THQ Nordic and Yuke’s Media Creations have announced that AEW: Fight Forever, the officially licensed All Elite Wrestling game, will be available on June 29 for PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
Announced in a new trailer (above), the long awaited wrestling game finally got its release date after being revealed two and a half years ago.
AEW wrestler and executive vice president Kenny Omega took centre stage in the trailer to announce the June 29 date and that pre-loading is now available. “Thank you so much for your patience and being awesome fans,” he added.
Confusion around its release date occurred earlier this year when Omega said the game was finished but in limbo due to an ESRB rating, though THQ Nordic senior community manager Per Hollenbro later said that this wasn’t the case. Thankfully for fans, however, this has now been resolved and the game is launching in just over a month.
In our preview of the game, IGN said: “[Our] impression of AEW Fight Forever is that it is exactly what it looks like: A throwback to what many view as the Golden Age of wrestling games.”
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer and acting UK news editor. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
Amazon is running a Gaming Week sale right now ahead of the Memorial Day holiday weekend, with savings on all things game related, from PC gaming, console games, even movies based on video games are getting in on the discounts. As such, there are some great opportunities to save on Nintendo Switch games and accessories right now.
The Nintendo Switch is a runaway success, now sitting at number three in the list of all-time best-selling consoles. Some of the most popular games of the last five years have exclusive homes on the Switch, and unlike Nintendo consoles of yore, first-party Nintendo Switch game deals are fairly commonplace.
Best Nintendo Switch Deals
Common Nintendo Switch Game Deals
TL;DR: Indie and first-party games
By far the most common Nintendo Switch deals we see are on smaller games. Games like Harvestella, for example, are perpetually on sale, but there are lots of times to save on some of the best indies on Nintendo Switch. In fact, I’d say the best chances to find deals are on indie games, and since they’re often pretty inexpensive anyway, you can load up storage with great Switch games for very little money.
The most popular Nintendo Switch deals have to be on first-party games, however. Several times a year, Nintendo will have deals on games like Breath of the Wild, Luigi’s Mansion 3, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and more first-party Switch games, offering them up for $39.99 (or less).
The Best Time to Buy Switch Games
The most common time to see these big savings on Nintendo Switch games happen during Black Friday (the Friday after Thanksgiving, on Nov 24th 2023) and Nintendo’s annual eShop sale in the early summer. If there’s a first-party Nintendo game you want, and you’re willing to wait, you can almost certainly snatch it up for $39.99 at some point over the course of the year.
When does the Nintendo Switch Console go on Sale?
The Nintendo Switch itself rarely sees price drops. In fact, I can’t think of a legitimate time when we saw one. However, Nintendo skirts this by offering up bundle deals, usually with a game download included.
The Mario Choose One bundle lets you pick from Mario Kart 8, New Super Mario Bros. U, or Mario Odyssey, and it comes with a pair of “Mario Red” Joy-con. As far as a deal goes, it’s currently the best around on Switch, but you’re just getting a free game.
Black Friday is when Nintendo brings out its old faithful Nintendo Switch Bundle, the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Nintendo Switch bundle. In recent years, Nintendo’s added a subscription to Nintendo Switch Online. Nintendo Switch Online offers online play for games like Splatoon 3, as well as access to a selection of NES, Super NES and now original Game Boy games.
One of the biggest games to dominate the scene of the golden age of arcades was Bubble Bobble, a cute Japanese action platformer centered around little dinosaurs that could shoot bubbles out of their mouths. While that original game eventually went on to spawn a ton of sequels and ports that iterated on the concept, it also led to the development of spin-offs like Puzzle Bobble in 1994. Ditching the platforming roots, this new game put an action-focused twist on tile-matching and quickly garnered a following of its own. Now Taito has seen fit to continue the legacy with Puzzle Bobble Everybubble!, a new entry that brings new ideas.
Puzzle Bobble follows a relatively basic gameplay formula wherein you fire colored bubbles from the bottom of the screen at a mass of bubbles at the top of the screen, which disappear when your shots produce a group of three or more like-colored bubbles. A big part of the challenge comes from being constantly under pressure to perform, as bubbles are usually either slowly pressing down on you from above, or you’re only given a limited amount of time to clear everything out. Couple this with the fact that you can never quite tell exactly where your shot is going to land, and it’s an experience that straddles a fine line between being stressful and relaxing. Mistakes pile up fast and make it that much harder to make the shots you intend to, but playing things too slow and methodical means that you’re at risk of failing or, at the very least, receiving a lower ranking for that stage.
We’re continuing to deliver on our promise to bring high-quality, immersive PC games from Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda to more people in more ways. Today, we’re announcing that Deathloop, Gears 5, Grounded and Pentiment will be available to play for Boosteroid members beginning June 1. This is another step to ensure players worldwide have access to great content on their terms.
Boosteroid customers in the Ukraine, the United Kingdom, countries across the European Union, and the United States will soon be able to jump in as Kait Diaz to take on the Horde in Gears 5, team up with friends to survive and explore the backyard of Grounded, attempt to escape a seemingly never-ending timeloop in Deathloop, or experience life in an illustrated world with Pentiment. These four titles are just the start — we’ll regularly add more hits and fan favorites from our extensive catalog of PC games. Boosteroid members will be able to access games purchased through Steam or the Epic Game Store (for eligible titles) to start, with support for games purchased through the Microsoft Store coming soon.
It remains our goal to empower people to play the games they want, with the people they want, where they want, on the devices they want. For those who subscribe to Boosteroid, they can play PC games from Xbox across a wide range of platforms, including Windows, Linux, Android, Android TV, and macOS through an app, and even more devices through browsers and webOS.
This moment builds on our recent announcement that PC games from Xbox are available to NVIDIA GeForce NOW members, and is one of our many partnerships planned globally with a variety of cloud gaming providers, including Ubitus and Nware, and EE in the future. We are committed to enabling players to stream games from Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda, as well as future Activision Blizzard PC games once the acquisition closes, through the cloud gaming service of their choice.
We’ll continue to put players and game creators at the center of everything we do, and we are proud to work with Boosteroid so their members have the choice to find and play their next favorite game from Xbox.
Final Fantasy 16 opens with a bang. Two swirling Eikons – colossal beasts that series fans will know better as Summons – pepper each other with fireballs and lash out with their hefty tails as they descend deep under the earth in a scene reminiscent of Gandalf’s plunging tussle with the Balrog. It’s a level of spectacle rarely witnessed in a video game and an early indicator of the huge-scale story awaiting those venturing into Square Enix’s latest.
Having played the following four or so hours, it’s a promise largely lived up to, with razor-sharp combat and thrilling boss battles consistently exciting. But beyond the blade it also engages through its thoroughly fantasy-rooted tale, establishing the world of Valisthea, its factions, and individual personalities to good effect. It makes for an electrifying opening which, despite being a little cutscene heavy at times, made me wish I didn’t have to stop playing.
The opening section that I played is described by Square Enix as “a special version made for media to experience, and contents may differ from the final version.” But regardless of if the events presented are identical to the final game or not, don’t worry; I won’t be spoiling any story details for Final Fantasy 16, just discussing some of the themes at play and the stage they set.
Valisthea is a world that returns Final Fantasy to its more classic fantasy roots, albeit with heightened cinematic aspirations. It’s not afraid to throw spectacle after spectacle your way right from the off, with the early arrival of the ice Eikon Shiva onto a dusty battlefield truly stunning in its execution as she glistens in all her glory. She provides a stark contrast to her adversary, the stony, monolithic Titan who towers over the skirmish between two rival factions below. There’s a sheer enormity to the size of these Eikons that even the likes of old-school God of War or Shadow of the Colossus would be jealous of.
There’s a sheer enormity to the size of these Eikons that even the likes of old-school God of War or Shadow of the Colossus would be jealous of.
They may be well-worn reference points for anything vaguely medieval-fantasy, but it’s hard to ignore the Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones influence here. The story is rooted in the struggle over the five Mothercrystals that tower over Valisthea, which are the source of the magic that powers this world. Naturally, the continent’s six nations are going to want to fight for control of these, and so a constant state of conflict rages on. One of those nations is the Grand Duchy of Rosaria and you play as Clive Rosfield, son of the ruling Archduke. Over the course of the opening few hours, you’re transported through different periods of his life as the personal catalyst for his story is revealed.
It’s not a revolutionary setup for a story in this genre, but one introduced with a fair amount of elegance in an early cadence that maintains a good balance between action and dialogue. This pace and a general sense of excitement are infinitely aided by the superb score that soundtracks the events, too. It’s worth saying at this point that Final Fantasy 16’s opening hours are very story heavy, and while it does a great job at introducing Clive’s family ties and those who aim to unbind them, it did leave me wishing I was playing a more active part in it at times. Not least because when you do get to let off the leash, its combat never fails to impress.
That heightened sense of cinema translates equally well to the battlefield with each encounter feeling like a real event. In my relatively short amount of playtime, I fought no fewer than eight bosses, each delivering spectacle on both a macro and micro level – ranging from massive monster clashes to time-bending perfect parry affairs against agile enemies. The first extensive stretch of gameplay sees you playing as teenage Clive as you venture through a swampy marshland littered with the most goblin-looking goblins you’ve ever seen. It culminates in a very fun fight against this world’s version of the classic Final Fantasy enemy Morbol (or Marlboro), a slimy tendrilled set of teeth with a serious case of bad breath. It’s Final Fantasy 16’s first real display of its fantastic combat in full flow, with its signature cinematic strikes and evades now fully introduced to your arsenal.
It’s a set of tools that is steadily added to as you progress, with different magic abilities welcomed into the fold. And while I had plenty of toys to play with, I still feel like I’d barely scratched the surface of what these combat systems have to offer. That’s especially true when it comes to its showpiece kaiju-like Eikon battles which flip the script when it comes to gameplay, each promising a delve into a new genre. The aforementioned opening exchange between two fiery Eikons, which played more like a flying rail shooter than an RPG, conjures up welcome memories of the finale to Nier Automata in its desire to frequently switch up gameplay styles while never pausing for breath.
As large-scale as Final Fantasy 16 can be at times, I was slightly surprised by how contained some of its levels can be.
As large-scale as Final Fantasy 16 can be at times, I was slightly surprised by how contained some of its levels can be. Early on at least, they were all relatively narrow locations that funnel you from arena to arena with occasional forays off the beaten path that rewarded me with useful items. A great example of this is the Greatwood area which acted as the final destination of my hands-on. A verdant, green forest, it largely consisted of leafy corridors connecting fights with feisty flora and fauna to bosses of varying sizes, the most notable of these being the scaly Giant Fafnir which looked like something on an exchange trip from Skull Island.
I did spend a small amount of time in a much wider open space from later in the game, containing side quests and challenging foes to take down, but this by no means felt like the open-world Final Fantasy that fans have become accustomed to of late in Final Fantasy 15. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – not every game needs to be a sprawling world to get lost in – and in some ways was a refreshing throwback to the more linear Final Fantasy of old. Even if it did feel a little restricted to a repetitive rhythm of cutscene, battle, cutscene, battle, with exploration coming at a premium.
There’s nothing old-school about the combat, though, which feels sharply cutting-edge in its fluidity. The fast-paced action really is excellent, so good in fact that I found myself often thinking “Just let me do it more”. As I said, cutscenes make up a lot of Final Fantasy 16’s early runtime, and while story has always been a big part of the series, I think it may be the sheer speed of its action that leads to the transition between combat and the slower, dialogue-heavy scenes delivering more whiplash this time around. The scenes themselves are all well-acted and admirably succinct in their exposition, it’s just more of a testament to the sheer thrill of its combat than anything that I couldn’t wait for them to move along at an even swifter pace.
For those that really want to take their time and delve deeper into the history of Valisthea, however, there’s the handy Active Time Lore system. This essentially acts in a similar fashion to Prime Video’s X-ray feature, allowing you to hit a button and pause the scene at any moment to learn more about the characters speaking or the terminology they’re using. It’s a smart way to provide extra context for those who want it without overloading on exposition for those who want to zip along to the next fight.
Clive is an emotionally complicated character plagued with a tragic backstory that adds a welcome amount of depth.
That’s not to say that Final Fantasy 16 doesn’t entertain in its slower moments, and indeed some of them are effective in building Clive out as a protagonist to care about. He’s an emotionally complicated character plagued with a tragic backstory that adds a welcome amount of depth. A section where you’re set loose to roam around his family home of Rosalith Castle serves as a great way of introducing us to Clive and his place in this world as he interacts with soldiers-in-training, magical gardeners, and a bounty of regional British accents. He may be a new breed of Final Fantasy hero, but that’s not to say that there aren’t significant hallmarks of the series here either, including a tearful look up at the night sky in the hope of a better future à la Cloud and Tifa.
From what I’ve seen so far, the future looks very bright for Final Fantasy 16. If its opening few hours of hulking Eikon showdowns, superb melee combat, and story that delivers on both a personal and global level are anything to go by, then a very fun time is on the horizon. I’m hopeful that the ever-so-stuttering pace irons itself out over the hours to come, with its ferociously fun gameplay taking precedence as Clive’s journey broadens. I went into my time with Final Fantasy 16 incredibly excited about what I’d seen in its many trailers and showcases and left very happy that very little of that anticipation had diminished by the time I’d finished.
Simon Cardy thinks massive monsters belong everywhere except the real world. Follow him on Twitter at @CardySimon.
There’s one particular Final Fantasy XVI development story Naoki Yoshida admits he’s unlikely ever to forget. The producer describes a particular port city the studio conceptualized. Its key feature: a colossal stretch of huge wall that runs the length of the city, separating it from the surrounding ocean and which has successfully protected those behind it from invasion for over three centuries. It’s a visually impressive sight, one that fits perfectly with the larger fantasy world of Valisthea. There was, however, one issue.
“You look over these designs,” explains Yoshida-san, “And in the far corner of the town, on the sea side, there’s a natural cliff. And this cliff is maybe 15 meters high. And the leader of this city, the most important person, is housed right there beside it. What stopped pirates just coming up, destroying the house and taking over? It made no sense.”
The result was a proverbial – and literal – return to the drawing board to correct the oversight.
It’s a recollection that articulates the careful work to make this fantastical world believable, lived in. And that story is but one of numerous examples of the complexities the producer, alongside Art Director Hiroshi Minagawa and Localization Director Michael-Christopher Koji Fox have navigated as they built Valisthea and the player’s journey through it.
A world’s design, of how Valisthea rests at a crossroads between multiple teams at the studio – environmental artists, level designers, combat teams and more – is the focus of an insightful conversation with the three midway through their two-day stopover in London. That stay is just one stage of a multi-country tour for the game they’re attached to, each stop giving attendees several hours with the near-final PS5 game.
It’s a robust hands-on. We first sample the game’s opening hours, a flashback to a key period in Clive Rosfield’s youth that sets up what’s to come. (It’s this section that players will experience in a public demo which drops ahead of the full game’s launch.) We then play through the two hours and change directly following that demo’s conclusion. Lastly, we’re left to roam for thirty minutes in one of the game’s open areas, a lush valley filled with optional beasts to defeat and side-quests to take up.
In that collective time we wander through castle grounds and hideouts, battle our way through more guided scenarios, partake in a spectacular, cinematic Eikon versus Eikon clash. As such, we get a better understanding of the game’s structure, the environment design. I have answered a question I never thought to ask: what is Final Fantasy’s version of gardening tools?
Boss battles, be they Eikon versus Eikon or Clive’s clashes with bigger threats, promise to be unique encounters. FFXVI has a specific team, a small group of game designers, animators and programmers, dedicated to creating these.
From chocobo stables, ruined towns amid murky swamp land, mountainscapes under repeated Eikon devastation, all is lavish, detailed production. On this first, lengthy glance at least, everything placed throughout is purposeful, every area has a backstory. That, obviously, takes work and collaboration. (“You made us remember things we don’t want to,” Yoshida-san jokingly concludes at the interview’s end after revisiting the challenges that yielded such fantastic results.)
The first step was the story concept, a decision made when looking at what worked, and what didn’t, for Final Fantasy XV. While the majority of Final Fantasy game stories are standalone adventures, they don’t sit in a bubble. Adding to the larger tapestry naturally meant looking back at what came before. Yoshida-san points to players being unhappy with FFXV’s story. “It was incomplete. Things were promised, things weren’t delivered. So that’s what we wanted to avoid for FFXVI.”
Next, they had to envision what was driving the world, driving the characters. The producer likens Valisthea’s Mother Crystals – a staple of Final Fantasy games – to oil fields, the crystal’s Ether production akin to oil. Ether powers magic, powers the world. With that resource dwindling, conflict breaks out. Certain regions felt a natural fit for particular elements, which organically led to matching those with Eikons of similar elemental power (the FFXVI version of the franchise’s monstrous summons). These in turn are controlled by Dominants, unique individuals who as a result of that power can alter the tide of conflict and are thus nation states’ prized assets.
With those aspects envisioned and placed the art team and story writers commence work. As exemplified by a natural cliff nearly bringing a port town low, the complexities of world creation aren’t straightforward. Neither is ensuring locations feel authentic to that area’s backstory and lore.
The world’s dense backstory is easily digested by the Active Time Lore system. A click at any time brings up a shortlist of characters, factions and nations with a short text all of which update contextually based on what’s happening on screen.
“This is not something that can only be done just by the designers. I mean, they tried. They put objects down and they realized quickly that this is not going to work… It didn’t feel real,” Art Director Hiroshi Minagawa remembers, recalling a moment of time early on when there was an overabundance of generic barrels placed across the world. “Go into the desert, nothing but barrels everywhere,” he laughs. “You’ll have some staff that just think ‘the more barrels the better’,” interjects Yoshida-san. “It doesn’t feel like it’s something that’s lived in.”
The solution: cross-pollination between teams. “We brought a member of the scenario and lore team over to give them feedback on what this town is, what the town’s lore is,” explains Minagawa-san. “We had that person provide pictures about what their image of what each area would be, what they were aiming for in the lore, working with the designers with that information to get the proper feel. Something that would fit better with a team. And once that person from the lore team entered, you know, joined with the designers then things got a lot easier.” With clutter reduced and shrewder choices of set dressing made, towns started to reflect the regions they were based on, hinted at a locale or people’s backstory through visual cues alone.
The game’s vertical slice allowed the studio to finesse its vision, experimenting what it could achieve visually on PS5 and use that chosen area’s design to help define what the wider game would feel like. Environmental artists and level designers review and adapt to each other’s suggestions, while the combat team tests if the spot is spacious enough for battle. That gameplay slice incorporates the Caer Norvent stage, which will be playable early in the story campaign.
After being mesmerized by composer Masayoshi Soken’s score from the sections I played, I ask whether music is the final bow that ties any area together. “We didn’t have music until literally right at the end,” Yoshida-san confirms, saying they’ve more than 200 unique tracks in the game. “Early on, we decided on themes for the different nations as well as for the different characters. And it was about taking those core themes and then using arrangements of those for the different situations.
“So for us, it was very surprising as well because we’ve been playing through these with no sound… even we were moved hearing [that music] those first few times towards the end of development.”
The swell of an orchestra or choir is one detail of many that aims to make you feel fully immersed in Valisthea, and all those rich details, no matter how minor, have been made with careful decisions by its developers. Yoshida-san returns to that port town wall of how to sell a lived-in world.
“It’s not been invaded, not fallen. But certainly over 300 years, people have tried. And so you wouldn’t have a nice, clean, unbroken wall after three centuries. You’d have places that are cracked and maybe crumbled, but the wall has held. And just by having that visually, it tells that story. That yes, it hasn’t fallen, but people have tried. And so making sure that the history and the lore that we’ve built is making its way to the design team so they can make sure that that’s in the visuals. It’s very difficult, but that makes the game better.”
Planet of Lana has all the hallmarks of a story-rich platformer. Across its six-hour run time, you’ll encounter a string of environmental puzzles, an evil plan concocted by a group of baddies, a rich orchestral soundtrack that swells at all the right moments, a cute animal companion, and a gorgeous world that needs saving.
On paper, it has everything you could possibly want from this kind of game, but in practice, it can also be Lana’s undoing at times. It does everything well – admittedly some much better than others – but it feels like this sci-fi tale is missing something. That gut punch, that sigh of relief after a thrill, that unexpected surprise… You know, that extra edge to really make it sing. It’s still a very enjoyable adventure, but its lack of emotional highs means it doesn’t linger long in the memory once you’ve seen the credits roll. Is that a roundabout way to say that Planet of Lana is a solid 7/10? Maybe, but we don’t do that here.
Add another one to the list of weird and delightful ways to play ye olde Doom: teletext. A new mod converts Doom to a teletext signal, letting you play the seminal shooter rendered in blocky teletext art on a telly. You can even control it with your TV remote. Have a look in the video below! I really, really like the smiley face replacing Doomguy’s gurn.
After being spotted online at the end of last month, LEGO has today given us our first proper look at the upcoming PAC-MAN Arcade set, and it’s a beauty.
Joining the likes of the Atari 2600 and the much sought-after NES in LEGO’s collection of retro gaming goodies, this arcade cabinet will release to mark the game’s 43rd anniversary on 4th June (available slightly earlier for Lego VIP members on 1st June). It consists of 2651 pieces and will set you back £229.99 / $269.99.
Following ARC Raiders’ delay from 2022 to 2023, Embark Studios has now confirmed the game has undergone a shift from a co-op PvP game to a “PvPvE survival extraction shooter.”
Aleksander Grøndal, ARC Raiders’ executive producer, took to Medium.com to share the update to the game and also confirm that signups for the Closed Alpha test that will take place this summer are now open on Steam.
When Embark delayed ARC Raiders, it said the delay would not only allow them to let the game reach its “fullest potential,” but also that it would allow the team to add a new PvP mode to it before launch. As it turns out, the team had so much fun implementing this new mode that the game underwent a “fundamental” change that would shift the genre of ARC raiders to a whole new one.
“ARC Raiders drops players into a lethal but stunningly beautiful future earth, with hair-raising moments of survival and suspense,” Grøndal said. “Human versus machine, human versus human, together or alone, and you versus the sometimes conflicting nature of your own humanity, all in the spectacular backdrop of a landscape littered with the haunting remains of the past.
Grøndal then shared an excerpt from ARC Raiders’ lore, and it gives a bit more context on how the game will play and what this shift from a co-op PvE game to a “PvPvE survival extraction shooter” means.
“People have fled to the underground colony of Speranza, seeking supplies to survive, and shelter from the machines,” The text reads. “Demand for resources is at an all-time high. But getting those resources is a risky job, and it isn’t for everyone. But it is a job for you. That’s why you’ve enlisted as a Raider, scavenging for vital supplies that are scattered across the landscape. Everything from leftovers from yesterday’s run-in with ARC to the unlikely remains of a pinball machine.
“Out there, the stakes are high, and you will have to fight for your loot. Lethal ARC machines roam the surface. And there are no rules in Calabretta, so beware of other Raiders. With the traders in Speranza, trust is hard-earned and easily lost. You need to earn your keep. So don’t come back from a quest empty-handed. When you see another Raider chased by a swarm of ARC drones, do you go in for the kill? Do you lend a helping hand? Or do you hold back and feast on the valuable remains?”
