May 2023

The PlayStation Plus Game Lineup for June 2023 has been revealed, with NBA 2K23, Trek to Yomi, and Jurassic World Evolution 2 joining the subscription service early next month.

All three games will be available to download on both PS4 and PS5 consoles from June 6 up until July 3 at no extra charge for individuals with PlayStation Plus Essential, Extra or Premium subscriptions.

NBA 2K23

NBA 2K23’s released back in September 2022, bringing with it a slew of online and single player game modes, including the reintroduction of the Jordan Challenge, which tasks fans with recreating 15 moments from the iconic player’s illustrious career. PlayStation Plus subscribers also get access to "exclusive monthly MyTEAM packs", according to the PlayStation blog post detailing the new additions.

In IGN’s 6/10 review we said that the game’s on-court improvements “ should've led it to an easy layup, but the ever-present nuisance of pay-to-win microtransactions make it much harder to enjoy”.

Trek to Yomi

Trek to Yomi meanwhile follows the story of the young samurai Horoki, as he voyages “beyond life and death” to protect his town, and fulfil the vow made to his dying master. In IGN’s 7/10 review we described Trek to Yomi as “a brief but captivating journey that’s like playing through a monochromatic Japanese movie”.

Brian Holinka, lead combat designer for World of Warcraft, has announced that he is leaving Blizzard to join Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street in forming a new game studio.

The former World of Warcraft developer made the announcement on Twitter yesterday, saying he's leaving Blizzard on Friday after working with Team 2 for nearly 11 years. This comes over two months after Street, former executive producer of the upcoming League of Legends MMO, stepped down from Riot Games and the game due to personal reasons.

"After nearly 11 years, Friday will be my last day on World of Warcraft and at Blizzard," Holinka wrote in his Twitter thread. "I'm excited to spend time off with my family this summer, after which, I'll begin a new adventure with my old friend and mentor, Greg Street."

After nearly 11 years, Friday will be my last day on World of Warcraft and at Blizzard. I'm excited to spend time off with my family this summer, after which, I'll begin a new adventure with my old friend and mentor, Greg Street.

— Brian Holinka (@holinka) May 30, 2023

He continued, "I will miss the combat team tremendously and my biggest regret is not being there to see them grow, develop and thrive as designers. [Team 2]'s new leadership is very strong and will serve them well. I leave confident that they are in good hands."

Zach Mumbach's been in the video game industry for a long time. He's worked on AAA franchises like Dead Space and Battlefield, and is now working at his own studio that's already shipped one game and is hard at work on a second. But even the most hardened video game developers are stunned, delighted, and just a little bit envious of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

"Tears of the Kingdom is overwhelmingly impressive," he says. "The bar is set so unbelievably high. Even for me, having worked in AAA for 17 years, I see that game and I'm jealous. Because clearly they got the time that they needed to make it really good."

The games industry is in the middle of a watershed moment thanks to Nintendo's latest masterpiece. Tears of the Kingdom is dominating the conversation on social media, as fans fall in love with its immersive exploration, complex building mechanics, and interconnected systems.

But developers are able to have an even deeper appreciation for the mastery on display in Tears of the Kingdom because of their own personal experiences with game development. While you or I can rightfully celebrate the game for everything we love about it, there's something more powerful about hearing praise from folks who know a little bit about what's actually going on under the hood. For instance, we've seen a handful of devs go nuts for the game's physics engine alone.

The game programming flex of all time. pic.twitter.com/id2K5uE5mz

Fans think that Microsoft and Xbox are teasing some Fable news at its upcoming Xbox Games showcase next month.

On Xbox’s official Twitter account, a video was posted showing a person’s Xbox controller covered in glitter. Then it's revealed that the glitter forms a trail that leads to a screen that shows the Xbox Games Showcase logo with the caption, “seems important.”

Do you love ✨ GAMES ✨ as much as we do? Then you won’t want to miss the Xbox Games Showcase: https://t.co/YSurRjtzpn | #Starfield #XboxShowcase pic.twitter.com/O1qSlXHNmY

— Xbox (@Xbox) May 30, 2023

In the Fable games, a glitter trail guided players to their next destination on a mission. So this trail of glitter implies that the Fable reboot will appear at the Xbox Games Showcase. The game is being developed by Forza Horizon developer Playground Games.

The Fable reboot was first announced back in 2020 for Xbox Series X and PC. In the meantime, we’ve learned that the game is being developed using the Forza engine and that Horizon Forbidden West writer Andrew Walsh left Guerrilla Games to join Playground and work on it.

Tears of the Kingdom fans believe that the game boasts a hidden experience level scaling system which is similar to the one which supposedly governed world progression in Breath of the Wild.

Data miners had previously found evidence to suggest the 2017 game featured a system by which Link would accrue experience and level up. This system purportedly governed when the more dangerous enemy variants and powerful weapons and shields would start to appear in the game world.

Now, some members of the Zelda community believe that a similar system may also be at work in Tears of the Kingdom. YouTuber Austin John Plays recently detailed the system in a new video, which combined knowledge gleaned from Breath of the Wild data miners with observations of world progression in the most recent entry in the Legend of Zelda franchise.

The Secret System of EXP Level Scaling in Tears of the Kingdom Explained https://t.co/l8yb3XaYjB pic.twitter.com/Qh9NV34Hti

— Austin John Plays (@AustinJohnPlays) May 29, 2023

As was the case with its predecessor, the underlying progression system has no visible hud elements – like a level number or XP guage – but makes itself known through the types of monsters and equipment encountered as the game progresses.

I love first-person shooters. Always have. Always will. And in particular I love single-player first-person shooters. Mix a compelling narrative in with some great set pieces and repeatable fun gameplay that makes me feel powerful in some way and I’m all-in. I also love something that feels fresh and new, which is harder to come by in this expensive-to-build, risk-averse genre. That’s why I was intrigued to spend a few hours playing Immortals of Aveum, whose Mad Libs-sounding name belies a great idea I haven’t seen in an FPS in a while: it has zero guns in it. By now you’ve already seen that magic takes its place. It’s a smart choice that allows plenty of depth and variety between its three magic types, and the result thus far is a game that mostly had me smiling the entire time I played.

I say “mostly” because, well, let me get Aveum’s big blemish out of the way now: its dialogue and main character are not good. You play as Jak, a generic cocky rookie who has developed the rare ability in this universe to wield all three types of magic: red, blue, and green. Neither Jak nor the words that come out of his mouth match the tone of this fantasy universe at all. Maybe this was on purpose to try and avoid being Yet Another Fantasy Game, but it just doesn’t work. I’m not looking forward to an entire campaign’s worth of Jak’s cringey dialogue with his superior officers in their Everwar against The Bad Guy.

Last week’s PlayStation Showcase had a ton of exciting reveals. A remake of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, new details on Assassin’s Creed Mirage, another killer glimpse at Alan Wake 2… But there was also one glaring flaw a lot of people have since pointed out: There weren't a whole lot of PlayStation exclusives on show, and that is great news for Xbox.

Another Gran Turismo movie trailer, PlayStation earbuds, and CGI concepts for many of the new PlayStation exclusives meant fans were left underwhelmed. Worse, some of those CGI concepts didn’t even do a good job of teasing what you can expect from the full game. Sorry FairGame$, but what is this game exactly?

A total of 4 PlayStation Studios were present at the showcase.

3 out of those 4 had CGI trailers for live service games with 0 gameplay and the last studio showed gameplay for a game that was announced in September of 2021. That's after 1.5 years of waiting.

Wtf Sony.

— MBG (@xMBGx) May 25, 2023

There’s always a lot of hype ahead of a showcase and while PlayStation usually does a good job of at least attempting to manage expectations, this seemed a little different. The PlayStation blog promised “A wealth of new games and new IP are headed to PS5 and PS VR2,” and the switch from the usual State of Play to a full-blown Showcase meant it felt like we were back in E3 territory, even though it’s long gone.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has officially been completed in less than one hour, setting an all-new speedrunning record for the Breath of the Wild sequel.

As reported by GamesRadar, Zelda speedrunner Zdi6923 shared a YouTube video showing their run from start to finish. The player used a variety of tips and tricks on their journey across the lands of Hyrule and ended up clocking in a time of 59 minutes and 22 seconds.

The skilled speedrunner registered their record-breaking time on speedrun.com and instantly claimed the top spot on the leaderboard, having beaten the previous record holder SlyZorua, who completed the game in 1 hour, 2 minutes and 42 seconds.

Tears of the Kingdom launched on May 12 and sold 10 million copies worldwide in its first three days. Players were eager to return to Hyrule to explore its all-new mysteries and test out various tricks, including those that would save time while moving through the game.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Remake (officially Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater) will reportedly feature the 2004 game's original voice acting.

As reported by The Verge, Konami's head of communications for the Americas Tommy Williams said the remake will feature the original game's dialogue with no changes despite being released close to two decades ago.

The status of the remake's voice acting was up in the air due to unclear wording from Konami, who said alongside the announcement last week that it will "star the original voice characters".

This also means that David Hayter, who voiced Snake in nine different Metal Gear games before being passed over for Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, will sort of make his return to the franchise. This will seemingly only be through his original lines recorded for the game, of course, and not through new voice acting.

Hayter said following his replacement that he doesn't "feel any need to go back" and work with franchise creator Hideo Kojima (though he's not involved in the remake), and appeared fairly hurt by Konami's decision not to have him return.

"That'll be 60 hours of humiliation that I can’t get to," he said of playing Metal Gear Solid 5 at the time. "I haven’t played the latest two iterations because it’s just too painful."

As some may know, May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in the United States. Although Asian Americans make up a little over seven percent of the United States population, Asian American is a diverse term encompassing Asian Americans from all kinds of cultures from over 24 countries, and that’s only including the ones officially counted by the United States census.

The history behind the term “Asian American” is complicated, and doesn’t do justice to such a diverse and varied group of people. But in the centuries since Asian immigrants first arrived in the United States, people from numerous countries have left an indelible mark on American culture.

If this list is short, that's because Asian American art is still nascent. But if you want to look back on AAPI month and enjoy some great contributions to culture from AAPI artists, you can start with these.

A note before the list: we've done our best to highlight specifically Asian American media, which is distinct and unique from pop culture hits produced abroad, so don't expect to see films like 2019's Parasite – a brilliant South Korean movie, but not an Asian American one.

Diablo Franchise General Manager and old friend of Unlocked Rod Fergusson joins the show this week to celebrate the launch of Diablo 4. Rod talks about the challenges of joining Blizzard mere days before the COVID-19 pandemic, why he left Gears of War behind after 15 years, which Diablo 4 class he'll be playing first, and much more!

Subscribe on any of your favorite podcast feeds, to our YouTube channel, or grab an MP3 of this week's episode. For more awesome content, check out our interview with Todd Howard, who answered all of our Starfield questions after the big reveal at the Xbox Showcase:

For more next-gen coverage, make sure to check out our Xbox Series X review, our Xbox Series S review, and our PS5 review.

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.