Borderlands 4 will cost $70, publisher 2K Games confirmed in June. That seemingly innocuous fact was big news after the price of the upcoming looter shooter was thrust into the headlines when Gearbox development chief Randy Pitchford sparked a backlash with a series of controversial tweets.
A) Not my call. B) If you’re a real fan, you’ll find a way to make it happen. My local game store had Starflight for Sega Genesis for $80 in 1991 when I was just out of high school working minimum wage at an ice cream parlor in Pismo Beach and I found a way to make it happen.
Pitchford ended up having to address the negativity surrounding his comments, which some suggested might have harmed Borderlands 4’s chances of success. But this was hardly the latest drama revolving around Randy Pitchford, who often gives the press plenty to talk about whenever he addresses hot topics within the video game industry.
So, in an interview with Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Gearbox parent company Take-Two, ahead of the company’s latest (and impressive) financial results, I asked whether he has a mini heart attack whenever Pitchford tweets anything.
In his response, Zelnick admitted Pitchford can be a controversial figure, and even suggested some of his antics are deliberate, but ultimately he’s a big fan.
“I love Randy, first of all. Let me just say that on the record,” Zelnick began. “And I love his big personality. I love his passion and he is one of the all time great game makers. He also can be controversial at times — sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. I still love him to death.”
Some had expected Take-Two to follow Nintendo’s (and at that time, Microsoft’s) lead and make the jump to $80 for Borderlands 4, which it’s now decided will hold the line at $70. I asked Zelnick why that was the right decision for the looter shooter, and his response was along similar lines to his answer to 2K’s Mafia: The Old Country being set at $50.
“We’ve always engaged in variable pricing and we really want to make sure that the consumer’s experience of the title is that Borderlands 4 is a great, great game, which we believe it is, and that we’re offering a terrific value at the same time,” Zelnick said.
Zelnick has used this sort of response to answer questions about GTA 6’s price (some believe it will be $80, some as high as $100). “We always want to make sure that we deliver way more value than whatever we charge consumers, because we think of the consumer’s experience as an intersection of the thing itself and what you paid for it,” Zelnick said, talking generally of Take-Two’s strategy.
“So we just want to make sure we’re always delivering way more value than whatever we charge.”
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.
Not only does the update add new skins and bug fixes, but a new Ripatorium adds an infinite arena for, well, ripping through foes ad nauseum. Better yet, you can get this new and improved version of the Doom Slayer for under $45.
So what about that new update? Combat is always at the heart of DOOM, and the new Ripatorium in Update 2 lets you pick your opponents, the quantity of them, a time limit if you want to challenge yourself, and tweak respawn settings.
Or, just throw everything on and work to stay alive as long as you can.
As you’d expect from a game where the soundtrack is so core to the experience, you can choose the music for your showdowns, too, as well as your arena, with three to choose from.
In his review for IGN, Mitchell Saltzman awarded The Dark Ages a 9 out of 10 score, and said “Doom: The Dark Ages may strip away the mobility focus of Doom Eternal, but replaces it with a very weighty and powerful style of play that is different from anything the series has done before, and still immensely satisfying in its own way.”
Should I Buy Now or Wait for Black Friday?
It really depends on your preferences. In my opinion, Doom: The Dark Ages will likely be even cheaper by the time Black Friday rolls around.
At $45, it’s still a significant saving with $25 off the MSRP. But, Black Friday could potentially hold even better discounts, if you can wait another three months to find out.
My best guess is it will drop to $30-40 during the Black Friday sales that tend to kick off around the beginning of November. If you can hold out, you could find yourself with a better deal. There’s also other 2025 sale events like Prime Day in October, or any post Gamescom sales to consider as well.
However, some folk are old enough to know you can pay yourself with time as well, so if you want to play Doom: The Dark Ages now, without having to pay the eye watering $70 price tag, there’s nothing wrong with dropping $45 on a Game of the Year contender today.
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.
Bethesda has confirmed Heretic + Hexen — the definitive re-release of two genre-shaping first-person shooters — are out now on PC, PlayStation 4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.
id Software worked “in partnership” with Nightdive Studios to release this updated collection, featuring the “two classics that helped shape the genre.” The games have “been restored with improved performance for modern platforms with an enhanced soundtrack from Andrew Hulshult, online cross-platform and local split-screen deathmatch and co-op modes, in-game mod support, and more.”
Here’s what you get in the new collection:
Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders
Hexen: Beyond Heretic
Hexen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel
Two all-new episodes created in collaboration between individuals at id Software + Nightdive Studios:
Heretic: Faith Renewed
Hexen: Vestiges of Grandeur
That’s not all, either; at today’s QuakeCon stream, we also learned that Doom: The Dark Ages‘ Update 2 is now live, bringing “all-new free content, tons of bug fixes, and quality of life improvements, inviting players to continue their fight against the forces of Hell in the Ripatorium.” The latter is a brand-new endless arena mode to the game, offering customisable waves and time-limit challenges.
Jump into Doom: The Dark Ages between now and September 2 to secure two free skins, and complete the three new arenas available in the Ripatorium to earn the Perfection Doom Slayer skin, too.
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.
Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is now just weeks from launch, though fans will have to wait a little longer to play Fox Hunt, the game’s online multiplayer mode.
While the main, single-player portion of Snake Eater will launch for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on August 28, Fox Hunt will arrive via a post-launch update sometime this “fall”. And yes, that’s as specific as publisher Konami is currently willing to get.
Announced back in June, Fox Hunt is an entirely new multiplayer offering unrelated to Metal Gear Online, which came bundled with Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots back in 2008. MGO lasted four years, before its servers were switched off in 2012.
“Fox Hunt is a completely original online multiplayer mode,” said veteran Metal Gear Solid developer Yu Sahara, who now acts as the mode’s director, back in June. “Although it shares the same world with Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, the gameplay is completely different.
“When we say Metal Gear multiplayer, many fans will probably think of Metal Gear Online, but Fox Hunt will be its own new type of mode. We very much appreciate all the long-time fans of MGO who have always wanted to see it make a comeback, but the landscape of multiplayer games has changed a lot since MGO. It took a lot of careful consideration to think about what a new online mode should look like.”
Sahara continued by saying that Fox Hunt would focus on Metal Gear series’ stealth and survival elements, and take “camouflage and hide and go seek to the next level” in order to ensure the mode offered “more than just a shootout.”
Outside of Fox Hunt, Delta is a remake of the 2004 classic Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Original Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima has said he won’t be playing, however.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Nintendo has announced a new claymation Mario show that’s set to premiere on YouTube. The series, which will feature kid-friendly animated episodes just one-minute in length, will launch alongside a major new push by Nintendo for the kid’s product market, with a range of toys, picture books, and more released under a new “My Mario” banner.
Notably, this range includes a set of wooden blocks that you can use as amiibo figurines. Other products on the way include a set of plastic tableware, a board book, a backpack, a plushie Mario, rattles and items of baby and toddler clothing including T-shirts and Mario hoodie.
My Mario has interactive elements too, including a My Mario app for smartphones and Switch consoles where you can play with Mario’s face, like a 2D version of the Mario 64 start menu.
The Hello Mario app will launch for iPhone and Android devices on August 26 in Japan, with the rest of the My Mario range set to arrive there on August 28. Nintendo has plans for an international My Mario launch, it has said, but not until the beginning of 2026.
While designed for kids, it’s easy to see some of these products becoming collector’s items — in particular the wooden blocks set which features Mario, Peach, Luigi and Yoshi alongside a range of Mushroom Kingdom props like a Mushroom and Fire Flower.
Nintendo has said that these figures can be used as their appropriate amiibo in compatible games, adding to their worth — though you’ll need to green shell out around $135 for the set (and also, at least until next year, be in the position to buy it from Japan).
The original Super Mario Bros. celebrates its 40th anniversary on September 13, while the coming year will see the launch of the next Super Mario Movie. Potentially titled Super Mario World, it’ll launch in theaters on April 3, 2026.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Akatsuki Games has announced that its game based on the hugely popular manga and anime series Kaiju No. 8 will be released globally for Android and iOS on August 31st (JST), with a PC version to follow later.
Kaiju No. 8 tells the story of Kafka Hibino, a member of the crews that clean up after kaiju threats have been eliminated in greater Tokyo, but who longs to be a soldier in the Japan Defense Force (JDF), and actually be on the front lines. With goofy humour, slick action, an endearing protagonist and some pretty wild twists and turns, it’s a fun series. Its second season is airing now, but you can read our review of season one here.
Kaiju No. 8 The Game will let you take control of a host of fan favourite members of the JDF including Kikoru Shinomiya, Reno Ichikawa, Mina Ashiro, Gen Narumi and Soshiro Hoshina, and form them into four person squads to do battle against a new kaiju threat. What’s going on? Strange Dimensional Gates are opening up all over the place and otherworldly kaiju are flooding in.
The game also introduces a special unit named CLOZER, which exists to deal with the Dimensional Gates, and is commanded by a brand new character – Kikoru Shinomiya’s sister, Sagan Shinomiya. Other new characters introduced in the game include Chester Lochburn, CLOZER’s strategist who is able to wield a wide range of weapons, and Suited, the brains behind CLOZER’s weapons development.
Kaiju No. 8 The Game features a turn-based battle system that lets your squad work together to expose the core of the kaiju you’re facing in order to dispatch them, and fights scale all the way from confrontations with smaller Yoju through to skyscraper-sized beasts capable of razing cities.
Can this free-to-play live service title capture the intensity of the source material’s battles? And when will it be set in the timeline? Find out on August 31.
Cam Shea headed up Australia’s editorial team for many years but these days mostly lives and breathes craft beer.
Free-to-play time-traveling strategic RPG Reverse: 1999 just launched its biggest collaboration yet, its first to ever launch simultaneously worldwide, and it teamed up with another time-jumping franchise to do it: Assassin’s Creed. The collab adds new story chapters and popular characters Ezio, Kassandra, and Alexios, all three of whom will be playable.
Reverse: 1999 first launched in 2023 and has seen global success in the time since. It’s been downloaded more than 30 million times worldwide and stands at “very positive” with more than 2,500 reviews on Steam. Those fans have been clamoring for this collab since it was first announced earlier this year, and there’s been particular excitement about the addition of Ezio — as you can see from the 270,000 views and hundreds of comments on his official trailer.
While the characters and story content might be the headliners of this collab, there’s a lot more to it than that. You can see Assassin’s Creed inspirations in the UI, music, and garments that have been added. Plus, there are free goodies being given away (including Alexios), extra prizes in the gacha system designed to make it easier to pull the new characters, and both online and offline events to celebrate.
Let’s get into the details, shall we?
Familiar Faces in a Journey Through History
Reverse: 1999’s story takes you through different eras of history, and that trend continues with this crossover, whose new content will be released in two phases. Phase 1 is live right now and will run until September 18. It adds a story chapter that brings you to Florence, Italy, where you’ll meet the legendary Ezio Auditore da Firenze from Assassin’s Creed II.
The collaboration trailer hints at how the story of Phase 1 will bring you into contact with Ezio. Mr. APPLe, one of the important characters of Reverse: 1999, is mistaken for a fabled Apple of Eden and must be protected. He’s nearly dissected by Leonardo da Vinci, another character from Assassin’s Creed II who plays a significant role in the Phase 1 story.
Ezio’s character trailer shows some of the memories from his journey in Assassin’s Creed II — his assassinations, gathering feathers for his brother, the tragic execution of his family — materializing into different weapons, which references the unique ability he brings into Reverse: 1999. He can wield several different primary and secondary weapons and can swap them out as needed, so he’s always ready for any situation.
Like all other 6-star characters, Ezio comes with two garments, the second of which is unlocked after increasing his Insight level. His first garment is the assassins’ classic white robe, and his second (featured in the photo of him above) is the Armor of Altair from Assassin’s Creed II, which was built by and named after the hero of the original Assassin’s Creed.
Kassandra and Alexios will join in on the fun when the story shifts to Ancient Greece in Phase 2 of the collab, which will run from August 28 to September 18. Like Ezio, Kassandra will get a unique ability designed to make her adaptable: She has three skill trees (Hunter, Warrior, and Assassin) and can switch between them.
Beyond the characters and plot, Assassin’s Creed fans will notice other references. The level selection interface adopts the genetic sequence design of the Animus, and music — including the familiar song “Ezio’s Family” — has been pulled from the Assassin’s Creed series. The Into the Shadows mode will let you see the villa in Monteriggioni and complete events in Florence and Venice to experience the Renaissance assassin life like Ezio.
Dress Up for the Special Collab
It wouldn’t be a Reverse: 1999 update without new garments, and this collab is no exception. Four characters have new garments inspired by Assassin’s Creed and Greek mythology (pictured below). Hissabeth’s new look is inspired by Medusa, the famous snake-haired Gorgon from Greek myth who put up a hell of a fight in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. The art showing off her new garment shows her dancing between Medusa’s two sisters frozen in stone, the crown she wears pays homage to Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey’s Medusa design, and the artifact she’s holding resembles an Apple of Eden.
Marcus’s new garment draws from the myth of the musician Orpheus, who traveled to the underworld and used his music to convince Hades to let him take back his deceased wife Eurydice, on the condition that he not look back at her until they reached the surface. During their ascension, Orpheus was overcome with doubt and couldn’t help looking back, and Eurydice was taken from him forever. Marcus’s art recalls this moment of legend, as she glances back and offers her hand to guide her fallen friends to the gates of the underworld.
Vila gets a new garment inspired by the Sirens of Homer’s Odyssey who would lure sailors to their deaths with their beautiful song. Her artwork shows her standing among violet waves and singing as storms gather around her, and the Poseidon statue beside her is pulled directly from Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey.
Last but certainly not least, APPLe’s new garment turns him gold, and you can see how Leonardo da Vinci and other characters in Florence would mistake him for an Apple of Eden, the symbol of desire and temptation. And best of all, APPLe’s new garment is free for all players during the collaboration event.
A Celebration with Free Goodies
APPLe’s new garment isn’t the only thing that’s free. In this collab version, every player can get a free monthly pass that allows them to get 2,700 Clear Drops in total, which is 15 free gacha pulls. Additionally, free resources given out during the collaboration will make it possible to have at least 43 pulls on the event banners.
During Phase 2, everyone can recruit Alexios for free by taking part in the collaboration’s events. Plus, to celebrate the partnership with Assassin’s Creed, players can receive additional collaboration characters after 100/160/220/280 pulls. And there are other log-in and event rewards that you can see in the image below.
There’s Always More to Learn
You can download Reverse: 1999 for free right now on Steam, the iOS App Store, Google Play and Windows PC. The Assassin’s Creed collaboration is live now, and with all the goodies being given away for free, there’s never been a better time to jump in.
If you want more info about the existing characters of Reverse: 1999, you can check out the official website for details. You can also follow the game and join the community on Twitter, TikTok, Discord, Facebook, or YouTube.
EA has flat out said that fans shouldn’t expect The Sims 5 anytime soon. But if you’re looking for a new release from the franchise, you’ll be happy to know a new Sims game actually did just come out July. Did you somehow miss this momentous news? I certainly did, and that’s because it’s actually just a board game. The Sims Board Game arrived at Target on July 20, 2025 and it seems to have gone largely unnoticed.
Which makes a lot of since to me. It’s been a long time since I’ve played The Sims 4, but having spent a decent amount of time in that game I can’t really conceptualize how it would effectively transition to a tabletop experience. The board game itself is a collaboration with Goliath that was announced back in February and garnered a bit of news coverage from various gaming outlets, but now that it’s available to buy nobody seems to be talking about it.
The Sims Board Game Is Now Available
I have no plans on ever purchasing or playing this game, but for the sake of this article I watched the official how to play video recently published on the Goliath YouTube channel. It’s about five and a half minutes long and after sitting through the whole thing, I’m still not sure how to categorize this game or even how to actually play it. The gameplay and rules seem unnecessarily confusing despite the narrator suggesting just “tossing out the rulebook” early on in the video. The main theme of the game is that each player tries to earn points by completing aspirations and various actions throughout play. The first player to eight points wins, with the bonus option of playing to 10 points instead to make the game longer.
As confusing as the gameplay seems, what turns me off to this game the most about this game is that it’s meant for 2-5 players. That immediately removes the thing about playing The Sims I enjoyed the most: That I got to do it by myself. Introducing one or more players into the experience seems like a recipe for disaster. It’s being marketed as a family board game, but I could never imagine trying to play this with my actual family.
Although it initially launched at Target, The Sims Board Game is currently available to preorder from Amazon with an August 15 release date. If you feel like giving it a try, it is actually pretty reasonably priced at $19.99.
2XKO has been a staple of Evo for the last three years, but the finish line (or perhaps the true starting line, depending on how you look at it) is finally starting to come into view on the horizon. A closed beta has been announced for September 9, and after that, the servers will remain up all the way until launch, whenever that may be. The game has changed a lot since it’s first iteration, and even since its first appearance at Evo, and there are even more changes in store for the Closed Beta. To cover some of these changes, and to get a breakdown of the newest character, Vi, I talked with lead champion designer Alex Jaffe, after going hands-on with the latest build for myself.
You’re launching a closed beta on Sept. 9 and have announced that the servers will remain live until the game launches. First off, how does that feel? Can you sum up what you’re feeling at this significant milestone in 2XKO’s long life at this point?
Alex Jaffe, Lead Champion Designer on 2XKO: I appreciate you asking, because it’s very much an emotional thing for so many of us. We’ve been working on this game for a long time. I think people know. People have been waiting, right? We get it. We are the same way. We just want people to have the game. We just want them to play. And, years of my life, I have just been waiting for this moment, right? So when you make a game, you’re there to bring joy to people.
We’ve been working on this game for a long time. I think people know. People have been waiting, right? We get it. We are the same way.
And so, we knew that we were heading towards the closed beta, but the day we announced it, I got to tell you, my spirit’s lifted in a way they haven’t in a while, because it just feels so real now. And, having people here at EVO playing it, everybody signing up for the beta, soon they’re going to have it home and they’re not going to have it taken away from them again. They’re going to have it. And they’re just going to keep on playing forever, hopefully. And I just cannot wait to have more and more people playing the game, and hopefully having a great time with it, and learning from them, and improving the game for all y’all, hopefully.
I’ll tell you what, as someone who played the Alpha Lab, and then had it taken away from them, I did feel like it was a major slight against me.
Jaffe: Absolutely. We’re just practicing a little bit of cruelty just for no good reason. No, I’m just kidding. No, we know there’s work to do, right? If you played Alpha Lab, hopefully you had a fun time with the game. But, there was a lot that was incomplete. And we have been grinding, we have been in the lab working on the game, so many little details, trying to add more content, but also, I was looking at the changes that our core rules team and our live balance team put in, just in Alpha Lab 2, and it’s just massive. So many problems are being fixed. So many good solutions to make more situations in the game more interesting, more fair. I’m just so proud of everyone on the team.
Well, let’s talk about those changes since Alpha Lab 2. What were some of the major pieces of feedback? I know you can’t go through every little bit. But what are some of the major bits of feedback that you got from Alpha Lab 2 that you’re addressing in this closed beta?
Jaffe: Yeah, absolutely. And I’ll speak first about core roles, which is not my team, but it’s the team I work very closely with, of course, because I work on Champions. So one of the things we saw in Alpha Lab 1, we saw that the game was really long combos, a lot of pressure, just like it was hard to get your turn. It was hard to get agency and get to act. And again, you want to play the game. At the same time, a lot of it is about taking control and being able to style on your opponent. Finding that build or middle ground is what we’ve been working on. Alpha Lab 2, in some ways, we swung the other way, right? It was too hard to get your offense started, unless you knew very, very specific routes to get Oki, for example.
[Editors Note: Oki, or okizeme, is a term used to refer to the offensive options you can use while the opponent is getting up off the ground after a knockdown]
And, I know the combos were too short there, but there were ways in which people felt like there was maybe some overcorrection. And I think, we really hit a great sweet spot in this one. So some of the changes we made, we improved damage, so that rounds don’t go on so long. People were just like, “I want to get through the round. Finish the game, get into another one.” But, there was maybe too much healing, not enough damage, we have less gray health building. All these things to make sure that a round is fun, fast, and gets to the point. We also changed the way our knockdown system works, so that it’s possible to get really, really offensive mix-ups and set ups on your opponent. But they’re not freely available as a vortex where you combo into it over and over and mix up. We have our throws forward throws and air throws. They’re hard knockdowns. But, you don’t get a hard knockdown off of combos anymore. You do get these roll opportunities. You used to have rolls in there, but now, the rolls can be thrown to be punished. So roll doesn’t get you out of pressure.
So a lot of just somewhat subtle maybe to an unfamiliar player, but really, really central to someone who’s playing the game hard in terms of making sure that it’s fair and interesting. Oh, meter changes too, one more thing I want to mention. Pretty big. You start the round with one bar of meter, so you can just get going, and hit your super, and get right to the fun stuff. You don’t start with a full bar of your team meter anymore, which is your break. So you can’t break that first combo that your opponent’s doing to you, right? We want to make sure you get your combo in, you’re not just waiting for the second one. So it’s all a lot of tuning. It’s all subtle stuff. But I think it just results in more fun games that go quicker where there’s more back and forth between players.
Let’s talk about Vi. Vi Is the new character that you just introduced. And, I got to play with her. She’s super fun, very much my style of character.As someone who plays Giovanna in Guilty Gear Strive, I just love being able to quickly dash in and out. What is Vi’s kit, basically? What was the idea that you wanted to hit with this character?
Jaffe: Absolutely. Yeah. So Vi is a character that is really, really beloved, even before Arcane, right? League players love her. But Arcane really brought her into these upper echelons of iconic characters. And, obviously, we looked at her, her power is in her fists, right? And we knew that there was a good chance she would be somewhere in the boxer zone. Boxers are just a classic archetype in fighting games. But we wanted a new twist on it and we were just really looking at what we could do with her.
And for us, it was really about getting some of that technicality of boxers, where really precise movement, a lot of really interesting strings, but also, some of that just raw power fantasy of these Hextech gauntlets, right, just mashing your opponent with huge hits, hitting the ground, making blasts of energy, and tying those two things together, I think, weaving them together was the goal. And, it took a while to get there. We definitely went through many iterations on her before we found that perfect sweet spot. But we were super happy with… I think, what that lets you do is it lets you make a character that’s easy to get into, because you’re like, “Damn, she hits hard.” Right? Very much from the beginning, right? She’s smashing you to the ground, charging up that S1 punch, and hitting you for full stream.
The real core of Vi’s kit is her footwork.
But, the real core of her kit is her footwork, which is this dashing special you mentioned, where you can weave in and out and you can cancel it into different follow-ups. And these follow-ups have so much flexibility. You can charge one and then not charge the other, charge another, cancel charge one into any other S1 special, link that into another footwork, and you’ve got this really nice dance for combos and her pressure structure, I think, look just really beautiful and feel really expressive and great on the hands. Yeah, I’m super proud of her. It seems like people are having fun time with her out here.
One of the things I noticed about her is that she is so fast, blisteringly fast. It’s already a very fast game. Her mix-up or cross-up potential is super, super high. What would you say are some of her weaknesses though? It seemed like she might have some trouble getting in on somebody who’s trying to zone her out.
Jaffe: Yeah, absolutely. And we do have tools to deal with that, but the idea is, look in a game 2XKO, there’s a lot happening. There’s a lot of hit-boxes on the screen. Everybody has to have some way to… We talk about just get their **** started. You know what I mean? I’m sorry. But, yeah. So that means sometimes it means projectiles, right? You’re casting power across the screen. Sometimes it means, “Hey, I’ve got armor to go through.” Right? Like Darius’s reversal. And sometimes, it just means “I’m so fast that you can’t even prepare for my approach.” And that’s definitely Vi’s strong suit, it’s surprising movement, getting right in there, but she has to make it through whatever the battery of defenses. And, she does have some projectile invulnerability to do that. But yeah, it can be challenging. Even I was playing a set with someone today, and her footwork dash can go into a slide that crosses up. You saw that, right?
Yeah, yeah.
She just passes through. And I was playing with someone who was just mashing jab when I started to go into it. And, I’m screwed there, right? If your opponent knows what you’re doing predictably, there are really strong answers to Vi. You have to keep it flexible. You have to use some of her unorthodox air tools to change her movement up. You got to be using back and forth movement, not just all aggression. So definitely, she is a very strong character, but she’s fighting, in some ways, inherently an uphill battle against characters with bigger hit-boxes or with projectiles.
So the landscape of the tag-fighting genre has changed substantially in just the last year.
Jaffe: Oh, has it? What happened?
[Laughter]
I just wanted to get your thoughts on the genre and what it feels like. You used to be the new kid on the block, the only kid on the block.
Jaffe: Now we’re the old new kid on the block. I get it.
And now, all of a sudden, all these kids have moved in.
Jaffe: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
What’s that feel like?
Jaffe: Honestly, it’s exciting in a real way, because everybody on this team loves tag fighters, and there were a jerk of options for a while. And, we’re making this game because we think that this is one of the most mind-meltingly enjoyable experiences you could have on planet Earth. And so, we’re genuinely psyched that there are more options out there and that there are going to be more people playing tag fighters on account of multiple games coming out. And it’s really cool just seeing them, everyone’s taking very different takes on it.
We’re genuinely psyched that there are more options out there and that there are going to be more people playing tag fighters on account of multiple games coming out.
The Tokon folks were super nice and welcomed us in to play this morning, me and another designer, Caroline. We only played and we had a great time. The game’s very different than ours. The pacing is different. The way team play works is very different. I think there’s both room to enjoy both of them, or just different audiences will like different ones. So I feel great about that. I haven’t got to play Invincible. Yeah, super excited to play that.
It’s super fun.
Jaffe: Yeah, and Hunter x Hunter is awesome. So it’s a wild time from there to be so few, to now, so many. But, I think, it’s inevitably going to bring a lot of people into this kind of peak experience. So we’re excited, and we want people to play our game, and enjoy it, and in general, to play tag games to enjoy them.
Coming back to the closed beta, do you have any sense of how long you want this closed beta to last? Or is it just a thing of when you feel like the game is ready, that’s when you’re going to flip the switch?
Jaffe: Yeah, it’s a great question. I don’t think I have a very satisfying answer there, for two reasons. One, because I personally don’t know exactly what the plans are at the top level in terms of how we do that, because I’m working on making the game. That’s my focus, right? And in particular, as running the champions team, it’s all about that character factory, making one amazing character after another to the extent we can. That’s our goal, right? So my eyes and my team’s eyes are firmly set on the next character, the one after that, and the one after that, just making them amazing. In terms of the process, what we’re going to learn from the closed beta, I’m sure that’s the goal, right? We want to see how the game does out there. We want to see how people enjoy it, what works and what doesn’t.
And, I’m sure I could say that the duration of it does depend on how confident we are with what we’ve got. So far, we’re loving what we have here, but it’ll be different once people have it at home. That said, I don’t actually even know exactly what the bounds of how short or how long that could be are. I’m sure somebody else does, but no matter what, we don’t want to wait too long, right, before expanding the game as much as we can, because we just want it out there, we want people playing it. And, how long it’ll be, I can’t say really. But, fingers crossed, not too long.
Final question. For anyone that played the first two Alpha Labs, maybe felt like they had a good feel of their character, are they going to jump into this new closed beta and be like, “Oh, this is way different”? What are some of the biggest changes to some of the other characters that are going into the closed beta?
Jaffe: Absolutely. Yeah. So we have a lot of changes on the rules side and some more strategic changes on the champion side, as well as some tuning. It’s actually cool because we’ve had our live balance team start coming online and start participating in the process of working on the Champions, because in some sense, we’re doing live balance on champions that have actually existed in the wild for a while, even though it’s only been in temporary tests. So they’re working on the champs and collaborating with the champion designers, like our live balance designer, Yohosiei, to just make them more pristine. And, some of the change is damage, whatever, recovery. But some of them are more significant. Darius?
Darius has a fireball now!
Jaffe: Darius got a projectile. It’s got a nice little ground projectile. It’s not the strongest thing in the world, but it has real strengths. He can use it to approach. He can combo off it sometimes, OTG (off the ground) with it. It just gives him more tools to play with to be a more full and expressive character so he can have more fun with him.
Illaoi, we’re very excited about a subtle change. Illaoi, she really relies on getting her tentacles out to start her game. Because once she’s got tentacles, she can pressure with them, she can combo with them, she can mix the opponent up with them. But, we wanted her to have that physicality, so she can’t just summon them. She has to hit you to generate tentacles. That said, it was really hard for her to start that game from far away, like we talked about. So we found a great compromise, which is her down S2 is now chargeable. Her down S2 is the move where she punches her totem into the ground and a tentacle comes up and it generates a tentacle for. Now, if you charge that, it will auto-track the opponent’s position. So they have to fear that low from anywhere on screen if they’re being patient and just sitting there. So it lets her express power from far, get the tentacle out and really get her game going.
You might have to relearn a couple of things [in the closed beta], especially at the advanced level, but you’re going to be able to get in there and play your character mostly as you used to.
Beyond that, just a lot of tuning changes. Yasuo has pretty different routes in a bunch of places. But most characters, Darius, or Braum, Jinx, their routes are pretty similar. Some changes around the way corner. But mostly, you might have to relearn a couple of things, especially at the advanced level, but you’re going to be able to get in there and play your character mostly as you used to. And, we’re making bigger swings right now. But as we get closer and closer to the whole complete version of the game, we’re going to slow down that rate of change, so that we’re not disrupting people’s muscle memory too much.
Mitchell Saltzman is an editorial producer at IGN. You can find him on twitter @JurassicRabbit
Love Elden Ring Nightreign, but getting a little bored of the same three-night cycle of bosses and repetitive Everdark sovereigns? Fret not, Nightfarer, because there may be a brand new, extra-hard game mode on the way that will shake up Nightreign’s regular playstyle.
This new mode, entitled Deep of Night, was found and shared by dataminers, and appears to be essentially a kind of “endless” mode with skill-based matchmaking. Unlike in regular Nightreign, you’re not able to choose the boss you target, and it will be picked for you at random instead. With each victory, your “Depth” rating increases, which in turn increases the difficulty, and Nightreign will generally try to pair you with other players that are at the same Depth as you as long as the wait time isn’t too long.
In total, the datamine suggests there will be five Depths with 999 ratings within each Depth, and killing bosses will increase your Depth. Losing runs will cause your Depth to revert back, but once you get into Depth 2 you’ll never be able to get back into Depth 1. It’s unclear if this applies to every Depth level, or if it’s just a way to keep experienced players from being stuck with new ones.
There are other major changes in Deep of Night, too. Some bosses are “magmafied”, which is just what it sounds like. They’re covered in magma. This probably makes them stronger – I certainly don’t want to touch them. There are also new weapon effects, and stronger weapons that come with better buffs, but also some drawbacks. Additionally, players will get access to three more relic slots on top of the existing three, with the three new slots only working in the Deep of Night. Like the new weapons, new relics were datamined also, with both stronger buffs and also sometimes counterbalancing drawbacks.
All in all this new mode sounds like it could be an interesting spin on Nightreign that keeps it fresh for a while yet. While Nightreign still has a bustling community, interest has slowed down in the months since launch, especially as the rotation of Everdark bosses has gotten a little more repetitive. FromSoftware did just announce the next new Everdark boss, Caligo, which will drop tomorrow evening.
From a frozen haze, the winged terror emerges. Let flames rend these frost-laced shadows.
The Everdark Sovereign version of Fissure in the Fog will land on August 7, 2025 at 03:00 CEST | 18:00 PDT (6/8) | 10:00 JST. pic.twitter.com/PedcHLeDS2
We gave Elden Ring Nightreign a 7/10 at launch, with our reviewer saying, “when Elden Ring Nightreign is played exactly as it was designed to be played, it’s one of the finest examples of a three-player co-op game around – but that’s harder to do than it should be, and playing solo is poorly balanced.” The game has since gotten a duos mode, and it had sold five million copies as of July.
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.
