Nintendo is attributing the financial success of Super Mario Bros. Wonder to its multiplayer mode, as Mario’s latest outing becomes the latest Nintendo game to offer another way for one to make memories with their friends and loved ones.
In a Q&A with investors following its recent earnings report, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa explained some of the likely contributing factors to Super Mario Bros. Wonder’s success. Furukawa explained how the multiplayer feature in Wonder was vital in that it “suited the need for a game many people can enjoy with family and friends” as the game was released ahead of the holiday season and was likely a gift for many during that period.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder offers local and online multiplayer. The latter allows four players to play on one Nintendo Switch and run through the game’s levels; in contrast, the latter allows up to 12 players to gather in a private lobby before breaking off into groups of four to run through the levels. According to Furukawa, “around half” of Mario Wonder’s users played in multiplayer.
More interestingly, Furukawa noted that The Super Mario Bros. Movie, released in theatres and is available to stream on Peacock and Netflix, was also an influential factor in Super Mario Bros. Wonder’s sales.
“So even though the theatrical release is over, the number of people who have seen the movie for the first time continues to increase, and we believe this has also helped drive the good sales of Super Mario Bros. Wonder,” Furukawa explained.
Nintendo has previously been vocal about Super Mario Bros. Wonder’s success. In early November, the company revealed that it was the fastest-selling Mario game to date, selling 4,3 million units within the first two weeks of its release with the company anticipating the number would continue to grow.
In our review of Super Mario Bros. Wonder, IGN said: “Super Mario Bros. Wonder looks and plays like the true next step for 2D Mario platformers. Wonder effects change each stage in both surprising and delightful ways, the Flower Kingdom makes for a vibrant and refreshing change of pace, and Elephant Mario steals the show.”
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
Like spotting the first sign of shore after years adrift, Skull and Bones has finally, actually found its way to launch. Six separate delays and several different concepts that were forced to walk the plank might’ve made you understandably apprehensive about Ubisoft’s long-brewing pirate game, but I’ve already found a yo-ho-whole lot to be excited about after spending nearly 30 hours with its surprisingly unconstrained open beta this past weekend. The 17th-century Indian Ocean works well as avast open world to be explored and plundered, the RPG mechanics are (briny) deep with opportunities for buildcrafting alongside your fellow scurvy dogs, and the naval combat you’ll spend bucca-nearly all your time on the high seas engaging with is tactical and consistently entertaining. Aside from the expected instability one usually encounters with a beta for an online game, the only red flags so far are the lackluster story and a list of endgame activities that feel like they could become repetitive in short oar-der. I won’t be able to complete my voyage until the full version sets sail later this week, but I’m already excited to sea more.
Skull and Bones is fairly unique in the grand scheme of open-world RPGs in that it gives you direct control of a ship and lets you sail the ocean as you pillage ports and send enemy ships to Davy Jones’ locker in search of loot and infamy during the Golden Age of Piracy. Alone or alongside the ships of up to two friends as a fleet, you’ll gather resources and complete action-packed heists to feed your greed and climb Jacob’s progression ladder as you power up your vessel, which is usually a blast. Though it might be tempting to compare this live-service, pirate-filled RPG to Sea of Thieves, they really couldn’t be more different – Skull and Bones focuses entirely on wonderfully intricate maritime gameplay and commodities/economy simulation, not running around on foot as you get into sword fights and eat unpeeled bananas stem-first.
The focus on navals fights works a lot better than I thought it would.
While it’s a bit odd at first that you only ever get to explore the world by controlling your ship (aside from brief intermissions at the social hub), it took just a few hours for me to not feel like I was missing out on much. That’s primarily thanks to how good the ship-to-ship combat quickly becomes. After a fairly underwhelming opening meant to help you get your sea legs with the glorified hunk of driftwood as a starting ship, things really open up. Once you start to upgrade and customize your vessel to fit your playstyle, then tackle some of the more challenging areas and activities that require you to seriously up your game, Ubisoft’s strict focus on navals fights works a lot better than I thought it would.
Skull and Bones appears to have only the faintest whiff of a story, which has so far amounted to a handful of conversations with pirate legend John Scurlock (who keeps insisting I should kill the French). That’s not to say there aren’t a few likable rogues and skallywags to meet along the way – like Yanita, who introduces you to the world of black market trading with all the enthusiasm and pomp of a circus ringmaster – but NPCs are little more than vendors and quest dispensers with no substantial story connecting them. It’s especially weird that meatier pieces of the story seem to have been lopped off since I saw them in the closed beta last year, like an early part where you meet a dying pirate named Abel Rassler, who you now just find dead instead. My guess is these changes were made to keep you out on the ocean waves as long as possible rather than lingering in the social spaces, and I certainly found myself spending a lot more time doing just that – which isn’t such a bad thing. Still, I expect my pirate games to have a bit of drama, infighting, and betrayal, and it doesn’t look like Skull and Bones will deliver on that front based on this initial taste I’ve gotten. There’s still a chance more of that could get turned on when the final version is out, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
Skull and Bones appears to have only the faintest whiff of a story so far.
Instead, your attention is directed toward the compelling treadmill of blasting through increasingly lethal enemy ships and then using your loot to craft better instruments of piracy. Ship-to-ship PvE combat is the star of the show, and it requires strategy, cooperation with other player-controlled vessels, and good aim to pull off at higher levels. For example, when taking on powerful fleets found in later areas, you might want to reconfigure your ship to a tank build optimized for withstanding cannonfire and dealing close-range damage, while your friends focus on DPS or even support options capable of healing allies by peppering them with nonsensically medicinal cannonballs. (How would that even work?) It’s also awesome how great naval combat and sailing the open ocean look, as a lot of effort clearly went into giving elements like waves and cannonfire an extra layer of visual polish – although, on the flip side, NPCs often look animatronic, with dead eyes and robotic mouths.
Crafting new ships and trying out different builds is extremely compelling. Just when I thought I’d built my ideal vessel, I’d see a special cannon or a unique piece of ship armor I just couldn’t live without, then gleefully jump through surprisingly rewarding hoops by attacking certain factions and seeking out rare resources to buy a schematic and craft it. Taking those new toys out to lay the beatdown on any blaggards foolish enough to oppose me is especially thrilling. For example, I spent hours and tons of resources to craft my first mortar, which unlocked the ability to rain fire from the sky on my enemies like I was calling in an airstrike. Sure, doing so forced me to spend every last scrap of my ill-gotten riches, but can you really put a price on turning your foes into pulled pork?
Crafting new ships and trying out builds is extremely compelling.
Once you’ve established yourself on the high seas a bit, you’ll also begin to understand both trade routes and the supply and demand they influence in different parts of the world. You’ll even gain access to the black market via The Helm, a mechanic that allows you to build and manage underworld businesses by creating and delivering embargoed goods, like opium. This opens up a whole new way to line your pockets on your quest, as you can ferry legitimate and illegitimate goods to and fro, buying low in one place and selling high in another. Later on you can even conquer areas and turn them into automated revenue generators to help you obtain the most powerful equipment, and I’m excited to push the limits of this economy system in the final version.
Though I went pretty hard during this latest beta and even got a sneak peek of the endgame activities last month, I still have plenty of questions about what else Skull and Bones has in store beyond what I played this past weekend. I still don’t know if there are any dedicated PvP options or other activities beyond the single Legendary Heist public event in the beta, which sends you to take down an NPC ship, then fight over the loot with anyone else in the area. And I still have no idea how the planned microtransactions and season model fit into things, since they’ve not been present in any version of Skull and Bones I’ve seen so far. But I have really enjoyed what I’ve played, and since progress in the beta carries over to launch, I’m looking forward to setting sail right where I left off and becoming a proper pirate legend later this week.
If there’s any Marvel hero who can challenge Deadpool or Spider-Man in the popularity department these days, it’s Wolverine. That’s why it’s fitting that the ol’ Canucklehead is joining Spidey in getting a big-budget action game from the folks at Insomniac.
That’s right — things are looking up for Wolverine in games and movies again. Aside from the Insomniac Wolvie game that’s in the works, Hugh Jackman is also returning to the character, joining Ryan Reynolds for Deadpool & Wolverine, which will finally properly unite the two heroes. In the MCU to boot! We just got our first official trailer for Deadpool 3 during the Super Bowl, and man, are we excited.
Wolverine has a fascinating history in the video game realm. It took years for developers to figure out how to translate both his distinctive look and his unique powers from page to screen. Let’s take a look back at Wolverine’s clawful evolution in video games.
The Early X-Men Games
The X-Men may have been around since 1963, but it would be decades before they grew to become Marvel’s dominant franchise (thanks in no small part to Wolverine himself). The franchise didn’t appear in video game form until 1989’s Uncanny X-Men on the NES. We suspect many fans wish they hadn’t, as this is generally regarded to be one of the worst superhero games ever made.
Wolverine himself was spun out into his own NES game in 1991. This overhead action game earned equally scathing reviews, and it embodies many of the problems developers faced in trying to accurately depict the hero. The iconic Marc Silvestri cover art is a far cry from the generic, pixelated blob gamers actually control. The game’s biggest sin is tying Wolverine’s trademark claws to his health meter, forcing gamers to hunt down hamburgers and soda to replenish his steadily depleting energy. That would become an unfortunate trope in many early X-Men games.
In this early period, it would fall on Konami to give gamers a taste of what a good X-Men game looks like. Konami’s X-Men arcade game follows the same beat-em-up formula as classics like The Simpsons and TMNT. It’s based on the animated pilot Pryde of the X-Men, so it features Wolverine in the classic brown costume he wore throughout the 1980’s. It was visually a huge leap from its X-Men predecessors, with colorful, large sprites that channeled the energy of the early ‘90s comics. Sadly, it still made the mistake of limiting how often players could tap into each character’s mutant power. That would continue to be a trend for a while to come.
The 16-Bit Era
The early to mid ‘90s marked a golden age of X-Men games, though perhaps more in quantity than quality. 1992’s multiplatform title Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade’s Revenge set the tone for this era, offering fans a side-scrolling action gameplay that looked and sounded better than it actually played.
1993’s X-Men on the Sega Genesis might be the most popular game from this era. The game’s sharp, colorful look and killer soundtrack appealed to fans, even if the generic and often frustrating gameplay didn’t. The Genesis game is also notable for being the first to feature Wolverine’s classic yellow and black costume, which was back in vogue at the time thanks to both Jim Lee’s X-Men comics and X-Men: The Animated Series.
Sadly, the Genesis game was also guilty of that fundamental Wolverine faux pas – limiting how much players could unleash his adamantium claws.
The Super Nintendo, meanwhile, got its own mutant adventure in 1994’s X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse. This game also took its visual cues straight from the contemporary X-Men comics, including a roster of playable characters pulled from the monthly X-Men series. It was an early taste of things to come from developer Capcom.
Wolverine finally got a chance to fly solo again in 1994’s Wolverine: Adamantium Rage. Our hero’s yellow costume was again on display, with the SNES version doing an especially good job of adapting the dynamic, colorful look of the comics. While it debuted to mixed reviews, Adamantium Rage did a better job than most of tapping into Wolverine’s mutant abilities. It even included his healing factor in the form of a regenerating health meter. The catch, however, is that stopping and waiting too long would result in the android Elsie Dee showing up and killing Wolverine herself.
Capcom’s Berserker Barrage
If Konami’s X-Men arcade game gave fans a glimpse of what the franchise could look like with powerful hardware behind it, Capcom blew the doors down with 1994’s X-Men: Children of the Atom. While basically a Street Fighter clone with a playable cast of mutant heroes and villains, the game immediately won a fan following thanks to its dynamic visuals and over-the-top special moves.
The large, detailed sprites in Children of the Atom became the new gold standard for X-Men games, merging the style of the early ‘90s X-Men comics with a more stylized, manga-esque approach. In that sense, the game’s graphics mirrored the trend of the comics themselves, with up-and-coming artists like Joe Madureira bringing a heavy manga influence to the American comics scene.
Children of the Atom also featured many voice actors from X-Men: The Animated Series, including Cal Dodd as Wolverine. The result was a best of all worlds approach, where Wolverine finally looked as good as he sounded.
Children of the Atom and various follow-ups like X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom also showed fans a Wolverine completely unleashed, with no limitations on his deadly fighting abilities. If anything, Wolverine was so badly overpowered in X-Men vs. Street Fighter that he had to be nerfed for Marvel vs. Capcom 2.
While you couldn’t play as Wolverine in every level, at least you weren’t limited in how often you could unsheathe his claws.
Wolverine would make one final appearance on the SNES in 1995’s Marvel Super Heroes: War of the Gems. Here, Capcom repurposed the eye-popping sprites from the fighting games to create a more traditional side-scrolling action game. While you couldn’t play as Wolverine in every level, at least you weren’t limited in how often you could unsheathe his claws.
The X-Men Go 3D
With the X-Men arcade games nailing the look of the Marvel Universe in 2D form, the next challenge was translating that look to 3D. It wasn’t easy.
First up was X-Men: The Ravages of Apocalypse, which was essentially a mod of the original Quake released as a retail game. While the game boasted a wider color palette than Quake ever did, the crudely animated, blocky character models didn’t exactly scream “X-Men.” It didn’t help that the single player mode had gamers control a generic grunt mowing down endless waves of X-Men clones, rather than controlling Wolverine and friends directly.
Things went quiet on the Wolverine front for a few years, but the arrival of the first X-Men movie helped reinvigorate the franchise’s gaming prospects. 2000’s X-Men: Mutant Academy became the first 3D X-Men fighting game, and naturally, Wolverine was one of the playable fighters. Considering the limitations of the aging Playstation hardware, the game did a reasonable job of replicating the look and feel of the late-’90s X-Men comics. Dodd even returned to voice Wolverine again.
Mutant Academy spawned a direct sequel on the Playstation 1, as well as a more ambitious followup called X-Men: Next Dimension on the Playstation 2, Gamecube and Xbox. Next Dimension offered fans an unusual blend of comic and movie-inspired elements. Rather than feature the X-Men in their traditional spandex costumes, the game opted for the modern black leather uniforms introduced in the comic book series New X-Men. Patrick Stewart also narrated the game’s story mode, though the plot itself was set within Marvel’s comic book universe.
That same hybrid approach carried over to Wolverine’s next solo game in 2003. Titled X2: Wolverine’s Revenge, the game was clearly intended to lure in moviegoers fresh out of seeing X2: X-Men United. But despite Hugh Jackman’s face on the cover, the game was mostly comic-inspired (apart from again bringing in Patrick Stewart as Professor X). Wolverine once again wears his black leather New X-Men uniform, and Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill, provided the hero’s voice.
Wolverine’s Revenge didn’t entirely succeed in putting gamers in Wolverine’s boots, sadly. The punishing difficulty, combined with a strange reliance on stealth mechanics over hacking and slashing, made them feel like anything but an immortal superhero. Wolverine’s hunched, animalistic animations may have looked great for the time, but the controls left much to be desired.
Wolverine’s Revenge didn’t entirely succeed in putting gamers in Wolverine’s boots, sadly.
The Rise of X-Men Legends
For many X-Men fans, the franchise hit its gaming peak with 2004’s X-Men Legends. This action RPG allowed players to control a team of four heroes, battling the Brotherhood and leveling up.
Visually, two elements set legends apart from the crowd. The game drew inspiration from Marvel’s Ultimate X-Men comic rather than the traditional X-books, meaning the X-Men were decked out in sleek, modern black and gold costumes. The characters were also cel-shaded, echoing the comic book-inspired approach of the Ultimate Spider-Man game. Wolverine himself was voiced by Steve Blum, who would go on to reprise the role in the animated series Wolverine and the X-Men.
Legends also did a better job than most of its predecessors when it came to making players actually feel like Wolverine. Gone were the simplistic platforming elements and special claw meters, replaced by a wide array of moves that could be upgraded over time.
Legends inspired a direct sequel in 2005’s X-Men Legends II: The Rise of Apocalypse. The franchise then expanded to encompass the wider Marvel Universe in 2006’s Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Ultimate Alliance abandoned the cel-shaded look in favor of a more realistic art style still heavily inspired by the Ultimate Universe comics. Its sequel veered in a different direction, with more traditional comic book designs.
Wolverine’s Movie Adventures
Surprisingly, it wasn’t until 2006 that gamers were treated to an X-Men game based specifically on the movie series. X-Men: The Official Game acted as a prequel to X-Men: The Last Stand, with the story mode introducing villains like Silver Samurai and the Sentinels and explaining why Nightcrawler suddenly vanished after X2.
Naturally, the game featured both the voice and likeness of Hugh Jackman, along with several other movie mainstays. The game also made some notable attempts at depicting Wolverine’s powers, including a regenerating health meter and a berserker rage mode that activates whenever Wolverine takes too much damage.
That game wound up serving as a rough prototype for Wolverine’s next – and easily best – solo game. 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine served as an adaptation of the movie, albeit with a greatly expanded plot that added in major characters and subplots.
More importantly, X-Men Origins: Wolverine finally hit on the perfect formula for making players feel like Wolverine. The ferocious combat was heavily inspired by God of War, taking full advantage of Logan’s unbreakable claws and healing factor and ensuring players were never limited in how often they used them. Thanks to the processing power of the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, players could even see Wolverine’s battered body deform and tear apart in real time.
While the main character model in X-Men Origins is based directly on Jackman, the game also included several alternate costumes drawn directly from the comics. If not for Deadpool & Wolverine, this might have been the clsoest we ever got to seeing Jackman don the classic comic book costume.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine finally hit on the perfect formula for making players feel like Wolverine.
The Modern Wolverine Games
Sadly, X-Men Origins: Wolverine sets up a sequel Activision never delivered, and things have been fairly quiet on the X-Men front in recent years. Unless you count Silicon Knights’ disastrous 2011 game X-Men: Destiny, and we’d rather not.
Wolverine has appeared in a number of Marvel games following his last solo outing, often voiced by Steve Blum. 2011’s Marvel vs Capcom 3 and 2019’s Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 both stand out because of their attempts to pair detailed, modern graphics with a comic book aesthetic. While not strictly cel-shaded, the art styles in both games emphasize heavy black lines and shadows. The now-defunct online RPG Marvel Heroes also deserves a nod thanks to its sheer number of alternate costumes available for Wolverine and his fellow heroes.
But if things have gone quiet on the X-Men front of late, Wolverine himself is due for a big comeback. He’s set to return in Marvel’s Wolverine, a Playstation 5-exclusive action game developed by Insomniac. We don’t know much about the scope of the game just yet, but the teaser trailer showcases a gritty, blood-soaked version of Wolverine enjoying himself in a seedy Madripoor bar. If Marvel’s Spider-Man is any indication, we can probably expect a brand new interpretation of Wolverine’s classic costume alongside dozens of familiar suits.
Which of Wolverine’s many video game appearances is your favorite? What costumes do you want to see in Marvel’s Wolverine? Claw your way down to the comments and let us know, bub.
One Palworld player has fully cranked up their ingenuity by creating a massive city, and they didn’t even need to use a single mod to make a virtual urban base.
Reddit user Commercial_Neck8986 has posted a screenshot and a video of their Palworld base showcasing how they made an entire urban-esque base called Palcity. Commercial_Neck8986 notes that it took them two weeks to finish their base and that it used no mods to create Palcity.
IGN has reached out to the user for additional comment.
“No mods carried enough stone to not overweight,” the Redditor replied when a user accused them of using a mod to create Palcity. “Good thing trees are present everywhere, so I just chop off some wood for the roofing.” As you can see from the many videos posted by Commercial_Neck8986, Palcity is quite massive, from stone gates to multiple buildings and homes and an entire wall that borders all of Palcity into a self-contained haven.
In another reply, Commercial_Neck8986 mentioned that it made storage near a palbox easier to transport all the materials needed to make Palcity the giant fortress.
The lack of mods Commercial_Neck8986 used to create Palcity is incredible. In contrast, some modders have created save files for starter bases. But there is also a mod called Duck’s Progressive Bases, which allows players to easily have more Palworld bases.
In our PC early access review of Palworld, we said: “Palworld may crib quite a bit from Pokémon’s homework, but deep survival mechanics and a hilarious attitude make it hard to put down – even in Early Access.”
Palworld is out now on PC and Xbox. If you are playing this widely popular open-world survival game right now, consider checking out IGN’s interactive Palworld map to help you navigate this vast virtual world. Or check out our guide on base progression in case you need assistance building a solid base that could one-day rival Palcity.
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
The official announcement reads, “Please join us for a special edition of the Official Xbox Podcast. Hear from Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond and Matt Booty as they share updates on the Xbox business.”
Please join us for a special edition of the Official Xbox Podcast.
Hear from Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond and Matt Booty as they share updates on the Xbox business. pic.twitter.com/TxwWJVUbgx
The podcast is expected to address questions about Xbox’s first-party releases including Starfield, Hi-Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves, and Indiana Jones and the Great Cicle, which have been rumored to be heading to PlayStation and other platforms soon. Spencer reportedly reassured employees that Microsoft plans to continue making consoles amid questions surrounding Xbox’s third-party strategy going forward.
Reports that Xbox plans to release first-party exclusives on platforms such as PlayStation have had the community in a frenzy for at least a month now. In January, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that the company can be a “good publisher on Sony and Nintendo and PCs and Xbox.”
“We love gaming. In fact, Flight Simulator was created before even Windows. But, we were number three, number four. And now with Activision, I think we have a chance of being a good publisher — quite frankly — on Sony and Nintendo and PCs and Xbox. We’re excited about that acquisition closing and I’m glad we’ve got it through,” Nadella said.
In a recent piece published on IGN, Unlocked host Ryan McCaffrey wrote, “The future of Xbox is likely to look very different from both its past and its present. But in this present, we are watching a monolith of a company attempt to rewrite the rules of engagement in real time. It might work – but will Microsoft throw away 20 years of hard-earned brand loyalty in the process? Stay tuned next week.”
In a sea of sequels, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden has a wonderfully fresh story to tell. I didn’t know I wanted to play as a ghost-hunting detective in a supernatural, alternate reality version of 1600s America, but developer Don’t Nod provides such a compelling mix of death, drama, and romance it made me wonder why no one had tried this sooner. It mostly sticks the landing with the things it tries beyond that story as well, from the excellent concept of swapping between your living and spectral protagonists, to its absolutely stellar investigation mechanics. That said, other parts of Banishers aren’t as original, borrowing the bulk of its structure from plenty of action-adventure games before it, but with stiff and repetitive combat that can’t stand up to those inspirations. Even still, for those in favor of weird games brimming with heartbreak and ectoplasm alike, there’s a lot to enjoy here.
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is the latest entry in a genre I’ve inadvisably taken to calling “crevice crawlers.” Y’know, those third-person games with a serious story and slow pacing, where two people walk around and talk to one another in hushed tones in between combat encounters, and for some reason you spend a lot of time squeezing through crevices to get from place-to-place? I’m talking God of War, A Plague Tale, The Last of Us – classic crevice crawlers. Anyway, while I quite enjoy the occasional sad whispering duo sidling through rubble, at this point the formula is also pretty played out. In the case of Banishers, it made the adventure feel more familiar than I cared for (despite a refreshingly original setting), owing to its steadfast adherence to that trendy template.
Though it certainly doesn’t win points for innovation, Banishers executes on this blueprint quite well, with strong writing, likable characters, and a few good twists and turns in the story to make for an enjoyable cross country odyssey. Playing as Red, the overly-emotional Scotsman with hair that’s way too cool for the time period, and Antea, the ill-tempered master ghost hunter who is a ghost herself, you’ll travel around talking to all kinds of pilgrims in order to solve their hauntings. As occult experts called Banishers in a mystical 17th century alternate reality, it’s your job to seek out ghosts, help them resolve their unfinished business, then send them to the afterlife, and that ends up being exactly as fun as it sounds. Seriously, who doesn’t want to be a dope slayer of specters and run around banishing spirits like an “Oops, All Ghosts” Geralt of Rivia?
As with a lot of games like it, Banishers does suffer from some pacing issues. There’s lots of repeated story beats where our heroes retread the same ground as they process their grief and discuss their dilemma, and you’ll be asked to crawl through dark places, climb mountain sides, and wait in extremely slow elevators while your characters talk about how much of a bummer death is. Thankfully, most of the time the writing is good enough to justify that pace, but I’ll admit I started to zone out by the eleventh or twelfth time I had to hear them chat about spectral webs. There are also lots of little unnecessary pauses that become tiresome, like how after every time you rest at a campfire to level up or use a fast travel point, your characters stare at one another lovingly for a few seconds before finally rising to their feet. There were several occasions where I’d sit through that only to realize I’d fast traveled to the wrong campfire and have to go back and watch it again.
Pacing problems aside, the story has strong writing and likable characters.
Beyond taking on haunting cases and working to save the town of New Eden from its nightmarish fate, you’ll also be free to roam the map in search of optional combat encounters, puzzles to be solved, and side quests to tackle, all of which are fairly solid. Special combat scenarios offer an extra level of challenge for those who would seek it by throwing in modifiers that require you to change up your playstyle, like one where only certain types of attacks do any real damage, and puzzles offer some extra loot to help you upgrade your equipment by solving fairly straightforward environmental logic problems (simple “move this minecart here” or “shoot this magical target” type stuff). Side quests allow you to dive a little deeper into characters you meet throughout the main quest, with some really quality writing and smaller stories to engage with, though you aren’t given a ton of incentive to tackle these aside from learning a bit more about the world.
The supernatural reimagining of colonial America is a fantastic backdrop for the tale of love and loss at the center of things, with death and the afterlife constantly looming over our paranormal heroes. When Antea is killed in the story’s opening moments and becomes a ghost, Red finds himself working in tandem with the very thing he’s supposed to combat, which creates a really cool dilemma where you’ll need to decide to stay the course and work toward your partner’s ultimate banishment or forsake your duties in an attempt to bring her back to life. Wandering around the countryside to help others resolve their own losses in your role as a Banisher and uncovering the sordid history of New Eden gives you plenty of opportunities to decide what kind of ghost hunter you want to be, with lots of morally gray situations you’ll be asked to weigh in on.
However, it is a little disappointing that, with all the interesting supernatural mysteries they set up, you only get three nuance-free options to choose from at the end of each case. You can either give the ghost its ascent, which is a friendly way of sending it to the afterlife, banish the ghost, which is basically just an aggressive way of doing the same thing, or you can blame the living, killing them and absorbing their essence in your quest for power. The only way to bring your love back from the dead is by sacrificing as many people as possible, so blaming the living is mostly presented as the “evil” choice, even when some of these humans totally deserve to get got. Meanwhile, banishing or ascending the dead are usually framed as two flavors of the right thing to do, even in cases where a living person is clearly in the wrong.
In many scenarios, having to choose just one of those conclusions feels like you’re being unnecessarily forced to pick a side – or worse yet, you’re just choosing the option that’s going to get you to whichever ending you’re shooting for. For example, in one case I encountered two equally guilty twins, one who had been killed and while the other was still alive, and had to choose to get rid of the ghost or kill the living twin. It would have been nice to have the option to banish the ghost and turn the human into the authorities, or engage with that situation in any number of more nuanced ways.
I was eager to tackle every new haunting that popped up on my map.
That doesn’t stop it from being extremely cool to step into the boots of two ghost investigators though, as you swap between your living and dead characters to make use of their unique abilities as you hunt for clues, track your quarry through the woods, and interview suspects. As Red, you’re able to perform dope rituals to do things like see visions from the past via psychometry or compel spirits to show themselves to you, while as Antea you can see invisible objects hidden in the world and use your awesome and kinda terrifying spectral powers to manipulate the environment, like letting out a banshee shriek to destroy barriers. Swapping between the two perspectives to uncover clues, overcome simple logic puzzles, and solve mysteries is without question the best part of Banishers, and made me eager to tackle every new haunting case that popped up on my map.
The instant character swapping carries over into combat too, where you’ll either be fighting with sword and rifle as Red or throwing phantom haymakers and using ghost powers as Antea, and the concept mostly succeeds there as well. What starts out as a fairly barebones system of dodge rolling, parrying, and light or heavy attacks gradually evolves into something much more compelling as you unlock abilities throughout the adventure. For example, I absolutely love the unlockable perks that let you time your swapping between characters in the middle of a hit combo in order to trigger a special attack, which also provides a window of invulnerability as one character is replaced with the other. By the end, I was able to swap back and forth between the two without a break in my assault, triggering special maneuvers along the way, like Antea’s ability to leap across the map to smack someone in the face.
Similarly, there are lots of interesting opportunities to customize your equipment loadout and skill tree perks to fit your playstyle, like how I would take all the powers that granted me buffs at the cost of longer ability cooldowns, but then complimented them with equipment that made me stronger for each power that was currently waiting on a cooldown. And since you’re given the ability to switch out all your abilities and equipment every time you rest at a campfire, there’s plenty of freedom to completely change up your playstyle as you go without getting locked into a specific build or having to pay some obscene skill tree reset fee.
Combat definitely has some hiccups, though, as controlling your characters often feels pretty clunky. Movement can be sluggish or downright unresponsive as you get caught on the smallest things when you roll around. Sometimes the camera can also move in erratic ways, especially when it’s trying to focus on something with Banishers’ hit-or-miss lock-on system. I was playing on the hardest difficulty, and died on more than one occasion when the lock-on system wouldn’t do its thing or would bizarrely point the camera in the opposite direction of the enemy. It’s still enjoyable to take on armies of apparitions, but combat is definitely missing a certain level of polish that can be pretty frustrating.
Enemy variety also became painfully scarce less than halfway through the roughly 30 hours it took me to complete the story, as there’s only a handful of enemy types that are added far too slowly to keep combat fresh. Wolves, which are introduced right at the beginning, became especially tiresome when I was still seeing them 20 hours later, and I cannot even begin to describe to you how many of those poor, furry beasts I sent whimpering into the afterlife. That said, most of the monsters in the mix are at least interesting to fight, from specters that dive into the corpses of other enemies to reanimate them, to skeletal marksmen who keep their distance and try to take you out with a rifle. I just wish I didn’t have to see the same undead faces so often, because by the end even my favorites had become irritations.
2023 and 2024 have shown that 2TB PS5 SSD upgrades are actually worth the price. In 2022, prices for 1TB PS5 SSDs averaged around $150, whereas 2TB SSDs hovered closer to $300. Now, we’re seeing 1TB SSDs trickle below the $70 price point and 2TB SSDs can drop to around $100 or sometimes even lower if there’s a good sale. It’s worth noting, though, that you can’t use any old SSD and expect it to perform well on the PS5 console. You’ll want to pick up a PCIe Gen4 x4 M.2 solid-state drive with at least a 5,500MB/s read speed to match the PS5’s internal drive.
TL;DR – The Best PS5 SSD Deals Right Now
Note that Sony recommends a heatsink attached to your SSD and not all SSDs listed here have pre-installed heatsinks. For the ones that do, we’ll be sure to mention it. For the ones that don’t, all you have to do is purchase your own heatsink (like this one for $9) and install it yourself. For our top recommended picks for 2024, check out our full breakdown for the Best PS5 SSDs.
For those looking to jump from a 1TB SSD, you can’t go wrong with this excellent deal on a 2TB SSD from XPG. Its price has dropped 28%, from $209.99 to $149.99, but you’ll have to grab a heatsink to go with it (which you can do here for $9). This SSD also has read and write speeds of 7400/6800MB/s.
Adata Legend Max 2TB PS5 SSD with Heatsink for $149.99
Much like the SSD listed above, this is one of the faster SSDs on the market with read speeds of up to 7400MBps and write speeds of up to 6800MBps. Alongside 2TB of storage, it also has a very slim preinstalled heatsink that can slot perfectly into your PS5. Right now, it’s discounted 25% to $149.99.
Samsung 980 Pro 2TB M.2 SSD for $163.11
Samsung SSDs need no introduction. They’ve made some of the most popular and reliablePS5 SSDs on the market. The 980 Pro has been out for a long time, way back in January of 2020. A testament to its reliability is the fact that Samsung didn’t feel any need to release any newer flagship model until 2022. In terms of performance, it’s no longer the fastest SSD on the market (the990 Pro is), but it’s still a very fast drive. It certainly more than meets the minimum 5600MB/s speed requirement to be used as a PS5 storage upgrade, with speeds of up to 7,100MB/s.
Samsung 990 Pro 2TB PCIe Gen4 x4 M.2 SSD for $169.99
The Samsung 990 Pro is an excellentSSD for your PS5. From a purely performance perspective, it’s overkill; the stock SSD in your PS5 will be the limiting factor. You’ll want to pick up a PCIe Gen4 x4 M.2 solid state drive with a rated 5,500MB/s read speed to match the PS5’s internal drive and the 990 Pro is much faster. This one does not come with a heatsink, though, so you’ll need to invest in one.
Silicon Power XS70 4TB SSD with Built-in PS5 Heatsink for $223.96
Looking for even more storage to have in your PS5? Look no further than this incredible deal on a 4TB SSD from Silicon Power. It’s currently discounted 25% to $223.96, so well worth taking advantage of before it goes back up to its $299.99 MSRP. It also comes with a built-in heatsink, so it’ll be ready to go right away, and has excellent read and write speeds of 7,200MB/s and 6,800MB/s, respectively.
What if the SSD Doesn’t Include a Heatsink?
Sony recommends you install an SSD that has an attached heatsink. If the SSD you purchase doesn’t include one, it’s simple enough to buy one for $9 on Amazon and add it yourself. Most of these heatsinks are just attached using an adhesive like thermal tape.
Budget to Best: PS5 SSDs
There may be other SSD deals out there, but these are the PS5 SSDs we’ve tried ourselves and highly recommend. They also double up as outstanding boot drives for your gaming PC, in case you don’t need additional storage for your PS5 console.
How To Install a New PS5 SSD
It’s extremely easy! Removing the case cover is completely toolless. In fact, the only screw you have to remove is the one that keeps the cover for the SSD bay in place. You don’t even put it back when you’re done. Sony has a quick and easy YouTube video guide.
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelance writer who works with the Guides and Commerce teams here at IGN.
Earth Defense Force 6 now launches in the West this summer, D3Publisher has announced.
The third-person action shooter, already out in Japan, was set for launch in the West this spring but will now release this summer. That’s for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC via Steam. There is no launch planned for Xbox or Nintendo Switch.
“Developer Sandlot and publisher D3Publisher have decided to extend the launch window to add finishing touches and finalize preparations for its Western launch,” reads a joint statement.
Here’s the official blurb:
“In the year 2025, humanity won the war against the unknown invaders known as Primers, and peace returned to the planet. As a result of the conflict, 90% of Earth’s population was destroyed, and civilization was on the brink of collapse. Earth Defense Force 6 picks up three years after the events of Earth Defense Force 5 in the year 2027. The survivors continue their efforts to rebuild but threats to the world’s safety remain persistent. The Primers left behind many alien colonists and the two species have become increasingly hostile toward one another. The number of invasive organisms nesting in the depths of the earth and its ruins continues to increase. The Earth Defense Force (EDF) is once again called upon to protect the planet from the aggressive extraterrestrial invaders and determine the true purpose of the giant ring-shaped object that has recently appeared in the sky. Will the EDF be able to pull humanity from the edge of defeat, or will this be the species’ last stand?”
IGN’s Earth Defense Force 5 review returned an 8.3. We said: “Even with dated graphics, EDF 5 is an energetic essay on action game design that is way too much fun to miss – especially with friends.”
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.
In a post on the game’s Discord, Rocksteady discussed the looter shooter’s upcoming patch, and in doing so said that it had noticed “some of our more dedicated players started reaching Mastery Levels beyond our wildest expectations.”
The root cause of this is a bug with the Burn status effect. This was supposed to scale across the Mastery Levels so it remains viable for damage dealing, but a “major” unintended bug made it scale incorrectly. “As Mastery levels increased, Burn’s damage also increased, which basically meant that if you used a Burn build, every Mastery Level had the same difficulty,” Rocksteady explained.
The developer said the bug “left us with somewhat of a conundrum.” “Our most dedicated players had now reached a Mastery Level far beyond what the game was balanced for at launch due to this bug, and weren’t getting the challenge or variety we wanted our End Game to provide. We had to ask ourselves, what can we do to fix this, and more importantly, should we fix it at all?”
In the end, Rocksteady decided the Burn bug had to go. Explaining its decision, the studio said: “While there is no doubt that the Burn build is a really powerful and fun build – it should be! – we didn’t intend for it to be the only viable End Game build for launch and beyond.”
So, the bug will be fixed so that it scales correctly with damage taken effects on enemies, as originally intended. But Burn’s ability to scale infinitely is not long for this world.
Unfortunately, the knock-on effect of this bug is that Rocksteady has been forced to reset the game’s leaderboards. “Since this change will be pretty fundamental to the leaderboards and your continued progression on them, we are committed to creating a new leaderboard for you all, so you can continue to explore the different builds in the game.
“All the entries on the current leaderboard will exist in perpetuity and will be a permanent record of all your achievements. We want to applaud you all for both your dedication on getting this high in the Mastery Levels (and also breaking the game). Kudos!”
Elsewhere, Rocksteady plans to stop combat Mastery levels 50 and beyond increasing enemy health too much, too quickly. “We’ve seen some comments suggesting that enemy health at later Mastery Levels was too high, which makes the climb too steep past Mastery Level 50,” Rocksteady explained. “For that reason, we’re adjusting our approach to Mastery Level balancing. Enemy health will now increase in a much less aggressive way, with the intent that more builds will crop up as viable options.”
The Heat Wave’s Molten Skin and The Turtle’s Shell will also be adjusted, so that they reduce damage taken by 90% rather than give immunity. Rocksteady, again: “At the moment, these items were too easy to trigger and it is simply a bit too easy to keep the buff up, especially at higher Mastery Levels, and we wanted skilled players to need to use their mastery of their characters’ traversal and the mastery of combat mechanics and mastery of build construction to survive.”
Looking further ahead, Rocksteady said it will provide players with a look into Season 1 in the coming weeks, and longer-term changes it’s thinking about.
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.
The boss of Doctor Who has moved to debunk various rumors that indicated the popular show would soon launch a collaboration with Fortnite.
As reported by Eurogamer, Doctor Who showrunner Russell T. Davies replied to a user on Instagram who asked about the reported Fortnite collaboration to say: “There isn’t one! It’s a complete myth, I’m afraid.”
The comment comes despite evidence pointing to the existence of a Doctor Who x Fortnite event, which was assumed to go live alongside the upcoming new season in May. There’s even a list of datamined Doctor Who content that may or may not have been scrapped, including skins for David Tennant v2 and Ncuti Gatwa.
Despite Russell T. Davies’ definitive statement, some still believe Doctor Who is coming to Fortnite in some capacity. Perhaps that stems from how long the Doctor Who rumours have floated around the internet. Nearly a year ago there were rumblings of a crossover to coincide with Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary episode. Those rumours then emerged into reports of a delay, and then a switch to coincide with the new season.
As Eurogamer points out, the reports of Doctor Who in Fortnite come from credible Fortnite leakers with proven track records of dishing the dirt on Epic’s battle royale ahead of time, which makes it all the more surprising that a collaboration is supposedly not happening.
It’s busy times in the world of Fortnite, of course, with the release of games Lego Fortnite, Rocket Racing, and Fortnite Festival within the game itself. Last week, Disney announced it had bought a $1.5 billion stake in Epic Games to create an “expansive” universe inside Fortnite. In September, Epic let go of 830 employees, or about 16% of its workforce, with boss Tim Sweeney saying: “We’ve been spending way more money than we earn.”
Image credit: BBC STUDIOS 2023
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.
