Friends, we finally live in a world where Final Fantasy 7 has voice acting. No, I don’t mean Final Fantasy 7 Remake—that rank pretender—I mean the clamour of polygons that is the original, PS1-era classic. Thanks to the dedicated work of a modding community called Tsunamods, Final Fantasy 7’s very, very long script can now be enjoyed with your ears as well as your eyes using the Echo-S 7 mod.

The voice work was done by a global team of volunteers from the Tsunamods community, who came together to voice “Every main, minor, and NPC” in the game. If, like me, you have more than a few scarring memories of ‘community voice acting’ packs from ages past, you can rest assured: Tsunamods promises that “The main and minor cast are all well-trained actors with fantastic vocal and tech quality”.

The trailer does feature some jarring cursing, but the creators explain that they never really expected the mod to garner attention outside their community, and the areas they wa…

Last week EA finally set the record straight on The Sims 5: There is no Sims 5. There’s just The Sims 4—forever. EA plans for The Sims 4 to be the “foundation of our future growth strategy,” but this game needs a serious overhaul before it can be the foundation for anything.

The multiplayer Sims game currently in development under the name Project Rene is still in the works, and EA plans for it to live beside The Sims 4. They’ll share creator tools, a gallery, a marketplace, and some kind of social network. Instead of winding down The Sims 4 and rolling out The Sims 5, EA says it’s “disrupting the sequel model” by continuing to invest in the current game with years of more DLCs and updates.

The sentiment in The Sims fan spaces so far is mixed, as ever. Some are disappointed that we’re not getting a built-from-scratch Sims sequel, but there’s also a contingent of folks who share my feelings that actually maybe it is nice that they aren’t goi…

Synced, the free-to-play co-op shooter released by Tencent’s Level Infinite publishing brand, is closing in September, just a year after its launch in September 2023.

An open beta for Synced ran from December 2022 into January 2023, after which it effectively went away until the 1.0 release in September of last year. Two seasons followed, but the launch of the second season in March—entitled Cyber Safari—was the last update on Steam prior to the closure announcement. The Synced Twitter feed has been silent since then as well.

“Thanks so much for playing Synced and being a valued member of its community, but we regret to inform you that the game will be retired this September,” Level Infinite said in the legally-precise shutdown update. “Synced will be terminated with effect from 11:00 on September 9, 2024 (GMT+8) (“Termination Date”). Please note the actual date and time of termination may differ by region.”

Here’s the regional schedule, if …