Pre-orders for an unannounced S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy have gone live in Japan, suggesting an announcement during today’s Xbox Partner Preview Event.
Gematsu reported pre-orders for the collection on PlayStation 4 went live on Japanese retailers alongside a June 27 release date. It includes S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, and marks the series’ debut on consoles.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, developed by GSC Game World and published by the now defunct THQ, launched on PC only in March 2007.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was well-received for its post-apocalyptic, alternative reality Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, as well as its non-linear storyline. Prequel Clear Sky followed in 2008, with sequel Call of Pripyat launching in 2010.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is due out in September on Xbox Series X and S and PC, and may also appear during the Xbox Partner Preview Event, which kicks off today, March 6 at 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern / 6pm UK.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Yesterday I banged out the first in a torrid trilogy of Dragon’s Dogma 2 features, centring on hands-on time with the game’s Mystic Spearhand “vocation” or class. Look out for parts 2 and 3 over the coming week. During the hands-on, I also spent 45 minutes in the shoes of another advanced Dragon’s Dogma 2 class, the Magic – sorry, Magick Archer. You might remember this vocation from the original Dragon’s Dogma; then as now, it combines relatively straightforward bow combat with various breeds of enchanted ammunition, for a surprisingly technical skillset that is enjoyable to faff around with.
The boss of Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead has denied a recent rumour that Sony is buying the studio.
While Helldivers 2 is published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Swedish studio Arrowhead remains an independent company. But following Helldivers 2’s explosive success across PlayStation 5 and PC, rumors have emerged that Sony has made a move to acquire Arrowhead.
Responding to a tweet from an account that reposted the rumour and even created a Sony ‘welcome to the family’ image to boost the post, Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt said: “This is fake… Unless I’ve missed something. Also, a really sh***y old logo from 2008 or so when we just started the studio.”
This is the first I hear of this… And that’s a good indication that it’s fake.
Pilestedt responded to another tweet that posted the same image alongside a message hoping for the acquisition. “This is the first I hear of this,” Pilestedt said. “And that’s a good indication that it’s fake. Also, very old logo.”
Pilestedt had previously replied to a tweet to clarify that Helldivers 2 was not developed by a Sony-owned studio, saying: “We are not owned. We are independently owned!” Then: “I mean… We are owned, but only by the founders (including me) of the studio.”
I mean… We are owned, but only by the founders (including me) of the studio.
Last month, Sony announced a significant round of layoffs affecting around 900 staff, or about 8% of its global PlayStation workforce. The layoffs affect a number of PlayStation studios, including Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla, Firesprite, and, most significantly, PlayStation’s London studio, which is closing entirely. Alongside the layoffs, a number of in-development games were canceled, including a Twisted Metal live-service game.
Arrowhead was founded in 2008 by a group of students who went on to release Magicka, The Showdown Effect, and Gauntlet. The first Helldivers game launched in 2015, published by Sony for PlayStation platforms and PC. Helldivers 2, however, is Arrowhead’s biggest game to date, and Sony’s biggest ever PC game launch.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
You wait for news of a new Turtles game and then two come along in the space of a week. Yes, after being revealed last year, Outright Games and Paramount Games Studios have now announced that its upcoming Mutant Mayhem-based game will be called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed and it is coming to Switch this year.
Developed by A Heartful of Games, Mutants Unleashed is set to be a 3D brawler/platformer which takes place shortly after the events of 2023’s hit animated film. A new band of mutants are descending on New York City and it is up to the heroes in a half shell to stop them — we won’t go into details about the movie’s plot here, but seriously, you should watch it.
Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead has released its first balance update, patch 01.000.100, which nerfs the game’s best loadout among other things. The update is out now on PC and coming soon on PlayStation 5.
First up, it’s worth mentioning the patch adds planetary hazards. This means planets now have extra environmental challenges that appear at random while you’re deployed, including fire tornadoes and meteor showers. In the patch notes, Arrowhead said there are many more planetary hazards now active, so players will no-doubt have fun contending with them all.
The meat of the patch, though, is a sweeping balance pass. On this, the quickfire eradicate missions, which are used by farmers to efficiently gobble up resources before resetting operations, now require more kills and enemies spawn more often. “The time to complete the mission was previously shorter than intended and should now usually take twice as long to complete,” Arrowhead said.
As for weapons and stratagems, the Breaker, Railgun, and Shield Generator Backpack are all nerfed, among other items. These three in particular were seen as essential for high difficulties, and were a part of most of the game’s agreed upon best loadouts.
Explaining the decision to nerf the Breaker, Railgun, and Shield Generator Backpack, designer Alex K said all three “were quite strong with too little downsides, overshadowing all other options on higher difficulty levels.” However, the developer expects the changes won’t ruin the build, “but rather help the affected items find their place among the other options and stay effective in capable hands.”
Elsewhere, there are a number of fixes. The highlight here is armor rating values are now fixed, which means they should reduce damage as intended. This is fun, too: Helldivers standing next to ICBMs during launch will get properly toasty with a chance of not-so-spontaneous combustion.
Many planets now have additional environmental challenges that will appear at random while you are deployed, from fire tornadoes to meteor showers and many more.
Balancing
Eradicate missions now require more kills and enemies spawn more often. The time to complete the mission was previously shorter than intended and should now usually take twice as long to complete.
Primary, Secondary, & Support Weapons
Breaker: Decreased magazine capacity from 16 to 13, increased recoil from 30 to 55
Railgun: Decreased armor penetration, decreased damage against durable enemy parts
Punisher: Increased total ammo capacity from 40 to 60, increased stagger force, increased damage from 40 per bullet to 45 per bullet
Breaker Spray & Pray: Increased armor penetration, increased fire rate from 300 to 330, increased number of pellets from 12 to 16 per shot, decreased magazine size from to 32 to 26
Stratagems
Energy Shield Backpack: Increased delay before recharging
380mm and 120mm Orbital Barrages: Increased duration of the bombardment, decreased spread
Fixes
Fixed armor rating values not reducing damage as intended.
Fixed certain Bug Holes (including Stalker Nests) that were unnecessarily hard to destroy.
Fixed anti-aliasing toggle not working on PS5.
Balanced lighting across all planets to solve cases where the game was too dark.
Improved flashlight efficacy.
Increased visibility during “sand rain” weather on Erata Prime.
Updated tutorial materials and lighting.
Improved cases where some materials could look blurry if “Lighting” graphic setting was set to “Low”.
Fixed timing issues that could occur in the “Extract E-710” primary objective.
Changed button interaction behavior for buttons in bunker POIs. Helldivers will now let go of the button after holding it for a few seconds.
Fixed some cases of large assets floating if the ground beneath them was blown up.
Helldivers standing next to ICBMs during launch will get properly toasty with a chance of not-so-spontaneous combustion.
Fixed unthrowable snowballs after ragdolling.
Fixed being able to use grenades after drowning.
Camera no longer locked on the player’s own corpse and blocking spectator mode.
Helldivers now take damage from fire, gas etc. generated by other players.
Armor no longer stretches when dismembered.
Known Issues These are issues that were either introduced by this patch and are being worked on, or are from a previous version and have not yet been fixed.
Game may crash after dropping several high power stratagems in succession.
Picking up items from caches may cause characters to freeze in place for an extended period of time.
Picking up items from bunkers and caches in quick succession may render one of the items unpickable.
Players cannot unfriend other players befriended via friend code.
Players may be unable to select loadout or return to ship when joining a multiplayer game session via PS5 Activity Card.
Mission objective HUD displays different numbers for client and host during some missions.
Default armor is always shown while viewing the warbond, regardless of the armor that player has equipped.
Text chat box display is obstructed by the cinematic letterboxing during extraction.
Some text in the HUD/UI is missing or not displaying correctly.
Players may experience issues when many players attempt to login and/or play at the same time:
Login rate limiting
Players may become disconnected during play
Various UI issues may appear when the game interacts with servers
Some games may not be joinable by others for a short period of time
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Following game concepts including Max Payne with vampires, Kojima’s Strands with witches, organ trading, and an airport for aliens currently run by dogs, Xalavier Nelson Jr’s Strange Scaffold studio are back with another doozy. They’ve announced a release date of April 16th for Life Eater, a game about a modern-day druid who must kidnap and sacrifice people every year to sate a dark god and keep the world from ending. I know what you’re thinking: surely he’s insane in the membrane, insane in the brain. But what if he isn’t?
Way back in 2019, developer Red Hook Studios announced a sequel to its brutal role-playing game Darkest Dungeon.
Now, following the release of Darkest Dungeon II on Steam last May, a rating for the game has popped up in Brazil and it lists multiple platforms including the Nintendo Switch (thanks, Gematsu):
It wants to move away from “one-and-done console game”.
After revealing in November last year how it wanted to focus on transforming its biggest franchises into live services, Warner Bros. has now reiterated this at the Morgan Stanley conference earlier this week.
According to WB Discovery gaming boss J.B. Perrette, it’s no longer about launching “a one-and-done console game” but focusing on a live service where players can live, work, build, play and return to regularly:
We’re back with another Community Update to give you the rundown on everything you can expect this month. It’s a little less action-packed than we initially anticipated, but we still have a few updates to offer in this trying time.
The Start of Something New
Xbox Insiders who are on top of their Weekly Pulse Surveys may have noticed something a little different with this week’s question. For the month of March, we’re going to branch out from our traditional platform inquiries to learn a little more about our community. Specifically, we want to know what everyone’s ultimate pizza looks like.
A different facet of pizza creation (crust, toppings, sauce, etc.) will be included in each week’s Pulse Survey throughout the entire month. Once all the results have been tabulated from the surveys, we’ll use that “recipe” to create an Xbox Insider Pie for the Xbox Insider Program. The team will then give their reviews on the ‘za and see how our tastes line up with the community.
Is this an overly complicated way to throw a pizza party for the team? Or is it a test to see if the community will force us to eat a truly revolting, abomination of a pizza? To that I reply, “¿Por qué no los dos?”
Immersive
Despite a small delay toward the end of February, the train is still rolling for the “Get To Know Our Team” articles. Expect the remainder of these interviews to drop sporadically during March as we wind down the 10th Anniversary Celebrations. I’m excited for everyone to keep meeting the rest of the team, and some of my favorite stories are still upcoming!
Additionally, the Release Notes’ migration to their new home is fully underway. The preparations are coming along smoothly, and the team is getting prepared for an official launch soon. In the near future, we’ll post a more detailed explainer on the changes, as well as where to access Release Notes.
Famous Last Words
Since starting these Community Update posts, a few different projects have been teased throughout. There’s been some chatter regarding the status of said projects, so we wanted to give a quick update just to say everything is still being worked on. We’re striving to provide more transparency into our processes, but that also means we might get a little ahead of ourselves sometimes. Hopefully, we’ll have more concrete plans to share soon.
That’s the Hi-Fi
Another month of Xbox Insider is now underway. It’s our first month as a newly minted “double digit” lasting enterprise and we’re more energized than ever. The journey has been great so far, but it’s just getting started!
As always, I hope everyone enjoyed this installment of the Xbox Insider Program Community Update. If you want to chat about this—and everything else XIP—hop on over to the r/XboxInsiders subreddit or throw us a follow @xboxinsider.
If you’re the type of Sonic the Hedgehog fan who prefers to play games both at home and on the go on a single platform, the Nintendo Switch is the best console to do that. Ever since the Switch arrived in the market in 2017, Sega has worked like clockwork to consistently release Sonic games for the hybrid console.
With Sonic x Shadow Generations making its way to the Switch this fall and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 coming to theaters in December, now is a good time to play through your Sonic collection or add to it in your Switch library. Here are all the Sonic the Hedgehog games you can play on the Nintendo Switch right now!
How Many Sonic Games Are There on Nintendo Switch?
A total of 8 Sonic games have been release for Nintendo Switch. This spans from the first year of the system back in 2017 to the most recent title, Sonic Superstars, which was released in October 2023. Keep in mind that this list below does not include the games available with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription.
All Sonic Switch Games in Order of Release Date
Sonic Mania (2017)
Sonic Mania was developed by PagodaWest Games and Sonic fangame community member Christian Whitehead as a love letter to the classic Sonic the Hedgehog titles released on the Sega Genesis and Sega CD platforms. Taking place after the events of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, the game remixes eight iconic levels, including Green Hill Zone and Chemical Plant Zone, and introduces five new ones, including the glamorous Studiopolis Zone and the peaceful Press Garden Zone, and introduces a new troupe of Eggbots called the Hard-Boiled Heavies for Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles to beat. Mania is considered one of the best Sonic games of the 2010s because of the experiment in allowing a group of Sonic fans to create a game other Sonic fans would love, the vivid neon graphics, and the new challenges present in every stage.
Sonic Forces makes Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic form a resistance against Dr. Eggman after he conquered most of the world alongside Infinite, a masked jackal who uses the Phantom Ruby to create doppelgangers and warp reality. The game switches gameplay modes between third-person Boost gameplay with Modern Sonic, side-scrolling gameplay with Classic Sonic, and a mode with the custom avatar character, which can be any animal you want, whose weapons use Wisp power-ups. Forces’ writing and lighting aren’t exactly the best in the series, but the game is still tolerable for some people.
Team Sonic Racing takes racing games to a whole new level by having players race with each other, not against each other. This game has a cooperative gameplay mechanic similar to Splatoon and Overwatch, using Sonic Heroes as a frame of reference, where you play in teams of three characters and work together to win each race, paying very close attention to your teammates’ performance and sharing Wisp power-ups with them to allow them to speed up and pull your ranks. Since most of the karts are sports cars, you can customize them with gold rims and paint your car any color you want West Coast Customs style.
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 (2019)
Released a year before the real-life Tokyo Olympic Games was scheduled to begin only to be postponed to 2021 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 brings the platform rivalry between the jolly red plumber, the speedy blue hedgehog, and their respective friends back to the world stage with new events, like surfing, skateboarding, karate, and sport climbing, and bonus features. The game includes a story mode that takes Mario and Sonic back to the Tokyo 1964 Olympics and their early 2D sprite selves, while everyone else works to help bring them back to the real world in the present day. You get the best of both eras and some history lessons about the Olympic Games in Tokyo to go with it.
Sonic Colors: Ultimate is the remastered version of the original Sonic Colors for the Wii and Nintendo DS developed by Blind Squirrel Games as part of Sonic’s 30th anniversary in 2021. The remaster enhanced the graphics to brighten up the colors of Eggman’s interplanetary amusement park and the character models, introduced a new Jade Ghost Wisp to help Sonic phase through walls and ceilings, replaced the traditional lives with rescues from Tails, and introduced mini races against Metal Sonic. You can also collect Park Tokens to customize Sonic with the wackiest designs for his shoes and gloves.
Sonic Origins compiles the first four classic Sonic games released on the Sega Genesis and Sega CD and remasters them for modern consoles and the audience that plays on them, whether they’re veteran fans seeking a nostalgia fix or young fans who want to understand Sonic’s history. Players can experience the game in Classic Mode, which is the original format presented in a 4:3 aspect ratio, or Anniversary Mode, which replaces lives with coins and allows Sonic to use Drop Dash as he did in Sonic Mania. Each game in the compilation features new animated cutscenes at the beginning and end done by the incomparable Tyson Heese to connect all four games into a cohesive story, provided you play them in the original release order.
Sonic Frontiers (2022)
Sonic Frontiers is the first open-world game in the Sonic franchise — or should we say, “open-zone”? — born out of a trend of open-world games being styled after The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Sonic explores the vast Starfall Islands to fight cybernetic enemies, solve various puzzles, and run through Cyber Space levels modeled after the levels from past Sonic titles in an effort to save his friends from the digitized dimension. Both veteran and new Sonic fans alike will enjoy running around the mysterious island set to a soundtrack that strikes a delicate balance between serenity and chaos.
Sonic Superstars is a collaborative effort between Sega and Arzest to bring 3D graphics to a Classic Sonic game, a move that surprised everyone at the 2023 Summer Game Fest (including this author). With Classic Sonic being a CGI character on his own for the first time and classic levels getting revamped with new music and upgraded level designs, the game allows up to four people to locally play together as Sonic and his friends throughout 11 levels across the Northstar Islands and grants new powers for every Chaos Emerald they collect to overcome obstacles. It’s a great Sonic game to play with friends at home or on the go!
Available Sonic Games With Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack
If you’re looking to play some classic Sonic games with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription, there are a few available under the SEGA catalog. You can find more info about them below:
Cristina Alexander is a freelance writer for IGN. She has contributed her work to various publications, including Digital Trends, TheGamer, Twinfinite, Mega Visions, and The Escapist. To paraphrase Calvin Harris, she wears her love for Sonic the Hedgehog on her sleeve like a big deal. Follow her on Twitter @SonicPrincess15.
.png?width=1920&height=1920&fit=bounds&quality=80&format=jpg&auto=webp)
