Has any genus of graphics card been as dramatically storied as the GeForce XX80s? The RTX 3080 was a thing of beauty, only to be tarnished by the worst wheeler-dealing spree (and crypto mining misappropriation) in PC component history. Then the RTX 4080 rocked up with its laughable £1269 / $1199 price tag, a miscalculation so severe that the RTX 4080 Super looked good – despite hardly being any faster – simply for not repeating it. For the new RTX 5080’s sake, you almost want it to be boring.
It isn’t. But then, neither is it a blood-boiler like the RTX 4080, nor a largely aspirational show-off piece like the RTX 5090. By maintaining the 4080 Super’s course correction on price while tooling up on compelling DLSS 4 improvements, the RTX 5080 is an agreeable GPU from the off. Particularly, if you’ve got the 4K monitor to take full advantage of it.
Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket has received its long awaited trading update today and, despite players slamming the mechanic upon developer Creatures Inc. revealing how it would work last week, it’s somehow launched to an even worse reception.
Players have taken to social media to share their frustration at the trading feature, criticizing it for having too many requirements and too many restrictions. While the latter were revealed upon trading’s announcement last week, the former was veiled under the statement “items must be consumed in order to trade.”
Unlike the Wonder Pick feature or opening booster packs, every instance of trading will require two separate, new use of items. The first is similar to those other mechanics, where in order to trade players must have Trade Stamina. This recovers over time or can be exchanged for Poké Gold, meaning real world money.
The other item is what’s causing a stir amongst the Pokémon TCG Pocket community, however. Trade Tokens are also required for trading any card at 3 Diamonds or higher. 120 Trade Tokens are required to trade a 3 Diamond card, 400 are required to trade a 1 Star card, and 500 are required to trade a 4 Diamond card, meaning an ex Pokémon.
Trade Tokens can only be obtained by essentially selling cards. Players can delete from their collection a 3 Diamond card for 25 Trade Tokens, a 1 Star card for 100, a 4 Diamond card for 125, a 2 Star card for 300, a 3 Star immersive card for 300, and a Crown gold card for 1500. Cards of lower rarities are worthless, though require no Trade Tokens to trade either.
This means players must sell, for example, five ex Pokémon before they can trade one ex Pokémon, or five 1 Star card (the rarest available to trade) before they can trade one 1 Star card. What’s more, selling one Crown rarity card, which are the rarest in the game and may not be obtained even after months of playing, will only net players enough tokens to trade three ex Pokémon.
“The trading update is an insult,” wrote hurtbowler on Reddit in a post with over 1,000 upvotes, a player who vowed not to spend another penny on the game. “It’s just frustrating. The greed is just so excessive I can’t be inclined to spend another dollar. They should probably remove ‘Trading Card Game’ from the title screen. It’s just insulting to look at.”
“It’s silly to have to burn two immersive cards to be able to trade just one 4 Diamond ex,” said someone in the comments. “I understand they want to keep people from creating bots and exploiting the system, but this is currently absurd.”
Others called it “hilariously toxic” and “monumental failure,” and lamented that a “safe way for the community to connect more” was sacrificed for something “so laborious.” Exchanging something for Trade Tokens also takes around 15 seconds, meaning many will have to spend minutes in menus before they can trade a single card.
“If these are the trade costs, the app should be renamed to Pokémon Card Game Pocket wrote Darkmalice in the comments of a post discussing the high costs. “I don’t think they want people trading at all,” said another user. “That’s why they made it so bad.”
This is also evidenced by the inability to trade cards of 2 Star rarity or higher, as if players could immediately trade for their missing cards, they wouldn’t need to spend $10 or $100 or more for a random chance of getting them. It cost one player around $1,500 just to complete the first set, for example, and the third in three months will be available tomorrow.
“The trading system is predatory and downright greedy,” wrote ACNL on Reddit, who outlined the Trade Token conversion rates. “That’s just messed up man. Like who designed this? If there were other ways to get tokens, this might be passable, but at the moment there are no other ways to get tokens.
“This isn’t sustainable at all. On top of that, you can’t even burn a card unless you have three copies of it. If you want to trade in this game, you better buy a ton of packs and keep buying them.”
Creatures Inc. has not yet commented on the backlash to trading. Doing so is a rare move for the developer but it did so for the initial complaints when trading was revealed last week. “Your concerns are seen,” it said at the time. “Once this feature becomes available, I’d like to invite everyone to try it and provide feedback. This way, the game can continue to evolve in an enjoyable way for everyone.”
This response made it sound as though things may be better than fans expected, but that is certainly not the case. IGN as asked Creatures Inc. for comment on this reaction and if any changes are planned.
As mentioned by some users, the trading mechanic could be rectified somewhat by Pokémon TCG Pocket including Trade Tokens as rewards for missions and such. It’s more likely Trade Stamina will feature in these though, as it has so far included adjacent items like Wonder Stamina and Pack Hourglasses as rewards.
Regardless, the introduction of such a poorly received mechanic today is a bad look for a game about to debut its next big update, which will introduce Diamond and Pearl Pokémon such as Dialga and Palkia to the digital card game.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
Friend, I regret to inform you that ant nests are computers now. Which is to say, somebody’s finally made a video game version of Hex, the sentient glass hive from Terry Pratchett’s Unseen University. In spooky automation-driven strategy sim Microtopia, you manage a swarm of what could either be ants who’ve been to the ripperdoc, or PC components who’ve grown legs and antennae. Your goal is to expand an insect colony that is also a motherboard, where glittering pheromone trails double as silicon circuits.
The developers Cordyceps Collective have just announced a release date – February 18th – and what’s this, there’s a demo as well? Catch the trailer below.
Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket‘s hotly-anticipated Trade feature is finally live in the mobile app. Those who have been waiting to swap cards with their pals can now do so, but there’s a catch: it’s a real headache.
As with everything TCG Pocket, Trading is all about consumable items and currency. We’ve known for a while that you’ll only be able to trade cards with friends, and those trades can only be cards of the same rarity, but a lengthy tutorial when you first open up the new feature explains there are a bunch more rules to keep in mind.
Sniper At Work is the work of Cherrypick Games, hitherto known for “soothing merge-2 experiences” featuring puppy-eyed princes. The only “twos” you shall be “merging” in Sniper At Work are bullets and faces. The only “cherries” you shall be “picking” are hoodlums in sore need of a skullful of lead. The only princes you shall acknowledge are their royal highnesses Distance, Wind, and Timing.
You may or may not find all that “soothing” – I won’t judge. I will only repeat Nic’s observation from the Maw that Sniper At Work look “a bit like Commandos, a bit like Hitman”, which I would translate to “my comrade in PC gaming, if historic audience trends are any indication you shall do well here”. Right, that’s enough quotation marks for one article. There won’t be any left for the next interview feature at this rate. Here’s the trailer.
Konami has hailed the success of the Silent Hill 2 remake after it shot through the 2 million sales mark.
Silent Hill 2 remake, developed by Bloober Team, went on sale on PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam on October 8, 2024 (there’s no word on an Xbox Series X and S version yet), and just a few days later had sold one million copies. This was thought to have made Silent Hill 2 remake the fastest-selling Silent Hill game ever, but Konami has yet to rubber stamp that potential record.
“Since its release, Silent Hill 2 has received a multitude of accolades including several ‘perfect’ review scores, multiple award wins and nominations cementing itself as a timeless entry in the horror video game genre,” Konami said.
IGN’s Silent Hill 2 remake review returned an 8/10. We said: “Silent Hill 2 is a great way to visit – or revisit – one of the most dread-inducing destinations in the history of survival horror.”
The sales success of the Silent Hill 2 remake will perhaps embolden Konami’s plans for the franchise, which have ramped up significantly in recent years. Silent Hill f and Silent Hill: Townfall are both still in the works, but perhaps Konami will also continue to remake past Silent Hill games. There’s a film adaptation of Silent Hill 2 coming, too.
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.
Peripeteia feels like what I’d get if I asked a wasp to describe Deus Ex to me. It has sharp, insectoid qualities. Unwelcoming but oddly comfortable in its rusty soviet Ozymandism. The first sign of sentient life this immersive sim offers me is the greeting of a gasmasked freakdroid as I leave a warehouse. Tinny propaganda songs play from TVs too big to comfortably fit in anyone’s car. The warehouse is so huge I thought it was outside until I looked up and there was writing on the sky and I realised it was a roof. I’m still messed up about it, honestly.
Dino Crisis and Dino Crisis 2 are back from the dead with re-releases on PC via GOG.
Both cult classic PlayStation survival horror games are available on the CD Projekt-owned platform DRM-free, with their original content fully intact as part of GOG’s Preservation Program.
Capcom released Dino Crisis on the original PlayStation in 1999 and then Dino Crisis 2 just a year later. Dino Crisis 3 launched as an original Xbox exclusive in 2003 and fans have yet to see a new game since.
The PC ports of the first two Dino Crisis games were difficult to find and tricky to get up and running on modern machines, so GOG’s work here is welcome.
“Thanks to the tremendous efforts of Capcom and GOG, Regina’s iconic line, ‘You’re extinct!’ no longer applies to the game itself,” GOG said of Dino Crisis. “The timeless thriller that defined a generation of gamers is made to last forever, enhanced for today’s systems, featuring all the original content you loved with numerous improvements.”
Dino Crisis PC: what to expect with GOG’s version of the game:
Full compatibility with Windows 10 and Windows 11
All 6 localizations of the game included (English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese)
Original, Arrange, and Operation Wipe Out modes included
Improved DirectX game renderer
New rendering options (Windowed Mode, Vertical Synchronization Control, Gamma Correction, Integer Scaling, Anti-Aliasing, and more)
Increased rendering resolution to ~4K (1920p) and color depth to 32-bit.
Improved geometry calculation, more stable transformation and texturing.
Improved alpha transparency
Improved game registry settings
Issue-free animation, video, and music playback
Issue-free saving (the game no longer corrupts save files after leaving dropped weapons)
Full support for modern controllers (Sony DualSense, Sony DualShock4, Microsoft Xbox Series, Microsoft Xbox One, Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Switch, Logitech F series and many more) with optimal button binding regardless of the hardware, hotplugging and wireless mode
Dino Crisis 2 PC: what to expect with GOG’s version of the game:
Full compatibility with Windows 10 and Windows 11
All 2 localizations of the game included (English, Japanese)
Easy difficulty, Dino Colosseum and Dino Duel included
Improved DirectX game renderer
New rendering options (Windowed Mode, Vertical Synchronization Control, Gamma Correction, Integer Scaling, Anti-Aliasing and more)
Improved music playback and volume scaling
Improved item rendering and fogging
Improved cartridge boxes alignment
Issue-free video playback, task switching and game exit
Full support for modern controllers (Sony DualSense, Sony DualShock4, Microsoft Xbox Series, Microsoft Xbox One, Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Switch, Logitech F series and many more) with optimal button binding regardless of the hardware and wireless mode
Meanwhile, GOG announced its Dreamlist, a community-based tool anyone can use to vote for the games they want to see revived or added to the platform. These votes help GOG show community interest to IP owners and bring these games to life on the platform, it said.
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.
Hideaki Nishino has been promoted to the sole CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, with his new position effective on April 1, 2025.
This comes from a press release dropped this evening, which also reveals that Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki is being promoted to president and CEO of the entire company. He replaces Kenichiro Yoshida, who served as CEO of the company since April 2018, succeeding Kazuo Hirai. Additionally the SVP, finance, corporate development and strategy Lin Tao is being promoted to CFO.
Just last year, it was announced that Nishino and Hermen Hulst would split the leadership of SIE between them after former CEO Jim Ryan’s retirement, with Hulst serving as head of PlayStation Studios and Nishino overseeing hardware and tech. With this change, Nishinio now oversees the entire SIE operation as well as leading the platform business group, while Hulst will remain in his role heading up PlayStation Studios specifically.
Nishino has worked with Sony since 2000, previously serving as SVP, platform experience group.
“I am truly honored to take the helm at Sony Interactive Entertainment,” he said. “Technology and creativity are two of our biggest strengths as we continue to focus on developing experiences that deliver entertainment for everyone. We will continue to grow the PlayStation community in new ways, such as IP expansion, while also delivering the best in technology innovation. I want to thank Hermen for his expertise and leadership as he continues his role as CEO, Studio Business Group. I am deeply grateful for the PlayStation community and their continued support and I am very excited for what the future holds.”
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
