Square Enix has asked Final Fantasy 14 players not to spoil the highly anticipated Dawntrail expansion upon its early access launch on June 28, 2024.
A blog post from Square Enix outlined the early access period, which begins at 2am Pacific / 5am Eastern / 10am UK and is available to anyone who preorders Dawntrail, but closed with a message asking players to be considerate to those waiting for the full launch.
“During the early access period, there will be no restrictions on what content you can discuss, post, or stream while following the Material Usage License Agreement,” Square Enix said, making clear spoilers will be out in the wild.
“However, we ask that early access users please be considerate and do their best to avoid posting spoiler-related content as there are those players who may start at the official launch or play at their own pace.”
That was a reference to Shadow of the Erdtree, which came out on June 21. “We figured everybody would be interested in playing the Elden Ring DLC… I’ll give you one week!”
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
One of the developers of Steam and Xbox hit Palworld has teased the release of a PlayStation version.
Pocketpair community chief Bucky tweeted adding blue-colored hearts to Palworld’s existing black (PC), green (Xbox), and white (Mac) hearts. Blue is, of course, the color of PlayStation branding. With this context, a PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 release now seems likely.
🖤💚🤍Palworld🤍💚🖤
I want to add more hearts, but not sure what colour would fit…hmm…how about….
Player numbers have tailed off in the last half year, but the addition of a PS5 version would certainly provide Palworld with a shot in the arm. Whether Nintendo would greenlight a release on Switch is another matter entirely, of course.
Meanwhile, Palworld gets a major new update this week, called Sakurajima. It increases the level cap, adds new Pals, a new raid, a new faction and boss, and a whole new island. This update also comes with Xbox-dedicated servers, something the game had conspicuously lacked up to this point.
IGN’s Palworld early access review returned an 8/10. We said: “Palworld may crib quite a bit from Pokémon’s homework, but deep survival mechanics and a hilarious attitude make it hard to put down – even in early access.”
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.
It’s been a bruising weekend for many Shadow of the Erdtree players. The DLC’s extreme — and intended – difficulty has sparked a debate about the rights and wrongs of developer FromSoftware’s approach with this Elden Ring expansion. But now that debate has spilled over into Steam user reviews, which currently have a ‘mixed’ rating after a flood of complaints about the rock hard bosses as well as PC performance issues.
Ahead of Shadow of the Erdtree’s release, director Hidetaka Miyazaki signaled the DLC would significantly test players’ abilities. “The new challenges for the player are going to be the boss encounters as well as the different kinds of threats that the world will impose on people,” Miyazaki told CNET. Some of these bosses are aimed at players who’ve completed most of the base Elden Ring, meaning FromSoftware has “kind of really pushed the envelope in terms of what we think can be withstood by the player,” he added.
And so it has proved. Over the weekend, players began to complain about the extreme difficulty with bosses and performance issues. “As a huge fan of all soulgames, I would love to like the DLC, but the enemies’ damages are completely overtuned, especially for some bosses,” reads one negative review. “Some have a completely erratic moveset rendering the whole experience just painful without any fun.”
Some have a completely erratic moveset rendering the whole experience just painful without any fun.
“Good DLC, but performance has gone down as of the latest update,” reads another negative review, this time focused on the PC performance problems. “Constant micro-stuttering and frame drops, freezes as well as increases in loading times make it difficult to enjoy and play the game. One of the early boss fights takes place around a puddle of water, which drops frames considerably. Wait for performance improvements before buying.”
Meanwhile, the Shadow of the Erdtree review bombing continues, but it’s worth pointing out that at the time of this article’s publication, 65% of the DLC’s 32,722 user reviews are positive on Valve’s platform.
FromSoftware game difficulty has been a hot topic for years, with the likes of Dark Souls, Sekiro, and Bloodborne all called too hard by some. But extreme difficulty has not hindered their sales success. Indeed Elden Ring has sold an incredible 25 million copies, and is by a clear distance the biggest FromSoftware game ever.
Speaking to The Guardian, Miyazaki explained why FromSoftware looks to continuously push players, rather than offer easier difficulties that would theoretically open up its games to a wider audience.
“If we really wanted the whole world to play the game, we could just crank the difficulty down more and more, but that wasn’t the right approach,” Miyazaki said. “Had we taken that approach, I don’t think the game would have done what it did, because the sense of achievement that players gain from overcoming these hurdles is such a fundamental part of the experience. Turning down difficulty would strip the game of that joy, which, in my eyes, would break the game itself.”
An amusing upshot of the debate around Shadow of the Erdtree’s difficulty is a renewed nostalgia for the base game and its bosses, now said to be relatively easygoing in retrospect.
Shadow of the Erdtree has certainly enjoyed critical acclaim, and has become the highest-rated video game expansion of all-time by overtaking Witcher 3 DLC Blood and Wine on Metacritic. IGN’s 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.”
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.
Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC has only been out for a few days, and many players are already finding that their character — who became the Elden Lord of the Lands Between — is barely a match for the first chakram blade-wielding weirdo you can run into. These early punishing fights are merely a prelude for the raw aggression of the DLC bosses, who are able to turn you into a bloody smear on the ground with just a few attacks. Even worse, this difficulty ramp-up spares no one — regardless of your level, the weapons you wield, or the armor you equip.
With a bit of exploring, you’re likely to find at least one Scadutree Fragment, which gives a short tooltip:
It can be easy to overlook this tip in the thick of battle or when distracted by distant points of interest, but it’s safe to say Shadow of the Erdtree may be underselling just how important your Scadutree Blessing really is. Simply put, it can quickly become the difference between victory and defeat in almost every encounter, and it’s barely even comparable to Elden Ring’s normal leveling system.
The reason for this is because Shadow of the Erdtree has to account for a wide variety of players looking for a challenge in this DLC realm: Fights have to be difficult enough for a level 500 player on New Game+ 7, but also winnable for someone who just beat Mohg for the first time the other day. The solution: Make everything hit extremely hard, with incredibly high health pools, but introduce a new item to rapidly raise your own abilities to deal and negate damage.
Using just one Scadutree Fragment to increase your Shadow Realm Blessing to Level 1 will raise your armaments damage AND your damage negation to all sources by around 5%, and there are many more fragments to find just in the first region alone.
For my level 162 character with 50 Vigor and 50 Strength, my Blasphemous Blade had 795 attack power; and my armor and other stats were giving me 157 Defense Power with 44.355% physical damage negation as a multiplier.
Facing down the Blackgaol Knight, my basic one-handed swing was only dealing 398 damage to his 525, which I was only able to meet with a jumping attack that did 550. His did… a lot more.
However, with just one Scadutree Blessing level, my attack power was boosted to 834, and my physical damage negation to 47.004%. This increase had me dealing 416 while only taking 496 in return, which was roughly a 4.9% increase in damage given and 5.5% damage taken.
Even if that sounds small — I then grabbed every Scadutree Fragment in the Gravesite Plain, raising my Scadutree Blessing to Level 4. Now my attack power shot up to 954 and damage negation to 53.629%, which meant my hits were now doing 20% more damage that were hitting harder than the Blackgaol Knight’s, which was reduced by around 17.3%!
As you can see from the table above, each blessing can increase your powers by a substantial amount, and with a maximum of 20 Scadutree Blessings that you can obtain over the course of the game, you’ll be dealing a LOT more damage by the end than when you first entered the Realm of Shadow.
But what about regular leveling? My table also includes spending enough Runes to put four points in Strength vs four Scadutree Blessings. At 50+ Strength, the returns barely resulted in a measly percent of damage increased, and the flat Defense Power increase instead of damage negation from all sources meant I was losing roughly the same amount of HP per hit. This is an important aspect to note, because it means since all players will be in and endgame setting, you can’t overcome bosses just by spending runes. However, it’s still worth adding a few points here and there anyway, especially to increase your HP pool with Vigor, add more stamina with Endurance, or hit a requirement to equip a new weapon.
So where can you find more Scadutree Fragments? You can check our guide to track down every last Scadutree Fragment, but if you prefer to explore on your own, here are some tips to keep in mind:
Scadutree Fragments most often appear in front of statues of Marika, like those found in churches or soldier camps.
You’re also guaranteed to find one at every Cross of Miquella that the demigod has left behind marking their journey to important locations in the Shadow Realm.
Certain areas like ruins or destroyed towns can sometimes include a Shadow Undead holding a sparkling pot. Rush them down before they run away and you can gain treasure that sometimes includes a Scadutree Fragment.
Progression in Shadow of the Erdtree is rarely permanently gated by a boss. If you find yourself lacking power, try looking for alternate paths to new regions where you can find more Scadutree Fragments.
Similar to these fragments, you can also find Revered Spirit Ash in front of large headless corpse altars or from Shadow Undead pot holders. The Revered Spirit Ash Blessing will increase the power of your Spirit Ash Summons similar to how the Scadutree Fragments boost your own.
Once you feel strong enough to take on the toughest challenges, there’s plenty more to do, and we have it all catalogued in our full Shadow of the Erdtree Guide.
Brendan Graeber is a senior guides writer for IGN, and is still hard at work discovering every last secret in Elden Ring. You can find him on Twitter/X @Ragga_Fragga
What if when playing Mario Kart and you throw a red shell at an opponent, instead of just knocking them aside, you blow them up instead? That’s the kind of outside-the-box thinking Sumo Digital is cooking up with DeathSprint 66, which is basically a real murder-y version of Mario Kart.
Set in a dystopian future that’s part GhostRunner, part Running Man, DeathSprint 66 has a story insofar as you play as a runner forced to partake in a deadly race for the amusement of viewers on the internet. This race isn’t just built for speed, however, it’s also built for danger. This futuristic race course is full of buzz saw traps, laser beams, and other deadly additions to make your run truly a run for your life.
I was able to play a few rounds while at Summer Game Fest and came away thoroughly impressed by what I saw thanks in part to the tried-and-true arcade racing style mechanics but with violent twists.
While there are no racing karts here, your runner will effectively sprint very much the same way. The right trigger serves as your accelerate, and you will need to “drift” around corners and time your release correctly for a burst of speed. Along the way you’ll need to dodge deadly environmental traps and collect random power-ups like tripmines, buzzsaws, and a powerful and deadly dash that’s DeathSprint 66’s answer to the Mario Kart Bullet Bill power.
It’s not just deadly obstacles, though. There are neon-lit rails to grind on, and large walls for you to wall-run on as well, plus boost pads to further give you a jolt of speed. It’s all very over-the-top and races are fairly quick, so I imagine it’ll be easy to get a few rounds in with friends online.
For fans of Mario Kart, DeathSprint 66 will seem awfully familiar. But, as the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The core gameplay of violently racing your way to victory while trying to sabotage seven other players was incredibly fun during my hands-on, even when I was just playing against A.I. opponents. I imagine the challenge and the fun will only go up when these are seven other real players.
Visually, too, DeathSprint 66 is going all-out. This is meant to be a futuristic game show and the neon-soaked race tracks, lasers, and futuristic cityscape paints a gorgeous, dystopian portrait of cyberpunk excess. And while the player character was a bit generic, I’m told there will be customization options and cosmetics in the final game to help make your character truly your own.
DeathSpring 66 doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it has a good sense of what makes arcade-style racing games fun. I can easily see DeathSprint 66 becoming a new Fall Guys, a quick and fun pick-up-and-play game in between marathon sessions of your favorite RPG.
Matt T.M. Kim is IGN’s Senior Features Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.
There’s a concept in business called a “fast follow.” The idea, essentially, is that one company shows a product it’s working on, and another imitates it and gets their version out quickly, taking advantage of the buzz and beating the original to market. Bodycam, made by the two-person team of Reissad Studio, looks very much like it is fast-following Unrecord, a first-person shooter from the perspective of a police bodycam that garnered a lot of attention for its exceptionally lifelike graphics. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – Fortnite adding a PUBG-like battle royale was a literal game changer, for instance. Unfortunately, that’s not the case with Bodycam. While it is an interesting proof of concept in its early access phase, it has too many critical design blindspots to be a good shooter just yet.
The idea behind Bodycam is creative, and the mix of a rounded lens, dust on the glass, and rough movement does a good job selling the vibe of actual police-style footage. It pairs well with high-quality textures, dense debris, and lush foliage to make a visually impressive game. The lighting effects in particular are excellent, with a broad range from pitch-black hallways to blindingly bright flashlights factoring heavily into the strategy in the team-based modes.
Unfortunately, the concept just isn’t great for a competitive first-person shooter because you don’t gain anything by having a worse view of the world. It makes locating and shooting enemies more awkward, and it doesn’t contribute to the experience thematically. Police aren’t looking through a camera when they’re actually in a shootout, and, as you aren’t actually playing as law enforcement, it doesn’t say anything about the state of policing. It’s also a bit strange the way aiming down site means your character is lifting the gun to their chest to be in front of the bodycam, not their eyes. I can see how this perspective would work great for something like a horror game; the time spent stalking around in the dark and deciding if and when to risk giving away my position by turning on my flashlight in order to see is pretty gripping. Here, however, it feels gimmicky, not immersive.
The fundamental shooting mechanics are solid.
That said, the fundamental shooting mechanics are solid. Bodycam is the classic example of a pixel shooter: as soon as you see a single exposed pixel of the enemy you open fire, hoping you beat them to the punch. It only takes a single well-aimed bullet to kill or be killed, and even a handful of less accurate hits is enough to send you to an early grave. I like that it creates opportunities to win engagements through clever positioning and anticipation rather than raw shooter skills, and it’s especially important to carefully lean around corners instead of running and gunning. Ultimately, whether you’re a fan of instant kills or not is a matter of taste, but just know this isn’t a shooter that affords a margin of error.
It does take a certain amount of skill to compensate for the fact that weapons tend to have a lot of kick, which makes accuracy difficult if you lean on auto fire. It’s a realistic element that makes it particularly satisfying to take down other players in rapid succession.
I just wish the movement was better. I’m sure some of it has to do with the disconnected way the characters’ arms and bodies shift independently of the bodycam itself, but it is way too easy to get stuck on minor obstructions that litter hallways, like desks and filing cabinets. With how slowly and deliberately characters walk, and how fast the time to kill is, being stopped because your elbow is colliding with a table is both annoying and potentially deadly. You can theoretically climb over small obstructions, but in practice even the smallest step up can be a major obstacle to get your character past, and every second you spend exposes you to lethal gunfire.
Being stopped because your elbow is colliding with a table is both annoying and potentially deadly.
That’s a shame, because the six levels currently in Bodycam are generally pretty neat. An abandoned hospital, for example, has a great mix of long corridors and connecting offices. The Russian Building level is also spooky as hell when the built-in day/night cycle decides it’s time for the sun to go down. Another is an airsoft arena, complete with a plywood mockup of a house and person-shaped training dummies that I’ve definitely shot in a moment of panic when they surprised me as I was coming around a corner. The way each level both looks and plays differently is effective at staving off the “been there, done that” feeling after I’d played the limited selection of three game modes, at least for a little while.
Not ready for competition
Team deathmatch is my favorite way to play Bodycam. Up to 10 players are split into teams and given the same weapons, but that gear is randomized after each round and first to 10 wins. Maybe you all have pistols one time, but shotguns another. It’s a unique spin on a tried-and-true shooter mode, and having each round be elimination based, with no respawns, ratchets up the tensions considerably. Moments where I’m carefully creeping down hallways, dividing the responsibility of checking corners with a squadmate, do a great job scratching that tactical itch.
When you die you respawn as a drone for the rest of the round, which gives you the ability to either watch things play out or scout the other team’s positions. It’s pretty fun to turn on your drone’s flashlight and spot the enemy, doing your best to avoid getting shot down by annoyed opponents.
Standard deathmatch, unfortunately, is a bit of a disaster.
Standard deathmatch, unfortunately, is a bit of a disaster. Respawns are quick, and it’s all about accumulating kills, which completely removes the tense tactical action from the equation. Worse, the spawns are managed terribly. Anytime you die it’s basically a dice roll whether your next life will start with you staring down the barrel of a gun, and it’s common to go several lives without time to take a single step before being gunned down. It’s in terrible need of significant rework and, since it’s the only solo play mode, Bodycam doesn’t have much to offer anybody who prefers to go it alone.
Bodybomb, meanwhile, has one team trying to plant and defend a bomb, somewhat similar to Counter-Strike or Search and Destroy from Call of Duty. The biggest difference here is that the bomb can be planted anywhere, but the duration of the detonation timer decreases the further into enemy territory you decide to place it. It’s a fine concept, but doesn’t work extremely well in practice. The main issue is that it is too easy for the bomb team to just arm immediately and then just set up camp to guard all the pathways leading to it. In my experience it’s rare for the bomb team to not score when this happens, which sucks all the competitive energy out of the match.
The other issue – one that’s universal across all the modes – is they just take too long. A single match can easily last 30 minutes, which feels like an eternity in a small squad shooter like this. There have been plenty of times where I’d have loved to just pop in for a quick match before I do something else, but the time commitment required just doesn’t allow for it. Worse, because it uses peer-to-peer connections instead of servers, if the host quits or disconnects at any point – no matter how far along a game is – the match ends. That’s unfortunately a too-common occurrence, especially when the host is on the losing side of a match.
One issue that’s universal across all the modes is they just take too long.
Assuming you can complete your match your rank will go up or down on the simple leaderboard system, which gives you something to strive for. It works as expected, except for in Deathmatch, where only one person wins – you can finish with a very strong kill-to-death ratio, landing you in second place, and still drop in ranks. Giving positive progress to the top several finishers is pretty common in other shooters, and seems like a strange omission here.
The other thing you can advance is your cosmetics. Match performance (like kills), and wins net you R points you can spend on one of the 11 cosmetics for sale. That’s 11 total cosmetics available at a given time, not 11 categories. You could buy the shirt for sale, or the single hat option. Hopefully the store expands with future updates, but I can’t help but wonder what the point is in having a store at all if there is so little to choose from. It does refresh daily, but things are so expensive it’s easy for the more interesting options, like a unique gas mask, to shuffle out before you can save up for it. The 4,000 R it would take to buy a backpack, for example, represents multiple hours of grinding. There is text in the menu that says you can pay for R points to save time, but that’s not actually true; as of this writing there is no mechanism to buy points, just earn them in game, which adds to the feeling the shop is simply not ready, even for early access.
Antstream announced on Friday that its subscription service will be available on iPhones and iPads next week.
As spotted byMacRumors, Antstream Arcade will be available on Apple’s smartphones and tablets on June 27. MacRumors also pointed out that when the app releases, it will include a promotional discount: $3.99 per month or $29.99 per year before it reverts to its usual pricing of $4.99 per month or $39.99 annually.
Antstream Arcade is a cloud-based gaming subscription service that provides subscribers access to over 1300 retro video games, such as Space Invaders, Asteroids, Sam & Max Hit the Road, Pac-Man, and Metal Slug 2. Antstream previously launched its subscription service on other platforms, including Android, Windows PCs, and even Xbox.
The announcement comes months after Apple announced it wasloosening its policies, making it easier for game streaming apps and even retro game emulators to be added to the App Store. Antstream was the first gaming subscription service to launch a dedicated app on the App Store following the revision changes.
While some of the more notable ones includeXbox Cloud Gaming andNvidia GeForce Now, neither Microsoft nor Nvidia has made an official announcement on when it would release a proper app for either service, requiring users of both to use a web browser still to stream games when playing on an iPhone or iPad.
The announcement of Antstream Arcade for the App Store also comes as an option for those looking to play retro games but may not want to download one of the many gaming emulators likeDelta, RetroArch, or PPSSPP. All of these emulators rely on ROMs to play classic video games.
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
“We’re excited for the launch of Black Myth Wukong on Xbox Series X|S and are working with Game Science to bring the game to our platforms,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement, first reported by Windows Central and also obtained by IGN. “We can’t comment on the deals made by our partners with other platform holders, but we remain focused on making Xbox the best platform for gamers, and great games are at the center of that.”
Back at The Game Awards 2023, developer Game Science announced an August 20, 2024 release date for Black Myth: Wukong for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Earlier this month, however, its Summer Game Fest trailer omitted mention of an Xbox Series X/S version.
In an FAQ, Game Science confirmed that Black Myth: Wukong’s release on Xbox Series X/S would indeed come after its August 20 launch on PlayStation 5 and PC. At the time, Game Science pointed to optimization on the Xbox as the reason for the delay.
“We are currently optimizing the Xbox Series X|S version to meet our quality standards, so it won’t release simultaneously with the other platforms,” the developer wrote. “We apologize for the delay and aim to minimize the wait for Xbox users. We will announce the release date as soon as it meets our quality standards.”
Regardless, rumors swirled that Game Science might’ve had an exclusivity deal with Sony, which Microsoft’s statement seems to vaguely address. IGN has reached out to Sony for comment.
“We can’t comment on the deals made by our partners with other platform holders, but we remain focused on making Xbox the best platform for gamers.
We’re still waiting on an Xbox Series X/S release date, but in the meantime, IGN got to spend a couple of hours with the soulslike, which impressed IGN’s Mitchell Saltzman. “It’s stunningly gorgeous, the animations are incredibly fluid, it’s steeped in rich Chinese culture, and there’s just something immensely satisfying about playing as a Monkey King and beating up all sorts of mythical creatures with a giant extendable staff,” he wrote in our preview.
Game Science has still, though, not responded to our previous report compiling numerous sexist comments made by the studio’s founders and other developers spanning the last decade.
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.
A Cyberpunk 2077 fan has perfectly recreated armor worn by the game’s trauma team, the dystopian, gun-wielding paramedics, down to a working face mask.
Cosplay and prop maker Props It Yourself shared a video of the outfit on their Instagram, below, showing someone dressed in the full cosplay of a Trauma Team worker. The futuristic mask begins open before it folds in, seals, and activates its lights as the cosplayer walks forward.
Those who’ve played just a few hours of Cyberpunk 2077 will recognize the Trauma Team outfit as one of the game’s opening missions, The Rescue, has them appear. Protagonist V is tasked with saving a kidnapping victim who proves unresponsive, and the Trauma Team, ready to kill any threat to the victim themselves, show up to save her at the end.
Those who remember the part iconic, part infamous E3 2018 Cyberpunk 2077 presentation will also recognize the outfit as this mission debuted there. The Trauma Team cosplay proved particularly popular on the Cyberpunk 2077 Reddit, where it currently has 28,000 upvotes and hundreds of comments. “This is so f**king cool,” said one user. “The way I actually gasped when I saw the helmet click together,” said another.
In our 9/10 review, IGN said: “Cyberpunk 2077 throws you into a beautiful, dense cityscape and offers a staggering amount of flexibility in how you choose to take it from there.”
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
I’m never more excited than when I’m playing games where I’m not even sure the main mechanic is fundamentally interesting. Despite hours playing Blue Prince and still thinking about it when I’m doing anything else, somehow, delightfully, I can’t figure it out. This clawing madness – trying to get a sense of whether this is all a waste of time, while happily wasting that time – is a feeling few things have been able to evoke within me.
With Blue Prince, the first release from up-until-now film studio Dogubomb, that metagaming sense of not quite having the full picture in mind perfectly mirrors the in-game activity of exploring a procedurally generated mansion in search of its answers and rarely finding any.
Hurrying through the grand estate of Mt. Holly to ensure the retrieval of some inheritance from a departed family member, every time you open a door you’re presented with a choice of three additional rooms. Whichever one gets picked is instantly bolted on ahead, as if it was always there. Each room is carefully authored by the development team, but the order that they’re offered up is procedurally chosen from a pool that grows in size over the course of a run. Ideally every choice is the one that’s most beneficial for that moment. Often enough, it’s actually just the least worst.
A decent handful of these rooms are complete dead-ends. Maybe they’ll contain a useful item like a key or a gem, which will need to be spent to place more complicated structures. Some of the rooms have additional doors which lead on to other rooms. If you’re lucky, you’re facing the right direction, and there aren’t any other rooms already blocking the potential exits, a hallway or such with multiple additional doors will appear and you’ll be able to create even more options for how to proceed.
Certain techniques for making proper progress are beginning to occur to me after more than five hours playing the surprisingly generous demo. I’m deliberately drafting dead-end rooms without much clear need to return in the same area of the map so that I don’t waste time heading back to them. Each in-game day limits your exploration to entering just 50 rooms before having to start a new run, with the ability to gain more energy earned through making good room choices. Ideally, every room is placed with all the important stuff together to limit any back-tracking, but Man Plans, God Laughs.
Some of these rooms offer unique features and challenges. Drafting the Security Room gives access to a terminal showing all the items that have been missed during exploration. A photography Dark Room will completely obscure which of the three selections you’re actually picking for your next move, unless you’ve managed to find the mansion’s breaker box and manually turned the lights back on. Placing a chapel – which demands an immediate tithe of 1 gold coin every time you walk through it – would be terrible in a busy intersection, but it’d be great to put the bedroom walkway that replenishes some of your energy in a spot you’re likely to return to often. Certain rooms only seem to appear on the edges of the 9×5 grid, of which many are expensive green rooms which regularly need multiple gems to unlock, though that cost can be mitigated by getting lucky enough to select an early room that voids the expense toward any future green rooms entirely.
Strategy in Blue Prince is, then, all about location and timing. Picking bad rooms feels great when there’s a lot of options for where to move on to next, and it’s agonizingly tense when the only three options available, on the last free door of the run, are all glorified closets.
But I couldn’t help but wonder if it even works. I don’t know if continually seeing the same environments in different orders is compelling, in and of itself. Maybe it’s the limited input. I’m not against a walking sim, but I’m hesitant to play a walking sim that asks me to continue to see the same things over and over. Blue Prince occasionally injects puzzles and surprise features – the Parlor Room, which appears with a unique guessing-game each time it’s drafted – is a fun reprieve every time, but the Billiards Room, which offers different takes on the same rudimentary math problem of addition, subtraction and multiplication, gets pretty dull after the second appearance.
Something strange happened in this place and you’re forced to both know that and still be there.
I’ve been thinking about it in contrast with 2021’s Phantom Abyss, another game about revisiting the same procedurally generated environments under different contexts, where the purpose was for you to make the perfect execution of movement to avoid danger and be quicker than everyone else that came before. Blue Prince’s mystery hasn’t hooked me, though the presentation – with gorgeous cutscenes that have far greater investment than you might expect – is really noteworthy.
Blue Prince isn’t a scary game. There are sparse musical cues in key moments of discovery that help build the atmosphere, but it’s un-scary in the same way Gone Home is un-scary. Nothing’s going to jump out and chase you, but something strange happened in this place and you’re forced to both know that and still be there.
Blue Prince’s demo is currently available on Steam. I wonder if you’ll end up any clearer than me on what you think about it.
