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The zombie game I'm most excited about at the moment is State of Decay 3. The first two games find the perfect balance between survival, exploration, and base building in a way few other games do. State of Decay 2 even had years of free updates, making it one of the most supported games the genre has ever seen. That's all come to an end now, though, so all we can do is wait for the sequel. Well, unless you've never played State of Decay 2 and have $3 going spare, that is. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: State of Decay 2 is one of the greatest zombie games, and now's the time to buy State of Decay 2 receives a generous final update after 6 years of support After six years, State of Decay 2 support is wrapping up View the full article

Call of Duty: ****** Ops 6 and Warzone's matchmaking was temporarily disabled on December 20 after an internal development playlist update was accidentally deployed for all users. The unexpected playlist update was live for less than an hour, but it meant that matchmaking in Call of Duty: ****** Ops 6 and Warzone was temporarily unavailable. View the full article

ARK: Survival Ascended players can celebrate the holiday season in-game from December 23, with the arrival of a new Winter Wonderland event. With tons of festive goodies for players to collect, the Winter Wonderland ARK: Survival Ascended event will be available until January 9, 2025. View the full article

Around this time last year I criticised The Game Awards for continually forcing racing games to share a common category with sports games, to compete for recognition at what’s described (by The Game Awards) as “gaming’s biggest night.” Up until this year it was an award no traditional sports game had ever actually won. The category had been totally dominated by racing games, with the exception of 2015 (Rocket League, which still has cars in it) and 2020 (Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2, which is still… on wheels). This year FC 25 got the gong. Just a single racing game made the shortlist: F1 24. A great racing game, no doubt, but one that’s hard to argue was an immediately essential upgrade for those who already owned F1 23, or F1 22, or so on. What else could’ve made it? Monster Jam Showdown? Good fun (which shouldn’t be surprising given the developer’s recent form with the Hot Wheels Unleashed series) but I wouldn’t fancy its chances at The Game Awards. Le Mans Ultimate? Well, that’s still ostensibly in Steam Early Access, even though they’re… already selling in-game DLC before the game’s officially “finished.” Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown? No chance. The sad reality is there simply weren’t enough racing games released in 2024, full stop. For the first time I can remember in my nearly 14 years at IGN, we didn’t even hand out an award for the year’s best racer. There just weren’t enough of them to even pad out a list of finalists. Sad stuff. Now, for clarity, I have had a number of fresh reasons to slide behind a steering wheel this year, but the bulk of these opportunities have arrived as updates to existing racing games I already own. Most months of 2024 have seen an injection of new cars and content for Gran Turismo 7. As is usually the case with GT, not all those cars have had a solid racing pedigree, but I won’t pretend I’m not at least mildly interested in seeing how fast an eight-year-old Toyota Hiace can lap the Nordschleife. A 2024 expansion to EA Sports WRC added several new cars and two new countries: Latvia and Poland. The new countries feature some excellent stages, and it makes a lot more sense for Codemasters to improve WRC this way than immediately put it on a yearly, F1-style cadence (if only the asking price for the DLC wasn’t as uncomfortably close to the cost of an entirely new game anyway). I won’t pretend I’m not at least mildly interested in seeing how fast an eight-year-old Toyota Hiace can lap the Nordschleife On the flip side, The Crew Motorfest literally became 50% larger for free, with all players getting access to the entire island of Maui, added to Motorfest in November. Maui is not a bespoke area; it’s been seamlessly injected into the game’s existing world (and developer Ivory Tower has even added a fantasy connecting bridge, meaning you have a choice to either fly, boat, or drive to Maui from O’ahu without any loading screens. It admittedly hasn’t turned me into a Motorfest regular, but there are some satisfying stretches of road and some nice areas on Maui – which is obviously a lot quieter than the more densely-populated O’ahu. Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown has grown in a similar fashion with its Ibiza expansion (although don’t expect a bridge from Hong Kong to the Mediterranean). Solar Crown’s Ibiza map is a fairly small section of the island that may come as a nostalgic bonus for those players who recall blasting around the Spanish party paradise in 2011’s Test Drive Unlimited 2, but it’s hard to say whether it’ll turn around Solar Crown’s slow start. The map, after all, wasn’t Solar Crown’s main problem. Mount Panorama has finally found its way back into Forza Motorsport in its most-recent update, but I have to admit I’m extremely disappointed with all the fake sponsors used throughout the track. It just makes it appear totally inauthentic compared to Bathurst in Assetto Corsa Competizione, Gran Turismo 7, and even Forza Motorsport 7 – all of which feature real sponsors. It feels like a bizarre step backwards for the series, but hopefully it can be redressed. The update arrived along with a bunch of antipodean automobiles that have largely been seen in the series before, but nonetheless appeal to me as a dedicated *********** meathead. There’s only one new car, but it is a great one: a 1991 HSV Commodore VN Group A SV. If there’s one thing I like more than *********** cars, it’s the 1990s, so this fills both of those criteria. And speaking of the ’90s, Need for Speed Unbound just added a motorbike, which is a surprising and impressive first for a series that’s literally celebrating 30 years since its 1994 debut this month. So, sure, there’s been plenty of tinkering still going on beneath the bonnets of most of the biggest racers in the business, but very little new blood in the genre in 2024. That’s worrisome, particularly as younger generations continue to exhibit an increasing disinterest in cars in general, but I do think 2024 is probably just an aberration. I say this because 2025 is looking extremely exciting in the racing space. Assetto Corsa Evo promises to be one of the biggest racers of the year and, with the 1,600-square kilometre open world map in development for it, I do mean that literally. JDM: Japanese Drift Master from Polish studio Gaming Factory has shown promise for some time, and you can already check out a free demo of this on Steam now. Tokyo Xtreme Racer is set to return after a nearly 20-year absence. Project CARS spiritual successor Project Motor Racing is scheduled to arrive in 2025. It’s got the Lister Storm in it. Yes please. And that’s just some of what we know about already. Will Wreckfest 2 arrive in 2025? The planned release date for that is yet to be confirmed, but that should be something special. Is 2025 the year we hear about the future of Forza Horizon? Next year will mark four years since Forza Horizon 5, after all. Either way, I’ll see you at the starting line. IGN's 2024 Awards The Best Game of 2024The Best Movie of 2024The Best TV Show of 2024The Best Anime of 2024The Best Comic Book Series or Original Graphic Novel of 2024The Best RPG of 2024The Best Horror Movie of 2024The Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy Movie of 2024The Best Horror Game of 2024The Best Action/Adventure Game of 2024The Best PC Game of 2024The Best PlayStation Game of 2024The Best Xbox Game of 2024The Best Nintendo Game of 2024The Best Accessible Games of 2024IGN Awards 2024: Every Winner Announced [/url] Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can track him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him things about stuff. 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Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is the latest entry in a long-running series that has been around for 36 years. Koei Tecmo has brought main protagonist Ryu Hayabusa to arcades, the Nintendo Entertainment System, original Xbox, Xbox 360, PC, and more. Not only is Hayabusa a star of his own franchise, but he has been a staple of both Dead or Alive and Warriors Orochi. The ninja’s fast-paced, precise action will easily be elevated by Blasphemous devs, The Game Kitchen. View the full article

Farming Simulator 25 has familiar mechanics veterans of the series know and love, including how money is still the most important resource to earn fast. To upgrade equipment and expand your farming operation, you need cash from a variety of sources. Beyond the standard yield of a harvest, you must make smart investments to ensure your farm is bountiful in more than one way. View the full article

Ark: Survival Ascended has just received two new DLCs, namely Extinction Ascended and Bob's Tall Tales: Wasteland War, but players using Xbox and Microsoft Store can't access them yet due to a certification delay. Similar to previous expansions, the Extinction and Wasteland War DLCs also add a dose of fresh content to Ark: Survival Ascended, ranging from new mechanical creatures to extensively customizable cars. View the full article

2013's Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is still fondly remembered among FPS fans for its tongue-in-cheek homage to the best action/sci-fi movies of the 1980s. There are references to everything from Predator and Commando to Krull and Cobra. It even stars a legend from the decade, Michael Biehn, as protagonist... Read Entire Article View the full article

Fans got a look at Borderlands 4 in a trailer at the Game Awards amid other massive announcements for 2025, and the tone of the game seems to take the series in a different direction from the other titles. It is exclusively a first look, and the trailer might not be representative of the final product; however, this new, serious tone seems to have extended to the series' latest villain, The Timekeeper. If Gearbox sticks the landing with the villain this time, it could help fill a hole the series has suffered from ever since the iconic Handsome Jack's exit. View the full article

Valve has released the final issue of Team Fortress 2's long-running webcomic, with this also being the first update to the comic in seven years. Fans of Team Fortress 2 are used to waiting long periods of time for Valve to update its game. Updates to TF2 can sometimes take anywhere between months to even years, especially in the 2020s. However, one thing that fans waited for and were certain was never going to reach a conclusion was its long-running webcomic. View the full article

From a futuristic timeline, Peni Parker pilots the SP//dr mech in Marvel Rivals, creating a Vanguard character with powerful defensive abilities to combat enemy teams. Peni Parker is one of several tank-like characters you can choose whose kit is designed to lock down opponents with webs and traps. In the right situations, Peni Parker can change battlefields to limit the options of any opponent. View the full article

Treyarch has made a major change to the rewards from Call of Duty: ****** Ops 6's ongoing Archie's Festival Frenzy holiday event. Instead of players unlocking what they earn, gamers will now earn all the rewards at the end of the Call of Duty: ****** Ops 6 event, "so everyone can play at their own pace." View the full article

The frustration over cheaters has reached a boiling point within the Call of Duty: ****** Ops 6 and Warzone communities, sparking calls for significant changes to improve the gaming experience. Among console ****** Ops 6 players, disabling crossplay has emerged as the most requested solution, with many arguing it could curb the influx of hackers often associated with PC lobbies. View the full article

Getting a new playable race in World of Warcraft is always a monumental occasion for the community, even if they’re not overly beloved by the player base. Looking at you, Pandarens. New races mean fresh quests, a zone or two, and more customization options to pick from. It’s not often that a race gets added to the game, whether as an allied option or otherwise, but recently datamined models have players theorizing about whether the game could be getting an otherworldly addition in a future patch. View the full article

If you're waiting for the next Hades 2 update and need something to scratch the itch, Realm of Ink might be just what you're looking for. The early access game takes very much after Supergiant's formula, and combines it with stunning artwork to render one of the prettiest action roguelikes you'll find on Steam. In its major December update, developer Leap Studio introduces more ink gem powers, additional abilities for all characters, a plethora of perks, and a legendary elixir system to transform your builds in all-new ways. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Hades style roguelike Realm of Ink is even harder, and better, with new update Stunning Hades influenced roguelike Realm of Ink launches massive update Beautiful Hades style roguelike Realm of Ink launches in early access View the full article

2024 has been a stacked year for RPGs. We've had Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Dragon's Dogma 2, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Persona 3 Reload, and many more. I could just make this whole intro a list of every role-playing game that was huge this year, but that would be doing Drova Forsaken Kin a massive disservice. With dashes of mythology, pixel art, old-school CRPGs, and an incredibly high Steam user rating, Drova's newest update makes the game harder than ever, so now's the time to try it. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: New action RPG Drova Forsaken Kin feels like a spiritual successor to Gothic Baldur's Gate has a spiritual sequel in new Steam RPG you can try now View the full article

With the feature code freeze continuing, the Wine team had put up a third Release Candidate for the upcoming stable main release of Wine 10.0 coming in early 2025. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

With the latest Total War Warhammer 3 DLC now out in the world, developer Creative Assembly is looking ahead to 2025. The new factions mark the end of a very up-and-down year for the strategy game studio, but big balance concerns have overshadowed the arrival of its latest legendary lords. As it works on updates, Total War vice president Roger Collum reveals a series of changes the studio is making to address some of the most controversial aspects around new releases, including changes to pre-order bonuses and the removal of the Total War launcher. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Total War Pharaoh is recovering to become one of the series' best Creative Assembly may have saved Total War Pharaoh with Dynasties DLC Imminent, free Total War Pharaoh overhaul completely changes combat View the full article

I didn't get into the MMORPG genre until last year, and it's because it feels impenetrable. Every single longstanding entry has years of lore, characters, content, and player culture baked into it, making the prospect of entering their persistent worlds more daunting than exciting. This is why MMOs need to work extra hard to give new players an easy way in, and that's exactly how Final Fantasy 14 won me over with its gigantic free trial. So if you're excited about the upcoming action-adventure game Crimson Desert, and want to try out its MMO counterpart ****** Desert Online, you can own it for free for a limited time. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: BDO codes December 2024 - all active ****** Desert Online codes Huge MMORPG ****** Desert Online is currently available for just $1 ****** Desert Online launches incredible new 600-person PvP mode View the full article

The Octopath series reaches another milestone after new ports were released earlier this year. View the full article

Firaxis Games and 2K are releasing Sid Meier's Civilization VII on February 11, 2025 and now we know what power you're going to need to run it on Linux Desktop systems. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

The last open source graphics driver update before the holidays is here, with Mesa 24.3.2 now available for you to upgrade. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

If you've had your eye on Spellrogue, the early access deck-building roguelike that blends the progression of Slay the Spire with Dicey Dungeon style chance mechanics, now might be the best time to take the plunge. Developer Guidelight Games is planning to permanently increase the price of the game following the ongoing Steam Winter ***** in preparation for its 1.0 launch. That means the current discount might well be the lowest you can get the game any time soon, with the full release just a few months away. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Promising new roguelike deckbuilder Spellrogue adds new boss fight New Steam deckbuilder mixes Slay the Spire and Dicey Dungeons, out now View the full article

Marvel Rivals has plenty to offer players over the festive season with the highlight being the free Jeff the Land Shark Cuddly Fuzzlefin costume. If you want to know how to add this look to your locker, we’ve got the details you need. While the majority of Marvel Rivals skins are available through purchase, there are also a bunch of free skins—and the Winter Celebration event has provided a new one to grind towards, handing you a new look for your favorite land-based aquatic creature. View the full article

GSC Game World continues to release brand-new updates for its hit first-person shooter survival horror game, STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl. The latest patch comes just in time for the holiday weekend, making numerous improvements to STALKER 2 just one day after the popular title receive its biggest update to date. View the full article