Video Games | Page 638 of 1123

Suit Up for Madden NFL 24 Early with EA Play

Madden NFL fans: start the biggest Madden season early with Madden NFL 24! EA Play members can hop into a 10-hour trial of the game right now – three days before release. With early Madden NFL 24 access, you’ll experience new gameplay depth that delivers more control and realism on Xbox Series X|S through the next evolution of FieldSENSE, and the debut of SAPIEN Technology which makes characters more human and anatomically correct.

EA Play members can perfect their tackling skills by jumping into Madden NFL 24 now and earn member-only rewards, including a special Welcome Pack for Madden Ultimate Team – featuring four Elite Players – as well as recurring Ultimate Packs throughout the season.

In addition to Madden NFL 24, here are even more member content and rewards available now in EA Play:

Battlefield 2042 Lacuna Vehicle Skin – Now to September 1
Apex Legends Terminal Bliss Weapon Charm – Now to September 11
Apex Legends Resurrection Supercharge Pack – Now to September 11
Need for Speed Unbound Lamborghini Countach LPI 800-4 (2021) – Aug 16 to October 9
PGA TOUR EA Golf Polo Shirts – Now to September 20
NHL 23 WOC August Bag – Now to August 31
F1 23 5000 XP Boost – Now to August 31
FIFA 23 Futties Super Loan Pack – Now to August 21
FIFA 23 FUT Hero Jay-Jay Okocha Tifo Set – Now to August 31
FIFA 23 Pro Clubs Women’s Tournament Neck Tattoo – Now to August 31
FIFA 23 VOLTA Australia Outfit and Coins – Now to August 31
FIFA 23 FUT Season 8 XP Boost – Now to August 31
Madden NFL 24 MUT EA Play Welcome Pack – Available now!
Madden NFL 24 MUT EA Play August Pack – Now to August 31

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and Xbox Game Pass PC members receive EA Play at no additional cost with their Game Pass subscription. Members enjoy great player benefits, including in-game challenges and rewards, special member-only content, trials of select brand-new titles like F1 23 and Super Mega Baseball 4, access to a collection of EA’s best-loved series and top titles, and 10% off purchases of Electronic Arts digital content.

Visit the EA Play page for more details, and to stay up to date on the latest from EA Play, follow EA Play on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Please see EA.com/EA-Play/Terms for terms and conditions.

Batman: Arkham Trilogy Comes to Nintendo Switch in October

The Batman: Arkham Trilogy comes to Nintendo Switch on Friday, October 13, Rocksteady has announced.

A tweet from the developer (below) revealed the release date alongside new artwork of the three games: Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, and Arkham Knight. The trilogy will come bundled in one package alongside all released DLC.

The trilogy marks the first time Rocksteady’s Arkham games will arrive on Switch, though not the first time on a Nintendo console as a special edition of City appeared on Wii U.

Experience Gotham City in a whole new way when the #ArkhamTrilogy comes to Nintendo Switch on October 13th!

Special thanks to @cjwardart for this amazing piece celebrating our Dark Knight 🦇 pic.twitter.com/S8mQ249CHl

— Rocksteady Studios (@RocksteadyGames) August 15, 2023

Rocksteady announced the Arkham Trilogy’s port at the June Nintendo Direct, showcasing the collection with a montage of footage that showed the series’ best and baddest villains including the Joker, Two Face, and more.

All three games were received very well, with Arkham Asylum setting a new precedent for superhero games. “Batman: Arkham Asylum is the greatest comic book videogame of all time,” IGN said in our 9/10 review.

It’s sequel earned a 9/10 too, as IGN said: “Batman: Arkham City isn’t just better than Batman: Arkham Asylum, it’s better than most games on the market.” The final game received the same score: “Batman: Arkham Knight is an impressive game on almost every level, with non-stop variety and great action.”

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

Blizzard stops Diablo 4 player trading “until further notice” to fix gold and item exploits

Being a reviewer during Big Game Season often feels like being chased through a massive, winding building in a serial killer movie (or possibly Until Dawn). You gallop shrieking and blundering round a corner and are confronted by a series of ominous doors with labels such as “Baldur’s Gate 3“. You only have a few seconds to pick one and dive through, sweating in the knowledge that each door leads to a confusing network of corridors that exist wholly apart from each other – that each door not opened is a route to an Elsewhere you are doomed to never know, unless you’re commissioned to do a, haha, “retrospective” 10 years later.

This summer, in my previous dishonourable capacity as a freelancer, I barged through the doors marked “Zelda” and “Final Fantasy 16”, then spent a frantic moment trying to force the “Baldur’s Gate 3” door to open, before giving up and throwing myself under a heap of unedited features. Now, in the relative lull before the monster named Starfield crashes through the ceiling (yes, I know, I’m mixing my scenarios – it’s the end of the day and I’m tired), I emerge from the heap reborn as RPS News Editor, and peer back fearfully at some of the doors I left unopened. By far the grimmest and grandest of these is, of course, Diablo 4.

Memory Pak: Making Contact With The “Ungoogleable” Game I Couldn’t Quite Remember

What’s that one with the plumber and the mushrooms again?

Welcome to the latest instalment in our nostalgia-inducing column, Memory Pak, where we deep-dive into some of the most memorable moments in gaming – good and bad.

Today, Jim is reflecting on a years-long dilemma he faced over an oft-forgotten DS game, and wonders how we deal with “video game brain fog”…

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Xbox Introduces Enforcement Strike System

Summary

Xbox’s new enforcement strike system educates players about enforcement severity, cumulative effect of multiple enforcements, and the total impact on their standing.
Players can receive a total of eight strikes; each strike remains on record for six months.
Each strike results in a suspension from Xbox’s social features for varying lengths of time.
Every player will begin with a blank slate, or zero strikes; previous enforcements must still be completed.

We are constantly improving our safety measures and bringing more systems and tools in place that empower players to respectfully interact with one another – because everyone deserves a place to comfortably be themselves online, free from harassment and bullying. One of the most common questions we get from players through feedback, posts, and appeals is how repeated enforcements impact their gameplay, how they escalate, what they escalate to, and how they know when their account is back in good standing. To help address this, we are introducing a new enforcement strike system.

The new system attaches strikes to every enforcement, ranging in severity based on inappropriate activity. Each player will now have a view of their enforcement history including strikes and the overall impact these have on their player record. This revised system gives players a better understanding of enforcement severity and the cumulative effect of multiple enforcements. Enforcement transparency is about giving players clarity into how their behavior impacts their experience. Our content moderation efforts are not changing as a result of the new enforcement strike system.

As always, when a player believes they have witnessed a violation of Xbox’s Community Standards, we encourage them to report. All reports are evaluated, there are no automated enforcement actions based solely on the fact that a report was made. No volume of inaccurate reports results in an enforcement. Only reports that have been reviewed by the Xbox Safety Team and determined to be accurate result in an enforcement.

With the new system, enforcements will also include strikes based on the severity of their actions. The system is similar to demerit strikes used in driver’s license systems in many countries. For example, a player that has received two strikes will be suspended from the platform for one day, whereas a player that receives four strikes will be suspended for seven days. Players have a total of eight strikes and, once reached, will be suspended from Xbox’s social features like messaging, parties and party chat, multiplayer and others for one year from the enforcement date. All strikes received stay on a player’s record for six months. Today, players will all begin with a blank slate, or zero strikes. Any previous enforcements, such as suspensions, must still be completed; new enforcements as of today will result in strikes.

With these changes, Xbox is evolving enforcement to focus on protecting players. This is why even suspended accounts remain functional for single-player experiences and players do not lose access to purchased content. However, for the most serious violations – including illegal activity – Xbox retains the ability to permanently suspend all functionality of an account including access to purchases.

In 2022, fewer than 1% of all players received a temporary suspension, and only 1/3 of those received a second. Our data shows us that players typically stop inappropriate behavior after one enforcement, quickly learning what is and is not acceptable based on the Xbox Community Standards and how to better engage on our platform. The strike system is designed to further empower players to engage positively and appropriately on Xbox and with the community. We’ll share data and updates in our bi-annual Transparency Report.

Below is a visual of what players will see in their enforcement history:

Like before, players will still have the ability to appeal eligible enforcements. Where applicable, if an enforcement is reversed, the corresponding strike will be removed. For more information, visit the FAQ on Xbox Support.

Below are some additional safety resources:

See your enforcement history
Join Xbox Ambassadors and become part of our community working to make gaming fun for everyone
Read our Xbox Community Standards
Read our latest Xbox Transparency Report
Remain informed on How to Report a Player and How to Submit a Case Review

Xbox’s New Enforcement System Aims to Curb Bad Behavior

Xbox has announced a new strike-based program to decrease bad behavior on the platform.

In a new Xbox Wire blog post, Xbox CVP of Player Services Dave McCarthy detailed the new program. Players found violating Xbox’s community standards will receive a strike, which will stay on your record for six months before it is removed.

The severity of the violation determines the number of strikes and the length of the punishment, as shown in the illustration below. If a player receives eight total strikes, their account will be suspended from using Xbox’s social features like party chat and online multiplayer for one year. However, single-player experiences will remain unaffected, and no purchased content will be stripped from suspended players.

In an effort to provide transparency and educate players on what behavior is deemed inappropriate, Microsoft will show players their enforcement history, which lets them see how many current strikes they have, in addition to any active, completed, or expired suspensions issued.

“We are constantly improving our safety measures and bringing more systems and tools in place that empower players to respectfully interact with one another – because everyone deserves a place to comfortably be themselves online, free from harassment and bullying,” McCarthy explained.

Xbox’s new Enforcement Strike System is Microsoft’s latest attempt to curb bad behavior on its platform. The company’s previous efforts include a safety feature released last month that lets players clip audio and report inappropriate voice chats easily.

All Xbox players start with a clean, strikeless slate. However, any previous enforcements or suspensions issued will not be absolved.

Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

Cities: Skylines 2 will simulate layoffs, homelessness and bankruptcies

Paradox has posted a Cities: Skylines 2 developer diary in which it discusses the new game’s rather elaborate-sounding economy simulation. This follows equally knotty breakdowns of the game’s zoning tools, which allow you to mix architectural styles, and its road traffic system, which will hopefully dispense with some of the original Cities: Skylines’ pathfinding issues. In unravelling how individual agents – households, businesses or city services – function within the simulation, the post also touches on the topic of homelessness, a subject the 2014 game left unaddressed.

Diablo 4 Players Are Using a Dungeon Nicknamed ‘Dopamine Tunnels’ to Gain 40 Levels in 2 Hours

Diablo 4 players are running a dungeon so packed with monsters it lets players gain 40 levels in just two hours.

As reported by PC Gamer, Diablo 4 YouTuber Raxxanterax revealed changes made by the crowd-pleasing 1.1.1 patch have enabled superfast levelling in the Domhainne Tunnels dungeon.

This is a dungeon in Diablo 4 found in the region of Scosglen. It’s packed with Goatmen and Bats — even more than before after Blizzard increased monster density in Nightmare Dungeons and in Helltides to encourage players to use them to farm experience points and loot.

But perhaps the Domhainne Tunnels — aka the Dopamine Tunnels — are a little too packed with monsters. In a video, Raxxanterax demonstrated how it is possible to use the dungeons’ opening section to shoot from level one to 40 in just over two hours, whereas their previous best pre-patch time to level 40 was three-and-a-half hours.

By focusing on this early section of the dungeon, moving in a circle, then resetting the dungeon once all monsters are rinsed, players can level up much faster than, for example, playing through the campaign would enable.

Raxxanterax took two hours and seven minutes to hit level 40 in Hardcore playing as a Sorcerer, focusing on a Chain Lightning build, but it should be beneficial to all classes and builds that dish out area of effect damage. Domhainne Tunnels is so effective for levelling up that Diablo 4 speedrunners are using it to beat their record times to World Tier 3.

Will Blizzard step in here? The patch notes for update 1.1.2 make no mention of Domhainne Tunnels. It goes live today, so it will be worth keeping an eye out in case there’s an addition.

Blizzard released patch 1.1.1 on August 8 and it appears to have gone down well after the disastrous prior update caused a backlash. Diablo 4 Season 1, which launched last month, is expected to continue into late October 2023. Blizzard has already released a lengthy roadmap and promised to continue addressing community feedback through Season 3 and beyond.

Diablo 4 was the best-selling game in June, and has maintained momentum despite its various controversies. For more info, check out our in-depth Diablo 4 Season 1 guide as well as our interactive map.

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.

Sclash is a short but sweet low-pressure duelling game

Sclash is gorgeous. That’s not the reason I’m writing about it, but it definitely helps. Style can’t fix a bad game, but it can elevate a decent one about, say, a little hand-drawn 2D samurai running across the world stabbing dudes for peace. Little Jinmu does a lot of running to the right, a lot of slashing, and probably very little parrying and punching once you figure out the power attack.

There is, bluntly, not a lot to it, especially while its online mode is still listed as “coming soon”. But even with remote multiplayer, I see this as more of a diversion for friends to enjoy than a serious competitive fighter and intentionally so.

I enjoyed it though. Actually, I think I enjoyed it more for that, though it does perhaps limit its audience.

Here’s What’s Coming to Xbox Game Pass Up to the Launch of Starfield

Microsoft has confirmed the Game Pass lineup from today, August 15 up to the launch of Starfield on September 6.

Available today is Everspace 2 on Xbox Series X and S and via cloud gaming. Everspace 2 is a fast-paced single-player space shooter from Rockfish Games, that returned a 7/10 in IGN’s review. “Everspace 2 is the looter-shooter for space jockeys and wannabe pilots, packed with cool ship classes and action-driven arcade dogfights to keep up the pace,” we said.

Next up is Firewatch, available on console, PC, and cloud from August 17. Firewatch is a much-loved single-player, first-person mystery from Campo Santo, which we gave a 9/10 in our review: “Firewatch is among the best of the ‘walking simulators’ thanks to stellar writing, art direction, and voice acting.”

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre hits Game Pass across console, PC, and cloud on August 18. This third-person asymmetrical horror based on the iconic 1974 film is a day-one Game Pass release from developer Sumo Digital and Friday the 13th: The Game publisher Gun Interactive. It got 6/10 in IGN’s review: “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s less asymmetrical take on the asymmetrical horror genre offers a few entertaining, technically challenged hours of fun.”

Also day-one on Game Pass is Sea of Stars, which launches on the subscription service across console, PC, and cloud on August 29. This turn-based role-playing game is from Sabotage Studio. The following week, Nomada Studio’s Gris launches on Game Pass on console, PC, and cloud on September 5. IGN’s Gris review returned a 6/10: “Gris’s beautiful exterior hides a simple, at times confusing, platformer.”

And then it’s the big one: Bethesda’s Starfield, which launches day-one on Game Pass on September 6. As already announced, early access from September 1 is available to those who fork out for the more expensive version. Game Pass subscribers can save up to 10% on the Starfield Premium Edition Upgrade and play five days early on Xbox Series X and S and PC.

Members who upgrade their Standard Edition to the Starfield Premium Edition also get the Shattered Space Story Expansion upon release, the Constellation skin pack and access to the Starfield digital artbook and original soundtrack.

Meanwhile, six games leave Game Pass on August 31. They are:

Black Desert (cloud and console)
Commandos 3 – HD Remaster (cloud, console, and PC)
Immortality (cloud, console, and PC)
Nuclear Throne (cloud, console, and PC)
Surgeon Simulator 2 (cloud, console, and PC)
Tinykin (cloud, console, and PC)

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.