Author: Game Infliction

Microsoft Announces Xbox Game Pass Lineup for February 2024

While the world waits to find out the future of Xbox, Microsoft has announced the Game Pass lineup for February 2024.

Available today, February 6, is Anuchard (Cloud, Console, and PC). Here’s the official blurb: “The kingdom of Anuchard has fallen. Generations after the collapse, its surviving descendants have chosen you to become The Bellwielder of the magical Audros Bell. Go forth, battle monsters, solve puzzles, and restore Anuchard to its former skyward glory!”

Tomorrow, February 7, sees the addition of Dovetail Games’ Train Sim World 4 (Cloud, Console, and PC): “Hit high speeds, roam free along the tracks and get creative with a host of new tools and features in Train Sim World 4. Design your own liveries, plan Scenarios and capture railfan shots with the new Photo Mode across three detailed routes in the UK, Austria and USA.”

Then, on February 8, courtesy of EA Play comes Madden NFL 24 (Console and PC). PC Game Pass or Ultimate members get access to EA Sports’ football game, just in time for the Super Bowl. IGN’s Madden NFL 24 review returned a 6/10. We said: “New animations and improved AI make Madden NFL 24’s on-field action the best it’s ever been, but everything that happens off the field is a slog of dated modes and laggy menus that brings everything around it down.”

Moving on, February 13 sees the addition of the Resident Evil 3 remake (Cloud, Console, and PC). “Another stellar remake of a classic survival horror from Capcom. Keep em’ coming,” we said in our Resident Evil 3 review, which scored the game 9/10.

Two games on February 14: cozy puzzle game A Little To The Left (Cloud, Console, and PC), and side-scroller action RPG Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (Cloud, Console, and PC), which returns to Game Pass. “The wait was worth it,” we wrote in our Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night review. “Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a whole new castle to crash full of unexpected monsters and mysteries in the vein of classic Castlevania.”

February 15 sees PlateUp! (Cloud, Console, and PC) enter Game Pass. Here’s the description: “Classic cooking action with permanent roguelite progression. Cook and serve your dishes, design and decorate your restaurants, and expand your culinary kingdom with unlocks, abilities and dishes in procedurally-generated layouts. Take on the challenge solo or hire up to three friends.”

And finally, Return to Grace (Cloud, Console, and PC) hits Game Pass on February 20. “A daring space archaeologist has just unearthed the ancient resting place of a long lost A.I. god known as Grace,” reads the official blurb. “Adventure with various fractured A.I. personalities as you uncover the great mystery of why she was shut down all those years ago in this first-person narrative adventure set in a visually stunning ‘60s retro sci-fi world.”

Here are the games coming to Xbox Game Pass in February 2024:

In its announcement, Microsoft said MLB The Show 24, due out March 19, is coming to Game Pass on day one.

Leaving Game Pass on February 15 are Galactic Civilizations III (PC), and Opus: Echo of Starsong (Cloud, Console, and PC).

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.

Bore Blasters and its mix of Vampire Survivors meets Dome Keeper is, dare I say it, a blast

Many a Survivors-like has come and gone over the last couple of years, but Bore Blasters might be the first one that’s really struck a chord with me. Or maybe that should be struck gold, as this mining roguelike is all about collecting little gem-like nuggets while boring deep underground for treasure and fending off all manner of flying eyeballs, bats and other unmentionable horrors with wings. I’ve been playing its Steam Next Fest demo this morning, and my initial impression is that it’s a little bit Dome Keeper, a little bit SteamWorld Dig, and very, very good. Even better, developers 8BitSkull have just announced it’s coming out in full next month.

Read more

Spider-Man: Miles Morales Drops to Just $20 for One Day Only at Best Buy

Marvel’s Spider-Man Miles Morales is a great game, and well worth playing on the PS5 if you haven’t checked it out yet. It’s also a wonderfully cozy game, with a snowy winter theme, so I highly recommend playing it while sipping hot chocolate and under a nice blanket.

Best Buy has got the game down to just $19.99 in its latest deal of the day—which is a tremendous discount. The only caveat is that the deal will expire by the end of the day (February 6), so act now if you’re looking to take advantage of the deal. I’ll leave some handy links just below to save you some precious minutes searching for the deal as well.

Best Buy also has Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition down to just $39.99 as well. The Ultimate Edition also comes bundled with Spider-Man Remastered – which comes complete with all three DLC chapters from Marvel’s Spider-Man: The City That Never Sleeps as well – so you can get the full experience before swinging into the new story of Spider-Man 2. Both rarely go on sale for that low, so this is your best option to pick up these games.

Upon release, we gave both of these games a 9/10 in their reviews, stating that Spider-Man Remastered is “one of the best superhero games ever made” and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales “earns its spot as a fantastic follow-up”.

Are you still looking for more Valentine’s Day ideas? We’ve got complete guides for everyone, and even a specific guide for Valentine’s Day gifts for gamers right here on IGN. Otherwise, Amazon’s Buy 1 Get 1 50% sale is another great opportunity to buy gifts, as it includes loads of great video games, Blu-rays, books, board games, and more.

Plus, for more great gaming and tech deals right now, don’t overlook Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora for just $40 at Best Buy, Super Mario Bros. Wonder dropping down to just $49.99, or a 2023 Alienware Aurora RTX 4090 gaming PC for $3299.99 ($400 instant discount).

Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.

Shapez 2’s Next Fest demo is the purest catnip for factory game lovers

According to Steam, I’ve spent about 2000 hours playing factory games. Terms like throughput, modularity, and automation are like dog-whistles to me, so when I heard that Shapez 2 was getting a demo for Steam Next Fest this month, I knew my weekend plans were instantly sorted. Well, here we are in the new week. I’ve finished the Shapez 2 demo twice and logged 10 hours into the game. I see conveyor belts of circles and squares behind my eyelids and the reward system of my brain has been well and truly hijacked. The only way I can continue to do my job effectively is by making my job be about Shapez 2. So here I am.

Read more

Silent Hill: The Short Message Passes 1 Million Downloads

Content Warning: The following article contains mentions of themes some readers may find distressing, including those of self-harm and suicide.

Silent Hill: The Short Message has surpassed one million downloads, publisher Konami has announced.

In a post on the Japanese Silent Hill X/Twitter account, Konami celebrated the milestone for the free-to-play Silent Hill spin-off. Confirmation The Short Message surpassed “over one million downloads” arrived in artwork depicting the creepy post-it notes appearing in the game.

The Short Message was revealed and released during Sony’s first PlayStation State of Play presentation of 2024 on January 31 and takes players to modern day Germany. Taking on the role of Anita, players explore a typically spooky house called The Villa from a first-person perspective, in what Konami described as an “experimental” taste of the wider Silent Hill franchise.

Despite receiving a surprise release during the PlayStation showcase, The Short Message’s existence wasn’t very well hidden. Myriad leaks gave fans a good idea of the plot, gameplay, and visuals, including one from the Australian ratings board which confirmed what it described as “an exploration-based psychological horror game”.

Also outlined in the ratings board description, The Short Message includes “strong suicide themes” and “horror violence”, though we won’t disclose those scenes here for the sake of sensitivity and spoilers.

The Short Message’s themes also bring to mind images leaked in May 2022 that were allegedly from a Silent Hill game. Though they were quickly taken down, the images showed a young woman and a single house being viewed from a first-person perspective, which is now confirmed to be The Short Message.

Suicide: If you are having suicidal thoughts, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline in the U.S. is available 24 hours a day at 1-800-273-8255. A list of international suicide hotlines can be found here.

#Drive Rally blends WRC seriousness with arcade cheer

In 2021 I went through a bit of a rally phase with WRC 9, as I discovered the joys of watching people play rally games beautifully. And as much as I enjoyed my brief stints with those semi-realistic rally games, I’ve since longed for more of a blend between a rally-er and a colourful arcade jaunt. For those seeking a similar swinging-the-back-out experience, I’d recommend giving #Drive Rally‘s demo a go. It might not be as colourful as I’d like, but it’s got lovely, errr, dirt feel?

Read more

PS5 Update Improves DualSense Sounds, Adjusts Brightness of Power Indicator, and More

Sony has outlined a raft of new features and quality-of-life improvements for the PlayStation 5, out now in beta form and set to roll out for everyone in the coming months.

In a PlayStation Blog post, senior vice president of platform experience at Sony Interactive Entertainment Hideaki Nishino said the beta including these updates is limited to invited participants in the U.S., Canada, Japan, UK, Germany, and France, who’ll receive an email if chosen.

The update sees the DualSense controller get speaker audio enhancements, so it can produce higher volume sound which allows players to hear in-game sounds and voice chat audio more clearly, as well as improvements to the built-in microphone.

“The mic input quality on these controllers has been improved, courtesy of a new AI machine learning model,” Nishino said. “Background noise from button presses and game audio are suppressed, resulting in a better voice chat experience.”

Share screen interactions are also improved so players watching share screen in full screen mode can now use pointers and emoji reactions to interact with the host’s gameplay. “Viewers can move a pointer around, send a ping, or draw a line on the shared screen, allowing them to highlight certain objects or areas to guide the host player more accurately,” Nishino said.

Finally, players can now adjust the brightness of the PS5’s power indicator by going to Settings, System, Beep and Light, and then Brightness.

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.

Echo Point Nova is an open world FPS with hoverboards, floating islands and sledgehammers

If you’ve been dreaming of a hyper-agile FPS set on the sky islands from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Echo Point Nova could be your jam. It casts you as a space pilot who crashlands on a floating archipelago planet during a research expedition. I’m not sure what you’re researching, exactly, but going by your character’s loadout, it’s the Science of Sick Moves.

Read more

Nintendo Squeezes More Life Out of the Switch as Switch 2 Anticipation Builds

Nintendo is squeezing sales out of the seven year-old Switch, shifting 13.74 million units in the first nine months of the financial year, a 7.8% decline on the same period a year earlier. But it has revised its sales forecast for the current financial year up, predicting Switch sales of 15.5 million, up from the 15 million previously predicted.

Reporting its financials for the three months ending December 31, 2023, Nintendo said Switch exclusive Super Mario Bros. Wonder, the first side-scrolling Super Mario Bros. in almost 11 years, saw a “solid start” with sales of 11.96 million.

Sales continued to grow for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which is now up to an incredible 20.28 million units sold but some way off Breath of the Wild‘s 31.61 million sold. Pikmin 4 is now on 3.33 million units sold, and Super Mario RPG, which came out in November, reached 3.14 million units.

Boosted by the April release of the phenomenally successful The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe shifted another 6.79 million units. The kart racer is now up to an eye-watering 60.58 million sold, comfortably the best-selling Switch game and the best-selling kart racer of all time.

As for Switch, Nintendo said sales of the console “continued to be steady” in its seventh year since launch. The Switch is now up to 139.36 million units sold. It lags behind only the Nintendo DS and the PlayStation 2 in the best-selling consoles of all-time list. Indeed, the Switch has more annual playing users than ever before, with 122 million recorded during the 2023 calendar year.

Switch software sales totaled 163.95 million units (a decrease of 4.7% year-on-year) for the period. Nintendo reported a record net profit of 408 billion yen ($2.7 billion) for the April-December period.

“For hardware, by continuing to convey the appeal of Nintendo Switch, we try not only to put one system in every home, but several in every home, or even one for every person,” Nintendo said. “Another objective is to continually release new offerings so more consumers keep playing Nintendo Switch even longer and we can maximize hardware sales.”

Looking ahead, Nintendo will release Mario vs. Donkey Kong this month and Princess Peach:

Showtime! in March. Splatoon 3: Expansion Pass – Side Order, the second wave of paid add-on content for Splatoon 3, is due out this month.

Of course, expectations of an announcement of Switch 2 are sky high, with the console reportedly due out during the second half of 2024. One of the big unanswered questions is whether this next-gen console will be backwards compatible with the Switch. With 122 million Switch players in tow, is seems unlikely Nintendo will leave those accounts behind to start over.

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.

Ultrafast shooter Tribes 3: Rivals gets a Steam Next Fest demo, is out in early access “soon”

The latest haul of Steam Next Fest demos is so vast that I initially missed Tribes 3: Rivals, a game I’ve been cautiously coveting, among them. While this high-speed FPS has been playable in a number of semi-open alpha tests already, trying it out is now as easy as sliding into its Steam page and hitting the big green demo download button.

The demo launch is accompanied by a shiny new trailer, showing more of Rivals’ skiing shenanigans, aurally satisfying airshots, and flag-throwing tricks that I will never, ever be able to successfully pull off in a real match. Also, a confirmation that it’s launching into early access, though there’s no date beyond “soon.”

Read more