Category: Video Games

With the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth demo in full swing, players are enjoying getting to grips with Cloud, Tifa, Aerith and co in this PlayStation 5 remake of one of the most beloved role-playing games of all time. But it has also sparked yet another debate about the ways video games help players work out where to go — this time via yellow paint.

If you’ve been playing Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth you’ll have seen it: colour-coded paint that signals the parts of the environment that can be used for platforming.

THE YELLOW PAINT VIRUS HAS INFECTED FF7 pic.twitter.com/calN0dqHf4

— The Oshborn (@DaveOshry) February 8, 2024

The debate in summary: some people don’t like how in-your-face this hand-holding is in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and indeed modern video games. Others, however, point out that it can be helpful, and is an important accessibility feature.

While the yellow paint on climbable ledges wasn’t designed with disabled players in mind. It has helped people with low vision or who are cognitively disabled to see at a higher contrast and recognize where they should go. Is it the only solution to this problem? No, but it helps https://t.co/2RaORPKAzf

— Steve Saylor (@stevesaylor) February 8, 2024

Developers, too, are weighing in, with some highlighting how in playtests and focus groups, players sometimes struggle to work out where to go, get frustrated, and quit playing altogether. Because of this, somewhat obvious, and sometimes unrealistic, visual clues are needed to help point players in the right direction.

Others say that video games have featured visual clues for exploration and progression for decades now. Indeed, Digital Foundry’s John Linneman pointed out that the original Final Fantasy 7 included visual aids of its own.

With discussion around the yellow paint in FF7R, who remembers the options red/green arrows plus giant pointer available in the original FF7? pic.twitter.com/qMLnKh3rGw

— John Linneman @dark1x.bsky.social (@dark1x) February 11, 2024

If all this sounds familiar, that’s because we’ve been here before, perhaps most notably with the Resident Evil 4 remake last year. When Capcom’s superb remake came out, a similar debate was had about the rights and wrongs of yellow paint plastered over climbable ladders.

the yellow paint is so unnecessary obviously a ladder is climbable obviously a crate is breakable why did they do this pic.twitter.com/oWTxn8rmGT

— nes 🎨 (@feydemon) October 2, 2023

While the debate continues, and will no-doubt resurface again in the future when the next big game that includes obvious visual clues for platforming comes out, let us know where you stand on Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s yellow paint.

For more, check out IGN’s Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Demo PS5 Performance Review, and find out how Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth players are already using Tifa’s piano to show off.

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.

Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Game Studios has issued an apology to players for login and progression issues that have blighted the game’s launch.

Helldivers 2 launched on PlayStation 5 and PC last week and soon saw a concurrent peak in the hundreds of thousands, blowing past Arrowhead’s expectations for the Sony Interactive Entertainment-published co-op shooter. In fact, Helldivers 2 is Sony’s biggest Steam launch ever, with a peak concurrent player count of 155,926 on Valve’s platform.

But as the player count hit greater heights, so did the servers struggle, with login problems compounded by progression failing to track. For a game that lacks offline play and in which progression is tied to your ability to succeed on the battlefield, Helldivers 2 endured a tough weekend.

Now, Arrowhead boss Johan Pilestedt has issued a statement explaining what went wrong. The long and short of it is that as Arrowhead worked to increase Helldivers 2’s rate limiter for its servers, the number of players logging on surpassed the limit. Even when the total capacity was increased from 250,000 to 360,000 total, the player count jumped to 360,000 after just five and a half minutes, Pilestedt said.

Pilestedt issued an apology, and said Arrowhead was working as hard as it could to sort the server problems out. Here’s his statement in full, posted to the Helldivers 2 Discord:

Hey Everyone,

Thank you for your patience during the server maintenance. With it we deployed three “rapid-fixes” aimed at improving the situation with rewards often not being handed out properly, login-issues, and server capacity.

To speak in technical terms, our services as well as our partner services have a rate limiter that denies connections beyond a volume per minute to prevent the entire system from failing. We managed to increase the rate limit from 10,000/min to 20,000/min and the total capacity of concurrent players was increased from 250,000 total to 360,000 total. This was however still not enough as the player count jumped to 360k after 5 1⁄2 minutes.

As such, the issue with login remains. If for any reason you get the “Failed to connect to server”issue it means that the maximum number of login requests for that particular minute is exceeded and/or that the servers are full and will require someone to log out before allowing new players in. As mentioned above, the increased capacity should require less retries to get in.

As for the reward issue, the fix was mitigated but not resolved. And without additional server maintenance this will still not work as intended. If you get the issue you can try rebooting the game to increase the chances of it being reset. This is due to the high traffic on the servers leading to rewards not being tracked correctly by our servers.

I know the progression issue is frustrating, especially for newer divers that want to unlock sweet gear. For now, please once again accept our sincere apologies for the issues you’re facing and rest assured, we’re doing our utmost to make it right. In order to do so, right now it is crucial that our team gets some sleep and we will be back at this again in a few hours.

Regards,

Johan

Despite the server issues, Helldivers 2 is going down well with players. After an initial ‘mixed’ user review rating on Steam, Helldivers 2 is now up to ‘mostly positive’. IGN’s Helldivers 2 Review in Progress was equally enthusiastic. Check out IGN’s Helldivers 2 tips and tricks for getting started if you’re jumping in.

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.

We’ve finally arrived at the weekend, which means it is time to score on this weekend’s deals! A solid variety is available this weekend, including hardware, video games, and accessories. The best deals for Sunday, February 11, include Armored Core 6, an HP Omen 45L Desktop, Splatoon 3, 10th Gen iPads, the Anker Prime Power Bank, and more.

Armored Core 6 for $39.99

Kicking things off, Amazon has both the PS4 and PS5 versions of Armored Core 6 on sale for just $39.99. The latest title by FromSoftware is a return to the Armored Core series, with plenty of blitzing action to discover. We gave the game an 8/10 in our review, stating it “lands direct hits where it counts.” This price matches the previous low, so it’s a great time to pick up the title if you haven’t already.

HP OMEN 45L Desktop for $1497.99

This HP OMEN prebuilt desktop is an excellent deal if you’re in the market for a new PC. You can play any of the latest titles with the included AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti. Additionally, 32GB of RAM and a 1TB solid state drive are both included in this build. With over $1200 worth of savings, this is a deal that won’t be around for much longer.

Splatoon 3 for $39.99

Target has a great deal on Splatoon 3 this weekend, with $20 worth of savings on the physical edition. Splatoon 3 features loads of multiplayer content in addition to a story mode to play through. Its expansion, Side Order, is set to release later this month, so it’s a perfect time to grab this title while it’s on sale. If you liked Splatoon 2, Splatoon 3 brings more weapons, more maps, and more fun.

Lowest Price Yet for 10th Generation iPads

Amazon has the 10th Gen iPad for $349 right now, which is the lowest we’ve seen the device since it was launched. Powered by the A14 Bionic, this iPad packs a 10.9-inch display, 64GB of storage, Touch ID, and a long battery life. If you’re interested in purchasing an iPad but don’t want to jump to the iPad Air or iPad Pro, this is an excellent option.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land for $39.99

Kirby and the Forgotten Land is still one of the most overlooked Nintendo Switch titles. Forgotten Land marks the first full 3D game in the entire series, with a massive amount of new gameplay mechanics and offerings compared to its 2D counterparts. If you’ve yet to play Kirby and the Forgotten Land, pick the title up for a discount this weekend!

Save 31% Off This Anker Prime Power Bank

You can use the Anker Prime Power Bank to charge any of your standard devices, including your phone, wireless headphones, etc. However, this power bank can also be used to charge bigger electronics such as the Nintendo Switch, Steam Deck, and ASUS ROG Ally. This makes it the perfect companion on any trip you might find yourself on. At 20,000mAh, you can charge all of your devices multiple times and still have some juice left.

Eternights for $19.99

If you haven’t had the chance to check out Eternights yet, this is a great opportunity to pick the game up at a discount! A blend between a visual novel and an action game, Eternights released last Fall to plenty of love from fans and critics alike. The gameplay progression is often compared to Persona. Both the PS4 and PS5 copies are on sale for $19.99.

Meta Quest 2 for $229

If you haven’t yet purchased a VR headset, this deal on the Quest 2 is one of the lowest prices we’ve seen for the headset. The Meta Quest 2 is an excellent VR headset that works great standalone or hooked up to a PC. You’ll be able to access your entire Steam library with Steam Link, either wired or wirelessly. The screen provides an 1832 x 1920 resolution per eye, with up to a 90Hz refresh rate.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns for $19.99

You can grab one of the best tactical RPGs of 2022 on Amazon at a discount right now. Marvel’s Midnight Suns features a unique cast of Marvel characters with plenty of fan favorites, such as Iron Man, Wolverine, and more. We gave the game an 8/10 in our review, stating the game “makes excellent use of card game mechanics to keep battles fresh, evolving, and unpredictable over the course of an epic-length campaign.”

HORI Split Pad Compact for $31.99

The HORI Split Pad Compact is one of the best ergonomic controllers you can buy for the Nintendo Switch. Attaching like standard Joy-Con, the Split Pad Compact slides onto each side of your Switch and immediately widens the console. This makes longer handheld play sessions much more comfortable and bearable over time, especially if you have larger hands. The Pac-Man model features all sorts of fun details to personalize your system.

Save $10 Off Super Mario Bros. Wonder

Super Mario Bros. Wonder is available on Amazon with a $10 discount! It’s rare to see the latest Nintendo Switch titles go on sale this early, especially big series like Mario. Wonder offers loads of exciting content you can play through, such as eight different worlds, three new powerups, and endless surprises with the Wonder Flower.

Apple AirPods Pro with USB Type-C for $189.99

Walmart has dropped the price of the 2nd gen Apple AirPods Pro truly wireless noise cancelling earbuds with the universal USB Type-C connector by $60, now only $189. With this current gen AirPods Pro, Apple has replaced the proprietary Lightning port with the more universal USB Type-C. For people who want to bring along a single charging cable for all of their mobile devices, this is a godsend.

LG 32″ Ultra-Gear QHD 165Hz Gaming Monitor for $209

This LG Monitor has a steep discount you won’t want to miss out on. Originally priced at $349.99, you can pick this QHD 165Hz monitor up for just $209 from Walmart right now. At 32″, this is a big screen with all kinds of features to ensure you get the best playing experience possible. This monitor has SRGB 95% color gamut with HDR10 support, AMD FreeSync Premium, and a 1ms response time.