Cardy, Matt, and Jesse are here to deliver a week full of misery. That isn’t always a bad thing, though. Case in point: Silent Hill 2, a fantastic remake of a horror classic. It can, however, definitely be a bad thing. Just like the incredibly boring Joker: Folie à Deux. We have reviews of both this week, as well as thoughts of Hell Is Us, the Until Dawn remaster (remake?), and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

Remember to send us your thoughts about all the new games, TV shows, and films you’re enjoying or looking forward to: ign_ukfeedback@ign.com.

IGN UK Podcast 768: Pure Misery, Both Good and Bad

• IGN UK Podcast 767: Where’s Tokyo Games Tho?
• IGN UK Podcast 766: PlayStation Series That Need to Come Back
• IGN UK Podcast 765: PS5 Pros and Biscuit Pockets
• IGN UK Podcast 764: Bots, Bolters, and Blood
• IGN UK Podcast 763: Star Wars Outlaws, MGS Delta, and Alien: Romulus

Sony’s controversial PlayStation Network requirement for its PC games is once again in the spotlight after the company delisted the original Horizon Zero Dawn on Steam and the Epic Games Store and added the PSN requirement to the upcoming single-player remaster.

Sony’s PSN account requirement for its PC games was thrust into the limelight with the release of Arrowhead’s explosive PC and PS5 co-op shooter Helldivers 2 earlier this year. Helldivers 2 suffered a review bomb campaign on Steam after Sony made PSN accounts mandatory for PC gamers on Valve’s platform (Arrowhead subsequently decided to turn the Steam user review history graph into a cape, which is ready for launch but has yet to release).

Sony eventually backed down and reversed Helldivers 2’s PSN account requirement, but the game remains unavailable to buy in the many countries that lack PSN. And indeed all Sony’s games on PC, even purely single-player ones, now suffer from this problem, which means the recently released God of War Ragnarök and now Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered are unavailable on Steam in over 100 countries.

This week, fans noticed the original Horizon Zero Dawn, previously available to buy in all countries where Steam is accessible, was delisted from the Epic Games Store and then from Steam itself. The Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition Steam page remains live, but the game itself is unavailable for purchase. In its place is the option to pre-purchase Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered or buy its sequel, Forbidden West.

The Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered Steam page signals the PSN account requirement in the small print of the game’s features. Again, the original game did not have this requirement on PC.

Already negative user reviews are mentioning Sony’s actions here. “Delisted the original game just to add the remaster with PSN account forced into the game,” reads one recent Steam review for the Complete Edition of Zero Dawn. “Now countries unsupported by PSN can’t buy this game anymore whether it’s the non remastered version (which doesn’t require PSN) or remastered version.”

It seems likely, then, that Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered will suffer from review bombing when it goes on sale on Steam on October 31. It seems unlikely that Sony will reverse course here, having suffered a backlash from PC gamers to pretty much all its Steam releases since Helldivers 2 went on sale.

It has so far failed to comment on its PC PSN policy, although during the Helldivers 2 backlash it offered reasoning that was widely ridiculed by Steam gamers. “We’re still learning what is best for PC players and your feedback has been invaluable,” Sony said at the time. Unlike Helldivers 2, Horizon Zero Dawn is a purely single-player only game.

It’s worth noting that Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition is still available on GOG. There it is DRM-free, with no activation or online connection required to play.

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.

Diablo 4 and its upcoming expansion Vessel of Hatred will be PS5 Pro Enhanced, Blizzard has confirmed. It is the first Microsoft game with confirmed Enhanced support for Sony’s $700 mid-gen upgrade.

Microsoft owns all Activision Blizzard’s franchises following its $69 billion acquisition of the company in 2023, and since then has added a number of the company’s games to its subscription service, Game Pass. Diablo 4 is in Game Pass, although not in its Standard tier.

Diablo boss Rod Fergusson confirmed the support in a tweet, without adding any details such as when the game will be updated or what players can expect on PS5 Pro. “Very proud of our hardworking team to make this happen,” Fergusson added. “More details at a later date.” PS5 Pro itself launches on November 7, with the Vessel of Hatred expansion out next week.

Over 60 games are expected to be PS5 Pro Enhanced, according to eagle-eyed fans who’ve been keeping an eye on the PlayStation Store (IGN has a list of all the confirmed PS5 Pro Enhanced games so far). These games can be identified with a PS5 Pro Enhanced label within their title.

PS5 Pro has an AI-powered upscaling feature called PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) that can automatically improve the image clarity of games, but PS5 Pro Enhanced games take particular advantage of the beefier console’s features.

PS5 Pro customers are now wondering whether more Activision Blizzard games will get the Enhanced treatment, with Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 of particular interest.

At a recent PS5 Pro preview event, we spoke with the technical leads of some of PlayStation’s biggest games, including Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and The Last of Us Part 2, to discuss the improvements we can expect to see now there’s a more powerful PS5 on the market.

In an interview with IGN, Saber Interactive Chief Creative Officer Tim Willits said he’s hopeful the PS5 Pro will improve Space Marine 2 by default via PSSR, but did not confirm a PS5 Pro Enhanced patch.

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 has launched on PS5 in Japan even as its developer battles a lawsuit with Nintendo and The Pokémon Company in the country.

Palworld’s long-awaited PS5 release shadow-dropped on September 24 after an announcement during Sony’s State of Play broadcast, but while gamers in 68 countries worldwide were downloading the survival and crafting game dubbed ‘Pokémon with guns’ on PlayStation, Japanese gamers had to wait.

The Japanese PS5 release comes hot on the heels of Nintendo and The Pokémon Company’s shock joint lawsuit against Pocketpair for alleged patent infringement, which was filed in Japan.

Pocketpair has insisted it had 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.

And in a further sign that Pocketpair remains undeterred in pushing Palword as far is can possibly go, it this week announced a deal with PUBG company Krafton to develop a mobile version of the hit game.

Tweeting the announcement of Palworld’s PS5 launch in Japan, Pocketpair apologized for the delay and promised to “continue to provide exciting and large-scale updates to the PS5 version so that everyone can enjoy the game even more.”

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.

Always the bridesmaid but never the bride, SpongeBob’s sleepy sidekick, Patrick Star, has often been overlooked in favour of his over-the-top neighbour – at least in the world of video games. That hasn’t stopped him from making a home in our hearts, though, so I was riding high when I learned the enigmatic starfish was finally being thrust into the limelight… but then the emotional rollercoaster dipped back down as I discovered SpongeBob SquarePants: The Patrick Star Game is little more than a sea of uninspired minigames and repetitive activities that waste almost all of its obvious potential, outside of a boatload of cute references to the show.

Stepping into the flowery shorts of Patrick himself, you embark on a six-hour sandbox platforming expedition through a thoughtfully recreated Bikini Bottom. In addition to having a dedicated burp button, Patrick can pick up items with either hand and fall asleep on command, turning the invertebrate into a possessed bowling ball that you can send hurtling across the sea floor. Due to the underwater setting, gravity is kinder than in most physics-based puzzlers, meaning there’s added time to plot your jumps and fix mistakes when you’re off the ground. This forgiving, familiar control scheme is applied to a mixed bag of activities dotted around the map, like skydiving or smashing up crates in the local Rage Room. Succeeding in these tasks rewards you with precious Sand Dollars that will eventually afford Patrick a slot to compete against his porous bestie in the prestigious Fry Cook Games. It’s an approachable setup buffeted by charming but eventually repetitious conversations with beloved characters like Mr. Krabs, Plankton and Sandy Cheeks.

The surrounding cartoon world is a blend of solid and breakable structures and allowed me to engage my inner chaos merchant as I took out any aggression on glass panes and metal walls alike. It isn’t all down to Patrick’s spiny appendages, though, as you can also take advantage of equippable tools littered around the vibrant underwater wonderland which bolster his platforming abilities. Whether I was sailing across a valley with the help of a paraglider or taking out a false wall with a comically oversized hammer it was easy to get caught in a chaotic feedback loop, bounding around the suburbs and bothering the Bottom-ites. But while it all sounds very freeing on paper, it’s also paper-thin, and I soon saw the limits of this reasonably sized world. When you push the haphazard reactivity too far the mask starts to slip, with clipping issues and unusual NPC behavior that illuminates the frayed technical seams that eventually come apart and leave an otherwise good first impression in tatters.

Perhaps the saving grace here is that Bikini Bottom as a whole is such a joy to explore, for the short time the novelty lasts at least. It’s an interactive diorama, decorated with hallowed locations like Mrs Puff’s Boating School and Glove World, and it speaks to the power of SpongeBob SquarePants that I was so enchanted by the referential signage, food items, and flower clouds scattered across the sky. The nostalgia is compounded by Patrick’s unlockable outfits, too – while the promise of entering the Fry Cook Games didn’t prompt much passion, grinding for iconic outfits like The Elastic Waistband and Patrick’s ‘Sweet Victory’ suit certainly did.

That magic eventually runs out, though, and a broader shallowness rears its head. While this is felt across The Patrick Star Game as a whole, it’s most apparent in its inconsistent array of minigames, which range from well-meaning imitations of pre-existing ideas to thankless busywork. I most enjoyed the Chum Bucket, an Overcooked clone that had me scrambling to make gooey buckets of eyeballs and bones under a time limit for paying customers. Elsewhere, I found myself clearing out lounging locals from Squidward’s favourite sunbathing spot, which both felt on-point thematically and leveraged the wacky physics to great effect. In these moments, I was reminded of The Simpsons Game‘s hilarious and moreish slate of tasks, which similarly combined its show’s unique humour with appropriately comical jobs.

Unfortunately, these moments of clarity were soon overshadowed by a glut of laboriousness. That includes seeking out endless golden gloves across a pint-sized amusement park or trawling the dump in search of an ever-increasing number of treasure chests. In the latter, I soon resolved to tear the place apart with an enormous magnet, but that approach only made my search more challenging as fished-up cars and other detritus got caught in the environment, trapping spoiled mattresses in a state of annoying eternal squeaking. Ultimately, I abandoned all hope and moved on, searching for alternate means of earning the Sand Dollars necessary to enter the Fry Cook Games. And, even when I did reach that coveted finale, I was met with more of the same clunky interactions I was already familiar with – it felt fitting that Patrick fell asleep during the closing ceremony.

It’s a shame that The Patrick Star Game resorts to simplistic collect-and-clear tasks when there’s such a deep well of SpongeBob lore to pull from. There are shades of this in the Bikini Bottom University segment, where you take on Squidward in an art contest, but its on-rails, oversimplified nature makes it hard to feel too invested. It would have been nice to see a more cohesive story play out instead of dealing with so many disconnected and lacklustre cameos.

It’s small consolation, but at least when I did get bored of the repetitive minigames, I could switch gears and tackle a list of more specific Feats, earning Sand Dollars for serving up burnt Krabby Patties or completing my childhood dream: pulling a full-blown 360 on the neighbourhood swing set. The light-hearted requirements of these Feats provided focus when I was losing interest, and the collectable Mayo Jars placed throughout Bikini Bottom broke up the post-game monotony with some proper platforming challenges.