A new expose from Kotaku reveals the harsh working conditions Treyarch employees face while making big Call of Duty games like Black Ops 4.

The games industry and its major players have a severe problem with crunch, or the practice of accelerating development on games way beyond normal time frames. In the months leading up to a game's release, developers work long, arduous hours at the cost of their personal lives and psychological well-being. The paychecks are good--or at least bigger than normal--but the workloads, lack of communication, and reboots typically grind morale into dust. Treyarch, one of the leading studios behind gaming's most lucrative shooter franchise, has been particularly affected by this practice. One dev even described the studio as a "nightmare" during crunch its periods.

Black Ops 4's massive success came at a real cost for Treyarch. Speaking to Kotaku, one dev said they endured "perpetual crunch" to get the game finished. Contractors, who make the bulk of the dev team for these projects, were treated as ancillary workers, almost interlopers, who fed the human-chomping machine of game crunch. Q&A testers were slammed with insane hours. Big development shifts exacerbated things considerably. Like most big AAA games, Black Ops 4 was quite different at the beginning. The team originally envisioned an interesting-sounding new 2v2 campaign mode that shifted into a normal, linear singleplayer endeavor.

If U.S. President Trump's proposed Chinese tariffs aren't amended to exclude games consoles, the entire precious console industry could come unraveled.

Today Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony issued a thorough letter to the U.S. government that exhaustively details just how badly tariffs will disrupt the console games industry. The missive warns the tariffs will cause console prices to rise well past their current MSRP, and dramatically interrupt the critical supply chains needed to facilitate the market.

In short, the tariffs could permanently alter the $47.9 billion console games industry by throwing a wrench in the finely-oiled gearworks. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo will have to delay manufacturing as they find new facilities and make big multi-year deals for component creation, shipping, and hardware assembly. As costs rise, they'll in turn pass those costs to consumers, which will lead to lower sales. And lower sales means the companies will make less money, and pay less taxes on consoles sold in the United States. No one wins here.

Rick and Morty season 4 is being craved by fans, and the release of the fourth season is not even that far away for the mainstream. But for attendee's of the Adult Swim Festival, they will get a special early sneak peak.

According to an announcement from Deadline, the long-awaited fourth season of the hit TV show Rick and Morty will have a special showing at the Adult Swim Festival in Los Angeles. The Adult Swim Festival will be held across two days and run from Friday, Nov. 15 (Saturday) to Nov. 16. Deadline says that there will be a "never-before-seen screening" on the second day of the festival.

While Deadline doesn't mention whether or not this will be an early screening of the first episode of season 4, I have a sneaky suspicion this might be an early screening. Adult Swim has described this years festival event attractions as a "one-of-a-kind 360 degrees fan experience". Rick and Morty season 4 will debut sometime in November.

A new batch of gameplay footage has been released for The Legend of Zelda Link's Awakening, this time round we can see a cameo of Ocarina of Time.

The new footage has been released onto the GameXplain YouTube Channel and is a combination of the E3 2019 demo, and some new areas which weren't shown off in the original demo. We also get a great cameo of Ocarina of Time as well as some brand new music to enjoy.

While some might think that The Legend of Zelda Link's Awakening is just a simple remake of the classic title, that just isn't the case. The remake will add some brand new features which can't be found in the original game. Some of these new features include the new Chamer Dugeon which gives players the opportunity to create and play their own dungeon levels.

A very well-known gaming YouTuber has been found floating dead in Manhatten's East River yesterday evening, police have confirmed the body is Desmond 'Etika' Amofah, age 29.

Etika began his YouTube career back in 2012 and gained quick popularity over the seven years he was active. He was known for his reaction videos towards new game announcements such as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and some other large Nintendo titles. Etika amassed quite the following around 800,000 fans who he referred to as his JoyCon Boyz - this number is an approximation of all of his social media channels such as YouTube, Twitch, Twitter and Instagram.

After sometime being in the social media spotlight, Amofah announced his struggle with mental health last October when he self-destructed his own YouTube Channel. Amofah then went on to make references to suicidal tenancies and in April police had to detain him in his apartment. Police told Kotaku that Amofah's urges were due to his "psych history".

A new announcement from Bandai Namco has revealed that the iconic anime fighter One-Punch Man will soon be getting his very own fighting game. How boring for him if there is no challenge...

The above trailer has been released onto the official Bandai Namco YouTube Channel and depicts the popular over-powered fighter in a brand new setting. the game is titled One-Punch Man: A Hero Nobody is a 3v3 fighting game developed by Jump Force developers Spike Chunsoft.

For those who don't know who One-Punch Man is, the characters actual name is Saitama and he is a trained fighter who defeats most - if not all his foes in one simple punch. One-Punch Man's persona revolves around of how bored Saitama is fighting due to him not being able to find a challenging opponent. Once you understand this you will get why he looks so calm and not bothered by all of the foes that challenge him.

Nintendo Switch fans can rejoice as a Terraria will be soon be coming to the handheld console in only a few days. Venture the world of Terraria on the Switch on June 27th.

According to a recent forum announcement on the official Terraria website, the Nintendo Switch version of Terraria is due for an imminent release. The post reads as follows; "Terraria Switch will be live to the world for digital download in 2 days!" The post also mentions the physical release for the game, saying "It will take us a bit more time to get out the physical retail version, but until then we hope you will enjoy the full game available for download via Nintendo eShop".

To celebrate the launch on the Nintendo Switch, developers Re-Logic will be hosting daily events for prizes on their Discord channel. Prizes will also be given to fans who drop into content creator Twitch livestreams. For those who wish to attend an AMA meeting with Terraria Switch developer, Pipework Studios on their Discord at Wednesday June 26 at 12:00PM PST.

Nokia's exciting Bell Labs division has possibly solved one of the largest issues of smartphones today... battery life. Bell Labs has solved the issues surrounding limited recharge cycles on lithium ion and lithium polymer technology, using something exciting and new that could provide up to 2.5x the battery life we have today.

According to Paul King who is one of the lead investigators on the new battery project as well as being a Member of the Technical Staff of Nokia Bell Labs: "By packing more energy into a smaller space, this new battery technology will have a profound impact on 5G and the entire networked world. The combination of Nokia Bell Labs industry and device knowledge and AMBER's materials science expertise allowed us to tackle an extremely difficult problem involving multiple disciplines. Our results were achieved through the deeply collaborative mode in which we work, underscoring the value of engaging with AMBER as part of our global research strategy".

Nokia Bell Labs has created a lithium nanotube-aided battery that boasts up to 2.5x the battery life of the best batteries on the market now, while staying as thin as smartphones are now. We don't want more battery life with much thicker phones, which is where the researchers at Trinity College Dublin's AMBER center have hopefully created something that could well and truly change the battery game for smartphones.

The on-going tensions between the US and Iran have extended to the world of gaming, with League of Legends now blocked in both Iran and Syria at the request of the Trump administration. The game can't be accessed "due to US laws and regulations" according to an in-game message when loaded up in Iran or Syria.

An Iranian gamer screenshotted the message, which read: "Due to U.S. laws and regulations, players in your country cannot access League of Legends at this time. Such restrictions are subject to change by the U.S. government, so if and when that happens, we look forward to having you back on the Rift". Pretty crazy move, seeing League of Legends banned in these two middle eastern countries.

It seems that developer Riot Games didn't have much to do about the decision of banning League of Legends in Iran and Syria, as it was pushed onto them by the US government. As the source DOTesports says: "Multiple Iranian and Syrian players have expressed despair about this situation. A common theme is that this won't hurt the politicians or those with the power to do something, but instead, it'll affect the civilians whose lives in a war-torn country already offer little comfort and access to video games". I totally agree with that, very sad to see for gamers wanting an escape.

Microsoft blew gamers away with its surprise reveal of a new Flight Simulator game at E3 2019, which is due out on both the PC and Xbox One in 2020 and now the company has confirmed some great news.

Flight Simulator will work with third-party content as well as community-created add ons, with Microsoft saying it is aware of the issues surrounding the current ecosystem and that the team is working on it. Microsoft has said they want to work closely with the community during the development of Flight Simulator, adding: "Whatever your abilities are, if you want to fly, we are going to do whatever we can to make that happen. Yoke and pedals, mouse and keyboard, controller, etc. No pilot should be left behind".

The company has promised that we'll hear more about Flight Simulator in the coming months, with updates to the preview build as well as insider programs kicking off in August. If you're a Flight Simulator fan, you'll want to keep on top of this news -- as the game simply looks freaking incredible. Day one for me on a big screen TV and kick ass gaming PC.