Category: IGN

Marvel Rivals players are being treated to an unlikely crossover that brings the Advanced Suit 2.0 from Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 into the game as a new skin.

PlayStation announced the news itself in a post on X/Twitter, revealing a first look at how NetEase Games is reimagining the classic video game outfit for its new hero shooter.

This sleek Spider-Man suit made its debut as an original design for Insomniac Games’ Marvel’s Spider-Man, going on to make appearances in all three entries in that series. The main element setting this suit apart from the rest is its now-iconic white spider symbol, with its appearance in Marvel Rivals cementing it as a surprise collaboration with Sony and its console-exclusive superhero game. Expect Spider-Man’s Advanced Suit 2.0 to swing into the in-game store on January 30, the same day Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 comes to PC.

Baldur’s Gate 3 players have now downloaded more than 100 million mods since developer Larian Studios released its official modding toolkit with Patch 7.

Similar to how it shared the Withers “Bone Daddy” mod to celebrate hitting 50 million mod downloads, Larian has once again relied upon the helpful companion to announce the new milestone. It released an image of the living undead corpse man with large breasts, from a Baldur’s Gate 3 mod called Withers Big Naturals.

“You are modding naturals,” Larian said, with the “100” of the 100 million mods suggestively positioned over Withers.

you are modding naturals pic.twitter.com/PlLcPTe7d0

— Larian Studios (@larianstudios) January 14, 2025

Baldur’s Gate 3 crossed the 50 million mods mark in October so it’s taken just another two and a half months to reach this new milestone. Patch 7 and official mod support arrived in September, meaning an average of around 25 million mods have been downloaded each month.

Larian is only counting mods created with this tool too, meaning traditional mods (that have been available since the game arrived in July 2023) aren’t counted towards the 100 million number. The actual number is therefore much higher.

Mods released so far include one that adds real-time combat to the otherwise turn-based RPG and another that brought entire new maps to Faerûn, including the highly requested Avernus.

Earlier this week, Larian said it was fully focused on its next game, promising a “media blackout” for the foreseeable future. The hotly anticipated Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 8 is still due out this year.

In our 10/10 review of the base Baldur’s Gate 3, IGN said: “With crunchy, tactical RPG combat, a memorable story with complex characters, highly polished cinematic presentation, and a world that always rewards exploration and creativity, Baldur’s Gate 3 is the new high-water mark for CRPGs.”

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

What a thrill… Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater Funko Pops are officially up for preorder. There are two figures currently available, one of Naked Snake and the other of The Boss, with price tags of $12.99 a piece. You won’t have to wait too long to add them into your collectible collection either as they’re set to release on March 25 this year. Head to the links below to get your preorders in today.

Preorder Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater Funko Pops, Out March 25

Promise Mascot Agency just announced its voice cast, which includes a number of surprise additions from the world of video game development.

Kaizen Game Works’ open-world narrative adventure sees players explore a cursed Japanese town and recruit mascot friends. You even help a living finger work through anger issues.

Where Promise Mascot Agency is punching above its weight is in the voice cast department. It’s nabbed PlayStation developer legend Shuhei Yoshida in his first ever video game voice role, and the announcement comes hot on the heels of Yoshida’s last day at Sony.

At farewell party yesterday 😆 pic.twitter.com/hpiPWQIO1z

— Shuhei Yoshida (@yosp) January 14, 2025

Shuhei Yoshida worked on PlayStation from the very beginning, playing a key role in the original console’s success from 1993. He was one of the more public-facing PlayStation executives while President of SIE Worldwide Studios from 2008 to 2019, championing indie and VR success in particular. Yoshida announced his exit from Sony in November during his 31st year at PlayStation.

“When I hit 30 years, I was thinking, hmm, it may be about time for me to move on,” he explained at the time. “You know, the company’s been doing great. I love PS5, I love the games that are coming out on this platform. And we have new generations of management who I respect and admire. And I’m so excited for the future of PlayStation.”

While Yoshida long-term plan remains up in the air, in the short-term he’s turned to video game voice acting, and that’s where Promise Mascot Agency comes in. Yoshida plays Monouge, an odd-looking green-skinned former mascot who is opening their own game center.

Yoshida isn’t the only big name joining the Promise Mascot Agency voice cast. Yakuza: Like A Dragon’s Takaya Kuroda, who plays series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu, and Legend of Zelda’s Ayano Shibuya also star, as do Eri Saito (Chainsaw Man, Metal Gear Solid 4, Way of the Samurai 3) and Swery, developer of Deadly Premonition, The Good Life, and Spy Fiction.

You can see what Yoshida and co sound like in-game in the exclusive trailer, below.

“We can’t believe that our weird game managed to attract such a strong voice cast,” said game director Oli Clarke Smith.

“When our lead Japanese localiser, Roppyaku Tsurumi, told us that Kuroda-san had auditioned, we just about lost our minds. All of the cast have brought our group of misfits to life wonderfully. After working on these characters for four years, they have become like friends to us, and we’re so happy that they have all been given a voice. The team at the recording studio, Xenorex, did an amazing job.”

Here’s the official blurb:

Takaya Kuroda voices the disgraced ex-yakuza Michi, exiled to the forgotten (and quite definitely cursed) Japanese town of Kaso-Machi with two goals: pay off his debt and restore glory to the town’s defunct mascot agency! Recruit the weird and wonderful mascots across town with help from your severed finger assistant manager and chaos goblin, Pinky☆ – voiced by Ayana Shibuya, negotiate their contracts and assign them jobs they love.

Promise Mascot Agency will be available on PC and consoles early 2025.

Photo by Stuart Wilson/BAFTA/Getty Images for BAFTA.

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.

Nintendo is famously litigious when it comes to emulators. In March 2024, developers of Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu were ordered to pay $2.4 million in damages after a court settlement with Nintendo. In October 2024, Switch emulator Ryujinx ceased development following “contact from Nintendo.” In 2023, the developers behind Dolphin, an emulator for Gamecube and Wii, were advised against a full Steam release by lawyers at Valve, who were contacted by Nintendo’s lawyers alongside “strong legal wording.”

Perhaps most famously, in 2023 Gary Bowser, a reseller of Team Xecuter products that allowed users to bypass the Nintendo Switch’s anti-piracy measures, was charged with fraud and ordered to pay $14.5m back to Nintendo, a debt he will repay for life.

Now, a patent lawyer representing Nintendo has lifted the lid on the company’s approach to piracy and emulation, and discussed how the propagation of emulators could lead to software piracy.

In a report from Denfaminicogamer (via VGC) at Tokyo eSports Festa 2025, “Intellectual Property Managers” from Capcom, Sega, and Nintendo gathered to discuss the laws designed to protect companies’ intellectual property. Speaking for Nintendo was a patent attorney and Assistant Manager of the Intellectual Property Division, Koji Nishiura. In a translation by Automaton, he explained:

“To begin with, are emulators illegal or not? This is a point often debated. While you can’t immediately claim that an emulator is illegal in itself, it can become illegal depending on how it’s used.”

Nishiura explained further that if an emulator copies a program from the game it is running, it may constitute copyright infringement, and this is also the case if the emulator can disable a console’s security mechanisms.

This is largely down to Japan’s “Unfair Competition Prevention Act,” or UCPA, which is only enforceable in Japan itself. This makes it more difficult for Nintendo to pursue legal action overseas.

The example given in a slide during the Tokyo eSports Festa talk was the Nintendo DS “R4” card, which allowed users of the cartridge to circumvent and run backed-up or pirated versions of games on a single cartridge. Ultimately, after Nintendo and 50 other software manufacturers cried out about the R4, Nintendo won a ruling that the manufacturers and resellers violated the UCPA, effectively outlawing sales of the R4 in 2009.

Nishiura further explained that tools that allow users to download pirated software within an emulator or piece of software would also constitute copyright law infringement. Named “reach apps” in Japanese law, these third-party tools like the 3DS’s infamous “Freeshop,” or third-party app installer “Tinfoil” for Switch, may also violate copyright laws.

In its Yuzu lawsuit, Nintendo claimed that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was pirated one million times. Specifically, the filing claimed that Yuzu’s Patreon page allowed its developers to earn $30,000 per month by providing subscribers with “daily updates,” “early access,” and “special unreleased features” to games like Tears of the Kingdom.

Sayem is a freelancer based in the UK, covering tech and hardware. You can get in touch with him at @sayem.zone on Bluesky.

Ubisoft has finally fixed the Windows 11 versions of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Origins but Odyssey remains broken.

The Ubisoft games broken by Windows 11 version 24H2 in November are therefore now, almost, fully fixed. While Ubisoft released updates to Viking era England-set Valhalla and Ancient Egypt-set Origins, Ancient Greece-set Odyssey is still without a fix.

“Hello everyone, we have just deployed a new title update for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla,” Ubisoft said on the game’s Steam page, alongside a similar one on Origins’. “This patch fixes compatibility issues with Windows 11 update 24H2.”

These “compatibility issues” saw the Assassin’s Creed games crash every few minutes, essentially rendering them unplayable. While Ubisoft released fixes for other affected games Star Wars Outlaws and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora relatively quickly, disgruntled Assassin’s Creed fans review bombed their games on Steam in an attempt to prompt action.

This finally came two months later, though obviously Odyssey remains broken. Ubisoft has not said when it will release a fix for this final game.

These issues come amid a stream of other bad news for Ubisoft, which hoped it would now be celebrating big hits in Star Wars Outlaws and Assassin’s Creed Shadows but is instead scrambling amid poor sales of the former and a handful of delays to the latter.

Star Wars Outlaws underperforming prompted myriad changes at the developer including a cancelling of its Season Pass and faux “early access” model alongside a return to Steam. In dire need of a success, it has delayed the Japan set Assassin’s Creed Shadows twice in hopes its eventual release on March 20 will bring a win.

The game has not enjoyed a particularly positive promotional period so far, however, with the development team having to apologize on separate occasions for inaccuracies in Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ depictions of Japan and using a historical recreation group’s flag without permission.

Yet another controversy came as collectible figure maker PureArts removed an Assassin’s Creed Shadows statue from sale over its “insensitive” design, and combined with the two delays, fans are growing increasingly impatient as a result.

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

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 was a smash hit for developer Saber Interactive and publisher Focus Entertainment, selling 4.5 million copies in just over a month. Indeed, Space Marine 2 has done so well it “changes everything” for Saber Interactive, Chief Creative Officer Tim Willits told IGN soon after the game came out.

But via new financial results we now know just how much money it has made for Games Workshop, the British company behind the tabletop hobby upon which Space Marine 2 is based. Reporting results for the first half of its financial year ending December 1, 2024, Games Workshop CEO Kevin Rountree hailed the success of Space Marine 2, which contributed significant royalty revenue to the business.

In fact, licensing revenue from royalty income increased in the period by a whopping £18 million (approx. $21.9 million) to £30.1 million (approx. $36.7 million). Earned income, which is the key figure here, was £26.1 million (approx. $31.8 million), up from £5.9 million (approx. $7.2 million), an increase Games Workshop said was mainly from Space Marine 2. 98% of Games Workshop’s total licensing revenue came from PC and console games (Space Marine 2 launched on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S).

A win all round, then. As you’d expect, Games Workshop is on the hunt for the next blockbuster Warhammer video game, but Rountree also expressed a degree of caution on potential future video game success, admitting hits like Space Marine 2 are few and far between.

Here’s the statement:

During the period, our licensing partners launched two new video games; Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, a third person shooter for PC and console and Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks, a combat racing game. Established games continue to contribute, alongside royalty income earned following the success of Space Marine 2. We recognise that successes like these for Warhammer are not a given in the world of video games. Clearly we are looking for the next one. We remain cautious when forecasting royalty income.

So, where could this big Warhammer video game hit come from? It seems inevitable that Saber Interactive will get the chance to continue the Space Marine story with Space Marine 3, and indeed has said it has ideas for a third game.

In the shorter term, Bulwark Studios’ turn-based tactics game Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus II looks set to scratch a very different itch. There are also rumblings that Creative Assembly is finally giving Warhammer 40,000 the Total War treatment, something fans have hoped for for years.

As for Space Marine 2, Saber continues to update the game with cosmetics, new Operations, and new weapons. Season 3 is set for launch this spring.

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.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League just received its final update, which along with the promised offline mode, adds an official ending to the game’s story that wraps everything up in a tidy, if rather uninteresting, way.

As previously announced, Episode 8: Balance is the final update planned for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Alongside some new armore and exotic weapons, the biggest feature in the update is a new Offline Mode that will allow players to continue playing Suicide Squad Game by themselves without requiring an internet connection.

As a reminder, Episode 8 will be the final update to #SuicideSquadGame. The title will remain playable in both Online and the recently released Offline Mode for players to continue to wreak havoc in Metropolis 💥

— Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League (@suicidesquadRS) January 14, 2025

The Offline Mode was announced in December 2023 as part of Rocksteady’s post-launch plans, but the studio was also committed to releasing its promised DLCs and additional characters, leaving the Offline Mode for its final update.

There’s also a big comic book ending to wrap up the story of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, so if you’re okay with spoilers feel free to read below the break. You’ve been warned.

Okay so Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, as the name implies, is about taking out members of the Justice League who have been brainwashed by Brainiac. One of the biggest shocks in the game was when Harley Quinn shoots Batman point blank in the head.

However, Batman was actually still alive. In his masterful gambit, he allowed Brainiac to create clones of the Justice League and then oversaw the events of the game from the shadows as he worked to take down Brainiac in secret.

The ending is told via the comic book illustrations that the different post-launch episodes have been presented in and in true comic book fashion, your favorite heroes are still all alive and the bad guys are defeated. Woo-hoo.

Is this how Rocksteady envisioned the end of Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League? Who can say. The game released to mixed reviews and Warner Bros. said the game fell short of expectations when it came to sales, and the developers announced that it was ending future updates on the game after Season 4.

You can read our full review of Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League here and for anyone looking to play the game, the Offline Mode means you’re able to fully. So if you see it on sale next time, don’t worry about picking it up as the game will still run just fine.

Matt Kim is IGN’s Senior Features Editor.

NetEase Games is telling Marvel Rivals players that a new hero will launch every month and a half as additional seasons roll out.

The studio’s creative director, Guangyun Chen, clarified the team’s post-launch plans during an interview with Metro. He doesn’t mince words, promising to release a playable character every half-season. That equals out to at least one new hero every month and a half, or roughly every six weeks.

“Every season we’ll be rolling out fresh seasonal stories, new maps, and new heroes. We’ll actually be breaking down each season into two halves,” Chen said. “The length of one season is three months. And for each half of the season, we will introduce a new hero. We just eventually want to continue to enhance the experience, and, you know, keep everyone excited in our community.”

It’s a tall order that will leave fans with one question as every season winds down: who’s next? Marvel Rivals Season 1: Eternal Night Falls already kicked things off with a strong start by introducing both Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman for the first half, with The Thing and the Human Torch primed to launch with the second half in a few weeks. These are Marvel mainstays who have undeniably earned their place as legendary superhero characters, but keeping up that momentum over time will be quite the challenge.

Marvel Rivals already launched with a strong list of playable heroes that includes names like Wolverine, Magneto, Spider-Man, Jeff the Landshark, and Storm, but there are so many other faces to include. Blade is one character rumored to appear in Season 2, for example, with fans also hoping to see characters like Daredevil, Deadpool, and other X-Men at some point. It’s unclear how NetEase will expand upon the Marvel Rivals roster in the future, but with the success it’s seen so far, the team is showing no signs of slowing down.

Marvel Rivals Season 1 also introduced a laundry list of balance changes and general gameplay tweaks, with more promised to arrive in future updates. For other news on the studio’s hero shooter hit, you can check out how some players are using the Invisible Woman to ward off an alleged bot problem. You can also read up on the Hero Hot List, and why some players are using mods despite fears of being banned.

Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.

Be sure to give him a follow on Twitter @MikeCripe.