Donato Greenholt

Although Path Of Exile 2 Early Access attracted a large number of players with its grand scale at the beginning of its release, the redistribution of currency during the game and the boring ending were criticized and complained, causing the game to lose a large number of players, and most players chose the original Path Of Exile again.

The Number Of Original Players Surged

In January, the number of players of POE 2 at its peak was as high as 350,000, while the number of players of the original POE was only more than 13,000, which was a far cry from the original. However, at the time of writing this article, the number of players of the two was only more than 9,000, which means that in the past time, the number of players of POE 1 has continued to surge, while the number of players of POE 2 has continued to decline.

The Reason Why Path Of Exile 2 Lost A Large Number Of Players

The reason why POE 2 lost a large number of players includes not only the dissatisfaction of players, but more importantly, the original POE held a new event-Legacy of Phrecia event, which greatly attracted the speculation and attention of players.

The reason for this event is that the developers want to relieve the original game players from having nothing to do while waiting for the POE 1 update.

In this event, when players reach a certain level, they will be rewarded with different items according to the player level, especially players above level 80 can get all four items of the armor set. Moreover, this event adds a lot of new content around idols, such as allowing players to combine idols, get idols through gambling, and earn POE 2 Divine Orbs by selling these idols, etc. These add a lot of fun to the players and better retain many players.

In addition, the event will also introduce 19 new Ascendancies, and the previous Ascendancy class will be replaced. So players can quickly upgrade by learning new skills and strategies during the game and investing in your equipment. Both new and old players need to quickly adapt to these mechanisms to get a better gaming experience, but this event is short-lived and extremely stimulating, so players are more inclined to invest in the original POE.

Chris Wilson Was Not Involved In Development And Creation Of POE 2

In addition, recent rumors about the departure of key members of the original POE development team may have also laid the fuse for the sharp decline in the number of online players in POE 2 and the emergence of a large number of bugs.

Even though Chris Wilson is a member of Grinding Gear Games and participated in the development of the original game, he did not participate in the production of POE 2, but still focused on the original POE. This led to Chris Wilson making timely statements when relevant problems occurred in the original POE to appease the players' psychology, which accumulated a large number of players for the original POE.

At present, we have no idea whether the number of players in Path Of Exile 2 will continue to decline, but if POE 2 is to be released before May, relevant measures need to be taken immediately to retain the number of players.

As a game developer, you should always pay attention to all aspects of the game. When the number of players decreases and players complain collectively, you need to find reasons from multiple aspects to improve the player experience.

If you're a big fan of Argentine team and a long-time player of EA Sports FC, then Diego Maradona's return is undoubtedly a surprise to you. After a period of speculation and a long legal battle, EA officially confirms Diego Maradona's return to the world of FC 25 on February 14, 2025.

Legend Of The King

Known as a grassroots superstar who rose from his hometown club to the world's biggest stage, Argentine was known as El Pibe de Oro ('The Golden Boy') throughout his career. For a football star, it can be said that receiving such a title can be said to be a high praise.

A lifetime of football achievements, including a World Cup title, multiple A-League titles, a world record transfer fee and a landmark goal and five-man dribbling goal in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, the football genius passed away in 2020 at the age of 60.

His popularity and legend continue to this day. Maradona has made headlines with his amazing goals, numerous trophies and unparalleled talent. This return is the first time that Maradon has fully reproduced his classic image and extraordinary skills in his prime through a digital image since he was removed from FIFA 22 due to a dispute over image rights in 2022. At the same time, he will be the protagonist of Grassroot Greats promotional film launched at the same time.

Impact Of The Return

Maradona's return is a victory for the EA Sports FC series. It may bring a certain amount of attention and topic discussion to the poorly sold FC 25 and improve the company's image in a short period of time. At present, EA's plan to repurchase $1 billion in shares shows confidence, but the fierce competition in the football game field is not optimistic.

At the same time, according to official disclosures, in order to pay tribute to Maradona's charm on the court, the FC 25 development team has devoted a lot of details. Players can look forward to the experience of controlling Napoli's first championship in 1987.

EA Sports FC is known for letting players play as their favorite players, so Maradona’s return is a welcome surprise for fans around the world, who can use FUT 25 Coins to get Maradona items and witness the legend’s highlights over the years.

Maradona’s return became a reality on Valentine’s Day, and for EA SPORTS FC Mobile players, Maradona is available in-game on February 20. To add this grassroots superstar to your team, players need to log in to Football Ultimate Team between February 14 and March 14, however, Maradona’s grassroots idol avatar card is not tradable using FC 25 Coins. All players who log in to Football Ultimate Team before March 14 will also receive Diego’s Fantasy Evolution.

We look forward to seeing you create your own legend with Maradona in EA Sports FC 25.

As you explore Baldur’s Gate 3, you’ll inevitably encounter Orin the Red, one of the most formidable foes in the game, even more difficult to defeat than Netherbrain in Honour Mode. This is because of its combination of unstoppable stacks, powerful boons, and abilities like Power Word: Kill and Bhaal’s Edict, which makes her difficult to defeat unless you’re in the strongest possible party.

But now, there’s an easier way to defeat Orin the Red without having to see her terrifying Slayer form, by disguising yourself as Orin’s clone and then killing her. If you face this encounter, follow this guide to defeat this powerful enemy and claim the final loot.

Steps

First, you’ll need to defeat Orin in Rivington by casting a high-damage ability on her while she’s disguised as Lens the Journalist and using non-lethal attacks. Make sure you hit it for a few hundred times, so that you don’t trigger the dialogue with Orin. Then Orin’s undisguised form will appear, and after the previous operation, even if you hit this enemy’s health to 1, it will not trigger the dialogue response.

Afterwards, Orin will appear in the party camp disguised as an orphan named Yenna, but this also requires some triggering conditions: first, the entire camp is infiltrated by Orin, and Lae’zel, Halsin, Minthara and Gale are all away from the camp. This mechanism theoretically works for all replaced characters, but you need to lock the target in advance, otherwise you may accidentally hurt your teammates.

When you use an Illithid Power called Ability Drain, the character replaced by Orin will appear with a red mist effect, which can be used to identify the disguised person. If you want to kill this disguised Orin with one blow, you may need to set up some explosives or use some very powerful attacks, which will at least ensure that you deal with many damage to it.

Once you defeat the pretender, you will receive a notification that Orin has been defeated, but oddly, you won’t find her body in the camp. This requires you to go to Bhaal’s Temple, where you’ll see a pile of blood clots where Orin usually stands, including one of her Netherstones, which will require you to defeat some of her followers, but this will be much easier than fighting Orin.

Although Orin’s shapeshifting ability is threatening, you can use some strategies to resolve it cleverly. For example, you can completely avoid defeating Yenna, the disguise of Orin, before entering Bhaal’s Temple, and instead knock her unconscious but not fatally, so that you and Orin will be forced to fight you as Yenna in the final battle, which will put the entire battle under your control.

In addition, you can also release area skills such as fireballs or acid sprays to cause splash damage to the positions of your bound teammates, which will bypass the invincibility mechanism that Orin has when she becomes Yenna and directly causes more damage to her. When you use this kind of operation repeatedly, you will find that the entire battle has not entered a very difficult stage.

The above are some strategies and specific methods for you to defeat the very powerful Orin in Baldur’s Gate 3 at this stage successfully. In general, you can rely on these strategies and skills to help you complete the combat tasks in the game, but you must first enhance the character’s damage ability and defense ability, which is the most important. I wish you a happy game!

According to Lustfix, Capcom has decided to postpone the release of Resident Evil 9 originally scheduled for the second half of 2025 to 2026. The game requires longer development time and more technical adjustment period.

According to Insider, the atmosphere of this game is very similar to the remake of Resident Evil 2, which is one of the most popular games in this series. This means that the game returns to the classic survival horror style, with closed scenes and psychological tension elements. The behavior of the enemy will be more unpredictable.

Capcom plans to conduct at least two internal tests in the next six months, which means that the gameplay is still being adjusted. Capcom should adjust the gameplay and many other contents of the game based on the results of the test, and the specific release date will be adjusted according to the progress of the game.

Lutusfix, an insider who previously claimed to have participated in the closed test of Resident Evil 9, recently broke more information about the game on Reddit. It is said that the source of the news is Capcom’s US marketing department.

Here are some other news about Resident Evil 9:

• 1. Capcom is not satisfied with the marketing results of Resident Evil 8: Village, and several aspects of the publicity and promotion plan of Resident Evil 9 are being redesigned.
• 2. Resident Evil 9 is in an advanced stage of development, but some game aspects and items still need more polishing, such as smoke bombs. It is said that RE engine has reached its limit in “Resident Evil 9”, and REX engine is not far from its official debut.
• 3. Leon in the promotional picture of Resident Evil 9 looks mature, but not much different from the image of Resident Evil 4 Remake. Both Leon and Jill will appear in Resident Evil 9, but Leon may have more plots.
• 4. The Blue Umbrella Corporation will also appear in the game and is the core of the game.
• 5. There may be elements such as moon worship and mysterious rituals, but the specific design is unclear.
• 6. Resident Evil 9 is regarded as “the biggest survival horror game in the series.”
• 7. The subtitle “Apocalypse” is constantly mentioned in marketing meetings. Resident Evil 9: Apocalypse should be the official name of the game.
• 8. Players will control Jill to wake up in the game, but the hospital is not the only scene in the game.
• 9. Smoke bombs are not the only new props in the game, but also include sound grenades that can attract the attention of enemies.
• 10. Capcom will announce more news about Resident Evil 9 before May.

The above is the recent news about Resident Evil 9. Since Capcom’s three Resident Evil remakes have performed perfectly, the new Resident Evil game is still worth looking forward to.

At this stage, Nintendo has published and directly developed a lot of excellent game series, such as The Legend of Zelda and Mario to Star Fox and Animal Crossing, many of which have launched new games and sequels on its exclusive game console Nintendo Switch, and have been well received by players. Although these game series are still launching new games, many games have been deposited for too long.

But with Switch 2 coming in the spring of 2025, Nintendo has a great opportunity to release sequels to some of its most noteworthy games, so that these iconic series and those lesser-known excellent games get the treatment they deserve. This guide will list the three Nintendo games that players want sequels the most, according to the voice of the players.

1. Super Mario Odyssey

It seems a natural thing that the sequel to Super Mario Odyssey will be released on the Nintendo Switch 2, as its first game was very popular when it was released in 2017 and has continued to be popular to this day.

It is also called one of the best 3D Mario games of all time by players, and on top of that, it is also the last new 3D Mario game, if you don’t count the Bowser’s Fury expansion created for Super Mario 3D World re-release. So if the sequel to this excellent game continues to be released on the latest console, it will be the wish of many Mario fans for eight years.

Since it is a request, players also hope that Nintendo will add one of the two games, Super Mario Galaxy 3 or Super Mario Sunshine 2, to Switch 2, because players have been eager for these sequels for a very long time.

But if Nintendo only plans to add one of Super Mario series games to the new game, players will definitely choose Odyssey, because it is a groundbreaking work for the entire series and the platform game genre.

2. Pokémon Colosseum

Pokémon Colosseum is the first 3D Pokémon RPG on the current game market, and it is loved by players because of its mature narrative, gorgeous visuals and fascinating turn-based combat. Compared with previous Pokémon games, Pokémon Colosseum is more like a Japanese role-playing game because it focuses more on narrative rather than simply catching all Pokémon, which is also what makes it stand out from many mainline games.

In addition to these two advantages, a big reason why players want to explore the sequel of Pokémon Colosseum on Nintendo Switch 2 is that the current stage of Pokémon series has been continuously developed since its initial release, including many 3D games in the main series, but a lot of content provided by Colosseum is still missing, and players want to explore more complete game content on the new console.

Even though Pokémon Colosseum has a sequel called Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, it was abandoned by players because it reused a lot of assets and areas from the original. So players are eager for a true sequel to Pokémon Colosseum that lives up to the settings of the original, to provide players who have always wanted a more story-based Pokémon game.

3. Star Fox

Star Fox was once one of the most popular series released by Nintendo, but due to the long-term neglect of the developers (the last game in the series was Star Fox Zero released in 2016), its player base has gradually dwindled and received a lot of criticism.

Many players attribute the series’ decline to the lack of a true Star Fox game on Nintendo Switch. The only one that has been linked to this game is Switch Version of Starlink: Battle For Atlas developed by Ubisoft, which is probably the closest fans of the series have ever gotten to a Star Fox game on this console.

Now considering that the Switch 2 has undergone many improvements and has become unrestricted, it is absolutely possible that Star Fox series will be launched more boldly, which will provide Nintendo with a great opportunity to revamp the series and introduce it to a whole new audience, and re-invigorate loyal fans.

These are the sequels that players are currently looking forward to seeing on the new Switch 2. Although some of the first games for this new console have not yet been determined, we can still look forward to what surprises the improved console may bring to players. I wish you a happy game!

As the fifth work in Nikki series, Infinity Nikki has added new elements such as open world exploration and puzzle games on the one hand, and on the other hand, it has effectively retained the dress-up gameplay of the series and organically integrated it with the new gameplay to show you a different Nikki game.

In terms of dress-up gameplay, Infinity Nikki’s Stylist Duels mechanism requires you to match clothes according to specific styles and compete with opponents. There is no doubt that on the basis of style matching, higher-star clothing and accessories will make your Nikki more competitive, and it would be even better if you can continue to add Eurekas for decoration - the rarest of which is Iridescent Eurekas.

Introduction To Eurekas

Eurekas is a unique accessory in the game, located at the bottom of the makeup category in Nikki’s wardrobe menu at the game interface. More specifically, Eurekas can be further subdivided into heads, hands and feet, and Nikki can have up to three Eurekas for each set of clothing.

Like clothing, Eurekas are rated from 3 to 5 stars, and the higher the rating, the more points you get in challenges. Currently, you can get Eurekas through leveling up or any Warp Spire Realm challenges.

How To Get Iridescent Eurekas?

5-star Eurekas are already rare, and Iridescent Eurekas are a rarer version of them, which can be obtained by upgrading 5-star Eurekas to level 10. When a 5-star Eurekas is upgraded to the maximum level, its color will change to one of four potential options. If it becomes a rainbow color, it means you have obtained an Iridescent Eureka.

Although you need to have good luck to obtain Iridescent Eurekas, you will find that it is not more powerful than other full-level 5-star Eurekas after you get it. It just has a beautiful appearance. However, “beauty” should be regarded as one of the core ideas of Nikki series of games, so who can resist making their Nikki more beautiful?

How To Upgrade Your Eurekas?

First, find the Eureka tab and pull it up. You will see a drop-down menu on the right side of the screen with all Eurekas you currently own, as well as their current level and star rating. Next, select Eureka you want to upgrade from the menu on the right, and then click the yellow button in the bottom left corner to enter the upgrade window.

Here, you can see all the stats and data of the selected Eureka, and then click the box with a plus sign on the far left. The system will prompt you what materials can be used to upgrade Eureka, such as Shining Particles. In addition, you can also use 3-star Eureka to upgrade higher-star Eurekas, because 4-star and 5-star Eurekas are more useful for challenges.

Hopefully, this mini guide we provided will help you make your Nikki more beautiful and defeat other opponents in ratings and duels!

Do you like team battles? Do you like bright and vivid game colors? Do you want to feel the tense and exciting escape atmosphere in the game? Enter Apex Legends and all these needs will be met! What’s more interesting is that if you have recently started playing Apex Legends or paying attention to related information, you can also hear the game’s new theme song CHAMPiONS!

The theme song was created by the Japanese metal band SiM. In terms of musical style, it is a vibrant folk song. The inspiration comes entirely from the background world view and other settings of Apex Legends. It aims to use SiM’s unique artistic style to show you a crazy but attractive Apex Legends from the auditory perspective.

Where Was CHAMPiONS’ First Performance?

The song was first revealed in a post published by Apex Legends on its official X account on January 23 this year. The real global premiere was on the fourth day of Apex Legends Global Series 4, which was February 1, and this series was held in Sapporo, Japan.

As the largest game market for Apex Legends in the world, it is not surprising that the competition is held in Japan. The singer SiM band, which is also from Japan, not only adapts to the game in terms of music style but also has many members, including the lead singer who are loyal players of the game.

How Was The Performance?

On the day of CHAMPiONS’ performance, the atmosphere reached a new climax under the background of the game contest that had lasted for many days. There were not only fans wearing their favorite game team uniforms but also enthusiastic players who directly cosplayed game characters. As the music sounded, the enthusiasm of the crowd on the scene could almost ignite the entire Sapporo!

There is no doubt that SiM used CHAMPiONS as the beginning of the performance, satisfying the game fans who had been looking forward to it for several days and showing the charm of Apex Legends in the field of music. The song’s English lyrics even directly referenced lines from the game, further evoking cheers from the players and audience. The band then performed their own hit song The Rumbling, released in 2022, which is also one of two songs SiM has produced for the popular anime Attack on Titan.

SiM Band And Apex Legends

SiM lead singer MAH said that he has been playing Apex Legends almost since its release, so it was a very special and surprising experience to be able to write a song for the game with his partners, not to mention the opportunity to perform it for the first time directly at the competition.

Interestingly, the night before the show, lead singer MAH and guitarist SHOW-HATE also played Apex Legends in a tournament held for content creators, ALGS commentators and specially qualified fans.

In short, as video games develop, both its derivative competitive games and game music are gradually forming their own markets and audiences, thus feeding back to the gaming industry and benefiting both sides.