Avatar: The Last Airbender has proven to be perennially popular since it first debuted in 2005, but outside its two main animated series, the franchise often struggles to find its footing. Avatar video games are especially dodgy. Most have been released to especially tepid reviews, even when big-name studios are responsible. Aang's newest outing, Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game, is off to a great start, though. View the full article
On July 17, Xbox-owned Bethesda announced a whole bunch of stuff about the future of Fallout and, more distantly, The Elder Scrolls and Starfield. That same day, studio union OneBGS says devs hit by recent layoffs at Bethesda's Montreal branch were told that their severance pay would be as low as legally possible despite the billions in profit recorded by parent Microsoft and investment in the IP they helped build. In a post on Bluesky, OneBGS - Bethesda Game Studios Union claims, "Montreal workers are being treated especially poorly by XBOX and we won’t stand for it." The union says that, when the layoffs were announced on July 6, employees "across the US and Canada were told via video call" that they would "remain employed until September while the company negotiated severance with our union." The union says the "breathing room" these terms provided evaporated on July 17. Behind the Fallout info explosion, the union says Xbox "told their laid-off Bethesda Montreal employees that they would receive the smallest severance legally possible without bargaining with the union." This news reportedly came via "termination letters" delivered via email. The union says this left affected employees with "the bare legal minimum in terms of severance: eight weeks of pay in lieu of the minimum legal notice, any outstanding vacation pay, etc." Additionally, the union says impacted staff "were to also immediately lose their group benefits health insurance." (Image credit: Bethesda Softworks) In response, the union has filed "yet another legal complaint against Bethesda," alleging it continues to "violate labor laws in Canada." "Bethesda and XBOX leadership depend on our labour to make them millions, and yet when we do, we are disposed of," the union concludes. "The cycle of workers paying for the mistakes of management ends here." This news was shared on Bluesky by Bethesda lead character artist Ben Carnow, who adds, "Microsoft did not negotiate with the Union over layoffs in Montreal as they are legally required to do. Folks lost their healthcare with zero notice. Unconscionable." The union's post also links to feedback listed under Xbox's new "Player Voice" forum. The post collectively calls out the thousands of Xbox staff and developers that Microsoft has laid off in just a few years, demands executive penalties and accountability (like "no executive bonuses when there is a layoff"), asks for an end to layoffs, and requests "transparency for players." The United Videogame Workers CWA union, an industry-wide organization, previously argued that the Fallout 5 and Elder Scrolls 6 news was meant to distract from the blows dealt to Bethesda employees in the background. "The timing of this kind of press is intentional," the UVW-CWA said. "How are they going to make these games when Bethesda and Obsidian collectively laid off hundreds? Don’t fall for it." [/url]View the full article
Amid the rubble of the layoffs across Xbox, which included numerous positions at Bethesda and ZeniMax, the remaining developers on The Elder Scrolls Online are starting to struggle. The MMO is one of numerous projects impacted by Microsoft's restructuring of its games division, with only a fraction of the staff attached now as opposed to prior. To mitigate their own workload, devs on The Elder Scrolls Online are making changes to what features are available to players. As of today, July 22, that includes in-game purchases, since the ability to do so through the official site has been removed. "To help manage workload, we have decided to remove the Web Crown Store from the official elderscrollsonline.com website," reads a message from Kevin Gbolie, community manager on ESO, on the official forum. [Hidden Content] "The ability to acquire crowns via the website will remain," he says, "and, of course, this does not affect the items that will be offered on the Crown Store in The Elder Scrolls Online, you will just need to login into the game to view and purchase the latest offerings." It's noted that the blog for showing off what's in the Crown Store will change as well, due to "team bandwidth." In response to comments on these changes, Gbolie mentions that while the new version of the blog is still being sorted out, it'll definitely come with a bullet list of new items. This is unfortunate because the high-res screenshots accompanying the items were used by the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages, and Gbolie even mentions the team is aware of that symbiosis. But alas, the time and energy just aren't there any more. "The team responsible for the blog and those screenshots doesn't have the capacity to provide those at the scale we could before," he writes in another post. "But we will provide what we can for now and adjust from there." It is a sad time for Bethesda, ZeniMax, this game, and the legacy behind it. These devs deserve better, but at least the game is still going – for now. Bethesda reportedly canceled an unannounced PvP shooter, likely from Wolfenstein dev MachineGames. [/url]View the full article
For years, smash-hit board game Wingspan has been getting *******. ******* in popularity and ******* in complexity thanks to its globe-trotting expansions. If we're counting the Fins and Wyrms in the family, that's even more span for your buck. Now, Elizabeth Hargrave's game is getting smaller. Wingspan Pocket gives us our simplest, most table-shy version of the birdy board game. Read the full story on Wargamer: Wingspan Pocket doesn't beat the original board game, but it's the nest best thing View the full article
The lead designer behind pioneering MMO Ultima Online says the genre has finally broken free from the shackles of World of Warcraft. Speaking to 80LV, Raph Koster, whose MMO resumé also includes a suite of early 2000s titles including EverQuest and its sequel, as well as Star Wars: Galaxies, says that he is finally returning to the genre after several decades, in part because it no longer has to chase World of Warcraft. After Blizzard began what has proven to be an almost uninterrupted stint at the top in 2004, there was a rush to create 'the WoW killer' - a feat Koster suggests was a fool's errand. In returning to MMOs with Stars Reach, Koster says he was encouraged by the feeling that "MMOs were finally free of the fever dream of imitating World of Warcraft." That's partly because of "the rise of sandboxy gameplay in multiple genres at once." Citing the broader multiplayer options of games like Minecraft, Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, Valheim, and No Man's Sky, Koster says that "it's clear that there's interest and demand for more than killing orcs over and over." Whether that's a fair criticism of World of Warcraft in 2026 is a debate I'm not qualified to have, but it's undeniable that multiplayer gaming has gained a lot of depth in the last decade. Fortnite and Roblox are other key examples, showing off a world in which the desire to simply spend time together is just as important as having a dedicated goal. The rise of 'friendslop' titles like Peak are other examples, even if they're not 'massively' multiplayer sandboxes. For Koster, "the unique thing" that MMOs offer is a persistent world and large numbers of players. Most of those games listed above offer that persistence, albeit with smaller populations, and their popularity meant Koster thought "the time was ripe" to make his return to the genre. [/url]View the full article
Sonic Team lead Takashi Iizuka teases there's more to come within the series' many pillars, and that keeping the series' momentum is a challenge. Sonic is simultaneously a yearly franchise and a franchise that feels like it's been missing. While 2026 is the first year without a new release for the series since 2018, it will feature a second season of DLC for Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds. However, fans have been wondering when a proper follow-up to Sonic Frontiers will finally emerge – possibly compounded by general disappointment with 2023's Sonic Superstars, the latest mainline entry in the series. Speaking to [Hidden Content], Iizuka explains he sees the different branches of the series as pillars – such as 2D games, 3D games, spinoffs, and collaborations. He explains, "Each of the different pillars contributes in meaningful ways to the Sonic franchise, and we're looking forward to what we have in store." As for Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, Iizuka says the second season of DLC for the acclaimed racing game – which features collabs with Godzilla and Neon Genesis Evangelion – "signals our long-term investment in the game," and while it seemingly underperformed, it looks like ***** is happy to keep trying until everyone realizes that it's actually pretty sick. Iizuka adds, "While keeping momentum in such a competitive market is always a challenge, our team remains dedicated to delivering content that stays true to the Sonic universe." Most recently, a collab game between Sonic and indie hit Pico Park was announced. A decade ago, ***** apparently had the character on the chopping block, but fortunately the blue blur is likely here to stay for now… I really want to hear about that Frontiers sequel though. Sonic fans couldn't wait for *****'s new alternate-reality game – until they spotted the AI training agreement. [/url]View the full article
Dungeon Crawler Carl fans have a new free game based on the popular book series to check out right now. The Dungeon Crawler Carl series has blown up among litRPG fans in recent years, so much so that it has spawned a TV adaptation and a tabletop RPG. An official Dungeon Crawler Carl video game can now be played for free as well, featuring some Easter eggs fans of the series are sure to enjoy. View the full article
The war against cheaters continues, with Activision bringing in the latest round of protections for Call of Duty: ****** Ops 7. The publisher is utilizing the Ricochet software to help handle ne'er-do-wells in the FPS, in order to better single out the more discreet exploits players are taking advantage of. Ricochet is already part of the framework for the latest Call of Duty, and Warzone 2, but now Activision's revealed the partnership is being extended. "Through June, Ricochet Anti-Cheat banned more than 293,000 accounts year-to-date while making it harder for cheaters to create new ones," a social media statement reads. "In Season 5, we're further expanding our hardware ban capabilities." This was prompted by a rash of poor behavior in Ranked, where the higher-skilled players frequent. Cheaters are getting smarter and more intricate, only using tools for specific instances, making it harder to catch them in the act. [Hidden Content] 21, 2026 Cases are getting so minute, in fact, that Activision says only a small portion of the accounts that get spotted and banned stem from video evidence captured by others. What you can see as another competitor in the same match is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the data the devs are gathering. "Public clips can help flag cases that deserve a closer look, but they account for about 0.11% of all enforcement actions," the post reads. "The remaining 99.89% are driven by detection data, investigations, in-game player reports, and internal monitoring. In other words, the work is happening well beyond what players can see publicly." Ricochet, then, "combines client protections, server-side analysis, and dedicated investigation tools" for a robust set of defences against malicious carry on. A kernel-level driver can spot third-party software that shouldn't be part of the in-game experience, layering the hurdles for cheaters. The message ends by pointing that while "bans matter," you may not see the banhammer come down straight away. Timing is taken into consideration, to help avoid exploiters adapting too quickly to the latest defences. This is a constant bugbear, but with any luck, ****** Ops 7 and Warzone 2 will see a decrease in such activity. At least, for now. Call of Duty: ****** Ops and ****** Ops 2 ports were both in the top 10 US PlayStation games last week despite cheating and DLC mess [/url]View the full article
Fright Train is a brand-new survival horror game set to release on Steam in September, and it looks like it could be an intriguing blend of two iconic video game franchises. With its monstrous enemies, horror atmosphere, and locomotive setting, Fright Train seems to be borrowing from Resident Evil Zero, while the upcoming Steam game's anthropomorphic protagonist might remind players of Star Fox's titular hero. View the full article
To celebrate 10 years of whacky, silyl multiplayer fun, Human Fall Flat have released an all-new, free level! This anniversary level is packed with nostalgia, hidden secrets, and even stories from the game’s development that haven’t been shared before. This includes classic levels inspired by Mansion, Mountain, Demolition, Castle, Water, Powerplant and Aztec. Human Fall […]View the full article
The founder of Stalker 2 developer GSC Game World has said the game turned a profit before it even came out thanks to the money Microsoft paid for Xbox exclusivity. In an interview with YouTuber OLDboi, GSC Game World founder Sergiy Grygorovych said that Microsoft was so impressed by the number of views the debut Stalker 2 trailer received, that it soon got in touch with the Ukraine company to negotiate terms for exclusivity. “We took more than the cost of Stalker 2,” Grygorovych, who has since left GSC Game World to make a new game with a new studio, said. “It paid for itself before the first day.” IGN has asked GSC Game World for comment. Xbox was heavily involved with Stalker 2, which was made amid Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It snapped up timed console exclusivity and a day-one launch on Xbox Game Pass, while also helping to produce and market the game, as well as a making-of documentary. After a series of understandable delays, Stalker 2 launched on PC and Xbox Series X and S in November 2024, as well as on Game Pass. It was released on PlayStation 5 a year later, in November 2025. Stalker 2 was originally due out much earlier, in Q4 2021, as per documents revealed in 2021. Stalker 2 was a sales success, hitting 1 million copies in two days. It has so far surpassed 6 million players. Cost of Hope, the first major story expansion for Stalker 2, launched in the summer. Grygorovych did not say how much money Microsoft paid for the exclusivity, nor how much Stalker 2 cost to develop. But his comments do shine a light on Microsoft’s gaming philosophy when it was building up its content portfolio to help boost interest in Game Pass. Indeed, developers have over the years praised Microsoft for cutting generous deals for Game Pass and exclusivity, with some saying they helped reduce risk and keep studios afloat. Now, amid new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma’s “reset” of Microsoft’s gaming business, the future of Game Pass is unclear. Microsoft cut 1,600 staff from Xbox earlier this month, with another 1,600 to go this financial year. Sharma has pulled Call of Duty out of Game Pass as a day-one launch title, and is doubling down on Xbox’s biggest franchises, such as Fallout. Four studios are confirmed to be leaving Microsoft ownership, with another on its way. Sharma has called it the most “significant” restructure in Xbox history, insisting Microsoft’s gaming business “is not healthy.” Speaking on MinnMax, Mike Brown, who was creative director on the hugely successful Forza Horizon 5 before leaving developer Playground to found his own studio, Maverick Games, which is set to release an open world racer of his own called Clutch, said this week that Game Pass had failed to hit enough subscribers to justify Microsoft’s huge spending on content acquisition. This includes the eye-watering $69 billion Microsoft splashed out on Call of Duty developer Activision Blizzard. “I think it's really sad and I think it's really, really unfortunate,” Brown began. “They've honestly invested a fortune in the concept of Game Pass as a service, which led to loads of teams being acquired, loads of games being funded, loads of people getting jobs, all with a vision of getting regular games landing in this service for players. I think the reality is not enough people have subscribed to it at the prices that they needed to pay in order to make that business viable. “And, that’s actually just really sad. Because we're now going to see studios getting shut down or spun off, and loads of people are going to lose their jobs, and that is honestly just a result of a well-meaning, player-focused concept of Xbox Game Pass not quite landing.” Brown went on to defend Microsoft and Game Pass, praising the concept of the subscription service and the games that would otherwise not have been made were it not to have existed. “It’s just a real shame,” he continued. “And as much as people point fingers and call different people within Xbox the villain of the piece, the concept of Game Pass was good. Like, it's a good idea. Let's have a subscription, make it affordable, try and get games to more people. We'll have a really diverse selection of games on there. We'll get a load of studios involved. We'll make some games that probably couldn't exist otherwise. And if more people had subscribed, that makes enough money and it works, and all of those studios go on and those games get made again and those teams will make other games. Unfortunately, it didn’t. “I don’t know the number it needed to hit was, but it never reached the number that would make a $70 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard make financial sense. It’s really unfortunate. We don’t know what the future is just yet, but it is a reshaping of the business around that, after the first concept didn’t quite land.” Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at *****@*****.tld. View the full article
A 2D fantasy game called The Winter Tower is scheduled to be delisted from Steam on July 31, though users who claim it before then can keep it permanently. It is quite common for indie games on Steam to be removed, but not every soon-to-be-delisted title gives users an opportunity to keep it in their libraries at no cost. View the full article
Ubisoft has just expanded its presence on Xbox Game Pass by adding more than 80 titles, though there is one caveat. Despite that, the update gives PC players another way to browse and purchase some of their favorite games from Ubisoft’s library, including many of the publisher’s biggest franchises. View the full article
A former Bethesda employee has revealed that the publisher was working on an unannounced PVP shooter which was eventually canceled. The employee, who was included in Xbox's latest wave of layoffs that hit the publisher, included details about his 12-year tenure at Bethesda on his LinkedIn profile (via Twitter user Timur222), which included a detail from his role as an associate producer that reads: "Supported production on an unannounced PvP FPS title (subsequently canceled), contributing to scheduling and cross-team coordination." However, that's pretty much all there is in terms of info for this title. Keep in mind the dev worked at Bethesda Softworks, not Bethesda Game Studios – the studio developing Elder Scrolls and Fallout titles – so there's a ton of possibilities. One throughline in the resume is working with Machine Games on Wolfenstein games, and while the studio most recently released Indiana Jones and The Great Circle, there was a rumored FPS title in the works. In a Bethesda roadmap leaked in 2023, there was a title called "Project Platinum," which Giant Bomb founder Jeff Gerstmann identified as a Machine Games title in the vein of Rainbow Six Siege or Counter-Strike. Over a year ago, Timur222 also spotted a "Canceled unannounced project" on the LinkedIn page of another MachineGames employee, giving the idea that this was Project Platinum a little more evidence, given it fits within the 2021 - 2025 timeframe. Earlier this year, rumors emerged that MachineGames had begun work on Wolfenstein 3, after eight years and two spinoffs since Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus' ending, which felt like it was the beginning of something big (I mean, you gotta kill Mecha Hitler, right?). Since the layoffs, word has emerged that Bethesda is set to focus on its "strongest franchises," which includes Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein. And while wanting to focus on Doom and Quake while destroying the studio behind them is certainly a move, the news does suggest that Wolfenstein 3 is safe from cancellation for now. Doom developer id Software "is essentially dead," Duke Nukem 3D co-creator says after layoffs [/url]View the full article
Nex, the company behind Nex Playground, have added Freefall Racers to its Play Pass catalogue. Originally developed by Smoking Gun Interactive for the Xbox Kinect in 2013, the game is making a generational comeback over a decade later, revamped and optimized for its new home on Nex Playground. In Freefall Racers, players suit up as adventurous flying squirrels, racing through colorful skies, weaving through obstacles, soaring around tight turns, and chasing victory across imaginative courses. Using motion-based technology on Nex Playground, players can lean, dodge, and steer through each race seamlessly, transforming movement into fast-paced competition that gets the whole family off the couch and into the action. The Nex Playground version builds on the original experience with gameplay enhancements designed specifically for today’s families, including: Full-body flying gameplay that lets players control their character using natural body movementEight colorful race tracks spanning vibrant environments with unique obstacles and challengesSingle-player and local two-player modes for solo adventures or head-to-head family competitionFlight Assist for smoother, more approachable controls optimized for Nex PlaygroundFlight School, a new tutorial that helps players quickly master flying mechanicsCup Collection mode featuring multiple championship cups to conquerXP progression system that unlocks new characters, tracks and cups as players advance “Some games may be ahead of their time,” said David Lee, CEO and co-founder of Nex, in a press release. “Freefall Racers has always had an incredibly fun core concept, and using motion technology on Nex Playground finally allows that vision to shine for families. It’s a perfect example of how great gameplay can find new life on the right platform with the right audience, and we’re excited to welcome it to Nex Playground.” “We are thrilled to bring Freefall Racers to Nex Playground! We can’t wait for families to meet our zany flying squirrel crew and start soaring down unique landscapes,” said Jacob Barrows, studio head of Smoking Gun Interactive, in the same press release. “With three distinct speed classes and many tracks, cups, and characters to unlock, there is a perfect experience for every racer, whether you’re just starting out or aiming for gold in every race. Freefall Racers will be flying onto your Nex Playground on July 22nd!” Players can try the new version of the game exclusively on Nex Playground through Play Pass, the content subscription service that unlocks the full catalogue of games and experiences on Nex Playground. The post Former Xbox Kinect game Freefall Racers added to Nex Playground appeared first on GamesBeat. View the full article
Palworld's head of publishing and communications, John 'Bucky' Buckley, has promised players that Palworld will always be playable, as, at its core, it's not a live service game. The creature-collecting survival-crafting game has seen a resurgence of players since it left early access on July 10, 2026. Palworld is by no means a single-player game, and the majority of players use at least some of its online functions. You can invite up to four people to your world to play in co-op, or create a server that up to 32 people can be a part of. This can be helpful for trading pals, building bases, taking on raids and dungeons and generally hanging out. However, none of these online functions are required for Palworld, and it is possible to play entirely offline by yourself. However, the popularity of the multiplayer and online functions has led to some confusion over what will happen to the game once Pocketpair's servers are inevitably shut down, despite it primarily being a single-player game. Responding to someone on the Palworld Discord who asked about what will happen to the game after its servers are shut down, Bucky says, "Palworld isn't a live service anyway, so… why would you assume it had an 'end of service'?" When someone else says they don't expect Pocketpair to host servers forever, he clarifies, "Well, no, but you will always be able to play the game. Again. Not a live service game." It's normal for players to worry about their favorite games going down after a number of live-service titles have been shut down shortly after launch. Most recently, Highguard was shut down a little over a month after going live due to low player count. Even if a game is popular, it will eventually go offline when the player base dwindles, like with Super Mario Maker, which remained online for almost a decade. Palworld's popularity currently shows no signs of slowing down, but it's nice to know that when multiplayer ultimately goes down, we'll still be able to hang with our Pals. Palworld 1.0 has already moved over 1.8 million copies for Pocketpair, analyst estimates, with 65% of players on Steam [/url]View the full article
Xbox has announced Xbox backward compatibility for PC, with four original Xbox games released today on the Xbox app. In a post on Xbox Wire, Microsoft says, "Today, we’re introducing Xbox Backward Compatibility on PC, making it easier to play classic Xbox games from the past across PC and handhelds, including the ROG Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X." The post adds, "As players, we don’t want to leave our gaming legacy behind even as technology continues to evolve and advance. We expect our library of games to move forward with us and to be able to play them in entirely new ways." If that isn't a soft confirmation of Project Helix having backwards compatibility, I don't know what is. Included in this list is Rare remake Conker: Live and Reloaded, flight combat title Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge, failed mascot Blinx: The Time Sweeper, and Bill Gates' favorite game Fuzion Frenzy. The post continues, "This marks the beginning of a broader effort to preserve Xbox games from the past and bring them to PC over time." Oh, and all four are included with all Xbox Game Pass plans. Microsoft also says these editions will have enhancements, explaining, "We are also adding new features to make your gaming experience better than ever." These include "4x resolution upscaling, VSync support, Fullscreen and Windowed display modes, anisotropic filtering, enhanced anti-aliasing, and more. These games also include customizable language and audio settings." Xbox confirms that Achievements will be coming to these original Xbox games, with the four games released today set to be updated to include them "in the coming months." Arkane founder asks Xbox CEO "how much" Microsoft wants for the studio: "I'm asking for a friend" [/url]View the full article
Xboxhas been undergoing some major brand pivots recently, and the latest should actually appeal to plenty of fans. So far, the brand has had some luck by leaning more heavily on nostalgia, with a new, three-dimensional logo and an upcoming transparent version of the Xbox Series X harkening back to the company's branding in the early 2000s. View the full article
It's hard to believe that Game of Thrones first debuted 15 years ago now, though back in 2015, fans of the show never would have imagined the extent of its impact on popular culture since then. George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire universe has expanded considerably since the original HBO series first aired, with House of the Dragon on its third season, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms set for a second season next year, the upcoming War for Westeros game, and more adaptations such as the Aegon's Conquest film planned in the coming years as well. View the full article
Mortal Shell 2, an upcoming Soulslike heading to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, has just been given an official rating by the ESRB. The highly anticipated PS5 Soulslike is set to launch on August 20, and its new ESRB rating teases some very intense, very gory gameplay. View the full article
Death Road to Canada has been around for a decade now, with consistent updates adding more content. While the developers are working on a new game, which is in playtesting phases, they have announced that the updates aren’t going to slow down for Death Road to Canada, with the TRACHEA Update being the most recent […]View the full article
Okay, we’ve got a bit of a good news/bad news situation here. Good news first: Without hyperbole, Avatar Legends is one of the most fun fighting games I’ve ever played. There’s something special about the way these characters move, the variety in their playstyles, their incredible animations, the flexibility of their combat options, and the satisfying ways they can execute some of the sickest combos I’ve ever seen. In so many ways, this is the game Avatar: The Last Airbender has deserved, as well as the old-school 1-on-1 fighter that hardcore fighting game fans have been clamoring for recently. But now the bad news: That stellar gameplay does some pretty heavy lifting, as the package around it is lacking in surprising ways. From an inability to change the difficulty level of the AI in single player, to a cumbersome training mode that’s missing standard features, to lobbies that can only support two players, the list goes on and on. Like Aang and Korra at the beginning of their stories, Avatar Legends is rough and unpolished, but beaming with potential. The best way to describe Avatar Legends in fighting game terms is that it’s a fast-paced, mobility-driven 1v1 fighter, focusing on creative combo expression, a high bar of execution, and the uniqueness of each character as opposed to powerful, universal system mechanics. All of that to say, this is one of the most difficult 1v1 fighting games to learn, but the payoff once you’re able to actually perform even a fraction of what these characters are capable of is extraordinary. The fundamentals of the fighting system are simple at a glance: there are three attack buttons, covering light, medium, and heavy strikes, and then a “Flow” button that is generally tied to each character’s unique movement options. As is the case with many anime fighting games, there’s a basic logic of being able to combo a light into a medium into a heavy into a special move, and there’s even an auto-combo for those that just want to mash one button and get some respectable damage. But it’s that Flow button that really opens up Avatar’s fighting system and makes it truly special. Every character has a very particular way of moving around the screen, and these mobility options can be absolutely wild. Aang, for instance, can press forward-Flow for a quick forward hop that has three different follow-ups, all of which have wildly different uses. Or he can press Flow and a direction in the air to take out his glider to attack from unpredictable and awkward angles, control the direction of the wind to affect his momentum in the air, or fast fall from the sky, just to name a few of his techniques. Each fighter has their own way of breaking the rules of this system. Meanwhile, Azula can air dash in eight directions twice before touching the ground (in just one of her forms); Toph can shift the earth to pull opponents towards her, or herself towards opponents; Katara can charge special moves while being able to slide across the ground – and that just scratches the surface of what these characters can do. Each of the 12 fighters on the roster has their own way of breaking the rules of this system, and it makes each one feel incredibly powerful and satisfying to learn. In addition to the Flow meter that governs all of those crazy movement techniques, there’s also a well designed energy meter governing EX special move and super usage. Instead of being a bar that fills up as you take or receive damage, the energy meter is segmented into individual points, and you only get a maximum of one point per combo. There are other ways to gain energy as well, including character specific “critical hits” that reward you for performing certain skillful feats. I love having to make on the fly decisions about how to build and spend resources, and between both meters, Avatar Legends’ fighting system is one of the very best when it comes to that aspect of fighting games. As a big Avatar fan, another aspect of the design that I love is how closely each kit embodies the spirit of the character. In the show, Korra is highly skilled and powerful from the very start, but she’s also reckless and tends to wind up in bad situations after acting without thinking. Here, that’s reflected with a very hard-hitting playstyle that can deal a lot of damage, but also comes with a lot of risk. Her high damage combo routes can cost of lot of meter, she has risky tools that most other characters don’t (like a meterless invincible reversal), and her special moves can all be enhanced for more damage at the cost of even more meter, which makes it very easy to accidentally wind up in the highly detrimental “unbalanced” state that’s caused by emptying your entire Flow meter. I love how closely each kit embodies the spirit of each character. Azula, on the other hand, has two completely different forms: Focused and Firelord. Focused embodies Azula’s calm and collected demeanor that we see throughout most of the show, and that’s reflected with a fighting style that requires a lot of precision, with much of her damage locked behind special move extensions that require button presses within a one or two frame window. That’s contrasted by her Firelord form, which represents her total meltdown toward the end of the series. Her precisely timed special move extensions go out the window, her air dashes become slower but cover more distance, she does more damage with fewer hits, and ultimately just becomes an absolute close-range monster that can smother you with overwhelming force. That’s not all, as the entire roster also has three support characters that can be chosen before a match begins to change up elements of their kits, much like the character variations from Mortal Kombat X. These can empower specific special moves in ways that open up new combo routes, grant you new special moves entirely, or improve your movement techniques. All of these systems work together to make what is a fairly small roster on paper feel much *******. Then The Fire Nation Attacked Avatar Legends’ story mode is an original tale outlined by series creator Michael Dante DiMartino and written by Tim Hedrick, who has written many episodes of both The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, along with several other pieces of canonical Avatar content. Despite that authenticity, however, it mostly feels like fanfiction fluff. It begins with Aang waking up in an alternate universe where he doesn’t exist, people who shouldn’t exist in the same time ******* are best buds, and everyone is basically the polar opposite of how they normally act. There are a handful of fun callbacks, and the voice acting is quite good despite not featuring almost any of the original cast, but the overall story never sank its hooks into me, which made the whopping 27 chapter campaign overstay its welcome by the time I hit chapter 15 or so. Outside of the lackluster story mode, there’s really not much else here to hold the attention of anyone who isn’t interested in competing against other people online. There’s a traditional arcade mode, but no ability to adjust the difficulty of the AI, so if the matches are either too easy or too hard, you’re out of luck. On the teaching tools front, Avatar Legends is kind of all over the place. It’s great that there’s a frame meter turned on by default to immediately help you understand the frame data of a move, as well as an option to turn hit boxes on so you can understand the actual range and vulnerability of an attack. But on the flipside, doing simple things in training mode like setting a ****** to jab after blocking is extremely cumbersome thanks to a poor UI; and, shockingly, there is no way to set the ****** to block randomly, making it very difficult to practice hit confirms. The combo trials at least are pretty good at teaching practical combos at the novice and intermediate ranks, and a clever “Breakdown” feature allows you to go through a combo step by step – the screen freezes for each input, allowing you to get the muscle memory of a combo down without having to worry about the timing. What’s really cool though is that in addition to combo trials, there are character specific tutorials that actually teach you how to best make use of a character’s tools to pressure opponents, open them up with mix-ups, or defend against their offense. I do think these tutorials could do a bit better of a job easing you into the nutty stuff that characters can do, but nonetheless, it’s a great idea and I wish more fighting games would spend as much time teaching you how to land the hits that enable combos as they do on the actual combos themselves. Finally, my experience thus far with online play has been excellent, with smooth rollback netcode and a very snappy pace thanks to quick rematches, lightning fast load times, and instant returns to practice mode if the match drops due to a disconnect. That said, online also has some very surprising omissions that should be standard in a modern fighting game. The worst offender is the lack of lobby support for more than two players, which means you can’t set up a room to play with more than one friend where two people play and the rest watch and await their turn. This is apparently planned for a post-launch update, but it’s a glaring omission right out of the gate. Less shocking, but still worth pointing out, is the lack of replay search, which is used to find replays of high-level players so you can see how they handle specific matchups, nor is there replay takeover. Both features would be nice to have, especially in a game with so much variation in how its characters can be played. 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A World of Warcraft game master has been accused of helping a Twitch streamer's Mythic group cheat a high-level dungeon by using their GM powers to insta-kill an enemy, and Blizzard says it's actively investigating the situation as evidence piles up. This began with a July 21 Reddit post from user Acrobatic_Pianist688, who claimed to have seen a "Blizzard GM death touching mobs in M+23 for their favorite streamer." Of course, we don't actually know if anyone's "favorite" streamer was involved, but Acrobatic_Pianist did link to a Warcraft Log record showing an abrupt end to a Mythic+23 fight in the Nexus-Point Xenas dungeon, caused by an "instakill" and "Area Death (TEST)" effect from user Daijosai, believed to be the GM in question. Game masters are Blizzard employees with World of Warcraft privileges and permissions that enable them to resolve in-game disputes and support requests. The incident caught fire online, and chatter only intensified after this Warcraft log was highlighted in a stream from WoW content creator yumytv during a conversation with Yiesus, a small Twitch streamer and one of the apparent teammates in this dungeon run, who's described by yumy as "witness testimony." The moment was clipped and shared, the Twitch chat filled with accusations of "cheater," after Yiesus openly said, "I go to my GM friend, I'm like, bro, please can you do me a solid? This thing has 20 mil bro, can you please just one-shot? One time for the one time. I meant no harm from it. If Blizzard wants to revoke that key or revoke my title, whatever they see fit, I don't care. Personally, I think it was harmless. I didn't expect him to do it. In hindsight he shouldn't have done it. He was just doing me a solid." One of the other streamers in this dungeon run, YaraByte, shared the same clip on her Twitter. This mess quickly reached the official Blizzard forums, with players calling for the GM to be punished and the clear to be revoked, prompting a response from Blizzard. Late Tuesday night, community manager ****** 'Kaivax' Jordan replied, both in the forum thread and to the original Reddit post. "Thank you to those who flagged this," Jordan says. "We are reviewing and will take action as appropriate. A fair and competitive playing field is essential to our games, and we won’t tolerate cheating." Blizzard continues taking action against World of Warcraft private servers as it pushes on with a lawsuit citing "large-scale, egregious, and ongoing infringement" of its MMO. [/url]View the full article
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Avatar: The Last Airbender has proven to be perennially popular since it first debuted in 2005, but outside its two main animated series, the franchise often struggles to find its footing. Avatar video games are especially dodgy. Most have been released to especially tepid reviews, even when big-name studios are responsible. Aang's newest outing, Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game, is off to a great start, though. View the full article