When the Crash Team Rumble beta goes live roughly three weeks from now, it will allow players to compete in both public lobbies and private matches with friends. Meanwhile, players will also be able to play matches against bots to hone their skills, while bots will also be used as replacements for players who drop out in online matches.

“In the Closed Beta, running April 20-24 players can compete against other players in public lobbies or duke it out with friends in private matches,” the developer wrote. “Need some practice? Players can perfect their skills against bots before heading into the arena. Player drops out of a match?  Don’t worry – the bots have their back there, too! The empty slot on a team will be back-filled with a bot to ensure their team still has a shot at sweet victory. Worried about getting stomped by strong players? We’ve kept that in mind too; new players will be matched with other new players to avoid being matched with veteran Rumblers –  letting new players learn the ins and outs of the game at their own pace (even if they jump in near the end of the Closed Beta).”

Toys for Bob has also offered some brief insight into what it’s looking for from the beta, with its primary purpose being to test things such as hero balance, cross-platform matchmaking and progression, and more.

“Throughout the Closed Beta, we’ll be testing hero balance, cross-progression, and cross-platform matchmaking to prepare for the big launch in June,” the developer wrote. “While progress won’t carry over from Closed Beta into launch, the early feedback we’ll receive from the Closed Beta participants will be instrumental in creating a more polished experience for all players on June 20th.”

Toys for Bob has also confirmed that Crash Team Rumble’s Battle Pass will be tied exclusively to cosmetic items, with all heroes and powers being unlocked only through gameplay. Read more on that through here.

Crash Team Rumble is due out on June 20 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

Front and center in this trailer, as you’d expect, is Crime Boss: Rockay City’s star-studded cast, with characters played by big name actors like Michael Madsen, Kim Basinger, and Michael Rooker taking the spotlight. Meanwhile, more of its gameplay is also shown, including its co-op combat and heist action. The trailer also offers glimpses of how the game will be structured and how its missions will contribute to your growing criminal empire. Check it out below.

Crime Boss: Rockay City launches on March 28 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

Starring protagonist Travis Baker – who is played by Michael Madsen – and Hielo – who is played by Vanilla Ice – the trailer shows Baker heading into a compound owned and operated by Hielo’s thugs in order to take back his stolen narcotics. The trailer briefly showcases the mission, offering glimpses at stealth, combat, co-op action, and more. For fans of heist games, this definitely looks like it’s worth keeping an eye on. Check it out below.

Crime Boss: Rockay City launches on March 28 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

How the now sub-tropical climbs of Southern California came to be volcanic in nature isn’t clear, although with the real-life San Andreas fault slicing its way through California itself, it isn’t a stretch to imagine a colossal earthquake has caused major seismic changes to the landscape – either via natural causes or maybe by GAIA terraforming the landscape – with lava now spewing out of cracked Earth. LA’s topographical changes are interesting too; the landscape of Burning Shores is much more undulating compared to modern day Los Angeles, with sea water submerging most of the former metropolis, creating a network of islands which Guerrilla Games are reporting as fully explorable by water as they are by air.

According to Guerrilla Games’ press release, Aloy travels to this untamed wildland south of the Tenakth Clan Lands in hot pursuit of a sinister new threat. The DLC’s story picks up where Horizon Forbidden West leaves off, with new machines, characters, and weaponry certainly set to feature in this dangerous new territory. The reveal trailer, and indeed Guerrilla’s press release, are both quite short, but there’s enough shown to gleam some insight into Burning Shores’ possible narrative directions without resorting to pure guesswork.

This is especially true when considered in tandem with a couple of key data points discoverable in Horizon Forbidden West, the principal of which is a glyph Aloy scans during the A Dam Shame side quest. It’s a note left by Oseram delver Gildun whom Aloy first encounters in Horizon Zero Dawn expansion The Frozen Wilds, with him in need of rescue after accidentally diverting the flow of water at Greycatch dam and flooding Deep Din with him inside. These exploits are referenced in the glyph left behind at the site of the old Hoover Dam alongside him describing his intent to head south to a place known as the Burning Shores. Will Gildun make an appearance in Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores? It seems likely, although with him neglecting to raid the Hoover Dam’s innards for loot over safety concerns perhaps Aloy will encounter a Gildun more in tune with the risks of raiding crumbling structures as opposed to the bumbling adventurer in need of help in The Frozen Wilds.

Another character speculatively returning is Brin, the wandering Banuk shaman. When first encountered by Aloy in Horizon Zero Dawn, Brin talks about incoming storms, death, and destruction, predictions we can ascribe to the events in Forbidden West and the revelation at the game’s end that malevolent AI NEMESIS is currently hurtling through space towards Earth on a mission to eradicate humanity. Like Gildun, Brin’s mention in Forbidden West is via scanned glyphs, this time left for Aloy to discover by a party of travelling Oseram. They’d witnessed Brin drinking machine fluid before exclaiming he’ll be heading to “the place of fire and brine” – this place, of fire and brine, is surely his description of the Burning Shores. Plus, Brin talks of meeting Aloy again in the Forbidden West during their conversations in Zero Dawn.

Should Gildun and Brin reappear in the Burning Shores, it’s tough to say at this stage how heavy their involvement will be in the DLC’s narrative. The impending threat of NEMESIS approaching Earth means Aloy and her allies are now tasked with figuring out a way to stop the AI before it causes widespread death and destruction to humanity. Let’s not forget NEMESIS has been responsible for every major story beat in both mainline Horizon games – it triggered HADES with the extinction signal which set the wheels in motion for Zero Dawn and destroyed the Far Zenith colony in Sirius causing them to flee back to Earth to recover GAIA to then colonise a new planet in Forbidden West. The event of NEMESIS returning to Earth, and the ensuing battle, might just be too big a story to be told in DLC. It’s possible then that Brin might hold a clue to figuring out the colossal task of stopping the destructive AI, with the actual act of battling NEMESIS reserved for a third mainline Horizon game. These clues, and indeed the knowledge to destroy NEMESIS may just lie somewhere in the Burning Shores.

That’s not to say Burning Shores will be bereft of battles. No, it’s almost a complete certainty that Aloy will finally have to take on a behemothic Metal Devil. These Horus Titans are dotted across Earth, laying in place for centuries after Project Zero Dawn was initiated and they were forcibly deactivated mid-flight. Reclaimed by the landscape just like LA’s iconic landmarks, the serviceability of the Horus Titans is largely unknown. The one in which HADES sought refuge still has a functioning computer core, whilst Aloy managing to source power from the cell of another fallen Metal Devil indicates there’s still life inside of their skeletal shells. Given their instrumentality in the destruction of Earth’s bio life during the Faro Plague, the reactivation of a Horus Titan could spell doom for the technologically primitive humans who’ve since repopulated Earth. Unfortunately for Aloy, the Horus Titan lying dormant behind the Hollywood Sign reactivates in the DLC’s trailer, no doubt confirming it’ll be a major distraction for Aloy and her allies as they seek to prepare for NEMESIS’ arrival.

Also, in the trailer we see Aloy is donning a Quen outfit, indicating it’ll most certainly be featured as new gear which Aloy can upgrade. With de facto Quen commander Bohai heading back West across the Pacific Ocean to petition his emperor for assistance in defeating NEMESIS at the end of Forbidden West, it’s entirely plausible Alva and the few remaining Quen will abandon Legacy’s Landfall in the Isle of Spires and instead accompany Aloy on her journey southwards to the Burning Shores, lending their assistance in solving the enigma on how to defeat NEMESIS whilst battling the awakened Horus Titan. Of course, a unification of tribes hellbent on defending Earth from NEMESIS was a key takeaway from the end of Forbidden West, so the Quen being heavily involved in Aloy’s trek through the Burning Shores isn’t too much of a stretch.

Most controversially though, Guerrilla Games have opted to develop and subsequently release the Burning Shores DLC exclusively for PS5. Of course, this decision is likely Sony’s as they look to move their first-party studios away from developing for the almost decade old PlayStation 4, but it does indicate Burning Shores will be an ambitious expansion, with the fight between Aloy and the massive Horus Titan machine likely too much of a challenge to portray as strongly as the developers would want if it were created for both PS4 and PS5.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Other interesting figures include over 11.5 million views of the livestream on Twitter and a 28 percent increase in conversation volume year-on-year. The number of unique authors is up by 33 percent, while #TheGameAwards saw a 31 percent increase in usage. Of course, the show also trended #1 worldwide and was included in the top 5 worldwide trends.

Steam numbers were also good, thanks in no small part to the Steam Deck giveaway. Over 9.5 million unique users view the stream on the platform, with a peak concurrent audience of over 850,000. While next year’s show hasn’t been confirmed yet, Keighley announced that the Summer Game Fest would return on June 8th, 2023. Stay tuned for all the news and world premieres by then.

This year #TheGameAwards hit a new viewership milestone: 103 million livestreams.

Thank you for making this the most-watched Game Awards in history.

See you in 2023! pic.twitter.com/bOyvbTtv7H

— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) December 16, 2022

The Steam Deck giveaway was definitely a big hit!

On Steam, over 9.5 million unique customers viewed The Game Awards livestream, with a peak audience of over 850K concurrent users.

— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) December 16, 2022

Thanks to a mysterious lamp, you can cross over to the world of the dead, discover new treasures and even manipulate an enemy’s soul. Be careful, though – upon dying, you must rush through the afterlife as nightmarish creatures pursue you to return to life.

Along with a map five times larger than the original, The Lords of the Fallen features nine character classes – including Knight, Rogue and Fire Apprentice – and hundreds of weapons to discover. Solo play and co-op are available for the campaign, and you’ll encounter various NPCs with agendas.

The Lords of the Fallen is coming to PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC in 2023.

Slated for release in Fall 2023, Behemoth will be coming to PC VR headsets, PlayStation VR2, and Meta Quest 2. The game will be a single-player experience with an emphasis on its story.

One of Behemoth‘s core features will be its physics engine. According to the studio, the game will allow players to make use of the game’s physics engine for gameplay, with tools like the grappling hook. Players can even use the grappling hook to tear their enemies apart.

Behemoth will feature brutal melee combat, and the studio has stated that smaller aspects like weak points, armour and technique will all matter.

Skydance Interactive is known for its work on The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, which was critically acclaimed when it was released on VR.

The new trailer focuses on the theme of revenge, which is clearly going to be central to the story of protagonist Clive Rosfield. Along with glimpses at how much darker and gritter the story is going to be than what fans of the franchise might be used to, the trailer also showcases healthy amounts of gameplay, showing off combat, summons (or Eikons, as they’re known in this game), and a number of different locations that players will be visiting. Check it out below.

Final Fantasy 16’s release date has also been announced. The game is due out for the PS5 on June 22, 2023, which was recently leaked. It will be exclusive to the console for at least six months after release. Meanwhile, true to recent leaks, pre-orders for the game have also gone live.

Square Enix has said it intends to release a demo of the game shortly before release, but there’s been no concrete announcement made regarding that just yet.

Very little was officially revealed, but it’s coming from the “legendary minds” at FromSoftware, which probably means Hidetaka Miyazaki is at the helm. According to the survey, the story centres on a substance called Melange, which caused a “cosmic catastrophe” on the planet Bashtar and other star systems. Various factions compete for Melange, as it seemingly resurfaces.

It’s reportedly a third-person shooter with melee combat and “an overwhelming sense of scale that only mecha can provide.” There’s reportedly much more customization and a larger map to explore.

The last title in the series was Armored Core: Verdict Day, launched in 2013 for PS3 and Xbox 360. It received average critical acclaim, so time will tell if Armored Core 6 is a marked improvement.

Stay tuned for more details on the sequel, and some gameplay, in the coming months. In the meantime, check out FromSoftware’s other big game Elden Ring, which is available for consoles and PC.

Interestingly, the trailer also confirms that with Phantom Liberty, Cyberpunk 2077 will be further expanding its star-studded cast, with Idris Elba portraying Solomon Reed, an FIA Agent for the New United States of America. “Team up and take on an impossible mission of espionage & survival,” CD Projekt RED writes in the teaser’s description. Check it out below.

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty is due out sometime in 2023 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Following the expansion’s launch, CDPR will also release a Game of the Year Edition for the open world action RPG.