For the first time ever, step into the wonderful world of Moomins on Xbox and Windows in Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley! The game is a story-rich musical adventure game for all ages about Snufkin restoring the valley and helping the quirky and memorable characters and critters who call it home. A series of hideous parks have cropped up in Moominvalley, disrupting the landscape and its harmonious nature. As Snufkin, you will distract police officers, pull out signs, and knock over misplaced statues as you vigorously try to restore nature and the inhabitants’ home while putting an end to the industrious Park Keeper’s plans.
About the Moomins
The Moomins, a series of charming and quirky characters, were created by the cherished illustrator and author Tove Jansson in 1945. Tove Jansson is recognised as possibly one of the most successful Finnish artists of all time and the Moomins started off in a series of books and a novel in Finland and then became known globally through a series of cartoon strips – some might recognise the books “Finn Family Moomintroll” or “Comet in Moominland”.
Tove Jansson’s niece Sophia Jansson has explained that “the Moomin stories are essentially about the things that are the most important to anyone living anywhere – things like love, tolerance, respect, being part of a family, and belonging. Those things are the same no matter where you’re from, what your gender, race, religion, or sexuality.”
Melody of Moominvalley
Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley is a nostalgic yet innovative indie game that’s quintessentially Nordic, with an originally written story based on the original works, including the emotions and a melancholic atmosphere that Tove Jansson is famous for creating.
Our world draws heavily on Tove’s excellent watercolor illustrations and adapts it to a video game setting to create a rich and beautiful environment for our players to discover. The game style takes a cue from traditional watercolor and painting techniques, and rather than adhering to them strictly, we’re creating something attuned to the medium to account for the large volume of content.
We hope you will have a fantastic time in our story-book-come-to-life experience, and meet both new and old friends – You can pick up Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley on Xbox and Windows PC today.
Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley is a story-rich musical adventure game about Snufkin restoring the valley and helping the quirky and memorable characters and critters who call it home. A series of hideous parks have cropped up in Moominvalley, disrupting the landscape and its harmonious nature. As Snufkin you will distract police officers, pull out signs, and knock over misplaced statues as you vigorously try to restore nature and the inhabitants’ home while putting an end to the industrious Park Keeper’s plans…
Main features
* Set out on a cozy, story-rich adventure game in a gorgeous storybook art style
* Get the strict Park Keeper and his horrible parks out of Moominvalley with the help of your trusty harmonica, a bit of stealth, and the friends you’ll meet along the way
* Meet over 50 charming characters and creatures calling Moominvalley their home
* Experience narrative gameplay and a myriad of charming stories and quests involving the beloved characters inspired by Tove Jansson’s work
* Explore Moominvalley’s open world and solve musical and environmental puzzles along the way to uncover the happenings in the valley
* Immerse yourself in the beautiful soundscape of music and melodies composed in collaboration with Sigur Rós
In addition to the languages listed in the Supported languages section, this game also supports: Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Turkish
Today, Best Buy and Target are matching the lowest prices I saw for Xbox Series X|S wireless controllers on Black Friday. Right now you can get one in either Carbon Black or Robot White for only $34.99. Best of all, your order will arrive by December 25. These controllers are compatible with Xbox Series X and S and PC.
Xbox Controllers for $34.99
Aesthetics aside, these Xbox wireless controllers are identical to the one that’s bundled with the Xbox Series X and S console. Standard features include textured grips, hybrid D-pad, button mapping with the Xbox app, a 3.5mm audio jack that works with any wired headset, and a Share button to upload screenshots and video.
The controller supports both Xbox wireless and Bluetooth connectivity. That means you can use it for your PC or mobile device. In fact, we think this is the the best PC controller you can get. If your PC doesn’t have Bluetooth, you can still use it in wired mode with a USB Type-C cable or go out and buy a Bluetooth or Xbox wireless adapter.
Xbox Controller Ghost Cipher Edition for $45.49
If you want a color scheme that’s sure to grab yours and other people’s attentions, check out the Ghost Cipher Limited Edition Xbox Series X|S wireless controller. It’s down to $45 at Target and arrives by December 25. The Ghost Cipher Edition is an absolutely gorgeous controller, with a translucent clear top case, rubberized ash gray grips, metallic bronze triggers and D-pad, and a solid white back. The interior components are colored silver to match the overall theme.
Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 for $124
Includes component pack
Want something even more premium? Right now, you can pick up the professional-grade Xbox Series X Elite Series 2 Wireless Controller for only $124.00 after a 30% off instant discount. That’s a great deal for the original Elite Series 2 controller that includes the component pack. The newer Elite Series 2 Core controllers in White, Blue, and Red do not include the component pack and they normally retail for $140. The component pack itself retails for $59.99.
The Xbox Elite Series 2 Core controller features better build quality and lots more customizability than the stock controller that comes with the Xbox Series X console. Some of the more significant pro gaming features include adjustable-tension thumbsticks, wrap-around rubberized grip, and shorter hair trigger locks. The component pack, which is bundled with this controller, includes an extra sets of paddles, thumbsticks, D-pad, and case.
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn’t hunting for deals for other people at work, he’s hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
The battle for democracy in Helldivers 2 made it one of the biggest games of 2024. Many fans found the gameplay and multiplayer nature of the game fun, enthralled by the fast action and triumphant soundtrack. For the first time ever, you can take home the sound of freedom with the Helldivers 2 Original Soundtrack Vinyl, which is available to pre-order now at IGN Store.
Pre-Order the Helldivers 2 Original Game Soundtrack Vinyl Now on IGN Store!
This vinyl is the ultimate collector’s item for any Helldivers fan. Composed by Wilbert Roget, II with additional music by Ross Tregenza, the Helldivers 2 soundtrack is the perfect soundtrack to listen to in the fight for freedom. A total of 11 tracks are included on this 1LP release, which we’ve outlined below.
Side A
1. Ode to Liberty 2. Welcome to the Fight 3. The Super Destroyer 4. Hellpods Primed 5. A Cup of Liber-tea (Helldivers 2 Main Theme) 6. The Terminid Horde
Side B
7. Track 11 8. The Automaton Legion 9. No Diver Left Behind 10. March of the Helldivers 11. Super Earth National Anthem
The yellow translucent vinyl is unmistakeably Helldivers, and the front of the package features the key art from the game. The vinyl is packed in a single-pocket jacket with a credit insert, which includes a note from the composer Wilbert Roget, II. The Helldivers 2 Original Soundtrack Vinyl will ship out starting February 2025. Pre-orders are now open on IGN Store, so don’t miss your chance to grab this unique collector’s item!
About IGN Store
IGN Store sells high-quality merch, collectibles, and shirts for everything you’re into. It’s a shop built with fans in mind: for all the geek culture and fandom you love most. Whether you’re into comics, movies, anime, games, retro gaming or just want some cute plushies (who doesn’t?), this store is for you!
Masayuki Kato, the founder and former president of Ys and Legend of Heroes developer Nihon Falcom, died on Sunday, December 15 at the age of 78, according to an announcement from the company today.
Kato got his start as a computer technician working in the auto industry, but fell in love with personal computers and their capacity for games and entertainment. He founded Nihon Falcom in 1981 originally to publish games for Japanese personal computers in partnership with Apple, making Nihon one of the oldest video game companies still in existance today. He named his company after the Millenium Falcon from Star Wars, but with a “com” at the end for computers.
The founder of Nihon Falcom, Masayuki Kato, passed away on December 15, 2024 at the age of 78.
Over time, Nihon Falcom under Kato’s leadership became known as one of the pioneers of the action-RPG genre, beginning with Panorama Toh in 1983, Dragon Slayer in 1984, and Xanadu in 1985. Nihon Falcom gradually became a full-fledged developer in its own right, creating long-running series such as Ys and The Legend of Heroes.
The studio continued to stay in the lane of Japanese PC games for the first two decades of its history. But that changed in the early 2000s, when Nihon Falcom began working with PlayStation to bring games such as Ys I & II Complete and The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky to PlayStation devices such as the PS2 and PSP. Ever since then, the company has continued to release action RPGs cross-platform and globally with some third-party support, even more recently expanding to Nintendo platform releases.
Kato stepped down from his role as president of Nihon Falcom in 2001 as part of a larger restructure, and was succeeded by Shinji Yamazaki and, later on, the current president Toshihiro Kondo. Kato remained involved with the company as chairman of the board of directors until his death. He is credited as a producer on a number of more recent Ys and The Legend of Heroes games, including the company’s most recent global release, Ys X: Nordics.
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.
Christmas is upon us once again, which means that No Gravity Games is back with another generous offer of free Switch games; eleven of them, to be precise.
Yes, the company’s ‘Switchmas Giveaway’ is back, opening on 9th December 2024 at 12am PT and giving away one free game on each of the following eleven days (until 19th December). New releases are included in the line-up alongside one game that will be provided for free from day one of its launch.
Philosophy and Duality: Examining the Inspirations Behind the Upcoming Action RPG, Empyreal
Joseph Rogers, Co-Founder & Creative Director at Silent Games
We recently announced our debut game, Empyreal, coming to Xbox Series X|S in 2025, and we would like to tell you a little more about the game’s setting and inspirations.
Empyreal is an action RPG in a richly detailed sci-fi fantasy universe. While the setting is sci-fi, featuring futuristic technology and intergalactic civilizations, the feel and mood is more fantasy. And though technology replaces the “magic” from a traditional fantasy setting, the supernatural and the divine play a significant role in the lore and story of this universe.
The game begins with your character arriving on a hitherto unexplored planet, only to discover the remnants of a lost civilisation. What’s more, it soon becomes clear that, though ancient, this civilisation made breakthroughs and discoveries that are far, far removed from humanity’s understanding of the modern world.
Soon, you are confronted with a looming and inscrutable monolith. Why is it here? Who built it? What is it for? And what power does it contain?
Naturally, we won’t be answering those questions for you here and now – these discoveries (and more) are for you to make when you play for yourself. However, what we would like to share are some of the esoteric references that influenced some of the themes in the story, and the relevance they hold even to the modern world.
Embracing a Paradox
While the universe of Empyreal is not directly based on or related to a specific culture or mythology from history, there is one figure that represents an important idea that permeates a core theme of the narrative in the game – the ancient Greek god, Dionysus.
Dionysus is typically portrayed as a drunken party animal in much of modern pop-culture media, but in his seminal work “Dionysus: Myth and Cult”, classical philologist Walter Otto paints a much more complete and complex picture.
While there is truth in Dionysus being the god of wine and the festival, he was also the god of madness and death. Although at first this may seem a perplexing juxtaposition, is there some truth we can learn from it? Otto claims that in “The visage of every true God is a visage of the World”. In other words, even in myth, we invariably find an accurate insight into the nature of the world.
In the case of Dionysus, he represents the paradox of duality. The understanding that life and death, madness and beauty and conflict and creativity are opposites, and yet also pre-requisites for each other. Embracing this paradox is a core philosophy behind Empyreal – to see the universe as both a “Mystic Temple and a Hall of Doom” (an idea introduced by Thomas Carlyle in his text, Characteristics) and to accept this dual nature in its totality. This life-affirming perspective is known as the “Tragic View”.
Empyreal does not feature an encroaching but ill-defined “darkness”, or a “corruption of the land”. Nor does it feature a pantomime villain of inexplicable evil for no other reason than to have an “evil antagonist”. Instead, the story and characters are designed to prompt careful reflection on the nature of humanity, our place in the universe and what it truly takes to guarantee the future of mankind.
Exploring the Human Condition
Now, just because Empyreal does not feature a “big bad” intent on destroying the world for whatever reason, that doesn’t mean the game is without conflict. As before though, the intent is for this conflict to reflect the struggle that life itself invariably presents.
Unsurprisingly, you are not the only one invested in the exploration of this lost civilisation and its achievements. When you arrive on the planet, it is ostensibly to provide a relief effort to a beleaguered expedition that has already been there for two long years, with little progress and innumerable setbacks to show for it.
Each other member of the expedition is an important character with their own personal questlines that you can choose to follow for unique rewards. There are nine of these quests in total, with each questline exploring a different facet of the human condition, based on the ideals of the individual themselves, the challenges they have faced and what they hope to ultimately achieve.
For example, there is an accomplished scientist who, despite their achievements, lives in the shadow of their Great Grandfather, who made technological breakthroughs that transformed modern living. This character has dreamt all their life of making an innovative breakthrough to rival that legacy, and in reverse-engineering the technology of the lost civilisation, that opportunity has seemingly presented itself.
You can choose to assist them in their goals, but it is also possible to set them on a different path by sharing even greater insight into the true divine nature of the cosmos, which then puts the character’s relentless material pursuits into sharp perspective.
There is also a veteran of several wars who is now the Quartermaster of the expedition. Having seen the excesses of humanity in his time, he is pragmatic and optimistic, but acutely appreciates the need to have a firm understanding of one’s own beliefs; a solid foundation on which one is able to face the world. As a result, he will frequently challenge you on your beliefs and play devil’s advocate no matter your response.
Choice and Consequence
These are just a couple of small previews of the characters you will come across in Empyreal. Not only do all nine characters have questlines you can follow, but each one has at least two distinct endings. Quests can play out differently depending on your choices and accomplishments and each ending offers a unique reward. But don’t fret too much about which way to go in a given quest – the game will feature a fully fleshed out New Game+ at launch, so you’ll be able to go back and experiment with different outcomes in subsequent playthroughs.
That’s about all we’ve got time for in this blog. While we have touched on a few of the inspirations and references that influence Empyreal’s themes and narrative, this is far from a comprehensive list, and there’s much more to be uncovered. The game draws heavily on classical and existentialist philosophy, theology and history, with many inspirations not mentioned here that we look forward to players discovering and discussing as they play the game.
Empyreal is a complex, challenging, feature-rich action RPG.
In a far-flung corner of the galaxy an Expedition arrives on a hitherto unexplored planet to find a colossal Monolith built by a lost civilisation. These are no mere ruins: the Monolith is filled with danger, and the Expedition is ill-equipped to unearth the secrets within.
All eyes turn towards an elite mercenary who may succeed where all others have failed.
Venture inside the Monolith and face the automatons that yet remain, remnants of the impossibly ancient civilisation that built this unknowable structure. Survive and uncover revelations that transform our understanding of humanity itself.
Features:
• Stand against formidable foes; your only hope of victory lies in mastering a unique and complex combat system
• A memorable cast of characters, with personal questlines and multiple endings for each one
• A beautiful but shattered ancient world. Explore breathtaking environments filled with hidden details
• Customise your character with a vast array of equipment and collect armour sets that confer powerful bonuses
• Upgrade and modify the loot you find
• Unlock new abilities to personalise your playstyle
While Baldur’s Gate 3 arrived in 2023 as seemingly the perfect Dungeons & Dragons adaptation from tabletop to video game, its predecessor Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance is being shut down and removed from storefronts just three years after it launched.
The game’s Steam page was updated to announce servers will be taken offline and the game removed from sale on February 24, 2025.
“We will be shutting down the Dark Alliance servers on February 24, 2025 and it will no longer be available to purchase starting that day,” reads the note from developer Invoke Studios. “The base game and all DLC are still available to play in offline single-player by anyone who currently owns it.”
Dark Alliance launched on June 22, 2021 as a promised “exciting, action-driven, hack-and-slash adventure filled with iconic monsters, legendary characters, and epic loot,” but was received poorly by players and critics.
“Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance is a tedious co-op adventure with lots of goblins and even more bugs,” IGN said in our 4/10 review, and the game sits at a “mixed” rating on Steam with only 50% of reviews being positive.
Invoke Studios, which was known as Tuque Games at the time but later rebranded, is now working on another entry in the D&D franchise. Details are still slim, but publisher Wizards of the Coast confirmed it as an Unreal Engine 5 title and said it will be “a triple-A game derived from the Dungeons & Dragons universe.”
Wizards of the Coast is all in on D&D video games at the moment, likely due to the astounding success of Baldur’s Gate 3, as five games are currently in development.
In our 10/10 review, IGN said: “With crunchy, tactical RPG combat, a memorable story with complex characters, highly polished cinematic presentation, and a world that always rewards exploration and creativity, Baldur’s Gate 3 is the new high-water mark for CRPGs.”
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
Toy Box sounds like a very Xmassy game, but then you watch a trailer, and realise that it is not very Xmassy at all. It’s a free visual novel with a macabre puzzling element. The setup is that you’re a toy inspector working for a jovial Grand Toy Maker, his face hidden above the top of the screen. Your job is to disassemble toys – five in all – according to his eldritch written instructions, and either “salvage” them or “sentence” them to the incinerator.
CD Projekt has announced a concert tour to celebrate the 10th anniversary of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
The concert tour features “an innovative blend of cutting-edge visuals and gameplay” that plays alongside the original soundtrack performed by a live orchestra. It kicks off with anniversary concerts in Poland and Boston, Massachusetts in May 2025, before a tour of Europe in the fourth quarter of 2025 and then the U.S. in the first quarter of 2026. CD Projekt’s new U.S. hub is in Boston, which explains why the initial anniversary concert takes place there.
Tickets go on sale soon, CD Projekt said. The full scale of the concert series — as well as ticket information — will be unveiled over time, with more information to be revealed through the official website and newsletter.
Here’s the official blurb:
The experience features select tracks from the game and its expansions, arranged for the occasion by The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt composer Marcin Przybyłowicz, who will also join select stops as a special guest. The live celebration is further bolstered by Polish folk metal band Percival, co-composers of the game’s soundtrack, known for their iconic contributions to the game’s sound. Alongside a skilled orchestra, they will bring to life beloved tracks from Geralt’s journey through the continent.
It’s a busy time for CD Projekt. It currently has 400 developers working on The Witcher 4, the majority of its 650-person total development staff. 64 are working on Orion, the sequel to Cyberpunk 2077, 42 on Sirius, The Witcher game developed by The Molasses Flood, and 18 on Hadar, CD Projekt’s brand new IP. It’s also found time to update Cyberpunk 2077 to 2.2.
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.
2024 will likely be remembered as a transitional year for Nintendo. Last year saw heavy hitters like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Super Mario Bros. Wonder while next year is all about the Nintendo Switch 2, leaving this year in kind of an awkward middle ground. Even so, Switch owners still had a ton of great games to play during the aging console’s eighth year on the market as Nintendo somehow managed to publish a game every single month, while third-party and indie developers continued to support Switch with awesome series revivals and clever new ideas.
While many fans were begging to turn the page to the next generation, Nintendo proved Switch still had enough in the tank for one more year with a surprise Zelda game where you actually play as Princess Zelda, our favorite Mario Party in years, and a whole lot more. These are the best Nintendo games of 2024, starting off with the honorable mentions.
Honorable Mentions
A couple of titles just barely missed out making our top tier or picks for the year. For years, the concept of a Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door remake felt as mythical and unattainable as opening the titular door itself, but Nintendo finally listened to this RPG’s extremely vocal fanbase and delivered a near perfect retelling of Mario’s iconic GameCube quest. It’s remarkable how well The Thousand-Year Door holds up 20 years later, with its hilarious script, satisfying combat, lovable party members, and memorable locations.
Mario literally climbs the ranks of a pro wrestling league set on a floating island in the sky, and that’s just the setting for one chapter of this epic adventure. And, following the last few Paper Mario entries that traded in unique, original characters in favor of hordes upon hordes of samey Toads, it’s a complete delight to see the slimy city of Rogueport and its surrounding areas peppered with fresh personalities. Simply giving The Thousand-Year Door a gorgeous new coat of paint and sprinkling in a few quality-of-life improvements has instantly placed it on the list of the best RPGs on Switch.
And then there’s Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble, a stunning return to form for a series that had completely lost its way for the better part of the last two decades. After several misguided attempts to get the monkey ball rolling again, the pieces finally fell into place in Banana Rumble thanks to the tightest controls, physics, and level design the series has seen since Super Monkey Ball 2 in 2003. Tilting the stage to roll your monkey to the finish feels right again, and the new spin dash ability significantly opens up speedrunning and trick shot techniques without feeling like a betrayal to Monkey Ball’s core mechanics like some past gimmicks did.
It doesn’t hold back by the end either, with devilish late-game obstacles that will throw your monkey off the stage dozens of times before you finally break through that sweet, sweet goal. It’s also a fantastic game to play with others, as you can tackle all of Banana Rumble’s 200+ stages in local or online co-op with up to four players. It may not quite soar to the lofty heights of the GameCube originals, but it’s undeniable that Super Monkey Ball is back after years of fall outs, and I’m both shocked and overjoyed I get to say that in 2024.
Runner-Up: Super Mario Party Jamboree
Now we move onto the runner-ups – the games that narrowly missed out on the top spot. First is Super Mario Party Jamboree, one of Nintendo’s finest efforts of 2024, which simultaneously became a go-to multiplayer game on Switch and a standout entry in the longrunning dice-rolling, backstabbing series. It has pretty much everything you’d want from a great Mario Party: a wonderful set of seven boards each with their own unique wrinkles, an incredibly fun and varied set of minigames you’ll want to return to again and again, and a huge roster of 22 playable characters filled with both fan favorites and deep cuts. Plus, if you’ve been on the wrong end of one too many Chance Times or Bowser Revolutions and just can’t take it anymore, the all-new optional Pro Rules offer an alternative take on Mario Party that lessen the luck-based elements and emphasize skill and strategy.
Jamboree is particularly exciting because it’s easily the best original Mario Party game developed by Nintendo Cube, the studio that’s been in charge of the series since 2012’s Mario Party 9. The developers spent years trying to completely transform the Mario Party formula – from putting all four players into a car, to having everyone take their turn at the same time – and it just never really worked. But the Switch era represents a comeback story for the Mario Party series, beginning with Super Mario Party which was a step in the right direction, but still not entirely there. Then, Nintendo Cube returned to the franchise’s greatest hits in Mario Party Superstars, which was a ton of fun, but it wasn’t original content. Finally, the Mario Party comeback arc is complete with new boards, items, and minigames that stand side-by-side with the greats and cement Jamboree as a modern multiplayer classic.
Runner-Up: Lorelei and the Laser Eyes
If you like head-scratching, mind-bending puzzle games like Return of the Obra Dinn and The Witness, then Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is a must-play to add to your Switch wishlist. Created by Sayonara Wild Hearts developer Simogo, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes features the same unrivaled presentation and atmosphere with a tantalizing mystery to match. The story begins with Lorelei arriving at a creepy, surreal hotel and within minutes you’ll be enraptured by unraveling its greatest mysteries and discovering why she was summoned there in the first place. Our reviewer Tom Marks called it “the closest thing I’ve played to a modernization of what a point-and-click adventure could be,” saying “Its story is enticingly fresh, its vibes perfectly eerie, and the desire it evokes to uncover every inch of its intricately interwoven mystery is irresistible.”
It’s also not afraid to scare you. While it never treads too far into horror game territory, it effectively keeps you on edge with a handful of frightening moments as you dive deeper down its ever-expanding rabbit hole. As Tom said, “Lorelei and the Laser Eyes does do a fantastic job of unsettling you as you go, using its beautiful black-and-white visual style with pops of neon to create haunting, abstract imagery that can sometimes be as anxiety-inducing as any monster.” This is one of the best examples of a small developer bringing a brilliant set of ideas to Switch in 2024, resulting in an unforgettable journey that’s not quite like anything else on the console.
Runner-Up: Unicorn Overlord
It’s been a phenomenal year for RPGs, and Unicorn Overlord is a big reason why. This is a superb high-fantasy strategy RPG from 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim developer Vanillaware, and the developer’s iconic art style is on full display with Unicorn Overlord’s beautifully animated characters and backgrounds, along with some of the most unnecessarily good-looking food we’ve ever seen in a video game. Our reviewer Eric Zalewski said Unicorn Overlord has one of his favorite strategy RPG combat systems ever, praising its unique blend of real-time strategy and turn-based RPG mechanics that result in something entirely new and delightfully deep. You’ll need to expertly maneuver your squads and fully engage with its complex ability system to succeed on the higher difficulties, and our review praised the scenarios you’re thrust into across Unicorn Overlord’s diverse maps, calling the mechanics and gimmicks presented some of the very best in the genre.
Unicorn Overlord’s fairly stereotypical story about a prince fighting to take back his kingdom is immaculately presented across five separate arcs that each add vital context to the tale, with Eric saying, “Rather than lengthy exposition or 30-minute lore dumps, its wonderfully realized world is gradually fleshed out by the people you interact with, providing interesting perspectives as you learn the stories of both your allies and your enemies. Its overarching plot may be rather simple as a result, sticking closely to genre tropes, but when paired with a beautiful presentation, even familiar stories manage to feel fresh.” Unicorn Overlord is a special RPG in a year full of them, and proof that some third-party developers are still bringing the good stuff to Nintendo Switch.
Winner: The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
There were a lot of great Switch games this year, but in the end it’s tough to beat The Legend of Zelda, and Echoes of Wisdom is IGN’s pick for the best Nintendo game of 2024. Echoes of Wisdom marks a lot of exciting firsts for the series: It’s the first new top-down Zelda game on Switch, the first time a Zelda game is played largely without a sword, and most importantly it’s the first time Princess Zelda is the playable character in a mainline entry.
However, this isn’t just a traditional adventure where Zelda simply takes the place of Link. Instead, Echoes of Wisdom carves out its own niche in Hyrule’s history thanks to its central copy-and-paste gameplay mechanic where Zelda can summon Echoes of objects and enemies she encounters to solve puzzles and take down powerful foes in unique ways. From plopping down a bed to restore her health with a quick nap whenever and wherever to finally turning the tables and commanding enemies that have been nuisances for years, there’s no shortage of fun, innovative uses for the dozens of Echoes at Zelda’s disposal. It takes a page from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom by setting players loose to find their own solutions, where the only wrong answers are the ones that don’t work. It only took hours after Echoes of Wisdom’s launch to see crazy improvisational combinations surfacing on social media, like tornado beds and crows endlessly chasing after a chunk of meat just out of their reach, leading to a pretty reliable form of flight.
Echoes of Wisdom doesn’t entirely return to the classic top-down setup that a lot of longtime fans miss, but it takes several half steps that bridge the gap between the modern formula and the old favorites. Hyrule is littered with Heart Pieces to find, warm orchestral melodies accompany nearly every step of the journey, and many characters, locations, and other references make Echoes of Wisdom feel like a love letter to cherished Zelda games like A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, and many others. With Echoes of Wisdom, Nintendo once again took the Zelda series in a bold, unexpected direction, giving Hyrule’s princess her long-awaited starring role with new gameplay concepts we never could have imagined beforehand, and that’s why it’s our pick for the best Nintendo game of the year.
Let us know what your pick is for the best Switch game of the year, and be sure to check out all of the other categories for the 2024 IGN Awards.
