Category: IGN

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AMD Exec Says 2024 Is a ‘Huge Year’ for AI Upscaling as It Tries to Make Up Ground on Nvidia

AMD might finally be leaning towards AI in its gaming devices, as one company executive touts that 2024 will be a “huge year” for the GPU and CPU maker.

In an interview with the No Priors podcast, AMD CTO Mark Papermaster said that over the last several years, the company has been working on developing its hardware and software capabilities for artificial intelligence, with its gaming hardware finally set to implement AI.

“Well, this is a huge year for us because we have spent so many years developing our hardware and software capabilities for AI,” Papermaster explained. “We’ve just completed AI enabling our entire portfolio: Cloud, edge, PCs, embedded devices, our gaming devices. We’re enabling our gaming devices to upscale using AI, and 2024 is really a huge deployment year for us.”

While Papermaster did not specify how AMD would incorporate AI, he is most likely referring to FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), AMD’s supersampling tech.

Unlike Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) and Intel’s Xe Super Sampling (XeSS), FSR is the only supersampling tech that does not use AI. However, Papermaster’s use of “gaming devices” imply that RDNA 4 may include AI upscaling. In either case, AMD is late to the party as its key rivals, Nvidia and Intel, already use AI in their gaming products.

Nvidia has been leading the pack since 2019 with DLSS, which has become one of the most popular upscaling methods. It has made Nvidia a front-runner in the AI race, which continues to heat up as various major tech companies try to incorporate the technology into their own products.

For now, Nvidia’s adoption of AI in DLSS and other areas is paying off off, as the company recently became a 2 trillion dollar company last month.

Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

Yuzu Creators Will Pay Nintendo $2.4 Million in Damages and End Development of Switch Emulator

The creators of Yuzu have settled its lawsuit with Nintendo, agreeing to pay $2.4 million in damages and shutting down support for the popular open-source Switch emulator.

A new document reveals that Tropic Haze will pay Nintendo $2.4 million to settle the lawsuit filed last week. Nintendo sued Yuzu’s developers in U.S. Federal Court, alleging that the emulator is “primarily designed” to circumvent several layers of Switch encryption in order to make it possible to play Nintendo games on devices such as Steam Deck.

Nintendo argued in its filing that Tropic Haze was liable for the distribution of illegal copies of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, claiming that it had been pirated up to 1 million times before release. Specifically, the filing claimed that Yuzu’s Patreon page allowed its developers to earn $30,000 per month by providing subscribers with “daily updates,” “early access,” and “special unreleased features” to games like Tears of the Kingdom.

Yuzu is shutting down

In a proposed final judgment and permanent injunction document, the settlement terms will forbid the distribution of Yuzu in all of its forms while shutting down its website and other services. As Nintendo previously noted in its legal complaint last week, it not only wanted monetary damages from the lawsuit but also wanted to eliminate Yuzu’s existence entirely, including taking control of its domain and social media accounts.

First released in 2018, Yuzu is an open-source Nintendo Switch emulator developed using C++. It has been used to emulate numerous Nintendo Switch games shortly after release. The topic of hardware emulation remains fraught, with some game preservation experts advocating for the emulation of older platforms that have been discontinued. The Switch, for its part, is expected to remain Nintendo’s main platform until at least 2025 and has suffered a notable piracy platform for much of its existence.

This is not the first time Nintendo has sought legal action against emulation developers. Most recently, in 2021, the ROM-hosting website called RomUniverse was ordered to pay Nintendo $2.1 million in damages for copyright infringement and federal trademark infringement. In 2018, Nintendo received over $12 million in damages after successfully suing the ROM-hosted websites LoveRETRO and LoveROMs.

Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

The Thaumaturge Review

In a video game industry that often feels like it’s bloating into a monolithic, unsustainable beast propped up by annual staples and once every generation blockbusters, a small silver lining is that it’s still big enough for games like The Thaumaturge to exist. This mid-size RPG may not match the jaw-dropping scale of a game like Baldur’s Gate 3, but it’s still packed with atmosphere and good ideas that are mostly well executed. Aside from some buggy movement and odd voices, the turn-based combat is full of interesting strategic choices, and its great writing and story manage to punch up tried and true point-and-click clue finding and lore gathering.

You play as the eponymous Thaumaturge, a sort of Witcher/John Constantine mash up of a supernaturally gifted human and an extraplanar detective named Wiktor. His journey to uncover the circumstances of his father’s death often finds him plying his esoteric trade both in service of this goal, and as a distraction from it. The various intertwining stories of a Poland at the brink of revolution, as well as Wiktor discovering all the ways things have changed at home in his fifteen year absence, tie a compelling narrative knot across its 20 hour run time.

Though I found a lot of its main and side stories to be interesting, the slow pace does mean you’ll spend long stretches of time reading and listening before being given a chance to act. When you do, usually through dialogue options that can vary based on past choices or your own abilities, sometimes The Thaumaturge asked me to make assumptions about Wiktor’s life and old relationships that I had no context for. For instance, it regularly asks you to either be nice or a jerk to people who apparently know him, but doesn’t give you adequate reason to decide one way or the other. The voice acting can also be a bit shaky, with accents that are all over the place – more than one person that is supposed to be a native to the region sounded like I could have met them in a Wawa here in the great state of New Jersey.

That said, I did like that dialogue options regularly felt risky, and limitations imposed by previous encounters or Wiktor’s current stats made chatting people up feel like a challenge. I can’t speak to how differently any of these exchanges would go if I chose some other option, or how long it would take to reach the consequences of those choices, but The Thaumaturge at least puts on a convincing show of giving you meaningful control over its events.

The good writing that accompanies clues adds some heightened drama.

Quests involve a lot of snooping around, investigating objects both mundane and magical in private and in public, all to earn “observations,” which are clues you can draw about the people who interacted with them based on any lingering emotional residue. The lingering lust on bedsheets or wily chaos on a stray bullet stuck in a wall can help you draw conclusions about the people who were involved with these things. Even though this largely means using your perception to investigate glowing objects in a more mystical version of Batman’s detective mode, the particularly good writing that accompanies the clues does add some heightened drama as you work to put all the pieces together in your head before The Thaumaturge puts a giant neon sign on the right answers for you.

Turn of the 20th century Europe is a comfortable setting for all this political drama and magical intrigue. The Russian imperial expansion into Poland, and the latter’s revolution against the intruders, is thick with the kind of tension only a ghost skeleton with a Cavalry saber can cut. The constant push and pull between the occupiers and the increasingly more disgruntled citizens is something Wiktor’s supernatural adventure is constantly butting up against, and it really helps keep this story grounded and relatable even when things get dense with lore and macguffins, which is a hallmark of good science fiction.

I’m not an expert in the period, so when I say everything looks the part – from the hairstyles to the clothing to the architecture – just know it’s coming from a guy who’s seen Doctor Zhivago once and thought it was fine. It’s not groundbreaking in its fidelity, but colors, textures, and lighting are pretty good looking at their best. Moving around Poland is sometimes a little glitchy , but it’s a city that is dense with people to speak to and stuff to find that I was excited to explore.

Warsaw is filled to the brim with folk who’d rather you and your brethren be dead or maimed than in their business, and luckily when combat does break out, you aren’t alone. Salutors, the spiritual beings that haunt the people and places of the world, can be tamed to assist you. Each has their own strengths and types, which can be used against certain kinds of enemy weaknesses, Pokemon-style. Among my go-tos were Bukavac, a snarling beast who is great at applying negative states to enemies, or Lelek, a chaotic bird demon who can drive enemies mad.

Combat is never boring, but it’s not particularly challenging, either.

Weaving Wiktor and your chosen salutor’s attacks together to most optimally synergize your offense never felt boring, though it’s not particularly challenging, either – even on the highest difficulty, it wasn’t until the very end of my adventure that the fights truly tested my brain. This is partially because all of your currently captured Salutors are available at any time to switch back and forth between, so you always have access to your enemy’s vulnerabilities, but also because you get so much information about the goings on of every turn. You’ll be able to plan around who’s up next, what kind of attack they are going to use, and how close to death everyone is when queuing up your attacks, and while getting near perfect information in battle is a great thing, the enemies don’t seem to have the same ability to make good decisions with it that I did.

Enemies are 90% regular guys reskinned in different clothing or uniforms, wielding knives, clubs, guns, or even their fists. They may not be visually compelling, but most of their attacks do things more than straight damage, like adding detrimental status effects or draining your focus to open you up to big damage. Wiktor, combined with all of the potential spirits he can wrestle under his control, have quite a menu of offensive options themselves. Though many fights with these random goons seem to happen out of nowhere and for what should be easily avoidable reasons, it doesn’t hurt to gain as many opportunities as possible to practice all of your potential options, as well as gain points to level up your thaumaturgy skills, which boost your stats, give you access to even more attacks, and potentially unlocks new discovery and dialogue opportunities.

The other 10% of the enemies are salutors or other thaumaturges. Besides usually being more visually striking fights, with the added twist of having an untargetable character afflicting the battle in some way, they play out largely the same as other encounters. They do tend to be more challenging and provide satisfying punctuations to some of the campaign’s more interesting side missions, but I also wish they got a little spicier, tactically, considering the enemies you get to face off against.

Dune: Awakening Gets Tons of New Gameplay Footage Revealing Unreal Engine 5 Arrakis in Dune Direct

We already knew that Norwegian game developer Funcom is working on an open-world survival MMO game set in the Dune universe. And today, the developer has provided a new look at Dune: Awakening, including a glimpse into Arrakis along with some gameplay footage.

As part of Dune Direct, a nearly 25-minute digital showcase to provide new details on Dune: Awakening, Funcom concluded the presentation with a new gameplay trailer subtitled “Survive Arrakis.” The trailer, which you can check out below, is visually stunning.

Powered by Epic’s Unreal Engine 5, the latest trailer for Dune: Awakening shows the extreme conditions on planet Arrakis, from the harsh climate to gigantic sandworms emerging from the sand and evading hostile enemies. The gameplay trailer also leans into the survival aspects of Awakening, showing snippets of your playable character gathering materials and finding various ways of traversing the massive open world.

In addition to the trailer, IGN can exclusively reveal two new screenshots. The first shows some of the game’s particle effects in action.

The second shows off its lighting and other aspects of Dune: Awakening’s character design.

Funcom also released a host of other screenshots showing off Dune: Awakening’s world as well as a featurette titled Creating Worlds, which chronicles its journey from “book to movie to game.” It includes interviews with its development team interspersed with the movie that reveals how Funcom brought the forbidding world of Arrakis to life.

The rest of the Dune Direct details Dune: Awakening’s survival mechanics and other elements, with creative director Joel Bylos explaining how it takes the base-building from Conan Exiles and builds on it, with a special emphasis on sharing blueprints between different players. He also discusses the ways in which players will be able to learn abilities from the “great schools of the universe,” including becoming a Bene Gesserit and being able to “compel enemies to come closer so you can stab them with a knife.” As for sandworms, Bylos says they are more of a “tension mechanic.” There’s no way to kill them; they can only be avoided. However, you can lure them into your enemies (or friends), or simply avoid them with an ornithopter.

Bylos says that Funcom has been running betas for Dune: Awakening for several months now, with the intention of bringing in more players over time. However, he says that Funcom has no intention of “rushing it out the door,” saying that it “takes as long as it takes.” Players hoping to sign up for one of the closed betas can do so at the game’s official website.

Surviving Arrakis

Dune: Awakening was first announced in 2022 at The Game Awards. Set on the sandworm-filled planet Arrakis, Dune: Awakening “is set on Arrakis and takes inspiration from both Frank Herbert’s novels and Denis Villeneuve’s Academy Award-winning film while exploring exciting new possibilities in the franchise.”

While no release date was announced for Dune: Awakening, we previously learned that it will be available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

The announcement comes following the release of Dune: Part 2, which hit theatres last Friday. In our review of Dune: Part 2, my colleague Tom Jorgenson wrote: “Featuring absolutely staggering visuals, Dune: Part Two is an arresting, transportive middle entry in Denis Villeneuve’s tricky sci-fi saga.”

Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

Meta Will Delete All Oculus Accounts Later This Month

The final nail in the coffin for Oculus branding is coming, as Meta announced today that those who fail to migrate their Oculus account to a Meta account will lose access to all their games and in-app purchases at the end of the month.

In an email sent out to some Quest users (spotted by The Verge), Meta warned that if you do not integrate your Oculus account into a Meta account by March 29, not only will it delete your account, but you will lose access to anything from the account, including games, DLC, achievements and store credit.

The move comes as no surprise; in 2021, when Facebook rebranded itself to Meta, the tech giant revealed plans to retire the Oculus brand to simplify its “brand architecture.” This included renaming the Oculus Quest to the Meta Quest line of standalone VR headsets. In June 2022, Meta announced the ability to create a Meta account, a more approachable alternative for Quest owners to log into their headset without creating or logging into their Facebook account, something that was at the time a major drawback for Quest 2 owners.

Users can seamlessly migrate their Oculus account to a Meta account by heading to Meta’s official website and signing up for a Meta account. However, users must use the same email address associated with their Oculus account for their games, store credits, and other user data in their newly-created Meta account.

Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

Arthur Morgan Is Your American History Teacher in New Red Dead Redemption Audiobook

Roger Clark, who plays Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption 2, is set to narrate an audiobook that looks at American history through the lens of Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption games.

Clark narrates historian Tore Olsson’s ‘Red Dead’s History’ in character as Arthur Morgan, protagonist of Rockstar’s critically acclaimed open-world epic.

Red Dead’s History explores the “wildly dramatic and gritty world” of America from 1870 to 1920. 2010’s Red Dead Redemption and its prequel, 2018’s Red Dead Redemption 2, set in 1911 and 1899 respectively, were praised for their authentic portrayal of life during the decline of the American frontier. In the book, Olsson digs into the detail presented in the games and adds context from real-world American history.

Here’s the official blurb:

“Weaving together the fictional characters and plot of the Red Dead Redemption games with real-life historical vignettes, Olsson reveals that the action-packed violence of the Red Dead universe isn’t just spawned from Hollywood westerns but rooted in real sociopolitical issues from turn-of-the-century America.”

IGN spoke with college history professor Tore Olsson, who as well as writing books teaches the world’s first Red Dead Redemption history class at the University of Tennessee, to discuss the work. (Check out the interview in full for a fascinating look into the Red Dead Redemption games and their historical “thoughtfulness”, as Olsson puts it.) Here’s a snippet:

“It came as an epiphany when I sat down in the midst of the pandemic in 2020, and played Red Dead Redemption 2 for the first time. I was only about 10 hours in, and all these historical nodes in my brain are firing left and right. I can’t turn off my historian identity when I’m playing. And I’m really genuinely surprised at how historically thoughtful the games were. I’m not so much obsessed with this question of accuracy that gets bandied around a lot, when you talk about historical video games. I’m more interested in thoughtfulness and the ways a game tries to capture the mood and the feeling and the range of options and the realities of a time period. And I thought the game did a surprisingly good job at that.”

IGN also spoke to Roger Clark himself, who revealed why he wanted to be involved with the project, discussed the making of Red Dead Redemption 2, and teased what’s next.

The audiobook edition of Red Dead’s History will be published by Macmillan Audio on August 6, 2024 and will be available at Audible, Apple Books, or wherever audiobooks are sold.

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.

Fake Ransomware Gang Admits It Made Up Epic Games Hack

A fake ransomware gang has said it lied when it claimed to have hacked Fortnite maker Epic Games.

A group calling itself Mogilevich had claimed to have accessed Epic Games data and threatened to release its data unless it was paid. But Epic itself denied it had been hacked, and now Mogilevich has admitted the scam.

Cyber Daily quoted a Mogilevich spokesperson who said the group tried to trick hackers into buying hacking tools. “In reality, we are not a ransomware-as-a-service, but professional fraudsters,” the spokesperson said. “None of the databases listed in our blog were as true as you might have discovered recently. We took advantage of big names to gain visibility as quickly as possible, but not to fame and receive approval, but to build meticulously our new trafficking of victims to scam.”

We don’t think of ourselves as hackers but rather as criminal geniuses, if you can call us that.

“Now the real question is, why confess all this when we could just run away?” the spokesperson continued. “This was done to illustrate the process of our scam. We don’t think of ourselves as hackers but rather as criminal geniuses, if you can call us that.”

As Cyber Daily points out, even this confession may be a lie. But what is clear is Mogilevich is not behind a hack of Epic Games or any other organization. Indeed, Epic Games itself had issued a statement insisting there was “zero evidence” Mogilevich’s claims were legitimate.

“Mogilievich has not contacted Epic or provided any proof of the veracity of these allegations,” Epic said in a statement issued to Eurogamer. “When we saw these allegations, which were a screenshot of a darkweb webpage in a tweet from a third party, we began investigating within minutes and reached out to Mogilevich for proof. Mogilevich has not responded. The closest thing we have seen to a response is this tweet, where they allegedly ask for $15k and ‘proof of funds’ to hand over the purported data.”

While this case is a scam, video game companies are on high alert after a series of hacks in recent years that have resulted in the release of stolen data.

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.

Star Wars Strategy Game Still Alive Following Mass Layoffs at EA

The Star Wars strategy game in development at Bit Reactor and produced by Apex Legends and Star Wars Jedi developer Respawn has survived after the recent mass layoffs at EA.

EA announced plans in February 2024 to lay off around 670 workers, cancel or close games, and move away from future licensed intellectual property.

The publisher currently has several confirmed Star Wars and Marvel games in development, including a third Jedi game, Black Panther, and Iron Man. But EA canceled Respawn’s Star Wars first person shooter, which was announced last year but had not yet been fully revealed.

Last week was difficult for the industry, and more so because of our strong relationships within the other teams at Respawn.

Some had expressed concern about the fate of the Star Wars strategy game, but a tweet by developer Bit Reactor confirmed it survived the cull.

“Last week was difficult for the industry, and more so because of our strong relationships within the other teams at Respawn,” Bit Reactor said. “But for those asking, we are still hard at work, and our game was unaffected by last week’s news.”

In a subsequent tweet responding to a question asking when the Star Wars strategy game would be unveiled, Bit Reactor said: “As soon as it’s ready…”

EA announced the Star Wars strategy game in January 2022 alongside two others all overseen in one form or another by Respawn. We now know the FPS has fallen by the wayside, leaving Star Wars Jedi 3 and the strategy game in development. Neither have release windows. Bit Reactor was formed by Firaxis Games veterans best-known for their work on the XCOM franchise.

Announcing the layoffs, EA boss Andrew Wilson said the company would now double down on owned IP, sports, and “massive online communities.” This marks yet another major blow to the games industry amid ongoing mass layoffs at studios of all sizes. The cuts impacted roughly 10,000 developers in 2023, and are approaching 8,000 in just the first two months of 2024.

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.

Daily Deals: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, Pokémon Legends: Arceus, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD

The weekend is coming to a close, so it’s time to round up the best deals available this weekend across games, technology, and more! New titles are seeing discounts, and plenty of hardware is on sale, too. The best deals for Sunday, March 3, include the Samsung 55″ S90C 4K OLED TV, New Pokémon Snap, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD, and more.

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk Up To 34% Off

Amazon has both the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5 copies of Bomb Rush Cyberfunk on sale right now. This spiritual successor to Jet Set Radio offers a ton of fun, with all kinds of activities to complete. You play as Red and join the Bomb Rush Crew, where you set off around the city to discover graffiti spots and get REP. All the flashy tricks you know and love are here, so this is a great title to sit back and unwind with.

Pokémon Legends: Arceus for $44.99

Pokémon Legends: Arceus is often praised as one of the best Pokémon games available on the Switch. This original title takes place far in the past, somewhere in the Hisui region. With a focus on exploration, you can freely walk all around the map to capture Pokémon, explore different environments, and so much more. You can save $15 at Best Buy this weekend on the best Pokémon experience Switch has to offer.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD for $39.99

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD is the long-awaited remaster of the classic Wii game. Set at the beginning of the Zelda timeline, Skyward Sword takes Link to the skies as he traverses across the world to save his childhood friend Zelda. You’ll uncover the Master Sword was created as part of this journey, among other things. For $39.99, this is an excellent title to add to your Switch collection.

Save 44% Off This Samsung 55″ 4K OLED S90C TV

Walmart has an amazing deal this weekend on a 2023 Samsung OLED TV. Equipped with a gorgeous OLED screen with a 144Hz refresh rate, the latest titles for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X will look gorgeous and fluid. You’ll save over $1100 with this deal, making this a price that could be hard to pass up if you’re in the market for a new OLED TV.

$80 Off Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II

The Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II are an excellent choice if you’re searching for premium earbuds with noise cancellation technology that don’t comprise on the sound. These earbuds feature CustomTune sound calibration, which calibrates the sound and noise canceling automatically to fit your ears. Like the Apple AirPods Pro, you can switch between different settings of noise cancellation. Aware Mode lets in your surroundings and blends those sounds together with your music.

ROG Ally for $399.99

If you’ve been waiting to pick up a handheld PC, the ROG Ally is now available at Best Buy for just $399.99. Running Windows 11, the Ally is perfect to play your Steam games, play Xbox Game Pass, or even Android apps. With a 120Hz screen, each game you play will be presented with fluidity. You can even connect the ROG Ally to any TV with the included HDMI adapter and play your titles on the big screen when you’re not traveling or playing on the go.

Dead Space for $29.99

Dead Space launched last January, and this is a great time to pick up the game if you haven’t already. This remake features an immpresive use of technology and a completely modernized cpmbat system. A special attention has been put on the audio, with 3D Audio technology utilized for an immersive experience. You can expect loads of thrills and horror as you look to escape the stranded ship. The USG Ishimura has never looked better or been scarier.

New Pokémon Snap for $40

New Pokémon Snap was the long-awaited follow-up to Pokémon Snap on the Nintendo 64. The title lets you take pictures of Pokémon as you travel through the different islands that make up the Lental region. Every area has all kinds of wonders to see, so you never know what to expect. Additionally, you can unlock new courses by taking good pictures in New Pokémon Snap, leaving for a sizeable amount of content to unlock and discover.

Armored Core 6 for $39.99

The latest Armored Core title is on sale at Amazon right now, matching the previous low for the title. We gave the game an 8/10 in our review, stating it had “excellent, explosive combat that manages to take very complex systems and mechanics and make them easy to understand and execute.”

19% Off Persona 3 Reload

Persona 3 Reload is already one of the biggest 2024 releases so far. The remake brings in new gameplay features, new voice actors, and an impressive slew of technology, including ray tracing. It’s already on sale right now at Amazon for $56.99, which saves you $13 off the game. If you’ve never experienced the story of Persona 3, this is the definitive way to do so.

Lego 2K Drive for $24.99

Amazon has a sweet discount on Lego 2K Drive this weekend! If you’re a racing game fan and haven’t checked out this game yet, now is a great time to see what it’s about. This release went a little under the radar at launch, but it’s a fun time overall. We gave the game a 8/10 in our review, stating, “LEGO 2K Drive is a wild and whimsical all-ages kart racer with an incredible custom vehicle creation tool that’s just about worth the price of admission alone.”

Save $20 Off Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League

Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League just recently released last month, but it’s already on sale with a $20 discount this weekend at Best Buy. Developed by Rocksteady, you’ll be thrown into a world where Braniac has taken over Metropolis. The Justice League has been corrupted in the process, and it’s up to the Suicide Squad to take out each member of the Justice League and stop Braniac.

Pokémon Skipping 2024 Is a Good Thing

It says something about the state of a video game series when lots of fans are happy the next game is coming later than expected. That’s what happened this week in the Pokémon community, after Game Freak and The Pokémon Company revealed Pokémon Legends: Z-A is coming to Nintendo Switch in 2025. Many trainers — myself included — let out a huge sigh of relief after learning that Pokémon is taking a much-needed break in 2024, ending a streak that lasted eight consecutive years of new mainline content.

Since 2016, Pokémon’s release schedule has looked like this:

  • 2016: Sun & Moon
  • 2017: Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon
  • 2018: Let’s Go, Pikachu! & Let’s Go, Eevee!
  • 2019: Sword & Shield
  • 2020: Sword & Shield DLC
  • 2021: Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl
  • 2022: Legends: Arceus and Scarlet & Violet
  • 2023: Scarlet & Violet DLC

It’s been a crazy cadence of video game launches with absolutely no time to breathe, and the signs of unsustainability have been showing for multiple years at this point. 2022 alone saw two hugely ambitious Pokémon games come out of Game Freak. And while I absolutely adore Legends: Arceus’ spin on the Pokémon formula, and I respect Scarlet & Violet for shaking things up in a big way, all of the aspirations and innovations were significantly overshadowed by low-quality graphics and — in Scarlet & Violet’s case — unacceptable technical performance. Scarlet & Violet’s issues brought it to the point where Nintendo shared an apology, which you almost never see from the company. I’ve seen a lot of black-text-on-yellow-background apologies in the last several years but I never expect to see it from Nintendo.

I don’t mean to sound like a Pokémon hater – I love Pokémon, or at least I want to love Pokémon again. But it’s been hard watching Game Freak struggle to transition to home console development during the Switch generation and the way I see it, it’s left with basically two choices: scale the ambition back or take more development time to release fewer games. And given that Pokémon is already describing Legends: Z-A as “an ambitious new entry”, it seems it’s opting for the latter.

Granted, all we know is that Legends: Z-A is coming sometime in 2025. That could very well end up being early in the year (Remember, Legends: Arceus launched in January 2022), and then all the praise I’m giving The Pokémon Company and Game Freak will be moot. An early 2025 release would equal a three-year turnaround since Arceus, which is pretty standard for Game Freak. Gen 5 (2010), Gen 6 (2013), Gen 7 (2016), Gen 8 (2019) and Gen 9 (2022) all had three-year gaps in between. So I’m sincerely hoping the generic 2025 release window and the fact the announcement trailer didn’t actually show any gameplay means the developers and publisher are taking the Scarlet & Violet criticism seriously, and we won’t see Legends: Z-A until later in 2025.

So I’m thrilled Pokémon is taking a break in 2024, and I’m excited that Game Freak is returning to the Legends subseries. But we really know very little about Legends: Z-A, so let’s tackle some other big questions brought on by this announcement.

What Does the “Legends” Branding Actually Mean?

Depending on the day, I sometimes call Pokémon Legends: Arceus my favorite Pokémon game of all time. I fell in love with the revamped focus on catching and collecting Pokémon, and it solidified for me that a Pokémon game revolving around “Gotta catch ‘em all” is more compelling than “I wanna be the very best.” I know that’s an unpopular take, and I understand that the main series isn’t going anywhere, but I was thrilled when Legends: Z-A’s announcement confirmed that Arceus wasn’t just a one-off experiment.

But from the little we know about Z-A, it’s hard to determine if this is really a sequel to Legends: Arceus at all. We know Z-A will take place entirely within the Kalos region’s Lumiose City, and “urban redevelopment” has been teased as Z-A’s theme. Both of those elements are significantly at odds with Legends: Arceus, which was about exploring nature in wide, open areas.

A Pokémon game revolving around ‘Gotta catch ‘em all’ is more compelling than ‘I wanna be the very best.’

So it’s possible that each entry in the Pokémon Legends series will be its own distinct thing, and the new mechanics I loved in Arceus might not necessarily translate to Z-A. Maybe the Pokémon Legends branding just means a mainline game developed by Game Freak that takes a look at a region years before the modern day Pokémon games, while avoiding the traditional Pokémon formula of gym badges and the Elite Four. Or, maybe Z-A still could incorporate Arceus’ catching mechanics while taking place in the big city. Time will tell but either way, I’m incredibly happy Game Freak is taking yet another crack at approaching Pokémon from a new angle.

What About Unova?

I placed my bet that the next mainline Pokémon game would return to Unova, the setting of Gen 5’s Black & White. Instead, Legends: Z-A is skipping Gen 5 and jumping straight to the region from Gen 6’s X & Y, and in a weird roundabout way giving us the Pokémon Z version we never got. Game Freak is breaking the pattern of its Pokémon remakes and I can’t help but wonder if there is a plan for Gen 5 remakes.

The Pokémon Company outsourced Gen 4 remakes Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl to developer ILCA and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s planning to assign a Black & White remake to a separate studio at some point, ILCA or otherwise. It’s impossible to say if something like that is already in development or not, but I have a good feeling that we will still end up seeing a return to Unova sometime in the next few years.

No, Not Everything Is a Nintendo Switch 2 Hint

We’re only in March and I’m already exhausted from all the Nintendo Switch 2 speculation we’ve endured this year. The internet will seemingly take any little thing and use it to fuel the Switch 2 fire, even in cases where there’s absolutely no reason to.

When it came to the Legends: Z-A trailer, the internet latched onto wording that said Legends: Z-A will launch “simultaneously” worldwide in 2025 for Nintendo Switch “systems”. Some people took this as a hint that Legends: Z-A will release as a cross-gen title on both Switch and Switch 2, and I’d really like to pump the brakes on that.

There’s just no way Nintendo or The Pokémon Company would let any wording confirming Switch 2 slip into its marketing before it has officially announced its next hardware. Nintendo is incredibly careful about its messaging and I assure you this isn’t some slip-up or cryptic hint. And Nintendo always refers to the Switch, OLED, and Lite as the “Nintendo Switch family of systems” or “Nintendo Switch systems”, so that word choice is in no way hinting at unannounced hardware. The Pokémon Twitter account used the exact same wording when talking about Detective Pikachu Returns, which already launched on Nintendo Switch systems last year.

The 2025 release timing really tells us nothing about Nintendo’s next generation plans either way. Pokémon notoriously waits a year or two before transitioning to Nintendo’s new hardware. The 3DS launched in March 2011 and we didn’t see the first mainline 3DS Pokémon games until Fall 2013. For a more recent example, the Nintendo Switch launched in March 2017 and Pokémon didn’t make an appearance until Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Let’s Go, Eevee! in Fall 2018.

I think the more interesting discussion surrounds what Legends: Z-A’s 2025 release window means for Nintendo’s Fall 2024 release calendar. If recent reports are accurate and Switch 2 isn’t coming until next year, the remainder of Nintendo’s 2024 is looking pretty light. Pokémon is basically always a staple of Nintendo’s holiday lineup and I was expecting nothing different in 2024. But it’s now looking like Pokémon will miss this holiday, leaving me to wonder what Nintendo will fill that gap with. Is it finally time for Metroid Prime 4 or Wind Waker and Twilight Princess? Or will Nintendo pull out something completely new and unexpected? We’ll have to wait and see, but I can tell you for certain Nintendo has at least one unannounced game in its back pocket for this holiday season, and I can’t wait to learn what it is.

What do you think of Pokémon Legends: Z-A? Let us know in the comments.

Logan Plant is IGN’s Database Manager, Playlist Editor, and frequent Super Ninfriendo on Nintendo Voice Chat. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.