At Nintendo’s Indie World showcase in April, publisher and developer Super Evil Megacorp announced it would be releasing the roguelike action title Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate on the Switch in July. As we get closer to next month, it’s now been confirmed this former Apple Arcade exclusive will be launching on 17th July 2024.
As part of this announcement, a brand-new trailer has been shared on the official Nintendo YouTube channel. Pre-orders are also live on the eShop, with the game priced at $29.99 / £26.99 (or your regional equivalent). In case you missed our first story, Splintered Fate allows you take control of the four turtles, take down bosses, explore iconic locations, unlock temporary upgrades and permanent ones, and enjoy 4-player co-op where “no two runs are the same”.
Hello everyone, and welcome back to another edition of Box Art Brawl!
Before we get cracking with this week’s battle, let’s see how things panned out last time. We looked at Turok 2: Seeds of Evil for the N64 and golly gosh, was it a close one. It seemed many of you weren’t too keen on either design, but ultimately, it was the western variant that won the day with 51% of the vote.
Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC has only been out for a few days, and many players are already finding that their character — who became the Elden Lord of the Lands Between — is barely a match for the first chakram blade-wielding weirdo you can run into. These early punishing fights are merely a prelude for the raw aggression of the DLC bosses, who are able to turn you into a bloody smear on the ground with just a few attacks. Even worse, this difficulty ramp-up spares no one — regardless of your level, the weapons you wield, or the armor you equip.
With a bit of exploring, you’re likely to find at least one Scadutree Fragment, which gives a short tooltip:
It can be easy to overlook this tip in the thick of battle or when distracted by distant points of interest, but it’s safe to say Shadow of the Erdtree may be underselling just how important your Scadutree Blessing really is. Simply put, it can quickly become the difference between victory and defeat in almost every encounter, and it’s barely even comparable to Elden Ring’s normal leveling system.
The reason for this is because Shadow of the Erdtree has to account for a wide variety of players looking for a challenge in this DLC realm: Fights have to be difficult enough for a level 500 player on New Game+ 7, but also winnable for someone who just beat Mohg for the first time the other day. The solution: Make everything hit extremely hard, with incredibly high health pools, but introduce a new item to rapidly raise your own abilities to deal and negate damage.
Using just one Scadutree Fragment to increase your Shadow Realm Blessing to Level 1 will raise your armaments damage AND your damage negation to all sources by around 5%, and there are many more fragments to find just in the first region alone.
For my level 162 character with 50 Vigor and 50 Strength, my Blasphemous Blade had 795 attack power; and my armor and other stats were giving me 157 Defense Power with 44.355% physical damage negation as a multiplier.
Facing down the Blackgaol Knight, my basic one-handed swing was only dealing 398 damage to his 525, which I was only able to meet with a jumping attack that did 550. His did… a lot more.
However, with just one Scadutree Blessing level, my attack power was boosted to 834, and my physical damage negation to 47.004%. This increase had me dealing 416 while only taking 496 in return, which was roughly a 4.9% increase in damage given and 5.5% damage taken.
Even if that sounds small — I then grabbed every Scadutree Fragment in the Gravesite Plain, raising my Scadutree Blessing to Level 4. Now my attack power shot up to 954 and damage negation to 53.629%, which meant my hits were now doing 20% more damage that were hitting harder than the Blackgaol Knight’s, which was reduced by around 17.3%!
As you can see from the table above, each blessing can increase your powers by a substantial amount, and with a maximum of 20 Scadutree Blessings that you can obtain over the course of the game, you’ll be dealing a LOT more damage by the end than when you first entered the Realm of Shadow.
But what about regular leveling? My table also includes spending enough Runes to put four points in Strength vs four Scadutree Blessings. At 50+ Strength, the returns barely resulted in a measly percent of damage increased, and the flat Defense Power increase instead of damage negation from all sources meant I was losing roughly the same amount of HP per hit. This is an important aspect to note, because it means since all players will be in and endgame setting, you can’t overcome bosses just by spending runes. However, it’s still worth adding a few points here and there anyway, especially to increase your HP pool with Vigor, add more stamina with Endurance, or hit a requirement to equip a new weapon.
So where can you find more Scadutree Fragments? You can check our guide to track down every last Scadutree Fragment, but if you prefer to explore on your own, here are some tips to keep in mind:
Scadutree Fragments most often appear in front of statues of Marika, like those found in churches or soldier camps.
You’re also guaranteed to find one at every Cross of Miquella that the demigod has left behind marking their journey to important locations in the Shadow Realm.
Certain areas like ruins or destroyed towns can sometimes include a Shadow Undead holding a sparkling pot. Rush them down before they run away and you can gain treasure that sometimes includes a Scadutree Fragment.
Progression in Shadow of the Erdtree is rarely permanently gated by a boss. If you find yourself lacking power, try looking for alternate paths to new regions where you can find more Scadutree Fragments.
Similar to these fragments, you can also find Revered Spirit Ash in front of large headless corpse altars or from Shadow Undead pot holders. The Revered Spirit Ash Blessing will increase the power of your Spirit Ash Summons similar to how the Scadutree Fragments boost your own.
Once you feel strong enough to take on the toughest challenges, there’s plenty more to do, and we have it all catalogued in our full Shadow of the Erdtree Guide.
Brendan Graeber is a senior guides writer for IGN, and is still hard at work discovering every last secret in Elden Ring. You can find him on Twitter/X @Ragga_Fragga
What if when playing Mario Kart and you throw a red shell at an opponent, instead of just knocking them aside, you blow them up instead? That’s the kind of outside-the-box thinking Sumo Digital is cooking up with DeathSprint 66, which is basically a real murder-y version of Mario Kart.
Set in a dystopian future that’s part GhostRunner, part Running Man, DeathSprint 66 has a story insofar as you play as a runner forced to partake in a deadly race for the amusement of viewers on the internet. This race isn’t just built for speed, however, it’s also built for danger. This futuristic race course is full of buzz saw traps, laser beams, and other deadly additions to make your run truly a run for your life.
I was able to play a few rounds while at Summer Game Fest and came away thoroughly impressed by what I saw thanks in part to the tried-and-true arcade racing style mechanics but with violent twists.
While there are no racing karts here, your runner will effectively sprint very much the same way. The right trigger serves as your accelerate, and you will need to “drift” around corners and time your release correctly for a burst of speed. Along the way you’ll need to dodge deadly environmental traps and collect random power-ups like tripmines, buzzsaws, and a powerful and deadly dash that’s DeathSprint 66’s answer to the Mario Kart Bullet Bill power.
It’s not just deadly obstacles, though. There are neon-lit rails to grind on, and large walls for you to wall-run on as well, plus boost pads to further give you a jolt of speed. It’s all very over-the-top and races are fairly quick, so I imagine it’ll be easy to get a few rounds in with friends online.
For fans of Mario Kart, DeathSprint 66 will seem awfully familiar. But, as the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The core gameplay of violently racing your way to victory while trying to sabotage seven other players was incredibly fun during my hands-on, even when I was just playing against A.I. opponents. I imagine the challenge and the fun will only go up when these are seven other real players.
Visually, too, DeathSprint 66 is going all-out. This is meant to be a futuristic game show and the neon-soaked race tracks, lasers, and futuristic cityscape paints a gorgeous, dystopian portrait of cyberpunk excess. And while the player character was a bit generic, I’m told there will be customization options and cosmetics in the final game to help make your character truly your own.
DeathSpring 66 doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it has a good sense of what makes arcade-style racing games fun. I can easily see DeathSprint 66 becoming a new Fall Guys, a quick and fun pick-up-and-play game in between marathon sessions of your favorite RPG.
Matt T.M. Kim is IGN’s Senior Features Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they’ve been chewing over. Today, Francisco considers a little Joy-Con addition that could help set the upcoming “Switch successor” apart…
Nintendo can’t resist an enticing hardware innovation. Think of the Game & Watch’s D-pad, the SNES’s nifty shoulder buttons, or the Wii’s revolutionary motion controls; and we’ve barely scratched the surface of its long legacy of pioneering video game controllers. Despite its efforts, one hardware feature has evaded Nintendo for decades.
Summer’s here, everyone! Except if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, in which case, Winter’s here, everyone!
After a quiet month or so, it’s been a busy week in Nintendo land thanks to the June Direct which delivered above and beyond what many of us expected to see three months into Switch’s eighth year, with its successor waiting in the wings for its formal introduction.
As part of the SmileFest 2024 celebrations this week, there have been some new Nintendo and video game-themed Nendoroids (in general) revealed. The latest batch includes characters from series such as Kirby, Pikmin and even Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog franchise.
First up we have the Bulborb from the Pikmin series. This enemy originally made his debut in the first Pikmin games and loves to eat Pikmin! There’s no date on this new Nendoroid just yet, but when we get update, we’ll let you know. For now, here’s a look:
Aspyr’s Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection had a bumpy launch in March but has since received a few major updates including all sorts of fixes. This brings us to the latest third update.
Update 3 not only comes with server stability improvements and fixes but also some Switch-specific updates to saving and controller functions.
There’s a concept in business called a “fast follow.” The idea, essentially, is that one company shows a product it’s working on, and another imitates it and gets their version out quickly, taking advantage of the buzz and beating the original to market. Bodycam, made by the two-person team of Reissad Studio, looks very much like it is fast-following Unrecord, a first-person shooter from the perspective of a police bodycam that garnered a lot of attention for its exceptionally lifelike graphics. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – Fortnite adding a PUBG-like battle royale was a literal game changer, for instance. Unfortunately, that’s not the case with Bodycam. While it is an interesting proof of concept in its early access phase, it has too many critical design blindspots to be a good shooter just yet.
The idea behind Bodycam is creative, and the mix of a rounded lens, dust on the glass, and rough movement does a good job selling the vibe of actual police-style footage. It pairs well with high-quality textures, dense debris, and lush foliage to make a visually impressive game. The lighting effects in particular are excellent, with a broad range from pitch-black hallways to blindingly bright flashlights factoring heavily into the strategy in the team-based modes.
Unfortunately, the concept just isn’t great for a competitive first-person shooter because you don’t gain anything by having a worse view of the world. It makes locating and shooting enemies more awkward, and it doesn’t contribute to the experience thematically. Police aren’t looking through a camera when they’re actually in a shootout, and, as you aren’t actually playing as law enforcement, it doesn’t say anything about the state of policing. It’s also a bit strange the way aiming down site means your character is lifting the gun to their chest to be in front of the bodycam, not their eyes. I can see how this perspective would work great for something like a horror game; the time spent stalking around in the dark and deciding if and when to risk giving away my position by turning on my flashlight in order to see is pretty gripping. Here, however, it feels gimmicky, not immersive.
The fundamental shooting mechanics are solid.
That said, the fundamental shooting mechanics are solid. Bodycam is the classic example of a pixel shooter: as soon as you see a single exposed pixel of the enemy you open fire, hoping you beat them to the punch. It only takes a single well-aimed bullet to kill or be killed, and even a handful of less accurate hits is enough to send you to an early grave. I like that it creates opportunities to win engagements through clever positioning and anticipation rather than raw shooter skills, and it’s especially important to carefully lean around corners instead of running and gunning. Ultimately, whether you’re a fan of instant kills or not is a matter of taste, but just know this isn’t a shooter that affords a margin of error.
It does take a certain amount of skill to compensate for the fact that weapons tend to have a lot of kick, which makes accuracy difficult if you lean on auto fire. It’s a realistic element that makes it particularly satisfying to take down other players in rapid succession.
I just wish the movement was better. I’m sure some of it has to do with the disconnected way the characters’ arms and bodies shift independently of the bodycam itself, but it is way too easy to get stuck on minor obstructions that litter hallways, like desks and filing cabinets. With how slowly and deliberately characters walk, and how fast the time to kill is, being stopped because your elbow is colliding with a table is both annoying and potentially deadly. You can theoretically climb over small obstructions, but in practice even the smallest step up can be a major obstacle to get your character past, and every second you spend exposes you to lethal gunfire.
Being stopped because your elbow is colliding with a table is both annoying and potentially deadly.
That’s a shame, because the six levels currently in Bodycam are generally pretty neat. An abandoned hospital, for example, has a great mix of long corridors and connecting offices. The Russian Building level is also spooky as hell when the built-in day/night cycle decides it’s time for the sun to go down. Another is an airsoft arena, complete with a plywood mockup of a house and person-shaped training dummies that I’ve definitely shot in a moment of panic when they surprised me as I was coming around a corner. The way each level both looks and plays differently is effective at staving off the “been there, done that” feeling after I’d played the limited selection of three game modes, at least for a little while.
Not ready for competition
Team deathmatch is my favorite way to play Bodycam. Up to 10 players are split into teams and given the same weapons, but that gear is randomized after each round and first to 10 wins. Maybe you all have pistols one time, but shotguns another. It’s a unique spin on a tried-and-true shooter mode, and having each round be elimination based, with no respawns, ratchets up the tensions considerably. Moments where I’m carefully creeping down hallways, dividing the responsibility of checking corners with a squadmate, do a great job scratching that tactical itch.
When you die you respawn as a drone for the rest of the round, which gives you the ability to either watch things play out or scout the other team’s positions. It’s pretty fun to turn on your drone’s flashlight and spot the enemy, doing your best to avoid getting shot down by annoyed opponents.
Standard deathmatch, unfortunately, is a bit of a disaster.
Standard deathmatch, unfortunately, is a bit of a disaster. Respawns are quick, and it’s all about accumulating kills, which completely removes the tense tactical action from the equation. Worse, the spawns are managed terribly. Anytime you die it’s basically a dice roll whether your next life will start with you staring down the barrel of a gun, and it’s common to go several lives without time to take a single step before being gunned down. It’s in terrible need of significant rework and, since it’s the only solo play mode, Bodycam doesn’t have much to offer anybody who prefers to go it alone.
Bodybomb, meanwhile, has one team trying to plant and defend a bomb, somewhat similar to Counter-Strike or Search and Destroy from Call of Duty. The biggest difference here is that the bomb can be planted anywhere, but the duration of the detonation timer decreases the further into enemy territory you decide to place it. It’s a fine concept, but doesn’t work extremely well in practice. The main issue is that it is too easy for the bomb team to just arm immediately and then just set up camp to guard all the pathways leading to it. In my experience it’s rare for the bomb team to not score when this happens, which sucks all the competitive energy out of the match.
The other issue – one that’s universal across all the modes – is they just take too long. A single match can easily last 30 minutes, which feels like an eternity in a small squad shooter like this. There have been plenty of times where I’d have loved to just pop in for a quick match before I do something else, but the time commitment required just doesn’t allow for it. Worse, because it uses peer-to-peer connections instead of servers, if the host quits or disconnects at any point – no matter how far along a game is – the match ends. That’s unfortunately a too-common occurrence, especially when the host is on the losing side of a match.
One issue that’s universal across all the modes is they just take too long.
Assuming you can complete your match your rank will go up or down on the simple leaderboard system, which gives you something to strive for. It works as expected, except for in Deathmatch, where only one person wins – you can finish with a very strong kill-to-death ratio, landing you in second place, and still drop in ranks. Giving positive progress to the top several finishers is pretty common in other shooters, and seems like a strange omission here.
The other thing you can advance is your cosmetics. Match performance (like kills), and wins net you R points you can spend on one of the 11 cosmetics for sale. That’s 11 total cosmetics available at a given time, not 11 categories. You could buy the shirt for sale, or the single hat option. Hopefully the store expands with future updates, but I can’t help but wonder what the point is in having a store at all if there is so little to choose from. It does refresh daily, but things are so expensive it’s easy for the more interesting options, like a unique gas mask, to shuffle out before you can save up for it. The 4,000 R it would take to buy a backpack, for example, represents multiple hours of grinding. There is text in the menu that says you can pay for R points to save time, but that’s not actually true; as of this writing there is no mechanism to buy points, just earn them in game, which adds to the feeling the shop is simply not ready, even for early access.
Last week, we asked you to shine a light on Alan Wake 2 and the recent release of its photo mode using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s haunting highlights:
arashikagesshares Alan standing at the center of black swirling handprint motif splattered on a hotel’s walls
Yuric83shares Saga moving through a distorted section of forest
jdbolzanshares diner waitress Rose in control during the Night Springs DLC, holding a rifle in front of a banner in town
CamisGuishares the sunlight fading as FBI agent Alex Casey takes in a crime scene
hazelgreen_vpshares a portrait of FBI agent Alex Casey sipping on coffee
denisjurisonshares a black and white portrait of Alan staring out the lake house window
Search #PSshare #PSBlog on Twitter or Instagram to see more entries to this week’s theme. Want to be featured in the next Share of the Week?
THEME: Summer SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on June 26, 2024
Next week, we’re celebrating the warmth and sun of summer. Share moments from your favorite game filled with summer vibes using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured.
