Experience points can make all the difference in an RPG like Starfield. But what's the best way to level up quickly? We have a few suggestions as fans gear up for Starfield's big release on Game Pass later this week.
IGN's intrepid guides team have identified several quick tasks that will gain you a nice XP boost. Here's a list for your reference.
Sleep for at least 1 Hour (+10% XP Gain for 24 minutes)
Drink Tranquilitea (+2% XP Gain for 15 minutes)
Craft and Drink Alien Tea (+2% XP Gain for 15 minutes)
Buy and eat Shepherd's Pie at Kay's Place in The New Atlantis Well (+2% XP Gain for 60 minutes)
Buy and eat "The Strip" At the Whetstone restaurant in New Atlantis (+2% XP Gain for 30 minutes)
Starfield also rewards a strong XP...
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Replaced, an upcoming Xbox console exclusive that has found its way to several most anticipated list thanks to its lavish pixel art, has been delayed to 2024.
Developer Sad Cat Studios announced the delay alongside a production update, stressing that the team "do understand the game's scope" and that development is progressing "at a steady pace." However, the high quality of its visuals, which includes more than 500 "meticulously hand-painted animations made just for platforming," has put the release behind schedule.
"After Replaced's initial announcement in 2021 and its follow-up trailer in 2022 we had this incredible high bar of community's expectations," the team wrote in a statement posted on X. "And at this point we knew that...
Here's some good news for Final Fantasy XVI holdouts: the game is on sale for $49.99 right now. That's a fun little $20 discount on this PS5 exclusive, which also happens to be an excellent game (see our 9/10 Final Fantasy XVI review for details). You can grab it from your retailer of choice below.
Final Fantasy XVI Deal
See it at Amazon
See it at Best Buy
See it at Walmart
Final Fantasy XVI is the latest mainline game in the stalwart JRPG series that's been tirelessly representing the genre since its debut in 1987. As is typical for new, numbered Final Fantasies, it keeps the Cids and Chocobos but throws out much of what came before in favor of a whole lot of new things. For one, combat this time around is more akin to character...
“Our mission was to convey the wonder and majesty of space exploration, to evoke the golden-age of early spaceflight, and we’ve been referring to this approach as ‘NASA Punk’”. That’s how Starfield art director Istvan Pely described the distinctive look of Bethesda’s latest grand-scale RPG during a lengthy presentation earlier this Summer.
It was the first time we were given a truly in-depth look at the spacecraft that would inhabit Bethesda’s sprawling sci-fi universe and its ‘NASA Punk’ aesthetic. “This means a design language where the tech is advanced, yet still looks grounded and relatable,” expounded Pely.
To mark Starfield’s launch IGN drafted in the expertise of Robert Chambers, a real-life spaceship expert (yes, really)...
Payday 3 will hold an open beta on Steam and Xbox from September 8 to 11, Deep Silver and Starbreeze have announced.
Starbreeze said the open beta is designed to stress test servers for the co-op heist shooter ahead of the launch on September 21.
The open beta requires no key access and includes the same content as the recent technical closed beta test. Starbreeze mentioned the open beta build is based on a build from April 2023 and is not a final representation of Payday 3, but it will let the studio identify potential issues with the servers before launch.
Here’s what the open beta offers, from Starbreeze:
The original gang: Dallas, Hoxton, Chains and Wolf. The iconic clown-masked characters that made the Payday franchise...
A Stray animated movie is in development, Annapurna has announced.
BlueTwelve Studio’s well-received 2022 adventure game gets the animated treatment from Annapurna’s recently launched animation division, led by former Disney Animation executives Robert Baird and Andrew Millstein.
Stray is a third-person cat adventure game set amid the detailed neon-lit alleys of a decaying cybercity and the murky environments of its seedy underbelly. IGN’s Stray review returned an 8/10: “Stray is a delightful adventure in a dark but endearingly hopeful cyberpunk world, and that’s thanks in no small part to the fact that you are playing as an adorable cat the whole time.”
Annapurna Animation’s debut project, Nimona, premiered on June 14 at the...
EA has today formally revealed EA Sports WRC, a new series officially licensed by the FIA World Rally Championship.
EA Sports WRC is developed by veteran UK racing studio Codemasters, the team behind the Colin McRae and Dirt Rally series, and arrives on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC on November 3, 2023 (or October 31, 2023 for players who pre-order).
“EA Sports WRC is the purest form of motorsport where every stage is a fight against the clock, the terrain, and yourself,” said Codemasters senior creative director Ross Gowing. “This is the rally game we’ve always wanted to make, combining our studio’s deep knowledge and expertise with the power of the official WRC license representing the pinnacle of rally motorsport. The...
Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon now has an unofficial easy mode on PC, courtesy of a modder who made mech design and gameplay more forgiving and rewards more generous.
As reported by Eurogamer, the aptly named EZ-Core mod posted to the NexusMods website changes key aspects of Armored Core 6’s mech design process, which ordinarily places significant restrictions on what parts you can use based on their weight and energy requirements.
The EZ-Core mod lessens this burden by reducing these energy and weight loads by half, thus making it easier for struggling players to build a relatively overpowered AC. It also increases the amount of starting ammunition for each weapon by 300 percent.
The effective range of weapons has also been...
Cypher 007 is a top-down James Bond game coming to Apple Arcade on September 29, publisher Tilting Point has announced.
The game lets players revisit some of Bond's most iconic moments and locations as he attempts to take down the evil criminal mastermind Blofeld, head of Spectre, who is looking to transform Bond into the ultimate double agent.
"Players will be immersed in this beloved universe of espionage as they gather intel, uncover secrets, and use spycraft to overcome immersive levels filled with obstacles, opponents, and objectives that increase in difficulty as they progress," reads the official synopsis.
"Players will complete missions to bring down Blofeld and Spectre once and for all, and compete against other 007 agents...
Space Marine 2 does an impressive job representing the ‘stompiness’ of the Astartes in video game form. It turns out the developers used Warhammer 40,000’s greatest fan-film as a reference point.
The fan-film in question is Syama Pedersen’s Astartes, an impressive animation widely considered the best representation yet of Warhammer 40,000’s iconic Space Marines.
Astartes does a wonderful job of getting the weight and the surprising agility of a Space Marine across without them devolving into farcical Buzz Lightyear territory. The atmosphere is perfect, the action intense, and the Space Marines themselves devastating.
Syama Pedersen did such a wonderful job with Astartes that Warhammer 40,000 owner Games Workshop hired him to create...
EA and Respawn Entertainment have released the biggest patch yet for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor across all platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC.
Patch 7 "makes sweeping improvements to Quality and Performance modes" on console, EA said, while its PC counterpart is headlined by the addition of NVIDIA DLSS support.
PS5 and Xbox's Performance Mode has received a complete rework that has disabled Ray Tracing to guarantee a consistent 60 frames per second performance alongside other improvements. Other technical improvements have also boosted Quality Mode across both consoles and added Variable Refresh Rate support on PS5.
PC users, who faced the brunt of Jedi: Survivor's technical issues at launch, can also enjoy changes...
September is a massive month for Game Pass with the day-one release of Bethesda’s Starfield, but there are plenty more games coming to the subscription service soon.
As outlined in a post on Xbox Wire, Gris makes a return to the Game Pass library today, September 5, across console, PC and cloud.
The big one is of course Starfield, which launches day-and-date tomorrow, September 6, on Game Pass. It’s available to play early, if you want to fork out extra. Here’s IGN’s Starfield review for more, and IGN’s useful interactive Starfield maps, if you’re already playing.
Next up is stylish action platformer Solar Ash, available in Game Pass across console, PC, and cloud on September 14. Solar Ash is from the developers behind Hyper Light...
A Starfield player stuffed 20,000 potatoes into their ship’s cockpit for science and showed off the game’s impressive physics.
Redditor Moozipan published a clip showing what happened when they opened the door of their cockpit. We see the potatoes realistically spill onto the floor and, perhaps more impressively, move about realistically as they interact with the door as it closes.
Video game tech wizard John Linneman, of Digital Foundry, took to X to call the clip “mind-blowing”. “The fact that these objects all have physics is impressive,” Linneman added.
Starfield shoots for a stable 30 frames per second across Xbox Series X and S (an approach Bethesda Game Studios chief Todd Howard explained in an interview with IGN), but all...
The Alone in the Dark reboot is delayed to January 16, 2024, publisher THQ Nordic has announced. The game was set to launch on October 25, 2023 but THQ Nordic pushed it back due to the busy Fall 2023 release calendar.
“Our intention is to avoid competing with the wake of Alan's epic release and to evade the dazzling skyline of cities adorned by the graceful swings of Spider-Man. We aim to truly remain as Alone in the Dark as possible,” THQ Nordic said.
The publisher continued: “To honor this, the spine-chilling horror game has been rescheduled to unveil its horrors on January 16th, 2024. This extension will serve a dual purpose: not only will it permit us to meticulously perfect the gaming experience, but it will also grant us the...
Not one of Starfield's 1,000 planets contains a labrador retriever. Why? Because Bethesda killed them all off.
Popular X account Can You Pet the Dog?, which answers that question for different video games, revealed the fact in its disappointing and somewhat brutal Starfield edition.
"Though they are featured in Starfield's concept art, pets do not appear to be present in the full game," the post said, below. "Furthermore, an item description indicates that labrador retrievers — and possibly all dogs — have gone extinct."
This is the case according to Starfield's Chocolate Labs food item. "Centauri Mills' chocolates, shaped like an extinct canine called a labrador retriever," it reads. The item grants five points of health and 1,000...
The debate over paid mods is once again in the spotlight after a crack for the high-profile Starfield DLSS mod was released.
Modder PureDark, who specialises in creating DLSS3 and DLSS2/FSR2/XeSS mods, sparked controversy by restricting access to their more advanced Starfield DLSS3 mod to $5-a-month Patreon supporters. The Digital Rights Management (DRM) used by the mod is an authenticator. According to DSOGaming, the mod does not require an active Patreon membership, so if you unsubscribe you can still pass authentication. Additionally, after the first authentication the mod will not ask for re-authentication.
When Starfield launched in early access form on September 1, it was confirmed that it does not include support for Nvidia’s...
Busy sort of morning for me, so let's get right into the good stuff. Things worth mentioning specifically: Activision is celebrating 25 years of Spyro today with some discounts, and I'm sitting here wondering how it's been a quarter of a century since I first dragon-horn-butted and/or immolated my first sheep. Lastly, I've also spotted a decent Rebellion sale for PC gamers, and Tears of the Kingdom is back to its lowest pricepoint, too. Throw some rupees at that, for sure.
This Day in Gaming
Aussie birthdays for notable games and hardware
- Ghost Recon: Island Thunder (XB) 2002.
- Call of Juarez (PC) 2006.
- Mercenaries 2 (PC,PS3,X360) 2008.
Table of Contents
Nintendo Switch
PC
Xbox
PlayStation
Nice Savings for Nintendo...
IGN is proud to partner with Feardemic for Fear Fest 2023, a two-day celebration of horror games that will not only showcase some of the biggest games in the scariest genre that are headed our way this year and next, but will also present the first-ever Horror Game Awards.
All things Fear Fest 2023 will be streamed exclusively on IGN's YouTube, Twitch, and homepage, and this guide will provide you with everything you need to watch the events, including when they start and what you can expect from the frightful festivities.
Fear Fest 2023 Schedule
Fear Fest 2023 will kick off its two-day event with Black Summer, a showcase hosted by Feardemic and some of the most prolific horror content creators that will give fans a preview of the...
It may be hard to believe, but Starfield has finally arrived (in early access!). While we are just as excited as you to fly off into the great beyond and make a name for ourselves among the stars, we also think it's the perfect time to look back at the history of games set in space to decide which game is the best. However, we can't do this alone and we're going to need your help.
Do you think Mass Effect 2 deserves the top spot? Or does Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic or EVE Online take number one? We've selected 93 of the best games where space is integral to the game to "Face-Off" against each other two at a time. The choice is yours...
Oh, and we've decided to include Starfield in this Face-Off as we know many of you have...
If you are wondering why Baldur’s Gate 3’s companions were extremely… forward, it turns out it was the result of a bug.
Developer Larian told TheGamer Baldur’s Gate 3 came out with a bug that meant the companions were too horny too soon into the player’s relationship with them.
Explosive wizard Gale is perhaps the most aggressively horny of Baldur’s Gate 3’s companions. He’s very much up for a fun night at camp pretty much as soon as you pull him out of his magic hole. But red hot Tiefling Barbarian Karlach isn’t far behind. She had a burning desire for my half-elf before we’d even exchanged numbers.
Larian boss Swen Vincke told TheGamer the companions’ “approval thresholds” were set too low, which brought forward their interest in...
Starfield is currently performing very well for a game that isn't officially out yet, topping Xbox sales charts and drawing in thousands of users on Steam.
As reported by VG247, Game Pass members are currently flocking to the Xbox Store to hand over an extra $31.49 simply to play Starfield a few days early. The Premium Edition upgrade, which comes with some extra bits but is headlined by the chance to play ahead of September 6, is currently the best-selling item across the U.S. and UK Microsoft Stores.
The early access tactic administered by Microsoft is a neat way of gaining back some sales revenue lost by putting Starfield and other exclusives on Game Pass day-one, seemingly letting the company have its cake and eat it.
Steam...
Long before Starfield, there was Starflight.
Designed by Greg Johnson and published by Electronic Arts, Starflight imagined a fully-explorable galaxy with an astonishing scale. It did all of this on the Amiga and Commodore 64 – machines with less than one percent of the power of modern PCs.
“The sense of immense scale was absolutely mind-blowing and unlike anything I’d ever thought games could do,” one developer who was inspired by Starlight told me. “Like, in the same year that I was playing NES Mario games, it was a game that felt limitlessly large.”
Starflight’s scope inspired a generation of developers, including a young Todd Howard. But a survey of the modern RPG landscape reveals comparatively few games like it. The list of...
Whether it’s the final frontier or a galaxy far, far away, space has been a mainstay in pop culture for a very long time. Our fascination with what’s beyond our skies has led to some of the most memorable moments in entertainment, from the ominous sound of an ever-advancing alien attack in 1978’s Space Invaders or 2001: A Space Odyssey’s psychedelic stargate sequence, to when Spock makes the ultimate sacrifice in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, because “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
With Starfield opening up a universe of new possibilities, we wanted to celebrate the very best in sci-fi: the space games, TV shows, and movies that captured our hearts and our imaginations, and how the past has influenced the...
Starfield's proper launch is not be until September 6, but one speedrunner with early access to the Bethesda space epic has already beaten it in less than three hours.
As reported by VG247, YouTuber Micrologist posted a run that clocked in at exactly two hours, 52 minutes, and 42 seconds.
Starfield is massive, of course, with runs easily surpassing 100 hours. As was the case with other Bethesda role-playing games like The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim and Fallout 4, however, players quickly found ways to cut the fat.
Micrologist's video, which obviously contains Starfield spoilers so watch at your own risk, shows glimpses of the game's main story but skips a lot too given Bethesda game director Todd Howard estimated it takes between 30...
If you’re playing Baldur’s Gate 3 and feel like it could do with some Final Fantasy races, there’s a mod for that.
Dungeons and Souls’ Fantastical Multiverse 1.0, which just launched in full release form, adds 54 fantastical races to Larian’s Dungeons & Dragons-themed role-playing game, including some from Final Fantasy 14.
Races added with the mod are lifted from lands outside the game setting of Faerûn, such as D&D’s Eberron, Etharis (the official world for the Grim Hollow setting), and Final Fantasy 14’s Eorzea. This means Changeling, Kobold, Goliath, Goblins, Dhampir, Aasimar, Laneshi, Yuan-ti, and many more are included. The Final Fantasy 14 races added are the Hyur, Elezen, Roegadyn, and Garlean.
The mod even makes Ogresh...
A California man has credited Starfield with saving his family’s life after a fire ripped through his apartment block during a late-night gaming binge.
Redditor “tidyckilla” said “Starfield saved me and my family’s life” in a post that described how an all-night gaming session on August 31, the day Starfield early access began, meant he was awake and alert to respond to a fire that local news reports say killed a person.
“I have waited for this game since the trademark rumors of 2015-2016 (don’t remember when exactly),” tidyckilla said.
“In anticipation I preordered the premium edition waiting to play this game. On the night of August 31 I decided to stay up and play as long as possible to experience this new universe. At 2:26 in...
Starfield is designed to keep the surface of planets and the space between them separate, but it is possible to fly directly to another planet — if you have the time and patience.
Earlier this year, Bethesda Game Studios boss Todd Howard confirmed to IGN that Starfield doesn’t let you fly seamlessly from space to planet, insisting “that’s really just not that important to the player” to justify the engineering work involved.
"People have asked, ‘Can you fly the ship straight down to the planet?’ No. We decided early in the project that the on-surface is one reality, and then when you’re in space it’s another reality,” Howard said.
"If you try to really spend a lot of time engineering the in-between, like that segue, you’re just...
Baldur’s Gate 3 speedrunning just went below the four minute mark for the first time, powered by a newfound tactic than involves stuffing Shadowheart's corpse into a box.
According to Speedrun.com, ImTaiyl hit a new world record of 3:57.96 in the Baldur's Gate 3 Any% Speedrun category just hours after Mae (the Canadian speedrunner who hit the headlines for taking on Baldur’s Gate 3’s Sex% category) set a record of 4:15.
Baldur’s Gate 3 speedrunners are setting astonishing completion times using a new tactic dubbed 'Shadowboxing', in addition to the Gale level one spell combo of Enhance Leap and Feather Fall, which is used by speedrunners to leapfrog swathes of the early game.
Baldur’s Gate 3 spoilers are ahead.
Shadowboxing is not...
Metal Gear and Death Stranding creator Hideo Kojima has shared some insight into the early days of Konami including his thrifty tactics while developing the original Metal Gear Solid.
The famed developer took to X (below) to talk about the significance of the classic PlayStation game, saying it marked a huge change for him as he was in charge of production for the first time instead of just development.
Kojima therefore went to great lengths to reduce costs, even stopping his team from working at night to keep the office's electricity bill down.
"[Metal Gear Solid 1] was a major turning point for me," Kojima said. "Not only was it the first major PlayStation game to be released worldwide, but it was also a major change in terms of...
Another year, another FIFA. Oh wait, it's not, well it is, but it's not - you still with me? EA has finally done away with the FIFA license and has rebranded its premium money-making sports simulator to EA Sports FC 24. If you're looking to play the game on September 29, we've already found all the best preorder deals available right now in the UK.
There's an extra limited-time deal on right now, with an extra 15% off the deal at The Game Collection Outlet via eBay. This trusted seller is partnered with eBay and therefore users can use the extra 15% off code TAKE15 to preorder EA Sports FC 24 for just £53.51.
The RRP is £69.99 so you're saving a considerable £16.48 on launch day. The only catch is you'll need to cough up the cash...