Category: IGN

World’s Edge studio and TiMi Studio Group today revealed they are working together to bring Age of Empires to mobile devices, with a planned release later this year.

Age of Empires Mobile will be a free-to-play strategy game with in-game purchases, which will include items to speed up progression and obtain resources. Like the PC games, Age of Empires mobile will feature base building, empire building, combat, and RTS elements. But it’s not strictly an RTS game – rather, it’s a mix of different strategy mechanics, and will also see certain elements of customization for mobile devices. Available characters will span a number of historical eras including the Chinese, Roman, Frank, and Byzantium empires, and will include King Arthur, Joan of Arc, Julius Caesar, Leonidas I, Alexander I, Khalid, Durgavati, and the Queen of Shiba. Players will also be able to compete both alongside and against one another in both 1v1 play and larger siege battles. More content is planned to be added to the game as time goes on.

While mainline Age of Empires games have been developed by World’s Edge, Age of Empires Mobile is being made by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio, the same studio that developed Call of Duty Mobile, Honor of Kings, and Pokemon Unite. We spoke with producer Robin Xin and TiMi Studio Group general manager Brayden Fan via email ahead of the announcement to learn a bit more about the partnership, and how it came to be.

So why did TiMi choose the Age of Empires franchise specifically as its next major mobile partnership project? One reason might be that a number of the developers there are big fans of the series. Xin is, certainly, saying it was his introduction to the RTS genre and calling the series “iconic.”

“The original title was how I learned to use a mouse and keyboard,” Xin says. “So when you grow up playing Age of Empires, you learn the different aspects of the game. First off I was always trying to build my base to be more powerful. Then, I got into the combat. And even still, I’m hooked. I’ll watch Age of Empires 4 content creators on BiliBili – although I must admit, I am personally more interested in videos sharing different tactical approaches rather than watching the game’s competitive scene. But just the fact that this series can offer different ways to engage with it, shows why it’s such a great title to work on.”

Age of Empires Mobile differs from TiMi’s previous partnerships in that with Call of Duty Mobile and Pokemon Unite, publishing rights stayed with the IP holder. But for Age of Empires Mobile, TiMi will be the publisher. Fan explains that this is due to TiMi’s “considerable” experience in mobile game publishing, and that both World’s Edge and TiMi have “maintained a strong, deep cooperation” throughout the project.

But that doesn’t mean this will be the exact Age of Empires PC-fans are used to. Xin tells me that this should be considered a “brand-new” take on the series, tailored for mobile users. He explains that some of the differences will include reductions in the number of combat units controlled by players as well as the frequency of operations, and adds “smart assists” to help with controls during troop battles, as well as a simpler UI throughout the game. The goal, he says, is to make the game easier to play so that players can focus more on strategic planning rather than fumbling with the UI.

And there are some new gameplay elements as well, Xin adds:

“Age of Empires Mobile introduces a variety of single-player gameplay modes – some are based on RTS gameplay – but more distinctive is the multiplayer experience. The core aspect being the alliance gameplay. This offers players a chance to team up in massive alliances and take part in epic siege wars, building strength through cooperation and competing against players worldwide.”

Age of Empires Mobile is planned to enter early testing in select regions soon, and pre-registration is expected to be available today.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Microsoft has continued its custom console collection by creating an Xbox Series S based on ‘Pokémon with guns’ hit Palworld.

Revealed on X/Twitter, below, the Palworld Xbox Series S itself features a ton of Pals in colourful artwork, but it’s perhaps the controllers that will draw the most attention. The console comes with four gamepads, each one themed after different Palworld beasties.

A yellow controller features Electric element Pal Grizzbolt, a green controller features Grass element Pal Mammorest, a blue controller features Water and Ice element Pal Pengullet, and a pink controller features Neautral Pal Cattiva.

Imagine playing Palworld on THIS

Follow and RT with #PalworldXboxSweepstakes for a chance to win a custom Palworld Xbox Series S, 4 custom controllers, and a 3 Month Game Pass Ultimate Code.

Ages 18+. Ends 3/17/24. Rules: https://t.co/dquXAAJ7lK pic.twitter.com/7pXmCNl5V9

— Xbox (@Xbox) February 23, 2024

Xbox isn’t selling the custom console but is instead giving it away in a sweepstake. Fans can enter for a chance to win by following the Xbox X/Twitter account and retweeting the post by March 17, 2024. The prize bundle comes with three months of Game Pass Ultimate, too.

Palworld is a smash hit, logging 25 million players since going on sale in January 2024, including 10 million on Xbox. It’s the biggest third-party launch on Game Pass ever. This might lower the chance of winning the special console, but someone’s got to win.

This isn’t the first custom console or controller Xbox has created, as earlier in February it revealed a Dune: Part 2 special edition with a floating gamepad. Other Xbox Series X and S generation highlights include red and blue fluffy Sonic the Hedgehog gamepads, one made out of actual Jade, and even an edible gamepad.

Its more regular line of controllers include the sexy Gold Shadow, cosmic Stellar Shift, dusty Stormcloud Vapor, and even an Earth Day one made partly from recycled CDs, water jugs, and other Xbox controller parts.

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

Steam survival crafting game Nightingale is getting an offline mode “as soon as is feasible”, with developer Inflexion Games deeming it a priority.

In a developer update posted to Steam, Inflexion said it built the game with a shared, connected universe in mind but didn’t realise players would want an offline mode too.

It updated the post later to say work on regular updates would be uninterrupted despite saying it was prioritising the unplanned single player mode. News on regular updates, pertaining to new content, fixes, bugs, and other work would arrive in the coming days, it said.

“We are now prioritizing and developing an offline mode that we plan to release as soon as feasible,” Inflexion said.

“Our vision for the game since inception was to create an interconnected series of Realms, with the idea of allowing for co-operative exploration in mind — a universe bigger than a single Realm or server. That meant we made a choice early in development between supporting co-op from day one or focusing development on an offline mode.”

It added: “Looking back on that decision, we misjudged what some of you were looking for in your experience.”

Nightingale launched on February 20 in Steam Early Access as a shared world survival crafting game set in an all new fantasy universe. Players are stranded beyond their own world, cut off by the sudden collapse of the arcane portal network.

“The gameplay loops of Nightingale look flexible, engrossing, and fun, though [we are] mildly worried about how much attention the base building can keep,” IGN said in our final preview. “[We’re] unsure of what else there is to do or maintain once it’s built the way you like. Of course, [we] do suppose creatures can also come wreck things and force you to build anew.”

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

Cardy, Matt, and Dale have all finished Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and had a bloody good time playing it, too. Find out why, as well as why Dune: Part Two is a fantastic sequel and film you should see ON THE BIGGEST SCREEN POSSIBLE. Plus, there’s also time to try and explain how the new poker-based roguelike Balatro is taking over lives.

What’s the scariest kids TV show? What’s the best KitKat? Get in touch at ign_ukfeedback@ign.com.

IGN UK Podcast 737: Buster Swordin’ Makes Me Feel Good

• IGN UK Podcast 736: Who Remembers the 1990s?
• IGN UK Podcast 735: Helldiving into Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
• IGN UK Podcast 734: Suicide Squad and Dale’s Big Plane Story
• IGN UK Podcast 733: Slurping Pal Fluid
• IGN UK Podcast 732: Indiana Jones and the Fantastic Triangle

Avatar: The Last Airbender star Ken Leung thought he was auditioning for a role in James Cameron’s Avatar instead of that of Commander Zhao on the Netflix series.

Speaking to Deadline, Leung admitted he hadn’t heard of the beloved animated series before he was awarded the role and laughed that, when he was told the role was for Avatar, he thought he’d “be blue”.

“I didn’t know the original at all,” Leung said. “Maybe it’s an age thing but I didn’t know about it. First of all, the audition, you couldn’t tell it was for Avatar, it was kind of disguised as a different project. And when I first heard it was for Avatar I thought I was gonna be blue.”

Leung said this served him well, however, as he didn’t have the pressure of knowing the original portrayal of Zhao and therefore could let his version of the character flourish.

“Looking back, I kind of love that I came in blank,” he said. “Because when you have ideas you can kind of corrupt a pure process. You come in blank, things will come into it that will inform your playing of it in a way that it might not if you came in with preconceived ideas or plans. So I was grateful for that.”

The Netflix adaptation premiered on February 22 and also stars Gordon Cormier as Aang, Kiawentiio Tarbell as Katara, Ian Ousley as Sokka, Dallas Liu as Zuko, and Paul Sun-Hyungas as Uncle Iroh.

In our 7/10 review, IGN said: “The live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender series enriches the original story with meaningful new material, but its breakneck pacing, exposition-heavy dialogue, and hit-or-miss effects aren’t precisely in balance.”

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

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth may not be available until February 29 but fans are already obsessing over Tifa’s appearance in the game.

A clip of the remade Costa Del Sol section of Final Fantasy 7 has gone viral, with Tifa trending alongside Aerith. The clip shows the party at the beach, with Cloud seemingly taken aback by Tifa and Aerith’s swimsuits.

The internet has already grown obsessed over it, with one post from X/Twitter user @Genki_JPN having clocked 1.6 million views by itself.

Tifa and Aerith swim suits! 🥵 #FF7R pic.twitter.com/oWcELlAxBd

— Genki✨ (@Genki_JPN) February 22, 2024

Tifa’s popularity isn’t anything new, of course, but the fact she’s trending over Aerith upon the release of a game that already has fans fiercely debating the latter’s fate is telling. Tifa was trending in January too, when fans called for her to be added to Tekken 8 so much that Tekken boss Katsuhiro Harada had to address it.

“We all know she is attractive and I understand that,” Harada said in a post on X/Twitter. “But as yet we have not decided anything about guest characters etc.”

The Costa Del Sol section of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is just one of several cities players can explore. Unlike the first game, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, the sequel takes place throughout a large portion of the world and also includes the likes of Gold Saucer and Junon. The latter can be explored in the recently updated demo too.

Over half the timeline today has just been: pic.twitter.com/t2HMwsyDEN

— TheNCSmaster (@TheNCSmaster) February 22, 2024

In our 9/10 review of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, IGN said: “Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth impressively builds off of what Remake set in motion, both as a best-in-class action-RPG full of exciting challenges and an awe-inspiring recreation of a world that has meant so much to so many for so long.”

Those looking to see how long it takes to get through the epic can also check out IGN’s How Long Is Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth? guide.

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

Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead has raised the game’s server cap to a whopping 700,000 concurrent users as it braces itself for another weekend of massive player numbers.

Helldivers 2 is a smash hit following its explosive launch across PC via Steam and PlayStation 5, but the co-op focused third-person shooter has suffered from significant issues as server capacity is hit time and time again.

Arrowhead has released a number of patches in a bid to combat the problem, including raising the server cap to 500,000 concurrent users, and indeed this week released a major update (Helldivers 2 patch 1.000.11) targeted at sorting out the most egregious issues. But now, Arrowhead has upped the server cap yet again as it prepares for another influx of players over the weekend.

Helldivers 2 patch 1.000.12 raises the server cap, and fixes an issue where some players would get stuck in cinematics for an extended period of time. In a tweet, Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt said the developer had updated the server cap to an incredible 700,000, but warned: “Unfortunately, we expect the CCU to reach that level.” Still, Pilestedt predicted “wait times will be much more bearable.”

In another tweet, Pilestedt insisted that this new server cap is “above what we have been able to support”, and that Arrowhead is “actively monitoring the situation.”

Helldivers 2 is Sony’s biggest PC game launch of all time, with a peak concurrent player figure of 457,649 on Steam. Helldivers 2’s success has even sparked renewed interest in Starship Troopers, the film from which it draws quite a bit of inspiration.

Arrowhead and the Helldivers 2 community will be hoping the servers are able to hold the line going into the weekend, when most expect that peak concurrent record on Steam to fall by the wayside, potentially multiple times.

Arrowhead is still working on a number of issues with Helldivers 2. Here’s the list:

• No text is present for the Requisitions and Social Menu on the Player HUD
• PS5 players may encounter error code 10003001 on the login screen
• Login rate limiting when many are logging in at the same time
• Players can become disconnected during play
• Rewards and other progress may be delayed or not attributed
• Various UI issues may appear when the game interacts with servers
• Pick-up of certain objects in-game may cause characters to freeze in place for an extended period of time
• Some games would not be joinable by others for a short period of time during heavy load
• Other unknown behaviors may occur
• Japanese VO is missing from intro cutscene and Ship TV
• Armor values for light/medium/heavy armor do not currently function as intended

If you’re playing, be sure to check out IGN’s Helldivers 2 guide.

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.

Netherrealm has confirmed that the crossplay will be added to Mortal Kombat 1 in its upcoming patch next week. The studio will share more details about the feature early next as well.

Dubbed “Krossplay,” players will be able to link up with each other on other platforms, including PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC for both Steam and Epic Games Store. Unfortunately, it seems like the Nintendo Switch won’t be getting the crossplay feature in the next update.

Netherrealm has been consistently pushing out updates for Mortal Kombat 1 since its launch back in September 2023 and confirmed that Krossplay would be coming in early 2024. One of its most notable features already added is Wi-fi filter support. This allows players to decline matches based on the opponent’s internet connection. For example, someone who uses a wired connection can opt out against playing someone who uses a wireless connection.

Mortal Kombat 1’s latest DLC character, Peacemaker, will arrive on February 28 for those who purchased the Kombat Pack 1 and its early access. Everyone else will be able to purchase Peacemaker in about a week shortly after. A new gameplay trailer for Peacemaker was recently released, showing off his jetpack-powered fatality and a Janet Cage Kameo.

In IGN’s Mortal Kombat 1 review, we said, “The bone-crunching gameplay of Mortal Kombat 1 is some of the best the series has ever seen, thanks to the game-changing Kameo system. Netherrealm delivers a fantastic single-player story mode as well. However, the new Invasions mode is a grind and the online options feel dated.”

George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. He’s been writing about the industry since 2019 and has worked with other publications such as Insider, Kotaku, NPR, and Variety.

When not writing about video games, George is playing video games. What a surprise! You can follow him on Twitter @Yinyangfooey

2K Sports has revealed the final roster for WWE 2K24, and it’s impressive. Over 204 superstars are playable, including 70 Legends who are no longer on the main rosters and 8 managers, but there’s a couple notable absences from the playable roster: former WWE chairman and CEO Vince McMahon and 7-time WWE Champion and 3-time WWE Universal Champion Brock Lesnar.

Lesnar had previously been removed from the cover of the Forty Years of Wrestlemania version of the game. That version of the cover features several superstars from across WWE’s history.