In a thread on social media platform X, Poncle elaborated that the legal issue comes from the developer needing to share the information of the partners that it works with in order to enable cross-save. Because of this, chances of the feature ever making it to the PS4 and PS5 “are now very slim.”

“We’re sorry to say won’t be able to bring the Vampire Survivors Cross-Save feature to PlayStation 4/5 alongside our next update,” wrote Poncle on X. “Last month, we told everyone that Cross-Save would be available on PlayStation 4/5, PC, Xbox, Android and iOS alongside our next free [Vampire Survivors] update in April”

“But at last minute, we’ve run into a legal issue on PlayStation we weren’t aware of that requires us to share info on our partners that we’re unable to. The chances of Cross-Save coming to PlayStation consoles are now very slim.”

However, Poncle has said that it’s not completely impossible. Because of this, it is continuing to work with PlayStation to sort these issues out.

“We’re so sorry to build up any anticipation for this feature on PlayStation only to change plans at the last minute,” wrote the developer.

Despite problems faced in bringing cross-save to PS4 and PS5, other versions of the game – PC, Xbox, Android and iOS – will still be getting the feature in an update over the next few weeks. Even the Nintendo Switch version of Vampire Survivors will get the update in a later update. The Apple Arcade version might get cross-save too.

The PS4 and PS5 versions of Vampire Survivors were released back in August 2024. Alongside the base game itself, all of the DLC for the game was also released

The last major DLC released for Vampire Survivors was Ode to Castlevania, where Poncle collaborated with Konami to bring in some Castlevania-related characters, enemies and weapons to the game. The DLC was released back in November. Check out our coverage of the release for more details, including a trailer.

Pretty significantly, at least on Twitch. According to StreamsCharts, Overwatch 2 saw a peak viewership of 64,970 viewers in the last 30 days – a significant drop from the 125,279 peak viewers in November. It’s worth noting that November 24th saw the finals of the Overwatch Championship Series 2024.

Meanwhile, Marvel Rivals saw a peak viewership count of 275,521 in the last 30 days. The gap grows even more when comparing the past seven days, with Rivals at 140,039 peak viewership and Overwatch 2 struggling at 23,260 viewers. Of course, with the former garnering so many players, it’s perhaps unsurprising to so many content creators and streamers jumping ship.

The disparity in viewership may continue since Season 1 of Marvel Rivals arrives this month. It will include the Fantastic Four as new heroes – their first trailer debuts on January 6th.

Shadow of the Erdtree launched on June 21st and immediately soared to “Overwhelmingly Positive” on Steam. In the past 24 hours, Elden Ring’s concurrent player count on Steam was 766,158 – quite impressive, considering its lifetime peak of 953,426. Circana’s Mat Piscatella also confirmed that on June 19th, the game had its highest share of active US players on PS5 since December 2022 and on Xbox Series X/S as of February 2023. One can thus assume exceptional player numbers on console and good times for fans of FromSoftware, Souls-likes and Elden Ring in general.

As you probably guessed by now, something happened.

Players dived into the Realm of Shadow, thoroughly sifting through its secrets, unlocking new weapons, admiring the sights and jokingly chiding director Hidetaka Miyazaki on yet another poison swamp. They fought the initial bosses, died a bunch and kept going back, again and again. However, the Steam user review score suddenly dropped.

It went from “Overwhelmingly Positive” from a few thousand reviews to “Mixed,” with 63 percent of 28,719 reviews positive as of this time of writing. Some reviews pointed out issues with performance, like frame rate drops or micro-stutters. These issues are reportedly affecting the base game as well, though – once again – your mileage will vary. While we saw performance issues when reviewing the PC version in 4K, lower resolutions were fine.

However, those are only part of the complaints. Many others have also been verbal about its difficulty. It’s not isolated to Steam either, as several Reddit threads have cropped up over the past few days complaining about the same. But why? It’s probably easier to list the reasons why they aren’t.

You have a mounted boss whose hitboxes are considered too unforgiving, another mounted boss that starts unleashing bullet hell-style attacks, an Ancient Dragon with absurd damage, that other somehow worse dragon, and, of course, the final boss. Bosses with too much health, bosses that deal too much damage, bosses with high poise that are impossible to stagger, bosses that fly high, bosses that make you cry – it’s a warzone out here.

Naturally, there were the counter-threads, mocking players with “Well, what did you expect?” Others provided tips on how to deal with the difficulty and whatnot. However, it feels like an extension of boss habits that some players disliked in the base game, namely long combos with multiple hits to dodge and brief windows for attacks. Throw in area-of-effect abilities and spells, status damage, little time to recover, incredible speed, etc., if that wasn’t enough already.

There’s also the opinion that the Scadutree Fragments, which grant additional levels of damage resistance and output, aren’t enough to withstand many bosses. Pair that with complaints of camera and visibility issues for some fights (you probably know which ones), and it feels like the deck is stacked against players.

As many have already pointed out, this is nothing new for FromSoftware. Dark Souls was already difficult until Artorias of the Abyss arrived and raised the bar. The most challenging bosses in Dark Souls 2, from Sir Alonne to the Fume Knight, are in the Crown of the Old Iron King DLC. Dark Souls 3’s most challenging DLC foe was Sister Friede…until The Ringed City and Darkeater Midir. Then you have Bloodborne and The Old Hunters, which introduced the Orphan of Kos.

Such is the view with Shadow of the Erdtree, where the concern is amplified further due to the sheer size of the expansion. However, in many ways, the approach to bosses reminds me somewhat of certain raids on Contest Mode in Destiny 2. Some of the most challenging didn’t just demand your best weapons and builds – they also required excellence in execution. Raids like The Last Wish and Salvation’s Edge demand that everyone on your team plays perfectly – a single death can be a huge setback. That also applies to solo dungeons, where the bosses not only have immense health pools but conditions to fulfill for short damage windows.

Do you need to play the raids on Contest Mode, where everything deals more damage and takes less? Not any more than you need two or three-man them when it’s not active. The same goes for the dungeons, but there’s another aspect: Knowledge. The best tools and damage set-ups are only one part of the equation – knowing the fights well enough to employ them, never mind getting to the damage phase, is more vital.

The same can be said for Fatalis in Monster Hunter World: Iceborne. You could have the best build, but if you don’t know the fight and the best opportunities for inflicting the most damage – because it has a 30-minute time limit, compared to the usual 50 for most hunts – then forget about beating it.

Shadow of the Erdtree is very challenging – there’s no doubting that. It may contain the most difficult bosses that FromSoftware has created. There’s inevitably a learning curve for even the most experienced players, just like the base game, whether it’s how to dodge specific attacks or the best weapons and builds for each fight. If winning means using everything at your disposal – Summons, Incantations, NPCs, Bleed, Frostbite, Scarlet Rot, dual-wielding Greathammers, consumables for damage reduction, the Black Knife dagger – so be it.

You can go without them – I’ve seen one player defeat a certain Ancient Dragon capable of one-to-two-shooting them without any Summons or Scadutree Blessings. On the other hand, I’ve seen another defeat one of the most challenging bosses in the expansion with a Mimic Tear, Moonlight Greatsword magic, and an immortal NPC summon. That doesn’t mean they didn’t struggle, but they got the job done.

There’s certainly an argument about aspects of certain bosses that could use fine-tuning, whether it’s hitboxes or camera angles. FromSoftware may opt to tone down certain things without overly impacting the fight. However, it’s okay if the expansion’s difficulty isn’t everyone’s cup of tea at the moment. Some players have enjoyed the experience immensely, from the art direction and gorgeous environments to the killer themes and new weapons, while also feeling down on one or two bosses. It’s possible to have it both ways.

While it’s certainly a balancing act for FromSoftware, it’s worth noting Miyazaki’s views on difficulty. As he recently told The Guardian about the base game, “If we wanted the whole world to play the game, we could just crank the difficulty down more and more. But that wasn’t the right approach.

“Had we taken that approach, I don’t think the game would have done what it did, because the sense of achievement players gain from overcoming these hurdles is such a fundamental part of the experience. Turning down difficulty would strip the game of that joy – which, in my eyes, would break the game itself.”

Whether you agree with that sentiment or not for the expansion – be it the entire experience or only parts – ultimately depends on you and your approach to its combat. However, one thing is certain: Shadow of the Erdtree celebrates everything Elden Ring offers, from its scale and depth of secrets to its environmental design and bosses. The sense of satisfaction and achievement from conquering its challenges is one that few games can replicate, regardless of how many deaths it takes to get there.

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.

Look, it’s no secret I have been extremely down on Xbox for a while now. I appreciate the hardware and services, and even a lot of the ecosystem initiatives, but with great new games for the platform slowing down to a crawl outside of third party multi platforms, it’s been hard to stay engaged or positive with Xbox for me. But this show really changed a lot.

The core thing here is that this was just a great show overall. The pacing was excellent, with it mostly being a bunch of trailers thrown together in seemingly random order, meaning there were no interruptions, very few interjections meant to segue into the next part of the show, none of that (well, with the exception of the Starfield portion, but we’ll get to that later). It was just, trailer after trailer after trailer. And while some of the trailers did disappoint me a little (I am a huge Fable fan, but them not showing any gameplay for it really bummed me out), on the whole, everything was at least very intriguing, and at best flat out fantastic.

Clockwork Revolution is inXile’s new project, and that looks fantastic, with a great steampunk setting and a doubling down on the concentrated dose of RPG mechanics that fans love about their games, but now backed with a seemingly substantial budget (leading to a bump in production values); we got another look at Hellblade 2, and the visuals of the game (confirmed to be running in real time on a Series X) really further sell the title’s “next gen visuals” pitch; Massive’s Star Wars game was revealed, and it looks great as well (I am really looking forward to the gameplay reveal on Ubisoft’s show); Dontnod’s next project, Jusant, looks incredibly great, with some extremely meditative gameplay paired with their penchant for fantastic but relatable storytelling; RGG Studio gave us the first real look at Like A Dragon 8 (now titled Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth), which seems to be doubling down on the shenanigans that new protagonist Ichiban gets into; Capcom announced a brand new IP, which looks like Onimusha but isn’t Onimusha; indie games came through with new games announced from the developers of The Banner Saga (which  looked great); we got another look at Forza, we got a great new Sea of Thieves expansion that crosses over with Monkey island, Compulsion announced South of Midnight, Starfield got its most intriguing trailer yet ahead of the dedicated segment at the end of the show, and they even announced a new Xbox Series S model with more storage and a new all-black color.

It was, truly, a great show. Amazing pacing, great games, almost all of which showed very well, little to no padding, and a very healthy mix and diversity of games – multiple genres across the board, loads of great third party games, loads of excellent first party games (most of which had convincing showings with gameplay, and at least a release window attached, meaning they were by definition more substantive than Xbox first party announcements in the past such as Everwild or Perfect Dark, which feel premature and don’t materialize for years), updates for existing games, new showings for previously announced upcoming games, completely new announcements, big budget games, indie games, western games, new IP, sequels, this show truly and across the board had it all. It was one of the best shows in years, and is exactly what Xbox needed at the moment to start to turn the conversation around the brand around. I am so overall impressed with this show, I very honestly have little to nothing to complain about.

And that brings us to Starfield.

Starfield got its own dedicated segment towards the end of the show, the better part of an hour long (almost as long as the rest of the Xbox show by itself). It was intended to give us a very deep dive look at the game, so that players could finally understand how the game, which has not so far had the most convincing showings, would be coming together.

And it… looks…

It looks amazing. Everything about it looks fantastic and doubling down on all the best qualities of Bethesda’s best games. The staggering attention to detail in object modelling and backstory and lore, to maximize the immersion in the world; the doubling down on RPG mechanics, after Fallout 4 misguidedly started to dilute them a little too much. These RPG mechanics in turn seem to facilitate player authored and emergent gameplay, with not only a vast variety of builds supported (my test for the depth of RPG mechanics in any WRPG is – is a pure speech/pacifist build possible? And from the looks of things, it looks like it very much will be in Starfield), but also new mechanics such as traits and origin stories to further add more variety to the mix. The worlds seem stunning and imaginative (if still a little more grounded than I ideally would have liked), the exploration and discovery seems to be on par with Bethesda’s best efforts, and the overall emphasis and possibility for emergent gameplay and dynamic discovery seems like it will all be there. Tears of the Kingdom has staked its claim to the Game of the Year throne early this year, but Starfield looks like it will pose a credible threat to that claim – which is incredibly high praise.

Honestly, I don’t have anything bad to say. It all looked great. It was a great show across the board on every front, and starting with 2024 (it looks like Starfield and Forza will be our only first party Xbox games for the remainder of the year), it looks like Xbox will be looking at a good cadence of great first party games, which is exactly what it needed all along. The third party announcements were amazing, and Starfield itself looks like a true GOTY contender.

I’m on board. Xbox did great. Welcome back.

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.

Inscryption starts with a person trapped inside a decrepit cabin. They must play a tabletop rogue-like card game against Leshy, where losing means a fate worse than death. Players eventually discover talking cards like the Stoat, which provide hints on how to escape, which involves solving escape room-style puzzles.

Of course, there’s much more to the story behind the card game aspect, so it’s worth checking out. Though the Xbox Store listing doesn’t indicate whether 4K resolution is supported on Xbox Series X/S, Inscryption is “optimized” for the consoles. Expect fast loading times (which helps after each “death”), if nothing else.

The inscrutable Inscryption from @DMullinsGames is now available on @Xbox!

Watch out for the stoat. pic.twitter.com/YpgW3Sn8aR

— Devolver Digital (@devolverdigital) April 10, 2023

The Legendary skin is included in a bundle costing 2100 Overwatch Coins, which also features the Terribly Impressive victory pose and Terrible Tornado name card. Speaking to Xbox Wire, art director Dion Rogers also explained how One-Punch Man is crossing over with Overwatch 2. Long story short, everyone is cosplaying.

“That’s our approach; that our heroes are basically aware of the anime and are fans too. And they’re cosplaying as the heroes. So when you see Doomfist wearing the Saitama outfit, he’s a fan too.” With heroes running around with Halloween, Christmas, and other assorted outfits, cosplaying is perhaps the most rational explanation yet.

Overwatch 2 x One-Punch Man is available from March 7th to April 6th. Stay tuned for more details, including a potential mid-season balance patch that should adjust various heroes.

Further details, like the release date, platforms or official name, remain a mystery. There could be more at EVO 2023 from August 4th to 6th, especially since Dragon Ball FighterZ is part of the official line-up. As such, Super Saiyan Blue’s inclusion could mean adapting storylines from Dragon Ball Super.

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi debuted in 2005 for the PlayStation 2 and featured a roster of 64 fighters. Unlike Dragon Ball FighterZ, the perspective is from behind the characters, lending a 3D arena feel to battles. Subsequent titles also adapted storylines from the manga and anime.

With 2007’s Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 as the last mainline title in the series, it should be interesting to see how the new title evolves the formula. Stay tuned for more details in the coming months.

Along with including a Legendary campaign like The Witch Queen, Lightfall is handled by the same campaign lead. Of course, it also didn’t hurt that Season of the Seraph, which directly led into Lightfall, was well-received with strong writing for characters like Rasputin, Ana Bray, Osiris and many more. It ended on a cliffhanger that The Witness, the long-standing enemy of the Traveller, had finally arrived in the Guardians’ Solar System with the Black Fleet, and there was nowhere left to run.

If all of that wasn’t enough, Lightfall was the penultimate expansion in the Light and Darkness saga, with the next one, The Final Shape, promising the conclusion. Suffice it to say, expectations were huge, and the hype was palpable.

When Lightfall was released, Destiny 2 broke its all-time peak concurrent player record on Steam with over 316,000 players. Such was the rush that players were initially placed in a queue due to the heavy load on servers. It doesn’t get any bigger than this.

Cut to two days later, and Lightfall’s Steam page has gone from Positive to Mostly Negative – out of 2597 user reviews, only 29 percent are positive. Even the Destiny subreddit, which has over 2.738 million members, is full of overwhelming criticism against the expansion.

What exactly happened, and where did things go wrong for Bungie? Why did one of the most anticipated releases suddenly result in an overwhelming backlash by its most loyal fanbase, like its Year 1 all over again?

We won’t go into story spoilers, but surprisingly, the campaign has been heavily criticized. It started well enough, but traveling to Neomuna, the new destination on Neptune, and meeting the Cloud Striders caused the cracks to appear. Rallying to the latter’s cause to stop Calus and his Shadow Legion, many found Nimbus to be insufferable as a character. Many of his lines were dubbed “Marvel-esque humor” of the worst kind, and the treatment of characters like Osiris wasn’t well-received either.

Granted, Year 1 had characters like Cayde-6 and Failsafe that were too over-the-top for many people’s tastes. But Destiny 2 had moved away from that through the years, telling a darker story with plot points more fitting in tone with the inevitable arrival of The Witness and the potential end of everything. To see it suddenly return, that too when Neomuna is under siege, felt off-putting for many.

Aside from the characters, the overall story is considered much lower-grade than Lightfall, with many unresolved questions. I went into it expecting this to kickstart the next year of Destiny 2 story-telling, but when there’s such a long-running narrative already, this felt like the time to answer some major questions. The Witch Queen did this while building interest for the future, but Lightfall didn’t.

Even in terms of gameplay, the reactions are less than ideal. For a looter shooter, there isn’t much new loot to chase. Neomuna gives a few weapons (with perks that aren’t exactly amazing) and a new armor set per class, but you’re mostly getting the same weapons and gear as the previous year of content as random drops.

The armor system received a huge revamp with Lightfall, with armor pieces no longer having energy types. You could thus slot in whatever mods there was space for. While meant to be more freeing, certain mods were still restricted to some gear types, so you couldn’t just have Ashes to Assets or Grenade Kickstart wherever you pleased. The new Armor Charge system, which rolled Elemental Wells and Charged With Light mods into one system, has streamlined things.

However, many beloved mods like Powerful Friends and its +20 mobility, Seeking Wells, and so on were removed, limiting build choices further. Stasis builds are reportedly gutted, reducing players’ desires to mess with the same. At least the new Loadouts are convenient.

This is the expansion for using new stuff, though, and Strand looked incredibly cool throughout the marketing for Lightfall, especially the new Grapple mechanic. The reality is slightly less appealing, though. While you had great freedom in grappling throughout the campaign, the cooldowns are pretty high once you unlock the subclass. Grappling also isn’t very well suited for high-end content compared to, say, blinding from Jolt effects, instant health regen from Devour, etc. Bungie was also criticized for time-gating Strand Fragments, so it quickly unlocked them for all players recently.

There are many more complaints to go through, like the two updated Strikes becoming longer and more annoying or the new Guardian Ranks system, which automatically places everyone, regardless of playtime, at Rank 6. Only one new Crucible map, one new Strike, and no new core armor for vendors. Despite looking gorgeous, Neomuna is fairly lifeless, and you’re not exactly zipping across skylines, as suggested in many trailers leading up to Lightfall’s release.

Perhaps the biggest complaint among fans is the quality of story-telling heading into The Final Shape. Fans expected more in this ultimate battle against The Witness and The Darkness. Seeing how things have progressed makes them worried about whether Bungie can deliver on the epic conclusion of the saga.

Make no mistake – there is a lot that Bungie has yet to reveal as part of Lightfall. The upcoming raid, The Root of Nightmares, could result in massive changes for Neomuna and new activities for players to complete, not to mention new non-raid loot. Season of Defiance has also been getting praise for its story and activities, and there’s still a full year of seasonal content to go. The narrative still has plenty of room to improve, but starting it on such a sour note has rubbed many the wrong way.

You could argue that for as many fans complain about Destiny 2, they’re still pouring hours upon hours into the game. There’s always a fine balance to it all, and if Bungie can implement feedback in the right way, which it does more often than not (as seen with the seasonal model getting some changes in Season of the Deep), it should result in a stronger game.

The jury is still out on The Final Shape, especially since it’s not the conclusion of Destiny 2. However, the response from fans is clear: Bungie has to go all out. It can’t continue holding its biggest narrative cards to keep things chugging along.

Will it finally lay everything out in grand fashion and bedazzle fans? Hopefully, it will, because right now, it just doesn’t have time to explain why it doesn’t have time to explain, and that is the very worst of Destiny’s story-telling.

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.

The standout is Trinity Ghoul, an Energy bow which fires chain lightning arrows on precision kills. Getting the Catalyst allows the chain lightning to proc after any Arc kill, including abilities, thus making it very strong for a mere 29 Legendary Shards. Other Exotic gear includes Synthoceps (Titan gloves), Claws of Ahamkara (Warlock gloves) and Knucklehead Radar (Hunter helm), each for 23 Legendary Shards.

New random rolls are available for Hawkmoon and Dead Man’s Tale, with the former having Corkscrew Rifling, Snapshot Sights and Polymer Grip. The latter has Full Bore, Light Mag, Snapshot Sights and Composite Stock. The Legendary armor of the week is the Simulator set from Season 4, with each piece costing 50 Legendary Shards and 1000 Glimmer.

Check out the latest Legendary weapons available now:

• First In, Last Out – Energy Shotgun
• Interference VI – Heavy Grenade Launcher
• Disparity – Kinetic Pulse Rifle
• Lonesome – Kinetic Sidearm
• Iota Draconis – Energy Fusion Rifle
• Extraordinary Rendition – Kinetic Submachine Gun
• IKELOS_HC_v1.0.3 – Energy Hand Cannon

However, with Season of Defiance also beginning, it said, “This is just the beginning of the next year of storytelling that will connect the events of Lightfall and The Final Shape.” The developer said it “can’t wait” for players to learn more about the origins and objective of The Witness, along with “the ways we can thwart it and its disciples” in Season of the Deep, Season 22 and Season 23.

The response to this has also been negative – a highly upvoted post (which contains spoilers) on the Destiny subreddit criticized the developer for asking players to learn more in the upcoming seasons after dropping a major expansion.

As such, the next step in the story should be after the Root of Nightmares raid, which goes live on March 10th. The World’s First race returns, though the Contest modifier will be live for 48 hours. Stay tuned for more details when it goes live later this week.