A listing on GameStop may have accidentally revealed a second playable character in Resident Evil Requiem. The listing for the PC version’s Deluxe Edition – which has since been edited to remove the section in question – lists its bonus content, including new skins for an as-yet unannounced character. According to the listing, the Deluxe Edition includes The Sanctuary, an Expansion Pass which adds two new story scenarios and “a major Mercenaries mode update”. Read More... View the full article
A lovely blast from the past of 2015, Nuclear Throne from the revived Vlambeer has update #100 out now with some major additions and improvements. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article
Final Fantasy's Cloud has one of the most recognizable weapons in gaming history, but the Final Fantasy 7 Remake team actually considered resizing his iconic Buster Sword to make it more realistic before deciding to stick with the original design. In a new interview alongside Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 director Guillaume Broche, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi opened up about the decision, admitting that while rescaling Cloud's sword did come up, "it was just too iconic" to change. "While making Remake, there was this aspect of the weight and how Cloud swings it around with one hand that sort of felt like it would weaken the sense of realism, you know?" Hamaguchi said, according to a translation by a Final Fantasy fan account on X/Twitter (thanks, GR+). "So at the time, when we were making Remake, there was some discussion about whether we should give Cloud a more realistic version of the Buster Sword," Hamaguchi added. "But it was just too iconic, and if we'd made it just a regular old sword, players wouldn't accept it." He closed, stressing: "In the end we stayed faithful to the OG. A whole new generation of people fell in love with it, so I think it was the right call." As for the latest on Final Fantasy Remake Part 3? Well, in the same interview, Hamaguchi teased that the "core game experience is almost complete," and while he "really want everyone to play it as soon as possible," the team has now moved on to "refining and polishing." Curiously, he also warned the team "never intended to make all three parts feel like the same game." "As the director, I feel a very strong sense of the game’s final form," the director said. "Honestly, I really want everyone to play it as soon as possible, but of course, since it’s a game, it needs to be carefully crafted before it can be delivered to players. "Once we go through this phase properly, we’ll be able to present it in a form we’re satisfied with. So I ask everyone to wait just a little longer, and we’ll be able to share more information soon." Interestingly, he also teased that "Highwind" will be an important keyword for the third instalment. "As for the third part, introducing new gameplay experiences and a new scale is key to successfully delivering the project to players. 'Highwind' is certainly an important keyword here, there's no doubt about that," he teased. Meanwhile, Briana White, the actress who portrays Aerith in Final Fantasy 7, has called on fans to stop tagging voice artists in spicy material featuring their characters. Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky. View the full article
Battlefield 6 developer DICE has released a brand-new update for its smash-hit first-person shooter, bringing tons of new content, bug fixes, improvements, and balance adjustments to the latest entry in the series. The update is available to download now on all supported platforms, which include PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, but Battlefield 6fans should be aware that the new content included in today's Winter Offensive patch won't be live in-game until 12 PM UTC. View the full article
Wargaming announced its World of Tanks Modern Armor is inviting players on PlayStation and Xbox to step into Winter Fest 2025, the biggest event of the year. Running from December 9, 2025, through January 5, 2026, it expands the game’s winter universe with a full slate of activities, including daily gifts from the 2025 Winter Calendar, special store offerings, two thematic event modes, seasonal rewards, and much more. .memberful-global-teaser-content p:last-child{ -webkit-mask-image: linear-gradient(180deg, #000 0%, transparent); mask-image: linear-gradient(180deg, #000 0%, transparent); } Read This Article Free Get instant access by joining the GB MAX Access tier — it’s free to sign up and unlock premium content.Join Now to Start ReadingAlready a member? Sign in The post World of Tanks launches Modern Armor holiday event appeared first on GamesBeat. View the full article
The developer team at Discord released a new engineering blog post yesterday (December 8th) detailing lots of fixes, along with some Linux improvements. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article
With the first release of Hytale finally approaching, the developers are still working through getting it running on Linux and macOS. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article
Capcom plans to build Mega Man, ****** May Cry and Ace Attorney up to the status of “core IPs” like its more popular series. That’s according to Capcom president and COO Haruhiro Tsujimoto, who recently discussed the company’s growth strategies as part of a new 86-page corporate report. In the report, Tsujimoto identified Resident Evil, Monster Hunter and Street Fighter as Capcom’s three biggest franchises, describing them as the company’s ‘core IPs’. Read More... View the full article
Developer team EMINOMA have officially rebranded Team Fortress 2 Classic into Team Fortress 2 Classified, and they've set a release date for January 30th. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article
Framework Computer BV have announced a nice big expansion of their sponsorship program with many open source events and Linux distributions benefiting from it. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article
Tonda Ros, the creator of Blue Prince, is nearing the end of a triumphant year. His game released to critical acclaim and, more recently, accolades. It won Best Indie Game at the Golden Joystick Awards and was nominated for Game of the Year and Best Storytelling. And it’s been nominated for Best Independent Game and Best Debut Indie Game at The Game Awards 2025. A recent collaboration with iam8bit has resulted in Blue Prince merch — a dream for any small indie title. And Ros is on the cusp of finishing and releasing the final update to Blue Prince, which will include a color assist mode, control remapping, the long-awaited minigame Dirigiblocks, and (my personal favorite change) the addition of a cat to Mount Holly. I spoke to Ros last month, after the Golden Joystick nominations had taken place but before The Game Awards list was out. Like many of my colleagues, my brain had been eaten alive by Blue Prince earlier this year when I played it ahead of launch. I’ve ruined a perfectly good journal scribbling attempted puzzle solutions and wild conspiracy theories about what’s happening in Mount Holly, and how I might peel it apart like an egg to get at whatever was inside. I was thrilled beyond measure at Blue Prince’s fantastic victory lap of a final puzzle, but also driven absolutely bonkers by the fact that neither it nor any other puzzle in the game sufficiently answers every single last question Blue Prince asks. Like Lady Clara, I was left for months wondering, Does It Never End? Tonda Ros still won’t tell me whether it does or not. For me, it has — I’ve put down Blue Prince happy with my experience. For Ros personally, Blue Prince has not yet ended. But it will, eventually. He has many more, very different adventures ahead of him. Here’s the transcript of our full interview, very lightly edited for length and clarity. Though we don’t spoil any of Blue Prince outright, we do nod to some of the late-game themes throughout our conversation, so proceed at your own risk: IGN: I loved your game. Thank you for eating away over 100 hours of my life earlier this year. Tonda Ros: I'll say thanks. And I apologize too. I knew specifically for press that it would be like... there's so many games to cover, right? So it's always scary to give someone a very big meal because you are taking away some attention inadvertently from others, which kind of... I don't know. That's a weird thing to try to wrap your head around. IGN: It's the problem of the universe, right? I mean, there's too much art. There's too many things. There's too many books I want to read, too many games I want to play. Ros: I know. It's like pick two mediums, and the rest you're going to have to be content with casually enjoying and appreciating it. But to really, really appreciate a medium, there's too much content to really sink your teeth in. So I think you have to pick at least two at a time and maybe throughout your life, you can have your book era and then your game era. But yeah, it's something I struggle with too. IGN: I wanted to ask you what you were up to now. This thing took eight years of your life, and it's out now and you don't need to constantly be patching things or whatever. What era are you in? What are you doing? Ros: I mean, honestly, it's still the Blue Prince era. I was always told there's a year of upkeep, even if you're fully done at the time of launch. And I was like, "Okay." I had been told that by enough people that I appreciated that that was true, even though I didn't really understand. But it is definitely consuming everything. I guess I care about every single little detail, which is I wish I could just let go. Iam8bit is releasing some cool products based on Blue Prince. So much of my time is just spent hyper-fixating on the details of the replica of the key and stuff to try to make sure it's right. So a whole bunch of stuff like that. And then we just did the Mac port, so that was taking a lot of my time. I'm in there playtesting that nonstop to try to make sure that that is as accurate to the experience as it possibly can be. And likewise as we're working on various updates as they go. So I mean honestly, even though Blue Prince is out, I'm still fully focused on that, and that's not even counting the final Blue Prince update, which has been tied up in all these other things that have consumed me, we'll say. I'm probably still another year out from being onto my next era, but I am looking forward to finally moving on. IGN: It feels like there's something weirdly poetic here about a game that is at least in part about this obsession and not quite being able to put the mystery down. We're all trying to decide if all the secrets have been found, and you have not been able to put down the game either for different reasons. Ros: No, I was living it. I think my experience making it is it pretty much echoes the player's journey because in the beginning the project was very grockable. I could fathom the scope of it very easily and then throughout the whole project, the intricate web of systems and interconnected things just spiraled out of control. And I think near the end, I was as lost as anyone was, and I was like, "I think at some point I just have to release this because this is starting to get away from me." I often joke that the house has a mind of its own. So even if I'm trying to implement new features or fix some quirks of the house, the house just won't let me. And at a certain point, I was just like, "I'm just going to have to respect what Mt. Holly is." And if she won't let me do something, I'm just going to be like, "Okay, that's the way you want to be, I'm just going to let you exist as an entity unto yourself." And I think that was it getting out of- it's spiraling out of control is just me saying, "This will probably just consume the rest of my life if I don't arbitrarily stop this at some point." IGN: What do you make of the reaction to it? I mean it's obviously been very positive, but I feel like Blue Prince has taken off in a way that games of this genre don't normally get to see. Ros: Yeah, yeah. Super crazy. I would love to try to figure out- If I could separate myself from my own work, it's like, what set of circumstances has led to this? Because I think a lot of things in life, it's like the right place, the right time, the right appetite. There was a good window there where they just wanted to get into something like this that they hadn't. And that's not to say there weren't games like this, but they just for whatever reason hadn't come across their plate before. So I think for a lot of people it was even more of a fresh experience than it should have been. If maybe they had been playing a lot of the games in the genre, you could identify that this isn't super crazy. Maybe meshed together, it was pretty original. But yeah, I had always considered it pretty niche. In playtesting, I had a pretty good sense of the type of people that would like it. And I also knew that not all puzzle fans will like it because the strategy and very difficult board game aspect, it's not a game that's easy at all. And so I thought that that would probably further limit the audience. So yeah, to see the reception and to see it blow up has just been... I just feel really lucky. IGN: I think the one criticism I see come up over and over are the people who are really into the puzzles but who just bristle against the rogue-like elements or the randomness of them, especially when you know the answer to a puzzle, and you just need that specific room and you just can't get it. What do you make of that? Ros: I knew that was coming, and that's why I'm surprised the game was as popular as it was given that, because I had seen that in play testing. And I knew that there was some people that they just have to have more control, and it's hard for them to let go a little bit of the control and be in a system. But I just wanted to make a game the way I like it. And I like when I'm in a system, even if it's a hostile system, part of the fun is figuring out a way to tame the beast and to navigate around those challenges. And it is very board game-coded in that way. And a lot of times in board games you're going to be in situations where you're going to have to work with the cards that you do draw to try to create a strategy. And that's fun with a lot of my favorite types of board games, is you have to use these things to develop a strategy on your own. So there's a level of player input and creativity, which I just absolutely love, but I don't think that's for everyone and certainly a lot of people from the puzzle community. I think puzzle games in general have historically been linear experiences, and so a big departure like this is going to ruffle some traditional feathers for sure. IGN: There were some discussions of player-antagonistic design this year around Blue Prince and some other games too, about what is the enjoyment and joy you get out of playing something that it feels like it's constantly fighting you in some way. Ros: Yeah. I think that's something that's largely been ironed out of a lot of games. I mean, I think if you at least go back to the '80s and '90s, things were a lot more, let's say, less smooth and less- more friction and more failure. Certainly in the game over era, just getting game overs and restarting was just a core component. And a lot of things were Ghosts 'n Goblins. We're just going to replay this, we're going to replay this. We're just going to get better and better with our skill. And obviously I think as people optimized player journey, I think the emphasis started being about polishing and making the player journey a lot less turbulent. And that's certainly not the types of games I like. I like to get challenged both mechanically but also challenged in terms of my own taste. Maybe if I'm used to playing a certain type of game, I'm totally okay with someone subverting genre norms or technical things to try something new even if it fails. I think it's cool to see someone try something that's not the default line. IGN: I feel like I know the answer to this already, but I got to ask. So to your knowledge, have players found everything? Is there anything left? Does it never end? Ros: I don't think I'm ever going to answer that. IGN: Yeah. I had to try. Ros: I think people are suspicious that I am reluctant to answer that. All I can say is that it's designed for a single player to be able to experience everything in the game. IGN: I feel like if you've gotten deep enough into Blue Prince, it's pretty easy to understand why you don't want to answer that question. Ros: Yep, yep. And it's probably just my personality type. I feel like I probably wouldn't want to answer that question for anything I make because answering that question definitively will close a bit of the magic off in some ways, I think. I think that as long as there's a chance that there's more to discover, then there will be the hope of players or let's say the exploration. It's like in the frontier. When there's unexplored territory, then adventurers can still dream. Even if they never go to those territories, there's still the imagination of what exists in the woods that have never been explored. And then with Google Maps and stuff, and now the land masses are all explored. Some of that magic and imagination is at least curbed. IGN: This is maybe some of the same question. But would you ever consider adding more to Blue Prince? I mean, you said this is going to be the final update that you're working on. Is that just totally against the spirit of it? Ros: Yeah, I mean, I don't know the spirit of it, but for me, I do love complete games. And I do love when something is definitively done. So I had tried my best to get everything into the game at launch because that was something I just really wanted. I didn't want to eternally be updating this. Well, all I can say is that there is a definitive amount of stuff in the game that is planned, and some of it had to get sacrificed in order to increase stability and to work on some of the functioning systems to have a smoother experience for everyone. There were a couple cinematics and cutscenes that were in the process of being created, but I was just like, "If I focus on these, I'm not going to be able to focus on any of the remaining bugs or gameplay stuff." And that's just a fact of it being my very first game and being such a small team of just me and a few people helping me. That I had to understand my own limitations and being like, okay, even though artistically I wish this could be a fully complete experience at launch and get all these cutscenes and gameplay elements, but I did manage to get everything gameplay-wise into the game with the exception of one arcade game, which was just, it's just a standalone mini-game and it really- It's completely separate from the rest of Blue Prince. So that was an easy one to sequester off because it's like this was just like, I don't even know why I wanted to do a mini-game within a game for my very first game. But some of these ideas I get, I'm just like, "Oh, I really would love to try this." And at some point, it had woven itself too much in the thread for me to completely remove it, at least with the time I had. When there's unexplored territory, then adventurers can still dream. IGN: What about other language translations? I'm obviously very aware of the fact that translating this is a minefield because of the way the puzzles work, but I know that that was one of the things that was criticized about it at launch, is that there's really no way to play it if you don't speak English. Ros: And I think how difficult it is really appeals to me because it's almost like a historic undertaking of localization, and it appeals to me because I feel like it would be such a cool challenge to do. Now, probably the number of localizers and the number of specific- It's not even just localizers or translators. You actually need people from these individual cultures that excel in wordplay. And so getting together this dream team and tackling this is like, it's something I've thought a lot about and something that really appeals to me as a challenge. Now, the trade-off is it would probably take years of my life, at least one year per language to do. And so you get into this really weird thing of I would be giving up future games in order to make Blue Prince more accessible. And that's a crazy balance scale that I'm not sure how to proceed with. Let's say it's something I'm very interested in that has a lot of trade-offs creatively with how much time I have just in my life to make other games. How much time do I want to give to this? But it's appealing, we'll say. It's appealing in a lot of ways. Not just to let Blue Prince be able to be experienced by more people, but it is- If you haven't played the game fully, you might not quite understand how impossible of an undertaking it is. But I'll say it is absurdly difficult. IGN: I guess thinking about that and moving on from Blue Prince, what's next? This was your first game. Are you going to make another one? Do you want to do something else? Ros: Yes. It'll always be something else. I can say I will never make a sequel to my work because I love creating something standalone and then going on to something completely different. It will likely not even be in the same exact genres. I will probably be mixing it up. You'll start to see overlap. You'll start to see overlaps with some of my interests. So it will be familiar, and hopefully I'll inadvertently have things that really worked with Blue Prince that I'll carry on in terms of at least technicals. But yeah, we'll see. I'm hesitant to do another 3D game because for my first game, 3D was so difficult. I really wish I did a 2D game. I probably could have done it in five years instead of eight. But yeah, I think it'll be something totally different. IGN: You modeled that whole ruin underground, and it's driving people crazy because it's 3D models, and they can't get over there. Ros: I know. A lot of the cutscenes show a lot of things too that we 3D modeled and created. And for me, it's like I think a lot of other people, you'd have the temptation just because you've done the effort, that you want to fully get as much value as possible. But some of my ideas are like, I'll just come up with an idea and it's like, "Okay, this is going to take three months to do." And the funny thing is, I probably wouldn't make that decision in the first year of making the game. It's like all your decisions about time are contextual to the project. So it's like, "Oh man, I have to spend 20 days adjusting text alignment." Right? That sounds really ridiculous in your first three months of the project. I'm going to spend 20 days aligning text. But once you're eight years in, you don't even blink at that type of stuff. It's like, oh, I did a change, and now I have to rescale every picture in the whole game. This will probably take me a month. And I'm like, "Okay, let's do that." And so all these decisions are all contextual. But I don't really shy away from that because it's like if I come up with an idea, I usually don't let time be the reason I don't do it, because I think a lot of other games are on temporal budgets, not just monetarily, but they're on temporal budgets and they have to release. And that prevents a lot of high effort ideas from manifesting. And I didn't really have the same urgency to release. My decision to release was just I actually can't keep any of this in my head anymore. First off, I couldn't stop working on the game for even a week because I would forget too much about the way things interconnect and stuff. So I pretty much had to never take a break and just always keep it in my head. And so that just was like, the time was up. It had just dated to completion. IGN: There was an anecdote that was told to us in the Press Discord that I really wanted to ask you about. And that was that at some point in development, every once in a while if you had enough hallways in a straight line, there might be a shadowy figure at the end of the corridor or something. Is that real? Ros: I have heard this, and I think this is a cool rumor that's come out, and I'm not 100% sure. I'm not sure or 100% sure, but there was a cat in the game, and I think I can say that because the cat is planned for the final update because he was a part of the game. So there were playtesting iterations that had the cat, and the cat could be seen walking around the house. So it might've been someone mistaking the cat for a larger shadowy figure, perhaps conflating it with an Alzara thing. Part of the cool thing I've realized is- So I watched a lot of people play the game. I had my playtesters record sessions. And one of the things, you're always told how faulty human memory is. And it's one thing to hear that and then obviously to catch yourself being like, "I'm so sure I'm right. I remember it this way." And then if it's something that you can actually go back and look to, you realize, "I can't believe my brain just fabricated the way this occurred so vividly, so vividly." And what I realized watching people play the game is they would make wild incorrect assumptions based on what they remembered perceiving on previous days, and they would be so sure, and I'm like, "We have recordings here. I would be able to show you that what you remember was completely false." Even though they're 100% confident. And I think for whatever reason, the way Blue Prince is set up, it really is able to play on that, because it's a game about making assumptions based on your experiences in previous iterations of this house. And I think that it does play into the idea of the house having a personality and a mind of its own, because at some point you start questioning whether things in the house are changing, and oftentimes they aren't. But it's just that your perspective that they're changing is correct. So I love that story. Whether it was ever true or not, I'll leave it a bit mysterious. But I do think that to me, it exemplifies perhaps people's false memories that start to manifest that give rise to these rumors and probably is replicated in real-life mysteries and haunted houses. That it's not that people are even fabricating these stories, but that they grow out of perhaps not even apparitions that happened in the present, but apparitions that happened in memories. IGN: So Blue Prince has been nominated for some Golden Joysticks, which is awesome. And we're in awards discussions just generally right now. It’s being discussed that a lot of these game awards programs don't have a puzzle genre category even though they have action and adventure and all this other stuff. What do you make of that? Do you feel like Blue Prince challenges that a little bit? Do you think there should be one or shouldn't be? Ros: I mean, I love puzzle games a lot, and I think that there's enough of the big genres, we'll call them. Obviously there's a lot of very distinct little genres, and I feel like it's probably just math of how many players are playing certain things because if you look at- I don't know, some of the other ones that get representation. Multiplayer is obviously the biggest umbrella of all time. So I think there's a certain number of, in my opinion, there's a certain scale of umbrella that if you were representing things smaller than the puzzle genre and not puzzle genre, then I would say puzzle games certainly should have a place. But I'm okay if there's just not enough players for puzzles. I think it logistically makes sense that maybe they don't get representation until more people play, and hopefully games like Blue Prince that are super popular will be shifting those numbers. So that maybe we'll rise to the occasion. But I don't know the logistics. Maybe it is just a oversight and getting ignored. In which case, then I would advocate for its inclusion 100%. [Author’s note: Following this interview, Ros reached back out to add some additional commentary to his response to this question.] When I think back to my own childhood, and the games that were most formative for me, it was the puzzle games and puzzle books that played the most beneficial role in my development. They fostered my love of problem solving and engineering, and opened up the recreational world of mathematics, logic, and word play. I think it's fair to say these games and books had as large a role in my education as any class I attended in school, so I feel pretty strongly promoting the genre, and supporting media that helps to shine a spotlight on these types of thinky games. If including a puzzle category in awards shows will help more kids discover these types of games, then I think it's something that we absolutely should advocate for. [The rest of our original interview continues below:] IGN: Okay, one last question, and I’ll do a silly one. What do you make of the term Metroidbrainia? Ros: Okay, so if you play Blue Prince, you probably know I'm all about words and etymology. So for me, I love it because I just love how liquid language is, and I love when terms are created. So I think that being able to look at a word and seeing its etymological history, and that one has such a rich one, because if you even go and look at Metroid, it is itself a combination of Android and Metropolis. And so I think that if you could dissect this down and then you can go to Castlevania, and this was castle and Transylvania, and so it's almost like a family tree of words. And so I think that it's funny. I know that the term is, it's a little contentious in its acceptance, but I think it's funny because all of the words that are feeding into this are also sort of portmanteau combinations of sub-words. Even Transylvania has roots of, I think it's forest and people. And so it's funny because they're all coalescing into Metroidbrainia, and Metroidbrainia will likewise probably be used as a root of another word further on. So I think the more you're able to look at a word and the more rich history it has in its DNA, the more interesting it is to me. So I personally love it for that. Maybe phonetically it's not as aesthetically beautiful to hear out loud as some other terms. But I do love what a rich history it has of games of perhaps cinema with maybe Metropolis being part of that idea for Metroid. I don't actually know how they came up with that term, but I have read that it does come from Metropolis and Android, or Metro and Android might be subway-related. But yeah, I love words, and I love the roots and I love the history of words, and I love how all these things can combine in different ways. And then I love that words’ meanings change from year to year, and the definitions shift. And I love the human instinct of trying to fight for definitions because that's the one you know, not realizing that every word you're using used to mean something else, and that it's all liquid. And that we're all in generational positions fighting for our own meaning, because language is a river that's always moving forward. Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected]. View the full article
Sorry, puzzle geeks. Don't expect a Blue Prince 2 any time soon. Or, ever, really. That's what we learned from speaking with Blue Prince creator Tonda Ros last month. We asked him loads of questions and you can read our full interview right here, but one big mystery we wanted to clear up was if he'd ever make a sequel to Blue Prince. And, no, he won't. No sequel to Blue Prince, nor to any other game he makes in the future. But he is going to make something else. "I can say I will never make a sequel to my work because I love creating something standalone and then going on to something completely different," he said. "It will likely not even be in the same exact genres. I will probably be mixing it up. You'll start to see overlap. You'll start to see overlaps with some of my interests. So it will be familiar, and hopefully I'll inadvertently have things that really worked with Blue Prince that I'll carry on in terms of at least technicals. But yeah, we'll see. I'm hesitant to do another 3D game because for my first game, 3D was so difficult. I really wish I did a 2D game. I probably could have done it in five years instead of eight. But yeah, I think it'll be something totally different." This might be disappointing to hear for Blue Prince fans, especially for those still mulling over the game's remaining unsolved mysteries and wishing there was some sort of answer to them. It also sounds like, from our interview, he won't be doing any more major content updates to Blue Prince after the upcoming so-called "final update." "I do love complete games," he said. "And I do love when something is definitively done. So I had tried my best to get everything into the game at launch because that was something I just really wanted. I didn't want to eternally be updating this." Whatever it is Ros is working on next, it will be a while before we see it. He says he still expects to be working on Blue Prince in small ways for the next year, finishing the final update, bug fixes, and such. And given that Blue Prince took about eight years to create, he'll need a lot more time on top of that to create something brand new. At least Blue Prince fans have already completed a serious exercise in patience by finishing the game at all. You can read our full interview with Ros here, and check out our review where we gave Blue Prince a 9/10. As our reviewer wrote: "If The Witness, Portal, and Myst are already emblazoned on the Mount Rushmore of first-person puzzle games, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Blue Prince carved alongside them soon enough." Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected]. View the full article
Oh dear. Goonswarm Games are shutting down after Running With Scissors cancelled POSTAL: Bullet Paradise due to the use of generative AI. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article
While I was off running around the woods for the weekend, Netflix announced their intention to acquire Warner Bros. but now Paramount want to fight. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article
The Windows compatibility layer GE-Proton 10-26 has released with a bunch of technical improvements, along with various game fixes too. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article
We're on the road to the release of Wine 11 early next year with the first Release Candidate now available for the Windows compatibility layer. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article
Candy Cruncher stands as an interesting piece of Linux gaming convergence, with it pulling on almost all of the major threads that defined the industry. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article
There are a lot of skateboarding games, and I feel like I’ve played most of them. Some of them are majestic. Some are not. The Simpsons Skateboarding was the absolute pits. Tony Hawk: Ride was tortuous pain. This year’s Skate is a microtransaction hellscape. Enter Skate Story. Like those latter examples, it too is a trip to skateboarding hell and a study in pain. In this case, however, that’s actually the whole point of this extremely peculiar journey through perdition on a piece of 7-ply. I wasn’t always aboard for the sheer and utter weirdness of Skate Story’s broader adventure, but there’s no doubt developer Sam Eng has successfully married it to a robust and approachable set of skate mechanics – and it certainly makes for a memorable skateboarding game like no other I’ve ever played. Skate Story is a slightly tricky game to describe, if only because attempting to even discuss the plot sounds a little like you’re making it up on the spot. The deal is you’re a ****** made out of glass and pain, marooned in Hell. It’s referred to as The Underworld, more specifically – but the ****** is here, either way. I know this because I have his pants. From the ****** comes a deal. That is, you can be free on one condition: you find a way to flip, grind, and manual your way to the moon – and eat it. For some reason. Are you still following? Because I haven’t even got to the frog barista yet. Or the subway train with legs. Are you still following? Because I haven’t even got to the frog barista yet. I’m hesitant to say much else lest I spoil any of the particularly quirky developments along the way, so just be aware Skate Story is an incredibly weird trip through a bizarre underworld. To be candid, this isn’t really the kind of thing I’d typically seek out. That is, the stories I like normally feature big guys causing problems in small towns, assassins with grudges, or pictures of fighter planes on the cover. That is, I’m more David Leitch than David ******, if that makes sense. Skate Story did largely win me over, though. There were definitely moments I found myself getting a little numb to the weirdness, on account of just how offbeat it sometimes gets, but overall I admire the commitment to its surrealistic vision. Its story is told via text that you can read through at your own pace. There’s no voice acting or voiceover – and there’s an argument to be mounted that it might’ve gained a bit of gravity from some kind of baritone narration à la The Stanley Parable or Bastion – but Skate Story’s finely honed soundtrack means there’s still plenty to listen to. Assembled by New Jersey band Blood Cultures, the music is a generous mix of the group’s experimental, electro-pop sound, and it ranges in tempo and intensity as the locations and pace of the levels vary. This sort of music is also comfortably out of my usual wheelhouse, but nonetheless I found it extremely evocative and catchy, and it suits Skate Story to a T. It fabulously complements The Underworld’s abstract environments, and the atmosphere of its eternal night backdrop. Don’t be fooled by Skate Story's grainy, low-fi look, either; this is one of the most eye-catching and imaginative-looking games I’ve played in recent memory. Its psychedelic vision for a neon underworld blends jagged forests of spikes with broken slabs of ancient architecture, and twisted blocks of New York City with carpets of stars. Watching this wild world refract through a sneaker-clad ****** made entirely of glass is certainly something. Pain in the Glass The controls are not immediately intuitive, because they’re noticeably different from the approach taken by the sorts of dedicated sports-oriented skating games a lot of us are familiar with. That is, Skate Story doesn’t have tricks mapped to flicking an analogue stick around like the Skate series (or both analogue sticks, as in the case of something like Session). It’s more in line with playing something like Tony Hawk, only imagine someone remapped all the buttons. Basic tricks are activated by a combination of either a shoulder button or trigger plus a face button, and grinds occur when you pop and land suitably on a rail or ledge. A variety of other, progressively more complex tricks are rationed out and taught to us as the story unfolds over its roughly six-hour duration. It’s not a revolutionary approach, sure, but it’s a smart one since having us always picking up new tricks keeps things fresh throughout. There was a moderate learning curve as I sought to archive decades of THPS muscle memory in order to learn Skate Story’s own specific trick system – but it didn’t take too long to come to grips with. It’s all very grounded and weighty, which I like, and the tricks look great in motion with the low slung camera that tumbles to the ground like a physical object each time you bail and shatter to bits. I love how the powerslides feel, and I love the slow motion enders we’re rewarded with for our successes. When it comes to vibes, Skate Story nails the landing. It’s all very grounded and weighty... and the tricks look great in motion with the low slung camera. There’s a timing mechanism for executing tricks that results in different pop heights, which is illustrated by an on-screen doodle (a different shape for each trick). Depending on the speed of your skater, a marker will trace the doodle slowly or quickly – and there’s a sweet spot for getting max altitude – but I have to admit I generally paid little attention to it. On default settings, Skate Story never demanded a fastidious level of timing finesse to get through its levels and defeat bosses. This suits me just fine, but the fact that you can just essentially spam your way through a lot of the most frantic-looking segments may come across as a little trivial to anyone looking for a stiffer challenge. Tony Hawk’s Underworld Boss battles are handled in an interesting way, and to win these encounters you need to build up combos and “stomp” them down inside a marked zone. They can be cleared with a bit of mild button-mashing, but there’s certainly room to be much more deliberate about your trick selection and timing if you choose to (and you will, admittedly, accumulate better combos and deal more damage – and faster – if you do). There are also a number of small and trippy sandbox-style levels to cruise around with various objectives to complete, but some of these tasks do get disappointingly trivial. For instance, one mission that called on me to gather up a selection of floating letters sounded like a cute nod to Skate Story’s ancestors – but most of them were just hovering at ground level, turning what could’ve been a brief but fun challenge into a basic fetch quest across the map and back. My favourite parts of Skate Story, however, were the speed segments, where you must hustle from your spawn point to an ethereal exit door – like some kind of haunted hill bomb. The music ramps up for these high-speed bursts, and I like the fast-paced trial-and-error nature of them as your fragile ****** smashes to shards and you instantly get another crack. I always felt a little pang of regret when I reached the end of these runs, and I wish there were a few more of them. View the full article
If you're either a new or returning player looking to enjoy Path of Exile 2's upcoming Druid class expansion, you can do so by unlocking the Maji Portal effect and the Warbear Shapeshift effects. Both effects will be available ahead of the Druid class' launch, and one of them can be obtained entirely free of cost. This guide will help you obtain the two effects, which are actually part of the upcoming The Game Awards 2025 show. Table of contentsHow to get the Maji Portal effect in Path of Exile 2How to get the Warbear Shapeshift effect in Path of Exile 2How to connect your Twitch account with Path of Exile 2How to get the Maji Portal effect in Path of Exile 2 The Game Awards 2025 show is taking place on Dec. 11, and we have a countdown to help you keep track of when the show goes live. Once the show goes live, you'll have to watch at least 30 minutes of any channel streaming The Game Awards show. There are two prerequisites to ensure: Your Path of Exile account must be connected to Twitch.The stream you're watching must have Twitch Drops enabled (along with streaming The Game Awards 2025). Once you have watched for 30 minutes after clearing the two above-mentioned conditions, you'll obtain the Maji Portal effect. The effect will be available on Path of Exile and Path of Exile 2 (unlocks immediately on Path of Exile 2, but will be available at a later date on the first game). How to get the Warbear Shapeshift effect in Path of Exile 2 To get the Battle-hardened Warbear Shapeshift effect, you'll have to purchase one Twitch subscription (or gift someone with it) of any tier during The Game Awards ceremony. You can choose of streamer of your liking. [Hidden Content] Unlike the Maji Portal effect, the Warbear Shapeshift effect is only available in Path of Exile 2. How to connect your Twitch account with Path of Exile 2 If you're yet to connect your Twitch account with Path of Exile 2, here's what you need to do. Log in to your Twithc account.Click the Connect button and then go to Other Connections.Connect your Path of Exile account from the list of options and confirm the process. Once done, you can win the rewards by checking out any channel under The Game Awards ceremony. The post How to get Maji Portal and Warbear Shapeshift Effects in Path of Exile 2 appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article
Somehow we blinked and the so called big sales ******* has come and gone, yet the bargain bins refuse to take the hint. While ****** Friday and Cyber Monday have packed up their circus tents, the storefronts are still wobbling under the weight of tasty discounts. I'm here to help you take full advantage, so let's stop talking and start saving. Contents RetroNintendoXboxPlayStationPCPC GearLEGOThis Day in Gaming In retro gamer news, I'm tapping D-F-F-HK to give a Baraka-baked, 29-candle cake to Mortal Kombat Trilogy on PS One. If you used Kano's heart rip on me right now, you'd see that this compilation holds a very special place in my subcockles. My mate Craig basically had this disc glued to the spindle hub of his PlayStation drive back in '97. His house was perched over our local beach, so when the surf was crap, it was a party house that provided a regular dozen or so surfers for "winner plays on" punchfests. And there was a lot to love about MK Trilogy, like a ridiculously huge 37-fighter roster, the Aggressor bar, Brutalities, and the cheese-tastic Motaro. He would get you (physically) beaten up if you selected him. Aussie birthdays for notable games. - Kirby's Adventure (NES) 1993. Get - Mortal Kombat Trilogy (PS) 1996. eBay - Rugby League (PC,PS2,XB) 2003. eBay - Sonic Advance 3 (GBA) 2004. eBay - Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse (3DS) 2016. eBay Nice Savings for Nintendo Switch Red Dead Redemption (-59%) - A$29 If you want slow burn storytelling and dusty frontier vibes, this still delivers. Perfect handheld cowboy therapy that somehow feels even more intimate on Switch.Disco Elysium Final Cut (-70%) - A$18 A weird, brilliant detective RPG where your brain argues with itself. Runs surprisingly well on Switch and remains one of the smartest games ever made.Dragon Quest Treasures (-58%) - A$36 A cheerful loot hunting adventure with classic charm and bright worlds. Great for younger players or anyone needing something breezy between heavy RPGs.Lego City Undercover (-56%) - A$39.80 A surprisingly big and funny open world romp. Think family friendly GTA with plastic bricks. Still one of the best Lego titles thanks to its goofy humour.Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory (-44%) - A$49.90 A rhythm driven nostalgia trip through the series. Great music, simple controls, and an easy recommendation for fans wanting a chill spin off.Sonic Forces (-40%) - A$35.70 A brisk modern Sonic entry with mixed ideas but fun bursts of speed. Ideal for younger players or anyone filling out their blue blur collection. Expiring recent deals Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (-24%) - A$68Everybody's Golf Hot Shots (-33%) - A$47Hogwarts Legacy (-29%) - A$64Prince of Persia The Lost Crown (-52%) - A$24The Diofield Chronicle (-57%) - A$36.50 Or gift a Nintendo eShop Card. Switch Console Prices How much to Switch it up? [/url] Back to top Exciting Bargains for Xbox Borderlands 3 Ult. (-75%) - A$36.20 Massive loot piles, loud jokes, and plenty of co op mayhem. The Ult. version stacks in heaps of content and remains great value for shooter fans.EA Sports FC 26 (-55%) - A$49 A strong yearly upgrade with smoother play and smarter AI. If you skipped last season, this is an easy upgrade while sales are friendly.Back 4 Blood (-91%) - A$8.90 A frantic co op horde shooter perfect for weekend chaos with mates. Massive discount makes this an effortless add to the library.Battlefield 6 (-37%) - A$69 Large scale firefights with plenty of toys to destroy things. Good option if you prefer spectacle and vehicles over smaller tactical shooters.Red Dead Redemption (-50%) - A$37.40 A classic western story that still hits hard. Sharper resolution on Series X helps the atmosphere shine.Sonic Frontiers (-70%) - A$29.90 Sonic in an open zone experiment that mostly works. Relaxing exploration meets traditional speed bursts in a surprisingly comfy package. Xbox One Hogwarts Legacy: Del. (-35%) - A$78.20 A slick magical adventure with strong atmosphere and heaps of side activities. Del. adds cosmetic extras for fans wanting the fancier robes.Alien: Isolation (-75%) - A$14.90 Still the scariest Alien game. Slow, tense, and exact in its design. Essential for survival horror fans who enjoy being hunted.Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth Ult. (-70%) - A$53.90 A massive JRPG with heartfelt writing and wild humour. The Ult. package piles on extra scenarios for fans who want the full spread. Expiring recent deals Assassin's Creed Shadows (-46%) - A$59Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (-75%) - A$29Prince of Persia The Lost Crown (-52%) - A$24The Crew Motorfest (-81%) - A$19Dying Light 2: Stay Human (-52%) - A$47.90Assassin's Creed The Ezio Col. (-37%) - A$44Cars 3: Driven to Win (-63%) - A$41Bayonetta & Vanquish Bndl. (-56%) - A$26.10 Or just invest in an Xbox Card. Xbox Console Prices How many bucks for a 'Box? [/url] Back to top Pure Scores for PlayStation Star Wars Outlaws Gold Ed. (-76%) - A$39.90 A breezy open world blaster with a charismatic lead. Gold Ed. sweetens the deal with story add ons that make the universe feel richer.Crisis Core Ff VII Reunion (-48%) - A$44.40 A snappy action RPG retelling with stylish combat and improved presentation. Great for anyone refreshing their FFVII lore.Back 4 Blood (-77%) - A$22.80 Co op chaos at a huge discount. PS5 improvements keep the action smooth and the horde moments crisp.EA Sports FC 26 (-55%) - A$49 A great entry point if you skipped last season. Clean animations and better ball physics make this a noticeable step up.Battlefield 6 (-37%) - A$69 Big maps, big explosions, and plenty of squad play. Great value if you enjoy multiplayer shenanigans with vehicles. PS4 Dragon Quest Xi S (-23%) - A$43.60 A charming, traditional JRPG with beautiful art and relaxing pacing. Ideal for long holiday sessions.Stranger Of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin (-59%) - A$41.30 A chaotic action RPG with great combat and hilariously blunt storytelling. Surprisingly entertaining at this price.Saints Row (-70%) - A$11.90 A scrappy reboot with mixed ideas but plenty of silly open world antics. Cheap enough to justify pure sandbox fun.Kingdom Hearts Melody Of Memory (-49%) - A$46 A rhythmic nostalgia ride through the saga. Heartfelt tracks and breezy gameplay make it hard to dislike. Expiring recent deals Elden Ring (-62%) - A$38.20Persona 5 Royal (-49%) - A$48.80Rise of the Ronin (-53%) - A$59Prince of Persia The Lost Crown (-51%) - A$24The Crew Motorfest (-75%) - A$28Split Fiction (-37%) - A$44Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne HD Rem. (-58%) - A$29.20Mortal Kombat 11 Ult. (-60%) - A$36.10Far Cry 5 (-85%) - A$14.90 Or purchase a PS Store Card. What you'll pay to 'Station. [/url] Back to top Purchase Cheap for PCInscryption (-70%) - A$8.60 A creepy, clever card based mystery that constantly surprises. One of the smartest indies in years and perfect for late night play.Bioshock: The Col. (-80%) - A$15.90 Three atmospheric classics with timeless world building. An essential buy for any PC library, would you kindly.Dying Light: Def. Ed. (-80%) - A$15.50 A parkour zombie playground with heaps of DLC baked in. Great value and still fun in co op.Witcher 3 Comp. (-80%) - A$15.70 A massive RPG with gorgeous world design. The Comp. edition ensures you get the best modern version.No Man's Sky (-60%) - A$35.10 An enormous chill explorer with years of updates. Great pick for players who love wandering strange worlds.Lego Skywalker Saga (-80%) - A$13.90 A huge, joyful Star Wars adventure that is perfect for co op and completionists. One of the best Lego titles. Expiring recent deals Star Wars Outlaws (-70%) - A$29.90RoboCop: Rogue City (-90%) - A$6.30Yoku's Island Express (-90%) - A$2.80Slay the Spire (-75%) - A$9.20Undertale (-75%) - A$3.60South Park: The Stick of Truth (-80%) - A$8.90 Or just get a Steam Wallet Card PC Hardware Prices Slay your pile of shame. [/url] Legit LEGO Deals Just like I did last holiday season, I'm getting festive with the LEGO section. In Mathew Manor, my sons and I are again racing this year's batch of LEGO Advent Calendars. Basically, we open the City, Harry Potter, Minecraft, and Star Wars on the daily and compare the mini-prizes for "Awesomeness" and "Actual Xmas-ness". 2024's winner was the Lego Marvel one, but, weirdly, there's no 2025 equivalent. So it's anybody's race this year. Here are the cheapest prices for the four calendars we're using. Score them yourself or just live vicariously through our unboxings. LEGO CIty Advent 2025 - A$59.95 $45LEGO Harry Potter Advent 2025 - A$59.95 $45LEGO Minecraft Advent 2025 - A$59.95 $45LEGO Star Wars Advent 2025 - A$59.95 $45 Adam Mathew is a passionate connoisseur, a lifelong game critic, and an Aussie deals wrangler who genuinely wants to hook you up with stuff that's worth playing (but also cheap). He plays practically everything, sometimes on YouTube. View the full article
We speak to Warframe Community Director Megan Everett about The Old Peace, updates, Switch 2, the Steam Machine, Sleep Token, coffee, and more. View the full article
Recent benchmarks from Ars Technica show that SteamOS' performance advantage over Windows 11 largely evaporates and sometimes reverses on devices with discrete graphics. Moreover, Valve's Linux distro and compatibility layer appear to worsen performance issues on GPUs with just 8GB of VRAM. Read Entire Article View the full article
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Despite his endless movie reviews telling a different story, he says, "just watching Blu-rays at home is boring"View the full article