Marvel Rivals: Exclusive Moon Knight Gameplay – IGN First

Our IGN First “cover story” game for November is Marvel Rivals, the upcoming 6v6 hero shooter featuring many of Marvel’s biggest superheroes. We kick off our exclusive coverage with five exclusive minutes of gameplay showing Moon Knight, the most recently confirmed hero added to Rivals’s sizable roster.

Take a look at the exclusive gameplay above, and if you missed it, you can check out the Psylocke gameplay video that we kicked off our IGN First coverage with in the video below.

If you missed our hands-on preview impressions from the closed beta from over the summer, you can read that after you finish the Psylocke video. And stay tuned all November long for more exclusive Marvel Rivals coverage on IGN! Thank you to our IGN China team for leading the editorial effort on this video and this entire IGN First project.

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.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard Is at War With Itself

There’s a line in our Dragon Age: The Veilguard review that has stuck with me throughout my own playthrough: “It’s hilarious that no one ever says the word ‘Veilguard’ out loud across the 100 hours I played of this dialogue-packed campaign, exposing a last-minute marketing pivot for what it was.”

While I’m nowhere near the 100-hour mark myself, that line is so far proving true – not a single character has mentioned The Veilguard. My team of D&D archetype oddballs may collectively be known as such in all the marketing, online articles, and the physical box itself, but within the world of Thedas they’re none the wiser. Imagine Tony Stark and Steve Rogers having no idea the world called them Avengers… that’s how odd it is.

A name that Rook, Varric, Harding, and the rest of the gang definitely do know, though, is Dread Wolf – the mythical moniker of former Dragon Age companion, Solas, as well as the original subtitle for this fourth entry in BioWare’s fantasy series. While ultimately it really doesn’t matter what this game is called, the more I play The Veilguard, the more it feels like it’s awkwardly in conflict with itself, torn into pieces that reflect two very different intentions – one a sequel to a decade-old RPG, the other a fresh beginning with no ties to what came before.

Many aspects of The Veilguard point to it being something of a soft reset or even spin-off from the main Dragon Age series. Set in the northern Tevinter region, it leaves behind the saga’s original southern home of Ferelden, along with all its characters and politics. Dragon Age has always started afresh with each new game as, unlike Mass Effect, there’s no persistent protagonist across the series as each instalment tells a brand new story. The shift to Tevinter is perfectly in keeping with Dragon Age’s history, then, but The Veilguard isn’t a typical Dragon Age game. It is its first direct sequel – a continuation of Dragon Age: Inquisition, which dedicated its post-credits and Trespasser DLC to setting up Solas as the villainous Dread Wolf. And this is where it all starts to feel a little messy.

So much of The Veilguard is dedicated to Solas. Its opening sees him performing a dangerous god-unleashing ritual, and the world is littered with quests that explore his history and relationship with those dark deities. There may be no mention of the word “Veilguard” anywhere, but everyone is talking about the Dread Wolf. Why isn’t that the name of the game again?

Rather than take his place as the villain Trespasser promised, Solas is usurped by a much more newcomer-friendly option

But while Solas may take up considerable space, the Dread Wolf has weirdly been relegated to the position of fantasy Hannibal Lecter, trapped in dreams where he appears only to offer advice. Rather than take his place as the villain Trespasser promised, he’s usurped by other dark elven gods who don’t demand any significant prior knowledge – a much more newcomer-friendly option. I’m left with the impression of an antagonist who was robbed of his big bad status somewhere along The Veilguard’s infamously rocky development journey. As our review says, you can “practically smell the rewrites.” But despite his shift from villain to condescending informant, the story is still dedicated to him in a manner that never feels like a true fit for a game that elsewhere is so clearly attempting to be a fresh start rather than a direct sequel.

While I’d rather we got a more clear-cut successor to Inquisition, I think the game we’ve ended up with would be better for cutting Solas loose entirely. Sure, the lack of answers to one of the greatest twists in RPG history would be frustrating, but Solas’ fate feels divorced from the story that established him. That’s because none of the world-altering choices you made across the Dragon Age series are reflected in The Veilguard. Unlike its predecessors, there’s no way to import or recreate your save games and world state aside from three basic and largely interchangeable decisions made in Inquisition’s Trespasser DLC.

Speaking to IGN earlier this year, creative director John Epler told us “among many reasons why we moved to Northern Thedas is it becomes a little bit more of a clean slate for us. There’s not as many decisions you have made up to this point that have an impact on what’s happening in Northern Thedas. And we don’t have to speak directly to things like who is the Divine? Because again, that’s happening in the South.”

But the South is where we made our home and our ties to this world, and so this move means that the Thedas that we helped influence and shape across dozens of hours is not the same Thedas that’s currently at stake. With The Veilguard’s elven gods representing not just the greatest apocalyptic threat Thedas has ever faced, but also the culmination of the Inquisition storyline, then surely it’s more important than ever that the stakes are our own, personal version of this world?

I do sympathise with BioWare – Dragon Age wasn’t developed as a trilogy in the same way as Mass Effect, and so the choices have been on very different scales that must be incredibly difficult to implement into successive games. But those choices being wiped entirely results in something that feels like an opening trying to be a finale. It’s a situation only further strained by the fact that The Veilguard’s version of Thedas is so tonally different from the one established in the previous Dragon Age games. Its grand Necropolis and floating Minrathous fortress feel divorced from the earthier lands of Inquisition and a far cry from the darker regions in which this saga began. Veilguard is a whole new world untouched by players and that clashes with its insistence on continuing Solas’ story in a roundabout way. If BioWare really needed to leave our choices behind, or if it really needed to start afresh for a new era, then going the Mass Effect: Andromeda route of an entirely new story, characters, and setting would have been the cleaner choice.

The Veilguard crew all appear to be likeable people, but it feels as if I’m being blocked from forging true bonds with them.

And so we come back to that history-avoiding title. When Dragon Age: Dreadwolf became Dragon Age: The Veilguard, BioWare’s general manager Gary McKay explained the new name was chosen to reflect the “really deep and compelling group of companions.” It’s an unsurprising shift, moving away from Solas’ decade-old story that perhaps too few players will actually care about in favour of a direction clearly inspired by the phenomenon that is Baldur’s Gate 3’s beloved party. But, frustratingly, I don’t think The Veilguard does the intention of its new title justice.

Across the first 15 or so hours, during which you put together a god-killing team Mass Effect 2-style, there’s rarely the option to have a proper back-and-forth conversation. There’s a tendency to favour cutscenes or pre-scripted chat over traditional RPG dialogue choices, resulting in the feeling that characters are talking at you rather than with you. Very few party members can be spoken to at length following their initial recruitment, and this lack of introductory getting-to-know-you feels antithetical to a design that expects you to quickly forge bonds and trust with your team. As time goes by there are more opportunities to direct the flow of conversation yourself, but they frequently lack the multi-tier dialogue trees that really allow you to delve deep. It was only after unlocking the dragon-hunting Taash that I was presented with a conversation in which I was able to cycle through multiple tiers of responses at every stage of the dialogue. It was the first satisfying conversation I’d had in 17 hours of play, and I’m baffled as to why I hadn’t had the same experience with every other character I’d met.

The Veilguard crew all appear to be likeable people, but it feels as if I’m being blocked from forging true bonds with them. That especially goes for Varric. What is arguably Dragon Age’s best-ever character has been imprisoned in his bedroom, consigned to spouting incidental dialogue that you can’t engage with. His sidelining is yet another example of The Veilguard’s uneasy relationship with its predecessor, but unfortunately the frustrating treatment of its new cast means it’s also difficult to fully embrace the story’s fresh faces.

As I enter The Veilguard’s second half I have begun to appreciate its unique approaches. The knotty, secrets-filled Crossroads region is fun to explore. The action combat is really robust, particularly when enhanced by the well-considered skill tree. But at every turn you can feel the toll of that long, rocky development timeline. There’s a solid God of War-style action game in here, but its sharp battles, linear-ish level design, and explosive cutscenes clash with the more traditional RPG that’s also fighting for air. Those level layouts throttle the quest design, action always takes precedence over conversation, stealth, or diplomacy, and the companions are more like NPCs than party members – Atreus over Astarion.

The overall result is that Dragon Age: The Veilguard isn’t the golden era BioWare game that I had hoped it would be. Torn between continuing its traditional role-playing legacy and starting afresh as a modern action RPG, the end result is an awkward sequel trapped in a cage made of reboot ideas. After years and years of faltered steps I understand why BioWare landed on this particular, very mainstream AAA formula, but I wish it had been inspired by the undying mass popularity of The Witcher 3 – a full-on nerdy RPG – rather than veer closer to Sony’s palatable RPG-ish approach for modern God of War. But that ill-defined shape is often what uneasy development cycles get you. Thankfully The Veilguard’s launch has seemingly gone well for EA and BioWare, which hopefully means Dragon Age will continue. Let’s just hope next time it’s not just the name that’s got a bit of Baldur’s Gate in it.

Matt Purslow is IGN’s Senior Features Editor.

Tony Todd, Voice of Spider-Man 2’s Venom Among Many Other Roles, Dies at 69

Tony Todd, the voice of Spider-Man 2’s Venom among many other roles, has died at 69. Deadline was the first to report the news.

Todd appeared in numerous roles across a long career dating back to the 1980s, including Platoon, Final Destination, and Star Trek: The Next Generation, where he played Worf’s lost brother, Kurn. Todd’s career in horror, which included a title role in 1992’s Candyman, earned him a Lifetime Achieveement Award at the New York City Horror Film Festival.

More recently, Todd had a starring role in Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2, and we spoke to him about embodying the essence of Venom ahead of last year’s release. Todd also hinted that Insomniac had only used 10 percent of his character’s dialogue, setting off speculation of a DLC that ultimately never materialized.

Insomniac wrote in a statement released shortly after Todd’s death, “Insomniac Games is heartbroken by the passing of our friend Tony Todd. He brought so much joy to our studio during the production of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and to many fans around the world with his inimitable voice and presence. We are Venom… forever.”

Other fans also paid tribute to Todd, calling him a “horror legend” as well as a terrific character actor. One fan pointed to his iconic death scene in The Rock opposite Nicolas Cage,

Developing…

Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.

Marvel Comic Hunters Board Game Review

Collecting comic books has been a thing for as long as the comic industry has been around. There’s an almost irresistable allure to having that one issue featuring the debut of your favorite hero or the one where a lovable character dies. I have dipped my toe into the comic-collecting hobby from time to time, and that was why I had to have Comic Hunters, if for nothing other than all the official comic covers the Marvel-themed board game features.

Designed by Robert Coelho with Art by Diego Sa, Comic Hunters was initially released exclusively in Brazil back in 2020 but, thanks to Spin Master and Arcane Wonders, has now been released in the United States. In Comic Hunters, anywhere from one to four players compete with one another, traveling from flea markets to auction houses, in the attempt to snag those classic Marvel comic issues to make the most valuable collection of them all.

The core idea of Comic Hunters is that players draft cards to make the most valuable collection of comics. Each game allows you to set the market value either randomly or by hand-picking which heroes or types of comics are the most sought-after. To keep things interesting, drafting is done in five different ways, including players taking a card from a drawn hand of cards and passing the remainders to the next player, bidding on a blind pool of cards, and more. Once you have your new set of comics, you build your collections, paying for the cards you keep with the other cards you drafted but are opting to discard. The more of a certain hero or type of comic (first appearance, outfit change, epic battle, etc.) the more points you will get at the end of the game.

It’s a process that, once you’ve gone through it once or twice, you and the other players will fly through. It results in a game that doesn’t take long to play at all, but that initial time figuring out how all the different methods of drafting works can be a bit tedious as the rulebook doesn’t explain it very clearly. Multiple times during my first game, I had to stop and reread the rules to figure it out. Luckily, though, the whole game flow is quick and smooth once you wrap your brain around it.

With being playable solo or with up to four players, Comic Hunters feels like a different game depending on your player count. My favorite setup is playing it as a two-player board game against one other person. With two players, cards and player collections are manageable enough (each player’s sets are openly displayed in front of them) to make it a game where you can not only strategize what cards are best for you to expand your sets but also what could hinder your opponent too.

At three and four players, the number of cards out and around the table can get overwhelming and instead often changed into more of a solitaire experience where I was only focused on my own sets and not stopping others, which admittedly may be more attractive to many players. For me, though, I appreciate the addition of that little bit of conflict. Fair warning: Comic Hunters can trigger decision paralysis, so be wary if that’s an issue for you or the people you want to play against.

There are several avenues to score points come the end the game – the sets of hero comics you have, the types of issues you have, the star tickets you have left that you didn’t use during auctions – so depending on how many comics you’ve managed to get, counting up the various symbols and figuring out how to best organize your sets for the most points can be a bit of a chore. My best recommendation to alleviate this is to simply keep track as you play with tally marks on how much of any one type you have in a set at any given time and adjust after the end of each set-building phase.

Comic Hunters’ initial “WOW!” factor and draw is thanks to all of the classic Marvel comics featured on the cards. It’s longevity and how well it keeps your interest will depend entirely on how much you like drafting and set collection games. I had a fine time with the game (especially with the added adversary aspect at lower player counts mentioned earlier). I found the inclusion of having multiple drafting types helps the experience, but I never stopped wishing that there was another layer to the game. Maybe you could trade with others, or maybe there was a way to influence what the most desirable comics were midgame to try and swing things in your favor. Instead, you get drafting with a side of drafting, with a bit more drafting. The most interesting aspect of Comic Hunters is how you pay for the cards in your set with other cards you drafted, causing me to look for things I wanted and also chaff that I could snag to pay for the cards I wanted to collect.

While the art of all the covers is nice, and it was fun to stumble across issues featured in my own collection, the same can’t be said for the quality of the components themselves, with the gameboard being the only part that felt solid. The cardboard used for the player markers and comic-type tokens is incredibly thin, and even when I was punching them out of the board, they came on, I was worried I would tear them. The cards don’t feel much better; in my copy, the cards seemed to have an odd lip around them, with paper that’s stiffer than I would like. In an ideal world, I would love to have a bit larger and sturdier cardboard tokens or better-feeling cards, but with the game coming in at $25, I can give the lower quality a bit of a pass.

Where to Buy

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 November 8 Patch Further Nerfs Recon as 10v10 Goes Live

Another Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 patch is here, and with it comes an additional nerf to that troublesome Recon Combat Specialty Perk and a dedicated 10v10 Moshpit playlist.

Treyarch pulled back the curtain on the November 8 update with a post on its website today, revealing a smaller patch that tackles some of the issues players have continued to deal with since launch. The emergence of a playlist for 10v10 might be what has most frothing at the mouth, though, as it offers bigger lobbies across many of Black Ops 6’s Multiplayer maps. Included in the list of maps is Nuketown, a map that is already notoriously chaotic in 6v6 matches, so expect even more chaos when hopping in for 10v10. While the standard Nuketown 24/7 playlist option will remain, fans can also now enjoy a new Stakeout 24/7 playlist.

Another highlight involves an additional nerf for Recon, which has been a common complaint from players for weeks. The Perk combo bonus gives players a few advantages in combat, including the ability to briefly see enemies through walls after spawning. The effect previously lasted for a whopping two seconds, with many drawing comparisons between it and unofficial cheats like wallhacks. It didn’t take long before Treyarch brought down that timer to only 1.5 seconds, and as promised, that’s now down to only one second with today’s patch.

Multiplayer regulars will notice that they are no longer able to exit the map in Lowtown, too, with other more general changes tackling stability and XP earn rates. Zombies received a number of tweaks as well, including fixes for a few glitches and a patch for a Tactical Raft exploit that was being used to make the vehicle airborne on Terminus.

Today’s Black Ops 6 patch is smaller than some of the others we’ve seen this past week, but that’s only because Treyarch is on the verge of dropping a gargantuan Season 1 update next week. We learned more about the inaugural season of content just yesterday, with the team promising that more Multiplayer maps, Zombies additions, and a revamped Warzone will arrive next week. Even more goodies will come with a mid-season refresh in the future, too, with Ranked Play also set to drop later this month.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 got off to a great start when it launched for PC and consoles October 25, and we think its success is deserved. We gave this year’s Call of Duty entry an 8/10 in our Multiplayer review and an 8/10 in our Zombies review. It’s unclear when exactly the next patch will drop, but at this rate, we probably won’t have to wait too long. For more, you can read our list of essential tips and tricks for players hopping online, and you can also check out the YouTuber who accidentally killed his 147-round Zombies run while streaming.

You can see today’s full Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 November 8 patch notes below.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 November 8, 2024 Patch Notes

MULTIPLAYER

Maps

  • Lowtown
    • Addressed an issue where players could get outside of the intended playspace on Lowtown.

Featured Playlists

  • Stakeout 24/7
  • 10v10 Moshpit
    • Maps: Red Card, Rewind, Vault, Vorkuta, Lowtown, Derelict, Skyline, Scud, Nuketown
    • Modes: TDM, Domination, Kill Confirmed, Hardpoint

These Featured Playlists are scheduled to go live at 10 AM PT which is after the publication of these notes.

Perks

  • Recon Combat Specialty
    • Further reduced the duration that enemies are highlighted after respawning from 1.5 to 1 seconds.

We will continue to monitor data and feedback on Combat Specialties throughout post-launch.

XP Earn Rates

  • Resolved an issue where match bonus was being improperly scaled across game modes.
  • Resolved an issue where match bonus was not consistently being awarded in Search and Destroy.

Challenges

  • Removed the “Get 50 Eliminations using Weapons with no Attachments” Daily Challenge.

Stability

  • Added various stability fixes.

ZOMBIES

Weapons

  • Resolved an issue where weapons with a default scope would show an extra attachment pip when viewed in game.

Gunsmith

  • Resolved an issue where the players Multiplayer Loadout would be present when previewing their Zombies Loadout.

Field Upgrades

  • Closed an exploit that allowed certain Field Upgrade Augment effects to persist beyond their intended duration.

Vehicles

  • Closed an exploit that allowed players to launch Tactical Rafts into the air on Terminus.

Stability

  • Added various stability fixes.

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer at IGN.

Pokémon TCG Pocket Players Call for Change to Going First Mechanic

Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket adapts the beloved card game into a speedier experience more fit for mobile, but players can’t get their heads around one rule change regarding going first and are calling on developer Creatures Inc. to change it.

At its simplest, the Pokémon TCG works by players attaching energy to their Pokémon to do attacks, with more energy resulting in bigger damage dealt. Pokémon are eventually knocked out and, once a certain number are defeated, someone wins.

Card games commonly apply nerfs to the player who goes first so they don’t gain an unfair advantage over what’s essentially a coin toss, and the Pokémon TCG is no different. The player going first draws a card and can attach a single energy to a Pokémon, as normal, though isn’t allowed to attack.

This balances things out a touch as, while player two is the first to attack and therefore do damage, player one can swing back the following turn with two energy and a bigger attack. But Pokémon TCG changes this mechanic by only allowing a card draw on the first turn, making the entire thing, some players believe, completely redundant.

“As we seem to all acknowledge going first in this game feels awful, and don’t get me started about the one energy evolutions which benefit off going first,” Reddit user Seedler420 said.

“Can’t we trade the possibility of attacking turn one, which in terms of gameplay doesn’t make any sense, with the possibility of attaching energy turn one? This way the player going first would have energy advantage while the player going second would have the first attack.”

The way Pokémon TCG Pocket works essentially gives the advantage to the player going second, as they have both the energy advantage and the first damage advantage. “It would feel a little better if we at least got to put energy on a card first turn,” said one player in the comments. “It definitely feels bad,” said another.

Creatures Inc. did ask for feedback when it announced more than 30 million players had downloaded the game in just nine days, so perhaps if enough people complain a change will come about.

Pokémon TCG Pocket arrived October 30 as a streamlined and has players opening packs, collecting cards, building decks, and battling others; a simple formula that immediately proved popular given it made $12 million in four days.

Creatures Inc. is keeping busy since launch as it has already added three events to the game: one focused on collecting, one focused on solo battles, and one focused on player versus player battles.

The first offers players a free Wonder Pick with the chance of pulling either a Meowth or Chansey alongside event tickets and Wonder Hourglasses, with its second part also released today.

Next, the solo battle event let players take on a handful of water themed decks for the chance of winning new promo cards including Lapras ex. And a PVP event was later added too, putting badges on the line in true Pokémon fashion.

As you’d expect, players are looking to take the best decks into these events, and Mewtwo and Charizard are naturally dominating so far. One outlier comes via Misty though, whose heads or tails effect is driving many up the wall.

On the collecting front, some players are focused on a conspiracy theory about crinkled corners while most are swooning over mythical god packs that award five alternate art cards in one go. There’s also a secret Mew card hidden in the game that’s not super difficult to get.

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

Sony Commits to Releasing ‘Major’ Single-Player Games Every Year From 2025 Onwards — So What’s It Cooking?

Sony’s high-profile live service struggles have seen the cancellation of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us multiplayer game and, most recently, the disastrous release and then un-release of Concord, which resulted in the closure of its developer, Firewalk. Amid the turmoil, Sony has reaffirmed its commitment to major single-player games.

Speaking during an investor call, Sony’s finance and IR chief Sadahiko Hayakawa said that while it has no major first-party games coming out before the end of its current financial year ending March 2025, the company plans to “continue releasing major single-player game titles every year from next fiscal year onwards.”

So, what major single-player games does Sony have in the works? In the same financial call, Hayakawa pointed to Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Yōtei, the sequel to 2020’s smash hit Ghost of Tsushima. Ghost of Yōtei, due out at some point in 2025, would certainly qualify as one of Sony’s “major” single-player games.

Sony is also set to publish Kojima Productions’ Death Stranding 2: On the Beach as a PS5 exclusive at some point in 2025, so that’s at least two next year.

Looking further ahead (or to unannounced 2025 releases), Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 developer Insomniac has its Wolverine game in the works. That one’s yet to receive a release window. We know God of War developer Sony Santa Monica has something cooking, and Guerrilla looks set to round out the Horizon trilogy with another single-player adventure, although that is reportedly a long way in the distance. Naughty Dog, too, has multiple single-player games coming down the pipe.

Elsewhere, we know Days Gone developer Bend has a new IP up its sleeve, as does LittleBigPlanet and Dreams maker Media Molecule. Returnal developer Housemarque is working on something new, as is Bluepoint Games and Firesprite. Polyphony is no doubt hard at work on Gran Turismo 7, and following the success of Astro Bot, all eyes will be on Team Asobi to see what it does next.

That’s a lot in the works at PlayStation Studios to come over the course of the next few years, or however many years the PS5 has left in it before Sony releases the inevitable PS6. And throughout it all, Sony’s live service push continues, with Guerrilla’s Horizon Online, Bungie’s Marathon, and Haven’s Fairgame$ all in development.

Meanwhile, Sony continues to do deals with external developers that see single-player games launch first on PS5. For example, it partnered with Square enix for Final Fantasy 7 Remake, 16, and 7 Rebirth, Shift Up for Stellar Blade, Game Science for the record-breaking Black Myth: Wukong, Team Ninja’s Rise of the Rōnin, and Bloober’s Silent Hill 2 Remake.

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.

IGN UK Podcast 773: Don’t Eat Play-Doh

Cardy, Matt, and Emma have been playing Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Do they like it? Listen to find out. They’ve also been tinkering with the PS5 Pro, as well as watching the enjoyable Paddington in Peru and touching The Remarkable Life of Ibelin. There’s also time for a bit of Pokemon TCG Pocket, Black Ops 6, and Play-Doh chat. Lovely.

Remember to send us your thoughts about all the new games, TV shows, and films you’re enjoying or looking forward to: ign_ukfeedback@ign.com.

IGN UK Podcast 773: Don’t Eat Play-Doh

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Dev Says Game Pass Helped Convince People Who Were ‘On the Fence’ to Try the Game — but Now the Challenge Is to Convince Them to Stick Around

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 launched day one on Game Pass — the first Call of Duty game to do so following Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

It was a big gamble for Microsoft, with some analysts predicting a significant decline in game sales, particularly on Xbox, as a result. But in its recent financial report, Microsoft sounded delighted with Black Ops 6’s early days performance, saying sales on PlayStation and PC were 60% higher compared to the 2023 release of Modern Warfare 3.

All eyes were on Black Ops 6’s impact on Game Pass, though. Growth in Microsoft’s subscription service has stalled in recent years, and the day one release of the latest entry in Activision’s phenomenally successful first-person shooter series was seen as a make or break moment for Game Pass.

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.

In an interview with the BBC, Treyarch associate creative director Miles Leslie, who has worked on Call of Duty for 16 years, said Black Ops 6’s release on Game Pass has helped convince players who were “on the fence” to give the game a shot.

“What we’ve seen is it’s allowed people that might have been on the fence, might have had some of that friction, might have been like, ‘I haven’t played in a while’ to actually come back and try the game,” he said.

That will be music to Microsoft’s ears, given it’s desperate to expand the Call of Duty audience in the long term. Analysts have suggested the company was willing to sacrifice Black Ops 6 launch sales on Xbox for a potential bigger overall player base, which it intends to monetize long-term with the release of battle passes and cosmetics.

“We’ve gotten to the point now where Black Ops and Call of Duty have been around so long – I’ve been working on it for 16 years,” Leslie added. “And really the challenge for us is how do you bring along the fans that love Call of Duty, but how do you create an environment where you can welcome new fans in?”

The trick now of course is to convince Game Pass players to stick around and keep paying that monthly subscription. To that end, Black Ops 6 Season 1 kicks off on November 14, and we’ve got all the details. Of course, this time next year fans will have another premium Call of Duty game to contend with, rumored to be a sequel to Black Ops 2.

Taking on Zombies mode? We’ve got Essential Zombies Tips and Tricks to help you get started, plus a guide on How to Exfil. Both Zombies maps are full of easter eggs and secrets; here’s everything we’ve found in both Terminus and Liberty Falls, including How to Pack-a-Punch in Liberty Falls and How to Get the Meteor Easter Egg in Terminus.

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 TCG Pocket Passes 30 Million Downloads in 9 Days

Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket has surpassed 30 million downloads in the nine days it’s been available, developer Creatures Inc. has announced.

Word of the milestone came via the Pokémon TCG Pocket X/Twitter, where the development team thanks players for their support. “Thirty million?! How many packs have been opened, then?,” it asked. “On behalf of everyone working on the game and me, thank you for all your support! Seriously.”

Pokémon TCG Pocket arrived October 30 as a streamlined, digital version of the beloved trading card game. It has players opening packs, collecting cards, building decks, and battling others; a simple formula that immediately proved popular given it made $12 million in four days.

Creatures Inc. is keeping busy since launch as it has already added three events to the game: one focused on collecting, one focused on solo battles, and one focuses on player versus player battles.

The first offers players a free Wonder Pick with the chance of pulling either a Meowth or Chansey alongside event tickets and Wonder Hourglasses, with its second part also released today and runs until November 15.

Next, the solo battle event let players take on a handful of water themed decks for the chance of winning new promo cards including Lapras ex. And a PVP event was later added too, putting badges on the line in true Pokémon fashion.

As you’d expect, players are looking to take the best decks into these events, and Mewtwo and Charizard are naturally dominating so far. One outlier comes via Misty though, whose heads or tails effect is driving many up the wall.

On the collecting front, some players are focused on a conspiracy theory about crinkled corners while most are swooning over mythical god packs that award five alternate art cards in one go. There’s also a secret Mew card hidden in the game that’s not super difficult to get.

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