Category: IGN

Square Enix is temporarily suspending the auto-demolition of houses in Final Fantasy XIV in the wake of Hurricane Helene, which devastated several states in September.

The developer wrote in a post on Lodestone, “From all of us on the FFXIV development and management team, our hearts go out to those who were affected late last month by Hurricane Helene in
North America. Due to the damages and other factors, we have decided to temporarily suspend the automatic demolition of estates.”

Housing demolition is an automatic process in Final Fantasy XIV, and will happen if you don’t set foot in your house for at least 45 days. The idea is to give other players a chance to claim the parcel of land, which is a hot commodity in Eorzea. Indeed, housing is one of Final Fantasy XIV’s most popular features.

According to Square Enix’s post, demolition was suspended in the Primal, Dynamis, Crystal, and Aether Data Center early on October 2. When auto-demolition starts up again, it will resume from the time remaining when the pause took place. Players with estates scheduled to be demolished can cancel it by entering their housing or building on their land.

Square Enix says that it will “monitor the situation in the coming days” and will inform players when demolition is ready to resume.

“It is our sincere hope that recovery is swift, and those of you who were affected will be able to rejoin us in FFXIV soon,” Square Enix says.

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.

Frostpunk 2 and This War of Mine developer 11 bit studios has announced a delay to its next game, The Alters, from the fourth quarter of 2024 to the first quarter of 2025.

In a statement sent to Polish finance publication bankier.pl, 11 bit studios president Przemysław Marszał said the delay was necessary to improve the quality of the game.

“The production schedule for The Alters was very tight,” Marszał said. “There was uncertainty as to whether the developers would have enough time to complete all the work in the quality we all expect. After so many years of production, the risk that the game will have any shortcomings is unnecessary for us.”

The Alters is a survival video game set for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S, with a day-one launch on Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription service. You play Jan, a space miner who must create alternate versions of himself in order to survive on an inhospitable planet.

Here’s the official blurb:

Inspired by the critically acclaimed title This War of Mine, The Alters thrusts players into a heart-pounding battle for survival that Jan can’t conquer alone. After crash landing on a desolate planet with a scorching star, Jan must avoid the murderous conditions by taking refuge in a cutting-edge mobile base. The only issue? It’s meant to be operated by a skilled team and he’s just Jan.

Thankfully, fate takes a turn with the discovery of Rapidium, a mysterious substance exclusive to this perilous world. Interacting with the Quantum Computer on board the mobile base allows Jan to manipulate pivotal decisions from his past—creating alternate versions of himself known as Alters—that have the potential to change everything.

The announcement of the delay comes hot on the heels of 11 bit studios’ release of city-building survival sequel Frostpunk 2, which sold enough copies to break even but not enough to prevent a share price collapse.

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.

Those looking forward to Bloober Team’s remake of Silent Hill 2 may want to brace for jump scares as basically the entire game has now leaked online.

While Silent Hill 2 originally launched 23 years ago and Bloober Team has vowed not to change the story, there’s perhaps not as much risk for spoilers as brand new games. But plenty of players will be experiencing the survival horror classic for the first time through the remake, and Silent Hill 2 plot points will be appearing on social media instead of just in wikis and playthroughs.

Some fans have already received the game ahead of its October 8 release date, with physical copies seemingly shipped early once again proving the cause. Others, like Luke76bg on ResetEra, posted a screenshot of someone with 39% completion already logged on their PlayStation 5.

The Silent Hill 2 remake is exclusive to Sony’s console for one year though will also launch on PC next week thanks to Bloober Team convincing publisher Konami. Xbox players will have to wait, however, and it’s perhaps unlikely to come to Nintendo Switch at all.

Konami previously released the first 90 minutes of gameplay through the 2BRO YouTube channel, and while the commentary is in Japanese the gameplay itself is in English, it introduces protagonist James Sunderland as he comes across the ever so spooky town of Silent Hill and all the nastiness one would expect from a survival horror title.

The first 90 minutes cover just under 10% of Silent Hill 2 according to Bloober Team’s own estimates, as it said players could complete it in “around 16 to 18 hours.”

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

Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney has insisted the company is now “financially sound” after a tumultuous period in which 830 staff were laid off.

In September 2023, the North Carolina studio behind Fortnite and Unreal Engine suffered a significant round of layoffs that saw 830 employees, about 16% of its workforce, lose their jobs.

Separately, Epic divested music service platform Bandcamp and spun off most of SuperAwesome, a kid-safe technology company. These were acquired by Epic Games in 2022 and 2020, respectively. Around 250 people left Epic through the divestitures.

At the time, Sweeney said Epic had been spending “way more money than we earn, investing in the next evolution of Epic and growing Fortnite as a metaverse-inspired ecosystem for creators.”

He also pointed to a “major structural change to our economics” after Fortnite growth transitioned from the explosively popular and highly profitable battle royale that funded its initial expansion, to the lower margin business that came from creator content with significant revenue sharing.

Now, a year later, Sweeney has commented on the state of Epic Games, and he certainly sounded more bullish. Speaking during a presentation at Unreal Fest 2024, as reported by GI.biz, Sweeney said that Epic “spent the last year rebuilding and really executing solidly on all fronts.”

He added: “I’m happy to tell you now that the company is financially sound, and that Fortnite and the Epic Games Store have hit new records in concurrency and success.”

On that front, Fortnite hit 110 million monthly active users over the holidays, an impressive milestone for a game now seven years old. To put that into context, in August 2018 Fortnite hit 78.3 million MAUs.

Epic rarely makes Fortnite player numbers public, and when it does so it uses various metrics that make direct comparisons difficult. Last year’s Season OG, which brought back the Chapter 1 Season 5 map and with it classic areas like Tilted Towers, Pleasant Park, and Risky Reels, saw Fortnite hit a new peak of 44.7 million players in just one day. Epic previously said Fortnite saw a concurrent player record of 15.3 million players for the December 2020 end-of-season live event, which saw players teaming up with Iron Man, Wolverine, and other Marvel heroes to defeat Galactus.

Meanwhile, the Epic Games Store, which remains unprofitable as it battles with Steam maker Valve for the hearts and minds of PC gamers, reached 70 million monthly active users last month.

Elden Ring developer FromSoftware has released patch 1.15 for the action game and its expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree across PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and S, and PC via Steam.

Patch 1.15 comes hot on the heels of Elden Ring’s big balance-changing 1.14 update, and thus does not contain any further balance changes or additional features. Check out the patch notes below, courtesy of publisher Bandai Namco.

Elden Ring is one of the biggest video games of recent years, selling an incredible 25 million copies since going on sale in 2022. The Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is a hit, too, selling five million in just three days despite tough requirements.

IGN’s Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree review returned a 10/10. We said: “Like the base game did before it, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree raises the bar for single-player DLC expansions. It takes everything that made the base game such a landmark RPG, condenses it into a relatively compact 20-25 hour campaign, and provides fantastic new challenges for heavily invested fans to chew on.”

Elden Ring update 1.15 patch notes:

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where the cutscene that plays when entering the Shadow Keep Church District would play again when re-entering the area.
• Fixed a bug where some of the Golem Fist weapon attacks would not deal damage when the player was affected by certain special effects.
• Fixed a bug where the Golem Fist weapon one-handed heavy attack power was lower than expected.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the Aspects of the Crucible: Thorns incantation from being cast when used in quick succession.
• Fixed a bug where the Smithing Talisman effect did not apply to some weapons’ throwing attacks.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the use of ashes in some areas of the Scadutree Avatar battle arena.
• Fixed a bug where Rellana, Twin Moon Knight would sometimes perform unexpected actions when interacting with objects in the battle area.
• Fixed a bug that allowed Skills to be used in incorrect combinations with Weapons under certain circumstances.
• Fixed a bug that caused unexpected rendering and behavior of some enemies under certain circumstances.
• Fixed a bug where some sound effects did not play correctly.
• Several performance improvements and other bug fixes.
• Further fixes were added to the game’s end credits.

Possible unstable performance fixes

• For the PS5 version of the game, unstable framerate may be improved by using the “Rebuild Database” option from the device’s safe mode.
• In some PC versions, Ray Tracing may be unintentionally enabled and cause unstable performance. Please check the Ray Tracing setting in the “System” > “Graphics ” > “Ray Tracing Quality” from the title screen or in-game menu.
• In the PC version, the message “Inappropriate activity detected” may appear without cheating.
  • To fix this issue, please verify the integrity of the game’s files before restarting the game.
• In the PC version, unstable framerate may be caused by third party applications that control mouse behavior. Deactivating these third party applications may improve performance.

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.

Palworld developer Pocketpair has signed a deal with PUBG company Krafton to develop a mobile version of the hit game.

Krafton, fresh from acquiring Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks from Microsoft, has now inked a licensing agreement with Pocketpair to expand the Palworld intellectual property to mobile devices, Gematsu reported.

Krafton’s subsidiary PUBG Studios will develop the mobile version of Palworld, which reimagines and adapts the core gameplay elements for mobile. No release window was mentioned.

PUBG Studios is the development arm behind the phenomenally successful battle royale as well as its equally successful mobile versions. Indeed, PUBG Mobile has had over one billion players since launching in March 2018.

The announcement of Palworld mobile comes hot on the heels of Nintendo and The Pokémon Company’s joint lawsuit against Pocketpair for alleged patent infringement, and the subsequent launch of Palworld on PlayStation 5 everywhere except Japan, where the lawsuit was filed.

Pocketpair has insisted it has no idea which patents it’s accused of infringing, but experts have pointed to a “killer patent” that revolves around the mechanic of catching Pokémon itself. Last week, one patent expert said the lawsuit shows “just how seriously Nintendo views the threat of Palworld.”

After Palworld’s huge launch earlier this year on PC and Xbox, comparisons were made between Palworld’s Pals and Pokémon, with some accusing Pocketpair of “ripping off” Pokémon designs. But rather than file a copyright infringement lawsuit, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company have gone down the patent route.

It is worth noting that Palworld does include a mechanic that involves throwing a ball-like object (called a Pal Sphere) at monsters out in a field to capture them, similar to the mechanic seen in the 2022 Nintendo Switch exclusive Pokémon Legends: Arceus, and this may prove the key to the lawsuit.

Palworld launched on Steam priced $30 and straight into Game Pass on Xbox and PC earlier this year, breaking sales and concurrent player number records in the process. Pocketpair boss Takuro Mizobe has said Palworld’s launch was so big that the developer couldn’t handle the massive profits the game generated.

Still, Pocketpair acted swiftly to capitalize on Palworld’s breakout success, signing a deal with Sony to form a new business called Palworld Entertainment that’s tasked with expanding the IP.

While the Pokémon games are mostly at home on consoles, Nintendo has launched a number of spin-offs aimed at other devices, including mobile. Pokémon GO has seen enormous success since launching in 2016, generating billions of dollars in revenue. There’s also Pokémon Unite, a MOBA released for mobile and Nintendo Switch, and Pokémon Sleep, a sleep-tracking game that rewards the user with Pokémon depending on the quality of their sleep.

Indeed, a new Pokémon mobile game is right around the corner: Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket, a mobile version of the Pokemon TCG, launches October 30, 2024.

Pocketpair has said it will begrudgingly investigate the patent infringement claims while continuing to update Palworld despite the lawsuit, and apologized to players left concerned about the future of the game.

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.

If you thought it was too early for this game to go on sale, guess again. Woot! (owned by Amazon) is offering The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom for Nintendo Switch for only $51.99. This is a good deal only if you’re an Amazon Prime member because you get free shipping. Otherwise, you’ll have to pay an additional $6 for shipping, which makes it just a few dollars cheaper than buying it elsewhere.

This is a physical copy and includes a 90-day Woot! warranty. Woot! mentions that copies may or may not be imported, but all Nintendo Switch games are region-free so you’ll be able to play the game regardless. Also, you won’t have to worry about language either, since that setting is determined by your Switch console.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

Castlevania veteran Shutaro Ida has announced that he will be stepping back from work on Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night 2 following his recent cancer diagnosis.

The game developer, who worked on a long list of entries in Konami’s Castlevania series and more recently directed 2019’s Bloodstained, announced the news in a post on X/Twitter. He says he’ll be offloading some of his responsibilities with the rest of the team at developer ArtPlay now that he has begun his cancer battle.

It looks like popular Nintendo Switch emulator Ryujinx is no more.

One of its developers, riperiperi, announced the news on its Discord server today, saying that lead developer gdkchan “was contacted by Nintendo and offered an agreement to stop working on the project, remove the organization and all related assets he’s in control of.”

“While awaiting confirmation on whether he would take this agreement, the organization has been removed, so I think it’s safe to say what the outcome is,” riperiperi continues. The message, which you can read below, was also posted on Ryujinx’s X/Twitter account.

pic.twitter.com/2Ggt9SWoDI

— Ryujinx (@RyujinxEmu) October 1, 2024

It also came just hours after some users raised concerns, noticing that Ryujinx’s Github page currently leads to a 404 message. Others pointed out Ryujinx’s download page also wasn’t loading, sparking more concern for the emulation project. Amid the speculation, one of the Discord’s mods assured fans that an announcement was coming, asking them to not spread misinformation in the meantime.

As it says on its website, Ryujinx is an open-source Nintendo Switch emulator written in C# for Windows, Linux and macOS. It began as a single-developer project in 2017, collecting a small team of developers along the way.

Today’s news is only the latest in Nintendo’s ongoing crackdown on emulators following its lawsuit against Tropic Haze, creators of the popular Switch emulator Yuzu. Tropic Haze paid $2.4 million in damages in the settlement, and Yuzu was shut down entirely. Nintendo claimed that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was pirated 1 million times before its release in the lawsuit, and issued a takedown notice for more than 8,500 copies of code of Yuzu in May.

Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.

Throne and Liberty is off to a very strong start. The new MMORPG by NCSoft and Amazon Games has already rushed to number four on Steam, behind only Dota 2, Counter-Strike 2, and that one banana game.

At the time of this article, Throne and Liberty sits at around 292,116 concurrents, putting in the top half of the list of Steam’s ten most popular games. Its early performance is all the more impressive in light of mixed reviews, most of which have focused on its server issues and microtransactions.

Indeed, server issues seem to be the biggest problem facing Throne and Liberty, with fans complaining about spending 45 minutes creating a character only to get disconnected. What’s more, it doesn’t appear possible to choose a different server, leaving fans little recourse except to hope that things improve.

Still, Throne and Liberty seems to be doing well, following in the footsteps of other Amazon Games releases including Lost Ark and New World. Originally billed as a Lineage sequel, Throne and Liberty is described as a free-to-play MMO with PvE and PvP set in a dynamic and seamless world. It suffered numerous delays over the course of a development cycle spanning several years.

We wrote about Throne and Liberty during its beta, “Overall, I certainly enjoyed most of my time with Throne and Liberty. There are big, late-game things that I want to come back and participate in, like large-scale PVP battles between guilds and raid dungeons. The story and quests won’t upend any long-standing MMO conventions. The inner voice that usually commands me to make sure every task that can be done must be done very quietly let me skip through slow dialogue and turn a blind eye to many menial side tasks. I never skipped an opportunity to fight, though.”

But while Amazon Games have a way of getting off to a fast start, they have struggled to maintain that momentum amid slow updates, balance problems, and other issues. New World launched to huge numbers, wound up getting heavily retooled, and is trying to get a fresh start on console as New World: Aerturnum. We’ll see if Throne and Liberty has better luck.

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.