Mortal Kombat 1 developer NetherRealm has revealed a first look at Conan the Barbarian gameplay with a teaser video that also confirms the DLC character’s release date.
Conan the Barbarian’s early access release date is set for January 21, 2025, with a general release planned for a week later. In the video, below, we see Conan go up against Mortal Kombat’s villainous warmonger Shao Kahn and deliver the iconic line: “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you.” Shao Kahn, clearly recognising the wisdom of the words, replies: “Truly, what is best in life.” The pair are kindred spirits, it seems.
In the 1982 Conan the Barbarian movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s titular character is asked: “what is best in life?” He responds: “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.” It sounds like NetherRealm left that last bit out.
As for the gameplay, Conan plays as you’d expect, with what looks like a fairly straightforward use of his Atlantean Sword. We see a number of flashy moves fans of the film will find familiar, including Conan’s sword swirl. Conan can deflect projectiles, too.
One open question is who voices Conan in Mortal Kombat 1? It seems likely that Chris Cox, who voiced the Terminator in Mortal Kombat 11, plays Conan here, given publisher Warner Bros. would probably have trumpeted getting Arnie in if it had managed it.
Conan the Barbarian is the fifth DLC character to be released for Mortal Kombat 1’s Kombat Pack 2, and follows Noob Saibot, Cyrax, Sektor, and last month’s addition of Ghostface from the Scream films. The sixth and final DLC character is T-1000 Terminator. Warner Bros. is yet to announce a third Kombat Pack or a new set of DLC characters.
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.
It’s that time of the year when in the middle of our personal GOTY list scrambles we sit back for a couple of hours to enjoy Geoff Keighley’s annual round-up. For the last 10 years, though it’s presented as a gong show and celebration, The Game Awards has essentially been a multiplatform conference, a platform for the big three, big third parties, and big indies to come together and get a trailer broadcast to the masses as holiday season approaches.
Say what you like, but you’ve got to give it to Keighley – it’s a big production and pulling off a show of that scale is a hell of a job. Juggling all those names and trying to squeeze in enough variety to showcase the enormous breadth of the industry is no mean feat – and it’s been a bumpy ride.
From Tabletop to Desktop – How Total War: Warhammer Created 100 Legendary Lords
Richard Aldridge, Senior Game Director, Creative Assembly
Summary
Total War: Warhammer III now has 100 Legendary Lords – learn how they got made.
Total War: Warhammer III Omens of Destruction is available now on the Microsoft Store.
Embark on campaigns of hero-slaying, mercenary conflict, and brutal battle tactics in Omens of Destruction.
Hello Xbox community! Today is a big day for Total War: Warhammer IIIas we release our latest – and very heavy metal-sounding – content pack, Omens of Destruction, right in time for the holiday season.
With a DLC name that strikes fear into the hearts of mere mortals, it welcomes four new infamous Legendary Lords into our ever-growing pantheon of playable characters from the Warhammer world, each with brand-new gameplay features, battle units and objectives.
The Lords in Omens of Destruction are Skulltaker, Gorbad Ironclaw and Golgfag Maneater – and we’reoffering another Legendary Lord, Arbaal the Undefeated for free, for all players. The introduction of these new Legendary Lords also brings our total number of playable characters up to an incredible 100, meaning there’s a huge variety of ways in which you can conquer our vast strategic fantasy world.
To celebrate this milestone, I wanted to talk through the process of picking a Legendary Lord to convert from the tabletop game, and some of my favorite stories from our time creating them.
How We Choose a Legendary Lord
Legendary Lords are the primary commanders of your armies in game, each of which hails from one of Warhammer’s uniquely weird, wild and wonderful array of races. These range from humans, elves and dwarves to daemons, ratmen and even vampire pirates – therefore, it’s essential that who we choose to include in game aligns with the established lore. There’s no shortage of potential characters and Lords to include in a DLC, given the library of lore that has been maintained by Games Workshop since the 1980s, but we always try to ensure that whatever we offer is bringing something fresh to the table and is actively complimenting the game.
Throughout our journey on the Total War: Warhammer series, which has lasted an astonishing eight years, the guiding tome of knowledge for what we include has generally been Warhammer 8th Edition, as this is the most recent compendium for the world in terms of rules, lore, and army compositions for the tabletop game. However, with each new game and DLC, we get another step closer to bringing the army books fully to life, meaning we’ve had to delve into all sorts of intriguing supplementary sources such as the Monstrous Arcanum, Tamurkhan campaign book, and even excerpts from the eternal pages of White Dwarf magazine.
Having these sources of inspiration has been invaluable for us game developers, and the characters we’ve included really highlight the diverse tapestry of storytelling within Warhammer.
My Favorite Creations
Choosing a single favorite Legendary Lord is like choosing a favorite child – impossible. Throughout the series we’ve made a real conscious effort to ensure that we’re not only providing Legendary Lords as part of DLC, but frequently designing some to be given away for free if you own the game.
As part of our Prophet and the Warlock DLC we introduced the mad scientist of Warhammer creations, Ikit Claw as a new Skaven Legendary Lord. As a game developer it’s always invigorating when you get to work on something that pushes the boundaries of your design direction, and he embodies that like few others. The greatest of all Warlock engineers, his gameplay is all about building hellish weapons of war like a cartoon villain and watching the campaign map go boom!
In terms of free content, Repanse de Lyonesse is one of those special characters. As a big fan of history, she really encapsulates that Jean of Arc mold of a fearless female warrior on horseback who goes crusading on behalf of her kingdom, amassing huge armies of knights and trebuchets to conquer the inhospitable deserts of the Southlands. She offers great roleplaying potential for those looking to blur the lines between a historic and fantasy experience.
Fans of the series will also know that I’m a huge Lizardman fan, which began all the way back when I was introduced to the tabletop game. Therefore, I’ve got to include Tictaq’to in this royal rumble. He was our first Lizardman to be given away for free and he rides into battle atop a flying mount in the form of a Terradon, ruthlessly dropping death from above on his foes. He’s effectively a deadly dinosaur riding another deadly dinosaur into battle – what’s not to love?
Our Most Challenging Creations
Over the years we’ve been lucky to have built up a fantastic relationship with Games Workshop and nowhere is that more evident than when they collaborated with us to create a brand-new character, Cylostra Direfin, to take the role of a Legendary Lord. Creating an undead sea-witch (who happens to captain a ghost galleon that marauds around the campaign map causing untold skullduggery) was an exciting opportunity, but also one that came with a pirate’s trove of challenges that we were experiencing for the first time. One of the biggest of these challenges was just making sure she felt like a natural fit alongside all of the established lore, as this was something we knew our fans would be particularly keen to ensure we got right.
Beyond individual characters, entire races within the Warhammer world can pose their own unique challenges too. A perfect example of this is the fabled Wood Elves, an elite Elven army that strives to protect nature, and in particular the great Woodland of Athel Loren. The problem? They’re isolationists, which on paper doesn’t exactly gel particularly well with a strategy game in which we encourage you to conquer the world. The solution was building a campaign that still revolved around their protectionist nature, but provided unique ways in which they could traverse the world to enact destruction upon all those who threaten to disturb their habitats.
Play Omens of Destruction Now
If you’re interested in embarking on campaigns of hero-slaying, mercenary conflict, and brutal battle tactics, Omens of Destruction is available now on the Microsoft Store. Alternatively, if you just want to jump into the fray for free, Arbaal the Undefeated is also available to play for all owners of Total War: Warhammer III. Happy Holidays!
Total War: WARHAMMER III – Immortal Empires is now available to all owners of Total War: WARHAMMER III.
Any content purchased across the Total War: WARHAMMER franchise is now available to use in Immortal Empires without the required ownership of Total War: WARHAMMER & Total War: WARHAMMER II. For more information, please visit our FAQ on the Total War Blog.
IMMORTAL EMPIRES IS OUT NOW.
Immortal Empires is the culmination of the entire Total War: WARHAMMER series. Combining the campaign maps, races, and factions from all three games* into a single, epic sandbox campaign. It’s the most complete and definitive Warhammer strategy experience ever conceived!
*Owners of Total War WARHAMMER III must own Total War: WARHAMMER and Total War: WARHAMMER II to start their own Immortal Empires Campaign. However, players who only own WARHAMMER III may join Immortal Empires multiplayer campaigns launched by an owner of all three games.
THE WORLD TEETERS ON THE BRINK OF CHAOS
The last roar of a dying god ruptures the boundary between worlds, opening a portal to the Realm of Chaos. From this maelstrom, the four Ruinous Powers – Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch and Slaanesh – emerge, spreading darkness and despair. The stern warriors of Kislev and the vast empire of Grand Cathay stand at the threshold, as a vengeful Daemon Prince vows to destroy those who corrupted him. The coming conflict will engulf all. Will you conquer your daemons? Or command them?
RAISE A MIGHTY ARMY
With seven unique races and hundreds of units under your command, raise an army and dominate in epic real-time battles across a world of breathtaking scale and spectacle.
BUILD AN EMPIRE
In the most ambitious and groundbreaking Total War title to date, dive into a captivating narrative that will take you to the mind-bending Realm of Chaos and back again. Forge your empire in a strategy sandbox that ensures no two campaigns are ever the same.
CHOOSE YOUR HERO
Play as 10 Legendary Lords! Will you side with the Chaos Gods and take one of their Daemonic Champions, play as an ancient transforming Dragon from Grand Cathay, defend the frozen nation of Kislev with the Ice Queen or play the ultimate villain as the Daemon Prince?
UNLEASH YOUR INNER DAEMON
Customise the Daemon Prince to your own unique design with a huge suite of body parts and powers, creating billions of potential combinations to suit your own playstyle.
MULTIPLAYER CHAOS
Multiplayer is now bigger than ever. With the vast 8-player Realm of Chaos multiplayer campaign, the intense 1 v 1 Domination mode, the story-driven multiplayer campaigns built around Kislev and Grand Cathay and ranked & custom battles, there’s no shortage of ways to cause chaos with friends.
Azul is undoubtedly the highlight of the sale, especially for those who might have missed the Black Friday discounts last month. It’s down to $15.99 when you clip the list voucher on Amazon, over 50% off its original list price of $39.99. It’s a brilliant board game, and quite rightly earned a spot on IGN’s list of the best family board games, and received a highly recommended 8/10 in our review.
But Azul isn’t the only board game in the sale, no matter how popular it is. Other top discounts include games like Pandemic, where players must work together playing to their characters’ strengths as they plan their strategy of eradicating the diseases before they overwhelm the world with ever-increasing outbreaks. It’s down to $18.39 when clipping the list voucher.
Then there are also absolute classics like Ticket to Ride or Catan, both also down to just $20.39 when clipping the voucher. While Azul is a couple of dollars more than the Black Friday sales, both Ticket to Ride and Catan are actually less, as each was listed for $25 over the past few weeks.
That makes this an excellent opportunity to stock on up on more board games ready for the holiday play sessions. For more board game roundups, check out the best roll-and-write games, and the best deck-building games.
Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.
The demo for SNØ: Ultimate Freeriding isn’t that new. It actually came out in September, but I’m filing it under the secret best unspoken RPS site category of “News (To Me)”, a whizcrack piece of web 3.0 technology that allows us to travel back in time and ‘announce’ things that don’t seem any less noteworthy for their advancing age.
If you think that’s a desperately cavalier and confusing way to run a news section, I can only suggest that you email a complaint to our news editor. Spoilers: our news editor is me, and I have already thrown your complaint in the bin. Mate, I don’t tell you how to do your job, but I’d be more than happy to, if you let me know what it is. Anyway, what were we talking about. Oh yeah, skiiing!
Sony has added a handful of beloved PS2 games to its PlayStation Plus Classic Games Catalog such as those from the Sly Cooper and Jak and Daxter franchises today, December 10.
The three games previously announced by Sony are available to players with the most expensive PS Plus Premium subscription. Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, Sly 2: Band of Thieves, and Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves can all be downloaded now.
Sony will announce the full collection of December’s games coming to not just the Classic Games Catalog but the regular Games Catalog tomorrow, December 13.
All three games were well-received when IGN reviewed them upon release in the 2000s. Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy earned a 9/10, when IGN called it “really something special” and said “it has that magical feeling that not all games can possess and it’s just flat out a joy to play.”
Sly 2: Band of Thieves also received a 9/10. “The amount of creativity that is packed into the different quests and the various characters is nothing short of amazing and it all combines to form a mega fun adventure,” we said.
Among my last-resort tactics for generating precious PC gaming news is to go on holiday – for as sure as toast lands buttered side down while cats always land on their feet, as sure as the number 13 breeds calamity and Star Citizen committing to a release date guarantees a delay, myself going on holiday will always, somehow, conjure a big story from the crevices. It’s basic physics. In this case, I was on holiday from Friday through Monday, and this fact and this fact alone appears to have coaxed some toy manufacturer into taking the internet’s most cherished indie gaming platform offline by means of a “bogus” phishing report, sent by “AI-powered” brand protection software.
The situation has now been resolved, thankfully, and you can access Itch.io as normal, but I will never pass up the opportunity to cast shade on Funko Pop, whose NFT-garlanded bobbleheads I hate as I do veruccas and forest fires. So here’s a quick recap if you, too, missed the drama.
Changes are coming to action role-playing game Path of Exile 2 thick and fast following its huge Early Access launch, with a new hotfix out now.
In a post on the Path of Exile forum, developer Grinding Gear Games published a list of issues it felt needed to be “urgently addressed,” with other less urgent issues to be tackled later on. Chief among them is the feeling that Path of Exile 2 isn’t rewarding enough, something GGG acknowledged is a problem.
“One of the major problems that players have been experiencing is feeling that the game is not rewarding enough,” it said. “This is an area that we have to be very careful when adjusting because it’s very hard to reduce drops if we increase them by too much.”
Specifically, GGG felt that rare monsters were not rewarding enough, especially in the endgame where unique monsters are less common. GGG also saw that the reward players received for the increased difficulty of rares wasn’t lining up.
So, it’s doubling the rarity bonus per rare mod, increasing the quantity bonus per rare mod by 10%, and increasing the chance of rare monsters inherently having more modifiers as players progress through endgame.
“These changes will cause rare monster rewards to naturally scale up as you get to higher levels because the number of mods a monster can have increases throughout the campaign and into endgame,” GGG explained.
“In addition, many other forms of map juicing will indirectly cause rare monsters to have more mods as well, increasing the rewards of these other mechanics too.”
Meanwhile, GGG is changing the game to make sure each map has a minimum number of rares, which will also increase the average number of rare mods and thus increase drops further.
Another major issue GGG has identified is outlier “unlucky” drops. “A single unique boss dropping badly, especially early on can significantly affect your character,” GGG admitted. Changes here include no more than 50% of a unique monster’s drops can be gold, and act bosses and map bosses will now always drop at least one rare.
Elsewhere, GGG is making dodge roll changes after players complained about being trapped in by monsters. “While it is intended that monsters are able to trap and kill you, we felt that the frequency of this was a little too high,” GGG explained.
GGG has posted the first set of patch notes for these changes, with more to come as they’re rolled out. Check out the patch notes for 0.1.0c below (you will need to restart your client to receive the client changes in this patch).
GGG is already nerfing a number of Path of Exile 2 skills it’s deemed to have “unacceptable balance.” And in a fresh tweet, the developer said it plans to nerf Raging Spirits so it can only summon five Raging Spirits per cast at all levels. They will also no longer be able to be spawned from triggered Fire Skills. Players are already calling on GGG to give all a full character respec opportunity as a result.
In an upcoming hotfix, we’ll be making it so that Raging Spirits can only summon 5 Raging Spirits per cast at all levels. They will also no longer be able to be spawned from triggered Fire Skills.
After this hotfix, we will be making adjustments to other Trigger Meta-Gems. In…
Campaign bosses killed after the first kill will now drop less currency items, replacing them with other items.
Increased the drop rate of Regal Orbs.
Significantly increased the drop rate of Gemcutter’s Prisms.
A single Gemcutter’s Prism also improves the Quality of a Skill Gem by +5% (previously +1%).
Lowered the drop rate of Chaos Orbs and distributed it amongst the other more valued Currency Items (Like Regal Orbs, Exalted Orbs).
Lowered the drop rate of Artificer’s Orbs and distributed it to Lesser Jeweller’s Orbs.
Disenchanting Rare Items with 6 Modifiers now provides 2 Regal Shards (previously 1). The value displayed will still show as 1 until a later patch.
Increased the values of all Prefix Modifiers that can roll on Waystones. We’ve also adjusted the chances of getting the more commonly powerful Modifiers such as increases to Rarity and Pack Size.
Monster Modifiers now grant higher amounts of Item Rarity and Item Quantity. This is most common on Magic and Rare enemies, but also affects Unique Enemies if applied through various Endgame Mechanics like the Deadly Evolution Keystone.
Increased the chance for Rare Monsters in Maps to have 3 or 4 modifiers.
Rare Monsters in Map areas are now revealed on the minimap when there are 200 Monsters remaining (previously 50).
Fixed a bug where some Persistent Buff Skills, such as Raging Spirits and Mana Remnants, were not working for the Infernalist when in Demon Form.
Fixed a bug where you could sometimes be unable to interact with the Map Device in The Ziggurat Refuge.
Fixed a bug where Monsters Shattered in a Blood Circle Ultimatum Encounter were not contributing blood.
Fixed a bug that could cause the instance to permanently stop time (freeze) when trying to revive a Chronomancer.
Fixed a bug where Rare Monsters could not be found within the Chimeral Wetlands.
Fixed a bug where “Move only” was name-locking.
Fixed three instance crashes.
Fixed a client crash.
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.
Goblin-hitting bonanza Path Of Exile 2 launched into early access last weekend and the devs Grinding Gear Games have dropped some big patch notes that outline some things they’ve updated already, or things they plan on updating in a future patch. Things like dodge-rolling, checkpoints, items, currencies, and other stuff I can’t list here because the intro to this article would expand and pop into a flurry of common rarity boots and bones, maybe with the odd purple rarity sword mixed in.
In 2024, the Switch’s transfer speeds leave a lot to be desired, but that might be one of the wrinkles Nintendo is hoping to iron out with ‘Switch 2’, if the speculation surrounding a new job listing is to be believed (thanks, Gameranx).
Yep, the latest chatter from the ‘Switch 2’ rumour mill is all about microSD cards, specifically, Samsung’s upcoming ‘SD Express’ cards, which the company revealed earlier this year. Samsung claims that these microSDs can reach transfer speeds of up to 800 MB/S — a noticeable bump on the current Switch’s 60 MB/S on the branded SanDisk cards and 150 MB/S max on the SanDisk SDXC card — and it looks like Nintendo is hoping to support it in the future.
