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Today, November 5, marks 10 years to the day Battlestate Games unveiled its extraction shooter, Escape from Tarkov. And now, 10 days from its 1.0 release, the developer has revealed preorder and beta rewards. Escape from Tarkov is a hardcore MMO mixture of first-person shooter / third-person shooter and role-playing gameplay. Players need to find a way out of the isolated Russian city of Tarkov, survive deadly hazards, and unearth the mysteries of the city. It's been playable in early access form since making its debut in 2016, and it's finally coming to Steam as part of the 1.0 launch on November 15. For anyone thinking of preordering the shooter ahead of its November 15 release — or those who've already preordered it — players can get following awards: Clothing set: USEC Legionnaire Olive Clothing set: Bear Sumrak ReversePMC Dogtag: ImmortalPrayer Armband: Head, EyesHideout Style: Echo of BattleShooting Target: HatchlingMannequin: poses While those will be available to all who preorder, there's also a handful of additional goodies for players who have the Unheard and Edge of Darkness (EOD) editions: Gamma Container: Battle-wornHideout Style: ForgottenPrayer Armband: LootShooting Target: Ace of Spades Unheard Edition owners also get: Prayer Armband: SEBU KOMARPMC Dogtag: Acolyte Information about the special PMC dogtag, unique armband, and customization for owners of the Edge of Darkness edition "will be announced later." "Today marks 10 years since the release of the very first Escape from Tarkov trailer. As the beta test comes to an end, we want to thank you for your support and for the opportunity to create a universe that has united players all over the world," the team said. "Countless updates, TarkovTV episodes, and in-game events — none of this would have been possible without you, our players. "On November 15, we will turn a new page together with you. In the meantime, we invite you to check out the rewards that will be available for preordering and participating in the beta test." Escape from Tarkov's 1.0 release hasn't been without controversy, however. Fans criticized Battlestate Games after the developer confirmed players will be required to repurchase the full game if they want to play it on Steam. It'll be interesting to see how Escape from Tarkov measures up against the current extraction shooter darling, Arc Raiders. It has a peak concurrent player count of 354,836 on Steam, making it one of the biggest extraction shooters ever on Valve's platform. Another key competitor could be Bungie's upcoming Marathon. Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky. View the full article

Obsidian has said it’s well aware that whenever it announces a new game, people ask where Fallout: New Vegas 2 is, but it loves how it’s been able to create new IP and even release sequels to them — and its owner Microsoft sounds like it supports that approach. Fallout Season 2 is set to hit Prime Video this December, and while Bethesda has a new Fallout: New Vegas bundle up its sleeve, there’s no word yet on a Fallout remaster or a Fallout: New Vegas 2 to capitalize on the surge of interest in the franchise. Obsidian is of course the developer of the much-loved 2010 RPG Fallout: New Vegas, so fans often wonder whether it will return to the setting for a sequel, especially given it’s owned by Bethesda parent company Microsoft. Obsidian, though, has focused on making brand new games, and it is prolific in doing so. It’s released Grounded (Grounded 2 came out this year), fantasy RPG Avowed (which came out this year), and sci-fi RPG The Outer Worlds (The Outer Worlds 2 came out this year). Pentiment, which came out last year, was another brand new game, although I wouldn’t expect a sequel to that any time soon. In an interview with The Game Business, Obsidian’s VP of operations Marcus Morgan and VP of production Justin Britch touched on the fan calls for a New Vegas follow-up, but pointed to its work establishing new franchises as a “joy.” “I know everyone on the internet, on every game we ever announce, will constantly reference back to, ‘When’s the next New Vegas? Or when’s the next whatever?” Morgan said. “But this year, in addition to it being a celebration of shipping three games, all three of those games are IP that we’ve created, that are Obsidian IP. Our history, prior to the Microsoft acquisition, really was surrounding around working on others’ IP. And this is the joy that we get of… how do we start to define our own and how do we build our own IP? And we’ve got to the part where we have sequels to all of them. All of them are sequels to the IP we created.” And it sounds like Microsoft has supported Obsidian’s desire to do just that, even though you’d think the mega corp might have gone hard on Fallout, especially with the hugely popular Fallout TV show breaking through into the mainstream. “Xbox has been pretty supportive of the stuff we want to do,” Britch insisted. “It’s been great.” There was no mention made during the recent Fallout Day broadcast of a Fallout: New Vegas remaster, which some (including Danny Trejo!) have called on Bethesda to develop. Indeed, there were no new Fallout games announced at all. Find out everything announced during the Fallout Day broadcast here. But there are all sorts of rumors floating around about potential Fallout remakes now that The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered is out the door (Fallout 3 Remastered was leaked back in 2023, but those plans may have changed). And we know Bethesda wants to eventually get to Fallout 5, albeit after The Elder Scrolls 6. The last we heard on Fallout 5, by the way, was back in June 2024, when Bethesda Softworks head Todd Howard said he wasn’t interested in rushing it out the door. Howard opened up about the future of the hit post-apocalyptic RPG series during an interview with YouTube content creator MrMattyPlays. "For other Fallout games in the future, you know, obviously I can’t talk about those right now, but I would say, sort of rushing through them, or we kind of need to get stuff out that is different than the work we’re doing in 76… we don’t feel like we need to rush any of that," he said. "The Fallout TV show fills a certain niche in terms of the franchise and storytelling." The last mainline Fallout game was Fallout 4, which was released in 2015. DLC content for the entry was steadily released for PC and consoles over the next year, and in 2018, Bethesda launched its multiplayer-centered offshoot, Fallout 76. While fans flocked to the West Virginia-set open-world RPG over time (and after a rocky launch), it wasn’t until the premiere of Prime Video’s Fallout TV show that the Bethesda series leveled up in terms of attention. Still, Howard wouldn't budge when it came to desires for a substantial video game release. For him, it comes down to wanting to treat Bethesda's franchises with care. "Totally get the desire for a new kind of mainline single-player game," he said. "And look, those things take time. I don’t think it’s bad for people to miss things. We just want to get it right and make sure that everything we’re doing in a franchise, whether it’s Elder Scrolls, Fallout, or now Starfield, that those become meaningful moments for everybody who loved these franchises as much as we do." In the meantime, The Outer Worlds 2 has strong New Vegas vibes. Check out IGN's The Outer Worlds 2 review for more. Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at *****@*****.tld. View the full article

Want another good deal? Humble Choice for November 2025 has Total War: WARHAMMER III and some other wonderful looking games. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

Sonic Rumble from ***** has arrived on Steam, and although it has anti-cheat it is enabled for Linux / Steam Deck so you're good to go on this one. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't go berserk if a new Fallout New Vegas got announced - especially if Microsoft and Bethesda let Obsidian take the reins again. While other entries come close, it remains my favorite game in the post-apocalyptic series. However, even if the trigger did get pulled on New Vegas 2, I genuinely don't think Obsidian would want the gig. It's been cheffing up its own projects at a remarkable rate, and is even finding the time and passion to go and cram turn-based combat into Pillars of Eternity, for crying out loud. In a new interview, a prominent figure at the studio discusses how it's found a lot of "joy" in nurturing its own ideas and forging a true 'Obsidian identity' - one that doesn't rely on other peoples' IP. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: The best Fallout New Vegas mods The best apocalypse games on PC 2025 New fan-made Fallout New Vegas remaster is the game I wish Bethesda would make View the full article

The World Championships of Warhammer is almost upon us. Qualifying players from around the world are flying into Atlanta right now, no doubt fretting as their carefully crafted armies are committed to the horrors of international air travel. The battles begin on November 6 - but what are the top Warhammer 40,000 players in the world bringing to the fight? Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: New Games Workshop teaser video hints at a return of the coolest Warhammer 40k spinoff I never played Is 3D printing actually going to transform tabletop games? Join our live AMA with MyMiniFactory to find out Painting miniatures - the complete beginner's guide View the full article

The Magic: The Gathering card Ashling the Extinguisher has tripled in price in the past month, going from roughly $5 in mid-October to about $15 today. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: MTG's Dockside Extortionist triples in price as fans cross fingers AGAIN for a surprise unbanning Best MTG Arena decks November 2025 The 16 rarest and most expensive MTG cards in the world View the full article

If Bethesda has a singular passion, it's releasing updates that break your mods. Last year, the studio released a "next-gen" update for Fallout 4 that sent reams of mods to the phantom zone, and that sent a brand-new mod—one that simply rolled back Bethesda's update—rocketing to the top of the charts... Read more.View the full article

The Magic: The Gathering card Ashling the Extinguisher has tripled in price in the past month, going from roughly $5 in mid-October to about $15 today. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: MTG's Dockside Extortionist triples in price as fans cross fingers AGAIN for a surprise unbanning Best MTG Arena decks November 2025 The 16 rarest and most expensive MTG cards in the world View the full article

The full episode list for The Mighty Nein season 1, the next animated Dungeons and Dragons series from the Critical Role team, have been revealed. The titles and summaries shared to TheMovieDB confirm that the debut season will largely be setup for the grander story - and it'll feature plenty of moments that we never got to see in the original campaign. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: [Hidden Content] DnD Tiefling 5e - the full species guide Best DnD games on PC in 2025 View the full article

Diablo 4 Season 11 is set to make some big changes to fundamental mechanics, but it's the news about what's coming a little further in the future that's got me excited. Diablo 4 YouTuber and Twitch streamer Ryan 'Raxxanterax' sat down with Colin Finer and Zavin Haroutunian from Blizzard to talk about what we can expect in Season 11 and beyond. Among the discussions are future difficulty scaling, the creative potential of the new Tower activity, and the reintroduction of support builds, and it sounds like we're finally getting a feature I and many others have been wanting since the game first launched. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: The 15 best games like Diablo Diablo 4 Season 11 update and features Diablo 4's new enemy rework is what will win me back, not Blizzard's latest loot overhaul View the full article

One of my favorite books is Travis Baldree's Legends and Lattes. As a high fantasy fanatic and self-professed coffee connoisseur, it's literally the perfect story for me, and while its sequel, Bookshops and Bonedust, didn't hit quite as hard, I love the juxtaposition of the seemingly mundane with the magical. Tavern Keeper, a cozy RPG with flickers of Stardew Valley's management, does exactly the same thing: you open pubs across a sprawling fantasy world, and are tasked with keeping them running. If you're a seasoned Coffee Talk barista, Greenheart Games' latest is perfect for you, and we're giving away ten free Steam keys - and an extra special surprise - to celebrate its early access launch. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: This new survival horror game had me at 'Grand Theft Cthulhu,' and it swerves onto Game Pass and Steam today Mixing Stardew and Dreamlight Valley, this cozy MMO's new update tasks you with cooking 20 million dishes New co-op dungeon crawler from a trio of Valheim devs sees you face the scariest enemy of them all: the taxman View the full article

Valor Mortis, the first-person soulslike action game set in an alt-history Napoleonic era, is out next year. And with developer One More Level especially pushing the “Soulslike”-ness of the whole thing, it seems only natural that at some point before or after launch there’s going to be a discussion about the game’s difficulty - is it too hard? Is it hard enough? Should it have an easy mode, or something else? The difficulty discussion, of course, is one that crops up every time a new Souls game is released. What makes difficulty fun, and what makes it obnoxious? Should games have easy modes? What sorts of accessibility features are helpful to ensure everyone can play the game and experience its design friction as intended, without experiencing other, undesirable friction due to controls or other functions? I played Valor Mortis at the Game Industry Conference in Poznań, Wielkopolska, and while I’m only of middling Soulslike skills, I can confirm it’s pretty tough! I also spoke with game director Radosław Ratusznik, who says that the team is still in discussions as to how they will approach all this. For now, he says, Valor Mortis just has one difficulty setting. But that may change in the future. “If we decide at one point to change it, I think we will change it for easy mode and normal mode, just two of them. Because I think that players should have similar experiences when they're playing these kinds of games. So personally, I'm fine with the easy mode, if someone wants to just experience the story, learn a little bit about how the game works. But if we have a lot of options, like there are like tens of difficulty options, then each person can play a totally different game. I think what connects Soulslike players is that they are all struggling in these games. If they manage to succeed in this game, they can share this experience with other players. And this is something that has a huge value I think for them, for this community.” But there’s nuance here, because while Ratusznik may be against having ten difficulty options ranging from Story Mode to Ultra Hard Giga Death Difficulty, he agrees that discussions around difficulty often don’t take into account the nuance of accessibility. He’s not a fan, for instance, of games that let you turn on and off certain mechanics (such as parries), because he thinks that players “lose something from this experience.” But he also adds that, as far as accessibility goes, “we can have a lot of things that can assist you without lowering the difficulty of the game.” Accessibility isn’t solved with an easy mode. Ratusznik isn’t alone in this belief. FromSoftware’s Hidetaka Miyazaki has said similar of Elden Ring, “We are always looking to improve, but, in our games specifically, hardship is what gives meaning to the experience. So it’s not something we’re willing to abandon at the moment. It’s our identity.” But also notably, Elden Ring was far more flexible than FromSoftware’s past games in the ways in which it allowed players to eventually conquer challenges. You could outlevel bosses to make them trivially easy if you wandered off and defeated enough weaker enemies, there are some builds that turn certain bosses into jokes, and there’s so much to do in the game and so many paths to victory that if you’re struggling with something, Elden Ring encourages you to leave and do something else. Another recent Soulslike, Hollow Knight: Silksong, is similar in this structure. How Valor Mortis will ultimately handle its difficulty remains to be seen, as Ratusznik himself says that the team is still working out what they want to do. We won’t know til next year when the game launches on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series. We also spoke to Ratusznik at GIC about Valor Mortis’ soulslike credentials, and why it’s challenging to make a game in that tradition in the first-person. You can read our conversation right here. 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

Epic Games has celebrated the launch of Fortnite's new The Simpsons mini-season, which it says has welcomed "the biggest number of new and returning Fortnite players since last holiday season." Public player data tracked by [Hidden Content] shows that a peak of 2.6 million players logged on both Saturday and Sunday, firstly to watch the live event that introduced The Simpsons aliens Kang and Kodos to Fortnite's battle royale Island, and secondly to then play on the game's new Springfield map when it came online. The live event saw Fortnite's heroes scooped up in a UFO and transported to Springfield Island, a mash-up of Fortnite and The Simpsons filled with familiar locations and Easter eggs from the long-running animated series. Fan response to the new season and its highly-detailed map has been positive, and Epic Games seems pleased with player numbers. "In 48 hours, we welcomed the biggest number of new and returning Fortnite players since last holiday season," the developer wrote in a social media post. "The first Fortnite | The Simpsons short popped to #1 on Disney+ today in the US. Move over Shelbyville..." Fortnite's player numbers have dipped somewhat this year, amid tough competition from Roblox and a string of battle royale seasons that feel like they haven't landed with fans quite as expected. In September, during the game's alien bug season, the game's average daily numbers briefly sagged to around half a million players, though player counts then rallied as Fortnite began its annual Halloween celebrations. While 2.6 million players this past weekend is impressive, Fortnite has recorded several higher player spikes this year for other events. A peak of 5.7 million players logged in on June 7 for Death Star Sabotage, the game's live event that served as the finale of its Star Wars mini-season. Fortnite also saw a spike to 3.9 million players on August 2 for its superhero season finale, and 3.3 million players for the launch of its Daft Punk Experience. What remains to be seen is how many of those new and returning players stick around over the rest of this month, as Fortnite's The Simpsons season culminates in a big live event on November 29. This is expected to usher in the game's next big era — Chapter Seven — that looks set to feature a crossover with Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill and, potentially, the return of Fortnite's heroic Seven faction. Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social View the full article

With Call of Duty: ****** Ops 7 just around the corner, Activision has laid out exactly when players will be able to jump into the action, and has confirmed everything players need to know about the official PC system requirements and pre-load times. While pre-load goes live at the same time across all platforms on November 10 — 9am PT (scroll down to see when that'll be in your part of the world), launch times vary depending upon where you are, and what platform you're playing on. It's a bit confusing, so we've outlined the release times across key territories below. We also have confirmed PC specs for ****** Ops 7, so you can check to see if your PC is up to the task. Confirmed Call of Duty: ****** Ops 7 PC specs: System Requirements Minimum: Minimum specifications needed to play Call of Duty: ****** Ops 7. OS: Windows 10 64 Bit (latest update)CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1400 or Intel Core i5-6600RAM: 8 GBVideo Card: AMD Radeon RX 470 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 / 1060 or Intel Arc A580Video Memory: 3 GBStorage Space: SSD with 116 GB available space at launch Recommended: Recommended specs to run at 60FPS in most situations with all options set to high. OS: Windows 11 64 Bit (latest update)CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600X or Intel Core i7-6700KRAM: 12 GBVideo Card: AMD Radeon RX 6600XT or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 or Intel Arc B580Video Memory: 8 GBStorage Space: SSD with 116 GB available space at launch Competitive / Ultra 4k: Competitive specs to run at a high FPS for use with a high refresh monitor, and Ultra specs to run the game at a high FPS in 4K resolution. OS: Windows 11 64 Bit (latest update)CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X or Intel Core i7-10700KRAM: 16 GBVideo Card: AMD Radeon RX 9070XT or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 / 5070Video Memory: 16 GBStorage Space: SSD with 116 GB available space at launch Recommended Drivers: AMD: 25.9.2NVIDIA: 581.42INTEL: 32.0.101.8132 Required For All Specs: All specifications require a broadband internet connection and DirectX12 compatibility.Additional storage space may be required for mandatory game updates.Specs are valid for product launch and may be updated in the future. We've had a great time with what we've played so far of Call of Duty: ****** Ops 7 Multiplayer, writing in our preview: "I'm hoping CoD keeps to its promises, because the new features sound pretty sick: trading loadouts with friends and even copying them from enemies who killed you, XP carrying across all modes instead of on a per-mode basis, and the ability to re-roll the daily challenges, which I love. Also, the final game promises some of the sweetest gun camos yet, and I'm really excited to spend hours and hours of time I'll never get back just so I can have a gun that's all shiny." Don't forget that PC gamers cannot play unless they enable TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot. It's all part of an effort to crack down on cheaters, and while it seems some still managed to get into a game despite this, Activision recently revealed that 97% of Call of Duty: ****** Ops 7 cheaters were caught within 30 minutes of signing into the beta, and "fewer than 1% of cheating attempts reached a match." Call of Duty: ****** Ops 7 Pre-load times on PC and consoles: Monday, November 10, 2025 PST (San Francisco): 9pm CST (Mexico City): 11pmTuesday, November 11, 2025 EST (New York): 12am midnight GMT (London): 5am CET (Paris, Rome, Berlin, Stockholm): 6am SAST (Johannesburg): 7am GST (Dubai) 9am KST (Seoul): 2pm JST (Tokyo): 2pm AEST (Sydney): 4pm Call of Duty: ****** Ops 7 launch times on Steam and Battle.net: Thursday, November 13, 2025 PST (San Francisco): 9pm CST (Mexico City): 11pmFriday, November 14, 2025 EST (New York): 12am midnight GMT (London): 5am CET (Paris, Rome, Berlin, Stockholm): 6am SAST (Johannesburg): 7am GST (Dubai) 9am KST (Seoul): 2pm JST (Tokyo): 2pm AEST (Sydney): 4pm Call of Duty: ****** Ops 7 Launch Times on Xbox, PlayStation, and Xbox on PCThursday, November 13, 2025 Xbox + Xbox on PC: Various, unlocking between 3am-10pm PT depending upon local timezone PlayStation: Various, unlocking 3am-10pm PT depending upon local timezone Much like prior Call of Duty launches, those desperate to get in on the action may be able to 'time travel' and unlock early if they use what's called the 'New Zealand trick.' If you're playing on the Xbox PC app (but only the app — this won't work on [Hidden Content] or Steam) you'll be able to jump in early if you change your PC region to New Zealand, and change your Call of Duty account to a New Zealand address on the website. Similarly, if you change the address on your COD account to a NZ address and your region to New Zealand, you may be able to play early on Xbox and PlayStation, too. Just make sure you restart your systems and then double-check the ****** Ops 7 launch timer to see if you've travelled forward in time… Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky. View the full article

Valor Mortis, the first-person action game set in an alt-history version of the Napoleonic wars, was announced earlier this year at Gamescom Opening Night Live. In its announcement and subsequent marketing, the developers have been clear about one big element of Valor Mortis: it’s a soulslike. Sure, it’s a first-person game, which automatically makes it look radically different from any FromSoftware game or even the 2D soulslikes such as Hollow Knight, Nine Sols, and Blasphemous. But speaking to me at the Game Industry Conference in Poznań, Wielkopolska, game director Radosław Ratusznik was hyperaware of the expectations that such a bold declaration would immediately attach to Valor Mortis. And he’s determined to do right by players while remaining committed to the perspective shift. Valor Mortis is being developed by One More Level, the studio behind 2020’s Ghostrunner. Ratusznik tells me that the studio is largely made up of Souls game fans who badly wanted to tackle the genre, but knew they needed more development experience as a group first. This, he says, is what led to Ghostrunner, which is a first-person action game that, at least by our own estimation, was pretty great. With one success under their belt, One More Level turned to Valor Mortis. Ratusznik says that the idea for gameplay came before the game’s setting – the team wanted something that would let them mix melee combat and firearms with the more magical mutant abilities. It just so happened that the game’s lead concept artist was also an historian with a lot of knowledge on Napoleonic Europe. Which is how Valor Mortis ended up set during the Napoleonic Wars, featuring a monstrous Napoleon raising an army of undead mutants to rampage across Europe. “I think, for many players, the Napoleonic era sounds really to be like... I don't want to say unattractive, but with this silly uniform, something like that, they're not treating it like something that is maybe attractive for them, and we wanted to change that a little bit,” Ratusznik says. “We think that this is a significant part of our history here in Europe, Napoleon as the emperor, and we want to tell the story, our own version about it. It's not historically accurate. So we don't want to educate players, of course, about the history, but we think that it's something unique, something new for the players to play, to explore.” You play as William, a British soldier who initially joined Napoleon’s army wooed by promises of a free Europe, but who is gradually coming to the realization that war is far from rosy. Unlike his fellow soldiers, William can control the nephtoglobin, the substance that prompts the undead mutation, and is able to retain his sanity while making use of its powers and fighting his way through the gruesome, warped battlefields left in Napoleon’s wake. “The theme of horror is very important for us,” Ratusznik explains. “So it's not even just these monsters that you are fighting. We are also telling the story about the war and how there are no winners, no true winners at war. That we are in the middle of this conflict, we will learn about each side of the conflict. So this is a story about the foreign soldier in the foreign army, in the foreign land, because we are exploring the eastern parts of Europe. We are not telling if it's Poland or is it some other country. So it's more like a universal story about soldiers in the war.” Having played quite a bit of Valor Mortis at GIC, I can confirm that despite how silly the premise seemed to me initially, One More Level has indeed made something pretty unsettling. An image permanently burned into my memory is of a soldier in uniform, on all fours, leaping out at me like a dog from behind a pile of bodies. But instead of looking at me with his face, his head was contorted downward to put his large, ridiculous, fuzzy wig-hat out front, which had opened down the middle into a mouth full of teeth and was snarling at me as it attacked. Weird, startling, and very effective. But whatever you think of the setting, the gameplay is fundamentally very souls. There’s a stamina meter to manage, poise meters on enemies to break with attacks and well-timed parries. When you die, you of course drop all the currency you’ve collected from enemies as you go and have to fetch it back, or lose it forever. And there are bonfires (in this case, lanterns) that serve as safe spots and checkpoints to restart from with each death. Valor Mortis is also quite difficult. I won’t pretend to be the best Souls player around (I’m decidedly middling) but I spent a good long while running up against the game’s first (I think) boss, which had two phases, summoned smaller enemies, and had an enormous attack radius. I died. A lot. And yet, Ratusznik is on the defensive about whether his game qualifies as a Soulslike or not, in part because of the first-person perspective, but also because of the high expectations put on any game that purports to hail from that tradition by its many fans. “I think that the genre is such a demanding thing that if you want to create a good thing for this demanding community, you need to be very well prepared,” Ratusznik says. “And we wanted to communicate it this way. We are telling people, ‘We are a Soulslike. And If you are not sure about it, you can challenge us. You can ask us why we think it's Soulslike.’ And we are perfectly fine with that. And we know that players after the playtest, after showing the game at Gamescom, at TGS, we were also on PAX in Seattle, and all the players who are playing, they are telling us, ‘I was doubtful about it that you can manage to make a Soulslike in first-person, but after playing it, I believe you. It's true. It's a Soulslike in first-person.’ So that's what's very cool for me. I mean, personally, as a fan of the genre, that we managed to deliver the game in the genre, it's something amazing.” We are a Soulslike. And If you are not sure about it, you can challenge us. You can ask us why we think it's Soulslike. So I ask Ratusznik, what does it mean to be a Soulslike? What are the defining characteristics, to him, that Valor Mortis just had to embody? “Well there is always a debate, how many features from the FromSoft games should game have to be a Soulslike?” he says. “So in our example is, of course, a stamina-based combat system. So that's the first thing. Then we have the checkpoints that are kind of similar to the bonfires in Soulslike. In our game this is a lantern. So you have to reach the lantern to save, make your checkpoints. When you die, you will start from this place. You can then rest, the enemies will come back to life. So this kind of thing is present. But also the exploration is very important, I think, for the Soulslike in this kind of Metroidvania approach in the level structure. “In our game we even push it further. So we also have these elements of Metroidvania, such as abilities that you are gathering that you can use on previously visited levels to unlock some alternative paths. Also the shortcuts are very important, so you need to explore to find the shortcuts to get faster to the safe point, to these checkpoints or something. So there is a lot of that. And also, the boss fights as the true challenges, very demanding. So I think, yeah, I mean these elements are there for sure, but it's not like we are taking all of it blindly. We are thinking about each of this and how it'll fit our vision for this game and also the first-person perspective, which is kind of tricky.” The perspective switch really is a difference maker for Valor Mortis, as it transforms how combat plays out, how parries and dodges and swings need to be timed and directed, and how boss mechanics can be tuned for challenge. But given the popularity of the Soulslike genre, I’m surprised that there aren’t more first-person Souls games out there – most people just follow in either the Dark Souls tradition or the Hollow Knight one. Why is that? “I think it's not easy to make it happen, to be honest,” Ratusznik says. “I mean we did Ghostrunner, so we learned how to make first-person melee combat. And even for us, it was not easy to make the melee combat in first-person satisfying and not confusing. But in Poland we can do it because we have Dying Light, Cyberpunk is also with first-person combat. And we have our games, so Ghostrunner and now Valor Mortis. So it's a bit tricky. “You need to make at least a few tricks to somehow help players to get better feedback from each of the actions that they are taking. So for example, when we attack the enemies, we have some kind of a system that is in the action fighting games where you are snapped to the enemy, pulled to the enemy somehow. So we are attacking and the system is assisting you in getting closer to the enemies. Because it's hard to tell the distance. Both the collider of your weapon is a little bit ******* than you expect just to feel that you hit it. So we need to set it up properly. There are a lot of small things that you have to add to make this combat feel juicy but also satisfying for the players. Of course on top of that there are proper animations, proper animation of the enemies, of the reactions of the enemies. Sound design is very important. Also…there needs to be some additional assets, like some arrows, some indicators that are telling you that if someone is behind you, these kinds of things.” When we need to optimize our game for Xbox Series S, then the PC players also get a more optimized game. Valor Mortis is planned for a 2026 release on PC, PS5, and Xbox. I ask Ratusznik how it’s been developing for consoles this generation, and he gives me a rather surprising take: he really likes the Xbox Series S. “Each generation is easier, the certification process is easier and also the knowledge of the hardware is ******* among the developers,” he says. “So I think also the fact that you have to optimize for all consoles is beneficial for all the players, right? So when we need to optimize our game for Xbox Series S, then the PC players also get a more optimized game, right? “I know a lot of players who really love, for example, one genre or one type of game. They are only playing, I don’t know, Call Duty or Gears of War, so they don't have to buy the newest stuff to play their games. So they have the Series S. And if you try to make a PC for the same cost, for example, it won't be possible, right? So if we manage to optimize the game for the S, I know that a lot of developers are struggling with it, but I think it's more like a challenge that you should handle to make the game optimized for players.” But there is one console conspicuously missing from the lineup. Where’s the Nintendo Switch 2? “I mean I would love that one day,” Ratusznik says. “So we are considering it. It's not like that we are announcing anything, but personally I would love to bring this game to Switch 2. I think that it would be nice to see this type of game on this console.” We also spoke to Ratusznik at GIC about Soulslike difficulty, and why the game might have an easy mode, but won't have a bunch of other difficulty settings. You can read our conversation right here. 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

ARC Raiders is the new hotness in town and thanks to Embark Studios enabling Proton support for Easy Anti-Cheat, I've been putting hour after hour into it. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

Age of Empires continues to be one of the strongest forces in the strategy world, and it's been a particularly exciting year for Age of Empires 4. Not only has it reached new shores with its PlayStation debut, but it's also shipped two massive DLCs - the latest, and biggest, has just arrived. Dynasties of the East, as the name suggests, focuses on Asia, with four fresh civilization variants, eight new maps, and some extremely diverse biomes. While that would likely be enough to satiate AoE 4 fans, there's one more addition that, in my eyes, trumps the rest: its new The Crucible game mode, which puts a roguelite twist on one of the best RTS games around. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Best RTS games on PC 2025 Boasting millions of players, the newest Age of Empires game is now coming to PC After years of waiting, beloved RTS Age of Empires 4 is finally super cheap View the full article

The Major's Footlocker quest in ARC Raiders requires you to find memorabilia in the ruins, and knowing the correct location is going to make your life easier. Received from Tian Wen, The Major's Footlocker quest is relatively simple. This guide will provide you with all the information, along with a list of the rewards you'll get for your grind. Table of contentsARC Raiders The Major's Footlocker quest walkthroughThe Major's Footlocker quest rewards in ARC RaidersARC Raiders The Major's Footlocker quest walkthrough The Major's Footlocker quest can be broken down into two parts. Search for Major Aiva's Mementos in the apartments northwest of The DamDeliver Major Aiva's Mementos to Tian Wen To find the mementos, we will have to reach Ruby Residence in Dam Battlegrounds. This is one of the most valuable locations in the game, as plenty of rare keys spawn at this location. First, go to the leftmost building of Ruby Residence. Screenshot and Remix by Destructoid Head inside, take the stairs, and reach the top floor. The room we are looking for is on the top floor, but don't go on the roof. If you are on the roof, come down one level, and you'll face the room right by the stairs (zoomed-in picture below to help your search). Screenshot via Embark Head inside and take the first left.Go straight (don't take the room on your left), and you'll come into a room with a broken balcony. Turn left, go to the next room, and the memento (a memorabilia) is on a table in the corner. Screenshot via Embark First, interact with the memorabilia and wait for the quest to update. Once it updates, you can add the memorabilia to your inventory. Extract safely with the item, and speak with Tian Wen in Speranza to complete The Major's Footlocker quest. The Major's Footlocker quest rewards in ARC Raiders The Major's Footlocker rewards you with a Hullcracker Blueprint, which is one of the strongest guns inside the game. You can consume the Blueprint and craft the weapon by using the required resources. If you're looking to complete more quests, check out our guide on Unexpected Initiatives. The post How to complete The Major’s Footlocker in ARC Raiders appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article

After two years of anticipation, Football Manager 26 is finally out, but it seems to be struggling to satisfy fans, with Steam reviews currently sitting at Mostly Negative. In contrast, Football Manager 26's predecessor, FM24, holds a Very Positive average user review on Valve's storefront, suggesting that developer Sports Interactive might be in a difficult spot this time. View the full article

Bethesda has outlined the patch notes for Fallout 4 ahead of the release of the Creations Menu update and Anniversary Edition. During the recent Fallout Day broadcast, Bethesda announced Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition, due out across PC, PlayStation, and Xbox on November 10, 2025. Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition — designed to coincide with the post-apocalyptic role-playing game’s 10th anniversary — contains the six official add-ons and over 150 pieces of Creation Club content. Creations (user created content) arrive in Fallout 4 via a brand new in-game Creations menu, which will make it easy for players to find and download the new content on PC and console. Now, Bethesda has detailed Fallout 4’s Creation Menu update, due out on November 10 alongside the release of the Anniversary Edition, and it includes more than expected. However, Bethesda issued a warning to mod users. Fallout 4 mods will undergo maintenance November 6-10, and during this time, Fallout 4 mods and Creation Club will be offline. This means you won’t be able to download or upload any new content (you’ll still have access to change your mod load order and play the game). Bethesda asked players to disable any mods that change the main menu before the November 10 update (which requires changes to the main menu screen). If you don’t, the mods may break with the patch. “Thank you for your patience as we work to roll these changes out and lay the groundwork for things like additional storage for Creations,” Bethesda said in a post on Steam. Meanwhile, the Fallout 4 patch notes reveal some surprising but welcome gameplay and performance improvements. VATS Accuracy should now be fixed so hit chances are consistent across platforms and no longer drop to 0% or show incorrect values (this has been a problem for some time). Targeting enemies through walls without the Penetrator perk is no longer possible, too. There’s also improved Ultrawide and Super Ultrawide Support, and Resolution Detection (Autodetect now sets supported display resolutions, preventing crashes on launch). Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition Creation Club content includes unique weapons, power armor, Pip Boy paint jobs, and more. During Fallout Day, Bethesda teased some of the Creations in the works, including one that will bring a "slice of the Mojave Desert" to the Commonwealth, an escape room experience, and even a mind's eye version of your spouse voiced by the original actors you can interact with. The six official expansions included are the Far Harbor, Automatron, and Nuka-World story add-ons, and the Contraptions, Vault-Tec, and Wasteland Workshop add-ons. Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition will be available on Xbox Series X and S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Steam and PC. It’s coming to Nintendo Switch 2 at some point in 2026, marking the first time Fallout 4 will be available on a Nintendo console. Patch notes are below. Fallout 4 - Creations Menu Update November 10 patch notes:Creations Menu: A new in-game Creations menu has been added, making it easier than ever to discover, download and enjoy content from professional developers and passionate enthusiasts alike. Gameplay & Performance VATS Accuracy: VATS hit chances are now consistent across platforms and no longer drop to 0% or show incorrect values. Targeting enemies through walls without the Penetrator perk is no longer possible. NPC Visual Creations: Fixed stuttering and hitching caused by Creations that edit NPC visuals. Performance is improved when using such Creations. Stability & Crashes BNET Connectivity: Better handling when there is a [Hidden Content] outage Crafting Station ******: Interacting with crafting stations or the workshop on ultrawide monitors no longer causes crashes. Ultrawide & Super Ultrawide Support UI & HUD Scaling: UI elements, HUD backgrounds, and item previews now scale correctly for 21:9 and 32:9 aspect ratios. Menus, quest updates, tutorials, workshops, and inspected objects are no longer stretched or squished. Pip-Boy Map: Players can now place markers, fast travel, and pan the map to the right side in the Pip-Boy when using ultrawide resolutions. Save Preview Images: Save preview images are now letterboxed to avoid looking squished on ultrawide monitors. Miscellaneous Resolution Detection: Autodetect now sets supported display resolutions, preventing crashes on launch. Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at *****@*****.tld. View the full article

It’s been 6,496 days since the original release of Burnout Paradise, not that I’m counting. With the Burnout series clearly consigned to the same storage cupboard EA has been hiding the corpses of Westwood, ****** Box, Pandemic, and all the other studios it shut down over the years, I completely understand the motivation for developer Three Fields Entertainment to craft Wreckreation. It’s an unapologetic Burnout Paradise clone in a stack of very clear ways, built for a ravenous audience that's been starved of one of arcade racing’s heaviest hitters for too long. After all, if you want something done, sometimes you need to do it yourself. Unfortunately, the one core component of its spiritual ancestor that Wreckreation couldn’t recapture was its overall quality, and the result is a janky, unrefined, and often unsatisfying racer that I don’t have much desire to keep playing. Wreckreation’s resemblance to Burnout Paradise runs surprisingly deep, even for an independent studio that’s spearheaded by former Criterion Games bigwigs – the home of the Burnout series. In fact, there are times when it borders on self-plagiarism, such are the similarities – from the digital information ticker at the base of the screen to the familiar tone of a successful takedown. As such, Wreckreation often seems more concerned with recreating entire segments of Burnout Paradise’s identity than establishing its own unique one. I’m conscious it’s trying to do this with a fraction of the budget and a sliver of the staff of Criterion’s classic, and that’s admirable in its own way, but comparisons are unavoidable when the parallels are this blatant. Crashing Out From the opening race it was evident things were awry, from the framerate stutters when I hooked into a drift to the actual sliding itself – which feels a little more cumbersome than I typically like. Arcade racers live and die on their handling, and Wreckreation’s driving dynamics aren’t the best by any stretch. Its brake-to-drift brand of handling is straightforward enough, but it’s not the type of drifting that lets you effectively alter your angle throughout a powerslide. It’s almost as if the throttle has no real impact on your drift angle once you’re sideways. I became accustomed to the handling, but I certainly can’t say I ever warmed to it. I especially dislike its idiosyncrasies, like the fact that cars will screech to a quick halt when braking in a straight line, but stomp on the brakes mid-drift and your car will simply continue to hurtle onwards – even if you’re completely off the accelerator. There are also occasional moments of severe understeer, but I can’t figure out what’s triggering it. It may well be a combination of road surface and car type, but there were times when I just craved more responsiveness and needed my cars to snap back into a drift, and they wouldn’t. There's definitely a lag to the steering that blunts that zippy, arcade feel. There's definitely a lag to the steering that blunts that zippy, arcade feel. After a brief race across Wreckreation’s elevated stunt tracks, the next event was a stunt challenge, where I was required to accumulate a certain amount of points within a very basic arena of jumps and loops. Unfortunately, while my car could easily make it around the skinny loops during free roam, the moment I tried to take them on during the stunt challenge my car was instantly wrecked for no apparent reason. This wasn’t a one-off thing; it was consistently repeatable and happened every time I tried to drive the loops during the challenge. That’s a bad bug to hit five minutes in. Pivoting my approach, I stuck to the jumps in order to build up the points I needed to progress. It wasn’t particularly challenging – and the simplistic approach to auto-leveling cars in the air means the stunting is all rather superficial and shallow compared to something like Wreckfest or Hot Wheels Unleashed – but nonetheless I’d earnt more than six times the necessary score when the time limit expired. At this point I… failed the challenge. I had, in fact, scored zero points – because points don’t automatically bank at the end of the session if you’re still accumulating them in a combo. They just vanish. This sort of thing leaves a terrible first impression, and nothing I subsequently encountered was strong enough to affect a course correction. Wreck Yourself Before You Check Yourself After the stunt-centric opening minutes, Wreckreation quickly settles down into its largely Burnout-inspired groove. The bulk of what’s on offer here are standard races (where the goal is to finish first), ‘Takedown’ races (where the goal is to wreck a set number of vehicles), plus the occasional time trial and ‘Shutdown’ event (where you must perform a takedown on a special, marked car while exploring the open world, in order to add it to your garage – sound familiar?). You can progress through all this content however you see fit, hitting events in any order as you uncover new ones around the huge map. Unfortunately, this flexibility doesn’t disguise how familiar every race rapidly becomes. The size of Wreckreation’s massive map is almost certainly a major culprit in this. At a reported 450 square kilometres, it’s an environment larger than a lot of contemporary open-world racing games. It makes for a great bullet point, but the reality is that this huge size brings with it major caveats. Its primary problem is that it’s extremely generic. It’s a large, square island, with no towns or cities. It’s just ribbons of tarmac and dirt draped over vanilla countryside, where one side of the map feels no different than the other. There are no obstacle-filled alleys or bustling urban centres; it’s just a big green slab with a lot of trees and rocks. I haven’t encountered any memorable races, because there are no memorable areas. There’s very little to distinguish one race from another, so ticking them off became tedious pretty quickly. There’s also a bug I encountered semi-regularly when selecting “restart race” from the pause menu that removed most of the HUD and made it impossible to open the map. The only fix was to restart the game, which was equally tiresome. There’s very little to distinguish one race from another, so ticking them off became tedious pretty quickly. Races occur against just five other opponents, which is low by modern standards, and rely on some pretty egregious catch-up AI to stay tense – but they’re better than the Takedown races and Shutdowns. Takedown races began as a major frustration, with awful AI spawns that placed fresh takedown victims too far ahead. Unlike Burnout’s Road Rage events, which effectively inject opposition around you at all times to smash and bash, Wreckreation messed up massively by making other cars a total chore to catch within the slim time limits. Hell, sometimes they were impossible to catch because they spawned on an adjacent road you couldn’t reach thanks to the guardrails. A patch released this week addressed this, and now opponents quickly streak into the picture from behind – just as they do in Burnout (although they still occasionally spawn on nearby roads you can’t get to). But I have to wonder how it was released in its previous state at all? How thoroughly was this game tested? At any rate, I’ve always maintained that the Burnout series fumbled when it added time limits for Road Rage events in Burnout Revenge. Burnout 3: Takedown was better without them, with the limiting factor simply being how much damage your car could take. I wish Wreckreation had cribbed from the latter in this instance. Wreckreation also introduces a new spin on its off-brand Road Rage mode, which adds cars you’re not supposed to take down, lest you receive a time penalty. I don’t find this is a fun twist, and I actively dislike competing in these. The penalty cars don’t just chop precious seconds off your time limit – they don’t even count as takedowns if you shunt one off the road accidentally. The worst penalty takedown events have two marked penalty cars you can’t ****** into, meaning every batch of opponents will only have two cars to take down. It makes chasing some of the high takedown totals extremely frustrating, and doubly so when it’s being stingy with attributing them to you in the first place. I lost track of the times multiple AI cars crashed out during a slo-mo takedown clip, but I was only rewarded for one of them. Chasing the unfairly overpowered AI during Shutdown attempts is also extremely frustrating. That is, being barely able to catch a pickup that was supernaturally staying out of my grasp by perfectly matching my top speed is a cheap trick. I know speed stats are a bit of a meaningless metric in arcade racers with rubberband AI, but discovering this truck was actually doing at least 40km/h more than what it’s literally listed as being capable of was pretty annoying after chasing it across the map for 10 minutes. Temu Trackmania As close as Wreckreation sticks to its Burnout family roots, it admittedly does bring a whole new pillar of play to the party in the form of its customisation and creation tools, dubbed Live Mix. This gives us the ability to do everything from renaming vehicles, to changing the weather and traffic density, to even plonking down massive track pieces to create huge, skybound stunt courses. The track creation suite should speak to me. 1990’s Stunts from Distinctive Software, with its pioneering track building tools, is one of the most formative racing games I’ve ever played and I’ve adored this sort of thing ever since. However, Wreckreation’s track builder has completely failed to inspire me. There are some elements here that I find quite neat. I admire how most of the track modules automatically generate the necessary support structures beneath them to secure them to the ground, regardless of their elevation. It gives the tracks a feeling of physical presence, like the skyscraper-sized feats of engineering something like this would be. There are some clever considerations baked in here too, like how the scaffolding will handily delete itself if you place new track pieces beneath established ones. However, after clipping together a whole bunch of track segments (and one complete game ****** as I tried to add the last piece), the net result is that they’re nowhere near as thrilling to drive on as they look. It just feels significantly out of date compared to the incredible depth and fine tuning available via the track builder in, say, the Hot Wheels Unleashed series. Live Mix ultimately proved handy on occasion for dropping down a jump or platform in the right place to reach a smashable billboard, although I’ve since wound back on that. Tracking down and crashing through the many collectables quickly became rather dull thanks to the fact the world just isn’t very interesting to explore. This is a non-insignificant hurdle considering a lot of these collectables are additional pieces and modules for the stunt tracks. It’s hard to argue the juice is worth the squeeze here. I’d say Wreckreation’s residents would be happy to see fewer obstacles strewn all over the roads, but they simply clip straight through them in a shower of sparks, anyway – like the props are invisible. View the full article

Europa Universalis5 is blowing up on Steam, rapidly climbing the sales charts, and breaking concurrent player records. The franchise by Paradox Interactive has long been a major name in the grand strategy genre, with a loyal cult following dating back to the early 2000s. But it's still noteworthy that Europa Universalis 5, the sixth installment in the popular series,is doing so incredibly well at launch. View the full article

The Back on Top quest in ARC Raiders is one of those peculiar missions where you have to travel to different regions. To complete Back on Top, you'll have to visit specific areas across all four regions. Naturally, completing all the tasks can take a fair amount of time, and it will largely depend on where you're spawning. This guide will provide you with the key locations on all four maps where you have to visit and spray the wall. Table of contentsARC Raiders Back on Top quest walkthroughPattern House locationTower overlooking Warehouse Complex locationSouth Trench Tower locationBuilding with a mural in the Buried Properties locationBack on Top quest rewards in ARC RaidersARC Raiders Back on Top quest walkthrough The Back on Top quest can be divided into four different parts. On Dam Battlegrounds, mark the Pattern HouseOn The Blue Gate, mark the white lookout tower south of the Warehouse ComplexOn Spaceport, mark the South Trench TowerOn Buried City, mark the building with the mural in the Buried PropertiesPattern House location Screenshot and Remix by Destructoid Pattern House is located in the northern part of the map (as marked on the map above). You have to approach the wall to spray on it and complete the quest. The exact spot on the wall for this part, and for the next three, doesn't matter. Just spray, and the quest will automatically update. Tower overlooking Warehouse Complex location Screenshot and Remix by Destructoid The location of the Lookout tower can be slightly confusing, but I have marked it on the map above. It's located south of the Warehouse complex. You'll have to approach the white-colored tower to spray and leave your mark, which will complete this task. South Trench Tower location Screenshot and Remix by Destructoid Located in the northern part of Spaceport, the South Trench Tower is easy to locate and hard to miss. Be at the location marked on the map, and spray any part of the building's wall to complete the quest. Building with a mural in the Buried Properties location Screenshot and Remix by Destructoid This can be the most confusing location of the lot. You'll have to go north in the Buried Properties region to reach the position marked on the map above (just be at the spot and you'll directly face the house with murals on its walls). You'll come across a wall with murals on it, where you'll have to spray and finish your mission. Screenshot via Embark Back on Top quest rewards in ARC Raiders Here's the complete list of rewards you obtain by completing the Back on Top quest. One Renegade IOne Stable Stock IIIEighty Medium Ammo If you're looking to complete other quests from Tian Wen, Unexpected Initiatives and Industrial Espionage are good choices in terms of the rewards they offer. The post How to complete Back on Top in ARC Raiders appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article

Российская студия с сербской штаб-квартирой GFA Games объявила о старте в сервисе цифровой дистрибуции Steam долгожданного открытого бета-тестирования своего ролевого MMO-шутера Pioner.View the full article