It appears to be a Palworld version of Stardew Valley, with players alternating between tending crops, mining the caves, battling wildlife, and bonding with the local NPCs. As in vanilla Palworld, you can capture Pals with different abilities and set them to work on tasks like sowing and watering. Here’s a trailer.
If you cast your mind back to the early days of the Switch eShop, before the storefront was swamped by slop and rip-offs, you might recall Battle Chef Brigade — a weird fusion of cooking sim and action RPG all wrapped up in a sweet anime-inspired art style. It was a lovely little game from developer Trinket Studios, and what do you know, the team is back with something that looks equally intriguing.
Battle Suit Aces is a sci-fi RPG that mixes the bold visuals of old-school mech anime with some particularly deep-looking card combat. It boasts the same visual style as its predecessor and another interesting mash-up of gameplay styles
Team Cherry’s post-launch support of massive indie hit Hollow Knight: Silksong continues, with Patch 2 now live.
As the developer had signalled, Silksong’s second major patch (1.0.28650) focuses on a few critical issues still remaining, while also cleaning up some bugs around specific tools. The patch notes, per Team Cherry’s website, are below.
All fixes will apply retroactively, Team Cherry added, so players who’ve hit a significant bug that prevents progress should now be able to proceed.
Further fixes are currently being worked on for a third patch, the developer continued, with some additional focus around improving controller support on PC platforms. “Expect this one to come a little later, as we’re aiming to cover as many remaining issues as possible,” Team Cherry said.
Meanwhile, Team Cherry said for upcoming patches, beyond regular fixes, “our first priority remains to improve Silksong’s Simplified Chinese translation.”
This is in response to high-profile criticism of Silksong’s Simplified Chinese translation, which had led to Chinese players leaving negative Steam reviews. “The current Silksong [Chinese] translation reads like a Wuxia novel instead of conveying the game’s tone,” said one player. “This isn’t about effort, but about taste and direction, and speaking from experience likely can’t be fixed without replacing the translator.” Another said: “can you imagine as a Chinese, I need to play the game by switching in English to understand [the] translation.”
“Native Chinese speaker here. The translation uses awkwardly archaic wording that makes a lot of the content unintelligible,” added someone else. “I’m talking about word salad type of situation. On top of the anachronistic pretentiousness, it’s downright gibberish at times.”
“A new script, by a well-regarded team, is already well underway,” Team Cherry confirmed. “We’re expecting this new translation to be delivered in 3-4 weeks, with implementation to follow immediately after.
“In the meantime, for Simplified Chinese players, we’ve recently been informed that a talented group of Hollow Knight fans has already produced their own full-translation mod for Silksong! We’ve heard good things about the mod, and players may want to consider shifting over to it.”
Hollow Knight: Silksong Version 1.0.28650 patch notes:
Added Dithering effect option in Advanced video settings (PC only). Reduces colour banding but can slightly soften the appearance of foreground assets. Defaults to ‘Off’.
Updated Herald’s Wish achievement description to clarify that players must both complete the wish and finish the game.
Fixed Savage Beastfly in Far Fields sometimes remaining below the lava.
Fixed rare cases of Shrine Guardian Seth getting out of bounds during battle.
Fixed rare case of Second Sentinel knocking the player out of bounds during battle.
Added catch to prevent Lugoli sometimes flying off screen and not returning during battle.
Further reduced chance of Silk Snippers getting stuck out of bounds in Chapel of the Reaper battle.
Fixed various instances of dying to bosses while killing them causing death sequences to play messily or out of sync.
Fixed Shaman Binding into a bottom transition causing a softlock.
Cocoon positions in some locations updated to prevent it spawning in inaccessible areas.
Fixed Liquid Lacquer courier delivery not being accessible in Steel Soul mode.
Fixed some NPCs not correctly playing cursed hint dialogues in certain instances.
Fixed Pondcatcher Reed not being able to fly away after singing.
Fixed Verdania memory orbs sometimes replaying layered screen-edge burst effects.
Fixed the break counter not working for certain multihitter tools eg Conchcutter.
Fixed Volt Filament damage multiplier not applying for certain Silk Skills.
Fixed Cogflies and Wisps inappropriately targeting Skullwings.
Fixed Cogflies incorrectly resetting their HP to full on scene change.
Fixed Curveclaw always breaking on the first hit after being deflected.
Fixed Plasmium Phial and Flea Brew sometimes not restoring as intended at benches.
Various other smaller tweaks and fixes.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Dear Hideo Kojima, you’d better give us a proper update on your new Metal Gear-style action-espionage game-movie wotsit Physint soon, because for every hour that passes, I think of another unbearable title pun.
I’m not very Physinterested in Physint right now, a game defined by what it Physisn’t. Perhaps I’d be more Physinto it if Kojima Productions would share a proper outline and explore the Physintricacies. But this is Hideo Kojima, a man of *grunts, strains* Sphysint-like enigma. Still, at least we now know that Don Lee from Train To Busan is in the stealthy film-o-game, together with Charlee Fraser from Furiosa and Minami Hamabe from Godzilla Minus One.
Since Borderlands 4 came out, developer Gearbox has released a PC-focused patch that tackles crashes, among a few other things. But players are wondering what the studio intends to do about the looter shooter’s balance, especially at a time when builds that let you one-shot bosses are doing the rounds.
Gearbox has now indicated that in the short-term, it plans to buff underperforming gear and skills rather than nerf overpowered builds. Indeed, those instakill builds you’ve seen online are safe, for now. But, Gearbox insisted, they will get nerfed eventually.
Confirmation comes from Borderlands 4 creative director Graeme Timmins, who took to social media to acknowledge the debate about what he called “builds that use unintended interactions and/or the knife.”
Here’s the statement:
“We’ve seen the discourse about builds that use unintended interactions and/or the knife. We’re not going to act on those immediately, instead, we’re looking at our first round of buffs. Those will get addressed but we’re going to start with underperforming gear/skills first.”
To make this build work you need the Vampiric Vivisecting Throwing Knife with the Penetrator Augment. Land a hit with this knife and subsequent damage to the target are automatic critical hits for five seconds. Add bleed stacking and each tick of the bleed effect registers as a critical hit.
Players have come up with eye-catching builds around the knife that essentially makes a Borderlands 4 boss fight a trivial experience, and thus farming for the game’s best loot a lot easier. For example, Vex’s Bloodletter passive makes your gun and skill critical hits have a chance to apply bleed, which counts as gun damage and is based on the initial damage dealt. Add Vex’s Contamination passive, which causes critical hits to increase status effect application chance up to 100% and thus ensuring the bleed re-procs infinitely, and you’ve got exponential damage. So, throw the knife, land one big shot on the boss, and watch the numbers get bigger and bigger as the bleed ticks it down.
The news that Gearbox is focusing on buffs over nerfs right now is being celebrated by the community. Borderlands 4 content creator Moxsy called it “such a huge W.”
“Massive nerfs hitting Wonderlands & BL3 on launch caused huge outrage and frustration in the community. Love to see this direction,” Moxsy said in a post on social media.
The question now is what steps Gearbox will take to nerf the knife. Will it change how it works completely, or apply slight changes to tone it down?
There’s no timeframe for Borderlands 4’s next patch, but we know some more of what the studio is working on. PC performance improvements are a “top priority,” the studio has said. A Field of View (FOV) slider is on the way to the console versions, too.
Borderlands 4 console players are also keen for a patch to address some glaring technical problems. Last week, the tech experts at Digital Foundry confirmed a gradual worsening of framerate with continuous playtime, even on PlayStation 5 Pro and Xbox Series X. As revealed in a new video published to YouTube, Digital Foundry found performance starts dipping after around 30 minutes to an hour, which it called “too intrusive on the overall experience, too regular an interruption.” Even after a completely fresh boot, the game is still prone to framerate drops.
Gearbox development chief Randy Pitchford has acknowledged the problem on social media, promising incoming improvements. As a workaround, Pitchford suggested console players quit Borderlands 4 and restart. Digital Foundry’s Tom Morgan confirmed this does restore performance, but criticized the situation, saying “resetting the game every hour should really not be an expected solution for players.”
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Lego released its first Zelda-themed Lego set last year after ongoing rumours, which turned out to be accurate. Now, in an update, there’s a new rumour doing the rounds about the next set in this particular series.
Instead of a hybrid set bringing together two different games, this next one is rumoured to be based solely on Link’s N64 outing, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. According to a story from BrickTap (via Brick Fanatics), it will be a Ganondorf Diorama.
Hideo Kojima has discussed his upcoming PlayStation exclusive Physint during a Kojima Productions 10th Anniversary event in Japan.
Speaking on-stage during the event, Kojima said development on Physint was just starting. Indeed, the legendary developer is working on the concepts by himself right now, making characters and thinking about casting. “It is just the start,” he said.
After a video message of support from Herman Hulst, CEO, Studio Business Group, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Kojima described Physint as the next stage tactical espionage action game. Kojima is of course famous for creating the Metal Gear franchise while at Konami.
The tech underpinning Physint is even more advanced than that powering Kojima’s Death Stranding games and upcoming Xbox Game Studios exclusive OD (whose debut trailer was revealed at the show), he said, because it’s due out later in the future. No release date or even release window was mentioned, but from what Kojima said, it’s OD next for Kojima Productions, then Physint, so it may be some time before we see anything meaningful on the project.
Kojima did tease the main character of the game via the first poster for Physint, below. It doesn’t tell us much, as it’s hard to make out even their face. We don’t know who’s playing the main character, either (expect a casting announcement at some point in the future, Kojima said). We do have the tagline “here comes the feeling,” although who knows what that means at this stage?
Kojima did confirm three actors set to appear in Physint, however, each of whom delivered a video message expressing their excitement. Charlee Fraser, who played Mary Jabassa in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, is in the game, although we don’t know which character she’s playing. Also in the game are Don Lee, who played Gilgamesh in the Marvel movie Eternals, and Japanese actress Minami Hamabe, who played Noriko Ōishi in Godzilla Minus One.
Kojima ended his Physint segment with a shot of Hamabe in CG form, showing off just how realistic the visuals are expected to be. We still don’t know which game engine Kojima Productions is using for Physint.
In May, Kojima said Physint was still “another five or six years” away from release, suggesting a launch in 2030 at the earliest, potentially on PlayStation 6. Kojima told Le Film Francais that his aspirations to direct a movie were on hold at least until he had finished developing his first action espionage game since he very publicly parted ways with Konami in 2015. Hulst announced Physintback in January 2024, but since then, news has been sparse.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Hideo Kojima has revealed the first trailer for OD, his upcoming Xbox Game Studios project, during this morning’s Kojima Productions: Beyond the Strand livestream.
As previously announced, the mysterious game will star Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves’ Sophia Lillis, Hunters’ Udo Kier and Euphoria’s Hunter Schafer — and today’s trailer showcased Lillis’ character in a spooky house, lighting candles before meeting a malevolent figure.
On stage, Kojima explained that the game was subtitled as OD: Knock — and indeed, a creepy knocking sound can be heard throughout the trailer. The subtitle appears to differentiate Kojima’s video game from the OD project being worked on by filmmaker Jordan Peele. “There is a different kind of fear Jordan [Peele] will do. Mine is the ‘knock’, is the fear,” Kojima said today. “I really am afraid of big knock sounds.”
KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS 10周年記念イベント 「Beyond The Strand」速報
The trailer begins with Lillis’ character using a red card to open a locked red door. Partially redacted text hints at OD’s story taking place 10 years after a horrifying event, where something cursed has once again… done something.
On the red card lies the following text : “Light the fires to celebrate their [redacted].” In first-person, Lillis’ character then enters the room. It’s gloomy, with rain spattering the windows. But, sure enough, there is a chest with an arrangement of candles — fires — waiting to be lit.
After lighting more of the candles — a couple of which are shaped like creepy Death Stranding babies — we get our first proper shot of Lillis’ character, as she shakes in fear. Behind her, we hear a door open, and a figure approach, as a noise like a Geiger counter increases. The trailer ends with figure grabbing Lillis by the head.
As previously announced, OD is being developed using Unreal Engine, and it sounds like Xbox is assisting with Kojima Productions’ work using the technology.
“Development is well underway,” Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said of OD today. “Kojima is innovating in gameplay, story and player engagement. We’re collaborating closely, and we very excited for what’s next.”
“What an amazing I’d say maybe teaser, or a glimpse,” Spencer continued. “When I first saw it I saw something new, something slightly sinister, but also something that was extremely Kojima-san. OD is bold, it’s unique, and it’s unmistakably from this studio, which is just incredible. We’re deeply supporting the production, it’s our technical work on Unreal that we’re doing with the team, both with the kind of flashy what you’re seeing on the screen, but also a lot of behind the scenes work. We have one goal in mind, which is to bring Kojima-san’s vision to life for all players, everywhere, and we can’t wait for players to experience it when it is ready.”
Other details on the game remain under wraps, other than this important warning about the game’s level of horror: “It’s really scary, and you’ll probably do in your pants,” Kojima said.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
