What you missed out on.

Give us what we want!

Evaluating the year's titles.

Believe me, we don't call it meta defining for nothing.

Time to grind.

All the works!

A genre icon receives a rebrand, and college sports return.

Dissecting the online difficulty settings in NBA 2K26.

These cost a pretty penny.

For the sports gaming historians out there.

Playground games, pretty please.

A massive modding project is now available.

Reaching for the stars.

The digital age takes form.

iRacing has confirmed that new updates for NASCAR 25 are planned for January, as teams return from the usual Christmas and New Year downtime and shift their focus back to releasing new content. The update will add Portland International Raceway as a free addition on all platforms, making the track available in Quick Race and Online modes for the NASCAR Xfinity Series. Sonoma Raceway is also set to receive a full refresh, featuring updated racing surfaces and artwork built on iRacing’s recent ground-up rebuild of the circuit. Online multiplayer is getting some attention as well, with expanded car customization options planned based on player feedback. These changes will give players more freedom when setting up their online cars, including the option to select any car number they want. The team released the December DLC pack for NASCAR 25 a couple of weeks ago, adding 13 patriotic paint schemes across the top three NASCAR national series. The pack features designs for Chase Elliott, Ross Chastain, Brad Keselowski, Christopher Bell and several others. Altogether, the DLC includes 121 paint schemes and 32 fire suits that can be used throughout the NASCAR Cup Series, Xfinity Series, Craftsman Truck Series and the ARCA Menards Series.

In the vast world of _Forza Horizon 5_ , Super Wheelspins are the undisputed bread and butter of progression. Many players focus on building a garage of the fastest cars, and Super Wheelspins are a great way of getting closer to that. Unlike a standard spin, a Super Wheelspin grants you three rewards at once, drastically increasing your odds of hitting the jackpot. You can win rare cars, large credit payouts, and even exclusive cosmetics. Now, you get normal Wheelspins for levelling up, completing accolades, and advancing through the story. However, Super Wheelspins are a bit rarer and are obtained by spending Skill Points on certain cars’ Car Mastery Trees. The way to farm hundreds of Super Wheelspins is a straightforward one: first, gain large amounts of Skill Points, and then, buy cost-efficient cars and redeem their Car Mastery perks. ## The Art Of Skill Point Farming The most essential part of getting Super Wheelspins is farming a stockpile of Skill Points (SP). These are earned by performing skill chains during normal gameplay, but for efficient farming, you need a high-multiplier car and a good location to farm at. You earn 1 Skill Point for every 50,000 Skill Score you bank. To be efficient, reach a 500,000 score as fast as possible for 10 SP. ### 1. The High-Multiplier Hoonigan Drift: Use a car that is famous for its high skill multiplier, preferably the Hoonigan Ford RS200 Evolution or the Hoonigan Hunicorn V1, as both can reach a 7x skill chain multiplier. Head towards the vast airfield and consistently drift up and down the runway, smashing fences, and using the massive area to build a huge chain. Again, the necessary part is that you bank your skill chain once you hit a score of 500,000 to earn the maximum 10 Skill Points per chain. If you choose to bank any higher than that, you will waste your time and score. ### 2. The 18-second Event Lab Blueprint For anyone looking for a semi-automated farming method, consider using the Event Lab. What you want to do is go to Event Blueprints and search for the title “18s”. With this search, you’ll be able to find user-created events to bank the 500,000 skill score immediately. If you’re looking for recommendations for what car to use, then go with the Lamborghini Sesto Elemento Forza Edition. Once you’ve done the above steps, just start the event and set the driving presets to ultimate. Make sure steering is set to Auto Steering and shifting is automatic. ### 3. The Peel Trident Now, for players with low credit scores, the best care to use is the Peel Trident. Anyone can get this car easily, and this is why this method is the cheapest and most skill-point efficient way to convert Skill Points into Super Wheelspins. The Peel Trident costs a mere 25,000 Credits in the Auto Show. The Trident’s Car Mastery offers a Super Wheelspin for a total cost of just 9 skill points. This way is the best value for new players or for anyone looking to maximise their Super Wheelspin acquisition, while also minimising credit spending. It’s really simple: just buy the car, redeem the mastery, then just discard or sell the car to get your credits back. ## Bulk Farming For High Rollers For players who have plenty of credits saved up, you can easily speed up the farming process by using cars that yield multiple Super Wheelspins at once. The most reliable choice for this would be the Porsche 918 Spider. This is a solid, cost-effective option for bulk farming. The car costs approximately 196,000 credits in the Auction House, and its Car Mastery costs 26 Skill Points and provides one of each Wheelspin. Now that the mid-range option is out of the way, here’s the fastest option. You can use either the Zenvo TSR-S or the Bugatti D.Va. These options are to be considered where credits are no object, and you’re looking for the fastest farming. The Zenvo costs 1.2 million Credits from the Car Collection. Its mastery costs 21 Skill Points and grants two Super Wheelspins along with one regular wheelspin. The Bugatti costs around 500,000 Credits and costs 21 Skill Points to unlock two Super Wheespins, one regular Wheelspin, and 50,000 Credits. These options are the most expensive, but are also the most time-efficient ones for players who have no problem with spending a high amount of credits.

Is it any better?

When can you expect it?

Triplemania, please?

Innovation is an admirable goal in game design, and big swings have brought us many of the things we love about games today. Sadly, not every time game developers shot for the moon did they even come close to the stars. Here are five times developers shot their shot, but it was a complete brick. ## Full Motion Video Was Not The Future Of Sports Gaming Being the first to identify the next big thing in gaming is always a top goal at development studios, and that means that anytime a new technology arrives in the gaming industry, there will be attempts across all genres to see how it can be implemented. One of the defining innovations of mid-90s gaming was Full Motion Video (FMV), in which games used actual footage, albeit displayed in resolutions that worked on the limited consoles and PCs of the time, for characters and game action. While a popular option for adventure games at the time, it was only _Slam City With Scottie Pippen_ that thought to bring it over to the sports world. Unfortunately, the limitations that dogged FMVs of all types, namely the limits on how many possibilities you can shoot for and the sometimes awkward transition between videos, were particularly detrimental to a sports game, and _Slam City_ ended up high on visuals and low on enjoyable gameplay. ## Tony Hawk’s Ride Offered A Peripheral In Search Of An Audience Image via Amazon For a brief period in the aughts, motion-based controls were the future of video gaming. The Wii had arrived to critical and consumer praise, and both PlayStation with the Move, and Xbox with the Kinect, saw motion-capturing control systems dropped. At the same time, game-specific peripherals had gone beyond the OG light guns to include things like Wii Fit or Guitar Hero. _Tony Hawk’s Ride_ was an attempt to cash in on this concept in the form of a bespoke controller that worked like a real skateboard. While not an idea that couldn’t have possibly been done right, the difficulty curve present would have provided some challenges even with the best execution. _Ride_ did not have the best execution, and the skateboard-based controller was not the next innovation in the skate game genre; instead, along with the sequel _Shred_ served to put a half-decade pause on new console releases for the series. ## Fans Fail To See The Vision With Madden’s Passing Cone A lack of meaningful changes from year to year remains one of the most common complaints about annual sports franchises, so it’s always refreshing to see a series taking a big swing at a new mechanic. Unfortunately, adding something new to your sports game is no guarantee that fans are going to take to the change and that it won’t ultimately go down as a short-term accident on the timeline of a franchise’s development. One such innovation, which arrived to fanfare but exited soon after as a flop, was the QB Awareness passing cone. Mobile quarterbacks have become a bit of an issue for developers around the turn of the millennium, with the game engine not quite managing to accurately represent the performance of QBs who could scramble or run. Fast, scrambly passers were considered overpowered, and the cone, which forced you to use your second analog stick to turn your QB’s vision or risk significant accuracy penalties, was the attempted fix. While not universally reviled, with many gamers liking the change, it lasted just three editions and did not have enough time to find a balance that worked for the majority of the player base. ## Football Manager’s New Engine Was A Year Late And Still Undercooked It would be an understatement to say that _Football Manager_ has been having a bit of a rough go as a series in recent years. Generally held up as one of the best annual sports games released each year, Sports Interactive made the announcement that the series would be switching off a proprietary engine to move to Unity with the goal of creating a platform to make the series look and play better in the years ahead. Things have not gone to plan. The first problems arose with _Football Manager 25_ , which was delayed, delayed, and delayed again until finally it was cancelled entirely. The difficulty of the switch proved too much to fit into the planned window, and all expectations shifted to _Football Manager 26_ , and the game has decidedly failed to live up to the new level promised. While more optimistic fans can see the bones of a better _FM_ experience in the game, two years and one release into the new normal, fans have been frustrated with a buggy, unintuitive game that has many fans sticking to _Football Manager 24_. ## NBA Elite 11 Failed Its Way Out Of A Console Release Image via JuiceMan on YouTube It’s fair to say the switch to Unity for _Football Manager_ is one that could have gone much better, but at least it did finally see the light of day with the potential for future improvement. The same can not be said for _NBA Elite 11_ and its twin-stick approach to shooting on the court. Basketball has always been harsher on EA than some of its other series, with stiff competition from the likes of 2K Games ultimately winning the franchise war. Nowhere was that more stark than with _NBA Elite 11_. Developers were looking to take advantage of the prevalence of twin-stick controllers, and for the team at EA Canada, this meant a new approach where one stick controlled your lower body and the other your upper body in shooting. Whether this innovation would have gone down as a never-gonna-work mistake or simply a first pass in need of polishing will always remain a mystery, as it also came with so many bugs that the game’s console releases were cancelled last minute, and the series reverted to the new _Elite_ naming style for good measure.

Back in late September 2025, EA agreed to a $55 leveraged buyout with a Saudi consortium. While there virtually weren’t any doubts that EA and the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) would finalize this deal, it’s all about being confirmed today. According to Bloomberg, Shareholders from EA have approved the acquisition, and the deal will now move on to regulatory approval. For context, this is the biggest take-private investment ever, not just in the gaming industry, but in general. The deal is expected to close by June 30th, 2026, right at the start of EA’s first quarter of fiscal year 2027. Here’s what EA CEO Andrew Wilson has to say about it: > “Together with our partners, we will create transformative experiences to inspire generations to come. I am more energised than ever about the future we are building.” ## A Chaotic Year For Gaming You could argue that this was the biggest gaming news of 2025. It completely came out of left field, as no one would have predicted that this is the route EA would take in 2025. Some people may look at it as a positive, but from what we’ve seen from our own forums and from wider social media, people are highly skeptical of what EA will become. Other than this, we had the whole tariff situation earlier in the year, Apple losing a massive antitrust case, Nintendo lawsuits (nothing new there), massive layoffs at Xbox, and the whole RAM shortage situation. Sports games, like _EA FC 26_ and _NBA 2K26_ , have been great this year. Games in general have been great. But the news surrounding it has been as chaotic and controversial as it gets. Circling back to the EA buyout, a filing shows that PIF will have quite a bit of control over EA. There’s a high chance that EA will focus on more efficient and aggressive monetization, AI development practices, and an even greater focus on engagement and in-game spending. It doesn’t matter what we as players think of that; if all these decisions translate to high ROI for this massive sale, that’s the route you can expect. Of course, all this skepticism could be misplaced, as there’s always the chance that EA might properly bring back IPs like _Need for Speed_ and do them justice. They don’t need to worry about quarterly earnings reports anymore, which means there is a chance that player experience gets more priority. Again, time will tell.

Accessing Horizon Life.

Happy Holidays!

Worth the money?

Kunos Simulazioni has released the 2025 Liveries Pack for Assetto Corsa Competizione as a free update on Steam with no confirmation yet on when it might arrive on other platforms. Update 1.10.4 adds the 2025 Fanatec GT World Challenge season as a bonus update for Steam players. The focus here is on keeping things in line with the current racing season through official content updates. The release includes 86 new liveries for GT World Challenge Europe, nine new liveries for GT World Challenge America, along with updated driver lineups. Some cars and entries may still require ownership of specific DLC packs. Players should also be aware that menu settings stored in the menuSettings.json file may reset the first time the game is launched after updating, so preferences might need to be tweaked again.