ready.”

ConcernedApe’s Haunted Chocolatier Early Gameplay

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Those lucky enough to secure a ticket to visit Nintendo’s museum are in for a bonus treat: all eligible tickets will include a portrait of their Mii character.
As anyone accepting a museum ticket must have a Nintendo account in order to accept and use it, Nintendo is automagically customising tickets with each account holder’s Mii.

Nintendo Museum Direct

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An annual report into the use of minerals sourced from conflict zones by major technology companies has praised Microsoft and Nintendo for their efforts to improve over the past year.

But the same report – compiled by former GamesIndustry.biz writer Brendan Sinclair, now at Unlosing Writer – also highlighted how Sony had regressed.

The use of minerals in hardware manufacturing – most commonly tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold – is tracked by US and EU legislation to ensure companies disclose the countries and specific mines where their resources originate in a bid to ensure these operations aren’t funding human rights abuses.

This year’s report reflects on an overall dip in standards caused by the Covid pandemic – when inspections were more difficult and …