Sony have announced a new PlayStation studio made up of former developers of Destiny, Halo, League Of Legends, Fortnite, and Roblox, plus a few industry newcomers. Called teamLFG – where “LFG” stands for Looking For Group, not the other, naughty phrase you’re thinking of – they’re based in Bellevue, Washington, and are dedicated to “exceptional action-based gameplay, moment-to-moment game feel, and richly social virtual worlds”. Uuuuuurrrgh. Their first project is a “comedic” and “lighthearted” team-based action game set in a new science-fantasy universe.
The PlayStation blogpost announcing all this is a wearying paean to an idea of the live service game that dates back to the original Destiny in 2014. It’s written in the style of a cyborg that is trying to remember how to love. There is, however, a spark of eccentricity at the end that makes the labour of being preached to about engagement processes worthwhile: the team claim to be inspired by “frog-type games”. What is a frog-type game? A Frogger homage? A real estate sim about Finishing Rooms Over Garages? Did they just misspell “frag”? The mind froggles.
Sega has announced the English voiceover cast for the upcoming Yakuza 0: Director’s Cut on Nintendo Switch 2, launching on 5th June 2025. In addition, the new theme song “Bubble” by Shōnan no Kaze has been introduced in a new trailer, which you can view above.
Headlining the cast is YouTuber and voice actor Yong Yea, who will be providing the voice for protagonist Kazuma Kiryu. Meanwhile, Topher Ngo will take care of singing duties during specific minigames. We’ve also got the likes of David Hayter, Matt Mercer, Kaiji Tang, Risa Mei, and more.
Meet the Cast of Empyreal – How Your Choices Can Create A Powerful Ally or Sworn Enemy
Joseph Rogers, Co-Founder & Creative Director, Silent Games
Summary
Empyreal is available on Xbox Series X|S on May 8
InEmpyreal, character questlines and outcomes can differ wildly depending on your actions (or inaction).
New Game+ is a big focus for Silent Games – discover what the team is doing to make it a standout experience.
This week, everyone at Silent Games is preparing for the launch of our debut game. It’s been a long time in development and it’s a little surreal knowing that players will finally start exploring the world we’ve created.
Empyrealis an Action RPG set in a brand-new universe. The game begins “in medias res” as you arrive on an uninhabited planet to assist an Expedition that is attempting to explore a colossal Monolith built by an unknown, ancient, lost civilisation. Many of the Expedition Members believe they have found something that will have profound ramifications for all of humanity, but without your help they will not be able to realize their ambition in uncovering its final secrets.
So far much of the information we’ve shared pre-release has somewhat focussed on the Gameplay Mechanics and RPG Systems (of which there are many!). But today we are sharing a brand new “Character Trailer” highlighting the cast of Empyreal exclusively here on Xbox Wire.
This new trailer hints at the relationships you might build and some of the possible pathways in which their stories can unfold, each one featuring multiple – and wildly different – endings.
When the original story and structure of Empyreal was being refined, we had a clear distinction between “Story Characters” and “Vendor NPCs”. The latter intended to merely provide the player with various gameplay functionalities.
In the game code and our internal documentation, these “Story Characters” were designated as “VINPCS” – Very Important Non-Player Characters. This designation meant that these characters had lengthy personal questlines, offering the player character missions to run in parallel to the main story quest.
As we continued building Empyreal, we understood just how important these individual questlines were to the player’s journey and to fleshing out the universe. So, we ultimately did away with this distinction and created bespoke questlines for every character in the game, essentially upgrading them all to that “VIP” status.
The characters you’ll meet all have their own official role in the game as well as their own idiosyncrasies. Some might ask you for help right away, some might be very unimpressed with you, and you will need to work very hard to earn their respect while others have altogether more murky and questionable ambitions which you will only learn if you gain their trust.
Each of these “Character Questlines” explores a different facet of the human condition, based on the ideals of the individual themselves, the challenges they have faced, and what they hope to ultimately achieve.
You’ll also find that these characters are more likely to open up to you should you find their favourite drink to share with them in the Mess Hall at night. There are eight alcohols to find, each one corresponding to a specific character with a fondness for that particular drink.
Character Questlines in Empyreal all feature multiple endings, with powerful unique abilities and mechanics to acquire if you manage to reach their conclusions. Depending on your actions (or inactions), the fates of these characters can be vastly different; one character may end up fighting by your side as a sworn ally but make different choices and that same character could ambush you and fight you to the death as a boss encounter!
These questlines a huge part of the game. It was very important to us to make every one of your many choices impactful. How each Quests ends very much depends on how you treat the Characters and your level of engagement with them. To have just the one outcome would mean your choices were just not very impactful. These Quests were also built to add more to the story. Bringing in the themes of each Questline allows the player the freedom to try different paths, depending on their own style, and to experience alternate outcomes in subsequent playthroughs if they wish.
To see them all, you’ll need to dive into Empyreal’s New Game+ mode. Rewards obtained from one ending to a Questline are kept in NG+ so it’s possible to collect all Rewards eventually.
NG+ has been a big focus for us at Silent Games, we wanted to ensure players have plenty to discover and experiment with during a second playthrough. You’ll be able toexperience all the quest endings you didn’t see during the first playthrough,as well as several features exclusive to NG+ which offer significant challenges, so you can really push your End Game Builds to the limit.
The narrative of Empyreal draws heavily from classical and existentialist philosophy, theology, and history and this is nowhere better reflected than in the character questlines. As you progress these quests and dig deeper into Empyreal’s themes and lore, perhaps you may even come across a little detail that piques your curiosity enough to look up its inspiration online and learn about the facts – or concepts – behind the ideas presented in the game.
We can’t wait for you to jump into the world of Empyreal and start meeting the characters and uncovering their stories. Empyreal launches on Xbox Series X|S on May 8.
Empyreal is a complex, challenging, feature-rich action RPG.
In a far-flung corner of the galaxy an Expedition arrives on a hitherto unexplored planet to find a colossal Monolith built by a lost civilisation.
These are no mere ruins: the Monolith is filled with danger, and the Expedition is ill-equipped to unearth the secrets within.
All eyes turn towards an elite mercenary who may succeed where others have failed.
Venture inside the Monolith and face the automatons that yet remain, remnants of the impossibly ancient civilisation that built this unknowable structure. Survive and uncover revelations that transform our understanding of humanity itself.
Gameplay & Combat:
-Choose one of three weapon archetypes: The Glaive, The Mace & Shield or the Cannon. Each weapon has its own core move set giving each their own unique playstyle.
-Empyreal features a unique blend of RPG Systems and Skill-based Combat. Master the flow of combat with perfectly timed attacks, deflects, parries and even many Abilities that gain additional effects when perfectly timed.
-Find powerful new Equipment, adjust your stats via an extensive modification system and refine your build to perfection.
Abilities System:
-Empyreal features dozens of Abilities with a huge variety of effects including dealing damage, providing defence or healing, extra movement options and other utility.
-Find new Abilities as you progress through the game, many of the most powerful are well-hidden or locked behind lengthy Quests.
Extensive character customisations.
-Experiment with a multitude of Character Creation options or choose one of the 30 presets to jump straight into the action with.
-Choose your character’s background giving you a unique backstory and starting set of equipment. You will also occasionally have the chance to respond with special dialogue options which are specific to your background.
NPC Character Questlines:
-Each member of the expedition has their own personal questline. All of these questlines have multiple endings depending on your choices. It is even possible to fail them entirely…
-Paying close attention to your fellow expedition members will eventually grant powerful rewards but only if you stay the course.
Cartograms:
-One of the most important and unique features in the game. These ancient artifacts are blueprints for aspects you encounter in each level inside the Monolith.
-What enemies you face, what loot you find, how many lives you get, what elements you need a matching resistance to (and more) are all randomly generated. There are many ways each level is different depending on the attributes of the cartogram you use to access it.
-The levels themselves are all designed by hand, and you are rewarded for exploring; so find hidden details, shortcuts and seek out the secrets within.
Boss Battles:
-Each Cartogram contains an end boss. The selected Cartogram defines the loot table of the boss, and the chance of a drop. Epic boss battles enable you to target items you may need for future cartograms.
Sharing & Trading:
-Items including Cartograms can be shared with other players via a Mail system and a Trading Post.
Asynchronous Features:
-Although a single player game, Empyreal has a number of asynchronous features allowing you to feel the presence of other players inside the Monolith. One of these features is ‘Into the Aether’ allowing you to gift an item through a tear in the aether to another player, where it becomes “Aether Touched” and gains a significant stat boost.
One of the great things about Elden Ring has always been the diversity of playstyles it enables, and one of my favorite playstyles is loading up on Strength, grabbing the largest weapon I can find, and crushing foes with posture-breaking jumping attacks and charged-up heavy strikes. If that’s you too, then allow me to introduce you to the Raider in Nightreign (see the video below).
While the Guardian — the other big burly class with lots of health and an affinity for big weapons — is more focused on defense with a shield as a starter weapon and an ultimate ability that can mitigate damage for the entire party for an extended period of time, the Raider is designed as an absolute offensive powerhouse.
The most important ability of the Raider is Retaliate, which initially may not seem like a very strong skill on its own — it’s just two stomps that deal a bit of physical and poise damage. But the real magic is that thanks to the Raider’s passive, he cannot be knocked down while doing Retaliate. This means that the Raider basically has a free damage-soaking technique that will let you totally armor through pretty much any enemy or boss attack, with the added bonus of that weak second stomp getting replaced by an extremely powerful punch that will stagger even the largest enemies, if you manage to absorb an attack that would’ve done a substantial amount of damage.
Then there is the Raider’s ultimate, Totem Stela, which has him slamming the ground and causing a large totem to erupt, dealing big damage to anything around it. Like all of the other Ultimates in Nightreign, this is an incredibly powerful technique that can alter the tide of a fight. Not only does it deal big damage, but the totem is climbable, giving both you and your teammates either a safe place to lay low, or a vantage point to hit. In addition to that, it also gives everyone a damage buff as well, meaning it’s one of the first ults you’ll want to coordinate using so that the rest of the team can benefit from it.
Of all the classes I’ve played in Nightreign, the raider was the one I had the most fun with.
The Raider starts with the Raider’s Greavtaxe, which is a pretty solid starting weapon that deals some fire damage and has the “Endure” skill affixed to it, which basically gives you another way to absorb and power through enemy attacks in case Retaliate is on cooldown. Still, you’ll definitely want to find a better weapon as the nights get closer, and large strength-scaling weapons are definitely the Raider’s go-to style of weapon.
Of all the classes I’ve played in Nightreign, the Raider is definitely the one that I’ve had the most fun with. It’s the one that is most well-suited for one-on-one battles, which is appropriate because its Remembrances (we’ll talk about those later on in the month) have you fighting in one-on-one boss fights in a sort of gladiatorial arena, which is a nice change of pace.
That’s all for our hands-on impressions of Nightreign’s classes, but stay tuned all throughout the month in depth looks at the mechanics of Nightreign, along with interviews with the developers, and more as IGN First continues on.
Mitchell Saltzman is an editorial producer at IGN. You can find him on twitter @JurassicRabbit
It’s been 35 years since Intelligent Systems debuted its Fire Emblem series on Nintendo’s Famicom. Through its ever-evolving combat and the introduction of beloved character bonding mechanics, the series has ascended to the upper echelon of tactical RPGs, culminating in two excellent mainline entries on the Nintendo Switch.
As we near the end of the original Switch era, we’ve compiled a list of every Fire Emblem game available on the console as well as what’s coming to the Switch 2.
How Many Fire Emblem Games Are on Switch?
There are five Fire Emblem games on Switch: two mainline games and three spinoffs. There are two additional Fire Emblem games available with Nintendo Switch Online, with a third due out for the Switch 2 in June.
Every Fire Emblem Game on Nintendo Switch
Fire Emblem Warriors (2017)
The first Fire Emblem game released on Switch was the Dynasty Warriors crossover Fire Emblem Warriors. The mashup incorporates the best elements of each series, blending Fire Emblem’s team-based strategy with Dynasty Warriors’ button-mashing, hack-and-slash action. It’s a worthwhile spinoff for action fans, though the light story makes it inessential to those concerned with Fire Emblem lore.
The game was developed by Dynasty Warriors studio Omega Force in collaboration with the action gurus at Team Ninja (Ninja Gaiden, Nioh).
Fire Emblem: Three Houses (2019)
Fire Emblem: Three Houses was a milestone release for the series. It was the first Fire Emblem game released on a home console in 12 years, the first mainline entry released on Switch, and a critical and commercial success that carried forward the momentum of Awakening seven years before it.
Three Houses is a massive tactical RPG that balances the grand with the intimate. Large-scale battles progress an overarching story of politics and religion within a continental war, while quieter moments between battles are spent in the monastery training, teaching, exploring, and bonding with other characters through well-written and -acted conversations.
Three Houses is Fire Emblem at its best, and what we’d recommend as a starting point if you’re looking to jump into the series on Switch.
Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore (2020)
In 2020, Nintendo released Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore, an expanded port of the original Wii U release. Encore added new story content, characters, and music to the Nintendo-Atlus crossover game, which blends Fire Emblem’s “weapon triangle” combat mechanic — swords have an advantage over axes, axes over lances, lances over swords — with the flashy style, dungeon-crawling, and moment-to-moment combat of Atlus’s Shin Megami Tensei and Persona games.
The story is a comical, often over-the-top send-up of Japanese pop-culture that, as in Warriors before it, takes a backseat to the action.
Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes (2023)
Nintendo re-teamed with Omega Force for Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, the companies’ second Fire Emblem-Dynasty Warriors crossover following Fire Emblem Warriors. Three Hopes is a retelling of Three Houses set in an alternate timeline where Three Houses’ protagonist Byleth serves as the main villain.
Three Hopes is a more robust blend of the two franchises than its predecessor, integrating more of Fire Emblem’s social and tactical mechanics with Dynasty Warriors’ fast-paced action.
Fire Emblem Engage (2023)
Fire Emblem Engage is the series’ latest game and its second mainline entry on Switch. Engage is a progression of Three Houses’ excellence and an ode to Fire Emblem’s past: It refines and scales down the social and hub mechanics of Three Houses while shifting its primary focus to the series’ longstanding tactical combat, most notably reintroducing Fire Emblem’s “weapon triangle” system.
The story of Engage follows a Divine Dragon named Alear, who’s tasked with collecting 12 rings to defeat the Fell Dragon and save the continent of Elyos. Engage’s original story connects to the series past through these 12 rings, each of which houses the spirit of a past Fire Emblem protagonist, allowing you to summon past heroes such as Marth, Ike, Celica, and Byleth.
Fire Emblem Games Available With Nintendo Switch Online
There are currently two Fire Emblem games available with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription outside of Japan: the 2003 Game Boy Advance game Fire Emblem, aka Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, and the 2004 follow-up Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones.
A third game, 2005’s Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, will be added to the catalog when GameCube games are integrated into the service alongside the launch of Switch 2 on June 5.
Here’s the complete list of Fire Emblem games currently available with a Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscription:
There’s no official word on new Fire Emblem games in development, but it’s pretty likely we’ll see something new (or remade) in the series on the upcoming Switch 2. Speaking of, as mentioned above, the next Fire Emblem game to be playable on the Switch will actually be Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, available through the GameCube library of Nintendo Switch Online exclusively on the Switch 2 starting on the system’s launch day, June 5.
Jordan covers games, shows, and movies as a freelance writer for IGN.
Cough! Splutter! Sneeze! Excuse me, it’s mighty dusty in here all of a sudden. Exceedingly dirty alleged leaked images of both the Asus ROG Ally 2 and what could be Microsoft’s rumoured “Project Kennan” gaming handheld have burst forth from the tissues of the internet in a shower of dead skin particles and grime.
Falcom has shared the release date for Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, the remake of the first game in the Trails series. And it’s landing on Switch (no Switch 2 version revealed, yet) on 19th September 2025, as announced in Weekly Famitsu (thanks, Gematsu, Ryokutya2089).
The upcoming remake is being published by GungHo Entertainment in the West, but the big news is that the game is getting a simultaneous worldwide release. So we can expect some follow-up confirmation from GungHo relatively soon.
Today, I am thrilled to officially unveil a new studio in the PlayStation Studios family. teamLFG originated at Bungie, but has also rallied developers from across the industry to bring to life an ambitious incubation project that I’m very excited about. The studio is now fully formed and ready to be introduced to the world.
I’ll let teamLFG introduce themselves properly and give a tiny glimpse of what they’ve been working on.
“Hello, world. It’s a delight to meet you, and we’re very grateful to be joining PlayStation Studios.
Our studio is headquartered in Bellevue, WA, with team members working both on-site and remotely throughout the U.S. and Canada. We are a team composed not just of industry veterans who have shipped titles like Destiny, Halo, League of Legends, Fortnite, Roblox, and Rec Room, but also industry newcomers with fresh creative perspectives and skills. We are passionate about exceptional action-based gameplay, moment-to-moment game feel, and richly social virtual worlds.
The “LFG” in “teamLFG” stands for “Looking For Group.” We are driven by a mission to create games where players can find friendship, community, and belonging. We want our players to feel excited when they log on to discover their teammates already hanging out online. We want our players to recognize familiar names and to make myths and memes out of each other. We want our players to love remembering that one time where they pulled off That Play that changed the whole story of the match. As we say on the team – dat’s da good stuff.
We will make immersive multiplayer worlds propelled by action games that players can learn, play, and master for countless hours. We want to build our games with our communities, inviting players to be a part of our development process through early access playtests. It’s critical that we stay nimble enough to react to player feedback, not just in our lead-up to launch, but throughout live service as we continue to grow the game and community for years to come.
Our first game is a team-based action game that draws inspiration from fighting games, platformers, MOBAs, life sims, and frog-type games. Players will inhabit a lighthearted, comedic world set in brand-new, mythic, science-fantasy universe. We can’t wait to reveal more.
‘Til then, we’ll do our best! Thanks for reading.”
Genshin Impact is one of the most popular gacha games in the world. The free-to-play action RPG from HoYoverse lets players spend a virtual currency called Primogems to have a chance (a “wish”) to obtain rare characters of varying power. It’s a microtransactions system that has proved controversial, but a money-spinner for the developers, generating billions of dollars in revenue over the years.
In most games of this type, the amount of money you have to spend to eventually pull a character is withheld from the player — and you can see why given the poor odds available. But now, HoYoverse has updated Genshin Impact to do just that, revealing front and centre just how much needs to be spent.
The Genshin Impact shop now tells U.S. players how many pulls you’re getting with each purchase (you can buy wishes directly with a direct conversion rate displayed) and how much you need to spend to guarantee pulling a character, which varies between $1.98 to $475.20. The figure is based on the base prices of the pulls (without bonuses) and if you hit the max pulls to guarantee the character (180 pulls).
So, while the posted figure assumes the highest possible price if you intentionally don’t buy the higher value (and more expensive) bundles, you could face spending nearly $500 pulling just one character in Genshin Impact.
Players have reacted with a mix of disbelief and positivity at the transparency.
“Whole thing is weirdly…. Transparent,” said redditor Zion-plex. “You see it clear as day, 100 bucks 50 pulls every time staring at you (whales think or maybe don’t even care they ‘know’ the math). Man, that’ll sting, even for those who can and will spend, there’s a lot of mental suppression that goes on.”
”Unmitigated positive,” said Whilyam. “The only people helped by obscuring costs are the ones who want to take advantage of people or make it easier for people with addictions to justify spending money.”
“I think it’s harder to justify the spending with abysmal conversion rate visible with your eyes,” added Mtboomerang. “I think the biggest problem with addicts is they follow the emotion then they will calculate. With the conversion rate visible now, their logic will shut their emotion down in time before they are deep in emotion abyss trying to come up with a reason.”
“Good changes that should be standardized for all Gachas and other similar games with gambling/loot box type mechanics,” said mikethebest1.
Some players are now calling on HoYoverse to just let Genshin Impact players buy characters directly, given they now know how much it could cost to obtain them through the gacha system.
“I wish they would just freaking sell the damn characters,” said yuusharo. “Horse armor works on me, I’d pay a freak ton on these games if I knew I’d get what I wanted every single time.
“Instead, the vast majority of their revenue comes from a tiny percentage of players exploiting gambling tendencies, preying on people like vultures. I hate it, I feel so gross whenever I succumb to that.”
So, why has HoYoverse added this layer of transparency to Genshin Impact now? It’s because it lost a court case against the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) back in January that resulted in a ban on selling loot boxes
The age verification process will be rolled out to all U.S. players by May 20. If you don’t provide your age information by July 18, 2025, you could see your account suspended, the developer warned. If the verification is not completed by July 20, 2026, the personal information of your HoYoverse account will be deleted permanently.
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.
Publisher/ developer EA has confirmed it has no plans to raise the price of its games even as the likes of Microsoft and Nintendo jump to $80.
Addressing investors in its latest financial call, CEO Andrew Wilson said the company’s focus was to “deliver incredible quality and exponential value for our playerbase,” such as its hit co-op adventure Split Fiction, which has now sold 4 million copies.
“In terms of pricing power, our business is very different today than it was even just 10 years ago,” Wilson explained. “In a world where everything we did 10 years ago was about selling shiny discs in plastic boxes in retail shelves — well, that’s still a part of our business, it’s a significantly smaller part of our business, and we now have pricing representing everything from free-to-play all the way to deluxe editions and beyond.
“At the end of the day, whether we’re doing something that costs a dollar, or we’re doing something that costs $10, or we’re doing something that costs $100, our objective is always to deliver incredible quality and exponential value for our playerbase,” said Wilson. “And what we’ve discovered over the course of time is [when] we can marry quality and value together, our business is strong, resilient, and continues to grow.”
“From a guidance perspective […] we have reflected no changes in our current [pricing] strategy at this point,” added CFO Stuart Canfield.
It’ll be welcome news to some, given just last week, Microsoft confirmed it was raising Xbox prices as well as increasing the cost of controllers, headsets, and some games. The price hike for consoles and accessories has already taken effect, and while game prices will stay the same for now, we should expect to see Xbox charging $79.99 for new, first-party games around the holiday season.
Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
