Category: Video Games

Lifeweaver is the latest hero coming to Overwatch in Season 4 dropping April 11th. As his name alludes to, Lifeweaver is the newest Support hero addition. Finally, another support. Here’s everything you need to know about Lifeweaver’s kit before Overwatch Season 4 launches.

Lifeweaver is definitely more of a utility based healer. He isn’t the strongest healer on the roster, especially since his big burst of healing takes a few seconds to charge up, but his actual abilities are his strongest suit that will aid his team in winning big fights.

Weapons:

Healing Blossom: Hold to charge a healing burst of 65 or you can fire individual bursts for minimum healing if you need the speedy recovery.

Thorn Volley: Switch to an alternate fire to fire an SMG like spread of projectiles. Distanced firing isn’t as great for this since it does have a bigger bloom.

Abilities:

Petal Platform: platform thrown on the ground that will lift anyone up when stepped on

Rejuvenating Dash: Dash the direction you’re moving and get a slight boost of health

Life Grip: Pull an ally to your direction, horizontally and vertically and give them a slight bubble when they get pulled

Passives:

Parting Gift: When you die, you drop a health boost that heals the first enemy or ally who picks it up

Support: Heal over Time

Ultimate:

Tree of Life: Summon a spiritual tree that instantly heals allies in pulses and continues to do so until it runs out

There will be so many useful ability synergies between Lifeweaver and his other teammates. It’ll be interesting to see how Lifeweaver will be played, especially in ranked. We’ll be sure to keep you updated on more Overwatch 2 Season 4 news as soon as it drops.

Microsoft has finally cracked down on a loophole in the Xbox Store that allowed emulators to be downloaded and used on Xbox consoles to play older games, including many unavailable on Xbox consoles. And while rumors are flying as to the impetus for the sudden change, Microsoft is pointing to a pretty straightforward, long-standing official store policy as the reason.

Emulator users and creators first began pointing out the change earlier this week. Previously, emulators were able to be accessed on the Xbox Store via direct links on an Xbox’s Edge browser, and those emulators could be run indefinitely once downloaded even if the app download itself was found and removed. However, numerous users have reported that popular emulators such as Xenia no longer launch on consoles even if previously downloaded – instead, an error message occurs.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s been a good run.

But now we’ve no choice but to @Xbox @XboxP3 #LetUsEmulate pic.twitter.com/K9KO1p655K

— ?? gamr13 ?? (@gamr12) April 6, 2023

As a result, the emulation community has expressed frustration and anger, especially by users who claim to have promoted legal emulation to play games they already own on older Xbox consoles, but which are unavailable on current Xbox hardware. That said, there are numerous games available through emulators that were also either for sale on Xbox’s store or have never been available on Xbox at all, such as Wii and GameCube games. Notably emulation on Xbox consoles is still possible in the console’s developer mode, which costs $20.

In the wake of this change, speculation has emerged as to the reason Microsoft is cracking down on emulators now after allowing the loophole to exist for so long. One popular rumor suggested the culprit was not Xbox, but Nintendo, supposedly demanding action over its copyrighted games being played on Xbox consoles without permission. But in a statement to IGN, Microsoft says this isn’t the case.

“The information currently circulating on Twitter is not accurate,” reads a statement from Microsoft. “Our actions are based on a long standing policy on content distributed to the Store to ensure alignment with our Microsoft Store Polices. Per 10.13.10, Products that emulate a game system or game platform are not allowed on any device family.”

The policy the team points to has been in place historically, so it remains unclear what prompted Microsoft to let the loophole remain for so long, or to crackdown on it now, specifically. In a statement to Kotaku, Microsoft said that it “continually evolve our mechanisms for reviewing and taking enforcement actions on content distributed to the Store to ensure alignment with our Microsoft Store Policies,” possibly indicating that the company may have been looking for a solution to the emulator workaround for some time and may have only just now found it.

Previously, Xbox head Phil Spencer has spoken in favor of legal emulation as a solution to games preservaton, though notably such an endeavor is challenging to permit without also allowing for illegal emulation.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

In 2021, YouTuber PointCrow offered a $10,000 reward for anybody who could create and send him a multiplayer mod for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Now, just over a month before the launch of Tears of the Kingdom, fans can finally use the mod that came out of this deal to explore Hyrule with friends.

On April 4, PointCrow released his multiplayer mod for Breath of the Wild. The mod was created by AlexMangue and Sweet, who claimed the $10,000 reward last July and then began working alongside PointCrow to finish the mod and make it publicly available.

PointCrow had previously shown off the mod in multiple videos, using it to play games like hide and seek, though it appears that a host of new features have been added since his last video showing off the mod. Since the mod’s launch, quite a few fans have experimented with it.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection has sold more than 1 million copies, Konami announced today, an impressive feat in light of it being a retro collection comprised of older games from the 8 and 16-bit era.

Konami revealed the news in a cheeky infographic that also that revealed that six million pizzas were eaten and 350 million foot soldiers defeated.

“We’re thrilled and a little shell-shocked at this morning’s fantastic news!” Digital Eclipse said in a tweet. “Thank you to Konami and Nickelodeon for the opportunity to make [Cowabunga Collection], but most of all, thank you the intensely loyal TMNT fans who loudly supported this project!”

13 iconic TMNT titles, over 1 million copies sold!

From lifelong fans, to newcomers experiencing the historic games for the first time — we hope you’ve enjoyed playing and exploring TMNT: The Cowabunga Collection.

You all really kicked some shell. pic.twitter.com/gafVGMo8Nn

— Konami (@Konami) April 7, 2023

The Cowabunga Collection’s strong sales can be chalked up to the considerable excitement in the run-up to its release last year, which was owed in large part to the lack of availability for many of its core games.

The collection consists of 13 games from the NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, Game Boy, and arcade, with many of them featuring online play.

Our review was positive on the collection as a whole, but criticized its online play. “The entire TMNT: The Cowabunga Collection has clearly been crafted by a team that loves the TMNT – not just the games, but the shows and comics as well.”

However, “It’s truly unfortunate that the online component makes it so hard to find a match, and when you do get into a game it’s often woefully laggy. The input delay could also be improved.”

Digital Eclipse has since added new features and other enhancements while fixing numerous issues, including multiple enhancements for online play.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection is currently available on Switch, PS4, PS5, PC, and Xbox.

Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.