A new patch for Dragon's Dogma 2 dropped earlier this week, adding options within the game's settings to prioritize either graphics or performance. The latter should help improve the game's oft-lamented framerate issues, which developer Capcom is now saying were a direct result of Dragon's Dogma 2's many NPCs...thinking too much.
In a Famitsu interview (via Google Translate, which IGN independently verified), the development team was asked about one of the purported improvements in the update, specifically to "excessive load on the CPU." In response, the team said that CPU power in Dragon's Dogma 2 is allocated to process the "thoughts" of each NPC and how they interact with physics calculations.
"Therefore, in sequences where many...
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It's very important to have regular, healthy bowel movements in real life. Normally, it's a little less important for characters in video games, Travis Touchdown exempted. But in Metaphor: ReFantazio, it turns out that using the bathroom regularly will make you more powerful, if you pay attention to when you're doing it.
Initially shared by @UltimaShadowX on X/Twitter, using the toilet in Metaphor can give you a permanent +1 boost to your character's luck if you do it on a certain day. That certain day is "Idlesday" on the in-game calendar, which comes around every fifth day. Every Idlesday, you can go to the bathroom on your Gauntlet Runner (effectively your home base throughout the game) and check the Toilet inside to use it. Doing...
Wizards of the Coast previously announced that it was working with Marvel for Magic: The Gathering back in 2023, but at New York Comic Con, the company finally revealed the first step of that partnership. Wizards of the Coast will release five Secret Lair drops, each themed around an individual character, starting November 4, 2024.
Each Secret Lair Drop will feature an original Legendary creature based on one of five Marvel characters: Black Panther, Storm, Iron Man, Wolverine, and Captain America. Each of these creatures' abilities are themed around the character. For instance, Iron Man will both create Treasure tokens, then let you sacrifice an artifact to tutor up any artifact, based on the sacrificed card's mana value – an...
Tales of Kenzera: Zau development studio Surgent Studios shared an update today stating it had put its team on notice for redundancy amid efforts to secure funding for its next project.
"We've decided to put the work of the Surgent games division on hiatus while we secure funding for our next project," the update reads. "In the meantime, we've unfortunately had to put our team on notice for redundancy.
"Our team has created a prototype for a bold new project," the update later continues. "It's darker, edgier, and more visceral than our first game, but it retains all ZAU's high-octane combat and cultural depth. And we're looking for a partner."
Tales of Kenzera: Zau is the first release from Surgent Studios, which was founded by...
With nearly a decade and a half on the clock between S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl and the last entry in the series, Call of Pripyat, everyone can be forgiven if they cannot remember the key story details from those previous games. Just in time then is this handy primer, aiming to fill in whatever […]
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Silent Hill 2 Remake developer Bloober Team is open to making more remakes in the franchise or even a new Silent Hill game altogether.
Wojciech Piejko, Bloober Team director and designer, alongside Wojciech Piejko, director and producer on the just announced sci-fi survival horror game Cronos: The New Dawn, told IGN the team is open to all opportunities it finds interesting.
"I think we are always open," Piejko said. "If we like the opportunity, we'll take it." Bloober Team released the Silent Hill 2 remake on October 8 to glowing critical reception and strong sales too, leaving many fans of the previously dormant horror franchise eager for more.
I do believe that everything's possible.
"There are opportunities that you have to...
It’s been a turbulent week for Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, its developer, its publisher, and its players. In the same breath as it announced an incredible 4.5 million sales in just over a month, publisher Focus Entertainment and developer Saber Interactive sparked an angry backlash with the release of the hotly anticipated Update 4.0.
IGN has reported on the details of this update and why it’s caused so much upset, but in short, it makes a number of significant nerfs to the Space Marines' ability to fight back against the Tyranid horde and Thousand Sons Chaos Marines. The popular PvE co-op mode Operations was made harder, deliberately so, Focus said in the patch notes, after it deemed the missions too easy. The new Lethal...
2023’s Modern Warfare 3 includes perhaps the most poorly received campaign in Call of Duty history. It has a metascore of 56 on Metacritic and a 'mostly negative' user review rating on Steam. IGN’s own Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 single-player campaign review returned a 4/10. We said: “Underbaked, rehashed, and cobbled together from multiplayer parts, Modern Warfare 3’s single-player campaign is everything a Call of Duty story mode shouldn’t be.” Eurogamer added: “Clearly rushed to market, Modern Warfare 3's campaign tapes together ill-conceived open areas, underwhelming linear missions, and a meaningless story.” In short, it was all a bit of a disaster.
A year later and Call of Duty fans are yet again faced with another campaign...
Certain Affinity, the co-development studio behind Hogwarts Legacy, a shelved Halo Infinite battle royal game, and an early rendition of the Perfect Dark reboot, has been acquired by Keywords Studios.
In a press release published to its website, Keywords announced it would be purchasing Certain Affinity for an undisclosed sum. This brings Keywords a staff of 180 individuals across the U.S. and Canada working on "a range of announced and unannounced projects," including Exodus from Archetype Entertaiment, Last Expedition with Gala Games, and an original FPS codenamed Project: Loro. Per the press release, Certain Affinity will continue to be led by existing management, including CEO Max Hoberman and president and COO Paul Sams...
The Call of Duty series looks set to take players back to the future in 2025 with a Black Ops 2 sequel set in the early 2030s.
Fans were alerted to leaked information about next year’s unannounced Call of Duty game after details allegedly revealed in a focus group meeting hit social media. Some of these details were then corroborated by Insider Gaming. Activision declined to comment when contacted by IGN.
While 2024’s Black Ops 6 is set in the 90s to the backdrop of the Gulf War, 2025’s Black Ops game reportedly shoots forward to the 2030s, picking up where 2012’s Black Ops 2, set in 2025, left off.
It reportedly continues the Black Ops storyline from that point, with David Mason from Black Ops 2 as the protagonist. Mechanics from...
Call of Duty’s greatest campaigns have offered one thing over all else: variety. Whether it’s the original Modern Warfare’s memorable behind-enemy-lines sniping of All Ghillied Up or Cold War’s KGB infiltration and hallucinogenic episodes, it’s those missions that take you out of the standard first-person shooter cadence that foremost stick in the memory. While we’re yet to play it, it’s therefore encouraging that Black Ops 6 is aiming to pack its campaign full of these moments, so much so Jon Zuk, associate creative director at Raven Software, tells me it's treating each of the levels as “its own mini blockbuster”.
Indeed, Call of Duty is at its best when presented as playable cinema. Tense, tight corridor shootouts open up into...
The publisher of smash hit action game Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 has said it has no issue with modding in the game’s co-op PvE mode, but it has admitted to secretly clamping down on modding in PvP with the release of its latest patch.
Publisher Focus Entertainment and developer Saber Interactive this week released Update 4.0 for the massive-selling third-person action game set within Games Workshop’s grimdark science fiction universe. Officially, it adds a new PvE map, a new Tyranid enemy type, and a new Lethal difficulty mode. But there’s one thing Focus failed to mention: an update to the encryption Space Marine 2 uses on its game files designed to block modding in the game’s PvP mode, dubbed Eternal War.
Eternal War has had...
Sega has brought forward the release date of Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii to February 21, 2025 to avoid a clash with Monster Hunter Wilds.
In a video shared by Like a Dragon developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, below, studio head Masayoshi Yokoyama said the release date is shifting up one week from the originally announced February 28. Capcom announced the same release date for Monster Hunter Wilds just five days after RGG Studio revealed Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii's.
While Yokoyama didn't mention Monster Hunter WIlds explicitly, he did say RGG Studio wanted fans "to play the game that comes out after with peace of mind" and "enjoy hunting at [their] own pace."
The Monster Hunter and Like a Dragon franchises are both developed in...
New York Comic Con 2024 has officially begun and promises another weekend of big announcements in the world of movies, TV, video games, comics, and so much more. There's a lot to look forward to and this roundup will ensure you don't miss a thing.
While the show has just begun, there have already been some exciting reveals, including a trailer and release date for Dune: Prophecy, a new look at some upcoming MCU projects, a glimpse at the future of current Dragon Ball games, a new comic series where Doctor Doom is emperor of the Marvel Universe, and much more.
You can check out all the news below, and be sure to keep checking back as we will be updating this page with all the biggest moments from NYCC!
HBO Prequel Series Dune...
Thank your own personal deity—possibly Malvirta Drako Eht—it's Friday! We're going to round this week out with a bunch of bargains on Mario-centric titles that usually aren't this cheap, some discounted keyboards, and a marvellous Spidey saving (or two). Stay safe, save often, and see you Monday!
In retro news, I'm throwing a 33rd birthday lunch for Streets of Rage. The main course: bin-sourced chickens. Some of my fondest gaming memories are of toe-tapping to Yuzo Koshiro's sick beats as I co-oped through Sega's worthy Final Fight competitor. After the initial argument over who got to be Axel, you almost always had a jagged alliance with sneaky kidney hits and outright in-fights to the death if your bud taxed too many baseball bats /...
Horizon: Zero Dawn was developed by Guerrilla Games, and its remaster is being worked on by them as well. But today, the remaster's co-developer Nixxes stepped into the spotlight on the PlayStation blog to highlight a number of improvements we'll see in the remaster, including the addition of lots of new NPCs.
The post breaks down a number of updates to the game, perhaps the most notable of which is that Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered will "significantly boost the number of non-player characters." This doesn't mean more quests or story, but it does mean that villages and camps will have more folks just wandering around, attending to their business. Brian van Nunen, senior technical game designer at Nixxes, offered more details and what...
Control Multiplayer Game Officially Revealed in First Gameplay Trailer With the Title FBC: Firebreak
Remedy's new multiplayer game set in the Control universe has been fully revealed for the first time under the name FBC: Firebreak.
Billed as a three-player co-op experience, it features a more colorful take on Remedy's popular universe. The first gameplay trailer shows three characters in environmental suits battling a variety of enemies in fast-paced first-person gameplay. There's also a garden gnome. Check out the trailer below.
In a follow-up post on Xbox Wire, director Mike Kayatta said that FBC: Firebreak is "not Control DLC and it's definitely not a Control sequel." Instead, Remedy calls it a game you can "enjoy with your friends and tackle multiple hectic co-op missions."
It casts players as first responders from the...
Wet and wild ocean exploration sequel Subnautica 2 was announced at the Xbox Partner preview will arrive on PC and Xbox Series X and S in 2025 via the Xbox Game Preview program. It'll also be available on Game Pass on day one.
The new installment in the Subnautica series will take players to a new planet, complete with new environments, flora, and fauna to discover. It also has co-op for up to four players, a new addition to the series.
"Whether you’re bringing the experience of your previous adventures with you, or are new to the Subnautica games, you’ll get to explore lush new environments, encounter fascinating creatures around every corner, and uncover the secrets at the core of this mysterious planet," teased Unknown World's...
During the latest Xbox Partner Showcase, Sega and RGG Studio put out a new trailer for Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii and highlighted the ship-based combat. This is the upcoming spinoff game in the Yakuza / Like A Dragon franchise staring long-time character Goro Majima. And while it returns to the action-brawler combat style of previous entries, the trailer emphasized side content and new features for the series.
It'll heavily feature naval combat akin to Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag where you control a ship and fight it out on the high seas while blending in action gameplay when boarding enemy ships. Similar to Like A Dragon Gaiden from 2023, it will feature a new hub area called Madlantis where you can engage in...
Mouse: P.I. For Hire, the game that looks like Cuphead as a first-person shooter, is coming to Xbox Series X and S in 2025 as well as PC.
A new trailer was revealed during Microsoft’s Xbox Partner Preview showcase on October 17, 2024, showing off Mouse: P.I. For Hire’s 1930s rubber hose animation-inspired visuals. It’s developed by Fumi Games and published by PlaySide.
You play a private detective called John Mouston who navigates a noir city teeming with gangs, mobs, and characters from the dark side. Fumi calls Mouse: P.I. For Hire “a gritty, jazz-fueled shooter.”
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
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In a surprise announcement at today's Xbox Partner Preview showcase, Jason Gastow (aka videogamedunkey) popped in to announce that Animal Well is diving onto Xbox at last, and it's out today.
If you didn't quite understand what Animal Well was from that trailer, that's likely by design. Animal Well is a puzzle platformer that hinges on secrets. Its initial campaign, only a few hours long, is a fairly straight forward experience. But even in those first few hours, it quickly becomes apparently that there are dozens of hidden things to find lurking in the walls, corners, and "shadows" of Animal Well. Its developer has described it as having multiple "layers" of secrets, and some of them get pretty wild. There's even a puzzle that...
Bloober Team's next release after Silent Hill 2 remake is a sci-fi horror game called Cronos: The New Dawn, the studio revealed during Thursday's Xbox Partner Showcase.
In development for Xbox Series X|S, PC, and PS5, Cronos is touted as Bloober's first original franchise in the survival horror genre. According to the official release, "it is a "twisted time travel story set in an unforgiving post-apocalyptic future in 1980s Poland."
The trailer offers glimpses of monstrous zombie-like creatures, a lady playing chess, and a person in an environmental suit. It also offered a glimpse of the gameplay, revealing it to be a third-person game with distinctly Dead Space-like vibes.
“Following the success of Silent Hill 2, we are proud to...
Activision has unveiled Call of Duty’s new user interface, set to come in ahead of Black Ops 6’s launch on October 25 and replace the much-maligned Call of Duty HQ.
The headline here is that the new UI’s Home tab includes Game Tiles, which means that unlike the previous Call of Duty UI, players will now be able to directly access games via their own self-contained user interfaces.
Ever since Modern Warfare's release in 2019 and the subsequent release of battle royale Warzone players have criticized Activision for Call of Duty's unwieldy UI, which currently forces users to jump through a number of hoops before getting to the game they actually want to play.
In a blog post, Activision said it’s making it easier for players to get...
Project Ethos is a new free-to-play third-person hero extraction shooter that mixes in roguelike elements. The main game of Project Ethos is an extraction mode. And while I was excited to finally see 31st Union’s first project since its formation in 2019, I couldn’t help but feel that a lot of the mechanics felt like they belonged in games from that year.
Here’s the thing: Project Ethos is fine as a game. It hits all the right notes as an extraction hero third-person shooter, but my first impression after a few hours of hands-on time is that it seems to fall short of delivering anything that’s truly genre-defying in either the roguelike or extraction shooter departments. In the preview, I was able to play six different heroes, each...
Hazelight Studios has announced that its excellent co-operative adventure game and IGN 2021 game of the year nominee, It Takes Two, has sold over 20 million copies.
This milestone comes three and a half years after the couch co-op game's launch on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation, with a Switch release following in November 2022. It Takes Two sold over one million units in the month following its launch, and its numbers have climbed steadily since. At last count in March of this year, it had reached 16 million units, a testimony to positive word-of-mouth and effusive critical praise helping the game continue to do well even years after release. And it helps that the game's been on sale numerous times since launch - it's just $9.99 (down from...
The Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 community is up in arms over sweeping nerfs made by the latest patch — so much so that some players are review bombing the game on Steam.
Update 4.0, which kicks off Space Marine 2 Season 2 with a new PvE map, Tyranid enemy, and Lethal difficulty, also changes the game balance in significant ways to make Operations mode harder.
Here’s the relevant section from the Update 4.0 patch notes:
Melee Archetypes: Fencing weapons' perfect parry window will now have the same duration as balanced weapons but it will start from the first frame of parry animation.
Melee Perks: Chainsword, Power Fist, Combat Knife charged attacks perks get significant damage increase.
Basic Auspex Scan: bonus damage on...
It only took 10 minutes of playing Unknown 9: Awakening for me to feel a keen sense of deja vu. Taking out enemies in small arenas, watching an emotional story of personal growth, and squeezing between plenty of tight cracks in walls – it’s a formula that feels all too familiar, sticking to the well-established traditions of the "Crevice Crawler" genre. It does try out one or two unique ideas to set itself apart, like mind-control powers that let you play puppet master with your enemies, but the problem is that it executes on the fundamentals significantly worse than its contemporaries. There are certainly glimmers of hope within that new stuff, but any novelty quickly wears off, resulting in a generic and underwhelming slog full of...
It looks like Konami and developer Bloober Team have successfully revived the Silent Hill franchise after the Silent Hill 2 remake hit an impressive sales milestone.
In a tweet, Konami said the Silent Hill 2 remake sold one million copies as of October 11, just four days after the game’s global release date.
This is thought to make the Silent Hill 2 remake the fastest-selling Silent Hill game ever, but Konami has yet to rubber stamp that potential record.
Silent Hill 2 remake launched across PC and PlayStation 5 (there’s no word on an Xbox Series X and S version yet), and met with critical acclaim. IGN’s Silent Hill 2 remake review returned an 8/10. We said: “Silent Hill 2 is a great way to visit – or revisit – one of the most...
Kuwait Blocks Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Release, Activision Cancels All Preorders and Offers Refunds
Authorities in Kuwait have blocked the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 just days before it was due to launch.
Black Ops 6 was set to hit store shelves globally on October 25, including in Kuwait, but regulators have prohibited its release.
A spokesperson for Activison told IGN that it remained “hopeful” that the authorities in Kuwait would reconsider. Here’s the statement in full:
Activision failed to explain the reason for Black Ops 6’s Kuwait ban, but it probably had something to do with its setting. Black Ops 6 is set in the 90s amid the Gulf War, which kicked off when Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990.
Indeed, promotional material for Black Ops 6 features world leaders from the time period, including Bill Clinton...
2K has teased the full reveal of Project Ethos, a third-person roguelike hero shooter in development at 31st Union.
31st Union and boss Michael Condrey flagged a reveal at 9am PT / 5pm UK today, October 17, on Twitch. The Twitch channel in question mentions a game called Project Ethos, which is described as a “third-person roguelike hero shooter.”
That’s all we have for now. 31st Union is the San Francisco-based, 2K-owned studio established as 2K Silicon Valley back in 2019 before a name change a year later. It was set up by ex-Sledgehammer Games co-founder Michael Condrey, who before working on Call of Duty was one of the chief developers of EA’s Dead Space series at Visceral Games.
Project Ethos launches into the ultra...