It is inevitable that when a game like Balatro rocks up, is really good, and makes a gazillion dollars, that there will be the odd imitator here and there. Sincerity, flattery, yada, yada, yada, point is, it’s all fine as long as you at least put enough of a twist in there to make it more of an “influenced by” over a “wholesale ripoff” kind of thing. I think Gambonanza, a roguelike deckbuilding chess game, fits into the former quite nicely.
Funko Pops: they’re everywhere. And there’s at least one of the vinyl figures made of every single character in the history of pop culture. And while some find these facts annoying, there’s something to be said about a great-looking Funko Pop based on something you personally like. The latest Funkos to go up for preorder are based on Pokémon, and there are some bangers in here: an angry, electricity-summoning Pikachu, an angry, vine-summoning Venusaur, and more. Take a look and see if you want to preorder any from Amazon ahead of release.
The two centerpieces of this new batch of Pokémon Funkos are the aforementioned Pikachu and Venusaur. Both are Funko Pop! Premium figures, meaning they’re 4.5 inches tall, rather than the 3.75 inch height of standard Funko Pop figures. They’re also in more dramatic stances, as if sculpted in mid-attack. They look pretty great, even for a seasoned commerce editor like me.
The rest of the upcoming Pokémon Funkos are standard Funko Pops. We have Ivysaur, Zoroark, Electabuzz, Magmar, and the adorable Goomy. Some people don’t like the Funko style, with its lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes, but I think it works perfectly with Pokemon. There’s just less stylization going on between the real thing (as depicted in the games) and the vinyl figures. They’re also made in eye-catching bright colors, so they look great wherever you decide to display them.
If Pokémon isn’t your speed, you can likely find another upcoming Funko Pop that appeals to you more. The company just keeps on pumping out these things, with everything from the Star Wars prequel trilogy and Disney Princesses to Star Trek and even Australian animals represented. Even if you just want to stick to Funkos based on video games, you can find BioShock and Silent Hill ones up for preorder at Amazon. There’s even one based on the Wolverine meme. There’s something for everyone.
Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert for IGN. He also runs IGN’s board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him on Bluesky.
Good, bad, I don’t bloody know yet the thing’s only been about for five seconds, but we can certainly say one thing now: Highguard is out. Now we can sit and prepare ourselves for more inane and pointless discourse about yet another live service shooter that we’ve probably had several times before. Hooray! But before we get ahead of ourselves, a moment of reflection, courtesy of the devs behind Highguard itself, who have spoken out about all that silence following their Geoffies reveal.
Highguard is out now following its high-profile showing at last month’s The Game Awards — and its developers have said a full year of post-launch content is already “deep in development.”
The free-to-play PvP raid shooter is live on PC, Xbox Series X and S, and PlayStation 5, with full crossplay. Development studio Wildlight is made up of former Apex Legends, Titanfall, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare staff, and promises “a new competitive structure that blends siege warfare and territory control in an evolving match where power levels escalate until only one base is left standing.”
Players step into the boots of Wardens, arcane gunslingers sent to fight for control of a mythical continent where magic, gunfire, and siege warfare collide:
Each Warden is built specifically for Highguard’s PvP Raid Mode. Wardens combine guns, raid tools, and arcane abilities, each designed to support raiding, destruction, defense, infiltration, resource acquisition, and open-world combat.
Mounts allow teams to move quickly across massive maps, fight on the move, and transport the Shieldbreaker. Magical abilities supplement combat, but Highguard is still a gun game at its core. Gunplay remains central, with abilities and tools adding tactical depth.
At launch, the game features a wide array of content: five large-scale maps, six distinct bases, eight Wardens, three mount types, ten weapons, three raid tools, eleven weapon and raid-tool mods, and a wide range of lootable items. More content will be added via seasonal updates.
Wildlight hadn’t said a word about Highguard since its announcement at The Game Awards, opting to launch it cold. Today, now the game is out in the wild, wildlight said it was built “with long-term play in mind.”
“Wildlight brings decades of experience operating live-service shooters at scale, applying those lessons to Highguard’s launch and beyond, with a full year of post-launch content already deep in development,” the developer said. “Highguard’s live service is built around Episodes — each lasting roughly two months and split into two parts — with new core content arriving each month throughout 2026, including content such as maps, bases, modes, Wardens, weapons, mounts, raid tools, and additional loot items.”
Core gameplay content — including new maps, bases, Wardens, and modes — will always be free, delivered through regular updates, with the first wave arriving in two weeks following launch, Wildlight insisted. The studio added that all in-game purchases are cosmetic only, direct purchase only, with no effect on gameplay and no loot boxes or RNG.
“Launch is a huge moment. But our team builds franchises that stand the test of time, and we’re in this for the long haul,” said Dusty Welch, co-founder and CEO of Wildlight. “Success for us is a healthy, growing global community that’s enjoying the game — and a team that’s energized by engaging with players and surprising them with new experiences over time.”
All players receive the Episode One War Chest free forever, featuring 44 items, including 11 legendary skins and emotes for Wardens, weapons, and mounts.
“We know there’s a lot of eyes on us after our Game Awards trailer debut, and today is finally the time to show the world what we mean by a PvP Raid Shooter. We built Highguard around a loop that doesn’t really exist anywhere else,” commented Chad Grenier, co-founder and game director at Wildlight. “Every match is about escalation: fortifying, venturing out, clashing, then mounting coordinated raids and defenses until only one base is left standing.”
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Hear ye, hear ye! Embark have shared some more concrete details for Arc Raider’s next main update, Headwinds, which is set to be downloaded onto your platform of choice tomorrow, January 7th. Namely, just what that new matchmaking option is, which is, as it seems, one that won’t be for everyone.
Early-bird price expires today.
Over the coming years, we’re likely to see a bunch of alternatives to the Switch 2’s Joy-Con, but NYXI’s new Hyperion 3 looks like it might be a solid early contender.
Available for pre-order now via the NYXI website, you can currently take advantage of a 30% ‘early-bird’ discount, bringing the price down to £88 for those in the UK. This is only valid for the remainder of the day, by which point the price will return to £125.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Lots of games offer intense, competitive, squad-based action, but I can’t think of any besides Highguard where I can sling spells and bullets from the back of a majestic, galloping bear as I charge in to destroy an enemy fortress.
Highguard turned a lot of heads with its flashy reveal at the end of the Game Awards last month, but many were left wanting to know more about this mysterious debut from Wildlight Entertainment, a new studio of Apex Legends, Titanfall, and Call of Duty veterans. The developers are first to admit that the intervening month has been quiet, but are confident that the game they’ve toiled over in secret for four years will speak for itself on release today.
I spent a whole day playing the game and interviewing its lead developers and studio founders last week, and I am here to tell you exactly what we’re all about to play with Highguard.
As a “PvP raid shooter,” Highguard is built around a new and interesting gameplay loop in which two teams of three players fortify bases, ride out on mounts to gather resources and gain power, and initiate a series of raids to try and destroy the opposing team’s base first. It’s a little bit MOBA, a little bit survival shooter, and a little bit Capture the Flag, among other influences.
Game Director and studio Co-Founder Chad Grenier tells me that the mode’s genesis came from team members enjoying the thrill of raiding an enemy base in multiplayer survival classic Rust, and wanting to distill that into a refined, competitive, repeatable experience. “Every match is about escalation: fortifying, venturing out, clashing, then mounting coordinated raids and defenses until only one base is left standing.”
Each round starts with a minute locked in your base to selectively fortify walls, before being cut loose to find better gear and harvest crystals that can be turned in at shops all over the map to also change and upgrade your kit. The maps are wide open, and I very rarely ran into members of the other team until after several minutes into a match, when a storm would form over one of several predetermined locations, where the Shieldbreaker soon materialized. This magical sword is your key to victory—teams fight to grab it first and run it to the enemy base (“like reverse Capture the Flag,” according to Grenier) and insert it into one of several slots around their magical perimeter shield, initiating a raid.
A siege tower immediately materializes from a portal, which cracks a segment of the base’s shield for the invaders to enter, also serving as their forward base for respawns during the raid. The invading team’s objective is then to breach the base (which is full of breakable walls), plant bombs on one of three key spots, and defend them until they go off. Two of the points will do substantial damage to the base’s life total, while successfully destroying the main, centrally fortified point will take it out entirely. The match ends when only one base remains standing.
If both bases are still there when the raid ends, the match resets and another Shieldbreaker starts to form, but with new and improved gear found scattered around the map and in shops. Each of these phases is on a tight timer, on which respawns for both teams will be capped until the next phase begins, which keeps things moving. My matches ran anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes, with some of the longer ones being quite dramatically swingy.
The tempo variation between the phases and escalating power over the course of the match gave it a distinct and pleasant rhythmic cycle of rising anticipation in preparation leading into tense raids with higher and higher stakes. Lead Designer Mohammad Alavi says that this was deliberately tuned to make it enjoyably sustainable, where the same number of hours of nonstop PvP deathmatch would be more exhausting for most players.
Most of Wildlight’s creative leadership and design team worked on Apex Legends, and it shows in how buttery smooth the action feels.
There are 10 weapons available at launch, all of which will feel familiar to a seasoned FPS player. With slots for two at a time, I tended to use the Ranger sniper rifle and Paladin automatic shotgun to cover long- and close-range engagements, as matches would inevitably include both. You also have one of three raid tools (a rocket launcher, an explosive sledgehammer, or a zipline gun), which provide limited-use tactical utility or base destruction. Everything looks and sounds as good as you would expect from so many genre veterans, and the difference in approach between each piece of the arsenal is immediately noticeable.
Respawn games are also famous for their movement tech, and Highguard carries that legacy confidently. In addition to the expected running, jumping, sliding, and mantling, the big new mobility addition is mounts, which you can summon and dismiss at will in most parts of the map. There were horses, bears, panthers, and gryphons available to choose from, though the differences are cosmetic. I rode a large, brown bear clad in bone armor, and I loved my chonky, beautiful son.
Mounts are a necessity for covering the maps’ huge distances efficiently, and also lend themselves to fun gameplay moments that I’ve never experienced in a shooter before, like being able to mount up and dramatically gallop off to head the enemy off at the pass as I see the Shieldbreaker icon on the minimap moving up towards our base.
Adding to the sense of flexibility and choice, players also choose to play as one of eight Wardens available at launch, with more coming later. They are unique characters, limited to one per team, each with a passive ability, a tactical ability on cooldown, and an ultimate that slowly charges up. The two I ended up spending the most time with both had powerful area denial abilities.
Atticus is a proud, armored warrior that throws lightning spears as his tactical ability, which spark damage to nearby enemies like a Tesla coil until destroyed. When covering an imminently forming Shieldbreaker or a ticking-down bomb, I liked throwing these in corners or above doorways at strategic choke points, peppering the enemy team with additional damage as they tried to come in.
Una, on the other hand, is a masked shaman who summons adorable little nature spirit buddies (not unlike like Zelda’s Koroks), which throw stunning grenades to pester passing enemies as well as occasionally popping up to give her loot. Her ultimate summons a huge tree spirit that can really lock down an important spot in a crucial moment. Both characters reminded me of how much I enjoy playing as Symmetra and Torbjörn in Overwatch, finding the trickiest and most obnoxious spots possible to stick their turrets. Kai was perhaps the character I saw the most in my matches, a monk fused with a frost demon that summons a big wall of ice as his tactical ability, which proved clutch time and again for controlling space.
The bases themselves are also a sort of character choice, as players on each team will vote for one the six total in the game at launch, which will then slot into any of the maps. The bases have distinct advantages and vulnerabilities that interact with the Wardens’ abilities in all sorts of interesting ways. For instance, Hellmouth is a fortress suspended over a lava chasm with narrow bridges that are perfect for shutting down with Kai’s wall.
The Wardens, bases, weapons, and items in the game at launch already provide a fun and wide range of possibilities to explore in how they can remix to synergize or counter one another, giving a lot of dimensions around which the gameplay meta can evolve. Moreover, Wildlight already has a robust plan in place for infusing the game with a generous, steady drip of new content in all of those areas and more.
Highguard’s live service additions will come in the form of two-month chapters, divided into two halves. That means that every single month they intend to release some combination of new Wardens, bases, maps, weapons, raid tools, and more. The first update, coming in just a few weeks, will introduce ranked play, and Grenier tells me they have lots of alternate gameplay modes in the works that will cycle in and out – such as Mario Kart-inspired mounted racing. All gameplay content will be added for free, with monetized elements strictly cosmetic.
That’s an ambitious plan, but one for which this team is extremely well prepared. Wildlight CEO and Co-Founder Dusty Welch tells me that, while the Respawn team were very happy with the initial launch of Apex Legends (which arrived as a total surprise), they hadn’t started to plot out any post-release content until after it had come out, leaving months of lag time before they could release anything new. Wildlight and Highguard were conceived with this hard-earned experience in mind to be oriented around live-service production from the very beginning.
“Starting this company, Chad [Grenier] and I knew we have to think about building it differently,” Welch told me, “and the people we hire, the mindset that we have, the pipelines that we set up, the tools, the technologies, the external partnerships and relationships, so that we’re thinking from day one how to successfully operate a live service and have an ongoing, meaningful dialog with our player base, and constantly be delighting and surprising them with content. We didn’t do that well with Apex at launch, and we are extremely well-prepared as we sit here today.”
That whole year of new content for Highguard is already deep into development. Both Welch and Alavi gave the same sly look and non-answer when asked about their favorite Wardens to play, since they’re not in the game yet at launch (Welch confirmed it’s the same one). The standards and expectations for live-service games are higher than ever, but this team comprises people who have been doing it for a very long time already, and they’ve come about as correct as any studio I’ve yet seen chase this model.
Highguard surprised and impressed me. I’m not great at fast, competitive shooters as a baseline, but its vibrant aesthetics and thoughtful design have absolutely piqued my interest. The market for live-service shooters is crowded, but Highguard has the advantage of offering an interesting new gameplay mode that doesn’t map onto any of the existing genres like battle royale or extraction. This may be Wildlight’s first game, but that belies a deeply confident and passionate team at the top of their form, excited to make the best game they can without the constraints of a major publisher.
You don’t have to take my word for it: try Highguard today for free, available on Xbox Series X|S.
The post Highguard Is Out Today – and We’ve Played a Lot of It appeared first on Xbox Wire.
Hello PlayStation Blog community, my name is Kenny Sun and I’m the lead developer of the Ball x Pit, and I’m here to share with you development on the game’s concept, inspiration as well as what players can expect in the first content update that releases today for FREE for all owners of the game!
This journey begins back in November 2021, and while I was on the subway, I saw an ad on my phone for a game called Punball. It looked like a roguelike version of Holedown, a game I enjoyed a lot, so I decided to give it a download. Fifteen minutes later, I looked up and realized that I had missed my stop. I knew that the core of the game had something special, but as I continued to play it I felt that there were a number of elements I wished were different. So, a few weeks later, I decided to make a version of my own. The gameplay for the prototype that would become BALL x PIT wasn’t too different from its original inspiration. But, there were a few key moments in its development that shaped it into a unique fusion of mechanics.
Initially, gameplay in Ball x Pit was turn-based. You would fire a series of balls, they would bounce at incoming enemies, and after all bouncing was complete, enemies would advance and a new row would spawn. I thought the gameplay was fun and wasn’t really considering ways to improve it. But, in February 2022, I downloaded Vampire Survivors, and the idea to try making it into a real-time action game was sparked. I made the change a few weeks later, and immediately the gameplay clicked, I knew I made the right decision.
Another important mechanic in Ball x Pit is the fusion system, where any ball can be combined with any other ball to synergize their abilities. This stemmed from the way I coded the ball mechanics. In code, each ball has 3 categories of ability types: status effects, area-of-effect, and unique effects. So, it was obvious that combining status effects and area-of-effect abilities would be a great way to power up the balls. And naturally, an alternative to this was the evolution system, which combines certain sets of balls into a whole new one. This new stronger ball in turn can be fused with any other ball. For inspiration of different evolutions, I looked at online guides for games in the Doodle God series to see what combinations they had.
The last defining system of Ball x Pit I want to talk about is the base building layer. Other games in the survivors-like genre usually handle meta progression by letting players spend resources in a simple UI, but I wanted this section to stay thematically relevant to the core gameplay. I’ve always loved the feeling of meta progression in games like Loop Hero and Metal Gear Solid V, and wanted to integrate those ideas into Ball x Pit. Naturally, it was clear that buildings could act like bricks in gameplay, and from there I had the idea that characters should be able to bounce around to upgrade things.
As we keep building on this foundation, the next step is our newest content update, titled Ball x Pit: The Regal Update. Take a look below on what to expect from this content heavy update as it’s one of three completely free updates we’re planning throughout the year.
Players of Ball x Pit: The Regal Update will come across two new unlockable characters.
The Falconer fires off two balls launched by a pair of birds flanking the screen, giving their attacks a wide, swooping spread. The Carouser, a medieval royal troublemaker, twists ball trajectories with a personal gravity field that pulls shots off their usual paths.
– Banished Flame adds yet another burn status—shorter than the standard burn, but packing a much heavier punch.
– Fireworks burst outward in bright, unpredictable patterns, scattering damage in every direction.
– The Stone Ball hits like a truck on impact but slowly crumbles as it keeps bouncing.
– The Brimstone Ball behaves like an Inferno shot but laces its flames with poison for extra lingering harm.
– Landslide triggers a cascading wave of debris in front of the first impact point and deals damage that lasts for a few seconds to surrounding enemies.
PLUS MORE! Because why would we want to spoil the rest?
– Deadeye’s Impaler cranks up your critical hit chance, and when those crits hit, enemies that are not the boss do not get back up. Well, that’s because they instantly kill.
– Grotesque Artillery pulls from your own gear, firing off a random ball from your equipped lineup every time it triggers
– Iron Onesie rewards chaos, boosting the damage of special balls based on how many baby balls are bouncing around the field.
Players demanded an Endless Mode so much, it grew to the top of the priority list. This mode unlocks once you’ve finished the game, opening the door to a new way to play for even longer! Each level can now be pushed as far as you can handle, continuing indefinitely as long as you manage to stay alive once finishing the boss in that area, and agreeing to continue deeper into the pit. There’s no finish line here, just escalating pressure, longer runs, and the chance to see how far your skills and builds can really go.
Thanks for reading and we hope you’re excited! Ball x Pit: The Regal Update is now available for free for all Ball x Pit players on PS5.
Capcom has responded to ongoing fan speculation about Resident Evil Requiem being an open world game with a definitive-sounding response.
Fan discussion and leaks around the game have long pointed to Requiem featuring more open exploration than in previous Resident Evil titles. This suggestion was fuelled further earlier this month by the release of a fresh gameplay snippet that included a look at a bustling city street, complete with pedestrians and traffic.
Now, however, Resident Evil Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi has stepped in to set the record straight, having seen the discussion online. In short, anyone hoping for an open world Resident Evil should reset their expectations.
“[The development team] did just want to make clear one point,” Nakanishi told Game Informer. “They’ve seen some speculation of whether there’s any open world elements in the game, and they just want to set the record straight that this isn’t an open world game.
“The main concept behind this game is combining the very different gameplay of Grace and Leon into a cohesive package, and having those two gameplays represent the Resident Evil series, and I think when you play the game, you realize that, or you will find as well that the development team picked the best approach to do this.”
In other words, what you should expect from this game is for Grace and Leon’s portions to feel like how they’ve already been pitched, with Grace’s focus on horror and Leon’s focused on action, as an extension of the Resident Evil franchise’s existing games.
In IGN’s just-published Resident Evil Requiem final preview, we described Grace’s gameplay sections as familiar to anyone who has played Resident Evil 2 or 7. Leon’s gameplay sections, meanwhile, stirred up our muscle memory of playing Resident Evil 4. Neither of those games were open world, so it sounds like we shouldn’t expect Requiem to be open world either.
“This year is the 30th anniversary of the Resident Evil series, so it feels like no coincidence that 2026’s Resident Evil Requiem is combining the best ideas of the saga into what appears to be a fantastically constructed tribute to everything that makes the series so great,” IGN wrote. “Do you like tense survival horror? It’s here. Wanna go all guns blazing with intense action and a quip-obsessed hero? You get that too.”
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Against the overbearing weight of modernity, Old School RuneScape continues to complete a Sisyphean task of simply existing two and a half decades after it originally launched. It just celebrated that 25th anniversary at the start of the year in fact, and now during a Winter Summit a slew of updates coming to the MMO were shown off in a roadmap from developer Jagex.
