IGN

As someone who played it during its early access period, I was immediately surprised by how much Grounded has evolved for its 1.0 launch. It feels like it’s not only fulfilled the potential of its “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” survival premise, but exceeded nearly all of my expectations of it. Even though it’s still plagued with mostly harmless bugs (the software kind) that can annoy, I enjoyed practically every minute of the over 100 hours I’ve played so far of this stunningly creative and consistently funny adventure, and it easily stands shoulder to shoulder alongside some of my favorite survival games.

Grounded is a survival game first and foremost, but draws a ton of inspiration from Obsidian’s history as a team of RPG wizards as well. You’ll split your time between scavenging the charming backyard setting for materials, crafting awesome items from the corpses of your enemies, building badass structures to protect yourself and your stuff, fighting giant bugs that gave my co-op partners nightmares, exploring extremely difficult dungeons, leveling up your character’s stats and equipment, and more. Numerous character progression mechanics, an enemy weaknesses and resistances system that had me poring over data in the menu, the elaborate boss fights, and NPCs and dialogue options that break up the action all make it feel more like a roleplaying game than most of its survival peers. Admittedly, there aren’t very many NPCs to find and most story development is either told via collectible audio recordings or locked behind hours of survival gameplay and a bit of grinding, but Grounded strikes a great balance between making you feel on your own in a hostile backyard and meeting quirky characters, most of whom inevitably try to maim you.

PUBG creator Brendan Greene has revealed his next game – a blockchain-powered metaverse title.

During an interview with Hit Points, the 45-year-old game developer revealed that Artemis, his next game, will feature NFTs, the metaverse, and blockchain.

“[Artemis] will be a platform that we participate in the maintenance of, maybe,” he explained. “But it’s something that anyone can plug into, and everyone can host a bit of themselves.”

Artemis will reportedly let players make anything they like as part of a large, open world. But now, it looks as though the project will incorporate blockchain.

"I was fascinated with this idea of digital spaces, places where there are no real rules but a set of systems that you can use,” explained Greene. “That fascinated me, and still does. I never considered just walking away.”

Blockchain is often pitched as a way for players to contribute to a game’s development, but many developers have come out against the technology with the likes of Minecraft outright banning the use of NFTs or blockchain.

Greene insists that Artemis is not about making money. “The only way this exists is if it’s made for everyone, and it’s not made for money,” he said. However, he also confirmed that players will be able to “extract value” from their creations by selling in-game items to other players.

Northgard the video game came out a few years ago to much acclaim. It uses the concepts of '90s real-time strategy classics such as Age of Empires and The Settlers, alongside a slick modern sandbox approach. Players control viking warbands to construct villages and accomplish great tasks. They are incentivized to pursue bigger and mightier feats to amass fame, such as slaying beasts and crushing opposing players. Now, this RTS/adventure game hybrid has received a passionate and evocative board game adaptation titled Northgard: Uncharted Lands (see it on Amazon).

Very much to its credit, this tabletop game stands comfortably alongside its digital predecessor, as well as independently on its own merit. Fans of the video game will detect the inspiration lovingly spread throughout its various cards, miniatures, and tiles.

Designer Adrian Dinu has crafted a standout board game that combines well-established systems with a fresh vision. One needs no familiarity with the original Northgard to enjoy this adventure, as its primary connection is in abstracting the core themes of exploration and scarcity.

As you control one of the asymmetric clans, you'll focus on both exploring the new continent and developing its lands. Tiles reveal the vast countryside randomly in a process that mimics the procedural generation of its peer. You will bump into other players and discover wild fauna, encounters often leading to outright conflict. It’s a violent and surprisingly thoughtful experience that feels right at home on the tabletop.

Gaming Twitter belongs to Trombone Champ right now, with tons of videos floating around of people trying (and usually hilariously failing) to play the wacky rhythm game.

If you haven't heard of it, Trombone Champ is a new PC game where you play classical tunes on the trombone, using your mouse or controller to adjust the pitch of the note your Mii-like avatar is playing. If you're even the slightest bit off with your note placement, the note will sound either sharp or flat, just like a real trombone. Unlike other rhythm games that only expect you to hit five buttons to sound like a rockstar, Trombone Champ's hilarity comes from its extreme requirements of precision.

Now, as these things usually tend to go, some folks are coming up with new controller methods to play the game. On Twitter, Rudeism has made Trombone Champ playable with an actual trombone. In the video below, you can watch as Rudeism plays Trombone Champ with a plastic trombone, where an ultrasonic sensor controls the slide, and a microphone controls the dooting.

BEHOLD, THE TROMBONE CONTROLLER

Ultrasonic sensor controls the slide, and a microphone controls the dooting. If only I knew how to play it IRL 😅

The ultimate way to play Trombone Champ @HolyWowStudios pic.twitter.com/Lvm5m2CT44

Team Ninja says that it is open to outsourcing its own IP, such as Ninja Gaiden, to other studios as long as the game being developed is able to exceed fan expectations.

In an interview with VGC, Team Ninja's Fumihiko Yasuda - director of upcoming Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty - said, “If we were to theoretically work with another company on a new Ninja Gaiden title, we would need to make sure that it would be a title that the fans would really enjoy and exceed their expectations.”

Yasuda explained that even though there is a big fanbase for existing IP like Ninja Gaiden, Team Ninja needs to balance its resources within the studio, including seeing what kind of skills members of the development team currently have. From there, they would decide if those skills could fit an existing IP, or perhaps an entirely new one.

He is also open to handing off a potential new Ninja Gaiden game to a team of younger developers within Team Ninja. However, either decision wouldn’t be made lightly. “It’s not just a matter of, ‘hey, let’s just go do this.’ All the pieces would need to fit, and it would need to be the right team…either a younger team internally or another company that would really need to fit the Ninja Gaiden pedigree,” Yasuda explained.

Team Ninja is understandably cautious about such an idea. The last time Ninja Gaiden was outsourced - 2014's Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z, made by Californian studio Spark Unlimited - the series was tarnished with poor reviews, including a 5.6 from IGN.

Microsoft has unveiled a new Mineral Camo Special Edition Xbox wireless controller, featuring a camouflage pattern of ocean tones encompassing different shades of blue and purple. It's available to order now at several retailers (see it at Amazon).

The official Xbox announcement identifies the Mineral Camo controller as the fourth addition to the camo series alongside the Night Ops Camo, Arctic Camo, and Daystrike Camo controllers. The newest iteration has patches of mineral blue, aqua, and dark purple, inspired by geode crystals, with a textured grip on the triggers, bumpers, and back case to enhance comfort and make the controller easier to hold.

The Mineral Camo controller has many of the same features as the Daystrike Camo release, including a hybrid D-pad for more precise input in all eight directions, and a Share button to send screenshots and video out into the world. It also includes a 3.5mm audio jack and wireless technology allowing players to fully immerse themselves into gaming on consoles, PC, mobile phones, and tablets.

Overwatch’s Commercial Leader and Vice President, Jon Spector, has said that he is interested in exploring brand crossovers similar to those seen in Fortnite with Overwatch 2.

Talking to Game Informer, Spector said: "I'm a big anime nerd myself. I think it's super cool when I see Naruto appear in Fortnite. I don't even play Fortnite, but that's awesome. And as we look at the Overwatch 2 space, those are things that we're interested in exploring. If and when we do that, one of our key values is to do it in a way that feels like a great fit for the Overwatch franchise."

Spector added that Blizzard is less interested in displaying adverts in Overwatch 2 in order to fund its transition to free-to-play. The main generator of revenue will be premium-priced battle passes and cosmetics, which in Season 1 of Overwatch 2 will be cyberpunk-themed.

Madden NFL 23's Ultimate Team weekly schedule could see some disruption this week as Hurricane Ian makes its way towards Florida, home of developer EA Tiburon.

Madden Ultimate Team released its content schedule on Twitter at the start of this week, alerting players to content drops for AKA, Team of the Week, Gridiron Guardians, Team Diamonds, and Legends along with three planned streaming slots for Good Morning Madden. However, the announcement also came with a warning: "Content is subject to change or experience delays due to Hurricane Ian."

Content is subject to change or experience delays due to Hurricane Ian.

Any and all updates or changes will be noted here or @MaddenNFLDirect. pic.twitter.com/81BwGWv4By

— Madden Ultimate Team (@EASPORTS_MUT) September 26, 2022

At the time of writing, EA's expected content schedule for Madden 23 remains in place but the studio promises to share any updates or changes to these plans on Twitter via MaddenNFLDirect.

Esperança is Overwatch 2’s newest map. Set in Portugal, it pays tribute to the country’s architectural past while also ushering in Overwatch’s future through its streets. As a Push map - the sequel’s tug-of-war-like addition to the menu - it presented the development team with a lot of new challenges to overcome, but equally rewarded them on a professional and personal level. I spoke to Art Director Dion Rogers and Sound Designer Felipe de Mello Pereira to learn more about the design process, but first started with the basics: why Portugal?

“We actually have a huge list of places to go when we're working on a game and the team is a pretty international team”, Rogers explains. “ Actually the lead environment artist for Overwatch 2 is a guy from Portugal, Helder Pinto. Sometimes, when we have a person from the location, we get so much more of the culture and so much of the details. It just comes across a lot better because we have that close connection.”

“I think Portugal in terms of representation in Western media, it can sometimes get dwarfed by its neighbours that also are just explosions of culture and tourism”, states Pereira.

Outriders developer People Can Fly has announced that it is parting ways with Take-Two, the publisher of its upcoming game codenamed Project Dagger.

In a statement published on its own website, People Can Fly revealed that it has received a letter from Take-Two detailing its “intent to terminate the development and publishing agreement by means of mutual understanding between the parties.”

The split will see People Can Fly retain the intellectual property rights to its game, and so it is free to either self-publish Project Dagger or seek a replacement publisher. The developer will, however, still have to pay back Take-Two for the money it provided to fund Project Dagger's costs. The details of this repayment have yet to be determined, and will be arranged depending on how the game is eventually published.

Project Dagger has been in development for two years at People Can Fly’s New York studio. Very little is known about it, aside from that it is a new action-adventure IP.

Cyberpunk 2077 is seeing a huge resurgence, and the devs are loving it.

Speaking to fans on his Twitch channel (via GamesRadar), Cyberpunk 2077 quest director Pawel Sasko explained what it means to see the game being picked up by so many, so long after its original launch.

“It’s hard to express, when you're putting so much heart and work into something,” he said. “And you know for some of us it's been six, seven, eight years sometimes, especially for those who started at the very beginning. So, to have this moment, of people liking something that we did, it's really feeling a bit unreal. That finally people are appreciating it.”

Cyberpunk 2077 debuted on December 10, 2020, but had a troubled launch, to say the least. A disastrous console launch on the base versions of PS4 and Xbox One saw extensive bugs and glitches, a problem so bad that Sony soon delisted the game, with the PS Store and developer CD Projekt Red offering refunds to those who purchased it.

Update 9/27/22: The controller is still available at GameStop and PS Direct. It sold out quickly at Amazon, Target, Best Buy, and Walmart, so grab it sooner than later if you want it. Good luck, friends.

It's finally time to get yourself ready for God of War: Ragnarok, as the new Limited Edition DualSense Controller is now available to preorder in the UK and the US. You can order the controller from GAME UK at the moment, or Walmart in the US, with the new themed gamepad costing £64.99 / $74.99. You won't have to pay anything until the controller dispatches before release, and the controller will be officially available from November 9.

GAME is currently the only UK retailer to have the controller available to preorder, but you can also expect other sites to have it available soon as well, so stay tuned to IGN or follow @IGNUKDeals / @IGNDeals on Twitter for more news. As this is a limited release, you can also expect preorders to sell out quickly - so if you can't live without this, I'd get your preorder in ASAP.

Where to Preorder the God of War Ragnarok Controller in the US

Though once the talk amongst FPS fans, Halo's popularity over the years has wavered even amongst the most dedicated fans. From its inception, it helped push the FPS genre forward on home consoles and was often considered one of the gold standards for an FPS on consoles. We've seen numerous sequels, prequels, and spin-offs; while some were successful, others were not. Even the most recent release, Halo Infinite, has drawn lots of criticism for its handling of the multiplayer mode and the lack of split-screen, Forge, and online co-op game modes, some of which are still not available nine months after launch.

It's no surprise that Halo Infinite hasn't set the world on fire due to these missing features that many expected at launch. Hopefully, when they add the content that fans have been asking for, it can one day fulfill what many hoped to be a return to form for the franchise. Forge mode, along with some new maps, weapons, and updates to the multiplayer, is scheduled for November. Still, the delay of season 3 to 2023 and the departure of developers show that ongoing development is still finding its way.

With Halo 3 recently celebrating its 15th anniversary, it's a great time to discuss the franchise's future. It still holds a lot of promise, but many are understandably concerned about its future, which brings us to today's topic -- How do you feel about the future of Halo?

I've called games ambitious before, but please believe me when I say that Terra Invicta is one of the wildest, strangest, and biggest ideas I've ever seen a single development team try to take on. All at once it's a grand strategy-scale geopolitics simulator, an alien-invasion battler, and a hard sci-fi solar system industrialization simulator with integrated real-time newtonian-physics-driven fleet combat. But while I got sucked into its world, that fresh mix of ideas suffers from some very conventional strategy game failures in its interface, accessibility, and balance.

One part of Terra Invicta is an engaging simulation of a world where secret coalitions manipulate its nations. They fight in the shadows over humanity's response to the threat of an alien invasion, managing national allegiances, research, economies, espionage, and militaries. You take control of one of these seven factions, each of which has its own unique asymmetric victory conditions, and command their leadership council to build a movement that can reach your goals in a fascinating, ever-shifting political landscape.

The other part of it is a detailed simulation of human expansion into the solar system, including the militarization and industrialization of space, the likes of which I've never seen in a video game. It's complete with real-time space combat and years-long travel between solar bodies. Using a jaw-dropping array of near-future and science fiction techs, you're expected to figure out how best to build ships, colonies, and stations able to produce the space resources you need to win the fight.

Netflix has announced that it will be creating an internal game development studio in Helsinki, Finland. The studio will be led by Marko Lastikka, Zynga's vice president, as its director.

“This is another step in our vision to build a world-class games studio that will bring a variety of delightful and deeply engaging original games — with no ads and no in-app purchases — to our hundreds of millions of members around the world,” Netflix says in a statement on its website.

Netflix explains that Helsinki has some of the best game development talent in the world, and this will be the first studio that it builds from the ground up. The company also has another studio, Next Games, established in Helsinki as well.

“It’s still early days, and we have much more work to do to deliver a great games experience on Netflix,” the company continues. “Creating a game can take years, so I’m proud to see how we’re steadily building the foundation of our games studios in our first year, and look forward to sharing what we produce in the coming years.”

Netflix will now have four game development studios in total, including Night School Studio and Boss Fight Entertainment. Night School Studio’s Oxenfree has a Netflix edition on the platform available to play for subscribers now. Oxenfree II: Lost Signals was also delayed to 2023 in order to add more localizations.

BlazBlue series creator Toshimichi Mori has departed from Arc System Works after almost 20 years. He started working for the company in 2003.

“I have something to report to all of the users. I, Toshimichi Mori, have left Arc System works, the company I worked at for many years,” Mori says on Twitter (translated by Gematsu). “I first joined Arc System works after working on Guilty Gear X as an employee of PicPac, and I cherish many of the experiences I have had during my 20 years there, whether it was working for various fighting game titles, developing my own title BlazBlue, or connecting with many of our users.”

He continues, “I have nothing but gratitude towards the staff of Arc System Works and others who have worked with me, as well as all the users who supported us. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I will depart from Arc System Works. This may cause some feelings of anxiety, especially among fans of the BlazBlue series. For this, I sincerely apologize.”

ご報告です。 pic.twitter.com/wACWEOfxVh

— 森P (@zatuyoP) September 25, 2022

However, Mori also explains that he isn’t done with video games just yet. At the moment, he’s thinking of creating a game for BlazBlue fans in some sort of fashion, and he’s going to focus on that endeavor going forward.

Nobody knows what the metaverse is. The term, which has become one of the most popular fundraising idioms deployed in boardrooms across the country, is notoriously enigmatic. Can the metaverse be defined as a social space where gamers hang out? A multiverse partitioned into distinct plots of land, governed by ruthless capital laws? Yet another extension of the questionable NFT gambit? Ask a million game developers, and you'll likely get a million different answers. You could make the argument that we've already been living in the metaverse for decades – after all, I spent much of my youth ambling outside of the Ironforge auction house in World of Warcraft. You could also make the argument that the metaverse is a far-off dream that can only be actualized by wistfully futuristic technology; all of us transporting to a digital utopia using the holodeck from Star Trek. Perhaps it is better, and more honest, to think of the metaverse as something studios are creating on the fly, rather than a concrete ideal we're aspiring towards. In that sense, Fortnite should be considered the torchbearer for this strange new frontier.

A fan has just finished a colossal project inside Super Mario Maker 2 – spending seven years (across both Mario Maker games) creating an entire Mario game, which they've dubbed Super Mario Bros. 5.

On Twitter (below), Metroid Mike 64 wrote, "I’ve finally finished creating my Super World in Mario Maker 2 and have unofficially named it Super Mario Bros 5. I’ve been working towards this moment since 2015, trying to create a classic Mario game that plays as if Nintendo created it themselves."

I’ve finally finished creating my Super World in Mario Maker 2 and have unofficially named it Super Mario Bros 5. I’ve been working towards this moment since 2015, trying to create a classic Mario game that plays as if Nintendo created it themselves. pic.twitter.com/eUNvHQysVq

— Metroid Mike 64 (@MetroidMike64) September 25, 2022

If those dates don't quite add up for you, it's because Metroid Mike 64 says he's been planning to do this since the first Mario Maker game arrived in 2015. When the sequel came out for Switch, he says he studied his creations and "painstakingly imported them block-for-block" from the first game to the second.

Maybe it's time we officially declare the PS5 available in the UK, because you can easily buy one at the moment if you really want to. GAME and ShopTo have now got the PS5 + FIFA 23 bundles available to preorder for £539.99, so go nuts if you want to pick it up.

There's also an incredible deal on Xbox controllers right now at Amazon, coming down to just £39.99 for both the black and the white versions of the gamepad. The colour variations are also down to just £43.99 (dropping from £64.99), which is an excellent discount. It's not clear how long this sale will last for, so get your orders in ASAP to make sure you don't miss out.

There's also an amazing discount on Pulse 3D Headsets for PS5 at Amazon right now, with the standard version and Midnight Black versions down to just £69.99, which is over £20 off the original list price. But we're not done; Xbox Series S consoles are also available with FIFA 23 for free alongside, which is another outstanding deal to check out right now. Plus, if want to save even more, you can buy the console refurbished and get it with FIFA 23 for just £209.99 instead - result!

TL;DR - Best Deals Right Now

Preorder God of War: Ragnarok Controller in the UK

A new Silent Hill game called The Short Message may be on its way, according to a Korean rating.

The Game Rating and Administration Committee of Korea (via Gematsu) has given a rating to the previously unannounced Silent Hill: The Short Message. Unfortunately, it’s not known what this new game is, or even what platforms it will appear on. Some have speculated that the title could allude to a playable teaser, not unlike PT, the last mainline Silent Hill release.

The publisher was listed as UNIANA – the publisher of Konami’s recent free-to-play soccer fiasco, eFootball 2023. It’s also unknown whether The Short Message will be a new instalment in the Silent Hill, a teaser, a spin-off, or mobile game. Considering UNIANA’s production of arcade cabinets, it could even be a new Silent Hill arcade experience.

Silent Hill was originally released for the PS One in 1999 and tells the story of Harry Mason – a man searching for his missing adopted daughter in the titular fictional American town. The survival horror was a huge hit, spawning numerous sequels and spin-offs over the years.

There's an excellent deal on Xbox controllers at Amazon right now, with the gamepad coming down to just $44.99 for a limited time only (or £39.99 in the UK). That's a significant $15 off the regular list price of $59.99. Currently, this deal applies to the Robot White (in stock) and Carbon Black Xbox Controller (sold out for now at Amazon).

But, if you're looking to get one of the many color variations of the controller, those are also on sale at the moment. The red, blue, and yellow Xbox controllers are also down to $47.99, which is actually an even better deal, as it's $17 off the list price of $64.99.

Xbox Controllers Down to $44.99 at Amazon (was $59.99)

This sale is also available at the likes of Best Buy, Walmart, and the Microsoft Store, but Amazon has got the best deal at the moment. Amazon has dropped the Robot White controller to $45, while everywhere else it's $50 (down from $60).

This is a very similar deal to the DualSense discount we saw during the Sony State of Play sale, so I wouldn't be surprised if it comes back again during Amazon's Prime Early Access Sale in October, just like the DualSense deal returned for Prime Day.

Netflix has announced and revealed five images from an Onimusha anime based on the hit Capcom game series.

Revealed in a tweet from Netflix Anime (below), the stills show a handful of characters against a backdrop of Japan's Edo period. The anime is being created with 3D, CGI characters and hand-drawn backgrounds, and the series promises to give new life to the classic game series.

No release date was announced but Netflix did reveal the team behind Onimusha's anime. The project is being led by Takashi Miike and Shinya Sugai from Sublimation (the studio that released the Dragon's Dogma anime in 2020) and features Toshihiro Mifune as Musashi Miyamoto.

pic.twitter.com/NcKtTe22ew

— Netflix Anime (@NetflixAnime) September 25, 2022

A short plot-synopsis was also released, with Netflix saying: "The beginning of the Edo period, Musashi is no longer a young man. He departs with the legendary Oni Gauntlet to defeat the Genma."

The Onimusha series began in 2001 but has been more or less dormant (outside of a mobile game, browser game, and remaster) since 2006, when Dawn of Dreams was released on the PlayStation 2.

Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals has been delayed to 2023 to make it Night School Studio's "best game yet."

Night School Studio shared the update on Twitter, saying the delay was, in part, due to wanting to make it "truly special" and "add more localizations."

"We owe it to our amazing community to make OXENFREE II: Lost Signals the best game it can possibly be," Night School Studio wrote. "Seeing your fan art, reading your excited comments, and connecting with you fuels our ambition to make this our best game yet. To make OXENFREE II truly special and add more localizations, we're moving our release window to 2023.

"Thank you for your patience, support, and understanding. We can't wait to share the game with you. Stay tuned."

Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals was first announced for a 2021 release on Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, and Steam, and it will serve as a sequel set five years after the events of the original 2016 supernatural teen drama game.

This new story will follow Riley, who "returns to her hometown of Camena to investigate mysterious radio frequency signals causing curious disturbances."

Xbox has officially launched Project Amplify, a new video series that "aims to magnify Black voices within Xbox to inspire, educate and motivate youth across the U.S. to aspire towards careers in the gaming industry through real-life storytelling from Black leaders and employees across the Xbox ecosystem."

Alongside a teaser, the first details of Project Amplify were shared on Xbox Wire by Black Communities at Xbox Co-Leads Q Muhaimin and James Lewis, and they begin by discussing the results of a recent survey from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Connect that discovered that, out of 200 respondents, 95% of college students and alumni from HBCUs in the US had an interest in having a career in the games industry.

34% said they wanted Program Management roles, 24% wanted Engineering roles, and 18% wanted Gaming Development roles. These numbers tell a story about Black students wanting to join the games industry, but the reality paints a different picture as "only 2% of professionals in the video game industry are Black compared with 13% of the U.S. population."

Project Amplify wants to change this and will be featuring 14 Black employees from across Xbox as they "each share advice, insights into their current roles, and highlights from their time within the gaming industry." The hope is that Project Amplify will educate Black youth and beyond about the many roles that make up the games industry and show them that they can be a part of it.

Infinity Ward, Fromsoftware, and Insomniac are just a few of the hundreds of development teams out there but they and plenty of other top developers regularly take input from publishers like Activision, Bandai Namco, and Sony during the process to help their games reach the finish line.

While some franchises and developers tend to be exclusive to specific publishers, there are a number of them that work across the industry with many different publishers. Call of Duty regularly cycles its developers yearly while FromSoftware has partnered with Sony and Bandai Namco for big successful titles like Bloodborne and Elden Ring.

Even Insomniac worked with Xbox Game Studios on Sunset Overdrive before Sony put a ring on it and officially made them part of their first-party family.

Let's use Call of Duty as an example. The series regularly cycles development teams between installments but is owned and published by Activision. Some fans will only buy CoD when developed by their preferred developer. Would you still buy a new Call of Duty if it was suddenly published by EA or Take-Two?

Would you take a chance on a Call of Duty developed by a new studio that's never done it if Activision published it? How about if one of your other favorites like Assassin's Creed, Final Fantasy, or Mario were developed by someone else?

That brings us to the topic of game developers vs. publishers: Are developers or publishers more important in how you choose games?

In Beacon Pines, the story and decisions made are mapped out on a tree, showing branching paths from single moments that changed the course of the story. For developer Matt Meyer, that was true in real life, too. His path to developing Beacon Pines began with a single, simple, consequential decision made years ago, almost on a whim.

“I worked a corporate job for five years or so in Chicago, and sort of just snapped one day,” Meyer says. “It wasn't really the job's fault. It was the traffic. I was in my car an hour and a half every day…I hate traffic so much. So I just snapped one day. I was like, ‘I'm moving,’ and I moved to Austin, and didn't really have a plan.”

Sans plan, Meyer was hoping to write music, specifically for games. After a bit of noodling around, though, he realized if he made a game, he could put his own music in that. He eventually teamed up with Brent Calhoun and Ilse Harting, and thus Beacon Pines was born…as an RPG rhythm battler.

“It looks cool, and it sounds cool, and the idea was kind of cool, but we never quite found the thing about the design that clicked,” he says. “I tried a lot of different ways of doing it, and it was a functional game, but it didn't have a spark.”

But what stood out to Meyer and the others were the characters that Harting had created, especially Luka: a little deer creature. So the team took a risk: they threw out everything that wasn’t working, and started from almost scratch, focusing on the characters and environments first.

Xbox’s flagship shooter is an intergalactic sci-fi saga with narrative foundations that date back billions of years. Despite that far-reaching history, the actual Halo games largely take place within a single decade during the tail end and aftermath of the Human-Covenant War.

The mainline Halo games present a sequential storyline, though several spinoffs complicate the series’ chronology. With that in mind, we’ve created this brief rundown of the Halo timeline as explored in video games.

This list includes all mainline Halo games and most spinoffs, including the Halo Wars strategy games and Halo: Spartan top-down shooters. The mixed-reality game Halo Recruit, the arcade game Halo: Fireteam Raven, and the marketing ploy/mobile game Halo 4: King of the Hill Fueled By Mountain Dew are not included.

Jump to:

• How to play in chronological order
• How to play by release order

The Halo Games in Chronological Order

As with most series, there are two possible ways to approach the Halo games: chronologically by release date or chronologically by narrative. The choice is yours, and both possible paths are outlined below, beginning with the narrative chronology.

With series newcomers in mind, these brief plot synopses contain only mild spoilers such as broad plot points, settings, and character introductions.

Breathing new life into our favorite classic games is often a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the game has familiarity with audiences, so it will already have a fanbase that will be excited to see it make a return. Still, there is always the risk that the updated version won't live up to the memories we have of the original.

Successful or not, year after year, we see more and more developers attempt to breathe life into an older franchise in the hopes of returning it to its previous glory days. Recently we've witnessed Chrono Cross, Destroy All Humans, Alan Wake, and plenty of others make a resurgence thanks to remasters.

We also know that there are plenty more on the way as this trend doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon. So, what classic franchise would you like to make a comeback, and get the remaster or remake treatment?

What minimum amount of time should pass before a game or franchise gets the remaster or remake treatment? What remastered games have come back and captured the original's essence for you?

What are some of your favorite games that came back after a long hiatus? Which franchises would you like to come back that aren't in our poll? Let us know in the comments.

Jada Griffin is IGN's Community Lead. If she's not engaging with users here, chances are she's developing her own games, maxing the Luck stat in her favorite games, or challenging her D&D players with Intense combat or masterful puzzles. You can follow her on Twitter @Jada_Rina.

Harvey Smith is best known for his work on Arkane's Dishonored series, but he's now revealed a trio of games he pitched that never entered development.

Speaking to NME, Smith said he at one point pitched a Blade Runner game, a fourth entry in the Thief series, and an immersive sim inspired by the 1995 crime drama Heat.

Smith is obviously a fan of the immersive sim genre, which is a staple part of most Arkane games. So it's no surprise that the games the designer pitched largely fall under that umbrella. The Thief series is one of the defining examples of the immersive sim genre, and it did eventually get a fourth entry with 2014's Thief developed by Eidos-Montreal.

While the interview didn't share many details about the Blade Runner pitch, arguably the most interesting pitch was the Heat immersive sim. Heat was directed by Michael Mann and stars Robert De Niro, a master criminal planning one last big heist before retirement. According to Smith, this game would have had "immersive sim values."

Instead, Smith went on to work on BlackSite: Area 51, before moving onto Arkane.

Clearing up some worries from voice actors and gamers alike, Hellblade developer Ninja Theory has confirmed it won't use AI technology to replace voice actors in its video games.

For context, a recent report dove into new AI technology from Altered AI, a company that's working to give game developers the ability to "create compelling, professional voice performances” without the need to cast human voice actors. Apparently, this new tech allows devs to simply submit a recording of what they want said along with the proper inflection, and the technology produces a performance for in-game use.

Ninja Theory was listed in the report as one of the developers that's utilizing this technology from Altered AI, which caused worry that authentic, human performances wouldn't be present in the studio's games, like the upcoming Senua's Saga: Hellblade II.

However, the developer has confirmed that's not the case, explaining how it actually uses AI technology on Twitter.

"For clarity, we use this AI tech for placeholder content only to help us understand things like timing and placement in early phases of development," the developer wrote. "We then collaborate with real actors whose performances are at the heart of bringing our stories to life."

The swine of The Nine, 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.

Where Is Xûr Today?

Xûr's location can be found at Winding Cove in the EDZ on September 23 through September 27. 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 freakish salesman we all adore.

For ages, real-time strategy has been a genre where the number of things you can physically do per second has a major impact on how effectively you can play. And while there's something to be said for that, Company of Heroes 3 is trying to expand the appeal of its tactical gameplay to those who would rather sit back and think through every move carefully, perhaps with a glass of whiskey in one hand and a mouse in the other. Tactical pause, as they call it, isn't any less harrowing of an experience for your soldiers who are being sent to charge a machine gun emplacement. But it is a much less chaotic and, dare I say, more luxurious experience for a commander.

Pausing a single-player mission in Company of Heroes 3 will bring up an action queue for each of your units, which allows you to issue a series of sequential orders that will all be carried out when you unpause. So you could tell an infantry squad to run to cover, throw a grenade, and then continue advancing without missing a beat. Issuing a complex chain of orders to several units at once will see them march off like a well-conducted orchestra of destruction, making it possible to pull off some maneuvers that might only have been possible for an esports pro before.

Since 2014, Yacht Club Games has just been cranking out banger after banger when it comes to the Shovel Knight series, and Shovel Knight Dig is yet another turn of the crank. Developed in tandem between both Yacht Club and Nitrome, Shovel Knight Dig takes the main ideas of Shovel Knight’s 2D platformer gameplay – the shoveling, the bouncing, the secrets hidden in off-pattern sections of the wall, the Mega Man-esque boss battles, so on and so forth – and fits all of them into the structure of a spelunking roguelite. It turns out it’s a great fit, even if the adventure is over rather quickly and offers few compelling reasons to dig deeper.

Shovel Knight Dig is a roguelite, which comes with all the usual hallmarks of the genre: Permadeath, procedurally generated levels, and small elements of permanent progression that give every successive run the potential to be slightly easier than the last. It also plays nearly identically to the first game in the mainline Shovel Knight series, Shovel of Hope. The blue-clad armored knight controls the same, he’s got largely the same set of moves, and fights many of the same enemies with the same behaviors. It’s nice to have that familiarity, but the developers smartly don’t just rely on nostalgia. There are still plenty of new enemies, new relics, and new hazards, most of which are designed specifically to make the most out of the biggest difference in Shovel Knight Dig: Instead of being a traditional side-scroller that has you moving from left to right, Shovel Knight Dig exclusively has you moving from the top to the bottom of each level.

Update 09/26/22: After a Logitech commercial seemed to show a white Xbox Series X model, Microsoft has confirmed that no such edition is being made.

In a statement to IGN, a spokesperson said: "The white Xbox Series X console for the promotional video by our partner is not in production. We have no plans to release the Xbox Series X console in white at this time."

Logitech told The Verge that the console had simply been skinned to match the hardware in the background of the ad.

A white Xbox Series X has been spotted in a new Logitech advert, but it's unclear if it's an official colorway.

The console, spotted by VGC, is seen in the background of an advert for the Astro A30 wireless headset but has not been promoted anywhere else.

The scene itself depicts several consoles and peripherals placed on shelves… but it’s unclear whether this is a real, upcoming version of the console or simply a custom version made for this advert.

Descend into the slimy heart of the IGN UK podcast this week, as Joe is confusingly repulsed by Scorn, Matt and Cardy have conflicting feelings on the new Monkey Island, and everyone really likes Andor.

We also have a special little tease for a live show we hope to be putting on in the not-too-distant future...

IGN UK Podcast #663: Professor Layton and the Sludge-Guts of Doom

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 #662: So Many Streams
• IGN UK Podcast #661: House of the Rings of Power
• IGN UK Podcast #660: Bat Family Ties
• IGN UK Podcast #659: Live from a Cologne Roof at Midnight
• IGN UK Podcast #658: Better Call She-Hulk

The Nintendo Switch sequel to the 3DS's Detective Pikachu game is 'nearing release' according to a developer working on it.

As reported by Nintendo Life, senior game programmer at developer Creatures Inc. Jonathan Murphy mentions Detective Pikachu 2 on his LinkedIn page.

Describing his current job position, Murphy said he "worked on one unannounced project and one nearing release, Detective Pikachu 2".

Though just a small update, it's pretty much all we've heard about the game since it was first announced in 2019. The Pokémon Company confirmed at the time that it wouldn't just be a port or re-release of the original 3DS game but its own, fully-fledged sequel.

Not to be confused with the hit film, but essentially following the same story, Detective Pikachu is a cinematic adventure game that follows protagonist Tim on a journey to find his father in Ryme City. Players travel around solving crimes, meeting trainers and Pokémon from all generations as they go.

Mortal Kombat's co-creator has explained how he came up with the game's iconic logo – and how it almost got trashed for looking like a seahorse.

On Twitter, John Tobias unveiled the original hand-drawn logo he created for the first Mortal Kombat game… and delved into its background.

“Here’s a recently discovered image of the very first drawing of #MortalKombat’s dragon icon,” he revealed. “I designed the icon as both a symbol of our game and its fictional tournament.”

Here’s a recently discovered image of the very first drawing of #MortalKombat’s dragon icon. I designed the icon as both a symbol of our game and its fictional tournament… (thread) #MK30 pic.twitter.com/vVIDr4K9aP

— John Tobias (@therealsaibot) September 22, 2022

Tobias’ original pencil drawing was digitized by both Tobias himself and Mortal Kombat artist John Vogel, who traced over the digitized image with pixels. Why a dragon? Well, Tobias explained that was all because of the game’s original name.

“The inspiration to use a dragon as the fictional tournament’s symbol came from ‘Dragon Attack,’ which was in contention as our game’s title before [Ed Boon] and I changed it to ‘Mortal Kombat,’” he revealed. “Here’s my rough marker sketch of the marquee logo.”

Thirty minutes after I started playing, my impressions could be summed up with one word: "hard." I've finished most of Team Ninja's recent games like the Nioh series and Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, but I couldn't help but be astounded by this title's difficulty when I first picked it up. Let me state right here, though, that while this isn't a simple game, you'll instantly be drawn in by the dizzying high-speed action on display once you get used to how it works. Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty adds new systems to its masocore base to create impressive Chinese martial arts-themed combat. While the game had me wailing and groaning at first, by the time I was three hours in, my brain was pumping out so much dopamine that I couldn't put my controller down. Let's talk about what exactly this game is like. I should also note that this demo was played in single-player on the PS5 with a DualSense controller.

The game begins with character creation, with both male and female options available. Character modeling in the game is extremely high-quality, and you'll be able to fine-tune various settings such as facial outline, eyebrows, eyes, pupils, nose, mouth, hairstyle, skin, facial hair, and makeup. Even after picking a facial outline, it's possible to customize the smallest details like forehead placement, cheekbone placement, and even cheekbone definition.

At the end of character creation, you'll choose your phase, or what would be your character's class in a standard RPG. The wizardry spells available to you will depend on which of the five phases you use. I began my time playing the game by picking the offense-focused fire phase.

Dark Souls 3's PC servers are back offline despite being restored by FromSoftware just four weeks ago.

The Dark Souls Twitter account announced the news (below), saying that the Steam servers were down once again. No explanation of what the issue is or how long it will be an issue were given, but the developer did say it was actively investigating and trying to solve the problem.

"At this time, there is a confirmed issue with Dark Souls 3 online play via the Steam platform," FromSoftware said. "We are investigating the source of the problem and will inform you as soon as more details become available."

At this time, there is a confirmed issue with DARK SOULS III online play via the Steam platform.

We are investigating the source of the problem and will inform you as soon as more details become available.

Thank you for your patience. #DarkSouls

— Dark Souls (@DarkSoulsGame) September 21, 2022

Fans were also thanked for their patience but, given the regularity of online problems encountered in the Dark Souls series, it's perhaps not surprising that the replies and retweets to FromSoftware's announcement were full of complaints.

Video games are hard to make. You might have heard that somewhere before.

Most people recognize that video games do not simply burst, fully-QA'd, from eggs laid carefully by an executive who then adjusts his T-shirt and blazer and steps onstage at E3 to announce their triumphant existence. But depending on how Extremely Online you are, you might not really have a good concept of exactly what they look like before they show up on your platform of choice, or even before we see them in shiny reveal trailers.

That's one small part of what's made the discussion around the Grand Theft Auto 6 leaks so tricky to navigate. Everyone has a different perspective on how much your average gamer knows about what in-development games look like, or how much they even should know. The games industry exists in a fog of secrecy around everything from basic questions about how a gameplay mechanic will work pre-launch to sales numbers after launch. And perhaps that's somewhat earned given the week's events: Game creators worry that an unexpected leak will harm employee morale, muck up a carefully-plotted marketing campaign, or turn opinions about an upcoming game sour before its creators even have a chance to show off its best features.