Author: Game Infliction

Fans think that Microsoft and Xbox are teasing some Fable news at its upcoming Xbox Games showcase next month.

On Xbox’s official Twitter account, a video was posted showing a person’s Xbox controller covered in glitter. Then it’s revealed that the glitter forms a trail that leads to a screen that shows the Xbox Games Showcase logo with the caption, “seems important.”

Do you love ✨ GAMES ✨ as much as we do? Then you won’t want to miss the Xbox Games Showcase: https://t.co/YSurRjtzpn | #Starfield #XboxShowcase pic.twitter.com/O1qSlXHNmY

— Xbox (@Xbox) May 30, 2023

In the Fable games, a glitter trail guided players to their next destination on a mission. So this trail of glitter implies that the Fable reboot will appear at the Xbox Games Showcase. The game is being developed by Forza Horizon developer Playground Games.

The Fable reboot was first announced back in 2020 for Xbox Series X and PC. In the meantime, we’ve learned that the game is being developed using the Forza engine and that Horizon Forbidden West writer Andrew Walsh left Guerrilla Games to join Playground and work on it.

This is the latest mainline entry in the Fable series since 2010’s Fable 3. The Xbox Games Showcase is set to premiere on June 11.

George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. He’s been writing about the industry since 2019 and has worked with other publications such as Insider, Kotaku, NPR, and Variety.

When not writing about video games, George is playing video games. What a surprise! You can follow him on Twitter @Yinyangfooey

Metal Gear Solid 3: Remake (officially Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater) will reportedly feature the 2004 game’s original voice acting.

As reported by The Verge, Konami’s head of communications for the Americas Tommy Williams said the remake will feature the original game’s dialogue with no changes despite being released close to two decades ago.

The status of the remake’s voice acting was up in the air due to unclear wording from Konami, who said alongside the announcement last week that it will “star the original voice characters”.

This also means that David Hayter, who voiced Snake in nine different Metal Gear games before being passed over for Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, will sort of make his return to the franchise. This will seemingly only be through his original lines recorded for the game, of course, and not through new voice acting.

Hayter said following his replacement that he doesn’t “feel any need to go back” and work with franchise creator Hideo Kojima (though he’s not involved in the remake), and appeared fairly hurt by Konami’s decision not to have him return.

“That’ll be 60 hours of humiliation that I can’t get to,” he said of playing Metal Gear Solid 5 at the time. “I haven’t played the latest two iterations because it’s just too painful.”

As for Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater, Konami has also had to explain why there’s a strange symbol in its name and that it’s not just coming to PlayStation 5 but Xbox Series and PC too.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer and acting UK news editor. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

Venture to the Vile clicked with me the first time I switched layers to solve a puzzle. I was trying to get to a lever that would open a door farther in, but there wasn’t a lever in the area I hadn’t pressed, and none of the ones I had opened the door. Then I remembered that one of them had extended a bridge to an area in the background. So I walked back to the bridge, shifted to the layer in the background, worked my way to the lever, and bingo: one open door. I love it when a plan comes together.

Venture to the Vile is a 2D Metroidvania with a twist. It’s set in a 3D world, and you can switch between areas in the foreground and background as long as you find a path to get you there. See something cool? You can probably go there. Developer Studio Cut to Bits wants to emphasize exploration and a sense of surprise in Venture to the Vile, and based on my time with it, I think they’ve nailed it.

Part of the appeal of Venture to the Vile is the world itself. Venture to the Vile takes place in and around the town of Rainybrook, where a mysterious substance called The Vile is corrupting everything, transforming the inhabitants of an otherwise charming and colorful world into horrifying monstrosities. Rainybrook takes cues from the Victorian period, and you can see it in the architecture of the town itself and the masks the characters wear. Speaking of characters, Venture to the Vile’s cast has a lot of personality, from Dr. Crow, who wants to dissect you, to friendly town butcher, or the two shady guys who really don’t want you listening into their conversation. Rainybrook is core to Venture to the Vile: other characters will give you quests, and you’ll be able to visit the town’s many shops to upgrade the abilities you’ll acquire by… ahem, venturing into the vile.

Venture to the Vile also features a dynamic weather and day/night cycle and it’s not just for show. The weather and time of day will change where characters are, what monsters inhabit an environment, the quests you can pick up and do, the narrative you’ll experience, and the upgrades you’ll find.

That, of course, is where the actual gameplay comes in. Venture to the Vile’s unnamed, stag-masked hero is looking for his friend Ella, who has disappeared in the Vile. Going into the Vile is dangerous; it corrupts everything it touches: plants, animals, people, you name it. Our stag-masked hero has a few tools up his sleeve to fight back, though. He can attack enemies with the retractable blade coming out of his arm, parry telegraphed enemy attacks, and double-jump. I was early on, so my ability set wasn’t as robust as it would be later, but it felt good and appropriate to the environment I was exploring. You can save at camps to replenish healing items, but it also returns defeated enemies to life, making for interesting risk-reward decisions if you have to backtrack. Naturally, you will have to if you want to see everything Venture to the Vile’s dynamic weather and day/night cycle opens up. I enjoyed Venture to the Vile most when it asked me to do a bit of everything: switch between the different layers of the world to solve puzzles, fight off corrupted Vile-monsters, and mix my basic platforming abilities up with environmental additions like ziplines.

In fact, I was so into it that I didn’t realize I’d walked into a boss fight against the world’s angriest grasshopper until it started. Like the rest of Venture to the Vile, the fight was a mixture of platforming and combat. I spent most of the fight avoiding the grasshopper, who attacked from various angles, spawned Vile on platforms to limit my movement, and did an area-of-effect attack that forced me to dodge, only hitting him when he stopped for a breather after a flurry of attacks. The fight wasn’t complex, but it was enough to keep me on my toes, and I barely prevailed. My reward was a dash ability.

You see, killing enemies in the Vile rewards currency that can be used in Rainybrook, but killing bosses like the grasshopper allows the protagonist to absorb their abilities, as well. Absorbing Vile means becoming more and more like the monsters you’re fighting, adding an intriguing hook to the narrative. I was excited to try the dash for myself, but the playable section of the demo ended there.

However, I did get to see what Venture to the Vile looked like a little later courtesy of a hands-off showing by Studio Cut to Bits. In it, our stag-masked hero was exploring a windmill overrun with Vile. In addition to the dash I’d unlocked, which can be used in the air as well as on the ground, he also had the time-honored Metroidvania ability to wall jump and a tentacle arm that allowed him to leap to nearby grapple points. The windmill had more layers than the environment I’d seen earlier and was much more vertical. Traversing it meant using those abilities and manipulating the windmill’s internal machinery by riding conveyor belts, hitching a ride on grapple points, and freeing wooden gears from the Vile while navigating environmental obstacles and contending with Vile-infested spiders and rats.

The segment ended with a multi-stage boss fight against a giant tentacle-eye. It’s a complex fight, with players having to deal with the eye’s attacks in addition to stage hazards, a moving conveyor belt that can change directions, and rope-grapple points. I can’t wait to play it for myself.

Honestly, that last sentence sums up how I feel about what I played and saw of Venture to the Vile. Studio Cut to Bits is developing a unique, literally layered Metroidvania with beautiful art and an intriguing world, and I can’t wait to see more of what awaits us – and what our stag-masked protagonist might transform into – in the future.

Will Borger is a Pushcart-nominated fiction writer and an IGN freelancer. His work has also appeared at TechRadar, GameSkinny, DigitiallyDownloaded.net, and Into the Spine. He specializes in covering fighting games, action games, strategy games, and first-person shooters. You can chat with him on Twitter @bywillborger.

Tears of the Kingdom players have unearthed yet another infinite duplication glitch just days after Nintendo dropped a patch which removed a number of existing exploits from the game.

As spotted by Games Radar, videos of new new glitch – including this one from YouTuber Kibbles Gaming – began appearing online earlier this week, giving players a new way to infinitely duplicate fused weapons.

With the weapon equipped, players should open the inventory and save the game, then hold the right bumper to prepare a throw, and without letting go, open the map. After this navigate to your adventure log and watch any memory four times in a row. Finally, press the plus button and load the previous save to find the duplicated item lying on the ground.

“I will never understand how anyone has this much time to figure things out like this…but I could never thank then enough either,” replied one viewer. “Honestly, if Nintendo had just removed the degradation system, then all this duplication nonsense wouldn’t even be necessary,” commented another.

According to Kibbles Gaming, the glitch may exist because viewing a memory advances the game by a single frame each time. So watching four memories progresses the game four frames, thus giving Link the time to throw the weapon while tricking the game into thinking that you haven’t.

However, some exploit enthusiasts were less impressed with the newfound glitch. “I shouldn’t have updated my game. The other glitch was way easier,” commented one viewer, echoing the sentiments of other exploit enthusiasts who lamented the golden days of the pre-patch era. Others complained that they couldn’t get the glitch to work for them altogether, or that it wouldn’t work for materials.

Take a look at our Tears of the Kingdom Walkthrough and Guide for more tips and tricks to help you make the most of your adventure through Hyrule. In fact, you can start right here:

• 16 Things to Do First in Tears of the Kingdom
• 14 Things Tears of the Kingdom Doesn’t Tell You
• How to Uncover the Full TOTK Map
• How to Expand Your Inventory in TOTK
• PSA: Your Old BOTW Save Unlocks Something Cool in TOTK

Anthony is a freelance contributor covering science and video gaming news for IGN. He has over eight years experience of covering breaking developments in multiple scientific fields and absolutely no time for your shenanigans. Follow him on Twitter @BeardConGamer