Category: Video Games

During today’s Q2 investors call, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella revealed that Indiana Jones and The Great Circle has reached 4 million players.

In an otherwise ho-hum earnings report for its gaming division, a bright spot appears to be MachineGames’ newest release which has garnered critical acclaim, multiple awards, and now millions of players. While sales numbers are hard to pin down given its availability on Xbox Game Pass, 4 million is still an impressive number of players considering not many people knew exactly what to expect in a modern, AAA Indiana Jones game.

We loved it ourselves, calling it an “irrestistable and immersive global treasure hunt,” along with nominations for Game of the Year and Best Xbox game. You can read our full review here.

Elsewhere in Xbox land, Microsoft confirmed that Game Pass PC grew 30% last quarter and set a new quarterly revenue record. On the cloud gaming side, 140 million hours of streaming has been logged. All this helped Xbox content and service revenue grow 2%.

There’s still work to be done however. While the Game Pass figures were stronger than expected, overall gaming revenue declined 7% and Xbox hardware revenue declined 29%.

What does this all mean? Well, Microsoft still has ground to make up in the console and hardware space, but its continued investment into Game Pass appears to be paying off. Game Pass growth on PC makes sense given Xbox had a slate of big game releases last quarter that includes Indiana Jones but also Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Microsoft Flight Simulator. All of which were available on Game Pass day one for Ultimate subscribers.

Matt Kim is IGN’s Senior Features Editor.

If you ask players what gets them excited about the Monster Hunter series, some will surely bring up making new equipment utilizing materials gathered on their hunts. Just about every hunter has felt the joy of completing a head-to-toe armor set with a matching weapon after hunting the same monster again and again.

Equipment in the Monster Hunter series has followed a certain concept ever since its earliest games: Beat the monsters and take on their power through equipment crafted from their remains. Players rely on their own strength to slay powerful monsters, then make those monsters’ abilities their own to grow even stronger.

In an interview with IGN, Monster Hunter Wilds Executive Director and Art Director Kaname Fujioka explains the concept behind Monster Hunter’s equipment. “While the range of our designs has now grown broader, we used to be very conscious of the kind of idea that if you’re wearing Rathalos’ equipment, you’ll look like Rathalos.” This new title sees new monsters as well, each bringing its own colorful equipment. For example, Rompopolo, a monster whose design is meant to evoke a mad scientist, has a unique piece of head armor that looks like a plague doctor’s mask. You can see the armor set in the hunt video below.

But among all of these distinctive sets of monster equipment, the developers say they want players to pay special attention to the various pieces of starting equipment that your hunter begins the game wearing.

“I designed the starting weapons for all 14 weapon types from scratch,” says Fujioka. “That’s the first time I’ve done this, as far as I can remember. Until now, players would begin the game as a new hunter, and so they would tend to start with truly primitive and simple weapons. But as the protagonist is a chosen hunter in this game, it actually wouldn’t feel right for them to be carrying a plain weapon. I wanted to make it feel like you’re a bit of a star, even when you’re only carrying starting equipment.”

It’s well known that fans weren’t particularly enthused about the weapon designs in Monster Hunter: World, leading them to wonder if Monster Hunter Wilds will follow suit or not. Though we’ve seen a handful of weapons from Wilds, we haven’t seen quite enough to make a determinative verdict on our own about their general design philosophy–but now, Monster Hunter Wilds Director Yuya Tokuda has cleared up this question.

When speaking about the Hope series armor and weapons, Tokuda told us: “Incidentally, weapon designs in Monster Hunter: World generally retained a certain form, but they featured a customized appearance based on which monster materials were used. However, in Wilds, each weapon has its own unique design.”

The direct comparison to how weapon designs were in Monster Hunter: World answers the question clearly–we don’t have to worry about weapons looking too similar to each other in Monster Hunter Wilds. And though some weapons in Monster Hunter: World eventually upgraded to the point of being entirely unique, many lines weren’t so lucky. You can see in the image below just how similar the final aqua line Sword and Shield is to the final Pukei-Pukei sword and shield, and how similar the final bone line long sword is to the final Jyuratodus long sword, for example. These were the most upgraded versions of these weapons when Monster Hunter: World first released.

There is a moment near the end of Ninja Gaiden 2 Black where you retrace the original Ninja Gaiden’s opening level in reverse. I know that level like the back of my hand, having played it over and over and over again two decades ago on a demo disk until I could beat Murai, the first boss, without getting hit. And though you aren’t forced to go all the way to the beginning of that first stage here, this area isn’t what it used to be. It’s dilapidated, rotting, falling apart; you can see the damage caused by time and the events of the first game clearly. Ninja Gaiden 2 Black never directly comments on this; Ryu doesn’t mention it, and the camera never pulls any tricks to call attention to it. It’s a moment of subtlety that’s very un-Ninja Gaiden, but as I ran back through these familiar stomping grounds, I had an enormous smile on my face. Like this remake as a whole, it may not quite be what it once was, but slicing and dicing my way through it feels as good as ever.

That moment is a good summary of Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, an Unreal Engine 5-powered remake of 2008’s Ninja Gaiden 2, one of the Xbox 360 era’s definitive action games. Ninja Gaiden 2 Black is, according to Team Ninja, supposed to be the definitive edition of Ninja Gaiden 2, combining a stunning visual upgrade with several balance changes. Unfortunately, as good as 2 Black is – and let me state without equivocation this is a remarkable visual upgrade to an already excellent action game – it is not the end-all, be-all edition of Ninja Gaiden 2 that the Black moniker implies. Like many of the weapons Ryu wields, 2 Black is something of a double-edged sword. Its changes cut both ways.

But before we dig into what 2 Black isn’t, let’s talk about what it is. This is what I like to call an Action Jackson: a 3D beat-em-up with a hyperintense focus on combat above all else. Like previous versions, 2 Black takes place a year after the Xbox reboot of Ninja Gaiden. This time, the Black Spider Ninja Clan and Greater Fiends have formed an alliance to resurrect the Archfiend, and Dragon Ninja and ultimate badass Ryu Hayabusa is the only one who can stop them (though he does get a little help from his friends and the CIA). The story is more an excuse for you to travel the world, meet exciting and interesting monstrosities, ninjas, and Fiends, and turn them into limbless torsos than it is a fleshed-out narrative.

That said, I forgot how funny it is. Greater Fiends voiced by Steve Blum quote Shakespeare at you! You fight a lightning man on the Statue of Liberty! A giant, four-armed werewolf named Volf brings you to the colosseum in Venice, which is full of more werewolves, for a duel to the death, and he’s like “do you want him to die?” and all the werewolves cheer, and then he’s like “who do you want to kill him?” and then all the werewolves are like “Volf!” and he’s like “Yes! I, Volf, will kill him!” and so you’re just fighting a giant four-armed werewolf in the colosseum while a bunch of werewolves are cheering him on. This, folks, is the best camp this side of the river.

But you’re not here for that. You’re here for the combat, and on that front, 2 Black delivers and then some. Ninja Gaiden 2’s whole deal is that you can delimb enemies, cutting off arms, legs, and even heads as you rip through rooms, opening up anyone who is suddenly short a body part for an instant execution if they’re still up and walking (or crawling) around.

The downside is that enemies that are injured are even more dangerous. These dudes will jump on you, stab you, and blow themselves up to kill you. Unlike Devil May Cry or Bayonetta, Ninja Gaiden is not about styling on your enemies. It is about surviving. Your foes will not stand there and wait for you to attack them, nor will they do long, slow attacks with a noticeable windup. No, these dudes are fast, ferocious, and unrelenting, and they think you kicked their dog and are pretty sure you said something about their momma. They want you dead.

The thing is, they’re up against Ryu Hayabusa. Ryu isn’t your typical Action Jackson protag; the dude, even by genre standards, is a walking arsenal. By the end of the roughly 10-hour campaign, you’re going to be walking around with no less than nine melee weapons, three ranged weapons, and four different flavors of fancy Ninja magic (Ninpo), and each melee weapon has a unique moveset with combos to learn and special techniques to master. You haven’t lived until you’ve decapitated someone with a Flying Swallow, used the Lunar Staff or Vigoorian Flail to combo half a dozen enemies at once, or pulled off the almighty Izuna Drop to slam a dude’s head into the ground so hard that it explodes.

Ryu feels like a character from a fighting game. He has a complex moveset and combos to learn, the ability to block attacks and then sidestep or dodge backward, special moves and magic, and a unique counter-attack ability specific to each weapon that allows him to transition from defense to offense in the blink of an eye. Oh, and he’s a Ninja, so he can do stuff like run up walls and leap down for a powerful blow, jump on his enemy’s heads, and leap forward and hurl them across the screen by the neck.

In recent years, action games have leaned heavily on parries and invincibility-frames to get you out of trouble, but that’s not how 2 Black operates. Ryu has excellent defensive tools, but Ninja Gaiden is about positioning, aggression, and mastery of both your weapons and slew of techniques. You are always moving, always looking for an opportunity to go on the offensive, and always prioritizing the biggest threat, whether it’s an injured enemy who might try to grab you, a caster hanging back to pepper you with spells, or an enormous werewolf looking to tear your face off and eat it.

At its best, this is a symphony of death and you’re the conductor, chaining together combos, dodging and counter-attacking, and using the Essence dropped by enemies to immediately charge your Ultimate Techniques, which are attacks so powerful that they can slice and dice an entire room. Ryu is always the coolest guy on screen, and when you’re cooking, the enemies throwing themselves at you to die give off that “surely I will be the guy that kills John Wick” vibe. When you’re not, you can die very, very quickly. You’re going to get good, or you’re not going to progress.

It’s not as unforgiving as it sounds. Save statues restore your entire health bars the first time you use them, and most of your life (minus a red section that grows over time as you take damage) is restored once you finish any given encounter. Even then, you’ve got items to fix that red section, heal you in a pinch mid-combat, and if all else fails, you can always kill more enemies and pray for blue Essence that will restore health. It’s never over until it’s over.

So it’s a flawless combat system, right? Well… not quite. Just like in the original, the camera can be a little janky and get stuck in weird places from time to time. It’s not too bad if you’re proactive about managing it and smart about how you approach fights, though it can have issues with tight corners and you will get hit off-screen every now and then. It’s an annoyance, but a minor one.

The other major problem is the quality of the boss encounters. Some of them like Volf are challenging, memorable, fun, or a combination of the three. But then there’s fights like the Water Dragon, a weird worm thing in the subway, or the Nuclear Armadillo (yes, really). And those… well, those kinda suck. Not because they’re hard, necessarily, but because they’re just plain not engaging to fight, force you to play in ways that zap the fun from Ninja Gaiden 2’s combat system, or rely on some weird gimmick. Even some of the best fights can overstay their welcome with repeated re-runs. I mean, I love the Genshin fight, but did I really need to do it four times, especially when it doesn’t change much during the rematches? How many times do I need to teach you this lesson, old man?!

Between fights, you’ll get to explore each level, which are linear but still reward heading off the beaten path with health bonuses, Ninpo upgrades, Essence, and Crystal Skulls (Why was 2008 the year of the crystal skull?) that provide discounts at the shop. It’s here, in the stages themselves, that you see the depth of 2 Black’s visual upgrades. Yeah, the new character models look amazing (love the new hair, Sonia), but the lighting changes and texture upgrades really make these environments pop. Ninja Gaiden 2 has always been gorgeous, but it’s easy to forget how ambitious it was. These levels are huge, and occasional camera issues aside, the platforming sections are largely really enjoyable and provide some nice variety between combat encounters. I particularly like the one in the clock tower – running up walls and doing bird flips is fun! Who knew?

So overall, Ninja Gaiden 2 Black is pretty great. If anything, though, its biggest flaw is that it’s based more on the 2009 PlayStation 3 port Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 than it is the original 360 version. This is a little inside baseball, but bear with me for a second: For those who don’t know, Ninja Gaiden 2 and Sigma 2 are very, very different. I’m not going to go into extreme depth here because there’s too much to list, but Sigma 2 added or removed certain bosses, costumes, and weapons, reworked levels, changed how weapon upgrades work, and even added three new characters (Rachel, Momiji, and Ayane) with their own story chapters. It’s… a lot. So much so that Team Ninja has even crafted a handy dandy comparison table listing what’s in all the different versions.

The differences I really want to highlight, though, are the changes to enemy density and health, as they have the single biggest impact on how 2 Black actually plays. Compared to the original, Sigma 2 substantially reduced the number of enemies on-screen at once. There are dozens of enemies on iconic sections like The Stairs in the original release, so many that it could actually force the framerate into the single digits on Xbox 360. In 2 Black, you might get eight or so on screen at once in the same sequence. In exchange for sheer numbers, enemies in Sigma 2 (and thus, 2 Black) get more health and take longer to delimb, but are less aggressive. Even a Ninja Dog could tell you that these changes make combat worse. Environments are often empty and enemies feel spongy. Certain enemies, especially bigger ones like werewolves or the gargoyle-esque Van Gelfs (which are already immune to staple attacks like the Izuna Drop) take much, much longer to delimb and kill, making combat encounters with a lot of them drag.

I played 2 Black on the Path of the Acolyte difficulty (Normal) for this review because I figured it is what most people will play, though this was considered Easy in the original 360 release. After finishing it, I fired up the original Ninja Gaiden II on my Xbox Series X and played for a while on Path of the Warrior, which 2 Black lists as Hard and the original lists as Normal. Even on a higher difficulty, enemies died more quickly – I could often delimb or outright kill individual ninjas with a single attack from the Dragon Sword when it might take a full combo to do so in 2 Black – and it was exciting to fight more enemies on-screen at a time. Ninja Gaiden 2 just feels faster and better than Ninja Gaiden 2 Black. Ryu even seems to move through the environments more quickly, and it’s more exciting to play as a result.

2 Black’s issues don’t stop there. The combat changes from Sigma 2 also mean that enemies will sometimes block attacks in a combo after being hit or fall out of a combo mid-string. While this inconsistency does technically make 2 Black more like its predecessor, 2’s combat system isn’t built for it the way Ninja Gaiden Black’s is and it feels bad every time it happens.

That said, however, 2 Black does do a lot right in addition to the visual upgrade. The higher level of gore from the original release is back, as is the weapon upgrade system. Sigma 2 just gives you free upgrades at certain points; in 2 Black and the original, you can buy upgrades at any shop with Essence, which you also spend on healing items. I challenged myself to play through 2 Black without using any healing or Ninpo restoration items unless I found one when I was already full up, so this didn’t affect me a ton, but having upgrades cost Essence again is a good change because it forces you to choose between saving it to boost your weapons or spending it on items that will help you stay alive. Even intro screens before each mission resemble the more appealing ones from the original release more than Sigma 2. These things may feel minor, but they matter.

2 Black also smartly removes the not-great Giant Buddha Statue and Statue of Liberty (yes, really) boss fights that Sigma 2 added while retaining good additions like the Dark Dragon. And while enemies are still spongier than in the original, they do at least feel less spongy than Sigma 2 and there seem to be more of them. Still not quite as many as in the original, though without playing all three games back to back to back and counting corpses, it’s impossible to say.

And the good stuff from Sigma 2 is still here. I like the new levels with Rachel, Momiji, and Ayane. None of these characters have Ryu’s expansive kit, so there isn’t as much depth to them, but they all feel unique and are fun to play as, especially in one-off chapters. This is still Ninja Gaiden, so they still look Like That (Ayane’s costume is particularly silly), but 2 Black never treats them as anything less than Extremely Competent Action Girls and they’re a nice change of pace, even if the transition from Ryu to them occasionally feels jarring from a story perspective.

Finishing the campaign unlocks additional costumes for every character (though not as many as in Sigma 2, and even some of the costumes from the original are not present), which is neat. You’ll also open up Chapter Challenges if you wanna replay chapters and compete for a high score, though there aren’t online leaderboards, and 2 Black does not bring back the original’s New Game Plus mode. There’s the Formerly Co-op With Another Real Person But Now Only With an NPC Friend Tag Team Missions, too, if you’re looking for more to do, which is nice. And I also appreciate the return of Sigma 2’s Hero difficulty, which is great for folks new to action games or who might need additional accessibility options.

If I have one other complaint with 2 Black, it’s that there are bugs here and there. It crashed on me once, had a few texture bugs in extremely funny places like The Stairs (if you know, you know), and once a door with some enemies (and goodies) behind it failed to open. The latter was, admittedly, really funny: I just heard rocket ninjas shooting at me from inside a train as I furiously tried to get in and kill them and they furiously tried to get out and kill me, but it did mean I had to restart from my last checkpoint to fix it.

PlayStation and Quantic Dream’s story-driven adventure game Beyond: Two Souls is getting a TV series reimagining from original star Elliot Page.

Deadline reports that Page’s Pageboy Productions has acquired the rights from Quantic Dream in the hopes of adapting it into a television show. The project is said to be in early development and is expected to keep the video game experience’s non-linear narrative in mind as work progresses. Additional details, including casting information and release plans, have yet to be revealed.

Page told Deadline that filming Beyond: Two Souls was “one of the most challenging and fulfilling acting experiences” of his career. He continued: “The story’s rich narrative and emotional depth offer us a fantastic foundation. We want to create a unique vision of the characters and their journeys that resonates with fans and newcomers.”

Pageboy head of development and production Matt Jordan Smitt elaborated on how he, Page, and the rest of the team plan to “honor the game’s legacy while inviting fresh perspectives.” He added: “Delving into questions of survival and how split-second decisions can alter not just our lives, but the lives of others, are key to telling the story.”

The original Beyond: Two Souls launched for the PlayStation 3 in 2013 before eventually making its way to PlayStation 4 and PC in 2015 and 2019, respectively. Directed and written by Quantic Dream’s David Cage, it follows the story of Jodie Holmes, a girl with psychic powers that allow her to communicate with a spirit she calls Aiden. Aside from the non-linear narrative that explores different sections of her life, the game was known for its inclusion of big-name actors like Page and Willem Dafoe.

Cage said he is collaborating with Page on the Beyond: Two Souls TV show, though the extent of his involvement is unclear.

“We are absolutely thrilled to collaborate again with Elliot Page on this project,” Cage said. “I was blown away by his acting performance in the game, and I couldn’t think of anyone else to tell this story with the same passion on another medium. Beyond: Two Souls is a very special game for millions of players around the world who were moved by the story of Jodie and Aiden, and their journey in life and beyond. I know that Elliot has all the talent and instinct to make it something really unique on TV.”

It will be some time before the Beyond: Two Souls TV series makes its debut. In the meantime, you can see IGN’s original review for the game here and all of our Quantic Dream video game reviews here.

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).