Author: Game Infliction

Supergiant Games has released Patch 2 for the Early Access version of Hades 2, which adds more night time encounters, refreshes the UI, and more.

Outlined in a Steam post, Supergiant first thanked fans for playing this early version of Hades 2 and for providing feedback which influences patches. This second update arrives less than three weeks after Patch 1 but features dozens of changes, improvements, and bug fixes.

Balance changes take up a large part of the spoiler heavy patch notes, available below, but Supergiant has also made larger gameplay changes including the ability to encounter up to one additional Olympain each night, increased the invulnerability duration after Death Defiance, and the option to press and hold to continuously harvest Crescent Pick outcroppings.

Hades 2’s menus and UI were also updated to include several new icons, the Chaos Trials have been reduced in difficulty, and some resources are now easier to come across in certain areas. As for weapon and ability buffs and nerfs, Nocturnal Arms, Keepsakes, Daedalus Hammers, Hexes of Selene, and more are all affected.

Hades 2 arrived on Steam in Early Access on May 6, 2024 (delaying fellow roguelite The Rogue Prince of Persia as a result) and immediately proved a hit after doubling the original game’s peak concurrent player count in a single day.

As a sequel to the critically acclaimed Greek mythology themed action roguelite, Hades 2 returns players to that world as they meet legendary figures like Odysseus, Nemesis, and Dora through a blend of storytelling, action gameplay, and dungeon crawling.

In our 9/10 review, IGN said: “Even in its Early Access state, Hades 2 is just about everything one could ask for in a sequel to one of the best roguelites of all time. Featuring excellent refinements to its roguelite progression, a fantastic new main character in Melinoe, and two unique sets of levels that have you fighting foes on the surface and in the underworld.”

Hades 2 Early Access Patch 2 Notes

General Gameplay

• You now can encounter up to one additional Olympian each night (as in the previous game)
• You now are likely to find one more Boon or other major reward while in Erebus
• Increased invulnerability duration after your Death Defiance effects activate
• Improved rewards of Ash and Psyche can now be found in Oceanus and the Rift of Thessaly
• You now can press-and-hold to harvest repeatedly from Crescent Pick Outcroppings
• Toula should now stay closer to you in Encounters, especially in the Fields Mourning
• Nemesis no longer offers Death Defiance items if you do not need to refill the effect
• Reduced Gold cost of Selene’s Boon and Path of Stars in Charon’s Shop
• Minor adjustments to the order in which Olympians may first appear early on
• Normalized chances of finding Fishing Points in various regions

Nocturnal Arms & Abilities

• Witch’s Staff: Special knocks foes away, but is slightly slower; Omega Special is faster
• Sister Blades: Special staggers standard foes longer; Attack visual FX better match the hitbox
• Umbral Flames: Attacks are stronger and faster; Omega Attack channels faster and uses less magick; Special gives a speed boost, but has reduced damage; Omega Special can be channeled while moving
• Moonstone Axe: reworked Special provides a lingering barrier; Omega Attack channels slightly faster; Omega Special channels faster
• Argent Skull: Omega Attack channels faster and hits a larger area

Aspects of the Nocturnal Arms

• Witch’s Staff (Circe): adjusted activation and duration of Serenity effect; Serenity now adds Omega bonus damage that scales with this Aspect’s rank
• Witch’s Staff (Momus): reworked; each of your Omega Moves automatically fires several times in succession from where you use them
• Sister Blades (Artemis): you will Block again if the effect recharges while you are channeling; Block now takes priority over Dodge and similar effects
• Umbral Flames (Eos): reworked; Omega Attack now fires a slow shot that occasionally creates damage blasts and also copies your Specials
• Moonstone Axe (Melinoë): reworked; now adds Power and Max Life
• Moonstone Axe (Thanatos): reworked; faster Attack adds Critical chance to Omega moves
• Argent Skull (Medea): improved hit detection on foes near impassable obstacles
• Argent Skull (Persephone): you now earn Glory much faster, but only by using your Omega Cast; improved control responsiveness during Omega Special

Keepsakes

• Moon Beam (Selene): increased bonus to Path of Stars upgrades

Daedalus Hammer Upgrades

• Marauder Wallop (Staff): cut from game; replaced with…
  • Rapid Thrasher (Staff): new! All your Attacks become faster
• Double Wallop (Staff): cut from game; replaced with…
  • Wicked Thrasher (Staff): new! All your Attacks gain bonus Power
• Double Cataclysm (Staff): cut from game; replaced with…
  • Mirrored Thrasher (Staff): new! All your Attacks hit twice, but you take more damage
• Rapid Moonshot (Staff): also affects Omega Special
• Dual Moonshot (Staff): also affects Omega Special; reduced range; renamed from Double Moonshot Shimmering Moonshot (Staff): also affects Omega Special
• Aetheric Moonburst (Staff): increased Magick restoration from Power Shot
• Concentrated Flurry (Blades): cut from game; replaced with…
  • Melting Dart (Blades): new! Your Special destroys a large percentage of a foe’s Armor
• Flick Knives (Blades): new! Your Dash-Strike also fires several Special knives in a fan pattern
• Rapid Onslaught (Blades): reworked to also affect Omega Attack; renamed from Marauder Slice
• Hook Knives (Blades): removed damage bonus; slightly reduced speed of knives returning to you
• Furious Fire (Flames): cut from game; replaced with…
  • Mega Spark (Flames): new! All your Attacks travel farther and deal more damage
• Inverted Spark (Flames): new! Dash to make shots from Attacks reverse direction and hit foes again
• Leaden Spark (Flames): new! Your Attacks knock foes away and have bonus Power
• Sustained Spark (Flames): also increases move speed, instead of reducing; formerly Sustained Fire
• Melting Coil (Flames): no longer fires straight; also affects Omega Special; formerly Melting Comet
• Origin Coil (Flames): also affects Special
• Rapid Slash (Axe): reworked to also affect Omega Attack; renamed from Marauder Slash
• Giga Cleaver (Axe): removed two-stage channeling (it always double-fires but uses more Magick)
• Dashing Heave (Axe): removed damage bonus; instead, it now hits twice
• Sidelong Crash (Skull): cut from game; replaced with…
  • Mega Driver (Skull): new! Your Specials travel farther and deal more damage
• Colossus Driver (Skull): also affects Omega Special

Hexes of Selene

• Wolf Howl: reduced Magick-spend requirement
• Twilight Curse: greatly reduced Magick-spend requirement; reduced foes afflicted; reduced cast time
• Night Bloom: reduced Magick-spend requirement, effect duration, bonus damage, and cast time
• Lunar Ray: greatly reduced Magick-spend requirement; reduced damage; reduced cast time
• Moon Water: slightly increased Magick-spend requirement; slightly reduced healing
• Dark Side: slightly increased Magick-spend requirement; slightly reduced cast time

Foes & Encounters

• Chronos: various fixes and adjustments; there should be fewer cases where he’s patently unfair
• Infernal Cerberus: minor adjustments to some attack patterns in the first phase
• Eris: grenade attacks no longer wildly bounce around
• Polyphemus: reduced effectiveness of Mutant Sheep
• Goldwrath: reduced accuracy and tracking of beam attack
• Queen Lamia: slightly increased Armor; increased speed; other minor changes
• Reed-Stalker: increased projectile speed and target distance; reduced rotation speed
• Mourner: slightly increased rotation speed; slightly increased speed while attacking
• Lamia: slightly increased life and Elite armor
• Dire Shambler: reduced tracking speed between attacks
• Hippo: self-destruct area should more closely match the visuals

Level Design & Environments

• Driftwood resources are more common in the Rift of Thessaly (a further increase since last patch)
• Burning Oil Slicks in the Rift of Thessaly will extinguish after Encounters, though may be reignited
• Adjusted Oil Slicks in some locations in the Rift of Thessaly
• Minor fixes to several locations

Fated List of Minor Prophecies

• Clearing Original Sins no longer requires choosing the very rare Barren curse from Chaos

Chaos Trials

• Trial of Heartache: reduced difficulty and adjusted based on Aspect changes
• Trial of Haste: reduced difficulty and adjusted based on Aspect changes

Oath of the Unseen

• Vow of Forsaking: no longer helps ensure you quickly get Duo and Legendary Boons

Menus & UI

• Added many new UI icons for Keepsakes, Weapons, Well of Charon offerings, and more
• Insight Into Offerings (Cauldron) now also lets you check each Olympian’s list of offerings in the Book of Shadows while choosing their Boons (or the equivalent with other characters)
• With the prior change, adjusted default key binding for Rarify; some custom bindings have been reset
• Added a warning when you are down to your last use of Death Defiance
• Opening the Book of Shadows should show entries for nearby characters more reliably
• Removed the Unused Grasp notification when exiting the Altar of Ashes while at a high Grasp limit
• Updated Pitch-Black Stone screen to use Aspect-specific icons
• Adjusted input action bar layout at the bottom of the Boon Screen and similar
• Added borders to icons for Selene Hexes on the Gifts of the Moon screen
• Added informational pop-up when using F10 to report bugs
• Other minor changes

Art & Visual FX

• Reduced some full-screen flashing or strobing, such as from time-slow effects

Music & SFX

• Added SFX for when certain active abilities such as Serenity are ready to use
• Updated placeholder SFX for various Keepsakes
• Updated SFX for projectile collisions with Umbral Flames (Moros)

Voice & Narrative

• Unique voice lines should play more reliably when certain incantations are revealed in the Cauldron
• Added voice lines when using Phase Shift (Selene) vs. Chronos (or trying to…)
• More voice lines should play when confiding in Frinos in certain contexts

Miscellaneous

• While brooding over the family portrait in the Crossroads, you may now snap out of it sooner
• You now can fully control the game using keyboard only if you rebind Attack and Special
• All timers now pause while in the presence of Charon
• An Anvil of Fates will no longer be offered in Tartarus if you have not found a Daedalus Hammer
• In the Hades Flashback, adjusted timing of hint for players who don’t realize they are in control
• Reduced requirements for the incantation Power to Pause and Reflect to be revealed
• Melinoë now respawns in the center of her magick circle near her tent (she was a bit off before…)
• Improved compatibility with more types of controllers
• Updated text for various upgrades and abilities

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Double Up (Poseidon) sometimes doubling Mystery Boons; clarified description
• Fixed Nightmare resources dropping unexpectedly in Chaos Trials
• Fixed Omega moves occasionally becoming unresponsive after being chomped on by Polyphemus
• Fixed deadliest attack of Chronos occasionally hitting when Melinoë was in a supposedly safe point
• Fixed Umbral Flames Attack preventing Magick regeneration before channeling Omega Attack
• Fixed The Queen and Judgment (Arcana) appearing active while no others Arcana are active
• Fixed Hearth Gain (Hestia) no longer restoring Magick if chosen as a Sacrifice Boon
• Fixed certain later Oath Testaments for the Sister Blades sometimes not appearing as expected
• Fixed cases where you could go out of bounds using the Argent Skull in the battle vs. Chronos
• Fixed more cases of some visual effects vs. Chronos lingering between phases or after the fight
• Fixed Toula unceremoniously vanishing after you vanquish Chronos
• Fixed additional issues with Sun Worshiper (Apollo)
• Fixed additional issues with Dark Side (Selene)
• Fixed additional issues with Twilight Curse (Selene)
• Fixed a visual issue where Headmistress Hecate could appear to slide after snared by your Cast
• Fixed Spark of Ixion (Charon) causing a Chaos Gate to appear in Asphodel
• Fixed Golden Boughs sometimes not marking all available rewards in the Fields of Mourning
• Fixed several narrative events that could play out of sequence
• Fixed Odysseus rather rudely walking away while in conversation with Nemesis
• Fixed Heracles sometimes leaping away forever
• Fixed Melinoë’s voice reverting during her return sequence despite certain Circe enchantments
• Fixed incorrect Echo portrait in the Book of Shadows
• Fixed incorrect music playing in some Chaos Trials, or not playing as intended in some instances
• Fixed rare cases of a looping sound playing indefinitely
• Fixed a rare instance when objectives in the Training Grounds could overlap
• Fixed several minor issues on the Victory Screen that shows when you prevail
• Fixed additional miscellaneous issues when playing in ultrawide resolutions
• Fixed a rare crash in which the effect of Winter Harvest (Demeter) could repeat forever
• Fixed various other rare crashes
• Fixed several text errors
• Other minor fixes

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

Katsuhiro Harada, chief developer of the Tekken series, has offered a fascinating insight into the making of the fighting game franchise’s characters, specifically their dialogue — and in the process revealed why one Tekken character in particular became popular despite saying nothing at all.

Harada tweeted in response to one user who asked about a line of dialogue spoken by the character Reina in the recently released Tekken 8, but the answer went on to describe the process of adding dialogue to Tekken characters, kicking off with Bryan and Yoshimitsu in 1997’s Tekken 3. Before that game, Tekken characters did not speak, but it was felt that with the demise of the arcade scene in the West and a shift toward consoles, there was a need to strengthen characterization.

This is when Bryan’s famous “Muwahaha!” laugh comes in, but only when the camera was not pointed at the character’s face as much as possible due to hardware limitations.

“So I decided to include dialogue such as laughter or yes!! in the throwing scene where Bryan turns his back to the camera’s gaze and in the scene where Bryan is down (and Nina stomps),” Harada said. “I also wanted to express Bryan’s character as both a sadist and a masochist.”

Subsequent Tekken games released on more powerful hardware added more characterization, although, as Harada points out, there’s an irony in Bryan becoming a character known for not speaking much at all. Another Tekken character who does not speak is Dragunov, and Harada offered an insight into how that came to be — and revealed his surprise at the character’s popularity despite his silence.

In short, Dragunov was designed as the “negative” to Lili’s “positive”, with the expectation that Dragunov would not be a popular character, whereas Lili would be. Indeed, Harada asked the developers to “keep his personality down, keep him plain, and he doesn’t need to be so popular.”

And so, Dragunov does not speak in Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection, the 2005 update to Tekken 5 in which he was introduced. This also helped lighten the load on the development team, as Dragunov had few facial animations, very little lip-sync, and no more dialogue to localize.

Harada said he was nervous about Dragunov because he had become “soooo plain and brooding.” But then something unexpected happened: “the sober Dragunov, who did not speak at all, on the contrary, became popular among Tekken players because he was unique.”

The conclusion: times have changes, Harada suggested.

“In the 90s, if you didn’t have characters speaking dialogue as soon as possible, ‘they wouldn’t have any characterization!’ I thought.

“But I see, in a world where it is normal for game characters to speak after a generational change, I learned the opposite, that not speaking is also a matter of individuality.

“And even today, it is rare to find a fighting game character who does not say a word at all while fighting, at the start of a round, or throughout the entire win-pose (even Kuma and Panda communicate). Is there any other fighting game character that doesn’t talk as much as Dragunov?”

This is not “iisou” but “iizo” (like “iizoou!” a little stronger than “iizo!”). The nuance is NOT JUST “That’s good,” but includes a “Good! Go ahead, I dare you!”.

Originally, this specification was developed by me during the development of TEKKEN3, when Nina made a specific… https://t.co/lQqTCbuOfh

— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) June 5, 2024

So there you have it! Harada just dropped Tekken deep lore, delighting veteran fans of the series. But this isn’t the only hot topic Harada has discussed on social media recently. This week, months after he was made painfully aware of fans’ grassroots movement to get an official Waffle House stage in the long-running fighting game series, and having received tons of information about the American Southern diner chain via memes, viral videos, and earnest replies from fans, Harada said he was still baffled at the “culture” of Waffle House.

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.

PlayStation game The Last of Us 2 will see a release on PC according to a reliable leaker.

Dealabs’ reliable leaker Billbil-kun, who has a long list of accurate PlayStation reveals under their belt, reported the PC version of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us 2 is essentially wrapped up, but is potentially being held back to coincide with the 2025 release of Season 2 of HBO’s The Last of Us show.

Sony is yet to comment.

The Last of Us 2 first launched on PlayStation 4 in June 2020 before releasing on PlayStation 5 in remastered form in January 2024. A PC version of The Last of Us 2 would come as no surprise, given Sony has already released the first game on PC.

The company’s strategy is to release its big single-player games on PlayStation consoles first, before coming to PC later. The Last of Us launched on PC in March 2023. Perhaps The Last of Us 2 will launch on PC in March 2025.

Before then, Sony Santa Monica’s God of War: Ragnarok launches on PC on September 19, 2024. Live service PlayStation games, however, launch on PlayStation 5 and PC at the same time. Arrowhead’s Helldivers 2 did exactly that earlier this year and went on to become the fastest-selling PlayStation game of all time with an incredible 12 million copies sold in just 12 weeks. The upcoming Concord, another live service shooter, is also set to launch on PS5 and PC on the same day later this year.

It’s worth noting that all PlayStation games on PC, even single-player only games, now require a PlayStation Network account to work, much to the annoyance of some Steam users. God of War: Ragnarok launches on PC with the new PlayStation overlay featuring shared trophies and more that was introduced with the PC version of Ghost of Tsushima.

Sony revealed PS5’s upcoming slate during a May edition of State of Play. PS5 exclusive Astro Bot stole the show, but there was also room for the aforementioned Concord, Silent Hill 2 Remake, and more.

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.

Mortal Kombat 1 now has Homelander as a DLC character, and players are already finding cool Easter eggs with the supervillain.

Homelander, from the phenomenally popular Prime Video show The Boys, launches in NetherRealm’s gory fighting game with a number of references, but one Brutality in particular was found to include unique dialogue that hat tips an infamous scene.

Warning! Spoilers for The Boys Season 2 follow:

In The Boys Season 2 premiere The Big Ride, Homelander is introduced to Blindspot, a candidate for replacing the now-deceased Translucent’s spot in The Seven. Blindspot is blind but possesses superhuman hearing and agility. Homelander, clearly unimpressed, bashes Blindspot’s ears in, declaring him “just another useless f***ing blind guy.”

All Mortal Kombat 1 characters have Brutalities — unique moves that end a match in a particularly brutal fashion. They’re triggered by doing an extra input command on top of a specific combo ender or move that wins the final round. Most of the characters in the game have six brutalities, but ever since Mortal Kombat 1 launched in September last year, players have discovered secret Brutalities, too.

Homelander’s Brutality is similar to the ear bash he performs on Blindspot in the show, leaving his opponent screaming in agony on the floor. But, if Homelander performs this Brutality on Kenshi, he says the line from the show: “just another useless f***ing blind guy.” Kenshi, Mortal Kombat fans will know, is a blind swordsman who uses telekinetic abilities to defeat his opponents — and perfect fodder for Homelander’s quip.

Homelander has a unique line when performing a brutality on Kenshi. pic.twitter.com/OQOgXxk32m

— Noah Hajnasr (@DIZZ_NH) June 4, 2024

It’s a cool nod to The Boys, but not everything about Mortal Kombat 1’s Homelander is a perfect recreation of the on-screen character. For example, Warner Bros. has remained coy about the voice actor behind Mortal Kombat 1’s Homelander. Antony Starr, who plays Homelander in The Boys, does not voice the character, much to the disappointment of fans. Omni-Man voice actor J. K. Simmons reprised his role for Mortal Kombat 1, as did Peacemaker actor John Cena. It is unclear why Starr did not do the same here.

The Mortal Kombat 1 Kombat Pack includes the Jean-Claude Van Damme character skin for Johnny Cage (available now), and one-week early access to six playable DLC characters: Omni-Man (available now), Quan Chi (available now), Peacemaker (available now), Ermac (available now), Homelander (available now), and the upcoming Takeda Takahashi, as well as five DLC Kameo fighters. The Boys Season 4, meanwhile, kicks off June 13.

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.

Destiny 2 developer Bungie has issued an apology to disgruntled fans who struggled to play The Final Shape expansion at launch.

The Final Shape launched on June 4 and Destiny 2 soon ran into significant server issues that prevented players from making progress through the hotly anticipated campaign. Many reported being booted from campaign levels, missing out on crucial cutscenes and losing progress. Bungie tweeted progress updates as it worked to ease the problems, but for many players the night was a write-off.

On Steam, the user review rating for The Final Shape is, predictably, ‘mostly negative’. “Best 40 bucks I ever spent and best two hours of my life… My favorite part was when Cayde said ‘Destiny 2 servers are not available. Dismiss this message to try again,’ ” reads one review. “Today is a good day to collect all the error codes if you still haven’t got them all,” reads another.

Now, Bungie has tweeted to address the various problems. “Hey everyone, if connection issues have blocked you from playing or enjoying The Final Shape today, we want to apologize,” the Sony-owned studio said. “We’re hard at work trying to resolve each of these issues as quickly as possible, and many of the connection issues from this morning have already been fixed.”

Bungie has rolled out a number of restarts in a bid to tackle errors causing players to get kicked out of activities, which it said “remains our highest priority issue to resolve.” Those who missed a cutscene can replay the mission by accessing the Replayable Missions node in the middle of the Pale Heart map, Bungie advised. There are cutscenes at the end of Mission 1, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

“We built The Final Shape to be an exciting, cathartic, story-driven adventure for everyone to enjoy,” Bungie continued. “We’re truly sorry if connection issues and instability is getting in the way of that experience, and we promise to keep working until these issues are resolved.”

We built The Final Shape to be an exciting, cathartic, story-driven adventure for everyone to enjoy. We’re truly sorry if connection issues and instability is getting in the way of that experience, and we promise to keep working until these issues are resolved.

— Destiny 2 Team (@Destiny2Team) June 5, 2024

It’s a tough start for The Final Shape, which does appear to have reignited interest in the long-running shooter. Destiny 2 Steam concurrent players peaked at an impressive 315,285, a figure high enough to make the top five most-played games on Valve’s platform. Microsoft and Sony do not provide player numbers for Xbox and PlayStation.

The Final Shape concludes Destiny’s overarching story by placing the player inside the Traveler in a face-off against the mysterious The Witness. It’s the culmination of 10 years of often bewildering Destiny storytelling, and has left fans wondering what’s next. Some are speculating Bungie has Destiny 3 up its sleeve.

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.

The best Xbox Series X/S headsets provide a high level of immersion so you can enjoy your favorite games as they were intended. We understand that not all headsets suit everyone, so that’s why we’ve provided a wide range of gaming headsets to match your gaming style and unique requirements.

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• Xbox Wireless Headset
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Whether you’re looking for the best gaming earbuds or over-ear headsets, or something you can use to chat with your friends, there’s a headset that fits every budget – and click here to see them in the UK.

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