Tron: Identity Review

Despite its origins as a 1982 film about a video game-inspired world inside a computer, Disney’s Tron franchise doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to game adaptations in the post-arcade era. Bithell Games, the studio behind minimalist indie darlings like Thomas Was Alone and Volume, aims to change that with the release of its first collaboration with the house of mouse, Tron: Identity. Part visual novel, part hard-boiled detective story, Tron: Identity is a gorgeous new take on life on the Grid — even if its plot raises more questions than it answers.

For the uninitiated, Tron: Identity takes place in the Grid, a self-sustaining world inside of computers, where human-like “programs” fulfill their functions and serve the “user” (the person actually using the computer in the real world). The Grid was created by a programmer named Flynn, who’s been missing since the events of 2009’s Tron: Legacy. Flynn is referred to among programs as either an omnipotent, godlike being due to return any minute now or a myth, but he doesn’t appear in any way, nor do any other characters from the Tron movies. Tron: Identity is an entirely new story that builds on the franchise’s foundation and reveals yet another facet of life on the Grid.

Tron: Identity is a gorgeous new take on life on the Grid.

Advances in technology since 1982 (the year the first film was released) have made that life more complicated, and Bithell Games’ vision reflects that. Some programs have begun to challenge their original programming, going outside the scope of what their users intended. Protagonist Query, a detective on a new case, is at such a crossroads in Tron: Identity. As a member of the Disciples of Tron, Query’s job is to go where he’s told and seek the truth without interfering, but this philosophy is repeatedly tested as the mystery unfolds.

It Happened One Night

The story begins when Query arrives at the Repository, a secure building in the center of the Grid. As Query, you’re sent to investigate an explosion in the Repository’s vault, though the details of the crime are shrouded in mystery. The entire story takes place throughout a few set locations within the building, and the cast consists of just six characters in addition to Query. Throughout the night, Query interacts with these denizens of the Repository, and how much information he extracts depends largely on whether or not your dialogue choices and actions earn their trust and respect. By the end of the night, you’ll have solved at least one mystery — and potentially opened up several more.

This unfolds in a visual novel packed with branching conversations and critical decisions that affect how the rest of the programs at the Repository respond to your, well, queries. Programs can be cooperative or hostile based on your actions, and you never know when one bad choice will come back to haunt you. The weight of these decisions is reminiscent of Telltale’s episodic adventure series like The Walking Dead, only instead of fighting off zombies, you’re fighting for the truth — even if that truth threatens life on the Grid.

Tron: Identity is short, but its length doesn’t detract from the experience.

Tron: Identity is short, with each playthrough coming in at around two hours, but its length doesn’t detract from the experience. Because of the branching paths your choices can unravel, Identity encourages multiple playthroughs to get the whole story. While the overall themes of Tron: Identity won’t change from playthrough to playthrough, the way you get to the end can be remarkably different. The choices you need to make in order to proceed typically aren’t easy ones; there’s no obvious right or wrong answer, and not taking a side has consequences of its own. Without spoiling the story, let’s just say that making bad decisions can leave you with very few allies.

While the bulk of the gameplay mostly concerns conversations with other programs and Query’s own internal monologue, these portions are occasionally punctuated by short puzzles that appear any time you need to help a program recover their memories. These mini-games, which involve matching colors and shapes in an attempt to defrag a program’s malfunctioning disc, come in several iterations of the same basic concept. The puzzles are fun at first, but on subsequent runs, they begin to feel repetitive and a bit mindless. I would have appreciated more variety and depth in these puzzles, giving you a nice break in between text-heavy sections instead of a tedious roadblock before getting back to the story.

Fighting for the User

Bithell Games has done a remarkable job of bringing the Grid to life. From the first moments of Identity, it’s clear that it was developed with reverence for the source material. The art direction is absolutely stunning in its minimalism, with dark backgrounds lit up by the franchise’s trademark neon lights. The animations are subtle but meaningful, from the data trees swaying in the breeze and drops of icy blue rain cutting through the pitch-black sky to the questioning stares and nods from the NPCs you’re interrogating.

Then there’s the music, which is almost as beautifully mesmerizing in its ambiance as Daft Punk’s Tron: Legacy soundtrack. It adds tension in all the right spots while being remarkably soothing. Overall, the presentation makes you feel firmly ensconced in the Grid, which can be both comforting and unsettling.

Video: We Test Dokapon Kingdom Connect’s Friendship-Ending Multiplayer

Ahead of the game’s release next month.

If you’re looking to ruin some friendships, then boy, do we have a game for you. Dokapon Kingdom Connect launches on Switch on 8th May 2023, and this hybrid board game RPG has a bit of a reputation for being a brutal time with friends.

Originally released on the PS2 before jumping over to the Wii in 2008, Dokapon Kingdom was developed by cult studio Sting which created Treasure Hunter G, Baroque, and the Dept. Heaven series which includes Riviera: The Promised Land, Yggdra Union, and Knights in the Nightmare. Sting is known for its eclectic collection of RPGs, and Dokapon Kingdom is no different with the strongest heroes in the land attempting to battle it out to collect the most tax money for the king to win the princess’s hand in marriage.

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Diablo 4: Here’s How Long It Takes to Reach Level 100

Diablo 4 associate game director Joseph Piepiora has revealed that it will take over 150 hours to grind to level 100 in the upcoming action role playing game.

“Reaching level 100 will take 150+ hours for the average player experience,” replied Piepiora to a fan on Twitter, confirming the inevitable and significant time sink that Diablo 4 will represent when it launches on June 6 later this year.

Earlier this month the developer also revealed that it would take around 80 hours to complete each season’s battle pass, which will feature both a free, and paid premium track featuring more cosmetic rewards.

This isn’t the first time that a brief social media reply has imparted significant information about Diablo 4. Recently, the game’s general manager Rod Furgusson let slip in a Twitter reply that there were “no plans at the moment” to include the popular map overlay function in the game at launch.

Similarly, players found out that characters who fall in the PvP areas known as the Fields of Hatred will face permanent deletion on hardcore mode, when the game’s Global Community Director Adam Fletcher quote tweeted a question with the single word “permadeath”.

Diablo 4 is set to receive one final beta test, nicknamed the “server slam”, which will run from May 12 to 14. The event is designed to stress test the online infrastructure for the game, while introducing new tweeks, and gameplay updates prompted by previous test weekends. The developer has forewarned that character progression earned during this period won’t carry through to the final game.

The server slam is accessible on all platforms, with a two-player couch co-op mode available on consoles. Check out IGN’s Wiki Guide tips and tricks on Diablo 4 to get the most out of next month’s beta, and keep an eye out closer to the June release date for IGN’s scored review.

Anthony is a freelance contributor covering science and video gaming news for IGN. He has over eight years experience of covering breaking developments in multiple scientific fields and absolutely no time for your shenanigans. Follow him on Twitter @BeardConGamer

Soapbox: Torna – The Golden Country Is One Of The Best DLCs Of All Time

Future established.

Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they’ve been chewing over.

Today, Alana proclaims that Xenoblade Chronicles 2 has one of the best pieces of DLC ever in Torna – The Golden Country, and ponders what that could mean for Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed. Beware of XC2 spoilers…

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Redfall’s Environmental Storytelling Taps Into the Corruption of Safe Havens | IGN First

So far, Arkane Studios’ game playgrounds have been set in fantastical, odd futures or deteriorating steampunk cities. With Redfall, the team at Arkane Austin opted to take its immersive sim mechanics to something closer to a familiar but twisted reality. In an interview with Arkane Austin Art Director Karen Segars, IGN learned more about the inspirations for Redfall’s scenic island town setting, design challenges and solutions for the co-op mechanics, and telling Redfall’s story through its art.

Segars said their journey in designing Redfall began with a trip to New England that started in Bangor, Maine, and concluded a few days later in Boston, Massachusetts. It was October, making it the perfect time to collect close-ups of fall foliage and the general vibe of Redfall’s Halloween setting. Redfall is not based on a particular location in New England but Segars said it’s instead more of an amalgamation of locations including Camden, Bar Harbor, Old Orchard Beach, and Acadia National Park.

Segars said the district landmark locations were important considerations, not only aesthetically, but for Redfall’s gameplay design. Redfall marks two major development milestones for Arkane: not only is it the studio’s first major open-world game, but it’s also its first optional co-op campaign.

“One of the challenges is helping the players know where they are. [We] wanted to have various points of interest around the map so that they can orient themselves from wherever they are.” Segars said. “Also just setting up all of the level streaming and how everything streams around the player was a technical challenge we took on, right? Our tech team actually built our streaming system. We built our time of day system. Those were some of the core features we needed to make this game. I would say those were probably two of the biggest ones that we took on as far as what varied from previous games that we made. Prey did have time of day, but it was much more isolated on a space station [versus] people able to run across the town.”

The day and night cycle impacts Redfall’s gameplay. During the day, the vampire god The Black Sun looms over the town and speaks to any player who stares too long at the eclipse. At night, vampires are more active. Segars said another typical technique used to ground players is having a directional light. They sped up the sunrise and sunset timings to get the sun and moon in the sky faster to keep a key light in play.

Other major points for orienting the players include lighthouses — very New England, as Segars said — and major district landmarks, like the orchard in District 2. Redfall is played across two different maps. The first is home to the more dense town setting, while the second has farms and other aspects of rural life. One of Segars’ favorite elements of their design, though, are the three various churches. In IGN’s two hands-on sessions with Redfall, we saw that it boasts a fair amount of storytelling through art and the environment — a hallmark of Arkane.

“There’s a prominent [church] in District 2 that we may have shown a creepy belltower in one of our first gameplay trailers. The storytelling that happens in those is such a juxtaposition of what’s supposed to be a calm and safe space. Some of the set dressing that we show, and at least in the church of District 1, it was supposed to be a safe haven,” Segars said. “You could see survivors actually flocked to the church, but you know, it didn’t go so well.”

Accounting for Variation

Another important style choice for Redfall is its cutscenes. Rather than something fully animated, they take a storybook-like style that highlights particular moments with narration of the player character over it.

“[Creative Director Ricardo Bare] used a good word for them; they’re a flash sideways,” Segars explained. “It’s kind of like a summary of what you just learned so that you can go out on your mission. A large priority of ours was [since] you can change your outfit in Redfall, we wanted that to be reflected in these scenes. I’ve played plenty of games where I’ve customized my character and then it’s a cutscene and they’re in their base outfit. So if your friends are there, you get to see them in what they’re wearing. We opted for the still scenes to capture that essence.

“If you would think about cinematics, that’s a huge animation undertaking. Doing it with the poses, you get to capture the emotion of that particular scene and just really double down on the pose and the facial expression and just create this kind of mood without having to get too busy with all these characters [being animated]. Since you can play with up to three friends, that means that there are four people on screen most of the time. All of that movement would be just a little bit distracting for telling the story. So the pose, the facial expression, and then the dialogue really gets to sell the mood of what we were trying to tell there.”

Segars explained that if you’re not joined by any or the maximum number of friends, the named NPCs will fill in the hero character spots. Even though you and your prospective team are the hero, the civilians are also part of the fight in taking back the island. Segars said even when you’re alone, you’re not alone.

Redfall is out on May 2 on PC and Xbox. For even more on Arkane’s upcoming vampire hunting FPS, be sure to check out the IGN First hero features for Layla, Jacob, Devinder, and Remi, and see our exclusive preview of how Redfall plays in co-op. If you’re more interested in how Redfall plays solo, we’ve got a preview for that too.

Miranda Sanchez is the executive editor of guides at IGN and a member of Podcast Unlocked. She’s a big fan of stationery and fountain pens. You can sometimes find her on Twitter.

Reaching Diablo 4’s level cap will take around 150 hours of grinding

Ahead of an upcoming open playtest, Blizzard have released their latest developer design video on Diablo 4, this time tackling player choice and the action RPG’s different classes. My favourite detail is that you can become a werewolf and “do werewolf things”. Although getting to that stage may take a while, as associate game director Joseph Piepora recently said it would take around 150+ hours for an average player to hit the Level 100 cap. Sounds like a week’s worth of content then.

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Fallout 76’s theatre troupe performed a bloody version of Alice In Wonderland

For all of Fallout 76’s faults, the multiplayer shooter has fostered one of the most interesting communities in any game, leading to fun mutations such as the theatre company experimenting with performance art in-game. The Wasteland Theatre Company previously tackled Shakespeare and A Christmas Carol, and they’ve now reconvened with a post-apocalyptic performance of Alice In Wonderland, appropriately adapted as Alice In The Wasteland.

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Preorder the Link: Ocarina of Time Amiibo on Amazon for $15.99

The release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is coming up soon, and plenty of fun items have gone up for preorder in the lead-up to it. Some of these items include new and reprinted amiibo that can be used with the highly-anticipated game, and an Ocarina of Time Link amiibo is back in stock for fans to preorder ahead of the game’s release.

This amiibo features Link from Ocarina of Time playing the ocarina and is available to preorder on Amazon for just $15.99 with a release date of May 12 (though this one has an expected delivery of June 4-6). Click the link below to see the page in full.

Link: Ocarina of Time Amiibo on Amazon

Alongside this amiibo and the brand new amiibo with Link’s character model from Tears of the Kingdom, fans can also preorder more classic reprints of Zelda amiibo for the game. You can see every model that’s available to preorder, along with the Zelda and Loftwing amiibo that you can buy now, below.

More Link Amiibo to Preorder

More importantly, though, if you have yet to pick up The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom game, you can save $10 on it through SuperShop by using the code IGNZLDA at checkout. So, rather than paying the full $69.99, you can get it for $59.99 instead. And, if you want to see even more Zelda-themed items that are worth preordering now, you can also preorder the gorgeous Tears of the Kingdom Switch OLED, the new Tears of the Kingdom Pro Controller, and more that can be found in our preorder guide here.

For even more Legend of Zelda gift ideas, make sure to visit our Zelda Gift Guide. Here, you can find a variety of items worth picking up for yourself or the fan in your life, from comfy shirts to incredible statues to set up around your space.

Hannah Hoolihan is a freelance writer who works with the Guides and Commerce teams here at IGN.

This cottagecore platformer is ultra charming, and out this week

There’s something very sweet about playing as a postal carrier. As we’ve seen in games such as Tiny Echo and Lake, it can be a relaxing and enjoyable job delivering mail in a small community, and that’s the pitch-perfect tone that solo developer Kela van der Deijl has managed to capture in their cutesy mail-delivery game Mail Time. After playing the Steam demo, I can tell you that it’s one of the most charming games I’ve played all year, and it looks like I’ll be able to play the rest soon because Mail Time is out this week on Thursday April 27th.

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