Enter the ’90s.
Note. Gex Trilogy isn’t playable on Switch 2 via backwards compatibility at the time of writing, although a patch has been submitted to Nintendo for review, according to Limited Run. We’ll update this note when we hear more.
Dimitris Giannakis’s Carbon Engine is back on behalf of Limited Run Games, and, despite some previously reported bugs, it fairly accurately brings vintage games to new hardware.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
The new Path of Exile expansion, Secrets of the Atlas, arrives on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One today. Explore a new additive Atlas storyline, face three new Pinnacle Endgame Bosses, and find a perfect companion in a new Mercenaries of Trarthus challenge league. Here, we’ll also share some tips on how to approach these powerful new foes.
With one of Path of Exile’s most iconic characters, Zana, returning after many years from a mysterious disappearance, you will search for her and begin a new saga of the Endgame.
Bringing back Zana sets Path of Exile up for a new series of Endgame Bosses, Crafting Systems, Unique Items and much more as we also step into a new storyline to prepare for many future expansions.
The Secrets of the Atlas expansion comes with three very unique, very distinct bosses that now act as the Endgame Pinnacle content for this expansion.We wanted to have Zana be integral to these and have her memories be the source of their design. Specifically, very potent memories coming from places of either trauma or even admiration.
We took some concepts of Memories she had and translated them into new bosses.
The first memory sees Zana trying to get her father’s attention while he’s working and accidentally tipping over a candle, burning some of his books.
The books burn, he douses the flames and then angrily retaliates, yelling at her, at this moment she truly felt fear and that acts as a potent memory which has now malformed into her father turning into a boss named The Incarnation of Fear. The boss is strong, scary and physically powerful, depicting how she saw him in this moment.
The Incarnation of Fear is a physically powerful being capable of taking you down just using his fists. On top of that he is infused with intense flames that he can channel into powerful beams and spheres to block your movement and restrict your positioning.
This fight relies on you to intelligently consider where you are standing at all times, and make sure you aren’t restricting your playspace in a way that would result in your demise. All while trying to avoid his powerful physical attacks.
The second and third memories are similar, one is an Incarnation of Neglect, where he was lost in his work and thus ignoring Zana and refusing to give her attention.
The Incarnation of Neglect uses devices and machinery to his advantage. He summons powerful laser beams that will sweep through the arena, causing you to perform almost a dance to avoid dying.
Every so often he uses a number of puzzle boxes to do an advanced version of this skill, testing your reaction times and making sure you’re able to maneuver with precision.
If you’re able to survive these, he will channel powerful explosions and beams from his staff using shocking lightning and arctic ice magic, get hit by these and you will be slowed, or even frozen, and that will surely cause you to be eviscerated by the lasers.
Another is the Incarnation of Dread, a more positive memory, but one where she saw her father getting praise and being idolized by others. She was happy for him, but was afraid she would never achieve his standards and forever be in his shadow.
The Incarnation of Dread is a tactically complicated fight but one that is befitting of its role as a Pinnacle Boss. It uses a combination of all of the Elements and Chaos to try to defeat you.
Using its large limbs to slam you, tear you apart, all the way to using its neck which can literally split in two to create portals to summon magical homing projectiles it will prove formidable. Its most terrifying ability however is its bullet-hells, which will truly test the skill of the player as they must dodge and weave through waves of projectiles in order to stay alive, while trying to kill him and interrupt his abilities.
Each of these requires a well-designed, well-built and thought out endgame character to have the best chance. However, the world is your oyster, either invest heavily in defence to protect yourself from their disastrous abilities, or stack offence to try to burn them down quicker, or take something well-balanced in the middle and get the best of both worlds!
In this Endgame storyline, you will meet a mysterious new character named Eagon, who is trying to discover his own origins. Using a gauntlet of his own creation, Eagon is able to link to memory threads and open portals to new areas for you to investigate. These areas are influenced by the same memories which created the pinnacle bosses, who wait for you at the end of each memory thread. Defeating them will grant you new unique items, memory-influenced maps, and new crafting currencies you can use to manipulate the influence these memories have on items.
Path of Exile: Secrets of the Atlas is available today on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One.
Grinding Gear Games
The post New Pinnacle Bosses in Path of Exile: Secrets of the Atlas, and Tips To Take Them On appeared first on Xbox Wire.
Don’t let Elden Ring Nightreign’s status as a spin-off fool you. It has plenty of stuff to pick apart for lore fiends. Much like the towering Erdtree, Nightreign is just one branch, one alternate timeline, with roots in the world of Elden Ring. Nightreign brings its own unique ideas and new characters to Elden Ring, even if the events of the game don’t tie directly to the original. You’ll know what we mean when we start exploring the ending of Nightreign below.
This article contains spoilers for the ending of Elden Ring Nightreign.
Nightreign bends the history of The Lands Between in a different direction, forking off from a pivotal moment in the lore to give us a peek at what might’ve happened if things had gone much, much worse. It’s better to think of the events of Nightreign as an alternate timeline rather than a canon storyline. You don’t need to know everything about Elden Ring to enjoy it, but you do need to spend quite a bit of time running expeditions and fighting Nightlords to get the full picture. Once you do, you’ll start to grasp how Nightreign fits (and doesn’t fit) into the story of the Lands Between.
As the intro cutscene explains: Nightreign takes place in a world where the Tarnished never show up. The war between the gods—known as The Shattering—breaks out after Marika stirs chaos in The Lands Between by smashing the Elden Ring. Thousands of years pass and nobody takes the throne, eventually luring “an abomination” known as the Nightlord to the land. This unnamed being is basically a walking natural disaster. Wherever he goes, the Night follows, and an endless torrent of rain slowly dissolves the world into nothing.
Leave it to FromSoftware to come up with an even bleaker version of the timeline than what we have in the original game. Here, the Elden Throne is just an empty chair sitting in the ruins of a world fading out of existence. There’s nothing to rule or to conquer. And yet a peculiar group of people have been chosen by some unknown master to try and defeat the Nightlord anyway and end the Night.
That’s where we come in. The Nightfarers team up to hunt down lesser Nightlords on their way to the source of the catastrophe. This involves dropping down onto what’s left of Limgrave and battling familiar monsters and bosses from not only Elden Ring, but the Dark Souls series as well. While the game doesn’t explicitly state why the worlds have converged, I like to think of it as the result of ruptures in reality as the universe collapses in on itself.
Once you bring enough of the Nightlords down, the true culprit is revealed to be the husk of a man named Heolstor. He carries what looks like the Moonlight Greatsword from Dark Souls in one of his three arms, and is one of the most spectacular boss fights FromSoftware has ever created. Defeating him rewards you with the Primordial Nightlord’s Rune, which resembles the Great Runes you find in Elden Ring, only with an inky hue.
Usually you return to see your allies hanging out in the Roundtable Hold after defeating a Nightlord, but killing Heolstor leaves you standing in front of a Roundtable Hold that has been long abandoned. A petrified corpse sits inside and when you place the rune before it, it causes your Nightfarer to dissipate into streaks of light that fly into the sky.
A post-credits scene shows the Lands Between as we know it from Elden Ring—Erdtree and all—with golden leaves wafting in the air. One of those leaves lands on a tree branch atop a giant that looks a lot like Heolstor if he were made out of wood. It rises out of the sea, pausing a moment to face the Erdtree, and then steps away.
It’s heavily implied that by defeating Heolstor we’ve retroactively stopped the Night from ever happening in the first place. In other words: We’ve chopped off Nightreign’s branch of the story for good, leaving the events of Elden Ring to play out as we know them from the original game.
We don’t know a lot about Heolstor outside of the relic you get from defeating him. It tells a brief story of a knight who was slain by a hero before mysteriously waking up to curse the world. It’s vague enough to fit into several different interpretations, but the most plausible one seems to be that he is intentionally a nobody, a cosmic inevitability as natural as the sun setting in the evening.
This lines up thematically with the alternate ending the Wylder can get if you finish his remembrance quests. Instead of erasing the timeline, the Wylder takes up the mantle of Nightlord by using a Larval Tear, an item from Elden Ring that is associated with rebirth. You learn earlier in his quest that the Roundtable Hold only exists because the Nightlord exists, and his sister, the Duchess, is locked to the same fate. He sacrifices himself to the Night to keep her alive.
In the Ironeye’s unique ending, he cuts the throat of the petrified corpse in the empty Roundtable Hold and prolongs the Night. His goal is to protect his clan of undying warriors who you might remember from Elden Ring as Those Who Live in Death. In Elden Ring’s timeline, Those Who Live in Death are hunted by the followers of the Erdtree. The Ironeye’s decision saves them from this outcome, but dooms the world as a result.
The Recluse’s ending is the second most hopeful one you can get. Her remembrance reveals that she once had a child who she abandoned, leaving it to succumb to an endless hunger and start to devour everything in sight, including her own sister. After defeating Heolstor, the Recluse can find the Night-touched baby in the Roundtable Hold and embrace it. Her love calms the infant and seemingly prevents a new Nightlord from forming.
The remaining Nightfarers don’t have special endings associated with them. Their stories follow the events of the default ending and they likely disappear along with everything else when it’s erased. But Nightreign’s story isn’t completely over: FromSoftware will eventually release new Nightfarers as DLC and they could provide even more insight into the nature of this sad world— possibly through their own alternate endings.
Another Monday and another fresh start for daily deals, and it’s starting off with a bang. Big box online retailers have Pokémon TCG product in stock that’s near or under market value, while Prismatic Evolutions and Journey Together single card values cool off (Finally). The same can’t be said for the wave that is Destined Rivals however, with single-card prices bobbing up and down the secondary market seas.
Outside of the worlds biggest Franchise ever, Magic: The Gathering – Aetherdrift sealed product has been discounted on Amazon, so there’s never been a better time to rip open the expansion. Whilst MTG: Final Fantasy has finally dropped, there’s still plenty of buying options for sealed product from big box retailers and TCG Player. I’ve also found some cracking bargains on SSDs, portable storage, DDR5 RAM, games and more. Let’s get into it:
Checking these prices against TCG Player secondary market values, a lot of these products aren’t far off the mark. Make no mistake, they’re still way off MSRP, but finding Pokémon products on shelves that haven’t been marked up past the point of anyone caring is a positive. Still refusing to pay over MSRP for new sets? Well played, I’m proud of you. Here’s some single card highlights for you to shuffle through instead. Spoiler, there’s plenty of deals to be had.
It’s hard to stick a pin on Destined Rivals single card values right now, and the dips in value seem to match the little bits of stock distributors release to stores. Looking at the tracking charts for each of these cards, we can see mostly plummets from day one, then either upticks or cards for sale that exceed the original value at launch. It’s crazy, but we now know how low these cards can go. Sure there’s always attempts at market manipulation, but I wouldn’t buy any cards on the rise right now.
Having keeping an eye on the market since launch, Journey Together singles are now more affordable than ever. Many of these cards have stabilized, with the main chase card – Lillie’s Clefairy ex SIR, settling at around $150. If you were planning on getting into Journey Together at some point to collect the illustration rares and SIRs, now is a great time to jump in.
There’s so many great cards in this set that aren’t Umbreon ex SIR, all of which are a damn sight more affordable right now. Because I hate anything popular (Yes, I know I’m a massive fan of the most popular IP on earth), my two favorite cards are Dragapult ex SIR and Roaring Moon ex SIR. The former is now down to a respectable $125, with the latter holding it’s value well since launch, floating towards the $200 mark. These prices and below are great deals for these cards, so don’t miss out.
Magic: The Gathering discounts at a big box store like Amazon? Surely not! Aetherdrift turned the MTG meta on its head introducing vehicles and other unique mechanics. This is a great time to jump into it and rip open some packs, it’s deffinately one of the most “out there” twists on the ever popular trading card game.
It’s finally here, Magic the Gathering: Final Fantasy is out in the wild. If you got a preorder for MSRP, well played, but many TCG and Final Fantasy fans missed out. Fear not, there’s still some options on sealed products available right now, including options from the secondary market with TCG Player which is around the same or lower than the pricing of big box retailers right now.
Crucial are one of the most dependable brands when it comes to M.2 and portable drives, and is a great option for those wanting the benefits of DDR5 RAM without flashy RGB and it’s price tag. Here’s some of the best deals in the Crucial price slashing marathon on Amazon right now. I currently use the X10 Pro 4TB for backing up files and folders on my PC and for watching videos on my projector, just a solid piece of kit.
Kingdom Come Deliverance II drops you into the brutal heart of 15th century Bohemia, and right now the PS5 version is just $47.99, down from $69.99. You play as Henry, a blacksmith’s son caught in a fight for survival, revenge, and rebellion. With over five hours of cinematic storytelling, a massive open world, and intense first-person melee combat, this sequel builds on everything that made the original a cult hit. Whether you’re swordfighting, smithing, or trying to navigate life in a war-torn land, this is medieval roleplaying at its most immersive.
This limited-edition DOOM The Dark Ages art print is a must for fans of the Slayer’s latest crusade. Officially licensed and hand-numbered out of 995 copies, it’s printed on high-quality art paper and comes with a certificate of authenticity. Produced by one of the UK’s oldest commercial printers, the A3-sized piece measures 11.69 x 16.53 inches and captures the brutal tone of the game perfectly. Pre-orders are open now, with shipping expected in July 2025.
Power Up Pride Game Bundle brings together seven standout indie titles for just $13, with all games yours to keep. You’ll find cozy village life in Echoes of the Plum Grove, charming shop sim gameplay in Sticky Business, and emotional storytelling in titles like Haven and A Normal Lost Phone. It’s a solid mix of narrative-driven adventures, life sims, and visual novels, all picked for their unique stories and engaging mechanics. Great value, great games, and a portion of your purchase supports charity through Xperience Studios.
Christian Wait is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything collectable and deals. Christian has over 7 years of experience in the Gaming and Tech industry with bylines at Mashable and Pocket-Tactics. Christian also makes hand-painted collectibles for Saber Miniatures. Christian is also the author of “Pokemon Ultimate Unofficial Gaming Guide by GamesWarrior”. Find Christian on X @ChrisReggieWait.
Invisible Inc and Don’t Starve developers Klei Interactive have announced Away Team, a 2D base-building game from the same universe as Oxygen Not Included. I have yet to play Oxygen Not Included, but Klei seldom miss – their Mark Of The Ninja remains one of my favouritest ninja shankfests – and Away Team already seems very appealing for putting a deeply inhumane emphasis on traitorous physics. Here be trailer.
CD Projekt has explained why it has taken a “console-first” development approach for the hotly anticipated The Witcher 4, having gone with a PC-first approach for its previous games.
Earlier this month, CD Projekt revealed a stunning The Witcher 4 tech demo, built using Unreal Engine 5, that gave fans a clear sense of what to expect from the game.
The tech demo, captured on a PlayStation 5 and running at 60 frames per second, follows Ciri as she explores the never-before-seen region of Kovir in the midst of a monster contract.
There is an incredible amount of detail in the tech demo, with fluid animations on a level we have yet to see on the current generation of consoles. Ciri and her horse Kelpie have particularly impressive movement and interactions with each other, NPCs, and the game world as they make their way through the mountains of Kovir to the bustling port town of Valdrest. At one point in the demo, CD Projekt upped the NPC count in the market scene to 300 individually animated characters. The showcase ended with a first look at Lan Exeter, the winter capital and a major port city in Kovir.
Speaking to the tech experts at Digital Foundry following the demo reveal, CDPR’s VP of technology, Charles Tremblay, explained why the studio showed off The Witcher 4 tech demo running on PS5 first and before PC, saying it’s going for a “console-first” development approach for the game.
“We always do PC and we push and then we try to scale down,” he said. “But then we had so many problems in the past that we tried to say, this time around we really want to be more console-first development.”
That mention of having problems in the past is a nod to the disastrous launch of 2020’s Cyberpunk 2077, which ran so poorly on consoles on release that Sony ended up pulling it from the PlayStation Store and offered refunds. Amid the furore, CD Projekt apologized to customers for not showing the game on base last-gen consoles ahead of launch, admitting “we should have paid more attention to making it play better on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.”
CD Projekt spent years recovering from the game’s technical issues, but has done so successfully, to the point now where Cyberpunk 2077 is a massive hit and was even successfully released on the Nintendo Switch 2 as a launch title.
Now, with The Witcher 4 in development but not due out until 2027 at the earliest, CD Projekt is clearly keen to avoid making the same mistake. Later in the same interview, Jakub Knapik, VP, Global Art Director, CDPR, talked in vague terms about the benefits of going with console first then “scaling up” to platforms such as PC.
“We wanted to solve certain foundations,” he said. “It’s pretty logical when you think about it, because it’s easier to scale up than down.
“We knew that once we set up certain foundations both visually and technically, there’s room to scale up. Now what that means is another question. We’re CDPR, we always like to push PCs to the limit. It’s just a creative process how to really use it.”
Tremblay then stepped in to insist PC gamers will get their money’s worth from The Witcher 4 when it eventually comes out, despite the “console-first” approach.
“In the past, something that’s super important for the group is that if people pay good money for their hardware, then we want them to have what the game can provide for that, not like a simplified experience,” he said.
“So this is something we will definitely explore. The company started as a PC company, and we’ll definitely want to have the best experience for the PC gamer for sure. But it’s too early to say what this will mean for The Witcher 4.”
It’s worth remembering that by releasing The Witcher 4 on Xbox Series X, it must also release it on the less powerful Xbox Series S. All the talk so far has been about how CD Projekt has committed to 60 frames per second for The Witcher 4 across console, but in the DF interview Tremblay admitted that scaling down to Series S while maintaining 60fps will be “extremely challenging.”
“I wish we did a lot of work already on that but we did not,” he said. “So this is something that is next on our radar for sure. I will say that 60fps will definitely be extremely challenging on the Xbox Series S. Let’s just say this is something we need to figure out.”
There is still a long way to go for The Witcher 4, and as IGN has reported, the tech demo is not representative of The Witcher 4 gameplay. But it does show CD Projekt’s “ambition” for the title.
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.
It’s a feature.
It seems some eager players have been a little mystified as to the reasons behind a message that’s been popping up on their Switch 2 screens during play as of late.
Yep, over on Reddit (thanks GoNintendo) a handful of gamers have been rocking up to report that an alert related to the console’s HD Rumble has been popping onto their lovely big LCD screens, as you can see in the post below this very paragraph. Of course, with it being a new console, folk have quickly become concerned that there’s something up with their Joy-Con and/or Pro 2 Controllers.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
PlayStation have finally come to their senses and rolled back a lot of the unpopular PC region locking that’s been stopping folks in various parts of the world enjoying a bunch of games. It looks like one of those titles, Helldivers 2, could finally be getting a cape players have craved for a year or so as a result.
Yep, Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani has teased deploying the review bomb-themed cape that first emerged as a meme following the backlash to PlayStation attempting to change the game’s PSN account linking rules last year. We’ve known the cape was a real item the studio had made for a while now, but with the region locking still ongoing, Arrowhead have opted to keep it locked away for months on end.
Shogun: Total War is 25 years old this year, and Creative Assembly are holding a multi-month long celebration kicking off in August with livestreams, interviews, sales, and multiplayer tournaments, all culminating with a showcase in early December. This will be the first showcase of its type they’ve done, and it’s billed to feature announcements for “new games” in the strategy series. That’s more than one, as the discerning pluralisation understanders among you have no doubt sagely clocked.
Father’s Day is almost here, and now is the time to score some last-minute gifts, as well as catch some popular item restocks. We’ve rounded up the best deals for Saturday, June 14, below, so don’t miss out on these limited-time offers.
Today, you can save $20 off Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Premium Edition, which is normally priced at $99.99. This edition of the game includes both the base game and the upcoming Order of Giants DLC expansion, set to release on September 4. If you’ve yet to pick up one of the biggest games of 2024, now is the perfect time!
Magic: The Gathering finally released its Final Fantasy collaboration this week, and this has been a hugely popular set amongst longtime and new fans. If you’ve never played Magic: The Gathering before, the Final Fantasy collaboration is the perfect time to jump in. The Starter Kit includes everything a beginner needs, and the Play Booster Box is perfect if you’re aiming to pull some rare cards.
With Nintendo Switch 2 very hard to find, it’s no surprise that Nintendo Switch consoles are starting to pop up on sale. Woot this weekend has the Switch OLED – White Edition available for $249.99, which is seriously a great deal. This is the best Nintendo Switch model available, featuring a gorgeous OLED display that captures colors signficantly better than Nintendo Switch. Nintendo has already confirmed multiple Switch games set to release later this year and in 2026, so you can count on new releases to keep your console active.
Dan Da Dan was one of my favorite anime series of 2024, and the fact that you can take home all of Season 1 for just $24.49 is an absolute steal. Following Momo Ayase and Ken Takakura, Dan Da Dan is a comedic adventure that throws together aliens, spirits, and so much more.
Apple’s newest AirPods are all on sale and would make a great gift idea for Father’s Day, which lands on June 15. Starting with the highest end model, the second generation Apple AirPods Pro wireless noise-canceling earbuds is $169 shipped (normally $240). The next step down, the Apple AirPods 4 with ANC (active noise cancelation) is down to $148 (normally $179). Finally, the value-packed AirPods 4 without ANC drops to $99.99 (normally $129).
This LEGO set takes inspiration from one of the most memorable scenes of Ahsoka, and you can save 20% off this weekend. 382 pieces are included in this set, as are five total minifigures: Ahsoka, Ezra, Thrawn, Morgan, and Night Trooper.
Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter has officially opened pre-orders at Amazon, with both PS5 and Nintendo Switch copies available for $59.99. If you’re unfamiliar with the Trails series, this is a remake of the very first Trails game, making 2025 the perfect time to jump into the series for the very first time. NIS America is set to bring the latest game in the series, The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon, to North America and Europe later this year, which is the first time ever the series will be caught up worldwide.
For quite a while, Nintendo’s first-party games have not been available for purchase at Amazon. That changed yesterday, though, as upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 games like Donkey Kong Bananza finally went live for pre-order. If you’ve been holding out on pre-ordering one of the biggest Switch 2 games revealed so far, now you have yet another option for retailer.
Darkest Dungeon II for PlayStation 5 is just $20.75 at Amazon right now. One of the biggest features and upgrades of this game from its predocessor is the token system, which opens up your gameplay in entirely new ways. This game generally retails for $29.99, so this weekend is a great time to pick it up.
