Category: Video Games

Hot on the heels of Ninja Gaiden’s own 2D revival with the excellent Ragebound, Double Dragon Revive comes off more like a tribute band for the series rather than a proper reunion tour. It doesn’t play the hits how you remember it, instead putting its own spin on things – from how it looks, to how it sounds, to how it plays. All of those aspects not only fail to live up to my admittedly mild expectations for a new Double Dragon, but after hours of its out of tune meandering, started to cement the idea that maybe we should put a little more distance between attempts to revitalize this series.

Even though I’ve been playing these games for most of my life it’s sort of jarring how straightforward Double Dragon Revive is. Side scrollers of this arcadey, “belt scroll” variety have found a lot of ways to spice up the “punch your way to the right” recipe, and Revive seems interested in keeping as much of that new seasoning away from its plate as possible. It’s a basic protein packed with eight non-branching levels, accompanied by starchy combat that’s filling but has barely any sauce.

Picking up any of the four playable characters is simple and intuitive, with normal attack strings that can be mashed out on one button alongside special attacks and hyper blows that can be used to punctuate these combos, or in some instances extend your offense into wall bouncing juggles. All of these actions are unique to each fighter. Well, Billy and Jimmy Lee have distinctions that don’t translate into mechanical differences, but former damsel-turned-headkicker Marian and ninja frenemy Ranzo have attacks that are a little more flashy and utilitarian. I rarely felt it necessary to use more than basic combo loops on Normal difficulty, though. As long as an enemy didn’t have an annoying shield or hyper armor protecting them as they wound up a big attack (something ubiquitous in the later levels), they were reliably vulnerable to a good old fashioned fist to the face.

There are limited options for those who do want to attempt to style on these street thugs, but they all rely on bouncing enemies off of walls to keep them in the air long enough to string more hits together as they come down. It often felt like enemies kind of just went wherever they wanted after a launch or a throw as opposed to where you directed them to go, making a laborious task out of trying to set up simple combo extensions, jamming enemies into background environmental hazards that take them out of the fight instantly, or taking advantage of the super powerful wall strike and wall crash options.

There’s no air combos to be had either, so chasing a launched bad guy skyward only allows you a single, disappointing smash down to earth so you can wait for them to stand up and let you hit them again. Everyone can get a free hit on downed enemies, if you can finagle the finicky button prompt to do so that is unresponsive and unreliable. If there’s the right kind of wall around – the right kind being the one they decide is right based on no reliable context clues – you can do a super sized air dropping attack, but even getting the wall kick off that’s required to get the requisite height is a dice roll.

Everyone has powerful, screen clearing finishing blow attacks that are charged up by all the fisticuffs, with boosts given when you make a timely dodge, counter an enemy’s big attack, or grow your combo meter. But no playable character, not even with Ranzo’s cool explosive kunai or Marian’s charging knee, can make Revive’s combat feel special, or even interesting, across long stretches of time. It took me around three hours to finish my first playthrough, and I lost interest well before then, with three more playthroughs after that, one for each playable character.

That said, enemy variety is at least diverse and effective at making you use the small menu of options you have. As levels progress, old bad guys show up to mingle with the newer ones to form a sort of street thug gumbo that can get a little spicy towards the end of your run. It’s largely a numbers game, with you often getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of incoming blows from all angles. I liked the little brain puzzle of having to identify the most dangerous threat to take out first, or needing to figure out the most efficient way to wrangle as many folks as possible into a big attack, but it wasn’t beguiling enough for me to forget that the process of breaking these dudes down was still rather dull. Even the array of limited use weapons, though strong tools usually worth the effort to grab if things get hairy, are your standard fare knives, two-by-fours, sledgehammers, etc.

As the challenge escalates, some of Revive’s jank becomes an enemy of its own. Small things, like the direction of your character sometimes defaulting to the opposite direction inexplicably, stops being a quirk to work around and starts being the reason you drop a combo or get punished.

Bosses break the monotony up a little bit, introducing slightly more engaging stage hazards and pattern mechanics, like Linda, who you need to shake off of the pillars she’s hiding on top off before you can attack her directly. These get pretty brutal towards the end, though, specifically the chapter seven boss, which has to be the most aggravating fight I’ve maybe ever played in one of these games – truly a test of endurance against a ceaseless onslaught of the most cheating cheaters the game has to offer.

There’s not a lot of flash visually, either. Most character models look good, but the fire, wind, and dragon effects that come from their limbs when channeling their chi looks a step behind in quality. Camera work and sound design come together adequately to make big hits feel good and all that jazz. The sound track is decent, with a handful original riffy rockouts and remixes of old series jams that sound good in the moment but sort of leave your head immediately after they end. Overall, Double Dragon Revive lacks the visual identity that the 16-bit Double Dragon Gaiden and even pastel-punk Double Dragon Neon have, let alone its peers like Shinobi: Art of Vengeance and Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound from this year.

The stages you bash your way through run a much broader gamut. A colorful Japanese pagoda-style tower with a fun little perspective shift mid-way through is simple but much more stirring than a non-descript highway level, even if there is a wrestling ring at the end of it. Some of these zones require some platforming that I was never happy to see but in mercifully short bursts. It’s a bit of an eye-roll that most of these stages are just takes on series staple locations without much novel flair added this time around, but it’s truly disappointing how many of these locations are just bland and lifeless.

And not to be one of those “the story in this beat ’em up sucks” sort of freaks, but I mean, it does. It’s less that the plot is nonsense, the characters are bland, and the writing is lousy and more that Revive lacks the confident and chaotic energy that is necessary to sell this sort of thing to begin with. The post-apocalyptic villain of Neon was a gang-leading demon knight straight out of a heavy metal album cover named Skullmaggedon. The gang struggles in Gaiden made that version of New York City feel like Gotham City, complete with goons color-coded and themed after their outlandish bosses. By comparison, Revive is just a completely tame and underwhelming take on returning villains Willy and Raymond, who used black magic and the military industrial complex to experiment on people and make the Sousetsuken kid’s lives worse.

Gearbox has said the hotly anticipated Borderlands 4 patch that will finally dull crit knife builds is delayed again and will now launch alongside the Horrors of Kairos mini-event.

Borderlands 4’s ‘Day 30 Update’ was set to launch last week but was delayed to early this week. Fans had wondered when it would turn up after another no-show today, prompting developer Gearbox to say it’s now due out alongside Horrors of Kairos, which runs from October 23 to November 6.

“Glad you’re excited for the update!” Gearbox is posting on social media in response to questions about the patch. “We have a few things we’re tidying up right now, and it’ll be rolling out with the Horrors of Kairos mini-event. We can’t wait for you to see what we’ve been brewing.”

The question now is when exactly the patch will be released. Horrors of Kairos is down to start on October 23, but it may end up releasing at some point between then and November 6.

Last week, Gearbox developers addressed disgruntled Borderlands 4 players who questioned the need to nerf overpowered builds in the mostly single-player looter shooter, saying it was necessary to preserve the challenge and encourage build “diversity.”

Players have been bracing themselves for the end of builds that rely on what the community has dubbed ‘the crit knife,’ an “unintended interaction” Gearbox has said will be nerfed with this upcoming patch.

Borderlands 4 is rife with overpowered builds that cause massive damage, even to the game’s toughest bosses on the hardest difficulties. The most infamous of these is the crit knife, which Gearbox has said it’s aware of. But there are many others.

The nerf sweep set to hit Borderlands 4 has sparked a debate within the game’s community about the rights and wrongs of balance changes such as these in single-player games. With no PvP component, Borderlands 4 is mostly about solo players — and occasional groups of co-op players — farming bosses for loot that makes their build ever so slightly better each time.

(IGN recently interviewed a Borderlands 4 player who spent 150 hours on over 3,000 boss kills to find out the game’s true drop rate.)

Builds based on the crit knife, for example, can essentially delete bosses even on Borderlands 4’s toughest difficulty, making farming for loot a trivial endeavor. Some believe there’s nothing wrong with such overpowered play because players aren’t competing with others in any way. Others argue it’s bad for the game.

Borderlands 4 creative director Graeme Timmins has responded to the complaints, pointing to the game’s upcoming Invincible boss, which the developers want to present a challenge.

“We have future content like the upcoming Invincible that we want players to find challenge/accomplishment in,” Timmins explained. “If we balanced that content around bad gear, it would remove build diversity, forcing players into specific builds using said gear.”

Specifically on the crit knife, associate creative director Grant Kao said this particular, hugely popular build “diminishes playstyle variety,” and confirmed changes are planned.

“We will be adjusting it,” Kao said. “The crit knife’s potential output diminishes playstyle variety. The gun builds that use the crit knife have other options and will have more options coming soon.”

Timmins then chimed in on the crit knife, saying: “Our intent is always to expand the number of builds, so any adjustment we make is in service of that goal.”

All eyes are now on Gearbox to see what changes it has in store for not just Borderlands 4’s crit knife build, but any build it believes relies on an “unintended interaction.”

Earlier this month, Gearbox revealed Borderlands 4 Bounty Pack 1: How Rush Saved Mercenary Day, the first seasonal mini-event for the game, the aforementioned Invincible boss, and more. Last month, Gearbox revealed Borderlands 4’s first of two new Vault Hunters coming to the game as part of the paid Story Pack DLCs. C4SH, due out during the first quarter of 2026, is a playable character whose luck-based powers can make him either the best or worst character in the game.

We’ve got plenty more on Borderlands 4. Last month, a Borderlands 4 dataminer unearthed evidence to suggest that one of the most hated characters from Borderlands 3 was cut and replaced relatively late in development. 2K Games and Gearbox declined to comment when contacted by IGN.

And we recently reported on comments from Gearbox chief Randy Pitchford, who said if more developers better understood why gamers love making decisions about loot, “We’d have good competitors.”

If you are delving into Borderlands 4, don’t go without updated hourly SHiFT codes list. We’ve also got a huge interactive map ready to go and a badass Borderlands 4 planner tool courtesy of our buds at Maxroll. Plus check out our expert players’ choices for which character to choose (no one agreed).

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.

There’s plenty going on in Crimson Desert’s open world. From puzzles to castle sieges to blowing up enemies with a battle robot, there’s a wide range of activities to get stuck into. But from what we’ve seen so far, the real show stoppers are the boss battles. As part of this month’s IGN First, we’ve already shown you two new ones: the Golden Star mechanical dragon, and Fortain, The Cursed Knight. But there’s still more to see. Today, we’re showcasing three brand new bosses: Muskan, Walter Lanford, and Kearush the Slayer. You can see protagonist Kliff duke it out with all three in the video above.

The trio demonstrates a chunk of Crimson Desert’s enemy scale – Walter Lanford and Muskan are both human, but the former is pretty regular in size, while the latter is an eight-foot powerhouse. And then there’s Kearush, a massive, gorilla-like beast who’s actually one of Crimson Desert’s smaller monsters.

Those “weight categories” help distinguish each boss, but each is defined by their ability set. Muskan is a fierce pugilist, only providing you a few seconds of reprieve while he charges up his powerful punches and dive kicks. He’s not afraid to fight a little dirty, with sweeping kicks knocking your legs from under you, and choke slams sending you sputtering to the floor. When his fury meter maxes out, he’s able to unleash a chain of blows that repeatedly launch you into the air, so learning how to avoid his lighting-fast fists is the name of the game.

Walter Landford may be no bigger than you are, but he’s arguably the most sophisticated of the three bosses we’re showing today. Armed with a shotgun, he’s able to fight effectively at range. Dodging the wide-spread projectiles is key, but get your timing right and you can actually deflect his blasts back at him. Should your reflexes not be quite that sharp, you can spin up a magic barrier that collects incoming bullets and fires them back where they came from. Walter’s weak to grapples, so getting in close is vital – thankfully you can use the “deflect light” skill, typically used to find hidden items, to temporarily blind him and close the distance. You’ll need to act fast, though, as Walter’s armed with smoke grenades that can help conceal his rapid getaways.

Finally, Kearush the Slayer is a monster with no less than three health bars – a fight-extending trick that multiple foes across Crimson Desert’s campaign can pull. There’s a Hulk-like intensity to this fight, with Kearush being able to climb the walls and unleash clumsy-but-destructive leaps in his attempt to turn every bone in your body to dust. As a larger creature, you’re able to clamber onto his back and stab away, Dragon’s Dogma-style, but be careful – he’s more than happy to fall back-first from a great height, so let go of those shoulders before you’re forced to cushion his landing.

All three of these fights only reinforce my feeling that the bosses are going to be the real stars of the show in Crimson Desert. Every one I’ve faced so far across multiple hands-on opportunities has had a unique twist, a clever mechanic, or simply an exciting moveset that kept me on my toes. I’ve fought a powerful knight who I crushed with fallen masonry columns. I’ve faced off against an antlered snow beast who could cause avalanches that froze me in my tracks. And I’ve clambered up the side of a giant walking mountain, Shadow of the Colossus-style, seeking out its weak points in a battle of endurance. And I hope these are only just the start. I can’t wait to see what Crimson Desert’s most ambitious showdowns are made of.

Matt Purslow is IGN’s Executive Editor of Features.