Category: IGN

Sony has confirmed its interest in aquiring FromSoftware parent company Kadokawa.

The PlayStation manufacturer cleared the air regarding reports that it was looking to pick up the gaming and anime mega company in a recent interview with Yahoo Japan. It’s acknowledgement of what could be a bombshell moment for entertainment fans everywhere, but until a deal is finalized, it is probably best to keep expectations for a potential buyout at a minimum.

“It is true that we have made an initial statement of intent,” Sony said regarding its interest in Kadokawa (translated via DeepL). “We would appreciate it if you would allow us to refrain from further comment.”

Amazon has dropped the price on the new Xbox Series X All-Digital Edition. It’s normally $449.99, but you can get it right now for $398, about $52 off. This is the same deal we saw during Black Friday and Cyber Monday with one exception: Best Buy had it very briefly for $374.99. However, that deal is long gone, and this is the best deal you’ll find currently for a fully powered Xbox Series X. If you’re intending this to be a gift, Amazon expects it to be delivered well before December 25.

Xbox Series X All-Digital Edition 1TB Console

Once again, non-profit Day of the Devs officially returned Wednesday with an indie showcase featuring nearly 20 independent games across multiple genres, platforms, studios, and styles as part of the run-up to The Game Awards. The show featured everything from a stop-motion game that’s entirely made of felt, a game where you engage in medieval warfare with modern guns, the return of an unreleased puzzle game first announced over a decade ago, and something to do with changing channels on a one-bit TV.

You should really go back and watch the whole thing, but if you’re skimming the highlights, here’s a rundown of everything we just saw at Day of the Devs:

Faraway

The presentation opened with Faraway – a single-player, one-button, procedurally generated arcade game about drawing constellations in the night sky. Faraway has been a hot rumor for a long time, having been shown around at indie showcases all the way back in 2011 and initially billed as an iPad game. But it missed its planned release date then, and disappeared for years. Faraway is developed by Steph Thirion of Little Eyes studio, and is being published by Annapurna on PC in 2025.

Ultimate Sheep Raccoon

Ultimate Sheep Raccoon is exactly what it says on the tin. A spiritual successor to Ultimate Chicken Horse from the same team, Clever Endeavor Games, it is a multiplayer competitive platformer where players build wild platforming courses and race through them with friends. This time, everyone’s on bikes. No release date yet, but it’s planned for Steam.

Sleight of Hand

We’ve seen Sleight of Hand, from Riffraff Games, at an Xbox Partner Preview event earlier this year. In it, you play as Lady Luck, a witch detective working to take down her former coven using dark magic via a cursed deck of cards. In Day of the Devs today, we watched a sample of how a gameplay scenario might go, with Lady Luck using a drawn hand of cards to hide, lure her enemies, and ultimately trap them so she can pass by unseen. Sleight of Hand is coming to PC and Xbox at a later date.

Demon Tides

By studio Fabraz, Demon Tides is an open world 3D platformer that gives off “Wind Waker but hip and stylish” vibes. We got a look today at some of the platforming and the player’s ability to customize not just their character’s appearance, but also their abilities, giving them a number of different options for how to cross the same gaps. Demon Tides is planned for release in 2025 on Steam.

Kingmakers

Developers Redemption Road, makers of, uh, Road Redemption, appeared in Day of the Devs to show off Kingmakers, a game we’re already pretty stoked about here at IGN. It’s a game with a concept that’s…kind of delightful? You play as part of a team of fighters with modern weapons – guns, bombs, tanks, and so forth – who go back to medieval England to change the course of history. So you’re fighting in medieval times…but with guns. Kingmakers mixes city simulator elements with first and third-person shooter mechanics and massive, destructible environments. You can blow up anything you can see, or stage a fight on top of it, or drive a car through it. The whole thing looks kind of nuts, and you can play the entire campaign solo or with up to three friends. Kingmakers is coming to early access on Steam and the Epic Games Store next year.

Recur

Recur is a puzzle game from developer Astralogical where you play as an unassuming postman who suddenly finds himself with the ability to pause, rewind, and fast forward time itself. From what we saw, it looks like you’ll be working your way through levels where the postman has to use his time powers to avoid obstacles and danger, such as collapsing platforms, a moving train, attacking dogs, or even a whole car nearly smashing into him. Recur is planned for release on Steam.

Blue Prince

Blue Prince (Get it, like Blueprints?) looks gorgeous and mysterious, an atmospheric “architectural adventure” where you’re exploring an “ever-changing house of shifting rooms.” There seems to be some kind of mystery to solve, where you’re hunting for “Room 46” in a 45-room house, and you’re using the house’s blueprints to shape your exploration and build the structure as you go, day by day. The vibes are kind of like Edith Finch meets Mist, and the whole thing is coming out on PC in spring of 2025 from developer Dogubomb.

Incolatus: Don’t Stop, Girlypop!

It’s right there in the title: don’t stop. Incolatus is a Y2K-style girly-pop movement shooter where you literally cannot stop moving. The more you move and the faster you go, the more damage you do and the more you heal yourself, so you just have to keep going. It’s a first-person arena shooter, where you’re shooting elaborate, colorful, and sometimes massive guns that blast cutesy girly hearts and stars at enemies (an evil mining corporation destroying the environment) to a boppin’ soundtrack. The guns get bigger the faster you go. More scope. More damage. More movement. Oh, and there’s a dress-up megagame where you can dress up your arms and customize your guns. Incolatus: Don’t Stop, Girlypop! is coming to Steam “soon”.

Lok Digital

Lok Digital was born of a fascinating collaboration between a puzzle designer who made a clever physical puzzle book, and a game developer who wanted to digitize it in video game form. The result, Lok Digital, is a puzzle game where you slowly solve world puzzles in the fictional language of Lok, which you learn as you work your way through the puzzles. You start with the word “Lok”, and from there will discover other words, other puzzle rules, and the language of the little Lok creatures the game is named after. If that sounds intriguing, great news, you don’t have to wait. Lok Digital is out today on PC, and it’s coming to mobile next year.

Neon Abyss 2

We didn’t get a ton of info today about Neon Abyss 2, but it’s safe to say it’s a sequel to Neon Abyss from Veoowo Games. A 2D, pixelated, run-and-gun roguelike, Neon Abyss 2 looks to bring back the bright colors, flashy lasers, and bullet hell intensity of the first game for another round. It’s coming in 2025 to Steam, and looks like it will incorporate multiplayer, too.

Crescent County

A sci-fi fantasy motorbike game, Crescent County styles itself as “roller derby but with gay witches” or “Studio Ghibli but with considerably more crop jackets”. You’re a witch, you ride a broom motorbike, and through the day you make deliveries and do other important witch tasks on your broom, earning parts that will make your broom faster, cooler, and more powerful. Then, at night, you go out for broom races. In between it all, there’s plenty of flirting and smooching, as witches do. Crescent County is still fairly early in development, but there’s an early playtest happening now on Steam and itch.io.

PBJ – The Musical

I briefly thought I was looking at a Marcel the Shell short when I glanced at my screen and saw this one, but maybe that was just the googly eye. PBJ – The Musical is…well, a musical, telling a romance story of a berry and a peanut, sweet and salty, and their ultimate creation of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Through the musical acts, you’ll be guiding these two characters through paper stop motion cut out from vintage cookbooks and retelling the story of Romeo and Juliet…in sandwich form. All the music is written by Britain’s Got Talent’s Lorraine Bowen. Sadly, no word on when or where this hungry adventure is dropping for now.

Curiosmos

Curiosmos is a cute little space game where you slowly create a solar system, at first by bashing asteroids into one another to create a planet. Once the planet’s created, you can experiment with sunlight, terrain, water, weather, and other elements to see what happens…including whether or not life blossoms and evolves. It seems like a fairly peaceful experience…until a giant black hole starts flying at you and your planets, potentially causing a catastrophe you’ll have to try and avert before it arrives. Curiosmos doesn’t have a release date yet.

Bionic Bay

In the platformer Bionic Bay, you’ll be thinking a lot about gravity, speed, and momentum. You’re a scientist with strange powers over time and space, allowing you to teleport, manipulate time, and flip the environment on its head. Using these abilities, you’ll flip and launch yourself across sci-fi themed environments with realistic physics. Bionic Bay is planned for release on Steam and PS5 in 2025.

inKonbini

I wrote about inKonbini earlier this year after playing it at an Xbox showcase adjacent to the Game Developers Conference. It’s a soothing organizational game about working in a convenience store, stocking the shelves, and interacting with customers who come in and share tidbits from their lives. I found the concept appealing and the execution incredibly relaxing, especially the sound effects of bags and boxes hitting the shelves and the satisfying way everything fell neatly into place on the display. InKonbini is planned for launch on Xbox, PS5, Switch, and Steam sometime in the future.

Feltopia

Feltopia is a stop-motion game that is entirely hand-felted. Every piece of the environment, character, enemy, everything is made by hand, out of felt, recorded, and animated. And the effect is adorable, with fuzzy unicorns, sheep, butterflies, clouds, and more all puffing up out of the world soft as can be. The game itself is a sidescrolling shmup where you ride a unicorn and shoot rainbow beams at shadowy creatures that will transform them back into their true forms. Feltopia is planned for release on Steam in 2026.

Blippo+

I’m not sure what I just watched, but I guess it’s Blippo+. This looks like some sort of game around changing the channel on a one-bit TV and watching all the different, weird programs? Whatever it is, Panic (the Untitled Goose Game and Thank Goodness You’re Here) publisher, so that might convey the vibe. No idea when this is coming out, where, or how. Stay tuned for more Blippo?

Hyper Light Breaker

We’ve already seen a lot of Hyper Light Breaker from Heart Machine, so I won’t belabor it (you can read my preview from earlier this year here), but today the team showed up at Day of the Devs to announce an early access release on Steam on January 14, 2025.

Tankhead

Finally, Day of the Devs closed with Tankhead from Alpha Channel. It’s a sci-fi vehicular adventure where you play as a “sleepwalker” or a person who uploads their consciousness into a machine to explore a dangerous world. Basically, you’re a literal tank (or sometimes a smaller robot) exploring a ruined world, able to travel over tough terrain, shoot stuff, and move fast when you need to. The tank’s customizable, and yes, you drive using tank controls. Tankhead, delightfully, is out today on the Epic Games Store.

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.

The director of Marvel Rivals has discussed the difficulty of successfully entering the packed hero shooter market, pointing to failures like Concord as evidence of the increasing need to have a strong hook that helps convince players to ditch the game they’re already invested in for something new.

Sony’s Concord is one of the biggest video game disasters in PlayStation history, lasting just a couple of weeks before it was brought offline amid eye-wateringly low player numbers. Sony later decided to kill the game entirely, and shut its developer.

Concord was the latest in a string of recent hero shooter flops, which includes Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Post-launch content for that game comes to an end early 2025, just a year after launch, having left a $200 million hole in publisher Warner Bros.’ finances.

NetEase’s Marvel Rivals, however, appears to have avoided a similar fate. It is a free-to-play live service hero shooter in the Overwatch style and benefits from the power of the Marvel brand, but it clearly clicked with the audience, hitting an impressive 10 million players in just three days.

Speaking to VideoGamer.com, Marvel Rivals game director Thaddeus Sasser said Concord “didn’t bring any unique value proposition,” which contributed to its failure. But speaking more generally about the hero shooter market, Sasser said live service games need a hook to convince players of already successful hero shooters to jump ship having already invested their time and money in those games.

“There’s a switching cost,” Sasser said. “I’ve already invested in Overwatch, I’ve got 15 skins for Pharah, I’m not going anywhere.”

Ultimately, Sasser said, the market is incredibly difficult to predict, and game developers never know how popular their game will be until it’s actually out.

“As a game developer you’re always worried until the audience has responded,” Sasser continued. “The truth is that I don’t think anybody can accurately predict this or the game industry would be radically different today. There’s a lot of games that come out that people are like, ‘It’s going to do well,’ then it flops or people come out and go, ‘It’s going to flop,’ and it succeeds amazingly. So, I think it’s really hard to tell ahead of time and you’re always worried about that.”

As for Marvel Rivals, Sasser suggested its superhero factor is the reason fans are willing to leave their favorite games behind to give it a shot.

“I don’t know about you, but when I heard the concept of the game I was like, ‘Oh my God I want to go be Storm in a game, I want to go be Doctor Strange in a game. I want to be those heroes in the game, that sounds awesome.’ And of course my mind immediately leapt to all the cool possibilities you could have with that. That’s what I think will pull people in as well too. If we’ve done our jobs well, they’ll love what they play and they’ll want to play some more.”

For NetEase, it will be hoping not only to keep Marvel Rivals’ player count as high as possible for as long as possible (something that’s proved particularly tricky for live service games of late), but to make enough money from players to meet the company’s internal revenue projections. To that end, Marvel Rivals sells a battle pass and premium skins, but are they convincing players to open their wallets? Early signs suggest they are — Marvel Rivals is the second top-selling game on Steam by revenue, behind only Grinding Gear Games’ action RPG Path of Exile 2.

Keep an eye on the latest Marvel Rivals codes for free skins, and vote on the strongest Marvel Rivals characters in our community tier list.

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 revealed that PlayStation 5 exclusive Astro Bot is getting a free expansion tomorrow, December 12, which adds a whole new level called Winter Wonder to the beloved platformer.

A PlayStation Blog post revealed the expansion arrives at 6pm Pacific / 9pm Eastern, meaning 2am on December 13 in the UK. It’s available at no extra cost to anyone who owns Astro Bot but requires completion of the base game to play.

“Since releasing Astro Bot earlier this year on PlayStation 5, we have been submerged by lovely comments from you and the PlayStation community, and we are delighted with the critical response to the game all over the world,” said Nicolas Doucet, studio director of developer Team Asobi.

When Steven Spielberg and George Lucas first brought Indiana Jones to the screen with Raiders of The Lost Ark in 1981, they would scarcely have believed the cultural impact their character and franchise would have over the next 40-plus years. Since Harrison Ford initially hung up his fedora following 1989’s The Last Crusade, we’ve had a string of imitators that have met varying degrees of success. Fascinatingly, Jones’ influence can most keenly be felt not in movies but in video games, with the most obvious examples being the Tomb Raider and Uncharted games. Of course, both of these franchises have also been translated into Hollywood blockbusters, and both experienced middling success – perhaps a sign that Indy’s signature style of adventure has a more promising future in the realm of video games than it does on the silver screen.

But it isn’t just Lara Croft and Nathan Drake who have struggled at the cinema. The Last Crusade was not the ride off into the sunset for Dr. Jones that its story promised, and close to 20 years later Harrison Ford made a much-anticipated return with The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull. A 1950s-set Cold War adventure that switched the Nazis out for the Soviet Union, it attempted to explore the interesting ground of an older Indy who was still graverobbing and globetrotting in his 60s. But it wasn’t enough: questionable CGI and an overreliance on old man jokes aside, the choice to eschew the mystical and mythological storylines of the first three films for a sci-fi approach felt out of place for both the character and franchise. As a result, The Crystal Skull was so poorly received by fans that it seemingly buried the Indiana Jones franchise.

We’ve already reported on the cool things Cyberpunk 2077 players are doing with Patch 2.2’s new and improved photo mode, but it turns out the update also added a secret quest to the game.

The quest in question is actually a crossover with LocalThunk’s smash hit poker-inspired roguelike deckbuilder Balatro, which itself received Cyberpunk 2077 card packs back in October.

Warning! Cyberpunk 2077 spoilers ahead!

The Balatro quest sees ‘Jim B’ message V to ask them to track down rogue Jokers scattered around Night City. Jim B helps V out on this treasure hunt by providing images that point players in the right direction, complete with card-based puns. You’ll know you’re in the right spot by the joker image sprayed on a surface. It’s basically a fun collectathon / exploration side quest themed after Balatro.

As for quest rewards (spoiler warnings end here!), the hunt ends with the Joker of Night City package, which includes a new joker shirt and a Balatro trophy displayed in your apartment.

CD Projekt Global PR Director Radek Grabowski tweeted to add some context, saying the quest came about after he asked the quest design team about the possibility of putting Balatro cards in Cyberpunk 2077. Quest designer Maria Mazu then created the Balatro quest for Patch 2.2.

Some time ago, I asked the Quest Design team at CDPR: “You liked the Cyberpunk cards in Balatro? What if we had Balatro cards in Cyberpunk 2077?” Thanks to the talented Quest Designer Maria Mazur, we now have the Balatro quest in Update 2.2. 🃏 Amazing work, Maria! 👏 https://t.co/unjw4XzYyT

— Radek (@gamebowski) December 11, 2024

This is one of a number of secrets game director Paweł Sasko teased were added by Patch 2.2, and that’s on top of secrets from the base game that still remain undiscovered even now, four years after Cyberpunk 2077’s launch. Players are documenting unlisted Patch 2.2 updates, which so far include a street race and more color variants on weapons.

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.

As Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 players dig into the recently released game-changing Patch 5 update, they’ve uncovered something developer Saber Interactive appears to have accidentally added early.

Redditor MrBossman4411 noticed a Thousand Sons icon in the Heraldry Editor, which points to a so far unannounced Research Centre. The Thousand Sons are one of the enemy factions in Space Marine 2, a Space Marine Traitor Legion so far unplayable in the game itself.

This was further explored in a video by Warhammer 40,000 YouTuber Chapter Master Valrak, and is verified as being live in-game at the time of this article’s publication by IGN.

The Research Centre appears to be a Battle Barge expansion in which you unlock and potentially display various trophies via the completion of certain challenges. There’s a new, so far unnamed currency to spend on these unlocks, which are sorted into four categories: Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Tyranids, and the Thousand Sons Chaos Marines.

Unlocks include Ultramarines Chapter Master Marneus Calgar, the Imperial Guard carrier-gunship the Valkyrie, and even a Tyranid Hive Ship. It’s not clear how this new currency will be obtained, or exactly what form this ‘research data’ will take.

Perhaps within this new area of the Battle Barge, players will be able to inspect models of each unlock in greater detail, perhaps even with some lore attached.

Pokémon TCG can be an expensive hobby to keep up with. But, we highly encourage you to slow down before making any big purchases at full price, as there’s always an opportunity to save a Pokédollar or two.

There are plenty of top Pokémon TCG discounts to consider today so take a gander at what we’ve picked out as the best of the best. TL;DR, the Amazon “Holiday Exclusive” Paradox Fury Premium Collection has dropped to its lowest price ever and will arrive before Christmas.

Best Pokémon TCG Deals Today

My favorite in the sale is undoubtedly the Paradox Fury Premium Collection, hitting an all-time low price at Amazon (according to camelcamelcamel). It’s exclusive to the retailer, and at a handy new price, $49.77, compared to its original listing for $67.99, it’s the perfect gift to the Pokemon trainer in your life (or for yourself!).

Otherwise, it’s hard to not mention the Grand Adventure Collection, which hasn’t been discounted but is now back in stock at Target for a limited time. This will likely sell out before the end of the day, so act fast. To find out what’s next for Pokemon TCG, check out our full schedule breakdown of 2024, and now 2025.

Best Pokémon TCG Card Sleeve Deals

Don’t forget to stock up on trading card sleeves if you’re making some big purchases. Here’s a bunch of great options, all discounted right now at Amazon as well. Typically, collection boxes include four or more booster packs along with variants of standard Pokémon cards not available in regular booster packs or theme decks. So, there’s plenty of cards to sleeve, or pack away neatly for storage.

Pokémon TCG Pocket News

In other Pokémon new, TCG Pocket is a certified hit for Creatures Inc. and The Pokémon Company, having earned an estimated $200 million in its first month.

It follows the standard mobile and free to play game model, flooding players with rewards in the opening few days before soon drying up, with spending real world money the only real way to re-experience that early thrill.

The mobile game recently added the most challenging event so far and tasks players with winning consecutive battles against other players. The Genetic Apex SP Emblem Event 1 will be active until December 16 and offers a wealth of rewards including 24 Pack Hourglasses (allowing for two extra packs to be opened) and 1,850 Shinedust.

Why Should You Trust IGN’s Deals Team?

IGN’s deals team has a combined 30+ years of experience finding the best discounts in gaming, tech, and just about every other category. We don’t try to trick our readers into buying things they don’t need at prices that aren’t worth buying something at.

Our ultimate goal is to surface the best possible deals from brands we trust and our editorial team has personal experience with. You can check out our deals standards here for more information on our process, or keep up with the latest deals we find on IGN’s Deals account on Twitter.

Christian Wait is a UK-based freelancer for IGN, you can follow him @ChrisReggieWait on Twitter/X.