Category: IGN

After id Software’s brilliant revival of Doom in 2016 and its even tighter 2020 sequel Doom Eternal, it’d be hard for Doom to soar any higher. So it isn’t. Instead, it’s keeping both feet planted firmly on the ground and bringing the high-speed, high-skill-ceiling first-person shooter even closer to the scores of Hell’s minions in the medieval-tinged prequel, Doom: The Dark Ages.

Yes, the new Doom pivots from Eternal’s platforming and instead literally grounds its combat in strafe-heavy gameplay with an emphasis on power. Sure, the great guns are still there – this is Doom, after all! – and that very much includes the new Skull Crusher that stood out in the reveal trailer. You know, the one that eats the skulls of your fallen enemies as ammunition and spits them back out at the still-living bad guys in smaller, higher-velocity chunks. But The Dark Ages also places a huge premium on your three melee weapons: the default electrified gauntlet, which can be charged up; the flail; and the star of the reveal trailer from last summer, the Shield Saw, which can be thrown or used to block, parry, or deflect. “You’re gonna stand and fight,” game director Hugo Martin said after my demo of the new Doom.

Perhaps it won’t surprise you, then, that Martin says The Dark Ages is inspired primarily by three other seminal pieces of pop culture: the legendary original Doom, Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns graphic novel, and Zack Snyder’s 2006 classic movie 300 – perhaps not coincidentally based on a graphic novel by Miller.

As further evidence of this, the modern series’s trademark Glory Kill finishing-move system has been unsynced, meaning the fatalities can be performed from any angle on the battlefield and will change accordingly. This is to account for the hordes of enemies that will be around you all the time. Yes, like 300 (and the original Doom), you’ll be surrounded by bad guys in combat bowls that have been significantly widened in The Dark Ages. You can accomplish objectives in any order you want, and wander anywhere you feel like in the levels (which, by the way, Martin says have been shortened a bit where needed to stick closer to his sweet spot of each being about an hour long).

Even better, addressing a criticism I cited in my review of Doom Eternal, The Dark Ages will no longer force you to read its story in the Codex. Instead, the story will play out in cutscenes. And the story will “take you to the far reaches of the Doom universe,” id says, with a big story described as “a summer blockbuster event with everything on the line” as your power as the Slayer is coveted by your enemies.

Martin also made a point to emphasize that the development team is focusing on simplifying the control scheme, believing that in hindsight, Doom Eternal made the controls too complex. Martin said the team wanted something that felt intuitive so that when they pressure the player, they’re not reaching for buttons they’re not familiar with. The aforementioned melee options, for example, will be equipped like equipment (meaning, one at a time). Meanwhile, not only will there be more secrets and treasures hidden around, but the economy has been simplified to one currency (gold), and those secrets will focus on furthering your skill progression. Meaning, tangible, gameplay-altering rewards rather than lore deep-dives.

One thing you definitely can deep-dive into, though, is the difficulty. Custom sliders now let you tweak the challenge however you see fit, with adjustments for things like game speed and enemy aggression (and a whole lot more) at your fingertips in the UI.

I also learned a bit more about two standout gameplay sequences from the reveal trailer: the giant 30-story demon mech (called the Atlan) and the cybernetic dragonback riding. They won’t be one-offs, by the sound of it, but you can’t just call in either one anytime you like. Each has a full suite of abilities and even minibosses to battle. Oh, and one more key bit of information: there won’t be any multiplayer mode this time around, as the team wanted to focus all of its resources into making the best single-player campaign possible. Not that Eternal’s Battlemode was bad, but I imagine most players won’t complain.

But for me, someone for whom the original Doom was transformational in 1993, I just keep coming back to Martin’s pivot away from the (very successful!) direction they were heading in Eternal and his renewed adherence to the design principles of that 30-year-old foundational classic as he designed The Dark Ages. “It’s just gotta be different [from Eternal],” Martin said. “Especially if I loved the game. [If] I wanna play a Doom game, I wanna feel strong, but I’m OK with changing what that power fantasy is, especially if that change brings it closer to classic Doom.”

Hearing that has got me more hyped than ever. May 15 can’t come soon enough.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

During today’s Xbox Developer Director, we saw a new trailer for South of Midnight complete with a release date of April 8, 2025.

In the trailer, we saw a good look at Hazel’s powers, which blend the traditional craft of weaving with magic to allow her to fight, conjure things, and overcome environmental obstacles. As she fights, Hazel “unravels” enemies to destroy them in action combat, and has some elements of customization in her fighting style that can help her counter different types of enemies.

Hazel will visit different different regions ruled by magical creatures, each one with a different Southern Gothic history that she’ll need to heal by collecting their fragmented memories. In the trailer, we got a look at several of these creatures, including a real big bird and a massive crocodile covered in spikes with giant trees going out of its back.

South of Midnight was first announced at the Xbox Showcase in 2023 as a new game from We Happy Few developer Compulsion Games. Set in a magical realist American South, it follows a young woman named Hazel who seems to be searching for her mother in the wake of a massive hurricane, using newfound magical powers called Weaving and encountering all sorts of strange creatures along the way. It reappeared at the Xbox Showcase last year, and we got a hands-off look at it back in November.

You can catch up on everything shown in today’s Xbox Developer Direct right here.

Developing…

Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 3 won’t be a PlayStation 6 exclusive despite Final Fantasy 7 Remake originally launching only on PS4 and its sequel Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth originally launching only on PS5, Square Enix has said.

Speaking to 4Gamer and translated by Genki on X/Twitter, Final Fantasy series producer Yoshinori Kitase and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi said the PlayStation exclusivity tradition will be broken amid a wider shift to multiplatform releases.

Sony’s PS5 arrived in 2020, seven years after the PS4 arrived in 2013. The same pace would see the PS6 released in 2027, which is the same time Square Enix hopes to release the third and final game in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy.

4Gamer therefore asked if fans will need to buy a third generation of consoles in order to close out the story, but Kitase said definitively this won’t be the case. “No, you can rest assured about the next one,” he said.

Hamaguchi said Square Enix plans to release future games on a wide range of platforms so as many people can play them as possible. This comes after both Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and Final Fantasy 16 were well received but failed to meet financial expectations.

Square Enix has already brought both of these to PC, but Final Fantasy 14 director Naoki Yoshida has said Square Enix is looking to double down on Xbox releases too. Nothing has been announced regarding Part 3’s release platforms but fans should therefore expect a release across PS5 (and maybe PS6), PC, and maybe even Xbox. The franchise is reportedly gearing up for a release on the Nintendo Switch 2 console too.

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

Warner Bros. Games boss David Haddad is set to leave the company, according to a new report.

Variety said Haddad will leave his role as president of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment after 12 years of leading Warner Bros. Games.

The company has had a troubled 12 months, first with the catastrophic release of Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, then the disappointing release of Smash Bros.-style brawler MultiVersus.

Warner Bros. Discovery has said Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s failure contributed to a $200 million hit to its business, and MultiVersus added another $100 million on top. Warner Bros. Games’ only new game release during the third quarter of 2024 was Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions, which failed to make an impression.

Speaking in a financial call, Warner Bros. Discovery President and CEO David Zaslav said: “We recognise [the games business] is substantially underperforming its potential right now.”

Since then, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League post-launch content has come to an end with the delivery of its year one roadmap. Warner Bros. has yet to announce Rocksteady’s next game, but it is reportedly helping out on a director’s cut of Hogwarts Legacy. The legendary British studio has suffered a number of layoffs in recent months.

There are also question marks over Mortal Kombat 1’s financial performance, although NetherRealm chief Ed Boon recently announced over five million sales and teased future DLC following the release of the T-1000 Terminator guest character.

During the same financial call, Zaslav said Warner Bros. was doubling down on four games: Hogwarts Legacy (a sequel is already in the works), Mortal Kombat, Game of Thrones, and DC, “in particular Batman.” Warner Bros. recently published VR game Batman: Arkham Shadow exclusively on the Meta Quest 3, and has a Wonder Woman game in the works at Monolith Productions.

“We are focusing our development efforts on those core franchises, with proven studios to improve our success ratio,” Zaslav added.

According to Variety, Haddad will stay on with Warner Bros. discovery for the next three months as the company looks for his replacement during an apparent quieter release schedule.

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.

Capcom is experimenting with generative AI to create the “hundreds of thousands” of ideas needed for in-game environments.

As video game development costs rise, publishers are increasingly looking to controversial AI tools to speed up work and cut costs. Call of Duty reportedly sold an “AI-generated cosmetic” for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in late 2023, and fans accused Activision of using generative AI again for a loading screen last year. EA said in September that AI was “the very core” of its business.

In a new interview with Google Cloud Japan, Kazuki Abe, a technical director at Capcom who has worked on huge titles like Monster Hunter: World and Exoprimal, explained how the company is experimenting with implementing AI in its game development processes.

“One of the most time-consuming and labor intensive parts of game development is coming up with hundreds of thousands of unique ideas,” Abe explained (via Automaton). He added that designs for things like televisions require their own unique designs, logos, and shape. “Including unused ones, we ended up having to come up with hundreds of thousands of ideas,” he continued.

Multiple proposals are needed for the thousands to tens of thousands of these kinds of objects per game, and each proposal includes illustrations needed to communicate the idea to the art director and artists as well as text, Abe explained.

Seeing room for efficiency improvements, Abe created a system where generative AI could read various game design documents and an AI could output the ideas, enhancing development speed and efficiency, delivering feedback for itself in the process and further refining output.

His prototype, which taps into multiple AI models such as Google Gemini Pro, Gemini Flash, and Imagen has apparently received positive feedback from internal development teams. The result of implementing the AI model would ultimately “reduce costs significantly” compared to doing them all by hand, while also improving quality.

Right now, Capcom’s experimentation with AI models appears to be limited to just this system, leaving other aspects of game development, such as ideation, gameplay, programming, and character design firmly in the hands of humans.

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

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is the best selling game of both December 2024 and the full year 2024 in the U.S., returning to the No.1 spot after Hogwarts Legacy took the crown in 2023.

This is according to Circana data and analysis by Mat Piscatella shared with IGN. The annual Call of Duty release historically is almost always the No.1. best-selling game in the U.S. each year by dollar sales going back to 2008, with a few exceptions. Both Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption II beat it out in their respective release years, and in 2023, Hogwarts Legacy took the crown. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 was back on top this year, though it’s possible that victory is short-lived given Grand Theft Auto VI’s expected release late this year.

This year, Call of Duty was also once again the best-selling franchise in the U.S. for a record 16th year in a row.

EA Sports College Football 25, the No.2 best-selling game of 2024 and the No.3 best-selling game of December, was also the best-selling sports game in U.S. history.

Not a single Nintendo game cracked the top 20 for 2024, though that’s possibly because Nintendo does not share digital sales data with Circana, meaning all Nintendo first-party games on this list are only including physical sales in their rankings. That said, on the Nintendo Switch console, Super Mario Party Jamboree was the best-selling game of the year, followed by Mario Kart 8 at No. 2 and Mario & Luigi: Brothership at No.3.

Most of the rankings for the month of December were releases from earlier in the year or even prior years, given a low number of new releases. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was the only new release ranking in December, at No.14. Because Circana tracks in dollar sales, we don’t see new releases Marvel Rivals (free-to-play) or Path of Exile 2 ($30, as opposed to $60) on the top-selling games list. However, both ranked on Circana’s tracking of the top games in the U.S. by Steam MAUs (No.1 and No.3 for December, respectively) and Marvel Rivals was also No.3 on PS5 and Xbox Series by MAUs.

For the full year, content spending in the U.S. increased by 2% to $50.6 billion, the second highest total for content spending in U.S. history, behind 2021’s $52 billion. There was an 11% drop in console content spending, but it was balanced out by growth in all other content areas. For December by itself, video game content spending was down 5% year over year to $5.8 billion. There was a 21% drop in console content spending in December, but PC content spending grew 13%.

Hardware spending for 2024 dropped 25% from 2023 to $4.9 billion, with PS5 as the best-selling console of both the month and the year. Switch was second place for the year in unit sales, while Xbox Series finished second in dollar sales. Digital editions made up 45% of PS5s sold in the U.S. during 2024, and 44% of Xbox Series.

For the month of December alone, hardware spending was down 29% from 2023 to $1.1 billion in December. All three console makers saw the drop: PS5 hardware spending dropped 18%, and Xbox Series and Switch both dropped by 38%.

For the full year, overall spending on games was down 1.1% to $58.7 billion. For December, total spending dropped 8.9% year over year to $7.5 billion.

The top 20 best-selling games in the U.S. for the month of December, based on dollar sales:

1. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
2. Madden NFL 25
3. EA Sports College Football 25
4. EA Sports FC 25
5. Super Mario Party Jamboree*
6. Sonic X Shadow Generations
7. Hogwarts Legacy
8. Astro Bot
9. Minecraft*
10. NBA 2K25*
11. Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero
12. Elden Ring
13. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
14. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
15. Helldivers II
16. Mario Kart 8
17. Mario & Luigi: Brothership*
18. God of War: Ragnarok
19. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom*
20. Just Dance 2025 Edition

The top 20 best-selling games in the U.S. for the full year 2024, based on dollar sales:

1. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
2. EA Sports College Football 25
3. Helldivers II
4. Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero
5. NBA 2K25*
6. Madden NFL 25
7. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (2023)
8. EA Sports FC 25
9. Elden Ring
10. EA Sports MVP Bundle
11. Hogwarts Legacy
12. Dragon’s Dogma II
13. WWE 2K24*
14. MLB: The Show 24*
15. Grand Theft Auto V*
16. Minecraft*
17. Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth
18. Tekken 8
19. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
20. NBA 2K24*

* Indicates that some or all digital sales are not included in Circana’s data. Some publishers, including Nintendo and Take-Two, do not share certain digital data for this report.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Square Enix has now completed the story of the third and final part of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy.

Speaking to Famitsu and translated by Eurogamer, Final Fantasy series producer Yoshinori Kitase and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi said development on the highly anticipated conclusion is progressing smoothly.

“I’m very satisfied with [the story], so I’m sure fans will be satisfied with the final chapter,” Kitase said, adding that Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth creative director Tetsuya Nomura gave him “homework” to ensure this was the case.

The story of Part 3, which currently lacks an official name or release window, was required to have a respect for the original Final Fantasy 7 alongside a new level of satisfaction not felt in that game, Kitase said.

Square Enix announced its plans to release Final Fantasy 7 Remake as a trilogy in June 2022, following the release of the first game which had fans questioning if the entire story would need a dozen parts to be told properly. This is because Final Fantasy Remake itself only adapted the opening few hours of the original game, up to the point where the party leaves Midgar.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth expanded the scope significantly, however, introducing the open world and thus covering myriad locations such as Costa del Sol, the Golden Saucer, and many more, including some new ones.

It brought the overall story up to the end of Disc 1 of the original Final Fantasy 7, which closes in both games with what’s arguably the most iconic moment in video game history.

Part 3 will pick up immediately after this, though very little is known about it so far. Development began in June 2022 but Square Enix hasn’t said when it will end, only vaguely noting it hopes to release Part 3 by 2027.

Something it has said, however, is that it “will not cheat” when it comes to the Highwind airship. This allowed the party to quickly move around the map in the original game but, now in the world of fast travel, many fans wondered how the iconic ship could be implemented.

“We will not cheat with the airship system [in Part 3] but take the challenge head on so it can freely fly all over the game map,” Hamaguchi said in November.

In our 9/10 review of the last game, IGN said: “Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth impressively builds off of what Remake set in motion, both as a best-in-class action role playing game full of exciting challenges and an awe inspiring recreation of a world that has meant so much to so many for so long.”

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

Palworld developer Pocketpair is moving into the publishing business to release Tales of Kenzera: Zau developer Surgent Studio’s next game.

The newly formed Pocketpair Publishing said on X/Twitter it will support “a brand new horror game” from Surgent Studios, which released Tales of Kenzera: Zau as its debut title in April last year. The horror game published by Pocketpair won’t be a continuation of that universe, however.

“We noticed a pattern in the entertainment industry, and Pocketpair has given us the opportunity to make a horror game about it,” said Surgent Studios CEO Abubakar Salim. “Both Surgent and Pocketpair are well versed in taking risks. This game will be short and weird, and we think players will be interested in what we have to say.

“We’re still in earnest conversation about further projects set in the Tales of Kenzera universe, but this will be a standalone piece: a mile marker between where we’ve come from and where we’re going.”

No release window or even a title was announced, so the project is presumably still a while away from releasing. This is also separate from the Project Uso concept previously shared by Surgent Studios.

Pocketpair Publishing, meanwhile, is now accepting pitches from other developers. “We don’t want to tell you what to do.​ We don’t want to take control from you. We don’t want to change your dream or push you to make a certain type of game,” it said on its website.

Head of Pocketpair Publishing John Buckley added: “At Pocketpair, there is nothing we love more than games, and Pocketpair Publishing is our latest venture to help the world enjoy gaming even more. Game development comes with many challenges, but we want to ease that process as much as possible and provide an environment where creators can pursue their dreams.

“We are pleased to be able to support Surgent Studios’ new title as our first step. We deeply sympathize with their original ideas and passion and are honoured to help them realize their vision. We will respect the autonomy and vision of developers and work together to make great games for people all over the world.”

Salim, who is also an actor having played Assassin’s Creed Origins protagonist Bayek, Alyn of Hull in House of the Dragon, and the titular character in Tales of Kenzera: Zau, said “it’s an incredible honor to be Pocketpair Publishing’s first partner” in a follow up post on X/Twitter.

“This is the energy I want to see driving games in 2025,” he said, “developers lifting each other up, creating together, and pushing the industry forward.”

Tales of Kenzera: Zau is a single player Metroidvania game which explores themes of grief and love. It earned a 7/10 in IGN’s review. “Tales of Kenzera: Zau’s action isn’t groundbreaking within the genre, but its elevated by a truly moving tale about how to go on in this world when your loved ones have passed on to the next,” we said.

The positive reception wasn’t enough to drive unbridled success, however, as Surgent Studios announced layoffs in July. Things grew worse as employees were put on notice for redundancy in October amid further funding struggles, meaning the support from Pocketpair Publishing will likely go a long way.

As for Pocketpair, it’s still battling The Pokémon Company and Nintendo’s patent infringement lawsuit, filed following Palworld’s record-breaking sales success.

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

Monster Hunter is one of the biggest game franchises out there right now, with the highly anticipated release of Monster Hunter Wilds set for next month. If you’ve ever wanted to square up with towering beasts and monsters, this is the perfect series for you.

Right now, Humble is offering the Monster Hunter New Year Hunting Collection, which packs in ten total items for only $25. This is a great starting place for beginners, as it gives you the biggest Monster Hunter games available on PC with their expansions. Check out the details below, and don’t miss out on this incredible bundle!

Monster Hunter New Year Hunting Collection at Humble