Persona 3 Reload is a seamless transition for Persona 5-likers

Having spent what feels like an entire lifetime in JRPG Persona 5 Royal, going back to the original Persona 3 is pretty jarring. It’s unsurprising given it came out 18 years ago, but exploration is more akin to a slideshow and dungeon-running to a well-rehearsed routine.

But with an hour of Persona 3 Reload under my belt, P3’s remake felt immediately familiar. It’s absolutely built for a seamless transition for P5-likers and takes away some of P5 Royal’s learnings, too. Unless something disastrous happens when Reload fully releases, I can’t ever see myself returning to the original.

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Street Fighter 6 Punches Through 3 Million Copies Sold

Street Fighter 6 has sold three million copies in seven months, publisher Capcom has announced.

The fighting game hit the milestone on January 3, 2024, and comes seven months after it went on sale on June 2, 2023. Street Fighter 6 got off to a strong start with one million sold over launch weekend. It then hit two million copies sold after just over a month on sale. That means it’s taken half a year to sell one million more copies.

Commenting on the two million sales milestone, Capcom said Street Fighter 6 was “generally progressing in line with our expectations”, adding it hoped positive word of mouth would fuel follow-up success.

“Compared to the internal plan for the title, sales are generally progressing in line with our expectations,” Capcom said at the time. “We believe that its positive critical reception will work as a tailwind in expanding future sales of the game as a catalogue title.”

Capcom had said it aimed for Street Fighter 6 to outsell Street Fighter 5, targeting over 10 million copies sold over the course of its lifetime.

“While we do not communicate specific figures for internal budgets, we look to outperform the title’s predecessor, Street Fighter 5, and are aiming for more than 10 million units over the life of the title,” Capcom said.

Speaking this week, Capcom said it had “steadily” grown sales by pushing Street Fighter 6 DLC and esports. The game has seen DLC characters and costly new outfits come out, as well as various collaborations with other brands. Looking to the future, Ed is Street Fighter 6’s next DLC character, then fan-favourite Akuma comes out at some point in the spring.

Total Street Fighter franchise sales are now up to 52 million. Street Fighter 5 remains the best-selling game in the series, with 7.4 million sold as of September 30, 2023. 1992’s Street Fighter 2, for reference, sold 6.30 million.

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.

This spec ops haunted house shooter got me thinking about unexpected scares in Call Of Duty

Here’s a pitch for you: a spec ops shooter, except it’s haunted. Well, that’s exactly what early access co-op FPS Contain is going for, where four of you gear up in tactical clobber and clear corners of military chumps and anomalous… rumps? It’s a mixture of Rainbow Six, a bit of Stalker, and maybe a touch of Control, with gameplay showing real promise. It’s also got me thinking about unexpectedly scary moments in shooters, too.

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Turn-Based Strategy Goes Medieval In ‘Rising Lords’, Marching Onto Switch This Month

Knight and day.

Publisher Deck13 Spotlight and developer Argonwood have announced that the medieval-inspired turn-based strategy game Rising Lords will be bringing the battle to Switch on 18th January.

Taking place in the fictional kingdom of Aubelin, Rising Lords will see you playing as a Lord who is attempting to rise (shocking with that title, we know) through the ranks and gain power over the land.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Dawnwalker is the “revolutionary” dark fantasy RPG from former Witcher devs Rebel Wolves

Rebel Wolves, the studio founded by a few of the CD Projekt folk behind The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, have officially titled their forthcoming dark fantasy RPG. That title is… Dawnwalker. They’ve also shared a new teaser image, which I think could depict one of two things: a) a vampiric or otherwise supernaturally-inclined hero flying through the air care of a Dishonored-style Blink teleport, sword raised and clawed fingers stretched towards an unseen foe against a blood-red backdrop. Or b) a man with his trousers aflame swinging through the window of a second floor spa while attempting to use his umbrella as a parachute, having received only half a pedicure before the building caught fire.

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Baldur’s Gate 3 Hotfix 17 Makes Gale Chill Out About Magic Items

Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian has released yet another hotfix for its phenomenally successful Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, this time taking on everyone’s favourite magic item-gobbling wizard, Gale.

Spoilers for Baldur’s Gate 3 follow.

Baldur’s Gate 3 players will know that in the early game, Gale is in desperate need of magic items in order to prevent him from suffering a grizzly fate. He’s so desperate, in fact, that if you don’t give him a magic item to consume pretty much every time he asks for one, he’ll get so fed up he’ll leave your party. What a grump!

Hotfix 17, out now, makes Gale chill out a bit when it comes to his magic item addiction. Here’s Larian describing the change in a post on Steam:

“Poor Gale – we know your pain, sometimes it’s easy to read something into a situation that wasn’t there. We’ve sat him down and explained that if someone doesn’t offer him a shoe to eat every time, that doesn’t mean they never will. You’ll find him more likely to stick around now.”

And here’s the relevant line from the patch notes:

  • Gale will no longer permanently leave the party if you don’t offer him any magic items while talking to him – unless you’re abundantly clear that you don’t plan on ever doing so.

Elsewhere, Hotfix 17 makes some promising-sounding improvements to how Baldur’s Gate 3 handles savegames.

  • Increased the compression of savegames, which should fix several issues caused by large savegame files (such as Error 544)
  • Reduced the size of save files by removing summons that don’t exist in the game anymore.

Larian issued a warning about Baldur’s Gate 3 mods, which may stop working when new patches and hotfixes are released. “If you experience any issues after installing the latest update, please check if the issue persists with all mods uninstalled,” Larian suggested. “If it persists, please reach out to our support team with your report.”

Baldur’s Gate 3 Hotfix 17 Patch Notes

PERFORMANCE AND CODE

  • Fixed black and colourful visual artefacts sometimes appearing for 1 frame on PS5 when switching scenes or opening and closing UI windows.
  • Increased the compression of savegames, which should fix several issues caused by large savegame files (such as Error 544)
  • Reduced the size of save files by removing summons that don’t exist in the game anymore.
  • Guarded against crashes caused when certain character resources (Actions, Bonus Actions, Superiority Dice, etc.) were added and later removed by a mod or cheat engine.

GAMEPLAY AND COMBAT

  • In Honour Mode, the aura of Cazador’s Potent Mist Form now properly dissipates after he’s no longer in Mist Form. Sorry!
  • Fixed the camera sometimes zooming in while jumping or casting projectile spells.
  • Fixed the ability to walk through open doors when you click beyond them from far away.
  • Fixed Thieves’ Tools in the camp chest or inventory of a companion who is waiting at camp not being accessible when lockpicking.

UI

  • Safeguard Shield’s Saving Throw modifier is now correctly reflected on the Character Sheet.

FLOW AND SCRIPTING

  • Gale will no longer permanently leave the party if you don’t offer him any magic items while talking to him – unless you’re abundantly clear that you don’t plan on ever doing so.
  • Fixed characters getting stuck ‘in a story event’, preventing you from controlling them, after getting killed in the fight with Grym.

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.

Home Safety Hotline review: thoughtful weirdness that left me wanting more

I worked on the phones when I was in pension admin, years ago, and I fielded some weird ones, but nothing quite as weird as the calls in Home Safety Hotline. It’s, technically, I suppose, a horror game about manning a call line through a 90s CRT-screen PC, where people will be like “my kitchen is full of droppings that look like coffee grounds, what do?”. You look through your list of potential household hazards and select the right one, so your caller gets sent the info on dealing with cockroaches. Except as your week at HSH goes on, your calls start to be less roaches, more “my house smells like death and my dog is acting strangely” or “I can see someone looking through my window at night and hear them breathing heavily.”

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Koei Tecmo Releases Fate/Samurai Remnant Demo On Switch Ahead Of “DLC Vol. 1” Launch

Save data will carry over.

Ahead of the Fate/Samurai Remnant DLC release next month, Koei Tecmo has now made a demo of the action role-playing game available on the Switch eShop.

The demo will allow you to test out the earlier stages of the game and save data will carry over to the full game if you decide to purchase it. The full version of the title will set you back $59.99 / £54.99.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Nintendo Donating 50 Million Yen To Aid Japan’s Earthquake Victims

It’s also offering free product repairs.

Following in the footsteps of The Pokémon Company, Nintendo has announced it will donate 50 million yen to the Red Cross Society after a devastating 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck the country’s Noto Peninsula earlier this month.

As part of this, Nintendo has announced it will also provide free repairs to anyone in disaster zones. Here’s the official statement (via a translation of a NintendoCoLtd post on social media):

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

GAME Apparently Ending Physical Trade-Ins From Next Month (UK)

Trade-off.

UK retailer GAME will reportedly be refusing physical video game trade-ins from February 2024. This news comes from Eurogamer, which has spoken to numerous staff across multiple branches of the county’s largest video game retailer.

GAME has yet to make an official announcement to the public, but multiple staff working for the company have confirmed that they have been told the service will be ending on 16th February. That means you have a month to pop in and trade in your games for credit.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com