Category: Video Games

One of the great things about Elden Ring has always been the diversity of playstyles it enables, and one of my favorite playstyles is loading up on Strength, grabbing the largest weapon I can find, and crushing foes with posture-breaking jumping attacks and charged-up heavy strikes. If that’s you too, then allow me to introduce you to the Raider in Nightreign (see the video below).

While the Guardian — the other big burly class with lots of health and an affinity for big weapons — is more focused on defense with a shield as a starter weapon and an ultimate ability that can mitigate damage for the entire party for an extended period of time, the Raider is designed as an absolute offensive powerhouse.

The most important ability of the Raider is Retaliate, which initially may not seem like a very strong skill on its own — it’s just two stomps that deal a bit of physical and poise damage. But the real magic is that thanks to the Raider’s passive, he cannot be knocked down while doing Retaliate. This means that the Raider basically has a free damage-soaking technique that will let you totally armor through pretty much any enemy or boss attack, with the added bonus of that weak second stomp getting replaced by an extremely powerful punch that will stagger even the largest enemies, if you manage to absorb an attack that would’ve done a substantial amount of damage.

Then there is the Raider’s ultimate, Totem Stela, which has him slamming the ground and causing a large totem to erupt, dealing big damage to anything around it. Like all of the other Ultimates in Nightreign, this is an incredibly powerful technique that can alter the tide of a fight. Not only does it deal big damage, but the totem is climbable, giving both you and your teammates either a safe place to lay low, or a vantage point to hit. In addition to that, it also gives everyone a damage buff as well, meaning it’s one of the first ults you’ll want to coordinate using so that the rest of the team can benefit from it.

The Raider starts with the Raider’s Greavtaxe, which is a pretty solid starting weapon that deals some fire damage and has the “Endure” skill affixed to it, which basically gives you another way to absorb and power through enemy attacks in case Retaliate is on cooldown. Still, you’ll definitely want to find a better weapon as the nights get closer, and large strength-scaling weapons are definitely the Raider’s go-to style of weapon.

Of all the classes I’ve played in Nightreign, the Raider is definitely the one that I’ve had the most fun with. It’s the one that is most well-suited for one-on-one battles, which is appropriate because its Remembrances (we’ll talk about those later on in the month) have you fighting in one-on-one boss fights in a sort of gladiatorial arena, which is a nice change of pace.

That’s all for our hands-on impressions of Nightreign’s classes, but stay tuned all throughout the month in depth looks at the mechanics of Nightreign, along with interviews with the developers, and more as IGN First continues on.

Mitchell Saltzman is an editorial producer at IGN. You can find him on twitter @JurassicRabbit

It’s been 35 years since Intelligent Systems debuted its Fire Emblem series on Nintendo’s Famicom. Through its ever-evolving combat and the introduction of beloved character bonding mechanics, the series has ascended to the upper echelon of tactical RPGs, culminating in two excellent mainline entries on the Nintendo Switch.

As we near the end of the original Switch era, we’ve compiled a list of every Fire Emblem game available on the console as well as what’s coming to the Switch 2.

How Many Fire Emblem Games Are on Switch?

There are five Fire Emblem games on Switch: two mainline games and three spinoffs. There are two additional Fire Emblem games available with Nintendo Switch Online, with a third due out for the Switch 2 in June.

Every Fire Emblem Game on Nintendo Switch

Fire Emblem Warriors (2017)

The first Fire Emblem game released on Switch was the Dynasty Warriors crossover Fire Emblem Warriors. The mashup incorporates the best elements of each series, blending Fire Emblem’s team-based strategy with Dynasty Warriors’ button-mashing, hack-and-slash action. It’s a worthwhile spinoff for action fans, though the light story makes it inessential to those concerned with Fire Emblem lore.

The game was developed by Dynasty Warriors studio Omega Force in collaboration with the action gurus at Team Ninja (Ninja Gaiden, Nioh).

Fire Emblem: Three Houses (2019)

Fire Emblem: Three Houses was a milestone release for the series. It was the first Fire Emblem game released on a home console in 12 years, the first mainline entry released on Switch, and a critical and commercial success that carried forward the momentum of Awakening seven years before it.

Three Houses is a massive tactical RPG that balances the grand with the intimate. Large-scale battles progress an overarching story of politics and religion within a continental war, while quieter moments between battles are spent in the monastery training, teaching, exploring, and bonding with other characters through well-written and -acted conversations.

Three Houses is Fire Emblem at its best, and what we’d recommend as a starting point if you’re looking to jump into the series on Switch.

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore (2020)

In 2020, Nintendo released Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore, an expanded port of the original Wii U release. Encore added new story content, characters, and music to the Nintendo-Atlus crossover game, which blends Fire Emblem’s “weapon triangle” combat mechanic — swords have an advantage over axes, axes over lances, lances over swords — with the flashy style, dungeon-crawling, and moment-to-moment combat of Atlus’s Shin Megami Tensei and Persona games.

The story is a comical, often over-the-top send-up of Japanese pop-culture that, as in Warriors before it, takes a backseat to the action.

Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes (2023)

Nintendo re-teamed with Omega Force for Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, the companies’ second Fire Emblem-Dynasty Warriors crossover following Fire Emblem Warriors. Three Hopes is a retelling of Three Houses set in an alternate timeline where Three Houses’ protagonist Byleth serves as the main villain.

Three Hopes is a more robust blend of the two franchises than its predecessor, integrating more of Fire Emblem’s social and tactical mechanics with Dynasty Warriors’ fast-paced action.

Fire Emblem Engage (2023)

Fire Emblem Engage is the series’ latest game and its second mainline entry on Switch. Engage is a progression of Three Houses’ excellence and an ode to Fire Emblem’s past: It refines and scales down the social and hub mechanics of Three Houses while shifting its primary focus to the series’ longstanding tactical combat, most notably reintroducing Fire Emblem’s “weapon triangle” system.

The story of Engage follows a Divine Dragon named Alear, who’s tasked with collecting 12 rings to defeat the Fell Dragon and save the continent of Elyos. Engage’s original story connects to the series past through these 12 rings, each of which houses the spirit of a past Fire Emblem protagonist, allowing you to summon past heroes such as Marth, Ike, Celica, and Byleth.

Fire Emblem Games Available With Nintendo Switch Online

Genshin Impact is one of the most popular gacha games in the world. The free-to-play action RPG from HoYoverse lets players spend a virtual currency called Primogems to have a chance (a “wish”) to obtain rare characters of varying power. It’s a microtransactions system that has proved controversial, but a money-spinner for the developers, generating billions of dollars in revenue over the years.

In most games of this type, the amount of money you have to spend to eventually pull a character is withheld from the player — and you can see why given the poor odds available. But now, HoYoverse has updated Genshin Impact to do just that, revealing front and centre just how much needs to be spent.

The Genshin Impact shop now tells U.S. players how many pulls you’re getting with each purchase (you can buy wishes directly with a direct conversion rate displayed) and how much you need to spend to guarantee pulling a character, which varies between $1.98 to $475.20. The figure is based on the base prices of the pulls (without bonuses) and if you hit the max pulls to guarantee the character (180 pulls).

So, while the posted figure assumes the highest possible price if you intentionally don’t buy the higher value (and more expensive) bundles, you could face spending nearly $500 pulling just one character in Genshin Impact.

Players have reacted with a mix of disbelief and positivity at the transparency.

“Whole thing is weirdly…. Transparent,” said redditor Zion-plex. “You see it clear as day, 100 bucks 50 pulls every time staring at you (whales think or maybe don’t even care they ‘know’ the math). Man, that’ll sting, even for those who can and will spend, there’s a lot of mental suppression that goes on.”

”Unmitigated positive,” said Whilyam. “The only people helped by obscuring costs are the ones who want to take advantage of people or make it easier for people with addictions to justify spending money.”

“I think it’s harder to justify the spending with abysmal conversion rate visible with your eyes,” added Mtboomerang. “I think the biggest problem with addicts is they follow the emotion then they will calculate. With the conversion rate visible now, their logic will shut their emotion down in time before they are deep in emotion abyss trying to come up with a reason.”

“Good changes that should be standardized for all Gachas and other similar games with gambling/loot box type mechanics,” said mikethebest1.

Some players are now calling on HoYoverse to just let Genshin Impact players buy characters directly, given they now know how much it could cost to obtain them through the gacha system.

“I wish they would just freaking sell the damn characters,” said yuusharo. “Horse armor works on me, I’d pay a freak ton on these games if I knew I’d get what I wanted every single time.

“Instead, the vast majority of their revenue comes from a tiny percentage of players exploiting gambling tendencies, preying on people like vultures. I hate it, I feel so gross whenever I succumb to that.”

So, why has HoYoverse added this layer of transparency to Genshin Impact now? It’s because it lost a court case against the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) back in January that resulted in a ban on selling loot boxes

If you are wondering why, back in January HoYoverse reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that resulted in increased transparency around parental consent and virtual currency practices within its games. The results are now kicking in.

As part of this, HoYoverse is now required by U.S. law to age verify U.S. player accounts. That’s because as part of the FTC’s settlement order, sales of Genshin Impact loot boxes to kids under 16 without their parents’ consent were banned.

The age verification process will be rolled out to all U.S. players by May 20. If you don’t provide your age information by July 18, 2025, you could see your account suspended, the developer warned. If the verification is not completed by July 20, 2026, the personal information of your HoYoverse account will be deleted permanently.

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.

Publisher/ developer EA has confirmed it has no plans to raise the price of its games even as the likes of Microsoft and Nintendo jump to $80.

Addressing investors in its latest financial call, CEO Andrew Wilson said the company’s focus was to “deliver incredible quality and exponential value for our playerbase,” such as its hit co-op adventure Split Fiction, which has now sold 4 million copies.

“In terms of pricing power, our business is very different today than it was even just 10 years ago,” Wilson explained. “In a world where everything we did 10 years ago was about selling shiny discs in plastic boxes in retail shelves — well, that’s still a part of our business, it’s a significantly smaller part of our business, and we now have pricing representing everything from free-to-play all the way to deluxe editions and beyond.

“At the end of the day, whether we’re doing something that costs a dollar, or we’re doing something that costs $10, or we’re doing something that costs $100, our objective is always to deliver incredible quality and exponential value for our playerbase,” said Wilson. “And what we’ve discovered over the course of time is [when] we can marry quality and value together, our business is strong, resilient, and continues to grow.”

“From a guidance perspective […] we have reflected no changes in our current [pricing] strategy at this point,” added CFO Stuart Canfield.

It’ll be welcome news to some, given just last week, Microsoft confirmed it was raising Xbox prices as well as increasing the cost of controllers, headsets, and some games. The price hike for consoles and accessories has already taken effect, and while game prices will stay the same for now, we should expect to see Xbox charging $79.99 for new, first-party games around the holiday season.

It follows a broader trend in AAA gaming that has seen prices jumping from $60 to $70 in just the last five years, and Nintendo going with $80 for upcoming Switch 2 exclusive Mario Kart World and some other Switch 2 Edition games. The Switch 2 itself was recently revealed to be launching at $450, a price that drew criticism from Nintendo fans even as analysts admitted such a high price was likely inevitable amid current economic conditions.

Given EA’s comments, we can expect the next EA Sports FC, Madden, and Battlefield games to stick to the $70 standard edition pricing.

Last week, IGN reported EA cut around 100 jobs at Apex Legend developer Respawn Entertainment, as well as making wider cuts across its organization, impacting around 300 individuals in all.

Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

A new GTA 6 trailer is here and, in case you missed it, we broke down all of the secrets and details from it. Sadly, though, we’re going to have to wait until May 26, 2026, to actually play Lucia and Jason’s story. So, in the meantime, why don’t we think about all of the Rockstar games we’ve already enjoyed over the years and rank them for fun?

Rockstar has developed and released over 30 games since its creation in 1998, and is responsible for famous series such as Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, and Manhunt. But which comes out on top? Just to clarify, you won’t see the likes of LA Noire or Max Payne 2 here, as we’ve strictly gone with Rockstar-developed games, rather than ones the studio has published. I’ve had a go at ranking them via one of our IGN Tier Lists, purely taking into account my personal enjoyment of each game over the years. Take a look at my tier list here:

Red Dead Redemption 2 is simply my favourite game of all time, so it was a pretty easy S-tier pick for me if I’m honest. It’s (perhaps unsurprisingly) joined its predecessor and GTA 5 in that category – both pioneers of the cinematic open world genre. I also have a particular soft spot for Max Payne 3 and its bullet time ballet, as well as GTA San Andreas (a game I played at a way too young age). Down at the bottom in the D-tier, we have the likes of Austin Powers: Oh, Behave! and Welcome to My Underground Lair!, a game that literally nobody in their right mind wants to play.

Don’t agree with me? Think that Vice City is better than GTA 4? Well, why not have a go at ranking all of Rockstar’s games yourself in a tier list below, where you can compare your own S, A, B, C, and D tiers with the whole of the IGN community.

We may have only seen two trailers so far, but where do you think GTA 6 will end up ranking when all is said and done? Let us know in the comments, as well as why you’ve ranked the games in the order you’ve chosen.

Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can mainly be found skulking around open world games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.