Mere moments before release, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has been delayed by the occult implosion of developers The Chinese Room, seemingly triggered by a last-ditch request from Paradox Interactive to add a microtransaction system and start charging for every bitten neck.
There is nothing left of The Chinese Room now. Nothing but a huge bubble of Cromwell invocations and bisexual lighting, right in the middle of Portsmouth. Occasionally, a level designer erupts from the congealing iridescent surface, begging to be allowed to make Dear Esther 2 instead, only to be dragged back into the orb by a thousand, vermillion-painted fingers.
Publishers Slitherine and developers The Artistocrats have launched one of those high-fadoodling “2.0” updates for Starship Troopers – Terran Command, their violently arachnophobic real-time strategy game from 2022. It introduces Territory Mode, which sees you defending three planets featured in the base game and two expansions, and brags of “a level of personalization and replayability never before seen in Terran Command”.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the Jurassic Park movies, it’s that running a dinosaur theme park isn’t easy. It’s a constant balancing act of keeping your employees satisfied, making your park profitable, and meeting your guests’ needs, whether that means having enough bathrooms or just not getting eaten by a velociraptor. Jurassic World Evolution 3 once again puts you in the role of park manager, giving you a chance to do what the John Hammonds and Simon Masranis of the world could not: run a thriving, lucrative theme park with attention-grabbing dinosaur attractions and minimal violent deaths. With a complex set of management and customization tools, Evolution 3 gives you more control over your park than ever before. The result is an incredibly engaging management sim that’s a high point in an already satisfying series.
Like the first two, Jurassic World Evolution 3 shares a lot of DNA with other theme park sims. You’re responsible for laying down paths and electrical infrastructure, building amenities that appeal to your clientele, and creating experiences that get more guests through your gates. Rather than roller coasters and haunted houses, though, the attractions are all about the dinosaurs. Just about any species will garner business, but having a variety is the key to long-term success — and thankfully, you’ll have a wealth of different dino types to choose from. There’s always a bit of a thrill in seeing these legendary creatures come to life, especially when you unlock the more recognizable species from the films.
Of course, when you go to Disneyland, there’s almost no chance that Mickey and the princesses will escape their enclosures and maul the park-goers. That adds an extra layer of danger to Evolution 3, and park managers will have to maintain a high safety rating to continue to pull in money. Think of it as a chill, cozy management sim punctuated by moments of panic and terror. You’ll have to keep your dinosaurs happy by meeting their food, environmental, and cohabitation needs. Some need room to roam or prefer to live in packs, while others can thrive in small areas with only a bit of pasture to nibble on. Carnivores require either fresh meat or live prey, while herbivores need greenery, fruit, and nuts. Flying and swimming dinosaurs need special enclosures, since fencing in a pteranodon is about as useful as hiding from a T-Rex in a bathroom stall. It’s really satisfying to get into a loop of researching dig sites, sending expeditions to those sites, extracting DNA, and finally, finding the perfect spot to incubate your newly discovered species.
If that seems like a lot to manage, it is — but the campaign does a great job of walking you through the increasingly complex mechanics. Head of PR Cabot Finch, who you might remember from the previous Jurassic World Evolution games, returns as your guide as you visit existing parks in progress around the world and restore them to greatness. In a nod to the original Jurassic Park, the campaign begins in the Montana badlands and eventually takes you to Las Vegas, Hawaii, and throughout Europe and Asia, adding a lot of variety to the local scenery. Finch is accompanied by a team of scientists and dinosaur experts, but the real star is Jeff Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm pops up from time to time to remind everyone that trying to control nature inevitably leads to disaster.
Think of it as a cozy management sim punctuated by moments of terror.
Even if you’re already familiar with the series, the campaign mode is an effective way of familiarizing yourself with Evolution 3’s new features. The biggest addition is the introduction of in-park breeding. Previously, you could only synthesize dinosaurs based on how much of their DNA you extracted from fossils found on expeditions. Now, once you’ve synthesized compatible males and females of the same species, you can set up a cozy nesting area and wait for them to get busy.
This mechanic adds a few interesting new wrinkles to the tried-and-true Jurassic World Evolution formula. You can work with your scientists to create a breeding plan, or preferably just wait and see if nature takes its course. Who knew it would be so fun to play matchmaker to a bunch of prehistoric creatures? Once the next generation hatches, juveniles might have different needs than their parents. For example, while grown carnivores prefer to hunt their own prey, baby raptors and T-rexes will need stores of prepared meat in their pens. The tallest dinosaurs can reach the foliage on treetops, but their offspring will need nourishment closer to the ground. If you let breeding go on unchecked, pens can get overcrowded, which leads to breakouts and general panic among your guests.
While you’re managing these dinosaur family units, you’ll also have to curry favor with the entertainment, security, and conservation factions, another new feature. You can gain reputation by completing certain contracts, which are basically well-paid side missions, and improving the quality of your parks. Gaining a positive reputation with all three factions becomes very important in the last few chapters of the story, but they don’t necessarily want the same things. Pleasing them becomes yet another balancing act that adds more depth to the gameplay.
The campaign in Jurassic World Evolution 2 felt more like an extended tutorial, but this time around, you have more breathing room to find your own management style. Its objectives serve as a backbone to the overall story in which an activist group called Extinction Now! regularly hacks into your communications and sabotages your parks. As you make your way around the globe, you’ll also need to put a stop to Extinction Now!’s histrionics. The first few parks are heavily guided, but once the map opens up and you go international, you have a lot of welcome freedom to meet your objectives in whatever way you see fit.
Pleasing the new factions is yet another balancing act that adds depth.
Part of the fun of the management sim genre is being able to create something entirely from scratch, which you can do in sandbox mode. This mode has been a staple of the Jurassic World Evolution games, and Evolution 3 offers even more customization options. To start, you can choose any of the locations from the campaign, generate an island with its own unique topography, or use the square maps for a perfectly flat, obstacle-free mass of land.
You have control over almost every aspect in the sandbox, including your starting funds, certain dinosaur behaviors, and beyond. You can make it more challenging for yourself with a shoestring budget or choose unlimited funding to remove all cost barriers to creating the dinosaur theme park of your dreams depending on what you are in the mood for. You can take on contracts to make extra money, but for the most part, sandbox mode is an unguided experience. It’s easy to lose track of time when you’re making sure your paths are perfectly aligned or setting up an unforgettable park tour with maximum dinosaur visibility. And unlike in the campaign, where Cabot, Malcolm, and the rest of the cast are frequently chattering at you, the sandbox is quiet and zen. Well, at least until the indoraptors get loose.
The third gameplay mode, scenarios, was my least favorite of the three. These timed challenges, which can take anywhere from 12 minutes to a couple of hours, have specific objectives and restrictions. In one, you’ll have to take manual control of one of your ranger teams and take photos of wild dinosaurs; in another, you might be barred from editing the existing dinosaur pens regardless of the well-being of those inside. I couldn’t get on board with this time-trial approach to park management; for me, it was antithetical to the zen-like experience I’m looking for in a sim, and the objectives weren’t interesting enough to make them worth the effort. I found myself missing Jurassic World Evolution 2’s Chaos Theory mode, which sadly appears to be extinct.
But even though I didn’t personally vibe with the Scenarios, it’s impressive that Evolution 3 offers options for just about every kind of management sim fan. If you need a story to guide you through the gameplay, the campaign has you covered. If you want to build something that’s entirely your own, you can do so in the sandbox. And if you actually like high-pressure time trials, you’ll probably find Scenario mode more satisfying than I did.
I’m even more impressed with the quality-of-life updates Evolution 3 brings to the series. With the right infrastructure, you can automate maintenance and medical care, saving you from having to manually track down those units every time there’s a crisis. Aspects that were convoluted or confusing in the previous games, like creating park tours, are far more straightforward. There are more tours to choose from beyond the standard Jeep rides and gyroscopes from the movies; you can set up a hot air balloon tour or build a Cretaceous Cruise that allows guests to canoe through rivers and lakes. Boosting your transportation score by setting up monorail stations and tracks throughout the park feels much more intuitive this time around. As you expand, you can easily edit the existing tracks to expand their reach — or just set up an underground hyperloop to make traversing the park even simpler. A lot of rough edges have been smoothed out.
I ran into a few technical issues while playing, though most of them have already been addressed by a patch. Most notably, the “continue” and “load” options were missing from the menu every time I started it up, so I had to begin a new game and load manually from there every time I wanted to get back into my ongoing campaign. This meant more long load screens and hearing the opening voiceover over a dozen times, which isn’t ideal. Again, that thankfully appears to have been fixed, but I also experienced a few crashes when trying to revisit my Indonesia park, which meant going through that same loop of starting a new game and loading all over again.
Another drawback of playing Evolution 3 before release is that I didn’t get to check out the community creations. Because it has so many more customization options than its predecessors, it makes sense that players would want to share their creations with the world. It’s a fun idea on paper, though I can’t say for certain whether it works in execution since there was an extremely limited player pool before launch.
Well folks, as promised, another Nintendo Direct for Kirby Air Riders has been announced for this week on Thursday, 23rd October 2025.
We’re getting another 60 minutes’ worth of information from director Masahiro Sakurai on the upcoming game, which is due to launch for the Switch 2 on 20th November 2025.
Nintendo has announced the second Kirby Air Riders Direct with director Masahiro Sakurai. It’s set for October 23 at 6am PT / 9am ET / 2pm UK time.
This one’s even longer than the 45-minute Kirby Air Riders Direct we saw in August. Expect roughly 60 minutes of information on the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive, Nintendo said.
“You might be asking yourself if it’s basically Mario Kart,” Sakurai said. “You race and battle with familiar characters around courses with different features, or so they say. Ok, so it basically is like Mario Kart. I even mentioned this when I received the request to make the game. I asked them if they still wanted to do it. But as fans of the original know…the appeal of the game is not actually the races!”
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.
PlayStation Plus Extra will lose seven games in November 2025, Sony has confirmed.
As reported by Push Square, the seven games set to exit the subscription tier include 2018’s Battlefield 5, Digimon Survive, and Like a Dragon Ishin. Battlefield 5 leaves PS Plus Extra hot on the heels of Battlefield 6’s record-breaking launch.
The list of titles is expected to make way on November 18, when Sony will release the next PS Plus Extra update. As Push Square points out, it’s worth noting that games in PS Plus Extra can no longer be played once they’re rotated out of the catalog, even if you continue to subscribe. So make the most of these games while you still can.
The games set to leave PlayStation Plus Extra in November 2025:
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.
Embark Studios CEO and former EA guy Patrick Söderlund has been chatting about the usage of generative AI and machine learning in Arc Raiders, the forthcoming looter shooter with the neat motorbike helmets. He’s of the opinion that while generative AI tools at large are “pioneering” inventions that “should completely change how this industry functions”, “the human aspect is still essential”. Nonetheless, it’s patently obvious from Embark’s self-commentary in general that the real pioneering element of genAI technologies is cutting specific humans out of the picture, so that More Videogame May Be Made.
Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto has expressed his disappointment that former staff of the now shuttered Ridgeline Games were not “properly” credited in Battlefield 6, despite building the “foundation” of the game.
Fast forward to Battlefield 6’s record-breaking release, and Lehto has taken to LinkedIn to recognize the work done by his former staff at Ridgeline on the game.
“I’m disappointed to see that many of my former teammates from Ridgeline Games were not properly credited in the recent release of Battlefield 6,” he said in a post that included a list of names under the Ridgeline Games banner.
“These talented developers worked tirelessly for 1 to 2.5 years, building the foundation of the game, before I left voluntarily and the studio was subsequently shuttered. Despite their significant contributions, most who were laid off were relegated to a ‘Special Thanks’ section at the very end of the credits — and several were omitted entirely, including myself.
“Out of respect for my colleagues and the awesome work they poured into this project, I want to take a moment to properly recognize them — listing their names and roles as I would have preferred them to appear in the credits.
“Game development is a team effort, and every contributor deserves fair acknowledgment.”
IGN has asked EA for comment.
In an internal note issued at the time of Ridgeline’s closure, EA Entertainment president Laura Miele said that Criterion producer Danny Isaac and studio head of creative Darren White would replace Lehto to continue work on the planned narrative campaign, with some members of Ridgeline Games joining Ripple Effect to continue working on Battlefield.
EA would go on to announce Battlefield Studios, the four-strong developer collective working on the mega-publisher’s Battlefield franchise. It currently includes DICE, Ripple Effect, Motive, and Criterion.
Lehto is a Bungie veteran whose portfolio includes serving as creative director on Halo: Reach. He joined EA in the wake of criticism over Battlefield 2042’s lack of a single-player narrative campaign.
While Battlefield 6 has enjoyed enormous sales success and won plaudits for its multiplayer, the campaign was poorly received. IGN’s Battlefield 6 campaign review returned a 5/10. We said: “A safe, dull reimagining of what Battlefield once was, rather than a bold reinvention of what it could be.”
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.
Former Ridgeline Games boss and Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto has spoken out against the diminished representation of certain old Ridgeline colleagues in Battlefield 6‘s credits, pointing out that some have been “entirely omitted” despite their years of work laying the “foundation” for EA’s new FPS.
Dragon Quest VII: Reimagined may look all cute and cosy, but fans of the original game will know that its story is pretty dark when compared to other entries in the series.
According to producer Takeshi Ichikawa in a new interview with GameSpark (thanks, Automaton), this is actually a key factor in the team’s decision to bring the game back for modern platforms. Ichikawa believes that players have grown more accustomed to games with darker narratives, and so this essentially paved the way to revisit Dragon Quest VII.
Former Ridgeline Games boss and Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto has spoken out against the diminished representation of certain old Ridgeline colleagues in