Antarctica is quite possibly the perfect setting for anything remotely horror related, given its absolute remoteness. All you’ll find there are penguins, seals, and fungus, it is as no where as no where can be, of course serving as the setting for The Thing, so I guess maybe that’s there too. And soon, the tundra will be home to another piece of horror media, a psychological horror game called Cryptica “where the apocalypse is just the beginning.” Oh goody!
Surgent Studios, the developer behind Tales of Kenzara: ZAU, has unveiled its next game today, and it’s…absolutely nothing like Tales of Kenzara: ZAU. It’s called FixForce, and it’s a chaotic cooperative “extraction platformer” about a team of robots fixing machines using random parts they find lying around.
FixForce puts up to six players together as a robot repair crew sent into an area to fix various broken structures littered around the area within an allotted amount of time. Each broken machine indicates what parts are needed to fix it, and those parts can be found scattered around the level.
However, many of those pieces will be stuck behind obstacles: bodies of water robots can’t swim through, up tall towers, guarded by evil enemy robots. To collect them, you’ll need to use your robot building abilities to pick up and place objects strategically so you and your friends can climb across them to reach whatever it is you need. And if you’re injured by an obstacle, your head will fall off, and your teammates will need to find your head and body and stack them back together to resurrect you back into the game. Teams earn points based on how many things they fix within the time limit.
I got a chance to play a round of FixForce ahead of the announcement alongside the developers, and yeah, the level of silly chaos implied in the announcement trailer pretty much encapsulates it. It’s easy to get distracted goofing around with all the objects in the level and building weird, random things, but FixForce also lends itself to silly emergent moments, like when one of the devs tried to toss platforms at me to save me from being stuck on an island, and instead slammed one into me and knocked me right into the water.
It was a surprisingly cheery and silly time for a studio that just made a game about grieving the death of a loved one. That fact is not lost on founder Abubakar Salim, though.
“As FixForce came together, we saw the pure chaos and hilarity it was unleashing and made the decision to move quickly and publish it ourselves,” he said in a statement. “Yes, FixForce is completely unlike anything we’ve ever done before, but look: we made one game about grief and another about abuse and thought, ‘can we have a little bit of silly, stupid fun for a second?’ I promise we’ll go back to dark and depressing after this.”
Notably, this isn’t the same game Salim announced in 2024, Project Uso, nor is it the horror game announced last year to be published by Pocketpair. Surgent clearly has a lot of irons in the fire here, but its eagerness to get something released quickly makes sense given the scale of its long-term ambitions and its financial struggles in 2024.
FixForce is dropping in early access on March 12 on PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, and its full, final release will also be on Xbox, the studio says.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Phhheeeeeeeepppppppp! Nope, that isn’t the whistle which signals a rally car’s about to hurtle through this neck of the woods, it’s Assetto Corsa Rally devs Supernova Games Studios trying to get our attention so they can shout about SNOW. They’ve added some to their uber-simmy rally sim in its latest early access update, and it coats some new laser-scanned Monte-Carlo trails.
Death Stranding 2 isn’t even a year old, but the PC version is already on the way in just a couple of weeks. When it launched on PS5, it was one of the most beautiful games on the platform, and while that would usually mean it’s kind of hard to run on PC, the system requirements are forgiving.
Unlike some recent PC launches, Sony released different quality standards for its minimum and recommended system requirements, which should help pin down what to expect when you try to run the game on your PC. For instance, the minimum spec calls for either an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 or an AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT, which should run the game at 1080p with low settings, at 30 fps.
If you want to max out the game, though, you’re going to need a bit more hardware, but it’s still pretty reasonable. The recommended spec calls for an RTX 3070 or a Radeon RX 6800, and will run the game at 1440p with the High quality preset at 60 fps. Not bad.
I went ahead and listed all of Sony’s recommended PC specs below, but as long as you have a relatively modern PC, the game should be able to run flawlessly onj your machine. Nixxes, the studio handling the PC port has also added a “portable preset” which should make it run smoothly on PC handhelds like the Steam Deck or the Xbox Ally X.
Even at the high end, Death Stranding 2’s system requirements are pretty humble by today’s standards. While the GeForce RTX 4080 seems like a lot, keep in mind that this is likely for maxing out the game at 4K, which you very much don’t need to do.
Keep in mind that the minimum spec is calling for a GTX 1660, which was a low-end card when it came out in 2019, and that was almost seven years ago now. I won’t know exactly how this game performs until I’m able to run it on my own hardware, but the wide range of GPUs being represented here likely means that the game is incredibly scalable.
It’s also important to note that even on the PS5 Pro, Death Stranding 2 did not use ray tracing, which means the higher graphics settings are going to be a lot more approachable than other recent AAA games – unless, of course, ray tracing is added to the PC version. Luckily, Nixxes is also adding support for DLSS, XeSS, FSR and Guerilla’s Pico upscaler, so you should be able to find some way to boost your performance.
Death Stranding 2 launches on PC March 19th, so at least we won’t have to wait too long to see how it performs.
Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra
Been a while since I’ve done one of these. Been even longer since I didn’t have a complaint about wonky performance or some manner of debilitating stutter issue to open it with. Nope, Resident Evil Requiem is, on the technical side, a big and shiny blockbuster like they should be made: a good looker and a smooth runner both, almost regardless of graphics card heft. It is, as Capcom promised, the anti-Monster Hunter Wilds. Not a bad shooty-horror game, either.
3Decisions.
Gosh, the passage of time is a nasty one, eh? There we are just trying to enjoy our day, when all of a sudden, BOOM, we’re reminded that today is the 15th anniversary of the 3DS.
Yes, the 3DS, that console which, in our minds, is still a relatively young whippersnapper, was released on this day (26th February) fifteen years ago in 2011.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Looking for your next challenge in God of War Sons of Sparta? Go to the place all aspiring Spartans prove their worth as warriors, the Pit of Agonies.
The Pit is a separate endgame roguelike challenge mode that gives you different enemies and reward pools each time you play.
Normally The Pit is accessible only after you beat the main story to ensure those who attempt it are familiar with both Kratos’ Spartan arms and the foes you will face, but if you feel ready to test your skills earlier, you can input this sequence below in the starting menu to unlock it early:
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, L1, R1, Touchpad
Once entered, you will see a new option on your menu that can be used to take you into the challenge mode.
While The Pit can be played entirely solo as Kratos, the team at Mega Cat Studios was inspired to bring back a gaming staple that defined so many childhood afternoons on the couch: 2-player co-op.
This is local, offline-only co-op in true retro style, so you’ll need to grab a buddy if you want to bring both Kratos and Deimos to face the challenges deep below.
Each run begins by selecting your starting Agony, a global difficulty modifier that will add variety to each run and impact the way you play.
For example, the Agony of Torment will manifest healing vessels that must be destroyed to prevent enemies from regenerating health, while the Agony of Calamity will cause defeated enemies to burst into a fiery explosion.
As you progress through your run, you will have the option to add more Agonies or increase the effect of your starting choice.
Upon finishing a run, you will earn a Symbol of Suffering for your chosen Agonies. As you reach certain thresholds of total Symbols, you will unlock new Agonies to choose from.
Upon completion, you will also gain Ashes of Agony, a Pit-specific resource which can be used to acquire permanent upgrades that last between attempts.
If you like to track your progress (or earn some bragging rights), you’ll be able to see your current and high score at the end of each run.
Thank you to everyone who has supported God of War Sons of Sparta, available now on PS5. We hope you’ll enjoy the challenge of The Pit.
With Housemarque’s new game Saros on the horizon, now is a great time to boot up the developer’s previous release, Returnal. If you haven’t added this one to your library yet but have been waiting for a good time to grab it, this is your chance: Amazon’s dropped its price to $29.83 (see it here).
Considering it usually comes with a price tag of $69.99, this deal saves you 57% on the game overall. It’s also just a few dollars away from its lowest price point at the retailer of $24.70. That’s not too bad at all. Plus, there’s still plenty of time before Saros is released, so the timing of jumping into Returnal couldn’t be better. You’ve plenty of time to get a feel for Housemarque’s style of roguelike shooter before jumping into the studio’s new take on that formula.
It’s not just the discounted price that makes Returnal worth adding to your library, though. We’re very big fans of it, regardless of price. IGN’s Mitchell Saltzman said in his review back when it was initially released that the “moment-to-moment gameplay of Returnal is sublime, with a great selection of weapons that each have a wide variety of interesting possible traits, meaningful strategic decisions that can either keep a run afloat or doom it to sink, and punishingly challenging yet rewarding gunplay that is consistently exhilarating.”
If you’ve decided to pick up Returnal and are curious what other deals are out there right now, you’re in luck: PlayStation has recently kicked off a big sale at PlayStation Direct, which a few other retailers have joined in on, that features even more great game deals (and some nice accessory deals).
There’s even a selection of PS5 games on sale for $30 or less right now, if you want to see even more game deals in Returnal’s discounted price range. And lastly, if you’re hoping to play Saros this year, check out our Saros preorder guide to secure a copy so you’re ready to start it up on release day.
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.
.jpg?width=690&quality=85&format=jpg&auto=webp)
Most of the time, life sucks. On rare occasions, however, the moons line up. Having spent a few hours this past weekend playing the Steam Next Fest demo of cosy campervan survivabuilder Outbound, I returned to my desk on Monday and stumbled across a campervan mod for my long-time vice Cyberpunk 2077.
Naturally, I wasn’t going to turn down the chance to compare the experience of driving around the countryside in a mobile home twice.
Resident Evil Requiem includes numerous Easter eggs and unlockable extras, but none seemingly as complex as ‘The Final Puzzle.’
Warning! Resident Evil Requiem puzzle spoilers follow:
As with other recent Resident Evil games, Requiem includes a list of challenges which add completion points to your playthrough score. At the bottom of the list is the appropriately-named ‘The Final Puzzle’ — which is proving to be something of a headscratcher.
IGN has a work-in-progress guide to The Final Puzzle where significant progress has been made through the challenge’s convoluted early stages, which feel more complex than anything seen in any other Resident Evil game to date — and, seemingly, with still some way left to go.
Exactly what the final outcome or reward for the challenge might be remains unknown — but as the game continues its launch around the world, the hunt for answers here will undoubtedly become a major point of community focus.
The game’s own description for the challenge offers only the vaguest of hints, to “Let the sweet pair hear the voice.” The mechanics of the puzzle, or at least its first part, appear to rely on players picking up or examining a variety of objects throughout the game to determine fragments of a code.
Requiem’s trail of clues relies on players picking up a specific severed hand which, if obtained, can also be scanned later on to provide a hidden RNA code in a blood sample analysis machine. Other items also hide their own codes, providing (with a bit more puzzling work) a version of that RNA sequence that can be plugged into a safe that features buttons labelled with a Star, Sun and Moon.
After that… well, it’s here the trail has gone cold, though likely not for long. We’ll be keeping an eye on further progress made throughout the next few days, as players uncover further steps. For now, however, it’s just fun to see that the game hides this kind of puzzle.
For a far more granular look at each step to-date, IGN’s work-in-progress guide to The Final Puzzle is right here. We’ve also logged how long Resident Evil Requiem takes to beat, and tracked Resident Evil Requiem’s global release times.
“Like the result of an experiment conducted in an underground Umbrella Corporation lab, Resident Evil Requiem successfully splices two separate strains of survival horror together into the one highly infectious new mutation,” IGN wrote in our full Resident Evil Requiem review, which returned a 9/10 score.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
