COD: Next 2024 dropped in with new details about what to expect from Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, zombies, multiplayer, Warzone, and much, much more.
The day-long celebration of Call of Duty’s future didn’t disappoint, as the four-hour showcase featured interviews with developers and gameplay reveals while attendees got to go hands-on with upcoming releases. This year’s Black Ops installment had already promised a slew of changes to Activision’s first-person shooter formula, but we’ve now gotten a better look at things like the Area 99 Warzone map, omnimovement, the Liberty Falls zombies maps, and other fresh gameplay tweaks.
While we wait for the Black Ops 6 multiplayer beta to kick off this weekend, we gathered all of the major...
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Earlier this week, Blizzard announced changes to how leveling from level 70 to 80 will work in recently-released World of Warcraft expansion, The War Within. And now, after criticism from players, developers are reassuring that the overall impact to leveling time will be "minimal."
The changes were announced yesterday in an official post, with community manager Kaivax sharing that the team had noticed players coming into the new expansion content with endgame gear from the previous expansion, Dragonflight, were "extremely powerful relative to that intential content." The post goes on to say that a hotfix to be pushed today would "adjust the scaling of enemies in War Within leveling content to increase the power of lower-level enemies...
Guilty Gear Strive seems to be getting a much asked-for release on the Nintendo Switch, at least according to a giant banner hanging up at PAX West in Seattle today.
In a now-deleted tweet posted to X/Twitter yesterday and archived on Reddit, a massive banner over a convention lobby entrance advertises Guilty Gear Strive, with a Nintendo Switch logo and the text "Nintendo Switch Edition" and "Pre-order now" in the left corner with a QR code. While Arc System Works has yet to confirm the veracity of this, it's hard to imagine a giant banner like this going up outside of a real announcement - with PAX West starting Friday, we're likely to see it shortly.
The banner does not specify a release date, but it's possible the Switch version...
Call of Duty Warzone is bringing back the map that started it all: Verdansk.
Activision confirmed the return of what might be the most beloved open-world map in Warzone history as part of COD: Next, today, celebrating the news with a special post that made its way to X/Twitter. The announcement marks the end of rumors that the map would be making a comeback for months.
Now we know that Verdansk – along with iconic points of interest like Stadium, the Train Station, and Superstore – will finally return in spring 2025. It’s unclear if it will be altered in any way or if it will be just as players remember it when it eventually drops in Warzone. A specific release date has also not yet been revealed.
Verdansk first debuted alongside...
Marathon director Chris Barrett was fired after an internal misconduct investigation at Bungie, according to a new Bloomberg report citing sources within the studio, who say that at least eight women came forward saying that Barrett behaved inappropriately toward them.
The new report says that Barrett "called lower-level female employees attractive, asked them to play truth-or-dare and made references to his wealth and power within the studio, suggesting that he could help advance their careers." Barrett also allegedly befriended women in various department and sent them a "barrage of text messages that blurred the lines between professional and personal."
Internally, Bloomberg reports that Bungie employees weren't told about the...
Activision has revealed fresh details on the next map coming to battle royale Warzone, and it’ll be familiar to fans of Call of Duty multiplayer.
Wazone is getting a new Resurgence map in Season 1 called Area 99, which is described as the “birthplace” of Nuketown. Check it out in the trailer below.
Set in a U.S. fake town used for nuclear tests, Nuketown is one of the most famous and popular recurring maps in the Call of Duty series. It’s tiny, which makes for fast and often chaotic gameplay, perfect for players who are on the Call of Duty grind and want to level up weapons, unlock attachments, or complete challenges.
Area 99, developed by Black Ops 6 studio Treyarch with support from Warzone custodian Raven Software (union staff...
We're still a couple days away from the release of the Black Ops 6 beta release date, but one streamer has already managed to pull the notable feat of dropping the game's first nuke.
Streamer JustHazzardous, who claims to have pulled off a similar achievement in Modern Warfare 3, posted a clip of what looks like Black Ops 6's very first nuke, which he recorded live from Activision's Call of Duty NEXT event. While it's unconfirmed how many kills it takes to reach a nuke in Black Ops 6, nukes can typically be achieved after gaining 25 kills without dying.
The imagery of the nuke is as intense as you'd expect, with even the player character catching fire and burning up, Terminator 2-style, in a brand new animation ahead of a massive...
On August 12, Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel announced a new tournament with a shadowy twist. Participants in the Shadow Duelist tournament will compete for the title and to unravel the mystery of what celebrity is behind the masked persona named Nocturne. The winner of the tournament will be crowned on August 29 and claim an autographed copy of Nocturne’s mask.
IGN will carry the stream across our channels, and this watch guide will tell you everything you need to know to watch the unveiling of the Shadow Duelist Nocturne, including when it starts, a list of places to watch it, and what you can expect to see.
Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel Shadow Duelist Start Time
The Shadow Duelist stream will start on August 29 at 11am PST / 2pm EST / 7pm BST...
CD Projekt has renewed hopes for Cyberpunk Edgerunners Season 2 after saying it is "definitely" planning more animation projects set with the Cyberpunk 2077 universe.
Joint CEO Michał Nowakowski was asked during CD Projekt's latest earnings call if it was planning more projects in the pop culture realm and if the beloved Cyberpunk Edgerunners anime, from CD Projekt, Studio Trigger, and Netflix, is getting a second season.
Nowakowski and his colleagues have been fairly insistent in the past that Cyberpunk Edgerunners would not continue after its first season, and while he by no means confirmed more here, he did at least say fans should expect more animation projects in the same vein.
"We are definitely planning to do more in terms...
Sony has announced the PlayStation Plus monthly games for September 2024, all playable for subscribers from September 3.
As revealed in a post on PlayStation Blog, the headline addition is Harry Potter game Quidditch Champions (PS4, PS5), which makes its debut as part of September’s PlayStation Plus Monthly Games lineup.
MLB The Show 24 (PS4, PS5), meanwhile, also joins September’s PlayStation Plus Monthly Games lineup. IGN's MLB The Show 24 review returned an 8/10. We said: "MLB The Show 24 continues to push the genre forward – not every choice is a homerun, but it has enough hits for another all-star appearance."
And rounding out the month is Tarsier Studios' horror adventure Little Nightmares 2 (PS4, PS5). IGN's Little...
Yakuza/Like a Dragon developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio will reveal the next game in the franchise in an RGG Summit showcase on September 20, 2024.
The developer announced the showcase during a livestream today, August 28, and confirmed the next game in the Yakuza/Like a Dragon franchise will be revealed there. It will take place at 3am Pacific / 6am Eastern / 11am UK.
Though RGG only launched its last big game, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, in January 2024, it's known for relasing an almost constant stream of new titles.
In the last five years, for example, RGG released Yakuza 4 Remastered, Yakuza 5 Remastered, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Judgment Remastered, Lost Judgment, Like a Dragon: Ishin, Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased...
Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions features a reference to the infamous PS1 Hagrid meme.
A post on the Harry Potter website outlined the handful of Easter eggs present in the game, such as Harry spitting up his first Golden Snitch and even his first flight from the original film, though the Hagrid reference leans a tad more ridiculous than sentimental.
"If you’ve been on the internet in the last few years, you will have seen this iconic Hagrid image pop in meme form," the post said. "Now it is back. Yes, in what could be considered the ultimate Easter egg, players will be able to use a paper mask in game which takes the form of Hagrid’s gloriously low-res visage! We’re getting all nostalgic just thinking about it."
According to Know...
One of the year's biggest games has a nice little discount at the moment for PC players. Right now at Green Man Gaming, you can score Black Myth: Wukong (both the Standard and Digital Deluxe Edition) for 10% off. This has dropped the Standard Edition's price down to $53.99 (see here at GMG) and the Digital Deluxe Edition down to $62.99 (see here at GMG).
Considering how much this game has been blowing up on Steam, helping lift the platform up to 37 million concurrent players for the first time in its history, it's well worth picking up for your library. Check out these excellent deals at the links below before they're gone.
Black Myth: Wukong Is 10% Off at Green Man Gaming
In our Black Myth: Wukong review, our reviewer Mitchell...
With Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater due out later in 2024, and Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 nearly a year old, thoughts have inevitably turned to what’s next for the Metal Gear series from franchise custodian Konami.
In June last year, fans spotted that inspecting the Metal Gear Solid timeline page on the official Metal Gear Solid website revealed placeholder buttons for Metal Gear Solid 4, Metal Gear Solid 5, and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker — three games IGN understands will indeed form a part of the unannounced Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 2.
While the entire collection will no doubt excite Metal Gear fans, it’s the inclusion of Metal Gear Solid 4 that’s of most interest. Kojima Productions' 2008...
Ever since I pitted my brand new Bulbasaur against my rival’s Charmander in the opening chapter of Pokémon Red, I’ve loved turn-based combat. But I know this style of battle isn’t for everyone. Plenty have skipped over the likes of Baldur’s Gate 3, Persona 5, and Marvel’s Midnight Suns because of the slower, more managerial-like pace of turn-based combat. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 wants to provide the solution to those issues. The upcoming RPG has plenty of smart ideas that aim to evolve turn-based battles, transforming them from baton-passing attack sequences to thrilling, skill-based conflicts.
I recently met with developer Sandfall Interactive to watch creative director Guillaume Broche play through just under an hour of Clair...
From each character’s magical awakening and all the RPG mechanics it opens, to the social sim elements that feed into how you interact with the world, Metaphor ReFantazio is clearly adopting the Persona formula – but it’s doing so for something seemingly bigger in scope from both a gameplay and storytelling perspective. After playing about five hours of Atlus’ upcoming RPG, it’s extremely apparent how it’s leveraging the strengths of its previous games to think outside the confines of traditional fantasy and create something wholly unique. And as much as I love Persona, it’s about damn time we’ve had a game of this style that goes beyond the classroom walls and halls of high school.
No matter which way you cut it, Metaphor is a...
Employees at Call of Duty studio Raven Software, who formed the first Activision Blizzard union in 2022, have filed a complaint against the developer, Activision, and new parent company Microsoft.
According to Game File, the workers filed a complaint with the U.S. National Labor Relations Board under categories including Refusal to Bargain/Bad Faith Bargaining, Changes in Terms and Conditions of Employment, and Concerted Activities (Retaliation, Discharge, Discipline).
"After Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, our members were optimistic that they would progress quickly to a first contract at Raven Software,” Communications Workers of America (CWA) president Claude Cummings Jr. said. “Unfortunately, that has not...
The developers of upcoming fantasy role-playing game Greedfall 2 have announced plans to strike in protest of management just a few weeks before the game comes out.
Paris-based studio Spiders, which also developed Steelrising and The Technomancer, published an open letter signed by 44 of the 95 staff to studio management including CEO Anne Devouassoux. Spiders is wholly owned by publisher Nacon, which IGN has asked for comment.
The open letter details “several years of known problems, which have been greatly amplified over the past year with the arrival of the current head of the company: instability, opposition to anticipating problems and securing working conditions, global mismanagement, turnover and recruitment problems...
Final Fantasy 16 producer and 14 director Naoki Yoshida has said Square Enix is looking to double down on Xbox releases, after its focus on PlayStation exclusivity led to a financial dip.
Yoshida told Eurogamer that Final Fantasy 14's recent release on Xbox was met with a "really strong response" and is just the "starting point" for more Square Enix games to launch on the platform.
"With Final Fantasy 14's release on Xbox, [Microsoft Gaming CEO] Phil Spencer spent a lot of his time and a lot of effort and put in a lot of hard work into making it a reality," Yoshida said. "So we would like to make the best of that and further deepen the relationship with Xbox gamers moving forward."
We do want to release more Square Enix games on...
It appears that Crysis developer Crytek was at one point working on a battle royale-inspired Crysis project codenamed Crysis Next.
Very early gameplay, which hit YouTube last week, shows third-person shooting in a basic warm-up arena with Crysis’ trademark abilities and sound effects layered on top. Crytek is working to remove the footage from YouTube, with videos now displaying a message that confirms a copyright claim by the company. However, some remain live at the time of publication.
Crytek never announced Crysis Next, and it appears it was canceled in favor of Crysis 4, which was announced in January 2022. Crytek declined to comment when contacted by IGN.
Given the battle royale boom sparked by PUBG and Fortnite in the late...
Bandai Namco has confirmed today that the Japanese version of its anime-inspired MMORPG Blue Protocol will be “discontinued” on January 18, 2025. As a result, Bandai Namco also clarified that this also means any plans to release the game outside of Japan have now been cancelled.
“We have enjoyed a strong relationship with Amazon Games throughout the development of Blue Protocol, and both of our teams are disappointed that we will not be able to deliver the game to players around the world,” the company said in a statement published on the Bandai Namco website.
“We have worked hard to prepare for the release; however, we have come to the conclusion that it will not be possible to provide a service that satisfies all of you.”...
The prices have changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Or, to put it another way, for the cost of a free (cancellable) Prime Gaming sign-up, you can totally score two Lord of the Rings games for nada. LEGO Lord of the Rings and Shadow of Mordor GOTY are absolutely worth the account setup time. Get amongst it and thank me later.
In retro news, I’m frosting “26” on a cake for Tombi! (a.k.a Tomba!), a PS One platformer classic. As a gromet, I first played this quirky little 2.5D gem via a demo disc stuck to Official PlayStation Magazine Australia (a masthead I would go on to edit 12 years later). I’m happy to report that the unique piggybacking, pig-chucking, and non-linear “event” questing...
Stardew Valley is no stranger to nods to other games. Among other references, Patch 1.6 has a well-placed Terraria easter egg. Nevertheless, Stardew Valley has never really appeared in another games, though creator Eric Barone aka ConcernedApe definitely has some ideas in that front.
In a Discord conversation shared by Panedwards on X/Twitter, Barone talks about the possibility of a Stardew Valley collaboration, acknowledging that he's open to a crossover and saying that he would love to have Pam in particular in Fortnite.
"It doesn't have to be Pam though, I would be open to anything," Barone adds. "Abigail & Sebatian could be good. Stardrop or Joja Cola item? Galaxy sword or slingshot?"
All of these items would be fun additions...
The Harry Potter movies are some of my favorite movies of all time. I grew up reading the books and was young enough when the movies first started coming out to be in awe of the magic of the story I loved coming to life on the big screen. Even years after the final film hit theaters, I still binge watch the films at least once a year. And though I usually stream all of the movies on Max, I also currently own the 8-film collection in 4K just in case they ever move to a streaming service I don't have.
If you're looking to purchase that same collection for yourself, I've got some good news for you: Amazon has just dropped the price significantly. You can currently get all 8 movies in 4K UHD and Blu-ray for just $59.99 during the Amazon...
A hefty Star Wars Outlaws update coming in at 8.5gb was released on PS5 last night, bringing with it a 40fps mode and bug fixes. But it's causing problems for some PS5 players who have already made progress into Ubisoft's sandbox Star Wars game.
In the wake of releasing Star Wars Outlaws Patch 1.000.002, Ubisoft sent the following message to some players warning them that they may encounter issues with their current save if they were playing on an older version.
The progression blockers that Ubisoft alludes to sees some players stranded in space after completing a certain games. Players on social media have reported encountering the progress block and having to start new games as a result.
"I just got this email this morning, wish...
Activision has detailed the PC system requirements for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 ahead of its closed beta test this weekend.
The publisher revealed the minimum and recommended specifications in a post on its website. Essentially, playing Black Ops 6 will require nearly the same hardware as what was needed with last year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.
That includes the storage required to download the game, which calls for an SSD with 149GB of space. It’s still a lot of room on any kind of device, but at least it’s better than the 300GB rumor that floated around earlier this year. Players can also still cling to the promise that Activision will continue working on customizable download options ahead of the full launch in October...
IGN's Star Wars Outlaws maps are here! Our interactive maps track essential locations across Akiva, Kijimi, Tatooine, and Toshara, including Main Quests and Side Quests for those wanting to complete every objective. They also show Treasures and Collectibles, so you know exactly where to go to find loot.
Star Wars Outlaws Interactive Maps
The available map filters for our Akiva, Kijimi, Tatooine, and Toshara Star Wars Outlaws interactive maps include:
Locations, such as Landmarks, Compounds, and Imperial Compounds.
Collectibles, including Nix Treasures, Jet's Journals, and Treasures.
Items, including locations for Containers, Speeder Trophies, and Clothing.
Quests, such as Intel, Faction Quests, Key Part Intel, and Main Quests.
Other...
The previously teased new Rune Factory game, Project Dragon finally has an official name and release window, thanks to a Nintendo Partner Direct today. It's now called Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma, and it's coming out in spring of next year.
Guardians of Azuma takes place in, well, Azuma, a land that underwent something called the "Celestial Collapse" some time ago. Since that time, the four seasons have yet to return to the land. You play as a hero who awakens with no memories and is greeted by Woolby, a creature with a connection to the dragon god. As an earth dancer, your job is to restore nature to Azuma and bring back the missing runes.
It's Rune Factory, so you'll spend a lot of time sprucing up a farm and various other...
Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2 developer Saber Interactive has finally confirmed what fans can expect from its seasonal post-launch content model.
The hotly anticipated action game launches in September, and during that time Saber plans to release various patches aimed at fixing issues players report.
After that, Season Pass owners can expect a drip-feed of content and cosmetics based on specific Space Marine chapters. “The Season Pass has been envisioned as a way to enhance your customisation for your character,” Saber stressed. “All the gameplay additions listed here in the roadmap (including weapons, game modes, and maps) are intended to arrive in free game patches and will be accessible to everyone.”
Season 2 runs from October...
The August 27, 2024 Nintendo Direct has now finished and IGN has you covered with the biggest and best news (and everything else) revealed.
This two-in-one showcase, which began with an Indie World Showcase and ended with a Partner Showcase, began at 7am Pacific / 10am Eastern / 3pm UK and featured roughly 40 minutes of announcements on games coming to the Nintendo Switch.
Fans hoping for news on the next Nintendo console should set their expectations low, however, as the company made no mention of the highly anticipated Nintendo Switch successor.
Yakuza Kiwami Coming to Nintendo Switch in October
The (remake of the) first Yakuza game is coming to Nintendo Switch after the series was absent on the platform for years.
Revealed...