The PlayStation Network store leaves a lot to be desired in terms of features available on other digital storefronts, but from today, a highly requested feature started rolling out to provide users with more information regarding games available for purchase on PlayStation 5.

As reported by multiple users, a user rating system started rolling out today, allowing users to rate games they purchased and added to their personal library. While the system still isn't perfect, as it lets users rate games even without playing them, it is still a nice addition that goes a long way to improve the PlayStation Network user experience, which hasn't seen much improvement for years.

October is almost upon us, which means PS Plus Essential tier subscribers will have a new short-list of free games to try out, and as usual, some of the games have leaked ahead of time. These leaks come courtesy of Billbil-kun writing on Dealabs, who has a pretty much perfect record when it comes to revealing PS Plus titles. In October players can look forward sci-fi horror game The Callisto Protocol and the oddly-popular Farming Simulator 22. There should also be a third title, but our leaker has not revealed that, and it’s likely The Callisto Protocol is October’s highest-profile PS Plus Essential title.

Star Wars' Ahsoka Tano is now a part of Epic Games' battle royale, Fortnite. She joined Fortnite Chapter 4 Season 4: Last Resort this morning and includes a battle pass, her white Jedi Training Lightsaber weapon, Force abilities, and more. Epic says Ahsoka, her lightsaber, and Force abilities will remain in Fortnite until the v26.30 update.

Sega's Endless Dungeon hits PlayStation, Xbox, and PC next month, and ahead of its release, we spoke with singer-songwriter Lera Lynn, who wrote new original songs that play during the game. Lynn is a musician who has also appeared in things like HBO's True Detective series, where she played an in-universe musician at a dive bar in the show's second season. She has experience working on music for TV, film, and now, thanks to Endless Dungeon, games.

We spoke with Lynn about the processes for creating music for these mediums, differences and similarities, the songs that appear in Endless Dungeon, and more. Enjoy our interview below!

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Lynn: That's an interesting question. When you're in the thick of making it, you're like, "Yeah, this is so good." And then a couple of months go by, you're working on it, and you’re analyzing every single detail, and you reach a point where you're like, "Ahhh, I f***ing hate this." You put it to bed for a while, and you don't listen to it, and then come back maybe six months, or, you know, a year later, in this case, and I'm like, "This is actually pretty cool. I really do like this, I am proud of this work." But that is the cycle for me with all music. I think there's always hindsight. You always can hear areas where you would have done things differently because you're growing and learning and getting better at what you do, hopefully, so that's always in there. But I definitely feel like I'm very proud of this music and really excited for people to hear it.

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YouTube Endless Dungeon - Free again
YouTube Endless Dungeon - The Garden - live

We spoke with Mirage's artistic director about the decision to include this "nostalgic visual filter."

Assassin's Creed Mirage brings players to Baghdad in 861, during its Golden Age when it was the cultural and technological epicenter of the region. The city feels alive with merchants, townsfolk, guards, palaces, and more. It's vibrant, lively, and, well, looks and sounds like a city. It's painted with hues of desert orange and "Arabian Nights" blue skies, something intentional, according to artistic director Jean-Luc Sala.

Having lived in the region, Sala says he and his visual team infused many sights he remembers near the Tigris River to bring Baghdad to life. The result is beautiful, if my two hours of hands-on time is any indication. With Mirage meant to serve as an homage to the first Assassin's Creed that started the series in 2007, Sala and the rest of the team at Ubisoft Bordeaux added an option to make Baghdad look more like the Jerusalem Altair explored.

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"We know how excited our community is [and] we also have a nice surprise for our long-timers," Sala says in the video. "We implemented a nostalgic visual filter as an option for those who wish to explore the game with the desaturated blue-gray color palette from the very first Assassin's Creed game."

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Members of the major SAG-AFTRA acting union have overwhelmingly voted in favour of authorising a potential video game strike.

Ballots were cast by 34,687 members, with 98.32 percent in favour of strike authorisation on the Interactive Media Agreement that covers union members' work on video games.

While this does not guarantee the union will call a strike, the next bargaining session is this week, and this ratchets up the pressure. The leverage of this authorisation could compel movement on either side.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth will task players with catching chocobo in real-time out in the wild.

Of course, catching chocobo is nothing new for the series, but a new social post on X (formerly Twitter) from the game's official account shows how it'll work in Rebirth for the first time, with a video of Cloud catching one of the iconic yellow birds.

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In the original game players encountered chocobo during battles, where they needed to distract them while fighting enemies. With the open world of Rebirth, we now know it'll work a little differently.

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While we wait (and wait) for Ubisoft to show more of Beyond Good & Evil 2, early footage from the project has surfaced from back in 2008.

Yes, 2008. We've really been waiting a while.

This is the version of Beyond Good & Evil we've seen in other clips released or leaked over the years, and which Ubisoft released an early trailer for (showing main character Jade and Uncle Pey'j in a car out in the desert).

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Capcom's president and chief operating officer has said he thinks game prices should go up.

Haruhiro Tsujimoto made the comments at this year's Tokyo Game Show, Nikkei reported. TGS is sponsored by the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association, a Japanese organisation which aims to support the Japanese industry, which Tsujimoto is currently the chairman of.

"Personally, I feel that game prices are too low," Tsujimoto said, citing increasing development costs and a need to increase wages.

El Paso, Elsewhere is beautifully simple. It's a third-person action game in which you fire guns and dive through windows, triggering bullet-time as you whittle down ranks of converging foes. Its levels are labyrinthine, its hunger for carnage is nearly endless. It's a thrilling challenge at the standard difficulty and thoroughly cathartic if you drop down the damage you receive, set the ammo to infinite, and just thrash away in the abyss. All of this, yes, but what's special about El Paso is how it's been dressed up.

It comes in layers. A noir hero in a trenchcoat enters a motel and rides the elevator down to hell, stopping at every level along the way. Twin pistols, blocky outlines, fizzing, flickering shadows: at first it feels like a Stranglehold PS1 demake. The character models have the odd silhouettes and triangle noses of early Tomb Raider, while muzzle-flashes are lovingly ragged and pixelated at the edges. Environments have walls and floor and - most often - no ceiling, revealing a twisting Llamasoft sky, while each stage has the twisty-turny relentlessness of a great Doom level.

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Mobile game Final Fantasy 7: Ever Crisis is being developed for PC and will be available via Steam.

Square Enix made the announcement in a Japanese livestream dedicated to the game.

Data will be shared between the mobile and Steam versions, but no further information has been announced yet. It's currently unclear when the Steam version will be released.

After six years of running Blue Origin, Bob Smith announced in a company-wide email on Monday that he will be "stepping aside" as chief executive of the space company founded by Jeff Bezos.

"It has been my privilege to be part of this great team, and I am confident that Blue Origin's greatest achievements are still ahead of us," Smith wrote in an email. "We've rapidly scaled this company from its prototyping and research roots to a large, prominent space business."

Shortly after Smith's email, a Blue Origin spokesperson said the company's new chief executive will be Dave Limp, who stepped down as Amazon's vice president of devices and services last month.

"Dave is a proven innovator with a customer-first mindset," the spokesperson said. "He has extensive experience in the high-tech industry and growing highly complex organizations, including leading Amazon’s Kuiper, Kindle, Alexa, Zoox, Fire TV, and many other businesses."

Limp will join Blue Origin in December and become chief executive of the company at that time.