Half-Life: Episode 3 remains one of the great what-ifs in gaming history. Originally set to follow on from Episode 1 and 2, its cancellation instead left the series dangling on a cliffhanger it never directly resolved.
Now, on the occasion of Half-Life 2's 20th anniversary, Valve has opened up about its development in a brand-new documentary that shows never-before-seen work-in-progress footage, a brand-new Ice Gun, and a raft of new concept art. You can see the gameplay segment from the documentary in the video below.
Among the details shown in the video, Episode 3 would have been set in the Arctic, and it would have focused on Alyx as a companion character. Aside from the Ice Gun, the footage shows a blob-like enemy that could...
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Valve is honoring the 20th anniversary of Half-Life 2 with a celebration that includes a brand-new two-hour documentary, a developer commentary update, and more.
The studio updated fans on the festivities on its website today, revealing a gift basket full of goodies for fans new and old. While it’s not quite the Half-Life 3 announcement fans have waited two decades for, it’s still more than enough to help with the wait.
Topping the list of announcements is a two-hour making-of video from the Secret Tape team behind the Half-Life 1 documentary. Valve says die-hard fans can start watching the Half-Life 2 documentary today for a behind-the-scenes look at how the studio handled running out of money, getting hacked, building its PC...
Licensed games can be a great way to build interest with a familiar property, but they can also be fraught as various stakeholders weigh in on its creative direction. Xbox CEO Phil Spencer is aware of these challenges, and they're one reason he's "not the biggest fan" of committing resources to licensed games.
Speaking with the Game File newsletter, Spencer talked about some of the "complexities" that come with making licensed games, especially when it comes to putting them on subscription or streaming services.
"We’ve seen it in racing games that have to get delisted, because you lose certain licenses,” Spencer said. “So I'm always very careful, if we're going to take on a license, that we're doing it for creative reasons, [that]...
Blizzard is hiring for an “upcoming open-world shooter game,” a new job ad has revealed — and all signs point to it being a StarCraft FPS.
As spotted on reddit, on November 13 Blizzard posted a job ad for an Associate Design Director, Innovation on an unannounced game. The description goes into more detail:
That blurb confirms Blizzard’s plan to release an open-world shooter, but what is it? In September, it emerged that Blizzard was reportedly making a third attempt at developing a StarCraft shooter, with former Far Cry executive producer Dan Hay, who joined Blizzard in 2022, leading the charge.
The news came from Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier while speaking to IGN’s Podcast Unlocked, below, about his new book, Play Nice: The...
This week, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 received a new update (patch 4.5) and with it the hotly anticipated Neo-Volkite pistol.
The Neo-Volkite pistol is a powerful thermal ray weapon that shoots lethal beams that burn enemies to ash. It’s available for the Assault, Vanguard, and Bulwark classes and is limited to Operations, Space Marine 2’s three-player co-op focused PvE mode.
And it’s there that Space Marine 2 players are teaming up to form a three-pronged Neo-Volkite pistol death stream, rekindling memories of all those moments when the Ghostbusters use their iconic Proton Packs to trap ghosts.
The Neo-Volkite pistol is unique among Space Marine 2’s armory in that it blasts a heat ray onto enemies, dealing accumulative...
Cardy, Matt, and Dale are here for another dose of audio glory on this week's IGN UK Podcast. There are impressions of Gladiator 2, Lego Horizon Adventures, The Rise of the Golden Idol, and Arcane, all before the main event of ranking the 10 best Netflix original series. Squid Game, Mindhunter, Stranger Things. What will come out on top? Listen and find out, I guess.
Remember to send us your thoughts about all the new games, TV shows, and films you're enjoying or looking forward to: ign_ukfeedback@ign.com.
IGN UK Podcast 774: Ranking the 10 Best Netflix Original Series
IGN UK Podcast 773: Don't Eat Play-Doh
IGN UK Podcast 772: Breaking the Balls Meter
IGN UK Podcast 771: Call of Duty: Tunnock's Teacakes 6
IGN UK Podcast 770: The...
The boss of GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition has taken to social media to respond to recent changes made to the game by Rockstar.
This week, Rockstar issued a surprise update for the heavily criticized GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition on PC and console nearly two years after the last one. The patch added a number of visual features that were exclusive to the mobile versions, pleasing disgruntled fans of the groundbreaking open-world games.
GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition, a compilation of 2001’s Grand Theft Auto 3, 2002’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and 2004’s Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, sparked a backlash upon its 2021 launch on PC and console. IGN’s GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition review returned a 5/10. We said: “GTA Trilogy...
Microsoft has announced its launch plans for Obsidian’s RPG Avowed, including a surprise release on Blizzard’s Battle.net.
Avowed’s release date is set for February 18, 2025, across Xbox Series X and S, the Xbox app on Windows, Steam, and Battle.net. As a first-party Microsoft game, Avowed launches day one on Game Pass.
It’s the Battle.net launch that’s of most interest here, because it means you’ll be able to buy the game with World of Warcraft gold.
Here’s how it works: WoW Tokens can be exchanged for Battle.net Balance, not just game time, which means players can indirectly buy anything Blizzard sells for real-world money with in-game gold. Players can buy a WoW Token from Blizzard for $20 and either keep it for later or put it...
It was inevitable: Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 now has wild, out-there soldier and weapon skins with the launch of Season 1 — skins it was always going to get given what’s gone before in previous Call of Duty games — but that hasn’t stopped fans from lamenting the end of the game’s Gulf War-themed Honeymoon period.
To be clear, there is no surprise here. Indeed, Black Ops 6, which is set in the early 90s, launched with various Zombies-themed soldier and weapon skins, including a robot, but they were at least lifted from the Zombies story.
Now, it’s open season on cosmetics, and Activision has gone hard with operator skins based on dragons, a shark, and even a raccoon.
If you’re playing Black Ops 6 Multiplayer for Season 1 you’ll have...
Shattered Space hasn't fared terribly well among fans since releasing back in September, sitting at a Mostly Negative rating among fans on Steam. Most of the comments center around the quest's story, though there's plenty of broader criticism for Starfield itself. But Todd Howard seems to have his own theory on why Shattered Space might not have gone down as well as it should have.
In an interview with the Game File newsletter, Phil Spencer said "we're always learning" when talking about how to approach expansions, and mentioned a conversation he had with Howard about the release cadence for content. Howard focused in on the buggy, which was surprise released during Gamescom Opening Night Live ahead of the expansion.
“Todd and I...
Thank your own personal deity—possibly Kratos—it's Friday! Today, I'm pretty stoked to see some early Black Friday deals seeping out of the woodwork. The official kickoff for that event is November 29th, buuuut I'm not going to be a stickler for punctuality if it means I can save a ton of money. So let's get into that right now!
In retro news, I'm taking the time to celebrate the 29th anniversary of the OG PlayStation console. Launched as a complete unknown in the Aussie gaming space, this unassuming grey brick of wonders went for $A699.95 (A$1,447 adjusted), which nicely undercut its chief rival, the less 3D-competent Sega Saturn.
To say this upstart was successful would be quite the understatement. Over its 11-year lifetime, 8,000...
At a glance, it’s pretty easy to get an idea of what Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind is: a co-op arcade style beat-em-up with gorgeous sprite art, bearing some very clear similarities to 2022’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, all the way down to the title. However, after kicking, punching and morphin through the first two episodes, I’m happy to report that it’s more than just a palette swap, and developer Digital Eclipse clearly understood the assignment, but also wasn’t afraid to get creative in the margins.
For starters, the premise is a fun fan-fictional remix: in the far off year of 2024, Robo-Rita Repulsa (who apparently has the same plastic surgeon as Frieza) is facing defeat by Angel Grove’s...
The New York Game Awards announced today that Remedy Entertainment Creative Director Sam Lake is the latest recipient of the Andrew Yoon Legend Award, joining the ranks of Hideo Kojima, Jerry Lawson, and other industry luminaries.
As part of the announcement, IGN sat down with Lake to talk about wrapping up Alan Wake II while looking ahead to Control 2, Remedy's live action shows, and getting him together with David Lynch for a coffee. He also confirmed the recent Lake House DLC's ties to Control 2 and talked about how one particular scene came about. You can read the complete interview below.
The New York Game Awards take place Tuesday, January 21 at the SVA Theatre in Manhattan. You can read our review of Alan Wake II right here...
CD Projekt-owned GOG has launched the GOG Preservation Program to ensure the longevity of over 100 games such as Fallout: New Vegas, The Witcher 2: Assassin's of Kings, Resident Evil, and more.
The GOG Preservation Program is a commitment from GOG to maintain games' compatibility with modern and future systems in an increasingly digital world.
"The GOG Preservation Program is our commitment to preserving gaming history," GOG said. "Through the program, players can trust that their games will always be up to date and ready to run on current and future PC setups.
"Whether it’s manuals, DLCs, or missing features, we’re offering the most complete version possible, backed by GOG’s tech support and offline installers, so you can safeguard...
Call of Duty has a history of mannequin-based Easter eggs, but this latest effort added to Black Ops 6 with the launch of Season 1 may be one of the best yet.
Warning! Spoilers for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s Nuketown Easter egg follow.
With Season 1 live now (via a mammoth 40GB update), Black Ops 6 players are getting to grips with the new Multiplayer maps and weapons. What they didn’t expect (and developer Treyarch kept this one quiet!) was the addition of an Easter egg for the hugely popular Nuketown map.
First, some background if you’re unfamiliar with Nuketown. This long-running Multiplayer map is set in a Nevada nuclear test town. Call of Duty games over the years have added new twists to the map, but the layout and flow...
Just days ahead of its 20-year anniversary, Half-Life 2 has a new trailer for its RTX remaster.
Valve’s influential first-person shooter launched on Steam on November 16, 2004. Ever since then, and the release of Episode 2 in 2007, fans have called on Valve to release Half-Life 3. But alas, it seems further away now, all these years later, than ever before.
Still, Nvidia has decided to release a new trailer “celebrating the game’s enduring legacy” that offers another look at the remaster, Half-Life 2 RTX. Half-Life 2 RTX is in development at 100-person mod team Orbifold Studios, and adds full ray tracing, remastered assets, and DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction as a free DLC for Half-Life 2 owners.
So, what is the status of...
The video game industry is currently in the thralls of a paradox. For players, it could be argued we’re in one of the greatest times for gaming – there’s incredible breadth of choice across consoles, handhelds and PCs made ever-more accessible through gaming subscription services like Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus. But from an industry perspective, things could not be more dire. More and more studios seem to be closing, original IPs are being scrapped mid-development, and vast legions of game developers, programmers, artists, and animators have been cut loose. To put it simply: the AAA video game bubble has finally burst.
Across the past two years, over 23,000 jobs in the video game industry were lost, with a staggering 6,000 in...
Call of Duty Black Ops 6’s Winner’s Circle is now in battle royale Warzone, players have noticed following the launch of Season 1.
With Season 1 out now (via a mammoth 40GB update), Warzone players finally get to experience the Black Ops 6 integration into the free-to-download battle royale. It’s early days yet to issue a verdict on how the addition of weapons and Omnimovement from Treyarch’s recently released first-person shooter affect the Warzone meta, but one thing is clear: the unskippable Winner’s Circle has spread across games.
You can see Warzone’s take on the Winner’s Circle in the clip below, captured from Call of Duty streamer Symfuhny’s gameplay by CharlieIntel. It shows the entire squad of four players (rather than the...
Atomfall launches March 27, 2025, developer Rebellion has announced.
That’s across PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X and S, Xbox One, and straight into Game Pass.
Dubbed British Fallout, Atomfall tasks players with solving the mystery of what happened at the Windscale nuclear power station in the aftermath of a nuclear disaster.
Here’s the official blurb:
The new trailer, below, is designed to showcase Atomfall’s folk horror influences and the Casterfell Woods location. There’s a burning pyre, an “unsettling” wicker man, numerous fallen bodies, and a ringing telephone box that needs to be answered.
Atomfall’s Deluxe Edition grants three days early access and the planned story expansion DLC, when it’s...
Star Wars is forever bringing back elements of the prior Extended Universe and Andor Season 2 is doing its bit by featuring a ship from a 1994 video game.
Total Film spotted protagonist Cassian Andor stealing a TIE Avenger ship in the brief snippet of footage released in the Disney+ Coming in 2025 trailer. This is obviously part of the TIE Fighter family featured in myriad Star Wars projects, but specifically comes from the 30-year-old Star Wars: TIE Fighter PC game.
Those who've played Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter and Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance will also recognise the TIE Avenger, but the ship has otherwise been absent from Star Wars lore over the years. It was pushed into the "unofficial" Extended Universe when Disney bought...
Despite being the face of a Hollywood film franchise and the star of a three decade old video game franchise, Sonic the Hedgehog is still homeless.
As reported by Automaton, fans grew concerned recently after discovering what appeared to be a major change to an incredibly random piece of Sonic the Hedgehog lore. A comic featured in the 2025 Sonic the Hedgehog Annual claimed the blue blur lived in Green Hill Zone, the iconic opening level to the original Sonic the Hedgehog.
But Sonic lore has otherwise stated he's a drifter, roaming from place to place and never settling down, with even official channels like the TailsTube web series pointing to this fact.
Some fans were therefore relieved to hear Sonic had settled down, while...
Infinity Nikki, the open-world dress up role-playing game from former The Legend of Zelda director Kentaro Tominaga, launches on PlayStation 5, PC, and mobile on December 5.
Developer Infold Games revealed the date alongside a new trailer, below, which showed off a ton of the world alongside its characters, their companions, side activities, and clothes players can dress up in.
"Infinity Nikki breathes new life into the Nikki series by delivering an open world experience unlike any other," the synopsis reads.
"Players will discover and explore a charming, vibrant world through activities such as fishing, pet grooming, and fashion contests. Additionally, a diverse cast of characters will brighten the world through evocative and...
Controversial games and entertainment company Embracer has provided a financial update and in it delivered a verdict on its recently released games.
Embracer, which bought the Tolkien IP in 2022 for $395 million, said The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria’s Steam and Xbox launch in August “performed slightly above management expectations,” which sounds like corporate speak for did well. Free Range Games’ survival and crafting game first launched on PC as an Epic Games Store exclusive in October last year, before coming out on PS5 in December.
While we’re on The Lord of the Rings, Embracer said Middle-earth Enterprises had a “slow quarter” year-on-year (the July to September Q2), with no notable new partner releases, but a higher...
Nintendo masterpiece The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time sees protagonist Link play beautiful melodies on an ocarina to cast magical effects and save the world. Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii does the same, sort of, except protagonist Majima instead summons a giant glowing jellyfish that fights pirates.
Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii developer Ryu Ga Gotoko Studio shared the combat abilities Majima can use in the game in a blog post translated by Gematsu. This included details on the Dark Instruments he can deploy and the sharks, apes, and jellyfish they summon to fight baddies.
Alongside the more traditional Mad Dog style Majima has used throughout the entire Yakuza / Like a Dragon series, players can also choose to use his Sea...
Black Ops 6 Season 1 launches today, November 14, and with it comes a mammoth update that has become a Call of Duty trademark.
The Season 1 update, which brings Call of Duty up to version 1.061.000, is available to download now and weighs in at a gargantuan 40.422 GB on PS5 and 38.724 GB on PS4.
This is an enforced update for Call of Duty, the all-encompassing app that houses Black Ops 6, Warzone, and prior Call of Duty games. You need to download the 40 GB update for the base game even if you don’t have Black Ops 6.
Season 1, which goes live at 9am Pacific / 5pm UK time, makes a number of significant changes to Black Ops 6, adding new Multiplayer maps, skins, a battle pass, and big balance changes. Activision published the Season 1...
Mortal Kombat 1 developer NetherRealm fully unveiled Ghostface overnight, showing off the DLC guest character’s signature hunting knife, crawling skills, and ability to phone in a fellow Ghostface partner to help finish off victims.
But what the developers failed to reveal is which Mortal Kombat characters they’re quietly bringing back to the series via the Scream villain’s various versions that are available in-game.
During a Kombat Kast, NetherRealm confirmed there are actually three versions of Ghostface: the main Ghostface is the villain from the Scream films, as you’d expect, but the identities of the other two are secrets NetherRealm challenged players to work out for themselves.
As reported by EventHubs, NetherRealm...
Treyarch has published patch notes for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Warzone Season 1 ahead of its launch on PC and consoles tomorrow.
Following a string of smaller updates delivered throughout the last few weeks, today’s patch notes tease an update that is (unsurprisingly) the biggest yet. It’s got everything from weapon balance adjustments to details on Warzone, and while most of the news focuses on changes to Multiplayer and Zombies, the team made sure to iron out some Campaign wrinkles, too. There’s a laundry list of fixes for players of every shape and size, including those worried about players who want to cheat their way to the top.
One specific area Treyarch took aim at with its Black Ops 6 Season 1 update revolves around...
In the wake of today's large 2.0 update for Warcraft III: Reforged, Blizzard has released the complete list of patch notes, revealing changes to everything from multiplayer to various bug fixes.
The biggest highlight is a graphical update that adds HD versions of classic units, buildings, visual effects, environments, and icons. It also includes the option to customize between Reforged and Classic HD assets so fans can mix and match as they please.
Elsewhere, Warcraft III: Reforged 2.0 includes improvements to the lighting, the addition of XP and leveling to ranked play, and music from Warcraft I and II. The user interface also features various updates.
The 2.0 update represents another step forward for Blizzard's ill-fated...
Blizzard just wrapped up its Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct, a nearly hour-long presentation featuring numerous updates from across the Warcraft franchise - almost like a miniature BlizzCon. We heard about World of Warcraft’s next major update, a tease for its next expansion, new updates for World of Warcraft Classic, some long-awaited remasters, and planned updates for both Hearthstone and Warcraft Rumble.
If you missed the Direct, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Here’s everything Blizzard showed at its Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct today:
World of Warcraft: The War Within next major update unveiled
First up, retail World of Warcraft, which is currently near the end of the first major story beat of the expansion The War...
Today’s Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct largely focused on updates to games that we’ll see in the next several months to early next year. However, the presentation ended with one big tease that’s farther out – a major feature coming to World of Warcraft’s next expansion that players have been asking about for years: player housing.
The presentation didn’t offer any real details about exactly how player housing would work or what it would entail. All we learned is that the feature is in the works, and that we’ll finally see it in World of Warcraft: Midnight, the game’s next expansion planned for a full reveal in late summer of 2025.
The idea of player housing has been toyed around with in expansions going as far back as the...