Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was fully revealed today, and it’s set to debut a new city-themed Warzone 2 map with drivable trains, zip lines, and quite a few points of interest.
During today’s COD Next showcase, Activision revealed Urzikstan, an “urban battleground” map coming to Battle Royale and Plunder at launch. As GamesRadar pointed out, Urzikstan was first featured as a country (and a key part of the campaign) in the 2019 game Modern Warfare, and now it’s finally getting its own map.
Filled with apartments and industrial areas, Urzikstan seems fairly dense in comparison to other Warzone maps. Still, it features quite a few new ways to get across the map, including the franchise’s first train with player-controllable direction and speed (which can also be stopped by opposing teams). It also has several horizontal zip lines and brings the eerily dark Urzikstan Gulag with 3 lanes for combat.
Get the squad back together – here’s your first look at Urzikstan, an urban battleground and the latest Call of Duty #Warzone map coming with Season 01 of #MW3 in December 🏙️🏝️⛰️ #CODNextpic.twitter.com/ZCqrLo7N69
These new methods of transportation seem fit for a map packed with points of interest — as revealed in today’s showcase, this list includes the apartment-filled Zaravan City, the luxurious Shahin Manor, and the dilapidated Old Town.
In addition to the new map, Activision also revealed a few new and revamped mechanics, including ADS while sliding, slide cancelling, and the revival of the classic red dots on the minimap, and announced the return of the Vondel and Ashika Island maps for Resurgence.
Familiar gameplay mechanics, new twists 👇 💥 NEW: ADS while sliding 🎯 NEW: Tac-Stance 🙅♂️ Slide Canceling 🩸 150 Base Health 🔴 Classic Red Dot Mini Map 🪂 Plus more QoL and Perk updates
Amelia Zollner is a freelance writer at IGN who loves all things indie and Nintendo. Outside of IGN, they’ve contributed to sites like Polygon and Rock Paper Shotgun. Find them on Twitter: @ameliazollner.
It’s incredibly tough to launch a new live-service game. In 2023 we’ve already seen a bunch shut down for good, including Rumbleverse, CrossFireX and Knockout City. But at least they all got their shot in the limelight – Hyenas, the hero shooter from Creative Assembly, was canceled by publisher Sega last week, after years in development. It never even made it to open beta, let alone a full launch.
As someone who plays a lot of competitive shooters, Hyenas didn’t really grab my attention that much. I know friends who played the closed beta and had good things to say about it, but I didn’t really like the idea of fighting in zero G. I played Splitgate a fair bit when that came out, and that too had unique ways to get around by creating portals that allowed you to sneak around the back of the enemy. But I found it incredibly tricky to take advantage of, especially in the middle of a firefight when there wasn’t time to plan a clever move. Rather than it being a unique feature that attracted a different audience, it became a barrier to entry for new players. And that’s exactly how I felt when they showed off Hyena’s zero G gameplay for the first time.
It’s an incredibly difficult balance to get right – a new live-service game has to offer something unique to get the audience interested, but if it’s too far removed from what they’re used to it could have the opposite effect. Fortnite is pretty much the only shooter I know that’s really succeeded in delivering an unusual game mechanic and survived – not just survived, thrived – in the live-service space. Of course, Fortnite’s building mechanic has been made fun of a lot but you cannot deny that it adds another dimension to the shooter experience and Fortnite has gone on to be one of the most-played shooters around.
Crucially though, you don’t have to build in Fortnite to have fun – it’s secondary, as are the challenges and ongoing storylines, and it’s the game’s sharp gunplay that keeps players returning. Furthermore, there’s no better feeling than getting a battle royale victory, so much so it’s the reason why you jump back into the lobby to do it all again. That sense of reward and satisfaction is something I still get a kick out of, even after hundreds of hours playing Apex Legends. It makes you feel a tier above the rest for surviving in a battleground of 60 others, and winning a match feels like a real achievement.
For a shooter to survive in the current climate everything needs to be exactly right. Characters and abilities need to be perfectly balanced, not just at launch but continuously throughout its lifecycle, and the gunplay needs to be consistently awesome. If anything is not quite right, the audience won’t stick around.
I definitely think there’s room for something new – but it has to be truly special for it to pull me away from the games I already cherish so dearly
Hyper Scape, Ubisoft’s battle royale that launched in 2020, struggled in part because its time to kill (TTK) didn’t match the pace of the gameplay. Its TTK was way too slow and its weapons uninspired, so the matches dragged on. Unsurprisingly its servers shut down less than two years after launch. Call of Duty: Vanguard had the opposite problem, where its TTK was extremely high, so if you were not the first person to get a shot in, you’d be immediately killed. It’s examples like these that show how the fine mechanical details of a shooter are vital to its potential lifespan.
I’m sad Hyenas didn’t make it to release because at least then it would’ve been up to the public as to whether it lived or died, rather than a bunch of execs sat in a boardroom. But the truth is it costs hundreds of thousands to keep a live service game running, in addition to the cost of actually making it in the first place, and the stakes have never been higher. As someone who spends a lot of time playing Apex Legends and a bunch of other shooters, I definitely think there’s room for something new – but it has to be truly special for it to pull me away from the games I already cherish so dearly. While we’ll never truly know if Hyenas had what it takes to survive in such a brutal genre, I’m pleased there are developers out there who are still willing to try something different.
CD Projekt Red doesn’t regret making Cyberpunk 2077 a first-person only game, compared to the third-person Witcher franchise, but the developer is yet to make up its mind around Cyberpunk 2, codenamed Orion.
Speaking during the CD Projekt Red Investor Day presentation, Cyberpunk 2077 quest director Paweł Sasko, who will be working on Orion, was asked if CD Projekt Red would consider adding a third-person to first-person toggle in the new game, and if the developer regrets not including one in the current Cyberpunk.
“There are no regrets on our part,” he said. “What we wanted was for Cyberpunk to have its own identity and to be noticeable as this different thing. These days it’s YouTube, Twitch, and screenshots that sell games, and this is the way one can use to show that identity and individuality to players.”
Sasko continued: “I wanted to say that the first-person perspective is the main characteristics for Cyberpunk and its perception by the players too. It’s also noticeably different from The Witcher, and this helped us craft the product identity as such.”
The quest director didn’t give too much away surrounding Orion, but did suggest CD Projekt Red is yet to make its mind up on this front. After explaining why the team only included a first-person mode in Cyberpunk 2077, Sasko added: “But for Orion we’re yet to see.”
Development on Orion has officially begun, however. CD Projekt Red’s chief creative officer Adam Badowski also said during the presentation that it has entered a “conceptual design level”.
CD Projekt Red CEO Adam Kiciński has announced he will be moving to a supervisory role at the company in 2025 and will therefore be stepping down as CEO as part of a larger management shake-up.
Kiciński, who will have been at CD Projekt Red for 30 years as of 2024, will resign as a member of the management board at the end of that year. Before he does so, he will transition from his current role as CEO to the role of chief strategy officer as of January 1, 2024.
Current chief creative officer Adam Badowski and current chief commercial officer Michał Nowakowski will take over as joint-CEOs of CD Projekt Red also as of January 1, 2024.
The supervisory board Kiciński is joining oversees the activities of CD Projekt Red and performs its duties by issuing recommendations and adopting resolutions. CD Projekt co-founder and former joint CEO Marcin Iwiński made the same move in October 2022, joining the supervisory board and therefore leaving behind his management board duties.
Kiciński was involved in CD Projekt Red from its foundation in 1994 and has since served in several roles including marketing director from 1999 to 2004, co-director in 2004, director in 2006, and more.
Warning: this article contains full spoilers for the ending of Assassin’s Creed Mirage.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage takes us all the way back to 9th century Baghdad to live the origin story of Basim. We first met Basim in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and Mirage connects back to that game in a couple of important ways. To explore how those connections are forged, as well as answer any lingering questions, we’re going to fully break down the ending of Assassin’s Creed Mirage. Full spoilers are ahead, so leap away now if you haven’t finished the game or don’t want to know.
The Head of the Snake
Basim’s quest to cut off the head of the snake brings him to the Palace of the Green Dome. Here he comes face to face with Al-Bahamut, the leader of the Order in Baghdad. They are revealed to be Qabiha, the concubine of the Caliph who was killed by Nehal during the prologue. But it turns out that Qabiha has been hunting for Basim as much as he has been hunting her.
Qabiha’s son, Abu ‘Abdallah, saw the ancient disc activate when young Basim touched it in the palace. He told his mother what he saw, and so for years Qabiha has known that Basim is connected to the Isu; an ancient civilisation that ruled the world before the era of humanity. And so she attempts to coerce him, promising that he will learn everything of who he is in a secret chamber beneath the Hidden Ones’ temple of Alamut. But before she can say anymore, Roshan assassinates her. The master assassin warns Basim that if he goes looking for answers she will kill him.
The Isu Chamber
Angered by Roshan’s actions, Basim and Nehal journey to Alamut. Beneath the temple, Basim discovers that his touch awakens a stone wall, which fades away to reveal a technologically advanced vault door. Roshan interrupts and tries to prevent Basim from proceeding but he defeats her in combat.
Nehal teaches Basim how to open the vault door with his blood and a deep chamber is revealed. The architecture is clearly Isu in design, similar to what we’ve seen in many other Assassin’s Creed games. Inside, Basim discovers a prison with a sarcophagus at its centre. He opens the sarcophagus, only to find Nehal inside.
Nehal is Basim
It is revealed that Nehal is actually Basim. In a Fight Club-like twist, it turns out that she’s an aspect of Basim’s personality that manifests as an imaginary friend. And so everything Nehal did, Basim did – right down to killing the Caliph.
And this is where Mirage connects to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. In Valhalla, we learned that Basim is actually the reincarnation of Loki. Nehal represents the memories of the original Loki locked away inside Basim. Okay, yeah, this is going to take a bit of explaining…
In Assassin’s Creed lore, the ancient Isu civilization is the inspiration for human mythology. Loki was part of the Aesir branch of the Isu, which directly influenced Norse mythology. Thousands of years ago, the Isu were threatened by an apocalypse event, and so they developed a supercomputer called Yggdrasill to help them survive it. The Aesir Isu uploaded their consciousness onto Yggdrasill, which would then distribute them into the human gene pool centuries later. This effectively allowed the Aesir to leapfrog over the apocalypse and be reborn again in human bodies.
The name Nehal is derived from the Persian language, and means “newly planted tree”. Thus Nehal is Yggdrasill’s newly planted seed of Loki.
The Isu Holograms
In the Isu chamber, Nehal uses the ancient disc to activate a hologram. This suggests that the disc is similar to a Memory Seal, an Isu device that stores memories.
The hologram depicts two figures; a prisoner and a jailor. The prisoner is shown to be Basim, while the jailor is the jinni; a supernatural spectre that has haunted Basim all throughout the game. Basim realises that the jinni represents the torture he endured in this prison during his previous life as Loki. He makes peace with these dark memories, destroying the jinni’s hold over him.
So if the prisoner hologram is Basim, and thus represents the experiences of Loki during the Isu era, then who is the jailor? For that, we can look to the Norse myths that have inspired this part of the Assassin’s Creed story. In the mythology, Loki is taken into a cave and bound to a stone as punishment for his involvement in the poisoning of Baldr, son of All-father Odin. During the events of both Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and its expansion, Dawn of Ragnarok, we learn that the Isu version of Loki also orchestrated Baldr’s poisoning. It seems sensible to assume, then, that this Isu chamber is the Assassin’s Creed version of the binding of Loki myth. And so the jailor is almost certainly Odin.
And who is Odin? Well, none other than Eivor, the human reincarnation of the All-father and protagonist of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
The Future
After making peace with his memories of being imprisoned and tortured, Basim becomes one with Nehal. This symbolises the merging of Basim’s human body and Loki’s consciousness. Loki has now been fully restored and reincarnated.
We can see that Basim has fully transformed into Loki when his eagle, Enkidu, rejects him. Animals are generally considered to be highly intelligent and sensitive, and so we can see here Enkidu sensing the evil trickster within their master.
In the final scene, Basim swears vengeance on those who tortured him should they walk this earth. This foreshadows his quest to find and kill Odin, which will bring him to Eivor during the events of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
Pokémon Red is about to take center stage in the upcoming Pokémon live-action series.
A new trailer for the upcoming show, called PokeTsume, has debuted online, revealing that it’s actually all about how the classic Pokémon game affects one of its players.
The drama follows Madoka Agaki (played by Nanase Nishino), a university graduate who quits her job in a small Japanese port town to head to Tokyo for a new start. However, she bites off more than she can chew, taking on a presentation at her new company ADventure that sees the fate of the company resting on her shoulders.
Enter Pokémon Red.
Her mother, worried about Madoka’s stressful experience, sends her a care package: it’s Madoka’s old Game Boy and the original copy of Pokémon Red that she played as a child. Revisiting the game for the first time in 20 years, she realises it might just help her tackle her own problems.
PokeTsume is billed as the first Pokémon human drama, which sees the main character grow through her experiences with the game.
According to character descriptions from Serebii, Madoka begins to see similarities between the game and the real world, with certain characters representing classic Pokémon.
For instance, the character Kageaki Hiyama is apparently based on a Charmander who feels his flame is about to be extinguished. Meanwhile, a useless employee at her new company, Yuki Kode, is compared to a Magikarp. Ouch. Here’s hoping Kode manages to evolve before the show ends.
IGN’s Pokémon Red review gave it 10/10 and said: “Pokémon really is worthy of being one of the Game Boy system’s greatest games – It’s not just a fad, a craze, or a trend. If you don’t have this game in your library, pick one up – it doesn’t matter if you pick Blue or Red, they’re both the same game. You’ll just have to make sure you’ve got a friend with the other version if you want to catch ’em all.”
The story of Star Wars may take place a long time ago, but IGN can exclusively reveal the upcoming Star Wars: Unlimited trading card game from Fantasy Flight Games and Asmodee will release at retailers and hobby stores in the near future: March 8, 2024.
Check out the release date announcement trailer below:
Unlimited sees players choosing an iconic Star Wars character as their leader and piloting a 50-card deck full of heroes, villains, bounty hunters, droids, weapons, and ships. Leader characters, such as Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, make a dramatic entrance in the middle of the game to help turn the tide in your favor. Gameplay takes place across two battlefields, one on the ground for characters and the other in space for ships. Victory goes to the first player to deal 30 damage to the opponent’s base, which are familiar locations such as Cloud City and Jedha. Cards pull from everything from Star Wars movies and TV to comics and video games.
Lead game designer Danny Schaefer told IGN that they took inspiration from a wide variety of games when crafting Unlimited’s mechanics, including industry titans Magic: The Gathering and the Pokémon Trading Card Game, digital card games like Hearthstone and Runeterra, and of course FFG’s own games such as Netrunner and Legend of the Five Rings.
“Our philosophy as we were designing was to look at all those different card games, competitive card games that we’ve played, and strip out the parts that feel the least fun and focus on the parts that are the most fun,” Schaefer said.
For example, Unlimited allows for any card to be used as a resource in order to eliminate getting “mana flooded/screwed.” Two cards are drawn every turn in an effort to avoid players getting stuck in the dreaded late-game topdeck mode. And play bounces back and forth with each player taking one action at a time so you don’t have to sit and wait for the opponent to finish a long turn, a mechanic taken from FFG’s previous Star Wars tabletop game, the card-and-dice battler Star Wars: Destiny.
The first Star Wars: Unlimited set is titled Spark of Rebellion and will feature over 200 cards.
One of those cards is the Legendary rare Mace Windu – Party Crasher, which IGN is excited to exclusively reveal for the first time (in both its standard version and full art Hyperspace variant).
Evoking the Jedi Master’s badass entrance during the Battle of Geonosis at the end of Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, Mace Windu has the ability to ignore “summoning sickness” to immediately attack and then continue attacking every time he takes out a unit, so he’s perfect for mowing down a series of smaller enemies, just like he did Jango Fett and so many Separatist Army Battle Droids.
Star Wars: Unlimited products to expect upon release include the Spark of Rebellion Two-Player Starter with decks featuring leaders Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader (MSRP $34.99) and Spark of Rebellion Booster Packs that contain “a mix of Common cards, Uncommon cards, at least one Rare or Legendary card, a leader, a base, and a foil card” (MSRP $4.99). One week before release, the Spark of Rebellion Prerelease Box (MSRP $29.99) will go on sale, featuring “6 Spark of Rebellion Booster Packs, 2 promo cards, quickstart rules, damage counters, a deckbuilding guide, and a deckbox.”
Blizzard has apologised to its players after Battle.net suffered login issues.
An issue affecting the company’s authentication services caused slow or failed login attempts. At the time of this article’s publication, Battle.net was down.
Blizzard said it was investigating the cause. “We apologise once again for the inconvenience caused by today’s outages, we’re working to resolve this ASAP,” reads the latest tweet from Blizzard’s customer service page.
[#Bnet] We apologise once again for the inconvenience caused by today’s outages, we’re working to resolve this ASAP.
Blizzard has yet to announce a timeframe for a Battle.net fix. IGN will update as more information becomes available.
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.
There might be a PS5 ‘Slim’ on the way, according to recent reports and rumours, but for now we’re still seeing some exemplary deals on the highly sought-after base console. The latest discount comes in the form of a bundle with EA Sports FC 24, dropping to just £409.99 at select retailers in the UK. This isn’t as good as the £400 offer we saw a couple of months back, but considering it includes a brand new game and is well below the asking price of £540, you’re still bagging an incredible discount this time around.
For clarity, PS5 disc console RRP is £479.99, while EA Sports FC 24 retails for £69.99, so if you’re still lacking a PS5 and want to play the next in line to the ‘FIFA’ series (remember it’s changed name now), then you’re in luck with this deal. Even if you’re not keen on the football, this is still £60 off the console and includes a free game that you could always sell on for even more money saved.
More PS5 Deals on Prime Day 2
With Prime Day 2 right around the corner on October 10-11, we’re highly recommending that if you’re picking up this console deal, then wait a little longer before buying anything else to go with your new PS5.
So, accessories like SSDs, DualSense controllers, headsets, and more PS5 games are highly likely get some discounts during the sale. Stick around for more deal updates, or follow @IGNUKDeals on Twitter for instant news on the latest offers going into the big deal season and Black Friday.
Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.
Activision is currently working to pull the leaked footage from the internet, but it faces an uphill battle as fans share clips across social media and forums.
A Twitter account called @uwuleaker99 popped up overnight and published gameplay footage that Activision pulled soon after. “This media has been disabled in response to a report by the copyright owner,” reads a message currently displayed on the tweet, which has at the time of publication one million views.
Gameplay is currently still up on YouTube, where a channel called oG JIMMY has posted a handful of videos showing leaked footage of action on multiplayer maps set to appear in the beta. One video shows gameplay on Modern Warfare 3’s version of fan-favourite map, Rust, complete with a game-ending nuke (called Mass Guided Bombs here). Yes, this means fans already know what Modern Warfare 3’s nuke looks like over a month before the official release date.
Activision will be desperate to clamp down on these gameplay leaks ahead of its much-hyped showcase event, COD Next. It kicks off at 9am Pacific / 12noon Eastern / 5pm UK today, October 5, and promises Modern Warfare 3 reveals as well as a look at what’s next for battle royale Warzone. The DMZ mode from last year’s Modern Warfare 2 will not make an appearance, however.
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.
