Category: IGN

The jelly-faced man, Xûr, is now live in Destiny 2 for the weekend until next week’s reset. If you’re looking to get you some shiny new Exotic armor or weapons for your Guardian, look no further.

Each week, Xûr has a random assortment of Exotic armor, one for each Guardian class, as well as a random Exotic Weapon and an Exotic Engram available for purchase. In addition to his Exotic wares, he’s got a random collection of Legendary weapons and armor to deck out your Guardians.

We’ve rounded up all the info on Xûr for the week including where to find Xûr, which Exotic weapons and armor are available, as well as which Legendary weapons you should pick up, either for PvE or PvP.

Where Is Xûr Located Today?

Xûr’s location can be found at Winding Cove in the EDZ on September 1 through September 5. To reach him, travel to the landing point at Winding Cove. When you arrive, make for the rock cliffs at the far end of the cove and look for a cave winding up to a platform next to some Fallen. There you’ll find the retail monster who inspires us all.

What’s Xûr Selling Today?

Exotic Engram

Prometheus Lens – Exotic Trace Rifle

Oprheus Rig – Exotic Hunter Leg Armor

• 14 Mobility
• 14 Resilience
• 6 Recovery
• 2 Discipline
• 14 Intellect
• 14 Strength
• Total: 64

Hallowfire Heart – Exotic Titan Chest Armor

• 4 Mobility
• 7 Resilience
• 23 Recovery
• 16 Discipline
• 6 Intellect
• 12 Strength
• Total: 68

Getaway Artist – Exotic Warlock Gauntlets

• 10 Mobility
• 3 Resilience
• 23 Recovery
• 15 Discipline
• 10 Intellect
• 7 Strength
• Total: 68

Titans have the roll to check out this week, with a pretty impressive 68 stat total, featuring high Recovery and low Mobility — not bad at all. Warlocks also have a pretty okay roll to check out. Don’t buy the Hunter exotic.

Exotic Weapons

Hawkmoon – Exotic Hand Cannon

• Paracausal Shot
• Full Bore
• Alloy Magazine
• Eye of the Storm
• Textured Grip

Eye of the Storm is one of my favored perks for Hawkmoon, so this week’s roll ends up being pretty nice. Not exactly a god roll, but very strong.

Legendary Weapons

Ignition Code– Grenade Launcher

• Countermass/Linear Compensator
• Disorienting Grenades/High-Velocity Rounds
• Field Prep
• Vorpal Weapon
• Reload Speed Masterwork

True Prophecy – Hand Cannon

• Truesight HCS/Sureshot HCS
• Accurized Rounds/Extended Mag
• Overflow
• Timed Payload
• Reload Speed Masterwork

Corsair’s Wrath – Linear Fusion Rifle

• Fluted Barrel/Smallbore
• Ionized Battery/Liquid Coils
• No Distractions
• Demolitionist
• Charge Time Masterwork

Sailspy Pitchglass – Linear Fusion Rifle

• Arrowhead Brake/Full Bore
• Ionized Battery/Particle Repeater
• Rapid Hit
• Voltshot
• Right Hook
• Reload Speed Masterwork

Jian 7 Rifle – Pulse Rifle

• SRO-52 Ocular/SLO-10 Post
• Extended Mag/Armor-Piercing Rounds
• Disruption Break
• Outlaw
• Range Masterwork

Gridskipper – Pulse Rifle

• Fluted Barrel/Smallbore
• High-Caliber Rounds/Light Mag
• Moving Target
• Thresh
• Range Masterwork

Seventh Seraph CQC-12 – Shotgun

• Rifled Barrel/Barrel Shroud
• Steady Rounds/Accurized Rounds
• Auto-Loading Holster
• Snapshot Sights
• Reload Speed Masterwork

My top picks this week is the Seventh Seraph shotgun, because Snapshot Sights and Auto-Loading Holster are two of my favorite perks for Crucible. Just imagine yourself picking up special ammo, having it automatically enter your gun without having to be loaded, then using it to very quickly aim down the sights to kill your foes — that’s a beautiful thing. The Jian 7 Rifle roll is also pretty decent.

Warlock Legendary Armor

For Warlocks, Xûr is selling the Warmind’s Avatar set which includes:

Warmind’s Avatar Gauntlets

• 12 Mobility
• 8 Resilience
• 6 Recovery
• 2 Discipline
• 22 Intellect
• 2 Strength
• Total: 52

Warmind’s Avatar Chest Armor

• 2 Mobility
• 22 Resilience
• 2 Recovery
• 6 Discipline
• 2 Intellect
• 19 Strength
• Total: 53

Warmind’s Avatar Helmet

• 18 Mobility
• 2 Resilience
• 6 Recovery
• 17 Discipline
• 6 Intellect
• 2 Strength
• Total: 51

Warmind’s Avatar Leg Armor

• 2 Mobility
• 24 Resilience
• 2 Recovery
• 2 Discipline
• 9 Intellect
• 17 Strength
• Total: 56

Warmind’s Avatar Bond

Warlocks don’t have any good rolls this week. Sorry!

Titan Legendary Armor

For Titans, Xûr is selling the Warmind’s Avatar set which includes:

Warmind’s Avatar Gauntlets

• 2 Mobility
• 22 Resilience
• 2 Recovery
• 6 Discipline
• 6 Intellect
• 12 Strength
• Total: 50

Warmind’s Avatar Chest Armor

• 13 Mobility
• 11 Resilience
• 2 Recovery
• 11 Discipline
• 8 Intellect
• 7 Strength
• Total: 52

Warmind’s Avatar Helmet

• 10 Mobility
• 2 Resilience
• 10 Recovery
• 2 Discipline
• 16 Intellect
• 9 Strength
• Total: 49

Warmind’s Avatar Leg Armor

• 2 Mobility
• 22 Resilience
• 2 Recovery
• 18 Discipline
• 2 Intellect
• 6 Strength
• Total: 52

Warmind’s Avatar Mark

Xur hates all Titans. It’s true.

Hunter Legendary Armor

For Hunters, Xûr is selling the Warmind’s Avatar set which includes:

Warmind’s Avatar Gauntlets

• 9 Mobility
• 2 Resilience
• 16 Recovery
• 7 Discipline
• 6 Intellect
• 13 Strength
• Total: 53

Warmind’s Avatar Chest Armor

• 6 Mobility
• 12 Resilience
• 8 Recovery
• 15 Discipline
• 16 Intellect
• 2 Strength
• Total: 59

Warmind’s Avatar Helmet

• 17 Mobility
• 6 Resilience
• 2 Recovery
• 12 Discipline
• 2 Intellect
• 10 Strength
• Total: 49

Warmind’s Avatar Leg Armor

• 2 Mobility
• 22 Resilience
• 2 Recovery
• 6 Discipline
• 9 Intellect
• 13 Strength
• Total: 54

Warmind’s Avatar Cloak

And it’s another terrible armor week for Hunters too, unfortunately.

That’s a wrap on Xûr for this week, Guardians! Are you going to tackle Crota’s End today? Let us know in the comments! For more on Destiny, check out some of the new weapons and gear you can find in Lightfall or our walkthrough of Lightfall’s campaign.

Travis Northup is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @TieGuyTravis and read his games coverage here.

Luigi may be the most anxious of the Super Mario Bros., but his anxiety may be a front for his rough exterior. In other words, he’s canonically a lean, mean, green jerk.

This analysis comes from a formula from Mario Superstar Baseball (shared by @MarioBrothBlog on X, formerly known as Twitter), called chemistry, a statistical marker that shows how well the characters get along with everyone on the team. The formula calculates the average chemistry stat extracted from the code and lists everyone from friendly to unfriendly, respectively color coded from green to red.

The chemistry chart lists Luigi as one of the most unfriendly characters at 56.258. This puts him in the same league as Bowser (51.483), Wario (48.419), and Waluigi (48.065).

In Mario Superstar Baseball, chemistry is a stat that signifies how well characters get along with others on the team. By averaging the chemistry stats extracted from the code, this list sorting all characters from most amicable (green) to most unpleasant (red) can be created. pic.twitter.com/o9cKDDef7B

— Supper Mario Broth (@MarioBrothBlog) September 1, 2023

You might be asking yourself, “Why would Luigi be as mean as the King of Koopas and the evil counterparts of himself and his brother? He’s just as nice as Mario.”

If you’re an avid Super Mario Bros. fan, you may have noticed that Luigi is always Player 2 to Mario. While he’s one of the best characters in the franchise, he’s more timid than his brother and a big scaredy-cat, which explains his tendency to scream at the sight of ghosts in Luigi’s Mansion. Because of this, people pick on him more frequently. That’s enough to drive anyone mad.

So mad, in fact, Luigi started showing his mean side not only in Mario Superstar Baseball but also in Mario Kart 8. When the latter game released on the Wii U in 2014, the replays showed Luigi giving racers the infamous death stare as he passed them by after throwing shells at them. It was a face worth a thousand memes — and videos with “Ridin’ Dirty” playing in the background.

Let’s hope Luigi plays nice in Super Mario Bros. Wonder when it releases October 20.

Cristina Alexander is a freelance writer for IGN. To paraphrase Calvin Harris, she wears her love for Sonic the Hedgehog on her sleeve like a big deal. Follow her on Twitter @SonicPrincess15.

Starfield is a vast game taking place across multiple stars and systems, and despite its vision of a highly technological future, there are no maps for cities, planets, or interior areas – anywhere. We can tell you where all the good stuff is in our handy Walkthrough, but you might not want to follow a guide page-by-page. That’s what maps are for! While much of the planet surfaces, bases, and spaceships are randomly generated, the core settlements of Starfield, with their many vendors and side quests, are set locations and remain static across all players’ games. We’ve got Starfield settlement maps right here:

• New Atlantis Map – We also have a big breakdown of all the vendors and areas in New Atlantis here.
• Cydonia Map

We are working on maps for Neon, Akila Map, Red Mile, and Paradiso, as well.

As for the rest of the universe, Starfield offers a very neat Starmap in the pause screen that you must use to navigate much of the game, however, it’s not searchable. That’s really annoying when you need to go to, say, Indum III and don’t have a waypoint – this happens a lot. IGN’s map is fully searchable. And if you can’t remember where Cydonia is (it’s on Mars!) and whether it has a Doctor (it does, walk straight down the main corridor then look for doors the lower left side of the landing just before the Face of Mars) you can look that up, too. And see, wouldn’t have that been easier if you just had a map?

• Starfield Interactive Star Map – This is a work-in-progress, so keep an eye on this one for updates.

Note that the star map can be found at the top of the map image, with details of the planetary systems laid out below – we figure this is the best way to show you the wide world(s) of Starfield all at once.

We are also adding some of the Starfield’s collectibles to the map, including Snow Globes and Skill Magazines and Book Locations – but we can only add collectibles that appear in static, non-random locations. So Artifacts, for example, will not be found on this map. We are adding Companions and Crews Members you can recruit as well.

And you can keep track of everything with handy checklists that sync to your IGN account, so be sure to log in.

While this is just one small step for our Starfield map, we hope you come back when we add more: We plan to add weapons, gear, and planetary resources soon.

Samuel Claiborn is IGN’s managing editor and a fixes/breaks ancient arcade and pinball machines in his garage and is close to completing Starfield — a second time. TCELES B HSUP to follow him @Samuel_IGN on Twitter.

Maksym Yanchyi, lead Xbox programmer on Stalker 2, lets out a deep sigh. It’s not the first time Mak, as he’s called by his colleagues, steadies himself before revealing the horrifying difficulties the developers of one of the most anticipated shooters of 2024 face on a daily basis. Right now he’s talking about Russian hackers and their ongoing attempts to breach GSC Game World’s security systems, the constant harassment, and even death threats that have come from the theft of personal information.

“That’s a very bad thing,” he says, downbeat.

GSC Game World’s public relations manager, Zakhar Bocharov remembers one of the company’s first security breaches, which took place in summer 2022 and resulted in the theft of personal information, including mobile phone numbers. Anonymous death threats directed at staff are now commonplace, so much so that the people behind Stalker 2 have somehow got used to them.

“You go to your messenger and it’s like, probably you need to look at something for work, even to check whether everything is okay in terms of your working tasks, and there is someone from an unknown number, like, ‘by the way, you should f***ing die.’ And then you’re looking next for what you need to actually do today,” Bocharov says.

Bocharov won’t go into more detail on these threats, but I can tell there are worse, even more worrying examples he could talk about. Such is life for the developers at GSC Game World, who are trying to build a video game in the middle of a war.

Stalker 2 is on Microsoft’s enormous booth at gamescom 2023. Here, for the first time ever, Stalker 2 is officially hands-on (check out IGN’s Stalker 2 preview for more). The game is rough, but it is real. GSC Game World is back in the spotlight with a message of defiance.

“For us it’s like a fuel now,” Yanchyi says. “Like okay, we have this problem, we’ll solve this problem. And the more problems we had from the start of the full-fledged invasion, from the full-fledged war, the more the team became stronger.”

“We taught ourselves to keep the shield,” Yanchyi continues, raising his arm above his head. “We are caring about each other, we are helping each other to find a new home in Prague or Ukraine. We are constantly Zooming with each other. Like, ‘how are you?’ Just these three words can matter to somebody today. Now we really understand through the experience that nothing can break our team, and we will deliver what we want no matter how many problems we have, because we have ourselves. And that’s the point. That’s everything we need to make what we want to make.”

‘It’s important to share this experience’

When I bring up the war in Ukraine, I see a sadness overwhelm both Yanchyi and Bocharov. But they do not shy away from talking about what’s happening, however painful it is. They know they will be asked about the war in almost every interview they do at gamescom 2023. For them addressing the war and its impact on Stalker 2’s troubled development is a golden opportunity.

“We are not tired of this question because we really think that it is important to share this experience,” Yanchyi says. “We want the world to know about this. And of course it is hard because our families… some of my family live in Ukraine, my parents live in Ukraine, and the same situation is with all my colleagues.

“The feeling that your beloved are in constant danger is pretty harming. It leaves a scar in yourself. It shouldn’t be the experience that any human nowadays should have, any child nowadays should have. But this is our reality: asking our colleagues if they’re alive or not each morning when the shelling starts, and ends.”

Over the course of our interview, Bocharov and Yanchyi tell me distressing details about the conditions under which Stalker 2 is made. So it has been ever since Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, displacing game developers across the country. Some of GSC Gameworld’s developers were forced to abandon the studio’s base in Kyiv and set up 1,400km west in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic. Some of the staff have family still in Ukraine. Some of the staff stayed in Ukraine, or moved to other parts of the country. Of the 360 or so people working at GSC Game World, around 160 are in Ukraine.

“These 160 people,” Bocharov says, “anything can happen to any of them at any moment.”

Some staff, Bocharov tells me, have joined the fight itself. He calls them “our heroes”.

I don’t want to sound too dark, but I don’t want to sugarcoat it either

Bocharov tells me that sometimes, during a Zoom meeting, someone who was down to attend fails to show up on time. They give it a few minutes. After 10 minutes, people start to worry, so they send direct messages. Sometimes there is no answer. A call. No answer. Two, three hours go past. As people start to panic, the person will finally reply to say they are safe, to apologize because they were forced into a bunker after the shelling began, to explain that their phone ran out of battery. People sigh in relief then get on with their work day. The person leaves the bunker and returns to their work, as if nothing happened.

“It’s a stress you get used to because human beings, they tend to adapt, but at the same time it’s adapting to horrific things,” Bocharov says. “Motivation can come from different things, even probably not so bright ones. It can come from anger as well, or from your dedication to show someone what’s your worth, even if they’re making the worst possible conditions.

“So I don’t want to sound too dark, but I don’t want to sugarcoat it either. It’s something unusual happening here. The circumstances are extremely unusual.”

Beyond the emotional scarring, GSC Game World faced a distressing relocation that significantly impacted development of Stalker 2. In January 2022, the studio delayed Stalker 2 to the end of that year to polish the experience. A month later, Russia invaded. The relocation of staff began and work on Stalker 2 was put on hold.

Before the war, GSC Game World used its own motion capture studio in the Kyiv office to help build the game. After deciding to make narrative changes to the game, it had to build a new motion capture studio in the Prague office. Bocharov slams the desk between us with his fist as he recalls the impact the war had on the development of Stalker 2.

“We need a new motion capture studio. We need to build it. When we build it, we need to test it. When we test it, we can do these changes in motion capture. The full-fledged war starts, and we cut off Russian voiceover. Then we decide to dedicate additional time, money, and value to English voiceover. And we decide to hire English speaking actors to do so. We hire them, we need to do the voiceover, we need to have an audio studio, we need to rebuild the audio studio in Prague. We need to start doing it there.

“So we relocated, and it’s a stressful environment, but I can continue working. Some people are trashing us online because of, ‘what about your security measures with all the leaks and stuff like that?’ Basically it’s two different systems now in terms of sharing data between Ukraine and Czech Republic. Your work, it’s much more complicated and you need to protect it at every step. And of course there is much more chance of a security breach when you’re basically separating that between the countries.”

Stalker 2 is a heavily delayed video game. Of course it is. At gamescom 2023 GSC Game World announced another delay, this time to early 2024. Even this new release window feels ambitious. Bocharov says Stalker 2 is now content complete, with a polish period remaining. The studio insists it’s still targeting a level of graphical prowess suggested by Stalker 2’s eye-catching gameplay video released back in 2021. It still believes it can pull this thing off, realise its ambition, show the world what it’s truly capable of. “We are getting there,” Bocharov says, “but there can be certain humps on the way.”

It seems remarkable that GSC Game World has normalised video game development under such circumstances, but for the people at the studio, Stalker 2 is now more than a video game. It is a symbol of Ukrainian defiance in the face of the Russian invasion, something to rally behind, something that tells the world Ukraine is still here, still fighting, still alive.

“After the full-fledged invasion of Ukraine started, working on this project, Stalker 2 Heart of Chernobyl, it became more than working on the project, it became the national product for us, the national idea,” Yanchyi says. “It is what we engineers and artists can do to support Ukraine on the worldwide game development arena, on the entertainment arena, to show the world that Ukraine has lots of talents, lots of professionals, which can bring new experiences to the players. And the main idea is that every Ukrainian now does what he or she or they can do to support Ukraine.

“Some of our heroes are fighting on the battlefields. We have colleagues which are now at the battlefields. And some of us are helping with foundations for the army. And some of us, including myself and my team, we are working hard to deliver this project, which all Ukrainians are waiting, and we want to keep this Ukrainian identity inside the project, for it to tell some of our stories. We are putting our emotions, our hearts into the project.

“So this is more than a business for us. Way more.”

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.

Starfield is finally out and, as you’d expect, there are references to Bethesda Game Studios’ previous projects, most notably The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim.

Bethesda’s space RPG includes at least two references to one of the most iconic lines in Skrim. As reported by VG247, redditor sKinevi1 noted the first reference is a Colonist NPC that states how he used to be an explorer, too, but needs to dive more into details.

The quote refers to the line in Skyrim where guards and soldiers tell a brief yet tragic story of how an arrow in the knee cut their adventurer lives short. At the same time, redditor Mr_Abs725 points out how Starfield’s Level 4 “Crippling” skill shows an arrow in a knee, which can be seen below.

Some other notable references from Bethesda’s previous games include the Adoring Fan (first appearing in Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion) returning as one of the starting optional traits. The Kids Stuff trait gives the player parents who look like the created character, a feature that was previously included in Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 where the father and son’s looks are based on your playable character.

Starfield is out now for players who purchased specific versions of the game, with its full launch happening on September 6. If you started your journey into the Settled Systems yesterday or this coming weekend, check out our guide on the first things you should do when starting, the best traits and backgrounds to pick, and 22 things Starfield doesn’t tell you when you start.

In our 7/10 review, IGN said: “Starfield has a lot of forces working against it, but eventually the allure of its expansive roleplaying quests and respectable combat make its gravitational pull difficult to resist.”

Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

Starfield is now available for those with early access and modders quickly worked to add several missing features including support for Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) tech and an FOV Slider.

At the time of writing, three users on NexusMods have created a mod that adds support for DLSS and Intel’s Xe Super Sampling (XeSS) tech, PureDark, who previously promised to add DLSS support in in addition to LukeFZ and 2077v2.

Another feature missing at launch was a Field of View slider, which is currently not available on the game’s settings on the PC version. Fortunately, several individuals have already added a FOV Sliver into the game, including NexusMods user Hellstorm102.

Our 7/10 review of Starfield said, “Starfield has a lot of forces working against it, but eventually the allure of its expansive roleplaying quests and respectable combat make its gravitational pull difficult to resist.”

Starfield is out now for players who purchased specific versions of the game, with its full launch happening on September 6. If you started your journey into the Settled Systems yesterday or this coming weekend, check out our guide on the first things you should do when starting, the best traits and backgrounds to pick, and 22 things Starfield doesn’t tell you when you start.

Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

Stardew Valley is set to get its very own cookbook which will allow fans to experience the tastes of over 50 recipes from the beloved farming RPG when it releases in spring 2024.

“I would like to announce the upcoming Stardew Valley Cookbook,” read a post on developer ConcernedApe’s X account. “It’ll be out next spring, and includes 50 recipes from the game such as Pink Cake, Salad, and the Strange Bun,” it said.

Food is a cornerstone of Stardew Valley experience. Players hoping to get the most out of the short in game day can replenish energy by consuming the pixelated snacks, while those slogging their way through the sleepy town’s monster-infested mines rely heavily on meals to replenish health lost in combat. It is also part of the social fabric of the game. Recipes for new dishes can be given by grateful NPCs, which in turn can be cooked and given to villages to strengthen the bond between them and the player.

I would like to announce the upcoming Stardew Valley Cookbook! It’ll be out next spring, and includes 50 recipes from the game… such as pink cake, salad, and the strange bun. Cover illustration by @kee_fry pic.twitter.com/ydEtGzqo6G

— ConcernedApe (@ConcernedApe) August 31, 2023

According to the post, and judging by the cover, the Survival Burger, Lucky Lunch, Pink Cake, and the questionable Strange Bun will all likely be featured in the book.

The post announcing the recipe book already has 47,000 likes and almost 10,000 reposts, with many fans taking to the comments to express their excitement at the prospect of discovering the canon tastes of their favourite in-game dishes.

Have always been curious how Sea Cucumber, Tortilla and Jazz taste together! Will definetley buy!

— Mijuki 🌿 (@xMijuki) September 1, 2023

I can’t wait to try out all my favorite Stardew foods! <3

— Katy Papercrafts (@MageCakesRUs) August 31, 2023

I tried making the roots platter, so happy i can follow the canon recipe soon

— Lovisa Morin (@LovisaArt) September 1, 2023

If I eat the lucky lunch will I have +3 luck?

— andrew (@plain_cheeri0s) August 31, 2023

In an updated 2018 review IGN gave Stardew Valley a 9.5/10, describing it as a “beautiful, fun game” that has benefit from several major updates that have helped nurture it “into an even greater farming RPG, with a better base for new players, and plenty of new goals for seasoned farmers”.

Anthony is a freelance contributor covering science and video gaming news for IGN. He has over eight years experience of covering breaking developments in multiple scientific fields and absolutely no time for your shenanigans. Follow him on Twitter @BeardConGamer