Author: Game Infliction

If you’ve been waiting for Magic: The Gathering’s return to Middle-earth with a Hobbit-focused set this year to jump into buying cardboard versions of your Tolkien favorites, we’ve got good news for you – and bad news for your wallet.

The Commander precons from the Lord of the Rings set are not only back in stock at Amazon, but many of them are cheaper than they have been and remain cheaper than market value (as seen on TCGplayer).

Better yet, they’re all pretty great decks for jumping in and playing with friends, and while they’re technically all above market value, you’ll find them selling for much more elsewhere.

Save On Lord of the Rings Commander Decks Again

The upcoming Life is Strange: Reunion is an attempt, as superficially befits the supernatural franchise, to rewind time. It follows the lead of 2024’s Double Exposure, which brought back the original game’s protagonist, Max Caulfield, for the first time since 2015, evolving her from nervous high school student to intrepid university lecturer. There’s a sense with this new release, though, that the series is eating its own tail for fan service and sales, and that strangeness is being replaced with comfy morality and memories. Reunion sees not just the return of Max but also her former best friend / girlfriend Chloe, a balm to players who have fixated on this relationship for an entire decade. And with the pair’s reunion, perhaps the most important lesson of the original game has been ignored: the uncomfortable – and very anti-shareholder reality – that we cannot, and often should not try to, ever go home again.

The original game, released episodically across 2015, is undoubtedly one of the best-known “modern” adventure games. Treading the same ground as Telltale’s 2012 The Walking Dead, it used an episodic, “interactive television” approach to bring adventure games back into mainstream awareness. Adopting the narrative-branching choices that had become hugely popular in contemporary RPGs like Dragon Age, Life is Strange asked you to make decisions that could have deeply shocking repercussions. Max’s adventure begins as she saves her friend, Chloe, from death using a newly discovered power to rewind time, and from that moment on you’re never made to feel like a bystander. It hands over as much timeline-twisting control as possible at the earliest opportunity.

Despite its supernatural leanings, Life is Strange’s key appeal perhaps came from being something altogether different from the wider market: a rare video game that explores the ritual of coming-of-age while navigating cliques and classes. The high school drama is something well explored in cinema and for good reason, as most people alive have experienced the chaos of being a teenager. It might seem like niche material for a medium that is typically action-driven, but Life is Strange’s approach found fans from a multitude of backgrounds and has been enjoyed by many millions of players.

What is so compelling about that foundational story of Max and Chloe is how explosive it is. The two characters appear as chalk and cheese, the former reserved and the latter destructively rebellious. The use of Max’s ability to rewind time brings destruction, too, with her interventions harming as much as they help. By the end of the game it’s clear that loss is an unavoidable part of her power, reflected in the final decision: will you save her home, Arcadia Bay, or save Chloe from the incoming storm? An objective appraisal seems to suggest that the only really positive choice you can make is to allow Max to save the town, unlocking a path to becoming a photographer and move forward with her life. Of course, many people have been happy to use Max’s powers to save Chloe regardless of the consequences – it’s not a realistic situation, but it nevertheless reflects the muddy, sometimes unsatisfying nature of emotional and moral realities as we age.

As it has evolved, the Life is Strange series has lost its ability to tell compelling, thorny human stories through a supernatural lens. 2019’s Life is Strange 2 was divisive but presented a story with vast reach: a road trip following two brothers trying to escape the ramifications of racism and police brutality. 2021’s True Colors marked a turning point for the series, moving away from such nuance and embracing a direction that’s excessively sedate. At least some of that shifting direction can be attributed to publisher Square Enix passing the franchise’s torch to Deck Nine, creators of prequel Before the Storm and the current custodians of Life is Strange. There are well-meaning messages, ones hard fought for amidst toxic studio culture across True Colors’ development. Sadly, that doesn’t make up for the lack of real bite and narrative risk, and the sense of a game steered towards the broadest audience possible.

True Colors is, on the surface, very similar to the original Life is Strange games developed by Don’t Nod, but it’s undeniable that it leans into the cosy games movement. It’s set in a picture-perfect rural town, and your arrival there is accompanied by the beautiful-but-saccharine tones of Gabrielle Aplin’s “Home”. The log cabins and flower-laden frontages are joined by an extremely close-knit group of characters, with even the gruff older bar owner not curmudgeonly enough to avoid partaking in a wholesome LARP. There is, as per the wider series, a central mystery, supernatural elements, and some betrayal. The limited number of locations and general warm-heartedness, however, makes this feel like a soap opera for teens – with all the emotional catharsis that implies.

True Colors was the first Life is Strange game to release as a complete story, rather than delivered episodically. While it is divided into chapters, there’s a clear difference between its narrative structure and those of the games that preceded it. The original’s TV season-like approach delivers frequent, striking cliffhangers and distinctive differences between episodes, whether parallel timelines or unexpected deaths. It’s a design that, while perhaps crafted to encourage players to return for the next episode drop, creates a particularly incident-laden narrative.

True Colors and Double Exposure, meanwhile, are more focused on the relationships between characters, creating tales that aspire to be more mature rather than focused on maintaining a propulsive, season-selling narrative. The trade of incident-laden tales for closer-told realism, however, means sacrificing the emotional texture that should be central to the series. A coming of age tale, which all Life is Strange games are meant to be, should be as much about big ideas and even bigger emotions as the utter inter-personal whirlwind that change brings.

Many other aspects of the original experience have been muted. Music was always a key part of Life is Strange but, with the disappearing drama, it’s faded into the background. There aren’t moments like Max popping in her headphones for a listen of “To All Of You”, the ode to Americana which perfectly fits the first moments of the game’s high school experience. And the watercolour visuals of Life is Strange, which made its opening imagery of a towering tornado unforgettable, have been brushed aside in favour of the smooth and realistic. Double Exposure has industry-leading facial animations, but they can’t make up for a world that is devoid of wonder. It’s telling that one of True Colors’ most memorable moments, its characters watching lanterns rise into the sky, is simply a mirror of a sequence in Life is Strange 2.

The return of Chloe after so many years looks very likely to tread familiar ground. With another natural disaster threatening Max and her friends, it seems poised to once again ask what we should sacrifice for love. However, Double Exposure already indicates that these themes won’t be satisfyingly revived. Max’s return in 2024 didn’t bring the original spirit of the series back with her. The young, uncertain student was replaced by an adult fully capable of facing new challenges. Grief and doubt thread their way through the narrative but Max feels too emotionally equipped to deal with them, always with Gen Z quips – or measured reassurances – to hand no matter the situation. It’s alienating to be in the shoes of a protagonist who isn’t in much need of an emotional education, and for her to exist in a world where every character feels poisoned by ironic internet language. And if Reunion intends to simply retread the same ground as the original, its characters – now changed by life and experience, their arcs long since completed – are surely unable to successfully echo what made them so compelling and enduring in the first place.

There was the potential for a bolder approach than what’s coming. Double Exposure introduced the power to switch between timelines, which was an interesting concept but brought about simple, almost immediately explained puzzles. A marriage of that idea and the original rewind power might have allowed for some innovative, layered adventuring that could lend some frisson to the now overly-smooth Life is Strange formula. Instead, there doesn’t seem to be much justification for Reunion’s existence. Comic books have already looked at the possibility of Max and Chloe reuniting, and even those great reads are hard to recall in the long run. The further adventures of that doomed duo seems best left to the imagination or less time-consuming side stories.

Despite the success of the arguably already anodyne True Colors, Square Enix appears to have balked at anything that might make Life is Strange unprofitable. The return of Max Caulfield alone was reported as not enough to bring financial success to the franchise’s publisher, and as a factor in an end-of-year downturn. The return of so many elements from the first game – Chloe, the rewind power, and seemingly even narrative and themes – feels like a crass attempt to profit from uninspired fan service. Repetitive doom and chaste romance are especially likely to be the default given Square Enix is well reported as having wanted to avoid the series being known as a “gay game”. It’s a series that seems intent on keeping its queer fans held at arms length, having refused to definitively determine its characters’ sexualities despite the direction of its story.

It’s reasonable that fans do want to see more Max and Chloe. There are always those who want more of any story, of course, but particularly so when the characters’ story originally lacked much in the way of an overt relationship. The problem is that there seems to be no indication of authentic artistic drive behind the series’ current direction. There can be no foundation to a meaningful story in the mixture of a troubled developer, ambivalent publisher, and weak vision for what the franchise means. Any impact of this title, other than being another product in a franchise, doesn’t look to last beyond Square Enix’s financial year.

It feels altogether like the series has reached a dead end with its trend-chasing and, more recently, profit-seeking, which now appear to be Life is Strange’s guiding principles. A brighter picture of what could have been can be found in Don’t Nod’s successor series, Lost Records, which launched with Bloom & Rage last year. Some maudlin melodrama can be found there, yes, but there’s also a level of emotional unpredictability that has been stripped out of Life is Strange’s DNA. This isn’t to say that Reunion is totally star-crossed, and no doubt fans will be clamouring to see the review scores. This is to say, however, that the risk-taking heart of the series feels long gone. Life is Strange: Reunion looks likely to have little to say about life or its strangeness, but damning things about intellectual property.

Ceridwen Millington is a journalist, gamer, and reader who is almost always ready to dive into science fiction.

Valve has responded to the New York Attorney General’s lawsuit, stating it has “serious concerns with the alterations the NYAG claims are necessary to make to our games.”

The attorney general of New York, Letitia James, announced her office was suing Valve at the end of February, alleging the platform illegally promotes gambling to children. Following an investigation, the office of the attorney general “found that Valve’s video games, including Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2, and Dota 2, enable gambling by enticing users to pay for the chance to win a rare virtual item of significant monetary value.”

“In Valve’s most popular game [Counter-Strike 2], the process resembles a slot machine, with an animated spinning wheel that eventually rests on a selected item. The randomly selected virtual items have no in-game functionality but can be sold online for money, with one item reportedly being sold for more than $1 million. The lawsuit alleges that Valve has made billions of dollars luring its users, many of whom are teenagers or younger, to engage in gambling in the hopes of winning expensive virtual items that they can cash in on. With this lawsuit, Attorney General James seeks to permanently stop Valve from continuing to promote illegal gambling in its games and to pay disgorgement and fines.”

Unusually for Valve, the company has shared its response publicly, claiming it has been working with the AG since early 2023 to “educate” them on how virtual items are won and shared in its games.

“We shared with the NYAG that these types of boxes in our games are widely used, not just in video games but in the tangible world as well, where generations have grown up opening baseball card packs and blind boxes and bags, and then trading and selling the items they receive,” Valve wrote. “On the physical side, popular products used in this way include baseball cards, Pokémon, Magic the Gathering, and Labubu. In the game space, digital packs similar to our boxes date back to 2004 and are in widespread use. Players don’t have to open mystery boxes to play Valve games. In fact, most of you don’t open any boxes at all and just play the games — because the items in the boxes are purely cosmetic, there is no disadvantage to a player not spending money.”

Valve added that it has shared its efforts to shut down accounts found to be using its game items on gambling sites in violation of the Steam Subscriber Agreement, its efforts to combat fraud and theft of users’ items, and “our extraordinary measures to stop gambling sites from taking advantage of Steam accounts and Valve game items.”

“Valve does not cooperate with gambling sites. To date, we’ve locked over one million Steam accounts that were being misused by third parties in connection with gambling, fraud, and theft. We’ve also shipped features (like trade reversal and trade cooldown) to discourage gambling sites’ ability to operate and protect Steam users from fraud. And we forbid any gambling-related business to participate in or sponsor tournaments for our games,” the company stressed.

Valve also shared candid observations about the lawsuit, writing: “We have serious concerns with many of the alterations the NYAG claims are necessary to make to our games.

“First, the NYAG seems to believe boxes and their contents should not be transferable. They appear to assume digital mystery boxes and items in our games are different from tangible items like baseball card packs (which contain random cards), and to take issue with the fact that users have the ability to transfer the items they receive through Steam Trading or user-to-user sales on the Community Market. We think the transferability of a digital game item is good for consumers — it gives a user the ability to sell or trade an old or unwanted item for something else, in the same way an owner can sell or trade a tangible item like a Pokemon or baseball card. NYAG proposes to take away users’ ability to transfer their digital items from Valve games. Transferability is a right we believe should not be taken away, and we refuse to do that.”

It also claims that the NYAG wants to gather further personal data from Valve’s players — “beyond what we normally collect in the course of processing payments” — including “evasive technologies for every user worldwide.” The office is also demanding additional age verification, even though Valve stresses that most payment methods used by Steam users in New York already have age verification built-in. “Valve knows our users care about the security of their personal information, and we believe it’s in our and their interest to only collect the information necessary to operate the business and comply with law,” it added.

It also took issue with NYAG’s comments about the link between games and real-world violence, which Valve dismisses as “a distraction and a mischaracterization we’ve all heard before.”

Valve closed by writing: “We respect New York’s right to determine the laws governing behavior in the state. We will of course comply if the New York legislature passes laws governing mystery boxes — something it has not done despite considering the issue a few times. Such laws would be the result of a public process, presumably with input from the industry and New York gamers.” However, it claims the commitments demanded by the “went far beyond what existing New York law requires and even beyond New York itself,” and while it “may have been easier and cheaper for Valve to make a deal with the NYAG, we believed the type of deal that would satisfy the NYAG would have been bad for users and other game developers, and impacted our ability to innovate in game design.

“Ultimately, a court will decide whose position — ours or NYAG’s — is correct. In the meantime, we wanted to make sure you were aware of the potential impact to users in New York and elsewhere.”

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Pokémon Pokopia has launched big on Nintendo Switch 2, and sold 2.2 million copies over its release weekend.

Across four days, the new Pokémon life simulation game shifted 1 million copies in Japan alone, despite supply constraints for its physical version being reported in several countries.

Indeed, such has been the game’s popularity that Amazon recently raised the price of its boxed copy by $10, up to $80. Nintendo shareholders have also reacted positively to the game’s performance, sending the company’s stock price shooting upwards.

While 2.2 million copies is less than the 5 million already sold by Resident Evil Requiem, it’s important to remember that this game is an exclusive for Switch 2 — a console which still has a relatively modest userbase.

Just over 17 million Switch 2 consoles have been sold so far, meaning just shy of one in every eight owners also now has a copy of Pokémon Pokopia. The game has already beaten the sales to date of Kirby Air Riders (1.76 million) and Metroid Prime 4: Beyond (less than 1 million on Switch 2).

The sales even compare quite favourably with those for Pokémon Legends: Z-A, the highly-anticipated franchise title which introduced a new menagerie of Mega Pokémon. That has sold 3.89 million copies to date on Switch 2 since its launch last year (though was also available on Switch)

With a big launch and a very positive reception from both players and critics alike, Pokopia looks like a new evergreen hit for Nintendo as more players take the leap to Switch 2. Could it eventually become the best-selling Pokémon spinoff of all time? It seems possible. N64 classic Pokémon Stadium currently holds that title with 5.4 million sales, though the combined sales of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Red and Blue are slightly higher, at 5.8 million.

Looking to join in the fun for yourself? IGN’s Pokémon Pokopia review returned a 9/10 score, and dubbed the game as “an enjoyable building and town simulator that capitalizes on the charming personalities of its monsters in a way that appeals to both the creative and collector alike.”

If you’re already playing, be sure to check out our list of all the Pokémon in Pokopia, and take a look at our Things to Do First in Pokopia guide to make the most of your first few days. To help you get started, we’ve also got a list of 17 things that Pokopia doesn’t tell you, plus How to Raise the Environment Level and How to Raise Pokémon Comfort Level.

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

Nintendo says it believes in the idea that “it is more fun to destroy that which is beautiful,” which is why it stuffed hundreds of millions of voxels into at least one of the layers in Donkey Kong Bananza.

Nintendo producer Kenta Motokura and programmer Tatsuya Kurihara peeled back the layers of last year’s Nintendo Switch 2 Donkey Kong game during a GDC panel attended by IGN earlier today. The hour-long session offered a deep dive into the crust of what made the game special, including information about its ties to Super Mario Odyssey and, of course, its destruction mechanics.