Ship shape.
Another week with a sliver of official ‘Switch 2’ news? Gosh, Nintendo, you really do know how to spoil us!
Yes, accompanying Nintendo’s quarterly financial report this week, company president Shuntaro Furukawa confirmed that the Switch successor will be backwards compatible and the Nintendo Switch Online service will carry over too. It ain’t much, but it’s something.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
“On at least fifty occasions in the last two years”.
Nintendo has filed a lawsuit against an individual who apparently “repeatedly streamed pirated and emulated” Switch games while also promoting “Switch emulators and other piracy tools” to his audience.
As highlighted by 404 Media, Jesse Keighin (known online as ‘EveryGameGuru’) reportedly “got under Nintendo’s skin” after he refused to comply with the video game giant.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Tony Todd, the voice of Spider-Man 2’s Venom among many other roles, has died at 69. Deadline was the first to report the news.
Todd appeared in numerous roles across a long career dating back to the 1980s, including Platoon, Final Destination, and Star Trek: The Next Generation, where he played Worf’s lost brother, Kurn. Todd’s career in horror, which included a title role in 1992’s Candyman, earned him a Lifetime Achieveement Award at the New York City Horror Film Festival.
More recently, Todd had a starring role in Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2, and we spoke to him about embodying the essence of Venom ahead of last year’s release. Todd also hinted that Insomniac had only used 10 percent of his character’s dialogue, setting off speculation of a DLC that ultimately never materialized.
Insomniac wrote in a statement released shortly after Todd’s death, “Insomniac Games is heartbroken by the passing of our friend Tony Todd. He brought so much joy to our studio during the production of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and to many fans around the world with his inimitable voice and presence. We are Venom… forever.”
— Insomniac Games (@insomniacgames) November 9, 2024
Other fans also paid tribute to Todd, calling him a “horror legend” as well as a terrific character actor. One fan pointed to his iconic death scene in The Rock opposite Nicolas Cage,
Developing…
Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.
Update now.
Nintendo Music has been out for just over a week now and apart from a few new soundtracks, it’s now been updated on Android and Apple devices to Version 1.0.1.
This update includes some fixes to enhance the overall experience after users were reporting some issues:
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Warhammer 40,000: Gladius – Relics Of War developers Proxy Studios have just released Zephon, a new 4X strategy game set in a manky, post-apocalyptic world. It’s got hexagonal maps, flesh trees, gangly Evangelion-grade giants, “otherworldly hymns of decay”, nuclear bombs, and a player-led “blend of magic and cyberpunk” that extends from the city architecture to the research component. All of which is my cup of giblets. Here’s the launch trailer.
Collecting comic books has been a thing for as long as the comic industry has been around. There’s an almost irresistable allure to having that one issue featuring the debut of your favorite hero or the one where a lovable character dies. I have dipped my toe into the comic-collecting hobby from time to time, and that was why I had to have Comic Hunters, if for nothing other than all the official comic covers the Marvel-themed board game features.
Designed by Robert Coelho with Art by Diego Sa, Comic Hunters was initially released exclusively in Brazil back in 2020 but, thanks to Spin Master and Arcane Wonders, has now been released in the United States. In Comic Hunters, anywhere from one to four players compete with one another, traveling from flea markets to auction houses, in the attempt to snag those classic Marvel comic issues to make the most valuable collection of them all.
The core idea of Comic Hunters is that players draft cards to make the most valuable collection of comics. Each game allows you to set the market value either randomly or by hand-picking which heroes or types of comics are the most sought-after. To keep things interesting, drafting is done in five different ways, including players taking a card from a drawn hand of cards and passing the remainders to the next player, bidding on a blind pool of cards, and more. Once you have your new set of comics, you build your collections, paying for the cards you keep with the other cards you drafted but are opting to discard. The more of a certain hero or type of comic (first appearance, outfit change, epic battle, etc.) the more points you will get at the end of the game.
It’s a process that, once you’ve gone through it once or twice, you and the other players will fly through. It results in a game that doesn’t take long to play at all, but that initial time figuring out how all the different methods of drafting works can be a bit tedious as the rulebook doesn’t explain it very clearly. Multiple times during my first game, I had to stop and reread the rules to figure it out. Luckily, though, the whole game flow is quick and smooth once you wrap your brain around it.
With being playable solo or with up to four players, Comic Hunters feels like a different game depending on your player count. My favorite setup is playing it as a two-player board game against one other person. With two players, cards and player collections are manageable enough (each player’s sets are openly displayed in front of them) to make it a game where you can not only strategize what cards are best for you to expand your sets but also what could hinder your opponent too.
At three and four players, the number of cards out and around the table can get overwhelming and instead often changed into more of a solitaire experience where I was only focused on my own sets and not stopping others, which admittedly may be more attractive to many players. For me, though, I appreciate the addition of that little bit of conflict. Fair warning: Comic Hunters can trigger decision paralysis, so be wary if that’s an issue for you or the people you want to play against.
There are several avenues to score points come the end the game – the sets of hero comics you have, the types of issues you have, the star tickets you have left that you didn’t use during auctions – so depending on how many comics you’ve managed to get, counting up the various symbols and figuring out how to best organize your sets for the most points can be a bit of a chore. My best recommendation to alleviate this is to simply keep track as you play with tally marks on how much of any one type you have in a set at any given time and adjust after the end of each set-building phase.
Comic Hunters’ initial “WOW!” factor and draw is thanks to all of the classic Marvel comics featured on the cards. It’s longevity and how well it keeps your interest will depend entirely on how much you like drafting and set collection games. I had a fine time with the game (especially with the added adversary aspect at lower player counts mentioned earlier). I found the inclusion of having multiple drafting types helps the experience, but I never stopped wishing that there was another layer to the game. Maybe you could trade with others, or maybe there was a way to influence what the most desirable comics were midgame to try and swing things in your favor. Instead, you get drafting with a side of drafting, with a bit more drafting. The most interesting aspect of Comic Hunters is how you pay for the cards in your set with other cards you drafted, causing me to look for things I wanted and also chaff that I could snag to pay for the cards I wanted to collect.
While the art of all the covers is nice, and it was fun to stumble across issues featured in my own collection, the same can’t be said for the quality of the components themselves, with the gameboard being the only part that felt solid. The cardboard used for the player markers and comic-type tokens is incredibly thin, and even when I was punching them out of the board, they came on, I was worried I would tear them. The cards don’t feel much better; in my copy, the cards seemed to have an odd lip around them, with paper that’s stiffer than I would like. In an ideal world, I would love to have a bit larger and sturdier cardboard tokens or better-feeling cards, but with the game coming in at $25, I can give the lower quality a bit of a pass.
Another Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 patch is here, and with it comes an additional nerf to that troublesome Recon Combat Specialty Perk and a dedicated 10v10 Moshpit playlist.
Treyarch pulled back the curtain on the November 8 update with a post on its website today, revealing a smaller patch that tackles some of the issues players have continued to deal with since launch. The emergence of a playlist for 10v10 might be what has most frothing at the mouth, though, as it offers bigger lobbies across many of Black Ops 6’s Multiplayer maps. Included in the list of maps is Nuketown, a map that is already notoriously chaotic in 6v6 matches, so expect even more chaos when hopping in for 10v10. While the standard Nuketown 24/7 playlist option will remain, fans can also now enjoy a new Stakeout 24/7 playlist.
Another highlight involves an additional nerf for Recon, which has been a common complaint from players for weeks. The Perk combo bonus gives players a few advantages in combat, including the ability to briefly see enemies through walls after spawning. The effect previously lasted for a whopping two seconds, with many drawing comparisons between it and unofficial cheats like wallhacks. It didn’t take long before Treyarch brought down that timer to only 1.5 seconds, and as promised, that’s now down to only one second with today’s patch.
Multiplayer regulars will notice that they are no longer able to exit the map in Lowtown, too, with other more general changes tackling stability and XP earn rates. Zombies received a number of tweaks as well, including fixes for a few glitches and a patch for a Tactical Raft exploit that was being used to make the vehicle airborne on Terminus.
Today’s Black Ops 6 patch is smaller than some of the others we’ve seen this past week, but that’s only because Treyarch is on the verge of dropping a gargantuan Season 1 update next week. We learned more about the inaugural season of content just yesterday, with the team promising that more Multiplayer maps, Zombies additions, and a revamped Warzone will arrive next week. Even more goodies will come with a mid-season refresh in the future, too, with Ranked Play also set to drop later this month.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 got off to a great start when it launched for PC and consoles October 25, and we think its success is deserved. We gave this year’s Call of Duty entry an 8/10 in our Multiplayer review and an 8/10 in our Zombies review. It’s unclear when exactly the next patch will drop, but at this rate, we probably won’t have to wait too long. For more, you can read our list of essential tips and tricks for players hopping online, and you can also check out the YouTuber who accidentally killed his 147-round Zombies run while streaming.
You can see today’s full Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 November 8 patch notes below.
Maps
Featured Playlists
These Featured Playlists are scheduled to go live at 10 AM PT which is after the publication of these notes.
Perks
We will continue to monitor data and feedback on Combat Specialties throughout post-launch.
XP Earn Rates
Challenges
Stability
Weapons
Gunsmith
Field Upgrades
Vehicles
Stability
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer at IGN.
Warframe developers Digital Extremes have announced a new round of early access for their 2025-bound fantasy action-RPG Soulframe, which I saw a bit of last year and think is pretty promising. They’re now adding 2000 players to a Preludes build of the game every week, with each invite email including an additional four invite codes, so you can get your friends involved.
Switch On.
A couple of months ago we reached out to Nintendo Life readers with our Switch Summer Survey, a chunky questionnaire designed (with your help) to assess the state of all things Nintendo and Switch as the console cruises through its eighth year – and as our thoughts inevitably turn to its successor.
This 70-question blowout covered everything from the Switch eShop to Joy-Con drift, your past Nintendo consoles to your hopes for the future, not to mention a selection of posers about your favourite Nintendo-focused website. Since summer ended, our data monkeys have been crunching the numbers and it’s time for the results!
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
In Destiny 2, dungeons are designed to be self-contained experiences often relating to a wider narrative branch of the Destiny universe, but built with their own gameplay mechanics, boss encounters and, most importantly for many, themed loot. The challenges faced within a dungeon require wits and a coordinated fireteam (although the most seasoned players can try to complete it solo), and conquering a piece of high-level content like this is one of the most rewarding Destiny 2 experiences.
With that in mind, they’re also a marvel of game design. When you first enter a dungeon, almost everything is a mystery. There’s no waypoint, no guidance – even finding the right way to go is a test of your intuition, and that’s before you’ve encountered any puzzles, enemies, or high-octane boss encounters.
Destiny 2’s newest dungeon, Vesper’s Host, was introduced at the start of Revenant earlier this month and is an exciting continuation of the dungeon entries. Vesper’s Host takes Guardians into the depths of an abandoned Braytech space station being damaged by a mysterious anomaly, and the setting takes an unnerving horror turn as you uncover its depths.
Inside this atmospheric new environment, you may come across a new set of armor, as well as a fresh pool of weapons that are exclusive to this dungeon. Among them is the returning Exotic Sniper Rifle Ice Breaker, an original Destiny weapon that has finally returned to the game with a set of updated perks that complement the current Destiny 2 experience. With plenty of brand new and returning treats up for grabs, it’s the perfect time to drop in and test your mettle against what lurks in Vesper’s Host, and if you’ve not been following the evolution of Destiny 2’s dungeons, you’re in a for a pleasant surprise.
We spoke to several key designers and developers on the Destiny 2 team to break down some of the core elements of Vesper’s Host, discuss what goes into drafting and crafting the dungeon experience, and ask about some of Vesper’s Host unique additions that make it the most mechanically unique dungeon yet.
Delving In
Before a dungeon can enter its granular planning stages, several high-level decisions need to be made about its setting, and how it slots into the catalogue of existing dungeons, according to Destiny 2 Design Lead Brian Frank. The team intentionally seeks to create contrast from one dungeon’s theme and setting to the next. The last dungeon, Warlord’s Ruin, took place in a brisk, fantasy-style arena, full of snow-capped medieval architecture – a starkly different setting to the hard sci-fi design of Vesper’s Host.
“Guardians have explored Braytech facilities before, and while previously it’s felt very clean and sterile, a big environmental goal was to take something familiar and twist it into a new context that felt fresh and exciting,” explains Ryan Baker, Senior Environment Artist on Destiny 2. “There’s a theme of space madness with the Fallen spinning this web compelled by an alien mind, something has broken containment and swept through the station.
“We really wanted Guardians to step onto the station and feel like finding an old crime scene after something terrible happened.”
Destiny 2 also shines in its ability to show Guardians the way with environmental nods and intuitive level design, a shrouded ledge or a well-placed light that alludes to a correct path. However, this aptitude is not always used for good – players are often tricked by what appears to be the way forward, only to meet a quick end in a trap or down a hole. The peril is short-lived and of no consequence (unless you’re aiming for a flawless run with zero deaths) but laying out believable paths to send players the wrong way also encourages exploration and quick thinking.
“Using Revenant’s horror theme, we can run with a film analogy [in Vesper’s Host],” Baker tells us. “Our approach is like writing a script. Thinking of the environment as the player journey, we need to identify where to create tension or provide a moment of respite to take in the scenery and get your bearings. The same peaks and valleys come with a good horror movie, and too many traps, like jump scares, could become stale or even tedious. Within the context of the entire dungeon experience, including the surrounding encounters and major emotional beats, we can space traps out appropriately to always feel warranted.”
“A good example: The second encounter is frantic and intense. After clutching the win, Guardians will begin a spacewalk for the second traversal. It is a quieter moment to breathe and absorb the new environmental storytelling. Just as they get comfortable, we start raining down lightning bolts, ramping up the tension by introducing a new environmental hazard spewing from the anomaly.”
Once you’ve made your way through the winding, haunting corridors of the station, chewed through waves of smaller enemies and familiarized yourself with the dungeon’s mechanics, you’ll land at a boss room. Boss encounters are a core component of dungeons – and there are usually three very different encounters throughout each.
As a basic overview, players will typically be presented with a one large enemy that is immune to damage, and engaging with a set of mechanics or goals will unlock a limited-time phase to deal as much pain as possible before the immunity returns. The aim is to repeat these steps until the threat is taken care of, which sounds easy enough, but on a first run, it’s a tough battle.
“We start all encounter designs by defining an experience statement, which describes the player fantasy for the encounter in one sentence,” explains Chris Manprin, Design Lead on Destiny 2. “They are guideposts to help drive a number of key design decisions, including narrative, boss behaviors, puzzle mechanics, and map layouts.”
With that in mind, Vesper’s Host features a particularly interesting encounter – Raneiks, a Servitor that can shift its form between one large sphere and nine smaller ones. It’s the first dungeon boss that places a premium on area of effect damage that can hurt several smaller targets at once, rather than solely hitting big enemy as much as possible, which is a first for Destiny 2’s dungeons.
“In the Raneiks Unified encounter, being swarmed was a core part of the experience statement,” Manprin adds. “This theme resonates throughout many elements of the encounter design. Players are trapped in a confined space, filled with enemies, then when teleported outside they are immediately surrounded by Shanks. Raneiks bombards players with bombs, and even in death, Raneiks multiplies tenfold. Almost every element of this encounter ‘swarms’ the player.”
The unique design of Raneiks also in turn inspires versatility in how Guardians choose to conquer it, which, for a game that features over 1000 unique weapons and countless perk possibilities, is always extremely welcoming. With multiple targets to damage, there’s much more room to get creative with those high-level loadouts.
“We’re always looking for ways to react to the evolving meta and create experiences that feel unlike anything players have encountered before,” explains Julia Condemi, Designer on Destiny 2. “With Raneiks, we wanted to build a boss that would reward players for using their knowledge of the game’s sandbox and their collection of weapons in a way they hadn’t thought about previously.
“You’re welcome to use your old reliable favourites, but this boss says, ‘Hey, that Grenade Launcher you haven’t used since you got it? Those Heavy weapons with the One for All perk you have collecting dust in your vault? Those might be great here!’”
The Destiny team also had another ‘first’ to consider during the launch of Vesper’s Host. This is the first dungeon launch to include Contest Mode – which challenges players to complete the dungeon at a heightened difficulty within the first 48 hours of it being live. This mode has typically been reserved for Destiny’s raids – endgame content that challenges a full fireteam of six to complete. That said, the community is still extremely enthusiastic about dungeon completion at launch – seasoned players will still race to be the first to beat it, and the introduction of Contest Mode to Vesper’s Host is an official acknowledgement of such and adds that necessary extra hurdle for Destiny 2’s most practiced Guardians.
“We wanted to reinforce and amplify what was already happening in the community when a new dungeon launched,” says Frank. “Given historical completion times for dungeons without Contest Mode, we knew the difficulty would need to be increased to make the event worthy of the caliber of teams making day one attempts. “
The pressure of competition and a limited time to earn rewards sees these players rapidly develop and refine strategies for overcoming Vesper’s Host’s unique puzzle mechanics, but it’s worth nothing that unlike Destiny 2’s raids, dungeons are designed to be completable solo. This is an incredibly aspirational achievement, the most difficult thing to do in the game by a significant margin, but possible.
“Every encounter is designed with the intent that a single player with mastery over the encounters, sandbox, and buildcrafting can complete it,” says Manprin. “Mechanics that lean too far into coordination or complexity are modified with consideration for the solo experience.
“The addition of Contest Mode came with systemic changes to support it. We branched the difficulty settings for normal and contest, which allowed for tuning boss health independently between the two versions.”
Dungeons are not built to be completed once – they’re designed to be run multiple times and contain a varied loot pool of armour and weapons, as well as one Exotic weapon with a rare chance to drop when the dungeon is completed. In Vesper’s Host, the Exotic drop is Ice Breaker, a reintroduction of an Exotic Sniper Rifle that dates all the way back to 2014’s Destiny.
Longtime fans of the franchise have been eagerly awaiting the return of the weapon, but the team felt Vesper’s Host’s final encounter made for the perfect place to finally earn it back.
“With us coming into Destiny‘s 10th Anniversary year we’ve been looking at Destiny weapons players remember most fondly, and Ice Breaker is right at the top of that list,” says Chris Proctor, Senior Design Lead. “Given how strong the weapon is in endgame PvE content, it’s fitting it come from a challenging PvE source, and so Vesper’s Host made a ton of sense.”
“We put some time into updating the design of the weapon to match the Destiny 2 sandbox, trying to retain the feel of the original, but making the loop more interesting and giving it the Exotic 2.0 treatment to bring it up to our Destiny 2 Exotic weapon quality bar. At the end of this design process, we had something we were excited to ship, incorporating high ammo uptime and a Solar and Stasis tie-in.”
If you’re itching for a new Destiny 2 challenge or you’re a seasoned Guardian that’s due another run to score the coveted Ice Breaker Exotic, Vesper’s Host is available to play in Destiny 2: Revenant now.
Bungie
AN IMMERSIVE STORY
You are a Guardian, defender of the Last City of humanity in a solar system under siege by infamous villains. Look to the stars and stand against the darkness. Your legend begins now.
GUARDIAN CLASSES
Choose from the armored Titan, mystic Warlock, or swift Hunter.
• Disciplined and proud, Titans are capable of both aggressive assaults and stalwart defenses. Set your hammer ablaze, crack the sky with lightning, and go toe-to-toe with any opponent. Your team will stand tall behind the strength of your shield.
• Warlocks weaponize the mysteries of the universe to sustain themselves and destroy their foes. Rain devastation on the battlefield and clear hordes of enemies in the blink of an eye. Those who stand with you will know the true power of the Light.
• Agile and daring, Hunters are quick on their feet and quicker on the draw. Fan the hammer of your golden gun, flow through enemies like the wind, or strike from the darkness. Find the enemy, take aim, and end the fight before it starts.
COOPERATIVE AND COMPETITIVE MULTIPLAYER
Play with or against your friends and other Guardians in various PvE and PvP game modes.
• Exciting co-op adventures teeming await with rare and powerful rewards. Dive into the story with missions, quests, and patrols. Put together a small fireteam and secure the chest at the end of a quick Strike. Or test your team’s skill with countless hours of raid progression – the ultimate challenge for any fireteam. You decide where your legend begins.
• Face off against other players in fast-paced free-for-all skirmishes, team arenas, and PvE/PvP hybrid competitions. Mark special competitions like Iron Banner on your calendar and collect limited-time rewards before they’re gone.
EXOTIC WEAPONS AND ARMOR
Thousands of weapons, millions of options. Discover new gear combinations and define your own personal style. The hunt for the perfect arsenal begins.
105 GB hard drive storage space required as of November 10, 2020. Subject to change. Requires broadband internet. After November 10, 2020 see www.destinythegame.com/size-requirements for current requirements prior to purchase.
Destiny 2 may contain flashing patterns and images that may produce adverse effects for a small percentage of people sensitive to them.
Bungie, Inc. makes no guarantee regarding the availability of online play or features and may modify or discontinue online services with reasonable notice at any time. Using the software constitutes acceptance of the Destiny Software License Agreement available at www.bungie.net/sla.
© 2023 Bungie, Inc. All rights reserved. Destiny, the Destiny Logo, Bungie and the Bungie Logo are trademarks of Bungie, Inc. Published and distributed by Bungie, Inc.
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