Gaming News

Aussie Deals: $48 Animal Crossing, 82% off a Far Cry Double Pack, Cheap GT7, and More!

According to various Twitter accounts, Gran Turismo 7 code has just landed in the mitts of reviewers. Yep. We're powering through the home stretch to the checkered flag now, fellow petrolheads. In honour of this, I've found the absolute cheapest deal going for it. And hey—same deal with Elden Ring, yet another AAA that will be yours in no time. 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...

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Elden Ring Global Release Schedule Reveals What Time You Can Start Playing

FromSoftware has revealed the exact time PC and console players will be able to begin their adventure in Elden Ring. The official Elden Ring Twitter shared an infographic with the times Elden Ring will become available digitally, and PC players will have a bit of a headstart over those who choose to play on console. Players can jump into Elden Ring on PC on February 24 at 3pm PT/6pm ET/11pm GMT. If you are in Australia, that translates to 10am AEDT on February 25. Most of the world will be able to begin their Elden Ring journey on console at midnight in their local time zone. If you are on Pacific Time or Central Time, you will be able to start a bit early on February 24 at 9pm PT/11pm CT. It was also shared that pre-load will be...

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Assassin's Creed Valhalla's Saga Difficulty Mode Makes Vikings Raids More Accessible

New accessibility options are coming to Assassin's Creed Valhalla including the Saga Difficulty Mode that lets players enjoy the gameplay and story without challenging combat. The new difficulty mode, available below the Easy in Valhalla's settings, means enemies don't scale with the player's level, they inflict less damage overall, and they react slower during stealth sections. Other settings will be added to customise Valhalla's combat, with players able alter the amount of damage taken, the amount of damage given, how much the player can heal, how much Adrenaline is gained, and how much health the enemies have. Adding an easier difficulty mode isn't the key to solving all of gaming's accessibility problems, of course, but it's a...

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Accessibility Isn't Easy: What 'Easy Mode' Debates Miss About Bringing Games to Everyone

The discussion around difficulty and accessibility in games is often reduced to two opposing ideals. One side argues against the inclusion of varying difficulty modes in games like From Software’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice or Sloclap’s Sifu, often citing artistic direction and developer’s goal to create a punishing experience, in which adding other difficulty modes would “ruin”. Conversely, many believe more options, which are often boiled down in online discourse to the addition of an ‘Easy Mode,’ will open games to a wider audience, allowing disabled people to effectively play and enjoy challenging games. But the reduction of the accessibility discussion to ‘Easy Mode’ obscures what many are actually advocating for, which is much much...

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Fallout 76's 2022 Content Road Map Makes Nods to Past Fallout Expansions

Bethesda has revealed the 2022 content roadmap for its online action RPG Fallout 76. The year-long road map introduces new public events from alien invasions and the first time players can venture outside of post-apocalyptic West Virginia. Split into four seasons; the spring update will introduce a new seasonal event called Invaders From Beyond, a map-wide event where players are tasked will encounter aliens and UFOs. The event will take players with defeating the aliens and hindering their research by way of destroying brainwave siphons. While the summer update will introduce three new public events: Test Your Metal, Eviction Notice, and Moonshine Jamboree. However, the more interesting updates come in the second half of the...

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Halo Infinite's Mid-Season Update Will Bring 'Multiple Improvements' to the Campaign

Halo Infinite's campaign will receive a number of fixes and improvements as part of the mid-season update expected to be released on February 24. While the update focuses mostly on the game's multiplayer, developer 343 Industries said in a blog post that players will "see multiple improvements in the campaign experience". Though it was otherwise quite vague, 343 said the update would address issues with Achievements not unlocking and returning to the game via Quick Resume, adding that "the team has been working on a handful of fixes for campaign since launch and there will be more on the way." 343 also shared some of the changes coming to multiplayer, starting with general network improvements that were outlined earlier this month...

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Lost Ark's European Server Capacity Will Not Be Increased

Lost Ark's Central Europe region cannot be expanded any further, and so players will continue to experience long queue times, at least while the game's popularity remains high. Developer Smilegate announced in a blog post spotted by Eurogamer that there is no way to increase the number of players per game world or add more servers to the region. Instead, early-on players are encouraged to switch to the new Europe West region that Smilegate was forced to create due to Lost Ark's immense popularity. Moving servers is only a truly viable option for new players as Smilegate again confirmed that server transfer functionality isn't currently possible, though it "will not rest until we've exhausted all options". Unlike North American...

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Conan Chop Chop Is a Lighthearted Roguelite with Plenty of Barbarian Attitude

I don't think Robert E. Howard had much of a sense of humor about his work when he created the swords and sorcery spectacle that was Conan the Barbarian 90 years ago. But let's face it: Conan is kind of silly. Go watch the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie and tell me it's not. And I think that's part of why the cartoonish co-op roguelite Conan Chop Chop works pretty well. The fast paced, decently challenging, and unpredictable gameplay certainly doesn't hurt either, though. Normally I might be put off by the exaggerated, whimsical visual style of a game like this, which would fit right in with any number of shallow strategy games on the app store. But it's clear to me that Mighty Kingdom knows the source material and isn't just trying to...

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Supermassive Games Trademarks a Non-Dark Pictures Game

Supermassive Games seemingly has plans to work on non-Dark Pictures Anthology games in the near future following its trademark of a new IP called The Quarry. The developer filed the new title, which will be its first diversion from the Dark Pictures games since 2018, with the European Union Intellectual Property Office, as spotted by @the_marmolade on Twitter. This comes just three weeks after Supermassive filed trademarks for six further Dark Pictures games to release on top of its upcoming The Devil in Me. There's no guarantee The Quarry will become a full game but Supermassive has filed it under the categories typical for console and PC releases: games software, entertainment services, and computer programming services. There's...

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Exclusive First Look at Tales of Arise and Atelier Sophie 2 Crossover Items

Exclusive to IGN, Bandai Namco and Koei Tecmo Games have revealed first images from a special upcoming collaboration update between Tales of Arise and Atelier Sophie 2: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Dream. Tales of Arise was released in September 2021 and Atelier Sophie 2 will follow on February 25, and since both series are celebrating their 25th anniversaries, a set of collaboration items will be made available in each game via an update. It is not yet clear whether the update for each game will be free or require a fee, and the exact dates of the updates are also yet to be confirmed. Players of Tales of Arise will get the Atelier Sophie 2 Collaboration Pack, which includes multiple items, the first of which we can reveal is...

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Street Fighter 6 Officially Announced

After 6 years and two updates, Capcom is finally moving on from Street Fighter 5 and has officially announced Street Fighter 6. As teased through a countdown website, Capcom has officially announced Street Fighter 6 following the end of the Capcom Pro Tour fighting game exhibition. The countdown was supposed to end at 9 pm PST but remained locked until the end of the stream. Capcom says more info for Street Fighter 6 is coming this summer. The short teaser revealed a beefed-up Ryu as he faces Luke, the 45th and final character for Street Fighter 5 who was teased to be in the sequel. The announcement for Street Fighter 6 also coincided with the 35th anniversary of the franchise. Capcom also announced the Capcom Fighting Collection...

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Microsoft Approached Activision Blizzard About an Acquisition Just 3 Days After Bobby Kotick Report

On November 16, the Wall Street Journal reported that Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick knew about the sexual assault and misconduct allegations happening at the company but did not disclose that info to the company's board. Just three days later, on November 19, CEO of Microsoft Gaming Phil Spencer initiated a call with Kotick that would lead to Microsoft acquiring Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. These details and more were revealed in a regulatory filing that was shared via CNBC and show that Spencer had been discussing "a different topic" before telling Kotick that Microsoft wanted to talk to him about strategic opportunities between the two companies. "On November 19, 2021, in the course of a conversation on a...

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Final Fantasy 14 Will Not Get NFTs, But It Will Get a Visual Upgrade and a Free Trial Again

Final Fantasy 14 director and producer Naoki Yoshida has confirmed that he and the team have no intentions of incorporating NFTs into the MMO. What Final Fantasy 14 will be getting, however, is a visual upgrade and the return of its free trial. As reported by Fanbyte, Yoshida was speaking through Square Enix translator Aimi Tokutake and said that, based on how FF14 is designed, he and the team have no plan on trying out NFTs in it. "Based on how Final Fantasy XIV is designed, we don’t intend on incorporating any sort of NFT element in the game at this point," Yoshida said. “If anybody is worried or concerned about it, I can clearly state at this time that we do not have any intentions to incorporate that into the game.” Yoshida...

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Aussie Deals: Horizon Broadening Bargains for CE, Forbidden West + Pulse 3D Bundled, and More!

If you've somehow not already dive-rolled into Guerilla Games' latest series, today's the day to do it. Complete franchise newbies can hunt down the Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition for half off. Already experienced trackers can trap Horizon Forbidden West + a fandangle Pulse 3D headset for a bonkers price. Grab them before prices [dino]soar right back up to RRP again. 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...

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Call of Duty: Warzone's New Anti-Cheat Measure Gives Players a 'Damage Shield' Against Cheaters

Cheating has been a huge problem in Call of Duty: Warzone, but a new anti-cheat measure will now give non-cheating players a "Damage Shield" that will prevent ne'er-do-wells from inflicting critical damage on them. In a new blog, the team behind Call of Duty: Warzone shared details on new updates coming to its RICOCHET Anti-Cheat system that "relies on data to identify cheating behavior and make our banwaves more impactful." One of these new features is called Damage Shield, and it's an in-game way to not only stop cheaters from winning matches or killing players, but also to learn more about the cheater and stop them from doing so again. "One mitigation technique we’ve been testing is something we call Damage Shield," the blog...

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Rainbow Six Siege’s Seventh Year Promises New Maps, Cross Play, and Less Toxicity

Ubisoft has revealed the content roadmap for Rainbow Six Siege’s seventh year. As usual it includes four new operators, but 2022 will see the addition of three new maps, the much-requested cross-play and cross-progression, and a variety of new improvements to Siege’s player behaviour systems. Starting with season one’s Operation Demon Veil, which was revealed yesterday, Rainbow Six Siege will receive a further four playable operators. Azami, a Japanese defender, has already been fully detailed, but the remaining three have only been teased. Season two will add a new Belgian operator, season three will introduce an operator from Singapore, and the final operator landing in season four will hail from Colombia. Mid-way through season...

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Rainbow Six Siege: Demon Veil Season and New Operator Azami Full Breakdown

Year Seven, Season One of Rainbow Six Siege - titled Demon Veil - is set to arrive on March 8th, 2022, and brings with it a new Operator in Azami, a teaser for a new map in Emerald Plains coming later in the season, and a ton of exciting changes and additions like Attacker Repick, Team Deathmatch, Match Replay for console players, improved face tech, and so much more. To help you start this new year with a bang in Rainbow Six Siege, we’ve gathered everything you need to know about Demon Veil in one place alongside the best tips for using Azami to her fullest potential. Azami and Her Kiba Barrier Kunai Will Help You and the Defenders Close Up Holes and Secure Victory Defender Kana “Azami” Fujiwara is the newest Operator to join...

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Starfield Lead Artist Says the Game's Overall Aesthetic is 'NASA-Punk'

Starfield's lead artist Istvan Pely has revealed that the overall aesthetic of Bethesda's upcoming space RPG is "NASA-Punk." Pely and lead animator Rick Vicens spoke to Xbox Wire and discussed how this term really took on a life of its own and helped shape what Starfield is today. "Early on in this project when we were trying to establish the overall aesthetic of this game, we sort of coined the term ‘NASA-Punk’ to describe a sci-fi universe that’s a little more grounded and relatable,” says Pely. “We wanted a very realistic take. You can draw a line from current-day space technology and extrapolate from there into the future so it’s believable and relatable.” “What’s really interesting is how much we all latched onto that...

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Nightingale Will Let Players Explore a 'Seemingly Endless' Number of Fae-Inhabited Realms

Nightingale, the upcoming survival game from Improbable studio Inflexion, is a magical realm-hopping adventure full of bizarre fae creatures and worlds inspired by Victorian themes and fairytales. Just how many mysterious worlds will players get to explore in Nightingale? Inflexion isn't telling, but in an interview for IGN Fan Fest, art and audio director Neil Thompson suggests they will be at least "seemingly endless." Thompson joined CEO Aaryn Flynn at Fan Fest to talk about the different worlds of Nightingale, which Thompson says Inflexion thinks of as parallel universes inhabited by creatures, monsters, and wildlife. Players travel between the worlds via portals, Flynn says, which appear after they have explored a particular...

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Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga Developers Made New Creatures From Existing Model Kits

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is the first time developer Traveller's Tales has portrayed every movie in the mainline Star Wars series. As such, there are plenty of classic creatures the studio had to adapt for the first time, including ones that have never been made by Lego as physical kits. To keep things as authentic as possible, the artists used parts from existing kits as reference for these new creatures, and ‘built’ them from a mixture of existing and original parts. In a new developer diary debuted during IGN Fan Fest, Neil Crofts, Head of Character Art on Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, said: “What we would do is we’d look at the film reference, and we’d take existing Lego creatures and characters that are similar...

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Everyone Should Go Inside and Touch Art...in a Cozy Puzzle Game

Stepping into the cozy virtual gallery of Please, Touch the Artwork, there’s something instantly familiar about the paintings in front of me, even if I can’t recall the name of the art, the artist, or any facts about what I’m looking at. But I know I’ve seen the blocks, the lines, the use of primary colors laid out in front of me before. Maybe in an art book in school, or in passing on a museum field trip. These are, I am told, the paintings of Piet Mondrian, or interpretations of them. They’ve been compiled and turned into a puzzle game by Thomas Waterzooi, a solo developer with a background in engineering, artist parents, and credits at Larian Studios and IO Interactive. Waterzooi was let go from IO when it parted ways with Square...

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Rainbow Six Siege’s Next Season Adds the First New Map in Three Years

Ubisoft has announced that the first season of Rainbow Six Siege’s seventh year will finally introduce a new map. Emerald Plains will be the first permanent new addition to the map roster since 2019’s Outback. It will arrive following the introduction of a new defender operator, Azami, who is able to patch up destroyed surfaces with a bulletproof chemical compound. Rainbow Six Siege’s seventh year of content begins with Operation Demon Veil, a season that adds the Irish-set Emerald Plains map to the game. Unfortunately Emerald Plains will not be available until mid-way through the season, but when it arrives it will provide a new country club-style location for attackers to blow to smithereens. The large manor house has differing...

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Monark Review

It’s always exciting to dive into a new JRPG from one of the genre's veterans at the helm. Monark comes to us from Kazunari Suzuki, best known for his work on the Megami Tensei and Shin Megami Tensei franchises, so it had a ton of potential. To its credit, it does introduce some fresh combat mechanics to an otherwise-straightforward tactical JRPG structure. But Monark continuously trips over itself elsewhere due to a disjointed story, static puzzles, and repetitive level design that made staying interested a lot harder than it could have been. Monark sets up a high-stakes story that takes place at Shin Mikado Academy, where a mysterious barrier looms over the school grounds and makes it impossible for anyone to leave. You take control...

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Valorant's Most Unpopular Agent Is Getting a Much-Needed Facelift

Valorant’s next big update will introduce a major rework to the game’s least popular agent – Yoru. Originally, Riot Games intended Yoru to be a full-on lurker (think info-gathering lone wolf), but will now be more of Duelist/Initiator hybrid build (think aggressive engager looking for a frag). So let’s look into why Yoru didn’t work, and how the changes he’s getting should impact his popularity. Who is Yoru? Valorant is a 5v5 FPS where attackers try to plant a bomb called a spike and defenders try to stop them. The characters in the game fall into archetypes: Duelists excel at being aggressive, Sentinels and Controllers focus on battlefield control, and Initiators take over parts of the map by exposing or displacing the enemy. A...

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Destiny 2: Where Is Xur Today? Location and Exotic Items for February 18

Everyone's favorite snake-faced nomadic Santa, Xûr, is now live in Destiny 2 for the weekend until next week's reset. If you're looking to get your some shiny new Exotic armor or weapons for your Guardian, look no further. Each week, Xûr has a random assortment of Exotic armor, one for each Guardian class, as well as a random Exotic Weapon and an Exotic Engram available for purchase. In addition to his Exotic wares, he's got a random collection of Legendary weapons and armor to deck out your Guardians. We've rounded up all the info on Xûr for the week including where to find Xûr, which Exotic weapons and armor are available, as well as which Legendary weapons you should pick up, either for PvE or PvP. Where Is Xûr Today? Xûr can be...

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Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle - The First Preview

Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle may sound like a bizarre game of word association, but it’s actually the name given to the prequel to Daymare: 1998, the third-person survival horror game that proudly wore its Resident Evil 2 influence on its sleeve like a stitched-on S.T.A.R.S. badge. Yet while Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle might have a slightly cryptic title, its intentions are certainly clear - to take the medkit-collecting, corridor-creeping, survival horror-shooting of its predecessor and upgrade it with nifty new gadgets and electricity-charged enemy types in order to elevate it above simple homage. Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle introduces a brand new protagonist, H.A.D.E.S. special agent Dalila Reyes, who comes equipped with a standard issue...

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Your Halo Infinite Multiplayer Rank Is Going To Be Recalculated, and It Will Probably Be Lower

343 Industries has announced that it will reset player ranks in Halo Infinite as part of a new update to ranked matchmaking. The mid-season rank reset will likely lower most players by one rank in order to counterbalance a system that has so far been "overly generous". Explaining the system in a new post on Halo Waypoint, community manager John Junyszek said, "Since we saw that the [Competitive Skill Ranking] system was being overly generous since launch, these changes are being rolled out to help bring things closer in line to where they should be. This period led to a full tier inflation of ranks and, as a result, most players should expect to be placed a full tier lower (Diamond players will find themselves in Platinum, Platinum...

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Atelier Sophie 2: The Final Preview

The newest title in the Atelier franchise and the next game in the Mysterious series is coming to PS4, Switch, and PC (Steam) in the form of Atelier Sophie 2: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Dream. This preview is based on my time playing a pre-release build of the PC version. This 25th-anniversary installment takes place between Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book (the previous title in the series) and 2016’s Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey. Even if you haven't played the previous game, you should be able to get an understanding of it thanks to a synopsis available to you before you begin. Of course, those who have played it will get another chance to enjoy the relationship and secrets shared...

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IGN UK Podcast #632: I Ain't No Rollerback Girl

Horizon Forbidden West is here and Cardy, Matt and Dale have all been playing it. Hear what they think as well as their time with Lost Ark, Sifu and the return of Cyberpunk 2077. There’s also time for a bit of Netflix corner with the arrival of a Kanye West documentary and Dale’s newfound passion for Love is Blind. As ever there's a round of the Endless Search and your delectable feedback. Want to get in touch to talk about things you’ve eaten that you shouldn’t have or maybe even video games? Feel free to send us an email at ign_ukfeedback@ign.com. IGN UK Podcast #632: I Ain't No Rollerback Girl IGN UK Podcast #631: A Motley Mouthful IGN UK Podcast #630: My Mum's Dating a Frankenstein! IGN UK Podcast #629: Lu Bu & Nute Gunray...

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WWE 2K22: Hands-On Preview

WWE 2K20 had some well-documented issues, and that’s perhaps putting it lightly. So with a two-year absence and an apparent back to the drawing board approach, you’d expect the latest entry in the grappling series, WWE 2K22 to come out throwing its hardest lariat. Well, from what my short hands-on time with the game has revealed so far, it seems as if it’s come out Cesaro swinging… mostly. At first WWE 2K22 doesn’t quite feel like the radical evolution for the series that was promised. Sure, everything feels more polished and refined, but that’s to be expected from an extended development time, but it’s when compared to the last entry in the series, though, things begin to shine and the evolution pushes through. Beyond the graphics...

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