Surprise! Valve’s just released a massive update to the Source SDK, adding “all” the Team Fortress 2 client and server game code.
Valve said the update lets players build entirely new games from its source code, and unlike Steam Workshop or local content mods, it gives modders access to change, extend, and even rewrite Team Fortress in pretty much any way imaginable.
You won’t be able to sell anything you make with it — which means any mods or spin-off content will have to be released for free on a non-commercial basis — but creations can be published on the Steam Store, “appearing as new games in the Steam game list.”
“Players have a lot of investment in their TF2 inventories, and Steam Workshop contributors have created a lot of that content,” Valve explained via a blog post. “The majority of items in the game now are thanks to the hard work of the TF2 community.
“To respect that, we’re asking TF2 mod makers continue to respect that connection, and to not make mods that have the purpose of trying to profit off Workshop contributors’ efforts. We’re hoping that many mods will continue to allow players access their TF2 inventory, if this makes sense for the mod.”
Valve also added that it was making “a big update” to all its multiplayer back-catalog Source engine titles, too, adding 64-bit binary support, scalable HUD/UI, prediction fixes, and “a lot of other improvements” to not only TF2, but also DoD:S, HL2:DM, CS:S, and HLDM:S.
Back in December, after seven long years, The Team Fortress 2 comic released its seventh and final update. The comics have not only been a great place for fans to uncover new information about their favorite characters and stories, but they’re also a testament to Valve’s own continuing interest in one of its oldest series.
Image credit: Valve.
Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Pokémon Go developer Niantic is reportedly in talks to sell its video game division to Saudi-owned Scopely for $3.5 billion.
As first reported by Bloomberg, the sale would likely include Pokémon Go, the hit augmented-reality mobile game that sends players out into the real world to collect Pokémon.
A source talking to Bloomberg under the promise of anonymity said that while the deal was by no means complete, if approved, it could be confirmed in a matter of weeks.
Neither Niantic, Scopely, nor its owner Savvy Games Group were prepared to comment publicly on the reported acquisition.
Savvy Gaming Group also purchased two of the world’s biggest esports companies, ESL and FACEIT, for a total of $1.5 billion in 2022.
“Savvy Games Group is one part of our ambitious strategy aiming to make Saudi Arabia the ultimate global hub for the games and esports sector by 2030,” Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz said at the time.
“We are harnessing the untapped potential across the esports and games sector to diversify our economy, drive innovation in the sector, and further scale the entertainment and esports competition offerings across the Kingdom.”
Marvel Rivals developer NetEase has confirmed cuts to its Seattle-based design team for “organizational reasons.”
Overnight, Marvel Rivals game director Thaddeus Sasser took to LinkedIn to announce that he and his team were laid off.
“This is such a weird industry,” Sasser began. “My stellar, talented team just helped deliver an incredibly successful new franchise in Marvel Rivals for NetEase Games…
“…and were just laid off!
“Oh well! Times are tough all over – Let’s find these incredible people new jobs, because we all need to eat, right? :D”
The video game development community reacted with a mix of shock and anger to the cuts, given Marvel Rivals’ explosive success. The free-to-play hero shooter has seen over 20 million downloads since launch in December, and huge peak concurrent player numbers on Steam.
According to Sasser’s LinkedIn profile, his team focused on game and level design work for Marvel Rivals, “offering guidance, strategy, and design direction over the last couple of years.”
NetEase issued IGN a statement confirming the layoffs, but failed to specify how many people were cut.
“We recently made the difficult decision to adjust Marvel Rivals’ development team structure for organizational reasons and to optimize development efficiency for the game,” NetEase said.
“This resulted in a reduction of a design team based in Seattle that is part of a larger global design function in support of Marvel Rivals. We appreciate the hard work and dedication of those affected and will be treating them confidentially and respectfully with recognition for their individual contributions.”
But NetEase was keen to stress that the layoffs won’t impact ongoing support for Marvel Rivals, whose primary development team is based in China.
“We want to reassure our fanbase that the core development team for Marvel Rivals, which continues to be led by Lead Producer Weicong Wu and Game Creative Director Guangyun Chen in Guangzhou, China, remains fully committed to delivering an exceptional experience,” NetEase continued.
“We are investing more, not less, into the evolution and growth of this game. We’re excited to deliver new super hero characters, maps, features, and content to ensure an engaging live service experience for our worldwide player base.”
This is the latest round of layoffs at NetEase, which has pulled back from a number of overseas investments and closed studios in the U.S. and Japan, including Visions of Mana developer Ouka Studios. In November, Worlds Untold, headed by Mass Effect alumni Mac Walters, announced a pause of operations after a split with publisher NetEase. And in January it cut Jar of Sparks, founded by Halo and Destiny 2 veteran Jerry Hook in 2022.
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.
Quickly earning a reputation as the face of the looter shooter genre in the years since its release, Borderlands really has become one of gaming’s most recognisable franchises. From its cel-shaded art style to its masked psycho poster child, the foul-mouthed, tongue-in-cheek sci-fi universe is now a staple of modern video game culture. It’s not stopping there though, with the series quickly morphing into a multimedia sensation in its own right, spinning off into comics, novels and even a tabletop game.
This month, that journey reaches its biggest milestone yet, with Borderlands finally making its long-awaited jump to the big screen courtesy of Hostel and Thanksgiving director, Eli Roth. Reimagining Pandora and its vault-obsessed locals for a brand new audience. And while the film did not review particularly well, it’s still a major step for any franchise.
With Borderlands 4 confirmed for release later this year, there’s likely to be a lot of new and returning fans looking to dive back into the games and reacquaint themselves with where it all started. So, we decided to put together a quick timeline of the series to get you caught up on how it all fits together.
In total, there are currently seven Borderlands games and spin-offs that are canon to the series, and two smaller, non-canon titles: Borderlands: Vault Hunter Pinball and Borderlands Legends.
Where’s The Best Place to Start?
While it’s the simplest answer, the best place to start is arguably Borderlands 1, although if you don’t care about the story, any of the three mainline games are a good introduction.
All three entries in the trilogy are relatively similar in style, scope and gameplay, and better yet, they’re all available on modern consoles and PC. That being said, there is a great overarching story that runs through the Borderlands saga, and if you’ve just come off the movie and want to follow it as intended, starting from the beginning is the best way to play.
Every Canon Borderlands Game in Chronological Order
These blurbs contain mild spoilers for each game, including characters, settings, and story beats.
1. Borderlands (2009)
The game that kickstarted it all. The very first Borderlands launched in 2009, telling the story of Lilith, Brick, Roland and Mordecai: a group of four “Vault Hunters” that venture out on the treasure hunt of a lifetime. Arriving on the volatile planet of Pandora, they seek out a legendary bunker known as The Vault, which is said to house unimaginable treasures.
As expected, their expedition quickly turns into a chaotic maelstrom of carnage, with the group facing off against a militia known as the Crimson Lance, contending with the planet’s savage wildlife and taking down hordes of bloodthirsty bandits. From the moment Borderlands hit shelves, it was a huge hit, launching the looter shooter genre into the stratosphere through its compelling gameplay loop of killing masses of enemies, discovering a near-limitless supply of guns and building your chosen character.
The game was also supported heavily after release, getting a further four expansions that took the game from zombie-themed islands to a tongue-in-cheek riff on Mad Max’s Thunderdome.
2. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (2014)
Developed by 2K Australia with the assistance of Gearbox Software, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel may have launched after Borderlands 2, but it fills in the gap between the first two Borderlands games. The story follows a group of new Vault Hunters, Athena, Wilhelm, Nisha and Claptrap, as they head out on a mission to find a Vault on the moon of Elpis.
The Pre-Sequel was, in a lot of ways, a bunch more of the Borderlands fans knew and loved. Set in a new locale with fresh classes to master and learn, it offered more guns, boss fights, quests and enemy encounters to plough through while the world waited for an inevitable Borderlands 3. However, its main selling point was further fleshing out the story of Borderlands 2, with the game featuring the second game’s main antagonist, Handsome Jack, in a leading role.
Alongside featuring many of the second game’s main bosses and characters years before their roles in the sequel’s story, it also offered a full view of Jack’s descent into madness, establishing the iconic foe’s origins. Much like the other games, 2K Australia added several expansions after the game launched, including the Holodome Onslaught and Claptastic Voyage maps, as well as two playable characters: the Doppelganger and the Baroness.
3. Borderlands 2 (2012)
The official sequel to Borderlands, Borderlands 2 launched in 2012, bringing players back to Pandora with a new squad of ambitious Vault Hunters in tow. The tale begins with our heroes, Maya, Axton, Salvador and Zer0, heading to Pandora to search for a new Vault. However, it quickly becomes apparent that the planet’s overlord, the sadistic Handsome Jack, doesn’t take kindly to brave adventurers seeking fame and fortune by uncovering the latest fabled Vault on Pandora. While riding a train across the untamed planet, Jack attempts to have them killed, leaving them stranded in an icy wasteland.
Left for dead, the team set out on an adventure to discover the truth behind Handsome Jack’s schemes, attempting to stop to him and find the Vault in the process. Borderlands 2 was essentially a bigger, more expansive take on the original game, offering plenty of quests, new classes to master, a charismatic main villain to take down and, somehow, even more guns to find and collect.
It’s still regarded by many as the best Borderlands to date, offering a fun story, memorable combat encounters and a healthy dose of the series’ trademark sense of humour. Much like the first game, it also came with a bunch of post-release support, including four additional campaigns, two bonus playable characters, and several Headhunter missions.
4. Tales From The Borderlands (2014 – 2015)
The first full spin-off of the series, Tales From The Borderlands was Walking Dead developer Telltale’s take on the Borderlands universe, offering an episodic, story-focused adventure set on the surface of Pandora. Unlike the mainline entries, Tales doesn’t centre on a team of super-powered, gun-obsessed Vault Hunters. Instead, it follows a crook and a corporate lackey who unwittingly stumble into a grand adventure.
Set after the events of Borderlands 2, we follow Rhys, a Hyperion employee lobbying for a higher position in the company, and Fiona, a con artist working with her sister, Sasha. After Rhys attempts to one-up a colleague by intercepting a deal to acquire a vault key, he learns the key was a fake in a con set-up by Fiona, entangling the two together and setting off a chain reaction of events that put them on the trail of a brand new Vault.
As with all of Telltale’s games, Tales From The Borderlands focuses primarily on a branching, cinematic story with moral choices that can change the direction of the narrative. In the years following its release, Tales From The Borderlands has been acknowledged as a key piece of the Borderlands canon, with original characters from the game even popping up in Borderlands 3.
5. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands (2022)
Gearbox Software’s most recent entry in the Borderlands franchise, from the outside, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands doesn’t look like a Borderlands game. Subbing out futuristic desert wastelands for a sprawling fantasy kingdom, while Wonderlands may have plenty of dragons, goblins and unicorns, it’s very much still a Borderlands game in everything but the setting.
Acting as a fully-fledged version of the beloved Borderlands 2 DLC, Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands once again has you entering the world of Bunkers and Badasses; the Borderlands equivalent of Dungeons and Dragons. With Tina as your very enthusiastic dungeon master, you’ll battle against a range of fantasy monsters, embark on some heroic quests and battle your way to the monstrous Dragon Lord.
As with all Borderlands games, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands boasts a metric ton of guns to find, classes to master and enemies to kill, while also incorporating new ideas to complement the shift in setting, such as an overworld area you traverse between missions and the ability to use spells. It also has its own helping of expansions to dig into, with four separate DLCs featuring new dungeons, bosses and gear.
6. Borderlands 3 (2019)
Seven years after the release of Borderlands 2, Gearbox Software returned for an official third entry, launching Borderlands 3 in 2019. As always, the threequel brings a fresh new cast of Vault Hunters into the fray, introducing players to Amara, FL4K, Zane and Moze, and sending them out on a chaotic new adventure.
This time around, players are tasked with stopping a pair of murderous siren twins named Troy and Tyreen, who are venturing across the galaxy and harnessing the power inside the vaults for a mysterious cause. In a franchise first, players are tasked with travelling to multiple planets to take them down, teaming with an array of familiar faces such as Lilith, Rhys, Maya, Brick, Zer0 and, of course, Claptrap.
As always, you can expect plenty of looter shooter chaos to ensue, with a heap of guns to find, enemies to eviscerate and new character classes to master. There’s also plenty of DLC content to jump into when you’re done, with Borderlands 3’s additional content offering four new campaigns, takedown missions and even designer and director cuts that resurrect a bunch of content left on the cutting room floor.
7. New Tales From The Borderlands (2022)
Gearbox Software’s official follow-up to Tales From The Borderlands, New Tales From The Borderlands is currently the last game on the chronological timeline. Bringing in a slate of fresh characters instead of opting for a continuation of the original Tales game, New Tales has three protagonists: Anu, Octavio and Fran.
The story follows the group’s adventures after stumbling into a vault and finding a precious artefact, which inadvertently puts them in the line of fire of the Tediore corporation and its ruthless CEO, Susan Coldwell. With the relic now in their possession, the trio begins to uncover its true powers, all the while attempting to evade Coldwell as she hunts them down.
Much like the previous game, New Tales From The Borderlands is focused almost entirely on weaving a branching story that adapts and warps based on your choices. You can expect plenty of dialogue options, QTE fight sequences and tough decisions that will impact the outcome of the adventure.
Although that’s all we have to go on for now, It seems as though projects in the Borderlands universe could be more frequent going forward. We learned recently that the franchise will be a big focus for Take-Two following the acquisition, with Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick noting in a investor’s call that the company sees a lot of “potential growth opportunities” for the IP. We’ll have to wait to see exactly what Zelnick means by that, but it appears we could be trekking to Pandora a lot more in the coming years.
Callum Williams is an IGN freelancer covering features and guides. When he’s away from his desk, you can usually find him obsessing over the lore of the latest obscure indie horror game or bashing his head against a boss in the newest soulslike. You can catch him over on Twitter at @CaIIumWilliams.
Here’s one for fans of either Final Fantasy or Wizards of the Coast. The latest Magic: The Gathering crossover finds characters from Final Fantasy making their way to the most famous collectible card game on the market. We’re talking characters like Cloud, Terra, Tidus, and many more, pulled from Final Fantasy 6, 7, 10, and 14. Basically, the gang’s all here. These cards are set to release on June 13, but you can preorder them all right now (see them at Amazon and Best Buy).
Where to Buy Magic: The Gathering – Final Fantasy Cards
Scroll to the left to see quick buy links for each MTG: FF configuration.
Magic: The Gathering – Final Fantasy Starter Kit
The Starter Kit contains 2 ready-to-play 60-card decks, 2 deck boxes to store them in, 1 Magic play guide booklet, 4 double-sided tokens (2 with each deck), 2 double-sided reference cards to aid you as you play (Turn Order/Attacking & Blocking), and two Magic: The Gathering Arena code cards to unlock both decks for two people to play online. Account registration required. Code expires September 1, 2030. This product does not contain a serialized card (available in English-language Collector Boosters only).
Magic: The Gathering – Final Fantasy Bundle: Gift Edition
This bundle contains 1 Collector Booster, 9 Play Boosters, 2 Traditional Foil Extended-Art cards, 16 Traditional Foil and 16 nonfoil Full-Art Basic Land cards, 1 oversized Spindown life counter, 1 special foil Final Fantasy card storage box, and 2 reference cards. A serialized card may be found in <0.1% of English-language Collector Boosters only.
Magic: The Gathering – Final Fantasy Bundle
This Bundle includes 9 Magic: The Gathering – Final Fantasy Play Boosters (each containing 14 cards), 2 Traditional Foil Extended-Art cards, 16 Traditional Foil and 16 nonfoil Full-Art Basic Land cards, 1 oversized Spindown life counter, 1 Final Fantasy card storage box, and 2 reference cards. This product does not contain a serialized card (available in English-language Collector Boosters only).
Magic: The Gathering – Final Fantasy Collector Booster Box (12 Packs)
Each of the 12 Collector Boosters in this box contain 15 Magic: The Gathering cards and 1 Traditional Foil double-sided token, including 5–6 cards of rarity Rare or higher and 3–6 Uncommon, 3–5 Common, and 1 Full-Art Land cards, with a total of 8–12 Traditional Foil cards and 0–3 cards with a special foil treatment. Serialized card in <0.1% of English-language Collector Boosters only.
Magic: The Gathering – Final Fantasy Play Booster Box (30 Packs)
Each of the 30 Play Boosters in this box contain 14 Magic: The Gathering cards and 1 Token/Ad card or Art card. (A regular Art card can be found in 30% of packs and a foil-stamped Signature Art card can be found in 5% of packs.) Every pack Includes 1–4 cards of rarity Rare or higher and 3–6 Uncommon, 6–9 Common, and 1 Land cards. One card of any rarity is Traditional Foil. The Land card is also Traditional Foil in 20% of boosters. This product does not contain a serialized card (available in English-language Collector Boosters only).
Magic: The Gathering – Final Fantasy Commander Deck Bundle
You can buy the four Commander Decks in a regular bundle, collector’s edition bundle, or individually. Each Commander Deck includes 1 deck of 100 Magic cards (98 nonfoil cards and 2 Traditional Foil Legendary cards), a 2-card Collector Booster Sample Pack (contains 2 alt-border cards, with at least 1 Traditional Foil), 10 double-sided token cards, 1 deck box (can hold 100 sleeved cards), 1 strategy insert, and 1 reference card. This product does not contain a serialized card (available in English-language Collector Boosters only).
Chris Reed is a deals expert and commerce editor for IGN. You can follow him on Bluesky @chrislreed.com.
IGN Fan Fest 2025 is less than a week away and stars from your favorite movies, series, games, and comics have teamed up for what will be our biggest Fan Fest ever.
Starting Monday, February 24, be sure to tune into IGN for tons of exclusive reveals, trailers, clips, gameplay, and spoiler-filled interviews from all the biggest upcoming titles in the world of games and entertainment.
Jenna Ortega and Paul Rudd will be on hand to delve into their upcoming A24 movie, Death of a Unicorn.
Osgood Perkins, Stephen King, and James Wan stop by for an in-depth interview on how they brought their creepy new movie, The Monkey to life.
Director Bong Joon-ho will introduce a brand-new exclusive look at his upcoming film, Mickey 17.
Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio along with the creators of Daredevil: Born Again will break down their new Disney+ series.
The team behind Monster Hunter Wilds including producer Ryozo Tsujimoto and director Yuya Tokuda give us an exclusive look at their massive new game.
The cast of The White Lotus including Walton Goggins, Parker Posey, Carrie Coon, Leslie Bibb, Michelle Monaghan, Aimee Lou Wood, Sarah Catherine Hook, Sam Nivola, Jason Isaacs, and Patrick Schwarzenegger answer all our questions about what we’ve season in Season 3 so far.
Jack Quaid, Amber Midthunder, and Jacob Batalan preview their upcoming film, Novocaine.
George R.R. Martin sits down with us to talk about the new movie In The Lost Lands, based on his short story. Plus Mila Jovovich and Paul. W. S. Anderson will be on hand to premiere an exclusive clip from the film.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan will preview the upcoming season of The Walking Dead: Dead City along with Executive Producer Scott Gimple.
Jeff Probst stops by with an exclusive look at Survivor Season 48 and chats about the future of the long-running franchise.
Alexandra Daddario gives us a preview of the season finale of Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches.
Keanu Reeves and Gard Hollinger tell us all about their upcoming documentary The Arch Project.
Mythic Quest shows up big with Rob McElhenney, Megan Ganz, David Hornsby, Charlotte Nicdao, Danny Pudi, Imani Hakim, and Jessie Ennis on hand to talk about Season 4 and give us a sneak peek at an upcoming episode. Plus Katie McElhenney, Genevieve Jones, Megan Ganz, and Ashly Burch debut a trailer for their upcoming spin-off Side Quest.
Johnny Yong Bosch and Adi Shankar give us a sneak peek at their upcoming Netflix series Devil May Cry, based on the popular video game.
Julian McMahon gives us a look at his new movie, The Surfer, also starring Nicholas Cage.
Brandon Lee shows us a never-before-seen preview of the upcoming Crunchyroll anime The Beginning After the End.
J-pop megastar Ado pops by with a special surprise for fans.
The team from CRKD comes by to show off a new controller.
Doctor Who: Fifteenth Doctor writers Dan Watters and Kelsey Ramsay answer all of our burning questions about the comic series.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows director Charles Benoit will give us a preview of the game set to release this March.
Blade Runner: Tokyo Nexus creators Kianna Shore and Mellow Brown go deep on their comic series and show off exclusive behind-the-scenes visuals from artist Mariano Taibo.
Todd McFarlane and Brand Creative Director Brian Walters unveil some incredible new collaborations from McFarlane Toys.
Jason Aaron and Caleb Goellner will give us updates on what’s next for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the world of comics and debut some never-before-seen looks at multiple TMNT series.
Xin CHANG, creative Director and producer at Bad Guitar Studio, stops by to give us a look at the upcoming tactical FPS Frag Punk.
And that’s just a taste of what’s on deck for IGN Fan Fest 2025. Tune in all next week for livestrams focusing on what’s next from ID@Xbox along with horror, anime, games, and entertainment showcases.
Be sure to check back later this week for the full Fan Fest schedule along with information on how you can tune in and not miss a moment.
It’s always cool when a game designer takes one neat thing out of a complex genre and turns it into an entire game. That’s how we got the MOBA, after all — breaking just the heroes out of an RTS. Enter Fellowship, a so-called Multiplayer Online Dungeon Adventure that’s going to pluck out team-based dungeon raids that are the beating heart of modern MMOs and turn them into a streamlined game – without the hundred hours of leveling up before you get to the best stuff.
After some time with a development version of Fellowship I have to say that the concept turned out just as cool as it sounds: It’s no-nonsense, endlessly scaling dungeon runs in a four player team of a tank, a healer, and two damage heroes from among a selection of unique classes. In a group you make yourself, or with a team from a handy group finder, you jump in with your chosen role in either short-and-sweet one boss Adventures or longer multi-boss dungeons—letting you tune your gameplay time depending on whether you’ve got ten minutes or an hour to kill.
At the end you pick up your loot, tweak your talents, kick up the difficulty, and go again.
I was a bit skeptical that you can have a real authentic, MMO-style dungeon experience without, you know, the MMO, but Fellowship really effectively delivered. You move through the environment clearing out packs of enemy minions in order to get at the bosses, and all the classic stuff you’d expect is there: You’ve got to watch your tank’s threat and manage aggro, try to make life easy for the healer, keep track of enemy abilities to interrupt the nasty ones, and know how to best use your class’ attacks in a good rotation.
Behind the wheel of an elemental mage-type character, I had plenty of abilities to manage even at the starting level. My character built up charges that could be used to call down big freezing meteors or channel icy blasts. Our healer, meanwhile, could summon plants that either damaged or healed. It was clear in my short time that each class has a nice, clear vision for what it can and can’t do. The thing my squishy mage couldn’t do, by the way, was survive if I took boss aggro. Sorry, tank.
I was a bit skeptical that you can have a real authentic, MMO-style dungeon experience without, you know, the MMO, but Fellowship really effectively delivered.
Speaking of bosses, I saw four interesting setpiece fights that ran the gamut of stuff I expect from modern dungeon runs. In a ghost pirate dungeon we battled a skeletal shipmaster that required quick reflexes as it tossed our ghosts in and out of our bodies. There was a giant treasure construct that couldn’t be tanked—instead, our tank had to roll around a ball to collect the bits of treasure we were knocking off of it. There was also a giant zombie that summoned the tides, requiring us to shackle ourselves to an anchor and dodge sharks.
It wasn’t all gimmicks, though, and the developers were clear they wanted to strike a balance between fights that require reflexes and understanding clever mechanics with those that really push your ability to play your class’ skills to the limit. They gave me a good example of the second with a nasty warlock boss, whose up-tempo barrage of skills and summons needed constant interruption even as he created zones that either forced us to group up… or to run away at top speed.
What I especially liked is how Fellowship will be structured. Dungeon difficulty scales from one up to six levels, gradually adding new enemy abilities to learn, mechanics to understand, and taking off the training wheels one by one until you hit the intended difficulty. From there, though, it ramps up for dozens of levels, each with their own unique combination of two or more curses that have their own downsides and upsides. One of those, for example, could sprinkle nasty Empowered minions among the normal enemy packs—but when you beat them you’d get a short-time buff that let you clear trash even faster or take a handy boost into a boss.
The concept of a game focusing on infinitely scaling dungeons, familiar yet dangerous in new ways, is a really cool one. Combine that with the developers’ big plans for competitive seasons, where players can start fresh to race up the leaderboards for world first kills on each boss, and I think I’m pretty excited to gear up, spec out, and take on the challenges in Fellowship when it launches this year.
This past weekend saw the first round of network tests for Elden Ring Nightreign, the upcoming standalone multiplayer game spun out of FromSoftware’s magnum opus. Unlike last year’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, Nightreign resembles Elden Ring in name and appearance only, trading its parent game’s open world structure for a streamlined survival format in which three-player teams have to drop into gradually shrinking maps to fight off groups of enemies and increasingly challenging bosses. It’s a design that undoubtedly suggests the developers were inspired by the hugely popular Fortnite – unsurprising, considering Epic’s battle royale has been enjoyed by no less than 200 million players this month alone.
But Nightreign bears an even greater resemblance to another game, one not nearly as famous and much more disliked: 2013’s God of War: Ascension. And that’s a good thing.
Released between 2010’s God of War 3 and 2018’s Norse-flavored God of War reboot, Ascension was a prequel set before the original Greek mythology trilogy that followed Kratos as he tried to break his oath with his soon-to-be-predecessor, Aries. Unable to live up to the initial trilogy’s epic finale, and fueling desire to shake up a tried-and-tested formula, God of War: Ascension quickly became known as the black sheep of the franchise. A half-decent appetizer to an amazing main course.
It’s an understandable reputation, but also unfair. Although Kratos’ confrontation with the Furies in Ascension obviously didn’t reach the same heights as his five-stage fight with Zeus, this divisive prequel still had some truly jaw-dropping set-pieces, including the Prison of the Damned, a labyrinthine dungeon carved into the skin and bones of an immobilized, 100-armed giant. But, more importantly, Ascension also deserves credit for trying something the franchise had not done before, and hasn’t since: multiplayer.
Trial of the Gods, is cooperative PvE. And also basically Elden Ring Nightreign.
As you make your way through the Prison of the Damned in Ascension’s story, you encounter a chained up NPC who lets out a premature “You saved me!” before being crushed by the level’s boss. Open up the multiplayer mode after reaching this point in the campaign and you’ll find this same NPC is now your player character. Having been teleported to Olympus seconds before your demise, you must pledge allegiance to one of four gods – Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, or Aries – each of whom will provide you with unique weapons, armor pieces, and magic attacks. These are the tools with which you wage war across five different multiplayer modes, four of which are competitive PvP.
The fifth mode, Trial of the Gods, is cooperative PvE. And also basically Elden Ring Nightreign.
Gameplay previews of Nightreign posted ahead of the network tests by prominent “Soulsborne” YouTubers like VaatiyVidya and Iron Pineapple, as well IGN’s own coverage, have revealed the similarities between FromSoftware’s latest and live service games like Fortnite. Much like those games, Nightreign offers a cocktail of randomized loot, resource management, and environmental hazards that damage a player’s health and limit their area of movement, making runs more challenging as they go on. Nightreign even pays homage to one of Fortnite’s most iconic images, having players drop into the level from the sky, taxied by spirit birds to a position of their choosing.
You won’t find any “where are we dropping?” action in God of War: Ascension, but go beyond Nightreign’s battle royale-like surface and you’ll find much more common ground. Both Nightreign and Ascension’s Trial of the Gods mode are co-op experiences where teams of two or more face increasingly tougher foes. Both grant players the unexpected but welcome opportunity to take on bosses from previous games, be they Hercules from God of War 3 or the Nameless King from Dark Souls 3. Both have a countdown (although Ascension’s can be paused by defeating enemies) and both take place on maps that are either small or shrinking. And both are multiplayer games developed by studios known for their well-crafted single-player experiences, and were made without oversight from their series’ creators; Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki is working on an as of yet unknown project, while the directors of the original God of War trilogy – David Jaffe, Cory Barlog, and Stig Asmussen – had all left Sony Santa Monica at the time of Ascension’s creation to pursue opportunities elsewhere.
Above all, Nightreign appears to evoke the same response from players as Ascension’s Trial of the Gods did. Those who participated in FromSoftware’s network test invariably describe their runs as a frantic and exhilarating race against the clock. In contrast to the comparatively cozy vibes of the base game, where players are able to tackle every scenario in a variety of ways, using a variety of weapons and abilities and taking all the time they need, Nightreign forces players to act on instinct by picking up the pace and limiting their resources – constraints that, in VaatiVidya’s words, were “made in the name of speed and efficiency.” To make up for the absence of Torrent, for instance, players now channel their inner spirit horse, being able to run faster and jump higher.
Ascension’s multiplayer adjusted its single player blueprint for the sake of tighter pacing, using similar techniques to those adopted by Nightreign.
Ascension’s multiplayer also adjusted its single player blueprint for the sake of tighter pacing, and even used similar techniques to those adopted by Nightreign: it increased the player’s run speed, extended their jumps, automated parkour, and provided them with a grapple attack they could use to pull objects towards them (a mechanic also used by Nightreign’s Wylder character). New moves like this are a lifesaver, because while the combat isn’t too difficult on its own – what with the franchise being a power fantasy and all – Trial of the Gods throws so many enemies at you that every second counts. As a result, you and your teammate find yourselves sprinting around like hungry wolves, or terminators, or, well, Kratoses, hacking and slashing your way through armies without calculated ruthlessness.
Nightreign’s resemblance to Ascension is unexpected not only because much of the latter has been forgotten, but also because the Soulslike genre Elden Ring is part of essentially started out as God of War’s complete antithesis. Where one lets you pretend to be a warrior so powerful he can kill literal gods, the other turns you into a nameless, accursed undead for whom even regular enemies pose a considerable challenge. One rarely shows its game over screen, the other beats you over the head with it until you start crying, laughing, and crying again.
Yet this challenge, so utterly rage-inducing in FromSoftware’s earlier games, has gradually decreased in recent years as fans “got good” and developers provided them with better weapons and spells, culminating in the numerous game-breaking builds that have been put together since Elden Ring launched. Without access to these builds, Nightreign promises to reintroduce a degree of challenge. At the same time, those that have indeed gotten good will be able to enjoy the same thing God of War: Ascension offered: the chance to feel like a vengeful Spartan short on time.
Tim Brinkhof is a freelance writer specializing in art and history. After studying journalism at NYU, he has gone on to write for Vox, Vulture, Slate, Polygon, GQ, Esquire and more
It may seem like a long leap to make from the R-rated streets of Tokyo’s red light district to the yarrr-rated pirate-infested waters of the Hawaiian islands, but Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii has successfully pulled off the switch from bareknuckling to swashbuckling with confidence and considerable flair. This jaunty adventure jettisons the series’ typical turf war cliches and pulpy plot twists in favour of spinning a streamlined and spirited tale of seafaring and treasure hunting, without sacrificing any of the addictive diversions and slapstick silliness that have long become its hallmarks. As far as spin-offs from the mainline entries go, Pirate Yakuza makes for an absolutely invigorating seachange that left me feeling perkier than a parrot on a pirate’s shoulder.
Essentially a coda to the events of 2024’s Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Pirate Yakuza’s off-the-wall story focuses on loveable series shitstirrer, Goro Majima. It gets straight to it: after awakening on the shores of a secluded island with amnesia, he promptly befriends an enthusiastic young boy and his adorable pet tiger cub, commandeers a pirate ship that for entirely unexplained reasons seems to have sailed in straight out of the 1700s, and sets about on a thrilling quest to find the lost treasure of a legendary sunken Spanish ship. Perhaps as a result of his temporary memory loss, Majima is considerably less manic in Pirate Yakuza than he has been in previous Like a Dragon stories, but he’s still every bit as gleefully mischievous. There was never a dull moment between him and his evergrowing gang of goons turned treasure-seeking Goonies as I explored the seas and shores of Pirate Yakuza’s vibrant tropical setting.
It’s an unpredictable voyage that regularly veers from intense highs to more laidback lows, much like the waves that Majima sails upon. In one moment I’d be trapped in a desperate battle against a towering sea creature or an army of pirates of almost Dynasty Warriors-esque proportions, while the next I’d be adopting homeless animals off the street to shelter in my personal petting zoo and throwing parties for me hearties whenever morale amongst my crew was on the wane. Pirate Yakuza doesn’t just regularly hoist the Jolly Roger, it also lets its freak flag fly in a consistently entertaining fashion – from its rousing opening musical number through to the dynamic dance sequence that drops the curtain on its story 25 hours later – and it kept me hooked harder than a handshake from, well, Captain Hook.
Nautical by Nature
While 2023’s Like a Dragon Gaiden experimented with a fairly superficial secret agent spin on the series’ template, Pirate Yakuza steers Like a Dragon into some truly uncharted waters. There’s plenty of lively naval combat to be enjoyed aboard Majima’s adopted pirate ship, although to be clear, in terms of exploration it doesn’t attempt to match the sense of freedom I felt in the Caribbean setting of 2013’s Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. Instead, Pirate Yakuza’s waters are broken down into a handful of smaller maps to warp between rather than one big open waterworld, and outside of the main Honolulu hub and a stunning ship graveyard turned casino district called Madlantis, many of the smaller islands are constructed out of the same recycled layouts. So over time, the sense of discovery slightly diminished whenever I dropped anchor and saw something a bit too familiar.
Pirate Yakuza doesn’t just regularly hoist the Jolly Roger, it also lets its freak flag fly.
Still, there’s enough spectacle and strategic depth to the actual open-water combat that I remained engaged anytime I was at the helm of Majima’s ship. In each bilgewater battle you can attack front-on with machine gun fire or perform a boost-based ram into an enemy’s hull, as well as manouevre alongside a rival to deliver more damaging broadside attacks from your port or starboard cannons. These cannons can be upgraded by harvesting resources found drifting at sea or tucked around Pirate Yakuza’s smattering of ports, and although Majima’s frigate can be equipped with everything from flamethrowers to freeze guns, I soon set my sights on scraping together enough spare parts to outfit my vessel with powerful lasers to cut crossways through my opponents from ear to buccaneer.
I was also regularly recruiting new pirates to my crew in every port I docked in, and it quickly became clear that assigning a crew member to specific roles had measurable impacts on each naval skirmish. Individual members of your pirating posse are ranked in areas like attack, defense, and cannon power, and anytime I placed some underpowered or inexperienced comrades in, say, my boarding party, I was forced to watch my crew go from ragtag to bodybags in quick succession.
After some experimentation I eventually got the balance right, and that included determining the right pirate to be my first mate. While some candidates offered increased damage buffs or additional fuel drums to burn with my ship’s boost, I opted to promote a mechanic into the role because it gave me two extra repair kits per clash. Given I approach naval battles like Dave Chappelle approaches his stand-up sets – always on the offensive and typically blazed up by the end – it was enormously helpful to have those extra kits to haul my battlescarred hull to glory.
Some of the naval combat functions do seem a little superfluous, though. For example, at no point in the story did I feel the need to step away from the helm in order to use Majima’s rocket launcher, since the ship’s artillery usually seemed ample enough, and it was also rare that I was compelled to manually put out fires on deck or thaw out ice that was blocking my cannons. That did change, however, after I beat the story and returned to complete the 30-odd escalating battles in Madlantis’ pirate coliseum, as surviving its toughest encounters demanded the considered use of every ability at my disposal. That finally made for some welcome optional challenges outside of the main story path, but I wished they’d been in play earlier in the campaign.
Captain Hookshot
Of course, given that this is a Like a Dragon adventure, there are still plenty of opportunities for fisticuffs either ashore or on-deck anytime you board an enemy ship by force. In the default Mad Dog fighting stance, Pirate Yakuza reverts to the familiar brand of combo-based street fighting that was a staple of the series before the main entries shifted to turn-based brawls with 2020’s Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Majima can pull off fast and fluid combinations of punches, kicks, and rapid dagger slashes, each attack enhanced by flashy neon movement trails and punctuated by enemies that erupt into fountains of gold coins as though they’re crowds of criminal question blocks from the Mushroom Kingdom. However, Majima feels noticeably more agile than Kazuma Kiryu ever was, with a snappier quickstep to open overbalanced enemies up to counter attack, plus the useful ability to jump and air-dodge out of harm’s way anytime he’s overwhelmed by a surprisingly numerous horde.
Even so, once I’d unlocked the Sea Dog fighting stance a few hours into my 25-hour tour of Pirate Yakuza, I basically never looked back. While in previous Like a Dragon instalments I’ve relished the freedom to switch between stances to best counter each enemy type or situation, Sea Dog is basically a one-size-fits-brawl fighting style that feels adaptive enough to suit any given showdown. This pirating pose allows Majima to cut loose with a pair of cutlasses, either hurling them like bladed boomerangs or performing a brutal ballet of spinning slashes to cut through enemies in clusters. It equips him with a handy hookshot that allows him to zip directly to a targeted enemy like some sort of seafaring Spider-Man, which is extremely useful for picking off the more heavily-armed goons that tend to snipe you from the far edges of each battle arena. If that’s not enough, it also gives Majima a flintlock pistol of his own, and after investing in the skill tree to increase its power and widen its radius, I was able to use it to wipe out more pirates than dysentery at the charged-up press of a button.
Sea Dog is basically a one-size-fits-brawl fighting style that feels adaptive enough to suit any given showdown.
So well-rounded and entertaining to use was the Sea Dog style, in fact, that the only time I ever felt the need to switch back to Mad Dog was in order to unleash Majima’s slightly overpowered Doppelganger attack. Available after you’ve chained together enough successful attacks to fill up a special meter, this devastating ability conjures up twin Majima clones that swarm enemies and chew through their health bars for a short time like a pair of piranhas, and I was happy to have it in my back pocket for whenever I came up against one of the more brutish boss encounters. Although I think Infinite Wealth’s hybrid turn-based combat has quite rightfully become the standard for the Like a Dragon series, Pirate Yakuza’s flashy fighting remained engaging from the first sword slash through to the final throat cut, and I found it to be a substantial step up from the gadget-heavy grappling of Like a Dragon Gaiden.
Pleasure Island
Although Pirate Yakuza’s Honolulu setting is more or less the same sundrenched sprawl that featured in Infinite Wealth, there are enough new secrets and distractions that made it rewarding to explore a second time around. Outside of combat, Majima’s hookshot can be employed to zip him up to anchor points on certain buildings, meaning that treasure chests full of alternate character costumes and other goodies are tucked away on hotel awnings and various other elevated spots all over the island. There are also countless bounty targets to track down and beat up for beefy cash bonuses, and games for the safehouse Master System to seek out. Although, I must admit that I feel like it’s about time that developer Ryu Ga Gotoku moved on to an in-game Mega Drive (or Genesis for US fans), or at the very least a Game Gear. After collecting mostly the same set of 8-bit cartridges in Lost Judgment, Like a Dragon Gaiden, and now Pirate Yakuza, I feel like I’ve well and truly mastered the Master System at this point.
But of course, there’s still more: in addition to the fiend-photographing Sicko Snap and the infectiously giddy Super Crazy Delivery minigames that return from Infinite Wealth, Pirate Yakuza brings back Dragon Kart from Yakuza: Like a Dragon, only this time in addition to its riotous racing circuits they’ve bolted on an arena-based battle mode which made for some intense, four-wheeled firefights. Meanwhile, the series’ standard-issue batting cage minigame has been revitalised by swapping baseballs for cannonballs, and I had a great time knocking destructive dingers into descending stacks of explosive barrels.
I was also delighted with almost every substory I completed in Majima’s adventure. Some were utterly wholesome, like the time I agreed to bring an aging businessman aboard my ship in order to live out his boyhood fantasies of becoming a pirate. Others were funny pisstakes of online culture, like when Majima was recruited to become a Virtua Fighter 3 streamer and I had to choose the liveliest possible reactions for him in order to prevent the comments section from turning too hostile. Others still were completely bonkers, like the substory that suddenly spins out into a live-action episode of a dating show inspired by The Bachelor, as the ship’s cook Masaru tried to woo five different potential dates with hilariously awkward results.
There’s even a supersized substory that sees Majima and his ever expanding crew hunt down the dread pirate Zeus and his intimidating Devil Flags fleet. This chunky optional quest opened up additional maps to navigate, including an archipelago of volcanic islands and even an ice realm, each overloaded with increasingly powerful naval vessels to face off against and pirate headquarters to plunder. Not only is undertaking this journey worthwhile purely for harvesting the doubloons required to upgrade Majima’s ship with decked out drip – including a carved Kazuma Kiryu figurehead for its bow – but it’s also the only way to track down all four fabled instruments of the Dark Gods. These cursed instruments can be charged up during on-shore skirmishes and unleashed to spectacularly turn the tides of a battle, with a violin that brings the violence by summoning a horde of spectral land sharks to turn enemy packs into fleshy snacks, or an electric guitar that can be energetically shredded while a towering ape stomps into the fray and chimp-slaps your opponents straight into Davy Jones’ locker. These are some of the most powerful attacks in Pirate Yakuza, so it’s a little odd that they’re locked away in an entirely optional substory that’s so easy to overlook.
The Fell Omen bosses of Elden Ring are infamous at this point, so it’s nice to see that with Elden Ring Nightreign, FromSoftware has let them loose upon the Lands Between.
Morgott, whom Elden Ring players had to fight later on in the game’s campaign, is one such infamous boss. His phantom versions can pop out and surprise you throughout the campaign, and it seems like that particular facet of Morgott made it into Nightreign, where an unnamed Fell Omen (essentially an upgraded Morgott) can jump-scare invade players.
While Morgott isn’t the only boss that can invade your squad as you run through Nightreign, he is a very fitting invader. Not only does it line up with his surprise appearances in Elden Ring, but he even gets some extra voice lines and a few new moves to throw at you. If you get to bring two pals to the fight, it’s only fair Morgott gets some new moves!
While he can invade you, the Fell Omen can also appear as an end-of-night boss, one of the conclusive fights you can face as the sun sets in the Elden Ring Nightreign test.
How did morgott even manage to sneak into nightreign to fight us. generational hater this is like the 5th time pic.twitter.com/t7euCmkBRy
The Fell Omen’s sudden invasions have hopes high for other enemies to suddenly appear and attack the players. The Pursuer from Dark Souls 2, for example, would make a great candidate. Me, personally? I’d love to see some Hunters invade and attempt to take out players, but anything Bloodborne-related feels like a distant hope at best.
They buffed Margit in Elden Ring Nightreign bro was training with Vergil
There might even be deeper mechanics to Fell Omen invasions. GamesRadar detailed an invasion from the Omen that took out one of their co-op partners, and seemed to leave a curse mark branded on the slain player. It’ll be exciting to see how this game develops, especially as more players get hands-on time with it.
