One for Obra Dinn and Golden Idol fans, this, although also for anyone who just loves a gorgeous map of an alien environment. Locator is a detective puzzler where you play an interstellar cartographer tasked with tracking down a missing archeologist named Abigail Lidari on an alien world. It takes inspiration from browser geography game Geoguessr. You’ll be studying sets of photos and comparing them with notes from Abigail’s journal, then pinpointing her location on a series of lovely maps.
Marvel Rivals fans now have their first official look at upcoming playable character Blade and even an idea of when he’ll be playable, via a fresh leak.
First revealed by X/Twitter user Miller Ross, the Blade image is lifted from an in-game gallery card set to launch alongside Season 1. The image also features Ratatoskr, a giant Asgardian squirrel beast. Developer NetEase Games has yet to announce Blade as an upcoming playable character.
In the lead up to #MarvelRivals #EternalNightFalls, Dracula subdues the two greatest threats to his Empire of Eternal Night—Blade and Ratatoskr. But the #FantasticFour won’t let New York fall to the undead without a fight, and they prove to be formidable foes in Blade’s absence. pic.twitter.com/eIceN8rX97
— Miller Ross (@mmmmmmmmiller) January 8, 2025
According to the in-game lore, new villain Dracula “subdues” Blade and Ratatoskr, but the Fantastic Four, set to arrive with the launch of Season 1 this week, are ready to save the day.
Based on this image and lore, fans are speculating that by the end of Season 1, the Fantastic Four will have defeated Dracula and saved Blade, making him available as a playable character for the launch of Season 2.
Blade was leaked as an upcoming playable character ahead of this official first-look. The vampire hunter is part of a list of leaked characters that popped up even before Marvel Rivals launched in December. That list included Mister Fantastic and Sue Storm, both of which are due out with Season 1’s launch on January 10.
Season 2 is expected to launch in April 2025. In the shorter term, we have Marvel Rivals Season 1 global release times info, Season 1 patch notes, and official stats that reveal Marvel Rivals’ pick and win rates in Quickplay and Competitive modes for Season 0.
Check out IGN’s Marvel Rivals Review to find out what we think. And keep an eye on the latest Marvel Rivals codes for free skins, and vote on the strongest Marvel Rivals characters in our community tier list.
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.
Marvel Rivals Season 1 is about to begin, adding the Fantastic Four to the free-to-play hero shooter’s roster so that they can beat up Dracula, who has swamped the Earth in eternal night. It launches January 10th at 1 am PT / 4 am ET / 9 am GMT, and developers NetEase are paving the way in the traditional manner by rebalancing the character line-up so as to simultaneously win the adoration of certain player groups, while plunging others into apoplectic fury.
Do you like running rampage as Hela, goddess of death? Was that you who shot me full of crows on Klyntar last night? Well, how does 25 points off your base health suit you? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Screw you too.
Over the Christmas break, I took a brief hiatus from reporting on every time a Total War developer breathes or spills tea on their shirt. The year ended, the world did not, and no Thanquol DLC was announced, but I did miss what I reckon is the strongest hint they’ve yet freely given that strategy game Total War: Warhammer 40,000 is both real and due an announcement very soon. Here’s the skinny.
Bag practice.
This is a warning to all those who are yet to play Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club and want to work through the mystery unspoiled: do not watch Nintendo’s latest trailer for the game.
Yesterday, Nintendo uploaded a new trailer for the 2024 mystery entitled ‘What Lies in the Past’ (we’ve linked it in that last sentence but won’t be embedding it for obvious reasons). It’s an innocent-looking title and, without any form of warning at the start, bar the age certification the Nintendo of America upload, you would be forgiven for thinking it’s just another promo. Perhaps, at a stretch, the reveal of some upcoming DLC. But no, it’s actually loaded with late-game content that you might want to avoid.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Dell has slashed prices on two configurations of its Alienware m16 R2 gaming laptop, offering significant value for those looking to upgrade their gaming setup. The model equipped with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 GPU is now available for $1,299.99, while the RTX 4070 variant can be yours for $1,499.99.
Marvel Rivals developer NetEase Games has confirmed the global release times for the Season 1 update, which sees the arrival of the Fantastic Four.
While Marvel Rivals is available across PC, PlayStation, and Xbox, NetEase has targeted a simultaneous launch for Season 1, dubbed Eternal Night Falls, on January 10.
Season 1 begins with the addition of Invisible Woman and Mister Fantastic, with Human Torch and The Thing arriving in the second half of the season. There are three new maps, special events, and a new Doom Match game mode.
The new Battle Pass includes “over double the content” of the Season 0 pass, NetEase said, with the Luxury Pass featuring 10 new costumes for the heroes.
The three new maps include Sanctum Sanctorum and Empire of Eternal Night: Midtown, which arrive in the first half of the season, and Central Park, which will be added in the second half.
The new Doom Match puts 8-12 players in factions on a single map. Players begin in different parts of the map and earn points by knocking out enemies. Whichever faction includes the top 50% of players wins.
NetEase has published the Marvel Rivals Season 1 patch notes early, revealing all the nerfs and buffs coming to the cast of playable characters. When you’re done with that, check out official stats that reveal Marvel Rivals’ pick and win rates in Quickplay and Competitive modes for Season 0.
It’s worth noting that NetEase plans to bring the Marvel Rivals servers offline for just over two hours ahead of the launch of Season 1 for planned maintenance. During this time players will not be able to access the game.
The maintenance looks set to bleed into the Season 1 launch time, so players should brace themselves for a delay unless NetEase can bring the maintenance to an end earlier than planned.
Marvel Rivals is a smash hit for NetEase, securing 10 million players in just three days and 20 million in two weeks. The free-to-play superhero team-based PvP shooter launched on December 6 across PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S, and while Sony and Microsoft do not make player numbers public, Steam makes Valve stats available.
On Steam, Marvel Rivals peaked over its launch weekend with 480,990 concurrent players, which was enough to put it in the top five most-played games on Valve’s platform. It’s the 20th highest concurrent player number ever seen on Steam, ahead of the likes of Helldivers 2, Grand Theft Auto 5, and Destiny 2.
Check out IGN’s Marvel Rivals Review to find out what we think. And keep an eye on the latest Marvel Rivals codes for free skins, and vote on the strongest Marvel Rivals characters in our community tier list.
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.
Gears Tactics and Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory developers Splash Damage have cancelled Transformers: Reactivate, the Hasbro action game they announced in 2022. They will also be “scaling down to refocus our efforts on other projects”, and “a number of roles across the studio are now potentially at risk of redundancy”.
New (and old) challengers join the fight.
The world’s biggest fighting game tournament EVO is scheduled to announce this year’s US game line up next week on 14th January, but it seems it might have already been revealed.
In other words, if you would rather find out in the official broadcast, navigate away from this page right now. Otherwise, here’s the lineup which seems to have been accidentally revealed in the scheduled live-stream’s thumbnail image on YouTube.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Donkey Kong, Star Wars and much more.
It’s a new year and that means brand new games are already on the way! January isn’t always the most happening month of the year, but in 2025 there’s plenty to be excited about. Our senior video producer Zion Grassl also bought a PS5!
Back to the upcoming releases on the Switch though, there’s Donkey Kong, Star Wars, another Tales game, and much more to look forward to – so here’s the full rundown for the first month of the year:
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
