Nintendo’s biggest release of the month (the year?) arrives tomorrow, with Metroid Prime 4: Beyond finally Morph Ball rolling onto Switch 1 and 2. But with the new hardware still comparatively fresh on store shelves and the holiday season right around the corner, you might be wondering which system is the place to play Samus’s latest adventure on.
Here to shed some light on how each version holds up is the above comparison video from the sublime Mr. Alex Olney. As you’ll see, the footage shows a direct comparison between the Switch 1 and 2 releases, and the latter’s beefed-up specs are immediately obvious.
EA and Battlefield Studios are preparing Battlefield 6 players for Season 1: Winter Offensive with a community letter with a list of changes set to be introduced with the upcoming 1.1.3.0 update.
The message, which aims to roll out the welcome mat for what will be yet another feedback-driven update, was posted on the official Battlefield 6 website today. It comes with a breakdown for some of the community talking points BF Studios has attempted to address so far, while giving fans a closer look at what’s to come when Winter Offensive launches December 9.
With anticheat, challenge/progression, and Escalation updates topping the list of recent highlights, BF Studios is turning its attention to a number of key issues across combat, REDSEC, and the overall Battlefield 6 experience. One especially troublesome issue for the community that the team is seeking to fix with update 1.1.3.0 are audio issues that have existed since launch. Players should notice, for example, that footsteps have been tweaked to “improve clarity, distance definition, and positional awareness across the game.”
“We have also continued to work on performance and memory issues that could cause sounds,” BF Studios says, “such as vehicles or footsteps, to sometimes not play as intended, which has been particularly noticeable on larger Battle Royale maps.”
Following last month’s multiplayer mode tweaks is a set of additional adjustments for Rush and Breakthrough. The studio explains the new changes as another step in the balancing act that has seen it attempting to keep matches fair, with the new update ideally improving the experience for attacking players.
Capture volumes and vehicle availability in Breakthrough will also be updated when 1.1.3.0 launches next week, with BF Studios explaining that Siege of Cairo, for example, will feature an additional attacker tank for Sectors 1 and 3 and a reworked capture area for objective B. Rush fans will notice M-COM locations for Manhattan Bridge and Liberation Peak have been adjusted to further refine attacker gameplay.
“These updates are intended to reduce bottlenecks, remove frustration points, and create more consistent and engaging fights around objectives,” BF Studios says.
“Beyond these highlights, we have also made a range of quality-of-life improvements across UI clarity, minimap behavior, controller aiming responsiveness, and more, which you will see detailed in the full notes.”
Another topic plaguing the Battlefield 6 fanbase since launch involves potential hit registration and netcode issues. It’s an area BF Studios has taken aim at before, with update 1.1.3.0 set to, hopefully, buff out even more scratches related to inconsistent gameplay across multiplayer and REDSEC. Also included in the new changes is the promise that Battlefield 6 will be easier on the eyes thanks to changes to close-range soldier visibility, lighting, prone animations, and more.
While players across the experience will likely pick up on “wide-ranging” changes to weapon handling, attachments, and recoil patterns, REDSEC fans can look forward to armor and tank availability changes. Armor changes for the battle royale experience will be detailed in its own dedicated post in the near future, with tank changes also subject to change as fans get their hands on update 1.1.3.0.
“We are actively exploring several areas aimed at improving clarity, responsiveness, and fairness in combat, BF Studios adds. “This includes further work on edge cases related to hit registration, investigating rare desync scenarios with destructible objects, and gathering deeper data on situations where players feel they were eliminated after reaching cover. These areas remain key priorities, and the findings from our ongoing investigations will inform updates planned for the new year.”
This latest communication from the Battlefield team stops short of providing full Battlefield 6 update 1.1.3.0 patch notes. Players are told to expect a more detailed list of all of the new weapon, map, and mode changes in “the next few days.”
Battlefield 6 Season 1 will deliver its third and final chapter when Winter Offensive launches December 9 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S. While the two previous chapters have introduced additional weapons, modes, and two maps – Blackwell Fields and Eastwood – next week’s content update focuses on its Ice Lock event changes. Expect snowy limited-time goodies for Gauntlet and Empire State, as well as an ice climbing axe melee weapon.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
Back in October, three weeks out from its release date, Yacht Club Games’ first completely new game since the original Shovel Knight, Mina the Hollower, was indefinitely delayed. It still doesn’t have a release date, and now in a new report and interview with the studio, it’s sounding like the success of Mina is a “make-or-break” moment for Yacht Club Games.
The highly-acclaimed Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 just added yet another accolade to its name — as it’s now the biggest new third-party game launch on Xbox Game Pass in 2025.
Microsoft announced the news today after examining data from every day one Xbox Game Pass launch this year, and ranking every third-party game by the number of unique users during its first 30 days of availability.
It’s a hugely impressive achievement for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the debut game from French studio Sandfall Interactive, for several different reasons. Firstly, because the game arrived just two days after Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (which itself also launched via Game Pass). And secondly, because we already know that Clair Obscur went on to sell very well too (5 million copies in five months) — something its launch via Game Pass does not appear to have dented.
“From being there to announce our game back in Summer 2024, to coming to the studio for the Developer_Direct video in January, Xbox helped us get the word out there and reach a lot of players,” Sandfall creative director Guillaume Broche said in a statement.
Xbox Game Pass let “a lot of people try our game when maybe they might not have before,” Broche continued. “The turn-based RPG genre has a lot of fans but sometimes it might put people who prefer more real-time action games off, but Game Pass lowered that barrier of entry. They could just try it and see how it feels. So a lot of curious players could start the game, explore Lumière and the early game, and realize there’s a lot to enjoy here, even if they weren’t expecting it at first.”
So, what was Clair Obscur’s Xbox Game Pass competition? It’s been a long year, so it’s worth reminding ourselves of everything the turn-based RPG has beaten to become this year’s biggest third-party Xbox Game Pass release. (And remember, this is separate to Microsoft’s own first-party output, which will include Avowed and South by Midnight, as well as Bethesda games such as The Outer Worlds 2, and Activision fare like Call of Duty: Black Ops 7.)
Other third-party games that arrived day one via Microsoft’s subscription service notably included the highly-anticipated Hollow Knight: Silksong, as well as the post-apocalyptic survival game Atomfall. The highly-acclaimed indie puzzle favorite Blue Prince also arrived this year, as did Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, Ball X Pit, and PowerWash Simulator 2.
Bloody waiters. Asking you what you’d like to eat after you waltz into the restaurant at which they’re employed. The absolute cheek of it. Why can’t they just ingest my money and spit a vaguely edible chocolate bar out of their belly button? This is the central philosophy which serves as the “touchstone” of BioShock creator Ken Levine’s Judas and its protagonist, Judas.
Yep, there’s another dev blog out for the BioShocky FPS in which you’ll run around a colony ship and gradually force someone to dislike you so much they go full villain.
Briana White, the actress who portrays Aerith in Final Fantasy 7, has called on fans to stop tagging voice artists in spicy material featuring their characters.
The discussion began after White saw KPop: Demon Hunters actor Rei Ami discovering adult fanfiction featuring her character Zoey. In response, White suggested fans in general had “forgotten the meaning of the word inappropriate.”
“Maybe let’s normalize not tagging voice actors in smut of their characters,” White wrote in a series of posts on X. But many fans responded by saying Ami had gone on to look for the content purposefully — to which White then suggested it was all a matter of “consent.”
“It’s really a shame when VAs want to interact with the people who love the characters on social media but just a few creeps ruin it for everyone,” White wrote, acknowledging that she had seen all sorts of fan-made Final Fantasy 7 content even though she tried to “actively avoid it.”
White portrayed Aerith in the 2020 Final Fantasy 7 Remake, a role she has then continued in Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion, 2024’s Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, and Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles.
“I’m so associated with FF7 that it gets shown to me every single day anyway,” White explained. “As someone said earlier, it is a matter of consent. And it can be almost impossible to know what exactly is acceptable or not to an individual just from knowing their social media persona.”
Ultimately, White conceded that while Ami had chosen to seek out the fan-made content that had prompted her initial post, fans should still be mindful of what they share. “Alright alright y’all have spoken and I hear you,” White concluded. “Point stands, just not for [Rei Ami]. Carry on.”
“It’s about making sure the pacing feels right,” series director Naoki Hamaguchi said. “It’s not about cutting out content, it’s making sure that it feels right, the speed that the story progresses at feels right, and it is fairly quick and feels like you can get through it at a reasonable pace. But it has to feel right, so that’s what I mainly intended to say there.”
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
The Soulslike is dead. The age of the Souplike has begun. It’s been going for decades, in fact. Indie developer Kite Line has just published Soup Rooms – a sequel of sorts to dong yarhalla’s videogame concept album from 2007, in which you visit small square rooms with feverdream aesthetics and a peculiar entity in the middle.
What was I doing back in 2007? Alas, I was not playing Soup. There’s a high probability that I cooked soup in 2007, but it wouldn’t have been very interesting soup. It would not have featured any spirit wolves, whiny fallen clouds, consumptive Casio men, “boinglers”, or Willem Dafoes.
We were delighted to see Ustwo Games’ gorgeous mobile puzzler, Monument Valley 3, make the jump to Switch earlier this year, and today the dev has given us even more story chapters to sink our teeth into — for free!
The ‘Garden of Life’ expansion is now available on Switch, bolting four additional chapters onto the end of the main game, packed with even more of the series’ signature perspective-bending puzzles. There are even some hidden optional puzzles to find in the bonus levels, for those after even more.
Fresh from sweeping the Golden Joysticks and poised to do the same at The Game Awards, Sandfall Interactive’s phenomenal debut RPG is one of the most buzzed-about releases of the year, so it should surprise no one when we announce that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33is the biggest new third-party game launch on Xbox Game Pass of 2025. That’s based on the number of unique users in the first 30 days of its availability, which means a huge number of Xbox players joined Maelle, Gustave, Esquie, and the gang on their journey right from the beginning.
Sandfall Interactive creative director Guillaume Broche told us how grateful he is for all that love: “This year has been so far beyond what any of us could have imagined, and it’s down to how passionate and supportive our fans have been to make that a reality. It’s really nerve-wracking to be a new studio releasing our first game, but the support of everyone has really made everything feel like a dream.”
ID@Xbox Director Guy Richards explained why Expedition 33 stood out early on as a game we wanted to put weight behind: “From the start, Sandfall’s ambition was clear and we really felt they wanted to create something truly special, something beyond expectations for the team. Once we played early builds, we experienced their gripping story, stunning visuals and the mix of JRPG mechanics with French cultural themes that felt fresh and distinctive. It’s the kind of experience we knew Xbox players would love to discover.”
For Broche, that support from Xbox was instrumental in helping the game make as big a splash as it has. “From being there to announce our game back in Summer 2024, to coming to the studio for the Developer_Direct video in January, Xbox helped us get the word out there and reach a lot of players.”
He also noted how Game Pass allowed them to reach a much wider audience, “letting a lot of people try our game when maybe they might not have before. The turn-based RPG genre has a lot of fans but sometimes it might put people who prefer more real-time action games off, but Game Pass lowered that barrier of entry. They could just try it and see how it feels. So a lot of curious players could start the game, explore Lumière and the early game, and realize there’s a lot to enjoy here, even if they weren’t expecting it at first.”
Set in a whimsical fantasia that belies dark secrets, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 follows the eponymous Expedition on a doomed mission to save their city from the mysterious Paintress, a godlike being that has obliterated the city’s eldest cohort every single year for decades following a cataclysm that rent the world asunder. It has captured hearts and minds all over the world for both its memorable characters and story as well as for its thrilling, savvy evolution of classic turn-based RPG battles.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a prime example of the innovative and diverse range of experiences that Xbox Game Pass was created to support, helping developers of all sizes reach a huge global audience while bringing unparalleled value to our players. Xbox is proud to have supported Sandfall in sharing this excellent game with the world, and we look forward to bringing many more exciting titles like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate on day one.
If you haven’t yet joined the Expedition, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is available now on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC, and Xbox Cloud. It’s an Xbox Play Anywhere title and available with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.
Once a year, the Paintress wakes and paints upon her monolith. Paints her cursed number. And everyone past that age turns to smoke and fades away. Year by year, that number ticks down and more of us are erased. Tomorrow she’ll wake and paint “33.” And tomorrow we depart on our final mission – Destroy the Paintress, so she can never paint death again.
We are Expedition 33.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a ground-breaking turn-based RPG with unique real-time mechanics, making battles more immersive and addictive than ever. Explore a fantasy world inspired by Belle Époque France in which you battle devastating enemies.
Reactive Turn-based Combat
In this evolution of JRPGs, real-time actions enhance the heart of turn-based combat. Craft unique builds for your Expeditioners that fit your playstyle via gear, stats, skills, and character synergies. Open an active dimension in combat – dodge, parry, and counter in real time, chain combos by mastering attack rhythms, and target enemy weak points using a free aim system.
“Tomorrow Comes”
With only one year left to live, join Gustave, Maelle, and their fellow Expeditioners as they embark upon a desperate quest to break the Paintress’ cycle of death. Follow the trail of previous expeditions and discover their fate. Get to know the members of Expedition 33 as they learn to work together against impossible odds.
A Hauntingly Beautiful World
Explore an enchanting realm populated by surreal adversaries. Wander through breathtaking landscapes, from the Island of Visages to the Forgotten Battlefield, discovering secrets and hidden quests along the way. Find allies of fortune in creatures of legend. Recruit special companions to access new travel methods and discover secret areas in the World Map.
Experience the debut game from Sandfall Interactive, fully realized in Unreal Engine 5 with stunning graphics and a heartbreaking soundtrack.
