Category: Video Games

Square Enix has announced the next season of its live service shooter Foamstars will be the last, though the game will remain online.

A blog post revealed the Party Goes On season, which begins December 13 and runs until January 17, will be the final season of Foamstars but Square Enix will continue to support the game in a handful of other ways.

Square Enix will introduce “expansions” that will “enhance gameplay, such as the ability to customise shots of each character, and new enhancement elements, such as Prism Gems, all aimed at ensuring players can continue to enjoy the game for the foreseeable future.”

The Foamstars Cup will also be hosted across a series of events named after each character, which presumably means eight separate events since there are eight player characters in the game.

“Furthermore, to ensure that new players can fully enjoy Foamstars, previous Season Passes will be made available again,” Square Enix said. “Players can switch between Season Passes at any time to proceed along the Season Pass track of your choice and obtain items from past seasons. This will make it possible for players to obtain all the items from each season.”

While this isn’t as disastrous a move as a full shutdown which other triple-A live service games have suffered recently, the removal of seasons certainly doesn’t bode well for the future of Foamstars. Square Enix only released the game in February, meaning the dedicated live service support that was seasons will come to end less than one year after launch.

Foamstars debuted to a middling reception and Square Enix seemingly hasn’t been able to turn interest around. It earned a 6/10 in IGN’s review, in which we said: “Foamstars’ combat mechanics are unexpectedly engaging, but confounding time-gated modes and aggressive monetization make them harder to enjoy.”

Live service games such as Foamstars have had a rough year, with many falling to reach high levels of engagement. The model is so attractive to publishers as, instead of just making a single payment to buy a game, players are given a continuous stream of purchasing options such as battle passes, season passes, and other microtransactions.

A live service boom of sorts has occurred in the video game industry as a result of incredibly successful games such as Fortnite, Rocket League, and Fall Guys, but many publishers have seemingly fallen short by looking to capitalize immediately instead of building up a dedicated audience first.

Foamstars may be included in this list, though others such as Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League have also fallen flat. The most infamous live service game of the year, however, and perhaps ever, is in PlayStation hero shooter Concord.

It debuted to a tragic 697 peak concurrent players on Steam, a number that made the 12,786 players of the aforementioned Suicide Squad, which was dubbed a disappointment by Warner Bros. Discovery and caused a $200 million hit to revenue, look like a titan.

Sony then made the decision to shut down the game less than two weeks after launch, and while some debated a potential return, all hopes were dashed when developer Firewalk Studios was shut down a few weeks later.

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

Fortnite OG, which will once again take players back to the first days of Fortnite Battle Royale, will launch tomorrow, December 6, and The Fortnite Team has revealed more details on what fans can expect from this trip down memory lane.

Fortnite OG will begin with Chapter 1 – Season 1 and the team plans to recreate those early days of the battle royale, complete with “loot pool changes and feature introductions.”

Season 1 will end on January 30 at 11pm PT/January 31 at 2am ET, which will end up being shorter than Season lengths in the main game, so fans can expect their anticipated additions to arrive in a timely fashion. Don’t worry, though, as Solos, Squads, and Zero Build will be available at launch.

The loot pool will include much of what was found at the beginning of Fortnite, including Assault Rifle, Burst Assault Rifle, Scoped Assault Rifle, Pump Shotgun, Tactical Shotgun, Pistol, Revolver, Submachine Gun, Tactical Machine Gun, Bolt-Action Sniper Rifle, Semi-Auto Sniper Rifle, Grenade Launcher, Rocket Launcher, Damage Trap, Ceiling Zapper, Wall Dynamo

While Fortnite OG is taking players back in time, there will be some Quality of Life changes put in place to make for a better overall experience, and you can check them all out below from The Fortnite Team;

• Building mechanics will be uniform with Battle Royale as it is today.
• As far as traversal goes, players will be able to sprint, slide, mantle, door bash, and move while healing.
• Some of the rough edges from that era have been preserved, while others have been polished. For example, players will find Reboot Vans and be able to see the glare from a sniper scope, but Max building resources are set to 999 and Double Pump is enabled for Shotguns (for now).
• Of course, the original map that Fortnite Battle Royale launched with in 2017 is back! Great care has been taken to ensure that every tree, Chest, car, and object is right where players remember it. In Zero Build, there will be Ziplines and Ascenders to help players get to hard-to-reach locations.

Players will also be able to purchase the Fortnite OG Pass and work their way to earning 45 tiers of “retro rewards with a modern twist on classic items and Outfits.” Speaking of Outfits, Renegade Rebel, Aerial Assault Bomber, and Skull Commander are the ones players will work towards in Season 1, and each will have an unlockable alt style as well.

It’s important to note that Epic Games did just raise its Battle Pass price for the first time ever ahead of Fortnite OG, so we wanted to make sure everyone was aware of that ahead of this upcoming launch.

Fortnite OG first launched back in November 2023 and the reception was overwhelmingly positive. In fact, it saw Fortnite enjoy its “biggest day” ever with over 44.7 million players.

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Adam Bankhurst is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on X/Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on TikTok.

Sensitivity Warning: The following article contains references to self harm which some readers may find disturbing. Please proceed with caution.

The official website for Infinity Nikki, the open-world dress up role-playing game from former The Legend of Zelda director Kentaro Tominaga, was temporarily hacked to display an offensive message and reference to Genshin Impact.

The highly anticipated game arrived on PlayStation 5, PC via the Epic Games Store, iOS, and Android today, December 5, but many users visiting the official website to download it were instead met with the offensive message.

Though it usually, and does again, feature colorful advertisements, information, and the actual download links for Infinity Nikki, alongside details on how to claim the launch rewards released by developer Infold Games, the website temporarily featured a blank white screen and the message: “Kill yourself! Or just better try Genshin Impact PRIVATE SERVER!” A QR code was also featured.

Many users posted the message on social media including Infinity Nikki’s Reddit page, though IGN won’t include links to such posts for security risks surrounding the QR code, which should not be accessed.

As for the reference to Genshin Impact, this likely comes as a result of vague comparisons between the two games. Though there are more differences than similarities between Infinity Nikki and Genshin Impact, both are open world gacha games with colorful anime art styles.

The brief website hack is seemingly just a small blemish on an otherwise successful launch, however, as players are sharing positive feedback for the game itself and it performed well with critics too.

In our 9/10 review, IGN said: “Infinity Nikki has deep open world exploration, a quirky story, and some of the most beautiful in-game outfits you’ll ever see – you just have to be ready to navigate a maze of menus to get them.”

If you are having suicidal thoughts, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline in the U.S. is available 24 hours a day at 1-800-273-8255. A list of international suicide hotlines can be found here.