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RTS Tactical Warfare has already made first contact with the public thanks to an earlier playtest, but with its release right around the corner and Steam Next Fest currently running, you can get your hands on a demo of this souped-up Command and Conquer style RTS game right now. If you've ever been one to grab a big ball of medium tanks, sending them to plow through your opponent's base while cackling to yourself, then this may be the title for you. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Command and Conquer has a spiritual sequel in new RTS you can play now View the full article

Silent Hill 2 remake players have discovered that there's an older build of the game available that dates back months before the release of the game. Those who own the game on disc for the PlayStation 5 can potentially access this version of the Silent Hill 2 remake. View the full article

Marvels Spider-Man 2 is coming to PC, with a confirmed release date of January 30, 2025. Last year, Insomniac continued its open-world superhero saga with Marvels Spider-Man 2, which featured both Peter Parker and Miles Morales as playable characters in a darker plot that saw the introduction of classic villains like Venom and Kraven the Hunter. Spider-Man 2 was met with widespread critical acclaim and commercial success at launch, with many praising it for refining the gameplay that made Marvels Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Miles Morales smash hits for PlayStation. View the full article

A Minecraft player has created a terrifying base inspired by Pokemon's Unown and the ruins they typically reside in. Many Minecraft fans have shared impressive builds over the years, but this Pokemon one may be among the more unsettling. View the full article

Leakers have now revealed Fortnite's upcoming Fishpool skin as well as its back bling, which is making its first-ever appearance. Fortnite has released thousands of skins over the years. When it first surfaced, skins would come out in the Item Shop every now and then, but that progressively changed as Fortnite's popularity increased. While before the shop featured little more than a handful of cosmetic items, there are now dozens of pages in the Item Shop, and every day gamers get to choose from a selection of countless skins and other items. View the full article

Warhammer 40k Space Marine 2 has been one of the biggest (pleasant) surprises of the year. While there was always a lot of ****** that the co-op slayer sequel would deliver on the quality, what I didn't expect was just how many people would get hooked by it. It's also a visually-impressive game, and now you can make it even more stunning as Saber Interactive has stealthily released a massive new 4K texture pack. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: The best Space Marine 2 mods 2024 Space Marine 2's next free update adds in its "most terrifying" ****** yet Space Marine 2 Twitch drops and how to claim View the full article

With New York Comic **** in full swing, there's almost certainly a plethora of Spider-Man news to come our way throughout the weekend. Well, Insomniac Games took the lead-off role and announced that Spider-Man 2 is indeed coming to PC -- and sooner than you might think. View the full article

I have a tendency in games like Civilization 7 to turtle. I get a few cities on the go and then sit behind walls, building and researching while stubbornly refusing to actually recruit an army. This means that as the game progresses into the middle eras, I can't expand anymore and if someone wants to take me down they usually can. New leader Ashoka looks like he might be able to help players like me, especially thanks to a secondary DLC persona he has to offer. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: New Civilization 7 leader is a nightmare if you want a Domination victory Civilization 7 system requirements Civilization 7 release date, trailers, gameplay, and latest news View the full article

Game Rant can exclusively share the first official trailer for My Hero Academia: Battlegrounds. Aside from showcasing its action-packed gameplay, the video also offers some developer commentary on how this Roblox experience came to be. View the full article

Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero features an engaging narrative in the "Into a Third Future" arc, which offers players multiple endings and expands on the series' rich lore. Players will navigate through critical decisions to discover there are three distinct outcomes based on their choices. Each path will reveal different character arcs and themes. This approach of a dynamic storyline enhances the game's replayability and engages players by making them consider the consequences of their actions throughout the game. These varied endings and their implications ultimately add depth to the overall experience. View the full article

Bandai Namco and Dimps have announced that Goku (Mini) from Dragon Ball Daima will be added to the roster of Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 in the upcoming second chapter of the game's Future Saga DLC expansion. Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is still getting support to this day, as Dimps and Bandai Namco have been periodically adding new content to the game, with both paid and free updates. Some of the most recent content added to Xenoverse 2 over the years include Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero versions of Videl and Gohan, along with Gohan's ****** transformation from the same film for customizable characters. View the full article

As luck would have it, 2024 turned out to be a rough year to release a co-op multiplayer game featuring a satirical fascistic military force battling hordes and hordes of monstrous, bug-like alien creatures. Ironically, of the three major games that fit this description that hit PCs and consoles this year, Starship Troopers: Extermination is the least effective at pulling off the mighty few versus the endless ****** motif. Of course, even if it doesn’t match the high bar set by Helldivers 2 and Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2, you can have a decent amount of fun with its unique features, like larger teams and clever base-building sections, before the swarm becomes too monotonous. Before diving into the main multiplayer event, Starship Troopers: Extermination offers up an extremely skippable single-player campaign where you can learn the ropes without letting your team down. You play a nameless soldier in the Special Operations Group, hand picked by General Johnny Rico, portrayed by Casper Van Dien in a less-than-enthusiastic performance. There really is no plot here, as this mode serves more as a tutorial removed from the chaos of the online environment than a fully fledged story with a beginning, middle, and climactic end. I’m not a green recruit, as I put more than 15 hours into the early access version earlier this year, but I can’t imagine that a true beginner would get anything out of this experience that they couldn’t pick up in a far less boring fashion in the field. These 25 missions consist of all the normal things you would do in multiplayer but with none of the spontaneous fun of playing with other people. Also, a focused campaign should have been a prime opportunity to inject some actual satire into a game dressed up like one of the most iconic spoofs in film history, but Extermination completely misses it. This first chapter, “Answering The Call,” threatens to be the first of several in a broader campaign, but if what follows is anything like this I think I’d rather put my head between the jaws of a ***** warrior bug. Extermination brings far more firepower to the ****** against the insectoid menace than its peers. Skipping ahead of all that to where it gets good: with up to 16 players on the battlefield at a time Extermination brings far more firepower to the ****** against the insectoid menace than its peers. You’re divided into squads of up to four, but there can be a good sense of teamwork as everyone coordinates to complete objectives and hopefully extract from the scene with as many of their lives intact as possible. Extermination does a great job of making sure 16 players never feels like enough, though, as it sends endless and relentless waves of bugs to ****** against your fighting force nonstop. Dozens and dozens of bugs can be actively tearing you and your base apart on screen at a time, and even ***** bugs – the only good kind – can become lingering tactical problems as their corpses can stack up to become ramps for their friends to scale walls with. It’s a welcome, but stiff challenge, as any large ****** can turn you or your squadmates into ribbons with just one or two attacks, and even basic warriors can shred you without much more effort. It gets hectic quickly. To counter the bug threat there are six playable soldier classes to choose from, each with unique ability and equipment options that specialize their roles pretty well. For instance, though they are both heavy armored, the Guardian and Demolisher would never be confused with one another, as the former can build a personal fort on the fly to protect themselves from surrounding bugs and stabilize their unwieldy heavy guns, while the latter deals damage almost exclusively by blowing things up with grenades and rockets and relies on teammates to cover them. If you’d like to know more, it’s a huge commitment. Depending on how you look at it, the decision to make character progression mostly individual to each class is either welcome content or a major drag. Unlocking all six classes’ abilities and equipment takes some significant grinding, which means you’re back to square one when you decide to branch out and try something new – but you’re also not going to run out of rewards to earn for a long, long time. To Extermination’s credit, the starting gear package does a decent job at summarizing what each class can do, like the Engineer’s flamethrower and ability to build a limited amount of structures outside of the designated zones, or the Ranger’s quick-moving, low-cooldown dashes. But if you’d like to know more, it’s a huge commitment. Every ******* performs as you would assume it would in a futuristic military shooter, but even those that aren’t big machine guns have intense amounts of recoil to take into account. Hit markers seem unreliable as well, sometimes not showing at all when aiming down sights, so you have to be ready to do a fair amount of spraying and praying. Another design decision with some major ***** and ***** is that you can’t swap your class mid-mission, even after you get ******* and respawn. That makes your choice important, for sure, but bad team compositions occasionally lead to quagmires when, for example, a mission modifier makes bugs start spawning lots of heavily armored creatures and your team doesn’t have nearly enough options to deal with them efficiently. Unless you roll with a group of 15 of your closest friends, relying on randoms to be team players and pick wisely can be frustrating. Variety can also be an issue. Though Extermination is always quick to throw impressive waves of hundreds of bugs at you and your trooper brethren at a time, there are only nine different types of enemies among them, and half of them are the same type of bitey quadruped soldier from the movie in different sizes and colors. The remaining species are all ranged attackers: Gunners who ****** straight at troopers and bombardiers and grenadiers that arc blue and red ****** juices like siege weapons. With source material that includes such a variety of interesting critters, it's baffling that none of the weirder and more interesting ones, like the infamous brain bug or flying fighters, are nowhere to be found. Half of the ****** types are the same type of bitey quadruped soldier from the movie in different sizes and colors. In general, building a base is a quick and seamless process of pulling out a special ****, pointing it at any place on a specified zone on the map, selecting an object, and placing its foundation. This only claims the spot as taken, though; If you want to ****** that wall or activate that ammo supply station, you’ll need to repair it and make it real – as simple as switching modes on the build tool. It’s a little extra hassle at first, but in the likely event of its destruction, the foundation will remain so that a build section can just simply be repaired again – a clever way to let you rebuild good ideas quickly without having to lay everything out again. There’s nothing that's truly surprising about how this works, but everything you can build – like tall walls with or without ramps to reach the tops, automated or mountable **** placements, bunkers that serve as relatively safe spaces for troopers to buckle down in against heavy bombardments – serves a clear and effective purpose, and in most rounds I saw a wide variety of pieces being used in base layouts. For my money, Horde is the mode most worth playing in Extermination. Granted, aside from having so many people in play it’s not much different than any other horde mode in any other game we’ve seen since Gears of War popularized the idea: ****** waves spawn that your team must survive, in which case you'll get a break to reinforce your base in order to better survive the next, even larger wave. Here, though, the scramble between rounds is real: Resources go fast and the 45 seconds between waves is not much time to fix much of anything, so you have to choose wisely. I got used to tending my own little section of the fortifications – and hoping my teammates would do the same. The trouble is that, unless a true team leader emerges, it’s very difficult to get a real macro-level plan together on such a large team. This narrowed my overall strategic options some, but I basically always found a wall to mount a heavy **** on and held my own – and that’s a pretty reliably good time. I also had to get used to just stealing from the shared pool of building ore to build my fortifications as soon as possible, and ask for forgiveness later. That gave me some memorable moments of fighting and building alongside others, but all this disorganization made me long for someone in old-school Battlefield or PlanetSide’s commander role, where one player’s full-time job is coordinating others. The scramble between rounds is real: Resources go fast and you have to choose wisely. If you prefer a more intimate team experience, Hive Hunt is a complete change of pace from the rest of Extermination because you only have to staff one squad of four troopers to trundle through caves in search of bug eggs to ***** up. It’s a tougher mode, due in part to the lack of bodies on my side and absolutely no lack of carapaces on theirs, but also with no opportunities to build fortifications at all there's nothing to put between you and the many dangerous and strong enemies that will bombard you in these tighter spaces. You really start to miss those huge walls when tiger bugs lock you in a ****** loop because they can easily one-shot you with almost zero repercussions. Without the tactical element of base building, the steady but unremarkable gunplay really comes into the *****. My least favorite mode is ARC, which asks full teams to build and maintain a base around the eponymous device while also venturing out into the map to refineries to produce and ******* resources back to power it. Coordination is key, but of course it’s completely absent most of the time when playing with mostly random people. Base-building with limited resources means that any fortifications are first come, first built, with no quick way to communicate ideas outside of barking into voice chat and hoping everybody hears you over the rest of the chatter. With few exceptions, most of my ARC rounds end in long, losing wars of attrition, where my teammates quit one by one (without so much as a **** replacement or the ability for new players to join mid-match) and those of us sticking around are forced to cower behind walls that we must constantly repair until we either run out of respawns or the ARC gets destroyed. In comparison to ARC, the ******** and Secure (AAS) missions are similar but a night-and-day difference in how consistently enjoyable they are. The key here is that the order of operations is reversed: first you travel across the map completing smaller objectives, like securing a location or refining ore and gas, and then you hunker down into a base to survive a long series of bug waves. What needs to be done is self explanatory and requires very little coaxing until the very end, so everything flows towards the big standoff organically. Everyone on the team has no choice but to work together on the little objectives on the way, so it’s overall a much better experience than ARC. However, every mode suffers from being staged on mostly empty maps, with the only real life or personality on them being the troopers and bugs. There’s nothing to see or find that isn’t an objective waypoint marked clearly on the map. Compared to Helldivers II with all of its little points of interest, it feels barren and uninteresting when you’re not actively pulling the trigger. There’s a general lack of polish all over Extermination as well. Bugs sometimes just stand around, completely oblivious to the ****** at hand. Skills occasionally activate too many times or don’t go off at all, often leaving me to shrug my last confused shrug when attempting to drop a mine only to hold on tight to it instead as I get consumed by the mob. Performance is also a bit shaky – I had to lower the video settings to medium so that I could get a smooth and consistent frame rate on my Intel Core i9-9000 and RTX 3070 GPU, and that’s something I don’t recall feeling I had to do when I played in early access a year ago. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 publisher Focus Entertainment apologized for the current state of the game, promising to fix it by next week. Space Marine 2 has been one of the most anticipated releases of 2024, and although the game has faced some problems leading up to its release, it was largely well-received. That hype has been cut somewhat short recently, as the latest update has caused gamers to ***** that this title will fall off similarly to Helldivers 2. View the full article

For a short time, Warcraft 3: Reforged had its version updated from 1.36 to 2.0 on the internal PTR, indicating something big might be in the works for the RTS. Though this change only lasted for about 16 hours, it could be a clue that Blizzard is working on a substantial update for Warcraft 3: Reforged. View the full article

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include: Fixed an issue with Blazehattan contracts Fixed an issue with Outburst contracts Fixed an invalid Soul Gargoyle location on Mann Manor Fixed players not being able to select a class and spawn after watching an intro video Recompiled props_farm\box_cluster03.mdl to fix a problem with the material Updated the Dusk Duster to adjust the rigging a bit to reduce distortion Updated the Triboniophorus GentlemannusFixed clipping Updated texture to fix mipmapping Added jigglebone Added attachment for genteel smoke effectUpdated the Clue Hairdo to fix a rim mask problem with the 'Case Open' style Updated the Fleet CommanderFixed white seams when moving camera away from character Improved position of Style Selection camera by deleting unused bonesUpdated the Delldozer to fix a problem with the specular map for the Re-Mastered and Re-Engineered styles Updated The Witch Doctor to fix a problem with the diffuse textures and normal maps Updated Taunt: Commending Clap to fix some issues with sounds and timing Updated zi_atoll, zi_blazehattan, zi_devastation_final1, zi_murky, zi_sanitarium, and zi_woodsReduced Zombie Engineer's EMP Grenade Cooldown from 10 seconds to 9 seconds Adjusted Zombie Pyro's ****** ********** to briefly ignite players hit by the blast Fixed a bug that allowed Zombie Medic to spawn infinite dispenser entities (Thanks Psychicpie!) Fixed Zombie Heavy's ability appearing as an active instead of a passive on the HUD (Thanks NeoDement!) Fixed a bug that caused Zombie Heavy's knockback effect to trigger on afterburn damage when quickly swapping from Pyro to HeavyUpdated zi_blazehattan (additional changes)Fixed top roof having no collisions, causing players to 'sink in' Made the brick decoration near the wooden ramp slightly lower to make jumping to the top roof easier Removed some redundant clip brushes Changed the round timer from 6 minutes to 3 minutes 30 seconds Fixed missing textures behind the windows of the warehouse building Fixed rendering issue in the A Gate zombie spawn (Thanks Midnite!) Fixed several instances where players could stand on top of clip brushes and in high places (Thanks Midnite!) Fixed floodlight stuck spot near B Gate (Thanks Midnite!) Fixed troll teleporter spots (Thanks Midnite!) Fixed telephone pole collision (Thanks Midnite!) Added no-build triggers on top of barrel clusters at the top of the containers for consistency Added barrel clusters and wood debri on top of the red container with the floodlight to make it more apparent engineers can't build there, as well as to provide cover for zombies Various small changesUpdated tow_dynamiteDoubled the chances of a Jump Spell drop Fixed the main gates ******** players when touched on the side Fixed the main gates ******** you prematurely before they are fully closed Fixed HUD textures going missing on occasion (Thanks Aar) Fixed the rooftop ***** being too strong Fixed multiple locations that allowed players to build out of bounds Fixed an overly aggressive propfade in front of spawn Fixed edge bugs on multiple roofs that allowed players to remain aliveUpdated vsh_outburstImproved performance Fixed menu images Fixed a minor visual issue Fixed being able to stick to the invisible wallsUpdated koth_sawmill_eventReduced the amount of skeletons that spawn Added a new pathway to the secret underworld exit Redid some detailing near Reds base Improved lighting near some shacks near mid Fixed clipping for a shack Reworked where Soul Gargoyles spawn, now favoring Mid more often Made some new greener water for Mids lumber place New spectator camsUpdated cp_freaky_fairFixed issues related to the gamemode logicFixed players being able to retain upgrades on their weapons by putting them in their loadout before the round changes and then switching back to them Fixed some currency bugs related to players having upgrades pending but not accepted, and then leaving the upgrade trigger Fixed players being able to retain their upgrades when switching classes inside the upgrade trigger after having refunded Fixed character upgrades being occasionally set to incorrect quantities Changed uber and kritz potions so they use the equivalent lakeside conditions to allow Medics to switch weapons and maintain their effects Fixed players being able to put a class into a massive debt Several minor fixesMerasmus is very talkative, so we asked him to talk a bit differentlyMerasmus will only sometimes say something after he already talked about his financial problems during the first seconds of setup time Merasmus will no longer say something that is too long to say before he needs to announce something else, he will say something different now Merasmus now has more things to say Merasmus will now announce overtime, stalemate and last control point being captured instead of the AdministratorMade changes to the upgradesGhost Potion: ghost spooking radius reduced from 512 hu to 384 hu Ghost Potion: ghost spooking frequency increased from 5 to 7 secs (this is a nerf) Sentry ******* Speed: removed redundant 3rd level Disposable sentry: Maximum amount reduced from 4 to 3 Crit boost on *****: Now disabled Shield Recharge Rate bonus: Maximum level reduced from 4 to 2 Shield Recharge Rate bonus: Price increased from $150 to $250 Rocket Specialist: Price increased from $300 to $450 Rocket Specialist: Maximum level reduced from 4 to 3 Crit damage resistance: Resist reduced from 30% to 25% per level (this is a nerf) Crit damage resistance: Maximum Resist reduced from 90% to 75% (this is a nerf) Thermal Thruster impact stun: Price increased from $600 to $750 Explosive Headshot: Price increased from $350 to $450 **** Milk and Jarate speed on target debuff: Debuff reduced from 35% to 25% Mark For ******: Price reduced from $500 to $300Fixed several roof spots players were able to stand on (Thanks Midnite!) Fixed several teleporter stuck spots (Thanks Midnite!) Fixed floating pumpkins and planks (Thanks Midnite!) Fixed several spots that could be abused to spawncamp ****** team (Thanks Midnite!) Removed some visible dev textures (Thanks Midnite!) Removed stool from the arcade that was blocking the path previously Fixed being able to deal splash damage through metal grates Clipped the attic in respawn room to prevent players from getting and building there Clipped several beams in the lobby room Fixed missing wooden board near Red respawn room door Moved Merry-Go-Round sound source closer to make it louder Brightened several dark spots Closed the tree gapView the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Image: Sony Interactive Entertainment Yet another PlayStation blockbuster is making its way to PC. Sony announced that Spider-Man 2, one of the PS5’s biggest exclusives, will hit PC on January 30th. It’ll be available via both Steam and the Epic Game Store. The PC port will include the base game and all of its subsequent DLC, like New Game Plus mode and extra spider suits, along with PC-specific features like “keyboard and mouse controls, ultra widescreen support, and numerous graphical options,” according to Mike Fitzgerald, Core Technology Director at developer Insomniac. That will include “enhanced ray-tracing options.” As part of the announcement, Sony also revealed that “we have no additional story content planned for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2” on either platform. The port... Continue reading… View the full article

Every player character in Baldur's Gate 3 derives their strengths and weaknesses from six core ability scores. Just like in Dungeons & Dragons, these scores are strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma. They determine everything from a character'****** point total, to their damage with weapons, to how charming they can be in conversation. View the full article

Sandfall Interactive turned heads when it debuted Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 over the summer at the Xbox Games Showcase. The upcoming turn-based RPG just recently raised additional eyebrows when it revealed its impressive English voice cast lineup too. The developers are no doubt getting peppered with questions on its ambitious-looking project. And now they've responded to clarify two of the most important ones: how long and how much? View the full article

However, such barriers don't exist for regular folks. People are already experimenting with AI technology in existing games. Modding communities have begun using platforms such as ChatGPT to give voice to NPCs and followers in games like Skyrim and Stardew Valley. Read Entire Article View the full article

It is a matter of settled law on the Judge John Hodgman podcast that people like what they like, and you can't force someone to like something. It is called the Tom Waits Principle. I thought about that principle constantly while I was trying to open myself up to MechWarrior 5: Clans. Trying to jump into this game and like it, so that I'd have some critical assessment of it, was akin to handing a friend The ****** Rider and assuming they would come back begging for more. From everything I can tell and what I have read, this game largely delivers on the simulation, and notably a lot of the story, that BattleTech/MechWarrior fans revere. Clans seems very good at what it sets out to do, and I do get the sense that it is relatively accommodating to newcomers compared to other entries. It just did not, despite its stand-alone nature and alleged newcomer friendliness, convert me into a loadout tactician or stomp-and-****** enthusiast. Read full article Comments View the full article

A new patch for Dragon's Dogma 2 dropped earlier this week, adding options within the game's settings to prioritize either graphics or performance. The latter should help improve the game's oft-lamented framerate issues, which developer Capcom is now saying were a direct result of Dragon's Dogma 2's many NPCs...thinking too much. In a Famitsu interview (via Google Translate, which IGN independently verified), the development team was asked about one of the purported improvements in the update, specifically to "excessive load on the CPU." In response, the team said that CPU power in Dragon's Dogma 2 is allocated to process the "thoughts" of each NPC and how they interact with physics calculations. A new update for Dragon's Dogma 2 is available now on all platforms! - Changed the options in "Graphics" within the Options menu to "Prioritize Graphics" and "Prioritize Performance." For additional resolution and performance info on each option, please reference the chart… [Hidden Content] — Dragon's Dogma (@DragonsDogma) October 17, 2024 "Therefore, in sequences where many NPCs appear at the same time, such as in towns, the load on the CPU was very high, which affected the frame rate. Because the CPU was the bottleneck, reducing the load on the GPU side, such as lowering the resolution, had little effect on improving the frame rate." In response, Capcom has been "reviewing the processing of NPC thoughts and making fine adjustments such as the ********** order of each process in updates since the release." As a result, Dragon's Dogma 2 now has graphics quality settings that allow it to be played at "approximately 50 to 60fps" on PS5 and Xbox Series X. Steam has a similar setting to reduce processing load. Frustrating as the framerate issues may have been for players, Dragon's Dogma 2's NPC complexity is a pretty vital part of the series. All the NPCs have regular schedules, activities, and even relationships with other NPCs they have to maintain. The Pawns are especially complex, even if their dialogue makes them seem like total dinguses. They constantly adjust to player behavior and even learn new tactics during combat, give noisy advice, lead players to treasure, and uh, ******* them! It's no wonder that with how busy every single character in the world is at any given moment, things got a little hectic in some of the game's more crowded areas. We gave Dragon's Dogma 2 an 8/10 in our review earlier this year, calling it "a strange and wonderful action-RPG that bolsters the original’s strengths without addressing its weaknesses." Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected]. View the full article

Wizards of the Coast previously announced that it was working with Marvel for Magic: The Gathering back in 2023, but at New York Comic ****, the company finally revealed the first step of that partnership. Wizards of the Coast will release five Secret Lair drops, each themed around an individual character, starting November 4, 2024. Each Secret Lair Drop will feature an original Legendary creature based on one of five Marvel characters: ****** Panther, Storm, Iron Man, Wolverine, and Captain America. Each of these creatures' abilities are themed around the character. For instance, Iron Man will both create Treasure tokens, then let you sacrifice an artifact to tutor up any artifact, based on the sacrificed card's mana value – an extremely powerful effect. The Secret Lair Drops will also include four reprints themed around the starring character. The price is $39.99 for non-foil cards and $49.99 for foil cards. Here are the official descriptions for each. Secret Lair x Marvel’s Captain America Justice, liberty, honor—these are the values Captain America protects with his shield held high. That’s why each and every courageous card in this drop, including the all-new, legendary Captain America, is dedicated to protecting the downtrodden. Because it’s not enough to just win your next Commander battle, you have to win the right way. This drop features card art by Anthony Devine, Howard Lyon, Ryan Pancoast, Livia Prima, and Chris Rahn. Secret Lair x Marvel’s Iron Man Billionaire, genius, Super Hero, and now Secret Lair Drop—Tony Stark really has done it all. High-tech, low-drag, all power—this drop features sleek art and five cutting-edge cards, including an all-new legendary Iron Man card, that will put you into the armor of one of the Avengers’ most inventive Super Heroes. This drop features card art by Bud Cook, Justyna Dura, Lie Setiawan, Anna Steinbauer, Marco Teixeira. Secret Lair x Marvel’s Wolverine All right, bub… it’s time to brawl. This deadly drop combines mutant healing factor with ******* instincts to bring you five ferocious cards inspired by the X-Men’s most relentless member, including an all-new, legendary Wolverine card. Grab this drop and the bones of your next Commander deck will be made of adamantium. Ain’t no stinkin’ way you’ll lose. This drop features card art by Victor Adame Minguez, Alexander Mokhov, Anna Podedworna, Eliz Roxs. Secret Lair x Marvel’s Storm Shutter the windows and head down to the cellar, Storm is coming. This gale-force drop features stunning artwork of Marvel’s Storm across five fierce cards, including the all-new legendary Storm card. Summon the fury of the elements and turn the X-Men’s most electric leader into your next commander. This drop features card art by Miguel Mercado, Francisco Miyara, Kevin Sidharta, Magali Villeneuve, Pauline Voss. Secret Lair x Marvel’s ****** Panther Leaping from the heart of Wakanda into the depths of Secret Lair, ****** Panther is on the prowl. Featuring the alter ego of warrior king T’Challa, this drop brings the power of Vibranium to bear across five majestic cards, including an all-new legendary ****** Panther. Protect your people, punish your enemies, and preserve your position as commander and king. This drop features card art by Tyler Jacobson, Jake Murray, Ernanda Souza, Swayart, and Salvatorre Zee Yazzie. Our newest Team-up is here! Magic's Universes Beyond is collaborating with @Marvel![Hidden Content] [Hidden Content] — Magic: The Gathering (@wizards_magic) October 23, 2023 Elsewhere, Wizards of the Coast announced a Tentpole Booster set based on Spider-Man. Wizards of the Coast hasn't revealed any of the cards, and isn't discussing format legality, but compares it to the Lord of the Rings set that launched in June 2023. That set was the first Universes Beyond set to be legal in the competitive Modern format, but it ******** to be seen if Marvel's Spider-Man will follow suit. The full Marvel's Spider-Man Magic: The Gathering set will launch sometime in 2025. It ******** to be seen whether or not it will be accompanied by prebuilt Commander decks. Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra View the full article

It's very important to have regular, healthy bowel movements in real life. Normally, it's a little less important for characters in video games, Travis Touchdown exempted. But in Metaphor: ReFantazio, it turns out that using the bathroom regularly will make you more powerful, if you pay attention to when you're doing it. Initially shared by @UltimaShadowX on X/Twitter, using the ******* in Metaphor can give you a permanent +1 boost to your character's luck if you do it on a certain day. That certain day is "Idlesday" on the in-game calendar, which comes around every fifth day. Every Idlesday, you can go to the bathroom on your Gauntlet Runner (effectively your home base throughout the game) and check the ******* inside to use it. Doing so nets you the stat boost. In Metaphor, if you take a ***** in the Gauntlet Runner on a day divisible by 5, you get a free luck stat increase. Absolute ******** masterpiece game. [Hidden Content] — Caution Ultima (@UltimaShadowX) October 15, 2024 Unfortunately, you don't get anything for using the bathroom any other day of the week (though you're welcome to if you feel moved to do so). You can also get experience from using the shower, and apparently acquiring bath salts a bit later in the game will let you raise stats by taking a bath. Atlus really, really wants its players to embrace cleanliness! There are a number of other things one can do on the Gauntlet Runner on a regular basis to improve themselves, some of which we've highlighted in our guide to unlocking the base. It's no surprise that players are finding fun details like this in Metaphor: ReFantazio. It's an amazing game. We gave it a 9/10, saying that it "doesn’t just send a powerful message across its political drama, it becomes a beautiful expression of the real impact storytelling can have on all of us." Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected]. View the full article

Fields of Mistria developer NPC Studio has recently revealed the roadmap for the rest of the games early access *******. Fields of Mistria is already a highly popular title, and it seems that its about to get even better with these next updates. View the full article

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Classic just announced that Hour of Twilight, the final major patch of the expansion, is having its release pushed back beyond the original January 2025 window. This means World of Warcraft players will have a little more time to enjoy the Rage of the Firelands content update coming to Cataclysm Classic on October 29. View the full article