Category: Video Games

The Finals developer Embark Studios has released the popular shooter’s first update of 2024, and it makes significant changes to the way aim assist works.

Aim assist is one of the hottest topics within the game’s burgeoning community, which Embark Studios said it had paid close attention to as it worked to tone down the mechanic.

“Today we have a small patch that addresses community feedback on aim assist, fair play, and bug fixes,” the developer explained. “These changes are the result of an in-depth review of how aim assist works — something we’ve only been able to validate with a player base as large as ours (thanks so much for playing our game, yolks!).”

Here are the The Finals update 1.4.1 patch notes in full:

Aim Assistance

• Zoom Snapping Angular Velocity now has a max cap, preventing unintended rapid 90-degree turns.
• Camera Magnetism will be reduced to 35% from 50%, making player aim less sticky and lowering controller accuracy.
• Zoom Snapping Time will be reduced to 0.25s from 0.3s.
• Zoom Snapping will be removed from the SR-84 Sniper Rifle, Revolver, LH1, and all Shotguns, as it buffs them more than other weapons.
• Aim assist will ignore invisible players, fixing a bug with the existing system.
• Clients running key re-mapping programs on PC will not have access to aim assist.

Embark Studios said it has another bigger update in the works for next week, with a major security fix and some new content.

The Finals is a free-to-play competitive first-person shooter made by former Battlefield developers. It launched with a huge concurrent player count on Steam, where it’s still going strong and wowing fans with its impressive destruction tech.

IGN’s The Finals review returned an 8/10. We said: “The Finals is a fresh and exciting take on team based PVP shooters, featuring some of the best environmental destruction in any FPS.”

Not everything has gone down well with fans though, as Embark was criticised for using AI voiceovers in The Finals by myriad voice actors and even other developers. Embark told IGN that “making games without actors isn’t an end goal” and claimed it uses a mix of both recorded audio voices and audio generated via AI text to speech tools for its games.

The Finals also endured a torrid time with cheating, although Embark declared the problem over last month.

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.

Elden Ring has received a slim update on PC, bringing the game up to version 1.10.1, but neither publisher Bandai Namco nor developer FromSoftware mentioned the highly anticipated Shadow of the Erdtree expansion in the notes.

Released on Bandai Namco’s website, the update specifically addresses the Steam version of Elden Ring, specifically updating its anti-cheating measures in accordance with a Steam operating system update. This obviously won’t change much for most players, but will be a relief for those still invading in Elden Ring, or engaging in its dedicated player versus player Colosseum areas.

This update was added more than a year ago now in December 2022, letting players face off in new competitive modes in the grand arenas scattered throughout The Lands Between.

It’s not the Elden Ring update fans are waiting for, of course, and every hint of movement from Bandai Namco or FromSoftware causes the internet to hold its breath. That’s because, as Elden Ring approaches its second anniversary in February, neither has revealed when fans might be able to play the much anticipated Shadow of the Erdtree.

The expansion was announced in March as a major expansion coming to Elden Ring. A single piece of concept art was released alongside the announcement but didn’t give much away, just showing a character atop a spectral steed looking towards the horizon that featured a dying Erdtree.

It will likely arrive as the only Elden Ring expansion (outside of a smaller piece of player-versus-player DLC) and be akin to the likes of Bloodborne’s The Old Hunters expansion or Dark Souls 3’s The Ringed City.

Elden Ring Version 1.10.1 Patch Notes

• Easy Anti-Cheat update to support the Steam OS update.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

Future Press will be releasing a ’25th Anniversary Edition’ of the Dark Souls Trilogy Compendium, featuring the complete breakdown of every single minute detail from the legendary FromSoftware games. It will cost $59.99, with preorders now available via Amazon (see here).

For clarity, this is the 25th Anniversary of the first game guide published by Future Press, not the 25th Anniversary of Dark Souls (which was released on September 22, 2011). The original Compendium book is considered rare online and can be difficult to find or buy at a reasonable rate, which makes news of this reprint very welcome indeed.

Future Press describes the Limited Edition reprint as featuring, “The enemies, items, equipment, areas and NPC dialogue of each game are all presented in an easy-to-reference format. This beautifully laid out book is designed to make it easy to find what you’re looking for—each entry is color-coded by game, and everything is fully indexed.”

This is also a strictly limited one-time reprint, featuring “unique 25th Anniversary branding and some slight changes to the slipcase and cover” but otherwise the re-release will be identical to the original Dark Souls Trilogy printing.

The reprint features 480 pages that dive into the core story beats of the Dark Souls games, alongside a complete World Guide for each title and its DLCs, and even four unique bonus art prints “that show the beauty of FromSoftware’s character designs”.

Future Press is also responsible for the beautiful Official Strategy Guides for Elden Ring (Vol.1 & Vol. 2), which are also currently down to $44.99 at Amazon. Those in the UK can preorder the Dark Souls Trilogy 25th Anniversary Compendium directly from Future Press — costing £49.99 and release on February 29, 2024.

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

D3 Publisher Inc. has announced the arrival of ‘Those Games’ on PlayStation 4 and 5 priced $9.99 / £7.99. It launched on Nintendo Switch and Steam last year.

Those Games, developed by Monkeycraft Co. and published by D3 Publisher, is short for YEAH! YOU WANT ‘THOSE GAMES’ RIGHT? SO HERE YOU GO! NOW, LET’S SEE YOU CLEAR THEM!, a minigame collection filled with challenges based on the inscrutable mobile game ads no-one can escape from.

Those Games briefly became a viral sensation in 2023, and speaking to IGN, producer Maya Ito said: “I see these mini-games on a daily basis and thought to myself, I want to play them; thoroughly and to my heart’s content!”

Mini games include the Pin Pull, Number Tower, Parking Lot, Cash Run, and Colour Lab. There are 250 levels overall set across the five mini games. You can collect coins and create customised nameplates, as well as compete with other players. Rankings are reset on the first day of each month.

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.