Yuri Lowenthal, who plays Peter Parker in the Marvel’s Spider-Man games, has reflected on Spider-Man 2’s ending and where he sees the story going next.
Spoilers for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 follow.
The ending of Spider-Man 2 sees Peter Parker pass the Spider-Man torch to Miles Morales as the primary Spidey in a cutscene that suggests Parker wants to take an indefinite hiatus from web-slinging. The ending is seen by some as a sort of retirement for Peter Parker, but according to Yuri Lowenthal, Pete has more to offer.
“There have been some comments recently that were picked up to infer that that Peter’s out and Miles is in,” Lowenthal said in an interview with Variety. “While I think that Peter would love to believe that he can just turn it off and not be Spider-Man anymore and live a completely normal life, I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen now.”
Lowenthal went on to say he has yet to read a script for the unannounced but inevitable Spider-Man 3, so isn’t sure what developer Insomniac has in store. “They’re probably still working on it,” Lowenthal added. “But I don’t think that’s the last we’re gonna see Peter. I think it’s a cool place to leave it. It’s a cool change for him.
“I think 100% he trusts Miles. Miles has really stepped up and he’s like, ‘Oh, maybe I can get a little break.’ And I did get a vacation to Symkaria during the Miles game. Not much of a vacation, but at least MJ got to learn to ride a motorcycle, which is awesome.” That motorcycle line is a nod to MJ’s newfound skill with a bike in Spider-Man 2 (and a cool Akira Easter egg).
PlayStation 5 exclusive Spider-Man 2 launched in October last year and has sold 10 million copies so far. Its New Game Plus update launches next month. But thoughts have already turned to what’s next from Insomniac. While it has a Wolverine game in the works, it seems likely it will also release a Marvel’s Spider-Man spinoff similar in scope to the hugely successful Miles Morales standalone, with Venom the potential focus.
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.
Hotly anticipated city builder Cities Skylines 2 launched on PC via Steam in October and immediately ran into a number of issues developer Colossal Order has struggled to get on top of in the months since. Now, with player sentiment turning a ‘mixed’ Steam user review rating into ‘mostly negative’ for recent reviews, and with the first Cities Skylines game with more players than its sequel on PC, the boss of Colossal Order has issued a message to disgruntled players designed to address chief concerns.
In November, Colossal Order confirmed a series of delays for planned DLC so it could focus on much-needed performance improvements and the already delayed Mod Editor. The console version wouldn’t be released until the PC version was sorted out, the developer insisted.
Now, in a new Steam post, CEO Mariina Hallikainen asked herself the question: “How do you plan to get out of this mess? / What is in the works to fix Cities: Skylines 2? / What will you do to set things right for the disaster launch of CS2?” In her response, she admitted the lack of modding support is Colossal Order’s “biggest regret”, but addressed all the main concerns.
“We’d much rather be in a different position than we are in at the moment, but we cannot change the past,” Hallikainen said. “We’re working very hard to catch up on the missing modding support, missing platforms, the content for the Ultimate Edition, and improving the performance and fixing bugs this year. The team is divided to work on different tasks so that we’re seeing progress on all fronts and while it might not feel that it’s fast enough I can assure you we are all doing the best we can. Only time will tell if this is enough to turn things around.
“There have also been many questions about the patch cadence and why we moved away from weekly patches. Weekly patches are too heavy for us to keep up with and the issues we are working on need more time than just a few hours or days to fix. We’re a small team of 30 developers and we have to plan the work in a way that creates the fastest results. So instead of spending a big part of the week working on the build deliveries and QA rounds, we can use that time to work on the fixes themselves. For the Ultimate Edition, the DLCs already have a rough schedule so we’ll have good opportunities to patch the game at the same time. This doesn’t mean that we never patch the game between the DLC releases. The goal is to improve the game as quickly as possible and when we have a solid patch ready and tested it will be released.
“We are aware we have a mountain to climb when it comes to delivering on the expectations but we have our ice picks ready and we are surely used to the cold. We’re going to keep on climbing and you’ll continue to see that progress in the game.”
Then, on the lack of modding support: “The biggest regret we have is that modding support is not yet available for the game. We have been working on it since the beginning of the project and the intent was to have it fully ready at release. Code modding support, map, and asset editing were all planned to be fully usable and mods shareable in one place. We still believe that offering modding support makes any game better and that the tools and mods should be available for all players to enjoy at no additional cost.
“During the project we faced, and still continue to face, technical difficulties that affect the speed and quality of the development, especially performance. We simply ran out of time as the focus had to shift from modding support to all hands on deck to fix the performance. All this work is still ongoing.
“We’ll be communicating more on the status of the modding soon. It’s not an ideal situation but we are committed to keep working on this part of the game because it means so much to you and to us. ‘A Colossal Order game is a moddable one’ is a promise we have made to ourselves years ago and work very hard to keep.”
Meanwhile, Hallikainen answered a list of questions, confirming more animations are coming to the game, bikes and bike paths are in the works, and more buildings both free and paid are in the roadmap.
Cities: Skylines 2’s problems began before its launch even arrived. Colossal Order warned players that it would release with performance issues a week before the game came out. Since then, players have been met with lower framerates and interesting dental glitches as the developer worked to create a better experience. In IGN’s Cities: Skylines 2 review, which returned a 6/10, we said: “Cities: Skylines 2 is an ambitious sequel that might have bitten off more than it can chew – be prepared to do a lot of terraforming if you don’t want your metropolis to look like a nightmare.”
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.
Helldivers 2’s great war to spread democracy across the galaxy is being undermined by an unlikely source: farmers.
Arrowhead’s phenomenally popular co-op focused third-person shooter features a galaxy-wide war that pits the forces of Super Earth against Terminids (alien bugs) on one side and Automatons (alien robots) on the other (check out our Terminids and Automatons enemy list for more). The idea is to “liberate” planets from alien infestation by completing operations, which are made up of a variety of missions. If you start an operation then fail to complete all the missions within it, the operation counts as a loss for Super Earth.
You can see the effect your work has on the status of each planet’s liberation as you complete operations. And, taking a higher level view, you can see how the community is doing generally against each faction sector-wide. But it isn’t just bugs and robots who are fighting against Super Earth, it’s traitorous players.
Helldivers 2 is currently in the throes of a farming problem. No, cows aren’t shooting the place up. Rather, players who ‘farm’ resources such as medals (used to work through the battle pass), requisition (used to unlock stratagems), and XP (used to level up) from easy-going missions, like the fast-paced Automaton eradication missions that charge players with simply killing a certain number of enemies (mortal sentries held here), are then resetting the operation to rinse and repeat.
Completing eradicate enemies missions over and over again is seen as a more efficient way to farm resources than completing the operation via another mission type that takes much longer, so even though Helldivers 2 provides bonuses for completing operations, these rewards are not good enough to convince farmers to do the right thing.
The problem, of course, is that by failing to finish all missions in an operation, farmers are damaging the overall war effort. As Arrowhead has confirmed, quitting after only half the operation counts as a loss for Super Earth. So while democracy-loving Helldivers 2 are off sacrificing themselves for the greater good across the galaxy, farmers have already reset scores of operations by bursting through eradicate missions in just a few missions. “So it sounds like there’s three factions; Terminids, Automatons, and Farmers,” joked one redditor.
“People farming on defense missions are the reason why Super Earth will be taken eventually,” complained redditor SilentBoss29. “Yesterday I joined five different lobbies subsequentially because I was trying to defend an Automaton zone planet and the first four lobbies were just farming the ‘Destroy Automatons’ missions over and over, pretty much surrendering whole operations just to farm these missions and get XP and money, I would assume.
“I do not want to be dictating how you should play the game, but this is definitely not how devs design the game to play. I really believe that if at any point the community agrees with farming missions, and Super Earth gets taken because of it, the devs should make the game unaccesible so that humanity can ‘go find another Super Earth’ for a few days and reset our progress. I really cannot believe the amount of sweat that some players want to experience in a PvE game. It is a shame that they do not really appreciate the fresh air that this game brings in the shooter genre.”
There’s a little more nuance to this farming problem, though. Some players are put off certain types of missions due to their extreme difficulty, and would rather focus on more easy-going missions, such as the eradicate type, than soldier through nightmarish missions such as evacuations. Making a go of completing all three missions in an operation can take a lot of time and effort, especially on higher difficulty and with random teammates.
And then there’s the Helldivers 2 grind, which is long and painful. Progression can feel like it takes an age, and if you only have a certain amount of time to play, it perhaps makes sense to play as efficiently as possible if you’re struggling to unlock a certain stratagem or item in the battle pass.
And it is probably the case that a lot of players simply aren’t aware of the way operations work and how they contribute to the war effort. Unless you’re in the weeds with Helldivers 2 and keep up with the latest developments, you might not know that incomplete operations count as a loss for Super Earth. Helldivers 2 doesn’t do a fantastic job of explaining how it works, so, especially for more casual players, ignorance may be bliss.
What can be done? The Helldivers 2 community has come up with a few solutions. For a start, the game itself could do with clearly letting players know that failing to finish an operation results in a hit to Super Earth. Another suggestion is that eradicate missions are locked as the final mission in an operation. But even that has its downside, as it limits player choice. Perhaps the best course of action is to issue exclusive rewards to players when a planet is liberated, which would theoretically at least, make the war effort a more tangible goal than simply role-playing.
Now Arrowhead appears to have sorted out Helldivers 2’s server issues, it has time to return to its original post-launch plan, so hopefully we’ll get an idea of what to expect in terms of new content soon. In the meantime, be sure to tell Super Earth if you suspect anyone of being a farmer. Do your part!
If you’re playing, be sure to check out IGN’s comprehensive 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.
Palworld developer Pocketpair has released an update for the game that makes a number of important improvements. Patch 0.1.5.0 is out now for Palworld on Steam and soon on Xbox.
Highlights for patch 0.1.5.0 include adding backup of save data on the world selection screen, resolving an issue of unnecessary data accumulating in save data, improvements to the Pal AI, server lobbies, and the first improvements to cheat prevention (Palworld’s cheating problem is on the rise). It’s also worth noting the patch adds fully supported keyboard key configuration. And players will be happy to know long-pressing F can now be toggled. Now your finger can rest!
Last week, Pocketpair announced its ‘Pokémon with guns’ crafting and survival game had seen over 25 million players since going on sale in January. Pocketpair said the Steam version has sold an incredible 15 million copies, whereas on Xbox it’s seen 10 million players.
Here are the Palworld update 0.1.5.0 patch notes in full:
Major Fixes
・Implemented backup of save data on the world selection screen
・Resolved issue of unnecessary data accumulating in save data
Key Configuration
・Added fully supported keyboard key configuration
Guild
・Modified specification to allow guild members to be removed when not logged in
Player Issues
・Changed long-press operation during player tasks to allow continuous work by pressing the work button once (This is switchable in the options settings)
・Fixed issue where riding in prohibited hunting areas would not result in a crime
・Improved interaction accuracy with adjacent objects
Pals
・Changed specifications so that when a Pal is instructed to “attack aggressively,” the Pal will attack enemies indiscriminately even if they are not in combat
・Corrected an issue to allow Pals of rank 1 or higher to be selected as concentrated material (higher-ranked Pals yield more points when concentrated)
・Fixed bug where if a large amount of experience points were gained and the level increased to 50 at once, Pals would not learn any active skills
・Mitigated an issue where using Mossanda’s partner skill “Grenadier Panda” on a dungeon boss would cause the boss to get stuck in walls
Base Issues
・Fixed an issue where base Pals would get stuck on top of a logging site, etc.
・Added measures to prevent the issue where base Pals would wander around and get stuck at the border of the base area
・Fixed an issue where Pals at the base would get stuck repeatedly starting transportation tasks and the light bulbs icon would appear over and over again.
・Added measures to prevent the issue of base Pals getting stuck in the farm on a roof
・Fixed an issue where work Pals would get stuck in the summon space of Palbox when restarting the server on a dedicated server.
・Adjusted the default work priority of base Pals (Anubis will prioritize manual labour)
・Significantly relaxed building restrictions for stairs and triangular roofs
・Fixed an issue where sound would play in an infinite loop when Pals at the base used certain active skills.
・Specifications changed so that all changes in environmental temperature are added up (if you put 4 campfires next to each other, the surrounding area will have the temperature of a volcano)
・Implemented “relax” working style on the monitoring stand
Balance Adjustment
・Significantly strengthened mining power for Digtoise partner skills
・Fixed the abnormally high selling price of nails
・Significantly increased the number of police officers who appear when a crime is committed
・Added electric shock effect to Free Pal Alliance’s crossbow
・Adjusted the flight distance of Sphere Launcher and Scatter Sphere Launcher.
・Increased the SAN value recovery amount of high-quality hot springs
Network Related
・Renovated the server lobby
・[Search by server name] will now work
・Added the ability to view online players on a dedicated server
*On community servers, this will only be displayed if the setting is enabled
Others
・Fixed the issue where Day 5 Memo was not placed
・You can now adjust the in-game brightness in the settings
・Fixed many minor bugs
・Corrected various incorrect text
・Improved measures against cheating
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.
Yasumi Matsuno knows a thing or two about troubled localizations. Final Fantasy Tactics, arguably his magnum opus, struggled with an infamously bad English translation before eventually being reworked on PlayStation Portable.
So it was notable to see Matsuno weigh in on an X/Twitter discussion on Monday around the translation of Unicorn Overlord, a new tactics RPG from Vanillaware that received a demo last week. Responding to claims that Unicorn Overlord sacrified accuracy for flowery prose, Matsuno said he endorsed a degree of localization as long as the original creator approves.
“I believe that it is unacceptable for someone to alter a work without considering the original author’s intent. However, when the market or language is different, a direct translation may not convey the intended meaning accurately. This is especially true for humor. Therefore, I think some degree of alteration is unavoidable,” Matsuno said. “The issue lies in whether the original author has consented to these alterations. Has anyone confirmed whether the author of Unicorn Overlord has approved its English translation?”
He added in a separate tweet, “The insistence that you should comply with the original no matter what, and the claim that it is good to free translate if it matches the market. I know that there has been a fierce debate for a long time. I don’t stand for either claim. The discussion should be done by the players.”
This is my personal opinion, but may I share it with you?
I believe that it is unacceptable for someone to alter a work without considering the original author’s intent. However, when the market or language is different, a direct translation may not convey the intended meaning…
The instances observed in the thread mostly involve attempts to enhance otherwise straightforward dialogue. In one example cited in the thread, the hero Clive says, “I think fighting Renault with our current strength would be difficult,” while the English localization reads, “Casting the gauntlet at Renault’s feet would only send us all to an early grave.”
IGN has reached out to Atlus for additional context on Unicorn Overlord’s localization.
An age-old RPG debate
While Matsuno was careful to avoid commenting on Unicorn Overlord itself, he was weighing in on an age-old discussion within the RPG community regarding the English localization of Japanese games, particularly role-playing games. It’s a debate that stretches back to the days of RPGs on 16-bit consoles, when stories became more sophisticated and fans began to debate the intent behind various localization choices. Like so much of the rest of games industry discourse, it’s a discussion that at times has become toxic.
In talking about his own experience with Final Fantasy Tactics, Matsuno pointed to the direct translation of Hokuten Knights, which might have been more accurately localized as “Order of the Northern Sky.”
“Given the character limit, it’s easy to imagine that it was a difficult task. Moreover, the schedule for translation was likely tight as well. That’s why I wanted to consult with me before making a decision. I think it would have been okay to change the name of the knight order to something more suitable for an English-speaking audience in the English version. I don’t blame the translators; I believe the responsibility lies with those who assigned the task,” Matsuno wrote.
In a separate tweet, Matsuno said that his experience with Tactics led him to send the names of special moves, items, and other terms to the Vagrant Story localization team in order to align them as closely as possible with the English version. He praised localizer Alexander O. Smith for the “high level” of the work on Vagrant Story, which has been praised over the years for its excellent translation.
One way or another, Matsuno says that he’s “really looking forward” to Unicorn Overlord, which is a strong endorsement coming from one of the acknowledged masters of the tactics RPG genre. Indeed, Unicorn Overlord is in many ways a direct tribute to Matsuno’s own work, particularly the much-loved Ogre Battle series, while featuring the lavish art that Vanillaware is known for.
Unicorn Overlord is currently slated to release on Switch, PS4, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S on March.
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.
We’re still looking for more details on the massively awaited Grand Theft Auto 6, but we may be able to start piecing together who could be featured on its GTA Radio.
Rapper ScHoolboy Q seemed to tease that he’ll be back for GTA 6, having previously been featured on radio stations in both GTA 5 and GTA Online. He’s been celebrating the 10th anniversary of his hit album Oxymoron and, in response to one of those celebratory posts, a user on X/Twitter wrote, “As long as you drop some heat for GTA 6 radio we all Gucci.”
“Ima be on tHere don’t even trip,” ScHoolboy Q said in a quote-tweet yesterday.
So, while he doesn’t explicitly say his music will definitely be in the game, it’s pretty hard to take the statement otherwise. IGN has reached out to both Rockstar and ScHoolboy Q for further comment.
His tease doesn’t come long after T-Pain also said he was working on GTA 6, as he revealed last month (with a good amount of annoyance) that he could no longer roleplay on GTA 5 servers because of his involvement with the sequel. GTA 6 has been shrouded in secrecy, so it’s a little surprising to see both musicians speak openly about their involvement – but hey, maybe they’re not supposed to anyway.
GTA radio, of course, is one of the longest-running hallmarks of the series, helping add to the flavor of the world since the first game in 1997. The stations themselves have attracted celebrities ranging from Cara Delevingne to Axl Rose as hosts.
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
For nearly a year, Stardew Valley creator Eric Barone, also known as ConcernedApe, has been teasing the farming simulator’s massive Patch 1.6. Now, after a development period that turned out longer than he had expected, the update finally has a release date.
In a post on Twitter/X today, Barone celebrated the game’s eighth anniversary by announcing that the 1.6 Update will be out on PC on March 19, with console and mobile following soon after.
It’s the 8th anniversary of Stardew Valley. Thank you for all the support over the years! Today I am announcing the PC Release date for the 1.6 update: –March 19th–. Console & Mobile will follow as soon as possible. pic.twitter.com/dMEFydjSqC
In an update to the game’s press site, Barone also noted that the game has sold an impressive 30 million copies across platforms, with over 19 million copies on PC, throughout its eight years.
“With a new update on the horizon, a worldwide concert tour underway, an official cookbook coming soon, and now over 30 million copies sold, Stardew Valley is thriving more than ever,” Barone wrote. “As always, I’m eternally grateful to the players (you!) for making all of this possible.”
In addition to the patch news, the Stardew Valley press site confirmed that the popular farming sim has sold 30 million units as of February 2024, with 19 million copies sold on PC alone. It’s an impressive figure that eclipses the official sales data for the likes of GTA: San Andreas and Super Mario Odyssey.
We gave Stardew Valley a 9.5 in our 2018 re-review, calling it “a beautiful, fun game that, when all of its parts are pulled together, make for a wonderful countryside adventure.”
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, and they’re currently developing a game called Garage Sale. Find them on Twitter: @ameliazollner.
Talk to two different board game fans, and you’ll likely get two completely different all-time top-10 lists to pick through. But talk to enough gamers, and you’ll find patterns start to emerge. Some of the common games will be all-time classic board games. Others will be fondly remembered older games that topped the market in their respective eras. And of course you’ll get a sprinkling of recent titles that are soaking up all the limelight at the moment.
All of those categories can rightly be called the best of all time. So we’ve included all of them in our list below, from a genre-defining title that dates back to 1977 to some of the biggest, boldest titles of the last couple of years. Every one a bona fide classic in its own way.
Don’t have time to scroll? Here are all the games you’ll find below.
Ark Nova
Ever since Wingspan – another entry on this list – designers have realised the value of giving heavyweight strategy games widely appealing themes. The latest and greatest example is Ark Nova, in which players design and run a modern, environmentally-minded zoo. Doing so involves navigating a smorgasbord of the most popular and interesting mechanics of recent years, from action cards that vary in power and timing depending on how you arrange them to spatial and economic elements as you build and populate your wildlife park to attract visitors and plough the cash back into the project. The combination of winning theme, deep strategy and a smidgen of luck has won this legions of fans and acres of acclaim since its 2021 release.
Cosmic Encounter
Lots of games that revolve around grabbing territory tend to involve the kind of tentative alliances and festering enmities that mimic real-world diplomacy. Back in 1977, the designers of Cosmic Encounter had a brainwave: why not get rid of the territory and cut to the chase? The result is this hilarious game of shifting alliances where every player has a game-breaking alien power to leverage in the race to win colonies on five of your opponent’s planets. Crammed with variety, tactical decisions and more dramatic reversals than a prime-time soap opera, Cosmic Encounter may be the only negotiation game you need.
Brass: Birmingham
Brass: Birmingham is a redevelopment of the earlier game Brass – now renamed as Brass: Lancashire – a fascinating combination of history and economics in board game form. Players take the role of business magnates at the dawn of the industrial revolution and must build mills while also constructing the transport networks that supply them with raw materials and export their products. That takes money, of course, which you get from your mills in a delightful yet punishingly tough arc of circular strategy. It’s especially interesting when you start buying and selling raw materials to other players, in a realistic simplification of supply and demand economics. Birmingham adds a new industry – beer – and gives players a bit more control over their hand of cards for a tighter, richer strategic experience.
Gloomhaven
The lords of the board gaming pile got that way through an ingenious bit of genre-blending. If you like old-fashioned dungeon crawls with a strong narrative, well, the huge campaign of fantasy adventure has you covered. If you’re a sucker for tactical combat, then its cunning, card-driven face-offs against a staggering variety of foes will thrill you. But if you want heavyweight strategy, then deck-building and resource gathering over the campaign plus the in-scenario exhaustion mechanic gives you plenty of meat. Truly all things to all gamers — even fans of the best solo board games — Gloomhaven and it’s bigger, better sequel Frosthaven deserves their staggering level of acclaim. And if the cost is a bit much, Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion offers a smaller campaign at a much smaller price tag. And not for nothing, all of these titles also made it on our best board games for adults list as well.
Frosthaven
This one’s not for everyone, but if it’s for you then you’ll absolutely love it. If you’re one of the rare few who not only have seen everything Gloomhaven has to offer but also remain hungry for more, Frosthaven is the banquet to satiate you. Bigger, bolder and better than the original, if you can find time for it in your life it’s an epic gaming experience like no other. Newcomers to the series, however, would be better suited to Jaws of the Lion, above. In the meantime, check out our Frosthaven review for more info.
Pandemic Legacy: Season 1
If combat-based narrative campaigns aren’t your thing, how about working together to purge the world of infectious diseases? Building on the success of the original Pandemic, this introduces “legacy” concepts to the game, in which components are added or removed as you progress through the game, based on your decisions, successes and failures. After a few plays, your copy will be a unique record of your group’s play. So in addition to offering a very personal tale to engage you, Pandemic: Legacy also individualizes your strategic experience. It’s a magical combination that has spawned two further seasons, creating an epic arc of story and strategy to enjoy with a gaming group or even as one of the best family board games.
Twilight Struggle
Billed as a cold war simulation and with bullet-pointed rules, Twilight Struggle can appear daunting to the uninitiated. But there’s a reason it was widely acclaimed as the best game of all time after its 2009 release. Players have hands of event cards that replicate key moments from the conflict, keyed to either their side or their opponent. If you play an opponent’s card you can still make moves on the board but their event also occurs. This makes every hand a thrilling, tactical dance of play and counterplay as you try to move your plans forward while also nullifying enemy events. In addition to the superb strategic workout, you might even learn some history too with this war board game.
Agricola
Another game that spent its time in the “best game ever” limelight is this unlikely game about farming. Stepping back from the theme, however, growing a family to work on a family farm is a dead ringer for the popular Worker Placement mechanism. As a result, Agricola conjures a real sense of growing and developing your humble plantation into a thriving stead, with plenty of interesting strategic bumps to navigate along the way. Its particular genius is its huge decks of cards, only a handful of which are used in each game, which ensures lots of strategic variety and allows you to tailor things like complexity and interaction to your group’s tastes.
The Crew: Mission Deep Sea
The genius of The Crew: Mission Deep Sea is in taking a very familiar gaming concept – trick taking card games – and using it to build something entirely novel but easily accessible. In this case, the competitive card game concept you know from classics like Whist and Bridge becomes cooperative. Players get a series of goals to distribute, indicating that they must win tricks in certain patterns or containing particular cards. The players must then work together to ensure those people fulfil those goals without being able to tell each other what’s in their hands. The result is a fascinating game of unlikely depth, rippling with tension and missed cues. And because it’s also simple and cooperative, it’s as much fun around the family dinner table as it is in a hardcore gaming convention.
Lords of Waterdeep
By marrying the sensibilities of Dungeons & Dragons with the mechanics of modern board games, Lords of Waterdeep made a smash hit to last down the ages. Players take the roles of power brokers in the Forgotten Realms’ biggest city, hiring adventurers to defeat perils threatening Waterdeep while building new facilities in the town. It’s these additions that take this unusually thematic worker placement game to the next level, with the new buildings entering play ensuring that new strategies are required each time. Throw in a modicum of minor “take that” cards to spice things up and you’ve got a brilliant game with very wide appeal.
Ticket to Ride
One of the few hobby board games to cross over into full mainstream sales, Ticket to Ride is a steaming success story. It’s a combination of familiar concepts with players collecting cards, like a Rummy game, in order to try and claim matching routes on a map of the US. But beware: it’s a tight board with relatively few potential connections between the cities that you’ll need in order to complete your allotted routes. And if another player gets there first, you’ll lose potential points instead of gaining them. Easy to learn and exciting to play and with a wide variety of versions and expansion maps, Ticket to Ride is great fun for all ages. It also works well as a two-player board game, or with a group.
Concordia
While conquest games involving ancient Rome are ten a penny, Concordia instead has you manoeuvring a noble family to gain wealth and contacts during the height of empire. Play is conducted using a deck of action cards that you can expand, using wealth from your trades, as the game progresses, allowing you to tailor your strategy accordingly. But the kicker is that your final scoring is also depending on those cards, with different cards earning you points in different ways, from goods in your storehouse to colonist pieces on the board. This creates a fascinating, rich, wheels within wheels layer of strategy, while the resource management elements also let you mess up your opponent’s plans while advancing your own.
Codenames
Blasting onto the scene in 2015, Codenames changed the face of party games forever. In place of trivia quizzes or trivial tasks, it challenged players to come up with clues to interlink a series of apparently unconnected words. So you might link “Trip”, “Rome” and possibly even “Embassy” with the clue “Holiday”. The concept proved so accessible and addictive that it launched an entire new genre of synonym-based word games, each giving different spins on a similar formula. But for ease of teaching and wideness of enjoyment, the original is still the best.
The Castles of Burgundy
Coming into this game of estate-building in medieval France you could be forgiven for feeling overwhelmed by the options to grow your castle. Fortunately, it’s a dice-based game where the roll each turn limits your choices of where you can take actions. But don’t be fooled into thinking this is a random game: rather, the dice are there to keep throwing you curveballs you have to dodge around as you build a strategy. A classic case of having too much to do and too little to do it with, every action of every round feels weighted with impossible priorities, keeping you stretched right up until the points are tallied.
Wingspan is often sold as a family board game but in truth, it’s a little too complex and challenging for kids and is generally more for board game enthusiasts. It has a perfect weave of tactics and strategy together with a winning theme as you try to attract birds to a nature reserve. Different birds need different foods and habitats but will contribute to your growing ecosystem which becomes a kind of engine, generating resources to allow you to play bigger and more beautiful birds.
What to Consider When Shopping for the Best Board Games
There’s so much choice in modern board gaming that picking a game can be overwhelming, not to mention expensive! So to help winnow down the selection, here are a few things to look out for when making your picks.
How Often Will You Play?
Perhaps the most important one is whether it’s likely to see much play. Aspects of this are fairly obvious: whether it appeals to your friends, what’s the target age, if it’s a long game, will you have time for it, and so on. But there’s still more to these facets than may be immediately apparent. You may feel comfortable learning a very complex game, for example, but will your fellow players, and will you be able to teach it? Do you want a game to play with your partner, or your wider family, or does it need to be flexible enough to cater for both crowds?
Even then, these are often vexed questions. The play times listed on box sides are often hopelessly optimistic. Similarly, a game’s advertised player count can be very different from the ideal. A good tool to clear this up is the game information database boardgamegeek.com. If you search on a game there then, at the top of the page you’ll find, beneath the player count, a “best” suggestion for the optimal player count according to the site’s users.
How Much Space Do You Have?
There are other many other considerations. Some games take up a lot of table space, for example, which is no good if you play on a coffee or smaller board game table. Others can take a long time to set up and put away. These issues are often mentioned in a review if they’re problematic. And they can stack: you may be able to play a much longer game, for example, if you have space to pause and leave it out on the table to resume later.
Some genres of game require greater research than others. Increasingly, games are being released as lifestyle choices with a steady stream of expansions and new content. Which is great if it appeals to you, but you need to know what you’re getting into. Other games merge into miniature modelling which is a whole other hobby in it’s own right. Editions and versions are another thing worth checking out as many modern games come in standard and deluxe editions or may, in fact, be reprints of older titles.
You also need to think about how a game might fit in with your existing collection, both aesthetically and physically. For the former, consider what makes it different enough, mechanically or thematically, from games you already own to make it worthwhile. For the latter, remember that board games are big, and you’ll need to find space to store it!
Best New Board Games of 2024
There’s a always a stead stream of new board games to check out as the year progresses. We’ve reviewed a couple of the biggest board games of the year below:
Two years ago, we learned of one of the greatest video game heroes of all time: a man wearing nothing but a jar atop his head.
His name? Let Me Solo Her. His job? Exactly what his name says he does: standing outside the doorway to Elden Ring’s most difficult boss, Malenia, and offering to take down the punishing, scarlet rot-infested warrior on behalf of players who were struggling to do it themselves.
Now, almost two years later, Let Me Solo Her (LMSH) is still fighting Malenia on behalf of the people. But his Malenia-murdering days may soon be at an end, thanks to the recent announcement of Elden Ring’s first major story DLC: Shadow of the Erdtree.
We first spoke to LMSH way back in April of 2022, and caught up with him again over email following the DLC announcement and yes, he’s still fighting Malenia all this time later. It’s not all he does, but he tells us he has about 1200 hours in Elden Ring at this point, and has “probably defeated her about 6000-7000 times by now.” Last April, he even beat the game using a mod that turned every single enemy into Malenia.
But when Shadow of the Erdtree drops in June, LMSH concedes it might finally be time to move on from Malenia. For one, he wants to play the new DLC. He calls the new trailer “spectacular” and says it “did not go the way I thought it would be.” His excitement is understandable — he’s a big fan of other FromSoftware games and their DLC.
I feel like he will be an enemy that can steal helmets
“Soulslike games have a history of their DLCs being the best part of the game, and I trust that Mr. [Hidetaka] Miyazaki [Elden Ring game director] will give us another masterpiece to enjoy,” he says.
In particular, LMSH is intrigued by the unfamiliar enemies throughout the trailer, particularly the mysterious red-headed character near the end. Miyazaki confirmed for us that this character is called Messmer, and that he is a “key figure” of the DLC who “stands on equal footing to these other demigods and children of Marika.” LMSH picked up on the alleged prowess of Messmer, too, telling us that “the new boss is especially exciting as he might be a lost sibling to Malenia and equal in terms of difficulty.”
I ask him what he thinks of this absolute atrocity:
To which LMSH replies, “I feel like he will be an enemy that can steal helmets lol.”
He’s also excited by some of the new items shown, such as the armor sets, because he “loves knight aesthetics,” and he’s really into the “throwing pot/jar that explodes” — appropriate given LMSH’s usual choice of headwear.
When Shadow of the Erdtree drops, it’s absolutely no question that LMSH will be playing it all the way through. Though he’s made a number of different characters, he expects he’ll play on his main account “Let me solo her” because “I like to collect everything in one account.”
But if Messmer or another boss proves to be a second Malenia in terms of difficulty, will he offer to solo them, too? He’s not sure yet. “Everyone knows that FromSoft likes to make the DLC bosses the strongest (for example, Gael),” he says. “I welcome the challenge and hope newer fans of the genre will also enjoy the difficulty as well. I’m not too sure if I will solo the newest boss yet. I will have to see what the boss will be like.”
Whatever awaits him in the DLC, it does sound like Let Me Solo Her is finally about ready to move on from the activity that made him a community legend. He calls his adventures fighting Malenia a “great joy,” but admits that after thousands of attempts, “I’ve had my fill of fighting Malenias lol.”
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Elden Ring players are flummoxed over FromSoftware boss Hidetaka Miyazaki’s tease that one final secret still exists within the two-year-old game.
Speaking to IGN last week, Miyazaki commented on the myriad twists and turns Elden Ring takes throughout its pieced-together story that demands players interpret items, landscapes, bosses, and beyond. This style of storytelling naturally leaves a lot to player investigation and interpretation, but despite more than two years of myriad fans analysing, Miyazaki said there’s still more to find.
He and his team at FromSoftware “are always surprised and delighted by how much the players do discover, and how much these communities work to uncover these secrets”, he said, before dropping the bombshell. “For me personally, there is a small element that I feel has not yet been discovered. So, whether that’s up to user interpretation or up to just further investigation and playing, that’s something I’m looking forward to.”
The famed director, who also led the likes of Dark Souls and Bloodborne, therefore didn’t give much away as to what this secret is, but those embedded in the world of Elden Ring don’t expect it to be a grand or revolutionary discovery.
“Obviously it’s more exciting to think there’s some grand treasure hunt we can embark on to find Elden Ring’s last secret, but I don’t imagine there’s any way we, or even FromSoftware, will ever conclusively know how much is left to find,” said YouTuber Zullie the Witch on X/Twitter.
Her contemporary Sekiro Dubi agreed, adding it’s something that may even require multiple languages to learn. “Like Zullie says in other tweets, I doubt Miyazaki is like, ‘They didn’t see I left a such and such in this or that armour’. Add the ingredient that he probably knows Elden Ring mostly in Japanese and some stuff might be lost in translation.”
Sleuths on Reddit discussed the possibilities too, with some suggesting a deep analysis of item positioning in the open world being necessary. “There is a lot of trickery in the environment that is not being remarked upon,” said Miirshroom. “Items are placed and the landscape crafted very deliberately.
“Probably untapped analysis potential. These are things that are invisible to data mining because there is no flag in the programming indicating that something notable has been found. It’s just use of careful observation.” Miirshroom offers a few examples but notes there are literally hundreds in Elden Ring.
The time of day could change things too, as noted by setfunctionzero. “There’s the whole encounter system at specific times of night,” they said. “Gurranq’s night roaring is one off the top of my head, but I recall one that only occurs at a specific time in the dead of night, so you have to spin the clock, travel to the place, and wait 22.5 minutes in real time, and at 3am in the Elden Ring universe.”
These fans will likely be eager to discover the secret before June 21, 2024, when Elden Ring’s expansion Shadow of the Erdtree arrives, a DLC larger than any released by FromSoftware previously. Hundreds, if not thousands, of new threads will be added to the game to connect and follow, burying, or perhaps bringing to light, this last secret even further.
In our 10/10 review of the base game, IGN said: “Elden Ring is a massive iteration on what FromSoftware began with the Souls series, bringing its relentlessly challenging combat to an incredible open world that gives us the freedom to choose our own path.”
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
