Mods to remove spiders from games are pretty common because it turns out spiders themselves show up in a lot of games, and for some players, their presence can be a dealbreaker. Whether they're low-level enemies in an RPG dungeon or giant bosses, if your phobia is bad enough, it can keep you from playing a game entirely.
Sony has filed a patent document that could potentially allow AI to take over your game for you if you're struggling with it. The documents suggest that this "ghost assistance" can be activated at any time to either guide a player through progression or assume direct control of gameplay. As revealed in the patent documents first filed in September 2024 (via VGC), the AI assistance system could potentially play through a section of a game that a player is struggling with, completing it for them.
The Kinect was first revealed as Project Natal at E3 2009. Of the demos shown off, the most memorable is Project Milo, a simulation game by Peter Molyneux's Lionhead Studios. Project Milo's demo featured a player interacting with a child on screen, who was guided by the game's artificial intelligence to react to the player's words and movements realistically.
Speaking to The Game Business, design director Jens Andersson said the aim was to make The Great Circle "the most accessible MachineGames game so far," and it being on Game Pass meant that anyone with a membership could give it a shot. The data coming back to MachineGames showed that Game Pass players would "jump in for five minutes and they drop out."
I don't know that we've ever seen a year quite like this one when it comes to new co-op experiences. From major-publisher-backed hits like Split Fiction and Grounded 2, to indie darlings like REPO and Peak, there hasn't just been a significant quantity of games meant for co-op play, but they've gone in so many different, yet similarly exciting, directions.