When Victory Heat Rally first appeared on Kickstarter back in 2020, the game appeared set to pay homage to Sega’s wonderful Super Scaler range of arcade games from the 1980s. In the four years that have followed between that Kickstarter launch and this Switch release, something appears to have been lost along the way.
Rather than the Kickstarter trailer’s segmented rollercoaster-like tracks, which immediately conjured up memories of Seger’s brilliant arcade racer Power Drift, instead the tracks in Victory Heat Rally look a lot more like the typical 3D environments expected from a modern racing game, albeit with cel shading designed to deliberately make them look more basic.
Overwatch 2 x Avatar: The Last Airbender Collab Brings the Four Elements to Life
Chelsea Leah, Blizzard Editorial
Prepare to bend the elements and battle like never before! From December 17 to December 30, Overwatch 2 is teaming up with Avatar: The Last Airbender in a legendary crossover event that promises to thrill both Overwatch fans and Avatar enthusiasts alike. This limited-time collaboration merges the iconic world of the Four Nations with your favorite Overwatch heroes, creating a lineup of elemental cosmetics and challenges that celebrate unity, resilience, and the unstoppable power of teamwork.
Overwatch 2 players will have the chance to channel the essence of Water, Earth, Fire, and Air through stunning character skins inspired by the unforgettable heroes of Avatar. Get ready to fight alongside your team just like Team Avatar, as these skins perfectly capture the spirit of bending.
Here’s the roster and what they bring to the battlefront:
Zenyatta as Aang: The spiritual harmony of the Air Nomads comes alive through Zenyatta, who now embodies Aang, the Avatar himself. With his serene strength and ultimate goal of peace, Zenyatta as Aang is your ultimate ally in bringing balance to every fight.
Mei as Katara: The wisdom and fluidity of the Water Tribe are reflected in Mei’s Katara skin. Unlock this cosmetic by completing special in-game challenges. Whether freezing enemies in their tracks or leading your team to victory, Mei as Katara will always fight with the waterbender’s calm determination.
Genji as Zuko: Harness the unrelenting fire of the Fire Nation with Genji as Zuko. This fierce skin captures Zuko’s resilience and undeniable skill. Genji’s speed and deadly precision paired with Zuko’s fiery spirit make this a must-have for your collection.
Orisa as Appa: Appa fans, rejoice! Orisa brings the loyal guardian of Team Avatar to life in the most lovable way possible. With her hulking presence and steadfast armor, she’s the ultimate protector your team can count on. Don’t forget to shout “yip yip!” as you carry your teammates to victory.
Kiriko as Suki: Honoring the unyielding leadership and strength of the Kyoshi Warriors, Kiriko’s Suki skin is all about loyalty, skill, and teamwork. Lead your team with confidence, just as Suki would.
Venture as Toph: Become an unshakable force of nature with Venture sporting Toph’s earthbending persona. This cosmetic highlights Toph’s raw strength and unflinching determination, showing enemies that you mean business (especially if they don’t see it coming).
The Overwatch 2 art team had a blast while creating these skins. “As big fans, it was tough to choose which characters to create skins for,” says art director Dion Rogers. “But we immediately knew Orisa would be Appa, Aang’s sky bison. This skin helped us blend Overwatch’s futuristic elements with Avatar’s mystical/eastern designs. Though we joked about temporarily increasing her size, we kept her in-game scale unchanged.”
He goes on to the difficulty is choosing a hero perfect for one of Avatar’s most famous characters: “For Aang, we considered a few other heroes, including Illari due to her ultimate resembling the “Avatar State,” but ultimately chose Zenyatta as Aang, fitting well with his Transcendence ability.”
The Overwatch 2 x Avatar collaboration is packed with goodies, from special unlockable rewards to one-of-a-kind cosmetics. This is your opportunity to embody the Avatar universe while dominating the Overwatch battlefields.
Unlock and Earn skins, such as Mei as Katara by completing exclusive challenges in-game.
Collect Elemental-Themed Cosmetics, capturing the magic of iconic moments and characters from Avatar.
Battle Like the Gaang, bringing harmony and strength to every match.
Each game is an opportunity to channel your inner bender, master the elements, and prove to your enemies why teamwork matters.
Mark your calendars! This crossover event will only be available from December 17 to December 30 in Overwatch 2. Whether you’re an avid Avatar fan or simply love collecting skins, this is your chance to celebrate two legendary universes coming together.
Are you ready to summon the power of Water, Earth, Fire, and Air? Assemble your team and Fight like Team Avatar and protect the Overwatch world with elemental strength and precision. It’s your time to bend the elements and claim victory!
Overwatch 2 is an always-on and ever-evolving free-to-play, team-based action game set in an optimistic future, where every match is the ultimate 5v5 battlefield brawl featuring new heroes and maps, different ways to play, and unique cosmetics! Lead the charge, ambush your enemies, or aid your allies as one of Overwatch’s 40 distinct heroes. Team up with friends, take them into battle across 25+ futuristic maps inspired by real-world locations, and master multiple unique game modes.
Overwatch 2 – Season 14: Hazard
Get ready for an explosive season as we introduce Hazard, the new Scottish tank hero, embodying the spirit of anarchy for the greater good. Then test your skills with a unique blend of past and present in the 6v6 Role Queue event, where teamwork and synergy shine within the 2-2-2 setup. Master the elements with an Overwatch 2 x Avatar: The Last Airbender collab event, celebrating unity, resilience, and the power within. Plus, prepare to wield the hammer of Gods as Mythic Thor Reinhardt and earn up to five Legendary skins with the Premium Battle Pass. Packed with nostalgia, customization, and radical gameplay, Season 14 has everything you need to dominate in style!
The Overwatch League Token will no longer be purchasable after December 9, 2024. The OWL shop will remain open until at least December 2025, with limited inventory purchasable with players’ remaining OWL token balances.
Who will need to please wrap it up this time? Which games will be revealed? Will there be a musical number to top last year’s Herald of Darkness performance? (That was fun, actually, fair play on that one.) You can find out right along with us, as we once again fire up the RPS liveblog-o-tron to report all the developments as they happen. Even the ones that happen at 3:45am, when I’ll be desperately trying not to collapse into my keyboard like a felled tree.
At first I thought Marvel Rivals was basically rebranded Overwatch, in the way it’s a free-to-play PVP hero shooter. And in some ways, it is. Fights are like if you took a MOBA and forced both teams to bash heads constantly. Success lies in picking off Spider-Man or Squirrel Girl or Marcus Fenix so as they wait to respawn, you hop on the big area that needs capturing. Or you push the cart while tanky Hulk absorbs bullets with his biceps and John Marvel snipes from afar.
The more I played Rivals, though, the more it hit me that it’s specifically a messier, more complex Overwatch. A hero shooter with a surprising amount of polish and charm, sure, but also one that slides off my brain like water off Birdman’s back. I understand why it’s supremely popular at the moment and yet, I really don’t.
Best Buy is keeping the gaming deals rolling past Black Friday and Cyber Monday with its delightful 12 Days of Gaming sale event. Today’s deal is a real treat for Nintendo fans, as you can get Super Mario RPG for just $30 right now. However, this deal on Super Mario RPG only lasts for today, so if you’ve had your eye on it you’ll want to act fast to add it to your collection.
Best Buy’s 12 Days of Gaming: Get Super Mario RPG for $30
Super Mario RPG is well worth adding to your collection of Nintendo Switch games. If you’re still on the fence, have a read through our Super Mario RPG review. IGN’s Tom Marks said it’s “considered a classic for a reason, and this wonderfully faithful remake makes it easy for anyone who missed it in the SNES era to see why.”
Our overall roundup of the best video game deals features even more discounts for Nintendo Switch – like a nice deal at the moment on The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom at Woot – alongside some great PC game deals. In regard to the latter, you can also take advantage of a little discount right now on Indiana Jones and the Great Circle for PC at Fanatical. It’s truly the most wonderful time of the year for gaming deals.
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelance writer who works with the Guides and Commerce teams here at IGN.
Well, this is becoming something of a trend, isn’t it? After retaking the throne last week, Super Mario Party Jamboree has stuck around at the top of the Japanese charts in Famitsu‘s latest look.
Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket has revealed its next set is a Themed Booster Pack centred around Mew called Mythical Island, and it arrives December 17.
Developer Creatures Inc. revealed the new set with a trailer, below, alongside word the digital trading card game has now been downloaded more than 60 million times.
Embark on a magical journey to fabled lands, as Pokémon TCG Pocket – Mythical Island goes live in-app, December 17th! 🏝️✨
Bolster your online collection with Mew ex and many more. Who’s hyped for the new release? pic.twitter.com/l6e3tDoKmp
Mythical Island will be a smaller set compared to the only other available so far, Genetic Apex, featuring more than 80 cards including five ex, five Trainers, and at least two new Immersive Cards. Only a few specifics have been revealed so far, but both Mew ex and Aerodactyl ex will feature alongside new versions of currently available Pokémon and brand new ones too.
Pokémon TCG Pocket arrived October 30 and is a certified hit for Creatures Inc. and The Pokémon Company, having earned an estimated $200 million in its first month. It follows the standard mobile and free to play game model, flooding players with rewards in the opening few days before soon drying up, with spending real world money the only real way to re-experience that early thrill.
In more ways than one, today’s Total War: Warhammer 3 expansion marks a milestone for game director Rich Aldridge and his team at Creative Assembly. Omens Of Destruction’s three headline legendary lords each bring new campaigns and units for their respective factions, but it’s the fourth lord – a Khorne champion free to all players – that I imagine Aldridge will end up remembering the most fondly.
When Total War: Warhammer released back in 2016, it shipped with eight legendary lords – famous characters from Games Workshop’s fantasy setting that here act as faction leaders. The number grew steadily and, in terms of announcement order at least, today’s addition of Arbaal The Undefeated marks the series’ 100th. That’s a hundred campaigns, a hundred joint efforts of game design, animation, art, writing and voice work.
Aldridge has never been shy about the team’s ambition for the series to eventually offer up each unit from every Fantasy Battle 6th edition army book (“The goal is to do everything, right?”). But ambition is one thing, and considering the fraught conditions at Creative Assembly and parent company Sega over the past few years, it’s not just the addition of the 100th lord that feels like something to celebrate. It’s taken time, effort, and a siesmic shift in update frequency, but Total War: Warhammer III is in the best place it’s ever been.
X/Twitter user @DJari2020 posted a brief snippet of the trailer, below, which seemingly appeared as a YouTube ad. It offers a first look at the gameplay, characters, and narrative of Mafia: The Old Country, promised to be a gritty mob story set in 1900s Sicily.
The trailer closes with a vague summer 2025 release window, but this is still a touch more clear than the previously announced general 2025 date. That’s potentially running close to GTA 6’s fall 2025 release window, should Rockstar’s game resist a delay in 2026. Mafia: The Old Country was revealed at gamescom in August with a brief teaser trailer that confirmed the setting but little else.
“Uncover the origins of organized crime in Mafia: The Old Country, a gritty mob story set in the brutal underworld of 1900s Sicily,” reads the official synopsis. “Fight to survive in this dangerous and unforgiving era, with action brought to life by the authentic realism and rich storytelling that the critically acclaimed Mafia series is known for.”
Debuting more than two decades ago with 2002’s Mafia, the series continued slowly but surely with a sequel in 2010 and third game in 2016, though has otherwise been quiet since. Given the great stretches of time between each release, however, Mafia: The Old Country is practically right on schedule.
If Space Marine 2‘s wanton devil-mulching left you hungry for more fantastical depictions of medieval zealotry, maybe take a look at Band Of Crusaders, an open-world party-based RPG in which you are the Grandmaster of a knightly order, trying to keep a bunch of wily Archdemons out of Europe. It seems to play a bit like XCOM, with an oppressive world map that is slowly encroached upon as you travel around recruiting soldiers, interacting with settlements, and picking real-time fights with hellfiends “inspired by biblical descriptions and European folklore”. Naturally, parallels with real-life xenophobia and sectarian hatred abound. Here’s the trailer.
Token will no longer be purchasable after December 9, 2024. The OWL shop will remain open until at least December 2025, with limited inventory purchasable with players’ remaining OWL token balances.
