Nintendo has announced that it is adding Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games to the Nintendo Switch Online subscription service, and they’re coming later today.
Revealed as part of today’s Nintendo Direct event, Nintendo said that classic Game Boy games will be available as part of the basic Nintendo Switch Online subscription, while Game Boy Advance games are coming as part of the premium Expansion Pack upgrade for Switch Online.
Game Boy games included at launch include Tetris, Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX, Gargoyle’s Quest, Game & Watch Gallery 3, Alonme in the Dark: The New Nightmare, Metroid II: Return of Samus, Wario Land 3, and Kirby’s Dream Land. You can use the Game Boy, Game Boy Pocket, and Game Boy Color filters.
The launch lineup for Game Boy Advance includes Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3, WarioWare Inc.: Mega MicroGames, Kuru Kuru Kuruin, Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, and The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap. More games are coming in the future for both platforms.
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.
Microsoft has been putting out new Xbox controller designs at a steady clip for years now. The latest is an eye-catching entry called Xbox Wireless Controller – Stellar Shift Special Edition. It continues the Shift line that includes the Aqua Shift and Lunar Shift designs, and it looks pretty great. It costs $69.99 and you can order it now at Best Buy and the Microsoft Store.
Xbox Wireless Controller – Stellar Shift
The controller is a somewhat shiny kind of purple-blue color that shifts hues as you turn it. You can see the color-changing effect in a video in the official announcement. Xbox PR says it has “deep space vibes.” It also has marbled purple and black textured grips on the handles that goes well with the overall somewhat trippy design of the device.
Textured grips are also in place on the triggers, bumpers, and back case, meaning your fingers shouldn’t be slipping off this thing no matter how intense your gaming session gets. Most of the rest of the features are pretty standard for Xbox controllers. Xbox makes the best controller of them all, in my opinion.
One other bonus you get for picking up the Stellar Shift controller is that it comes with a dynamic deep-space purple and blue Xbox background that’s unlocked when you connect the controller to your Xbox Series X or S. You can select this from the settings screen.
These Shift controllers do seem to be available in somewhat limited quantities. The Aqua Shift one seems to have sold out everywhere, though the Lunar Shift one is available for the discounted price of $49.99. So who knows what will happen to this one. It looks pretty cool though.
Chris Reed is a deals expert and commerce editor for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed or on Mastodon @chrislreed.
Following a two-week delay, Activision has fully revealed the Season 2 roadmap for both Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and its free-to-play companion game, Warzone 2.0.
The extensive list of updates includes new maps for both games, the return of popular modes, and even a new watercraft vehicle. More importantly, it will add ranked play to multiplayer in Modern Warfare 2, which will offer “plenty of rewards and bragging rights.”
Season 2 is currently slated to launch for both games on February 15 at 9am PT.
? Resurgence is back on Ashika Island ? Grind to the top with MP Ranked Play ? Infected and Gun Game return ? Major BR changes including 1v1 Gulag pic.twitter.com/sz7uLLItCC
In a blog post detailing the updates, Activision laid out the changes while revealing Warzone’s new Japanese-themed Ashika Island map. Here’s the official description.
Developed by High Moon Studios, Ashika Island is a centuries-old village currently under siege by Shadow Company forces. After dropping in through the mist, Operators can navigate an ancient shipwreck and ruins, modern apartments and town center, a sprawling beach club, a bustling port, an organic farm, or the fortified castle that looms over the entire island. They may even discover plenty of rooftop pathways or the underground waterway networks that can be used for stealthier maneuvers.
The island is suited for Resurgence Mode, Activision says — a variant on the traditional battle royale formula built around respawns and smaller maps.
Other additions include:
Two core maps and two battle maps in Modern Warfare 2. Dome (6v6) and Museum (6v6) will be the staple maps for the entirety of Season 2.
A “half-dozen modes” including Hardcore Mode, which is considered a series staple.
Episode 2 of Raid, which serves as a continuation of the Modern Warfare 2 campaign.
Originally released last year, Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2 both proved popular but also generated lengthy wishlists from fans. The long-awaited Season 2 update was subsequently delayed due to the desire to address “player feedback.”
In our review of Warzone 2 we wrote, “Building on the already rock-solid foundation of the original Warzone, Warzone 2.0 is a positive update to Call of Duty’s battle royale mode, even with few drawbacks of its own.”
Square Enix’s Forspoken can be deciedly mixed when it comes to performance, but the game’s director says some fixes are on the way. On Twitter, Forspoken director Takeshi Aramaki didn’t provide a timeline for upcoming performance updates, but said the developers are working hard at it now.
“We’ve been listening to all your feedback and are hard at work on an upcoming patch that will include improvements to overall performance, graphics, playability, and general updates and fixes to the game content across PS5 and vartious PC hardware configurations,” Aramaki wrote. “We are committed to making Forspoken the most enjoyable experience possible and will provide an update about the timing of the next patch as soon as possible.”
In IGN’s Forspoken performance review, we said that the game misses the expected mark in quality and consistency, hoping that patches could resolve some of the performance and quality issues present.
Some of those issues included blurry and last-generation looking details on the PS5, framerate dipping into the mid 20s, and high input latency. These problems, along with the fact taht Forspoken doesn’t feel like it’s “utilising some of the key aspects of current generation consoles,” made Forspoken feel like a cross-generation game.
Overall, we called Forspoken “okay”, saying “Forspoken is the sort of game you’ve probably seen before – from its stereotypical fish-out-of-water fantasy story to its giant open-world map full of repetitive optional tasks.”
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.
Overwatch 2 had an enormous launch last year, seeing 35 million players try the free-to-play game in its first month alone. Now, IGN can exclusively reveal four new Overwatch 2 toys from Funko, including three action figures and a new Funko Pop.
The three action figures are Tracer, Genji, and Reaper. The action figures stand at 3.75 inches tall, and will retail for $12.99. Each figure comes with alternate hand and weapons attachments, while Genji and Tracer also come with an alternate head attachment.
The newly-revealed Pop is of Echo in a Hot Rod skin. The Pop stands at 5.05 inches tall. You can take a look at all four newly-revealed products in the gallery below.
We awarded Overwatch 2 a great score in our review, saying, “Overwatch 2 breathes new life into what was once the sharpest multiplayer shooter around, before it had its edges severely dulled by Blizzard’s attention shifting away.” Now, fans are diving into the newly-released Season 3, which features the game’s first IP collaboration with Doomfist’s One-Punch Man skin.
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.
Apex Legends Season 16 Revelry is just around the corner launching February 14th and there are a lot of changes coming for Apex’s fourth anniversary. There’s a big rework coming to the Legends Class system and rebalancing along with a new weapon, new limited time modes and permanent playlist, and the farewell of Arenas. Here’s an in-depth look at everything changing in Apex Legends Revelry.
Reworked Class System
The Legend Classes were implemented before but didn’t really have much to offer the Legends in each category. So the rework focuses on 5 new classes – Assault, Skirmisher, Recon, Controller, Support. Each class has individual gameplay perk for strategic gameplay value not combat.
Assault
Focus: Assault Legends are the instigators. They focus on combat Initiation and utility, using their abilities to initiate plays or force enemies to play.
Can spot incoming care packages from a distance and see what’s inside and can see if it’s been taken or still there
Perk: When a Care Package drops, Skirmishers are able to see what weapon is inside the care package and ping the weapon on their map and track when it’s been picked up.
Recon
Focus: Focus Legends are the information trackers. They focus on enemy intel and tracking.
Recon Legends: Crypto, Seer, Vantage, Bloodhound
Perk: Recon Legends will no longer scan for the next Ring data but instead scan the reworked Survey Beacon that reveals enemy locations on their maps. (Scan acts like Crypto’s Map Room on King’s Canyon)
Controller
Focus: Controller Legends are the bunker and area denier players. They focus on setting up in their designated areas and control that location.
Perk: Controller Legends can scan a Ring Console that will reveal the next ring location so they can plan their next spot they want to bunker down and set up in.
Support
Focus: Support Legends provide back up for their teams. They focus on team survival and supply.
Support Legends: Newcastle, Lifeline, Loba, Gibby
Perk: All have access to hidden shelves in Blue support bins and will provide high value healing and survival items, they can craft fallen ally banners even after they’ve expired.
Major Legend Meta Changes
Scan Legends have been dominating the meta throughout the seasons now and they’re finally being addressed with Revelry.
Seer is getting nerfed with no longer being able to constantly use his passive scan, Heart Seeker. He will have a slight wind up time in being able to utilize Heart Seeker and enemies will now audibly hear when a Seer is nearby attempting to use his passive. Seer’s ultimate, Exhibit, has been given more of a cooldown time so he can’t throw it out in every fight he gets.
Bloodhound’s ultimate, Beast of the Hunt, will still grant them speed and outlined vision when activated but will no longer grant them the decreased scan cooldown time. Instead, Bloodhound will have a new passive White Raven concept where White Ravens will be located near enemies locations and fly towards where they are when approached.
Wraith was our day one competitive Legend who has been long delayed in receiving a buff and now she’ll have a longer ultimate Dimensional Rift, where she can place portals further and when she’s ulting, Wraith will be able to instantly use her tactical Into the Void without any delays.
Pathfinderis getting a slight buff and he’ll be able to deploy his ultimate Ziplline Gun further than before and he will be able to zip faster on his own zipline allowing him to escape faster.
Horizon is finally getting her nerf that we saw accidentally implemented a few weeks ago. Horizon’s tactical ability Gravity Lift no longer allows her to stay accurate when firing down at enemies but her vertical rise speed in the lift has been increased.
Mirage is also getting some long-deserved love with a buff. After reviving his teammate, Mirage and the revived teammate will be invisible for 3 seconds as long as they do not swap to any weapons. When one of Mirage’s clones is shot, Mirage’s team will now be able to track that enemy for a short amount of time.
LIfeline is also being given a small buff that will help her survivability. Her slow penalty is gone when she taps to revive her teammates and her ultimate Care Package speed drop has been greatly increased, dropping almost instantly after being deployed.
New Weapon: Nemesis
There’s also a new weapon, Nemesis, coming which is a new addition to the energy class. It’s a burst assault rifle that fires four rounds per burst, with the ability to just hold down the trigger to continue firing, unlike the hemlock. The Nemesis speeds up the time it takes to fire the rounds of bursts the longer the trigger is held down and stays charged for a certain amount of time after.
The charge time doesn’t deplete that quickly so it’s a bit forgiving on how long you go without firing. So during an active fight your Nemesis should stay charged up and almost simulate a fully auto assault rifle. In essence, it’s like the devotion once it’s been fully ramped up without a turbocharger. The Nemesis will take Barrel Mods, Extended Mags, Stocks, and any AR sight attachments.
Weapon Changes
Every season we get weapon changes in and out the Crafter rotation and Care Package rotations. In Revelry, the Hemlock is now one of the Care Package world drop weapons with a huge buff to increase damage and headshot damage.
The Rampage is now on the floor loot pool along with the CAR and the Volt is now in the Crafter. Assault Rifles are all getting reworked to decrease their hipfire accuracy since they’re supposed to be best at midrange and give SMGs a chance to win in close range fights. The R301 in particular is getting another damage nerf lowered from 14 to 13.
There are now Gold Shotgun Bolts that grant the perk of reloading your shotguns whether they are in your hands or stowed every time you slide around. Every shotgun will now take stocks as well to balance them out.
Gamemode Updates
Arenas are unfortunately going away permanently in Revelry and instead a new permanent game mode Mixtape is being added. Mixtape is a playlist with a rotating roster of limited time game modes Control, Gun Run, and Team Deathmatch. Mixtape will drop March 7 after the launch of Season 16.
Speaking of Team Deathmatch, that is the new limited time mode dropping with Revelry and it’s a 6v6 fast respawn mode where the first team to win two rounds wins the game. The loadouts will work like Control where you can choose at the start of the match and switch off during respawns, and there will also be world Care Package drops during matches.
The maps in Team Deathmatch will be reusing Arenas maps like Habitat, Party Crasher, and Skulltown and this limited time mode will be in game for three weeks.
Quality of Life Changes
We can finally customize our firing ranges to fit the warm ups and weapon tests we need! There are settings in the Firing Range menu you can explore that allow you to customize what level armor dummies have, how they move or if they can move, to show you hit indicators and damage numbers, and even show you where you hit them to track your spray patterns.
For ranked in Revelry, there will no longer be map splits though there will still be the normal ranked split. Maps will rotate every 24 hours between Broken Moon, Stormpoint, and World’s Edge in the Ranked playlist instead of being stuck to one map for each half split.
We’ll have a video update for you up soon detailing each of these new changes in visual form! What are you most excited for with Season 16? Let us know! Be sure to check back here in two days to get the video update of Apex Legends Season 16 Revelry’s full breakdown.
Stella is a Video Producer, Host, and Editor at IGN. Her gameplay focus is on competitive FPS games and she’s previously reviewed Apex Legends, Hyper Scape, Halo Infinite Multiplayer, and Battlefield 2042. She regularly hosts and shoutcasts competitive Apex Legends and Halo Infinite tournaments when she isn’t streaming on her Twitch channel after work outs. You can follow her on Twitter @ParallaxStella.
UPDATE: Preorders for Tears of the Kingdom have been made unavailable at retailers with the exception of GameStop.
On Tuesday, February 7, Tears of the Kingdom appeared on the Nintendo eShop site with a $69.99 price tag. The price was soon removed, but it got people talking a whole lot about the cost of games. Fortunately, this potential price increase hasn’t trickled down to any of the major retailers, so if it is going to have a $70 MSRP, you can lock in the $59.99 price now.
The sequel to Breath of the Wild is called The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. It’s set to release exclusively for Nintendo Switch on May 12, 2023. Based on the glimpses we’ve seen, the game looks similar to its predecessor, but with a number of exciting new ideas thrown in the mix, including sky-high verticality in the open world. Hopefully we’ll get a much better look during today’s Nintendo Direct.
You don’t have to wait to lock down a copy of the game for yourself. Listings for Tears of the Kingdom are already live at various retailers right now (see it at Amazon, or GAME in the UK).
Preorder The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
So far, the standard edition is all we’re seeing available, and it retails for $59.99. It’s worth noting that Breath of the Wild got a Master Edition that featured a bunch of cool extras. Nothing like that has been announced for Tears of the Kingdom, but if any new editions pop up anywhere, we’ll put them here.
What Is The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom?
A new trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted during the Nintendo Direct on September 13, 2022. You can watch that one below.
First announced with a teaser trailer at E3 2019, Tears of the Kingdom (formerly known as Breath of the Wild 2) is a sequel to what many fans agree is one of the best games ever made. Nintendo has has taken its time and shown relatively little of the game ever since.
The E3 2021 trailer (see above) shows Link skydiving and then paragliding from high in the air above Hyrule. You can clearly see floating landmasses in the sky as well. And after it shows Link use his ability to freeze items and send them hurtling through the air, it also shows him using a flame thrower and teleporting vertically through the stone of one of the floating isles. Hmm.
There’s still plenty we don’t know about The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, but with the spring 2023 release date announced, we know it won’t be too terribly long before we’ll get to play it for ourselves.
After Microsoft’s shopping spree of studio acquisitions over the last few years, there’s a long list of video game licenses that are now technically first-party Xbox properties – but possibly the weirdest is that PlayStation’s biggest competitor is now the home of its original mascot, Crash Bandicoot.
If you grew up in the ’90s, Crash and PlayStation were almost synonymous. Not only were the first few crash games amazing tech demos of what Sony’s first console could do, Crash himself was an extremely vocal hype-man; the mascot platformer became a literal mascot for the PS1 and millions of people likely heard about Sony’s new console from a guy in a fur suit yelling through a megaphone about it in TV commercials.
The first three Crash games were published by Sony but the rights to the bandicoot himself belonged to Universal Studios’ video game publishing wing, Universal Interactive, which also happened to hold the leash of Sony’s second-most popular platformer, Spryo the Dragon. In 2001, Sony acquired Naughty Dog – the studio that created Crash – and Universal Interactive merged with another company to become Vivendi Universal Interactive Publishing.
After another merger in 2008 Vivendi became part of Activision Blizzard, but after a bunch of mediocre games and the decline in popularity of 3D platformers, the custody rights for Crash weren’t at the forefront of most peoples’ minds.
Sony’s earliest, most recognizable characters have officially packed their bags and moved in with their ex’s worst enemy.”
Then, at the 2015 Playstation Experience, head honcho Sean Layden appeared on stage in a Crash t-shirt, and a generation of PlayStation fans went N-SANE. Was the prodigal bandicoot returning home? 2016 turned out to be the year of the bandicoot and Crash’s 20th anniversary victory lap saw him popping up all over. He appeared in a Naughty Dog game for the first time this century, (okay it was an Uncharted game, but still…) then he was the guest of honor in Skylanders: Imaginators. Y’know, the Spyro spinoff that spun out of control.
Then finally, Activision Blizzard opened the nostalgia floodgates: full modern remakes of the original trilogy and Crash Team Racing paved the way for the long-overdue sequel It’s About Time. It seemed like Crash Bandicoot and PlayStation had rekindled that special connection they had in the ’90s… I mean, it was an open relationship so Crash could be on other platforms but still, the spark was back.
At least that’s how it felt until Microsoft ran off with Activision Blizzard, bandicoots and dragons and all. Sony might own Naughty Dog and Insomniac, the studios that created some of PlayStation’s earliest and most recognizable characters, but those characters themselves have officially packed their bags and moved in with their ex’s worst enemy.
Who knows? Maybe the next time we see Crash he’ll be in the parking lot of PlayStation headquarters, yelling through a megaphone about the wonders of Xbox Game Pass in front of a pickup truck full of series Xs. After all, stranger things have happened. There was a time when the idea of playing a Sega game on a Nintendo consoles was practically blasphemous and now that’s not only commonplace, we’ve got six whole games about Mario and Sonic at the Olympics.
Amazon is running another of its excellent buy one, get one 50% off deals. Now I will admit, I was thrown a bit by the “Buy 2, Get 1 50% Off” phrasing, but according to the sale page, that just means if you buy two items, one of them will be half-priced. Specifically, the lower-priced of the two items you buy. But holy crap is there a lot to choose from, including new release games like Dead Space and board games galore.
Amazon Buy One Get One Half Off Sale
This is but a tiny sliver of what’s available on the sale. Note: the items change quite frequently, so if I were you and I saw something I liked, I’d scoop it up.
Also, if you’ve never had an Audible subscription before, you can get 3 months of Audible Plus Premium for free right now. That’s a bonus. Amazon seems to really be going hard with the sales today.
Seth Macy is Executive Editor, IGN Commerce, and just wants to be your friend. You can find him hosting the Nintendo Voice Chat podcast.
Nintendo fans, rejoice! A brand-new Nintendo Direct is on its way and it will be here tomorrow, February 8, with roughly 40 minutes of updates focused mostly on Switch games planned for release in the first half of 2023.
IGN is carrying the stream and, as usual, this watch guide will provide you with everything you need to know to watch the show, including when it starts, a list of places you can watch it with us, and what you can expect to see from the Nintendo Direct.
Nintendo Direct February 2023 Start Time
February 2023’s Nintendo Direct will take place on Wednesday, February 8, and will start at 2pm PT/5pm ET/10pm GMT. If you live in Australia, that translates to 9am AEDT on Thursday, February 9.
Where to Watch the Nintendo Direct February 2023
If you’re interested in watching the latest Nintendo Direct, we’ll be hosting the stream here and across our many channels on platforms like YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, Facebook, and more. Here’s the full list of places you can watch the show with us:
What it did reveal, however, is that the Nintendo Direct will last roughly 40 minutes. So, what can we expect in those 40 minutes? Well, a good bet would be The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. This incredibly anticipated sequel to 2017’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is set to be released on May 12, 2023, and we still don’t know all that much about it.
This would be the perfect time to show us more gameplay, reveal a bit more about the story, or even share with the world any special collector’s editions or themed Switch consoles that may be planned for this momentous launch.
Speaking of Mario, it’s been quite some time since we’ve been treated to a brand-new, mainline Mario adventure, and this could be the best time to tease our favorite plumber’s next adventure. Could it be Super Mario Odyssey 2 with a The Super Mario Bros. Movie Kingdom? Maybe a new 2D adventure we’ll be playing this holiday? The options are limitless.
We’re also still very much waiting for these supposed ports of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, but it may not be the right time with Tears of the Kingdom right around the corner. One can hope though!
Oh! We have to mention Hollow Knight: Silksong and Mother 3, because those two titles are always some of the most requested to show up in Nintendo Directs!
Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.
Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.
