Month: October 2024

If you’re expecting The Grand Tour: One for the Road to be a sombre, sedate affair compared to the trio’s previous work, think again: if anything, it proves that advancing age hasn’t blunted their capacity for causing mayhem, or embarrassment to the foreign office.Zimbabwe, the gloriously filmed final location for their beloved format, is a poor country with a great deal of mineral wealth, the movement of which is very strictly controlled. It’s possible to buy large quantities of raw silver in Zimbabwean markets for ridiculously cheap prices, though, which formed the basis for one of the new special’s more ridiculous challenges: casting car bling from it. Hammond and his dinky spoiler. Also, this is a spoiler. | Image credit: Amazon StudiosClarkson fashioned …

EA CEO Andrew Wilson spoke on-stage at this year’s investment summit, and stated that Generative AI is at the “very core of our business”. This bold stance coincidentally comes nearly three years since he spoke about the importance of NFTs to the future of the video game industry. Truly, a pioneer of brave and exciting technologies.Wilson’s statement on AI has also happened at an interesting time for tech investment, when the development of AI has led to a market boom that spans the video game industry and far beyond. However, EA surely knows that investors are getting impatient waiting for AI-enhanced companies to show a winning hand, especially as AI giants like OpenAI stand to lose around five billion dollars this year according to analysts. That’s why EA and Wilson broke out the cardbo…

Amazon Games and Maverick Games are working on a AAA racing game, that much we knew already. However, thanks to a fresh job posting for a community manager, we also know that Amazon is seemingly now in the process of prepping to oversee the community it hopes said game will develop. The job posting, listed on Gamesjobs.co, states that Amazon is looking for a person with experience in the field of community management. This means “building, executing and scaling cross-functional programs or marketing campaigns from concept to completion”, managing and measuring marketing performance, and using data to measure metrics. Pretty standard stuff from a start to finish video game community management role.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings Hiring for roles l…

Blizzard is reportedly taking another swing at developing a StarCraft shooter, this time with former FarCry producer and director Dan Hay at the helm.This is according to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, in an exerpt from his upcoming book Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment, which was discussed during an appearance on the IGN Unlocked podcast.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings After IGN’s Ryan McCaffrey brought up that passage, and after mentioning the fact that such a thing being in the works would be Blizzard’s third go at making this kind of game, he asked Schreier if it’s a thing we may well actually get to play at some point down the line.”If it’s not canceled,” Schreier replied, “This is Blizzard after all. T…

That Fallout TV show was pretty great, ey? In fact, it even landed a hefty number of Emmy nominations before taking home a couple of them. Now, Prime Video and Kilter Films are also celebrating the fact it has crossed the 100 million viewers threshold worldwide after roughly six months on Amazon’s streaming platform.The announcement came via the series’ social media accounts and will surely boost Prime Video, Kilter Films, and Bethesda’s confidence going into season 2, which will be filled to the brim with New Vegas stuff if that season 1 finale was any indication.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings Crossing the 100-million mark positions Fallout right behind The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and… above everything else on the platform, at le…

Atlus is clearly on to a winner with Metaphor: ReFantazio, as the game is now the developer’s fastest selling game ever.We obviously know Atlus is going to keep milking the Persona series, with new numbered entries, re-releases, and spin-offs, but considering how well the completely new Metaphor: ReFantazio is doing, I imagine we’ll be seeing a lot more of that world too. Atlus shared earlier this week that the game had surpassed a million units sold by the day the game had released – Persona 3 Reload managed to hit the same sales number quite quickly earlier this year, but it took a few days longer to reach it. The news also came with a fresh illustration from character designer Shigenori Soejima too, if you fancy taking a look.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage co…

Update Oct 11th: We’ve added Patrick Dorgu, Trey Nyoni and Matteo Prati to our list of FC 25 Wonderkids, as well as updated the potential ratings of some players.With a host of new features and a new class of Wonderkids, Career Mode is back with a bang in EA Sports FC 25 and there’s no greater feeling than nurturing some of the hottest young talents in world football to European domination, especially if you’ve taken your own club all the way up from the bottom of the pyramid.We’ve compiled this near exhaustive list of the best Wonderkids in every position for a variety of budgets. If you have a role in your team or a spot on your bench that needs filling, one of these Wonderkids will fit the bill.Then, to finish things off, we’ve also compiled a list of the U21 pla…

VariousThere are so many ways to be a Dungeons & Dragons fan these days. The tabletop RPG mainstay has been synonymous with pen-and-paper adventuring for 50 years now, and 2024 marks a major reworking of its core rulebooks to make the game more approachable. Anyone who’s played even just a couple of sessions knows how easy it can be to covet a friend’s set of custom dice, appreciate the care a Dungeon Master has taken in setting the right ambience for a crafted campaign, or even obsess over their choice of pen and notebook — after all, it’s what you’ll be spending a large chunk of time staring into as you ponder your character’s next heroic action.But what’s amazing is that you can be a huge D&D fan without ever touching a character sheet. D&D and the Forgotten R…

Traveller’s TalesAlice Jovanée (she/her) is a commerce writer, and she has been writing about gaming and tech since 2005. Prior to Polygon, she worked at publications such as The Verge.Regardless of how you feel about the current season of Rings of Power, if you’re looking for another way to satiate your Tolkien love you’ll definitely want to check out the current catalog of free games available to Amazon Prime members. Earlier this month, both Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor GOTY Edition, and Lego The Lord of the Rings were made available to Amazon Prime members for free through Sept. 30. However, you can now also pick up Lego The Hobbit for free through Oct. 23. Just head to the corresponding Prime Gaming page and you’ll be presented with a code that you can redeem on GOG.com fo…

Nintendo of AmericaCameron Faulkner (he/him) is Polygon’s commerce editor. He began writing about tech and gaming in 2013, and migrated from The Verge in 2023.One of the best unofficial October Prime Day deals has come early at Woot, where you can get a new Nintendo Switch OLED with either white or neon blue/red Joy-Con for $299.99 ($50 off). It’s not typical for this console to receive any kind of discount, so we’re usually skeptical that there’s something amiss when one pops up, like an iffy warranty, or that it isn’t the U.S. version, which includes a different power adapter. However, there are no strings attached; you’re just getting a great deal.Nintendo Switch OLED$300$35014% off$300Nintendo’s hybrid console still has plenty of staying power, especially with this year�…