Frostpunk 2 and This War of Mine developer 11 bit studios has announced a delay to its next game, The Alters, from the fourth quarter of 2024 to the first quarter of 2025.

In a statement sent to Polish finance publication bankier.pl, 11 bit studios president Przemysław Marszał said the delay was necessary to improve the quality of the game.

“The production schedule for The Alters was very tight,” Marszał said. “There was uncertainty as to whether the developers would have enough time to complete all the work in the quality we all expect. After so many years of production, the risk that the game will have any shortcomings is unnecessary for us.”

The Alters is a survival video game set for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S, with a day-one launch on Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription service. You play Jan, a space miner who must create alternate versions of himself in order to survive on an inhospitable planet.

Here’s the official blurb:

Inspired by the critically acclaimed title This War of Mine, The Alters thrusts players into a heart-pounding battle for survival that Jan can’t conquer alone. After crash landing on a desolate planet with a scorching star, Jan must avoid the murderous conditions by taking refuge in a cutting-edge mobile base. The only issue? It’s meant to be operated by a skilled team and he’s just Jan.

Thankfully, fate takes a turn with the discovery of Rapidium, a mysterious substance exclusive to this perilous world. Interacting with the Quantum Computer on board the mobile base allows Jan to manipulate pivotal decisions from his past—creating alternate versions of himself known as Alters—that have the potential to change everything.

The announcement of the delay comes hot on the heels of 11 bit studios’ release of city-building survival sequel Frostpunk 2, which sold enough copies to break even but not enough to prevent a share price collapse.

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.

Those looking forward to Bloober Team’s remake of Silent Hill 2 may want to brace for jump scares as basically the entire game has now leaked online.

While Silent Hill 2 originally launched 23 years ago and Bloober Team has vowed not to change the story, there’s perhaps not as much risk for spoilers as brand new games. But plenty of players will be experiencing the survival horror classic for the first time through the remake, and Silent Hill 2 plot points will be appearing on social media instead of just in wikis and playthroughs.

Some fans have already received the game ahead of its October 8 release date, with physical copies seemingly shipped early once again proving the cause. Others, like Luke76bg on ResetEra, posted a screenshot of someone with 39% completion already logged on their PlayStation 5.

The Silent Hill 2 remake is exclusive to Sony’s console for one year though will also launch on PC next week thanks to Bloober Team convincing publisher Konami. Xbox players will have to wait, however, and it’s perhaps unlikely to come to Nintendo Switch at all.

Konami previously released the first 90 minutes of gameplay through the 2BRO YouTube channel, and while the commentary is in Japanese the gameplay itself is in English, it introduces protagonist James Sunderland as he comes across the ever so spooky town of Silent Hill and all the nastiness one would expect from a survival horror title.

The first 90 minutes cover just under 10% of Silent Hill 2 according to Bloober Team’s own estimates, as it said players could complete it in “around 16 to 18 hours.”

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

Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney has insisted the company is now “financially sound” after a tumultuous period in which 830 staff were laid off.

In September 2023, the North Carolina studio behind Fortnite and Unreal Engine suffered a significant round of layoffs that saw 830 employees, about 16% of its workforce, lose their jobs.

Separately, Epic divested music service platform Bandcamp and spun off most of SuperAwesome, a kid-safe technology company. These were acquired by Epic Games in 2022 and 2020, respectively. Around 250 people left Epic through the divestitures.

At the time, Sweeney said Epic had been spending “way more money than we earn, investing in the next evolution of Epic and growing Fortnite as a metaverse-inspired ecosystem for creators.”

He also pointed to a “major structural change to our economics” after Fortnite growth transitioned from the explosively popular and highly profitable battle royale that funded its initial expansion, to the lower margin business that came from creator content with significant revenue sharing.

Now, a year later, Sweeney has commented on the state of Epic Games, and he certainly sounded more bullish. Speaking during a presentation at Unreal Fest 2024, as reported by GI.biz, Sweeney said that Epic “spent the last year rebuilding and really executing solidly on all fronts.”

He added: “I’m happy to tell you now that the company is financially sound, and that Fortnite and the Epic Games Store have hit new records in concurrency and success.”

On that front, Fortnite hit 110 million monthly active users over the holidays, an impressive milestone for a game now seven years old. To put that into context, in August 2018 Fortnite hit 78.3 million MAUs.

Epic rarely makes Fortnite player numbers public, and when it does so it uses various metrics that make direct comparisons difficult. Last year’s Season OG, which brought back the Chapter 1 Season 5 map and with it classic areas like Tilted Towers, Pleasant Park, and Risky Reels, saw Fortnite hit a new peak of 44.7 million players in just one day. Epic previously said Fortnite saw a concurrent player record of 15.3 million players for the December 2020 end-of-season live event, which saw players teaming up with Iron Man, Wolverine, and other Marvel heroes to defeat Galactus.

Meanwhile, the Epic Games Store, which remains unprofitable as it battles with Steam maker Valve for the hearts and minds of PC gamers, reached 70 million monthly active users last month.

Elden Ring developer FromSoftware has released patch 1.15 for the action game and its expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree across PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and S, and PC via Steam.

Patch 1.15 comes hot on the heels of Elden Ring’s big balance-changing 1.14 update, and thus does not contain any further balance changes or additional features. Check out the patch notes below, courtesy of publisher Bandai Namco.

Elden Ring is one of the biggest video games of recent years, selling an incredible 25 million copies since going on sale in 2022. The Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is a hit, too, selling five million in just three days despite tough requirements.

IGN’s Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree review returned a 10/10. We said: “Like the base game did before it, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree raises the bar for single-player DLC expansions. It takes everything that made the base game such a landmark RPG, condenses it into a relatively compact 20-25 hour campaign, and provides fantastic new challenges for heavily invested fans to chew on.”

Elden Ring update 1.15 patch notes:

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where the cutscene that plays when entering the Shadow Keep Church District would play again when re-entering the area.
• Fixed a bug where some of the Golem Fist weapon attacks would not deal damage when the player was affected by certain special effects.
• Fixed a bug where the Golem Fist weapon one-handed heavy attack power was lower than expected.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the Aspects of the Crucible: Thorns incantation from being cast when used in quick succession.
• Fixed a bug where the Smithing Talisman effect did not apply to some weapons’ throwing attacks.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the use of ashes in some areas of the Scadutree Avatar battle arena.
• Fixed a bug where Rellana, Twin Moon Knight would sometimes perform unexpected actions when interacting with objects in the battle area.
• Fixed a bug that allowed Skills to be used in incorrect combinations with Weapons under certain circumstances.
• Fixed a bug that caused unexpected rendering and behavior of some enemies under certain circumstances.
• Fixed a bug where some sound effects did not play correctly.
• Several performance improvements and other bug fixes.
• Further fixes were added to the game’s end credits.

Possible unstable performance fixes

• For the PS5 version of the game, unstable framerate may be improved by using the “Rebuild Database” option from the device’s safe mode.
• In some PC versions, Ray Tracing may be unintentionally enabled and cause unstable performance. Please check the Ray Tracing setting in the “System” > “Graphics ” > “Ray Tracing Quality” from the title screen or in-game menu.
• In the PC version, the message “Inappropriate activity detected” may appear without cheating.
  • To fix this issue, please verify the integrity of the game’s files before restarting the game.
• In the PC version, unstable framerate may be caused by third party applications that control mouse behavior. Deactivating these third party applications may improve performance.

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.

Palworld developer Pocketpair has signed a deal with PUBG company Krafton to develop a mobile version of the hit game.

Krafton, fresh from acquiring Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks from Microsoft, has now inked a licensing agreement with Pocketpair to expand the Palworld intellectual property to mobile devices, Gematsu reported.

Krafton’s subsidiary PUBG Studios will develop the mobile version of Palworld, which reimagines and adapts the core gameplay elements for mobile. No release window was mentioned.

PUBG Studios is the development arm behind the phenomenally successful battle royale as well as its equally successful mobile versions. Indeed, PUBG Mobile has had over one billion players since launching in March 2018.

The announcement of Palworld mobile comes hot on the heels of Nintendo and The Pokémon Company’s joint lawsuit against Pocketpair for alleged patent infringement, and the subsequent launch of Palworld on PlayStation 5 everywhere except Japan, where the lawsuit was filed.

Pocketpair has insisted it has no idea which patents it’s accused of infringing, but experts have pointed to a “killer patent” that revolves around the mechanic of catching Pokémon itself. Last week, one patent expert said the lawsuit shows “just how seriously Nintendo views the threat of Palworld.”

After Palworld’s huge launch earlier this year on PC and Xbox, comparisons were made between Palworld’s Pals and Pokémon, with some accusing Pocketpair of “ripping off” Pokémon designs. But rather than file a copyright infringement lawsuit, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company have gone down the patent route.

It is worth noting that Palworld does include a mechanic that involves throwing a ball-like object (called a Pal Sphere) at monsters out in a field to capture them, similar to the mechanic seen in the 2022 Nintendo Switch exclusive Pokémon Legends: Arceus, and this may prove the key to the lawsuit.

Palworld launched on Steam priced $30 and straight into Game Pass on Xbox and PC earlier this year, breaking sales and concurrent player number records in the process. Pocketpair boss Takuro Mizobe has said Palworld’s launch was so big that the developer couldn’t handle the massive profits the game generated.

Still, Pocketpair acted swiftly to capitalize on Palworld’s breakout success, signing a deal with Sony to form a new business called Palworld Entertainment that’s tasked with expanding the IP.

While the Pokémon games are mostly at home on consoles, Nintendo has launched a number of spin-offs aimed at other devices, including mobile. Pokémon GO has seen enormous success since launching in 2016, generating billions of dollars in revenue. There’s also Pokémon Unite, a MOBA released for mobile and Nintendo Switch, and Pokémon Sleep, a sleep-tracking game that rewards the user with Pokémon depending on the quality of their sleep.

Indeed, a new Pokémon mobile game is right around the corner: Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket, a mobile version of the Pokemon TCG, launches October 30, 2024.

Pocketpair has said it will begrudgingly investigate the patent infringement claims while continuing to update Palworld despite the lawsuit, and apologized to players left concerned about the future of the game.

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.