Walmart is currently offering a PlayStation 5 Slim Disc Edition Console bundled with the Spider-Man 2 game for only $449 shipped. This was the same deal we saw back during Black Friday, but it’s currently unavailable everywhere else. Some merchants have the PS5 console for $450, but doesn’t include the game.
PS5 Slim Spider-Man 2 Disc Edition Console for $449
The PS5 Slim was release in November 2023. Compared to the original PlayStation 5 console, it’s 30% smaller in volume and 18% lighter. The design is a bit different too; the console is now clad in four separate cover panels, the two top halves are glossy white and the bottom halves are matte like the original. The specs under the hood are identical. Like the original PS5, the PS5 Slim can be upgraded with an M.2 SSD. A horizontal stand is included. You’d have to buy a vertical stand separately, however you might not need it because the PS5 Slim can stand on its own.
The best thing about this new PS5 Slim bundle is that you get a copy of the Spider-Man 2 game for free. This is an excellent PS5 exclusive and we gave it an 8/10 in our review.
Looking for more deals on accessorie sand games? Check out the best PS5 deals today.
Publisher Devolver Digital and developer Deadnight Games have revealed Tenjustu, a stylish roguelike beat ’em up from Dead Cells designer Sébastien Benard.
We don’t have a release date for this one just yet and it hasn’t even been confirmed for the Switch at the time of writing, but good lord, it looks so good that we simply have to highlight it. The trailer showcases some lovely anime cutscenes followed by blistering beat ’em up gameplay bolstered by gorgeous pixel art visuals.
The Xbox Insider Program is excited to announce that—starting today—the Palworld Update Preview is available for all Xbox Insiders. Joining the Palworld Update Preview will give Xbox Insiders early access to new features and game updates. This version of Palworld is fully compatible with existing saves, so everyone can continue exploring Palpagos with your already collected (and leveled!) Pals!
New content in Palworld Update Preview!
Pocketpair has been hard at work and are now ready to deliver the much-requested dedicated server feature to all Palworld Update Preview participants on both Xbox and Windows. Players can now connect to both Official and Community Dedicated Servers. Create your own server, invite your friends, and adventure across Palpagos in your very own private Palworld instance. The Pocketpair team is very excited to bring this feature to the Xbox ecosystem, and they can’t wait for Xbox Insiders to try it out, along with gathering feedback.
Sounds cool, but what’s Palworld?
Great question! Palworld is an open-world, survival, and crafting game by the wonderful folks over at Pocketpair. In Palworld, you will collect and work alongside mysterious creatures known as “Pals” to explore the Palpagos Islands. Build a base of operations, farm for rare resources and materials, and battle other Pal tamers with over 100 unique Pals that can join your adventures. You can even bring your friends along too as Palworld supports multiplayer for the ultimate Palworld experience.
Awesome! How do I join?
NOTE: To participate in the Palworld Update Preview, you will need to either own Palworld OR have access to the title via an active Game Pass subscription.
Open (or, install if necessary) the Xbox Insider Hub on your Xbox Series X|S or Windows PC.
Navigate to Previews > Palword Update Preview.
Select Join.
Wait for registration to complete, and you should be directed to the correct Store Page to install the preview.
NOTE: If you already have Palworld installed, please restart your console or PC after the registration has completed to ensure you get prompted to update to the Palworld Update Preview version.
NOTE: If you wish to revert to the publicly available version of Palworld, you will need to leave the Palworld Update Preview via the Xbox Insider Hub. This will prompt an update reversion to occur.
NOTE: Launching the dedicated server software might require updating to the latest DirectX and/or C++ Runtimes dependent upon user’s machine.
Something isn’t working. I need help!
If you experience any issues while playing Palworld Update Preview, please use “Report a problem” so we can investigate. (Note: This is only for Xbox consoles.)
Hold down the home button on your Xbox controller.
Select Report a problem.
Select the Games category and the Palworld Update Preview subcategory.
Earlier this week, I had the chance to go hands-on with LEGO Horizon Adventures. Alongside all my other praise for this game, I really loved the immense level of detail put into making each and every LEGO brick component. That’s not a coincidence, either, as it turns out the entire world is made out of individual bricks in a way that could apparently be reconstructed in real life from actual physical LEGO sets.
Speaking to me at Summer Game Fest Play Days over the weekend, Guerrilla Games narrative director James Windeler told me about how this strange collaboration between Guerrilla and LEGO came about. Guerrilla had originally prototyped Horizon: Zero Dawn’s robot dinosaurs in DUPLO and had a lot of interest in model building. The team wanted to make something more lighthearted for its next project. And then there was that LEGO Tallneck collaboration from a few years back. On the LEGO side, LEGO really liked that the Horizon games had bright colors and optimistic themes, as well as a relatively inclusive fanbase. Put it all together, and it’s no wonder the two companies came to an understanding.
Most LEGO games up to now have been made by what is now called TT Games, but TT isn’t involved with this one. Instead, co-development group Studio Gobo and LEGO are working with Guerrilla Games, which itself has assembled a team including a number of individuals who worked on the original Zero Dawn. Windeler tells me many of them have had kids since Zero Dawn released, and those kids are now reaching an age where their parents want to play video games with them. Hence, Horizon Adventures’ co-op feature.
But a different team also means different approaches and capabilities, and for Guerrilla in particular that meant really sweating the LEGO details. Windeler says the team wanted Horizon Adventures to feel like a “playable LEGO movie,” and notes that every single asset in the game is “built from an individual [LEGO] brick.”
“It’s designed by master builders,” he says. “All of these things, from the coolest elements of Horizon, the majestic nature, the machines, the characters, they’re all following the rules of physical LEGO. So even though they’re made as digital assets, you could build them technically out of physical sets…And it also extends to the animation style and the way that the characters move in the game. There’s this kind of stop-motion of all of the characters. Yeah, it’s like a toy. ‘Toyetic’ was a word that was thrown around a lot as a target, and it’s the idea that you’re playing potentially with your own figurines.”
What Windeler is describing certainly showed in my hands-on time with the game. I pointed out that when characters fall off a high ledge, they humorously plop down flat like a LEGO shoved off a shelf. Then they quickly pop back up and trot off again with the jerky motions of a child walking a LEGO character around on a play mat. There are other little nods like that to the overall feel of playing with LEGOs – for instance, when I rescued some Nora villagers in my demo, there were a few generic LEGO people mixed in with the Horizon-themed costumes. What was that about?
“When you’re a kid, when you’re playing LEGO, with LEGO, you’re not necessarily building this completely unified world,” Windeler explains. “You’re using the LEGO that you have from your set.” Fair enough.
Windeler can’t comment on whether or not the very real buildability of LEGO Horizon Adventures means more LEGO Horizon sets are on the way, nor can he speak for whether or not other PlayStation IP will get LEGO games. He does tell me that LEGO Horizon Adventures’ story is about seven to eight hours long, and will have a replayable element at the end that will allow players to revisit regions they’d previously visited and unlock more customizations and other things. As Windeler told me, Horizon Adventures isn’t supposed to be a 20+ hour adventure the way Horizon: Zero Dawn was. It’s loosely based on Zero Dawn, but it’s meant to be digestible for everyone – not just ten hours of in-jokes for existing fans of Horizon.
“There’s tons of nods, and I mentioned iconic scenes that we’ve reinterpreted that will be recognizable and hopefully joyful to a fan of the series, but at the same time, we want people to come in who have no Horizon knowledge.”
It’s been a decade – 10 years! – since Dragon Age: Inquisition. It’s fair to assume that you might’ve forgotten what happened during the last Dragon Age game, or some of the specific choices you made back in the misty ages of 2014. Whether you remember or not, this year’s long-awaited sequel Dragon Age: The Veilguard should have you covered, with the ability to carry over your story choices from the previous game and get a refresher on what happened last time around.
God of War Ragnarok is officially coming to PC on September 19, and if you’re looking to play the game on release day, this is the best deal available. God of War Ragnarok is down to $49.79 via Fanatical using code FANATICAL17. The trusted Steam code seller has slashed the price of the upcoming release, with over $10 off the list price of $59.99.
This is one of the best PC gaming deals right now, and well worth considering. God of War: Ragnarok continues the stories of Kratos and his now teenage son, Atreus. The sequel was praised as an enthralling spectacle on its release, earning a 10 in IGN’s review.
“Impeccable writing, pitch-perfect performances, knockout action – it’s a complete work of art from top to bottom. Reflecting its core themes, it’s everything a sequel should be: respectful of its legendary lineage, but not afraid to take it to exciting new places,” we wrote at the time. “God of War Ragnarok is an almighty achievement and creates a new high that makes many of its peers look positively mortal by comparison.”
If you’re wondering what Xbox has going on at the moment following an exciting Xbox showcase, we have plenty of offers in our roundup of the best Xbox deals. You can score a Series X at a discount right now and there are quite a few Xbox controllers on sale that are worth checking out.
Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.
When I was a kid, one of my absolute favourite things to do on the PC was to mess around with a free virtual Felix – like the cat from the cat food adverts – who would roam around the Windows XP desktop, chasing balls of string between program windows and curling up to take a nap on the taskbar. I have no idea where the game came from – a dream, perhaps – but 30 years later, I still think about it as a perfectly formed way to lose hours on the PC without actually doing anything.
“I’m really looking forward to seeing what Nintendo does with it”.
Rumblings of the Switch successor reached fever pitch last month when Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa took to Twitter to reveal that a console announcement is coming “this fiscal year”. We are still in the dark about what games will be coming to said console (though we have our theories) but thanks to a new interview with VGC, we do know that No More Heroes studio Grasshopper Manufacture is “definitely gonna cook for it”.
That’s according to the studio’s founder and CEO Goichi “Suda51” Suda who, while at this year’s MomoCon in Atlanta, Georgia, was asked about his hopes for Nintendo’s next console and whether he’s currently working on anything for it.
Last weekend, Age of Mythology: Retold made an appearance at the Xbox Games Showcase 2024, revealing in-game footage for the very first time, as well as a launch date of September 4, 2024. As part of the Official Xbox Podcast’s deep-dive series, hosts Malik Prince and Jenn Panattoni sat down with Emma Bridle and Earnest Yuen from World’s Edge to share some insight into this exciting, modern reimaging of the 2002 strategy classic.
Watch the full podcast below – the Age of Mythology: Retold section begins at 25:40:
For those unfamiliar, Age of Mythology: Retold is a faithful retelling of the original title, a real-time strategy game where humans live and fight alongside monsters and gods. “It’s a fantastical, magical, chaotic world that you get to control,” says Bridle.
During the trailer, we got a first look at one of the campaign missions, set in the Egyptian Pantheon (the name for the playable factions). Playing as Amanra, your primary goal is to destroy the Migdol Stronghold, and to do that, you’ll need to amass an army. Here, we see Amanra collecting units from temples scattered around the surroundings, but they’re not your typical sword and bow wielding soldiers. We see units of monsters that are directly inspired by Egyptian mythology – Petsuchos (or ‘laser crocs as Bridle jovially refers to them), large, bejeweled crocodiles that fire devastating long-range beams of sunlight at their enemies, as well as what Yuen calls “Kaiju Scarabs,” dealing close-range damage to structures.
Theoretically, you’d expect a humongous crocodile with a radiant sniper to outwit any little human charging at it with a sword, but Age of Mythology is finely balanced to ensure humans, monsters and gods all share an equal shot at victory. According to Yuen, there’s a triangle of ability – the mythological units are often very good against human units, but then you have the Hero units, which are especially good against mythological enemies.
“As a player, it really makes you think about where to place your units as you move through the levels,” Yuen adds.
The backdrop of this action is also draped in gorgeous environmental design that matches the setting. Bridle explains that each Pantheon (the name given to playable factions) has its own distinct biome and architecture – golden sands and light, angular buildings grace the Egyptian campaign, while a blanket of snow settles on the mountains and thatched huts of the Norse setting. This is a game that weaves in elements of magic, but everything looks and feels authentic to the period your Pantheon is playing in.
Bridle adds that all of the original game’s art has been completely remade, in line with creating this modern, fantastic looking recreation of the original title. During the podcast, this was showcased with images and animations comparing 2002’s Age of Mythology to the upcoming Retold. A screenshot from one of the campaign missions comes to life in incredible detail, and Bridle adds that “the whole world has been redone.” This included seeing original models for two Heroes, Arkantos and Athena, both now super-refined and realistic, and the Atlantean Titan, now with blazing lava veins woven between scorching rock – quite literally a “glow-up” for the creature, Bridle adds.
“When we compare these units, they’re showing more definition, you can see the particle effects, they’re really coming to life more,” Bridle says.
One core goal for Age of Mythology: Retold is that it’s going beyond the already impressive blueprint set by the recent ‘Definitive Edition’ Age of Empires titles. “The goal for the Definitive Editions is to build the awesome game that people remember in your head, but not necessarily how it really was,” Yuen explains.
“With Age of Mythology: Retold, we’re going beyond that to add new features and mechanics to the game. It’s not just about preservation, we also now have the technology to do this concept the justice it deserves.”
Yuen details one new feature coming to the game, which is that God Powers are now rechargeable, meaning that they can be used multiple times during a game. In the original Age of Mythology, most of the God Powers could only be used once, but Yuen shares insight on why that might not have been the optimal approach for Retold.
“Because you could only use that God Power once, people would try to save it for the right moment, but what actually ends up happening is that the match would end before they get to use it,” Yuen explains. “God Powers are the coolest thing you can do in the game, so we’re making it so they can be used multiple times, and you can think about how to do it strategically.”
Even better, Age of Mythology: Retold includes an additional age at the end of the game – the Wonder age. Here, God Powers are cheaper to use, so the option to use them even more is available during this in-game period. “It’s just chaos,” Bridle adds. “You can just unleash everything you’ve got, and it’s so much fun.”
The pair delved into loads more topics in the podcast, including where to get started in Retold as a brand-new player, and how Age of Mythology and Age of Empires’ long-running fanbases have been instrumental to the development of new entries. Be sure to check it out!
Age of Mythology: Retoldlaunches on September 4, and is available day one across PC, Xbox Series X|S and Game Pass.
Aloy is ready to take on the post-apocalyptic world LEGO brick by brick this holiday season in LEGO Horizon Adventures. Guerrilla and Studio Gobo have built a playful spin on the familiar Horizon games that unleashes eye-catching stop-motion animation, chuckle-worthy storytelling, and (literal) worldbuilding that will make the familiar series feel like a new adventure.
The hands-on demo laid the foundation for fun with an early solo tutorial stage controlling Aloy, followed by a co-op story mission where Aloy and her Nora tribe companion Varl set out to save a beloved leader from cultists using their weapons, environment, and yes, even hot dogs. Here are a few moments that caught my Focus:
A familiar world, brought to life by LEGO bricks
Immediately the LEGO version of this world looks incredibly authentic, with every brick placed in a way that builds the world Horizon fans know and love. Aloy moves through the world in a stop-motion style that clicks right into place. The original voice cast has also returned to retell Aloy’s story with a cheeky tone, adding humor and playfulness that keeps familiar plot points fresh and delivers laughs for a wide audience.
A LEGO girl and her bow
Aloy can use her bow for combat and to help navigate the brick-laden wilds. Holding the Square button lets Aloy aim her bow at specific targets. This is made easier by pressing R1 to activate her Focus, highlighting major targets in blue. Aloy unleashes powerful attacks by using the environment around her; shooting an arrow through a bonfire creates a flaming projectile, adding extra damage to enemies or setting grass or vines ablaze to open new routes.
Turn over every LEGO brick
Playful curiosity is often rewarded, so take the time to explore. While Studs – the LEGO form of currency – are scattered along main paths, more can be found by shooting barrels or other objects. Chests are found exploring off of main paths, and Aloy can discover special piles of bricks. Aloy can craft these bricks into various designs (a sailboat! A dog house!) to earn even more Studs.
Make a home at Mother’s Heart
A visit to the game’s main hub village, Mother’s Heart, is a must. A trip to the All Mother Tree allows Aloy and any co-op companions to upgrade their specific weapons or use Studs to purchase upgrades that benefit everyone. This area is also where you can customize costumes or your hut, specifically its roof, yard, plot, and hut color. Naturally, I dropped some Studs on a roof fit with a roller coaster on top. I was even able to lift up and toss village NPCs into a purchased wardrobe, outfitting them with attire from the world of Horizon or other LEGO game properties.
Tap in a couch co-op companion
Once in Mother’s Heart, I let my couch co-op friend control Aloy as I stepped into the LEGO brick shoes of Varl, her spear-wielding companion. Varl’s spear abilities largely operated the same as Aloy’s, but we each purchased different ability upgrades at the All Mother Tree. While exploring, additional temporary upgrades can be bought or dropped by enemies that are specific to different characters. In Varl’s case, that came in the form of a more powerful spear that allowed for 12 throws before breaking down. If one player loses all their health in co-op, they can be revived by the other player using the Triangle button. But be warned – upon being revived, you will drop any of the temporary upgrades you had collected up to that point.
Speaking of those upgrades…
Certain ability upgrades can be used by any character and they come in handy during combat encounters. The LEGO Brick Separatorunleashes a powerful melee move that can literally take an enemy apart. Dislodging highlighted parts of a machine can sometimes even reward a new weapon. When I unleashed the LEGO Brick Separator on a Longleg, its severed horns began to spin, and I could kick them toward enemies for an additional attack. Jumping over an enemy using theBlast Bootswill set them ablaze. My favorite upgrade was the Hot Dog Cart, a quickly assembled cart complete with a hot dog man who lobs hot dog bombs across the combat field to great and delicious effect. This was invaluable during frenzied or crowded encounters, and honestly just made me giddy.
LEGO Horizon Adventures invites players (and a co-op buddy) to its gleefully comical spin on Aloy’s world when it launches on PS5, PC, and Nintendo Switch this holiday season.
