We don’t score reviews at Rock Paper Shotgun. Some might tell you this is because we view numeric scores as stifling oversimplifications of the wonderful, strange, and personal experiences videogames can offer, but it’s really because the refurbished work keyboards we’re assigned when hired all have their number keys gummed up with Marmite and none of us want to touch them.
Now back to farming.
In case you missed it, Stardew Valley‘s most recent update (Version 1.6.15.1) included an error on the Switch. While the game was “mostly playable, there were some issues like “crashes”, text problems and some other issues.
Fortunately, the game’s creator Eric ‘ConcernedApe’ Barone has been working to resolve this issue and a patch for this patch has now been issued. Here’s what he had to say about this, along with the official website notice:
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
The manga series ‘Baki the Grappler’ returns.
The manga series Baki the Grappler will be getting a Super Punch-Out!! style 2D action game for Switch this September.
This particular entry, officially known as Baki Hanma: Blood Arena, is based on the Netflix anime and is published by Purple Play and developed by Purple Tree, who also worked on the Punch-Out!! style game Thunder Ray.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
The Big N’s lowest ranking yet.
Metacritic has today revealed its 15th annual game publisher rankings, giving us an updated look at how the biggest publishers of 2024 performed based on critic reviews.
Nintendo wound up in 22nd place out of the 37 publishers in this year’s list which, considering it landed in sixth place last time, is quite the tumble. The Big N took home an average Metascore of 76 on its 13 releases in 2024, with no “Great” games (Metascore of 90 or higher) to its name.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
One of the real achievements of tabletop crowdfunding has been the freedom to experiment with ambitious ideas. Instead of needing to target a mainstream audience with wider appeal, video-game-to-board game adaptations have been able to aim at more niche audiences whose hobby identity overlaps between both mediums. This has allowed a game like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. The Board Game to thrive, offering a full-blown analog experience that is enormously rich and full of life, just as the original franchise fully deserves.
This is a complex and expensive game chock-full of content. In it, up to four players take on the role of STALKERs, cooperating to achieve mission objectives such as rescuing a prisoner, retrieving an artifact, or hunting a massive beast in the irradiated environs of Chernobyl. Setting up the tiles, tokens, overlays, and cards can take a solid 20 minutes. Sneaking or fighting your way through the zone while handling all of the necessary aspects of play is another two or three hours. These estimates are for players who are familiar with the game and its rules as your first session is likely to stretch even longer. This experience is the inverse of the recent Mass Effect board game, instead seeking to offer an entire world to immerse yourself in at the cost of accessibility. Fortunately, all of this effort is absolutely worth it, for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a marvelous experience on the tabletop.
The default mode of play is a story-focused campaign that lasts three scenarios. This is a more modest and reasonable commitment than popular campaign board games such as Gloomhaven or Divinity: Original Sin the Board Game. Crucially, it means players are far more likely to actually finish the game.
It plays like a mashup of a traditional dungeon crawler with adventure game aspects. Each player controls a different STALKER outfitted with a variety of firearms, armor, and supplemental items. You then take turns performing one of several actions, including the expected moving and shooting, but also more unusual options like tossing bolts to distract enemies or interacting with terrain elements on the map.
The environment is dynamic and unpredictable. This is a key quality of the game, as it seeks to capture the danger and mystique of the Zone. You accumulate radiation moving through certain areas, hopefully possessing some kind of suit to offer protection. You also manipulate objects depending on the scenario and your goals. This may mean you have to locate a hidden trapdoor and pry it open, or choose between climbing a shaky ladder and descending into a drainpipe to enter a ruined building cut off from your approach. Often these environmental challenges are displayed on cards that are laid atop the map tiles. After spending an action to trigger or interact with their features, you flip the card over and reveal the outcome. There’s a strong sense of the unknown, particularly on your first playthrough of each scenario.
This core element of mystery is most strongly conveyed through anomalies. These swirling elemental entities are a significant detail of the video game’s setting, and they’re fundamental in establishing the character and personality of the post-apocalyptic surroundings. The board game adaptation of these oddities is spectacular. They’re represented by a standee and sit atop a translucent template on the board. The template contains various symbols spread across multiple map spaces, establishing a tense threat for any who would approach.
Any figure that enters such a space must roll a die. If the symbol rolled matches one in the current space, it triggers the anomaly’s reaction. The effects depend on the specific type of anomaly, but often this means substantial damage with occasional detrimental status afflictions. To successfully navigate the area of threat, STALKERs must toss bolts to cover the face-up symbols and find a safe path through the chaos. This system is fantastic, as it captures the tone and atmosphere of the source material in a way that’s not overly cumbersome. It also uses a unique set of components that is unusual in the board game space, which adds an esoteric quality and emphasizes its alien nature.
The enemy AI is also well implemented. After all of the STALKERs have activated, a card is flipped and a menu of actions is performed. Different enemy types, such as mutants and humans, behave somewhat differently, and they also take into consideration whether the protagonists were overly loud or acted with stealth. Players running and gunning like lunatics draw more attention and receive a higher degree of aggressive response. This system provides strong incentives to conduct stealthy operations, and the tools afforded as well as the construction of the scenarios themselves make this a satisfying strategic approach. Much like the anomalies and environment facets, the intersection of enemy behavior and player conduct is a well considered system that is surprisingly satisfying.
The story-focused campaign is interesting, with its own quirks worth exploring, but its lifespan is limited. The narrative offers two branches of missions you can embark on, which means you can replay the game to pursue the pathway you neglected. Each playthrough consists of only a few missions, but you may even find some joy in replaying scenarios you’ve already bested. Some terrain elements are randomized, and most scenarios offer multiple viable solutions to accomplishing the objective.
The campaign also offers some neat between-mission diversions. You can visit scavenger camps, interact with armorers, and unearth forgotten stashes. This is handled through an overland map of the nearby area, with newly discovered location nodes applied to the map via sticker. Two blank maps are included in the game as a fresh sheet is needed for each campaign you embark upon. These small location visits are executed fairly well, as they bring in a more macro view of the setting and help add context to the more zoomed-in missions.
If that’s all S.T.A.L.K.E.R. The Board Game was, it would still be a solid entry into the tabletop gaming space. Fortunately, there’s more: the single best feature in this box is the Zone Survival module. This is a full-fledged scenario generator that combines several randomized components to create a unique procedurally crafted mission. The event deck is constructed from a random allotment of cards, and your objective is either randomized or chosen from a list. You select the map from one of 10 layouts, and various environmental details are created through card draw.
This system is bonkers. Nearly half the cards and tokens in the game are dedicated to this fully developed and robust system. The story-driven campaign could have been removed wholesale, and this mode alone would have established S.T.A.L.K.E.R. as one of the year’s best board games. Yes, the setup here is even more finicky and detailed, but the ensuing one-off scenario is full of surprises and drama. The degree of variability here is wild, and the game looks to support near endless play.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. The Board Game is a complete and hefty package, but it’s also one with an enormous amount of future potential. The core game comes with miniatures for the STALKERs, and cardboard standees for all foes and anomalies. Optional miniatures sets can be purchased, alongside several content expansions that add more detailed personal narratives to the characters, factions to interact with, and new narrative campaigns to embark upon. The commitment by the publisher is staggering, and this game looks to have long legs.
Sony has laid off an unknown number of individuals from its San Diego-based Visual Arts studio as well as PS Studios Malaysia, according to a Kotaku report and testimonies from former employees on LinkedIn.
Per Kotaku, staff were informed earlier this week that March 7 would be their last day, and included developers who had contributed to a number of different projects, such as a recent canceled live-service game at Bend Studio. Visual Arts is an art and technical support studio that has worked over the years with PlayStation’s other first-party studios, most notably the recent The Last of Us Part 1 and 2 remasters.
IGN has identified a number of developers on LinkedIn saying they had been laid off from Visual Arts, as well as at least one from PS Studios Malaysia. One former Visual Arts employee noted that the layoffs were “due to multiple project cancellations.”
This is the second round of layoffs at Visual Arts in the last two years, after another wave impacting an unknown number of individuals in 2023. It is unclear how many people remain at Visual Arts or what the studio is working on now. IGN has reached out to PlayStation for comment.
The layoffs contribute to an ongoing trend of games industry layoffs and project cancellations that’s been reported on since 2023, when it was estimated that over 10,000 game developers were laid off. That number rose to over 14,000 in 2024, and in 2025 the trend has continued, albeit with far hazier numbers due to more studios declining to report the exact number impacted.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
The Modern Age in Civilization 7 is the most important age in the game. It’s where winners are decided, and where the game comes to an end. That means it’s imperative you press your advantages and make the right choices moving on from the Exploration Age.
The Civilization you choose is key to securing your victory. The Modern Age offers ten civilizations for you to choose from (eleven, if you have the Crossroads of the World DLC). When mixed with the right Civ 7 Leaders, you can produce some extremely powerful synergies. To make your selection easier, here’s our tier list for the best Modern age civilizations in Civ 7.
S-tier: America, Meiji Japan
A-tier: French Empire, Mexico, Qing
B-tier: Buganda, Prussia, Russia, Siam
C-tier: Mughal
This is the best of the best Civilization 7 has to offer. From access to good military units, to very powerful resource access, you can largely dominate maps with these choices.
America has a lot going for it, as it can utilise a lot of resources, making it one of the best civilizations in the modern era. The Frontier Expansion trait can provide some big spikes in gold by improving resources. Elsewhere, the Railyard and Steel Mill coming together to make the Industrial Park means a lot of Food, Production, and Gold. This makes the USA a really varied and rounded civilization that can expand fast and has the production to meet it.
On top of that, the Prospecter can grab important resources, further fueling your yields. The Marine is also a solid unit thanks to the Amphibious ability, making them surprisingly nimble. There’s just a lot to like about this civilization.
Meiji Japan is very resourceful and has access to some seriously powerful aspects. Goisshin means you can reshape your districts and buildings for your modern needs while getting a decent chunk of Science back for your trouble. Meanwhile, the Zaibatsu Quarter can rack up massive amounts of Gold and Production if you have quarters with a lot of Buildings. It’s a really nice collection of yields that can propel you into the endgame.
On top of that, the civilization has some fearsomely strong Units. The Mikasa can be incredibly strong, and is able to respawn once after death at the closest Settlement. This means you can either protect your investment into the Naval Unit, or potentially reengage a low unit that just killed it to finish the fight. On top of that, the Zero is a nice late-game aircraft that should make you a force to be reckoned with in the skies.
You can’t go wrong with an A-Tier civilization. They often have varied access to important resources, and bring some military power to the table too with their special units.
The French Empire is a really nice synergistic Civilization that is really worth considering if you have plans to take a Cultural victory. Thanks to the Avenue, which is made from the Jardin a la Francaise and Salon, the civilization has a great feedback loop of Culture and Happiness that can propel it through the Modern Age if managed properly. Because of this, you’ll have a lot of Celebrations, feeding into the Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite trait.
Although it’s not a world beater, the Garde Imperiale is a decent Unit to have access to just in case anyone tries to bully you as you build the happiest, most cultured civilization.
Not dissimilar to the French Empire, the Mexican civilization is a Culture powerhouse. While it is slightly less capable of Happiness, that comes with the added bonus of access to more Gold, and a huge helping of Culture. As long as you can stack Happiness with your buildings and initiate Celebrations, your civilization will have access to 30% Culture bonuses. The Zocalo Quarter, made by building the Catedral and Portal de Mercaderes in the same District, provides even more Culture.
The Soldaderas Unit can also be relatively tanky if in the correct formations, with units healing each other. If you are going for Culture and can get an abundance of access to Happiness, Mexico is a prime candidate for a cultural victory.
The Qing Civilization has plenty going for it, though with a drawback you will have to manage. The Kang Qian Shengshi trait gives you a nice boost in Gold, Culture, and Influence, but it can also make you drag in Science. In the Modern Age, Technology moves fast, so mismanaging this trait can have you lagging behind in discoveries.
That said, with some specific resource, Wonder and Building management, this shouldn’t be an enormous problem, especially as the Shinguan can offset that a little. There’s a lot of useful access to yields here, so there’s plenty to recommend this Civ.
On top of that, the Gusa Unit is also potentially pretty powerful in the right formations and as big squadrons, meaning you have good access to some military might.
This is where good civilizations with a decent amount of benefits belong. They may be a little more specialized and viable in fewer scenarios, but generally bring some overall value to most legacy paths.
Bugunda is an interesting choice for those who like to burn places to the ground. You’ll need a strong military to get into enemy territory and start tearing apart your their Settlements. If you do though, you can gain quite a lot of resources. You need to be active and at war often, but if managed correctly, this can go well for you. The River Raids trait, as well as the Abambowa and Mwami units, bring immense value from Pillaging, so you need to do it and do it often.
That’s also because while the Kabaka’s Lake is nice for Happiness and Lake resources, the civilization doesn’t have direct access to important yields in the Modern Age like Science, Culture, Gold, and Influence. So, you’ll have to go pillaging to make up for it. It’s a rather unique style of play, and if you’re strong enough and resourceful enough to target the yields you need access to, it can go well. However, it can also fall apart quickly if you’re unable to be active enough.
Prussia is the choice of Civilization for those who are not afraid to make everyone mad. If you are looking to bully the entire map, Prussia is for you, as you will gain Combat Strength for everyone who dislikes you. This is a civ for those who are not just militarily minded, but pugnacious too. The Hussar and in particular, Stuka, are strong Units too that will have you winning most fair fights.
The problem with Prussia is that it’s a little one-note. This is about throwing yourself at other civilizations and trying to overpower them. You will need to be taking Settlements to keep up with the Science and Cultural needs a strong Military requires. Both are important in the Modern Age, and if you can’t keep pace with quickly evolving Technology, you may end up falling behind even in a Military sense. The Staatseisenbahn will only go so far when it comes to Gold and Production. On top of that, you could end up biting off more than you can chew here. Keeping everyone mad at you is funny, that is, until every civilization on the map simultaneously declares war on you.
Russia has access to some nice yield bonuses on Districts, and the Science and Culture mix is a strong suit for the civilization. That said, these bonuses aren’t enormous, and you’ll only really supercharge your Culture output on Tundra, which could be restrictive for your borders. All things considered, you may trail behind other more specialised civilizations in terms of yields.
The Cossack and Katysha Rocket Launcher are interesting units that will mean you can protect the Science and Cultural forward civilization you are building, but usually only defensively and against big armies where splash damage is relevant.
Siam has a fairly unique trait, in that it allows you to become the Suzerain of a City-State immediately. This can be strong, especially if you rack up many city-states to support you in other yields. However, the Civilization has no special access to generating the Influence it needs to do so, so it will be reliant on your ageless buildings and your Leader. If you can facilitate that Influence need, though, this trait could serve you well.
The Chang Beun is also a great ranged Unit that can maneuver around enemies and stay out of their reach when played correctly. Otherwise, there’s not a ton here that stands out. The City-States should help you make up lost yields with various benefits, but that is also dependent on the right City-States turning up.
While not bad civilizations, these are often more situational civilizations or civilizations that require a unique playstyle that might be best for more experienced players.
Mughal are in no way a bad civilization. With proper setup and circumstances, this civilization can be very strong. That said, it comes with risk. +75% Gold from all sources can be really powerful and will have you easily becoming the richest in the game. However, if you don’t manage to mitigate the -25% on all other yields, you can easily fumble. Since Science and Culture vitally important in this Era, to keep up, you need to make sure the money you’re investing is compensating for that penalty.
Elsewhere, the Mughal’s other traits are fine but don’t jump out as essential to a victory. In the right hands, the Mughal can be really good, but for those less certain, there are many more straightforward options out there.
Patrick is a a freelance journalist with over 13 years of experience who loves going deep on games and getting into their systems. His four-figure hours into both Overwatch 2 and Destiny 2 are a testament to that.
Kickflippin’ ‘eck…
Sigh… We really don’t like reporting on this kind of stuff, but alas, it’s our duty to you, our dear readers, to know what you’re getting yourself into.
Judging from images of the box art online, it looks like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 will require a mandatory download on the Nintendo Switch. Now, it’s not known at this stage exactly what kind of download will be needed, but given that it’s seemingly a requirement and not an option, we’re guessing that the base game simply doesn’t fit on a standard Switch cartridge.
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There was a moment, after years of development on Split Fiction began to come to a close, where director Josef Fares found himself playing through his latest co-op narrative adventure, and had something of a revelation.
“It’s kind of crazy. [During development] you play the game a lot – like over and over and over again. The last time I played it, with one of the lead designers, I was sitting there, like, ‘What the f**k have we done here?’ It’s almost like when you wake up from a dream: ‘Did we actually do that?’ It’s crazy how much stuff is in there.”
With Split Fiction coming to Xbox Series X|S tomorrow, March 6, Fares is in a reflective mood. The team at his studio, Hazelight, has already started work on their next game, but this feels like a brief moment where Fares can look back rather than forward. And the overall feeling I get from him is one of pride in how he’s seen his team progress.
Hazelight effectively created the genre it now makes games within – after experimenting with how a single-player, narrative-led adventure can be delivered with multiple characters in the modern classic Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Fares created his current studio with a goal of pushing that idea further. A Way Out saw the team create a truly original co-op only tale, and then pushed that into truly mind-blowing territory with the award-winning It Takes Two.
Split Fiction takes the idea forward again, using the more familiar video game worlds of fantasy and sci-fi, but blending them and blowing them apart with new ideas that arrive at breakneck pace – one moment, you’re escaping from trolls through a beleaguered medieval village, the next you’re a cyber-ninja slashing or laser-whipping scores of enemies, and then you’re suddenly a couple of magical pigs who… well, I’ll let you find out about that bit on your own.
It might initially seem like a familiar format for Hazelight – this is still a game that requires two players (either local or online), and uses a mixture of single- and split-screen sections to throw new mechanics at you constantly. But Fares sees this as a true step forward in how competently his team can make new mechanics, and tell experimental stories.
“It’s a natural evolution,” he tells me. “A more mature team, better technical tools, better understanding of design of the mechanics, we’re better at writing a story for co-op, and obviously we’ve become better knowing what and what not to cut early.”
He doesn’t think that an earlier version of Hazelight could have created Split Fiction, in effect – and makes clear that, no matter how familiar you are with their older games, Hazelight has hidden some truly magical new ideas in here:
“Play it through. You will understand what I mean. Trust me – get to the ending. You’ll see stuff that you haven’t seen in a video game.”
I ask, then, if the core drive for Hazelight is to make things no one else has tried to – but Fares sees his work in a more nuanced way.
“The number one key thing at Hazelight is that there is a passion to what we do. There’s no specific rule, like, ‘Oh there has to be a new thing all the time’. We just to have to feel that passion, because if it’s not there, the game won’t be good. Period. But we also love to push ourselves forward, like, ‘What can we do that we haven’t tried before? Can we do this thing that we haven’t tested before?’ It’s always nice to challenge ourselves.”
It was the idea of combining sci-fi and fantasy that was the initial passion for Split Fiction – the story sees two writers invited to a tech company in hopes of getting a publishing deal, before one realises that they’ll in fact have their ideas drained and repurposed by a newly invented technology. After an altercation, both writers are pulled into the same simulation based on their creations, and their very different ideas begin to blend into one another. You (and your co-op partner) will play through the wild results in what Fares describes as a playable buddy movie.
And it’s in that blend of ideas that Fares and his team found their way to go further than their previous work.
“It’s about taking this to the next level, then the next level – what can we do to keep the players on their toes, keeping this, ‘What the f**k is going on?’ feeling and making sure that the pacing feels right. There’s always something around the corner that’s going to surprise you and delight you.”
Of course, this is a huge amount of work. Split Fiction feels as though it’s introducing new mechanics every 15 minutes, and jettisoning the old ones – but it can’t allow each new idea to feel half-baked.
“In Split Fiction, [there’s a section where you ride] dragons – just one of those dragons took, I think, eight months to create. And in the beginning of my career, a lot of the team members were like, ‘Why are we doing all this and you’re only playing it for like 10 minutes?’
“But here’s the thing. [In a] movie, if you have a great scene that cost a lot of money, you don’t reuse that scene because it cost a lot of money. I do feel sometimes that cool moments like that wouldn’t have been as cool if we just reused them all the time. There is [an idea] in video games that, just because something was very expensive, it needs to be reused. But why? Why do you have to reuse it? Because that takes away the actual feeling of when you first experienced it.”
Split Fiction takes that philosophy to its natural endpoint by including huge sections of totally optional content. It Takes Two included some mini-games along the way, but these sections (accessed through portals you’ll find along the way) go so much further.
“Here, it’s actually full-blown worlds with new mechanics, sometimes bosses, new visual worlds. It’s literally almost like a new game inside the game.”
It’s a truly brave approach to design, but Fares has been emboldened simply by the success this approach has brought. Millions of people bought his last two games, showing a desire for exactly what he’s doing.
Not that he’d change course, anyway:
“Well, here’s the thing – I’ve never adapted to anyone, even on Brothers. I really don’t care, to be honest. At Hazelight, we always do our vision. We’ve done it since the start. On Brothers, there was a lot of questioning. A Way Out, a lot of questioning. It Takes Two as well.
“Sure, there are fewer questions from the outside [now] – it doesn’t really matter. The game will always be the game that we want to do. The one thing I guarantee is that Hazelight will always be about passion, about making games that we love to make. We’ll never change.”
Fares won’t let on what Hazelight’s next game might be – and even if will continue the co-op form of its previous work – but Split Fiction proves that his team won’t be sitting still. I’m almost certain that, in a few years, Fares will be sitting down again and asking himself, “Did we actually do that?”
Electronic Arts
Split Fiction is a unique action-adventure experience that keeps you on the edge of your couch with unexpected moments. One minute you’re taming adorable dragons and the next you’re fighting as cyber ninjas, escaping terrifying trolls, or dodging hover cars thrown by a robotic parking attendant. It’s weird, it’s wild, and it’s designed to be shared.
Grab your co-op partner and get ready to overcome any obstacle thrown your way.
• TRUE CO-OP ADVENTURE – This split-screen adventure is tailored for two. Experience co-op gameplay where you’ll have to coordinate your actions and timing as well as work together to overcome challenges. Invite a partner to join you for free, for cross-platform play, with the Friend’s Pass*. This wild ride comes to you from Hazelight, the co-op thrill-makers that brought you It Takes Two and A Way Out.
• UNPARALLELED VARIETY – Discover new mechanics and abilities in every level of your adventure, which will alternate between sci-fi and fantasy settings. Escape a sun that’s going supernova, challenge a monkey to a dance battle, try out some cool hoverboard tricks, fight an evil kitty, and ride everything from gravity bikes to a sandshark. Experience worlds that are entirely different from each other, unexpected new abilities, and a range of gameplay that includes platforming, stealth, puzzles, and more. There are surprises waiting for you and your partner in every new level.
• THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP – Mio and Zoe don’t get along at first, but soon enough they become each other’s only hopes. This journey will throw unexpected twists at them and if they want to make it through, they’ll need to have each other’s backs. They’ll encounter both bizarre situations as they traverse stories born from their own wild imaginations. Most importantly – they’ll face it all together.
*Friend’s Pass requires installation of the Friend’s Pass, persistent internet connection and applicable platform account. One user must own the full game in order for the co-op player to play the full game.
CONDITIONS AND RESTRICTIONS APPLY. SEE www.ea.com/legal FOR DETAILS
© 2025 Hazelight Studios AB. Split Fiction and Hazelight are trademarks of Hazelight Studios AB. EA Originals is a trademark of Electronic Arts Inc.
The post “Did We Actually Do That?”: Josef Fares Explains How Split Fiction Pushes the Co-Op Adventure Genre Further Than Ever appeared first on Xbox Wire.
It’s been a lifetime since I read George Orwell’s 1984 – a tale of mass surveillance, indoctrination and repression nowadays invoked to describe everything from Trump’s Twitter ban to Pizza Express telling you that jelly-beans aren’t a topping – but I will always remember how it combined role-playing with adventure gaming and brought the “detail of Riven into the real-time world of Quake“. Oh, forgive me, I’m actually remembering Big Brother, a video game sequel to Orwell’s book, which I have never played, because it never made it to shelves.
Online sleuths have just dug up and published an ancient E3 demo for this mysterious game. Here it be, and here be some footage for any unpersons concerned that downloading the files might get them shipped off to a joycamp by thinkpol.
