Here are some orc names I quite like. Haters will tell you these “aren’t real orcs”, but those fools are forever trapped in a stifling prison forged from the failures of their own imaginations. Suck it, haters:
Dededelicious.
Everyone’s favourite pink puffball, Kirby, is teaming up with Heinz (you know, the tomato ketchup guys) for a new range of sauces in Japan. Well, that’s not a sentence we thought we’d be writing today, but we can’t say we’re surprised.
Shared by the official Heinz Twitter account, the Kirby range will be launching in late November with nine designs adorning the front of the packets. There’s even Balsamic and Sriracha flavour options for those who like their chips with a bit of a kick.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
The official Zelda timeline is the focus of much debate among the series’ hardcore fans, with rumblings over Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom’s place in all this recently settled when Nintendo popped both in a time and place all their own. But where does Echoes of Wisdom fit in? After a recent update from Nintendo itself, fans finally know.
Echoes of Wisdom, which flips the franchise’s famous formula on its head by having Zelda as the playable character, is part of the ‘Hero is defeated’ timeline, a fork generated by the seminal Ocarina of Time if Ganon defeats Link. From there, Echoes of Wisdom takes place after the 2015 3DS game Tri Force Heroes, but before the very first Zelda game, released in 1986 for the NES.
Ominously, Nintendo notes the “Decline of Hyrule Kingdom” that followed the events of Echoes of Wisdom, but came before the first Zelda. Here’s Nintendo’s official blurb on the game’s entry:
The hero Link sets out to rescue Princess Zelda, who was captured by Ganon. Following a fierce battle, Link defeats Ganon, only to be swallowed up by an eerie rift. It was as if he’d been stolen away… All across Hyrule, more mysterious rifts are forming and taking the people of Hyrule away. Nobody is safe — not even the king himself and his advisers, who have also gone missing. Princess Zelda must set out on an adventure to save her father — the king of Hyrule — the people, and Link.
This particular timeline fork ends with 1987’s side-scrolling The Adventure of Link, the direct sequel to the first Zelda game. The ‘Hero is Triumphant’ fork includes two timelines of its own: Link’s child and adult eras. The child era continues with the likes of Ocarina of Time follow-up Majora’s Mask, whereas the adult era includes Game Cube masterpiece Wind Waker. Still with us?
So, that’s where we’re at for now. But does any of this matter? One person who doesn’t care about the Zelda chronology is producer Eiji Aonuma, who last year told IGN that overthinking the Zelda chronology could limit the development team’s creativity and vision.
Of course there will be new Zelda games released, no doubt for Nintendo’s Switch successor, and we’ll have this timeline debate all over again. The question is, what’s the next Zelda game?
In September last year, Nintendo said it had no plans to release DLC for Tears of the Kingdom, and confirmed it had moved on to a brand new game in the series. In an interview with Famitsu, Aonuma left the door open to a return to the Hyrule of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, potentially setting up a third game.
“In the first place, the reason I decided to make this a sequel to the previous work was because I thought there was value in experiencing a new game in that Hyrule place,” Aonuma said. “If that’s the case, if a new reason arises, we might return to the same world again. Whether it’s a sequel or a new work, I think it’s going to be a completely new game, so I hope you’re looking forward to it.”
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.
Video games in general have a surplus of weapons. It’s gotten to the point that if I had any freelance budget, I’d commission somebody to count them up. Just give me an approximate running total for the industry at large, so that whenever next a shiny-eyed producer regales me with the prospect of enchanted lazurite rapiers at a preview event, I can quietly ask how many enchanted lazurite rapiers we’re talking about, then open my laptop and generate a scrolling image akin to those comparison pages for stars and planets – a cosmic mountain of points and pommels, with the new game’s armoury forming a pixel-wide foothill in the bottom left corner. “Are there not enough enchanted lazurite rapiers,” I will kindly enquire, as the producer sobs brokenly into my shoulder.
Sometimes a home only becomes a home when you leave. I recently moved out from a London flat I’d rented for over a decade, for instance, and this has properly done a number on me. Being given my notice transformed the place from a transient pile of cadaverous lino and spasmodic plumbing into something mythical and unnerving – a whole chapter of my life completed and reduced to a piece of masonry in the rearview mirror, a relic I had been living in for years without quite realising.
A few video game developers have investigated emotions like these by recreating their current and prior homes as virtual environments: places of mingled memory and invention, expressive of both nostalgia and surprise. At this year’s Game Developer Conference in San Francisco, I interviewed a couple of teams who are coming at this premise with very different objectives, and somehow, meeting in the middle. One of the games in question is a work of daydreaming fondness, the other of comical anger. Both find a focus in the figure of a matriarch who is kindly in one game, abusive in the other.
“my vision has been less aligned with the team”.
Omar Cornut, one of the co-founders of developer Lizardcube, has announced his departure from the company after his own aspirations and vision became less aligned with the wider team.
Lizarcube is known for its work on Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap and Streets of Rage 4, with Cornut and Ben Fiquet kickstarting the company out of a shared love of old Sega licenses. Cornut states “I want to make games differently” and that he “didn’t want to be swimming against the tide”, prompting him to leave Lizardcube in the capable hands of Fiquet and the rest of the team.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
When and where did the Steam demo for horror game New Life first find its way to me? When did its non-descript, black hooded protagonist first wriggle, with the transgressive delight of an unbidden slug between naked toes embarking on a 2am fridge odyssey, into the as yet uncolonised crevices of my ‘demos’ library? The specifics, I fear, are but the fumes of memories, lingering like armies of mice in trenchcoats at supermarket cheese sample platters, at once painfully obvious and immune to detection in their uncanny shroud of stifling human decorum. “For who is madder?!” I shout, in a normal and cool manner. “The mice – so very mad for cheese – or the madmen who screams ‘Mice! Mice!’ in the middle of the cheese aisle?!”
And if I can’t remember how it got here, how can I make it go away?
2K Games has pulled its launcher from all its PC games as part of a “complete sunset” of the software, which means PC gamers can now launch all 2K games directly in Steam.
The 2K Launcher was forced upon players of the company’s PC games, including Firaxis’ Civilization 5, Mafia Trilogy Definitive Edition, and XCOM 2. Following an update this month, the 2K Launcher is removed from every game that used it on Epic and Steam. 2K also removed the 2K Launcher Beta, a completely separate launcher, from Civilization 5.
This means Bioshock Remastered, Bioshock 2 Remastered, Bioshock Infinite, The Quarry, and Marvel’s Midnight Suns will now all launch directly into the game as soon as you click Play. The Mafia Trilogy Definitive Edition games on Steam and the Mafia Trilogy Definitive Edition games on Epic each have slightly different paths to getting into the games.
Civilization 6 on Steam had the launcher removed earlier this year, so no additional steps are needed. But for Civilization 6 for Epic, it now directly opens into the game when launched from Epic. Civilization 5, meanwhile, now uses the Steam Launch options to open the game.
XCOM 2 for Steam is a special case, 2K said, as the launcher included Mod support functionality. Of note, these changes will let you enable mods on the Steam Deck. XCOM 2 on Epic will now open the Original XCOM 2 Mod Launcher. XCOM: Chimera Squad also has the Mod launcher as optional, with a secondary option available to directly launch the game. Mods are also available on Steam Deck for Chimera Squad.
In a blog post, 2K said it had replaced the 2KLauncher folder with a text file called 2kLauncherRemoved.txt, which can be safely deleted. But there may be more for you to do — 2K said to be sure the launcher is gone for good, close and reopen Steam then reboot your PC.
“We’ve done the heavy lifting, but to take it all the way home there might be one step left for you,” 2K explained. “First thing is to try closing and reopening Steam – that means completely closing and not just using the X to minimize the platform. Rebooting your PC is a good way to be sure it happened. For Epic, just make sure you’ve downloaded the most recent update for the game.”
Saved games shouldn’t be impacted, and you won’t lose access to any of your games, as long as you bought them on Steam or Epic. And, for those (probably very few!) PC gamers who miss the 2K Launcher for some reason and want to continue using it, unfortunately it’s not coming back. “We currently have no plans to allow an optional 2K Launcher setting, but we appreciate your interest,” 2K said.
The end of the 2K Launcher comes ahead of the release of Civilization 7 in February 2025. Civilization is usually one of the most popular PC games around, so fans can rest assured they’ll be able to launch it directly in Steam.
PC gamers have long criticized publisher launchers, including Ubisoft and EA’s, that force themselves upon players before they can get into the game. It seems unlikely the end of the 2K Launcher will spark a mass removal of PC launchers, however, given they’re often used for cloud saves or storefronts.
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.
Nintendo confirms.
The Zelda timeline has ignited all sorts of debates and theories over the years, and now it seems Nintendo has officially added the newest entry Echoes of Wisdom.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Xbox is removing the Avatar Editor app from Xbox consoles and PC, ending support for the revamped characters first introduced in 2018.
Xbox quietly announced the news on its support site over the weekend, saying the app would no longer be available starting January 9, 2025. The end of Xbox Avatar Editor support means that users will no long be able to access Xbox Avatars or any of their purchased avatar items. Xbox says it will refund all Avatar purchases made between November 1, 2023 and January 9, 2025.
Xbox is specifically ending support for the Avatars introduced as part of the Xbox Avatars Update back in 2018, which were touted as more detailed, expressive and creative than their predecessors on the Xbox 360. Xbox says it will retain support for the simpler Xbox Original Avatars, which will continue to work in supported Xbox 360 games and will be accessible via the Xbox Original Avatars app.
One way or another, Avatars feel less and less important these days. In its FAQ, Xbox said that it was ending support due to “low engagement” and a “shift in focus toward delivering other player experiences,” noting that players can still personalize their experience with dynamic backgrounds, profile colors, and other options.
In the meantime, Xbox is looking ahead to the future, among other things working on a dedicated handheld. Development on a next-gen successor is also underway.
Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.
