Since EA launched its Origin service, it has been the only place that players have been able to purchase the publisher’s games on PC, but that will change very soon. EA has announced it is bringing a variety of its titles to Steam, beginning with next month’s highly anticipated Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.

Ahead of its release on November 15, Respawn’s upcoming Star Wars game is now available to pre-order on Valve’s storefront, marking the first new EA game to hit Steam in six years. The publisher says it will be followed by The Sims 4, Unravel Two, and “other major titles” in the next few months. Apex Legends, FIFA 20, and Battlefield V will arrive next year, and those will support cross-play between Steam and Origin.

All of this is leading up to the Steam launch of EA Access, EA’s premium subscription service. EA touts that this is the “first and only” game subscription service to be available on Valve’s storefront. No release date has been announced yet, but EA Access is slated to launch on Steam sometime next spring, and subscriptions will cost the same as on consoles: $5 a month or $30 a year.

The Steam version of EA Access will give subscribers similar perks as on other platforms. Along with access to the Vault–a library of titles that users can play for free–subscribers will be able to take advantage of exclusive discounts and more. “We anticipate that the core benefits of the subscription service as it exists on Origin or Xbox or PlayStation will be the same as those which you would get on Steam,” EA senior VP Mike Blank told GamesIndustry.biz. “And when I say the core benefits, I’m talking about things like early access, the 10% discount, or that catalog of games that you might see on EA Access today on Xbox or on PlayStation 4.”

The arrival of EA Access on Steam seems to open up the chance that the service could launch on other PC storefronts as well, such as the Epic Games Store. It appears EA has no such plans as of now, but Blank hasn’t dismissed the possibility: “What I’ll say today is we are open to new partnerships. While I don’t have anything to announce today, we are always open to new partnerships that make sense for our players. So we’ll see what the future holds.”

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/star-wars-jedi-fallen-order-more-ea-games-coming-t/1100-6470951/

Target’s buy two, get one free sale sale is back in session, and this time it covers a wide variety of media, including video games, Blu-rays, board games, books, and music. If this sounds familiar, you might have already noticed Amazon is offering the same deal to match Target’s offer. That sale has some solid game deals worth checking out, but Target’s promotion is pretty awesome, too.

The online-only sale runs until Sunday. Simply add three eligible items to your cart, and the lowest-priced item will discount to zero dollars. As such, if you’re buying two $60 video games such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Borderlands 3, it’s smart to add a third game to your cart to get the best deal. It’s advertised as a mix-and-match sale, but it wouldn’t be wise to pick up two expensive items and then get a $10 board game for free.

Along with the aforementioned games, Super Mario Maker 2, NBA 2K20, Madden NFL 20, Gears 5, and many others are part of the promotion. On the movies side of things, Black Panther, The Lion King (2019), Toy Story 4, Spider-Man: Far From Home, and John Wick: Chapter 3 are just a handful of the Blu-rays up for grabs. Classic board games such as Candy Land, Mouse Trap, and Jenga are eligible for the promotion as well.

You can browse all of the products in the buy two, get one free promotion at Target and take a look at our picks below, broken down by category.

See all deals at Target

Video games

On top of the buy two, get one free promotion, a number of the games below are also discounted $10 or more until the end of the day (October 29).

• Borderlands 3 (Xbox One) — $45*
• Borderlands 3 (PS4) — $60
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (PS4, Xbox One) — $60
• Gears 5 (Xbox One) — $47*
• Ghost Recon: Breakpoint (Xbox One) — $50*
• Ghost Recon: Breakpoint (PS4) — $60
• God of War (PS4) — $27.49
• Madden NFL 20 (PS4, Xbox One) — $51*
• NBA 2K20 (PS4, Switch) — $60
• NBA 2K20 (Xbox One) — $53*
• The Outer Worlds (PS4, Xbox One) — $60
• Resident Evil 2 (PS4) — $30
• Resident Evil 2 (Xbox One) — $36
• Super Mario Maker 2 (Switch) — $50*

*discounted until end of day October 29.

See all video game deals at Target

Blu-rays

• Aladdin (live-action) — $23
• Avengers Endgame — $24
• Black Panther — $25
• Godzilla: King of the Monsters — $23.49
• Halloween 2-Movie Collection (1978/2018) — $15
• Hocus Pocus — $10
• John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum — $19.89
• The Lion King (2019) — $25
• Midsommar — $20
• The Nightmare Before Christmas — $10
• Pokemon: Detective Pikachu — $25
• Shazam — $25
• Spider-Man: Far From Home — $25
• Stranger Things Season 1 Collector’s Edition — $5
• Toy Story 4 — $25
• Wonder Woman: Bloodlines (steelbook) — $20

See all movie deals at Target

Board games

• Battleships Shots — $18
• Candy Land — $6
• Cards Against Humanity — $25
• Game Mashups Monopoly Jenga — $20
• Game Mashups Twister Scrabble — $16
• Hungry Hungry Hippos — $9.89
• Monopoly — $12
• Mouse Trap — $10.89
• Operation — $13.49
• Trouble — $7

See all board game deals at Target

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/target-has-buy-2-get-1-free-on-video-games-blu-ray/1100-6470954/

Greedfall has achieved sales beyond what its publisher Focus Home Interactive expected, helping them turn a record profit.

As reported by Gamasutra, Focus Home Interactive has recorded revenue of €37.2 million (about $41.2 million) in its second quarter report for the 2019-2020 financial year, up 135 percent from their revenue in the same quarter last year. €22.5 million of that revenue came from new releases.

The first half of the financial year broke records for the company, as they recorded €79.8 million (about $88.4 million) in revenue for the period, which ended on September 30. 84% of their sales were digital, up from 65% in the first half of the previous financial year, while sales of the company’s back-catalog titles were also up 50%.

During this period Focus Home Interactive has published Greedfall, A Plague Tale: Innocence, The Surge 2 and World War Z, among others. The company will today release Vampyr on Switch.

Greedfall has done well for the company despite a few less-than-glowing reviews, including our own review from Khee Hoon Chan. “Because Greedfall is so cavalier about its colonialist themes,” our reviewer wrote, “and because it plays it safe by sticking so closely to the template of open-world RPGs, it doesn’t really feel revelatory in any way”.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/greedfalls-strong-sales-pushed-focus-interactive-t/1100-6470949/

Microids has released an extended gameplay video of Blacksad: Under the Skin ahead of its release next week.

The game is a spin-off from Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido’s beloved ongoing French comic, and will cast players as the titular John Blacksad. It’s an adventure game, but it will not feature an inventory or a point-and-click interface. Instead, Blacksad: Under the Skin will give you direct control over the character and focus on observation and conversational choices, as well as your success or failure in quick time events.

The trailer below is an extended gameplay sequence, although it’s not clear whether this is from the final version of the game, due to release digitally on November 5 for PC, PS4 and Xbox One–there’s a distinct lack of sound effects throughout the footage.

John Blacksad will be able to use his heightened senses to hunt down clues in the game, which will be integral to forming conclusions and working through the game’s mysteries.

The story is set between the second and third books in the series, and will see John Blacksad investigating the death of a boxing club owner who died under mysterious circumstances. And, yes, the entire cast is made up of anthropomorphic animals.

In his preview of the game earlier this year, Jordan Ramée said that the game will have a heavy focus on morality, and examining the reasoning behind your own choices.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/blacksad-under-the-skin-watch-25-minutes-of-gamepl/1100-6470943/