It’s Pride Month, and what better way to celebrate than to shout out our favorite LGBTQ characters in video games. These are characters who have spoken to us through meaningful LGTBTQ representation and are also complex, fascinating, hilarious, or otherwise cool as hell. Be sure to let us know who your favorite LGBTQ video game characters are in the comments below!
1. Ellie - The Last of Us
Ellie has proven to be an extraordinarily complex character over the course of The Last of Us, Left Behind, and The Last of Us Part 2. She’s resilient, ruthless, kind, protective, vulnerable, vengeful, and ultimately capable of great change. Her first love Riley was taken from her while she survived, and she carried that guilt with her for years...
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It's no secret I love Microsoft Flight Simulator. In fact, I reviewed Flight Simulator and gave it a 10. I couldn't have imagined any other score for it at the time: I was completely blown away. But they keep making it better. Not only are they constantly improving the sim side of it, with physics tweaks and performance upgrades, but they just keep adding more and more content. It's astounding.
Microsoft Flight Simulator Deal
This deal, which is incredible by the way, is for the physical Xbox Series X version. If you already have Game Pass, well, you already have Flight Sim, but if you don't for some reason, and you want that sweet, sweet disc, you can snag this really excellent deal.
From a content to price perspective, it's...
Cardy, Joe, and Alex are here to talk about some of their favourite announcements and reveals from this year’s Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase. We’ve got your Starfields, your Redfalls, your Kojimas. We’ve got the lot. Also, a slightly deeper dive into how A Plague Tale: Requiem is shaping up and the unfortunate tale of two underwhelming blockbuster films in the shape of Jurassic World: Dominion and Lightyear. Fear not though, there’s a banging round of the Endless Search and some impromptu cake chat.
Want to get in touch to talk about digging graves? Cakes? Or maybe Elden Ring? Feel free to send us an email at ign_ukfeedback@ign.com.
IGN UK Podcast #649: Phil's Big Night Out 2022
IGN UK Podcast #648: Geoff's Big Night Out...
Thank your own personal deity—possibly Tempestra—it's Friday! Oh, speaking of a TMNT antagonist, I've gone and found you the cheapest deal on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge. It's damn fine old school gaming, roughly about as purchasable as the rather reduced TimeSplitters 2 and TimeSplitters Future Perfect I found. Anyway, stay safe, save often and see you all Monday.
Notable Sales for Nintendo Switch
Purchase Cheaply for PC
Exciting Offers for XO/XS
Product Savings for PS4/PS5
Adam’s our Aussie deals wrangler. You can watch him game on YouTube.
Continue reading...
Work has already started on Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 3, which will cap off Square Enix's trilogy when it's released sometime after 2023.
Nomura confirmed that "some development has already begun" on the as-yet unnamed third title in a note following today's livestream.
"I myself have started on the development and am working toward the completion of the series," Nomura wrote in a two-part message on Twitter.
His note followed the first trailer for Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth, which offered a glimpse of the anticipated follow-up to Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Square Enix also announced Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion, a remake of the PSP spin-off slated to release on PS4, PS5, Xbox, Switch, and PC sometime this winter.
Nomura...
Forza Motosport 8 is getting a number of exciting features including realtime ray tracing and an all-new career mode according to today's Forza Monthly livestream.
The information comes from the game's Creative Director, Chris Esaki. According to Esaki, the game will sport a full night and day cycle and varying weather forecasts for all tracks. These will only be enhanced by the game's realtime ray tracing. These tracks, whether they're new or returning, have been built from the ground up for this iteration of Forza.
The weather aspect will also determine how you drive affecting things like traction, grip and more. To make it even more dynamic, tires in-game have been drastically upgraded to include eight contact points. Forza...
After conducting its own internal investigation, Activision Blizzard's Board of Directors claims it has found 'no evidence' to suggest that its senior executives and its own members ignored or downplayed gender harassment. It's also urging its shareholders to vote against an upcoming proposal to craft a report about its own efforts to prevent abuse and harassment.
In a new SEC filing, Activision Blizzard asserted:
The initial complaint from the state of California, filed after a two-year-long investigation, accuses the company leadership of knowing about and failing to prevent numerous internal cultural issues. Subsequent reports and lawsuits have similarly included accusations that incidents were reported and either ignored or...
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 is really real, with Zack in all his glory.
Announced at today's Final Fantasy 7 25th Anniversary stream, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion is planned for release on Xbox Series X and S, PS5, PS4, Switch, and PC sometime this winter.
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion is a prequel to the original Final Fantasy 7, released for PSP in the west in 2008. The game gained unexpected new relevance when Final Fantasy 7 Remake seemed to include a shot-for-shot remake of Crisis Core's ending, but drastically changed its outcome, seemingly setting up prequel protagonist Zack Fair for an appearance in the main games.
We caught another glimpse of Zack later during the show, too, as part of the trailer for Final...
Today at Square Enix’s Final Fantasy 7 25th Anniversary Celebration Livestream, the next installment in the Final Fantasy 7 universe, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, was revealed in a brand new trailer. Alongside that information, it was also revealed that Rebirth would be the second in what is now a three-part trilogy from Square Enix.
The trilogy situates itself in the greater Final Fantasy 7 Compilation with the newly announced Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion, which will be out this winter. Final Fantasy 7 Remake stayed faithful to the original in many ways, but there were a number of changes that had fans both confused and intrigued for what's to come.
Today's new trailer asks the question, "What is fact and what is fiction?" This...
Square Enix has revealed the first trailer for Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Part 2, and it is officially called Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
Revealed during Square Enix's 25th Anniversary event for the original Final Fantasy 7, the second part in the company's planned multi-part series will release next winter in 2023.
Today they also announced that Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade is heading to Steam June 17, 2022, and will be compatible with the Steam Deck.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake was released in 2020 and delivers on the promise of bringing the classic RPG into the modern era. IGN reviewed Final Fantasy 7 Remake and gave it an 8 out of 10, calling it an exciting take on the classic while standing on its own as a great RPG. The game...
With a recent trailer at this year’s Xbox Games Showcase, and now a whole dedicated reveal event, it’s been a busy week of Overwatch 2 news. There’s so much new info about the Blizzard shooter sequel that it can be quite hard to take in all at once. That’s why we’ve distilled all the new details we’ve learnt here so you can easily see all you need to know:
1. Overwatch 2’s PvP is launching in early access on October 4th and will be free-to-play.
2. A Beta will also be launching on both PC and consoles on June 28th, with sign-ups starting June 16th.
3. A new hero - Junker Queen - and a new map - Rio de Janeiro - will both be playable in the upcoming Beta.
4. Crossplay and cross-progression will be available from launch in Overwatch...
As Overwatch 2 prepares to go free-to-play, it will be introducing some major changes, including the removal of the loot boxes that were once a defining part of the original.
During today's Overwatch 2 reveal stream, Blizzard announced that the upcoming sequel will be following in the footsteps of many other modern online game and introducing a battle pass.
While Blizzard didn't offer many details, it did confirm that players will be able to unlock cosmetic items through both the battle pass and the in-game store. In addition, Overwatch 2 will feature weekly challenges in what Blizzard is calling "Competitive Play 2.0."
The introduction of a battle pass also means that Overwatch 2 will be doing away with an important part of its...
While Overwatch 2's PvP content has received most of the attention so far, the PvE maps that once served as its raison d'être will be an important factor as well. During today's Overwatch 2 reveal stream, Blizzard went into a bit more detail on how exactly it will work, explaining that player-versus-environment [PvE] maps will be released as part of the newly-minted free-to-play shooter's seasonal content, beginning in 2023.
Described as "content to immerse yourself in," Blizzard hints that PvE in Overwatch 2 will function as a contained series of missions designed to drive the game's overall story forward. Among other things, Overwatch 2's PvE content will show the Overwatch team reuniting while visiting familiar locations like...
Blizzard has promised that Overwatch 2 will deliver a new hero every 18 weeks (one for every two in-game seasons) – and the game will see two more unannounced heroes added this year, on top of those already announced.
Announced during today's Overwatch 2 reveal event, the game's new content roadmap introduces 9-week seasons of content, and lead hero designer Geoff Goodman says the team is looking at releasing a new hero "every other season" – so every 18 weeks.
If upkept, this would return Overwatch to its original cadence of hero releases, which delivered a new character to play as roughly every 18 weeks from release in 2016 up until August 2019. However, things dramatically slowed down after that point, with only one hero, Echo...
Blizzard has revealed Overwatch 2's new content roadmap, revealing that the newly free-to-play game will start a new season every 9 weeks. As you'd expect, Battle Passes are being added to the game.
Revealed during today's Overwatch 2 reveal event, the roadmap shows that Season 1 of the game (beginning on the game's October 4 launch date) will include 3 new heroes – that's Sojourn, Junker Queen, and an unannounced support hero – 6 new maps, more than 30 new skins, a new game mode (the previously announced Push), a new Mythic skin (the new most rare cosmetic type), and a Battle Pass.
While we only got a glimpse of a work-in-progress Battle Pass, it seems they'll offer a familiar mix of free content and premium unlocks only gained by...
While Elden Ring doesn't include intrinsic difficulty settings, players looking for (much) more of a challenge can now turn every enemy in the game into Malenia, Blade of Miquella thanks to a new mod.
As spotted by PCGamesN, YouTube user Bushy used thefifthmatt's Elden Ring enemy randomiser mod to fill The Lands Between with the infamous boss. Bushy somehow still managed to beat the game in around eight hours, despite coming up against up to five Malenias at once in some areas, a highlight reel of which can be watched on his YouTube channel.
Malenia has emerged as the toughest boss in Elden Ring since it was released in February, with all sorts of storylines emerging from the fight. Developer FromSoftware didn't help the situation...
Halo Infinite developer 343 Industries has changed an offensive cosmetic name released as part of a Juneteenth event, and apologized to fans for what it called a "hurtful" mistake.
A Halo Infinite nameplate color palette released to celebrate Juneteenth - a federal holiday in the U.S. commemorating the emancipation of slaves - was named Bonobo, a species of great ape.
The offensive name was called out by players, including Sean W on YouTube, which prompted 343 to quickly change the palette's name to Freedom and apologise for what it claimed was a mistake.
"While the original name refers to an internal toolset, it was not intended to be applied to this content and we recognize the harm it may have caused," said Halo's senior...
Do you ever think about hand-drawn animation? Like really, really think about it? And the absolutely massive amount of artwork that goes into even making a single short walk cycle? StudioMDHR certainly thought about it a lot during the development of Cuphead. Then the studio turned right around for Delicious Last Course and decided to do about the same amount of animation work again.
For a DLC.
According to Maja Moldenhauer, the sheer volume of animations in Delicious Last Course stemmed from the team’s desire to bring to life everything they had left on the cutting room floor of the original Cuphead, with a playable Miss Chalice serving as a catalyst for the rest.
“We really wanted to experiment with the art form…I don't have an...
Between the release of Tiny Tina's Wonderlands and the upcoming Borderlands movie, this franchise is on a major upswing in 2022. Now fans can dive deeper into the world of the former, with Dark Horse's The Art of Tiny Tina's Wonderlands.
As with Dark Horse's past video game art books, The Art of Tiny Tina's Wonderlands is a hardcover tome that features extensive concept art, creator commentary from the developers at Gearbox and other glimpses into the development of this Borderlands spinoff. The book showcases the game's kooky cast of characters, the environments and the larger-than-life weapons featured in the game.
Check out the cover art for The Art of Tiny tIna's Wonderlands below, though note that the final artwork is subject to...
Professional animators who still animate by hand in 2D are hard to find, says StudioMDHR’s Maja Moldenhauer. And it’s understandable given how the style of animation has given way to digital animation, and how physically demanding good animation can be.
Which is why, she says, StudioMDHR had to take care of the handful of folks it found to work on Cuphead and its DLC: Delicious Last Course – around 18 developers total, and only about six animators at the height of DLC development. Even if that meant both took a very, very long time to make – over a decade, in fact.
“It's hard to find people,” she says. “The number one thing, especially through COVID was keeping everybody happy. This is video games. Take your time. Mental health...
Capcom has reversed its decision to force upgrades of the PC versions of Resident Evil 2 Remake, Resident Evil 3 Remake, and Resident Evil 7.
The updated versions - that lined up with the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series upgrades being released - added ray tracking and enhanced 3D audio, but also raised the system requirements and caused performance issues for some users, causing many players to call for a choice to return to the old versions.
Announced on each game's Steam page, the developer said it had made the older versions of the games available again "due to overwhelming community response".
There's a little bit of work to do before the older versions can be played again but Capcom gave step by step instructions on how to...
Naughty Dog has unveiled an incredible new model for The Last of Us Part 1's version of key character Tess.
Shared in a tweet (below), the developer put the original, PlayStation 3 character (played by Annie Wersching) side-by-side with the upcoming PlayStation 5 remake's version, and the difference is pretty astounding. While the clip is only a few seconds long, several rewatches are probably required to take in every difference between the two versions, from the intense facial animations to the details on Tess's shirt and backpack – and even her height.
Naughty Dog co-president and The Last of Us creative director Neil Druckmann added his own commentary to the clip. "Annie Wersching' destroyed us with her performance as Tess," he...
Developer Spiders is best known as something of a BioWare tribute studio. Its most successful game, GreedFall, is the latest in a modest line of RPGs that draw heavily upon the likes of Mass Effect and Dragon Age. But Spiders’ next game, Steelrising, is nothing like a BioWare game at all. Instead, it’s an ode to FromSoftware. Specifically, it is Bloodborne set in the French Revolution, with Yarnham’s beasts swapped out for Parisian clockwork robots. As a pitch, it sounds a little derivative (at least mechanically). But despite seemingly minimal innovations, playing Steelrising reveals something that has genuine promise.
At a recent hands-on event I was able to play around three hours of Steelrising, which covered the opening locations...
What's better than one Pokémon game going for cheap? Two of 'em. It makes perfect sense to me to grab both titles, because that will let you A: race them or B: collect and swap every critter in the Gen 9 Pokédex. Other noteworthy bargains include a bunch of Ubisoft AAAs going for cheap and some oldies you should own. Case in point: Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. It features Mike Haggar, the pile-driving public servant who should be in every single game.
Notable Sales for Nintendo Switch
Purchase Cheaply for PC
Exciting Offers for XO/XS
Product Savings for PS4/PS5
Adam’s our Aussie deals wrangler. You can watch him game on YouTube.
Continue reading...
StudioMDHR has been working on Cuphead in one way or other for over a decade now. With Delicious Last Course imminent, though, StudioMDHR has to look toward the future. Could there be more Cuphead after Cuphead?
According to Maja Moldenhauer, StudioMDHR got to work on Delicious Last Course because it still had left plenty of Cuphead on the cutting room floor after the first time around. Elements such as a playable Miss Chalice, and many of Delicious Last Course’s new bosses, were ideas born during the original game’s development that needed the extra time of a DLC to see the light of day.
But now, with Delicious Last Course wrapped, Moldenhauer says there’s nothing left sitting on a drawing board somewhere. “We got it all in.”
So...
Sonic Frontiers will be the first new 3D Sonic title since 2017’s Sonic Forces. Unlike previous level-based endeavors, however, Sonic Frontiers will be the series’ first title to boast a vast and freely explorable world, which Sega refers to as 'Open Zone'.
So why is it an Open Zone, as opposed to an open world? Director Morio Kishimoto told IGN all about it. Kishimoto refers to Open Zone as “Sonic Frontiers’ secret weapon”:
“Level-based platformers often have a world map. Our Open Zone is a world map, only we’ve made it entirely playable,” Kishimoto stated.
“A playable world map that includes stage-like elements is something that hasn’t really been done before, so we had to come up with a new name. What is often defined as a World...
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords will have the original version's cut content added to the Nintendo Switch re-release in Q3 this year.
The content was removed from the original version of KOTOR 2 and includes new missions, dialogue, and other content that's woven throughout the entire game. Given how intrinsic it is to the game, players will need to start a fresh save file in order to experience it.
Eurogamer spotted a tweet from developer port developer Aspyr, which confirmed: "You will need to start a new game with the DLC content enabled to access the additional content, however after the DLC releases and you still wish to finish your non-DLC playthrough, you can access those base game save files by...
Growing up as a child of the 90s, whenever I stepped into an arcade, I’d always do a walk around to see what they had before putting my quarters into any machines. This usually didn’t last very long because as soon as I saw a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cabinet, I’d shout to my friends “They got Turtles!” and we’d rush on over.
It’s abundantly clear that the developers at Tribute Games share a similar love for the 90s TMNT beat-em-ups. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge is nothing but unwaveringly reverent to the classic 1989 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade game, and more prominently, 1991’s Turtles in Time. Best of all, it transforms the arcadey quarter-munching design of combat into something much more skill...
Arkane Austin has a lot of experience open-ended gameplay design, but when it came to designing Redfall's open world, the famed studio behind Prey had a unique problem — Redfall's open world was actually a bit too open.
In a new interview with IGN, Redfall designer Harvey Smith talked about designing the Massachusetts town in which Arkane's new supernatural shooter is set, describing it as "very open." Redfall is an on-foot game he says, and the team has worked to make sure that the setting's design fits within that dynamic.
But at first, Redfall was "too open," Smith says.
"It was like there was not enough blocking you or channeling you, but it's very, very open rooftops and alleys and streets of this small town, Redfall...
Sonic the Hedgehog won't be kissing any more humans if Sega veteran Takashi Iizuka has his way.
Iizuka has worked on the franchise since 1994's Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and told Axios what the two critical rules for a project featuring the Blue Blur are – alongside an additional, unofficial one regarding the infamous smooching scene from 2006's Sonic the Hedgehog.
In the game, the very human Princess Elise the Third used the Chaos Emeralds to save Sonic's life and kissed the anthropomorphic hedgehog as she did. Though he didn't work on that particular entry, Iizuka said "I don't think we'll be doing that again".
The other rules are more on brand, with the first simply being "speed". Iizuka said the games need to be built around Sonic...