Category: IGN

City of Heroes is making an official return as a fan server dedicated to keeping the superhero multiplayer game running has been granted an official license by publisher NCSOFT.

Revealed in a forum post, a representative of the fan server, titled Homecoming, announced their hard work paid off. City of Heroes was shut down more than a decade ago in November 2012, but fan servers kept players entertained and now its biggest has officially revived the massively multiplayer online role-playing game.

“We’d like to thank you all for your patience over the past few years, and we’re incredibly thrilled to announce that it’s paid off,” the post said. “NCSOFT has officially granted Homecoming a license to host City of Heroes.”

Aware fans would have many questions about the change, the post made the most important points clear: players accounts and characters are safe, new content will continue to be developed, and it will remain free and run through donations. More details will arrive in the coming months.

“Realise your comic book dreams in this MMORPG that is home to an entire universe of super-powered heroes and villains,” reads the game’s synopsis. “Build your own unique hero from millions of possible character combinations and venture into Paragon City to discover all the danger, wonder and excitement that await you.”

In our 8/10 review from 2004, when the game debuted, IGN said: “City of Heroes is fun. It’s exciting, it’s colourful, it’s cute, it’s brutal, and it’s a great realization of comic books in MMO form. It seems like a great place to start for those that have always found MMOs intimidating.”

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

Surgeon Simulator and Lost Skies developer Bossa Studios has become the latest affected by the sweeping lay-offs hitting the video game industry.

As revealed by GI.biz, the UK developer laid off almost one third of all staff as 19 employees lost their jobs, caused by what co-founder Henrique Olifiers called a “perfect storm of events”. The lay-offs came at the end of 2023, with 40 employees remaining at the studio.

This “perfect storm” was, according to Olifiers, caused by the number of high profile triple-A games launching after September that took attention from smaller studios, increasing operational costs, and delayed funding decisions across the industry.

“Resulting from this blue moon situation, we had to make the difficult decision to reshape the studio to reflect the position we find ourselves in at the end of this year, focusing all our efforts now on Lost Skies,” he said. “This means we find ourselves in the heartbreaking position of having to let roughly one third of the studio go — amongst them, some of our closest colleagues.”

Olifiers pleaded for other studios to hire the laid off members where possible, though the entire video game industry is currently struggling with job losses.

Lay-offs in 2023 were among the worst in industry history, with myriad studios of all sizes affected. Dreams’ Media Molecule, Cyberpunk 2077’s CD Projekt Red, F1 Manager’s Frontier Developments, and Assassin’s Creed’s Ubisoft all suffered lay-offs. Destiny 2 developer Bungie was also affected, causing a “soul crushing” atmosphere at the studio that IGN learned about in an investigative report.

Colossal companies like Embracer, who owns the likes of Borderlands developer Gearbox Software and Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics, Fortnite publisher Epic Games, and Dungeons & Dragons owner Hasbro also saw sweeping job losses. Embracer laid off 5% of its workforce, amassing to 904 staff in total, Epic laid off 16%, or 830 employees, and Hasbro cut close to 20%, meaning around 1,100 staff.

Entire studios were also closed, including Embracer’s Campfire Cabal and Saints Row developer Volition Games, plus the studio behind TimeSplittlers Free Radical.

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

Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games is releasing a ship bundle for its controversial space simulator that costs an eye-watering $48,000.

Revealed on its website, the Legatus 2953 pack will arrive in the first quarter of 2024 and cost $48,000 despite the game not having officially launched yet.

“Ahead of all others, this definitive armada is an equal match to the noble title of Legatus Navium,” the Legatus 2953 item page reads. “Comprised of over 175 vessels from every manufacturer of note, this perfect collection, including all ships released and concepted through 2953, empowers every fleet commander to forge a lasting legacy, leading humanity towards a brighter future.”

Adding even more to the price, the Legatus 2953 pack is only available to members of Star Citizen’s Chairman’s Club, which can only be entered after spending $1,000 on other items in game.

Star Citizen is considered one of the most controversial projects in all video games. Over the years it’s been called many things, including a scam by those who wonder whether it will ever properly launch.

What cannot be denied is the huge amount of money so far raised by Star Citizen, which CIG displays on its website. At the time of this article’s publication, Star Citizen had raised $658,161,596 from more than five million accounts.

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

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

Atlus has released the super stylish opening cinematic for Persona 3: Reload ahead of its February 2 launch.

The two minute movie, which can be viewed below, is everything you’d expect of a Persona game, featuring a bright and colourful aesthetic over some incredibly dark themes.

Persona intros, which appear before the main menu when booting up the games, usually feature an upbeat pop track too, and Persona 3: Reload’s is no different. Protagonist Makoto Yuki even boots the tune up on an MP3 player in the beginning of the cinematic, which also acts as a quick reminder that Persona 3: Reload is set in 2009 and won’t feature smartphones as Persona 5 does.

The dark themes present in the trailer include suicide, headlined by Persona 3’s controversial method of summoning Personas that has characters put gun-like items called Evokers to their heads.

This method of summoning, which is regularly featured in the game as both a plot point and battle animation, has been debated for years, but Atlus opted to include it in the remake of the 2006 game.

Persona 3: Reload is a full recreation of the original, meaning it doesn’t include the additional features and options in the likes of Persona 3: FES or Persona 3: Portable. It also features a brand new English voice cast. The game was finally announced at the 2023 Xbox Games Showcase following a string of rumours and one final leak ahead of the event.

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

Christmas has come late. A new IGN UK Podcast episode has arrived as Cardy, Dale, and Mat have a big ol’ catch-up and chat about all the games, movies, and TV shows that were enjoyed (and some not so much) over the festive break. We’ve got everything from God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla to Cobalt Core. Big blockbuster hits like Godzilla Minus One to French new wave noir. A bit of something for everyone innit.

What are you most excited about watching or playing in 2024? Get in touch at ign_ukfeedback@ign.com.

IGN UK Podcast 730: Flo Rida’s Christmas Catch-Up

• IGN UK Podcast 729: The 2023 Alternative TV Awards
• IGN UK Podcast 728: The 2023 Alternative Game Awards
• IGN UK Podcast 727: The 2024 Alternative Movie Awards
• IGN UK Podcast 726: GTA 6 Looks Decent
• IGN UK Podcast 725: Predicting The Game Awards 2023

The next game from Stern Pinball Inc. will be JAWS, a machine based on the 1975 Steven Spielberg film and featuring many sights and sounds from the horror flick. JAWS pinball also features the original John Williams score, new callouts from original JAWS star Richard Dreyfuss, and seemingly lots of movie footage incorporated into its HD screen. Shockingly, aside from a goofy ’70s knockoff machine and Zen Pinball’s virtual JAWS games, there’s never been an official JAWS pinball machine.

MapleStory developer Nexon is being hit with a sizable fine by the Korean Fair Trade Commission over what the body says are deceptive loot box practices.

As reported by the Korean Times and Business Korea, Nexon is being fined some $8.85 million (about 11.6 billion won) for allegedly lowering the probabilities of some loot box items capable of upgrading player equipment,, known as Cubes, without telling players According to the Korean Times, it is the largest fine of this type levied to date.

What is OD? We don’t know much save that it’s being made in collaboration with Jordan Peele, and that it will feature a lot of familiar Hollywood celebs screaming silently into the screen. Probably.

Predictably, creator Hideo Kojima is calling it a game, a movie, and a “new form of media.” He’s also comparing it to Boktai: The Sun Is in Your Hand, a cult favorite series on GBA and Nintendo DS that was a big departure at the time for Kojima, who is best-known for his work on Metal Gear Solid.

It seems I have been acknowledged by creating games that go against the current of the times, such as “hide-and-seek” games where you sneak into a building without being detected by the enemy, or “delivery games” where you enjoy moving around in an open world, For me, the most…

— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) January 4, 2024

In Boktai, you play a vampire hunter named Django (no, not that Django) who battles the undead with the help of a solar gun powered by real-life sunlight. The cartridge famously included a solar sensor that charged up the in-game weapons needed to defeat Boktai’s vampires. Writing on X/Twitter, Kojima recalled the “fierce opposition” he received when he first pitched Boktai.

“It seems I have been acknowledged by creating games that go against the current of the times, such as ‘hide-and-seek’ games where you sneak into a building without being detected by the enemy, or ‘delivery games’ where you enjoy moving around in an open world,” Kojima wrote. “For me, the most experimental game was ‘defeating vampires outside your house’ using actual sunlight around you. It was met with fierce opposition from the staff and even within the company. In that sense, OD is just as different.”

It’s just one more teaser for OD, which remains as mysterious as Death Stranding when it was first revealed. Peele, meanwhile, has claimed that OD will be “immersive” and “utterly terrifying.” We don’t know much else about OD, save that it’s being developed on Unreal Engine 5 and that will feature Sophia Lillis, Hunter Schafer, and Udo Kier. It will apparently “explore the concept of testing your fear threshold.”

As for Boktai, the series hasn’t been seen since 2007, but it did manage to get two sequels on GBA and a DS release titled Lunar Knights. The final game notably dropped the sun sensor that made the original so unique.

OD does not yet have a release date. For more, check out all the biggest games of 2024, which will apparently include Metal Gear Solid Delta.

Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.

The actor behind Michael in Grand Theft Auto V, Ned Luke, openly endorsed Lucia, the playable female protagonist, in the highly anticipated GTA 6.

As part of our IGN’s GTFM video series, Luke was seen chatting with my colleague Akeem Lawanson. During the interview, Luke described the significance of Lucia as one of the two playable protagonists in GTA 6 while also addressing the claims that Rockstar has gone “woke” for adding her as one of the playable characters.

“Lucia’s hard, man. In the trailer, she looked good. You get a lot of these clowns out here going, ‘Rockstar’s going woke, they’re caving into the wokeness of the world,'” Luke said. “First of all, there’s been other female protagonists in the past, but not in something as huge as this.”

As Luke points out, it is a well-documented fact that a few games in the Grand Theft Auto series offered a female protagonist. Outside of the obvious one being the female custom character you can make in GTA Online, both Grand Theft Auto and the Game Boy Color (GBC) version of Grand Theft Auto II had at least one female protagonist in each game you could play as.

Yet, Luke’s point of mentioning the significance of Lucia in the next installment is still significant. Beyond what has already been pointed out, since jumping into the third dimension, the Grand Theft Auto series has been a critical and commercial hit for Rockstar, with GTA 5 being a major success since its release in 2013.

GTA 6 is currently in development with a 2025 release window. Beyond the name of our two protagonists and the confirmation that it will be set in a fictionalized version of Florida called Leonida, Rockstar has yet to share more in-depth details. Until then, check out 99 details we discovered in the first GTA 6 trailer.

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

With countless different endings and around 100 hours per playthrough, Baldur’s Gate 3 is jam-packed with rooms, lines of dialogue, and characters that players might miss. However, one player has shared their especially meaningful experience with one of the game’s lesser-known NPCs, and their story is now resurfacing thanks to a recent post from a developer.

In 2020, Larian forums user Solfalia shared a post thanking Larian Studios for releasing Act I of Baldur’s Gate 3 in early access — the game’s early release enabled them to play with their father, who played previous Larian games with them but had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

“This Early Access means that this Xmas I’ll be able to go on an adventure with him one last time, and I know he’ll enjoy it,” Solfalia wrote in the original post.

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when we read that letter, and I volunteered to write Golbraith (I’m not super writer btw, and I’ll respect their privacy unless they want to reveal themselves). Really happy we got to honour the mighty mindflayer hunter ❤️ https://t.co/FefUkkbpWu

— Rachel Quirke (@quirkiltons) January 4, 2024

Nearly three years later, after the full release of Baldur’s Gate 3, Solfalia returned to the Larian forums to thank the team again — this time for a much more personal addition. After seeing their original post, an anonymous writer had offered to add a tribute to Solfalia’s father. Solfalia thought this might be a book or plaque, but the team surprised them by adding an NPC named Golbraith with his own cellar to explore, all inspired by Solfalia’s father.

“Not only did Golbraith look like my father, but he had multiple lines of dialogue,” Solfalia wrote. “Some really touching ones too (for me, at least). The different papers in the house were amazing, the stack of letters between Golbraith and his son put a lump in my throat. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t misty eyed. The secret mindflayer-hunter cellar was awesome.”

“As soon as I finished looking through the whole house, I told my Dad. He’s in a care home now, so can’t play the game, but he listened to my description with a child-like glee I haven’t seen in a while. He loved every moment of it. He loved the idea that his character has a monocle, and was proud his character has a secret cellar with weapons. He still talks about it from time to time during our weekly chats.”

Today, Rachel Quicke, a writer for Larian Studios, shared the original post, saying she had volunteered to write Golbraith (although she wasn’t the anonymous “superwriter” who had originally reached out to Solfalia).

“Really happy we got to honour the mighty mindflayer hunter,” Quicke wrote.

In part thanks to the little details like this, we gave Baldur’s Gate 3 a 10 in our review, calling it “a landmark moment in the genre.” Since then, it’s gone on to win Game of the Year at the Game Awards and a few of IGN’s own awards.

Amelia Zollner is a freelance writer at IGN who loves all things indie and Nintendo. Outside of IGN, they’ve contributed to sites like Polygon and Rock Paper Shotgun. Find them on Twitter: @ameliazollner.