A Baldur’s Gate 3 mod removes the role-playing game’s traditional Dungeons & Dragons turn-based combat in favor of more action-orientated real-time battles.
PC Gamer spotted the work-in-progress mod from tinybike on YouTube, and described it as a “very very very rough draft.” It does what it says on the tin though, letting players run into Baldur’s Gate 3 combat and cast spells as quick as their fingers will allow, instead of having to wait their turn.
The video shows tinybike exploring the ruins found early in Act 1 of Baldur’s Gate 3 and immediately being rushed by the agitated enemy who awaits. But they, alongside the handful of other baddies exploring the ruins, are quickly taken down with a selection of speedy spells.
Baldur’s Gate 3 combat can be tricky even with 10 minutes between each move to think about things, of course, so it’s difficult to imagine how real-time combat would work proper, especially for some more strategically driven classes like the Rogue. Regardless, mods will seemingly make it a viable option in the future, so those looking to explore Faerûn without a pause button can seemingly soon do so.
Baldur’s Gate 3 mods have increased in prominence thanks to developer Larian Studios releasing an official toolkit for the game, and this was quickly broken to let players make fully custom maps and more.
In our 10/10 review of the game, IGN said: “With crunchy, tactical RPG combat, a memorable story with complex characters, highly polished cinematic presentation, and a world that always rewards exploration and creativity, Baldur’s Gate 3 is the new high-water mark for CRPGs.”
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
If you’ve played Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, you’ll no doubt remember the Chimera. It’s a hulking, spider-like tank that chases you relentlessly, destroying every piece of the building around you before trapping you in a one-on-one battle. It’s the biggest boss fight in the whole game, and was a monumentally complex sequence for developer CD Projekt Red to create.
So, how was this intricate multistage mission put together? We spoke to multiple developers from across several different departments to find out what the joys and complications were. This is how Phantom Liberty’s Chimera encounter was built, from concept to controller.
The thoroughly elaborate design process for the Chimera started with the most simple of propositions: a big boss battle with a big boss tank. Filippo Ubertino, Cyberpunk’s Senior Concept Designer explains:
“I had a very small brief and it was something like this: we want to do a boss fight that will be a spider tank. Internally, we always refer to it as a spider tank, but in fact it’s not a spider because it has six legs, so it’s not really a spider and it’s not actually a tank because it doesn’t have a crew. So Chimera fits better.
In the beginning, we didn’t have this claustrophobic environment in mind. So we also thought about maybe we could have this tank jumping around, but we decided that we wanted something heavier, something scary in a sense, not like a toy jumping around.”
That desire for heft and weight informed the complete look of the Chimera. It almost evokes kaiju-like monsters, further playing into the metaphor of it destroying the model of Night City’s Dogtown district at the centre of its museum home. It was built to impose itself on both the tight confines of its surroundings and the player, who is tiny by comparison, something Paweł Mielniczuk, Art Director at CDPR, expands upon:
“We thought that it would be perfect [to create] this kind of man versus machine, David versus Goliath moment where we have to, as a single person, fight with something so massive and elaborate and powerful. There were a lot of iterations on even an accomplished model. Changing something, replacing things. Adding range, the capability of rotating faster, moving faster, et cetera. Adding grenade launchers. Eventually also adding the drone compartments, which were not part of the original design, but were needed to add an additional phase of combat in the third stage of the boss fight.”
“We didn’t have a perfect gameplay idea at the beginning,” Ubertino reveals. “So we started with [lots of different ideas;] many legs, high legs, something smaller, something bigger. And when one of those sketches was chosen, we were like, ‘Okay, now we need to block it out.’ So we have very rough 3D models so [the gameplay team] can test it in the level. That one was a little bit more similar to the final one. I tried to keep the shape as similar to that block out, even when I started adding details in 3D and making it more believable, more like a real tank.”
But despite being neither a spider nor a tank in the end, the eagle-eyed among you will be able to spot some aspects of the original design that remain to this day. Something that Ubertino found the perfect way to repurpose.
“If you look at the rear section, there’s quite a big door. At the beginning we didn’t know that we were not going to use a crew, so that door was supposed to be the opening for the crew. But we ended up [making the Chimera] a huge drone essentially, and the door is still there.”
Being an automated machine rather than a crewed vehicle allows the Chimera to move in a more animalistic way. Unhindered by the limitations of humanity, its motions are free to be animated in a way that better reflects its natural world influences, as explained by Cinematic Animation Acting Lead David Cordero Iglesias:
“We were mostly relying on scorpions, beetles, things that have six legs, because it’s very important to pick up the balance on how he’s moving, the volume motion that the Chimera showed through the entire sequence.”
Contributing to that animalistic-yet-mechanical feel is the fact that the Chimera is possessed by a rogue AI from beyond the Blackwall. This ‘cyberspace hell’ and the corruption it inflicts is at the core of Phantom Liberty’s storyline – and would also need to be conveyed in the way the metal monster would be heard. As such, noises were engineered to sound like nothing else – an amalgamation of natural, digital, and demonic worlds. It needed to sound like an overwhelming force eating away at whatever it came into contact with, be that the hulking Chimera or the new central character, Songbird – it’s an audio hellscape she, nor the player, can escape.
“We wanted the Chimera to sound mechanical but not fully robotic”, states Lead Sound Designer Krzysztof Popiel. “We wanted it to be something alive, and robotic growls help a lot with this. As the sequence progresses, the vocalisation of the Chimera changes to almost demonic Blackwall sounds.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by Michał Pukała, Senior Sound Designer: “I think the coolest and the most interesting thing about Blackwall is that it wasn’t supposed to be futuristic. The descriptors I got from both the narrative director and the lead cinematic designers, they were talking about shamanistic sounds, cyber monsters. Essentially you would need to create sounds of cyber hell.”
Further inspirations for the sound of the Blackwall came from other, non-audio departments working on the sequence. This collaboration was made possible thanks to a completely new organisational system, implemented by CD Projekt Red after the release of Cyberpunk 2077. The Spider and the Fly, the mission in which the Chimera appears, was a big test subject for this new way of working. Members of every design department needed to be in constant conversation with one another to ensure that the visual design and animation all worked in concert with the sequence’s gameplay goals.
This sequence is one of the biggest achievements we did in terms of blending gameplay with cinematics.
“It was a bit tricky from our side because it was the first time in the company that we were divided into what is called content teams”, Iglesias recalls. “It’s like a multidisciplinary team based on every discipline that we want to create this sequence. So everyone participated in the design with their own ideas. We have environment artists, we have animators, we have designers, we have gameplay, we have level design, so everything together to create the best approach to this. It was a very, very, very intricate process.
We needed to have this heaviness, this weight, tons of steel chasing you. But at the same time, later we have a boss fight. So we have to balance it out with gameplay that has other requirements, right? Because this sequence, for me, is one of the biggest achievements we did in terms of blending gameplay with cinematics. We tried all the time to mix those two in several intensities during the whole sequence.”
Blending gameplay with cinematics is something that Cyberpunk 2077 does elegantly. CDPR aims to never fully take control away from the player, even when a scripted scene is playing out in front of them. The Chimera sequence is a finely tuned set piece that demanded a tight relationship between the gameplay and cinematics staff. Managing the balance was a task that largely lay in the hands of Cinematic Designer Michał Zbrzeźniak:
“When the tank is rising up for the first time in this room and he’s shooting at you in the middle of his animation, that makes him go to gameplay. So normally you would have a cut, a fade out and fade in, or maybe something will glitch at the transition from gameplay to scene. And in Cyberpunk, especially in this sequence, we always strived to make it invisible.
So actually almost the whole sequence, except for maybe just the fight itself, is actually a cinematic sequence. There are dialogues being played by the characters. There are even contextual animations played on V where she’s covering her face from the missiles. But the soldiers that are on the balconies actually have gameplay behaviour. But we did it in a way [where] the turret’s swipe is so meticulous that they will die anyway. So it’s kind of a risky mix, but it worked out in the end.”
From here, the mission transports you from the wide open museum space to a tight corridor, made even more claustrophobic by the presence of the Chimera hunting you down. It’s a chase sequence built on the principle of knowing when to pick your battles. The tank is too powerful to take down by yourself, and if you try, you’ll learn that the hard way.
“We kind of try to make sure that it’s impossible to fight with it”, Iglesias explains. “There are several fail states that we create along the whole sequence, but I will say 90% of the players run away the first time because it’s too scary.
It was a bit of a challenge to put this gigantic beast inside the corridor because it’s pretty difficult to make him move anywhere. So we decided that he’s destroying everything on his path [as he chases you]. It was the best way to create this horror feeling. [It’s] funny because I animated everything with the Chimera moving forward and destroying everything on his path, and probably 99% of the players don’t look [backward], which is kind of sad for me.”
Running forwards may be a simple enough task for the player, but was far more complex a conundrum for Zbrzeźniak and the cinematics team to solve:
“So the chase part was a challenge in that regard. We had to align the speed of the tank, which wasn’t an easy task to do because it was completely animation-driven. So any change in his movement would require some animation tweaks. [We also had to] align that with how fast the player can go, because the player can be a bit faster or a bit slower [depending on their character build], and for every type of build it still needs to work and it still needs to feel like he’s right on your toes. But he can never catch you if you are actively running from him.
One of the goals in the sequence for us was to foreshadow as much of the stuff the tank is doing as possible. For example, you shouldn’t be close to it. Being close to it means death. He has a turret that is deadly, he has a laser swipe that is also deadly. So then when you actually fight him, you know what a given attack is because we showed it already through the sequence that precedes it.”
Before the big fight, though, comes a long fall. A floor-shattering descent through concrete and metal, this incredibly complicated transition scene posed some of the biggest technical challenges of the whole sequence.
“That fall was kind of my own personal baby, actually”, states Iglesias. “I wanted to create a bigger action sequence instead of just falling. So I took some inspiration actually from some other places. For example, the Uncharted 4 clock tower sequence. You are trying to grab onto everything you find for your life, right? We have these cables, you are on top of the tank again, and you have to jump out [and grab them].
At the same time, to give this scale, I had another inspiration that I like a lot: Gandalf falling with the Balrog from the Bridge of Khazad-dûm [in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers]. So it’s this massive fall, but you are still fighting and you have this behemoth by your side that you are watching fall with you. In the end, trying to achieve this result of an insane action sequence was very, very difficult from an animation point of view.
What we did is we had an incredible [motion capture] stunt team that we recorded for several days and we divided it into several clips. So you have your fallings – everything is recorded actually in motion capture, which looks insane – but everything is recorded from the ground level. Of course, we’re not throwing anyone three floors down. Later we have to cut and clip everything, cut and paste every single bit, so it makes sense.
It was incredible to work with that, but it was kind of a gigantic puzzle to build all these animation clips while at the same time having this Chimera keyframe animated on top of it and trying to sync everything. This was a very close collaboration with cinematic designers to try and nail that timing together with this insane action sequence.
“For the longest time we couldn’t really make it work”, Zbrzeźniak adds. “We needed to be like, ‘This will work eventually, please trust us, we will make it happen’. But there were some tricks that we had to do there. For example, when V is falling down through the air, when you actually would fall [in real life], you would fall much faster. But we had to kind of fake it a bit to achieve a better effect and to also make it readable because in sequences, especially first-person ones, everything that you see is dictated by your perceivable angle of vision. And so we really had to be careful on what we present [to ensure that]the player even understands what’s happening in that sequence. Achieving that wasn’t an easy task and it went through many, many iterations.”
What looks like a simple fall actually turned out to be the most complicated part of the sequence for the cinematics team. Ensuring that the most scripted of events looks reactive is an art they put a lot of time and effort into perfecting.
We try to never take full control from the player for too long. It’s kind of like a rule, like a philosophy of ours.
“Nothing there is procedural”, Zbrzeźniak continues. “Everything needed to be directed by us and put in a very specific, deliberate place. [We had to make sure that the] destruction that is happening [occurs] at the very precise moment when you’re falling through that concrete floor. The smoke needed to go off at the very precise, specific moment. The pieces of debris needed to clear out for you to be able to see where you’re falling. And it needed to be clear that you fall down on the tank and roll off from it. So putting this specific part of the sequence [together] was certainly the most challenging, but also the most fun.”
While this sequence delivers cinematic spectacle in spades, Cyberpunk is a video game, not a movie. As such it’s important that there are still flashes of interactivity through the most scripted of scenes. Not paying attention? Deadly quicktime events will make you pay the price. Zbrzeźniak explains how:
“We try to never take full control from the player for too long. It’s kind of like a rule, like a philosophy of ours. There cannot be [non-interactive] scenes that are too long, basically. And so on top of it being already difficult and containing multiple elements to piece together to work in perfect sync, we also made it so that you can get hit by the turret if you don’t react quickly. If you don’t manage to grab the cables, you will bounce off them. And if you don’t dodge the spider tanks leg, you’ll get crushed by it.
“We wanted to kind of test the streamers a bit. Sometimes during the scenes they just tend to look at the chat, maybe not pay full attention to what’s happening on the screen. And in this case, and actually we witnessed it several times, they just died in the middle of the scene because they weren’t paying attention. That’s exactly what I’m talking about when we talk about scenes in Cyberpunk. You can never really look away. You can never put down your gamepad and just witness the events.”
The biggest challenge for the player was yet to come, however. After landing, the briefest of respites is granted so that you may gain a bearing of your surroundings. Savour those few seconds, though, because it’s the calm before the biggest storm Cyberpunk has to offer. What was previously seemingly indestructible is now weakened, but that doesn’t mean it won’t put up one hell of a boss fight.
The fight itself tasks you with taking on the Chimera and its many, many different weapons. It’s here that the design of the tank and the design of the gameplay scenario all comes full circle, with gameplay influencing visual design and vice versa. It’s something that influenced Mielniczuk and the art team’s ever-evolving iterations:
“In the early pre-production of Phantom Liberty, the combat was supposed to happen on the street level. So we were thinking about ranged combat, larger distances, a big arena. Eventually, in the process of designing the expansion, we decided that it would be all held inside the buildings and, eventually, in the abandoned metro station.
When we ended up with the design of enclosing the whole arena in the interiors, it completely changed the game. So we needed to adjust a few things, but there was a constant negotiation with the gameplay team. In the beginning, I remembered they wanted to have a really fast and agile robot that runs over the ceiling and the walls, and it’s all over the place. We wanted to have something super heavy, static, slow, inspired by Ghost in the Shell. So finding the compromise, it took us quite a time, but we found it.
The arena’s not too big, not too small. Also, the device itself, which is designed to fight on the medium and long range, now has to deal with us, the small opponent, which is walking, running around their feet.”
Through player testing it was discovered that further tweaks to the tank’s design would need to be made. “There are many weapons on that tank and some of them were added very late,” recalls Ubertino. “For example, we found out that being in the middle of the level, if the character goes too close to it, you can keep shooting [with minimal danger]. So we added this [sweeping] beam just to make the player go far away from it.”
For the sound of the laser, Popiel and the sound team conveniently had the perfect reference point. “We had this case of the laser weaponry in the base game, when you were fighting in Royce’s boss fight, and he was using this laser weapon that can sweep the environment. So with the Chimera, we wanted to do it x10. So basically what we went for here is this constant feeling of the threat, but also it needed to give the player information that the laser gun is winding up to give them a chance to hide behind cover and avoid the damage.”
It wasn’t just the Chimera’s weapons that needed to be tweaked over time, though. Its armour also needed redesigning. Ubertino continues:
“Once we had a blockout, I knew that we needed armour, so I started designing the armour and what’s underneath the armour and which places we wanted to be destroyed. We also worked with weak spots and we wanted to reveal them in a sense. We used the Kiroshi eyes [cybernetic ability] to reveal them, so you just need to scan and you see them. So I didn’t really need to make them yellow or too obvious. It would also be kind of stupid for a weapon to show his weak spots. So using the Kiroshi eyes, it’s a fantastic solution.”
It’s another great example of gameplay and art design working in tandem, and it and other similar combinations all build to the fight’s grand finale. After exploiting the Chimera’s weak spots and disabling it in spectacular fashion, it’s time to deal the killing blow. That finisher, involving the tank’s beating mechanical heart, is the perfect example of every department of the content team coming together.
“This whole boss fight is this story arc of the tank first being indestructible, impossible to defeat. And we wanted this feeling to slowly, over the course of the sequence, to shift and make you as a player feel more and more empowered”, Zbrzeźniak explains. “Finally the finisher, we wanted to do this kind of exclamation point after the boss fight to really make the tank go out with a bang. We assumed that you’re going to be struggling with this guy for quite a long time, and we wanted you to really feel good when you finally destroy it.”
“So we have this Chimera core that resembles a heart,” says Iglesias, “and that was kind of a conversation internally because we said, ‘What looks cooler than having heart beating, heart of your enemy in your hand before you finish them off?’ Later it was super cool because with this multidisciplinary content team, we managed to even make it a piece of loot so later you can craft something out of it. So it is just a very cool ending for it.”
“The gameplay guys [told] me kind of late in the production that they wanted something to be used by the player, and I was kind of lucky in that case because I had just the spot for it”, Ubertino recalls. “So yeah, I got lucky there. There’s a cylinder in the top with a hatch that you can open, take the heart, toss it, and destroy it.”
“We wanted the heart to sound consistent with the Chimera’s approach to sound design, where it needs to sound organic and mechanical at the same time”, adds Popiel. “I think there’s a really cool thing when you just open the hatch and you can actually start hearing the heart beating and then once you grab it and rip it off, you can hear it’s basically dying.”
Teamwork, does, in fact, make the dream work. But, in a level full of towering machines, crumbling architecture, and complex scripting, you’d perhaps expect something explosive to be the biggest challenge the team faced. Well, turns out it’s actually all in the much smaller details, Zbrzeźniak tells us:
“The small thing actually was to make Myers’ rifle be attached to her back when it was necessary. You’ will not believe how many issues we had with this one. Sometimes the rifle was going directly through her head. This was probably the biggest issue for us in this entire sequence, the small rifle from Myers.
If you look at our game, there’s never a situation where characters put guns on their back. It just doesn’t happen. But she has a rifle, and since this is a main story [quest], we didn’t want to create this artificiality where the rifle is just disappearing when she’s putting it away. So we had to come up with a method of her putting the rifle on her back and then taking it out again seamlessly. We had it easier at the beginning because Myers had a pistol, not a rifle, so it was simple. She would just hide it in her pants and that’s it, end of story. But no, it was decided that she needs to have a rifle, and the rifle then needs to be a reward for the player. And it created a bit of a complication for us. But it was all fun and games.”
All fun and games, and months and months of hard work. The Chimera encounter is one of the standout moments of Cyberpunk 2077, a complicated beast at the heart of the Phantom Liberty expansion that wouldn’t have come together without all of the different disciplines at CD Projekt Red combining forces tightly. It’s a mission with as much heart put in as is taken out of its central beast, and as cool as the metal panels that shield it.
Simon Cardy might get himself a pair of mantis blades for Christmas. Follow him on Twitter at @CardySimon.
The original Resident Evil 3 hits CD Projekt Red-owned GOG on September 25, 2024.
A post on the platform from GOG itself and publisher Capcom revealed the release comes not long after the original Resident Evil 2 arrived on the platform, much like how the pair of games first launched.
“Capcom’s Resident Evil series has defined and revolutionized the survival horror genre, with the original Resident Evil, Resident Evil 2, and Resident Evil 3 being standout titles that have captivated gamers worldwide,” the post said. “Now, it’s time to complete the trilogy.
“Just like with Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2, we made sure GOG’s version of the third entry in the series is the best it can be. You can expect a variety of quality of life improvements, compatibility with modern systems, full modern controllers support, and even more.”
Here’s what Resident Evil 3 on GOG offers:
Full compatibility with Windows 10 and Windows 11.
6 localizations of the game included (English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese).
Mercenaries Mode included.
Improved DirectX game renderer.
New rendering options (Windowed Mode, Vertical Synchronization Control, Gamma Correction, Integer Scaling and more).
Improved graphics engine initialization and restart.
Improved video subtitles.
Improved options dialog.
Issue-less task switching.
Improved mouse cursor visibility.
Full support for modern controllers (Sony DualSense, Sony DualShock4, Microsoft Xbox Series, Microsoft Xbox One, Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Switch, Logitech F series and many more) with optimal button binding regardless of the hardware and wireless mode.
It’s been 25 years since this hulking monstrosity tried to turn us into a Jill sandwich
GOG announced plans to release all three original Resident Evil games back in June, with the release of Resident Evil 3 completing the venture. Picking up the original Resident Evil 4 and onwards on PC isn’t nearly as complicated as the first three games, which were long absent on the platform, so it’s perhaps unlikely any grandiose announcements will be made about more releases.
Beloved YouTuber Shirley Curry, colloquially known as the Skyrim Grandma, has announced her retirement from making gameplay videos after doing so for nine years.
A YouTube video announcing her retirement aged 88 has an appropriate 8,800 upvotes on Reddit, where fans of her content thanked her for making videos for so many years and crossed their fingers for a return when The Elder Scrolls 6 finally comes out.
Curry said she won’t be making gameplay videos anymore simply because she no longer enjoys it, but isn’t quitting YouTube altogether. She’ll continue posting vlogs once in a while and may occasionally do reading videos of the books in Skyrim or even her own stories.
“I’m just doing it for fun and it isn’t fun anymore,” Curry said. “I’m tired of it. I’m bored with it. I’m bored to death with it. So I am making the decision now, totally, finally. I am not going to be making any more game videos and uploading them.”
With her new free time, Curry is going to make a quilt, read some more, and maybe even write a book. And she’ll make vlogs about all of the above.
Whether or not she returns to making gameplay videos when The Elder Scrolls 6 comes out remains to been, but Curry’s legacy with the franchise is already immortalised. Having amassed more than a million subscribers, she has long since gained recignition from other members of the Skyrim community and even developer Bethesda itself.
Fans petitioned to have Curry immortalised in the next game back in 2018, and Bethesda eventually responded and, as reported by Eurogamer, announced she would get her own NPC character in the highly anticipated game.
These deals just scratch the surface of what’s out there, though. Whether you play on PS5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, or PC, you’ll find the very best deals listed below. And if you’ve taken advantage of lots of these deals, see our roundup of game storage ideas.
Best Xbox Game Pass Deals
One of our favorite Xbox Game Pass Ultimate deals has returned at Woot, providing another opportunity for users to stack their membership at a discounted rate. You can get three months of the service for just $36.49, which is a great price on its own, but by using the code ‘ULTIMATE‘ at checkout you can knock off an extra $3 to bring it to $33.49. This price won’t stick around for long, so act fast to secure your membership.
Nintendo Switch Mario Kart 8 Holiday Bundles Are Live
Black Friday has arrived a little early for Nintendo fans. For the past few years, Switch holiday bundles with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe have dropped during the holiday sale event. If you’ve been itching to pick up one of these bundles, you thankfully don’t need to wait until November as the Standard and brand new OLED bundle are already live at Best Buy! With these bundles, you’re essentially getting the game for free, which is totally worth it.
Best PC Game Deals
There are plenty of excellent deals for PC players to enjoy right now, including a discount on the biggest single-player game of the year, Black Myth: Wukong, and a discount on the newly released Space Marine 2. You can also score a fantastic deal at Fanatical right now on Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree expansion. There’s truly no better time to journey to the Realm of Shadow. You can check out even more of our favorite PC game deals below.
Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 8 RTX 4080 SUPER PC for $1999
Do you prefer to play on a dedicated PC tower? Navigating the options online can be quite the ordeal. Desk space, portability, and price point are often factors in the decision. However, there are some great PC deals that pop up every now and again that are worth jumping on. One of our favorite deals at the moment is on thisLenovo Legion 7i Gen 8 RTX 4080 SUPER PC for $1999 (with code ‘CRAZYLEGION2‘). To see even more PC deals, check out our roundup of the best gaming PC deals.
Our Favorite Micro SD Cards for Switch and Steam Deck Are On Sale
The best Switch SD card should be fast, reliable, and as future-proof as possible. That last one is important, especially with the Switch successor on the horizon. Therefore, you’re going to want to opt for the latest in SD card tech, which is a micro SDXC UHS-I U3 A2 V30 memory card. That’s a lot of random letters, so to save you a bit of time we’ve left our top suggestions and deals just above and below for your convenience (like this excellent deal on a Lexar 1TB PLAY microSDXC Memory Card for $74.99). To see even more SD card deals, make sure to check out our roundup of the best SD card deals.
More Switch Micro SD Card Deals
Perfect PS5 2TB SSD with Heatsink for $139.99
SSD prices have been rising in 2024 but, with significant discounts available, now is the perfect time to buy. This is one of the best deals on a 2TB SSD at the moment: You can score the 2TB Seagate FireCuda 530R PS5 SSD with Heatsink for $139.99 at Amazon and Best Buy. This deal isn’t the only one worth checking out right now, either. You can see even more of our favorite SSD deals below.
Best Power Bank Deals
Looking for a new power bank? This incredible deal on the Anker PowerCore 737 is absolutely worth checking out. Featuring a spacious 24,000mAh capacity and a hefty 140W charging output, it’s a fantastic pick for your Nintendo Switch. We also featured it in our list of the best power banks for 2024, so it’s well worth investing in.
Save on Select Xbox Controllers
There are a few Xbox controller deals that are worth taking advantage of right now. At Amazon, you can save on a variety of different color controllers (including Shock Blue, Robot White, Velocity Green, and Pulse Red), which are down to $44. While not as low as they were during the two-day Prime Day sale event, they’re still worth picking up at these prices. Check those deals out and more at the links below.
The price for the PlayStation 30th Anniversary PS5 Slim bundle as well as the PlayStation 30th Anniversary DualSense controller have reportedly been revealed.
In an article on Dealabs, reliable PlayStation leaker billbil-kun said the limited edition PS5 Slim console bundle will cost $499.99. Billbil-kun estimated that the bundle will cost around €519.99 and £449.99 in Europe.
The DualSense 30th Anniversary controller, meanwhile, costs $79.99, which is the same price as the recently released DualSense Astro Bot controller. Billbil-kun estimates the price of this controller in Europe is €79.99 and £69.99.
Last week, Sony announced new limited editions of the PS5 and the PS5 Pro that in design terms are reminiscent of the very first PlayStation console to launch on December 3, 1994. This limited edition offering utilizes the original PlayStation color design and integrates it into the latest line of PS5 hardware products. Sony warned the PlayStation 30th Anniversary Collection will be sold in “highly limited supply.”
The PlayStation 5 Digital Edition – 30th Anniversary Limited Edition Bundle includes the limited edition PS5 Digital Edition console with 1TD SSD and matching limited edition accessories – DualSense wireless controller and a Console Cover for a Disc Drive (the Disc Drive is sold separately). It also includes a Vertical Stand and the following special collector’s items:
Original PlayStation controller-style cable connector housing
Four PlayStation Shapes cable ties
PlayStation sticker
Limited Edition PlayStation Poster (1 of 30 possible designs)
PlayStation Paperclip
Billbil-kun does not have pricing information for the PlayStation 5 Pro Console – 30th Anniversary Limited Edition BundIe, the PlayStation Portal Remote Player – 30th Anniversary Limited Edition, or the DualSense Edge Wireless Controller – 30th Anniversary Limited Edition. They said to expect a final price on September 26, when pre-orders open on PlayStation Direct. Sony has yet to officially announce any pricing.
The PlayStation 30th Anniversary Collection will be released on November 21. There will be 12,300 units of the PlayStation 5 Pro Console – 30th Anniversary Limited Edition Bundle available, with limited edition numbers etched onto the unit. The number represents the month and date of the first PlayStation console launch.
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.
Speaking exclusively to IGN as part of a sweeping post-launch interview just over two weeks after Space Marine 2’s record-breaking launch, Saber Interactive Chief Creative Officer Tim Willits said the success of the game would even positively affect its future projects.
While neither Saber nor publisher Focus Entertainment have announced a sales figure for Space Marine 2, Focus has confirmed over two million played at launch. In fact, Space Marine 2 is the most-played Warhammer video game of any type ever released on Steam, with 225,690 peak concurrent players on Valve’s platform.
Willits won’t go into hard numbers for Space Marine 2’s success, either in revenue or profit terms, but did tell IGN that the budget for the game was less than half that of Doom Eternal, the last game he was id Software studio director on before leaving to join Saber in 2019. The suggestion here, of course, is that Space Marine 2, which launched priced $59.99 on Steam and $69.99 on console, has already provided a highly profitable endeavor for all involved.
While Space Marine 2 leans on the power of Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000 brand, its back-to-basics approach to the action genre and eye-catching alien swarm tech that puts hundreds of Tyranid creatures on-screen at once has wowed critics and gamers. Just shy of three weeks from release, Willits is hopeful Space Marine 2 will end up seeing the sort of player numbers Saber’s co-op zombie shooter World War Z has. World War Z, whose zombie swarm tech was used as the basis of Space Marine 2’s Tyranid swarm tech, has seen 25 million players since going on sale in 2019.
“With Space Marine 2, it really does change everything,” Willits said. “During our company party, I gave a little 30-second speech and I told the whole team, this changes everything we do moving forward, from our small games like our third-party publishing games, to A Quiet Place next month. We have Toxic Command coming up with Focus soon. Everything that we do now, this changes.
“And as employees, and I know this firsthand, when you have a big hit and you have that internet kind of popularity, there’s more passion and there’s more responsibility for the quality that you do. And you look at yourself through a different lens. And sometimes that success lens can be a little dangerous because then you get so paranoid about making sure everything is great that you overstress about things, but it’s that success lens that really drives amazing games into the future. So I do believe that through the success lens that we have, we will just make far better products in the future.”
In practical terms, the success of Space Marine 2 means Saber staff can now “dream bigger,” Willits said. Saber will make good on its original post-launch plan, which involves new missions, modes, maps, enemies, and weapons, but it will also make “adjustments” fueled by Space Marine 2’s now confirmed success — once the dust settles.
There is now the possibility of story DLC, Willits confirmed, with ideas floating around for a potential Space Marine 3. Without spoiling the Space Marine 2 campaign, it strongly suggests a continuation (IGN has reported on the probably new enemy faction we’ll see in Space Marine 3), and given the success of the game, this is now a case of when, not if.
“Our game director Dmitry Grigorenko, he has proposed some story ideas that could either be DLC or a sequel,” Willits said. “We’re literally just catching our breath. This is two weeks out. We just need to get the dust to settle. But I can confidently say that we will not disappoint our Warhammer fans in the future. It’s too big of a success! I know that’s an obvious thing to say, but hopefully we’ll be working on Space Marine content for a long time.”
For Space Marine 3, Willits said, Saber would need to work with publisher Focus as well as Games Workshop once again. “We just have to figure it out. I would love to do it, yes,” he continued. “Yes, yes, yes! There’s so many different factions… there are other chapters, too, that are interesting…”
In the shorter term, Saber is working on adding new classes, which will be released for free and, hopefully, will add some variety to Space Marine 2’s gameplay. Willits wouldn’t be drawn on which classes are coming, though fans are hopeful for a Chaplain or an Apothecary. The post-launch plan, though, is informed by the continued success of World War Z, which has retained a loyal player base through the release of new and free classes in the years since launch.
“One of the reasons why we got 25 million people in World War Z is because every time we release a new DLC pack or a free class and we had a sale, people buy it. We literally see a spike,” Willits said. “We put out a video promoting a new character pack, we see a spike in sales. So it just drives attention and drives awareness.
“There’s always one guy that says, ‘guys, come on, there’s new stuff coming up.’ And then, ‘okay,’ so three other people are like, ‘it’s only five bucks, let’s buy it.’ And so you get this kind of group FOMO thing going on that really helps. And we had so much success with that model. That’s what we’ll do.”
We are focused on development. We look forward to sharing more when the time is right. There you go, brother.
Saber is already thinking about its other announced games in development as it continues to shift staff from projects ramping down to projects ramping up. Willits has already mentioned A Quiet Place The Road Ahead, a video game based on the hit horror movie franchise it’s publishing next month, and John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando, another co-op focused shooter that makes use of Saber’s swarm tech. With Space Marine 2 out the door, expect to hear more on Toxic Commando soon.
Then, there’s Jurassic Park Survival, a single-player action adventure game set on Isla Nublar the day after the events of the beloved 1993 Jurassic Park film. There’s no release date on that one. And, further ahead, the big one: Saber’s troubled Star Wars The Knights of the Old Republic remake, which the company continues to insist is in development.
When asked if the success of Space Marine 2 had increased the likelihood of KOTOR becoming a reality, Willits, expecting to be asked about the MIA remake, turned to a prepared statement:
“Right now, we are focused on development. We look forward to sharing more when the time is right. There you go, brother.”
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.
PlayStation’s classics are finally getting the love they deserve! @pushsquare dives into how PS Plus Premium is reviving forgotten gems just in time for the brand’s 30th anniversary.
“Like, why would anyone play this?” This flippant, out of context quote from former PlayStation bigwig Jim Ryan followed him everywhere. The executive had been speaking at a Gran Turismo event, where the latest in the series at the time, Gran Turismo Sport on the PS4, was being demoed alongside the PlayStation originals. “The PS1 and PS2 games look ancient,” he exclaimed. “Like, why would anyone play this?”
As frustration among PlayStation fans grew, these off-the-cuff remarks from Ryan took on a life of their own: many assumed Sony, under his leadership, hated its legacy. The executive later clarified in an interview with Axios Gaming that he “wasn’t trying to be disrespectful of our heritage”. He explained: “I guess my big learning from all of this is when [Gran Turismo creator] Kazunori Yamauchi unveils his next game side-by-side with its history, I will keep my mouth shut.”
But actions speak louder than words and many fans have been waiting for Sony to actually do something with its back catalogue that proves it cares about the games from its past. I believe, while far from perfect, PS Plus Premium is quietly amassing a catalogue of deep cuts from PlayStation’s history that fans absolutely should be paying attention to. And as nostalgia builds ahead of the brand’s 30th anniversary – with that sumptuous collection of new PS5 hardware available to pre-order soon – it’s something that both long-time fans and newcomers should be paying attention to.
For example, this week saw the release of Mister Mosquito on PS5 and PS4, a largely forgotten 2001 title from Japanese developer Zoom which encapsulates everything great about PlayStation first-party in the PS2 era. As its name implies, this game sees you buzzing around the unsuspecting Yamada family’s home, drawing blood without arousing suspicion in some of the zaniest gameplay you’re likely to find on any format today. The original was brought overseas by Eidos under license from Sony, but is reproduced with Trophies and various quality of life features here.
While there’s clearly more Sony could be doing here, I really appreciate how many games are being given a new lease of life with the inclusion of Trophies.
Many games are also making their European debuts as part of Sony’s hushed retro push. Earlier in the year, Level-5’s legendary PSP tactics game Jeanne d’Arc launched into PS Plus Premium, marking the first time it’s been officially available outside of Japan and North America; Sony famously passed on publishing the game in Europe, despite its story being loosely inspired by Joan of Arc and the Hundred Years’ War in the 15th Century. Similarly, cult PS2 aerial combat game Sky Gunner was ported to the PS5 and PS4 this week, marking another European debut.
While there’s clearly more Sony could be doing here, with its official emulator in particular lacking the upscaling capabilities of third-party rivals, I really appreciate how many games are being given a new lease of life with the inclusion of Trophies. The fan favourite PS2 TimeSplitters trilogy was updated this week to incorporate Platinums, and for many this is all the incentive needed to revisit old favourites. Iconic PS1 games like G-Police, Jumping Flash!, and Intelligent Qube all come with a list of achievements to unlock as well.
Even lesser known instalments from classic PlayStation properties are getting a second shot in the spotlight; I wouldn’t exactly recommend spin-offs like Secret Agent Clank and Jak & Daxter: The Lost Frontier over their mainline counterparts, but I like that they exist in an easily accessible form on modern hardware. The real goal for Sony will be to ensure the original trilogies accompany them; you can play all of the Jak & Daxter games with Trophies on the PS5 and PS4, but we’re still awaiting the original Ratchet & Clank releases.
While I suppose I could criticise Sony for dragging its heels, I’d rather it do that than nothing at all. The catalogue of PlayStation classics on PS Plus Premium is growing, with many available a la carte on the PS Store if you don’t want to pay out for the pricey subscription. The emulation could admittedly be better, and the software could be coming quicker – but quietly the Japanese giant is embracing its heritage and making it available for veterans and newcomers alike.
If you’re thinking, “Like, why would anyone play this?”, it’s because, as we approach PlayStation’s all-important 30th anniversary, there’s a lot of love for its back catalogue. And gradually, month by month, Sony is actually beginning to acknowledge that.
Sammy Barker is the Editor of Push Square. He’s been living and breathing the wonderful world of PlayStation for decades now – and has the tattoos to prove it. You can find him on @_get2sammyb.
Comic-style art appears across video games and board games. In the 1980s, my childhood was filled with several of these stylized games that integrated comic characters into their gameplay. While Steve Jackson’s cartoonish dungeon crawler Munchkin wasn’t around back then, it is certainly a game I find myself returning to for nostalgia and silliness here and there.
Munchkin is a cartoon foray into a dungeon featuring a cast of characters from fantasy and reality. The card game is filled with comical art and often witty banter that will have you laughing and probably rolling your eyes at some of the dad jokes.
Munchkin Gameplay
Gameplay for Munchkin is fairly quick and simple. You start as an ordinary human with a few cards in your initial arsenal of goodies. The cards in your hand, along with others you’ll pick up as you play, help you navigate 10 floors of a dungeon by giving you attributes of a specific class and arming you to fight the monsters you’ll encounter. You’ll employ various zany antics and characteristics against formidable foes as you compete against other players, kicking in doors to fight monsters and gaining loot to increase your power throughout the dungeon run. Which player will reign victoriously in the end? The journey is yours to discover in Munchkin.
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Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to battle your way through the dungeon and get to level 10 before your counterparts. Kick in the door and start fighting across plenty of different versions of comical shenanigans.
Munchkin (Core Game)
MSRP: $29.95 USD
3-6 Players (best with 3)
60-120 minutes
Ages 10+
The base card game of Munchkin is a fantasy dungeon crawler that incorporates the types of characters that you might expect to help you along your quest. It also has a few that you might not expect, with fantasy monsters that go beyond dragons to plants and even lawyers.
Munchkin Expansions
While Munchkin has a considerable number of expansions, there are five that pair with any base game.
Munchkin 2 – Unnatural Axe
Contents: 112 more cards, including orc race, new armor, allies, new weapons
MSRP: $19.95 USD
3-6 Players (best with 3)
60-120 minutes
Ages 10+
This expansion can be played with the original base game as well as Munchkin Conan or Munchkin Pathfinder. Unnatural Axe adds the orc race to the game, as well as new armor, new allies, and some zany new weapons.
Munchkin 3 – Clerical Errors
Contents: 112 cards, including bards, gnomes, new monsters, new armor, five comic artist-created expansion exclusive special items
MSRP: $24.95 USD
3-6 Players (best with 3)
60-120 minutes
Ages 10+
Clerical Errors adds gnomes as a playable race. It also adds my personal favorite of an archetype class – bards. There is new armor. There are new monsters. There are also five uniquely designed items, each designed by comic artists.
Munchkin 4 – The Need For Steed
Contents: 112 cards, including 30 new kingdom cards featuring new elements
MSRP: $16.26 USD
3-6 Players (best with 3)
60-120 minutes
What fantasy game would be complete without trusty steeds to bring us to victory or defeat? The Need for Steed expansion adds dragons, tigers, giant mutant gerbils, chickens, and… Big Joe? Yeah, Big Joe might be a steed, or he might be a hireling. Use these steeds to help you to get to level 10 before your friends do.
Munchkin 5 – DeRanged
Contents: 112 cards, including ranger class, new monsters, new armor, and new weapons
MSRP: $19.90 USD
3-6 Players (best with 3)
60-120 minutes
Ages 10+
Ah, rangers. They’re either beloved or the butt of a joke in fantasy games. In Munchkin, they’re a little bit of both. Rangers can tame monsters and ride them to escape new monsters like the treacherous Telemarketer, Poultrygeist, or Undead Clowns.
Munchkin 6 – Double Dungeons
Contents: 112 cards, including 40 dungeons
MSRP: $19.99 USD
3-6 Players (best with 3)
60-120 minutes
Ages 10+
This expansion brings 40 new dungeons to life and 32 portals to get to and from each one. Each dungeon has different rules and variations to change up the experience. This expansion will open up the possibilities of where you can go and the monsters you will run into immensely. Proceed with caution.
Other Versions of Munchkin
There are 14 other versions of Munchkin to play. Like Fluxx, they are separated by theme. Pick a favorite and go from there. Below are four of my personal picks to consider.
Munchkin Cthulhu
Contents: 168 cards (including new dungeons) rules, and one six-sided die
MSRP: $29.95 USD
3-6 Players (best with 3)
60-120 minutes
Ages 10+
Lovecraft lore fans will appreciate the Cthulhu spin on the game. There are also three available expansions for it to add to the cartoony horror spin on the Lovecraft Mythos universe. Those expansions are Cthulhu Sanity Check, The Unspeakable Vault, and Crazed Caverns.
Super Munchkin
Contents: 168 cards (including new dungeons) rules, and one six-sided die
MSRP: $29.95 USD
3-8 Players (best with 3)
60-120 minutes
Ages 10+
Yes, Munchkin has comic art in the game, but this version includes superheroes. Comic book lovers will likely want to see how Munchkins can become superheroes and villains. There’s also one expansion available for this version called The Narrow S Cape.
Munchkin Steampunk
Contents: 168 cards (including new dungeons) rules, and one six-sided die
MSRP: $24.17 USD
3-6 Players (best with 3)
60-120 minutes
Ages 10+
The Steampunk version of Munchkin was done by a comic artist who did the Steampunk comic called Girl Genius. Each of the classes in this steampunk spin is unique to this version.
Munchkin Zombies
Contents: 168 cards (including new dungeons) rules, and one six-sided die
MSRP: $27.49 USD
3-6 Players (best with 3)
60-120 minutes
Ages 10+
In most zombie spins of games, it’s you versus the zombies. The fun thing about this version is that you are the zombies in Munchkin Zombies, and your enemies are the human race. Several different expansions can be added to this one. Four of those expansions (Armed and Dangerous, Hideous Hideouts, Spare Parts, and Grave Mistakes) add additional cards. One adds Zombie Dice.
How to Play Munchkin Online
Dire Wolf Digital (makers of Clank!) created the digital version of Munchkin, which is available on Steam for $14.99.
While this version doesn’t come from the same team as the original, it’s a highly enjoyable game at the base level that plays well digitally. You can play against friends who also have a copy of the game or against the AI. Games outside of the tutorial can be played with 3-6 players. A single player can choose to go against two or more AI or combinations of AI and human players on the same machine or online.
One of the key differences between the digital version and the physical version is that you can choose to play without gender-connected items. In the original versions, gendered items (only two different ones in these games, which do not acknowledge the gender spectrum) are a big part of the game.
Currently, the Steam version is the only way to play Munchkin digitally. There was talk about it being a mod on Tabletop Simulator, but comments on the Steam community regarding things allude to potential licensing issues. A 2014 forum post on the Steve Jackson Game website also noted, “Our policy has been consistent and clear: people who want to create digital versions of our games must obtain a license to do so. I’m sorry that you feel this is disrespectful to our fans and customers. We feel exactly as disrespected by people who use our content without our permission.”
That said, I found the digital version to be worth playing. It also has an expansion called Unnatural Axe for an additional $4.99, which requires the base game.
Bottom Line
Munchkin offers some cartoonish art often paired with witty and zany adversaries. In several ways, I’ve found myself enjoying the game. I know several friends who enjoy it for the most part as well. However, as I’ve aged and the years have passed, I’ve found that the game misses the mark in some ways, particularly at the expense of others where it shouldn’t. This seems also to be the case for others on Board Game Geek, as the current rating is only 5.9.
Gendered items and character designs can take away the enjoyment of some players. I liked how the digital version allowed me to step away from that a bit if I wanted. I wish other physical game versions did. The zany objects and fantastically witty text could be much better with more inclusivity.
Jennifer Stavros is a contributing freelancer for IGN, covering everything from comics, games, technology, and nerd culture. Follow her on Twitter or watch her on Twitch under the handle @scandalous.
Rayman’s limbless brand of anarchic puzzle-platforming has been delighting fans since 1995, with five main video games and a number of spin-offs, across multiple systems. But one play Rayman has yet to save from the forces of evil is your tabletop. Now that’s about to change thanks to the upcoming Rayman: The Board Game (see it on Kickstarter), a collaboration between Ubisoft and Flyos games on the one hand, and three designers on the other: Maxime Tardif, creator of critically acclaimed, best-selling title Earth, one of our picks for the best strategy board games, alongside Gary Paitre and Thomas Filippi of Flyos.
What unites the trio is a love for the source material. “We really wanted to see our favorite eggplant hero back in action,” laughs Filippi. “The games are all about having fun, a bit of chaos, and some friendly competition, and we felt that vibe would be perfect for a board game setting.” The resulting board game has been designed to be playable by all ages, and includes solo and cooperative modes and different difficult levels alongside the head-to-head competition you’d expect.
Having a family-friendly vibe was important to the developers, not least because they have children of their own. “When I play with my young daughters, I usually stick to with the rookie and intermediate modes,” Filippi reveals. “But when I face team members, we can play more aggressively.” He also feels that it’s one way in which the game channels the essence of its source material. “Rayman is a positive character, always smiling, making him perfect for younger players,” he continues. “The humor, the smooth action, and those imaginative worlds, all of it adds up to something special.”
With so many different video games to draw on, the team decided to blend the two most contemporary titles to form the basis for their game, but one of them took the fore. “Rayman Legends felt like a natural fit as it’s the most recent game in the series,” explains co-designer Gary Paitre. “And honestly, we wanted to include Barbara! She’s got such a cool vibe. The musical levels, in which you run in rhythm while making quick and sharp decisions, was also a big source of inspiration. However, some elements from Rayman Origins are also included, such as missiles.” These zip around the board, providing dangerous dynamic hazards that the players must avoid.
Rayman Legends felt like a natural fit as it’s the most recent game in the series
Besides Rayman himself, the two other characters featured in the game are Globox and Murfy. Each has a miniature figure to use on the board, but in the basic game they’re mechanically the same, each having an identical deck of action cards that lets them run, jump and glide around the board, slapping enemies, and avoiding obstacles, just like in the computer games. Keeping all the basic decks the same was a deliberate design choice. “In the video game, each hero has the same set of actions,” Paitre points out. “What makes your adventure unique is how you choose to apply those actions.”
As players gain confidence, however, they can make their chosen character more unique by including special ability cards keyed to each personality. “It’s a little light asymmetry, to add some variety,” says Filippi. Paitre fills in the details. “They let you choose which actions you prefer,” he explains. “You can have more initiative, or focus on slapping. They help make every game different, and we’ve tried to ensure that no hero is stronger than another.”
With all the attention paid to tying in the board game to its source material, fans might be surprised to discover that Rayman The Board Game is a race game. This seems rather different from the standard platforming levels in Rayman Legends, but there’s a good reason. “It’s inspired by the time-trial runs from the video games,” says Filippi. “We wanted that same feeling of intensity and quick thinking in the board game. It’s not just about getting from point A to B fast; it’s about making smart moves, keeping an eye on what everyone else is doing, and maybe throwing a wrench in their plans. We wanted each playthrough to have that unpredictable, ‘anything can happen’ feel that makes Rayman games so fun.” There are still Teensies, Rayman’s magical friends, to save along the way, and you’ll need to have rescued three of them to take the win.
During each turn, players secretly select a pair of action cards for that round, which are added together to give a total value of in-game moves like jumping and slapping. These tie into the features on the racetrack, so you’ll need to jump to gain access to platforms, slap enemies in your path and glide over gaps and there are multiple paths around each board that you’ll need to assess strategically to gain an edge. The cards you chose are discarded and, to get them back, you need to take a “bubble” action, skipping a turn and falling behind in the race in exchange for temporary immunity and the chance to pick up and re-use your discards.
Fans might be surprised to discover that Rayman The Board Game is a race game.
Getting this right is a surprisingly cerebral and challenging task: almost every card selection will see you wasting actions or falling short in some way of what you actually want to do. The tactics are in optimizing your available cards to the track before you. Doing so can cause players a bit of analysis paralysis as they work through the options, which gives the game plenty of depth but isn’t necessarily a close fit for the frenetic pace of parts of the original video games, something that’s true of a lot of video-to-board game adaptations.
Filippi acknowledges that this was a challenge for the team. “We wanted to keep that feeling of intensity but also add some depth that you can only get in a tabletop setting,” he says. But he feels they got the balance right. “You still have those moments of quick action, but mixed with the need to think ahead, which is just like navigating a tricky platform level. You have to plan your moves, and figure out when to go all out or when to hold back.” And he thinks there’s a payoff for introducing more analytical elements, too. “It offers that same sense of accomplishment when you pull off a great move or outsmart your friends.”
Bringing in third designer Maxime Tardiff to work on the game was, in part, an attempt to meet that challenge. “At first, Gary and I wanted to make that game ourselves,” Filippi continues. “But we decided to bring an experienced designer to the table. He was a perfect match, passionate, smart and accessible. His input was crucial for refining the action decks, the level structures and the solo and cooperative mode. He pushed us to elevate and balance the gameplay even further, like integrating the asymmetric elements.”
Flyos have worked on a race game before, 2017’s Kiwetin in which the players chase each other through a fantasy forest. It has similarities to Rayman: The Board Game, with players collecting action tiles to speed them on their way, but they’re largely superficial. Movement in Kiwetin is dice-based, for example, whereas in Rayman it’s totally down to the player’s decisions. Nevertheless, they learned a lot of lessons from developing and producing it that they were able to apply to their latest project. “It was our first crack at both board games and crowdfunding, and it taught us a lot about balance and keeping things replayable,” Patire explains”
There were, however, lots of other board games the team did draw on in their quest to bring Rayman to the tabletop. One was popular, family-friend car-racing game Heat. “It gave us a great feel for how to make a fast-paced racing game exciting with its immediate reveal phase,” Paitre explains. Their other major influence was a little more unexpected: dungeon-crawling campaign behemoth Gloomhaven. “That helped us think about depth in cooperative gameplay,” he continues. “Playing two cards at once from your hand and improvising a new plan last second is a feature, not a bug,” he laughs. “But we didn’t just copy those games, it’s about mixing the best elements of what we love to create something that feels like Rayman.”
While the game is currently in a fully playable state, Filippi admits that, like a lot of crowd-funded games, there’s still a bit of work to do to fully realize its potential. “The balancing isn’t fully finalized yet but, so far, the winning player is never too far ahead of the last, which keeps the excitement high until the end,” he says. Talking to them both, it’s a delight to see how committed they are to the source material, and how proud they are of the opportunity to bring it to the table. “Seeing it come to life is truly a dream come true,” Filippi beams. Rayman fans all over the world will soon be able to judge for themselves how well that dream has been translated into reality.
