Author: Game Infliction

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.

Helldivers 2’s great war to spread democracy across the galaxy is being undermined by an unlikely source: farmers.

Arrowhead’s phenomenally popular co-op focused third-person shooter features a galaxy-wide war that pits the forces of Super Earth against Terminids (alien bugs) on one side and Automatons (alien robots) on the other (check out our Terminids and Automatons enemy list for more). The idea is to “liberate” planets from alien infestation by completing operations, which are made up of a variety of missions. If you start an operation then fail to complete all the missions within it, the operation counts as a loss for Super Earth.

You can see the effect your work has on the status of each planet’s liberation as you complete operations. And, taking a higher level view, you can see how the community is doing generally against each faction sector-wide. But it isn’t just bugs and robots who are fighting against Super Earth, it’s traitorous players.

Helldivers 2 is currently in the throes of a farming problem. No, cows aren’t shooting the place up. Rather, players who ‘farm’ resources such as medals (used to work through the battle pass), requisition (used to unlock stratagems), and XP (used to level up) from easy-going missions, like the fast-paced Automaton eradication missions that charge players with simply killing a certain number of enemies (mortal sentries held here), are then resetting the operation to rinse and repeat.

Completing eradicate enemies missions over and over again is seen as a more efficient way to farm resources than completing the operation via another mission type that takes much longer, so even though Helldivers 2 provides bonuses for completing operations, these rewards are not good enough to convince farmers to do the right thing.

The problem, of course, is that by failing to finish all missions in an operation, farmers are damaging the overall war effort. As Arrowhead has confirmed, quitting after only half the operation counts as a loss for Super Earth. So while democracy-loving Helldivers 2 are off sacrificing themselves for the greater good across the galaxy, farmers have already reset scores of operations by bursting through eradicate missions in just a few missions. “So it sounds like there’s three factions; Terminids, Automatons, and Farmers,” joked one redditor.

Palworld developer Pocketpair has released an update for the game that makes a number of important improvements. Patch 0.1.5.0 is out now for Palworld on Steam and soon on Xbox.

Highlights for patch 0.1.5.0 include adding backup of save data on the world selection screen, resolving an issue of unnecessary data accumulating in save data, improvements to the Pal AI, server lobbies, and the first improvements to cheat prevention (Palworld’s cheating problem is on the rise). It’s also worth noting the patch adds fully supported keyboard key configuration. And players will be happy to know long-pressing F can now be toggled. Now your finger can rest!

Last week, Pocketpair announced its ‘Pokémon with guns’ crafting and survival game had seen over 25 million players since going on sale in January. Pocketpair said the Steam version has sold an incredible 15 million copies, whereas on Xbox it’s seen 10 million players.

But while Palworld is one of the biggest game launches ever, it’s also one of the most controversial. Pocketpair has said its staff have received death threats amid Pokémon “rip-off” claims, which it has denied. Soon after launch, Nintendo moved quickly to remove an eye-catching Pokémon mod, then The Pokemon Company issued a statement, saying: “We intend to investigate and take appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights related to Pokémon.” IGN asked lawyers whether Nintendo could successfully sue.

Here are the Palworld update 0.1.5.0 patch notes in full:

Major Fixes

・Implemented backup of save data on the world selection screen

・Resolved issue of unnecessary data accumulating in save data

Key Configuration

・Added fully supported keyboard key configuration

Guild

・Modified specification to allow guild members to be removed when not logged in

Player Issues

・Changed long-press operation during player tasks to allow continuous work by pressing the work button once (This is switchable in the options settings)

・Fixed issue where riding in prohibited hunting areas would not result in a crime

・Improved interaction accuracy with adjacent objects

Pals

・Changed specifications so that when a Pal is instructed to “attack aggressively,” the Pal will attack enemies indiscriminately even if they are not in combat

・Corrected an issue to allow Pals of rank 1 or higher to be selected as concentrated material (higher-ranked Pals yield more points when concentrated)

・Fixed bug where if a large amount of experience points were gained and the level increased to 50 at once, Pals would not learn any active skills

・Mitigated an issue where using Mossanda’s partner skill “Grenadier Panda” on a dungeon boss would cause the boss to get stuck in walls

Base Issues

・Fixed an issue where base Pals would get stuck on top of a logging site, etc.

・Added measures to prevent the issue where base Pals would wander around and get stuck at the border of the base area

・Fixed an issue where Pals at the base would get stuck repeatedly starting transportation tasks and the light bulbs icon would appear over and over again.

・Added measures to prevent the issue of base Pals getting stuck in the farm on a roof

・Fixed an issue where work Pals would get stuck in the summon space of Palbox when restarting the server on a dedicated server.

・Adjusted the default work priority of base Pals (Anubis will prioritize manual labour)

・Significantly relaxed building restrictions for stairs and triangular roofs

・Fixed an issue where sound would play in an infinite loop when Pals at the base used certain active skills.

・Specifications changed so that all changes in environmental temperature are added up (if you put 4 campfires next to each other, the surrounding area will have the temperature of a volcano)

・Implemented “relax” working style on the monitoring stand

Balance Adjustment

・Significantly strengthened mining power for Digtoise partner skills

・Fixed the abnormally high selling price of nails

・Significantly increased the number of police officers who appear when a crime is committed

・Added electric shock effect to Free Pal Alliance’s crossbow

・Adjusted the flight distance of Sphere Launcher and Scatter Sphere Launcher.

・Increased the SAN value recovery amount of high-quality hot springs

Network Related

・Renovated the server lobby

・[Search by server name] will now work

・Added the ability to view online players on a dedicated server

*On community servers, this will only be displayed if the setting is enabled

Others

・Fixed the issue where Day 5 Memo was not placed

・You can now adjust the in-game brightness in the settings

・Fixed many minor bugs

・Corrected various incorrect text

・Improved measures against cheating

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.