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This year has been a blast through and through for gamers. Other parts of modern society have been shaken at their core over the course of 2025, but video games persevered, allowing us to escape what's around us even if briefly. Indie games utterly dominated the year, with back-to-back successes coming from solo developers, small studios, and independent ventures alike. They are the true heroes of 2025, having rung the alarms at every corporate AAA studio, causing them to rethink their approach to game development. Some games were simply the best, and we wanted to honor their contributions to games as an art form. We previously nominated our potential winners, and are now ready to show you the best of the best. Destructoid's best games of 2025 Image via Embark Studios The following games were nominated by Destructoid's staff in 11 categories, each category containing the editorial's top five favorite games, out of which we ran a second vote to choose the ultimate winner. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is the most nominated game, carrying three categories, including Game of the Year, and three performances in the Best Acting Performance category. It's no wonder, as award shows have shown. So, here are our winners. Destructoid's Game of the Year Image via Sandfall Interactive | Remix by Destructoid Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Read more about why E33 is our GOTY here. Best Indie Game DispatchBest RPGClair Obscur: Expedition 33Best NarrativeClair Obscur: Expedition 33Best Multiplayer GameARC RaidersBest Live-Service GameARC RaidersBest Acting PerformanceBen Starr (as Verso in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33) Best Sports GameEA Sports FC 26Best Action GameHades 2Best Fighting Game2XKOMost Anticipated GameGTA 6 The most exciting part of this whole awards process was that we figured most games, and the most successful ones especially, are original titles and not sequels. 2XKO, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and Dispatch are all standalone titles, with the first one only sharing a universe with League of Legends. Even so, sequels have overwhelmed the modern gaming industry, and it's good to see original titles performing and even dominating the current scene. Expedition 33 is, as expected, the most-awarded game, winning every category it was nominated in. We expect no less from tonight's The Game Awards, where E33 is the most-nominated game of the show's history. The post Here are our Destructoid Awards 2025 winners – The best games of this year appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article

"For those who come after," Destructoid is pleased to announce its winner for its 2025 Game of the Year Award, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Sandfall Interactive's debut title, a turn-based RPG set in a beautiful yet haunting world, has been praised across the gamut of the industry since launching earlier this year. Boasting gorgeous visuals, a gloriously bombastic soundtrack, and a harrowing story of love and loss, Expedition 33 is the best game of 2025 and one of the most memorable new titles in recent years. Image via Sandfall Interactive Below, some Destructoid contributors have written their thoughts and explanations as to what makes this game so special and why it's our Game of the Year for 2025. Scott Duwe (Staff Writer) Expedition 33 was a game that was on my radar from the moment it debuted in June 2024 thanks to its stylish spin on turn-based combat. Less than a year later, I was thrilled to be playing it for my first review at Destructoid. From its somber opening moments, it felt like a very special title, and that sentiment only grew from there. I scored it a 9.5, and felt validated as I saw all of the other tremendously high scores come flying in soon after. Everything in E33 exudes quality, from the satisfying QTE-laden turn-based combat to the open world exploration in an apocalyptic painted setting, but its soundtrack stands out most to me several months after release. When I think of "needle drop" moments in gaming, E33 is at the top of the list for several of those where I was almost knocked back in my chair. This video below illustrates just one of them: [Hidden Content] From the moment I completed it, Expedition 33 became my top contender for game of the year. I've played and reviewed over a dozen other titles this year since then, but the story of Gustave, Maelle, Lune, Sciel, Verso, Monoco, and all the others has continued to reign supreme in my mind. As an expertly crafted love letter to JRPGs of the past with several new mechanics to make it even more exciting, E33 didn't really need to have a great story to be a good game, because the total package itself, outside of that, is so stellar. But the prolific gut-punch pay-off in the tale of the Dessendre family wrapped a melancholy bow around that package to create something truly memorable and put it over the top for my vote. E33 is a monumental achievement made all the more impressive considering its origins and humble beginnings. It apparently had a budget of less than $10 million, and the game's impressive composer Lorien Testard was discovered after sharing his music from SoundCloud, after some of Sandfall's devs moved on from Ubisoft. It's just a pretty incredible story overall. Image via Sandfall Interactive And so when we put it to a group vote among all Destructoid writers and staff, the tallies confirmed what I've been saying since April: Expedition 33 is an instant classic, and well deserving of our GOTY honors. Drew Kopp (Freelance writer) Within the first hour, Expedition 33 transmogrified my eyes into waterfalls. It takes most other games at least 10 hours to do that. Rachel Samples (Editor-in-chief) Two words kept popping into my head throughout my Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 playthrough: "cinematic masterpiece." From the first few opening scenes, this RPG declared itself a front-runner for GOTY long before other industry giants had a chance to stake their claims. The game's fantastical world-building and stunning visuals will pull you in, while its nuanced but lovable cast and heart-wrenching story will get you to stay. With fun and innovative gameplay mechanics, provocative voice performances, and beautifully crafted narrative, Expedition 33 will forever live on my list of favorites. Image via Sandfall Interactive Hadley Vincent (Freelance writer) Clair Obscur had me standing up, applauding, and telling my friends that this is GOTY before I even set off on Expedition 33. You give me a good narrative and I'm in, and E33 took me all the way with its otherworldly mystery, flawless OST, and haunting Gommage. E33 is a painful journey about hope, acceptance, and moving on. Regardless of where you're at right now, E33 is a story we can all learn from as expeditioners in life. I'm no turn-based RPG fan, but E33 did what others couldn't — it changed my mind on the genre, and I'm thankful for my time on Expedition 33. Ross Deason (Director of Content) Only game I have actually completed in 5 years should tell you a lot. The post Destructoid’s 2025 Game of the Year – Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article

The Plasma Glazed donut is a unique item to bake in Pokémon Legends Z-A, and doing so is going to help you find one of the rarest Pokémon in the Mega Dimension DLC. If you have been wondering where to find Mega Zeraora, you've come to the correct place. Not only is it pretty difficult to find, but you'll need to bake the Plasma Glazed donut to stand a chance. This guide will list the complete recipe to make things easier for you. How to make Plasma Glazed donut in Pokémon Legends Z-A The process of constructing the Plasma Glazed donut is slightly different. While you'll still have to reach Hotel Z and speak with Ansha, you'll first have to reach a kid in Vert Sector 3 (location marked in the screenshot below). Exchange a piece of Canari Bread to get Popping Candy in return. Image via TPC Go to Hotel Z and speak with Ansha, and she will allow you to prepare a special Plasma recipe. She will also give details about the targets that you'll need to hit to complete the production. Here's the list of ingredients that you'll need. Three Hyper Roseli Berry (65 Spicy and 85 Sour)Three Hyper Babiri Berry (65 Sour and 170 Bitter)One Hyper Charti Berry (10 Spicy, 5 Sour, 95 Bitter, and 10 Fresh)One Hyper Haban Berry (85 Sweet and 65 Fresh) Complete the order, and Ansha will provide you with a Plasma Glazed donut, which will spawn a portal from where you can access Mega Zeraora. Naturally, this is one of the hardest donuts to make due to the requirements. However, the grind is undoubtedly worth it if you're looking to take down Mega Zeraora in the Mega Dimension DLC. The Old-Fashioned donuts also work similarly, as they allow you to defeat the three legendaries: Rayquaza, Groudon, and Kyogre. Some like the Bad Dreams Cruller donut are required instead to complete quests. Ideally, always save the Hyper Berries that will be required to complete these recipes so that you can progress towards completing the Mega Dimension DLC. The post How to make Plasma Glazed donut in Pokémon Legends Z-A Mega Dimension (Mega Zeraora encounter) appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article

This year, Destructoid is giving out its own awards to various games that have made a significant mark in the industry. However, we wanted to invite you, our readers, to crown your own king of 2025's video game realm, and the result is unsurprising. With an overwhelming majority of 90 percent, Destructoid's community, that is you, named Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 as its ultimate Game of the Year. That coincides with our own choice, since we also gave Expedition 33 that prestigious title, crowning it as the ultimate game of all games released in 2025. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is the Destructoid community's ultimate game of the year. Image via Sandfall Interactive I can't say I didn't expect this to happen. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is one of the best games of all time, revolutionizing the JRPG genre and making a point about games as an art form. From its music, designs, and sheer artistry, Expedition 33 drives home the idea that yes, video games are a form of art that is worthy of appreciation. When I first played the game back while I was still at Dot Esports, I immediately knew it would be a hit. I only had four hours to work with at the time, given that it was a limited preview, but I came off it thinking that the game would take the industry by storm. And I was exactly right. My friends at the time didn't believe me. They thought no JRPG can ever grasp the industry in such a way, as well as that Clair Obscur doesn't scratch that "itch" for traditional JRPG fans. It'd be an oddity, a curious title that has many qualities, but one that ultimately fails on the road to greatness. Well, I guess they missed the mark on that one. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is an excellent game, and everyone seems to recognize that now. It swept away the entire Golden Joysticks last month, and I have no doubt it's going to do the same at The Game Awards tonight. The post You have chosen your ultimate 2025 Game of the Year—and I feel like it needs no explaining appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article

EA and Battlefield Studios have issued a lengthy statement after the Battlefield 6 Winter Offensive 1.1.3.0 update saw players reporting widespread issues related to the main menu UI, gameplay stuttering, Breakthrough, and much, much more. The message, posted both to Battlefield social media accounts and the FPS franchise’s website, functions both as an explanation and a game plan. BF Studios says hotfixes and updates will now roll out in the coming days as it attempts to iron out the numerous kinks that started making waves in the Battlefield 6 community earlier this week. Surprise Attack It just keeps getting better #Battlefield6 Can't select any modes in menus. I thought this update was tested in labs? [Hidden Content] — CAMIKAZE78 (@CAMIKAZE78) December 9, 2025 Winter Offensive was originally positioned to bring wintery new content hand-in-hand with audio fixes, more reliable hit registration, and balance tweaks as BF Studios continues to flesh out the new Battlefield game’s first season. However, as update 1.1.3.0 made its way to PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S Tuesday, players were instead met with an army of technical hurdles. Clunky main menu navigation and trouble registering hits on firing range targets were two of the more annoying issues being shared around online. One problem that actually impacted moment-to-moment multiplayer gameplay for many, though, involved micro stuttering that saw players freezing in place as they ran into battle. Another, more bizarre result of the new update had to do with what many believed was a stealth nerf to movement, which, despite being applauded by some, has since been reverted and labeled as “unexpected behavior.” "It kind of feels like there's an absolute deadline schedule by which point stuff comes out no matter what," one Reddit user commented shortly after the update went live. "I know DICE always had this 'fix X, break Y' modus operandi that's amusingly consistent amongst generations of people who worked there but so far every update has been literally that." The occasional hiccup aside, BF Studios has been steadily moving through Battlefield 6 Season 1, but it feels like that momentum has come to a halt with Winter Offensive. Even if the stop is only temporary, the update’s launch marks a moment of uncertainty for fans as they await Season 2 and as the holidays rush in. Winter Offensive has proven to be so problematic, in fact, that Battlefield REDSEC, the Battlefield 6 battle royale offshoot experience, had its Elite Series postponed due to “unforeseen technical issues.” “We want to be upfront: this is on us,” the Battlefield team said yesterday. Battlefield 6 is absolutely unplayable after the patch Well done @battlefield / @EA_DICE [Hidden Content] — DANNYonPC (@DANNYonPC) December 9, 2025 Calling for Backup BF Studios wants Battlefield 6 players to rest easy knowing that, if these issues haven’t already been fixed, they will be fixed soon. “We want to give you a clear status update on the issues we are tracking, the work already completed, and our near-term and future plans,” today’s statement says. “The team has been reviewing all reports since the update, including items related to Breakthrough, the Firing Range, Portal, the Main Menu, and performance topics such as micro-stuttering on PC, along with several other issues raised by the community.” Technical difficulties related to incorrect ticket sizes for Conquest, daily challenge rewards, infantry momentum, and battle pass tier skipping have already been resolved. More thorough hotfixes are now scheduled to begin tomorrow, December 12, starting with fixes for micro stuttering, main menu navigation, and the firing range for PC via Steam players. PS5 and Xbox players will benefit from their own update come December 15, which should bring an end to issues for the main menu and firing range. Stat tracking, especially pertaining to bot kills, is another issue that’s persisted through recent weeks that BF Studios plans to address soon, with rubber banding related to minimum spec PCs also set to be addressed. Perhaps the most heavily criticized aspects of Winter Offensive, though, were the changes to Breakthrough and vehicle placements announced via the update 1.1.3.0 patch notes last week. What it feels like after recent Breakthrough changes byu/mandbeyn inBattlefield .reddit-embed-wrapper iframe { margin-left: 0 !important; } BF Studios says it’s heard the complaints related to how the update may have made victory too easy for the attacking team, specifically calling attention to concerns about objective placement, vehicle spawns, and attacker momentum. The developers explain that some fixes in this regard, specifically pertaining to vehicle spawning, have already been published, but stops short of walking players through how or when it plans to address these concerns. “Your feedback continues to guide the direction of our Breakthrough improvements, and we will share more as future adjustments take shape,” the message adds. More tweaks to vehicles should help the overall Battlefield 6 experience, too, with BF Studios saying it’s implemented updated vehicle damage zones, fixed hit registration for vehicle-mounted machine guns, and adjusted some maps for better pacing during matches. Finally, those who enjoy flying jets should know that air-to-air combat is set to receive some adjustments, including reduced jet canon damage, early next year, with a dedicated air radar planned to launch after Season 1. “We will continue validating the resolutions already in development, gathering additional data from your reports, and prioritizing remaining issues based on severity and player impact,” BF Studios adds. “Several items have already been resolved, or will be through our upcoming hotfixes. More improvements are planned in upcoming updates.” Battlefield 6 launched October 10 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X | S. It’s been on a bit of a rollercoaster ever since, as players have logged on to both praise and criticize everything from map sizes to balance changes. Its future post-Season 1 is currently unclear, but with EA and BF Studios scheduled to make some sort of appearance at The Game Awards tonight, fans are hoping for at least a small glimpse at what Season 2 may have to offer. Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe). View the full article

Traditionally, the great holiday shopping deals would end after Cyber Monday. That is apparently no longer true. Case in point: today only, Best Buy is offering the console versions of Assassin’s Creed Shadows and Call of Duty: ****** Ops 7 for under $40 each. Specifically, you can get the PS5 or Xbox version of AC Shadows for $34.99, and ****** Ops 7 for $39.99. Both deals go away at midnight, so grab them fast if you want them. Today's Best Game Deals The ****** Ops 7 deal is particularly good, because it’s on the steelbook cross-gen bundle editions of the game. That means you get a free steelbook case for the game with your purchase. And regardless of whether you buy the PS4 or PS5 version, it’ll work on both systems natively. The same is true of the Xbox version, with the Xbox One and Xbox Series X. Unlike most similar sales we’ve seen recently, no other retailer is matching the prices, meaning they’re exclusive to Best Buy. These are by far the best deals we’ve seen so far on both of these 2025 games. In other words, I wouldn’t expect to see either game drop to a lower price this year. The real question, of course, is whether the games are any good. If we’re talking about Assassin’s Cree Shadows, the answer is yes, absolutely. In our 8/10 review, critic Jarrett Green wrote, “Assassin’s Creed Shadows takes a flashing blade to the series’ established norms, trimming them to a more precise form in lieu of chopping them down outright. Combat is aggressive and requires more intentional parrying and skill management than in the past, and exploring the gorgeous provinces of Sengoku-******* Japan is encouraged thanks to the revamped map that deemphasizes collecting icons and checking off lists.” As for Call of Duty: ****** Ops 7, the answer is a little more complicated. While the campaign and Zombies modes are a little lackluster, the multiplayer remains strong. In our review of the latter mode, critic Seth Macy wrote, “Call of Duty: ****** Ops 7’s multiplayer is a great time. The first crop of maps are excellent, taking into consideration the new wall run and wall jump mechanics and how that extra dimension of movement adds so much to the fun. The weapons are all solid with the exception of the SMGs, and even though none have really captured my imagination, they're fun to use and fun to grind.” Both of these deals are absolutely killer for games this new, as emphasized by the fact that even Amazon isn’t price matching them. But the ***** ends at midnight, so pick up whichever one you want (or both) before the deep discount goes away. How to Follow IGN Deals Recommendations The IGN Deals team has over 30 years of combined experience finding the best discounts and preorders available online. If you want the latest updates from our trusted team, here’s how to follow our coverage: Sign up for our IGN Deals NewsletterSet IGN as a preferred source in GoogleFollow us on social mediaIGN Deals on XIGN Deals on InstagramIGN Deals on FacebookIGN Deals on Tiktok[/url] Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert for IGN. He also runs IGN's board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him on Bluesky. View the full article

This content was produced in collaboration with Valnet Inc. and the sponsor Team 17 Digital. View the full article

More than audio, video and optimizationView the full article

The Old Peace update in Warframe has added plenty of new ways to build your frames, and Tektolyst Artifact mods will allow you to customize your loadouts further. Added to the game as part of the latest update, the Tektolyst Artifact mods boost various stats of your Operator/Drifter. It's an entirely separate category with 20 different options available at launch. Let's look at all the available options in Warframe and how you'll be able to obtain them. Table of contentsAll Tektolyst Artifact mods in WarframeHow to get and equip Tektolyst Artifact mods in WarframeAll Tektolyst Artifact mods in Warframe The 25 Tektolyst Artifact mods are categorized under the five Fousc schools. Every mod is aligned towards a specific school and has synergistic bonuses with its own/other schools. The table below has information about all 20 Tektolyst Artifact mods and how they work. NameFocus SchoolEffectsSil-TabolMadurai+60% Amp Status Chance. +15% Status Damage for each Vazarin School Mod.Ubri-KanephMadurai+60% Damage to Amps. +10% bonus for each Mod from a unique School.Hayan-DaborMadurai+60% Amp Multishot.Vikla-SaforMadurai+30% Amp Fire Rate. +30% Amp Ammo Efficiency.Omn-EviNaramon+60% Amp Critical Chance. +10% Amp Critical Damage for each Zenurik School Mod.Metem-ErunNaramonIncrease Operator Sprint Speed by 30%. +5% bonus for each Mod from a unique School.Evir-TiNaramon+60% Operator Jump Height.Hok-KaalNaramonAfter using Void Mode, the next Amp attack deals x3.0 bonus damage (cooldown 5s).Vik-AnamaZenurik+30% Maximum Amp Energy. +5% Amp Energy Regen Rate for each Madurai School Mod.Empazu-SholZenurik+12% Tauron Strike Initial Charge. +2% bonus for each Mod from a unique School.Esti Vel-IkhaZenurikIncreased maximum Void Sling distance by 30%. +10% Void Sling radius for each Mod from a unique School.Sey-TaphZenurik+30% Void Sling Efficiency.Da-RenVazarin+300 Operator Shields. +30 bonus for each Unairu School Mod.Metem-HakhVazarin+30% Operator Health & Shields. +5% bonus for each Mod from a Unique School.Lorun-TashVazarin+400 Operator Armor.Yar DalVazarin+300 Operator Health.Kaal-ZidiUnairu+30% Void Mode efficiency. +5% Movement Speed in Void Mode for each Naramon School Mod.Lashta-VakUnairuVoid Sling breaks Containers within 12m. +2m bonus for each Mod from a Unique School.Talsenk-AnUnairuGain knockdown immunity. When knockdown is blocked, enter Void Mode for 3s (cooldown 7.5s).Ulashta-SholUnairu-60% Transference Static duration.How to get and equip Tektolyst Artifact mods in Warframe Screenshot by Destructoid To obtain these mods, you'll have to participate in Perita Rebellion missions. You can then find the mods as random drops from enemies, and they appear to be quite rare. Once you find them, you'll be able to equip and use them. But first, you'll need a Tektolyst Artifact. You can find a Tektolyst Artifact after complete The Old Peace quest. Go to La Cathedrale, and you'll find Marie selling all five Tek Artifacts. You'll also need 150 of every boss reward: Lyroic Bridge, Ren Hypercore, and Ascaris Prime. Once you add a Tek Artifact to your loadout, you can then equip a maximum of five Tektolyst mods ot it. The post All Tektolyst Artifact mods in Warframe The Old Peace and how to get them appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article

2025 is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's year. Still, for all of its technical and artistic achievements, it's not infinite, and even replay enthusiasts should let go at some point. The void will feel immense, so let's look at similar titles you don't want to miss out on. Final Fantasy 8 Image via Square Enix Clair Obscur's director Guillaume Broche has cited Final Fantasy 8 as one of his favorite games, and it shows. There's a whole minigame in trying to list all the influences Final Fantasy 8 had on Expedition 33, from the world's art to some of the characters' looks and personalities, but you're even better off just playing Final Fantasy 8. Much like Clair Obscur, FF8 took a completely bold approach to the JRPG genre, but it just wasn't as well-received. Sure, Final Fantasy 8 sold big time and achieved critical acclaim upon release, but it quickly got hit by an unhinged tsunami of backlash that rendered it the ****** sheep of the franchise to this day. That's sad, as players should've at least respected Squaresoft's attempt at preventing things from going stale, especially in a game that, less popular mechanics aside, remains a tremendous cinematic, musical, and overall aesthetic triumph to this day. Final Fantasy 8 should've hit just as hard as Expedition 33 did upon release, but it came out to a world that just wasn't ready. The great praise some of the key people behind Expedition 33 have showered FF8 with prompted many to give it a try, and I'm sure they didn't regret it. You can be next. Lost Odyssey Image via Microsoft One of the reasons why the Xbox 360 was easily the best Microsoft soldier in the console wars was how that's the only generation when the company addressed the need to compete with the PlayStation's JRPG offerings, and Lost Odyssey was their crowning achievement. Lost Odyssey was everything a Final Fantasy game should be, or should've been, considering how it came out very close to Final Fantasy 13, which was everything a Final Fantasy title shouldn't have been. On top of a great story, cool looks, and characters, Lost Odyssey even featured a proto version of the QTE-style events that made Expedition 33's turn-based battles so fresh and immediately memorable. Vagrant Story Image via Square Enix Some argue Vagrant Story is the best game on the original PlayStation, and I believe the only reason that number isn't much higher is that not enough people bought it. This is one of the finest, most engrossing, and most original RPGs ever made, and more people need to know about it. Whereas I can see why games such as Final Fantasy 8 and Skies of Arcadia failed to sell, one because it strayed too far from Final Fantasy, the other because it didn't have "Final Fantasy" in the title, Vagrant Story's commercial failure, or failure to dominate sales, to be more precise, baffles most who got to play it. It was one of the most gorgeous games on the PlayStation, featured all-new mechanics that anyone could enjoy, and even had the same marketing machine behind it that the Final Fantasy series had. Luckily, because of its beautiful art style and direction, Vagrant Story remains a game anyone should give a try even today. Skies of Arcadia Image via ***** Skies of Arcadia not only nailed the beloved basics of JRPG combat, but it also added an extra dimension via its unique world composed of layers of explorable floating islands that, unsurprisingly, are really fun to explore when you happen to have a flying pirate ship. Skies of Arcadia was capable of going toe to toe with any of the best additions to the genre during the PS2 years, but it fell to the Dreamcast curse, which prevented it from reaching the popularity it deserved. Had it come out for the PlayStation 2, I certainly wouldn't have to be reminding people of its existence, though I do it with pleasure. Though Shenmue is the Dreamcast's best-known title, it's never going to be the best when there's Skies of Arcadia. Panzer Dragoon Saga Panzer Dragoon Saga was *****'s answer to Final Fantasy 7, and the relatively few people in the know are aware that this was no marketing ploy. Saga offered a tremendous alternative to the then-reigning FF-style gameplay through its battle system inspired by the classic on-rails Panzer Dragoon titles. The result was a game where frantic movement prevented any battle from ever feeling stale. And there's a reason why I'm putting this one last. Panzer Dragoon Saga acts as Simon, that optional boss that'll absolutely kick everyone's ****. That's not because Saga is harder to play through, but it's the hardest game on this list to get to play, as the only ways are via either emulation or for shelling out over $500 to get a used copy to run on the Saturn that you so totally own. Sadly, though entirely deserving, there's no guarantee that a remaster will ever come to fruition, as we don't know if ***** still has the source code in its possession. The post Want more like Expedition 33? Try out these underrated JRPGs appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article

Capcom has revealed the full Monster Hunter Wilds Title Update 4 patch notes for version 1.040.00.00. View the full article

It's been a long, hard road for Monster Hunter Wilds, but hopefully things will get a little lighter when its free Title Update 4 arrives next week on December 16. In a video published earlier today, Capcom outlined the additions coming in the final major Wilds update, including the returning elder dragon Gogmazios, new weapon and armor upgrade systems, and—crucially—improvements for the performance issues that have tarnished the game's reputation so badly that Capcom's own investors are using Wilds as shorthand for performance concerns... Read more.View the full article

Battlefield 6 developer DICE has responded to the disastrous launch of the game's Winter Offensive update, which was released for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on December 9. The studio has promised to continue gathering information from the Battlefield 6community and outlined its plans for the game's next hotfix update, which will be released for Steam users on December 12 in order to promptly address one of the most critical problems brought on by this week's 1.1.3.0 patch. View the full article

He also reveals "I didn't play Legend of Dragoon before coming up with the QTEs"View the full article

Year in Review 2025 | Strapped for time? You can play any of these in a single eveningView the full article

PC Gamer's latest issue is a Fallout bonanza, going over the entire history of one of the greatest gaming series with many of the key figures behind it. Among the topics covered are why Todd Howard wouldn't let the usual "videogame directors" touch the series, the disquiet of New Vegas' lead writer about the lack of credit and residuals in the Amazon TV show, the shaky launch of Fallout 76, and the early concept for Fallout 4 and its most-beloved character... Read more.View the full article

Rockstar Games has given more detail on its claim that it fired more than 30 employees for a reason other than union busting. Last month the developer dismissed over 30 staff across its offices in the *** and Canada, stating only that they were let go due to “gross misconduct”. The Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) alleged that the employees were fired because they were part of an IWGB Game Workers Union channel on Discord, and were either members of the union or were attempting to organise a union at Rockstar. Read More... View the full article

System76 have today finally released Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS with the newly launched COSMIC Desktop Environment. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

To celebrate the season of video game awards, Humble has put together a special Award Nomination bundle of games where players can get 9 award-nominated games for only $14, regularly $205. Proceeds of the bundle will go to the charity, Take This, supporting mental health in the gaming community. The games included in the bundle are: Bright Memory Infinite: Nominated for Art Direction, Game, and Use of Sound, NAVGTRA Space for the Unbound: Nominated for Games for Impact, The Game Awards 2023Cobalt Core: Nominate for Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year, 27th D.I.C.E. AwardsI Was a Teenage Exocolonist: Nominated for Games for Impact, The Game Awards 2022Ghostrunner 2: Nominated for Best Action Game, The Game Awards 2023IMMORTALITY: 4 wins and 13 nominations, BAFTA and The Game Awards 2022/2023Chicory: A Colorful Tale: Best Family Games Award Winner, BAFTA 2022Pocket Bravery: Nominated for Best Fighting Game, The Game Awards 2023The Vale: Shadow of the Crown: Nominated for Innovation in Accessibility, The Game Awards 2021 Donating a minimum of $14 will get you the entirety of the games above, and for $10 you will get the lower five games, and $7 will get you bottom two games. As always with Humble Bundle, you can choose what percentage of your donation will go to the Charity, the Publishers, or to Humble with a tool on their bundle page. Let's talk more about the games themselves! IGN gave Ghostrunner 2 a 9, with Mitchell Saltzman saying it's "a sequel that builds upon everything that made the first game great, leading to 10-12 hours of absolutely action packed, high speed, cyberninja excellence, along with a great, replayable, roguelike mode as well." IGN also gave Chicory: A Colorful Tale a 9, with reviewer Rebekah Valentine saying it's "a pristine little adventure with fun puzzles, a surprisingly rich paint mechanic, and a story that's disarmingly real, difficult, and heartfelt." IGN's Tristan Ogilvie gave Immortality an 8, saying "Despite some shallow search tools, Immortality is a thoroughly mesmerizing mystery and one of the most surprising video game stories of 2022." For all the award nominations and winners from this years' events, including the IGN Awards 2025, stay tuned to IGN! View the full article

Lords of the Fallen publisher CI Games has just announced and released a surprise final update to its 2023 game — mere hours ahead of its sequel getting a fresh airing at tonight's Game Awards. Today's new Version 2.5 release caps off a lengthy journey for the action role-player, which launched to mixed reviews but has since turned around its player sentiment via a series of major post-launch patches. Lords of the Fallen's previous major 2.0 update was once believed to be its last — as was its 1.5 update before that. But, based on further fan feedback, CI Games has put together one final offering that reworks enemy and boss behavior and adds a new Veteran Mode for those seeking the game's toughest challenge. "We've prided ourselves on being a players-first studio, and we mean that," CI Games' creative strategist Ryan Hill told IGN today. "Version 2.0 in April was a huge milestone, but we weren't finished... It became clear that players wanted a greater challenge from both enemies and bosses, so we went back in and pushed those systems further. "Version 2.5 brings significant enhancements to Legacy Mode - new behaviours, new movesets, more aggression across the board - and introduces an entirely new difficulty option, Veteran Mode, for players craving an even steeper climb. We're thrilled to offer this final major update free to all players as a genuine thank-you for their support, and as a small taste of what awaits them in Lords of the Fallen II next year." Familiar bosses now feature fresh behaviors, with even more difficult versions tuned for Veteran Mode. But with fresh challenges also come new rewards, including signature attack animations on boss weapons and a unique breastplate for those who take on Veteran Mode and conquer it. CI Games previously promised "big news" on Lords of the Fallen II would be featured in tonight's Game Awards 2025. Join us then, as IGN reports on all of the event's reveals as they happen. 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

Kitten Space Agency is an in-development spiritual successor to Kerbal Space Program from RocketWerkz that you can try right now for free. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

Warframe's The Old Peace update is far larger than it seemed, bringing a slew of activities and missions to Tenno everywhere. That said, the most anticipated part of the update (outside of new romance options) may be Uriel and his weapon of choice, the hellish Vinquibus bayonet. This unique weapon actually counts as two, since you must equip it both as a primary and as a melee. It's another grand experiment by Digital Extremes, and one that seems to be going well. Here's how to acquire it. How to farm the Vinquibus in Warframe Okay, maybe expecting the Protoframe for the ****** to be chill was a bad move on my part. Image via Digital Extremes The Vinquibus Blueprints may drop from the final level of Descendia, after defeating the last boss and clearing the end of Floor 21. Once you've completed this infernal activity, you can start further runs on the bottom floor, giving you a chance at Vinquibus parts just by taking down the final boss. Since The Old Peace is a tripartite update—the eponymous story quest, the ******'s Triad, and the Dark Refractory—getting the Vinquibus also requires you to interact with all three types of content. Though you get the blueprints from Descendia, the resources to build those weapons drop from the Perita Rebellion. You can buy the Vinquibus Blueprints from Roathe using Maphica as well, if your luck doesn't favor you. We've listed their costs and crafting requirements below. BlueprintRequirementsCost (Maphica)Vinquibus BlueprintAll built parts + 35,000 Credits35Vinquibus Barrel BlueprintAgnovidisc x 325 Laudavi x 350 Servoris x 12025Vinquibus Blade BlueprintAgnovidisc x825 Laudavi x200 Servoris x13025Vinquibus Receiver BlueprintAgnovidisc x725 Laudavi x250 Servoris x9525Vinquibus Stock BlueprintAgnovidisc x625 Laudavi x530 Servoris x8525 TotalAgnovidisc x 2,500 Laudavi x 1,330 Servoris x 430135 Getting the Vinquibus may be the easy part due to how simple and quick it is to farm, though you may still need some time to grab all the required materials. Is the Vinquibus good in Warframe? Tenno armor sadly not included. Image via Digital Extremes The Vinquibus is a single weapon that serves both as a melee and a primary, sharing polarities between the two. You only have to Forma it once for the polarity to apply to both slots at once, and it also comes with an Omni polarity at base to help buildcrafting without having to favor one form over the other. This in itself offers it quite a bit of peculiarity, but it also boasts a very high base critical chance of 40 percent in primary and melee, with 20 percent status chance at base as well. For the firearm portion of it, we recommend going for Semi-Auto Cannonade if you have it, paired with Critical Delay. The former buffs your damage and locks the weapon's fire rate, meaning you can't get any penalties to it (like the reduction from Critical Delay). The Vinquibus also synergizes between its two forms: while in ranged mode, landing headshots boosts the damage of your melee attacks, and melee kills improve its ammo efficiency for the next few shots. And while every weapon is its own and can be viable across several difficulties, the Vinquibus does come to a promising start, ushering in the new Bayonet weapon category. The post How to get the Vinquibus in Warframe appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article

Wow - that sure took a while! A year since the first part of build 42 released and just in time for the holidays, Project Zomboid build 42 finally goes online. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

As part of our ongoing month-long exclusive coverage of High on Life 2, the upcoming first-person shooter, I sat down with Squanch Games Chief Creative Officer Mikey Spano and Chief Design Officer Erich Meyr to discuss the art of making a comedy game sequel. Is it any easier to pull off than the comedy movie sequel, which doesn't have a great overall track record. All that and more are covered in the interview you can watch in the video above or read in the transcript below. High on Life 2 will be released on February 13, 2026 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S – including launching on day one into Xbox Game Pass. IGN: I've got a hundred questions here, not literally 100, but there's a lot I want to ask you guys. And I thought I'd kind of start here. And that is, I don't know if you'd agree, but in my opinion, comedy sequels, at least in the movie side of entertainment, don't have an awesome track record, so how do you approach doing a comedy game sequel to avoid some of the same pitfalls that comedy movie sequels seem to fall into? Eric Meyer: I feel like a lot of movie sequels in general aren't better than the first, right? But game sequels are usually like a refined version of the first game. And yeah, we definitely took a lot of great ideas that we couldn't do in the first game and put them in this one, so hopefully we'll overcome that. Mikey Spano: Yeah, with the first one, I don't think we really knew what it was until it was in the hands of reviewers and we were like, "Oh, this actually turned out pretty cool." We were just so heads down on it, it was a new IP for us. So I think for this one, we had a good place to start, so we're really hoping that it's a plus up of the original. I mean, there's definitely more jank in the original than this one, which is a lot of fun and keeps things funny, but I think we'll still have plenty of just fun, weird, unexpected stuff, so I'm hoping people like it just as much as the first, if not more. IGN: Mikey, can you speak a little more to that? Because I've never made a game, I don't have the talent or skills for that, but I've talked to a million developers, reviewed, covered a million games. And I've heard that a lot where games are such a unique art form where often, they don't really come together until the very end and then suddenly you've got a game. So can you kind of talk me through not the development of the first game, but more kind of the very end that you're referencing there when it does come together, and then when it comes out and you start getting feedback from players and from reviewers? Did anything hit differently with players in the public than you thought it would, or did things surprise you versus what you'd intended or planned? Mikey Spano: Yeah, definitely. I mean, there's a lot of angles we can look at for High On Life in particular. We're pretty open with our team about letting them put in stuff that they're interested in. And then usually they'll just reach out and say, "Hey, is this cool or does this work?" But towards the end, we have people we trust a lot that just can go in and do stuff if they want. So from a perspective of even just the dev that was working on directing the game, we saw stuff, or at least I can say I saw stuff that I didn't even know was in the game, and I am in there. I saw things in some streams where I'm like, "Where did that even come from? Oh my God, that's awesome." That kind of stuff was really surprising and fun and that was intentional on our part. And then there's just a bunch of stuff that kind of breaks in funny ways or things that somebody approaches it a different way than I would've approached it or someone here would've approached it. And so you get this sort of emergent comedy that's based on the players' actions and not necessarily what we intended the players' actions to be. Eric Meyer: Yeah, in the first game, there was a bug where people were getting stuck in Applebee's and that became an internet joke for a while. And we're like, "Sure, we'll own it. Yeah, you get stuck in Applebee's forever." Mikey Spano: Yeah, the other thing we struggle with is, we call it dev eyes, where it's like you've just been looking at the game for so long. All the jokes you've heard a thousand times, they might've been funny the first time. And so you never really know at the end, what's going to land with people because for you, you're so numb to this stuff. So you sort of give it to a friend to play or we'll get some people in and we'll watch them play and evaluate, "Oh, that's surprising, this was their favorite part." And it's something we've seen so much, we weren't even thinking about it. Eric Meyer: Yeah. That happened with us with our demo, where we put in so many good jokes throughout it. And then the thing that resonated the most was taking Sheath and turning him into a gun and that whole bit, the whole joke of that bit. And I don't think any of us expected that to be the biggest hit. We were like, "Oh no, it's going to be this part or this part." But I mean, the internet doesn't lie, right? That was the part people watched the most. IGN: What ultimately then, were the lessons that you took out of the first game when you're talking about kind of more hitting the ground running here with High On Life 2? What are those lessons that you took from the first one that are helping this one? Eric Meyer: I mean, we definitely knew the formula we wanted to do. We knew how a lot of jokes worked. We knew how we did an interactive gameplay with them, and we could take that and be like, "Let's do that kind of thing here, that kind of thing here," or, "Let's one up that one." So it gave us a really good platform to stand on as far as figuring out what all of our different moments would be, what our jokes would be, so that was really great. That helped us tremendously at the beginning. And then also just, there was a whole can of worms around how do you handle having all these different guns and each one can be out and each one can have its own little comedy layer to a mission? And so we learned a lot of lessons from that and we're able to just like every mission now, we're like, "Yeah, we can focus on this gun here and we can do this here." It really helped us understand how to just build our game. Mikey Spano: Yeah, for sure. We had the foundation. I mean, in the first game, we kind of take for granted that we were figuring out the gameplay, too. It's a first person shooter, but outside of knowing that it was a first person shooter, we had to figure out everything from the ground up, which is a lot harder than you would think. Starting with that foundation helped us game play-wise to really focus on the things that were working, try not to change those too much. And then the things that weren't working, building on them, and then also just bringing in some new stuff that we wouldn't have been able to bring into the first game because we were just figuring out the basics. And that goes across comedy, too. I mean, we are always trying jokes that don't land. We're trying ways to tell the jokes that don't always work. And we end up with the best, but a lot of that stuff didn't work for one reason or another. And so we have that stuff left over for the next game that we can try again. And we're never really starting from zero per se, with this sequel. I mean, conceptually, there's a lot of stuff that's from zero, but in terms of our systems and everything, we had a good starting point. IGN: A lot of developers I know these days just pull a ton of telemetry from players when they're playing. So when it's out there in the wild, kind of building on what you guys are saying, did any particular telemetry jump out at you guys, like people watching a surprisingly high amount of the in-game TV or barely looking at it at all, then maybe you take that and you either double down on something or scale back on something for the sequel? Eric Meyer: Yeah. I mean, this is a little bit anecdotal from just hearing it everywhere, not necessarily a more qualitative thing, but just the many people who love Tammy and the T-Rex from that. You especially go through Steam reviews or whatever and yeah, there's certain things like that, that we did not expect to hit so strongly. And then yeah, I mean, just like any other game too, you kind of see where people fell off, like how many people played at the beginning. And for us, we were on Game Pass, so a lot of people tried the game, which was great. And we could see how far... Like any game, you have the curve of a lot of people get through the beginning and then you don't have as many people who actually finish it, but even people who didn't finish it still really enjoyed it. So it's cool to see that. Mikey Spano: Yeah, we kind of had a unique situation where we had so many players. We were not anticipating that, but I think we're over 20 million players at this point on the game, which is insane. So pretty much every little area of the game was poked at in a way we didn't expect and it was really fun to watch that happen. I mean, you're stressed about, "Oh man, somebody found this bug," or, "Somebody exploited this thing," and you get stressed about it. But then you realize most people are out there just kind of having fun and laughing at it. And with 20 million people, there was quite a few variations of things people were hyper focused on or laughing about. I mean, some of my favorite stuff that came out of it is just the weird Hentai fan art of the guns, there's just so much. We hit every facet of weird internet culture and I love it, I couldn't be happier about it. IGN: That's awesome. I mean, on that note, I wanted to ask you guys about Game Pass because I think Game Pass has been in the news lately for at least maybe not players' favorite reasons recently, but I think more broadly than that, and I even would say this from where I sit as somebody that covers Xbox and talks about Xbox on an Xbox podcast all the time, there's a lot of confusion, I think, from players about the business side of how Game Pass works. Now, I'm not asking you guys to share the terms of your deal with Microsoft or anything like that. But clearly the first game, as you're talking about, Mikey, that was a huge success for you guys on the back of launching straight into Game Pass. So can you talk about what worked for you with that deal, what you got out of it, basically? Obviously, you mentioned 20 million players, but do you see Steam sales spike when it hits Game Pass or stuff like that? I don't know if, again, without maybe opening up the company's books or anything, which, I know you're not going to do that, but can you kind of speak to the fallout, if you will, of being on Game Pass? Mikey Spano: Yeah. I mean, I look at Game Pass as a way to get people who are curious about your game. It's almost like a way to just demo games that are on Game Pass, where it reminds me of those old PlayStation Underground CDs you used to get in the mail. Game Pass to me is sort of that feeling. There's so many games that I'm interested in, but it's unlikely I'm going to buy every single one for a variety of reasons. So with Game Pass, it's like I'll check this game out. And typically I fall off. I have really bad ADD, so I'll fall off after an hour or something. And I think with High On Life, we had a lot of people that love Rick and Morty or hated Rick and Morty, but either way they knew about the game for that reason and maybe they wanted to hate play it. And then they ended up actually liking it. And then you kind of build this buzz around, "Have you guys heard of this crazy game," where somebody might not have taken the plunge and bought the full price game, so the online sentiment wouldn't have been as big. It wouldn't have been such a big conversation around the game. I think that really helped us with marketing the game, especially as a new studio with a new IP and everything. Without Game Pass, we would've had very little visibility, so it was beneficial in that way. And I think there's some ways now that Game Pass has evolved a little where they're allowing people to come out simultaneously day one on PlayStation or come out on Steam. And that kind of stuff, we have no idea how that's going to work out, but based on what happened with the first game, I'm thinking it's going to be really big for us because we still get that conversation around the game from people playing Game Pass. But then people on PlayStation, they don't have to wait a year and then kind of forget about it and then restart the conversation. I think Game Pass is going to be even better for us this time than it was for the first game. Eric Meyer: Yeah, it's hard. I mean, these days, there's a lot of good games coming out all the time. I'm constantly shocked when I'm like, "Wait, what is this game that looks like everything I want from the game, but it came out two years ago?" And I follow news and everything, so getting a good amount of attention to your game is critical. IGN: A big new feature of High On Life 2 is skateboarding. I'm a big first person shooter fan and I've played a million of them over the years, and I'm trying to think if I've ever played a first person shooter that has skateboarding in it. Where does the idea come from for that? How does that kind of come up and then hone in as a key new feature of the sequel? Mikey Spano: Yeah, this is a really interesting one because this is something both Eric and I really wanted on the first game. We had a concept artist, Sean McNally, who, amazing concept artist. You can use his name in here if you want. He's great, love the guy, very talented. We were kind of coming up, "What are some other things you can do with aliens and alien life forms?" And he had drawn this sort of pill bug that unfolded into a skateboard and we were like, "Ah, God, we got to get this-" Eric Meyer: Yeah, it was so cool. We were like, "We could just throw this in as a thing you could temporarily have for a moment in a level or something." Mikey Spano: Yeah. And then in my head, it was like the boot in Mario 3 or something, where an enemy and you use it temporarily. And so when we started High On Life 2, we started kicking the conversation around again, "What if we had a power up that let you kind of skateboard?" And so it was meant to just be a little thing. And we started playing with it and the fun was there, but there was so much complexity that I got to the point as like... I grew up skateboarding, I love skateboarding, but I got to the point where I was like, "It's just too risky, we can't do it." And then Eric was like, "I'm not letting go of this." Eric Meyer: In the first game when we were figuring out a traversal kit, at one point we had this sort of omnidirectional boost thing and it was kind of cool. It helped the momentum of the game, but it just didn't have anything grounding it. We converted it into sort of a power slide, which was really fun the first game. It's my favorite thing to do in that game. And then really, we talked about the skateboard in our creative meetings and we're like, "Yeah, let's do it. Let's figure out some cool thing with a skateboard." And at first I was like, "Well, it'll just be power slide plus. You can slide now, but you can go for longer because you're on a skateboard." And then we did a whole bunch of refactoring our traversal kit. We kind of really improved all of our movement and a lot of things, me and Carl Glave, who's our programmer for all the traversal stuff. And then we were tagging the skateboard and as we kept going with it, we're like, "Well, yeah, you should be able to go up a vert ramp. Yeah, of course. You should be able to do this, all the skateboarding things." And we were looking at Tony Hawk and a bunch of different games like Session and Skate and stuff that are really technical skating games. And we were like, "Well, we can't do all that technical stuff." There's not enough buttons. You got to shoot as well, you can't just not do all that. But we started just refining and refining and reducing things, but also making it just a really smooth experience. I really just wanted you to feel like you're on a skateboard, it's doing what you want to do while you're shooting at guys, while you're doing all these other things that are taking up most of your mental space, but you still get that feeling like you're on a board and you can jump off ramps and go and wall ride and do all kinds of cool stuff with it. So we just kept kind of refining it and making it smoother and just more intuitive, and not super technical because that competed too much with the shooter aspect. I think the hardest thing for a new mechanic like that is it's risky, it's unknown. We looked at a lot of different comps and a lot of other games had been doing kind of similar stuff to try to get some ideas and it really was just an accumulation of just hammering on it and iterating on it continuously and making some really good calls at different points to make it. There was a whole group effort deciding exactly what this needs to do and what it should not do. And that got us to a really good spot. IGN: And a sequel's boring if it's not taking any creative risks. Eric Meyer: Exactly. Mikey Spano: Yeah. And I keep thinking, "Did we take enough creative risks on this game?" And I'm like, "Oh wait, we completely changed-" Eric Meyer: Yeah, yeah. I mean, to me it's like the Terminator 2, right? Everyone can agree Terminator 2 is a great sequel. Terminator one is great too, but 2, they're like, "Well, we're going to make a quicksilver Terminator," which could have totally failed. Could have been like, "No, I want Arnold Schwarzenegger." But they put something new in with what you already had and made an awesome new experience. Mikey Spano: Yeah, for sure. The funny little anecdote, Eric mentioned Carl, Carl's an amazing programmer that we have and he is very motion sick sensitive. I don't know exactly the right phrasing for it, but he gets motion sick very easily. And so putting him on the skateboard is so cool, but he did such a good job with it. And I think a lot of the smoothness that you get from it comes from him just being like, "Oh, these numbers make me want to *****. Let me tweak that." Eric Meyer: Yeah, yeah. No, he made sure it's motion sick friendly, which, in first person is insane. Mikey Spano: Yeah, it's crazy. I honestly thought it'd be a fun little power up. There's no way I would want to play a whole game where I'm riding a skateboard and shooting. And I was so wrong, it's so cool. It's my favorite part of the game for sure. IGN: Mikey, you said you grew up skating and there's such... I mean, the artwork for both games, just High On Life in general has such great artwork. Mikey Spano: Thank you. IGN: A custom skate deck for High On Life 2 – maybe like a collector's edition thing, limited. Are we going to do that? Mikey Spano: I will say that we have our biz dev guy, Benny Moore, he comes from Limited Run, so he knows that space really well. And then we just hired somebody, I believe it's merchandising director. I don't know his name, but it's another one that we know from Limited Run, Shaddy, and he's amazing, too. And so he's taking on a lot of really cool merchandising stuff for us. I can say I love skateboards, I love physical stuff. As you can see, my office is full of collectible stuff, so it's a pretty safe bet that there'll be some of my own life decks out there. Eric Meyer: The hardest thing is going to be choosing which ones to use, because we have a bunch of decks in the game with awesome art on them and there's a lot of ones that, I can't pick a favorite. There's a lot of really, really cool decks. Mikey Spano: Yeah. For this game, I have a big group of weird, low brow art friends and I wanted to bring them on to do graffiti and signs and stuff like that for us. And it worked out really well that they were able to all do deck designs for us, too. So we have so many cool, weird, unexpected decks in the game that I want to see all of them turn into a physical deck at some point. And I love the idea of a voting system of, "All right, for this next run, here's three. Which one do you guys want to see next?" And keep pitting them against each other. That could be really fun. IGN: Pivoting back to the video game itself, the weapons, clearly the stars of High On Life and justifiably so. When you're looking at adding new ones for the sequel, I'm curious, where do you start? Do you start with weapon function like, "Well, do we want a rocket launcher type? Do we want this chain gun, this kind of that?" Or do you start with a personality type and then figure out what gun function it should be? Or do you start with an actor in mind and then kind of build a gun around that? I'm really curious to the process because the guns are such a unique aspect of High On Life. Mikey Spano: Yeah. Typically, I mentioned earlier, I'm super ADD, so I'm always doodling. Even in meetings and stuff, I'll be doodling. So Eric and I will be talking about, "What's a gun archetype we want that we don't have yet?" And so while we're talking, I'll start usually just doodling a few things and I'll show it to Eric and say, "What do you think about this functionality? Does this functionality seem cool?" And then he'll give me some notes and maybe he'll do a sketch and we just kind of go back and forth, honing in on a shotgun archetype. Gus is our shotgun archetype and= Eric Meyer: Yeah, that's how we figured out a lot of the first game's guns. Mikey Spano: Yeah, we're a very visual based studio, we let the vibes lead our design. And then Eric and Nick, who is our technical director, but also our combat director for this game, he gets really into the weeds about how the functionality works and, "Let's tune this number and let's try this." And all of that kind of goes back and forth and informs the general look of the gun. And usually when I'm sketching these guns up, I'm thinking about an actor like Sheath from the very beginning, I wanted to be Ralph Ineson. He's been my white whale for years and we finally got him. And so that whole time, I knew that's what I wanted him to look like. And for the caps from the first game, a lot of that look came from just Jim Henson. And if you look at the really old, ****, weird Kermit the Frog, that's Creature. There's just a bunch. I have all this reference from the game where, believe it or not, Knifey is basically Elmo without a nose or hair. And that's kind of where I started because I thought it would be a fun nod. I love leaning on cultural stuff that exists already, so I'm always putting little nods to everything. And trying to find more Muppets for this game didn't really work out right away, so I just kind of went with what felt right. And luckily, Eric and Nick and I were able to come up with some archetypes that felt really good. Eric Meyer: Yeah. When we kicked this game off, we locked ourselves in this rental office for a week. Me and Mikey and Alec Robbins, our native director, Nick, and Maddie, our producer, our EP, to just oversee everything. And we just broke down a bunch of stuff from the game. I just remember one of the things we did was we had a big whiteboard of just every gun archetype imaginable and then being like, "Okay, what would fit? What's going to be the next things that would fit into our mix?" And then started playing with those and sort of integrating some of them into the story as we were talking about story as well. I don't remember all the details. Yeah. And on the first game, like I was saying earlier, we didn't really know what it was, so I drew a million guns. So this game, before I even did anything, I was like, "What about this sheet that we had? Is there anything on here that's a good starting point?" But I don't think we ended up bringing any of that on. The bow and arrow was a new concept, I don't think anything existed for that and Sheath was all new. Travis and Jan were pretty much all new. So even though we started with some of the older sketches, they changed enough that it was just pretty much from scratch. IGN: Well, speaking of the voice actors for the weapons in High On Life, when you're writing now the sequel, obviously, do you really even write lines for JB Smoove, or do you just give him some ideas and outlines and then just hit record in the VO booth? Mikey Spano: I wish the latter was possible, but it's just wrangling somebody who's really good at ad-libbing when we have such a tight story. Especially in this game, we focused a lot more on a tight narrative. Alec and his team, Alec Robbins, our Narrative Director and effectively our head writer, him and his team just wrote so much amazing stuff that getting the actor into the booth and getting all of it read out, you've played the game so you interact with someone, they're not just saying one thing, they're saying a bunch of things. And each of those things has multiple permutations. And so there's just really no way to get an actor in and say, "Go crazy." On the first game, it happened just out of necessity, given the structure of the game, but for this one, we wanted to do a better job and tighten things up. And so we do start pretty much everything written and then we'll have them read the line the way it's written and then, "All right, well, how would you say this line?" And then some of those are the ones that are the funniest and sometimes just reading it as is works better. But it's very taxing on the voice actors to ask for ad lib, especially in that setting, so it can be really tricky. Sometimes it just happens on its own. Eric Meyer: Yeah, we like to encourage it. And this time, I mean, this game has so much more dialogue than the first game that some of those record sessions were like, "We got to move. We can't ad lib for an hour on this guy." So yeah, it was a lot to get, especially with the guns. And Gus and Sweezy in particular, they're around for the whole game, so they're a lot of dialogue. IGN: JB is such a master improviser, I just was curious. It's interesting to hear that you almost had to just keep him on script. Eric Meyer: Yeah, a lot of people go crazy in moments for sure, but you're getting through so many lines, yeah, we kind of had to just let it go off the script first and foremost and then mess around. IGN: You mentioned the whiteboard of weapon archetypes, that you lock yourself in a WeWork space for a week at the beginning of the project to start to hash out. Did you have any weapons or weapon ideas that had hit the cutting room floor? You're talking about stuff that got cut from the first game. Was anything from the first game that made its way into this one in terms of the weapons? Eric Meyer: I'm trying to remember. The first game, well, one thing we had in the first game, Sweezy, there was going to be two Sweezys at one point, right, Mikey? One of them died and became a ghost? Mikey Spano: You had this ghost gun that you could summon, but it never really got traction. We've been wanting to do the dual pistols. I really wanted initially, Eric Andre and Hannibal Burris, just one gun that was overly confident and kind of funny, and then one that just talked to the other gun the whole time. And that was sort of the archetype we were talking about. And then as we got closer, I don't remember who pitched it, but we were like, "It would just be funny if it was just a couple in a relationship and that you had-" Eric Meyer: I think we were all watching Righteous Gemstones at the time. Mikey Spano: I think that's probably what it was. Eric Meyer: And we were like, "Oh yeah, that relationship is like the..." I forget the character's names, but it's so funny. And so we're like, "We should hone in on that." Mikey Spano: Yeah. And so then we kind of started with that as sort of the archetype. And then we had different actors in mind for the guns initially, and then we kind of just kept swapping actors around based on availability and what the game needed. And we ended up with Ken Marino, who's amazing, so- Eric Meyer: So good, such a good performance. Mikey Spano: Yeah, he's just so pro. He gets it, he just nails it. And Gabourey Sidibe, who, she played Mucks in our DLC, but now she plays Jan. And those two together are so funny, it's fantastic. Those two guns, at first, I thought would be a fun little joke for a mission or something, but they're probably the most memorable narrative-wise from the game. Eric Meyer: I think so too, yeah. Because it's two guns and they span over a couple missions, you get a lot of... Their story becomes actually a pretty prominent story in the whole game. IGN: Was replacing Kenny in the game from the DLC and now in the sequel, easier than recasting Kenny? Because I mean, you've got the two new voice actors for Rick and Morty now who are just dead on perfect. Mikey Spano: Yeah, we actually didn't want to bring Kenny over for this game. We're not done with Kenny in the universe, but he's just not part of the story of this game. We will be recasting Kenny, of course, but assuming we continue to make High On Life, which I will fight tooth and nail to keep doing, we still want Kenny to be a part of this universe and he's got a lot more to his story than what we saw in the first game and in DLC. I think our narrative wrapper was that Kenny just got dropped or something in the DLC, but I think that there's more to that story than we let players know, and so we'll be hopefully talking a little bit more about that in future game. Eric Meyer: Yeah, this game takes place five years after the original, so we kind of alluded some of the things that happened in that time span, but that's definitely an area that we'll explore more in this game and in the future. IGN: The last question I have for you guys is, you touched on it already with talking about how much more dialogue there is in this one, but scope-wise, for me, I really thought the first game was just the perfect... It didn't overstay its welcome, but it wasn't like a four-hour game by any stretch either. I just thought it really hit its mark super well. So are you aiming for a similar scope to the first game with this one or we go and... What's the thought process there? Eric Meyer: We're a little bit larger for sure. We wanted to give a little more. This game especially has a much more kind of, I'd just say mature narrative. There's more going on with it. We actually hit our themes a lot stronger at the end and everything, so we wanted to give it more time to feel like a good sequel. And then we actually have quite a bit more sort of side content you can do in this one. In the first game we sort of have, you could go back to areas, you could bring in some more bases for a little fun vignettes. In this one, you kind of have these regions in the hub that you can actually go around and find cool stuff in and kind of dig into more and just skate, you can just skate over the whole place. So we definitely have a little more extra time for folks who want to mess around as well. We're definitely shooting for a bit of a longer game than the first one, but by no means, this isn't an RPG length game. We're trying to keep it a nice narrative you can play. Mikey Spano: For the first game, we didn't really know how long it was going to be. And then it came out and we were like, "Okay, good. It was enough." For me, as an older gamer, 10 hours is my favorite amount of time to put into a game. Past that, I get stressed. And so we didn't want to get too far from 10 hours, but then at the same time, we had so much we wanted to do that things just kept growing. And honestly, I don't know how long the game is. It could be 1,000 hours, it could be 11 hours. I really don't know at this point. We'll know the day before it comes out, how long it really is. But I think it's safe to say it's a decent bit longer than the first game. Our initial desire was 25% more, but I actually think we've probably exceeded that by a bit. And then that's not even thinking about all the new side content and just skating around, doing challenges and stuff like that, so there's a lot there. And it's not all narrative comedy. There's a lot of the side stuff that's just pure gameplay. Eric Meyer: Yeah, just fun gameplay. Mikey Spano: It hopefully doesn't overstay its welcome. Eric Meyer: On this one in particular, we try to make every level very unique. And you're still using all your core mechanics, but there's a lot of levels we're not going to talk about until they release because they're awesome surprises. And so hopefully that keeps. Especially, I know some games midway through, you're kind of like, "All right," I get it. So hopefully we can keep that pacing going for everyone. Mikey Spano: Each act, if not each mission, could be its own game. All the guns, each time you get a new gun, everything changes. Each time you get to a new location, it's a surprise. And we didn't do a ton of retread this time other than sidetracking or side missions, I guess. It's a lot, and I think people won't get too exhausted with it just because the variety is so broad. Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan. View the full article

Rated Overwhelmingly Positive from users on Steam, war is the focus of a major upgrade that just arrived for fantasy city-builder Songs of Syx. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article