“It becomes easier for other companies to follow suit”.
Since Switch 2 launched, one of the hottest topics has been Game Key Cards – physical items which unlock digital downloads.
Critics have said Game Key Cards are anti-consumer, and Japan’s National Library has since decreed that they cannot be considered eligible for preservation, which stands to reason, as the Game Key Card contains no actual game data.
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Operation Brawl.
Well howdy y’all, and welcome to another edition of Box Art Brawl!
Last week, we looked at Forsaken for the N64, which yes, we’ll admit wasn’t the most inspiring duo of box art designs. Nevertheless, North America managed to seal the deal with 59% of the vote. Well done!
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Mario’s cosmic adventures return this October.
Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2 is returning this October as a two-in-one package on the Switch for $69.99 / £58.99.
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Set sail on Switch 2 with “enhanced graphics” and more.
Fans of the long-running anime and manga series One Piece can look forward to One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition.
The Switch 2 version was announced during the latest Nintendo Direct broadcast, with a brief trailer revealing it will be made available in fall 2025.
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And save data from Switch cannot be transferred.
During this week’s Nintendo Direct broadcast, Square Enix announced it would be bringing Dragon Quest VII: Reimagined to the Switch and Switch 2 in early 2026.
Since then, an FAQ page for this title has gone live on the official Dragon Quest website in Japan, and it’s confirmed there is no upgrade path currently available or planned for the Switch version. Here it is in full:
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You might not think of it as one, but Wikipedia is a game. It has untold numbers of characters and stories, each page an interactive slate with your mouse and hand acting as the choice maker for what you learn next, thus impacting your following choices. This is, admittedly, a bit of a wanky, thinkpiecey way of talking about Wikipedia, so instead of that let’s talk about Neurocracy, a game that could quite easily fool you into thinking it is another version of Wikipedia.
Getting your game a publishing deal has never been an easy thing to do. Right now, it’s especially hard given that for many publishers, if it doesn’t seem like a guaranteed hit, it likely isn’t something they’ll take on. This is something that Vampire Survivors developer Poncle, or rather the actual person, Luca Galante, takes great issue with, and in a recent interview he spoke more broadly of his issues with publishers, and his thoughts on now being one.
In general these days it’s never a good time to release a video game unless you’re Rockstar, but in recent months it’s been made even harder due to numerous payment processors cracking down on digital storefronts like Valve and Itch.io. There’s a host of reasons this is problematic, but one less spoken about how this is also an issue of preservation. GOG, another digital storefront, this one owned by The Witcher developer CD Projekt, is known for their preservation efforts, and in a recent interview they shared a bit of their thoughts in relation to these recent issues regarding payment processors.
Randy Pitchford has responded to complaints about the console version of Borderlands 4 lacking a field of view (FOV) slider, suggesting fairness may have something to do with it.
PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S players of Borderlands 4 were shocked to discover not only a lack of a FOV slider in-game, but no motion blur toggle, either. The PC version of Borderlands 4 has settings for both — in the case of FOV you can increase the value in degrees up to 110 for both first-person play and vehicle use, and for motion blur you can change the amount and the quality.
The lack of a FOV slider is the biggest issue right now with Borderlands 4 on console, if anecdotal evidence across the internet is anything to go by, with some complaining that not being able to tweak the FOV value is causing them motion sickness.
“Man, I’ve tried to play it twice today,” said redditor xInsaneAbilityx. “Both times I get that ‘car-sick’ feel after about 15 minutes and have to stop.” “Yeah I’m pretty sensitive to motion sickness and a narrow FOV in first-person makes me really dizzy. Combining that with motion blur just churns my stomach,” added Dallywack3r. “This game feels almost zoomed in, it‘s really not pleasant to play,” said christophlieber.
There are also suggestions the console version of Borderlands 4 lacks a FOV slider in order to maintain certain performance levels. By increasing the FOV, you’re putting the hardware under more strain and potentially impacting things like framerate.
But social media posts from Gearbox development chief Randy Pitchford suggest one of the considerations is fairness.
“Quickie for console friends: FOV settings,” Pitchford began. “There’s some dreams I have where an FOV setting might affect fairness. I can’t really talk about it yet, but I see this is important to you so we’re looking at it.”
Pitchford included a vote in his social media post, which, after nearly 25,000 votes, reveals just how important a FOV slider is to his followers. At the time of this article’s publication, the option “FOV slider or GTFO!” had 72% of the vote.
The outspoken Gearbox boss went on to say players “have no idea what the team and I were planning and how FOV slider might affect fairness with such a thing.”
He added: “That said, I’ve always want to commit to and prioritize what Borderlands should be versus try to turn it into something it should. My hope is for my/our ambitions to be additive, not subtractive.”
Quickie for console friends: FOV settings: There’s some dreams I have where an FOV setting might affect fairness. I can’t really talk about it yet, but I see this is important to you so we’re looking at it. Vote here:
— Randy Pitchford (@DuvalMagic) September 12, 2025
So, what is Pitchford actually saying here? The “fairness” quote has caused some confusion. Could it relate to an upcoming PvP mode? If so, why would the PC version have it? Right now, Borderlands 4 is a PvE co-op game, so the line about “fairness” has raised more than a few eyebrows.
Some are wondering if Pitchford is talking about fairness in terms of the performance of the game giving some players an advantage. The higher the FOV, the more the player can see, versus the lower the FOV the more stable the frames are. Perhaps both give some level of advantage?
“What does ‘fairness’ even mean?’ asked redditor buddachickentml. “Basically being impartial to all players without favoritism. Fairness to all,” suggested Wolf-O7. “Funny enough it’s completely backwards though. Because console players aren’t being treated fairly compared to their counterpart on PC. (Especially since this sort of sounds like a PVP mode the way he makes it seem).” Then, from Airaen: “Yeah, how is it fair that PC players can change the FoV and console players can’t?” “Fairness in a PvE game? Will you ban ultrawide monitors?” said on social media user.
Borderlands 4 supports crossplay between all platforms at launch, so Pitchford’s comments are doubly confusing.
As for motion blur, in another social media post Pitchford told console players “we aren’t down with motion blur and do not support it.” He continued: “If you’re seeing what seems to be motion blur, maybe check your television settings for whatever automatic BS it might be doing to your image? It’s not us.”
But again, that comment is confusing given there are motion blur settings in Borderlands 4 on PC.
Whatever Pitchford means here, Borderlands 4 has got off to a big start on Steam. It’s approaching a peak concurrent player count of 300,000 on Valve’s platform, where it is one of the most-played games. No other Borderlands game has come close to that in terms of concurrent player numbers on Steam.
Pitchford declared it impossible to break the Borderlands 4 servers this weekend through sheer weight of player numbers alone — and he’s so confident he’s publicly promised that Borderlands 4 won’t join the long list of big AAA games whose online systems fail at launch.
While Borderlands 4 is off to a big start in terms of player numbers, it’s not entirely plain sailing for Gearbox. The release was marred by complaints about PC performance that have resulted in a ‘mixed’ user review rating on Valve’s platform. The complaints revolve around poor performance even on high powered PCs, with some affected by crashing that makes the game difficult to even start.
In response, Gearbox posted a Borderlands 4 Nvidia Optimization guide on Steam, advising players how to optimize their graphics settings for “better performance and framerates” on PC with the Nvidia app.
Gearbox then issued a piece of advice to PC gamers that to me reads like an effort to prevent players from making knee-jerk reactions to the game’s performance as soon as they’ve changed their settings: “Please note that any time you change any of your graphics settings, your shaders will need to recompile. Please keep playing for at least 15 minutes to see how your PC’s performance has changed.”
If you are delving into Borderlands 4 don’t go without updated hourly SHiFT codes list. We’ve also got a huge interactive map ready to go and a badass Borderlands 4 planner tool courtesy of our buds at Maxroll. Plus check out our expert players’ choices for which character to choose (no one agreed).
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
I don’t play online games particularly often, mostly the only ones that I do enjoy are the kind of games I can play with just my friends. People are mean, you see, and I have a sensitive soul, and also I often find them deeply boring conceptually and in practice. Take of that what you will in relation to this story about Dota 2! Moving on swiftly to a topic that I promise connects to this intro, Gabe Newell! He is a co-founder of Valve, and a noted Dota 2 lover. He also, apparently, is someone who is often subjected to ridicule while playing the very same game his company makes.
