Bethesda has broken its silence on the future of Starfield, insisting it’s still working on updates and will share details on the “exciting things” it has planned in the coming months.
The Starfield community had hoped Bethesda would announce something to do with the game at its show, but while The Elder Scrolls Online and Fallout 76 both got their moment in the spotlight, Starfield skipped proceedings entirely. No DLC, no expansion, no PlayStation 5 release… nothing.
Now, ahead of Gamescom in August, Bethesda has piped up with a statement on Steam that is as brief as it is vague, but at least addresses Starfield’s future and promises more content is in the works.
“Looking ahead, we’re continuing work on future updates and will share more about the exciting things we have planned for Starfield in the coming months,” Bethesda said in a post accompanying Starfield Update 1.15.222, which is in beta form on Steam. Patch notes are below.
Starfield players are hoping this means the promised second Starfield expansion is still coming, and that Starfield may follow the likes of Forza Horizon 5 and make the jump to PlayStation 5.
Starfield launched in September 2023 as Bethesda’s first brand new IP in 25 years, but it was not as well received as the studio’s previous games in the Fallout and The Elder Scrolls franchises, and the Shattered Space expansion, released a year later in September 2024, has a ‘mostly negative’ user review rating on Steam.
Starfield went on to reach 15 million players, but the question of whether Bethesda might walk away from the game to focus on its other franchises has been a running theme since release. In June 2024, Bethesda insisted it remained committed to supporting Starfield, and confirmed at least one other story expansion would release following Shattered Space. And in an interview with YouTube channel MrMattyPlays, Bethesda Game Studios’ Todd Howard said the developer was aiming to release an annual story expansion for “hopefully a very long time.”
Minor improvements to format and display in Creations menus.
Addressed an issue that could cause that Extreme Temperature gear to appear incorrectly.
Minor improvements to sorting in the Missions Menu.
General crash and stability fixes.
This update is currently in Steam Beta. If you would like to opt in to the Starfield Beta update, please follow these instructions:
Open your Steam Library and navigate to Starfield
Right click on “Starfield” and select “Properties”
In the new properties pop-up window, select “Betas”
In the beta drop down to opt into, select “[beta]”
Wait for app to download new build and launch
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
While we have put together lists recommending the best DC board games and Marvel board games on the market, there are still plenty of great titles out there that don’t fall under either of those banners and instead highlight the “superhero” motif itself. These are games that pit players against one another as heroes and villains, and those that let you work together to stop some dastardly villains. This list takes a look at some of those games that will appeal to fans of capes and spandex, regardless of publisher.
TL;DR – These are the best superhero board games
If you don’t have time to peruse the blurbs, you can see all the items on this list in the catalog above. But if you want more info about any of these superhero board games, read on for the info.
Kapow!
With art that looks like it was pulled straight out of a comic book, Kapow! from Wise Wizard Games has players filling the role of either heroes or villains as they duke it out in this dice-battling game, players roll a set of dice and then, by locking in different combinations of faces, trigger their respective hero or villain’s signature skills and attacks. While on the surface this may sound similar to Dice Throne, one of the coolest features of Kapow! is its dice crafting mechanic, where you can create unique dice by inserting different symbols into the dice faces, helping to increase the odds of getting those rolls you want. Currently, there are two volumes of Kapow!, each containing six characters – three heroes and three villains – that can be mixed and matched together.
Sentinels of the Multiverse: Definitive Edition
Sentinels of the Multiverse is a cooperative board game where teams of heroes struggle against a villain in an effort to thwart their dastardly plan of the week. Both the heroes and villains come with unique 40-card decks that show off the characters’ various skills and play styles. One of the things that sets Sentinels apart is how the game also factors in the environment, with each environment also coming with its own deck and effects that further expand the game’s replayability. To keep things manageable, players will only have to worry about their own hero’s deck, with the “game” handling the villain and environment decks. With characters like Citizen Dead or the one-man-army, Militia, Sentinels of the Multiverse feels like a relic of early ’90s comics, in all of the best ways.
Massive-Verse Fighting Card Game
Featuring characters from various Image Comics series including Radiant Black, the Massive-verse Fighting Card Game is a fast-paced 1v1 card game where two players choose from a roster of heroes, each with their own unique deck, and then proceed to attack, block, and hurl large ultimates at one another until only one is standing. Built on the backbone of Solis Game Studios’ Pocket Paragon system, gameplay feels like a mix of the classic War card game and rock-paper-scissors, where both players play down their cards for the turn and then reveal them simultaneously, with some card types being able to counter others. The Massive-verse FCG is a great little game to keep in your car or bag to bust out when you have a few minutes of downtime and are in the mood for a quick brawl. If you want a bit more variety or to play with up to two more players, you can snag the game’s Team Up Expansion, which introduces four new character decks and 30 special team-up cards for 2v2 games.
Invincible: The Hero-Building Game
Invincible: The Hero-Building Game puts players in the superhero boots of the characters from the hit comic and animated series, Invincible. You can play as Atom Eve, Rex Splode, or Robot, and you and your friends are tasked with rescuing civilians, beating up minions, and stopping the big-bad of the day. Featuring a handful of scenarios, each with different goals to complete, this is a deck and bag-building game where you can level up and improve your hero as the game progresses. There’s a push-your-luck aspect that comes into play by letting you fire off more of your powers – but draw too many black cubes, and you crash out and end your turn. The included scenarios can be played either as standalone games or strung together in order as a sort of campaign game. And if you’re looking for additional challenge, you can pick from three difficulty levels – Easy, Normal, or Hardcore.
Astro Knights
Take up arms as an Astro Knight to defend your home planet in this cooperative deck-builder that has a unique twist – you don’t shuffle your deck. More of a Guardians of the Galaxy approach to superheroes than Spider-Man or Superman, Astro Knights has a science fiction aesthetic, as you and your fellow knights build your decks, playing and equipping cards as you fight against the boss you are going up against. For fans of Aeon’s End, this game will feel familiar, as it is a reimplementation of that game’s systems.
Hellboy: The Board Game
Hellboy: The Board Game is a dungeon-crawling adventure where you and your friends move detailed minis of members of the BRPD like Hellboy, Abe Sapien, or Roger, as you work to solve different cases, taking down any bosses and enemies that get in your way. Each playable character comes with a set of skills and attacks that are unique to them, which you will need to use if you have any hope of succeeding in the game’s included scenarios. Besides simply navigating around the modular board that you set up before each game, players also need to adjust on the fly as the Deck of Doom throws wrenches in your way at every turn, helping keep things exciting. This game can be played both as one-off sessions or as a strung-together campaign, and with a bunch of expansions released, there is plenty of Hellboy goodness out there for fans of the Dark Horse Comics series.
Scott White is a freelance contributor to IGN, assisting with tabletop games and guide coverage. Follow him on X/Twitter or Bluesky.
“Here be monsters,” says the legend on so many antique maps, firing the imagination with thoughts of kraken, chimeras, or worse. But what if it were true? What if Lewis and Clarke, setting out on their expedition across the American interior, encountered buffalo-headed minotaurs and man-eating plants.
That’s the premise of the Corps of Discovery comic and now of this board game adaptation. The game comes from the same designers as the superb Mind MGMT, although, save for the comic book connection, this is a very different kind of game.
What’s in the Box
Most box-openings start with a board, and Corps of Discovery is no exception, but the nature of the board itself is rather surprising. Instead of the usual fold-out affair, you get a cardboard sandwich: two layers of card stuck together, with room in between to slip in a sheet of paper. The top layer is punctuated by a regular grid of circular holes, and the box contains an equally unusual supply of thick cardboard sun tokens with wide “pegs” that fit loosely into the grid’s holes.
There are two folders of paper maps that slide into the sandwich, one for each of the two scenarios included in the game. There’s also a second board which is used for tracking the current game state, with spaces for three challenge cards, backpack items and water: this doubles as a handy reminder of the flow of each game day. There are tokens for the various resources that go in your backpack and for your water supply. There are also several card decks, not only the challenge cards that’ll outline the obstacles you must overcome each day, but also characters to play, items for them to use and so on.
As a scenario-based game, there are also additional cards and tokens applicable to particular scenarios. One thing to note is that, as a game based on a comic book series, all the components are furnished with excellent art from the original comics. While it might not be to everyone’s tastes, it does a fantastic job of bringing the game’s dangerous world to life, especially if you’re familiar with the source material.
Rules and How It Plays
Understanding how the game is set up is, unusually, an integral part of understanding how it plays. First, your group chooses one of the two scenarios to play (plus a training mission), and one of the 10 map sheets included for that scenario, covering it with a blank sheet so you can’t see what’s on it. You slip this, cover and all, into the cardboard-sandwich board then cover all the holes with the sun tokens. Then you slip out the blank sheet. The result is a game map that you know nothing about, ripe for exploration and discovery.
This is a cooperative game where you’re working together to map the wilderness and survive. On your individual turn, you simply remove a sun token, revealing an icon underneath, and take a matching resource to add to your collective backpack. There’s no piece to mark where you are on the map. Instead, movement is abstracted away under the presumption that it’s easy to move through already explored territory. The next player just removes a sun token next to any already-revealed space, although there are some mountainous areas on each map that you can’t traverse.
Exploration, however, is far from a random walk in the park. Each scenario has a set of rules about where and how the various different icons are laid out. In the Fauna scenario, for example, there’s always one wood icon per row and column, and there will always be a water icon orthogonally adjacent to each wood. Each mud icon will be next to a water and a stone, while forts always form an L-shape series with a water and a skull. There are more rules – and icons – but you get the idea.
This allows you to make predictions and deductions about what you’re going to encounter on the map. Sometimes you can figure it out with complete certainty, but more often it’s a bit of a gamble, where you can narrow down the odds without being sure. Exploration is thus both a fun puzzle where you can aim for specific resources, and an exercise loaded with tension. The rules are complex enough to make it a good group discussion, ensuring there’s a dynamic sense of cooperation, and something you can master with practice.
The rules are complex enough to make it a good group discussion, ensuring there’s a dynamic sense of cooperation, and something you can master with practice.
Each time you remove a sun token from the board you place it on one of three challenge cards dealt at the start of the game day. These cards have a resource requirement that you must spend in order to pass the challenge and a consequence for passing or failing, the latter of which usually means losing even more, different resources. You have to face these consequences once the card accumulates a certain number of suns, often only two or three. Considering many challenges require more than two or three resources to pass, this immediately puts your game under massive pressure to find the right icons on every turn.
If you run out of water tokens, you die. If you end the day – timing out the three challenge cards for that die – without any food tokens, you die. Monsters generally don’t kill you outright but sap these precious, precious resource tokens until you die. Even when you’re on top of the resource-mapping system, most games will go down to the wire of you gaining your objective with a few measly drops of water left in your canteen. The last few turns ramp up the tension to crushing levels, until it almost feels like you’re struggling through a real wilderness, desperately following signs of water in the hope of surviving just one more day.
As if this wasn’t enough, on top of surviving you also have a goal to complete. This depends on the scenario. In Fauna, for instance, you’ll meet those buffalo-headed minotaurs who’ll make it harder to traverse rows and columns until you find a fort, learn a recipe for killing one, and sacrifice the necessary resources, all of which you were probably hoping to save to pass a challenge card. These kinds of trade-offs are part of the game’s strategy: identifying times when failing a daily challenge can be a useful step in the wider goal of passing the winning objectives.
Other aspects of your decision-making come down to the characters in play and the gear you choose at the outset, all of which offer you special abilities to piece together and increase your chance of survival. You can plan ahead with these since you pick them yourself, look for combos, and build a strategy around them. But there are also destiny cards, random helpful bonuses that you can sometimes replenish by achieving in-game goals, and for these you’ll have to roll with whatever fate gives you, adjusting your tactics accordingly.
With practice and luck you will, eventually, manage to beat Fauna and, in time, the game’s second scenario, Flora, which involves a giant carnivorous plant. Corps of Discovery goes out of its way to make these scenarios replayable by offering such a huge range of map sheets – you can also download and print out more – that memorising the layouts is essentially impossible. Variety, however, cannot fully undermine human psychology: there’s an innate tendency to treat a mission as “done” once it’s been won. This is exacerbated by the game’s high difficulty level and lack of narrative detail. Although it does a great job of conjuring up the spectre of starving in the wilderness, the challenge cards feel pretty mechanical, so repeated tries at a scenario can feel a little same-y.
This isn’t quite the limiting factor it may sound like as it’ll take you repeated attempts to win both the scenarios, and there are expansions available which further the story and build considerably on the core mechanics – all four are included in the deluxe edition, which we used for the photos accompanying this review. But it still would have felt like a more complete experience if more of these elements had been included in the base game. As it stands, the game’s high toughness is the major motivation for a replay, and it’s almost enough by itself: winning against the odds, in a land where almost everything you encounter is out to kill you, is a hugely satisfying moment.
Ahead of EA’s full Battlefield 6 reveal tomorrow, a brief teaser for the game’s campaign has been posted online, revealing a major conflict.
Set in the near future, Battlefield 6’s campaign will see NATO under attack. Its base in Georgia is hit, the British territory of Gibraltar is invaded, and NATO’s secretary general is assassinated inside the organisation’s Brussels headquarters. The perpetrator? An organisation named Pax Armata.
A number of countries, including France, are then confirmed to have left NATO to form a new coalition, as in-universe news headlines question whether NATO itself is now a “thing of the past”. Hmm…
The teaser then concludes with Battlefield’s trademark theme — you know the one, that ‘dun dun dun dun dun’ drumbeat — and a reminder that the game’s full reveal will take place tomorrow, July 24, at 8am Pacific / 4pm UK time.
Eagle-eyed viewers will spot the logo for “BF Studios” on the end of the teaser — this is the coalition of developers that EA has pulled together to work on the game, including franchise founder DICE, Los Angeles-based sister studio Ripple Effect, Montreal-based Dead Space Remake developer Motive, and British Need for Speed studio Criterion.
There’s also the note that “no weapon, military vehicle or gear manufacturer is affiliated with or has sponsored or endorsed this game.”
Pax Armata rises as NATO cracks. Their motto? “Our protection, your peace.”
“Pax Armata rises as NATO cracks,” a message posted on Battlefield’s X / Twitter account reads. “Their motto? ‘Our protection, your peace.’ But who’s pulling the strings and to what end?” Presumably we’ll find out more tomorrow.
Battlefield 6 is currently slated to launch sometime during the current fiscal year, before March 2026. It seems likely we’ll see that window narrowed considerably when the game is fully unveiled.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
If you bought a Nintendo Switch 2 in June, the odds are good you also bought Mario Kart World. In fact, according to Circana, 82% of Nintendo Switch 2 purchasers also picked up Mario Kart World.
That comes from Circana’s June report, which shared that the Nintendo Switch 2 is officially the fastest-selling video game console in the U.S. In total, the Nintendo Switch sold 1.6 million units in the U.S. in June, beating out the PlayStation 4’s previous record of 1.1 million units in November of 2012.
Of those 1.6 million unit sales, 82% either purchased the Nintendo Switch 2 + Mario Kart World bundle, or bought the game standalone. This helped propel Mario Kart World to become the third best-selling game of the month in Circana’s rankings, though it’s possible it could have ranked even higher due to the exclusion of Nintendo’s digital data from the sales charts.
As a comparison point, when the Nintendo Switch 1 launched, over 100% of new console owners that month also purchased its launch game, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, worldwide. Yes, the game sold more copies on Switch than Nintendo did Switch systems. “This may be attributed to people who purchased both a limited edition of the game to collect and a second version to play,” Nintendo suggested at the time. So Mario Kart World isn’t quite beating those numbers.
Additionally, we learned from Circana this morning that 32% of Nintendo Switch 2 purchasers in June also bought a Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller, helping make it the best-selling accessory of the month in the U.S. by dollar sales.
Unshockingly, one of the reasons people are buying Mario Kart World is because it’s pretty dang good. We gave the game an 8/10, saying that it “may not make the most convincing case that going open-world was the boost the series needed, but excellent multiplayer racing, incredible polish, and the thrilling new Knockout Tour mode still more than live up to its legacy.”
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
A statement from OnceLost Games, published today, has now confirmed LeFay’s passing — “with profound sadness and heavy hearts”.
“Julian LeFay was not just a colleague — he was a visionary who fundamentally shaped the gaming industry as we know it today,” OnceLost Games’ statement reads. “Known as the ‘Father of The Elder Scrolls’, Julian directed the creation of legendary titles including Elder Scrolls 1 and 2: Arena, Daggerfall, and Battlespire.
“His pioneering work established the foundation for open-world RPGs and influenced countless developers and games that followed.”
Born in Denmark in 1965, LeFay began his career working on early Amiga and NES games, before becoming one of Bethesda’s earliest employees in 1987.
After working on a string of Elder Scrolls titles, his career next took him to Sega, and then ultimately to found OnceLost Games in 2019 to develop a new open-world RPG, Wayward Realms, that was successfully pitched on Kickstarter as a Daggerfall spiritual successor.
“Throughout his courageous battle with cancer, Julian never wavered in his passion for The Wayward Realms,” OnceLost Games’ statement continues. “Even during his illness, he continued to share his vision with our team, mentor our developers, and ensure that every aspect of the game reflected his commitment to creating something truly extraordinary. His strength, determination, and unwavering focus inspire us all.”
Development on The Wayward Realms will now continue under the guidance of fellow former Bethesda veteran and OnceLost Games co-founder Ted Peterson, the studio concluded, with its team “more committed than ever to bringing The Wayward Realms to life exactly as Julian envisioned it”.
Image credit: Shae Jensen/Julian LeFay
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Since the Nintendo Switch 2 launched in June, we’ve only had one first-party bundle available. We knew the Mario Kart World bundle would be a limited-time offer, but now we know that the next big console exclusive to get a bundle will be Pokémon: Legends Z-A.
The new bundle, announced right after the Pokémon Presents July 2025 livestream, will mirror its Mario Kart counterpart by offering the system with a digital download code for the game, and is already available for preorder at retailers like Target and Best Buy.
Notably, the new bundle is simply a standard Switch 2 with Pokémon: Legends Z-A packed in as a download code.
There isn’t anything to set it apart from the standard console just yet, such as the Pokémon Sword and Shield Switch Lite, or the various special edition OG Switch consoles we saw over its life cycle.
At the time of writing, Best Buy, Target, GameStop, and Nintendo have the latest console SKU up for preorder for $499.99 (the same as the Switch 2 + Mario Kart Bundle). It will release on October 16, 2025.
Yesterday’s Pokemon Presents event showcased more about the upcoming title, including the appearance of Mega Dragonite which makes its debut.
While the game will be available on the original Nintendo Switch, it’s getting “Improved performance with higher frame rate and resolution” according to the Switch 2 version’s store page.
Lloyd Coombes is an experienced freelancer in tech, gaming and fitness seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar and many more. He’s a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife’s dismay.
Call of Duty fans believe they’ve discovered proof that Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 will let players carry over their Black Ops 6 skins.
With the ESRB rating now confirming Black Ops 7 will be rated M 17+ and available on PC, PS5, Xbox Series, and last-gen consoles PS4 and Xbox One, a throwaway line in the rating summary reveals there’ll be weapons that feature “marijuana/joints/paraphernalia: players’ characters inhaling marijuana from a bong-like structure attached to a rifle; players’ characters smoking joints or inhaling through bongs as part of execution sequences.”
Many players are interpreting this as reference to the Dank Days Tracer Pack from Black Ops 6, a bundle that includes a number of skins, finishing moves, and perks like weapon charms and sprays associated with weed.
If fans are on the money, this would indirectly confirm that the premium content available in Black Ops 6 — yes, even the silly stuff — will carry over to Black Ops 7. And while some players are delighted that they get to keep their skins for the new Call of Duty instalment, not everyone’s happy about it.
“So all the stupid s**t is being carried over,” said one player, while another simply wrote: “Carry forward confirmed, huge L.”
Developed by Treyarch and Raven Software, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 — which was announced at the Xbox Games Showcase 2025 last month — is the first ever consecutive release within the Black Ops sub-series. Matt Cox, General Manager of Call of Duty, insisted that “as a team, our vision from the start was to create a back-to-back series experience for our players that embraced the uniqueness of the Black Ops sub-franchise.” It’s set to star Milo Ventimiglia, Kiernan Shipka, and Michael Rooker, with Ventimiglia portraying David Mason, Shipka as new character Emma Kagen, and Rooker reprising his Black Ops 2 role of Mike Harper.
Last month, Activision pulled controversial adverts placed inside Black Ops 6 and Warzone loadouts, insisting they were a “feature test” published “in error.” It’s worth remembering that Black Ops 6 is a premium, $70 game, and this year’s Black Ops 7 is expected to jump to $80 after Microsoft said that gamers will see Xbox charging $79.99 for new, first-party games around the holiday season.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Want codes for Grimoires Reborn? This is the follow-up to Grimoires Era, so if you’re looking for codes for that Roblox game, we’ve got everything you need to know. This page also explains how to redeem codes if you’re unsure of how it works!
Working Grimoires Reborn Codes (July 2025)
Here are all the current active codes you can redeem in Grimoires Reborn, as well as the rewards you’ll get from them:
RELEASE! – 5 Grimoire Spins (NEW)
FUNZY – 10 Aura Spins, 10 Race Spins (NEW)
Expired Grimoires Reborn Codes (July 2025)
Unfortunately, these codes have expired and will no longer work:
DUNGEONFIX!
SORRYFORCOMPASS
How to Redeem Grimoires Reborn Codes
Before you can redeem codes for Grimoires Reborn you’ll need to follow a few simple steps:
Launch Grimoires Reborn on Roblox.
Press the “Menu” button on the left side of your screen.
Then, press the “Info” button on the left side of your screen. This will reveal a new window.
Enter your code into the area to the left of the big blue “REDEEM” button and tap that button when you’re ready.
Why Isn’t My Grimoires Reborn Code Working?
There are two main reasons why a code usually doesn’t work in any Roblox game and the same goes for this experience:
The code is expired
The code has been entered incorrectly
If a code has been entered incorrectly or has expired, you’ll see a message that says, “Failed to redeem code” To stop this from happening, we recommend copying and pasting the code directly from this article. We check and test each code before we add them to our article. However, when copying them, you can sometimes accidentally include an extra space somewhere. This is why you should always double-check that there aren’t any additional spaces!
Where to Find More Grimoires Reborn Codes
We’ll update this article when new codes are added so you can always check back here and keep up-to-date with the latest codes. But, if you’d prefer to search for some Grimoires Reborn codes on your own, you can check the dedicated Discord server. If you’re already in the Discord for Grimoires Era, this is the same one.
What is Grimoires Reborn in Roblox?
Grimoires Reborn is a fantasy RPG inspired by the Black Clover anime. It’s a rework of the original Roblox game Grimoires Era with new systems and enhanced visuals. Hop back into the grind as you defeat bandits to complete quests and level up. You’ll want to take advantage of the codes in this guide so you can get the best grimoires for how you want to play. Whether that’s speeding through quests or battling other players in PvP.
Jeffrey Lerman is a freelance game journalist for IGN who has been covering games for over a decade. You can follow him on Bluesky.
It’s a great time to be a fan of soulslikes. Between the fantastic The First Berserker: Khazan earlier in the year, the excellent Lies of P: Overture DLC last month, and the multiplayer/co-op focused Elden Ring: Nightreign, we have been eating well in 2025 – and you can add Wuchang: Fallen Feathers as yet another course in that meal. This debut game from developer Leenzee Games impressed me from the start with its exciting, fast-paced, and dynamic combat. It also has one of the best skill trees in the genre, along with intricate and interconnected level design that guides us through gorgeous vistas and grotesque sights in equal measure. That said, its difficulty is all over the place, with truly wild dips and spikes that go from a relative walk in the park, to “oh my god, when is it my turn to attack?!” levels of aggression in some of its later bosses. So while I’m left with a little whiplash after beating it, it’s still an easy strong recommendation for anybody who’s hungry for more.
In typical soulslike fashion, Wuchang expects you to do the heavy lifting when it comes to piecing together its story and lore – but it’s not handled quite as elegantly as a FromSoft game or something like Lies of P. I was actually on board for the intriguing opening, which shows our titular, mostly silent hero awaken in a cave to discover she has a disease that robs those afflicted of their memories and gradually turns them into hideous monsters. What starts as a personal journey to discover who she is and cure her affliction before she mutates into a nasty bird beast turns into a descent into dark fantasy as the mysteries of the disease, known as The Feathering, start to come to light and you do battle with those transfigured by its effects.
Lore fiends who enjoy digging into item descriptions might get more out of the story.
That was a good start, but by the end of its 45-hour campaign, I’d lost track of the many characters who pop up, say a few lines of dialogue, and then disappear for 10 or so hours until they pop up again in a completely new location. People kept referencing names that I’d never heard of before, making it impossible for me to follow the conversation. Lore fiends who enjoy digging into weapon and item descriptions for clues might get more out of the story than I did, but playing through it the same way I have many other games meant its big revelations largely fell flat.
A Game of Skills
Combat, though, had the flexibility and depth to carry me through to the end in style, with a ton of different offensive and defensive options at my disposal at all times. Where Wuchang sets itself apart from others that use the familiar stamina-fueled light and heavy attacks to get you from checkpoint to checkpoint is its huge focus on combining the skills and abilities that are tied to your weapons with Discipline skills you unlock on the absolutely massive skill tree. For instance, equipping the sword parry Discipline skill while using the Flamebringer Longsword weapon will let you build up the burn status ailment with its Infernal Firebrand Weapon Skill while also giving you a defensive counter option on top of that. Or you could pair that same weapon with something like Crescent Moon, which still gives you that same burn build ability, but also allows you to get in and then get out to avoid counter attacks all together while still being able to build Skybound Might with it’s built in evade. On top of that, you can swap between two weapons mid-fight, even mid-combo, which doubles your options.
It’s good that you have these extra options, too, because this is not a game where you can get by with just the basics, especially when it comes to the tougher fights. Powering your skills and spells hinges on generating a resource known as Skyborn Might, which is gained mostly by perfectly dodging enemy attacks at the last instant, but can also be gained in certain weapon-specific ways, such as landing the fourth hit of a light combo string with the Axe, the second hit of a light combo string with the Longsword, clashing weapons with the dual blades, or automatically over time simply by having the one-handed sword equipped.
I felt like I usually had more interesting decisions to make with each level up than I do in most soulslikes.
I had a blast discovering ways to incorporate both Weapon and Discipline skills into combat to get around limitations like stamina, since using a Skyborn Might charge often gives you a powerful attack that doesn’t deplete your meter, or lets you blow through an enemy’s strong defense with a poise break-afflicting mist and take huge chunks out of their health in seconds. I felt like I usually had more interesting decisions to make with each level up than I do in most soulslikes when it came to defining my build.
A big part of that is how instead of just boosting your preferred stat and making numbers go up each time you get enough currency to level, Wuchang uses a progression system that resembles the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X and Salt and Sanctuary. It has six paths to go down and unlock progressively more powerful skills, with five being devoted to stat and weapon upgrades enhancing each of the different types of armaments, and the last one focusing more on more universal boons, like extra healing charges, general buffs for executing certain techniques, etc. The grid is absolutely gigantic, and even 20 or 30 hours into the 45-hour campaign I was still unlocking brand-new branches with new Discipline skills and tons more upgrades to choose from. That’s a lot, but thankfully respecs are free, allowing you the freedom to change up your entire build with zero cost or penalty, whether to simply try out a new weapon or alter your game plan against a challenging boss. It’s an excellent system that encourages experimentation while also rewarding you for having a clear idea of what kind of build you want to make.
There’s a fairly impressive amount of different types of enemies as well, with each area you visit packing plenty of new twisted creatures with a brand-new set of attacks and skills that you’ll need to learn how to adjust your build and your tactics to deal with. Everything in this game can be threatening: from the small hunchbacked dudes that go down in just one or two hits, but can sneak up on you with a hugely damaging grab, to the towering fiends that are almost like minibosses unto themselves. This variety kept the action fresh throughout the whole adventure and kept me tense whenever I would venture in a new area, since I never knew what to expect around the corner.
Bumpy Roads
For the first 10 or so hours, though, I didn’t have to do a ton of build tweaking to breeze through most of these fights. That wasn’t to say that it was a walk in the park, but I’ve played a lot of soulslikes in my day, and once I got the hang of dodging through the last hit of an enemy combo and charging up a heavy attack to instantly stagger them, I initially felt like I had figured Wuchang out.
The deaths that I did experience mostly came from an abundance of some cheap-feeling “gotcha” moments like: Pots that aren’t really pots, trees that aren’t really trees, and shrines that aren’t really shrines.
To be fair, lots of soulslikes have moments like these, but in Wuchang it happens with such frequency that it felt like I was getting constantly pranked by the developers – and at a certain point that joke gets old.
Other than that, it was mostly smooth sailing until I came across a boss called Commander Honglan. She wasn’t so much a difficulty spike, because that implies at least some degree of an incline or ramp up, as she was like running into a brick wall. She took me about two hours to beat, and while I still came out on the other side of it having mostly enjoyed the intensity of the fight, Honglan serves as a non-spoilery encapsulation of what I don’t like about several of Wuchang’s later boss fights.
Honglan wasn’t so much a difficulty spike, because that implies at least some degree of an incline or ramp up.
The biggest issue is that the punishment window for correctly and precisely dodging most of their attacks is super tight, which takes away from the satisfaction of actually being able to dodge a huge sequence of swings. Compare that to games like Sekiro or Khazan, where you’re damaging the boss’s posture bar every time you precisely block an attack, getting closer to being able to do a damaging critical hit once you completely drain it. There’s no such satisfying mid-fight progress here, because perfect dodges just give you Skyborn Might charges, which you still need to find an opening to be able to use. Wuchang does have a posture meter on enemies, but it only increases when you land hits and decreases after a time if you don’t, which makes it extremely difficult to get that reward for nuanced aggression when your opportunities to deal damage are so minimal and so fleeting. Not every boss fight after Honglan is like this, but the ones that are feel very drawn out to a degree that diminishes their fun.
The Dark Descent
The world all of these ups and downs take place in is rich with secrets to discover, interconnected paths that satisfyingly link entire sections of the map together, and tough optional challenges with appropriate rewards. I loved the gradual descent into dark fantasy – you begin in a very colorful and beautiful Chinese village that is just showing subtle signs of the terrible illness sweeping through its population, and then as you progress deeper underground and through areas that have been absolutely ravaged by The Feathering it starts to feel more and more like a horror game.
There are also some really cleverly put together sequences that create tension and chaos even without combat being involved. One example is a section where you start on a straightaway with an enemy at the end who builds up an instant-killing status affliction called Despair just by looking at you. To evade his gaze and get through, I had to make a mad dash past a bunch of enemies, climb up a ramp while avoiding poisonous drops from the ceiling, and navigate around constantly spawning tough monsters that were created by another out-of-reach foe. It’s a great example of strong enemy design meshing with clever level design to create an absolutely intense sprint through a dangerous environment.
