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gamescom 2024 is almost here, and IGN is the official media partner once again for gamescom studio in Germany. Fans can expect exclusive trailers, gaming reveals, deep dives with developers, interviews on IGN’s stage at the event, demos, cosplay, and much more. Along with that, viewers will see live coverage from the show floor at gamescom, including Xbox’s huge booth at the show. IGN kicks off its gamescom coverage with Opening Night Live on Tuesday, August 20, including an exclusive Post-Show analysis and reveals. See the below schedule for gamescom so far, including IGN's live coverage throughout the event. View the full article

Arc Raiders was announced back in 2021 as a free-to-play co-op third-person shooter, and has been delayed several times since. That's partly because Embark Studios' other in-development game, The Finals, progressed faster than planned and stole its momentum. It's also because it was re-tooled at some point as a PvPvE extraction shooter. Now it's back again, aiming for release next year, and it's been re-tooled a little more: it's no longer free-to-play. Read more View the full article

Let’s face it: We’ve all had those moments when we’re playing a game and get stuck on something so frustrating that it makes us question our ability to play. And during those times, we may have had to look up a guide online. While some gamers might not like to admit they needed help to finish a game, a recent Reddit thread allowed gamers to vent about those moments where they hated themselves for not be able to figure something out after looking something up. The Reddit user who originally started the thread used it to talk about their frustrations about getting to Rusty Bucket Bay in Banjo-Kazooie and the water temple in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The latter game sparked several different responses from multiple games in the Zelda franchise. While the series isn’t known for its difficulty, many of its puzzles and dungeons have tripped up even the most seasoned Zelda players. Whether it’s a very frustrating shrine in Breath of the Wild or a confusing puzzle in Phantom Hourglass that requires you to literally close your Nintendo DS to solve it, Nintendo is always surprising their player base with its brain-teasing puzzles. View the full article

ALGS Split Two Playoffs are inbound—and this time we’re heading for Mannheim, Germany. 40 teams from six regions will compete in round-robin bracket stages to reach the finals. Weeks of scrim practice, comp experimentation, and adapting to season 22’s changes all factor into who will lift the trophy. The ALGS Split Two Playoffs will start on Aug. 29, 2024 and conclude on Sept. 1, 2024. Only one team can be crowned, and while your money may be on NA’s super team, the latest comp meta may have something to say about who comes out on top. View the full article

Ignoring a certain recent movie, we’re in a video game adaptation renaissance of late—one Deadpool director Tim Miller seems intent on expanding. His recently-announced Secret Level series is an anthology covering a broad scope of high-profile games with no shortage of famous (digital) faces. This series, which is launching right onto Prime Video this December, will consist of 15 untold stories from the world of your favorite video games (and statistically, probably your least favorite as well). Even in the scant minute and a half shown off, there’s plenty to get excited about. View the full article

There's something so special about creating your own virtual home in a videogame. I, for one, live in a rented apartment, so I can't put anything on the walls, or make drastic changes to the very beige decor. While, sure, I've maybe broken a couple of rules, it still doesn't quite feel like my home. So, to combat that, I've spent hours creating quaint little abodes in Disney Dreamlight Valley, customizing them to the nth degree. Yet I admittedly grow pretty tired of games like DDV because of the lack of, well, action, so when I saw Lynked: Banner of the Spark, I was instantly intrigued. Read the rest of the story... View the full article

Bethesda and Machine Games have revealed several editions of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. The title will be released first for Xbox Series X/S and PC on December 9, 2024, before coming to PS5 in spring 2025, it was announced at Gamescom on Tuesday. “We want everybody to be able to enjoy this adventure,” said game director ***** Gustafsson. “That is why we are delighted to bring Indiana Jones and the Great Circle to PlayStation 5 players, next Spring 2025.” Read More... View the full article

Here's the news: there's a new ****** game, it's called ******: The Old Country, and it's set in 20th century Sicily rather than in America as per the previous three games in the series. That's about all we know, but hop below and you'll find a trailer. Read more View the full article

It's now been officially confirmed that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will be coming to PlayStation 5 as well as PC and Xbox, despite the fact that it's being made by Xbox-owned companies. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is the next game from MachineGames, the studio most famous for the Wolfenstein games. A primarily first-person action-adventure game, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is shaping up to be one of the ******* day one Game Pass games of the year. View the full article

Look, we know, it's a terrible headline. Anyway, ******: The Old Country has just been announced right at the end of Gamescom Opening Night Live 2024, and it's set to release in 2025. The next game in the ****** series got a nice teaser trailer, featuring plenty of wine, guns, oil paintings, and chatter about bad things going down if you don't commit yourself to a family. Yep, those of us who unashamedly love The Godfather so much they write unhinged features about indie games look to be eating good here. "Uncover the origins of organized ****** with a gritty mob story set in the brutal underworld of 1900s Sicily," reads the plot summary in an accompanying 2K press release, "****** to survive in this dangerous and unforgiving era, with action brought to life by the authentic realism and rich storytelling that the critically acclaimed ****** series is known for." Read more View the full article

****** Myth: Wukong is not an open-world game. It’s a linear experience with specific bosses blocking your path, and you’ll unlock additional chapters as you go through the game. You might not unlock everything during your first pass, and if so, does this mean you can repeat chapters? Most linear games prevent you from returning to chapters or block you from going through an area again. With so many secrets and different bosses to find while exploring ****** Myth: Wukong, you might feel overwhelmed trying to find everything on your first pass. Thankfully for gamers, you don’t have to feel pressured about that, but you still won’t be able to start the story over again as you go through the chapters. View the full article

Madden NFL 25 has hit a rough patch just days after its release, with early reviews on Steam reflecting mixed opinions from the player base. With 170 out of 295 reviews currently negative, Madden NFL 25 players have voiced a range of concerns about the games performance, features, and overall experience. View the full article

If you were hoping to purchase the special collector's edition Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 GPU that was teased last week, I have some bad news, it's for prize giveaways only. That's right, Asus teased the reveal of this stunning AMD GPU, but now won't let you buy one. As expected, the AMD Radeon 7900 XTX provides the base for this beautiful GPU, and it is easily one of the best graphics cards on the market not produced by Nvidia. In our review, we gave the card an 8/10 and praised its "exceptionally powerful graphics". Our only issue was that, at the time, AMD had no answer to Nvidia DLSS, but now it does, meaning this card is an even better package now than it was during its release window. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: AMD Ryzen 9 9900X already has its first price cut AMD Ryzen CPU gaming performance hit by Windows bug, but there's a fix A special Space Marine 2 graphics card is coming, thanks to Asus View the full article

King of Meat is a lot of things. It's Dark Souls combat dressed up in a co-op dungeon crawler, a Wipeout game show in a world of rampant corporate commercialism, and a user-generated level creator all rolled into one. A new online venture from Amazon Games, I spent four hours playing King of Meat and chatting with the team ahead of the big Gamescom ONL reveal and came away hopeful. With the co-op antics of Helldivers 2, ****** course gameplay of Fall Guys, and soulslike-esque combat, King of Meat keeps itself upright with a really promising skeleton. Read the rest of the story... View the full article

There's no way the original Goat Simulator came out ten years ago. I simply refuse to believe it - I'll let it have five years, but ten? A decade? Simply impossible. Yet, it appears to be true, and to celebrate developer Coffee Stain Studios is releasing Goat Simulator Remastered, letting you get goated with the sauce all over again. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: You can now block Steam curators you don't like Goat Simulator devs launch initiative to promote gender equality in the games industry Goat Simulator 'New Super Secret DLC' teased by a veritable menagerie of chatty animals View the full article

Oh, and new Indiana Jones And The Great Circle trailer! Great. I’ve been looking forward to a nice, juicy chunk of extended gameplay. You know, something to really convey the flow of the game, rather than the admittedly impressive but nonetheless very fragmented snippets we’ve gotten so far. Now to sit back and…oh, wait. Hang on. It’s just actor Troy Baker telling me about all the great acting he’ll be doing. It is great, by the way. He’s doing a fantastic job. Maybe just, you know, a crumb of acknowledgement or elucidation over the whole ‘interactivity’ part? Anyway, don’t mind me. I’m just an old fool who likes to press buttons. And, to be fair, it's not like Machinegames don't have a great track record. Anyway, here’s some good news: The game releases December 9th this year. Have a release date trailer. Read more View the full article

Over the course of this writer's time at ********* Gamer, there have been a lot of games defining themselves as different "punk" subgenres, from steampunk to whalepunk to even stuff like "fungipunk." Yet, oddly, we can't really say that we've seen any notable games describing themselves as "medievalpunk" yet. Until today, of course. Today, just ahead of Gamescom, Thunderful and developer Studio Fizbin unveiled Reignbreaker, a roguelike action game that as seen in the announcement trailer at the link here, might definitely give off some vibes of the likes of Hades, but it becomes clear quite soon that the game has its own unique world that blends together a bit of the modern world with the more *********, gritty elements of medieval times (the era, not the restaurant). View the full article

Xbox and MachineGames have finally announced a release date for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle at this year's Gamescom Opening Night Live showcase, revealing that we'll be stepping into the shoes of our favorite whip-wielding hero on December 9, and that it'll also be coming to PS5. View the full article

Peter Molyneux is back, this time with a new **** game called Masters of Albion that he’s talking up at gamescom 2024. Sound familiar? Anyone who’s played Fable, one of the many games from Molyneux’s much-loved back catalog, will know Albion well. Albion is the setting for the Fable series, originally developed by legendary *** studio Lionhead before Microsoft shut it down in 2016. Microsoft is currently working on a brand new Fable game, in development at Forza Horizon maker Playground. So, is Masters of Albion a Fable game? In a new interview with IGN, Molyneux explained his thought process: “So Albion is the old English name for England and Wales and Cornwall. And I think it's a really interesting world. It's an interesting universe that Fable touched upon and really I think Albion in Masters of Albion, it extends and expands that, but it's not actually Fable 5 or anything like that. “But if you've played Fable, then definitely Masters of Albion will be familiar to you. One of the things that we have got and we absolutely wanted a nail was the humor and a lot of what the humor is. I think in the Fable games, it's not so much about telling jokes, it's more about giving you the ability, the player, to do ridiculous and funny things. And we've got that in Masters of Albion in absolute spades really. I think we're really nail that. “So there's a lot you can do with your hero, which is very funny. Some of it can be very cruel, some of it can be very kind. There's a lot you can do with your hand that can be kind and cruel. And I really love the detail that we can go into.” Albion can't be copyrighted. It's the name for England and Wales and that's how we get away with it. IGN followed up to ask, directly, whether the Albion in Masters of Albion is the Albion players have explored in the Fable games. Molyneux replied: “Yes, yes. Fable was set in Albion, Masters of Albion is set in Albion.” But how? Surely Microsoft might have something to say if Masters of Albion is set in the Albion from Fable? Molyneux said Albion as a setting doesn’t belong to anyone. “Albion is like saying if you set a game in America, you can't set any other game in America,” he said. “So Albion can't be copyrighted. It's the name for England and Wales and that's how we get away with it.” It sounds like the Albion in Masters of Albion isn’t exactly the Albion in Fable, then, rather yet another humor-filled fantasy take on old England. Speaking of Fable, we asked Molyneux how it feels to see another company make a Fable game, following Lionhead’s demise. “I'm fascinated to see what Playground does with Fable,” he replied. “I'm absolutely delighted that the franchise is continuing to grow. I mean, that makes me so proud, to be involved with the brilliant people that made Fable and we made something that was worthy for someone as brilliant as Playground to make it. “I hope they make it their Fable. I hope they keep the humor, the trailers that I've seen so far look stunning. But I'm curious about the gameplay and I'm curious about what their Fable looks like and plays like and feels like, as opposed to what Lionhead would look like and feel like. What an incredibly diplomatic answer that was!” Peter Molyneux is one of the most controversial video game designers around, with a reputation for over-promising and under-delivering across his career. He created the seminal **** games Populous, as well as the likes of Dungeon Keeper and Theme Park while at Bullfrog. After founding Lionhead, Molyneux worked on ****** & White, the Fable games, and The Movies, as well as a number of canceled projects. Molyneux left Lionhead in 2012, following the completion of Fable: The Journey, to work at new studio 22cans. 22cans itself is a highly controversial studio, with **** game Godus failing to leave early access on Steam. Molyneux was also heavily criticized for failing to make good on a promise to change the life of the winner of experimental mobile game Curiosity: What's Inside the Cube? Now, after something of a hiatus, Molyneux is speaking to the press once again to talk about his new game. Be sure to check out IGN’s interview with Peter Molyneux in full to find out more about Masters of Albion. And catch up on everything announced at Opening Night Live for more. 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

The last time the developers at MachineGames made an Xbox-exclusive first-person action-adventure based on a movie character, it turned out to be one of the best experiences of the entire original Xbox/PS2 console generation. That game was The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, back when the core of MachineGames was still at Starbreeze. I bring this up because after I got to see an extended demo of the studio’s newest project, the also-Xbox-exclusive Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, I couldn’t help but be strongly – and I do mean strongly – reminded of the Vin Diesel-starring original-Xbox classic, in the very best of ways. Indy absolutely screams Riddick, and because of that, The Great Circle went from something on my most-anticipated list to being far and away the game I’m most looking forward to playing this year (specifically, December 9 on Xbox and PC, with PS5 getting it in Spring 2025). My hands-off demo began in (where else?) a huge underground temple, with the sun shining down onto a small figurine. Indy picks it up and the door closes behind him. He cracks the figurine open with a rock. Inside is a small block of some sort – a key, perhaps? Naturally, this triggers a *****-in, with our hero remarking, “Oh, you gotta be kidding me.” The player takes over as the camera shifts to first-person (though it will go third-person for platforming sequences). As sand fills the room, Indy shuffles over to a window that’s suddenly become reachable thanks to all the sand. He tumbles into a stand and then a run, a stamina bar showing how much longer Jones can keep sprinting. He uses his trusty whip to make a leap across a chasm as the temple conditions grow more lethal by the second. He goes into a slide to exit the temple just in the nick of time. MachineGames promises plenty of these kinds of exhilarating action sequences in The Great Circle, which notably – just like in Riddick – rarely involves the use of a ****. Sure, Dr. Jones has his trademark revolver, but, as creative director Axel Torvenius explained, “The key to the combat is to carefully decide your approach,” and added, “It’s very dangerous in this game to ***** a ****.” It won’t be done particularly often, and it shouldn’t be taken lightly when the moment comes. “You should firstmost try to use your wits and your whip,” he continued. “To understand that there are optional ways to solve [problems].” Don’t, then, call this Indy game a first-person shooter. It’s a very first-person game, alright, but it’s decidedly not a shooter. It’s a mix of puzzle solving, platforming, stealth, and combat. Just like this team’s first game that starred a certain bald convict who can see really well in the dark… “The focus for this game is adventure,” said director ***** Gustaffson. “We want exploration to feel truly rewarding.” As such, one of your primary tools is Indy’s journal. It starts blank but quickly becomes a jam-packed archive of your travels, which will include visits to Egypt and the Himalayas, among several other locales. Furthering the spirit of adventure, there will be times where you’ll wear disguises in order to fit in, like one scene I saw where our favorite professor of archaeology dresses up like a priest in order to infiltrate a heavily guarded area. The adventure focus will even reflect in the gameplay structure of The Great Circle, with MachineGames revealing that the campaign will consist of a mix of linear areas and more open areas that you’re free to wander in. Meanwhile, you’ll earn Adventure Points by finding journal entry-worthy items and secrets – as well as by taking pictures of key items with your camera – and those points can be spent to upgrade your Indiana Jones to play more like you prefer, be it upping your stealth abilities, combat abilities (like True Grit, which essentially lets you survive an otherwise-fatal ***** to get back in the ******), or other skills. MachineGames says there are “dozens” of upgrades to choose from. You can also buy items from shopkeepers, like one I saw that had a monkey beside him at his booth. What these are, though, I have not yet seen. Much of the combat looks like it’ll involve your fists, but like in Riddick, your foes won’t go down with a simple press of the punch button. You’ll have to skillfully parry, block, and combo your way to victory in hand-to-hand combat. And don’t be afraid to get your whip involved too, by lashing it at opponents’ feet to knock them down, as one example of what it can do for you in gameplay. But your dukes aren’t always going to be your go-to weapons. I saw Indy use a rolling pin in a kitchen to bash a *****’s face in. I also watched him pick up a shovel, sneak up behind a *****, and whack him on the back of the head. In fact, sneaking looks to be a big part of The Great Circle, with stealth emphasized as a core tenet of gameplay – as it was in Escape from Butcher Bay. Sneaking looks to be a big part of The Great Circle, with stealth emphasized as a core tenet of gameplay – as it was in Escape from Butcher Bay. Something Richard B. Riddick didn’t do, though, was bring any friends along with him for the ride. Indiana Jones, on the other hand, will welcome help along the way. I saw a couple of companions at his side throughout my demo across numerous scenes in the game. They’re not always around, but when they’re by your side, I didn’t see enough to know exactly what they’ll be capable of? Are they solely to help advance the plot and allow for more Indy quips? Or will they also offer an Elizabeth-in-BioShock-Infinite-like assistance in combat? That ******** to be seen, but my demo ended with a sequence that showed off a lot of what The Great Circle is going to be all about: adventuring, avoiding traps, and solving puzzles! To find a key that would unlock a temple, Indy needed to sneak into ****** territory disguised as a regular worker. After snooping around for a while, he finds the golden medallion he’s after and takes it quietly (banking +5 Adventure Points). He encounters four bad guys at a table and, this time, walks out of the tent without incident. Upon returning to the nearby temple’s hidden door and inserting the medallion, the door opens. Indy and his accompanying ally go deeper into darkness, using a lighter to illuminate the way. “This hasn’t been ********** for thousands of years,” the professor remarks. They slowly explore the dark temple before lighting up a torch. At the end of a narrow hallway stands an ornate iron gate. Pulling the lever causes the floor to give way – revealing spikes underneath! The companion saves Indy from being impaled. Indy then uses his whip to ***** onto a bar above and then lower himself down to a newly revealed crawl space underneath the floor. He shuffles through, finds a pull chain, yanks it, and the gate opens. Both Dr. Jones and his ally find a mural and take a photo of it (for 10 more Adventure Points). They come to a sunlit room with a half-obelisk, half-throne in the back of the room, bathed in sunlight. Sunbeams point at a golden mask. The puzzle here is to redirect the sunbeams by tilting the mirrors adjacent to the throne. Your companion grabs the mask after the mirrors are aligned properly. And in a moment of overexcitement, she sits in the throne with the mask and the seat of the throne gives way! As Indy reaches to save her, both end up dragged down to a darkened pit below, where the light of the torch reveals a floor covered in…scorpions. (You thought I was going to say snakes, didn’t you?) The fact is, this core group of developers at MachineGames – many of whom have been together for two decades – have never missed. From Riddick to The Darkness to the modern Wolfenstein games, this is an incredibly successful team. And now, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a playable Indiana Jones adventure being built using the best parts of the template that this development team used to make its first – and in my humble opinion, best – game of all. I absolutely can’t wait to play it. 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 For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Bethesda dropped a new trailer for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle at tonight's Opening Night Live showcase at Gamescom, revealing that the anticipated adventure romp will be out on December 9... Read more.View the full article

The irony of making an Indiana Jones game in the year 2024 is that, inevitably, you're going to be compared to Tomb Raider and Uncharted, two series that were themselves heavily influenced by the Indiana Jones movies. And for sure there are elements of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's Gamescom presentation—recently shown to press ahead of its appearance to the public on the conference's show floor—that will be familiar to action adventure fans. For instance, yes, there is a puzzle that involves rotating mirrors in order to redirect beams of light... Read more.View the full article

There are unexpected things in life, like when one of the recipes in my Gousto box (basically Hello Fresh) didn't come packed with a key ingredient: a single red pepper. Devastating, especially since it's only ever happened to me once. Anyway, this is a long but no less meaningful segue to a game from the Far: Changing Tides and Lone Sails devs Okomotive that's just been announced at this year's Geoffcom show. It's called Herdling and it's nothing to do with sailing across a decaying universe, but very much to do with alpine expeditions and friendly beasts. Very unexpected. Read more View the full article

Little Nightmares DNA runs strong in Tarsier Studios’ new game. So much so, in fact, that I’d assumed the trailer I watched during an online preview event last week was for a new entry in the horror cinematic-platformer series, right up until the name Reanimal appeared on the screen - shortly followed by a snippet of voiced dialogue. It’s not just the horror setting, but the Grimm’s fairytale threat, the distorted adults-made-monsters through the trauma-tinged lens of a child’s imagination. A long-limbed man riding a bicycle in a threadbare suit chases children down an alley. A gangly, bowler-hatted pursuer scuttles down a long table like a spider. It's familiar enough territory, at least at first glance. But when Tarsier have a body of work subconsciously scarred by phantasms this vivid, recurring nightmares are just as potent. Read more View the full article

Traveling across the globe, unearthing hidden relics in age-old ruins, and battering Nazis while you’re at it sure sounds like an adventure—sign me up. This expedition sees you playing as Indiana Jones, but frankly, that doesn’t matter much to me. MachineGames’ Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a labor of love for fans of the iconic film franchise—those who donned a fedora in their youth, dug up the garden beds, and terrorized family and friends with their whip skills. I am not one of those fans. In fact, I only watched the Indiana Jones movies for the first time this year (and yes, they’re pretty good). View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]