Category: Video Games

Today Amazon is offering the SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7P wireless gaming headset for only $127.99. That’s a nearly 30% discount and the best price we’ve seen for the Arctis Nova 7 series headset so far this year. We deemed the Arctis Nova 7P as the best wireless PS5 gaming headset of 2024.

A quick note on compatibility. The Nova 7P is compatible with the PS5, PS4, and PC consoles. You will need to the the Nova 7X model for the Xbox console, although unfortunately it’s not on sale right now.

SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7P Gaming Headset for $127.99

The SteelSeries Arcis Nova 7P is the latest successor to the highly rated Arctis 7 series of headsets. It’s every bit as good as its predecessor but with some welcome upgrades like a USB Type-C charging port, a longer battery life (38 hours vs 30 hours), simultaneous wireless and Bluetooth connectivity, and multi-platform compatibility. PC gamers also have access to the SteelSeries GG app, which opens up a whole suite of customization for your audio. You can tailor your audio settings independently for each game. If that’s too much for you, there are presets for specific games that are actually tailor-made by the game developers.

Other than that, the Nova Arctis is largely similar to the original Arctis. That’s not a bad thing because the Arctis 7 happens to be Steelseries’ most successful gaming headset ever. This headset has significantly better build quality over the official $100 Xbox wireless headset. If you want an even better wireless headset, in our opinion you’d have to step all the way up to something like the Nova 7 Pro, whose $350 price point puts you in a completely different bracket altogether.

For our hands-on impressions, check out our IGN SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7 review. We picked the Nova 7 as one of the best wireless gaming headsets. In my opinion, the only superior SteelSeries headset is the Arctis Nova Pro (wireless) and that goes for more than double the price.

If you’re looking for more PS5 games and accessories, check out the best PS5 deals today.

SSD prices are trending upwards for 2024, but there are still some excellent deals to be found if you’re vigilant. For a limited time, Amazon is current offering this PS5 compatible HP FX900 Pro 2TB PCIe Gen4 x4 M.2 solid state drive (SSD) for only $107.99. For the even more space hungry, the 4TB is also on sale for $224.99. You’ll need to supply your own heatsink, but you can easily get a PS5 heatsink for under $10. All of the other best PS5 SSDs cost $40 or more.

HP FX900 Pro 2TB SSD (PS5-Compatible) for $107.99

4TB for $224.99

The HP FX900 Pro meets all the requirements for your PS5 SSD upgrade. This is a PCIe Gen4 x4 SSD with an M.2 2280 form factor and transfer speeds of up to 7,400MB/s read and 6,800MB/s write which is well above the 5,500MB/s minimum threshold. It also makes an excellent boot drive for your gaming PC, especially with its 2TB storage capacity. If you go with the 4TB version, you might not even need a second drive.

The PS5 is an outstanding gaming console, but the 1TB SSD is a real bottleneck. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, for example, can exceed 200GB alone. NBA 2K23 weighs in at 150GB and even older games like God of War: Ragnarok and Horizon Forbidden West require 90GB of space. Future games like Grand Theft Auto VI will undoubtedly demand even more space. The advantage of a PS5 console over the Xbox Series X is that the SSD slot is not proprietary; you can install most third party PCIe Gen4 x4 SSDs as long as they are fast enough. Slower drives WILL work, but they may bottleneck the original SSD.

Willing to pay more for another brand? Check out all of the best PS5 SSD deals today.

At GDC 2024, Epic held its State of Unreal event, unveiling the latest news and developments coming to Unreal Engine — specifically Unreal Engine 5 and Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN).

If you missed the event, here’s a quick rundown of everything announced during the 2024 State of Unreal presentation.

Amy Hennig Reveals Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra at State of Unreal

In an unexpected yet pleasant surprise, Amy Henig and Skydance Media started the show by unveiling Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra, one of two projects Hennig has spearheaded since joining the studio.

Alongside a proper reveal of the game, we also learned that it would use Epic’s tech, most notably MetaHuman Animator, to provide more photorealistic facial animations. Last year, it was revealed that Ninja Theory was using this same technology in its upcoming game Hellblade 2: Senua’s Saga.

Epic is Integrating MetaHuman to UEFN

As we previously mentioned, MetaHuman Animator is one of the tools part of MetaHuman, and Epic announced today that both MetaHuman Animator and MetaHuman Creator are coming to UEFN. Epic says integration will debut “at the end of April.”

With MetaHuman, UEFN creators can craft both photorealistic fictional characters and provide photorealistic facial animations using captured footage they obtained from an iPhone or a head-mounted camera.

Epic Will Launch a Fortnite Season Developed on UEFN Next Year

As part of its UEFN roadmap, Epic Games revealed that “by the end of 2025,” it will ship the first season of its widely popular free-to-play Battle Royale, made entirely using the level editor.

Beyond that surprise, Epic went into more detail about the UEFN roadmap and the new creator tools it will add this year. This includes confirmation that the highly-requested first-person camera setting will arrive in UEFN sometime this year.

Fortnite Creators Will Get Access to Elements From Rocket Racing, Fall Guys, and LEGO Assets

Epic continues expanding on the Fortnite creator economy by introducing new creative devices and race track templates. Specifically, the publisher revealed that Fortnite creators would be able to leverage elements from Rocket Racing, Fall Guys, and LEGO, allowing creators more ways to express their creativity while building unique experiences all within Fortnite.

Fortnite’s creator economy has continued to go strong since both it and UEFN launched roughly a year ago. Epic revealed that since then, it has paid more than $320 million to creators in the first year of engagement payouts and that creators have published over 80,000 UEFN islands.

Some New Details on Epic Games Store Mobile Version

We already knew that Epic Games was planning to release its digital storefront on mobile devices via the iOS App Store and Android’s Google Play later this year, thanks to the new EU legislation, the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

Epic took time during today’s State of Unreal to share its plans. It touts that the Epic Games Store (EGS) will become the “first-ever game-focused, multi-platform store” that will work across Android, iOS, PC, and macOS. Epic further revealed that mobile developers would benefit “from the same fair terms” found on EGS with an 88/12 revenue share, in addition to other programs that allow you to keep 100% of the revenue earned from using your own payments for in-app purchases.

Epic also revealed that when this digital storefront releases, Fortnite will be brought back to mobile devices (EU only) after the mobile version of its popular battle royale was removed from the App Store and Google Play in 2020.

Dune: Awakening Gets a Deep Dive at the State of Unreal

Skydance Media was not the only game developer to attend the State of Unreal. Funcom also appeared to dive deeper into its upcoming open-world game Dune: Awakening.

It was previously revealed that Dune: Awakening was powered by Unreal Engine 5, but Funcom also elaborated further on how the Dune IP was leveraging Epic’s technologies. This includes Funcom sharing how Dune: Part 2 cinematographer Greig Fraser used Unreal Engine for planning and pre-production purposes for the film.

Unreal Engine 5.4’s Full Release Is Coming Next Month

Epic told IGN ahead of the presentation that while it has some ideas for Unreal Engine 6, we should not expect the next major iteration of its game engine anytime soon.

With that in mind, State of Unreal provided the latest update for the already impressive Unreal Engine 5, revealing that version 5.4 Preview 1 is launching today with a full release slated for “late April.”

Most notably, Epic says that “animation takes big strides forward,” thanks to Unreal Engine 5.4, confirming that it features Motion Matching, a streamlining but highly effective way for developers to animate characters. Epic revealed that Motion Matching has already been on full display via Fortnite, which has used It since Chapter 5 was released.

Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

We already knew that Amy Hennig, the award-winning writer and director behind games such as Jak 3 and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, was working on a narrative-driven Marvel game focused on Captain America and Black Panther. And today, we finally learned some new details, including its official title: Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra. It’ll arrive sometime in 2025.

The reveal was made at Epic’s State of Unreal 20024 showcase, where we saw a cinematic trailer featuring Captain America and Black Panther in 1940s Europe. We also learned that the game will not only be powered by Unreal Engine 5, but it will include MetaHuman Animator, the same facial animation tool that Ninja Theory will be using for its upcoming project Hellblade 2: Senua’s Saga. MetaHuman Animator will allow any developer taking advantage of the tech to use an iPhone or stereo helmet-mounted camera to “reproduce any facial performance as high-fidelity animation” on its characters, providing more realistic facial animations.

Konami has revealed the Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater remake main menu as part of a new video series fronted by Solid Snake voice actor David Hayter.

The Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater remake, officially titled Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater (the Δ is pronounced ‘delta’), is set to bring “unprecedented new graphics” to Hideo Kojima’s 2004 sequel. The main menu screen, below, doesn’t reveal much, save a look at Snake Eater’s famous jungle environment. We also hear the classic Metal Gear Solid gun sound with a press of the start button.

Please don’t tell anyone…

(But I played the opening of #MGSDelta up to the bridge scene the other day.)

(It was spectacular.)

pic.twitter.com/1A1MZqLwFV

— David Hayter (@DavidBHayter) March 20, 2024

Konami has revealed little of the Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater remake save the announcement trailer and Unreal Engine 5-powered footage, and it has yet to announce a release date. However, in January, PlayStation listed the Metal Gear Solid 3 remake as a 2024 game in a trailer advertising various PlayStation 5 games coming out this year. It’s also coming to Xbox Series X and S and PC.

Announced in May 2023 after a series of rumors, Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater promises to be a faithful retelling of the original game and will implement the original voice acting that featured David Hayter.

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.