Warning: Slight spoilers for Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door follow.
The Nintendo Switch remake of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door marks the first time Vivian has been written as a transgender woman in English versions of the game.
At the start of the adventure, Vivian is one of The Thousand-Year Door’s villains, working alongside her sisters Marilyn and Beldam to track down and defeat Mario. But due to incessant bullying from Beldam, Vivian eventually leaves her sisters to join Mario’s party.
In the original Japanese version of The Thousand-Year Door, Vivian was written as a transgender woman, but that element of Vivian’s identity was removed in the English localization, where instead of bullying Vivian about her gender, Beldam called her ugly.
Now, when Vivian is traveling with Mario in Chapter 4’s Twilight Town, it’s revealed that her original backstory is intact: “Truth is, it took me a while to realize I was their sister… not their brother,” Vivian tells Mario. “Now their usual bullying feels heavier.”
The new localization smartly tones down much of Beldam’s bullying from the GameCube original’s script. In the 2004 Japanese version, Vivian is consistently misgendered by Beldam, Goombella’s tattle, and her in-game character description, but the remake is much more affirming of Vivian’s gender, as Beldam’s comments are less direct and all other characters and text refer to Vivian as a woman.
Goombella’s tattle now says, “The youngest of the Three Shadows. She’s so cute, she’s able to infatuate anyone”, while her character bio says, “Vivian was one of the Three Shadows but has now chosen to leave her two sisters behind.”
We called the Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door remake amazing in our review, saying, “There’s a reason The Thousand-Year Door has been considered one of the greatest Nintendo games for the last 20 years, and this brilliant remake ensures it will maintain that reputation for at least a thousand more.”
Logan Plant is IGN’s Database Manager, Playlist Editor, occasional news writer, and frequent Super Ninfriendo on Nintendo Voice Chat. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.
After literally years of begging from Nintendo fans, what many consider to be the very best Paper Mario entry has finally been remade and is about to launch on Nintendo Switch.
But despite how lauded Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door has been in the past, does it still hold up in 2024? Well, if you ask us, we’d say ‘too bloomin’ right, mate’, but if you want a bit more detail about what we think of the game, then be sure to check out our full review via the link below.
Until Then is a stunning narrative adventure set in a charming pixelated world inspired by the Philippines. Playing as protagonist Mark, you navigate day-to-day high school insecurities until he begins to realize something more mysterious is going on. Between juggling homework deadlines, navigating relationships, practicing piano, and investigating the strange occurrences happening in between, the developers also sprinkled endearing minigames throughout the story that create depth and delight out of what could have been just mundane moments.
For example, a walk to the fishball stand to subdue hunger pangs turns into a fierce competition for who can fill up their fishball stick the fastest. Getting extra meta, play the video game within a video game with Cathy & Mark to find out who is the fastest racer. And, of course, what would a carnival outing with friends be without all the classic fair games like whack-a-mole?
Beyond being just plain entertaining, Until Then’s minigames resonate in unique ways and those among the development team have their own opinions about which minigame stands out among the rest.
A minigame to create interactive worldbuilding
Mickole Klein Nulud, Game Director of Polychroma Games, has nostalgic ties to the ticket vending machine from chapter 1 of the game. “I’d always used them in my college days so it’s nostalgic,” said Nulud. “I replicated its user interface from the real world to the game in detail, which was a very fun process for me.”
Moments in the game like the ticket vending machine, were included to help break up the flow of the game’s dialogue-heavy nature and to create moments of interactive worldbuilding. “It sets up the tone of what kind of experience the player is going to get, where minigames can be as mundane as possible but true to life,” Nulud added.
A minigame to showcase character development
Senior Environment Artist Pia Demanawa’s favorite minigame, the haunted house in the perya, calls out to Filipino culture.‘Perya’ is a Tagalog word for ‘fair’, like a carnival. These week-long events take place throughout the year and are a unique part of Philippine celebrations. From game booths to rides to food stalls, a perya is a place of fun and entertainment for people of all ages.
Until Then brings this to life in chapter 10. Mark runs into one of the new students at the carnival and, after a bit of banter, bets that he can scare more people in the haunted house than she can. You then have two minutes to chase NPCs around the creepy maze, gaining points for each person successfully frightened.
“On its surface, [the haunted house] uses elements of Filipino mythology such as the Kiwig [a shapeshifter that preys on humans] and the Minokawa [a giant, dragon-like bird that can swallow the moon and sun],” Demanawa shared. “The designer for the art of the minigame itself, Vanessa Sumo, really encapsulated what a low-budget, Filipino-themed haunted house would look like from the inside with the stereotypical bahay kubo and the random chickens. The art director, Dominique Duran, additionally found inspiration for aesthetics from the 2012 RPGMaker horror game called Ib, and I thought that it was a wonderful homage to the cult-classic story game.”
Without spoiling too much, this competitive, haunted minigame creates a special moment for Mark, Until Then’s lead, telling more of the story not through the typical dialogue interaction but rather through character interaction within the minigame.
“Because of that, I don’t think the chapter is complete without it,” Demanawa added. “It’s needed to see the character development and charisma that bounces off of these two specific characters. It makes you happy for them, and, I think, it makes you root for them too.”
Minigames to foreshadow story events
Some minigames can be so subtle they might be easy to miss. Joshua James San Juan, Programmer, loves interacting with the school bulletin board. “It’s just fun and satisfying,” he shared, “like the ‘pop’ sound it makes when you remove the pins and watch the posters fall all over the place.”
For players who pay close attention to the details on the board, you might even find some enlightening clues to what’s coming later in the game. “I think it’s a clever way of showing or hinting at what events are happening and what will take place in the future without directly stating it,” San Juan said. “It also gives a little bit of lore on the setting of the story that will make them understand the world better.”
Minigames to just take a break
There are no surprises here. Kyle Patrick Naval is the game’s composer and has a particular fondness for the jeepney rhythm minigame. “I love playing rhythm games, and making music for that specific minigame was a super fun process,” he shared.
Some minigames might not necessarily have a narrative purpose but can add variety to the gameplay and give players a breather from intense moments. “I think it gives the character somewhat of a little break from what they are experiencing, enjoying the little things, as they say,” Naval said. “It gives the player new minigames to explore and play, and to look forward to what else they might discover in the game.”
There’s never a dull moment in Until Then. From friendly competition and compelling minigame mechanics to breathtaking scenery and tear-jerking story moments, expect a rollercoaster of emotions and interactions. Until Then launches May 23 on PS5.
Shadow of the Erdtree, Elden Ring’s ‘first and last’ DLC expansion, is so close. We’ve just gotten a new trailer for the expansion, which gives fans plenty to chew over until release. Whether you’re jumping back into the base game before release or starting from scratch altogether, the hype is slowly building. Shadow of the Erdtree will release on June 21 and costs $39.99 — but if you’re on PC, there’s already a tantalizing saving on offer to you.
If playing Shadow of the Erdtree already seems like a done deal for you, this offer is like finding $5 stuffed into the back pocket of the jeans you wore last week. It isn’t a Fire Giant-sized discount, but it’s still one of the best PC video game deals running at the moment.
Codes at this price aren’t unlimited either, so it could be worth securing ASAP to ensure you’re paying the best price possible. In case you missed some other finer details, this is a Steam code purchase and only for those on PC. For those on console, you can see our complete preorder guide for Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree Edition right here on IGN as well.
While this may be the only expansion Elden Ring is getting, it may not be fans’ final taste of The Lands Between. FromSoftware boss Hidetaka Miyazaki hasn’t shut down the possibility of a full sequel, and when asked about the future of the franchise, he commented that FromSoftware deliberately leaves the end of its games open to potential sequels, and it seems Elden Ring will be no exception.
Miyazaki suggested in March 2024 that FromSoftware hadn’t made a decision on a sequel yet, but similarly spoke to the desire to keep its options open. “We don’t want to say this is the end of the Elden Ring saga for now,” he told IGN.
The base version of Elden Ring returned a 10/10 in IGN’s review. “Elden Ring is a massive iteration on what FromSoftware began with the Souls series, bringing its relentlessly challenging combat to an incredible open world that gives us the freedom to choose our own path,” we said.
If you’re keen on saving a few extra dollars elsewhere, we also have a slew of other gaming deals roundups worth checking out, including the best Xbox deals, the best PlayStation deals, and the best Nintendo Switch deals. In each of those, you can find a wide variety of great discounts on games, hardware, accessories, and more.
Another great spot to look for the latest sales is in our Daily Deals roundup, where we highlight all the best deals on stuff you actually want to buy. Currently, we have some great video game deals listed alongside Nintendo Switch OLED and CRKD Nitro Deck discounts.
When is Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdree Available?
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree will release June 21 on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS4, PS5, and PC. The release date was announced earlier this year, alongside the release of a brand-new trailer, which includes glimpses of a host of new bosses, powers, and more.
What Level Should You Be for Shadow of the Erdtree?
We already have a handy guide on how you should prepare for Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, but here’s a quick rundown. We recommend that characters should likely be at least Level 100 to Level 150 to properly prepare for the challenges of the DLC.
Most players who have reached the final boss of Elden Ring usually find themselves around Level 100 or higher depending on the challenges you face, so it’s likely that having that many points allocated in various stats will give you a good fighting chance.
But, it’s also worth noting that the DLC will introduce a new power scaling mechanic. Players will be able increase their power by seeking out minor bosses and defeating them, so this will be an additional factor to consider besides your level when entering the Land of Shadow.
Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.
The Witcher 3 now has REDkit, a comprehensive and advanced modding tool for PC that enables the creation of DLC-sized mods.
All who own Witcher 3 on PC can now download REDkit through GOG, Epic Games Store, and Steam. On Steam, it features Steam Workshop integration.
Here’s the official blurb:
Developed and implemented by Yigsoft with close collaboration from the CD PROJEKT RED team, The Witcher 3 REDkit offers a plethora of advanced features as well as full Steam Workshop integration, making publishing — and using — mods easy for both creators and casual players. As a repurposed, reworked, and extended codebase of REDengine 3, it gives modders unparalleled freedom in creating new quests, characters, locations, and more. Today’s release was accompanied by a trailer that features some of the modding possibilities contained within the tool as well as an overview of its major features.
The Witcher 3 #REDkit is now available for free for all owners of the game on PC!
As a player, you’ll soon be able to enrich your time in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt with a wealth of new content created by the community!
The hope is these modding tools will breathe new life into the nine-year-old Witcher 3, and may even spark a collaboration that results in a DLC-sized mod akin to the Fallout London mod for Fallout 4. To coincide with the release of REDkit, Witcher 3 on PC gets an update that enhances the modding experience and supports Steam Workshop and DLC-style mods. The patch notes are below:
Witcher 3 REDkit update patch notes:
Enabled Steam Workshop. Manage your mods with ease on Steam! We’ve integrated the Steam Workshop support into The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. While Steam users can still use Nexus Mods or whatever modding platform they like, they now can install any mod available on the game’s Steam Workshop with a single click. Just find the mod you like, click “Subscribe” and it will install automatically!
Added Steam Workshop support for DLC mods (mods that include completely new content).
Added support for an easier way to add new world IDs in mods.
Added full support for loading DLC mods – fixed an issue that occurred when loading additional content from mods.
CD Projekt announced REDkit in November 2023, saying “it will allow you to create your own experiences in the game by making something completely new or editing existing quests and content.”
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.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door has been held as the standard for Mario RPGs for 20 years. It, alongside its N64 predecessor, captured what fans wanted from their turn-based, plumber-starring adventures – silly humour, epic adventures, fantastic combat, and charm. Purists often view the GameCube original as the end of the ‘true’ Paper Mario style – a little bit unfair, perhaps, when Super Paper Mario and The Origami King are both great, if undeniably different from that original formula.
It should be no surprise that the Switch remake of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door was celebrated upon its announcement. Even if you like other Paper Mario titles, it’s hard to argue that Thousand-Year Door wasn’t a high point for the plumber, not just in the RPG space but in Mario’s wider canon. Two decades later, that still holds true, and now the best Mario RPG is finally more accessible.
Today we are proud and excited to launch Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II on Xbox Series X|S, PC, Xbox Cloud Gaming and Game Pass.
In Hellblade II, the sequel to Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, we see the return of Senua in a brutal battle for survival through the myth and tyranny of Viking Iceland. It is a game from the heart, where our small team of around 80 developers have crafted an experience that aims to immerse you in Senua’s world and story. Our bold mission as a studio is to ‘Craft Life Changing Art with Game Changing Tech’, by which we mean we aim to push the boundaries of technology and techniques in order to create a game, and an experience, that leaves you thinking and feeling.
Immersion drives our work at Ninja Theory, with our belief being that if we can immerse you in Senua’s Saga, we can take you on an unforgettable journey. Our belief is also that believability is the route to this immersion, and so our team has painstakingly worked to bring our reality into Senua’s.
The game is set in real locations in Iceland, recreated through satellite data and photogrammetry. Our characters are digital doubles of real people and their costumes first made as real clothing through historically authentic techniques and materials. And all our character animations starts life as real movement from our incredible cast on our performance capture stage.
It is not only our presentation that is based in ground-truth reference, but so to are the narrative themes in Senua’s journey – in particular Senua’s experiences of psychosis. Senua is a person who lives in an unshared reality. She sees things that others don’t, hears things that others don’t and has unique beliefs about the world.
In order to realize Senua’s experiences of psychosis in a truthful way we have, as we did on Senua’s Sacrifice, worked closely with our friends and partners in the world of neuroscience and lived-experience. Their generosity, openness and support has given us the opportunity to understand what living with psychosis can be like, in the hope that Senua feels like a real person going through a very personal mental health journey.
I’d like to take this as an opportunity to thank our team and collaborators for devoting themselves to Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II as a true passion project. I’d also like to thank you, our fans, for your support throughout the development of Hellblade II. It has meant so much to us.
Now, it is time to turn down the lights, put your headphones on and join Senua for, what we hope is, an unforgettable journey into Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II.
The sequel to the award winning Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Senua returns in a brutal journey of survival through the myth and torment of Viking Iceland. Intent on saving those who have fallen victim to the horrors of tyranny, Senua faces a battle of overcoming the darkness within and without.
Sink deep into the next chapter of Senua’s story, a crafted experience told through cinematic immersion, beautifully realised visuals and encapsulating sound.
It feels like a thousand years have passed since Princess Peach first summoned Mario to the seedy city of Rogueport to hunt for the legendary treasure that sleeps beneath the town. In reality, it’s only been 20 since Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door graced the GameCube, but it seems longer because the Paper Mario series has abandoned its traditional turn-based RPG battles ever since. The Thousand-Year Door rapidly faded into legend, kept alive by the spoken word of longtime Nintendo fans who clung onto hope that it would one day open again.
Finally, that patience has paid off, as the Nintendo Switch remake of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is the definitive version of this classic adventure. It unquestionably justifies why the original is so treasured, pairing a faithful recreation of one of Mario’s most iconic quests with a set of welcome additions and modern improvements that keep it feeling fresh off the printing press even two decades later. Just as Princess Peach tells Mario he MUST come to Rogueport, I’m telling you that you MUST play The Thousand-Year Door.
From its opening moments to the end credits, it’s still impressive how distinct this RPG feels from any other game in the wide Mario universe. The surprisingly gritty world of Rogueport and its surrounding towns, a lovable cast of offbeat partners Mario recruits along the way, and an Indiana Jones-style race between Mario and the scheming X-Nauts to unlock the secret behind the sleeping door give this journey an unforgettable identity that has passed the test of time with flying colors.
It helps that the Switch remake is absolutely gorgeous, with lovingly redone character models and dazzling environments that fully commit to the original’s papery, storybook aesthetic. It’s always a joy to look at, and the lighting in darker environments like Hooktail’s Castle, Boggly Woods, and Twilight Town is stunning. It maintains 30 frames per second very consistently, as I only noticed slight framerate dips in moments where the screen is flooded with hundreds of characters at once, but that doesn’t happen often so it never really bothered me. The revamped soundtrack is similarly amazing, with outstanding updated versions of the original tunes and new battle theme arrangements specific to each location.
The sharp, laugh-out-loud script is consistently as funny and charming today as it was in 2004.
The exciting premise and artistic world are backed up by a sharp, laugh-out-loud script that’s consistently as funny and charming today as it was in 2004. The Thousand-Year Door wastes no time setting its comedic, irreverent tone: Just minutes after Mario sets foot in Rogueport, he’s witness to the town’s high crime rate as members of the Pianta Syndicate get in a brawl with their rival Robbo Thieves in the background. Almost every character does or says something hilarious that also serves the excellent worldbuilding, like the evil, cackling spirits who are convinced they’re cursing Mario for all eternity, when they’re actually blessing him with a useful upgrade. Side characters like those from the Pianta Syndicate and Robbo Thieves constantly intertwine with Mario’s journey, and some folks even email life updates to his Game Boy Advance SP-like phone with adorable photos of themselves attached. How thoughtful!
Small interludes also stand out, like ones where you play as Princess Peach while she’s held in captivity by the X-Nauts or as Bowser as he searches for the mythical treasure with his moronic band of minions. Some story elements from Princess Peach’s segments haven’t aged super gracefully – it plays up the fact that she has to take off her dress not one, not two, but three separate times across less than 30 total minutes of Peach gameplay – but it’s still fun to see how she assists Mario from afar. The Bowser sections offer a glimpse of how the King of the Koopas comically mismanages his dysfunctional army when he’s not getting tossed around by Mario.
Another clear highlight is bumping into Luigi throughout Rogueport, where he updates Mario on his parallel misadventures in the Waffle Kingdom. Mario can’t even stay awake to hear the whole story (poor Luigi!), but I love soaking up every word of it. This remake enhances the endearing dialogue even further, as developer Intelligent Systems replaced the generic typewriter text sound from the original with an amusing Animal Crossing-like babbling noise unique to each character type. It’s an impressive touch that shows a willingness to go above and beyond to polish this beloved tale.
Mario’s quest to collect the Crystal Stars before the X-Nauts do is the backdrop for each of the eight chapters, but some of the most unforgettable moments come from within the smaller stories that pop up. For example, one Crystal Star is the crown jewel of a wrestling championship belt, kicking off an incredible sequence where Mario – dubbed by his promoter as “The Great Gonzales” – climbs the ranks in the Glitz Pit’s cutthroat pro wrestling world. Every chapter has its own flavor like this, and it’s always delightful to see where Mario and friends will end up next.
It’s Dangerous to Go Alone… Take Partners!
Speaking of friends, Mario’s party of seven partners is one of The Thousand-Year Door’s greatest strengths. Each character you recruit has a well-defined design and personality: Koops is an insecure, shy Koopa who musters up the courage to travel with Mario to avenge his father, while Goombella is a smart, sassy student at the University of Goom who’s interested in archaeology. Every chapter provides some backstory for the new companion it introduces that’s generally very sweet and oftentimes strikingly mature and emotionally resonant, which highlights how the series hasn’t managed to match their quality since.
When exploring, each partner helps out in a unique way: You can kick Koops’ shell to hit far-off switches, while Yoshi significantly increases your speed and can flutter across gaps. The remake’s new Partner Ring lets you change characters on the fly in the overworld, making some late-game puzzles that require lots of partner switching much snappier. And, there’s a robust new hint system you can access at any time where Goombella will tell you exactly what to do next. Some quests are a little bit obtuse at times, like when it’s unclear who exactly you need to talk with to advance the story, so that was a nice fallback that ensured I never got stuck.
Partners also fight alongside Mario during The Thousand-Year Door’s excellent turn-based battles. Paper Mario’s trademark Action Commands are here, where you deal more and take less damage if you properly time the correct button presses. But The Thousand-Year Door takes it much further than basic jumping, hammering, and blocking, spicing up its battles with a great Badge-based upgrade system and electric live audience so I never got tired of fighting at any point during the 30-hour campaign.
Collectable Badges – which are hidden throughout the world and on sale at Rogueport’s Lovely Howz of Badges – let you customize Mario’s abilities however you want as long as you have enough Badge Points to equip them. There are over 80 Badges to choose from: Some give Mario powerful new types of jump or hammer attacks, like the Quake Hammer, which attacks all non-flying enemies with one big smash. Other badges impact Mario’s stats, like the P-Up, D-Down Badge that boosts attack power but sacrifices defense. I turned my Mario into a glass cannon, to the point where perfect Action Commands disposed of enemies in a flash, but any mistake led to him taking serious damage. As a Paper Mario pro, I loved turning up the heat with my Badge builds to create more of a high-risk, high-reward balance, and it’s always fun to mix and match to try out different combinations if anything starts to feel stale.
Pumping up the crowd is one of the coolest mechanics I’ve ever seen in an RPG.
It’s the live audience, though, that truly pushes battles to the next level. Lots of Nintendo games are presented as stage plays (a tradition going back to Super Mario Bros. 3 and most recently seen in Princess Peach: Showtime!), but The Thousand-Year Door has my favorite implementation of this idea. When a fight begins, Mushroom Kingdom citizens frantically rush into an auditorium to watch it unfold on stage, cheering when Mario does well and leaving early when things go poorly (are they trying to beat traffic?). Hecklers threaten to pelt Mario with rocks and stage lights or fog machines might malfunction during the battle, requiring a timely block.
Balancing fighting with appealing to the crowd is so dynamic, and it’s even more entertaining when you pull off the Stylish Moves that add flourishes to attacks and make the crowd go wild. Mario can backflip after pulling off a Hammer attack, or Koops can breakdance after rushing through a line of enemies in his shell. Pumping up the crowd through well-executed Action Commands and Stylish Moves fills up Mario’s special attack meter, and it’s one of the coolest mechanics I’ve ever seen in an RPG. The fights aren’t especially difficult – with the exception of some late-game bosses and optional challenges like the returning Pit of 100 Trials – but keeping track of all the mechanics at play during battle meant I never fell into a repetitive rut where I stopped having to think. If you love punishment, the Double Pain Badge doubles the amount of damage Mario takes, but besides that there aren’t traditional difficulty options to be found here. On the flipside, if you’re a Paper Mario rookie and want to improve your skills, the new Battle Master Toad hanging out in most towns lets you practice your Action Command timing whenever you like with no penalty for messing up.
There and Back Again
The Thousand-Year Door’s one major flaw I wish this remake had done more to fix is the main quest’s overreliance on backtracking. Most areas have two major points of interest separated by several linear pathways, and the campaign frequently forces you to travel back and forth between them multiple times over the course of a chapter.
Adventures on the pirate island of Keelhaul Key and in the spooky Twilight Town are especially bad about this. These chapters make Mario travel all the way to the edge of an area, realize he doesn’t have the means to progress further, walk back to the town he started in to get something, then return, and so on. It’s about as much fun as realizing you forgot your wallet as you pull into the movie theater parking lot. The new Partner Ring means your trusty Yoshi steed is more accessible than ever, so at least it’s quicker to run back and forth than it was on GameCube, but that’s a half measure when it comes to fixing the level design, which is noticeably outdated in a remake that otherwise feels pretty modern.
I do wish more had been done to fix the overreliance on backtracking.
To its credit, Intelligent Systems made several changes to at least somewhat address the backtracking problem without fundamentally changing the original’s design. In Keelhaul Key, a helpful new spring shortcut means you only have to do an annoying section of precise Yoshi platforming once, rather than every time the chapter asks you to go back and forth across its screens. So they removed the painful part, but not the actual trek.
It’s not as if major changes were unthinkable, because The Thousand-Year Door has some big ones elsewhere, the best of which is its revamped Warp Pipe Room. This fast-travel hub opens up underneath Rogueport a few chapters in, and it’s a total game changer for quests that make you revisit previous locations. In the original, the only way to get to the Glitz Pit was to ride the blimp all the way on the far side of Rogueport. Now, there’s a pipe that zips you straight there, and it’s conveniently labeled in a room filled with pipes that lead back to the central locations from every chapter. Similarly, longtime fans will remember that Chapter 7 contains a particularly ridiculous quest that requires revisiting every major town in the world, but with the help of the new-and-improved Warp Pipe Room I was done with this mission in less than 10 minutes. It wasn’t a particularly stellar 10 minutes in terms of actual entertainment, but it was a lot less tedious than what I’d been braced for.
Even if solutions like this feel like putting makeup on a blemish that we all can tell is still there,I respect the decision to keep this remake extremely faithful, and the combat, story, music, and graphics are so much fun that I really don’t mind the back-and-forth exploration too much. And thankfully, you don’t see any tedium in the fantastic dungeons, which are packed with interesting puzzles, collectibles, and epic boss fights that shake up the usual battle conventions in interesting, cinematic ways. Mario also learns clever paper abilities throughout the campaign, like turning into a paper airplane or rolling up into a tube, and those open up new shortcuts and secrets in the Rogueport Sewers to give exploration an almost metroidvania-like feel at times.
Outside of the main campaign, the entirely optional side quests are your pretty standard RPG fetch-quest fare. Sometimes they’re good for a laugh, like a mouse who asks Mario to whack him with his hammer over and over again until he remembers something important, but from a reward standpoint they’re largely skippable because they mostly give you items or coins that can easily be found elsewhere. I also dislike the side quest system: Mario can only accept one at a time from Rogueport’s Trouble Center, and you must solve or abandon it before taking on a new task. If this remake is already trying to make things more convenient, why not let us take on multiple quests at once to cut down on the number of times completionists will have to walk back and pick up a new one? As it stands, they don’t seem worth doing… with the exception of one extremely worthwhile reward I won’t spoil here.
Australia is already notoriously riddled with creatures that can kill you, from the snakes and spiders that can surprise you in the shower to the sharks and stingrays that circle our shores. Still, that hasn’t stopped developer Weforge Studio from drafting in a malevolent monster from another dimension and inserting it at the very top of the Aussie food chain in Macabre, a co-op ‘stealth extraction horror’ adventure that aims to fuse the bowel-loosening cat and mouse thrills of Alien: Isolation with the gadget-based teamwork of Phasmophobia. After a brief hands-on with a very early build of the game, I can attest to the prowling predator’s stalking prowess since I didn’t actually get a good look at the beast until it was suddenly dragging me through the snow-capped forest setting and knitting a sickening scarf out of my entrails.
“To start with you are very helpless, and this thing’s going to terrorise you and tear you apart,” says creative director Jay Topping. “It’s not like this dumb meandering thing, the way that it interacts with the player is that at first it’s cautious, then it gets closer and [once] you’re out on your own it’s gonna start [picking you off].”
The core gameplay loop of Macabre, which in its current pre-Alpha form takes place in and around an alpine lodge setting inspired by Australia’s Snowy Mountains region, sees up to four players investigating a mysterious rift in time and completing objectives provided by an exceedingly Australian guide named Banjo. In order to survive, players must scavenge for materials like batteries, electrical tape and old mobile phones to craft makeshift gadgets that both detect and distract the interdimensional assailant that hunts them from the shadows.
The map itself is marked with ominous trails of blood and shadows that appear to be either cast by the branches of the surrounding snowgum trees or the spindly limbs of a quadrupedal murder beast depending on how much you trust your fluctuating paranoia levels. Meanwhile, the map layout is randomised each time you enter it, further heightening the sense of panic and disorientation as you try to evade a deadly killer that silently studies and gradually learns to anticipate your behaviour. Yet although it’s effectively four against one, it’s worth highlighting that Macabre is not an asymmetrical horror experience like Dead by Daylight, and its monsters are solely AI-driven.
“When you play games like [Dead by Daylight], I think you lose a bit of the mystery and magic that comes with an AI-controlled monster,” says Topping.
“Player-controlled stalkers learn popular strategies from other players that make it repetitive, but they also mess around and do stupid shit, which really ruins the immersion. So the biggest inspiration [for Macabre’s monster] is Alien: Isolation where it’s constantly adapting and changing. You can’t just hide in the same closets or cabinets, eventually it’s going to figure out that you’ve hidden that same cabinet three times [in a row], and it’s going to come and kill you.”
While its core development team is based in Sydney and its initial map is inspired by Australian terrain, Weforge Studio’s plan for Macabre’s roster of deadly destinations is to expand beyond its southern hemisphere starting point.
“These rifts are kind of like portals, bubbles of time, that have popped up all over the place and they’re interconnected,” says Topping. “So while [Macabre] starts in Australia, it can kind of go anywhere including [destinations] beyond our own dimension.”
The key is that each map will have to offer its own gameplay point of difference beyond mere texture swaps in order to consistently evolve the experience. One example given by Topping is the remote Australian outback town of Coober Pedy, an arid, desert area once featured in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome where residents build their homes in caves bored into the sandstone hillsides, which would serve as an ideal subterranean setting for a highly claustrophobic form of terror. Another potential Macabre map would be one located in China’s Kowloon Walled City, a densely populated slum that would bring a greater sense of vertical scale to the stealth horror.
“Kowloon Walled City would offer a great [visual] contrast of really dark areas and really bright neon-lit areas,” says Topping. “But its twisting corridors would also allow us to have a creature that runs around above you, below you, and in the walls.”
“It would be terrifying.”
The monster itself will apparently adjust its form and behaviour to suit each location, meaning that the unnatural enemy you encounter in the Australian Snowy Mountains won’t resemble the beast you encounter in say, a Mayan temple in a South American rainforest. In fact Topping compares it to the alien from John Carpenter’s The Thing or Pennywise from Stephen King’s It in the way it adapts to each environment. According to Topping, its ability set will also randomise along with the map elements each time you start the game, and that will determine which gadgets from your expanding list of blueprints you’ll need to craft.
“You’re not just dealing with the same thing every time,” explains Topping. “In each map there are different artifacts to find, and the combination of artifacts that are in there unlocks the abilities for that specific monster. You might go in and it will be moving super quietly and it’s invisible for most of the time, then [you’ll] need to [craft] this tool, this tool, and this tool [in order to combat it].”
Ultimately, we’re not just trying to create one game; we’re trying to create a universe.
However, the interdimensional apex predator isn’t necessarily the only monster that players will have to contend with, as Weforge Studio is currently brainstorming ways for players to betray other players, potentially by steering them into the claws of the beast and then pilfering the loot off their freshly dispatched corpses.
“[In a way] that sounds like a good idea, but [the risk] is that you get into a realm where everyone is going to kill each other, and so why would they ever trust each other?” says Topping. “I think the feeling that we want to create is something like [social deception survival game] Dread Hunger where everyone works together, but in the back of their mind they’re kind of like… are we working together?”
“Our end goal is to create the feeling of… you’ve got the main monster and then you’ve also maybe got all these other little monsters around you [in the form of your fellow players], and you can’t ever be completely sure if you should trust what everyone else is saying.”
Exactly why the rifts have appeared and exactly what sort of dark forces are behind them is a mystery at this point, and at this stage Weforge Studio is keeping mum about the actual ‘extraction’ part of the experience – it’s not clear whether the goal is to gather resources and safely extract yourself from the area, or eventually somehow trap the monster and extract it along with you. However, what is clear is that Topping and his team have no shortage of ambition as far as the Macabre experience goes, and have apparently got a lengthy narrative backbone constructed that extends beyond just one game.
“Ultimately, we’re not just trying to create one game; we’re trying to create a universe, like a Tolkien universe,” explains Topping. “Maybe [Macabre] is like The Hobbit and we’ll [eventually] get to The Lord of the Rings, you know? It would be so cool to build out a world around this so that it doesn’t just end at this game. There’s so much more that we want to discover.”
Weforge Studio has just launched a crowdfunding campaign to support the development of Macabre, which is now live on Kickstarter. But it’s not just financial support that the team is seeking, but the feedback from fans to help shape the scope and design of the Macabre experience.
“The idea with the Kickstarter is that we want to get community involvement,” says Topping. “And I think we also want to do that during Early Access as well. Because ultimately, we can make a game for ourselves but [there’s no point] if no one’s there to play it.”
“So we want to hear what people want to see. We’ve set the parameters, the [template] of these [maps that] you can play in. Where do you want to go?”
Even in its early state there’s a lot to like about Macabre and it’s strong potential for serious scares, and I’m certainly keen to see how it – like its main monster – continues to shapeshift and surprise as it progresses deeper into development.
Tristan Ogilvie is a senior video editor at IGN AU. He’s more afraid of social media than he is of murderous beasts from another dimension, but on the rare occasions he does tweet you can find him here.
Paradox has delayed its The Sims-style game Life by You once again, but this time there is no new release date to go along with it.
Paradox announced Life By You in March 2023 as a new entry in the life sim genre from its Paradox Tectonic studio. At the time, an early access launch was planned for September, but the game was delayed to March 2024 to improve various elements.
Life by You was delayed a second time in February to June 4. Now, just two weeks before that planned launch, Paradox has delayed the game for a third time. In a statement, Mattias Lilja, deputy CEO of Paradox Interactive, said additional development time was needed and that it had held off announcing a new release date because when it does finally do so again, it wants to be sure it will hit it.
Here’s the statement in full:
After much consideration, we regret to announce that we have decided to retract Life by You’s Early Access release date, previously set for June 4th. This was not an easy decision, especially since we understand the anticipation and excitement that many players have for the game. However, we believe that additional development time is needed.
While we would have preferred to commit to a new release window, we believe it is more prudent to hold off while we plan ahead, rather than committing to a new date that we cannot be certain to meet.
We will provide more information as soon as possible, until then we want to sincerely thank you for your continued support and patience.
Paradox is having a tricky time following the disastrous launch of city builder Cities Skylines 2, which it is still working to sort out. Paradox has also delayed jail sim Prison Architect 2 a number of times, the latest to this September after the discovery of “unexpected issues occurring too often.” The Paradox-published Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has endured a troubled development, although a release date now looks in sight.
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.
