Category: IGN

When Pocketpair’s monster capturing survival adventure Palworld launched, many people compared it to Pokemon, specificallycalling it “Pokemon with guns.” It’s not Pocketpair’s favorite comparison, according to communications director John ‘Bucky’ Buckley, but the thought of collecting a following of adorable monsters has nonetheless prompted a number of people to ask if Palworld would ever make it to Pokemon’s platform of choice, the Nintendo Switch.

Unfortunately, according to Buckley, that’s not in the cards, largely due to technical reasons. “If we could make the game work on the Switch, we would, but Palworld is a beefy game.”

I spoke to Buckley at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last week following his talk, ‘Community Management Summit: A Palworld Roller Coaster: Surviving the Drop.’ During our chat, I also asked Buckley about the possibility of a Nintendo Switch 2 release. He said that Pocketpair is interested, but hasn’t gotten a chance to see if a port is even possible yet.

“We haven’t seen those specs yet,” he said. “Like everyone else, we’re waiting. I’m walking around GDC hoping someone will tell me them, but everyone I’ve spoken to says they haven’t even seen them.

“If it’s beefy enough, it’s 100% worth considering. We did a lot of optimization for Steam Deck, which we were really happy with. Still work to do, but we’re really happy with how it turned out. So we would like to get it on more handhelds if possible.”

Pocketpair remains entangled in a lawsuit from Nintendo over alleged patent infringement against Pokemon’s ball-throwing mechanics, leading some to speculate that to be the actual reason Palworld hadn’t made it to Switch.

But the lawsuit isn’t really what’s stopping the studio from releasing games on Nintendo’s platforms, as we saw back in January. Buckley addressed the lawsuit very briefly in his GDC talk, saying that it caught the team by surprise, and that the team had done numerous legal checks in the lead-up to release in order to prevent that exact thing. “Pretty much everyone at Pocketpair is a huge fan [of Pokemon],” Buckley said in the talk, “so it was a very depressing day, everyone heads down and walking in the rain.”

The question is, would Nintendo allow a game it’s taken such issue with on its next-gen console?

We’ll be posting our full interview with Buckley at GDC later this week, so keep checking back for more about Palworld. In the meantime, it’s a great time to revisit Palworld if you’ve stepped away, as the game just got cross-platform play in a new update last week.

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.

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The modder who released a playable recreation of the Grand Theft Auto 6 map in Grand Theft Auto 5 has ceased all work on the project after being hit by a takedown from Rockstar owner Take–Two.

‘Dark Space’ had created a free-to-download playable GTA 5 map based on leaked coordinate data and official trailer shots of GTA 6, and uploaded gameplay footage to his YouTube channel. His videos and his mod hit the headlines in January as information-starved GTA fans flocked to experience a fan-made approximation of what they can expect to play officially when GTA 6 launches on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S this fall.

Then, last week, Dark Space received the dreaded strike notification from YouTube after Take-Two issued a copyright removal request. If a YouTube channel receives multiple copyright strikes, it runs the risk of being terminated.

In response, Dark Space removed all download links to his mod, despite the fact he has yet to be asked to do so by Take-Two, and published a response video on his channel calling out the company for its actions and suggesting it was the result of the mod’s take on GTA 6’s map being “probably a little too accurate.”

Dark Space was more philosophical in a follow-up interview with IGN. “I expected this would happen based on their past takedowns,” the modder said. “I went into this project knowing it was a possibility, and the fact that it happened does not surprise me.”

Dark Space said he believes Take-Two went after his mod because it was based on an online GTA 6 community mapping project that uses leaked coordinate points to “perfectly” map out the upcoming virtual space, and as a result might have ruined the surprise for players and the internet at large.

“That’s probably the biggest red flag, although most of the work in my map was based on the trailer shots,” Dark Space added.

“I think my map could have ruined the surprise of their map, which I get. If you spent years building out this amazing game world just to have some YouTuber spoil the experience of the map’s shape, size, and vibe… I’d want it removed too.”

The upshot is Dark Space’s GTA 6 mod project is no more. And that’s not just for YouTube videos of it, that’s for the entire thing. “Well they clearly do not want this project to exist,” Dark Space said. “So it’s not just under threat, it’s eliminated. There’s no point putting more time into something that goes directly against what they’re willing to allow.

“I’m just going to keep making videos that people hopefully like. I probably won’t do anything else modding GTA 5 in relation to GTA 6, since it seems dangerous.”

There are now concerns that the GTA 6 community mapping project could be next in Take-Two’s sights. IGN has contacted the group for comment.

Take-Two has a history of taking down fan projects, most recently the YouTube channel belonging to the makers of the ‘GTA Vice City Nextgen Edition,’ which ports the world, cutscenes, and missions from 2002’s Vice City into 2008’s GTA 4.

One former Rockstar developer has defended the company’s actions here, saying both Take-Two and Rockstar are protecting their business interests.

“Take2/R* are a commercial company,” former Rockstar Games technical director Obbe Vermeij tweeted. “They will take down mods that interfere with their business interests.

“The VC NextGen Edition mod for GTA4 directly competes with the Definitive Edition. The Liberty City preservation project (GTA4 in GTA5 engine) would interfere with a possible GTA4 remaster. (No idea whether they’re working on that. I think they should.)

“There’s no point getting angry about it. This is what companies are supposed to do. The best we can hope for is that they allow mods that don’t interfere with their business. Such as DCA3 (GTA3 for Dreamcast). Afaik they have recently been decent about letting these projects continue.”

While you wait for GTA 6 to come out, check out IGN’s coverage of an ex-Rockstar dev who says the studio probably won’t be able to decide whether GTA 6 is delayed until May 2025, Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick’s response to concern about the fate of GTA Online once GTA 6 comes out, and the expert opinion on whether the PS5 Pro will run GTA 6 at 60 frames per second.

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.

Bam Margera was not featured on the recent list of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 and 4 skaters returning to the roster for the upcoming Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4, but it’s now being reported that Margera will, in fact, be a part of the final game.

The news comes via skateboarding media veteran Roger Bagley during a members-only livestream of The Nine Club skateboarding podcast (via Video Games Chronicle).

According to Bagley the game was “already done” when Tony Hawk contacted Activision to ask that Margera be added to the game. Hawk was apparently told it could not be done, but Bagley says the skateboarding legend would not take no for an answer.

IGN has contacted Activision for comment.

Margera, a former professional skateboarder and star of the Jackass film and TV series, has endured a long and public history of alcohol and substance problems, including several stints in rehab. Margera, who was fired from Jackass Forever, was also the subject of a restraining order granted to Jackass director Jeff Tremaine after threats were allegedly sent to Tremaine and his family.

Hawk and Margera recently shared a video of themselves skateboarding together, fueling initial speculation that Margera may be coming back to the game.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4, which was announced earlier this month, will be available on July 11, 2025 for PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC. It’s being developed by Iron Galaxy. The project has fought its way back from being scrapped in the wake of Activision’s merger of previous series developer Vicarious Visions with Blizzard.

Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can track him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him things about stuff.

Konami’s upcoming Silent Hill f has been refused classification in Australia, meaning the game would not be able to be sold within Australia at this time. However, Silent Hill f’s RC rating has been assigned by an automated rating tool and not via actual Australian Classification Board members so, based on precedent, it’s unlikely this is the end of the story.

Konami does not distribute its own games locally in Australia, but IGN has contacted its third-party distribution partner for comment.

The specific reason for Silent Hill f’s RC rating has not been supplied at this time. Since the introduction of an adults-only category for games in Australia (R18+) in January 2013, games that have been refused classification in Australia are only typically flagged for sexual activity with a person who appears to a child under 18, visual depictions of sexual violence, or tying incentives and rewards to drug use. 2008’s Silent Hill: Homecoming was initially refused classification in Australia in the lead up to its release due to a high impact torture scene but that was several years prior to the introduction of the R18+ rating, which now accommodates high impact levels of violence. Silent Hill: Homecoming was later released in Australia with altered camera angles for the problem scene, rated MA15+.

What we already know, however, is that Silent Hill f’s RC rating in Australia has actually been assigned by an online tool maintained by the International Age Rating Coalition – which is a classification system designed for mobile and digitally delivered games. The IARC classification tool is an online questionnaire where applicants simply answer a series of questions about a game’s content. The IARC tool will subsequently assign an automated rating from each territory based on the classification standards from each participating country. In Australia’s case, the IARC tool then sends the decision to be published automatically on Australia’s National Classification Database.

In Australia, the tool can only be used for digitally-distributed games (it was adopted in 2014 due to the fact that, while the Australian Classification Board was rating an average of 755 games per year, over 40,000 games were being released annually on the iOS app store alone at that time). There have been a number of instances where automated IARC ratings have demonstrated a tendency to trend higher than human ratings from the Classification Board. For example, in 2019 Kingdom Come: Deliverance and We Happy Few were widely reported to have suddenly been banned in Australia when they had not.

The IARC tool is free to use, which particularly benefits small publishers and developers. Importantly, all physical releases are still required to be rated by the Classification Board itself so, if Silent Hill f is planning to have a physical release in Australia, a submission to the Classification Board was always going to be mandatory, anyhow. The Classification Board itself can override any classification given by the IARC tool if it disagrees with it.

In Australia, game publishers can either have staff members who are accredited classifiers or authorised assessors. Accredited classifiers are in-house staff who complete training from the Classification Board and can classify games themselves, and their decision will take effect as an official Classification Board decision. Authorised assessors are staff or contractors who have similar training, but their classification decision is limited to a recommendation made to the Australian Classification Board, which must then decide whether to apply it or not.

For now, it’s too early to say whether Silent Hill f’s RC rating in Australia will be upheld after further actions or not. It is, however, the first Silent Hill game to get an 18+ rating certification in Japan.

Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can track him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him things about stuff.

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Minecraft Live 2025 is done and dusted, and developer Mojang has announced a long list of new upgrades and content coming to the best-selling video game of all time.

Mojang revealed Minecraft’s first game drop of the year, called Spring to Life. This will introduce a variety of updates to the Overworld that will make biomes “feel more immersive and alive,” such as new variants for cows, pigs, and chickens, and new ambient features and sounds (firefly bush, leaf litter, and more). Spring to Life launches on March 25.

The second game drop of the year doesn’t have a name just yet, but we do know what it will include. There’s a new block called the Dried Ghast that can be rehydrated to form a new mob variant called a Ghastling (baby ghast, essentially), which in turn can become the new Happy Ghast mob variant. The Ghast harness is used to fly the Happy Ghast, which can carry up to four players.

Today’s big update was a major visual upgrade for Minecraft called ‘Vibrant Visuals,’ “the first step in expressing our developers’ vision for a visual upgrade that will transform the way our players experience Minecraft,” Mojang said. Vibrant Visuals does not impact Minecraft gameplay in any way.

Check out IGN’s separate article on the Vibrant Visuals upgrade to find out more, and IGN’s visuals comparison video below.

Meanwhile, Mojang shared a new clip for the upcoming A Minecraft Movie and announced a movie-themed in-game live event that kicks off on March 25.

We’ve got plenty more from Mojang based on our trip to its offices in Sweden, including why the developer won’t make a Minecraft 2, won’t make Minecraft free-to-play, and won’t use generative AI to develop the game.

Minecraft Live 2025 — everything announced:

• Mojang Studios announced the name, launch date, and features of the first game drop of the year, as well as upcoming features in the second game drop of the year.
• The first game drop of the year is called “Spring to Life,” and introduces a variety of updates to the Overworld that will make biomes feel more immersive and alive.
• The second game drop of the year includes the new Dried Ghast block, the new Ghastling and Happy Ghast mob variants, and the Ghast harness.
• The Dried Ghast is a little big smaller than a regular block and has cute little tentacles and a grumpy face.
• If you pick up the Dried Ghast from the Nether and put it in water, eventually it will become a much happier Ghastling.
• The Ghastling floats around the Overworld like a little balloon. Feed it snowballs and eventually it will grow up to become a flying Happy Ghast.
• If you craft a harness for the Happy Ghast, tempt it to come closer with the harness itself, then jump on it. From there, you and up to three other players can fly around on a single Happy Ghast.
• The new Locator Bar feature, positioned at the bottom of the screen, lets you see in which direction your friends are. That will be useful for finding friends while flying a Happy Ghast.
• Mojang said the Happy Ghast will be useful for Survival Mode builders, because “it’s a bit like being in Creative Mode, but in Survival.” The platform lets you position wherever you like in the sky and dismount.
• Mojang Studios announced a visual upgrade for Minecraft, titled Vibrant Visuals.
• Mojang revealed an exclusive A Minecraft Movie clip and announced an in-game movie-themed live event.
• The live event takes place in Midport Village, and sees players join Steve and his companions from the movie in an evolving multiplayer experience where you defend the village in three mini games. The live event runs from March 25 to April 7, and if you complete all the challenges you earn the Yearn cape.

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.

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Ubisoft has hailed another Assassin’s Creed Shadows player milestone, but has yet to confirm a sales figure for the game.

In a social media post, Ubisoft said Shadows has seen 2 million players since going on sale on March 20, up from the 1 million on day one.

That’s enough to surpass the launches of both Assassin’s Creed Origins and Odyssey, Ubisoft added. “Thank you for joining the journey in Feudal Japan!”

It’s an impressive start for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, but it’s worth bearing in mind that Ubisoft has yet to announce a sales figure for the game. Still, we do know it’s the top-selling game on Steam, where Ubisoft recently returned after years of PC launch exclusivity on the Epic Games Store.

At the time of this article’s publication, Assassin’s Creed Shadows was on 58,894 concurrent players on Steam, enough to break into the top 30 most-played games on Valve’s platform. That peak is expected to rise as we continue into the game’s opening weekend.

For comparison, Origins’ all-time Steam peak was 41,551, over seven years ago, and Odyssey’s was 62,069. It seems likely Shadows will become the most-played game on Steam later this weekend.

BioWare’s single-player RPG Dragon Age: The Veilguard launched on Steam on Thursday, October 31, 2024, and saw a peak of 89,418 players on Valve’s platform.

The true concurrent peak of Assassin’s Creed Shadows will of course be much higher, given it launched on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S also. Neither Sony nor Microsoft make player numbers public.

There is enormous pressure on Assassin’s Creed Shadows to do well for Ubisoft globally after multiple delays and the sales failure of last year’s Star Wars Outlaws. Indeed, Ubisoft suffered a number of high-profile flops, layoffs, studio closures, and game cancellations in the run up to Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ release. Things got so bad at Ubisoft that its founding Guillemot family and largest shareholder are reportedly exploring talks with Chinese mega-corp Tencent and other investors on a buyout deal that would let them preserve control.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows has also endured a number of controversies itself, not least in Japan. This week, IGN confirmed that Ubisoft had quietly released a day-one patch for Assassin’s Creed Shadows that made a number of important changes seemingly in response to concern from some Japanese politicians about in-game temples and shrines.

In a remarkable exchange this week, Japanese politician and member of the House of Councillors of Japan, Hiroyuki Kada, raised the issue of Assassin’s Creed Shadows in an official government meeting, and Shigeru Ishiba, the Prime Minister of Japan, responded.

On Steam at least, Assassin’s Creed Shadows is going down very well with players. It has a ‘very positive’ user review rating, with 81% of over 6,000 user reviews marked as positive. IGN’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows review returned an 8/10. We said: “By sharpening the edges of its existing systems, Assassin’s Creed Shadows creates one of the best versions of the open-world style it’s been honing for the last decade.”

Adventuring across feudal Japan? Check out our comprehensive Assassin’s Creed Shadows guide, including our Assassin’s Creed Shadows walkthrough, our detailed Assassin’s Creed Shadows Interactive Map, and our guide to all the crucial things Assassin’s Creed Shadows doesn’t tell you.

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.

Thanks to a renewed focus on the ideas the series was originally built on, Shadows is the most satisfying Assassin’s Creed has felt in years. You can fluidly move from ground to castle rooftop thanks to the best parkour system since Unity, and a grappling hook only makes the journey to a great vantage point even speedier. Perched on a tightrope high above the enemy, you’re only a drop away from scoring the perfect kill… provided you’re playing as Naoe, that is. Take control of Yasuke, Shadows’ second protagonist, and it’s a whole different game.

Yasuke is slow. He is clumsy. He can’t kill silently. And he climbs like a grandpa. He is the antithesis of an Assassin’s Creed protagonist. He is one of Ubisoft’s most baffling design choices… and one of its most fascinating. Because when I play as Yasuke, I don’t feel like I’m playing Assassin’s Creed anymore.