When The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was announced a few years back, the general response was “who on Middle-earth would want to play as Gollum”. I’m wondering if Atari and Graphite Lab’s “creative sequel” to Pong, aka Qomp2, will face a similar reception. Released in the 70s, the original Pong was videogame tennis. In this reinvention – which, confusingly, is also a sequel to Stuffed Wombat’s Qomp, with the Pong branding sort of ladled on top – the homely pixel ball has shattered one player’s paddle and escaped into an Axiom Verge-esque labyrinth of spikes, energy beams and floating T-Rex heads. Filing this premise somewhere on the “what if” spectrum between the Edge line about talking to the monsters in DOOM and people demanding to land on gas giants in Starfield. Find a trailer through the jump.
The new retro-inspired RPG Sea of Stars made its debut on the Nintendo Switch and multiple other platforms this week, and it’s already off to an incredibly strong start.
In an update on social media thanking fans for their support, developer Sabotage revealed the game sold 100,000 copies on its first day of availability. That’s quite an impressive feat for an indie game and considering there are many more playing the title on Xbox’s Game Pass service.
Konami has announced that it is delaying Suikoden I & II HD Remaster: Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars. However, Konami didn’t specify a new release date.
In a statement on its website, Konami said, “Regarding the planned release of Suikoden I & II HD Remaster: Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars, we have reached the conclusion that despite the very best efforts of our dedicated development staff to release the Remasters in 2023, additional time is needed to ensure the quality performance and gameplay experience our users deserve.”
Konami didn’t actually provide a new release date, just that the development team needs more time to work on the game. Konami also didn’t explicitly state that the remaster was delayed to 2024, but its phrasing heavily implies that it will most likely not be coming out this year anymore.
Suikoden I & II HD Remaster: Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars was first announced in 2022 and set for a 2023 release. At Tokyo Game Show last year, Konami confirmed that it would fix the original’s flawed localization, as well as add modern features such as enhanced graphics and quality of life options like being able to speed up battles.
The game will launch for PC, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One.
A spiritual successor to the Suikoden series, Eiyuden Chronicles: Hundred Heroes, is being developed by former Konami employees at Rabbit & Bear Studios. It was also recently announced that the game was being delayed to Q2 2024.
George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. He’s been writing about the industry since 2019 and has worked with other publications such as Insider, Kotaku, NPR, and Variety.
When not writing about video games, George is playing video games. What a surprise! You can follow him on Twitter @Yinyangfooey
Nintendo is still showing strong support for its team-based squid shooter Splatoon 3. With this in mind, it’s now announced it will be releasing an update very soon, bumping the title up to Version 5.0.0.
This update features a number of seasonal and catalog changes, a bunch of other balance adjustments and many bug fixes. Below are the full patch notes, courtesy of Nintendo’s official support page.
There are a lot of Picross-style nonogram games available on PC these days, but many of them fail to inspire the easy, compulsive fugue of Picross itself. I’m hoping Logiart Grimoire will achieve such numbing delights when it launches into Steam Early Access next month. It’s got the pedigree for it, given that it’s made by Jupiter Corporation, the creator of all those original Picross games for Nintendo devices.
Baldur’s Gate 3’s next big patch is releasing soon, and by all accounts it will be a chonky one, featuring a host of performance improvements and other fixes. Even better, Patch 2 will apparently address Minthara, who has been hobbled by what director Swen Vincke describes as a “very, very stupid bug.”
Speaking with IGN ahead of Patch 2’s release, Vincke talked about how the scope of Baldur’s Gate 3 can cause cascading reactions that can sometimes lock out content by accident. Such is the case with Baldur’s Gate 3’s drow murderess.
“The game is super reactive and there were a couple of bugs that caused some of the companions to not react as they should. And so that felt like the content was not showing up. So you weren’t seeing it specifically with Minthara,” Vincke explained. “So [lead writer Adam Smith] told me there’s about 1500 lines of Minthara that weren’t showing up as a result of a very, very stupid bug that we now isolated. So we’re solving it.”
Vincke said that the Minthara lines “worked” in previous versions, but that “something else caused them to not work anymore.” Such is the challenge of making a complicated, interlocking RPG filled with thousands of tiny interactions.
‘We’ll see if we can do something extra for her’
Talking about the team’s overall vision off for Minthara, Vincke says she went through “a few iterations.” One key distinction is that she’s not an origin character, meaning you can’t play her from the start. In essence, she’s what Vincke describes as a “sidekick.”
“She’s there to actually serve another character that you meet later on in the game, one of the antagonists,” he says. “So, she was supposed to bring a different light on that antagonist in there.”
He continues, “It doesn’t help that some of her lines are not triggering. So that doesn’t do her justice. But she never had a real actual quest — an origin quest… what you have for some of the others inside of act 3.. So people that were looking for that, it’s just not there.”
“There was a variation that they discovered of Minthara that we removed because it became too complicated. Then we didn’t have the real estate across the game anymore to tell that story. So, they found some fragments of it. But I mean, every single companion that you’ve been playing has gone through those multiple iterations. So, it’s not that it’s something like we massively cut something there. It’s just that Minthara also serves the power fantasy of going for evil.”
[W]e’ll first fix what her problem is that blocks her content, and then we’ll see how she’s going to land with the fence, and then we’ll see if we can do something extra with her
Still, Larian Studios are leaving the door open for more development in the future.
“[W]e’ll first fix what her problem is that blocks her content, and then we’ll see how she’s going to land with the fans, and then we’ll see if we can do something extra with her. I mean, the feedback to the game has been phenomenal and overwhelming for us. So, it’s definitely much more than we expected. So, we’re taking it all in, and then we’re…filtering through it. And so we’ll see where it goes,” Vincke says
“We made this game for the players, for them to enjoy it. If there’s things that don’t really land, I think you can be rest assured that we’ll probably do something about it at some point, except that we can’t do miracles. We’re still a limited team with a limited amount of people that have been working very, very hard on making this.”
In addition to restoring access to Minthara’s content, Vincke says fans can expect a new epilogue for fan-favorite Karlach (he cryptically hints that if you see a cigar you’ll know that you’ve found the new content), and that it will “make a lot of people happy.” It will also include improvements to co-op as well as a “number of other things people have been asking about.”
Tekken 8 for PlayStation 5 is the latest entry in the Tekken series, a legendary 3D fighting game series that has sold more than 55 million copies worldwide. The visuals have been completely overhauled from Tekken 7 with all-new, high-resolution playable character models. Small details like the way water droplets run down the characters’ skin and the subtle movements of their hair and muscles are also highlights of the game.
We spoke with Kohei Ikeda, Director of Tekken 8, about how the game taps into the power of PS5 while pushing the limits of the console’s capabilities and technology.
The high-res character models and the overall details are major game highlights. How did you take advantage of the power of PS5 to achieve those visuals?
With Tekken 8, our goal was to replicate the intricacies of the human body, such as the stretching and contraction of muscles and sweat trickling down the skin. For example, the bone structure required to move a playable character in Tekken 8 is more than double that of the previous game. The PS5’s processing performance made these implementations possible and was successful in replicating more natural muscle movements.
Furthermore, not only the sweat but flushed skin, dirt, and the blood vessels on strained muscles are rendered in real-time and transition seamlessly depending on what is happening in-game. These effects enable a more authentic and immersive gaming experience. The advanced visuals are achieved through smooth 60 fps that fully utilize PS5’s GPU processing power.
How did you leverage the game’s unique PS5 features, such as haptic feedback?
One of our key pillars during the development of Tekken 8 was the phrase: All-Out Force x Destruction. Haptic feedback plays an important role as a means of providing an exciting experience that brings the idea of all-out combat and destruction to life.
For example, during battles, players can fully experience the sensation of heightened concentration when activating the new Heat System, the power of Rage Arts, and the feeling of the stage being destroyed through the rumbles and haptics of the controller.
In addition, Story Mode delivers dynamic fights and experiences that allow the player to directly feel the clashes of immense power, as well as the subtle vibrations of characters riding their motorcycles. These elements all work together to heighten the immersion of the story itself.
How did you utilize 3D audio?
Tekken 8 utilizes 3D audio formats like Ambisonics and object-based audio to create an immersive soundscape. We leveraged these methods for everything, including sound effects during battles, stage ambiance, various gimmicks, and even reverb. This provides players with a more realistic and lifelike sound experience.
In addition, all the cutscenes in Story Mode are produced in 7.1.4ch, which dynamically ties the sound and footage together. By enabling 3D audio, players can feel like they’re inside the story.
In addition to the traditional Arcade Style that requires command inputs, Tekken 8 introduces a new innovative control method called Special Style, which makes the game feel more like an action game designed for casual players. During Tekken 8’s development, what elements did you intentionally choose to change or not to change?
The thrill and excitement players feel through controlling their characters and performing tactical moves are constant throughout the series. On top of that, to achieve our concept of aggressive battles, we introduced a variety of new elements to Tekken 8. One of the elements that we focused on is the Special Style. This control method was designed so all players can experience the thrill of playing Tekken.
Special Style assigns each button with a recommended move and combo for each character, selected from more than 100 available move sets. This allows players to enjoy battles with easier controls that feel more like an action game. For beginners, it lowers the barrier for entry and allows them to easily enjoy the unique fun of the Tekken series.
This feature also allows intermediate and advanced players to try their hand at characters they’re unfamiliar with, as they can seamlessly switch between the traditional Arcade Style and Special Style with a single button press during battles.
What are some of your favorite PS5 games that have been released so far? From a developer’s perspective, how do you feel that the game takes advantage of the capabilities of PS5?
I’d say Final Fantasy XVI. The stunning visual quality, attention to detail, fantastical story, and seamless transitions between the intense Eikon battles culminate into an epic experience that draws in both players and viewers.
The game’s action sequences were also excellent, with beautiful VFX combined with the character animations. You can feel the game directly through the controller, and the magnificent background music was also spectacular.
If a strategy game gets its hooks into you, it can easily consume hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of your life. That either makes Steam’s latest sale of strategy games absurdly good value for money, or an assault upon productivity everywhere.
Released in 2006, Dark Messiah Of Might And Magic made the most of still-novel physics tech by letting you torment orcs with slippy floors, collapsing log piles, and swift kicks directly into spikes. These slapstick delights made it a cult classic, but rights-holders Ubisoft haven’t done much with the game since.
Now a group of modders have been given a “completely blank check” by Ubisoft to do what they want with their efforts to build a modding SDK for the nearly 20-year-old game, and their ambitions include co-op and raytracing.
A Baldur’s Gate 3 player has just shared their detailed notes from a playthrough of the game in which they tried to get the absolute worst story outcomes for every single character. All except for Scratch the dog.
In a Reddit thread, u/Sparkism provided a detailed guide to ruining the day of every single Baldur’s Gate 3 character systematically through all three acts. Surprisingly, this is more complex than it seems: while it may feel like the easiest way to do this is to just murder everyone, some characters actually have a better time if certain other characters are dead, so they had to get creative to make things as abysmal for everyone as possible.
Warning: Light spoilers for act one of Baldur’s Gate 3 are detailed below. Read on at your own risk!
For instance, Sparkism’s guide recommends saving Oskar from the Zhentarim in their hideout. Him being alive plays an important role later in the game, as it makes another character miserable who would otherwise be happy if he never comes home. Similarly, while players are advised to kill Karlach and Gale early on (or, by inaction, let them die), Astarion, Wyll, and Lae’zel need to be recruited to cause further misery down the line.
Other interactions are a little more obvious, though. Sparkism recommends smashing the bard Alfira’s lute, saving the Tiefling from the Bugbear assassin only to throw her off a cliff, and camping outside the burning inn while everyone roasts to death inside. It’s a pretty grim playthrough!
We don’t want to spoil anything farther in than that for those who are still working their way through the game, but suffice to say, Sparkism’s playthrough really does leave everyone completely unhappy. Many characters are dead after suffering their worst nightmares, while those left alive are stuck cursed, miserable, and mourning various losses.
Scratch and the Owlbear cub are fine, though
Notably, the guide has players recruit both Scratch the dog and the Owlbear cub, and then mercifully spares them from any harm the rest of the run. After all, neither of them did anything wrong ever. Everyone else in the game, though, has sinned at least once and deserves retribution.
Sparkism’s run is a glorious example of the level of player freedom available in Baldur’s Gate 3, and it sounds like even more may be on the way. A major patch is planned for later this week that Larian says will fix performance issues as well as add in some previously unavailable content for certain characters’ epilogues. This is all satisfiying since players have been complaining that characters such as Minthara and Karlach have unsatisfying late-game stories.
When The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was announced a few years back, the general response was “who on Middle-earth would want to play as Gollum”. I’m wondering if Atari and Graphite Lab’s “creative sequel” to Pong, aka Qomp2, will face a similar reception. Released in the 70s, the original Pong was videogame tennis. In this reinvention – which, confusingly, is also a sequel to Stuffed Wombat’s Qomp, with the Pong branding sort of ladled on top – the homely pixel ball has shattered one player’s paddle and escaped into an Axiom Verge-esque labyrinth of spikes, energy beams and floating T-Rex heads. Filing this premise somewhere on the “what if” spectrum between the Edge line about talking to the monsters in DOOM and people demanding to land on gas giants in Starfield. Find a trailer through the jump.
