Microsoft Announces It Will Acquire Two New Studios

Today at X018, Microsoft announced its intent to acquire Obsidian Entertainment and inXile Entertainment.

Obsidian Entertainment is best known as the developer of role-playing games like Fallout: New Vegas, South Park: The Stick of Truth, the Pillars of Eternity series, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2.

InXile is also well-known for its development of role-playing games, including Wasteland 2, Torment: Tides of Numenera, Bard’s Tale IV and the upcoming Wasteland 3.

Today's announcement further bolsters the company's current stable of development teams to 13, following the announcements earlier this year that Microsoft will acquire Ninja Theory, Undead Labs, Compulsion Games, and Playground Games. Additionally, Microsoft indicated it was interested in acquiring even more new studios.

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Final Fantasy 13 Games Coming to Xbox Backwards Compatibility

During Microsoft's Inside Xbox: X018 Special, it was revealed that all three Final Fantasy 13 games will be backwards compatible on Xbox One next week.

Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII-2, and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII will all be playable on Xbox One, with Xbox One X enhancements, beginning next Tuesday, November 13.

Final Fantasy XIII was released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2010 and in our review, we said that FFXIII is "a great JRPG" but "hardcore Final Fantasy fans might be disappointed by the game's abandonment of franchise traditions like open worlds, town exploration and complex mini-games."

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Crackdown 3 Release Date Announced, New Multiplayer Mode

The consistently delayed Crackdown 3 will finally release on February 15 alongside a new multiplayer mode.

Wrecking Zone is a new multiplayer mode pitting two teams of five against each other as they're tasked with destroying buildings, leveling environments, and topping skyscrapers.

Crackdown 3 saw several new announcements at Microsoft's XO18 fan event, including two new new multiplayer maps: Blackout Zone and Nova Station. Microsoft highlighted the Territories and Agent Station modes as well.

The original Crackdown is currently free to download for all Xbox One users and will remain so until November 30.

Crackdown 3 will be available on the Xbox Game Pass on the day of release. Microsoft announced an additional 16 games headed to the subscription service, including PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.

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16 New Titles, Including PUBG, Are Headed to Xbox Game Pass

During Microsoft's Inside Xbox: X018 Special, it was revealed that 16 new games will be added to Xbox Game Pass, including PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds launched on Xbox Game Preview on December 12, 2017, and will be free for all Xbox Game Pass members in just a few days on Monday, November 12.

Alongside PUBG, Ninja Theory's Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice will also be arriving on Xbox Game Pass next month on December 17.

A few days later, Ori and the Blind Forest will join Xbox Game Pass on December 20. In addition, its sequel, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, will also join Game Pass when it launches in 2019.

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Why Grindelwald Is More Dangerous than Voldemort

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is shaping up to bring its titular character into the spotlight, giving Harry Potter fans a chance to see one of the series’ most formidable villains in action at the height of his power.

Why is the focus on Grindelwald as a villain especially intriguing? In the original books, Voldemort is considered the evilest Dark Wizard of all time. In retrospect, Grindelwald was not crueler than Voldemort. He wasn’t decisively more powerful than Voldemort. Instead, what makes the focus on Grindelwald so exciting is that he was probably more dangerous than Voldemort -- a notion that has everything to do with his relationship with an unequivocal good guy: Albus Dumbledore.

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25 Obscure Facts About Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones winning the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series for the second time was truly an awesome thing, but also a stark (hah!) reminder that we've still got a crazy long wait until the series returns for its eighth and final season.

To help satiate your hunger for all things Thrones, to tide you over through the long fearful winter, we've compiled a rogues gallery of facts and tidbits about the blockbuster series from all angles of adoration. There're odds and ends about the books, the genesis of the show, some behind-the-scenes show shenanigans, and entertaining Easter eggs.

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Forget About Wires, Get the Best Wireless Gaming Mice Today

If you haven't tried using a wireless gaming mouse you should. There’s a lot of convenience and freedom with a wireless gaming mouse—once you get used to whipping your mouse around without dragging a cable along with it, it’s hard to go back. Wireless mice used to come at a higher premium, but all that extra freedom and mobility hardly comes at a cost any more as some excellent models start at $50 or less now.

That said, regular wired mice can game forever while the battery life of wireless gaming mice still hovers around weeks. No wireless mouse can ever be as lightweight as a wired mouse either as long as batteries are included in the equation. For some, those are big deterrents. For others, the joys of using a completely untethered mouse make these minor setbacks seem trivial. After all, given all the hours you spend using your mouse, shouldn’t that experience be as pleasant as possible?

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Here Are the Best Graphics Cards From Both Team Green and Team Red

The GPU market is in a pretty interesting place right now. Nvidia introduced a 1.5 version of Turing with Super versions of its high-end RTX GPUs and some of its most affordable GTX graphics cards yet. Meanwhile, AMD introduced its Radeon VII and its first Navi graphics cards are shaking things up a bit by giving gamers a 7nm GPU alternative to Nvidia's fully-fleshed out Turing line-up.

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