Valorant next week though, because the game is adding a new map named Breeze, which is set on a gorgeous remote island in the Carribean.
After playing the main game for five hours, I was still in Castle Dimitrescu, but the game’s map – which we revealed last week – shows that this is only one area in a much larger game. Each area is not just unique from a visual standpoint, but also comes with different enemy types, gameplay mechanics and boss fights. The village, located somewhere in Eastern Europe, is ruled by a figure known as Mother Miranda. She comes across as a type of cult leader, and the villagers can be seen worshipping her like a deity.
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In previous footage, you can see Lady Dimitrescu talking with Mother Miranda over the phone. From their conversation, it becomes clear that even everyone’s favorite giantess is a servant to Mother Miranda. Mother Miranda has four main servants located in different areas of the village, known as the four Lords – of which Lady Dimitrescu is one. The four Lords function as the game’s main villains. “Village’s creatures and characters were inspired by classic gothic horror. Lady Dimitrescu was inspired by vampires, while other characters were based on werewolves, mermen and ghosts,” Village’s art director Tomonori Takano explains.
Caption: Portraits of Mother Miranda and the four Lords, found in a church inside the village.
Lady Dimitrescu and her castle have already been introduced in detail, so let’s see what the other lords and their hideouts look like in this exclusive reveal.
Karl Heisenberg can be seen in multiple trailers. He is an engineer who lives in his family factory. Heisenberg carries a giant iron hammer with one hand, while he casually holds a cigar in the other hand. With sunglasses, a hat and leather jacket, Heisenberg’s design seems rather extravagant for someone in a remote Eastern European village. Takano says that like Lady Dimitrescu, his appearance was inspired by fashion from the 1960s.
Turning the act of killing into a game, the session of Heisenberg’s torture that takes place in the beginning of the game sets a good example of what this character is capable of. Having barely survived his games during my hands-on, just thinking about what could be awaiting at Heisenberg’s Factory makes me shiver.
Compared with other areas in the village, the factory appears to be in sync with the times, with modern facilities available. Another aspect that differentiates the factory is the fact that it’s not covered in snow. The factory is located on the Northeastern edge of the map, perhaps on a lower altitude.
Salvatore Moreau’s design was inspired by mermen from gothic horror. Compared with the other humanoid Lords, Moreau looks more like your typical Resident Evil creature. Moreau hides most of his appearance with a long robe. The character briefly made an appearance during my time playing the game, waddling into view in a scene where protagonist Ethan is at the mercy of the four Lords. ”We designed Moreau with the concept of creating the most repulsive character on Earth,” Takano says.
Moreau lives by a reservoir close to an obsolete fishing village. Two windmills can be spotted nearby on the game’s map, one being displayed in the image above. The windmill has a ladder, suggesting that players might be able to climb all the way up.
The game map also shows an illustration of a huge whale-like monster in the reservoir, which can also be briefly spotted in the latest trailer. Takano mentions that the lake he saw when traveling to Eastern Europe for research was frozen, but the team eventually decided against including a frozen lake in the game, as it would be hard for the area’s creatures to survive under such conditions.
Donna Beneviento operates a puppet called Angie. Clad in mourning black with her face covered, everything about Donna remains a mystery. Another question that remains is to what extent Angie is alive. Director Morimasa Sato says that when presenting the game to his Capcom colleagues in the United States, he was surprised to find out that many people found the duo to be the most frightening of all of the Lords.
“In the United States, people’s reactions towards the puppet were pretty intense,” Sato says. “Of course, this made me happy, but as a Japanese person, it surprised me that they found the puppet that scary.”
Takano says that for Angie’s design, the team went for something they hoped would have instant impact rather than being purely frightening, but he is also happy that the reactions turned out this way. Donna and Angie live at House Beneviento, located on the outskirts of the village. No visitors ever come by. Sato hinted that House Beneviento is in many ways an evolution of the horror elements he used in Resident Evil 7 – and we won’t have to wait long to find out what that connection will be.
Resident Evil Village is set to release on May 7. Be sure to check out our in-depth preview of the first five hours of the game. For those curious about the last-gen version, be sure to check out our PS4 Pro gameplay footage. If you can’t wait to get your blood drained by Lady Dimitrescu, don’t miss our feature on the towering villain, and also be sure to check out our reveal of the game’s map and Mother Miranda art. Look forward to more exclusive Resident Evil Village content throughout April as part of IGN First.
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Esra Krabbe is an editor at IGN Japan. He’s confident the four Lords will give him plenty of sleepless nights.
The answer might not be as obvious as you think…
Nintendo’s doing pretty well at the moment, with its Switch console selling like hotcakes and games like Animal Crossing: New Horizons creating a whole new generation of fans. You might assume, then, that the sheer notion of investing your hard-earned money in the company’s last-gen system – and one which sold in utterly pitiful numbers – might be a foolhardy endeavour, but, as it turns out, there’s more than one good reason to buy a Wii U in 2021.
Sure, most of the console’s best games are available on Switch now. Mario Kart 8, Super Mario 3D World, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Hyrule Warriors, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze… it’s a pretty long list these days, and to be honest, it takes less time to list which of the console’s best games haven’t made the leap to the Switch.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
The game will be released on April 30 and this new website is perfect for those excited for what awaits them in New Pokemon Snap. The website, aptly named ExploreLental.com as if it were the tourism site for a real place, will require you to log in with your Nintendo account before gaining access to it. That’s because you can earn My Nintendo Points while exploring the site.
When you make it to the actual site, you’ll be shown an overview of the Lental region and you’ll see eight different icons on the map. By “visiting,” as it were, the eight icons on the map, you’ll earn My Nintendo Points. From left to right across the map above, they are the Nature Park, Nighttime, the Desert, the Jungle, “Using Items,” the Beach, “Photodex & Album,” and Daytime.
In the Nature Park part of the map, you’ll be given a brief glimpse of what to expect there in a quick, 10-second video. The Nature Park is exactly what it sounds like: a beautiful, natural park with Pokemon like Bouffalant, Taillow, and Swanna freely roaming about.
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After viewing the video, you’ll be brought to a landing page with four unique photos that show some of the things players can expect to encounter in the game such as a Grookey and a Pichu playing together, a Florges waiving at the camera, and more.
Be sure to click each photo to watch a quick video showcasing how that photo was captured in the game. After checking out each of the four photos, you can then take a photo or upload your own to the site. The site will then automatically apply a website-exclusive frame based on that part of the map to your photo, at which point, you’re free to save and share said photo on social media.
In the Nighttime section of the map, you’ll encounter Pokemon doing some unique “nighttime” activities, such as a Lyrcanroc howling in the night. It’s here that you’ll likely learn about the hidden trivia questions scattered about the site — we were asked how many forms of Lycanroc are in the game here.
Each of the other named areas of the map like the Nature Park, the Desert, the Jungle, the Beach, and Daytime feature the same kind of setup: a quick video introducing this part of the map, four photos showcasing what players can expect to see there, and a button to grab the photo frame for that area.
Two of the icons on the map — “Using Items” and “Photodex & Album” — led to the more informational pages of the site. The “Using Items” page had quick explainers for how items like Fluffruit, Illumina Orbs, and Melodies work in the game.
The “Photodex & Album” page explains the game’s many mechanics related specifically to your photo captures such as the ability to edit them by adjusting blur, focus size, focal point, brightness, and more. The videos here also demonstrate how players can add filters, stickers, and frames to each of their photos as well as how photos are rated in the game based on the pose, size, direction, placement, whether another Pokemon is present in the capture, and the background of the photo.
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You can check out all of this and more for yourself by going to ExploreLental.com, which is now live. Be sure to check out this New Pokemon Snap overview trailer after that and then check out our list of every Pokemon confirmed in New Pokemon Snap.
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Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.
Returnal opens with protagonist Selene having crash landed on the alien planet of Atropos. With communications down and no help on the way you’re given the mysterious main objective of “Locate the White Shadow Broadcast”. With only a semi-automatic pistol to help protect you (unless you get lucky and find a new weapon) you’ll likely not get far, and end up dying to either one of these razor-fisted Titanops, or maybe these teleporting tree aliens. Don’t worry though, dying is very much part of Returnal and it won’t be the last time that you live, die and repeat.
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The first time you do die in Returnal, you’ll wake up inside Selene’s crashed ship from the first-person perspective. You can then choose to exit the ship and continue on your way to death again.
This is where Returnal differs from the likes of Hades, there isn’t the same level of persistence to be found and you won’t be popping points into stat boosts or permanent upgrades to gain tangible strength at the start of each run. There are some things that will be carried over from run to run, but we’ll get onto that a bit later.
For now, you’ll be improving your arsenal over the course of each lifecycle, getting your hands on shotguns, carbine rifles and so on, but then losing them each time you die. Every run starts with just your sidearm in hand, and finding better weapons along the way should be one of your main focuses in Returnal.
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You’ll also find power ups that offer unique abilities such as auto health regeneration and the risk/reward option to attach parasite arm-huggers to your body. These can give you very helpful perks, but always come packaged with a negative side effect. A run in Returnal ultimately comes down to making your way through an area, getting stronger by finding weapons and boosts, before feeling powerful enough to take on the boss of that biome.
Defeating the boss may take several attempts, and finding out the best loadouts to take down enemies may take many experimental trial runs. But once you’ve defeated that boss once, things will get a whole lot easier.
This is where Returnal yet again mixes things up when compared to Hades or Dead Cells. Once a boss is killed in an area, you won’t have to kill them again. Instead, killing them gives you a special key that opens the gate to the second biome of Atropos, which is now permanently stored in your inventory for every subsequent run. This also applies to other key items in the game, such as your lightsaber-like melee weapon.
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While the combat within each of Returnal’s encounters can be challenging, the fact that you can just find the gate to the next area each time from here on in and pass through, does make it a much more forgiving experience on the whole. By bringing some of the persistent elements of rogue-lites into this more rogue-like game, Returnal makes it easier for you to progress the story and see more of the world at a quicker pace.
Once you’ve cleared the first biome you’ll then be able to interact with the daily challenge terminal on your ship. These are high-score chasing runs that won’t progress the story but will satiate those looking to top leaderboards like only Housemarque know how to make you want to.
Hopefully that’s cleared up any questions you may have had about what exactly you’ll be doing in Returnal. The best way of course though, is to experience the world of Atropos and all of its horrors for yourself.
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Simon Cardy still thinks that Returnal is not a great name for what is shaping up to be a great game. Find him over on Twitter at @CardySimon.
 a briefcase. Developers must fight bugs day and night to safeguard the digital realms we call our playgrounds. Sometimes they lose that battle and a bug comes stomping ravenously into our game, ready to upset us. But sometimes that bug is not an annoyance or a game-breaker, but instead the funniest thing to ever happen. Here are 9 of the best bugs in PC gaming.
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“Set in a cursed fairytale world”.
Polish indie publisher Pineapple Works has announced that Oddventure, an RPG inspired by the likes of EarthBound and Undertale, will be making its way to Switch next year.
Developed by Infamous Rabbit, the game’s described as a “lore-rich turn-based crazy JRPG set in a cursed fairytale world.” While a Q3 2022 release window has already been pencilled in for both Switch and PC, a Kickstarter will go live next month in an attempt to support the game’s development.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
The timer is currently ticking down on the Ryu Ga Gotoku website, and will stop on May 7, 2021 at 7am Pacific / 10am Eastern / 3pm UK (that midnight, May 8 AEST). A trailer is attached to the reveal, and you can join the waiting fans on YouTube.
Of course, many fans are speculating that this is going to lead to a sequel. A Japanese SEGA trademark for “Lost Judgment” was found in March, which could very well be its title. ”Fingers crossed for a reveal of Judgment 2” said Yakuza fan @PrinceWhatever on Twitter.
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“I’m guessing this is Judgement 2’s announcement. Glad we’re getting more from this spin off. Excited to see what RGG has in store for us,” said user cloudsheep0 on Reddit. Others have suggested that if it’s not a sequel, it could also be an announcement of a PC release date for the game.
A remastered version of Judgment for next-gen consoles launched today on PlayStation 5, Google Stadia and Xbox Series X and S, featuring 60 FPS, faster loading times and free DLC. You can check out our review of the game here, which we scored an 8.2, calling it a “superficial detective experience, but an extremely good Yakuza one.”
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Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.
Destiny 2 fashionista, I have been keenly awaiting the arrival of the transmogrification system with Season 14 in May. I have so many looks planned for my spacewizards. But even though I know full well that it often takes Bungie several attempts to get a feature right, I hadn’t expected Armor Synthesis to sound so miserable. Bungie have now explained how it will work, and it’s a sprawl of different crafting materials and bounties and limits and god, I just want to play dress-up with my wizards.
We haven’t regularly covered the MotoGP series in the past but the motorcycle specialists at developer Milestone have been quietly iterating on it for over 15 years. With all that experience, it should probably come as no surprise that the latest edition, MotoGP 21, is a deep, satisfying, and sometimes unflinchingly tough modern motorsport simulation. It’s packaged fairly similarly to Codemasters’ F1 series and KT Racing’s WRC games, only with 50% fewer wheels and 500% more terrifying crashes.
Of course, if you’ve been keeping close track of its progress you’ll find that MotoGP 21 is a lot like MotoGP 20 – identical even, in some areas – although there have been a couple of welcome tweaks that do genuinely improve the bike handling and the racing.
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MotoGP 21’s sensation of speed is quite remarkable, especially in first-person, and the feeling of weight is also excellent. On track the racing is aggressive and dangerous: relative to last year’s game, changes to the suspension system means the bikes feel more alive over bumps, and particularly under heavy braking. Milestone has also added brake temperature management, which augments the racing with yet another layer of strategy to wrestle with. Brakes that are too cold or too hot, for instance, won’t be as effective, and I definitely noticed when the bike wasn’t pulling up as quickly.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=Changes%20to%20the%20suspension%20system%20means%20the%20bikes%20feel%20more%20alive%20over%20bumps%2C%20and%20particularly%20under%20heavy%20braking”]Off the track, there are plenty of staff opportunities and R&D tasks to juggle to improve your bike’s performance – of course, that stuff has become pretty typical in modern motorsport sims, including MotoGP 20. From researching upgrades to establishing a junior team, MotoGP 21 sticks closely to last year’s script.
MotoGP 21 is an extremely demanding racer, though, and the degree of difficulty increases exponentially the more you lower the riding aids, which offer assists like throttle and braking input modulation and a cornering assist that irons out frantic left stick inputs – basically an invisible guiding hand to help the bike dip left and right more smoothly. Even with those crutches, however – and even against relatively sedate levels of AI competition – MotoGP 21 requires a high level of finesse to succeed. As a result, pulling off a win or placing well after a great fight on track is a rather rewarding experience.
For racing fans yet to try Milestone’s series, MotoGP 21 turns out to be a good year to jump in thanks to a new tutorial mode that adds an extremely useful launchpad for getting accustomed to MotoGP’s tricky brand of bike racing. MotoGP 20 never took time to educate you on how to ride or even how to use your bike’s systems, but this year’s instalment rectifies that with a simple series of playable lessons outlining everything from straightforward bike control, to fuel management, and to electronic systems like engine brake, anti-wheelie, and traction control – all of which can be adjusted on track, on the fly. As such, despite its otherwise steep difficulty curve, MotoGP 21 is probably the most beginner-friendly MotoGP game in years, and I think the effort to make it slightly less impenetrable for newbies is a very good move.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=The%20effort%20to%20make%20MotoGP%2021%20slightly%20less%20impenetrable%20for%20newbies%20is%20a%20very%20good%20move”]The rewind feature also returns to take the sting out of learning to ride in MotoGP 21, and unlike in Milestone’s Supercross 4 it’s an unlimited resource here. I for one think that’s a more sensible approach; it certainly makes it more forgiving on cack-handed maniacs like me.
Of course, if you’re a complete purist, rewinds and all other assists can be reduced or toggled off to force you to suffer the full consequences of coming off your bike so that you can experience one of the most notable new additions this year: a full, manual bike-retrieval sequence. That is, after coming off you won’t automatically respawn on your bike; you’ll need to jog over to wherever the bike came to a stop, lift it up, and hop back on. I actually really like how this looks in-game – and it’s certainly a cool, authentic little sequence to layer into the racing – but the fact that manual bike retrieval is only applicable to humans and not the AI means it’s enormously and fundamentally flawed. How is it fair that the AI racers still respawn on their bikes instantly, speeding away while I was still hoofing it back to my own bike? It’ll be neat if this is fixed in an update, but in its current form the function is pointless to use.
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MotoGP 21 also introduces the real-world series’ Long Lap Penalty, a narrow and specifically longer route placed somewhere on each track that serves to punish riders for track limit violations and false starts. Long Lap Penalty zones have been added to every track from the 2021 championship and definitely bolster MotoGP 21’s feeling of authenticity, though I’d stress I’ve never seen the AI have to take one yet.
Finally, while MotoGP 21 is filled with character faces only a mother could love, there’s some pretty great detail to be spotted elsewhere, from the mistreated rubber of a cooked tyre to the gleam of wet asphalt. Off-track, however, the recycled vignettes and same-same menus make things feel a bit stale, generally. It’s also peculiar that female riders are still being referred to as blokes – that just feels half-baked.
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