City 20 Is a Survival Sandbox That’s Both Bleak and Beautiful

City 20 is an upcoming survival sandbox adventure game that puts you in a quarantined secret city, one where nuclear work was done, after a radiological disaster of some kind has cut it off from the outside world. Waking up with your own past a mystery, you’re tasked to survive among the factions of people that have formed in this little, localized apocalypse. The developers have tried to create a world inspired by classics like Stalker, The Road, and La Jetée.

So far so good, right? These are all things I like to hear. I recently sat down with a demo build of the in-progress game and got a look at how it’s going so far.

The first thing that really strikes me about City 20 is the art style. It’s confident and decisive, to my eyes inspired by comics or paintings, with very stylized characters: Broad hips, bowed legs, narrow shoulders. The colors meanwhile are muted, washed out. They’re something between a set of slightly dirty pastel tones and the darker shades that have become pretty popular in the wake of Disco Elysium. Either way, the aesthetics as a whole are pretty confident and consistent, which I think is important and good to see as this sort of sandbox really lives or dies on how deeply the visuals can pull you into the unfolding story.

City 20 is supposed to be a survival sandbox, one where a realistic social and ecological simulation plays out over seasons of in-game time. Figuring out the politics of the different factions, how they relate, and how to gather the limited resources of the ruined city is supposed to be a major part of the game. The crafting and survival elements are important but relatively simple and basic, with the emphasis there on conserving resources and not overtaxing the environment—one example given by the developers is harvesting too many deer or rabbits, causing local foxes and wolves to become aggressive toward people.

In the demo, however, most of my time was spent figuring out what to eat and drink and where to get it from. Though I woke up in a cabin provided by a friendly man, the two steaks and four apples he gave me barely staved off hunger for a day. While I’m all for a hunger and thirst system, this one was a bit aggressive and will certainly need tweaks before it’s out. How do I engage with the cool social simulation if most of every day has to be spent figuring out the logistics of food?

Anyway, once I figured out I could just murder the nice man and steal all his food, I had enough to get me through my demo time without further concerns. Once I did that I saw some promising glimmers beneath the post-apocalyptic muck and rust.

By talking to people you can learn about them, and by trading with them you can figure out what they need. Every NPC I encountered had a job and a faction, ate and drank, and had a routine that included going to work and sleeping. Trading with them for what they wanted made them more favorable toward me—and presumably making enough of them favorable toward me over time would alter the whole faction’s opinion of me.

The factions themselves are also part of the balance of the in-game economy. They need resources like metal and wood to craft things and sell amongst themselves, and the characters need food and water to live. Giving lots of resources to a favored faction would, eventually, make them more powerful and wealthier than other factions simply because they have more food, better tools, and better weapons. On the other hand, losing access to an entire faction because they hate you would cut you off from a significant portion of the in-game economy—and probably make gathering resources near their territory pretty dangerous, as the pretty simple combat system goes well for you when you’re one-on-one, but the same fights get pretty one-sided pretty fast if several enemies group up on you.

Once I figured out I could just murder the nice man and steal all his food, I had enough to get me through my demo time without further concerns.

Sandboxes like this one are pretty hard to judge at this stage in development. I’m inclined to look over the frustrating bits toward the more interesting systems, but this is also a pretty tricky genre to develop in the first place. Games can have deeply interesting simulations at their heart but wind up being boring to engage with because of poor pacing, because the core gameplay isn’t fun, or because the simulation itself is too opaque for the player to manipulate. Hopefully City 20 doesn’t fall into any development traps, because I’m interested to see where it’s going from here.

Capes Review

It’s probably the funniest joke in Capes – which has a lot of pretty good superhero jokes – that not one of your eight playable characters actually wears a cape. This clever and challenging turn-based tactical game does wear its heart on its sleeve, though, and a clear love of the comics that inspired it comes across as it makes its underdog vigilante squad feel powerful with creative combo mechanics. It’s a style of battle that gives you almost all the information and lets you execute a surefire plan in a way that reminds me of Into the Breach more than it does XCOM.

Every level is a tactical puzzle that tells you almost everything that’s going to happen next turn up front, and winning is all about countering the enemy’s moves before they can damage you by either taking them down, disarming them, or moving them right where you want them. Only a handful of abilities have randomized effects and there’s no chance to miss, plus you can see any enemy’s abilities and a timeline of who will get to move next. In short, you have all the information you need to succeed. I do wish it went a little further and told us specifically which target an enemy plans to attack and with what to take the last of the guesswork out of figuring out how best to thwart them, but once you understand that they’ll always go after the closest target (unless otherwise specified), it’s rare that you’ll be surprised by how a turn plays out if you’ve taken the time to read the room. Sometimes that can take a minute when there are literally 25 characters in the turn order list and you have to go through each one every turn to make certain your almost-dead character isn’t in the line of fire.

Capes’ tongue-in-cheek story grew on me fairly quickly – and when I heard that Morgan Jaffit, a writer who’d worked on the excellent Freedom Force games was involved, it made perfect sense. Sure, we’ve seen about 300 off-brand versions of the iconic Marvel and DC heroes at this point (everything from The Boys to Invincible to Watchmen has their own set of characters inspired by the classics), but it’s fun to embody the “I understood that reference” Captain America meme as Capes rolls out its parade of eight heroes that pay homage to the likes of Nightcrawler, Colossus, Storm, Quicksilver, Professor X, The Hulk, Human Torch, and… I dunno, someone who punches a lot? I wouldn’t say any of them are terrifically memorable on their own, but they hold their own well enough and only Ignis, the fired-up influencer parody, gets annoying to listen to at times.

Fights stay interesting and diverse over what turns out to be a pretty lengthy campaign.

The triumvirate of supervillains who rule over King City are entertaining megalomaniacs, and they come with creative boss fight mechanics. The Joker-ish telepath Wildstar can mess with your heroes’ heads and make them miss their first attack on him, while anti-Tony Stark Primax is completely invulnerable and has to be avoided and worked around as you achieve other objectives, rather than fight her directly. Those boss battles – and a strong variety of enemies and minibosses with tons of different abilities – keep fights interesting and diverse over what turns out to be a pretty lengthy campaign. I extended my time with it by replaying some missions to perfect them and earn more skill points, and there were a couple of very tough ones that took me a lot of tries to squeak through, but it was around 40 hours before I saw the end.

Plenty of amusingly cheesy superhero humor is thrown around – including a lot of references to Primax’s self-driving cars being death traps – but the story is also often dark, with plenty of straight-up murders and blood splashed in the streets as the villains hunt down supers and slaughter anyone in their way. There’s a fair amount of debate over whether heroes should kill, though all the while it sure seems like we’re killing a bunch of dudes by knocking them off of buildings or exploding them with fireballs, and the way it ends seems to hand-wave a lot of that moral ambiguity away. But as excuses to have superheroes beat up bad guys go, this ain’t bad.

That said, it’s very strange that while most of the story is delivered between missions with a 2D animated comic book style where characters’ lips don’t move, sometimes it will randomly switch to conversations between characters using their in-game 3D models. That works well enough, but it’s a confusing inconsistency. There’s also an annoying glitch where the frame rate regularly chugs as the camera zooms out from a cinematic, which is odd for a game that isn’t trying to be terribly ambitious with its graphics.

One of Capes’ best ideas is that your squad of four heroes work together to enhance each others’ abilities.

Even though animations aren’t always its strong suit, they successfully make this group feel like a team and bring energy to the turn-based action. One of Capes’ best ideas is that your squad of four heroes work together to enhance each others’ abilities when they’re close enough. It’s not unlike the team-up system in Marvel’s Midnight Suns, but here it’s much more based on position and they work differently based on which two heroes are collaborating. Among many other team-ups, the speedster Mercurial can leave a trail of fire behind her as she zips from next to Ignis to the other side of the map; Weathervane’s lightning storm is vastly more powerful with Kinetic nearby to supercharge its damage; and Mindfire can telepathically make an enemy turn around so that Rebound can teleport in for a backstab with bonus damage. It makes the choice of which four team members to bring to a fight hugely important – though it doesn’t cost you anything to restart the mission with a different squad if you find yourself in need of, say, damage mitigation from Facet’s crystal armor. You also have to keep your team’s position in mind, because if they stray more than a few tiles apart they won’t be able to take advantage of their team-up abilities.

Capes is very smart about layering on mechanics to think about beyond simply punching or zapping an enemy for as much damage as possible. Some attacks do disarm damage, which doesn’t necessarily reduce their health but can force a thug to drop a gun or bat, or interrupt a more powerful enemy’s super attack that they’re charging up for next turn. On top of that, each hero has an ultimate ability – such as nerdy scientist Hyde transforming into a big stompy swarm of nanobots – but they all charge up differently. Facet charges as he absorbs damage while armored, Mindfire earns his by making an enemy vulnerable and then dealing damage to it, and Ignis slurps up fire around the map like Pac-Man. Because of that, swapping out a single member of your team can pretty radically change your priorities in clever ways.

Once you get the hang of it and are reliably beating down bad guys, you can test your skills by attempting to complete each mission’s list of optional objectives. In addition to completing the main objective without a hero being downed (they can be revived with half their health), you’ll be challenged with pushing some number of enemies off ledges, disarming them, or using specific abilities, among other things. This is the main way you earn skill points to upgrade your heroes’ powers – some of which are minor half-point damage or range increases, but others unlock whole new extremely handy skills – so it’s definitely worth revisiting missions in the Simulator to mop them up, especially if you were that close to pulling off a perfect run.

However, the one type of mission I have no desire to revisit are the stealth ones, which are often obnoxious exercises in trial and error. While you can preview exactly where an enemy will patrol on their next turn and tiles they can currently see are highlighted, their gaze sweeps over the map as they walk and turn, and it can be very tricky to figure out where you’ll be safely hidden. I also had instances where I was detected despite not appearing to be in an enemy’s sight at all, and though there might be a reason for that, it wasn’t clear. That’s no fun, but the saving grace is that the quick-save button makes reloading painless, and several of the stealth missions are optional anyway.

Gayming Awards 2024 Set for June 25

The Gayming Awards 2024 date has been set for June 25, where it will once again showcase the best in LGBTQ gaming on the occasion of Pride Month.

This year’s show will highlight the best games with LGBTQ themes from 2023. It will also award the Gayming Icon 2024 award to designer Jeremy Crawford, who is best-known for his work as lead designer on Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, while inducting five LGBTQ streamers into the LGBTQ Streamer Rising Star Class.

The Gayming Awards 2024’s major nominees include Baldur’s Gate 3, which has swept numerous major awards shows including the BAFTAs and The Game Awards, as well as Final Fantasy XVI, Thirsty Suitors, and Stray Gods. The full list of nominees can be found below.

Game of the Year Award

  • Baldur’s Gate 3 – Larian Studios
  • Final Fantasy XVI – Square Enix
  • Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – Nintendo
  • Thirsty Suitors – Outer Loop Games / Annapurna Interactive
  • Spider-Man 2 – Insomniac Studios / Sony Interactive Entertainment
  • Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical – Humble Games / Summerfall Studios

Gayming Magazine Readers’ Award

  • Baldur’s Gate 3 – Larian Studios
  • Final Fantasy XVI – Square Enix
  • Goodbye Volcano High – KO_OP
  • Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – Nintendo
  • Tchia – Awaceb / Kepler Interactive
  • This Bed We Made – Lowbirth Games

Industry Diversity Award

  • Humble Games
  • Larian Studios
  • Latinx In Gaming
  • Qweerty Gamers
  • Roll7
  • Women in Games International

Authentic Representation Award

  • Baldur’s Gate 3 – Larian Studios
  • Coral Island – Stairway Games / Humble Games
  • Sims 4 – Maxis / EA Games
  • The Expanse: A Telltale Games – Telltale Games / Deck 9
  • Thirsty Suitors – Outer Loop Games / Annapurna Interactive
  • This Bed We Made – Lowbirth Games

Best LGBTQ+ Character Award

  • Aloy – Horizon: Forbidden West – Guerilla / Playstation Studios
  • Dame Aylin – Baldur’s Gate 3 – Larian Studios
  • Deon Lesange – Final Fantasy XVI – Square Enix
  • Jala – Thirsty Suitors – Outer Loop Games / Annapurna Interactive
  • Shadowheart – Baldur’s Gate 3 – Larian Studios
  • Tchia – Tchia – Awaceb / Kepler Interactive

Best LGBTQ+ Indie Game Award – powered by TikTok

  • Coral Island – Stairway Games / Humble Games
  • In Stars and Time – insertdisc5
  • Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical – Humble Games / Summerfall
  • Studios
  • Tchia – Awaceb / Kepler Interactive
  • Thirsty Suitors – Outer Loop Games / Annapurna Interactive
  • This Bed We Made – Lowbirth Games

LGBTQ+ Streamer of the Year Award

  • Apothicdecay
  • Eevoh
  • Elix
  • EspeSymone
  • Halfmoonjoe
  • Maisy
  • Sheilur
  • SpringSims

Best LGBTQ+ Contribution to Esports Award

  • Bailey McCann
  • Bethany "Indyburgh" Pyles
  • Cora Kennedy
  • Emma "Emzii" Rose
  • Slaypex / Kylie Gabor

LGBTQ+ Geek Entertainment Moment of the Year

  • Doctor Who: The Star Beast – Bad Wolf & BBC Studios
  • Harley Quinn – DC Studios & Warner Bros Animation
  • Nimona – Netflix & Annapurna Pictures
  • Scott Pilgrim Takes Off – Netflix
  • The Last of Us: Long, Long Time – HBO in association with Sony
  • Pictures Television Studios, PlayStation Productions, Word Games,
  • The Mighty Mint, and Naughty Dog
  • The Legend of Vox Machina – Season 2 – Amazon Studios, Critical Role & Titmouse

Last year’s awards saw Cult of the Lamb take home the Game of the Year Award, with games including Stray and Wylde Flowers also honored. The Gayming Awards 2024 will stream on IGN as part of our celebration of the Summer of Gaming, which also includes IGN Live and more.

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

Cyberpunk 2077 Will Get FSR3 Support at Some Point

Cyberpunk 2077 will get the long promised FidelityFX Super Resolution 3 (FSR3) support at some point, developer CD Projekt Red has confirmed.

Speaking to IGN, the developer confirmed FSR3 — the latest iteration of AMD’s supersampling technology which increases the frame rate of a game — would still be released despite announcing it no longer had a dedicated Cyberpunk 2077 team.

“We are still working on the FSR3 support for Cyberpunk 2077, but I do not have an update on its availability just yet,” a CD Projekt Red spokesperson told IGN.

“We are still working on the FSR3 support for Cyberpunk 2077.

Fans were left questioning whether the promised update would ever arrive after the developer told investors its Cyberpunk 2077 team had been migrated elsewhere following the release of what was assumed to be the final update in version 2.12.

“AMD’s FSR3 was supposed to be coming to Cyberpunk 2077, but it seems like that was cancelled given that no developers are working on Cyberpunk 2077,” one Reddit user commented in a post discussing the development shift.

Some internet sleuths spotted a change to the game’s backend on PC platform Steam, however, which indicates that another update might be on the way. “Not sure if they decided to scrap the FSR3 update or not but I feel like there will be one (small) final patch, considering the internal QA branch was updated six hours ago for the first time since the last update released,” wrote Apoqsi on X/Twitter.

This certainly seems to be the case, even if the update only arrives for the PC version of Cyberpunk 2077. FSR3 was similarly added to the likes of Immortals of Aveum and Starfield, letting PC players get the most of their high-end rigs.

CD Projekt Red wound down the development of Cyberpunk 2077 after the release of its first and only expansion, Phantom Liberty, in September 2023. It came after the game-changing Update 2.0, which completely revamped Cyberpunk 2077 with features such as a new perk system and improved AI, and was followed by another big update in 2.1 but only minor changes afterwards.

Patch 2.11 addressed myriad bugs and balance issues in the open-world role-playing game, while 2.12 applied what was thought to be a final layer of polish. CD Projekt Red is now looking firmly forward towards Cyberpunk 2077’s sequel, codenamed Orion, and its myriad incoming Witcher games, though not without releasing this FSR 3 update eventually.

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.

Sony Pulls Controversial Interview With Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann After Finding ‘Several Significant Errors and Inaccuracies’

Sony has deleted a controversial interview with Naughty Dog chief Neil Druckmann after The Last of Us director called it out in a social media post.

The interview included quotes attributed to Druckmann that discussed views on everything from AI to Naughty Dog’s next game, which was said could “redefine mainstream perceptions of gaming”.

Druckmann then tweeted to say some of what made it into his interview with Sony was “not quite” what he said. “In editing my rambling answers in my recent interview with Sony, some of my words, context, and intent were unfortunately lost,” Druckmann added, before posting the “full long rambling answer for the final question about our future game”.

While Druckmann said this new project is “maybe the most excited” he’s been for one yet and “something really fresh for us”, he didn’t quite say, “it could redefine mainstream perceptions of gaming.” What he did additionally say was that he is “very excited to see what the reaction for this thing will be, and i’ve already said too much about it.”

Druckmann’s tweet surprised many given Sony owns Naughty Dog, and we don’t often see developers call out their own corporate overlords. But given just how misrepresented Druckmann was in this case, it was perhaps an appropriate move. Now, following that exchange, Sony has issued a statement of its own, addressing the controversy while removing the original interview.

“We apologize to Neil for misrepresenting his words and for any negative impact this interview might have caused him and his team.

“In re-reviewing our recent interview with Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann, we have found several significant errors and inaccuracies that don’t represent his perspective and values (including topics such as animation, writing, technology, AI, and future projects),” Sony said.

“We apologize to Neil for misrepresenting his words and for any negative impact this interview might have caused him and his team. In coordination with Naughty Dog and SIE, we have removed the interview.”

Naughty Dog confirmed it was working on a new project in March 2023, and this will be the first new game from the studio since 2020’s The Last of Us: Part 2. Naughty Dog also confirmed in 2023 that it had cancelled its The Last of Us multiplayer game and would focus on single-player games going forward.

Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images.

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.

Amazon Games Lands Open-World Driving Game From Ex-Forza Horizon Devs

Forza Horizon may soon have some competition. Amazon Games announced today that it has struck a deal with Maverick Games for a “narrative-led open-world driving game,” which is set to release on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.

Maverick Games, a studio spearheaded by numerous Playground Games veterans, is leading development on the new project. The studio’s leadership includes Forza Horizon 5 creative director Mike Brown.

“We founded Maverick Games with a clear vision: to build a developer-first studio that would foster an environment of creativity and risk-taking,” Brown said in a statement. “This approach empowers our team to produce the most exceptional work of their careers. And ultimately, that means we are creating a game that our players are going to fall in love with.

“As we got to know the team at Amazon Games it quickly became clear that we had a shared ethos – a commitment to giving developers the space to really innovate in service of crafting experiences that players will find truly special. Without giving too much away, I will share that the team here is buzzing with excitement about our game and we can’t wait to share it with the world.”

Billed as a AAA project, the untitled game may be more story-driven than the Forza Horizon games. Its lead writer is Jamie Brittain, whose work includes the British teen drama Skins. In a 2023 interview with RPS, Brittain talked about bringing a TV writing process to the studio.

“Narrative and storytelling is fundamental to being a human being, and people who are good writers are just a little bit better at expressing that,” he said. “If you talk to anyone for long enough, they’ve got a story. And if you tell someone a story, people have got opinions on it. For me, that’s always been the magic of a writers’ room. Ninety percent of all the best TV shows you’ve ever seen are made that way. And it’s a gloriously fun way of doing things.”

Amazon Games has not announced a release date or a title for the new game. Its other upcoming projects include Tomb Raider, a new Lord of the Rings MMO, and NCSoft’s Throne and Liberty. Expect more news from Amazon Games when Summer Game Fest and IGN Live kick off next week.

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

Call of Duty YouTuber Goes Down an Easter Egg Rabbit Hole With Black Ops 6 Trailer, Unearths What May Be First Zombies Map

In the aftermath of the release of Call of Duty Black Ops 6’s live-action reveal trailer, fans have unearthed a number of secrets, Easter eggs, and hidden details — and perhaps even a pointer to the game’s first Zombies map.

Activision’s marketing so far has revolved around teasing fans with cryptic nods to the Gulf War of the early ‘90s, and the trailer, below, continues the conspiracy theories with a few words of wisdom from world leaders central to the military action that took place in Iraq during the decade. Former U.S. presidents Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush, as well as ex-UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Iraq leader Saddam Hussein, combine to utter words from the shadows that allude to some grand conspiracy the player will presumably unravel over the course of Black Ops 6’s campaign.

To accompany the release of the trailer, Activision released a single piece of key art for Black Ops 6. On the face of it, this image, below, rekindles memories of Black Ops 1’s iconic box art, with a soldier in a familiar pose while holding handguns. But fans have spotted various clues and Easter eggs in the image that have certainly set the cat among the pigeons within the community.

First off, at the 35-second mark the trailer shows a set of numbers that are the real-life coordinates to Saddam Hussein’s palace. This makes sense in the context of the trailer itself, which features Hussein, but fans are also wondering if Black Ops 6 features a mission that takes players inside the palace itself, or perhaps there’s a multiplayer map set within it.

Dig deeper and there are even more hidden details, and this is where Call of Duty YouTuber MrRoflWaffles comes in. The video summarizing his findings less than 24 hours after the publication of the reveal trailer is a quite incredible journey to what ends up being a well-argued suggestion that Tranzit from Black Ops 2 has inspired the first Zombies map for Black Ops 6.

MrRoflWaffles demonstrates some remarkable detective skills as he analyzes the various clues in the trailer, including hard-to-read lines of text, seemingly innocuous images, as well as etchings on weapons, then cross-references them with real-world places and events to work ouit potential locations in which Black Ops 6 takes place. There are power plant accidents, old Black Ops lore, images of churches and bridges, and it all leads to a theory that a Tranzit-inspired map called Liberty Falls is the first Black Ops 6 Zombies map.

MrRoflWaffles is in full Pepe Silvia meme mode here as he either veers off in a completely wrong direction or solves a Zombies Easter egg months before Black Ops 6 comes out. “Am I crazy, or am I cooking?” MrRoflWaffles asks viewers. Either way, if you have even a vague interest in Call of Duty, the video is worth a watch.

More glaringly obvious is Activision’s clear tease relating to ‘Sally.’ Activision has released handgun variants into Modern Warfare 3 and Warzone with ‘Sally VI’ etched into one of them. At the 39-second mark in the teaser trailer, we see a one-frame visual for ‘Sally VIII.’ Sally VIII is etched into one of the handguns on the Black Ops 1 key art. And, completing the set, the Black Ops 6 key art includes the text: ‘Codename Sally VII.’ Whatever it means, Sally looks set to play a key role in Black Ops 6.

Activision has expertly laid these breadcrumbs for fans to follow, and they’re having a lot of fun doing just that. Expect a Black Ops 6 gameplay reveal, and plenty more breadcrumbs to follow, during the Xbox showcase and subsequent Call of Duty Direct in June.

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.

Call of Duty Cheat Maker Ordered to Pay Activision Over $14 Million in Damages and Hand Over Domain Name

A high-profile video game cheat maker has been ordered to pay Activision over $14 million in damages and hand over its domain name.

The United States District Court of the Central District of California granted Activision’s motion for default judgement in the civil case against EngineOwning, which sells cheats for a number of Call of Duty games as well as Counter-Strike, Battlefield, and Titanfall. Activision is awarded $14,465,600 in statutory damages and $292,912 in attorneys’ fees, and the court issued a permanent injunction to enjoin EngineOwning’s “unlawful conduct” and to transfer its domain name, www.EngineOwning.to, to Activision.

Activision successfully argued that EngineOwning continued to circumvent its security systems and sell the cheating software in violation of the The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). It called for the minimum statutory damages of $200 under the DMCA multiplied by the general approximation of the number of downloads of the cheating software in the United States (72,328), for a total of $14,465,600. The Court found the request “reasonable” under the circumstances.

In February 2023, a judge ruled that EngineOwning must pay Activision $3 million in damages after a lawsuit in which Activision claimed high-profile streamers used Warzone cheats. But EngineOwning continued its operation, selling cheats for 2023’s Call of Duty game Modern Warfare 3 as well as Warzone. Activision then continued its long-running battle with the cheat maker, resulting in this ruling.

There are now questions about whether Activision will see any of the money it is owed by EngineOwning, or its ability to claim ownership of the website. At the time of this article’s publication, cheats and HWID spoofers remain available to buy from EngineOwning, which seemingly operates outside the U.S.

Of course, competitive multiplayer video games have endured a cheating problem for decades, and Call of Duty in particular is seen as having a cheating and hacking problem, most prominently on the free-to-download battle royale Warzone on PC. Activision and other video game publishers face an uphill battle in the war against cheat makers, but the Call of Duty company will be hoping rulings such as these act as a meaningful deterrent as it prepares to release Black Ops 6 later this year.

Overnight, Activision tweeted to say that all accounts found to have participated in any form of boosting behavior in Multiplayer or Warzone Ranked Play would have their SR reset and be removed from the Leaderboard ahead of the Season 4 launch. Activision continued: “Additionally, as previously announced, accounts that boosted their progression in Ranked Play will be permanently restricted from accessing Ranked Play modes in Modern Warfare 3 and Warzone.”

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.

League of Legends Players Stunned by Faker Tribute Bundle Worth More Than $400

League of Legends fans are having a hard time wrapping their heads around a new bundle that costs roughly $450.

The content is themed after prolific League of Legends player Lee ‘Faker’ Sang-hyeok and arrives alongside news that he has been inducted into Riot’s hall of fame, the Hall of Legends. In a post on its website, the studio explains that it worked with the eSports legend to create an event pass celebrating his legacy. Festivities include three new Ahri Collections with prices that are turning heads.

Each bundle is more expensive than the last, beginning with the Risen Legend Collection at 5430 RP or around $40. It includes the Hall of Legends Pass, a Takedown Counter Taunt, an icon, an emote, a banner, and Ahri with a unique, orange and white skin. Next up is the substantially more expensive Immortalized Legend Collection, which costs 32430 RP or around $250, and packs in the Risen Collection along with a selection of exclusive skin transformations, finishers, the Immortalized Ahri skin, and more.

Finally, at 59260 RP, or around $450, there’s the Signature Immortalized Legend Collection that includes the Immortalized Collection as well as a “Final Boss Faker” title, a Faker-themed signature move and structure finisher, an exclusive border, banner, 100 pass levels, and more. It’s a lot of content with a uniquely high price tag, so it was no surprise to see players commenting on the pricing upon its reveal.

“It’s crazy that Faker, known for his generosity and taking less salary over the years so he could stay in Korea, is going to be associated with these crazy packages where the base skin isn’t able to transform,” one Reddit user said. “I looked at the 2 whales packages and pretty much expected like a physical Ahri statue to be included in them, but they were just a couple of finishers and signature emotes. Absolute bonkers.”

“The way I thought 59k rp was a typo lmfaooo,” another Reddit user said.

Riot provided a statement regarding how it chose pricing information for the new bundles in an FAQ on its website:

Whether you’re a new fan, a long-term diehard, or just want to join the celebration, we thought it essential for there to be something for you—and for everyone—as we celebrate our first Hall of Legends inductee.

For the more casual fan, we have some of our most generous bundles to date. The Hall of Legends Pass includes multiple skins (including Risen Legend LeBlanc), emotes, and more, while the Risen Legend Collection adds the new Risen Legend Ahri skin for collectors to enjoy. For those looking to flex their fandom, the Immortalized Legend Collection and Signature Immortalized Legend Collection include spectacular additions, headlined by the evolving Immortalized Legend Ahri skin. While more expensive, these versions are meant to be highly commemorative, with never-before-implemented features that we can’t wait to see hit the Rift.

The Collections arrive as part of the League of Legends Hall of Legends event. It runs from June 12 to July 8, and it’s unclear if the Collections will be made available again in the future. Additional Hall of Legends events are planned to commorate other star players in the community annually.

For more on League of Legends, you can read about the anti-cheat software that Riot assures is not bricking PCs. You can also read our 9.2/10 review, where we said, “League of Legends is an amazing and intense MOBA with great depth, tons of character, and a huge community.”

Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.

Be sure to give him a follow on Twitter @MikeCripe.

Best Dueling Card and Board Games (2024)

Modern board games are replete with titles where players compete in isolation to optimize their own approach to strategy, or even work together to beat a goal set by the game itself. And it’s great we have that kind of diversity to enjoy. But there are times when all you really want to do is sit down with a friend and tear metaphorical chunks out of each other through the medium of board gaming. And, thankfully, the genre of duelling games which perfectly serves this desire is thriving just as well as its cooperative siblings, with dozens of great examples to choose from. Here’s a dozen of the top tiles.

Magic: the Gathering

Let’s start with the Thorn Mammoth in the room, the biggest duelling game on the planet in the form of Magic: The Gathering. Despite being 30 years old, it’s still going from strength to strength. And why wouldn’t it, when it has such a gripping central set of mechanics: hoping for the right cards to come off the top of your deck, working to make the best of what you’ve got and engaging in blow and counterblow with your opponent and their minions. Getting into Magic is easier than ever thanks to the range of starter decks, like the one linked here. And if collecting and deck-building isn’t for you, you can still enjoy the game using prebuilt decks from one of its fantastic “universes beyond” incarnations, such as the excellent Lord of the Rings tie-in.

Warhammer Underworlds

Underworlds is the unsung hero of the Games Workshop family, where teams of the company’s superb miniatures duke it out on a hex board in half-hour slugfests of surprising strategic depth. While there are plenty of dice to roll and thrills to be had, a clever support and objectives system ensures that on-board planning and manoeuvre win the day. Each warband also needs a supporting deck of cards which you can either build yourself, like you do in Magic, or for faster, more casual play you can use the game’s pre-built rivals decks, trying to figure out which decks work best with which characters. With tons of decks and figures to choose from, this is fast, fun and full of variety, a real hidden gem. And if you want to venture out a little further, check out these Warhammer alternatives.

Radlands

Radlands is a post-apocalyptic lane battler, a term that might seem better suited to MOBA play than duelling games. But there’s no doubt that’s what this is: each player must protect three structures, ranging from reactors and cannons to tribal totems, by placing units in front of them which can also, in turn, attack units in their opposing lane or the building, if it’s undefended. The game economy is incredibly tight, forcing you into agonizing choices every turn over what to play, what to protect and what to sacrifice for water to power your existing units. It’s also peopled with an incredible variety of effects from a simple rule framework, and its wasted world is bought to life with some vivid cartoon artwork. Add in a clever event system that ups the tension as you watch powerful cards move towards their conclusion, and this is a ton of fun in a tiny package.

Unmatched: Cobble & Fog

The key marketing point of the Unmatched series is that it lets you take characters from across mythology and mass media and pit them in fights against one another, whether that’s Medusa facing off against Jurassic Park’s raptors or Bigfoot staring down Bruce Lee. That it offers this delightful variety using a simple three-step rules system which it mines brilliantly to differentiate all the fighters in its various sets is just the icing on the cake. It puts you in a constant bind between both attack and defence, and keeping your hand stocked with action cards while taking the fight to the enemy. Cobble & Fog is the best box in the whole line-up, featuring titans of gothic literature from Dracula to Sherlock Holmes to ensure some truly memorable match-ups.

Star Realms

We’ve covered a couple of games, like Magic, where you have to create a deck of cards from your collection before you play. But Star Realms is a deck-building game, which means you create your deck while you play, instead. You start out with a feeble deck of eight income and two attack cards, the latter of which you play to reduce your opponent’s “authority” – read, health – to try and win the game. But your income cards can be used to bolster your deck from a market of much more powerful alternatives. Many of these can be added to your tableau, providing ongoing bonuses from turn to turn, but also making them a potential target for enemy attacks. Easy to learn, fast to play but surprisingly hard to master, Star Realms takes the sometimes staid genre of deck-building and turns it into an aggressive duelling experience.

Summoner Wars

You can broadly separate duelling games into head-to-head card games like Magic, and on the board miniature games, like Unmatched. Summoner Wars tries to be both by having players play their cards directly onto the board, where they become units to command. Each player will have their own faction to play with a unique style – the linked master set comes with six such factions, from the angelic Vanguards to the deranged Cave Goblins. To win you must try and defeat your opponent’s summoner card with a mix of rank and file units, powerful heroes and one-shot spells from your deck. But there are no reshuffles, so games often come down to the wire as the last dregs of your forces duke it out for supremacy.

Mage Wars Arena

Mage Wars has one of the coolest gimmicks you’re likely to find in a duelling board game: an actual spellbook. Okay, so in reality it’s just a fancy binder with poly-pockets to hold your spell cards, but it still feels pretty special to flip through the pages while you’re decided what devastating magics you’re going to unleash to blow your opponent out of the arena. And you’d better choose wisely: you only get two spells per turn, chosen in advance, although your mage and summoned creatures can still all move and fight. It’s a fairly complex game with a lot of strategic meat to enjoy, plus a variety of mages and spells to experiment with and more available via expansions. What initially looks like a brawl will, with experience, turn into a much more strategic affair of scouting and probing as you learn to mix offensive and defensive effects alongside complementary summoned creatures in the ultimate magical duel.

Yomi

Yomi takes the concept of a duelling game to the extreme by attempting to simulate the feel of a fighting video game. While it wisely doesn’t attempt to riff on the reflexes required for such a game, it instead focuses on the way they reward combos and anticipation. Each player gets a deck unique to their fighting character and attempts to start a chain of moves using a simple rock, paper, scissors system where attacks beat throws, throws beat blocks and blocks beat attacks. Once you’ve landed a blow, you can then attempt to chain it into a powerful combo, but only if you’ve got the right cards. With special powers on both cards and characters and a wealth of additional fighters to add to the linked starter set, Yomi is both a simulation and a stand-alone genre in its own right.

Smash Up

Like our earlier entry Unmatched, Smash Up is a genre blender where you pick two disparate deck from a wide selection, say Pirates and Dinosaurs, and use them together to smash your opponents off the map. On your turn, you play action and minion cards from your hand, with each minion being assigned to a base. When there are enough minions on a base, it gets scored, with players getting points depending on how much minion power they’ve accumulated at that base. Of course, most cards have additional effects to enliven the game, with plenty of chaos, confusion and take that as befits a game where half the fun comes from the ridiculous team-ups you can create from the different factions. There are eight in the starter set plus many more you can pick up in expansions and, unlike most of the other games on this list, it will play with more than two.

Onitama

While Onitama is said to depict a clash between two martial arts schools, in reality it’s a head-to-head abstract with all the direct interaction and meaty strategy that supplies. It’s very simple: each player has a master and four students on a five by five grid. To win, you must either capture your opponent’s master or move yours into the middle space at their board end. You start with two random cards that depict moves for your pieces, and you choose a piece, move as the card depicts and then swap it with one in the middle, which your opponent will pick up next turn. This gives it both a variable starting setup to stop it getting stale, but also means it’s rich in strategy due to non-randomness. That makes victory all the sweeter and defeat all the more galling because it’s all on your skills and choices, cranking up the tension for each quick exchange of moves.

Godtear

Despite its amazing miniatures, Godtear looks a lot like a typical skirmish game if you just glance at the board with its hex spaces and objective markers. However, it has an unusual mechanical structure that makes it fascinating to play. First, it has a peculiar turn structure where each player gets to activate all their models in a scrum for position and claim objectives, followed by a more typical model by model activation where you dish out the pain. This rewards advance planning and risk-taking as you have to take objectives before you can be sure to hold them. Second, each turn of the game offers more points to the winning faction, meaning you can strategically time your plays across the whole course of the encounter, either trying to close it out early or save your firepower for a big swing turn at the end. In common with many other games on the list there are lots of expansions available, adding more of those sweet models to your collection.

Blitzkrieg!

Promising to let you re-fight World War 2 in 20 minutes is a bold claim, but Blitzkrieg manages to fulfill its promise admirably. The board is a series of tracks, each representing a different theatre of the conflict. Players take turns placing armies, navies and air force tokens from a randomly-drawn selection into appropriate spaces, shifting that theatre’s track toward their advantage. Force placement also nets you cool bonuses like special weapons or the ability to shift other tracks to your advantage. Win enough campaigns across the different theatres, and you’ll win the war, sometimes in even less than 20 minutes! It’s a smart design that gives you the very basics of combined arms conflict is a simple, enjoyable and surprisingly replayable package.

Matt Thrower is a contributing freelance board game and video game writer for IGN. (Board, video games, all sorts of games!)