Category: Video Games

Broken Sword ‘Reforged’ Team Teases Another Remaster Might Be On The Cards

The mystery continues… maybe.

Last year, we had a great time with Revolution Software’s ‘Reforged’ remaster of the classic point-and-click adventure Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars. “It sure would be neat if the rest of the series received such a treatment,” we thought to ourselves, “if only Revolution had something up its sleeve…”

As it turns out, it does! Or, more accurately, it might. Three weeks ago, the studio released its ‘Christmas Video 2024‘, thanking fans for their support over the past 12 months and showing off some of the game’s original art. It’s a sweet video that, we’ll admit, flew under the radar for us a little; but, as noted by Game Watcher (and brought to our attention by our friends over at Push Square), the message also contains a tease of what the future might hold — ooh, how sneaky!

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Video Game Piracy Enters New Era as Japan Arrests Its First Alleged Modder of Nintendo Switch Consoles

Video game piracy has entered a new era as Japanese police have arrested, for the first time, someone accused of modifying Nintendo Switch hardware.

As reported by NTV News and translated by Automaton, a 58-year-old Japanese man was arrested on January 15 on suspicion of violating the Trademark Act. He is suspected of modifying Switch consoles to run pirated games before selling them.

This was allegedly done by welding modified parts to the circuit boards of second-hand consoles that allowed them to run pirated games. The man is accused of loading the hardware with 27 illegally accessed games and selling the consoles for ¥28,000 (around $180) each.

He has admitted to the charges and is currently being investigated for other possible violations, according to police.

Video game companies like Nintendo have long battled with piracy. A takedown request in May 2024, for example, saw Nintendo target 8,500 copies of Switch emulator Yuzu after the emulator itself was taken down two months prior. Its initial lawsuit against creator Tropic Haze said the $70 game The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Nintendo’s premiere video game release of 2023, had been pirated one million times before it was even released.

Legal action like this is becoming more and more common in an attempt to thwart piracy, however. Other successful lawsuits include those against game file sharing website RomUniverse, which was ordered to pay $2.1 million in damages to Nintendo in 2021, while a similar case saw it receive more than $12 million in damages in 2018. It also blocked GameCube and Wii emulator Dolphin from releasing on PC game platform Steam.

This week, a patent lawyer representing Nintendo lifted the lid on the company’s approach to piracy and emulation, discussing how the propagation of emulators could lead to software piracy. Nintendo’s Assistant Manager of the Intellectual Property Division, Koji Nishiura, said: “To begin with, are emulators illegal or not? This is a point often debated. While you can’t immediately claim that an emulator is illegal in itself, it can become illegal depending on how it’s used.”

Image Credit: Nintendo

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

Why Hasn’t Sony Done Anything More With Bloodborne? PlayStation Legend Shuhei Yoshida Has a Personal Theory

It is one of the biggest conundrums in the video game industry: why hasn’t Sony followed up Bloodborne with… anything? A remaster (Sony loves a remaster)? A sequel? A next-gen update? Fans of FromSoftware’s PlayStation 4 masterpiece have begged for more ever since the game launched to critical and commercial acclaim a decade ago. So, what gives?

Fresh from the reveal of his first voice acting gig following his exit from Sony, PlayStation legend Shuhei Yoshida has delivered his Bloodborne no-show theory. And we must be clear up front: this is Yoshida’s opinion, which in an interview with Kinda Funny Games he stressed is not inside information, or the reveal of the current deliberations within the bowels of Sony itself.

“Bloodborne has always been the most asked thing,” Yoshida began. “And people wonder why we haven’t really done anything, even an update or a remaster. Should be easy, right? The company is known for doing so many remasters, right, some people get frustrated.

“I have only my personal theory to that situation. I left first-party so I don’t know what’s going on, but my theory is, you know because I remember, you know, Miyazaki-san really, really loved Bloodborne, you know, what he created. So I think he is interested, but he’s so successful and he’s so busy, so he doesn’t want, he cannot do himself, but he does not want anyone else to touch it. So that’s my theory. And the PlayStation team respect his wish. So that’s my guess, right? Theory. I am not revealing any secret information, to be clear.”

Let’s unpack Shuhei’s comment here. Miyazaki-san is of course Hidetaka Miyazaki, the boss of FromSoftware. And yes, he’s incredibly successful. Not only for the influential Dark Souls series, but, most recently, the mainstream hit Elden Ring, which propelled FromSoftware to new heights. So much so that it’s getting a multiplayer spin-off this year.

And it seems obvious to say Miyazaki will be incredibly busy with multiple projects to direct and a company to run. After Bloodborne came out in 2015, Miyazaki directed Dark Souls 3, then 2019’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice for Activision, then the aforementioned Elden Ring for Bandai Namco. What’s next? Miyazaki has yet to say.

What Shuhei is touching on here is a potential desire from Miyazaki to do something with Bloodborne, but he doesn’t want anyone else to do it. And Sony, Shuhei suggests, respects that wish, despite owning the intellectual property. Certainly Miyazaki has earned that respect and the ability to pick and choose his projects.

The upshot is Bloodborne remains dormant nearly 10 years after the first game came out. But is there hope? In interviews, Miyazaki often deflects questions about Bloodborne, pointing to the fact FromSoftware does not own the IP. But in February last year, Miyazaki at least admitted the game would benefit from a release on more modern hardware.

As for Sony, some Bloodborne fans feel a tad… trolled by PlayStation. For example, last month, Bloodborne fans freaked out over a potential announcement after Sony ended its special PlayStation 30th Anniversary trailer with a clip from the beloved FromSoftware game and the phrase “it’s about persistence.”

Perhaps, given Shuhei’s theory, fans will need plenty of it.

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.

IGF 2025 nominees show what a wild and vibrant place indie gaming is

Last year’s defining indie smash hit, Balatro? Not nominated for the IGF grand prize. Animal Well, which turned damn near every games journalist into a tiresome obsessive? Not nominated for anything. UFO 50, an impressive, important, big boy achievement snubbed by our own 2024 list? It did get a Grand Prize nomination.

I don’t disagree with any of the nominees or absences in this year’s Independent Games Festival Awards, so I don’t mention any of the above to stir up trouble. Instead I look at this list and think: wow, video games are more varied than ever, so much so that there’s no longer a dominant cultural narrative even within the specific niche of indie gaming.

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Lonely Mountain: Snow Riders has a new release date and it’s next week

Lonely Mountain: Snow Riders was one of the best demos I played last year, because it felt so good to gracefully slide down its white-powdered mountains (and clumsily crash into a tree). It might have been one of the best games I played last year, who knows, but it was delayed into 2025. Now it’s got a fixed release date again: January 21st.

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Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP Is Getting A Sweet Photo Mode Update Very Soon

Smile, Juliet.

The Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP developer Dragami Games has not only continued to address various issues with multiple patches but it’s also adding additional content to the game.

With this in mind, Dragami Games company CEO Yoshima Yasuda has now announced the team will be adding a photo mode “soon”. Nothing else was detailed, but typically these modes allow you to take shots of the main character and sometimes even change the outfits and camera settings.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

GTA 5 Liberty City Mod Taken Down by Rockstar Games

A mod dedicated to recreating Liberty City within Grand Theft Auto 5, as a mod, has shut down.

Insider-Gaming reports that the Liberty City Preservation Project, a mod meant to recreate the setting of GTA 4 as a mod for GTA 5, has been taken down at the request of Rockstar Games. In a statement on Discord, user nkjellman said “Due to the unexpected attention that our project received and after speaking with Rockstar Games, we have decided to take down the Liberty City Preservation Project.”

Rockstar is well-known for asking modders to take down various mods like this AI-powered GTA 5 story mode mod, or a VR mod for Red Dead Redemption 2. The Liberty City Preservation Project take down is also not without direct precedent as Rockstar issued a take-down for a mod that tried to recreate Grand Theft Auto Vice City within GTA 5.

One interesting development is that while Rockstar is judicious when it comes to taking down mods, they also sometimes hire those very modders to work at Rockstar Games. And some mods, like the Vice City mod, were taken down only for Rockstar themselves to announce remasters of those very games.

This isn’t to say Rockstar is working on a GTA 4 remaster, by any means, but there’s certainly precedent. Still it may be years away before we get an answer as we know Rockstar is currently hard at work trying to ready the highly-anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6 for a 2025 launch.

Matt Kim is IGN’s Senior Features Editor.

Save an Extra $50 Off the Meta Quest 3S VR Headset, Includes Batman: Arkham Shadow Game

If you’ve wanted to give VR gaming a try but the cost of entry has kept you at bay, then you might be interested in the first good Meta Quest deal for 2025. For a limited time, Amazon drops $50 off the Quest 3S 256GB VR headset, now only $349. That’s only $50 more than the base 128GB model and a worthy upgrade for storing more games at a time for untethered play. This straight up instant discount is arguably better than the deals that happened during Black Friday, which all involved digital credit or gift cards tied to specific stores.

To sweeten the pot even more, the package also includes a copy of Batman: Arkham Shadow VR game and a three-month trial of Meta Quest+. In IGN’s 8/10 review, Dan Stapleton wrote that “Batman: Arkham Shadow makes most of the Arkham series’ defining gameplay work respectably well in VR, and its mystery story pays off.”

Meta Quest 3S VR Headset with Batman: Arkham Shadow

The Quest 3S is an improvement over the original Quest 2 in every way and, amazingly, without a price increase. It also adopts many of the same features of the more expensive Quest 3, like the new and improved Touch controllers, the upgraded SnapDragon APU, and support for full color AR passthrough. In IGN’s 9/10 Quest 3S review, Gabriel Moss wrote that “raw processing power, full-color passthrough, and snappy Touch Plus controllers make the Quest 3S a fantastic standalone VR headset that also brings entry-level mixed-reality gaming to the masses for – arguably – the very first time.

What really sets this deal above all other VR deals is that the Meta Quest 3S can be played completely untethered. That means you can play games like Beat Saber or Pistol Whip without having to own a powerful gaming PC or a PlayStation 5 console. Try to find another standalone VR headset at this price and you’ll come up empty.

How Is the Quest 3S Different from the Quest 3?

Even at retail price, the Quest 3S comes in at $200, or 40% cheaper than the $500 Quest 3. Obviously, some compromises were made to get the 3S to its competitive price point. The spec comparisons are listed below:

Quest 3S vs. Quest 3 Similarities

  • Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 processor
  • Touch Plus controllers
  • 120Hz refresh rate
  • Mixed reality passthrough (same cameras, different layout)

Quest 3S vs. Quest 3 Differences

  • Lower per-eye resolution (1832×1920 vs 2064×2208)
  • Fresnel lens vs. pancake lens
  • Lower FOV (96°/90° vs 104°/96°)
  • Smaller storage capacity (128GB vs 512GB)
  • Longer battery life (2.5hrs vs 2.2hrs)

In essence, the Quest 3S is nearly the same headset but with downgraded optics. On the plus side, since both headsets use the same processor, running at a lower resolution reduces the load on the APU, which could theoretically improve performance in games and also account for the increased battery life.

For the price, the Quest 3S is unquestionably a better value than the Quest 3, and a better choice for most gamers, especially if the Quest 3 was completely out of your budget in the first place. Compared to the previous generation Quest 2, the decision is even easier.

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.

Review: CRKD NEO S Purple Wave Edition Switch Controller – Fine For Fortnite Festival, But Not So Rockin’ Elsewhere

Cramp Rock.

It’s not every controller review that we have to start with a rundown of the current state of Fortnite, but bear with us, we promise it’s relevant.

The classic looting and shooting that we all know and love is now just a small part of the “Fortnite ecosystem” *squirms*, a hub-world for games that bundle the battle royale in with the survival sim LEGO Fortnite, the racer Rocket Racing, and the Rock Band-esque rhythm game, Fortnite Festival.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com