Around £250k’s work have been taken in a “targeted attack”.
Thousands of pounds of Pokémon Trading Cards have been stolen from Ace Grading, a Banbury-based Card Grading company run by TCG YouTuber Randolph.
As reported by the BBC, the break in took place on Friday 13th December in what Randolph and his company has called a “targeted attack”. Thames Valley Police believes that an estimated GBP £250,000 worth of cards have been stolen from the company’s headquarters.
From iconic names like Indiana Jones and Final Fantasy to indie sensations like Balatro and Animal Well, 2024 has provided gamers with a variety of incredible experiences. IGN is in the process of picking our game of the year, but now you have the chance to have your voice heard too in the IGN People’s Choice Tournament.
With our partners at Truth, we’ve selected 64 of the best titles of the year to be placed in a bracket and randomly sorted into groups. They’ll go head-to-head, with the winner moving on to the next round and the loser being eliminated. As the rounds progress, the competition will get tougher, until there’s only one title left standing as the fan-voted Game of the Year. If you’re familiar with how March Madness brackets work, it’s the same concept.
Tournament Schedule and How to Vote
Voting will take place on IGN’s Instagram starting today, December 18. We’ll post the matchups to our Instagram stories around 3 p.m. ET / 2 p.m. CT / 12 p.m. PT, and you’ll have 24 hours to vote. The 32 winners will move on to the next round, where the process will repeat. Here are the dates when each round will be posted (around the same times listed above), so make sure to check back on our Instagram stories to continue voting for your favorite games:
Round 1: December 18
Round 2: December 20
Round 3: December 23
Quarterfinals: December 27
Semifinals: December 30
Finals: December 31
Which Games Are Grouped Together?
As we mentioned earlier, the bracket placements of the 64 games we selected were randomized. They were split up into four groups, like the regions of March Madness. Group 1 is led by some heavy hitters: Helldivers 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. But they’ll have to go up against breakout indie Animal Well. Plus, three popular sports games: Madden NFL 25, College Football 25, and MLB The Show 24. And you can’t look past the beautiful visuals of Unicorn Overlord and Infinity Nikki.
Group 2 is led by the excellent Silent Hill 2 remake, but it’ll face stiff competition from a trio of RPGs — Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance. There’s also heralded remasters and remakes from Nintendo with Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. And we can’t leave out the technical marvel Senua’a Sage: Hellblade II, or another standout indie in Lorelai and the Laser Eyes.
Group 3 ended up stacked with three games that have been cleaning up during awards season: Astro Bot, Metaphor: ReFantazio, and Black Myth: Wukong. They’re joined by an eclectic group of competitors. There’s entries from massive franchises in Star Wars Outlaws and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 (which will face off against each other in Round 1). There’s games from other long-running series in Tekken 8 and Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble. There’s the latest version of sports franchises in EA Sports FC 25 and NBA 2K25. But also some notable new IPs with Stellar Blade and Slitterhead.
Rounding things out, Group 4 is also full of some big names. First, there’s indie darling Balatro, which has also done very well for itself this awards season. But it’ll have to get through two huge RPG sequels in Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth and Dragon’s Dogma 2, as well as a popular RPG remake in Persona 3 Reload. And they’ll be up against several family-friendly opponents in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, LEGO Horizon Adventures, Super Mario Party Jamboree, and The Plucky Squire. Not to mention the often overlooked Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown and surprise hit Enshrouded.
As you can see, this year is going to be a hotly contested race. So make sure you head over to Instagram to vote for each matchup and help determine which games will move on and which will be sent packing. It’ll all build to a big reveal of the fan voted Game of the Year. Happy voting!
According to tradition, the holiday season actually began over a month ago when Mariah Carey once again emerged from a giant block of ice to sing Christmas anthem “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” Fortnite’s is arriving a bit late to the holiday party, but leakers say an upcoming update to the game will replicate this timeless holiday tradition and have Mariah Carey burst forth from a large block of ice in the game, bringing with her holiday character skins and the Winterfest event.
This news comes from prominent Fortnite leaker iFireMonkey, who has previously been a source of credible Fortnite leaks. Per their information, Mariah Carey will be getting a Fortnite skin as part of its upcoming Winterfest 2024 event, alongside Snoop Dogg and Shaquille O’Neal. All of them will, of course, be dressed in holiday finery.
Another leaker, Egyptian_Leaker, suggests that there will be an additional event involving a large block of ice that’s already appeared on the Fortnite map. Per them, the ice block will defrost after three days, and Mariah Carey will appear in-game as an NPC handing out gifts to players.
MINI-LIVE EVENT CONFIRMED: There’s a very small Winterfest event at the start of it ‼️
Mariah Carey will be an Ice block on the map for 3 days. After she defrosts there will be a small sequence with Fireworks. Mariah Carey will then be available as an NPC that gives gifts to… pic.twitter.com/lzoBCUuues
For the time being, she remains tragically frozen:
Alongside Mariah Carey, iFireMonkey has posted a number of other holiday-themed leaks we’re likely to see in the coming days. These include loads of holiday-themed skins and accessories (one of them is a backpack full of bread dogs!), new emotes and dances, and the return of Sgt. Winter as an NPC. We’ve also heard that Skibidi Toilet is coming to Fortnite…tonight. Just in time for the holidays.
Winterfest 2024 launches on December 20 and runs through January 7. In addition to the rumored holiday skins and Mariah Carey’s ice block extravaganza, Epic Games has confirmed we’ll see the return of Jonesy’s Cabin.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
In 2009, in the run-up to Christmas, I remember poring over a recent issue of Official Nintendo Magazine looking for games I might want for the holiday season. Flicking through the pages and taking in every single word, one review in particular jumped out at me. The art style was something I’d never seen in a video game before. I was obsessed with Japanese folklore at the time. And, even though the gameplay sounded like nothing new, it scratched my 2D action-platformer itch.
That review was for Muramasa: The Demon Blade, and this was my first brush with Vanillaware. My love of the Osaka-based developer, and this game in particular, is documented, but it was established at the very moment I saw Muramasa on the TV screen, with Edo Japan rendered in beautiful watercolour visuals. Vanillaware has always been known as the studio that makes pretty games with pretty food – and, sometimes, the studio that gives us, um, very exaggerated art – but over the past four years, I’ve seen a real shift in appreciation that I’ve been hoping for.
Creating Atomfall’s Haunting Casterfell Woods – Check Out Exclusive New Screenshots
Ryan GreeneArt Director, Atomfall
A few weeks ago, we released the latest trailer for Atomfall, our upcoming game where you will have to uncover the mystery behind what happened at the UK’s Windscale nuclear power station in the 1950s. This is a fictionalised telling of what happened following this real-life nuclear disaster in Northern England.
The trailer showcases the game’s folk horror influences and give you the first glimpse of Casterfell Woods, an eerie location within Atomfall where you will encounter an unsettling wicker man and a ringing telephone box that needs to be answered.
But what were our influences behind Casterfell Woods? We thought it would be interesting to let you know how we came up with this unique aesthetic.
From the outset, we knew that we wanted some spookier areas of the game, where we could emphasise folk horror and provide some contrast with our more idyllic areas. Most of our outdoor environments are very green, vibrant, pretty, and very much British. But for Casterfell, we wanted the player to question what things might happen in the deep dark woods. Hidden things can happen there, secret and ancient things… We knew that this would be a ton of fun – so started doing our homework.
Our initial goal was to establish the visual baseline for our sandbox spaces, with a focus on the content that we needed to build out our various natural biomes. Then, we could start adding our thematic twists.
Early in the project, the team took quite a few trips up to the English Lake District for reference gathering and to capture photogrammetry content. For several of the non-Brits on the team (myself included, as an American) this was incredibly exotic. For anyone who hasn’t been there, it is an extremely diverse area of outstanding natural beauty and diversity. It is just so wet and green, with lakes and streams everywhere, and tremendous stone formations topping the high fells and hilltops. The entire area is just dripping with greenery, ferns, and moss.
As I was new to driving in the UK, I found those tiny Cumbrian roads terrifying! There are slate stone walls on one edge, and steep drops into a lake on the other. But the trips were very educational, and the views were sensational. By the end of the trip, we had a ton of fantastic reference, fabulous photogrammetry content, and were confident that we could ground the game visually in the north of Britain.
Next up, were the twists. How could we make our world different from a typical holiday trip to a beautiful natural destination? How could we layer in an older era, and warp things a bit more?
We started looking at storytelling focused on folk horror, sci-fi, and old-school British imaginative fiction for inspiration. Films like The Wicker Man, The Blair Witch Project, Annihilation, and Midsommar were great to look at. Then of course we have BBC programming like Doctor Who, The Prisoner, and The Quatermass Xperiment, as well as books by John Wyndham, who has so many wonderfully weird stories.
We wanted the player to feel that they are stepping into an older era. The real Windscale nuclear accident was in 1957, which is when the quarantine began in our game. As we were intending to be a period piece, how could we impress that into a natural area? This was a tough one, and we had a lot of conversations about it. I mean, especially in the woods, where trees pretty much would have looked the same in 1957, 2024, or 1066.
We began asking ourselves who was living out there, beyond the comforts of village life? How would they survive with no manufactured resources?
The answer was pretty simple in that these outcasts would survive just as they had in archaic times. We would regress them even further back and have them use what was at hand. Wattle (and daub) construction became our go-to architectural style. Thatched roofs, woven branches and vines, and dry-stone structures also seemed to fit. Even though many of these traditional methods of construction can still be seen in the modern day, they are really ancient and foreign to many of us who grew up elsewhere.
Then, taking into account our inspirational media reference, and our desire for more Britishness, we began layering even more symbolic imagery. Ancient markings, effigies, and wickermen, all intermingled with more traditional maypoles and bunting to give strong pagan religious overtones.
We think you are going to love exploring Casterfell Woods and discovering the secrets that it holds when Atomfall is released on March 27 for Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC, and day one with Game Pass. We can’t wait for you guys to get your hands on the game.
A survival-action game inspired by real-life events, Atomfall is set five years after the Windscale nuclear disaster in Northern England.
Explore the fictional quarantine zone, scavenge, craft, barter, fight and talk your way through a British countryside setting filled with bizarre characters, mysticism, cults, and rogue government agencies.
From Rebellion, the studio behind Sniper Elite and Zombie Army, Atomfall will challenge you to solve the dark mystery of what really happened.
Player Driven Mystery: Unravel a tapestry of interwoven narratives through exploration, conversation, investigation, and combat, where every choice you make has consequences.
Explore this Green and Unpleasant Land: The picturesque British countryside, with rolling green hills, lush valleys, and rural villages belie the dangers that await you.
Search, Scavage, Survive: You’ll need to scavenge for supplies, craft weapons and items, and fight desperately to make it out alive!
Desperate Combat: With weapons and ammunition scarce, each frenetic engagement will see you blend marksmanship with vicious hand-to-hand combat. Manage your heart rate to hold a steady aim and ensure you have the energy you need to reach for your cricket bat and land the killer blow.
Green and Unpleasant Land: The picturesque British countryside, with rolling green hills, lush valleys, and rural villages belie the dangers that await you. Navigate cult-controlled ruins, natural caves, nuclear bunkers and more as you explore this dense, foreboding world.
Reimagining Windscale: A fictional reimagining of a real-world event, Atomfall draws from science fiction, folk horror, and Cold War influences to create a world that is eerily familiar yet completely alien.
It was wonderful to see the launch of the PlayStation 5 Pro console a few weeks ago. For those interested in the in-depth technical aspects of PS5 Pro, we’ve put together a video describing the bits and bytes behind the console: how it came together, how it works, and why it’s the first step in an exciting new journey for gamers. You can watch below!
Note: the below video is focused on the technology behind PS5 Pro and doesn’t feature new game announcements or new gameplay footage.
In the presentation, you’ll learn what the “advanced” in “Advanced Ray Tracing” really means, the difference between FLOPS and TOPS, and some of the challenges involved in developing the efficient machine learning hardware needed for PSSR – the AI-driven upscaling featured in PS5 Pro.
Download the image
At the end of the presentation, I also do something that we typically don’t do at SIE – I touch on how our learnings with PS5 Pro will fuel our future ambitions in our never-ending quest to push the boundaries of play. AMD has been a fantastic partner for SIE for many years now, and I’m honored to announce that we have begun a deeper collaboration with a focus on Machine Learning-based technology for graphics and gameplay. Both AMD and SIE share many of the same goals related to advancing the medium of video games. Watch the presentation to learn more about this exciting plan!
Download the image
We also did an encore presentation of this lecture before an audience including journalists from Digital Foundry, IGN, and Wccftech. Keep an eye out for their coverage, and more discussion of RDNA, ray tracing, and machine learning.
Ubisoft’s failed Call of Duty rival XDefiant has received a hefty final update today, December 18, ahead of its shutdown in 2025.
The XDefiant X/Twitter account shared the patch notes, below, while executive producer Mark Rubin thanked fans and the development team in his own post for their dedication to the game since before and after its May 2024 launch.
“I wish everyone who worked on this game directly or indirectly the best for their future endeavors,” Rubin said. “And the same goes for all of the fans who played our game, who streamed it, or who worked to build the XDefiant community.”
XDefiant’s final S3.0+ update includes the previously announced Assassins class, which are modelled after Assassin’s Creed’s titular heroes, alongside myriad additional features that were planned for now cancelled future seasons.
This includes a total of three new factions, 13 new maps, a new experience called Tactical, a means of gaining experience versus bots, new weapons, new progression mechanics for Faction Mastery and Badges, and more.
Hiding in plain sight through the centuries, the Assassins have waged a clandestine war against their ancient enemies, the Templars, to safeguard human freedom. Assassins combine rigorous combat training, unconventional weaponry, and a sixth sense to track and take out their targets. Their signature Hidden Blade is a one-hit melee elimination.
The Assassins receive combat guidance from Rebecca Crane, the technical genius who developed the Animus 2.0, an advanced model of the machine that lets Assassins relive genetic memories. She guided some of the Order’s most well-known Assassins, including Desmond Miles. With Crane’s assistance, the Assassins work in the dark to serve the light, combating oppression with lethal force.
New Faction: Wolves
Ex-special forces gone rogue, Wolves employ an arsenal of Skell Tech drones for both offense and defense. The Wolves trait allows the pack to be a sight unseen, undetected by AI abilities and devices. Their Legion drone acts like a homing proximity mine, while the Stolas is effectively a mobile turret. And their ultra, Drone Swarm, is the last word on area denial.
New Faction: Blood Dragon
Super-deadly cyber commandos from a dark future where cyborgs and mutants collide. Use your cyberstrength, throw deadly shuriken, strike with your shock punch, or use the Killstar laser to deal massive damage.
Fixes and Changes:
Cleaners
Fixed a couple of glitches with the Cleaners’ Incinerator Drone when Hijacked by a DedSec player:
The Drone no longer explodes next to the player who Hijacked it.
The Drone now leaves a complete fire trail back to its point of origin.
Echelon
No longer have a 50% reduction in flash grenade duration debuff
Phantoms
AEGIS – Addressed issue with shots not registering at point blank range.
Blitz – Increased movement speed to truly “Blitz” your opponent.
DedSec
Spiderbots 2.0 – We got the message. Spiderbots, DedSec’s infuriatingly face-adjacent electro-minions, are now less in your face and more of an area-of-effect threat. When activated, Spiderbots will now dutifully follow their deploying player for 30 seconds, emitting an electromagnetic pulse that disrupts all enemy equipment within a 10-meter radius. And with that, the era of Spiderbot facehugging comes to a close.
Highwaymen
M79
Fixed an issue that would lock the skill when activating right after a weapon swap
This should now have damage dealt while on different elevations
Improved handling and reload speed
Cooldown reduced to 40s
Buzzsaw Launcher
Increased ammo count
Addressed issue with damage inconsistency
Maps
New S3 Maps
Mykonos (Arena): Experience the island of Mykonos like the ancient Greeks did, except with more rooftop firefights, in this new map for Season 3. Your itinerary includes sprinting by market stalls, seeking roof access for the high ground, and jumping across boat decks in high-risk flanking maneuvers.
El Barrio (Arena)
Jorvik (Linear)
Animus Anomaly (Tactical): Ancient worlds collide in Animus Anomaly, a new corridor-style map for Season 3. Hunker down among Viking castles, flank around the waterways of ancient Greece, or go out with a boom in the new Defuse tactical variant of BOMB!.
New Future Maps – These maps were scheduled for later seasons but were too much fun not to release!
Arena
Carlyle’s Lab
Enchanted Forest
Killstar Temple
Razia’s Realm
Skell City
West End
Linear
Skell Complex
Esperanza
Himalaya
Fixes and Changes:
Adjustments were done to invisible collision and areas where players were able to jump to places that are out of bounds for the map.
Adjustments to some maps where scrap turrets were also being placed where they’re not supposed to be.
DUMBO has decked the halls to be more festive for the holidays
Players can no longer climb and leap their way into what was supposed to be an inaccessible area of some maps, where they were using El Remedio to heal allies and doing other sneaky exploits.
Many maps have undergone improvements to mantling which should now be fixed in several map locations that previously were not.
Map voting improvements
Game Modes
New Modes:
Defuse
This season sees the debut of Defuse, a tactical and slower-paced version of BOMB!. Teams take turns planting and defending bomb sites, yet all players only have one life. Defuse is designed for play on a new “corridor” type map, in this case the Animus Anomaly created exclusively for this category.
Vs Bots
There’s now a Vs Bots option where you can face off against varying levels of computers. You’ll even earn XP by battling bots. Although at a slower pace with human enemies.
Lum Hunt
Catch them if you can, Lums (beings of pure energy possessing of a mindbogglingly sunny disposition) have been placed around the Enchanted Forest map in this variant of Hot Shot. Also available in Private Matches.
Tilt
Now available in our Linear playlists, this mode is a simultaneous battle over who can push around Carlos the most, poor robot.
Turbo XD
Super jump your way to victory in this gravity defying mode.
New Party Modes Playlist
From one shot kill, to headshots only, and even no skills allowed, there’s a little something for everyone in this playlist. With no one here to make names for them, we wish you the very best of luck to figure them out.
Fixes and Changes:
Team balancing overhaul to ensure the fairest matches.
BOMB!
Several quality-of-life improvements to BOMB! spectator cam.
Planting and Defusing behavior improved not to conflict with other game features like looking at the scoreboard.
Private Match
Fixed an issue where the lobby menu would become blank after another player accepts a private match party invite.
Now allows you to select the server you wish to play on.
Ranked
Ranked BOMB!
With Ability Restrictions still in place, we took it 1 step further and you will only be allowed to use your ability once per life.
Round timer changed in Ranked BOMB! from 2 mins to 1min 30s, plant and defuse times adjusted, and Round 11 will go to highest scoring team.
Top 500 Leaderboard
Season 3 sees the debut of the Top 500 leaderboard, which showcases the top 500 players globally each season as they progress through the ranks until the season’s end. These top players are displayed in descending order of total Rank Points earned in the current season. Highlighting a player on the Leaderboard displays the following stats:
Current rank insignia and RP total.
Win/Loss: Player’s ratio of wins to losses.
Kill/Death: Player’s ratio of kills to deaths.
Average Score/Minute: Player’s average score per minute.
MVPs: Number of times the player earned MVP.
Ranked Emblem in HUD
Proudly display your ranked tier right on your heads-up display for all to see.
New Ranked Rewards
New S3 specific Ranked Rewards are available (to everyone).
Fixes and Changes:
Matchmaking ranges have been disabled and join in progress has been enabled so that matches are easier to find.
Reduced the forfeit timer duration from 20s to 5s.
Players are no longer pulled out of active Ranked game sessions after accepting the Party invite for a Private Match.
Added a new menu experience, now players will be able to search for games and jump back to the Ranked menu tab to view rewards, info, and the top 500 leaderboard.
Removed Domination and CTF from Ranked playlists.
Weapons
Assault Rifle
FAMAS – The FAMAS is a burst-fire rifle like the M16A4 but with faster ADS time, movement, and rate of fire. It is slower to reload, however, and inflicts less hurt per shot.
G36K
Sub-Machine Gun
M1928
Light Machine Gun
MG5 – Despite its shorter range and lower ammo capacity than other belt-fed LMGs, the MG5 with its higher rate of fire makes it a powerful and versatile option for those who can master its challenging recoil.
Marksman
M1A – An agile warhorse built for medium-range battles, the M1A offers a speedy rate of fire but deals less per-shot damage compared to other marksman rifles.
Sniper Rifle
SRS
Pistol
Diceros
Fixes and Changes:Sawed-off Shotgun Balance Adjustment
The range and damage potential of the Sawed-Off Shotgun have been adjusted to better focus it on its intended role as a short-range kill-finisher and prevent it from killing full-health opponents with a single shot.
Short Range reduced from 8m -> 6m
Medium Range reduced from 12m -> 10m
Short Range Damage reduced from 12 -> 11
Bullets Per Round reduced from 12 -> 9
Tweaked smoke grenade effects so that some components of cosmetic skins will no longer be visible through the smoke, while also improving the size, shape, and transparency of the smoke particles and radius of effect.
Adjusted the camera shake so that now it is based on distance to explosion. Removed friendly explosion camera shake.
Attachments
Tapered Barrel
Introduced the Tapered Barrel, an attachment for most weapons that increases handling speed but reduces damage. Here are the pluses and minuses:
Pros:
25 percent boost to sprint-out time
15 percent ADS speed increase
5 percent movement speed increase
Cons:
20 percent short-range damage decrease
20 percent medium-range damage decrease
10 percent ADS walking speed decrease
In other words, this barrel will help you scoot around the map at a zippier pace, but you’ll likely need to land more shots than normal to get kills.
New Reticle Customization
New for Season 3: Customized reticules. Players can unlock new reticule shapes and adjust their colors (a helpful feature for players with colorblindness). Custom reticules will be tied to individual loadouts.
Fixes and Changes:
Fixed a graphical glitch that let players see parts of their weapon barrel through the Reflex and Holographic sights.
Fixed a lagging magazine when player reloads weapons.
Fixed floating when using left-handed skills and reloads.
Fixed a scope crosshair missing when player ADS in spectating mode.
Several skins have had their sights adjusted to match the base weapon being used.
Various visual improvements
Progression
Prestige System!
Introducing Prestige, an optional new progression system that rewards long-haul dedication with flashy cosmetics and extravagant emblems that showcase your experience to other players. Available to anyone who has completed their Base Challenges, Prestige resets player progress in exchange for an eye-catching Prestige Emblem. All starter and owned weaponry are locked – except the M4, M9, and frag grenade – but can be earned as players earn XP and Prestige Tokens to access their original gear plus new weapons until they complete the current Prestige Tier and acquire the next eye-catching emblem. Players can opt out of Prestige at any time and recover their weapons, or they can commit to unlocking the final Prestige Emblem, the ultimate display of dedication.
Badges!
Badges are part of a mysterious new challenge-based progression system where players earn Badges for performing impressive feats and engaging with the game in creative ways. All Badge challenges have hidden requirements, encouraging players to go online and engage with the XDefiant community. Badges can also evolve, requiring players to complete the challenge a second or third time but with more challenging requirements for success.
Faction Mastery!
Allows players to level up characters, earn prestigious rewards, and track their progression within the game
Pristine Weapon Mastery Skin
A new Pristine Weapon Mastery skin is unlocked at weapon level 50 as an early reward to encourage players to pursue Weapon Mastery. These new Pristine skins are like unmarred, fresh-from-the-factory versions of these weapons. Pristine skins are retroactively applied to any weapons that have already reached level 50.
Daily Rewards and Credits
Players can now earn various rewards just for logging into the game. Bigger rewards are granted every 5th and 10th login. The days do not have to be consecutive.
Credits are a brand new in-game currency. Use Credits to buy cosmetics from previous seasons, giving you the opportunity to get any skins you may have missed back then, but you have everything now, so that’s nice
Fixes and Changes:
Some Challenges, particularly those related to faction characters, weren’t progressing on the main menu, but now they are.
Audio
Battle announcer lines have been tweaked for their frequency of play:
Lines announcing death streaks (or dying multiple times without killing an enemy) will trigger less often (now players need to die five times rather than three, and the death streaks will only trigger during the second half of a match).
Lines related to suffering from fire damage (from the Purifier, (Firebomb, Incendiary Drone–really anything involving the Cleaners) will trigger less frequently.
Phantoms – Blitz – Now has sounds for blocking a melee attack and for attacking others with a Blitz Shield.
GSK – Hardhat – Audio improved for impact confirm headshot
Highwaymen – M79 – Now has sounds for hit confirm and impact confirm with the M79.
Other various audio improvements.
Miscellaneous
New Assassin’s video on the main menu
New Career Stats page
New Store Layout
New Weapon Inspect
Input-based matchmaking is now disabled by default for faster matchmaking times.
Fixed various crashes and errors
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
They say hope is the first step on the road to disappointment, and reader, I’ve made a pretty damn big step. Previously, on my mission to survive S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl with only wild mutants as my weapons, I’d discovered clues that someone else was attempting to tame the Zone’s beastly inhabitants. With one of their electronic tracking collars in hand and absolutely no preexisting knowledge of their location, I set out to find this kindred spirit, only for the Zone to once again slam a door in my face.
A cold, steel, very literal door to boot. It turns out that the scientist’s laboratory is locked up tight, and will remain so until I delve about twenty hours deeper into the faction war that’s bubbled up while I’ve been running around throwing irradiated rats at people in tracksuits. Fine. Fine! But I’m keeping the collar.
Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio is reviving classic Sega arcade game The Ocean Hunter in Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, marking its first release on console.
As reported by Automaton, RGG Studio revealed on X/Twitter the wealth of minigames coming to the incoming Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii including The Ocean Hunter as an arcade game.
Bringing over The Ocean Hunter, a 1998 on-rails shooter about killing giant sea beasties like great white sharks, was a “very difficult task that required the cooperation of many people,” however, according to an X/Twitter post from RGG Studio technical director Yutaka Ito.
As mentioned, The Ocean Hunter has never been ported to console, so RGG Studio had to do everything from the ground up. This included visiting actual arcades to understand exactly how it worked, since the game doesn’t exist in any other, more accessible, capacity.
Ito said the development team had been talking about bringing The Ocean Hunter over for a year ahead of actually beginning work, because it’s lack of license-related complications made it an ideal choice and it also very much fits the theme of Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii.
It’s not a stretch to say we’re currently experiencing the best run of horror video games since the PS2 era. The past few years have seen the genre revitalised, in part thanks to nostalgia for a time when survival horror was at its peak. The result has been cutting-edge remakes, retro throwbacks, and new experiences that find fresh ways to send shivers down our spines.
Things in the horror space are so good that last year, for the first time, IGN introduced the Best Horror Game category for its annual awards. And it was pretty easy to bring it back for a second year, so good has the selection of spooks been in 2024. We were treated to the uneasy, claustrophobic terror of Still Wakes the Deep and its infected oil rig; the grisly Saw-ish challenges of The Outlast Trials; Bloober Team’s impressive recreation of Silent Hill 2, and the horrifying twists and turns of Mouthwashing, among others.
But only one can be crowned the best horror game of 2024. What did the IGN team judge to be the most worthy? Let’s take a look at the results…
Honorable Mentions
Thanks to the expansive array of experiences offered up by the current horror game renaissance period, the IGN team’s votes went to a wide range of 2024 releases. While not getting enough votes to secure runner-up status, we’d like to give honourable mentions to two extra games.
Still Wakes the Deep from developer The Chinese Room is a gorgeous narrative horror set on an oil rig that’s been infected with a The Thing-like creature. It’s enjoyably Scottish in tone, painted in the depressing shades of 1970s Britain and powered by the unknowable fear of Eldritch literature. It’s much more engaging than its walking sim fundamentals would suggest, too, with exciting chase set-pieces and creepy stealth encounters.
We also have to tip our hat in the direction of Slitterhead. While our reviewer ultimately struggled to fall in love with it, several IGN team members enjoyed its idiosyncratic approach to an Invasion of the Bodysnatchers-style scenario. The latest game from original Silent Hill director Keiichiro Toyama certainly has its fair share of quirks and unusual presentation, but there’s something fundamentally fascinating about its core concept. Hijacking bodies and using different people to further your investigation into Lovecraftian monsters that wear humans like skin suits is unlike anything we’ve ever done in a horror game before. In an industry that plays it increasingly safe, Slitterhead is unafraid to embrace the bizarre.
Runner-up: A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead
The strength of the original A Quiet Place movie is in its simple concept: a world where you have to stay silent to survive. A snapping twig or a rustling snack could be your downfall. On paper that’s not just a good elevator pitch for a story, but the driving mechanic of a great video game. And so, somewhat unsurprisingly, we’ve landed a pretty good movie companion game in A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead.
As you’d expect, this is a tense survival game rooted in stealth systems. Stalked by the same alien creatures seen in the movies, you must carefully navigate through levels filled to bursting with noisy objects. Every opened drawer and door is a risky move, lest the squeak of a hinge alert the beast. Adding even more stress to the situation is the fact that your protagonist is asthmatic, meaning strenuous tasks like climbing over obstacles can push you closer and closer to a noisy respiratory attack that will summon your hunter.
Developer Stormind Games clearly had a limited budget for this project and so The Road Ahead is often a bit rough around the edges. Its cat-and-mouse gameplay isn’t quite the Alien: Isolation successor you’d hope for (see last year’s Amnesia: The Bunker for a better alternative). But despite that, this is a great proof of concept as to how well suited A Quiet Place is to the video game medium.
Runner-up: Crow Country
Much of the horror genre’s recent success can be attributed to developers looking back to earlier generations and finding ways to recreate those original scares. That’s exactly what’s going on in Crow Country, an indie spookfest that pays homage to 1990s PlayStation classics Resident Evil and Silent Hill. The low-polygon visuals, limited inventory space, overhead camera, and foot-anchored shooting all capture the timeless essence of early survival horror.
But it’s the new ideas injected by developer SFB Games that enhance Crow Country above and beyond a simple exercise in nostalgia. Being able to rotate the camera a full 360 degrees brings modern edge to a traditionally fixed-view formula, and the ability to freely aim weapons similarly uplifts the otherwise old-school shooting system. These in turn allow Crow Country’s puzzles and battles to feel freshly invigorated, be that through spinning the camera to find new clues and items, or lining up a headshot to quickly neutralise an approaching monster.
While it does channel some of the unsettling atmosphere of its retro inspirations, Crow County isn’t afraid to have more than a little fun. Set in an abandoned theme park, there’s a level of whimsy that penetrates the darkness, while protagonist Mara always has a comedic line up her sleeve to bring a bit of levity. The result isn’t exactly cosy, but there is a certain comfort to be found in Crow Country – a sort of gross nostalgic hug.
Runner-up: Mouthwashing
Mouthwashing is the word-of-mouth horror hit of 2024. It’s one of those games that comes coupled with “read nothing, just play” advice, so if a twisted narrative adventure that exposes the depravity of human nature is the kind of thing you go for, then you’ll want to stop reading, open Steam in a new tab, and hit the buy button right now.
But we have to provide details to justify Mouthwashing’s position as the IGN team’s second-favourite horror game of the year, so here we go. On the surface, developer Wrong Organ has made a simple walking simulator in which you jog to-and-fro between the different rooms of a crashed space ship completing basic errands. There’s little in the form of classic horror game mechanics – you won’t find any zombies to shoot, enemies to hide from, or resource management here. But as the story pushes forward, you find yourself falling down an increasingly distressing rabbit hole. What happens when a stranded freighter crew faces little hope of survival? Sanity becomes a precious, dwindling resource.
A narrative triumph, Mouthwashing drops horrifying new reveals at just the right moments of its ever-building tension curve. And as the layers are peeled back, you begin to look at not just your crew mates in a very different light, but also your own protagonist. This is a horror story where force-feeding painkillers to your mutilated captain is just the appetiser to the grotesque late-game main course. It’s as disturbingly delicious as it sounds.
Winner: Silent Hill 2
It’s safe to say that there were no guarantees for Bloober Team’s remake of Silent Hill 2. Team Silent’s timeless survival horror classic was, to some, considered impossible to remake. Others were wary of Bloober’s capabilities after The Medium (itself an underwhelming homage to Silent Hill) and a very up-and-down back catalogue. But when we finally had Silent Hill 2 installed on our consoles – a game that’s simultaneously glossy and rusty – it was instantaneously clear: Bloober didn’t just get Silent Hill 2, it spoke it fluently.
Silent Hill 2 follows in the footsteps of last year’s Dead Space in being a remake that stays almost completely faithful to the original game while adding modern enhancements in a tasteful manner. It features all the dread-inducing, tense exploration of the original – this is a game largely about exploring horrible buildings room-by-room and digesting the terrible secrets within – just this time around you can do all this with a 3D camera and modern over-the-shoulder combat. The result is an experience that feels like a throwback to the peak of survival horror in its design, but is thoroughly modern in its execution. For many people, including much of the IGN team, this is the exact sweet spot a remake should aim for.
Bloober sticking so close to the original formula means Silent Hill 2 isn’t quite as transformative a work as, for example, Capcom’s Resident Evil 2, which re-thought the entire game from the ground-up. As such, we know this could be considered something of a controversial choice. Should a faithful remake be considered for an end-of-year award when so much of the creative work was done by different people in a different decade? While that’s a worthy question, it’s undeniable that Bloober’s efforts on this project is a valuable addition to the horror canon, making a true titan of the genre accessible to modern audiences. Its heavy, bleak story remains as timeless today as it did back in 2001, and that fear-inducing exploration loop is a reminder of the eternal qualities of good game design. As such, Silent Hill 2 was the best horror game we played in 2024, and this modern vehicle for such triumphs deserves to be recognised regardless of its roots.
