RuneScape: Dragonwilds was announced just a couple of weeks ago, and today developer Jagex hosted a livestream where they showed a deep-dive of the game and revealed the game’s release date. Turns out, it’s today! As in right now, today, as in you can go to Steam to buy the game in early access if that’s something you’d be interested in.
Two things that seem to have been eternally popular since their inception are The Lord of the Rings and cooperative card games. Now, Tolkein’s legions of fans can enjoy both at once by playing their way through the first book of his trilogy, working together, in The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game.
The traditional set of playing card rules used in trick-taking has a lot of weight to carry on its narrative backbone to support Tolkein’s storytelling, but this sturdy little box tries its best to bear the burden.
While The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game comes in a small box, as befits a card game, it has immediate appeal with its stained-glass style art and shiny, gilded box-front ring. Opening the trove reveals more treasures: the box is divided into three compartments, each with a chapter ribbon, two of which start out sealed while the third contains the cards and counters you’ll need for your initial plays.
The cards themselves are a delight, featuring a rich art style reminiscent of stained glass that doesn’t feel like an immediate fit for Tolkien’s universe, but which grew on me over time. This combination gives the game its own distinctive style, while still managing to conjure beloved characters from the LotR novel.
This is a trick-taking game, so it riffs on classic playing card folk games like Whist and Bridge. For those unfamiliar, this means the first player plays a card, and following players have to play a card of the same suit, if possible, with the highest-value card of the initial suit winning the hand. Rather than the familiar suits of a standard playing card deck, these cards are divided into forest, hill, mountain, and shadow, which run from one to eight, and rings, which run from one to five. Many games have a trump suit which will beat the initial suit if played, but here there’s only a single trump card, which appropriately enough is the one of rings.
The other major departure from the trick-taking formula is the fact that this game is cooperative, so you’re working together to achieve a set of goals rather than trying to beat the other players. The game is broken down into chapters, which reflect important sequences from Tolkien’s masterwork, and each player takes the role of a character from that chapter, who has their own goals. Frodo is almost always one of the characters, his goal is always to win ring cards, and whoever is dealt the one of rings has to play as him. Other players get to choose their characters from the selection available for the chapter. As you go through the game you’ll encounter other members of the fellowship alongside more minor characters from the book like Farmer Maggot.
All the character powers and goals have a vague connection to the source material, but given the abstract nature of translating an adventure narrative into a trick-taking game, these are often pretty tenuous. Gildor the elf, for example, shows his elvishness by having to play a forest card in the final trick of the game while Pippin, whose card is delightfully sub-titled as “fool”, has to win the fewest tricks. But for many other characters, such as Gandalf and Bilbo, the goal is wholly divorced from their role in the story, often equating to winning a particular number of tricks.
Initially, working together to win particular tricks for particular players can feel odd, especially if you’re used to the rhythm of traditional, competitive trick-taking games. There’s also a rule forbidding players from talking about what’s in their hands – the game would be too easy otherwise – which might take a bit of getting used to. But after a few tries you should be able to establish the basic tactics needed and the game will begin to unfold. It’s a nice balance of strategy and luck: there are occasions where the deal will just not give players the cards required, but the ability to choose your character, and the ability many characters have to exchange cards with others, gives you extra levers to increase your chance of success.
Just as you think you’ve gotten comfortable with the way the game works, it throws you a curveball by adding in some new rule concepts and character goals. There are eighteen chapters in total and the game keeps coming up with creative and surprising ways to modify its mechanics to keep you on your toes. Many of them manage a better tie-in with the story than the character cards. It would be a shame to spoil too many but the barrow downs chapter, for example, recreates the omnipresent fog of that dreadful place through the simple expedient of removing a slew of random cards from the deck to confuse things. Other villains that put in an appearance include Old Man Willow, the Ringwraiths, and the Balrog.
Veteran gamers may, by this point, have realized that The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game shared quite a lot of DNA with another cooperative trick-taking game, the excellent The Crew: Mission Deep Sea (Amazon), a perennial in our list of the best board games for families. And indeed the flow and feel of both games are broadly similar, with trick-taking being adapted into a group goal by giving each player certain objectives in the tricks that they win. However, the Tolkein adaptation has several slender advantages over its older relation.
Most notably, while the theming of the game might be weak, the story is so familiar – and indeed the fact there’s a story at all – gives the game a better sense of progression than The Crew’s vague march through difficulty levels. It’s still a slow climb through various challenges, of course, but the familiarity of the tale and the lovely artwork make that progress come alive in a way that The Crew just can’t manage. There are also some little mechanical flourishes, too: the single trump of the one of rings is more interesting than the standard trump suit in The Crew, and the objectives are more varied and thematic.
Surprisingly for a trick-taking game there’s also a solo mode and, even more surprisingly, it works pretty well. You play four characters at once, but you only start with about half the cards dealt, with replacements coming at random off the deck as you choose which cards to play. This is an effective stand-in for the uncertainty of not knowing what’s in other player’s hands, and even when you know what cards are available, trying to coordinate your character’s goals across four different hands at once is a stiff challenge.
Ubisoft is plotting a course to make Skull and Bones Year 2 the pirate multiplayer game’s biggest yet thanks to major content additions like new modes, ships, a Kraken, and something fans have begged for since launch: land combat.
Ubisoft opened its treasure chest of plans for the next year of updates during a special Year 2 showcase that premiered yesterday. Its presentation was packed with content to look forward to, but it’s Season 3: Guts and Glory that promises the land combat feature players have hoped to see included since Skull and Bones originally launched last February.
During Season 3 this fall, Ubisoft will finally allow players to take the action away from the sea, meaning you’ll be able to swordfight and even draw your firearms against others. It’s all part of Season 3’s Rogue Warlord additions, which will see players setting foot on sandy beaches and damp caves to rescue skilled crewmembers known as Officers. A video teasing the feature showed a bit of what players can expect, but it’s clear we’ll have to wait until later this year to see how it all works.
While land combat is by far the biggest addition coming with Skull and Bones Year 2, the presentation had plenty more to keep players digging throughout 2025. Season 1 sets sail today, April 15, with Ascent into Chaos, which adds a loot-enhancing item ascension feature, challenging World Tiers, a new Schooner medium ship, and the team-based Death Tides PvP mode. Season 2: Oaths of War, which launches summer 2025, includes highlights such as Megaforts and the gargantuan Frigate large ships, with Season 4: Eye of the Beast set to introduce the Kraken, Hunter’s Guild, and Corvette large ship this winter.
If everything you’ve heard sounds enticing enough to dive in, you’ll be happy to know Skull and Bones will launch a free weekend in just a few days. From April 17 – 21, players can raise sails to try out pirate PvP for themselves and also purchase the game at a reduced price (which has yet to be announced).
Skull and Bones launched February 16, 2024, for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S (we gave it a 7/10 in our review). Although Ubisoft has been reluctant to share official sales stats for its latest pirate adventure game, it did tease that it managed to bring in “record player engagement” shortly after its release. Interestingly, the launch of Skull and Bones also coincided with a 200% increase in Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag players.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
Dear reader, allow me, if you will, a moment of honesty. I truly, wholly did not know that Skull and Bones was still going. Not only is it still going, but yesterday Ubisoft shared a look at the game’s impending second year of updates, so I really missed the boat on this one – pun intended, of course. The first season of the pirate game’s second year has already kicked off, introducing a few new features.
Publisher is seemingly very keen on Switch 2.
The Nintendo Switch has certainly been somewhat of a haven for great indie games over the years, but according to publisher Devolver Digital, the console has proven to be exceptionally critical to its own success.
In its latest financial report, Devolver hailed the Nintendo Switch as its “most popular console”, noting that it had sold a total of 9 million games on Nintendo’s platform. As such, it’s highlighted the upcoming Switch 2 as a notable opportunity, and has already revealed three titles for launch in the future: Starseeker: Astroneer Expeditions, Human Fall Flat 2, and Enter the Gungeon 2.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Gwen Frey is no stranger to big ideas—or big games. After working on titles like BioShock Infinite and The Flame in the Flood, she’s back with a new game! Lab Rat, a satirical Sci-Fi puzzle game launching on Xbox that pits players against an overly confident AI named S.A.R.A.
With over 100 handcrafted puzzles, sharp writing, and a surprising amount of heart, Lab Rat is as much about logic as it is about being observed. I sat down with Gwen to talk puzzle design, working solo (and not-so-solo), and what it’s like to voice nearly every character in your own game.
Gwen: The idea for S.A.R.A. developed naturally alongside the game’s core mechanics. Early on, my puzzle designer and I were exploring a new system, but thematically we both felt like rats in a cage—trapped inside, isolated. We built that feeling into everything: puzzles that evoke confinement, jittery character animations, and even blocks that electrocute you when misused, like a science experiment gone wrong.
Visually, I was inspired by my own dual-monitor setup during lockdown, when most of my interaction was through screens. That evolved into the concept of S.A.R.A.—an overbearing algorithm watching your every move, built to reflect the eerie, disconnected mood we were living through. Once I saw the game world through that lens, everything started to click.
Gwen: Definitely making people laugh! When a person sits down to complete a puzzle game they are prepared to think deeply and solve problems – they are in the correct mindset for that. Thought-provoking commentary is generally a welcome addition to that experience. However, comedy is unexpected, very difficult to do well, and different kinds of humor appeal to different people. Seriously – comedy is hard.
Gwen: There are two ways I like to keep puzzle players engaged: discovery and mastery. Discovery is when you encounter something new and figure out how it works; mastery is using that understanding to solve a tougher challenge. I try to introduce something new every few puzzles to keep things fresh, and I aim for solutions that feel earned—clear enough to grasp with some thought, but never obvious.
Block-pushing games come with a unique problem: it’s easy to end up in an unwinnable state without realizing it. That kind of thing kills motivation. So in Lab Rat, we let you undo moves, pull blocks off walls—basically give you room to experiment without fear of getting stuck. It makes the game more accessible, especially for players new to the genre, without making it any less satisfying.
Gwen: Programming, art, and animation all came very naturally to me. These are things I’ve done for years, and I’m working in the Unreal engine, which I’ve used my entire career, so there was nothing new to learn. By far the most surprising thing I had to learn for this project was voice acting. I am not a performer and I have never done voice work before Lab Rat. It was quite challenging.
Gwen: This question made me laugh. My programmer put my name in the credits about 100 times as a sort of joke. I might change that before launch… but it is true that I voiced every character in Lab Rat. There was one line where we absolutely needed a male voice and my husband stepped up to the mic for it, but other than that all the characters were voiced by me personally. I spent a lot of time recording arguments with myself, and then made extensive use of sound effects in the engine to make each character sound unique.
Gwen: There are many, many moments I hope they reach! I wanted every 30 minutes of Lab Rat to feel more interesting and unexpected than the previous 30 minutes. I’m excited to see if we achieved this.
Lab Rat is available now on Xbox One optimized for Xbox Series X|S.
Klei Publishing
You have been chosen to participate in a special test that will help refine a brand new kind of game!
Lab Rat was generated by the world’s most advanced machine learning algorithm – me. I have been meticulously trained on the best interactive entertainment available today and my data indicates you will be completely satisfied with the result. However, your valuable human feedback is required to help me further adjust and develop this experience.
Key Features:
Maneuver objects, divert lasers, and manipulate electricity to overcome over a hundred surprising genre-bending puzzles.
Outwit a metrics-obsessed machine intent on heckling you for your humanity.
Participate in satirical in-game analytics that are updated in real time with real player data.
The Game:
Lab Rat is a hand-crafted narrative puzzler masquerading as a machine-generated video game. This satirical adventure stars a metrics-obsessed AI who will monitor, profile, and guide you as you solve over a hundred unique spatial problems. Over time this AI will develop a hilariously-misguided understanding of humanity based on your performance and survey response data.
The Team:
While Lab Rat pokes fun at the absurdity of algorithmically-generated interactions, this game is lovingly hand-crafted by a team of expert human developers. Lab Rat is directed by Gwen Frey (creator of Kine & co-creator of The Flame in the Flood). It features environment art by Mike Snight (Lead World Builder, Bioshock Infinite), writing and programming by Ian Bond (Programmer/Developer, Bioshock 1), and puzzles by Lucas Le Slo (beloved experimental puzzle designer).
The post Building Lab Rat: Gwen Frey on Logic, Laughter, and Laser Grids appeared first on Xbox Wire.
Xbox has locked in its second wave of Game Pass games coming to the subscription service in the back-half of April 2025. It’s an interesting mix of virtual worlds, from big names to indie darlings, and even a notable new role-playing game.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a big highlight here, as a brand-new role-playing game and the debut effort from studio Sandfall Interactive. The RPG sees a team of Expeditioners on their last legs, sailing to the ends of the world to stop the Paintress, who erases anyone as old as the number she writes on the horizon. It’s available day-one on Game Pass Ultimate and PC on April 24.
Towerborne‘s Game Preview also heads to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC on April 29, bringing some action gameplay to the lineup for Game Pass in April. A few heavy hitters of years past are also on the way, including Grand Theft Auto V‘s return to Game Pass today, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 arriving on May 1, and horror-fishing gem Dredge surfacing on May 6.
For some deeper cuts, keep an eye on Tempopo, a cute puzzle game about rescuing musical flowers across different sky islands. It’s from the team behind the narrative moving sim Unpacking, which drew quite a bit of attention for its clever use of literally unpacking boxes to tell an effective, emotional story. Tempopo goes to Game Pass for Cloud, Console, and PC on the day of its launch, April 17.
Also, if you missed the speedrunning shooter hit Neon White, its heading to Game Pass Standard for consoles on April 16. Picture the movement and technique of a speedy shooter infused with a heavy dash of Toonami style, and you’ve got Neon White. Fans of time trials should make time for it.
Check out a full list of everything coming to Game Pass in the back half of April, stretching into May 2025, below.
Some games are also leaving the Xbox Game pass service, too. This batch of games will be departing the Pass on April 30, so make sure to either roll credits or otherwise hit a good stopping point before the end of the month rolls around. Here’s what’s leaving Xbox Game Pass on April 30:
Eric is a freelance writer for IGN.
It turns out you won’t actually be spicing up your life next month, as Funcom have announced that Dune: Awakening is getting a delay. The survival MMO was originally supposed to be launching this coming May 20th, but a Steam post was shared today sharing that its release date has been pushed to June 10th. Those that have the deluxe or ultimate edition on order will still be able to play it a few days earlier, now June 5th.
Dune: Awakening, the upcoming open world survival MMO inspired by Frank Herbert’s beloved sci-fi novels and Denis Villeneuve’s films, has been delayed to June 10, 2025.
Funcom shared the news while also confirming that those who wish to get a head start will be able to jump into the game on June 5 if they purchase either the Deluxe Edition or Ultimate Edition.
An important update regarding Dune: Awakening: pic.twitter.com/09Ftw4hstj
— Dune: Awakening (@DuneAwakening) April 15, 2025
As for why the game was delayed, Funcom said, following feedback from its ongoing Persistent Closed Beta, the decision was made so the team has “a bit more time to cook.” This will also let them implement some of the changes they’ve discovered and that have been requested during this beta phase.
Furthermore, Funcom said the delay will allow for a “large-scale beta weekend next month where even more of you will get the opportunity to play the game and share your feedback.”
While this may be disappointing for some who want to jump into Dune: Awakening as soon as possible, Funcom is hosting a combat livestream later today at 12pm ET/9am PT, which will reveal more about PvP and PvE mechanics, archetypes, and skills.
We here at IGN are excited about Dune: Awakening, as we said in our hands-on preview that, “It’s easy to be sceptical about an MMO survival game set in the Duniverse, but after a few bouts of dehydration and sunstroke, the day I spent in Arrakis convinced me that Dune: Awakening is one to watch.”
For more, check out details on the MMO’s business model and post-launch plans and the in-depth gameplay trailer that was revealed at Gamescom ONL last year.
Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.
Adam Bankhurst is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on X/Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on TikTok.
Welp, it’s finally happened. After many months of mainly murder related updates, Larian’s stonker of an RPG has at last received its final major content update. Patch 8 – which you can read in full here – brings Photo Mode, full cross play, and 12 new subclasses to Baldur’s Gate 3. That’s one for each playable class, and likely at least six more than I’ll ever reasonably experience. Still, a swarmkeeper ranger sounds very tempting. Yes the bees, is what I always say.
