A Platinum Points prize if you missed out last time.
Around this time last year, Nintendo revealed a swanky Tears of the Kingdomglow-in-the-dark keychain as a My Nintendo reward. It disappeared pretty swiftly, with many clamouring to splash their prized Platinum Points on the product, but now, it’s back.
Yes, the exclusive reward has been restocked on both the European and North American My Nintendo Stores. For just 600 Platinum Points in Europe and 550 in the US (plus shipping, of course), you can get your (ultra)hands on the reward that escaped so many of us last time.
Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead has announced plans to roll back changes made to patrols and spawn rates following a recent patch after admitting the PlayStation Network controversy was the focus of its attention in recent weeks.
Arrowhead butted heads with Sony over the Helldivers 2 IP owner and publisher’s decision to force PC players to link their accounts to PlayStation Network in order to continue playing. Sony eventually backed down, although not before a Steam review bombing campaign that looks set to become the inspiration for a new in-game cape.
Clearly, events of the past few weeks have taken their toll on Arrowhead staff, who have had to contend with a player revolt while also trying to work with Sony on a change of policy. Community manager Twinbeard had said the PSN controversy was a huge tax on resources: “… when sth like the PSN-gate (TM) happens, a lot of things come to a halt. Many of us at AH more or less ‘lost’ a week due to this, and only now are slowly getting back to what we were doing before all of this (and that’s even with it not being entirely resolved as well).”
Now, in a new statement issued to the Helldivers Discord, Twinbeard announced the studio’s intention to address patrols and spawn rate following what has been a “hectic” past couple of weeks.
“As many of you have noticed, something has been off with patrols and spawn rate for some time now,” Twinbeard said.
“This primarily leads to more enemies rearing their ugly heads than they’re supposed to, indirectly to players feeling overrun, kiting, and subsequently less fun gameplay. This has been the case for all players, but predominantly for smaller teams and solo playing. We’ve been aware, but frankly, the past couple of weeks have been so hectic that we haven’t been able to give this the TLC that it required. We now have, and we’ve concluded that it’s not working as intended and we’re changing it.
“There might be some minor tweaks, but overall we’re reverting back to how patrols and spawn rate worked before the patch that changed them a few weeks ago. We believe that this is more or less how you currently want them to be.
“We also know you want us to do things and changes properly instead of rushing them, and we do as well. Therefore, implementing this will take some time. We want to give it proper testing and review it… ah heck, simply see that it works this time. Even if this means we’re faced with more bugs and bots than even the bravest of citizens would deem realistic for a while longer, we hope you’re happy with us fixing the problem.
“Onwards and upwards!”
“… frankly, the past couple of weeks have been so hectic that we haven’t been able to give this the TLC that it required.
Twinbeard’s statement touches on a call from the Helldivers 2 community for Arrowhead to take more time with its balance patches, and even slow down the release of new weapons and gear via what have so far been monthly Premium Warbonds. The feeling at the moment is Arrowhead is feeding the Helldivers 2 live service beast too often and to the detriment of other parts of the game, such as weapon balance and gameplay, and that new content added to the game fails to make an impact.
Earlier this month, Arrowhead boss Johan Pilestedt acknowledged that weapon nerfs had gone “too far in some areas” while responding to complaints the studio had patched the fun out of the explosive PC and PlayStation 5 shooter. “It feels like every time someone finds something fun, the fun is removed,” Pilestedt admitted.
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 has added three new Game Boy games to the Nintendo Switch Online library of titles, each a launch title for the handheld.
The headline addition is Super Mario Land, the classic mini-Mario platformer that launched on Nintendo’s handheld console back in 1989.
Next is Alleyway, another classic 1989 Game Boy game developed by Nintendo and Intelligent Systems as a launch title for the handheld. This Breakout clone was one of the first four games released for the Game Boy.
And finally, Baseball rounds out the list of additions. Nintendo’s sports game first launched for the Famicom in Japan in 1983 before hitting it out the park on the NES in 1985. The Game Boy version launched alongside the console in 1989.
To properly celebrate 35 years of the Game Boy system, we have to take it back to year one! Game Boy launched in 1989, and with it arrived classic titles such as Baseball, Alleyway and the first Super Mario game available on the system, Super Mario Land. Today, Nintendo Switch Online members can play all three of these original launch titles as the latest additions to the Game Boy – Nintendo Switch Online library. All just in time for the system’s 35th anniversary!
Interestingly, Nintendo Switch Online Japan gets an extra game: The Frog For Whom the Bell Tolls. This Nintendo and Intelligent Systems-developed action role-playing game was released for the Game Boy exclusively in Japan in 1992.
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’s Switch revival of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is going to refresh the game with some additional content and features, and with this in mind, its social media account has now highlighted the new galleries in the game.
This includes an art gallery and a sound gallery, where you’ll be able to see all sorts of cool concept art and designs, as well as individual sound bytes of characters and more. If you are returning player, this will might add some extra value to the package. Here’s a look at the official screenshots Nintendo has released via its social channels. You can also click on the post below to see these galleries in motion.
Nintendo has added three more Game Boy classics to the Switch Online service today. Here’s the rundown: Alleyway, Baseball and Super Mario Land (finally).
Since this month’s Community Update is on the lighter side with regard to specific projects, we’ve decided to try something a little different. In addition to the usual fare, we’ve included some highlights from our recently released features and bug fixes. Let us know if you enjoy these callouts and we’ll keep them in moving forward!
Enterprise
We’re making headway on some continued improvements to the Xbox Insiders subreddit. We’ve had a few internal discussions around content planning and support improvements, so we’re hopeful those will bear fruit soon. Granted, there’s still much to be done to truly get things where we’d like, but we’ve really appreciated all the continued feedback and discussions around the changes so far. Keep ‘em coming!
State of Gold
We’ve seen quite a few different features land across our entire ecosystem in the past couple of weeks. On the console side of things, we enabled the ability to remember up to ten different WiFi Networks for all Alpha & Alpha Skip-Ahead users (Alpha Ring (2406.240429-2000)). Additionally, just yesterday, Alpha users received “Update Pre-download” for games that have enabled that feature (Alpha Ring (2406.240509-2000)).
Over in the PC/Cloud realm, we had a big update to Compact Mode go live to all PC Xbox Insiders that included a handful of new experiences (Compact Mode continues evolving in the Xbox App on PC). We also enabled a suite of “User Content Management” features for Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta) that all Xbox Insiders can enjoy (Xbox App [2405.1000.39.0]).
These are just a few of the numerous improvements we’ve made across our platforms recently, so remember to regularly check our Console and PC release notes at their new home! Also, if you’re thinking to yourself, “These are mostly going to Alpha/Alpha Skip-Ahead! I can’t get them yet!” I may or may not have good news coming soon for those of you that are recently highly experienced and want to join those rings.
Integral
Finally, we want to call attention to a few Community-driven fixes that were made possible specifically due to the efforts of Xbox Insiders’ feedback. For both a notification issue, as well as a party chat/game chat issue, the feedback that was submitted was instrumental in determining the root cause and delivering a fix for the platform. We greatly appreciate all the feedback that we receive from our Xbox Insiders, and we’ll continue to highlight this in future Community Updates.
It’s Been a Pleasure
As always, I hope everyone enjoyed this installment of the Xbox Insider Program Community Update. If you want to chat about this—and everything else XIP—hop on over to the r/XboxInsiders subreddit or throw us a follow @xboxinsider.
It’s best not to put too much stock in Gundam Breaker 4’s name. Despite its title, it’s not the fourth game in the series. That honor goes to New Gundam Breaker, which Bandai Namco prefers to overlook due to its middling reviews and overall poor reputation with the fanbase. Instead, Gundam Breaker 4 will be the fifth console release in the now decade-old series, and what Bandai Namco hopes will be a fresh start for the franchise overall.
In an exclusive interview with IGN, Masanori Tanaka says that the team collected “a lot” of feedback from New Gundam Breaker before heading into Gundam Breaker 4. The main takeaway? Fans were confused about the number. But more importantly, they wanted the series to get back to what it did best: letting players smash up AI-controlled mobile suits to build up new and bizarre designs of their own.
“New Gundam Breaker was [player-versus-player] focused,” Tanaka explains. “Now we’re actually focusing on PvE for Gundam Breaker 4. So that’s a change that was made from the feedback…now we can focus on supporting the quality and letting the game evolve. So for example, the diorama mode [a new mode that lets you pose your models in various scenes] is one of those things. And just refining the action compared to the previous game.”
Gundam Breaker gets back to basics
First released on Playstation 3 and Vita back in 2013, Gundam Breaker earned a following by leaning into the franchise’s pervasive model culture, colloquially known as “Gunpla.” The series takes a traditional hack-and-slash approach to its gameplay, but what makes it stand out is the ability to mix-and-match parts from real-life model kits to create your own ridiculous designs. The unintentional hilarity of these digital kitbash creations taps into an enduring part of the Gundam subculture.
Now we can focus on supporting the quality and letting the game evolve
The series continued through three entries before getting a reboot of sorts with New Gundam Breaker. New Gundam Breaker was criticized for being unpolished and for stripping down the customization and story, hence the return to numbered entries. With Gundam Breaker 4, Bandai Namco is eager to emphasize that it has heard fan feedback and that it is returning to what worked by pivoting back to a more single-player focused experience and optional co-op.
Among other things, the customization has been beefed up, including adding the ability to dual wield one-handed weapons and equip different arms. To emphasize the enhancements to the customization, Kentaro Matano shows off his own creation – a monstrous pink Ball with a bear head, Neo-Zeong legs, and claws.
“So as you saw, you could change the background, highly customizable, different colors. You can also add weathering which we weren’t even able to show you,” Matano says, referencing a popular technique used by model-builders to add realism to their designs. “So there’s just really vast amounts of combinations that users can just let their creativity just run wild. So those are really the focus.”
Players will have plenty of parts to choose from. With Witch From Mercury proving popular with fans on both sides of the Pacific, Gundam Breaker 4 will feature the Gundam Aerial and Daribalde in what will be the largest roster of models to date, as well as a full English dub.
Technical trade-offs on Switch
Notably, Gundam Breaker 4 will mark the franchise’s debut on the Nintendo Switch after mostly sticking with PlayStation (it’s also releasing on PS4, PS5, and Steam). Asked if there are any technical compromises fans can expect, Tanaka says it will mostly feature a lower framerate, subsequently clarifying that it will be 60fps on PS5 and 30fps on Nintendo Switch..
“I believe the only major technical thing you might see on the Switch is just a different framerate compared to the other platforms,” Tanaka explains. “It might be a slightly different experience compared to a different platform so that our fans can be able to play with the understanding of what they will get on the different platforms. But overall, just the actual gameplay itself, it won’t be a huge difference.”
One way or another, it will be a fresh start for Gundam Breaker 4 as it seeks to reestablish itself with old fans and new fans alike. “We want our fans to really take in Gundam Breaker 4,” says Matano, “because we read everything, we read all the feedback…to create the next generation, the next game with everyone’s feedback.”
Gundam Breaker 4 will release August 29 on Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, and PC. Check out all the rest of the biggest games of 2024 right here.
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.
Hey, Xbox Wire readers! Fred Hoffman here, the better of the two brothers behind
Newfangled Games. I can hardly believe it, but we’re releasing Paper Trail on Xbox One and Xbox Series on May 21. If that sounds too far away for you, then I’ve got good news – we’ve got a shiny new demo available right now! It’s only available from now until our May 21 launch, so make sure you get it whilst you can!
A charming world of crafty puzzles awaits: grab and fold the fabric of reality like paper, and embark on a magical journey like no other! You play as Paige, a budding academic and the first of her family to be accepted into university. The problem? Your parents don’t want you to go. Using your secret origami powers (that’s totally a thing), you leave the confines of home to make your own way in the world.
Contained within the game, is a whole interactive storybook. As you travel further from your home, fragments of memory return and must be pieced together, weaving together the stories of your past, present and future. We won’t go too far into spoilers here, but it’s a story which is personal to us – and one we believe a lot of people will relate to.
Your adventure takes you through many beautiful hand painted locations, from sun drenched ruins, to rain swept forests. Each new area comes with quirky characters, hidden secrets, and unexpected puzzling twists. Uncover ancient patterns, connect magical circuits, navigate dizzying heights, and plumb long forgotten depths in your journey along the Paper Trail!
To have gone from wrestling the controller from my brother to get a turn on Halo as a kid; to releasing our own game together on Xbox – it’s a dream come true. Five years ago, we had an idea for a little paper folding game, it’s taken us around the world and back to where it all started. So if you have a sibling, go tell them that it’s your turn on the family console, and play the Paper Traildemo – available now!
Paper Trail is a top-down puzzle adventure about leaving home, set in a foldable, paper world. You play as Paige, a budding academic, leaving home for the first time to pursue her studies. On the journey, you learn to fold the world, merging two sides to solve puzzles, explore new areas and uncover long-lost secrets.
Heaven or Hell, controllers or cardboard – let’s rock. Guilty Gear Strive: The Board Game from Level 99 Games offers players a new way to experience many of those same pulse-pounding moments and swings in gameplay that fans of the video game expect. Plus, it has a surprisingly fast turn-around between matches and 20 characters to choose from. If you’re in the market for a new brawling game for you and a buddy to add to your game rotation, Strive may be it.
Guilty Gear Strive isn’t so much a brand new game as it is the next entry in a long-running series — think a new season of fighters for the video game. Strive is built around Level 99 Game’s Exceed system, first released in 2016, and has seen sets featuring other prevalent video game characters like Street Fighter and Shovel Knight. Strive (along with all the previous Exceed releases) pits two players against one another on a 9-spaced board, similar to the stage of a 2D fighter. Players advance and retreat around the stage by using their decks of special moves, basic attacks, and super specials, spacing themselves properly to take advantage of their specials to whittle their opponent down to zero life.
At first, it may be hard to imagine that a card game could capture the moment-to-moment action of a fighting video game. Level 99 has had a long time to refine this system. When I’m not playing board games and RPGs, I also love a good fighting game, with Guilty Gear being one of my favorites. So, I’m saying this from a position of familiarity with both the genre and series when I say that this game really nails that feeling.
This game is just as much about accurately reading what your opponent is going to do and responding to it as it is about trying to strategize and best use the moves in your character’s toolkit to poke holes in their game — just like in a video game. I appreciate the juggling of spacing, trying to keep yourself out of harm’s way while just close enough so that you can hit them or hitting them with a weak but fast attack, preventing them from hitting me. It actually does feel like a fighting game — just played with cards instead of a controller or fightstick.
Much like a match in a video game, it doesn’t take long to play out, making this a solid quick-playing board games. Most games take less than a half hour, and once my friends and I had a grasp on what was going on, it was even shorter. Even when jumping from one character to another, the different styles and mechanics lent themselves more to applying and learning new strategies as opposed to having to start fresh and learn how to play.
On the topic of the characters, I have to applaud the team at Level 99 for doing a good job capturing the feel of each of 20 included characters’ play styles from the source material. For instance, Axl’s expertise in battlefield positioning, lets you advantage of his long-range to push and pull his opponents into spots that are best for him. Or, Zato-1 can bring out his tethered demon pal, Eddie, onto the field to attack from. Little touches like that make jumping into this card-based version of Heaven and Hell all that more exciting and approachable.
Most games take less than a half hour.
Strive is an Exceed-based game, making it compatible and able to be played alongside previously released Exceed character sets. If you find yourself smitten with the system after playing Guilty Gear Strive, you can have Sol exchange blows with Ryu from Street Fighter or have Faust take on the knight of shovelery himself, Shovel Knight. All you need to do is pick up their respective decks, and off you go.
After eight years of releases, Level 99 has had a lot of time to figure out and refine the instructions and the best methods of teaching their Exceed system, with Strive benefiting from these refinements. Strive comes with a 27-page instruction book — ditching the paper foldout of older seasons — with straightforward explanations and visual examples of some situations you may encounter during a play session. As an extra handy bonus, each player deck also comes with its own set of reference cards showing rules, actions, and all the attacks that the character has access to. Where most games may give you a few, Strive gives you 20 sets.
Playing and teaching with a few friends, even the first time I was learning myself, things always seemed to click by the end of the first game, if not partway through. By the time I was teaching my third and fourth friend the game, where I didn’t need to confirm or double-check my information in the instructions, I could teach the basics in about 10-15 with little issue.
Regarding the components packed into Strive’s box, you can expect some solid-feeling cards with a semi-gloss finish. The cards are sturdy and feel good to shuffle, the tuck boxes for each character’s deck easily fit sleeved decks, and the included neoprene play mat is sturdy and well-constructed. However, I encountered a strange coloring issue around some of the cards that came in my copy of the game. Each character’s specific deck features an associated color scheme on its backside, and there were a few cards in my game where the odd card had a slightly off color to it. Were this color oddity on the front side of the card, it wouldn’t be as big of a deal, but considering this is a game where knowing what you have coming can adjust your strategy, this difference can provide you with an advantage. Hopefully, this issue isn’t widespread.
You can have Sol exchange blows with Ryu from Street Fighter.
As opposed to the previous releases of sets in the Exceed line, Level 99 has opted to include all the characters in a single release as opposed to bundling a few together and selling multiple smaller boxes. This means Strive comes in a large box, with a shocking amount of wasted space inside, too. The box itself comes in at 39.5cm x 41.5cm, a dimension that from a distance appears to be a square, even when up close appears to be a square, but when it comes to putting the top on the box means that there is a specific way you have to put it on. Does this impact the quality of the gameplay in any way? Not in the slightest. Does it make my eye twitch with minor annoyance when I get it wrong? No comment. But, on a more serious note, unfortunately, the box’s dimensions mean it is too large to fit on an Ikea Kallax shelf, a common go-to game storage solution for board gaming hobbyists, and is something to be aware of.
Guilty Gear Strive: The Board Game is a game where you have to be cutthroat, and players will get the most enjoyment when they play someone of an equal skill level. On the flip side, it also means the differences in experience can vastly skew the game in favor of one player over the other. The fact that Guilty Gear Strive is strictly a two-player board game doesn’t help alleviate or balance out that imbalance either.
Madden NFL 25 is apparently set to release on August 16, according to a new report.
Reliable video game leaker and data miner billbil-kun has published a new report detailing what fans can expect from this year’s Madden. According to billbil-kun, Madden NFL 25 will be released on August 16, but those who own the Deluxe Edition or subscribe to EA Play will get access as early as August 12.
Although billbil-kun has not revealed any details as to who the cover athlete(s) for Madden 25 will be, the report does confirm that EA Orlando (formerly EA Tiburon) will once again develop the next Madden game. Madden NFL 25 will have two editions: Standard and Deluxe; the former will retail for $69.99, while the latter will cost $99.99.
A proper reveal for Madden NFL is supposedly happening on May 16 — the same day the publisher is set to reveal the official covers for College Football 25, its first entry in the college football video game series since 2013.
The report also claims that Madden NFL 25 will improve the FieldSense technology. This feature originally debuted in Madden NFL 23, with the physics engine being reworked for the newest entry to provide more “realistic animations with fluid gameplay.”
The news comes the same day Prime Video announced new content for its streaming service, including a four-part docuseries focusing on the history of the Madden video game franchise.
In our review of Madden NFL 24, IGN wrote: “New animations and improved AI make Madden NFL 24’s on-field action the best it’s ever been, but everything that happens off the field is a slog of dated modes and laggy menus that brings everything around it down.”
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
