In further confirmation that one can never truly own digital media, Warner Bros. Discovery has decided to “retire” 2016’s noodling around puzzle game Small Radios Big Televisions – meaning it’ll disappear off storefronts in the next 60 days. Developer Owen Deery revealed this news on Xitter a couple of days ago, simultaneously announcing that the game is now free to download. Deery also noted you can buy the synthy soundtrack to show support.
Insomniac Games has released the hotly anticipated New Game+ update for PlayStation 5 exclusive Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, and it adds a number of significant new features to the game.
Patch 1.002.000, out now, adds the aforementioned New Game+ as well as Mission Replay and time of day options. Insomniac has also added new accessibility options, including Audio Descriptions and Screen Reader, both of which are localized in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish (LATAM/Spain), and Japanese.
Fans will be particularly interested in the New Game+ features, which include Ultimate Levels and their associated story Symbiote suit styles, and a new trophy for completing the story in NG+. There are new suits for Peter and Miles, too, and a raft of improvements and fixes across the board.
Spider-Man 2 launched in October last year and has sold 10 million copies so far. Thoughts have already turned to what’s next from Insomniac, which recently suffered layoffs as part of mass cuts at Sony Interactive Entertainment.
While Insomniac 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.
WHAT’S NEW?
New Game+ (NG+) Features
Additional Features
NEW IN ACCESSIBILITY
IMPROVEMENTS / FIXES
GENERAL
ACCESSIBILITY
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.
This week Steam unveiled a couple of changes. Your shopping basket from the Steam store is now shared between devices, so if you put something in there on browser you can finish it up on your Steam Deck. But, more importantly, you can now hide single, selected games from your library, so your friends can’t see when you’re playing them – or even that you own them. Obviously the first thing that comes to mind is that this could usher in a new dawn of secret perverts able to hide their embarrassing 3D sex games, but are there other use cases for it? We discuss on this week’s podcast. Plus: we’ve been playing current games! Cheese! And some more booze recommendations from James!
The Helldivers 2 galactic war has taken another turn, as it always promised to, this time seemingly locking the release of mechs behind the liberation of a planet.
A tweet from developer Arrowhead was all it took for hundreds of thousands of players to descend upon planet Tien Kwan in the hope that its liberation would unlock the hotly anticipated exo suits.
“THIS IS NOT A DRILL!” the tweet reads. “Our factories are under attack, halting all output. Helldivers have been deployed to liberate Tien Kwan!”
THIS IS NOT A DRILL! Our factories are under attack, halting all output. Helldivers have been deployed to liberate Tien Kwan! pic.twitter.com/NM4A26jZlh
— HELLDIVERS™ 2 (@helldivers2) March 7, 2024
A fresh in-game message signaling a new Major Order fleshes out this call to arms. It seems the Automatons have captured the planet solely responsible for the manufacture of the mechs (that was your first mistake, Super Earth), so Helldivers must liberate it immediately.
The wording of the message suggests that if the Helldivers 2 community fails this Major Order, the release of mechs will be delayed. The Major Order expires in 70 hours from the publication of this article (the early hours of Sunday, March 10).
It is unclear if mechs will be released then, or as soon as the planet hits 100% liberation status. But what is clear is that the Helldivers 2 community is answering the call — already over 100,000 players and rising are fighting back against the Automatons on Tien Kwan.
This is all part of Helldivers 2’s eye-catching galactic war, which is steered by a Dungeons & Dragons style game master called Joel. This latest development is another clever twist in the ongoing meta narrative that underpins Helldivers 2’s gameplay. What happens if the community fails the Major Order? Joel wouldn’t withhold mechs, right? RIGHT?
Meanwhile, Arrowhead just unveiled Helldivers 2’s upcoming premium Warbond, dubbed Cutting Edge. It includes new weapons, new armor sets, new capes, and new emotes.
There’s a lot happening in the world of Helldivers 2, including a recent new strategy that involves hugging, and a controversial balance patch that nerfed the game’s best loadout. Helldivers 2 has become one of the surprise hits of 2024 since launching in February, topping the charts on Steam and reportedly selling around three million copies. According to at least one analyst, it’s still growing. Check out IGN’s Helldivers 2 review to find out why it’s going down so well, as well as the best loadouts.
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.
Since the summer of 2020, Unknown 9: Awakening has only existed as a 90-second cinematic teaser trailer. In it, a young girl called Haroona is chased through the narrow streets of Calcutta by a rabble of boys armed with sticks. It’s not clear why she’s attracted their ire, but as one moves to strike her, a shockwave pulses out from her small body, the world turns grey, and time slows down. As she deftly moves out of harm’s way, she turns back to look at her stunned onlookers, a confident smirk rising on her face.
It was a striking, if utterly ambiguous debut, and with talk of accompanying podcasts, books, comics and a web series also on the way to help build out this new world even further, it felt like developers Reflector Entertainment were really setting out to make a bold and ambitious first impression. But it’s now been four years since that trailer. The books, podcasts and comics have all come and gone, seemingly making little impression, and Awakening, the game aiming to pull this big, expanded universe together, has arguably slipped from both time and memory. Perhaps this will change with its newly-dated summer 2024 release window on the horizon, but having seen a small, hands-off slice of an early mission in the game at publisher Bandai Namco’s offices a couple of weeks ago, Awakening’s certainly got its work cut out for it.
My kingdom for a unicorn.
How do you follow up a game like 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim? Before that ambitious, phenomenal sci-fi adventure, developer Vanillaware found its niche in creating rich, beautiful-looking worlds with a magical, medieval twist. Sometimes it was traditional Western fantasy, while others it jumped back to Edo Japan. Unicorn Overlord marks the developer’s return to the former, taking place in a fantasy realm overtaken by an evil lord. That sounds like the exact opposite of 13 Sentinels’ winding plot, but Unicorn Overlord is ambitious in an entirely different way. It’s also absolutely brilliant, effortlessly blending multiple systems to create a wonderful tactical RPG with a twist.
At the start of the game, you witness the fall of the Kingdom of Cornia thanks to a revolt led by General Valmore. At the same time, the young prince Alain flees the kingdom with the Holy Knight Josef, to ensure the bloodline survives. The revolt, however, is successful, and the Zenioran Army rises up and gradually overtakes all five nations of Valmore. Ten years later, Alain returns to build a liberation army to take back his kingdom and restore order to the continent of Fevrith.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
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Greetings, fearless heroes of galactic democracy! Steel yourself for the next big push against the disgraceful enemies of freedom with our new Warbond – Cutting Edge*.
Packed with high-voltage vibes, Cutting Edge gives you the chance to enhance your loadout of liberty with ultra-futuristic armour, guns that spit lightning, super stylish capes and epic emotes.
Helldivers… we need your help. The brainiacs in Super Earth Research & Development have some cool experimental armor ready to be field-tested. This is where you come in, you’re just the right people for the job.
Includes a rubber underlayer for insulation. Handy, really, as this prototype’s wires operate at a shocking 400,000 volts.
Warning: Electric arc generates a strong magnetic field. Avoid use while near stapled paperwork.
The end result of several billion Super Credits and 12 years of research into creating “the Soldier of Tomorrow”. Show us it was worth it.
R&D didn’t stop at armor, though. They’re also rolling out a new series of alien-splitting weapons with electrifying perks!
A sweet laser rifle that fires in short bursts. And it doesn’t need reloading. Just watch for overheating or shove a new heatsink in there.
Exploding plasma rounds sound deadly… because they are, to aliens and allies! This modified Punisher shotgun is as fun as it is fearsome.
Project an arc of close-range lightning, or charge it up to fire off powerful bolts. Good for taking out multiple targets and giving you more time to pick a celebration emote.
And you can unlock a new stun grenade, the G-23 Stun, and the LAS-7 Dagger pistol.
I know what I’ll be doing… equipping the LAS-7 Dagger AND LAS-16 Sickle at the same time, turning my Helldiver into a real live wire and melting the foes of Managed Democracy on sight.
But we’ve got to do this with a touch of style, right? Get creative and accessorize your armor sets with three new capes, featuring matching colors and designs.
My favorite is the Botslayer: a light tan cape that will no doubt look great soaked in Automaton oil.
There are even matching player cards for each cape, as well as three new emotes.
Cutting Edge is rolling out to your Destroyer’s Acquisitions panel March 14, soldiers.
Get ready to spill some oil in style. Prepare for deployment.
*PSN account required. Content shown requires base game, paid purchase of Super Credits, and game progression to unlock.
Nintendo has released a free demo for upcoming adventure game Princess Peach: Showtime on the Nintendo Switch eShop.
Fans can now download the demo, which allows them to sample two of the transformations Princess Peach embodies in the full game: Swordfighter Peach, which turns gameplay into a hack ‘n slash, and Patissiere Peach, which offers a minigame-style experience where players must stack carts with cookies and decorate big cakes.
“In Princess Peach: Showtime, Peach and her retinue of Toads battle to ‘save the play’ after the Grape and the Sour Bunch disrupt a show at the Sparkle Theater,” the official synopsis reads. The full game arrives March 22, meaning fans have a couple of weeks to try the demo before committing to the full game.
The full Princess Peach: Showtime comes with many more transformations such as Ninja Peach, Figure Skater Peach, and more. Each completely changes the style of gameplay on offer, as Peach works her way through different levels to overcome the Grape and the Sour Bunch.
In our preview of the game, IGN said: “Princess Peach: Showtime is wholly its own thing, decoupled from the traditional Mario game entirely, and throughout our time with it we found ourselves really impressed with how different and special each stage looked and felt.”
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
The two-person studio behind 2021’s tip-top top-down action-RPG Unsighted yesterday announced their next game, a 3D metroidvania named Abyss X Zero. It’s not out for a while yet but its look already reminds me of two things: the pleasingly clean art style of Mega Man Legends and the edgy anime schoolgirl styles of Kill La Kill. See for yourself in the announcement trailer below.
