Author: Game Infliction

RPS@PAX 2023: We chat with Necrosoft Games about their spooky-not-scary tactical horror RPG Demonschool

PAX East and what better way to kick off our show coverage than highlighting a great indie game! We first came across Demonschool back at PAX West last year and have loved it ever since. It’s a slick, tactical Persona-like where you play as a band of university students navigating school life by day and beating up ghosties and ghoulies by night.

I had a chat with Demonschool’s Jenna Stoeber who talked me through what Demonschool is about, the game’s many horror inspirations, and what spooky shinanigans players can expect. If the giant skeleton lad in the game’s trailer and demo is anything to go by, we’re in for a treat. You can watch the full interview by watching the video below:

If you’ve haven’t yet, set your peepers on Demonschool’s slick trailer to see what demon hunter Faye and her gang of misfits are up against. There’s no concrete release date, but like Jenna said, Demonschool should be out sometime in 2023 with a playable demo available in May.

We’ve got plenty more interviews, demos, and highlights lined up for the rest of the week and you can find all our PAX East coverage by checking out our RPS@PAX tag.

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Countdown: 3DS eShop Spotlight – Attack Of The Friday Monsters!

#28 – Hold up, it’s Thursday.

For the month before the 3DS and Wii U eShops close for new purchases on 27th March, each day we’re going to highlight a specific eShop game for one of those consoles and give a short pitch as to why we think it deserves your love and attention — before it’s too late. The chance to add these to your library will be gone for good soon and, for one reason or another, these eShop-exclusives are close to our hearts.

Today, Gavin gets that Friday feeling…

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

“Impossify” Your Park Beyond with Xbox Series X|S on June 16

Hello, Visioners!

I’m happy to share some facts about what’s sure to become your favorite park management game of all time! Park Beyond is coming to Xbox Series X|S on June 16, 2023. From the beginning, we’ve been developing the game on console to give you the best experience. The entire UI and all our features have been custom designed for the Xbox version to provide an optimized gaming experience.

In Park Beyond, we give you the opportunity to build the park of your dreams. You can do this in our unique campaign guided by our loveable written characters or jump right into our sandbox mode.

Park Beyond Screenshot

Of course, we also have a deep management system with different layers, depending on how deep you would like to dive into this world of numbers but…

What makes Park Beyond special are the “Impossifications” – over the top versions of theme park feature that let you go beyond the humdrum and ordinary. And you can use these with so many features, it’ll make your head swim! You may have already seen how our normal Ferris wheel becomes a colossus with eleven wheels instead of just one. Or the Crazy Kraken is transformed from an (already awesome) whirling animatronic ride into a colossal, living, breathing octopus that throws guests through the air.

Park Beyond Screenshot

For purists, it is possible to stay within the limits of what is physically possible and enjoy all aspects of the game. But if reality is just too restrictive, there’s very little you can’t Impossify, even the deepest levels of our park management systems!

A janitor with a broom is a bit too dull? No problem! Give him a flamethrower and any garbage guests leave behind is incinerated on the spot. Your mechanics are only carrying around normal, boring equipment? No problem! See what a few extra exo arms can do.

You can also Impossify any beverage or grocery store in Park Beyond, increasing the fun factor for visitors. You’ll gasp in delight along with your guests the first time you see what happens to a simple kebab store or a coffee shop.

Park Beyond Screenshot

Our story is also Impossified. How is that possible, you ask? We’ve crafted a hearty selections of story missions for you to play through. Additionally, in our extensive campaign you will have different choices before each mission to drag you deeper into the story and increase the replayability. Our unique characters will take you by the hand and teach you all aspects of the game. Even simple tutorials are always connected with fun and entertaining dialogs or cutscenes.

You want infinite possibilities? The sandbox mode is the perfect place for that. You can use all the features we mentioned in the sandbox mode and combine them to design the park of your dreams. Just let your modular roller coasters whiz past your Impossified rides and then rush them right through one of your modular buildings and shoot your coaster through a cannon into a mountain, you created with terraforming.

And believe me when I say that is just the beginning…

Park Beyond Screenshot

Finally, you may wish to share your awesome creations with your friends. We’re all show-offs sometimes, aren’t we? Especially when we have spent hours or even days with the wildest creations and parks. I have very good news for you. We wanted to make sure you could share your creations with the world, and we are so excited to see what you come up with. We’ll give you the opportunity to share your content on Xbox Series X|S.

If all this sounds great and you can’t wait for the release anymore, then you won’t have to wait much longer. Park Beyond will be coming to Xbox Series X|S on June 16, 2023 and you can already pre-order it now on the Xbox Store.

Everyone who pre-orders the game gets the Park Beyond: Pac-Man Impossification Set to bring some classic arcade flavor to their creations!

We can’t wait to see what the park of your dreams will look like, but right now you’ll have to excuse me, it’s my turn to board the Fireball Express Screammaker 8000, so I’ll see you in the park!

☆☆☆☆☆
★★★★★

Get it now

Related:
Tales of Symphonia Remastered, One of the Most Beloved Installments of the Series, is Now Available on Xbox
Calling All Pilots: SD Gundam Battle Alliance Comes to Xbox Game Pass!
Enter the Elden Ring Colosseums and Battle for Glory

After Us: Crafting an organic platformer, out May 23

Here at Piccolo Studio, we like to say that we “craft” games rather than “make” them. Our logo features a needle and a thread, symbolizing this very approach.

With After Us, our next project releasing on May 23, we tell the story of Gaia, a small nymph brought to explore the outside world for the first time. The universe is a surrealistic version of Earth in the far future, after humans have expunged all life on it. It is a strange, oneiric, but ultimately captivating world where everyday objects float around, some small, others massive, and where a coat of hazardous oil taints the land.

This third person adventure mixes platforming, puzzles, and combat in a nonconventional way. The world is rich, divided into 10 different biomes. “Some parts of the game rely more on puzzles, some on exploration, others on combat, and often we switch up the traversal sections so it stays fresh”, says game co-director Jordi Ministral.

An organic approach to platforming

We invest a lot of time into creating singular experiences. How do we do it? We start with a vision, a holistic idea of how we want the player to feel. Then we take the rules of a specific genre, and we twist them. At its core, After Us is a 3D platformer. Yet, we intended to have many features often avoided when developing a platformer: a camera that is far from the main character, a lush world filled with assets artistically scattered around, and an absence of strict metrics. A designer’s nightmare, right? But we found solutions that worked wonderfully to create the organic experience we envisioned.

In complement, Gaia’s movements are simple to execute. They can be effortlessly chained in a pleasant flow. She dashes at very high speeds – about 70 km/h – so the scale of the world ended up being huge! “Players burn through content so fast that we ended up with more than 100kms of environment!”, explains Jordi. There is a lot of verticality as well. The main character can double jump very high, with an adequate balance between airborne agility and weight. Combined with gliding, controlling falls becomes easy. These motion mechanics have been designed precisely to traverse an organic world without strict metrics.

The innovative capabilities of the PlayStation 5’s DualSense controller also add another layer to this aesthetic experience – through the sense of touch. Greeting and petting animals will be possible by sweeping the touchpad, and its triggers will offer resistance as well as vibration when performing Gaia’s Burst of Life! Light under the touchpad will also reflect your life bar, displaying a green color when you are at full health and turning red as you lose vitality.

Choices that yield aesthetic opportunities

Because of our design approach, environment artists had a significant role and freedom to craft the world: there is debris and garbage everywhere, floating objects and cables running all around… Things you would typically avoid in a 3D platformer. To make things even more challenging, the dynamic camera system often frames the world from far away to emphasize the contrast of a tiny character in an epic environment.

“Games rarely use those cameras because handling collisions is hell. But we decided to embrace this decision as it gives the game a distinct personality”, notes Jordi. The camera system is smart enough to get close to the main character when it matters. It allows us to emphasize the scope of the world or focus on specific areas. But we had to iterate many times over the right combination of camera collisions, dithered materials, and transitions to create a smooth, aesthetic experience.

Environmental storytelling

In a world that is so organic, without clear metric-oriented compositions that show you the path, you might think all you’re going to do is get lost. In fact, it’s quite the opposite: we use a wide range of elements to suggest the path ahead in a subtle, yet recognizable way (lighting, color, architecture, statues, props…).

Additionally, there are also full-fledged narrative and design elements. They tell stories while guiding the player. A landmark example is the thousands of statues scattered around, representing humanity. They create a path that is recognizable, without resorting to the usual solutions. But this involved dozens of iterations for every scene. We had to carefully place the assets and “compose” each section.

Finally, the game will constantly tease in the far horizon what you are going to play next and uses verticality to twist the path. At times it feels like a labyrinth and suddenly you are in a big open landscape. The game plays with contrasts all the time. And when it all comes together, the player is seized with a sense of freedom that is unusual for platformers.

After Us is out May 23 on PS5.

Men Of War 2’s multiplayer mode is the tank’s time to shine

Men Of War 2 doesn’t do anything by half measures, as I discovered during a recent tussle with its online multiplayer modes. Whereas Relic’s recently released Company Of Heroes 3 will let you pick from its four broad faction types in its WWII RTS battles, Men Of War 2 takes a much more granular view, offering up 14-15 different unit types for each of its three playable nations. That’s a dizzying array of infantry, tank and artillery battalions to choose from, and that’s before you account for all the individual nuances between its Soviet, USA and German army types. Throw in seven game modes across several different maps, and it’s a veritable strategy smorgasbord to stuff your face into.

Crucially, though, everyone gets access to some sort of tank, which let’s face it, is always going to be the MVP of any WW2 strategy game, and probably the sole reason why we’re here in the first place. As Men Of War 2 heads into its first open multiplayer tech test on Steam today (running until March 27th), here’s my full report of my mildly doomed multiplayer tankventures in its Combat, Front Line and Incursion modes.

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How to Buy These 3DS and Wii U Games Before They’re Gone Forever

Twelve Years after the doors of the 3DS and Wii U eShop opened, they are sadly closing for good.

Nintendo has announced that on March 27th, 2023, it will no longer be possible to purchase games digitally from that generation of consoles. But for months now, it’s been impossible to buy anything ever since they revoked the ability to directly add funds to your account, so we shouldn’t care about this announcement, right? Well, turns out there’s a completely valid way Nintendo has allowed you to still add funds to your account, and it’s super simple to do.

So here is how you can still buy 3DS and Wii U games before they are gone forever–plus some game recommendations in case you don’t know what to get.

How to Still Buy Games on 3DS and Wii U.

To start, you’re gonna need a Nintendo Switch, this is the key to all of this. Click on your personal user icon in the top left of the home screen, then scroll down to “Friend Suggestions.” You’ll notice icons for the 3DS and Wii U in the top bar. Go ahead and click “Next” in either tab and it will prompt you to sign in to your “Nintendo Network ID Account.” This was the 3DS/Wii U equivalent of the modern-day MyNintendo account that was used to tie purchases to your email.

Once you’ve linked your Switch with your Nintendo Network ID Account, you’re almost done! Next, go into the Switch eShop and click on the settings icon in the top right. Under the “Available Funds” section, you’ll see a little prompt saying “Merge Funds with Nintendo 3DS/Wii U.” Click this and you’ve done it! Now whenever you add funds to your Nintendo Switch eShop, they will also be available for use in the 3DS and Wii U eShops!

But which games are worth buying and what digital games will disappear forever once the store closes on March 27th? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Here are some essential pickups now that you’ve made it back into the 3DS and Wii U eShops:

The Best 3DS and Wii U Games to Buy Before It’s Too Late

Dr. Luigi (Wii U)

Released during the Year of Luigi — remember that? — This entry in the Doctor Mario franchise starred our favorite green-hatted plumber. On top of the standard Pill puzzling we all know and love, this title included the “Operation L” mode which utilized L-Shaped pills. As far as digital-only first-party Wii U games go there aren’t too many to pick from, but Doctor Luigi is a welcomed surprise — And just like Mario, don’t ask him where he got his doctorate.

Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation (3DS)

Intelligent Systems decided to go the Pokémon route and split the 14th entry in the Fire Emblem series into two different games: Fire Emblem Fates Birthright and Conquest. One had Corrin choose their birth family, the Hoshido, while the other chose their adopted family, the Nohr.

But a third Digital only route was available in Revelation. This path was only purchasable after completing Chapter 6. This route has you choosing neither family and instead opting to build your army from the shadows in order to take down the threat causing both families to fight in the first place. Arguably the best way to play the game once the 3DS eShop closes, this essential title in the franchise will become unavailable to fans.

Virtual Console – DS, Wii, TurboGrafx 16, Game Gear, DSi

Back before Nintendo Switch Online, we had the Virtual Console. A system where you could buy retro games on the eShop from an assortment of consoles.

As of March 2023, certain consoles are not yet available to play on the Nintendo Switch. On the Wii U, you have DS, Wii, and TurboGrafx-16 games including The Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks and Phantom Hourglass, Metroid Prime Trilogy, Animal Crossing Wild World, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and Bomberman ’93.

For the 3DS you have Game Gear and DSi ware including Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine, Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again!, Shinobi, and Dragon Quest Wars.

Pushmo (3DS)

Pushmo is a classic from this era of Nintendo. Solve puzzles by Pushing and Pulling the stage itself in order to save the children at the top. There were a total of four games in this mini-franchise, all digital only, so if you enjoyed the first entry, we recommend trying them all out.

Pushmo was a unique puzzle game but still had many modern-day staples including level creation, which made this an incredibly hard-to-put-down title.

Dillon’s Rolling Western (3DS)

If you love tower defense games, Dillon’s Rolling Western is just for you. Monsters are invading towns in the Old West, and it’s your job as the armadillo Dillon to prevent their efforts. This game mixed action with exploration and was essential for 3DS owners. There were a few sequels, and Dillon even appeared in Smash.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD (Wii U)

The next couple of games are available physically on the Wii U and 3DS but are gonna fetch you a pretty penny on the secondary market. So we recommend picking them up digitally.

First up is a game not yet on the Switch (hint hint Nintendo): The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD. This is an essential play for die-hard Zelda fans, especially if you’re gearing up for the release of Tears of the Kingdom.

If you were able to get your hands on the Wolf Link Amiibo, there’s a special dungeon called The Cave of Shadows. The farther you make it in, the stronger Wolf Link gets once you scan him into Breath of the Wild. And if you didn’t know this was possible, then surprise!

All Mainline Pokémon Games

Consistently, Pokémon games will be expensive no matter what console you’re looking at. The 3DS is no exception with Pokémon X and Y, Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby, and the Sun and Moon games still fetching for just under retail price.

A great alternative to scavenging the secondary market is to pick up these titles digitally, so you can experience generations 6 and 7 without the worry of missing out on the series’ first mainline 3D titles. Sorry, Colosseum and Gale of Darkness, you don’t count.

Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (3DS)

Now we’re getting into big-boy territory. When two of the greatest gaming detectives finally came together in Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney. Little did they know that it would cost over $200 for a physical copy on the secondary market.

Turns out the biggest crime was these prices. This game has you solving crime puzzles like Layton and proving your defendant innocent like Wright. If you’re truly itching to try out this legendary collab, our recommendation is to save a court load of money and pick it up for $30 instead on the eShop.

Xenoblade Chronicles X (Wii U)

Every Xenoblade Chronicles game is playable on the Nintendo Switch… all but one. On the short-list of Wii U games that have not been ported to the Switch is one glaring outlier in Xenoblade Chronicles X.

This game is completely isolated from the other entries in the franchise. However, there are still many familiar elements. Taking place on the uncharted planet of Mira, you are able to create your own avatar to serve as the protagonist. With the physical copy going for just over $60 price today, digital might be a safer option to ensure you have this in your library.

Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth (3DS)

If you played the rereleases of Persona 3 Portable and 4 Golden, then you’re in for a treat. This handheld title followed characters from both games, dungeon crawling and fusing personas in a replica of Yasogami High School. You know, a typical high school day.

This game has a super cute art style, a killer soundtrack, and is only $20 bucks on the eShop. The sequel, Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth, includes Persona 5 characters and is significantly more expensive than the first game, so pick these up if you want before physical is the only way.

Lastly, I wanted to remind you to download updates for every 3DS game you can! Even if you don’t own the title, you’re still able to download update data just in case you decide to buy a game physically. Each update is really small in storage size, so that shouldn’t be too big of an issue. That way you’re guaranteed to play the most up-to-date version of any game.

Are there any game recommendations that we missed? Sound off in the comments below and help out a fellow 3DS and Wii U owner. These two consoles’ libraries are so incredibly rich with hidden gems that a lot of great games had to be left off our list. Kid Icarus Uprising is my favorite game of all time, plus DLC exists, so be sure to pick up these games before the eShop closes on March 27th.

Kalani Goda Newman is a producer for IGN.

Poll: What Are Your Hype Levels for Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom?

Off the charts?

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is only 50 days away from its launch on May 12th, 2023 at the time of writing, and our hype levels here at Nintendo Life are through the roof.

Despite the fact that Nintendo is keeping the game very close to its chest (and if this is a concern for you, then our Video Producer Felix has the perfect remedy in the video above), Tears of the Kingdom is undoubtedly one of the most anticipated games of the last few years; possibly the most anticipated since Breath of the Wild, depending on who you ask.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

7 Wonders Board Game Review (2023)

Civilization games have always been popular but they tend to be long and complex and thus hard to get to the table. 7 Wonders’ claim to fame is that it’s a card-based civilization game that you can teach and play to completion in well under an hour. Such is the appeal of this concept that since its release in 2010 it’s been showered with an endless parade of awards and sold so strongly that it’s had an overhaul reprint and a slew of expansions that have kept it relevant and popular to this day. It’s well on its way to becoming a classic board game.

What’s in the Box

Like a lot of high-concept card games, 7 Wonders comes in a big box that’s largely empty. The top layer of contents consists of two token punchboards, a rulebook and a pile of reference sheets. Beneath that there’s a storage tray that holds player boards, each printed with a different wonder of the world, a pad of scoring sheets, and some decks of cards.

Most of the space on the boards and cards is devoted to artwork, a pleasing blend of realism with a little bit of artistic licence.

See our picks for the best strategy board games.

If you’re wondering why a publisher would put such relatively meagre content into such a large box, the answer is marketing. Having a big box front makes your game stand out on the shelf, allowing it to compete with full-sized board games. And in terms of design and play testing, card games take just as much time and effort as board games of similar complexity so there’s an argument they ought to be treated on equal terms.

Rules and How it Plays

7 Wonders didn’t become popular purely because it condensed civilization games into a small space: on release, it was also very novel as one of the first games to make card drafting the core of proceedings. There are three ages to each game and at the start of each age, players get a handful of cards. They choose one to add to their civilization and then pass the rest to a neighbor, while they receive cards from their other neighbor. Then they choose a card from that selection, pass them on and so on until there’s only one card left.

The cards available vary by age but they all represent the trappings of a growing civilization. Age one cards provide things like raw materials and crafted goods alongside basic military and entertainment buildings, the latter of which score you victory points. By age two, most of the cards require that your civilization has some raw materials or goods available. 7 Wonders doesn’t track production: if you already have a card that produces something, it’s presumed available to help pay for other cards. Some structures can also be built for free if you have a prerequisite structure in the chain.

7 Wonders’ claim to fame is that it’s a card-based civilization game you can teach and play in well under an hour.

What if you don’t have the raw materials needed for a card? Well, if your neighbors produce it, you can give them coins to essentially “borrow” it for a turn. Getting coins is simply a matter of discarding a card on your turn instead of adding it to your civilization. This is one of the two small ways you can interact with other players in 7 Wonders, but it can be surprisingly effective. It’s painful to have to give up your cash to a competitor who’s doing well and in rare but vicious occasions you can starve your neighbour of a much-needed resource by simply choosing never to add it to your tableau.

The other, much simpler, interaction is through the military. At the end of every age, you compare how many military icons you have on your civilization’s cards with each neighbor. For each that has more than you, you lose a victory point. For each where you’re the victor, you gain points depending on the age, getting more as the game goes on. This is pretty toothless in terms of interaction but it can certainly swing games, especially the big age three bonuses.

In addition to the cards, each civilization starts with a wonder. Rather than playing cards or discarding them for coins, the third and final use is to use them to construct a stage of your wonder which, like card play, costs resources and offers rewards. Wonders, however, tend to have much higher requirements and much more impactful effects than cards. Most of them give you victory points or additional resources but some have more complex effects like building cards from the discard pile. The second edition has better-balanced wonders than the original, but they’re still not perfect.

Picking the right time to devote a card to your wonder isn’t straightforward: you need to trade off whether you’d rather play the card, whether you can afford it and what the possible ramifications are for future picks. And that, essentially, is the same smorgasbord of strategies you’ll be pondering on every card you play, deliciously varied with the shuffle on each game. It’s slick and strangely satisfying, especially the anticipation of waiting to see what might come around again, or fall into your lap in future ages. But it’s not especially demanding and that dichotomy is key to the success of 7 Wonders.

Wonders, however, tend to have much higher requirements and much more impactful effects than cards.

It’s also not particularly reliable or thematic. A lot comes down to luck of the draw or the luck of what other people choose to pass back to you, and there’s no sense that you’re building something coherent step by step. You can play the game with up to seven players and it barely takes any longer because the card drafting is simultaneous. But it works best at smaller player counts because otherwise any sense of being able to predict what might come around again is lost in the scrum. With its plethora of adding, checking and chaining buildings it’s also a lot less accessible than its bare-bones rules might make it seem.

Expansions

Due to the chaining rules that let you get certain cards for free, the expansions for 7 Wonders don’t actually mess very much with the card pool. Instead, each adds more wonders alongside a new board or mechanic that extends the game. While this approach adds interest and depth to the base game, it also reduces the accessibility that’s such an important part of its charm. So they’re very much an acquired taste and generally best reserved for seasoned fans.

Armadas is perhaps the best of them, although it’s also the most involved. It allows players to build ships which they can use to move and explore on a separate board in the hope of finding bonus resources. It also adds a second kind of military conflict where players total and compare their naval strength alongside the normal military from the core game.

Leaders and Cities are the two you’d most expect to see as expansions to a civilization-style game. The former offers a brief draft of leader cards before each age draft, which can give you more long-term strategic options to work with, in a primarily tactical game. The latter does add new cards to the main draft which have fun effects like avoiding the military race for one age or even making a neighbor lose coins. However, both also increase the amount of entropy in the game by adding more cards into the drafting mechanic that might or might not be an option for you just when you need them.

Edifice bills itself as a new expansion for the second edition but that’s not entirely true: it’s more of a distillation of the best bits of the Babel expansion for the previous edition. Alongside two new wonders it gives each age a “project,” a sort of vanity project that all the players can contribute to. You can do this only when you build a wonder stage and also have the necessary resources required by the project on top of those needed for your wonder. This gains you a pawn from the project and there are always fewer pawns than players.

If all the pawns are taken, the project is finished and all those who contributed get the printed reward. If it isn’t, then anyone who failed to contribute instead gets a victory point penalty. Of all the expansions, Edificies is the one that changes the feel of the game the most, giving it a much more concrete sense of interaction. There’s a clear race, with an attendant sense of urgency, within each age and it adds to the tactical timing of your decisions, too. It does so without excessive additional rules or randomness. So it’s a neat addition to the lineup, but it might be almost too transformative for newer players.

Where to Buy

Fortnite Creative 2.0 Teams Are Already Rushing to Remake the Original Fortnite Chapter

The race is on to recreate Fortnite’s original map using the popular battle royale’s newly revamped Creative Mode.

The teams are using the brand-new Unreal Editor for Fortnite — also known as Fortnite Creative 2.0 — which is a new add-on available for Fortnite on PC. As discussed during yesterday’s State of Unreal event, the Unreal Editor for Fortnite is for players to use for “designing, developing, and publishing games and experiences directly into Fortnite.”

The new tool runs in Unreal Engine 5 and builds on concepts from the existing Fortnite Creative toolset, adding new features for expanded custom content, modeling, textures, VFX, and more. It’s a total game changer for Fortnite creators, and we’re already starting to see some of the possibilities take shape.

Right after the Unreal Editor for Fortnite reveal, multiple teams started working to put the finishing touches on recreations of Fortnite’s original island.

One team, called Atlas OG Battle Royale, has already released a recration of the original Fortnite island.

Another team, called Reboot Royale, posted a video with footage from the new Unreal Editor, saying they were in the “the final preparations of publishing Reboot Royale for everyone to play.” The development screenshots and gameplay footage are an exciting proof-of-concept for Fortnite players about just how robust the new creation tools are.

The Fortnite Chapter 1 map features locations like Greasy Grove, Pleasant Park, Retail Row, Fatal Fields, and more. The map was heavily updated and altered throughout Chapter 1’s 10 seasons, before Chapter 2 introduced an entirely new map.

Chapter 1 ended in late 2019, meaning it’s been years since fans have romped around the map responsible for Fortnite’s rise to popularity. It’s sure to be a nostalgic ride for anyone checking out either of these recreations.

For more, check out everything else announced during yesterday’s Unreal event.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

The Best PS5 SSD Deals for 2023: 2TB SSDs from Crucial, WD, Samsung, and More Starting at $123

2023 might finally be the year where 2TB PS5 SSDs might actually be worth the upgrade. Last year, prices for 1TB PS5 SSDs averaged around $150, whereas 2TB SSDs hovered closer to $300. This year, we’re seeing 1TB SSDs trickle below the $100 price point and 2TB SSDs are under $200. The reason PS5 SSD upgrades are pricey is that you can’t use any old SSD and expect it to perform well on the PS5 console. You’ll want to pick up an PCIe Gen4 x4 M.2 solid state drive with a rated 5,500MB/s read speed to match the PS5’s internal drive. That means, for better or for worse, picking a top-shelf SSD.

Note that Sony recommends a heatsink attached to your SSD. Not all SSDs listed here have pre-installed heatsinks. For the ones that do, we’ll be sure to mention it. For the ones that don’t, all you have to do is purchase your own heatsink (we recommend this one for $10) and install it yourself. It’s very easy.

Crucial P5 Plus 2TB PS5 SSD for PS5 for $122.99

Constantly going in and out of stock

Crucial’s newest M.2 SSD meets all the requirements for your PS5 SSD upgrade. It supports transfer speeds of up to 6,660MB/s which is well above the 5,500MB/s minimum threshold. Yes there are faster SSDs out there, but if your intention is to put this in your PS5, then that extra speed is worthless because you’re bottlenecked by the original PS5 SSD. If you’re worried about opening up your PS5 case, don’t worry it’s very easy. Crucial has an official YouTube PS5 SSD install guide to see you through the process.

Samsung 1TB PS5 SSD for $79.99

Samsung SSDs need no introduction. They’ve made some of the most popular and reliable PS5 SSDs on the market. The 980 Pro has been out for a while now, but it’s still one of Samsung’s fastest M.2 PCIe SSD, with only the newly released 990 Pro being faster. It is fully PS5 compatible in terms of form factor and performance, with blistering speeds of up to 7,100MB/s. It goes toe to toe with other well-known options like the WD Black SN850 and the Seagate Firecuda 530.

WD 2TB PS5 SSD from $159.99

Amazon is offering a 2TB WD Black SN850X with preinstalled heatsink for only $179.99. The SN850X is the successor to the SN850 SSD. It has newer flash chips (BiCS5 vs BiCS4) and an updated firmware, which combined offer improved sequential and random read/write speeds. For PC gamers, there’s also an updated Game Mode 2.0 utility that’s designed to tune the SSD for better performance during gaming sessions.

Corsair MP600 PRO LPX 2TB “Optimized for PS5” SSD with Heatsink for Only $154.99

Corsair is a very well known brand for DIY PC builders. Corsair makes some of the best gaming products on the market, and that includes solid-state memory like RAM and SSDs. The MP600 Pro is the same super-fast M.2 NVMe PCIe x4 Gen4 SSD that’s marketed for enthusiast gaming PC builds. This one is “optimized for PS5” because it includes a rugged preinstalled heatsink that is slim enough to fit in the PS5 bay without any issues. Performance wise, the MP600 Pro matches the best SSDs out there with its 7,100MB/sec sequential read and 6,800MB/sec sequential write speeds.

Patriot Viper VP4300 2TB PS5 SSD for $142.99

Amazon is offering the Patriot Viper VP4300 2TB M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 x 4 Internal Gaming Solid State Drive, which is compatible with the PS5 console, for only $142.99. This makes it definitely the lowest price we’ve seen for a brand name 2TB PS5 SSD, especially since this one even includes a slim aluminum heatshield. The VP4300 is an M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 x4 solid state drive with rated transfer speeds of 7,400MB/s read and 6,800MB/s write. That makes it well above the PS5’s recommended 5,600MB/s speed requirement.

More PS5 SSD Deals

There may be other SSD deals out there, but these are the PS5 SSDs we’ve tried ourselves and highly recommend. They also double up as outstanding boot drives for your gaming PC, in case you don’t need additional storage for your PS5 console.

How easy is it to install the SSD?

It’s extremely easy! Removing the case cover is completely toolless. In fact, the only screw you have to remove is the one that keeps the cover for the SSD bay in place. You don’t even put it back when you’re done. Sony has a quick and easy YouTube video guide.

What if the SSD I bought doesn’t have a heatsink?

Sony recommends you install an SSD that has an attached heatsink. If the SSD you purchase doesn’t include one, it’s simple enough to buy one for about $10 on Amazon and add it yourself. Most of these heatsinks are just attached using an adhesive like thermal tape.

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