Motorsport Games has today confirmed that rFactor 2 will become the official sim racing platform of Formula E, the world’s leading all-electric, open-wheel motorsport series. This partnership comes as an extension of the existing agreement between Motorsport Games and Formula E.

All 11 official teams and all 22 drivers and cars from the currently underway Formula E season are available for rFactor 2 on PC starting today. The platform now features every season of Formula E since 2018.

“Formula E is one of the fastest growing motorsports series and we couldn’t be more excited and honored to bring it to life fully within rFactor 2,” said Motorsport Games CEO Dmitry Kozko in a statement published alongside the announcement. “rFactor 2 continues to be the best-in-class simulation platform in the marketplace. This addition to its robust offering of motorsport series will greatly enhance the experience and offerings available to our players. With our expertise on creating authentic racing simulations and remarkable esports events coupled with Formula E’s surging popularity, we know that our partnership will reach every goal in place between our teams.”

Update 3/29/2022: Following publication, Sam Maggs, who was lead writer on Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart for a year and a half, shared further insight on Rivet's development via her Twitter. Maggs had a key role on the team that developed Rivet as a character, and is credited by multiple developers within Insomniac as the individual who named Rivet.

If you want to know why Rivet actually works as a name and how I actually do my job, I’ll tell you a little bit about it here in this thread! https://t.co/WrMDQXQOf0

— Sam Maggs (@SamMaggs) March 29, 2022

In her thread, Maggs talks through her process for coming up with the name, saying that she started from three core concepts:

• Should ideally also be named after a tool or mechanism
• Should also be two syllables to evoke the similarity on speaking
• Ideally should end with a hard sound

It was these concepts that led to Gadget as an early idea for a name, though Maggs had other ideas on her short list, such as the rejected "Socket" and "Hammer". But Rivet, she says, was an "instant win" when she sent her short list to the team.

The individual trappings, characters, and references to crossing the streams carry lots of nostalgia weight in the Ghostbusters franchise, especially among those who, like me, fell in love with the first film in their youth. But if you’re really trying to make something distinctively Ghostbusters, what you really need is a healthy dash of absolute nonsense. It’s the energy that birthed the monstrosity of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in the first place, and the comedic timing that makes lines like “When someone asks if you’re a God…” really sing. Put simply, Ghostbusters needs to be a little stupid in a good way. And in Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed, I suspect Illfonic may have nailed the exact flavor of good stupidity I was looking for from a four-person cooperative Ghostbusters game.

I’ll get to the goofiness in a bit, though, because like all good comedy, Spirits Unleashed’s ghost fights need some structure. In my hands-on session, I’m dropped into a map called The Museum alongside two developers playing cooperatively with me, and a third AI player that, were our voice comms not a thing, would have blended right into our group of human players without me noticing. We’re trying to capture a ghost controlled by another Illfonic developer, whose job it is to escape our capture and thoroughly haunt the museum before we can stop it. I’m armed appropriately with a proton pack and a PKE meter I can swap between, as well as a ghost trap I can toss on the ground for ghost capturing - though if I don’t remember to pick it up when I’m done, I won’t have it at my disposal for the next ghost encounter.

Blizzard has clarified that the launch date listed for Diablo Immortal on iOS and iPadOS is only a placeholder and that an official date will be announced in the future.

The company opened iOS and iPadOS pre-orders for Diablo Immortal today, as well as pre-registration for Android users, with a listed release date of June 30. Placeholder dates are common for upcoming games, but they can often provide a bit of confusion, thus Blizzard has sought to clear things up.

"As a point of clarification for anyone who pre-registers on iOS and iPadOS, players will notice that the game is listed with a launch date of June 30," Blizzard told IGN in a statement. "We want to make it clear that June 30 is not the official launch date of Diablo Immortal, and this is just a placeholder for the time being as we lock in our final plans. We will update the community with our official launch timing at a later date."

In addition to opening pre-orders, Blizzard also shared that Diablo Immortal will feature an option for users to change their class without having to start new characters. By visiting Westmarch, players can select a new class and fresh visuals for their character without losing any of the progress made with previous classes.

Update 03/28/22: Elden Ring has now been completed in just 18 minutes and 58 seconds.

Eurogamer spotted YouTuber Distortion2 achieving the world's first sub-20 minute run, though he's currently doing so on the old version of the game prior to the supposed speedrun killing update.

Distortion2 combined the old speedrun method with the newly discovered "zipping" glitch that allows large portions of Elden Ring to be skipped.

WORLDS FIRST Any% Elden Ring in under 20 minutes!! Changed a flight and did a 15h stream for this, almost gave up hope, but in the end I prevailed. Thank you everyone who was there and supported me during this insane stream <3 pic.twitter.com/I32a4BzA9q

— Distortion2 🕐 Elden Ring (@Distortion_2) March 28, 2022

An Elden Ring speedrunner has beaten the game in under 25 minutes by using a new teleportation glitch called "the Zip".

One Piece Odyssey is a new JRPG coming in 2022 to PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

The official One Piece YouTube channel revealed the game in a live stream with Bandai Namco confirmed to be publishing the game in the west.

One Piece Odyssey's producer Katsuaki Tsuzuki has promised "an epic drama adventure which both One Piece fans and JRPG fans can experience and enjoy."

He added: "One Piece RPG experiences are scattered throughout the game such as the story woven by Straw Hats, the dungeon experience, and various quests."

Eiichiro Oda, author of the One Piece manga, designed the characters and monsters in Odyssey, and Bandai Namco has confirmed several playable characters including Luffy, Zoro, Nami, Usopp, Sanji, Chopper, Robin, Frankie, and Brook.

A blog post on the publisher's website also offers a story synopsis: "During their voyage, the Straw Hats, led by Monkey D. Luffy are swallowed by a huge storm at sea. They end up on a mysterious island full of nature amidst the storm and become separated from each other.

Call of Duty Warzone can't have multiple main maps available at the same time because the install sizes are too big.

In an interview with streamer TeeP, as spotted by PC Gamer, Call of Duty live operations lead Josh Bridge said he and the team want to include more maps but the install sizes are "f**king crazy".

Warzone's original map, Verdansk, was replaced by Caldera in December 2021, and TeeP asked if a map rotation option similar to the one in Apex Legends would ever come to the game.

Bridge said: "We want that. We all want that, [but] there's a technical problem: the install and reinstall sizes are f**king crazy."

Warzone currently requires more than 120 gigabytes of storage on PlayStation 5 and a similar amount on other consoles, while the PC install requires around 80 GB.

The huge install size puts players off, Bridge said, adding that each new update (that requires more storage space) loses the game players.

This is because Warzone was built within Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, meaning its assets were intended for the usual six versus six player matches on small maps. "Verdansk was never authored with the idea that 180 weapons were going to be added to it," Bridge said.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land marked the franchise's first foray into 3D but fans shouldn't assume its the new normal.

Developer HAL Laboratory's general director, Shinya Kumazaki. told The Washington Post that 3D Kirby games won't necessarily "be the standard going forward".

He added: "Nintendo is on the same page as us, and this is something we talk about often. We hope to go beyond what is currently imaginable and challenge ourselves to create new and innovative Kirby games.

"This game was one of those challenges coming to fruition. We will continue to explore via trial and error and not just limit ourselves to 3D."

The leaps taken in Kirby and the Forgotten Land should not be understated though, Kumazaki said, and it can certainly be considered an "important milestone" in the franchise.

As the Switch exclusive only released a few days ago on March 28, it's unlikely that HAL Laboratory will release information on what these future games might be anytime soon. That being said, Nintendo has promised that a variety of Kirby announcements are coming in 2022 as the franchise celebrates its 30th anniversary.

In our 8/10 review, IGN said: "Kirby and the Forgotten Land successfully warps the series’ classic mix of ability-based combat, platforming, and secret hunting into the third dimension."

Fans of Vampire: The Masquerade have had it plenty rough recently. The long-awaited sequel to Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines was delayed indefinitely in 2021, meaning that the gothic horror open-world RPG saga returned to its tomb far earlier than any of us hoped. There’s a silver lining here, and it’s that the much more cerebral Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong may just have enough blood and wits to sate the appetite of any RPG aficionado whose tastes are a little more nocturnal.

Instead of running around an open world, however, you’ll instead drop into the slicked Oxfords of one of three different vampire tritagonists, each wielding their supernatural abilities to uncover secrets and conduct detective work across several scenarios that span across multiple paths, depending on how you choose to play – not unlike what you may be used to in Telltale’s The Walking Dead series. But if you were turned off by the relative shallowness of Telltale’s approach, don’t worry: after playing the second quest, which took about two hours to finish, Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong seems like it’s as deep as any CRPG. It’s clear that each of the different stats, perks, and special vampire abilities play into one another in a way that gives weight to each of your decisions, especially when putting points into your character build.

Viral hit Vampire Survivors is getting a lot more content ahead of its official launch on Steam.

Developer Poncle has released a roadmap for the game after its Early Access launch on December 17 became a huge success.

Five more levels, nine more characters, 16 more weapons, and two more power ups are being added to Vampire Survivors, and it's also being ported to an industry-standard game engine.

Poncle is also adding new achievements and Relics alongside a brand new item called Arcanas, but no further information on what these do was given.

A "new major gameplay mechanic" will also be implemented, the developer said, and while it's currently undecided which one, "some kind of endless mode" is the frontrunner.

This will come at the expense of the story mode, however, but "this doesn't necessarily mean that story mode is gone forever," Poncle said in the post, indicating that Vampire Survivors' lore may be best told through environmental storytelling.

The post added: "Thanks to the overwhelming success and support from the players, new content has started to come out at a much faster pace than anticipated and the roadmap has also been expanded significantly.

"The amount of playable characters planned for version 1.0 of the game has been doubled and so has the number of stages with the introduction of bonus/challenge ones."

Bretwulfo kept stumbling across a message that will be familiar to anyone who’s played Elden Ring: “Try finger, but hole.” At this point, many players would probably roll their eyes at finding yet another use of the game’s messaging system to graffiti crude humour across FromSoft’s incredible fantasy world. The problem was that Bretwulfo is Brazilian, and plays the game in Portuguese – that oft-seen message simply does not translate the same way.

“I was always plunging into holes thinking there was going to be something in it,” Bretwulfo says. “I only got what it was supposed to mean after someone placed it on the ass of a corpse.”

For players who don’t speak English as their first language, Elden Ring’s many meme-messages can be far more of a troll than they were ever intended to be – and English-speaking players may well be getting just as confused by some international equivalents.

“Try finger, but hole”; “Fort, night”; “Dog”; these are just some of the many memes that the English-speaking Elden Ring community have been flooding the game’s messaging system with over the last month. While they might seem like strange phrases in isolation, they’re a product of the game’s communications being restricted by design. You can’t just freely write whatever you want in Elden Ring and stamp it outside some boss fog. Everyone has the same limited number of phrases to choose from, all of which can be cleverly combined to help or hinder fellow Tarnished (it’s usually hinder).

An Elden Ring dataminer has found 128 unused icons with detailed artwork hidden in the game files.

Twitter user JesterPatches posted images (below) of the icons which depict the various wildlife and enemies found in Elden Ring.

Each NPC has two icons, one blurred out and one filled in, and JesterPatches believes this indicates that developer FromSoftware once planned to include an in-game bestiary.

#ELDENRING

Looking through the game files I came across a few icons making me believe that a bestiary was planned at some point.

There are 128 icons showing different NPCs. Each NPC shown has 2 icons, one greyed out and another one filled in, so it could be not found and found. pic.twitter.com/9b0Tj6ckm3

— JesterPatches (@JesterPatches) March 27, 2022

If this was the case, players would perhaps have been able to tick off which enemies they had encountered, or maybe even where to find them in the map (like Elden Ring's version of a Pokédex). There's nothing to confirm this was the case, however, as the bestiary idea is just pure fan speculation.

FromSoftware games are known for their deep-rooted layers of secrets, with fans pouring over games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne for years after release.

Mohammad Fahmi, the Indonesian creator and developer of Coffee Talk and What Comes After, has died aged 32. The news was announced today, March 28, on Fahmi’s Twitter account in a post written in Indonesian by his sister, which IGN Japan has corroborated with Coffee Talk publisher Toge Productions. No cause of death has been announced.

A spokesperson for Toge Productions said, “We're absolutely devastated by the news. We already miss him greatly and we hope that he is resting in peace wherever he may be.”

Forza Horizon 5's latest update adds a new progression system to its competitive multiplayer mode.

A blog post on the Forza website detailed a number of fixes and changes including a reworking of rewards in Horizon Open, the PvP portion of Horizon 5.

"Horizon Open has been updated with a new progression system including Badges which can be unlocked through gameplay," the post said. Developer Playground Games also "added custom racing to Horizon Open, which will allow players to find races for their chosen race discipline and PI class."

General stability and performance improvements were also made in the patch, plus updated season event map pins, new Gravity Action options in EventLab that allow players to manipulate gravity in their creations, and a variety of fixes to cars.

The full patch notes can be seen below:

General

Space Punks, the online co-op action RPG will be available to play for free in open beta on April 20.

Space Punks was previously in a closed beta, and developers Flying Wild Hog have made multiple game-changing updates during this time. Now, the team is ready to open the beta to the public.

The free-to-play open beta kicks off on April 20 on the Epic Games Store.

The living looter shooter was first announced back in 2021 and combined a grungy apocalyptic wasteland setting with the isometric action from the Diablo series. In an interview with IGN last year the team says the goal is to be a “living looter shooter.”

Flying Wild Hog is best known for games like Shadow Warrior, and the team says that connection between melee combat, ranged combat, and movement can be found in Space Punks. They’re simply translating that FPS feeling into the top-down perspective.

In Space Punks, players can team up with friends, equip different weapons, and hunt for more loot. There are also new modes the team is working on, modes they say will introduce sort-session play that’s both fun and competitive.

As a live-service game, Space Punks will continue to grow after launch with new planets, missions, activities, and enemies all planned to hit Space Punks over its lifetime.

Players can also earn in-game currency that can be exchanged for emotes, dances, or cosmetics. The Early Access will not use any real-world money, though cosmetic-only microtransactions are planned for the full release.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

Jamie Lee Curtis has revealed that she will not only be officiating her daughter's wedding, but that she will also be doing it while wearing cosplay of World of Warcraft's Jaina Proudmoore.

As reported by EW, Curtis' daughter Ruby is having a cosplay wedding in May and Curtis stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live! to share how she's planning on making her day even more special.

So you’ve finished Ghostwire: Tokyo, congratulations! But if you’re like us you may have some outstanding questions about what actually happened during the story. Well, you’re in the right place for an explanation. And not only have we got you covered, but we also spoke to the game’s director himself, Kenji Kimura, to get some definitive answers. This is your last chance to stop reading before we dive into the spoiler zone.

Mari

After witnessing Akito’s final confrontation with the man in the hannya mask, we imagine some of your outstanding questions involve Akito’s sister, Mari.

Throughout the game Mari has been in a comatose state, making you wonder not only what Hannya sees in her, but how she became so sick in the first place. The finale reveals that before the events of the game, Mari was caught in a burning room that she could have escaped from if she hadn’t made a last gasp dash for the rings of her and Akito’s recently deceased parents. She’s since been in a hospital bed, drifting close to death numerous times. It’s this, according to director Kenji Kimura, that’s the source of her power.

Amazon Games studio head Mike Frazzini, who played a big role in starting the company, has left stepped down to "focus on his family."

As reported by Bloomberg, Frazzini told his staff on Friday, March 25, that he was leaving the studio that helped bring games like New World and Lost Ark to life.

"Mike was there at the beginning of Amazon Games, and his leadership and perseverance helped build the games business from the ground up,” Amazon spokesman Ryan Jones said in a statement. “Our recent successes with New World and Lost Ark are the result of the long-term, customer-focused vision for games he helped establish. We are very grateful for all his contributions, and wish Mike the very best.”

While New World and Lost Ark have been received positively by many, Amazon Games has not had the smoothest ride over the years.

2019's The Grand Tour Game was the first Amazon Game Studios console release, but it was pulled from storefronts within a year. Crucible was the next game to be officially released from the studio, but it was quickly returned to closed beta after launch and would be shut down for good in November 2020.

Welcome back to IGN Game Scoop!, the ONLY video game podcast! This week your Omega Cops -- Daemon Hatfield, Tina Amini, Sam Claiborn, and Justin Davis -- are discussing more Elden Ring, more Horizon Forbidden West, Ghostwire Tokyo, Tunic, and more. And, of course, they play Video Game 20 Questions.

Watch the video above or hit the link below to your favorite podcast service.

Listen on:

Apple Podcasts

YouTube

Spotify

Stitcher

Find previous episodes here!

Bugsnax is back with a new expansion, the Isle of Bigsnax, which adds an entirely new, additional island of mystery, puzzles, and, delightfully, big Bugsnax to the mix. The main addition with this new update is that titular new island players will travel to, which includes some more promising puzzle-solving, a better chance to get to know some of the wonderful ensemble cast, and more creative Bugsnak hunting.

But after going hands-on with a small portion of the upcoming free DLC, one of the biggest surprises is how developer Young Horses is also fleshing out the experience on the adventure game’s original hub, Snaktooth Island with a few new gameplay hooks. It’s shaping up to be a worthy reason to return to the clever world of Bugsnax, and should make for an even fuller experience for those going snak hunting for the first time.

Super Sized

The upcoming expansion (for which a release date has still not yet been announced) includes three major components to dig into, but let’s first discuss arguably the most prominent. Players will be able to sail off to a separate, small island to investigate alongside Shelda (Jedi Fallen Order’s Debra Wilson), Chandlo (Marvel’s Spider-Man’s Yuri Lowenthal), Triffany (Haviland Stillwell), and Floofty (Casey Mongillo). If you’ve already beaten Bugsnax and haven’t gone back already, the endgame save essentially drops you right back before its climactic final sequences.

Unlike the Borderlands games before it, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands includes a full-on character creator, not just swappable head and body skins. And true to Bunkers and Badasses’ real-world Dungeons and Dragons inspiration, what seems like an impressive appearance generator turns into a fun D&D-lite character sheet by the end.

With that in mind, let’s jump into the basics of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands’ Character Creator and how it works, if you’re wondering just how creative, or weird, you can get.

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands features six character classes: Stabbomancer, Clawbringer, Spellshot, Graveborn, Spore Warden, and Brr-Zerker. And before getting into how to customize their look, it’s worth noting each has its own passive ability, or “Class Feat”, and two action abilities you can choose from. For instance, the Spellshot can either turn enemies into sheep– wait a minute, skeep, my apologies. Or equip two spells at once. The Brr-Zerker can do either a spin attack, or a leap attack. Every class has an option like that, and once you reach level 7 you can swap these out at will from the skills menu. A further fork in this road is that you can actually multiclass after reaching a certain point and have two different passive abilities. For instance, a Spellshot/Graveborn multiclass means you get twice the hellish blast occurrences when casting spells. You can also respec your attributes at any time by visiting a machine in Brighthoof, and can even change your secondary class after completing the story.

When Returnal released on PS5 last year, it marked Housemarque's emergence as one of Sony's marquee first-party studios. But getting to that point wasn't easy, Returnal director Harry Krueger says, comparing its development to "Sisyphus pushing up the boulder" and saying that it was "incredibly challenging."

At a talk during GDC 2022, Krueger reflected on the challenges and successes of making Returnal, which was by far Housemarque's most ambitious project to date. They included learning how to design a 3D action game and getting to grips with a brand-new engine, all while more than tripling the overall size of the team.

"It was really just adapting all the time, and that was a real challenge as well," Krueger says. "Everyone was underestimating the complexity of the project."

According to Krueger, one of the biggest challenges was shifting to Unreal Engine 4. While Epic's tech afforded Housemarque plenty of new opportunities, it also meant that the studio basically had to learn the tech on the fly — a recurring theme throughout Returnal's development.

Having only developed 2D arcade games to that point — Housemarque is best-known for its work on games like Super Stardust HD and Resogun — Returnal was a "leap of faith" in which Housemarque had to "build our wings while falling."

"It's not an exaggeration to say that for half of the game's development time it was unplayable," Krueger says. "We were learning how to use the engine, we were breaking things, creating dependencies that we didn't understand [...] we were just learning as we went."

The Forest developer Endnight Games has announced that the sequel Sons of the Forest has been delayed to October.

Endnight Games announced a May 2022 release date last November but admitted in a tweet that the team had been too ambitious about the game's progress.

"To be able to deliver our vision of the next step in survival games, we’ve decided to move our release date to October 2022," it said.

Hey Everyone,

Over these past few weeks, we have realized that our May 2022 release date for Sons Of The Forest was overly ambitious. To be able to deliver our vision of the next step in survival games, we’ve decided to move our release date to October 2022

The team at Endnight pic.twitter.com/R9xRCUbtIt

— Endnight Games (@EndNightGame) March 25, 2022

The game was first announced in December 2019 and promises more of the terrifying open world survival-horror that the first game became known for. Sons of the Forest will once again drop players empty-handed on a spooky island where they must forage, craft, and build to ensure their own survival.

Endnight Games has remained fairly quiet otherwise though has shown off a few slivers of gameplay in the various trailers its released since the announcement.

The man with no plan, 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 can be found at The Tower on March 26 through March 29. To reach him, travel to the landing point at The Courtyard and make your way to the Hangar. You'll find ol' snake-face chilling near the stairs at the back of the Hangar area.

When I think back on my time with plucky cyberpunk beat-em-up Anno: Mutationem, the first thing I think of is that I wish they'd included a pronunciation guide for that mouthful of a faux Latin title. But the second thing that comes to mind is attitude. From the colorful, retro chic art style to the endearing, ass-kicking protagonist, this is a world with a strong sense of identity that knows from the first minute how it wants to make you feel – even though the story told there sometimes seems a bit more lost.

The streets of futuristic Skopp City are where most of the action takes place: it’s a delightful chrome and concrete sprawl packed with influences from the likes of Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell. Its various districts each use color, sound, and small environmental details to create a textured world that manages to feel bright and homey in spite of its bleak backstory. I had a lot of fun exploring its bars, shops, and alleyways, listening to random conversations and discovering out-of-the-way secrets. It's not exactly a groundbreaking setting – though some Stranger Things-esque weirdness brings a dash of spice to it – but it's one I would happily spend a lot more time in.

PlayStation could unveil its upcoming subscription service as early as next week.

Bloomberg reports that PlayStation’s Xbox Game Pass competitor will get a proper unveiling soon. The site previously reported that PlayStation was working on a similar service under the codename “Spartacus.”

Sources say PlayStation will have a “splashy lineup of hit games,” and will officially merge PlayStation Plus with PlayStation Now, Sony’s cloud streaming service.

There are reportedly plans to offer multiple tiers of the service, with each tier offering more options to go along with the higher price point. The first tier will include the same benefits as PlayStation Plus including online play and free monthly games.

The more expensive tiers will throw in access to a gaming library similar to Game Pass, while a third, most expensive tier, will include PS1, PS2, PS3, and PSP games into this library. The most expensive tier will also include the ability to stream games and play extended demos.

PlayStation currently doesn’t offer backward compatibility with games older than the PS4 era, so including classics from the PS1 and PS2 era could be very enticing for owners.

One area where PlayStation is not following Game Pass is releasing new, first-party games on day one. According to sources games like God of War Ragnarok will not be available on the service right away.

Rockstar has announced GTA+, a new subscription service for Grand Theft Auto Online. It will only be available for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of the game, and will launch on March 29.

GTA+ will cost $5.99 per month, and provide subscribers with a recurring monthly bank deposit of GTA$500,000, ensuring players have plenty of cash to spend in the online open-world. There will also be a "wide-range" of members only bonuses, including exclusive properties, vehicles, upgrades, discounts, and cash/RP bonuses. Rockstar also mentions that there will be the ability to unlock gameplay updates that "you may have missed out on", suggesting previously time-limited content may be accessible with GTA+.

The first month of GTA+, which will span March 29 through to April 27, will provide the following content:

Dale, Matt and Jesse are here to share all their (mixed) thoughts on Ghostwire: Tokyo. Matt waxes lyrical about the new Disney+ film, Fresh, and Dale has finished Apple T.V's The After Party and is equally impressed. We also have the smelliest section of IGN UK feedback in, well... forever!

Want to get in touch to talk about your favourite smells or maybe even video games? Feel free to send us an email at ign_ukfeedback@ign.com.

IGN UK Podcast #637: Ghostwiring and Smelly Feedback

If you'd like to check out the documentary Dale mentions on the podcast, you can watch it right here:

• IGN UK Podcast #636: GTA V is Old but so Are We Now
• IGN UK Podcast #635: More Decent Chat
• IGN UK Podcast #634: The Batman, Elden Ring, and Sausages
• IGN UK Podcast #633: Elden Ring and Building Our Dream Open World Games
• IGN UK Podcast #632: I Ain't No Rollerback Girl

Kirby and the Forgotten Land is now available exclusively for Nintendo Switch. It's hard to believe, but this installment represents the first time Kirby has gone 3D. You can pick it up now for $5 off at Amazon. Or, if you're on the fence, you can read our Kirby and the Forgotten Land review, or download a demo on the Nintendo eShop.

Read on to see where it's available, how much it costs, and what extras you might get with your purchase.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land

• Get it at Amazon - $54.99
• Get it at Walmart - $54.97 (with Kirby Popsocket)
• Get it at Best Buy - $59.99
• Get it at GameStop - $59.99
• Get it at Walmart - $59.99
• See it on Nintendo eShop - $59.99

You can grab the new Kirby from a variety of retailers, though at the time of this writing Amazon and Walmart are offering the best deals. Amazon has it for $5 off -- which isn't much, but any discount is better than nothing, innit? Also, Walmart is giving away a Kirby Popsocket with purchase. Stick it to your phone to telegraph your love for the pink puffball.

The developer of the much-loved Bloodborne PlayStation 1 demake has announced their latest project: Bloodborne Kart.

Very little else was said about the game but developer Lilith Walther, known as b0tster on Twitter, announced the news with a trailer.

It shows the Bloodborne hunter walking towards a steampunk-style bike, a reference to the famous Akira poster, before 'Bloodborne Kart' flashes on screen.

An announcement: pic.twitter.com/miydPUzZbR

— 🪄💫 Lilith.zip📁🏳️‍⚧️ (ps1 goth girl) BLM ACAB (@b0tster) March 25, 2022

The announcement was made on Bloodborne's seventh anniversary. Walther said Bloodborne Kart would be released "when it's ready" – development on the Bloodborne demake took 13 months.

The internet has been weirdly fascinated by the prospect of a Bloodborne kart game for years, and various other fan projects have emerged in that time. This latest announcement has already gained more traction than most, however, following the success and popularity of the Bloodborne demake.

It released in January as a surprisingly complete experience, taking players back to the 1990s to experience a D-pad controlled version of Bloodborne with clunky polygon werewolves and PS1 style fog that only adds to the atmosphere.

Ghostwire: Tokyo has a haunted, open-world Shibuya to discover, but just how long is the game? Here we’ll let you know exactly how many hours it took different members of the IGN team to finish the game, and what they prioritised doing with that time.

How Long Is Ghostwire: Tokyo?

• Our fastest player finished Ghostwire: Tokyo in 15 hours.
• Our “slowest” player spent 24 hours before credits rolled.

Everyone plays games differently, so read on for more details about how everyone played, how long it took to reach the credits, and how much extra time it took to fully explore a spooky Shibuya. Once you've finished the game yourself, be sure to submit your times on How Long To Beat and see how your time compares!

Cam Shea, Reviewer & IGN AU Lead

Amazingly, it appears that I've spent more than 24 hours quietly sobbing into sequential glasses of sake while exploring the world of Ghostwire: Tokyo. My tears, however, are not strictly out of sadness, but are also tears of joy. For this game possesses an incredible ability. It's capable of taking me out of my current, hellish existence - surrounded by loved ones and craft breweries here in Sydney - and to catapult me into the happiest place on Earth - Japan.

Polyphony Digital has apologised for Gran Turismo 7's rocky launch by offering players free credits and a 'considerable' fix coming next month.

In a PlayStation Blog post, president of Polyphony Digital Kazunori Yamauchi apologised for "the frustration and confusion caused last week" when the developer reduced the rewards players could earn after the release of the game – causing many to say that the dev was pushing them toward microtransations.

The community quickly grew upset, now having to play more to unlock the same rewards or pay up to $40 for a single car, and the game was also unplayable for a day as servers went down following the update.

To say sorry, however, Polyphony Digital will give away one million free credits, worth a little over $10, that will be automatically given to anyone who played the game before March 25 and does so again before April 25.

An update in early-April will also be released to improve Gran Turismo 7's economy, implementing the following changes:

Microsoft has stated it "will not stand in the way" of a potential Activision Blizzard union were any to be recognized.

As reported by The Washington Post, Microsoft's corporate vice president and general counsel Lisa Tanzi shared the company's stance on these unions that could potentially happen before the Xbox-Activision Blizzard deal goes through in 2023.

"Microsoft respects Activision Blizzard employees’ right to choose whether to be represented by a labor organization and we will honor those decisions,” Tanzi said.

This comment follows fifteen workers at Raven Software signing a letter to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella that asks him to encourage Activision Blizzard to voluntarily recognize the Game Workers Alliance union. Microsoft vice chair and president Brad Smith was also addressed in the letter.

Furthermore, the letter denounces Reed Smith, a law firm retained by Activision Blizzard, for its part in publishing anti-union material on its website, including a PowerPoint presentation that features a slide titled "Types of Employees Unions Exploit."

“I hope that you will agree that this demeaning and insulting approach to employees who are seeking to improve their workplace should not be tolerated,” reads the letter.

Activision Blizzard has been hit with yet another lawsuit, this time alleging the company's "frat boy" environment fostered "rampant sexism" that led to a current employee experiencing sexual harassment and discrimination and being "retaliated against" for speaking up.

As reported by Bloomberg, the lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles Country Superior Court on behalf of this employee who is going by "Jane Doe" by attorney Lisa Bloom.

“For years, Activision Blizzard’s open ‘frat boy’ environment fostered rampant sexism, harassment and discrimination with 700 reported incidents occurring under CEO Robert Kotick’s watch,” the lawsuit reads.

Doe began work at Activision Blizzard in 2017 as a senior administrative assistant to executives in the IT department and the troubles started on her first day. During an "initiation lunch," she was pressured to take tequila shots and was told by leadership that she would need to tell all the employees at this lunch "an embarrassing secret."

Throughout her time at the company, Doe alleged that she was often pressured to drink alcohol, participate in "cube crawls" that saw women be subjected to sexual comments and groping, and play "Jackbox" - a game that often required players to suggest "creative answers" to questions that tended to be sexual in nature.

Editor's Note: The war in Ukraine is an ongoing, painful and emotive topic. IGN urges community members to be respectful when engaging in conversation around this subject and does not endorse harassment of any kind.

Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One developer Frogwares is headquartered in Ukraine, and the team has shared a bit of what it's like to develop a game during a war.

Sherlock: Holmes: Chapter One was released on November 15, 2021, and Frogwares has just announced that not only is the M for Mystery DLC now available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, but also that Sherlock Holmes: The Devils Daughter will be released on Switch on April 7, 2022.

Frogwares is located in Kyiv, Ukraine (subsidary offices are in Dublin, Ireland), and the team has said that, "despite being embroiled in a horrendous war, the majority Ukrainian-based team managed this through external partners and a handful of remote-based staff. They are now aiming to adapt to the situation and do what they can to keep the studio semi-functioning and afloat."

"Put simply, we need to keep the studio alive and functioning to the best of our abilities now more than ever," Frogwares CEO Wael Amr said. "Nobody on the team is expected to work, only those who can and want to. Some on the team have become full-time volunteers in the humanitarian efforts around the country. Others have joined the defense forces. The rest are in various, safer locations abroad or around the country and have made themselves available to work remotely. And we continue to pay all of these people on the team.

The hair in Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin is seemingly killing the game's performance on PC.

As spotted by PC Gamer, users have turned to modding characters' hair out of the game to make Stranger of Paradise run at a higher frame rate. A necessary sacrifice for some players.

Reddit user MorrisonGamer found that hair could be the culprit when they discovered the closer players get to other characters the poorer the performance gets — reporting drops as low as eight frames per second if a lot of NPCs are on screen.

The Minister drops a RTX 3090 to 25 FPS because of a fucking FUR COAT

uncompressed videos above 💀thanks Twitter pic.twitter.com/9I8uTlXn2N

— AkiraJkr (@AkiraJkr1) March 20, 2022

They shared their findings on Twitter, posting a video of their RTX 3090, a high-end graphics card, dropping to 25 frames per second as they stood next to a character wearing fluffy shoulder pads.

While it's not a true fix, MorrisonGamer did share a workaround: a mod that lets users turn off hair. This means that, while every character in the game walks around bald, they at least do so at a reasonable frame rate.

“We’re saving a marriage here, guys,” the leader of our achievement-boosting group said. We needed a map with Headhunter, and we needed it now. When we got it, the entire Xbox Live party - twelve men brought together from across the U.S. and Europe by a love of Halo and the end of an era - cheered.

The marriage in question was mine. I needed to be in an Uber bound for New York City 5 minutes ago to meet my wife. The group knew this. They also knew that getting me the achievement I needed - Halo Reach’s Bounty Hunter, which requires a single player to turn in ten skulls, the maximum any player can carry, at once - would immediately end the match. No one else would get anything. They were doing it for me.

Once we were in the match, one person on the enemy team began killing my teammates while the rest of his team lined up for my grenades. When we had ten combined skulls, I assassinated him. The turn-in point moved to my location a second later. We’d gotten lucky. The group congratulated me as I said my goodbyes.

The servers for the Xbox 360 Halo games - Halo 3, Halo Wars, Halo 3: ODST, Halo Reach, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 4, and the Xbox 360 version of Halo: Spartan Assault - turned off forever on January 13. The shutdown affected each game differently. Some of what the changes would mean were unclear, but it definitely meant the end of stats, achievements, player customization, and matchmaking for Halo 3, Halo: Reach, and Halo 4, some of the most beloved multiplayer games ever made.

Dying Light 2's first story expansion won't add anything beyond the game's ending, and will take place "sideways to the main events".

Developer Techland has previously kept quiet on what its two upcoming story DLCs will be about, but Dying Light 2's lead game designer Tymon Smektała shared the first details with Game Informer.

"We don’t want to fall into this repeating pattern where players will kind of know what to expect from us," he said. "The first story DLC that we have promised, I’ve seen a lot of speculation online about what it will be and I can say confidently that they weren’t close to the mark."

The first injection of story content will therefore exist "sideways to the main events", though Techland will seemingly expand the ending with future updates. While it only has two story DLCs planned for the time being, the success of Dying Light 2 will likely lead to further content drops.

Smektała added: "At some point we will actually start adding to the events that happened at the end of the game. We have some ideas. On paper, as they are implemented right now, it seems promising, but definitely, this will be a challenge."

Fortnite dataminers have seemingly found confirmation that the game's limited-time "no build" mode is here to stay.

Building was removed from Fortnite's default mode earlier this week as its Chapter 3 Season 2 began, but new leaks suggest that developer Epic Games plans to include it later as a separate game mode.

The HYPEX Twitter account, a popular Fortnite news feed, claimed that datamining shows that players will have the option to choose between Fortnite's usual, building-enabled battle royale or its no build mode when the current season ends. This is further backed up by apparent loading screen tips that say "in modes with building enabled..."

Seems like Epic IS planning to keep a No-Building modes, here are some signs/proofs 🔥

- There's SEPARATE No-Building modes that they can enable ANYTIME after this limited time event ends

- They changed most loading screen tips to say "In modes with building enabled ..." pic.twitter.com/SvQ5SkbCit

Amazon Games and Smilegate RPG have said they would consider bringing Lost Ark to console if fan demand was high enough.

The action-RPG has already found incredible success on PC but franchise leader Soomin Park told VG247 that extending its reach to consoles isn't outside the realms of possibility.

While discussing the success of the Diablo franchise on console, Park said: "If Lost Ark on consoles is something that fans really want, then I think it's something both parties would consider."

Any potential release on PlayStation or Xbox would be years into the future, of course, as it appears there aren't even plans at the moment to develop a console version.

Lost Ark has proved immensely popular on PC since it was released in the west in February, shooting to second place on Steam's most played games of all time and amassing over 20 million players.

The launch hasn't been without issues though, and Amazon Games recently admitted it released the first major update too soon after launch, pressuring players into paying for what was meant to be free content.