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The creators of Marvel Rivals don't want console players swimming in the same Jeff-infested pool as PC players. Or using our equipment to gain an advantage... Read more.View the full article

Getting Bright Blood in Hyper Light Breaker is the best way to continue to progress your game. There are a fair number of ways to do so, but they are not all as intuitive as some of the others. The game is in Early Access, so there may still be more ways to get Bright Blood as the game continues to grow and expand. View the full article

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has received its final significant content update. Developer Rocksteady Studios confirmed in December that the game’s current season would be its last. And Season 4 concluded today with the launch of Season 4 Episode 8. Read More... View the full article

Food has been depicted as an important part of the Monster Hunter series from the start, whether it comes to defeating enemies or depicting its world. In the games up until now, you could order a tasty meal from a Felyne before heading out on a quest, or hunt an herbivorous monster in the field and roast it until it's well-done. Food remains as important as ever in the newest installment in the series, Monster Hunter Wilds. Hunters can use the Portable BBQ Grill to cook up a meal with their Palico, wherever and whenever out in the fields. Once it's ready, you can scarf down some hot and fresh meat. Seeing this gives the powerful sense that the hunter, which is to say the player controlling that hunter, is really living within the world of the game. Depicting the act of eating, a central part of life, is more important than anything when giving a sense of reality to the ecosystems of these monsters and the world that they share with hunters. That belief has been also held by the development team ever since the very first Monster Hunter. First we dine Kaname Fujioka, Executive Director and Art Director for Wilds as well as the Director of the first Monster Hunter game, tells IGN: "Ever since the first Monster Hunter, we've put a ton of focus in our designs on what it means to live in its world. Even the monsters drink water, and they hunt prey to eat. Humans also feel hungry if they move around a lot, and they get sleepy if they're tired. We thought that maybe we could make a game that makes you feel like you're living in it if we did a good job of incorporating these elements based on real-life senses." Food remains as important as ever in the newest installment in the series. The concept goes that being able to eat a delicious piece of meat when you're hungry makes you happy. And if that piece of meat is gigantic, you feel all the happier. The element of eating in the series, something so filled with primitive desires, became a part of the gameplay as time went on, buffing a hunter's stats. "Tokuda likes meat, so meat plays a pretty central role in any titles he's involved in, says Fujioka, referring to Wilds Director Yuya Tokuda. “We put fruit and vegetables on the menu as well in the past, but it's become pretty meat-centric ever since Monster Hunter: World." "You just want to feel stronger before you go hunting, right?” adds Tokuda. “I thought it'd be intuitive to eat meat and become stronger.” While Tokuda says he has absolute confidence in Fujioka's guidance as someone who has been involved in the series from the start, it seems that at times, he'll sometimes advise him when it comes to meat. "It might be more exciting if you made that meat a little *******..." and so on. There are of course difficult elements when it comes to depicting eating in a game, but Fujioka, as the game’s Art Director, says he creates graphics that are entirely focused on what looks delicious. If a piece of food shows up in Monster Hunter that makes players think it must taste good, you can be sure that the development staff has already felt the same way. The art director says he creates graphics that are entirely focused on what looks delicious. "Something isn't necessarily going to look delicious just because it's realistic,” he says. “We have to think quite a lot about what kind of depictions we need to use to make it look tasty. We have paid close attention to lighting and effects in particular since World, and we may exaggerate the food's appearance too." In fact, during the November 2024 open beta test of Wilds, so many food videos flooded social media that they even reached demographics who don't normally play Monster Hunter. The sound of sizzling **** and the golden shine of honey dripping on top of cabbage were filled with detail that would make anyone's mouth water. Was that delicious-looking meat and cabbage based on real footage of something actually cooked by the development team? "While I'm not aware of the fine details, we don't cook dishes for real and use them as-is as models,” says Fujioka. “Simply recreating something that exists in reality wouldn't actually look that tasty when placed inside a game. We do of course create high-resolution meat textures and so on, but what we want to focus on in the end is how we depict it, which means essentially creating it from scratch." In that sense, it seems that creating tasty depictions of vegetables, like those similar to cabbage in the game, was far more difficult than with meat. "After a great deal of research, we created an exaggerated depiction where the cabbage puffs up for a moment when the skillet's lid is popped open in-game,” says Fujioka. “That doesn't happen in real life, and while it is a small detail, that feeling of it expanding makes it look incredibly delicious." Yes, it may be a lie if you're comparing it to a real-life depiction. But as an artistic expression, it just looks so delicious. Fujioka and the development team studied every depiction of food that they could, from how food scenes are exaggerated in anime to the lighting used when food is shot for commercials. "Depicting eggs is incredibly difficult too,” he says. “Creating the feeling of the white being cut from a dripping soft-boiled egg was so hard, but our designers drew on all their knowledge to make it work. Fujioka continues, "My ambition is for Tokuda to hopefully see something aside from meat as delicious. That's why the staff making the food models also say they get hungrier and hungrier as the game nears completion. We've prepared quite a lot of different dishes this time as well, so I hope players enjoy each and every one." The unique food system in Wilds In Wilds, a game where the situation in the field changes in real-time, the buffs and enhancements provided by food have gone from being quest-based to time-based. Hunters also no longer eat inside a canteen run by Felynes, but rather inside camps or with the Portable BBQ Grill set up on their own, allowing them to now prepare a meal whenever and wherever. This change apparently is the result of changes to Wilds' gameplay loop. The buffs and enhancements provided by food have gone from being quest-based to time-based. "In World and the games before that, lots of different elements were decided based on your quest, so you would eat an appropriate meal before you went on one,” says Tokuda. “Since this game focuses more on a seamless experience, hunters will have time to freely play around in all kinds of different ways, especially after completing a quest. As players choose one target to hunt after the next on a seamless map, we decided that food should be time-based, not quest-based. When doing this, we considered amounts of time that would keep it from feeling too much like a chore while also tuning it to seem realistic." Hunters will receive rations from the Felyne at the Ingredient Center found in the base camp, then use them to make food in the field. Tokuda explains that if you have rations, you can use them as meat, fish or even vegetables. "If we separated them into items like vegetables, meat and fish, we wouldn't be able to avoid tendencies toward one or the other, so you could end up with something like too many vegetables,” he says. “That's why we've made it so that you can use rations as meat, vegetables or fish so that there's no waste and players can choose according to their preferences." Dishes made by hunters use both main ingredients based on the rations provided by the aforementioned Felyne as well as spices and other additional ingredients. These can, for the most part, be acquired while in the field. Meanwhile, it's interesting that the rations delivered by Felynes to the hunter's base is differentiated by having a long shelf life, like smoked meat or pre-cleaned fish. In the cutscene where Quematrice is encountered, you can even see Felynes who refuse to let go of their meat. We ask Fujioka if Felynes are natural-born cooks. "They cook food in the canteen because they're creatures with an incredible sense of curiosity, and because they become so engrossed in their interests, absorbing so much about them,” he replies. “While some Felynes may follow the path of cuisine, others may look up to hunters and pursue the path of supporting them. I think they're a species where you can still see that strongly." After hearing all this talk about the effort the team has put into food, a long-held question pops into my head. In Monster Hunter, you hunt herbivorous monsters, get their raw meat, and cook it until it's well-done. But do they have any plans to ever let us hunt a large carnivorous monster for its meat to eat? Or is using large monsters as ingredients not a part of the food culture in the world of the series? "It comes up during the planning stages of every game,” replies Tokuda. “We talk about how it'd be interesting to hunt a monster and also get an ingredient of sorts as a bonus, but the world is already full of so many attractive ingredients that it makes us wonder if you'd really go so far as to make a meal out of portions of a monster that can be used as valuable materials (for equipment). It's possible that if you could get all the food you need from large monsters, and if that food had incredibly powerful effects, there would be no need for anything else, making the game's loop less attractive. That's why we discard the idea. We are trying a lot of different things, though, like Motley Mixes in World would let you hand over extra monster tails to get well-done steaks and other special items." Mr. Fujioka adds to this, saying, "In the game's lore, at least, there are legendary chefs of a sort. We haven't depicted them yet, but there should of course be some people in its world who pursue that kind of field." Cultural connection of cuisine In addition to the food that you can make inside a pop-up camp, there are dishes you can find in villages you visit all around Wilds. Tokuda explains that food in the game belongs to two major categories: camping meals and village feasts. "We wanted to design the game in a way that you could keep on playing it without interruption within an environment that continues to change in real time,” he says, comparing the meals you can create yourself with portable ingredients and the sumptuous feasts you can eat when invited to a village. “That's why we decided to add a feature where hunters could prepare very simple meals from an early stage. In contrast to that, we also looked into a way to add meals that let players understand the relationships between people and local food cultures. We thought of a kind of meal that could only be possible now that the game loop is based on time and not quests, as well as one that provides different in-game benefits." "Interacting with the different species that live in the Forbidden Lands and coming to understand one another is an important part of the game's world and its story to us,” adds Fujioka. “We're putting a ton of work into depicting those interactions." As you progress through the story in the Windward Plains, your hunter will be invited to a meal in the village of Kunafa, where those who live in the desert reside. These villagers who know nothing of hunting and haven't even seen weapons before treat you to a dish that resembles a freshly baked cheese naan. As you bite into its crispy surface with charred spots, both steam and melted cheese come pouring out. The meal is an unbelievable feast for a hunter from the outside world, making it a scene that shows just how much you're welcomed by these villagers. As you bite into its crispy surface with charred spots, both steam and melted cheese come pouring out. The developers filled this short yet memorable food scene with attention to detail, as close care is paid to how it helps form the game's world. "We spent quite a lot of time coming up with what those villagers eat,” Fujioka explains. “Since they aren't a hunting people, what could they normally be eating? When we thought about how they get animal-based nutrients, we decided that they must raise livestock and eat dairy-based foods. You're able to get a grain similar to wheat when you go out to a more wide-open part of the map, right? So maybe they make something like naan using that grain. On top of that, we wanted it to be something made from simple ingredients, and not too complicated. We thought that a dish like cheese naan would be simple yet possible to depict in a delicious way, and so we put a good amount of effort into that." So while it may appear to be a casual dining scene, it seems that a lot of labor went into showing this dish similar to one that exists in real life, cheese naan, in a delicious and meaningful way. "It's actually incredibly difficult to depict something that's crispy on the surface but springy on the inside using CG,” says Fujioka. “We'd been making attempts at the food scene in Kunafa from early on in development, even at the prototype stage, and we just couldn't get it to look the way we wanted. Still, the Wilds development team is incredibly talented, and I was shocked to see them ultimately reach the way it looks in the released version after a lot of trial and error. It really does look tasty..." Serious motion capture technology was used in the development of Wilds, and it seems that this change in the development environment helped broaden the range of expression when it comes to the game's food. "While we of course wanted to focus on the food itself, we also wanted to put effort into depicting the way someone eats and their expression as they do so, which is why we used facial capture and other technologies as well,” says Fujioka. “It's not as if we used all of the data we filmed, but we did have actors eat actual food like bread during motion capture sessions. It's not easy to rely on your imagination alone to come up with the expression of someone who just finished eating or someone savoring the aroma of food through their nostrils. We had the actors think about these details as they performed in our attempt to depict everything, even the act of eating, as delicious." We did have actors eat actual food like bread during motion capture sessions. These thoroughly created food scenes do add a dramatic effect to the Wilds experience. Hunters can see just how much the villagers care as they show you incredible hospitality, sensing the way they live in the unknown Forbidden Lands while also feeling as though you've become a part of the land despite being a foreigner. "You can continue to deepen your relationships with people in settlements even after you've completed the main story,” adds Tokuda. “Being offered food by them isn't a one-time thing, and they'll come to invite you to eat every now and then. Accepting these invitations will provide you with powerful food buffs that last for a long time, so even from a gameplay perspective, you'll receive more frequent offers by creating stronger bonds with villages. Also, while it is possible for you to gather local ingredients yourself, trading with locals can allow you to get lots of cheese. We've intentionally designed the game so that changes in your relationships that take place through food help deepen the world." By the way, the game has settlements aside from the one in the Windward Plains, and Tokuda says that they will treat you to food as well. "There are villages in lots of different areas this time around where locals live their lives,” he says. “Each of those peoples eat different things, and there are rather unique monsters in Oilwell Basin. The dishes made with those monsters are pretty novel, so we hope you'll see them for yourself and be surprised." Even after hearing all of this about food and eating, I still find myself with one question. In that case, is there nothing like a canteen where Felynes show off their culinary skills in this game? Not being able to stop by a place where Felynes enjoy serving you food so much would feel a little sad. When I ask this, Tokuda replies, "You're right about that. We are aware that this may weaken the sense of everyone gathering together, exchanging vouchers for food, and enjoying a meal as a means of communication, that players have experienced in the past. I hope you'll wait for further information when it comes to that." For more on Monster Hunter Wilds, check out our exclusive 4K gameplay videos battling Ajarakan and Rompopolo in the new Oilwell Basin area, and our interview with the development team on how Monster Hunter has evolved over the years. And keep an eye out for more exclusives throughout January as part of IGN First! Shuka Yamada is a freelance writer for IGN Japan. This article was translated by Ko Ransom. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

NetEase Games is telling Marvel Rivals players that a new hero will launch every month and a half as additional seasons roll out. The studio’s creative director, Guangyun Chen, clarified the team’s post-launch plans during an interview with Metro. He doesn’t ****** words, promising to release a playable character every half-season. That equals out to at least one new hero every month and a half, or roughly every six weeks. “Every season we’ll be rolling out fresh seasonal stories, new maps, and new heroes. We’ll actually be breaking down each season into two halves,” Chen said. “The length of one season is three months. And for each half of the season, we will introduce a new hero. We just eventually want to continue to enhance the experience, and, you know, keep everyone excited in our community.” It’s a tall order that will leave fans with one question as every season winds down: who’s next? Marvel Rivals Season 1: Eternal Night Falls already kicked things off with a strong start by introducing both Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman for the first half, with The Thing and the Human Torch primed to launch with the second half in a few weeks. These are Marvel mainstays who have undeniably earned their place as legendary superhero characters, but keeping up that momentum over time will be quite the challenge. Marvel Rivals already launched with a strong list of playable heroes that includes names like Wolverine, Magneto, Spider-Man, Jeff the Landshark, and Storm, but there are so many other faces to include. Blade is one character rumored to appear in Season 2, for example, with fans also hoping to see characters like Daredevil, Deadpool, and other X-Men at some point. It’s unclear how NetEase will expand upon the Marvel Rivals roster in the future, but with the success it’s seen so far, the team is showing no signs of slowing down. Marvel Rivals Season 1 also introduced a laundry list of balance changes and general gameplay tweaks, with more promised to arrive in future updates. For other news on the studio’s hero shooter hit, you can check out how some players are using the Invisible Woman to ward off an alleged bot problem. You can also read up on the Hero Hot List, and why some players are using mods despite fears of being banned. Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx. Be sure to give him a follow on Twitter @MikeCripe. View the full article

According to a new interview with an artist at Bethesda, Starfield was once a much more violent game than it is today. Although released by Bethesda and developed by many of the same people who worked on Fallout and The Elder Scrolls, Starfield is tame by comparison. It portrays a far more utopian world than Fallout, although it does suffer from a lot of the same issues with class divide. And the intergalactic wilderness of Starfield is a lot more forgiving than the wilderness of The Elder Scrolls, where you might encounter everything from wolves to dragons to Daedra. View the full article

One of the biggest concerns for developers at Firaxis and fans of the franchise is a reduction in micromanagement tasks for Sid Meier's Civilization 7 compared to Civ 6 and previous installments. So far, through their various Civ Streams and Dev Diaries, Firaxis has revealed many of Civ 7's gameplay updates and new features aimed at reducing micromanagement, either by simplifying previous systems or re-imagining them entirely. View the full article

World of Warcraft just rotated in a new pair of in-game items for fans who buy at least six months of subscription time at once: the Timbered Sky Snake for modern WoW, and the Timbered Air Snakelet **** for Classic. Inspired by the Zodiac Sign for 2025, players who buy bulk World of Warcraft subscriptions – or who are already on one – will receive these new items no later than January 31. View the full article

Partway through Chapter Three of Dynasty Warriors Origins, you’ll side with Sun Jian in a crucial battle against Liu Bao. Things don’t initially start well, though, and he soon finds himself separated from the rest of his army. In the story of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Battle of Xiangyang is where Sun Jian meets his rather unfortunate and untimely end. But you have a slim chance of saving him from his predicament in Dynasty Warriors Origins. To do that, you’ll need to overcome supernatural forces from your past. View the full article

The Hyper Light Drifter team returns with Hyper Light Breaker, an open world game where you can embark on a difficult journey through the Overgrowth. Before setting out, there are several characters you can choose to play as, each with a different playstyle. You’ll be selecting the character species you want to play as before you step on the teleporter and adventure through the Overgrowth. You can customize the character you play, but the species are set in stone. You might prefer a particular species over another based on how they play and the upgrades you can apply to them. Expect to see additional species added as Hyper Light Breaker continues through early access. Here’s a full breakdown of all characters you can choose in Hyper Light Breaker. View the full article

I started playing Fallout 4 as soon as it was released, but I still haven’t decided if its power armor changes are good or bad. After Fallout: New Vegas improved on many of the issues I had with Fallout 3, I had been eagerly anticipating Fallout 4’s release back in 2015. I hoped that, like New Vegas, the game would continue to build on the series’ successes and introduce interesting new elements to the game. When it came out, I wouldn’t say I was terribly disappointed with Fallout 4, but there were certainly some elements I wasn’t too sure about. View the full article

Blizzard has fully pulled the curtain back on Diablo 4 Season 7, Season of Witchcraft, which is set to start on January 21. Blizzard has supported Diablo 4 since its launch in 2023 with frequent updates, seasonal content, and one major expansion with more on the way for the popular action-RPG. View the full article

With a demo now available, if you love turn-based dungeon crawling RPGs like something out of the 90s, be sure to go and check out Heroes of the Seven Islands. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

Hyper Light Breaker is finally in early access, and during this early access phase, there are three Breakers for players to try out as they explore and dominate the Overgrowth. These Breakers are exploration and combat specialists, whose job is to explore the Overgrowth and restore civilization from the effects of a world-wide war. Choose one of three Breakers, alone or with friends, to take on the Crowns and see the world back to its former glory. View the full article

For those who love Thor in Marvel Rivals, a new costume called Reborn From Ragnorak is up for grabs right now. It is completely free, but you will have to do a little bit of work to get it. However, once you do, the skin will be theirs forever with no strings attached. This skin is pretty neat, and the God of Thunder will be ready to take down all of his enemies once unlocked. View the full article

A Stardew Valley player recently realized that farming Slimes isn't for the faint of heart. In Stardew, players can keep a number of different animals on their farms once they've built the proper infrastructure: cows, chickens, goats, sheep, and even dinosaurs. But with the right kind of building - specifically, a ****** Hutch - they can even raise their very own monsters. Once they hatch and mature, Slimes in a sufficiently full Hutch will produce ****** ******; they can also be slaughtered to obtain materials ranging from wood to Iridium Ore. View the full article

The release date of the Lunar Remastered Collection has been announced, and it's set to launch on April 18. The highly anticipated remaster is being developed by Game Arts and published by GungHo Online Entertainment. This duology collection will bring the first two Lunar games to modern consoles with updated graphics, re-recorded soundtracks, and several quality-of-life additions. Lunar Remastered Collection will be available across all console platforms and PC via Steam. View the full article

Delta Force is gearing up for its new season, which is packed with content. From the co-op campaign, new and updated maps, weapons, and modes to an endless list of balancing changes for both Warfare and Operations game modes. Here’s everything we know so far about Season Starfall in Delta Force. View the full article

Are we already seven seasons deep into Diablo 4? Jheez, time flies. Arriving next week, Diablo 4 Season 7 has just got its full reveal from Blizzard, and it looks like it could be one of the best seasonal updates the ARPG has received yet. Not only does its witchcraft theme introduce some of Diablo 4's freakiest enemies, new powers, and a "murderous **** frog," but Season 7 also adds the Armory, which may be the game's most useful new feature to date. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Diablo 4 Season 7 release date estimate Win a GeForce RTX 4080 Super and copy of Diablo 4, thanks to Nvidia How to earn Diablo 4 Twitch drops View the full article

Godfall developer Counterplay Games has reportedly “disbanded.” According to PlayStation Lifestyle, the claim was made on LinkedIn by an employee at NetEase studio Jackalyptic Games, which was reportedly working with Counterplay until recently. “Over the past six months or so our project at Jackalyptic has been supercharged by the world-class devs at Counterplay Games,” they are said to have written. Read More... View the full article

Marvel Rivals landed with a wide roster, boasting 33 heroes when it launched on December 5. Just over a month later, the hero shooter's received two additions to its lineup, thanks to the arrival of Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman with the advent of Season 1. NetEase has set an impressive pace—and according to game director Guangyun Chen, the studio has no intention of slowing down... Read more.View the full article

Following Balatro‘s nomination for the 2024 Game of the Year, new players have flocked to the poker-themed roguelike title. But the deckbuilding game may initially seem overwhelming to newcomers with its vast array of upgrades like Tarot Cards. Tarot Cards are similar to Jokers or Planets in how they can enhance each round of Balatro you play. Unlike with the power of the latter two upgrade mechanics, however, many players overlook the impact Tarot Cards can have. With the right Tarot Card, you’ll be able to immensely improve your score and stack the deck in your favor. View the full article

When fan art featuring a certain teleporting, blue-furred acrobat popped up on Reddit last year, Marvel Rivals fans hopped on the idea. The idea of Nightcrawler bamfing across the map was perfection. But the latest leaks have thrown us a curveball—one that’s powerful, iconic, and not quite what fans expected. According to two Marvel Rivals leak accounts, it seems the next X-Men member joining the roster could be none other than Professor Charles Xavier himself. The founder of the X-Men, a man with unmatched telepathic abilities, and an absolute icon in the Marvel Universe… but, let’s be honest, not the name we were all guessing. While Wolverine and Storm were obvious choices to launch the X-Men presence in the game, the rumored addition of Xavier feels out of left field—but it’s one I’m fully here for. View the full article

Announced back in early 2024, the Stop Killing Games campaign was launched to try and persuade governments across the world to change the law on games being shut down and taken away from you. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

vkQuake is an advanced port of id Software's Quake using Vulkan instead of OpenGL for rendering. It's impressive, one of the best ways to play, and the recent update sounds pretty delightful. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article