No Man’s Sky Worlds Part II Update Brings New Planets, Life and Stories to Discover

No Man’s Sky Worlds Part II Update Brings New Planets, Life and Stories to Discover

Summary

  • Worlds Part II introduces billions of new stars and planets to No Man’s Sky, each teeming with new life to discover.
  • New gameplay, missions and lore tie up loose ends from long-unanswered narrative strands.
  • Worlds Part II arrives on Xbox and Xbox Game Pass today, and is free for existing players.

Today, I’m super proud to announce that Worlds Part II is coming No Man’s Sky today, is free to download for all existing Xbox and Game Pass players today, and is one of the biggest updates we’ve ever released.

Across the universe we’ve introduced billions of new star systems, home to trillions of wholly new planets have been generated with new terrain technology. Enormous and foreboding Gas Giant planets can be seen for the first time, ten times bigger than our biggest planet, providing dramatic new environments to explore.

Innovative water technology has enabled us to spawn all-new water planets with new biomes and oceans that are kilometres deep. Deep sea gameplay has been introduced, and there’s a huge variety of new life to be discovered in the depths.

Water now responds to players as they travel through them and ripples and foams as spaceships skirt above them. Water surfaces are now more realistic and reflect the ever-changing cloud systems above and the glorious expanse of the night skies.

No Man's Sky screenshot

A new lightning system makes the seas and oceans look so different with new caustics, light shafts and the deeper you explore the darker it gets. In fact, every element of our lighting has been rewritten. Even on dry land, shadows show more details, light flickers through leaves, caves are dark and immersive

New terrain technology enables the creation of huge mountain ranges and deep canyons never possible before. All this technology combines to create that feeling of wonder in an infinite universe as you gaze up at a mountain peak miles above you, or stared down into the abyss of a dizzyingly cavernous gorge.

No Man's Sky screenshot

Every planet is different and no one has seen it before you, not even us, for us that’s what makes No Man’s Sky unique and why the emotions of exploring our universe just hit differently. 

As the team continues work on our next big game, Light No Fire, we learn new things, develop new tech and can’t resist sharing that with our No Man’s Sky players.

No Man's Sky screenshot

To accompany all this new technology and variety, there’s a whole host of new gameplay, lore and missions to dig into. There is a mission strand which explores the mystery of the Gas Giants and links up some narrative threads which have been left teasingly unanswered for a long time. 

There’s a new expedition which is like a guided tour through the best of what Worlds Part II has to offer, with a generous suite of rewards including a new starship which is part living ship, and part jet fighter!

No Man's Sky screenshot

To celebrate the release of Worlds Part II, we’re running another Twitch Drops campaign from Thursday 30th January to Monday 3rd February. Tune in to your favourite No Man’s Sky streamers on Twitch to unlock exclusive ships, multi-tools, pets and more just by watching them play. 

No Man's Sky screenshot

Worlds Part II takes the No Man’s Sky universe to a whole new level. It is way beyond what I ever thought possible when we first sat down to code our crazy little universe. Nine years later and this update is another step in the journey of this game that we truly love.

Xbox Play Anywhere

No Man’s Sky

Hello Games


1007


$59.99

$23.99
Xbox One X Enhanced
PC Game Pass
Xbox Game Pass

No Man’s Sky comes complete with all 29 major updates up to and including Worlds Part I.

Inspired by the adventure and imagination that we love from classic science-fiction, No Man’s Sky presents you with a galaxy to explore, filled with unique planets and lifeforms, and constant danger and action.

In No Man’s Sky, every star is the light of a distant sun, each orbited by planets filled with life, and you can go to any of them you choose. Fly smoothly from deep space to planetary surfaces, with no loading screens, and no limits. In this infinite procedurally generated universe, you’ll discover places and creatures that no other players have seen before – and perhaps never will again.

Embark on an epic voyage
At the centre of the galaxy lies a irresistible pulse which draws you on a journey towards it to learn the true nature of the cosmos. But, facing hostile creatures and fierce pirates, you’ll know that death comes at a cost, and survival will be down to the choices you make over how you upgrade your ship, your weapon and suit.

Find your own destiny
Your voyage through No Man’s Sky is up to you. Will you be a fighter, preying on the weak and taking their riches, or taking out pirates for their bounties? Power is yours if you upgrade your ship for speed and weaponry.
Or a trader? Find rich resources on forgotten worlds and exploit them for the highest prices. Invest in more cargo space and you’ll reap huge rewards.
Or perhaps an explorer? Go beyond the known frontier and discover places and things that no one has ever seen before. Upgrade your engines to jump ever farther, and strengthen your suit for survival in toxic environments that would kill the unwary.

Share your journey
The galaxy is a living, breathing place. Trade convoys travel between stars, factions vie for territory, pirates hunt the unwary, and the police are ever watching. Every other player lives in the same galaxy, and you can choose to share your discoveries with them on a map that spans known space. Perhaps you will see the results of their actions as well as your own…

The post No Man’s Sky Worlds Part II Update Brings New Planets, Life and Stories to Discover appeared first on Xbox Wire.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 PC features and ray-tracing options detailed, out tomorrow

Hey everyone, we’re just one day away from bringing the latest epic chapter in the Marvel’s Spider-Man franchise to PC, where you’ll battle as Spider-Men, Peter Parker and Miles Morales, against a rogue’s gallery of iconic Marvel Super Villains, including the monstrous Venom and the ruthless Kraven the Hunter.

With the game launching soon, I’m excited to share more about the awesome new PC-enhanced features the team at Nixxes has been working on.


Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 PC features and ray-tracing options detailed, out tomorrow

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, created by Insomniac in collaboration with Marvel, is a technological and graphical showcase utilizing tools like ray-tracing to bring the city of Marvel’s New York to life. On PC, you’ll encounter a variety of new ray-tracing options with individual quality settings to finetune performance and fidelity across a broad range of hardware configurations. 

Ray-traced reflections quickly catch your eye in the skyscraper-filled city of Marvel’s New York as you swing along its many glass surfaces. Meanwhile, we’re offering ray-traced interiors, shadows, and ambient occlusion options that add an additional layer of believability with realistic shadows and increased depth to the game. 

If you have a high-performance PC with Super Hero-tier hardware, you can take advantage of our increased raytracing geometry detail setting. This enables the use of higher quality meshes for raytracing, resulting in more detailed and realistic reflections. You can also use the raytracing object range slider to increase the range at which objects are considered for raytracing. Furthermore, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PC includes NVIDIA DLSS Ray Reconstruction1, which improves raytracing quality on supported hardware. Let me introduce you to Menno Bil, Graphics Programmer at Nixxes, to tell you more about this feature:


“NVIDIA DLSS Ray Reconstruction aims to achieve more detailed raytracing features by combining two separate temporal processes in a frame: denoising of the raytracing features and upscaling of the entire frame. By combining these steps, ray reconstruction keeps more useful information over multiple frames to add small details in raytracing effects that can otherwise be lost.

In Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PC with ray reconstruction enabled, we see more detailed ray-traced reflections and better-defined ray-traced shadows, especially when viewing raytracing effects at steep angles. We also see improvements in the ray-traced interiors and less ghosting and noise in the ray-traced ambient occlusion. 

We’ve included two models of NVIDIA’s Ray Reconstruction, the original model introduced in DLSS 3.5, and a newly improved model designed for RTX 40 series GPUs and newer. This new model results in an overall more temporally stable image, further improving the visual quality of raytracing.”

– Menno Bil, Graphics Programmer, Nixxes


Players with ultra-wide monitors can enjoy full support for ultra-wide aspect ratios such as 21:9, 32:9 and even 48:9 when using triple monitor setups. Our team of engineers and artists worked hard on ensuring all cinematics in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 are adapted to be fully viewable in aspect ratios up to 32:9.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PC also supports various performance-enhancing technologies, including NVIDIA DLSS 3 and AMD FSR 3.1 upscaling and frame generation.* Intel XeSS upscaling is also supported.1

With options like raytracing and ultra-wide support, we want to give players the chance to make full use of their high-end PC gaming rigs. However, at Nixxes we also take pride in making PC games scale down to prior generation hardware. To cater to this, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PC offers a wide range of graphics settings and presets, including options without ray-tracing, like dynamic resolution scaling. Check out an overview of the recommended specifications for a variety of graphics presets below.

MinimumRecommendedHighHigh Ray TracingVery High Ray TracingUltimate Ray Tracing
Avg. Performance720P @ 30 FPS1080P @ 60 FPS1440P @ 60 FPS1440p @ 60 FPS1440p @ 60 FPS4K @ 60 FPS
Graphics PresetsVery LowMediumHighHigh
Ray Tracing High
High
Ray Tracing Very High
Very High
Ray Tracing Ultimate
GPUNVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650
AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060
AMD Radeon RX 5700
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070
AMD Radeon RX 6800
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090
CPUIntel Core i3-8100
AMD Ryzen 3 3100
Intel Core i5-8400
AMD Ryzen 5 3600
Intel Core i5-11400
AMD Ryzen 5 5600
Intel Core i5-11600K
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
Intel Core i7-12700K
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
Intel Core i9-12900K
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
RAM16 GB16 GB16 GB16 GB16 GB32 GB
OSWindows 10/11 64-bit
(version 1909 or higher)
Windows 10/11 64-bit
(version 1909 or higher)
Windows 10/11 64-bit
(version 1909 or higher)
Windows 10/11 64-bit
(version 1909 or higher)
Windows 10/11 64-bit
(version 1909 or higher)
Windows 10/11 64-bit
(version 1909 or higher)
SSD Storage140 GB140 GB140 GB140 GB140 GB140 GB

Two editions of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will be available when it launches on PC on January 30, including the Standard Edition and Digital Deluxe Edition (DDE). Players will also have the option to upgrade to the DDE content if they already own the Standard Edition.

Upon purchase, the previously announced Pre-Purchase offer will be made available to all players as PC Purchase Perks. This includes:

  • Arachknight Suit early unlock for Peter with three color variants
  • Shadow-Spider Suit early unlock for Miles with three color variants
  • Web Grabber gadget early unlock
  • +3 Skill Points

Players will receive two early unlock suits: the Spider-Man 2099 Black Suit and the Miles Morales 2099 Suit, plus additional benefits like trophies and friend management if they opt to connect to a PlayStation Network account. A PlayStation Network account is optional to play Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PC.  

Our friends at Insomniac are also excited to collaborate with NetEase Games and Marvel Games to bring Peter Parker’s Advanced Suit 2.0 from Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 to Marvel Rivals. To celebrate Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s upcoming PC release, Marvel Rivals players can purchase this suit in-game starting 6PM PST on January 29. Check out the Advanced Suit 2.0 in action.


Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 PC features and ray-tracing options detailed, out tomorrow

Nixxes and Insomniac, along with our partners at PlayStation and collaborators at Marvel Games, are excited for everyone to experience Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PC! 

*Compatible PC and graphics card required.

Super Mario RPG Drops to $25 at Gamestop

While supplies last, Gamestop is offering the excellent Super Mario RPG remake for Nintendo Switch for only $24.99. Pro members can get it even cheaper at $22.49. You can get free shipping on orders over $79 or choose in-store pickup, otherwise pay a $6.99 shipping fee. This game is a brand new and sealed physical copy so you can sell or trade it off when you’re done with it.

Note that this is part of a greater Gamestop Sale Event that’s discounting other games at the lowest prices we’ve seen, like Dragon Age: Veilguard for only $24.99.

Super Mario RPG for $24.99

Super Mario RPG is a remake of the 1996 SNES classic. It was one of the best games to grace the console back then amidst a sea of other incredible titles, and Nintendo did a great job of staying faithful to the game’s charm and fun factor. A whole slew of improvements have been implemented to bring this game up to modern day standards, including updated visuals, music, gameplay mechanics, and several small yet welcome quality-of-life UI improvements.

In our Super Mario RPG review, Tom Marks wrote that “Super Mario RPG is considered a classic for a reason, and this wonderfully faithful remake makes it easy for anyone who missed it in the SNES era to see why. It’s unabashedly odd, reveling in the unexpected with writing that constantly had me bursting out laughing at jokes I’d heard a dozen times before. Its turn-based combat is fairly simple outside of its very clever boss fights, but it’s also ultra satisfying to keep your timing string going even when you’re plowing through pushovers. And while the updated graphics are equal parts pretty and sort of unambitious when it comes to interpreting the original’s style (with some unfortunate menu lag), the new takes on its excellent music are truly exceptional. Super Mario RPG already held up pretty well if you didn’t mind a bit of dust on its different systems, but now there’s no excuse not to see why Mario’s most unexpected adventure is still so beloved.”

Looking for more Mario games? Here’s a list of every Mario game for the Nintendo Switch.

Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn’t hunting for deals for other people at work, he’s hunting for deals for himself during his free time.

Demeo X Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked is a VR tabletop tactics game from Wizards Of The Coast

You’ll have to bear with me for this one, because the press release we received for Demeo X Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked contains about an 86/14 split between scrambled hypeguff and actual tangible information. In brief, it’s a VR collaboration between D&D traffickers Wizards Of The Coast and Demeo studio Resolution Games that aims to simulate a tactical co-op tabletop experience without any of the boring bits, like seeing your mates’ genuine reactions to things or having your frigid digitised soul warmed at the hearth of human kinship. Here is – in a sense of the word so loose I fear imminent smiting by a bellicose scribe god for typing it – a trailer:

Read more

Score Select Games on Sale for Just $25 at GameStop: Super Mario RPG, Dragon Age, and More

2025 has already kicked off with a few different video game sales at various retailers, and as we make our way into February, the discounts just keep dropping. GameStop currently has a selection of games on sale for Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch that are down to just $24.99, including Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Super Mario RPG, Starfield, and more.

Below you can see some of our favorite picks from this sale, but to see the full list of available discounted options head to GameStop’s sale page here.

Select Games on Sale for $25 at GameStop

If you want to check out even more game deals but have a preferred platform you play on, it’s worth having a look through our individual roundups of the best PlayStation deals, the best Xbox deals, and the best Nintendo Switch deals. In each of these we’ve highlighted some of the best game deals we’ve come across for each console alongside discounts on hardware and accessories.

If you’d prefer to have an overall look at the best discounts from each platform, check out our roundup of the best video game deals. And if you’re curious when the next big sale event is to save even more on games, have a look at our breakdown of the best times to buy video games. There, we’ve explained some of the biggest sale events of the year for games so you can plan ahead.

Another great place to look for gaming discounts is in our Daily Deals roundup, which features excellent discounts on the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Collection and Sonic X Shadow Generations. It’s not just for gaming deals, though. Daily Deals also highlights discounts that have caught our eye across tech, physical media, and more, so you can see our favorite deals of the moment in one convenient roundup.

Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.

Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind Lands Mighty Physical Edition Later This Year

Pre-orders now open.

If you have been holding off picking up last year’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind until a boxed edition punched its way into view, you’re in luck! Today, Digital Eclipse has announced just that, with a Standard and Deluxe edition available to pre-order right now.

According to the publisher’s announcement on BlueSky, both boxed copies are set to release on 30th May and can currently be found on the Atari website.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

No Man’s Sky’s latest update introduces billions of new stars, planets, and more today

Hello! Today we are releasing one of our biggest updates for No Man’s Sky. We can’t wait for you to see what we’ve been working on.

Last year, we released No Man’s Sky Worlds Part I (5.0) for PS4, PS5, and PS VR2 players, and it was one of our most successful to date. We’ve been planning the changes in Worlds Part II for a long time, and the wait is finally over. 


No Man’s Sky’s latest update introduces billions of new stars, planets, and more today

One of the biggest reasons people play No Man’s Sky is for that sense of adventure and discovery, that feeling of flying to a planet, and landing to explore, knowing no one has ever been there before. With Worlds Part II, we added billions of new star systems and trillions of new planets to the universe. This allows us to push the boundaries of our engine and technology without changing the things people love about the game already. If you settled on your home planet with a beautiful base that you lovingly crafted, that is safe – but now there are new worlds to explore with a level of variety no one has seen before.

Going to these new systems travelers will notice new terrain, new biomes, new flora, and new fauna. There’s a new terrain system that I’ve been working on for a while now. There are huge mountains to climb, oceans that are kilometers deep to discover, and caverns and canyons at a scale that wasn’t possible before.

In these systems you may even find enormous Gas Giants. These huge worlds can be ten times bigger than any other planet you have explored previously. Gas Giants and deep oceans both require high-level technology to explore. Gas storms, deep sea pressure, and anomalies bring new hazards and challenges to No Man’s Sky.

Water gameplay has much added depth too, including improvements to our submarine, The Nautilus, as well as improvements to fishing and deep sea diving systems. New ocean tech allows water to react physically to the world around it. Dimples appear when it rains and wake appears as ships fly over the surface, and creatures and players can wade through creating waves. 

Our lighting system has been completely rewritten. Shadows show more details, sunlight and ambient occlusion are sharper, and sunlight sparkling through leaves and metals looks crisp and beautiful. Starry night skies and wispy clouds reflect in the water of lakes and oceans.

A lot of this new technology comes from learnings and hard work on our next big fantasy game, Light No Fire, which is keeping our small team incredibly busy.

As well as new solar systems and new technology Worlds Part II brings a lot of new adventures. This update introduces a large strand of new quests and lore connecting up some of the storylines and mysteries we have been building to for a long time. Those who relish unearthing the collective knowledge of the No Man’s Sky universe have a lot to dig into.

There is also a whole new expedition to accompany this major update which deliberately serves as a guided tour to some of the best new additions to Worlds Part II. The rewards for completing this awe-inspiring journey are really special too. Not least is a brand new spacecraft which is a cross between a living ship and a jet fighter. It’s pretty wild! 

The Worlds Part II update is a signal to the PlayStation community that 2025 is going to be a very exciting year for No Man’s Sky. Whether you play on PS5, PS4, or PS VR2, there’s a lot to look forward to from this tiny but still energised team. We’re so thrilled to be able to keep working on this game we all love so much.

Our journey continues.

Long-Awaited Warhammer 40,000 Animation Astartes 2 Is Back From the Dead With Incredible Teaser Trailer — but There’s a Catch

Games Workshop has brought missing-in-action Warhammer 40,000 animation Astartes 2 back from the dead with an incredible teaser trailer that has wowed fans of the hobby. However, there’s a catch: nothing in the teaser will be in the new animation.

Astartes 2 is Games Workshop’s follow-up to the fan-made original Astartes animation, created by Syama Pedersen. It is widely accepted as the greatest Warhammer 40,000 animation ever made, official or unofficial, only perhaps bettered by Amazon’s recently released and excellent Space Marine 2 animation for the Secret Level anthology series.

Indeed, Astartes was so good that it inspired Saber Interactive’s hugely successful Space Marine 2, and Games Workshop eventually brought Syama in-house to work on the sequel.

But fans hadn’t heard a peep out of Games Workshop on Astartes 2 for years, leading some to wonder whether the company had quietly cancelled it. Fast forward to today, January 29, and the surprise reveal of the teaser trailer, which is a feast for Warhammer 40,000 fans.

The teaser suggests an animation on a scale never-before-seen from Warhammer 40,000 at this quality level, with melee combat, shooting, vehicle combat, and even spaceship battles all showcased. We see a number of different Space Marine chapters in battle across varied environments, and multiple enemy races, including Tyranids, Orks, and Tau.

It certainly hypes up Astartes 2, but it turns out nothing in the teaser will be in the animation itself when it finally launches in 2026 exclusively on Games Workshop’s subscription-only Warhammer+ streamer. According to a post on the Warhammer Community website:

“This teaser trailer is not actually clips from the new animation, instead showing a compilation of shots that represent the former lives of the characters that will appear in the show. There’s a pretty unsubtle hint at the end as to the nature of the final story… We’ll leave you to speculate and start putting the pieces together yourselves.”

So, while the teaser is certainly cool, that’s all it really is for now. We still haven’t seen anything of Astartes 2, and the lack of a disclaimer on the trailer probably won’t do it any favors in the long term. A fan who catches this teaser would reasonably expect what it shows to appear in Astartes 2; most won’t see the Warhammer Community post.

Still, it’s hard not to get excited as a fan and speculate about what it all means. It looks like the characters in the trailer end up in an Inquisition-led Deathwatch Terminator squad, based on the final image. But that’s about all I’ve managed to glean from it so far.

Meanwhile, I’ve already seen Space Marine 2 fans look jealously upon the Astartes 2 teaser and hope for some or all of it to make its way across to the game. Capes are an early shout. Saber is continuing to update the game, so perhaps it’s time for the developers to take some inspiration from Astartes once again.

Image credit: Games Workshop.

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.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 review: the new 4K graphics card to go for

Has any genus of graphics card been as dramatically storied as the GeForce XX80s? The RTX 3080 was a thing of beauty, only to be tarnished by the worst wheeler-dealing spree (and crypto mining misappropriation) in PC component history. Then the RTX 4080 rocked up with its laughable £1269 / $1199 price tag, a miscalculation so severe that the RTX 4080 Super looked good – despite hardly being any faster – simply for not repeating it. For the new RTX 5080’s sake, you almost want it to be boring.

It isn’t. But then, neither is it a blood-boiler like the RTX 4080, nor a largely aspirational show-off piece like the RTX 5090. By maintaining the 4080 Super’s course correction on price while tooling up on compelling DLSS 4 improvements, the RTX 5080 is an agreeable GPU from the off. Particularly, if you’ve got the 4K monitor to take full advantage of it.

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Pokémon TCG Pocket Gets Trading Today and Players Absolutely Hate It

Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket has received its long awaited trading update today and, despite players slamming the mechanic upon developer Creatures Inc. revealing how it would work last week, it’s somehow launched to an even worse reception.

Players have taken to social media to share their frustration at the trading feature, criticizing it for having too many requirements and too many restrictions. While the latter were revealed upon trading’s announcement last week, the former was veiled under the statement “items must be consumed in order to trade.”

Unlike the Wonder Pick feature or opening booster packs, every instance of trading will require two separate, new use of items. The first is similar to those other mechanics, where in order to trade players must have Trade Stamina. This recovers over time or can be exchanged for Poké Gold, meaning real world money.

Trade Tokens

The other item is what’s causing a stir amongst the Pokémon TCG Pocket community, however. Trade Tokens are also required for trading any card at 3 Diamonds or higher. 120 Trade Tokens are required to trade a 3 Diamond card, 400 are required to trade a 1 Star card, and 500 are required to trade a 4 Diamond card, meaning an ex Pokémon.

Trade Tokens can only be obtained by essentially selling cards. Players can delete from their collection a 3 Diamond card for 25 Trade Tokens, a 1 Star card for 100, a 4 Diamond card for 125, a 2 Star card for 300, a 3 Star immersive card for 300, and a Crown gold card for 1500. Cards of lower rarities are worthless, though require no Trade Tokens to trade either.

This means players must sell, for example, five ex Pokémon before they can trade one ex Pokémon, or five 1 Star card (the rarest available to trade) before they can trade one 1 Star card. What’s more, selling one Crown rarity card, which are the rarest in the game and may not be obtained even after months of playing, will only net players enough tokens to trade three ex Pokémon.

Selling one of the next rarity, the 3 Star immersive art cards used a selling point for Pokémon TCG Pocket itself, doesn’t grant enough Trade Tokens to trade either a 1 Star card or a 4 Diamond card.

‘A Monumental Failure’

“The trading update is an insult,” wrote hurtbowler on Reddit in a post with over 1,000 upvotes, a player who vowed not to spend another penny on the game. “It’s just frustrating. The greed is just so excessive I can’t be inclined to spend another dollar. They should probably remove ‘Trading Card Game’ from the title screen. It’s just insulting to look at.”

“It’s silly to have to burn two immersive cards to be able to trade just one 4 Diamond ex,” said someone in the comments. “I understand they want to keep people from creating bots and exploiting the system, but this is currently absurd.”

Others called it “hilariously toxic” and “monumental failure,” and lamented that a “safe way for the community to connect more” was sacrificed for something “so laborious.” Exchanging something for Trade Tokens also takes around 15 seconds, meaning many will have to spend minutes in menus before they can trade a single card.

“If these are the trade costs, the app should be renamed to Pokémon Card Game Pocket wrote Darkmalice in the comments of a post discussing the high costs. “I don’t think they want people trading at all,” said another user. “That’s why they made it so bad.”

Pay Day

Fans have complained trading is fairly clearly being implemented as a means of increasing revenue for Pokémon TCG Pocket, which is estimated to have made $200 million in its first month, before trading was possible.

This is also evidenced by the inability to trade cards of 2 Star rarity or higher, as if players could immediately trade for their missing cards, they wouldn’t need to spend $10 or $100 or more for a random chance of getting them. It cost one player around $1,500 just to complete the first set, for example, and the third in three months will be available tomorrow.

“The trading system is predatory and downright greedy,” wrote ACNL on Reddit, who outlined the Trade Token conversion rates. “That’s just messed up man. Like who designed this? If there were other ways to get tokens, this might be passable, but at the moment there are no other ways to get tokens.

“This isn’t sustainable at all. On top of that, you can’t even burn a card unless you have three copies of it. If you want to trade in this game, you better buy a ton of packs and keep buying them.”

Creatures Inc. Stays Quiet

Creatures Inc. has not yet commented on the backlash to trading. Doing so is a rare move for the developer but it did so for the initial complaints when trading was revealed last week. “Your concerns are seen,” it said at the time. “Once this feature becomes available, I’d like to invite everyone to try it and provide feedback. This way, the game can continue to evolve in an enjoyable way for everyone.”

This response made it sound as though things may be better than fans expected, but that is certainly not the case. IGN as asked Creatures Inc. for comment on this reaction and if any changes are planned.

As mentioned by some users, the trading mechanic could be rectified somewhat by Pokémon TCG Pocket including Trade Tokens as rewards for missions and such. It’s more likely Trade Stamina will feature in these though, as it has so far included adjacent items like Wonder Stamina and Pack Hourglasses as rewards.

Regardless, the introduction of such a poorly received mechanic today is a bad look for a game about to debut its next big update, which will introduce Diamond and Pearl Pokémon such as Dialga and Palkia to the digital card game.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.