Category: IGN

Star Wars: Hunters, the upcoming free-to-play PvP arena third-person combat multiplayer game for Nintendo Switch and mobile platforms, will be released next week, on June 4. This week, though, IGN has a total of five exclusive trailers coming your way from the next big Star Wars game.

The rest of the week will spotlight four of the unique characters available to play as, but today we begin with a closer look at The Grand Arena on Vespaara. It’s in the Outer Rim, making it a perfect out-of-the-way place to house The Arena, where combatants will battle for honor and glory. Check out the Vespaara trailer below:

Check back all week for the aforementioned character spotlight trailers, and catch up on the Nintendo Switch version’s announcement trailer and cinematic trailer if you missed them.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

The Yakuza/Like a Dragon series may be a hit today but Sega originally “flat out rejected” it according to series creator Toshihiro Nagoshi.

Appearing on Weekly Ochiai, translated by Automaton, Nagoshi said the Sonic the Hedgehog publisher wanted to make family friendly games which would appeal to a large number of people in the early 2000s. He therefore struggled to get his game about the Japanese criminal underworld approved.

“This mindset [of appealing to the masses] wasn’t really leading to a solution, and I saw many game proposals gradually become watered down as producers bended over to change things the way management instructed them to. This is where everything started,” Nagoshi said.

“Of course, it was flat out rejected. After all, it was completely contrary to what I mentioned earlier about attracting the masses. Children wouldn’t be able to play it, and it wasn’t catered to women nor overseas audiences. In this sense, there was no way for it to be approved without resistance.”

Nagoshi persisted, however, and said it took three tries to eventually convince Sega management to let him make the first Yakuza game, and even then it wasn’t approved through traditional routes and was “quite forceful”.

Regardless, the game was developed by Sega’s CS1 Research and Development team, later renamed to the slightly catchier Ryū ga Gotoku Studio. Yakuza was released for PlayStation 2 in 2005 and flourished into a hit franchise for Sega, now including eight mainline games and myriad spin-offs.

In our 9/10 review of the latest, IGN said: “Sprawling, enthralling, and packed with dynamic brawling, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth isn’t just the best turn-based Like a Dragon game, it’s one of the greatest games in the entire series.”

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

The Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake, which will recreate the classic role-playing game in the graphical style of Square Enix’s Octopath Traveller series, now “draws near” as it’s confirmed to be a multiplatform title.

A post on X/Twitter teasing the game, which was announced in May 2021 but has gone practically unheard of since, confirmed it will come to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam.

“The legend of Erdrick draws near,” the post reads, while a short teaser video ends with the phrase: “The legacy begins.” This suggests Square Enix is close to revealing a proper look at the game and perhaps a release date, potentially during a showcase in summer 2024 when E3 once took place.

Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake was announced as a recreation of the 1988 original, meaning it will arrive more than three decades later. The HD-2D style was coined when Square Enix released Octopath Traveller for Nintendo Switch in 2018, which had 2D characters moving through high quality backgrounds in a tribute to classic turn-based RPGs.

These graphics contributed to the game’s 9/10 review from IGN. “Octopath Traveler’s beautiful style and outstanding take on traditional turn-based combat make it a game that pushes JRPGs forward rather than simply paying homage to the greats,” we said.

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

Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke has admitted the Baldur’s Gate 3 team had “to crunch a bit” during development, meaning employees had to work overtime in order to finish the game on time.

As reported by Games Radar, Vincke said at the Digital Dragons conference that the amount of crunch required for Baldur’s Gate 3 was less than the studio’s previous games, however, and he thinks some overtime is always required to complete a game.

“Certainly less on Baldur’s Gate 3 than we did in the past,” Vincke said when asked if Larian employees had to crunch to finish development. “It would be a lie to say that we didn’t. We had things happen that we didn’t foresee.”

Vincke insisted employees, including himself, “didn’t overly crunch” but “did have to do a bit” to wrap up Baldur’s Gate 3. Employees would almost always leave by 8pm and worked at weekends “very, very, very rarely”, he added.

“I think, to be honest, you will always have a little bit when you’re trying to finish something, especially when there’s so much complexity that needs to be brought together,” Vincke said.

Crunch has proved a controversial topic within the video game industry, with developers such as CD Projekt Red, the studio behind Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher, being criticised for forcing mandatory overtime upon its employees. The backlash was seemingly heard loud and clear by those in charge though, as studio leaders insist CD Projekt Red has moved away from that style of working.

Baldur’s Gate 3, a Dungeon & Dragons based role-playing game, proved a smash hit upon its release in 2023, earning myriad game of the year awards alongside a 10/10 review from IGN.

“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,” we said.

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

Super Mario is one the most popular video game series of all time. With the Nintendo Switch, Mario has had new releases every year, with multiple entries often released. So far, Nintendo has released almost 20 Mario titles for Nintendo Switch, with almost every genre represented. Whether you’re looking for an RPG, a platformer, or even some fun with friends, Mario is the one series on Nintendo Switch where you can’t go wrong.

For Memorial Day weekend, many retailers have discounted some of the most popular Mario titles on Nintendo Switch. Most of these do not go on sale too often, so pick up a new Mario adventure this weekend while it’s on sale!

Save on Hit Mario Nintendo Switch Titles

Each of the titles on sale this weekend is a guaranteed good time. If you are looking for a new platformer, Super Mario Bros. Wonder is an excellent choice. The hit 2023 title introduced a plethora of new ideas into the Super Mario series, with the Wonder Flower causing all sorts of mayhem in the middle of levels.

Another great choice is the remake of Super Mario RPG, which is a must-play for any Nintendo Switch owner. The game was originally released on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as a collaboration between Square and Nintendo, and it brought new characters, enemies, and worlds into the Mario universe. Yoko Shimomura, one of the most beloved video game composers of all time, returned to recreate and reimagine the soundtrack for this remake.

Lastly, both Mario Golf: Super Rush and Mario Tennis Aces are discounted to $39.99. Mario Sports titles are always a blast to play with friends, and these games are no exception. Mario Golf: Super Rush brought new modes to the series, with Speed Golf acting as a race to complete the course before your friends. Mario Tennis Aces offered a story mode for the first time in over a decade, where Mario squares off against an ancient tennis racket named Lucien.

Noah Hunter is a freelance writer and reviewer with a passion for games and technology. He co-founded Final Weapon, an outlet focused on nonsense-free Japanese gaming (in 2019) and has contributed to various publishers writing about the medium.

Naughty Dog studio head Neil Druckmann has taken to X/Twitter to clarify that some of what made it into his interview with Sony was “not quite” what he said, including that the next game from The Last of Us developer could “redefine mainstream perceptions of gaming.”

While we don’t yet know what Naughty Dog’s next game will be, Druckmann did discuss his excitement for it with Sony. However, according to Druckmann, his answer was a bit different than what made it on the original interview.

In editing my rambling answers in my recent interview with SONY, some of my words, context, and intent were unfortunately lost. Well, here’s the full long rambling answer for the final question about our future game… pic.twitter.com/tVuxX3LYJF

— Neil Druckmann (@Neil_Druckmann) May 25, 2024

“This is not quite what I said,” Druckmann said in regard to the “it could redefine mainstream perceptions of gaming” line. “In editing my rambling answers in my recent interview with Sony, some of my words, context, and intent were unfortunately lost. Well, here’s the full long rambling answer for the final question about our future game.”

You can read the full response below from Druckmann after he was asked, “As we discuss future innovation, is there like a personal vision or dream project, you hope to see realized in the realm of entertainment at this point?”

Below, you can read the answer that appeared in the interview from the question, “Could you share a personal vision or dream project you hope to see realized in the future of entertainment?”

So, 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.”

Naughty Dog confirmed that 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 game going forward.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on X/Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on TikTok.

Call of Duty publisher Activision and Facebook and Instagram owner Meta are being sued in a new suit filed today by several families of victims of the 2022 Uvalde elementary school shooting, The New York Times reports today.

The lawsuit, filed in California, comes alongside an additional suit filed in Texas targeting the manufacturer of the gunman’s AR-15-style rifle, Daniel Defense. Both suits arrive on the two-year anniversary of the shooting, in which 19 children and two teachers were killed at Robb Elementary School. The documents claim that Activision, Meta, and Daniel Defense each took part in “grooming” the gunman to be a mass shooter.

Activision and Meta are being sued, essentially, for the roles the documents allege they played in promoting the gun used in the shooting to 18-year-old Salvador Ramos. The Uvalde families are being represented by lawyer Josh Koskoff, best known for reaching a $73 million settlement with the maker of another AR-15-style rifle that was used in the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shooting.

“Daniel Defense is a predator but can’t get to the prey without the help of these other third parties,” Koskoff says.

XDefiant is an FPS with an identity crisis. This arcade-style arena shooter pulls characters and locations from various Ubisoft games, and it feels a little bit like a lot of different things as a result: It’s fast and twitchy in a way that’s similar to games like Call of Duty, but has class abilities that might put it closer to something like Overwatch. It’s got fast respawns and faster deaths, but offers objective-based modes that prioritize teamwork over straight killcount. That combination of disparate elements helps XDefiant play a little differently overall from most competitive shooters, but it also makes it feel a bit jumbled, like its parts aren’t always working together toward the same goals.

Call of Duty figured out the fun of grounded but fast-paced competitive play in this vein way back in the late 2000s, and XDefiant is clearly chasing that same success with its solid FPS design. Though the weapons are all pretty standard for military shooters like this, they still feel distinct and satisfying to use – the AK-47 hits harder and kicks a little differently than the M41A, for instance, and it feels meaningful to pick one over the other for your play style. Guns are also, for the most part, appropriately deadly, but you’ll get the most out of them when you spend time mastering the way recoil pulls your aim and what benefits you get from equipping a specific scope or stock. XDefiant pairs that with class abilities like healing teammates, dropping shields, and launching explosive drones, which can change the flow of a fight when they’re used well, but they’re not so powerful that they ever override the emphasis on its central shooting mechanics.

If nothing else, this is a fun shooter where the gunplay feels good, and you can do a whole lot worse than that as a solid foundation. It’s the other stuff layered on top of that gunplay, however, that XDefiant struggles to mix into a coherent whole.

The hook is that XDefiant is a sort of multiverse of different Ubisoft worlds combined into a single competitive shootout. When you jump into a match, you choose a character from one of four factions based on Ubisoft’s games (a fifth can be unlocked through gameplay or purchased), which function as your classes, and they’re all just distinct and interesting enough to play differently without feeling like they’re mismatched and shoehorned into the same game. The Libertad faction from Far Cry 6, for example, is essentially a medic class. They recover from damage faster and can either fire off a fast-heal charge in a radius around the player who activates it, or drop a stationary device that slowly heals anyone nearby. Meanwhile, the Ghost Recon Phantoms are tanks that don’t die quite as quickly as other factions. They’re able to either deploy a stationary barrier that they and their allies can shoot through, or pull out a personal riot shield that’s pretty effective at stopping bullets in both directions. There are also factions based on The Division, Watch Dogs, and Splinter Cell, and like in any class-based shooter, picking the right ability at the right time is important enough that it can change the flow of a fight. But you’re not locked into that choice for the whole match, so every time you kill an enemy you know they can adapt to your strengths and come back as a new class with a different set of skills. Knowing how and when to counter an enemy’s abilities is almost as important to your team as your aim.

The final major difference between each faction is their ultra ability: This big special power can only be used after you’ve charged it by racking up kills or scoring points toward objectives, but unlike many games’ ultimate abilities, there’s usually a way for the other team to shut them down if you’re not careful. For instance, the Phantoms’ ultra gives them a personal energy dome that protects them from all damage coming from outside of it, but opponents who are quick and smart – and avoid the defensive cannon – can slip through and kill whoever’s generating it, canceling the ability. The same is true of the Libertad healing device that pumps up anyone in its vicinity to double health. Enemies might seem nigh invulnerable while standing in its range, but you can shoot the device itself to destroy it and make them mortal again. In that way, ultras are generally strong without being ridiculous and require you to be smart about how and when to use them.

Still, it’s important to add a caveat: while each faction mostly feels pretty distinct, balanced, and fun, some definitely seem to stand ahead of others, and a few come off as completely useless (unless the community just hasn’t figured out how to use them yet). The biggest offender on this front is DedSec from Watch Dogs, whose gameplay style leans toward hacking enemy abilities. Their deployable spider drones automatically chase down the other team and shock or totally blind them, leaving them fully vulnerable – pretty cool. Their other ability, however, allows you to hijack the other team’s deployables, and I’ve yet to see a single person use it effectively. There just aren’t that many things to steal or many opportunities to do so, and every time I tried to sneak up to a shield or health station to try to hack it, I was killed – by the players who, of course, were currently using the thing I wanted to hijack. That’s especially egregious because you either need to pay $10 to unlock DedSec, or sink a whole lot of time into playing the other four factions to earn it for free.

On the flipside, other abilities feel overly strong. The Echelon faction, which is inspired by the stealthy gameplay of Splinter Cell, can either become nearly invisible or activate a pulsing sonar ability that lets your whole team see enemies through walls. Their ultra ability, Sonar Goggles, greatly increases the range of that legalized wallhack and gives you the 5.7 pistol, which fires slowly but takes enemies down in one or two hits. The only way to deal with the Sonar Goggles, as far as I can tell, is just to kill whoever’s using it. Where the other factions have abilities that are a lot more situational or team-oriented, there’s basically no drawback here – it’s never not to your advantage to see through walls. The lack of effective balance at launch means some classes are more popular than others in matches, and that weakens the faction system overall.

Generally, though, the larger issue with abilities is that they don’t really fit with XDefiant’s “the quick and the dead” approach to gunfights. Since shootouts are often over almost as soon as they begin, a lot of abilities are just a non-factor in most situations. Firing off a heal or launching an explosive drone delays you from shooting back, which means you’ll almost definitely die when all it takes to drop you is a couple of hits. That means you must have a Jedi-like sense of what will happen to make real use of them, like leaving a healing device or a shield where you think a fight is about to break out or launching an explosive drone toward where you anticipate someone to be.

Why equip the moltov of The Division’s Cleaners faction, which you’ll only be able to use if you get within a few feet of an opponent, when you could choose the Phantom’s deployable shield and have several seconds of free shots at any distance? What good is the ability to hack a healing device from up close if sniping it from a distance is much more effective at neutralizing it without dying?

Balancing is an issue with some weapons at the moment, as well. The longer I played XDefiant, the more people started appearing in lobbies wielding sniper rifles, and it quickly became clear why: Sniping very often gets you a one-hit kill regardless of where the shot hits your target. Even at close ranges, if you can draw a bead on someone and snap off a shot, you’ll likely drop them before they have a chance to double-tap you. Skilled players picked up on this very quickly, and if you jump in today you’ll probably find yourself getting taken out instantly, regardless of how far away the enemy is. It quickly made me feel like a chump for opting for a different gun. So I guess I’m a sniper now.

It’s only partly because of the sniper advantage that shotguns and light machine guns feel a bit useless at the moment. Both have significant drawbacks; shotguns have very short range and slow firing rate, while LMGs seem to be tuned more to destroy enemy devices like shields and appear to do less damage to actual enemies. Both weapon types seem to punish you for choosing them over assault rifles or submachine guns, which have fewer drawbacks.

None of that is a dealbreaker, though, because XDefiant doesn’t care if your kill:death ratio is negative, so long as you’re helping your team get closer to the match objective. You don’t have to be among the fastest guns on the internet to grab a riot shield and focus on surviving long enough to push a payload from one end of a map to the other, or play support or defense on capture points by helping to keep your more lethal teammates alive. All of that is good fun, but it could certainly use a few more game modes with more imaginative and interesting approaches to shaking up gameplay in order to prevent us from falling into a routine for a bit longer.

XDefiant has only five modes at the moment, all of which are fairly standard fare for this kind of shooter. Those modes all support six-on-six unranked play – XDefiant will also have a four-on-four ranked mode, which will use skill-based matchmaking, but it’s only available as a preview right now. Zone Control, Domination, and Occupy are variations on capture-point modes, with Occupy taking place on a linear map while the other two are played in XDefiant’s big, dense arenas. That cuts down on variety, and a lot of the matches you’ll play during any given session start to feel repetitive pretty quickly. Whether you’re capturing one control point that moves around the map, three simultaneously, or several in a specific order, it doesn’t change the gameplay enough to really differentiate those modes from each other.

Meanwhile, Hotshot is a version of Call of Duty’s Kill Confirmed in which you only score if you pick up a dropped item after a kill, but there’s an added VIP twist: The person with the most items becomes speedier and scores more points for every item they pick up, so you want to protect your own team’s Hotshot and hunt down opposing ones. Escort, on the other hand, is a straight-up payload mission on a linear map, with no meaningful differences from the mode that’s been in Overwatch for years (and in Team Fortress 2 before that), so it’s not terribly novel or innovative. Neither of these options do much to play to XDefiant’s particular strengths or help differentiate it from other games.

The maps themselves, on the other hand, are largely standouts. Ten are arenas and four are linear, and they all borrow liberally from the same games from which XDefiant pulls its factions to make for visually interesting and varied spaces. For the most part they’re highly open, with multiple pathways in and out of any given place. That means you’re as likely to get shot in the back as you are to get the drop on someone, but it’s nice that they encourage fast movement and a minimal amount of camping, and facilitate a lot of different types of engagements with just about every step. That helps make all of the factions and weapons feel viable (except maybe DedSec), at least from a playstyle perspective; running around with a shotgun is just as fun as hanging back with a sniper rifle, even if the power of the guns themselves are a little uneven. The open design also keeps things fair, as there are no locations where someone can hide and dominate alone with a sniper rifle or where a team can hunker down to make themselves nearly invulnerable.

There’s also a fairly expansive (if basically standard at this point) progression system that unlocks weapons, weapon attachments like scopes, and various faction characters as you play. Additional pieces for are unlocked for a weapon just by using it, so you can start to kit out guns to your liking after a few rounds with them. Additional guns and characters require completing challenges by using the weapons you have in specific ways, like earning point-blank SMG kills or notching a certain number of one-shot snipes. The challenges help encourage you to vary your playstyle, and none of them are arduous to unlock – they perfectly balance pushing you to experiment with different loadouts and gear, while quickly rewarding you with new weapons for your trouble.

The same can’t be said of the grind to unlock the DedSec faction, however. Four factions are available when you start in XDefiant, but the fifth requires earning some 700,000 experience points from completing objectives, scoring kills, finishing and winning matches, and completing daily challenges. To put that in perspective, a kill gets you 100 XP, a finished match earns 2,000 – and another 2,000 if you win – while the four challenges available each day range from 5,000 to 10,000 XP. That makes it a fairly intense grind to do for free, but of course you can unlock DedSec instantly if you’re willing to fork over $10. But again, given how weak that faction seems to be with the current balance, neither the grind nor the cost seems especially worth it.

Bethesda and id Software’s next Doom game is reportedly called Doom: The Dark Ages and is expected to be revealed at next month’s Xbox Games Showcase, according to Insider Gaming.

A report from the site says fans will see the next entry in the classic first-person shooter franchise when Microsoft holds its gaming event come June 9. It adds that the title has been in development for at least four years and judging by early details from last year, it may feature a medieval theme.

id’s next mainline Doom game has been rumored for years, though it has been called a different name in the past. Leaked Microsoft court documents from 2023 revealed something known as Doom: Year Zero. If Doom: The Dark Ages is real, it’s likely the final name for that same project. While Bethesda has never officially confirmed that such a project exists, a recent “IDKFA” trademark filing from ZeniMax Media had many fans hoping an announcement could be on the horizon.