Category: Video Games

Actor Troy Baker is set to star in Naughty Dog’s untitled new game.

The Sony-owned studio is building a yet-to-be announced single-player game with Uncharted and The Last of Us chief Neil Druckmann at the helm. Fans know next to nothing about this project, but according to GQ, Troy Baker has signed on to appear in it.

“In a heartbeat I would always work with Troy,” Druckmann is quoted as saying in the article. Baker famously played Joel in The Last of Us Parts 1 and 2 for Naughty Dog and has worked closely with Druckmann for years.

One dedicated Cyberpunk 2077 player has hit the level cap before beginning The Heist mission, meaning before the opening credits have rolled.

Reddit user uO__Ou shared their self-inflicted challenge, noting that it “took so damn long” while confirming a playtime of 40 hours and 30 minutes. Game tracking website How Long to Beat pegs Cyberpunk 2077’s entire main story at around 25 hours and 30 minutes in total, meaning the player spent more time in the opening area than it would take to actually complete the game.

Cyberpunk 2077 opens with a handful of smaller missions before the crux of the story kicks off with The Heist. Per open-world game standards, it also limits players to the opening area of Watson during this time, meaning just a fraction of the game’s total activities (that award experience points) are available.

uO__Ou overcame this somewhat by using an exploit that allowed them to leave Watson. This doesn’t activate the dozens of side quests or other open-world activities available in Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City, but does offer better grinding locations.

“Go to Pacifica, Batty’s Hotel for, in my experience, the best farming spot,” uO__Ou said. “Repeat it over and over and over. Took me 40 hrs but, to be honest, if I did this more efficiently, it can take less than 35 hours. Just don’t forget to sleep every hour for an experience boost and to use different weapons for your sanity and for skill progression.”

Cyberpunk 2077 uses a similar progression system to the likes of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, where players can engage in different activities to level up specific skills which contribute to the overall level. Being stealthy and getting headshots, for example, upgrades the Headhunter skill, while crafting items upgrades the Engineer skill.

uO__Ou used these different skills to eventually reach the final Level 50, though it could have almost certainly been reached faster by actually progressing the main story. With developer CD Projekt Red now done with Cyberpunk 2077 and its expansion Phantom Liberty, and focusing on a sequel codenamed Orion (and upcoming The Witcher games codenamed Polaris and Sirius), however, fans are having to come up with quirky challenges like these to keep themselves entertained.

Practically nothing is known about Orion so far, as CD Projekt Red is still in the process of creating a North American studio in Boston to develop it. It has been called a sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 though, and may feature more involved life paths.

In our 9/10 review of Cyberpunk, IGN said: “Cyberpunk 2077 throws you into a beautiful, dense cityscape and offers a staggering amount of flexibility in how you choose to take it from there.”

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

Dark Horse is adapting another The Witcher short story from author Andrzej Sapkowski into a comic book, this time focusing on how fan-favorite character Ciri came to be.

A Question of Price is the fourth short story adapted in The Last Wish collection, Dark Horse announced. The collection includes stories pulled from the first canonical The Witcher book, with this story explaining how protagonist Geralt of Rivia saved Ciri’s father from the wrath of her grandmother.

“Geralt is invited to a banquet at the Kingdom of Cintra,” the synopsis reads. “The Princess has come of age and suitors prepare to present themselves for her hand in marriage. Wary of the Queen’s invitation, Geralt attends the dinner with caution. When a mysterious uninvited guest, bearing the armor of a knight enters the hall, a bold declaration and a shocking revelation ignites the party into chaos and uproar.”

While the mainstream success of Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game Baldur’s Gate 3 is undeniable, developer Larian has yet to announce a sales figure. But after financial records for last year were made public, we finally have an idea of just how big Baldur’s Gate 3 really was.

Confirmation comes from financial records posted by the Dublin, Ireland holding company for Larian, which is ostensibly based in Belgium, and controlled by majority shareholder, founder, and CEO Swen Vincke. (Ireland is one of the world’s most significant tax havens, with corporate tax revenues exploding in the country over the last decade.)

According to a paywalled report by the Irish Independent, Larian posted a €249 million (approx $260.9 million) pre-tax profit for 2023, which included the August release of Baldur’s Gate 3. Revenue for the year hit €427 million (approx $447.5 million).

Larian has never announced a sales figure for Baldur’s Gate 3, although publishing director Michael Douse indicated in February that the game had sold well over 10 million copies, and Hasbro, the parent company of Dungeons & Dragons owner Wizards of the Coast, said in March that Baldur’s Gate 3 had earned it $90 million due to its licensing deal with Larian. The Irish Independent reported that Baldur’s Gate 3 had sold around 15 million copies and paid out a €28 million dividend this year as a result.

Larian’s bumper 2023 financial results are in stark contrast to the company’s 2022, which saw a loss of €214,000 (approx $224,100) off the back of just €22.7 million (approx $23.7 million) in revenue. Baldur’s Gate 3’s wild success, then, was a game-changer for Larian, and that’s without taking into consideration the ongoing sales Baldur’s Gate 3 has pulled in so far in 2024. Indeed, Douse has said that Baldur’s Gate 3 has 20% more active daily users this year than last, with mods helping to fuel seemingly never-ending interest in the RPG.

Vincke told IGN in September that the success of Baldur’s Gate 3 meant Larian was now in a “luxurious position,” and could “pick our own destiny and our own path.” The developer shocked the video game world when it announced plans to make brand new games outside the Dungeons & Dragons universe, rather than follow Baldur’s Gate 3 with DLC or a sequel.

The Irish Independent confirmed that while Vincke owns virtually all the ordinary shares in Larian’s Dublin holding company, Chinese megacorp Tencent owns a “large chunk” of preference shares in the firm via its Tencent Cloud Europe division.

Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t Larian’s only hit game, of course, but its success is a magnitude higher than that of its previous RPGs, including Divinity: Original Sin 1 and 2. Larian opened multiple development studios around the world to aid with the development of Baldur’s Gate 3 as part of its “following the sun” concept of 24-hour game development, with teams handing off work to the next time zone at the end of their work day to speed up development. In addition to Dublin, Larian has studios in Kuala Lumpur, Barcelona, Guildford, Quebec, Warsaw, and its original home of Ghent.

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.

Merry Christmas to us all, because Black Friday deals have started early, including tons of video games. When looking through all the early Black Friday video game deals, we spotted several PS5 games available at steep discounts on Amazon and beyond. A few highlights from PS5 game deals this Black Friday include Stellar Blade for $49.99, Sonic X Shadow Generations for $29.99, Elden Ring for just $19.99, the critically acclaimed Metaphor ReFantazio for $49.99, and Alan Wake 2 (Deluxe Edition).

Sony has also confirmed its Black Friday PS Plus offer: New members can save 30% on a 12-month subscription, and current PS Plus Essential members can save 25% on an upgrade to PlayStation Plus Extra, or 30% on Premium/Deluxe. If you’re not sure what the latest PS Plus game lineup is, see the November PS Plus games list, which includes the return of Rockstar’s GTA 5, Dying Light 2: Stay Human, and Like a Dragon: Ishin. Here are the biggest PS5 game deals right now.

There are several more games in Amazon’s sales list to check out, but here is a short list of additional PS5 games to highlight:

• Persona 3 Reload – $24.99 (save $45)
• Elden Ring: SOTE Edition – $49.99 (save $30)
• Cyberpunk 2077 UE – $39.99 (save $20)
• Unicorn Overlord Collector’s Edition – $114 (save $16)
• Dragon Age: The Veilguard – $62.99 (save $7)

Top PlayStation Black Friday Deals

If you’re ready to invest in the PSVR2, now is the time to get the PlayStation VR 2 Horizon bundle for just $349 on Amazon (usually $599.99). 42% off is not too shabby for the cutting-edge PSVR2, in which we scored a 9/10 in our review, and is a compelling alternative to other affordable VR options like the Meta Quest.