Cloudheim, an upcoming action-adventure RPG from developer Noodle Cat Games that we exclusively announced earlier this year, is now showing off its crafting system and shop system in a new gameplay trailer. You can watch it above and take a look at crafting and shop system screenshots in the new gallery below.
Noodle Cat explains that while they hope players will enjoy crafting in Cloudheim, it won’t be forced upon them: “Crafting in Cloudheim doesn’t force players to deeply engage if they don’t want to – you can spend time finding specific materials, or just throw all your loot into stations and see what happens.” Furthermore, there’s also smelting and forging, alchemy, and cooking.
Shopkeeping is also an opt-in gameplay element – but if you’re going to do it, you’d better do it right. “Correctly displaying items (e.g., swords on weapon racks) increases profits,” Noodle Cat explained. “Decorative items and banners improve shop appeal, influencing shopper behavior. Cleanliness and layout also impact success.”
You can wishlist Cloudheim on Steam if you’re interested.
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.
At some point in their development of the most recent trilogy, someone at Id Software apparently decided that the most interesting thing about their FPS was the character of the Doom Slayer himself – an odd though not entirely disastrous decision that I’d argue is mostly responsible for the design shape of Doom Eternal. I’m a big fan, even despite this misplaced fascination with its unnecessarily fleshed out gun-numpad-with-legs. I’m hoping to be a fan of Doom: The Dark Ages too, but based on the latest trailer, I’m still trying to tell whether they’ve scaled the Slayer lore back or are still banking on me being enraptured to learn the millenia-long backstory to why I’m yanking a Cacodemon’s eyeball out like clogged hair from shower drain.
It has been a long old time since we’ve seen a Madden game on a Nintendo system (you have to go right back to the Wii U’s Madden NFL 13 to find the last one, in fact), but this week, that all could change.
As reported by VGC, the rumour mill has started a-churning about this year’s entry in the American football series, suggesting that a release date will be revealed this week. Normally, this wouldn’t interest us Nintendo fans, but let’s not forget that EA has promised the series is heading to Switch 2. Might Madden NFL 26 finally be the entry we see back on Nintendo systems?
With the launch of Days Gone Remastered for PlayStation 5 just around the corner, we’re excited to spotlight our expanded suite of accessibility features. Taking the foundation of our baseline list from Days Gone in 2019, we made it a priority to evolve and improve accessibility to make the player’s experience more accessible and customizable when hitting the Broken Road on April 25. Let’s dive right in!
Visual features
Subtitle customization is now vaster than ever before in Days Gone. We added a total of 11 subtitle colors for you to choose based on your preference, which can also be used for the speaker’s name. Want to mix and match? No problem! Choose the subtitle text to be one color and the speaker’s name to be another color. On top of color customization, we also expanded the options for subtitle background. Originally, this could only be toggled on or off. Now, you can select between default (transparent), darkened, light, and black.
One of the biggest accessibility expansions coming to Days Gone Remastered is a fully customizable High Contrast Mode. This pairs with our High Contrast HUD that was implemented in the original game to assist with easier navigation and visibility. With High Contrast Mode, you can quickly apply predefined settings with two preset options – Primary and Secondary. However, you can also customize it to your preferences by setting the hero, friendly NPC, enemy, and interactable colors based on the 11 total color choices you also have with the subtitle settings. These contrast options are designed to increase visibility for the player during gameplay.
Subtitles and High Contrast Mode, along with other commonly used settings, can be accessible to select before even entering the game with our new Initial Setup screen as you boot up Days Gone Remastered for the first time. Further adjustments can be made in the Accessibility tab via the Options selection on the main menu, which also received an uplift providing real-time preview panels to display your chosen settings without going in-game.
Audio features
Including a fully revised and improved audio mix in Days Gone Remastered, two new audio accessibility options make their debut in Days Gone for the first time – UI Narration and Collectible Audio Cues.
UI Narration activates audio descriptions for the user interface reading out key information to aid players in navigating on-screen items such as all menu options and in-game Touchpad options including Inventory, Skills, and Storylines. This setting will be set to ‘ON’ as default when booting up Days Gone Remastered for the first time and can be toggled ‘OFF’ if you prefer from the Initial Setup screen.
With 240 collectibles scattered across the sprawling Pacific Northwest open world, we’ve added the option to turn Collectible Audio Cues on to sound notifications to help locate collectible objects more easily. Whether you’re playing through the Story or cleaning up open world activities, this distinct sound will help you track down those hard-to-find collectibles. In addition, you will feel increased haptic feedback through your DualSense controller mimicking the sound as you get closer to the collectible.
Gameplay features
Fighting hordes, riding your Drifter bike, and sneaking through ambush camps calls for more accessibility features for you to enjoy the game at your own pace and in your own way. Take on the brutal and dynamic world of Days Gone with Customized Controls! The power is now in your hands to customize your playstyle any way you like with fully remappable controls with your DualSense controller. This is also compatible with the fully functional PlayStation Access controller.
Another exciting feature coming to Days Gone Remastered is Game Speed. Game Speed determines the speed of gameplay ranging from 100% to 75%, 50%, and 25%. Game Speed is ideal for players who might feel overwhelmed in certain situations or have difficulty with various inputs in high pressure moments, specifically fighting off hordes of Freakers. Hordes are a pillar in Days Gone gameplay and with our new Horde Assault mode arriving in the remaster, we wanted to make this unique combat experience more accessible to our players.
Additional features coming to Days Gone Remastered include Recenter Camera on Attack, Haptic vibration intensity sliders, Field of View, and Persistent Center Dot. We also made a quality-of-life change to our auto-complete QTE feature. Before, it was only usable on Easy difficulty. Now, you can turn on this setting in any difficulty from Easy to Survival II.
Most new accessibility features are coming to Days Gone on PC as well.*
At Bend Studio, we strive to create experiences that leave a lasting impact on our players. The pursuit of allowing players of all abilities to share our joy of play together inspires our work every day. We hope you enjoy the definitive version of our open world epic, and we can’t wait to see you hop on the Drifter bike and experience all Days Gone Remastered has to offer on April 25, 2025.
*Update to version higher than Build ID 10034136 via Patch 1.08 required. UI Narration is not supported for Broken Road DLC on PC. Compatible controller required for haptic feedback and customized controls. For DualSense controller, wired connection required to experience the full range of in-game controller features.
With poorly lit metal halls, flickering neon lights, a larger than life mechanical sprawl, and a cyborg ninja protagonist, Steel Seed has a lot on the surface that piqued my interest, as I can be easily lured into B-tier sci-fi stories if things look weird enough. Unfortunately, this one is weird in all the wrong ways. Its stealth action and energetic platforming are its best traits, but they are uneven across the roughly 12-hour campaign. Some really cool moments and creatures end up lost amongst miles of dreary and uninspired spaces, overshadowed by frustrating combat and a flimsy story that sap whatever shuddering signs of life this machine had in it.
The problems with Steel Seed start with its hero’s generic presentation. Zoe, awkwardly plucky and earnest daughter of the creator of the dystopia she woke up into, feels completely out of sync with the post-apocalyptic sci-fi world she is in. She’s well-voiced, but not well-written, relying heavily on some vapid self-reflection about a past she can’t fully remember and superhero movie-style banter with her robot pa. Ma’am, you’re the last living human on a planet overrun by killer robots and the only chance to bring humanity back from extinction. I need you to stop quipping and lock in.
Steel Seed is dense with lore about how some major corporation was humanity’s last hope until the CEO (who is also Zoe’s father) got double crossed by whoever and whatever, but its plot is light on interesting happenings or compelling reasons to continue to the next objective outside of “because it’s telling me to.” There’s a part that technically satisfies the literary definition of a plot twist, but you see it coming so far in advance that it might as well be a naked man covered in gold.
You’ll spend a great deal of your time navigating this post-human settlement by hopping on platforms and scurrying up walls. It’s all very reminiscent of the Uncharted games, where shimmying across a ledge could be filled with enough mishaps and jump scares to make the process a tense one. Steel Seed even goes a step further, making its high stakes sequences of sliding through collapsing structures or outrunning gunfire feel way more precarious as it’s pretty easy to fail some of the more intense sections.
There’s little about the world Zoe is saving even worth remembering.
Light puzzle mechanics can add some small speed bumps to your progress, often in the form of commanding your R2D2-coded companion, KOBY, to shoot unreachable buttons while your hands and feet are busy keeping you firmly attached to a wall. These were just dynamic enough to stay engaging, which is all I can ask for for a game that has platforming but isn’t entirely focused on that kind of gameplay, a la Astrobot. Things do get more clever in certain chase encounters, where your perspective changes from 3D to 2D in order to outrun enemy fire from the background – but these moments are scarce, and Steel Seed does nothing that clever anywhere else.
The vast environments you’ll be doing all this poking around in are very hit and miss, visually speaking. There are quite a few stretches of pretty generic techno-hallways or oft-troped rust-chic junk yards that don’t really inspire awe if you’ve seen any science fiction ever. But occasionally those halls will be filled with weird little robot bugs, or a X-story tall mech that rivals the scale of some of God of War’s largest creatures will rise to greet you, and you can’t help but think, “they cooked with this one, at least.” Generally, though, there’s very little about the world Zoe is tasked with saving even worth remembering, something me and the amnesiac protagonist have in common.
There are a lot of enemies in all of these spaces looking to stop you from saving the day, and you can take care of them with stealthy wit or brute force. The stages where you find most enemies are rife with nooks and crannies to hide in and precariously placed obstacles to use as distractions, or to cause killing blows themselves. At first stealth is pretty simple thanks to the very slim variety of different bad guys that patrol around, as well your limited starting skills. I was happy to see that blossom into something more robust as time went on, though. Even though you don’t really see more than five different enemy types in any given encounter throughout Steel Seed, each one is so different and they are mixed together well enough to create checkpoints that can be a real challenge to navigate safely.
Sections get larger and more dense with lookouts that have overlapping patrols and vision vectors, and while some of the mid-game scenarios hit the “just right” mix of enemies and area size, the late-game stealth sections drag on way too long. The fairly strict checkpoints also mean you need to start from the beginning of the section if you fail during it, sometimes throwing 15-20 minutes of patient stabbing and enemy hacking directly into the recycling bin when you slip up. You also run out of new ways to take down foes pretty early on, and I found myself setting a lot of the same traps throughout. So while the hunt started tense, it became stale sooner than I’d hoped.
Zoe and KOBY gain more tricks as they progress, but you sort of have to earn the ability to buy them with the points you find by breaking containers or enemy robots, completing what can often feel like busy work first. Kill five enemies without being seen and you’ll earn the privilege of buying the extremely useful glitch mine skill, which goes a long way towards killing bots without being seen. A lot of the skills have requirements that can come naturally through play, like scanning a number of enemies individually in order to unlock a version of the scan that hits everything of interest in a small zone – ,but others were more tedious tasks, such as searching the mostly bland locations for hidden pick-ups or completing more challenging skill tests like killing a certain amount of enemies a specific way in a small window of time, which were things I happily avoided.
I less than happily avoided outright combat like a computer virus, though. From the buggy lock-on that lets you focus on an enemy but will still pull you towards other nearby foes, to the mashy attack strings with mushy responsiveness, to the dry attack animations from both Zoe and all of her victims, confronting your foes directly is generally a mess. None of the skills you unlock make combat feel any better, despite giving you some admittedly strong options for late-game encounters that can spin out of control with the number of potential participants in any given melee, attacking from off screen with reckless abandon. By the end of the campaign, if I got caught during a stealth section, I’d more often just reload at the last checkpoint than clean up the foes that caught me because it was simply less boring that way. Zones where you have no choice but to fight in open combat were consistently my least favorite parts of the Steel Seed, but mercifully, they are few and far between.
Ah, well thank heck for that. I thought I’d spent my weekend hunched over a screen in a goblinesque sweat-trance. No! Says Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 voice actor Andy Serkis: I was simply partaking in some vital culture; a veritable Wildean sophisticate. Film industry folks thought games were “not an art form in any stretch,” Serkis told Game Watcher, “and gradually it’s taken over the film industry, which could not exist without it.” Take that, Roger Ebert’s dead wrong dead horse of a dead body.
Baldur’s Gate 3 has seen a significant boost in player numbers on Steam following the release of the hotly anticipated Patch 8, and this has set developer Larian up nicely to focus on its next big game.
On Steam, Baldur’s Gate 3 hit a player concurrent peak of 169,267 over the weekend — an incredible feat for a single-player focused role-playing game in its second year. Sony and Microsoft do not make PlayStation nor Xbox player numbers publicly available.
Reflecting on the release of Patch 8, Larian chief Swen Vincke tweeted to say he expects Baldur’s Gate 3 to “continue to do well for quite some time,” not just because of the Patch 8 player boost, but because of “thriving” mod support.
This in turn gives Larian “room to focus on making our next big thing as good as we can,” Vincke continued. “We’ve got big shoes to fill.”
“Feeling good today about where we are with BG3,” Vincke said. “Patch 8 got a lot of people playing again. It took a lot of development effort but I’m happy we did it.
“With mod support thriving, I think the game will now continue to do well for quite some time. It gives us room to focus on making our next big thing as good as we can and that focus is more than welcome. We’ve got big shoes to fill.”
Patch 8, as Larian has signalled, is the final major update for the game and draws a line under what has been a remarkable time for the developer. Baldur’s Gate 3 launched to critical acclaim and enormous commercial success back in 2023, and has continued to sell strongly throughout 2024 and into 2025.
“We’re kind of working out our plans for the future and what we’re going to be doing with that,” Ayoub said. “And actually, in pretty short order, we’re going to have some stuff to talk about around that.”
Ayoub didn’t offer any further information about whether this “stuff” would be a full-blown new Baldur’s Gate in the works, or some sort of crossover like the characters had with Magic: The Gathering previously. However, he did acknowledge that he eventually wants a Baldur’s Gate 4, but that making one will likely take a while.
“It’s somewhat of an unenviable position,” he said. “I mean, we’re not in a hurry. Right? That’s the thing, we’re going to take a very measured approach… We’ve got a lot of plans, a lot of different ways to go about it. We’re starting to think about, okay, yeah, we’re ready to start dipping toes a little bit and talking about a few things. And I think, in really short order, like I said, again, not to over-tease that point, we’re going to have some other things to talk about around that.”
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.
Although originally released on Game Boy Advance way back in 2004, The Sacred Stones didn’t come to the West until 2005. It tells the standalone tale of twin heirs to the throne of Renais, Eirika and Ephraim, who fight to free their kingdom and uncover the secret behind their former ally’s treachery.
For some, this may be the first opportunity to play The Sacred Stones — not only did it release a full 20 years ago, but at the time it was only the second Fire Emblem game to release outside Japan, and the final to be developed for GBA.
We thought Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones was great, awarding it 8.5/10 way back in 2005, saying: “Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones is to the original Fire Emblem just as Advance Wars 2 was to the original Advance Wars. It’s only a letdown in the sense that all this game really offers is an entirely different storyline on top of the pre-existing gameplay built for the GBA Fire Emblem released in 2003.”
Nintendo Switch Online is a subscription-based online gaming service for the Nintendo Switch gaming platform. Memberships include online functionality, allowing you to compete or cooperate with friends, as well as a collection of classic Nintendo games spanning four decades, including titles from the NES, SNES, Game Boy, Nintendo 64, and (with the upcoming launch of the Nintendo Switch 2) the new GameCube libraries. A free seven-day trial is also available.
You can currently register your interest with Nintendo to be notified about pre-orders for Nintendo Switch 2 and accessories from My Nintendo Store. Invitations to purchase will be sent via email on a first-come, first-served basis, although they will prioritize users with a 12-month Nintendo Switch Online membership and at least 50 gameplay hours as of April 2, 2025.
Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
With the recent addition of the GBA title Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones to Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion, the paid service now boasts a total of 300 playable titles in the West.
So to be clear, this count excludes SP titles, Japanese exclusives, and the upcoming line-up of GameCube titles for the Switch 2. And yes, just to address the elephant in the room, we would have already hit 300 titles if it weren’t for the removal of Super Soccer back in March.
Spring Blooms in Monster Hunter Wilds with the First Seasonal Festival!
Head to the Grand Hub in Monster Hunter Wilds and celebrate with your fellow hunters in the game’s inaugural seasonal festival – the Festival of Accord: Blossomdance – taking place starting today, April 22, to May 6!
In the recently added Grand Hub introduced in Free Title Update 1, you’ll find members of the Grand Hub dressed in spring themed attire, and the entire area decorated to match the season. Collect tickets to obtain special gear, take on limited time Event Quests, and enjoy the spring season to it’s fullest with hunters from around the world.
Join the Festival of Accord: Blossomdance from April 22, 2025, 5pm PT – May 6, 2025, 4:59pm PT (schedule subject to change). Be sure to update to the latest version of the game and reach Hunter Rank 16 or higher in the main story to access the Grand Hub.
Spring Has Arrived in the Grand Hub!
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Bask in the splendor of the Grand Hub, themed with special décor to ring in the blossoming of spring. Songs performed by the illustrious Diva will change to match the seasonal event. You’ll also be able to order special meals at the Grand Hub using new vouchers, which are obtainable in-game through various ways, such as receiving your daily login bonus!
Forge Special Seasonal Event Armor!
New special equipment can be forged using tickets earned during the seasonal event! Obtain your login bonus each day and participate in special limited time Event Quests to earn them and craft these special themed armor sets!
Login Each Day to Receive Bonuses!
Throughout the entirety of the event, you’ll be able to receive daily special login bonuses to forge a variety of equipment and order special meals.
Use the special tickets to forge the free Sakuratide α series hunter armor, and the Felyne Papier-Mâché α series Palico armor.
During the seasonal event, certain quests will now reward tickets and Blossom Barrel Bombs if you have the Sakuratide α series hunter armor equipped! Take advantage of the armor’s special skill to gather those tickets and Blossom Barrel Bombs!
Regular login bonuses are also increased during the seasonal event! Each time you login, you’ll receive 2 Lucky Vouchers and 3 Barrel Bowling Vouchers. Special tickets and items will also be available through a Daily Limited Bounty, and the Provisions Stockpile will be holding a sale throughout the event!
The large barrel bomb in Barrel Bowling has a special seasonal design!
Let loose an explosion of fluttering cherry blossoms with the Blossom Barrel Bomb, available as a login bonus and through other activities!
Those who receive the login bonus during the event period will also receive the following limited contents:
Get special Seikret decorations to change the look and feel of your Seikret!
Get special Nameplates, Backgrounds, Poses, and Titles to use in your Hunter Profile!
Bring the spring season to the hunt by customizing your pop-up camp with special items!
Express yourself with new free gestures!
New pendants and additional music (BGM) will also be available!
New and Returning Event Quests!
During the seasonal event, most of the previously released event quests will be returning, in addition to new limited-time event quests. Take on these Event Quests during the seasonal event!
Event Quest: “Daughters of Carabosse”
Gather special materials to obtain equipment Blossom α series and Palico equipment Felyne Butterfly α!
Locale: Wounded Hollow
Condition: HR 16 or higher
Completion Conditions: Hunt 2 Lala Barina
Event Quest: “That Won’t Work on Me!”
Gather special materials and obtain headgear like Sealed Eyepatch α as well as an outfit for Alma (Note: Game progression required to customize Alma’s outfit).
Locale: Ruins of Wyveria
Conditions: HR 31 or higher
Completion Conditions: Hunt the Tempered Xu Wu
With the materials available in this event quest, Shadow Shades α and Round Glasses α can be forged, in addition to Sealed Eyepatch α head armor!
Once the Shadow Shades α and Round Glasses α are forged, they can also be used to give Alma a stylish new look!
Visit the official Monster Hunter Wilds website to see the latest event quest schedule. The period of quests is subject to change without notice. This content may return after the event period.
Check Out Alma’s New Outfit for Free During the Event!
During the seasonal event, Alma will wear a special new outfit – the Spring Blossom Kimono! After the event ends, the outfit can be obtained as paid DLC as part of the Blossomdance DLC Pack, or as an individual item.
The Blossomdance DLC Pack will be available when the event starts and includes a variety of cosmetic items such as Seikret decorations and pendants, in addition to Alma’s costume. Please note: it may take some time for the contents to be reflected in the store.
Learn more about the lineup of DLC on the official website.
The unbridled force of nature runs wild and relentless, with environments transforming drastically from one moment to the next.
This is a story of monsters and humans and their struggles to live in harmony in a world of duality.
Fulfill your duty as a Hunter by tracking and defeating powerful monsters and forging strong new weapons and armor from the materials you harvest from your hunt as you uncover the connection between the people of the Forbidden Lands and the locales they inhabit.
The ultimate hunting experience awaits you in Monster Hunter Wilds.
Story
A few years past, a young boy named Nata was rescued at the border of the Forbidden Lands, an unexplored region the guild has yet to survey.
After hearing the boy’s tale of his lone escape from a mysterious monster that attacked his village, the Guild organized an expedition into the Forbidden Lands to investigate.
A Living World
Environments within the Forbidden Lands can drastically change as the weather shifts constantly and suddenly. During the harsh Fallow and perilous Inclemency periods, ravenous monsters will venture out to hunt in packs, yet during the Plenty periods, wildlife is rich and abundant.
Monsters
The monsters who inhabit these environments have been forced to adapt to the dynamic changes that occur, using their unique characteristics to survive and thrive.
Hunting
As the world around them changes, so must the hunters and their tactics. Not only will hunters have a multitude of weapons and armor to choose from, but the art of the hunt itself has evolved as hunters learn to anticipate monsters’ behavior and familiarize themselves with their environment.
Characters
From hunting partners to fellow expedition members, you’ll encounter plenty of those who will support you on your journey.
