The team behind ‘Tetris: The Grand Master’ series.
If you need more Tetris in your life, Tetris: The Grand Master developer Arika has announced it’s signed a license agreement for a new Tetris game.
According to a translation of the official PR, the new title is based on the concept of “Tetris that makes you better at Tetris” (thanks, Gematsu).
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
The new system is apparently “ready” to go.
There have been all sorts of rumours popping up about the Switch “successor” and now another individual has chimed in.
The latest claims about Nintendo’s next-generation hardware come from Ruben Mercado – the CEO of video game accessories manufacturer Blade. Speaking to the Spanish website Vandal on a podcast recently, Mercado said the new device is apparently “done” and “ready” to go.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Today, card games are everywhere, but in 1993, the trading card game (TCG) genre was born with just one: Magic: The Gathering, created by Richard Garfield. I became a fan a few years later, in 1996, during the release of the Fourth Edition core set.
Once I got the hang of the game, I was hooked for nearly three years. The artwork drew me in, and the flavor text – often witty, dark, and sarcastic – kept me entertained, but what I loved most was playing. The tactile thrill of placing a card on the table, imagining myself as a powerful planeswalker commanding forces beyond mortal comprehension, was unbeatable.
Though other trading card games existed back then, my loyalty to Magic: The Gathering consumed both my attention and my budget. Fast forward to today, and the landscape is even more crowded. The old titans of the genre are still thriving, while countless newer games vie for attention, each bringing something unique to the table.
With that in mind, here are the 10 best trading and living card games to dive into in 2024 – games that are fun to play, boast active communities, and have the potential for long-term growth. Whatever you decide to try out and play, make sure you have a community to share it with: either a local one where you live or an online one that is supportive. The community surrounding the game is as important as the game itself.
These are the established choices for anyone who’s deciding on a trading card game.
The original trading card playing experience, Magic: The Gathering established so many norms that we take for granted today. Plains, Swamps, Forests, Mountains, Islands – these were the lands you drew power from, to call angels, demons, zombies, orcs, goblins, and enchanted creatures to your side. The benefits of picking up Magic: The Gathering now, nearly 30 years into its run, are the same as the drawbacks: It’s just so big at this point. There’s a lot to explore and play with, but it can be intimidating and overwhelming to learn it from scratch. As was true back when I started playing, the best way to learn is not by reading the instruction booklet that comes with every starter deck, but by having a friend walk you through a match.
You can check out our guide to all of the upcoming MTG releases coming in 2024 and beyond.
Still popular after all these years, Pokemon TCG started in 1996. Its cards in America were originally published by Wizards of the Coast, the same company that published Magic: The Gathering. Pokemon’s fan base has always been more collector-heavy than player-heavy, but this has been especially true in recent years, as the value of Pokemon cards has continued to go up. (Most famously in 2021, Logan Paul paid $5.27 million for a Grade 10 Pokemon Illustrator card, which he occasionally wears around his neck when he wrestles in WWE.) Beyond this, there’s an appealing simplicity to Pokemon, in that your turn is largely your own; you aren’t overlapping moves or playing over your opponent’s turn, which makes things a lot more streamlined.
You can check out our guide to all of the upcoming Pokemon TCG releases coming in 2024 and beyond.
Recognized in 2009 by Guinness as the highest-selling trading card game in the world, Yu-Gi-Oh! popularized chains as a gameplay mechanic, and it was considerably more chaotic than its predecessors. You’re often countering and making significant moves during your opponent’s turn in addition to your own, and on its highest levels, the victor can be determined on a starting hand and who goes first. Your enjoyment will largely depend on who you learn from, especially if you’re coming into the game cold.
The seven TCGs below might not have the decades-long legacies of the Big Three, but they’re making plenty of noise and are worth checking out.
Newly revamped for 2020, Digimon’s main draw is its progression: Hatch an egg, have it undergo Digivolution (which allows you to improve upon your Digimon’s stats), and move it to the Battle Area to attack your opponent. It is still a newer TCG game, relatively speaking, which means that it doesn’t have the legacy baggage of the prior three. The community is notably welcoming and open to new innovations, and the metagame is diverse and still in the process of being defined.
Set in a cyberpunk dystopia, Netrunner, which pits hackers against a faceless corporate entity, has a long, complex history. The original physical card game came out in 1996, and it was revamped and released as Android: Netrunner in 2012. Today, it currently exists as an ongoing fan project. Non-profit game publisher Null Signal Games releases new starter and expansion sets, and the PDFs are all available on a pay-what-you-want basis. These new sets are also compatible with the prior Android: Netrunner sets, and everything, from the artwork to the new mechanics, feels legitimate and true to form.
When Disney commits to something, they go full throttle. Disney Lorcana, which draws from over 100 years of Disney animated history, takes full advantage of the nostalgia and sea of creative properties inherent in its brand. Instead of land, you summon with ink, and true to Disney’s family-friendly image, you accumulate 20 points instead of decimating your opponent’s life to win. There are currently over 600 different cards in print between the starter set and the two expansions. The newest expansion, Chapter 4: Ursula’s Return, launched on May 31.
Name recognition goes a long way. In Marvel Champions, select the specific Marvel superhero that you want to play. Then, team up with other players and work through different scenarios, in which you defeat villains and foil their schemes. The Core set starts you with five different selectable heroes: Iron Man, Black Panther, Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, and She-Hulk. Subsequent Expansion packs give you prebuilt decks that allow you to play as over 30 additional characters and face additional villains with different storylines. It’s among one of our favorite Marvel card games available.
Inspired by the 1981 horror RPG Call of Cthulhu, Arkham Horror is a supernatural, Lovecraftian mystery game. It puts you in the shoes of an investigator, who must work through a creepy horror scenario and emerge with their body and sanity intact. You start by choosing an investigator: a Guardian, Seeker, Rogue, Mystic, Survivor, or Neutral, each of which has its specific strengths and weaknesses. Then, you investigate missing people, creepy cults, rumors of a lost ancient city, and more. It’s all very evocative and tentacled. It’s a great RPG card game worth getting into
Star Wars: Unlimited is a brand new card game, but the established pre-existing universe of Star Wars makes this an excellent place to start; its longevity is nearly guaranteed, given the franchise’s popularity. You play as a leader of your respective faction – the starter set includes Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. Then you wage war, sending out droids and troops or using Force powers until one base is destroyed. The current set, Spark of Rebellion, focuses largely on the events of the original trilogy. The most recent expansion set, Shadows of the Galaxy, focuses on the criminal underbelly of the galaxy, and features mercenaries and bounty hunters.
The creators of Flesh and Blood are traditionalists; they designed their game to be played in person – hence, in “Flesh and Blood” – rather than an online format. The game is fantasy-themed, and you have a hero who falls into one of 11 classes: Assassin, Brute, Guardian, Illusionist, Mechanologist, Merchant, Ninja, Ranger, Runeblade, Warrior, or Wizard. You equip your hero, build a deck around them, and send them into battle with spells, blows, and counterblows at the ready.
Kevin Wong is a contributing freelancer for IGN, specializing in LEGO and Card Games. His byline has appeared in numerous publications, including Complex, Engadget, Vice, Playboy, Gamespot, Popverse, and Kotaku. A pop culture aficionado, Kevin has written long-form features on a wide range of subjects, including movies and television, video games, professional wrestling, comics, and emerging tech. He lives in New York with his wife and son. Follow him on Twitter at @kevinjameswong.
Every year I get my hopes up thinking, “This is it: This’ll be the year that EA’s NHL finally gets it together and delivers on its full potential,” only to then spend dozens of hours playing a game that is almost fundamentally the same as the one I played the previous year. There are rare exceptions to this; even though I had my issues with NHL 24, the Sustained Pressure System and Exhaustion Engine at least added something new to the overall gameplay, and NHL 21’s Be a Pro Mode has become a staple. Unfortunately, it seems like NHL 25 isn’t going to be one of those exceptions. Keep in mind that these are just my initial, early impressions of NHL 25 after just a few hours on the ice. But you only get to make one first impression, and right now I’m not feeling too optimistic.
Mechanically I’ve yet to see a lot of meaningful changes, but on the surface level, at least, it’s clear right from the start that NHL 25 is the first game in the series built exclusively for current-gen consoles. The graphics are sharp and the action looks better than ever. Animations are smoother and there’s something satisfying about seeing how much wear and tear you put on the ice. Players now look much more like humans and less like animatronics, so zoom-ins on faces will hopefully no longer provide a lot of nightmare fuel. We can’t say there’s been no positive steps made.
However, Franchise is the only mode that’s been given a significant overhaul relative to last year’s version. The most immediately noticeable change is that the newly redesigned hub menu is sleeker and easier to parse. But there have also been actual gameplay additions, too. For example, GMs must convince free agents to sign with their team if the player’s interest in the organization is too low.
How they go about doing that is up to them. Maybe it’s by promising to let them play on the first line. You can attempt to charm them, but if it fails it might kill their interest in your offer entirely. And players can actually negotiate no-movement or no-trade clauses into their contracts, which is a feature that the NHL playerbase has been requesting for a while now.
GMs can also discuss what the team should be focusing on during the offseason with head coaches, which essentially provides season-wide buffs and debuffs for the team. Players can also be approached with the conversation system to let GMs develop them individually. Seasonal goals and on-ice plays can be assigned, which will lead to boosts if the player is successful. I haven’t had the time I’ve needed yet to see how much impact these types of decisions will actually have in a Franchise playthrough, so I won’t be able to say for certain if these are meaningful until my final review.
You might be wondering how Be a Pro is different this time around. Well, it’s not. Even the intro cinematics seem to be identical, which is doubly bad because I had this same complaint last year. The entire mode just seems shoehorned into each installment with the bare minimum of care or attention. I would love to have some type of story mode that was more than just text bubbles and choosing a response like in those annoying mobile game ads, but I guess that’s just not going to happen anytime soon.
So you can say I’m not wowed by what I’ve seen so far, but we’re still in the first period here: I’ve yet to touch the online modes at all, though I did briefly open a HUT Pack only to have NHL 25 crash midway through the lootbox animation. Hopefully I won’t encounter too many more glitches like that. I’ll be upfront and admit that Franchise Mode has never appealed to me too much because that type of sports sim management is not what I’m personally looking for in a hockey game – I prefer to be out on the ice than in the office – but I do plan to give it a fair shot and see if that mode finally clicks with me thanks to the new changes.
Based on what I’ve played so far, though? I’m just not feeling very impressed by NHL 25. For being the first NHL game exclusively for current-gen consoles, it’s a shame that it seems like it’s still stuck in the same last-gen rut.
Over the past few days you might’ve caught wind of some controversy stemming from IGN’s community game of the year Face-Off. It’s become a full-on drama, complete with literal ups and downs, shocking twists, and accusations of foul play flying. There’s also quite a bit of confusion, so to clear it up a bit I’m going to walk you through how we got here, and how we’re making it right.
Early this year IGN rolled out a new version of our Face-Off tool, and it’s become a pet project of mine to use it to get our community to create ranked lists of games, movies, TV shows, and literally everything else that people have opinions about. It works by showing you two things and letting you pick whichever you think should win, whether that’s The Empire Strikes Back vs Attack of the Clones, or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2011) vs Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2023). It then generates a list of your personal rankings, while also mashing your votes together with everybody else to create a community ranking. It’s far from perfect, and we hope to iterate on it so that it becomes a better experience that creates a more accurate personal list for you in fewer matches. Even so, it’s been a lot of fun to mess with and find interesting ways to use it – and to watch people agonize over tough choices between two things they love.
On February 22, after a few big 2024 games had launched, I started the What’s Your Game of the Year So Far? Face-Off as an experiment to see how the running tally would look if we’re adding new games as they come out. Importantly, this was an informal test that asked a casual question about how people are feeling in the moment, and it was never presented as our official Game of the Year community vote. We still plan to do that the old-fashioned way later this year, and it will be entirely separate from this. (To answer the frequently asked question of why Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is on the list when it’s a DLC expansion and not a full new game: Because there are no rules and I wanted to see what would happen! I’ll put Starfield: Shattered Space on there next week, too.) This use case technically wasn’t what the tool was built for, but I wanted to see if it would work – and the results have been promising.
How the list shakes out is proving to be very interesting because the community ranking is based on the win/loss ratio, rather than the sheer number of votes a game receives. That means a new entry added in November can outrank something added in May simply because it wins more often, as opposed to more times. For instance, something that’s chosen as the winner in 6,500 out of 10,000 matches will outrank another item that wins 60,000 out of 100,000 matches. (It’s very silly when you add something new and it’s #1 with a 100% win ratio for a brief moment, but that quickly evens out.) So, while the hot new thing might get a lot of wins shortly after it comes out, after the honeymoon period expires and people move on to other games its ranking might fall if it’s more of a flash in the pan than something that sticks with you for a long time, as truly great games do. Ideally, people would only vote on games that they’ve actually played and disqualify the rest (using the little X in the corner of each card) so they’re not voting against something they don’t have an informed opinion on, but realistically I know the overwhelming majority is not going to do that. This is purely a popularity contest.
Even so, it’s been a treat to watch how things have played out, and the resulting ranking is a fascinating melding of thousands of different people’s opinions. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth had held a steady lead most of the year, but Shadow of the Erdtree was nipping at its heels for months. (See? People wanted to vote for it.) When Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Helldivers 2, Space Marine 2, Astro Bot, and Black Myth: Wukong, and other popular games came out, they shot up into the top half of the list and jockeyed for position. There were no hard rules (again, Face-Offs are a wild west territory for us!) but I mostly added games that either scored 8 or above on IGN or had proven themselves popular or at least interesting elsewhere. At the same time, I periodically pruned low-performing games from the bottom of the rankings that looked like they were never going to recover to make way for new entries and prevent the list of games from becoming unmanageably long – Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League didn’t make it, I’m afraid.
Until recently, the GOTY So Far Face-Off wasn’t exactly lighting the world on fire in terms of traffic numbers (not a ton of people are looking for Game of the Year content in April). Still, it had been humming along nicely, racking up hundreds of thousands of votes, and I think there’s a lot of potential for it in the future.
Then, late last week, it dramatically blew up: The Black Myth: Wukong fandom discovered the Face-Off page and, seeing that their favorite game was within striking distance of the top of the list, rallied around it. We saw a massive influx of traffic from Chinese and other Asian sources to that page, and over the weekend Black Myth’s win percentage went from a very respectable showing in the 60s all the way up to an absolutely astronomical 90.4%, blowing past Rebirth’s relatively meager 72%. We never saw that coming, and what had been a relatively stable list was upended so quickly our scheduled social media repromotion of a Playlist built to reflect the top games – as they had been – was caught flat-footed and caused major confusion because it hadn’t been updated yet. Face-Offs are dynamic and react to the community; Playlists are not and must be manually updated. We’ve learned from this that the two probably should not mix!
Aside from that wrinkle, this response to Face-Offs is exactly what I hoped would happen… but on an intensity level I hadn’t imagined. Our goal is for Face-Offs to be fun, and by golly, people were having an absolute blast with it – some were even livestreaming as they refreshed the page to see how high Black Myth could go! For the record, we don’t consider it cheating at all for fan communities to champion their game and support it by voting, and it’s actually encouraged for people to run through multiple times. (The double-bracket system we currently use means that a single run could possibly eliminate a #3 choice early on, and everything is not matched against everything, so more data gives a better picture of your preferences.) We were thrilled that so many Black Myth fans noticed the Face-Off and participated in force, and we’d love nothing more than for other fandoms to join in the fray. Friendly rivalries like that would be the best-case scenario for us, and we’d find out what other games those groups are into in the process by seeing how the rest of the list shook out. In the past few days we’ve gotten nearly twice as many votes on this Face-Off than it’d racked up in the previous six months.
But of course, this is the internet, and on the internet we know certain immutable truths. One is that online polling is not secure. Just about anything can be manipulated if someone puts their mind to it, especially if you’re not creating multiple layers of security and identity verification to lock it down. Face-Offs aren’t intended to be taken super seriously, so we don’t even require you to create an IGN account to participate – as we do with our traditional Community Game of the Year vote – because we want as many people to join in as possible. (We’d love it if you did create an account, though – it’ll save your progress on a run and your personal vote count if you’re signed in.)
Another truth is that the more people pay attention to something, the more likely it is that a bad actor tries to ruin the fun. In this case, it appears that someone – probably fully aware of how closely this page was being watched – figured out a way to quickly dump tens of thousands of votes against Black Myth: Wukong into the system, dropping it back down into the high 60s in a matter of hours. If trolling the Black Myth: Wukong fanbase during a moment of triumph was the goal here, it was extremely effective. We’ve seen a lot of anger and accusations of altering the results leveled at us, which is disappointing because again, this was all supposed to be for fun.
To be explicitly clear, no one at IGN tampered with the results of this Face-Off in any way during this period. We’ve spent the past few days investigating what happened, and how we can keep Face-Offs making people happy instead of mad going forward. Here’s what the voting activity looked like on September 21 through 24, by the hour, from the top regions where people were participating.
You can see the massive, sustained influx of pro-Black Myth: Wukong voters who pushed it to the top of the list, followed by a short but potent spike. That corresponds to the period where it fell back down.
The fact that Black Myth’s vote total so quickly surpassed that of games that had been accruing votes for months before it was added to the list of games strongly suggests that someone exploited the system to allow them to vote only on one specific game – something the randomization of matches is intended to prevent. Likewise, that double-elimination bracket system means you should only be able to vote against a game twice in a run before it stops showing up, since it clearly wasn’t going to be your favorite, but that also seems to have been bypassed to achieve this volume of losses in such a short time.
Unfortunately, since Face-Offs aren’t limited to logged-in users it’s not obvious which votes are real and which are fake, so we can’t simply delete the exact number of suspicious votes. However, in the interest of fairness, we’ve decided to remove all of the negative votes from the period that the Black Myth: Wukong community and our engineers have identified as the most likely to be fraudulent, during which the win percentage fell at what should’ve been an impossible rate – a total of 46,000 losses. As of this writing, that change moves Black Myth: Wukong back into the #1 position on the list, with a 76% win rate. It’s unfortunate to lose any valid votes that were caught up in the mix, but this is the best solution we have given the information available.
Over the next few months we’ll keep an eye on this Face-Off to guard against other efforts to manipulate the results. This being the internet, there’s no realistic way to prevent someone who knows what they’re doing from playing dirty tricks on a anonymous online poll, but we’ve taken steps to at least mitigate their effectiveness going forward, and we hope to continue to improve Face-Offs in a lot of different ways to make them even more fun to engage with. I hope you continue to enjoy them!
In the meantime, our What’s Your Game of the Year So Far? Face-Off continues: Yesterday I added The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (to both this Face-Off and our Zelda-specific one), so if you’re playing and have an idea of where it belongs relative to other 2024 games, we’d love to have your vote. If you’re passionate about movies or TV shows this year, check out our Face-Offs for those as well. And share them with your friends – I’m trying to make these a thing.
Dan Stapleton is IGN’s Director of Reviews and self-proclaimed Chief Face-Officer. Follow him on Bluesky.
It’s never too early or too late to get a sprinkle of horror in your games, especially if you’re facing a hopeless invasion by an all-consuming horde of Meat monsters!
In Iron Meat, you’ll run through a forest wet with blood-soaked rain, search for survivors inside a Meat-infested base and confront the entity responsible for plunging Earth into a desperate state of survival.
Iron Meat takes place in an alternate reality where humanity must fend off an invasion by a ravenous, all-consuming biomass known only as the “Meat”. When an experiment goes horribly wrong at a lunar research base, causing its head scientist–Yuri Markov–to become assimilated by his own test subject, humanity suddenly finds itself in a struggle for survival. After the Meat-infected Markov opens a portal to Earth, his new army of Meat creatures begins its rapid expansion across the region.
You’ll dive into the invasion firsthand as you run through a forest sector bathed in the blood of your fallen comrades, as crimson rain falls around you. Volleys of gunfire light up the trees in the distance–a sign that your fellow soldiers are desperately trying to halt the seemingly endless hordes.
At a fallen research base, you’ll fight your way through hallways and corridors overrun by monsters, with floors ridden with corpses of scientists and half-infected mutilations. In this den of horrors, some Meat monsters have evolved and ingrained themselves into the base’s technology, allowing them to control different mechanisms of the former human stronghold.
Not even a moving train is safe from being consumed by the Meat! You’ll jump from train car to train car, as you blast through infected humans and Meat-ified overgrowths waiting to chomp you into bits! And if that isn’t enough to make you lose hope, you’ll have to shoot down flying cars transformed into hungry monsters–and fully equipped with their infected drivers!
Running through the streets of a once densely populated city, you’ll find only pits of fire and mounds of fleshy tendrils waiting to consume you. Infected soldiers aim at you from destroyed apartment complexes, and malfunctioning turrets have no favorites for who to shoot at! And if you thought the Meat couldn’t get even more outrageously evolved, you’ll be staring up at a massive monster house eager to feast on its next meal: you.
2024 marks the official start of the Meat’s invasion of Earth, so grab your favorite weapons, grab a friend, and grab a seat to defend the world against the endless, bloodthirsty hordes in Iron Meat today!
Retroware
MULTI-PHASE BOSS FIGHTS
Iron Meat pays homage to classic run-and-gun titles from the past, with intense boss fights fixed into multiple phases. With three difficulty settings to choose from, players can put their skills to the test, where a higher difficulty is rewarded with an even more challenging boss battle.
MULTIPLAYER COUCH CO-OP
Who says you have to take on The Meat invasion alone? With 2-player couch co-op, you can grab a buddy to leave a trail of bloody, Meat-infected corpses together! It’s double the firepower, double the carnage, and double the MEAT!
OVER 30 UNLOCKABLE SKINS
You don’t have to be a soldier to fight against The Meat. Hell, you don’t even have to be a HUMAN to do so! With over 30 unlockable skins to choose from, players can customize their character the way they want. Each skin comes with interchangeable parts, allowing for greater customization with mixing and matching. Want a shark head on a robot body with dinosaur feet? DONE. Maybe a half human, half doggo? YOU BET! Or how about a cowboy with a tail and demon wings? Hmm…YEP!
The post How Iron Meat’s Levels Bring You a Gore-ific Experience appeared first on Xbox Wire.
In the trailer for Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, Yakuza fan-favorite Goro Majima wakes on a beach with his memory wiped. A kid with a tiger cub pal named Noah finds him, and before long, Majima finds himself beating up a pirate captain and taking over his ship (or so it’s implied.) I got my first hands-on with the latest in the Yakuza franchise, and I’d love to tell you about it.
I played a short portion of Pirate Yakuza when Majima, Noah, and friends arrived in Infinite Wealth’s familiar locale of Honolulu, but this was very much constructed as a demo, so I can’t be certain of how similar the next series of events would be to the full game. First, a short combat tutorial on mechanics potentially unfamiliar to Infinite Wealth players: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii isn’t a turn-based RPG like Infinite Wealth, but instead an action beat-em-up like the original Yakuza games. This short tutorial primarily described Majima’s two fighting styles: Majima’s classic Mad Dog Style and the new, aptly pirate-themed Sea Dog Style.
In Sea Dog Style, Majima wields dual cutlasses, a long-range hand cannon, and a wire hook that allows you to pull in close to a targeted enemy. A cutlass can also be thrown as a boomerang if a button is held down. Combat is engaging and fun, and I can see it being varied enough to keep things interesting with just its two different styles.
After the basic tutorial, I could choose whether to go to the fabled Madlantis to continue the story, or do one of a few side activities: Karaoke, Dragon Kart, Crazy Delivery, and fit check (change clothes).
I don’t have quite enough experience with these mini-games in previous Yakuza games, so I couldn’t comment on whether anything substantial had changed about them, but they were all fun and worthy of spending time on for the entertainment factor alone. I can tell you that long-time Yakuza fans will definitely recognize at least some of the songs available in karaoke, though.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon’s mini-game Dragon Kart wasn’t in Infinite Wealth, making it the most far-removed of the side activities available during the demo. This absorbing mini-game is pretty built out in its own right and is basically Yakuza Mario Kart, complete with boosts, drifting, coins, and items. You can also go to a changing room to switch out Majima’s clothes for both his regular and pirate styles.
In between side-activities, I became best friends with a little bird named Joseph and used the new Wire Hook while out exploring to gather a high-up butterfly. Apparently you can swing around Hawaii with it, but I didn’t see any obvious points to trigger this when I played.
Finally, for the main event, I got to see a bit of the brand new location of Madlantis. This grungy yet lively ship-graveyard-turned-mini-city-inside-a-cave-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean looks like a worthy hub. It’s at least home to Pirate Colosseum, where, in the full game, you’ll be able to engage in “intense ship battles” as the Goro Pirates.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to try out any sort of ship battle in the demo, which was a little disappointing to say the least, but Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is ship-shaping up to be a seaworthy spin-off with a fin-favorite at its helm. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)
FPS games have captivated players for years, offering dynamic combat and adrenaline-pumping challenges. But what if we added a gothic horror atmosphere and hordes of hellish creatures to the mix? Welcome to Crossbow: Bloodnight, a game that redefines fast-paced, retro-style shooter experiences.
You become a hunter, armed only with a mythical crossbow, tasked with facing endless waves of demonic forces. Your mission? Survive. The game not only delivers a frenetic pace but also evokes the spirit of classic arcade titles loved by millions.
Crossbow: Bloodnight stands out by focusing on rapid, arcade-like gameplay that demands precise aiming and quick reflexes. It’s a game designed for true old-school FPS fans who thrive on relentless action with no breaks. Every second counts in this fight for survival, and every defeat teaches you something new. What’s more, the controls are perfectly optimized for your trusty Xbox controller, making it easy for any player to dive headfirst into the chaos.
The best action games make you feel every moment of the fight, every shot, and every movement. Crossbow: Bloodnight achieves this through its fast-paced, dynamic combat where there’s no room for mistakes. Battling waves of enemies requires mastery of controls and quick decision-making.
At the same time, the game plunges players into a gothic horror world, creating a perfect blend of dread and excitement, reminiscent of classic titles from the ’90s and early 2000s. Each playthrough offers new challenges, and with the ever-changing enemy patterns, every session feels fresh and thrilling.
There’s nothing more satisfying than a well-aimed crossbow shot that takes down a group of enemies in one swift motion. In Crossbow: Bloodnight, the crossbow isn’t just a weapon—it’s your key to survival. Every shot needs to be precise, and every decision, calculated.
The game throws you into a mysterious, gothic world where you must fight to survive in the most treacherous of environments. Only the fastest and most skilled will make it through the night and see their name climb the leaderboards.
Creating a dynamic FPS within a horror setting requires not only great combat mechanics but also artistic excellence. Crossbow: Bloodnight excels in this regard with its pixel-art aesthetic, paying homage to classic games while incorporating modern visual effects. Every level, every arena is filled with detail that brings the gothic horror atmosphere to life.
With perfectly matched music and sound effects, every battle is an immersive experience that pulls you in for hours. This is a game that not only tests your skills but also your mental endurance.
Dive into the relentless action of Crossbow: Bloodnight, where every second counts in the fight for survival. Battle waves of enemies, survive the night, and etch your name in history as the ultimate hunter. The game is a love letter to classic FPS titles while offering fresh, modern thrills.
Play Crossbow: Bloodnight today and experience fast-paced action like never before.
Hyperstrange
Game features:
– Arcane Crossbow with various shooting modes, further empowered by siphoned spirits of your prey.
– Fluid, skill-rewarding movement mechanics with dashes, jumps, and bunny hops.
– Devastating special attack that takes time to recharge and is best used in strategic moments.
– Instant respawn button and fast respawn after death, so you can stay immersed in the game.
– Six enemy types in two variants, endlessly flooding the darkness-clad courtyard of the old, desecrated abbey that becomes the arena of your struggle.
– Global leaderboard system so you can compete against friends and strangers.
The Coven of Crossbow, an ancient order of hunters sworn to guard the balance between the forces of heaven and hell prevailed against all odds. In the year 1666, as fire and plague ravages London, the Coven is facing its greatest challenge yet. It is The Ancient Horror from Beyond makes its way towards our reality. In its wake, legions of nightmare creatures spawn in the darkness. The Bloodnight is upon us, let the hunt begin!
The post Crossbow: Bloodnight’s Fast-Paced Blend of FPS Action and Gothic Horror appeared first on Xbox Wire.
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Hello listeners, we’ve got a bunch to unpack! This week, the PlayStation Podcast team dives into some of the hottest reveals coming out of this week’s news-packed State of Play. Plus, Sid discusses his recent hands-on experience with PS5 Pro launching on November 7.
Stuff We Talked About
Sid Shuman – Senior Director of Content Communications, SIE
Tim Turi – Content Communications Manager, SIE
Thanks to Dormilón for our rad theme song and show music.
[Editor’s note: PSN game release dates are subject to change without notice. Game details are gathered from press releases from their individual publishers and/or ESRB rating descriptions.]
Apparently it’s not too late for Nintendo to be releasing new Switch editions. The Nintendo Switch Lite: Hyrule Edition has just recently been released with a launch price of $209.99 and you can only get it at Best Buy. That is $10 more than the cost of a standard Switch Lite, justified by the fact that a 12-month Switch Online + Expansion Pack membership – which normally retails for $49 – is bundled with the console.
The Switch Lite Hyrule Edition was announced during the June 18 Nintendo Direct alongside the upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. We originally saw it available overseas in the UK, but Best Buy has exclusive rights here.
This particular edition is adorned in a gold colorway very similar to the Switch OLED Hyrule Edition. It is a gorgeous metallic finish that looks even better than in the photos. Aside from the tiny Triforce logo, the front of the case is free from any busy embellishments. The rear sports a single large embossed Hyrule Crest. It’s the best-looking Switch Lite so far.
The Switch Lite’s major draw is that it’s $100 less expensive than the Switch and $150 less than the Switch OLED. It’s compatible with most Nintendo Switch games and it runs off the same hardware, so performance is identical.
The three main tradeoffs of the Switch Lite are that: 1) the controllers are not detachable, 2) the console can’t be docked and played on a TV, and 3) the display is smaller (5.5″ vs 6.2″ on Switch and 7″ on Switch OLED).
If you were intending to use the Switch solely as a handheld console, you might be better off just getting the Switch Lite. Even though the controls aren’t detachable, the Switch Lite does support wireless Bluetooth, so you can always purchase another pair of Joy-Cons, a Switch Pro controller, or a compatible third-party wireless Switch controller.
For many people, Switch Online is a necessary add-on for a complete Switch experience. You will absolutely need this if you plan on accessing the online portions of your favorite games, like being able to play online against other opponents in Super Smash Bros Ultimate or Splatoon 3, downloading other people’s creations in Minecraft or Super Mario Maker 2, or visiting someone else’s island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Other perks include access to the NES, SNES, and Game Boy emulator libraries so you can play classic games like Super Mario Bros. 3, F-Zero, and Donkey Kong Country,exclusive deals and offers at the eShop, cloud saves, access to the mobile app, and more.
The Expansion Pack gives you access to more emulator games and free DLCs. Here’s the list:
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn’t hunting for deals for other people at work, he’s hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
