A group of more than 450 Diablo developers have voted to form a union at Blizzard, under the banner of the Communications Workers of America (CWA).
According to a CWA press release, the new union is made up of game developers, artists, designers, engineers, and support staff across the Diablo series, and has already been formally recognised by Blizzard parent company Microsoft. These workers join the over 500World of Warcraft and almost 200Overwatch devs who each formed their own unions earlier this year.
A server browser will be available in Battlefield 6 via Battlefield Portal, developer DICE has announced.
As DICE gets ready to “resume testing the latest updates and content” with its Battlefield Labs closed player tests, the team has revealed players will not only get to try out new maps not previously available in either closed or open betas, but they’ll also get “a first look at the Server Browser.”
As EA explains it, Battlefield Labs is an experimental environment where “the latest changes and work-in-progress ideas are tested with players in a closed and private space.” The content available will be in various stages of production, including items in alpha state, which may result in less polished and/or unstable builds. This allows DICE to balance and make adjustments much faster as it “shapes the future of the game with the community to shape the future of the game.”
This next collection of play sessions will focus primarily on hosting, where the team will “concentrate on the ease of setting up player-owned servers with predefined shortcodes, altering descriptions, selecting tags, and joining those experiences.” And as part of this, we’ve been given our first look at the Battlefield Portal user interface.
“Some of the most frequent questions from the community have been about Server Browser availability and functionality,” DICE explained in a community blog. “In an upcoming Battlefield Labs play session, we will enable an early implementation of this Portal functionality within the Community tab. At this stage, our main goal is to observe how it works in practice, with initial feedback focusing on accessibility and UI clarity.”
Players will be able to use the experience library to find a verified Conquest experience using a shortcode, after which players can then choose from a pre-filtered list of active servers, or host their own, where they’ll be able to alter descriptions, rotations, tags, and so on. Of course, this should still be treated as a work-in-progress for now, and DICE would like feedback from Battlefield Labs participants as they play.
The next batch of closed tests will also usher in new maps, Operation Firestorm and Mirak Valley, which are designed for combined arms combat and vehicles, including quad bikes, tanks, and aircraft.
We’re having a great time with what we’ve played so far, writing in our Battlefield 6 review-in-progress: “Right now, even in beta form, Battlefield 6 might be the most fun shooter I’ve played this year.”
Don’t forget that from now until October 7 — Battlefield 6’s launch day — EA has a “wave of content” planned for Battlefield 2042, including a free new pass “celebrating the legacy of Battlefield,” new hardware, and a reimagining of the fan favorite Iwo Jima map. As you progress through the ‘Road to Battlefield 6’ pass, you can expect 50 exclusive cross-rewards, including 20 for Battlefield 6 that will be ready for you on launch day, on which you can also expect big changes to player movement, maps, modes, and player counts.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
For those who enjoyed the base game’s blend of puzzle-solving and fisticuffs, this fresh DLC adds more of what you love — and takes a novel approach to tuning its difficulty, based on your experience with the Great Circle so far.
Speaking to IGN last week at Gamescom, creative director Axel Torvenius and lead game designer Zeke Virant explained how The Order of the Giants will smartly adapt its combat to suit both new and veteran players, due to the DLC’s addition within the base game’s narrative, branching off of its Rome location. And while the pair remained tight-lipped on word of an Indiana Jones sequel, discussion was still had about MachineGames’ intention for the overall narrative of the game — and how it’s sometimes best to leave players keen for more.
“The conventional way of doing DLC is to add something that stands after, or a miniature game on the side,” Torvenius begins, “but we didn’t really feel that that was the best for our game.” He pauses, smiles. “Though it would’ve been the easiest.
“I can tell you we had a lot of struggles or challenges with the technical side of things, making sure that people’s existing save states [work]. The systems we had in place did not fully support us just splicing in a lot of new content in the middle of the game. So there was a lot of hard work from engineers and programmers and also on the design side. It was not an easy thing to do, but we felt it was the best to do.”
For those who are yet to play Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, the idea is that Order of the Giants simply adds onto the game’s already generous Rome section, with additional areas outside and underneath the Vatican to explore. And for players who have finished the game already, who will likely be familiar with dipping back into previous areas to hunt down remaining side-missions and collectibles via their journal, the DLC simply acts as a huge new side-quest to pursue.
“The integration makes the experience the most seamless,” Torvenius continues, “and makes it feel like it’s really expanding on the existing content. There was a balance, because obviously the DLC is its own completely standalone adventure. So there are hooks and the red threads between the main storyline and the DLC, but the DLC story does not impact the main story, even if the DLC story will give you a deeper understanding of some elements. So it was absolutely not the easiest [way to do DLC], and maybe not the smartest, but the best.”
Obviously, though, players still finding their feet in the Vatican’s sunny courtyards will have a different experience approaching Order of the Giants’ content than those who have played another 40 hours, seen Indy’s journey to the end and buffed up their archeologist with all sorts of upgrades and bonuses. And it’s because of this, Virant says, that MachineGames was forced to get even smarter under the game’s hood.
“Players who are at the end of the game don’t need to worry about the difficulty [being too easy] as actually we have a new system in place where players are dynamically scaled based on how far they progressed,” Virant explains. “We know a lot of players are coming back from the endgame and would like to have a continuation of that difficulty, especially if they have health upgrades and a lot of abilities.
“We tried a few different things, but the one that was simplest and actually just what felt right was that if you’ve progressed to the Vatican but you haven’t gotten to Giza yet, we keep it on a first tier of difficulty. If you’ve gotten to Giza, then we adjust it up to a second tier. And then once you’ve gotten to Sukhothai, we adjust to a third tier. From there we [can tune] the different amount of combos enemies can use, different amounts of health and also how many will gang up on you at the same time.”
It’s a smart system, though one which need not come into play at all during the DLC’s first hour, as Indy kicks off his new adventure with some impressive-looking new adventuring and puzzle sections, set just outside the bounds of the base game’s existing area. It’s here that Indy meets Father Ricci, a priest obsessed with the legend of a secret chamber that houses a giant helmet – something that immediately sparks our hero’s interest. (Brilliantly, Father Ricci also has a pet parrot, Pio, who rather steals the show. Torvenius confirmed that while the parrot speaks, this is not another turn from the talented Troy Baker, and is instead another voice actress who provides the parrots’ voice and much of its chirping sounds.)
The DLC’s focus on the main game’s race of giants, otherwise known as the Nephilim Order, will likely pique the intrigue of fans who enjoyed piecing together their story during the Great Circle’s campaign. Sadly, the late Tony Todd, who played Locus, was not able to contribute to the DLC — though Torvenius said his presence “would have been amazing.”
“To some extent this was never really about telling the background story of Locus as a character,” he said. “Even though for me personally, I would’ve loved to play a game that was where you just play as Locus for 15 hours on all of his grand adventures. That would’ve been interesting. But this was more about deepening the story of the tribe of the giants and the Nephilim Order. And obviously Locus is part of that since he’s part of the race, but it’s more about the origins and the mystery of it and how it connects with the Vatican and the streets of Rome.”
When asked whether players will learn everything there is to know about the giants before the end of the DLC, or whether MachineGames was purposefully keeping some elements of their story secret, Torvenius remained coy. “Yes and no,” he replied. “I would say I think absolutely this will help for people that have played through the main game, and when they have played the DLC in addition to that, they will get a deeper understanding of the mystery around the Nephilim Order. But there are things that maybe are to some extent left unanswered, though the majority of it I think starts to paint a pretty good picture.”
Was this secrecy a desire to hold some story elements back for use in the future, I wondered, or simply a decision not to explain too much — the Midichlorians effect — of something that could otherwise remain a cool mystery? “In my mind, both as a consumer myself but also as a creator, I enjoy when maybe sometimes everything isn’t explored,” Torvenius responded. “Sometimes there will be still like a fog of war on the map that is best left unexplored.
“We have internally fleshed it out completely,” he continued, discussing the lore of the giants. “I could write a blurb that explains how everything is connected, but would that be fun?” Yes, I say, to which Torvenius laughs. “We are always working towards giving players the sensation they have figured it out and it should make sense when it’s all connected. But for me it’s always important to make sure you slowly get a bigger picture without saying too much.”
For Torvenius and Virant, Order of the Giants has been a challenging but enjoyable victory lap for one of 2024’s most widely-praised games. Development on Indiana Jones and the Great Circle began amid the height of Covid lockdowns, with the studio forced to collaborate via Microsoft Teams. For the DLC, however, its developers have been together throughout, able to build on what has come before, in the knowledge they’re working on something that is already beloved.
“The overall quality of the DLC is absolutely on par and in some instances higher than main game,” Torvenius concludes. “For people that love the Great Circle and the world of Indiana Jones that MachineGames built, this is more of that. It’s really for them. And if you haven’t played the base game, we are really hoping that this is a great opportunity for people wanting to play. It’s been a great adventure doing it, a lot of hard work, but it’s been fun to see. Sometimes you work on a game for many years and towards the end there can almost be a bit of fatigue, or you’re a bit exhausted. But when production really geared up on the DLC, people were still energized. I think that passion for Indiana Jones shines through, and we are extremely proud of it.”
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
But it will still add games to the voucher catalogue.
It’s been incredibly busy in the land of Nintendo recently with the arrival of the Switch 2, and in case you missed the initial announcement in July, Nintendo announced it would be discontinuing Switch Online Game Vouchers.
It has now issued another notice about this via its customer support social account for Japan – reminding Switch users that these vouchers will no longer be sold after 30th January 2026. It has also shared a notice about how the software currently listed for the voucher program does not include Switch 2 titles.
The developer will be bringing the hunt to its latest Street Fighter entry, dressing the fighters up with new EX colours, “new gears” and more. This limited-time event will be taking place between 1st September 2025 and 30th September 2025.
A group of over 450 developers on the game Diablo at Blizzard have voted in favor of unionization with Communications Workers of America (CWA).
Per a press release, this new union consists of game developers, artists, designers, engineers, and support staff across the Diablo franchise, and has been formally recognized by parent company Microsoft.
“With every subsequent round of mass layoffs, I’ve witnessed the dread in my coworkers grow stronger because it feels like no amount of hard work is enough to protect us,” said Kelly Yeo, a game producer and a member of the organizing committee. “I am overjoyed that we have formed a union—this is just the first step for us joining a movement spreading across an industry that is tired of living in fear. We are ready to begin fighting for real change alongside our Diablo colleagues.”
Over 3,500 workers at Microsoft have organized with CWA to date.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
NVIDIA’s 50-series of GPUs are here to stay, and on the lower end, the RTX 5060 is a decent card for 1080p gaming while making use of the love-it-or-hate-it DLSS 4 technologies for higher frame rates.
On 23rd November 2025 at 23:59, it will no longer be possible to buy the Nintendo-published game from the digital storefront. If you already own the game digitally, you’ll be able to redownload it.
Project Evilbane Pre-Alpha Playtest Will Begin Tomorrow!
Tim, Xbox Program Manager
The first pre-alpha playtest of Project Evilbane will begin tomorrow in the Xbox Insider Hub! During this 3-day test, we hope to gather your valuable feedback and further refine the game into a more polished experience. Gather around if you’re ready to hunt demons, Insiders!
Game Overview:
Project Evilbane follows a hardened team of apocalyptic survivors who have sworn to avenge their ruined world. Join the battle to triumph over the Archdemon’s forces and save humanity!
Playtest Introduction:
Project Evilbane is currently in the early stages of development. To help shape it into a more enjoyable game, we’re conducting our first playtest to gather your valuable feedback. The main goal of this playtest is to evaluate the fun and feel of combat. You can enter the battlefield solo or in a party of up to four players, taking on various missions and fighting powerful bosses.
In this playtest, you will be able to try out four different characters and four weapon types. Players can equip one melee weapon and one ranged weapon at the same time to use strategically in combat. Skills are divided into two types: Active Skills and Heavenstone Skills. Each character can equip two of each type, allowing for customizable loadouts. Turn the tide of battle in critical moments with well-timed skills and experience the thrill of clutch plays. Mix and match your preferred skills to create your own unique combat style. Whether you fight solo or team up with others, we hope you’ll have a thrilling time.
For more information: follow us on X/Twitter at @XboxInsider and this blog for announcements and more. And feel free to interact with the community on the Xbox Insider SubReddit.
Elden Ring: Nightreign’s previously-rumored ultra-hard difficulty mode is real and official, according to Bandai Namco, and it’s coming to the game on September 11.
As announced in an official post, the new mode is called “Deep of Night” and is essentially a challenge mode of the base game. While previously, Nightreign’s ongoing challenging endgame content has been limited to more difficult bosses, Deep of Night will impact an entire run, from start to finish.
For one, enemies will just be stronger than normal across the board. You also won’t get a heads up about which Nightlord you’ll be fighting, nor will you know if you’re getting a Shifting Earth event in advance, so you won’t be able to prep a build for any specific type of run.
However, to counterbalance this, players will be able to collect new types of weapons and relics with even more powerful effects…though they may also have some new drawbacks attached as well.
As you play and win Deep of Night you will descend to deeper depth levels, going at least as far as Depth 5. Each new Depth gets even more challenging, though losses will push you back up to easier Depths.
This mode was previously datamined, with dataminers getting all the announced details correct. Not announced but suggested by the datamine is that Deep of Night will feature skill-based matchmaking, and that some enemies will get special additional effects, such as being “magmafied,” or covered in magma. The datamine also suggests that players can unlock access to three additional relic slots for Deep of Night only, giving them up to a total of six.
We gave Elden Ring Nightreign a 7/10, saying “when Elden Ring Nightreign is played exactly as it was designed to be played, it’s one of the finest examples of a three-player co-op game around – but that’s harder to do than it should be, and playing solo is poorly balanced.” The game recently got a much-requested duos mode, and currently has two Everdark Sovereign bosses available for players wanting a challenge before Deep of Night: Libra, and Caligo.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
