During today’s Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct, Blizzard announced its next big plans for World of Warcraft: Classic. Shocking no one, it’s planning to move onto the next expansion in 2025: Mists of Pandaria.
As with other Classic expansions, Mists of Pandaria will launch with “some changes” to its original form, but will largely retain the same content and features from when it first released in 2012. Among other new features, Mists of Pandaria introduced the continent of Pandaria, the playable Pandaran race that could join either the Alliance or the Horde, the Monk class, pet battles, Scenarios, and flexible raiding.
Notably, though, this will be a different experience than the one offered during the recent Mists of Pandaria: Remix event, which allowed players to speed level through Pandaria with new spells and abilities, new items, and other twists on its original gameplay.
The addition of Mists of Pandaria furthers World of Warcraft: Classic’s steady march to catch up with existing World of Warcraft content. However, recently some Classic players have begun to criticize the direction of the game and lament how far away it’s gotten from the original Classic feel as expansions have been added. While Blizzard has done some things to address this, such as add new Classic modes like Hardcore and Season of Discovery, players are increasingly asking for more opportunities to replay the oldest content.
For those players, Blizzard announced that it will be adding new “vanilla” Classic realms on November 21. This will include new PvP, PvE, and new “hardcore mode” realms, which will go through the same steady cadence of patch updates as past Classic realms, with the Molten Core raid launching a few weeks after launch. These new realms (minus the Hardcore realms) will eventually progress to The Burning Crusade Classic, giving players the opportunity to start all over once more and progress through early WoW content.
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.
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is celebrating its 20th anniversary this week after an initial Gamecube launch on 15th November 2004. In a new interview with developers Jack Mathews and Zoid Kirsch from Kiwi Talkz, it’s been revealed that the game’s multiplayer mode nearly featured playable Space Pirates.
The Space Pirates are an iconic, recurring enemy type within the Metroid franchise, and their similar stature to Samus would no doubt lend itself well to the first-person gameplay in the Prime trilogy, but alas, it wasn’t to be. Like many things in the tricky world of game development, playable Space Pirates simply fell by the wayside and weren’t implemented into the final game.
Dive into the gritty underworld of Los Santos, strive to stay human while you uncover the dark secrets of a post-apocalyptic world, fight for justice to change the future of Japan, and more with November’s PlayStation Plus Game Catalog lineup*! Grand Theft Auto V, Dying Light 2: Stay Human, Like a Dragon: Ishin!, and more games are available to play from November 19. On the same day, five new titles join PlayStation Plus Premium in the form of the kinetic first person shooter PS VR2 game Synapse and four Classics; Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, Blood Omen 2, Resistance: Fall of Man and Resistance 2.
PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium | Game Catalog
Grand Theft Auto V* | PS4, PS5
When a young street hustler, a retired bank robber and a terrifying psychopath find themselves entangled with some of the most frightening and deranged elements of the criminal underworld, the U.S. government and the entertainment industry, they must pull off a series of dangerous heists to survive in a ruthless city in which they can trust nobody, least of all each other. Experience the interwoven stories of Franklin, Michael and Trevor in the sprawling open world of Los Santos and Blaine County.
*PlayStation Plus re-release.
Dying Light 2: Stay Human | PS4, PS5
In Dying Light 2, survival meets action adventure as you attempt to endure a hostile, post-apocalyptic world. Rival factions across The City aren’t the only enemy – a virus has turned a vast majority of the human population into monsters. Take on the role of Aiden Caldwell, a wanderer with the power to change the fate of The City, but your exceptional abilities come at a price. Haunted by memories you cannot decipher, you set out to learn the truth – and find yourself in a combat zone. Hone your skills to defeat your enemies and make allies. Unravel the dark secrets behind those that wield power, choose sides and decide your destiny. But wherever your actions take you, there’s one thing you must do – stay human.
Like a Dragon: Ishin | PS4, PS5
1860’s Kyo is plagued by widespread inequality, and one samurai will change the course of history in his search for justice. Take up the sword as Sakamoto Ryoma and venture to Kyoto to find your father’s killer, clear yourself of a framed murder, and restore your honor. In doing so, you will bring an end to the samurai era and forever change the future of Japan. Draw your blade, load your revolver, and join the revolution in this heated historical adventure that only the creators of Yakuza: Like a Dragon could produce.
MotoGP 24 | PS4, PS5
As a new season dawns, the winds of change are sweeping through the pit crews. Embark on your quest to become a MotoGP legend and shape your own epic saga. Challenge your abilities and immerse yourself in the exhilarating journey of the 2024 campaign. From humble beginnings to triumphant heights, the path is yours to forge. Engage in thrilling rivalries, build your reputation, and leave your mark on the history of your beloved team.
The Sims 4 Island Living* (Add-on only) | PS4
Welcome to Sulani, where the sun shines bright and the nights are totally chill. Escape the ordinary and enjoy a laid-back lifestyle surrounded by beaches in The Sims 4 Island Living. Explore a breezy world drenched in sun, sand, and endless fun as your Sims make their own paradise. Set sail on the glistening water in your island canoe, swim to your heart’s content, and explore the scenery on a watercraft. Everything is chill (except for the occasional sunburn) when it’s Island Living.
*Requires the original game The Sims 4.
Digimon Survive | PS4
After getting lost on a school trip, Takuma Momozuka finds himself transported to a world inhabited by ferocious foes and new allies. Join Takuma and his friends as they fight their way back home. Digimon Survive is a hybrid visual novel and tactical RPG set in a mysterious world filled with dangerous monsters and deadly battles that will test your ability to survive. Persuade your opponents to join your team and evolve them to fight alongside you in thrilling turn-based battles. Unfold a dark tale about friendship and survival that is jam-packed with exciting drama, a unique cast of characters, and potentially grim choices.
Overcooked! All You Can Eat | PS4, PS5
Hold onto your chef hats and prepare your appetite for an XXL portion of Overcooked magic. Overcooked!, Overcooked! 2 and all additional content are blended together and remastered in this delicious definitive edition! Enjoy hundreds of levels of cooperative cooking chaos across increasingly perilous and obscure kitchens.
Stick Fight: The Game | PS4
Stick Fight is a physics-based couch/online fighting game where you battle it out as the iconic stick figures from the golden age of the internet. Fight it out against your friends or find random sticks from around the world!
Clash: Artifacts of Chaos | PS4, PS5
Drawing upon both surreal and punk fantasy influences, the world and civilisations of Zenozoik are brimming with fascinating characters, creatures and landscapes. You play as Pseudo, a master of martial arts who lives as a recluse in the strange land of Zenozoik. When you cross paths with the Boy, a small creature whose mysterious powers have attracted the attention of Gemini, the Mistress of the Artifacts, you decide to protect him, unaware that much greater forces are involved. Roam this intriguing land and discover its paths, inhabitants and ancient secrets.
Killer Frequency | PS4, PS5
The year is 1987, and as the clock strikes midnight in small-town Gallows Creek, USA, former big city radio DJ Forrest Nash is live on air in what will turn out to be the graveyard shift of a lifetime… In this horror comedy, you must solve puzzles to save callers from being hunted down by a mysterious killer. Where every call is life and death, can you save the inhabitants of Gallows Creek? Step into the shoes of a late-night radio talk-show host – new in town and fallen from grace. The Sheriff is dead, so the townsfolk turn to you for help. You, Forrest Nash, are the only person in town who can run a phone line.
Hungry Shark World | PS4
Become a shark and spread terror on the beach! Fight man, machine and beast as you explore tropical islands, sunken temples, vast cities and frozen icebergs. Enjoy discovering expansive levels with their own distinctive enemies, hidden treasures and unique missions. Take on everything the sea throws at you, from gruesome goblin sharks and the adorable porbeagle, to prehistoric monsters and giant submarines. With rebalanced enemies and pacing, there’s a challenge around every corner!
Chivalry 2 | PS4, PS5
Return to the ultimate medieval battlefield. Chivalry 2 is a multiplayer first person slasher inspired by epic medieval movie battles. Players are thrust into the action of every iconic moment of the era – from clashing swords, to storms of flaming arrows, to sprawling castle sieges and more. Charge headfirst into stunning 64-Player cinematic battles inspired by epic medieval action films. Pick your playstyle with 4 classes and 12 subclasses, each with their own unique weapons and abilities.
PlayStation Plus Premium
Synapse | PS VR2
Dual-wield brutal firepower and surging telekinesis in the ultimate mind-breaking VR action shooter. Unleash your inner anti-hero and invade the twisted subconscious of a notorious enemy of the state. Become a mind-breaking operative and wreak havoc on the enemy’s mind with deadly weaponry in one hand and expressive telekinetic abilities in the other. Combine your powers to overcome formidable defences and delve deeper into a hostile mindscape.
Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain | PS4, PS5
Ready yourself for next month’s launch of Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered by discovering the origins of this dark gothic fantasy franchise with the original PlayStation title Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. In this top-down action adventure, embark on an epic quest through a vampire kingdom fraught with murder, magic and vengeance. Journey through an expansive world containing more than 100 hours of intense, blood-sucking, spell-casting gameplay, and enjoy cinema-quality voice-overs, dynamic lighting effects and more than 25 minutes of full-motion-video footage.
Blood Omen 2 | PS4, PS5
Fierce attacks and brutal combos await in this action adventure, originally released on PS2 in 2002, after Soul Reaver 2’s launch the year previous. Blood Omen 2 will take you back to an alternate timeline set between the events of the first Blood Omen and Soul Reaver. Cast down from power by a mysterious warlord centuries ago, Kain reawakens in a world he barely recognizes. His armies slain, his vampire brethren nearly extinct, Kain is one of the last of his kind. With an agenda of vengeance, Kain shall unleash a wicked wrath to uncover the plot that threatens the land he seeks to conquer.
Resistance: Fall of Man
Epic military action and unnerving tension blend together in PS3’s 2006 first-person shooter Resistance: Fall of Man. Humanity faces annihilation as a relentless alien force known as the Chimera ravages Europe. Amidst the chaos, Nathan Hale emerges an unlikely hero, confronting unimaginable horrors while uncovering secrets that could change the course of the war.
Resistance 2
Initially released in 2008 on PS3, Resistance 2 is the continuation of Insomniac Games’ science-fiction FPS saga. Now on American soil, the alien Chimera threatens Hale’s humanity in a gripping race against time to put a stop to the invasion. Once again at the forefront of humanity’s fight for survival, Nathan Hale must lead his squad through desperate missions, as new weapons and giant boss encounters increase the scale of the conflict to new heights.
*PlayStation Plus Game Catalog and PlayStation Plus Premium/Deluxe lineups may differ by region. Please check PlayStation Store on release day.
We all want to be the very best Pokémon TCG player and collector, like no was ever was. We also all know the value of a bargain on booster boxes, big box premium collections, elite trainer boxes, and more. Black Friday 2024 should be loaded with Pokédeals, making it the best time of year to invest in some sealed products to rip open or hold on to.
Pokémon Card Deal Predictions for Black Friday
Grading Pokémon cards is also becoming more popular than ever before. Trainers won’t find cards in better condition than being pack fresh, but opening packs rather than buying singles can rack up a Gollum of cash. I’m a Pokémon Master, and the following products are on my radar for Black Friday 2024. Let’s get into it:
Big Box Deals
Pokémon TCG collectors worldwide know how good premium collections and other big box deals can be. We’re talking booster packs for less, epic promos thrown in, and other goodies such as pins and card sleeves. I think Black Friday 2024 at retailers like Amazon and Walmart will be packed with all kinds of big box deals, and here are the ones I think will make the cut:
Tins are a great way to collect some cool promos with a handful of boosters from various sets, especially at their often lower pricepoint when compared to high-end premium collections. They’re also an epic way to store bulk, dice, Pokécoins, and more. Here are the tins I think will be making the Black Friday rounds this year:
Need to complete a set sooner rather than later? Booster bundles are the offordable way to get multiple boosters to rip open in one sitting. Yes, booster boxes are ideal for collectors, but they’re mostly touching or well above $100. Booster bundles have six boosters per box for just north of $20, with Black Friday bringing price points down further. Here’s what I’m betting on:
Next to full-on booster boxes, elite trainer boxes are one of the best Pokémon TCG products to grab on a Black Friday deal. Containing eight or nine boosters, depending on the retailer and set, trainers get everything they need to battle, including unique dice, sleeves, card dividers, and a pack of energies. The main draw for ETBs is the promo card bundled in – they’re super collectable. Here are the ETBs I won’t need to flip a coin on when Black Friday hits:
Pokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet Stellar Crown Build & Battle
These stamped promo cards are usually distributed at pre-release events, but this is a chance for trainers to get ahold of one out of four from a new set. The box also contains four boosters and a 40-card readymade deck to battle opponents on the fly. This is one for promotional card collectors, so here are the ones I think will be showing up for Black Friday:
Deck Box? Check! Sleeves? Check! Four foil supporter cards (one being full art) and everything you need for a Pokémon Card battle? Check! These themed tournament collection boxes are a trainer card fan boys dream and a cheap way to get some exclusive swag for your themed deck. Here’s what I’m expecting on Black Friday:
Here’s where the Pokémagic happens! A Black Friday Pokémon TCG deal isn’t much without booster packs. Single sleeved boosters are fine, but what about 36 packs for a bargain? There’s no better time to invest in your collection, so here’s what I have on the cards for Black Friday:
Over the years, game retailers GOG have drifted from almost purely offering classic oldies to welcoming more and more modern blockbusters onto their storefront. In one sense, they’ve turned from a game preservation champion into a slightly dustier, DRM-less Steam. Now, though, GOG have declared a renewed focus on not just selling aged games, but on tweaking more of them to work on non-aged hardware. And you’ll be able to tell which games have got this restoration treatment from a fancy badge plastered on top of them.
The promotion includes significant savings, such as $25 off a $250 PlayStation gift card and $10 off a $100 card. These discounts are particularly valuable for those planning to purchase digital games, downloadable content, or subscriptions during the holiday sales period.
Think about it this way: There’s a 100% certainty of digital games sales over the Black Friday period, and these gift card discounts mean you can save even more. Or you could actually gift them, if you want? There are also discounts on Fortnite V-Bucks, Xbox Game Pass Core, and Roblox Digital Gift Cards if you’re so inclined.
With Nintendo already revealing its Black Friday plans, similar announcements from PlayStation and Xbox are expected in the coming days. For now, these gift card offers provide a timely chance to save ahead of the main sales event. Not a Prime member? Consider taking out a 30-day free trial and cover yourself for the whole Black Friday sales season.
What About PS Plus and Xbox Game Pass?
Black Friday often delivers discounts on gaming memberships like Game Pass and PlayStation Plus, so the first tip is to be patient. Additionally, these digital gift cards can be used to purchase subscriptions, making them a handy option if digital deals on memberships are announced soon. Otherwise, there’s a pretty great deal on Xbox Game Pass UItimate at Woot right now if you’re keen to grab a deal today.
When Is Black Friday 2024?
The actual date of Black Friday in 2024 falls on November 29 this year, but the deals have already kicked off. Leading up to the big event, retailers have begun to open deals online. Each day leading up to the event will slowly roll out more deals, which ultimately leads to massive discounts on Black Friday. Retailers will not reveal their biggest Black Friday deals until the big day, but most general deals will be available well in advance, such as this excellent discount on gift cards.
Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.
Theme park management sim Planet Coaster was all about making roller coasters that would push your park guests to the edge of puking up their overpriced burgers while making sure the excitement levels of your twisting rides remained high. Planet Coaster 2 wants to do that again, but this time adds water parks into the mix, with slides to design, pools to plop down, and raft rides that you can click together to form ambitiously speedy spirals. You can feel some creative pride when you look down on the watery wonderland you’ve made with these tools. But you may also wonder if it was worth the effort. As a newcomer to Planet management games, I’ve found this slippy sequel fiddly, cumbersome, and poorly explained.
Space conquest games are ten a penny, including some of the best war board games around, like Twilight Imperium and Eclipse. But for all their glory, they tend to follow a formula known as 4X: explore, expand, exploit and exterminate. That means capturing resources, climbing up a tech tree and fighting your neighbors, with all the potential for turtling and table talk that that involves. Arcs, by innovative designer Cole Wehrle, looks very much like its genre peers, but it promises to be something different: a sci-fi subjugation game that puts strategy front and center, while weaving the inbuilt instability of growing empires into the mix.
What’s in the Box
For a genre that traditionally comes with a ton of plastic and cardboard, Arcs arrives in a disarmingly small box that’s packed to the brim with goodies. It features wooden pieces rather than plastic, but its single spaceship design cutouts and agent pieces still look great on your table. Your other units, cities and spaceports, are represented by cardboard triangles. It’s all functional, and thematically austere, and you won’t miss the plastic at all.
One reason why such relatively plain components look so good is the instantly-recognizable art style of Kyle Ferrin which adorns the pieces, cards and board. It initially appears sketchy and amateurish until you see how much detail, character and consistency goes into his portrayals. Better known for his fantasy work on other titles from Leder Games such as Root and Oath, his transition to sci-fi is seamless and elevates the game’s appearance to the next level. The card art in particular, split across several decks, is a delight.
Genre veterans may be slightly surprised by the board, which is compact and features various administrative tracks alongside a circular map outlined in more Ferrin art. But like everything else in the box, it does exactly what it needs to do while looking surprisingly stylish, with neon tones standing out against a classic black space background. Some resource tokens, player mats and a hefty selection of custom combat dice round out the contents.
Rules and How it Plays
You might be surprised to find that a mutated derivative of classic playing card trick-taking, where one player leads a card suit and others have to follow, is at the heart of a 4x game. But that’s what we’ve got here, representing the player’s inability to perfectly control their forces. It’s a typical left-field move from Wehrle, whose creativity can make his games feel hard to grasp. Arcs is no exception, but the good news is that it’s both simpler and more familiar than most of his oeuvre, and you should have everything down quite comfortably by the end of your first session.
Leading is a significant advantage because it allows you to control the tempo of the entire turn. The suit of the card you play determines what actions you can take, such as building, moving or attacking other players, and the number of pips tells you how many of those actions you’re allowed. If you’re going first, you can also declare the ambition printed on the card, which is essentially deciding which facet of the game is going to be worth points on this round, such as having most of a particular resource, or destroying the most enemy pieces in battle, although doing so sets the numeric value of the card to zero.
Players following the leader have difficult decisions to make. If they can match the suit and play a higher value card – easy if the leader went with the ambition – then they can also take the named actions up the number of pips, plus they get to lead next round. Otherwise, their card only gets them a single action, either of the lead type or the type they played, with an option to discard another card to gain that precious lead slot.
Immediately, this snares everyone is a series of strategic traps. Leading is powerful, but if you declare an ambition, you’ll likely lose the initiative, yet if you don’t someone else may later pick a scoring opportunity that’s unfavorable to you. If you’re following, and you can’t beat the lead card, you need to consider whether the high, high price of discarding a card, leaving you out of later rounds completely, is worth it to grab the initiative. And that’s before we even get to what you’re actually going to do with your cards and actions.
Initially, this can feel suffocating, robbing you of choice and demanding pounds of flesh to get the initiative. But with experience you’ll learn there’s nuance here, a surprising amount of strategy around card-counting and timing. And much of the rest of Arcs is dedicated to ensuring you’ve got options, even in the most barren hands of cards imaginable, although there is, as always, a cost for exercising that flexibility.
One method is to sacrifice resources to gain actions. Giving up a fuel allows you to move, for example, or a material to build or repair. Doing so, however, puts you at a disadvantage for ambitions based on that resource, and you’ll need some of that resource in the first place. You gain resources via the tax action on cities, and the planet they’re on determines which resource you get. You start with two cities, so to gain access to new resource types you need to move a fleet there, either battle to take control or build to found a new city, then tax to get your token. It’s no small undertaking, with a whole series of strategic trade-offs to get there.
The other ameliorating factor are guild cards. There are always a selection of four available, and they provide various new powers and resources. Mining Interest will get you a material resource, for example, while Lattice Spies can be discarded to seize the initiative. Getting a card requires two actions: influence, which lets you place agent pieces on an unclaimed card, and secure, which allows you to take a card on which you have a majority of agents. As always, there’s a sting: if another player claims a card on which you have agents, they capture them. This not only deprives you of their use, but the tally of captured agents is another point-scoring opportunity.
Hopefully you can begin to sell the wheels within wheels within wheels of planning a turn in Arcs. Everything is deviously and brilliantly reliant on everything else. Nothing can be achieved without risk or sacrifice. The game hands you all the tools you need to manage this fraught state of affairs but tells you nothing about how to use them: some of the aspects don’t even look like tools at first, just infuriating bits of chaos or mechanical straitjackets that exist only to annoy until you encounter the circumstance in which you can leverage them, and comprehension dawns like an alien sun rising over an extraterrestrial world. But even as you gain experience, trying to make everything join up, to push all the buttons to your advantage, is a fascinating, difficult, multi-faceted challenge that doesn’t get old.
And I haven’t even got to the fact that all the other players will be trying their best to sabotage your plans. Nothing stops players negotiating or making deals so, atop that solid mechanical core, this is a red-blooded game of dynamic aggression, where both dynamic and aggression are the operative words. The movement system and circular board makes it very hard to defend yourself, or to turtle in corners. You might get one speedbump to slow an enemy fleet en route to your major systems, but that’s it. This ensures every turn when battle actions are available ramp up the tension, as everyone tries to be first to take the fight to the enemy.
When fights do erupt, they’re governed by a fascinating, novel dice mechanic. For each ship they have, the attack can choose a type of dice to roll. Skirmish dice have a 50-50 chance of inflicting minor damage. Assault dice are far more punishing, but they carry a risk of damaging your own ships. Raid dice are the most dangerous for the attacker, but they allow you to steal resources from your opponent. The risk versus reward ratio is very much on you, but pieces can take two hits each and the attacker gets to allocate all damage. So Arcs rewards aggression, since the attacking player can eliminate enemy pieces while distributing damage among their own.
A few years ago, Square Enix announced it would be doing a remake of Dragon Quest III in its popular HD-2D engine, but this was then followed by a lengthy period of radio silence where its development status seemed uncertain. While they were at it, the developers decided to go ahead and remake the first and second Dragon Quests, too. Now that Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is finally here, we’re happy to report that the wait has been well worth it. Though it isn’t without drawbacks, this is easily the most feature-rich and enjoyable version of Dragon Quest III available.
Released in Japan in 1988, Dragon Quest III hails from a much simpler era, so the narrative is considerably less detailed than one you may find in a title from subsequent decades. You begin as a nameless warrior, the child of a once-legendary hero, now called upon to take up your father’s mantle and save the world from the threat of an evil dark lord. There’s not much character development to speak of, nor narrative depth—your character is essentially a blank slate and your party members are basically animated cardboard cutouts with some stats and gear attached. Though there are ultimately some clever tie-ins to other releases in the series and some new cutscenes to flesh out your father’s role, the plot amounts to little more than ‘there’s a bad dude out there; go get him!’
