Over the last few years, as more and more time passed with barely a whisper from Nintendo or Retro Studios regarding Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, many fans had begun to ask the same question: will it skip the Switch and launch on ‘Switch 2’?
After all, the game’s eventual revival during the latest Nintendo Direct came after the firm had finally acknowledged the Switch’s successor, confirming that it would be revealed within the next financial year. So many had come to the conclusion that if Prime 4 doesn’t feature in the showcase, then chances are it isn’t heading for the Switch.
Fallout creator Tim Cain has for the first time revealed his role in the cancelation of Interplay’s Van Buren, the codename for what was intended to be the original Fallout 3.
Van Buren was in development at Interplay-owned Black Isle Studios in the early 2000s, but was canceled amid significant financial problems at the company.
Cain, who worked on the first two, much-loved Fallout games in the mid-to late 90s before leaving Interplay to start a new studio called Troika Games, has now revealed the role he played in the cancelation of Van Buren as part of his ongoing YouTube series focused on video game development.
As we walked out he basically explained any answer over six months was going to result in him having to cancel it.
Cain revealed that in the middle of 2003, an unnamed Interplay vice president asked him to play the Van Buren prototype, saying: “I don’t think they can get it done, so I’m just going to cancel it. But if you look over it and give me an estimate there’s a chance I wouldn’t cancel it.”
Cain said he played the prototype for two hours and asked the development team a number of questions before delivering his verdict to the vice president.
“I said, ‘I’m convinced in 18 months you could have a really good game shipped.’ And he said, ‘huh, could it be done any faster?’ And I was like, ‘oh, shoot, I’ve said too long.’ I said, ‘well, even if you did a death march crunch I don’t think you could do it faster than 12, and then you’d be shipping something that was unbalanced and buggy, and the team would be destroyed. So I don’t recommend that.’
“And he said, ‘ok, thanks.’ As we walked out he basically explained any answer over six months was going to result in him having to cancel it, meaning the answer I just gave got the game canceled. But he was going to cancel it anyway. He thought it couldn’t be done in six months, and I just confirmed that to him.”
According to Cain, the cancelation of Van Buren was, ultimately, about money. Interplay’s dire financial situation meant it simply did not have enough cash to fund more than six months of further development, so Van Buren was canceled.
Interplay went on to close down Black Isle Studios and cut its entire staff. The company released Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel in 2004 for the Xbox and PlayStation 2, but it was not enough. That same year, Interplay announced a licensing deal with The Elder Scrolls developer Bethesda for future Fallout games, and in 2007, Interplay sold the Fallout IP to Bethesda outright, and the rest is history.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Way back in 2004, that terrible year where I swore off video games entirely to focus on my university studies, developers 1C SeaWolf announced Captain Blood, a piratical action game loosely based on Rafael Sabatini’s adventure novels, in which a crew of 17th century freebooters set forth across the Spanish Main to rescue a magistrate’s daughter from assorted bilge-drinking scallywags. Early footage painted the portrait of a spirited 3D hack-and-slasher featuring much buckling of swashes, heaving of hos and jollying of rogers.
Jim Rossignol (RPS in peace) was cautiously enthused when he played Captain Blood in 2008. “It was actually pretty fun – especially the arcade boat violence between speedy galleons – but I’m not exactly holding out for a masterpiece,” he wrote. Alas, Captain Blood’s ship struck a reef in the shape of unspecified publishing disputes, and sank beneath the waves after one last defiant preview showing in 2010. Now, the game has risen from the depths Flying Dutchman-style thanks to new developers Seawolf Studio and General Arcade and publisher SNEG Ltd. It’ll finally launch on PC later this year.
FromSoftware is rolling out a new update for Elden Ring that adds a number of features ahead of the release of DLC Shadow of the Erdtree.
Following server maintenance today, June 20, patch 1.12 deploys to prepare Elden Ring for the release of Shadow of the Erdtree on June 21. This acts as an update to the Elden Ring base game and a day one patch for the hotly anticipated expansion.
Patch 1.12 adds new inventory features, including marking newly obtained items with a “!“, and a new tab called Recent Items so players can quickly review recently obtained items.
Elsewhere, there are new Summoning Pool features, such as active Summoning Pools now carrying over to NG+, and individual Summoning Pools enabled / disabled in the newly added Map Functions Menu. Only active Summoning Pools will be selected when using the Small Golden Effigy, FromSoftware said.
And five new hairstyles are added to the game. They can be selected during character creation using the Clouded Mirror Stand or using Rennala’s Rebirth feature.
Shadow of the Erdtree is set to add a wealth of new content to the beloved role-playing game. Just like previous FromSoftware games Dark Souls and Bloodborne, however, accessing the DLC isn’t as simple as selecting it on a menu, as players must tick off a handful of obscure feats beforehand, including beating an optional boss. Thankfully, IGN has a guide on how to prepare for the Shadow of Erdtree DLC if you need to scramble ahead of the expansion’s release. And make sure to check out our Elden Ring interactive map to ensure you’re not missing any important collectibles.
IGN’s Shadow of the Erdtree review returned a 10/10. We said: “Like the base game did before it, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree raises the bar for single-player DLC expansions. It takes everything that made the base game such a landmark RPG, condenses it into a relatively compact 20-25 hour campaign, and provides fantastic new challenges for heavily invested fans to chew on.”
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Update: Nintendo of Australia has just confirmed a western release – announcing the same physical bundle will be released locally on 25th July 2024 at select retailers.
Original: Nintendo has announced it is releasing a new physical version of Splatoon 3 in Japan next month on 18th July 2024.
Nintendo has announced it is releasing a new physical version of Splatoon 3 in Japan next month on 18th July 2024.
This new package will come bundle with a copy of the game, the Expansion Pass (including Inkopolis Plaza and Side Order) as well as a three-month Switch Online subscription.
Ahead of the launch of Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD for the Nintendo Switch next week, Walmart in the US has reportedly been cancelling customers physical pre-orders.
As highlighted by GoNintendo, the “exact same situation” that played out with pre-orders for Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door last month is now happening with Luigi’s new release. The retailer is once again offering a discount code of $25 on the next purchase over $45 as an apology.
You might have noticed that the second most played game on Steam right now is Banana, which released back in April, but has seen an explosion of popularity over the past couple of weeks. What is Banana? It’s a free idle clicker in which you click on a picture of a banana to make numbers go up. If the number goes up enough, the game drops additional pictures of bananas into your Steam inventory. Actually, it’s not even an idle clicker – simply leaving the game open all day is enough to generate a slow but steady supply of these banana pictures.
Our initial reaction to The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom reveal at the June Nintendo Direct was something along the lines of “Ahhhh-WHHHAAAAAAAAA”.
If you had asked us for some of the game’s distinguishing features after that first watch, we’d probably be able to mutter, “Hero Zelda, er, magic rod,” and, after a long pause, “… beds“.
Diamond Select Toys has been hard at work immortalizing the epic showdown between Peter Parker, Miles Morales and Venom as seen in 2023’s Spider-Man 2 game. IGN previously debuted DST’s Peter Parker statue and Miles Morales statue, and now we can cap off the trinity with the exclusive reveal of Venom himself.
Check out the slideshow gallery below for a closer look at DST’s Marvel Gamerverse Gallery Diorama Spider-Man 2 Venom PVC Statue:
The Marvel Gamerverse Gallery Diorama Spider-Man 2 Venom PVC Statue measures 13 inches tall and 12 inches wide, featuring the iconic villain in all his oozy, slimy glory. The statue is designed to form a larger diorama display with the aforementioned Spider-Man statues.
This statue was designed by Nelson X. Asencio and sculpted by John Cleary.
The Marvel Gamerverse Gallery Diorama Spider-Man 2 Venom PVC Statue is priced at $85.00 and is slated for release in Q1 2025. Preorders will open on the Diamond Select website and other retailers on Friday, June 21.
