Category: Video Games

Bryan Ansell, one of the chief architects of the Warhammer franchise alongside Richard Halliwell and Rick Priestley, has died. He was 68.

Ansell’s death was announced on Instagram on December 30 with the message, “With great sadness, we announce that Bryan passed away peacefully at home this morning surrounded by his family, 30th December 2023.”

It included a classic photo of Ansell sitting in front of a Warhammer army with the description, “Mighty, Dark-Winged, Avenging Lord of Chaos, Bryan Ansell, and his Mighty Avenging Chaos Army.”

Warhammer founded Cidatel Miniatures in partnership with Steven Jackson’s Games Workshop in 1978. His initially sold 25mm historical and fantasy miniatures and games, but it was 1983’s Warhammer Fantasy Battle that would become the company’s breakout hit. Ansell bought out Games Workshop alongside Tom Kirby, and the company was eventually refocused around Warhammer and Warhammer 40K. Ansell ultimately left Games Workshop to focus on Wargames Foundry.

Warhammer, of course, remains immensely popular to this day, as evidenced by the huge range of licensed video games and other media that have come out of the property. The tabletop game likewise remains very popular, fostering a passionate community dedicated to painting miniatures among other activities.

We’re kicking off 2024 with a whole month long of coverage for the hotly anticipated Dragon’s Dogma 2 from Capcom. All throughout January, we’ll have interviews, reveals, deep dives, and much more covering our experiences and impressions after getting play about 10 hours of the game at Capcom’s offices in Japan.

For now, have a look above at 18 minutes of gameplay covering both basic Fighter and Thief vocations, along with some never before seen looks at the Warrior and Sorcerer vocations as well.

Keep an eye out right here on IGN for more Dragon’s Dogma 2 all throughout the month of January as IGN First rolls on.

Mitchell Saltzman is an editorial producer at IGN. You can find him on twitter @JurassicRabbit

Super Smash Bros. and Kirby director Masahiro Sakurai revealed he’s still making games while juggling his recent shift into becoming a video game YouTuber.

In the latest episode of Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games, aptly titled “Creators Change, Too,” Sakurai reflected on what it was like entering the video game industry at a young age and experiencing his predecessors slowly phase out of public consciousness. As if reading the room via the internet, Sakurai addressed whether the subject matter of his video pertained to himself saying he’s still actively working in the industry.

“As for me, I’m still creating games for the time being,” Sakurai said. “But I’m also making this YouTube channel. I’d never done anything like this before starting out, so in a way, you could say I haven’t exactly stayed put either.”

Although Sakurai coupled his announcement with an old Smash Bros. gameplay video, he didn’t disclose whether or not he was working on a new entry in the eclectic video games Oscars-esque fighting game series. However, in a previous YouTube video, Sakurai has gone on record saying “I can’t imagine a Smash Bros. title without me,” and that he’d still like to “keep working with Nintendo.” Regardless, we’ll have to keep our fingers crossed for whatever Sakurai has been cooking at a later date.

Toward the latter half of the video, Sakurai encouraged viewers not to grieve developers if they’ve pivoted out of the industry or “secured patents that made them a fortune” to pursue a non-public-facing career path. Look no further than fellow video game figures like Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto and former PlatinumGames developer Hideki Kamiya coming out to say they haven’t left the industry wholesale despite their respective absences. Instead, Sakurai urged fans to support developers in their new ventures even if that means they’ve found fulfilling work outside of games.

“Aside from those who reach retirement age, there are quite a few people who disappear from the game industry part way through their careers,” Sakurai said. “Of course, for some of them it’s simply unclear where they ended up. This isn’t limited to the game industry, but if a creator you know does suddenly vanish without a trace please don’t write them of as “washed up” or “finished”!”

Isaiah Colbert is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow them on Twitter @ShinEyeZehUhh

Microsoft has announced the games coming to Xbox Game Pass in January 2024, with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Resident Evil 2 headlining this month’s offerings.

Revealed on Xbox Wire, the mysterious adventure game Close to the Sun is available today, January 3. Set in the 1890s, players must board a mysterious ship complex created by Nikola Tesla in an alternative version of history. In our 7/10 review, IGN said: “Close to the Sun is a harrowing and thoughtfully designed first-person exploration adventure that shows a twisted world in which Nikola Tesla’s ideas came to life.”

Xbox Game Pass Early January 2024 Games

• Close to the Sun | Cloud, Console, and PC – January 3
• Hell Let Loose | Cloud, Console, and PC – January 4
• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla | Cloud, Console, and PC – January 9
• Figment | Cloud, Console, and PC – January 9
• Super Mega Baseball 4 | Cloud, Console, and PC – January 11
• We Happy Few | Cloud, Console, and PC – January 11
• Resident Evil 2 | Cloud, Console, and PC – January 16
• Those Who Remain | Cloud, Console, and PC – January 16

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is the 2020 entry in the long running and popular franchise in which players take on the role of Eivor, a Viking raider who does as much screaming and smashing as they do sneaking and stealth. Following on from the role-playing game style gameplay of Assassin’s Creed Origins and Odyssey, Valhalla features England as its main map but also lets players visit the likes of Norway and North America.

In our 8/10 review, IGN said: “Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is a massive, beautiful open world fuelled by brutal living and the dirty work of conquerors. It’s a lot buggier than it should be but also impressive on multiple levels.”

Resident Evil 2 is the other heavy hitter of early January, with the 2019 game completely recreating the beloved survival horror entry for a modern audience. Players take on the role of Leon S. Kennedy as he starts his first day as a police officer in Raccoon City in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, or Jill Valentine who goes searching for her missing brother. These intertwining storylines see both characters forced to overcome one horrifying challenge after the other.

In our 9/10 review, IGN said: “Now this is how you remake a classic. Resident Evil 2 expertly reanimates the horrifying atmosphere and moments of extreme tension that made the original so revered.”

Sticking to the spooky atmosphere, We Happy Few is another horror title joining Xbox Game Pass in January. It sees a group of slightly terrible people try to escape from a prescribed cheerful lifestyle, having to force their way through some horrifying citizens to do so. In our 7/10 review, IGN said: “There’s a great story lurking in We Happy Few, but you’ll have to escape some repetitive levels to find it.”

Games Leaving Xbox Game Pass in January 2024

• Grand Theft Auto 5 | Cloud, Console, and PC – January 5
• Garden Story | Cloud, Console, and PC – January 15
• MotoGP 22 | Cloud, Console, and PC – January 15
• Persona 4 Golden | Cloud, Console, and PC – January 15
• Persona 3 Portable | Cloud, Console, and PC – January 15

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