Category: IGN

Microsoft has announced wave one of its January 2025 Xbox Game Pass lineup.

First up, today, January 7, Road 96 (Cloud, Console, and PC) returns to Game Pass via Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, Game Pass Standard. “Road 96 is a crazy, beautiful road-trip,” reads the official blurb. “On this risky road trip to the border, you’ll meet incredible characters and discover their intertwined stories and secrets in an ever-evolving adventure. But every mile opens a choice to make. Your decisions will change your adventure, change the people you meet, and maybe even change the world.”

Tomorrow, January 8, Lightyear Frontier (Game Preview) (Xbox Series X|S) launches into Game Pass Standard. “Start your interstellar homestead in this peaceful open-world farming adventure! Build your sustainable exofarm, grow alien crops, customize your mech, and explore a new world full of mystery with up to three friends!”

Also on January 8, My Time at Sandrock (Console) is available on Game Pass Standard. “Just like My Time at Portia, My Time at Sandrock takes place in a wholesome post-apocalyptic world 300 years after the Day of Calamity destroyed most modern technologies. Gather resources to build machines, befriend locals, and defend Sandrock from monsters — all while saving the town from economic ruin!”

Sticking with January 8, Robin Hood – Sherwood Builders (Xbox Series X|S) hits Game Pass Standard. “Join Robin Hood and his unwavering band of outlaws in 12th-century England on their mission to free Nottingham. Travel across various regions, build up a secret hideout village and help the denizens of the surrounding lands. Complete quests, construct various builds, craft a broad range of items, and freely explore locations inspired by both myth and history in this open-world RPG with base-building features.”

Rounding out a packed January 8 is Rolling Hills (Console) on Game Pass Standard. “Serve sushi as a robot chef in Rolling Hills, a life sim about running your own restaurant in a cozy village. Make new friends, purchase ingredients, enhance your shop, and improve the lives of your neighbors as you perfect your craft!”

Moving on to January 14, Game Pass Ultimate subscribers get EA Sports UFC 5 (Cloud and Xbox Series X|S) via EA Play. “Unleash your fury and get unlimited access to EA Sports UFC 5, coming to Game Pass Ultimate via EA Play. Plus, members can score the Bruce Lee Bundle and play as alter egos of the father of mixed martial arts, available at no additional cost in the Perks section from January 14 to February 11.”

Here’s a big one: Blizzard action RPG classic Diablo (PC) hits Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass on January 14. “Return to the legendary town of Tristram in Diablo, the groundbreaking action-RPG that defined the genre, coming to Game Pass on January 14! With its satisfying progression, deep character customization, and intense battles, Diablo delivers an unforgettable journey through a dark gothic fantasy world.”

Xbox Game Pass Wave 1 January 2025 lineup:

• Road 96 (Cloud, Console, and PC) – January 7 Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, Game Pass Standard
• Lightyear Frontier (Game Preview) (Xbox Series X|S) – January 8 Now with Game Pass Standard
• My Time at Sandrock (Console) – January 8 Now with Game Pass Standard
• Robin Hood – Sherwood Builders (Xbox Series X|S) – January 8 Now with Game Pass Standard
• Rolling Hills (Console) – January 8 Now with Game Pass Standard
• EA Sports UFC 5 (Cloud and Xbox Series X|S) EA Play – January 14 Game Pass Ultimate
• Diablo (PC) – January 14 Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass

As always, a number of games leave Game Pass as new games arrive.

Leaving Xbox Game Pass on January 15:

• Common’Hood (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Escape Academy (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Exoprimal (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Figment (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Insurgency Sandstorm (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Those Who Remain (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

PUBG and inZoi are getting AI companions described as Co-Playable Characters (CPCs).

Krafton, the South Korean company behind both games, announced it was working with Nvidia to bring these AI teammates into each title.

A CPC is an AI companion that can interact with gamers, enabled by an on-device SLM (Small Language Model) built with Nvidia’s Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE) technology, Krafton said.

“Unlike traditional NPCs (non-player characters), CPCs are equipped with the ability to interact and cooperate with users, as they understand and respond to game situations in a human-like manner,” the company continued.

Krafton said they can be instructed to coordinate and cooperate with players by using the language model built with ACE. Specifically in PUBG, CPCs will introduce a new SLM-powered companion called “Ally” that can communicate verbally and team up with the player. “Players can converse and strategize with their AI-powered CPC companion just like they would a human teammate, greatly enhancing gameplay,” Krafton said.

In a video showing off the tech, the PUBG player uses voice comms to ask their Ally to keep an eye out for a vest and ammo. The Ally finds both and lets their human teammate know via voiced dialogue and a ping. The Ally also tells their human teammate that they’ve spotted an enemy and are providing covering fire. Later, the player asks if there’s a vehicle nearby, and the Ally announces they’ve found one and will “come to you.” The player asks their Ally to flank in a firefight and they oblige, again using voice comms to communicate. The Ally will even engage in a spot of banter upon victory.

Transform solo gameplay into a seamless team experience with PUBG Ally.

KRAFTON & NVIDIA have teamed up to create the world’s first Co-Playable Character (CPC), built with NVIDIA ACE → https://t.co/JLcLQ8crrD pic.twitter.com/7VLtUfp6WA

— NVIDIA GeForce (@NVIDIAGeForce) January 7, 2025

The idea, clearly, is to replicate a human teammate as realistically as possible with AI speech, fuelled by the SLM. We’ve seen AI teammates help humans out in many video games in the past, and they’ll do similar things to what’s on show here. The difference now is you get some slightly stilted speech from your companion to simulate in-game voice comms.

It works different in inZoi, Krafton’s The Sims competitor. Here, citizens, known as “Zois,” interact and make choices based on their “free will and life experiences” in real-time. “Zois will follow fashion trends, spread rumors, develop reputations and more, powered by the SLM,” Krafton said.

These developments come as little surprise given Krafton established a Deep Learning Division of its own in 2022, and has secured various core AI technologies in recent years. It’s going all-in on AI when it comes to video game development amid the various ethical and environmental concerns around the tech and its well-documented impact on jobs.

But it’s far from alone in this. Microsoft, EA, and Ubisoft have all invested heavily in generative AI, with the latter showing off its “Neo NPCs,” a prototype for player-facing generative AI that essentially makes it so you can talk to NPCs in a video game, last year.

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.

Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket kicks off a new Wonder Pick event today, January 7, but strangely hasn’t announced it, added missions with rewards, or items to the shop.

Dataminers have already uncovered everything coming to the digital TCG in the near future, however, so details on what’s coming and when are already available.

The Wonder Picking portion of the Charmander and Squirtle Wonder Pick Event is the only aspect currently available, but as reported by Pokémon Zone, datamining confirms the rest will arrive tomorrow, January 8. This is the first time developer Creatures Inc. has staggered an event’s release.

Everything else is relatively standard, however. The Wonder Pick event will let players access free bonus picks for a chance at picking up Wonder Hourglasses, Blastoise Event Shop Tickets, and Charmander and Squirtle cards including two new Promo versions.

Missions will encourage players to do all of the above, awarding players with Event Shop Tickets for Wonder Picking three, four, and five times and for collecting one Squirtle and one Charmander.

Part 2 of the Wonder Pick Event will launch a week later on January 15, offering Event Shop Tickets for Wonder Picking one through six times, and for collecting five and 10 Fire cards and five and 10 Water cards.

These Blastoise Event Shop Tickets can, unsurprisingly, be used to purchase Blastoise themed items in the shop. Part 1 of the event will see a cover featuring Blue and Blastoise released, a backdrop featuring Blue released, and a Tiny Temple backdrop released.

Part 2 of the event will expand these offerings with a Blue and Blastoise card sleeves and playmat, a Blastoise coin, a Blastoise icon, and presumably ten lots of 50 Shinedust.

The event coincides somewhat with the Blastoise Drop Event currently available in the single-player battles, with players able to take on a variety of Blastoise themed decks to win booster packs with new promo cards. The Mythical Island player versus player event is also currently underway.

Pokémon TCG Pocket arrived October 30 and is a certified hit for Creatures Inc. and The Pokémon Company, having earned an estimated $200 million in its first month across more than 60 million downloads.

This huge amount of money comes as Pokémon TCG Pocket follows the standard mobile and free to play game model, flooding players with rewards in the first few days before soon drying up, with spending real world money the only real way to re-experience that early thrill outside of the occasional set drop like Mythical Island.

Completing Genetic Apex, the first set of cards which totals 226 officially but also contains 60 rare alternate art cards, will take players not spending money around two years according to one estimate, while those looking to make it rain can wrap up the collection after dropping around $1,500.

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

The astronomical development budgets of the Call of Duty games were revealed for the first time after a court document confirmed Activision pumped $700 million into Black Ops Cold War alone.

First reported by Game File, a court filing submitted by publisher Activision as part of a lawsuit regarding the 2022 school shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, included official word on the development budgets of 2015’s Black Ops 3, 2019’s Modern Warfare, and 2020’s Black Ops Cold War.

The court filing also includes updated sales figures for each game, showing the huge revenue Call of Duty brings in through sales alone and before its post-launch monetization.

First, some caveats. The figures detailed below include pre and post-launch development. That is, the cost to develop each game for launch, then the subsequent post-launch development costs associated with feeding the ongoing live service, meaning the development lifecycle of the game.

Call of Duty games offer a range of free content following release, including new maps, new weapons, and new cosmetics for use across Multiplayer and Zombies. Activision monetizes Call of Duty post-launch by selling battle passes, store bundles, and, most recently with Black Ops 6, premium event passes, released in the traditional live service seasonal model in the year each game has to itself before the next Call of Duty comes around.

The development of this relentless conveyor belt of content, which often includes high-profile crossovers with popular intellectual property such as Warhammer 40,000 and Squid Game, does not come cheap.

Now, onto the figures themselves:

• Black Ops 3 (2015): $450 million in development costs across the game’s lifecycle, 43 million copies sold
• Modern Warfare (2019): $640 million in development costs across the game’s lifecycle, 41 million copies sold
• Black Ops Cold War (2020): $700 million in development costs over the game’s life cycle, 30 million copies sold

To provide context, Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us 2 cost around $220 million, Guerrilla’s Horizon Forbidden West cost $212 million, and Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2 cost $300 million to develop. However, these games are not live services, and so post-launch development costs are not necessarily related to the figures as they are with Call of Duty.

As Game File noted, these development costs do not include marketing spend, which for Call of Duty will be significant. So the true cost of bringing Call of Duty to market and operating it as a live service will be even higher.

While ever increasing triple-A development budgets are a hot topic within the industry, and have caused some experts to question the viability of these sorts of games, Call of Duty operates on a different level to most of its peers. Black Ops Cold War’s 30 million copies sold will in of itself have generated well over $1 billion in revenue for Activision, then there’s the live service revenue generated by the game during the 12 months before 2021’s Call of Duty: Vanguard launched. Even with $700 million spent on development and more on marketing, Black Ops Cold War will have been hugely profitable for Activision. You can see why Microsoft forked out $69 billion to buy the company.

Speaking of Microsoft, the math is now muddled by Call of Duty’s day-one launch on Game Pass, which some analysts had predicted would impact sales of Black Ops 6 but boost subscription numbers. Microsoft itself sounds delighted with the performance of last year’s game, saying sales of Black Ops 6 on PlayStation and PC were 60% higher compared to the 2023 release of Modern Warfare 3.

Microsoft has yet to say exactly how many new subscribers Black Ops 6 brought through the door, although CEO Satya Nadella has confirmed that Game Pass set a record for new subs on launch day.

However, Microsoft’s gaming business has suffered devastating layoffs, and Activision has taken a significant hit as part of that. Microsoft has cut an eye-watering 2,550 staff from its gaming business since acquiring Activision Blizzard for $69 billion in 2023. Xbox boss Phil Spencer has indicated the cuts were related to the acquisition of the Call of Duty maker.

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.

Sony has announced a movie adaptation of Horizon Zero Dawn.

The collaboration between PlayStation Studios and Columbia Pictures was announced during Sony’s CES 2025 press conference. Columbia Pictures produced the successful 2022 Uncharted movie starring Tom Holland as Nathan Drake and Mark Wahlberg as Victor Sullivan.

Horizon Zero Dawn is Guerrilla Games’ hugely popular post-apocalyptic adventure starring machine hunter Aloy. No timeframe for the film’s release was announced.

During the same press conference, Sony announced a film adaptation of Helldivers 2 and an anime series adaptation of Ghost of Tsushima.

Developing…

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.

The US Department of Defense has classified Tencent, a major investor in several big video game companies, as a Chinese military company.

The report from Bloomberg states that Tencent alongside battery maker CATL have been added to a list that classifies them as Chinese military companies. The designation itself does not carry any legal consequences such as sanctions, but inclusion on the list is not ideal for companies looking to conduct business in the United States.

As a result, while there is no immediate impact to what this designation means for Tencent, this is still a company that owns Riot Games, and has heavy investments in a variety of other game companies including Epic Games, Larian Studios, and FromSoftware. There are also reports that say Tencent is in negotiations with investing more into companies like Ubisoft.

Tencent has told Bloomberg that this designation is “clearly a mistake” and both Tencent and CATL will be pushing to remove their names from the Department of Defense’s list. Previously, Chinese phone manufacturer Xiaomi was added to the same list in 2021 and then removed from it a few months later.

In a statement to The Verge, Tencent’s Danny Marti says that the designation “has no impact on our business” but will still be working to remove themselves from the classification.

In a one pager published by the Department of Defense, the US government cites Military Civil Fusion, or MCF, a startegy it says the Chinese government uses to combine civilian research and commercial success to further advance its military, hence why the US government has a list of Chinese companies it suspects as working with the Chinese military, something companies like Tencent and Xiaomi deny.

Matt Kim is IGN’s Senior Features Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

Xbox is ringing in the new year by taking yet another step toward its promise of making everything an Xbox: by announcing it will add the Xbox app to LG TVs later this year.

In an Xbox Wire post today, Xbox announced it’s partnering with LG Electronics to bring the Xbox app to LG smart TVs in 2025. What this means is that Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers will be able to play games on supported LG TVs without needing a console, using cloud gaming tech. And yes, that includes Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.

Xbox already implemented this feature on Samsung Smart TVs back in 2022, and added Amazon Fire TV devices to the mix last year. With the expansion to LG TVs, Xbox expands its TV presence even further amid an ongoing ad campaign focused on showcasing the ability to play Xbox on any device. This campaign, using the slogan “This is an Xbox”, positions TVs, laptops, phones, consoles, and other devices as Xboxes thanks to the combined powers of the Xbox app and Game Pass. LG makes several of the best TVs for gaming, including our overall favorite, the LG G4.

Despite numerous moves in recent years to spread its wings from consoles to other devices, Xbox leadership has repeatedly stated it’s committed to consoles as well. Just last year, it announced a mid-gen refresh for the Xbox Series X and S, including an all-digital Series X, and confirmed it’s “full speed ahead” on a next-gen console.

Meanwhile, rumors continue to pop up every few months of a dedicated Xbox handheld, though Xbox head Phil Spencer recently suggested it’s still a few years away.

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.

PlayStation 5 users are torn over how to treat their precious console between gaming sessions, with 50% choosing to turn it off completely and 50% choosing to put it in rest mode.

Sony Interactive Entertainment’s vice president of game, product, and player experiences, Cory Gasaway, told Game File that the Welcome Hub feature, which debuted last year, came as a result of discovering this even split in player habits.

“We gained a lot of insights about how players interact with their PS5 system between play sessions,” Gasaway said. “A small example is we had an internal hypothesis that far more people would put their console into rest mode than fully shut it down each time between their play sessions.

“As it turned out, it was actually about 50/50 between the two options for all our players. So, what that meant was for about 50% of our users, when they booted up, if they were in the US, they were landing on our Explore page. Those outside the U.S. would land on the page for the last game that they have played.”

The Welcome Hub was therefore developed long after the PS5’s release for these players who do not use rest mode, something Sony didn’t believe necessary until it looked into these stats. It arrived in September and essentially lets players customize their homescreen with different widgets and bits of useful information.

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

Typically over the holidays, thousands of people will look in their stockings or under the tree to find brand new Nintendo games waiting for them. But this year, a number of Nintendo Switch fans are claiming they unwrapped a far less pleasant surprise on Christmas morning: instead of a Switch cartridge in their game box, some are claiming they found a single googly eye staring at them.

Over the holidays, a number of posts popped up across Reddit and Twitter/X from individuals claiming their seemingly sealed, brand new Nintendo Switch cases contained a googly eye and a black piece of plastic instead of the actual game cartridge. Why a googly eye? The running theory is that the googly eye will rattle if you shake the Switch box, similar to how the box rattles with an actual game inside. And the black plastic around the side fools individuals trying to look through the cracks on the top or bottom to see if the outline of a game is visible without unwrapping it. Without these items, someone might be tipped off that a game has been stolen from the package, but this method ensures that no one notices the crime until they open the case.

It’s unclear at the moment how or why this is happening, on what scale, or at what point in the distribution process. Games reportedly impacted included Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Mario Party Jamboree, Echoes of Wisdom, and others. The reports also seem to go back several months, though there’s been a higher influx of them recently likely due to more games being purchased over the holiday. And all of them seem to include a googly eye and the same black piece of plastic, though at least one person is claiming to have only gotten the plastic, no eye included.

IGN reached out to several individuals claiming they had received googly eyes instead of games over the last year and a half, but no one we spoke to had taken a video of them unwrapping the shrink wrap and discovering the eye, as they (understandably) didn’t know they were unwrapping a googly eye to begin with. As long as all these reports remain unconfirmed, it’s always possible this is just some sort of viral prank. Still, through our conversations with the individuals claiming they were impacted, all seemed to be legitimate accounts. A few had return receipts or were able to direct me to specific Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and Target store locations where googly eyes had been acquired, all located in the western United States. One person said they purchased their googly eye game online. Timeline-wise, googly eye claims went back as far as June 2023, though most took place in the last six months.

In an effort to confirm these reports, I tried to reach specific stores where googly eyes were allegedly found. One of the Reddit posters claimed in private messages with me that they had returned their googly eye box to a specific Wal-Mart store, so I gave them a call. I was unable to get anyone to answer the phone at the store for over an hour despite calling various different departments. When I finally reached someone in a completely unrelated department, they transferred me to Loss Prevention, who upon hearing what I was calling about offered to have me speak to a higher manager, before hanging up the phone entirely. Multiple calls back to the same departments did not glean any further responses. I tried a second Wal-Mart location identified by posters, where I eventually reached an employee in electronics who had never heard of this happening. However, the incident taking place at their store allegedly happened months ago, and would have been handled by returns and not electronics, so their lack of awareness wasn’t much of a debunking.

A very similar scenario unfolded when I tried to reach a specific Target location where someone claimed to have successfully returned a googly eye game. Repeated calls to relevant departments went unanswered, until I finally reached someone in an unrelated department who transferred me to Guest Services. Guest Services then directed me to Target’s corporate media line, which I have already contacted and did not receive a response from. All told, I spent about three hours on a Friday afternoon calling various big box stores, but learned absolutely nothing about googly eyes.

With the direct route failing, I reached out to Nintendo for comment, but did not hear back in time for publication. I also reached out to Target and Best Buy corporate for comment on this story, but similarly did not hear back in time for publication.

Wal-Mart corporate PR did get back to me on Friday, but the PR representative I spoke to seemed baffled. They told me over the phone that the company had not heard anything about this, and we spent the better part of the afternoon going back and forth over email trying to investigate. The representative said they’d look into some specific stores where googly eyes had been reported over the weekend and return to me with a statement by first-thing Monday, but IGN did not receive any further response to our inquiry by our deadline. We’ll update if that changes.

The takeaway from all this, then, is just a PSA that your recently-purchased Nintendo Switch cartridge may or may not contain a game, or a googly eye. It’s unclear if this is a real problem affecting many people, a real problem affecting a very small number of people caught up in a supply chain that has poor communication and no way to confirm these things, or a joke problem invented by the internet. Fortunately though, if it is indeed a real problem, it sounds like most stores are exchanging googly eyes for games if you find yourself the victim of this weird but admittedly quite frustrating switcheroo. Hopefully they manage to catch this Googly Eye Bandit, if they’re indeed real, and save future Christmases from disaster.

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.