Category: IGN

Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered does not feature a platinum trophy on PlayStation 5, developer Aspyr has confirmed to IGN.

However, the PlayStation 4 version does. That means the PS5 versions of Tomb Raider 1-3 only feature individual Bronze, Silver, and Gold trophies.

In a statement issued to IGN, Aspyr, which has developed the remaster collection on behalf of principle Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics, said that the collection includes over 200 trophies to collect, but no platinum on PS5.

Here’s the statement in full:

“The PlayStation 4 version of Tomb Raider I-III Remastered features a platinum trophy, while the PS5 version does not. Players will receive both the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 version of Tomb Raider I-III Remastered with their purchase. This collection includes over 200 trophies covering game completions, easter eggs, and new challenges.”

It’s a bizarre situation that has disappointed some PS5 owners who had planned to pick up Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered on their console, and rekindles memories of the PS5 version of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, which also launched without a platinum trophy.

Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered includes visually updated versions of Tomb Raider and The Unfinished Business Expansion, Tomb Raider 2 and The Gold Mask Expansion, and Tomb Raider 3 and The Lost Artifact Expansion. It comes out February 13 across PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X and S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

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.

While the world waits to find out the future of Xbox, Microsoft has announced the Game Pass lineup for February 2024.

Available today, February 6, is Anuchard (Cloud, Console, and PC). Here’s the official blurb: “The kingdom of Anuchard has fallen. Generations after the collapse, its surviving descendants have chosen you to become The Bellwielder of the magical Audros Bell. Go forth, battle monsters, solve puzzles, and restore Anuchard to its former skyward glory!”

Tomorrow, February 7, sees the addition of Dovetail Games’ Train Sim World 4 (Cloud, Console, and PC): “Hit high speeds, roam free along the tracks and get creative with a host of new tools and features in Train Sim World 4. Design your own liveries, plan Scenarios and capture railfan shots with the new Photo Mode across three detailed routes in the UK, Austria and USA.”

Then, on February 8, courtesy of EA Play comes Madden NFL 24 (Console and PC). PC Game Pass or Ultimate members get access to EA Sports’ football game, just in time for the Super Bowl. IGN’s Madden NFL 24 review returned a 6/10. We said: “New animations and improved AI make Madden NFL 24’s on-field action the best it’s ever been, but everything that happens off the field is a slog of dated modes and laggy menus that brings everything around it down.”

Moving on, February 13 sees the addition of the Resident Evil 3 remake (Cloud, Console, and PC). “Another stellar remake of a classic survival horror from Capcom. Keep em’ coming,” we said in our Resident Evil 3 review, which scored the game 9/10.

Two games on February 14: cozy puzzle game A Little To The Left (Cloud, Console, and PC), and side-scroller action RPG Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (Cloud, Console, and PC), which returns to Game Pass. “The wait was worth it,” we wrote in our Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night review. “Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a whole new castle to crash full of unexpected monsters and mysteries in the vein of classic Castlevania.”

February 15 sees PlateUp! (Cloud, Console, and PC) enter Game Pass. Here’s the description: “Classic cooking action with permanent roguelite progression. Cook and serve your dishes, design and decorate your restaurants, and expand your culinary kingdom with unlocks, abilities and dishes in procedurally-generated layouts. Take on the challenge solo or hire up to three friends.”

And finally, Return to Grace (Cloud, Console, and PC) hits Game Pass on February 20. “A daring space archaeologist has just unearthed the ancient resting place of a long lost A.I. god known as Grace,” reads the official blurb. “Adventure with various fractured A.I. personalities as you uncover the great mystery of why she was shut down all those years ago in this first-person narrative adventure set in a visually stunning ‘60s retro sci-fi world.”

Here are the games coming to Xbox Game Pass in February 2024:

• Train Sim World 4 (Cloud, Console, and PC) – February 7
• Madden NFL 24 (Console and PC) – February 8
• Resident Evil 3 (Cloud, Console, and PC) – February 13
• A Little To The Left (Cloud, Console, and PC) – February 14
• Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (Cloud, Console, and PC) – February 14
• PlateUp! (Cloud, Console, and PC) – February 15
• Return to Grace (Cloud, Console, and PC) – February 20

In its announcement, Microsoft said MLB The Show 24, due out March 19, is coming to Game Pass on day one.

Leaving Game Pass on February 15 are Galactic Civilizations III (PC), and Opus: Echo of Starsong (Cloud, Console, and PC).

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.

Marvel’s Spider-Man Miles Morales is a great game, and well worth playing on the PS5 if you haven’t checked it out yet. It’s also a wonderfully cozy game, with a snowy winter theme, so I highly recommend playing it while sipping hot chocolate and under a nice blanket.

Best Buy has got the game down to just $19.99 in its latest deal of the day—which is a tremendous discount. The only caveat is that the deal will expire by the end of the day (February 6), so act now if you’re looking to take advantage of the deal. I’ll leave some handy links just below to save you some precious minutes searching for the deal as well.

Best Buy also has Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition down to just $39.99 as well. The Ultimate Edition also comes bundled with Spider-Man Remastered – which comes complete with all three DLC chapters from Marvel’s Spider-Man: The City That Never Sleeps as well – so you can get the full experience before swinging into the new story of Spider-Man 2. Both rarely go on sale for that low, so this is your best option to pick up these games.

Upon release, we gave both of these games a 9/10 in their reviews, stating that Spider-Man Remastered is “one of the best superhero games ever made” and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales “earns its spot as a fantastic follow-up”.

Are you still looking for more Valentine’s Day ideas? We’ve got complete guides for everyone, and even a specific guide for Valentine’s Day gifts for gamers right here on IGN. Otherwise, Amazon’s Buy 1 Get 1 50% sale is another great opportunity to buy gifts, as it includes loads of great video games, Blu-rays, books, board games, and more.

Plus, for more great gaming and tech deals right now, don’t overlook Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora for just $40 at Best Buy, Super Mario Bros. Wonder dropping down to just $49.99, or a 2023 Alienware Aurora RTX 4090 gaming PC for $3299.99 ($400 instant discount).

Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.

Content Warning: The following article contains mentions of themes some readers may find distressing, including those of self-harm and suicide.

Silent Hill: The Short Message has surpassed one million downloads, publisher Konami has announced.

In a post on the Japanese Silent Hill X/Twitter account, Konami celebrated the milestone for the free-to-play Silent Hill spin-off. Confirmation The Short Message surpassed “over one million downloads” arrived in artwork depicting the creepy post-it notes appearing in the game.

The Short Message was revealed and released during Sony’s first PlayStation State of Play presentation of 2024 on January 31 and takes players to modern day Germany. Taking on the role of Anita, players explore a typically spooky house called The Villa from a first-person perspective, in what Konami described as an “experimental” taste of the wider Silent Hill franchise.

『SILENT HILL: The Short Message』

100万ダウンロードを突破しました。
プレイいただいた皆さまありがとうございます。

公式サイト：https://t.co/nbv0zTpl5P#SILENTHILL #SHTSM pic.twitter.com/aQKTTPURhU

— SILENT HILL (@silenthill_jp) February 6, 2024

Despite receiving a surprise release during the PlayStation showcase, The Short Message’s existence wasn’t very well hidden. Myriad leaks gave fans a good idea of the plot, gameplay, and visuals, including one from the Australian ratings board which confirmed what it described as “an exploration-based psychological horror game”.

Also outlined in the ratings board description, The Short Message includes “strong suicide themes” and “horror violence”, though we won’t disclose those scenes here for the sake of sensitivity and spoilers.

The Short Message’s themes also bring to mind images leaked in May 2022 that were allegedly from a Silent Hill game. Though they were quickly taken down, the images showed a young woman and a single house being viewed from a first-person perspective, which is now confirmed to be The Short Message.

Suicide: If you are having suicidal thoughts, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline in the U.S. is available 24 hours a day at 1-800-273-8255. A list of international suicide hotlines can be found here.

Sony has outlined a raft of new features and quality-of-life improvements for the PlayStation 5, out now in beta form and set to roll out for everyone in the coming months.

In a PlayStation Blog post, senior vice president of platform experience at Sony Interactive Entertainment Hideaki Nishino said the beta including these updates is limited to invited participants in the U.S., Canada, Japan, UK, Germany, and France, who’ll receive an email if chosen.

Nintendo is squeezing sales out of the seven year-old Switch, shifting 13.74 million units in the first nine months of the financial year, a 7.8% decline on the same period a year earlier. But it has revised its sales forecast for the current financial year up, predicting Switch sales of 15.5 million, up from the 15 million previously predicted.

Reporting its financials for the three months ending December 31, 2023, Nintendo said Switch exclusive Super Mario Bros. Wonder, the first side-scrolling Super Mario Bros. in almost 11 years, saw a “solid start” with sales of 11.96 million.

Sales continued to grow for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which is now up to an incredible 20.28 million units sold but some way off Breath of the Wild‘s 31.61 million sold. Pikmin 4 is now on 3.33 million units sold, and Super Mario RPG, which came out in November, reached 3.14 million units.

Boosted by the April release of the phenomenally successful The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe shifted another 6.79 million units. The kart racer is now up to an eye-watering 60.58 million sold, comfortably the best-selling Switch game and the best-selling kart racer of all time.

As for Switch, Nintendo said sales of the console “continued to be steady” in its seventh year since launch. The Switch is now up to 139.36 million units sold. It lags behind only the Nintendo DS and the PlayStation 2 in the best-selling consoles of all-time list. Indeed, the Switch has more annual playing users than ever before, with 122 million recorded during the 2023 calendar year.

Switch software sales totaled 163.95 million units (a decrease of 4.7% year-on-year) for the period. Nintendo reported a record net profit of 408 billion yen ($2.7 billion) for the April-December period.

“For hardware, by continuing to convey the appeal of Nintendo Switch, we try not only to put one system in every home, but several in every home, or even one for every person,” Nintendo said. “Another objective is to continually release new offerings so more consumers keep playing Nintendo Switch even longer and we can maximize hardware sales.”

Looking ahead, Nintendo will release Mario vs. Donkey Kong this month and Princess Peach:

Showtime! in March. Splatoon 3: Expansion Pass – Side Order, the second wave of paid add-on content for Splatoon 3, is due out this month.

Of course, expectations of an announcement of Switch 2 are sky high, with the console reportedly due out during the second half of 2024. One of the big unanswered questions is whether this next-gen console will be backwards compatible with the Switch. With 122 million Switch players in tow, is seems unlikely Nintendo will leave those accounts behind to start over.

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.

An Elden Ring mobile game is in development, but don’t hold your breath — it sounds like this one’s a while away.

Reuters reports that Tencent is working to adapt FromSoftware’s mega hit into a mobile game, but progress is described as “slow”.

Apparently Tencent wants the Elden Ring mobile game to work similarly to gacha game Genshin Impact, with a free-to-play business model supported by in-app purchases. But the design of Elden Ring, which is a single-player, premium action role-playing game, is “at odds” with Tencent’s vision.

News of an Elden Ring mobile game comes amid what fans hope is the imminent release of the hotly anticipated Elden Ring DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree. Various changes to the back end of Elden Ring’s entry in Steam suggest something is afoot. So far, however, both developer FromSoftware and publisher Bandai Namco have remained quiet.

As for Tencent, it appears to be struggling to create mobile game hits based on established PC and console games. Last week it emerged Tencent had canceled an unannounced Nier mobile game.

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.

Obsidian Entertainment has responded to criticism revolving around its upcoming fantasy RPG, Avowed, saying that there is still work to be done before players try the experience for themselves.

This update on one of Xbox Game Studios’ most anticipated titles comes from the Dropped Frames podcast, which recently invited Avowed Game Director Carrie Patel on to talk about how development is going. She says it’s been interesting to work on Avowed while periodically unveiling slivers of content to the public. However, as fans get to peek behind the curtain and critique what they see, she hopes they realize that these demos represent somewhat dated builds.

Avowed has only shown up at events a handful of times, with one recent example being a gameplay-focused demo that appeared at the Xbox Developer Direct in January.

“We’re getting to show more and more, but all of that is while the game is still in progress, obviously,” Patel explained. “One of the heartening things has been seeing fans call out some of the things that we are actively working on, like the sense of hitting and impacts as you’re attacking enemies. It’s like, ‘Yep, what you all saw was still a few weeks behind where we were even when that footage was released just because of the nature of the way these things are put together, and the team’s been working on it.’”

Patel says it’s nice to see feedback like this and know Obsidian has already addressed those concerns or is at least in the process of addressing them. When asked how the studio incorporates online commentary surrounding Avowed, she said that “it’s definitely a point of discussion.”

“We’ve definitely got enough people who follow that stuff closely enough that, if there’s something that’s coming up a lot in commentary, we’re probably talking about it internally,” Patel said.

We recently learned a lot about how Avowed will compare to some of Obsidian’s past titles. Fans familiar with the studio will be happy to know that the adventure will have multiple endings to uncover. However, you won’t be able to romance your companions as you wander through the magical settings, and you’ll only be able to play as either a human or an elf.

Avowed is currently slated to launch for PC and Xbox Series X | S sometime this fall. In other Microsoft gaming news, Xbox head Phil Spencer just revealed that the company will talk about its future in interactive entertainment in a business update next week. This follows swarms of reports that the company is interested in bringing some of its titles to other platforms.

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.

For those with a Nintendo Switch, we’ve found an excellent deal that you definitely don’t want to miss out on. Right now, Walmart is offering a great discount on a physical version of Super Mario RPG. You can save $15.11 on the title, as its price has dropped from $59.99 to $44.88.

This is a deal that’s definitely worth jumping on, as discounts like this can disappear fast. Pick up your copy at the link below.

Get $15 Off Super Mario RPG at Walmart

In our Super Mario RPG review, we gave the game an 8/10, expaining that it’s, “considered a classic for a reason, and this wonderfully faithful remake makes it easy for anyone who missed it in the SNES era to see why.” We also came to the conclusion that, “Super Mario RPG already held up pretty well if you didn’t mind a bit of dust on its different systems, but now there’s no excuse not to see why Mario’s most unexpected adventure is still so beloved.”

If you’re curious to see even more deals on Nintendo Switch games, make sure to check out our roundup of the best Nintendo Switch deals today. Alongside this deal on Super Mario RPG, you can also find discounts on The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Super Mario Bros. Wonder. For the latter, it marks its first discount as well (down to $50), so it’s well worth taking advantage of before the price goes back up! You can also save on some games right now over at Amazon as they have a Buy 1 Get 1 50% Off sale going on that includes some Switch titles. There’s also a selection of Blu-rays, books, and more included in that sale that are worth a look.

Hannah Hoolihan is a freelance writer who works with the Guides and Commerce teams here at IGN.

When it comes to game night, it’s always a great idea to have a variety of board games around for people to choose from. Unfortunately, building that collection of games can oftentimes cost you more than you’d expect. Have no fear, though, as we’re here to help you out with a variety of deals on board games that are worth picking up.

TL;DR – The Best Board Game Deals

This doesn’t just cater to events like Amazon Prime Day or Black Friday, either. We try to find deals on the best board games all throughout the year, so you can buy your favorites without breaking the bank. Below, you can find a selection of the best board game deals at the moment.

The Best Board Game Deals

Board Games: Budget to Best

For when board games aren’t on sale, it’s nice to know you still have options that don’t cost you tons of money. Here, we’ll point you in the direction of more affordable board games that are still worth the investment for your next game night.

When Is the Best Time to Find Board Game Deals?

Board games go on sale at sites like Amazon, Target, Walmart, and even GameStop fairly regularly — you can generally find special discounts every month or two. In addition, they absolutely get big discounts during major sale events like Amazon’s Prime Day and Black Friday.

While Prime Day is primarily an Amazon shopping holiday, other retailers always put on competing sales events at the same time. Those are great times to look for board game deals.

As for Black Friday, it’s not just a one-day event: you can often find deals on board games the whole week of Black Friday, as well as on Cyber Monday and throughout that whole following week. Keep in mind that stock runs out (particularly at Amazon), so if you see a good price on a board game you want during one of these major sale events, grab it before it’s gone.

How to Know if it’s Really a Good Board Game Deal

At online board game retailers like Amazon and Walmart, prices are always in flux, to say the least. Many of the board games in the board game section will be discounted to some degree from their MSRP. But there are a few ways to know when a board game is on sale for a notable discount.

For one, you can check Amazon’s daily deals page, where you’ll occasionally find an actual sale on various board games. Sometimes these are from one company, sometimes they’re on the whole category of board games. Target also periodically runs sales on board games, so check their deal page, too.

If you’re looking at a board game and are wondering if the sale price is good, copy the URL and paste it into the search field at camelcamelcamel. That’s an Amazon price tracker that shows you price history. Better yet, it works for any item, not just board games.

Finally, you can follow IGN Deals on Twitter, where we’ll always tweet any notable board game deals we come across.

How Do You Know if a Board Game Is Any Good?

IGN reviews board games fairly regularly, so you can always search to see if we’ve reviewed a game you’re considering picking up. Other websites do, too. We also have a whole lot of board game roundups, ranging from the best classic board games and the best cooperative board games to the best horror board games.

Outside of IGN, the best board game resource around (for my money) is Board Game Geek. It maintains a database of every board and card game you’d want to know about, with all kinds of news, stats, and user reviews all gathered together in one place.