If you’re reading this, then I’ve somehow managed to pull myself away from my latest obsession: the generously purple, isometric twin-stick roguelike Lone Ruin. Though its main three-layer ruin might feel too short for some, I’ve found it to hardly dampen the perpetual fun; the creative possibilities from randomly…
Bruce Straley hasn’t been at Naughty Dog for six years, but the game director behind the original PlayStation 3 version of The Last of Us isn’t happy about his lack of credit in the HBO adaptation that began airing this week.
Two of the biggest outlets in games media are the latest to face layoffs. A number of editorial staff across both Giant Bomb and GameSpot revealed they’d been let go on Thursday, just months after the sites were purchased by the Fandom wiki network.
Yo ho! One Piece Odyssey, the first turn-based RPG game in the storied franchise, has been a bit of a mixed bag in its early moments. While the game knocks it out of the park with how it portrays the dynamic of the lovable Straw Hat crew, the game’s “fully blown RPG” mechanics are a bit of a bore to play through.
Amidst rumors that 343 Industries has been taken off of lead development of the Halo franchise, the studio has taken to Twitter to state that it will continue to "develop Halo now and in the future."
343 Industries' studio head Pierre Hintze shared the message on Twitter, saying, "Halo and Master Chief are here to stay. 343 Industries will continue to develop Halo now and in the future, including epic stories, multiplayer, and more of what makes Halo great."
— Halo (@Halo) January 21, 2023
The news follows the mass layoffs of 10,000 people at Microsoft, which saw a number of employees at Xbox Game Studios, The Coalition, 343 Industries, and Bethesda let go. Shortly after, Halo Infinite director Joseph Staten reportedly left 343 Industries to rejoin Xbox publishing.
Alongside a number of fixes that, among other things, addresses the Maximum Security Achievement/Trophy bug, The Callisto Protocol's latest update has added New Game+.
Striking Distance Studios shared the patch notes for the v. 3.01 update on Reddit, and it will finally allow players to jump back into the horrors of The Callisto Protocol after they roll credits with all of their weapons, upgrades, and Callisto Credits.
Some of the other fixes include general performance optimizations, players no longer taking damage when vaulting over objects, voice leveling and subtitle mismatch adjustments, and much more.
The full list of changes in update v. 3.01 can be seen below;
NEW GAME+
GLOBAL
Directors and Hollywood studios have been remaking films for decades. Many of those remakes are considered among the best movies of all time: The Thing, Heat, Scarface, A Fistful of Dollars, The Departed… the list goes on. Each one of these examples reexamines and recontextualizes the original story, creating a recognisable but – vitally – distinct final product. A good remake retains the core essence, but provides a new perspective on the same events. This is a pathway that video game developers seem largely hesitant to follow, and that threatens to have the industry stuck in a creative rut. Nostalgia continues to exert its iron grip on pop culture, and it's asking us to pay full price for games we’ve already played.
Among the least inspiring movie remakes are those that are overly beholden to the original work. Gus Van Sant’s 1998 shot-for-shot remake of Psycho comes to mind, as does Disney’s current campaign to pointlessly clone its animated back catalogue in live-action format. Sony’s first-party studios have adhered to a similar approach over the last few years with remakes of Shadow of the Colossus, Demon’s Souls, and last year’s The Last of Us: Part 1. While these remakes are undeniably fantastic games, that’s almost entirely down to their timeless original concepts – preserved almost entirely intact like precious museum pieces – rather than any new ideas.
A little more than two years after its original release, Crystal Dynamics is preparing to end active development on Marvel's Avengers, a decision it says it "undertook in conjunction with our partners."
According to a blog titled "Final Update on the Future of Marvel's Avengers," support will discontinue on September 30, after which digital purchases will no longer be available. All solo content will continue to be playable after support ends, and multiplayer will also remain available.
An important announcement about the future of Marvel's Avengers: https://t.co/hTmenK6wmJ pic.twitter.com/JVZNNDNzZy
— Marvel's Avengers (@PlayAvengers) January 20, 2023
Crystal Dynamics does not plan to release any new stories, features, or Heroes, making Update 2.7 — which added the Winter Soldier and the Cloning Lab Omega-Level Threat — the final content release for Avengers. Spider-Man will remain a PlayStation exclusive.
Obsidian Entertainment CEO Feargus Urquhart said he’d like to create another Fallout game before he retires.
In an interview with Gamepressure, Urquhart was asked whether a new Fallout game would be possible under Obsidian, who developed Fallout: New Vegas. “I would love to make another Fallout before I retire. I don’t know when that is, I don’t have a date of my retirement,” Urquhart explained.
He continued, “It’s funny – you can say I’m already 52, or only 52. It’s one of those two, depending on the day. My hope is that’ll happen, but we’ll have to wait and see.”
Back in October, Urquhart said he’d like to create another Fallout game. The main question wasn’t whether Obsidian Entertainment would make one, but when will the opportunity arise to do it? Currently, Obsidian is working on Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2, which so far don’t have a release window.
However, Bethesda said that Fallout 5 would be the next project for the studio after The Elder Scrolls VI. So hopefully, something like a Fallout: New Vegas sequel could fill the void until then. According to Bethesda’s Todd Howard, Fallout: New Vegas was originally envisioned as a big expansion to Fallout 3 but it eventually became its own standalone product.
Xbox and Bethesda are set to host their very first Developer_Direct on January 25, and the pair promise to reveal a bit more about the future of The Elder Scrolls Online, Forza Motorsport, Minecraft Legends, Redfall and more.
IGN is carrying the stream and, as usual, this watch guide will provide you with everything you need to know to watch the show tomorrow, including when it starts, a list of places you can watch it with us, and what you can expect to see at the show.
The upcoming Xbox and Bethesda Developer_Direct takes place on Wednesday, January 25, and will start at 12pm PT/3pm ET/8pm GMT. If you live in Australia, that translates to January 26 at 7am AEDT.
If you’re interested in watching the upcoming Xbox and Bethesda Developer_Direct, we’ll be hosting the stream here and across our many channels on platforms like YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, Facebook, and more. Here’s the full list of places you can watch the show with us:
If you are a Nintendo Switch owner, you have probably heard of the infamous Joy-Con Drift. An ongoing issue with the Joy-Con's signature controllers for Nintendo's hybrid console.
Thankfully, gaming peripheral maker GuliKit recently released a new joystick upgrade kit that not only allows you to replace the joysticks on your Joy-Cons, but it touts that you will never have to worry about Joy-Con drift ever again.
As spotted by Gizmodo, the GuliKit Hall Joystick features a pair of replacement joysticks for your Joy-Con controllers. The company notes the joysticks are Hall Effect, meaning that the joysticks use a magnetic system, so it does not physically touch other parts inside the controller, which would cause the pieces to get worn out over time after extended use.
2023 is well underway at this point, and with it comes the promise of another year of (hopefully) spectacular games that will make us laugh, cry, and just have the best old time. As it stands (before delays start piling in), we have such potential classics as The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Marvel's Spider-Man 2, Starfield, and so many more games to look forward to. However, which game are you most excited for? Over the past week, we asked IGN's audience to let us know which games they can't wait to play, and the results are in.
After thousands and thousands of battles with matchups like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor vs Final Fantasy 16 and Dead Space Remake vs Resident Evil 4 Remake, the most-anticipated 2023 game, according to you, has been decided. Who took the top spot? Drumroll please...
Yes, in what you may call a bit of an upset considering the behemoth that is The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 has taken the ultimate prize by winning 65,038 of its 79,160 battles. Marvel's Spider-Man 2 appears to be the big PlayStation exclusive on the horizon and everyone loves that friendly neighborhood spider. This entry also looks to ramp things up even more by bringing Peter Parker and Miles Morales together to face Venom.
The answer to "sell me a gun, but make it creepy," Xûr, is now live in Destiny 2 for the weekend until next week's reset. If you're looking to get your some shiny new Exotic armor or weapons for your Guardian, look no further.
Each week, Xûr has a random assortment of Exotic armor, one for each Guardian class, as well as a random Exotic Weapon and an Exotic Engram available for purchase. In addition to his Exotic wares, he's got a random collection of Legendary weapons and armor to deck out your Guardians.
We've rounded up all the info on Xûr for the week including where to find Xûr, which Exotic weapons and armor are available, as well as which Legendary weapons you should pick up, either for PvE or PvP.
Xûr's location can be found at Winding Cove in the EDZ on January 20 through January 24. To reach him, travel to the landing point at Winding Cove. When you arrive, make for the rock cliffs at the far end of the cove and look for a cave winding up to a platform next to some Fallen. There you'll find the retail monster who inspires us all.
Welcome to the inaugural issue of our new, weekly Nintendo Voice Chat column. We're kicking things off by tackling a user-submitted question for our Question Block segment. Listeners of the show are no doubt familiar with the fact we will run into... time constraints... where we can't give your questions the time they deserve. What better way to tackle this problem than to pick one of our favorite user-submitted questions of the week and answer it here?
Super Ninfriendo Tracy Vincent asked: "Is there a game that came out in your youth, but you didn’t get around to it until much much later? Why did it take you so long to play it – and what are your thoughts when you finally did. Do you think you would’ve enjoyed it more or less had you played it around when it was originally released?"
It wasn’t always easy getting hold of NES games during Nintendo’s 8-bit heyday. Castlevania was one of many popular games from that era that never seemed to be on store shelves – not even the gas station where I rented Battletoads and Batman over and over again (Beetlejuice was also there, but not Konami’s equally spooky and far superior platformer). One of the few hints I saw that Castlevania even existed was through my dog-eared copy of the Ultimate Unauthorized Nintendo Game Strategies, which barely even included screenshots. Still, Castlevania was to be one of the best NES games among my circle of friends, with Simon’s Quest being particularly popular. Castlevania continued to bounce around in the back of my head until I headed off to college a decade later, where I discovered a copy of Symphony of the Night in a random record store. I picked it up for $25 (a steal!) and decided to see if Castlevania indeed lived up to the playground hype.
Matt P and Dale have played a huge chunk of the new Dead Space and they're very excited to tell you all about it and whether it's a worthwhile remake. Speaking of remakes, we also go down the rabbit hole of what makes a good one, what their value is and games that we'd love to get the remake treatment. Mat J is also on the podcast and he tells us all about the latest horror film M3GAN.
Got a game for us to play or some feedback you'd like read out on the show? Why not email us: ign_ukfeedback@ign.com.
IGN UK Podcast #680: Dead Space and Other Games We Want Remade
Riot Games has laid off 46 employees amidst an ongoing wave of industry mass layoffs.
The League of Legends developer confirmed to journalist Jacob Wolf that it had eliminated the positions, which were largely concentrated in the company's talent acquisition, recruiting, and publishing departments as well as a few roles in esports and support. Riot employs roughly 4,500 people globally.
In a statement to the Jacob Wolf Report, a Riot representative called the layoffs part of the "normal course of business."
Nintendo is planning to ramp up Switch production in the next fiscal year ahead of the launch of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
Sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that Nintendo has told suppliers and assembly partners that it plans to increase production in financial year 2023/2024, meaning from the beginning of April.
The increase in production is also a result of component shortages subsiding after two years, according to the sources, which finally lets Nintendo overcome supply constraints and produce as many consoles as the market demands.
The company admitted in August last year that these shortages were hurting sales, and while it is apparently open to revising its new production plans if they prove too ambitious, the previously reduced sales are largely attributed to the component shortages.
The increased production plans are somewhat unusual given how long the Switch has been on the market, however, as it's now approaching its sixth year having originally launched in March 2017.
As commonplace as it's become to see big, bold speculations about a futuristic metaverse in games industry discussions, game developers themselves don't seem too hot on the concept.
The 2023 State of the Game Industry survey has just been published, canvassing over 2,300 game developers for their situations and opinions on topics such as platform development, working conditions, and interest in technology. One of its more interesting questions this year was specifically about the metaverse:
"Which of these companies/platforms do you think is best placed to deliver on the promise of the metaverse concept?"
The platform that ultimately got the most votes was Epic Games' Fornite with 14%, followed by Meta (Horizon Worlds) at 7% and Microsoft (Minecraft) also at 7%. Five percent of developers said Roblox, and even fewer brought up options like Google, Apple, Second Life, Sony, Tencent, Amazon, and VR Chat.
But nothing got anywhere near as many votes as an answer that isn't a platform at all: "None - The metaverse concept will never deliver on its promise," which took away 45% of the vote, up from 33% last year. So almost half of all game developers surveyed don't think the metaverse promise is worth much at all.
Why?
From its weapons to its bosses, stages to systems, January’s IGN First has been all about Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. So far, all of our footage has been from earlier stages of the game – but how does developer Team Ninja shake things up later in the game? What kind of weapons and Wizardry Spells can be learned and obtained? How can you evolve your character build? Do the stages become more difficult?
To answer such questions, let’s take a look at a playthrough by one of Team Ninja’s developers of mid-game stage Hulaoguan Pass.
Hulaoguan Pass is a site of many historical battles, in this case the clash between dissidents led by Yuan Shao and Dong Zhuo, who had occupied China’s ancient capital Luoyang. Team Ninja has implemented this in Wo Long as a huge battle site with siege weapons that can be utilized by the player. Hulaoguan Pass is much wider than earlier stages and can be tackled in multiple ways. Break the front line and fight hordes of fierce enemies to reach General Hua Xiong, or make a detour and find your way in through the castle’s walls.
Both routes ultimately lead to an epic boss fight with mighty warlord Lu Bu. Will this high-spec player find their way to Lu Bu, and if so, will they be able to defeat the powerful Three Kingdoms warlord? Be sure to check it out.
The prequel to one of China’s biggest-ever box-office hits is kinda just… 3 hours of suffering
Baby, it’s cold outside — so get your blood pumping with these great thrillers
No more heroes or content will be added to the Marvel game
Seth Rogan’s animated alien loves two things: burgers and release dates
343 Industries "will continue to develop Halo now and in the future," says studio head Pierre Hintze. The statement was released in response to rumours that 343 would instead take a backseat on future Halo games by serving to manage external studios, rather than developing the games themselves as they had on Halo Infinite.
The original Granblue Fantasy was a JRPG mobile game only released in Japan, but that didn't stop enterprising westerners going to the effort to play it. That's mainly because it counted Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu and art director Hideo Minaba among its developers.
Granblue Fantasy: Relink is set in the same universe and has the same Final Fantasy vets involved, but it's a big, splashly 1-4 player action RPG blockbuster, with combat reminiscent of some Platinum Games. You'll find the latest trailer below.
Steam's next genre-specific event kicks off on Monday, January 23rd, and this time it's entirely focused on base building and citybuilding games. For a week, there will be discounts on games like Dyson Sphere Program, Frostpunk and Planet Zoo, and hopefully some demos for unreleased games, too.
Happy weekend, you silly little sausages. I know squirrels gathering autumn hazelnuts is a seasonally incorrect header image, but I like it. The boiler is gone in my house, so I'm wearing one of those giant hoodie things that comes down to my knees, and scuttle about the place secreting foodstuffs in the pouch. Wait, that's more like a kangaroo, isn't it. Curses! Regardless, I will only be able to warm my hands this weekend by cupping them over the light of my PC screen. What will I, and others, be playing on them this weekend?
Samsung's Odyssey G4 gaming monitor is a great option for competitive gaming, with an IPS panel, 240Hz refresh rate and comfortable 25-inch screen size. The monitor normally costs around £243, but today it's down to £199 at Amazon UK.
Dell's brand new 34-in gaming QD-OLED monitor is reduced at Dell USA, with a $100 discount reducing the monitor to triple figures - $999, to be exact. This is still a ton of money to spend on a monitor, of any description, but this is genuinely the best monitor I've ever used.
Are there any sweeter words than "A Short Hike-like"? Both because the sweet, mountain adventure is one of my favourite games, and because "Hike-like" is a fun rhyme. Well, anyway, Haven Park is like A Short Hike crossed with Animal Crossing, and it's currently free to keep from GOG.
The Callisto Protocol had a rocky launch, with plentiful bugs, performance issues and a paucity of graphics options on PC. Some of those issues have been resolved in post-release updates, and yesterday another new patch arrived with more fixes and a New Game+ mode.
With all the Sad Dad™ games that have cropped up in recent years, many have rightfully been asking: "Where are all the video game mums at?". Well, what if I told you that Swedish indie studio Might and Delight have been putting mums at the centre of their games since 2013? Yup, elephant mums in Shelter 3, Lynx mums in Shelter 2, and the OG badass badger mum in Shelter 1. Sure it’s kinda terrible that the only major rep mums are getting in video games is in the form of Might and Delight’s animal tales, but I’ll honestly take any story about motherhood I can get my paws on.
As much as I love Shelter 2 (less so Shelter 3, unfortunately), Shelter 1 holds a special place in my heart, mostly because no other animal-focused survival game has come even remotely close to claiming the coveted title of "most brutal animal sim that made me ugly cry."
Devs Massive Monster have revealed that sweetly macabre roguelite management sim Cult Of The Lamb is getting its Relics Of The Old Faith update soon, followed by a second big update towards the middle of the year. Both are free, although there’s not a suitably intimidating cult-related name for the latter yet. Relics Of The Old Faith was shown off a bit at the end of 2022, but this is the first we’re hearing of another arriving later in this sparkly new year.
