4K monitors are brilliant for watching movies, playing pretty games and getting work done, and you might be surprised how affordable 4K monitors are these days. Case in point are these two big reductions on 27-inch and 28-inch 4K monitors on Amazon, available from Dell for $249.99 or Innocn for $199.99.
Joseph Staten just left Microsoft. Technically it didn’t really change anything when talking about the future of Halo compared to when he left Halo developer 343 Industries to return to his previous role at Xbox Publishing back in January. That came amidst the layoff-fueled shakeup at the studio that saw many senior leads leave either at that time or in the past year since Halo Infinite first shipped. And yet somehow, his complete severance from Microsoft feels a bit more somber for this longtime Halo fan, because it means that he’s unlikely to have much, if any, influence on the future of the franchise – which he still could’ve from his Xbox Publishing perch.
And so while it’s fair to wonder where Halo is heading from here – I’ll get to that in a bit – I wanted to take the opportunity to express my gratitude for someone that had a major hand in creating some of my favorite games of all time. Staten was a Bungie “Grizzled Ancient,” the studio’s internal term for someone who’d been at the company for a long, long time. This is the man who wrote the original Halo trilogy. You remember, the near-perfect first game – the one whose memorable campaign and characters single-handedly turned the Xbox into a major player in the console space – the smartly told and shocking sequel that had you playing as The Arbiter for part of the adventure, and the trilogy capper that gave Master Chief and friends closure and meaning while still leaving a glimmer of hope that Spartan-117 might one day return. “Wake me… when you need me.”
But Staten wasn’t done with Halo there. He followed that by directing Halo 3: ODST, the film noir-inspired Halo game that took you out of the MJOLNIR armor and into the boots of a regular-ol’ human. The Covenant bad guys (well, except the Grunts… who, by the way, were voiced by Staten) looked a lot bigger as a regular person than as a seven-foot-tall super soldier. And all of it was set in a pseudo-open hub world where you could go where you wanted to and revisit locations when you wanted or needed to. Everything was watched over by the mysterious Superintendent AI (“Keep it clean!”), which, coincidentally, was also voiced by Staten. And the mood was set by Halo composer Marty O’Donnell’s jazz-inspired, piano-heavy soundtrack that made ODST feel unlike any other Halo game. It is, to this day, still beloved by Halo fans and, for some, remains their favorite Halo game ever.
And then, of course, we get to Halo Infinite. Its six-year development cycle was messy, even just from what we got to see publicly. And after the gameplay debut for the Xbox Series X’s would-be day-one flagship launch title went infamously poorly, Microsoft took the bold and somewhat embarrassing but absolutely necessary step of delaying Infinite out of the Series X’s launch window and bringing Joseph Staten into 343 as the project’s creative director. Though I know there are fans out there who’d hold Joseph accountable for making tough decisions like cutting split-screen co-op and delaying Forge – and as creative director the buck stops with him – in the bigger picture, look at where Halo was at before Staten arrived (i.e. Craig) and look at the campaign we ultimately got in December of 2021. We got an outstanding single-player campaign – one that soft-rebooted Halo while still continuing Chief’s story. And one, I might add, that successfully washed the bad taste of Halo 5’s disastrous campaign out of our mouths. No, Staten didn’t do it alone, but he nevertheless deserves a lot of credit for pulling Halo Infinite together like he did.
And as I mentioned earlier, Halo’s future is nevertheless murky. It seems highly unlikely we’ll get any campaign content whatsoever – be it a side-story DLC with Blue Team (as they are mentioned in an audio log) or a full-blown “Halo 7” – anytime in the next several years or perhaps more. Another big question is, “Who is going to lead Halo into the future?” It won’t be Staten, whom I’d have trusted implicitly. Instead, it might be a younger generation of game development talent at 343 – similar to the young guns at id Software successfully reinventing Doom for the modern era in 2016 – or 343 might look to poach big-name talent from other studios.
But that’s a conversation for another day. For now, I’d like to express my appreciation and gratitude to Joseph Staten for having such a big hand in creating so much of the best Halo there’s ever been: Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo Infinite. That’s a lot for him to be proud of, and I’m so glad I got to play those games as they came out and enjoy the water-cooler conversation that each one generated – and talk to him about his great journey.
Enjoy your next adventure, Joseph, and thanks for all of the great Halo.
Ubisoft’s XDefiant is an upcoming free-to-play first person arena shooter that, if I’m being honest, I didn’t originally feel interested in at all. I had no real connection to any of the factions from different Ubisoft games showcased in XDefiant, and the gameplay didn’t capture my interest. However, I got to play for about an hour in a closed preview event and I was surprised to find that I was wanting to get more playtime in after the servers closed down.
An hour isn’t really a lot of time to give a full preview in any game, so this is just a first impressions piece I wanted to share with you all. I had actually played XDefiant in 2021 with one of Ubisoft’s extremely NDA-ed closed tests, and this was a huge change up from that iteration. It’s a great sign to see that Ubisoft has taken feedback seriously and made some major changes.
In my opinion, XDefiant really didn’t have a sense of identity when the first closed test opened. I couldn’t figure out what the game was trying to do or how the game was supposed to feel. There was no real guidance on how to play the game or who the characters were. But loading into XDefiant now, there’s more structure to it.
Let’s start with Factions. There’s no story or narrative on why these agents from each Faction are in XDefiant. In speaking with Safy Saada, Creative Director, I was told that there’s no underlying story or reasoning for these characters being in XDefiant. They were merely inspirations.
Each Faction is really just like selecting a class with different Abilities and Ultras (ultimates). There were five Factions available in this closed beta and I detailed their abilities and class-specific traits below:
Each Faction has their own traits and abilities to make them stand out and be more viable in a team composition. There are six people on each team and there’s no limit on how many people can be from one Faction. I honestly found myself playing predominantly as The Division’s Cleaners or Splinter Cell’s Echelon.
The flamethrower Ultra that Cleaners have was incredibly strong, and by that I mean you barely had to touch an enemy’s hitbox to insta-kill them. Also, the flamethrower’s time to use let you get in quite a few kills before the Ultra was used up. Additionally, the incendiary rounds passive Cleaners have were equally as oppressive and overpowered. If you had an SMG you could basically run half your mag into an enemy and let the fire damage over time do its thing and watch your enemies desperately try to run away only to die around the corner due to the damage over time effect.
Echelon made it so my hitbox was incredibly small and I could run around in my invisible suit and pop in and out to kill enemies by surprise. I mostly bounced between these two Factions since they felt the most overpowered, but each Faction really had its own balance issues. The Libertad’s healing abilities nearly instantly healed me and my teammates and it was impossible to try and kill anyone standing in the area of effect healing because of how effective the rate of healing was.
There’s definitely a need for some heavy tuning and balance adjustments with the Factions and their abilities. Yes, XDefiant felt fun in that hour of playtime I got, but I could easily see how frustrating things could get if one team just absolutely rolled the other from being made up of all Cleaners. I think maybe limiting how many Factions are allowed to be in a team (like one Libertad and up to two of the other Factions) would be helpful, especially since each Faction seems to serve a specific team role.
But I liked that none of the Factions were limited to a specific weapon loadout. You can make loadouts that can then be selected by any Faction when you enter a match. The time to kill (TTK) was extremely fast and reminded me of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. The SMG and Shotguns were incredibly overpowered, not even with the Cleaners’ additional passive abilities. Thus, any faster rate of fire weapons and immediate burst weapons were the best to use in matches.
The shotgun, meanwhile, was basically a one-hit kill and SMGS barely needed to run through a full mag before shredding an opponent. Again, some aggressive balancing here will help the future of XDefiant, but I will say the gunplay and movement felt so much better in this game than Hyper Scape, which was Ubisoft’s other recent attempt at a free-to-play multiplayer shooter.
XDefiant unsurprisingly has game modes similar to Overwatch and Call of Duty, but the mix kept matches from feeling stagnant. The game modes included in the beta included Domination, Occupy, Escort, and Zone Control. I kept getting Domination and Zone Control so I can’t speak on the other game modes, but those two felt incredibly fast paced and fun. Even when I was getting killed repeatedly and trying to run back to defend a point, I found myself giggling every time I would sneak up on an enemy to take them by surprise before taking out their other teammates and securing a point for my team.
But it’s not enough for a multiplayer game to be fun these days. There are only so many hours in the day, so not every game can survive and thrive. So when I asked how this game would be supported as a live-service game, since I experienced a hefty laundry list of weapons, abilities, and mechanics that needed to be rebalanced, Saada explained that they built XDefiant to have a flexible code which would make future changes and updates easier to implement.
This was pretty huge for me since one of my main games is Apex Legends and one of the consistent issues throughout the seasons there have been audio bugs. Oftentimes there are no audio cues on abilities, weapons, or footsteps and that has been a huge problem with Apex. Respawn has stated that they’re not able to just fix things immediately because the code would break from the two years they’ve spent updating the game so it’s more complicated than pushing a simple fix.
So hearing Ubisoft specify that they are building XDefiant to be flexible with updates and changes is incredibly relieving, especially since I wasn’t a huge fan of how they handled Hyper Scape, a game I reviewed and specified had a huge potential but wasn’t updated fast enough to actually survive past a month of its release. I feel very hopeful for XDefiant as it shows a lot of signs that Ubisoft has learned from its past mistakes of launching an FPS game that just did not resonate with the current standard for FPS games.
Again, it’s not perfect and definitely requires a lot of major and fine tuning. But the core gameplay is there and it’s fun. There’s another Closed Beta happening on the 13th and I’ll be playing more then to see if changes have been made and how updates feel, but I’m genuinely feeling optimistic about the trajectory of XDefiant.
After two hours of XDefiant, I came away with a rather different thought in my mind than I expected. More than anything, I was impressed at just how good we have it in the multiplayer FPS genre at the moment. Apex Legends, Warzone 2, Overwatch 2, Valorant, Rainbow Six Siege. That’s some unbelievably tough competition. XDefiant has to either give players something completely different, or absolutely nail the basics. It’s opted for the second path, and having played several matches against a medley of press people and content creators, I’m not convinced Ubisoft’s new arena shooter is up to the challenge.
Ganondilf.
In something we didn’t think we’d be writing today, everyone thinks Ganondorf in the new The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom trailer is pretty smoking hot. VG247 brought this to our attention, and now it’s our job to share this revelation with you.
If you haven’t watched the final pre-launch trailer yet, then you might be a little bit confused. Before today, we’ve only seen the Demon King as a rather “unhydrated”, bone-y looking being. But as of today, we’ve seen him in the flesh — literally.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
The moment you virtually step into the vibrant, mysterious world of Aveum, everything feels simultaneously new but extremely familiar. It looks like a landscape that you’ve stepped into, the characters talk to you in a way that feels commonplace, but this fantasy setting is nothing the worlds you’ve experienced before. In a recent preview, we got to take a first look at Immortals of Aveum, and chat to two of the game’s designers about the inspiration behind this magical new realm.
Immortals of Aveum is an upcoming single-player magic FPS set in the titular land of Aveum. You’ll assume the role of Jak, a Battlemage learning to harness the magic coursing through his world. As an Unforeseen, Jak discovers his abilities later in life, and Aveum’s most powerful kingdoms are at war. It’s up to Jak to unlock his power, and work alongside the Immortals to help save Aveum from destruction.
What makes Immortals of Aveum feel unique at first glance is the combination of two things. First up is the studio’s backstory; Ascendant Studios is led by Bret Robbins, Creative Director of Dead Space, and former Creative Director at Sledgehammer Games on several Call of Duty titles. This best-in-class FPS design shines through Immortals of Aveum’s combat; it’s a first-person shooter but the weapon that you wield is magic. We’ll delve more into that in a bit.
The second component is that Immortals of Aveum is inspired by a seemingly endless smorgasbord of magical realms, but it’s this dense mixture of inspiration from countless places that makes it stand out. Dave Bogan, Art Director at Ascendant Studios, tells us that from the very get-go, the team set out to create a “new look” for fantasy.
Bogan cites a handful of the creative influences he grew up with, including Dungeons and Dragons, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and “cartoons with cool Japanese robots” to name a few. The team starts by selecting several references from their own preferences — visual inspiration that they would like to bring into the game, and examples of ideas that they don’t want to include.
“It’s really about subconsciously drawing inspiration and influence from all those things, and letting it come out in interesting shapes and languages, while keeping an eye on things that exist out there and trying not to replicate anything,” he says.
Julia Lichtblau, Associate Art Director at Ascendant Studios says that Immortals of Aveum’s unique feel comes from the juxtaposition of old and new. A lot of the structures in the world are inspired by oppressive, medieval forts of old, and the villages are brimming with rustic, pastoral charm often seen in old Europe. This design is mixed with the presence of magic, which allows the inhabitants of Aveum to combine antique settings with advanced crafting.
“Magic is essentially their technology,” Lichtblau explains. “They’re able to use it to bend the rules of architectural design, so you’re seeing big sweeping shapes and giant white skyscrapers that could have been built by advanced magic users of that time. That dichotomy makes it feel a bit unexpected.”
This combination of familiar and futuristic goes beyond the world design, seeping into character styling, dialogue and language, giving the inhabitants of Aveum a unique edge. Bogan points to Jak’s design, the cut of a motorcycle jacket giving sci-fi vibes with chainmail stitched to it for an medieval fantasy flavour.
“Aveum is always binding elements from different worlds and times that are helping it feel otherworldly,” he adds.
Ascendant Studios’ background in Call of Duty shines prevalently through Immortals of Aveum, but the team has opted to embrace those elements rather than shy away from it. Robbins asks a simple, but idea provoking question in the preview: “What if instead of a helicopter, you’re fighting a dragon?”, and it’s that line of thinking that has allowed Immortals of Aveum to feel familiar to FPS players, but fresh and exciting to fantasy fans too.
The shooting mechanic in Immortals of Aveum consists of three main types of magic. Jak harnesses his powers through his Sigil, and can fire Force (blue), Chaos (red) and Life (green) magic. Each of these types have different ranges and fire rates, giving you the opportunity to mix it up depending on your playstyle. There’s over 25 spells and 80 Talents to unlock throughout the game, so combat can be deeply customised for every brawl and battle.
Bogan explains that there’s a lot of direct correlation between the Sigils and a regular FPS with guns. The Sigils all have crystals, which allow the spells themselves to act like projectiles with different properties, similar to traditional weapons.
“It was important for people that play first person shooters to feel the relation and to understand, ‘oh, this is the type of weapon I use for this or that’,” Bogan says. “But it’s a little bit more unhinged in visual design, which is cool.”
Lichtblau adds that this framework means anyone that loves first-person shooters will be able to jump into Immortals of Aveum, and says that the combat is “really easy to pick up and really satisfying to master.”
Immortals of Aveum promises a unique new magical world to explore and a robust combat system that allows for much more freedom than your standard shooter, but Lichtblau says that it’s the game’s story that sets it apart from games of its ilk.
“The way the characters are written, the way they interact with each other, it feels incredibly fresh,” Lichtblau says. “It’s hard for me to even pick a favourite because they all have such nuance, and that’s something I haven’t seen in a long time.”
Immortals of Aveum is set to launch on Xbox Series X|S July 20th. Preorders for the game will go live on EA’s website tomorrow, so stay tuned for details.
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The realm of first-person shooters is largely inhabited by games with military and sci-fi themes. In recent years, FPS games with other themes—particularly fantasy—have somewhat fallen by the wayside. Enter Immortals of Aveum, a big, bright, and beautiful techno-fantasy shooter from EA and the San Rafael-based developer Ascendant Studios. Focusing on a single-player campaign in a carefully-crafted, lore-rich world, Immortals of Aveum is looking to give this beloved genre a magic jolt of new life. We had a chance to look at the game and talk to the game’s director, and we’ve come away spellbound.
You may not be familiar with Ascendant Studios, but you’re likely familiar with some of the past games the staff has made. Ascendant CEO and Immortals of Aveum director Bret Robbins has a legacy of work on numerous titles, including the Legacy of Kain series, the original Dead Space, and several Call of Duty titles. It was while developing CoD that the idea of Immortals was birthed: when looking at a level design for CoD, he thought about what the scene would be like in a big, bombastic fantasy setting instead.
The world of Aveum features a land torn apart—quite literally—by a millennium-long Everwar for control of magical leylines. As the conflict continues, a bottomless rift called “The Wound” grows ever-larger, with a mysterious, towering statue at its center seemingly staring down on everything. Here, you take control of Jak, an aspiring Immortal who was plucked from life as an orphan in the slums to become a Magnus battle mage. He has the rare ability to wield all three “colors” of magic: A Triarch, as he’s called. With these skills, he battles the forces of the almighty magic forces of Rasharn, a superpower warring for leyline control with Jak’s homeland of Lucium. But what long-buried mysteries and secrets is this Everwar obscuring?
What exactly is an Immortal? Despite the traditional definition, these Immortals do not possess eternal life. It’s a name meant to strike fear in the hearts of foes—after all, who is less afraid of death than a person the concept wouldn’t apply to?
“Basically, they’re like the Navy SEALS of our wizard world,” says Robbins. They’re taking on the forces of Rasharn, but human soldiers are far from the only threat they’ll face: Elementals, magically-animated Constructs, and terrifyingly resilient Archons. But some of the most memorable encounters will be battles against other expert spellslingers. According to Robbins, “When you have a wizard-on-wizard battle, that’s when things really get crazy.”
The setpieces in Aveum are stunning in visuals and gameplay intensity. You aren’t going to be a back-row wizard slinging spells behind a bigger, buffer unit—you’ll need to get up close and personal with waves of fierce enemies, all eager to maul an enemy Magnus. While the fantasy setting is different from the genre norm, longtime FPS players will find a lot of familiar-feeling skills in Jak’s arsenal of magic. For example:
“The more you get to play with them and see how they work, the more depth, surprises, and fun you’ll find,” says Robbins. “The challenge (in design) was making these spells feel as good, or even better, as shooting a gun.”
Jak also has lots of ways to move around with panache, as Robbins explains. “You can double jump, hover over enemies, use a Lash spell where you can latch onto anchors in an arena or pull enemies closer, and even teleport dodge.” Jak also has a shield spell for when you need some extra defense. “I didn’t want to make a cover shooter, where you’re hiding and shooting—I want players to feel more powerful, like a gunslinger,” Robbins continues. “You can walk into an arena, really assess it, and own it.”
Augmenting these magical abilities is an in-depth gear and character enhancement systems. Jak can find or buy Sigils, a crucial focus for his magical power. These Sigils grant stat boosts and buffs and can also alter how certain spells work, effectively changing loadouts. Totems are another piece of magical kit that apply various boosts, though they’re focused more on movement abilities. Magic Rings augment and transform the grenade-like Fury spells. Finally, there are Bracers, gauntlets that boost Jak’s defensive abilities. Combine all this gear with a Talent Tree to power up different magic colors, and you’re looking at a considerable amount of customization.
But finding everything will take careful exploration—the stages are packed with secrets, puzzles, and hidden areas, so you’ll want to take time to look around. Robbins was eager to tell us all about Aevum’s hidden treasures. “When you get a new spell, you can return to previous areas and unlock new things. We’ve also got the Shroudfanes: mini-dungeons hidden throughout the game that have specific challenges or unique bosses—they have some of the best gear in the game.”
Ultimately, all of the gameplay and story elements are in service of creating a unique fantasy gaming experience unlike anything else. “I want players to really fall in love with the world,” says Robbins. “We’ve created a great story and a great combat system, all wrapped under the umbrella of Aveum. I truly hope the players will come to enjoy this world and the story and characters we’ve written.”
Look forward to becoming the slickest spellcaster around on July 20 when Immortals of Aveum launches on PlayStation 5.
Any fan of first-person shooters has handled a wide variety of digital weaponry in their gaming career. We’ve fired historical weapons while storming the beaches of Normandy, shot modern guns in modern warfare, and used futuristic blasters in sci-fi shooters. One thing we don’t often do in FPSes, though, is cast spells. That will change with Immortals of Aveum, a magic shooter that replaces mechanical weapons with magical abilities. In a recent hands-off preview, I got a look at this upcoming shooter, and I’m intrigued to see more.
Pitched as a “single-player, story-driven, magic shooter,” Immortals of Aveum appears to live up to that tagline, based on what I saw. The combat shares many ideas with the military shooters we know and love. You can cast spells that act as long-range rifles, shotguns, grenades, and the like. But since it’s magic that fuels your capabilities, you also have access to additional moves you won’t find in traditional shooters.
For instance, the Lash spell lets you pull distant enemies close using what looks like a rope made of blue plasma. Then you can cast the Shatter spell to slam them with a wall of spikes. If you’re feeling overwhelmed in combat, you can use a Blink spell to teleport out of harm’s way. It all happens quickly, and you can chain together your attacks and abilities in combos.
If you’re taking damage, you can cast a shield spell for extra protection, but that slows your movement speed. When enemies use shields, you can break through them by unloading a barrage of magic of the same color. There’s blue, red, and green magic in Aveum, and each one represents a particular category of spells. All told, you can learn and upgrade 25 spells during the course of the campaign, and work through a skill tree to learn 80 talents for use in combat and other situations.
I have to say, the magical combat at the very least looks incredibly stylish, with colorful swirls, beams, and explosions of sparks going off all over the battlefield.
Unlike some shooters, combat is only part of the picture in Immortals of Aveum. The developers say there’s plenty of room for exploration, and those who poke around the levels might discover hidden areas and helpful items.
There’s also an emphasis on puzzle solving. One of the gameplay demos showed Jak, the protagonist, in a room with no apparent exit. To proceed, he had to figure out how to raise two pillars, use the Lash spell to reach an otherwise inaccessible area, and solve a light beam puzzle.
His reward for doing all that? A giant, terrifying golem-like creature rose out of the ground and attacked, starting a tense battle before the demo came to an end.
While magic is what makes Immortals of Aveum stand out in the FPS space, the world of Aveum isn’t a typical fantasy setting. The demo did show Jak fighting a dragon, but there’s also a strong sci-fi element here that coexists with the more traditional fantasy trappings. The denizens of Aveum are space-faring people, with access to futuristic aircraft and modern military techniques like combat drops into warzones.
And conflict is rampant; for as long as anyone can remember, the denizens of Aveum have been engaged in an Everwar. Your character is from the nation of Lucium, whose interests are protected by the Immortals, an elite group of battle mages. Lucium’s main foe is Rasharn, whose forces are led by Sandrakk, a powerful armor-clad mage who bears a suspicious resemblance to Sauron in The Lord of the Rings. Sandrakk’s goal is to take control of all magic in order to dominate the entire planet.
You play as Jak, a Triarch, or a mage with the rare ability to control all three colors of magic. Because of his abilities, Jak gets recruited by the Immortals as a relative novice, and players guide his progression through the ranks as he becomes an elite battle mage himself.
Immortals of Aveum is about 25 hours long and, from the demo I saw, features some high quality acting talent. It stars actors like Gina Torres and Daren Barnet, who you may recognize from Firefly and Never Have I Ever, respectively.
If you watch the trailers for Immortals of Aveum and think the combat looks like Call of Duty but with magic, there’s a good reason for that. It’s being developed by Ascendant Studios, led by Bret Robbins, who was creative director on the original Dead Space before heading to Sledgehammer to work on numerous Call of Duty games in the 2010s. The rest of the development team is made up of people who worked on franchises like BioShock, Halo, and Call of Duty, as well as a number of former Telltale Games folks.
The one obvious thing that’s missing from Immortals is multiplayer. This is a single-player-only campaign, and when asked if the team had considered a multiplayer mode, Robbins said the thought had occurred to them, but he had nothing to announce at the time.
In any case, I’m eager to get my hands on Immortals of Aveum when it releases on June 20 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. Until then, this looks like a new FPS to keep an eye on.
Chris Reed is a deals expert and commerce editor for IGN. He also runs IGN’s board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed or on Mastodon @chrislreed.
When Immortals Of Aveum was first revealed in December last year, there wasn’t a lot to know. After a hands-off preview last week, I can tell you it’s a singleplayer first-person shooter but with magic, which would sound a lot like Forspoken if I described it without context, and it actually looks pretty cool. Mainly, though, I can tell you that I’m never going to forget whose idea this game was.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is bringing back more familiar (albeit scary) faces as a classic Zelda enemy looks to be a boss in the new game.
As revealed in the new Tears of the Kingdom trailer, that already revealed a ton of story details and gave fans their first look at Ganondorf, Gleeok is rearing its heads for the first time in 16 years.
Though a two-headed version last made an appearance in 2007’s Phantom Hourglass, the three-headed Gleeok shown in the new trailer (below) hasn’t been seen since The Legend of Zelda, as in the very first game in the franchise that launched in 1987.
It’s two-headed variant also appeared in Oracle of Seasons, but this version of Gleeok will be making its return after 36 years. It’s also not the only boss-looking beastie shown in the new trailer, suggesting Tears of the Kingdom is returning to a classic Zelda boss formula instead of Breath of the Wild’s more systematic approach.
The sequel also seemingly includes a classic Ocarina of Time enemy, and while it’s not a boss, the infamous ReDead monster is just as iconic. Nestled between a Lizalfos and what appears to be a giant Bokoblin in February’s trailer, the spook is best known for haunting Castle Town’s ruined market place following the time jump.
Tears of the Kingdom also looks to give players even more freedom than Breath of thr Wild, adding a new Fuse ability alongside Recall, Ultrahand, and Ascend.
We also know that Tears of the Kingdom will have the largest file size of any first party Nintendo Switch game, include classic enemies from Ocarina of Time, and cost a heftier than usual $70 to match its scope, but the main reason fans are excited is because Breath of the Wild is considered one of the best games of all time.
Fans can even enjoy it on a limited edition Tears of the Kingdom Nintendo Switch that was announced alongside the gameplay presentation.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer and acting UK news editor. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
