Xbox’s Director of Gaming Sustainability, Trista Patterson, joined the Xbox Podcast this week with a very clear message: 

“Gaming sustainability is something that Xbox is very proud of, and making big strides in. But, with climate [change], you can’t beat your competitor at it. You have to compete against your own best self in every category. And just like we’re saying, ‘When everyone plays, everyone wins,’ the same goes for, ‘When everyone reduces energy and emissions, everyone on the planet wins.’ No doubt about it.” 

Appearing on the podcast following Xbox’s announcement of a new suite of developer tools designed to reduce energy use and emissions through game code, Patterson explained how she and her team have been making ground-breaking strides to help the entire industry apply more sustainable thinking, and to “create powerful good using the gaming industry” 

It’s not been a simple task. “For a long time, the industry has maintained that there’s no gains to be found in greening game code,” Patterson explained. “And that’s because there’s an enormous complexity between the hardware, the software, the electrical and other engineering, the design, and then the game code itself that creates the power that is required in order to create the gaming experience.” 

“Broadly considered, the industry decided that this was a completely intractable problem – in fact, within the UN’s Playing for the Planet Alliance, it was considered even as of a month ago to be an impossible problem to solve.” 

The solution to that seemingly impossible problem was to create resources for developers to identify ‘Energy Bugs’ – previously invisible problems created by coding that can unintentionally use more power than needed – at source, and fix them quickly. While Xbox has already taken strides to reduce power usage in consoles themselves, this new effort will aid developers in reducing power consumption caused by the games you play on them. 

“You can have fun breaking things in a game. And right now we’re not having fun breaking the planet. Let’s have fun fixing it.”

At GDC, Xbox announced the rollout of a new Developer Sustainability Toolkit, a power monitoring system, certification reports, power consumption dashboards, guides, case studies, and a pilot program that offers specialist assistance to game devs looking to work on their games’ energy consumption. The goal is to, “precision engineer the visual and analytical feedback that is needed for game developers to make changes to their code that will allow them to reduce energy consumption on the consoles in the living room of every gamer in the world.” 

That openness, that this isn’t only applicable to the Xbox platform, is key here: “The thing that I find really remarkable is that when a studio sees what a no-brainer it is to fix so many of these Energy Bugs, they fix them in a way that is not just reducing emissions on the Xbox console platform, but they’re instituting [them] to the entire game code. And that game code then gets released to almost every other platform that they are releasing to in the future.” 

The work won’t stop with Xbox developers, either: “We are empowering and inviting the rest of the industry to use these insights, these case studies, these tools, and also inspire their own investigations in order to be able to create impact, no matter how small or large their gaming studio is.” 

The overall goal here is to make the enormous size of the games industry not a problem for sustainability, but a part of the solution – and making use of the inherent positivity of that creative space: 

“In the environmental field, things are going haywire right and left. It’s a depressing field. If society focuses on everything going wrong all the time, and we’re encountering stories of loss and destruction, it’s true that statistically there are many challenges in front of us, but gaming opens up all of this remarkable, creative problem solving… You can have fun breaking things in a game. And right now we’re not having fun breaking the planet. Let’s have fun fixing it.” 

With the release of Dead Island 2 approaching as fast as a horde of zombies, we’re here to tell you a bit about some of the zombie types you’ll meet when you visit HELL-A next month.

There are three different variations — Infected, Apex and Variant — each with different strengths and weaknesses, but you’ll learn your favorite ways to dispose of each and every one of them (if you’re that way inclined). There are also certain zombie killing challenges within Dead Island 2 and once complete, you’ll learn more about each zombie to help you find the best ways to slay.

Let’s start with the easiest zombies to kill, the Infected types, of which there are three — Walkers, Shamblers and Runners. First up are Walkers. They have no resistance or weakness to any weapons and can be butchered easily in one-on-one combat, so they’re definitely the ones you will have the most fun with at the start.

While Shamblers are frail, rotting and slow, they’re weak to blunt and explosive damage but resist bleed damage as they lack blood! Their bones are so brittle their own attacks often cause their limbs to break off. Keep an out for large numbers of these though.

As for Runners, they’re attracted to loud noises and as they’re fast, so they can cover ground quickly. They’re weak to sharp and bleed damage, though watch out, as they have a Push attack which will knock you backwards.

Next up are some of the more challenging zombie types — Bursters, Butchers, Crushers, Screamers and Slobbers. Bursters are bloated with volatile gas and infectious black blood that spreads the zombie virus and they’re properly DISGUSTING. You don’t want to get to close to them when they explode, BUT they also damage nearby zombies, so use that to your advantage.

Butchers are our least favorite – they feed on corpses to regrow their own bodies, so you have to finish them off quickly before they regenerate. They have terrifying blade-like hands too, and it’s likely you’ll hear them before you see them.

Crushers are swollen with autophage-reinforced muscle fibers and their overhead smash sends a seismic shockwave through the ground — jump over it to stop getting knocked to the ground — and then take advantage of the Crusher’s momentary weakness. Top tip: you can stop this powerful attack by maiming their arm.

We think the worst type of zombie you’ll meet are the Screamers. Their voltaic lungs produce a plasma-induced stream of sonic shockwaves which force you backwards and attract all zombies in the surrounding area. Projectile attacks are the only way to defeat them.

Unfortunately the best way to defeat our next zombie – Slobbers – is to get close as fast as possible to stop them puking caustic bile and then force them into melee combat. They resist blunt and projectile damage and are immune to caustic damage, but slice or shock them to cause the most damage.

Don’t get too comfortable just yet… you haven’t met the Variant zombies! This is when things start to get really spicy. Burning Runners will ignite anything flammable they come into contact with and, as you’d expect, they’re immune to fire damage, but water and chem bombs will extinguish their raging flames.

As the name might suggest, Grenadier Walkers wear a vest loaded with grenades, ready to explode the moment they receive any damage. You’re better off focusing damage on limbs or the head when in close combat to try and prevent the vest detonating. Finally, Riot Gear Walkers — to even get close to defeating them, use melee and projectile attacks — explosives are a great way to knock that armor off.

That’s it for now, as we don’t want to spoil too much ahead of launch on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S on April 21st.

There’s still time to sign up to the Dead Island 2 newsletter and get the Tricksters’ Smile Knife at DeadIsland.com. Now, where did we put that katana?

Deep Silver

Hello there, fellow Agents! It’s been a long time coming, but I’m incredibly excited to announce that Deceive Inc. – my studio’s brand new social stealth PvP extraction shooter – is out now on Xbox Series X|S!

As Deceive Inc. Agents, you’ll be dropped into exotic locales – tasked with remaining undercover, gathering intel, and competing with rival Agents to thwart each respective evil villain’s plan for world domination. Secret agent caper? Nah! Just another day at the office.

Deceive Inc. is not your typical multiplayer game. One of the shining examples of this is in how we approach map design. Each map in Deceive Inc. effectively serves as its own tiny open world. Crawling with NPCs, secret corridors, a VIP villain, and more, the maps we’ve designed at Sweet Bandits Studios are purpose-built to feel uniquely alive and full of discovery.

To prepare you for your new life as a secret agent, I threw together this summary of all four maps available at launch. Just don’t tell IRIS, they may get mad at me. 

In the regal home of information broker-turned-supervillain, Sebastian Garcia, Agents must infiltrate an auction to steal the Bull’s Eye: an art piece containing a hard drive full of secret government data.

In operation Hard Sell, you’ll find yourself navigating Garcia’s Super-Villa as attendees and party-goers await a high-profile auction. As a tried-and-true super villain, Sebastian Garcia has retrofitted his mansion with loads of corridors and secret passageways to discover.

As two disruptors in the world of high-fashion bulletproof fabric, the Evensen Twins know how to show up in style. Which is why they’ve booked the luxurious Frozen Coral Hotel for the unveiling of a brand new prototype. Fashion is serious business. Especially for Deceive Inc.! Which is why the Agents have been tasked with preventing this prototype from hitting the market.

A shining example of the extravagance and excess of high fashion, Silver Reef is a hotel resort designed to be pure spectacle, but it also serves another purpose. This map is the only one to feature two VIP characters, the Evensen twins. Having two VIP characters to disguise yourself as makes it twice as hard for players to sus out who could be a player, and who is the NPC. Use this tactic to your advantage.

Jati bin Teh is a force to be reckoned with. As a business mogul, actor, musician, and athlete; his sphere of influence has inflated to an incredibly dangerous level. His Aspire by Jati Tower contains a R&D Laboratory where they have reportedly synthesized a highly addictive secret ingredient for the entrepreneur’s new sports drink. Jati has become big enough. It’s up to Deceive Inc. to balance the market.

Diamond Spire is the Deceive Inc. map with the most verticality. How you approach exploring the map’s many levels will determine your success during the insertion phase. Choose your gadgets wisely, and you may find that the increase in mobility will help you sweep through this skyscraper quicker than your rival agents.

For this mission, Deceive Inc. is sending you to San Flores – a gorgeous tropical port city in the Caribbean. Intel suggests that this quaint island getaway is also where fragrance maven Luana is synthesizing her new eau de parfum. Not only will it make you smell amazing, it will also give her complete control over your mind. If you don’t mind, follow the scent, and extract this toxin, agents. We’re counting on you.

Fragrant Shore takes place primarily outdoors. There are tons of alleyways to take cover in if you find yourself overwhelmed in a firefight. Once it comes time to infiltrate the vault, you’ll find that there are less places to hide, and you may come across a bottleneck that brings you face to face with your rival agents. Make sure you explore all of your options for entering the vault, as the most obvious option may not be the best one.

Stay up to date on Deceive Inc. by following @PlayDeceiveInc on Twitter and Instagram, and also make sure to join the top-tier agents over on our Discord! Most importantly, play Decieve, Inc. on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One today!

Happy extracting, agents!

Tripwire Interactive LLC

I’m a big fan of airplanes. Large ones, small ones, medium sized… Each one is extraordinary in their own way when you take a step back and consider how incredible it is that these manmade machines can conquer the sky. There have been thousands of unique aircraft designs that have taken flight; the SR-71 “Blackbird” for its otherworldly look, the P-38 “Lightning” with its unique H-shaped design, and the iconic B-17 “Flying Fortress” which lives up to its namesake as a literal fortification in the sky, are some personal favorites. But none have been quite as impressive as the Antonov An-225, affectionately known as “Mriya.”

Designated as the An-225, since it could carry up to a colossal 225 tons of cargo, the Mriya (which translates to “dream” in Ukrainian) was the largest and heaviest aircraft in the world. Originally created to transport the Buran-class orbiters in the 1980s before being retrofitted to carry oversized payloads, it housed six turbofan engines across its immense wingspan, two large vertical stabilizers, and a 32-wheel landing gear assembly — there was truly nothing like it.

Needless to say, it was upsetting when news broke in early 2022 that the only existing Mriya was destroyed during the Battle of Antonov Airport, at the outset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

So, when I first heard the news the team behind Microsoft Flight Simulator was moving forward with an ambitious goal of not only recreating the aircraft for everyone to enjoy in their world-class flight simulator, but equally determined to bring the real Mriya back to life, I had to learn more. I managed to catch up with Head of Microsoft Flight Simulator Jorg Neumann, shortly after the announcement of the aircraft’s launch in Microsoft Flight Simulator, to discover more about this amazing project.

“There was an outcry in the flight sim community that day [February 27, 2022] and all of us were really affected by the news,” Jorg recounts upon first hearing of Mriya’s destruction. “In our team meeting, there was an outpouring of sadness and shock. Personally, it struck me deeply as the Mriya had also been a symbol of mankind’s ingenuity… it was in that meeting that I quite emotionally said we need to preserve the memory of this great aircraft in our sim.”

“Personally, it struck me deeply as the Mriya had also been a symbol of mankind’s ingenuity.”

After the meeting, Jorg contacted Chief Pilot for Antonov Airlines Dmytro Antonov via LinkedIn and reached out to their Microsoft office in Ukraine. At that time, no one in Ukraine was able to talk to about digital preservation of the An-225, but one key contact, Alexander Matsko, embraced the idea of bringing Mriya into Microsoft Flight Simulator.

“It was delightful news for us, considering the high professional level of the Microsoft team and their high international reputation,” described Deputy General Director for Ukraine’s Antonov Airlines Viktor Avdieiev, upon hearing the news that Microsoft was trying to bring the An-225 back in a flight simulator. “This aircraft occupied a special place in global aviation history; no such other plane exists… Thanks to this product, many people get to know this powerful bird and will love it as we do.”

“We kept in touch over the tumultuous months,” Jorg described. “[Matsko] later introduced us to Antonov Company and really was instrumental in making this happen. On our side, I contacted Ubaid, the head of iniBuilds, a close partner of ours that had just completed an excellent rendition of the Airbus A310-300. He and his team of experts were equally enthusiastic, and work began shortly thereafter.”

It was that team of 17 at iniBuilds that brought the An-225 to life in Microsoft Flight Simulator. You can really get a sense of the passion they poured into the finished product because it’s such an extremely hyper-detailed recreation of the Antonov An-225, and players can now experience it on both Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC.

“This aircraft occupied a special place in global aviation history; no such other plane exists.”

“They [iniBuilds] did lots of online research initially, and collected open questions in a detailed list that was then sent to Antonov,” Jorg told me. “Antonov filled in all the blanks, which is why we were able to reach such a high degree of authenticity.”

“The specialists had the opportunity to visit Mr. Antonov and several other Antonov Company engineers in Leipzig, where they flew the digital plane together,” Avdieiev describes. “Antonov Company provided the original recordings of the An-225, and An-124’s engines were recorded to make digital Mriya sound realistic.”

iniBuilds had the full support of the Antonov Company and Mr. Dmitry Antonov, the Chief pilot of the An-225. Mr. Antonov also made a video series with lots of incredible detail that helped Jorg and his team to initially get going on the digital re-creation. Other details were filled in when the team met him and other Antonov pilots for a test session in Leipzig.

“It was truly an enlightening experience talking to the pilots who flew the Antonov An-225,” Jorg said. “The most unique point we learned was understanding the handling characteristics of such a unique large aircraft! Their feedback allowed us to make the aircraft fly as close to reality in Microsoft Flight Simulator.”

The pilots of Antonov gave the team real insight into the various areas of the plane and the uses they had. For example, they advised that being such a unique aircraft, the Antonov An-225 carried its own towbar to maneuver safely out of any airport it flew to around the world. One was specially modelled just like it for the simulator and can be seen in the cargo bay of the version found in Microsoft Flight Simulator.

“What if they could bring Mriya… back to life?”

But the team at Microsoft Flight Simulator were not merely satisfied with a digital recreation of the aircraft. What if they could bring Mriya… back to life? That’s when discussions with the Antonov Company went deeper on how they could find a way to help contribute to the rebuilding of this aircraft.

“We decided to give 100% of the gross receipts from the sale of the digital An-225 for one year after launch directly to Antonov Company so the money could be used to rebuild the An-225.” Jorg said. “If Antonov determines that rebuilding isn’t feasible, then the funds can alternatively be used to create a memorial to the plane.”

Proceeds from the in-game DLC will go toward rebuilding the An-225 and currently this is the only method through which the sim and gaming community can contribute to this effort. Still, it’s a lofty goal and if it doesn’t come to fruition, there are plans to find other ways to honor the aircraft’s legacy.

“We did not set a minimum donation but instead opted to give Antonov all the money we receive. We feel strongly that we want to help restore a national treasure to its former glory and highlight the resilience of Ukraine. So far, we’re thrilled with the reaction from the simmer community.”

“We feel strongly that we want to help restore a national treasure to its former glory and highlight the resilience of Ukraine.”

Asking Jorg what he hopes simmers take away from the experience of piloting this incredibly unique aircraft in Microsoft Flight Simulator, Jorg was insightful in his response.

“The Mriya is not just the world’s heaviest plane that broke, and still holds, a large amount of aviation records. Like much of [the aviation community], to me, it stands as a monument for what we as humans can achieve. The dream of flight goes back a very long time, and it was realized over centuries by brilliant minds around the world. The Mriya was, and is, a significant milestone in that aviation history and in the history of human ingenuity. I hope simmers will appreciate the engineering marvel of this aircraft and dream that the Mriya will one day fly in our skies again.”

Crash Bandicoot crashed The Game Awards 2022 a few months ago literally by rappelling in from the rafters to reveal Crash Team Rumble, the next title starring everyone’s favorite marsupial. Details since then have been scarce, but that all changes today, with Toys For Bob revealing gameplay details, key upcoming dates, pre-order availability, and more!

Crash Team Rumble is a 4v4 team-based competition starring iconic heroes and villains from the Crash Bandicoot universe. Your goal is simple: collect more Wumpa fruit than your opponents. Working together with your team, you will dash, jump, slide, and bounce across a variety of locations to pick up and bank the most Wumpa fruit, capture key gems to boost your score, and block the opposing team from scoring.

The complete player roster is still a secret, but we do know that Crash Bandicoot, Coco, Tawna, Neo Cortex, and Dingodile will be in the starting lineup and available to try during a closed beta this April. Additionally, Lou Studdert, Associate Creative Director at Toys For Bob, shared with us that, “You can play as a hero or a villain, and you can have a mixture of as many heroes and villains as you want on your 4-person team. For example, you can have a team with three teammates playing Neo Cortex and one as Crash Bandicoot.”

Teamwork is essential to winning, and teams that select a balance of characters and work together will have the advantage. Each of the available heroes is exceptional at either being a Scorer (collect Wumpa and add it to your team’s Wumpa Bank), Blocker (defend your team’s Wumpa Bank and disrupt the other team from scoring), or Booster (capture gems to increase your team’s Wumpa score and activate Relic Stations to give your team an advantage).

In addition to these three roles, each character will also have their own stats including health, Wumpa carrying capacity, combat, and mobility. They will also have unique abilities and a special power that is available once your power meter is filled. If previous Crash Bandicoot games are any indication, you can expect to see plenty of slides, spins, slams, and more!

While developing each character, Toys For Bob wanted to strike a balance between competitive gameplay and the fun factor. Studdert explains, “We are constantly playing through the game, over and over again, testing out new ideas, finding the right balance and set-up. We always want to make sure that the end result is a game that is fun to play, with no character being better or stronger than another. We want the player to be able to select a character and have fun utilizing their selected character’s abilities in strategic ways to contribute to the team as a whole.”

He went on to say, “Part of the development process is coming up with new ideas and new abilities that complement the whole roster. Heroes have abilities that can help their teammates, however we elected to keep it broad and were careful to keep team composition flexible as possible for gamers.”

Another detail revealed by Toys For Bob addresses a multiplayer element important for this genre and style of team-based online game. “Crash Team Rumble is a competitive, strategic, multiplayer, platforming game that players can enjoy cross-platform. There will be public and private matches, so players can jump into a game with their friends or choose to find a game in the public lobby.”

Whether you’re new to the world of Crash Bandicoot or a longtime fan of the franchise, Studdert says the team is working on creating a game that appeals to everyone, regardless of their experience with previous Crash games. “When building the game, we wanted to first make sure it is approachable, so any player can jump in. We are acting as a welcoming point to players new to the franchise. And for Crash fans, we add additional layers to the game that feature deeper strategy for them to enjoy.”

Crash Team Rumble is set to release for Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S on June 20, 2023, with pre-orders beginning today. Pre-ordering includes access to the closed beta, currently scheduled for April 20 to 24.

For more information about Crash Team Rumble, check out the official Crash Bandicoot site, and be sure to follow Crash Bandicoot on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok.

Activision Publishing Inc.

Activision Publishing Inc.

GDC 2013 was tough for independent developers and Xbox. It was clear that the way we were working with indie devs – which had seemed so progressive and groundbreaking just five years earlier when 2008’s “Summer of Arcade” launched indie games into the gaming mainstream with titles like Castle Crashers, Braid, and Geometry War: Retro Evolved 2 – was just not working. The indie dev scene was growing faster than anything we’d ever seen, and our business processes and back-end just couldn’t keep up. And devs knew it, and they were not happy. 

As we looked ahead to the future, it was clear that indie games and independent developers were crucial to our strategy of providing Xbox players with the broadest variety of content to play. So at GDC 2013, we took it on the chin when devs took swipes at XBLA and Xbox, and we got down to the hard work of listening, suggesting ideas, taking feedback and listening some more. Things had to change. 

Over the summer of ’13 we worked hard to develop a new program at Xbox, one that would address the needs of devs in 2013, as well as be able to grow to address the continually changing and growing needs of the indie dev community. The program (after three name changes in the week before we announced it at Gamescom 2013!) was ID@Xbox, and we’re celebrating our ten-year anniversary this year. 

I don’t ever like to declare success, especially when I see how much more we have to do, but ten years on, I think we’ve done a pretty good job so far with ID@Xbox. 

We’ve enabled more than 3,000 games to ship on Xbox from independent developers (more than the total number of games that released on the original Xbox and Xbox 360 combined), onboarded more than 5,000 developers into the program, and paid developers more than four billion dollars. Let’s talk more about Game Pass in a sec, but first – wow! Four billion dollars is really a lot of money! It’s such a testament not only to the power of videogames as an entertainment medium, but the power of independent development, our fans and players, and proof that when you listen and work to empower developers, good things happen. 

Our first goal in the program has always been to make shipping games on Xbox as straightforward and easy as possible, whether that’s technically getting a build working on Xbox, working through the backend store provisioning work, or signing a contract. We still work on this goal every day.  But we are also keen to listen to other needs our devs have, and to respond – that’s how we introduced self-publishing in the first place!  

Over the years, several programs have started at Xbox in direct response to independent developers’ feedback, from our early access program, Xbox Game Preview, to cross-platform play with friends on PC and other manufacturers’ consoles, as well as cross-progression, so players’ progress in a game elsewhere can carry over to Xbox. That last one took a minute to happen, and we thank all the devs who worked closely with us to make it happen in a way that was robust and safe for our player community. Ironically, we’ve even enabled retail disc publishing for developers in ID@Xbox, Xbox’s digital self-publishing program. This retail program is still in the pilot phase with a limited number of partners, but developers can make physical versions of their games with only a low “minimum order quantity” of physical units from Xbox. We look forward to rolling this out to more broad participation in the near future (devs, please watch for our April newsletter for more info here). 

We’ve also been excited to help developers participate in programs such as Game Pass, which help them find audiences as much as they help players find their new favorite games. One thing that’s become clear as the ID@Xbox program has grown, especially over the last few years as the pandemic curtailed travel, is that it’s become hard for us to know every developer in the program, and that can make it a challenge for devs to share their concepts with us. When we hear a dev say, “I don’t know who to talk to at Xbox,” we wince, because while we want to be as accessible as possible, clearly this is a place where we can be doing better. This GDC, we’ve booked more than 200 meetings, but there are still dozens and dozens of partners we’d love to meet with that we haven’t been able to find time to schedule, to say nothing of the amazing, serendipitous encounters that make events like GDC so magical. 

Meeting partners new and old and looking at games is one of the most amazing parts of getting to work on a program like ID@Xbox, and we’re never going to slow that down. But to ensure all developers get equal access to decision makers at Xbox, and to provide faster feedback to developers on concepts submitted – especially for Game Pass deal evaluations – we’re going to be launching a new process  that provides a template that has all the info developers need to submit a concept for deal consideration, and that will be looked at by the key decision makers from our Game Pass, business development, ID@Xbox and Portfolio teams.  

This will help ensure that whether a developer knows someone at Xbox personally or not, they can get their game into deal consideration quickly. And that will help us ensure we continue to bring the widest variety of games to our players on Xbox and in Game Pass – as well as meeting lots of new developers! Of course, this process will require a mutual NDA to ensure folks’ IP rights are protected. We’ll have more details to share in the April ID@Xbox newsletter. If you’re not a member, now is a great time to join at xbox.com/id! 

Ten years on from the dawn of ID@Xbox, one thing is crystal clear – games from independent developers are foundational to the Xbox offering, and this GDC we’re excited to talk about our efforts to ensure that players get to experience games and stories from the broadest number of Creators too, with the ID@Xbox Developer Acceleration Program. We’re also excited to meet with developers in person, keep listening and keep planning how we can improve our offerings for independent developers on Xbox, whether that’s through discovery improvements, promotional amplification, sharing more data to help developers maximize their success on our store, or ways we haven’t even considered yet. We hope everyone has a great show – there’s so much more for us to do and we can’t wait to get started! 

Welcome back to my favorite surprise, what games are you playing next? If you missed it, we announced an additional game that you’ll want to get into your download queue (Looking at you Ghostwire: Tokyo). For now, let’s get to the games!

Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom – The Prince’s Edition (Cloud, Console and PC)
Once upon a time, there was a world torn by endless war. But then came a great king who would change this world forever. Join the young king Evan to found a new kingdom in the Prince’s Edition, which includes all DLCs.

MLB The Show 23 (Cloud and Console) – March 28
Available on day one with Game Pass: MLB The Show 23 gets you closer than ever to living your baseball dreams on the diamond. Shock the game and own the show with your favorite players, your favorite rivalries, and all your favorite MLB moments. Want to hit the field early? Game Pass members can get four days early access on March 24 including additional in-game items with the purchase of the Early Access Bundle. Read more about the new updates and features coming to MLB The Show 23 here.

Infinite Guitars (Cloud, Console, and PC) – March 30
Available on day one with Game Pass: The metal war machines have reawakened—and only your electric guitar can turn their technology against them! Gather up your party, tune up your favorite axe, and get ready to rock in Infinite Guitars, a rhythm RPG featuring vibrant anime-inspired art, adrenaline-fueled Mech battles, and a blazing original soundtrack.

Ghostwire: Tokyo Coming to Xbox Game Pass April 12
Explore a modern metropolis amidst a massive paranormal event in Ghostwire: Tokyo, coming to Game Pass on Xbox Series X|S and PC April 12! Join a ghostly ally to confront spirits, myth and folklore come to life in this supernatural action-adventure from Tango Gameworks, complete with the new Spider’s Thread update. Learn more here.

Cities: Skylines – Hubs & Transport – March 22
Cities: Skylines World Tour – The Last Stops begin on March 22 with new Content Creator Packs including Shopping Malls, Africa in Miniature and Sports Venues, along with radio stations – 80’s Movies Tunes, Pop Punk Radio & JADIA Radio.

The Elder Scrolls Online: Scribes of Fate DLC – March 28
Xbox Game Pass members can save up to 10% on Crowns in the Xbox Store! Discover two new four-player dungeons and begin your Shadow Over Morrowind saga in The Elder Scrolls Online: Scribes of Fate. Investigate a Telvanni anomaly in Bal Sunnar and battle for the soul of a Daedric cult in Scrivener’s Hall – available March 28 on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S! Learn more about the Scribes of Fate DLC here.

Forza Horizon 5: Rally Adventure – March 29
Your Forza Horizon 5 Rally Adventure is coming on March 29! Drive purpose-built rally monsters and conquer the rugged Sierra Nueva. Attack Horizon’s most thrilling routes in Timed Rally and Multi-Car Races. Feel the intensity of massive dust trails and deformable roads in 10 new cars. Game Pass members can save 10% on the Premium Add-Ons Bundle and get immediate access on March 29.

3-Month Free Trial of Apple TV+ – Available until March 31
Ted Lasso is back! The Emmy-winning smash series returns for a third season with more optimism, determination…and biscuits. Claim your Perk for 3 months free of Apple TV+ and stream now. Hurry up though! You have until March 31 to score this great offer.

The following games are leaving the Game Pass library soon. It might be worth clearing your gaming schedule this weekend to jump back into these games, but you can always use your membership discount to save up to 20% on your purchase before they go!

As always, we’ll have more news, more perks, and more games for you here and on @XboxGamePass and @XboxGamePassPC on Twitter. Talk to you here soon!

GDC 2023 is here, and this year we’ve got a special treat for everyone! Starting today and running until March 27, 2023, a dozen demos are available to play as part of the ID@Xbox GDC Online Demo Event. We encourage you to continue to check them out all week before they disappear. Oh yeah, and don’t forget you can provide feedback to the developers, too!

All the demos are available Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S and show how varied the ID@Xbox line-up is – from a multiplayer horror FPS to a live action mystery, there’s something for everyone included. Keep in mind that most of these demos are an early look at gameplay and may not represent the full game at their release, including the availability in each country as developers continue to update and refine their title ahead of launch.

If you’re searching for the games on console, visit the Microsoft Store on Xbox, select the Search button, type “Demo,” press Enter, then select Demos to find these games. Alternatively, you can click on any of their title links below in the post to be taken to their respective game pages.

If you are checking out GDC in-person, you can find these demos at the ID@Xbox Sponsored Kiosk in the IGF Pavilion (Booth: N2431) at the Moscone North Hall. The IGF Pavilion is open Wednesday, March 22 through Friday, March 24.

Below is the diverse list of games that will be available to try!

ArcRunner (TrickJump Games) – Will Not Be Playable During This Event

Reset an AI gone rogue as you traverse the space station, The Arc, in this beautiful Cyberpunk-styled action-roguelite set in the far future! Start each run as an augmented, cloned human and save The Arc from destruction!

Backbeat (Ichigoichie)

A truly creative strategic puzzle game. Manipulate four threads of time to guide your band through perilous predicaments. Manage squad resources to maximize your score. Experience a homage to 1990s ensemble dramedies. Customize your music with audio effect pedals and playing styles.

BattleCakes (Volcano Bean)

Indulge in a delicious adventure as you choose to battle or befriend your enemies to save the day your way! Personalize your cupcake hero and meet charming friends along the way. Leave the world better off than you found it in this turn-based RPG.

Booom-Slang! (Skermunkel)

The villainous Conductor Chaos challenges you to become the next star player of Booom-Slang! You will need to master a myriad of single-player and multiplayer modes to make it to the top. Mashing together stylized low-poly art with zany FMV sequences, get ready for top-down, twin-stick shooting, catastrophic chimera madness!

Boxville (Triomatica Games)

Boxville is an adventure puzzle game about speechless cans living in the city of boxes and drawing doodles on cardboard to tell their stories. Boxville is good for either playing alone, allowing you to dive into the atmosphere and challenge your brain with sophisticated logic puzzles and riddles, or playing with a friend or family member to share unique audio-visual experiences and solve the puzzles together.

Evil Wizard (Rubber Duck)

Evil Wizard is a humor-filled action RPG that puts you in the shoes of a former Final Boss. Rise from defeat, rediscover long lost powers, and fight to reclaim your castle from an army of so-called heroes. Evil Wizard has also won the GDC Best in Play 2023 accolade.

Fall of Porcupine (BUNTSPECHT.GAM)

New jobs can be tense – especially when you’re about to become a doctor! Join Finley on an original narrative adventure as you take your first steps in a new and exciting world. Together, experience the last days of summer before a change of seasons stirs up the sleepy town of Porcupine.

Fractal Space (Haze Games)

Live the memorable experience of a first-person, story-driven adventure and puzzle game. Avoid traps, use your jetpack and taser gun to think your way through zero gravity puzzles in a mysterious space station. In the end, what are you really trying to escape?

Sker Ritual (Wales Interactive)

The round-based co-op survival FPS and spin-off to the award-winning British horror game, Maid of Sker. Play solo or with up to four players to survive the supernatural onslaught of the Quiet Ones. Face hordes of new and familiar enemies, supercharged elites with unique supernatural powers, upgradeable steam-punk weapons, interchangeable spine-chilling masks, and mysterious story objectives.

Soulvars (Ginolabo)

Burn your soul! Soulvars is a pixel art turn-based deckbuilding RPG where your party of Soulbearers face off against invading Dominators in dynamic high-speed battles.

The Isle Tide Hotel (Interflix Media/Wales Interactive)

An absent father must rescue his teenage daughter from an eclectic cult before their final night at the Isle Tide Hotel. Players investigate the strange events that unfold to save Eleanor Malone in this live-action interactive mystery game, where every decision affects the story.

The Library of Babel (Tanuki Studio)

Join Ludovik in a 2D Stealth Platformer and Graphic Adventure set 20,000 years after the extinction of humanity, as he explores the jungles of a futuristic Babylon to discover the secret behind the Library of Babel’s sudden lockdown and the mysteries behind their mythical creators.

Head over to your console and start enjoying these super rad game demos on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S! And yes, we’d love to hear what you think. Connect with us on Twitter, Instagram, Discord, Twitch, and YouTube. And make sure to stay tuned to Xbox Wire to read more about ID@Xbox games throughout the year. learn more about what Team Xbox has planned during GDC.

Editor’s Note (March 21): ArcRunner will no longer be playable during this Demo Event.

The sequel to 2014 action RPG Lords of the Fallen has officially dropped both the "the" in front of its name and the original developer's proprietary engine.

Lords of the Fallen (the new one), will run on Unreal Engine 5, allowing the game to maximize its hyper-gothic fantasy vibes.

In a technical showcase trailer, developer Hexworks describes how the team made tweaks to the existing Unreal Engine 5 tech to dress up the new game.

For example, the developer used 3D scans of people to enhance the engine's character customization systems. You can see the player character's body type gradually change based on where the cursor moves within a triangle of options. "Players can create unique faces and bodies by dynamically morphing between a huge range of shapes before finessing the finer details," the developer said.

Unreal Engine's Chaos Physics feature makes all your gear move realistically in combat. An extremely Bloodborne-looking character swings a flail and you can see every part of their armor and cape sway in the direction of their attack and then naturally settle over time. It's a tiny detail, but one that will likely help the game feel grounded as you take on its soulslike melee battles.

The following wide shot of a cathedral using Unreal's Lumen GI lighting system is extremely pretty, maybe even too pretty for a game where you'll probably be in constant peril. It looks like someone recreated a Diablo level in Unreal, except in Lords of the Fallen, you get to walk up the stone steps in third-person.

Hexworks is able to place orbs of light around to highlight spots of the room without putting as much of a strain on the game's performance as full, simulated lighting would.

In Lord of the Fallen, you'll routinely swap between the land of the living and the land of the dead. Both worlds will resemble each other, but have distinct features. Using a custom toolset, Hexworks is able to create both worlds next to each other so that they feel connected in the game. "This means our artists and designers can ensure these worlds feel intrinsically linked, like two sides of the same coin," the developer said.

The first Lords of the Fallen might not have been a memorable soulslike, but its sequel definitely has the technical power to expand its dark fantasy scope. I loved Elden Ring's open world, but I still yearn for more soulslikes that can work within the tight rooms and corridors of castles and dungeons.

Lords of the Fallen is set to launch sometime this year.

"We have a tech driven solution with a turn-key that's optimized for the cloud," says my boss. Meanwhile, the whole office has embraced 32-step verification and one of my coworkers has a spreadsheet to organize their bar graphs about pie charts, or possibly their pie charts about bar graphs. It's a distressingly relatable exaggeration of office life, apart from one thing: my boss and coworkers are all elongated wooly creatures called llamaworms, and so am I.

At first, Mr. Saitou is about an ordinary human salaryman whose lonely life of endless work, train trips, and ramen for one takes a turn that leaves him in the hospital. And then his life takes another turn, one that sees him enter a dream-like alternate reality envisioned by a boy in the same hospital, a place where he's an office-working llamaworm on a quest for metrics. It gets stranger yet when he finds himself on another quest, this time to find a cave of frozen gemstones in an underground realm of talking plants and dopey-looking birds.

If any of this looks or sounds familiar, you may be recognizing the whimsical style as well as the setting shared by Rakuen, an indie adventure from 2017 in which a hospitalized boy and his mother go on Wizard of Oz-style journeys through a delightful fantasy land that parallels their more tragic reality. Mr. Saitou is a spin-off rather than a sequel, so you don't need to have played Rakuen to enjoy it, though now is the ideal time to do so because Rakuen's getting a deluxe edition on March 23, the same day Mr. Saitou will be released.

Mr. Saitou is a shorter game than Rakuen, one I finished in just over two hours. It's the same kind of adventure though, with appealing characters and uncomplicated puzzles. The only time I got stuck was when I got myself in a seemingly unwinnable position while pushing giant golf balls into place, but fortunately there was a perfectly placed autosave at the beginning of the puzzle.

The underground section has you solve basic math, slide objects around Sokoban-style, and hop across pads, but also features a giant bird that demands napkins to eat and a nightclub where a band with the wonderful name No Holds Bard plays. It put me in mind of the D&D module White Plume Mountain, which feels like an abandoned amusement park thanks to its greased floors, hanging platforms, and riddle sphinx. Mr. Saitou contains a similar variety of unusual underground oddities, more fairground than dungeon.

It's also got a banging soundtrack. Creator Laura Shigihara is a composer whose tunes you may know from Plants vs. Zombies, Deltarune, To the Moon, and that one CS:GO Tacticians Music Kit, and has filled Mr. Saitou with tunefulness. There's a musical number when you make it into the nightclub, Toby Fox contributes a hectic theme for an annoying coworker, somber piano chords play as you dodge ghosts, and urgent drums kick in when you're trying not to drop something heavy. Almost every room seems to have new music, giving it a richness that makes backtracking pleasant.

It has other things in common with Rakuen too. Like a Miyazaki-movie love of food, from the glorious ramen Mr. Saitou slumps next to at an izakaya to the strange confectionery available at a convenience store run by fungus. And the RPG Maker interface that you'll need to hit F11 to force into fullscreen. And a soulful bittersweetness that means it's likely to, cliché as it sounds, make you laugh and make you cry. At least a little bit. It's not the full emotional rollercoaster of Rakuen—it's more of a bite-sized experience, a quick ghost train through a bouncy castle where you can whip to the last stop in a single sitting if you want.

Mr. Saitou will be available on Steam from March 23, as will Rakuen Deluxe Edition. 

Dwarf Fortress is a huge success story on Steam. It sold nearly 500,000 copies less than a month after it debuted on the storefront—which, for the record, happened more than 16 years after its initial standalone release—earning its two-man development team more than $7.2 million in revenue. And it's still shifting units: Dwarf Fortress co-creator Tarn Adams told us during a GDC chat that the total figure has now climbed to roughly 630,000 copies sold on Steam.

Adams noted that the figure doesn't include refunds, which bring the actual sales figure down somewhat. "There is some percentage of refunds and so it's probably hovering around 600,000," he continued. "And wish lists are double that… and they're going up."

It's worth noting that Dwarf Fortress put up those numbers without any major price cuts: It's 10% off in the Steam Spring Sale, and had the same discount over the final week of February, and has otherwise been at its not-inconsiderable regular price of $30/£25/€30. And even though sales have predictably slowed since launch, Adams expects that it's going to continue selling long into the future.

"It's one of those things where it feels like the tail is just gonna go on forever and ever," he said. "And that's kind of been our experience with the game the whole time."

Adams acknowledged that the runaway success of Dwarf Fortress, and the wealth and fame it's brought to him and his brother Zach, has been "strange."

"Growing up when computer games were more severe, I never in my life imagined [being] a game developer or being a semi-celebrity or whatever," Zach Adams said. "But that seems to have happened."

"It's strange, yeah," Tarn added. "Going on the Seattle ferry and just being, you know, someone walk up and be like, 'Hey, are you the guys that made Dwarf Fortress' or whatever. And like, yeah."

They seem to be adjusting pretty well so far. After 20 years of working on their own, the brothers hired a second programmer in December 2022, and Tarn is now shopping for a 'very special guitar.'

The Dwarf Fortress sale on Steam ends on March 23.

Epic Games announced at today's State of Unreal conference at GDC that it will give 40% of the total net revenues earned from Fortnite's Item Shop and "related real-money purchases" to eligible Fortnite content creators in what it calls "Creator Economy 2.0." The new system will exist alongside the Support-A-Creator program, which is "returning to its roots as an affiliate marketing program for streamers and social media content creators."

"The money in the economy comes from player spending in the item shop. Fortnite generates billions of dollars a year in revenues from players' purchases," Fortnite Ecosystem executive vice president Saxs Persson said during today's State of Unreal conference. "Fortnite players who have fun engaging in islands tend to spend more in the Item Shop. Creators who make popular islands are bringing real value to the Fortnite ecosystem, and we're going to share the resulting revenue with them."

A detailed breakdown of the system is available on the Fortnite Creator Portal, but the crash course version is that 40% of total net revenues earned from Fortnite's Item Shop and "related real-money purchases" will be put into an "engagement pool," which will be disbursed monthly to eligible content creators. That includes "legal entities like companies" and island creators who are at least 18 years of age, although Epic is looking to open the program to younger island creators as well.

The actual revenues shared each month will vary, depending on a number of factors:

The existing Support-A-Creator program, which debuted in 2018 as a way for fans to support their favorite creators, will continue to exist as an affiliate program for streamers and social media content creators. But it's being removed from Fortnite islands because, according to Epic, it's no longer really necessary: "Players can now show support for their favorite creators’ islands simply by playing them."

This new system is "transformative" for Fortnite island creators, but Epic believes there will be spin-off benefits for players too. 

"The benefit of this new approach is rooted in fun, and rewards everyone's creative work, both yours and Epic's," Persson said. "There's no need to design cunning monetization loops or extractive gating items. You make an island the players love—that is all you need to be part of the new economy."

Creator Economy 2.0 is live now. To learn more about what's involved or sign up for a piece of the action, head over to the Island Creator Program page.

The Zskera Vault is a new area found in The Forbidden Reach, now that the World of Warcraft: Dragonflight 10.0.7 patch has arrived. Up until now, the Dracthyr starter zone has only been available to, well, Dracthyr, but the latest update opens the zone for every other class to explore.

New activities have been added too, like world quests and a new quest hub. In addition to that though, the Zskera Vault is an underground area with treasure to find and many cosmetics to obtain, as well as the new socketable ring, the Onyx Annulet. If you're ready to discover more about this mysterious new area, here's what I've discovered about the WoW Zskera Vault in Dragonflight.

As soon as you arrive in The Forbidden Reach, head to Morqut Village and pick up the quest, Helping Hand and Claw—it's a simple quest with the objective marked on your map nearby. Once you're done, hand it in and pick up the Exploring Our Past quest which will take you to the entrance of the Zskera Vaults. Again, this quest objective is marked on your map so make your way there to hand it in.

You're now offered the Zskera Vault: Az quest. Talk to the NPC again to be teleported into the vault itself. Head down the stairs, defeat the enemy in the room at the bottom, then look for the object on the floor with a quest marker. This is the quest to pick up the Onyx Annulet ring back at Morqut Village. 

You'll get six Zskera Vault Keys from the quest The Keys You Need when you first enter the vault and you can have the chance to get more through a variety of Forbidden Reach activities. These include: 

Each key unlocks one of the doors in the vault, and there are several floors to work through. The doors will reset weekly, so you'll need 30 Zskera Vault Keys to unlock all the doors each week. 

Behind each locked door you'll find a variety of chests, gold piles, or boxes waiting to be looted. There's also the chance that you'll release an enemy too, so be ready to fight whenever you use a key. Many of the rooms you encounter will just require you to grab the goodies and get going, but a few might leave you scratching your head on how to get your hands on the rewards. The secret to these is looking for items in other rooms to "solve" them.

Arcane Watcher

For rooms that contain an Arcane Watcher, it will deal damage whenever you enter its ring of detection, so you'll need to find an item from another room before proceeding. The item you're looking for is an Arcane Crystal. Interacting with this blue floating crystal will give you the Reflective Arcane Ward buff that lets you ignore the damage from the Arcane Watcher. 

Fire

If you find a room full of flames, the damage can be nullified by finding and interacting with a Fire Crystal. Much like the Arcane Watcher, this crystal will give you a temporary buff—this time, the Protective Ward of Flames buff—allowing you to walk into the fire unharmed.

Frost

You might also encounter a room filled with frost, and like the fire room, you'll start taking damage the moment you enter. This time, you'll need to look for an Empty Obsidian Vial, then look for a room with a cauldron so you can fill it to create a Vial of Flames. Using this in the frost room will let you thaw the ice so you can enter.

Aside from the Onyx Annulet, the rewards from the Zskera Vault are purely cosmetic. Chests and containers will have the chance to reward items such as Primordial Stones, which can be socketed into the Onyx Annulet, but more commonly will reward junk items that can be sold for gold. Certain chests will also occasionally give you a mount, pet, or toy. 

Here are the Zskera Vault rewards:

It's that time again, folks. The Future Games Show is back, this time with its 2023 Spring Showcase, hosted by none other than Briana White and Cody Christian: Aerith and Cloud from Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

Clocking in at 85 minutes and showing off 45 games, the Future Games Show Spring Showcase will kick off tomorrow, March 23, at 3 pm PDT / 6 pm EDT / 10 pm GMT / 11 pm CET. You can watch it, well, pretty much anywhere that's capable of displaying video. That means Twitch, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, GamesRadar, and (for the first time) TikTok. Remember to set a reminder on YouTube so you can catch it right from the start.

45 games is a heck of a lot, and many of them are set to be a surprise. But to give you a brief taste of what to expect, you can look forward to showings from upcoming Painkiller-esque FPS Witchfire, Creative Assembly's new zero-G extraction shooter Hyenas, and some updates on Telltale's upcoming game based on The Expanse.

Beyond that, we'll also hear about what's next for Dying Light 2. The first Dying Light had an incredibly long tail when it came to updates and DLC, so I'll be interested to see what Techland has in store for its bigger, better sequel. Hopefully expanded opportunities to stunt on the undead with sick parkour.

All that plus news and updates from—let me count—41 other games await you at tomorrow's Future Games Show Spring Showcase. Folks, you're not gonna wanna miss this one.

Valve has announced Counter-Strike 2, the newest iteration of the greatest and most popular competitive FPS in history. The developer says "Counter-Strike 2 is an overhaul to every system, every piece of content, and every part of the C-S experience."

There are a series of videos accompanying the announcement, explaining how Counter-Strike 2 will change everything. There are currently three, embedded below, addressing smokes, moving beyond tick rates, and changes to maps. 

As regards the idea of moving beyond tick rates, here's the official explanation.

"Sub-tick updates are the heart of Counter-Strike 2. Previously, the server only evaluated the world in discrete time intervals (called ticks). Thanks to Counter-Strike 2’s sub-tick update architecture, servers know the exact instant that motion starts, a shot is fired, or a ‘nade is thrown. As a result, regardless of tick rate, your moving and shooting will be equally responsive and your grenades will always land the same way."

The game is going to run a limited test, which you can read about here, and is due to fully launch in the summer.

"Counter-Strike 2 is the largest technical leap forward in Counter-Strike’s history, ensuring new features and updates for years to come," said Valve. "All of the game’s new features will be revealed when it officially launches this summer, but the road to Counter-Strike 2 begins today as a Limited Test for select CS:GO players. During this testing period, we’ll be evaluating a subset of features to shake out any issues before the worldwide release."

Amazingly enough, Counter-Strike 2 is going to be a free upgrade to CS: GO. This was always going to be huge but keeping the free-to-play model guarantees it will prove massively popular at launch and for many years to come. Even more amazingly, everything carries over:

"Bring your entire CS:GO inventory with you to Counter-Strike 2. Not only will you keep every item you’ve collected over the years, but they’ll all benefit from Source 2 lighting and materials. In addition to supporting legacy models and finishes, all stock weapons have been upgraded with high-resolution models, and some weapon finishes take advantage of these new models."

The Counter-Strike 2 limited test is ongoing now (here's the FAQ), and we'll have impressions for you quicker than you say "flash long!" For now: It's real, it's (almost) here, and it's beautiful. Here comes the past, back as the future of the competitive FPS.

Reception to Diablo 4's early access beta has been broadly positive, and I can understand why. With its darker atmosphere, visual polish and enormous world, it makes a striking first impression. But the more I got into the real meat of the game—the combat—the more I felt like Blizzard hasn't learned anything about action-RPG design in the 11 years since Diablo 3 came out. 

I started out as a Barbarian, which it appears was my first mistake. This melee-focused class, in its current state, makes every fight an uphill struggle—low damage and a limited ability to stay out of danger meant my focus was mostly on boring things like health potion management, and even basic enemies felt like a slog to wade through.

Switching over to Sorcerer, the experience was completely the opposite. Bouncing lightning spells made short work of anything that dared to get within a mile of me, and it was trivial to stay out of damage range. Spells that work as well for single target damage as crowd control ensured I never had to engage my brain.

It's a bad enough contrast that Blizzard has already said it's working on buffs and nerfs. People have said playing these two classes is like playing two completely different games, and to a large extent that's true. But my concern is, I don't think either is particularly fun, largely because of the problems that they do have in common.

After the wild superheroics of Diablo 3, it's clear Blizzard's intention here is to create something a little slower and more grounded. But it doesn't seem to have any idea how to do that without just literally taking Diablo 3's combat and making it slow. Enemies have spongier healthbars, and attacks take their time coming out. Key skills that should be your satisfying finishers are stuck on super long cooldowns that prevent you from getting into any kind of good rhythm. Even your active dodge takes 5 seconds to recharge, making your character feel sluggish and unresponsive during hectic boss fights. 

Those long cooldowns and tight constraints on what generates and what spends resources all discourage experimentation or unusual combinations.

Though the skill tree tosses some of Diablo 3's more obnoxious hand-holding, it's essentially still in the same format, offering very few real choices and combo opportunities. Skills are slotted into different categories that very strongly define their role, pushing you to take one of each in the exact configuration Blizzard wants you to. The game literally tells you: this one is for defence, this one is for repositioning, etc. Those long cooldowns and tight constraints on what generates and what spends resources all discourage experimentation or unusual combinations. 

The result is it doesn't feel like you're creating a build, it feels like you're scanning through the skills trying to find the builds Blizzard wants you to use. Playing a Barbarian with the bleed attack as your basic skill? Well then you're going to want to take all the subsequent skills that mention bleed. Your only ability to break the mould is via legendary abilities assigned to items—to Blizzard's credit, those are now earnable almost right from the start, instead of being endgame goals, but all they do is give you more set templates of what goes with what in the developer's eyes. Theorycrafters will have these classes 'solved' in weeks. 

If Blizzard's going to tell me what to build, then at the very least their guidance should lead to fun gameplay loops—but as it stands, it simply doesn't. In theory, my Barbarian's strategy was all about stacking up bleed damage, and then hitting a finisher that triggers all bleed damage at once and spreads it around to nearby foes. In practice, the finisher's lengthy cooldown means that's a loop I can only rarely pull off, and most of my time is spent just trading blows with enemies that have already got enough bleed on them to eventually die but just don't know it yet. 

My Sorcerer build has the same problem. It's supposed to be about killing enemies with lightning, generating sparking orbs, then dodging and teleporting around to pick them up and gaining a damage field that picks off the rest. But again, that mobility is limited hugely by cooldowns, and in practice I end up having to gather most of the orbs post-fight for later use—less magical power fantasy, more tidying up after myself. 

Of course I understand that this is a beta. Numbers will be tweaked, balance will be adjusted, rough edges will be sanded down. I've only been able to play the relatively early stages of the game, and it's very possible it gets faster and more exciting in the endgame—perhaps via some generous cooldown reductions on items. 

But the problem is that I don't think we've seen anything in the core design yet that suggests that Blizzard is taking any real steps forward from Diablo 3. A new Diablo game from Blizzard, especially after all this time, should be genre-defining. From what I've seen so far, Diablo 4 is a long way from that. 

What is it? The final form of a 2008 browser game about telling stories to solve puzzles.

Expect to pay: TBA (the Switch version is £12.49)

Release date: March 23, 2023

Developer: Daniel Benmergui

Publisher: Annapurna Interactive

Reviewed on: RTX 2070, i7-10750H, 16GB RAM

Multiplayer? No

Link: Official site

Storyteller serves up conundrums drawn from time-honoured narrative structures and tropes. As a teller of tall tales, you're tasked with mucking around with these story skeletons to see what sticks, letting you drop in characters and concepts until you've crafted a story that fits the title of each puzzle. 

In Storyteller's comic-strip world, any tale can be told in three to six panels, eight at a stretch, and it's your job to figure out how. Perhaps the title is Eve Dies Heartbroken, for example, and you're handed two scene types to play with, a wedding and a graveyard, and two characters, Adam and Eve. Place the wedding scene, then drop Adam and Eve into it, and they fall in love. Place the graveyard on the next panel and Adam on the tombstone, and he's dead. Place Eve next to the grave and, yep, she's heartbroken. Now all that's left for panel three is for Eve to kick the bucket.

From that basic beginning, the stories become more convoluted, cunning and farcical. What if you place a third character in a wedding scene with someone who's already hitched, for instance? Well, the married party will reject their new suitor, leaving them either heartbroken or scorned. At least that is until later puzzles introduce an affair scene, in which case you can turn said spouse into a cheat, and even have another character hiding in the nearby bushes to witness the illicit tryst.

Love, betrayal and jealousy fuel many of these tales, of course, simply because they're such timeless themes, and Storyteller takes you on a whistle-stop tour of fiction, from fairy tales to detective stories, Shakespearean tragedy to gothic horror. Yet at the same time it plays with traditional expectations, with pleasingly flexible results. While each character has certain desires or traits—the baron in the chivalry tales, for instance, schemes to usurp the throne—roles can often be reversed. So, in a classic love triangle scenario, why shouldn't the two women get married and live happily ever after?

This flexibility also allows Storyteller to jiggle its comedy muscles by spiralling into silly 'what ifs', like the courtly romance entitled Everyone Rejects Edgar, where the hapless hero desperately tries his luck with anyone he can find, only to learn they're already spoken for. This willingness to indulge the extremes of established setups equally revels in blending respected classics like Austen with soapy trash, like in a tale where Edgar dies (poor Edgar) leaving his wife Lenora behind, only to come back to life and find she's already wedded Isobel.

The joy of Storyteller is not merely in its solutions, however, but the process itself. Often, you need to think backwards from the ending you're trying to achieve, asking yourself, say, what would make Isobel want to poison Edgar when there's no initial animosity between them? In some cases, the solutions involve careful manipulation of the pieces, considering what each character knows and feels about each other, and how to change their minds. It's to the game's credit here that it almost always maintains a tight logic, where intention and effect are clear.

Better still, because of that logic, sometimes the most fun you can have is to indulge in pure trial and error. Storyteller is funny by design, yet some of the deepest chuckles it induces emerge as side effects of experiments gone wrong. The beauty of its system is that simply swapping the order of scenes or exchanging one character for another may have unforeseen knock-on effects, like a version of the Frog Princess story which ends in two frogs snogging, or a tragedy in which a heartbroken Lenora drinks poison and dies, then resurrects, realises she's still heartbroken and downs another bottle of arsenic.

The other reason such moments land so well is the game's pitch-perfect visuals and interface. Plot building in Storyteller is merely a matter of dragging and dropping, and the moment you plop a character into a scene, they react without blinking, whether that means instantly falling in love with whoever's facing them, or pushing them off a cliff. Or watch how the innocent statement "I am your mother" suddenly becomes a shock revelation when you move the pieces around in the game's hilarious take on Oedipus Rex.

So enjoyable are Storyteller's building blocks to play with, in fact, that you may find yourself wolfing it down in one sitting. Solving all 51 puzzles, plus some bonus objectives which ask you to reach certain conclusions in different ways, takes around two hours, after which there's not much left to do than close the book. Still, if you're on board with the notion of a game that serves up a charming 120 minutes before calling it quits, you may have no complaints.

Except, it is hard not to feel a little underwhelmed when the credits roll, even accepting how many years it's taken developer Daniel Benmergui to make it work so beautifully and consistently. In part that's because some concepts are left under-explored, like the monsters chapter that introduces vampire and werewolf characters and their particular modes of behaviour, then shuffles them offstage again after a couple of stories. But more than mere quantity, the issue is that Storyteller doesn't really build to anything climactic or profound. It just stops.

Sure, its creative systems do offer up a few interesting ideas to chew on, such as what makes a story work or fall flat, or how stories can subvert apparently cast iron rules. But those themes are visible in the first ten minutes, as they were in last year's demo, and don't kick on as you advance. In contrast, other brief puzzle games like Gorogoa or Unpacking don't feel cut short because they arc towards a conclusion, which Storyteller never does. For all the core genius of this game about telling stories, then, and the precise execution, the one thing it's missing is a story to tell of its own.

PC gaming in the ‘90s and early 2000s was home to a ton of revolutionary, foundational games we still talk about all the time. Games like Diablo. Doom 2. SimCity. Baldur’s Gate. 

I’m not gonna talk about those here—most of them are famously among the most important PC games of all time.

I’m gonna talk about the games you might have missed. Underappreciated, fallen through the cracks, obscure-ish games that are still 100% worth a play today. They range from self-serious adaptations of literary worlds to zany shooters and pulp action games, but they’re all worth a look and readily available on Steam or GOG. Except for one. Perhaps someday soon… a guy can hope.

Developer: IO Interactive | Get it on: Steam/GOG 

Freedom Fighters reimagines one of the most essential questions in video games—what if everything went sideways and our last line of defense against destruction was a plumber?

Set in an alternate timeline where Russia successfully invades the mainland US, you take the role of everyday working stiff Chris Stone as he shoots Russians, grows an underground resistance, and ultimately frees New York from the clutches of tyranny.

Setting aside the unfortunate parallels to current events, this remains an underappreciated gem from the early 2000s. IO Interactive’s first release after Hitman 2, it featured smooth over-the-shoulder third-person shooting, a pulpy story rife with betrayal and drama, and a surprisingly robust squad command system. Ignoring the fussiness and complications of other squad shooters of the era like Rainbow Six, Fighters kept it simple. Shoot bad guys, complete objectives to grow your squad, save America. Patrick Swayze and the rest of the kids from Red Dawn are proud of you, soldier.

Developer: Planet Moon Studios | Get it on: Steam/GOG | Essential mod: Patch 1.5

When Baz, the intrepid leader of a blimey band of space… uh… heroes, lands on a mysterious island world en route to planet Majorca, little does he know he’ll be embroiled in a tragic story befitting the Greeks. In Giants: Citizen Kabuto, you play as three separate characters (the aforementioned Baz, sea reaper Delphi, and giant monster Kabuto) in a game that bends the idea of genre. It’s also quite funny, with lots of visual gags and goofy characters.

Giants flew under the radar a bit when it came out, a casualty of a buggy and graphics-hungry PC release and squabbles over its Mature rating. It’s still a blast to jetpack around, though, and drop flying elbows on puny villagers. It’s available on Steam and GOG, and if you do decide to give this classic a look be sure to grab the fan-made patch 1.5, which fixes a bunch of bugs and enables multiplayer. Find multiplayer games on their Discord. 

Developer: Dynamix | Get it on: Steam/GOG

Almost 30 years before George R. R. Martin wrote the backstory to Elden Ring, another fantasy author was tapped for a computer game. Betrayal at Krondor came out in 1993, and was set in the fantasy universe of Raymond E. Feist. Since his novels were based on a tabletop roleplaying game he invented for his friends, the project was a natural fit.

With an absolutely massive story and an innovative battle map system for combat, Betrayal did a lot of things right. It featured fan-favorite characters like Pug and Jimmy the Hand, and the story fit right in the canon of the books if you were into that. It has a bit of the feel of a visual novel—lots of the encounters are story beats rather than random monsters, and cutscenes abound. The game’s also a great entry point if you haven’t read the books—check out Magician: Apprentice to get more backstory on Pug and friends after you finish.

Developer: Westwood | Get it on: GOG

Nox might have been everyone’s favorite ARPG if it hadn’t come out the same year as Diablo 2. Oof. Developed by Westwood Studios, it’s the story of regular dude Jack Mower who gets teleported along with his TV to save the magical realm of Nox. Jack can be either a warrior, conjurer, or wizard, and each role features its own campaign. Voice acting was a particular highlight, featuring talent like character actor Mark Rolston and that guy who played Stifler.

The multiplayer was sweet. Each class had a number of spells (or special abilities, in the case of the warrior), and the dynamic line of sight system meant that there were tons of blind spots on the screen to strategize around. Casting spells on the fly was a major challenge with a high skill ceiling, and Westworld even had global leaderboards.

You can still find Nox on GOG, and fans have a Discord to coordinate games. Technically it’s only supported on Windows XP, Vista, 7, and 8, but running it in compatibility mode seems to work just fine even with newer operating systems. 

Developer: id Software | Get it on: Steam/GOG

In the first half of 1997, a few short months before Goldeneye would take over all of our N64 multiplayer time, all we played was Hexen. A sequel to the well-received Heretic, Hexen was a dark fantasy FPS that eschewed shotguns and plasma rifles for spiked gauntlets and magical crosses that shoot spirits.

One of the first ever shooters to feature classes, you could play as a fighter, mage, or cleric. Each had a variety of axes, wands, and magic spells with which to slaughter hordes of demons very reminiscent of another id Software game, including an ultimate weapon that had to be pieced together by finding three component artifacts. It took until 2019 for us to get a proper retro shooter successor.

Hexen’s single-player campaign was great. Lots of baddies and bosses, breakable environments, and enough tension on your mana to make you think about whether to break out the big ‘guns’ or conserve energy by punching things for a while. The real magic was multiplayer, though, where a mad scramble to find the pieces of your ultimate weapon led to devastation until someone could take you out and make you start the process over again. Sequel Hexen 2 had an even more creative multiplayer mode that was decades ahead of its time. 

Developer: Westwood | Get it on: GOG

The era of DOS dungeon crawlers has passed, despite a few excellent stabs at a revival (play Legend of Grimrock, I beg you). That said, the dungeon crawler's a vital part of PC gaming history and a genre worth remembering. If you’re looking for somewhere to start, try Lands of Lore. 

Released in 1993, this game was Westwood’s attempt to top Eye of the Beholder 2 and remove themselves from having to use the Dungeons and Dragons license. The result is an enjoyable roleplaying game with simplified mechanics and some of the studio’s trademark charm, spearheaded by a VA performance by none other than Sir Patrick Stewart.

Character development is flexible—all of your party members increase levels in fighter, rogue, or mage depending on what skills they use. Your four-armed buddy Baccata will be by your side as you journey to find the elixir and save King Richard. Just don’t hand over quest items to suspicious maidens. It’s patched now, but on release Westwood actually had people send in their save files to be edited because you could accidentally hand over a key item that they forgot to put back in the game!

Developer: Planet Moon Studios | Get it on: Steam/GOG 

It may be cheating a bit to include two games from Planet Moon Studios on a list like this, but Armed and Dangerous is really something special. If you took a third person shooter, shook it up in a blender with some psychedelics and a VHS tape of Monty Python, you still wouldn’t have something half as crazy as this game.

You take the role of Roman, leader of a small band of misfits known as the Lionhearts. You’ll use machine guns and rocket launchers alongside more… esoteric… weaponry like the landshark gun and a corkscrew that turns the world upside down to defeat your enemies along the way.

Mostly, though, you’ll sit back and enjoy the ride as some incredible voice actors take you on an absurd journey through one of the strangest stories ever told in videogames. A lady in a lake, robot gardeners turned killbots, and the stoned son of an evil king are but some of the highlights.

Developer: Activision | Get it on: Ebay 😔

Reactor online. Sensors online. Weapons online. All systems nominal. Loading into a BattleMech is one of the most satisfying things in gaming, and for most of us aging PC gamers, it probably started with MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat. While an absolute classic in its own right, I want to take a moment to talk about the standalone expansion, Mercenaries.

By now, there have been many Mercenaries games in the MechWarrior universe, but this one may be the best. Its gritty story puts you in the shoes of a merc who assumes control of his company after his commander is killed in action. You take contracts, salvage mechs, and survive as best you can hoping to retire in luxury.

Unlike most other MechWarrior games, it’s not game over if you fail a mission or lose a mech. You can limp along, losing most of your profit or fighting capacity in mechs, trying to scrape together enough to get back on your feet. This can put you in a tough spot if you’re trying to win the Champion of Solaris tournament or survive the Clans showing up, and adds interesting tension to the overall campaign.

With one of the best soundtracks in gaming from the inimitable Jeehun Hwang, classic mech combat and an excellent campaign filled to the brim with BattleTech lore and grit, MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries is still one of the best games in that universe. Unfortunately, it’s the one game on the list that isn’t readily available unless you happen to have an old disc. Here’s hoping for a re-release!

John Romero has justwon the lifetime achievement award, for this work on DOOM, Quake, Wolfenstein and far more from his decades long career.

The award was given out as part of the Game Developers Choice Awards, which gives out prestigious awards to both indie and AAA games alike. As part of a developer-focused show, it's one of the most pretigious awards going.

After receiving the award, Romero said the following: "Thank you so much for this amazing award. It took a lifetime to get!". He'd go on to thank the fellow developers he's worked with in the past, the devs he's working with now, plus his family and friends.

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A new hotfix landing in Destiny 2 Lightfall on March 23 is going to address a major issue that's been causing players grief since the start of the latest expansion's launch: finally, Cabal Thresher damage output is going to be nerfed.

Why is this important? First, a history lesson. With the launch of Lightfall, the Cabal airships got a massive upgrade. Ever since we first stepped foot on Neomuna and started experimenting with Strand powers, the pesky airships began firing missiles that can obliterate you in a single shot. Often from across the map. There's little recourse when a Thresher cannon pops a blast at you, either; it will track around corners, and even through doors on occaision. Given that they spawn, frequently, on new Patrol location Neomuna, they've been the bane of many a Guardian for weeks now.

It's even more egregious in the Nightfalls or Battlegrounds missions that have been given a makeover lately. As well as being harder in general (a change I am here for, for what it's worth), Guardians are also having to contend with Threshers that are outputting damage at way above the intended rate. Getting one-shot by a cannon to the face when you're trying to accrue 200k Lightfall score on Legend is the antithesis of fun, Bungie.

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Deep Silver and Dambuster Studios have released a trailer showing off the opening cinematic of Dead Island 2.

Once the City of Angels, Los Angeles is now a horror-stained hell full of empty mansions of the rich and famous and a deserted and blood-stained Hollywood Boulevard.

As you can see in the opening sequence, there's neither a nook nor cranny in town that has been spared. It appears someone's wedding turned into a bloodbath, a diner became the scene of gore-filled mayhem, a plane crash has crashed, and everyone seems to have lost their shoes for some reason.

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If you want a slightly different way to play racing games, there’s really only one option: buy a steering wheel. You can choose how deep you go down that rabbit hole, obviously - if that’s balancing one on your lap, strapping it to your desk, or buying some huge divorce-prompting racing rig. But for racing games, your options are analog sticks, d-pads, or steering wheels. Or, y’know, they were.

A couple of months ago, I reviewed the Thrustmaster eSwap X Pro, a unique modular controller that basically allows you to swap out ‘modules’ where the D-Pad and Analog Sticks sit. It’s also got a bunch of the standard ‘pro controller’ features, some neat audio-based features, and some cosmetic options.

The point is, it’s all modular, swappable, and customizable. It’s a decent controller, and if you want to know more about it, I suggest you read my eSwap X Pro review. Everything said there still stands - but now, that modular setup is fulfilling its true promise.

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One of my favourite ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ moments in games comes in Final Fantasy 10, just after you defeat a big machine on a lake of ice near one of the title’s multiple temples. Your party jumps onto snowmobiles – two people per vehicle – and heads towards Macalania Temple to continue its journey. You follow main character Tidus for this part of the game, but who accompanies him on the sled can vary. It can be more or less any of the characters in the game, and who joins you depends entirely on some in-game criteria.

The game calls this ‘affection’. If Tidus uses a healing item, or healing magic, on another member of the cast, the hidden stat goes up. If he intercepts an attack aimed at them, it goes up. If he talks to a character first when they’re all spread out in an area, it goes up. At no point are you told about this, and at no point does it really matter. But, play your cards right, and you’ll see get a small interaction with another character that serves to deepen your understanding of them, or provide another sliver of context on the world.

I am obsessed with things like this in games. Alex once referred to himself as a ‘lore goblin’ for Elden Ring, and the phrase stuck with me. That’s what moments like this do to me. Seeing Rikku nuzzle her head into Tidus in a show of deep affection you don’t really see in the game – all because I’ve trusted/interacted with her the most up to this point? It’s a small but meaningful reward, and something uniquely enriching when it comes to player agency.

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Arkane has a problem. Its games, by all accounts, are great. The Dishonored series, Prey, Deathloop – they all review well. Arkane, for generations now, has been a favourite of critics and developer peers. But that acclaim and clout does not translate into sales (or player count, if you’re taking services like Xbox Game Pass and PS Plus into account). Deathloop’s sales were the lowest of any Arkane game at the time it launched on PS5, at least in the physical market. Prey fared only slightly better – and that was a multiplatform release.

Redfall, then, is in a unique position. Arriving on Xbox Game Pass, day and date, means that around 29 million people will be able to boot up the game and immerse themselves in its vampire fantasy at launch. Without asking for a £60+ buy-in, without asking players to gamble what may be their quarterly game budget on an as-yet-unproven new IP, Arkane can finally show the mainstream what it’s capable of. And Redfall, from what I’ve played so far, seems like it has what it takes to capture your imagination.

First thing’s first, the shooting feels better than Deathloop. This is something that Arkane Austin’s studio director, Harvey Smith, chatted casually to me about before the hands-on. The development team, only fairly recently, figured out how to make the various different guns – stake launchers, UV light blasters, magnums, high-calibre sniper rifles, and more – feel really, really good. Each class feels right in your hands, whether you’re fanning the hammer of a revolver or wretching the level of a rifle back before popping another headshot, this is what shooting should feel like – not the paper-thin water pistols we had in Deathloop.

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As we all prepare for the release of Resident Evil 4 Remake on Friday, Capcom is gearing us up with an array of short, minute-long anime episodes promoting the game. Today, we were privy to a second episode!

The first episode of the show — coined ‘Leon and the Mysterious Village’ — debuted just a few days ago. The episode showed off a very confused Leon’s descent into the village, and later, his ascent into the stars with a bunch of Colmillos as he dies. It was bizarre, but honestly, very wholesome.

Today, Capcom launched a second episode of the show on YouTube, animated by the popular studio, Nippon Animation. Running at just 54 seconds, this episode is titled ‘A promise between the two’, and it summed up my thoughts of the game perfectly.

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The Diablo 4 early access beta was met with technical woes, but that shouldn't be the case when the game is released in early June.

That's according to Diablo general manager Fergusson, who told NME the beta experience will "make the actual launch of the game that much better”.

What many beta players seem to not understand is the majority of betas are made available to seek development help from players and are not indicative of a demo. They test out character builds, help fine-tune the game's world, and many times, put an intentional load on the servers.

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It looks as though The Witcher spin-off Project Sirius is being retooled, according to CD Projekt Red.

This is according to a regulatory announcement released by the firm, which states the company has evaluated the scope and commercial potential of the original concept and is formulating a "new framework" for the project.

Sirius is a codename for the game developed by The Flame in the Flood studio Molasses Flood, which CDP acquired in 2021. Set in The Witcher universe and created with support from CDPR, the game will differ from past productions by offering multiplayer on top of single-player gameplay, including a campaign with quests and a story.

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First thing's first: tank controls are not necessarily difficult to use. I’ll be the first to admit that, in 2023, they’re not what our brains have been relentlessly programmed to expect from modern games. Yet, with a little patience, stand to shoot mechanics are wholly immersive – something that Resident Evil 4 (2005) would not be the same without.

When I replayed Resident Evil 4 last year, don't get me wrong, the controls felt off. As someone whose main shooters at the time were PC games (Valorant and Escape from Tarkov), you could argue that getting through the first village was a challenge in and of itself while I adjusted to the controls. But that’s all it is; a matter of adjusting.

In 2023, many would argue the controls for RE4 feel clunky. Even the RE4 Remake feels tanky, despite the fact we can now move and shoot at the same time. That said, this is not a detriment to the gameplay experience. If anything, it’s one small challenge to overcome that later results in an incredibly tense Resident Evil adventure.

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EA Sports PGA Tour is coming soon, but not after yet another delay in the release date as the game's launch will now align with the Masters.

An extra two weeks to wait pales in comparison with the year delay we have had to deal with, but it is still a source of frustration to golf fans.

Find out what platforms you can get involved with EA Sports PGA Tour on below.

EA Sports PGA Tour is available on next-gen/current-gen platforms only.

A next-gen exclusive, there is no further information on whether the game will be released on PS4, Xbox One, or Nintendo Switch in the future.

The game can run at 30 fps, 60 fps or unlocked framerate on PC, however, on a console, it will only run at 30 fps.

A statement on the official website reads as follows:

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In another blow to golf fans, EA Sports has now confirmed that the release date of EA Sports PGA Tour has suffered another setback.

The good news is this delay is much shorter, with the launch pushed back two weeks and now lining up with the Masters Tournament in early April.

Early Access will still be available for fans, with certain pre-orders offering the chance to play the game from Tuesday, 4 April.

The worldwide launch will go live on Friday, 7 April, allowing EA to add the finishing touches to their new game.

You will be able to play EA Sports PGA Tour on all next-gen platforms, which obviously includes the PS5.

The Standard Edition of the game will set you back £69.99 / $69.99, while the Digital Deluxe Edition is priced at £84.99 / $84.99.

PRE-ORDER EA SPORTS PGA TOUR

Pre-ordering the Digital Deluxe Edition of EA Sports PGA Tour will provide you with an early access period, along with several other perks.

Either way, the graphics for EA Sports PGA Tour on PS5 are insane!

We can't imagine there will be many differences, if any, between EA Sports PGA Tour on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.

Alongside incredible graphics, EA Sports PGA Tour includes Pure Strike powered by ShotLink, allowing fans to play each hole as realistically as possible.

The new mechanic tracks backswing length and follow-through speed which creates the most realistic swing experience.

This also includes innovative ball behaviour which allows each shot to behave more accurately across a variety of terrains and conditions.

READ MORE: EA Sports PGA Tour Roster

EA Sports PGA Tour will be available for PC users with the same editions of the game available as on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.

The game will be available on the EA App, Steam, and Epic Games Store, so your preferred options will likely be available.

This is the only golf game to feature the majors, with The Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open Championship, and The Open all exclusive to EA's new title.

There are 30 courses to choose from at launch, and each is re-created to perfection, particularly the famous Augusta course with the use of EA's Frostbite Engine.

READ MORE: A Sports PGA Tour Courses

While the graphics in the game are set to be incredible, you will also get a complete golfing experience thanks to a range of 20 shot types in the game.

From a huge Power Drive to a delicate Chip, the choice is yours as you take on some of golf's most famous courses.

EA has released a Shot Types Deep Dive which outlines the pros and cons of each shot.

Find out more about the 20 Shot Types.

FUT Birthday is fast approaching in FIFA 23 Ultimate Team, bringing fan-favourite cards throughout the campaign.

The event is set to be bigger and better than ever, with FUT Birthday Icons making an appearance!

Check out everything you need to know about the FUT Birthday Icons in FIFA 23 Ultimate Team right here and stay on top of all the latest news and leaks.

FUT Birthday is an annual promo in Ultimate Team which celebrates the anniversary of FUT by handing boosts to fan-favourite players.

This year the campaign is even bigger than ever, with FUT Birthday Icons included!

We're not sure if these are the Alternate Reality Icons initially leaked by the data-mining account Fut Scoreboard, but the latest loading screen in FUT 23 has officially confirmed these new versions are on the way.

The new Icons will be part of the Campaign Icon program EA introduced in FIFA 23 Ultimate Team, which has replaced Prime Icon Moments.

This allows Icons to be released throughout the season which are relevant to the power curve of the game at that point, and they can be linked to the promo event at the time too.

We saw this happen with FUT Heroes in FIFA 22 during the FUT Captains and Shapeshifters promos and have seen Campaign Icons rolled out during the World Cup celebrations with World Cup Icons and then during Team of the Year with TOTY Icons.

The FUT Ballers promo will soon make way for FUT Birthday, which is confirmed to land on Friday, 24 March at the usual time of 1pm ET / 6pm GMT.

The latest loading screen has revealed that FUT Birthday Icons will be included in the event, showing that they will drop at the same time as the main Team 1 side.

The promo will run for two weeks, so we expect a Team 1 and Team 2 release of FUT Birthday Icons, as we saw with Team of the Year Icons.

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With Team 1 and 2 of FUT Birthday on the way, we expect to see around 14 Icons upgraded (but hopefully more), as we did during Team of the Year.

As the promo is a celebration of fan-favourite players, we could have some insane cards on the way, and we predict the following names will appear:

More FUT Birthday Icon cards have been leaked, with Fut Scoreboard early on the scene to reveal Eric Cantona will be gaining an upgrade!

A loan version of the Frenchman is set to be released for free in the Moments tile, with his card also made available in packs.

The following players are leaked to gain a FUT Birthday Icon card:

It's that time of the week again - a new Silver Stars player has just landed in FIFA 23 Ultimate Team!

Former Arsenal and German international forward Lukas Podolski has been selected for a Silver Stars item and this time, you will be able to unlock some bonus FUT Birthday rewards too.

Unlocking the Podolski Silver Stars card will grant you a FUT Birthday Swaps Token, completely free of charge in FIFA 23.

So, find out how you can unlock Silver Stars Podolski and the bonus Swaps Token in Ultimate Team below.

As always, you'll have just one week to unlock the Silver Stars Podolski at which point your shot at this card will expire.

Start Date: Wednesday, 22 March at 1pm ET / 6pm GMT

Expiry Date: Wednesday, 29 March at 1pm ET / 6pm GMT

The regular Ultimate Team aficionados among you will already know exactly what needs to be done to unlock the weekly Silver Stars item.

As has been the standard for some time, you'll have these three objectives to complete if you want to get your hands on the 74-rated Podolski card.

All three tasks must be completed in the Live FUT Friendly: Silver Lounge.

The objectives are as follows:

As mentioned previously, you will be able to unlock a FUT Birthday Swaps Token whilst you complete the Lukas Podolski Silver Stars Objective.

The FUT Birthday Swaps Token which can be unlocked via the Podolski Silver Stars Objective is for Liam Gibbs.

In order to unlock Liam Gibbs, you will need to complete the first mini-objective, which is as follows:

You can stay up to date with all the FUT Birthday Swpas Tokens and Objectives with our tracker right here.

An all-new promo has dropped in FIFA 23 Ultimate Team, with FUT Ballers even better than everyone expected!

As part of the promo, an objective set titled Play to Style has been released, which will upgrade the FUT Ballers SBC players you have unlocked as well as reward you with a FUT Ballers Mason Mount and a future Play to Style+ objective containing a FUT Birthday Team 1 Player Pack.

Check out how the Play to Style objective set works and all the rewards it will give you in FIFA 23 Ultimate Team below.

Start Date: Friday, 17 March

Expiry Date: Friday, 31 March

To unlock the group reward of a FUT Ballers Mason Mount and an 80+ x Five Players Pack, as well as unlock a further Play to Style+ objective which will contain a FUT Birthday Team 1 Player Pack, you will need to complete seven objectives.

A new task will be revealed daily, which will coincide with a FUT Ballers SBC item released on the same day.

The requirements for the tasks are as follows:

Ball with Luis

Reward - 1 x FUT Ballers Luis Diaz (OVR 88)

READ MORE: Cheapest way to unlock Diaz SBC

Goals with Bamford

Reward - 1 x FUT Ballers Patrick Bamford (OVR 88)

READ MORE: Cheapest way to unlock Bamford SBC

Dejan Delivers

Reward - 1 x FUT Ballers Dejan Kulusevski (OVR 88)

READ MORE: Cheapest way to unlock Kulusevski SBC

Ox

Reward - 1 x FUT Ballers Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (OVR 86)

READ MORE: Cheapest way to unlock Oxlade-Chamberlain SBC

Goals from Jack

Reward - 1 x FUT Ballers Jack Grealish (OVR 90)

READ MORE: Cheapest way to unlock Grealish SBC

Noni's Service

Reward - 1 x FUT Ballers Noni Madueke (OVR 87)

READ MORE: Cheapest way to unlock Madueke SBC

March 23rd

Reward - 1 x FUT Ballers Ederson (OVR 91)

The FUT Ballers promo is a brand new event in FIFA 23 Ultimate Team.

Unusually, there aren't any promo players in packs, but there is an intriguing new way to get special cards for your squad.

FUT Ballers players will initially be released via daily SBCs, then, you can gain an upgraded version of that player via objectives by using that player for a specific task.

It's a great concept and shows that EA can still introduce exciting new ideas to their most popular game mode.

We're drawing to the end of the FUT Ballers promo in FIFA 23 Ultimate Team, but not before a couple more players get released as SBCs!

Joining his Chelsea teammate Mason Mount with a card is a man who joined The Blues in the recent transfer window.

Check out Noni Madueke's FUT Ballers card and find out the cheapest way you can unlock his SBC in FIFA 23 Ultimate Team below.

Start Date: Wednesday, 22 March

Expiry Date: Friday, 31 March

You will only need to submit one squad in order to unlock the 84-rated player, with the requirements as follows:

Noni Madueke

Reward - 1 x FUT Ballers Noni Madueke

Estimated Cost - 20,700 coins

You can use the following players to complete the FUT Ballers Noni Madueke SBC:

This is just one of many solutions that can be found by using the easySBC AI. To get your own solution, go try it out at easysbc.io

Start Date: Wednesday, 22 March

Expiry Date: Friday, 31 March

Once you have unlocked the FUT Ballers Noni Madueke SBC, you can gain an upgrade from his 84-rated item by completing a task in the Play to Style Objective to earn an 87-rated version!

The requirement for the task is as follows:

Noni's Service

Reward - 1 x FUT Ballers Noni Madueke (OVR 87)

Completing all seven Play to Style tasks will unlock a FUT Ballers Mason Mount (OVR 89) and a Play to Style+ objective which awards a FUT Birthday Team 1 Player Pack.

However, the objectives aren't all live just yet, with an additional one being released each day to coincide with another FUT Ballers SBC release.

Team of the Week (TOTW) 21 has come to FIFA 23 Ultimate Team, with more in-form cards hitting packs once again.

We won't sugarcoat this one, it isn't the best release we've ever seen, but there is still some high-rated fodder included.

Stay up to date with the latest TOTW 21 news in FIFA 23 Ultimate Team right here as we give you all the information from its release.

The Team of the Week 21 squad in FIFA 23 Ultimate Team was released on Wednesday, 22 March, at the usual time of 1pm ET / 6pm GMT.

As ever, the new cards will be available in packs for one week only from when they are released.

The FUT Ballers promo didn't bring any special cards to packs, but FUT Birthday Team 1 will be hitting packs on Friday, 24 March, with FUT Birthday Icons as part of the celebrations!

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It's that time of the week again, with Team of the Week 21 hitting packs in FIFA 23 Ultimate Team.

Four players have been given an 88 OVR this time, with Frenkie de Jong, Douglas Luiz, Viktor Tsygankov and, of course, Victor Osimhen.

The Nigerian striker continues to do the business in Serie A, adding another two goals to his tally as Napoli beat Torino 4-1.

It is his third in-form card of the season and he also secured the Player of the Month award for January!

READ MORE: Team of the Week 21 All Cards

We're once again taking a look at the best players to pack from the upcoming Team of the Week 21 release.

'Best' can be defined in a few different ways, but we will simplify it by classing it as the most valuable cards or those with top attributes.

There isn't much to be said about this week's release, with Osimhen likely the most expensive card you can get, possibly around 70,000.

We would save any TOTW-specific packs you might have for another week.

With Ones to Watch cards in the game, we have some live cards that can be affected by Team of the Week inclusions.

Another week goes by with no OTW player included, with EA picking Barcelona's Frenkie de Jong over Franck Kessie for a card.

Kessie scored the winning goal in the 92nd minute in El Clasico, but that wasn't enough to earn him an 87-rated TOTW and see his OTW boosted to 88 OVR!

The most recent boost to OTW players came via the latest Man of the Match card batch, which you can check out using our Ones to Watch Tracker.

Road to the Final cards won't be influenced by TOTW, but they are another set of live items in FUT 23, which you can monitor with our RTTF Tracker.

The live cards just keep coming in FUT 23, with the Fantasy FUT promo dropping more dynamic items, so keep an eye on them using our Fantasy FUT Tracker!

By adding the best WWE 2K23 controller to your setup, you can gain that extra edge you need to ensure you're winning championships as opposed to tapping out in the centre of the ring.

There's not necessarily one specific feature a top-tier gamepad has that's going to drastically improve your in-ring performances. However, by investing in a "pro" device, you're giving yourself access to all the latest controller technology which, together, can make you better at navigating the ring, performing combos, and, crucially, picking up the win over your opposition.

That's what we've focused on for our list. The controllers we've listed below are some of the best PS5, Xbox, and PC gamepads on the market. More specifically, they're all great picks for WWE 2K23 as they give you all the additional tools you need to stay one step ahead of the game.

So, whether you're playing through the new John Cena Showcase mode, or you're pathing your own road to glory in MyRise, give yourself the best chance possible to succeed in-game with one of these amazing controllers.

Manufacturer: Sony | Connectivity: Wired, Wireless | Compatibility: PS5, PC

Although it may be a premium bit of kit, there really is no better option than the DualSense Edge if you want to make a serious impact playing WWE 2K23 on the PS5.

It's Sony's top-of-the-range gamepad, therefore, it comes with some of the most advanced controller technology going. For instance, you can customise your stick sensitivity, stick dead zones, and trigger lengths to speed up your movements, improve your precision, and make hitting your finisher quick and easy.

Moreover, you get several additional buttons to map to some of your most used or hard-to-reach controls. For example, you can assign a back bumper to perform reversals to ensure your opponents never hit a move on you.

To top it all off, you can save all your customisations as separate profiles, then switch between them on the fly with its onboard user interface. As a result, we'd argue this DualSense device is the complete package and an excellent controller for WWE 2K23.

Manufacturer: Razer | Connectivity: Wired | Compatibility: Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC

If you play WWE 2K23 on Xbox though, we'd suggest giving this Razer Wolverine V2 some thought. Like the DualSense Edge, it's packed to the brim with amazing features that will only help improve your WWE gameplay.

Firstly, it comes with similar hair-trigger stops to speed up the time it takes to hit sprint and your finishing moves in-game. Moreover, it comes with two multi-function buttons that can be assigned to whatever controls you see fit.

However, we'd argue this controller's biggest advantage is that it comes with Razer's Mecha Tacticle Buttons and D-Pad. In short, Razer has improved the feel of each button while also reducing the actuation distance to make every input you make happen that bit quicker.

It is worth noting this is a wired device, although that does mean you never have to charge it. Therefore, you can sit back and play WWE 2K23 all day and night using this Razer controller.

Manufacturer: Nacon | Connectivity: Wired, Wireless | Compatibility: PS4, PC

If you're still rocking an old-gen console, then the Nacon Revolution Unlimited Pro is definitely worth considering. It's one of the best PS4 controllers on the market, so can definitely help you get the most out of your WWE ability.

This RGB backlit wireless gamepad comes with a whole host of customisation options, including the ability to alter the response curve of the sticks and the dead zones for each trigger. As a result, you can make your in-ring movements more precise, while also speeding up the time it takes to hit a signature more or go for a submission.

Furthermore, you get to choose between convex or concave stick heads and different diameter shafts depending on your preference and what gives you the most precision in-game. Additional weights can also be added to the handles to improve the feel and comfort of the device.

All customisations can be saved as unique profiles using the included software, which makes switching between settings simple. All in all, there's tons to like about this Nacon device, particularly for improving your WWE 2K23 setup.

Manufacturer: Microsoft | Connectivity: Wired, Wireless | Compatibility: Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC

While it may seem odd to list an official Xbox device as the best WWE 2K23 controller for PC, it actually makes more sense than you think. The Xbox is made by Microsoft, which means the software in the Xbox Elite Series 2 is instantly compatible with a Microsoft PC, thus giving you a plug-in-and-pay experience like no other.

No additional software is needed. Simply connect the device and jump right in. That said, the Elite gamepad doesn't just make our list on this fact alone. It's packed full of technology to give you the edge, like hair-trigger locks, adjustable thumbsticks, and a battery that is quoted to last up to 40 hours.

However, one of this device's key characteristics is its unique rubberised grip. It's designed to be comfortable to hold and to minimise any slipping mid-game - both are particularly important for longer WWE sessions.

You can save up to three custom profiles and switch between them on the fly as well, thus making the Elite controller a great option for both WWE 2K23 and any other top titles you play regularly.

Manufacturer: Turtle Beach | Connectivity: Wired | Compatibility: Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC

So far, all the controllers we've picked out have been a little on the pricey side. By comparison, this Turtle Beach Recon makes for a great pick if you don't want to break the bank on a new gamepad for WWE 2K23.

Despite its lower price, it still packs a serious punch. It comes with mappable back buttons, one of which features a Pro-Aim mode. This allows you to adjust the thumbstick sensitivity to improve the accuracy of your movements.

The device also features ergonomic grips with micro-cooling channels to keep your hands comfortable and dry during extended WWE sessions.

Furthermore, you get a bunch of onboard controls to improve online gameplay. For instance, you can alter your audio, mute your mic, and go into a Superhuman Hearing setting if you wanted to - all of which can be accessed on the controller itself.

Overall, we see next to no faults with this Recon controller considering its relatively low price tag. Therefore, make sure you check it out if you're looking to upgrade your gamepad for WWE 2K23.

Finding a great controller for any game, not just WWE 2K23, can be tricky at times. Fortunately, we've answered some of the most commonly asked questions to help your search below.

The answer to this question really depends on how much you're willing to invest in a gamepad for the latest WWE title. That said, investing in a top-tier controller will have its advantages when it comes to playing other games away from WWE.

Put it this way, owning a premium controller with a vast array of additional buttons may not necessarily take your WWE skills to the next level. However, additional back bumpers, for example, do come in handy when playing FPS titles, as you can map controls like jump and slide to them so you don't have to take your thumb off the right stick to look around.

Therefore, we feel it's worth spending a little extra on a controller to get all the additional "pro" features if you're serious about gaming and you're looking to get one-up on your online competition. But, for WWE 2K23 specifically, we'd say you may be better off going for a mid-tier gamepad, as some of the most advanced features won't drastically improve your gameplay.

The short answer to this question is no. It's not so much a case of a controller not being compatible with WWE, it's more a case of a gamepad not being compatible with the console you're playing on.

For instance, controllers primarily built for PlayStation will rarely work on Xbox and vice versa. As a result, third-party manufacturers, like Razer or Logitech, will often create two separate versions of their controllers, one for Xbox and one for PlayStation.

However, the exception to this is on PC. Most controllers will work on the majority of PCs when playing WWE 2K23. You may need to download additional software in some cases, but once installed, you should be good to jump in the game and take to the ring.

After a long and illustrious career, former Real Madrid and Arsenal midfielder Mesut Ozil has announced his retirement from professional football.

The German playmaker made the announcement via social media and has stated that he will hang up his boots with immediate effect, which means this will be his last appearance in a FIFA title.

So, given this is the last time we see Ozil as a current player in FIFA, EA is surely set to hand the footballing icon a special End of an Era (EOAE) SBC card in Ultimate Team.

As some of you may be unaware, Ozil was most recently signed with Turkish club Istanbul Basaksehir, playing in the Super Lig.

The German attacking midfielder has struggled massively with various injuries this season, making only four league appearances this campaign.

The 34-year-old made the announcement that he will retire in a post on his Twitter account.

"I've had the privilege to be a professional football player for almost 17 years now and I feel incredibly thankful for the opportunity," he said.

Ozil went on to say: "But in recent weeks and months, having also suffered some injuries, it's become more and more clear that it's time to leave the big stage of football."

"It has been an amazing journey filled with unforgettable moments and emotions."

Mesut Ozil began his career in Germany at Schalke and Werder Bremen before moving to Real Madrid in the summer of 2010, winning La Liga, the Copa del Rey and the Spanish Super Cup.

He joined Arsenal for a then club record fee of £42.4m in September 2013, winning back-to-back FA Cups in his first two seasons before being named player of the season in his third, and then winning the cup again in 2017.

He joined Fenerbahce on a free transfer in January 2021 and then made the switch to Basaksehir in July 2022.

All in all, Ozil won nine trophies during his club career including four FA Cups and the Spanish La Liga title in 2012.

He also won 92 caps for Germany and played a key role in Germany's 2014 World Cup-winning campaign in Brazil.

Ozil was named Germany player of the year five times and was part of the side that reached the semi-finals of the 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012.

There is no doubt in our minds that Ozil will be getting an End of an Era SBC card in FIFA 23 Ultimate Team.

We expect the German's special item to be bumped up to 93 OVR, in keeping with the EOAE cards which have come before him for the likes of Gareth Bale.

Ozil's End of an Era card could boast an astonishing 97 Passing as well as 94 Dribbling, 89 Shooting and 87 Pace.

The number 10 will also retain the four-star skill moves from his FIFA 23 base item, with a boost to a four-star weak foot potentially on the cards too.

Given the league in which Ozil now plays, we expect EA to price this SBC reasonably. Perhaps the EOAE item will cost roughly 100,000 coins on the PlayStation and Xbox market.

Should EA set the price of the Ozil Squad Building Challenge under 100,000 coins it will be another must-complete for FIFA 23 users.

World of Warcraft: Dragonflight's 10.0.7 brought on more new content and features to the dragon-themed expansion. One of these was the Zskera Vaults.

The Zskera Vaults is one of the main features to come in the WoW Dragonflight 10.0.7 patch. Working on a daily reset and open all the time, these vaults are explorable areas deep within the Forbidden Reach that give players several rewards.

Here's how to get to the Zskera Vaults in WoW Dragonflight.

The Zskera Vaults are filled with treasure with many locked doors and puzzles for players to get through; each player gets their own instance.

To access these vaults, players will need to obtain a "Zskera Vault Key" which can be found by completing activities in the Forbbiden Reach.

Players can expect all sorts of cosmetic items from the Zskera Vaults, from new toys and Battle Pets to mounts. Additionally, players can expect the brand-new Primordial Stone Gems to drop from them.

Those looking to get into the Zskera Vaults will have to make their way to the Forbidden Reach. Players can get to the Forbidden Reach by starting a new main questline, the Hidden Legacies.

Players can start this questline by going to the Seat of the Aspects in Valdrakken and hearing a report from the NPC, Kurazidaia. Upon listening to her report, Kurazidaia will give you the "Return to the Reach" quest. Once players have accepted the quest, they can go to Flightmaster Aluri in Valdrakken to take a ride to the Forbidden Reach.

Upon reaching the Forbidden Reach, players must complete all of the quests until they reach the "Exploring Our Past" quest. Once there, players will get a follow-up quest, “Zskera Vault: Az.”

The quest will have players enter the Zskera Vaults for the first time and complete some objectives. Once it's all said and done, player will be able to access the Zskera Vaults as many times as they want, granted they have Zskera Vault Keys.

The FIFA 23 Ultimate Team promos keep coming, with even the most die-hard FUT fanatic having plenty of content to complete.

FUT Ballers is a brand-new promo which took everyone by surprise by delivering some top cards for reduced prices, but what will be coming after that?

Read on to find out which promo will be next up in FIFA 23 Ultimate Team and what to expect.

After some confusion as to when FUT Birthday would drop in FIFA 23 Ultimate Team, it is now confirmed to be taking over from FUT Ballers!

The event is an annual promo which celebrates the founding of Ultimate Team, which was first seen on Thursday, 19 March 2009.

Fan favourite players will be selected, and handed massive upgrades with boosts to their weak foot and skill move abilities, letting the FUT community party in style!

The Token Swap system which joined the event last year has returned, and you can keep on top of all the latest releases using our Token Tracker.

However, the big news about the promo is that FUT Birthday Icons will be included in the event, giving us some of the best-ever versions of these legends of the game!

A Northern Irish right-winger has been included on the loading screen, so we know that George Best is on the way, with Eric Cantona and Jairzinho also leaked to join.

Shop Now: The Latest Football Kit & Gear at Kitbag.com

FUT Ballers will end in FUT 23 on Friday, 24 March at the usual time of 1pm ET / 6pm GMT.

At the same time, the next promo will take over, with FUT Birthday lasting for two weeks, ending on Friday, 7 April.

Fresh promo content arrives almost every single week in FIFA 23.

Here are some of the promotional campaigns that could arrive next:

Trophy Titans will be another brand-new event to Ultimate Team and is leaked to follow FUT Birthday.

Not much is known about the promo, but it is set to celebrate the most decorated players in the game, so we can expect some big names to be included, possibly with Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo coming in the same team!

FUT Captains is a celebration of leaders on the pitch, with current club captains selected for boosted cards, which gave us some fresh promo items last year.

It also saw FUT Heroes get in on the action, with former club captains gaining an upgraded Hero card.

Team of the Season is the main event in Ultimate Team, handing massive upgrades to the best-performing players from leagues around the world.

Each league will have its own squad of players, with the event lasting multiple weeks to make sure the top five European leagues are highlighted!

The Shapeshifters promo has become a regular occurrence and it goes down well in the FUT community as it transforms the usual cards into something else, giving them altered positions and stats to match.

FUTTIES is the last big hurrah of the Ultimate Team season, with 'Best Of' sides and favourite players re-released into packs.

There will also be fan votes for certain players to gain upgraded cards via SBCs.

Over the FIFA 23 Ultimate Team campaign, the following promos have been released:

We all played a ton of the Diablo 4 beta this past weekend, and we were all also lucky enough to play Redfall recently as well. We've got a LOT of thoughts about both. Join us!

Subscribe on any of your favorite podcast feeds, to our YouTube channel, or grab an MP3 of this week's episode. For more awesome content, check out our interview with Todd Howard, who answered all of our Starfield questions after the big reveal at the Xbox Showcase:

For more next-gen coverage, make sure to check out our Xbox Series X review, our Xbox Series S review, and our PS5 review.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

After the calamitous debut of Diablo 3 way back in 2012, it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous about the upcoming launch of Diablo 4 this June. But after more than a decade of gradual improvement that has transformed Diablo 3 into the fantastic game it is today, the first beta weekend of Diablo 4 has reassured me that Blizzard has been making good use of those hard-learned lessons for its sequel. Even though this beta weekend only included a level-capped Act 1 and three of the classes, so far it has exceeded my expectations in almost every way. There’s still a huge amount to see before we get anywhere close to a final review, but I’m already impressed by stellar dark storytelling, the best combat in a Diablo game to date, and a live-service foundation that aims to chart out a strong future for the beloved ARPG. Running around as a squad of four and slaying enemies as my ultra deadly and sneaky rogue has been an absolute blast, and I can’t wait to dive back in this weekend.

The first thing Diablo 4 immediately made clear to me is that Blizzard has really upped its game when it comes to story – or at least are off to an incredibly strong start. Following the dramatic resurrection of the Lord of Hatred and Queen of Succubi, Lilith, you begin a gruesome and dire journey across the land of Sanctuary as humanity descends into madness at her behest. While I’ve always enjoyed the dark stories of the Diablo series, the chunk of story that’s in the Diablo 4 beta had me more invested than any of the previous games. Lilith and her relationship with humanity, the Heavens, and her archangel consort are a complex and messy web of painful truths and moral ambiguities that are so interesting I insisted on stopping to read every piece of lore I could find. It’s a vast improvement over the tedious, WWE-style smack-talk we heard from the demons of Diablo 3.

There’s so much to like about Diablo Immortal that it really pains me to see it so close and yet so far from being a game I can heartily recommend. As a casual, purely free-to-play experience it offers a lot to do, with its empowering ARPG combat and interesting skill system, whereas for those that want to be competitive in PVP it quickly becomes restrictive, punitive, and money-grubbing. And for everyone in between? It just doesn’t offer good value for money spent. If the Empowered Battle Pass and Boon of Plenty offered more, I could definitely see myself renewing them each season and steadily working my way through the many difficulty levels as I ascend Immortal’s 600 paragon levels, and gradually – oh so gradually – ranking up my legendary gems. Instead, that dream is so far out of reach that it’s not feasible, and the further in I get the less the rewards offered by those paid services are actually likely to be meaningful. I’m still going to keep playing Diablo Immortal, but without overhauls to the monetisation and the many restrictions, it’s going to be a dip in, dip out game, as opposed to a world I want to live in. - Cam Shea, June 1, 2022

Read our full Diablo Immortal Review.

That said, even the story sample available in the beta is tripped up a bit by lots of filler, like a bizarre main quest where you have to wander around in the snow to complete a pilgrimage and talk to NPCs who insist on telling you nothing of value or advancing the plot in any way. But even with those occasional dips in the pace of the storytelling, I feel a real desire to work my way through the main campaign and reach the conclusion as soon as possible; I’ve just gotta know how it ends! Time will tell if the writers are able to stick the landing, but what’s available in the beta is already some of Blizzard’s best work.

The same can be said of the world and quests: moving around the overworld was far more engaging than I expected, with lots to discover along the way and spontaneous activities to involve yourself in. In a few, there’s a ritual where you have to give your blood to a demonic obelisk (by standing in a certain location) while fighting off waves of enemies – I can imagine that getting harrowing once we’re able to turn the difficulty up a few more notches than the beta allowed. Dungeons are a blast to explore too – they’re highly rewarding undertakings into cellars crawling with skeletons, prisons haunted by spirits, and caves full of slimy bugs that conclude with interesting boss fights that more often than not require you to jump through more hoops than simply burning down a demon’s health bar.

For example, in one fight I had to kill a crafty set of demons who flapped their batlike wings away from me as they magically protected a blood mage – who I couldn’t harm without killing them first. Even if some areas and bosses are reused quite often even in the sample I played, adventuring is still a highly repeatable affair, and I found it extremely difficult to avoid dropping whatever I was trying to focus on anytime a map marker popped up with some distraction to take on.

And there’s a lot to get distracted by even when there aren’t any events to sidetrack you. Even by the high standards of the series, Diablo 4 practically smacked me in the face with how good it looks. Not only are the top-down environments and characters more detailed than ever before (as you’d expect given that Diablo 3 came out 11 years ago), but the new ways in which it transitions to more intimate interactions and cutscenes by zooming in on characters and scenes let you see many more of them up close and personal where appropriate. Plus, the devs clearly understood the assignment considering how completely disgusting and creepy they’ve made absolutely everything, like a barn that’s been converted into a demon summoning human butcher shop, or a dungeon that appears to be built atop endless piles of viscera and intestines. It’s especially nice to see a return to this style of grime, since it’s something I’ve always felt Diablo 3 missed the mark on.

When it comes to gameplay – and specifically combat – so far Diablo 4 is absolutely nailing the action-RPG formula. Naturally it keeps the longstanding slashing and fireball-slinging mayhem, but makes important tweaks that make it a whole lot more engaging than dipping back into Diablo 3 for yet another playthrough. Rather than just rotating through each of my character’s abilities as they completed their cooldowns or standing in place spamming the standard attack button, beating the agents of Hell now requires me to dance around hordes of enemies, dodge-rolling precisely, and making use of my most powerful abilities at the proper moment, like a fire shield that protects my sorcerer and ignites anyone foolish enough to get near me.

I’m especially fond of the decision to largely do away with continuous healing in favor of consumable potions that are dropped onto the battlefield regularly, which requires you to navigate the map for resources as you wage battle to collect healing items as needed. Not only does this force you to be more mobile during combat (no more standing there and healing faster than they can hurt you), but it also adds a bit of challenge as you can’t heal infinitely. If you aren’t doing enough damage to a boss to kill it before you use up all your potions, or at least killing off enough minions to replenish them quickly, you’re going to die. The potions you collect are also preferable to the health orbs found in Diablo 3 and Diablo Immortal, since they aren’t consumed right away and can be strategically used when you need them.

As with all action-RPGs, the real, lasting fun comes from learning and then mastering the dense wall of numbers and perks that is the skill and loot system. Diablo 4 remains the same incredibly complex array of statistics, buffs, debuffs, status effects, and abilities that this series has always been, and though it’s hard to judge a lot of how it’s changed things up with only 25 skill points and a limited look at the available loot, so far my impressions are mostly positive. It’s dodged the boring loot system that Diablo 3 launched with by making choosing the right item for your character a lot more nuanced than automatically equipping the item with the biggest number, since most items provide different effects and stat boosts that might or might not play into your specific build, like a pair of boots that gives your rogue an additional dodge-roll or a wand that allows you to do more damage to enemies that are immobilized, stunned, or frozen.

I also really enjoyed that the beta made it very easy to respec, as paying a single gold coin allowed me to pick all my skills from scratch. Unfortunately, this will apparently not always be the case, as developers told IGN last year, since doing so at higher levels will cost hundreds of thousands of gold coins per node to respec. I understand wanting players to make specific choices about their character, but not allowing easy resetting of skills discourages experimentation and makes it likely that everyone will take to Reddit or YouTube videos to find out how to make their sorcerer as irritatingly min/maxed as possible, the result of which will be that everyone will crowd around a specific meta until everyone’s sorcerer are identical clones of one another.

It also means that if you find a piece of gear you really like that doesn’t fit with your build, you’ll most likely want to let it collect dust in storage or trade it to a friend/transfer it to a different character instead of changing your build to incorporate the loot you found. And this is all without mentioning that patches and balancing updates will almost certainly make some old builds irrelevant, and unless we have an easy way to swap our skills out to match the new meta it’s going to be a real pain in the neck to keep your character at the top of their game.

That said, I’m not advocating for a return to Diablo 3’s system of letting players freely swap out their builds, since that also results in a lack of diversity or actual decision-making for your characters, but it would also be really irritating to have such an inflexible respec system that your character couldn’t adapt and change over time. At this stage, it’s hard to say if they’ll strike a good balance, but at least during the beta I’ve enjoyed the freedom to mess around and make mistakes.

The first beta weekend only gave us access to three of the five character classes that will be available at Diablo 4’s launch, but so far all three are pretty great. The Rogue, which was my favorite class from the original Diablo, makes a glorious return as a glass cannon who is an expert at cutting through enemy defenses and dealing critical damage. Plus, she can go invisible to take heat off of her, then reappear to deal – that’s right – a ton of damage. The Sorcerer has a similar set of mostly long-range skills based on fire, electric, and ice attacks, but I found them to be better at controlling large groups of enemies (like with a chain lightning attack that zaps six enemies with every blast) rather than doing high damage to a single opponent. Plus, dealing elemental damage and freezing enemies in their tracks or lighting them on fire is great – they even have different death effects.

The Barbarian, on the other hand, felt a little weak in the beta, and I hope Blizzard takes the note from the beta that melee combat in general could use a buff. The second or so it takes to get close to an enemy is often not worth the trouble when a Rogue could have easily killed them from a distance by the time you get there. Still, being able to withstand a ton of damage and run around as a shirtless, hulking berserker is still a lot of fun, especially since the character creator mandates that all Berserkers have the body type of Dave Bautista.

Speaking of which, one of my disappointments is that the character creator in Diablo 4 feels quite limited, at least the version available in the beta. Aside from picking from a handful of faces, hair styles, and tattoos, there isn’t a whole lot for you to customize. Granted, a lot of that stuff will be covered up by the gear you’ll gather and equip, but it’s surprising that there aren’t any sliders to change the size or shape of specific parts of the face or different body types to pick from, which you see a lot more now that cutscenes zoom in to focus on you. I was also disappointed that I couldn’t pick a voice for my character, which instead is determined solely by the sex and character class of my demon slayer. I didn’t really feel like I had a lot of options to make my character my own, which will hopefully not be the case in the full version.

The biggest change from Diablo’s classic action RPG model is Diablo 4’s decision to integrate more live-service and MMO elements into its formula – one that, at least so far, seems like it’ll carry the pros and cons you might expect. That foundational shift includes some irritating things like an online requirement to play (which Diablo 3 already has on some platforms) and occasionally getting booted to the menu when servers aren’t working, but brings some awesome benefits too, like the ability to run into other players while exploring the overworld and the addition of activities designed for large groups to tackle together like World Bosses. I definitely wasn’t happy when I got disconnected from the server near the end of a lengthy dungeon run and lost half an hour of progress, but seeing other people out in the world and organically completing a public event together, like taking down a crazy zombie dragon world boss, made Sanctuary feel a lot less lonely.

Of course, Diablo 3 already had many components of a live-service game, including a seasonal model where new content and unlockables were released at a regular cadence and ongoing support, like in-game tweaks and balancing that continues to this day, but this sequel appears to be doubling down: Blizzard has planned cosmetic-only microtransactions, a more robust clan system, much larger meta refreshes and quality-of-life improvements, new features and questlines each season, additional live events, and more. For my money – as someone who’s neck-deep in Destiny 2 and appreciates those ongoing efforts – those benefits far outweigh any drawbacks, and the potential in a live-service Diablo came across crystal clear in the small bite I got from the beta.

That’s all for now, but check back after this coming weekend’s second beta for my thoughts on whatever trouble I get into with the two new classes.

Ubisoft has introduced a new AI scriptwriting tool called Ghostwriter, saying it will help game writers develop better dialogue for NPCs.

According to a blog post published by Ubisoft on Tuesday, Ghostwriter, created by Ubisoft's R&D department, La Forge, "isn't replacing the video game writer." Quite the opposite, Ubisoft claims. It is actually saving game writers time coming up with the best lines, or barks, to give NPCs.

Ghostwriter generates first drafts of barks and gives writers room to flesh them out to better fit the game's narrative. Ben Swanson, an R&D scientist at La Forge Montreal, said he created Ghostwriter to solve the issue of writing barks that would be triggered by certain situations, especially when there's a crowd full of NPCs.

"Rather than writing first draft versions themselves, Ghostwriter lets scriptwriters select and polish the samples generated," he said.

Swanson demonstrated the use of Ghostwriter at GDC, showing bark trees that show up for an NPC character confronting a certain topic, such as speeding or being hungry. The program generates lines for either situation, then the writer selects the most suitable line and combines it with their own input to better fit it with the game's narrative design.

AI tools have gained increased attention as creators grapple with the consequences of tools like ChatGPT. In the games industry, Ubisoft's Ghostwriter tool is one of many AI tools designed to streamline the often painstaking work that goes into writing basic dialogue or cleaning up environmental assets.

Ubisoft currently has several games in development, including multiple Assassin's Creed releases, and Ghostwriter will no doubt be used to streamline their development as much as possible.

Cristina Alexander is a freelance writer for IGN. She has contributed her work to various publications, including Digital Trends, TheGamer, Twinfinite, Mega Visions, and The Escapist. To paraphrase Calvin Harris, she wears her love for Sonic the Hedgehog on her sleeve like a big deal. Follow her on Twitter @SonicPrincess15.

The domestic violence charges filed against Rick & Morty co-creator Justin Roiland have been dropped, IGN has confirmed.

A representative with the Orange Country District Attorney, which originally filed the charges, told IGN that they were dropped today as "we did not have sufficient evidence to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt," in addition to "additional information that came to light during the investigation."

“I commend the Orange County District Attorney’s Office for conducting a thorough review of the facts and deciding to dismiss the case against Justin," Roiland's attorney, T. Edward Welbourn, told IGN in a statement. "I’m thankful justice has prevailed.”

Roiland also broke his silence today, speaking publicly on Twitter for the first time since the allegations came to light.

"I have always known that these claims were false - and I never had any doubt this day would come," Roiland tweeted.

"I'm thankful that this case has been dismissed but, at the same time, I'm still deeply shaken by the horrible lies that were reported about me during this process."

"Most of all," he continued, "I'm disappointed that so many people were so quick to judge without knowing the facts, based solely on the word of an embittered ex trying to bypass due process and have me 'canceled.' That it may have succeeded, even partially, is shameful. However, now that the legal case has ended, I'm determined to move forward and focus both on my creative projects and restoring my good name."

justice pic.twitter.com/1q9M4GA6MV

The domestic violence charges, which were filed in May of 2020 over an alleged incident in January of that year, first became public early this year. At the time, Roiland had been charged with one felony count of domestic battery with corporal injury, and one felony count of false imprisonment by menace, violence, fraud, and/or deceit against an anonymous Jane Doe that he had been dating at the time.

Over a dozen hearings had already been held over the charges, and Roiland was next due back in court on April 27.

After the charges came to light, a number of companies cut ties with Roiland, including Adult Swim, where Roiland was co-creator, executive producer, and voice actor on Rick & Morty.

Additionally, Squanch Games, which released Roiland's High on Life late last year, also revealed in a statement that Roiland had resigned from the company, and Hulu announced that it would no longer work with him on their comedies Solar Opposites and Koala Man.

Still, Roiland had very little creative impact on all the above shows, as reported in a THR article and confirmed by IGN sources. Rick & Morty is still in production on its upcoming seventh season.

Thumbnail credit: Leon Bennett/WireImage

Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.

At GDC 2023, Epic Games held a State of Unreal event, where the company unveiled the latest updates for Unreal Engine. We got a fresh look at some new tools coming soon to creators, as well as how some of these tools are being used in upcoming games like Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2.

If you missed the livestream, here's a quick roundup of everything announced during the 2023 State of Unreal event.

Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) is a new add-on available for the PC version of Fortnite. As Epic Games notes, the application works side-by-side with Fortnite's existing creative toolset and is to be used for "designing, developing, and publishing games and experiences directly into Fortnite." UEFN also includes a new scripting language called "Verse," which Epic notes is a "powerful customization capabilities such as manipulating or chaining together devices and the ability to easily create new game logic."

The Unreal Editor for Fortnite is available now on the Epic Games Store as a public beta.

We already knew that Ninja Theory is hard at work on Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2. And during today's State of Unreal presentation, we got to see a sneak peek at how the developer is taking advantage of the new tools provided by Unreal Engine, and how it is using MetaHuman Animator to provide realistic facial animations on the its characters.

MetaHuman Animator will allow creators to use an iPhone or a stereo helmet-mounted camera to "reproduce any facial performance as high-fidelity animation" on MetaHuman characters. Epic touts that this new feature will allow creators to "capture the individuality, realism, and fidelity of your actor's performance, and transfer every detail and nuance onto any MetaHuman to bring them to life in Unreal Engine."

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney and Unreal Engine head Nick Penwarden shared new information on Unreal Engine 5.2. The company teamed up with EV manufacturer Rivian to create the stunning Electric Dreams demo to demonstrate some new things developers can do.

Unreal Engine 5.2 will roll out new features, most notably, Substrate, a new method that will offer those using Unreal Engine 5 "more control over the look and feel of objects used in real-time applications," including games.

More interestingly, Epic notes that Unreal Engine 5.2 will introduce the Procedural Content Generation Framework (PCG) during the State of Unreal Presentation. Epic claims that these new in-editor and run-time PCG tools will allow artists to "define rules and parameters to quickly populate expansive, highly detailed spaces" faster and more efficiently.

Epic announced it was consolidating its digital asset stores into one huge marketplace that will launch later this year. Called Fab, this new store will provide available assets in the Unreal Engine Marketplace, Quixel Bridge, Artstation Marketplace, and Sketchfab.

The company also announced "Creator Economy 2.0," which is launching alongside UEFN to allow those that use the Fortnire Island creators to receive more money based on how much engagement their published content receives. Additionally, Epic pledged that 40 percent of the game's net revenues would be put back into a pool for creators.

Taylor is the Associate Tech Editor at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

2023 might finally be the year where 2TB PS5 SSDs might actually be worth the upgrade. Last year, prices for 1TB PS5 SSDs averaged around $150, whereas 2TB SSDs hovered closer to $300. This year, we're seeing 1TB SSDs trickle below the $100 price point and 2TB SSDs are under $200. The reason PS5 SSD upgrades are pricey is that you can't use any old SSD and expect it to perform well on the PS5 console. You'll want to pick up an PCIe Gen4 x4 M.2 solid state drive with a rated 5,500MB/s read speed to match the PS5's internal drive. That means, for better or for worse, picking a top-shelf SSD.

Note that Sony recommends a heatsink attached to your SSD. Not all SSDs listed here have pre-installed heatsinks. For the ones that do, we'll be sure to mention it. For the ones that don't, all you have to do is purchase your own heatsink (we recommend this one for $10) and install it yourself. It's very easy.

Constantly going in and out of stock

Crucial's newest M.2 SSD meets all the requirements for your PS5 SSD upgrade. It supports transfer speeds of up to 6,660MB/s which is well above the 5,500MB/s minimum threshold. Yes there are faster SSDs out there, but if your intention is to put this in your PS5, then that extra speed is worthless because you're bottlenecked by the original PS5 SSD. If you're worried about opening up your PS5 case, don't worry it's very easy. Crucial has an official YouTube PS5 SSD install guide to see you through the process.

Samsung SSDs need no introduction. They've made some of the most popular and reliable PS5 SSDs on the market. The 980 Pro has been out for a while now, but it's still one of Samsung's fastest M.2 PCIe SSD, with only the newly released 990 Pro being faster. It is fully PS5 compatible in terms of form factor and performance, with blistering speeds of up to 7,100MB/s. It goes toe to toe with other well-known options like the WD Black SN850 and the Seagate Firecuda 530.

Amazon is offering a 2TB WD Black SN850X with preinstalled heatsink for only $179.99. The SN850X is the successor to the SN850 SSD. It has newer flash chips (BiCS5 vs BiCS4) and an updated firmware, which combined offer improved sequential and random read/write speeds. For PC gamers, there's also an updated Game Mode 2.0 utility that's designed to tune the SSD for better performance during gaming sessions.

Corsair is a very well known brand for DIY PC builders. Corsair makes some of the best gaming products on the market, and that includes solid-state memory like RAM and SSDs. The MP600 Pro is the same super-fast M.2 NVMe PCIe x4 Gen4 SSD that's marketed for enthusiast gaming PC builds. This one is "optimized for PS5" because it includes a rugged preinstalled heatsink that is slim enough to fit in the PS5 bay without any issues. Performance wise, the MP600 Pro matches the best SSDs out there with its 7,100MB/sec sequential read and 6,800MB/sec sequential write speeds.

Amazon is offering the Patriot Viper VP4300 2TB M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 x 4 Internal Gaming Solid State Drive, which is compatible with the PS5 console, for only $142.99. This makes it definitely the lowest price we've seen for a brand name 2TB PS5 SSD, especially since this one even includes a slim aluminum heatshield. The VP4300 is an M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 x4 solid state drive with rated transfer speeds of 7,400MB/s read and 6,800MB/s write. That makes it well above the PS5's recommended 5,600MB/s speed requirement.

There may be other SSD deals out there, but these are the PS5 SSDs we've tried ourselves and highly recommend. They also double up as outstanding boot drives for your gaming PC, in case you don't need additional storage for your PS5 console.

It's extremely easy! Removing the case cover is completely toolless. In fact, the only screw you have to remove is the one that keeps the cover for the SSD bay in place. You don't even put it back when you're done. Sony has a quick and easy YouTube video guide.

Sony recommends you install an SSD that has an attached heatsink. If the SSD you purchase doesn't include one, it's simple enough to buy one for about $10 on Amazon and add it yourself. Most of these heatsinks are just attached using an adhesive like thermal tape.

For more deals, take a look at our daily deals for today.

When you hear the term “board games,” you might think of things like Candyland and Life. But board games have come a long way from the days when they were mostly for kids. To pigeonhole board games like that ignores the fact that the majority of board games on the market today are deep, demanding, and definitely designed for grown-ups.

So whether you're into 2-player board games, party games, or even solo board games, here are our picks for the best board games for adults to stretch your grey matter and provoke some interesting discussions.

There’s no better place to start this list than with one of the most popular and engaging games of the last few years. Wingspan is often sold as a family board game but in truth, it’s a little too complex and challenging for kids. It is pitch-perfect for adults, though, with a perfect weave of tactics and strategy together with a winning theme as you try to attract birds to a nature reserve. Different birds need different foods and habitats but will contribute to your growing ecosystem which becomes a kind of engine, generating resources to allow you to play bigger and more beautiful birds.

A lot of cooperative board games are very family-friendly, but Spirit Island is different. It’s deep and demanding, for one thing, with a commensurate sense of strategic satisfaction when your group pulls off a victory. For another, it boasts a thought-provoking theme of anti-colonialism, with players taking the roles of elemental gods working together to repel a colonizing invader. Winning means using a combination of your native worshippers and your special elemental powers to plan a way of predicting the path of invasion and throwing them back into the sea.

The titular Brian was a famous king of medieval Ireland, whose campaign of military, social and economic might to unify the island is replicated in this fascinating trick-tacking game. After drafting their cards, players compete in tricks to win control of towns on a map of Ireland, but losing cards net critical resources to use in marriage, supporting the church or seeing off Viking invaders. Failing to balance all these elements can cost you the game, while other players will be competing to steal your tricks away or usurp you on one of the game’s supporting tracks. Check out our Brian Boru review for more details about it.

Dune was one of the movie events of 2021 and it just so happens it’s very well supported with board game spinoffs. Among them is Dune: Imperium, where players are the nobles of the Dune universe, each building their own deck of cards representing their resources, influence and personnel. These can then be played to board spaces to intrigue with other factions or do battle on the planet’s surface, or held for an extra effect on a “reveal” turn. It’s a potent, spicy mixture, forcing players to keep tweaking their deck builds and strategies as the drama unfolds. See our Dune: Imperium review for more.

Topping the “best of lists” of many gamers and critics, Gloomhaven is an extraordinary cooperative marriage of story and strategy board game. You’ll run an ever-changing party of characters through a huge narrative campaign, equipping and upskilling them as they experience events and encounters. Exploration and combat unfold via challenging, tight tactical engine driven by multi-use cards where failure and death are constant threats for the unwary. If the length and price of the original put you off, you can still get most of the pleasure from the cut-down prequel Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion.

If none of the other games on this list tickles your fancy, then Terraforming Mars’ cross-genre blending might be what you need. In your quest to civilize Mars before your competitors you’ll need to juggle hand management, resource gathering and positional play on the planet’s surface, all these factors tying together into one neat package. Best of all, for a game of this style, they also help conjure a real sense of humanity coloniing the red planet, inch by dusty inch. The different corporation powers and card deals make each game feel new and stop there from being a guaranteed path to victory.

From the box art, you might assume this is a kids’ game about cute woodland animals. In fact, it’s a fascinating and multi-layered exploration of the meaning of power for different groups in society. There are four factions in the game: the traditionalist birds, the industrialized cats, the oppressed woodland folk and the lone Vagabond. Each has its own set of rules and goals to bring to this highly asymmetrical game where you’ll marshal troops and cards to build up your resources, fight and advance your goals. And if the layered strategic puzzle isn’t thoughtful enough, you can discuss the political and philosophical ramifications of the game’s model afterwards.

You might never have heard of the psychic espionage comic series on which this is based, but that won’t keep you from enjoying its sublime blend of strategy and surrealism. One player, the recruiter, moves in secret on a hidden map, trying to visit enough recruiting locations to win. The other players work as a team, using a limited pool of actions to try and gain clues to the recruiter’s movements and objectives so they can corner and capture them. A fun new puzzle of bluff and deduction on every play, Mind MGMT is brilliantly enlivened by a series of closed boxes containing extra game elements you can open and add at your leisure. See our complete Mind MGMT review for more info.

Worker placement, where you have a limited pool of pieces to assign to actions on the board, is a common mechanic in mid- and heavy-weight games. Anachrony takes it to the next level by allowing you to “borrow” workers and resources from your future turns as part of its time-traveling theme. Failure to pay back your loans when that turn rolls around has predictably dire consequences. Atop the usual business of juggling the resources you need to climb one of the game’s paths this makes it feel fresh, complex and challenging while also evoking a classic science fiction theme.

For more ideas, take a look at our picks for the best board games to play in 2023 or take a look at the best board games for kids for family friendly options.

Valve has suddenly confirmed Counter-Strike 2 - and it's arriving sooner than you might think.

An exact release date has yet to be announced, but it's been given a Summer 2023 release window, and will run on Source Engine 2.

It will be a free upgrade to CS:GO. It's also available in limited testing to some CS:GO players starting today, with Valve revealing more details on how to become part of the limited test.

Per a CS2 website that popped up today, it's "the largest technical leap forward in Counter-Strike’s history, ensuring new features and updates for years to come." In several videos released today, Valve gave a closer glimpse at what Counter-Strike players can expect.

Specifically, Valve spotlighted its "upgraded and overhauled maps," "game-changing" smoke grenades, tick-rate-independent gameplay, and redesigned visual effects and audio.

All of CS2's overhauled maps "have been fully rebuilt from the ground up, leveraging all of the new Source 2 tools and rendering features," says Valve. The updated grenades, meanwhile, now have the ability to interact with other gameplay events, will expand to fill spaces naturally, and will react to lightning.

Plus, "regardless of tick rate, your moving and shooting will be equally responsive and your grenades will always land the same way," per the announcement.

All of a player's CS:GO items will carry with them to CS2.

Though this marks Valve's first official confirmation of CS2's existence, rumors had already started to gain steam earlier this month, with notable journalist and Counter-Strike caster Richard Lewis saying that Valve was getting ready to announce the project.

Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.

Are you looking to build out your collection of board games at home, or want something new and exciting to play during your next game night? If so, there’s no better time than now to buy one, thanks to Amazon’s board game sale. During this time, you can save plenty (up to 51%!) on select board games, from Pandemic to Betrayal to Azul.

Below, you can see which board games are included in Amazon’s sale right now, along with how much you can save on each one.

If you want to see a collection of some of the best board games to play throughout this year, we’ve got you covered there, too. In our guide to the Best Board Games to Play in 2023, we've curated a wide selection of board games, from classic picks to exciting new ones, that are perfect for including in your next game night. This selection includes Ticket to Ride, Gloomhaven, Codenames, Pandemic, and many more. Some of these games are even included in Amazon's board game sale listed above, which is even better! You can now add some of the best board games around to your collection at home for a much cheaper price.

Board games aren’t the only items on sale on Amazon right now, either. For those looking to buy some new tech, you can also save 20% on 2nd Generation Apple Airpods Pro earbuds, which are originally $249 and are now available for just $199.99. Or, if you’re looking for a new microSD card for your Nintendo Switch or Steam Deck, you can find the Samsung EVO Select 512GB microSD card on sale on Amazon as well, docked down 53% from $84.99 to $39.99.

Hannah Hoolihan is a freelance writer who works with the Guides and Commerce teams here at IGN.

In a game all about vampire slaying it’s pretty important that killing your blood-feasting foes feels like an event in and of itself. That’s exactly what Arkane Austin has done with Redfall; much like how assassination-sim Dishonored had gloriously bloody backstab animations, Redfall revels in the act of plunging a wooden stake through a vampire’s heart. There’s weight in the blow as you knock your foe backwards and slam them into the floor, pushing a boot into a jaw that quickly evaporates into fiery dust. Yeah, killing vampires in Redfall feels good.

At a recent hands-on event I played around 90 minutes of Redfall, which gave me the first taste of something akin to a Far Cry game made by Stephen King. It’s an open-world shooter set in modern day Massachusetts, filled with gothic small-town vibes, fanged horrors, and a buffet of activity types.

That means Prey and Dishonored developer Arkane Austin is operating in uncharted territory. Redfall is very different to the studio’s other games and initially feels a lot more conventional. A freely explored map with safehouses, enemy camps, side errands, and tier-graded loot? Check, check, check, and check. But the more I played, the more I saw of what I’d expect from the historically ambitious developer. The island town of Redfall has clever environment design that’s engineered to compliment your skills. The enemy AI is there to be toyed with, allowing you to bait your foes into traps. And every second room I entered felt staged to tell a story. Redfall definitely is an Arkane game, just not the one I expected.

The demo began mid-way through an investigation into Dr. Addison, a physician-turned-vampire god known as The Hollow Man. I was to search his mansion – a ransacked estate that appeared frozen in time, mid-explosion – in the hope of discovering something that may weaken him. Of course, said mansion was crawling with enemies, both blood suckers and the humans who work in service to them. It was a classic infiltration set-up and has much of what you’d expect of Arkane’s work in this field. Patrolling cultists guarded the perimeter, CCTV camera-like vampires lurked on the building’s roof, and there were multiple entry points to choose from. Inside, the route to my objective was spelled out only with clues, and so exploration and close reading of the space is mandatory.

It soon became clear that to find what I was looking for I needed to replace three characters missing from Addison’s daughter’s doll house. After scouring the house and finding the little figures I needed, I was transported back to a period where the mansion was tidy, un-exploded, and Addison hadn’t gone full vampire mode. In this timeline – which felt like a simpler, less fantastical version of Dishonored 2’s Crack in the Slab in the way it repurposed the location to tell its story – I watched apparitions play out a tragedy between Addison and his daughter. It’s a tale I won’t spoil here, but one that reveals the vampire god’s weakness and presumably will help me burn him out of existence in a later mission.

Of course, Redfall isn’t all about rebuilding creepy doll houses and reliving childrens’ trauma. As mentioned earlier, it’s also very much about sending vampires to hell in very cool ways. Your arsenal comprises a bunch of conventional firearms – shotguns, pistols, assault rifles and the like – as well as a variety of DIY weapons designed specifically for vampire hunting. The selection I’ve used of the former feel heavy and powerful, but even those with the highest stats are unable to truly eliminate a vampire. Bloodsuckers downed by regular guns will reanimate a few moments later and so, in tradition with vampire lore, the only way to properly end them is with a stake driven through their heart. Many guns are equipped with a wooden bayonet for such occasions, but the jury-rigged stake launcher lets you dust vamps from a distance with a single trigger pull. Ammo for the launcher seems much more scarce than regular bullets, though, and so I found myself continually assessing if each fanged target was worth the shot.

Should you be out of stakes, there are other ways to do the job. Fire does the trick, and so exploding hazards or flare guns will turn a vampire into a smouldering barbecue. Electricity also generates heat, and so setting up some kind of a livewire trap will fry them, too. They also hate ultraviolet light (it freezes them into temporary stone statues), so a UV emitter gun is a handy thing to pack – just remember to shatter your targets before the petrification wears off. All these techniques give the sense of vampire hunting being a process, a profession. To be the slayer means learning the tricks of the trade.

Each of Redfall’s four playable protagonists are equipped with unique skills to help with that process. For this session I played as Devinder Crousley, a quippy British cryptozoologist most obviously built around being a modern-day Buffy. His Arc Javelin is an electrified spear that can chain bolts of lightning around a group of enemies, and scoring a perfect throw with it feels immensely satisfying. The Blacklight, meanwhile, floods a wide area with UV light for quick crowd control. They were useful in my single-player demo, but are abilities I’m excited to use as part of a co-op session; I’m interested to see the results of experimentation with a combination of different characters’ skills.

My favourite of Devinder’s gadgets is his Translocator, a frisbee-like device that teleports you to wherever it is thrown. It’s Redfall’s closest answer to Dishonored’s Blink ability and it quickly became my most-used tool, letting me access out-of-reach open windows, flank enemies, appear behind guards for takedowns, and bypass grids of laser trip mines. It also helped just getting around; while Redfall’s map seems much smaller than those in most open world shooters there’s still a lot of ground to cover, and being able to throw the Translocator over houses, streets, and fences was very handy for exploring the town.

As you’d expect from a game in this genre, there’s a whole bunch of things to do beyond the main storyline. There are multiple safehouses to unlock, each of which becomes an ammunition stockpile and fast-travel location. There are activities which help pull neighbourhoods back from full vampire infestation, such as wiping out cultist rallies or preventing a powerful creature emerging from its blood amber cocoon. Then there are errand-like side quests that appear to be peppered with Arkane Easter eggs, such as one where you head off to find whisky and cigars.

But the best side activities are the strangest ones, at least from the small sample I’ve seen so far. Vampire Nests transport you into a twisted psychic realm where you must destroy a room-sized heart and then claim as much treasure as possible before the entire place collapses around you like some kind of blood splattered game show. Back in the town, you’re frequently reminded that ‘The Vampire Gods Are Watching You’, and if you cause too much trouble they’ll send an Incredible Hulk-like freak to beat seven bells out of you in a battle played out beneath a wild electrical storm. The repeating nature of open-world tasks feels completely at odds with Arkane’s typically hand-crafted approach, but it’s in these two activities that I saw a glimmer of how the studio is rethinking the building blocks of the genre to make them feel more systemic or novel.

The other area in which traditional open-world shooter design is at odds with Arkane’s legacy is stealth. To be clear: stealth is a component of Redfall, but it adheres to a very different rulebook than that used by Dishonored. Sneaking flows between regular bursts of violent, chaotic conflict. And that’s okay. Dishonored was Arkane’s interpretation of pure stealth classics like Thief, but the studio’s touchstones for Redfall are very different. Before my demo began, co-director Harvey Smith namechecked Far Cry 2 and STALKER as influences; two shooters from an experimental period years before the likes of Gearbox and Ubisoft established the largely unwavering open-world FPS formula. If Arkane Austin can bring its own version of the kind of innovation those games did back in the late 2000s, then Redfall could well inject a static genre with some long-overdue excitement.

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Features Editor.

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for March 22nd, 2023. In today’s article, we’ve got a little slice of news to get things started. After that, a pair of Mini-Views await for some less-than-stellar titles. Then, it’s new release time! We all love that time. Finally, we wrap things up with a look at the latest sales and outgoing discounts. Let’s get to work!

‘Fire Emblem Engage’ Arrives in the Next ‘Tetris 99’ Maximus Cup

We don’t get Tetris 99 Maximus Cup events all that often anymore, but I suppose that is to be expected after all this time. Even when one does show up, it feels like it’s late to whatever party it was supposed to come to. Anyway, there’s a new one coming up this weekend. It’s a Fire Emblem Engage themed event, and as usual you’re tasked with earning one hundred event points to permanently unlock the theme. It kicks off on Friday and runs through the weekend.

This game isn’t finished yet. It is up front about that in its description, so it’s not hiding it or anything. But is very much what you would call Early Access, and that amounts to a roguelite action game with considerably less meat on its bones than similarly-priced competitors. There are some neat ideas in here. I like how you have to manage your fire, as it serves both as your health and a valuable resource for moving forward. The combat is decent, and I like the tower defense elements. There just isn’t enough here, though. What is here gets old fast as a result.

Flame Keeper may eventually end up being a great example of the roguelite genre, but in this unfinished form it’s just too slight to give too much attention to. You can easily see everything worth seeing in a couple of hours, and while that’s not bad bang for the buck, it’s not great relative to other games of this sort that you can pick up for a similar price. As I say from time to time, I can’t review an unknown future. I can only look at what is here in front of me now, and in that context Flame Keeper is just okay.

SwitchArcade Score: 3/5

The premise of this game sounded so cool and the screenshots looked so interesting that I was excited to play it. That’s not something that happens often with me. Sure, it looked more than a little inspired by the modern Persona games, but I don’t think that’s actually a hard target to aim for even on a limited budget. Atlus itself made its games on shoestring budgets until very recently, after all. Unfortunately, Mato Anomalies just isn’t very good. It’s not any one thing, either. It just seems to unilaterally come up short in everything it does. Severe technical issues. Awkward writing. A card game that just isn’t very well-designed. The overall plot is interesting, the art design is solid, and the combat system is fine. That’s about all the nice things I have to say.

With a lot of great RPGs on the Switch to choose from, Mato Anomalies really shouldn’t be on anyone’s radar. That’s unfortunate, because there are a lot of promising elements here that could have added up to something neat. Execution is key, however, and that is where Mato Anomalies seems to fail in every category. Even without the significant performance issues, the underlying design flaws result in something that I really can’t recommend to anyone except those who enjoy picking apart misfires.

SwitchArcade Score: 2.5/5

You’re the old Grim Reaper himself, Death. Normally you’d be kicking back and enjoying a break at the driving range, but your employees are getting rebellious and making a real mess of the balance of souls. Time to do the boss thing and knock some sense into them, it seems. This is a roguelite action game, and it’s a rather fun one. The combat is really flashy, and the presentation is superb. There’s a gimmick where if you take too many abilities you’ll be punished by the labor board or something like that, which is pretty funny. I’ll be doing a review of this one soon.

Wow, this is one of those rare Switch visual novels that has nothing to do with romance whatsoever. It’s a horror game set in a haunted convent. Yes, that sounds rather neat. You’ll be called in to make choices here and there, and if you pick the right answers you’ll get a bonus scene in the ending. Reviews on other platforms are quite positive, so if you’re hankering for a good read, this might be your ticket for today.

Used to be that you’d be lucky to see one or two Picross-style games on a console. Puppy Cross is probably the Switch’s fiftieth or sixtieth. It’s mainly focused on dogs, but it also has some cat stuff if you want to go that way. You get more than one hundred puzzles in a variety of sizes, and four garden areas you can decorate if you need a break from poking away at them.

(North American eShop, US Prices)

Some really good sales in the list today. Blossom Tales II, Demon Turf, and Bullets Per Minute are at new low prices. Those are all really great games. There are other excellent deals in the list, so give it a good look. The outbox is fairly large, with a lot of indie sales wrapping up. Check that list carefully too. This… I command.

Select New Games on Sale

Blossom Tales II: TMP ($10.49 from $14.99 until 3/28)
Lil Gator Game ($13.99 from $19.99 until 3/28)
Demon Turf ($14.99 from $24.99 until 3/28)
BPM Bullets Per Minute ($17.49 from $24.99 until 3/28)
A Little Golf Journey ($11.99 from $19.99 until 3/28)
Biped ($5.24 from $14.99 until 3/29)
The Uncertain: Last Quiet Day ($5.24 from $14.99 until 3/29)
Time Loader ($5.24 from $14.99 until 3/29)
Overlord: Escape from Nazarick ($17.99 until 29.99 until 3/29)
Death Coming ($2.44 from $6.99 until 3/29)
Crysis Remastered ($11.99 from $29.99 until 4/10)
Crysis Remastered Trilogy ($27.49 from $49.99 until 4/10)
Reknum DX ($3.49 from $4.99 until 4/10)
Reknum Cheri Dreamland ($1.99 from $6.99 until 4/10)
Ploid ($2.09 from $2.99 until 4/10)
Ploid Saga ($1.99 from $11.99 until 4/10)
Nape Retroverse Collection ($4.89 from $6.99 until 4/10)
Super Mabus Mania ($5.52 from $7.89 until 4/10)
FerroSlug ($3.96 from $5.67 until 4/10)
Right and Down ($5.99 from $9.99 until 4/10)

Ken Follett’s the Pillars of the Earth ($14.99 from $19.99 until 4/11)
Destropolis ($2.39 from $5.99 until 4/11)
Nova-111 ($3.99 from $9.99 until 4/11)
Primal Light ($7.49 from $14.99 until 4/11)
One True Hero ($7.49 from $14.99 until 4/11)
Splashy Cube ($1.99 from $4.99 until 4/11)
Tanuki Justice ($2.99 from $14.99 until 4/11)
Pirates: All Aboard ($1.99 from $5.99 until 4/11)
Make War ($1.99 from $9.99 until 4/11)
Picklock ($1.99 from $7.99 until 4/11)
Steve Jackson’s Sorcery ($12.49 from $24.99 until 4/11)
Cyjin The Cyborng Ninja ($4.99 from $9.99 until 4/11)
Golden Force ($3.99 from $19.99 until 4/11)
Will You Snail? ($5.99 from $14.99 until 4/11)
Okinawa Rush ($3.99 from $19.99 until 4/11)
Wallachia Reign of Dracula ($2.99 from $14.99 until 4/11)
Flippin Kaktus ($4.89 from $11.99 until 4/11)
Master Spy ($4.99 from $9.99 until 4/11)

Sales Ending Tomorrow, Thursday, March 23rd

A Good Snowman is Hard to Build ($4.99 from $9.99 until 3/23)
A Monster’s Expedition ($13.99 from $19.99 until 3/23)
Age of Heroes: The Beginning ($9.99 from $19.99 until 3/23)
Airborne Kingdom ($12.49 from $24.99 until 3/23)
Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX ($6.79 from $19.99 until 3/23)
All-Star Fruit Racing ($1.99 from $19.99 until 3/23)
Anuchard ($4.94 from $14.99 until 3/23)
Baldo the Guardian Owls ($17.49 from $24.99 until 3/23)
Beacon Pines ($15.99 from $19.99 until 3/23)
Bonfire Peaks ($13.99 from $19.99 until 3/23)
Cape’s Escape Game 4th Room ($2.00 from $9.80 until 3/23)
Cape’s Escape Game 5th Room ($2.00 from $9.80 until 3/23)
Citizen Sleeper ($13.99 from $19.99 until 3/23)
Cosmic Express ($4.99 from $9.99 until 3/23)
Criminal Expert ($1.99 from $9.99 until 3/23)

Dark Deity ($9.99 from $24.99 until 3/23)
Everybody’s Home Run Derby ($2.50 from $5.00 until 3/23)
Finding Paradise ($9.59 from $11.99 until 3/23)
Front Mission 1st: Remake ($31.49 from $34.99 until 3/23)
Happy’s Humble Burger Farm ($7.99 from $19.99 until 3/23)
Hellpoint ($13.99 from $34.99 until 3/23)
Jack Move ($13.99 from $19.99 until 3/23)
Let’s Get Changed: Escape Game ($14.80 from $19.80 until 3/23)
Like No Other: TLotTB ($8.99 from $14.99 until 3/23)
Monster Harvest ($4.99 from $19.99 until 3/23)
My Downtown ($5.99 from $19.99 until 3/23)
Outbuddies DX ($4.49 from $17.99 until 3/23)
Paradise Killer ($7.99 from $19.99 until 3/23)
Pirated Code: Admin Edition ($8.79 from $10.99 until 3/23)
Pixel Heroes: Mega Byte & Magic ($3.74 from $14.99 until 3/23)

Queen’s Garden: Sakura Season ($5.99 from $19.99 until 3/23)
Rhythm Sprout ($11.99 from $14.99 until 3/23)
Rigid Force Redux ($4.99 from $19.99 until 3/23)
Secrets of Magic 4 PM ($5.99 from $19.99 until 3/23)
Secrets of Magic 5 BtS ($5.99 from $19.99 until 3/23)
Silver Chains ($2.99 from $24.99 until 3/23)
Sokobond ($4.99 from $9.99 until 3/23)
Sparklite ($4.99 from $24.99 until 3/23)
Splatter: Zombiecalypse Now ($1.99 from $7.99 until 3/23)
Streets of Rogue ($7.99 from $19.99 until 3/23)
The Coma 2: Vicious Sisters ($3.74 from $14.99 until 3/23)
The Coma: Recut ($3.74 from $14.99 until 3/23)
The Lost Labyrinth ($5.99 from $19.99 until 3/23)
To the Moon ($9.59 from $11.99 until 3/23)

Totally Reliable Delivery Service ($5.99 from $14.99 until 3/23)
Trash Sailors ($7.99 from $19.99 until 3/23)
Truberbrook ($3.59 from $29.99 until 3/23)
Tyrant’s Blessing ($9.99 from $19.99 until 3/23)
Undungeon ($4.99 from $19.99 until 3/23)
Xenon Racer ($1.99 from $14.99 until 3/23)

That’s all for today, friends. Tomorrow is Thursday and while it isn’t big as some other recent Thursdays for sheer numbers of titles, there will still be plenty to dig into. We’ll have summaries of those, along with whatever sales and big news roll in during the course of the day. I hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday, and as always, thanks for reading!

Hello, friends. Shaun is back and ready to talk more Marvel Snap (Free). No, I’m not tired of it yet. And frankly, with how on the ball Second Dinner has been with staying on top of updates, I probably won’t be for a while. With a new development roadmap revealed and a new update, we have a couple things to talk about today.  Go web, go!

Development Roadmap – March 2023

So, first up, we’ve got a new development roadmap. There are some interesting things on the horizon for the game. You can read all of the little bullet points there, but the biggest, mode immediate feature is a new competitive Conquest Mode that leverages the basic structure of Friendly Battles for a new way to go up against players around the world. You have to win a series of battles without losing to earn tickets that will grant you entry into higher leagues. The higher you go, the better the rewards. Wins will get you medals you will be able to use in a special Conquest Shop. The shop will change its contents every season, and you can look forward to cosmetics and special variants that you won’t find anywhere else.

The Token Shop is going to be getting a revamp so that players will be able to get the cards they want more easily. First up, when a new Series 5 card is released it will be featured in its own section for one week. If you buy it, that section will disappear until the next one comes up. The rotating Token Shop card selection will now only show Series 4 and Series 5 cards, as Series 3 cards have been moved to their own spot. Ultimate Variants are also getting moved out of the rotating selection into their own spot with its own rotation. Neat.

The rest of the immediate stuff was implemented in today’s update, so we’ll go over it that in a second. The mid-term and conceptual stuff hasn’t changed too much from the previous roadmap, and I imagine steady progress is being made on all of it. Conquest Mode is definitely the star of this roadmap, and I’m looking forward to trying it out even though I know I will get thrashed.

March 21 2023 Update 

Alright, let’s talk about this update because it has a lot of interesting things going on in it. First, as mentioned in the roadmap, some changes have been made to help players fill out their card collections more easily. Players can expect to get more Tokens from Collector’s Caches and Collector’s Reserves, and this will be especially so for those who haven’t finished their Series 3 collections. More Tokens means more funds to grab cards from the shop, so that’s easy enough to grok.

There’s another perk for those who haven’t finished their Series 3 collections yet. There’s a new feature in the shop that allows said players to claim one free Series 3 card per season. Cards will rotate every eight hours, so feel free to wait until the one you really want comes up. This allows you to save Tokens for bigger purchases.

As usual, some cards have moved from one Series to another. Moving from Series 5 to Series 4 are Zabu, Sauron, Shanna, Dazzler, and the Shadow King. Sliding from Series 4 to Series 3 are M’Baku, Orka, and Attuma. Zabu in particular is a very useful card so it will be interesting to see what happens when he is more widely available.

There are some big balance updates, which is also fairly normal for these mid-season patches. Thanos, who got buffed last month, has gotten a debuff this time. His Power is back down to 10, which keeps him in Shang-Chi’s targeting sights but makes him a little less beefy. The Space Stone has also had its properties changed to cut back on Lockjaw shenanigans. The Mad Titan is still plenty strong, but hopefully he’ll dominate a little less now.

The Quinjet’s ability has also been slightly nerfed. It still reduces the Cost of cards that didn’t start in your deck by one, but it can only reduce the Cost to a minimum of 1. You can’t zero out Costs anymore with it. This is basically collateral damage of the Thanos debuff, as people were using the Quinjet to get the Infinity Stones into play for 0-Cost.

The next pair of debuffs targets Shuri abuse. Red Skull goes from being 5-Cost 15-Power that buffs enemy power by 2 to being 5-Cost 13-Power and buffing enemy power by 1. She-Hulk goes from 6-Cost 10-Power to 6-Cost 9-Power. Considering how often I’ve seen the Shuri/Red Skull/Taskmaster combo lately, the former makes a great deal of sense. And yeah, Shulkie was probably a bit too powerful given her versatility. Fair beans.

Speaking of Taskmaster, he and the other mimic cards are getting their ability slightly tweaked. Taskmaster, Absorbing Man, and Mystique now require the card they copied to be in play to copy its attributes. This keeps Taskmaster from copying a card that Shang-Chi has punched into the Sun and should help reduce the dominance of Shuri decks a little.

Aero is a popular card in some of the best decks, and it’s her turn at bat. She moves from 5-Cost 7-Power to 5-Cost 8-Power, but her ability has been changed so that she moves only the last enemy card played this turn to her location instead of all of them. This balance change on its own is probably going to have major ramifications for the meta.

Morbius and Knull are some of the most popular characters Marvel has created, and they’re both getting hit with a similar change. Morb’s Power now only updates if he’s in play, reverting a previous change that made it update no matter where he was. Knull will update in-hand but not in-deck now. Both of these cards will be seeing some tweaks in the future, so these are just kludges for the time being.  No buffs this time for any cards because clearly we’ve all been naughty.

Hm, I accidentally wrote a novel here. Oh well, it’s all for the sake of being informative. I don’t know how much any of this means to people who don’t play Marvel Snap, but I doubt many of those folks would have read this far anyway. To those who did? Thanks for reading! The next deck guide should be pretty interesting after these changes.

We’ve enjoyed all the games put out by indie developer Unept over the years, but the pinnacle of greatness in that admittedly small library would have to be Unicycle Hero which launched in early 2018. The basic premise of the game was that you competed in a variety of track and field style events, spanning pretty typical ones like javelin throw to more absurd ones like competitive table flipping, but the catch was that you competed in each event while riding a unicycle. This made basic movement needlessly difficult and made for some very hilarious situations as you tried to wibble wobble your way through a full series of athletic events on one wheel. It was a very entertaining game! Now, some five years later and Unept is gracing us with a sequel titled Unicycle Legend. Rather than more traditional sporting events, Unicycle Legend offers up something more akin to hazard platforming as you can see in the following trailer.

Unicycle Legend will feature 120 challenging levels and numerous costumes to deck out your unicycle hero in. It seems like a neat spin on the original game which was more or less just high score chasing across its different events, and this seems more like a platforming game but with a unicycle. I do see the silly announcers have returned though to offer their thoughts and snark on this latest one-wheeled adventure. Unicycle Legend is scheduled for release on April 5th on iOS, and you can pre-order it on the App Store here, but if you’re on Android this bad boy is available right now on the Google Play Store. Also if you’re a fan of previous Unept releases including the original Unicycle Hero, Level With Me, Lava Bird, and Hue Ball you’ll be happy to know they’ve all been updated for modern devices so if you haven’t checked in on them in a while now would be a great time to do that.

Terra Nil, the reverse city builder from Devolver Digital and Free Lives, is out next week for mobile through Netflix Games and on PC platforms. If you’ve not followed the game yet, your aim in Terra Nil is to purify the soil, create plants, rainforests, and more as you try and bring everything around you to a better state for animals. Ever since its reveal, Terra Nil has looked excellent, but it has also sounded very good. Today, Devolver Digital released a new 1 hour long soundtrack video for Terra Nil on YouTube. This soundtrack featuring music by Meydän. Ahead of next week’s launch, you can listen to the Terra Nil soundtrack accompanied by visuals from the game below:

As of this writing, you can pre-order Terra Nil on Steam here with a free upgrade to the deluxe edition. A portion of the profits of Terra Nil on Steam will be donated to the Endangered Wildlife Trust. You can try a demo of it right now on PC if you want to sample the game ahead of its March 28th release date on PC and Netflix Games for mobile. I’ll be covering Terra Nil on both iOS and Steam Deck closer to launch. Check out the official website here. What do you think of Terra Nil so far and will you be playing it next week?

Having played wrestling games since the original PlayStation with WWF Warzone, ECW Anarchy Rulz, and WCW Backstage Assault taking up a ton of my time, I missed out on the PS2 era of wrestling games until much later. I started getting back to playing them regularly towards the end of the PS3 generation. A lot has changed since, and WWE games, now under 2K, have been of varying degrees of quality. While I enjoyed WWE 2K16’s showcase for obvious reasons, WWE 2K22 last year was a massive step in the right direction. Now WWE 2K23 feels like the first great Wrestling game in a long time, albeit one with its own issues. In my WWE 2K23 Steam Deck review, I’m going to focus on how it looks and runs on Steam Deck with what I did to fix any issues I ran into.

Having only played WWE 2K22 a few months after it launched directly on Xbox Series X, I was impressed with how most aspects were improved over prior games. WWE 2K23 feels like a more confident entry that took learnings from 2K22, but added a lot of polish to actually be a wrestling game I have enjoyed playing from day one. Whether you should grab it right now or wait, is something I will address a bit later in this review. Even the excellent tutorial from Xavier Woods is good. John Cena’s Showcase mode is a nice twist on the formula as well. It is worth playing even if you aren’t a fan of his.

Right off the bat, WWE 2K23 surprised me on Steam Deck. The default graphics options it had selected had WWE 2K23 running perfectly in the first few matches I played on Steam Deck. It almost felt too good to be true with a near flawless 60fps and great visuals with fast loading. Then I decided to start stress testing the game on Steam Deck. The new WarGames mode with eight players was far too much for Steam Deck with the frame rate constantly dropping to the 40s from 60. In a game like this, you want the frame rate to remain at 60fps even if it means playing with worse visuals so the action doesn’t slow down.

I was surprised to see some of the eight man modes run at 60fps without dropping more than a few frames during camera cuts in the five matches I tested specifically before getting back to the normal modes I play. It takes a lot of tweaking in the settings to get the WarGames mode with eight total superstars working at 60fps without issues though. If you’re planning on playing WWE 2K23 on Steam Deck and want to focus on this mode, you’re going to need to try out many settings to see what sticks. If you don’t care about the most demanding matches like that, you can make it look really great and play at 60fps, which isn’t something I expected on Steam Deck at all given how modern AAA games usually run on the system day one.

WWE 2K23 Steam Deck graphics and performance

There is an in-game benchmark, but I’d recommend opting for standard textures, standard models, 60fps action camera, medium or low shadows, medium shaders, FXAA (or TAA if you’re playing less visually demanding matches only), FSR upscaling, and then try to find which of the other settings you want to keep on when it comes to your own taste. If you disable windowed mode, WWE 2K23 even runs at 16:10 during matches with most of the interface and other parts of the game being rendered at 16:9. I used Proton Experimental (bleeding edge) and the default Proton in my testing, and the only major difference I noticed was the entrances and some other camera cuts did run at a higher frame rate when using Proton Experimental.

WWE 2K23 on Steam Deck with Remote Play Together

I was curious to see how WWE 2K23 on Steam Deck would handle Valve’s Remote Play Together, so I invited a friend of mine in another country to join my game on Steam Deck. The experience for him wasn’t great over wireless as expected, but it did run perfectly fine at 60fps on my Steam Deck even in an eight man battle royal. The image quality obviously isn’t perfect, but the 60fps and Steam Deck’s smaller screen make it a fine experience. The only thing to keep in mind is the Steam Deck sometimes reboots when ending a Remote Play Together session. This happens in other games as well, so it isn’t a WWE 2K23 specific issue.

Since this is the first time a full fledged 2K WWE game has been available without feature compromises on a portable, I wanted to see how it would handle suspending as well. I left the game suspended for a few hours to test and it resumed fine on Steam Deck without internet as well. On the battery life side, I usually play with full brightness and the projected battery life indicator when I was playing an eight man ladder match was about 1 hour 50 minutes left when I had around 65% battery left when I did this. I’m not the best judge of this as I always push the Steam Deck for better performance and full brightness, but I wanted to give you a rough idea of what to expect with how I set up the game and play on Steam Deck. I installed it on my SD card from the start where it takes about 81.5GB of storage space.

In its current state, my main issues with WWE 2K23 on Steam Deck also apply to the PC version in general. As of this writing, I don’t have access to the other platforms, but the regular server issues are beyond annoying. Barring that, the modes all worked fine on Steam Deck barring the video portion of the creation suite which crashed every single time regardless of what Proton version I tried. I don’t usually spend time in that mode, but I wanted to test it for this WWE 2K23 Steam Deck review.

WWE 2K23 is shockingly good on Steam Deck despite the few issues I ran into. If you skipped the last few years of WWE games, WWE 2K23 is worth your time. It feels like an enhanced version of WWE 2K22 that improves in all the right ways and brings some long overdue features. Just don’t come into this expecting as much of a jump in quality as you had with WWE 2K22 from prior games. In its current state, WWE 2K23 is an excellent wrestling game with tons of content, but one that is let down by its online servers.

Interested in more Steam Deck coverage? Check out our Steam Deck recommendations!

Catch all the Game Boy classics while you still can.

Time is running out for the 3DS and Wii U eShops with the shut down taking place next week on March 27th. Ahead of this, we've got a sales update to show you what's charting on the 3DS eShop in North America with less than a week remaining.

The Virtual Console Pokémon Game Boy games are still going strong. Pokémon Crystal remains in the top spot, but as you can see there has been some movement below it. Capcom's Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy has climbed to the fourth spot. Shovel Knight has also moved up the ranks and the action RPG Gurumin 3D has entered the top 20.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Super stable.

Nintendo has rolled out its second firmware update of 2023, bumping the hybrid system up to Version 16.0.1.

This latest update seemingly does far less compared to the previous 16.0.0 update issued in February. 16.0.1 is the usual stability update to enhance the overall user experience. Here are the patch notes in full, courtesy of Nintendo's official support page:

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Nibbling away.

If you've ever wanted a Slowpoke summoning circle or a Slowpoke crown, well then, we have the toy for you. Bandai has revealed it's releasing a plastic Pokémon model for Slowpoke, and it can latch onto other Slowpoke toys by biting their tails.

Shared by PokéJungle on Twitter, the plastic model (from Bandai Spirits via the Bandai Hobby site) is 120mm in length once put together and is slightly curved so that when you attach it to multiple Slowpokes, it will form a circle. It comes with four different eye stickers, so you can give it a handful of different expressions, too. It's pretty adorable, but it's only been announced for Japan so far.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Full narration and adapted puzzles.

Developer and publisher COWCAT Games has announced that BROK the InvestiGator has received a new update that introduces a range of accessibility features for visually impaired players.

The update is available now and adds full narration via text-to-speech, along with adapted puzzles, tutorials, and positional audio during fights. Here's a look at everything included in the new update:

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Wave 4 is almost here.

Wave 4 of the Fire Emblem Engage Expansion Pass lands on 4th April — or 5th April in Europe. And for Fire Emblem fans, this is likely the most exciting addition yet, as it brings in brand-new story content.

In an ominous trailer, which starts off with "your grave", the Fell Xenologue will bring more story content to the base game, which is separate from the chapter structure, and will introduce brand new characters Ned and Nil. The pair say there are seven 'Emblem Bracelets', and four are missing — meaning there may well be some characters coming back to the fray.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Update: Episode 2 now available.

Update :

The second episode of the bizarre Resident Evil 4 anime is now available and it's absolutely hilarious. It showcases the neverending struggle of saving Ashley from the prying hands of the Ganado. We remember it well.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Oh myyyy.

Hideki Kamiya is known for making quite bullish claims, but this one definitely takes the biscuit.

As spotted by Kotaku, the Bayonetta creator recently took to Twitter and made a rather bold claim (i.e joke) that Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon would cause an "unprecedented marriage boom" and help solve Japan's declining birth rate. Ooh, matron.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Pre-orders now live.

Following a Switch announcement in July last year, Spike Chunsoft has now confirmed ANONYMOUS;CODE will be arriving on Nintendo Switch on 8th September this year, with pre-orders now now available on the publisher's website.

This announcement was made alongside a new trailer. In addition to this, it's been revealed this will be the first entry in the Science Adventure visual novel-style series to include both English and Japanese voice acting. English VA Max Mittleman will voice Pollen, Anairis Quiñones will voice Momo and Y. Chang will voice Cross.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

And restore peace to the realm.

A few months after the release of Fire Emblem Engage on the Switch, Nintendo has announced it will be hosting a special themed event in the battle royale title Tetris 99.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

#26 - Toolin' around.

For the month before the 3DS and Wii U eShops close for new purchases on 27th March, each day we're going to highlight a specific eShop game for one of those consoles and give a short pitch as to why we think it deserves your love and attention — before it's too late. The chance to add these to your library will be gone for good soon and, for one reason or another, these eShop-exclusives are close to our hearts.

Today, Gavin squeezes two tools into one non-game post...

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Xbox’s Director of Gaming Sustainability, Trista Patterson, joined the Xbox Podcast this week with a very clear message: 

“Gaming sustainability is something that Xbox is very proud of, and making big strides in. But, with climate [change], you can’t beat your competitor at it. You have to compete against your own best self in every category. And just like we’re saying, ‘When everyone plays, everyone wins,’ the same goes for, ‘When everyone reduces energy and emissions, everyone on the planet wins.’ No doubt about it.” 

Appearing on the podcast following Xbox’s announcement of a new suite of developer tools designed to reduce energy use and emissions through game code, Patterson explained how she and her team have been making ground-breaking strides to help the entire industry apply more sustainable thinking, and to “create powerful good using the gaming industry” 

It’s not been a simple task. “For a long time, the industry has maintained that there’s no gains to be found in greening game code,” Patterson explained. “And that’s because there’s an enormous complexity between the hardware, the software, the electrical and other engineering, the design, and then the game code itself that creates the power that is required in order to create the gaming experience.” 

“Broadly considered, the industry decided that this was a completely intractable problem – in fact, within the UN’s Playing for the Planet Alliance, it was considered even as of a month ago to be an impossible problem to solve.” 

The solution to that seemingly impossible problem was to create resources for developers to identify ‘Energy Bugs’ – previously invisible problems created by coding that can unintentionally use more power than needed – at source, and fix them quickly. While Xbox has already taken strides to reduce power usage in consoles themselves, this new effort will aid developers in reducing power consumption caused by the games you play on them. 

“You can have fun breaking things in a game. And right now we’re not having fun breaking the planet. Let’s have fun fixing it.”

At GDC, Xbox announced the rollout of a new Developer Sustainability Toolkit, a power monitoring system, certification reports, power consumption dashboards, guides, case studies, and a pilot program that offers specialist assistance to game devs looking to work on their games’ energy consumption. The goal is to, “precision engineer the visual and analytical feedback that is needed for game developers to make changes to their code that will allow them to reduce energy consumption on the consoles in the living room of every gamer in the world.” 

That openness, that this isn’t only applicable to the Xbox platform, is key here: “The thing that I find really remarkable is that when a studio sees what a no-brainer it is to fix so many of these Energy Bugs, they fix them in a way that is not just reducing emissions on the Xbox console platform, but they’re instituting [them] to the entire game code. And that game code then gets released to almost every other platform that they are releasing to in the future.” 

The work won’t stop with Xbox developers, either: “We are empowering and inviting the rest of the industry to use these insights, these case studies, these tools, and also inspire their own investigations in order to be able to create impact, no matter how small or large their gaming studio is.” 

The overall goal here is to make the enormous size of the games industry not a problem for sustainability, but a part of the solution – and making use of the inherent positivity of that creative space: 

“In the environmental field, things are going haywire right and left. It’s a depressing field. If society focuses on everything going wrong all the time, and we’re encountering stories of loss and destruction, it’s true that statistically there are many challenges in front of us, but gaming opens up all of this remarkable, creative problem solving… You can have fun breaking things in a game. And right now we’re not having fun breaking the planet. Let’s have fun fixing it.” 

With the release of Dead Island 2 approaching as fast as a horde of zombies, we’re here to tell you a bit about some of the zombie types you’ll meet when you visit HELL-A next month.

There are three different variations — Infected, Apex and Variant — each with different strengths and weaknesses, but you’ll learn your favorite ways to dispose of each and every one of them (if you’re that way inclined). There are also certain zombie killing challenges within Dead Island 2 and once complete, you’ll learn more about each zombie to help you find the best ways to slay.

Let’s start with the easiest zombies to kill, the Infected types, of which there are three — Walkers, Shamblers and Runners. First up are Walkers. They have no resistance or weakness to any weapons and can be butchered easily in one-on-one combat, so they’re definitely the ones you will have the most fun with at the start.

While Shamblers are frail, rotting and slow, they’re weak to blunt and explosive damage but resist bleed damage as they lack blood! Their bones are so brittle their own attacks often cause their limbs to break off. Keep an out for large numbers of these though.

As for Runners, they’re attracted to loud noises and as they’re fast, so they can cover ground quickly. They’re weak to sharp and bleed damage, though watch out, as they have a Push attack which will knock you backwards.

Next up are some of the more challenging zombie types — Bursters, Butchers, Crushers, Screamers and Slobbers. Bursters are bloated with volatile gas and infectious black blood that spreads the zombie virus and they’re properly DISGUSTING. You don’t want to get to close to them when they explode, BUT they also damage nearby zombies, so use that to your advantage.

Butchers are our least favorite – they feed on corpses to regrow their own bodies, so you have to finish them off quickly before they regenerate. They have terrifying blade-like hands too, and it’s likely you’ll hear them before you see them.

Crushers are swollen with autophage-reinforced muscle fibers and their overhead smash sends a seismic shockwave through the ground — jump over it to stop getting knocked to the ground — and then take advantage of the Crusher’s momentary weakness. Top tip: you can stop this powerful attack by maiming their arm.

We think the worst type of zombie you’ll meet are the Screamers. Their voltaic lungs produce a plasma-induced stream of sonic shockwaves which force you backwards and attract all zombies in the surrounding area. Projectile attacks are the only way to defeat them.

Unfortunately the best way to defeat our next zombie – Slobbers – is to get close as fast as possible to stop them puking caustic bile and then force them into melee combat. They resist blunt and projectile damage and are immune to caustic damage, but slice or shock them to cause the most damage.

Don’t get too comfortable just yet… you haven’t met the Variant zombies! This is when things start to get really spicy. Burning Runners will ignite anything flammable they come into contact with and, as you’d expect, they’re immune to fire damage, but water and chem bombs will extinguish their raging flames.

As the name might suggest, Grenadier Walkers wear a vest loaded with grenades, ready to explode the moment they receive any damage. You’re better off focusing damage on limbs or the head when in close combat to try and prevent the vest detonating. Finally, Riot Gear Walkers — to even get close to defeating them, use melee and projectile attacks — explosives are a great way to knock that armor off.

That’s it for now, as we don’t want to spoil too much ahead of launch on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S on April 21st.

There’s still time to sign up to the Dead Island 2 newsletter and get the Tricksters’ Smile Knife at DeadIsland.com. Now, where did we put that katana?

Deep Silver

Hello there, fellow Agents! It’s been a long time coming, but I’m incredibly excited to announce that Deceive Inc. – my studio’s brand new social stealth PvP extraction shooter – is out now on Xbox Series X|S!

As Deceive Inc. Agents, you’ll be dropped into exotic locales – tasked with remaining undercover, gathering intel, and competing with rival Agents to thwart each respective evil villain’s plan for world domination. Secret agent caper? Nah! Just another day at the office.

Deceive Inc. is not your typical multiplayer game. One of the shining examples of this is in how we approach map design. Each map in Deceive Inc. effectively serves as its own tiny open world. Crawling with NPCs, secret corridors, a VIP villain, and more, the maps we’ve designed at Sweet Bandits Studios are purpose-built to feel uniquely alive and full of discovery.

To prepare you for your new life as a secret agent, I threw together this summary of all four maps available at launch. Just don’t tell IRIS, they may get mad at me. 

In the regal home of information broker-turned-supervillain, Sebastian Garcia, Agents must infiltrate an auction to steal the Bull’s Eye: an art piece containing a hard drive full of secret government data.

In operation Hard Sell, you’ll find yourself navigating Garcia’s Super-Villa as attendees and party-goers await a high-profile auction. As a tried-and-true super villain, Sebastian Garcia has retrofitted his mansion with loads of corridors and secret passageways to discover.

As two disruptors in the world of high-fashion bulletproof fabric, the Evensen Twins know how to show up in style. Which is why they’ve booked the luxurious Frozen Coral Hotel for the unveiling of a brand new prototype. Fashion is serious business. Especially for Deceive Inc.! Which is why the Agents have been tasked with preventing this prototype from hitting the market.

A shining example of the extravagance and excess of high fashion, Silver Reef is a hotel resort designed to be pure spectacle, but it also serves another purpose. This map is the only one to feature two VIP characters, the Evensen twins. Having two VIP characters to disguise yourself as makes it twice as hard for players to sus out who could be a player, and who is the NPC. Use this tactic to your advantage.

Jati bin Teh is a force to be reckoned with. As a business mogul, actor, musician, and athlete; his sphere of influence has inflated to an incredibly dangerous level. His Aspire by Jati Tower contains a R&D Laboratory where they have reportedly synthesized a highly addictive secret ingredient for the entrepreneur’s new sports drink. Jati has become big enough. It’s up to Deceive Inc. to balance the market.

Diamond Spire is the Deceive Inc. map with the most verticality. How you approach exploring the map’s many levels will determine your success during the insertion phase. Choose your gadgets wisely, and you may find that the increase in mobility will help you sweep through this skyscraper quicker than your rival agents.

For this mission, Deceive Inc. is sending you to San Flores – a gorgeous tropical port city in the Caribbean. Intel suggests that this quaint island getaway is also where fragrance maven Luana is synthesizing her new eau de parfum. Not only will it make you smell amazing, it will also give her complete control over your mind. If you don’t mind, follow the scent, and extract this toxin, agents. We’re counting on you.

Fragrant Shore takes place primarily outdoors. There are tons of alleyways to take cover in if you find yourself overwhelmed in a firefight. Once it comes time to infiltrate the vault, you’ll find that there are less places to hide, and you may come across a bottleneck that brings you face to face with your rival agents. Make sure you explore all of your options for entering the vault, as the most obvious option may not be the best one.

Stay up to date on Deceive Inc. by following @PlayDeceiveInc on Twitter and Instagram, and also make sure to join the top-tier agents over on our Discord! Most importantly, play Decieve, Inc. on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One today!

Happy extracting, agents!

Tripwire Interactive LLC