Category: Video Games

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Part of EA Play in Some PlayStation Regions

EA has made Star Wars Jedi: Survivor part of the EA Play subscription in some PlayStation regions.

IGN has confirmed Respawn’s action adventure is now part of EA Play on PlayStation in the UK. EA has yet to made an announcement, but the move comes ahead of an expected price hike for the subscription service.

Earlier in April it emerged that EA Play would get a price increase starting May 10. EA plans to increase the standard tier for EA Play from $4.99 to $5.99 per month, or for those that prefer to pay for a year in advance, the price will increase from $29.99 to $39.99. In contrast, the Pro tier of EA Play will increase from a monthly fee of $14.99 to $16.99 or $119.99 annually (a $20 increase).

The inclusion of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor in EA Play would soften the blow of a price rise. Presumably it will also be available as part of an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription, which includes EA Play, although the Microsoft Store is yet to show it.

IGN’s Star Wars Jedi: Survivor review returned a 9/10. We said: “If Respawn makes a third game like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Fallen Order, it’ll complete the best Star Wars trilogy in 30 years, hands down.”

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.

Mortal Kombat 1 Stealth-Dropped a Secret Brutality for All Characters

Mortal Kombat 1 players have discovered a secret Brutality for all characters that developer NetherRealm appears to have stealth-dropped into the game.

All Mortal Kombat 1 characters have Brutalities — unique moves that end a match in a particularly brutal fashion. They’re triggered by doing an extra input command on top of a specific combo ender or move that wins the final round. Most of the characters in the game have six brutalities, but ever since Mortal Kombat 1 launched in September last year, players have discovered secret Brutalities, too.

As reported by EventHubs, Mortal Kombat 1 players are only now discovering a secret Brutality that works for every character in the game. It involves depleting your opponent’s health bar with a back throw that sees your character launch their hapless foe straight into the game’s camera. To trigger this match ender, hold up and back punch after performing the throw.

X / Twitter user Mortal_Kombat_Addict revealed a few examples of this secret Brutality in the clip below (warning, as with all things Mortal Kombat, the video is a gorefest!):

The secret Brutality was discovered after the launch of Mortal Kombat 1 Season 5: Storms, which also saw the release of DLC character Ermac for Kombat Pack owners. Speaking of Ermac, the soul-loving ninja has a new Brutality ripped straight from Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.

Season 5: Storms revolves around the arrival of Raiden as the main boss in Invasions mode, and includes fresh challenges, story elements, boss battles, and rewards. Season 5: Storms runs until June 4. Kameo fighter Mavado is available May 2024.

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.

Embracer will split into three companies, including Middle-earth & Friends

Famed mass-layoff-manufacturing corporation Embracer Group are dividing into three companies, which will be listed separately on Sweden’s stock exchange. Those companies are: Asmodee Group, which comprises Embracer’s tabletop games biz; Coffee Stain & Friends, an evolution of the existing Coffee Stain publisher, who will pursue “a dual focus on indie and A/AA premium and free-to-play games for PC/console and mobile”; and Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends, “a creative powerhouse in AAA game development and publishing for PC and console, as well as the stewards of The Lord of the Rings and Tomb Raider intellectual properties, among many others”.

After writing roughly 100,000 posts about Embracer’s butchering of vast swathes of the games industry, this is surely my chance to raise a cheer and celebrate the conglomerate’s unglomming with a cool glass of turnip juice, but it is Monday, the man next door is shouting again, and I am tired – so tired that only ill-suited Simpsons references come to mind.

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Fallout TV Show Sparks Debate Over Who Dropped the Bombs First — Here Are the Fan Theories

Warning: spoilers for the Fallout TV show follow.

If you watched the Fallout TV show as a fan of the video games upon which it’s based, one revelation in particular will have caught your eye: who dropped the bombs first on that fateful day in 2077.

Fallout’s nuclear apocalypse was thought to have been triggered by China going first. Tim Cain, co-creator of Fallout, said in an interview last year that it was indeed China who dropped the first nuke. “The reason we got nuked is: bio-weapons were illegal and somehow China found out we were doing FEV [Forced Evolutionary Virus],” Cain explained in an interview with Fallout lore expert TKs-Mantis. “And they were like, ‘you have to stop it.’ And we went, ‘OK.’ And all we did is move it. All we did was move it over.”

But the Fallout TV show heavily suggests Vault-Tec, the evil corporate manufacturer of Fallout’s famous vaults, triggered the nuclear war by dropping bombs of its own — essentially for profit.

This megaton has sent shockwaves throughout the Fallout lore community, but there is a groundswell of opinion that Vault-Tec shooting first is a misdirection. For a start, if Vault-Tec started the war by dropping the first bomb, wouldn’t Barb, a high-up executive privy to the company’s plan, have ensured Cooper Howard and their daughter were safe within a vault and not outside at a kid’s party before pushing the big red button?

This contradiction raises the question: did Vault-Tec in-fact drop the first bomb? Or was the company caught off guard by, for example, China going first unexpectedly hours earlier? That’s the theory suggested by redditor Corpolentusmaximus2, who points to Obsidian’s 2010 game Fallout New Vegas to back up the claim. In New Vegas, antagonist Mr. House reveals he miscalculated the Great War by 20 hours. The Fallout TV show confirms Mr. House was in the room when Vault-Tec revealed its dastardly plan. Perhaps everyone was caught off guard by China going “early.”

Fans are now hoping to see more of the backstory to the nuclear war in the confirmed Fallout Season 2, which we know will include one of Fallout’s iconic monsters. It seems inevitable that we’ll get more pre-war Cooper Howard, since his separation from Barb and the events leading up to Season 1’s opening go unexplained in Season 1. But there are other unanswered questions following Fallout Season 1, including about the Snake Oil Salesman’s mysterious serum.

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.

Embracer Group To Split Into Three Separate Companies

Sullied name.

Embracer Group has announced its intention to split the company into three separate entities going forward in what seems to be a drastic attempt to streamline its operations and rebuild its reputation after months of downsizing and layoffs.

Announced via the official website (thanks, VGC), the company confirmed that each entity will be listed on Nasdasq Stockholm and will be called ‘Asmodee’, ‘Coffee Stain & Friends’, and ‘Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends’.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Fallout 4, Fallout 76, and Other Fallout Games Surge in Popularity, Put Pressure on Mod Site NexusMods

Amid the success of the Fallout TV show, Fallout video games are enjoying a resurgence in popularity. The player boost is so significant that even NexusMods is struggling to cope.

The mod site issued a warning over the weekend that increased interest in Fallout mods had caused heavy network traffic, forcing it to deploy “extra resources” to cope. Explaining the situation, NexusMods namechecked the popularity of the Fallout TV show.

“We are experiencing much more traffic than usual due to the popularity of the Fallout TV series,” NexusMods said in a statement. “We have deployed extra resources where possible and we are monitoring the uptime and performance across the network. We have staff on call at all times to deal with any problems.

“Please do be aware that this extra traffic could cause a degraded experience across the website and our applications.”

Even now, April 22, the problem continues, with a “degraded performance” warning on-site.

Perhaps it’s no surprise to see NexusMods struggling given the increase in player numbers for everything from the original Fallout to the most recent release, Fallout 76. On Steam, which tracks concurrent player numbers, Fallout 4 has seen a significant increase, resulting in a peak concurrent player count of 164,190 over the weekend. Fallout 76, meanwhile, has hit its all-time peak on Valve’s platform, with 73,368 concurrents. The actual player numbers for Fallout games will be even higher, given their availability on multiple platforms, including Game Pass.

Fallout 4 is set to get yet another shot in the arm with this week’s release of its next-gen update. As for the Fallout TV show, we know for sure Fallout will get a second season, and that it will include one of Fallout’s iconic monsters. To keep you going until Season 2, be sure to check out IGN’s wide-ranging, spoiler-filled interview with Bethesda Game Studios executive Todd Howard and executive producer and director Jonathan Nolan. Elsewhere, lore experts believe the Brotherhood of Steel airship seen in the show makes one of two Fallout 4 endings canon. There are plenty of unanswered questions following Fallout Season 1, too, including about the Snake Oil Salesman’s mysterious serum.

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.

A former Homeworld dev has made a free browser game that plays like an ultraviolent Office Space sequel

Rising Up is a free, sub-fifteen minute browser game that’s a bit like Streets of Rage, where you play a balding office worker and beat a giant scanner to death within the first 30 seconds. This, I believe, should be enough to tempt you into dunking it enthusiastically into your next break coffee, but if you need more convincing, let’s do it.

Created by E.H Jørgensen, whose credits include Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, Rising Up is a relatively simple 3 button side scroller that has you make your way up an office building, destroying everything in your path. First, irate co-workers wield swivel chairs. Then, security join the fray. Then some sort of G-men get involved. You can punch, block, jump, and air-kick. The brawling is simple but satisfying enough, and the way office equipment violently degrades when hit is better, but this isn’t why I’m recommending the game.

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Best Fallout 4 Deal on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox

Fallout 4 sales have skyrocketed in Europe in the past week, rising over 7,500%. Steam player charts also recently hit more than 160,000 people over a weekend, almost ten years after the game was initially released. The Fallout TV Show on Amazon Prime Video has massively influenced the resurgence of the game, with fans of the show now flocking to play Bethesda’s 2015 entry to the franchise.

Not only that, but there’s been some huge sales on the Fallout franchise since the show hit our screens, and Fallout 76 is even free to download on Xbox and PC right now as well. With all that in mind, if you’re looking to play Fallout 4 again this week ready for the ‘next-gen’ update on April 25, here are all the best deals running right now for PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.

Best Fallout 4 Deal

PC (Steam)

PlayStation

Xbox

While some of these aren’t as cheap as the game has been in recent weeks (Fallout 4 was $5 during the Steam FPS sale), it’s worth having an idea of the best prices at the moment in case a better deal does come along and you can act swiftly in order to secure it. Plus, Fallout 4 is also available on PS Plus Extra or Game Pass, so if you have either of those subscriptions the game is available to play at no extra cost.

If you’re after even more of the post-nuclear wasteland, consider checking out our Fallout partnership on the IGN Store; featuring Fallout hoodies, TV show merch, fully functional Pip-Boy replicas, and so much more.

Otherwise, you could also consider checking out the Fallout themed AriZona x Fallout Green Tea Energy Drink for $36 on Amazon (now back in stock), alongside the Bones Coffee Company Valiant Vanilla Fallout-themed coffee for $19.99. or their Atomic Apple Flavored Coffee set for $19.99 as well. For more, you can check out Amazon’s Fallout themed storefront as well.

The Fallout TV series arrived on Prime Video on April 10 when the streaming service dropped all eight episodes from the first season concurrently. Following its debut, the series has been met with overwhelmingly positive feedback from fans and critics — particularly those praising Goggins for his portrayal of the gunslinging Ghoul Cooper Howard. Since its release, Prime Video officially renewed Fallout for a second season.

With the show’s success, IGN recently caught up with Bethesda Game Studios executive Todd Howard and executive producer and director Jonathan Nolan for a wide-ranging, spoiler-filled interview. In it, Nolan alluded to his plans for the future of Fallout.

Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.

The Maw 22nd-27th April 2024

Ugh, I do not have the energy to feed the Maw this week. Sometimes the creature manifests as a proper monstrosity, with B-movie prosthetics and sound effects, and sometimes, it’s more of an… unfathomable annoyance, like a nose that won’t stop running, or a single player game that requires an internet connection. In either case, the Maw must be sated, and fortunately, there are quite a few appetising video-or-computer games out in the next seven days, with at least one behemoth landing on Friday.

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