IGN

Atomic Heart, the mysterious first-person shooter from developer Mundfish that's vaguely reminiscent of BioShock (in a good way), has cheekily revealed its release window. At the end of the new trailer (watch it above), the release window is revealed to be sometime in the final four months of 2022, as the trailer reveals "#######ber 2022," thus narrowing it to September, October, November, or December (and perhaps giving the Mundfish team some wiggle room if they're aiming for one of those earlier "-mber" months and end up needing to polish the game a bit longer). Whenever it drops, Atomic Heart will be available on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One.

We also asked a few questions of the Russia-based Mundfish team via email.

IGN: How did Atomic Heart begin? It has been such a pleasant surprise, and Mundfish (respectfully) is not yet a name that most gamers already know.

Mundfish: The project began in early 2017. Back then, we wanted to test the waters of the VR market, started with a small project, and released it. But as the studio grew, the ambitions have also gone bigger. A year after, we realized that we had gathered an extremely talented team that was brought together by a single idea – to create a big, awesome, story-driven game. That's how it all started. When the first trailer in 2018 has gone viral, we finally understood that we have something truly special on our hands, which motivated us to give it all to this project.

The Wolf Among Us 2 will be released episodically in 2023, but Telltale will complete development on every chapter before the first part is released.

Announced during today's Wolf Among Us 2 news stream, Telltale is developing the entire five-episode season simultaneously, and will release it with a 'tighter cadence' than the original game. Exact timings weren't given, but we now know it will be released for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, and Xbox One in 2023.

The original incarnation of Telltale developed many of its episodic games chapter-by-chapter, occasionally leading to long delays when development problems arose. The Wolf Among Us 2 , developed by a fresh team under the Telltale banner, won't be following suit.

The stream today also included a first gameplay trailer and new story details. The game, set 6 months after the first, will see anti-hero Bigby Wolf suspended and in anger management counseling. Snow White will now be deputy mayor of the game's Fabletown setting.

The trailer gives us a sense of the game's heavily stylized visuals, synth score, and introduces us to new characters, including Tin Man and Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz. In classic Wolf Among Us style, they aren't the characters you remember.

Ubisoft has reportedly turned an Assassin's Creed Valhalla expansion featuring Basim into its own standalone game that is expected to release either this year or in 2023.

Bloomberg reports that people familiar with the project, codenamed Rift, said it won't have a massive open-world but will instead focus on stealth gameplay and is overall "smaller in scope" than previous Assassin's Creed games.

Rift was allegedly turned into its own game in late 2021 to flesh out Ubisoft's thin release schedule and is expected to release before Assassin's Creed Infinity, the upcoming evolution of the franchise that's rumored to be a Fortnite-style evolving platform game.

Eurogamer said it's also familiar with Rift and heard from sources that it will take place in Baghdad before the events of Valhalla. Basim is already confirmed to be from the Abbasid Caliphate, of which Baghdad was capital in parts of the 9th century when Valhalla is set.

A Ubisoft spokesperson told Bloomberg that it doesn't comment "on rumors or speculation as they do a disservice to our development teams and community."

Pokemon Legends: Arceus takes place in the past of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, in the area that will one day become the Sinnoh region. So it's naturally full of connections to Diamond and Pearl, including story threads, characters, native Pokemon, and of course its map.

It would have been easy for Game Freak to take some liberties here, but the map of Hisui you explore in Legends is surprisingly accurate to the Sinnoh we know from the fourth generation of Pokemon games, right down to where towns are in relation to one another and some of the geography in each area. And even if you're not looking hard, you can find lots of obvious references.

Spoilers for Pokemon Legends: Arceus' map locations below:

The most obvious starting point for a little map exploration is Jubilife Village, which obviously will become Jubilife City in Diamond and Pearl. It's surrounded on two sides by the Obsidian Fieldlands.

Microsoft has confirmed that "Call of Duty and other popular Activision Blizzard titles" will not just be released on PlayStation to honor existing contracts, but "beyond the existing agreement and into the future."

In a piece published to explain how the company will adapt to gain regulatory approval for its Activision Blizzard takeover, president Brad Smith addressed concerns that popular games would no longer be available on competing consoles:

"To be clear, Microsoft will continue to make Call of Duty and other popular Activision Blizzard titles available on PlayStation through the term of any existing agreement with Activision. And we have committed to Sony that we will also make them available on PlayStation beyond the existing agreement and into the future so that Sony fans can continue to enjoy the games they love."

Previous reports have indicated that the next three Call of Duty games would come to PlayStation, but not indicated what's beyond that.

Smith added that Microsoft would be looking to assure the same for Activision Blizzard games on Nintendo consoles: "We are also interested in taking similar steps to support Nintendo’s successful platform. We believe this is the right thing for the industry, for gamers and for our business."

Sony has announced Gran Turismo Sophy, an artificial intelligence built in collaboration between Sony AI, Polyphony Digital, and the cloud gaming team at Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Revealed as part of the Race Together Media Event, Sony claims that the new artificial intelligence, which has been trained using Gran Turismo Sport, can race competitively against the best Gran Turismo players in the world.

In development tests, Gran Turismo Sophy was pitted against four of the world's best Gran Turismo Sport players across two separate events, one in July 2021 and a second in October 2021. The first test saw Sophy score 70 points across three different races, while the human team scored 86. After a few months of training, Gran Turismo Sophy was able to score 104 points in a second round of tests, versus the human team's score of 52. Sophy won every race in this second test, and set the best lap time.

Sophy is trained through a deep reinforcement learning system, using Sony Interactive Entertainment's cloud gaming infrastructure. The system trains the AI in three areas: Physical Realism, which teaches Sophy to control a car and exploit features of track, Realtime Race Tactics, which coaches the AI to master passing and optimise its use of the racing line, and Sports Etiquette, which trains Sophy to drive aggressive but fairly.

There have been dozens of Pokémon games released since the franchise first debuted over 25 years ago, with the main series leading the charge and numerous spin-offs offering a fresh take on everyone’s favorite Pocket Monsters. But which Pokémon games are the very best, like no game ever was?

IGN’s team of resident Pokémaniacs battled it out (with our words) and decided on this list of the Top 10 best Pokémon games ever made.

10. Pokémon Legends: Arceus

Pokémon Legends: Arceus is the newest game in the series, and early returns suggest that its fresh approach to monster collecting is resonating with fans. Similar to Pokémon Go, Pokémon Legends: Arceus puts more emphasis on collecting than battling, returning to the "Gotta Catch ‘Em All" ethos that drove the series in its heyday.

In our review we did raise concerns about Pokémon Legends: Arceus' graphics and open world, which don't quite do justice to its innovation. But in defining how we play Pokémon, the game boldly evolves how we explore, catch, and battle, rolling it all into an impressively seamless and addictively fun experience. In that, it deserves to be counted among the very best Pokémon games.

Bandai Namco has made an official announcement recognising the current technical difficulties with the Dark Souls games on PC, and has said that it is now looking into Elden Ring ahead of launch to ensure the problem does not affect the new FromSoftware game.

In a statement on Twitter, Bandai Namco and FromSoftware said that they are "aware of the technical difficulties players have experienced with the Dark Souls suite of games on PC", referring to the fact that servers are down after a "serious exploit" was discovered.

#DarkSouls pic.twitter.com/ZRhX9OcvQe

— Dark Souls (@DarkSoulsGame) February 9, 2022

The companies offered their thanks to fans who have reported the issue. "Thanks to you, we have identified the cause and are working on fixing the issue."

"In addition, we have extended the investigation to Elden Ring - our upcoming title launching on February 25th - and have made sure the necessary security measures are in place for this title on all target platforms," the statement reads.

More than 60,000 Battlefield 2042 players have signed a petition asking for their money back, as the game continues to receive criticism for its slow update roll out and perceived lack of features.

Eurogamer spotted the petition, which requested that refunds available on Steam be extended to PlayStation and Xbox customers, and said EA made "a mockery" of customers who purchased the game.

The publisher admitted itself that Battlefield 2042 "did not meet expectations" and developer DICE has recently delayed a number of updates to the game including its first season pass and the addition of a scoreboard.

The petition reads: "EA’s release of Battlefield 2042 was a mockery of every customer who purchased this video game for $70 (USD) due to EA’s false advertising. Battlefield 2042 has cost consumers millions of dollars in damages and upset thousands of customers worldwide."

Complaints arose almost immediately when Battlefield 2042 launched on November 19 with server and UI problems, and fans quickly noticed a number of features they thought were missing from the game.

We got to play roughly two hours of RPG TIME: The Legend of Wright. From it’s unique pencil drawing style to diverse gameplay and creative world building, it left us craving for more. Luckily, RPG Time: The Legend of Wright releases soon on March 10 on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC.

Playing an extended demo of RPG TIME: The Legend of Wright reminded me of seeing the classical animation of Cuphead for the first time. While pencil drawings in a notebook are something we’ve all seen before, it feels unique when brought to video game format. Walking around inside the notebook of an elementary school student is a fresh experience, and crossing from one page to the next genuinely made me feel like I was controlling a character in a way I had not experienced before.

Unlike Cuphead though, RPG Time is not focused on action, which makes its unique visual style only the beginning of its appeal. As in most RPGs, RPG Time offers a wide array of different activities, ranging from battles to exploration and character dialogue. You control Wright, the hero of this adventure, traveling through the lands of Cardboardia in order to save princess Lay. On his journey, Wright gets involved in (often hilarious) events and meets interesting characters along the way.

Lost Ark is already one of Steam's biggest-ever games, overtaking the likes of Apex Legends and Among Us in peak concurrent users, even before it goes free-to-play later this week.

Per SteamDB data, the game's peak concurrent users currently stand at 532,476, placing it sixth in Steam's all-time list behind only New World, Cyberpunk 2077, Dota 2, CS: GO, and PUBG. Incredibly, it hit that number within 4 hours of going on release as a paid game, even though it will become free-to-play on Friday.

That sheer influx seemed to be causing some problems initially, with users reporting connectivity issues and increased queue times that prompted developer Smilegate to open another North American server shortly after launch:

In response to increased queue times, we have opened up a new server on NA East (Karmine).

The team will continue to monitor server queues and make additional adjustments if necessary.

— Lost Ark (@playlostark) February 9, 2022

Lost Ark is an MMO / ARPG with isometric action similar to the Diablo games, featuring 15 playable classes, a cinematic story-led campaign, and co-op PvE combat. It was released in South Korea in 2019 and later in Japan and Russia, with a North American and European release finally arriving this week.

Pokémon Legends: Arceus has received its first post-launch patch, which has helped fix a glitch that made the Pokémon Cherrim incredibly difficult to catch.

Version 1.0.2 of the game was released on February 8 and "fixed an issue that sometimes made it difficult to catch Cherrim" alongside a handful of other minor bugs.

Players may have expected Arceus and the other legendary Pokémon to be among the hardest to catch but Cherrim, while easy enough to beat, often refused to stay in its Pokéball.

I have been fighting this Cherrim for like half an hour. I've thrown >50 ultra balls with no success. Am I losing my mind? pic.twitter.com/7KCHt0vavK

— zippyzap (@zippyzapps) February 8, 2022

As Pokémon Legends: Arceus encourages catching the same Pokémon over and over, Cherrim certainly proved a problem as it sometimes refused to be caught even after dozens of attempts.

Cherrim's unique ability allows it to change form depending on the weather - its flower opens if it's sunny and closes if it's not - but the glitch seemingly dropped the Pokémon's Catch Rate to zero if it changed forms even once.

Following the patch. however, many users are now reporting that the elusive Cherrim can now finally be caught as expected.

The full patch notes can be seen here:

After two of these roguelite DLCs so far, the formula for Far Cry 6’s villain-centric expansions has become predictable: you enter a character’s mind, confronting their demons and learning more about their backstory while shooting everything in sight. Thus, Joseph: Collapse has a lot of the same strengths and shortcomings of Vaas’ Insanity and Pagan Min’s Control that came before it. Unlike those, though, this final entry in the trilogy has the critical flaw of starring the weakest villain of the bunch – by quite a wide margin – in Joseph Seed. The Zen-like militant cult leader from Far Cry 5 never made much of an impression on me aside from his unmistakable love of yellow aviators, and Collapse does little to make him more interesting.

For those who didn’t finish Far Cry 5’s campaign or skipped the follow up Far Cry: New Dawn, consider this a necessary spoiler warning, but I have to talk about Collapse’s ill-conceived attempt at redeeming the mass-murdering psychopath that serves as the main antagonist in those games. It’s important in Collapse, because most of the story is centered around that redemption arc and Joseph’s attempts at denying his egomaniacal nature. It’s a tough sell, frankly, and one that doesn’t feel particularly earned – you just hear him scream that he’s sorry quite a bit as you direct him to commit acts of unspeakable violence. Little time is spent on justifying why he was so dang evil in Far Cry 5 aside from it being in his nature and that he’s generally not a considerate human being.

Rockstar has officially acknowledged Grand Theft Auto 6's development, so we spend time mulling over some key questions: When will it be out? Will the long gap between GTA 5 and GTA 6 help or hurt it? Where will it be set? What do we want out of it in terms of main characters, gameplay features, etc. Plus: Infinity Ward confirms the next Call of Duty game and we debate what big and small steps the franchise should take next in order to stay fresh, PlatinumGames wants to bring back Scalebound, and more!

Subscribe on any of your favorite podcast feeds, to our YouTube channel, or grab an MP3 download of this week's episode. For more awesome content, check out our latest IGN Unfiltered interview, where Joseph Staten – one of Halo's original creators and now the head of creative on Halo Infinite – discusses his fascinating career:

Oh, and you can be featured on Unlocked by tweeting us a video Loot Box question! Tweet your question and tag Ryan at @DMC_Ryan!

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

Sony is beta testing some new customization features for PlayStation 5 users based on feedback from the players. The new software beta is kicking off tomorrow, and it includes new party chat options, game base enhancements, accessibility options, and UI features.

As announced on the PlayStation Blog, Sony detailed the new features coming to the console. First, Sony said there are new changes to the Parties system on PS5. Players will now be able to start an open party, which all of your friends can see and join, or a closed party exclusively for players you invite.

PlayStation 4 players will also be able to control individual voice chat volume for every person in a party, which is already a feature on PS5.

Sony is also making changes to the Game Base, which is the PS5 menu where you set up parties, invite friends, and see messages. Now, it will be divided into three menu tabs: friends, parties, and messages. PlayStation says this should give players faster access to find what they're looking for.

As for UI features, you'll be able to sort your game collection by genre. Previous sorting options were limited to alphabetical order and recently played games.

There's also an option to keep up to five games and apps locked to your home screen, so they don't get pushed off the page if you haven't opened them recently.

America's Army: Proving Grounds, the video game used as a recruitment tool for the United States military, will shut down on March 5 after more than 20 years on various platforms. As first reported by Vice, It will be delisted from Steam and PSN, and online matches will cease to be hosted. Offline and private matches will still be available.

America's Army is a first-person shooter released in 2002 and developed and published by the U.S. Army. The game was explicitly designed to encourage American citizens to join the United States military, and represented the United States' government's first major use of video games as a recruitment tool, as well as being a free-to-play game long before such a term became standard practice in the video game industry.

America's Army released in three major iterations throughout the years, updating content and gameplay for an audience of 20 million players. Proving Ground was the latest version, released in 2013.

"The free-to-play America’s Army PC Game represented the first large-scale use of game technology by the U.S. government as a platform for strategic communication and recruitment, and the first use of game technology in support of U.S. Army recruiting," a forum post announcing the shutdown said. "Three mainline titles and more than 20 million AA players later, the series’ original purpose continued. There have been over 30 million objectives completed, 180 million successful missions accomplished, 250 million teammates assisted, and many more in-game achievements attained in AA:PG alone."

Bandai Namco announced Tuesday that it plans to develop an "IP Metaverse" for its library of games, and is spending 15 billion yen (or 130 million USD) on the project.

First reported by VideoGamesChronicle, the three main goals of the metaverse project include connecting Bandai Namco with fans of their games, enhancing the value of Bandai Namco's IP, and connecting each IP's world into an interconnected universe known as the "ALL BANDAI NAMCO concept."

Bandai Namco also plans to invest 25 billion yen (or 216 million USD) to "maximize IP value" through new IP creation, "groupwide IP projects," and innovation.

The metaverse is a popular term in the tech and entertainment world for a persistent virtual world where people can interact with one another and various brands. Several major companies and brands are rushing to get in on the idea, including Disney, Epic Games, Microsoft, Facebook, and Square Enix.

Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut has a new quest inspired by Horizon: Forbidden West that grants players an outfit inspired by the game's protagonist, Aloy.

Developer Sucker Punch released a patch for the game on February 8 that includes a brand-new quest, where players must solve a puzzle to the north of Iki Island to earn "an Aloy-inspired surprise".

The studio tweeted, "We are so excited for Horizon: Forbidden West from our friends at Guerrilla! While we wait, today we’ve released a new patch for Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut that repairs a Wind Shrine to the north of Iki Island. Solve the puzzle there to earn an Aloy-inspired surprise..."

We are so excited for Horizon Forbidden West from our friends at @Guerrilla! While we wait, today we’ve released a new patch for Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut that repairs a Wind Shrine to the north of Iki Island. Solve the puzzle there to earn an Aloy-inspired surprise... pic.twitter.com/5brcjTvL7o

— Ghost of Tsushima 🎮 Director's Cut Out Now! (@SuckerPunchProd) February 8, 2022

Protagonist Jin can be seen wearing the new outfit that includes a headband, jacket, and accessories straight out of Aloy's wardrobe.

Apex Legends season 12 Defiance is here and, as usual, there’s a lot to cover. If you’re interested in how the new limited-time mode Control plays I have a whole other article on that that you can check out. But let’s cover the new Legend Mad Maggie and all the map and gun changes coming to Season 12.

To start, Apex is having its third anniversary and there’ll be free rewards for every player logging on during the first three weeks of Season 12. All you have to do is log in during February 8th and March 1st to unlock your rewards. With the three year anniversary, Season 12 will feature map rotations of Olympus, Storm Point, and Kings Canyon for the Casual playlist and will have Olympus for Split 1 of Ranked and Kings Canyon for Split 2.

Olympus/Stormpoint Map Changes

With these rotations, there have been some massive changes to Olympus and smaller adjustments to Storm Point to help balance the maps. Olympus’ Phase Runner was hacked and the city almost crashed into the planet below after the city was phased to a new location. Olympus is a bit bigger than before and some new POIs have been added offering better rotation and loot pool options. There’s now a Phase Driver in the spot between Bonsai and Hydroponics which offers more options for rotations out of the Southern areas. The Phase Driver can be interacted with and when it’s activated, 3 loot rollers will phase in and at least one Gold-Tier ball is guaranteed each activation. This can be activated again but only after a 45 second cooldown. But each time you boot up the Phase Driver, it’ll emit a loud noise and alert teams to your location.

Trick-taking is a central part of so many playing card games that most people are familiar with it. The lead player starts by playing a card and the highest card of that suit wins the hand. Yet it’s not used that widely in hobby games, perhaps because it’s so commonplace, despite the fact it would make games easier to learn.

Enter Brian Boru: High King of Ireland, a game named after a renowned king of medieval Ireland (see it on Amazon). It uses that comfortable trick-taking concept but builds on it in two distinct ways. First, it removes much of the randomness by having players draft cards instead of a random deal. Second, it has the outcome of tricks determine your control of towns on a map of Ireland. Between them, these innovations transform the humble trick into something very new and interesting.

What’s In The Box

Brian Boru comes in a big, shallow box in order to accommodate a large board with some tracks and a map of Ireland with major towns marked and linked by roads. It’s a beautiful thing, painted in gentle tones to suggest an ancient chart and decorated with knotwork and Celtic fonts.

Indeed the artwork across the game is high quality. You can see the same effect on the cards which are big, tarot-sized affairs depicting people, places and items relevant to the era in classic knotwork borders in addition to their in-game information.

Quick, what's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Borderlands? Is it guns? Well if you didn't think of guns, just play along with me please. My entire intro kind of hangs on it. Thanks. So Borderlands is famous for guns: billions of them, actually. Everything from guns that shoot acid bullets to guns that become grenades when empty. Much like the USA, the heart and soul of the Borderlands experience is built on a foundation of guns.

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, which is an off-shoot of the Borderlands experience, is also brimming with guns, but there's something magical in the air, too. Literally, it's magic! Now that you've made it through this tortured opening, let's take a good, long look at how magic changes the Borderlands experience for the better.

As I sit perched atop my throne and welcome another throng of unwashed petitioners to track mud across my brand-new Persian carpet, surely bringing with them all manner of trivial frustrations to waste my time, one thought sits at the front of my mind: where has this been all my life? Royal Court is the first major expansion for Crusader Kings 3, and between a full 3D throne room that puts you in the world, to the return of the inventory system from Crusader Kings 2, to wonderfully customizable cultures, everything feels like it was meant to be here all along.

While the base game of Crusader Kings 3 was already a masterpiece, it's remarkable how incomplete it would feel to go back to it after playing Royal Court. Some recent expansions to Paradox's older games, like Europa Universalis IV, have seemed like the devs are just looking for stuff to do at this point. But not Royal Court, which is full of new features which add more personal involvement and an empowering level of control over how your society functions. It’s a bit painful that you can’t access most of it when playing as a duke or a tribal ruler, which had previously been two of my favorite types of characters and seem like a perfect fit for the kind of intimate, less expansion-focused playstyle having your own court allows. But the intrigue and excitement of the court itself are too good to pass up.

Four items in Demon's Souls on PlayStation 5 seemingly remain undiscovered, despite the game being released more than a year ago – but a prominent dataminer says they may be completely unobtainable.

Lance McDonald, who's previously revealed secrets from Bloodborne, P.T., and God of War, tweeted that he knows the items exist in the game code but doesn't know how to obtain them, or if it's possible at all.

In the tweet (below), Mcdonald said, "Bluepoint Games added a number of new items to the Demon's Souls Remake that still remain undiscovered."

"If I knew how to get them myself, I would," he said in a follow-up. "I just know they exist in the data. If we ever get a PS5 jailbreak, maybe I'll be able to figure it out, but for now all I know is there's four undiscovered items, and what they're called."

Bluepoint Games added a number of new items to the Demon's Souls Remake that still remain undiscovered.

— Lance McDonald (@manfightdragon) February 7, 2022

Speaking to IGN, McDonald didn't reveal exactly how he came to know of the items, or what they're called, but did speculate that developer Bluepoint Games may have simply chosen not to include the items in the final game at all.

He said: "They could have created the items completely and chosen not to actually make it possible to find them. I have no way to know at the moment.

If you've ever been on your way out of work and someone stops you to do one more thing, you might understand how your crew of Grey Knights feels at the start of Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters. The "one more thing" they asked you to do probably wasn't to fight off a daemonic plague threatening an entire sector of space, but you know, details. Fresh off of a pitched battle against cultists of the blood god, Khorne, these dutiful servants of the Imperium have been rerouted by the Inquisition to shoot, psi-blast, and chainsword their way through turn-based missions and a dynamic strategic layer. It has the feel of 40K meets XCOM, and that is entirely my kind of campaign.

The problem with this unplanned detour is that their previous campaign did a number on their ship and their chapter, so you'll be commanding a weakened force of the Emperor's finest aboard a vessel held together by tape, scrap, and hope. Repairing the very Warhammerly-named Baleful Edict is the main strategic progression system. Fixing up the engines allows you to travel around the sector faster, while getting the hospital back to full function will reduce the amount of time injured characters will need to heal.

Pokémon Legends: Arceus players have found an exploit that allows rare shiny Pokémon to be duplicated several times.

Per Polygon, the method means that players still nedd to find shinies themselves, (though using our guide will help), and only Pokémon found in trees, rock ore, and treasure chests can be multiplied.

Discovered by @Kqttling on Twitter and explained in-depth by YouTuber PhillyBeatzU, the exploit allows the a single shiny Pokémon to be duplicated a seemingly infinite number of times.

Start by turning off autosave, and once you've found and caught a shiny from one of the three types of spawns, save your game manually. Now find and enter a nearby cave within the same overall area and wait for 30 minutes, making sure not to interact with anything else.

When time's up, go back to the exact same spawn from which you found the original shiny and it should be shaking again with the exact same Pokémon, down to its ID number, waiting inside. This can be done with any Pokémon, shiny or not, so if there are any others you want to duplicate then this method will work.

Shinies are rare versions of Pokémon with different colorations, and have historically been very difficult to find. Arceus' more open approach to catching 'em all makes shinies a little easier to find than in previous games, but they're still not a common sight.

Dark Souls creator Hidetaka Miyazaki said meeting Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin to discuss Elden Ring was "like speaking with an old friend" in an interview with Edge – and explained more about how the two legends of their fields collaborated.

Martin helped construct the fantasy world of Elden Ring – effectively its history and major figures, but not the game's plot – and Miyazaki has good memories of travelling to America to have the initial conversations, saying Martin already knew about the Dark Souls games before they met.

A Nintendo Direct is coming tomorrow, Wednesday, February 9.

Announced on Twitter, the show will last for around 40 minutes, focusing on Switch games launching in the "first half of 2022".

The Direct will air at 2pm Pacific / 5pm Eastern / 10pm UK (that's February 10 at 9am AEDT).

Tune in 2/9 at 2 p.m. PT for a #NintendoDirect livestream featuring roughly 40 minutes of information mainly focused on #NintendoSwitch games launching in the first half of 2022.

📺https://t.co/v0A3I7j0EE pic.twitter.com/jifj1aFIBQ

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) February 8, 2022

This marks the first Nintendo Direct of the year, and the first Direct focused on multiple games since last September, which saw the announcement of Kirby and the Forgotten Land, the Nintendo Switch Online expansion pass, and more.

PlatinumGames has offered updates on two of its upcoming games. The developer says Bayonetta 3, due to arrive on Switch this year, will feature "new types of gameplay" and isn't being made with any restrictions from Nintendo. Project G.G. has found "the right direction", but won't be ready to be shown anytime soon, with an update planned for the end of the year.

Speaking to IGN Japan, Platinum president and vice-president Atsushi Inaba and Hideki Kamiya offered insights into their much-anticipated projects.

Asked for an update on Bayonetta – which was announced in 2017 but was notably silent for many years – Kamiya made clear that the first gameplay trailer (below) gives a sense of what's to come. The game is due to be released this year.

“If you look at the [trailer we released in September]," he said, "hopefully that should reassure you that we have been hard at work on development, and it should also show you that there are a lot of new elements in this game that were not in Bayonetta 1 and 2. I hope the footage released so far will fuel your expectations for this game.”

Tom Holland has revealed his next dream video game movie adaptation would be a live-action take of Jak and Daxter, in which he would star as the primary protagonist.

Holland is bringing treasure seeker Nathan Drake to the big screen in the Uncharted movie that hits theaters later this month, but there's another popular character that he would like to play in a video game movie adaptation. "I would like to make a Jak and Daxter movie, and I would play Jak," Holland told GameSpot after being quizzed on the topic.

"I would make it at A24, so it was really weird and like dark," he added, pitching his dream collaboration, which would see him team up with Sony and Naughty Dog together with A24, the independent production company behind the likes of Hereditary, Moonlight, and Midsommar. "I would do like a really weird, live-action version of Jak and Daxter."

The first Jak and Daxter game, dubbed Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, was originally released in 2001 for the Sony PlayStation 2, followed by its sequel Jak II in 2003 and Jak 3 in 2004. The series follows Jak and his rambunctious sidekick Daxter as they embark on many action-packed adventures together across enormous vistas beyond imagination.

PlatinumGames wants to return to Scalebound, the dragon-filled Xbox exclusive it cancelled in 2017 – and has appealed to Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer to begin those discussions.

Speaking to IGN Japan, Platinum president Atsushi Inaba explained that Scalebound creator Hideki Kamiya, “has been talking about wanting to work on Scalebound again for a while.”

Kamiya himself added: “I’d like to appeal to Phil Spencer directly! Let’s do it, Phil!”

Kamiya has not been shy about expressing his regret over the game's cancellation, and the developer has said before that that it would love to return to the game with Microsoft's permission.

However, Inaba made clear that this isn't an idle wish, and they'd like to reopen talks with Microsoft about the idea:

“Often in an interview you might hear a developer politely saying, ‘Yes, if we had the opportunity we’d love to work on that again’, but we don’t mean it that way. Both Kamiya and I are serious – we really would love to work on Scalebound again. I’d like to discuss it with Microsoft properly.”

Kamiya went further: "Development had progressed a fair way, and it seems pointless for Microsoft to just hold on to that and not do anything with it.”

Kamiya then switched to English to say, “Phil! Phil! Let’s do it together!"

The nominations for the 2022 Gayming Awards have been announced, with Life is Strange: True Colors and Boyfriend Dungeon leading the pack with four nominations each.

The Gayming Awards celebrate LGBTQ+ gaming with awards for industry diversity, the most authentic LGBTQ+ representation, the most popular LGBTQ+ streamer, and more.

Last year's inaugural awards proved so successful that the category list has been expanded to include comics, esports, and tabletop gaming, with winners set to be announced on April 25 at the Troxy Theatre in London, hosted by gaming presenter Julia Hardy.

The full list of nominations for the Gayming Awards 2022 follows:

The GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition, which launched back in November, landed with a whole host of technical issues that earned plenty of criticism from fans (and us). But that doesn't seem to have stopped it from selling very, very well.

Take-Two just gave its quarterly earnings report, during which the company said the trilogy, "significantly exceed[ed] our commercial expectations." That's nice to hear, even if it doesn't really tell the whole story, as companies can essentially set whatever metrics they want internally and then say a game exceeded them.

But a bit of clever math on the part of VGC might have gotten at its actual sales metrics. Take-Two reported that the entire GTA series to date has sold over 370 million copies, while GTA V has sold over 160 million on its own as of the quarter's end in January. That's up from the numbers they reported last quarter of 355 million for the series, and 155 million for GTA V alone. If you look back at earnings reports from recent past quarters, it's fairly consistent that GTA V's sales line up exactly with overall series sales increases — but there's a 10 million unit discrepancy.

When Valve's Steam Deck releases later this month, it should be possible to play Fortnite on the new handheld. However, it won't be easy.

In series of tweets posted over the weekend, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney told fans that there no current plans to update Fortnite so that it works with Proton — the compatibility layer that allows Windows games to run on Steam Deck's default operating system. As a result, Fortnite fans will have to jump through a few additional hoops if they want to get the battle royale running on Valve's handheld.

The crux of the problem is Epic's Easy Anti-Cheat system, which is not currently compatible with Proton. With Linux being a more open-ended platform than Windows, Sweeney says he's not confident that it will be possible to combat cheating "at scale" on the platform.

"We don't have confidence that we’d be able to combat cheating at scale under a wide array of kernel configurations including custom ones," Sweeney said.

When another user accused of Sweeney of "not trust his own product," he pointed to Fortnite's sheer size as the issue.

"With regard to anti-cheat on the Linux platform supporting custom kernels and the threat model to a game of Fortnite's size, YES THAT'S EXACTLY RIGHT!" Sweeney replied.

Grand Theft Auto 6 has been officially announced, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to start seeing a wave of new info just yet. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick says that the decision to reveal more information lies firmly with Rockstar Games.

Speaking to IGN ahead of Take-Twos quarterly financials, Zelnick says that its labels “always decide when and how to announce their upcoming products,” including the recent GTA 6 confirmation. Zelnick adds, “Obviously people need to stay tuned, a lot more information to be shared and Rockstar will do so in time.”

Given the secret nature of the game, Zelnick would not divulge any specific details. However, as CEO the goal for the next Grand Theft Auto is to build on the success of Grand Theft Auto 5, which is one of the best-selling games of all time. This has set a high bar for Rockstar to clear.

“Each iteration for all of our successful franchises at this company, all of them, has always done better than the one before,” Zelnick says. “I’m not saying that’ll happen again, I’m not saying that’s guaranteed, but that’s certainly our goal.”

With 160 million worldwide sales, this is certainly a big lift for Rockstar. But at the same time, Grand Theft 5 has been out for nearly nine years, so there’s no telling how Grand Theft Auto 6 could do in the same timeframe.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has historically voiced a healthy mixture of curiosity and caution whenever it comes to new trends in the games industry, and thus far, his stance on blockchain and NFTs has been no exception.

Previously, Zelnick has expressed interest in blockchain technology as technology, but thought its uses for cryptocurrency and NFTs are solidly in the camp of speculation. Only a financial quarter later, that view hasn't changed, even though his company's visible interest in the tech has grown.

Take-Two announced its intent to acquire Zynga back in January, and with it, its interest in NFTs and recently hired of a VP of blockchain gaming. Speaking to IGN to coincide with Take-Two's third-quarter earnings today, Zelnick affirms his lack of interest in speculation, saying it always ends badly for at least some.

But he does express optimism about the opportunities in the space. He says a lot of industry talent is moving into the blockchain space, and "where talent is, the market follows."

Tommy Tallarico, the founder of Intellivision Entertainment and its CEO since the company formed in 2018, has stepped down from the role of CEO, to be replaced by former chief revenue officer Phil Adam.

According to a statement provided by the company, Tallarico will remain on board as the company's president, as well as its largest shareholder.

"As a 30+ year industry executive, I am excited to transition into the CEO role at Intellivision," Adam said. "As a business closing in on the last phase before launch, Tommy felt it important to provide focused roles so he can continue to do the things he loves the most. As always, we will be working hand in hand to bring Amico to the market."

Intellivision said in a statement to IGN that the management shift came in tandem with the beginning of the production of the Intellivision Amico console and that the move was "to better align its resources with those new challenges."

The Amico has struggled to get out the door thus far, with Intellivision announcing three separate delays to its release since the console's original planned launch in October 2020. It was most recently pushed to the end of 2021, but that too has come and gone and the console is still not in the wild as of February 2022. IGN Middle East was able to go hands-on with the console in May of 2021.

If you've been waiting for more info on The Wolf Among Us 2, you'll be able to watch a 30-minute news event on February 9 that will reveal the first official trailer, as well as details on the upcoming sequel.

Geoff Keighley announced that he will be hosting the half-hour stream and it will include the premiere of the first official trailer captured in-game. The event will then go behind the scenes to reveal more about the development of the upcoming Fables video game.

Wednesday, it's finally time: Greetings from Fabletown!

You’re invited to join me for a behind-the-scenes look at The Wolf Among Us 2 #TWAU2

Streaming live Wednesday 2/9, 10am PT on Twitch and YouTube#TheWolfIsBack pic.twitter.com/GoBIUWutMn

EA has revealed its official Madden NFL 22 prediction that the Cincinnati Bengals will win Super Bowl 55, defeating the Los Angeles Rams by just three points. A tight game is expected with a 24-21 final score, though Madden has only predicted the exact score once — when the Patriots defeated the Seahawks 28-24 in 2015.

Once known for its frightening accuracy, Madden's Super Bowl predictions have fallen off in recent years. Nevertheless, Madden NFL has managed to be correct 61% overall since the tradition began in 2004.

Madden's simulation has the Bengals scoring first with a touchdown pass to Ja'Marr Chase, with the Rams equalizing with a four-yard run from Sony Michel. The Rams then take a halftime lead following a 32-yard catch and score from Cooper Kupp, followed by a touchdown from the Bengals early in the third, tying the game.

An intense fourth quarter proceeds in the simulation with a touchdown on each side, but in the closing seconds of the game, Joe Burrow leads a final drive for the Bengals who score and win their first Super Bowl title. It would be a perfect capper for long-suffering Bengals fans, many of whom surely remember Joe Montana tormenting them in the famous Super Bowls of the 1980s.

Some comfort for Rams fans: Madden was wrong in its prediction last year, saying the Kansas City Chiefs would defeat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers by ten points. The real game ended in a 31-9 victory for the Bucs.

IGN said Madden NFL 22 was "okay", as the game "takes a small and unimpressive first step into the Xbox Series X and PS5 generation, with even its better new ideas hobbled by poor execution."

With Microsoft set to acquire Activision Blizzard, EA is on the cusp of becoming gaming’s biggest western third-party publisher in terms of revenue and market cap. The company has sustained success for decades — despite notable controversies surrounding its business practices — thanks to a diverse portfolio of games, from mobile money makers and annual sports titles to AAA experiences from renowned in-house studios like Respawn, DICE, and BioWare.

Considering how difficult it is to keep track of all that’s going on within such a massive publisher, we decided to compile this list of every EA game we know to be in development for consoles and PC. (This list doesn’t include rumored projects or the publisher’s many phone games in development at Glu Mobile, Playdemic, or its other mobile-focused studios.)

Click through the gallery below or continue scrolling for our rundown of all 12 console and PC games in development at EA, as of February 2022.

The Nintendo Switch's release date is approaching fast, and that auspicious anniversary has the hosts of Nintendo Voice Chat pondering an important question: Is it the greatest Nintendo console ever? And if not, what is?

To answer this question, we're turning to the IGN community for help. Over the next month, we'll be hosting a continually updated bracket here on IGN, with fans able to vote on individual matchups. In the end, we'll crown the greatest Nintendo system ever, whether it's a traditional console or a handheld!