Gaming News

Red Dead II, Rift Apart, and Jedi Survivor Prices Get Blasted in Half, Plus More!

This could just be how I process sad news, but whenever one of my fave actors or singers passes, I go and relive their best work. With the late great Matthew Perry, my brain connects him to three different mediums. In the sitcom Friends, I'll cherish him as Chandler Bing, aka Miss Chanandler Bong. He also shone as Oz, the slapstick dentist from the film The Whole Nine Yards. Most importantly, I'll remember when he used his considerable talent to play against type as Benny in Fallout: New Vegas. Last week, you would have seen me singing the praises of this Obsidian RPG, purely as a top discount identified. Today, I honestly think there's a more important reason to play or replay this Fallout. Hell of a great game. Hell of a great...

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Why The Disney Dreamlight Valley Community Is Divided Over its Early Access Exit

Disney Dreamlight Valley developer Gameloft announced earlier today that its popular cozy Disney life sim game will not be going free-to-play in December as planned. And unsurprisingly, its bustling player community has, well, a lot of thoughts about that! While on its face, the above sentence sounds like it might spark anger, the Disney Dreamlight Valley community's questions and concerns are far more nuanced than one might expect from the outside. While some players are upset, others are celebrating the change with some caveats, and others just want more clarity on what to expect regarding future pay structures and update plans. It's a complex, unexpected situation - so we poked around in the community to see why there's such a...

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How Remedy Created Alan Wake 2's Horrifying Game Over Screen

A good game over screen doesn’t just serve as a notice that you need to start over. In the survival horror genre, a well-crafted, properly terrifying game over screen should serve as a deterrent, ensuring you stay alive the next time to avoid seeing the bloody words ‘Game Over’ appear on your screen. And sometimes, like in Alan Wake 2, they could be so terrifying you never want to die again. If you’ve played the game, you know exactly what I’m talking about, and IGN got a chance to speak with Alan Wake 2 creative director Sam Lake to discuss how Remedy created this terrifying game over screen. Alan Wake 2 is finally here to pick up the writer’s story 13 years later. Unlike the first game which was more of a supernatural...

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Is Destiny 2 Still Worth Playing in 2023?

With the ups and downs of long-running live-service games like Destiny 2, you can hardly be blamed if you’re one of the many people wondering if now’s a good time to jump in. My passionate love-hate relationship with this iconic Bungie shooter is well-documented, but the question of whether I’d recommend it to others has varied wildly over the years as the game has redefined itself time and time again. Whether you’re someone who’s never played before or a former player considering jumping back in, here are our thoughts on whether or not it’s worth playing Destiny 2 in 2023. The New Player Experience Though many Destiny players have been blasting Hive in the face since 2014, if you’re considering jumping into the fray in 2023, you’ll...

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Diablo 4 Patch 1.2.1 Makes Respecs Far Easier

Respecs are about to get a lot easier for top-level Diablo IV players. According to patch notes released by Blizzard, Diablo IV's 1.2.1 update will deliver a long list of fixes and quality of life improvements, but perhaps none more notable than changes to respec. Anyone who's reached Diablo IV's endgame will be familiar with the complex and satisfying Paragon Boards, which drive much of the late stage buildcrafting that becomes necessary to take down the game's most challenging bosses and dungeons. But the inflexibility of that system — namely that resetting the hundreds of perks on the board requires a ton of time and resources — has become a sticking point for many of Diablo IV's most hardcore players. Thankfully, Blizzard is...

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Exodia Obliterates Yu-Gi-Oh! Tournament Feature Match With Unexpected Win

Exodia The Forbidden One is one of the most powerful card combinations in all of Yu-Gi-Oh! because assembling all five pieces in your hand automatically wins you the game, but pulling off such a feat isn’t so easy at a competitive tournament. That’s why the crowd went wild last weekend at the Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Series (YCS) Indianapolis 2023 when player Jeffrey Leonard pulled it off not once but twice on a streamed feature match. Leonard started the tournament with an impressive 3-0 record piloting his Exodia Dracoslayer FTK (First Turn Kill) deck. Exodia is, of course, beloved by Yu-Gi-Oh! fans because it’s how Yugi Moto won his first duel against Seto Kaiba in the first episode of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Anime (“Exodia, OBLITERATE!”), but...

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Mortal Kombat 1 Halloween Fatality Costs $10 and the Community Is Pushing Back

Earlier this week, Mortal Kombat 1's community was incensed after publisher Warner Bros. Games revealed that it will sell a seasonal Fatality for real-world money. Now, this Fatality is available in the shop with a confirmed price, and players are up in arms once again, with many vowing to boycott the Fatality (and some abandoning the game entirely) because of its cost. Today, the Halloween Fatality was added to MK1's Premium Shop for the price of 1200 Dragon Krystals (1250 of which can be bought in a bundle for $10). The move came after players noticed that patch notes vaguely mentioned a "Halloween Fatality added to the Premium Store," which was later confirmed by Warner Bros. Games. You can watch the Fatality below, which involves...

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Iron Lung Has a New Mode That Surrounds You With Markiplier's Face

Markiplier is currently directing and starring in a film adaptation of Iron Lung, the short 2022 horror game that sees a convict exploring an alien moon's blood ocean in a cramped submarine. But, if that isn't enough, he's now also the star of a strange new mode of the original game. On Monday, Iron Lung developer David Szymanski announced The Cheats Update via a Steam announcement. The update introduces a few useful cheats, but it also adds Markiplier Mode, which turns most of the submarine's textures into, well, Markiplier. When this mode is activated with the command "chmark," quite literally everything in the submarine (save for a few buttons and indicator lights) is overlaid with low-quality images of a few memes of the YouTuber...

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Fortnite's Next Big 'OG' Update Will See the Battle Royale Return to Its Chapter 1 Roots

Epic Games has revealed that Fortnite’s next major update will see the perennially popular battle royale return to its Chapter 1 roots, while retaining its popular sprinting and mantling gameplay mechanics. Earlier today, Epic posted an image of the classic Fortnite battle bus to X/Twitter, alongside the words “Sprint (or Mantle, your choice) back to Chapter 1….see you soon 11.2.2023," alongside the hashtag #FortniteOG. The post echoes a similar teaser from Epic vice president and co-founder Mark Rein, who yesterday revealed that the word/theme for the next season of Fortnite was set to be “rewind." Epic’s post seemingly confirmed rumors from recent weeks pointing towards a return to the Chapter 1 Fortnite map of old. Influencers...

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Tekken 8's Built-In Teaching Tools Are Legitimately Awesome – IGN First

To quote an excellent Tekken player who happens to be a friend I train with: in Tekken, “the simple act of moving backwards properly requires practice.” Fighting games are notoriously complicated, and that can intimidate new players or keep them away entirely. Even if you’re an oldhead, learning a new game takes time. But Tekken 8 looks like it’s trying to flatten that curve by providing some of the best teaching tools in the genre. So, listen up, people: class is in session. In Tekken 8, picking up a character and having a good time is as simple as picking your character and turning on Special Style. But say you want to explore everything that character has to offer. What then? Well, you’ll want to head to training mode. And that’s...

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Disney Dreamlight Valley Exits Early Access in December, Ditches Free-to-Play Launch Plan

Disney Dreamlight Valley will exit Early Access and have its official launch on December 5, 2023. It will also no longer launch as a free-to-play game so the team can "continue delivering on a premium game experience for all players." In addition to all this big news, it was revealed that Disney Dreamlight Valley's first-ever showcase will take place on November 1 at 10am PT/1pm ET/5pm GMT. This stream will reveal details on A Rift in Time, the game's first paid expansion that will cost $29.99, will get you an extra 5,000 Moonstones (in-game currency), and will require the base game to play. The team will also be giving a glimpse at future updates during the stream and will "unveil much-anticipated multiplayer features." As to the...

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How Zombies Became Call of Duty's Biggest Mode

Corey Bowman remembers when the zombies first went after him. In 2008, long before he had 1.13 million subscribers to his Call of Duty YouTube channel (where he goes by the moniker Inkslasher), Bowman was a high school student when he beat his first-ever Call of Duty game, Call of Duty: World at War on Xbox 360. While the game ends its primary story in predictable fashion – with triumphant symphonies and images of valor in World War II – the end credits abruptly drops players into something eldritch and otherworldly. They suddenly see their avatar wake up in an abandoned bunker in a foggy corner of the Pacific, and that’s when the titles appear on screen in blood red typeface: “Nazi Zombies.” The objective now isn’t to win the war...

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Cities Skylines 2 Dev Addresses Character Teeth Controversy

The developer of Cities Skylines 2 has addressed a rumour that in-game teeth are causing performance issues with the game. A reddit post that went viral this week suggested the city builder renders individual teeth for each of the thousands of people who walk around your city — despite the fact the player cannot see them. Redditor Hexcoder0 found roughly 1,000 characters, including these “invisible teeth”, were drawn multiple times for the camera, and another time for the shadows, but without any LODs (level of detail), a technique that reduces the number of GPU operations required to render distant meshes. “I just wanted to post about the teeth because it's kinda funny and represents at least some missed performance,” Hexcoder0...

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The Finals Open Beta Is So Popular the Developer Had to Add a Temporary Login Queue

The Finals launched in open beta form this week, and it’s proven to be so popular its developer has struggled to maintain capacity. The Finals is an eye-catching team-based first-person shooter from Stockholm-based Embark Studios, which was founded by ex-DICE developers who worked on the Battlefield series. We don’t have player numbers for Xbox or PlayStation, but we can see just how popular the open beta is on Steam, where The Finals is currently the sixth most-popular game on Valve’s platform with an impressive 132,226 concurrent players. That puts it ahead of the likes of GTA 5, Baldur’s Gate 3, Call of Duty, and the resurgent Battlefield 2042. “With so many of you logging into the game, we’ve started to hit the limits of our...

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The Cities Skylines 2 Performance Patches Have Begun

Cities Skylines 2 developer Colossal Order has kicked off its post-launch performance improvement plan with the release of a new patch. Cities Skylines 2 launched big on Steam this week, hitting over 100,000 concurrent players and sitting atop the best-sellers chart. But performance issues marred the launch, which was met with a ‘mixed’ user review rating of 53% on Valve’s platform. Colossal Order had warned performance would be a problem for Cities Skylines 2 before the game came out, and insisted it targeted 30 frames per second, even on the most powerful PCs, because there’s “arguably no real benefit in a city builder to aim for higher fps”. Patch 1.0.11f1 is the first of several patches to improve performance in Cities Skylines...

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IGN UK Podcast 720: Don't Sleep on Alan Wake 2

Alan Wake 2 is finally here and Cardy thinks it may well be one of the best horror games ever made. He's joined by Jesse and Mat to discuss whether or not the Five Nights at Freddy's movie reaches those same heights. Then there's still time for a chat about a couple of the new trailers for this week's Xbox Partner Preview. Have any thoughts about The Endless Search theme? Got any good demo disc stories? Get in touch at ign_ukfeedback@ign.com IGN UK Podcast 720: Don't Sleep on Alan Wake 2 IGN UK Podcast 719: That's So Kraven IGN UK Podcast 718: Nando's with David Beckham IGN UK Podcast 717: Spice Up Your Life IGN UK Podcast 716: Hate the Endless Search Theme? Let's Go Our Separate Ways IGN UK Podcast 715: Idris Elba's Sausage...

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Jedi Survivor Sabered in Half, Amazon Drops Tears of the Kingdom, and More!

Thank your own personal deity—possibly Lorkhan—it's Friday! Just as I'd hoped it might, lightning has struck twice—the amazing discount on Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has caught on with other retailers. So if you're an Amazon Prime subscriber, do take advantage of that price chop plus their free shipping. Historically, it's been 14 years since we picked Destroyer, Alchemist, or Vanquisher to hack 'n' slash through Torchlight. We dug that to the tune of 8.6/10. Sadly, the franchise kind of nosedived after the equally awesome sequel. Oh, well... This Day in Gaming Aussie birthdays for notable games and hardware - Bully (PS2) 2006. Get - Torchlight (PC) 2009. Get - Super Scribblenauts (DS) 2010. Sequels Table of Contents...

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Every Rockstar Game Ever Released: A Full History

Now revered for creating some of the most detailed, vast and chaotic open-world action games ever made, Rockstar has walked a particularly unique path to becoming a household name. While plenty of players are used to hijacking cars and robbing banks on the streets of their famed Grand Theft Auto games, what many don’t know is that Rockstar has made everything from licensed Austin Power tie-ins to an intricate table tennis simulator. It’s a large publisher that’s explored a lot of different avenues over the years, so let’s take a deep dive into Rockstar’s history and look at all the games its various teams have released so far. How Many Rockstar Games Are There? In total, there have been 47 games released by Rockstar. While the label...

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Capcom Reveals It's Working on a Next-Gen RE Engine Codenamed REX

Capcom is working on a next-generation version of RE Engine, the powerful but flexible technology powering games ranging from Monster Hunter: Rise to Resident Evil 4 Remake. The new engine was revealed in a presentation intended for developers that was published on Capcom's R&D channel, which was first uncovered by Okami Games.. In a section titled "RE Engine's future," the presentation delved into some of the challenges facing the tech, including the need for a high degree of customization per game. Capcom's solution is to develop a "new standard of engine" that it's calling REX. According to the presentation, the new technology will be introduced into the existing engine in phases. Dragon's Dogma II is the next game to feature RE...

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Batman: Arkham Knight Reportedly Adds, Then Removes, Robert Pattinson's The Batman Suit

It’s been a wild day for fans of the Batman Arkham games, with Robert Pattinson’s suit from The Batman reportedly added – then removed – from Batman: Arkham Knight on Epic Games Store. It all started early on Thursday, when users on X/Twitter noticed that the suit had been quietly added to Arkham Knight, posting videos and screenshots. GameSpot also verified that the suit had been added to the game. Fans were certainly excited about the recreation of Battinson’s 2022 suit in Arkham Knight, but the rollout was odd for a few reasons. For one, there was absolutely no announcement from Rocksteady or Warner Bros. Games that this was coming. Secondly, Arkham Knight is eight years old, making a quiet drop of a buzzy skin… pretty...

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First In-Engine Look at Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater Gets Mixed Reaction From Fans

The first in-engine trailer for Konami’s Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater remake has been met with a mixed reaction on social media following its debut during Xbox’s Partner Preview event earlier this week. Upon revealing the existence of Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater in May earlier this year, Konami was keen to reassure fans that the remake would be faithful to the PS2 original, retaining the original story and dialogue while providing “unprecedented graphics and immersive sound." Yesterday’s Xbox event gave us our first look at a pre-alpha slice of the game captured in Unreal Engine 5, which showcased a number of faithfully realized environments from Hideo Kojima's beloved 2004 title. David Hayter, whose original 2004 Snake Eater...

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My 5 Favorite Xbox Games of the Year…So Far

It’s natural to start reflecting back on the gaming year at this point in the calendar, even though we’re still waiting on a handful of big games such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, and hopefully the parity-clause-busting Baldur’s Gate 3. Shout-out to a smaller game that’s out in just a couple weeks, too: The Invincible, a retro-sci-fi walking simulator that looks right up my alley. Plus, a game very high on my list of most anticipated games, Alan Wake 2, will be out mere hours after you read this (here's our glowing review), if it isn’t already. Anyway, it’s been a heck of a year already so here are my five favorite games I’ve played on my Xbox Series X so far in 2023 (in no particular order)...

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Skull and Bones Has Yet Another New Release Window

It's Ubisoft earnings day, which means we're due yet another update on the six-time-delayed pirate game Skull and Bones. And while the news is not explicitly another delay, the latest update is that we can expect Skull and Bones to launch sometime between January and March of 2024. If you haven't been following the saga of Ubisoft's deeply troubled pirate adventure, buckle up. Skull and Bones was first announced way, way back at E3 2017, with a release window set for fall 2018. It has since been delayed a whopping six times, with the most recent delay in January of this year pushing the game, allegedly, to "early 2023-2024." It's a bit of a vague window that could have meant any time this past year or early next year, but at the time...

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Tekken 8 Post-Closed Beta Test Analysis: January Can’t Come Soon Enough – IGN First

I ended Tekken 8’s Closed Beta Test with a long series of Group Match sets against a friend in Germany. He was playing Law; I was playing Azucena. I don’t think I lost any of the sets, but what was more impressive to me is that we were able to run these games smoothly. I live in New York. We were separated by an ocean, and aside from a few stutters, Tekken 8 ran fine. I was playing on a wired connection, but he was on wi-fi. And it worked. It just worked. I wanted to play more after our sets were over. But I also realized I probably wasn’t going to get a more satisfying ending than that - my buddy started the day beating me pretty badly - and at some point, I did have to sit down and write this piece. But now that I am, and the Tekken 8...

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Apex Legends Season 19: New Legend Conduit Abilities and Cross Progression Explained

Apex Legends is dropping Season 19 Ignite October 31st and players will be getting a new Legend Conduit, new map changes, cross progression, and more quality of life changes. There have been a handful of Legend and Weapon adjustments too to keep things fresh. Here’s everything you need to know about Apex Legends Ignite. New Legend: Conduit Conduit is the 25th Legend coming to Apex. She’s the first Filipino Legend who was a huge fan of the Apex Games before she decided to step into the arena. Conduit is a support Legend with a focus on healing shields. Here’s how her kit works: Passive: Save Your Speed Conduit gets a speed burst when she’s facing her teammates’ direction who are out of her Tactical’s range. Think of it as a...

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Ex-Skyrim Developer Explains the Key Difference Between Bethesda Games and Baldur’s Gate 3

The lead designer of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim has discussed the difference in design philosophy between Bethesda games and Larian’s Baldur’s Gate 3. Speaking in a fascinating interview with MinnMax, ex-Bethesda designer Bruce Nesmith expressed his love for Baldur’s Gate and Dungeons & Dragons, before delving deep into the difference in design philosophy between the likes of Fallout and The Elder Scrolls, and the critically acclaimed Baldur’s Gate 3. "I think [Baldur's Gate 3] is a triumph of trying to make the tabletop experience actually happen right there in the computer,” Nesmith said. “My hat's off to Larian and the groups there." Baldur’s Gate 3 is praised for doing perhaps the greatest job yet of recreating the chaotic...

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Alan Wake II Review

Thirteen years after his wife went missing in the small town of Bright Falls, author Alan Wake is trapped inside a Dark Place that he can’t seem to write himself out of. As I sit down to type out this review of Alan Wake II, I can somewhat empathize. This is just so incomparable to anything else I’ve played in recent memory that it’s tough to work out exactly where to start. Alan Wake II is a single-player adventure that seamlessly shifts from slow-burn psychological terror to frantic survival-horror action, from gorgeously rendered game worlds to striking full-motion video sequences, and from morbid investigations to show-stopping musical surprises. It’s bloody, it's bonkers, and for the most part it's utterly brilliant. Coming in at...

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Alan Wake 2 Dev Remedy Confirms Two Expansions Coming in 2024

Alan Wake 2 is set to receive two expansions in 2024, developer Remedy has confirmed. Expansion 1 is called Night Springs, and is currently due out late spring 2024, although in a note to IGN Remedy said that release window is subject to change. Expansion 2 is called The Lakehouse, which is yet to receive a release window. Here’s the official blurb on Night Springs: “Visions and dreams. Fiction is written and coming true. Fiction collapses and remains just words on a page. These are those stories... in Night Springs. Play as several familiar characters from the world of Alan Wake and experience the unexplainable in multiple self-contained episodes of Night Springs, a fictional TV-show set in the world of Alan Wake.” And here’s...

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Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Liberty Patch 2.02 Makes Key Quest and Gameplay Fixes

CD Projekt has released Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Liberty Patch 2.02, which includes a number of quest and gameplay fixes as well as other general improvements. Patch 2.02, out now across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S, fixes perhaps the biggest issue left with the Phantom Liberty and Update 2.0 version of CD Projekt's sci-fi epic: rebalancing the timers in courier missions. As part of the Phantom Liberty expansion, players will occasionally find a car that needs to be driven out of the new Dog Town area to another part of Night City. The distances often don't match up with the time limit, however, and the mission will sometimes give players just 30 seconds to drive across the entire colossal map. Here are the...

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Ark: Survival Ascended Is a Hit on Steam, but Performance Complaints Dampen Launch

The hotly anticipated Ark: Survival Ascended released on PC overnight and quickly shot to the top of Steam's best-selling games list, but players are running into performance issues that have marred the launch. Ark: Survival Ascended is Studio Wildcard’s Unreal Engine 5 remake of the original dinosaur-filled survival game Ark: Survival Evolved. It’s out now on Steam alongside the original game. On Valve’s platform, both Survival Ascended and Survival Evolved are in Steam’s top 100 played games by concurrent players, with Survival Ascended in particular climbing rapidly. But the remake currently has a ‘mixed’ user review rating of 42%, with most of the negative reviews complaining about performance issues. One Steam review read...

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