Update: Switch catches up with the other platforms.
Update : After being released on other platforms last week, Konami and WayForward have revealed that the latest update for Contra: Operation Galuga is now available on Switch too.
Notice of the Switch’s inclusion was shared by the official Contra Twitter account. You can find the full patch notes for this new update in our original coverage below.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
This week, Microsoft announced the timing of its Xbox showcase event in June as well as a follow-up Direct for a mystery game that looks like a clear tease for the next Call of Duty.
This year’s mainline Call of Duty is reportedly a Treyarch-developed Black Ops game set in the Gulf War. Some had even thought it might be called Call of Duty Black Ops Gulf War, following the naming convention set out by the previous Black Ops game, Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War.
However, following Microsoft’s tease, eagle-eyed Call of Duty fans are giving the image included the zoom and enhance treatment, and believe the redacted section conceals the words Call of Duty Black Ops V.
We’re going to be talking about games of course
Tune in to the Xbox Games Showcase followed by [REDACTED] Direct on Sunday, June 9 @ 10am PT: https://t.co/z78G8h75r2 | #XboxShowcase pic.twitter.com/XgOGJy2gLv
— Xbox (@Xbox) April 30, 2024
As many fans have pointed out, you can almost make out the ‘OPS’ from Black Ops in the redacted section in the bottom of the image. The suggestion is the spacing only makes sense if the words are ‘Black Ops V’, not ‘Gulf War.’
Why the V, specifically? It’s all in the pixels, fans believe. Actually, the single pixel to the right of the blacked out part of the image. Would it be more of a bar if it concealed a ‘5’ than a ‘V’? Some fans believe so.
Black Ops V only seems suitable 😉 https://t.co/ggCMOJbmSk pic.twitter.com/cHs7DbBBWL
— Desire (@Deziah) April 30, 2024
Here’s some better versions made by @omgFawzi that give a better look at what BO5’s teaser should look like uncensored pic.twitter.com/m8OP8vy3IP
— Forward (@ForwardLeaks) April 30, 2024
If the game is called Black Ops V, that would track with the roman numeral system used for previous Black Ops games (bizarrely, Activision went with Black Ops IIII for the fourth game in the series, as opposed to IV). Black Ops V would also be a somewhat puzzling choice given it wouldn’t actually be the fifth mainline Black Ops game, but the sixth. Perhaps Activision wants to lean more on the idea of this new Black Ops being a fully-fledged sequel after veering into potential sub-sub-brand territory with Cold War. Perhaps the game spans more than the Gulf War, so using the name in the title wouldn’t properly reflect its content. Or perhaps Activision feels like having Gulf War in the title of the game is a step too far, even for Call of Duty.
Whatever the case, fans don’t have long to wait to find out, given the Xbox Showcase and the Call of Duty Direct are a little over a month away.
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.
A player-run troupe of actors will be performing an adaptation of Richard III in Fallout 76, featuring a “ghoul” in the lead role. They’re partly inspired by the recent Fallout TV show, which puts a jaded cowboy ghoul in a pivotal role and has lead to an increase in players of the online multiplayer RPG. This production will likely be more faithful to the bard than to Amazon Prime. It will open with the lines: “Now is the nuclear winter of our discontent.”
Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead has issued a statement on recent changes to the way ricochet works in the game after members of the community pointed out one weapon in particular was killing players more than it should.
After this week’s release of patch 01.000.300, which tweaked a long list of weapons, stratagems, and enemies, a debate emerged about the state of ricochet. According to the initial patch notes: “Shots that ricochet from heavy armored enemies will now properly hit the Helldiver who fired them. Trigger discipline is highly recommended.”
Players then reported getting killed more often by shots that ricochet, but there was confusion about what exactly was happening. Clips shared on social media appeared to show players suffering embarrassing deaths at the hands of their own ricocheting projectiles, even from rockets and explosives, but redditor Zenbast investigated the issue and blamed it on the Eruptor.
The Erupter is an explosive weapon that causes shrapnel, and, Zenbast found, it was this shrapnel that was killing players, not necessarily ricocheting bullets. Zenbast suggested other weapons that have the shrapnel effect might have had a similar issue, but it was the Eruptor that was causing the most chaos.
Now, Arrowhead has issued a follow-up acknowledging the issue with the Eruptor and announcing planned changes to fix it. The developer said it will completely remove the shrapnel effect from the Eruptor but increase its hit damage as a result. “This should make it less lethal to the operator but just as powerful against enemies,” Arrowhead said. “It should maintain its destructive power, and as it is still classed as explosive, it will not lose the ability to break objects, close holes, destroy fabricators, etc. This will, overall, be a buff to the weapon as shrapnel played an almost negligible part in the damage and power it dealt. Its AOE will be unaffected.”
Arrowhead ended its statement by thanking the Helldivers community for working out what was happening. Here’s the statement in full:
The teams have been hard at work testing a number of community issues today, mainly focused on the changes to ricochets and shrapnel. In response to a previous front page post we looked into the possibility of rockets and other explosives being affected by ricochets. This has since been debunked by the community, but nonetheless, our Ministry of Defense team also ran a number of tests today and confirmed that rockets and explosives are not ricocheting backwards.
However, we have noticed another issue through these posts and community feedback that has identified the possibility for shots from the R-36 Eruptor to explode and rebound shrapnel at the shooter, which has a high enough damage value to instantly kill the player. To prevent this, we’re looking to completely remove the shrapnel effect from the Eruptor but will be increasing its hit damage as a result. This should make it less lethal to the operator but just as powerful against enemies. It should maintain its destructive power, and as it is still classed as explosive, it will not lose the ability to break objects, close holes, destroy fabricators, etc. This will, overall, be a buff to the weapon as shrapnel played an almost negligible part in the damage and power it dealt. Its AOE will be unaffected.
Currently, with the systems in place, only small arms should be able to ricochet on armor. If you see an explosive VFX at the point of impact, the projectile is not causing a ricochet, as explosion effects are not triggered when a ricochet occurs. Shrapnel, however, can still explode outwards from the point of impact and kill the player.
We apologize for this misunderstanding and thank you all for investigating these new changes so diligently, and for passing on your feedback to us. Hopefully this makes sense and these changes should help everyone survive better!
If you’re looking for more on Helldivers 2, check out IGN’s feature on the Let Me Solo Her of Helldivers 2, a player who has answered over 100 SOS Beacons as part of a mission to help others.
Helldivers 2 has become one of the surprise hits of 2024 since launching in February, topping the charts on Steam and reportedly selling around three million copies. According to at least one analyst, it’s still growing. Check out IGN’s Helldivers 2 review to find out why it’s going down so well.
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.
Microsoft’s Xbox summer showcase in June will reportedly include a hefty post-show segment on the next and currently untitled Call Of Duty, alongside release dates for such first-party headliners as Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, Avowed and Indiana Jones And The Great Circle. As rumoured in April, they’re also apparently going to show off a new Gears Of War game. Nice to see the COG and Locust still getting work.
Dragonite and Marill join the line up.
Earlier this year, some retailers accidentally revealed some new Pokémon Squishmallows. Now, in an update, The Pokémon Company has confirmed the next pair joining the line up are Marill and Dragonite.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
“Fight for glory in the arena”.
Back in 2021, the online and mobile developer Zynga announced it would be bringing the “free-to-download” player-verse-player third-person competitive shooter Star Wars: Hunters to the Switch and mobile devices.
While it’s been playable on mobile devices for some time, it’s now finally launching on the Switch eShop on 4th June 2024. Preloads are also live, so you can jump straight in when the game unlocks on Switch.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Rise of the Ronin may be a little shy over a month out from its release on PlayStation 5, but that isn’t stopping the action RPG’s sales from outpacing its spiritual predecessors, Nioh and Nioh 2.
News of Rise of the Ronin’s sales comes from Koei Tecmo’s recent financial report. In the report, Koei Tecmo noted that Rise of the Ronin’s sales are surpassing the Nioh series and that it might usher in a “significant step toward mid to long-term growth” for the holdings company despite being a new triple-A game.
No specific sales figures, however, were mentioned. Back in 2022, Team Ninja had announced that the Nioh series collectively had shipped 7 million units worldwide.
In tandem with Koei Tecmo’s internal findings of Rise of the Ronin, the financial report also underscored the acclaim the game has received from both critics and players. More specifically, Koei Tecmo cited Rise of the Ronin’s “very high” user and “generally favorable” Metacritic score, which praised the game for its combat, story, and graphics.
Rise of the Ronin, by Nioh developer Team Ninja, is an open-world action RPG where players control a nameless ronin in a perilous adventure set in the mid-19th century era of Japan.
In our review, in which we gave Rise of the Ronin a 7, we said it “marries a cool setting, Team Ninja’s mastery of tough-but-fair combat, and smart RPG design, even when map clutter and junk loot can get in its way.”
Isaiah Colbert is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow them on Twitter @ShinEyeZehUhh.
I’m not sure how I, a committed Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy fan, managed to miss A Difficult Game About Climbing. It is, like its obvious inspiration, a difficult game about climbing, but here you’re using your arms independently to grip and hoist yourself rather than hooking and swinging a pickaxe. It is, also like its obvious inspiration, frustrating and moreish, like a scab you keep picking at.
Manor Lords, the medieval-themed strategy game released in early access last week, recently got a mod that allows it to be played with a VR headset, and it’s even caught the attention of the game’s developer.
Flat2VR, a community of modders and developers aiming to port “flat” games into virtual reality, announced on X/Twitter that there is now a VR mod for PC players looking to play Manor Lords on a virtual reality headset. Flat2VR notes that the mod currently uses mouse and keyboard controls and that “it works perfectly” in six-degree-of-freedom VR (6DOF VR). It’s made possible thanks to UEVR, a mod that allows developers and modders to make VR mods for games powered by Unreal Engine.
Wow I have no idea how it’s done but I’m impressed it works https://t.co/G1W6l5oDcq
— MANOR LORDS (@LordsManor) April 29, 2024
A video shared by the modding group caught the eye of Manor Lords developer Slavic Magic, who responded with awe that modders managed to get a VR mode running.
“Wow I have no idea how it’s done but I’m impressed it works,” they replied.
Manor Lords has been out for less than a week and it already has becomer a big hit on PC. A few days after its early access release, publisher Hooded Horse revealed that Manor Lords not only sold over a million copies in a day, buy it also hit a peak Steam player concurrent out of 173,178. Manor Lords is the latest indie of 2024 to break out in the industry, joining the likes of Pocket Pair’s open-world survival game Palworld and Arrowhead’s shooter Helldivers 2 in finding success outside of AAA development.
In our early access review of Manor Lords, IGN wrote: “Manor Lords is a gorgeous medieval city-builder that kept me occupied for hours building my perfect, cozy hamlets, but it definitely feels very early in its Early Access development.”
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
