After Bungie announced they were leaving the Halo series in the hands of Microsoft and striking out on their own, Halo fans were justifiably worried about the future of the series. More than that, however, Microsoft itself was likely worried about what they do with Halo at that point. It turns out one of the possible options they were considering was going with Borderlands developer Gearbox as an option for taking development for Halo 4.

In an IGN sitdown, 343 boss Bonnie Ross talked a little bit about the paths not taken. While ultimately Microsoft decided to have all the development made in an internal team that was eventually known as 343, the idea of doing it externally was also an option. According to Ross, Gearbox was the one and only other outside partner they had considered before ultimately deciding to keep it in Microsoft.

Gearbox is not a particularly strange choice, as they have had some involvement with the series. They ported the first game to PC in 2003, so they would theoretically understand the basic building blocks of the series.

How well would you say you remembered Activision's slate of Spider-Man games from the mid- to late-2000s? The company certainly produced a lot of them of varying quality, so they can tend to blur together a bit. One of those games, however, ended up inspiring the source material for last year's seminal Into the Spider-Verse film.

Last night on Twitter, just before Into the Spider-Verse won its Oscar for best animated film, Marvel comics writer Dan Slott started talking about the inspiration for the original comic run for the Spider-Verse arc. It turns out that the idea actually came from a visit to Activision studio Beenox to take a look at their 2010 Spider-Man game Shattered Dimensions.

#SpiderVerse origins: 6/9/09, @Beenox studios flew me to Quebec to show me their new game in development: Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions so I could write the story around it. It'd involve Spidey, Ultimate Spider-Man, Spider-Man Noir, & Spider-Man 2099, all in one big adventure. pic.twitter.com/HFQdozpvo6

How well would you say you remembered Activision's slate of Spider-Man games from the mid- to late-2000s? The company certainly produced a lot of them of varying quality, so they can tend to blur together a bit. One of those games, however, ended up inspiring the source material for last year's seminal Into the Spider-Verse film.

Last night on Twitter, just before Into the Spider-Verse won its Oscar for best animated film, Marvel comics writer Dan Slott started talking about the inspiration for the original comic run for the Spider-Verse arc. It turns out that the idea actually came from a visit to Activision studio Beenox to take a look at their 2010 Spider-Man game Shattered Dimensions.

#SpiderVerse origins: 6/9/09, @Beenox studios flew me to Quebec to show me their new game in development: Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions so I could write the story around it. It'd involve Spidey, Ultimate Spider-Man, Spider-Man Noir, & Spider-Man 2099, all in one big adventure. pic.twitter.com/HFQdozpvo6

More information for MLB the Show 19's Road to the Show mode has been revealed by developer San Diego Studios as the game approaches its March 26 release date. One of the mode's main new components – apart from the fact that there are no longer attribute caps for your player (yea!) – is the addition of a personality and relationship system, which is changing how perks work through interactions with teammates and rivals.

Giving players the power to take charge of their own story is a good move, but I have a few questions about how this new system might be expressed in the game.

The basics of this year's modified perks system are thus: You pick main, secondary, and tertiary personality types for your RTTS player from four choices – Captain, Maverick, Lightning Rod, and Heart and Soul. This influences the initial setup of the perks tree. From here, conversations with teammates and players on other teams during training days progresses you down the appropriate part of the tree tied to one of the personality types based on your dialogue responses.

More information for MLB the Show 19's Road to the Show mode has been revealed by developer San Diego Studios as the game approaches its March 26 release date. One of the mode's main new components – apart from the fact that there are no longer attribute caps for your player (yea!) – is the addition of a personality and relationship system, which is changing how perks work through interactions with teammates and rivals.

Giving players the power to take charge of their own story is a good move, but I have a few questions about how this new system might be expressed in the game.

The basics of this year's modified perks system are thus: You pick main, secondary, and tertiary personality types for your RTTS player from four choices – Captain, Maverick, Lightning Rod, and Heart and Soul. This influences the initial setup of the perks tree. From here, conversations with teammates and players on other teams during training days progresses you down the appropriate part of the tree tied to one of the personality types based on your dialogue responses.

Devotion, a Taiwanese horror game that found a huge fan following over the past week since its release, has been removed entirely from Steam following the use a meme banned in China. The ensuing firestorm has lead to the game's publisher abandoning the studio and the developers being forced to apologize publicly over the issue.

The game is a follow up to developer Red Candle Games' previous horror title Detention, a school-based survival horror titled based on Taiwanese culture and mythos. Players quickly picked up on Devotion and became attracted to the game's effective use of scares and environmental oppression. However, its average user reviews on Steam started to collapse in the time since release, as Chinese players discovered something they did not like on one of the game's posters.

On a poster in the game for what is known as a Fulu talisman, characters dotted along the edges of the design say what is roughly translated as "Xi Jinping Winnie the Pooh Moron," referring to the People's Republic of China's president. In recent years, Chinese internet users have poked fun at Xi Jinping for looking like Winnie the Pooh, the yellow cartoon bear with a predilection for honey. The meme reportedly angered the Chinese leader, resulting in a ban in China.

Update: The developer has responded on their Steam page saying they pulled the game down due to a crash bug.

"Due to technical issues that cause unexpected crashes and among other reasons, we are pulling off from steam store to have another complete QA check. At the same time we'd like to take this opportunity to ease the heightened pressure in our community resulted from our previous Art Material Incident, our team would also review our game material once again making sure no other unintended materials was inserted in. Hopefully this would help all audience to focus on the game itself again upon its return."

They did not explain why the YouTube videos for the game have been removed or who is responsible for Steam refunds with the game's publisher rescinding their agreement.

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, an HD remaster of the 2006 PlayStation 2 Final Fantasy game, already boasted a number of improvements when it landed on PlayStation 4 and PC, released in 2017 and 2018 respectively. That version of the game was itself based on a Japan-only re-release of the PS2 game from a decade prior, giving western fans something new. Now players who have been patiently waiting for the Final Fantasy XII to come to other consoles, or people looking to buy and play it once again, will have a few extra incentives.

The Xbox One and Switch ports of the game will allow a license change, letting players respec their party members' jobs as they see fit. Additionally, there are more gambit slots for party members, as well as the ability to switch between them with named descriptions, like "Fire Boss" or "Exploration". An improved New Game + mode allows characters to start the game at level 90 and bring over items, weapons, magic, and more from the previous play through.

The Xbox One version sports the X enhancement of running the game at 60 FPS, which was previously only available to the PC. You can check out a new trailer of the game below.

Remember Chex Quest? You know, the kid-friendly Doom clone that came packaged in Chex cereal boxes in 1996? A team of volunteer game developers are recreating it from the ground up in HD. If you don't believe us, the team behind it released a new gameplay trailer this weekend that you can watch above. (Warning: nostalgia, incoming!)

The game doesn't have a release date just yet. It's being produced by a group of volunteers, including game development students from Southern New Hampshire University. The five-level game will launch for free when completed, and the team hopes to launch the project on Steam.

Remember Chex Quest? You know, the kid-friendly Doom clone that came packaged in Chex cereal boxes in 1996? A team of volunteer game developers are recreating it from the ground up in HD. If you don't believe us, the team behind it released a new gameplay trailer this weekend that you can watch above. (Warning: nostalgia, incoming!)

The game doesn't have a release date just yet. It's being produced by a group of volunteers, including game development students from Southern New Hampshire University. The five-level game will launch for free when completed, and the team hopes to launch the project on Steam.