Author: Game Infliction

Romancing SaGa creator discusses the fantasy RPG’s legacy, music, art, and more

The gods created man, and man created stories.

In the beginning there was Romancing SaGa, the first entry in a classic 16-bit RPG trilogy. The beloved adventure was later remade on PS2, titled Romancing SaGa -Minstrel Song-. On December 9, Red Art Games will release an enhanced version of the PS2 game on PS5 and PS4, titled Romancing SaGa -Minstrel Song- Remastered International.

This new International version is the most comprehensive, featuring new characters, tougher challenges, as well as numerous QoL improvements including French, Italian, German and Spanish localization, the ability to switch between English and Japanese voices and more, making it perfect for longtime fans and first-time SaGa players.

Before we head back into the world of Mardias, I was honored to have the opportunity to interview Akitoshi Kawazu, the original creator of the SaGa series and both producer and director of the 2005 version. Kawazu-san was kind enough to answer a few questions we had about the game, the SaGa series’ grand 36-year history, and his personal thoughts in the process.

Could you tell us how the idea of the first Romancing SaGa title came into being? 

I had always wanted to make a grand fantasy RPG in the style of The Lord of the Rings. With our previous experience and the new hardware available, I knew that now was the time to take on that challenge.

And then came Romancing SaGa -Minstrel Song-. What were the challenges associated with the development of the 2005 version for PlayStation 2 ?

The biggest challenge was figuring out the limits to which we could push the PS2’s expression capabilities. New team members wanted different expressions than those found in the original version, but if we strayed too far it wouldn’t be faithful to the original. Development was all about striking a balance.

In the PS2 version, the original 2D pixel art was completely remade into a full 3D game. In terms of battles, new systems such as BP management and combos were introduced, adding greater strategy and drama to each encounter. The music, composed by Kenji Ito, was also boldly rearranged, giving players a fresh and powerful listening experience even if they were familiar with the original. In addition, features such as the class system and proficiencies were added, reflecting the trends of the time and making the game more accessible and comfortable to play.

It must be something special to see the game brought back to life in the PS5 version. What was it like to be in the room when Square Enix was discussing remastering the game? What was at the forefront of your minds then?

Another full remake would be required to fully use the capabilities of the PS5, and that wasn’t the goal of this project. That said, we knew that we didn’t want to waste the potential of its high specs, so we tried various approaches to see what was possible. We also discussed what kinds of additional elements we wanted to include.

In the remastered version, several new elements and improvements have been introduced to further enhance the player experience. New playable characters have been added, along with high-difficulty bosses designed to challenge even veteran players. A newly written scenario by Akitoshi Kawazu expands the story and world of the original, while Kenji Ito’s music has been boldly rearranged, offering a fresh and dynamic listening experience. In addition, various quality-of-life features—such as improved UI, a battle speed-up option, and post-clear data carryover—make the game more accessible and enjoyable for both new and returning players.

Romancing SaGa has a long history. Over 30 years and counting! What makes the game such a reference in the JRPG genre that it even now remains so fun to revisit?

I think it’s because we highly prioritized giving the player a large degree of freedom. Games are enjoyable because they operate under a certain set of rules, but those rules aren’t fun if they’re there only to suit the designers’ whims. A big part of the game’s appeal is in getting the player to remember their playing experience long after they’ve finished.

How does Romancing SaGa -Minstrel Song- Remastered International’s story differ from the original Romancing SaGa’s?

The basic premise and story flow remain the same, but we added multiple elements reminiscent of short fantasy stories so that players would be able to enjoy the world’s lore a little more.

In this remastered version, numerous new events have been added that were not present in the original 1992 release. New storylines include the introduction of the Volunteer Brigade, which guides players through basic game systems and progression, as well as additional episodes that further develop certain characters — such as Marina and Flammar, who are now playable. There are also special events that can only be experienced on a second playthrough or later, offering players more depth and replay value.

Among the many protagonists of Minstrel Song, who’s your favorite? Can you explain why?

I think the most protagonist-like of them all is Albert, a young man battered about by the whims of fate.

One of the most striking elements of this title is its artistic direction by Tomomi Kobayashi. Could you tell us why you chose to feature her art in the game?

We went with Tomomi Kobayashi because her use of delicate lines and bright colors inspire the player to use their imagination. I would go so far to say as the development team—myself included—were even more stimulated than the players. The reason the characters come to life can be directly linked back to Kobayashi-san’s designs.

Regarding the “Minstrel” mentioned in the title. In the Romancing SaGa series, a Bard always appears in each installment. What would you say is the role of the Minstrel?

The minstrel is there to provide an objective view of the world. While he does empathize with the protagonists, he is someone who loves everything about the world, including the fiends that reside there. I don’t like it when a story overemphasizes the protagonists’ emotions to the exclusion of other aspects of the world, so I make a concerted effort to include characters who are able to provide a more universal outlook.

Regarding the music in this title — the remaster seems to have further enhanced its presence, elevating the overall gameplay experience. In the PlayStation 2 version of Romancing SaGa -Minstrel Song-, many tracks were boldly rearranged from the original Romancing SaGa, and new compositions were also created. Could you share any particular stories or memories about the process of arranging or composing these new pieces?

We rearranged the music in order to take better advantage of the PS2’s breadth of sound and music capabilities. Kenji Ito, who composed the original, did a lot of work on the overall project, with his fresh arrangements and new songs often bringing our sound engineers to tears.

For a long time, the Romancing SaGa series has mainly been developed with Japanese players in mind. How do you feel about Red Art Games’ overseas release of Romancing SaGa -Minstrel Song- Remastered International, which now includes additional localizations in four European languages?

My decisions at the time meant that the original didn’t make it overseas for a very long time. I am incredibly pleased that this work can now be enjoyed in the land where the fantasy genre got its origins in the  languages of the people who live there.

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How would you like to see the SaGa series develop in the future? Are there any new directions or challenges you would like to explore?

I would like to continue bringing fantasy RPGs with a modern flair to audiences, including by remaking previous titles.

Thank you so much for your time, Mr. Kawazu!

And thank you, dear reader, for coming this far! The game will be available December 9 on PlayStation Store for PS4 and PS5.

Fallout Season 2 Takes the ‘Fog of War Approach’ to Avoid Making Any New Vegas Ending Canon, Creators Say

The creators of the Fallout TV show have confirmed Season 2 avoids making any New Vegas ending canon by taking what they call “the fog of war approach.”

Fans of the Fallout video games had wondered how Season 2 might reflect the endings of Obsidian’s much-loved Fallout New Vegas, given the show is canon and is set 15 years after the game.

A quick reminder of where we’re at in the Fallout timeline: the Fallout TV show is set in 2296, nine years after the events of Fallout 4 and 15 years after the events of Fallout: New Vegas. We’ve already seen a debate about which Fallout 4 ending should be considered canon, if any. Based on already released trailers, we know Mr. House is in Season 2, so does that suggest a canon ending is being used?

Depending on the choices the player, aka The Courier, makes throughout the course of the game, New Vegas can end with victory for the player during the Battle of Hoover Dam, which drives out all factions including Mr. House himself, a victory for Mr. House in which he remains in control of New Vegas and takes over Hoover Dam, a victory for Caesar’s Legion, or a victory for the New California Republic.

There are variations within these endings, but given Mr. House is in Season 2 in a post-war setting, and is alive (sort of) when the main characters turn up at New Vegas, it seems he survived the events of New Vegas the video game.

But does Season 2 make a decision on who won Fallout New Vegas? It does not, executive producer, creator, and showrunner Geneva Robertson-Dworet and executive producer Jonathan Nolan told IGN in an interview.

Nolan said Geneva Robertson-Dworet and co-showrunner Graham Wagner took “the fog of war approach,” which he called “an absolutely brilliant way to make a bit of an end run around that whole question.”

“This was a really early decision that Graham and Jonah, and I made together,” Robertson-Dworet added, “was that we wanted to try, as much as possible in our show, to honor all gamers’ experiences and all the choices they might make as they play the game. So we always wanted to avoid trying to make one canonical ending the ending that led to the events of the show.”

In Season 2, all the various factions at play think they won the events of the New Vegas video game. “We had the delicious idea that at the end of a conflict, 15 years down the line, every faction might think they won, which I think has a bit of a poetic quality to it,” Nolan said.

“It’s like, the story of history depends on who you ask,” Robertson-Dworet added. “That was the idea.”

There is one fan-favorite minor faction in New Vegas who very much did not win: the Kings. In the video game, the Kings are a street gang made up of people who discovered an Elvis impersonation school and decided to live their lives according to the King’s ideals. But in Fallout Season 2, we see they have become ghouls.

“It hasn’t worked out very well for the Kings, at least some of them,” Nolan teased, confirming the Elvis ghouls we see in the show are indeed the Kings characters from the game.

Nolan continued: “One of the fun ideas is that, with all the factions, whether it’s the Legion, or the NCR, or the Kings, is that in any version of the ending, there’d be some rebuilding to be done, right? Whoever won, whoever lost, all these factions would be in rebuilding mode, and the sort of sanctity of Vegas, this place that House very carefully protected, has been, for reasons we’ll come to understand in the season, has been removed or violated, which means that the folks who were in the game, safe and sound, have had some hard times.”

Still, there is much about Season 2’s New Vegas that fans of the video game will find familiar. Robertson-Dworet described the Strip, for example, as “a very sacred kind of location.”

“You really feel like you’re almost going into the heart of the game when you reach the Strip. And so it was really unbelievable to see what our production designer, Howard Cummings, pulled off. We took over an abandoned shopping mall and built there, and the scale of it was just phenomenal. So that was really exciting to see come to life. Freeside was also unbelievable, also because it’s shot on the same street that Westworld was shot on and Deadwood. So just seeing that transformed at a place that’s had so much TV history, for me, as a fan, as well as now making a show there, was really, really exciting.”

Fallout Season 2 kicks off December 17.

Image credit: Lorenzo Sisti/Prime.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Greedfall 2: The Dying World Is an Old-School RPG That Harkens Back to KOTOR and Dragon Age 1

The golden age of the BioWare RPG may be past, but there are still developers willing to go the distance with a genre that begs for good fantasy worldbuilding, good game mechanics, and interesting well-written stories all in one. Spiders is one of them, and Greedfall 2: The Dying World is their sequel to the colonial fantasy RPG that was a very welcome and pleasant surprise back in 2022. That said, there are a few big changes to how it plays that might put some people off the trail—but after a few hours with advanced portions of the game’s storyline I saw the makings of another success.

Kicking it Old School

Greedfall 2 takes cues from the early-2000s era of roleplaying games. It’s more like Dragon Age: Origins or Knights of the Old Republic than anything released recently, for better and for worse. I distinctly got the feeling that Greedfall 2 is specifically harkening back to this era of games for a reason: This is a style of game that the developers at Spiders want to emulate and keep alive because they prefer it—at least for their own games.

Whether or not you enjoy that style of real-time-with-pause combat and emphasis on character arcs, dialogues, and analyzing the environments for plot options will probably determine whether or not Greedfall 2 is interesting to you. At least based on what I played.

Fantasy Island

As with the first Greedfall game, the fantasy world is the real selling point here. Based on the ideas of the European Age of Discovery, or the Spanish golden age, with a dash of the 18th century, and delving into the fascinating clash between cultures in a world that is approaching what we’d consider modern. Except, you know, with the backdrop of magic, monsters, gods, and other fantastical things. Technically a prequel to the first game, I really got the feeling it’s narratively designed so that you can pick it up and play only knowing the most basic premise—which is helped along by the part where you’re a native of far-flung island Teer Fradee with little knowledge of the continent at the other edge of the ocean.

As with the first Greedfall game, the fantasy world is the real selling point here.

What’s cool is that whereas the first game took place entirely on the island, in Greedfall 2 you get to travel to the continental cities only loosely described in Greedfall. They’re delightful culture shock and a welcome change of pace: Winding streets of crowded buildings, huge port complexes of tall ships, including your own ship as a base of operations, and sprawling palatial estates for the wealthiest.

It also continues Greedfall’s tradition of including some absurd, wonderful, and downright dapper riffs on early modern clothing. Including an array of some absolutely wonderful hats. Seriously, someone’s going to play this just for the silly hats and helmets. Like I’m ready to do a second preview, right now, just talking to the Spiders art department about some of these hats.

On the Nose

Your character is Vridan Gerr, which means “Short Roots” in your own language, an up-and-coming initiate of your tribe’s combined magical tradition and religion. The character creation was pretty robust, introduced in the first scene with a cute little dialogue involving a foreign artist making depictions of the natives to send home. It had all the features you’d expect, and more besides—seven different sliders for the nose alone, for example. I’m sure some people will be able to make art with it, while others will make monsters.

There were a good amount of classes to play with. Across the three segments I explored I tried out a tank-focused Protector, a greatsword-and-magic-wielding Living Blade, and a stylish swashbuckling rapier-and-pistol-wielding class with a sideline in party buffing skills. Because, to be clear, when a game offers you an opportunity to arm yourself and behave like one of The Three Musketeers, well, you take it.

KOTOR Combat

Combat is much-changed from the first game, focusing on a real-time-with-pause combat where you control or automate your entire party rather than just your main character. It’s a pretty big tonal shift if what you loved from the first game was the action style, but it’s a familiar form if you grew up on Knights of the Old Republic or Dragon Age Origins.

I’ll admit that I wasn’t completely sold on the combat. Real-time-with-pause does sometimes feel like a dated way to play games, a halfway compromise between simultaneous resolution and turn-based combat. You’re often just using your best abilities in the order that it seems good to use them, or setting up and executing the same combo on enemies content to stand there and take it rather than react in unexpected ways or use surprising abilities. That said, it’s combat that’s playable in three forms.

There’s Tactical Mode that has a free-moving camera, has you control your entire team, and do lots of pausing to queue up moves. There’s a Hybrid mode that has more automated options for your companion team and fewer pauses. There’s also Focused mode, which defaults to your character’s point of view and has you really only controlling their moves in detail, with very limited pausing. I tried all three modes and found myself only really loving the Tactical mode, but even though I’m a tactics junkie I saw the genuine appeal of the Focused mode if what you really care for is the story and want to turn the difficulty down so the combat is there as flavorful excitement for the narrative.

Story Time

Greedfall 2’s story looks like it’s shaping up to be just as much epic fantasy as the first game’s. The stakes are high, the heroes are heroic, and the villains are properly awful. That said, I got the impression that more characters in Greedfall 2 were just stuck in the middle—morally grey, stuck between two worlds, powerless, or just playing politics. That really plays out in the opening, which sees your character and their friends abducted as the introduction to a rollicking adventure… the goal of which seems like to get back home. But the things you discover along the way mean that you’ll need to return to the mainland and play hero to ensure your peoples’ survival—whether you like it or not.

Greedfall 2’s story looks like it’s shaping up to be just as much epic fantasy as the first game’s.

Along for the ride on your adventure are some really choice companions across an array of cool archetypes—at least from what I saw. Each of the companions has their own preferred fighting style and unique skill tree, as does the main character, which really helped to sell me on these being different people and not just a possible player character class palette-swapped to a new body.

In true RPG style, these companions will also inject themselves into conversations you have during your travels. The veteran warrior Till, for example, busted out his sergeant’s bluster and pulled rank on some harbor guards when they confronted the party about permits for travel. The best example I saw, however, was older explorer Safia, whose years of wisdom and maternal character showed as she’d often admonish others for behaving in dishonorable ways, or ways that reflected poorly on their shared nationality.

I also quite liked Fausta, an exiled religious wizard from a theocratic state whose loyalties to the hero’s party were conflicted at best. Not only was her light-based magic interesting in combat, but her stance as yet another fish out of water alongside the player character made for interesting conversations.

Final Thoughts

It’s good that the companions are at least interesting from the about three hours of preview I played, but it’s better that those slices of storyline from different parts of the game all seemed pretty immediately compelling. There’s clear stakes, plots, and interesting things to do at every point I played, and all of it was written well enough that I stayed interested even when I was tossed into a situation and hadn’t fully played the few dozen hours of story that came before it—something that’s just not always true for RPG previews.

That said, there was a sense that the story was big and epic just for the sake of it, because the more compelling parts of the plot were the places where characters were interacting with each other amid the larger historical forces they had no power over. Upon finally returning to your home island, for example, you might find your village destroyed and your people missing. What of your loved ones? Your mother? Those stories were really compelling and could have carried the game on their own, to be honest—but I think that epic fantasy fans want something big and magical to happen and they’ll be pretty interested in what Greedfall 2 has cooking. It’s a twist on the exciting big reveals from the possible endings of Greedfall, and an obvious outgrowth of setting this game on the continent rather than entirely in the new lands.

Either way, this is definitely looking to be Spiders at the top of their game. I hope that bears out when it releases in 2026.

Xbox Isn’t Making a New Banjo-Kazooie, But PlayStation Fans Can Now Play The Impressive-Looking Banjo-Kazooie: Mumbomania Via Dreams

Xbox might not be making a new Banjo-Kazooie, but there’s a brand new game featuring everyone’s favorite bird and bear available now via Dreams on PS4 and PS5.

Banjo-Kazooie: Mumbomania is an impressive-looking platformer made for Sony’s game creation platform that looks good enough to have been made by Rare itself.

A trailer released via social media this week shows the kind of classic Banjo-Kazooie gameplay fans love, and have long called out for more of. In a level that looks straight out of the series’ history, Banjo the bear jumps, glides, rolls and gets shot out of a cannon as he explores and hunts down collectibles.

Perhaps most impressive is the range of transformations on offer, with Banjo turned into a hulking rock golem, cutlass-wielding pirate, and more.

Originally launched on the N64 in the late ’90s, Banjo-Kazooie eventually arrived for Xbox 360 in 2008 following Microsoft’s acquisition of developer Rare. But despite earning a legion of fans, the franchise has not seen an all-new entry in 17 years, since Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts released for Xbox 360, also back in 2008.

Despite repeated calls from fans for a new Banjo-Kazooie to be made, Xbox has made no suggestion that a fresh title is in development — and Rare now seems singularly focused on making fresh content for Sea of Theives.

“You’ve seen from our history that we haven’t touched every franchise that people would love us to touch — Banjo fans, I hear you,” Microsoft’s gaming boss Phil Spencer said back in 2023. “But it is true that, when we find the right team, and the right opportunity, I love going back to revisit stories and characters that we’ve seen previously.”

Outside of being playable in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Banjo and Kazooie now feel largely forgotten. Still, fans of the duo have still had the spiritual successor Yooka-Laylee to enjoy. Developed by various members of the original Banjo-Kazooie team, the game recently got a polished-up re-release in the shape of Yooka-Laylee: Replayee, which arrived in October of this year.

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

Hytale won’t be on Steam right away, as its devs want to avoid “overindexing on negative reviews” from players who “aren’t as well-informed yet”

Revived Minecrafty survivabuilder Hytale got a fresh early access release date of January 13th the other week. However, the team behind it how now confirmed you shouldn’t expect to see it hit Steam at that point, with the game’s executive director not seeing the need to knock on Valve’s pipe-laden door yet and keen to avoid an early access spent drowning in negative reviews.

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Nintendo Reveals New Line Of Metroid Merch, And We Want It All

Cooler than Phendrana Drifts.

Metroid has rarely been able to play with the Nintendo big boys as far as sales are concerned, so it’s no surprise that Samus merch drops have been a fair bit rarer than those seen for Zelda and Mario. But, with Metroid Prime 4: Beyond finally here, Nintendo is changing that… in Japan, at least.

Yes, a new wave of Metroid merch is now available exclusively at the Nintendo Stores in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuoka and the Okinawa pop-up. Just to really rub salt in the wound, it’s also available on the My Nintendo Store, exclusively in Japan. *sigh* Back to looking longingly at plane tickets, it is.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Kickstart Your Magic Collection With the Avatar Beginner Box, Now Under $23 For a Limited Time Only

Magic: The Gathering has grown in the last few years, no doubt in part due to its Universes Beyond crossovers, and the current set, Avatar: The Last Airbender, has been well-received.

If you’re a fan of Avatar and want to get in on the ground floor, the Beginner Box is a great way to do just that – and it’s now down to $22.99 at WOOT, marking a 34% discount.

Get Started With MTG For Under $25

As we covered in our preview of the product, the contents are very similar to the same Beginner Box released in 2024 for Foundations, only with an Avatar focus instead.

Inside, you’ll find 2 play boards, and two pre-built half decks with one for Aang and one for Zuko, as well as a tutorial booklet to help you do battle between them.

Once you’ve played through the guided game, there are eight other half-decks, so you can put any two together to build an instant deck, with multiple combinations based around Fire, Earth, Water, Air and features like big creatures, spells, and more.

It’s a great way to get started learning how to play, and it gives you plenty of cards to start your collection with and learn how Avatar-centric mechanics like elemental bending work within the confines of Magic: The Gathering.

Believe it or not, there are still MTG Black Friday deals knocking around. You can still pick up a Tarkir: Dragonstorm Play Booster Box for just $99.99, which includes 30 packs of the dragon-themed sets, while if you’re looking to try Commander, it’s never been easier.

The format’s Starter Decks are in stock at a good price for the first time we’ve seen in a while.

Lloyd Coombes is an experienced freelancer in tech, gaming and fitness seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar and many more. He’s a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife’s dismay.

Russia bans Roblox, with state censor accusing it of spreading “LGBT propaganda” and “justifying terrorism”

Access to Roblox has been blocked in Russia, with federal censorship and media oversight agency Roskomnadzor accusing the platform of distributing content “justifying terrorism” and spreading “LGBT propaganda”. According to Russian media reports, the state body said Roblox has become rife with content that can “negatively impact the spiritual and moral development of children”.

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Russia Blocks Roblox, Says It Contains ‘LGBT Propaganda’

Access to Roblox has been banned in Russia, as the country’s authorities have deemed it a host of “LGBT propaganda.”

Russia’s communications watchdog Roskomnadzor announced the move last night, news agency Reuters has reported, blocking the giant gaming platform to Russian citizens.

In a statement explaining its decision, Roskomnadzor said it had removed the ability to access Roblox as it was “rife with inappropriate content that can negatively impact the spiritual and moral development of children.”

By many measures the biggest game in the world, with more than 151.1 million daily active users, Roblox hosts countless player-made game experiences — including breakout hits such as Grow a Garden and Steal a Brainrot that enjoy player counts bigger than anything on Steam.

It’s unclear exactly which games on the Roblox platform have prompted Russia’s ire, though the country has taken an increasingly strict approach to any content featuring LGBT themes in recent years. In 2013, Russia implemented the Law for the Purpose of Protecting Children from Information Advocating a Denial of Traditional Family Values, which was designed to mark LGBT content as contradictory to traditional Russian values.

“We respect the local laws and regulations in the countries where we operate and believe Roblox provides a positive space for learning, creation and meaningful connection for everyone,” a spokesperson for the game said in a statement issued to Reuters. “[Roblox has] a deep commitment to safety and we have a robust set of proactive and preventative safety measures designed to catch and prevent harmful content on our platform.”

Russia isn’t the first country to block access to Roblox, though countries such as Iraq and Turkey which have also banned the game have done so citing concerns over child safety fears. Amid ballooning player numbers, and a user base primarily made up of users under 18, Roblox has spent the past year belatedly adding various features designed to improve its user safety, following a string of reports that have highlighted cases where users were contacted and groomed by adults.

Last month, Roblox announced plans to require facial age checks for all chat communication, with an aim to limit communication between minors and adults. The move came shortly after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton revealed a fresh lawsuit which claims Roblox has allegedly been “deceiving parents” and “flagrantly ignoring” child safety laws.

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

Hi-Fi Rush is ditching Denuvo in January, and it’ll become unplayable if you don’t grab the latest patch

Hi-Fi Rush is ditching its Denuvo anti-tamper software as part of developers’ Tango Gameworks transition to working under new owners Krafton. A fresh patch has been released swapping logos to reflect that switch in management, and you’ll need to install it before mid-January if you want the game to stay playable.

Krafton, of course, bought up Tango after the studio’s former parent company Microsoft announced plans to shut it down back in May, alongside Redfall developers Arkane Austin and Mighty Doom creators Alpha Dog Games.

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