“Our priority remains delivering on past commitments”.
With plenty of physical game lovers resisting the shift to digital distribution, the world of boutique, limited-press publishing is booming, with multiple options for anyone desperate to have smaller-scale releases on disc or cartridge rather than a hard drive or SD card.
It’s a risky business, though, with even the biggest players having some major blotson their record, and companies frequently overpromising and underdelivering – if they deliver at all. COVID caused major disruption across all industries five years ago, and while the pandemic may be a distant memory for some, the after-effects are still rippling through the games industry. Pandemic-related issues aside, with small press game companies often relying on overseas production and distribution facilities — not to mention developer issues and other factors — it’s easy to appreciate how a run of physical product can get held up by one issue, and how that issue can clog the entire pipeline.
This February, let the ID@Xbox team set the vibe. In this, the month of Valentine’s Day, indie game developers are competing to be your next love – but don’t stress, because our team of wingmen and wingwomen have handpicked six Indie Selects that can meet what anyone’s heart desires.
If you’re looking for some tasty food for the soul, satisfying beats that really pop, dangerous exploits to get the heart pumping, and unbelievable deliveries that really soar, February Selects had you at hello. Here’s what we’ve got for you this month (in no particular order):
This game answers the question,” What if you had to earn your meal by engaging it in a fight to the death?”. Cuisineer is the first food-focused action roguelite that I’ve ever played and I am very much obsessed. I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time bashing cute (but hostile) creatures in its dungeons to restock my fridge back in my character’s hometown. The demand for more wood, more types of stone, and various grades of meat never ends and the loop of “spend a day cooking for fussy customers, then return to a dungeon, then come back and upgrade your tools, etc.” is constant. It’s a hustle that I’m hooked on, to be honest, and Cuisineer delivers up this cycle in a way that’s both cozy and challenging.
Those monsters in the various dungeons aren’t joking around and you’ll be battling through multiple floors and bosses to get to the end of each gauntlet (though there are options to exit early). You’ll also be plunking down hard-earned gold (from your restaurant’s till) to upgrade your backpack and eatery capacity to continue growing and progressing through the game. It’s a soothing, dopamine-hit formula that Cuisineer does incredibly (and adorably) well, but it’s not absent of difficulty and learning curve. So, think of it as equipping cutesy cat ears while prepping for a lengthy workout. Give yourself some time to onboard and you’ll be harvesting fuzzy little fluffballs for “fatty meat” in no time.
Upon receiving a startling letter from her parents, the independent adventurer Pom swiftly returns home to Paell, only to find her parents gone and their beloved restaurant abandoned. Now left with mounting debts and a village in dire need of some fine cooking, Pom will have to delve into the deepest dungeons for the scarcest spices, rarest meats, and the most valuable vegetables she can find to keep her parents’ dream alive.
Dive into dungeons and cook up a storm as Pom, an adventurer-turned-restaurateur! Cuisineer‘s food-focused action challenges you to build your dinner the hard way: by dungeon-diving for materials and ingredients. Wield your cooking utensils against giant chickens, artillery shrimps, fire-breathing peppers, and other pesky perils, sipping boba tea along the way. Work with local artisans to customize your kitchen, and tailor your dining hall to the needs of loyal patrons eager to experience the rare recipes you’ve cooked up.
The Xbox Series X/S and Windows Store release of Cuisineer plates its enticing gameplay with fresh ingredients like new weapons, year-round festivals, a wardrobe feature, and more tasty inclusions that are sure to spice things up.
A Smorgasbord of Dungeons
Explore procedurally generated biomes such as the Green Ruins, Frozen Fjord, and Konpeito Swamps that change their size, shape, and resources every time you visit.
Craft Your Own Culinary Experience
Cook over 100 different recipes from around the world, from crunchy Popiah rolls to rich Kaya jam, from double-fried crispy chicken with zesty lemon, to sweet treats piled high with berries. Get the right dishes to the right customers and customize your kitchen and dining hall with the help of local artisans.
Master the Flavors of Fighting
Knock out monsters and rivals with Salty, Sour, Sweet, Bitter, Umami, Frosty and Toasty powers that unleash flame, poison, chain lightning, and other fantastic effects. You can also fight with unique utensils and gourmet gear, like Spatula, Smackerel, Swordfish, and the newly added Konpeito Fist weapons!
Take Quests to Go
From Naicha the Bubble Tea seller to Alder the big friendly carpenter, Paell is full of sweet and spicy townsfolk to befriend. While you’re dungeon diving, be on the lookout for items the townsfolk need. You’ll be rewarded with gold, new items, and even more recipes to take your cooking and adventuring to new heights.
Turbo Overkill is an FPS game that invokes the spirit of ’80s cyberpunk media and classic shooters such as Quake & Doom. By modern definition, you might categorize it as a “boomer shooter” – a game that either IS a retro FPS or a newer title that’s designed to create a similar feeling. Yes, this is a real thing, and no, we didn’t make it up, but we can agree that it’s fitting! As much as I love modern FPS games, I’m a huge fan of the classics, and Turbo Overkill does this subgenre justice in as many ways that it can.
Taking place in a futuristic, cyberpunk city called Paradise, players control a cybernetic bounty hunter by the name of Johnny Turbo who, paired with his trusty chainsaw leg and large arsenal of weapons, is set to take down rogue AI, Syn, and their augmented minions. The gameplay revolves around fighting various enemies and bosses, exploration, puzzle solving, upgrading Johnny and his weapons, and platforming. But what I love most is its pacing and combat flow. Players can leverage Johnny’s chainsaw leg by crouch sliding (a staple in most modern FPS games) to not only maneuver but also take down most enemies in one hit. Pairing this movement with jumps, air dashes and cycling through the various familiar weapons, makes the game feel like a classic arena shooter on top of its retro heritage.
In homage to the classics, Turbo Overkill features a single player campaign with several difficulties to choose from, secret levels to find, and unlockables to keep you busy. There’s also two additional modes, Endless Mode and Arcade Mode, both of which add a medal and scoring system for additional replayability. If you’re a fan of FPS games, whether modern or classic, then you must check this one out!
Turbo Overkill is the most savage FPS ever released by Apogee. You play as Johnny Turbo, augmented with hidden arm rockets and a chainsaw that extends from your lower leg allowing you to slide-slice enemies wide open.
Johnny returns to his hometown of Paradise and finds its entire population possessed by Syn, a rogue AI, and its army of augmented minions. Desperate for enough money to outrun his past mistakes, Johnny takes on the impossible job of destroying the greatest AI ever created. Rival bounty hunters want to claim the prize first. Nothing is easy in paradise.
TURBO TIME, WALL-RUNNING, DASHING AND GRAPPLING HOOKS, OH MY
Turbo Overkill takes over-the-top to never-before-reached heights. Activate Turbo Time(), a new form of slow motion with a twist. Build incredible speed by wall-running and dashing. Slide on your chainsaw leg, eviscerating foes and opening up bosses for critical damage, and go car-surfing on the hoods of flying cars. Blast away with the Twin Magnums, which lock-on and instagib several foes, the Boomer Shotgun and its attached grenade launcher, or the Telefragger sniper rifle, which teleports Johnny inside an enemy before they explode from within.
Race through two dozen stages packed with secrets, bonus arena stages, and white-knuckle combat puzzles. Find game-changing collectibles to unlock punishing modifiers like triple-monster-speed and insta-kill. Combine all of Johnny’s weapons and powers to outsmart, outgun and outrun the corrupted legions.
Tails of Iron 2 is a gritty and challenging 2D action-RPG that mixes Soulslike combat with Metroidvania elements. I’ve been interested in this series since the first entry, but I never picked it up – my backlog is infinite! After playing this one though, I feel like I owe it to myself to try it out! It helps that, while the new story shares the same world, the sequel features a new protagonist, Arlo meaning you don’t need to play its predecessor to catch up. As the heir to the Warden of the Wastes, Arlo must avenge his father’s death, taking on threats like the merciless Dark Wing Bats and other creatures as he fights to restore his homeland. Oh… and Arlo’s a rat.
I won’t get too deep into the gore, but all I’ll say is, don’t let this game’s storybook-like appearance fool you – the themes in this game are grim. The hand-drawn visuals remind me of a hidden gem you’d find digging through the Xbox Live Arcade library, in all the best ways. It has that nostalgic charm that makes it feel familiar, yet ultimately fresh and unique. And the world? Absolutely awesome. Viking themes aren’t new, but Viking rats? They’re adorable, and at the same time, so metal.
After spending hours fighting bosses, I can confirm this game is challenging. You’ll have to backtrack, platform, upgrade your gear, and parry and roll… a lot. You’ll need patience, and if you’re anything like me, you’ll probably die more than you survive—unless you switch to Fairy Tale mode, where enemies have less health and do less damage.
If you’re a fan of Metroidvanias, Soulslikes, or just really love the idea of rats in Viking armor, I recommend giving this a shot. Oh, and they got Doug Cockle (Geralt from The Witcher game series) to narrate the story, which only adds to the appeal.
Just as the Rats of the South start to piece their lives together, following the great war between Rodent and Frog, an old and unspeakable evil stirs in the North; wings black as death; fangs sharp as steel; and a thirst for blood rivalled only by their insatiable hunger… for vengeance.
As Arlo, young heir to the Warden of the Wastes, journey through the vast, snow-ravaged lands of the North in an epic quest to overcome the Dark Wings once and for all. Hunt down giant beasts. Unite disparate clans. Upgrade your settlement. And discover a terrible secret of blood and crown…
The time for heroes is over. For the Kingdom needs a warrior; forged of the North and as cold as the snow that shrouds these lands. A rat… carved from iron.
And so, a new tail begins.
Explore a Vast, Wintry Kingdom
Fully narrated by RPG-legend, Doug Cockle, prepare to embark on an epic adventure across the northern realms of the Ratdom; an expansive, frost-bitten land on the brink of all-out war.
Hunt down Giant Beasts
Track down and defeat the legendary monsters of this realm, and be rewarded with rare resources with which to craft devastating equipment. But be warned, these colossal creatures won’t go down without a fight… and then some.
Master Brutal Combat
The lands of the North are a perilous place, so you’ll need to master the fast, challenging combat for any chance of survival. Evade attacks with a dodge roll, nail split-second parry bashes, and unleash an array of gruesome executions.
Customise your Attack
Craft your own extensive arsenal of upgradeable weaponry, ready to fight as you see fit; strike quick with a spear, afar with a bow, or go claw-to-claw with a heavy-hitting mace. Alternativity, gain a tactical advantage with a range of new, deadly traps…
Upgrade your Settlement
As Warden of the Wastes, defending your lands is only half the battle. Construct and upgrade your settlement with hard-earned gold to gain access to more powerful items from the Smithy, tastier meals at the Kitchen, a wider range of powerful traps from the shoppe, and more!
Unleash All-New Sorceries
Unlock the devastating ‘Elementa’ sorceries of Electric, Poison, Fire, and Ice in an all-new magic system. Bestowed upon you by the gods themselves, these arena-devastating powers can quickly turn the tides in battles.
Rhythm games are back, baby! Robobeat is (deep breath) an innovative, fast-paced, futuristic, roguelite rhythm boomer shooter. To say this game is in a league of its own is putting it mildly. There are not many games that combine slick combat mechanics with music-centric gameplay in procedurally generated environments, and I would say even fewer that do it well. You play as Ace, a famous bounty hunter, chasing after an eccentric cyborg named Frazzer. However, in order to stop Frazzer in his tracks, you’ll have to make your way through his distorted techno playground, which is comprised of five randomly generated “pathways” where you will need to shoot, wall-run, slide and bunny hop, all in sync with the beat of the soundtrack.
The most unique part of Robobeat, and probably my favorite part, is the ability to change songs as you play. Switching between energetic metal, jazz-like grooves, and frantic EDM allows you to set the pace of your run. Sometimes a slower pace is needed in order to get the hang of the next stage. The enemies become tougher and the hordes become more intense the further you go, and throughout your runs you’ll collect blueprints that can be unlocked using currency – however if you die before cashing in your blueprints, you’ll have to reacquire them. Once a weapon or ability is unlocked, it can appear in any future run.
The tunes are great, the gunplay is manically intense, and roguelite mechanics set Robobeat apart from its peers across several genres. This was a bold bet that paid off.
You’re Ace – a famous bounty hunter after your latest target, the eccentric robot-showman Frazzer. To find your way through his twisted techno-playground, you’ll have to master the art of shooting, wall-running, sliding, and bunny hopping, all in sync with the beat! Get ready to dance till you’re dead and then suit up for the remix in rogue-like rhythm shooter ROBOBEAT.
Move to the Music
You’ll want some slick moves to go with those slick new weapons. Your enemies aren’t going to wait around for you to take a dance break, so you’ve got to keep moving if you want to survive.
Wall run, slide, double jump, bunny hop, and grapple hook your way through technicolour levels to give your enemies the runaround. Keep it fluid, keep it funky, and keep it moving.
Rewind, Remix, Replay
ROBOBEAT is a rogue-like remix.
Fast forward through procedurally generated levels, equip an arsenal of finely-tuned weapons, and accompany your arsenal with a symphony of modifications. Your playstyle is on continuous shuffle, so you never know what each new run is going to bring!
Will you have what it takes to break the infinite loop and stop Frazzer in his tracks?
Mexico, 1921: A Deep Slumber is a narrative adventure game inspired by true events. You’ll step into the shoes of Juan Aguirre, a photojournalist in post-revolutionary Mexico City. The game not only entertains but educates players by involving historians and cultural institutions in its creation. This collaboration transforms the game into an interactive archive of Mexican history. I was absolutely fascinated as the game transported me to a tumultuous period in Mexican history, allowing me to uncover the truth behind President Álvaro Obregón’s assassination.
You’ll navigate through Mexico City, interviewing and photographing subjects, which I found created a deep feeling of involvement in the storyline and historical events. It’s a layer of authenticity only added to by the photography mechanic, which requires you to master early 20th Century photographic techniques. The game follows a classic point-and-click adventure style, where you examine objects, gather clues, and engage in conversations with various characters, and I was deeply captivated by the connection to the historical events and cultural aspects of post-revolutionary Mexico. is a compelling and emotionally engaging game.
Mexico, 1921. A deep slumber is an intriguing narrative adventure where you try to solve a hundred-year-old mystery: who planned the assassination of President Álvaro Obregón? You play as Juan Aguirre, a photojournalist who will interview and photograph subjects, collect historical data and report the news that will shape Mexican history. Join Juan in post-revolutionary Mexico City to discover why Mexico ain’t no place for the weak. Developed hand in hand with the National Newspaper Library and the Popular Arts Museum, this game will be an interactive archive of Mexican post-revolutionary history.
Mika and the Witch’s Mountain is a charming E-rated adventure game. You play the role of aspiring young witch Mika, who is declined admittance to witch school and has to take a job delivering packages to fund her broom repairs. The game takes place in a small open world, the Island of Winds, asking you to fly from point to point by way of broomstick– opening more of the world as you unlock additional traversal abilities for your broom.
With a Studio Ghibli-inspired art style, the charm of this island location and its many inhabitants is infectious. There are dozens of residents that you get to know and help on your journey to ascend the mountain to witch school. The main story does not overstay its welcome, but there are additional puzzles, races, and secrets to extend your time on the island. The simplified control scheme and cute aesthetic means this is suitable for all ages and skill levels of gamers. The art style, the characters and the music elevate a game that is almost exclusively a series of fetch quests into an endearing, relaxing and memorable adventure.
Mika and the Witch’s Mountain is a fantasy adventure about an aspiring witch who delivers packages to the townspeople of a small island. Explore every cranny and soar through the sky with your magic broom.
Team up and defy the gods, hit supersonic speeds, and enjoy some bodacious battles against the Foot Clan with the PlayStation Plus Monthly Games lineup for March! Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Sonic Colors: Ultimate and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection will be available to PlayStation Plus members from March 4*.
Let’s take a closer look at the games.
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Dragon Age: The Veilguard | PS5
Unite the Veilguard and defy the gods in this immersive single-player RPG where you become the leader others believe in. When a pair of corrupt ancient gods break free from centuries of darkness, the vibrant land of Thedas needs someone they can count on.Rise as Rook, Dragon Age’s newest hero. Be who you want to be and play how you want to play as you fight back and lead your team of seven companions, each with their own rich story. Together you will become The Veilguard.
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Sonic Colors: Ultimate | PS4
The evil Dr. Eggman has built an interstellar amusement park – but he’s powering it with a captured alien race called “Wisps.” Use Sonic’s speed to free the Wisps and gain their amazing powers as you explore six unique worlds, filled with hurdles to overcome. Now with stunning upscaled visuals, additional features, a new game mode and enhanced gameplay – it’s the Ultimate Sonic Colors experience.
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection | PS4, PS5
13 classic Konami TMNT games are assembled in one incredible package! Experience 13 immensely popular and influential TMNT games in a totally radical collection from Konami. These retro nostalgia trips come with a range of new quality-of-life features, including online play for certain games and local couch play, the ability to save anytime and rewind, button mapping, unique development art & sketches, historic TMNT media content and more!
All three games will be available to PlayStation Plus members on March 4 until March 31.
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Last chance to download February’s games
PlayStation Plus members have until March 3 to add Payday 3, High on Life and Pac-Man World Re-Pac to their game library.
In the wake of Monolith Productions’ closure, CD Projekt’s GOG has moved up its timeline for preserving one of Monolith’s classics. F.E.A.R. Platinum will join the GOG Preservation Program by next month, and may also be the first of more Monolith games to hit the program.
The inflential 2005 first-person shooter is getting moved up on GOG’s timeline for the Preservation Program to “properly recognize Monolith’s contributions to gaming.” The Preservation Program is GOG’s initiative to keep classic games playable on modern systems, maintaining the titles in DRM-free form and with dedicated tech support.
GOG has previously featured everything from Heroes of Might and Magic 3: Complete, to the original Resident Evil trilogy, to I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream. It’s an eclectic spotlight of games preserved in playable form, available on GOG’s storefront, and F.E.A.R. Platinum — which includes the base F.E.A.R. and both expansions — will soon join the lineup.
It may not be the last Monolith game there, either. GOG said that other Monolith icons will “join eventually as well.” The storefront also teased more news to come about the Preservation Program tomorrow, February 27.
Monolith had a legacy dating back decades, with games like Blood, Condemned: Criminal Origins, No One Lives Forever, and The Matrix Online on its resume. Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor became an instant hit, spurred on by its inventive “Nemesis System,” which Warner Bros. held in a vice-grip with its patent.
Though Monolith may be closed, it’s nice to see other companies acknowledge the effect one studio has had on the medium. Hopefully we see more of Monolith’s classics preserved for years to come.
Before you even get to control your character in Wanderstop, you’ve already fucked up. Alta has lost in the arena, her defeat a swift and ignoble end to three years as unbeaten champion. She is, in her own words, a ruinous “failure”. To retrain and come back fiercer than ever, she pops into the forest looking for a legendary trainer, only to find herself waking up exhausted in front of a picturesque tea shop. The Steam demo that follows will see you harvesting plants, making tea, and arguing a lot with the shop’s owner, a gentle giant who thinks that maybe what Alta really needs is just some time to rest. After all, you can’t fail at drinking a cuppa.
BioWare has built up several legendary series across its run as a game development studio, like Baldur’s Gate, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age. The lesser-known martial arts RPG Jade Empire could have made the list too, though it sounds like its chances were spoiled thanks to a rough launch window and some bad advice from Microsoft.
Over on the My Perfect Console podcast (as spotted by GamesRadar), BioWare co-founder Dr. Greg Zeschuk discussed one of the regrets he’d had; specifically, launching Jade Empire at the end of the original Xbox’s life cycle. The RPG hit Xbox on April 12, 2005, several months before the November 22, 2005 launch date for the Xbox 360. And according to Dr. Zeschuk, Microsoft advised BioWare to launch it then, rather than later.
“And Microsoft’s like, ‘no no, you should release it now, right at the end of the cycle, because it’s a great time,'” Dr. Zeschuk said. “It was like, the worst advice. Like, absolute moronic advice from them. It was the stupidest thing ever.”
If BioWare had pushed the project back a bit, putting Jade Empire on the Xbox 360, Dr. Zeschuk speculated that the studio could have “rezzed it up,” and had it ready to go. It might have cost some more money, but could have put Jade Empire in a better place.
“Give us six months, give us the chance to make it a launch title for the 360 and we’d have another franchise,” Dr. Zeschuk said. “And I mean, who knows where… like, I just think it would have been a way more successful product at the beginnning of a cycle, versus the end.”
Granted, the BioWare co-founder also acknowledged that the combat of Jade Empire “wasn’t as good as it could have been.” In theory, though, it would have given Microsoft an RPG closer to, or even within, the 360’s launch window. While the Xbox 360 had games like Condemned: Criminal Origins, Perfect Dark Zero, Project Gotham Racing 3, and the immaculately titled Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie, it was short on role-playing games.
The Xbox 360 would become a defining console for BioWare, especially its current era. Mass Effect and Dragon Age would both launch on the Xbox 360, eventually becoming the dual pillars of modern BioWare. Could Jade Empire have been a third? There were once rumors of a Jade Empire 2, and visions of a canceled spiritual successor to Jade Empire surfaced a few years ago.
Now, all of BioWare’s efforts are pinned on one of those aforementioned pillars: the next Mass Effect. Announced at The Game Awards 2020, we’ve seen only a few teasers in the years since. Whether Jade Empire might have offered another pillar or not, it’s still interesting to consider how an Xbox 360 launch might have changed the games’ appraisal, and BioWare’s history as a whole.
I’d have loved to delve into some Next Fest shenanigans, but at the moment guidestown is groaning with work. And there are only so many times I can listen to the Endless Legend soundtrack in one day. I need to expand my horizons.
Each of these is listed for $24.99 and is set to release on June 1 this year. Head to the links below to get your preorders in today.
Preorder Marvel Legends Spider-Man Figures
Each of these figures comes with different parts and items so you can customize and pose them the way you want. This includes a variety of alternate hands, webbing, and more. For Marvel fans, and those who loved Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 game, these figures are a great addition to your collectible collection.
If you’re on the hunt for even more gaming items outside of these preorders, it’s worth having a look through our roundups of the best PlayStation deals, the best Xbox deals, and the best Nintendo Switch deals. These cover the best discounts we’ve found across each platform for games, hardware, and accessories, so you can save big on items for your favorite console.
Or, if you’d prefer an overall look at the best gaming deals of the moment, both our roundups of the best video game deals and the best deals of the day are worth a look. While the former focuses on game deals, our deal of the day breakdown will provide an even bigger look at the best offers across games, tech, and movies if you want a little bit of everything instead.
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.
One of the internet’s primordial New Media experiences is the Wiki Game – an asymmetrical “racing sim” in which you hurry from one Wikipedia page to another by clicking on the fewest number of links. Try doing that in the Museum of All Things, “a nearly-infinite virtual museum generated from Wikipedia”, which you can download for free from Itch. Devised by Maya Claire using the Godot Engine with audio from Neomoon’s Willow Wolf, it’s either a charmingly unusual way to browse a wonderful public resource or a free-associative liminal death-spiral, depending on your mood going in.
We have a little under a month to go before Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition flies onto Switch on 20th March and Nintendo has today released a new overview trailer, giving us our best look yet at the upcoming remaster.
Fittingly titled ‘Everything you need to know about Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition’, the new trailer dives into the RPG’s story, mechanics and world, providing a fitting introduction to Mira for those who never played the Wii U classic (or a reintroduction, for those that did).
), a new form of slow motion with a twist. Build incredible speed by wall-running and dashing. Slide on your chainsaw leg, eviscerating foes and opening up bosses for critical damage, and go car-surfing on the hoods of flying cars. Blast away with the Twin Magnums, which lock-on and instagib several foes, the Boomer Shotgun and its attached grenade launcher, or the Telefragger sniper rifle, which teleports Johnny inside an enemy before they explode from within.
