Category: Video Games

Tower of Fantasy’s first anniversary brings Summer events and a new companion

Hello, everyone. I’m Sky, the lead designer from Perfect World Games’ Hotta Studio. It’s hard to believe that Tower of Fantasy launched on PlayStation nearly a year ago. We are immensely grateful for your support and love for the game.

To celebrate this significant milestone, we are thrilled to announce the upcoming Version 4.2 update, packed with exciting new content. And, of course, we have special anniversary rewards! By participating in in-game events, you can earn up to 299 draws, 1,000 Dark Crystals, free vehicles, Shirli’s Haute Couture, and more. We can’t wait for you to join in the festivities.

Seaside summer bash

Summer is here, and we’ve got exclusive summer events just for you, set to launch soon. 

Cheers! Summer Dance Off!: Join the yacht party where DJ Miss Anka will keep the energy high with her electrifying music. Stay long enough, and you’ll be treated to random gifts as a special guest!

Fruit Attack: The scorching sun has driven the fruits mad, and they’ve started diving into the sea, terrifying the nearby beachgoers! Head to the beach, hunt down these crazy fruits, and save the day while collecting refreshing fruit slices.

A Song of Water: Engage in a thrilling survival battle, dodging water balloons and showcasing your strategic skills.

Aesperia Volleyball Match: Get ready for intense volleyball matches that will rival the blazing sun and crashing waves.

We’ve also prepared plenty of event rewards. Authorizers can earn the Rocktooth Shark Vehicle, accessories, name cards, and more by participating in these events.

Brand new simulacrum: Nola

In the previous plot, Authorizers encountered the phantom thief group, Wednesday. In Version 4.2, you’ll dive deeper into Nola’s story.

Nicknamed Fang, Nola has swiftly dismantled various underground gangs in Aesperia, causing surrounding forces to be on high alert. Her sharp judgment has been crucial to the success of the “Wednesday” Phantom Thief group, establishing her as the undisputed boss. However, she has a significant void in her life—besides her name, Nola, she has no previous memories. Finding out about her past has been her primary pursuit.

Nola wields a unique weapon called Rumble, which has an Altered Damage attribute and combines a motorcycle and a greatsword. In non-combat situations, Rumble can change its elemental type, allowing Nola to choose from five different attributes, offering great versatility in team compositions. Additionally, in the open world, using the dodge skill Sonic Skyrider, Nola can instantly kill non-boss monsters after a certain time, greatly facilitating exploration.

Nola’s Haute Couture Swimsuit, Windswept Coast, will debut on August 20. Her long hair flows in the sea breeze, and the sheer fabric on her body flutters in the wind, making it seem as though she is dancing with the sea waves.

Anka’s swimsuit, Whimsy Fruit Punch Night, and the Authorizer’s swimsuit, Summer Special, will also be available starting from August 6, adding an extra touch of summer coolness to Astra Coast.

New interactive system: Dorm Gameplay

After the version update, Authorizers can enter a specific room via the Dorm option in the simulacrum interface, immersing themselves deeply in her daily life. By actively participating in the Dorm gameplay and the accompanying Splendid Residence activities, Authorizers can use rewards to accelerate unlocking Dorm features, ensuring intimate and unforgettable moments with the simulacrum.

Bustling Central District ready to open

The Aesperia Central District map is coming soon. This area embodies administrative, commercial, and residential functions. Aesperia’s largest commercial hub, Sylvia Business Street, the vibrant Azure Coast with its abundant water activities and tourists, and the renowned company Schuder Electronics famed throughout Aida, are all located here, awaiting your visit. More importantly, it boasts the tower-shaped energy-guiding device, Tower of Fantasy, which has brought a bright future to Aesperia. Let’s explore the heart of this sci-fi metropolis together!

After the August 6 update, the main storyline Behind the Neon Lights will officially launch! Interactive devices will be available across the entire map, and the new world boss, Ground Controller, is ready to challenge the Authorizer.

Anniversary rewards

We’ve prepared a variety of free rewards as well! By participating in in-game events, you can earn up to 299 draws, 1,000 Dark Crystals, and even Nemesis Haute Couture Shirli and weapon appearance White Dwarf, Jetpack Skin Neon Mech Wings, Head Accessory Tata’s Ultimate Support Blue Dolphin Sunglasses, and more. We are looking forward to your participation.

Tower of Fantasy version 4.2 will bring even more exciting content. We look forward to meeting you in the new version and exploring a brand new world of adventure together.

How to Read The Witcher Books in Order

Before the award-winning RPGs or live-action show, there was The Witcher book series. Andrzej Sapkowski’s original story of Geralt of Rivia was heavily inspired by Slavic mythology as well as classic fantasy series like Lord of the Rings. Whether you already enjoyed Netflix or CD Projekt’s The Witcher adaptations or are just looking for a great book series, this wild world is worth diving into.

How Many Witcher Books Are There?

Andrzej Sapkowski has technically published four short story collections and six Witcher books since he started writing the series back in the mid-’80s. Geralt of Rivia’s first appearance in print was in a short story called Wiedzmín — “The Witcher” — published in the fantasy magazine Fantastyka in 1985. It quickly became a hit, leading to countless more short stories that were published as a collection called Wiedzmin in 1990. This collection is now out of print and every story it contains except one — “The Road to No Return” — was included in 1993’s The Last Wish.

So, after getting those details out of the way, here are the two short story collections and six books we recommend (in order) on our The Witcher Reading Guide:

  • The Last Wish (Short Story Collection)
  • Sword of Destiny (Short Story Collection)
  • Blood of Elves (The Witcher Saga #1)
  • The Time of Contempt (The Witcher Saga #2)
  • Baptism of Fire (The Witcher Saga #3)
  • The Tower of Swallows (The Witcher Saga #4)
  • The Lady of the Lake (The Witcher Saga #5)
  • Season of Storms (Prequel)

Short Story Collections

The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny

The Last Wish is your starting point in The Witcher, which is important to note because it was published a year after 1992’s Sword of Destiny. The Last Wish takes almost every single story from Wiedzmín and adds more, all of which feature events that occur before the previously published Sword of Destiny. It’s basically a prequel collection written to prep you for Sword of Destiny, the second collection of short stories that continue to expand on Geralt’s adventures and first introduces the character of Ciri. If you’re solely interested in covering what’s featured early on in the TV series, The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny short story collections should be fine. However, if you want to know the ins and outs of the world and ensure that you’re a true Witcher connoisseur, you’ll want to dive deeper into the saga below.

The Witcher Saga

Once you’ve read The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny, you’re ready to move on to the saga. This saga comprises of five novels, all of which tell the stories of Geralt, Ciri, Yennefer, Triss, Dandelion, and other characters you may recognize from the games. These books also introduce a range of characters that don’t appear in CD Projekt Red’s adaptations, most of whom are great. The Witcher saga focuses largely on the relationship between Geralt and Ciri. This is where the bulk of Geralt’s stories unfold, and makes up the main constituent of The Witcher universe at large — at least in terms of Sapkowski’s conception of it. Here are the five novels in order:

Blood of Elves

The first book in the saga, Blood of Elves, introduces Nilfgaardian Emperor Emhyr var Emreis’ pursuit of Ciri, Geralt’s adopted daughter, in order to marry her and attain power over Cintra, the land that is hers by birthright. In an effort to thwart Emhyr’s plans, the Northern monarchs meet and decide to assassinate Ciri, but Geralt of Rivia watches over her in Kaer Morhen, the remote keep inhabited by Wolf School witchers. Meanwhile, a mysterious sorcerer is also trying to locate Ciri.

The Time of Contempt

The Time of Contempt picks up where the previous novel finishes. The Northern Kings are still conspiring with one another in an effort to lure Nilfgaard into war, while Ciri is due to be enrolled at Aretuza in order to study magic. Ciri comes into contact with some of the most powerful sorceresses on The Continent. As war becomes inevitable, she finds herself on the run with a bandit group known simply as The Rats.

Baptism of Fire

Geralt spends time in Brokilon forest recovering from events in the previous book, which is where he and Dandelion encounter an elven archer named Milva, who decides to join their group. People who have played the games will be glad to know that the dwarf Zoltan Chivay temporarily joins Geralt’s ragtag group too, as well as the vampire Regis. A Nilfgaardian knight named Cahir also tags along because he feels indebted to Ciri. Geralt officially receives his “of Rivia” title after an epic battle while Ciri begins to feel at home with The Rats.

The Tower of Swallows

Ciri is gravely injured after an encounter with Nilfgaardian bounty hunter Leo Bonhart, who was hired by the coroner Stefan Skellen to kill her. A kind old man nurses her back to health while Geralt’s party continues their search for Ciri and Geralt renounces his status as a witcher. The Lodge of Sorceresses attempt to gain control of a country called Kovir while Triss Merigold seeks information on Yennefer of Vengerberg. (Known as The Tower of Swallows in the U.S.)

The Lady of the Lake

Ciri encounters Arthurian knight Sir Galahad who believes she is the eponymous lady of the lake. The story cuts to a dream in which Geralt overhears Skellen and sets out to rescue Yennefer from a faraway castle. Ciri, meanwhile, tells Galahad about her time in the elven world of Aen Elle, home of the Wild Hunt. She begins to jump between worlds in order to escape them, but Eredin Breacc Glas persistently chases her, as she heads towards a final meeting with her surrogate parents Geralt and Yennefer.

Now we’re up to seven out of eight books. The last text is also a novel, but it’s a bit difficult to place and depends on personal preference…

Bonus: Season of Storms

If you’re somebody who likes to know everything that happens as it happens, then you might want to read Season of Storms immediately after The Last Wish. Originally published in 2013 — 14 years after Sapkowski wrapped the saga — Season of Storms contains stories that take place between the stories in The Last Wish, which aren’t necessarily in strict proximity to one another. However, because it’s written after the saga was completed, Season of Storms contains slight hints about what’s to come, if not outright spoilers. If you’re dying to read the series in strictly chronological terms, it could be worth reading it right after The Last Wish. If you’re the type of person who worries about spoilers, though, save it for the end and enjoy it as a retrospective piece.

Where Do The Witcher Games Fit on the Timeline?

The Witcher book saga starts roughly 10 years before the games, with most of the books’ plotlines wrapped up by the time the first Witcher game starts. So, for those curious, playing the games first does mean you get some of the book series spoiled. That said, both the books and the video games are fantastic (we specifically called The Witcher 3 “Amazing” in our review), so whichever one you start with shouldn’t affect your overall enjoyment.

What’s Next for The Witcher?

Between the books, video game franchise, and TV series, there’s a lot going on in the world of The Witcher. And if you assumed that just because it’s been 10 years since Season of Storms there would be no more Witcher books, you’d be wrong. In 2023, Sapkowski announced a new book in The Witcher series, releasing in early 2025 after an initial publication in Poland.

Meanwhile, Netflix’s live-action The Witcher is chugging toward it’s fourth season, which will be the first with Liam Hemsworth as Geralt of Rivia. The streaming giant is also developing a new animated film called The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep.

Of course, the big question is when we’ll get another Witcher game. While CD Projekt has spent the past couple of years pretty focused on Cyberpunk 2077, they recently announced that the “bulk of its effort” is now going toward The Witcher 4 (codenamed “Polaris”). We don’t have a release date yet, but The Witcher 3’s active community is making the wait a little bit easier.

Cascadero Board Game Review

Dr. Reiner Knizia might not be a household name, but it’s one of the most recognizable monikers in board gaming, thanks to his astonishingly prolific career, peppered with highly acclaimed titles like auction classic Ra, heavyweight tile-layer Tigris & Euphrates and other great board games for adults. In recent years, the good doctor has slowed the pace of hits a little, but he still pops up with the goods from time to time, such as 2021’s Witchstone. Cascadero is his newest fare, and the big question is whether it’ll measure up to those big Knizia titles of yesteryear.

What’s in the Box

Cascadero comes in a worryingly slimline box, but the rich and vibrant cover art by Ian O’Toole, depicting a medieval messenger on a rearing horse, should allay any concerns about the quality of the contents. And once that lid slides off, any lingering doubts should vanish as the tray is packed with high-quality goodies.

There’s a bright fold-out, double-sided board with artwork to match the box cover, and a sheet of plain punch-out hex counters which is used on one of that board’s sides to play a variant. Some people might find the mix of vibrant player colors and muted background a little garish and others might find it affects readability a little, but these are minor complaints.

The rest of the components are wooden. Each of four player colors comes with a troop of little figures on horseback, and a bunting of flags to mark scoring achievements on the board. There’s also a bag of fake wax seals, resplendent in red and gold. Everything is neat, and nicely cut, and while it won’t win over folk who want legions of super-detailed miniatures on their tables, it’s great visual design in the European gaming tradition.

Rules and How it Plays

Like most Knizia titles, Cascadero has a theme that can rapidly be tossed aside to reveal an engaging semi-abstract design beneath. In this instance, you are placing messengers onto a hex grid studded with towns, trying to win the inhabitants over to the glorious reign of El Cascadero, the new ruler. But the townsfolk are suspicious, and will only listen to messengers who travel in groups. In game terms, this means that you get to score if you place a messenger piece next to a town, and it forms a group of at least two pieces of your color.

But there’s a catch. You can only score if it’s not only a group of two, but also if no other members of that group were adjacent to that town before. In other words, if you place one piece next to a town, it does nothing and if you then place a second piece next to the same town, it still does nothing. The initial piece of your group can’t be adjacent to the town you want to score.

While there are obvious reasons for this – it’d be impossible to track whether you’d scored a town before, otherwise – it also offers the first deliciously painful edge to dig into your decision-making. That board is pretty cramped. Aside for a few edge hexes, it’s hard to put a piece down that’s not immediately adjacent to a town, and that in itself is inefficient as you can’t then score it, only use it as a launchpad for neighboring towns.

Why is this important? Because the towns come in different colors, and scoring one will advance your token on the matching scoring track. The number of spaces you climb depends on the situation. One space if it’s the first piece to make contact with the town, two if there are other messengers already adjacent to the town and three if the town contains a herald, marked on the board by a star icon. Four of the scoring tracks offer the same bonuses, while the fifth, white, has extra goodies to snaffle. The catch is that you need to advance the track that matches your player color to the top space in order to be in with a chance of winning.

Remember how that board is cramped? Well, now you have additional dilemmas in deciding where to place your one precious piece each turn. Because you get a bonus space on the scoring track if there’s already a messenger adjacent to the town, pieces you put down that don’t score yourself aren’t merely inefficient, they’re a positive boon to your opponents. Not only that, but all of you will be champing at the bit to claim scarce territory around those herald towns, and those of your own player color, and so it’s a race to get them, but it’s also a race where every step gifts your enemies with possible scoring opportunities, while you try and digest this endless stack of problems and your eyes turn to saucers just thinking about it.

Yet there’s more. Moving up a scoring track doesn’t necessarily score you any points. There are other bonuses to net on your climb, from extra turns, to extra spaces on the track, to moving one of your pieces to a new board space. You can also gain seals, which are extremely useful as they allow a single piece to count as two, meaning you can score a town with one placement. But you can only get these if you land exactly on the matching space, not if you skip up by two or three, adding another headache to deal with as you plot your moves.

You might imagine that the dynamic, interactive nature of play, where you’re all jostling for position while trying not to let each other score, would make this chiefly a game of tactics rather than a strategy board game. But thanks to those bonuses on the scoring track, that’s not the case. When you gain extra on-board moves or on-track spaces, if you’re well set up, it can trigger a cascade of scoring opportunities as one advancement earns a free one, which earns a free move, which earns another free advancement and so on. These chains can be absolutely devastating if you’ve planned and timed it right, letting you bag a majority of those precious seals, or score the big points by closing off an achievement.

All this goodness, and we haven’t even mentioned the included variants.

That’s right: while you can earn points on the tracks, the bigger payouts are available for being the first to reach certain milestones, such as connecting all five colors of town with a single group, or being the first to the top of a given track. There are less high-pressure goals for connecting two matching color towns with a group, which anyone can earn at any time, with a fat ten points extra if you do this with all five colors. But remember: unless you reach the top of your own color scoring track, it doesn’t matter how many points you have as the victory will go to the high-scoring player who has, making denial of scoring opportunities a valid and punishing end game strategy.

All this goodness, and we haven’t even mentioned the included variants. The advanced version allows you to move those important heralds each time they’re scored, creating an even more pressured race environment as you look to corner those bonuses for yourself. And there’s the farmer variant, where you flip the board, replacing some cities with a random placement of farmer tiles that earn you similar rewards to the scoring tracks. This results in a much more varied and cerebral experience. The striking thing is that each of the three ways to play is clearly the same game, but each feels like it has its own style and approach, offering three distinct challenges to master.

Where to Buy

Tiny Garden now has a Steam demo in which you can grow plants and customise your Polly Pocket

Tiny Garden is a puzzle game about planting flowers and crops you can then sell to buy seeds for new types of flowers and crops. That would be charming enough on its own, but your agricultural endeavours are set inside a Polly Pocket-style toy, with crops also able to be exchanged for furniture with which to decorate your diorama home. After blowing past its Kickstarter target, there’s now a playable demo.

Read more

Everything Coming to IGN’s San Diego Comic-Con 2024 Live Show

San Diego Comic-Con is back in a big way. After last year’s strike-affected and somewhat muted celebration (which still saw popular headliners like Star Wars Outlaws, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, The Creator, and Spider-Man 2), 2024’s edition is shaping up to be a return to form for fans of movies, TV, games, comics, and collectibles.

Starting today, be sure to check out IGN for exclusive reveals and sneak peeks of what you can expect at this year’s convention.

IGN will be streaming live from San Diego Friday, July 26 and Saturday, July 27 with A-list celebrities, inside looks, in-depth discussions about SDCC’s biggest announcements, and much, much more. Our live show begins at 3pm PT each day and will be available across all IGN platforms.

We kick off Friday with an epic line-up of major IPs and fan-favorite franchises. For movie fans, Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, and Keegan-Michael Key will be on hand to talk about the new animated feature Transformers One. Plus, the cast and director of Alien: Romulus will stop by to discuss the latest entry in the franchise. We’ll also swing by Moxxi’s Bar – a special pop-up presented by IGN, Lionsgate, and Ballantine’s Scotch whisky – to talk to the cast of Borderlands.

Plus, we’ll talk through all the details, surprises, and special appearances from Thursday’s special Deadpool and Wolverine Hall H panel.

On the TV and streaming side we’ll speak with the teams behind Rick and Morty: The Anime, Interview with the Vampire, and Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Director Roland Emmerich and the cast of Those About to Die will also come by for a deep dive into the new Peacock series. Plus, Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride and more will be on hand to discuss The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon. Ncuti Gatwa, Millie Gibson, and Russell T Davies will also come by to talk all things Doctor Who.

Major games will be there as well, including the teams behind Star Wars Outlaws and Marvel Rivals. Ed Boon will be with us to talk about the future of Mortal Kombat.

Other guests will include Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman, Todd McFarlane, Bruce Campbell, and more.

Saturday brings even more excitement to the IGN live show. We’ll be inside Hall H as Marvel reveals what’s next for the MCU, bringing you all the breaking news live from our stage.

Prior to that, we’ll be talking with even more actors, directors, writers, and creators from some of the biggest titles at Comic-Con. We’ll go in depth with Keanu Reeves and talk about his comic book series BRZRKR. Plus, we’ll chat with the English dub voice cast of One Piece and the team behind Like a Dragon: Yakuza.

The entire cast of The Boys, including Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Erin Moriarty, Laz Alonso, Tomer Capone, Karen Fukuhara, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Claudia Doumit, Antony Starr, Chace Crawford, Susan Heyward, Jessie T. Usher, Valorie Curry, Nathan Mitchell, and showrinner Eric Kripke, will swing by to break down Season 4.

We’ll also welcome the casts of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Superman & Lois, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Kite Man: Hell Yeah!, and Dexter: Original Sin. Kaley Cuoco will also be there to talk about the upcoming season of Harley Quinn.

Plus, we’ll get a new look at Batman: Caped Crusader and discuss the upcoming film Speak No Evil with James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis, and director James Watkins.

In addition to our live shows, IGN will be bringing even more sights, sounds, and inside looks from San Diego Comic-Con throughout the week across IGN.com, YouTube, and social platforms.

Be sure not to miss a look at Hellboy: The Crooked Man plus conversations with Katy O’Brien, Ronald D. Moore, Cruncyhroll’s LiSA, wrestlers from AEW and WOW – Women of Wrestling, and the casts of The Legend of Vox Machina, Family Guy, and Futurama.

To cap things off, IGN and HoYoverse will be hosting a party celebrating the release of Zenless Zone Zero and all things San Diego Comic-Con.

The event is shaping up to be jam-packed with panels, sneak peeks, and tons of surprises. So be sure to follow along all week so you don’t miss anything.

Desktop Dungeons: Rewind is an Easy Game with No Edge Cases Whatsoever*

Salutations, wise and attractive Administrator.

I’m Jean-Luc, Community Manager for Desktop Dungeons: Rewind, here to give you some advice for kickstarting your kingdom and dungeon diving.

The Rundown

Desktop Dungeons: Rewind is a turn based roguelike where every move matters. Every dungeon has a boss (or several) that must be defeated to return to your kingdom with the spoils. Resources are limited, but everything is a resource.

Exploring darkness heals you and your enemies. The amount healed is based on the level of whatever is healing. This is your main way of regaining health and mana, so save it when possible!

The boss is the objective. You’ll need a lot of firepower to take them down, so be ready to spike as hard as possible through items, conversions, and level-ups while fighting them!

Your Kin and Class will change the way you play. Halflings will pump you full of potions, while Goblins can skyrocket your XP. Sorcerers sling spells, while Berserkers beat the shhh- will to live out of enemies.

DD screenshot

Effective Dungeoneering

Alright, but how do we make the most out of our resources? Good question! Look at you go.

Fight higher level enemies. In video game, fight enemy to get XP. Yes, knowledge. Fight stronger enemy? Get stronger XP. Very yes! Simple. Enemies are limited, so getting the most out of them is important.

Convert items you no longer need. Converting an item or Glyph destroys it, but will give you Conversion Points! At a certain amount of conversion points, you’ll gain a bonus based on your Kin.

Leveling up is important. Not only for the long term goal of not being turned to paste by a particularly peeved Goat, but for the full health and mana restore it gives! Leveling up will also remove the Poison and Manaburn conditions.

Kingdom Cultivation

Well now that I have the bone of this voraciously violent Goblin, what am I to do with it? Sell it for money! What am I to do with money? A statue!* Or upgrading buildings.

New Classes! The basic classes can be unlocked in any order, but I’d recommend picking up the Sorcerer as your first tier 2 class. The devs didn’t know what they were doing with that one, it’s so broken*.

New Kin! Once rescued from Dungeons, you can build a settlement for new Kin to move into your kingdom and volunteer them for service in the realm. After all, you can’t spell “kingdom” without “gdom.” Wait…

Preparations! After upgrading the Guild, you can send your adventurers into dungeons with better gear. You’ll be paying for it, but it’s very worthwhile.

DD screenshot

Small print

Okay, that’s all the broad stroke advice we have for you, Administrator. You’re a smart cookie* and you should now be ready to play Desktop Dungeons: Rewind. Here are some simple strategies to supplement your slaughter of innocent monsters:

When in doubt, do the puzzles! These brain teasers will explain some of the more advanced concepts of the game in a low stakes environment. What do these statuses mean? Strike order? Slowed? Salami*?

Check your Codex! Accessed from the pause menu, the Codex has all the information you need. Details about Kin, Classes, bosses, badges, anything you could need.

Complete the class challenges! Class challenges come with a lick of lore and are the perfect place to discover the strengths and weaknesses of a new class.

Keep an eye open for quests! These quests will help you upgrade your kingdom. From slaying soulsucking Vampires, to growing your banking capacity, to doing complicated tasks for a cat, the rewards are bountiful.

Keep going! The beginning of this game is fairly easy, but the difficulty ramps up and will require you to master new systems (we haven’t even talked about Gods or Popcorn in the article!) You’ll probably die and have to restart a dungeon at some point. This is the developer’s fault, not yours. Remember, play the damn puzzles!

That’s all I’ve got for you today! Best of luck out there in the realm of Desktop Dungeons: Rewind!

Lots of love from myself and the QCF Design team.

* Please note that anything with an asterisk has the potential to be a lie*.


Desktop Dungeons: Rewind
Xbox Live

Desktop Dungeons: Rewind

Prismatika

☆☆☆☆☆
6
★★★★★

$19.99
Get it now

Desktop Dungeons: Rewind is a modern remastering of Desktop Dungeons, the award-winning, bite-sized, tactical dungeon crawler. Now on XBox for the first time!

Founding a new kingdom isn’t easy: it takes cunning, manpower, and lots and lots of gold. How will you pay for the outrageously overpriced taverns and banks? Good thing these dungeons are full of rare creatures whose taxidermied remains are valuable on the black market!

Features:
● Embark on an adventure: Choose from a diverse cast of replaceable adventures. Explore bite-sized dungeons.
● Heal by exploring: Reveal hidden terrain to regain health and mana. But plan your route carefully or you’ll have nothing left to face the final enemy.
● Die. Rewind. And try again. New to DD:R, your death is no longer quite so inevitable. After death, you can replay a dungeon from an earlier point to try a different strategy.
● Build your kingdom: Trade monstrous trophies for gold and upgrade your settlement to attract the most skilled adventurers.
● Show your friends who’s boss: Daily online challenges.
● Discover everything that earned Desktop Dungeons a cult following: innovative game design, hundreds of hours of content, daily online challenges, the amazing soundtrack by Danny Baranowsky and Grant Kirkhope, including all the original DLC, and more!

The post Desktop Dungeons: Rewind is an Easy Game with No Edge Cases Whatsoever* appeared first on Xbox Wire.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 7 Closed Beta Delayed in Part Because Passive Dice Rolls ‘Literally Stopped Working’

Larian Studios is pushing back the start date of the Baldur’s Gate Patch 7 closed beta as it wrestles with a host of bugs, including one in which “passive dice rolls literally stopped working.” Thankfully, it doesn’t seem the wait will be too long.

“We’re trying to figure out how we got here, so while we do that, we’ll be pushing the planned Closed Beta back to later this week,” Larian Studios wrote in a post on X/Twitter.

To tide fans over, Larian has released more highlights from Patch 7, including how it will improve the UI, Honour Mode, and more. In total, Larian says that Baldur’s Gate 3 will feature more than 1,000 fixes and improvements while adding evil endings, a mod manager, and revamped splitscreen gameplay. You can find the full list of highlights below.

In the meantime, fans can still sign up for the Patch 7 closed beta by registering on the Baldur’s Gate 3 store page on Steam. Those who register will be randomly selected to jump into the closed beta when it launches later this week.

Whenever Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 7 is ultimately released to the public, it won’t be the end. Larian is teasing yet more content for its massive RPG, including crossplay and a photo mode. Almost a year after its original release, Baldur’s Gate 3’s quest continues.

For more, check out our Baldur’s Gate 3 walkthrough as well as our full review.

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Introducing ‘Evil Endings’: Brand new cinematic endings for the truly villainous playthroughs.
  • Added our very own Mod Manager, which lets you browse, install, and use mods created by the community.
  • Revamped split screen gameplay: When playing on split screen, the two halves of the screen will now dynamically merge together when player characters come close to each other in-game, and dynamically split back up when the characters move apart. This revamp comes alongside many other improvements and polishes to improve the overall split screen experience.

Honour Mode Combat

  • If Dror Ragzlin finds himself inside the spider pit, he’ll try his best to befriend the spiders residing there with a new spell called Arachnid Compulsion so they can band together to fight the real enemy – you.
  • The Bulette has a new condition called Diamond Scales and a new Legendary Action called Shredding Scales.
  • Malus Thorm has a new Legendary Action called Grasping Appendage.
  • Added a new aura and spell for Spectators: Panicked Sentinel and Ocular Nightmare, respectively.
  • Ch’r’ai Tska’an, the leader of the githyanki ambush in Act II, has a new Legendary Action called Soul Sacrifice.
  • Ch’r’ai Har’rak, the githyanki leader at the Knights of the Shield Hideout, has a new Legendary Action called Tu’narath’s Embrace.
  • Ptaris has a new Legendary Action called Ptarian Dogma.

UI

  • Revised and reorganised the in-game video options to be more logical and robust. You now have an Upscaling Type drop-down, an Upscaling Mode drop-down, and an Upscaling Sharpness slider, followed immediately by the options that are affected by them.
  • Updated the Reactions UI so that you only have to toggle the Reactions you want to use and then confirm them. (This saves you from having to select ‘Do not react’ multiple times!)
  • Added a new Equipment Options menu to the Character Sheet on controller.
  • The panel that opens to ‘Donate’ magic items to Gale will now also show items in your Traveller’s Chest. It also now indicates which items are currently equipped.
  • We noticed some of you hiccoughing bubbles, so the action for washing yourself with soap and sponges is now called ‘Use’ instead of ‘Consume’.
  • Fixed your player character’s name getting reverted to ‘Custom’ during Character Creation if you moved on to create your Dream Guardian and then went back to edit the player character again.
  • Fixed the wrong spell Ability showing up when selecting a Feat during Level Up.

Art

  • Added a new loading screen in Act III, showing the busy streets of Baldur’s Gate.
  • Fixed the skirt part of the Adamantine Splint Armour missing for female dwarves.
  • Fixed the Adamantine Scale Mail clipping on large male characters.

Gameplay

  • You can now start Custom Mode games using Honour Mode mechanics when starting a new playthrough. You’ll be able to do this via the ‘Ruleset’ dropdown.
  • The kuo-toa that promised to build you an army will now support you in the final battle. Unless they all died in Act I.
  • The help that the Gondians promised for the final battle will now arrive in the form of a friendly Steel Watcher. Apologies from Zanner Toobin for the delay.
  • The hair colour options in Character Creation will now remain accessible after you choose the bald hairstyle, so that you can continue fiddling around with eyebrow colours.
  • Overhead dialogues that support multiple player characters can now involve characters assigned to different players. (They were limited to characters controlled by a single player until now.) This means that there will be more banter among player characters in multiplayer games.
  • Group Hide will no longer affect summons that aren’t linked to the group in the Party Line.
  • Changed the behaviour for selecting camp supplies for a Long Rest. When selecting camp supplies that are stacked, the game now only takes what it needs from the stack.
  • You can no longer cheese the Leap of Faith trial at the Gauntlet of Shar by just clicking the final platform and letting your character pathfind their way there. Shar threatened to smite us if we didn’t fix this one.
  • Fixed a bug where resurrecting Lae’zel on the beach in Act I would cause her to appear in the Party Line but not in the world, preventing you from leaving Act I.
  • Patched up some savegames where Gale still had his Necrotic Aura when he shouldn’t on load.
  • Fixed Minthara’s body sometimes turning invisible on the Level Up screen. (We sorta liked the floating-head-and-hands look, but hey.)

Animation

  • Astarion now has idle animations at camp that aren’t just him reading a book.
  • Added a new idle animation for Minsc at camp – Boo may or may not have taught him some tai chi.
  • Karlach will no longer brush the shaved side of her head.
  • Polished the appearance of neck kisses in lovey-dovey scenes with Shadowheart on the Sharran path for characters with large body types and dragonborn characters.

Writing and Flow

  • Dotted some dialogue options and voiced lines into dialogues across the game to add some more overall reactivity, particularly to account for edge-case flows.
  • Dotted more Dark Urge reactivity (dialogue options and Narrator lines) into dialogues across the game.
  • Resolved an issue that had been rendering some romance party banters inaccessible while adventuring.
  • Avatar Lae’zel can now decide what she wants to do at the end of the game even if she wasn’t the avatar making the choices in the main dialogue.
  • Added a dialogue option asking for a kiss in more paths of Wyll’s epilogue dialogue.
  • If you’re in holographic form in the epilogue, Wyll won’t automatically assume he’s talking to Lae’zel.
  • Gave Wyll a new greeting for romance partners in Act III and characters with really low approval.
  • Companions should now be more sympathetic to Astarion fleeing from the sun.
  • Added a new dialogue in which Karlach will react to Dammon if she finds him dead after he told her that he can help her.
  • Minthara will now react if you knock her out in Act I.

Scripting

  • Fixed several issues (related to resurrecting characters via Withers, restructuring the party at night, and automatic camp night scenes) that would trap you in an eternal slumber, unable to end a Long Rest.
  • Fixed a bug causing Shadowheart to keep repeating one line when you talk to her after she’s resurrected by Withers from the Shadowfell.
  • Fixed a small flow issue preventing you from commenting on Gale’s last name.
  • Fixed several occurrences of Wyll still having an exclamation mark above his head when he already told you everything he had to say.
  • When playing as the Dark Urge, Minthara will no longer act as though you accepted Bhaal when
  • Fixed a broken kissing scene after you gave Shadowheart the Idol of Shar.
  • Fixed an issue where Jaheira would stop following the party after spending a night outside of the party.
  • Fixed the rune tablets on the nautiloid sometimes not triggering the Narrator’s lines.
  • Clerics of Lathander should now recognise his symbol on a Lathanderian amulet.
  • Ensured the avatar is prioritised as the main speaker in dialogues related to the hag’s Act I surrender.
  • Minthara does, in fact, now have something to say about after you kill her.
  • Made the romance scene at night with Wyll in Act III unskippable if it triggers to avoid accidentally skipping it and not being able to finish the romance arc.
  • If Avatar Karlach and Wyll are partners and go to together, he’ll now act accordingly during the epilogue.
  • Fixed Karlach’s scene not playing if you decided to go with her when playing as Wyll.
  • A bug has been fixed so that Wyll will now talk to his father if after the pact with Mizora is broken but Ravengard is saved from despite this, to decide on his title.
  • Lae’zel will now wait a little longer for you at the site of her recruitment if you tell her you’ll be back.
  • Improved Lae’zel’s idle camp behaviours to align a bit better with the other companions’.
  • Fixed the fade-to-black after Karlach’s scene at the end of the game, which would give you a very brief glimpse of Game Developer Land.
  • Breaking up with Karlach by speaking with another companion you’re dating the morning after her romance scene won’t block her dialogue anymore.
  • Reinstated Gale’s last line in his detailed explanation of ceremorphosis and tweaked a dialogue option to react to it.
  • Now that you can give Gale magic items from the Traveller’s Chest, he will leave again if you refuse to do so.
  • Patched up some savegames that had a bug that would prevent the dialogue between Gale and at the end of the game from triggering.
  • Fixed a bug that let you kiss Gale even if he was in a disguised form before confronting . Also fixed this dialogue with him cutting off before you could give him a smooch.
  • Reworked the script that determines whether a character is too busy to talk. This will prevent bugs like Minthara’s dialogue not triggering at Moonrise Towers after you rescue her, and knock-on effects as a result of this, like not being able to rest or fast travel.

Performance

  • Continued to make performance and stability optimisations across the game and implemented many under-the-hood code fixes.
  • Optimised performance. This will have a more noticeable impact in areas with large numbers of NPCs (like the Lower City) and will reduce peak memory usage when loading levels for the first time. It will also be noticeable when managing lots of loot (e.g. when transferring everything from a camp chest to a character’s inventory).

Cinematics

  • Reworked and revamped the cutscene that plays when you interact with
  • Polished facial expressions and emotions across companion dialogues, including to the facial animations of your character during some kissing cinematics, including with the Astarion.

Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.

Streamer Manages to One-Shot Elden Ring DLC’s Final and Most Difficult Boss

An Elden Ring challenge runner has just managed to do the unthinkable: one-shot the final — and arguably most difficult — boss of the Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. One hit, blammo, he’s down.

Content creator Ainrun has posted a video in which he uses basically every buff you can imagine, including several new to Shadow of the Erdtree, to walk into the final boss arena of the DLC and just smash through the fight’s two excruciating phases in a single attack. If you’ve encountered this boss already, you know how nightmarish this fight can be, to the point where some consider it to be the hardest fight in the entire expansion.

Warning: Spoilers for the identity of the final boss of the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC follow after the video. Read on at your own risk!

We didn’t name him above to avoid spoilers, but the boss Ainrun is nuking here is Promised Consort Radahn — an absolutely nightmarish rematch against one of the main game’s bosses that has plenty of people tearing their hair out due to the difficulty. The Elden Ring subreddit is full of people complaining about this guy’s punishing attack patterns, especially in the second phase when Miquella pops up onto his head and infuses everything he does with a distracting golden light show.

Ainrun just skips all that, though. I asked one of our resident Elden Ring experts, Brendan Graeber, to walk me through what’s going on here. He explained that Ainrun is likely doing the following:

This was part of a longer challenge run Ainrun has been attempted where he tries to land 100,000 damage on various bosses in a single hit. In the tweet above, he was unfortunately unable to cross 100k on the final boss, but did manage a whopping 93k — close, and pretty impressive anyway. Then, later on stream, he managed a 105k blow. Ainrun has also done a number of other incredible challenge runs, including beating the DLC with only perfumes or as a porcupine.

More players than just Ainrun are finding fun, strange, challenging, or otherwise unique ways to play through Shadow of the Erdtree. A co-op pair called Let Us Duo Her has invented a new method to cheese one of the base game’s toughest bosses. Twitch streamer MissMikkaa beat the DLC using a dance mat as a controller. Community hero Let Me Solo Her has changed his name to Let Me Solo Him and is helping players tackle challenging mid-DLC boss Messmer.

But at IGN, we found the DLC incredible even without performing wild feats like this. We gave it a 10/10 in our review, saying that “[l]ike the base game did before it, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree raises the bar for single-player DLC expansions. It takes everything that made the base game such a landmark RPG, condenses it into a relatively compact 20-25 hour campaign, and provides fantastic new challenges for heavily invested fans to chew on.”

Rebekah Valentine is a Senior Reporter at IGN.