Category: IGN

Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 11 version 24H2 is accidentally killing Ubisoft games such as Star Wars Outlaws, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and more.

As reported by VGC, Microsoft updated its support website to reveal it has placed a temporary block on Windows 11 for users with those games installed.

“After installing Windows 11, version 24H2, you might encounter issues with some Ubisoft games,” Microsoft said. “These games might become unresponsive while starting, loading or during active gameplay.

“In some cases, users might receive a black screen. The affected games are Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Assassin’s Creed Origins, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Star Wars Outlaws, and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.

“To safeguard your Windows update experience, we have applied a compatibility hold on devices with these games installed. These devices will not be offered to install Windows 11, version 24H2 via the Windows Update release channel.”

Ubisoft released an update for these issues in Star Wars Outlaws in its major Title Update 1.4 but Microsoft notes players may still experience issues. No timeline was given for when the issue will be fixed proper, but players of Ubisoft games on PC are advised not to update to version 24H2 if possible.

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

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt just received its biggest graphics boost since the official Next-Gen Update arrived in 2022, in the form of a mod that makes thousands of visual upgrades.

NexusMods user HalkHogan released The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project: Next Gen Edition, which they said “raises the game’s visuals to the highest level yet and enhance it to a truly next-gen masterpiece.” The mod reworks textures, models, materials, and more, and the number of these changes “can be counted in the thousands.”

“Everything is carefully made with attention to every detail,” the mod page added. “All this is aimed at making the game more detailed, realistic, consistent, and as faithful as possible in reflecting the dirty world of The Witcher. Now you can experience the most beautiful adventure yet.”

Anyone on PC can download the mod on PC, with HalkHogan noting it only has a “little impact” on performance. “The game should run similar to before mod installation,” they said. “If you play on Ultra+ textures video card memory demand will be higher.”

The Witcher 3 arrived in 2015 and put studio CD Projekt Red on the map for its fantasy open-world, considered story, and expansive quests. The developer released an official mod editor for the PC version called REDkit earlier this year, and players have used it to grow The Witcher 3 even more.

This includes everything from a morality and reputation system that adds even more consequences to Geralt’s actions, to a fully customizable character creator that lets players take on the role of a sorceress.

These mods have breathed more life into the game while CD Projekt focuses on its many upcoming Witcher projects. The next mainline game is codenamed Polaris and will star a new protagonist, and an entry with more mass appeal is being developed at The Molasses Flood. Fool’s Theory is also developing a remake of the original The Witcher in Unreal Engine 5.

Image Credit: The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project: Next Gen Edition by HalkHogan on NexusMods

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

Silent Hill 2 Remake developer Bloober Team made a handful of small changes to the beloved survival horror game and players have now discovered another: creepy messages hidden in TV static.

As reported by PC Gamer, YouTuber Shiba uploaded two videos after discovering the secrets. “A message is playing on the TV in Brookhaven Hospital, transmitted in Morse code,” they said. “The sound is mostly drowned out by the static from the TV, making it difficult to hear clearly. However, the Morse code is distinct, with a clicking noise that resembles a telegraph.”

Shiba shows the TV doing so, and translates the code as saying “again and again and again” in perpetuity. The TVs in the nurses’ lounge and the break room of the Boar section of Toluca Prison play the same messages.

Not every TV in the game does so though, as the Woodside Apartments set, Brookhaven Hospital set, and room 106 at Jack’s Inn set all display another message: “Why did you do it James?”

Both messages fuel different fan theories but it’s unclear if there are any further answers hidden in the game. Regardless, they add to the mystery and mythos of Silent Hill 2 and hopes for more questions to be answered in the future.

Bloober Team and publisher Konami released the Silent Hill 2 remake on October 8 to glowing critical reception and strong sales, leaving many fans of the previously dormant horror franchise eager for more.

Bloober has said it’s open to making other Silent Hill games, though at the moment is focused on its sci-fi survival horror game Cronos: The New Dawn.

In our 8/10 review of the Silent Hill 2 remake, IGN said: “Silent Hill 2 is a great way to visit – or revisit – one of the most dread-inducing destinations in the history of survival horror.”

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

Actor Troy Baker is set to star in Naughty Dog’s untitled new game.

The Sony-owned studio is building a yet-to-be announced single-player game with Uncharted and The Last of Us chief Neil Druckmann at the helm. Fans know next to nothing about this project, but according to GQ, Troy Baker has signed on to appear in it.

“In a heartbeat I would always work with Troy,” Druckmann is quoted as saying in the article. Baker famously played Joel in The Last of Us Parts 1 and 2 for Naughty Dog and has worked closely with Druckmann for years.

One dedicated Cyberpunk 2077 player has hit the level cap before beginning The Heist mission, meaning before the opening credits have rolled.

Reddit user uO__Ou shared their self-inflicted challenge, noting that it “took so damn long” while confirming a playtime of 40 hours and 30 minutes. Game tracking website How Long to Beat pegs Cyberpunk 2077’s entire main story at around 25 hours and 30 minutes in total, meaning the player spent more time in the opening area than it would take to actually complete the game.

Cyberpunk 2077 opens with a handful of smaller missions before the crux of the story kicks off with The Heist. Per open-world game standards, it also limits players to the opening area of Watson during this time, meaning just a fraction of the game’s total activities (that award experience points) are available.

uO__Ou overcame this somewhat by using an exploit that allowed them to leave Watson. This doesn’t activate the dozens of side quests or other open-world activities available in Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City, but does offer better grinding locations.

“Go to Pacifica, Batty’s Hotel for, in my experience, the best farming spot,” uO__Ou said. “Repeat it over and over and over. Took me 40 hrs but, to be honest, if I did this more efficiently, it can take less than 35 hours. Just don’t forget to sleep every hour for an experience boost and to use different weapons for your sanity and for skill progression.”

Cyberpunk 2077 uses a similar progression system to the likes of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, where players can engage in different activities to level up specific skills which contribute to the overall level. Being stealthy and getting headshots, for example, upgrades the Headhunter skill, while crafting items upgrades the Engineer skill.

uO__Ou used these different skills to eventually reach the final Level 50, though it could have almost certainly been reached faster by actually progressing the main story. With developer CD Projekt Red now done with Cyberpunk 2077 and its expansion Phantom Liberty, and focusing on a sequel codenamed Orion (and upcoming The Witcher games codenamed Polaris and Sirius), however, fans are having to come up with quirky challenges like these to keep themselves entertained.

Practically nothing is known about Orion so far, as CD Projekt Red is still in the process of creating a North American studio in Boston to develop it. It has been called a sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 though, and may feature more involved life paths.

In our 9/10 review of Cyberpunk, IGN said: “Cyberpunk 2077 throws you into a beautiful, dense cityscape and offers a staggering amount of flexibility in how you choose to take it from there.”

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

Dark Horse is adapting another The Witcher short story from author Andrzej Sapkowski into a comic book, this time focusing on how fan-favorite character Ciri came to be.

A Question of Price is the fourth short story adapted in The Last Wish collection, Dark Horse announced. The collection includes stories pulled from the first canonical The Witcher book, with this story explaining how protagonist Geralt of Rivia saved Ciri’s father from the wrath of her grandmother.

“Geralt is invited to a banquet at the Kingdom of Cintra,” the synopsis reads. “The Princess has come of age and suitors prepare to present themselves for her hand in marriage. Wary of the Queen’s invitation, Geralt attends the dinner with caution. When a mysterious uninvited guest, bearing the armor of a knight enters the hall, a bold declaration and a shocking revelation ignites the party into chaos and uproar.”

While the mainstream success of Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game Baldur’s Gate 3 is undeniable, developer Larian has yet to announce a sales figure. But after financial records for last year were made public, we finally have an idea of just how big Baldur’s Gate 3 really was.

Confirmation comes from financial records posted by the Dublin, Ireland holding company for Larian, which is ostensibly based in Belgium, and controlled by majority shareholder, founder, and CEO Swen Vincke. (Ireland is one of the world’s most significant tax havens, with corporate tax revenues exploding in the country over the last decade.)

According to a paywalled report by the Irish Independent, Larian posted a €249 million (approx $260.9 million) pre-tax profit for 2023, which included the August release of Baldur’s Gate 3. Revenue for the year hit €427 million (approx $447.5 million).

Larian has never announced a sales figure for Baldur’s Gate 3, although publishing director Michael Douse indicated in February that the game had sold well over 10 million copies, and Hasbro, the parent company of Dungeons & Dragons owner Wizards of the Coast, said in March that Baldur’s Gate 3 had earned it $90 million due to its licensing deal with Larian. The Irish Independent reported that Baldur’s Gate 3 had sold around 15 million copies and paid out a €28 million dividend this year as a result.

Larian’s bumper 2023 financial results are in stark contrast to the company’s 2022, which saw a loss of €214,000 (approx $224,100) off the back of just €22.7 million (approx $23.7 million) in revenue. Baldur’s Gate 3’s wild success, then, was a game-changer for Larian, and that’s without taking into consideration the ongoing sales Baldur’s Gate 3 has pulled in so far in 2024. Indeed, Douse has said that Baldur’s Gate 3 has 20% more active daily users this year than last, with mods helping to fuel seemingly never-ending interest in the RPG.

Vincke told IGN in September that the success of Baldur’s Gate 3 meant Larian was now in a “luxurious position,” and could “pick our own destiny and our own path.” The developer shocked the video game world when it announced plans to make brand new games outside the Dungeons & Dragons universe, rather than follow Baldur’s Gate 3 with DLC or a sequel.

The Irish Independent confirmed that while Vincke owns virtually all the ordinary shares in Larian’s Dublin holding company, Chinese megacorp Tencent owns a “large chunk” of preference shares in the firm via its Tencent Cloud Europe division.

Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t Larian’s only hit game, of course, but its success is a magnitude higher than that of its previous RPGs, including Divinity: Original Sin 1 and 2. Larian opened multiple development studios around the world to aid with the development of Baldur’s Gate 3 as part of its “following the sun” concept of 24-hour game development, with teams handing off work to the next time zone at the end of their work day to speed up development. In addition to Dublin, Larian has studios in Kuala Lumpur, Barcelona, Guildford, Quebec, Warsaw, and its original home of Ghent.

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.

Merry Christmas to us all, because Black Friday deals have started early, including tons of video games. When looking through all the early Black Friday video game deals, we spotted several PS5 games available at steep discounts on Amazon and beyond. A few highlights from PS5 game deals this Black Friday include Stellar Blade for $49.99, Sonic X Shadow Generations for $29.99, Elden Ring for just $19.99, the critically acclaimed Metaphor ReFantazio for $49.99, and Alan Wake 2 (Deluxe Edition).

Sony has also confirmed its Black Friday PS Plus offer: New members can save 30% on a 12-month subscription, and current PS Plus Essential members can save 25% on an upgrade to PlayStation Plus Extra, or 30% on Premium/Deluxe. If you’re not sure what the latest PS Plus game lineup is, see the November PS Plus games list, which includes the return of Rockstar’s GTA 5, Dying Light 2: Stay Human, and Like a Dragon: Ishin. Here are the biggest PS5 game deals right now.

There are several more games in Amazon’s sales list to check out, but here is a short list of additional PS5 games to highlight:

• Persona 3 Reload – $24.99 (save $45)
• Elden Ring: SOTE Edition – $49.99 (save $30)
• Cyberpunk 2077 UE – $39.99 (save $20)
• Unicorn Overlord Collector’s Edition – $114 (save $16)
• Dragon Age: The Veilguard – $62.99 (save $7)

Top PlayStation Black Friday Deals

If you’re ready to invest in the PSVR2, now is the time to get the PlayStation VR 2 Horizon bundle for just $349 on Amazon (usually $599.99). 42% off is not too shabby for the cutting-edge PSVR2, in which we scored a 9/10 in our review, and is a compelling alternative to other affordable VR options like the Meta Quest.

In spite of it all, GameStop has persevered and still gets after it for the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals period. The GameStop near my house closed down in 2021 and I’ve really missed it. There’s something to be said about getting to know your local GameStop staff and talking games with them for a while. I’ve also been seeing some locations are doing midnight launches again, and my friends, everyone should wait in line to buy a hot new game the second it goes live. You will be among your people, an unbroken queue of like-minded individuals looking to share in the communal experience of celebrating gaming. I feel like gaming culture was better when we all stood together and talked to one another about how stoked we were for Halo 3.

GameStop has some solid Black Friday video game deals, and if you don’t mind buying used, you can actually save a bunch more. But the biggest problem is not all the deals at GameStop are as good as they are at competitors. For example, the 50% off Final Fantasy XVI deal that’s been crushing all week isn’t at GameStop (it’s $5 more than Amazon’s Black Friday price). But lots of others, like Tomb Raider I-III Remaster and Sea of Stars, are the same price as they are at Best Buy’s Black Friday video game sales. Of course, we’ve been following all the deals and have a full look at all the best Black Friday deals of 2024, not JUST video game deals.

GameStop Best Black Friday Deals

X-Men ’97 Magneto Helmet Black Friday Deal

Definitely want to shine some light on this one because, not only is the price of the Magneto X-Men ’97 helmet discounted 55%, it’s also one of the most popular items I’ve featured on the IGNDeals X and IGNDeals Instagram accounts this year… and it wasn’t even close to this low of a price.

Seriously, if you want a cosplay-quality Magneto helmet you can wear comfortably, or you just want to get it for display (it has a stand), this is probably GameStop’s best Black Friday deal going right now.

If you like Monkey, Balls, and things that are Super, I have some questions for you… but I also have good news! Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble is heavily discounted for Black Friday. Pick up a copy and compete in 16-player matches online and 4-player local multiplayer, or work together cooperatively.

Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble (Switch Digital) for $24.99