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Ghost Town Games, the team behind the popular Overcooked indie series, has announced their new game at The Game Awards 2024 on Dec. 12—and it looks like a scarily good time. The title, being published by Hello Games, is called Stage Fright. It’s a couch co-op game in Overcooked style mixed with a horror-like escape room, which requires cooperation with other players to find an exit together. View the full article

Capcom has announced Onimusha Way of the Sword, a new entry in their beloved action series. Onimusha Way of the Sword is in development for Windows PC (via Steam), Xbox Series X|S, and PS5 with a release set for 2026. Developing. Source View the full article

During The Game Awards 2024, fans got their first look at the new villain set to appear in Borderlands 4. Four fresh Vault Hunters were also shown in the newest look at the next mainline entry in the long-running series, with Borderlands 4 still aiming for a 2025 release. View the full article

Move over Resident Evil, Capcom has a new remake-led prized pony in town, and it's name is Onimusha. Read more View the full article

Looter FPS Borderlands 4 has gotten its first trailer, courtesy of Medium Geoff’s Happy Hour and..wait. What you mean it’s three hours? I’m going to die tonight, aren’t I? Ah well, at least I’ll die doing what I’m ambivalent about. Here’s the trailer for Fourderlands, which is out sometime next year. Read more View the full article

Arrowhead and Sony have released a new Helldivers 2 update that introduces the long-rumoured third faction, the Illuminate. Titled Omens of Tyranny, the update also stirs in city maps and a driveable jeep with a mounted gun that immediately reminds me of Halo's Warthog, and is hopefully just as fragile and bouncy. Here's a trailer. Read more View the full article

At the 2024 edition of The Game Awards, Square Enix pulled back the curtain on the PC port of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, and revealed that the game would launch on both Steam and the Epic Games Store on January 23. Additionally, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth will support Nvidia Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) upscaling and variable refresh rate on compatible displays. View the full article

I've lost track of how many Yakuza games are in development at any given moment, but it seems makers Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio have space for more on their plate. During this evening's Game Awards, they announced "Project Century", a new third-person brawler set in 1915. There's a trailer below. Read more View the full article

From the discovery of sprawling, subterranean otherworlds to the startling second phases that completely turned the tables in so many of its boss fights, 2022’s Elden Ring was a mesmerising action RPG adventure that surprised players at almost every turn. Now, more than two years later it appears that developer FromSoftware isn’t done with pulling the rug out from under the feet of its fanbase just yet, with the surprise reveal of Elden Ring Nightreign, a standalone co-op spin-off that takes the cautious dungeon crawls of Elden Ring and turbocharges them into propulsive, slash ‘n’ dash speedruns. After spending some six hours of hands-on time with this bold new spin on FromSoftware’s own Soulslike formula, I can confirm that Nightreign is shaping up to be something truly unique. If Elden Ring was one of 2022’s biggest chart-topping hits, then Nightreign would appear to be its dance floor-filling remix – chopped up, intensified in beats per minute, and designed to both excite fans of the original and broaden its appeal to the masses. “Initially when we set out to make Nightreign, we wanted to create what we're calling a condensed RPG experience,” says Nightreign’s game director Junya Ishizaki. “We wanted to take all those elements from Elden Ring that players enjoyed like the exploration, the building of the character, fighting tough bosses, the sense of discovery, and condense that into a shorter, tighter play session.” (Read more in our FromSoftware interview.) Here’s how Nightreign breaks down: Imagine stepping back into the opening area from the original game, only nothing in the landscape seems to be where you remember it. Also, there are three of you now, and everything seems to be happening at a much faster pace. That’s Nightreign in a nutshell. You squad up with two other players at the start of each round, get dropped into a densely-packed alternate reality chunk of Limgrave that has both its enemy types and the placements of its castles and forts randomly shuffled around at the beginning of each session, and its up to you and your squadmates to build up from your lowly level-one character status as fast as possible by harvesting runes and weapons as you slash and dash through every enemy-filled camp and castle that you come across. Brand-new boss types like the Centipede ******, a towering, twisting swarm of disgusting limbs prone to detaching body parts in an attempt to divide itself and conquer my crew. What’s the big rush? Well, each session of Nightreign is structured as a three-day cycle, with each in-game day taking about 15 minutes to complete. At the start of the first day you can pretty much pick any direction to point your team in – dropping pins on the map to highlight points of interest to the rest of your squad – but as day approaches night the space you can operate in narrows, and you’re liable to be killed by acid-like rain should you find yourself caught for too long beyond the perimeter of the rapidly shrinking circle on the map known as the ‘ring of reign’. (In that regard Nightreign is a bit like Fortnite, only with more medieval forts and knights, and considerably less TikTok dances.) Once the ring of reign reaches its smallest diameter at the end of the day a boss fight is triggered, one which you and your team will be much better equipped to tackle if you’ve made the most efficient use of Nightreign’s daylight hours boosting your individual character stats and arsenal. Like the rest of Nightreign’s enemies, these end of day bosses are always randomised, and during my repeat runs I experienced clashes with familiar returning nasties like a Demi-Human Queen and Demi-Human Swordmaster tag-team, and a hard-as-nails stoush with a Draconian Tree Sentinel flanked by a pair of Carian Knights. That's along with some brand-new boss types like the Centipede ******, a towering, twisting swarm of disgusting limbs prone to detaching body parts in an attempt to divide itself and conquer my crew. With the day one boss dealt with, day two begins and the ring of reign rescinds, allowing your squad to take a breath, regroup, and then resume ransacking the map for upgrades in preparation for the more challenging boss encounters to come at the end of days two and three. It’s a structure that allows for a gradual build of tension before a palpable sense of accomplishment and release with each boss felled. Over time my squadmates and I became a well-oiled machine as far as getting the balance right between beelining for churches to snatch up valuable HP flasks, and taking down the more major overworld enemies like dragons and hippos in order to get maximum rune boosts for buck before the map was cast into darkness once again. Squad Goals We were also able to eventually settle upon the best combination of heroes for our group. You see, Nightreign doesn’t feature the lengthy list of generic character classes that the original Elden Ring did, and players won’t have to Google the difference between vague-sounding archetypes like the Prisoner and Wretch when they first hop in to play, for example. Instead, Nightreign offers eight different heroes to choose from, each with very clearly identified strengths and weaknesses in order to make it as easy to pick up and play as possible. Four were playable in the preview build. Wylder is an all-rounder hero type with a good balance between speed and attack power, Guardian is a burly tank type with heavy attacks and increased damage resistance, Duchess is a nimble type with fast attacks and a killer quickstep ability, and Recluse is a mage type with ranged magical attacks. Ishizaki did hint at two more characters that will be playable in the final game, including one who will have the ability to raise a pillar of rock out of the earth to climb up and snipe arrows from, and another who will have command of their own Spirit Ash, which I very much like the sound of since I relied on those summonable spectral bodyguards in order to beat almost every boss fight in the original game. (Yes, I’m a coward.) Additionally, each character features a unique skill and ultimate attack that both operate on cooldown timers. Wylder is able to use his hook shot skill to either reel in smaller enemies, a la Scorpion in Mortal Kombat, or to quickly zip past the swinging arms of a major boss in order to sneak a few strikes in from behind. Guardian is able to conjure up a mini tornado to knock swarms of enemies off their feet, while Recluse can put a marker on an enemy so that every time that enemy is attacked, the damage is siphoned into boosts for her own HP. These unique abilities are all extremely useful in their own right, but finding ways to combine them with the special moves of your squadmates is key to surviving Nightreign’s toughest enemy encounters. One strategy that my squad grew to rely on quite heavily was to unleash a damaging ultimate attack on an enemy, such as Guardian’s swooping divebomb, then immediately follow it up with Duchess’ Restage skill, which basically creates an instant replay of the last attack landed and allows you to double the total amount of damage inflicted. Gladius is just the first of eight major bosses to take down in Nightreign, each with their own three-day cycle leading up to them. It’s in finding killer combinations of moves such as these that the co-op focus of Nightreign really shines, and it eventually allowed my squad to progress – after multiple failed attempts – through to the third day of the cycle, which climaxed in a fight against a snarling, cerberus-like beast called Gladius. This triple-headed hell hound is capable of powerful, wide area attacks with a chain-like whip, and it can also split into three individual wolves that forced my team to coordinate and ****** up skills and ultimate attacks with painstaking precision in order to overcome it. Gladius is just the first of eight major bosses to take down in Nightreign, each with their own three-day cycle leading up to them. In addition to the randomisation of enemy types and structures, further wrinkles will be introduced into each boss cycle such as live volcanoes and forests full of rot in an effort to prevent the landscape from ever growing too predictable. That’s along with random events like meteor strikes, swarms of giant ants to fend off, and the surprise invasion of powerful tormentors in an attempt to impede your progress. During my hands-on my team was regularly stalked by Margit, the Fell Omen, who you likely remember as the butt-kicking bouncer found outside Elden Ring’s Stormveil Castle, and having him pursue me across the map like some sort of Tarnished terminator was a consistently terrifying experience – especially on the occasions I found myself isolated from the other two members of my power trio. (It's worth noting, you can absolutely take on invading bosses like Margit, and beating them rewards you with a 'Favor of the Night', which is a random buff like boosting your maximum HP or increasing the recharge speed of your ultimate attack.) Reigning It In In addition to the approachability of its roster of playable characters, Nightreign has polished up a lot of Elden Ring’s more abrasive edges to make it a far more friction-free experience. A new wall-jump move allows you to quickly hop up and over steep sections of the terrain, while the removal of any fall damage means you can lunge off cliffs or down dark holes without stopping to study your surroundings for safe platforms. You only need to walk near a site of grace to top up your health and flasks, and if you want to spend some runes to level up you just button mash through pages of auto-levelling that best suits the base traits of your chosen character, rather than having to agonize over whether you should allocate a point to faith or dexterity, for example. It all gives each session the feeling of being shuttled along in an intense speedrun. There are also distinctive-looking trees to find scattered around the map which, when interacted with, launch your character into the air and allow them to glide over long distances while dangling from the claws of a spectral hawk. I found these particularly useful for getting fast access to lucrative rune-farming spots, like the time I skipped a castle crawling with basic soldier types and flew straight to its roof – where a giant troll awaited. Then there’s the complete absence of any equip load weight management. New weapons are found either in treasure chests or Destiny-style loot drops after a fight, and you can equip up to three armaments per hand without worrying about how they’ll affect your movement speed. You also don’t really need to worry about ever being underlevelled for any particular weapon, either – if you find it, you can generally pick it up and use it – and the passive effects of any given weapon such as lightning attacks or boosted stamina regeneration will apply to your character while they’re in your arsenal whether you’re wielding them or not. Meanwhile, you don’t need to collect and equip new armour at all, instead you can find and collect various buffs to damage resistance and the like by hunting through sorcerer’s towers or mining caves. Death is not necessarily the end in Nightreign, either. If you find yourself downed you have a ‘near-death’ meter that appears above you, and your squadmates must attack you while you crawl along the ground until the meter is reduced and you can return to the fray. It may sound slightly odd to basically kick a friend while they’re down, but it’s a system that works quite well – particularly since you can use ranged attacks like magic or crossbows to revive a downed squadmate from a distance without the risk of putting yourself in harm’s way. In fact, I found that it can also be a solid strategy to keep your ultimate attack up your sleeve as a potential revival tool – during one boss fight I found both my partners wiped out at the same time, and I was able to revive them both in one literal fell swoop by blasting them with Guardian’s divebomb. Nightreign is thankfully a little more lenient on you during the day. If you die before you can be revived by a squadmate, you're able to respawn with full health – you're just penalised one level of your character's progression, which can admittedly be fairly costly given that the highest level I ever reached during the three-day cycle was level 14. However, although you can revive downed players during an end-of-day boss fight there are no actual respawns during these climactic moments, and should all three of you be wiped out at once it's the end of the session and you must restart day one with everyone back at level one. So you need to stay on your toes in order to keep the rest of your squad on their feet whenever possible. You need to stay on your toes in order to keep the rest of your squad on their feet whenever possible. In between sessions you return to the Roundtable Hold hub, where you can practise your attack combos in the training yard, study up on enemy strategies and character lore in the codex, or spend the currency you earn from each run – known as ‘Murk’ – to buy character emotes and customisable skins from the merchant. It’s in the Roundtable Hold that you can also configure each character’s relics. These are permanent attribute buffs that are unlocked after each session, and you can slot three of them into each character to further tailor them to your playstyle – one relic might boost a character’s maximum HP and allow them to deal extra damage with throwing knives, for example, while another might substantially boost attacks from heavy thrusting swords, which is handy if you favour the Godskin Stitcher or the Bloody Helice. Longterm FromSoftware fans will recognise these relics as being reminiscent of Bloodborne’s blood gems. While there’s no doubt that elements of it are inspired by the likes of Destiny and Diablo IV, it needs to be said that Elden Ring Nightreign is not a live service game. Once you buy it you get access to the complete package, and there are no battle passes or microtransactions to contend with. It can also be played in singleplayer should you wish to stay offline, with enemy health pools that scale down so that it’s not too overwhelming for solo players (although curiously, there are currently no plans to allow players to play in pairs). All this is to say is that fans shouldn’t be concerned that Nightreign is at any risk of being dead on arrival like recent notable disasters such as Concord or The Day Before, and certainly the team at FromSoftware seems very confident in its multiplayer offering regardless of the fates that have befallen other online-only launches. “We don't tend to look at the industry and base our game design or our concerns on what's going on in a more general sense,” says Ishizaki. “We feel like if we're making something we're passionate about and that we want to make and that we enjoy playing, we trust the users will share in that experience and hopefully enjoy it too.” As someone who has sunk hundreds of hours into Elden Ring, both in the original 2022 game and this year’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, I can confidently say that FromSoftware is onto something truly spectacular with Nightreign. Cutting throats at breakneck speed with a pair of friends in tow has been a consistently exhilarating experience so far, and especially gratifying when you work together to topple its fiercest bosses using each character’s special abilities in tandem. Dark Souls diehards may well be quick to dismiss it as some sort of Elden Ring: Arcade Edition due to its heavily streamlined settings, but the potential scope of its relic system still leaves plenty to tinker with for fans who want a bit more stop and think along with their hack and slash. Assuming the developers can throw enough randomised elements to keep each three-day assault feeling fresh, then Elden Ring Nightreign could well provide an exciting change of pace for existing fans, and an enticingly accessible entry point for newcomers when it launches sometime in 2025. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

In case you hadn't heard, The Game Awards are happening. And to help celebrate the medium we all love, Amazon is running a ***** that coincides with the festivities. You can save a bunch of money on a trio of excellent games: Final Fantsy VII Rebirth, Silent Hill 2, and Star Wars Outlaws. And if you're still on the fence about picking up a Meta Quest 3S, Amazon is throwing in $100 in digital credit if you buy one. These are great deals, but they'll only be available for a limited time, and in limited quantities. The Game Awards ***** The PS5 version of Star Wars Outlaws is already gone, so grab any of these deasl while they're available. In case there's any doubt about how good these games and this hardware is, let's take a look at our reviews. Meta Quest 3S 256GB + $50 Meta Credit + $50 Amazon Credit In our 9/10 Meta Quest 3S review, tech critic Gabriel Moss wrote, "The Meta Quest 3S is the perfect entry-level VR headset, finally bridging the price gap between the relatively shiny new Meta Quest 3 and the now four-year-old Meta Quest 2. While it has a few quirks, namely where its display lenses are concerned, they’re just a handful of holdovers from the previous generation. The rest of the device is built like a proper Meta Quest 3, and for the price of $299.99, there’s no reason to turn it down if you’re looking to jump into VR or upgrade from an older device. As far as performance goes, it can even outshine the Quest 3 in terms of maintaining high framerates while playing demanding games and apps – all while keeping the battery charged longer – and that’s a huge compliment for a VR headset we’re now calling 'entry-level'." Final Fantasy VII Rebirth for $34.99 In our Final Fantasy VII Rebirth review, RPG expert Michael Higham wrote, "Final Fantasy VII Rebirth impressively builds off of what Remake set in motion as both a best-in-class action-RPG full of exciting challenge and depth, and as an awe-inspiring recreation of a world that has meant so much to so many for so long. After 82 hours to finish the main story and complete a decent chunk of sidequests and optional activities, there's still much to be done, making this pivotal section of the original feel absolutely massive. Minigames, sidequests, and other enticing diversions fill the spaces of its vast and sprawling regions, painting a new and more vivid picture of these familiar locations. But more than just being filled with things to do, Rebirth is often a powerful representation of Final Fantasy VII's most memorable qualities. It does fumble the execution of its ending, getting caught up in the mess of its multiple twisting timelines, but new moments and the overarching journey manage to evoke a deeper sense of reflection in spite of that. So, for as flawed as parts of how this classic has been reimagined might be, Rebirth still stands out as something both thrilling and unexpectedly impactful." Star Wars Outlaws (XSX) for $37.99 In our Star Wars Outlaws review, Tristan Ogilvie wrote, "It’s ironic that Kay’s ship is called the Trailblazer, since there’s actually not a whole lot of ideas in Star Wars Outlaws that haven’t been done before in other action and open-world adventures. Instead, it’s quite like the Millenium Falcon: a bucket of bolts held together with repurposed parts and prone to breaking down, but at its best it’s more than capable of jolting your pleasure centres into Star Wars fan hyperspace. A clever syndicate system brings real weight to almost every task you choose to undertake, some of which have creative quest designs that can often conjure up some genuinely stunning blindsides. Having a pal like Nix at your side the entire time not only adds an extra dimension to Kay’s fairly generic smuggler character, but also gives her an enhanced set of useful abilities. But even he can’t quite make its stealth and combat feel any less rigid and repetitive, and the odds of avoiding the many glaring technical issues present at launch are 3,720 to one. But you probably didn’t want me to tell you the odds." Silent Hill 2 for $47.48 And finally, in our Silent Hill 2 review, horror fan Mr. Ogilvie wrote, "Silent Hill 2 is a welcome modernisation of a survival horror masterpiece. It smoothly polishes down the rough edges of the original game’s combat while taking a piece of heavy grit sandpaper to scuff up every rust and mold-covered surface of its nightmarish environments, successfully making them appear far more abrasive and menacing to explore. Previously primitive boss battles have been transformed into substantially more intense encounters, and its intimidating audio design kept me acutely aware that every fog-cloaked street I walked down could quickly hurry me towards my own dead end. It does feel a little padded out in parts, and I do wish that Bloober Team had streamlined some of its more convoluted puzzle sections to prevent the story’s momentum from sagging on occasion. Still, intermittent pacing problems aside, Silent Hill 2 is a great way to visit – or revisit – one of the most dread-inducing destinations in the history of survival horror." Chris Reed is a deals expert and commerce editor for IGN. You can follow him on Bluesky @chrislreed.bsky.social. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

It’s official: FromSoftware is making a multiplayer Elden Ring spin-off. One of the biggest announcements at The Game Awards 2024, Elden Ring Nightreign is sure to shock fans of FromSoftware’s Souls games. This three-player PvE game is unlike anything the legendary developer has made before, and it’s fair to say it’ll raise more than a few eyebrows across the internet. Ahead of the game’s reveal, IGN’s Tristan Ogilvie got the chance to play Elden Ring Nightreign (check out our impressions here) and interview game director Junya Ishizaki to find out where this surprise departure from the hugely successful Souls formula came from, how it all fits in with Elden Ring itself, and whether it should be considered a live service game. Read on for Ishizaki’s answers to these questions and a load more. And if you haven’t already, be sure to check out IGN’s Elden Ring Nightreign hands-on preview for more. IGN: This game is a huge surprise to me. I can imagine it's going to be a huge surprise to the fans next week. So I'd really like to hear about the initial kind of concept, and how you kind of came up with the idea, for the game, in the beginning. Junya Ishizaki: As a developer, I had many ideas for what could potentially be new games during the development of the past titles I've worked on, including Elden ring. This time I stepped up as a new director, I was given the opportunity to direct this idea for Nightreign. We've always been seen as a company that makes these Soulslikes or this kind of traditional formula of Soulslike games and so I saw this as an opportunity to do something different. To challenge both myself and the company to build something new while still using what we've cultivated with our previous titles. Also personally, I enjoy these co-op multiplayer experiences and I wanted to make something that was very much focused on that with Nightreign. IGN: On that note, are there any specific games that you have sort of inspired you in the creation of this game in terms of other co-op multiplayer games? Junya Ishizaki: I enjoy a whole manner of games, from shooters to board games and MMOs. So basically we’re taking inspiration from a whole range of genres and titles. IGN: It also felt like sort of because of the intense pacing of this game compared to Elden Ring, or at least the way that I played Elden Ring which was quite cautiously, it almost feels like you're speed running, especially with wall jumping and stuff like that. I'm just wondering if the speedrunning community has also been an influence on the creation of this game as well? Junya Ishizaki: It would be a lie to say there's nothing like that that's inspired Nightreign or that there is some inspiration there. I enjoy these elements of not just Souls games but other games where you have these challenging elements, or speedrun tactics. It's not just applied to speedrunning, it's like optimising the gameplay from the player's perspective, how to best optimise the experience and get the most out of it and clear it in the best way possible or the quickest way possible. I enjoy those elements and I feel like this is a good opportunity to share my love for that with players. I’m glad if this sort of idea is coming through in Nightreign. IGN: Definitely. Has Miyazaki-san had any input in the game or is he strictly hands-off on this project? Junya Ishizaki: So initially I took the idea to Miyazaki-san, who gave it the green light. He was a little involved in that initial concept phase of the game but after that he gave full reign to me. IGN: Full Nightreign? Junya Ishizaki: Indeed, thank you. [laughs] IGN: Does the the lore of Nightreign tie into the stories of Elden Ring or Shadow of the Erdtree, or even a possible Elden Ring 2? Or is it completely standalone? Junya Ishizaki: We'd like fans to think of Nightreign as an Elden Ring spin-off, first and foremost. The story is completely separate and parallel to the world of Elden Ring’s. If you had to tie it in some way, we had the events of the shattering in the original game. After the events of the shattering, this is a completely separate branch of the Elden Ring story. We understand that there's a great deal of emotional attachment to the story of Elden Ring that a lot of the fans have, so we didn't want to encroach on that too much. We wanted it to coexist with the existing story. And for players both familiar and new to enjoy both of these stories separately. IGN: So does this mean that George R. R. Martin has no influence on Nightreign’s story or world? Junya Ishizaki: That’s correct. IGN: It seems that, given recent news, it's possible that Nightreign could potentially be From Software's last multi-platform game. Do you have any thoughts on the potential Sony acquisition of From Software? Junya Ishizaki: To be perfectly honest, we just don't know right now at the moment where the discussion currently is at. If it's taking place, we're not privy to it. IGN: What about the possibility of Nightreign coming to Switch 2? Junya Ishizaki: I'm afraid we know nothing about the Switch 2 at this point either. So it's difficult to say right now. Sorry. IGN: Sure. [Laughs] Back to the game, one thing that wasn’t clear to me yesterday. Do you have to play it online in a group of three, or can you also play it solo or in a duo? Junya Ishizaki: The game is designed to be played as a three-person team, but you can play it as a solo player. IGN: Oh, great. Or in a pair? Junya Ishizaki: No, it's either one-player or three-player. IGN: And in one-player does the enemy health pool scale? Junya Ishizaki: That’s correct. The reason that we went with a three-player focus was that we wanted to retain that sense of accomplishment you get from battling a boss together or from conquering a map together and that sense of enjoyment, but we wanted to recreate that in a fresh way. And we felt like focusing on a three-player co-op experience would provide a brand new sense of accomplishment with it. IGN: Why was three the magic number? Junya Ishizaki: This was largely a game balancing decision, rather than a game design decision. So it came as development progressed. You know, we found that while we wanted each player to have that sense of accomplishment, that sense of rewarding co-op gameplay, this was like a sweet spot with three players in order for it not to feel too overwhelming or too busy. It allowed each player to go off on their own potentially and cover a bit of the map but also to you know that final experience coming together, that was three players felt like the sweet spot eventually. IGN: This is your first time as a game director. What have been your previous roles at From Software? Junya Ishizaki: I’ve been involved with development on From games since the original Dark Souls where I was a level designer. And on Bloodborne, I was level designer **** battle designer, and on Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring I was combat designer. IGN: One thing I used a lot in Elden Ring are Spirit Ashes. Those are less important in Nightreign given you have human-controlled characters to support you, but are there still Spirit Ashes to be found in the game? Junya Ishizaki: They do exist in some capacity but it's a little different to how they played in Elden Ring. IGN: How so? Junya Ishizaki: So there are going to be eight playable characters in the final game and one of those characters uses a Spirit Ash sort of spiritual buddy as a gameplay mechanic. IGN: One of the sort of big selling points of this game mentioned in the presentation yesterday is that it’s more approachable to newcomers. But it’s still quite challenging, so are there any further assists you can toggle on, such as starting a session at a higher level or something? Junya Ishizaki: We don't have any such assist features or settings included. We put a lot of faith in our players regardless of their skill level. We believe that anybody can beat these games, if they just go in with an open mind, and a will to try. We've also incorporated the Relic system where you get these rewards from each run as you experienced yesterday, and even from a mildly or less successful run, you can get these relics and gradually upgrade your roster and build up these characters for your next session. So we hope this gives players an incentive to keep on trying. IGN: I’m curious about the three-day structure and how it came about? Junya Ishizaki: Initially when we set out to make Nightreign, we wanted what we're calling a condensed RPG experience. We wanted to take all those elements from Elden Ring that players enjoyed like the exploration, the building of the character, fighting tough bosses, the sense of discovery, and condense that into a shorter, tighter play session. Also we wanted to include this idea of having peaks and valleys to the gameplay. So there's got to be a flow in there, bring the players up for the highs, and then it gets a little easier and they get to enjoy this gradual flow to the gameplay. And again this was a balance decision that came through development, but eventually that settled on a three-day structure. IGN: My squad eventually beat the final boss on the third day after numerous attempts, and then immediately afterwards we played through it again and beat it a second time and it was a lot easier. How will the finished game be structured, is there an incentive to play through it again, or will you unlock more bosses or harder versions of previous bosses? Junya Ishizaki: So there's going to be eight boss types of final bosses in the final game. And as you progress through, these will be gradually unlocked and become available to fight. IGN: Right, but if you were to just redo the same one, it's not a harder version of that boss to fight or anything like that? It's always the same boss, each time you get back to it? Junya Ishizaki: Something like these new game plus elements or subsequent play elements. We're currently still considering how to field that I guess. IGN: Do you think it’s risky at all, at this point, to launch a new multiplayer game, given other recent failures like Concord or Suicide Squad? The landscape is quite challenging in the multiplayer space. Junya Ishizaki: We don't tend to look at the industry and base our game design or our concerns on what's going on in that sort of, more general sense. We feel like if we're making something we're passionate about and that we want to make and that we enjoy playing, we trust the users will share in that experience and hopefully enjoy it as well. Also, we want to be clear that Nightreign is not like a live service game. Once you you buy Nightreign you get the complete package, everything is unlockable out of the gate. So we want it to be clear that this is what we wanted to make. It's not intended as a live service game. IGN: Great, thank goodness. So, just going back to the presentation yesterday. I believe you said that it's just the one randomised map based off Limgrave. Is that the case for all eight bosses, there’s no map that’s a variation on Caelid or anything like that? Junya Ishizaki: So there will not be a whole new map type depending on the boss you select, but there will be some quite drastic changes to the map that occur as you progress through the game. The reason for this, we wanted to keep this experience quite condensed and concentrated on this “another” Limgrave, so that players could learn and adjust and create that most optimised play to enjoy that sort of new sense of accomplishment and discovery with Nightreign. Learning within those confinements is what we aimed for. IGN: So that's where the volcanoes and meteor strikes and things will come in as the map evolves? Junya Ishizaki: Yes, that's correct. Those elements are supposed to encourage those repeat plays and change up the session each time. IGN: And so is there an ultimate boss to fight who is behind the night tide? Junya Ishizaki: Yes, there is a final boss, at the end of it and they do have a some sort of connection to the night tide and the encroaching night. So we hope players look forward to discovering that. IGN: Are there any other sort of modes planned, like a PvP battle royale or anything like that? Junya Ishizaki: Currently there are no plans. We wanted to first and foremost concentrate on this three-player co-op experience. So that's the main focus for now. IGN: I'm curious about Murk. I know you can spend it in between sessions at the Roundtable Hold, but that wasn’t a part of the build we played so I’m wondering what you can buy with Murk? Junya Ishizaki: So with Murk you'll be able to purchase new Relics. You'll also be able to perform Relic Rites, which allow you to switch around the colour coding for each character. So, potentially give different characters new Relics. You’ll be able to purchase gestures and you'll be able to purchase new character skins as well. IGN: Speaking of the character classes, I found the four different ones that we played with yesterday were really quite unique compared to the base classes from Elden Ring. Was that the case from the beginning or did the game begin with, you know, Warrior and Samurai, stuff like that and then that kind of evolved from there? Junya Ishizaki: So the reason, first of all, just some context for having these set characters was we wanted to create this multiplayer experience that you could just jump into very quickly and casually without worrying too much about character creation or character build off the bat. So, with that, as the kind of initial staple for the design, we set about designing these different characters and their specialities. And quite quickly we landed on their unique skills and ultimate arts, and we figured that we wanted a more of an action gameplay focus rather than landing them in a sort of preset type of character like there's the mage or there's the warrior or there's the tank. We wanted them to each feel quite unique in their gameplay and in their skills and abilities from the get-go. IGN: Will each character have their own storyline? Or is it just one storyline that every character goes on? Junya Ishizaki: Yes. Each character has their own backstory, that players can uncover and interesting quirks to their gameplay that evolve as well. So we hope players look forward to that. IGN: In terms of the backstory, is that just experienced through the codex at the Roundtable Hold? Junya Ishizaki: There will be other elements as well for players who enjoy that sort of side of this game to uncover the character's backstories and things. It won't just be limited to the codex. IGN: There was a character in the presentation that I don't think was one of the ones that we played that was said to be able to raise slabs of rock out of the earth and then use them as a springing off point to do attacks or something like that. Is that one of the unannounced characters? Junya Ishizaki: Yes, of course, that character will be available in the full release. He will be playable in the final version. IGN: I’m curious about the random nature of the map. It seemed like the initial landing area was always kind of more or less the same with the same ruins to quickly get some XP, but then it seemed a bit more random beyond that. Is that by design to make sure that players get off on the right foot? Junya Ishizaki: So the random elements in each session basically come down to anything you find dotted around the map. So the weapons, the enemies that appear, the bosses that appear, the random events that take place, and the points of interest, the key locations that pop up around the map. So these are generally randomised throughout each session. IGN: When you say key locations, you mean like castles and camps and things like that? Junya Ishizaki: Yes, these things will be changed up from session to session, but they all stay the same from one day to the next. IGN: I found that I only used the Spectral Hawk maybe once or twice. I'm just curious at any point during development was there the thought of letting players use it manually at any time like the glider in Breath of the Wild? Or was it always going to be a fixed point, designed to be shortcuts to very specific directions or locations? Junya Ishizaki: We did try a more freeform approach to using the Spectral Hawk to get around initially. But we found eventually that felt surprisingly like a chore, and it also kind of inhibited the freedom of approach that the rest of the game provides. So when the players could be kind of challenging themselves to go off in this direction or choose this route because they've chosen this boss fight and that's sort of what they've got available to them at this moment, they would instead be able to ignore a lot of the map, they'd end up taking very similar routes or they'd end up just flying around for the sake of it. And they would sort of just impede on that intended game design. So we decided to keep it a little bit more streamlined, a little bit more confined to what you experienced yesterday. IGN: That makes a lot of sense. One that I did use, I used to reach a giant that was on a rooftop of a castle. It seemed very deliberately placed in that regard, or was that just a coincidence? Junya Ishizaki: Yeah, it is something similar to what you describe. When we designed it, we had in mind, something like a choice between directions. When you make the decision to make a big movement in one direction of the map, it's like, well, okay I'll choose this Spectral Hawk, or this Spectral Hawk. This was intended to roughly guide the player in these directions. IGN: The Fell Omen kept spawning in as a random event in a few of the sessions that we played yesterday, and we eventually just started luring it towards a site of grace so we could just keep re-upping our health and flasks while we fought it. Do you consider that cheating or is it a legitimate strategy? Junya Ishizaki: It's kind of cheating but seeing as though it was of your own volition and agency, I think we'll give you that one. You’re allowed that [laughs]. IGN: Thank you. I really love Duchess’ skill, the Restage, where she repeats the most recent attack landed on a targeted enemy. It did seem a little overpowered the way we were using it, like having the Guardian do a big swooping ultimate attack and then immediately Restage it for huge damage. Is that something that’s still being balanced? Junya Ishizaki: Yes, of course. It’s still in the tuning stages. IGN: Is the Restage skill a guaranteed hit every time, or can some enemies dodge it? Junya Ishizaki: Yes, it will definitely hit in this current iteration. IGN: The red corpses that are great sources of loot, who do they represent? Junya Ishizaki: So this is Nightreign's unique, asynchronous online element. This is actually gear left from a previous player who died in that spot. So it's their way to leave their mark on the world and influence the session of another player even if they happen to fail. IGN: So similar to Elden Ring, will we see players actually running around while they’re still alive, or do they only appear as dead bodies? Junya Ishizaki: You'll see the phantoms running around occasionally but you won't see messages left by other players like in Elden Ring. IGN: Presumably that’s because messages take too long to put down, and you want to keep things as streamlined as possible? Junya Ishizaki: Yeah, there’s not a lot of time to stop and write a message, I think, as you experienced yesterday. That’s basically the intent there. IGN: Do enemies respawn after the first day of a cycle? Junya Ishizaki: No, there's no respawning between days and no respawning when you visit a side of grace either. IGN: Is there going to be cross platform support? Junya Ishizaki: Similar to the original Elden Ring, there will be cross-generational play but not cross-platform play. So PS4 players can play with PS5 players, and Xbox One players can play with Xbox Series S and X players, but not between platforms. IGN: The heavenly area where the third day boss fight took place was that unique to that Gladius boss or is it always the same on the third day for each boss? Junya Ishizaki: This area is common, it's like a common battleground or pre-battleground area to the final boss of the third day for each boss. IGN: That boss seemed to be called Tricephelus in the menu but then Gladius when we fought it. Why is that? Junya Ishizaki: So, the name of the boss that you select in the menu is actually a different separate name from the one that you see when you actually fight it. That’s intentional. IGN: It seemed like every time the Fell Omen would spawn in as a random fight, we'd always get the Draconian Tree Sentinel at the end of day two, and it was only when it didn't that we got Margit the Fell Omen as the day two boss. Is that an intentional thing? Can you only fight each boss type a maximum of once per three days? Junya Ishizaki: For this particular build and session, this was intentional for these bosses to come together, or for that likelihood to happen. But in the full game there'll be a lot more variation in number and types of bosses to appear together. IGN: It seemed like the boss at the end of day one was always either the Centipede monster or the ****** pairing, but that won’t be the case in the final game? Junya Ishizaki: Yes. In the final release it will be a lot more random, with a greater pool of potential bosses to pull from. IGN: If it’s less predictable it sounds like it will be a lot harder. Do you intend Nightreign to just be a one-off, or are you hoping that this style of game, not necessarily under the Elden Ring banner, but that this style of game will become a staple for FromSoft in the future? Junya Ishizaki: We don't really have a plan in terms of, oh we're going to make more spin-offs or this is going to be a one-off time one-time thing. This was purely sort of happenstance of me wanting to direct my own game and wanting to use Elden Ring and that battle design that I took part in as a base to this game, and my interest in online co-op games as well. So this just all came together nicely to build on what we'd cultivated with Elden Ring. So that's why this is a spin-off. I can't really say for sure where we'll go in the future. IGN: Any final thoughts? Junya Ishizaki: So I created Nightreign to be a new thrilling type of gameplay with that familiar sense of accomplishment and overcoming tough odds that players are familiar with. So I hope these two things come together and provide a fresh and fun experience. So please look forward to it. IGN: Absolutely, I’ve definitely had a great time with it so far. Thank you very much. Junya Ishizaki: That's great to hear. Thank you so much. Wesley is the *** News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at *****@*****.tld. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Ryo Ga Gotoku is working on a new Virtua Fighter game, it’s been confirmed. The news was revealed in a teaser trailer, which was shown during The Game Awards. Ryo Ga Gotoku is best known for the Yakuza / Like a Dragon series, but hasn’t solely focused on those games over the years. Read More... View the full article

The Game Awards 2024 had no shortage of amazing announcements, but for fans of Elden Ring, the show delivered something truly unexpected: Elden Ring: Nightreign. FromSoftware and Bandai Namco have officially unveiled this standalone multiplayer spin-off, set to launch in 2025 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. It’s a new chapter in the Elden Ring universe, but this time, you won’t be exploring its horrors alone. View the full article

It's the Game Awards this evening, which means another year of Josef Fares appearing on stage to performatively say "*****" like he thinks it's naughty. Thankfully this year he also had a game to show: Split Fiction, a new co-op action adventure. It's about two aspiring authors, one who writes science fiction and one who writes fantasy, being sucked into and having to survive inside their own fictions. Read more View the full article

Gearbox has shown off the first main trailer for Borderlands 4. The trailer shows that the fourth main instalment will continue to offer the series’ trademark celshaded look. It also re-confirms, as stated earlier this year, that the game will be released in 2025. Read More... View the full article

Not a photo of an Nvidia LAN, since I can’t find my old photos of them! | Photo by Julian Stratenschulte/picture alliance via Getty Images It’s been 13 years since Nvidia hosted its last LAN party, inviting hundreds of people to physically haul their gaming PCs onto a decommissioned aircraft carrier and jack them in for networked gaming bliss. Now, the GeForce LAN is finally coming back — and you’re theoretically invited, should you manage to reserve one of the 400 available spaces right here on December 16th at 6AM PT / 9AM ET. The GeForce LAN 50 will run January 4th through January 6th, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada, with satellite events in Berlin, Taipei, and Beijing, and it promises to be a “online & in-person 50 hour gaming marathon” with contests, tournaments, raffles, and swag. It’ll kick off 4:30PM PT on January 4th, and you’ll need to provide a fully refundable $125 deposit to sign up. Nvidia tells me those 400 slots are for everyday gamers, and do not count the influencers who may also show up. [/url] If you can’t or don’t want to make it, Nvidia says it’ll offer one small set of rewards online — if you stream Diablo IV, The Elder Scrolls Online, Fallout 76, The Finals, or WoW from its GeForce Now cloud gaming service “continuously for 50 minutes,” there’ll be some kind of in-game reward. Nvidia will also be offering prizes in a marketing celebration it’s calling “GeForce Greats”. The LAN party is happening right before Nvidia’s CES 2025 keynote in Las Vegas, where we’re expecting the company to announce the RTX 5090, RTX 5080, and possibly the RTX 5070 as well, and the fact that this is the “GeForce LAN 50” is probably a tease for those 50-series cards — the last LAN that Nvidia hosted was the “GeForce LAN 6,” not “GeForce LAN 49” or anything like that. Starting in 2004, the GPU company began to host major LAN parties almost every year until it stopped in 2011. Here’s one of my minor claims to nerd fame: I helped set a Guinness World Record for the largest, longest LAN party at one in 2008. Image: Sean Hollister Record scratch, freeze frame, yep that’s me (on the left)... That Nvidia LAN wasn’t held on an aircraft carrier, but rather the San Jose Convention Center, as part an event that Nvidia called “NVISION 08.” The company never held another NVISION, but it rebooted its event the very next year, at the very same location, as the GPU Technology Conference (GTC). There was a time Nvidia would sponsor third-party LANs as well. Apparently Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has a soft spot for LANs, making a surprise visit to a small one in Vietnam last year. While gamers have largely moved online for multiplayer games, the LAN party subculture has been getting a bit of nostalgic attention as of late — there’s even a coffee table book now documenting the era. View the full article

Infinity Nikki is a huge game, full of tons of side quests that will challenge your talent as a stylist; one type of quest, Kindled Inspiration, requires you to wear specific pieces of clothing in order to succeed. This flips the script a bit from typical Styling Challenges. Normally, the only thing that matters in winning a Styling Challenge is how many points you can accumulate, but Kindled Inspiration quests are among the few that look at your specific clothing items when determining your success. View the full article

Sifu developer Sloclap announced a brand-new game at The Game Awards 2024 called Rematch, a soccer-based competitive sports game. Alongside other companies like Bandai Namco and Koei Tecmo, indie developer Sloclap was present to reveal its new game as well. Sloclap's new title is likely a completely unexpected foray for most fans, considering Sifu was an action beat-em-up game. Rematch will be coming sometime next year for both consoles and PC. View the full article

A fresh trailer for Borderlands 4 just dropped at The Game Awards 2024, just as Gearbox CEO ****** Pitchford said it would in a whole bunch of tweets. Read more View the full article

World of Tanks creators Wargaming are getting into the mech-bothering business with Steel Hunters - a new free-to-play Unreal Engine multiplayer shooter, in which Transformers-style juggernauts fight for control of an energy source called "Starfall" on smashable, post-apocalyptic maps. It’s just been announced at Wrasslin' Geoff’s Winter Hootenanny, aka the Game Awards, and there’s a 10 day PC playtest underway right now. Here’s a trailer. Read more View the full article

The Geoffies have delivered us a first look at the gameplay for Obsidian’s spacefaring RPG sequel, The Outer Worlds 2. It looks, as you might expect, very much like the first one, but a bit nicer. The game itself was announced back in 2021, but we’ve seen nary a vaguely satirical sign nor very large gun since. Now we have both, plus some punching. Here’s that trailer. Read more View the full article

Wargaming has announced its latest new IP, Steel Hunters. The next offering from the developer behind World of Tanks and World of Warships is described as a “free-to-play mech hero shooter that uniquely blends Battle Royale and Extraction mechanics”. The game is set in a futuristic world, in the aftermath of a “catastrophic event”, and is based around the idea of human survival. Read More... View the full article

Note: This update is for the Steam Deck Beta and Preview channels, and includes new features that are still being tested. You can opt into this in Settings > System > System Update Channel. GeneralFixed a rendering issue with characters' eyes in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Added support for the 8BitDo Ultimate 2C Wireless Controller Fixed Linux kernel CVE-2024-50089 Fixed mpg123 CVE-2024-10573 Fixed libarchive CVE-2024-20696View the full article

CD Projekt have screened the first trailer for The Witcher 4, the next instalment in their fantasy monster-slaying series. It’s another single player open world RPG, and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s Ciri is the protagonist. In fact, she's the protagonist for a whole new Witcher saga, though there’s a tease at the end of the footage that crusty old Geralt may return as well. Read more View the full article

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth launched on console back in February, and if I'd had to guess, I'd say it would arrive on PC about a year later. Hey - guess what! Square Enix just gave Rebirth a PC release date: January 23rd, 2025. Read more View the full article