Stardew Valley’s Big Patch, An Apex Legends Hack, And More Of The Week’s Gaming News

Image: ConcernedApe, Blizzard Entertainment, Larian Studios, Respawn, Concerned Ape, Insomniac Games / Marvel / Hasbro / Scopely / Kotaku, Flying Wild Hog, Screenshot: Morgpie / Twitch / Kotaku, Larian Studios / Kotaku

This week, one of the biggest stories in gaming involved updates to an eight-year-old game. Yes, Stardew Valley developer ConcernedApe trickled out a series of details about the game’s latest patch that had fans hanging on every word in anticipation. We’ve got all the facts for you about this game-changing update, as well as a report on Overwatch 2’s once-vaunted story missions, a story on the motivations behind an Apex Legends hack, and more.

Image: ConcernedApe

Stardew Valley players have been waiting nearly a year for the massive 1.6 update to release since developer ConcernedApe first teased it. That wait is finally almost over, as the long-anticipated update 1.6 is set to go live for the beloved farming sim today, March 19. Here’s what you need to know about when the update will go live and what will be included. – Willa Rowe Read More

Screenshot: Morgpie / Twitch / Kotaku

There’s a new way to watch broadcasts on Twitch, and it’s not just pulling up a livestream on your monitor or TV and calling it a day. No, actually it’s a sort of Inception situation, where you’re now watching something like Fortnite projected onto a green screen of either boobs or butts. If that sounds confusing, please allow me to explain. – Levi Winslow Read More

Image: Blizzard Entertainment

In the last few months, Overwatch 2 fans have grown increasingly worried about the state of the hero shooter’s story missions. These missions were a pillar of the sequel’s initial pitch at Blizzcon 2019, the shiny new thing that merited making a new game instead of patching the original one, like most live-service projects. But since Overwatch 2’s October 2022 launch, only one set of missions has been released (in August 2023). Currently, there is no release window for more. For Blizzard, the January Xbox layoffs primarily affected developers working on those missions. What’s more, recent changes to Overwatch 2’s menus suggest story missions are, at the very least, being deprioritized. – Kenneth Shepard Read More

Screenshot: Larian Studios / Kotaku

Have you ever been playing the roguelike shoot-em-up Vampire Survivors and thought it might be improved if the vampire elf Astarion from Baldur’s Gate 3 were to show up? Well, something like that might be in the cards. Either that or Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke is just tweeting out his best ideas. – Kenneth Shepard Read More

Image: Larian Studios

Just like that, Larian Studios is done with not just Baldur’s Gate 3, its smash hit 2023 roleplaying game, but with the franchise altogether. And I do mean done, as studio founder Swen Vincke said during a talk at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) that the team is moving on from the series. – Levi Winslow Read More

Image: Respawn

An individual responsible for hacking an Apex Legends global tournament over the weekend has revealed their motivations: they did it “just for fun.”

That quote comes from a new TechCrunch interview with one of the hackers, who goes by Destroyer2009. In it, they detail that their decision to target the Apex Legends Global Series esports tournament (which boasts a prize pool of $5 million) was based partially in a desire to mess around, but also to force developer Respawn to patch the exploit they utilized. According to the hacker, whose shenanigans forced the ALGS to postpone the tournament “due to the competitive integrity of this series being compromised,” the hack was a benevolent one. – Alyssa Mercante Read More

Image: Concerned Ape

It is the eve before Stardew Valley’s 1.6 update drops and developer ConcernedApe has delivered us one last sneak peek by way of patch notes. In case you’ve missed the last week of chaos, Stardew Valley’s developer has been releasing spoiler-free teases of what’s to come in the forthcoming update and the community has been absolutely eating it up. The changes have ranged from the obscure to the subject of countless fan theories, and span the gamut of bugs and glitches, to long overdue corrections and fixing game mechanics. Over the weekend, they even teased that players will now be able to chug mayonnaise just for the hell of it. All hell’s broken loose in Pelican Town apparently. – Moises Taveras Read More

Image: Insomniac Games / Marvel / Hasbro / Scopely / Kotaku

Monopoly Go, a multiplayer mobile board game, launched on April 11, 2023. Since then it has made over 2 billion dollars, been downloaded 100+ million times, and become one of the most popular digital games on the planet. But to reach this point, Scopely, the studio behind the hit game, has spent nearly $500 million on marketing alone, which is more than what Sony spent on some of its biggest games like Spider-Man 2 and The Last Of Us Part II. – Zack Zwiezen Read More

Princess Peach’s Leading Role And More New Releases

Princess Peach: Showtime!, Rise of the Rōnin, and Dragon’s Dogma 2 are all dropping this week

Image: Flying Wild Hog

March 19 marks the first day of spring, and y’all, Microsoft has certainly sprung a variety of games on Xbox Game Pass subscribers. As the month slowly winds down, this new crop of games will absolutely keep you entertained. From horror games to mystery thrillers, there’s a little something for everyone here. So, let’s jump in to see what you can download in the next two weeks. – Levi Winslow Read More