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Hogwarts Legacy, the upcoming open world game set in the world of Harry Potter, will get a PlayStation State of Play broadcast this Thursday, March 17.

The broadcast will include "an extended first look at gameplay", and begins at 2pm Pacific / 5pm Eastern / 9pm UK (that's March 18 at 8am AEDT). It will be shown on PlayStation's Twitch and YouTube channels.

The show will run for around 20 minutes, 14 minutes of which will be made up of gameplay captured on PS5. The rest of the show will be made up of "insight from a few members of the team at Avalanche Software who are bringing the Wizarding World to life."

Wands at the ready for an all new State of Play focused on Hogwarts Legacy, featuring an extended first look at gameplay this Thursday, March 17 at 2 PM PT: https://t.co/TwujdB2cBr pic.twitter.com/bFZMWjdZ2t

Publisher Kepler Interactive and A44, the developers of the well-received 2018 action-RPG Ashen, have announced their next project: Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn. It is an open-world action-RPG due out later this year for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC (on both Steam and Epic Games Store). It will launch straight into Xbox Game Pass as well.

You'll combine guns and magic in Flintlock's combat, along with an AI-controlled magic-animal companion (who you can get a look at in the cinematic reveal trailer at the top of this page), in order to vanquish the undead hordes that threaten humanity.

As A44 describes the story, "The door to the Afterlife has been opened, allowing the old god’s army of the undead to escape from within. Join Nor Vanek, a member of the coalition army, and her mystical companion Enki, a strange creature gifted with magical powers, as they pursue their personal vendetta against the gods." You'll visit a number of bespoke locales, according to A44, including "desert sands, cavernous ruins and towering cities filled with secrets."

We'll have a lot more on Flintlock throughout the year.

When there’s something strange in the Shibuya neighborhood, who you gonna call? Nope, not those guys. I’m talking about Akito and his supernatural sidekick KK, the superpowered ghostbusting buddies that share the same body like Eddie Brock and a considerably less hostile version of Venom. I recently had hands-on with the first four hours of Ghostwire: Tokyo, in which I got to step into Akito’s shoes and explore a large chunk of its Tokyo-inspired open world, sniff out several spooky side missions, and indulge in numerous showdowns with its malevolent mobs of spectral assailants. It was an eerie and consistently engaging outing, and one that left me intrigued as to what other surprises lie waiting in its rain-slicked city streets.

If you can imagine a Yakuza game in which the pedestrians and perverts have been replaced by ghouls and ghosts then you’d have something close to Ghostwire: Tokyo’s highly detailed take on the Japanese capital. Most of the human population has mysteriously disappeared leaving behind their clothes and discarded shopping bags, but thankfully dogs remain and yes, you can both pat them and feed them to encourage them to lead you to secrets. Otherwise the only residents to be found are spirits that need to be absorbed using Akito’s paper doll, and the ‘Visitors’, faceless (and occasionally headless) paranormal predators that will pursue you relentlessly should you fail to take them out with a sneak attack first.

Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin appears to have hidden his initials across Elden Ring's world, by way of many of its characters.

The game's opening cutscene introduces one of Elden Ring's gods, Queen Marika, and players eventually meet her various relatives and offspring.

Spoiler warning: This story going forward contains several names and relationships of Elden Ring characters from deep into the game.

But the main four, as noted by PC Gamer, are Godfrey, Rennala, Radagon, and Marika. Their initials combine into G.R.R.M, not unlike George Raymond Richard Martin.

In fact, all of Elden Ring's gods and demigods have names beginning with these three letters: Godfrey, Godwyn, Godrick, Rennala, Radagon, Radahn, Rykard, Ranni, Renna, Marika, Morgott, Mogh, Malenia, Miquella, and Maliketh.

Martin crafted the backstory and history of Elden Ring years ago in an opportunity that was "too exciting to refuse". This included the naming of many of its characters, though game director Hidetaka Miyazaki thought Martin might be shocked by what became of them.

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin asks and answers the question of what the world of the first Final Fantasy, which came out in 1987, might look like in 2022 if it were reimagined with a modern action combat style. Its overly complex story and one-dimensional NPCs don't pay off until the final hours, but the freedom available in its challenging combat and extensive character customization is consistently rewarding from the start until – and after – the credits roll. It's a love letter to its own source material, filled with references and homages to the series’ history that seem designed to give fans of any Final Fantasy something to enjoy.

Like the show Lost and other stories that revolve around some grand mystery, Stranger of Paradise's plot had me theorizing and scratching my head until the very final moments, when all is revealed in a way that brings everything together. However, where Lost used memorable characters and turning-point moments to carry the story forward prior to the big reveals, Stranger of Paradise misses the mark on its cast and instead solely relies on its solid action gameplay, only offering vague and often indecipherable clues to what’s going on. Its lack of real character development beyond your party of five run-of-the-mill characters making small talk and reiterating their need to find and kill an entity known as Chaos that threatens the world means I won’t be uttering their names in the same breath as Final Fantasy greats like Cloud and Yuna – or even necessarily remembering them a month from now.

Following Texas Governor Greg Abbott's order in February 2022 that called for child protective services to investigate families of transgender children who were receiving gender-affirming healthcare for child abuse, 65 companies have signed a letter asking for Abbot to abandon these anti-LGBTQ+ efforts.

As reported by Kotaku, these 65 companies - a list that includes Electronic Arts, Gearbox Entertainment, and Microsoft - signed the letter that was organized by the LGBTQ+ organization the Human Rights Campaign and was posted in the Friday edition of the Dallas Morning News as a full-page advertisement.

The ad copy was shared by Rebecca Marques, the Texas director of HRC, on Twitter.

This will run in the Dallas Morning News this morning. #ProtectTransKids #txlege pic.twitter.com/rviiklLbJr

Perfect Dark game director Dan Neuburger has seemingly left The Initiative after working with the company for nearly four years.

As reported by VGC, ResetERA user Klobrille noticed the change on Neuburger's LinkedIn profile that shows February 2022 was his last month at The Initiative. Furthermore, his profile page says that he is
"open to work" immediately and is looking for a position as a game director, creative director, or design director.

Neuburger had worked at Tomb Raider's Crystal Dynamics for over 12 years before his time with The Initiative - the same studio that has teamed up with The Initiative to help finish development on the reboot of Perfect Dark.

This isn't the first high-level departure from The Initiative, as the company's former design director Drew Murray announced that he was leaving the company in February 2021 and would be returning to his old studio Insomniac Games.

Former Nintendo of America President and COO Reggie Fils-Aimé has questioned the "current definition" of Facebook's metaverse vision, saying that "Facebook itself is not an innovative company."

Speaking to Bloomberg's Emily Chang during SXSW, Fils-Aimé shared his thoughts on the current state of the so-called metaverse and discussed why he doesn't believe Facebook is currently on the right track to lead the way.

"Facebook itself is not an innovative company,” Fils-Aimé said. “They have either acquired interesting things like Oculus and Instagram, or they’ve been a fast follower of people’s ideas. I don’t think their current definition will be successful.”

Instead, Fils-Aimé thinks this digital future so many are striving towards will be led by "smaller companies that are really innovating" and companies like Epic Games who are doing "really compelling" things.

Fils-Aimé also talked about how he believes that more acquisitions by gaming companies are on the way following Microsoft's "fantastic purchase" of Activision Blizzard and how the games industry still has a long way to go in terms of diversity.

"This is a global industry touching 3 billion people across the world; it’s a $200 billion business,” Fils-Aimé said. “The representation in the game and in leadership is not at all where it needs to be.”

The second annual Video Game Accessibility Awards have arrived and they have honored the games that have gone above and beyond to push forward the bar of accessibility by making their games available to so many more.

The winners were announced in a livestream hosted by Accessibility Awards co-creators Steven Spohn and Alanah Pearce. IGN alum Alanah Pearce is a writer at Sony Santa Monica and Steven Spohn is a Senior Director at AbleGamers, and the awards show was founded in partnership with AbleGames to highlight these games doing incredible work in the field of accessibility.

The judging panel is made up entirely of disabled gamers and the categories are based on accessibility guidelines that AbleGamers created as tools for game developers.

There were nine categories in total, and Halo Infinite led the way with two victories in Clear Text and Training Grounds. Guardians of the Galaxy, Before Your Eyes, Forza Horizon 5, Far Cry 6, It Takes Two, Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker, and Life Is Strange: True Colors also took home awards.

The full list of winners and nominees for the 2021 Video Game Accessibility Awards are as follows;

Second Channel - For games that give players a second means or interface to get the information they may need to progress.

You know that feeling of finding an old, yellowing sci-fi novel from the 70s at a used bookstore, with some once-bright planet on the cover alongside a weird, alien creature? If you love that vibe, you might be interested in climbing into the spherical, seafaring pod of Aquamarine to check out its mysterious, dream-like planet.

Aquamarine is a beautiful, turn-based adventure about a spacefaring woman who crash lands on an aquatic world. She must survive by studying and coexisting with the local ecosystem, and eventually find a way home. It's slow paced; everything you do is turn-based, with movements consuming the fuel of your survival pod and your own energy as you search for more resources and your crashed ship. In between, you'll grow your own food and upgrade your pod with mods that let you explore further and deeper. All the while, Aquamarine's oceanic ecosystems will react in both subtle and grander ways to your choices, shifting the environment as you live in it.

Aquamarine's art-style and sound look like they're pulled from a sci-fi comic or cartoon…likely because that's precisely what inspired creator Patric Fallon when he first conceived it. In 2017, Fallon was an unemployed music journalist who was teaching himself to make games as a hobby using Unity video tutorials and a lot of practice on tiny projects. During that time, he and his then-partner became enamored with the work of French comic book artist Jean 'Moebius' Giraud - leading Fallon to realize that there weren't many or any games that looked like Moebius' work (Sable had yet to be announced, Fallon notes).

The upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi series may feature the grand return of Hayden Christensen's Darth Vader, but he's far from the only villain headlining the latest live-action Star Wars project. Obi-Wan is also butting heads with the Sith Inquisitorius, Vader's elite, Jedi-hunting assassins. The series will feature multiple Inquisitors who originally appeared in the animated series Star Wars Rebels, along with brand new villains like Moses Ingram's Reva.

If you haven't watched Rebels or played Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, you may be unfamiliar with the Inquisitors and how they fit into this particular era of the Star Wars timeline. But fear not. We're here to break down everything you need to know about the Inquisitors and the role they'll play in Obi-Wan Kenobi. These are the topics we cover here:

• What Is the Sith Inquisitorius?
• Who Are the Inquisitors?
• The Sith Inquisitors: Powers and Abilities
• The Inquistorius: The Story So Far
• How the Inquistors Fit Into the Obi-Wan Kenobi Series

What Is the Sith Inquisitorius?

The Sith Inquisitorius (also known as The Order of the Inquisitors and the Imperial Inquisition) is an organization established by Emperor Palpatine shortly after the end of the Clone Wars. Answering only to Palpatine and Darth Vader, these Dark Side adepts are tasked with hunting down and killing any Jedi who survived the devastation of Order 66. They're also tasked with locating Force-sensitive children and bringing them into Imperial custody.

EA Motive has just completed another developer update for the upcoming remake of Dead Space. Aside from showing off some new early footage, the latest developer livestream focused a lot on the audio improvements, including how Isaac's dialogue can vary depending on how tired he is.

During today's livestream, the developers announced a new system titled "A.L.I.V.E.," which EA Motive says will encompass "all components of Isaac's breathing and heart rate, vocal excursions, and dialogue influenced by a variety of driving gameplay features."

While elaborating further on A.L.I.V.E., the studio broke down what each letter in the acronym stood for: Adrenaline, Limbic System Response, Intelligent Dialog, Vitals, and Exertions. While each up makes up a component, the most interesting part of the new system is the "Intelligent Dialog," in which EA Motive explains that Isaac's scripted dialogue scenes will include three variations of each line "based on his current state."

Necromorphs infiltrated our Twitch stream!

Head to our YouTube channel to continue watching our Audio Developer Livestream w/ the best possible experience.

Note: This livestream may contain content not suitable for all audiences

⬇️⬇️⬇️https://t.co/EE2ow37EEk

The Dead Space Remake is coming along, and according to the developers, the team is now targeting an early 2023 release window for its ambitious survival horror game.

Following the latest developer update which did a deep dive into the realistic audio systems in Dead Space Remake, the developers announced that they are targeting an early 2023 release window for the remake.

“We want to make sure that we are in a place where the game we’re going to deliver is going to be building upon the expectations of fans,” the developers said in today’s stream. “So right now, we’ll say early next year. We have a date in mind and we want to make sure that everything converges for this.”

Motive says the team is just a couple of weeks away from being able to do a full walkthrough of the game. But as reiterated many times in the stream and by the devs, everything fans have seen so far of Dead Space Remake is in early alpha.

>> STATUS UPDATE INCOMING…

ARRIVAL WINDOW: EARLY 2023…#DeadSpace pic.twitter.com/Et89fS617W

The shady pasta-faced trader, 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 Winding Cove in the EDZ on March 13 through March 15. 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.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel has been downloaded more than 20 million times barely two months after its release on January 18.

In a tweet, noticed by Nintendo Everything, Konami Europe announced that the virtual card game simulator had hit the impressive milestone, doubling the ten million downloads it achieved on February 7.

Konami is giving away 1,000 free gems to players in celebration of the achievement. Gems are the game's main currency and are used to buy new packs, decks, and accessories.

Yu-Gi-Oh! MASTER DUEL has now been downloaded over 20mln times!!
As a thank you, we’re giving away 1000 gems in-game – make sure to log in to claim yours!
Thank you for playing #YuGiOhMasterDuel pic.twitter.com/H83aUOC9uY

— Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Games (KONAMI Europe) (@YuGiOhCardEU) March 11, 2022

The 20 million downloads is spread across all of Master Duel's platforms, including PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and Steam.

Master Duel is the most extensive and accurate representation of the actual Yu-Gi-Oh! trading card game ever released, featuring over 10,000 cards from its two-decade history.

Elden Ring is officially the United States' best-selling game of 2022 so far, with a huge launch according to the latest NPD data.

FromSoftware's latest is the second best launch of the last twelve months, falling short of only Call of Duty: Vanguard. That means its sales in February performed better than Forza Horizon 5, Halo Infinite, and the other best games of 2021.

Elden Ring is also already the fifth best selling game of the past twelve months, despite only being released two weeks ago on February 25.

PlayStation players still favoured their latest exclusive, Horizon: Forbidden West, as Elden Ring placed second on Sony consoles.

It still secured the top spot on Xbox, however, and on Steam, where it grew in popularity day by day on its first weekend before becoming the sixth most played game of all time on the platform.

Obi-Wan Kenobi star Ewan McGregor thinks opinions of the Star Wars prequels have shifted, and admitted that the original reception to the movies was hard for him to take at the time.

During an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the 50-year-old Star Wars actor explained that he sees a new “Wave of positivity” when it comes to the prequel trilogy.

“Now I meet the people who we made those films for, who were the kids of the time, he said. “And our Star Wars films are their Star Wars films. In the way that Carrie Fisher and Alec Guinness and Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford's films were ours, we're theirs. And that's beautiful that they were important to the kids who we made them for. It's just so nice to finally get that wave of positivity about them.”

Of course, it wasn’t always that way. After the release of The Phantom Menace in 1999, the film was met with mixed reviews. Over time, it only worsened… and with the release of both Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith the trilogy failed to live up to many fans' expectations.

Elite Dangerous on console won't receive any new content, including the Odyssey expansion, as developer Frontier Developments has chosen to focus on improving the PC version.

Frontier CEO and founder David Braben announced in a blog post that console versions will now only receive "critical updates" following a "less than ideal" launch of the major Odyssey update on PC last May.

Odyssey was set to be a major step forward for Elite Dangerous but soon gained a "mostly negative" rating on Steam after thousands of players reported performance issues, problems with the UI, and several other bugs and game-breaking glitches.

The game has received a number of major updates to fix the issues on PC, but Braben said there was still a lot of work to be done, and the entire team needed to turn its attention to improving that version.

He said: "Since Odyssey’s release in May 2021, we have worked tirelessly to improve the Odyssey experience on PC, and whilst we have made great progress there is still more to be done. We have been supporting the pre-Odyssey and post-Odyssey codebases since.

"Over the last several months, we have been wrestling with the best way to move forward, and it is with a heavy heart we have decided to cancel all console development. We need to be able to move forward with the story of the game, and in order for us to do this we need to focus on a single codebase."

Activision is developing a brand new, AAA mobile version of Call of Duty: Warzone.

In a blog post on the Call of Duty website, the company encouraged developers to join its in-house team to build a version of Warzone from the ground up for mobile.

As the game isn't just a straight port and Activision is still hiring developers to make it, Warzone on mobile likely won't release for a while yet.

When it does arrive, however, Activision promises it will "bring the thrilling, fluid, and large-scale action of Call of Duty: Warzone to players on the go.

"This large-scale, battle royale experience is being built natively for mobile with cutting-edge technology designed to entertain gamers around the world for many years to come."

It's not to be confused with Call of Duty: Mobile, Activision's other mobile-based Call of Duty game that was inspired by its first battle royale mode called Blackout. Warzone will be developed at Activision's internal studios compared to the current mobile game, which was made by Chinese developer Tencent.

A sequel to Warzone was also announced last month, set to be released with the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, but this was reportedly delayed to 2024 a few days later.

Xbox Series consoles set to energy saver mode can now download updates, helping alleviate some of the environmental concerns around electrical devices left in standby mode.

Microsoft announced a number of new sustainability efforts, including software upgrades to its consoles that encourage users to switch to the more energy efficient setting.

Energy saver mode consumes roughly 20 times less power than instant-on mode but previously wasn't able to download system and software updates automatically.

Showing its faith in the new update, Microsoft has made energy saver mode the default option when players initially set up their Xbox consoles.

Instant-on mode still has some benefits of course, allowing an Xbox to go from being turned off to signed in within a few seconds. Using the energy saver mode is much better for the environment, however, and will save users money on electricity bills.

Xbox's other sustainability efforts include turning the company carbon negative, water positive, and zero waste by 2030. By that time it will aim to design all Xbox products and packaging to be 100% recyclable in certain countries. The Xbox Series S and Xbox controllers are also now built using recycled plastics.

Spring has arrived and so have Cardy, Matt, and Dale. This week is a little bit of a mish-mash of Overwatch 2 news, WWE 2K22, the Kirby demo, and yes, more Elden Ring. Plus, right at the end, we have a spoiler-filled Batman discussion for anyone who’s seen it.

A twist on a familiar Endless Search game makes an appearance as well as your feedback.

Want to get in touch to talk about things you’ve eaten that you shouldn’t have or maybe even video games? Feel free to send us an email at ign_ukfeedback@ign.com.

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
• IGN UK Podcast #631: A Motley Mouthful
• IGN UK Podcast #630: My Mum's Dating a Frankenstein!

PUBG Mobile has announced a surprising crossover collaboration with Warframe, bringing the popular battle royale together with the online multiplayer shooter.

From March 10 to April 19, PUBG Mobile players can earn Warframe-themed skins and other items by playing and completing special missions and events. The developers say that more event tie-ins will be announced soon, so expect more Warframe content in the coming weeks.

The Cycle: Frontier is a free-to-play PvPvE first-person shooter that, graphically speaking, reminds me of No Man’s Sky and Outer Wilds. I got a few hours of gameplay time and I’m happy to say that it feels solid even with the few bugs I came across.

The Cycle: Frontier introduces players to the planet Fortuna III, where mysterious alien creatures run free and old research facilities remain abandoned. Players enter the planet as Prospectors – adventurers who search for resources and precious loot while braving the elements and hostile creatures. You aren’t the only Prospector around town, however. Other players will be dropping into the planet to gather the same resources you’re after, and while some can be friendly, others will want to hunt you down for your inventory. The Cycle: Frontier brought me back to DayZ days of worrying about PvE elements and survival while also being wary of players I’d come across. Anyone can turn on you at any time all while being chased down by the hostile alien monsters on the planet.

Sometimes, in the middle of a stressful workday, it's good to find a way to relax. Maybe make a cup of tea or a snack. Or stand up and stretch. Or maybe watch an eight-minute ASMR YouTube video of the Pokémon Chespin crunching on colorful cookies?

If you're not familiar with the term, ASMR stands for "autonomous sensory meridian response," and is basically a fancy way of classifying certain kinds of sounds that make your brain feel good. In some people, ASMR provokes a pleasant tingling sensation on the back of the head, neck, and spine, though not everyone experiences this. In recent years, ASMR has been discovered and popularized primarily as a genre of YouTube videos featuring sounds ranging from tapping objects, whispering into special microphones, cooking, crinkly sounds like from paper or plastic, and numerous other variants. You can find everything from intimate ASMR roleplays and performances to hours-long videos of people carefully raking tiny zen gardens or organizing their make-up containers.

Not everyone experiences the tingling sensation ASMR is meant to trigger, and exactly which kinds of sounds an individual will respond to can vary. But there's no doubt that even if you don't get the tingles, many ASMR videos can be very pleasant and relaxing to watch and listen to. So, why not combine them with adorable Pokémon characters to make them even more enjoyable?

Well before he began working on Journey, Jenova Chen was, in his own words, "a rebel who wanted to make things that nobody else would want to make."

He began pursuing that goal while still a college student with Cloud in 2005, a game about a hospital patient whose imagination takes him into the skies while his body remains in bed. With the formation of Thatgamecompany in 2006, he followed it up with Flow and Flower, similarly wordless, emotional, and "zen" games that received acclaim despite - or perhaps because of - their stark differences from everything else available in the mainstream at the time.

But Journey, which this weekend celebrates its ten-year anniversary, took that a step further. While also an emotional, wordless, and beautiful adventure like its older siblings, Journey embraced a new element that they hadn't: social play.

In Journey, players are automatically paired up with another random player in the same area as they are, and can choose to travel together. Though they can't directly interact, players can use a button input to make a "chime" sound at one another, which players have used to indicate which way to go, what to do, or just to express joy or enthusiasm at obstacles overcome. The system has sparked countless stories of human connection over the years as strangers helped one another. Chen tells me he's heard from players who have played the game tens or even hundreds of times, for the sole altruistic purpose of guiding new players.

What a difference a year off makes.

Coming off the heels of the disastrous WWE 2K20, 2K Games and developer Visual Concepts smartly decided to sit one out in order to refocus and essentially reset the series. And it’s a good thing, too, because the resulting WWE 2K22 is by far the most polished and freshest take on the franchise since it began way back in 2013. To be clear, that isn’t to say that it is entirely free of bugs, awkward collision detection, server disconnects, and a few other longstanding problems, most of them are under control now and it’s evident that the team truly took many major points of feedback to heart. The action is faster, the controls are less convoluted at the ground level, the wrestlers (mostly) all look fantastic, and there are no confounding lootboxes ruining the career mode’s progression. On top of that, the total revamp of the strike/grapple system is the kind of shake-up WWE 2K has been in desperate need of.

It’s clear that one of the key focuses for WWE 2K22 was to simplify what has become, over years upon years of iterations, just an overwhelming amount of systems governing the fundamental wrestling mechanics. There’s no more stamina meter, no more multi-tiered lifebars, no more reversal stocks, no more chain wrestling minigames, no more rest hold minigames, and every character is down to just one special payback ability.

That might sound like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but really, it’s a trimming of fat that’s paid off. WWE 2K22’s wrestling feels much faster, more arcadey, and is more pick-up-and-play friendly for newcomers than ever. They’re almost all universally great changes, and whatever’s lost in the “Pro Wrestling Simulation” department is more than made up in the “This is Fun To Play” department.

When Jenova Chen released Journey ten years ago, he wanted to prove to the world that video games were art. Now, everyone pretty much agrees they are.

So why, he asks, are they still not getting the wider cultural respect they deserve?

"You go to a party, and someone says, 'What do you do?' If you say, 'I write scripts for movies'...They treat you as if you are an author of a book or a poet…You're a servant for the public. But if I tell them I work in games, in 2005, they said, 'You know the Columbine shooting? The congressmen said you guys are making kids violent.' And in 2014 to today, people are like, 'I heard you guys make a lot of money, right?'...That's basically what people ask. The only other time people would ask these questions is if you run a casino.

"These days we are working on something different because, now [we've proven they're] art, how come people still don't respect games? I got these games like Flower and Journey in the MOMA and Smithsonian and in all these contemporary galleries. I thought this is going to elevate the public respect for games, because how is it possible that game is a lesser art form than any others?...If proving games can be art can't elevate the respect, or how the public view games, what else can I do to change that?"

Blizzard is changing up its release plans for Overwatch 2 in a major way. Rather than ship the PvP and PvE portions of the shooter together, Blizzard will decouple the package to get the Overwatch 2 PvP to players sooner rather than later.

In a new update — the first in a series of updates for the sake of more regular communication with fans — Blizzard announced that Overwatch 2 PvP will be entering closed alpha testing later today, with a beta planned for late April.

We look forward to building a new era of Overwatch 2 together ✨ pic.twitter.com/CadWUwlIxh

— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) March 10, 2022

The closed alpha is only open to Blizzard employees, Overwatch League pros, and a few other select groups. The late April PvP beta, however, will be available for PC players in all regions. While it will be a closed beta, it's a chance for a larger group of testers to play the PvP mode and provide feedback to the developers.

As part of the beta, several of the changes coming to Overwatch 2 will be available for testing. This includes the new hero Sojourn, the new game mode Push, 5v5 Multiplayer, the new Hero reworks, and four new maps.

Star Trek: Resurgence is our IGN First "cover story" for March. That means we're dropping exclusive coverage all month long. We kicked off with the first-ever uncut gameplay (featuring Ambassador Spock!), and followed that up with still more gameplay.

Today we're introducing you to the crew of the U.S.S. Resolute, including the two playable characters you'll alternate playtime between: Jara and Carter. Take a look at the gallery below to meet each crew member and learn more about each of them.

Star Trek: Resurgence was announced back at The Game Awards 2021 and will be released for PC (via the Epic Games Store), PlayStation, and Xbox platforms later this year.

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

The Elden Ring world record speedrun was seemingly broken twice in one day, with both times clocking in at less than one hour.

YouTube user LilAggy published his speedrun yesterday, where he rolled credits at 59 minutes and 38 seconds. At the time, it appeared to be a new world record. "That could not have been closer," he said at the time.

That record only took a few hours to be beaten. Distortion2 on YouTube published his own speedrun where he undercut the previous record by ten minutes, rolling credits at 49 minutes and 29 seconds. Even more impressive, Distortion2 claims it was his first attempt at speedrunning the game, and that the category for Any% runs (essentially, reaching the end by any means) could probably go under 40 minutes.

FIRST TO FINISH ELDEN RING IN UNDER 50 MINUTES. This game is going to probably go under 40 minutes 🤣 pic.twitter.com/QDhPu48zx9

— Distortion2 🕐 Elden Ring (@Distortion_2) March 10, 2022

FromSoftware games have been favourites of the speedrunning community since Demon's Souls on PS3, with players spending years figuring out the perfect strategies and shortcuts.

The original Dark Souls, for example, has been completed in 21 minutes and 17 seconds while Bloodborne's world record comes in at 21 minutes and 15 seconds.

WWE 2K22's post-launch content updates have been revealed through July 2022 and they include such new playable characters as Logan Paul, Mr. T, Machine Gun Kelly, Ronda Rousey, Cactus Jack, and many more.

These five content packs will, in total, add 28 new characters to WWE 2K22's roster and will be available for individual purchase alongside being included for those with the Season Pass, Deluxe Edition, or nWo 4-Life Digital Edition of WWE 2K22.

Some of the celebrity additions go far beyond just because they are popular, as some have a connection to the game and the sport. For example, Machine Gun Kelly is WWE 2K22's executive soundtrack producer and Logan Paul is set to compete in a WrestleMania match with tag team partner The Miz against Rey Mysterio (WWE 2K22's cover star) and his son Dominik Mysterio.

The full list of packs, characters, and dates for WWE 2K22's post-launch content updates are as follows;

Ubisoft is inviting a select number of players to play (and test) its pirate game Skull & Bones.

Its new Insider Programme (spotted by Eurogamer,) will let carefully selected players access a very early version of the game in order to feedback issues to Ubisoft.

This isn't quite the same as a beta, where players can sample a near-complete version of the game early, but instead is more like a quality assurance position, where early access testers will work closely with Ubisoft to iron out problems in the game.

Anyone can apply for the Insider Programme but only those "dedicated to testing work in progress versions" of Skull & Bones will be admitted. They will also require a lot of patience and commitment and must adhere to a non disclosure agreement and Ubisoft's code of conduct, the company said.

It added in its application form: "Our main objective is to get real data & feedback. We want to see what our players do when they're free to play our game whenever they want, however they want. Most importantly, we want to know how they feel about the game."

Ideal candidates, Ubisoft said, must be fans of Skull & Bones and have a keen interest in game development, with plenty of free time to play and give feedback.

IGN can exclusively reveal a new mini-documentary from Camouflaj, delving behind the scenes into the development of the 2013 stealth-adventure game République.

The documentary includes stories and testimonies from developers at Camouflaj about the years leading up to République's release, focusing on their struggles in their small Bellevue-based studio space.

It then details the initial launch of République's first episode, subsequent episodic releases, the numerous challenges of mo-cap work and fixing bugs, and the success that ultimately sparked future re-releases and the remaster.

Camouflaj's documentary today coincides with the release of République: Anniversary Edition on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PSVR - almost nine years after the initial iOS launch. The studio has also recently revealed it will be opening a new studio in Kamakura, Japan run by studio founder Ryan Payton alongside Devil May Cry 5 producer Matt Walker.

IGN reviewed the first episode of République way back when it first launched in 2013, and praised its "superb, deep world" full of mystery and interesting story payoffs, with "refreshing momentum." Camouflaj has since gone on to creator Iron Man VR.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

Open-world games have come a long way over the years, offering more freedom to explore and in how we approach objectives, but what open-world titles have it all? The best open world, the best challenges, the best story, the best characters?

IGN’s staff duked it out (in a professional manner, of course) to put together a list of the best open world games, looking at how they deliver as a complete package in letting us best get lost in a world, take over enemy outposts, and find a ridiculous way to outrun enemies. So without further ado, here are IGN’s picks for the top 10 open worlds games.

10. Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales

New York City around Christmastime is magic. And Insomniac has done an incredible job of recreating that charming atmosphere in Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Every aspect of this follow-up to the 2018 Spidey hit is undoubtedly built on the great fundamentals of that first game. But the approach to the world, mission design, and story is altogether stronger in Miles Morales, even if there is less of it. But the focus on a more select story and missions allow Miles’ journey to be so personally impactful on the player and character.

Two veteran developers with leading roles on Diablo 2 are working on an original game at a newly formed studio, Moon Beast Productions.

Diablo 2's lead artist and lore writer, Phil Shenk, has teamed up with the classic action-RPG's lead designer, Peter Hu, to use their years of experience to develop a brand new title.

Moon Beast Productions didn't say what its inaugural game would be, but promises genuine innovation and "all the creativity and deep system design" the developers are known for.

Hu said: "Fans of our previous work will be hoping we stay true to our ARPG roots, and I don’t think they’ll be disappointed, but we are also working on a few big innovations with incredible potential."

Shenk added that the combination of Hu's design and technical skills combined with his own passion for world-building and creativity are "an unbeatable combination".

He also said that building a positive workplace culture is important to the duo. "We’re just as passionate about building and a nurturing healthy, supportive, collaborative team culture as we are about making fantastic games," he said.

Hu entered game development as a programmer and grew to be lead designer of Diablo 2 before going on to form a number of studios. In his 25-year career, Hu co-founded Flagship Studios, Runic Games, and Rhino Games. He was also creative director of Marvel Heroes at Gazillion.

Shenk has been in the industry just as long, and following his role as lead artist of Diablo II he became lead designer on its Lord of Destruction expansion.

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.

Nintendo has halted all shipments to Russia for the "foreseeable future", but stopped short of publicly supporting Ukraine.

In a statement provided to IGN, the gaming giant said the rapidly changing circumstances around exporting and selling its products in Russia forced the move, meaning it's not doing so explicitly in support of Ukraine, as many other companies have.

Update: Asked by IGN if the company would be providing a message of support for Ukraine, a Nintendo spokesperson provided the following message: “We would like to express our concern for all those affected by the conflict”.

Nintendo told IGN: "We have decided to suspend shipping all Nintendo products to Russia for the foreseeable future. This is due to considerable volatility surrounding the logistics of shipping and distributing physical goods."

The company also announced on March 7 that the Russian eShop had been placed into maintenance mode, meaning no users in the country could purchase games or other content digitally. This wasn't necessarily in support of Ukraine either, as Nintendo said their payment service had stopped processing Russian rubles, forcing the eShop to temporarily close.

On this week's episode of Podcast Beyond!, host Jonathon Dornbush is joined by Mark Medina (and later Jada Griffin) to dig into the PlayStation State of Play of March 2022 on Beyond episode 740.

While Jada joins us later in the show to discuss her excitement over what was shown, Mark and Jonathon kick off the podcast by discussing the surprise announcement of Returnal's 3.0 update coming later this month, and why we're excited to revisit Atropos with Returnal co-op. We also dig into some of the Square Enix games included in the show, like Forspoken, Valkyrie Elysium, and The DioField Chronicle. Plus, Jada joins us to discuss her excitement for JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle R, the TMNT collection called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection, and more.

Plus, the gang covers some of the other recent PlayStation news, like Forspoken's new release date, Gotham Knights' October release date, God of War's potential TV show, an expanded lawsuit against PlayStation, and Sony's response to donate aid to Ukraine and cutting off of game sales in Russia.

When Xbox purchased Activision Blizzard and Sony acquired Bungie to kick off 2022, it kicked off a frenzy of speculation among industry observers. Suddenly, it seemed as if no acquisition was off the table.

In such an environment, Iron Galaxy would seem to be an ideal target for a major platform holder. Aside from being a noted work-for-hire studio, Iron Galaxy has worked on popular franchises such as Uncharted and Killer Instinct, and CEO Adam Boyes has a direct connection to PlayStation.

For now, though, Iron Galaxy seems happy to be independent.

"[S]o many doors are open and I love that," Boyes tells IGN. "And because we're independent, we have the ability to continue that freedom journey and check it all out and see what leans into our values as a company."

Boyes, an energetic game developer who earned notice as Sony Interactive Entertainment's Vice President of Publisher and Developer Relations, likens the current acquisition craze to his childhood in British Columbia, where his father was a lumberjack. In effect, he says, platform holders like Microsoft and Sony are clear-cutting the competition, in the process creating the underbrush that can attract new studios.

A new Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin demo is available now on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4, ahead of the game's release on March 18.

This new demo will take players through the first three stages of the opening of the game. In addition, players can also carry over the save data from the demo to the main game.

Stranger of Paradise is a reimagining of the very first Final Fantasy game with an action-RPG twist. The gameplay feels very similar to Dark Souls where players must fight through enemies that will reset if the player is killed.

However, Final Fantasy hallmarks like the job system and familiar locales and characters will return in a big way. According to the new PlayStation Blog post, Stranger of Paradise is around 40 hours, if the player progresses at a steady pace. But given there will be around 30 different jobs players can try, the playtime could be much longer depending on how in-depth the player wants to explore.

Stranger of Paradise will also come with multiple difficulty settings so players at any level can enjoy the game whether that's progress through the story or completing the most difficult challenges.

Announced at today's State of Play, Returnal will be getting a new free update later this month that includes a new major challenge, as well as the ability to play cooperatively with a friend.

Returnal's Ascension update 3.0 drops on March 22, 2022, and will feature both online campaign co-op as well as a new survival mode called The Tower of Sisyphus.

Per the PlayStation Blog, co-op mode will be accessed through the Chronosis portal near the crash landing, as well as in other select parts of the game. You can either host a co-op game or join another public one, or host or join a private game with a friend. Players will be tethered together to prevent them from getting too far apart and can revive one another if downed. Game progression is tied to the host.

The Tower of Sisyphus is effectively an endless survival game mode where you try to climb as high as you can, with challenges and enemies getting more difficult the higher you get. Each phase in the tower culminates in a battle with Algos that gets progressively harder as well, and scores will be tracked on a leaderboard. The Tower also includes some new narrative content.

Notably, The Tower of Sisyphus cannot be done in co-op (and a few story moments are solo only as well), but the majority of the game seems to be available to play alongside a friend — a welcome assistance given how tough Returnal can be.