Author: Game Infliction

(For Southeast Asia) PlayStation Plus Game Catalog lineup for April: Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Doom Eternal, Riders Republic and more

Today we’re happy to reveal the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog for April 2023. All games will be available on Tuesday April 18. Let’s dive in.

PlayStation Plus Extra and Deluxe | Game Catalog

Kena: Bridge of Spirits | PS4, PS5

Immerse yourself in a story-driven action-adventure set in a charming world rich with exploration and fast-paced combat. Play as Kena, a young Spirit Guide travelling to an abandoned village in search of the sacred mountain shrine. Find and grow a team of tiny spirits known as the Rot who maintain balance by decomposing dead and rotting elements. Enhance your companions’ abilities, create new ways to manipulate the environment and uncover the secrets of a forgotten community hidden in an overgrown forest where wandering spirits are trapped.

Doom Eternal | PS4, PS5

Hell’s armies have invaded Earth. Become the Slayer in an epic single-player campaign to conquer demons across dimensions and stop the final destruction of humanity. The only thing they fear… is you. Experience the ultimate combination of speed and power in Doom Eternal – the next leap in push-forward, first-person combat. Armed with a flamethrower, wrist-mounted blade, upgraded guns, mods and abilities, you’re faster, stronger, and more versatile than ever. Use demon takedowns tactically to keep yourself equipped for battle: Glory kill for extra health, incinerate for armor, and chainsaw demons to stock up on ammo to become the ultimate demon-slayer.

Riders Republic | PS4, PS5

Jump into the massive multiplayer playground! Grab your bike, skis, snowboard or wingsuit and squad up with your friends to compete in a wide range of multiplayer modes. Feel the rush of downhill races, dominate maps in team vs team competitions, or give it your best shot in epic mass PvP races with more than 50 other players. Live out the rider’s fantasy as you roam free in a huge, vibrant open world, always buzzing with other players around you. Immerse yourself in iconic American national parks including Bryce Canyon, Yosemite Valley, Mammoth Mountain… all mashed up for you to shred!

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus | PS4

An exhilarating adventure brought to life by the industry-leading id Tech 6 sends players to Nazi-controlled America on a mission to recruit the boldest resistance leaders left. You are BJ Blazkowicz, aka “Terror-Billy,” member of the Resistance, scourge of the Nazi empire, and humanity’s last hope for liberty. Only you have the guns and gumption to return stateside and spark the second American Revolution. Fight Nazis in iconic American locations, equip an arsenal of badass guns, and unleash new abilities to blast your way through legions of enemy soldiers in this definitive first-person shooter.

The Evil Within | PS4

Developed by Shinji Mikami and Tango Gameworks, The Evil Within embodies the meaning of pure survival horror. Highly-crafted environments, horrifying anxiety, and an intricate story are combined to create an immersive world that will bring you to the height of tension. With limited resources at your disposal, you’ll fight for survival and experience profound fear in this perfect blend of horror and action.

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood | PS4

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood is a standalone prequel to the first-person action-adventure shooter, Wolfenstein: The New Order. The adventure, which spans eight chapters and two interconnected stories, features the hallmarks of MachineGames – thrilling action, immersive story and intense first-person combat. As war hero B.J. Blazkowicz, arm yourself with new weapons such as the bolt-action rifle and grenade-launching Kampfpistole as you attempt to thwart the advancing Nazi war machine, and take advantage of duel-wielding pipes that can be used for wall climbing – or for vicious take-downs of never-before-seen Nazi adversaries.

Bassmaster Fishing | PS4, PS5

For the first time ever, compete as or challenge 10 pro anglers from the Elite tour across 8 different real-world venues. Climb the ranks, earn your sponsors, and progress through your B.A.S.S. career to become the Bassmaster Classic Champion. Or take to the water and compete with other players in a variety of all-new massive multiplayer modes to conquer the global leader boards.

Sackboy: A Big Adventure | PS4, PS5

Iconic PlayStation hero Sackboy bursts back into breathtaking action with a huge, fun and frantic 3D multiplayer platforming adventure. Go solo in an epic race against time stuffed with danger and peril or enjoy local or online party play, creating teams of two to four adventurers as you work together to overcome nefarious tasks however you can imagine, including unmissable co-op only levels.

PlayStation Deluxe | Classics

Doom | PS4

First released in 1993, Doom introduced millions of gamers to the fast-paced, white-knuckle, demon-slaying action the franchise is known for. Relive the birth of the first-person shooter and experience the demon-blasting fun that popularized the genre. This version includes expansion, Episode IV: Thy Flesh Consumed, local 4 player deathmatch and local 4 player co-op.

Doom II | PS4

To save Earth, you must descend into the depths of hell, survive demon hordes, and take part in the fiercest battle ever. This beloved sequel to the groundbreaking DOOM (1993) gave players the brutal Super Shotgun to bear against deadlier demons, and the infamous boss, the Icon of Sin. This version includes the Master Levels, 20 additional levels made by the community and supervised by the developers, local 4 player deathmatch and local 4 player co-op.

Doom 64 | PS4

Fight against demons in your crusade to hunt down the Mother of Demons and stop Hell’s invasion. As you battle through more than 30 action-packed levels, be on the lookout for enhanced weapons and secrets to help you put an end to the demonic threat.

Doom 3 | PS4

In this critically acclaimed action-horror re-telling of the original DOOM, players must battle their way through a demon-infested facility before entering the abyss to battle Hell’s mightiest warrior – and put an end to the invasion.

This version includes the Resurrection of Evil and The Lost Missions expansion packs.

Dishonored: Definitive Edition | PS4

Arkane Studios’ Dishonored, winner of over 100 Game of the Year awards, and all of its additional content come to together in this Definitive Edition! With Dishonored’s flexible combat system, creatively eliminate your targets as you combine the supernatural abilities, weapons and unusual gadgets at your disposal. “Void Walker’s Arsenal” offers unique character bonuses, additional bone charm slots, and more that will aid you in pursuit of revenge. Enter the world of the Outsider in “Dunwall City Trials” where you will put your combat, stealth and mobility skills to the test. Finally, play as the legendary assassin Daud in ‘The Knife of Dunwall’ and “The Brigmore Witches”.

As part of our normal content refresh, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Resident Evil, and NBA 2K Playgrounds 2 will be among some of the titles leaving the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog in May. Members with Game Catalog benefits can still play by May 15. You can always check the ‘Last chance to play section’ on the PlayStation Plus -> Collections page on the PS5 console, or PlayStation Plus -> Games -> Games Catalogue on the PS4 console for titles you might want to play before they leave the service.

We hope you enjoy this month’s Games Catalog lineup. Check back monthly for new games added to PlayStation Plus.

Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle Needs to Dig Deeper to Live Up to its Resident Evil Inspiration

I can’t think of a worse environment for Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle to exist in than firmly in the long shadow cast by its inspiration, the Resident Evil series. Everything about the demo I played, from its bland corridor crawling exploration to its trivial run and gun action, feels like a cheap imitation of some of the greatest survival horror games of all time, maybe even more so these days in a post-Resident Evil 4 Remake world. What’s worse, there’s almost nothing differentiating it from Capcom’s zombie-horror masterpieces save for the setting, which is understandably undercooked as my 20-minute demo was not nearly enough time to build a world or establish likable characters. Nothing about my time with this slice left me with much motivation to see more.

Which is wild because when IGN had a first-look preview of this game a year ago, it still seemed like a Resident Evil clone in a F.E.A.R. costume, doing all of the item inspection, puzzle solving and creep shooting you’d expect. Except it was dressed up with more sci-fi inspired government paramilitary fare, complete with unique secret tech like a freeze gauntlet. In this build, I got none of that. Instead, I solved rudimentary door puzzles, rooted around for a forgettable lore item, and used bog-standard third-person shooter weapons to take down foes. The demo does not put Daymare’s best foot forward.

Stepping into the shoes of Reyes, a member of a Homeland Security strike team called H.A.D.E.S., you’re tasked with slinking through the dark halls of a compromised government facility in search for lost members of Section 8. The building itself is very generic, sterile, and science-y, with only one standout piece of personality in a very easy door puzzle styled like a ‘90s computer program. Towards the end of the demo, things start to show promise, with a giant tanker mysteriously dry-docked in a massive basement, or a shining conduit to God-knows-where gaping out of the wall. But there’s no satisfying interaction with any of it.

When IGN had a first-look preview of this game a year ago, it still seemed like a Resident Evil clone in a F.E.A.R. costume.

In fact, there’s not a lot of interaction with anything at all besides scattered ammo and the occasional button that unlocks the next section of the map. Early on you pickup an item that you have to examine in your inventory to reveal a key, but there’s nothing else you encounter that requires such inspection. Reyes’ glove comes with a scanner that can pull data out of computers without having to physically interact with them, but there’s only one occasion where you can use it and it’s a tutorial. If Daymare: 1994 wants to compete with the titans of the genre in terms of dense environments and lots of reasons to explore them, it’s not off to a great start.

As things start to heat up, monsters appear, with the twist being that the menace isn’t the reanimated corpses of slain soldiers and scientists, but the sentient balls of energy that electrify them back to life. Putting one of the slobbering ghouls down releases the ball lighting from its body, freeing it to find another corpse to possess. This was admittedly very cool in theory, but in practice it was only ever a factor the first time I encountered bad guys. The only other sections, where a handful ran down a hallway to get easily dispatched and at the end where I was encouraged not to fight a group that chased me to the a door, showed little potential for the dynamic race against the light that the first encounter suggests. It also doesn’t help that these were the only enemy type.

If this was my first impression of Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle, I don’t think I’d be very interested in another one. Knowing that this game has more to offer outside of the boundaries of this sneak peek has me willing to keep my optimism somewhat alive, despite how underwhelming almost all of what I played was. Even with the conspicuous absence of some interesting looking abilities shown elsewhere, there was very little opportunity to play with the tools you do have in this 20-minute slice. Here’s hoping that the just-released Resident Evil 4 Remake can inspire Daymare to dig a bit deeper before it’s finally released.

The Crucial T700 shows the promise, and limits, of PCIe 5.0 SSDs

For hardware that’s all about searing speed, advances in SSD tech can be a Beckettian waiting game. Microsoft’s DirectStorage has only so far only found support in the ho-hum Forspoken, and PCIe 5.0 SSDs still aren’t widely available despite the first compatible CPUs and motherboards launching in 2021.

However, the latter are coming soon, and I’ve been testing out an engineering sample of the Crucial T700 to see how PCIe 5.0 – also known as PCIe Gen5 – drives could perform in an honest-to-goodness gaming PC. The short version: with maximum read and write speeds that tower over the current generation’s best SSDs, albeit with less impact on game load times than such explosive pace would suggest.

Read more

Dark and Darker Developer Sued as Legal Issues Escalate

Dark and Darker developer Irongate is being been sued by Nexon for copyright infringement following a DMCA takedown in March.

As reported by Eurogamer, Nexon’s lawsuit highlighted similarities between its own P3 and Dark and Darker, and also claimed some of Irongate’s employees, who previously worked for Nexon, had signed a one-year-non-compete clause that stopped them from taking “Nexon’s trade secrets” straight to a new developer.

The lawsuit added that “condoning the defendants’ conduct would threaten Nexon, the video game industry, and all of the consumers who enjoy playing sophisticated video games. Video game developers would not be able to invest years’ worth of person-hours in developing video games if their employees could simply transfer their employer’s project files to their own personal servers and start a new company.”

Nearly half of Irongate employees are made up of former Nexon staff, though the lawsuit only names two (Ju-Hyun Choi and Terence Seungha Park) as former staff who signed the one-year-non-competitive clause in their contracts.

In terms of similarities raised, Nexon highlights that both games feature chests opened by the player character moving their hand in a circular motion and that both games feature glowing potions worn on belts around the player character’s waist.

The lawsuit, which was filed on April 14, followed a cease and desist letter and DMCA takedown from Nexon that resulted in Dark and Darker being removed from Steam. “We are currently working with our legal team to remedy this issue in the best manner possible,” Irongate said at the time, saying the takedown was “based on distorted claims”.

The situation escalated as one Dark and Darker development team member shared a GoFundMe page asking for $500,000 to pay for legal fees, which was initially thought to be a scam but later uncovered as genuine. Irongate had planned a fundraising drive to launch at a later time if needed, but the one developer had prematurely released it.

The legal issues also arose not long before Irongate planned to launch a public playtest, but since the game has been removed from Steam, Irongate instead released the beta through torrents shared on Discord.

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

Nexon are suing Dark And Darker developers over copyright infringement

Publisher Nexon have filed a lawsuit against Ironmace Games, the developers behind the multiplayer looter Dark And Darker, accusing the studio and two individual developers of copyright infringement. The two Korean companies recently went public with their dispute, but now their beef has extended to the US legal system where Nexon is demanding a trial by jury.

Read more

Sega Confirms Intention to Purchase Angry Birds Developer Rovio

Update 04/17/2023: Sega has confirmed it is set to purchase Angry Birds developer Rovio for $775 million following reports of a potential deal earlier in April.

As reported by Polygon, the Sonic the Hedgehog publisher confirmed the deal on April 17, and Rovio’s board and shareholders have already approved it too.

The acquisition is expected to go through by the end of September, with Rovio’s mobile game expertise intended to help boost Sega’s own position in that market.

Original Story 04/14/2023: Sega is reportedly close to acquiring Angry Birds developer Rovio Entertainment for about $1 billion.

According to Wall Street Journal, the deal between Sega and Rovio Entertainment is expected to finish early next week, provided that discussions between the two companies don’t fall apart or prolong.

Neither Sega nor Rovio has made an official announcement yet. Rovio was previously in talks to be acquired by Israeli mobile company Playtika for $800 million, but those negotiations ended last month. Sega has acquired a few companies over the past few years, including Company of Heroes developer Relic Entertainment, Two Point Campus developer Two Point Studios, and most notably Persona developer Atlus.

There have been many acquisitions in the video game industry recently, including Microsoft’s deal to merge with Activision Blizzard, as well as Sony’s merger with Bungie. In particular, the mobile gaming space is growing as well. Activision Blizzard’s Candy Crush franchise would be a big boon to Microsoft’s portfolio and Sony formed a mobile division to create games based on new and existing IPs last year. Additionally, Take-Two Interactive acquired mobile developer Zynga last year.

Angry Birds was first released in 2009 and is one of the most popular mobile games ever. Rovio Classics: Angry Birds was released in March 2022, which includes the original Angry Birds game with all chapters alongside all Easter eggs and extras at the time.

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

Deals: Incredibly, These Zelda And Metroid amiibo Are Down To Just $5 Right Now

Three figures for $10!

amiibo collecting is a hugely fun yet hugely expensive hobby to get into, especially with so many fantastic new releases tempting you into your next purchase, but this incredible deal will soften the blow for anyone yet to pick up these specific figures.

Over at GameStop, you can currently pick up both the Metroid Dread amiibo 2 Pack and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD Zelda and Loftwing amiibo for just $5 each! Yes, that means two Metroid amiibo or one of the Zelda range’s best and most expensive figures for an amazing price. You can check delivery availability for your area and buy them here while stocks last:

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

It’s Official, SEGA Is Buying Angry Birds Maker, Rovio

Flipping the bird for over three-quarters of a billion dollars.

Following rumours that Sega was penning a deal to purchase Finnish firm Rovio — the maker of Angry Birds — the Japanese company has made it official.

A statement released on its website (Japanese only at present) confirms that the deal is signed following an offer made by Sega through its European branch. The total purchase price stands at €706 million, which is north of $775 million at the current exchange rate but less than the rumoured $1 billion figure doing the rounds online over the weekend.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Stardew Valley Creator Shares Another Update About Version 1.6 Release

Will be “taking a break” from his next game.

It’s been a while since Eric ‘ConcernedApe’ Barone shared any information about the 1.6 update coming to his lifestyle-farming simulation Stardew Valley.

Now, in an update, the creator has revealed he’s taking a temporary break from his new project Haunted Chocolatier to work on Stardew 1.6. This next version will be “mostly changes for modders”, but he also mentions how there will be some new game content.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Xbox Cluttered Home Dashboard Is Getting Changes Following Complaints

Following complaints by the community of it being too cluttered, Microsoft has said it is going to change course on the planned changes to the Xbox Home dashboard.

In September 2022, Microsoft announced that Xbox Insiders were to be invited to “help shape the new Xbox Home experience.” This test was a “multi-month series of experiments to learn how to create a more personalized home screen experience and address some of the top trends and fan requests.”

Unfortunately, the changes haven’t been as well received as Microsoft had hoped and the company, in a blog post, said it is pausing those experiments and will work to “balance the experience, accessibility, function, and the needs of our community and bring you a great and refreshed Home experience.”

One of the biggest issues the community had was with how crowded everything felt and how the new UI blocked the backgrounds that users could choose. As you can see in the image below from Microsoft, the Halo image is mostly blocked by all the tiles, and the community would like to see a bit more balance between items to interact with and the backgrounds that make their home theirs.

As Microsoft works to address the complaints, Alpha and Alpha-Skip Xbox Insiders will be reverted back to the original Xbox Home experience they were using and their previous settings and backgrounds from before the test will be activiated. The “new Home” settings will be saved for the future.

“Thank you for all the feedback you’ve shared. It’s a key part of our process, and our team is working hard to incorporate it into the experience and get it to you to use,” Ivy Krislov, senior product manager lead, Xbox experiences, said. “We are excited to share even more details with you soon!”

For more in the world of Xbox, check out our list of the top 15 Xbox Series X/S games and our chat with Xbox’s Sarah Bond and her committment to indie support.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.