Author: Game Infliction

Atari has entered an agreement to acquire Night Dive Studios. This agreement would support Atari’s retro-focused growth strategy and provide access to Night Dive’s IP, which includes System Shock, as well as utilize the studio’s proprietary KEX engine and publishing capabilities.

Chairman and CEO of Atari Wade Rosen said in a statement: “Night Dive’s proven expertise and successful track record in commercializing retro IP are well-aligned with Atari’s strategy and I am confident that their combined talent, technology, and IP portfolio will contribute to Atari’s future success.

“Night Dive and Atari have a long history together and we know that Atari shares our passion for retro games and our focus on producing high-quality new and remastered games that do justice to the original IP,” added Stephen Kick and Larry Kuperman of Night Dive. “As we look to grow our business and expand our capabilities, we could think of no better long-term partner than Atari.”

The acquisition is expected to close in April 2023. Night Dive Studios is currently working on a remake of System Shock, which was delayed from its original release date in March to now May 30 on PC. The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S versions will follow after its launch on PC, but no date has been solidified yet. The game’s Kickstarter page first launched back in 2016.

In IGN’s System Shock remake preview, we said: “With the short time I had with System Shock Remake, I could see that Citadel Station feels like a character unto itself, and I’m looking forward to taking a deep dive into and learning the mysteries that lurk within.”

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

There’s something about the wild, deranged look in Crash Bandicoot’s eyes that tells me he’d be perfect for a chaotic, competitive multiplayer game, and clearly I’m not alone. After sitting down with the people at Toys for Bob to howl and hurl trash talk at one another for an hour as we played their upcoming Crash Team Rumble, it’s clear they’re onto something. The over-the-top world of Crash Bandicoot fits very nicely with the surprisingly nuanced competitive slugfest they’ve created, and I was hooked after the first scream-inducing match.

Crash Team Rumble is a 4v4 brawler where teams compete to be the first to score 2,000 points in the form of Crash’s iconic wumpa fruit. To do so you’ll need to smack crates, slap other players, make use of power ups, and of course, master platforming. That’s all with the goal of gobbling up as many wumpa fruits as possible to stash into your team’s bank before some heartless goon stomps on your head and takes you for all you’re worth.

If you’ve ever played Killer Queen, then you’ll feel right at home with a lot of Crash Team Rumble’s formula, which allows for multiple strategies to put you on the path to victory. You can play it slow and steady by depositing wumpa fruits into your team’s bank until you’ve racked up enough points, or you can multiply your wumpa-depositing potential by capturing the level’s Boost Zones. Or, if you’re like me and just want to grief your opponents, you can camp out on the enemy bank and relentlessly kill opposing players to slow down their own harvest. Unlike Killer Queen, a mix of each strategy will likely be required, rather than achieving victory by pulling off just one. Every match then becomes about prioritizing the right strategies and communicating with your teammates to emerge with a winning formula.

To that end, each of the five characters have lots of options to help you crush the competition, whether it’s double jumping, sliding, spinning, or other unique abilities like Crash’s mid-air dash and extra powerful slide attack, or Doctor Cortex’s ability to turn opponents into harmless little critters for a time. Crash and Tawna are well-rounded Scorers, who excel at grabbing wumpas and depositing them at the bank. Meanwhile Coco and Doctor Cortex are Boosters, experts at controlling Boost Zones that earn you multipliers for any wumpas deposited while they are held. Finally there’s Dingodile, who is the sole Blocker, intended to simply stop the enemy from scoring by being a big, scary DPS machine.

As your team scrambles to carry out their strategy, you’ll also have to contend with power ups and modifiers within each level. One level has a giant UFO that rains death upon the opposing team once summoned, while another has beach balls that can be used to increase your team’s mobility and deal extreme damage to anyone in your way. With so much to think about and numerous things that can go very wrong or very right for each team, the result is the sort of glorious mayhem that reminds me of my childhood days yelling at my friends during Mario Kart 64 or Smash Bros. and it’s really hard to put down.

One match I was able to win by simply beating up the enemy team so much they had a hard time depositing anything into their bank, while another I racked up tons of multipliers by capturing Boost Zones so we were able to bank 2,000 wumpas in no time at all. Many matches were extremely close calls, but even when they weren’t the energy in the room was hilarious and infectious.

After a short time with it, I’m confident I’ll be putting some time in with Crash Team Rumble during its beta next month and when it gets its full release in June.

Elden Ring has won Game of the Year at the 23rd annual Game Developer Choice Awards. The awards ceremony took place this evening as part of the 2023 Game Developers Conference (GDC), running throughout this week at San Francisco’s Moscone Convention Center. As a peer-based event, the Game Developer Choice Awards are voted for by developers themselves.

FromSoftware’s hugely-successful fantasy blockbuster also picked up the awards for Best Visual Art and Best Design.

Sony Santa Monica Studio’s God of War Ragnarok also enjoyed a successful evening with its own trifecta of trophies. God of War Ragnarok was awarded Best Audio, Best Technology, and the Audience Award.

This year’s Game Developer Choice Awards also recognised industry legend John Romero with a Lifetime Achievement Award. The id Software co-founder, who helped create Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Doom II, and Quake, is renowned as a pioneer of the first-person shooter genre and spearheading the concept of the multiplayer deathmatch – a term he is often credited with creating. This year’s Pioneer Award was posthumously given to Mabel Addis, designer and writer of The Sumerian Game in 1964. Addis has been recognised as the first female game designer, and her work on The Sumerian Game’s story has been mooted as the first video game narrative ever.

The full list of awards and winners is below.

• Best Debut: Stray (BlueTwelve Studio/Annapurna Interactive)
• Best Visual Art: Elden Ring (FromSoftware Inc./Bandai Namco Entertainment)
• Best Audio: God of War Ragnarok (Santa Monica Studio/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
• Best Narrative: Pentiment (Obsidian Entertainment/Xbox Game Studios)
• Social Impact Award: Citizen Sleeper (Jump Over The Age/Fellow Traveller)
• Innovation Award: Immortality (Half Mermaid Productions)
• Best Technology: God of War Ragnarok (Santa Monica Studio/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
• Best Design: Elden Ring (FromSoftware Inc./Bandai Namco Entertainment)
• Audience Award: God of War Ragnarok (Santa Monica Studio/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
• Game of the Year: Elden Ring (FromSoftware Inc./Bandai Namco Entertainment)
• Pioneer Award: Mabel Addis
• Lifetime Achievement Award: John Romero

Elden Ring has snared a host of major GOTY awards since its release, including Game of the Year at the 26th annual DICE Awards, the 2023 New York Game Awards, and The Game Awards 2022. We also recognised Elden Ring as IGN’s 2022 Game of the Year. If you’re yet to try this 10 out of 10 hit, now is the perfect time to join the more than 20 million others who already have – especially with the recent news an expansion is now on the horizon.

Luke is Games Editor at IGN’s Sydney office. You can chat to him on Twitter @MrLukeReilly.

We all played a ton of the Diablo 4 beta this past weekend, and we were all also lucky enough to play Redfall recently as well. We’ve got a LOT of thoughts about both. Join us!

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Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.