Forza Horizon 4 is my favourite racing game of all time, and a gloriously daft celebration of going fast set in a stunning, pastoral recreation of the UK. If you haven’t played it, you should buy it quick – because it’s being delisted from digital storefronts later this year, and its DLC disappears from sale today.
Dead By Daylight is an asymmetric horror multiplayer game, in which one player, the killer, attempts to sacrifice all the other players on the server. Now the other players could be Lara Croft, who has been added to the game’s public test server in advance of a full release next month.
“When you play it, you feel connected, not judged”.
Developer Witch Beam isn’t ready to rest on its laurels. After creating two wildly different games — the twin-stick shooter Assault Android Cactus and the BAFTA award-winning, heartfelt puzzler Unpacking — it’s ready to move back to the outside and go with something even more relaxing.
We were tapping our foot the whole way through the trailer for the Brisbane-based studio’s third title, Tempopo. Combining music with the outside world, the game sees Hana — a young magical girl living in the clouds — restoring her musical garden of flowers. All of her Tempopo creatures have magical abilities and are bursting with personality, but only Hana can tell them where to go and guide them along the right path.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Since 2018, you may have spotted the distinctive Pink Mercy skin in Overwatch and Overwatch 2 – the color symbolic of breast cancer awareness. Mercy wears it proudly as part of supporting the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Now, there’s another chance for players to show their support as well, with the return of the Pink Mercy skin and the debut of the all-new Rose Gold Mercy skin. Both are available for purchase today, benefitting BRCF.
I was only eight years old when my family’s world was turned upside down. The diagnosis of my mother’s breast cancer marked the beginning of a long and arduous battle. Visits to City of Hope Hospital became routine, a place where my brothers and I would spend entire days waiting, playing, and hoping. The image of my mother, weakened by the treatments, is etched in my memory.
I recall the surgeries, the conversations, and the day we celebrated my mother’s first victory over the disease with pizza and paper party hats—a moment of joy. However, the reprieve was short-lived. The cancer returned during my high school years, and my family’s routine once again revolved around treatments and trips to City of Hope. The normalcy of having a sick parent was a reality that my family and I had to accept. It was during these years that turning to video games was the only way for me to escape the realities of what was happening and find some comfort.
The day my mother’s mastectomy was deemed a success was a glimmer of hope, but it was quickly overshadowed by the discovery that the cancer had moved to her liver. The weeks that followed were a blur, a rush to gather family and make the most of whatever precious time was left. My last memory of my mother is one of pain and a desperate fight for more moments together.
My story is more than just a recount of my personal struggle; it’s a call to action. It’s a reminder that behind every statistic, every campaign, and every research breakthrough, there are real people with real stories. It’s about the unseen battles that many face, the silent warriors who fight without fanfare, and the loved ones who support them through it all. I find solace and purpose in my work, where I am part of a team helping to prevent such stories from repeating. The commitment to fight, help those in need, and bring goodness into the world reflects the heroes we create in our work.
In the spirit of action, I’m excited to share an initiative that combines my passion for gaming with the fight against breast cancer. Blizzard has released special charity skins for Overwatch 2. The new skins are designed for the hero Mercy, a brilliant scientist and “guardian angel” who has dedicated her life to helping others. All sales of the limited-edition Pink Mercy skin and Rose Gold Mercy skin will benefit the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) – now through July 8, Blizzard will donate 100% of the purchase price (excluding applicable platform fees and taxes) towards BCRF’s mission to eradicate breast cancer, which will help families across the globe (terms and conditions here).
In the end, my story is not just about the pain of loss; it’s about the enduring hope that one day, no child will have to remember their mother’s battle with cancer. It’s about working towards a future where the victories are not just temporary, but permanent. It’s about ensuring that the paper party hats are not just a memory, but a symbol of a battle truly won. Let’s carry forward the memory of those we’ve lost by continuing the fight and by being the heroes in our own stories.
In loving memory of Gladys L. Laursen – October 6, 1940-August 21, 2000
The post Overwatch 2’s New Mercy Skins Fuel Lifesaving Breast Cancer Research appeared first on Xbox Wire.
Today Amazon has dropped the price of the recently released Unicorn Overload game for the Nintendo Switch by 50%. Right now it’s on sale for $30. PS5 and Xbox copies are also discounted, but only by 33% ($39.99). If you have a Nintendo Switch console, that is the best copy to get; it runs very smoothly even on the dated Switch’s hardware and the gameplay works really well on a handheld.
Unicorn Overlord is an outstanding fantasy tactical strategy game from Atlus and Vanillaware. If you like games such as Final Fantasy Tactics or Fire Emblem, you’re in for a real treat. I myself have put over 100 hours into the game and it is easily one of my favorite games of all time. My only gripe is that I wish it was also released on the PC. Officially, IGN rated Unicorn Overload an “Amazing” 9/10 and you can read up on our Unicorn Overload review to see why this is considered to be one of the best console strategy games in recent history. Here’s reviewer Eric Zalewski’s final verdict:
“Reflecting on the incredibly diverse and remarkably creative world I explored across my 45-hour journey, any issues I had with Unicorn Overlord ended up feeling like nothing more than nitpicks. The tactical combat system is unique and complex while also being easy to understand, expertly blending mechanics from many of its peers with smart new additions of its own. The interesting terrain across the continent of Fevrith makes every fight feel unique, with some of the best map gimmicks I’ve seen in any strategy RPG. Because the campaign is told through the eyes of a diverse and creative cast, its trope-filled fantasy story is elevated in a way that a more traditional storytelling style wouldn’t manage. The shorter, more personal stories work wonderfully to support a loop of exploration and liberation that had me begging to see one more tale told, one more town rebuilt, and one more battle fought.”
I myself have put over 100 hours into the game. This is, in my opinion, one of the best RTS games I’ve ever played. My only gripe is that I wish it was also released on the PC.
Check out more of the best Nintendo Switch video game deals today.
Forza Horizon 4 will be delisted from digital stores on December 15, meaning it and additional content will no longer available for purhcase on the Microsoft Store and Steam, Playground Games announced today.
Playground Games attributed the decision to delist Forza Horizon 4 to “licensing and agreements with our partners,” referring to the franchise’s complex array of car and music deals. Forza Horizon 3 was previously delisted in 2020.
As part of the run-up to delisting, Playground Games revealed its final roadmap for Forza Horizon 4, confirming that the final series will begin July 25 and end on August 22. After that, it will no longer be possible to access the playlist screen and fans will be taken to the Festival Site instead.
Developing….
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.
Elden Ring‘s Shadow Of The Erdtree DLC yet hovers at Mixed in the blood-encrusted annals of the Steam user review consensus. As Nic wrote earlier in the week, a portion of the negative feedback is aimed at the expansion’s difficulty, which is certainly a Thing To Hear after years of being told by kindly gamers that I only hand out low review scores because I can’t press the buttons in the right order.
As publishers Bandai Namco have sweetly observed, struggling players are perhaps forgetting that you can raise your overall power level by gathering Scadutree Fragments, a system of collectibles designed to ensure a tough challenge even for endgame players, while giving you the option of effectively rebalancing the expansion through exploration. The downside there, as a few people have pointed out, is that some players don’t want to hunt for collectibles before they can topple the bosses.
Ghost-catching tomfoolery.
Would you believe it, there’s yet another major Switch release just on the horizon, with Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD launching this week on 27th June 2024.
All told, it seems as though this one is exactly what you’d expect it to be: an HD upgrade of a 3DS game on Switch. As such, many fans have understandably questioned the game’s price tag when compared to something like Metroid Prime Remastered. Still, it seems like it might still be worth checking out if you’re after more Luigi’s Mansion.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Payday 3 developer Starbreeze Entertainment is finally adding what it’s called an “offline mode” to the game but it requires an online connection to access and runs worse than normal.
As reported by VG247, Starbreeze claims to have finally addressed the “online only” criticism by adding what it’s dubbed the Solo Mode Beta.
The mode will be updated over time, seemingly to make it a legitimate offline mode at some point, but for now players must be connected to the internet to access it and they won’t receive progression rewards until they connect again. When will these updates come? “[Solo mode] will be improved once we improve this feature,” head of community and global brand director Almir Listo said in a developer update video.
“It’s not our full vision for this feature,” he began. “For now, we’re setting it as a beta to see how it runs. We expect the performance to be affected since the parts normally frontloaded by our servers will now have to be run on your own hardware.
“It will work though, and you can get progression that will update you once you return online. You will still be required to start the game while online in Solo Mode, which will be improved once we improve this feature. For now though, we want to test that the features that went into this work work properly.”
The initial release of the Solo Mode Beta will be released as part of a greater patch to go alongside the Boys in Blue update, which adds a new playable character, weapons, and more on June 27, 2024.
Payday 3’s launch in September 2023 was somewhat of a disaster, plagued with server issues that forced then Starbreeze CEO Tobias Sjögren to apologise. “We are so sorry that the infrastructure didn’t hold up as expected, and although it’s impossible to prepare for every scenario — we should be able to do better,” he said (but has now left the company).
Almost a month after its launch and Starbreeze apologised again for its lack of communication, and then just a week later said sorry one more time for not delivering a promised patch and again going quiet. It said in January 2024 it was “well aware” fans weren’t satisfied.
Starbreeze boasted Payday 3 had 3.1 million players as of October 2, 2023, but this number has dwindled, at least on Steam, as many more players are currently playing Payday 2 than its sequel. According to SteamDB, Payday 3 has a 24-hour peak of just 565 compared to Payday 2’s 21,584, despite the latter launching over a decade ago.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
It’s hotter than the inside of a horse here, so what better time to play an RPG about driving randomly through the desert in search of enlightenment. The RPG in question is Broke Signal Badlands: A World of Desert Adventure, and yes, that’s a very upbeat subtitle for a game in which you can perish after getting your hand stuck in the door of an abandoned Fonts Museum, or while yanking cacti out of your foot. There are gunfights, too, with dice serving as bullets, but so far, I’ve only managed to die of pathetic human error and clumsiness. Consider me unenlightened, but enthused.
