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In Baldur's Gate 3, Bards are one of the most reliable classes to include in an adventuring party. Bards are exceptional at dialogue checks and crowd control, making the class a perfect fit for being a party leader. Bards are an excellent class to utilize in multiclassing, as they share stats with several other powerful classes, such as Paladins, Sorcerers, and Warlocks. View the full article

Infinity Nikki just reached a new milestone of 30 million global pre-registrations. Infinity Nikki is an isekai adventure focused on easing the minds of its players with peaceful, yet engaging minigames. Nikki and her best friend Momo's journey in Miraland is the extension of a series of dress-up-focused mobile games like Love Nikki, and the new title's venture onto PC and PlayStation may offer a huge hit that makes the franchise even more popular. View the full article

Upcoming cozy adventure game Infinity Nikki has revealed some more aspects of its powerful outfits that players will be able to utilize in the game's open-world format. Infinity Nikki will carry on the classic dress-up appeal of its mobile game predecessors while adding a magical adventurous element. View the full article

Dragon Age: The Veilguard launched to a plethora of positive reviews, something that was likely unexpected for Bioware skeptics. The developer has been in hot water since the release of Anthem, with many fans feeling it had lost its magic. Luckily, The Veilguard proved them wrong and served as proof that Bioware is back, and hopefully for good. However, what may have shocked some players is that Bioware is already done with The Veilguard, and intends to move on from it as quickly as possible. View the full article

In Baldur's Gate 3, the Monk has the largest amount of class-specific gear. Throughout all 3 acts of the game, players will constantly be finding items that Monks can make exceptional use of. However, this means it can be tricky to determine which pieces of gear are best for a Monk. View the full article

Publisher Aniplex and developer CyberConnect2 have released a new update for ****** Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Sweep the Board!. The new 1.20 update for ****** Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Sweep the Board! adds a new board and some new mini-games, further expanding the digital board game based on the popular manga and anime franchise. […] Source View the full article

Recent leaks are teasing a new character planned to come to Zenless Zone Zero's roster, hinting at a cast member who has already made a major story appearance. Since the HoYoverse urban action RPG first released in early July, the game has seen a variety of unique and diverse characters introduced. Zenless Zone Zero's roster has featured everything from the robotic Billy and the bikers of the Sons of Calydon to Thiren characters like Victoria Housekeeping's Lycaon and Ellen. Now, leaks are teasing a notable character from the game's story. View the full article

Out of all the Electric-types in existence, it’s hard to deny that Pikachu is one of the most iconic Pokémon—and thanks to Surging Sparks, it’s about to see a spike in popularity. Stellar Tera-type Pikachu ex is an impressive card and worth playing if you’re a fan of creative Pokémon TCG decks. Here, we’ve listed the best Surging Sparks Pikachu ex Pokémon TCG deck builds, including both the standard list that you’ll find in Pokemon TCG Live and our spin on the deck. This deck does take some practice, but once you’ve got the core mechanics down, it’s incredibly fun. View the full article

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is here, and the titular dragons are as vicious as ever. BioWare's newest fantasy RPG title centers around a new real-time combat system that has plenty of strategic depth. With an effect system, companion abilities, and a plethora of items and weapons to find throughout the world, Veilguard offers intense and satisfying combat. This makes sense for a game that centers around dragon-slaying, and the game offers a level of challenge that can make dragon encounters truly intimidating. View the full article

The Spies Among Us is a side quest in Dragon Age: The Veilguard that gives players a great way to gain many Antivian Crows strength for very little work. The quest is about helping to solve the mystery involving betrayal within the Antivan Crows, but you can skip the quest and still be fine overall. However, this quest shouldn't be skipped because the extra boost to the Antivian Crows strength is worth all the effort. View the full article

If I could time-travel back to any gaming moment, it would be the release of Halo 2 back on November 9, 2004. I have never in my entire life, both personally and professionally, experienced such hype and anticipation in the run-up to a major game release – and then somehow also seen that game actually live up to all of it. But Halo 2 did! It was the long-awaited (and delayed) sequel to the very reason the Xbox established itself in the console space at all, and thus it carried the weight of the entire Xbox world on its shoulders. If you were in or around the Xbox community in 2004, you no doubt remember it. I was lucky enough to cover Halo 2 for Official Xbox Magazine before, during, and after its release, and so I thought I’d take this special anniversary moment to share a few behind-the-scenes memories from what is, to me, the single greatest Xbox game ever. Covering Halo 2 Before Release The first time I saw Halo 2 running – sort of – was its then-jaw-dropping and now infamous E3 2003 behind-closed-doors single-player campaign demo. I say “sort of” because the demo Bungie showed never made it into the final game. But it was representative of what we could expect from the sequel, including dual wielding weapons and boarding (read: **********) vehicles. They played it live in the room for us, and I went back and saw the demo a few times during that E3 week. Visually, it was stunning for the time. And the aforementioned pair of new gameplay mechanics seemed delectable. Like most who saw it, I couldn’t wait to play it… …But wait I would for an entire year more. Halo 2 made its playable debut at E3 2004, with its November 9, 2004 release date literally written in ink. While not on the show floor, media members with appointments could play a round of single-flag CTF on the Zanzibar map behind closed doors. I remember a couple of things: first, I was floored by how it looked and felt the first time I put my hands-on it. Boarding an ****** vehicle was an absolute thrill, and the gameplay was so much more refined than what we’d spent every single day at 5pm playing at OXM with Halo: Combat Evolved. Gameplay in Halo 2 was so much more refined than what we’d spent every single day at 5pm playing at OXM with Halo: Combat Evolved. Just this week, Halo 2 lead multiplayer designer (and architect of the groundbreaking “virtual couch” online matchmaking system I’ll talk more about in a bit) Max Hoberman told me this little anecdote about Zanzibar: “We planned this and ********* on it in record time in preparation for E3, when we learned that we were going to have to carry the show, and we didn't have anything we felt was impressive enough.” Mission accomplished, Max. Needless to say, I politely begged the Microsoft PR team to sneak me in for a few more sessions throughout E3, and I gladly gobbled up every second of hands-on time with Halo 2 that I could. I was hooked. Reviewing Halo 2 By virtue of the long lead times that monthly magazines have (not to mention day-one patches not really being a normal thing back then), I found myself at Bungie in late September of 2004 to review Halo 2 for Official Xbox Magazine, alongside my editor-in-chief, Rob Smith. Rob pulled rank and actually wrote the review (I’d have done the same in his position), but I got to come along for the ride. The Bungie team gave us our own tiny office – it was more of a storage room, really – where they set up two Xboxes and two TVs. We were there for three days, with the first two being dedicated to the campaign. Obviously that meant we got to experience the play-as-the-Arbiter surprise before anyone else did – and couldn’t talk about it for weeks! I ended up finishing the campaign before Rob did, and, I **** you not, I thought the credits rolling was a bug. Surely the last level was supposed to have started instead! It’s a funny story now, but I almost embarrassed the heck out of myself by telling Bungie I’d hit a bug. Thankfully, I didn’t, and of course we later learned that the final level was cut because the development team ran out of time. Instead, three years later Halo 3 would pick up where Halo 2's monumental cliffhanger left off. I thought the credits rolling at the end of hte campaign was a bug. The multiplayer sessions were simply a blast. Getting to rip through every one of the now-classic multiplayer maps – a number of them which hadn’t been revealed at that point – was an absolute treat. In fact, one of the then-unknown maps was Coagulation, a remake of what was arguably Halo 1’s most famous/popular battleground, Blood Gulch. Rob and I lobbied Bungie president Pete Parsons to let us talk about Coagulation in the OXM review, which was going to reach subscribers before the game came out. We compromised: we could include it, but it would be in a sealed fold-out page that you had to physically cut to access. Naturally, we assumed everyone that picked up the magazine did just that. At the end of the visit, Rob and I deliberated in his hotel room. We were both miffed by the campaign’s sudden stop, but nevertheless strongly felt that it deserved the highest score OXM had ever given: 9.7 out of 10. It beat out the previous top score of 9.6, given to both Halo: Combat Evolved and the original Splinter Cell. Halo 2 Is Released In the ultimate first-world problem, the weeks between spending three days with Halo 2 at Bungie and the final release of Bungie’s glorious sequel were agonizing. Gaming-wise, all I could think about was playing it again. And when November 9 finally came, the OXM crew and I played every. Single. Night. This is not an exaggeration. Whether it was matchmaking, private matches, or a mix of the two, Halo 2’s sublime Xbox Live virtual couch system was the foundation for thousands of hours of fun – back before live service games were monsters that demanded thousands of hours of your time. When the Halo 2 Multiplayer Map Packs were released, it only extended the fun for many more months. Not only that, every map was – this is not an exaggeration – awesome. There were no duds in the bunch. Bungie was simply at the peak of its powers with Halo 2, and to this day you can name a Halo 2 multiplayer map and I can describe it in great detail. This week, I asked Halo 2 multiplayer lead Max Hoberman (now the head of veteran developer Certain Affinity) to rank all 12 of the maps that shipped with Halo 2. He graciously did so – with a twist – telling me, “Here's a ranking of my favorites, specifically from when we were in development. This is how I remember liking them, 20 years ago.” And he left notes on each: 12) Foundation. “We remade Thunderdome, a multiplayer level from Marathon, and added it as an Easter egg, unlockable. I wish we'd remade Mars Needs Women instead – that was my favorite from Marathon.” 11) Colossus. “Gravity lifts are fun, but this map never really did much for me. I honestly can't think of a time I had a blast playing it during development. Apparently it was also superbounce crazy after we shipped, who knew?” 10) Headlong. “We slammed this in late, after the success of Zanzibar at E3. We felt we needed more asymmetrical single flag CTF maps that supported vehicles and large teams. and had a big dynamic element (the crane). It really needed more time in paper design, and more tuning, than we were able to give it, so it was never my favorite.” 9) Battle Creek. “I felt we had to remake the iconic ******* Creek from Halo. Then working to improve it was quite a challenge - removing ladders, and adding teleporters behind the bases. I think it worked out ok, but honestly, I was already tired of it by the time we got it playable during development.” 8) Burial Mounds. “We really wanted a map that highlighted the ATV/Mongoose, before we found out it was cut, and this was supposed to be that map. We tried to salvage it, and it had a few moments of fun on base defense games due to its extreme asymmetry, but it would have been much better if we'd designed it for that. As it was, it was nothing but untapped potential.” 7) Waterworks. “I liked the ambition on this map, but I think the simplicity of the bases and the lack of cover out in the open really hurt it. It's an easy candidate for improvement, in my honest opinion. If only we'd had more time and resources! We were a tiny multiplayer content team (just me and [Halo 2 multiplayer designer Chris] Carney originally, then [Halo 2 multiplayer designer Steve] Cotton joined us halfway through).” 6) Ivory Tower. “This map was a mosh pit of sorts, where we tested out a lot of ******** games in particular, and that's what I recall most. But we had fun Slayer and Oddball and other games on it too. Plus I named it after our nickname for Marty's audio space/office, which was a constant sore point for him, so it got extra points.” "[Halo 1's Blood Gulch map] was simply the most iconic big open vehicle sandbox." 5) Midship. “I designed this map for 2v2 CTF games, Carney helped improve it massively (Covey curvey!), and it took on a life of its own, especially in competitive circles. Of course it was at its best when it had more players on it than it was originally targeting.” 4) Ascension. “A map that blends tight quarters combat with distance sniping and Banshees? Why not. This was definitely a unique map, and while it had some issues, I have very fond memories of playtests on it during development. Plus [Halo 2 narrative lead Joseph] Staten and [Halo 2 animator John] Butkus went head to head on it with snipers every single day, on the kiosk, for at least a year. They were clearly having fun.” 3) Coagulation. “Yes, this is a remake of Blood Gulch, but we remade it for a reason. The original was simply the most iconic big open vehicle sandbox, mildly symmetrical and with two bases to boot, for big team CTF battles. This complemented our smaller, tighter, no vehicle maps perfectly. Plus I think we did a good job of staying true to the original, while still improving it.” 2) Zanzibar. “We planned this and ********* on it in record time in preparation for E3, when we learned that we were going to have to carry the show, and we didn't have anything we felt was impressive enough. I doubled down on single flag CTF, with this dedicated map that supports both close quarters combat and vehicles, and many of my fondest memories in Halo 2 playtests were on it.” 1) Lockout. “Our first and our best. The undisputed king. We played this continuously throughout development, and I never got tired of it. Ever.” Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked. Swords-only no-radar matches on Lockout are his favorite. Talk Halo 2 with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

With the launch of Satisfactory 1.0 and Factorio Space Age, it's a good time to be a fan of making intricate stacks of machinery that handle all your work for you. Joining the roster is Techtonica 1.0, which might be the prettiest automation sandbox game I've seen so far. Set in a beautiful, bioluminescent fantasy world, Techtonica combines the factory-building elements you love with large-scale world terraforming reminiscent of Astroneer and a mysterious narrative in the style of Subnautica, and you can jump in for cheap thanks to a generous Steam ***** discount to celebrate its arrival out of early access. Read the rest of the story... View the full article

Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel has added a trio of new Packs to the game for its November 2024 update, introducing a new Selection Pack and two new Secret Packs. The massively popular digital trading card game from Konami regularly adds new cards to the game, with Master Duel's monthly "Selection Packs" typically bringing a handful of new strategies. Newly-added "Secret Packs" also allow players to pick up cards they may have missed, offering focused selections centered around specific themes. Now, Konami is introducing multiple new packs with its November patch. View the full article

Ahead of Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake's upcoming launch, Square Enix shared a set of guidelines for streaming or sharing gameplay of the RPG. These guidelines state which platforms images and videos of Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake can be shared on, along with notes on how to handle spoilers for the story of the game. The upcoming Dragon Quest 3 remake is being done in the same style as Team Asano's HD-2D games like Octopath Traveler, having pixel art that has been redone from the ground up and will be set against highly rendered 3D backgrounds. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

The Witcher 4 will feature a character named Branko, according to a recently spotted actor resume. The same source also mentions some other details, including the tentative release window for the fourth mainline entry in The Witcher franchise. View the full article

The upcoming WCW DLC Pack for WWE 2K24 now includes the classic WCW Fall Brawl WarGames arena. WWE 2K24 has released four DLC packs so far, available for individual purchase or as part of the season pass. View the full article

Our IGN First "cover story" game for November is Marvel Rivals, the upcoming 6v6 hero shooter featuring many of Marvel's biggest superheroes. We kick off our exclusive coverage with five exclusive minutes of gameplay showing Moon Knight, the most recently confirmed hero added to Rivals's sizable roster. Take a look at the exclusive gameplay above, and if you missed it, you can check out the Psylocke gameplay video that we kicked off our IGN First coverage with in the video below. If you missed our hands-on preview impressions from the closed beta from over the summer, you can read that after you finish the Psylocke video. And stay tuned all November long for more exclusive Marvel Rivals coverage on IGN! Thank you to our IGN China team for leading the editorial effort on this video and this entire IGN First project. Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan. View the full article

Shadow of the Erdtree introduced a treasure trove of new lore to the already elaborate universe of Elden Ring, and one surprising mystery can be found in an unassuming dark corner of the Shadow Realm. The expansion of the Frenzied Flame lore includes an area that will drive Tarnished ****, quite literally: the terrifying Abyssal Woods, where even Torrent is afraid to roam. If Tarnished dare explore this area and manage to avoid the many difficult enemies - including the Aging Untouchables, who can only be defeated with a well-timed parry - they will find themselves at Midra's Manse. View the full article

A new ***** from Zenless Zone Zero is showing off the in-game animations for upcoming character *******, teasing her menu animations and combat gameplay. *******'s upcoming addition to the roster for the urban action RPG from HoYoverse has been one of the game's most highly-anticipated debuts since its launch, with plenty of excitement for the character. ******* features prominently in the "Hollow Zero" game mode and plays a major role in the newly-released "Virtual Revenge" Special Episode. Now, fans are getting a first look at *******'s gameplay following her launch. View the full article

I'm as excited for Civilization 7 as everyone else, but I can't help but wonder what it could be if it stepped outside the comfortable familiarity of real-world history. In Zephon, the planet as we knew it is all but *****, blasted into a nightmarish wasteland by an alien apocalypse. Rather than exploring with an intrepid gleam in your eye, this new 4X game is a desperate struggle for survival in a world where Lovecraftian horrors, unflinching automata, and ravenous beasts roam the land. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Enormous new 4X game from Warhammer 40k dev is available to try now Civilization 6 and Frostpunk have competition in new Steam 4X game Zephon devs want to bring RTS, MOBA, and "justice" to 4X strategy games View the full article

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 developer Insomniac Games paid tribute to the late Tony Todd, the actor behind the villainous Venom. One of the first things that fans knew about Marvel's Spider-Man 2 when it was first revealed was the voice actor of its iteration of Venom, Tony Todd. Todd was best known for playing the titular character of the Candyman series, along with appearances in other horror films like the Final Destination series and Night of the Living *****. Before launch, many fans were excited to see the horror icon's take as Marvel's iconic Symbiote villain. View the full article

Tuning your weapons and armor in Brighter Shores allows you to equip your untuned gear from your inventory, but you will need to fix the Obelisk by finding the missing spike. Here’s everything you need to know about finding the missing Obelisk spike in Brighter Shores. View the full article

One of the most anticipated new mounts in World of Warcraft's latest update is Thrayir, Eyes of the Siren, formerly known as the Stormcrow. A creature datamined as a possible mount as early as Patch 5.4.0, this electric eagle makes their official debut in the new 11.0.7 Patch. However, to get this mount, you have to explore the new Siren Isle area to fulfill a quest's objectives. View the full article

Sony forcing you to have a PlayStation Network account for all their recent PC releases hasn't been well liked, and they of course have no plans to back down on it. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

Nintendo's lawsuit against Palworld developer Pocketpair is "a clear case of bullying," patent analyst Florian Mueller has said. He did so as part of a wider analysis of some recently uncovered details about the Palworld complaint that Nintendo and The Pokemon Company filed in mid-September 2024. View the full article