Category: Video Games

Resident Evil’s Raccoon City: A Complete History – From Sleepy Town to Zombie Nightmare

Survival horror is finally coming home. Raccoon City is the setting for the classic Resident Evil games, its awesome remakes, and some surprisingly relevant spinoffs. As far as iconic locations in zombie fiction go, Raccoon City easily hangs in the hallowed company of holy horror spaces like the Monroeville Mall and the Winchester pub.

Just as it seemed that Resident Evil had definitively closed the book on RC, Capcom announced a return to the ruins of Raccoon City for the ninth main entry in its seminal survival horror series. For longtime fans, Resident Evil Requiem feels like it could be a joyous reunion…

But life in Raccoon City can be… complicated. Infrequent visitors might find themselves asking questions like “Where am I?” “What the heck happened here?” “Does the world know about the miraculous healing powers of colored herbs?” and “Why do I have to put jewels in a statue when I go to the DMV?”

That’s why we’ve assembled this ultimate field guide to Raccoon City. We’ll explore RC’s behind-the-scenes history, discuss everything that went down in the games, unpack the town’s enduring appeal, and solve a few mysteries along the way.

Why “Raccoon City?”

Introduced in the opening seconds of the original Resident Evil, or “Bio Hazard” in Japan, “Raccoon City” had an important role to play in establishing the series.

Resident Evil’s predecessor, the Japan-only Famicom game Sweet Home, took place in a haunted mansion in the Japanese countryside. Producer Tokuro Fujiwara wanted to remake the 8-bit cult classic for a new generation of consoles, but Capcom no longer had the rights to the film from which Sweet Home was adapted.

So Fujiwara and director Shinji Mikami reworked the concept to center around zombies instead of haunted paintings, envisioning the game as an interactive horror movie, complete with a haunting score, cinematic pre-rendered backgrounds, and jump scares a-plenty. Instead of taking inspiration from supernatural, psychological J-horror such as Sweet Home, the developers instead looked toward the West.

Resident Evil clearly owes a massive debt to George A. Romero, the godfather of the zombie genre who shot his movies in the small cities surrounding Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Setting the game in a fictional Anytown, U.S.A. allowed Capcom to capture the vibe of classics like Dawn of the Dead and create inroads to a Western audience more effectively than any live-action FMV sequence with cheesy American actors

Early drafts of Bio Hazard had the action taking place in a town called “Harnbee,” located in either New Jersey or Arkansas. Capcom ultimately decided to name the city after an animal, which isn’t strange by itself, as the fine folks from Buffalo, New York or Dinosaur, Colorado will tell you. Still, adorable trash pandas seem like an odd choice for spine-chilling survival horror.

One longstanding theory is that Capcom was referencing the species of “raccoon dog” called tanuki, which Western gamers might be familiar with from its presence in Japanese folklore and pop culture. These cute little guys look a lot like raccoons, save for some slight anatomical differences, and they’ve quite frequently appeared in video games. So could “Raccoon City” just be a localized version of “Tanuki Town?” It’s not likely.

For one thing, tanuki aren’t even raccoons at all as far as taxonomy is concerned. More importantly, the original Bio Hazard refers to its setting as “Rakūn Shiti,” using the English transliteration of “raccoon” as opposed to “tanuki” or “araiguma,” the Japanese word for the actual species. With Raccoon City, Capcom is very specifically referring to the North American mammals. But why?

Raccoons aren’t native to Japan, but in the ‘70s, a popular anime called Rascal the Raccoon led to tons of Japanese people importing the little critters to keep as pets. This was not a good idea, as anyone who has to deal with these feral, garbage eating creatures can tell you, and today, raccoons are classified as an “invasive alien species” that causes millions of dollars in damages to crops and wildlife all throughout Japan.

Were the mindless swarms of flesh-devouring zombies that infest “Raccoon City” inspired by these destructive varmints? Could it be a commentary on America’s less-than-stellar reputation on the global stage, or at least the behavior of its most obnoxious tourists? It’s certainly possible, but it’s unlikely that a game that’s such a loving homage to American horror films would make that kind of dig. The real answer is probably more simple: the mansion is in a forest, Raccoons live in the forest, hence “Raccoon Forest,” which in turn gave the city its name.

In the end, Capcom wanted to make a zombie game set in the U.S. and came up with a plausible-sounding place for it to happen. There’s no hidden meaning or dark secret lurking at the heart of Raccoon City… At least, behind the scenes. Within the world of Resident Evil, there’s a lot going on beneath the surface.

Raccoon Rising

Nestled in the Arklay mountains, bordered by the sprawling Raccoon Forest to the north, was a small midwestern town called Raccoon City. Founded in the 1800s, RC was largely unremarkable until the end of the swinging ‘60s, when its struggling economy was revitalized by a corporate benefactor that would one day bring about its total destruction.

In 1968, three best buds with a crazy dream got together to form the Umbrella Corporation. The plan? To create a superior breed of humans through twisted science. While none of the deeply unpleasant men who founded Umbrella had any deep ties to Raccoon City, Oswald E. Spencer just so happened to have some valuable real estate that would be perfect for their evil ambitions.

A few years earlier, in 1962, Sir Spencer commissioned a famous New York architect named George Trevor to build his dream home in Arklay County. Situated above a sprawling limestone cavern large enough to host a secret underground laboratory, the mansion was to be a recreation of Spencer’s childhood estate back in England… with a few twists.

Trevor made his name designing intricate buildings with traps, secret passageways, and tricksy puzzles– the kinds of gimmicks that make lunatics like Spencer (and strategy guide writers) squeal. As the mansion neared completion in 1967, Spencer grew more paranoid, as evil masterminds tend to do. He was convinced that Trevor would reveal his secrets, so he convinced the architect to bring his family to Raccoon City and conspired to wipe them all out.

Spencer infected Trevor’s wife Jessica and daughter Lisa with the Progenitor Virus, precursor to the T-virus, the manmade zombie plague that would later doom Raccoon City. Jessica died, and was entombed beneath the mansion. Lisa survived, but mutated into a shambling, nigh-unkillable monstrosity. Umbrella kept Lisa prisoner for 28 years, experimenting on her to produce even deadlier concoctions like the G-virus.

As for old George Trevor himself, he wound up trapped in a labyrinth of his own making. According to his diary, while searching for his family he actually forgot the solutions to the puzzles he created, which is relatable if nothing else. Unable to juggle all the crests, keys, and cranks that unlocked the Spencer Mansion, Trevor died of thirst and starvation deep within the bowels of his final masterpiece.

With those loose ends somewhat messily tied up, Umbrella was free to continue with its mad science, thriving within a blissfully unaware Raccoon City. The town was growing rapidly, and the jobs provided by Umbrella paid for some much-needed infrastructure. Founded in 1969, the Raccoon Police Department eventually purchased a palatial art museum to convert into its headquarters at the urging of future chief (and madman) Brian Irons.

Now safe under the watchful eye of a deranged serial killer, the growing population soon enjoyed the benefits of a zoo and its adorable mascot, Mr. Raccoon, a kick-ass public transit system, a training school for gifted youngsters, a university, a bustling downtown shopping district, and at least one pro football team. Give it up for your Raccoon City… Sharks? RC also hosted a thriving media industry that somehow sustained eight newspapers and a TV news network, all cut down in their prime twenty years before the pivot to video.

Umbrella kept the city’s economic blood pumping with its legit industries above ground, but the real money came from the top secret research it conducted under Raccoon City’s nose. The eugenicist vision of Spencer and the founders was largely replaced with the extremely lucrative industry of creating bio-organic weapons (B.O.W.s) for the highest bidder. Deadly as they are, the Hunters, Lickers, and Chimera Umbrella churned out by the truckload were merely the beta versions of its ultimate creation, the mighty Tyrant.

In the early ‘90s, Umbrella cemented its hold on Raccoon City by pouring tons of money into a revitalization project called “Bright Raccoon 21.” It built hospitals and orphanages, renovated the landmark clock tower, and recruited a special ops police unit called S.T.A.R.S. in 1996. It also took the opportunity to construct not one but two secret NEST facilities underground, where scientist William Birkin was hard at work on the G-virus.

Umbrella owned the mayor, the police department, and employed 40% of the city’s 100,000 citizens. It had infected Raccoon City like one of its patented viruses, transforming the rust-belt industrial town into a bustling metropolis under the iron grip of Umbrella.

This didn’t last very long.

The Raccoon City Destruction Incident

The situation began spiraling out of Umbrella’s control in early 1998, when strange occurrences around Raccoon City started drawing unwanted attention. Strange dogs with wet, decaying flesh were spotted in the woods, and a series of grisly murders seemingly committed by cannibals had residents spooked about a possible death cult lurking in the forest.

The heat made Umbrella nervous, so it called upon its intelligence agent extraordinaire, Albert Wesker. As the company man in charge of S.T.A.R.S., he was to lead the unit on a sham investigation to clean up the mess and retrieve precious combat data, the single most valuable commodity in the Resident Evil universe. Wesker, magnificent bastard that he is, was plotting to ditch Umbrella at the first opportunity, but he complied with his orders.

On the 23rd of July, 1998, the S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team helicopter crashed in the forest, courtesy of Wesker’s sabotage. The man in the shades personally led Alpha team on a so-called rescue mission that trapped them in the iconic foyer of the Spencer Mansion. As the events of Resident Evil 1 play out, S.T.A.R.S. members Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine battle through zombies and B.O.W.s, discover the hidden lab beyond the manor walls, and learn of Umbrella’s role in the slaughter.

As Bravo Team rookie Rebecca Chambers discovered in the extremely mid prequel, Resident Evil 0, the Mansion outbreak was the work of Umbrella co-founder James Marcus, or rather, a mutated leech posing as the murdered magnate. She reunites with Jill and Chris, only to be betrayed by Wesker, who unleashes Umbrella’s apex weapon on his former comrades. Wesker is seemingly skewered by the Tyrant, which is destroyed by a deus ex rocket launcher courtesy of cowardly pilot Brad “Chickenheart” Vickers, as the surviving S.T.A.R.S. members (and a chemically-enhanced Wesker) escape the exploding facility.

Umbrella immediately went to work covering its tracks, hushing up any media murmurs and bribing Chief Irons to discredit and disband S.T.A.R.S. The corporation’s containment efforts were about as successful outside of the lab as in it, and the walls were closing in. Sightings of monsters in the Arklay region continued, growing ever closer to the town as summer turned to fall. William Birkin had seen enough.

The man behind the mutagenic G-virus was preparing to hand over his research to the U.S. government, in exchange for a clean slate and protection for himself, his wife Annette and daughter Sherry. Umbrella caught wind of his intentions and dispatched a spec-ops task force to NEST on September 22nd. In the ensuing firefight, Birkin injected himself with his G-virus, transforming into a body horror monstrosity and releasing T-virus samples among the city’s rats and into the water supply. Raccoon City would be overrun within days.

The military descended on the city in a failed attempt to contain the disease, while Umbrella dispatched its own private mercenary group, the UBCS, to contain the situation. Umbrella also made the most of the opportunity to test new B.O.W.s, airdropping a Nemesis pursuer and handful of Tyrants into the chaos to dispatch unwanted survivors, recapture the G-virus, and explore their combat capabilities in a disaster scenario of its own design.

By the 28th of September, the RPD had fallen and the army had all but abandoned Raccoon City. Those who remained alive did whatever they could to survive the outbreak, often in episodic scenarios perfectly suited for online co-op sessions. On the 29th, a rookie cop with heartthrob hair arrived in Raccoon City, late for his first day on the job and somehow unaware of the destruction that lurked within. Welcome to Resident Evil 2.

Leon Kennedy linked up with Claire Redfield, a young woman searching for her brother Chris, who was off in Europe doing his own research on Umbrella. Together, the two sought refuge in the zombie-infested RPD, evading “Mr. X” and a mutated William Birkin with help from Ada Wong, an agent working for Umbrella’s unnamed corporate rival. Together, they storm the NEST, rescue Birkin’s daughter Sherry, witness Ada’s apparent demise, defeat their tormentors, and haul ass out of the self-destructing facility on a speeding train.

Resident Evil 3 revealed that Jill Valentine was trapped in town while all this was going down, her last escape halted by the relentless Nemesis, programmed to murder any remaining S.T.A.R.S. members. Jill teams up with Carlos Oliveira and his ragtag group of UBCS spooks to infiltrate the secondary NEST facility and find a vaccine. The Nemesis is destroyed, along with any potential T-virus cure, and Jill and Carlos flee the city shortly before its destruction.

On October 1, the U.S. government decided to wash its hands of Raccoon City by wiping it off the map. The President ordered the launch of an experimental thermobaric missile to destroy the town, any evidence of the outbreak, and every living and unliving creature still inside. When the dust settled, all that remained of Raccoon City was a smoldering crater.

Umbrella’s role in the disaster was exposed by journalist Alyssa Ashcroft, a survivor who revealed the existence of B.O.W.s to the world. The U.S. President resigned in disgrace, but the government managed to keep its dealings with Umbrella under wraps. Facing prosecutions, lawsuits, and dwindling sales following the death of 100,000 people, the Umbrella corporation shriveled and died, leaving Raccoon City as its final, shameful legacy.

The Uncanny City

The few brief mentions of Raccoon City in Resi 1 sparked our imaginations, and RE 2 made them a reality. While the sequel largely took place inside the ornate RPD building, RE 2 begins with a bang, throwing Leon and Claire into the burning streets of Raccoon City proper and daring them to survive the horror. Clambering up fire escapes and sprinting past zombie-filled basketball courts was such a mind-blowing expansion of scope in 1998 that we didn’t really notice that Raccoon City doesn’t make any sense. At least, not for an American city.

The pre-rendered backgrounds of the original Resi 2 and 3 are chock-full of narrow, winding streets and mazes of tiny alleys that lead to dead ends, none of which are really representative of a bustling mid-sized midwestern metro. In fact, Raccoon City as originally envisioned feels a lot like the commercial area of a Japanese city– Shinjuku draped in grimy Western set dressing.

Most Japanese game devs in the ‘90s weren’t given the budget to fly across the Pacific to do in-depth research on cities in the United States– Konami famously used the Arnold Schwarzenegger family comedy Kindergarten Cop as its primary reference when conceiving the streets of Silent Hill. RC isn’t supposed to be an accurate U.S. city, it’s an imaginary version of one cooked up via Capcom’s cultural osmosis, based on its impressions of American culture from afar– it’s no coincidence that RE 2’s only accessible building outside of the RPD is Gun Shop Kendo. The result is a Raccoon City that feels familiar enough to Western audiences with a subtle undercurrent that something is wrong, the uncanny valley effect played out in environmental design.

This sensation diminished as the series evolved beyond pre-rendered backgrounds, with the multiplayer-focused Outbreak games returning to a fully polygonal RC. The somewhat forgotten spinoff has been thrust into the spotlight with the reveal that Resident Evil Requiem will star Grace Ashcroft, daughter of reporter Alyssa Ashcroft who was a prominent playable character in Outbreak. It’s a series worth revisiting even without the ability to play online, in large part because of how it expands Raccoon City. Survivors explore bars, hotels, apartment buildings, a zoo, and even Raccoon University campus, fleshing RC into a more fully realized space while maintaining the gritty, pre-HD vibe.

The advent of the Resident Evil remakes gave Capcom the opportunity to update Raccoon City for a new generation. The impressive RE Engine provided realistic, high fidelity graphics, but it feels like something was lost in translation. While the city more closely resembles a thriving midwestern tourist destination, with towering skyscrapers and a more sensible urban layout, it sacrifices the otherworldly aesthetic of the original games. It feels less like a waking nightmare and more like an actual place– even though a real-life Raccoon City is rather implausible. Umbrella funding aside, the sheer amount of amenities and infrastructure built to serve such a small population would probably raise some suspicious eyebrows and definitely jack up the rent prices.

And even if it could exist in our world, that begs our final question: where is Raccoon City supposed to be? Capcom has never definitively stated its location, and the most specific the canonical series ever got was in the intro to the Resident Evil 3 remake.

The (fantastic) tie-in novels by S.D. Perry explicitly placed the city in rural Pennsylvania, as did the screenplay for George Romero’s legendary unproduced Resident Evil adaptation. The Paul W.S. Anderson movies kept things vague, with some clues that Raccoon City is either near Allentown, PA or somewhere in Michigan, but most of the action was filmed in Toronto, Canada. The ill-fated Welcome to Raccoon City film was similarly shot in Ontario, but it too declined to name the state it stood in for.

Countless fan theories have emerged throughout the decades, using every snippet of lore and a whole lot of logical leaps in an attempt to deduce the location of Raccoon City. Plausible arguments exist for Colorado, South Dakota, and even Cleveland, Ohio, but the prevailing hypothesis is that Raccoon is a stand in for Springfield, Missouri. There aren’t many mountains in the midwest, after all, but the foggy Arklay hills could be interpreted as Missouri’s Ozark region. Springfield also happens to be situated above massive limestone caverns with plenty of room for growing young B.O.W.s.

There are a few holes in this hypothesis, like the fact that Leon and Claire emerge from Raccoon City into a sprawling desert that is far removed from any geographic feature of the Show-Me State. The truth is, we probably were never supposed to know exactly where Raccoon City is– and maybe that’s what makes it so creepy.

Raccoon City could be the growing town up the road where a soulless corporation just built a new billion-dollar data center. It could be the quaint hamlet up by the woods that hosts a mysterious old house that’s rumored to be haunted. It could be your city, that one day you might have to escape in a desperate dash for survival. For nearly 30 years, Raccoon City has played host to countless mysteries and unanswered questions, some of which may finally be revealed in Requiem. But one thing has never been in doubt: Raccoon City is a scary place to be.

The latest Elden Ring Nightreign enhanced boss is plenty tough enough without the Everdark treatment

Elden Ring Nightreign’s next Enhanced boss is Fulghor, Champion of Nightglow, developers From Software have confirmed. You’ll be able to get your teeth into him from June 26th at 4pm central European summer time, 7am Pacific Daylight Time, or 11pm Japan Standard Time.

These timezone distinctions are meaningless, of course, because there is only one timezone in which Fulghor operates, and that timezone is Butt Kicking Time. He’s one of the co-op RPG’s harder scraps, and he’ll be all the worse for being Enhanced.

Read more

Donkey Kong & Pauline Amiibo Is Now Up For Pre-Order From Nintendo (UK)

Be quick!

If you’re keen to pick up the upcoming Donkey Kong and Pauline amiibo to cooincide with the release of Donkey Kong Bananza next month, you’re in luck: it’s now available via the My Nintendo Store in the UK.

Priced at £16.99, the amiibo will launch on 17th July 2025 and will unlock an in-game ‘Diva Dress’ costume for Pauline when used with Donkey Kong Bananza itself.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Rust Console Edition Gets an Xbox Series X|S Upgrade – Free for Existing Players

Rust Console Edition Gets an Xbox Series X|S Upgrade – Free for Existing Players

  • Pedro SilvaSenior Community Manager, Double Eleven

Rust Screenshot

The island just got deadlier, and a whole lot better looking. Rust Console Edition is officially powering up for Xbox Series X|S, bringing a massive next-gen upgrade to one of the most unforgiving survival experiences on console. Whether you’ve logged hundreds of hours or you’re waking up on the beach with nothing but a rock for the first time, this upgrade changes everything.

A new journey has already kicked off for Deluxe and Ultimate Edition owners, who get exclusive early access to the new-gen version. Everyone else joins the fight tomorrow, June 26 with the full Base Edition launch. If you already own any version of Rust Console Edition on Xbox One, the upgrade to Xbox Series X|S is completely free. We provide an automatic one-to-one edition match, so if you have the Base Edition, you’ll get the Series X|S Base Edition. The same applies for Deluxe and Ultimate owners.

Bigger, Better, Sharper

From the moment you boot it up, the difference will be clear. Textures are richer, and the lighting is more dynamic. Foliage sways, weather shifts, and shadows stretch across the terrain, creating an atmosphere that pulls you in from the very first moment. On Xbox Series X|S, Rust Console Edition finally looks the way it was always meant to. Gritty, raw, and strangely beautiful in the moments between all-out chaos.

Performance keeps up with the visuals. Powered by Xbox Series X|S hardware, the game runs smoother and faster than ever. Load times are quicker, frame rates are higher, and even the wildest battles stay locked in. This isn’t just an upgrade – it’s a full rebuild, designed to make every moment feel a lot more intense.

Rust Console Edition Screenshot

Chaos Rains From the Skies

Visual upgrades are just the beginning. The rebuilt version of Rust Console Edition brings brand-new content to the island, adding new layers of chaos, unpredictability, and opportunity.

Scrap helicopters and minis will now slice through the skies, giving raiders and builders alike new ways to explore the landscape or ambush the other survivors below. Hot air balloons drift slowly across the landscape, offering a bird’s-eye view for those planning their next move (or making the world’s slowest getaway). And to counter it all, SAM sites are here to bring those high-flying adventures crashing back to Earth in the most brutal way possible.

Throw in new building animations, refined gameplay improvements, and a few surprises waiting to surface after launch, and the experience starts to feel like something entirely new. For returning players, it brings back everything you remember while giving you fresh reasons to dive in all over again.

Rust Console Edition Screenshot

Survival Comes with Serious Perks

If you’re jumping in for the first time, or thinking of upgrading, there are plenty of reasons to go with the Deluxe or Ultimate Edition. Each one comes with its own set of exclusive rewards designed to help you stand out from the crowd. And no matter which version you choose, every pre-order includes a unique garage door skin to make your base feel like home from day one.

Base Edition – Launches June 26 and gives players everything they need to begin their survival adventure. You will wake up on the beach with nothing but a rock, a torch, and a dangerous world ahead. Pre-ordering the Base Edition also unlocks the Press Start red garage door skin, a bold way to make your base stand out from the very beginning.

Deluxe Edition – Go Deluxe, and you’ll hit the ground running with access already available. It also includes 1,100 Rust Coins to spend in the in-game shop and a combat ready outfit with the Tech Noir skin pack. Players who pre-order the Deluxe Edition will also receive the Green Press Start garage door skin.

Ultimate Edition – If you want to make a statement, the Ultimate Edition is the real showstopper. Along with all the Deluxe rewards, you will receive 4,600 Rust Coins and the legendary Orion’s Fury skin for the L96 sniper rifle. You will also unlock the most exclusive of the pre-order garage door skins, the Press Start Blue version.

A New Era of Rust

At its core, Rust has always been about chaos, creativity, betrayal, and survival. On Xbox Series X|S, that vision comes to life with more intensity than ever before. This is not just the best way to play Rust on console. It is the version players have been waiting for.

If you have taken a break, this is the perfect time to return. The game looks better, runs smoother, and introduces new systems that change the way you fight, build, and survive. Everything feels familiar, but sharper and more refined in all the right ways. And the best part is that you can get the upgrade for free if you already own the Xbox One version of the game.

So grab your scrap, get ready to unlock some new blueprints, and jump into action. In Rust, trust is rare and danger is never far away.

Your next chapter has begun. Just make sure to lock your doors.


Rust Console Edition

Rust Console Edition

Double Eleven Ltd.

☆☆☆☆☆
1245
★★★★★

$49.99
Get it now

Welcome to Rust.

The only aim in Rust is to survive – Overcome struggles such as hunger, thirst and cold. Build a fire. Build a shelter. Kill animals. Protect yourself from other players.

The post Rust Console Edition Gets an Xbox Series X|S Upgrade – Free for Existing Players appeared first on Xbox Wire.

Gran Turismo 7 Update 1.60 available today

Attention, drivers! Drive the iconic WRC champion and the mini-Italian stallion, the ’92 Lancia Delta HF Integrale Rally Car with Update 1.60 for GT7. The very French slab-sided ’87 Citroën BX 19 TRS and ’21 Peugeot SUV 2008 round out the Euro-leaning car additions. Three new events, an Extra Menu, new Scotland Scapes location, and expanded Sophy AI racing agent to the Alsace – Village circuit round out the very fresh and very free content, courtesy of the Polyphony team.

Update 1.60* for Gran Turismo 7 is available as of today Wednesday, June 25 at 11:00pm PDT / June 26 at 3:00pm JST / 8:00am CEST.

*Internet connection and Gran Turismo 7 game required for update.


Gran Turismo 7 Update 1.60 available today

New cars**

’87 Citroën BX 19 TRS
(Can be purchased from Brand Central / Used Cars)

Citroën’s do-it-all tourer features a modern new look.

In 1976, Citroën started over again as part of Peugeot. This raised questions from many as to what a Citroën was now, and the BX was released to answer them, debuting at the 1982 Paris Auto Salon.

The BX was filled with elements that were undeniably Citroën-esque. It retained the image of classic Citroën models like the GS and CX in a thoroughly modern package that featured simple, yet strong lines. The cabin was comfortable and there was plenty of room for luggage as well. The design itself was conceived by Marcello Gandini, who was working for Bertone at that time.

Much thought was also put into the mechanicals. While many models had begun to share more and more parts with Peugeots, the BX featured the signature hydropneumatic suspension. This system uses nitrogen gas and oil instead of conventional coil springs and dampers. This allows for the ride height to be adjusted freely and also creates the unique feel of a Citroën.

The car was available with a number of different engines, but the 19 TRS featured here is a grand tourer-style model using a 1.9L gasoline engine. While not a particularly powerful engine, it is helped along by the relatively lightweight and aerodynamic body, allowing it to tackle long drives on holiday with ease.

The BX would prove to be a success for Citroën, selling for 12 years running. This car also proved that Citroën was still a competitor at a time when there was constant innovation in the French automotive industry.

’92 Lancia Delta HF Integrale Rally Car
(Can be purchased from Brand Central)

The pinnacle of the Lancia Delta, winner of 6 consecutive WRC titles.

After Group B racing was dropped from the WRC, Lancia chose the Delta as their Group A machine. Converted to 4WD and sporting a turbocharger, this high-performance model was dubbed the HF 4WD and entered the 1987 WRC.

The following year, the Delta HF 4WD was equipped with audacious blister wheel arches and evolved into the Integrale. In 1990, the Integrale’s engine was given a 16-valve head, further increasing power. However, Toyota’s Celica was considerably more competitive, and the Delta saw the Drivers’ Title snatched from its grasp by the Celica in 1990 and again in 1991. Thus, in 1992 Lancia released what should be called the final evolution of the Delta.

The new Integrale improved handling through body reinforcement and, with extensive revisions to the suspension, the wheeltrack was expanded. Accordingly, the blister wheel arches got even larger. In order to gain more downforce, a spoiler was attached to the end of the roof, and the torque split of the 4WD system was shifted toward the rear wheels—the car was set up more like a rear-wheel drive.

Thanks to these improvements, the Delta regained its competitive strength. In 1992, works racing activity did not take place due to the policy at Lancia’s parent company FIAT, but Lancia joined forces with the Jolly Club satellite team and gave full technical support. Juha Kankkunen and Didier Auriol participated in 11 of the 14 rounds in the series, with Auriol taking six wins, Kankkunen winning once, and Andrea Aghini also winning once, for a total of eight wins that year—giving Lancia the constructors’ title for the sixth consecutive year.

’21 Peugeot SUV 2008 Allure
(Can be purchased from Brand Central)

This compact SUV displays Peugeot design touches throughout.

Peugeot has produced a number of lively compact cars over the years. This fervour can still be seen today where SUVs control the market. They saw success in 2013 with their ‘2008’ compact SUV, but the model would be developed even further in 2019 with the release of the ‘SUV 2008’.

Peugeot model names had traditionally been a string of three numbers with a 0 in the middle, but SUV models extended this to four digits. The SUV 2008 follows this rule as well, using the same CMP platform as the ‘208’ hatchback.

At 4.3m long, the car is actually relatively short, but in looks it displays the full grandeur that an SUV should. The motifs of the lights conjure images of a lion’s claws and fangs, which has become part of Peugeot’s design identity in recent years.

Looking at the interior, you will notice the unique driver layout, dubbed the 3D i-Cockpit. This consists of a small-diameter steering wheel with a flattened top and bottom, and a head-up digital instrument panel centred above it, which provides a sporty feeling and unmatched driver visibility.

Cafe / Extra Menus

The following Menu will be added to the Extra Menus section:

  • Extra Menu No. 46: Mercedes-Benz (Collector Level 50）

World Circuits (New Events)

The following new events have been added to World Circuits:

  • Sunday Cup: Willow Springs International Raceway: Streets of Willow Springs Reverse
  • European Sunday Cup 400: Watkins Glen Short Course
  • World Rally Challenge Gr.B: Colorado Springs – Lake

Gran Turismo Sophy

The next-generation racing AI agent, Gran Turismo Sophy is now available on the following courses. Look for the Sophy icon in Quick Race and Custom Race on each track to test your skills against Sophy.

Alsace – Village

Scapes

Scotland has been added as a featured Curation in Scapes.

**Credits (paid or via game progression) required to purchase vehicles.

Netflix Delisting 20+ Games, Including Hades and Monument Valley

Netflix is delisting over 20 mobile games in July, including fan-favorite titles Hades and Monument Valley.

In the latest clue that Netflix’s gaming division could be troubled, Engadget spotted that 22 games were set to exit the subscription service. It’s not clear why, or if they will be replaced with alternative titles, but What’s On Netflix cites the removals trim the streaming giant’s gaming catalog by almost 20%.

Most games will disappear on or around July 15, although dates may vary. It’s unclear if they’ll be made available for mobile players via other services or stores.

Games leaving Netflix Games on July 1:

It follows a recent interview with Netflix’s president of games, Alain Tascan, in which he said he expects future generations to rely less on gaming consoles as major players like Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo push forward with new hardware.

Back in October 2024, Netflix shut down its AAA gaming studio set up in Southern California, leading to the exit of a number of high-profile developers like former Overwatch executive producer Chacko Sonn, veteran Halo creative director Joseph Staten, and art director Rafael Grassetti, sparking questions about its gaming ambitions.

The closure came mere months after Netflix said Netflix Games was doing better than ever, but that might not have been saying much, given past data on the streaming service’s gaming offering. Netflix said gaming engagement “tripled” last year, in part due to the release of The Grand Theft Auto Trilogy on the service near the end of 2023. Netflix called the GTA Trilogy its “most successful launch to date in terms of installs and engagement, with some consumers clearly signing up simply to play these games.”

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.

Sword Of The Sea is an enveloping, but not cutting meditation on “flow”, Journey and vintage Tony Hawk

Back when Matt Nava was art director for glistering mountain pilgrimage Journey, he and his colleagues at thatgamescompany took a research expedition to California’s Pismo beach, a swathe of desert that rolls right up to the Pacific Ocean. The spectacle of land and ocean overlapping did a number on Nava. “It looks like the dunes of the Sahara, you know, these massive sand dunes,” he tells me. “But it’s a beach, and so the ocean is right there. And it’s amazing visually, because you have the waves of the ocean, and you have these sand dunes, which are wave shapes, and it’s so easy to imagine them moving just like the ocean.”

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First Look at Three New and Upcoming Star Wars Board Game Expansions

UK Games Expo, Britain’s biggest tabletop gaming convention, is a delicious smorgasbord of every kind of physical game imaginable. But if there’s one thing that’s dominating this year’s event, it’s Star Wars. And no wonder: it’s a hugely popular franchise that’s currently enjoying a gaming renaissance with multiple titles getting ongoing support.

Expo is showcasing the newest and upcoming releases for three Star Wars board games and card games: the collectible card game Star Wars: Unlimited, the miniature skirmish game Star Wars: Shatterpoint, and cooperative board game The Mandalorian: Adventures.

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The Mandalorian: Adventures has a new expansion, Clan of Two, based on season two of the TV show that inspired the game. “As big Star Wars fans, we wanted to make sure players feel like they’re experiencing the episodes right on your tabletop,” said Josh Beppler, who co-created the game alongside veteran designer Corey Konieczka. “An expansion was something we always had hoped to accomplish because there is such lovely source material to pull from. Season two of the show was such a massive success, we were eager to get to work on the new characters that were just immense fan favorites.”

Clan of Two adds some new playable characters from the wider Star Wars universe such as Ahsoka Tano and Fennec Shand alongside legendary foes like the Krayt Dragon. But of course, that’s one of the joys of the franchise: there’s so much of it to draw on for inspiration. “What we choose to add is based on a lot of different factors,” Shatterpoint’s lead designer Will Shick explained. “Sometimes it’s just a character that we really love in the office and have a great idea for. Sometimes it’s based on inspiration for a sculpt. A lot of times it’s based on whatever’s really popular among fans.”

If you’ve looked at the release schedule for the game, you might have noticed that diversity has led them to some slightly surprising places. “We’re going to do a shark man from space,” Shick grins. “It’s so cool.” He’s talking about Riff Tamson the Karkarodon, who’s included in the upcoming Terror from Below set. It’s also an opportunity for the team to introduce a new keyword to the game, ‘Aquatic,’ unlocking new possible builds. Shatterpoint is noteworthy for nudging players toward taking thematic teams by using these shared keywords to create powerful combos, and this is no exception.

“That’s a totally deliberate design,” Shick continues. “We found the best way to develop games is to bake in soft bonuses. Or little guideposts that say, hey, this character does something really cool, but if you take this character with another thematically paired character, they both do something even better. It doesn’t force the player’s hand. It’s just that if you play thematically, those bonuses might be more valuable than you taking a min-max approach.

Keywords are also a part of collectible card game Star Wars Unlimited. But as a system that needs a lot of new cards dropped with each new set, they’re used differently. There was already an existing “Force” keyword for Jedi and Sith, but for the newest set, Legends of the Force, the designers built on that by making the Force use a distinct mechanic. Some of the game’s starting bases allow you to gain a Force token which you can spend to unlock powerful abilities on particular cards, while others give you the chance to regain the token.

It’s a mechanically interesting system, although not necessarily that well tied-in with Star Wars lore, but the designers are open about wanting fun to come first. “We tried a lot of different iterations of this mechanic,” designer Joe O’Neill explained. “Some that required you to use your deck to draw cards that gained you the Force, but that often felt very inconsistent. One piece of gameplay that is always in play is your base. So using that allowed us to create this as an opt-in decision that didn’t require any re-writing of rules, didn’t require you to draw specific cards, and then feel like you’re missing out by not drawing the right thing.”

Using the base also leans into what many collectible game players love most about their systems: deck-building. “If you’re choosing to run a heavy Force deck that means you don’t get access to energy conversion bases,” O’Neill continued. “So you have to choose between some of the strongest abilities in the game. You don’t get to run everything and we think that choice is really meaningful and an interesting deck-building decision.” His co-designer John Leto finished up by pointing out that “there are other ways to gain the Force throughout the set which feel thematic. A lot of the bases we chose were places that were important to the Force, like the crystal caves.”

While collectible games like Star Wars Unlimited want to cram as much variety into new material as possible, less malleable formats often use expansions as a way to respond to player feedback from the original game. The Mandalorian, which some fans felt was too short in only offering four missions, is no exception. “The expansion adds four more, so it doubles the amount of maps,” says Beppler. “All the missions can be played on the new maps. It’s all interchangeable. You can take any of the new characters, team them up with base game characters, finding new synergies and combos. I think exploring old missions with these new abilities will give the game a lot of new life.”

He’s hopeful that other tweaks might win over some gamers who passed on the original. “The biggest example is probably the duel deck,” he offered. “It’s such a cinematic way to experience a fight. And it really helps make the theme of these characters stand out.” He’s also included new options that substantially increase the challenge if you found the base game too easy. “We’ve added conditional ongoing events which sit in an action slot and give you a negative consequence until you clear it,” he continues. “We also created deadlier versions of some of the weaker events from the first game. It’s all optional – you can stay in novice mode, and you’re going to have a great time but you will miss some of the deep strategy that emerges from the gameplay.”

Similarly, some of the upcoming Shatterpoint material helps answer a common gripe that the scenarios aren’t varied enough. “We’ve just had a brand new key operation drop, they add a thematic campaign mode that you can play,” explained Ross Thompson, the director of marketing at Atomic Mass Games. “And we’re getting ready to release new tournament kits, too, which will include promo cards, posters and that kind of stuff. Then we’ll have galactic legends coming later this year where you can play as one character that you really want to get into.”

Shick fills in with more detail on this new play mode. “One player will get to control a super-powered main character,” he explains. “So Darth Vader as we see him on screen, not balanced for the game. Then two other players take squads of primary or secondary and supporting characters. It’s a really interesting narrative because one player gets to feel super powerful, while the other player gets that experience of being like, oh my gosh, I’m going against the big guy, how do we come out on top?”

Most ongoing miniatures games encounter the need to tweak and rebalance characters as the game goes on, and Shatterpoint is no exception. However, in the age of online material and army-building apps they’ve taken the unusual step of releasing updated cards and encouraging players to print out the updates. “Print and play offers the flexibility to make those changes and offer them to players widely, ensuring that they’re free and not behind a paywall,” said Shick.

This feels like a remarkably forward-thinking attitude in a sector that’s dominated by power creep and “fear of missing out” marketing. “We’re not too proud to admit the fact that, like game development, design is a craft,” says Shick. “Once a game goes out into the wild, players might do different things to what you anticipated. So we want to make sure that we’re honoring people’s collections, that we’re bringing that value and making the best game possible, both going forward and looking back. If a player picks up a starter box and gets massively appealing characters like Anakin and Ahsoka, they better feel good. We want to ensure they play just as well as they did when the game came out.”

Talk like this is undeniably inspiring. It’s refreshing to talk to designers and feel like they’re truly invested in what they’re doing. It’s true of all the creatives on these games: their enthusiasm for their work and from Star Wars radiates off them as we speak. The Star Wars Unlimited team even collects their own product from booster packs. “We have an entire Teams channel at work just for trading within the studio,” O’Neil laughed. “People post their wants list and when the set comes out we all sit down and all crack our boxes, then set up trades.” And you know that a game design team is doing good work when they’re eagerly looking forward to finishing the day and going on to eat their own dog food.

Matt Thrower is a contributing freelance writer for IGN, specializing in tabletop games. You can reach him on BlueSky at @mattthr.bsky.social.

Former Hytale dev claims internal “mismanagement” at Hypixel “stole the opportunity for Hytale to flourish”

Following the announcement earlier this week that Riot-backed Minecrafty sandbox game Hytale has been cancelled, a former Hypixel Studios dev has claimed that internal friction and “mismanagement” at the studio are to blame.

Hytale had been in development for a decade when Hypixel co-founder Noxy revealed that it’d been canned in a website post on June 23, also revealing that the studio will be closing in a few months’ time. The game’s release had been pushed back a number of times since 2020.

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Death Stranding 2’s ‘I Won’t Do It’ Dialogue Option Is a Fun, Perfectly Safe, and Very Hideo Kojima Easter Egg

Death Stranding 2 has a dialogue option at the beginning of the game that fans are getting a kick out of, but while it looks like a scary choice at first, it’s just a harmless Easter egg.

Warning! Spoilers for Death Stranding 2 follow:

Death Stranding 2 kicks off with a Far Cry-esque option at the beginning of the game where Fragile (Léa Seydoux) recruits Sam (Norman Reedus) to Drawbridge, but you get the option to refuse. Death Stranding 2 then does a Groundhog Day thing where the game keeps showing the intro over and over, and you can keep selecting “I wont do it,” but eventually the game forces you to accept the offer.

This first major dialogue choice doesn’t stop you from progressing the story, nor does it do that thing some games do by rolling credits early. It’s a perfectly safe Easter egg that’s in keeping with the Hideo Kojima style, and a fun distraction before you get stuck into the game.

Check out the video below, where we show you exactly what happens when you refuse Fragile’s plea to join Drawbridge.

IGN’s Death Stranding 2 review returned a 9/10. We called it “a triumphant sequel that emphatically delivers on the promise of its original.”

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.