Author: Game Infliction

EA has announced EA Sports F1 24, launching globally on May 31 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC via the EA App, Epic Games Store, and Steam.

EA said F1 23 players can play Time Trial challenges with selected all-new 2024 team cars by pre-ordering F1 24. Owners of F1 2021, F1 22, or F1 23 get a 15% discount when they pre-order the F1 24 Champions Edition. As a bonus, players also get the McLaren and Alpine 2023 F1 esports liveries, which carry over to F1 24.

“For the first time, our F1 23 players can now connect immediately with the 2024 season with some of their favourite teams ahead of this weekend’s first Lights Out,” said Lee Mather, Senior Creative Director at developer Codemasters. “Our full reveal is coming soon, and we’re bringing players an overhauled Career mode, a new EA Sports Dynamic Handling System, and so much more.”

#F124 🟣📅 May 31

Pre-order today and get closer to the grid with immediate access to select 2024 team liveries in #F123 https://t.co/GmTjjE0Xvc

Full reveal in April. pic.twitter.com/0w7XqaPrr6

— EA SPORTS™ F1® (@EASPORTSF1) February 27, 2024

The digital-exclusive Champions Edition gives players two new Formula 1 Icons, 18,000 Pitcoin, and an F1 World Bumper Pack featuring resources for single and multiplayer gameplay events. Owners also get up to three days of early access starting May 28. All pre-orders come with one bonus VIP Podium Pass. Players who pre-order the Standard Edition get 5,000 Pitcoin and an F1 World Starter Pack.

EA said it will reveal more on F1 24 in the coming months.

F1 23 launched in June last year, and saw an 8/10 from IGN’s review. “With Braking Point 2 aboard, F1 23 is a far heartier package than F1 22,” we said. “However, while the new F1 World mode is packed with activities, its loot-based upgrade system may split fans.”

In December, IGN reported that Codemasters had suffered a round of layoffs following the launch of F1 23 and EA Sports WRC. EA bought Codemasters, best known for the racing franchises Grid, F1, and Dirt, in 2021 for $1.2 billion. At the time, EA boss Andrew Wilson said he wanted to let the company retain its identity without too much outside interference. Codemasters CEO Frank Sagnier and CFO Rashid Varachia left soon after, and Codemasters, including Project Cars developer Slightly Mad Studios, was made a part of EA Sports.

Then, in May last year, EA merged the development team at Codemasters Cheshire with Guildford-based Criterion Games to create one large development studio to work on Need for Speed Unbound, which struggled to find an audience but has since confirmed another year of support. Codemasters Birmingham continued to work on the Formula 1 franchise.

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.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants, the 2017 arcade game by Raw Thrills based on the 2012 Nickelodeon TV series, is coming to all home consoles (read: Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam) on April 23. It’ll be priced at $29.99.

TMNT: Wrath of the Mutants is being developed by Cradle Games and Raw Thrills, and it includes the voice actors from the show (Seth Green, Sean Astin, Rob Paulsen, Greg Cipes) reprising their roles as well as four-player local co-op. Check out the reveal trailer above and the first screenshots of the home console version below.

In addition to the original arcade game’s six stages and 13 boss fights, this home release adds three all-new stages and six all-new boss battles. Don’t miss our review of 2022’s great spiritual sequel to the classic 1989 TMNT arcade game, Shredder’s Revenge.

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

Yuri Lowenthal, who plays Peter Parker in the Marvel’s Spider-Man games, has reflected on Spider-Man 2’s ending and where he sees the story going next.

Spoilers for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 follow.

The ending of Spider-Man 2 sees Peter Parker pass the Spider-Man torch to Miles Morales as the primary Spidey in a cutscene that suggests Parker wants to take an indefinite hiatus from web-slinging. The ending is seen by some as a sort of retirement for Peter Parker, but according to Yuri Lowenthal, Pete has more to offer.

“There have been some comments recently that were picked up to infer that that Peter’s out and Miles is in,” Lowenthal said in an interview with Variety. “While I think that Peter would love to believe that he can just turn it off and not be Spider-Man anymore and live a completely normal life, I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen now.”

Lowenthal went on to say he has yet to read a script for the unannounced but inevitable Spider-Man 3, so isn’t sure what developer Insomniac has in store. “They’re probably still working on it,” Lowenthal added. “But I don’t think that’s the last we’re gonna see Peter. I think it’s a cool place to leave it. It’s a cool change for him.

“I think 100% he trusts Miles. Miles has really stepped up and he’s like, ‘Oh, maybe I can get a little break.’ And I did get a vacation to Symkaria during the Miles game. Not much of a vacation, but at least MJ got to learn to ride a motorcycle, which is awesome.” That motorcycle line is a nod to MJ’s newfound skill with a bike in Spider-Man 2 (and a cool Akira Easter egg).

PlayStation 5 exclusive Spider-Man 2 launched in October last year and has sold 10 million copies so far. Its New Game Plus update launches next month. But thoughts have already turned to what’s next from Insomniac. While it has a Wolverine game in the works, it seems likely it will also release a Marvel’s Spider-Man spinoff similar in scope to the hugely successful Miles Morales standalone, with Venom the potential focus.

To find out how Insomniac has set up its next sequel, check out IGN’s Spider-Man 2 ending explained.

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.

Hotly anticipated city builder Cities Skylines 2 launched on PC via Steam in October and immediately ran into a number of issues developer Colossal Order has struggled to get on top of in the months since. Now, with player sentiment turning a ‘mixed’ Steam user review rating into ‘mostly negative’ for recent reviews, and with the first Cities Skylines game with more players than its sequel on PC, the boss of Colossal Order has issued a message to disgruntled players designed to address chief concerns.

In November, Colossal Order confirmed a series of delays for planned DLC so it could focus on much-needed performance improvements and the already delayed Mod Editor. The console version wouldn’t be released until the PC version was sorted out, the developer insisted.

Now, in a new Steam post, CEO Mariina Hallikainen asked herself the question: “How do you plan to get out of this mess? / What is in the works to fix Cities: Skylines 2? / What will you do to set things right for the disaster launch of CS2?” In her response, she admitted the lack of modding support is Colossal Order’s “biggest regret”, but addressed all the main concerns.

“We’d much rather be in a different position than we are in at the moment, but we cannot change the past,” Hallikainen said. “We’re working very hard to catch up on the missing modding support, missing platforms, the content for the Ultimate Edition, and improving the performance and fixing bugs this year. The team is divided to work on different tasks so that we’re seeing progress on all fronts and while it might not feel that it’s fast enough I can assure you we are all doing the best we can. Only time will tell if this is enough to turn things around.

“There have also been many questions about the patch cadence and why we moved away from weekly patches. Weekly patches are too heavy for us to keep up with and the issues we are working on need more time than just a few hours or days to fix. We’re a small team of 30 developers and we have to plan the work in a way that creates the fastest results. So instead of spending a big part of the week working on the build deliveries and QA rounds, we can use that time to work on the fixes themselves. For the Ultimate Edition, the DLCs already have a rough schedule so we’ll have good opportunities to patch the game at the same time. This doesn’t mean that we never patch the game between the DLC releases. The goal is to improve the game as quickly as possible and when we have a solid patch ready and tested it will be released.

“We are aware we have a mountain to climb when it comes to delivering on the expectations but we have our ice picks ready and we are surely used to the cold. We’re going to keep on climbing and you’ll continue to see that progress in the game.”

Then, on the lack of modding support: “The biggest regret we have is that modding support is not yet available for the game. We have been working on it since the beginning of the project and the intent was to have it fully ready at release. Code modding support, map, and asset editing were all planned to be fully usable and mods shareable in one place. We still believe that offering modding support makes any game better and that the tools and mods should be available for all players to enjoy at no additional cost.

“During the project we faced, and still continue to face, technical difficulties that affect the speed and quality of the development, especially performance. We simply ran out of time as the focus had to shift from modding support to all hands on deck to fix the performance. All this work is still ongoing.

“We’ll be communicating more on the status of the modding soon. It’s not an ideal situation but we are committed to keep working on this part of the game because it means so much to you and to us. ‘A Colossal Order game is a moddable one’ is a promise we have made to ourselves years ago and work very hard to keep.”

Meanwhile, Hallikainen answered a list of questions, confirming more animations are coming to the game, bikes and bike paths are in the works, and more buildings both free and paid are in the roadmap.

Cities: Skylines 2’s problems began before its launch even arrived. Colossal Order warned players that it would release with performance issues a week before the game came out. Since then, players have been met with lower framerates and interesting dental glitches as the developer worked to create a better experience. In IGN’s Cities: Skylines 2 review, which returned a 6/10, we said: “Cities: Skylines 2 is an ambitious sequel that might have bitten off more than it can chew – be prepared to do a lot of terraforming if you don’t want your metropolis to look like a nightmare.”

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.