Labyrinth Of The Demon King is the concentrated awfulness of Silent Hill and Amnesia: The Dark Descent thrown into a toilet bowl with the stamina-based combat of From Software’s old King’s Field RPGs. Released this week, it is squalid, lumbering, vicious, desperate and untrustworthy.
The setting is “mythical feudal Japan” – a time of devilry, manual savepoints, and dither filters. The story objective is to track down and slay the yokai boss who led your lord into an ambush. I do not greatly rate my chances. Currently, I am exploring a house full of bloated, whispering fungus and screechy little filthbastards with abbreviated limbs. The filthbastards all want to butcher me but they are no less keen to murder each other. As far as they’re concerned, I am just another filthbastard among many.
Stellar Blade‘s Steam rollout has been mysteriously blocked in countries like Egypt, Vietnam, Estonia, and Cuba.
While there’s been no formal statement on why sales have been blocked in over 100 countries around the world, it’s thought the list broadly matches that of places where PlayStation Network is not available.
But here’s the confusing thing: Stellar Blade doesn’t require players to sign up to PSN to play, which has left players wondering whyonearth sales have been restricted.
It’s possible the block comes not because Stellar Blade requires a PSN connection, but because it offers an optional one. Though not confirmed by either developer ShiftUp or Sony itself just yet, some are speculating that it may be because players are invited to sign up via their PSN account to secure an optional skin for Eve.
More interestingly still, it seems ShiftUp itself has been surprised by the restrictions. While the team has responded to several unhappy tweets on X/Twitter, asking the complainants where they live, they’ve yet to provide any further information about why the game is blocked in certain countries.
The PC version of Stellar Blade launches via Steam on June 11 along with a raft of PC-specific features, including AI upscaling via Nvidia DLSS 4 and AMD FSR 3, an unlocked framerate, Japanese and Chinese voiceover, ultrawide display support, higher resolution environment textures, and DualSense support for haptic feedback and trigger effects.
IGN’s Stellar Blade review returned a 7/10. We said: “Stellar Blade is great in all of the most important ways for an action game, but dull characters, a lackluster story, and several frustrating elements of its RPG mechanics prevent it from soaring along with the best of the genre.”
Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
12 Switch games are due to receive free updates for the upcoming Switch 2, and Nintendo has finally revealed what these will entail. Mostly, it’s exactly what we’d expected, with Pokémon Scarlet and Violet receiving much-needed resolution and frame rate boosts, and Super Mario Odyssey receiving a visual bump, HDR support, and GameShare support.
Something a few folks are picking up on, however, are the upgrades for The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. Nintendo details that both games will receive optimised visuals for the Switch 2 along with HDR support, but notably, there’s no mention of any performance / frame rate update.
Civilization 7 has had a rough launch on Steam — that much is clear. The strategy sequel has struggled for players on Valve’s platform ever since its launch in February. Reaction is ‘mixed,’ according to Steam user reviews. And despite a number of patches issued by developer Firaxis to reverse the sentiment, Civilization 7 finds itself in the unenviable situation of having fewer players on Steam than Civilization 6 and even the 15-year-old Civilization 5.
Civ 7’s Steam performance does not paint the entire picture, of course. The game also launched on PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch (a Nintendo Switch 2 version that makes use of the new Joy-Con mouse controls will soon release). But Civilization’s bread and butter is PC, and there Civ 7 is clearly struggling.
You’d think, then, that Firaxis parent company Take-Two wouldn’t be best pleased. But speaking to IGN in an interview ahead of the company’s latest financial results, CEO Strauss Zelnick told me he was “thrilled” with Civ 7 so far.
“I’m thrilled with Civ 7 so far,” Zelnick began. “However, there were some issues initially, and our team at Firaxis has done a great job addressing those issues. There’s more work to be done. I’m optimistic that work will be done and will suit consumers, and ultimately that we have a very successful title on our hands.”
Zelnick then pointed to the Civilization franchise’s tendency to have a long sales cycle, at least compared to many other games, and his belief that Civ 7 will follow suit.
“The history of all the Civilization releases is that initially some of the changes that we make cause consternation among our consumers because they love the Civilization franchise so much,” he said.
“And then people realize, oh, this really is an improvement and over a long sales cycle, we do really well. I think that’s what’ll happen here too.
“But undoubtedly, we had some issues in the beginning, which we’ve addressed partially and continue to address.”
When Civ 7 launched, players highlighted issues with the user interface, a lack of map variety, and expressed a feeling that the game launched without a number of features they’d come to expect from the franchise.
Zelnick’s mention of hardcore Civ players being a little nervous about Civ 7 at launch is no-doubt a reference to some of the dramatic changes Firaxis made to the game.
A full campaign in Civilization 7 is one that goes through all three Ages: Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern. Once the Age is completed, all players (and any AI opponents) experience an Age Transition simultaneously. During an Age Transition, three things happen: you select a new civilization from the new Age to represent your empire, you choose which Legacies you want to retain in the new Age, and the game world evolves. The Civilization games have never had such a system. Clearly, Zelnick believes Civ fans will come to love it over time.
Take-Two has yet to announce a sales figure for Civilization 7, but in its financial report said it was “pursuing opportunities to expand the audience,” including the recent launch of Civilization 7 VR for Meta Quest 3 and 3S, as well as the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 port.
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.
An artist has accused Bungie of plagiarising her designs and using them in upcoming first-person shooter Marathon. The artist, who creates futuristic posters under the name Antireal (or “4nt1r34l”), posted images of her own work alongside screenshots from Marathon’s recent alpha playtest, showing that some designs have been copied. Bungie have confirmed this is the case, but lay the blame on one former artist at the studio.
Destiny 2 developer Bungie is once again battling accusations of plagiarism after yet another artist accused the studio of “lifting” aspects of their artwork, this time for its upcoming sci-fi shooter, Marathon.
After numerous artists and a writer came forward claiming Bungie used their work without authorization or credit, yet another artist is claiming their work was used in the environments of Marathon. In screenshots taken from Marathon’s alpha playtest accompanying the tweet, artist Antireal alleged they could see distinct icons and graphics they designed, some of which were originally shared on social media years ago in 2017.
“Bungie is, of course, not obligated to hire me when making a game that draws overwhelmingly from the same design language I have refined for the last decade, but clearly my work was good enough to pillage for ideas and plaster all over their game without pay or attribution,” the artist wrote in a statement posted to X/Twitter.
“I don’t have the resources nor the energy to spare to pursue this legally but I have lost count of the number of times a major company has deemed it easier to pay a designer to imitate or steal my work than to write me an email. In 10 years, I have never made a consistent income from this work and I am tired of designers from huge companies moodboarding and parasitising my designs while I struggle to make a living.”
Bungie responded within hours. Though it did not publicly apologize, it said it had now launched an investigation, attributing the “issue” to a former Bungie artist, and reached out to the artist concerned.
“We immediately investigated a concern regarding unauthorized use of artist decals in Marathon and confirmed that a former Bungie artist included these in a texture sheet that was ultimately used in-game,” the team said in a statement. “This issue was unknown by our existing art team, and we are still reviewing how this oversight occurred.
“We take matters like this very seriously. We have reached out to [the artist] to discuss this issue and are committed to do right by the artist. As a matter of policy, we do not use the work of artists without their permission.
“To prevent similar issues in the future, we are conducting a thorough review of our in-game assets, specifically those done by the former Bungie artist, and implementing stricter checks to document all artist contributions. We value the creativity and dedication of all artists who contribute to our games, and we are committed to doing right by them. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.”
Just weeks before that lawsuit was filed, Bungie launched a different investigation to ascertain how a NERF gun based on Destiny 2’s iconic Ace of Spades was lifted almost wholesale from fanart designed back in 2015, including every brush stroke, scratch, and smudge on the weapon.
Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Nintendo has published a list of Switch 1 games that will get a free performance upgrade on Switch 2, and revealed what fans can expect in terms of improvements.
Games such as Arms, Pokémon Scarlet & Pokémon Violet, Super Mario Odyssey, and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom are all set for performance improvements on Switch 2.
By connecting your Nintendo Switch 2 to the internet and performing a system update, you can download free updates for selected games that may improve graphics or add support for features such as GameShare. The contents of these free updates will differ depending on the game.
To be clear, these upgrades are free, and are not the same as the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition games, which are premium upgrades (or, in the case of The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, free upgrades to Nintendo Switch Online subscribers).
So, what can Switch 2 owners expect? Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet, for example, get an “improved image quality” for high-resolution TVs and an “improved” framerate for “smoother movement.”
Super Mario Odyssey, on the other hand, gets HDR support and GameShare support, so two people can play together online, with one player controlling Mario and the other controlling Cappy. All the details are below.
Interestingly, Nintendo’s list does not mention framerate fixes for the two top-down Zelda games, which is a strange and disappointing omission given their performance problems.
Visuals: optimised for the Nintendo Switch 2 display and high-resolution TVs for improved image quality.
Framerate: improved for smoother movement on Nintendo Switch 2 (including Bowser’s Fury).
HDR support
GameShare compatibility: up to four people can play Super Mario 3D World. In Bowser’s Fury, two people can play together, with one player controlling Mario and the other controlling Bowser Jr. Share locally or share online via GameChat.
Visuals: optimised for the Nintendo Switch 2 display and high-resolution TVs for improved image quality.
HDR support
GameShare support: two people can play together, with one player controlling Mario and the other controlling Cappy. Share locally or share online via GameChat.
Visuals: optimised for the Nintendo Switch 2 display and high-resolution TVs for improved image quality.
HDR support
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.
Not actually a stealth FPS hybrid of Blood and Thief – although I’d pay good money for that – Bloodthief is closer to something like Ghostrunner but also, I think, much better. The Steam demo‘s opening levels are roughly as tricky and demanding as the cyberpunk parkour series but, perhaps to due to less concern with being stylish, the movement here feels a lot more caffeinated. You only have to look at the visuals to clock that Bloodthief isn’t that sort of game that’s precious about letting you do silly things with momentum.
Also you’re a vampire, with a sword, exsanguinating armoured knights in a vaguely Germanic medieval town. Well, Vae my Victus. I do get very excited when anything reminds me, even a little, of Blood Omen: Legacy Of Kain. Here’s a nice little video of the game in action. Warning: this trailer for the game Bloodthief has blood in it.
Jade Raymond has left Haven Studios, the Sony-owned developer behind online multiplayer shooter Fairgames, and reportedly delayed the game following an external test in yet another blow to PlayStation’s live service ambition.
According to Bloomberg, Raymond exited the company she founded several weeks after an external test of Fairgames apparently didn’t go down well. The game was due out fall 2025 but is now delayed to spring 2026.
As Bloomberg put it:
PlayStation leadership didn’t give Haven staff a reason for her departure, but it came several weeks after an external test of Haven’s first game, the online shooter Fairgames, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Some developers at Haven were concerned about how the game was received and its progress, said the people, who asked not to be identified because they aren’t authorized to speak publicly.
Sony is sticking with Haven and Fairgames for now, with new co-studio heads Marie-Eve Danis and Pierre-François Sapinski in place.
It’s yet more trouble for Sony’s embattled live service ambition, which now appears to be in full retreat. While Arrowhead’s Helldivers 2 was a breakout hit, becoming the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game of all time with 12 million copies sold in just 12 weeks, Sony’s other live service games were either canceled or suffered disastrous launches.
Indeed, Sony’s Concord is one of the biggest video game disasters in PlayStation history, lasting just a couple of weeks before it was brought offline amid eye-wateringly low player numbers. Sony later decided to kill the game entirely and shut its developer.
The Concord flop came after Sony had already canceled Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us multiplayer game. And earlier this year, Sony reportedly canceled two unannounced live service games, one a God of War title in development at Bluepoint, the other in the works at Days Gone developer Bend.
In 2023, Sony president Hiroki Totoki said the company was reviewing the 12 live service PlayStation games it had in the works, and committed to launching only six of them by the end of financial year 2025, meaning by the end of March 2026. Totoki said Sony was still working on when the other six live service games would come out, adding: “It’s not that we stick to certain titles, but for the gamers quality should be the most important.”
Bungie is still flying the live service flag, with Destiny 2 ongoing and the in-development Marathon set to launch fully. Earlier this month, Sony announced a new PlayStation studio called teamLFG and teased its debut game, which is a live service incubation project. Guerrilla’s Horizon multiplayer game is also in development.
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.
As you might recall, Nintendo will be releasing “free updates” for select Switch games on the Nintendo Switch 2.
It’s already revealed the specific titles that will be getting this treatment and now it’s detailed what exactly you can expect. Once again, these updates will enhance the overall gameplay experience with visual enhancements, frame rate improvements, additional feature support, and more.
