Palworld has sold over one million copies just eight hours after launch, developer Pocketpair has said.
Palworld, dubbed ‘Pokémon with guns’, launched this morning, January 19, and quickly shot to the top of Steam’s best-selling games list and broke into Steam’s top-four most-played games list by concurrent players. At the time of this article’s publication, Palworld had overtaken battle royale PUBG into third place with 365,000 concurrent players and a ‘very positive’ user review rating.
Palworld’s true concurrent player count will be much higher, with the game also available on Xbox and Windows PC via Game Pass.
The huge influx of players at launch has caused server problems, however. Pocketpair said Palworld’s servers had become unstable, which may cause connection issues. “We are working to resolve this ASAP!” Pocketpair tweeted.
“In the meantime, some users have reported success in attempting to connect 2-3 times or waiting after launching the game,” the developer continued.
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.
Since the summer of 2022, PlayStation Plus has reinvented itself into a three-tiered membership. Similar to the likes of a streaming subscription; i.e Netflix, Disney+ etc, the higher the tier you subscribe to, the more benefits you acquire along the way.
But, what do each of the PS Plus tiers offer; and which one is right for you? That’s exactly what we aim to answer in this handy guide, alongside clear answers on how to upgrade memberships, overall costs, included games, and more.
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Use these quick links to find the specific topic you’re after!
PS Plus Essential is the easiest to define, as it’s what PS Plus has always been. Essential provides access to online play, cloud saves, three free games a month, and discounts on the PS Store.
Moving up a tier, to PS Plus Extra, you’re getting new PS4 and PS5 games each month, alongside the slew of PlayStation content already available (around 400 games), and everything PS Plus Essential provides.
If you opt for the most expensive plan, PS Plus Premium, you’re gaining additional access to PS1, PS2, PSP, and PS3 titles, on top of everything else the Extra and Essential tiers provide.
In summary; interested in playing more PS4 and PS5 games? Aim for the Extra tier. Feeling nostalgic? Go all out on the Premium tier. Just want to play online? Go for Essential; it’s as simple as that. Here’s an additional breakdown as well to make it even easier to understand.
PS Plus Essential
Access online multiplayer
Cloud saves
Three rotating, downloadable games per month
PlayStation Store discounts
PS Plus Extra
All Essential tier benefits
Access and download a catalog of up to 400 PS4 and PS5 games
PS Plus Premium
All Extra and Essential tier benefits
Players can download or stream PS1, PS3 and PSP games
PS3 games are streaming-only
Players can stream these back catalog games to a PS4, PS5 or PC
Time-limited game trials
New to Premium: stream select PS5 titles from the PlayStation Plus catalog
If you’re interested in pure bang for your buck, you probably want to know what games you can access via a PS Plus subscription. For starters, PS Plus Essential members get a rotating three free games monthly, so keep an eye on updates to find out what games are up for grabs each month.
But, when it comes to PS Plus Extra and Premium, there’s a whole slew of games to get stuck into. Some highlights include Returnal, God of War, Death Stranding, Ratchet & Clank, Spider-Man Miles Morales, Bloodborne, Red Dead Redemption 2, Demon’s Souls, and plenty more as well. For a complete breakdown of what’s available, feel free to browse the Extra and Premium collections on IGN Playlist.
How Much Does PlayStation Plus Cost? (As Of January 2024)
How to Upgrade PS Plus Tiers: Essential, Extra, and Premium
If you’re already a PS Plus Essential member, you may be wondering, can I upgrade to a different tier? Yes, yes you can. It’s easy to do, simply navigate to the PS Plus page on your PlayStation console, or dedicated webpage, and select which tier you’d like to upgrade to; PS Plus Extra, or PS Plus Premium.
When you upgrade, you’ll be charged a fee to bring your current account in line with the cost of Extra or Premium. So, for example, if you’ve paid for a full year of PS Plus Essential already ($79.99), that will be discounted from the cost of upgrading to PS Plus Extra ($134.99) for a year. That means you’ll pay just $55 to upgrade your membership and so forth.
The same principles apply to upgrading to Premium as well from either the Essential or Extra tiers. Just remember you’ll then be on a new auto-renewal for your upgraded tier, so be sure to turn that off if you don’t want to be charged the full $100-$120 this time next year.
Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.
I learned so many intriguing things about Nightingale during my visit to Inflexion Games that it’d be impossible to unpack everything in one succinct article – so I won’t, but I will hopefully shed some light on its development process, setting, and gameplay loop. Nightingale isn’t necessarily the game you’d expect from seasoned ex-Bioware devs, but the years of experience behind its ideation is evident in what I saw in more than six hours of gameplay: a stylish take on a shared-world survival crafting game.
The world of Nightingale is similar to ours in the “best of Victorian times,” as Inflexion CEO Aaryn Flynn put it, in the late 1800s. However, in this alternate reality, the Fae appeared in the 1500s to share their knowledge of magic with humans, altering the path of history and spurring the birth of the home of magical studies, the city of Nightingale. Alongside magic, the Fae also introduce humanity to the existence of small Fae Realms and the portal system that connects them.
Nightingale features characters from history, literature, and folklore – from Puck, a Fae inspired by Shakespeare; to Ada Lovelace, an English woman considered the first computer programmer – they’re fun little easter eggs for history and literature buffs. This combination of Fae, magic, and Victorian influences cements Nightingale’s genre as a gaslamp fantasy – think the fantastical, magical side of the sci-fi-inclined steampunk genre.
Why this setting? Simply because Flynn and art director Neil Thompson have done medieval fantasy (Dragon Age) and sci-fi (Mass Effect) already, so they wanted to create something unique. And Nightingale certainly takes its style seriously.
Nightingale begins with a short prologue introducing the world and setting the stage for the opening moments. A mysterious phenomenon known only as “the Pale” has foggily swept over the entirety of Earth, putting everything it touches into a state of suspended animation. The only human city left is Nightingale, but the magical portals to get there have malfunctioned, cutting off access. Actually, the entire system of portals and Fae realms have been thrown into chaos, tossing the human Realm Walkers, including you, around with it.
The story and setting loosely glue your overarching objectives together, but as inconsequential as the story seems to be in the grand scheme of things – Nightingale is a survival crafting game, not a narratively-driven RPG ala Bioware, after all – it still serves as a curious jumping-off point into the world and gameplay of Nightingale. It certainly provides more of an intriguing premise than washing up on a shore with nothing but your underwear, which by now is a common survival trope. And if story is what you’re after, Hope Echoes can be found scattered throughout the realms that add narrative context for those who want even more world-building and story. These are, of course, dropped by Realm Walkers who came before you.
Alongside you on your journey back to Nightingale is Puck, who explains much of the way of the world to you as you progress, accomplishing small quests he presents to you. It seems he’s helping you, but if you know much about folklore, you know the Fae aren’t always to be trusted – providing a curious seed that piqued my suspicions. Perhaps unwarrantedly.
Questing Your Way
Nightingale has been in development at Inflexion Games for nearly five years, and though it’s kept the same setting inspiration, it’s gone through an evolution from MMO to the more compact experience it is now, with up to six players able to play in a shared world at a time rather than countless.
For early access, Nightingale will have about 30 hours of content if you race through the main objectives, and this “early” game seems to have been fine-tuned to be as fun as possible. Rather than being developed in a vacuum, Nightingale has had dozens of playtests, tweaking the experience in both big and small ways. You can read more about Nightingale’s development process here.
Personally, I look for games that instill a sense of intrinsic motivation in the player. If the only objective is clear, I know I can do it, and the only reward is external, like another task and story beat, well, I can get bored. Instead of assigning small tasks one after the other over and over again to serve a story, Nightingale allows the player freedom and space to grow curious enough to ideate their own goals. It’s a not-so-uncommon trait among survival crafting games, which might be why I vibe so well with them, and it’s just one reason why Nightingale is so appealing to me.
“That was definitely a challenge: to construct a game that inspired players to go and achieve their own goals.”
“That was definitely a challenge: to construct a game that inspired players to go and achieve their own goals instead of just dictating to them what they had to go do. And that was a real mindset shift for us at the studio,” Flynn explained.
In the beginning, players need more short-term, explicit goals to help them get going as a sort of tutorial. Puck dishes out these little quests to teach you what’s what. As you follow him from realm to realm after fleeing the Pale, he instructs you to do very basic survival crafting trope tasks: Build a campfire, cook a meal, build a shelter, fight off the interdimensional horrific creatures called the Bound sicced on you by the malevolent Winter Court Fae. You know, run-of-the-mill quests you must complete to progress.
And yes, even though there is magic, the developers wanted to keep magic more grounded – you can’t just conjure stuff, like a campfire, out of thin air. Magic exists for humans in a system of enchantments. Collect materials and craft to be able to perform magic, but only while wielding the weapon with the enchantment. It’s a less whimsy sorcerer, more academic approach, inspired by the novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.
Fairly early on, the gameplay diverges from that model of “one quest, two quest,” and gives players more and more inspiration to go and do things on their own accord. There were even UI changes to remove the reminder of quests from the main screen, so as not to pressure anyone.
After putting down your first “cairn” to stake out a home base, you’ll find a “Site of Power” if you look around. These mini-dungeons of sorts are only unlocked if you meet the gear and hope requirements, of which you can achieve by a variety of means.
“And so the idea there was rather than have a straight narrative set of quests that just were do this and then do this, and then do this, and then do this (a game model we’re all very familiar with at the studio), we put the sites of power in to inspire players to say, ‘Oh, well, I wonder what’s in there. I’m curious about that,’” Flynn explained.
Production lead Leah Summers emphasized it’s not meant to be a massive grind, or something you need to push through.
“We’re hoping that people will take their time and just enjoy what’s there rather than rushing the progression.”
“It’s really, all these realms are now yours to keep and enjoy. Fish in them, bring them back, craft different clothes…It’s really quite neat,” Summers explained. “We’re hoping that people will take their time and just enjoy what’s there rather than rushing the progression.”
Card Games
Our reward for meeting the requirements and conquering the Site of Power included a crafting recipe for a new Realm Card.
Realm Cards, basically, are used to open portals to new realms. There are three kinds of cards:
Biome
Major
Minor
A Biome Realm Card and a Major Realm Card is needed, while the Minor Realm Card is optional. The Biome dictates the environment–Forest, Swamp, and Desert, for now; the Major Card generally dictates the difficulty of that realm; and the Minor Realm Card will affect minor things (who woulda thought), like weather or creature behavior. I’m especially looking forward to discovering what silly Minor Cards will be available at launch. One of them lets players have super-powered jumps for a limited amount of time, for example. The Minor Cards can even be deactivated and switched out at will, leading to so many creative possibilities.
The realm that’s created once you apply the cards to the portal is completely procedurally generated and uniquely yours: no one else will have the same layout for their Abeyance Forest realm. Once you’ve generated a realm, that will be the layout for that realm permanently, so once you figure out where to go to collect the resources you need, you’ll be able to return to find them easily.
You collect recipes for Major Cards from the various Sites of Power you’ll find, and Minor Cards from different subterranean mini-dungeons, too.
This is your main goal and basic progression: Unlock card recipes to unlock more difficult realms, with the goal of getting stronger and eventually reaching Nightingale. Nightingale isn’t available just yet in Early Access, but in its stead is the multiplayer hub The Watch, Apex Hunts, and the difficult Vaults, the only content intended to be completed in multiplayer.
But there are plenty of other incentives and goals, too. Conquering these little dungeons with their puzzles and combat challenges can also reward you with crafting recipes for new building pieces, so you can make the house or settlement of your dreams. Unlocking new realms helps you toward that goal, too, as each realm combination has shops with different crafting recipes. Some might carry onwards to challenge the Nightingale’s difficult Apex Creatures and Vaults, others may do so to build the best settlements to hang out with their friends, and it’s fun we’ll be able to do that together in groups with both types of players.
In most survival crafting games, I generally leave the building and town organization to others – except farming, for some reason – and I see my aim being similar in Nightingale. The Apex Creature hunts and Vaults, inspired loosely by Destiny 2’s Strikes, promise to be challenging with worthwhile rewards.
Though I didn’t play these myself, I did get to be in the room while a group of players coordinated together to conquer these. First, the Apex Creature Humbaba, a colossal dragon. I loved hearing lead designer Bjorn Taylor yelling at his teammates to remember to eat for buffs before aggroing it. It reminded me of myself before Monster Hunter hunts.
Despite their best efforts to prepare, to eat, to don the optimal equipment, to lay down a nearby respawn spot, the hunt still turned into a bit of chaos, to my delight. One person accidentally aggroed the Humbaba.
“You have to press a button to shoot, how did you do that?” is something someone said with gleeful frustration.
Meanwhile, another player was unprepared and killed by a rare and especially powerful spider monster nearby, taking them out of the fight before they could lay on a lick of damage.
Despite the setbacks, they succeeded, but once they defeated the Humbaba, Swamp Giants showed up and started conjuring giant frogs to attack them before they could even finish looting their kill.
I couldn’t help but smile and laugh along with the team. It looked like a fun time with your friends that left you with a story to tell others who couldn’t make it to game night.
Watching them play through the Vault, the cooperative endgame content, was equally amusing. The team struggled to complete a puzzle. This kind of puzzle is found in many places in Nightingale, but the layout of this Vault made it especially difficult.
To complete it, they needed to watch and listen for crystals to light up and make a sound, and then hit them in the same order. Doing it wrong causes a horde of the Bound to attack. The last crystal eluded them. Flynn hung his head in his hands and lamented as he watched.
To their credit, the Vaults are also procedurally generated, so their layout is never the same. Eventually, they succeeded, moved on, and tackled the Apex Creature at the end of the dungeon, an Apex Eoten.
All in all, the gameplay loops of Nightingale look flexible, engrossing, and fun
All in all, the gameplay loops of Nightingale look flexible, engrossing, and fun, though I am mildly worried about how much attention the base building can keep of my crafty friends. I’m unsure of what else there is to do or maintain once it’s built the way you like. Of course, I do suppose creatures can also come wreck things and force you to build anew. Ah, the joys of survival…
Nightingale will be released in Early Access on February 22.
Casey DeFreitas is the deputy editor of guides at IGN. Catch her on Twitter @ShinyCaseyD.
‘Pokémon With Guns’ survival game Palworld is currently blowing up on Steam, where players can create and join dedicated servers that enable up to 32 players to play in the same world and create guilds together. On Xbox however, co-op is much more limited.
Speaking in the Palword Discord, developer Pocketpair said those playing on Xbox console or Xbox PC through Game Pass or the Microsoft Store cannot create or join dedicated servers, which means online co-op is limited to between two and four players.
“We’d like to have dedicated servers on Xbox but it’s unfortunately not up to us and is quite difficult to negotiate at this time!” a Pocketpair representative said. “But… we are trying!”
It’s unclear what Pocketpair means when it says the addition of dedicated servers on Xbox is “not up to us”, when other games do have dedicated servers on Xbox. IGN has asked for comment.
It’s a disappointing start for Palworld on Xbox and Windows PC, and comes as Palworld on Steam looks set to break concurrent player records heading into the weekend. At the time of this article’s publication, an incredible 318,000 accounts were flagged as playing Palword at the same time, making it the third most-popular game on Steam. The lack of dedicated servers on Xbox will likely influence platform purchasing decisions, especially from customers hoping to play the game with a large group of friends.
Meanwhile, at the launch, Xbox players will only be able to play together, not with those on Steam. “We are working to make this a possibility as soon as possible!” Pocketpair said. This also means PC Game Pass players can not play with Steam until crossplay is added.
As for a PlayStation 5 version, Pocketpair said there are no plans at the moment, but will consider it during development.
Here’s how does multiplayer works in Palworld: On Steam, you can play Palworld with up to three friends by simply starting a multiplayer game and inviting them (four-player co-op). Beyond this, you can create a dedicated server, which will allow for up to 32 players to play in the same world and create guilds together. There are also official servers managed by Pocketpair.
Xbox players, then, aren’t enjoying the same experience as Steam players, and currently cannot play with Steam users. Fingers crossed parity is achieved sooner rather than later.
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.
Sony appears to be refunding customers who own the PlayStation 4 digital version of The Last of Us 2 and who bought the PlayStation 5 remaster at full price.
A message circulating online shows the offer of a refund in that specific circumstance, pointing out the $10 upgrade path currently available. The message reassures customers they will receive any pre-order bonuses included in the original pre-order.
PlayStation Refunding The Last Of Us Part II Remastered PS5.
According to some PlayStation owners, The Last of Us 2 Remastered on the PlayStation Store appears unavailable to those who own the PS4 version, but this was not always the case, potentially leading to purchases of the PS5 version by those unaware of the upgrade.
The Last of Us 2 Remastered launches today, January 19, on PS5. In our 10/10 review of the original game, IGN said: “The Last of Us Part 2 is a masterpiece that evolves the gameplay, cinematic storytelling, and rich world design of the original in nearly every way.”
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.
Microsoft’s second (hopefully annual?) Xbox Developer Direct went, like the first, exceptionally well. While we didn’t get a shadow-dropped killer exclusive – and let’s be honest, that’s not an expectation that Team Xbox probably wants to set – we did still get the surprise of a behind-the-scenes look at Square Enix’s upcoming Visions of Mana. Better yet, we got a good look at gameplay from Obsidian’s upcoming first-person RPG Avowed, we got the Hellblade 2 release date we’ve been waiting for, and best of all, we got the proper reveal of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, the new first-person (!) action/adventure/puzzler/whip-simulator that’s being executive produced by Elder Scrolls and Fallout director Todd Howard. I’m extremely pleased with Microsoft’s showing, and it helps set the tone for what should be a very good year of Xbox exclusives.
Let’s start with the unquestionable headliner of the event: Indiana Jones. It’s looking stellar on the latest version of id Software’s idTech engine, and it surprised many with the fact that it takes place primarily from the first-person perspective. In hindsight this makes a lot of sense, because not only is developer MachineGames’ entire catalog comprised of first-person games (i.e. Wolfenstein: The New Order, Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus, their various expansion packs, and the incredible original-Xbox exclusive the team made when they worked together at Starbreeze, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay), but quite frankly, Naughty Dog already did the whole third-person Indiana Jones thing quite well four times. If MachineGames had gone third-person, the online discourse following the reveal would be absolutely toxic, with Sony fanboys downvoting and comment-bombing the trailer, calling it an Uncharted clone. Going first-person not only leans into the studio’s expertise, it allows them to put their own spin on an Indiana Jones game.
More exciting for me was how much of the aforementioned Riddick’s DNA is plain to see in Indiana Jones. The Great Circle promises first-person melee combat, stealth, and a little bit of gunplay – a description you could also apply directly to Riddick. And let me be clear: if Indiana Jones ends up being a 2024 version of Riddick but with Indiana Jones, I would be fully on board with that. Riddick is, in my I-played-everything-on-original-Xbox opinion, one of the five best games for Microsoft’s first console. It’s that good. And if Indiana Jones delivers something of that caliber by 2024 standards then we’re all in for a treat. And speaking of a treat, The Great Circle is due out later this year!
Hellblade 2 had perhaps the next-best showing, simply because it looks absolutely stunning and has all the makings of a top-tier third-person narrative-driven action-adventure game. If it suffered in the Xbox Developer Direct, it’s only because most fans, I’d argue, are more than convinced and simply want to know when they can play it. We got that long-awaited release date, fortunately, meaning we’ve got something that has the potential to be very special to look forward to on May 21.
Avowed was the third heavy hitter in this year’s Xbox Developer Direct lineup, and it showed well, but I don’t think it knocked off nearly as many socks as Indy and Hellblade did. Don’t get me wrong: Avowed has a lot going for it. The diverse landscapes look absolutely gorgeous, the character interactions look ripe with multiple-choice potential, and the dialogue will no doubt shine, given Obsidian’s track record. The renowned RPG developer has already told us to expect a smaller-scale game than the Elder Scrolls games it might immediately resemble, but that’s OK! We can be confident the story will deliver based on the studio’s own recent smaller-scale first-person RPG, The Outer Worlds. Combat looked a little stiff, and that’s what’s dragging it down a bit for me. But I have every reason to believe that it’s going to be an RPG well worth playing.
I don’t have much to say about Ara: History Untold, as we knew going into the Direct that it would be a deeper look at a very niche PC game. And that’s perfectly OK! I would respectfully argue, though, that perhaps the Xbox Developer Direct wasn’t the best venue to showcase it, given that the event was almost certainly watched primarily by Xbox console fans rather than PC gamers.
Though Indiana Jones carried most of the weight for this year’s Xbox Developer Direct, it was nevertheless an excellent showcase
Finally, we got a surprise in the middle of the Direct: Visions of Mana, the next entry into the long-running action-JRPG series. I adore the art style here and it’s great to hear that it’s not only arriving this summer, but it will launch the same day on Xbox as it does on rival platforms. To that end, I think this unexpected appearance would’ve hit a lot harder had Visions not just been announced a month ago at The Game Awards, but this was clearly a public display by Microsoft to say, “Look Square, we really care about you and your games and we want you on our platform!” Which, quite frankly, I don’t blame Microsoft for.
All in all, though Indiana Jones carried most of the weight for this year’s Xbox Developer Direct, it was nevertheless an excellent showcase. Xbox gamers now know, here at the very start of the year, that it’s going to be a pretty solid year of exclusives: Hellblade 2 in May, STALKER 2 in September, and Indiana Jones and Avowed in the Fall. And again, it’s only January. There will no doubt be more exclusives than that hitting Xbox this year (Replaced, for instance). We’re off to a great start!
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.
Palworld has launched big on Steam, where it’s already one of the most-played games.
At the time of this article’s publication, Palworld, which has been described as “Pokémon With Guns”, was just shy of 200,000 concurrent players on Valve’s platform, making it the fourth most-played game on Steam behind only PUBG, Dota 2, and Counter-Strike 2. Palworld is also the top-selling game on Steam by revenue, outperforming the likes of Warframe, Baldur’s Gate 3, and FC 24.
Palworld’s popularity on Steam will no doubt increase throughout the day and into launch weekend, when it may well break concurrent records. Palworld has also launched straight into Game Pass, which will increase player figures further.
Ahead of Palworld’s launch, developer Pocketpair insisted it definitely is not a scam. The assurance came in the wake of games like the disastrous The Day Before, which has fuelled distrust between players and early access developers on Steam.
Pocketpair celebrated today’s launch with a new blog post:
“Palworld started with a small team of four people. With Craftopia, we realized the potential that survival crafting games had, but as we continued development, we realized new possibilities.
“How much fun would it be if you went on an adventure, lived, and built a base with Pals, who had their own quirks and personalities?
“With this in mind, we have worked hard to develop this game for the past three years.
“Developers who sympathized with Palworld gathered one after another, and the scale of the game grew far beyond what we ever imagined.
“Palworld starts from here.”
Pocketpair said it will continue to add new features to Palworld, including PvP/Arena, “major” building system updates, a raid boss to fight that guild members must gather and cooperate to defeat, and trading Pals with players in other worlds.
“We are confident that if we continue to update Palworld properly, it will become the best game ever,” Pocketpair said, rather confidently.
“We will continue to do our best to update the game in order to bring it one step closer to becoming a great game.
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.
Following the mid-season update’s release, players ran into intense visual and gameplay glitches that made the battle royale pretty much unplayable. The problems were so bad that Raven had to pull the Champion’s Quest feature, which tasks players with winning five Warzone matches in a row or 30 total in the season.
Activision developers worked through the night to get on top of the problems, issuing a raft of issues that look to have sorted Warzone out for the most part. Champion’s Quest has now returned, and players have already managed to complete it.
Now, Raven Software has tweeted to explain what went wrong, saying parts of an upcoming, in-development feature accidentally went live, causing the bugs
Here’s the statement in full:
“We wanted to address the issues that players encountered during the Season 1 Reloaded launch period.
“We’ve been laying the groundwork for the return of some fan favorite features in upcoming seasons, which has required a degree of preemptive setup in our live environment.
“Yesterday’s update shipped with some of that work, and we unfortunately encountered a conflict between live player data and our servers. Our teams were made immediately aware of the issues and began investigating shortly after the update went live. We rallied studio teams from around the world to get these issues resolved as swiftly as possible.
“We – as devs – love this game and apologize for the disruption that resulted from these events. Please know that we hold ourselves to a high standard and yesterday’s issues did not align with that.
“With that said, we’re also very excited for what’s ahead and look forward to bringing the best we can to #Warzone!”
Raven followed that tweet up with another, teasing one of the in-development, upcoming features for Warzone (the fan-favourite Specialist Perk bonus is coming to Warzone):
So anyway, what are some of the features we’re preparing for well ahead of time – you ask? 👀 pic.twitter.com/WhFYyCUE6P
The Specialist Perk was an ultra powerful and rare Perk from the original Warzone that activated the other perks in the game all at once. Given this teaser image shows the Specialist Perk on Rebirth Island, perhaps players will have to wait for the map to come out before its introduction later this year.
There’s a lot going on in the world of Call of Duty, with Season 1 Reloaded also refreshing Modern Warfare 3 with Ranked Play. Meanwhile, Call of Duty’s anti-cheat tech was updated so that it crashes the game if it detects a mouse and keyboard player using unauthorised tools to enable aim assist. There’s even a hint at an upcoming Warhammer 40,000 collaboration.
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.
Square Enix appears to be on the verge of shaking up its development portfolio. According to its president, we may soon see fewer titles, but a more diverse array of genres coming out of a developer and publisher traditionally known for its massive RPG franchises.
In an investor Q&A that took place back in November but which was only recently published in English, Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu addressed multiple questions from investors about the company’s portfolio going forward. In response to a question about what Square Enix was lacking that it needed to achieve sustained growth and meet its business goals, Kiryu cited two points: the limited diversity of the company’s portfolio, and a lack of strong marketing. On the limited diversity point specifically, he went on to explain the need to increase the different kinds of games in Square Enix’s portfolio by strengthing internal development capabilities, or perhaps even making acquisitions.
“Because we possess strong IPs like the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy franchises, I believe that we have tended to be overly reliant on certain gameplay styles or genres,” Kiryu said. “Meanwhile, the tastes of customers in the gaming market have diversified, and customers have come to enjoy content from a variety of genres. Moreover, blockbuster titles are not the only ones that enjoy popularity. For example, our title Powerwash Simulator is somewhat of an outlier in our portfolio in that it is a game well suited for casual play, but we have been able to steadily build up our earnings from it.”
Later in the Q&A, Kiryu was asked again about the company’s development efforts, and repeated that he wanted to strengthen Square Enix’s internal capabilities and “take on new challenges, partly because we want to add to the diversity of our portfolio of titles, as I noted earlier, while also enabling our developers to expand their skill sets.”
But, at the same time, Square Enix also appears to be very aware of its reputation as the RPG company. Elsewhere in the Q&A, Kiryu noted that the “numerous entries in our lineup” were making it difficult to keep tight control over development efforts. “I want to structure our development function so that we are able to ensure higher quality from each title by slimming down our lineup,” he said.
In a follow-up question, Kiryu continued:
“As our customers’ needs and the types of devices available have diversified, we have tried to produce hits by developing a wide variety of titles rather than by focusing only on certain ones. I believe that this has resulted in the splintering of our resource pool. Meanwhile, there have been clear winners and losers among the major titles released recently in the gaming market, and it has become possible for even indies titles to make their presence felt. The market is increasingly polarized between blockbuster and indies titles, but I feel that we have developed many titles that fell somewhere in the middle. I want to make clearer distinctions going forward.”
The market is increasingly polarized between blockbuster and indies titles, but I feel that we have developed many titles that fell somewhere in the middle.
What the president of Square Enix seems to be indicating here is that the company has been a bit too reliant on just making lots and lots of mid-budget RPGs that weren’t massive successes – see recent efforts like Harvestella, Various Daylife, or Valkyrie Elysium. While the big AAA swings like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest are unlikely to stop being hits for Square Enix, Kiryu is noting a need to spend some development energy developing games like Powerwash Simulator (developed by Futurlab) internally and capitalizing on title diversity, instead of just reiterating the same formula across dozens of different, AA releases.
That’s one interpretation, but we’ll have to wait and see what Square Enix is cooking up in 2024 and beyond to say anything definitive about Square Enix’s plans. We do know it’s on the verge of publishing Foamstars from Toylogic, and has Visions of Mana in the chamber for 2024 alongside a remake of Dragon Quest 3, the new Dragon Quest 12, and (maybe someday) Kingdom Hearts 4. We also know the company is really interested in getting AI to make content for some of these games, as Kiryu stated in a New Year’s Letter earlier this year. it’s also one of the few companies that hasn’t fully given up on blockchain tech, even as other companies appear to be abandoning the idea.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Another year, another annual 30+ hour Chapter to further expand the already mind-bogglingly expansive RPG universe of The Elder Scrolls Online, which is now steadily approaching its 10th anniversary (coming up on April 4). This special occasion calls for a long-awaited classic TES feature to finally make its way into Zenimax Online Studios’ massively multiplayer online spinoff when the newly announced Gold Road expansion becomes available later this year. And for what it’s worth, that classic feature is indeed spell crafting in the form of Gold Road’s new Scribing system, as some theorized on Reddit following an unintentional leak of Gold Road’s introductory videos on YouTube via Zenimax itself.
Gold Road will release in June on all platforms, with PC and Mac versions releasing on June 3 ahead of its console launch on June 18.
As ZOS puts it, Scribing lets you “collect and customize” unique skills called Grimoires across ESO’s open-world zones through various means, and it’s even being described by Zenimax as a “fictional precursor to what could become spell crafting 1000 years in the future,” so take that as you will.
It’s exciting to hear that those skills each have a “primary, secondary, and tertiary effect” which you can alter and build upon with socketable Scripts. In theory, that could immediately open up tons of opportunities for new builds no matter which class you play as – and if I’m being optimistic, it could even shake up what many (myself included) believe is a stagnant combat system where skill rotations rarely change within a given CP160+ build.
But hey – if you’re more obsessed with getting your ESO character’s visual style just right, they’ve got you covered. At launch, Gold Road will feature 22 collectible styles that can be applied to your customizable Grimoires, and The Elder Scrolls fans who remember spell crafting from Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion may be pleased with the new system – which will tie directly into the skill lines that already exist for all classes, whether or not you directly engage with Gold Road’s content.
To that end, there will be “at least one” Grimoire for each of the major Weapon and World (Mage’s Guild, Fighter’s Guild, Soul Magic, Assault, Support) skill lines. Frankly, it’s been a long time since the Soul Magic line got any love, and I’m stoked to finally replace Soul Trap on my Templar’s skill bar.
It wouldn’t be a new ESO Chapter without a new zone featuring the usual mix of new quests, delves, points of interest, a new 12-player trial called Lucent Citadel, and a new main story – as we’ve come to expect from ESO’s annual Chapters since the Morrowind expansion released in 2017. The only thing missing is the usual duo of fresh NPC companions, who Zenimax says are coming in the final DLC of 2024.
The new area is set in the West Weald region of Cyrodiil, home to one of Oblivion’s iconic cities – Skingrad – which serves as Gold Road’s capital city.
The West Weald sounds like a sizable region, split threefold. There, you’ll find yourself exploring the titular Gold Road which is described as a “deciduous forest with windswept fall colors,” the jungle rainforest-inspired Valenwood Annexation, and the arid Colovian Highlands. From what’s been shared by Zenimax Online Studios, it sounds like you can simply walk into the West Weald via Cyrodiil, Reaper’s March, Craglorn, or the Gold Coast.
Once you get settled in the West Weald, you can choose to embroil yourself in the politics of a faction of Bosmer splintered off from the Valenwood named the “Recollection,” as they try to help out the newly-introduced 18th Daedric Prince, Ithelia – who, without spoiling too much about her identity or her connection to the broader story, was first mentioned during the events of 2023’s ESO Chapter, Necrom.
Like Necrom, that makes Gold Road’s role in terms of expanding broader TES lore especially important because we haven’t seen any additions to the Daedric Pantheon – which typically numbers 17 – since The Elder Scrolls series was in its infancy.
If you complete the main stories of both expansions, you’ll get to experience “capper” quests that resolve the combined stories. Ithelia and her realm Mirrormoor could very well make an appearance in The Elder Scrolls 6 in the far-flung future, so Gold Road may make it worthwhile to jump back into The Elder Scrolls Online and play the new main quests – even if you’ve been burned out of ESO’s otherwise decent Chapters over the last few years.
The Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road is currently in development for PC, Mac, Xbox, and PlayStation.
