February 2023

Capcom has shared new details on the upcoming remake of Resident Evil 4. This includes confirmation that it will remove quick-time events, add sidequests, and introduce breakable knives.

Capcom provided a better idea of what fans can expect from the highly anticipated remake in a new cover story for Game Informer. The most significant change from the remake is that there will be no quick-time events.

Game Informer's story mentions that sidequests are also being added to the remake, stating that blue flyers located in-game are used to collect sidequests for you to complete, with examples including solving a puzzle, tracking down and eliminating a specific enemy. The blue medallion collectible that was featured in the original will also be returning in the remake..

One of the more interesting gameplay changes is that knives will have limited durability and will break after a certain amount of use. However, you can store multiple knives in your inventory. Additionally, you will have the option to trade jewels with the merchant in exchange for items such as yellow herbs, treasure maps, and weapon attachments.

Electronic Arts has announced that both Apex Legends Mobile and Battlefield Mobile are shutting down. Apex Legends Mobile will sunset on May 1, 2023, at 4 pm PST. After that point, the game will no longer be playable. There was no date provided for Battlefield Mobile, but EA said that it will cease development. Industrial Toys, the studio behind Battlefield Mobile, is also being shut down altogether.

“Despite Apex Mobile’s strong start, the ongoing experience was not going to meet the expectations of our players,” explained EA in a statement. “After months of working with our development partner, we have made the mutual decision to sunset the mobile game.”

EA continued, “We've also made the decision to stop the development of the current Battlefield mobile title. As the industry has evolved and our to create deeply connected Battlefield ecosystem has taken shape, we decided to pivot from the current direction to best on our vision for the franchise and to meet the expectations of our players.”

On today's earnings call, EA CEO Andrew Wilson offered an additional sentence in his prepared remarks that speaks to the possible future of Apex Legends on mobile. "We have learned a great deal [from Apex Legends Mobile] and have plans to reimagine a connected Apex Mobile experience in the future."

This seems to indicate that EA may bring Apex Legends back to mobile in some format without Apex Legends Mobile's development partner, Tencent subsidiary and PUBG Mobile maker Lightspeed Studios.

What constitutes a remake or a remaster or even a reboot? Regardless of what you call it, today we’re looking at Dead Space, the new recreation of the classic survival horror game. The original is beloved by many – will history repeat itself here?

What’s on the menu?

Motive studios have some space experience, but this war is of a much bloodier kind, and remaking such a cherished sci-fi tale is surely a daunting task. The weapon of choice is DICE’s long serving Frostbite engine which has been used for everything from Battlefield to FIFA. Here they have to turn down the lights for a gory, tension-soaked rebirth of Isaac aboard the doomed Ishimura. The upgrades and rebuilt assets and models transform the entire game, and Isaac himself is now front and center with many of Dead Space 2’s improvements merged into the first game.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is being delayed, EA announced today. Respawn's forthcoming sequel to Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order will now release April 28 — approximately six weeks after its original date.

In a statement posted on social media, director Stig Asmussen addressed the reasoning behind the delay, saying the team is focused on polishing the final release while enhancing performance.

For the last three years, the Jedi team here at Respawn has poured its collective heart and soul into Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, and we are proud to say the next chapter in the tale of Cal Kestis is content complete. We are now focused entirely on the final stage: bug fixes to enhance performance, stability, polish, and most importantly, the player experience.

Jedi: Survivor is a direct response to the feedback from our community, delivering expansive destinations to explore, evolved combat and traversal, and of course, the continuation of Cal and BD’s story. Making this game has truly made us a better team, and we have pushed ourselves at every level to make this the Star Wars sequel our fans expect from Respawn and Lucasfilm Games.

In order for the team to hit the Respawn quality bar, provide the team the time they need, and achieve the level of polish our fans deserve, we have added six crucial weeks to our release schedule - Star Wars Jedi: Survivor will now launch globally on April 28th.

Thanks to EA and Respawn for giving us the time to deliver the best experience for our players, and to all of you for your understanding.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Now Arrives April 28th pic.twitter.com/PNtsL6kmER

Halo is reportedly staying at 343 Industries, but the franchise's direction is unclear amidst layoffs and a pivot away from Halo's Slipspace engine.

In a report from Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, the studio's leadership overhaul, mass layoffs, and other big changes are causing 343 to essentially hit the reset button on the franchise. The report also claims that at least 95 people were laid off from 343 as a part of this month's mass layoffs at Microsoft, and that 343 was not working on new missions for Halo Infinite's story over the last year.

After the layoffs, rumors started circulating claiming that Microsoft could pass Halo development to another studio entirely. According to today's report, Halo is staying put, despite concerns over the studio's ability to develop new Halo games after the big hit to the staff.

Avatar Generations launched today for iOS and Android, with developer Navigator Games and publisher Crystal Dynamics Eidos Entertainment celebrating with a new trailer. It is free-to-play with in-app purchases.

The trailer shows several characters from the series in battle and some brief glimpses of the user interface. It seems like characters will have a star rating to indicate their strength ranging all the way to 6 stars. Additionally, characters will have different skills to utilize during combat. Players can also level up Arts in order to make them more powerful.

The game is a turn-based RPG where players collect different characters from the Avatar: The Last Airbender universe to create a team and play through different iconic moments from the franchise. There will also be new scenarios too.

A variety of characters will be available to collect, including the main cast of Katara, Sokka, Zuko, and Toph, as well as supporting characters like Blue Spirit, Princess Yue, and Kyoshi Warrior Suki. Future updates for Avatar Generations will provide additional characters, companions, cosmetics, and customizable gear.

Avatar Generations is the latest game based on the Avatar: The Last Airbender franchise since 2014’s Legend of Korra by developer PlatinumGames. In IGN’s The Legend of Korra: The Game review, we said, “What a disappointment. Even with a reputable developer behind it, The Legend of Korra game left us bent out of shape.”

Update 2/1/2023: DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn has weighed in further on Henry Cavill's short-lived return as Superman late last year, saying the actor was "d**ked around by DC.

As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Gunn reiterated at a press event that Cavill wasn't fired, just not hired, but added that DC telling him to announce his return as Superman only to have it revoked six weeks later was somewhat unfair.

"I like Henry, I think he’s a great guy," Gunn said, "I think he’s getting d**ked around by a lot of people, including the former regime at this company. But this Superman is not Henry, for a number of reasons."

Original Story 1/31/2023: DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn has clarified that Man of Steel actor Henry Cavill was not fired but simply not hired for further Superman projects.

Speaking at a press event yesterday that revealed the roadmap of the revamped DCU’s first chapter, Gods and Monsters, Gunn was asked which actors from the old DCEU (that started with Man of Steel and still has a handful of films to go including The Flash) would be included in the new universe.

Despite saying that some decisions have been made, Gunn didn’t give much away regarding what those were or even if they’d made decisions at all for some actors.

“We have [made decisions]. Some we don’t know,” he said. “We’ve talked to Gal [Gadot]. She’s up for doing stuff. We’re not sure what we’re going to do with that.”

IGN can exclusively reveal that Street Fighter: Duel, the franchise's first RPG, will be released on iOS and Android devices in February 2023.

Street Fighter: Duel, which is being developed by Crunchyroll Games and Capcom, will feature over 40 characters at launch, including Ryu, Akuma, Chun-Li, Cammy, and more. It will then let players take those characters and build a team of three fighters to "take down Seth and Shadaloo's army of mech clones in an extensive story mode."

New and classic stages will also be part of the package, and players will be able to choose between real-time RPG combat or auto-battling to make their way through the story. Battles will take place in 2D, players will get to utilize the fighters' iconic combos and abilities via taps on the screen, and the game will include card mechanics.

Fighters can be leveled up and improved through gameplay or in-app purchases, and players' teams can be taken online to battle friends or other players around the globe. There will also be exclusive skins to Street Fighter: Duel that will arrive at launch and beyond.

“Street Fighter has been an iconic game for generations, and we know anime fans love to go on exciting adventures with beloved characters,” said Terry Li, General Manager of Crunchyroll Games and Senior Vice President of Emerging Business, Crunchyroll. “We’re excited to collaborate with Capcom to bring Street Fighter: Duel and its incredible roster of iconic fighters to anime and gaming fans alike.”

Ubisoft has announced the third instalment of The Crew series, and it’s arriving this year. Developed by series custodians Ivory Tower, The Crew Motorfest is based around what the studio describes as a “one-of-a-kind festival” of all things fast and is set on the island of O’ahu, Hawaii. This makes The Crew Motorfest the first in the franchise to leave the continental United States, as both the previous games featured scaled-down versions of the US that stretched from New York to San Francisco.

It also makes The Crew Motorfest a potentially fascinating return to the setting of 2006’s highly influential Test Drive Unlimited, a pioneering MMO-inspired racer from developer Eden Games that laid the foundations for the genre today. This link shouldn’t be regarded as an accident, however; Test Drive Unlimited is actually a crucial part of The Crew’s non-Ubisoft-related roots. Indeed, Ivory Tower was founded by former Eden Games developers, including Test Drive Unlimited game director Stéphane Beley. Beley, senior creative director at Ivory Tower, seems well aware of the links long-time racing fans are likely to make between the two games.

“I was very proud the first time I kicked off the project Test Drive Unlimited,” Beley tells IGN. “It’s true that it was very innovative at the time, and the recreation of Hawaii at that time was really remarkable for everyone.”

Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed, the asymmetical multiplayer ghost-hunting game based on the popular films, has unveiled its first free DLC including a new map, ghost type, and other updates. And it's all out today.

The new DLC includes The Facility, a new map set in an abandoned health center closed in the 1980s, but set to reopen...if its construction crews can get past the ghost problem. We'll also see a new ghost type, the Glutton, a class that includes the Muncher ghost and two other variants. Developer Illfonic says the Muncher is the most-requested ghost type thus far - we were first introduced to the metal-eating ghost in in Ghostbusters: Afterlife.

Additionally, the DLC will bring new character customization options, improved matchmaking, and improve AI behavior both for teammates and ghosts.

Illfonic reiterated that it plans to continue releasing free DLC each quarter of this year for Spirits Unleashed, so we should expect more content along these lines at least three more times this year.

We enjoyed Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed at launch, finding it an entertaining asymmetical multiplayer game, but did lament that it was held back by some balance issues and map wonkiness at the time. We noted that it also badly needed more content, which this DLC and future ones hopefully will alleviate.

It’s widely agreed upon that the last, truly outstanding professional boxing game was 2011’s Fight Night Champion – a game that was initially released for the now-ancient Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Granted, if you’ve poked your head into a virtual reality headset any time in the last five years, you may have gotten a chance to throw a few swings at The Thrill of the Fight or Creed: Rise to Glory, both of which are decent boxing simulators. But now, over twelve years after Fight Night disappeared, developer Steel City Interactive may be reaching for the title belt with Undisputed, a new professional boxing game that seemingly represents a return to form for the boxing genre. I’ve spent several hours in its single-player skirmish mode and I’m pleasantly surprised by the fluidity of the fighters’ movements which, while still not perfectly comparable to their real-life counterparts, are already more dynamic and realistic-looking than those of the classic fighting game Undisputed will undoubtedly be compared against.

Undisputed immediately asks you to spar against a basic opponent while you get the controls down, and this is a tutorial you absolutely should not skip – especially if you’re unfamiliar with boxing games – given the incredible amount of control Undisputed gives you over your hooks, jabs, slips, blocks, weaves, power punches, uppercuts, and so forth. There are far more button combinations to memorize here than in your average fighting game, but these controls affect the fluidity of your boxer’s motions in a way that mimics how a professional fighter might actually move in a fight. It’s not quite intuitive, but once you get into a groove, it does gradually become easier to predict your opponent’s rhythm and evade, counter, or at least return their punches.

Hi-Fi Rush, Tango Gameworks' rhythmic action game where every move happens to the beat of the music, made for an exciting shadow drop after last week's Xbox Developer Direct. It immediately caught fire on social media for its bright cartoon style, snappy rhythm-based gameplay, and boppin' soundtrack.

But the general public isn't the first to be enamored by Hi-Fi Rush. Apparently, it went a bit viral internally at Bethesda first - which in part led to Tango's decision to shadow drop it in the first place.

Speaking to IGN, director John Johanas said that the shadow drop decision came from the game's marketing team in part because of uncertainty about how a longer marketing cycle might play out. Because Tango is known for horror, and Hi-Fi Rush is decidedly not that, they thought simply dropping it onto Game Pass without a long lead-up would help it gain popularity naturally through sudden word of mouth, just as it had within Bethesda during development.

"If you're going to ask someone to purchase something in a shadow drop, you probably get a lot of skepticism, but the fact that Game Pass exists allows people to basically almost, what you would say is a demo theoretically. But it's not a demo, it's the full game. They can just play in and they can almost naturally talk about the game, talk to their friends, tell them how cool it is. That's what we were kind of hoping for because internally, we knew it was something special.

Sony has denied earlier reports that it halved its projected shipments of PlayStation VR 2 units at launch due to lackluster pre-order numbers.

The original story came courtesy of a Bloomberg report that cites multiple unnamed sources familiar with the situation. According to the sources, Sony was forecasting that it would ship just one million units during the current financial quarter, which runs from September 2022 to March 2023, and encompasses the PSVR 2’s release date of February 22.

Sony had reportedly sought to ship two million units during that same period in the hopes that titles like Horizon: Call of the Mountain would stir up enthusiasm, and therefore pre-orders, for the system.

But in a statement to GamesIndustry.biz, PlayStation said it has "not cut PlayStation VR2 production numbers" and that it is "seeing enthusiasm from PlayStation fans for the upcoming launch, which includes more than 30 titles such as Gran Turismo 7, Horizon Call of the Mountain, and Resident Evil Village."

Microsoft has announced that it will raise the recommended retail price (RRP) of the Xbox Series X|S in Japan, starting on Friday February 17.

“After carefully evaluating the market condition in Japan, we have decided to change the suggested retail price of Xbox consoles in the country,” said a Microsoft representative in a statement to Famitsu, which was translated by Gematsu.

“We regularly evaluate the impact of local pricing to maintain reasonable consistency across regions. This price revision affects our customers and was a difficult decision to make, but going forward we will continue to provide the ultimate Xbox experience that our customers expect.”

The price of the Series X is set to rise from ¥54,978 ($423) to ¥59,978 ($462), while the Series S will similarly rise from ¥32,278 ($248) to ¥37,978 ($292) for a price rise of roughly $40 each.

Great Metroidvania titles come far and few between despite it being such a beloved genre, and perhaps the biggest hurdle to overcome is how any new Metroidvania can stand out and distinguish itself amongst the crowd. With momentum behind it after an excellent first attempt, Teslagrad 2 is taking its best shot with a long-awaited sequel. After playing the first hour, it is apparent that this series is committed to providing a different experience by making a fundamental change while still being relatively true to the genre.

Teslagrad 2 is a side-scrolling Metroidvania that focuses heavily on puzzle-based gameplay and exploration. Inspired by Scandinavian and Norse regions, the main character Lumina crash-lands in a forest and must now use her Teslamancer abilities to find her way back home to her family..

For those familiar with the Teslagrad series, you will end up finding plenty of familiar territory in its sequel in both the gameplay experience as well as many of the different key items that you will earn to gain access to new locations of the map. Starting out, I was equipped with blink boots allowing me to teleport a short distance from where I was facing, but after a short time I was exposed to a handful of new items and abilities making me hope that there will be a continuous variety to gain throughout the campaign. These abilities included the already-mentioned blink boots, a magnetic barrier to cling to walls as well as zipping quickly through water and cablelines.

Developer Storm in a Teacup has announced Steel Seed, a new action-stealth adventure game for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. It's tentatively due out in 2024. In Steel Seed, the last survivors of Earth, who are being kept safe underground by AI machines following mankind's own near-destruction of the planet, find themselves up against a new threat. But is that threat man or machine, and what does it mean for both mankind and their machine guardians?

“Steel Seed represents the most challenging project 'til now for Storm in a Teacup, featuring both a varied combat/stealth system and an incredibly deep and emotional storytelling,” said studio CEO and creative director Carlo Ivo Alimo Bianchi. “Steel Seed is an epic journey that will test your humanity.” Take a look at the announcement trailer above and the first screenshots in the gallery below.

Storm in a Teacup previously developed the 2019 horror game Close to the Sun. Read IGN's review of it here.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

Dragon Ball and Fortnite have crossed over once again with Piccolo and Son Gohan from Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero making their debut in the Battle Royale.

Announced on the Fortnite website, both new skins include the regular inclusion of additional accessories. Son Gohan comes with Gohan's Cape Back Bling, Gohan's Beast Axe Pickaxe, the Capsule No. 576 Glider, and the Charging Up emote to switch to Super Saiyan.

Piccolo comes with Piccolo's Cape and Turban Back Bling, Piccolo's Demon Symbol Back Bling, Piccolo's Handheld House Pickaxe, the Red Ribbon Army Aircraft Glider, and his own Charging Up emote that turns him into the Power Awakening version.

The Kamehameha attack item and Nimbus Cloud mobility item are also returning to Fortnite, and as before will increase in frequency as the storm closes in meaning games will often end in anime-esque battles.

Dragon Ball Adventure Island is also returning, letting Fortnite players explore iconic locations from the Dragon Ball anime including Goku's house, Kami's Palace, the Room of Spirit and Time, and Beerus's Planet. A weekly quest on the island starting on January 31 will unlock the Orange Piccolo Spray and a weekly quest starting on February 7 will unlock the Gohan Beast Spray.

Epic Games has promised that other Dragon Ball items will be returning to the Fortnite shop in the future, but didn't share more on which items or skins will return.

It seems you'll finally be able to shout "1v1 me, bro" in developer Second Dinner's superhero-themed mobile card game, Marvel Snap.

The popular licensed collectible card game, which won Best Mobile Game at the Game Awards, will finally be getting one of its most requested features since launching in October of last year: the ability to challenge your friends directly. The so-called Battle Mode will be available tomorrow.

It's coming...

Get ready for Battle Mode where you can challenge your friends and see who's really the best! pic.twitter.com/XPxkPXtRN8

— MARVEL SNAP (@MARVELSNAP) January 30, 2023

Up until now, players have been at the mercy of Marvel Snap's one and only playlist, a competitive matchmade mode that pits you against a random opponent in your skill bracket. In a recent blog post Second Dinner announced that Battle Mode would be a tournament-style mode where players play multiple games against one another until a clear winner emerges.

"Battle Mode pits two opponents against each other through multiple rounds. Each player starts with 10 health," the post said. "Instead of Cubes, what’s at stake is the amount of damage the winner will deal to the loser. If you can deplete your opponent’s health to zero, you win!"